Adjusted Shooting by Player (Is CJ a good scorer?)

[Wizard Mentor]

You're great at using statistics to "prove" a point, but not so great at capturing actual basketball play. Those are absolutely horrible examples. Neither Korver or Kerr was capable of creating for themselves. They were (are) specialist role players.

or got paid what CJ does.

 

[jlprk]

CJ is significantly worse when he's creating his own offense...His one-on-one ability is overrated

The alternative to heroball is for the coach to create a system for offense. Since Stotts is incapable, the "players' coach by necessity" allows "freedom" to any great dribbler to create almost all shots, i.e. Lillard and McCollum.

If McCollum didn't hog the ball, his shots would become even crazier shots by teammates who can't dribble, or turnovers.

The Stotts system creates the monsters within it. In a conventional system, many apparently player-caused deficiencies would disappear.

 

[bobf]

Lats year, as a team, Portland averaged 1.26 points/shot. CJ averaged less than 1.15.

I agree with your overall point but using points/shot exaggerates CJ's inefficiency beyond what it is. Taking into account possessions used up on FTA's it's more like 126 to 120 ratio.

Here is 2+ years PPP (points/possession) that I calculated from play-by-play event data

Blazers 1.20
CJ: overall 1.15, mid-range 1.07 (41% of his shots)
Carmelo: overall 1.09, mid-range 0.96 (46% of his shots)
Dame: overall 1.27, mid-range 1.02 (19% of his shots - high IQ)

The above PPP is similar to TS% but also adds in:
(1) Continuation points - Some player's missed shots generate way more offensive rebounds and follow-up buckets than others. For example we score after a CJ missed mid-range more than 2x as often as after a Melo missed mid-range. I suppose that is because a CJ mid-range involves him first breaking-down defense while a Melo missed mid-range, the defense is just sitting there all packed in waiting for the shot.
(2) Bonus value for drawing fouls even if non-shooting.

 

[wizenheimer]

I agree with your overall point but using points/shot exaggerates CJ's inefficiency beyond what it is. Taking into account possessions used up on FTA's it's more like 126 to 120 ratio.

Here is 2+ years PPP (points/possession) that I calculated from play-by-play event data

Blazers 1.20
CJ: overall 1.15, mid-range 1.07 (41% of his shots)
Carmelo: overall 1.09, mid-range 0.96 (46% of his shots)
Dame: overall 1.27, mid-range 1.02 (19% of his shots - high IQ)

The above PPP is similar to TS% but also adds in:
(1) Continuation points - Some player's missed shots generate way more offensive rebounds and follow-up buckets than others. For example we score after a CJ missed mid-range more than 2x as often as after a Melo missed mid-range. I suppose that is because a CJ mid-range involves him first breaking-down defense while a Melo missed mid-range, the defense is just sitting there all packed in waiting for the shot.
(2) Bonus value for drawing fouls even if non-shooting.

I'm not disputing your numbers but I'm curious how they were derived

also, you say you've analyzed for follow-up offensive rebounds. I wonder if you've analyzed for added FT's, including the value of FT points added to Blazer totals because of Dame's ability to draw fouls and get teams in the penalty earlier

 

[wizenheimer]

You're great at using statistics to "prove" a point, but not so great at capturing actual basketball play. Those are absolutely horrible examples. Neither Korver or Kerr was capable of creating for themselves. They were (are) specialist role players.

the point is that you don't want some very good shooters creating for themselves because when they do their efficiency drops significantly

that's the case with CJ even though he has much better handles than those guys. The biggest issue he has is he doesn't get to the FT line. That's mainly why, last season, Dame scored 8 more points a game on 1 more shot. Calling a CJ a great shooter is true if you're talking about his catch-and-shoot possessions and his spot-up possessions. But he's been just a little better than an average scorer, and this thread's OP asks about that rather than raw shooting percentages

 

[blazerkor]

CJ has a good assist to turnover. .07 pg, steals are decent too.

It's really early in the season but if CJ sustained what he's doing right now, he would likely have a better season than Dame. If that happened, I think we would be a really scary team because I think Nurk will get his head on at least a little straighter, both DJJ and RoCo are going to get a rhythm with the rest of the team, Gary should have a really good season and the rest of the bench would just have to show up and be normal bench players at that point.

 

[bobf]

I'm not disputing your numbers but I'm curious how they were derived

also, you say you've analyzed for follow-up offensive rebounds. I wonder if you've analyzed for added FT's, including the value of FT points added to Blazer totals because of Dame's ability to draw fouls and get teams in the penalty earlier

I'm using the NBA API that lets me download play-by-play event data. A play-by-play event looks something like this:
"MISS Curry 27' 3PT Pullup Jump Shot". It has a bunch other fields like the Period (1-4 plus OT values), Time, PlayerID, TeamID, etc.

From this I can calculate something equivalent to TS% except I can break down by shot distance instead of just overall. TS% is points / possessions-used but it has to estimate possessions-used from the box-score (FGA + 0.44xFTA). I don't have to estimate possessions-used, it's exact.

From the event data I can track for each shot distance:
Possessions used.
Points from the shot.
Points from FTA on the shot
Follow-up points on a missed shot
Then I just calculate points / possessions similar to TS%.

I do also track fouls drawn and add a bonus value for that. I did some analysis that says each foul drawn produces about 0.2 points above and beyond any immediate FTA.

Here is the detailed output for CJ for the past 2+ years:

                            Points/Possession
                ----------------------------------------
Shot Type       Shots   And1    FTs   Cont  Bonus    PPP     %POSS    PTS
0-3 feet        0.912  0.023  0.175  0.050  0.027  1.187 |   22.7%    733
4-10 feet       0.832  0.013  0.089  0.053  0.015  1.002 |   13.0%    353
11-15 feet      1.001  0.006  0.074  0.023  0.010  1.114 |   11.8%    369
16-23 feet      0.981  0.007  0.067  0.035  0.009  1.099 |   15.7%    481
Mid-range       0.939  0.009  0.076  0.037  0.011  1.072 |   40.5%  1,203
Twos            0.929  0.014  0.112  0.042  0.017  1.113 |   63.3%  1,936
Threes          1.136  0.002  0.022  0.044  0.002  1.206 |   35.5%  1,195
Total Shooting  1.003  0.009  0.080  0.043  0.012  1.147 |   98.8%  3,131
Non-Shooting    0.000  0.000  1.549  0.000  0.190  1.739 |    1.2%     55
Total           0.991  0.009  0.098  0.042  0.014  1.154 |  100.0%  3,186

Shots = points from the shot itself (per possession)
And1 = points from made FT on a made shot (per possession)
FTS = points from FT's on a non-made shot (2 or 3) (per possession)
Cont = continuation points from the team after a missed shot (per possession)
Bonus = extra points just for drawing a foul (per possession)
PPP = sum of above - similar to TS% except includes continuation and bonus.