League-Adjusted Shooting: Field Goals Added (or subtracted)

[AHF]

1 minute ago, macdaddy said:

I still hear mvp talk for Ja and people laugh if you say Trae.   Now Trae doesn't have MVP numbers this year but he absolutely should have been in teh convo last year.   Makes me hate Memphis and Ja for no good reason. 

Trae's numbers are as nearly as good as Ja's this year despite his very rough first two months.  Memphis fans should be wary about betting as to how they will end up at the end of the season.

Note:  Trae's 3pt% and ft% mean he has been the more efficient scorer this year between the two despite the fg% gap: Trae .567% TS%, Ja .561% TS%.  This is emphasized by the fact that Ja takes 0.7 more FGA/gm but only scores 0.2 more points.

[macdaddy]

3 minutes ago, AHF said:

Trae's numbers are as nearly as good as Ja's this year despite his very rough first two months.  Memphis fans should be wary about betting as to how they will end up at the end of the season.

Note:  Trae's 3pt% and ft% mean he has been the more efficient scorer this year between the two despite the fg% gap: Trae .567% TS%, Ja .561% TS%.  This is emphasized by the fact that Ja takes 0.7 more FGA/gm but only scores 0.2 more points.

Will you explain the practical difference between TS% and eFG%?   Which is more "real"

[AHF]

3 minutes ago, macdaddy said:

Will you explain the practical difference between TS% and eFG%?   Which is more "real"

TS% and EFG% are the exact same except that EFG% ignores the impact of free throws and TS% addresses free throw shooting.  That accounts for both FT% and FT rate (i.e., shooting a very high or very low FT% doesn't matter as much if you don't get to the line a lot).  So if you look at Trae and Ja specifically, the difference is driven by FT% since Ja goes to the line 8.3 times per game while Trae goes a comparable 8.8 times.  But when there, Trae is shooting 89.4% while Ja is shooting 75%.  

Trae has gotten to the line 350 times this year.  If he shot 75% from the line like Ja does, he would have scored 263 (rounded up) points instead of the 313 points he actually scored.  That would be ~50 fewer points on the season.  As a result of this less efficient scoring, TS% would drop from .567% to .541%.

TS% looks at how effectively you convert on FG attempts and FT attempts.  EFG% only looks at you convert on FG attempts without accounting for the success or failure at the line.  IMO, TS% is the superior metric for this reason because who cares if those 50 points come from shooting a higher % at the FT line or the 3pt line, etc.?  That is just 50 points the team doesn't score because Ja is pedestrian from the line.  

[Formula:  TS% = Points ÷ ((2 x Field Goal Attempts) + (0.88 x Free Throw Attempts)]

[Gray Mule]

As I continually stress, making your free throws is really, really important...

[txsting]

He was much higher on this metric last year.  His "TS Add" was top 20 last year.  He has not adjusted well (yet) to the presence of DJM.  I expected Trae to get more catch and shoots, but when I watch, DJM and Trae just take turns dominating the ball.  They don't seem to make the game easier for each other.

These shooting metrics don't take into account anything else where Trae brings value, most especially the high assist rate.  

[benhillboy]

On 1/5/2023 at 9:43 AM, AHF said:

@benhillboy

Two questions for you on this:

(1) How confident are you that Trae will finish the season anywhere near the bottom 5% of the league in TS added?  Your tone seems to suggest you believe he is a detriment to the team and that him shooting will hurt the team for the rest of the year but you aren't actually saying much about how much you view this bottom tier performance year to date as the "true" Trae and how much you view it as him having struggles below his normal performance.

(2) What conclusions are you suggesting people should draw on Trae's value on offense given his performance this year and the prior 3 years?  I don't see you noting how far of an outlier this season is compared to the prior 3 years. 

My bad bruh I didn’t see this post for whatever reason.

I just deleted a whole dissertation lol.  Long story short I’ve always thought selling out on creating shots through attacking with his passing (a la Rondo or Kidd), a skill which is on par with only a select few HOFers, is a much better course of play style for him than taking a lot of shots (more than 15) and shooting considerably below current league average from the field, as evidenced by the first four columns here:

It just can’t get any more clear cut than that.  His career -305 shots added is saying he’s taking shots away from more efficient guys/ areas.  Obviously with the rule changes he’ll never reach a FT rate + of 172 or 199 again. The combination of his below league average shooting, offense being concentrated in the middle of the floor, a super low assisted percentage, middling assist to turnover (we do realize he’s currently second in the league per game in turnovers per right?) poor off ball play, and mediocre secondary assisting (.6 per, a player who shall not be named leads the league at 1.3) is why he’ll never reach a 120 offensive rating, something most high level guards can achieve by doing these things along with above average field shooting.  There couldn’t have been a starker contrast between Trae last season, who posted an impressive career best 119 rating, and Delon at 126 when they rarely played together.  120+ rated guards also usually sport far more impressive on court than this with far less usage:

This is all you need to see to realize 33% usage for him is near insanity.  And I give him credit for the -4.3 when he’s off without blaming his BUs, the Hawks obviously miss a lot when he’s off.  But again, that on court is just ugly having had only one high impact season.  You see last season the Hawks were only -.5 when he was off yet he got so much of the lions share of credit for the 2nd rated offense.  Kevin, Gallo, and Delon had a whole hell of a lot to do with it, the Hawks average 16th in Traes career.

John is way above average from 2 in his career, Bogi above 3, AJ kills it from everywhere.  Dre can get it going.  OO is ultra efficient.  Create a couple more opportunities for them all and let them rock.  The team assist percentage has gone up when he’s off the floor the last two seasons.  That’s not a good look at all.

The more shots are distributed, the more the team will defend with effort, especially the mediocre ones.  An easy indication of team contention is team assists, defensive rating, and injuries.  That’s basically how Basketball Reference shifts its playoff projections from night to night.  Traes effort to committing to the team defense pays more valuable dividends than his volume scoring.  When he is locked in the Hawks can kick anyone in their ass.
 

His career arc should be trending towards setting league assist per game records at around 15.  It sounds unrealistic but if he played more like Rondo or Kidd he could and the Hawks would win a substantial amount of extra games for it.  It’s so easy for him to create shots outta nothing through vision and timing.  I like him best when his full passing repertoire is on display: mid-air misdirection,  behind the back bounce outta the double team (best pass in the NBA), skip passes that look like nerf footballs with the propellor on it, fake high bounce passes, off-looks.
 

I’m certainly not asking him to bypass looking at the rim: by all means get Bigs in foul trouble, take open threes, and floaters with Bigs dropped to your hearts content.  I’m just saying we’ve seen him shoot very well for stretches and the Hawks still middled as a team as they are now with his career low shooting so what is the payoff?

Lastly his comparison scores say what I’ve always been saying.  His wins shares don’t align with high usage winning guards at all:

Really, what is this?  After year 3 his closest comp was John freaking Stockton.  Rest assured Clyde Drexler, Kyrie, and Ray Allen will not be on this list next season and instead you’ll see some bums from the 90s maybe and some dudes you never heard of from the 70s as he’s trending toward about 7 win shares this season.  An analytic dive into his profile gives a simple answer: become a much more active participant in greasing the wheels of the offense instead of always trying to be the engine.

I kinda ended up with a dissertation anyway lol.  The wrath is coming for me too lol.  I just try to be objective about this stuff.  When you combine all the metrics I use (eFG, WS/48, 100 possession rating, on/off, defensive plays per foul, usage, adjusted shooting, assist to turn, % of field goals assisted, corner three shooting, shot charts, similarity scores, raw box, etc) you get the objective picture.  Steph made me start studying all this sh@t blame him.

I don’t really care how DJ fits into all this.  He can create his own offense but he’s even a considerably worse league average shooter than Trae with poor off ball play.  They’ve made it work here lately and it’s commendable but not sustainable IMO.

Edited January 19, 2023 by benhillboy

[AtLaS]

50 minutes ago, benhillboy said:

My bad bruh I didn’t see this post for whatever reason.

I just deleted a whole dissertation lol.  Long story short I’ve always thought selling out on creating shots through attacking with his passing (a la Rondo or Kidd), a skill which is on par with only a select few HOFers, is a much better course of play style for him than taking a lot of shots (more than 15) and shooting considerably below current league average from the field, as evidenced by the first four columns here:

It just can’t get any more clear cut than that.  His career -305 shots added is saying he’s taking shots away from more efficient guys/ areas.  Obviously with the rule changes he’ll never reach a FT rate + of 172 or 199 again. The combination of his below league average shooting, offense being concentrated in the middle of the floor, a super low assisted percentage, middling assist to turnover (we do realize he’s currently second in the league per game in turnovers per right?) poor off ball play, and mediocre secondary assisting (.6 per, a player who shall not be named leads the league at 1.3) is why he’ll never reach a 120 offensive rating, something most high level guards can achieve by doing these things along with above average field shooting.  There couldn’t have been a starker contrast between Trae last season, who posted an impressive career best 119 rating, and Delon at 126 when they rarely played together.  120+ rated guards also usually sport far more impressive on court than this with far less usage:

This is all you need to see to realize 33% usage for him is near insanity.  And I give him credit for the -4.3 when he’s off without blaming his BUs, the Hawks obviously miss a lot when he’s off.  But again, that on court is just ugly having had only one high impact season.  You see last season the Hawks were only -.5 when he was off yet he got so much of the lions share of credit for the 2nd rated offense.  Kevin, Gallo, and Delon had a whole hell of a lot to do with it, the Hawks average 16th in Traes career.

John is way above average from 2 in his career, Bogi above 3, AJ kills it from everywhere.  Dre can get it going.  OO is ultra efficient.  Create a couple more opportunities for them all and let them rock.  The team assist percentage has gone up when he’s off the floor the last two seasons.  That’s not a good look at all.

The more shots are distributed, the more the team will defend with effort, especially the mediocre ones.  An easy indication of team contention is team assists, defensive rating, and injuries.  That’s basically how Basketball Reference shifts its playoff projections from night to night.  Traes effort to committing to the team defense pays more valuable dividends than his volume scoring.  When he is locked in the Hawks can kick anyone in their ass.
 

His career arc should be trending towards setting league assist per game records at around 15.  It sounds unrealistic but if he played more like Rondo or Kidd he could and the Hawks would win a substantial amount of extra games for it.  It’s so easy for him to create shots outta nothing through vision and timing.  I like him best when his full passing repertoire is on display: mid-air misdirection,  behind the back bounce outta the double team (best pass in the NBA), skip passes that look like nerf footballs with the propellor on it, fake high bounce passes, off-looks.
 

I’m certainly not asking him to bypass looking at the rim: by all means get Bigs in foul trouble, take open threes, and floaters with Bigs dropped to your hearts content.  I’m just saying we’ve seen him shoot very well for stretches and the Hawks still middled as a team as they are now with his career low shooting so what is the payoff?

Lastly his comparison scores say what I’ve always been saying.  His wins shares don’t align with high usage winning guards at all:

Really, what is this?  After year 3 his closest comp was John freaking Stockton.  Rest assured Clyde Drexler, Kyrie, and Ray Allen will not be on this list next season and instead you’ll see some bums from the 90s maybe and some dudes you never heard of from the 70s as he’s trending toward about 7 win shares this season.  An analytic dive into his profile gives a simple answer: become a much more active participant in greasing the wheels of the offense instead of always trying to be the engine.

I kinda ended up with a dissertation anyway lol.  The wrath is coming for me too lol.  I just try to be objective about this stuff.  When you combine all the metrics I use (eFG, WS/48, 100 possession rating, on/off, defensive plays per foul, usage, adjusted shooting, assist to turn, % of field goals assisted, corner three shooting, shot charts, similarity scores, raw box, etc) you get the objective picture.  Steph made me start studying all this sh@t blame him.

I don’t really care how DJ fits into all this.  He can create his own offense but he’s even a considerably worse league average shooter than Trae with poor off ball play.  They’ve made it work here lately and it’s commendable but not sustainable IMO.

Good analysis, and I agree with a lot of what you are saying.  This is much better than some of the previous stuff you are saying .  There will be nights where we need him to look for his shot more though.  But i do tend to agree that getting others involved generates better effort on defense and higher team morale overall, all other things being equal.

[TheNorthCydeRises]

Gotta love the people who wish for Trae's downfall, even if they say that they don't.

By the way, despite playing very good basketball over the past 14 games . . 

 

He's dead last in the precious FG Added category

 

So there it is.  He's the worst shooter of all time, let this stat tell it . . . and I'm still riding with that dude to the death.

By the way, the -22.1 next to the -97.9 is TS added ( true shooting ), which includes free throws.  When the guy is not making shots, he's still tough enough to take a hit and get to the FT line at an extraordinary rate.  With a difference of +75 added to the TS, only guys like Durant and Joel Embiid can say that they add more from a TS perspective.

 

People couldn't wait to clown the dude for his shooting and call him trash.  He had a bad 2 months. 

Now he's back with a vengeance. 

[bleachkit]

16 minutes ago, TheNorthCydeRises said:

Gotta love the people who wish for Trae's downfall, even if they say that they don't.

By the way, despite playing very good basketball over the past 14 games . . 

 

He's dead last in the precious FG Added category

 

So there it is.  He's the worst shooter of all time, let this stat tell it . . . and I'm still riding with that dude to the death.

By the way, the -22.1 next to the -97.9 is TS added ( true shooting ), which includes free throws.  When the guy is not making shots, he's still tough enough to take a hit and get to the FT line at an extraordinary rate.  With a difference of +75 added to the TS, only guys like Durant and Joel Embiid can say that they add more from a TS perspective.

 

People couldn't wait to clown the dude for his shooting and call him trash.  He had a bad 2 months. 

Now he's back with a vengeance. 

I think it's safe to say shooting efficiently from the field is never going to be Trea's strong suit. His repertoire is comprised of such tough shots. Speaking of shooting efficiency. Have you seen Jokic's numbers this year? 25.1 PTS, 11 TBR, 9.9 AST on 62.6% from the field. Those are incredible numbers. 

[JayBirdHawk]

2 minutes ago, bleachkit said:

Have you seen Jokic's numbers this year? 25.1 PTS, 11 TBR, 9.9 AST on 62.6% from the field. Those are incredible numbers. 

Insane 

[bleachkit]

6 minutes ago, JayBirdHawk said:

Insane 

Best player on the planet and he doesn't even have a signature sneaker. 

[AHF]

I'm not sure why anyone would use A/TO ratio in comparing Trae to PGs who don't score like he does.  Comparing A/TO ratio with Ja and Trae makes sense since both are high volume scorers.  Comparing A/TO ratio for them against a low volume scorer like Chris Paul is bad math because you are comparing apples to oranges.  If you want to come closer to normalizing for very, very scoring responsibilities, compare Assist% against TO%.  Guys who score the ball are in position to turn it over much more often which is why you typically see a pretty bad A/TO ratio for someone like Jaylen Brown.  Trae scores the ball like Brown but has the playmaking responsibilities of Paul so he is going to have many more possessions on which a turnover can occur than either of them.  

Trae actually has a lower turnover % and a higher assist % than Chris Paul but you wouldn't know that by looking at total turnovers or A/TO ratio which is why using A/TO to compare them is a bad faith comparison (assuming you have been educated on this issue and are aware of how much more scoring Trae does than Paul). 

Trae 41.9% AST% / 14.2% TO% - 2.951 ratio  >  Paul 37.2% AST% / 14.5% TO%  - 2.565 ratio

 

[Diesel]

21 hours ago, bleachkit said:

Best player on the planet and he doesn't even have a signature sneaker. 

What about the defense?

[benhillboy]

On 1/19/2023 at 7:11 PM, AtLaS said:

Good analysis, and I agree with a lot of what you are saying.  This is much better than some of the previous stuff you are saying .  There will be nights where we need him to look for his shot more though.  But i do tend to agree that getting others involved generates better effort on defense and higher team morale overall, all other things being equal.

What did I say previously that was so outlandish?

[benhillboy]

Trae’s career WS/48 of .132 matches up with whose career mark?  Jason Kidd of course.

Difference is Kidd has a +4 career raw net per 100 possession (Trae -2), a 3:1 assist to turn (Trae 2.24:1), and after his second season there was never any question if his teams would reach the postseason through his retirement.  He would’ve laughed at a play-in tournament.

Kidd played more minutes with a far lower usage (19%). Yet take a look at his career on/off:

 

These are the values of a true game affecting PG.  Never played with an elite starting lineup, clear impact on, disaster when off.  It’s no coincidence the only season the Carmelo Knicks looked like they could make some noise is with a 39 year old PG lol.

Kidds adjusted shooting is piss poor: subtracting 694 shots in his career even with a super high 3 point attempt rate at 184+.  It wasn’t hard for him to figure out early that he should attack to pass: an approach that would make all of his teammates slightly better ball movers for a considerably better team effect.
 

Trae’s handlers did a phenomenal job honing his skills.  Did him a huge disservice in feel of how to impact two-way team flow.

Edited January 23, 2023 by benhillboy

[benhillboy]

The coach plays a part definitely.  But coaching shortcomings shouldn’t override a True PG who can affect his teammates play much more through his on court decision making and voice and gesture direction.

[AHF]

15 hours ago, benhillboy said:

Trae’s career WS/48 of .132 matches up with whose career mark?  Jason Kidd of course.

Difference is Kidd has a +4 career raw net per 100 possession (Trae -2), a 3:1 assist to turn (Trae 2.24:1), and after his second season there was never any question if his teams would reach the postseason through his retirement.  He would’ve laughed at a play-in tournament.

Kidd played more minutes with a far lower usage (19%). Yet take a look at his career on/off:

 

These are the values of a true game affecting PG.  Never played with an elite starting lineup, clear impact on, disaster when off.  It’s no coincidence the only season the Carmelo Knicks looked like they could make some noise is with a 39 year old PG lol.

Kidds adjusted shooting is piss poor: subtracting 694 shots in his career even with a super high 3 point attempt rate at 184+.  It wasn’t hard for him to figure out early that he should attack to pass: an approach that would make all of his teammates slightly better ball movers for a considerably better team effect.
 

Trae’s handlers did a phenomenal job honing his skills.  Did him a huge disservice in feel of how to impact two-way team flow.

PLEASE STOP USING A/TO RATIO TO COMPARE SCORING POINT GUARDS WITH NON-SCORING POINT GUARDS.  KIDD WAS NEVER HIS TEAM'S PRIMARY SCORER SO YOU ARE COMPARING APPLES TO ORANGES.

Jason Kidd Age 24

10.5 FGA/gm

35.6% AST%

21.5% TO%

Trae Young Age 24

20.2 FGA/gm

41.4% AST%

14.4% TO%

 

@benhillboy

(I'll also note you make a great case that on/off +/- is a terrible metric to use since it is so highly dependent on the quality of backup.  Kidd had negative seasons in that metric most of the time in Phoenix.  Why?  Because Steve Nash and Penny Hardaway were running the team when he was on the bench and the team was better from a +/- perspective under them.  The one season he is wildly positive is when they had a garbage backup, not because he was that much better that season.  The overall ON +/- is more about how good the team is overall.  Kidd's age 24 Phoenix squad won 56 games so it isn't shocking to see he was highly positive.  Same will happen with the Hawks.  If the Hawks trade JC for Giannis, Trae's ON +/- instantly becomes hugely positive.  Trae's ON/OFF numbers have been great for his career in part because of his play but also in significant part because we have never had a Steve Nash backing him up.  The case I think you can make is that Kidd was the best player on that age 24 squad and so his contributions translated better to a winning team but that isn't really clear from +/- stats, imo.)

[TheNorthCydeRises]

The biggest thing that Trae can change about his offensive game, are the quick pull up 3s off the dribble, where he's not set to shoot the ball.  This season, he's taking about 5 threes a game where he's pulling up off the dribble

In January, his overall shooting has improved, but the pull up 3s are still at a very low percentage, especially based off last game, where he went a little too wild with it.

Last season, this was his shooting, which from 3, was much better than it is today.

 

The part of Trae's game that hasn't been unlocked, is the spot up shooting.  And that's because of 2 things:

• He's never had another shot creator on the team, until this year with Murray
• The offense doesn't look to get the ball back to Trae ( or anyone else ) when he's open for spot up opportunities, mainly due to the lack of team ball movement overall.

The heavy iso and pick and roll offense that we run promotes almost no off the ball movement by our wings, and especially our main guys. Our good looks on the outside are promoted by guys putting the ball on the floor and finding the open man.  If a man is not open, they end up shooting the ball off the dribble.

So when people say that Trae should move more off the ball, that's not our offense.  If it was, AJ Griffin would be getting 7 - 10 shots a game.  The vast majority of our spot up looks are created by Trae and Dejounte, when they have the ball in their hands. 

Trae is #1 in the league in assist to pass%, with 20.2% of his passes ending up being an assist.  In the past 10 seasons, only Devin Booker at 20.3% in 2020, did more with his passing than Trae is doing this year.  So when people talk about Trae passing even more, that means that his teammates have to make an extraordinary amount of spot up shots.

 

I still say that offense overall isn't the reason why the Hawks can't win more games. End of game offense, when we slow things down to a crawl, instead of continuing to be PnR heavy, and not worrying about running the clock down, is a problem.

Our problem is still on the defensive side of the ball, with our inability to end defensive possessions by getting defensive rebounds.  In January, we've done a better job of this, but it's still the biggest team weakness we have.

 

 

[TheNorthCydeRises]

21 hours ago, benhillboy said:

The coach plays a part definitely.  But coaching shortcomings shouldn’t override a True PG who can affect his teammates play much more through his on court decision making and voice and gesture direction.

 

Which PG is the best in the league in doing what you're talking about . . in today's game?

[benhillboy]

Everyone knows it takes 20 games to see where your team is/ where they will be but Jalen’s FG added must be acknowledged along with Trae’s continuation of his horrible shooting last season.

Jalen is 6th in FGs added, along with 7 other surefire All Stars in the Top 10:

His improvement has been flat out remarkable.  There will certainly be a drop off in his three point shooting at some point but still his shot selection, cutting/ baseline play, and taking advantage of favorable matchups will keep him in a great spot relative to the league.

I long stopped expecting anything from Trae but this is getting out of hand even for me.  He finished third worst last season and is now #466 out of #467 rotation players:

 

Some absolutely horrible players in that mix sans CP3 (I like Giddey outside his shooting which is arguably worse on film than these stats suggest.  The quickest way to get near the bottom of this list is smoke close range paint attempts  and brick threes).  It’s actually mind blowing Trae subtracts True Shooting as well with how elite he is at taking and making FTs.

Obviously Julius Randle has been dreadful outside of playing the Hawks’ defensive unit that’s been substandard forever.

Edited November 16, 2023 by benhillboy