Some Advanced Stats

don't like the kobe/young/lin breakdown. the stats could be easily explained by defensive attention. in other words, there's probably a reason two of those guys have a hard time getting open and the other one doesn't. this will bear itself out in shooting percentages as well.

 

They have a hard time getting open due to systematic flaws within the offense...Kobe struggles to score and is almost frequently contested; Nick, outside of last night is at the lowest point in his efficiency in his career; it's just not the stats. It also fits with what I'm watching on both sides of the ball.

 

'Now that we've covered defense, let's look at the offensive advanced stats. It doesn't look like too much has changed offensively for the better, even with Swaggy back for this entire stretch of games.

Offensive rating
When we last looked at them, the Lakers had an offensive rating of 104.4. Now 10 games later, that rating on the season has slid a bit to 103.8, falling to the 17th ranked offense in the league. It's not as big a fall as their improvement on defense over the ten game stretch, so the team overall should have gotten marginally better.

Their effective field goal percentage has improved slightly from 46.9% to 47.4%, likely due to taking more threes, although they are still the 6th worst in the league. Over the last ten games, they've taken 20.7 threes a game, making 34.8% of them, versus averaging 18.4 on the season at a 32.6% rate.

However, their true shooting percentage stayed mostly the same at 52%, sliding one spot to 7th worse in the league, as they're not getting the line as much. Their FT rate over the last ten games has been 27% versus 30.7% on the season. Even more worrying, their offensive rebound rate has gone way down from the start of the season. Over the last 10 games, their OREB% has been 22.5%, 6th worse in the league, versus the first 12 games where they were 4th best in the league at 29.1%. Maybe it's reversion to the mean, or maybe the bigs are just settling for hanging out too far from the basket.

Their turnover ratio remains strong though, as they are still 4th in the league in hanging on to the ball.

Long 2 point shooting
Last time I said that they could be average on offense as long as they kept up their hot shooting from long 2 point range, but I wouldn't count on it continuing. So let's take a look at the shooting stats. Unfortunately, the Lakers are taking the same proportion of their shots from between 16 ft and the 3pt line, at 24.8% of total shots, still the second most in the league.

They're now making 40.9% of those shots, down from 43.9%

Season FG% on long 2s ten games ago vs now:
Kobe 50.6% -> 47.1%
Hill 32% -> 36.7%
Boozer 31% -> 36.2%
Ellington 80% -> 52.9%

So while Hill and Boozer have improved their percentages, Kobe's gotten worse from this distance. Nick Young and Sacre are shooting over 40% from that distance, but the rest of the team is in the low 30s or below (Price at 23.8%).

However, the lack of offensive rebounds seems to be the bigger problem in terms of the drop in offensive efficiencies.

Last two games
As we all know, the major change in the last two games have been moving Price and Davis into the starting lineup. While the defensive efficiency has not changed much from the rest of the recent 10 game stretch, the offensive efficiency for these two games has nosedived to 95.1 points per 100 possessions. The offensive rebound percentage for these two games was a measly 20.8%, despite having the team's two best rebounders starting together. Possibly, it may be because teams are able to pack the paint even more now. Fast break points in these two games have halved from their season average to only 6 FBPs a game. Yes two games is not a real sample size but watching the team, it's not hard to draw the conclusion that if there's not another change to the starting lineup (preferably a guard who can shoot, hint hint), this trend will continue.

Stagnant offense:
Watching the team also gives you the impression that the sets are stagnant and dependent on isolations. This comes through in the passing stats. On the year, the Lakers have the 3rd fewest passes per game, are second to last in secondary assists, and second to last in points created by assists.

Another problem that eye test identifies is that the bigs generally suck at setting screens. The stats confirm this, as the Lakers are the worst team in terms of their Solid Screen % at 77.93%, which are the screens that either make contact with the defender or reroute them. They also have had the fewest percentage of open shots in the league, which is almost certainly due to both of the above two problems.'

Got this from another site...thought it was interesting

 

'Ten more games have passed since our last advanced stat review. Let's revisit it, starting with the defense.

If you've been following this thread, you'll know that the Lakers have finally switched up their pick and roll coverage to having the bigs zone up, starting from the Toronto game. Has there been any corresponding improvement?

Defensive rating

Yes, marginally. The Lakers' defensive rating is now 111.4, two points better per 100 possessions than the 113.4 rating ten games ago (NBA.com rating not Bballreference). Over the past six games since they started their more conservative defensive scheme, they've had a defensive rating of 105.0, still 11th worse in the league, but a significant improvement.

Opponent shooting

On the season, they've gotten slightly better at letting the opponent shoot long twos, with 14.5% of opponent shots for the season taken between 16ft and the three point line, up from 12.7% last time, and they are no longer dead last in this category. Over the past six games their opponents have taken 24.8 mid range shots per game, as opposed to 18.8 on the whole season, a product of the new defensive scheme.

Their ranks on the season in preventing shots at the basket (25th) and from the three (25th) also improved a single spot each.

Not fouling and limiting transition have also improved, as opponent FT/FGA ratio has fallen to 25.2% from 27.6%, while opponent fast break points have fallen to 15.2 from 17.

So they are improving a bit on D, which means that may have a chance not to finish the season as the worst defensive team in NBA history.

Individual defense

Surprisingly, Nick Young is one of the teams best defenders, at least statistically. His guarded opponents shoot -11.8% worse against him than against the rest of the league. By comparison Kobe's opponents are +5.3%, Wes' +1.1%, Boozer's +3.2%, Hill +6.5%, Lin's +2.9%, Price's +6.0%, and Davis' +1.0%.

Both Lin and Price are terrible at defending their opponents 3 point shooting, perrhaps because of the team's defensive philosophy. Lin's opponents are shooting +10.5% better from 3 than their average against him, while Price's opponents are shooting +13.8% better from 3! (For Kobe and Wes, it's +5.3%)'

Again, found this on another site...interesting stuff.

 

Seeing Kobe above 6 seems pretty counter intuitive given how poorly he's been shooting all year. Were you shocked that he doesn't appear to be that inefficient?

 

Yeah I remember PJ saying that and Paul Pierce of all people apparently said the same thing about Kobe as a compliment. But I guess I'm curious of what determines scoring efficiency that you can be inefficient at points per possession but still have a decent score. Just curious.