Summer League Stat Watch ( My Best Attempt!)

Awesome work, TRD. Some of these things stood out to me, too, but it's always an extra bonus to see it spelled out with the numbers. I'll toss my stats down here. They're ugly.

These guys have played such low minutes, but I'm still going to post these stats.

Positional Efficiencies

PG
Russell 57
Clarkson 51
Buycks 11

Wing
J. Brown 65
Clarkson 60
Randle 56
Munford 46
Mitchell 42
Nance 33
A. Brown 29

BIG
Randle 66
Nance 59
Upshaw 23

LEADERS
Scoring: Jabari Brown 6.9, Clarkson 6.1, Munford 5.9
Passing: Russell 3.0, Randle 2.0, Clarkson 1.9
Hustle: Nance 3.7, Black 3.5, Mitchell 3.4

The fact is that no one is posting a number that reflects anything of value. 60s don't cut it in the starting lineup. 70s are okay though.

A few things that stand out:
Buycks has been horrendous. Russell is handing out a good number of assists and scoring well enough to somewhat counter his TOs. 15/5 per 40 minutes aren't terrible pts/ast averages, and when you consider the "game plan," it's worth something at least.

Personally, I thought JC was the best player on the court for us the first two games; then Jabari. But he's probably all offense; looking forward to seeing what Real sees from him on defense.

Randle's numbers are way up from what they were last year (he posted like a 20 before breaking his leg), and I think he's starting to establish himself as a good all-around player. His 2.0 Passing Efficiency is probably the best stat we have on our team, position-wise.

Nance is much better when looked at from PF metrics vs. SF metrics. His defense helps him, too, but doesn't show up in these stats.

Upshaw's been pretty dreadful in these metrics. His impact on offense is screening, and his impact on D is shot alteration, but I think he needs to get some more touches. He's taking only 1 shot per 10 minutes on the court.

 

Upshaw has taken only four shots in three games. FOUR shots! The guards aren't even trying to look his way. Frankly I only remember him taking two shots so the fact that he took more is surprising in itself.

Buycks numbers are some of the worst I think you could ever ask for. In total Buycks is 0-8 from the floor with 5 rebounds, 2 assists, 1 steal... and 5 turnovers. Remember that's TOTAL for three games. Unbelievably bad. Not worth a training camp invite bad.

 

Okay! Got off of work early and was able to get into this game! I'll preface this with with the fact that I was more lenient on my Box Out stat and gave them a point even if we didn't get possession as long as they had good box out technique. Here's what I came with for Game 3:

Screens Setting was a world better as a team. All the really, really weak screens that Tarik threw in Game 2 connected in Game 3 this time. He connected on an incredible 22 screens compared to last game's 9 total. He did a good job of clearing space for the guards, especially Clarkson. I loved what he brought to Game 3 actually. The other great screen setter was of course Larry Nance Jr. who has absolutely terrific screen form. He set 19 Effective Screens yesterday and did a very good job of giving the guys room to operate. The only problem? He can't pick and pop. It was open all day long and he either hesitated or missed the shot. He's GOT to have the confidence to knock down a mid-range jumper, it'll make him a rotation player in the NBA. Upshaw was great screening the ball with 7 screens in his limited minutes. He remains a huge body and a great player to give guys room to operate. Give the team a couple shooters and he'd have a wide open lane after screens. Other screen setters were Clarkson with two inside the paint to free up our Center on a pin-down. Randle was extremely disappointing on the screens. He's a huge body but puts almost no effort in on screens. Jabari had one as well.

Box Outs were pretty bad. Our guys continue to rely on their athleticism instead of good technique. Tarik Black and Larry Nance Jr. lead the way all game long with 9 and 7 Box Outs respectively. Nance Jr. especially has just terrific box out form. He doesn't just put his arms out, he drops his butt and puts his body on the defender. Black usually relies on just putting his arms out and being stronger than these guys, but he makes up for it with great activity as well. Now Randle recorded 9 Box Outs, but no less than 6 of them came late in the game. Most of the time Ndour moved around Randle easily to either get his hand on the ball or get the rebound completely. Just incredibly poor effort from Julius on the block most of the game. Upshaw of course did well in his limited minutes with 4 great Box Outs. Most guys simply don't have good form around the rim. I don't know if that's an NBA-wide issue or just ours, but I don't like it.

Close Outs weren't that many because frankly New York didn't shoot very well or very often. Our guys were mostly active though and when shots did go up MOST of the time we had someone try to run out to them. Nance Jr. was unsurprisingly the best at closing out to shooters with 4 on the game. Clarkson, Brown, and Black each had 3 Close Outs. Anthony Brown did a really good job with 2 of them. Mitchell barely played, but he had one. Russell also chipped in with one and a half of one where he jogged to the shooter. Upshaw, Randle, Buycks, and Mumford were the only ones who didn't record a single close out. Of those, Randle is by far the most disappointing since he had plenty of opportunities to do so.

Ball Watching was a stat designed specifically to watch Randle who was incredibly guilty of this in Game 1 but this last game was a travesty for the entire team. They kept going to the zone and in doing so let the Knicks get way more rebounds than they should have gotten. If you go zone, you absolutely HAVE to box out because the entire court is open to cutters. That being said there were three players that got burned watching the ball. Jabari Brown and D'angelo Russell were burned twice each. Randle was caught 3 times watching the ball instead of either boxing out or defending his man. A lot of times in the zone he'd let the offensive player cut in front of him and then try to recover and block the shot, but it gave the opposition possession of the ball deep in the paint.

The Hedging and Rotating stat still needs some tweaking. In this game, I decided to include the times our bigs would switch effectively on screens. Easily and by far the most effective player rotating around the rim and on pick and rolls was Larry Nance Jr. He was amazing defensively on pick and rolls either switching completely or hedging out to stop penetration. He recorded 20 H&R points, which is nearly as much as the rest of the team combined. He's an absolute stopper in pick and roll defensively, he did a tremendous job. If/when he nails down that mid-range jumper I think he is a fringe NBA starter and at the very least a rotation NBA player. Needs that shot to fall though or he's a liability offensively. The other standout was Tarik Black with 9 H&R points. He's also very good on pick and rolls and his athleticism lets him recover nicely inside. On the perimeter Clarkson was the best at hedging on drivers and disrupting the opposing offense with 6 points to himself. Upshaw was great in limited minutes with 3 points. Anthony Brown was terrific with 4 points and a potentially game changing stop late in the 4th that might have gotten us a chance to win the game. Russell, Randle, and Jabari each had one point.

Last but not least the Changed Shot stat belongs to who else? Larry Nance Jr. The guy was everywhere defensively in Game 3 and he registered 8 changed shots by himself. His length and athleticism are deceiving because of how fast he can get off the ground. He's tremendously athletic and uses every ounce of that to his advantage. Tarik Black came in second with 3 by himself. Anthony Brown and Julius Randle each registered one changed shot. Brown has absolutely picked up his defensive effort after that first game. I've seen him lock down point guards and fight against power forwards although he shouldn't guard either one very long. Randle again disappointed me with his effort at changing shots. He was at times the biggest, strongest, most athletic player on the floor and he almost never challenged a shot.

Overall Julius's effort and body language in this game was atrocious. If I were his teammate I'd have reamed him on the bench. He showed almost no hustle out there. All of the little things he did last season, the rebounding, and the great passing, the patient offense, none of that is there right now. He's been the definition of insanity: trying the same things over and over that aren't working and expecting a different result. As the game went on he moved the ball better and I'll give him credit there. He's starting to look more when he drives. His shots though typically are not very good shots. They're driven into the teeth of the defense and shot over 2-4 guys. Someone needs to get his head on straight.

Other Observations:
Billy Mack was either drunk or very distracted... More than once he would say "so-and-so we'll hopefully see them" and they were on the floor...

I REALLY don't like that French kid on their Summer League team. Labeyrie either complained on the call, hacked one of our guys, or gave one of our guys unnecessary attitude EVERY SINGLE play that he was on the floor. Just one of those annoying players that comes around every now and then.

 

I'll come back in a bit and explain, chill.

 

Larry is only half white.

His father is black.

 

Yeah I don't know what that guy's issue was. Fake tough guy all over the floor. He made very few actual good plays for them but he acted like the man.

Randle definitely needs to watch tape of himself from last year. He might be our future but not the way he's playing. The way he's playing is almost as annoying as the French guy.

 

Here's the briefest of explanations that does service. Think of it like Passer Rating in the NFL. I've set 95 to the positional ratings of the average of the top players at each position.

Passing Efficiency is assist rate and assist ratio.
Scoring Efficiency is scoring rate and points per possession.
Hustle Efficiency is o-reb+steal+blk (as good) and to+pf (as bad): it's good rate and good to bad ratio.

PGs weight passing most heavily then scoring.
Wings weight scoring and then passing.
Bigs weight scoring and hustle.

100+ is awesome
90+ is star
80+ is quality starter
70+ is borderline starter
60+ is rotation player
50+ is end of bench player

This does NOT take into account defensive performance; that's another metric. So I call it (Offensive) Positional Efficiency or O-Eff (Pronounced "oh eff.").

 

Not a fetish, just one of the only ones to show up easily in Road Purple for me...

 

It's pretty different. It's far more like the Power/Speed number in MLB.

Assist Rate is assist/minute. Assist ratio is assists/(assist+to).

Raw Passer Rating = (Assist Rate*Assist Ratio)/(Assist Rate + Assist Ratio)
Passer Rating = 100*sqrt(Raw Passer Rating)

 

@Chillbongo Two shortcomings of my stats. #1, they're not Pace-adjusted (but I have my reasons); #2 they don't really tell anything about defense. There's a companion stat, but it requires data I typically don't have access to (like 82games's data).

 

Updating...

Positional Efficiencies

PG
Russell 57
Clarkson 54
Buycks 16

Wing
J. Brown 66
Randle 65
Clarkson 62
Munford 50
Mitchell 48
Nance 30
A. Brown 27

BIG
Randle 70
Black 63
Nance 52
Upshaw 33

LEADERS
Scoring: Jabari Brown 6.8, Munford 6.4, Randle 6.3
Passing: Russell 3.1, Randle 2.1, Clarkson 2.1
Hustle: Nance 3.5, Mitchell 3.3, Black 3.2,