Trivia Post: Misses and Turnovers
I’m a pretty big basketball trivia nut. Today has been a fun day for some dubious honors.
Taking Shots
At the NBA Geek, Patrick decided to look for players that had seasons where they had more shots than points. Given that each basket counts for 2+ points and players also get free throws, this is an impressive feat. I’ll let you read the whole article, with a sneak peak of the top names on the list, which bring back painful memories for Nuggets’ fans.
Via the Bad Shots Hall of Shame, players with most shots in a season with fewer points than shots. Minimum 1000 minutes
| Player | Season | Points | Shots | Points Per Shot |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nikoloz Tskitishvili | 2002-03 | 315 | 393 | 0.80 |
| Anthony Carter | 2001-02 | 198 | 260 | 0.76 |
| Speedy Claxton | 2006-07 | 221 | 278 | 0.79 |
Astute commenter Adam Tarr, decided to look for players that managed to have whole careers with this feat. It turns out if we look for long careers (500+ games) during the three point era (thanks Dan Filowitz for the clarification!) only four names show up.
Via Basketball-Reference and Adam Tarr
| Player | Career | Games | Points | Shots |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Manute Bol | 1986-1995 | 624 | 1599 | 1635 |
| Anthony Carter | 2000-2012 | 623 | 3009 | 3043 |
| Joe Wolf | 1988-1999 | 592 | 2485 | 2523 |
| Elston Turner | 1982-1989 | 505 | 2397 | 2429 |
Anthony Carter shows up on this list too! For shame Nuggets! And if Carter can manage to sign with a team for two more games, he could take the all time career length for such a feat (unless he managed to score +44 points to shots in those games)
Scoring Points and Turning the Ball Over
On Twitter, Joe Lindell noticed something strange about Kobe’s game last night, which for the record was a below average performance.
With 40 points & 10 turnovers, Kobe joins Hakeem, LeBron, and D. Wade in an exclusive club. bkref.com/pi/shareit/PLd… #NBA @nerdnumbers
— Joe Lindell (@joelindell) November 28, 2012
Joe also did some digging into how often players turn the ball over 10+ times, turns out that while scoring 40+ at the same time is rare, that players, turning the ball over a lot was much more common at the end of the 80s.
@nerdnumbers Oddly, there were almost as many 10+ TO games from ’85-89 as there were in all of the 90s or 00s. docs.google.com/spreadsheet/cc…
— Joe Lindell (@joelindell) November 28, 2012
There you go, more trivia to bring to the bar! Enjoy
-Dre