Category Archives: Basketball Stories

Scoring at will: LeBron vs. Melo

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No one will disagree that LeBron James is a better player than Carmelo Anthony. However, people certainly seem to think Carmelo Anthony is at least in the mix for top small forward in the league. In fact just two seasons ago when LeBron James took home the MVP award and was named to the All-NBA first team Carmelo Anthony finished sixth in MVP voting and was placed on the All-NBA second team.

Every time we compare Melo to LeBron, Melo pretty much comes up short on every count. The only place Melo comes out ahead is in offensive rebounds per game. While these are valuable they don’t come close to making up for the rest of the game differences between the players.

The one area that Melo seems to get a lot of credit is scoring. He’s called a “pure scorer” that can “score at will” and is “the best offensive player in the game”. It’s very odd for all of this praise to get heaped on Melo when his shooting numbers are not anywhere near LeBron’s. However, the Basketball Reference Play Index Plus gives us an ability to check out what people are talking about. Let’s look at LeBron vs. Melo in regards to shooting when we take location into account. I’ll be using 2010 as that is the season where LeBron and Melo were arguably most similar in regards to popular perception.

Shooting Comparison: LeBron vs. Melo 2009-2010
Distance from Hoop LeBron Attempts LeBron Shot % Melo Attempts Melo Shot %
 Free Throw 773 76.7% 612 83.0%
 At Rim 596 73.8% 593 59.2%
 3 to 9 feet 151 46.4% 155 32.9%
 10-15 feet 101 34.7% 213 44.6%
 16-3pt line 454 39.6% 473 40.2%
 Behind 3pt 437 34.1% 206 31.6%

When we try and see where Melo outshines LeBron as a scorer we get our answer. From 10 feet to the three point line (midrange jumpers) Melo is a much better shooter. However, from close to the hoop and beyond the arc LeBron is superior. In regards to almost all of their shots they are very close in attempts with one exception. Melo likes taking more shots in the 10 foot to the three point line range. Neither LeBron or Melo is good from this range (Ty at Courtside Analyst has a less than favorable term for these shots). LeBron’s strength comes from the fact that he is very good at easy shots and he takes a lot of them. When given the option of taking a midrange jumper or getting behind the arc, LeBron is much more likely to get behind the arc than Melo. LeBron also gets to the line more often.

All of this boils down to shot selection. LeBron James is better at easier shots and as a result he takes fewer of the hard shots. Melo is better at some of the more difficult shots and is prone to take them. The issue is that the scoreboard doesn’t care! Did LeBron get his two points for an easy jam or by a pull up jumper? Who cares? In complimenting Melo for being a pure scorer what people need to realize is that shot selection is part of being a scorer! Taking bad shots at a better rate than most players may be impressive. However, the NBA is not a game of HORSE. I will conceed that Melo is better at making worse shots than LeBron is. However, I see nothing pure or impressive about a player that chooses to take bad shots.

-Dre

Clutch is overrated

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Brace yourselves. You can now browse the last ten years of play by play data with ease at Basketball Reference. The first place many have looked was at the very ends of games to find out about clutch. Jeremy and I decided to retell an old story about clutch for the 2010-2011 season with the new data.

Clutch Players shoot more


There’s nothing surprising about this finding. With the game on the line the clutchest players want the ball and increase their shots per minute.

Clutch players shoot worse

Of course when crunch time hits our clutch players have a tendency to shoot worse from the field. In fact, only Monta Ellis and Carmelo Anthony saw an improvement in their effective field goal shooting.

It doesn’t matter


It turns out that players that like to shoot in the clutch also like to shoot during the rest of the game. It also turns out clutch time is a small portion of the game and it doesn’t happen every game. Add up all the clutch shots and it’s only around 4% of the total shots our top clutch shooters take.

Summing up

With an ability to look at clutch data closer it is very tempting to use it examine certain clutch players with a closer lens. And certainly it is also tempting to try and explain clutch time. Our players must be taking riskier shots at a quicker pace. Or maybe the defense really clamps down in clutch. In fact it’s pretty easy to believe that teams will change their strategy in clutch time and equally easy to believe they will not make optimal decisions.

What is important to do though is to temper this with how important it is. LeBron James was not clutch last season and neither was Dwyane Wade (whereas Carmelo Anthony and Monta Ellis were). That didn’t stop the Heat from winning lots of games and making it to the finals. We’re likely to overestimate the odds or importance of an event based on how easy it is to remember. Clutch shots are a great example of this. I’m not saying clutch shots aren’t fun, or memorable or even not important. I’m just saying perhaps we shouldn’t be so quick to define players based on actions that make up less than 5% of their offensive plays.

-Jeremy and Dre

Clutch was defined as any shot taken with two minutes left in the fourth quarter or overtime with five points or less between the teams. The top ten “clutchest” players (Russell Westbrook, Kevin Durant, Derrick Rose, Kobe Bryant, Monta Ellis, Andre Iguodala, Jason Richardson, LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony and Tyreke Evans) were used and were defined as those that had the most shots in clutch time for the 2010-2011 season.

Amazing Stuff I have Read (and would like you to read)

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Currently I am involved with an assortment of projects.  So my ability to contribute in this forum (or for any other blog I am involved with) is limited.  Although I am not writing much on-line (I am writing quite a bit elsewhere), I am still reading stuff.  And here is some of the stuff I have read recently (in case you are interested…)

Let’s start with something from Jonathan Weiler.  At the Huffington Post, Jonathan writes about people who think Kobe Bryant and Magic Johnson are somehow comparable.  The entire post is well worth reading.  But I want to highlight two particular points.  The first is about Bill James:

In his last Baseball abstract, Bill James, the pioneering baseball statistician and godfather of the Sabermetric revolution had a righteous rant about the fact that Andre Dawson was named the NL MVP in 1987. James opined about Dawson’s selection “there are occasions in your professional life that make you think you’re not making any progress. The election of Andre Dawson as the National League’s MVP is one of mine.” James noted that people criticized him all the time for an over-reliance on statistics at the expense of “intangibles” and the “little things.” James pointed out, however, that Dawson’s selection had nothing to do with intangibles or the little things (particularly since the Cubs finished in last place in 1987) — it had to do with the fact that the “Hawk” hit 49 homers and drove in 137 runs and that MVP voters overwhelmingly voted for players with high RBI totals. In other words, whether they admitted it or not, their votes were based on statistics — and really, one statistic. And James argued, if we’re going to rely on stats to evaluate players, we should understand what it is we’re relying upon. James insisted that if you took all of Dawson’s measurable contributions into account as well as the context in which he was playing — Wrigley Field — you’d know that he wasn’t one of the thirty best players in the National League in 1987.

And then a few paragraphs later Jonathan says the following:

Listen to any coach talk about winning basketball. What will they talk about? Intensity and heart and all that good stuff, of course. And again according to their peers, Magic and Kobe were each off the charts in those terms. What next will coaches say? Good shot selection. Rebounding. Being unselfish and moving the ball. And we have good data for evaluating those things — rebounding, assists-to-turnovers, shooting percentage. And on those fronts, the two players are not comparable.

Again, the entire column is well worth reading.  Especially for people who really think Kobe ranks somewhere near Magic.

Of course, Jonathan’s work is not the only thing I have read lately.

The coverage of Jeremy Lin continues.  Certainly we have spent a fair amount of time discussing Mr. Lin in this forum.  And here are three more stories worth noting:

First, the amazing Ty Willihnganz (more on him in a moment) makes an important observation.  One reason Lin looks so great is that the other options for the Knicks at point guard are just awful.

Alan Reifman –who has a new book called “Hot Hand: The Statistics Behind Sports’ Greatest Streaks” (which I hope to discuss in more detail soon) – has a blog that focuses on the subject of “hot hands”.   And currently he has a short post noting that Lin’s recent ability to hit shots is somewhat unusual.   Of course, the turnovers from Lin… (that’s another story for another day).

And finally on the subject of Lin, David Tufte – my colleague at Southern Utah University (who also has a blog) – has a short post on Lin’s high school coach: What a riot: Jeremy Lin’s high school coach bought the rights to the URL linsanity.com a couple of years ago, because he thought it a good investment for when Lin made it big in the NBA.

Beyond the subject of Jeremy Lin, let me note again the amazing work of Ty Willihnganz at the Courtside Analyst.  This is a website that I think definitely doesn’t get enough attention.  And yet, every few days Ty puts up some fairly amazing analysis.  Here is some of his recent work:

Again, Ty’s work is always interesting.   So if you are looking for something to read, check out the Courtside Analyst.  Of course, don’t stop reading all the wonderful stuff in this forum.

- DJ

CompariLins

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I’m debating trademarking that! (Kidding! But an obvious dig at this.) I’d like to say I’m sick of Jeremy Lin but I can’t. I enjoy writing about him and I have a few fun comparisons to make using some big names.

Jeremy Lin vs. Michael Jordan

The real breakthrough game for Jeremy Lin for me was his third start. Here’s a reminder of his stats:

  • 38:34 Minutes Played
  • 38 Points (66% true shooting)
  • 11-19 Two Pointers (58%)
  • 2-4 Three Pointers (50%)
  • 10-13 Free Throws (77%)
  • 7 Assists
  • 3 Steals
  • 6 Turnovers
  • 1 Offensive Rebound, 3 Defensive Rebounds

Now here is Michael Jordan’s third start (Thanks to Basketball-Reference! Sadly only offensive stats are available):

  • 37 Points (62% true shooting)
  • 13-24 Two Pointers (54%)
  • 11-13 Free Throws (85%)
  • 5 Assists

Yes I know it’s a small sample size and a silly comparison but it is still freaking cool! It’s also remarkable that in 1984-1985 Milwaukee was actually a good team! Michael Jordan’s break out performance on an otherwise mediocre Bulls was remarkable. Likewise Lin’s breakout performance against a top team in the Lakers is also remarkable.

Jeremy Lin vs. Dirk Nowitzki

Google Trends are pretty awesome (thanks to @Hoopisms for leading me down this route). They let us see how the internet responds to various events. For instance I decided to compare Dirk Nowitzki and Jeremy Lin over the last twelve months.

The red line is Dirk and the blue line is Lin. The top chart is the number of searches for each player and Google nicely shows us  what events relate to the spike. When Dirk won the finals MVP in June he got a nice spike. However, this was less than half the spike Lin got when his outstanding performance contributed to a win over the Lakers. Right now Lin winning is more interesting to internet surfers than Dirk finally winning a title.

Lin vs. Dave Berri

This last comparison is silly at best but still fun. Jeremy Lin happened to get his degree in economics. It also turns out his listed height is 6 feet 3 inches. Another amazing coincidence is that the General Manager of the Wages of Wins Network happens to have gotten his degrees in economics and is also 6 feet 3 inches tall. Both also focus on productive and economic basketball albeit in different ways. When it comes down to comparing Lin to other greats (Dirk, MJ, David Berri….ok two out of three) he is coming out very favorably, at least so far!

-Dre