STATISTICS, DAMNED STATISTICS, AND LIES

Here's a comparison of the % of shots the top players on each PL squad took during league play and the % of points they scored on their team. The consequences of such things are a little confusing, and discussion is below. FYI, all these stats only include the 14 PL games last year, to make sure that the sample size and level of competition was the same for everyone.

















Now what does this all mean? It's hard to say. You can't just assume that every player should be equal on the above graph. In fact, you want a guy like Ingram, Bettencourt, or Hamilton to take lots of shots most of the time, simply because they're the best shooters on the team.

But being the best shooter doesn't neccessarily make them the most effective shooter. That list is below (the best starts on the right then goes left).


(Note that's Joe Knight of Lehigh, not Simon of Colgate)

These guys are the most effective shooters in the league, based on the percentage difference between the number of shots they take and their points scored. Note that this takes into account free throws as points, a bonus to their effectiveness.

The opposite list is this (the worst offenders are on the left side, which makes things confusing given the opposite is true on the previous graph, sorry about that):


Now what does this all mean? There's a few things you can take out of this that I think aren't too controversial.

1) If there are two guys on opposite sides of that graph, then teams ought to at least consider giving more touches to the guy that uses his possessions more effectively. That is, it might have been valuable for AU to give more touches to Petrauskas (who is on the first list) and to take a few away from Cresnik and Okpwae. Of course, this is easier said than done.

2) While HC was wildly successful last year using Keith Simmons off the bench, it might have been more valuable to get him more minutes as he was the most effective scorer in the league using this valuation.

3) Shot distribution, by and large, was not really a problem last year, with the guys that can score taking lots of shots and the guys that couldn't score not taking as many. It seems obvious enough, but the value of these charts should be taken with a grain of salt-- the difference between Simmons and Zidar is 6.5%. That is, Simmons overperformed at 3.4% and Zidar underperformed at 3.1%, so guys were typically in the right range.

The problem here is that even if you give a Grant Carter (he's a incoming sophomore for Army) more shots, that's not a guarantee that his effectiveness will be the same. A guy can overperform if you give him 5 shots a game, but he can underperform if you give him 50.

But it's at least interesting to think about.  @ 2:20 PM