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Assessing Shooting Performance in NBA and NCAA Basketball

toddwschneider.com

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Re: Assessing Shooting Performance in NBA and NCAA Basketball

#11

Post by dasil003 »

waterside81 wrote: post #6
exogeny wrote: post #2

More than anything else, this article tells how smart the Rockets are and how dumb the Pacers are. Also, FWIW, Sportradar tracks location with an iPad application that they either use in-arena via a trained scorer or inside of their HQ in Minnesota.

At first I was going to comment on how this is probably just teams playing to their strengths e.g. If Harden played for Indiana, their heat map would probably look different. But then I looked at the stats and Indiana's 3Pt% is slightly higher than Houston's, so you're right! Oladipo needs to jack more 3's.

It's only that high because they take good shots. If Indiana starts jacking 3's I guarantee their percentage drops way below Houston's.

Re: Assessing Shooting Performance in NBA and NCAA Basketball

#13

Post by dasil003 »

exogeny wrote: post #2

More than anything else, this article tells how smart the Rockets are and how dumb the Pacers are. Also, FWIW, Sportradar tracks location with an iPad application that they either use in-arena via a trained scorer or inside of their HQ in Minnesota.

Helps to have two elite point guards surrounded by an army of shooters.

Re: Assessing Shooting Performance in NBA and NCAA Basketball

#14

Post by m_ke »

neovive wrote: post #9

As a basketball fan, I love this kind of analysis. As mentioned in the article, I think the defensive skill of NBA players is a big reason for the differences in accuracy within six feet. For many NBA players, it's much easier to take a 7-12 foot shot than to challenge the taller/stronger players that defend closer to the rim. On average, the "rim defenders" in college aren't as strong, making it easier to score on d…

Zone defense and the 3 seconds rule have much more to do with this. Zone is much more common in college and seems to explain the stats because 2-3 gives up the high post and 3s on the wing to protect the paint.

Re: Assessing Shooting Performance in NBA and NCAA Basketball

#15

Post by philwelch »

ssharp wrote: post #3
exogeny wrote: post #2

More than anything else, this article tells how smart the Rockets are and how dumb the Pacers are. Also, FWIW, Sportradar tracks location with an iPad application that they either use in-arena via a trained scorer or inside of their HQ in Minnesota.

I can't wait to see how Houston's style holds up in the playoffs -- defenses will be less forgiving and 3 point shots are high variance. Their offensive rating took a clear dip in the playoffs last year and I suspect the same could happen this year, which would suggest their offensive style is not ideal.

I think the addition of Chris Paul will make a big difference. You need more than one star to contend in the playoffs, especially in the West.

Re: Assessing Shooting Performance in NBA and NCAA Basketball

#17

Post by clairity »

neovive wrote: post #9

As a basketball fan, I love this kind of analysis. As mentioned in the article, I think the defensive skill of NBA players is a big reason for the differences in accuracy within six feet. For many NBA players, it's much easier to take a 7-12 foot shot than to challenge the taller/stronger players that defend closer to the rim. On average, the "rim defenders" in college aren't as strong, making it easier to score on d…

NBA big men are certainly among the best in the world at defending the rim (due to selective pressures), but the highly disproportionate number of humans over 6'9" probably also has something to do with it. being able to block a shot while barely jumping really helps (i play rec ball and am taller than average, so have used this to my advantage quite a bit).

Re: Assessing Shooting Performance in NBA and NCAA Basketball

#18

Post by iEchoic »

samfisher83 wrote: post #16

Looking at the data a post player less than 3 feet should from the goal should be more efficient than a 3 pointer based on points per shot, but post play is pretty frowned down upon now.

If there were a reliable way to get the ball 3 feet from the hoop it'd be a lot more comparable, but most post play is still outside of 3 feet.

Re: Assessing Shooting Performance in NBA and NCAA Basketball

#19

Post by rajacombinator »

samfisher83 wrote: post #16

Looking at the data a post player less than 3 feet should from the goal should be more efficient than a 3 pointer based on points per shot, but post play is pretty frowned down upon now.

I’d say it’s more like defense is frowned upon ever since the Lebron euroflop era began. No need to post up when you can just bull rush the rim and get and an and-one every play.

Re: Assessing Shooting Performance in NBA and NCAA Basketball

#20

Post by clairity »

minimaxir wrote: post #4

I wrote a similar post on the same large NCAA dataset, focusing more on positional heat map data visualizations: http://minimaxir.com/2018/03/basketball-shots/ There's a lot of interesting conclusions that can be found from play-by-play time series data (the NCAA dataset also on BigQuery has data since 2009). Here's a quick new visualization of the Distribution of Basketball Home Team Points at Each Minute of NCAA Ga…

nice! would have loved a little more detail in your conclusions section, but it's neat to see how my basketball intuition matches/mismatches your data.

one analysis that would be cool is an effectiveness chart of the mix of shots for each team/game. i suspect made percentage is correlated to the mix of shots (3's vs. layups vs. mid-range for example).

if you're a guard-heavy 3 shooting team, then defenders can adjust to gaurding the 3 to force lower-effectiveness mid-range shots. the question is whether that's an effective strategy, because at some point, the defense will have to start gaurding for the drive too, which loosens up the 3's again.

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