One of those "If you could..." threads...

I was thinking earlier about the fact that when we look at a basketball box score and see things like blocks, steals, turnovers etc we don't blink an eye because it's common to us... but they weren't actually introduced into the NBA until much later on in the league... it's strange to think that we all know Bill Russell was a great shot blocker, but actually have no idea of how many shots he blocked. So the question is...

If you could add a statistical category to be officially recognised per game in an NBA box score, what would it be?

Personally while things like PER or whatever are becoming more popular these days, I'd like to see something like effective screens/non effective. When I was playing juniors a few years back I injured my ankle and couldn't do as much on court as I wanted to, so I started hovering around the three point line on offense looking to set picks for whoever would take them. The amount of easy baskets it lead to was amazing, whether it was opening up the lane for someone, giving them an open jump shot or forcing another player to come over in cover and leaving someone else open. So I would be quite interested to see that.

I'd be interested to see Fouls Drawn (Offensive/Defensive) as a boxscore statistic. I don't think the number of free throws necessarily reflects whether a player gets a lot of calls, after all Michael Jordan is always accused of getting special treatment from the referees yet it was usually Karl Malone (and Alonzo Mourning at least once) who led the league in free throw attempts during that era. And of course, it doesn't reflect the amount of charges drawn.

Hmmm... nice idea...

Let's see:

-Fouls in favor/fouls against (per game)

-Turnovers forced/recovered.

-First passes: The pass to the player that hands the assist, much like in hockey.

-Touches per game (this would be very hard to follow, though )

-and finally, implement the 'per minute' stats as official averages, as a way of measuring a player's on court efficiency, rather than his ball hogging antics.

one percenters

they have this in afl, and its like tapping the ball onto someone, diving for the ball, deflecting a pass etc. all the little things that add up to really helping the team

How many times a player did NOT pass the ball.

Hog-Detector

But yeah, Andrew's right. Fouls drawn is a better contender.

one percenters

they have this in afl, and its like tapping the ball onto someone, diving for the ball, deflecting a pass etc. all the little things that add up to really helping the team

Agreed,

Maybe they could count dunks and the players with the most amount of dunks make the dunk contest

Maybe they could count dunks and the players with the most amount of dunks make the dunk contest

You want Shaq in the dunk contest

Maybe they could count dunks and the players with the most amount of dunks make the dunk contest

You want Shaq in the dunk contest

Imagine that,
Kenny we now see Shaq's first attempt.....
WOW i cant believe it! He dunked it with one hand!

Turnovers forced....although sometimes it would be tough to decide who forced a TO if you have 2 guys trapping.

I'd like a defensive stat because blocked shots, rebounds or steals do not necessarily mean good D. Perhaps, Points Allowed Per Game for each player....this would measure how many points your man scored on you. I think this could be effective to determine who the best defenders are.

I want a stat that distincts old nba players like wilt from people like shaq. Or maybe not a stat but a distinction from old school nba to new school. Something in the stats says "he scored the most points in a nba game during the no shot clock and offensive rebounding era..and most points scored in a game post era is david robinson with 70." I'm tired of these jaded relics talking about if they were playing in today's age they'd dominate over everyone :roll:

PPG average that a player holds his direct opponent to.

yeah all that and like in football(soccer for you ) team possesion and mayybe player possesion

I'd like to see time of possession added as an official category, the way it is in football and soccer.

+/-
is quite neat.

The fouls drawn is a pretty nice idea, I think.
In ESPN Latin America they said the league was thinking to implement it in the NBDL to see if it works out.

Manu has a great knack for getting the offensive foul called on him, he would kick ass in that stat.

The time of possesion should be made official too, it's so familiar for me (soccer).

+/-

Most NBA players are only interested in stats, because they know measurable stats are a huge factor in how much their contract is worth. Consequently, they don't care much about things like setting picks or good ball movement. They want a point, rebound, or assist.

With a +/- was counted, the fact that someone was collecting these stats but at the penalty of having the other team score at will against him would be evident.

If you look at the the top +/- players from last season, you see a lot of players who fans know are good but aren't big individual stat stuffers. Duncan is #1, but Ginobli, Kidd, Tayshaun, Brand, Nash, Nowitzki are all also top 10 +/- guys.

+/- is only really useful if it's adjusted like Rosenbaum does. In it's raw form it's too dependent on team situations. (And one would note, Prince is the only player on your list who's not a stat stuffer.)

Fouls drawn is not in the boxscore but is on 82games.com. Leaders in fouls drawn from last season:

Code:

A. Stoudemire   400   
S. O'Neal   325   
D. Wade   313   
A. Iverson   299   
D. Nowitzki   286   
C. Maggette   265   
L. James   258   
G. Arenas   255   
K. Bryant   253   
C. Bosh   250   
Z. Ilgauskas   241   
K. Garnett   236   
S. Francis   235   
T. McGrady   231   
E. Brand   227   
Y. Ming   226   
S. Marbury   226   
P. Pierce   222   
D. Mason   217   
C. Anthony   204   

As a percentage of field goal attempts...leaders and bottom...

Code:

D. Fortson   53.5   
T. Chandler   35.6   
S. Hunter   34.5   
R. Evans   32.4   
J. Williams   32.1   
A. Stoudemire   29.9   
S. O'Neal   29.7   
B. Haywood   29.3   
E. Dampier   28.9   
A. Varejao   28.5   
A. Kirilenko   28.3   
A. Mourning   27.8   
M. Sweetney   27.1   
D. Howard   27.0   
C. Maggette   26.9   
...
R. Nesterovic   3.3      
N. Van Exel   3.2   
J. Jackson   3.1   
B. Cook   2.8   
K. Thomas   2.8   
R. Brunson   2.7   
E. House   2.2   
A. McKie   1.4   
D. Jones   1.2   
K. Korver   0.8   
W. Person   0.4

Dunk attempts (well, %) are also recorded on 82games. (You can of course multiply this times FGA and DunkFG% to find the leaders in dunks.)

Code:

J. Przybilla   32%   
K. Cato   29%   
S. Hunter   29%   
M. Ruffin   27%   
D. Howard   26%   
D. Gadzuric   25%   
A. Iguodala   24%   
S. O'Neal   24%   
B. Haywood   22%   
E. Dampier   22%   
S. Dalembert   21%   
Nene   21%   
S. Swift   21%   
C. Wilcox   21%   
A. Stoudemire   20%   
B. Wallace   20%   
K. Martin   20%   
J. Smith   20%   
E. Curry   20%   
C. Andersen   20%   

Defensive stats we also have thanks to 82games.com. I've been doing some work on this. They have people working on this season (and some others like Kevin Broom) direct charting of each defensive play. The defensive stats we have currently are for the counterpart on the other team, 82games tries to set it to the guy they're guarding 75% of the time. So if Bruce Bowen is guarding the SG, he is given the SG counterpart stats. Due to possession usage it's best to seperate these by positions.

If you're interested on the things I've done here are some older posts, there is a better points allowed per possession stat now that takes into account the value of turnovers, blocked shots, fouls, etc. It is not noted in either of the older posts. The "DE+" stat in the first post accounts for these, but is on a per minute instead of per possession basis.
http://blog.nbalive.org/2005/11/29/table/
http://blog.nbalive.org/2005/11/03/indi ... -ranks-sg/
http://blog.nbalive.org/2005/08/02/team ... -position/

Individual possessions you can calculate obviously, most "touches" are neglible in their importance on the team possession.

There's a lot of stats teams track that aren't published. Every team tracks charges, but only the Nuggets publish them. Everybody tracks deflections. Sixers track goaltending (and Dalembert gets like twice as many as the fourth ranked goaltender...something like two goaltends per game) among other things and those show up in Harvey Pollack's book apparently. (Yes, surprising to know I've never gotten it. Just the Prospectus/Forecasts and Basketball on Paper)

Teams also track where the location of shots are (such as Bowen the best corner shooter in the league) as 82games did as Mark Cuban often mentions these.

Of course I wish every stat was published in the boxscores or at least the team stats pages, unfortunately too many people say stats are worthless or think only points, rebounds and assists per game (and regular field goal percentage) are worthwhile. I blame the media.

And Canada. (And teams for thinking they're getting an edge from most of it when everyone is already doing it.)

There's a lot of stats you'd think aren't avaliable but are. Just search around the interweb. Or ask someone silly who might like that kind of thing.

Maybe they could count dunks.

The statisticians do, including the amount a player is dunked on. It's not an official stat category though.

I think all the effectiveness stats don't really need to be official, but rather just for teams and coaches to collect. Maybe apart from the possession percentage, the average Joe Blogs watching NBA would just need to know points, rebounds, assists etc. Coaches, would probably want to know how effective the screens are or other effectiveness ratings.

i'd like deflections to be recognized

interesting thread. i like the hockey assist and drawn charges as my fav. suggestions

I love statistics but a lot of them do not really mean anything. "per game" is not really meaningful, "per minute" would be better. But it isn't all about statistics. Some players have to score, others have to get rebounds and some player are only "fillers". They make some plays, are on the court 30 minutes + , but do not take many shots, do not get huge numbers. They just play and try to establish a good offense, try not to make many turnovers and fouls.

Nevertheless, "per minute" isn't only great. A player that comes off the bench and has decent scoring in 20 minutes is not that likely to have the same "per minute" stats in 35 minutes on the court. Then there are players like Chris Andersen who can block the hell out of you (like previous season) but get tired easily, get into foul trouble etc.

So neither "per game" nor "per minute" are near perfect. It also depends on your teammates who should take the shots, who has what task and so on.

When you only look at PPG, this doesn't say much. If Iverson takes loads of shots and has more shotattempts than the rest of the team together it is obvious that the other players cannot have a high PPG. This is the reasion why I dislike Iverson, Bryant...because they take sooo many shots. Yeah, they are good but it's boring.

I love rebounding and blocking.

Actually, (and I'm not trying to be combative here, I have tone problems) per minute rates are usually unchanged no matter how many minutes a player plays. And most players play the same or better in increased minutes. There are obviously exceptions like say Danny Fortson who would foul out twice if he played 40 minutes but they are not the norm. (of course something like per 40 stats aren't saying a player will get [this] in 40 minutes, it's just a multiplier to make things look nice but we all knew that)

The only thing that's been accepted is that as possessions increase, efficiency decreases. And even this has not been entirely proven, as a player may get a possessions increase during a fluke year and thus people assume they're related when they may not be, so the player never uses as many possessions. Not proven, but an assumption that makes logical sense...though we know what assume does.

Since you mentioned Chris Andersen (swatted 4.4% of opponent shots, 2.9 blocks per 40 min) and I like stats. His block per minute rates were:
10-20 minutes, 29 games, 15.5mpg, .075bpm*
20-30 minutes, 31 games, 24.4mpg, .065bpm*
30-40 minutes, 7 games, 32.0mpg, .076bpm*
The year before (6.6% of opponents shots, 4.4 blocks per 40 min*):
0-10 min, 18 games, 6.6mpg, .092bpm*
10-20 min, 43 games, 14.0mpg, .103bpm*
20-30 min, 15 games, 22.9mpg, .125bpm*
Both his per-minute and block% were higher in the "clutch" than his season averages. For whatever that's worth.

*Not pace-adjusted.

I want to see somthing like Huslte points. Like when you dive for a ball, theres a point. I think it would be interesting to see that.

I want to see somthing like Huslte points. Like when you dive for a ball, theres a point. I think it would be interesting to see that.

Agreed, hustle points needs to be added. Battier would probably lead the league in that.