APBRmetrics

blue seats · Joined: 20 Aug 2005 Posts: 3

I'm not statistically oriented myself so I wonder if any of you can help.

Over and over I hear fans say of defensive oriented players "If this guy could just develop a jumper he'd be an all-star".

Is there any way to quantify the LIKELIHOOD of poor jumpshooters becoming good jumpshooters?

I happen to be a follower of the Knicks, so guys like Balkman, Lee, Curry and Mardy Collins are representative of the kind of guys I'm thinking about.

Thanks

**Eli W** · Joined: 01 Feb 2005 Posts: 402

Ken Pomeroy did a little study on predicting improved three point shooting based on good foul shooting at the college level. Not exactly what you're looking for, but similar.

http://kenpom.com/blog/index.php/weblog/2006/06/09/
_________________
Eli W. (formerly John Quincy)
CountTheBasket.com

KeeneKaufmanWheeler · Joined: 02 Aug 2006 Posts: 72

There's a data problem with your question since sites like 82games.com that break down shots by floor location probably haven't been around long enough to show any definitive results.

One way to go about this might be to take the players you want to compare, go to Basketballrefrence.com, and compare those players to other players with a high similarity scores.

It's tough to determine how much of a players' shooting was from jump shots, but at least you could see how other similar players evolved as they got older by the change in eFG% and TS%.

Obviously there won't be any stats on current Rookies until after the season, so no Balkman or Collins. David Lee's most similar players were AC Green and Tyrone Hill, who were somewhat effective scorers but it seems that Lee has a higher TS% at age 22 than either of them.

Saturday night's lucky shot notwithstanding, I'd give up on "Eddy Curry" and "Jump Shot" being mentioned in the same sentence if I were you.

tsherkin · Joined: 31 Jan 2005 Posts: 247

Well, from the last couple of years on, we can use 82games.com to see. 82games.com has stats from 02-03 and on, so someone could theoretically track a player like Amare Stoudemire to see his development as a shooter. Dwyane Wade, as well.

Of much great significance is nba.com's Hotzones, which I wish would appear on other pages as well. That is the single best way to track a player's shooting ability available to the general public, so far as I can tell. ESPN keeps shot charts by they are crappy and because they don't list actual numbers, they often mask what shot was taken where, how many such shots were taken, etc. In short, they suck. NBA.com's hotzones are awesome.

Also, there's a paid site out there, or there was, that ran a free trial earlier this year and then vanished from all existence, which was annoying. I think it started with an S but that's completely unhelpful. It was wonderful, with percentage breakdowns of time spent in and shots taken from different locations on the floor, how a player reacted to double-teams, etc.

It theoretically turned into a pay site but since I can't remember the name, I can't find it. And Mozilla ate my favorites before I could back them up, which was frustrating.

**Eli W** · Joined: 01 Feb 2005 Posts: 402

That site was Synergy Sports. There have been rumors for a while that it will be coming back with another public demo or possibly for a small subscription fee, but for now it's only available to NBA teams and it has no public web page.
_________________
Eli W. (formerly John Quincy)
CountTheBasket.com

tsherkin · Joined: 31 Jan 2005 Posts: 247