APBRmetrics

mateo82 · Joined: 06 Aug 2005 Posts: 211

I'm a fan who values passing as one of the most important, and often overlooked, skills in basketball. I was wondering if there are any good passing statistics out there. I think something as simple as adjusted assists for a player's usage rating could give a decent idea of how good players are at passing the ball which leads to a score. If there aren't any good statistics out there I might try to come up with a formula myself. Thanks.

jeffpotts77 · Joined: 18 Feb 2005 Posts: 150 Location: Cambridge, MA

You should check out Knickerblogger's Stats page. Below I've pasted the link to the page with all players sorted by Assist Ratio - a formula developed by John Hollinger, used to evaluate passing skills (40 best; 2 worst).

http://www.knickerblogger.net/stats/jh_ALL_AST.htm

Perhaps someone else will be able to elaborate on what the formula consists of.

mateo82 · Joined: 06 Aug 2005 Posts: 211

Favors guards too much. Anyone else?

HoopStudies · Posted: Sat Sep 03, 2005 6:21 pm Post subject: Re: passing statistics

Ben F. · Joined: 07 Mar 2005 Posts: 391

So I took the numbers I have from Bob's database from last year, and looked at percent of passes that ended up in assists.

The results are surprising, although perhaps not so telling.

The range of the entire dataset (limited to players playing more than 1000 minutes last year) was 15.16%-17.95%, with 177 of the 244 players being over 17%. In fact, take away Danny Fortson, and the range becomes 16.37%-17.95%.

Big men head the list, and someone like Nash ends up at #105 in the league, at 17.15%. So I'm not sure this is the greatest of metrics.

Top 10:

bchaikin · Joined: 27 Jan 2005 Posts: 678 Location: cleveland, ohio

So I took the numbers I have from Bob's database from last year, and looked at percent of passes that ended up in assists. The results are surprising, although perhaps not so telling.

not surprising at all - again in the stats database (and the simulation) a player's number of passes are calculated based on his assists, not vice versa. there are no players with higher percentages of assists per pass. any discrepencies you see between players are simply a factor of his team's game pace or some other small factor - there is very little difference between players ratios of assists to passes, as you can see from your calculations...

hopefully 82games.com will at some point show which players (if there are any) consistently show a higher (or lower) percentage of assists per pass, especially if many games are charted this upcoming season...

Ben F. · Joined: 07 Mar 2005 Posts: 391

That would explain that.

Here's a hopefully more useful metric, combining data from 82games.com and Bob's database.

Top 15 Passing TOs/Pass:

**Roland_Beech** · Joined: 14 Jan 2005 Posts: 43

This is an area that will be greatly helped by the game charting this season, but we also do post a 'passing rating' for players which is really just a placeholder until we get something better!

Pass Rtg = (3pt AST + 2pt Jump AST + (2*Close AST)+ (4*Dunk AST) - (2* Pass T/O) ) / (seconds played / 2880)

I think the formula was concocted in about 10 seconds..the object obviously being to reward the passer more heavily for close/dunk asssists under the theory that the pass was a bigger contributor to the made bucket.

Under this scheme last year's leaders

24.6 - Nash
17.9 - Knight
16.2 - A.Miller
14.1 - B.Davis (GS, he was 13.8 in NO minutes)
13.7 - Jason Williams (MEM)
13.3 - Maurice Williams (MIL)
12.9 - Arroyo (UTA, 11.9 with DET)
12.5 - Kidd
12.2 - Livingston (LAC)
12.2 - Watson
12.0 - Francis
11.7 - Brunson
11.3 - Stoudamire (POR)
11.3 - Duhon
11.3 - Snow
11.2 - Iverson
11.2 - Boykins
10.8 - Marbury
10.8 - Payton
10.7 - Claxton (NO, 15.3 in lim min with GS)
10.6 - Terry
10.6 - Jaric
10.5 - Tinsley
10.5 - Carter (MIN)
10.5 - Lue
10.4 - Hinrich
10.3 - Ridnour
10.3 - Cassell
10.2 - Wade
10.2 - Telfair
10.2 - Hart
10.0 - LeBron James

...and the worst rated

-1.0 - Collier
-1.0 - Dalembert
-0.6 - Henderson (DAL)
-0.3 - Gadzuric
-0.1 - Fortson
0.0 - Bradley (DAL)
0.1 - Mutombo
0.1 - Battie
0.1 - Curry
0.1 - Hunter
0.1 - Wilcox
0.2 - Mohammad (NY)
0.3 - Pollard
0.3 - Sweetney
0.3 - Jerome James
0.3 - Okafor

it would probably be worth ranking by position...

"PG"

24.6 - Nash
17.9 - Knight
16.2 - A.Miller
14.1 - B.Davis
13.7 - Williams (MEM)
...
4.8 - Vaughn
4.1 - Best

"PG/SG"

12.0 Francis
11.7 Brunson
11.3 Snow
11.2 Iverson
10.6 Terry
...
1.4 Evans (SAC)
1.3 Snyder (UTA)

"SG/SF"

10.0 James (CLE)
7.7 Hamilton
7.0 Christie (SAC)
6.5 Cater (TOR)
6.1 Bryant
...
1.1 J.Jones (IND)
0.7 Lewis (SEA)

"SF/PF"

9.2 Kukoc
7.4 Garnett
6.8 Webber (SAC)
5.5 Kirilenko
5.3 Walker (BOS)
...
0.3 Sweetney
0.1 Wilcox

"PF/C"

6.0 Brad Miller
4.8 Shaq
4.4 Collins (UTA)
4.4 Camby
4.0 Duncan
...
-1.0 Dalembert
-1.0 Collier

KD · Joined: 30 Jan 2005 Posts: 163

From a Ric Bucher piece on Rick Brunson ...

Ben F. · Joined: 07 Mar 2005 Posts: 391

kjb · Joined: 03 Jan 2005 Posts: 860 Location: Washington, DC

I also question giving a bonus for "close" assists. Why should a pass to cutter for an open dunk have more value in a rating system than say a big man passing out of a double team for an open 3? In the game, the open 3 is worth more, and the play (pass out and making the open 3) probably does more to change the way a defense plays. In this rating system, a pass-ahead to a wide-open teammate on the break, who makes an uncontested dunk has 4 times more value than that pass out of a double team. That doesn't seem right to me.

**Roland_Beech** · Joined: 14 Jan 2005 Posts: 43

Well as I mentioned I think the formula was about 10 seconds worth of thought so it's not without drawbacks...

However, I do think inside assists are worth more than outside shot assists (since we can't tell how open a guy is at this stage). Part of it is that often the degree of difficulty on the pass is much harder (threading through defenders, etc) and part of it requires more understanding I believe of player movement (eg anticipating both your own teammate and the defenders).

I agree that a big man passing to a wide open perimeter player out of a double team can be valuable, but even more valuable is often the pass to a cutter down the lane in such a situation.

Anyway I would completely agree that passing stats are currently inadequate...that's one reason why this coming season should be exciting.

HoopStudies · Posted: Mon Sep 05, 2005 11:33 am Post subject:

Ben F. · Joined: 07 Mar 2005 Posts: 391

Here's my attempt at a similar rating to Roland's, except based on the premise that it's better to assist on a jump shot than a close shot, for the reasons I mentioned above:

"Since the farther away from the basket you are, the harder the shot, then a great set up on the outside may be worth more than a great set up inside. Your chances have improved much more, relatively."

I took data from Roland's "Is Outside Shooting a Lost Art?" article, and decided to look at what players shot from each range on unassisted shots.

So for example, we see that people shot 90.8% on dunks over the period of data Roland analyzed, and 75% of those were assisted. That means that of the 25% that were not assisted, approximately 71.2% went in. Therefore the difference between an assisted dunk's chances of going in and an un-assisted dunk's chances are 28.8%, since an assist means a guaranteed bucket. (I'm sure this is flawed in some way, but I think that we can still measure relative values of each assist this way).

I did that with Jump and Close shots, also. So my formula becomes (((1-j%)*(jump+(1.5*3PT)))+((1-c%)*close)+((1-d%)*dunk))*(1-passTO%), and then divide that all by minutes played, and multiply by 400, just to make it look nicer (also based on a per 40 min basis, although I'm not sure it's measuring anything that would need to be quantified per 40 min).

Edit: Added a multiplier to three pointers to count them more.

j% = unassisted jump shot chance
c% = unassisted close shot chance
d% = unassisted dunk shot chance
passTO% = percentage of passes that ended in TOs

I then compared Roland's results to mine. Here's how it looks.

Roland's Top 10:

THWilson · Joined: 19 Jul 2005 Posts: 164 Location: phoenix

FFSBasketball:
This doesn't make sense to me. I think the problem is that you are ignoring all the potential assists that didn't result in made baskets. For example here are some dummy values:
Assisted Dunk FG % = 80%
Unassisted Dunk FG % = 80%
Assisted Jump FG % = 40%
Unassited Jump FG % = 40%

In this scenario, a jump shot assist is worth three-times a dunk assist. But, potential assists don't help shooting percentage at all for jump shots or dunks. That doesn't make sense. Your model also seems to assume that it's equally easy to get an unassisted or assisted dunk. That rings false.