Leaders in three-point attempts: how well are they shooting?

Here are the top 30 players in 3PA /game so far in 2013-14, plotted against their 3P% (minimum 6 games played):

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(You can also see the chart here.)


Some takeaways: 

• It's old hat at this point to bow to the awesomeness of the Klay Thompson - Stephen Curry duo in Golden State. Everyone knows they can shoot. But then you see a chart like this, and... holy hell. Every good team has its unique advantages. The Warriors' unique advantage is a nuclear jetpack.
• One of the keys to Portland's blazing start: check out Damian Lillard and Wesley Matthews on this chart. Wes' current accuracy is unsustainable, but he can drop by 6-8 percentage points, be close to his career marks, and still be an ace safety valve for Lillard and LaMarcus Aldridge.
• Kyle Korver is approaching 500 3PA during his time in Atlanta. He's currently shooting 46.3% on those 450+ attempts. So, yes, not a fluke.
• James Harden's 3P% the past three seasons: 39% (last season in OKC), 36.8% last year, 31.5% this year. His attempts / game: 4.7, 6.2, 6.6.
• Josh Smith and Brandon Jennings are combining to jack up over 10 3PA / gm. The better of the two is shooting 32%. Spacing problems? What spacing problems?
• It'll be interesting to see where guys like O.J. Mayo and Jodie Meeks end up. Both are blowing away their past performance, but on the other hand, both have also changed their responsibilities this year, and that may account for some of the improvement. We'll see how much proves sustainable.

5 early gems from the new NBA player tracking tool

If you haven't seen the new NBA Player Tracking tool yet, check it out. It uses SportVU cameras and software to track the movements of every player on every court for every NBA game. That means it can chart the movements and speed of every player, touches and passes, rebounding, defensive opportunities, and much more. It's going to be an amazing tool for fans to get a deeper, more nuanced understanding of the game.

Like for example, by jumping to impossibly early conclusions based on two games of data! But hey, it's fun, so here are five early nuggets that I found interesting and we'll keep tracking in the future. (Note: I'm only including data for players who've played two games so far, not one. See? I care about sample size!)

1. How some notable centers are doing defending the rim (min 6 FGA / gm at the rim):

Against Roy Hibbert: opponents are shooting 26% at the rim (btw, David West and Ian Mahinmi both qualify as well, and are at 38% and 37% respectively)
Chris Kaman: 17% (!)
Tyson Chandler: 32%
Andrew Bogut: 50%
Pau Gasol: 54%
Nikola Vucevic: 56%
Chris Bosh: 62%

2. Catch and shoot FG% (min 5 such FGA/gm):

Klay Thompson: 73%
LeBron James: 62.5%
Ray Allen: 41.7%
Carmelo Anthony: 40%
Wesley Johnson and Pau Gasol: 36% each
Arron Aflalo: 25%

Bonus: Stephen Curry doesn't qualify yet, but (yawn) he's at 75%.

3. Leaders in player time of possession per game (number of mins a player possesses the ball in mins):

Chris Paul: 7.9 mins out of 37 mins played
Derrick Rose: 6.6 mins, 32.9 mins played
Jameer Nelson: 6.2 mins, 35.5 mins played

Bonus: Klay Thompson has possessed the ball for just 1.1 mins / gm in order to score 24 ppg. That's 66 seconds per game.

4. Leaders in average speed on the court (in mph, min 20 mpg)

Norris Cole: 4.7 mph
JJ Redick: 4.7 mph
Kirk Hinrich: 4.6 mph
Steve Blake: 4.6 mph

5. Leaders in assist opportunities per gm (passes in which the teammate then attempts a shot):

CP3: 21.5 opptys/ gm, translating to 13 apg
Jameer Nelson: 18.5 opptys/ gm, 7.5 apg
LeBron: 18 opptys/ gm, 10.5 apg

Bonus: Poor D-Rose and Melo: each have 9.5 opptys/ gm, but only 3.5 apg


FINAL bonus: D-Rose has attempted 13 pull-up jumpers so far this season, and has made 0 of them.

LeBron James vs. the other active MVP's

Through 10 seasons, how does the career of LeBron James stack up against the other active MVP's? Here's a look at the year-by-year PER and minutes played for LeBron, Tim Duncan, Kobe Bryant, Kevin Garnett, Dirk Nowitzki, and Derrick Rose. (Yes, I excluded Steve Nash. Trust me, he doesn't really compare well on a season-by-season basis to these dominant stars.)

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Quick Takeaways:

- Good God, LeBron. The combination of dominance and durability is frightening. On a year-by-year basis, he "wins" 8 of his 10 seasons so far vs. all these other Hall-of-Famers. Even if he starts experiencing a dip within the next year or two and follows the same trendline as others have, he could still be pumping out 26+ PER seasons until at least his mid-30's. Those are MVP caliber seasons. Until his mid-30's. Or later.
- Dirk's peak 4 years were really, really great.
- KG's peak was even (ever so slightly) better.
- I'd argue that Kobe's biggest strength isn't his peak (his two best seasons are lower than LeBron's, Garnett's or Dirk's), but rather how well he's held up in years 12+. It really adds to his legacy when you compare his later years to the other older superstars.
- D-Rose's growth from year 1 to year 3 was unusually strong. Let's hope his (real) year 5 brings more of the same.

I'm going to run this visualization again later in two other ways: once to pit LeBron against current stars like Durant, Dwight and Wade, and then to pit him against all-timers like MJ, Bird, Magic and Hakeem. Let me know if there's anyone in particular you want to see on either of those visualizations.