Statistical Tests | Pace and Space

Is This NBA Player Any Good?: Emmanuel Mudiay

November 9, 2017November 9, 2017 - by Fox Doucette

Emmanuel Mudiay has been a bête noire of mine for as long as he’s been in the league. My vicious “he’s a bust” rhetoric in 2015 about Mudiay’s -0.042 WS/48 season as a rookie is the reason Matt Moore of CBS blocked me on Twitter. Speaking of Twitter, everything you’re about to read is written with a big tip of the hat to Nuggets maven Rafael Torres, whose tweet started my brain’s gears moving and decided the subject of this week’s Is He Any Good: Mudiay is playing great so far this season and he’s continued it tonight. — Rafael …

Why Assists Are A Useless NBA Stat

November 5, 2017 - by Fox Doucette

In a year where Russell Westbrook is averaging a triple-double while being only third in the league (behind James Harden and John Wall) in assists, yet at the same time putting up the highest assist percentage (as in percent of teammates’ baskets assisted while he’s on the floor) by a player not named John Stockton in NBA history, and while all three guys I just mentioned are on playoff teams, we need to ask and answer one simple question. Is ball movement really all it’s cracked up to be? As in, do assisted baskets have greater effect on wins than …

Total Team Effort: Does Spreading the Scoring Lead to NBA Wins?

November 5, 2017 - by Fox Doucette

A staple of our NBA coverage has been an unofficial team stat called the Total Team Effort, defined as any game in which seven or more players score in double figures. The general assumption is that either the team distributed the ball well with the starters and made good use of the time they had their second unit in, or the game was a blowout and therefore the bench guys just got enough minutes for two of them to top the 10-point threshold. The NBA is also a star-driven league; you often hear stories like “Westbrook scores 50 as the …