Assisted on Data

[pfrduke]

We've talked a lot on this site about the passing performance (or lack thereof) from this year's Duke team. All told, it was one of the least assist-heavy squad's in K's tenure, with only 48.4% of all field goals coming off of the pass. This analysis breaks down the passing a little bit to see how our guys scored the ball last year. Pomeroy took a look at this with respect to the final four squads earlier, so that's an interesting point of comparison to these numbers.

Numbers are below, but here are some general thoughts:

• Austin almost never scored off the ball. Not a single two-point jump shot was assisted, and in total only 12 of his 116 shots inside the arc came off of the pass. I suspect (and will try to break this information down further) that a substantial portion of those 12 came off fast breaks, meaning that in the half court offense, he wasn't scoring inside the arc unless he could create it for himself. Even beyond the arc, he had by far the lowest percentage of assisted baskets, with over 60% of his 3s coming off the dribble. It's remarkable that he shot as well as he did (36.5%) given that he created more 3s for himself than were created for him.
• Three pointers come off the pass. Ryan Kelly, Tyler Thornton, and Andre Dawkins combined for 134 3s. 128 of those were assisted. As a team, 78% of our 3s were assisted. Other than Austin Rivers, 7 out of every 8 3s came off of a pass. It's impossible to tell from play by play data which attempts are off the pass as opposed to self-created - the only way I can tell for makes is because assists are recorded - but odds are if you see a guy attempt a 3 off the dribble, he's not going to make it. Aside from Austin, we made 25 in 34 games.
• Two point jump shots are essentially never assisted. This is especially notable if you exclude Miles and Hairston, for whom jump shots happened almost exclusively when they were found open on ball rotation (note that Miles's numbers are further skewed because everything that's not a dunk or layup is considered a jump shot, so his jumper numbers include shots from the paint off of post moves that weren't quite layups - if you're talking 12-15 footers, the assist numbers probably skew even higher). They combined for 20 assisted baskets on 31 jumpers - the rest of the team got 33 assisted baskets on 162 jumpers, about 1 in 5. And, as mentioned, Austin did all of these for himself, with not a single two point jumper off the pass. In a way, this makes sense - the offense should not be designed to result in two-point jump shots, because they're very low percentage (and thus low efficiency), so guys are more likely to take those shots when the offense breaks down and the only option is to create for himself.
• Austin got into the paint so well. I know this is obvious by sight, but getting almost 3 layups/dunks a game, the vast majority of which were the result of his own penetration (almost always starting from beyond the 3-point line) is impressive for a guard. Curry was the next best perimeter player, and he had just 36.
• Dawkins simply does not create for himself. Only 17 of his 92 field goals came off the bounce (and I suspect at least a few of those are fast break buckets). His 81.5% assisted on rate is the highest on the team.
• The next step in this is to factor in the buckets off of offensive rebounds. The numbers for Mason, Miles, Ryan, and Josh are all skewed a little downward because they don't factor in put-back buckets. So all of the un-assisted baskets aren't really self-created in the sense that they got the ball in a half-court set and made something for themselves. Mason, in particular, needs improvement on this. He had just 48 unassisted baskets, a decent number of which must be put-backs. He needs to do better than one self-created hoop per game.

Here are the numbers:

Layups/Dunks


Two Point Jumpers
Three Pointers











Made
Assisted


Made
Assisted


Made
Assisted









Rivers
84
12
14.29%
32


0.00%
58
23
39.66%
174
35
20.11%

Curry
36
4
11.11%
41
8
19.51%
64
49
76.56%
141
61
43.26%

Mason
112
64
57.14%
31
7
22.58%






143
71
49.65%

Dawkins
10
5
50.00%
15
7
46.67%
67
63
94.03%
92
75
81.52%

Kelly
43
18
41.86%
24
8
33.33%
40
39
97.50%
107
65
60.75%

Miles
67
34
50.75%
22
12
54.55%






89
46
51.69%

Thornton
8


0.00%
4
2
50.00%
27
26
96.30%
39
28
71.79%

Hairston
22
15
68.18%
9
8
88.89%






31
23
74.19%

Cook
18
2
11.11%
15
1
6.67%
14
11
78.57%
47
14
29.79%

Gbinije
7
2
28.57%






4
3
75.00%
11
5
45.45%



407
156


193
53


274
214


874
423
48.40%





38.33%




27.46%




78.10%