Offensive efficiency based on shot type

[uh_no]

So I did this a bit last year and figured I'd throw it out there since I find the numbers interesting. The question we're trying to answer is "on the whole, is duke shooting a lot of threes good or bad for the team"

So ultimately we will be looking at points per possession in a few different ways. The classical way is simply points/possessions, but here we consider possessions of several different types: those that start with a two point shot, those that start with a three point shot, and those that have no shot. Since it would be a pain in the neck to gather stats about the third type, i mostly ignore it, and only consider possessions that have shots. What that means is that the absolute number I come up with may be slightly off, but the bias should be equally applied to PPP for both 3 and 2 point shots, so they should still be comparable.

What the numbers do take into account:
shots of each type made and taken, as well as offensive rebounds allowing a further possession

what the numbers do not take into account:
fouls for that shot type (something I would like to add)
turnovers

so anyway, i list the opponent, the points per possession for possessions starting with both a 2 and 3 point shot, as well as the overall numbers for the season

opponent PPP2 PPP3
gast 1.45 1.75
uk 1.35 1.77
fgcu 1.77 1.55
minn 1.58 2.4
vcu 1.2 .72
tot 1.46 1.61

So what does this say? on the year, we get about .15 more points out of any given 3 point shot than we do any 2 point shot. In 3 games this year, we have gotten more value out of our 3 point shooting than our 2 point shooting, and 2 have gone the other way. The VCU game was the first game which saw us get significantly less value out of your 3 point shots than our 2 point shots.

So what is the conclusion? Fire away. That said, this analysis needs to be updated slightly with the expected points we would get out of a foul on a 2 point shot vs a 3 point shot, which I would expect to move the needle closer to the 2 point side.

Obviously, we shouldn't take every shot as a 3, but we see that at our current shooting and rebounding percentages, we do fine taking threes.

[MarkD83]

I think Grinell College would agree with your "fire away with the 3s" conclusion.

[Greg_Newton]

Interesting stuff.

To play DA, I imagine foul shots would alter the number fairly significantly. There's also the idea that open threes in the flow of the offense likely give you more PPS than so-so looks that you often have to launch to get into the 20-30 range for 3PA, so it may not necessarily support shooting more incremental threes past a certain point.

My main issue with relying too heavily on the three (whatever that means, specifically) is that it's a higher risk/higher reward proposition - you can get hot and be unstoppable, but you can also go cold and drop a game you shouldn't. Less so than if you're getting to the rim, getting to the line, scoring in the post, which is why I think it's generally a more advisable strategy for a physically disadvantaged team than a team who expects to win almost all of its games and whose ultimate goal is to win six in a row against the best in the country.

That said, I think we've got great balance this year and am not at all concerned with our offense at this point.

[uh_no]

Interesting stuff.

To play DA, I imagine foul shots would alter the number fairly significantly. There's also the idea that open threes in the flow of the offense likely give you more PPS than so-so looks that you often have to launch to get into the 20-30 range for 3PA, so it may not necessarily support shooting more incremental threes past a certain point.

My main issue with relying too heavily on the three (whatever that means, specifically) is that it's a higher risk/higher reward proposition - you can get hot and be unstoppable, but you can also go cold and drop a game you shouldn't. Less so than if you're getting to the rim, getting to the line, scoring in the post, which is why I think it's generally a more advisable strategy for a physically disadvantaged team than a team who expects to win almost all of its games and whose ultimate goal is to win six in a row against the best in the country.

That said, I think we've got great balance this year and am not at all concerned with our offense at this point.

Agree on all counts. Foul shots are critical...I just need to look through the play by play to get that data. I think the idea is to have a numerical response to "we need to go inside more" etc. If I can demonstrate that we are actually scoring more points by shooting threes, then that's a very strong argument that Coach K actually knows what he's doing (like he needs it...). Furthering what you say, it's very difficult to model "past a certain point," but I absolutely agree. If we took the numbers at face and said "we score more points shooting threes, therefore every shot should be a three" is obviously not going to work. I think the idea is to show that what we are doing works pretty well.

The other analysis that I like (but haven't had a chance to put together yet) involves looking at skew and standard deviation of points gained from 2 and 3 point shots. What that demonstrates is how likely we are to have abnormally high or low scoring per possession per shot type. I'll get to that soon, but unfortunately, for those numbers, the current low number of games has a very adverse effect on the analysis.

Last year, when I did it, I found that while our scoring was more consistent for Threes than for twos, we were much more likely to have a poor three point shooting night than two, which makes sense.

In the end, I like to try to quantify the "gut" feelings we have about our team, and while we will likely never be able to answer whether we can beat a certain team or not, we may be able to say we have an x probability of scoring at least y points per possession off threes or twos for 6 straight games.

I haven't gotten back to the 2010 season as of yet, but one thing I'd like to look at is what EXACTLY was the effect of offensive rebounding on the 2010 championship team. If it's as important as we all believe it to be, we should see a huge difference between our points per possession before and after including the rebounding.

I know i'm rambling a TINY bit here, but I hope at least give someone some insight on how quantitative measurements verify or refute someones feelings from watching our team

[captmojo]

See the Bobby Knight theory on threes.

I just hate to see corner shots. There is less depth perception without the backboard in full view.

[COYS]

I can't find the thread where we talked about this in past years (it may have just been in a phase post or something like that), but the other thing to consider is the standard deviation of the type of shot. Possessions ending in free throw attempts probably deviate the least from team averages over the course of the season, meaning if they are likely to be worth almost exactly their average points per possession in every game. Three point shots, at least as we discovered when we discussed this on the board a while back, have a larger standard deviation than two point shots, meaning that even though they might average out to be more valuable over the course of a season, they are also more likely to have a low value in any given game. Two point shots also result in more fouls against the opponent, which has the bonus of putting the opposition in foul trouble and getting the whole team into the bonus faster.

This is not to say that threes are not good shots, by any means. There's a reason why Coach K lets his teams fly from beyond the arc and why, far more often than not, that strategy results in a Duke victory. There is also a reason why Duke is traditionally one of the best in the country at preventing three point attempts from the opposition. But I would be lying if I didn't say that the balance we have this year is VERY encouraging. As we've already demonstrated, we can win this season when we are hitting threes . . . but we can also win by relentlessly attacking the basket with Mason or by the guards getting inside the arc. The versatility will serve us well on those nights when the three point shot fails us and makes us less vulnerable to an outlier night of bad three point shooting. Duke's best teams have always had multiple ways of scoring and manufacturing points, whether that be getting to the line, dumping the ball to a big guy, or breaking down the D for layups. So far, we've seen a mix of all three of those methods on this year's team.

[greybeard]

The best three looks generally come off an inside-out pass, directly for the receiver or rotating the ball as the collapsed exterior players scramble to reorganize and get to the shooters.

When you have an inside scorer like Mason, he will draw organized double teams from exterior players routinely. Defenses also must be organized to prevent catches by Mason in what I used to call "win positions." If you catch it in a win position, you are going to score the ball, 95% of the time. The only way you don't score, if you are an inside scorer, is if you miss a chippy or dunk. A win position is when you catch on the move or stationary with clear advantage on an unimpeded line to the basket, often with no bounce. Modern day, add in the get-behind-the-defense toss to the rim dunk.

So, with this year's Duke team, if you do not factor in the value of Mason's presenting a serious inside threat, which only happens if he actually is hurting the other team by scoring inside, you cannot assess how much "firing away" makes sense. In fact, if the other team knows that getting it inside to Mason is not priority (I should think priority number one unless someone special has an open three), then the defense stays at home more and the number of good 3 looks diminishes. How much? Who can say.

For several years right after McRoberts left, K came up with an offense that really impressed me. Duke's strength was on the wings with guys who could really shoot, play off the bounce, and go to the rim as a third option. A catch with an open three was taken. If you were the initiator, Sheyer, Nelson, sometimes Singler, a little bit JWill, etc. you took it to the foul line, that is to say, got inside the defense, slowed down, and had the option of going to the basket if there was a clear lane, pulling up to shoot, or kicking it where the help was coming from. Amazing to watch. Singler sometimes played down low, quite often during I think it was his freshman but could have been his sophomore year, and had a very effective inside game. Z's senior year was a one-time-only occurence--his multiple, outside screens during offensive sets, created the open 3s. It also gave Z a clear line to the basket when a shoot was taken off one of his screens. Z would beat his defender, who had to "show" on every screen or there would be an open 3 on every screen, to the board, get alot of offensive rebounds, which he rarely put back up. He'd throw them out for what was almost always a wide open step in three by one of Duke's three deadly shooters.

Bottom line, K must have been giving great weight to the very type of number crunching you have done (terrific job, by the way), Duke has emphasized the three an awful lot, but has always relied on inside scoring and inside-out passing to create open 3 looks. This year I think K's commitment to featuring Mason in the offense, he was going to do that no matter what, has been essential for the numbers to crunch the way they have. Duke just doesn't have the array of deadly three shooters that it usually has. Knight's take during the past two seasons when he did Duke games was that Duke did not get it inside nearly enough; he always point out with annoyance when a pass-penetration oportunity was missed.

[greybeard]

A win position is also when you catch it inside 5-6 feet of the basket and have multiple scoring options against one-on-one defender--pivot off either foot to immediate jump shoot, the same only just a very slight head eye fake and keep going with one dribble to the rim, or stop, bring the ball up, a little eye and tilt of the head fake (that's all it takes) and wait as the guy begins to come down (his momentum at least will have started up) and either reorganized and shoot, or step through and shoot, or drop step either way with a layup finish, if close enough with no bounce otherwise one bounce. You feel the other guy's weight and the choice appears. "Glory Days, like . . . ."