Thursday, April 27, 2006

2005 Player Stats and the Case for Renaldo Balkman

In case you haven’t noticed, the offseason will be reserved for administrative notes in this space. In this instance, I’d like to direct you to individual stats from the 2004-05 season, which I just posted.

In doing so, I’ve noticed there is a select group of guys that posts a Block Rate of at least 6 and a Steal Rate of at least 2.5 over a full season. Among power conference players, the list in 2006 was Shelden Williams, Joakim Noah, Al Horford, and Julian Wright. All will eventually be first round picks, perhaps lottery picks.

There was only one power conference player in the 6/2.5 club last season. That player was...Shavlik Randolph?? Er, I mean, Shavlik Randolph! Anyway, Randolph leaving Duke early was widely viewed as a practical joke gone bad, but he did manage to get fairly regular non-garbage time minutes after catching on with the Sixers as an undrafted free agent.

The other point is that South Carolina’s Renaldo Balkman, whom I mentioned in passing a couple of times last season, barely misses the 2006 list at 5.9/4.1. Balkman isn’t among the top 75 juniors listed at DraftExpress, and ESPN’s Chad Ford has just placed him at #127 overall on his big board. Balkman’s raw numbers are unimpressive: 9.6 ppg, 6.3 rpg, 1.9 apg. But USC played at the 16th slowest pace in D-I, and Balkman only played about 25 mpg.

On Thursday, Balkman declared for the draft. It’s probably no more than a Pittsnogle-esque information-gathering move, and probably will be met with a collective yawn by the basketball community. But given his impact on defense against solid competition and that he has a competent offensive game, I think it’s a good bet that he’ll be earning NBA money someday, whether it’s this season or next.

Monday, April 10, 2006

Assist Rate

I’ve changed assist rate to something more consistent with the tempo-free philosophy. It’s now assists divided by teammates’ made field goals, scaled for playing time. Thus, like rebound percentage, turnover rate, steal percentage, and block percentage, it is based on opportunities available. The leaderboard contains the people you would expect to see there. For the curious, the worst assist rate among players with at least 40% minutes played is Tyronne Beale of East Carolina, who had zero assists in 504 minutes, and an estimated 189 of his teammates’ shots.

Tuesday, April 04, 2006

Charting the Championship

Florida 73, UCLA 57 [65.5 possessions] - Not much analysis needed here. The “knowns” discussed yesterday worked out pretty well. Florida struggled from beyond the arc (6 of 19), Afflalo (3 of 10, 10 points) and Brewer (4 of 12, 11 points) played to an inefficient draw. That left Farmar to overachieve offensively. He put up a career-high 21 shots and scored 18 points. He didn’t overachieve and he needed to because the Bruins didn’t get offense from anywhere else.

On the flip side, Florida’s big men were dominant in every phase of the game, and Noah may have just positioned himself to be the first pick in the draft. Over the last 15:30, nine of Florida’s 11 made field goals were dunks, the first of which was by Noah on a move that had to be a travel, but replay confirmed was not. That play alone may have vaulted Noah to the top pick, and allowed him to never have to do any homework again. (Granted, the move was put on Lorenzo Mata, not exactly an NBA caliber defender at this point.)

Anyway, this was a total butt kicking in just about every way you can look at it. You didn’t need me to say that.

So that’s a wrap. The last three games - and last six if you’re desperate enough to include the NIT Final Four - didn’t give us one single Shining Moment^TM. I’ll have a season summary piece up on espn.com later in the week, where I will break the site’s record for consecutive columns without use of a literary device. After that, I’ll be in the fetal position for six months. Enjoy the off-season.

Lines o’ the Night

Tuesday

                           FG    3pt  FT   Reb
                      Min  M-A   M-A  M-A  O-T   A F S TO BLK Pts
Renaldo Balkman        36 11-14  0-0  1-2  0-8   3 2 1  2  4   23
Result: Win. South Carolina 78, Louisville 63.

Thursday

                           FG    3pt  FT   Reb
                      Min  M-A   M-A  M-A  O-T   A F S TO BLK Pts
Tarence Kinsey         32  9-15  0-2  3-5  1-6   2 4 0  0  0   21
Result: Win. South Carolina 76, Michigan 64.

Saturday

                           FG    3pt  FT   Reb
                      Min  M-A   M-A  M-A  O-T   A F S TO BLK Pts
Lee Humphrey           34  6-12  6-12 1-3  0-3   0 2 1  1  0   19
Result: Win. Florida 73, George Mason 58. 

Monday

                           FG    3pt  FT   Reb
                      Min  M-A   M-A  M-A  O-T   A F S TO BLK Pts
Joakim Noah            33  7-9   0-0  2-2  2-9   3 2 1  2  6   16
Result: Win. Florida 73, UCLA 57.