Tuesday, June 27, 2006

The Life of the Party

Using the principles discussed in the previous post, it may be possible to uncover some trends in player performance for the 2007 season.

First, using the methods shown previously, there are five players that show up as bad 3-point shooters and good free throw shooters based on their 2006 stats. One thing to note is that free throw shooting was better correlated to 3-point shooting (among the top 100 shooters by volume) than the season before, as demonstrated by our oddball groups having fewer members. In the case of this group, there are five qualifiers versus the eight found in 2005. Here are the players in this group:

James Life, rising senior, UMass: 82.3 FT%, 30.2 3P% in 2006. Travis Ford plucked Life from the Juco ranks to give the Minutemen perimeter game some, er, life. James disappointed big time in his inaugural D-I season. His FT% came on only 62 attempts. And he was a 75.7% FT shooter in 374 Juco attempts, so he may not be particularly special in that area. Still, there’s no reason to think that a guy given the license to shoot 3’s as often as he did (202 attempts in ‘06) should be such a poor shooter. Life may not be a budding Thomas Gardner, but significant improvement in his shooting is possible.

Adam Haluska, Sr., Iowa: 84.8 FT%, 34.6 3P%. Haluska figures to see his quantitative numbers improve as he will likely be the go-to-guy for the Hawkeyes next season after being the 3rd option in ‘06. Whether his efficiency improves is debatable. Haluska has played three years of major college ball, and his 3-point accuracy has progressed like this: 33.6, 38.9, 34.6.  His shooting rate has slightly increased each season, and it figures to do so again in ‘07. Given the long track record, you wouldn’t expect a big improvement in his accuracy, but an over/under around 37% seems reasonable.

For completeness, the other three players in this group are Jim Goffredo, Sr., Harvard; Calvin Cannon, Sr., Delaware; Brian Hodges, Jr., UMBC.

There were also five players in the poor free throw shooting/good 3-point shooting group, where members figure to see their 3-point accuracy decline in 2007. The three notables among the group:

Lee Humphrey, Sr., Florida. 60.0 FT%, 45.9 3P%. His FT% came on only 30 attempts. For his career he’s 37 for 60 (61.6%), so I think it’s safe to say he’s not too reliable from the line. However, once again in ‘07 Humphrey will be the defense’s fifth priority for many of his minutes, and thus will continue to have the luxury of getting more good looks than just about anyone in the nation. Still, unless Humphrey gets more discriminating with his shot selection, you’d be foolish to think he’ll improve on his 3-point accuracy, simply because he set such a torrid pace last season.

Antoine Agudio, Jr., Hofstra. 71.3 FT%, 42.1 3P%. Exceptions make statistical analysis fun. At least that’s the story I’m going with here, because Agudio had sophomore slump written all over him after posting 65.8/42.3 in 2005. I would have bet the mortgage that his 3-point numbers would have dipped in ‘06. And I would have been right, but only by a single made 3-pointer. His numbers should drop again in ‘07, but I wouldn’t bet the mortgage on it. Agudio appears to be the rare player that is almost as efficient shooting 20 foot jumpers over the defense than unguarded 15 foot set shots. He wouldn’t be the first. Duke’s Jason/Jay Williams comes to mind. For his career, he was an ugly 69% from the line, but a solid 39% from beyond the arc.

De’Angelo Alexander, Sr., Charlotte. 73.1 FT%, 42.9 3P%. In there a more consistent free throw shooter than Alexander? His three seasons have produced percentages of 72.8, 72.6, and 73.1. His 3-point shooting has not been so consistent:

Year    3P%   3PA/40 Min
2006   42.9    8.1
2004   36.3    5.7
2003   35.0    5.9

Alexander shot about 40% more often in 2006 and saw his accuracy go up dramatically. Even if he is truly a changed shooter, he doesn’t have Curtis Withers to attract attention away from him this season, thus the volume of open shots should decrease. And if he reverts to his Oklahoma form, Alexander could be the Dee Brown of 2007.

The others in this group: Jose Olivero, Sr., Lehigh; Torrell Martin, Sr., Winthrop.

There are other cases for the upcoming season worth mentioning.

Arron Afflalo, Jr. UCLA. 80.6 FT%, 36.6% 3P%. Afflalo narrowly missed being in the good FT/bad 3P list. Last season he was both great and poor from long range.

               3PM-3PA   3P%
Thru 1/5/06     38- 84  45.2
After 1/5/06    45-143  31.5

The loss of Jordan Farmar shouldn’t hurt UCLA’s offense that much, although there will be a slight drop with Darren Collison at the point. Don’t be surprised if Afflalo becomes one of the Pac-10’s best 3-point shooters this season and makes up the difference. He may not sustain his pre-conference level of last season, but 40% or so is possible.

Jamaal Tatum, Sr., Southern Illinois. 78.1 FT%, 29.2 3P%. If I had to pick one guy to improve his 3-point accuracy this season, it would be Tatum. He was a 40% (102 for 255) shooter in his first two seasons. And his free throw shooting would not indicate he is fundamentally a bricklayer. Chris Lowery’s first season as coach was characterized by an offensive collapse across the board. With some adjustments in the system, we could see Tatum make a substantial improvement.

Cliff Hammonds, Jr., Clemson. 56.9 FT%, 26.3 3P%. In 2005, Hammonds posted 64.6/36.1 as a freshman. His acceptable 3-point shooting in ‘05 apparently cemented his status as a viable outside shooter in ‘06, when he promptly tested the theoretical limits of inaccuracy while his shooting rate increased slightly. With the expected emergence of James Mays in the post this season, Hammonds will still get opportunities to shoot. Hopefully for Clemson’s sake, he passes up most of them.

Derek Raivio, Jr., Gonzaga. 91.2 FT%, 35.8 3P%. Raivio produced 90.5/45.3 as a freshman. His puzzling drop in 3-point shooting can probably be chalked up to injuries he fought most of the season. Given the large decrease in the talent of his supporting cast this season, it’s going to be hard for him to get back over 40%, but opposing coaches would be wise to view him as that kind of shooter when they game plan the Zags.

Now some guys that tested the NBA waters…

Nick Fazekas, Sr., Nevada. 84.6 FT%, 29.0 3P%. Fazekas opted to come back to Reno for one more season, and it was probably a good decision, as there would seem a jump shot waiting to get out. Look for a surge in his 3P% this season.

Rajon Rondo, Kentucky. 57.1 FT%, 27.3 3P%. Rondo’s shooting woes are well-documented. He has the hands of a 7-footer and shoots like it. Rondo can make an impact defensively and perhaps as a distributor, but anyone expecting him to develop a shot will probably end up being disappointed.

Daniel Gibson, Texas. 72.6 FT%, 38.0 3P%. Strictly from a shooting perspective, Gibson made the right choice. With a whole new team around him in ‘07, the quality of his shots figured to fall off and his 3-point numbers may have taken a turn that would damage his stock somewhat. It’s a good idea to get out now with a relatively weak draft and stats that might convince a GM or two that you could be an above average NBA shooter.

Friday, June 09, 2006

Back in the Lab

In no other sport is there such a controlled experiment as the free throw. While statistical analysis of basketball can be more challenging than other sports in numerous ways, at least we have this. And it’s about time we took advantage of it.

Specifically, there is a weak connection between 3-point shooting and free throw shooting. Even though the connection is weak, it does appear that we can use it to our advantage when projecting how a player’s 3-point accuracy will change from one season to the next.

In this exercise, I took the top 100 returning players ranked by their 3-point attempts in 2005. Everyone from Syracuse’s Gerry McNamara (315 attempts in ‘05) to Lipscomb’s James Poindexter (165). I labeled the top 33 by accuracy as “good” 3-point shooters, and the bottom 33 as “bad.” I then sorted them by free throw accuracy in the same manner.

One thing to note is that this group shot about the same on 3’s in ‘05 (37.7%) and ‘06 (37.5%). In addition, 3P% is not well-correlated on an individual level from year-to-year, with a correlation coefficient of .371. To illustrate what that means, the following plot shows how well each member of this group shot 3’s in ‘05 and ‘06. You can see some relationship, but there’s quite a bit of scatter.

The lack of year-to-year correlation and nearly steady mean of the population provides another tool to use in a prediction - the concept of regressing to the mean. For instance, of the 33 good shooters in ‘05, only 8 improved their accuracy in ‘06. Of the bad shooters, 19 showed improvement the following season. So knowing nothing else, we can predict that the best shooters will see a decline and the worst shooters will improve.

But adding free throw shooting into our primitive model appears to increase the certainty of a prediction for a select few players. Of the 3-point shooters I labeled “bad” based on their ‘05 performance, eight of them happened to be good free throw shooters. The list:

                       2005  2005  2006    3P%
Player                  FT%   3P%   3P%   Diff
Bettencourt, Bucknell  88.8  35.3  40.3  + 5.0
McNamara, Syracuse     87.4  34.0  33.4  - 0.6
Washington, Delaware   87.2  34.5  39.6  + 5.1
Golob, N. Arizona      85.2  34.7  42.8  + 8.1
Gardner, Missouri      83.1  27.0  39.7  +12.7
Brown, CS Fullerton    82.7  34.8  37.7  + 2.9
Kruger, Arizona St.    82.1  35.4  40.3  + 4.9
Williams, Long Island  81.3  35.7  41.8  + 6.1
Average                85.0  33.9  39.4  + 5.6

Seven of the eight shooters improved in ‘06, and the improvement was substantial in many of the cases. By comparison there were 11 players that were bad outside shooters and bad free throw shooters, and only 3 of them improved their 3-point shooting.

Now let’s look at the opposite group - the good shooters in ‘06 that were unusually poor from the line. I should point out that the 100 players as a whole were much better free throw shooters than the general college hoops population (77.8% vs. 68.7%). Therefore, one must shoot better than 74.4% from the line to avoid being in the “bad” free throw shooting group for the sake of this discussion.

There were nine players that fell into the bad free throw shooting/good 3-point shooting group in ‘05.

                       2005  2005  2006    3P%
Player                  FT%   3P%   3P%   Diff
Stewart, USC           58.8  40.0  39.7  - 0.3
Jointer, S. Alabama    65.4  39.7  33.7  - 6.0
Agudio, Hofstra        65.8  42.3  42.1  - 0.2
Trotter, Alabama A&M   68.1  40.0  35.8  - 4.2
Dixon, Troy            69.0  39.9  38.0  - 1.9
Smith, Houston         70.3  40.2  34.9  - 5.3
Butler, George Mason   73.6  43.1  37.8  - 5.2
Carroll, Utah St.      73.8  47.6  45.1  - 2.4
Winters, Davidson      74.0  43.4  33.9  - 9.5
Average                68.8  41.8  37.9  - 3.9

Every one of the nine saw a drop in their 3-point shooting in ‘06, although the effect was not as dramatic as for the first group, perhaps because free shooters labeled as bad by me aren’t really that bad in the grand scheme of things. For instance, nobody at Hofstra was concerned about Antoine Agudio’s 0.2% drop in accuracy. He was still excellent from beyond the arc. By the way, for the 15 good 3-point shooters that were also good free-throw shooters, only eight were worse 3-point shooters in ‘06.

The funny thing about the two not-so-random groups listed above is that while the good shooters outshot the bad ones by an average of 7.9% in ‘05, the same group of bricklayers actually outshot the good shooters in ‘06 by 1.5%.

I have a couple of cautionary notes, though. First, there are plenty of exceptions to be found. They include Troy’s Jacob Hazouri had shooting numbers of 36.8/60.0, and saw his 3-point shooting rise to 41.1% in ‘06. On the one hand his 60% free throw percentage was only on 20 attempts, but on the other, he shot 56.4% in 39 attempts from the line in ‘06. At the other end, St. Peter’s Keydren Clark posted 36.7/83.5 in ‘05, but saw his 3-point shooting dip to 32.6% in ‘06. There are a bunch of others out there.

Second, I have to add the obligatory note that context also plays a role here. One notable player that just missed making the last list was Dee Brown. In 2005, he shot 43.4% from 3, and a pedestrian (for this group) 77.2% from the line. Knowing this, we would have expected Brown to come back to the pack slightly on his 3-point accuracy in 2006, even had his supporting cast remained the same, if only due to the pull of the mean for 3-point shooting. Of course, he lost two of his teammates to the NBA, and that had much to do with his tremendous drop in 3-point accuracy to 32.1% in 2006.

In my next post, I’ll use the dual power of regressing to the mean and free throw shooting to examine some interesting cases for 2007. And there are plenty of them.