Nets’ Opponents And Four Factors
Feb 25, 2010 Advanced Stats, Analysis, Four Factors
Continuing from yesterday’s post where we looked at the four factors for the Nets in wins and losses. I thought it would be interesting to also look at the four factors for the Nets opponents in both wins and losses. While yesterday’s post was more focused on what the Nets did on offense (remember in wins the Nets excelled at keeping their turnovers down – TOR – and making shots – eFG%), today’s look at the opponent four factors will tell you what the Nets did on defense in both wins and losses. So here is the chart:
The Two Key Factors
Just like the Nets’ Four Factors, the key factors in the Nets opponents Four Factors are eFG% and Turnover Rate. In wins, the Nets’ Opponents eFG% was 47.76%, well below league average, while in losses, teams had an eFG% of 52.23%. Naturally, this means that the Nets are getting in their opponents’ faces and playing tough defense in wins (rocket science, I know). This also leads to a higher opponent Turnover rate. Their Opponent Turnover rate in wins is 15.89 (well above average), while in losses it is 13.55. That is a pretty big drop-off.
Offensive Rebound Rate
Something that this chart tells you is that the Nets are really bad at securing the defensive rebound. Even in wins, the Nets allow their opponents to grab offensive boards at an above average rate (in losses it is even worse). Despite Brook Lopez, it kind of makes sense, the Nets are small-ish everywhere else. Yi plays small, Jarvis Hayes is more of a shooter than a rebounder or defensive stopper. Courtney Lee boards pretty well for his position, but that is about it.
Brook Lopez Is Getting Plenty Of Touches
Feb 18, 2010 Advanced Stats, Analysis, Brook Lopez
Like just about every other Nets fan, I think that Brook Lopez needs more touches. In fact, after last night’s game, I was ready to blast Kiki and Brook’s teammates for not getting him the ball enough. To prove that he wasn’t getting the ball enough, I went over to my favorite statistical website (HoopData.com) and I looked for Brook’s Usage Rate, expecting to see it low compared to other NBA centers. Well, I was very surprised with what I saw. As it turns out, Brook Lopez is getting plenty of touches. Among centers who get over 25 minuets per game (37 of them), Brook Lopez is 5th with a Usage Rate of 23.73. This is slightly below guys like Al Jefferson, Shaq, Tim Duncan, and Chris Kaman. Brook is ahead of guys like Dwight Howard, David Lee, and Andrew Bogut. The average usage rate among centers is 16.92.
Usage Rate measures the percentage of possessions used by the player. While it isn’t a perfect measure of a player’s touches (it only counts possessions that directly end because of the player - free throws turnovers, and shots), it is the best that we have at this point and time.
Individual Shot Location Vs. League Averages
Feb 9, 2010 Advanced Stats, Analysis, Charts & Graphs
Shot selection. I have been harping on this for a little while now, and I am going to talk about it some more. It is such an important topic in my opinion, that it deserves being talked about this much. When guys are taking the right type of shots it means they are scoring more, plain and simple.
Surprisingly, it wasn’t the Nets’ odd shot selection in the past few 4th quarters that got me thinking about this. It was an old article I came across over at Hoopdata.com. If you read this site daily, you know how much I love Hoopdata (we link to their advanced box scores after every game). This article by Tom Haberstroh takes a look at a few players and how their shot locations don’t really match up with their position. I thought this would be fun to do with a few New Jersey Nets.