With two pac-12 weekends in the books, I thought I'd take a look at some of the advanced basketball stats that are out there and see if I can find anything of interest.

I'm using sports-reference.com

Quick Explanation of the individual stats I'll reference:

True Shooting % (TS%)- A measure of scoring efficiency which takes into account free throws and 3 pointers. Formula is (.5*total points)/(fg attempts + 0.44 * FT attempts). Guys who with a high FG% and a good FT% can sometimes be over 1.0 in this stat, but for a go-to-scorer, .550 is pretty solid and .600 is outstanding.

Total Rebound %- The percentage of available rebounds a player grabs while on the court. Offensive Rebound % and Defensive Rebound % have similar definitions. Top guys are in the mid 20s for OR% and TR%, with some players in the low 30s for DR%.

Assist %- Estimate of the percentage of teammate field goals a player assists on while on the court. Top pure PGs are often in the 40s.

Steal %- Percentage of opponent possessions ended by a steal by that player while he's on the court. #1 in college hoops is at 7.3%. Anything above 5% is awesome.

Block %- Percentage of opponent 2 point shots the player blocks while on the court. #1 in D1 is at an insane 20%, anything in double digits is quite impressive.

Turnover %- Turnovers per 100 plays the player is involved in. Good ball handlers are in single digits. Anything above 20% is... not good.

Usage %- Estimate of the % of plays "used" by the player while on the floor-- plays that are ended with that player shooting or turning the ball over. A guy in the 30s is a real go to guy when he's in there. Anyone in single digits is basically standing around watching on offense.

Offensive and Defensive Rating- Simple idea-- points produced and allowed per 100 possessions, but for individual players it ends up being a pretty complicated formula to just get a rough estimate of it. High is good for O Rating, low is good for D Rating. Read the book "Basketball on Paper" if you are interested in this.

Player Efficiency Rating (PER)- Catch all metric used by John Hollinger at ESPN. 15 is average.

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Ok, a quick look at each Stanford player, in order of total minutes played so far. I won't discuss all those stats for every player, but instead highlight a few for each.

Chasson Randle- .555 TS%, 16.1 Ast %, 18.9 TO%, 22.2% Usg, 2.5% stl %, 107.0 Offensive Rating, 90.3 Drating, 15.6 PER

Solid season for the freshman. You don't like to see a PG with a TO% higher than his Ast% (and its a low Ast % for a PG to begin with), but that's a very solid TS% for a guard-- he gets to the foul line and scores pretty efficiently.

Aaron Bright- .642 TS%, 3.2% TReb%, 22.4 Ast %, 18.8 TO%, 20.3% Usg%, 120.8 Orating, 94.4 Drating, 18.4 PER

Bright's been really strong this year. The 3 point shot is a very efficient way to score if you are a good shooter, and that's reflected in his excellent TS%. Decent numbers in the Ast/TO categories for a guy that often plays more like a 2 than a 1. D-rating is worse than a lot of Stanford players--not much of an impact on D. Also, that total rebound % is really bad even for a guard (Randle's is the next worst on the team at 6.5%). Not surprising given Bright's size.

Josh Owens- .607 TS%, 13.2 TReb%, 10.4% OReb%, 7.5 Ast %, 12.3 TO%, 1.9 Stl%, 2.0 Blk%, 22.5% usage, 120.5 ORating, 88.2 Drating, 24.6 PER

Full disclosure: Owens is my favorite Stanford player by far. His numbers are great. He's 3rd in the conference in PER behind Oregon State's Devon Collier (who deserves more credit than he gets) and UCLA's Joshua Smith (who's impact is mitigated by his inability to stay on the court more than 20 minutes a game). Owens scores the ball efficiently, leads the team in offensive rebounding and makes an impact on defense (Drating below 90 is very good). I'd quibble somewhat about the defensive rebounding (doesn't always box his man out), and the turnovers, but overall he's been excellent. Get him the ball more!

Anthony Brown- .449 TS%, 8.5 Ast %, 15.9 TO%, 1.9 Stl %, 0.3 Blk %, 21.9 Usg %, 93.1 orating, 90.2 drating, 11.0 PER

Brown's not been able to build on his strong Freshman campaign. He's not shot the ball well, doesn't often get to the foul line, doesn't make plays for teammates and doesn't block shots despite his length and athleticism. He does get his share of steals and is not a poor defender, but what he does on that end hasn't made up for him being one of the least efficient players for Stanford on offense.

Josh Heustis- .487 TS%, 10.1 Oreb%, 18.6 Dreb%, 14.4 TReb%, 8.1 Ast%, 11.2 TO%, 1.6 Stl %, 3.9 Blk %, 14.9 Usg %, 110.7 orating, 86.8 drating, 16.1 PER

Interesting numbers for Huestis. He's Stanford's 2nd best offensive rebounder (behind Owens) and 2nd best defensive rebounder (behind Powell), but leads Stanford in total rebound %. Good defender as well, as we've seen. On offense, he's not been very effective-- the low usage indicates he's not involved in a lot of plays, and the TS% shows he's not been very efficient when he looks to score. I don't think having him out on the perimeter on offense, as he often is, is very smart.

Jarrett Mann- .471 TS%, 10.6 TReb %, 16.2 Ast %, 28.0 TO%, 16.4 Usg %, 2.5 Stl %, 91.9 orating, 88.7 drating, 10.6 PER

Dawkins loves Mann for his defense. At least one assumes so, because he's not good on offense at all. That turnover % is a really high number, not at all good for a guard. The scoring efficiency numbers aren't good either. He does rebound quite well for a guard, but despite that and the defense, Stanford could really use a better 3rd guard.

Dwight Powell- .465 TS%, 20.2 DReb %, 6.2 Oreb%, 10.8 Ast %, 29.5 TO%, 2.2 Stl %, 3.6 Blk %, 21.6 Usg %, 80.6 Orating, 84.6 Drating, 9.7 PER

The numbers don't lie. Either Powell isn't 100% or he's having a real Sophomore slump. The turnover % jumps out at you as does the offensive rating-- when he's in the game he's using a little over a 5th of the possessions- and nobody on the team has been less efficient with those possessions. Powell has excellent defensive rebounding numbers, but interestingly not very good offensive rebounding stats. His defense has seemed fine, but until he can get his offense back to where it was last year, he's not helping the team.

Andrew Zimmerman- .496 TS%, 7.0 TReb%, 13.9 Ast%, 16.2 TO%, 2.0 Stl %, 2.4 Blk%, 13.9 Usg%, 107.6 Orating, 91.3 Drating, 11.9 PER

Zimmerman passes well for a big man and contributes pretty well on defense, but he's an awful rebounder for a big man and hasn't scored the ball very efficiently this year.

John Gage- .655 TS%, 8.2 TReb%, 6.0 Ast%, 2.8 Stl%, 0.7 Blk %, 10.9 TO%, 21.5 Usg%, 127.8 Orating, 88.8 Drating, 22.7 PER

Early in the season I said I didn't think Gage should play much at all. I'd like to fully retract that. Gage's shooting has been terrific to the point where nobody on the team has been more efficient. The rebounding and shotblocking numbers are really bad for a big man, which likely explains Dawkins' hesitance to play Gage, but I think he's earned increased playing time, particularly on a team that struggles to score.

Jack Trotter- .585 TS%, 13.4 TReb%, 4.1 Blk%, 18.6 Usg %, 119.2 orating, 86.6 drating, 19.8 PER

I've always liked Trotter as a player. He scores efficiently (doesn't try to do more than he can), plays solid defense, blocks some shots. I don't understand why he gets less playing time than Zimmerman.

That's all I'll do here. Only Gabriel Harris has played over 100 minutes among the others and he's now out for the season. With Stefan Nastic, suffice it to say that his numbers in limited minutes are not good. His TO% is 35.3-- he turns it over on over a third of his touches. At 4.6%, he's got the top block % on the team, but I don't think his defense is good enough to merit any pt until he can cut down on the turnovers.

A few quick notes on team stats:

kenpom.com ranks Stanford as the 39th best team overall (2nd in the p12 behind Cal), the 91st best offense and the 19th best defense. There are 66.4 possessions in an average Stanford game (per team), the 203rd most in the country, meaning Stanford plays a slightly lower than average pace for D1.

The new book "Scorecasting," by University of Chicago Finance professor Tobias Moskowitz and Sports Illustrated journalist L. Jon Wertheim has received a fair bit of press (including in one of Timbo's columns) and its well deserved.  Adopting a similar model to "Freakonomics," not coincidentally also penned by a U. Chicago professor together wiith a journalist, the book focuses on demonstrating how economic and psychological influences affect virtually everything in sports, from the decisions made by coaches to subconscious influences on umpires.  The book is a fun read, doing a good job of combining storytelling with the numbers.  Ultimately, it was a little light on the numbers for my super nerdy tastes, and not totally convincing in every chapter.  The book also at times jumps around from topic to topic without going into enough depth on some of them.  Nevertheless a book I recommend to any sports fan, especially the type that enjoys books like "Freakonomics" or Malcolm Gladwell's "Outliers," a category that I fall squarely into.

The two most overarching themes of the book are the influences of "omission bias" and "loss aversion."  The authors use these two themes to explain why football coaches are so conservative when it comes to 4th down decision making, why referees are more likely to make a bad non call than a bad call (and why that's what the fans and league officials WANT), why even the top golfers treat the same putt (as far as location on the course) differently when its for birdie rather than bogey, among other examples.   This part of the book is convincing, if a bit obvious in places, but the examples the authors use to bring out the point are interesting and the storytelling is good.  The chapters about these themes fit very well together, which isn't the case for some of the later chapters, which as I mentioned, seem to jump around somewhat.

The chapter that's received the most buzz, not surprisingly, is the one that contends that officiating bias accounts for most of the home field advantage (HFA) that's seen across the sporting landscape.  While the authors are able to bring the conventional explanations for HFA into question (e.g. the crowd is shown not to affect basketball players shooting free throws, the velocity or location of pitches thrown by road teams or the accuracy of NFL kickers and the distance punters are able to kick; also, the importance of travel is shown to be unimportant-- though the authors do show that back-to-back games in the NHL and NBA do account for some of the HFA seen in those sports), they do not convincingly show that HFA is all, or mostly, due to officials bias.  They do document clear examples of said bias existing in many sports, and are able to quantify it in some cases, but sometimes they get a bit hand-wavy in their quantifications and in a few places their work has been questioned (e.g. here and here).  I came away with the feeling that officials bias is certainly a factor in HFA, but that more work needs to be done to quantify just how much of a factor it is and what explains the rest of it (though that's certainly not an easy thing to do).  This is still the most interesting chapter of the book in my opinion, and the authors make some excellent points--- there's just more that needs to be done.

--side note:  as one of their illustrative examples, the authors choose a pair of Blazers-Spurs games in the 54 win season... one where the Blazers were blown out in SA on a back-2-back despite Duncan and Ginobili missing the game, and the other just a few days later where the Blazers dominated the Spurs at the RG despite Duncan's return to the lineup--

In summary, "Scorecasting" was an enjoyable read that will give you some new things to watch for when you tune into sports.  Its well worth reading.

With a bit of a break in the schedule, it seems like a good time to run through some stats for the Blazers.  I used HoopData for the most part, and also Basketball Reference, Hollinger stats at ESPN.com and Basketball Valuea little bit.  *I just realized hoopdata is only updated through the 17th, so many of these player stats are 2 games out of date.  Whoops.*

PER is John Hollinger's catch-all metric.  APER is PER adjusted to use the percentage of a players fgs that are assisted, rather than the %AST for the whole team.

Usage% is a measure of the percentage of a team's posessions a player is involved in.

TS% is True Shooting Percentage (50*points scored/(FG Attempts+ 0.44 * FT Attempts), a metric intended to capture a player's scoring efficiency.

See the bbr glossary for info on these stats plus the other rate stats (reb rate, ast%, stl rate, etc.)

TEAM STATS (from basketball-reference)
Discrepancies with other sites in per possession stats are due to slightly different ways of determining the number of possessions.

Offense:

• The Blazers are 9th in the league in points per possession (108.4 points/100 possessions)
• Portland is 21st in effective FG% -- defined as (FGM+.5*3PM)/(FGA)-- at 48.2%
• The Blazers are 4th worst in the league at drawing fouls, with their ft/fga ratio at .214
• PDX is 7th best at limiting turnovers, turning it over on 13.1% of possessions.
• The Blazers are the league's best at offensive rebounding so far, recovering 32.9% of its own misses.

Defense:

• The Blazers are 16th in the league in limiting opponent points per possession (107.4 points/100 possessions).
•  Portland is 21st in defensive effective FG% -- at 50.7%
• The Blazers are 19th best at not fouling-- opponent ft/fga of .251 
• Surprisingly, Portland is forcing the 2nd most TOs-- 16.0% of defensive possessions.  Forcing TOs has never been a strength under Nate.
• The Blazers are 9th worst at defensive rebounding, allowing opponents to o-reb 29.1% of their misses.

Player Stats (mostly from hoopdata, some bbr, some basketballvale) 

--small sample size caveats still apply, especially with the 1 year plus minus stats--

I'll go in order of minutes played.  This year's stats are in bold, last year's stats are in parentheses.

LaMarcus Aldridge:

APER 17.39 (17.85), Usage: 22.6 (22.9), TS% .507 (.535), Offensive rebound rate 9.9 (8.1), Def rebound rate: 15.1 (18.6), Ast Rate 10.2 (10.2), Steal% 1.6 (1.3), Block % 2.6 (1.3), Turnover rate 8.6 (6.6)

1 year adjusted plus minus: +22.05  (last year's 1-year adjusted plus minus -0.85)  

Jksnake99's somewhat subjective take: LaMarcus is playing somewhat better help defense this year as seen in the block numbers.  He's also doing a great job on the offensive boards.  He's clearly trying to play inside more this year on offense also-- taking 8.6 shots within 10 feet per game this year (6.5 last year) and fewer shots from 10-15 feet and 16-23 feet.  Unfortunately, he's not making those in close shots with any degree of effeciency (as seen in the TS%).  He's also turning it over more and somehow even worse on the D-boards.  Speaking of the boards, you'd be hard pressed to find someone better on the O-boards and worse on the D-boards (though it is possible).  LA's got better numbers than Pau and Okafor on the O-boards and worse than Hedo and Jeff Green on the D-boards.  Overall, I see somewhat better effort but no more production.  He's 19th in APER among PFs playing at least 20 mpg.  You might argue that per minute stats are unfair to a player who's been asked to do yeoman's work in terms of playing time, and that's fair. Still, Hollinger estimates that even with all of LA's pt, there have still been 15 PFs who have produced more wins for their team.

Andre Miller:

APER 21.87 (20.16), Usage 21.44 (23.83), Ast Rate 33.64 (26.20), TO Rate 11.94 (10.19), TS% .545 (.530), Rebound Rate 5.8 (6.6), Stl % 3.3 (2.0)

1 year adjusted plus minus: +16.38 (2-year adjusted plus minus +11.35)

Jksnake99's somewhat subjective take: Andre Miller is known as a slow starter, but that's not been true whatsoever this year, as he's having one of the finest years of his career (his PER is as high as its been for season since he was a 25 year old Cleveland Cavalier.  Not much bad to say about his play so far this year.  In my view, he's been easily the best Blazer so far.  He's got the 8th best APER for PGs so far, behind only CP3, the hot-starting Russell Westbrook, Nash, Devin Harris, Rose, DWill and Tony Parker.

Brandon Roy:

APER 17.96 (22.94), Usage: 24.56 (26.75), TS% .526 (.568), Offensive rebound rate 1.5 (3.7), Assist Rate 11.81 (18.31), Steal % 2.2 (1.4), Block % 1.3 (0.5) 

1 year adjusted plus minus: +0.17 (last year's 1 year adjusted plus minus +0.06)

Jksnake99's somewhat subjective take:  Yikes.  The assist rate and offensive rebound rate just jump out at you.  The steal and block rates suggest that he's trying a little harder on D this year, which is nice.  Looking at Roy's shot locations makes one cringe though-- he's taken 2.3 shots at the rim per game this year, making 52% of them... last year, he made 63% of 4.1 shots at the rim per game (and the year before that 60% of 5.8 per game).  These numbers are very concerning-- they tale the tale of a still solid player, but a far cry from an allstar, let alone the revelation that was Roy '08-'09.  Blazer fans can only hope for the best regarding Roy's knee.  Its worth noting that Roy got off to a very slow start last year also before having a great December.  This feels different though.  SG is not as deep a position as PG this year, as only 11 SGs playing 20 mpg or more have better APERs than Roy so far.

Marcus Camby:

APER 16.75 (16.64), Usage: 12.74 (12.28), TS% .498 (.511), Offensive rebound rate 14.0 (14.2), Def rebound rate: 31.1 (29.9), Ast Rate 19.94 (15.86),  Turnover rate 9.57 (12.24), Steal% 1.2 (2.2), Block % 4.6 (4.8)

1 year adjusted plus minus: -5.99 (last year's 1 year adjusted plus minus +1.88)

Jksnake99's somewhat subjective take: Old man Camby can sure still rebound-- just Reggie Evans and Kevin Love have been better at it so far this year-- and he's contributed on offense as well, notably with some excellent high post passing.  Many of the numbers are right in line with what he's done for his career.  No sign of a dropoff yet.  Marcus's APER ranks 2 spots below LA on the list for PFs and would rank him 11th on the list for Cs.

Nicolas Batum:

APER 16.25 (16.11), Usage: 19.55 (16.41), TS% .601 (.646), Offensive rebound rate 6.3 (4.3), Def rebound rate: 12.6 (14.8), Ast Rate 9.58 (12.17),  Turnover rate 7.18 (7.47), Steal% 2.0 (1.2), Block % 1.6 (2.2)

1 year adjusted plus minus: -27.72 (last year's 1 year adjusted plus minus +4.50)

Jksnake99's somewhat subjective take: Batum has started the year nicely, but does not appear to have taken the sort of leap forward that would indicate real stardom is in his future.  He's still playing his role on offense highly efficiently (leading all rotation Blazers in offensive rating), but still isn't really creating much offense for himself (as such the PER to APER adjustment dings him somewhat).  Subjectively, it seems like he's been a little lazier on defense this year also, and he gets a share of the blame for Portland's defensive rebounding struggles.  Still, Batum's play has been solid, particularly for someone down the priority list in his team's offensive system.  Batum ranks 10th in APER among SFs playing at least 20 mpg.

Wesley Matthews:

APER 14.26 (12.86), Usage: 23.31 (16.48), TS% .559 (.592), Offensive rebound rate 3.4 (3.0), Def rebound rate: 9.7 (8.0), Ast Rate 10.19 (14.30),  Turnover rate 13.38 (10.73), Steal% 1.6 (1.5), Block % 1.0 (0.6)

1 year adjusted plus minus: -17.24 (last year's 1 year adjusted plus minus -3.41)

Jksnake99's somewhat subjective take: Wesley has performed well in his recent run as a starter, after getting off to a very rocky start as a reserve.  He's playing a much different role on offense than he did with the Jazz last year, as seen in his much higher usage, and was very inefficient off the bench, but much better these past few games as a starter.  He's made nearly 82% of his shots at the rim this year which will likely regress towards the 58% he made last year.  Hopefully his 3 pt % will regress towards last year's 38% from his 25% figure so far this year (I think it will).  Wesley would do well to take fewer long twos-- he's hitting at a 19% clip from 16-23 feet.  It'll be interesting to see how he does once he's relegated back to the bench with the return of Roy.

Dante Cunningham

PER 12.9 (14.3), TS% .506 (.517), Usage 13.1 (16.8), Ast Rate 15.92 (5.30), rebound rate 12.4 (14.0), Blk% 2.3 (2.5), Stl% 1.5 (1.9)

1 year adjusted plus minus: +6.26 

Jksnake99's somewhat subjective take: Dante's playing more minutes so far this year but is more or less the same player.  I like his energy and hustle but don't see him improving or expanding his game much.  I don't put much meaning into the much higher assist%, likely a small sample size fluke.

Rudy Fernandez:

APER 11.81 (12.79), Usage: 18.3 (17.7), TS% .523 (.540), Offensive rebound rate 0.9 (3.0), Def rebound rate:8.9 (11.2), Ast Rate 20.85 (19.09),  Turnover rate 8.94 (10.83), Steal% 2.6 (2.4), Block % 0.0 (0.3)

1 year adjusted plus minus: -10.68 (last year's 1 year adjusted plus minus -1.28)

Jksnake99's somewhat subjective take: Not a lot of good numbers to point to.  Rudy's hustle indicators are down for the most part and he's not hitting his shots at a good rate.  He's looked like he's been having a lot of fun during the home blowouts, but his minutes are down a tick overall and he's not been very productive during the competitive games in what minutes he has been given.  I was among those that questioned the logic of going with Wesley over Rudy to start in Brandon's place, but that looks to have been a solid move by Nate.

Armon Johnson:

APER 13.94, Usage: 22.5, TS% .563,  Ast Rate 27.16, Offensive rebound rate 1.7, Def rebound rate 9.4,  Turnover rate 18.80,  Steal% 1.0, Block % 0.5

1 year adjusted plus minus: +14.65

Jksnake99's somewhat subjective take: Pretty nice start to Armon's rookie season.  He's arguably been one of the top 10 players in his class so far.  Turnovers have been somewhat of a bugaboo for him, which hopefully get better as the season goes on. 

Its always fun to peruse the stats, and at this point in the season its important to remember that the sample size is too small to really make too many conclusions because of differences in schedule as well as game to game variance.  The first part of this post looks at some notable Blazer stats, and the 2nd part is intended for kicks, to remind us how little we actually know at this point.  Source is basketball-reference.com unless otherwise noted.

* The Blazers are really running like the wind this year.  We're up to 89.8 possessions per game from 87.7!  Still the 2nd slowest team in the league though. The fastest teams thus far are Minnesota, Houston, Memphis, Utah and Golden State.  The slowest teams are Cleveland, Miami, Milwaukee, Portland and Charlotte.

* The Blazers are off to another good start offensive efficiency wise, 109.6 pts/100 possessions, 7th in the league.  Portland's O-Eff last year was 110.8, which was also good for 7th.  The most efficient offenses so far are LAL, ATL, SAC, GSW and HOU.  The worst offenses are WAS, MIN, ORL, MIL and LAC.

* Defensively, the Blazers are allowing 102.7 pts/100 possessions (12th in the league), compared with 107.1 last year (15th in the league).  Best D's so far: MIA, DAL, ORL, BOS, DEN.  At the other end of the spectrum: PHX, SAC, DET... and then two big surprises right at the bottom: Charlotte and Houston.

* Andre Miller and Armon Johnson both have PER ratings (that's John Hollinger's catch-all stat) over 20, ranking them 14th and 15th in the league thus far at that position, well behind the top 5 of Westbrook (30.9 PER), Paul, Harris, Curry and Dragic.

* Roy's got an 18.8 PER right now, way down from last year (which was itself way down from the previous year).  Rudy's got a woeful 8.4 PER.  Wes Matthews' is 11.4, down from his 12.3 number last year.  Top SGs so far are Monta (26.5), Wade (25.8), Kobe, Cartier Martin and Ben Gordon.

* Batum's PER is 18.4, down from 30+ after 2 games, up from 17.3 last year.  Top SFs so far are Rudy Gay, Wilson Chandler, Granger, Cartier Martin (again!) and Richard Jefferson.  Durant is 6th.

* Aldridge leads the Blazers in PER at 21.1, which would be easily a career best.  Lots of PFs are off to good starts so that only ranks 17th among PFs, one spot behind Tyrus Thomas.  Top 5 so far are Scola, Millsap, P. Gasol, Dirk and Derrick Favors.

* Camby's PER sits at 18.6, just above his career averages.  Fabricio Oberto's PER is 0.9.  He's turned it over on a third of his possessions so far, just as he did last year.  Top C's so far by PER look a little less crazy than some of the other positions: Dwight, Horford, Hibbert, Brook Lopez and Ryan Hollins.

More fun facts after the jump.

* The players with the highest usage% so far are Rose, Wade, Durant, Lebron and Amare. Rose is on track to threaten Kobe's alltime record of 38.7% in 2005-2006 and would be #2 alltime (or at least since that stat's been kept).

* Your top 5 overall rebounders so far by rebound rate?  Reggie Evans, Ben Wallace, Kevin Love, Marcus Camby and Udonis Haslem.

* Rookie Derrick Favors leads everyone in Offensive Rebound %.  A Laker is 4th, but its not Gasol or Odom but Matt Barnes.

* Another rookie, John Wall, leads the league with a steal % of 4.9%.  Rudy's 3rd at 4.7%.  Impressive, but a certain Nate McMillan was able to maintain a stl% of 5.8% throughout the entire 1993-1994 season, to set the record.  Jeremy Lin's not impressed with that-- while he's played just 19 minutes (not enough for the basketball-reference leaderboard)... but has a steal rate of 12.9%.

* Speaking of rookies, high draft picks Favors (24.9), Wall (23.8) and DeMarcus Cousins (21.8) are the top 3 in rookie PER.  Armon Johnson is 5th so far.  The best rookie PER ever belonged to Wilt Chamberlain (28 in 1959-60).

* Our old friend James Jones leads the league in 3 pointers attempted and made this year (18/34).  Yeah, Miami's one of two teams (the other being the Blazers of course) who have played 5 games.

* Speaking of which, Roy and LA are #1 and #2 in total minutes played so far (#8 and #10 in minutes per game).

*Your early leaders in True Shooting %-- a metric for overall scoring efficiency, calculated as 50*points/(fga+0.44*fta):

1) Arron Afflalo .782 (he also leads everyone in offensive rating, at 170)

2) Lamar Odom .774

3) Ben Gordon .751

The TS% of these three players last season: .576, .533, .534, respectively.  

If you relax the requirements so everyone qualifies (regardless of how few shots they've taken), your TS% leaders are Pops Mensah-Bonsu (1.000), Marcin Gortat (.868) and Tyson Chandler (.842).

The alltime season record for TS%- at least since 1946-1947-- (among players who scored at least 500 points) is held by Artis Gilmore in 1981-1982, with a mark of .702.

* Rajon Rondo has an AST% of 60.7, ahead of Kidd (54.2) and Devin Harris (52.5).  John Wall is 4th. The top 10 marks in this stat (among those qualified for the assist title) are held by Stockton, Stockton, Stockton, Paul, Stockton, Stockton, Stockton, Stockton, Paul and Nash. The first non-Stockton/Paul/Nash on the list is Andre Miller for the Cavs in 2001-2002.  Rondo's on pace to break Stockton's alltime record of 57.5.

* Big men Tony Battie, Dan Gadzuric, Leon Powe and Omer Asik have yet to commit a TO this year.  Same with Dante Cunningham.  Hilton Armstrong makes Fab Oberto look careful with the ball-- in 39 minutes he's turned it over on 46.5% of his touches.

Lots happened in the sports world today--

The Texas Rangers evened their ALCS with the Yankees, 1-1.

The San Francisco Giants took game 1 of the NLCS over the Philadelphia Phillies.

Oregon State lost a thriller to Washington in football.

Oregon is likely to be ranked #1 in the AP Poll tomorrow as Ohio State lost to the Wisconsin Badgers.

Manchester United blew a 2 goal lead at home

Discuss it all and whatever else below.

UPDATE, 1:05 AM: I'M TOLD THERE WAS ALSO A BLAZER GAME LAST NIGHT, A GAME IN WHICH THE BLAZERS SCORED MORE POINTS THAN THEIR OPPOSITION, THE GOLDEN STATE WARRIORS.

Welcome to the jd.  92wastheyear suggested I use this photo since I am coming to you from the mezzanine level of the beautiful Jerry Yang and Akiko Yamazaki Energy and Environment Building (somewhat affectionately known as Y2E2) here in Stanford, CA.

via i902.photobucket.com

Today's theme is Sporcle, one of the best timewasters out there.  Today we have a few potentially fun looking games.  I will post my score after I take the quizzes. 

UPDATED WITH MY SCORES-- They are very beatable.  Not a great sporcling day for me.

Writers with 3 names (jksnake99's score: 42/136)

Things starting with P (jksnake99's score: 23/39)

3 named actors (jksnake99's score: 28/72)

French Prince of Bel-Air theme lyrics (jksnake99's score: 20/41)

Onto the poll, then junk away.

I stole this idea (and some of the songs) from this post over at McCovey Chronicles, SBN's San Francisco Giants blog.

There are some great cover versions of songs out there.  Some of them are even arguably better the original.

Here a few that I think fall into that category:

Hurt:  Johnny Cash>Nine Inch Nails

Big Yellow Taxi: Counting Crows>Joni Mitchell

All Along the Watchtower: Jimi Hendrix>Bob Dylan

Speaking of Dylan, there are those who will say that because of his voice, any of his songs is better as a cover than the original.  I don't fall into that category, but there certainly are some great covers of his songs, like Knocking on Heaven's door-- which do you think is best?

Bob Dylan...  Warren Zevon....  Guns n' Roses...  Wyclef Jean .......  Avril Lavigne

That has to be one of the most covered songs of all time, though I think I heard "Yesterday" by the Beatles is #1 in that category.

So, I'll throw it out to you:  which cover versions are better than the original?

Acceptable alternatives: 

* Covers you just think are awesome, but aren't necessarily better than the original (for example, Landslide:  Smashing Pumpkins (<,=,>?) Fleetwood Mac)

* Covers that are so bad they just make you angry and ruin the original (nominees might include Smooth Criminal: Alien Ant Farm <<<<<< Michael Jackson and Behind Blue Eyes:  Limp Bizkit <<<<<< The Who)

Finally, I just the other day stumbled upon a cover a really liked of a recent song:

Shankill Butchers: Sarah Jarosz >? The Decemberists

That last comment probably belongs up at the top, but whatevs.

On to the poll!!

Last year I did a stat heavy preview of the series against the Rockets and it was fairly well received.  This year, it seems like there's even more content out there, so I don't know how necessary this is...but I thought I'd do a similar post and open it up for some stat geeky (or otherwise) discussion of the series.  Whenever you have a team that has gone through as much transition as the Blazers have, season long stats are always a bit dubious, but I'm using them anyway.

Pace

Phoenix plays at the 4th fastest place in the league, averaging 95.3 possessions per game.  As we're used to, Portland plays at the league's slowest pace, averaging just 87.7 possessions/game.

Offense

Portland ranks 7th in offensive efficiency at 110.8 points/100 possessions while Phoenix's offense has blown away the league with an offensive rating of 115.3, an unbelievable 3.4 points better than the #2 offense in the league, belonging to Atlanta. 

As we're used to, Portland does a good job of getting more looks at the basket than its opponents, as the Blazers have the 2nd lowest turnover rate in the league and are 5th best on the offensive glass.  The Blazers also rank 5th in FT/FGA.  Collectively, these stats make up for a pedestrian effective field goal % of .499, 14th in the league.

Phoenix shoots a blistering efg% of .536, tops in the league.  About 26% of the shots are 3s, compared with about 21.5% for the Blazers.  The Suns have the 19th fewest TOs/possession, get the 7th most ORebs, and rank 11th in FT/FGA.

Defense

Portland's defense has come on strong of late, now that Batum and Webster are both healthy, and more importantly Juwan Howard is no longer the starting Center.  The Blazers ended the regular season ranked 15th in defensive efficiency at 107.1.  The Suns, always an underrated defensive team under D'Antoni (they were average, never bottom feeders) checked in at 23rd this year with a defensive efficiency of 110.2

The strength of the Blazer defense is controlling the defensive boards, not surprising given that Greg Oden, Joel Przybilla and current C Marcus Camby are all elite rebounders.  The Blazers were 8th in this category on the season.  The Blazers ranked 17th in efg% allowed, 16th in forcing turnovers and 14th in FT/FGA allowed.

The Suns allow a lower efg% than the Blazers, 11th best in the league.  The Suns, however, don't force turnovers at all (dead last), are 16th in FT/FGA against and 29th in controlling their defensive glass.  Portland will need to exploit the Suns weakness on the defensive glass to have any chance.

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Individual Matchups Follow Below

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Continue reading this post »

I am going to gush about Cornell Basketball for a while.  Feel free to skip to the junk.

via cmsimg.theithacajournal.com

Well, this first weekend of the NCAA tournament was one for the ages for mid-majors.  No fewer than 5 teams from outside the power conferences advanced to the sweet 16: the 5th seeded Butler Bulldogs, the 6th seeded Xavier Musketeers, the 9th seeded Northern Iowa Panthers, the 10th seeds St. Mary's Gaels and the 12th seeded Cornell Big Red.  The highlight for most folks was probably Northern Iowa's stunning upset of Kansas, but I'm going to focus on my alma mater, Cornell.

via cmsimg.theithacajournal.com

What happened this weekend was truly special.  Cornell became the first Ivy League team to make the sweet 16 since the tournament expanded to 64 teams, and they did so in dominant fashion.  If you missed Cornell's dissections of Temple and Wisconsin, you missed some of the most beautifully executed offensive basketball I have ever seen, as Cornell shot 56% and then 61% against two teams noted for their defense.  There have been plenty of Cinderella stories in the tourney but I don't know if there's ever been a 12 seed this utterly dominant in two upsets.  Certainly not an Ivy League team.  It was absolutely a weekend for the ages, and I can't even begin to explain how hard I would have laughed if you'd told me this would happen 5 years ago while I was there at Cornell watching them lose to Colgate in any empty gym.  Surreal.

If you want to read more about Cornell, read this by the great John Feinstein (I highly recommend his book on the Patriot League, "The Last Amateurs") or this from ESPN or this from Yahoo.

Next up for Cornell is a matchup against the "amateur" team from Lexington, Kentucky.  It will be billed as the ultimate matchup of amateur vs. "amatuer," egghead vs. 1 and done, "all that is good with collegiate sports" vs. "John Callipari is a cheater."  The game is this Thursday in Syracuse, about an hour from Cornell's campus, and I am hoping to make the trip.

BTW, congrats to all the other teams in the sweet 16, including g-love's Orange

via beta.images.theglobeandmail.com

brp's Buckeyes

via www.chron.com

and Cab's Huskies

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As I sat stewing in my seat late in the 3rd quarter while the group of Blazer fans (including the guy with the face paint) across from me continued with their "Let's Go Blazers!" chant, I already had the fanpost written in my mind.  I was going to write about how, yet again, I hopped on the BART and went down to Oracle only to see the Blazers outcoached, outhustled, out executed and outplayed by Monta Ellis, Stephen Curry, Corey Maggette, Anthony Morrow and a bunch of D-Leaguers.  

It was going to be bitter and sarcastic and depressing, even for me.  Hey guys, anyone want to run back on defense?  Anyone want to get a hand up on Morrow (I hear he's a shooter)?  Hey Nic, what are you doing out there-- did you really just follow up a turnover by turning your head and allowing a layup?  LaMarcus, are you really going to let Maggette completely dominate this matchup AGAIN? Brandon, enough of the "heeeeey" followed by not running back on D. Hey Nate, maybe give Dante some run-- you know, they guy who can defend on the perimeter and bring some energy-- instead of Juwan Howard who is just completely overmatched on D?  

At least Roy was playing a great offensive game, keeping the Blazers somewhat in the game.  When Rudy Fernandez hit the 3 at the end of the 3rd to cut the lead to 96-83, I'm sure a number of Blazers fans thought it was the turning point.  I'm sure it won't surprise any of you that I wasn't one of them.

The 4th quarter was bizarre.   The Blazers did play pretty good D, but the Warriors missed a ton of good looks.  There were audible groans in the arena every time Morrow or Curry missed a good look at a 3, or Ellis missed one of his stepbacks.  Meanwhile, the Warriors weren't going to let Roy get the ball easily and he was content to set up his teammates down the stretch.  You know the rest.  I won't bother doing Dave's job and recap the game.  I will say that I didn't feel good about the game until Monta fouled out to put Miller on the line with Portland up 1.  The crowd did not like that call, at all.  I still had faith in Portland's ability to blow it after Curry pulled them within 108-105.  This time, though, there would be no repeat of the Memphis game or any of Portland's other late game meltdowns.

It felt strange to be standing and applauding a Blazer win after I spent the first 3+ quarters stewing about yet another Oracle meltdown, but I liked it.  I do have to say, it was a pretty well executed comeback.  The Blazers are a good team, there's no doubting that, and fun to watch when they are in form.  Maybe next time we can actually play like we care for 2 full quarters and win comfortably?  

Nah, who am I kidding.

Hi folks, Blazer fan here. Hopefully this won't come off as too sour grapes, but I've been wondering why Jeff Green gets so much credit and is thought of as part of the Thunder "Big 3." I wanted to get your opinion.

Kevin Durant is an unbelievable player, one of the best scorers the league has ever seen and already a top 10-15 player in the league. I don't think he'll ever be as good as e.g LeBron, but he's already a great player and getting better.

Russell Westbrook is a great young piece. He's not the most efficient offensive player, but he's improved his playmaking and he's an incredible rebounder for a guard. More importantly, he's already a terrific defensive PG and could eventually be as good as Rajon Rondo on that end of the floor, and a triple double threat as well. I don't see him ever becoming a great shooter and I think he'll always have an issue with turnovers, but his defense alone makes him a huge asset. Very nice sidekick for KD.

That brings me to Jeff Green. I honestly don't understand why he is viewed as a good NBA player. He's shooting 44% from the field and 30% from 3 pt range. For the advanced stat geeks out there, he's got a .517 True Shooting% which is pretty terrible for a PF. Furthermore, he's a very below average rebounder for a 4 man. Putting it all together, he's got a below average PER of 13.4, which is actually down from his 13.9 PER from last year. There aren't many signs he's getting better. On defense, I think he's fine but nothing special. Looking at the adjusted plus minus data on basketballvalue paints an even worse picture. The Thunder have been better with him off the floor the past two years-- quite a bit better in fact. Now, as you folks know, that stat has plenty of noise in it, but while Durant's made a huge turnaround in this category helped by vast improvements in his D (and he was probably never as bad as it suggested), Green has made no such strides.

So, I ask you guys: How good is Jeff Green in your opinion and how big a part of OKC's "Big 3" is he?

Anyway, you guys have a great young team that plays great, inspired D and has a staggeringly talented scorer in Durant. I'm just curious about Green.

During events such as Grand Slam Tennis (other than the US Open), The Olympics (depending on the time zone) and The World Cup (also depending on the time zone), people like me get an idea of how our friends from across the pond as well as our ex-pat friends live as Blazer fans-- completely messing with their sleep schedule all for the love of sports.

So, I am thinking of all of you as I watch Federer run a free tennis clinic for Hanescu and "Muhammed Ali" Tsonga dismiss Taylor Dent with ease.

The Rip City Project did a good team stat post and included some individual stats, but I thought I'd run through each player and list some stats of interest, relying on basketball-reference.com, 82games.com and basketballvalue.com.

PER is John Hollinger's catch-all metric.  Cue Timbo's rant.

Usage% is a measure of the percentage of a team's posessions a player is involved in.

TS% is True Shooting Percentage (50*points scored/(FG Attempts+ 0.44 * FT Attempts), a metric intended to capture a player's scoring efficiency.

See the bbr glossary for info on these stats plus the other rate stats (reb rate, ast%, stl rate, etc.)

Jump Shot % is what I'm calling 82games' stat on the percentage of a player's shots that are jumpers.

Foul draw rate is 82games' stat on the percentage of shots in which a player draws a foul.

Continue reading this post »

A week into the NBA season, let's take a look at some stats.  This is not meant as any kind of analysis (sample sizes are way too small), merely for kicks.  I'm using basketball-reference.com and ESPN's Hollinger stats.

* Portland is playing slightly faster this season so far, but is still 27th out of 30 teams in pace factor.  The fastest teams thus far are Golden State, Phoenix, Atlanta (should be an interesting contrast in styles tonight), the Lakers and Philly.  The slowest teams are Boston, Portland, OKC, Charlotte and slowest of all, Detroit.

* Portland is not up at the top in offensive efficiency like last  year.  The Blazers are right in the middle, at 15th.  Orlando, Denver, Philly, Phoenix and Toronto have been the most efficient; Indy, Chicago, Milwaukee, New Jersey and Chicago the least.

* The Blazers have been statistically decent on D so far, ranking 10th in D-eff.  The most successful Ds have been Boston, Miami, Charlotte, Dallas and Oklahoma City; the least: Sacramento, Indy, New York, Toronto and (worst of all) Memphis.

* The top PGs by Hollinger's PER so far: CP3, Arenas, George Hill, Billups and Parker.  Aaron Brooks is 6th, thanks to us.  Andre is 38th and Blake is 43rd.

* Top SGs: Vince, Rip, Lou Williams, Kobe and Ben Gordon.  Roy is 6th.  Rudy is 20th.

* Top SFs: 'Melo (leads everyone in PER), Pierce, LeBron, Azubuike and Grant Hill.  Outlaw (lists as an SF) is 19th and Webster is for some reason listed as an SG (Hollinger fail) but would be 20th among SFs.

* Top PFs: Marreese Speights (2nd overall), Blatche, Bosh, Ryan Anderson and Zbo.  LOL.  Bargnani is 6th.  Josh Smith is 8th.  Aldridge is 36th.  Juwon is 70th with a PER of 0.88.  I really hope we don't have to play him tonight.

*Top Cs: Dwight, Duncan, Blatche (listed here as well as PF), Rasho Nesterovic and Marc Gasol.  Frye is 9th.  Oden is 28th and Joel is 56th.

More fun facts after the jump.

Continue reading this post »

We've all heard it and talked about it nearly ad nauseum.  Depending on which stat geek's numbers you look at, Portland had either the #1 or the #2 offense in the NBA this year.  Defense was the primary issue with the Blazers all year long.

As we've discussed, offensive rebounding and Brandon Roy's 1v1 brilliance were both big parts of that.  During the season, a number of posters expressed the concern that this made Portland's offense less bankable for the playoffs.  I was skeptical.  I expected our offense to be just fine in the playoffs.

It wasn't.  

Houston made one of the NBA's most efficient offenses look like its one of its worst.  According to John Hollinger, Portland averaged 103.0 points per 100 possessions in the playoffs, down from 110.7 in the regular season.  The 103.0 mark was good for 9th best in the playoffs, and would have ranked the Blazers 23rd in the regular season.  *aside:  Houston's playoff efficiency was 106.3, compared to their regular season mark of 105.4, so while Portland's D didn't get killed, they did allow the Rockets to do better than their season average, though the D was a lot better after game 1.*

So, now we have to ask ourselves what happened to the Blazer offense.  Of course, we expect the effeiciency to drop against the Rockets, who sported the league's 4th best defense this year... but should it have dropped as far as it did?  Is the Blazer offense not built for the playoffs?  Was Houston just a really bad matchup?  Did the players just not produce?  All of the above?

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Going a little deeper, we can look at Portland's offensive "4 factors" for the regular season and the playoffs (thanks Royster)

eFG%: .511 to .484
TOV%: .125 to .120
ORb%: .326 to .237
FTA/FGA: .234 to .201

The first thing that jumps out here is that Portland's offensive rebound rate dropped by nearly 30%.  Looking at the 2 late regular season games Portland played in Houston (the Rockets were a totally different team with TMac in the early season Blazer win), the Blazers O-reb rate was .241, so here it appears that the matchup limited Portland's offensive rebounding advantage-- the Rockets are a good defensive rebounding team.

As far as efg% goes, Portland's efg% in those two late season games vs. Houston was 0.481, again very similar to the playoff numbers.  Yet again, we appear to be looking at something matchup dependent rather than playoff dependent.  Small sample size caveats apply to any numbers here-- we're dealing with 2 regular season games and 6 playoff games.

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What about individual players?  I'll just point out a few notable things. 

Brandon Roy was outstanding in the playoffs, accumulating a PER of over 26 (two points higher than his regular season mark), good for 8th in the playoffs.  He scored the ball nearly as effeciently as he did in the regular season, which is remarkable given the defenders he was facing.  Notable, however, is that his usage rate climbed from 27.5 in the regular season to 33.1 in the playoffs-- Portland relied on him even more.  Despite this, Roy saw his assist rate cut by about 40%.  In those two late season games against Houston, Roy had 5 and 6 assists.  In the playoffs, Roy reached the 5 assist plateau just once, in game 4.  Help me out-- was this primarily due to Roy passing less or teammates just missing shots?

By far the most striking difference in a player's true shooting % numbers from regular season to the playoffs was Travis Outlaw's .379 mark, compared to .541 in the regular season.

Greg Oden's rebound rate was 15% lower than in the regular season.  Joel Przybilla's was 25% lower.  LaMarcus Aldridge's was 5% lower.  I think we can all agree that Houston winning the rebound battle was a huge factor in the series.

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Collecting a few opinions:

Kevin "KP2" Pelton answered my question in one of his chats:

Jacob (CA): Kevin, what's your diagnosis for Portland's awful offensive showing in these playoffs? Too much 1v1 play? Relying on offensive rebounding too much? Just a great job by Houston? Where does Portland go from here?

Kevin Pelton (Basketball): The thing is, the Blazers' offense should in theory be much easier to translate into the playoffs than teams that rely on transition offense or something like that. That was the premise of a piece I wrote for Sports Northwest Magazine earlier this year. Dependence on outside shooting did make them somewhat vulnerable, but end games in the playoffs are all about 1-on-1 play (as one person remarked during Boston-Chicago Game 5, "We play a team game for six months. Then it's all about the individuals in the playoffs."), so ... . I think a lot of the credit has to go to the Rockets, who made the Blazers really like discombobulated at times in the series.

John Hollinger touched on this in his insider gems piece on May 1. Since its insider, I won't paste the whole thing (link here), but here's an exerpt:

Portland's elimination in the first round was a disappointment to anyone who saw how well they played in the regular season, and what stood out was the total no-show by the Blazers' secondary players.

Throughout the season, Portland leaned on Brandon Roy and LaMarcus Aldridge, just as they did in the playoffs. But the Blazers also got a lot of production from players like Travis Outlaw, Steve Blake, Rudy Fernandez, Joel Przybilla, Nicolas Batum and Greg Oden -- production that completely dried up against Houston.

There's a need for more players who can get their own shot instead of having Roy get it for them.

Jksnake99's two cents:  I still feel Portland's offense is excellent, albeit far from perfect.  Against most playoff opponents, defense still would have been our biggest concern.  However, against teams like Houston-- teams that don't have to double team Roy and have the horses to limit Aldridge and neutralize Portland's rebound advantage, the Blazers are still vulnerable.  Possible solutions include running more, establishing Oden as a legit option, or getting someone else who can create his own shot (Outlaw wasn't that guy in these playoffs-- could Rudy be that guy next year?).  I do think this series was still very winnable, despite the clear matchup problems presented by Houston-- the Blazers needed a better effort on the glass, more consistent production from Aldridge and a lot more out of Outlaw.  Rudy shot the ball well, but his ast/to ratio (better than 1 during the regular season) was a woeful 0.32-- that didn't help either.  There was plenty of blame to go around.

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Your turn:  

- What happened to Portland's Offense?  

- Why did Roy's ast % drop so much?

- How was Houston able to neutralize Portland's offensive rebounding?  Would this have happened against a different matchup?

- What needs to change against teams like Houston?

- What needs to change in general?

- Other thoughts?