The Numbers Of Greatness
Defining better, of course, is the hard part. Inspiring greater hustle and defensive effort could be one aspect, but that would be pretty hard to quantify. Another aspect, one that is quantifiable, is the ways in which Kobe and LeBron improve the shooting percentages of their teammates. After all, superstars draw attention from the opponent and make the game easier for their teammates. Theoretically, then, their teammates should be more effective shooters while Kobe and LeBron are in the game.
To see the duo’s impacts on their teammates’ shooting percentages, I took a look at the play-by-play data from the past three seasons. For each player, I examined how each of their teammates shot from various locations (close, midrange, 3-pointers) when the given superstar was in the game versus how they shot when he was out.
So Jon Nichols who moonlights here and 3QC OPP as well as basketballstatistics.com has recently joined the NY Times NBA Blog “Off The Dribble.”
So just to review, our first stats writer now works for an NBA team, and our second stats writer is writing for the New York Times. So if you like numbers, perhaps you should be dropping me your email (Of course, I can’t get a gig for MYSELF, but whatev, I’m apparently the Monster.com of NBA stats writers).
Anyway, Nichols chimes in with a brief look at the age (Puppet-)old debate of Kobe-LeBron. This time he looks at their relative impacts on the performances of their teammates. This is one case where the opposite of the triangle-effect occurs, I think. The triangle naturally limits the number of dimes Kobe can rack up, but it also creates a higher percentage of open three pointers for mediocre players like Derek Fisher and Sasha Vujacic and Rick Fox and Mark Madsen and Vlad Radmanovic and ahem… Trevor Ariza.
Clearly the only rational answer to this conundrum is to require LeBron to play in a triangle system. So let’s make that happen. I don’t want to hear about practical concerns or reality. Just make it happen so we can solve this very important debate.
Oster-Tags: cleveland cavaliers, kobe bryant, lebron james, Los Angeles Lakers
