And For Their Next Trick, HoopData Will Blow Your Mind
What you just experienced was a moving montage of each season since 1999-00, in terms of offensive efficiency and usage among active players. That was just for kicks. Now let me attempt to fully explain the power of this chart and describe its nearly limitless array of functions. Try not to jump ahead as I walk you through this. Come along for the ride.The color of the data points are not random. They actually represent each player’s minutes per game MPG for that season. You can see the colorful scale in the top right, beneath the MPG field. In this case, blue indicates a bench player and red indicates a player who rarely got any time on the pine. I weeded out all the seasons with less than 10 minutes of action per game to eliminate outliers.
So how is this useful? Take a look at Monta Ellis while in the year 2010 which you should be if you haven’t rushed ahead. You can find him all red-faced at the intersection of 30 USG% and 100 ORtg. He is the new Allen Iverson– the star Jack Russell terrier who racks up tons of points but does so inefficiently. Want another possession-waster? Look for a sunburnt circle west of 25 USG and south of 100 ORtg. That’s Trevor Ariza. Can’t see him? Click and on the intersection of 80 ORtg, 25 USG% and drag to create a box up to ORtg 100, 15 USG%. Bam! There he is in his orange glory. He’s still a valuable asset for the future even if he’s struggling in his new role.
via Hoopdata – NBA: Where Motion Happens.
I cannot tell you how amazing I consider this tool to be. Not just in terms of how pretty it is, but to be able to track, consider, and analyze players’ comparative performance across time in a visual format? It immediately brings a different perspective. Being able to see where precisely players’ growth spurt and decline begin is fascinating, and could allow us to keep those things in mind when looking at similar players. It puts things in context (try Bosh vs. Melo, PER vs. Time), and brings us to another level of understanding. It’s nothing that changes the way we look at the game, but it’s a phenomenally useful tool.
In short, GO CLICK NOW. KTHXBAI.
