When the 2015 All-Star game starters were announced, the Atlanta Hawks and Golden State Warriors both sat atop their respective conferences. Halfway through the season, neither team has hit double digits in losses. And yet, according to the voters, the two teams only have one clear-cut All-Star between the two of them. The "Yay! Points!" thesis is nothing new – fans have overvalued points for years. But perhaps, after years and years of data, it's time to redefine what makes a player a star.
Shooting is overrated. Stop saying otherwise!
I get into this argument a lot. We like scorers. The reality is that most NBA players can hit roughly 50% true shooting. This means that for around every shot they take, we can expect them to score a point. And at that rate, it's really easy to score twenty points a night – just take twenty shots! I've heard all sorts of reasons why players who have used this trick – Allen Iverson, Carmelo Anthony, an aged Kobe Bryant – are secretly valuable: they're creating space; they cause mismatches for the defense. But the existence of players like LeBron James and Kevin Durant knock this idea down (for older readers, you can go with Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, or Kareem Abdul-Jabbar instead). The NBA has players who take lots of shots while shooting efficiently. Yes, these players are valuable. But there is nothing intrinsicly valuable about simply hoisting up a shot. Those shots have to go in! We need to stop falling for this myth.
Teamwork isn't completely intangible
On offense, the Warriors and Hawks both sit atop the NBA in terms of three point shooting efficiency. And as it happens, the Hawks assist on a ton of their shots. At 90%, the Hawks have the best assist rate for three pointers. Players who take good shots and pass the ball are typically considered to be "team players". Suprisingly, your little league coach was right: teamwork can win games (at least in regards to passing the ball). And guess what? We already track and credit players for passing the ball and taking good shots! We've been a huge fan of Kyle Korver around here for a while, and he's been even better this season! By conventional wisdom (ie: points) he doesn't seem to be a star, but if you pay attention to assists and shooting efficiency, we see that he's one of the best players in the league. The same is also true about Jeff Teague, who has an excellent shooting efficiency as well as a great assist rate. We often view teamwork as some nebulous thing, and that there's no easy way to quantify it. But there is! We keep track of assists and misses.
Defense and teamwork
One area where people will bring up teamwork is defense. And there's a few parts here. First, with steals, personal fouls, blocks, and rebounds, the NBA keeps almost as many defensive stats as offensive stats in the classic boxscore. With modern day SportsVU stats, we're getting even more stats. And using these stats, a player like Thabo Sefolosha looks great. It's just the case that a shooting guard who gets 11.2 rebounds per 48 minutes will not get the same attention as one that gets fifteen points a game.
Now, we actually do think defense is largely a team activity – it's part of the Warriors' secret sauce. Their opponents have some of the worst shooting in the NBA. The Hawks are similar here. Here, the idea that the team trumps the individual might be true. But it's not as if the output of the teamwork isn't obvious. By playing good defense, both teams keep their opponents from scoring and thus win more games. And it turns out that this is much harder than simply taking lots of shots. It's a lot easier for a player to up his reputation by simply upping the number of shots he takes. This season alone, players like J.R. Smith and Dion Waiters have taken a ton of shots on teams with much better scorers. Most fans and analysts would take Dion Waiters over Thabo Sefolosha, but pretty much the only thing going in Waiters' favor is that he scores more points. Sefolosha shoots more efficiently – and more importantly, a lot less – and does a lot more to help his team win. So why is Waiters a "bigger" name than Sefolosha?
Summing Up
We need to stop acting as if players that buy into team oriented things are doing something easy. We have years of data on the NBA. It's littered with players who were considered stars simply because they took a lot of shots. It's without a doubt the easiest formula to getting accolades, getting paid, and getting credit. Yet, we do know that defense, passing, and good shot selection is key for winning games, and we know that most players have a hard time with these. When you find yourself saying "the reason they succeed is because of teamwork!", realize that every player on that team had to make a concerted effort to play team basketball. And also realize that that isn't easy. Maybe that's something we should be rewarding and focusing on instead of players who just shoot a lot. And maybe, that should enter your criteria when considering a player a star.
Speaking of the All-Star game, that will be the subject of tonight's Boxscore Geek's show! You can watch it live at 9:30 pm EST on Monday. Here's a link!