Editor's Note (2016-11-08): The Career Table for Allan Houston's Career has been updated to reflect the difference in Allan's performance while on Art's program and off it.
Preface
Art Rondeau is a friend of the site that has some great stories about his time being a shooting coach to various Knicks players. Art approached me recently with one of the most fascinating data sets I've ever seen. Art coached Allan Houston on his shooting during the 1999-2000 NBA season. As luck would have it, it turned into a perfect case study to explore the statistical significance of Art's coaching methodology. And that's what makes this remarkable. Allan's performance on Art's program was so much better than off it; I was continually shocked by the data. I'll let you read through the nitty-gritty statistical details below, but I had to impress just how fascinating these results were.
Introduction
The following is a case study done on Allan Houston’s shooting efficiency and production during the 1999-2000 NBA season. During this season Allan Houston was coached by Art Rondeau before various games, utilizing Art’s “Mental Zone Program” based on neuro-linguistic programming (NLP). This study shows Allan Houston’s performance was dramatically better in games in which he was coached by Art before the game.
I just want to stress that I did this study based on the documentation Art kept, which has been corroborated in legal settings, as well as in articles written about their work together. In short, my stamp of approval rests on the strength of the data Art provided.
Statistics Glossary
- 2P% - This is the percentage of shots a player makes from two-point range.
- 3P% - This is the percentage of shots a player makes from three-point range.
- Effective Field Goal Percentage (EFG%) – This is a player’s shooting efficiency adjusting for shots from three-point range.
- Free Throw Percentage (FT%) – This is a player’s efficiency from the free throw line.
- True Shooting Percentage (TS%) – This accounts for the number of points a player scores adjusted for threes and free throws.
- Net Points (NP) – This is the player’s total points minus their shots and 0.44 shots per free throw. The reason is that not every free throw ends the possession, and 0.44 is the estimate of free throws that end the play. Net Points is essentially a player’s True Shooting but done to also show their volume of shots in the game.
- Wins Produced (WP) – This is an advanced stat that estimates the number of Wins a player contributes to their team. It has three key components
- The value of a player’s box score statistics as they relate to wins.
- Team adjustments for rebounds, assists, and defense.
- Comparing a player’s performance to players that play the same position.
- Points over Par (PoP) - This is a variant of the Wins Produced Formula above. The only difference is that instead of being conveyed in wins it is conveyed in point margin. Essentially this is the number of points by which a team of average players plus the player being evaluated would be expected to beat a team of average players on a neutral court. For reference, 0 is average.
- Points over Par per 48 (PoP48) – This is a players’ Points over Par adjusted for 48 minutes, or what we’d expect from a player if they played one full NBA game.
- Simple Rating System (SRS) – This is a team metric. This is the strength of schedule margin of victory for a team. A bigger number implies a better team.
The 1998-1999 NBA Season
Art Rondeau was coaching New York Knicks player Chris Dudley on free throws during the 1998-1999 NBA season. Through this relationship, he was introduced to Allan Houston. Allan asked for Art's assistance to help him break out of an eight-game slump in April 1999. Art coached Allan with his "Mental Zone Program" the day before a game against the Charlotte Hornets.
Allan Houston’s Stats on 4/23 versus the Charlotte Hornets
- 8 for 12 from Two-Point range (66.7% 2P%)
- 2 for 3 from Three-Point range (66.7% 3P%)
- 8 for 8 from the line (100% FT%)
- 81.0% True Shooting
- +6.5 Points over Par
The Knicks won the game by 5 points, meaning that Allan's performance and his +6.5 Points over Par were critical. The Knicks made the playoffs by one game, beating the Charlotte Hornets out by one game meaning this game had extra significance. One game is a small sample. There are a variety of reasons Allan Houston's performance could have changed so dramatically. However, this game was the reason that Allan Houston decided to hire Art for the 1999-2000 season.
The 1999-2000 NBA Season
Allan Houston hired Art to coach him before games in the 1999-2000 season. For a variety of reasons, Art coached Allan before 30 regular season games and did not coach him in the other 52 regular season games. It turns out for doing a statistical study of the coaching effectiveness this was actually ideal. Below is a breakdown between the two sets of games.
| Games | FT% | 2P% | 3P% | TS% | NP | WP | PoP48 | Team Record | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| On Art's Program | 30 | 84.8% | 58.6% | 54.2% | 66.2% | 182.2 | 5.3 | +3.5 | 20-10 (67%) |
| Off Art's Program | 52 | 83.1% | 43.2% | 38.1% | 50.8% | 13.8 | 1.3 |
-2.12 |
30-22 (58%) |
Regarding further validating this dataset, there are some more important factors
- 25 games off Art’s program were away games
- 27 games off Art’s program were home games
- 16 games on Art’s program were away games
- 14 games on Art’s program were home games
- Allan Houston was 28 during the 99’-00’ Season
- Allan Houston was not in a contract year
- Allan Houston had the same coach (Jeff Van Gundy) as the year before.
- Many of Allan Houston’s teammates were the same.
The key behind these factors is it provides similar datasets with few outside factors that might impact Allan’s performance jump.
One more pertinent factor is the opponent SRS
| Games on Art’s program | +0.157 SRS average for opponent faced |
| Games without Art’s program | -0.35 SRS average for opponent faced |
To clarify, Allan's games on Art's program were against stronger opponents on average than those off of it. Using a one-tailed unpaired T-Test on and off Art's program provides the following:
- 0.000145346 in difference for Allan’s Points over Par per Minute
- 0.000000247518 in difference for Allan’s Net Points per Minute
To clarify, a value close to 0 (and both of these values round to 0 at three decimal places) implies, with almost 100% statistical certainty, that Allan's performance on Art's program was better than off it. When we remove non-shooting factors, which are captured in Points over Par, it gets even stronger. In short, Allan's shooting numbers on Art's program were drastically different and drastically better than off it.
Team by team Breakdown
The Knicks faced 28 NBA teams during the 1999-2000 season. A further breakdown gets us to:
- 16 opponents with at least one game with Allan on and one game off the program
- 10 opponents all games off the program
- 2 opponents all games on the program
In terms of aggregate performance
- Against teams that he played both on and off Art’s program, Allan Houston had an average PoP48 of +3.2 in the games he was on Art’s program.
- Against teams that he played both on and off Art’s program, Allan Houston had an average PoP48 of -3.42 in the games he was off Art’s program.
- Against teams that he never played while on Art’s program, Allan Houston had an average PoP48 of -1.06.
- Against teams that he only played while on Art’s program, Allan Houston had an average PoP48 of +5.5. Since this sample is only four games and two teams (the Kings and the Mavericks, both two games) I feel compelled to highlight it.
Additionally, of the 16 opponents Allan played both on and off Art’s program, he only showed better performance off the program against three of them:
The Atlanta Hawks
- +1.03 PoP48 off the program (2 games)
- +0.25 PoP48 on the program (1 game)
The Miami Heat
- +1.5 PoP48 off the program (1 game)
- +0.9 PoP48 on the program (3 games)
The Milwaukee Bucks
- +3.2 PoP48 off the program (3 games)
- +0.280 PoP48 on the program (1 game)
I’ll note that 0 PoP48 is “average” production and Allan did still play above average on Art’s program against all of these opponents. Allan predominantly played below average whenever he was off Art’s program.
The All-Star Break
Part of the key to Art's coaching was the impact made to the 2000 All-Star game. Art was hired to get Allan Houston selected to his first NBA All-Star team. Allan was, in fact, selected to the All-Star team that season. What's more, Knicks head coach Jeff Van Gundy was named the Eastern Conference coach of the All-Star game due to the Knicks record, which was 1/2 game better than the Miami Heat's record at selection time. Here is some data about how Allan's performance impacted the Knicks' record before the All-Star game.
99'-00' Regular Season Pre All-Star Break
| Games | FT% | 2P% | 3P% | TS% | NP | WP | PoP48 | Team Record | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| On Art's Program | 24 | 84.0% | 58.0% | 54.0% | 65.6% | 139.6 | 4.2 | +3.4 | 17-7 (71%) |
| Off Art's Program | 23 | 81.4% | 40.6% | 38.4% | 49.2% | -6.84 | 0.57 | -2.3 | 12-11 (52%) |
I applied the same one-tailed unpaired T-Test from before, and it has the following values:
- 0.000355606 in difference for Allan’s Points over Par per Minute
- 0.000000647886 in difference for Allan’s Net Points per Minute
Once again, the difference is statistically significant, even more so when we remove any of the non-shooting statistics.
One other test I applied was to see how many game results changed. If we replaced Allan Houston's performance with an average performance (replace his Points over Par with 0), we could ask the following question: "How many games would have had different results if Allan had been replaced with an average player?"
Different Result games off Art’s Program before the All-Star Game
| Date | Opponent | Result | Result w/ Average Player |
|---|---|---|---|
| 12/5/1999 | Denver | L(-2) | W(+6) |
| 12/30/1999 | Washington | W(+3) | L(-1) |
| 1/8/2000 | Cleveland | L(-3) | W(+3) |
Different Result games on Art’s Program before the All-Star Game
| Date | Opponent | Result | Result w/ Average Player |
|---|---|---|---|
| 11/27/1999 | Orlando | W(+3) | L(-4) |
| 12/20/1999 | Charlotte | W(+3) | L(-1) |
| 1/4/2000 | Boston | W(+8) | L(-1) |
| 1/24/2000 | Seattle | W(+6) | L(-4 |
If Allan had been replaced by an average player in four games on Art's program, we would have expected the Knicks to have lost. Additionally, the Knicks would have netted an additional win with an average player instead of Allan Houston in the games Allan was not Art's program. Given their significance to Jeff Van Gundy being selected as the Eastern Conference All-Star coach, I feel these games are relevant.
Art's Program in the Context of Allan's Career
Allan produced 5.3 Wins and had a Points over Par per 48 of +3.5 under Art's program. This was similar to Anfernee Hardaway on a per-minute basis in 1999-2000 or James Harden in the 2015-2016 season. Here is a breakdown of Allan's Wins and PoP48 for his entire career by season.
| Season | Games | Minutes per Game | Wins Produced | PoP48 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1993-1994 | 79 | 19.2 | -5.1 | -8.1 |
| 1994-1995 | 76 | 26.3 | 2.4 | -1.3 |
| 1995-1996 | 82 | 37.5 | 4.1 | -1.1 |
| 1996-1997 | 81 | 33.1 | 0.1 | -3.0 |
| 1997-1998 | 82 | 34.7 | 1.6 | -2.2 |
| 1998-1999 | 50 | 36.3 | 0.6 | -2.6 |
| 1999-2000 | 82 | 38.6 | 6.6 | 0.0 |
| 1999-2000 - On Art's Program | 30 | 40.0 | 5.3 | +3.5 |
| 1999-2000 - Off Art's Program | 52 | 37.9 | 1.3 | -2.1 |
| 2000-2001 | 78 | 36.6 | 4.0 | -1.0 |
| 2001-2002 | 77 | 37.8 | 0.8 | -2.7 |
| 2002-2003 | 82 | 37.9 | 3.1 | -1.6 |
| 2003-2004 | 50 | 36.0 | 0.5 | -2.7 |
| 2004-2005 | 20 | 26.6 | -0.2 | -3.6 |
*As noted the table has been updated to reflect Allan's 2000 numbers both on and off Art's program. As additional clarification, the 30 games under Art exceeded the production Allan had in any other NBA season in his career.
In the 30 games on Art's program, Allan Houston produced more wins than he was able to produce in any other full season in his NBA career. Of course, his PoP48 for the other seasons he played never reached his 1999-2000 level. We can note that statistically, Allan Houston was, in fact, a below average player for almost all of his career, except for the 1999-2000 season under Art! I should also stress that Allan Houston's good performance was almost entirely driven by his scoring. Allan's non-scoring stats were below average for a wing both for the 1999-2000 season and for his career.
Another interesting career note is that if we look at Allan Houston's top 100 regular season game, 12 of his top games were those coached by Art during the 1999-2000 season. Of course, his game against Charlotte on 4/23/1999 is also on the list. Thirteen games may seem small, but I'll note that Allan was only coached by Art for 31 games and had a career of over 800 games! I've included asterisks next to which games were in the top 100 below.
Final Note
When Art first approached me about this, I'll be candid. I was expecting to find some mostly noisy data that I'd have to shrug my shoulders at. As you can see the performance difference in the 1999-2000 season alone is absurd. Looking across Allan's entire career makes the contrast even more apparent. I'll reiterate that my endorsement of this report is based on Art's data. That said, I don't know if there's any player in NBA history with a 10+ season career that has thirty games in one season that are so much different than the rest of their career. All I can say to Art is thanks for one of the most interesting case studies I've seen in NBA analytics history.
-Dre
Art Rondeau Bio and Contact Info
Provided courtesy of Art Rondeau:
"Art Rondeau has developed two programs that have achieved unique results with NBA and other elite athletes. His free throw program quickly helps chronically-bad free throw shooters overcome the physical causes of most misses and significantly improve their shooting percentages. Clients utilizing Art's "mental zone program", based on Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) and the subject of this case study, have, among other things, become an NBA All-Star, won a World Cup skiing Gold Medal, and upset a world-ranked WTA tennis player. You can read Art's blog - Game Time at the Garden of Good and Evil - at artrondeau.wordpress.com and follow him on Twitter (@artrondeau)."
Appendix - Allan Houston Games on Art's Program
Here is the list of dates for the games that Allan was prepared for by Art (games marked with an asterisk denote one of Allan's top 100 regular season career games using Points over Par):
11/2/99 vs CLE, 11/3/99 at CHI*, 11/5/99 at DET*, 11/6/99 at CLE, 11/8/99 vs MIL, 11/11/99 at MIN*, 11/14/99 vs MIA, 11/16/99 at DEN, 11/19/99 at PHO, 11/20/99 at GSW, 11/27/99 vs ORL*, 11/29/99 vs DAL, 12/12/99 vs BOS, 12/14/99 at HOU, 12/16/99 at DAL, 12/20/99 vs CHA , 1/4/00 vs BOS*, 1/7/00 at ORL, 1/12/00 at DET, 1/24/00 vs SEA*, 1/30/00 vs SAC*, 2/1/00 vs ORL, 2/6/00 vs MIA*, 2/7/00 at CHA, 3/17/00 at CHA*, 3/21/00 at IND, 3/24/00 vs ATL, 3/28/00 at SAC*, 4/9/00 at MIA, 4/18/00 vs DET*