The offense is flawed

[bryan colangelo]

I see that this Hardwood Paroxysm jackass is trying to start shit again in one of the replies. Fuck him.

He's just trying to manufacture controversy, click-throughs. Most basketball journalists know that the Raptors have some of the most active online (and easy-to-bait) fan bases in the league.

[caccia]

Actually, after thirteen games, the team ranks:

2 in offensive rating
5 in defensive rating
2 in offensive turnover %
2 in defensive turnover %
2 in FT to field goals attempted
3 in points per game
5 in opponents' points per game

It's not hard to refute this ignoramus.

[octothorp]

But I wonder if our low Opp. FT % has anything to do with who we are fouling. Maybe we're just fouling a lot of big guys. Our poor rebounding would contribute to that if we are giving up lots of O-boards.

Good topic for analysis. I looked at each of our games (skipping over the massive blowouts and losses), and looked at who misses more than one shot on the other team, to see if we were benefiting from unusually poor shooting.

Atlanta (9-17, 7pt margin of victory)
Millsap (5-9) - he's .643 on the season, so this was not unusual for him
Brand (0-2) - he's .250 on the season
verdict: we fouled bad free-throw shooters. They would have had to shoot unusually well to change the outcome of the game.

Orlando(12-24, 13pt MoV)
Vucevic (0-2) - he's normally a solid shooter so this was unusual
Payton (4-8) - .444 on the season
verdict: the MoV exceeds the number of misses, but even so most of the misses came from a guy who's been an awful shooter for his position, this far in his career.

Miami
verdict: We lost this game because three good free-throw shooters on our team shot a combined 20-35. If you're looking to adjust record for average free-throw-shooting, count this game as a win.

Oklahoma (14-25, 12pt MoV)
Reggie Jackson (5-8) - he's an excellent shooter, so this was uncharacteristic
Telfair (2-4) - another solid shooter
Adams (4-6) - he's .500 on the season, so he exceeded his average against us
Perkins (0-2) - .556 on the season

verdict: You'd expect Jackson and Telfair in particular to do better. But Oklahoma would have had to have been 24-of-25 to make up the margin of victory.

Boston - (17 of 18, 3pt MoV)

verdict: Boston shot ridiculously well, but even if they had been perfect it wouldn't have covered MoV.


Washington (21-32, 19pt MoV)
Nene (3-8) - .532 on season
Humphries (5-7) - .714 on season
Miller (2-4) - .636 on season

verdict: Obviously foul shots were not going to make a difference in this game, but once again forced their worst FT shooter to take most of their FTs.

Philadelphia (12-18, 32pt MoV)
verdict: Given the massive MoV, I don't think this game warrants analysis.

Orlando (10-16, 4pt MoV)
Vucivic (2-5)
Fournier (2-4)

verdict: This is perhaps one of the few games where you could say that maybe, if players had shot their averages, the Raptors might have picked up another loss. Let's say Vucevic and Fournier surpass their averages, that's another 3 points. Of course, you'd also have to adjust the Raptors up 1, for the usually sure JV going (2-4).

Chicago
verdict: Loss in which you could argue that the Chicago's margin of victory would have been slightly higher if they hit their averages in free-throws.

Utah (22-30, 18pt MoV)
Burks (1-4) - season average .852

verdict: Obviously free throws weren't going to overcome the MoV.

Memphis (19-26, 4pt MoV)
Gasol (6-10) .831
Stokes (2-4) .500

verdict: Gasol shot unusually poorly, and his 4 misses were equal to the margin of victory. But even if you adjusted his total up, it still doesn't overcome the margin.

Milwaukee (22-32, 42pt MoV)
verdict: Not even going to waste my time with this one.

Cleveland (20-29, 17pt MoV)
Varejao (3-6) - .714
Thompson (3-6) - .704
Irving (5-9) - .855

verdict: You could add a few points to Cleveland's score here to account for some uncharacteristic shooting, but nothing that comes close to making up the MoV.

Obvious conclusion:
Nope, even if players on the other team were hitting their season averages, we'd still be 11-2. And in fact, if we were hitting our averages in every game, we could be 12-1. So yeah, the suggestion that we're benefiting from poor FT shooting is tripe, and while I didn't do a statistical analysis on this, it seems like we do a good job overall of fouling poor shooters more often than good shooters.

[Jclaw]

well....we're not being ignored. So we've won that. I wonder if there may be a positive spin on the "average at everything" stats. Maybe teams that are great at one thing get overtaken by the areas they sacrifice. If the Raps are average at everything, they can pick and choose how they will attack an opponent's weakness.

[KHD]

Good topic for analysis. I looked at each of our games (skipping over the massive blowouts and losses), and looked at who misses more than one shot on the other team, to see if we were benefiting from unusually poor shooting.

Atlanta (9-17, 7pt margin of victory)
Millsap (5-9) - he's .643 on the season, so this was not unusual for him
Brand (0-2) - he's .250 on the season
verdict: we fouled bad free-throw shooters. They would have had to shoot unusually well to change the outcome of the game.

Orlando(12-24, 13pt MoV)
Vucevic (0-2) - he's normally a solid shooter so this was unusual
Payton (4-8) - .444 on the season
verdict: the MoV exceeds the number of misses, but even so most of the misses came from a guy who's been an awful shooter for his position, this far in his career.

Miami
verdict: We lost this game because three good free-throw shooters on our team shot a combined 20-35. If you're looking to adjust record for average free-throw-shooting, count this game as a win.

Oklahoma (14-25, 12pt MoV)
Reggie Jackson (5-8) - he's an excellent shooter, so this was uncharacteristic
Telfair (2-4) - another solid shooter
Adams (4-6) - he's .500 on the season, so he exceeded his average against us
Perkins (0-2) - .556 on the season

verdict: You'd expect Jackson and Telfair in particular to do better. But Oklahoma would have had to have been 24-of-25 to make up the margin of victory.

Boston - (17 of 18, 3pt MoV)

verdict: Boston shot ridiculously well, but even if they had been perfect it wouldn't have covered MoV.


Washington (21-32, 19pt MoV)
Nene (3-8) - .532 on season
Humphries (5-7) - .714 on season
Miller (2-4) - .636 on season

verdict: Obviously foul shots were not going to make a difference in this game, but once again forced their worst FT shooter to take most of their FTs.

Philadelphia (12-18, 32pt MoV)
verdict: Given the massive MoV, I don't think this game warrants analysis.

Orlando (10-16, 4pt MoV)
Vucivic (2-5)
Fournier (2-4)

verdict: This is perhaps one of the few games where you could say that maybe, if players had shot their averages, the Raptors might have picked up another loss. Let's say Vucevic and Fournier surpass their averages, that's another 3 points. Of course, you'd also have to adjust the Raptors up 1, for the usually sure JV going (2-4).

Chicago
verdict: Loss in which you could argue that the Chicago's margin of victory would have been slightly higher if they hit their averages in free-throws.

Utah (22-30, 18pt MoV)
Burks (1-4) - season average .852

verdict: Obviously free throws weren't going to overcome the MoV.

Memphis (19-26, 4pt MoV)
Gasol (6-10) .831
Stokes (2-4) .500

verdict: Gasol shot unusually poorly, and his 4 misses were equal to the margin of victory. But even if you adjusted his total up, it still doesn't overcome the margin.

Milwaukee (22-32, 42pt MoV)
verdict: Not even going to waste my time with this one.

Cleveland (20-29, 17pt MoV)
Varejao (3-6) - .714
Thompson (3-6) - .704
Irving (5-9) - .855

verdict: You could add a few points to Cleveland's score here to account for some uncharacteristic shooting, but nothing that comes close to making up the MoV.

Obvious conclusion:
Nope, even if players on the other team were hitting their season averages, we'd still be 11-2. And in fact, if we were hitting our averages in every game, we could be 12-1. So yeah, the suggestion that we're benefiting from poor FT shooting is tripe, and while I didn't do a statistical analysis on this, it seems like we do a good job overall of fouling poor shooters more often than good shooters.

nice post.

From those few games I see a few poor FT shooters with high attempt #s.

may be cool to look later on when there's more data, to see if we're consistently fouling worse shooters more so than other teams.

Something like an "expected FT points surrendered" stat:

sum over all players(# of FT attempts * average FT percentage of fouled player)

might be neat, and then

expected FT points / # FT attempts surrendered

to give "expected points per FT attempt surrendered" for comparison to other teams.

If my math is right, this might be a slick way to try and figure out whether we're "better at fouling" than other teams.

[DanH]

Good topic for analysis. I looked at each of our games (skipping over the massive blowouts and losses), and looked at who misses more than one shot on the other team, to see if we were benefiting from unusually poor shooting.

Atlanta (9-17, 7pt margin of victory)
Millsap (5-9) - he's .643 on the season, so this was not unusual for him
Brand (0-2) - he's .250 on the season
verdict: we fouled bad free-throw shooters. They would have had to shoot unusually well to change the outcome of the game.

...

Obvious conclusion:
Nope, even if players on the other team were hitting their season averages, we'd still be 11-2. And in fact, if we were hitting our averages in every game, we could be 12-1. So yeah, the suggestion that we're benefiting from poor FT shooting is tripe, and while I didn't do a statistical analysis on this, it seems like we do a good job overall of fouling poor shooters more often than good shooters.

Good post.

Inspired me to go through each game and compare each player's individual FT% in that game versus their season average thus far.

So, based on each player hitting at their season rate:

Opponent | FT's made | Expected FT's made | Score Impact
ATL | 9 | 11.4 | +2.4
ORL | 12 | 15.7 | +3.7
MIA | 28 | 29.0 | +1.0
OKC | 14 | 17.0 | +3.0
BOS | 17 | 12.0 | -5.0
WAS | 21 | 21.8 | +0.8
PHI | 12 | 11.5 | -0.6
ORL | 10 | 12.1 | +2.1
CHI | 22 | 24.5 | +2.5
UTA | 22 | 22.9 | +0.9
MEM | 19 | 19.8 | +0.8
MIL | 22 | 22.0 | +0.0
CLE | 20 | 22.8 | +2.8

Applying that as an average, and you only see a bump of 1.1 points per game for the opponent, bringing our point differential down from 12.2 to 11.1. That drops our current pythagorean projection from 72 wins down to 70 wins. Not exactly earth shattering impact.

As for a game by game impact, looking at your list, same conclusion. Exact same record.

[DanH]

nice post.

From those few games I see a few poor FT shooters with high attempt #s.

may be cool to look later on when there's more data, to see if we're consistently fouling worse shooters more so than other teams.

Something like an "expected FT points surrendered" stat:

sum over all players(# of FT attempts * average FT percentage of fouled player)

might be neat, and then

expected FT points / # FT attempts surrendered

to give "expected points per FT attempt surrendered" for comparison to other teams.

If my math is right, this might be a slick way to try and figure out whether we're "better at fouling" than other teams.

Based on what I did above, the expected number of FTM is 242, with the number of FTA being 337 so far. That's an expected FT% of 71.9% - significantly better than the league average of 75.8%. So it would seem we are indeed better at fouling bad free throw shooters than the average team - of course, part of that might simply be the teams we are facing.

Looking at the average FT% for the teams we have faced, it is 74.5% - lower than the league average, but still significantly higher than our expected opp FT% - meaning we are indeed fouling the right players more than the average team.

[Other Scott]

Good post.

Inspired me to go through each game and compare each player's individual FT% in that game versus their season average thus far.

So, based on each player hitting at their season rate:

Opponent | FT's made | Expected FT's made | Score Impact
ATL | 9 | 11.4 | +2.4
ORL | 12 | 15.7 | +3.7
MIA | 28 | 29.0 | +1.0
OKC | 14 | 17.0 | +3.0
BOS | 17 | 12.0 | -5.0
WAS | 21 | 21.8 | +0.8
PHI | 12 | 11.5 | -0.6
ORL | 10 | 12.1 | +2.1
CHI | 22 | 24.5 | +2.5
UTA | 22 | 22.9 | +0.9
MEM | 19 | 19.8 | +0.8
MIL | 22 | 22.0 | +0.0
CLE | 20 | 22.8 | +2.8

Applying that as an average, and you only see a bump of 1.1 points per game for the opponent, bringing our point differential down from 12.2 to 11.1. That drops our current pythagorean projection from 72 wins down to 70 wins. Not exactly earth shattering impact.

As for a game by game impact, looking at your list, same conclusion. Exact same record.

Thanks Dan, I think Towers point was the the high margin was smoke and mirrors, not necessarily the record. And your analysis shows both that he's partially right and also that the Raptors are fouling bad FT shooters.

Next question: Are they doing that on purpose, or is can you contribute that to luck as well? Maybe Towers number is actually a better indication than yours?

As for Matt Moore, I suspect he's a good analyst who really shouldn't have tweeted that he wasn't impressed with the Raptors after the Memphis win, even if he was thinking it. And he really shouldn't have gotten into a fight with Raptors fans about. But there is good evidence that if you speak poorly of the Raptors on twitter right now, you will get flamed hard. So the warning to Towers was probably appropriate. (Also, I can't find this in his feed because he tweets a lot, but he was crowdsourcing last night as to whether he should rank the Warriors or Raptors number 1 in his power rankings. The answer's pretty obviously the Warriors, so the fact he made it a question shows he likes our team a lot)

[Jclaw]

Thanks Dan, I think Towers point was the the high margin was smoke and mirrors, not necessarily the record. And your analysis shows both that he's partially right and also that the Raptors are fouling bad FT shooters.

Next question: Are they doing that on purpose, or is can you contribute that to luck as well? Maybe Towers number is actually a better indication than yours?
As for Matt Moore, I suspect he's a good analyst who really shouldn't have tweeted that he wasn't impressed with the Raptors after the Memphis win, even if he was thinking it. And he really shouldn't have gotten into a fight with Raptors fans about. But there is good evidence that if you speak poorly of the Raptors on twitter right now, you will get flamed hard. So the warning to Towers was probably appropriate. (Also, I can't find this in his feed because he tweets a lot, but he was crowdsourcing last night as to whether he should rank the Warriors or Raptors number 1 in his power rankings. The answer's pretty obviously the Warriors, so the fact he made it a question shows he likes our team a lot)

I think the media is starting the feel the North. On the nbatv recap this am, David Aldridge, partly tongue in cheek-partly seriously, said something like "listen carefully, because the fans can be a bit sensitive up in Canada, I'm saying the raptors are the best team in the East"

[DanH]

Thanks Dan, I think Towers point was the the high margin was smoke and mirrors, not necessarily the record. And your analysis shows both that he's partially right and also that the Raptors are fouling bad FT shooters.

Next question: Are they doing that on purpose, or is can you contribute that to luck as well? Maybe Towers number is actually a better indication than yours?

If his number is a better indicator, then you'd expect last year's teams to all have very close to identical opponent FT%'s.

Yet last year teams ranged from a 72% to 77% opponent free throw percentage. That's a pretty wide range. Ours this year is about 72%. There's hardly evidence to support the idea that it is luck.

[MixxAOR]

Thanks Dan, I think Towers point was the the high margin was smoke and mirrors, not necessarily the record. And your analysis shows both that he's partially right and also that the Raptors are fouling bad FT shooters.

Next question: Are they doing that on purpose, or is can you contribute that to luck as well? Maybe Towers number is actually a better indication than yours?

As for Matt Moore, I suspect he's a good analyst who really shouldn't have tweeted that he wasn't impressed with the Raptors after the Memphis win, even if he was thinking it. And he really shouldn't have gotten into a fight with Raptors fans about. But there is good evidence that if you speak poorly of the Raptors on twitter right now, you will get flamed hard. So the warning to Towers was probably appropriate. (Also, I can't find this in his feed because he tweets a lot, but he was crowdsourcing last night as to whether he should rank the Warriors or Raptors number 1 in his power rankings. The answer's pretty obviously the Warriors, so the fact he made it a question shows he likes our team a lot)

Those analysts have a very flawed idea about Raptors fans. They are not gonna see analysis that was done right here. They are gonna see whatever they see on twitter. They make these kind of posts and there are hordes of actual Raptors haters replying to tweets.(who they ignore because they agree with their point) So of course it'll struck a chord with some people. And Raps fans who agree, not really gonna write a comment about how much they agree.

[Other Scott]

Those analysts have a very flawed idea about Raptors fans. They are not gonna see analysis that was done right here. They are gonna see whatever they see on twitter. They make these kind of posts and there are hordes of actual Raptors haters replying to tweets.(who they ignore because they agree with their point) So of course it'll struck a chord with some people. And Raps fans who agree, not really gonna write a comment about how much they agree.

Eh, I think they're smart enough to know that the twitter flamers aren't representative of Raptor's Nation as a whole. And they should be smart enough not to get into a twitter shouting match with them, though clearly that's not always the case. But that doesn't mean that if they say something negative about the Raptors that they aren't going to get 50 tweets yelling at them.

[Nilanka]

In DeMar's TNT segment, he said that all of Casey's focus is on the defensive end. Casey doesn't care what the team does on offense, as long as they abide by his defensive principles.

That certainly explains the overall lack of discipline when it comes to shot-selection.

[MixxAOR]

I think that's bullshit. Or maybe for DD it doesn't matter. I remember when Ross last year took a running hook shot that bricked badly, Casey took him out right away. And Casey still took out Ross for Lou Williams. It was definitely for his offense not defense I would think.

[Other Scott]

In DeMar's TNT segment, he said that all of Casey's focus is on the defensive end. Casey doesn't care what the team does on offense, as long as they abide by his defensive principles.

That certainly explains the overall lack of discipline when it comes to shot-selection.

Oddly, if true (and it sounds exaggerated) this seems to be somehow working for both offense and defense right now. Number 2 rated offense in the NBA can't be all smoke and mirrors.