BRADLEY BEAL AND FIVE MORE PLAYERS POISED TO BECOME FIRST-TIME NBA ALL-STARS

Not as often as you might think. 41% of the time this millennium, the player who scored the most points didn't lead the league in FGA. Even more often if you look at PPG rather than just total points scored.

 

Even better, comparing FGA/g to Pts/g--only twice in the past 7 years have they been the same.

Hands raised for everyone who knew that Monta Ellis led the league in FGA/g for two years. Now put them down, you liars!!

 

It might be more accurate to count 3pt attempts as 1.5 FGA or something that normalizes the point/basket ratio.

Like I notice Durant is PPG leader vs. Melo. Melo takes a LOT less 3pt shots. Durant only needs to shoot a tad over 33% from 3 for the same # of 2pt shots Melo hits at 50%.

 

Why? They don't do that when calculating eFG% or TS%. The whole point is about efficiency in usage of possessions, and that Westbrook isn't particularly efficient, much like guys like Kobe and AI who dominate the FGA/g lists.

 

Are you sure?

I think they do count 3pt shots differently for EFG% and TS%.


It seems to me that raw FGA vs. scoring isn't as interesting as including the effect of 3pt shots.

Durant could be shooting .250 from 3pt, lead the league in scoring, even though he takes few 2pt shots. (in theory). He's taking a boatload of 3pt shots, vs. the guy taking a boatload of 2pt shots. "boatload" is relative.

 

Yes, I'm sure. For eFG, they count 3pM differently, but not 3pA. eFG formula is (FG + 0.5 * 3P) / FGA.

For TS%, it's just PTS / (2 * (FGA + 0.44 * FTA.)). No consideration of 3PM or 3PA

 

They are accounting for 3pt shots in eFG. FGA includes 3PA.

I remember Dan Rosenbloom was one of the earliy statisticians working on TS%. At the time, there weren't many high volume 3pt shooters. It really should consider 3pt shooting - a 33% 3pt shooter has a TRUE fg% comparable to a guy hitting 50% of 2pt shots.

In fact that dovetails nicely to my point.

Curry led the league in scoring in limited minutes (34) because he took a LOT of 3pt attempts and made a ridiculously high %. 10 of his 20/game. LeBron scored 25PPG on <4 3pt attempts, 19 FGA.