Beyond the Fail

You may have heard of some of these, but I'd like to go through the calculations that yield the numbers for anyone who may not know how to calculate them. Also, I want to explore some of the strengths and weaknesses and pick out any players where it seems like the stat might not pass the "eye test" from what we've seen so far from our players.

First I want to cover a couple of shooting statistics that measure slightly different things. Everyone knows about FT%, FG%, and 3P%, but these can sort of run together (FG% and 3P%,) or completely disregard each other (FT% and either of the others.) The first stat, effective field goal percentage (eFG%) addresses the first problem, while true shooting percentage (TS%) addresses the latter problem.

Effective field goal percentage is a pretty simple step up from FG%. It simply adjusts for the fact that a 3P field goal is worth 1.5 times a standard FG. The equation is:

eFG% = (FG + .5 * 3P) / FGA

True shooting percentage takes into account all of the ways to "score the ball" as dumb analysts so enjoy phrasing it. It also uses the handy constant we saw in the possessions calculation that adjusts for the value of a free throw compared to a field goal. The equation is:

TS% = PTS / ( 2 * (FGA + .475 * FTA))

Here's a look at the Yellow Jackets' shooting percentages so far this season:

<table border="1" style="background-color:white;border:1px dotted black;width:30%;border-collapse:collapse;"><tr style="background-color:gainsboro;color:black;"><th>Player</th><th>eFG%</th><th>TS%</th></tr><tr><td>Mfon Udofia</td><td>57.5%</td><td>58.4%</td></tr><tr><td>Kammeon Holsey</td><td>56.0%</td><td>58.8%</td></tr><tr><td>M. Georges-Hunt</td><td>48.2%</td><td>51.5%</td></tr><tr><td>Daniel Miller</td><td>47.8%</td><td>50.4%</td></tr><tr><td>Robert Carter Jr.</td><td>46.6%</td><td>49.5%</td></tr><tr><td>Jason Morris</td><td>45.7%</td><td>46.1%</td></tr><tr><td>Chris Bolden</td><td>40.9%</td><td>41.7%</td></tr><tr><td>Brandon Reed</td><td>39.8%</td><td>42.6%</td></tr><tr><td>Pierre Jordan</td><td>22.2%</td><td>22.2%</td></tr><tr><td>Solomon Poole</td><td>63.6%</td><td>66.9%</td></tr><tr><td>Stacey Poole Jr.</td><td>29.4%</td><td>38.2%</td></tr><tr><td>Brooks Doyle</td><td>50.0%</td><td>51.0%</td></tr><tr><td>Julian Royal</td><td>25.8%</td><td>28.2%</td></tr><tr><td>Aaron Peek</td><td>00.0%</td><td>00.0%</td></tr></table>

Now that we've looked at scoring, let's move to the next most important stat - rebounding. We have 3 raw stats for rebounding: offensive, defensive and total rebounds. These are just raw sums, but as I've said before this is a pretty crappy way to actually measure how good a player is at rebounding. If a full game has 50 missed shots and a guy grabs 5 of them for rebounds and another guy grabs 4 out of 10 missed shots in a different game. Who is a better rebounder? So, the logical step is to find the percentage of the available rebounds a player grabs at both ends of the floor, as well as the total. The equations for each state are:

ORB% = ORB / MP / (TmORB + OppDRB) * TmMP / 5

DRB% = DRB / MP / (TmDRB + OppORB) * TmMP / 5

TRB% = TRB / MP / (TmTRB + OppTRB) * TmMP / 5

So, each equation factors a player's rebounds at one end of the floor, the total rebounds available at that end of the floor and the number of minutes that player spent on the floor, compared to the minutes available in his position (the TmMP/5.) Now, we can look at the numbers for Tech's roster:

<table border="1" style="background-color:white;border:1px dotted black;width:30%;border-collapse:collapse;"><tr style="background-color:gainsboro;color:black;"><th>Player</th><th>ORB%</th><th>DRB%</th><th>TRB%</th></tr><tr><td>Robert Carter Jr.</td><td>9.1%</td><td>19.3%</td><td>14.1%</td></tr><tr><td>Daniel Miller</td><td>10.1%</td><td>17.1%</td><td>13.5%</td></tr><tr><td>Kammeon Holsey</td><td>12.2%</td><td>14.1%</td><td>13.2%</td></tr><tr><td>Jason Morris</td><td>5.6%</td><td>15.4%</td><td>10.4%</td></tr><tr><td>M. Georges-Hunt</td><td>7.0%</td><td>11.8%</td><td>9.4%</td></tr><tr><td>Brandon Reed</td><td>1.1%</td><td>15.4%</td><td>8.2%</td></tr><tr><td>Chris Bolden</td><td>0.8%</td><td>8.2%</td><td>4.4%</td></tr><tr><td>Mfon Udofia</td><td>2.0%</td><td>6.7%</td><td>4.3%</td></tr><tr><td>Pierre Jordan</td><td>0.0%</td><td>15.2%</td><td>7.5%</td></tr><tr><td>Solomon Poole</td><td>0.0%</td><td>16.9%</td><td>8.3%</td></tr><tr><td>Stacey Poole Jr.</td><td>3.5%</td><td>25.4%</td><td>14.3%</td></tr><tr><td>Brooks Doyle</td><td>0.0%</td><td>15.0%</td><td>7.4%</td></tr><tr><td>Julian Royal</td><td>10.2%</td><td>10.5%</td><td>10.4%</td></tr><tr><td>Aaron Peek</td><td>0.0%</td><td>22.5%</td><td>11.1%</td></tr></table>

Now that we have our data, let's take a look and see what we can glean from it. First, I want to note that I grouped all of the players who play somewhat sparingly at the bottom, since all of these statistics can be skewed by sample sizes being too small (Pierre Jordan down, essentially.)Some things that popped out at me:

• Robert Carter Jr. is our best rebounder, especially on the defensive end of the floor.
• Kammeon Holsey, however, is our most balanced rebounder, grabbing a similar percentage of the rebounds available at both ends.
• I was also interested in Brandon Reed's TS% being higher than Chris Bolden's. The difference is only .9%, but it has seemed to me when viewing the games that Bolden is the better scorer - I may have to watch more closely to see if I am just unfairly critical of Reed (possible.)
• Jason Morris seems to have been a bigger miss than I thought he would be, judging by these shooting and rebounding numbers and I think he is a perfect example of why these stats are so useful. I didn't think he'd be a huge absence, but he is our 4th best rebounder and 3rd best wing scorer.

Questions and comments highly encouraged!