Who has the “thinnest line” in the NBA?
What is a “thin line,” you ask? Well, I’m not 100% sure I coined it, but it’s my term for a player who scores, but brings almost nothing else — rebounds, assists, steals or blocks — to the table.
In order to determine who has the thinnest line in the NBA, I divided the player’s points by the sum of their rebounds, assists, steals and blocks to come up with the Thin Line Ratio (TLR). The bigger the number, the thinner the line.
To be eligible, a player has to average at least 20 minutes per game. And to be fair to the biggest scorers in the league, if their rebounds, assists, steals and blocks add up to 10+ per game, then they’re not eligible. So players like Carmelo Anthony, Kevin Durant, Danny Granger and Kobe Bryant are in the clear. I figure any player who is posting 10+ in those four categories is bringing plenty to the table.
So here’s a look at the 10 thinnest lines in the NBA:
1. Kevin Martin (TLR: 2.89)
2. Jamal Crawford (2.79)
3. Marcus Thornton (2.69)
4. Ben Gordon (2.51)
5. Eric Gordon (2.43)
6. Ray Allen (2.43)
7. Jason Terry (2.36)
8. Richard Hamilton (2.33)
9. Corey Maggette (2.31)
10. J.J. Redick (2.28)
Surprise, surprise…that’s a list of nine or ten shooting guards, depending on how you classify Corey Maggette (and maybe Jamal Crawford). These are players whose job it is to shoot the ball and they obviously embrace that role. You won’t see these players battling for rebounds or doing a lot of penetrate and dish.
The top point guard in TLR? Aaron Brooks (2.19), winner of this year’s Most Improved Player award.
The top small forward (other than Maggette)? Josh Howard (2.12)
The top power forward? Bill Walker (2.14), but he played in just 35 games. Al Harrington (2.12) was the next highest PF on the list.
The top center? Andrea Bargnani (1.91), but is he really a center? The next highest eligible center is Channing Frye (1.33).
Who has the thickest line (i.e. the lowest TLR)?
PG – Jason Kidd (0.61)
SG – Thabo Sefolosha (0.72)
SF – Luc Mbah a Moute (0.78)
PF – Jared Jeffries (0.71)
C – Marcus Camby (0.43)
Jason Kidd plus four defensive specialists. Boy, that would be some ugly offense, but they’d be a bitch to score on.
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This is a good idea but if you want to do it right, you should really use standard scores, since a rebound isn’t “worth” as much as an assist, which is < a steal, which is < a block (based on league averages / standard dev).
Addendum.
If you do that and apply similar “entry criteria”, I think you get Kev-Mart, Maggette, Crawford as your top 3, with Aaron Brooks, Al Harrington and Vince Carter also making an appearance in the top 10. (I guess you’re probably over counting the value of rebs and under counting the value of steals and blocks.)
The only two players who are above average in all 5 categories? LeBron James and… Josh Smith. Above average in 4 is also a pretty exclusive list:
D-Wade
Kevin Durant
Gerald Wallace
Pau Gasol
Andre Iguodala
David Lee
Carmelo Anthony
Rudy Gay
Jeff Green
I think I did it just “right.”
Just because one thing (block, steal) is less common than another (rebound) doesn’t make it “worth” more. Think about it — a defensive rebound starts a possession. An offensive rebound starts a new possession. A steal starts a possession. A block can start a possession, but not always. A possession is typically worth 1.0-1.2 points. Is it less important to clear the defensive glass than it is to get a steal? Either way, you’re ending the offensive possession.
What’s an assist worth? A point? For every assist that leads to an open layup, there’s an assist where one guy swings it to another guy on the wing and that player hits a long jumper. Not all assists are the same. (I think it was Bill Simmons who suggested the “super-assist” — one that leads directly to a layup or a dunk.)
These stats are all “worth” about the same, at least in my book. As we well know, our books are vastly different.
What I mean by “worth” can be explained with the following illustration. Let’s limit it to just points, rebounds, and blocks, for simplicity.
Let’s say you’re comparing two players, A and B. Player A averages 10 ppg, 8 rpg, and 2 bpg. Player B averages 10 ppg, 10 rpg, and 0 bpg. Using your methodology, Player A and B have the same “points-to-other-stuff” ratios. However, player A is clearly the more versatile player and should therefore have a “thicker line”. The difference between 2 bpg and 0 bpg is larger than that between 10 rpg and 8 bpg not in terms of its “value” towards winning, but in terms of the skill involved.
So, by forgoing z-scores, you’re basically saying that a player who gets 10-10-0 is just as versatile as a player who gets 10-8-2. Or, to carve an even finer point, you’re equating a player who gets 10-10-0 to a player who gets 10-0-10. Obviously, no one has ever or will ever get 10 blocks per game, but if they did, it would be a hell of a lot more impressive than one who gets 10 rebounds per game (if only by virtue of the fact that freaking no one could ever block 10 shots per game).
That’s the reason statisticians invented standard scores and it’s the reason they’re used in sports analytics, as opposed to the hamfisted (and totally, objectively, mathematically nonsensical) method you used.
By the way, all assists ARE worth the same, unless you’re talking about assists leading to 3-pointers versus assists leading to 2-pointers.
I think what you meant to say is, not all “passes” are worth the same. A pass to a wing guy has a lower expected value than a pass to a guy who can make an easy layup. However, if I get an assist by passing it to a wing guy (again, who’s not behind the 3-point line), then he got 2 points, by definition. So, it’s not the assist that’s worth less, it’s the pass.
By the way, Simmons is my favorite sports columnist in the world, but he’s a moron when it comes to this stuff, so don’t listen to him.
It’s funny that whenever I give you any pushback, you automatically resort to insult — “hamfisted, totally, mathematically nonsensical method you used.” (Cue the “stop whining” retort.) The TLR is no less valid than an A/TO ratio or any other basketball ratio for that matter (FGA/A to measure ‘shoot first’ mentality, FTA/FGA to measure one’s ability to get to the line, etc.)
Fit depends on what a team needs and a team may need a 10-10-0 guy instead of a 10-8-2 guy or a 10-5-5 guy. One can have a “thick” line if he brings something/anything else to the table, whether it be rebounds, assists, steals or blocks, or some combination of the four. You may have a different definition for what constitutes a thin/thick line, but this is mine.
As for assists, I didn’t say they weren’t “worth” the same. I said they are not equal. Great passes that lead to easy layups or dunks are more impressive than getting an assist for dumping it into a post guy who does most of the work by hitting a turnaround J. Would you rather have a point guard that gets a lot of assists that lead to easy layups/dunks or a guy that gets a lot of assists by passing the ball to a great big in the post? Obviously, you’d rather have the former, all else being equal.
Re: Simmons, I think he’s a numbskull on most things stat related (just google “Correcting Bill Simmons”), but he’s on to something with super-assists. We should be able to track the ability to generate easy shots, as it’s a very important skill for a distributor to have.
I’m glad you think it’s funny, John, because I consider it dead serious…………
Actually Elmore Smith had 10 blocks in a game close to a dozen times. Guys like Dikembe Mutombo, david robinson, Hakeem olajuwon, Kareem, they’ve all done it repeatedly. Elmore actually had 17 in a single game.