Tracking Experiment

[Coolbreeze44]

I became frustrated last year with the 3 point temperature checks Ant and Randle attempted early in games. So this year I'm going to track the chronological possession and result of each players first 3 point attempt. I will score the current game as well as provide a running average throughout the season.

[Wolvesfan21]

Your theory is they chuck a (contested or not?) long 3P to see if they got it going on that night? Versus trying to get going by making a layup or bunny? I hadn't noticed it last year to be honest.

[Coolbreeze44]

Your theory is they chuck a (contested or not?) long 3P to see if they got it going on that night? Versus trying to get going by making a layup or bunny? I hadn't noticed it last year to be honest.

Yeah basically. It seemed they would each get a three up early in the contest instead of letting the game come to them. It also seemed they missed a lot on these early attempts.

[Q-is-here]

Your theory is they chuck a (contested or not?) long 3P to see if they got it going on that night? Versus trying to get going by making a layup or bunny? I hadn't noticed it last year to be honest.

Yeah basically. It seemed they would each get a three up early in the contest instead of letting the game come to them. It also seemed they missed a lot on these early attempts.

Do you have a working hypothesis as far as how it impacts their individual output for the night or team performance? I get that it annoys you, but I guess I'm asking why you think it matters. And when you say you will track the "averages", the average of what?

You've piqued my interest with the tracking of this "micro" stat, but I'm not quite following the logic yet.

[Coolbreeze44]

Your theory is they chuck a (contested or not?) long 3P to see if they got it going on that night? Versus trying to get going by making a layup or bunny? I hadn't noticed it last year to be honest.

Yeah basically. It seemed they would each get a three up early in the contest instead of letting the game come to them. It also seemed they missed a lot on these early attempts.

Do you have a working hypothesis as far as how it impacts their individual output for the night or team performance? I get that it annoys you, but I guess I'm asking why you think it matters. And when you say you will track the "averages", the average of what?

You've piqued my interest with the tracking of this "micro" stat, but I'm not quite following the logic yet.

Good questions. I think we would all agree that Ant and JR would tend to get into "my turn, your turn mode" in many games. Being a Bobby Knight disciple, I don't believe that is good nor an effective way to play offense. I like to see all 5 players involved in a cohesive system (see Golden State).

I soon began to notice this would often manifest itself early in games. Each player would jack up a three early in the shot clock with poor results. Possessions at the beginning of games count the same as those in the 4th quarter, and I didn't like the haphazard way we went about executing them.

So this year I want to see if my observations were accurate or just annoyed me as you say. Let's say in the first 3 games, Ant takes his first 3 pointer on the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th possessions. That would compute to an average of 3 possessions for him to get up a trey. If he made the attempt in the first game, but then missed in games 2 & 3, his shooting percentage of course would be 33.3% So I want to track these two stats for each player until we can see if any conclusions can be made.

[Q-is-here]

Yeah basically. It seemed they would each get a three up early in the contest instead of letting the game come to them. It also seemed they missed a lot on these early attempts.

Do you have a working hypothesis as far as how it impacts their individual output for the night or team performance? I get that it annoys you, but I guess I'm asking why you think it matters. And when you say you will track the "averages", the average of what?

You've piqued my interest with the tracking of this "micro" stat, but I'm not quite following the logic yet.

Good questions. I think we would all agree that Ant and JR would tend to get into "my turn, your turn mode" in many games. Being a Bobby Knight disciple, I don't believe that is good nor an effective way to play offense. I like to see all 5 players involved in a cohesive system (see Golden State).

I soon began to notice this would often manifest itself early in games. Each player would jack up a three early in the shot clock with poor results. Possessions at the beginning of games count the same as those in the 4th quarter, and I didn't like the haphazard way we went about executing them.

So this year I want to see if my observations were accurate or just annoyed me as you say. Let's say in the first 3 games, Ant takes his first 3 pointer on the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th possessions. That would compute to an average of 3 possessions for him to get up a trey. If he made the attempt in the first game, but then missed in games 2 & 3, his shooting percentage of course would be 33.3% So I want to track these two stats for each player until we can see if any conclusions can be made.

Interesting. My only issue is that it says nothing about the quality of the shot. If the shot is open, Finch would be REALLY pissed if Ant doesn't take it seeing that he is one of the best 3-point shooters in the NBA, even if it's the first possession of the game. And Randle wasn't half-bad himself on open 3s last season. If you add in some sort of shot quality metric, even if subjective, that may help paint a better picture. Are they taking something in the flow of the offense or forcing up ill-advised shots early to "get theirs"?

[Wolvesfan21]

Yeah basically. It seemed they would each get a three up early in the contest instead of letting the game come to them. It also seemed they missed a lot on these early attempts.

Do you have a working hypothesis as far as how it impacts their individual output for the night or team performance? I get that it annoys you, but I guess I'm asking why you think it matters. And when you say you will track the "averages", the average of what?

You've piqued my interest with the tracking of this "micro" stat, but I'm not quite following the logic yet.

Good questions. I think we would all agree that Ant and JR would tend to get into "my turn, your turn mode" in many games. Being a Bobby Knight disciple, I don't believe that is good nor an effective way to play offense. I like to see all 5 players involved in a cohesive system (see Golden State).

I soon began to notice this would often manifest itself early in games. Each player would jack up a three early in the shot clock with poor results. Possessions at the beginning of games count the same as those in the 4th quarter, and I didn't like the haphazard way we went about executing them.

So this year I want to see if my observations were accurate or just annoyed me as you say. Let's say in the first 3 games, Ant takes his first 3 pointer on the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th possessions. That would compute to an average of 3 possessions for him to get up a trey. If he made the attempt in the first game, but then missed in games 2 & 3, his shooting percentage of course would be 33.3% So I want to track these two stats for each player until we can see if any conclusions can be made.

I wonder if the league avg is lower on first shots too. Are guys generally cold or doesn't it matter? I kind of think the league avg might be lower to start games in general. But I don't know. You're probably going to need a full season, maybe half season will be OK of stats too in order to weed out the noise. 4-12 doesn't really matter for example, it's still a pretty small sample.

It'll be interesting to see the results though.

You know what bothers me the most. Say other team scores with 1-3 seconds left in the first half. Why is it every team just passes to the short guy and chucks a 3/4 length shot? Why not pass it long and risk a turnover, sure, but a good look from closer range is way more effective and you could even get fouled. It always bugs me that they sort of waste that last possession on a long chuck.

I get it, guys are tired, not thinking straight, etc.. But still. Every possession counts.

[FNG]

Not a fan of "heat checks" early in a game either (although I love them when one of your guys is on a real heater!), but other than Rudy, Ant and Ju are our most efficient scorers (both close to 60 TS%), and we want them taking most of the shots. But hopefully they are good shots they are taking and not forced.

What I noticed is often the Wolves run a play for Jaden in their first possession, and even though he had the lowest TS% of our "starting eight". I kind of liked this strategy. Jaden tends to disappear on offense sometimes, and I think Finchy runs plays for him early to get him going. Having him as a real threat to score can only open things up more for Ant and Ju.

We have heard a lot of talk from the coaches about getting Rudy more involved in the offense, and while some here shudder at that, you can't ignore the fact that the most efficient shot available to the Wolves is a Rudy dunk...that's why his 68.7 TS% far and away led the team last season. Some may say "yeah, but what about the bad hands and turnovers?", but he actually was tied with Mike, NAW and Jaden for lowest turnovers per game at 1.2. He's not pretty to watch, but a guy with such a high TS% needs more than 7 attempts a game...especially when it seems like half of those are off his own offensive rebounds. I endorse the coaches' plan to get him more involved this season, and expect to see a lot more lob dunks.

[Wolvesfan21]

Not a fan of "heat checks" early in a game either (although I love them when one of your guys is on a real heater!), but other than Rudy, Ant and Ju are our most efficient scorers (both close to 60 TS%), and we want them taking most of the shots. But hopefully they are good shots they are taking and not forced.

What I noticed is often the Wolves run a play for Jaden in their first possession, and even though he had the lowest TS% of our "starting eight". I kind of liked this strategy. Jaden tends to disappear on offense sometimes, and I think Finchy runs plays for him early to get him going. Having him as a real threat to score can only open things up more for Ant and Ju.

We have heard a lot of talk from the coaches about getting Rudy more involved in the offense, and while some here shudder at that, you can't ignore the fact that the most efficient shot available to the Wolves is a Rudy dunk...that's why his 68.7 TS% far and away led the team last season. Some may say "yeah, but what about the bad hands and turnovers?", but he actually was tied with Mike, NAW and Jaden for lowest turnovers per game at 1.2. He's not pretty to watch, but a guy with such a high TS% needs more than 7 attempts a game...especially when it seems like half of those are off his own offensive rebounds. I endorse the coaches' plan to get him more involved this season, and expect to see a lot more lob dunks.

Ant was practicing the lob dunk game to Joan and "Rocco?" I think he said over the summer (Rudy wasn't in town), so he should hopefully start using that much more. He needs it, otherwise the big just doubles every time he drives and leaves Rudy / whatever big open. I mean, you have to make them pay for doubling you. Otherwise it'll never stop. Ant might be in that top 5 player conversation, dare I say MVP even (I predicted it so I hope so!).

A big reason for that lob game also is to help Ant's scoring. His FG% around the basket was tough last season I think a lot because he didn't feed the open teammate and was constantly doubled/tripled down low driving.

Making the percentage play will unlock Ant to the next level.

[Q-is-here]

Not a fan of "heat checks" early in a game either (although I love them when one of your guys is on a real heater!), but other than Rudy, Ant and Ju are our most efficient scorers (both close to 60 TS%), and we want them taking most of the shots. But hopefully they are good shots they are taking and not forced.

What I noticed is often the Wolves run a play for Jaden in their first possession, and even though he had the lowest TS% of our "starting eight". I kind of liked this strategy. Jaden tends to disappear on offense sometimes, and I think Finchy runs plays for him early to get him going. Having him as a real threat to score can only open things up more for Ant and Ju.

We have heard a lot of talk from the coaches about getting Rudy more involved in the offense, and while some here shudder at that, you can't ignore the fact that the most efficient shot available to the Wolves is a Rudy dunk...that's why his 68.7 TS% far and away led the team last season. Some may say "yeah, but what about the bad hands and turnovers?", but he actually was tied with Mike, NAW and Jaden for lowest turnovers per game at 1.2. He's not pretty to watch, but a guy with such a high TS% needs more than 7 attempts a game...especially when it seems like half of those are off his own offensive rebounds. I endorse the coaches' plan to get him more involved this season, and expect to see a lot more lob dunks.

The main issue is that Ant doesn't trust him nor has Ant ever developed the precision needed to throw him lob dunks that he can handle. And Randle may be even worse than Ant in this department. Plus Rudy himself is getting older and less reliable with his finishing even when he does catch it. He should be in the 70s in terms of TS% since he almost never takes a shot outside of a foot or two from the rim.

So it's all well and good during the regular season to try to get him more involved, but I feel like Finch will just be hitting his head against the wall come playoff time. And then what? We suddenly have to toggle to a totally different team since Rudy will morph into just a part-time player.

It's just a weirdly constructed team that is built to have a very high floor, but somewhat limited ceiling. Not that the Western Conference Finals is chopped liver, but beyond that....I don't think so.