This the second in my Shot Creation series. The first post introduced my take on shot creation and started to look at creation at one position, Shooting Guard. This time I am looking at Point Guards.
For the record, I am only considering shot creation for one's self and not considering foul shots, since passes leading to foul shots aren't tracked in the traditional data (and the correlation to getting baskets one's own baskets from the floor and getting fouled on attempts with no set up is likely to be very high).
Last time out I found that shot creation is very position specific, it may be the item traditional position designations get the best. Because, one of the truisms of basketball analysis, along with the importance of the possession and the limited real estate near the hoop, is that there is only one ball on the court at a time. The Point Guard is traditionally the player on offense that handles the ball most often, and consequently has fewer of their shots assisted, as it is hard to catch a pass when you already have the ball. Making assists is also heavily correlated to self-creation, since both require having the ball in your hands.
That said, there are, I think, some interesting differences in the ability and propensity of Point Guards to Create Shots.
Again I only used shots inside the arc because there is so little variation in assist rates on three point shots. The unassisted three is not really a thing. Including three point assists hides the ability of some players to create their offense and, in a sense, punishes them for being very good at hitting threes.
Like the shooting guards the cluster analysis found two distinct, groups. Unlike the Shooting Guards the groups were very imbalanced in terms of cluster size. Again I labeled them as Creator PGs and Spot Up Point Guards.
Here are some of the assisted stats for the Point Guard groups using three years of players:
| Group | Count | Two Pt Shots Assisted |
Total Floor Offense Assisted |
Att at Rim per 48 |
Pct Assisted at Rim |
Pct Assisted Long Two |
Pct Assisted on Three Pointers |
| CREATOR PG | 205 | 24.44% | 40.47 | 4.46 | 26.10 | 27.61 | 71.86 |
| Std. Deviation | 0.08 | 12.47 | 2.02 | 9.77 | 14.21 | 17.16 | |
| SPOT UP PG | 47 | 51.83% | 65.91 | 2.69 | 50.20 | 57.51 | 80.73 |
| Std. Deviation | 0.09 | 12.62 | 1.91 | 18.77 | 15.68 | 23.18 |
The one quarter of Point Guards that were termed Spot Up PG's seem to play a different role in the offense compared to the rest of the Point Guards. They are assisted on twice as many of their two point baskets and get to the rim much less often. For reference the Creator Shooting Guards were on average assisted for 37.8% percent of their twos, while the Spot Up Shooting Guards were assisted 65.5% of the time.
It helps to focus on what the numbers mean when we look at some individual players. I pulled out a list with Point Guards that scored the most effective points in 2013.
| Player | CREATOR TWO GUARDS | SPOT UP TWO GUARDS | Group |
| Andre Miller | 1 | 0 | Creator |
| Brandon Jennings | 1 | 0 | Creator |
| Brandon Knight | 1 | 0 | Creator |
| Chris Paul | 1 | 0 | Creator |
| Damian Lillard | 1 | 0 | Creator |
| Darren Collison | 1 | 0 | Creator |
| Deron Williams | 1 | 0 | Creator |
| George Hill | 1 | 0 | Creator |
| Goran Dragic | 1 | 0 | Creator |
| Greivis Vasquez | 1 | 0 | Creator |
| Isaiah Thomas | 1 | 0 | Creator |
| Jameer Nelson | 1 | 0 | Creator |
| Jarrett Jack | 1 | 0 | Creator |
| Jeff Teague | 1 | 0 | Creator |
| Jeremy Lin | 1 | 0 | Creator |
| John Wall | 1 | 0 | Creator |
| Jrue Holiday | 1 | 0 | Creator |
| Kemba Walker | 1 | 0 | Creator |
| Kyrie Irving | 1 | 0 | Creator |
| Luke Ridnour | 0 | 1 | Spot Up |
| Mike Conley | 1 | 0 | Creator |
| Monta Ellis | 1 | 0 | Creator |
| Nate Robinson | 1 | 0 | Creator |
| Randy Foye | 0 | 1 | Spot Up |
| Raymond Felton | 1 | 0 | Creator |
| Russell Westbrook | 1 | 0 | Creator |
| Stephen Curry | 1 | 0 | Creator |
| Tony Parker | 1 | 0 | Creator |
| Ty Lawson | 1 | 0 | Creator |
| Tyreke Evans | 1 | 0 | Creator |
| 28 | 2 | 30 |
The Creator Point Guards dominate this list with 28 out of the top thirty scoring PG's. The only exceptions are Luke Ridnour, who has generally been a legit Point Guard but shared the back court with Ricky Rubio for part of the year last year and Randy Foye, who according to 82 games played many more minutes as a small forward than at Point in Utah last year.
Since I was now fascinated by these statistical odd ducks, I pulled a few more of the Spot Up Point Guards. Some of the more prominent Spot Up Points are mostly old and/or slow guys like Derek Fisher, Chauncey Billups, Earl Watson or they were tweeners that have not found a true guard position, like Jimmer Freddette, Alek Burks and Tony Douglas. (Note: The difference between combo guard and a tweener guard; a combo guard can play either guard spot, a tweener can't play either). Also, included is Boston's Avery Bradley, who, I would argue, is simply tragically miscast as a Point Guard.
Looking at the stats, it is clear that the Spot Up Point Guards, as a group, at least, are an inferior option to Creator Points. Below are the averages for True Shooting, Effective FG%, Offensive and Defensive rebounding percentages, assist and turnover percentages and Advanced Statistical Plus Minus and Offensive Rating. All of the red highlighted stats are the worse of the two, if you look close you may see a pattern.
| Groups | Count | AVE TS% | AVE eFG% | AVE ORB% | AVE DRB% | AVE AST% | AVE of TOV% | AVE ASPM | AVE ORtg |
| Creators PG | 65 | 52.41% | 48.31% | 2.16 | 9.16 | 28.05 | 16.54 | -0.30 | 105.15 |
| Spot Up PG | 21 | 51.40% | 47.46% | 2.09 | 8.65 | 18.08 | 15.30 | -2.24 | 102.14 |
| Grand Total | 86 | 52.16% | 48.10% | 2.15 | 9.04 | 25.61 | 16.23 | -0.77 | 104.42 |
The Spot Up PG's scored worse than the Creator Shooting Guards in every area and worse than the Spot Up Shooting Guards in every except assist percentages.
I also cross referenced the Creator clusters with the Shot Location clusters I ran earlier.
| Location Grp | Assist Grp | Count | AV TS% | AV eFG% | AV ORB% | AV DRB% | AV AST% | AV of ASPM |
| Stretch Guard | Creator PG | 28 | 53.36% | 49.95% | 1.95 | 9.11 | 26.37 | -0.49 |
| Spot Up PG | 9 | 52.88% | 49.28% | 1.51 | 7.92 | 17.10 | -2.08 | |
| Slasher Guards | Creators PG | 37 | 51.69% | 47.07% | 2.33 | 9.21 | 29.32 | -0.15 |
| Spot Up PG | 12 | 50.30% | 46.10% | 2.52 | 9.19 | 18.82 | -2.36 | |
| Grand Total | 86 | 52.16% | 48.10% | 2.15 | 9.04 | 25.61 | -0.77 |
This break out primarily confirms what I saw in the other one, Spot Up Points, generally, do not alook like a good option. Eventually, I would like to look at this with line up data to see if there is an independent, positive or negative, effect of using low creation Point Guard.
Next, though, I plan to look as Small Forwards and shot creation assuming I can find a stable cluster analysis (where players tend to stay in the same group from year to year).
Comments