Counting the Baskets

Waiting for Rondo, Balancing the Celtics Line Up

Tossing aside my milquetoast-y luke warm-ish semi-endorsement of starting Jordan Crawford at the point, like so much warm milquetoast, Brad Stevens has, more or less, come out in favor of starting Avery Bradley at the Point. My actual case was that Bradley is ill suited to be a Point Guard and is playing out of position whenever he's stationed there.

In contrast, Stevens said a bunch of things which are true, but address completely different points, via Celtics Hub:

Stevens said Avery Bradley may indeed see the bulk of the point guard duties until Rondo finds his way back from offseason knee surgery.

 

"I don’t think there is any doubt that Avery has elite ability in a lot of ways as a point guard," Stevens said at TD Garden yesterday morning, where he was a guest at the breakfast to promote November’s Coaches vs. Cancer college basketball tripleheader. "He’s an elite defender at the position. He’s an elite athlete at the point guard position. I think he’s a guy that’s gotten better. I think he’s a guy with more confidence, and I think he’s excited about the challenge if Rajon is out."

 

No doubt Avery Bradley is an elite defender, an elite athlete, and a fierce competitor excited for the opportunity to play while Rondo is out. None of these things mean that he has a NBA point guard handle or passing ability.

In my last post I closed with this table breaking down the attributes I thought one should weigh and balance in setting up a back court rotation, which I would like to discuss a bit more here.

 

Creators	Stretch	Rim Attack	Defense
Crawford	Lee	Brooks	Bradley
Pressey	Crawford	Lee	Lee
Brooks	Bogans	Crawford	Bogans
Bradley	Bradley	Bradley	Pressey
Lee	Pressey	Pressey	Crawford
Bogans	Brooks	Bogans	Brooks

 

On Celtics media day Stevens specifically mentioned two items on the table above; defense (though I think NBA coaches get fined if they fail to prominently mention the importance of defense, it's called the D'Antoni Rule) and spacing.

 

On defense there's no question Bradley is the Celtic's best back court option, especially on ball defense. Courtney Lee is likely a fairly distant second. This is backed up by the defensive xRAPM numbers for the Celtic's guards.

 

Name	Def. xRAPM
Avery Bradley	-0.25
Rajon Rondo	-0.65
Courtney Lee	-1.38
Keith Bogans	-1.73
Jordan Crawford	-2.13
MarShon Brooks	-2.3

 

In terms of spacing, Lee is the top Celtic guard, with a career 38.4% mark from three point land and borderline 'Stretch' score in terms of shot location. Bradley had a down shooting season as did Marshon Brooks, though Bradley's down year three point percentage matched Brook's up year. The prudent early estimate would be to bracket the number between the two years for both, which would put Bradley as a mid-thirties three shooter, certainly enough to make defenses concerned about him out on the line.

 

One thing to add in terms of ability to get to the rim among Celtic's guards.  I am not sure how this play's into Stevens' line up decisions, but getting to the basket generates some of the most efficient shots and can cause break downs for defense. Below I have my stats on the Celtics guards proficiency getting to the basket.  It also shows a little something about new Celtic Marshon Brook's offensive game, which revolves around his ability to get to the rim and score often and effectively.

 

	Attempts at Rim per 48 minutes	Pct Assisted at Rim	Field Goal Pct at Rim
Avery Bradley-BOS-2013	4.57	46.40	51.50
Courtney Lee-BOS-2013	4.17	53.60	65.90
Jordan Crawford-BOS-2013	4.34	37.90	58.00
Keith Bogans-BKN-2013	0.68	46.70	75.00
Marshon Brooks-BKN-2013	5.89	36.70	68.70
Rajon Rondo-BOS-2013	6.14	15.90	62.10
Average	4.30	39.53	63.53

 

Stevens has stated that he wants the Celtics to run this year, which may be a necessity to generate points.  But, as much as all teams want to run, someone still has to handle the ball in the half court, since every defense is intent on stopping you from running. Here's the issue with the Bradley/Lee back court, they're the two of least proficient guard Shot Creators the C's have. Of course, there's no rule the back court must handle the ball, as we saw last year with Paul Pierce and that guy in Miami.

 

With that in mind, we can look at the ball handling numbers for the Celtics front court.

 

Player- Team- Yr	Pct Two Point Offense Assisted	Total Field Offense Assisted	AST Pct	TOV Pct
Brandon Bass-BOS-2013	73.60%	73.60	6	10.90%
Gerald Wallace-BKN-2013	63.12%	74.25	13.3	16.90%
Jared Sullinger-BOS-2013	55.05%	55.66	6.2	10.30%
Jeff Green-BOS-2013	50.33%	60.02	9.6	12.50%
Kris Humphries-BKN-2013	72.81%	72.81	4.3	13.50%
Kelly Olynyk-Gonzaga-2013	54.59%	62.68	15.10	15.40%
Vitor Faverani-Valencia-2013			8.29	20.46%

Most of the true bigs don't look like much help handling the ball. Humphries beats No Pass Bass in a race to the bottom on assist percentage. Not to put too fine a point on it, a Humphries/Bass/Green/Lee/Bradley line up has the potential to be shut down as a breeding ground for mosquitoes and have the lowest assist to turnover percentages of any starting NBA line up.

Vitor Faverani's painful tun over percentage comes via Basketball RealGM. I had heard Faverani had turnover issues, but it looks like his time on the court is going to be largely determined by his ability to keep track of the ball.

Green scored the best last year at being able to create shots, with Sullinger (off of offensive rebounds?) and Olynyk's college numbers right behind. I actually think Wallace's Creation numbers are a bit deceptive, his assisted shot percentages were lower in 2012 and, according to NBA WoWy his percentage of shots assisted numbers plunged in the, relatively few, possessions he was on the court without Deron Williams.

In terms of passing, Olynyk, the former Point Guard, is clearly the most interesting front court player on the roster. His 15.1% assist percentage was among the highest in college ball last year for Bigs, and puts him at the top of the Boston front court players.

Ok, long story short. The best Celtic's guard tandem in terms of Defense and Spacing, is also the weakest in terms of ball handling duties. That creates a conundrum, if the coaching staff is going to start them together Lee and Bradley will need help in the half court.

Should Brad Stevens Start Jordan Crawford Over Avery Bradley at Point Guard?

(I can't believe I am writing this)

To the surprise of no one, on the Sports Hub yesterday, Danny Ainge confirmed that, Rajon Rondo is likely to miss the first part of the season.

Given that Rondo is both the best player on the team and the only natural Point Guard with NBA experience, I have been thinking about how the C's should start the season's back court line up, as I suspect has Brad Stevens and his staff.  The issues in picking a replacement back court also ties in nicely to some work I have been doing on shot creation and shot location in the NBA., in terms of finding the most complimentary mix of ball handing, passing, floor spacing and defense.

The shot creation pieces are particularly relevant to playing at the Point and the skills the Celtics will need to replace while Rondo recovers.  The Point on offense is probably the best defined position of the five cardinal positions.  He handles the ball, sets up his team mates, and gets his own shot when needed.

To take those skills in reverse order, most Point Guards ranked as what I called Shot Creators in my cluster analysis with only a quarter rating as Spot Up Guards, who score disproportionately off of getting assisted, including Avery Bradley.  In fact, of all the players defined as a Point Guards by Hoop Data with more than two hundred minutes played last year, Bradley ranked 11th from the bottom last year, or the 12th percentile, in his propensity to get his own two point shot. (Two point shots are the most telling since so few three point shots are unassisted, players with a good handle and a nice three stroke get artificially lowered in their shot creation when threes are included).  Rondo, on the other hand, rated highly, creating 77% of his own two point shots, putting him in the 73% percentile.

Bradley also rates low in getting assists.  Third from the bottom on that same list with 11.6%. Only Royal Ivey and the remains of Derek Fisher scored lower.  By contrast, Rondo led all NBA Point Guards with a 49.3% assist percentage, and Jordan Crawford, playing the two had a 19.4% assist rate in his time with the Celts last year, and higher in DC.

Ball handling is harder to measure directly.  Certainly the eye test says to most observers that Bradley looked uncomfortable as a ball handler last year, looking to rid himself of the ball as soon as possible to the nearest guy with a green jersey.  We can also probably look at the numbers above to make some inferences that Bradley wasn't comfortable with the ball in his hands

Bringing the shooting guards into the list; here are the Celtics guards in terms of getting creating their own shot, assists and turnovers, the signature stats for Point Guards.

	Pct Two Point Offense Assisted	Total Field Offense Assisted	AST Pct	TOV Pct
Avery Bradley-BOS-2013	49.68%	62.88	11.60	12.60
Courtney Lee-BOS-2013	52.13%	65.73	11.70	13.00
Jordan Crawford-BOS-2013	29.03%	46.64	19.40	15.50
Jordan Crawford-WAS-2013	20.93%	41.01	25.50	14.90
Keith Bogans-BKN-2013	54.18%	86.70	8.10	14.40
Marshon Brooks-BKN-2013	33.57%	39.99	14.60	15.50
Rajon Rondo-BOS-2013	23.22%	24.01	49.30	22.60
Phil Pressey- MO- 2013	4.72%	19.54	37.80	23.20

I included rookie Phil Pressey here, even though I do not have his shots assisted data from the NCAA as of now. (Update, per commenter Adrien, I have added Pressy's numbers from Hoop-Math). Apparently there was no else on the team with the slightest ability to throw a pass in Missouri last year.  Jordan Crawford's numbers look like a combo guard, he gets his own shots (not always to his advantage) and assists at a high rate with a higher assist percentage than turnovers.  Bradley, Lee and Bogans look like spot up Shooting Guards, not Point Guards, with Brooks playing the role of slashing Two Guard.

Last year the Celtics were able to pair Lee and Bradley as defensive pit bulls despite their ball handling and distribution weaknesses primarily because of Paul Pierce's ability to play Point Forward.  That's a luxury they won't have this year.  Some of this may sound like I am picking on Bradley's game, but I am not.  His defense is amazing, as is his effort.  He's just not a Point Guard, and playing him as one does him no favors.

As I wrote above, in addition to ball handling duties floor spacing and defense have to be considered in matching up a line up.  Offensive spacing does not just come from the back court, but the front court doesn't have any spacing specialists like a Kyle Korver or Dorrell Wright (unless they put Bogans in as a Small Forward).

 

Player- Team- Yr	Pct of Shots at Rim	Pct of Shots from Three	Three Point Percentage
Avery Bradley-BOS-2013	30.04%	26.46%	31.7%
Courtney Lee-BOS-2013	32.75%	30.59%	37.2%
Jordan Crawford-BOS-2013	26.46%	37.57%	33.7%
Jordan Crawford-WAS-2013	15.99%	34.62%	33.7%
Keith Bogans-BKN-2013	7.02%	86.67%	34.3%
Marshon Brooks-BKN-2013	35.60%	17.34%	27.3%
Rajon Rondo-BOS-2013	40.44%	11.11%	24%
Phil Pressey- MO- 2013		38.2%	32.4%

In terms of shot selection, Bogans is the only pure Stretch Guard taking nearly 90% of his shots from three, with Crawford rated on the borderline of being what my analysis considered a Stretch Guard.  In actual efficiency only Lee had a three point field goal percentage above the average for a Guard of 36.3% last year, though Bradley was down considerably coming off of the double shoulder surgery.  Defenses are likely lie well off both Rondo and Brooks outside the arc.

Putting it together in terms of combos, if we want to have one Shot Creator and one Stretch Guard on the court most of the time, our options look something like this without Rondo:

 

Creators	Stretch	Rim Attack	Defense
Crawford	Lee	Brooks	Bradley
Pressey	Crawford	Lee	Lee
Brooks	Bogans	Crawford	Bogans
Bradley	Bradley	Bradley	Pressey
Lee	Pressey	Pressey	Crawford
Bogans	Brooks	Bogans	Brooks

 

Not all of the those divisions are equidistant (Bradley and Lee's defense is probably significantly better than the next Guard available).  But then it's Steven's job to balance those trade offs setting his line ups for the first month.

If Your Point Guard Doesn't Create His Own Shots, He Might Not Really be a Point Guard

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).

Shot Creation and the Dog that Barked Rather Quietly

The term shot creation is both ill defined and much debated. I am not a big fan of the term myself, mainly because it's so ill defined. To those who are proponents of its importance, it is that certain je ne sais quoi that turns broken possessions into baskets and breaks defenses down. While opponents somewhat ungenerously term it chucking the ball in the general direction of the basket.

Trying to put my own definition on it I thought it would have to at least start with the ability and propensity to take shots without getting assisted. I also thought that the ability to get unassisted shots at the rim was a good indication of positive shot creation since those are both efficient shots and more likely to garner an offensive rebound if they don't go in the basket. Both are convenient definitions since I was staring at that very data broken out by distance from the basket from the last three years via Hoop Data.

I decided to again use cluster analysis to see if there were distinct groups present in the data that would at least point the way for further inquiry.

There was, at least, to some extent.

But, first let me say what where I didn't find it, because that's often almost as important for statistical inference and clarification of one's thoughts.

• Bigs aren't shot creators. No surprise, but that meant that for any Cluster to work beyond telling me who the Bigs were they needed to be eliminated.
• Self created three point shots are not really a thing.  Almost no one not named Steph Curry shoots threes unassisted. So the question of whether to include three point shot in looking at shot creation is a good question.  From my view it appeared that players with the ability and propensity to shoot off the bounce were labeled Non-creators or Spot Up guys simply because of their high rate of three point shots.  In other words, a guy that can hit threes and also drive the lane win a defender runs out is very valuable.  Also there is almost no correlation to unassisted threes and unassisted shots at the basket.  So, I based the study on two point shots only.
• Unassisted shots are very position dependent, because Point Guards have the ball in their hands much of the time. You can't get an assisted shot if the ball is already in your possession. Comparing Point Guard creation and Center's is pretty much pointless, like comparing strike outs thrown by pitchers and short stops.

So our world is getting a bit smaller here, but now we can at least look at some like groups, shooting guards, small forwards and point guards.  Within the positions there are, indeed, some cohesive groupings of players based on their assisted rate for shots. For now I am calling the two groups Spot Up Shooters and Creators.

For right now, I will look at Shooting Guards, here are the two groups using Shooting Guards over the last three years with at least 200 minutes in terms of assists by location:

 

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 TWO GUARDS	105	37.8%	54.54	4.25	40.95	39.36	81.43
Std. Deviation		0.10	13.43	1.89	12.27	19.85	17.08
SPOT UP TWO GUARDS	108	65.5%	75.90	3.33	63.61	73.55	91.14
Std. Deviation		0.08	8.81	1.74	11.86	14.56	11.77

 

What we find is that the shot location that shows the biggest difference in assist level is actually the dreaded Long Two from 16 to 23 feet. The bane of all basketball analytics everywhere. Not a a great start for our Shot Creators. However, they do , as group, take more shot at the rim.  And one can also see how little gap there is in three point shots.

To bring the groups I found into better focus, I pulled up some of the individual players with the most effective points in 2013.

Player	CREATOR TWO GUARDS	SPOT UP TWO GUARDS	Group
Andre Iguodala	0	1	Spot Up
Arron Afflalo	1	0	Creator
Ben Gordon	1	0	Creator
Danny Green	0	1	Spot Up
DeMar DeRozan	0	1	Spot Up
Dion Waiters	1	0	Creator
Dwyane Wade	1	0	Creator
Gerald Henderson	1	0	Creator
Gordon Hayward	0	1	Spot Up
J.J. Redick	0	1	Spot Up
J.R. Smith	1	0	Creator
Jamal Crawford	1	0	Creator
James Harden	1	0	Creator
Jared Dudley	0	1	Spot Up
Joe Johnson	1	0	Creator
Kevin Martin	0	1	Spot Up
Klay Thompson	0	1	Spot Up
Kobe Bryant	1	0	Creator
Lance Stephenson	1	0	Creator
Marcus Thornton	0	1	Spot Up
O.J. Mayo	1	0	Creator
Ray Allen	1	0	Creator
Vince Carter	1	0	Creator
Wesley Matthews	1	0	Creator
	15	9	24

One thing to notice is that Creator Two Guards are over represented in the top point scoring two guards with fifteen of the twenty-four.

For the most part the list looks pretty intuitive, with players like James Harden, Dwayne Wade, Kobe Bryant, and Joe Johnson as well as irrational confidence guys JR Smith and Jamal Crawford as Creators. But the list includes OJ Mayo and Ray Allen as a Creators.

This is where my definition matters, for Mayo 55% of his offense was insisted but only 37% of his inside the arc points were assisted. For Allen, while 76% of his offense from the floor was assisted only 49% of his two point offense is assisted putting him marginally in the creator camp last year. It also looks like the change to Miami affected his game as a far higher percentage of all of his shots in Boston were assisted and he rated a Spot Up Guard there.

On the Spot Guard list players like Danny Green, JJ Redick, Klay Thompson, Jared Dudley and Kevin Martin show up where we would expect. But, players like Iguodala were somewhat surprising, Again the way I am defining things matter, Iggy had about 62% of his overall offense assisted, while 55% of his offense inside the arc was a assisted, more than Allen.

Then I looked at some stats for the two groups as they were rated last year.

Groups	Count	AV TS%	AV eFG%	AV ORB%	AV DRB%	AV AST%	AV TOV%	AV ASPM	Av ORtg
Creators Twos	33	53.19%	49.35%	2.40	11.06	18.08	13.07	-0.64	104.70
Spot Up Twos	41	52.06%	49.10%	2.60	10.05	10.70	11.23	-1.53	103.56
Grand Total	74	52.56%	49.21%	2.51	10.50	13.99	12.05	-1.14	104.07

 

Pretty much across the line the Creators came out better.  That isn't a surprise when one looks at the list of Creators up above.  But, we can not, at this point, call this any sort of victory for shot creation.  It is, at least, as likely that superior two guards are given the ball more often in the offense.  IE, they get the opportunity to create because of their talent.  It could be that the offense would be better off with more ball movement and less, 'creation.'

Lastly, I also wanted to cross reference this analysis with my last analysis on Shot Location, expecting to see Shot Creators line up with Slashing Guards, and Spot Shooters with Stretch Guards.

And they did only to a small extent, there was only a slight bias in favor of Stretch Guards being in the Spot Up Group, because of  the fact that I gave the Stretch Shooters a pass on their threes. Again, using Shooting Guards from 2013:

 

Location Grp	Assist Grp	Count	AV TS%	AV eFG%	AV ORB%	AVE DRB%	AVE AST%	AV of ASPM
Stretch Guard	Creators	20	53.54%	49.97%	2.32	11.01	16.68	-0.78
	Spot Up	27	52.94%	50.12%	1.91	9.47	10.43	-1.41
Slasher Guards	Creators	13	52.66%	48.41%	2.53	11.14	20.24	-0.43
	Spot Up	14	50.34%	47.11%	3.94	11.17	11.23	-1.76
Grand Total		74	52.56%	49.21%	2.51	10.50	13.99	-1.14

 

Spot Up Slashing Guards come out the worst with scoring efficiency and overall ASPM rating.  No surprise, since they seem to have neither elite ball handling or shooting skills.

I will follow up with the Point Guards next.