{"id":1943,"date":"2017-02-10T20:00:33","date_gmt":"2017-02-11T01:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bowdoinglobalist.com\/?p=1943"},"modified":"2017-02-10T20:00:33","modified_gmt":"2017-02-11T01:00:33","slug":"light-years-behind-all-star-edition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/students.bowdoin.edu\/bowdoin-review\/lead\/light-years-behind-all-star-edition\/","title":{"rendered":"Light Years Behind: All-Star Edition"},"content":{"rendered":"

Welcome to the first installment of Light Years Behind, a (hopefully) weekly look into the National Basketball Association.<\/p>\n

Editor\u2019s Note: if you come here expecting the in-depth analysis offered elsewhere at the Bowdoin Globalist, then PROCEED NO FURTHER. What follows is an exercise in whimsical nonsense.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Which NBA Players Embarrass Themselves the Most? A Completely Unnecessary Analysis<\/h2>\n

The NBA boasts the greatest players in the world. Even the twelfth man on every roster is better at basketball than any of us will ever be at anything. With All-Star weekend rapidly approaching, now is the perfect time to appreciate greatness. Luckily,\u00a0<\/span>NBA.com<\/span><\/a> now offers a plethora of statistics for fans and media to indentify the best of the best. Using advanced player-tracking data, it\u2019s easy to find which player has been the most prolific Iso scorer (Isaiah Thomas) or who has made the most pull-up 3-pointers (James Harden). The sky\u2019s the limit with these new tools, and one could spend an eternity breaking into what makes these players so spectacular.<\/span><\/p>\n

But I got bored almost immediately by the tops of the leaderboards, and have decided to pursue a much more <\/span>interesting<\/span> frivolous question: which players are subject to the greatest amount of embarrassment?<\/span><\/p>\n

Methodology<\/h3>\n

I determined five measurements of humiliation. They are as follows:<\/span><\/p>\n

Blocked Field Goal Attempts (per 100 possessions)\u00a0<\/strong>This one is pretty self-explanatory\u2014players who get their shots swatted soar to the top of the leaderboard. I used the per-100 possessions stat, instead of a cumulative total, to account for the differences in playing time. Enes Kanter comes off the bench, so he gets fewer opportunities to have his field goal attempts sent into the fourth row. It seems so unfair to penalize him for that! In my methodology, he goes to first place, right where he belongs.<\/p>\n

Clutch True Shooting Percentage (lower percentage means higher rank)\u00a0<\/strong>This category is for players who brick shots when the game matters most. NBA.com<\/span><\/a> characterizes a \u201cclutch\u201d situation as any point where there are 5 minutes or less left in the game and the score is within 5 points. True shooting percentage is like field goal percentage, but it takes free throws (which don\u2019t count as field goal attempts) and 3-pointers (they\u2019re worth more!) into account. This way, a player\u2019s offensive impact, or lack thereof, is more fully measured. I also specified that the player\u2019s usage rate be over 20 percent. We want players who single-handedly lose games, not just stand in the corner. Matthew Dellavadova takes the crown for this one, with a putrid 20.5 true shooting percentage. There is a larger gap between first and second places than between second and eleventh.<\/span><\/p>\n

Isolation Defense (effective field goal percentage allowed)\u00a0<\/strong>This is a measure of one-on-one incompetence. The players at the top of the board simply have no chance at getting a stop when left on an island. Effective field goal percentage adjusts for threes but not free throws, as NBA.com<\/span><\/a> didn\u2019t offer true shooting percentage for this leaderboard. Memo to teams playing the Magic: give the ball to D.J. Augustin\u2019s man and clear out.<\/span><\/p>\n

T<\/strong>urnover Ratio<\/strong>\u00a0<\/span>This statistic measures the number of turnovers a player commits per 100 possessions. It is one of the famed \u201cfour factors\u201d (along with effective field goal percentage, free throw rate, and offensive rebound rate) that are crucial in determining NBA success\u2014and failure. Jusuf Nurkic runs away from the field here, with a bigger gap between him and second place than between second and eighteenth place.<\/p>\n

Pull-up Shooting Percentage (lower % means higher rank)\u00a0<\/strong>Everyone loves the pull-up dagger, but we can\u2019t all be Steph Curry. Actually, we can’t all be Austin Rivers. Some of us really should stop taking this shot (hint hint, Andrew Harrison). I limited this to players who average more than two per game.<\/p>\n

Scoring<\/h3>\n

I determined the top 50 players in each category. A player then received points for his rank in every leaderboard (first place got 50 points, second place 49, and so on). The totals were then added up to form a final leaderboard.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Rank<\/td>\nPlayer<\/td>\nTotal Points<\/td>\nTeam<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n
1<\/td>\nDerrick Rose<\/td>\n124<\/td>\nNew York<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
2<\/td>\nJabari Parker<\/td>\n111<\/td>\nMilwaukee<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
3<\/td>\nDeMarcus Cousins<\/td>\n107<\/td>\nSacramento<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
4<\/td>\nEmmanuel Mudiay<\/td>\n106<\/td>\nDenver<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
4<\/td>\nJamal Murray<\/td>\n106<\/td>\nDenver<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
4<\/td>\nRussell Westbrook<\/td>\n106<\/td>\nOklahoma City<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
7<\/td>\nJames Johnson<\/td>\n93<\/td>\nMiami<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
8<\/td>\nDennis Schroder<\/td>\n89<\/td>\nAtlanta<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
9<\/td>\nMarques Chriss<\/td>\n84<\/td>\nPhoenix<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
10<\/td>\nJusuf Nurkic<\/td>\n81<\/td>\nDenver<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

A few observations:<\/span><\/p>\n