Breaking Down Offense Further

There are multiple ways a player can add value to his team in a basketball game. Attempting to capture these different ways quantitatively can be difficult. If you look at an advanced season box score, you’ll notice that most of the stats are listed in rates instead of totals or per game.

So let’s take two players and compare them, Ochai Agbaji and Christian Braun. They have similar minutes played, PER, and TS%. As we continue to move left to right, we see that Och’s 3-pt. attempt rate is much higher, although CB gets to the line more (FT rate). Agbaji is credited with more points produced, CB is a better rebounder on both ends, a better assister, and also gets a higher proportion of steals and blocks. Ochai has a lower turnover percentage, and a higher usage.

These numbers are all wonderful to have, and do tell us quite a bit. They are also a mess to organize and make sense of. For instance, PER (Player Efficiency Rating) rates how efficient players are, with higher been better. It takes into account all offensive stats.

Notice we see that David McCormack is leading in this category. This may be surprising, but remember he shoots FT’s quite well and also grabs a ton of offensive rebounds. His turnover rate is also fairly low. Still, we see he is shooting worse than players like Agbaji and Braun, and has a far lower assist rate than the guards.

What if we wanted to compare D-Mac’s offensive rebounding rate (which is very high) to a guard’s assist rate? In other words, is he adding more or less value through his rebounds than Dejuan Harris is through his assist? You can’t look at the raw numbers, because they are measuring two different skills. But certainly there is a way to see this.

Represented below is the attempt to do just that. Breaking down offense, we’ve organized all offensive plays into one of three categories: Finishing, Handling, and Boarding.

• Finishing – This measures how well and frequently a player scores. It takes into account his shooting percentage and volume, as well as if the play was assisted or not. It includes measurements of both production and efficiency.
• Handling – This measures how well a player takes care of the ball and distributes it. It uses assists and turnovers to drive the result.
• Boarding – This looks primarily at offensive rebounding, the main driver in a team getting second-chance opportunities. It also includes the occasional “save” which rescues a team’s offensive possession following a teammate’s poor pass that should have resulted in a turnover.

This chart is represented in Points Above Bubble, the value currency most frequently used on this website. This chart is showing PAB per 100 possessions, so it ignores any value related to endurance/stamina/etc. and purely rates each player on the same possession basis. There are a few interesting results:

• The best offensive skill set for KU this season has been Agbaji’s ability to score (Finishing). He is shooting 42.2% from 3, and also has a 61.3% TS% (using Sports Reference’s calculations). In all, he is adding 7.29 Points above bubble over the course of 100 possessions (PAB/100) due to his ability to score.
• The second-best offensive skill set for KU this season is David McCormack’s offensive rebounding. He is adding 5.17 PAB/100 just from his ability to get second and third-chance opportunities. And while some may wish to discount his rebounding ability by claiming it is due to poor shooting (“he just gets his own misses”), this doesn’t look to be too true as he has a Finishing score of +1.59. When D-Mac is out there, he is the team’s second-best offensive weapon.
• The best at “Handling,” which is basically maximizing assists and minimizing turnovers, is Dejuan Harris. At +3.06, is far better at the true point guard skills than other guards. But notice even despite his strong Handling score, his lack of Finishing and Boarding makes his offensive value below bubble-player level on offense.
• These numbers are not position-adjusted. So we expect to see the guards with positive Handling numbers but negative Boarding numbers, and the posts to have negative Handling numbers but positive Boarding numbers. But take a look at K.J. Adams. A solid offensive rebounder, K.J. has also done a decent job handling the ball for a 4/5 man. It is his scoring (Finishing) which has made his score so low.

In summary, different players will bring different things to the table. For KU’s offense in 2022, they are getting great scoring marks from Agbaji, Braun, and even Coleman-Lands. Harris is the best ball-handler, although the other point guards add some value here. And inside, David McCormack and K.J. Adams are beasts at winning additional opportunities. Jalen Wilson is positive in all features, being balanced at finishing, handling, and boarding.