Stark Raving Brad - November 15

Nov 15, 2023, 3:53 PM

Simple Math.

Basketball, like most sports, is driven by the numbers of the game. PPG. APG. RPG. They’re all standard nowadays. Then there’s your advanced stats that have been developed in the wake of Baseball’s move to Moneyball. Most of those have only gained importance in recent years, but some have been around for quite a while, even as not being popularly known.

PPP. Points per possession. PPP was championed by Dean Smith in the late 1960’s, and he spoke about it at every post game interview. It was his “go-to” stat for how his offense performed.

Even still, previous to 8-9 years ago, most box scores didn’t report this. Some now do. Virtually every Coach though knows this statistic inside and out. That’s because it tells you exactly what offense works better than the rest.

Take 3-pointers for instance. Lord knows Clemson chucked enough of them against Davidson. 31 out of 57 total Field Goals were 3-pointers. Meaning, we shot 2-pointers (26) less than half the time. Apparently, Brad Brownell has made the decision that this team is going to ride the coattails of the 3-point escapades of Joe Girard, PJ Hall, Alex Hemenway, Chase Hunter, et al to whatever fate awaits. Fair enough, as theoretically he’s the Coach, and in general, these guys are relatively good shooters.

Our own “Clemson Mountaineers” has even noted multiple times already that we’re shooting 37+% from 3-point range on the year to date, and that this, in his opinion is a “very good” percentage. We were even better against Davidson at 38.7% on the game. Last year we finished at 36.4%, and as Hunter Tyson outshot Joe Girard’s percentage for the year, I don’t expect this year’s team to do much better, if at all, in the end.

But tell you what, let’s Math some PPP instead of just straight FG%...

Against Davidson, on 3-pointers, we scored 36 points in 31 possessions. That’s an efficiency of 1.161. Every time we took a 3-pointer, we could expect to score 1.161 points (on average, of course).

But against Davidson, we also made 14 2-pointers and 4 Free Throws for a total of 32 points in the 2-point game. That’s 32 points on only 28 possessions (26 shots plus 2 FT opportunities) for an efficiency rate of 1.143.

By this count then, against Davidson, our 3-point game was only slightly better than the 2-point game, even as our 3-point shooting percentage was overall pretty good for the game (emphasis on the “overall”).

Further, Year-to-date (3 games in), we can calculate the 2-Point Efficiency as 1.130, and the 3-Point Efficiency as 1.134.

Make sure you look at that right.... the difference might be easy to miss.

So, in essence, by concentrating on the 3-point game we’ve:
- ditched any consistent Offensive Rebounding,
- increased the likelihood of fast-break runouts off Defensive Rebounds by the opponent,
- ignored the possibility of consistently putting shooters at the Free Throw Line,
- handed the scoring mantle to Joe Girard instead of All-ACC PJ Hall,
- committed to having Joe Girard’s Defensive liability on the floor for 30+ MPG,
- ignored the Plus-scoring capabilities of Hall, Godfrey, Clark, and C Hunter while they’re in the lane,
- ignored the benefits of making other teams play a running defense that covers more than just the 3-point line, and
- taken on the streakiness and inconsistency (read: long scoring droughts) that is endemic to collegiate long-range shooting;

and, for all of this, the payback so far is only a 0.004 improvement in Offensive Efficiency.

Everyone’s raving about “3-pointers getting us back in the game” against Davidson. Seems they’ve lost the plot on why we were “out of the game” to begin with. But they’re also ignoring all of the side effects to over-use of the 3-ball that read like a poorly-trialed prescription drug.

Welcome to Stark Raving Brad....

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Re: Stark Raving Brad - November 15

A couple of points you are ignoring

Re: Stark Raving Brad - November 15

Holy cow. Forget the players. Forget the new season. Forget the competition. Forget the AD. Forget the team’s performance goals.

We have a major new development: the “Fire Brad” brigade have gone analytical.

This is a game-changer. Not to say they won’t still be stuffing every Clemson basketball conversation with chest-thumping proclamations of “We deserve better!” that sucks all of the excitement out of being a fan, but at least we can now ask, “Could you please define ‘better’? Is that somehow quantifiable? And if we do become ‘better’, would you notice it? Would you acknowledge it?” This could actually lead to productive, persuasive discussions that allow fans to show their common love for the Tigers without the goal of killing each other.

While I still disagree with your ultimate objective, I praise your efforts to improve the quality of conversation.

3-0. 2-0 in close games. 2-0 on neutral floor, which is a big accomplishment for this team. It’s too early to go negative.

The Morehead St game was worse than throwing up in your mouth. But it’s a new season with plenty of opportunity to shine.

I’ll tell you what I always do, analytics or not: I listen to a lot of radio broadcasts of other ACC programs. In other words, these are people who know the game and the conference better than typical TV guys. EVERY ONE OF THEM has a high degree of respect for Brownell and his teams. No one mocks Clemson, even in a historical sense. In fact, many are more supportive of Clemson than some of our own fans are. Does that mean they expect us to win the ACCT this year? No. But don’t count us out until we poop the bed, ok?

This team should be competitive in every regular season game.

Stark Raving Brad - November 15

Re: Stark Raving Brad - November 15

Hey, no worries man, completely understand....

Re: Stark Raving Brad - November 15

A couple of points you are ignoring

I know you said to ignore it but here's some stats just for reference

Re: Stark Raving Brad - November 15

I didn't say that 3-pointers "always" lead to more fast breaks against...

Re: I didn't say that 3-pointers "always" lead to more fast breaks against...

agreed, but at best you're 1-to-1 on Defense then and in the open Court

Re: Stark Raving Brad - November 15

what do you think was cut from someone else?***

Re: Stark Raving Brad - November 15

as I have pointedly said to another poster with the same general comment

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