I know David Lee turns the ball over more than that.
See, has the Greek Professor pointed out at the game on Sunday night, David Lee gets stripped every time he makes his move in the post (henceforth to be known as "The Lapdance"), which happens at least twice a game. Case in point: last night, against the Wizards, I saw him get stripped twice when he drove baseline. Yet the number of turnovers for David Lee in the boxscore: zero.
But he did have two BA's.
That's the value of this new stat you see now in the box score. BA = Blocks Against, or how many times you got swatted. A lot of David Lee's drives that have ended in strips aren't credited as turnovers, but instead as Lee being blocked. It really depends on the scorekeeper, and how he wants to score it. But regardless of whether it's a turnover, or just a "BA", the result is always the same... a lost possession for the Knicks.
Now we can properly track the sloppiness, on offense, of a player like David Lee. Sometimes I just can't believe how much some Knick fans sweat this guy. I like him - I think he's got great hands, and he hustles harder than any other Knick other than Balkman and Robinson (both of whom can also play defense). I read someone comment somewhere that Lee is our best "all-around player".
Really?!? I hope not. That's like saying Eddy Curry is your best all-around player. Don't you have to, you know, play offense and tough defense to be "all-around"?!?
Lee, like Curry, is more the one-dimensional type of player than an all-around player.
But I'm digressing. Here's the deal: I took a look at the BA category in the boxscores from the Knick games this season. See, this stat is so new that, as far as I could find, no one keeps tabs on stuff like "who leads the league in BAs", etc.
And, just as I suspected, guess who leads the Knicks in "number of times getting rejected"? Anyone?
Knicks Players, BA:
Wilson Chandler, 1
Mardy Collins, 3
Malik Rose, 3
Jared Jeffries, 4
Renaldo Balkman, 8
Fred Jones, 9
Nate Robinson, 11
Quentin Richardson, 15
Stephon Marbury, 17
Jamal Crawford, 21
Eddy Curry, 36
Zach Randolph, 38
David Lee, 40
There you go. Lee handles the ball significantly less than Randolph or Curry, doesn't draw the doubles those guys do, and yet he gets blocked more often than they do.
Breaking it down further, Lee gets consistently blocked almost every game. He's gotten blocked in four straight games now; he's been blocked in 26 of 37 games this year. By contrast, Curry has been blocked in 21 games, and Randolph in only 19 games.
Randolph numbers seem to explain what we know about his style a bit more... he has had games where he's clearly forcing the ball on double teams down low. So looking at the boxscores, you'll see these handful of games where Randolph's BAs are ridiculously high - one game where he was blocked a team season-high six times, plus another two games were he was blocked four times. For comparison, Curry had one game this season of four BAs, and Lee has one game with 4 BAs.
And so, while it wouldn't have turned up in the box score in years past, thanks to BA we can now properly identify one negative aspect of David Lee's game. Keep in mind that BA isn't really incorporated into stats such as "PER", "Efficiency" etc, so Lee's perceived value is much higher among statheads than maybe it should be. After all, isn't a "blocked shot" (really, we're talking getting stripped going up here more than just getting blocked) as much of a turnover as a bad pass that gets stolen? Or a traveling violation?
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p.s. the Knicks have the least assists per game in the NBA. Makes sense, doesnt it?
As for why people go so crazy for David Lee, it's simple: he's different. He's white, and there's not many decent white players in the NBA. It's the same reason why people love Nate Robinson despite being what I like to call "bad at basketball". He's short, in a game of big men.
It's why baseball writers/fans are obsessed with David Eckstein (he's a midget albino) despite the fact that he sucks.
Very good info, Tom. 82games.com has great stats like those: "% of assisted baskets" is a favorite of mine. With the Knicks, the assists are a little understated because alot of interior passes end up in a foul (for Curry or Randolph), and therefore aren't counted as "assists". But the bottom line is that Knicks are dead last in assist/game, and that says a lot about their struggles this season right there.
It's especially damning when you realize that while they may not have a legit "pass-first point guard", they do have two "passing shooting guards" on the court most times (Crawford, Marbury and Robinson all fit the mold of the hybrid PG/SG). Yet they have the worst ball movement in the league! Bottom line is their hybrid guards aren't doing enough of the passing thing. And the team does much better when they do pass.
As for the block shot, it generally goes down as a missed FGA, and that's it, I believe....
Great stuff SML! I had absolutely NO IDEA about this. I just assumed that it was a turnover ONLY if the block landed in another players hands.
One thing that I would be interested in knowing is how often BA's end up in the other teams hands. It does seem like Lee immediately gets back a fair number of his own blocks. 30%?
Tom, about Nate. Before you continue hating him, please note that he seems to have gone through a trabnsformation in January 2008. He is playing with a poise and passing that I never thought possible. Run his January #s and you will get different results. DON'T HATE NATE THE GREAT!
i'm a little late commenting on this one, but a telling stat nonetheless. it's something people will notice nightly once it's pointed out.
as lee is a capable rebounder and player with good hustle, it's easy to overlook these lapses. even when his move doesn't result in a turnover, it almost always has the effect of disrupting offensive flow.
(i'm surprised it's never been mentioned by mainstream analysts and commentators.)
Wow...I had no idea that didnt count as a turnover. That's like not counting fumbles as turnovers in football.
Anything that gives the other team the ball besides a made shot or a missed shot should be considered a turnover.
By the way, kinda off-topic, but the other day I was thinking about how the Knicks are kind of a "selfish" offense, and your point about Randolph forcing the ball on double teams reminded me of that. So I decided to do a little bit of research. I thought a good indicator of a team's ball movement would be the percentage of field goals that come from assists. A team that has a high assists/FGM ratio would be one that passes a lot and finds the open man. A team with a low assists/FGM ratio would be one that runs a lot of isolation or has a ton of offensive rebound putbacks (but more likely a selfish team that doesnt move the ball). So, what did I find?
The highest assist/FGM ratios belonged to the Nets (69.85%), Suns (65.38%), and Jazz (64.81%). No surprises there, given that their PGs are Kidd, Nash, and Deron Williams. The next 4 were Detroit, the Clippers, Boston, and the Spurs. The Clippers obviously stand out, considering they're the lowest scoring team in the league (the Nets are only two spots above them, btw), but the other three teams are championship contenders.
The Knicks, however, were 29th out of 30, at 50.71%. Only Sacramento (50.42%) was worse.
This then got me thinking about Nate Robinson and how much I fucking hate his game. He's a chucker, and there's nothing I hate more than a chucker. So, I thought I would compare him to the NBA average.
Taking all the assists and all the field goals made this season, the NBA average is 58.53% assists per field goal made. Guards, especially point guards, should be higher than that, since they get the bulk of the assists. Nate's assists/FGM is 53.85%. So, despite being a "point guard", Nate is well below average when it comes to distributing the ball. In fact, only 5 teams have a lower assists/FGM percentage than Nate...Cleveland, Washington, Minnesota, the Knicks, and Sacramento.
What's my point? I fucking hate Nate Robinson