John Wall is the consensus #1 pick in tomorrow’s draft, and most people think he will be a very good, if not great pro.  However, the opinions of the next-best two perimeter players are up in the air.  Many people are wondering who will be the better pro between Evan Turner and Wesley Johnson.  In my opinion, it all comes down to who will be the better shooter in the pros, and who can effectively take the step back to the NBA three point line, because all other things on the offensive end are relatively equal (Wesley Johnson is a bit more athletic/Evan Turner has a slightly better handle).

Shooting Form

Wesley Johnson

I absolutely love Wesley Johnson’s shooting form.  He is a jump shooter rather than a set shooter, and his fundamentals are really on point, elbows are bent the right way, guide hand is on the side of the ball and it isn’t used during the shot.  My favorite thing about his shot though is how high he keeps the basketball up on his release.  Wesley Johnson is 6′6″ so he is already just as tall as most threes and probably taller than most shooting guards trying to defend him on the outside.  With the way that Johnson keeps the ball up, there is going to be no way his shot gets altered/blocked when shooting from the outside.

Evan Turner

Evan Turner too is a jump shooter rather than a set shooter.  Turner also has solid form when looking at his elbow and guide hand (you can’t see it from here, so you are going to have to take my word for it).  However, what I don’t like in Turner’s form is what I love in Johnson’s, where the basketball is.  Wesley Johnson kept the basketball up ridiculously high, but Evan Turner looks like he is almost resting the ball on his shoulder.  In my opinion, he keeps the basketball too low, but that has never been a problem in college because as M. Haubs of The Painted Area mentioned, he has been going up against smaller defenders most of his college career.

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Much like Lakers approached defending Rajon Rondo in game six, the Celtics took whoever was covering Ron Artest (in most cases it was Paul Pierce) and had them float on the defensive end of the court.  Unlike Rajon Rondo in game six, Ron Artest was able to make the Boston Celtics pay for this defensive strategy.  Eleven of Ron Artest’s twenty points came directly from Boston Celtic double teams.  Here is a look at these plays:

Play 1 (Two Points)

Above is a play from a sideline out of bounds set.  Immediately after Ron Artest inbounds the basketball and floats to the corner, Paul Pierce leaves him to float in the middle of the court.  Rajon Rondo, unsure of what to make of the situation decides to pick up Artest.  As the shot goes up, Artest uses his size advantage on Rondo to grab the rebound and put it right back in the basket.

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I was reading through TrueHoop’s Monday Bullets, and I came across an article on Corey Brewer and his improved shot.  In it, David Thorpe talked about how Brewer improved his shot.  Some of it had to do with shot selection, but a lot of it he says, has to do with the lower half of his body:

And on the second part, the mechanical side, Corey was–and sometimes still does–he gets his head and shoulders far in front of his feet when he’s going to shoot, because he’s trying to stay low. But what happens is this: when you catch the ball and then try to stand up quickly, your head goes flying backward, and that’s kicking your legs out in front of you to counter balance your head or you’re going to fall on you back. So you kick your legs out–it’s an unconscious move–and therefore your balance is awful. Because you have poor balance, it’s very hard to have a great mechanic or stroke with your right arm, and it really threw his whole shot out of whack. So I actually talked a lot about–and I know the Wolves have worked him a ton–on just being more balanced and jumping straight up and landing straight down on two legs and not one leg. Not kicking his legs out in front of him, holding that form, and putting his hand to the rim and leading to all sorts of shooting cues that we worked on a lot this summer that we still talk a lot about literally every game day, almost.

This stuff looked familiar because the Nets had their own player struggling with his shot earlier in the year with Courtney Lee.  The problem was also in the lower half of his body, and over at NetsAreScorching, I took a look at it in depth:

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Note:  This isn’t really a breakdown, more of a rant

Fighting for their playoff lives, the Houston Rockets were down 4 points with 1:06 seconds left.  Their opponent the L.A. Clippers just pulled down an offensive rebound and bring the ball upcourt:

Now, it is obvious that the Clippers are trying to kill some clock here, and they effectively do.  20 valuable seconds come off the clock before Baron Davis hits his jumper.  This brings up something that has always bothered me when it comes down to coaches strategy, why don’t NBA teams foul earlier when they are losing (not counting the Hack-a-Shaq)?  The Rockets don’t foul in this situation, but they aren’t the only one, most teams in the NBA won’t foul here, and I think it’s silly.  In my opinion, when you are down by more than 1 possession with a minute left you want to extend the game as long as you can, and one way to do that is you foul.

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I am here at MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, and looking through the number of great papers one of them caught my eye.  It was called “The Value of a Blocked Shot in the NBA: From Dwight Howard to Tim Duncan” written by John Huizinga, (A professor of business at the University of Chicago) who has been Yao Ming’s NBPA registered agent since Yao’s inaugural season, representing Yao in his dealings with the Houston Rockets, as well as with major endorsement partners.

Data

Before getting into the data and what it tells us, it was important for us to learn how the data was gained.  Mr. Huizinga developed a database called Chances.  The database uses data provided by STATS, LLC. and allowed everyone to know the context of the action before the block.  The sample of the data used in the presentation was players with over 100 blocks over the last 7 years (this is when the data has become available).  In total, this ended up being 170 player-seasons.

Type Of Block

Is blocking a lay-up more valuable than blocking a jump-shot?  Mr. Huizinga’s data says yes.  In his presentation, he said that it all comes down to expected value.  A jumper has an expected point value of 1.04 while a lay-up has an expected point value of 1.54.  Looking at it this way, Brendon Haywood, who many people is a very good defender (me included) actually is a less valuable shot blocker than Jermaine O’Neal.

Haywood gets 69% of his blocks on jumpers, meaning he only blocks 31% of the more valuable lay-ups.  On the other end of the spectrum, 91% of Jermaine O’Neal’s blocks were on lay-up attempts, while only 9% of his blocks were the less-valuable jump shots.

“Russells”

Many people who have seen Bill Russell play (or have seen highlights) know that Bill Russell was remembered for blocking shots for his teammates, starting a fast break (called by Bill Simmons as “Russells”.  Mr. Huizinga showed that this doesn’t really happen in the NBA anymore.  There have only been 7 players (in the 7 season where the data was tracked) who accumulated more than 20 “Russells” in a season.

Preblock Situation

One of the most important things to take away from Mr. Huizinga’s presentation is expected value of the preblock situation.  Or in otherwords, what happened right before the block took place.  Naturally, a block coming off of a live-turnover situation on a lay-up (think a LeBron chasedown) is going to be more valuable than a block coming off of a deadball situation.  Again, this comes down to expected point value.  The expected point value of a live-turnover situation is higher than a deadball situation because coming off of a live-ball turnover, the defense doesn’t have a chance to get back.

The best shot blocker in the NBA when it comes down to this situation ends up being Andrei Kirilenko, as 16% of his blocks come against this shot type.  The worst ends up being Greg Ostertag.  This makes sense considering that Ostertag isn’t really known for his footspeed.

Putting It All Together

So whose blocked shots are the most valuable?  Mr. Huizinga closed the presentation by going over what he calls “Block Value.”  To determine block value, he used the formula Points Saved + Points Created where Points Saved equals the effect of a Block on Opponents Expected Points during this possession and Points Created equals the effect of a Block on Own Team’s Expected Points During the next possession.

Using this formula, we found out who had the best season since the data started being collected (2002-03) in terms of overall block value.  It ended up being Theo Ratliff during his 2003 season.  Ratliff accumulated a block value of 300 (287 coming from points prevented while 13 came from points created), which when transformed into wins ends up being right around 5.

Interesting Numbers

Just thought it would be interesting to include some numbers towards the end of Mr. Huizinga’s presentation, showing how number of blocks can’t really be used when determining who is the best “shot blocker.”

2003 season

• Stromile Swift | 119 blocks with a block value of 74
• Rasho Nesterovic | 117 blocks with a block value of 124

So why was Mr. Huizinga’s paper called From “…Dwight Howard to Tim Duncan?”  Well as he explained, through a series of charts, Tim Duncan has had the best season in history when it came down to value/block with 1.12, meaning he saved 1.12 points with every block and Dwight Howard ended up with the worst season in terms of value/block with with .53 (both came during the 2008 season).