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In the team previews thread discussion of Hinrich versus other players point guards, it was theorized that Hinrich may deny his man possessions at a greater number than others. I thought it may be interesting to see who is facing fewer possessions than the average, and by how much. I decided to just grab a small sample size, of the point guards who play 20+% of minutes for Atlanta through Milwaukee alphabetically. Only players who played at least two-thirds of minutes at the point were included, and were assumed to have played all minutes at point guard for this study. (So the infamous Hinrich is not included. Yes, the data is available to get a more accurate count of how many minutes were logged at point guard, but has been not used here.) This left 24 point guards to analyze.
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alston,rafer
armstrong,darrell
atkins,chucky
billups,chauncey
cassell,sam
claxton,speedy
davis,baron
duhon,chris
farmar,jordan
felton,raymond
gibson,daniel
harris,devin
knight,brevin
livingston,shaun
lue,tyronn
parker,smush
payton,gary
rondo,rajon
snow,eric
stoudamire,damon
telfair,sebastian
tinsley,jamaal
williams,jason
williams,maurice
The league average number of floor possessions for a point guard was determined from 82games data, which is in per 48 minutes, to be roughly 22.7 floor possessions. It is not enough to look at just the possessions faced per 48 min for the other players, as they play at different paces. Assuming they faced the average rate of possessions, Baron Davis would have 24.8 and Chauncey Billups 21.9, just from pace differences. So all possession amounts were adjusted by pace, then compared to the average. This information is here:
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1 stoudamire,damon 89.6%
2 felton,raymond 90.5%
3 snow,eric 92.5%
4 atkins,chucky 92.5%
5 gibson,daniel 93.0%
6 williams,jason 93.4%
7 duhon,chris 93.5%
8 tinsley,jamaal 93.8%
9 alston,rafer 94.6%
10 rondo,rajon 94.7%
11 billups,chauncey 94.9%
12 armstrong,darrell 95.2%
13 knight,brevin 95.3%
14 claxton,speedy 95.8%
15 telfair,sebastian 96.4%
16 payton,gary 97.1%
17 cassell,sam 97.7%
18 lue,tyronn 97.9%
19 harris,devin 98.0%
20 davis,baron 99.4%
21 williams,maurice 102.0%
22 farmar,jordan 102.4%
23 livingston,shaun 104.6%
24 parker,smush 105.7%
So, Damon Stoudamire faced just 89.6% of the average amount of possessions, or 20.3 per 48 minutes, while Smush Parker was at the other extreme with 105.7% and 24.0.
The question now becomes, does this show any correlation with stop percentage? In other words, are the players facing the fewest possessions also forcing the most turnovers and missed shots on those possessions they do face? The stop percentage data for these players follows.
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1 rondo,rajon 14.43%
2 claxton,speedy 14.29%
3 harris,devin 14.28%
4 parker,smush 13.73%
5 farmar,jordan 13.43%
6 davis,baron 13.36%
7 livingston,shaun 13.32%
8 duhon,chris 13.20%
9 armstrong,darrell 12.88%
10 knight,brevin 12.77%
11 tinsley,jamaal 12.70%
12 alston,rafer 12.55%
13 snow,eric 12.12%
14 felton,raymond 11.86%
15 gibson,daniel 11.80%
16 billups,chauncey 11.80%
17 williams,maurice 11.77%
18 williams,jason 11.65%
19 cassell,sam 11.52%
20 telfair,sebastian 11.32%
21 payton,gary 11.15%
22 atkins,chucky 10.53%
23 stoudamire,damon 10.14%
24 lue,tyronn 10.09%
To compare the rankings for the players between the two data sets, I have placed them one after another in a "table" (can tables be done on the NLSC? I forget?), the first value is their "faced possessions versus the league average" ranking and the second is their stop percentage ranking.
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alston,rafer 9 12
armstrong,darrell 12 9
atkins,chucky 4 22
billups,chauncey 11 16
cassell,sam 17 19
claxton,speedy 14 2
davis,baron 20 6
duhon,chris 7 8
farmar,jordan 22 5
felton,raymond 2 14
gibson,daniel 5 15
harris,devin 19 3
knight,brevin 13 10
livingston,shaun 23 7
lue,tyronn 18 24
parker,smush 24 4
payton,gary 16 21
rondo,rajon 10 1
snow,eric 3 13
stoudamire,damon 1 23
telfair,sebastian 15 20
tinsley,jamaal 8 11
williams,jason 6 18
williams,maurice 21 17
There does not appear to much of any correlation between the two data sets from the results that we have here. Duhon shows up well, but examples like Smush Parker and Damon Stoudamire are nowhere near close.
Forcing turnovers appears for a few players to compare a lot better but still nothing consistant, forcing missed shots is as bad as the stop percentage. (Order: "faced%" rank, forced turnover rank, forced missed shot rank.)
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alston,rafer 9 23 6
armstrong,darrell 12 3 22
atkins,chucky 4 17 23
billups,chauncey 11 13 15
cassell,sam 17 21 5
claxton,speedy 14 2 18
davis,baron 20 10 9
duhon,chris 7 1 10
farmar,jordan 22 4 7
felton,raymond 2 15 16
gibson,daniel 5 7 13
harris,devin 19 5 2
knight,brevin 13 11 14
livingston,shaun 23 24 1
lue,tyronn 18 20 21
parker,smush 24 8 4
payton,gary 16 14 20
rondo,rajon 10 6 8
snow,eric 3 18 3
stoudamire,damon 1 22 24
telfair,sebastian 15 16 11
tinsley,jamaal 8 9 17
williams,jason 6 19 12
williams,maurice 21 12 19
At this point we can pretty much say that facing fewer possessions does not appear to be very well related to the ability to force stops after that player gets possession. But what is the effectiveness of denying the possession? From the above table we can see that Cleveland and Memphis intend to get the ball away from the point guard (unless we assume that Atkins, Stoudamire, Snow and Gibson are all top notch players at denying possession) and the Lakers are not (Farmar and Parker at the bottom) although other teams do not show as much uniform relation like this. (Payton and Jason Williams for example from the Heat.)
The theory supposed however that denying the possession is more valuable than stopping the possession. With the data here we cannot examine that, but before moving on, we can use the percentage of possessions faced to alter stop percentage. This would allow us to see results if the value of a possession denial was relatively equal to the value of a stopped possession. Adjusting for the possessions faced we get:
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1 rondo,rajon 15.25%
2 claxton,speedy 14.93%
3 harris,devin 14.56%
4 duhon,chris 14.12%
5 tinsley,jamaal 13.53%
6 armstrong,darrell 13.53%
7 davis,baron 13.45%
8 knight,brevin 13.40%
9 alston,rafer 13.26%
10 farmar,jordan 13.11%
11 felton,raymond 13.11%
12 snow,eric 13.11%
13 parker,smush 12.99%
14 livingston,shaun 12.74%
15 gibson,daniel 12.69%
16 williams,jason 12.47%
17 billups,chauncey 12.43%
18 cassell,sam 11.80%
19 telfair,sebastian 11.74%
20 williams,maurice 11.54%
21 payton,gary 11.49%
22 atkins,chucky 11.38%
23 stoudamire,damon 11.32%
24 lue,tyronn 10.30%
The biggest rank changes are as follows:
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1 tinsley,jamaal 6
2 duhon,chris 4
3 alston,rafer 3
4 armstrong,darrell 3
5 felton,raymond 3
6 knight,brevin 2
7 williams,jason 2
8 cassell,sam 1
9 snow,eric 1
10 telfair,sebastian 1
11 atkins,chucky 0
12 claxton,speedy 0
13 gibson,daniel 0
14 harris,devin 0
15 lue,tyronn 0
16 payton,gary 0
17 rondo,rajon 0
18 stoudamire,damon 0
19 billups,chauncey -1
20 davis,baron -1
21 williams,maurice -3
22 farmar,jordan -5
23 livingston,shaun -7
24 parker,smush -9
Farmar and Parker see large drops, from 5th and 4th to 10th and 13th. Oddly, only Felton is a top five possession "denier" who sees a large movement, moving from 14th to 11th. Our other top five guys, Snow, Gibson, Stoudamire and Atkins see a grand total of 1 rank change. Which seems odd and is interesting, Stoudamire and Atkins were both terrible stop percentage players to start, so they clearly did not change enough to surpass others. Snow, however looking at his adjusted percentage shows he is borderline close to being ranked 10th. Tinsley and Duhon both saw large jumps in rank despite neither their stop percentage nor "denial" percentage being in the top five. The raw percentage changes make logical sense and did as expected, but the ranking results are the more interesting result here.