Midrange shots and efficiency

[kabstah]

I see your point now, but it's only valid because you imposed a contrived and artificial limitation forcing both teams (A + B and A + B PRIME) to take the same distribution of mid range and inside shots regardless of personnel. What if you replaced player B with an identical clone of player A? I think in a realistic scenario, that would result in less mid range shots at a lower efficiency than normal, while also boosting the volume of inside shots. Would that result in a better or worse offense than replacing player B with player B PRIME? Impossible to say without more data, imo.

[Dr Positivity]

I agree, it's obviously a simplification that relies on Player B's teammates combining for all the inside shots Player A takes. In most cases Player A's team will end up with the higher volume of inside shots

Nevertheless the important point remains to me, a player's offensive impact is only felt if he a) Improves his team's volume of inside/outside shots compared to midrange, or b) Improves the efficiency itself of these inside, midrange, or 3pt shots. I would say most statistical players have some impact on either, even Zbo and Maggette. I wonder though if guys like Dirk and KG who are the kings of B - have much more impact than we realize, compared to players who score at a similar efficiency and volume inside but don't have an enormous impact on either a or b

[kabstah]

I agree, it's obviously a simplification that relies on Player B's teammates combining for all the inside shots Player A takes. In most cases Player A's team will end up with the higher volume of inside shots

Nevertheless the important point remains to me, a player's offensive impact is only felt if he a) Improves his team's volume of inside/outside shots compared to midrange, or b) Improves the efficiency itself of these inside, midrange, or 3pt shots. I would say most statistical players have some impact on either, even Zbo and Maggette. I wonder though if guys like Dirk and KG who are the kings of B - have much more impact than we realize, compared to players who score at a similar efficiency and volume inside but don't have an enormous impact on either a or b

I don't think statistics undersell Dirk's offensive impact in the least. Generally speaking, Dirk's been good to excellent in terms of TS% (57-60%), and the Mavs have always had an abundance of offensive talent during his years there. It should be surprising to absolutely no one that the Mavs have been an elite offensive team.

KG's a more interesting case, because he's been on a few top 5/6 offenses despite being fairly mediocre in terms of TS% most years. Consider, however, that the Twolves went from the 11th best offense to the 4th best offense between the 2000-2001 and 2001-2002 seasons with virtually no change at all in KG's personal production. What did change, however, was that the team as a whole took substantially more 3's and made them at a higher clip than the previous season. In fact, that extra made 3 pointer per game accounts for nearly all of the offensive improvement.

In a nutshell, there's no evidence to suggest that mid range shooting is more valuable or more impactful than any other type of offense. Efficient scoring is efficient scoring, no matter where it comes from.