Why is scoring never adjusted

E-Balla · Post #1 » by **E-Balla** » Sun Jan 20, 2013 6:21 pm

I made this because of a James Harden and Wade comparison. Someone was telling me that a healthy Wade couldn't score as much a Harden and I was saying that assuming he runs at the same pace he could. Why do we adjust rebounds (trb%), assists (ast%%), etc but not scoring.

mysticbb · Post #2 » by **mysticbb** » Sun Jan 20, 2013 8:47 pm

TRB% is actually the percentage of rebounds a player grabbed from the available rebounds. AST% is the percentage of assisted fields from the available field goals a player could have assisted. And TS% is the percentage of the possible points a player scored based on his true shooting attempts. The equivalent of TRB% and AST% is actually TS%. The issue is that a player couldn't have scored points for other players, because he actually didn't take the shots. So, if Wade would take as much shots per game as Harden and would be able to keep his efficiency (57 TS%) at the same level, he would score 25.2 ppg. Well, and then there is the relationship between usage and scoring efficiency. With increased usage the scoring efficiency is expected to go down. Each increased percentage point in usage results into something between 0.2 and 0.65 decrease in TS%.

Well, if we assume that Wade is not able to play more minutes, he would need to increase his USG% to 35.9 in order to take as many shots per game as Harden. That is 7.3 percentage points above his current USG%, which then translates to an expected decrease in TS% between 1.46 and 4.75. Thus, we can expect Wade with the amount of shots Harden is currently taking would score between 23.1 and 24.6 ppg. Based on the numbers, we can conclude that current Wade couldn't score as much as Harden.

E-Balla · Post #3 » by **E-Balla** » Thu Jan 24, 2013 6:59 pm

TS is not an equivalent to scoring at all. Its the advanced version of fg%. I'm talking about something similar to trb% which is just rebounding adjusted for number of rebounds. If I score 15 on 10 shots you can't say I'm more effective as a scooter as someone scoring 17 on 12 shots. I guess I'm saying they measure different things completely. Another example if what I'm looking for is a tov% type number for shots or ortg without the assists thrown in.

Post #4 » by **Doctor MJ** » Fri Jan 25, 2013 7:33 am

GC Pantalones wrote:TS is not an equivalent to scoring at all. Its the advanced version of fg%. I'm talking about something similar to trb% which is just rebounding adjusted for number of rebounds. If I score 15 on 10 shots you can't say I'm more effective as a scooter as someone scoring 17 on 12 shots. I guess I'm saying they measure different things completely. Another example if what I'm looking for is a tov% type number for shots or ortg without the assists thrown in.

He's saying that TRB% is essentially rebounding efficiency. Comparing TRB% between two players fro two different eras let's us know who "converted" most frequently on their rebounding "attempts".

To your answer your question though, the reason why we don't have a points scored per possession play stat is because it's not that useful and it's easy to estimate. I'd imagine you'd object to the usefulness aspect but the reality is that while a lower TRB% really does mean unsuccessful rebounding attempts, less scoring per possession doesn't necessarily anything like that at all. By the time you've done enough that you care about per possession stats, you typically also care about efficiency, and you also realize there can be serious problems with a guy's scoring even beyond that. All of this reduces a theoretical stat of this nature down to a frivolity in the eyes of some.