Historical TS Add Analysis

[Ryoga Hibiki]

Is this somewhat normalized to a standard number of possessions?
If not it can be very affected by pace, when comparing different eras.

[Mazter]

It's just too bad that TS add is not available per game, per minute or per 100. Context remains important, especially in combination with volume. For example, Gobert, the nr. 3 in TS add last season. The league average of points per 100 is 22.1 on 39.2 TS attempts. Despite his TS add Gobert is still just a bit below average on his scoring volume (21.4) and he is well below average on his attempts (30.6). Of course those 8.6 shots would not be the easiest for him and would probably bring his TS add way down if he took them. So TS add is basically rewarding him for taking only easy shots and leaving the difficult ones over to his team mates.

[Jordan Syndrome]

It's just too bad that TS add is not available per game, per minute or per 100. Context remains important, especially in combination with volume. For example, Gobert, the nr. 3 in TS add last season. The league average of points per 100 is 22.1 on 39.2 TS attempts. Despite his TS add Gobert is still just a bit below average on his scoring volume (21.4) and he is well below average on his attempts (30.6). Of course those 8.6 shots would not be the easiest for him and would probably bring his TS add way down if he took them. So TS add is basically rewarding him for taking only easy shots and leaving the difficult ones over to his team mates.

This is the same for TS% and Individual Ortg.

Again, this is another tool in the tool box. We now have some 160 grit sandpaper to sand off some old paint of a desk we are re-finishing while before we only had 100 grit sandpaper.

Sorry--I am in the process of refinishing some older items in our home and this is the first analogy which came to mind.

[70sFan]

Yeah, this is not a stat that tells us how good someone is. There is no single stat which can measure how good you are at basketball. It is useful tool that combines efficiency relative to the league with volume. I wouldn't call it revolutionary, but it's not bad at all - certainly better than raw TS% without era adjustments.

[DQuinn1575]

Y'know what? You go ahead. Do consider duplicating the spreadsheet if you're inspired to do major surgery, but if you're just adding columns, go right ahead. Request Edit access, or if you prefer PM me your email.

Done under an hour.
I just edited the 3rd "Career TS Add" page. Added the things I talked about. Also added a simple page as "on average".

As a minor observation; it is insane how close Olajuwon, Duncan and Ewing are. Only Sam Jones is between them.

Hope you all remember the Sam Jones point when I bring him up in the Top 100 project.

[Doctor MJ]

Is this somewhat normalized to a standard number of possessions?
If not it can be very affected by pace, when comparing different eras.

It's certainly going to be affected by pace, and a pace-adjusted version wouldn't be a bad thing.

[Doctor MJ]

It's just too bad that TS add is not available per game, per minute or per 100. Context remains important, especially in combination with volume. For example, Gobert, the nr. 3 in TS add last season. The league average of points per 100 is 22.1 on 39.2 TS attempts. Despite his TS add Gobert is still just a bit below average on his scoring volume (21.4) and he is well below average on his attempts (30.6). Of course those 8.6 shots would not be the easiest for him and would probably bring his TS add way down if he took them. So TS add is basically rewarding him for taking only easy shots and leaving the difficult ones over to his team mates.

Others already responded by I did want to say this:

This is a stat that's literally looking to equate a particular value to the points you score based on your efficiency scoring those points. Score 2 PPG on perfect shooting, you're not going to show up on the leaderboards. It is proportional to both efficiency and volume.

Does this mean the stat is un-hackable for a player looking to max out his score to the exclusion of team benefit? No, but the problem is frankly not as egregious as what already exists in the stats that were available back in the day. If you use FG%, eFG%, or TS%, you're using something more manipulated than this.

[Doctor MJ]

This is the same for TS% and Individual Ortg.

Again, this is another tool in the tool box. We now have some 160 grit sandpaper to sand off some old paint of a desk we are re-finishing while before we only had 100 grit sandpaper.

Sorry--I am in the process of refinishing some older items in our home and this is the first analogy which came to mind.

I love analogies, particularly those not commonly used. I enjoyed.

[DQuinn1575]

It's just too bad that TS add is not available per game, per minute or per 100. Context remains important, especially in combination with volume. For example, Gobert, the nr. 3 in TS add last season. The league average of points per 100 is 22.1 on 39.2 TS attempts. Despite his TS add Gobert is still just a bit below average on his scoring volume (21.4) and he is well below average on his attempts (30.6). Of course those 8.6 shots would not be the easiest for him and would probably bring his TS add way down if he took them. So TS add is basically rewarding him for taking only easy shots and leaving the difficult ones over to his team mates.

That’s basically the caveat for the stat, and it really should use a lower baseline than league average, as it not only rewards guys for only taking easy shots - but penalizes their teammates who are forced to take more shots than average. It’s the old usage/efficiency debate, where higher usage impacts efficiency. It’s also an issue with Gilmore, as he sometimes was less than 20% usage, and that is even boosted by his offensive rebounding. Additionally Gilmore had terrible hands, and had so many turnovers in 77 and 78 as he wasn’t someone to build an offense around.

[frica]

What we need is on /off teamTSadd.

[70sFan]

What do you mean by "bad hands"? I don't see anything wrong with Gilmore's hands.

[DQuinn1575]

What do you mean by "bad hands"? I don't see anything wrong with Gilmore's hands.

They fed him the ball and he didn’t always catch it.Happened a lot first couple of years in Chicago.

[Doctor MJ]

It's just too bad that TS add is not available per game, per minute or per 100. Context remains important, especially in combination with volume. For example, Gobert, the nr. 3 in TS add last season. The league average of points per 100 is 22.1 on 39.2 TS attempts. Despite his TS add Gobert is still just a bit below average on his scoring volume (21.4) and he is well below average on his attempts (30.6). Of course those 8.6 shots would not be the easiest for him and would probably bring his TS add way down if he took them. So TS add is basically rewarding him for taking only easy shots and leaving the difficult ones over to his team mates.

That’s basically the caveat for the stat, and it really should use a lower baseline than league average, as it not only rewards guys for only taking easy shots - but penalizes their teammates who are forced to take more shots than average. It’s the old usage/efficiency debate, where higher usage impacts efficiency. It’s also an issue with Gilmore, as he sometimes was less than 20% usage, and that is even boosted by his offensive rebounding. Additionally Gilmore had terrible hands, and had so many turnovers in 77 and 78 as he wasn’t someone to build an offense around.

The first thing you're saying is that using league average isn't really giving us value-over-replacement, and you're quite right. I don't think that realistically there's any objectively precise and accurate way to estimate what replacement level truly was so to me that's territory where you've got to move beyond the stats.

I think that pretty much everyone would agree that Gilmore wasn't a Top 2 all-time scorer, so taking this stat as if it says that is bound to overrate him.

On the other hand, for anyone who thinks that Gilmore wasn't doing anything noteworthy in the NBA, I think this stat really shows otherwise.

[Jordan Syndrome]

It's just too bad that TS add is not available per game, per minute or per 100. Context remains important, especially in combination with volume. For example, Gobert, the nr. 3 in TS add last season. The league average of points per 100 is 22.1 on 39.2 TS attempts. Despite his TS add Gobert is still just a bit below average on his scoring volume (21.4) and he is well below average on his attempts (30.6). Of course those 8.6 shots would not be the easiest for him and would probably bring his TS add way down if he took them. So TS add is basically rewarding him for taking only easy shots and leaving the difficult ones over to his team mates.

That’s basically the caveat for the stat, and it really should use a lower baseline than league average, as it not only rewards guys for only taking easy shots - but penalizes their teammates who are forced to take more shots than average. It’s the old usage/efficiency debate, where higher usage impacts efficiency. It’s also an issue with Gilmore, as he sometimes was less than 20% usage, and that is even boosted by his offensive rebounding. Additionally Gilmore had terrible hands, and had so many turnovers in 77 and 78 as he wasn’t someone to build an offense around.

The arguments for Gilmore being so great offensively is he didn't need an offense built around him to be effective. He is a player who raises the floor and ceiling of a team as his baseline is "give him the ball 15-20 times per game and and he is going to score at an all-time high level" for those possessions. There is a reason his game aged oh so gracefully offensively and to add to this he was a fantastic rim protector.

[penbeast0]

It's just too bad that TS add is not available per game, per minute or per 100. Context remains important, especially in combination with volume. For example, Gobert, the nr. 3 in TS add last season. The league average of points per 100 is 22.1 on 39.2 TS attempts. Despite his TS add Gobert is still just a bit below average on his scoring volume (21.4) and he is well below average on his attempts (30.6). Of course those 8.6 shots would not be the easiest for him and would probably bring his TS add way down if he took them. So TS add is basically rewarding him for taking only easy shots and leaving the difficult ones over to his team mates.

That’s basically the caveat for the stat, and it really should use a lower baseline than league average, as it not only rewards guys for only taking easy shots - but penalizes their teammates who are forced to take more shots than average. It’s the old usage/efficiency debate, where higher usage impacts efficiency. It’s also an issue with Gilmore, as he sometimes was less than 20% usage, and that is even boosted by his offensive rebounding. Additionally Gilmore had terrible hands, and had so many turnovers in 77 and 78 as he wasn’t someone to build an offense around.

The arguments for Gilmore being so great offensively is he didn't need an offense built around him to be effective. He is a player who raises the floor and ceiling of a team as his baseline is "give him the ball 15-20 times per game and and he is going to score at an all-time high level" for those possessions. There is a reason his game aged oh so gracefully offensively and to add to this he was a fantastic rim protector.

The trouble is that as he aged, his defense didn't seem to age nearly as gracefully (there's a reason announcers were calling him Rigor Artis and I say this as a huge Gilmore fan). Part of this I blame on Chicago moving him much closer to the basket on both ends which traded off the ability to get him the ball for extra efficiency offensively but defensively kept his shotblocking up but seemed to lower the amount of other plays he affected. Part of this is also on Gilmore as, outside of 75 where he had Hubie Brown on his back every play about being aggressive, he tended to be willing to be passive and stand around when the play didn't come to him.

[Owly]

That’s basically the caveat for the stat, and it really should use a lower baseline than league average, as it not only rewards guys for only taking easy shots - but penalizes their teammates who are forced to take more shots than average. It’s the old usage/efficiency debate, where higher usage impacts efficiency. It’s also an issue with Gilmore, as he sometimes was less than 20% usage, and that is even boosted by his offensive rebounding. Additionally Gilmore had terrible hands, and had so many turnovers in 77 and 78 as he wasn’t someone to build an offense around.

The arguments for Gilmore being so great offensively is he didn't need an offense built around him to be effective. He is a player who raises the floor and ceiling of a team as his baseline is "give him the ball 15-20 times per game and and he is going to score at an all-time high level" for those possessions. There is a reason his game aged oh so gracefully offensively and to add to this he was a fantastic rim protector.

The trouble is that as he aged, his defense didn't seem to age nearly as gracefully (there's a reason announcers were calling him Rigor Artis and I say this as a huge Gilmore fan). Part of this I blame on Chicago moving him much closer to the basket on both ends which traded off the ability to get him the ball for extra efficiency offensively but defensively kept his shotblocking up but seemed to lower the amount of other plays he affected. Part of this is also on Gilmore as, outside of 75 where he had Hubie Brown on his back every play about being aggressive, he tended to be willing to be passive and stand around when the play didn't come to him.

Insofar as the "Rigor Artis" is something important to your memory/perception of him (not to say it necessarily is) and could shape (or form) memories of him, this seems (as best I can tell) to have been a Boston era coining from Peter May at the Globe. Think we may have noted this before (searches .... viewtopic.php?t=1791397).

[penbeast0]

Probably, but I do remember him being a lot more active in Kentucky than Chicago defensively which is the basis of my comment.

Looking it up -- Chicago's defense was actually good his first year (they went from 9th with Boerwinkle to 2nd with Gilmore) then literally fell off the table in 78 (20th/22!) and stayed below average the rest of his Chicago tenure so the stats do generally back up my memories here.

[70sFan]

Probably, but I do remember him being a lot more active in Kentucky than Chicago defensively which is the basis of my comment.

Looking it up -- Chicago's defense was actually good his first year (they went from 9th with Boerwinkle to 2nd with Gilmore) then literally fell off the table in 78 (20th/22!) and stayed below average the rest of his Chicago tenure so the stats do generally back up my memories here.

I think that a lot of this is caused by how bad Bulls team became in 1978. It was a package of absolutely terrible defenders.

I do think that Gilmore regressed defensively in the 1980s, but he was still mobile and athletic in late 1970s. We know examples of very good defenders playing in poor defensive teams - KG and Mutombo were also in bad teams even in their primes.

Even in 1983 he showed that he could have positive impact on defense (especially in playoffs). It wasn't until 1984 when I see Gilmore regressing defensively in significant way. He became much more stationary and his vertical game also regressed. He was old by then though, especially for a giant ironman like him.

We shouldn't judge Gilmore by what he did in the 1980s, he was old and after tough injury in this decade. Yet he was still all-star level for another 6 years and he was good player until his last year.

[70sFan]

What do you mean by "bad hands"? I don't see anything wrong with Gilmore's hands.

They fed him the ball and he didn’t always catch it.Happened a lot first couple of years in Chicago.

It didn't help that he played with very weak backcourts in Chicago - outside of Norm van Lier they had no capable passers. He didn't seem to have the same problems in San Antonio.

I think that Gilmore lacked awareness of the best centers ever and that was his problem - not bad hands. I mean, his shooting touch was fantastic and he had giant hands so he could palm the ball with ease.

[DQuinn1575]

What do you mean by "bad hands"? I don't see anything wrong with Gilmore's hands.

They fed him the ball and he didn’t always catch it.Happened a lot first couple of years in Chicago.

It didn't help that he played with very weak backcourts in Chicago - outside of Norm van Lier they had no capable passers. He didn't seem to have the same problems in San Antonio.

I think that Gilmore lacked awareness of the best centers ever and that was his problem - not bad hands. I mean, his shooting touch was fantastic and he had giant hands so he could palm the ball with ease.

The-us was actually a real good passer ; probably a more talented passer than Norm, but Reggie was all about Reggie, probably the anti-Norm. Unfortunately the NBA never saw a 100% Ronnie Lester.