Three Point Shooters, Aging Legs, and Ray Allen's Minutes
Posted: Thu May 15, 2008 8:13 am
I found myself – coincidentally – doing some research on three point shooting (Houston Rockets are looking for interns and are asking applicants to develop a model to project the league’s best 3 pt shooters year in and out….I have the time and kinda like doing this stuff anyway so I figured what the hell)
Anyways, I got a hold of a spreadsheet containing stats for just about every player in every season (up til a few years ago at least), with age included. I tried to at least briefly analyze the spreadsheet...one thing I was trying to determine was trends re: age and performance.
Now…performance was measured like this: 3 pt % * (3 pt attempts per minute played) – (logic being a player who can afford to be more selective in his shooting attempts will get better shot opportunities….Lebron and Kobe might not seem to be great 3 pt shooters but in a role where they were low volume spot shooters they would presumably shoot a good percentage)….results were further adjusted a little bit based on minutes per game.
Sure, a player’s team and teammates and offense certainly affects the quality of shot opportunities received – Joe Johnson shot a high % his last year with Phoenix and hasn’t come close to matching it with Atlanta, for example. But, looking at all players in a given age group across so many seasons, I figure its possible to find the category leader for each age group and use that as an acceptable indication of the affect of age on 3 point shooting.
I ignored players who played less than 18 minutes per game in a season, because this seemed to be a good number to get rid of flukes (except perhaps for Martell Webster a few years back…but if there are legitimacy to his numbers that year then he can be expected to break out any season now - also to note - Kobe posted a .52 playing 16 mpg as an 18 year old).
Anyways here were the results:
Now, potential implications for Ray Allen:
This table would seem to indicate that we do not have to worry about him losing his shooting ability in years to come – players usually don’t. BUT, you may notice a steep enough drop-off in peak ability between ages 31 and 32. There really is no other explanation that aging, weakening legs – and this would affect Ray Allen more than anyone else on our team due to his primary role and minutes requirements.
Last season was the first season Ray would have been expected to experience this drop-off. It might not have been coincidental that it was also the first season he had to miss extended stretches of playing time due to injury (the fact his coach played him about 40 mpg couldn’t have helped either).
This season, I have mentioned in a couple other threads – he is a sharp shooter in the first quarter (when he is definitely rested), the last two minutes of regulation/OT during close games (likely rested during timeouts and presumably has boosted adrenaline). But in between – he is an okay 3 pt shooter – but really not that much of an upgrade over, say, Tony Allen.
On a monthly basis, his 3 pt % is higher when he plays less minutes and takes at least a game or two off.
Doc points out that Ray has played X many minutes per game previously in his career, but he may very well be missing something. I would much rather see Ray playing 33-35 mpg and shoot 47% from the arc as opposed to playing ~40 mpg and shooting slightly less than 40% - and I would like to see him fresh down the stretch - especially considering we’ve got serviceable (arguably more than serviceable) guys like Tony Allen and Eddie House pining the bench right now. IMO, if Tony Allen plays the first 6-7 minutes of the 4th quarter tonight, we close out the game much more easily than we did.
Anyways, I got a hold of a spreadsheet containing stats for just about every player in every season (up til a few years ago at least), with age included. I tried to at least briefly analyze the spreadsheet...one thing I was trying to determine was trends re: age and performance.
Now…performance was measured like this: 3 pt % * (3 pt attempts per minute played) – (logic being a player who can afford to be more selective in his shooting attempts will get better shot opportunities….Lebron and Kobe might not seem to be great 3 pt shooters but in a role where they were low volume spot shooters they would presumably shoot a good percentage)….results were further adjusted a little bit based on minutes per game.
Sure, a player’s team and teammates and offense certainly affects the quality of shot opportunities received – Joe Johnson shot a high % his last year with Phoenix and hasn’t come close to matching it with Atlanta, for example. But, looking at all players in a given age group across so many seasons, I figure its possible to find the category leader for each age group and use that as an acceptable indication of the affect of age on 3 point shooting.
I ignored players who played less than 18 minutes per game in a season, because this seemed to be a good number to get rid of flukes (except perhaps for Martell Webster a few years back…but if there are legitimacy to his numbers that year then he can be expected to break out any season now - also to note - Kobe posted a .52 playing 16 mpg as an 18 year old).
Anyways here were the results:
Now, potential implications for Ray Allen:
This table would seem to indicate that we do not have to worry about him losing his shooting ability in years to come – players usually don’t. BUT, you may notice a steep enough drop-off in peak ability between ages 31 and 32. There really is no other explanation that aging, weakening legs – and this would affect Ray Allen more than anyone else on our team due to his primary role and minutes requirements.
Last season was the first season Ray would have been expected to experience this drop-off. It might not have been coincidental that it was also the first season he had to miss extended stretches of playing time due to injury (the fact his coach played him about 40 mpg couldn’t have helped either).
This season, I have mentioned in a couple other threads – he is a sharp shooter in the first quarter (when he is definitely rested), the last two minutes of regulation/OT during close games (likely rested during timeouts and presumably has boosted adrenaline). But in between – he is an okay 3 pt shooter – but really not that much of an upgrade over, say, Tony Allen.
On a monthly basis, his 3 pt % is higher when he plays less minutes and takes at least a game or two off.
Doc points out that Ray has played X many minutes per game previously in his career, but he may very well be missing something. I would much rather see Ray playing 33-35 mpg and shoot 47% from the arc as opposed to playing ~40 mpg and shooting slightly less than 40% - and I would like to see him fresh down the stretch - especially considering we’ve got serviceable (arguably more than serviceable) guys like Tony Allen and Eddie House pining the bench right now. IMO, if Tony Allen plays the first 6-7 minutes of the 4th quarter tonight, we close out the game much more easily than we did.