Navigation: Jump to content areas:


Pro Quality. Fan Perspective.
Login-facebook
Around SBN: Todd Haley Is The Steelers Next Offensive Coordinator

DON'T PANIC: Of Effective Field Goals

Like a disturbance in the Force, I can sense the number Minnesota Flagellants about to explode.  So I thought I'd do a little to quell fears about the Wolves.  Now, when I was watching the Wolves get slaughtered by the Kings tonight, I realized something about them:  they're not doing that badly on offense.  Now at first that seems laughable, but hear me out.  They're above average at offensive rebounding (thanks to Kevin Love), above average on turnovers, and to the low end of middle of the pack on free throws per shot attempt (but that's the least important of the four factors, honestly).  So what's the problem? They can't shoot.  Right now the Wolves have an efg% of 45.5% good for dead last in the league.  And while that's before tonights laffer was added in, they were right at that mark for the night (Saccy shot 56.% efg tonight, which would put them tops in the league if they kept it up all season).  Right now the the league average is 49.2% efg.  Currently the Wolves have 4 players (Mike Miller, Craig Smith, Al Jefferson, and Ryan Gomes) who are shooting at or above that mark.  And that sad part of that is that it's not even close.  The worst of the four is Jefferson, who had a 48.9% mark prior to the Kings game, and probably put himself at or above average with his 11-20 night.  But the next BEST player is Randy Foye.  He's shooting 42.7% right now.  That's pretty disgusting.  Right now there are two other teams with so few average shooters.  The first is Chicago, which mitigates that situation by having their four good shooters take all the shots.  Second is Oklahoma.  Does anyone want to be compared with Oklahoma right now?  I thought not.
So why is this DON'T PANIC and not WE'RE DOOOOOOOOOOMED?  Because there are three and a half forces in play here.  The first is seasonal progression.  In the NBA, teams tend to shoot better as the season goes along.  So it wouldn't be shocking to see an increase in shooting effectiveness over the course of the season. The second is that the two worst offenders, Randy Foye and Rashad McCants, should be a lot better.  McCants was second best efg% player last year on the team (third if you count Mike Miller's season in Memphis), while Foye was just under average.  Their shooting woes are compounded by the fact that get the most touches on the team, behind Jefferson.  And while I don't expect them to have an average year, if they could get it together for the last two-thirds of the season, things will look a lot better in a hurry.  Now the three and a half is this a bit complicated.  First is a basketball stats rule.  It's called the Fluke Rule, and is one of John Hollinger's pet studies (incidentally, if you care about basketball at all you should go over and read Hollinger's stuff at Four Letter.  It's behind their pay wall, but his content alone is worth it).  There are several part to the rule, but one is relevant to our purpose.  It is this:  that a large, sudden dip (or spike) in a player's fg% that can't be explained by injury is almost certainly an abberration, and will correct itself the next year.  Which is a fancy way of saying that even if things don't turn around this year, they will next season (long parenthetical:  remember that no one expected this Wolves team to contend, or even make the playoffs this season.  And things like this happen.  Sometimes teams that are supposed to win 55 games win 45, and 45ers win 35.  And sometimes 30 win teams are on pace to win 15.  In the NBA, so it goes. End parentheses).  Now here's the half point comes in.  The Wolves are currently 4% behind the league average.  The last time a team came in worse than 3.3% behind was the 2002-2003 Nuggets.  The season after that, the Nuggets won 27 more games (from 17 to 44) and made the playoffs.  So there's always hope.  And this season was built on the hope the future.  It's still there, and that's a better reason than you need to not panic.

*Effective Field Goal Percentage, which is (2P + (3P *1.5))/FGA.

Comment 8 comments  |  1 recs  | 

Do you like this story?

Comments

Display:

love the article

you touch on something I have been feeling about this club. their shooting is extremely terrible this year. In fact it is well below their carreer avg and in baseball the sabermetricions woudl say that a realitively young player with numbers well below carreer numbers will lickely regress (aggress?) back to the mean in the following years. the wolves shooting is too terrible to continue, if not this year then on into subsiquent years. and since this was a wait until next year to start with, at least it has accomplished 1 of two possible thins. the first is it moved McHale out of the FO. and secondly we are being posissioned to have really good draft position with lots of draft picks next year. this gives us a chance to really blow up this team and bring in some pieces that can help us turn things around.

Will the Real Thor Please Stand Up ... ?

by the Real Thor on Dec 16, 2008 7:06 AM CST reply actions  

Here's hoping Foye turns it around...

…the guard play is killing this team. It’s like they’re constantly playing 3 on 5 if not 2 on 5 if you throw in the awful play at the 3.

The World's Leading Exporter of Small Area Quickness
www.canishoopus.com

by Stop-n-Pop on Dec 16, 2008 7:34 AM CST reply actions  

Agree on Foye...

I hope he turns it around. When he’s playing and shooting well at least the wolves are kind of fun to watch. The thing I don’t get is Love. He was supposed to be an outstanding outside shooter. He sure clanks ’em up from the perimeter. A huge disappointment in that area for mr. Love so far. All his outside shots are so flat it seems…..

by wolfen on Dec 16, 2008 8:43 AM CST up reply actions  

exactly

I find this bizarre too – that shot is so flat. The most basic knowledge of physics tells you it won’t go in. I guess I must be wrong because he’s been a good shooter in the past…but it is such a line drive.

by plinytheelder on Dec 17, 2008 1:22 PM CST up reply actions  

a lot of these things tend to be contagious

the poor (and out of charecter) shooting is contagious, it spreads from one player to an other so the whole team perfoms in a similer fasion. the same thing can happen in the reverse, when the team collectively shoots better then carreer numbers would suggest they can. that was the situation the twins were in last year, when as a team they hit sigfig better with runners in scoring position. this year they are likely to regress to the mean in that regard. I see the wolves shooting to do the same (only in reverse) next year.

I also feel that K-Love’s shooting will improve as he goes through his rookie learning curve.

Will the Real Thor Please Stand Up ... ?

by the Real Thor on Dec 16, 2008 9:18 AM CST reply actions  

The problems is defense way more than offense

we are last in eFG% and I would bet that we are in the bottom 5 in Def eFG%. I’m much more concerned that we simply cannot stop anybody.

what you say here can, and will, be used against you

by GopherNation on Dec 17, 2008 12:17 PM CST reply actions  

But they never were going to stop anyone in the first place..

….I’ve used this analogy before, but it’s like expecting the Twins to hit a lot of home runs. As long as they keep the DE between 108-110, they’ve improved and they should have had the offense to make it interesting.

The World's Leading Exporter of Small Area Quickness
www.canishoopus.com

by Stop-n-Pop on Dec 17, 2008 2:37 PM CST up reply actions  

So what I’m getting out of this is that we can be a poor mans Suns from the last 3 or so years. We could outscore most of our opponents if only we would shoot our average. The problem (?) I see with that is that offensive rebounding numbers will go down and somebody will start moaning about that. I’d rather hear that though than how terrible this team is. I’m still hoping they get to 30 wins ( and that I get to date Jennifer Aniston). Merry Christmas everyone!!

I am constantly amazed by my own lack of knowledge.

by frankenhoops on Dec 23, 2008 12:16 PM CST reply actions  

Comments For This Post Are Closed


User Tools

Canis Hoopus is straight T-Wolves straight from Minnesota.

FanPosts

Community blog posts and discussion.

Recommended FanPosts

Img_2198_small
Not another Spaniard... hold up... wot?
George_mikan_small
I was there the Night Anthony Morrow scored 42 points
Small
Not 'yet another spaniard'...
Small
Another Spaniard fan! thanks for this forum :)
Small
Rubio talking trash with Kobe

Recent FanPosts

Me_small
Unofficial Game Thread
Small
CH hang night
Small
It's prediction time
Small
Video Collection Section Suggestion?
Ibanez_ps10-ltd_new_small
Good lord this site is slow...
Small
2/7 Kings +7 at Wolves
423782_341552342543426_214857671879561_1130545_553219663_n_small
Anthony Randolph on his way out?
Small
Trade Proposal for Chicago
Small
What If DWill...

+ New FanPost All FanPosts >

Canis Hoopus Twitter

    follow me on Twitter

    Hoopus Features

    HOOPUS FAQ

    Salary Cap Info

    Draft Info

    Player Movement Flow Charts

    Draft Boards

    Former Tag Lines:

    • In desperate need of an epic dose of basketball Viagra
    • Your source of radical left wing politics cleverly disguised as basketball fandom
    • Palin-Free since before statehood
    • Despairy Home Companion
    • The world's leading exporter of small area quickness
    • Sorry…I have no idea who is Joe Mauer
    • Home of the Peja deep douche
    • Vote McGrady!
    • Bork, bork, bork, bork, bork
    • Wir Sind Darko
    • Weird, unhealthy Darko mania
    • les goûts et les couleurs ne se discutent pas
    • Basketball success makes character issues forgivable
    • Building the Boogie Bandwagon
    • Building the Dream....One Power Forward At A Time
    • Kids, Puppy Dogs, And Long Walks In The Park
    • SWITCH THE FLIP!!!
    • Team Red Pill.
    • December is Bunny Month. Survive it with insincerity and Merle Haggard.
    • Like having a really good seat at a beheading.
    • We've got to have rules and obey them. After all, we're not savages. We're Wolves fans, and Wolves fans are best at everything.
    • Getting Real Mythological
    • Trapped in Punxsawawney
    • BIIYYYOOOMMMBOOOOOOO!!!
    • Estoy llevando mi talento a Minnesota
    • Where sharks do battle with giant eagles
    • You don’t put a saddle and reins on a magical unicorn, you bareback it and put faith in nature
    • Toeing the line between nerd and loser

    Hoopus Recipe Book

    Let's Settle This:


    Self-Promotion

    BallHype Sports Blog Rankings


    Managers

    Dr wyn

    Journey_small Stop-n-Pop

    Rviy7fbgmhz5ht2dpgo6q0jfu_small TimAllen

    Editors

    Wolveslogo_small Oceanary

    Authors

    Small SG

    Hrbek_small Jon Marthaler