Today, I decided to look at play-making ability. This isn't a new concept, and is usually done using Assist:Turnover ratios. However, with SportsVu at or disposal, we can take it a little further.
The first step was to determine what percentage of a player's Touches ended in a Turnover (bad) or a Potential Assist (good). This was done by simply dividing total Turnovers/Potential-Assists, by total Touches.
Next, I needed to establish the "value" of a Turnover and Potential Assist. A Turnover is is usually counted as -1, since you lost your team a possession, and the average team scores about 1-point-per-possession.
The Potential Assist was a bit trickier, since I don't have access to enough data to come up with an exact value. I decided to start with the Win Score value of an assist (+.5). As of today, 50% of all Potential Assists become Assists, so I divided .5 by 2, to get a value of +.25 for a Potential Assist. Not perfect, but it should suffice for now.
I weighted Turnovers and Potential-Assists as described above, added them together, and standardized. Below is a table ranking the top 30 play-makers in the NBA.
PAPT% = Potential Assist per Touch Percentage
TPT% = Turnover per Touch Percentage
PME = Play-Making-Efficiency
- Wade, Harden, Westbrook, and Durant all ranked below average.
- Questions will be answered in the comments, and hopefully I can clean the values/methodology up as the season progresses.