What's a stat that should show up in box scores?

[Blake]

I think they should keep track of charges taken per game, myself.

Seems to me that forcing a change of possession and a foul on the opposite team's player is bigger than grabbing some cheesy rebound off a missed free throw.

I know it would be difficult, but I'd also like to see a stat of "minutes with basketball in hand"

[sonic21]

screens

[FromWayDowntown]

I'd be interested in quantification of things that are difficult to quantify. For years, Bruce Bowen would have benefitted, for instance, from a tough shots forced sort of category or even a shooting percentage against in 1-on-1 situations. I'm not sure, though, that the game would allow those kinds of measurements in any statistically meaningful way.

[clambake]

there should be some kind of meter that measures the suckage of the mavs in the 4th q.

[xellos88330]

I think they should make assists count for 2 passes. Kind of like in hockey.

[FromWayDowntown]

A simpler stat that would be interesting would be a generalized breakdown of turnovers -- steals against, bad passes, offensive fouls, and miscellaneous.

[lurker23]

Charges taken would be nice.

I like the recent addition of plus/minus to basketball box scores; it is a stat that has been around for a long time in hockey, and can show important trends in the long run.

Along those lines, I'd like to steal another trend from hockey: the ability to award two assists on each basket, if applicable. Often the pass before the assist is just as important, if not more important, than the assist itself. Specifically, I think Tim Duncan's assists would increase greatly with this new change; he is amazing at passing out of double-teams, and very often the next pass leads to an open three-pointer.

(xellos88330 beat me to this idea.)

[naico]

Good question. maybe something like: forced TO's (other then steals)

[tonylongoriafan]

bad calls by refs...think about it, we justify all of the stats for the players and nothing for the refs...missed travels: 4, clean blockshots called fouls: 3, over reaction to getting shown up by a player: 1

[timvp]

I was actually thinking about this topic recently

I'd like a "fouls drawn" category. They have that in Europe but not in the NBA for some reason. I'd also like a "potential assist" stat. That stat would help better gauge whether a point guard simply isn't creating good enough or if his teammates were just missing shots. Deflections might be an interesting stat, especially since a lot of teams track it internally. Some sort of hockey assist might be cool.

Your idea of keeping track of charges is a good one. That's another stat that is tracked internally ... and also you can find it sometimes at 82games.com.


The good news is that the NBA is slowly adding more stat categories. Recently they added +/- and blocks against. There's still a whole lot of room for growth.




P.S.

I'd also think it'd be a good idea for stats to be tracked by a third party and not someone associated with the specific home team. That way players like Chris Paul (and John Stockton back in the day) don't get their stats inflated by a homer statistician. With every game on TV nowadays, it'd be pretty easy to have remote statisticians for each game.

[naico]

Originally Posted by timvp

I'd also think it'd be a good idea for stats to be tracked by a third party and not someone associated with the specific home team. That way players like Chris Paul (and John Stockton back in the day) don't get their stats inflated by a homer statistician. With every game on TV nowadays, it'd be pretty easy to have remote statisticians for each game.

+1

[Blake]

Originally Posted by lurker23

I like the recent addition of plus/minus to basketball box scores; it is a stat that has been around for a long time in hockey, and can show important trends in the long run.

I get that, but I actually think seeing the +/- in a box score is a waste of time. Like you said it's good for the long run to see a trend, but that's really only for coaches and diehards to ponder over.

If a guy scores 15 points and grabs 10 boards but is at or near the minus, that makes no sense to me.

[Blake]

Originally Posted by timvp

I I'd also think it'd be a good idea for stats to be tracked by a third party and not someone associated with the specific home team. That way players like Chris Paul (and John Stockton back in the day) don't get their stats inflated by a homer statistician. With every game on TV nowadays, it'd be pretty easy to have remote statisticians for each game.

no doubt.......

it seems to me that I recall there was some controversy with Hakeem's quadruple double because of something like this......

[duncan228]

Originally Posted by timvp

I'd like a "fouls drawn" category.

Me too.

[fyatuk]

The only thing I've ever had an interest in is "points assisted" instead of "baskets assisted."

[lurker23]

Originally Posted by Blake

I get that, but I actually think seeing the +/- in a box score is a waste of time. Like you said it's good for the long run to see a trend, but that's really only for coaches and diehards to ponder over.

If a guy scores 15 points and grabs 10 boards but is at or near the minus, that makes no sense to me.

Well, on a game-by-game basis I think the stat is a "needs more investigation" sort of thing. Even if you score 15 points, you're not helping your team too much if you give up 20 points on the other end. So, while an anomalous +/- isn't necessarily something to condemn or praise a player about, it's something to look into. Did the player play poor man-to-man defense, or horrible help defense? Did the player fail to get back in transition to help stop fast-break points? Or was the player simply un/fortunate enough to simply be on the floor with another player who was particularly hot or cold?

[smeagol]

When a player intentionally tips a rebound (ususually offensive) into a the hands of a player from his same team, which obviously gives that team another offensive look, is that considered a OR?

(sort of what Oberto does a lot)

[sabar]

I was was actually thinking about this myself recently along with how much work it would be to track the stats on my own. I think it would be nice to be able to better quantify defense, but that isn't as simple as it seems. If you could quantify things like missed rotations, contested shots, etc, you could get a good idea of how well a player defends. Only problem then? The amount of grey area on what constitutes a contested shot and so forth.

Plus a lot of re-watching game tape.

[spurs_fan_in_exile]

A big to the idea of fouls drawn, both offensive and defensive and a similar breakdown for fouls committed. It's always struck me as something so simple to track and can be a big indicator of a player's aggressiveness and BB IQ.

[stéphane]

I'd like to know how many screens the player can set, small thing but interesting.

[Blake]

Originally Posted by lurker23

Well, on a game-by-game basis I think the stat is a "needs more investigation" sort of thing. Even if you score 15 points, you're not helping your team too much if you give up 20 points on the other end. So, while an anomalous +/- isn't necessarily something to condemn or praise a player about, it's something to look into. Did the player play poor man-to-man defense, or horrible help defense? Did the player fail to get back in transition to help stop fast-break points? Or was the player simply un/fortunate enough to simply be on the floor with another player who was particularly hot or cold?

that's the thing. Take the Spurs for instance where it used to be that a guy like Bruce would funnel the driving player down into the towers on Defense.

If the player scores, even though it was 'his man' why should that be a negative on Bruce if he did his job?

[Blake]

Originally Posted by sabar

I was was actually thinking about this myself recently along with how much work it would be to track the stats on my own. I think it would be nice to be able to better quantify defense, but that isn't as simple as it seems. If you could quantify things like missed rotations, contested shots, etc, you could get a good idea of how well a player defends. Only problem then? The amount of grey area on what constitutes a contested shot and so forth.

Plus a lot of re-watching game tape.

like Timvp mentioned, 82games.com is a great place to look up all sorts of obscure stats that you want.

I'm just wanting a few things for the box score so that I don't have to dig for them over there.

[TDMVPDPOY]

put a fkn gps on there jerseys and lets see who does alot of mileage on court....

[Behrooz24]

Out of curiosity, I want to see how many times a player hits the floor. Doesn't it seem like TP falls to the ground on every damn layup?!

[lurker23]

Originally Posted by TDMVPDPOY

put a fkn gps on there jerseys and lets see who does alot of mileage on court....

That would be fun. Manu would be one of the league leaders, although high-minute big men would have the advantage, since they have to run from baseline-to-baseline more than guards. Spurs guards in general would have high mileage, as they do a lot of dump-and-cut with Duncan.

[timvp]

Originally Posted by smeagol

When a player intentionally tips a rebound (ususually offensive) into a the hands of a player from his same team, which obviously gives that team another offensive look, is that considered a OR?

(sort of what Oberto does a lot)

Yes it's considered an offensive rebound. About 95% of the time the player who tipped the ball gets credit for the rebound. The rule stats that it must be a "controlled tip" to receive credit but statisticians almost always count it -- especially if it's a big tipping it to a small.