Who be a black hole?

[Ghazi]

Interesting article someone linked on a Mavs board. No surprises our beloved J-Ho is listed

Who's a Black Hole in the NBA?

by Carlos Chalhoub

We hear the expression “He’s a black hole on offense” often among fans and media types, but nobody so far has tried to quantify it. In layman’s terms, I’d say that a “black hole” is a player who shoots the ball almost every time he touches it. He rarely passes the ball to an open teammate, and shoots a low percentage to boot.

If we were to quantify it, we’d have to say that such a player would have a high Usage Rate (Usg%), a low Assist Ratio (Ast%), and a below-average True Shooting Percentage (TS%). But, what is considered a high Usg%, a low Ast% and a below-average TS%?

For Usg%, if the shots are distributed equally among the 5 players on the court, then the average Usg% would be 20%. To figure out Ast% and TS%, I divided all NBA players into 3 categories: Bigs, Wings and Point Guards. The Bigs include Power Forwards (PF) and Centers (C). The Wings include Shooting Guards (SG) and Small Forwards (SF). And Point Guards include all players that man the PG position in the NBA.

Once the 3 groups have been delineated, it became easy to calculate the average Ast% and TS% for each of the 3 groups:

Ast% TS% Usg%
Big 8.05 0.553 20.0
Wing 13.01 0.541 20.0
PG 23.89 0.533 20.0

With this information at hand, we can now calculate the “Black Hole Index” using this formula:

100 * (1 – (AvgUsg% / Usg%) + (1 – (TS% / AvgTS%) + (1 – (Ast% / AvgAst))

The first portion of the formula calculates the percentage of possessions that the player uses above the average 20%. However, if a player’s Usg% is below 20%, then the player is not using more possessions than he should and is automatically disqualifed as a Black Hole. In my spreadsheet, I set an IF condition that automatically filters out players with a Usg% of 20.5 or below, in order to remove players that are marginally over the average Usage Rate of 20.

The second portion calculates the TS% below the average TS% for the position. And the third portion calculates the Ast% below the average Ast% for the position.

So, who’s the black hole in the NBA? To classify the players, I decided to remove marginal players who don’t have enough FGAs to qualify. Consequently, I set the minimum FGA/G to 4.0 and the minimum Games Played to 20. 130 players qualified.

Top 10 in Black Hole Index (BHI):

Player Pos USG% TS% AST% BHI
Rashad McCants Wing 25.94 0.474 8.31 71.41
Gerald Green Wing 26.65 0.513 7.89 69.38
Al Thornton Wing 23.02 0.493 7.22 66.52
Rudy Gay Wing 26.33 0.521 8.53 62.16
Josh Howard Wing 26.15 0.526 8.70 59.37
Travis Outlaw Wing 21.72 0.537 6.70 57.11
Michael Beasley Big 28.41 0.508 6.55 56.37
Leandro Barbosa PG 24.20 0.586 13.71 50.70
Corey Maggette Wing 24.94 0.579 8.61 46.67
Marreese Speights Big 22.58 0.573 5.02 45.47

Few surprises on the list, like Speights and Beasley, but the names coming up on top are some of the most known “black holes” in the league. In fact, if it weren’t for the maximum criteria for games played, Monta Ellis would have topped the list with a BHI of 81.07.

Some of the other more known Black Holes:

Rk Player Pos USG% TS% AST% BHI
29 Nate Robinson PG 23.95 0.541 20.88 27.67
32 Kevin Martin Wing 27.72 0.594 12.04 25.44
42 Eddie House Wing 20.81 0.582 10.44 15.99
43 Ronald Murray Wing 23.52 0.548 12.94 14.27
47 Danny Granger Wing 29.10 0.580 15.55 4.53

I’m pretty sure the formula can be further adjusted and refined. But for the time being, the list above should help identify some of the biggest black holes in the league.



http://basketball-statistics.com/who...einthenba.html

[eisfeld]

Interesting on the one hand but on the other hand it's just trying to transform things into numbers nba-fans with decent bball knowledge already know. Although I have to say the list is not good. The formula doesn't exclude people who have to carry a good amount of the offensive load on their shoulders and are not capable to do this efficiently. Gay, Granger and Martin for instance. Next to a superstar and in a different role they would surely be more efficient than now.

Despite this fact, it looks pretty decent but it's just playing with numbers like Hollinger does.

[manufor3]

some are obvious, others not. it is all clear when you watch games

[sribb43]

who would have thought j-ho and Maggette on that list

[Pelicans78]

Where's David West on the list? He's our black hole. Man, sometimes I wish we had Scola instead of him. At least Scola will play hard defensively, rebound, and not force bad shots.

[mavs>spurs2]

Yeah West should definately be up there. The day they are able to move him for a real talent to play sidekick to chris paul, and get some better wings, they will be a damn scary team.

And as far as Josh goes, he's became the worst kind of black hole lately. At least a guy like Maggette will bang inside to get his, here lately Josh has been pulling up for 3 on a fast break like he thought he was Reggie Miller or something.

[IronMexican]

The Lakers guy is Sasha Vujacic. Good thing Phil gives him no minutes.

[Indazone]

What you mean Artest didn't make this list????