Why NBA Players Must Produce in the Margins to Be Great

What constitutes a "great scorer?" An interesting article by Beckley Mason and Tom Haberstroh of ESPN looks at what they call "Extra-Point Percentage" (ExPt%) or essentially, that "third point" is the difference between a merely good and great player. 

In their analysis they look at how often a player either attempts a three-point shot or gets to the charity stripe to measure how often a player is getting an "extra point," which is to say, a third point. A standard field goal is worth two points, but if you can get an "and-one" or a three-point shot, then you get an extra, third point. 

Basketball essentially is a game of possessions. Two teams take turns with the ball. There are certain things you can do to get a couple more possessions during the game, such as manipulating the clock at the end of quarters to get two possessions in a row (the last of one quarter and the first of the next) but really, you're going to end up with the same number of possessions.

So, in the simplest terms, if you can average more points-per-possession than your opponent, you win the game. Maximize your every possession, minimize your opponents every possession. That's how you win games. 

The average possession last year, based on the average offensive/defensive rating, according to basketball-reference, was 1.04 points. Ergo, that "extra point" is the equivalent of an extra possession. 

Mason and Haberstroh argue the difference between good and great is making that third point. Conceptually that's sound. The execution had some issues though. In their article they have his explanation distinguishing between another stab at this "extra point" thing,  secondary percentage and ExPt%. 

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 ExPt% is a close cousin of something called 'secondary percentage,' which was coined a few years ago by Carson Cistulli. The difference is that ExPt% just describes how often a player shoots from these desirable spots, while secondary percentage is more concerned with the amount of shots made.

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It's not difficult to find out why this is problematic. A player could literally take every one of his shots from three-point land or the free-throw line, miss every one of them, and have an ExPt% of 100 percent. All it does is allow for whatever percentage of your shots come from the free-throw line or the three-point line. Making them does not matter.

Checking in on the definition of secondary percentage, it's not quite an accurate definition either. Clicking on the link in the quote to an article by John Hollinger who says,  

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It turns out we have it, and it's something called 'secondary percentage.' First mooted, as far as I can tell, by my Basketball Prospectus successor and occasional ESPN.com contributor Kevin Pelton 15 months ago, the idea is simply to take the difference between a player's TS% and his field goal percentage.

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So, secondary percentage is really just a measure of how well a player shoots apart from traditional twos, it's not a measure of how often a player scores that "third-point." 

Part of the problem here is that in some unholy egalitarian interest, everything has to be prorated into percentages now, regardless of the fact that percentages are closely tied with usage rate. The more a player's usage goes up, the more his percentages go down.

That's why you always see ridiculous names at the top of these percentage lists and then have to listen to fans tell you how Rudy Fernandez is so vastly underrated. 

Less controversially put, when Rudy Fernandez is at the top of a list you really have to reconsider your methodology. 

Another issue here is that in both methods, all free throws are considered as "extra points," rather than just those which are "and-ones." 

It also made sense to look at only the premiere scorers in the league. There are "great players" who are not "great scorers," but this article is concerned with those who are making their bones scoring.  

That being the case, it made sense to chart all the players who scored 20 points per game, and all the actual points they scored. The "and-ones" were obtained from Synergy. 

Rk	Player	G	3P	And 1	Extra Pts	EP/G
1	Deron Williams	55	115	57	172	3.13
2	Kevin Durant	66	133	55	188	2.85
3	Kevin Love	55	105	32	137	2.49
4	Kobe Bryant	58	87	50	137	2.36
5	LeBron James	62	54	78	132	2.13
6	Derrick Rose	39	54	22	76	1.95
7	Carmelo Anthony	55	68	34	102	1.85
8	Dirk Nowitzki	62	78	26	104	1.68
9	Russell Westbrook	66	62	48	110	1.67
10	Monta Ellis	58	62	22	84	1.45
11	Dwyane Wade	49	15	42	57	1.16
12	Dwight Howard	54	0	57	57	1.06
13	Blake Griffin	66	2	67	69	1.05
14	David Lee	57	0	34	34	0.60
15	LaMarcus Aldridge	55	2	29	31	0.5

This at least looks right. It seems that there is an almost natural divide between the great and very good in this small snap shot, right around two extra points per game. 

There are a couple of questions worth asking. First, where was Rose in his MVP season? His average from his MVP season was 2.65 based on 63 "and-ones" and 152 made three-point shots in 81 games. 

The next question which is worth asking is whether Dwayne Wade is getting pushed down due to taking more of a secondary role to LeBron James. The answer is yes, he is. Prior to James arrival, in the 2009-10 season he averaged 2.16 extra points per game. 

So does this "extra point" thing ring true?

At the very least it passes the "Rudy Fernandez Test." While seeing Deron Williams at the top of the list is surprising, it's not a Rudy Fernandez surprise. It should be intriguing to watch as he now has a better supporting cast to help him out in Brooklyn. Could Williams be a dark-horse MVP candidate this year? He's getting the most extra points per game. 

There is something to be said about getting those two extra points per game. It's the difference between LeBron James and Carmelo Anthony, Derrick Rose and Russell Westbrook, and extremely good and great.