NBA's Top Creators Find Assists in Unexpected Targets
When a basket happens, most of the credit most often goes to the shooter. He's the guy who put the ball through the hoop, after all.
Whether it's a dunk or a three-point bomb, it's usually only after a moment of consideration that the passer begins to factor in the equation. But how the ball gets in the shooter's hands and where plays a significant role in whether the shot goes in.
With that in mind, it's important to take a look at some passing stats. NBA.com's SportVU data now tracks to which teammates players throw their passes and how well those players shoot after receiving them. Below, we take a look at four of the league's best passers and how their teammates have performed.
Pay close attention to the kinds of players who shoot well and those who don't.
Unsurprisingly, Blake Griffin is CP3's top target, and it's not all that close. More than twice as many of Paul's passes go to Blake than any other player on the Los Angeles Clippers.
However, only one out of every nine passes to Blake turns into an assist for Paul, while one out of every seven thrown to J.J. Redick results in one. This is somewhat unusual, as Redick has shot only 41.8 percent off passes from Paul, while Griffin has shot 49.2 percent.
It could be a result of the tendency for Paul to look at Griffin as an outlet when he gets stuck and then receive the ball right back before continuing to probe the defense. Also a factor is that Blake is much more likely to dish again after receiving one of Paul's passes than Redick is. Blake's high-low game with DeAndre Jordan after catching out the pick-and-roll is one of the deadliest weapons the Clippers have.
Speaking of Jordan, he is an absolute monster when "shooting" off a CP3 pass. DeAndre is routinely among the league leaders in dunks, and indeed the great majority of his shots off Paul passes are lobs and dump-offs right under the basket. That's largely why he's making over 80 percent of his attempts when Paul finds him for a shot.
Here's a case where an early-season injury is likely throwing the numbers off a little bit. Garrett Temple started the season as Washington's off-guard thanks to Bradley Beal's absence, and because of that he shows up as Wall's second-most-targeted receiver. Temple, though, has not exactly taken advantage, shooting only 34.1 percent off passes received from Wall.
In fact, none of Wall's top three perimeter targets (Temple, Paul Pierce and Beal) are shooting very well off his passes, a surprising change considering how often he found Beal, Martell Webster and Trevor Ariza for buckets the last few seasons.
He's been much more efficient with his passes when finding big men Marcin Gortat and Nene this season. Nearly 30 percent of his passes have gone to that duo, and they're each shooting in excess of 50 percent from the field after being on the receiving end of a Wall dish.
Given their relationship as backcourt mates and their snappy nickname (the "Splash Brothers"), it's somewhat surprising that Klay Thompson doesn't rank higher than third among Stephen Curry's targeted receivers. It's even more surprising that he checks in behind Draymond Green and Andrew Bogut, neither of whom takes all that many shots.
This could be a result of Thompson creating more for himself this season or the Golden State Warriors' more free-flowing offense, where the passes can come from anywhere and anyone. Over 62 percent of Curry's passes go to those three players.
It's more surprising still that Thompson is shooting only 43.2 percent off passes from Curry, which means Thompson's shooting better when creating for himself or receiving a pass from another teammate than he is when he gets the ball from the most threatening scorer on his team.
Thompson's low shooting percentage off Curry dishes is nothing compared to Andre Iguodala, though, who is down near 30 percent from the field. Andrew Bogut has fared much, much better, making nearly two-thirds of his shots off Curry passes.
Here we see that LeBron targets his two Big Three-mates just about equally and that they are the recipients of more than half of his total passes. We also see that neither of them is shooting very well after receiving a pass from LeBron.
This helps explain why LeBron assists on nearly as many Anderson Varejao baskets (1.5) per game as he does Kevin Love baskets (1.9) and more Varejao baskets than those of Kyrie Irving—and all this despite throwing twice as many passes to each of Irving and Love as he does to Varejao, who is shooting 73.5 percent after getting the ball from James.
James' fourth- and fifth-most targeted players are Shawn Marion and Dion Waiters, who have both filled the role as Cleveland's fifth starter. Marion has fared much better when shooting after getting the ball from James, which is unsurprising given each player's typical shot selection.
Conclusion
You may have noticed a theme arise in each of the sections above. The player who shot best off passes from each of these creators was not an outside sharpshooter, but a big man. Bigs who shoot from closer to the basket are more likely to make their shots because, well, they're closer to the basket, and those shots are easier to make.
Though you might expect the greater talents to be better at capitalizing on the opportunities given them, the truth is that the location of the pass target and subsequent shot attempt play just as big a role, if not more, on whether the shot goes through the net.
