Directly Behind Isaiah in PPG

[Boris Badenov]

Career high 44 tonight on 16 shots. Pretty amazing

Here's a list of all the players in recent NBA history who've scored 40+ points on 16 or fewer FGA.

http://bkref.com/tiny/c8ReT

You're welcome. Haha.

[Surferdad]

Career high 44 tonight on 16 shots. Pretty amazing

Here's a list of all the players in recent NBA history who've scored 40+ points on 16 or fewer FGA.

http://bkref.com/tiny/c8ReT

You're welcome. Haha.

Interesting. It's only happened 15 times since 1983, generally every 1-2 years, but it's been 4 years since PP did it last in 2012.

[mmmmm]

IT was already on a pretty exclusive list last year:  Celtic players who posted at least 1800 points and 500 assists in a season:

http://bkref.com/tiny/ypVax

Look closely and notice how few minutes Isaiah did it in.

He's currently on pace to post another season on that particular board again this year.

[hwangjini_1]

How about this one. It's a list of seasons in the modern era where the player had 20+ ppg, 30%+ USG, 25%+ AST, and <10% TO.

The list is sorted by WS48, in descending order.

http://bkref.com/tiny/HrPbh

TP for the find. People tend to react so negatively to these (sometimes hyper-specified) play index searches, but that misses the point entirely. I don't think you're trying to say Isaiah is on MJ's level, right? Nor am I suggesting that he's on KD, Steph, or LeBron's, but the very fact that you can find criteria that yield lists in which IT is alongside players like those is itself impressive.

Right, I agree.

I think what this says, without hyperbole, is that very few players have had seasons in which they handled the ball as much and did as many good things with it, while not turning it over very much.

I mean, that's pretty much literally what the numbers say. To have 66% of your offensive touches end in a high-efficiency shot or an assist, while fewer than 10% end in a turnover, is impressive.

Just for fun, I ranked everyone on that list by those figures, put some numbers on that, looking at (USG%*TS%)+AST%-(0.52*TO%) for everyone on the list.

What this does is take points created by the player himself, per possession (USG*TS%), plus points created by assisting on baskets for others (AST%). Then I subtract lost points from turnovers, (TO%*.52). I'm assuming that other teams/players get the current league average of about 104 points per possession, because I'm feeling lazy.

I think the way to think about the number is "What share of the time does this player create 2 points directly for his own team, vs. lose 2 points by turning it over?"

Thomas is at the top of the list, among all those seasons, at about 47%. Most of the other seasons are in the 38-42% range. And these are some of the greatest offensive seasons ever.

And for a more apples-to-apples comparison if you look at Allen Iverson's best years, the numbers are lower too. Iverson shot more, at lower efficiency, assisted less, and turned it over more.

Wow, excellent stuff. From the analysis to your metric to Isaiah's results (although the metric is sort of geared toward showing how good he is): wow. Big TP.

Yeah, that is what you expect from Boris. He is one of the best posters here and im glad he is here.

[Surferdad]

IT was already on a pretty exclusive list last year:  Celtic players who posted at least 1800 points and 500 assists in a season:

http://bkref.com/tiny/ypVax

Look closely and notice how few minutes Isaiah did it in.

He's currently on pace to post another season on that particular board again this year.

He is actually #1 all-time on that list in terms of fewest minutes to get 1800/500.

[Boris Badenov]

How about this one. It's a list of seasons in the modern era where the player had 20+ ppg, 30%+ USG, 25%+ AST, and <10% TO.

The list is sorted by WS48, in descending order.

http://bkref.com/tiny/HrPbh

TP for the find. People tend to react so negatively to these (sometimes hyper-specified) play index searches, but that misses the point entirely. I don't think you're trying to say Isaiah is on MJ's level, right? Nor am I suggesting that he's on KD, Steph, or LeBron's, but the very fact that you can find criteria that yield lists in which IT is alongside players like those is itself impressive.

Right, I agree.

I think what this says, without hyperbole, is that very few players have had seasons in which they handled the ball as much and did as many good things with it, while not turning it over very much.

I mean, that's pretty much literally what the numbers say. To have 66% of your offensive touches end in a high-efficiency shot or an assist, while fewer than 10% end in a turnover, is impressive.

Just for fun, I ranked everyone on that list by those figures, put some numbers on that, looking at (USG%*TS%)+AST%-(0.52*TO%) for everyone on the list.

What this does is take points created by the player himself, per possession (USG*TS%), plus points created by assisting on baskets for others (AST%). Then I subtract lost points from turnovers, (TO%*.52). I'm assuming that other teams/players get the current league average of about 104 points per possession, because I'm feeling lazy.

I think the way to think about the number is "What share of the time does this player create 2 points directly for his own team, vs. lose 2 points by turning it over?"

Thomas is at the top of the list, among all those seasons, at about 47%. Most of the other seasons are in the 38-42% range. And these are some of the greatest offensive seasons ever.

And for a more apples-to-apples comparison if you look at Allen Iverson's best years, the numbers are lower too. Iverson shot more, at lower efficiency, assisted less, and turned it over more.

Wow, excellent stuff. From the analysis to your metric to Isaiah's results (although the metric is sort of geared toward showing how good he is): wow. Big TP.

Yeah, that is what you expect from Boris. He is one of the best posters here and im glad he is here.

Thanks for the kind words, HJ. TP.