The myth of post scoring?
One assumption I’ve made about offense is that there are two types of efficient shots: (1) Three pointers and (2) Inside Shots. I referenced that with my first post on this site (edit: that post is gone), citing the > 0.55 eFG%’s in those locations as evidence.
Now obviously layups and dunks make up a big chunk of the efficiency of close shots, but I’ve always thought that post scoring was efficient too. Maybe it was because I grew up watching Olajuwon, Robinson, Ewing and Shaq dominate inside, with the Bulls using three bodies and 18 fouls to stop them from seemingly scoring at will in the post.
But while messing around with Synergy recently, I started looking at points per possession (PPP) on post possessions. %poss means the percentage of that player’s total scoring possessions:
| %poss | PPP | |
|---|---|---|
| Shaq | 63.8 | 0.85 |
| Howard | 60.9 | 0.91 |
| Jefferson | 56.8 | 0.92 |
| Bynum | 46.4 | 0.93 |
| Bogut | 45.5 | 0.80 |
| Aldridge | 44.5 | 0.91 |
| Duncan | 42.8 | 1.00 |
| Pau | 40.7 | 1.00 |
| Marc | 37.9 | 0.93 |
| Lopez | 37.6 | 0.91 |
| Kaman | 36.5 | 0.77 |
| Bosh | 34.9 | 1.09 |
| Horford | 34.8 | 0.94 |
| West | 33.8 | 0.94 |
| Randolph | 33.5 | 1.01 |
| Nene | 32.9 | 0.94 |
| Garnett | 32.3 | 0.90 |
| Perkins | 30.3 | 0.74 |
| Scola | 27.8 | 0.91 |
| Nowitzki | 26.6 | 1.06 |
| Boozer | 21.6 | 0.87 |
| Stoudemire | 19.2 | 0.99 |
| Millsap | 16.0 | 0.83 |
| Noah | 14.1 | 0.83 |
| Lee | 13.0 | 0.80 |
PPP looks like it’s just a simple calculation of TS% with turnovers added, the estimating formula being PTS/(FGA + .44*FTA + TOV) for every player’s possession that began in the post. Note that it doesn’t subtract possessions for an offensive rebound. Using that formula leaguewide, we find an NBA average of 0.94 PPP, with the Suns #1 at 1.01 and the Nets last at 0.88.
The raw average of the table above is 0.91 PPP, a few points lower than the NBA average. A select few players rank significantly above the league average, but many rank nowhere close. Why are these numbers so much lower than I expected? Here’s a further breakdown:
| PPP | FG% | SF% | TOV% | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bosh | 1.09 | 52.5 | 16.4 | 10.0 |
| Nowitzki | 1.06 | 49.8 | 11.6 | 8.1 |
| Randolph | 1.01 | 48.6 | 9.2 | 7.3 |
| Duncan | 1.00 | 49.5 | 13.3 | 7.0 |
| Pau | 1.00 | 48.8 | 10.7 | 8.5 |
| Stoudemire | 0.99 | 50.8 | 13.8 | 14.3 |
| Horford | 0.94 | 45.8 | 9.3 | 8.6 |
| West | 0.94 | 48.5 | 8.0 | 12.5 |
| Nene | 0.94 | 47.5 | 9.8 | 11.8 |
| Bynum | 0.93 | 48.3 | 8.2 | 11.0 |
| Marc | 0.93 | 51.4 | 9.7 | 14.1 |
| Jefferson | 0.92 | 47.0 | 7.6 | 8.5 |
| Howard | 0.91 | 52.7 | 17.8 | 19.3 |
| Aldridge | 0.91 | 44.1 | 10.0 | 7.5 |
| Lopez | 0.91 | 42.6 | 16.2 | 13.5 |
| Scola | 0.91 | 49.8 | 6.9 | 14.1 |
| Garnett | 0.90 | 44.9 | 8.6 | 11.9 |
| Boozer | 0.87 | 47.5 | 9.0 | 15.8 |
| Shaq | 0.85 | 48.9 | 11.7 | 14.7 |
| Millsap | 0.83 | 45.7 | 10.7 | 19.7 |
| Noah | 0.83 | 40.7 | 11.6 | 8.9 |
| Bogut | 0.80 | 43.3 | 5.1 | 11.7 |
| Lee | 0.80 | 44.2 | 3.1 | 12.8 |
| Kaman | 0.77 | 41.5 | 5.7 | 15.0 |
| Perkins | 0.74 | 44.7 | 10.3 | 19.6 |
I guess I’m most surprised at how rare it is for players to make 50% of their post shots. Fairly average shooting foul percentages and slightly higher than normal turnover rates haven’t helped. And the low FT% for some players (mainly Shaq and Howard) leave them with ground to make up.
In fairness to the teams that keep feeding the post, it has its obvious benefits of spreading the floor, and there’s evidence to suggest that post misses have a better than usual chance of leading to an offensive rebound. So players who are slightly below that 0.94 mark may still be helping their teams against the league average.
As a result, it’s hard for me to draw a clear conclusion from this. My instinct is to say “Don’t doubleteam as much in the post”, but then again, maybe part of the reason the PPPs are suprisingly low is that post playes are doubleteamed so often. Perhaps it’s better to just realize that a very select few players are worth doubleteaming in the post.