The Real Reason Spurs Players Are Underrated

In the next two weeks, we’re going to hear all the explanations for why the Spurs get so little publicity. The most popular reasons – they’re businesslike, they feature an unselfish balanced attack, and they play in a small market – are somewhat accurate. However, the main reason Spurs players get so little publicity is simple – they don’t play a lot.

San Antonio did not have a single player average 30 minutes per game during the regular season. Every other NBA team had at least two, and most clubs had three or four. What does this have to do with publicity? Most of the media still uses meaningless per game stats for evaluation, and it is hard to shine in these categories while getting so few minutes per game.

Only one Spurs player, Tony Parker, ranked among the league’s top 50 in points per game (minimum: 1,000 minutes played), and he placed 45^th. Points per 40 minutes, which evaluates scoring far better, tells a completely different story. San Antonio placed four players in the top 50 in points per 40 minutes – Parker, Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobili, and Patty Mills) – which tied the Suns for most in the league.

The Spurs had five players among the top 50 in John Hollinger’s PER (Player Efficiency Rating), with Kawhi Leonard joining the aforementioned group. That led all NBA teams. Their NBA Finals opponent is the only other team with four. PER also does not get impacted by playing time.

Parker ranked just 15th among point guards with 16.7 points per game. However, he placed seventh with 22.7 points per 40 minutes. He doesn’t play nearly as much as other elite point guards, and that’s the main reason he gets less attention.

Given the rapid growth of the San Antonio market – combined with the soaring population of Austin just an hour and a half to the north – it’s not exactly remote. The Spurs also do not possess a balanced attack. Four San Antonio players attempted 15 or more field goals per 40 minutes. Only the Pistons (five) had more. The Spurs scoring appears balanced because Gregg Popovich distributes playing time so evenly, but Parker, Duncan and Ginobili all have high usage rates.

Like so many topics in sports that get overanalyzed, the truth is in the numbers.

 

Do-It-Yourself Three-Point Shooters

With five seconds left on the shot clock and all their teammates covered, guards have to create. Some perform much better at it than others.

Creating and then converting a three-pointer is basketball’s version of a grand slam. A 24-second violation nets nothing – and a wild shot attempt isn’t much better. So it’s a three-point swing if a player can nail a three off the dribble. Since few players shoot high percentages in these situations, the players who excel have tremendous value.

After evaluating all three-point shooters for volume, accuracy and the ability to create their shot without an assist, Spurs guard Gary Neal stood out. He hit 41.9 percent overall from three-point range last season, even though only 54.2 percent of his made threes were assisted. On average, 84.2 of NBA three-pointers were assisted in 2011-12.

Most top three-point marksmen have a very high percentage of their threes assisted. That’s no problem of course, it’s their job to spot up and drain threes. But it makes players who can convert threes off the dribble even more valuable, especially for teams that don’t get many open three-point looks from their set offense.

In addition to Neal, other players who shine in this area include Kyrie Irving, Kyle Lowry, Jose Juan Barea and Lou Williams. 

Opportunity and Statistics

Most sports statistics – especially the ones that get attention in the mainstream media – are opportunity based. Other metrics filter out opportunity, and they carry tremendous comparative value.

Many still fixate on per game numbers, and they don’t begin to tell the story for players like DeJuan Blair. His 7.8 points per game and 6.4 rebounds per game in 2009-10 look pedestrian. However, Blair posted these numbers in limited opportunities – playing just 18.2 minutes per contest.

Rebounds per 48 minutes is not impacted by how much players see action. Among NBA players with at least 750 minutes played, Blair ranked sixth in rebounds per 48 minutes (16.9). He topped all NBA players in offensive rebounds per 48 minutes (6.43), and remember that he was a 20-year-old rookie!

Even the offensive rebounds per 48 minutes statistic gets impacted by opportunity. Some teams play at a faster pace than others, and some miss more shots. Their players have more opportunities to grab offensive boards. The Spurs played at a slower pace than most teams and had the NBA’s sixth-highest shooting percentage. So these factors hurt Blair, yet he still out-rebounded everybody at the offensive end.

The best metric to show Blair’s rebounding excellence is rebound rate, John Hollinger’s measurement for the percentage of missed shots that a player rebounds when he’s on the court. Blair had a 16.0 offensive rebound rate last season. To put that in perspective, NBA teams grab 26-27 percent of available offensive boards on average. The Golden State Warriors had an offensive rebound rate of 20.9. Blair fell just 4.9 short of that figure, by himself.

While playing his final season at Pittsburgh, Blair put up unbelievable stats in this category. Despite playing in the rugged Big East, his 23.6 offensive rebound rate topped the nation’s next closest player by 5.0. Blair even surpassed the team figure for six Division I colleges.

So how did a player – who can out-rebound an entire team – last until the 37th pick of the 2009 NBA Draft? It’s hard to say. Blair’s 2008-09 rebounds per game figure (12.3) looked good but unspectacular, which may have been a factor. Of course, he played only 27.3 minutes per game on a very slow-paced team. Only adjusting his numbers for opportunity made Blair stand out.