IN THE GAME

To clarify right at the beginning, after just 8 Euroleague games, oncourt/offcourt-stats should be taken with not just one, but ten thousand grains of salt. The main reason is small sample size. A player that is averaging ten minutes a game hasn’t even played 100 minutes in the whole Euroleague season, and a few decisive runs can already push the rating in his favour, in case he was on the floor during that run. There are other, plus/minus-typical obstacles, strong starters and weak backups on one team, a balanced eleven-man-rotation on other teams can easily manipulate a league-wide oncourt/offcourt list. For example, if you look at the NBA’s adjusted oncourt/offcourt-statistics, four Los Angeles Lakers starters are among the top 35 in overall adjusted oncourt/offcourt, and three Atlanta Hawks starters are in the top 10, indicating that there is a significant difference in performance between starters and bench. Minute-management in American basketball is in many teams characterised by a relatively strict usage of a first unit and a second unit, and considering that it is usual in USA to put the star players into the starting five (some of them simply wouldn’t accept a bench role), it is pretty clear that plus/minus has its weaknesses. I would consider this less of a factor in Europe though since not only starting five combinations frequently change, but there are no strict units in general. Elite teams have very deep rosters and their goal is to play 40 minutes of extremely intense defense. For this to achieve, sharing minutes and having a quality unit on the floor at all times is indispensable. Summary: In my opinion it is quite possible to compare players from the same team with the help of this statistic, however, there are factors that make comparisons between players from different teams a bit dangerous. The most efficient way to work with statistics is to know their limits.

Spanoulis: Great on offense, terrible on defense? The numbers say so. Courtesy of: Hoop Photos

A short remainder: What is adjusted oncourt/offcourt? It is how the team performs when a players in on court, compared to how the team performs when he is off the court. “Performing” relates to points scored and points conceded in the plus/minus category, but one can also look at field goal percentages, if that data is available. Example: Team A wins a game 80:70. While player X is on the floor, the team scores 50 points and concedes 36 points. This means his team scores 30 and concedes 34 while he was off the court. So, for this particular player, the team is +14 when he is oncourt, and -4 when offcourt. He has an oncourt/offcourt difference of +18. I adjusted these oncourt/offcourt numbers to 70 possessions, which just about equals 40 minutes (but is pace-adjusted, which is very important) in an average Euroleague team, in order to give you an idea how many points he has been worth for his team so far on both offense and defense (and the difference) in 40 minutes of play, compared to not playing at all.

Let’s just for one second consider that the adjusted plus/minus-statistcs were bigger in sample size. How do the statistics compare to our perceptions?

Note: I only have data for Maccabi Tel Aviv, FC Barcelona, Real Madrid, Partizan Belgrade, Lietuvos Rytas Vilnius, Olympiacos Piraeus,  Panathinaikos Athens, Caja Laboral Baskonia and Unicaja Malaga so far. More team and player pages will be set up step by step as the season progresses. All numbers in per 70 possessions. Negative numbers in defensive oncourt/offcourt means less points conceded while he was on the floor, which is positive for the team. Don’t be confused by the minus.

I. COMMON PERCEPTIONS THAT ARE SUPPORTED BY THE STATS

A) “Theodoros Papaloukas is the motor of Olympiacos’ offense”
More than supported by the statistics. They score about 14 points more per 40 minutes when Theo is on the court compared to off the court, which is a huge difference. The number decrease a bit with more games, but it still is a quite clear statement after eight games. But Theo’s influence doesn’t stop with the offense, he has outstanding defensive numbers as well, making him worth 30 points for Olympiacos in about 40 minutes he is on the court. In his 26.4 minutes of playing time, he makes a difference of 18.5 points (this is not included in the table below) …

Taking a look at Olympiacos’ roster, it is obvious that they are usually playing with two point guards, or the comboguard Yotam Halperin for that matter. Papaloukas himself, at 2.00m, is actually a better wing defender than point guard defender, which you cannot say about a single player in the Halperin, Milos Teodosic, Patrick Beverley, Scoonie Penn-quartet. A propos Beverley: Heralded by some as a teriffic on-the-ball-defender, but now he is obviously joined (replaced?) by another point guard in Penn. How does that fit? Fact is: Beverley has the worst adjusted plus/minus-rating on his team, -19.6 on offense, and 8.9 points more against his team on defense, when he is on the floor, combining for -28.4. More of a pussycat than a doberman?

Check.

B) “Five times Euroleague Defensive Player of the Year Dimitris Diamantidis anchors Panathinaikos’ defense”
Well, this is a genius statement, you’d expect him to, with five awards under his belt. And he does, by a defensive oncourt/offcourt difference of 14.1 points. This is an outstanding number since his team, one of the best defensive machines in Europe over the years, is on an excellent defensive level already. At the same time his versatility on offense, a very underrated part of his game, helps as well.

By the way, if we analyse the Panathinaikos roster, it seems, as for the main rotation players, Nick Calathes – Diamantidis – Milenko Tepic – Kostas Tsartsaris – Mike Batiste has been the best defensive unit so far. Vassilis Spanoulis has excellent offensive numbers (19.8) and outrageously bad defensive numbers (22.2), producing a difference of -2.4. While watching games I paid a closer look to his defensive performances since having been confronted with these numbers, and I feel the numbers really do represent his lack of understanding team defense.

Check.

C) “The fresh play of currently injured Sergio Llull has been an early-season catalyst for the aging Real Madrid”
While Pablo Prigioni’s influence on the team hasn’t been as positive so far this Euroleague season, especially on defense (Offense: -10.0; Defense: +14.3; Difference: -24.3), Sergio Llull has been excellent on both ends of the florr, and it is reflected by the numbers:

By the way, Real’s best offensive and(!) defensive unit plus/minus wise has been: Sergio Llull (+17.1) – Rimantas Kaukenas (+11.0) – Sergi Vidal (+19.9) – Jorge Garbajosa (+8.0) – Darjus Lavrinovic (+13.5). These five players not only had the best point difference, but the best numbers in both offense and defense separately as well. At the same time, Felipe Reyes (-22.4 on offense) and Louis Bullock (12.4 more points against on defense) have not done well in plus/minus so far. In Reyes’ case this is quite understandable, since he’s just coming back from injury. The plus 19.9 for Sergi Vidal is a huge surprise for me – I was under the impression that he was having a rather mediocre season for his standards – , but maybe he has just been on the floor in some heavy runs in blowouts vs. Oldenburg and Prokom … ?

Check.

WHAT’S MORE?

D) “Stephane Lasme’s shotblocking is a huge factor on defense (but he doesn’t help his team on offense)”

Check.

E) “The Barcelona offense is far more productive with Ricky Rubio at the point, compared to Victor Sada”

Check.

F) “Montepaschi offense is profiting from Romain Sato’s monster season”

Check.

G) “Partizan cannot do without Aleksandar Maric”

Check.

II. COMMON PERCEPTIONS THAT ARE NOT SUPPORTED BY THE STATS

A) “Linas Kleiza and Nikola Vujcic don’t defend”
Vujcic is often labeled as injury prone and soft, most probably assume he is a poor defender as well. Floor-time-statistics don’t support this. Quite the contrary, Olympiacos is doing outrageously well defensively when he is on the court. Is it the small sample size or will we have to admit we were wrong? These numbers will definitely be less extreme after Top16, but we should pay a very close look to how he is doing defensively. Maybe he is much better than we think he is.

Kleiza was 18th in defensive oncourt/offcourt in the 08/09 NBA Playoffs for Denver. It really appeared as if he was only interested in putting as much points on the board in the first handful of games, but it didn’t really hurt his team, according to the floor-time-statistics.

Unconfirmed.

B) “Josh Childress is a difference-maker on offense since he elevated his game to a new level this season”
Childress has really been playing better this season, compared to last season. The guy is averaging 14.7 points on 58.9 percent shooting, while adding 3 rebounds and 1.8 assists. However, Olympiacos is perfectly fine without him so far, averaging 7 points more per 70 possessions when Chidress is not on the floor.

Unconfirmed.

C) “Montepaschi is completely lost without Terrell McIntyre”
No question McIntyre is one of Montepaschi’s key players, but they have been doing their best in trying to find players that will ensure high quality play when the small US-guard is not on the floor. Nikolaos Zisis is what Morris Finley was last season, and the numbers tell us that Montepaschi is both scoring a lot less, but also conceding less points when McIntyre is not on the court. His bad defensive numbers might have to do with his injury though …

Unconfirmed.

III. SOME NOTES

• Tarence Kinsey has very nice shooting numbers and decent allround-statistics, and oncourt/offcourt statistics confirm him as one of Fenerbahce’s most valuable performers: +13,60 on offense and -1,21 on defense, overall rating of 14,81.

• His teammate Omer Asik is known as a huge shotblocking presence. How does that influence the opponents’ offense? He has a defensive oncourt/offcourt of -6,47 and the opponent shoots 5 percent worse on field goal attempts, when he is on the court. Obviously, his presence is felt.

• Chuck Eidson is known for his versatility on offense. His defensive oncourt/offccourt stats? 13,5 more points conceded when he is on the floor. David Bluthenthal: 10,5. Not known as a good defender as well.

• Tiago Splitter is known for his high ball-IQ and sweet lowpost moves. But what about defense? Well, the opponent scores 11,51 points less per 70 possessions when he is on the court, and 5.7 percent worse on field goals. Might also have to do with the mediocre defense his backup, Stanko Barac, plays.

• The Lavrinovic brothers have the reputation of being excellent offensive players but soft defenders, but defensive oncourt/offcourt is in their favour: -4.97 (Darjus) and -10.88 (Ksystof).

• Barcelona concedes more points when Ricky Rubio is on the court, than when he’s off. Not to say that he’s a bad defender of course, Victor Sada is just an excellent one, too.

• More players with very good defensive numbers: Jan Vesely (-8,73), Jorge Garbajosa (-7,29), Carlos Jimenez (-13,8), Andrew Wisniewski (-12,6), Lawrence Roberts (-31,0!), whose very young (born 1991) backup Branislav Dekic’s stats are exactly the opposite, Bojan Popovic (-19,3), who is mainly backed up by point forward Arturas Jomantas and shooting guard Martynas Gecevicius, who both have difficulties with quick point guards, Dejan Borovnjak (-8,7), Roger Grimau (-11,9) and Fran Vazquez (-12,0)

• More players with excellent offensive numbers: David Bluthenthal (10,6), Guy Pnini (7,5), Terence Morris (13,2), Pete Mickeal (7,9), Martynas Gecevicius (11,7), Aleksandar Rasic (10,7) and Omar Cook (9,55). Taquan Dean is excellent on both offense (11,79) and defense (-12.78).