First, a disclaimer: I have an almost knee-jerk reaction against any term that creates an excus for Bryant taking bad, contested shots. Wouldn't be easier to pass to the one of the open player's created rather than putting up a shot that may miss and when it does, giving the opponent (in Gordon's case) a more than 50% chance of taking possession? As for your work and conclusions, I have a few questions. Did you run this for all of the players on the team to get at least a team average to see if Gordon is 'good' at this compared to his teammates? Another question, did you run this for other players at Gordon's position and then compare his numbers to theirs? That would allow us to see how his numbers compare to the league average at his position. Is Gordon, below, at or above average at this given his position? Does position affect the Kobe Assist? Did you run this for every player in he league in order to create a league wide picture for where Gordon sits compared to a league average? (Putting it all together, maybe it's something he is good at and should do more. Maybe he's not good and should make other decisions with the ball. Maybe the Kobe Assist has little positive affect in the outcome of a game. Etc., etc.) Granted, I have a bias against something called a Kobe Assist, (and so my knowledge on the depth of research and testing done to establish it's veracity is limited) but these are just some of the things that occurred to me off the top of my head as I read the article. It seems like possibly a good start but I don't see anything from which I can draw a useful conclusion.
The term was coined by the Grantland fellows I believe, not Michael or Michael or Ryan. Also, I'd like to see the stuff you are talking about . . . people wanting more of this is proof that Michael may be onto something . . . it'll happen, at least in part, but the point is look at how Gordon needs to grow, at least for a bit, to improve his game for the team. If everyone needs to grow that way, then it should be even more clear. If not, than we all owe Michael some gratitude.
Ideally, we would be able to compare Gordon's numbers with other NBA players on a number of different levels: vs. guards, elite players, etc.. whichever category you may choose. But as I created the data, there is not something to compare it with. Not realistic to do it for all NBA players, but I'm going to compare these numbers with a couple of other players in an upcoming article. The point of the article was not to compare Gordon to other players, but to evaluate the difference between Gordon the driver and Gordon the jump shooter.. when he's missing, what's happening? The conclusion is pretty clear: the Hornets are retaining possession at a much better rate on his misses in which he's moving towards the basket. I both agree and disagree with you about "Kobe assists." I agree in the sense that he's prone to missing open teammates because he's taking bad shots. It's something I've always disliked about him. If Kobe is taking it to the hoop, I tend to be more forgiving, because secondary defenders aren't always there BEFORE he's in the process of shooting. The article is also not concerned with whether Gordon should be passing the ball instead of shooting. Again, it's about evaluating what happens on two different types of missed shots. If I were evaluating whether or not he should be taking specific shots, I'd refer to his field goal percentages at different spots. It's easy to lose sight of the fact that we are just talking about misses. If Gordon is making 60% of his shots at the rim, and we're keeping the ball on 47% of his misses (which happen 40% of the time at the rim), then the Hornets are getting points on at least 60%, and they're not losing the ball on 18.8% of his total shots. So 78.8% of the time he takes a shot at the rim, something good or neutral is happening. But again, that's not the focus. It's Eric the driver vs. Eric the jump shooter
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In Demps We Trust
[...] Article from http://www.hornets247.com/2013/03/21/eric-gordon-attention-please/Eric Gordon: Attention, Please – [...]
[...] terms of getting help now, Michael Pellissier looked at what Eric Gordon can do on the court right now to help the [...]
[...] isn’t going to make the majority of his step-back jumpers in most games, and even if he is, I detailed in my last column how much better the Hornets are in keeping possession when he misses going to the basket. He was [...]
[...] was original and thus had no comparison. In case you did not read my previous article, click on this link. My explanation of how I gathered the data is there as well. All statistics are current as of [...]