About a month ago, I wrote a post titled Tyreke Evans and Small Sample Sizes. The point of that piece was to show what problems come with small sample sizes and exactly why we should be wary of them. I used Tyreke Evans’ poor shooting at the rim over the first 8 games of the season as a case study. At the end of that post, I wrote,
“His percentage could drop for any number of reasons, but we won’t know more until we approach that magical 20-30 game mark.”
Well, we are at 22 games played, and I thought it would be a good time to return to this question with a short piece examining how his percent at the rim has changed since then. (Note: the data set hasn’t been updated to include last nights Golden State game. Those numbers aren’t available yet.)
Just to remind you, after 8 games Tyreke was shooting 43.7% at the rim, according to basketball-reference.com. Here is a copy of the column graph that includes his shooting through 8 games and 22 games this season.
It is pretty clear that we saw an increase. His percent rose from 43.7% to 52.2%. Now, he still isn’t shooting as well at the rim as he has in previous years, but he is pretty close. Evans could easily increase his percentage to last year’s mark of 54.4%. The idea that Tyreke was going to have a historically bad season at the rim seems to be gone for now. To recap, as our sample size grew, Tyreke’s percentage at the rim increased to be closer to his career average. In other words, what we expected to happen when sample sizes grew larger did happen. Cool.
3 responses to “Tyreke Evans and Small Sample Sizes (Revisited)”
Despite the fact that it took an injury to Gordon, I am glad to see Tyreke & Jrue develop more chemistry in the starting lineup.
Jrue’s off-ball play & defense perfectly compliment Evans.
The fact that Evans has improved his jumpshooting will only make them more deadly.
My only caveat with their play has been that Jrue needs the ball more in clutch situations as he doesn’t rush the shot as badly as Evans sometimes does.
This may be influenced by the way that our other players tend to stand still and watch Evans work, without much movement.
As long as these two (and occasionally Ryno) can step up in Brow’s absence, we may be able to come out of this brutal road trip at .500.
Specifically with regard to Tyreke Evans, he is definitely playing the
point a lot more than I would have expected him to play this deep into the
season.I wonder how much of that is due
to Jrue Holiday’s injury/recovery/rehabilitation, and how much is an intentional
choice/decision by the coaches.
Evans and Holiday have definitely stepped up in Eric Gordon’s
absence, and during the 7.5 quarters Anthony Davis has missed so far.
But the result is a lot more minutes for Holiday and Evans, and
for Ryan Anderson.Both Anderson and
Omer Asik re-entered last night’s game against the Warriors at the 9:30 point in
the 2nd quarter (due to Jeff Withey’s and Dante Cunningham’s 2 quick
fouls), and Asik was clearly exhausted by the end of the half.He was mouth breathing and struggling to run
the court by the end of the 2nd quarter.Usually Coach Williams likes to wait until
about 6 minutes left in the 2nd quarter before putting his starters
back in the game, so the minutes logged by and sequencing of play for the
starters last night were not ideal.
I’m beginning to wonder how much of Ryan Anderson’s rusty
shooting is because he is logging more minutes than he is used to.
I totally agree…they had no legs at the end and for someone like Ryno that can be more readily seen from the inaccuracy of his shots from deep…of course, our end of game options are limited. Though short, Jimmer does show a knack for being able to get his shot off cleanly in a pick and roll situation…