Do you like Lakers data? Want Lakers data? NEED Lakers data?!
Okay relax, I have some Lakers data.
And by some I mean a lot. I’ve created an interactive spreadsheet for anyone to view and use to check in on players and teams as we progress through the season.
What’s Included in your data, Mr. McBasketball?
Excellent question. Within this spreadsheet, you can look at offensive and defensive data for any player in the NBA in a similar way I’ve presented data so far in game data reports. You can find interactive team data, as well as NBA player comps for this season and from last season for any player.
Get to the spreadsheet by clicking here, or by using this link: goo.gl/9ZGN6m
Player Profiles
This is an example of what the Player Profiles tab can show you. At the top in the red outlined cell (red because someone else has it selected) you can type in any player’s name. That will immediately pull their offensive and defensive season data. As you can see, someone was interested in Jordan Clarkson and just pulled up their data.
You’ll be able to find how many possession a player has had on both offense and defense, the expected points for those possessions, and the actual points for those possessions. The expectations are based on league averages. The actual minus the expected will give us a player’s Points Over Expectation (POE) for the season. Divide that by the games played and we have their per game POE.
On the right, you can find a plethora of ancillary data that can tell us more about the difficulty of shots taken, how a player ranks in different areas, and even their possessions per game.
Team Profiles
You can view similar data for teams in the Team Profiles tab. Here’s an example of what you can find there:
Any team can be selected, the same way any player can be chosen in the Player Profiles tab. This will soon be expanded to include more data the way the player view currently is set up.
Player Comparisons
Ready to help you argue with your friends and coworkers about who Julius Randle is most similar to in playing style is the Player Comps tab.
Type any player’s name at the top left and their possession profile will load below their name, and their top 5 closest comparisons from last season and this season (so far) will also appear.
It’s worth noting that these comparisons are purely based on style and off of play types, not talent or production or any other factors.
In each of these tabs there will be a “Data Last Updated” cell that lets you know how new the data is. I’ll be updating it every 1-2 days.
And like all of this data, these player comparisons will become more refined over time once we have more data to look at.
Player Overall Leaderboard
For anyone seeking to find more, look no further. The Player Overall tab has data for every player in the league, and has so many columns I can’t fit them all into a screenshot.
Included for each player are their games played, team, and then their data related to their Created Points Over Expectation (the offensive component of POE), Defensive Points Over Expectation, and Points Over Expectation (the overall metric).
You can sort any columns as you wish and filter by team, games played, players named “Tony,” or however you wish.
A quick look at the leaderboard will show that through four games Nikola Vucevic has been an animal on the court and leads the league in POE. Over time as sample sizes get larger the cream will rise to the top, but it’ll be fun to see KCP in the top 10 for however long that’ll last.
Player Offensive Data
Now if you want to get even more in depth, we have tabs for offensive and defensive team and player data.
You can find how many possessions per game a player has, what percent that is of their team, and their expected and actual points per possession and points per game.
If you scroll further to the right, CPOE is broken down by transition, half court, and then by each play type within half court. You can see how CJ McCollum’s highest value comes in his spot up opportunities, or that Kyle Lowry’s half court offensive CPOE is essentially negated by his poor transition CPOE.
There’s a lot to be gleaned from the data and plenty available, so go wild and see what you can find!
This same data exists for individual player defense and team offense. Team defense will also soon be added.
Team Offensive Styles
We can use play type data to learn more about team styles the same way we do this for individual players in the Player Comps tab.
In this tab, you can see the percentage of each team’s possessions that are from each play type. Based on that frequency breakdown we can calculate an expected points per possession for each team.
If you’re ever curious about how the Lakers rank in transition frequency or possessions per game, this is the place to go.
Want to find out what makes the Warriors offense so different from every other team? This tab can tell you.
That’s all, folks
Keep up with that spreadsheet throughout the season to be up to date on Laker data! If you’re unsure about what an initialization means, hover over it and a description will appear.
Have any questions or suggestions to improve the spreadsheet? Let me know by emailing me at Cr.McBasketball@gmail.com or DMing me on Twitter @T1m_NBA.