I've been a following Ken Pomeroy's efficiency ratings for several years now. I haven't checked the history so I'm not entirely certain if he invented them but he's certainly popularized their usage in the college game. The basic theory is that good offensive basketball teams are more efficient with their posessions than bad teams. That is, they score more per chance. This is slightly different from the conventional wisdom that good offensive teams score more per game. Conversely, good defensive teams give up fewer points per chance than bad defensive teams. So a slow it down team like Georgetown can be just as efficient (i.e. effective) as a run and gun team like North Carolina. The theory being that a slow it down team that scores on a high frequency of possessions is almost the same as playing good defense since it takes the ball out of the other teams hands. Efficiency ratings can further be broken down into offensive and defensive components - shooting, rebounding, free throws, and turnovers. These were developed by Dean Oliver and form the basis of the effiency statistics. Formulas can be found here. Broad definitions are below and listed in order of importance to a team:
Shooting:
Effective field goal % = is like a regular shooting percentage except three point shots are given 50% more value
Turnovers:
Turnover % = rate at which a team turns the ball over per possession
Rebounding:
Offensive Rebounding Percentage = simply the percentage of times a team gets an offensive rebound vs. their opponent getting a defensive rebound. Obviously, you want a high percentage on offense and a low percentage on defense.
Free Throws:
Free Throw Rate = Measures a team's ability to score points from the free throw line. For defense, it's how many times your opponents get to the line. Teams that get to the line more often are more effective than teams that make a high percentage. This flies in the face of conventional wisdom and obviously there are game to game exception but look no further than the Wisconsin Badger teams of years past to see how effective this can be. Several NBA teams track this number each season. The Boston Celtics stat guy wrote about it a few years ago.
So what does this all have to do with the NBA and the Milwaukee Bucks? John Hollinger has been posting advanced NBA stats on ESPN.com for a few seasons. And a quick glance provides some interesting results. I think this is supposed to be Insider (i.e. you need to pay) but for some reason I can view it and hopefully everyone can - unless I'm just special.
The first thing that jumped out at me was the defensive efficiency. Milwaukee ranks 5th in the NBA. This despite the fact that they give up 12th most points in the league. That tells me they probably play pretty fast - and they do to a degree. They rank 12th in the league in pace (possessions per game). If you dig a little deeper you see they are a really good rebounding team. They are third in the NBA in defensive rebound rate. In other words, they are really good at preventing the opposing team from getting offensive rebounds (congratulations, Andrew Bogut). This may explain why the Bucks have taken so many more 2 point shots than their opponents (2789 vs 2570) and taken fewer three point shots (592 to 508 although missing Michael Redd for a few weeks certainly hurt that number).
Unfortunately, Hollinger does not post defensive field goal efficiency. Maybe someone out there on the web has it for the NBA and if they do I will post it later. But my guess is that the Bucks aren't as high on that ranking based on the number of three point field goals they've given up. In any event, there's good evidence the Bucks are actually a decent defensive team.
So how are they on offense? Not so good. They are 23rd in the league in offensive efficiency and a look at turnover rate and effective field goal percentage tells you the whole story. Shooting accurately is the most important aspect to winning an NBA game and the Bucks do it poorly. They rank 26th in the league in effective shooting percentage. Hollinger also measures true shooting percentage - that is, shooting percentage that accounts for three pointers, two pointers, and free throws. The Bucks rank 25th in the league here. Another issue the Bucks have is turnovers. They rank 21st in the league in turnover rate. Granted, this can be overcome with good shooting (Boston ranks last in TOR) but if you hand the ball to the other team and can't overcome it with a high shooting percentage you are in for trouble.
There is hope however as the return of Michael Redd should improve the effective field goal percentage a bit. According to head coach Scott Skiles, Redd is actually playing defense this year so there's a good chance the defensive numbers remain high. All in all, the Bucks are a decent enough team with a chance to get better. It would be interesting to go behind the team numbers and see what the individual rates were but that's for another post - assuming the data is out there somewhere (or if I get motivated enough to calculate it myself....doubtful). I'll be very interested to see what, if anything, the Bucks do at the trade deadline. I think I'd much rather have a guy like Kyle Korver or Jason Kapono come off the bench instead of Villanueva. Of course, I'm just glad Milwaukee has a team for the time being.
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