Why Chris Paul may not want to Play with Melo

It seems there are two conflicting narratives of Carmelo Anthony. One says that he is just a star on the stat line that can't help an organization win. The other contends he simply needs an elite PG--a trade to the Clippers, which would unite him with Chris Paul is often rumored--to complement his offensive talents and consistent winning will follow.

The chart below questions the logic of the 'Melo needing an elite PG' narrative. I pulled data from NBA Stats for Carmelo through last night's games on the % of field goals (FG) that he makes that are assisted and the % that he makes that are unassisted. The chart shows that starting in the 2008-09 season something fundamentally changed in Carmelo's game--he went from being an above 50% shooter on assisted FGs to below 50% and the opposite trend occurred on unassisted FGs.

In what has become especially stark over the last three years, Melo is becoming a much less efficient shooter unless he is in an unassisted scenario. In other words, these numbers suggest that Carmelo needs the ball in his hand and only his hand to be an effective scorer. And, adding a high assist, distributor, like Chris Paul, may not actually benefit his game as his FG% off of assists continues to decline.

Team FG Attempts and Makes

I collected team data from NBA Stats (as of December 7th's games) on field goal (FG) attempts and makes in five foot increments from the basket out to 29 feet (the NBA three point line is 23 feet 9 inches so outside of end of half, regulation and OT shots, there are likely few, if any, shots beyond 29 feet). The first chart shows the percent of FG attempts by five foot increment.

The second chart shows the percent of FG makes by five foot increment. There isn't a clear relationship between winning and percent of FGs attempted or made by distance from the basket as there are poor teams that attempt a high (Knicks) and low (Jazz) percentage of longer shots and there are better teams that shoot a high (Rockets) and low (Trailblazers) percentage of closer shots. Much of the relationship is likely explained by team personal (i.e., the Rockets shoot a higher percentage of FGs from within 5 feet because they have Dwight Howard).

More Nerding Out to Advanced NBA Team Stats

Both charts below show team winning % as of last night and all categories are per game (data pulled from stats.nba.com.) In both cases bigger circles indicate a greater winning percentage this season. The top chart compares turnovers per 100 possessions with assists per 100 possessions. We would expect all of the larger circles to be at the bottom right of the chart indicating that winning teams have a high average of assists per 100 possessions and a lower average of turnovers per 100 possessions. Heat, Clippers and Spurs are in that general direction and the Jazz have a high turnover ratio and low assist ratio and, thus, are in the top left, which all make sense. Interestingly, lower-tier teams like the Knicks and Jazz have an about average assist ratio and very low turnover ratio. Therefore, limiting turnovers doesn't seem to always correlate with a high winning percentage.

The second chart compares the percentage of possible offensive rebounds that a team gets with the team's possessions per 48 minutes of play. It seems reasonable that bigger circles would be toward the top right of the chart as a higher offensive rebounding percentage and more possessions per 48 minutes would correlate with winning. There doesn't seem to be any clear relationship. The anomalous Spurs, Heat and Hawks all have especially low offensive rebounding percentage but are also above average teams, which counters the idea that better offensive rebounding teams win more games. Perhaps this reflects that better teams (in terms of winning percentage) do not crash the offensive boards to ensure that enough players are back on defense to prevent fast breaks and easy baskets.

Anthony Davis, Andre Drummond then the rest

Comparing players within draft classes has obvious merits (i.e., determining rookie of the year, the overall strength of a class, etc.) but with players entering the draft after various years of college experience and many others reclassifying in middle and high school to gain an extra year of eligibility in AAU, actual age sometimes gets overlooked. (For example, even in his third season Bismack Biyombo is almost a full year younger than rookie Michael Carter-Williams. In this instance it might not be fair to compare a rookie to a third year veteran and expect the former to be performing at a superior level.)

I collected advanced data from basketball-reference.com as of last night's games for all players that are 22 years or younger that have played at least 50 minutes this season. It resulted in a list of 56 players. I ranked each player based on evenly weighting their PER, effective FG% and win shares per 48 minutes (albeit, an arbitrary selection of advanced stats, but all three are recognized measures of a well-rounded player). Anthony Davis is by far the bets younger player this season. Surprisingly, Andre Drummond, Terrence Jones and Jared Sullinger are at or above the likes of Kawhi Leonard and Kyrie Irving.

Player	Age	MP	PER	eFG%	WS/48	Wght
Anthony Davis	20	458	28.6	0.49	0.26	9.78
Andre Drummond	20	473	21.5	0.66	0.18	7.45
Terrence Jones	22	267	19.5	0.58	0.18	6.75
Michael Carter-Williams	22	398	19.5	0.45	0.10	6.69
Kawhi Leonard	22	380	19.1	0.55	0.21	6.62
Jared Sullinger	21	333	18.9	0.50	0.13	6.51
Kyrie Irving	21	483	19	0.46	0.07	6.51
Derrick Favors	22	529	16.5	0.48	0.08	5.68
Perry Jones	22	104	14.8	0.67	0.14	5.20
Jeremy Lamb	21	233	14.7	0.51	0.13	5.11
Enes Kanter	21	478	14.3	0.50	0.05	4.95
Steven Adams	20	226	13.7	0.46	0.15	4.77
Bradley Beal	20	523	13.7	0.48	0.05	4.74
Tristan Thompson	22	469	13.7	0.43	0.07	4.73
Terrence Ross	22	246	13.3	0.56	0.13	4.66
Khris Middleton	22	317	13.2	0.53	0.07	4.60
Jonas Valanciunas	21	359	13.2	0.47	0.10	4.59
Harrison Barnes	21	299	13.1	0.55	0.11	4.59
Tony Wroten	20	359	13.1	0.44	0.01	4.52
Tim Hardaway	21	184	12.6	0.49	0.06	4.38
Austin Rivers	21	97	12.6	0.46	0.07	4.38
Cory Joseph	22	55	12.6	0.41	0.11	4.37
Michael Kidd-Gilchrist	20	404	12.5	0.51	0.08	4.36
Nate Wolters	22	351	12.5	0.42	0.04	4.32
Dion Waiters	22	332	12.5	0.44	(0.01)	4.31
Thomas Robinson	22	165	11.3	0.45	0.04	3.93
Hollis Thompson	22	181	11	0.51	0.06	3.86
Bismack Biyombo	21	297	10.8	0.65	0.12	3.86

 
The bottom 28 consists largely of rookies a few previous lottery picks that have been especially underwhelming, like Derrick Williams and Brandon Knight.

Player	Age	MP	PER	eFG%	WS/48	Wght
Giannis Antetokounmpo	19	126	11	0.51	0.03	3.85
Victor Oladipo	21	357	11	0.43	(0.04)	3.80
Ben McLemore	20	284	10.7	0.47	0.03	3.73
Evan Fournier	21	181	10.5	0.49	0.06	3.68
Maurice Harkless	20	367	10.5	0.48	0.04	3.67
Alec Burks	22	418	10.3	0.39	(0.02)	3.56
Kentavious Caldwell-Pope	20	267	10.1	0.40	0.05	3.52
Xavier Henry	22	281	9.9	0.46	0.01	3.45
Rudy Gobert	21	154	9.9	0.46	(0.01)	3.45
Shane Larkin	21	59	9.4	0.43	(0.01)	3.27
Kelly Olynyk	22	317	9.4	0.41	0.01	3.27
Phil Pressey	22	169	9	0.31	0.00	3.10
Derrick Williams	22	162	8	0.37	0.03	2.80
Cody Zeller	21	275	7.7	0.34	(0.00)	2.68
Archie Goodwin	19	169	7.6	0.40	(0.05)	2.65
Sergey Karasev	20	69	7.4	0.41	0.01	2.61
Trey Burke	21	86	7.5	0.37	(0.10)	2.59
Tony Snell	22	68	7.1	0.41	0.07	2.53
Brandon Davies	22	133	5.6	0.33	(0.01)	1.97
Ian Clark	22	70	4.4	0.40	(0.08)	1.58
John Jenkins	22	67	4.3	0.41	(0.04)	1.56
Reggie Bullock	22	93	4.3	0.39	(0.04)	1.55
Solomon Hill	22	101	4.3	0.30	0.03	1.54
Dennis Schroeder	20	121	2.2	0.35	(0.13)	0.80
Anthony Bennett	20	122	2.3	0.24	(0.14)	0.80
Brandon Knight	22	87	0.5	0.27	(0.22)	0.18
Nemanja Nedovic	22	60	-1.9	0.27	(0.14)	(0.59)
Marquis Teague	20	69	-7	0.19	(0.24)	(2.35)