Last week’s Advanced Stats column furthered our examination of basic APBRmetrics and their application. Thus far we have considered new measures for team and player shooting statistics. This week we explore another important “dynamic statistic”: Offensive Rating.

Noted author and statistician Dean Oliver, whose work in APBRmetrics has paved the way for many in the field, created the measure of Offensive Rating over a decade ago. Oliver’s book Basketball on Paper popularized the use of possession statistics for average fans; his Four Factor Analysis and attributing Individual Player Wins and Losses are noteworthy contribution to advanced basketball statistics.

Offensive Rating is rooted in the belief that possession-based analysis should drive player and team evaluation. On a team level, every squad plays at a different pace of play. This means that teams who play faster (such as Golden State or Denver) have more possessions every game. They therefore have more opportunities to score and should score more total points.

But every game their opponents get more possessions as well, as their pace increases for that game. So the question is not how many possessions a team gets, but whether a team using those possessions advantageously. That is what Offensive Rating measures by evaluating points scored per 100 possessions.

How many points a team scores per offensive trip matters more than points per game because every game a team’s pace and total number of possessions changes. In any game, both teams will have nearly the same total possessions.

So if San Antonio, a team with a slow pace factor, plays Denver, the Spurs will have close to the same number of possessions as the Nuggets since that game has only one pace that the teams share. Measuring offensive effectiveness per possession then is more likely to predict how likely a team is to score, regardless of pace of a particular game.

How does Offensive Rating work? The formula is: Offensive Rating = (Points Produced / Individual Possessions) x 100. Here are the league leaders in Offensive Rating:

Rank Team Offensive Rating
1 Utah Jazz 113.8
2 Phoenix Suns 113.3
3 Los Angeles Lakers 113
4 Golden State Warriors 111.8
5 New Orleans Hornets 111.5
6 Detroit Pistons 111.4
7 Orlando Magic 111.3
8 Dallas Mavericks 111.1
9 Boston Celtics 110.2
10 Toronto Raptors 110.2

Teams like Utah, Phoenix, and Los Angeles are reputed as excellent offensively by traditional measures already, so this is not groundbreaking. But further examination of the list shows how certain teams’ Point Per Game averages are low only as a reflection of their using few possessions and not ineffective scoring per possession.

For example, the Pistons are 17th in Team Point Per Game, yet this is almost entirely a result of their slower pace of play. They place 6th in Offensive Rating, showing how Team PPG does not account possession use and effectiveness. This is also the case for the Hornets (9th in PPG, 5th in O.Rating) and the Spurs (27th in PPG, 11th in O.Rating).

Offensive Ranking also exposes teams that appear to be strong offensively but whose numbers are inflated because of their pace factor. For example, the Sonics were 16th in PPG, but when we convert this with Offensive Rating they fall all the way to last in the league. Another instance of this is Denver, who drops from 2nd in PPG to 11th in Offensive Rating.

Having presented Team Offensive Rating, let’s now briefly look at Individual Player Offensive Rating. Playing time for every player varies so developing measures based on efficiency per possession gives a more balanced view compared to per game stats.

Offensive Rating shows which player most effectively creating points for their team (or which players are most successful at generating overall offense). Again, the measure is converted per 100 possessions for the sake of consistency. A player produces points through field goals, free throws, assists, and offensive rebounds. To determine individual possessions, a sum is taken of a player’s scoring possessions.

The League Leaders in Individual Offensive Rating are:

Rank Player-Team O.Rating
1. Andris Biedrins-GSW 127.4
2. Jose Calderon-TOR 126.9
3. Chauncey Billups-DET 126.7
4. Josh Childress-ATL 126.5
5. Chris Paul-NOH 124.7

The most important discovery here (other than the fact that Biedrins also lead the league in Adjusted Field Goal Percentage) is that point guards dominate the list. This is a great reflection of how important lead guards are in creating offensive opportunities for themselves and their teammates each possession. It suggests that a distributive player like Chris Paul or Steve Nash (O.Rating: 121) who can not only control the ball and game tempo but also create for themselves ends up producing more total points per possession than a terrific individual scorer like Kobe Bryant (O.Rating: 115) or LeBron James (116).

In conclusion, the APBRmetric of Offensive Rating has advanced fans’ understanding of the importance of viewing players and team using possession-based statistics in place of traditional per game stats. By doing this, we place a higher emphasis of effective scoring and successful offensive possessions instead of just total points.