There is no “I” in team.

You’ve heard the cliché a thousand times. It’s right up there with “We gave it a 110% out there,” and “We’re taking it one game at a time.”

It’s a warm and fuzzy sentiment but beginning to sound a bit outdated. How about, “I gave it my all out there today, mainly because I’m in a contract year and I’m trying to raise my price tag before I hit free agency next year.”

A bit wordy I know, but it seems to fit in with the growing attitude that it’s not whether you win or lose, but how you played, or maybe how much you didn’t. It seems the majority of athletes are more concerned with their contract status, how much they’re making, how much they’re not making, or how much they could be making, before winning even enters their mind.

Are there any team first athletes anymore? Someone who will put his ego or rep aside and do what’s best for the team. Maybe that means taking a seat on the bench more than you’d like or losing a couple points off your average, but sacrificing personal aspirations for the betterment of the team. Sounds crazy I know, but these types of athletes still do exist, they’re just a bit harder to find.

The Toronto Raptors feel they have found a player who possesses these qualities in Jose Calderon. Entering the off-season as a restricted free agent, the franchise took no chances in locking up the third-year pro to a five-year deal worth close to eight million a year.

Yet looking back on his time here, you can’t help but be impressed and a little bit surprised that Calderon would be in this position today. His transformation from a nervous, timid, turnover prone rookie to one of the most respected and efficient point guards in the league is a story that should not be overlooked.

Coming over from Europe to begin the 2005 season, things didn’t start off the way that many, including the newly acquired Spaniard, would have hoped.

Actually, that’s an understatement.

It was a complete train wreck.

With the franchise in disarray, and expectations high for the then 24-year-old ‘rookie’, Calderon had to deal with the added pressure of playing in a new country, learning a new language, and changing his style of play to adapt to the fast paced NBA.

The results of a 27 win season, coupled with Calderon’s inconsistent play, left many to wonder whether he was just another one of GM Rob Babcock’s failed experiments gone to waste. Although despite showing glimpses of the playmaker the team had hoped he could be, a battle with plantar faciatis and porous shooting throughout the season dogged Calderon in his first year in the league.

Season averages of 5.5 points, 4.5 assists, and an atrocious 16% mark from beyond the arc, left the ever optimistic Calderon wondering whether he had a mistake in coming to the NBA.

“The first year was really tough, I couldn’t play like I used to, like I wanted to,” Calderon said in a recent interview. “I was almost thinking of going home, I wasn’t myself on the court.”

Putting his disastrous rookie year behind him, Calderon spent his summer playing for Spain at the World Championships.

Turns out the guy can play some ball.

In helping lead Spain to a gold medal victory at the worlds, the plucky floor general came back to training camp in the fall with an added level of poise and experience.

“It was perfect, it was confidence. I could feel like a basketball player again and get back here with a lot of energy,” Calderon admitted. “I want to prove myself, like I can play in the NBA, so it was a bad year but I can go back there and get better and play.”

Although an improvement over his first season was to be expected, few could have predicted the type of season he would go on to have.

Elevating every part of his game, Calderon’s numbers shot up across the board, even though now playing fewer minutes. The defence that had dared him to shoot all his previous season was now paying for it as he shot a blistering 52% from the field, and regained his touch from the perimeter. Forming a deadly pick and roll combo with Chris Bosh and using deceptive quickness to cut corners and beat his man off the dribble, Calderon was a force to be reckoned with.

This was the point guard he was brought over to be. A strong leader who can not only think the game, but is equally adept at beating his man with the pass or the shot.

Only one problem.

The Raptors already had their point guard of the future, newly acquired T.J. Ford. No matter, with the franchise claiming it’s first Atlantic Division title and the two lead guards fast becoming one of the top tandems in the league, all was right in Toronto.

Ah, but what’s life in the NBA without a little controversy?

With the bar set high to start the season, the Raptors seemed to struggle out of the gate, trying to live up to last year’s surprising 47-win campaign. The season, and the franchise, took a surprising twist on a fateful December night in Atlanta. On a routine breakaway, T.J. Ford took a hard foul, crashing to the floor and suffered a tough upper body injury.

The rest as they say is history.

Calderon’s game flourished in the starting role, averaging 11.2 points and finishing fifth in the league with 8.3 assists per game. Leading the NBA by a wide margin in assist to turnover percentage and joining Steve Nash as the only point guards to hit 50% from the field, 40% from three, and 90% from the line, Calderon posted an All-Star calibre season, though few outside of Toronto knew about it.

What people did know about was the growing tension and controversy swirling around the team as questions started to arise over who should be starting. With Ford coming back after an almost two month absence, the plan for him to come back slow as a backup played out more like a soap opera, as it became quite obvious he wasn’t happy with the situation. Many analysts attributed Ford’s poor play coming off the bench to the young speedster having a ‘starter’s mentality’, needing to start the game to feel involved and be able to contribute.

The Raptors, sporting a .500 record and limping into the playoffs with no momentum, were struggling mightily when Calderon felt a change needed to be made. Knowing he was comfortable in either role, he asked head coach Sam Mitchell to be moved to a backup role, something almost unheard of in professional sports.

It didn’t seem like it was that tough of a decision.

“First of all this is the Toronto Raptors, and it’s a team,” Calderon was quoted saying. “Sometimes you have to sacrifice yourself for the team so I think that was the best for the Toronto Raptors and it worked.”

In a contract year, playing at an extremely high level, Calderon stepped aside, easing Ford’s transition back to the team and silencing, for the time being, talk of who should be the team’s starter. It’s a credit to his character that through both victory and failure, he’s stayed true to his belief that no one player is bigger than the team. That attitude and his passion to win is as big an asset to Calderon’s success in this league as any of his on floor skills.

Though, in the end it seemed all for naught. A season that began with such high hopes ended with a disappointing elimination in the first round by the Orlando Magic. Heading into the off-season with Calderon up for free agency and Ford not ready to accept a demotion, a big decision loomed ahead as it seemed the two were destined for a break up.

So here we are, a week after the official announcement of the T.J. Ford trade to Indiana, and the news of Calderon inking a new contract extension. I guess some times it comes down to an athlete’s attitude. Do you want a player with a starter’s mentality or a winning one?

I think the Raptors gave their answer loud and clear this summer.

Photo Credit: Icon Sports Media

Prominent APBRmetricians such as Bob Bellotti and Kevin Broom are among the growing number of statisticians who support the use and development of new, intricate basketball statistics. As discussed previously, these dynamic metrics provide more precise insight that extends beyond what traditional measures consider. One segment of the sport that lends itself particularly well to this analysis is player shooting. Exploring the significance of variance between new and old measures shows us how appealing it is to shift the standard paradigm for player stats.

First, let’s review the league leaders for this season in Traditional Field Goal Percentage:

TRADITIONAL FIELD GOAL PERCENTAGE
RNK NAME FG%
1 A. Biedrins, GSW 0.626
2 T. Chandler, NOR 0.623
3 D. Howard, ORL 0.599
4 S. O’Neal, MIA/PHO 0.593
5 A. Stoudemire, PHO 0.590
6 J. Childress, ATL 0.571
7 R. Brewer, UTH 0.558
8 D. Lee, NYK 0.552
9 C. Boozer, UTH 0.547
10 K. Garnett, BOS 0.539

This list is a good reflection of what one expects to see with FG% leaders, as the strong majority of the players in the top ten play close to the basket. It is self-evident that layups and dunks are the easiest shots to make on the court, for their proximity to the basket makes them less challenging. Bigger players then should, and do, dominate FG%.

If you look at the Top 20 in the league in Traditional FG%, you see that only three are true guards (7. Ronnie Brewer, 14. Monta Ellis, 18. Jose Calderon). Yet no one would suggest that Shaquille O’Neal is a better shooter than Steve Nash, even though Shaq is twenty spots ahead of him in league rankings.

Knowing then that this standardized stat favours big men, let us look at the league leaders using Adjusted Field Goal Percentage [AFG%: = [(PTS - FTM)/FGA]/2].

ADJUSTED FIELD GOAL PERCENTAGE
RNK NAME AFG%
1 A. Biedrins, GSW 0.626
2 T. Chandler, NOR 0.623
3 D. Howard, ORL 0.599
4 S. Nash, PHO 0.597
5 M. Miller, MEM 0.596
6 S. O’Neal, MIA/PHO 0.593
7 A. Stoudemire, PHO 0.592
8 J. Childress, ATL 0.590
9 J. Smith, DEN 0.578
10 J. Calderon, TOR 0.575

The intention of this adjustment is largely to evaluate the impact of three-point shooting and the considerable reorganization of the list suggests it does just that. While the top three performers remain unchanged, Nash catapults up the list from 25th to fourth as a result of considering the relative difficulty of threes.

Mike Miller, another player revered mainly for his outside shooting touch, jumps from 27th on the conventional list to fifth.

Perhaps no two players better display the degree this stat adjusts customary measures than J.R. Smith and Anthony Parker; the Nuggets’ Smith flies up from 66th in the league in FG% all the way to ninth overall using AFG%, while Toronto’s Parker moves from 50th to 12th.

In general this adjustment succeeds in propelling guards and outside shooters up the standings. In this way it gives a more accurate and true-to-life reading on a player’s shooting proficiency.

Having seen what that adjustment did to alter the statistical shooting landscape, it would prove beneficial to also give thought to True Shooting Percentage. As detailed last week, it is my opinion that TS% is the most accurate and important measure in use today with respect to gauging shooting effectiveness. TS% [(Total points x 50) divided by [(FGA + (FTA x 0.44)] accounts for free throws and three-pointers to give a more complete picture of a player’s all-around shooting ability.

Consider now then the league leaders using TS%:

TRUE SHOOTING PERCENTAGE
RNK Player TS%
1 Andrew Bynum, LAL 0.659
2 Amare Stoudemire, PHO 0.656
3 Brent Barry, SAS 0.655
4 Josh Childress, ATL 0.647
5 Erick Dampier, DAL 0.645
6 Steve Nash, PHO 0.641
7 Carl Landry, HOU 0.641
8 Andris Biedrins, GSW 0.637
9 Kendrick Perkins, BOS 0.632
10 Tyson Chandler, NOR 0.632

Bynum’s appearance atop the list is somewhat misleading: his injury caused him to miss too many games to be considered eligible for the league’s standard FG% list, otherwise his .636 FG% mark would have led the NBA.

Bynum aside, what is interesting is how far Biedrins, Chandler and Howard fall. AFG% did not account for free throws, meaning that these post players were not penalized for their awful foul shooting (.62, .59, and .59 respectfully). When FT% is accounted for, each drops noticeably, with Howard falling all the way to 14th.

No player is hit harder by this new measure than Shaquille O’Neal, the posterboy for awful foul shooting (O’Neal drops all the way to 36th with TS%).

Meanwhile, Brent Barry represents the other side of the coin as his .481 FG% would place him 45th in the league normally (he did not have enough attempts to qualify), but as a result of his .429 3P% and other-worldly .950 FT% he would place third in TS%.

This trend is expressed elsewhere in the Top 20 with the bump received by Manu Ginobili, Sasha Vujacic and Kevin Martin.

Allowing the assertion that True Shooting Percentage is the best overall measure of shooting proficiency, have a look at the Active Career Leaders in TS%:

CAREER ACTIVE LEADER
Rank Player TS%
1 Brent Barry 0.6074
2 Steve Nash 0.6028
3 Amare Stoudemire 0.6025
4 Dwight Howard 0.5962
5 Yao Ming 0.592

At first glace, Barry’s topping this list seems odd. This is telling of how traditional measures are incomplete or lacking. When you consider how amazing he has been from the free-throw line throughout his career and his long distance touch, it suddenly seems obvious he would be so high, yet classic stats and subjective analysis don’t let us appreciate that.

Barry has never had the notoriety of a pure shooter in the way that Ray Allen has. Observers have long canonized Allen’s textbook mechanics and stroke: his jumper is a thing of absolute beauty and his name is the most common reply to the question, “Who has the best jump shot in basketball?”

But, if we remove the aesthetic component of his form and look exclusively at percentages, does Allen fall short of Barry, Nash and others?

His traditional field goal percentage of .445 places him only 90th in the league, suggesting that perhaps his days as a premier gunner have past him by. But a closer look shows his merit: Allen’s Adjusted Field Goal Percentage is a lofty .537, good for 28th overall. This shows how this APBRmetric equates for the impact of strong three-point shooting as of greater difficulty than, say, Tyson Chandler’s dunks.

Allen’s sterling free-throw percentage (.907) bolsters his True Shooting Percentage to an impressive .584, good for 45th in the league. Allen shot only .398 from three last season, placing him a surprisingly slow 35th in the league. That said, he still made the fifth most threes leaguewide, so his lower percentage may be a product of the higher volume of shots he is expected to take compared to players like Jason Kapono.

Still though, an observer can’t help but notice that his career .571 TS% mark puts him only 19th on the active list, behind the likes of Mike Miller and Wally Szczerbiak.

Therein lies the beauty of such advanced stats: his fame and shooting form have made Allen the best shooter in the game by subjective measures, but objectively this can be contested.

In conclusion, APBRmetrics do a great deal to open our eyes to unconsidered possibilities with respect to shooter comparisons. Marquee names like Michael Redd gain credence via their reputation as pure shooters, yet at times this is misleading (Redd’s .559 TS% is good for only good for 92nd overall and is comparable to that of Chris Quinn). Notable shooters like Ben Gordon have a higher reputation than a player like Mike Miller, but advancing stats show us that maybe they shouldn’t.

When the point guard’s three-point offering fell through the bottom of the net, giving his club a 78-77 lead, Canada had consummated one of the greatest comebacks in international basketball history.

The 79-77 victory keeps Canada’s Olympic qualifying hopes alive and thus the superstitious Anderson’s clean cut dreams in tact.

Down by as many as 18 points in the second half, Canada rode the defensive efforts of surprise hero Levon Kendall and the offensive heroics of veteran Rowan Barrett who led the team with 22 points.

Much more impressive, however, than Canada’s 18-point comeback in the final two quarters of work, was the 14-point run they employed to battle back from as many as 12 points down with just 3:12 remaining in the fourth.

Though the Canadians flirted with the comeback for most of the second half, it wasn’t until a Carl English three-point play followed a forced five-second inbound violation when Canada looked poised to finish the job.

After the earned free-throw with 1:42 remaining, Canada sat five points back and a step-back Barrett three-pointer paved the way for the eventual Anderson winner. From there the Canadian defense took over, forcing a Korea shot-clock violation and holding on for the win.

At no other level is it more evident that basketball is a game of expertise than on the international stage so it comes as no surprise that it took resorting to determination and defensive resiliency for Canada to come away with the win.

Big man Levon Kendall led the team on the glass with 14 rebounds as the Canadians out-rebounded their Korean counterparts 44-26. Kendall’s presence in the paint helped the Canadians claim dominance in the second half.

Immediately after the tip, Korea looked poised to run away with the victory thanks to a smattering of early three-pointers and Canadian turnovers. Up 49-33 at the half it looked as though it was simply a matter of holding on for Korea, but the win was not to be.

With the victory, the Canadians will take on the winner of Group D (Puerto Rico or Croatia depending on Wednesday’s winner) in the quarter-final.

Also of note was the absence of Canadian center Samuel Dalembert.

basketball hoops

Click here to listen to this media scrum with Etan Thomas.

At one point during the Washington Wizards’ recent minicamp, center Etan Thomas jumped up, grabbed a rebound, and kicked it out to Dee Brown to lead the fastbreak. Once the ball was swung around a few times, guard Nick Young finally fed Thomas the ball in the post. Thomas caught the ball, drop stepped, and threw it down with authority with his right hand.

A move like this during a practice should cause little to no fanfare for an eight-year veteran like Thomas. But given the events of the previous offseason, it is nothing short of impressive.

During a routine physical prior to the 2007-2008 season, doctors found an irregularity in Thomas’ heart. There was a leak in his aortic valve and it required immediate surgery. At the time, it was unknown when Thomas would be able to resume physical activity again, let alone rejoin his fellow Wizards.

Thomas triumphantly returned to practice in January 2008, but for non-contact drills only. In the following months, Thomas participated in practices and more strenuous drills, but he still had to take precaution. His sternum, which had been broken during the surgery, had yet to fully heal, and any hard blows would have trigged more surgery.

Thomas understood this, but he was still impatient.

“It was a long year of waiting,” Thomas said after Washington’s mini-camp on Friday. “And when you’re almost there, but not quite that’s the hardest part because there was a lot that I could do, but I couldn’t take any contact. And then I could take a little bit of contact, but not a lot. It was kind of frustrating but I listened to the doctors.”

To make things even more difficult for Thomas, the man he had previously been splitting playing time with, Brendan Haywood, was having a career year due to his increased playing time. As a team, the Wizards were still unable to stop LeBron James and much of his damage was done down the middle of the lane, an area that Thomas enforces when he is on the court.

This offseason has proved to be a much better one for Thomas. He gained full clearance from his doctors to resume full contact workouts and he started to work out with former NBA and University of Maryland star Tony Massenburg.

From there, Thomas decided he wanted to take it a step further and participate in minicamp—an unusual move for a veteran player, but a necessary one for Thomas

“[Massenburg] has been banging on me a lot and stuff like that. I’m feeling good. I don’t have any reservations or limitations or anything like that. [But] it’s different when you’re going in practice, in the structure, you’re going through drills and playing four-on-four and things of that nature. So, I just wanted to come out there and practice with those guys a little bit, get in some drills and coaching.”

Thomas decided not to go to Las Vegas to participate in the 2008 Summer League with the younger players, but he did say that he would continue to workout and lift weights close to home.

When asked if he would be ready for training camp, Thomas responded quickly and succinctly, “I’ll be fine, I’ll be ready to go.”

If Thomas’ assertion is correct, the next time he’ll be seen running, grabbing rebounds and dunking won’t be in an isolated, offseason practice. It will be during an NBA game which is where he belongs.

Photo Credit: Icon Sports Media

The Achilles heel for Canada was their inability to stay out of foul trouble. Staring point guard Jermaine Anderson picked up his second foul at the 3:53 mark of the first quarter while back-up Andy Rautins picked up two fouls in his first three minutes of playing time off the bench

Having both point guards in foul trouble put a huge strain on Canada’s backcourt on both ends of the floor.

On the defensive end, foul trouble by Canada’s point guards allowed Slovenia’s backcourt tandem of Jaka Lakovic and Sani Becirovic to score 19 and 15 points respectively.

Lakovic ignited Slovenia’s offense in the first half as he scored 12 of Slovenia’s first 16 points of the game.

Meanwhile on the offensive end, Canada struggled to get open looks and as a result shot 40% (24-60) from the field. Without their lead guards in the game, Canada reverted to a lot of one-on-one style of play where they hoisted up perimeter shots or tried to attack their defenders off the dribble for shots in the paint. When neither option worked, Canada was left without an attacking guard to dish to open teammates when Slovenia’s defense collapsed on the ball handler.

Foul trouble was only a symptom of a much larger problem - an inability to stay focused mentally or show the physical toughness needed to secure a much needed win. Slovenia seemed to want this win more as they hit the floor for loose balls while Canada was happy to just bend over, they won the battle on the glass (30-27), they were more aggressive in the post and they slid over to play better help defense on the perimeter.

Canada’s struggles staying in the game mentally were shown when they committed the cardinal sin of fouling a three-point shooter not just once, but twice in this game. If this had happened once it would have resulted in head coach Leo Rautins pulling out his hair but the fact it happened twice is frustrating for the coaching staff and fans across the country to watch.

Two bright spots for Canada were Rowan Barrett who paced Canada with 16 points in the loss, while fellow veteran Dave Thomas scored 10 points off the bench while shooting 71.4% (5-7) from the field.

Canada’s game against Korea tomorrow morning is now a must-win game for both countries. Which ever team earns the win gets to advance to the quarter-final round of the qualifying tournament, while a loss ends that country’s quest for an Olympic berth.

* The media was allowed to view the final 15 minutes of team drills, which primarily focused on both fast break and secondary fast break options. Coach Eddie Jordan divided the players into groups of five, and each group ran the initial fast break, then they ran the secondary break options, and finally they got into their offense, when someone would take the shot. After each offensive set, Jordan would talk to the players about what they could have done to create better options for themselves or their teammates.

* The only injury suffered during today’s practice was by Oleksiy Pecherov, who seemed to injure his lower leg. Pecherov is expected to participate in Day 2 of the mini-camp, and then next week in Las Vegas.

* Etan Thomas, in only his second full contact workout since being full cleared by doctors, was on the floor and he looked great running the floor and going through low post drills with his younger teammates. Thomas later commented that he would not be joining the remainder of the team in the Vegas Summer League, but it was important for him to come out and get in some contact drills. Second-year players Nick Young and Dominic McGuire, along with third-year player Andray Blatche, also participated in the drills and scrimmages and they will be playing in Vegas.

* At the end of practice, Etan Thomas, JaVale McGee, and roster hopeful Jonathan Wallace spoke about today’s practice and what the future holds for each of them. Look for audio clips to be posted throughout the weekend here on Hoops Addict.

The majority of basketball fans prefer to watch and debate the game subjectively. That is to say, they go with what their eyes and gut instincts tell them. One might watch a Detroit-Phoenix game and come away thinking Phoenix is a superior offensive team. This is of course still debatable, since each has different sets and operates player abilities within different systems. But what if we restrict the debate to one core element of each team’s game: shooting ability? Given the existence of statistical tracking of Field Goal Percentage, one might think a verdict would be straightforward and clear. Yet it usually never is.

Though concrete measures and objective statistical analysis has been a part of the professional game since its inception, most of us will go more on feel and intuition than hard data to win an argument or state our viewpoint. This underscores two truths about the way basketball fans rate and debate players’ abilities and skills: fans are always partial and standard statistical measures are inadequate.

There is no solving the first part of that equation; fans will always be partisan, to the point of outright ignoring solid statistical proof that goes against their opinion. The second issue though has the potential to change, particularly in the realm of gauging shooting ability.

Thanks to statisticians the likes of John Hollinger and Roland Beech, the analysis of basketball through objective statistical evidence has come to the forefront. Owing much to economic and regression modeling, this progressive study has recently become mainstream. Whereas general statistics measure things such as Free Throw Percentage or Three-Pointers Made, modern APBRmetrics (standing for Association for Professional Basketball Research) analyze basketball stats in new ways.

Contemporary APBRmetrics came into existence after Sabermetrics took root with baseball general managers as well as fans after the release of the book Moneyball, which focuses on Oakland Athletics unique Billy Beane’s roster assembling strategy. The overall philosophy of this new-age statistical analysis is to finetune existing stats to reveal more telling insight (mostly through possession and efficiency statistics). Given the importance of personnel and trade decisions, it is clear why teams would appreciate expanding their depth of knowledge regarding players’ effectiveness in certain situations and in going beyond out-of-date metrics to evaluate player performance. Teams now hire full-time consultants to work in Operations and Information for advanced statistics. Fans meanwhile have come to embrace these new stats, as they go one step beyond the box-score and provide even deeper insight into what will make a team more successful.

There are literally dozens of developing and innovative basketball statistics available to fans everywhere. Whether it be a team’s Pythagorean Expectation Rate or Offensive Efficiency, there is a plethora of stats to consider. If we limit our focus though, and turn our attention specifically towards investigating shooting using these new stats, the picture becomes less muddled and arguments around who the best shooter in the game might be become less emotional and more logical.

There are two primary new-age shooting metrics worth noting. The first is Effective Field-Goal Percentage [eFG%= (FGM + .5*3FGM)/FGA]. This is sometimes also referred to as Adjusted Field Goal Percentage. This measures shooting efficiency by accounting for the number of points a player produces per field goal attempt. Its basic intention is to adjust the standard Field Goal Percentage measure to consider the importance and difficulty of three-point shooting. In laymen terms, it makes Jason Kapono’s threes more valuable than Dwight Howard’s dunks.

The second, and in my opinion more important, APBRmetric to consider True Shooting Percentage (TSP= PTS/[2*(FGA + [.44*FTA]). This statistic calculates a player’s shooting percentage as a single measure, accounting not just for field goals and three-pointers but free throws as well. This measure takes the principle behind Effective Field-Goal Percentage one step further by factoring in free throws. This is critical given how important free throws become late in games and the relative inability of most players to hit from the line consistently. It attempts to assess a player’s overall shooting valuation, since it considers all facets of their shooting ability.

So, which teams make the grade given these new measures? And how different does the list of top shooting teams look compared to when using standard Field Goal Percentage? Below are lists of the Top Eight Teams based on Field Goal Percentage, Effective Field Goal Percentage and True Shooting Percentage.

NBA: Traditional FG%

1 Phoenix 50%
2 Utah 49.7%
3 LA Lakers 47.6%
4 Boston 47.5%
5 Orlando 47.4%
6 Denver 47.0%
7 Toronto 46.8%
8 New Orleans 46.6%

NBA: Effective FG%

1 Phoenix 55%
2 Orlando 54%
3 Utah 53%
4 LA Lakers 52%
5 Boston 52%
6 New Orleans 51%
7 Golden State 51%
8 Toronto 51%

NBA: True Shooting%

1 Orlando 56.4
2 L.A. Lakers 56
3 Boston 54.1
4 Detroit 53.8
5 New Orleans 53.7
6 San Antonio 52.9
7 Toronto 52.8
8 Utah 52.8

One quickly notices some surprising contrasts between the lists. Phoenix is the best shooting team in the league according to both Effective and Traditional measures, yet they are only the ninth best shooting team according to the True Shooting Percentage Figure, which accounts for free throws, a mortal flaw for every Suns player other than Steve Nash. This underlines not only the Suns’ woes at the line, but also the level of detail such analysis allows for. Elsewhere, we see Utah in the top three in the first two categories, yet they also fall to eighth in True Percentage because of their poor foul shooting. Given these sharp falloffs, one could easily suggest that either Los Angeles or Orlando was the best shooting team, as they were near the very top of each measure.

Other interesting or telling observations: San Antonio does not appear on either the Effective or Traditional lists, yet is fifth on the True list; Golden State, the team that lead the league in scoring and was considered its best offensive team, appears only on the Effective list; Denver meanwhile appears on the Traditional list but once threes and free throws are considered, they drop considerably out of the top eight; it is perhaps of no surprise that these top shooting team either all made the playoffs or were in a dogfight for them.

These modern statistics succeed in giving us a more complete, accurate picture when it comes to evaluating designations or claims that should be objective yet often aren’t. Debates that are built around statistical proof will still become clouded, for that is the nature of any good sports argument. But at least we now have a better grasp of what the best shooting team in the league might look like, and how subjective that title might still remain.

After all, there are lies, damn lies, and statistics.

Next week: Using APBRmetrics for specific players.

Between the now infamous fight in Detroit, enduring knee issues for the past three seasons and having teammates constantly in trouble with the law, things in Indiana deteriorated to the point where the face of the franchise was dealt to Toronto this summer.

While everyone goes through hard times in life very few people have had to endure these tough times while under the harsh glare of the media. The past few years have been excruciatingly painful for O’Neal due to the turmoil he’s faced on and off the court while dealing with the media as the face of the Pacers.

It’s because of how the past four years have unfolded that the six-time All-Star is excited to be in Toronto and the chance for a fresh start.

“For me personally, it’s kind of like a new life,” a giddy O’Neal told the media Wednesday afternoon when asked about his thoughts on being traded to Toronto. “Obviously you guys know what myself, my team and Indiana went through the past few years. It’s probably been one of the worst situations any pro team has been through and there are a lot more pains behind the scenes that kind of wore you down. It wore me down a bit mentally and I started to not really enjoy playing as much as I used to love to play the game. When I got the call from my agent and he told me about the possibility of coming here it was like a rebirth.

“It was an emotional time for me because I felt like I had a new chance at life. When you get that feeling you can really view things differently.”

While O’Neal may be excited about arriving in Toronto, not all Raptors fans share this same excitement. Some fans have O’Neal’s career on the verge of being over after a lack luster season in 2007-08 where he averaged 13.6 points and 6.7 rebounds while being limited to 42 games due to issues with his knee. However, what those fans fail to realize is there was a reason for O’Neal shutting things down and not playing out the season and it wasn’t due to him pouting like his critics want you to believe.

“I tore [my meniscus] two and a half years ago,” a solemn O‘Neal admitted to the media when asked about his knee. “I tore it slightly and then ended up tearing it a little bit more because I continued to play on it. It was a meniscus tear and I didn’t want to have the surgery because I wanted to continue to play with the team and be out there for the team.”

Why would a player try to gut it out through a serious knee injury when his reputation and next contract is at stake? Because O’Neal knew the Indiana Pacers franchise needed him on the court and he felt guilty not helping out however he could. Even if that meant playing on one leg he wanted to suit up and help the franchise maintain their status as one of the elite teams in the Eastern Conference.

“Obviously the team was going through such a tough time with a lot of off the court situations, so with me not being in there I knew it would be a really effected team. It compromised the health of my knee a little bit. I played on it for a year and a half and decided I need to have surgery because it was gradually getting worse. I started missing a week here, a week there, so I thought it was in the best interest of my career to have the surgery.”

O’Neal elected to have surgery to clean things up last summer. While the surgery was a success, he rushed back to the court last fall because Indiana had a new coach in place and he wanted to ensure he would have a strong grasp on the new offensive sets the team would be running.

He quickly realized this was the wrong choice as he was forced to play on one leg. When the realization hit early in the season that he wouldn’t be able to endure the rigors of an 82 game schedule or play at the level he was used to, O’Neal decided to shut things down to ensure that his knee would return to full strength for the 2008-09 season.

“I made a career move when I decided to sit out the 43 straight games. I went out and got independent doctors and some of the best knee specialists in the country and they really all came to the conclusion that I needed to sit out, start rehabbing and calm the knee down. If I wanted to be healthy going into next season, and not only next season but being healthy going into the summer, I had to make that initial move.”

Now O’Neal finds himself healthy for the first time in over three years and in a new city with a fresh outlook on life. Between soaking in the love from fans while shopping with his wife at Yorkville Shopping Centre, having dinner with Jose Calderon and falling in love with his point guard’s swagger to working out with Andrea Bargnani in Las Vegas this summer, O’Neal now finds himself in Toronto feeling oddly at home.

“Today is the day I close the chapter of my time in Indiana. This is a new life for me and I have full trust in myself that I’m going to do the things necessary to get back to the level of being one of the best players in the league. It may not equal up to numbers, I don’t know what the numbers might be, but to me it’s all about this team and doing anything necessary to get this team to a championship level.”

Time will tell if Toronto is a legit championship contender next season, but for now O’Neal is content knowing he has a fresh start and a chance for a rebirth of his NBA career.