My motivation for analyzing point guard's next arises from my midseason acquisition of Dzanan Musa from the Sacramento Kings. It appeared throughout the season that he was playing quite well (except against New Orleans in the playoffs): lots of assists, good scoring, good rebounding, etc. But I wanted to dig deeper and see if his underlying statistics matched what seemed like a really good season running the show in Minnesota.
The process was very similar to my Center analysis. I determined that PG's with >800 minutes would qualify - as I wanted a slight larger pool of players (62 total) and that is roughly ~20% of a season's available minutes at PG which seemed like a logical cut off point. I then gathered the raw data, and categorized them into 4 categories : Point Guard Skills, Shooting, Do Shit, and Defense Advanced -I'll explain each category with each graph of the data. As I have done previously my goal was to determine how well Musa performed at each stat in comparison to the rest of the league. As 6.6 apg looks great, but is that just because he played more minutes, had more touches, etc.? So each statistic is rated for Musa's percentile rank compared to the other PG's of the CSL - 50th percentile means he's average, 90th percentile means he's better than 90% of the other PG's at that stat and so on.
The Results
Stats used are : Touches/36 min ; Assist/Touch ; AST % (an estimated percentage of teammate field goals a player assisted while the player is on the court), TO/TCH, and TO%.
Musa shows an incredible ability to assist teammates in getting baskets when he's on the floor, despite having a relatively average # of touches while on the court. What I love about Musa is that despite assisting at a really high %, he doesn't really turn the ball over. In other words he's not CSL Jason Williams with alot of fancy assists but alot of TO's too. All around you could make the case that Musa is in the elite tier of CSL point guards when it comes to "Point Guard Skills".
Stats used are : USG % (an estimate of the percentage of team plays used by a player while he was on the floor - FGA, FTA, and TO's ; 0-3FGA rate, 0-3 %, 3PA rate, 3PA/36, 3p%, FTA/36, FT%, TS% (measure of shooting efficiency that takes into account field goals, 3-point field goals, and free throws).
When looking at shooting I largely wanted to look at how players are doing at getting the most efficient shots and in my opinion the most important shots : Rim attempts, 3PA, and FTA while adding the context of USG% and TS%. As you can see, Musa doesn't get to the rim or shoot 3's with a high frequency when compared to his peers, and really struggled shooting at the rim this season (much lower than his previous seasons - I will need to continue to monitor this decline). He got to the FT line quite a bit (and shot poorly) and shot pretty well from 3. Musa carries a slightly above average USG% and with his below average 3PA and 0-3 rate you can determine that he shoots a fair # of shots from midrange which will continue to be worked on through preference work. Of note on the 0-3%, the numbers are pretty skewed and take them with a grain of salt as a large # of backup PGs who only attempted ~50< shots at the rim technically qualified, and since they were all likely wide open layups shot an insane %.
Stats used are : ORB%, DRB%, STL%, BLK% - all stats are estimates of a players # of X while he is on the floor.
When on the floor Musa "does shit" that contributes to the team. He uses his height to contribute with blocks and rebounds (love this from a PG). He is well below average at getting steals which could be a result of defensive system deployed. Good comparisons to players who don't "do shit" besides PG stuff when on the floor are Markus Howard and Ky Bowman.
Stats used are : Drives faced/36 min, drive stop %, Shots faced/36 min, Points Allowed / Shot Faced, and personal fouls/36 min.
Likely due to defensive system deployed, Musa does not carry a heavy defensive workload as you can see he faces fewer shots and drives than the average PG. He's slightly below average at stopping drives, but really really excels at limiting his opponents from making baskets while not fouling. Which I am happy with - if he fails at stopping a drive that player will be driving right into Koumadje who is elite at blocking shots and limiting baskets.
That's the analysis, what does everyone think? Again I really enjoyed completing this as I think I really understand Musa better as a player and how I want to improve his game for future seasons and maximize the team around him to accentuate his skills. Is there any other player cards that people would like to see?
2020, 2023, 2027
