Updated and Revised SportVU aided "TrueUsage"

So why not relax the assumption that only one player can "use" each possession, and instead try to estimate the number of possessions in which a player was integrally involved? That's essentially what True Usage attempts to do.
The additional benefit is to be able to evaluate players propensity for turning the ball over not just in comparison to their shot attempts, but also with respect to their involvement in setting teammates up for shots (make or miss - assist % is obviously very teammate dependent, whereas assist chances as measured by SportVU are less so). As I mentioned in the initial run through, the fact that point guards in general have significantly lower TO rates than big men by this accounting is an accurate reflection of reality; they are point guards because they handle the ball well to begin with.
Well, first let's look at OKC's rotation players who I captured in the first iteration
Player | TS% | USG% | TrueUsage | TrueTOV% |
---|---|---|---|---|
Russell Westbrook | 51.80% | 32.20% | 58.49% | 9.88% |
Kevin Durant | 62.94% | 29.40% | 46.25% | 8.56% |
Reggie Jackson | 53.93% | 22.77% | 43.68% | 8.78% |
Jeremy Lamb | 57.13% | 20.25% | 30.20% | 5.36% |
Serge Ibaka | 55.65% | 18.94% | 25.07% | 8.95% |
Thabo Sefolosha | 51.75% | 11.63% | 20.29% | 9.27% |
Player | TS% | USG% | TrueUsage | TrueTOV% |
---|---|---|---|---|
Russell Westbrook | 51.80% | 32.20% | 58.49% | 9.88% |
Kevin Durant | 64.50% | 31.70% | 49.01% | 8.72% |
Reggie Jackson | 52.60% | 24.00% | 44.26% | 9.11% |
Jeremy Lamb | 54.20% | 19.90% | 30.73% | 5.38% |
Derek Fisher | 52.10% | 13.80% | 26.99% | 7.33% |
Serge Ibaka | 56.40% | 20.10% | 25.93% | 9.37% |
Nick Collison | 59.90% | 11.60% | 22.06% | 9.68% |
Thabo Sefolosha | 51.30% | 12.20% | 20.44% | 8.84% |
Steven Adams | 53.60% | 13.00% | 19.67% | 16.18% |
Kendrick Perkins | 47.30% | 11.70% | 18.70% | 20.25% |
Perry Jones | 57.70% | 12.80% | 17.80% | 7.50% |
Player | MPG | TrueUsage | TrueTOV% |
---|---|---|---|
Lamb | 25.2 | 31.91% | 5.42% |
Ibaka | 32.2 | 28.45% | 10.48% |
Sefolosha | 28.2 | 20.79% | 7.92% |
Jackson | 33 | 45.56% | 9.76% |
Durant | 39.6 | 56.62% | 9.08% |
The most amazing thing about the stretch of games is that Durant has carried this offensive load with only a slight uptick in turnovers and an overall offensive efficiency through the roof resulting in a somewhat absurd 71% TS rate, a figure reserved for either catch and dunkers like Tyson Chandler or the very best three point bombers, not players who create over half the shots taken by a team's offense.
Perhaps there will be a way to track assists and assist chances versus Hickory High's "Expected Points Per Shot," but at this point I'm not sure I have the raw data to work with to say anything nearly as definite about playmaking efficiency as TS does about scoring efficiency.
As a final note, I want to make exceedingly clear that True Usage is intended as a descriptive rather than normative stat. I don't think it's "better" or "worse" to have a high involvement on this metric, though I do think on a team level more assist chances (and thus more aggregate True Usage) probably correlates to some degree with scoring at higher clips just based on the types of shots which tend to generate assist chances (Cuts, Spot ups, Transition, PnR roll man) as compared to those that don't (Iso, PnR ball-handler, post ups)