Principles: LaMelo Ball and Sports Clichés

There are a lot of clichés to watch out for as a sports fan - the “pure hooper” side of basketball is usually responsible for these. ‘He has heart’ or ‘he has what it takes to be a champion’ usually means nothing unless put in the context of something that directly relates to the player’s performance or impact. For example, if someone said “T.J. McConnell has heart, and I know this because of the fabulous HUSTLE stat, created by Joseph George” - that would be acceptable, but also entirely tedious. So as analytics people, we must live with these statements as permanent thorns in our sides. But are analytical minds subject to clichés as well?

The definition of a cliché is:

“A phrase or opinion that is overused and betrays a lack of original thought.”

When the world first met LaMelo Ball, he was known for being the third Ball brother, his way too much hairstyle, and his ability to bomb 40 footers as a 14 year old. Even then, his playstyle drew bad attention. Cherrypicking, poor defense, and his forgoing of otherwise good plays in favor of flash were the brunt of the critiques. Surprisingly, almost 8 years later, LaMelo hasn’t changed much at all. But does that make him undeserving of recognition?

With All-Star starters being recently announced, and LaMelo not being on the list, there was public outcry (mostly from the “pure hoopers”). I didn’t go so far. In my assessment, LaMelo SHOULDN’T be an All-Star starter. There are more than a few players who deserve it more.

But why? Well, I can’t just point to the number of games his team wins. My assessment of an individual should not be dependent on his team, AT ALL. This might sound out there. But I can explore a few examples to set this in place:

Let’s say we have a team that has ten me’s and one Nikola Jokić. It wouldn’t be fair to assess the Joker as not an All-Star because our team went 0-82. Or maybe he’d be able to pull four me’s to a win. I don’t know. Probably not. Second, just pulling the converse for any argument helps. Cason Wallace is admittedly not an All-Star this year (although he is very good, and could become one someday).

The most obvious holes in LaMelo’s All-Star case don’t come from the lack of team success. Rather, they come from his individual “efficiency”. LaMelo is currently #1 ALL-TIME in three point attempts per 100 possessions, but is making a significantly below average portion of them. But does that automatically make LaMelo an inefficient player?

Is it fair to define efficiency as makes over total shots? This is the first signal we have towards a key principle.

We cannot define efficiency as simply a player’s makes over total shots. We can derive this principle from the following strain of thinking. When judging efficiency, we want to look at all moments a player was on the floor, or at least all moments that a player was involved in a possession.

Let’s say that the 2017 Warriors (with the same roster as before) decided to let Kevin Durant play iso-ball on every possession. Kevin Durant is a historically good isolation player, and he probably would score with what we might call decent efficiency, but is it actually efficient in principle? We consider that they could play a MUCH more efficient style of basketball instead.

So our first signal to efficiency is looking at a player’s impact. We can use on/off for this, even if it misses some nuance.

This is a classic LaMelo Ball on/off line. The poor defense, significantly better offense - all suggestive of a promising player who has more to learn about being the engine for a team. But the impact is undeniable nonetheless. Since we are assessing LaMelo Ball’s offensive efficiency, we can look at his impact on Offensive Rating. A +11.5 jump suggests he is contributing to some success for his team, even if it’s paired with defensive bleeding on the other end.

Even though previous posts have tried to demonstrate the link between offense and defensive quantitatively, let’s just put together a counterfactual. We’ll assume offense and defense are wholly separate. So while LaMelo isn’t Nash-ing (taking a team from below average offense to great offense, as shown below), he’s closer to Iverson-ing (taking a team from below average offense to above average).

Steve Nash, 2007

Allen Iverson, 2001

A good antithesis to LaMelo has been Cade Cunningham, who seems more likely to be rewarded given the Pistons’ good play this season. Is Cade significantly more impactful than LaMelo?

Cade Cunningham, On/Off

LaMelo Ball, On/Off

With similar net ratings, but LaMelo’s gargantuan offensive impact, I’m more inclined to believe in his All-Star case. Obviously, the defensive question remains. It can be seen that his defensive slide has been occurring as his team is losing wins. I feel as though this season is more of an exploration for LaMelo Ball, and there’s not as much of a focus around winning. Maybe that’s what we define as winning basketball, but every player must be put in context.

Something I often mention on this website is the importance of granularity. Cade currently averages the most turnovers in the game right now. Does that automatically make him an inefficient ball handler? If we had more granular stats (certainly, some people have these), some of those turnovers could be negated. We might even reward some players for having a good read and being ambitious. Similarly, I feel as though it’s apt to reward LaMelo for his creativity. If factoring in the degree of difficulty, his offensive load suddenly makes him seem a lot better than previously suggested. There is no subtlety to LaMelo Ball’s game. We can all agree on this. But his creativity does point to higher improvement in the future.

The cliché of winning and losing players demonstrates a lack of nuance, in the ways that we assess a player’s needs and success metrics. Should we use LaMelo’s defense as an important metric in games that he’s expected to lose? Obviously, that boils down to philosophy, but I’m more than happy to say he should be an All-Star this year.