As basketball has grown and developed into the twenty-first century statisticians and data scientists have tried to find every conceivable way to quantify what is happening on the court. Since “Moneyball” was invented in Oakland we’ve been fixated on trying to gain a competitive advantage through some new stat or insight. In basketball, however, one stat has always reigned supreme: points per game (ppg) it’s the last stat listed on the box score and the one upon which we decide who the truly great players are. Simply put scorers win games and are essential to the make-up of any team who wants to make a run, or are they?
The Cavaliers have been centered around four core players in the past few seasons: Donovan Mitchell, Darius Garland, Evan Mobley and Jarrett Allen. They’re central to not only the team’s play but also the team’s identity. For years, the Cavaliers were LeBron and the rest, but now, where the Sherwin-Williams building used to don the King of the Land, it now holds a reminder that the Cavs’ key players are “four the land.” Despite the focus on these key four, all but Evan Mobley have shown a regression from their regular scoring averages during their time together. If the focal point of a team lowered its impact on a team’s points per game the expectation should be that the team would suffer, but the Cavs haven’t. The Cavaliers have been the best team in basketball and though they faced a few road bumps at the end of November, they’ve bounced back with all of the vigor you’d expect from the top ranked team in the league.
The key difference that points per game alone isn’t able to tell you in this case, is that the Cavs’ key four, with the exception of Mobley, aren’t simply scoring less, but rather taking fewer shots. It seems like a fairly reasonable assumption that the two would mean the same thing, however, it’s the differentiation between the two that makes the difference. If the Cavs had a lower ppg, because they weren’t hitting shots the team’s offense would be in need of help, in fact in the times when the team has struggled the root cause has almost always been a stretch of poor shooting. A scoring decrease because of fewer shots being taken, however, points to an adjustment of a scheme instead of a loss of ability.
The lower scoring by the Cavaliers’ top players is a testament to the scheme of head coach Kenny Atkinson. Atkinson has been able to consistently create open shots for role players on the team, increasing overall efficiency and creating an offense that has been nigh impossible to stop through the first third of the season. While the Cavs’ top four have taken a hit in average scoring, the team now boasts six players averaging 10 ppg or more, and 11 averaging over five ppg. While those numbers seem somewhat abstract, the Cavs also lead the league in field goal percentage at 50.4% and are the only team currently shooting above 50% on the season. Furthermore, the Cavs lead the league in three-point percentage at 39.9% and are second to only the Grizzlies in total points per game at 121.5.
Simply put; by lowering the number of shots taken by the Cavs key players, Kenny Atkinson has been able to scheme the team to success. While the bumps in the road limited the Cavaliers’ attempt at a run at the NBA Cup, the goal for this team lies at the end of the season, not in the middle. As the games slowly become more important and teams grit through the mid-season slumps which can inevitably appear with a long NBA season, the Cavs scheme will continue to provide opportunities for success. When the scheme involves sharing the ball, it creates a team and environment that makes players want to play for each other not just themselves. That is the kind of culture that this team has embraced both in the style of play and in its marketing and it’s the kind of culture that can revolutionize a franchise and give the Cavaliers a shot at the title at the end of the season.
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