Larry's Hues
by Alex
For my first post of 2008, I'll be getting back to our roots here at the Mistake by the Lake: criticizing Larry Hughes. It's taken a while, but I think the public is coming around on the issue of Larry Hughes's low-percentage shooting finally. Just look at the attention Hey Larry Hughes, Please Stop Taking So Many Bad Shots has attracted in a short time. Makes a blogger wish he'd come up with a snappier title all those years ago…
Anyway, we've written about our frustrations with Hughes a few times before, first in "Emptyin' the Mailbox: Cavaliers Edition," from nearly a year ago. Corey answered this question posed by C. Farbman: "Do you have any data pertaining to shot selection? I ask because of Larry Hughes—he drives me crazy the way he always passes up three point shots in favor of long twos, or pulls up for a jumper while on a fast break." Corey concluded that Hughes was taking long twos not at the expense of threes, but driving to the basket. He also found that "a typical Larry Hughes three-point attempt is far more valuable to the Cavaliers than a typical Larry Hughes two-point jumper attempt, or even a typical Larry Hughes layup attempt."
Corey had to painstakingly compile that shot chart data piece-by-piece, and could only go back one season at the time. Fortunately, NBA.com now puts its own shot charts online—called "Hot Spots," formerly "HotZones." Here a screen grab of Hughes's HotZones from the 2006-2007 regular season.
Using this helpful guide to "hacking" Hotzones, I was able to build a spreadsheet with data from the 2003-2004 season through today on Hughes's shooting tendencies. For lack of a better idea, I decided to see whether the side of the court he was on made any difference. I aggregated the fourteen zones into three categories, left, center, and right. Left includes the three touching the sideline, to the left of the key. Right is the same, but on the right. And center has everything else, including the key.
I made a graph of his effective field goal percentage (eFG%), which adjusts for the added value of making a three-pointer, from each category.
That ridiculous efficiency from the right side this season ought to come down—I think it's a result of a small sample. And his very low numbers from the left should improve, too. Just looking at the three lines on the graph, it looks like Hughes is definitely better from the center of the court than from the left. His right-side shooting has fluctuated more over the past few years. You could chalk it up to genuine improvement from that side of the floor, but without crunching the numbers, the likely answer is that this discrepancy would regress to the mean with a larger sample. For now, though, we can say that Hughes has been better lately from the middle and right side of the court than from the left.
I also separated Hughes's shots by four distance classes: 0-8 feet from the bakset is "close," 8-16 is "short," 16-24 is "medium," and from 24 feet to half court is "long." Once again, here are some trends in his efficiency.
Surprise! Except for the 2004-2005 season, when he wasn't even on the Cavaliers, Hughes has actually been more efficient from behind the arc than inside the key. Those two stand above "short" and "medium" shots, which seem to be jockeying with each other every season.
If you're wondering how such a bad three-point shooter (career percentage of .291) could be better from the outside than from in the paint, you need to remember what I said before about eFG% adjusting for the added value of a three-pointer. Hughes may suck from the outside relative to the rest of the league, but he also sucks from the inside relative to the rest of the league. Therefore, the scant few threes that go in make a difference. Missing a three isn't much different than missing a two; making a three is very different than making a two. To have a better eFG% from inside the arc than out, you need to be significantly worse from outside—which Hughes isn't.
Through the magic of Google Spreadsheets, these charts will update automatically for the rest of the season. So, if Hughes's catches fire from the inside through some miracle, you'll see it here at the end of the season—even though I won't have to type another number in. Because this is a pretty coarse-grained look at the shot chart data I'm pulling from NBA.com, I can't make too specific a conclusion other than Hughes should shoot more threes and maybe stay away from the left side of the court. If you have any questions or suggestions as to what to look into, I'm all ears.
Anyway, we've written about our frustrations with Hughes a few times before, first in "Emptyin' the Mailbox: Cavaliers Edition," from nearly a year ago. Corey answered this question posed by C. Farbman: "Do you have any data pertaining to shot selection? I ask because of Larry Hughes—he drives me crazy the way he always passes up three point shots in favor of long twos, or pulls up for a jumper while on a fast break." Corey concluded that Hughes was taking long twos not at the expense of threes, but driving to the basket. He also found that "a typical Larry Hughes three-point attempt is far more valuable to the Cavaliers than a typical Larry Hughes two-point jumper attempt, or even a typical Larry Hughes layup attempt."
Corey had to painstakingly compile that shot chart data piece-by-piece, and could only go back one season at the time. Fortunately, NBA.com now puts its own shot charts online—called "Hot Spots," formerly "HotZones." Here a screen grab of Hughes's HotZones from the 2006-2007 regular season.
Using this helpful guide to "hacking" Hotzones, I was able to build a spreadsheet with data from the 2003-2004 season through today on Hughes's shooting tendencies. For lack of a better idea, I decided to see whether the side of the court he was on made any difference. I aggregated the fourteen zones into three categories, left, center, and right. Left includes the three touching the sideline, to the left of the key. Right is the same, but on the right. And center has everything else, including the key.
I made a graph of his effective field goal percentage (eFG%), which adjusts for the added value of making a three-pointer, from each category.
That ridiculous efficiency from the right side this season ought to come down—I think it's a result of a small sample. And his very low numbers from the left should improve, too. Just looking at the three lines on the graph, it looks like Hughes is definitely better from the center of the court than from the left. His right-side shooting has fluctuated more over the past few years. You could chalk it up to genuine improvement from that side of the floor, but without crunching the numbers, the likely answer is that this discrepancy would regress to the mean with a larger sample. For now, though, we can say that Hughes has been better lately from the middle and right side of the court than from the left.
I also separated Hughes's shots by four distance classes: 0-8 feet from the bakset is "close," 8-16 is "short," 16-24 is "medium," and from 24 feet to half court is "long." Once again, here are some trends in his efficiency.
Surprise! Except for the 2004-2005 season, when he wasn't even on the Cavaliers, Hughes has actually been more efficient from behind the arc than inside the key. Those two stand above "short" and "medium" shots, which seem to be jockeying with each other every season.
If you're wondering how such a bad three-point shooter (career percentage of .291) could be better from the outside than from in the paint, you need to remember what I said before about eFG% adjusting for the added value of a three-pointer. Hughes may suck from the outside relative to the rest of the league, but he also sucks from the inside relative to the rest of the league. Therefore, the scant few threes that go in make a difference. Missing a three isn't much different than missing a two; making a three is very different than making a two. To have a better eFG% from inside the arc than out, you need to be significantly worse from outside—which Hughes isn't.
Through the magic of Google Spreadsheets, these charts will update automatically for the rest of the season. So, if Hughes's catches fire from the inside through some miracle, you'll see it here at the end of the season—even though I won't have to type another number in. Because this is a pretty coarse-grained look at the shot chart data I'm pulling from NBA.com, I can't make too specific a conclusion other than Hughes should shoot more threes and maybe stay away from the left side of the court. If you have any questions or suggestions as to what to look into, I'm all ears.
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