Changes

When performance changes, or someone exceeds or fails to meet expectations, there's always a narrative. It doesn't matter if it is sports, or politics, personnel evaluation or rationalizing why you were late to dinner. The narrative is easier to come up with, always provides an answer, and is simple to communicate. Unlike the truth, which is often hard to get at, not definitive and almost always complicated.

The simple narrative behind Georgetown's improvement has been the rise of Otto Porter in the wake of Greg Whittington's suspension. There's several variations on the narrative here, from innocent to not so innocent:

1. Greg's absence made Otto Porter realize he needed to step up
2. Greg's suspension made JTIII realize the big lineup was a mistake
3. Greg demanded the ball too much for a mediocre offensive player and the Hoyas would be not as good with him.

Is this narrative even right? I doubt that we can prove any of the above completely right or wrong either way. But we can examine why the team is doing better and see if that lines up with the 'absence of Greg' theories.

In all three cases, we'd expect the major cause of improvement of the team to be offensive. In all three cases, we'd expect the shift of possessions away from Greg Whittington to be the key driver of increased offensive ability.


Is it the Offense?

Stat                 Non-Conf.           Last Ten  
Off Eff. (Adj)      102.2 (102.5)     106.3 (110.5)
Def Eff. (Adj)       83.9  (84.1)      91.4  (85.1)

eFG%                   51.3               53.3
TO%                    18.4               20.6
OR%                    28.4               33.5
FTA/FGA                34.9               36.5

I'm using the last ten even though it's more the last 14 because it's easier (the only other easily available split was con/non-con and that doesn't suit because the first few conference games need to be in the "before" set). I'm using non-conference, because, even though it doesn't include the Pitt debacle, it's directionally right in terms of how the offense was performing.

It's the offense.

Given the competition level, the defense may actually have been better, but you'd never expect an offense to improve in raw efficiency in conference play versus a full set that includes seven or eight cupcakes unless it actually, you know, improved. This isn't a quirk of schedule -- the offense did get better (Ed note: I've added the adjusted efficiencies for the two time periods).

Most notably, the team has shot better (#1 in conference play in eFG%) and hit the offensive boards better. (Again, given the competition, they also improved in TOs and FTA, but those are smaller improvements).


Is it the shift of possessions away from Whittington?

One way to find causality in these situations is a Volume, Rate and Assortment calculation. Since we're dealing with per possession efficiency and possessions are our "volume", I've ignored that and focused on a rate and assortment calculation.

An increase in rate means that the player got better between the non-conference and the last ten games. The trade-offs in assortment will show the benefit of moving playing time around.

The results:

             Non-conf         Last 10
Player    Usage   ORate    Usage   ORrate  Assort  Rate
Starks     14%    108.4     20%     98.2     7     (2)
Lubick     12%    108.8     14%    100.5     2     (1)
Porter     17%    117.0     21%    135.2     5      4 
Hopkins    16%     83.7     10%     86.9    (4)     0 
Trawick     8%    101.4     11%     99.9     3     (0)
DSR         8%    104.6     15%    114.5     8      2 
Ayegba      3%     78.7      3%     91.4     0      0 
Bowen       1%     73.6      2%     88.0     1      0 
Whit       18%     98.4      0%       -    (18)     -  
Total      96%              97%              3      3 

What the heck does that say?

The first two columns are non-conference possession usage (including PT and games played) and Offensive Rating. The second two columns are the same, but for the Last Ten Games. The last two columns are the assortment and rate effects on overall efficiency.

Taking a look at the total column, the first takeaway is that the offensive improvement is partially due to a shift in who takes the shots, but equally (if not more) due to improvements in efficiency. Despite the increase in opponents' ability, Porter and Smith-Rivera are playing better than they were in the non-conference on a per possession basis. 

There's been a net improvement in who uses the possessions as well. But it's important to note that the grouping of Whittington, Trawick, DSR and Starks nets out at about flat in total affect. Not all of Whittington's possessions went to that group (they are up 16% and Whit is down 18%), so there was some improvement there, but not much.

A more substantial shift was away from Mikael Hopkins as the hub of the offense and towards Otto Porter, and to a lesser extent, Nate Lubick. Porter's non-conference possession numbers are artificially low (he missed 1.5 games), but the shift is unmistakable.

You can still build narratives around this data. Perhaps Otto doesn't take his efficiency to the next level until he realizes he needs to without Greg. Perhaps Thompson never shifts offense from Mikael to Otto (though he was already shifting Mikael's PT and role downward). Perhaps DSR doesn't blossom without the extra playing time. Perhaps Greg's style of playing slowed down the flow of the offense.

Perhaps. Then again, perhaps in the wake of the Pitt loss, Thompson shifts the offense to Otto anyway, Greg plays incredible defense and starts hitting his threes (41% in conference play last year), DSR gets his minutes from Hopkins, not Whittington, and the team goes 16-2 in conference.

Either way, what we do know for certain is that shift of possessions from Greg to DSR, Markel and Trawick had less impact than the shift away from Hopkins or the general improvement of Porter and DSR. The suspension of Whittington still could have been a trigger for either of the two latter causes, but there's little doubt that simply taking the ball away from Whittington was not the cause.


See, I told you the narrative was simpler.

Ottomatic

Just how good has Otto Porter been in conference play?

Player           ORating    Usage %    DRating   Net Points
Porter '12-13      117        25%         80        +13
Freeman '10-11     109        26%        100         +5
Freeman '09-10     127        21%          -         +5
Monroe '09-10      106        26%          -         +9
Hibbert '07-08     120        26%          -          -
  

Unfortunately, I can't get good conference stats on Jeff Green's 06-07 run, but Porter is likely having the best in conference season for a Hoya since Roy Hibbert's dominant 2007-08.

His offensive game has been wildly efficient despite increasing his shot attempts. But Otto doesn't nearly get enough credit for being the lynchpin of a defense that has not really taken a step back since Greg Whittington's suspension.

Otto Porter

Image from here

The Big East All-Rookie team was announced yesterday and despite listing seven freshmen, Otto Porter was not on it.


The Big East All-Rookie Team consists of:

D'Angelo Harrison and Moe Harkless of St. John's
LaDontae Henton of Providence
Andre Drummond of Connecticut
Chane Benahan of Louisville
Anthony Collins from USF...
...and Notre Dame's Jerian Grant, who is really a red-shirt sophomore.

Let's ignore the ridiculousness of Jerian Grant being considered a freshman and accept him on the team because he was very good this year.  As were D'Angelo Harrison and LaDontae Henton.  It's not that Porter was worse than these players this year, but each clearly deserved to be on the All-Rookie Team along with Porter.

So instead we'll compare Otto to the four remaining players:  Harkless; Drummond; Benahan and Collins.  

Let's look at a decent chunk of stats:

Player        Min%   ORating  Poss%  OReb%   ARate   TO%   DReb%   Blk+Stl%  DRating
Porter         70      116     17       9      12     14     19        6        89
Benahan        62      101     22      13       8     21     20        4        89
Drummond       71      100     21      15       4     17     16       12        95
Harkless       90       98     24       8      10     17     19        7       101
Collins        67       96     20       1      37     34      6        4        97

Player stats from KenPom, except Def. Rating from SR/College Basketball

Offensively, one of these things is not like the others, and it's Otto Porter.  Porter not only has clearly the highest offensive efficiency amongst the freshmen listed above, he has the highest offensive efficiency of any freshman in the conference.

The counterargument would be that Otto Porter used many fewer possessions and was relied upon much less than players like Moe Harkless.  If Porter had been forced to create as much as Harkless, the argument goes, he would have been much less efficient.

Here's one problem with that argument:  a Big East player with an offensive efficiency around 100 tends to be a sub-par offensive high major player, once you account for the creampuffs on the schedule.  Which means every player on our list not named Otto Porter is at best average, and more accurately scoring at a sub-par rate.  Is there that much value in being a larger focus of the offense if you don't convert at a better than average rate?   Who wants a sub-par player jacking up shots or running their offense?

Otto Porter played within the needs of his team and was wildly efficient.  That adds real value.  While several of these players needed to create more offense for their teams than Otto, doing so at mediocre or worse levels simply isn't enough to state that they are better offensive players than Porter.

*Stats-geeky argument:  One can never tell how Otto Porter would have performed taking as many shots as Harkless, or how Harkless would have performed in a complementary role, but we do have a rule of thumb:  in the NBA, for every one point of possession percent increased, the average player loses 1.25 points of efficiency.  Which means if Otto Porter raised his usage to 24%, his Offensive Rating would have likely dropped to somewhere around 109.  Which is still clearly more than any player on this list.

Then there's that whole defense thing.  It's half the game, but voters tend to ignore it completely.  The few who do pay attention generally focus on the counting stats:  rebounding, blocks and steals.  These stats make for a poor evaluation when compared to how they can illuminate on offense.

Drummond and Harkless have both the best traditional defensive stats - rebounding, blocks and steals - and the most pro potential (and these two things tend to go hand in hand), but their teams were terrible on defense.  From watching, neither was a particularly good defender (as shown by their defensive rating), and Drummond was part of a team that gave up on numerous occasions.  

Collins and Benahan played on better defensive teams.  I haven't watched either enough to know how good they are, but Porter has the advantage to my mind [editor's note: After adding DRat stats, Porter and Behanan look to be equals].   His statistics are comparable, but more importantly, he was one of the best defensive players on one of the best defensive teams in the league.  

So, Porter is both the best offensive and defensive player in the group and yet, he does not make the team?  I realize he does not have the feel-good story of being the point guard on the suddenly decent Bulls or did not put up a few 30-point games like Harkless, but he was simply a better player this year.

Otto Porter deserved to be in the discussion for Big East Freshman of the Year, not left off the team completely.

A Comparison

Color me optimistic this morning.  I'm pretty sure the source is simply halo from the Louisville win and general guilt from having let Brian carry this blog for the past two months, but either way, it occurred to me that this team is kinda, sorta, in that-wow-we-might-be-really-good way similar to the last Hoya Big East regular season champs.

This website keeps non-conference stats, and 2011-12 has all of one conference game played, so non-conference stats are what I'm going to use to compare.  I won't be ignoring the important (read: conference) games in the commentary, but the stats listed will all be non-conference.

The Center of Attention.

Stat           Hibbert [Sr]       Sims [Sr]
Poss%             26                 29  
ORating          122                118
OReb%             14                  9
DReb%             17                 18
ARate             15                 31
TORate            14                 18
Goofiness          8                 10
Block %           10                  8
Team Def Rating   88                 86
Indiv D Rating    89                 84
Monster Points     1                  0

I know. I'm as surprised as you. They have different strengths and weaknesses, but offensively, they have been similarly effective. We know that Roy's performance translated well to conference play -- his low post moves did not lose effectiveness, but we did see his offensive rebounding decline and turnovers increase as he became the focus of better defenses.

That's a concern for Sims; similar slides in either or more games where his shot is rolling out, and his effectiveness will start to rely almost entirely on his passing. And we know from experience the backdoors are severely cut down in conference play.

It is interesting to note that this year's Hoyas are statistically superior to the '07-08 Hoyas in non-conference defense. Some of that is opponent, but it's a nice sign for this year's Hoyas and Sims in particular.  

Verdict: Sims isn't having a Ya-Ya year; he's having what we'll call a Sims year in the future. Ya-Ya went from nothing to decent; Sims is well beyond that. But Roy was still better, though possibly by not as much as I thought.

the rest of the breakdown after the jump