Pelicans/Hornets Historical Player Impacts & Archetypes
New Orleans’ franchise is only in its 16th year, so there haven’t been many players during its establishment. Nevertheless, I produced a way to look back at the productivity associated with most individual players in the franchise by tabulating his BPM, AST%, BLK%, STL%, etc.
(Though BPM is not my favorite ridge-regressed statistic, it does a fair job of representing those who are impacting the game most profoundly by inciting possession changes on defense & scoring opportunities for his team.)
The players’ stats are separated by season rather than simply bringing forth each player’s multi-year NOH/NOP statistics.
Below is a Tableau diagram that includes New Orleans Pelicans’ and Hornets’ players and assessments of their proficiency as offensive players, defenders, and rebounders. The players are arranged with box-and-whisker plots and will showcase those who are the best and worst in each statistical category– just hover over the dots.
(P.S. – If a dot is represented above or below the “whisker”, or the horizontal line on the extents of the box plot, then the player is outlier good/bad.)
Additionally, the players are clustered (via k-means clustering) by Tableau to yield classifications of past and present players by minimizing the distances between the values and the cluster center.
We can look into the partitions to see what type of personnel that the New Orleans Pelicans will have going into the upcoming season. We’ll also be able to take an insightful view of NOLA’s outlier talents like Chris Paul, Baron Davis, and Anthony Davis. (I’ll explain the clusters really quickly below.)
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If you’d prefer to see the graphs in full screen, then click here.
Clusters – Defense
Category 1: Pick Pocket Kings
- To be in this category, a player must have both high steal% and excellent overall productivity on defense
Examples: 07-08 Chris Paul – STL: 3.9%, 2.1 DBPM (team high)
Category 2: Bottom Feeders
- Simply aren’t impactive or influential on the defensive end, generally play poorly
Examples: 04-05 Dan Dickau – -1.8 DBPM (team low)
Category 3: Simply Okay
- Status quo of defensive impact
Examples: 09-10 James Posey – .6 DBPM
Category 4: Rim Protecting/Shot Blocking Bigs
- It’s pretty tough to get looks off in the paint around a player with this defensive profile
Examples: 10-11 Emeka Okafor – 2.4 DBPM, 4.6 BLK%
Clusters – Offense
Category 1: Pace Arbiters/Primary Ball Handlers
Examples:
- 03-04 Baron Davis – 5.9 OBPM, 37.9 AST%, 12.1 TOV%
- 08-09 Chris Paul – 9.1 OBPM, 54.5 (!) AST%, 13.5 TOV%
Category 2: Shooters
Examples:
- 07-08 Peja Stokavoic, 3 OBPM, .511 3PAr
- 06-07 Rasual Butler – -1 OBPM, .461 3PAr
Category 3: Inside Shot Takers (Slashers/Cutters/Putback Kings)
Examples:
- 12-13 Al-Farouq Aminu – -2 OBPM, 14.6 USG%, .289 FTr, .040 3PAr
- 16-17 Solomon Hill – -1.8 OBPM, .268 FTr
Clusters – Rebounding
- You’re either a ravenous rebounder or not at all, according to the cluster results.
Cluster 2: High Rebounders:
- 09-10 Emeka Okafor – 24.7 DRB%, 12.2 ORB%, 18.4 TRB%
Cluster 1: Not inclined to rebound:
- 02-03 Jamal Mashburn – 15.3 DRB%, 2.3 ORB%, 8.7 TRB%
In order to exceed 45+ wins this season, it’s imperative that the New Orleans Pelicans translate DeMarcus Cousins’s nimbleness into a consistent, profound defensive effort. Increasing the prevalence of the shooters’ archetype to offset Rondo’s potential ball dominance, and create more opportunities on the offensive glass (they were 29th in the NBA in ORB% last year*).
[*though offensive rebounding isn’t always imperative to winning strategy, it becomes increasingly important to do so adequately if you’re a team without an elite offense]
Next: Throwback Week: Favorite moments in New Orleans Pelicans history
Can the 2017-18 New Orleans Pelicans find the necessary wing shooting to space the floor and provide Boogie and Brow with the room to maneuver and find high quality looks? Injuries are mounting; they’ll need to answer this quickly.