Free AI web copilot to create summaries, insights and extended knowledge, download it at here

Abstract

ly <i>improved</i> his career 3-point percentage this year- this was his best ever full season. He’s now up to 44.4%, second in history behind his coach Steve Kerr- though Steph has already made almost as many threes as Kerr attempted. Curry is remarkably consistent too- he’s shot 45.33%, 45.37%, and 45.45% across three different seasons.</li><li>Only 8 players had double digit games with 5+ threes- Steph did it 43 times, over half his games. There were 77 games this season with 7+ threes by an individual. Curry had 24; only he and Klay had more than three. Out of 36 games with 8+ threes, Steph had 16 of them. Incredible.</li><li>Curry shot 21/45 from 30+ feet for 47%. Everyone else combined to shoot 73/988, just 7%. The next most makes by a single player was 3.</li><li>From 30–34 feet, Steph shot 16/27. That’s 59% and equal to 1.78 points per shot, basically a layup line. The 3-point line is 23.75 feet.</li></ul><h1 id="787d">5. Curry did a few other remarkable things too</h1><ul><li>With his final 46-point outburst, Curry averaged over 30ppg. That’s happened only 67 times in history, and Curry played the fewest minutes per game of any of them. He had the highest effective FG%… by 5%!</li><li>Curry scored 0.88 points per minute to lead the league by a wide margin. That’s the 6th most in history behind Wilt (x2), MJ (x), and Gervin.</li><li>As far as net ratings, Steph finished at least +10 in 51 games this season. Almost 2/3 of the time he played a game, he spotted the Ws 10+ points.</li><li>Curry led the league in free throw percentage at 90.8%. He’s now 3rd in NBA history all time at 90.2% behind Steve Nash and Mark Price.</li><li>Baby bro Seth Curry wasn’t too bad this year either. He shot 45% from downtown and had the 5th best effective FG% of any guard behind only Steph, Klay, Redick, and Troy Daniels. There’s something in those genes.</li></ul><h1 id="3db0">6. Fun with plus/minus ratings</h1><ul><li>This season both Draymond Green and Steph Curry broke the all-time plus/minus record for a season, going +1070 and +1022 respectively. They broke their own records from last year. Lebron is the only other player this century to go over +800 and he’s done it once.</li><li>As you might guess, the worst +/- in the league all belong to players on the worst teams. The bottom 10 is made entirely of Sixers and Lakers.</li><li>Five players ranked in the bottom 100 for +/- despite playing for a playoff team. There’s Devin Harris and Charlie Villanueva (Dallas), Matt Barnes (Memphis), and rookie Stanley Johnson (Detroit). The worst of the bunch was Rockets’ Terence Jones at -238 in 1045 minutes played. Woof.</li><li>Only 2 of the top 100 +/- ratings went to guys whose teams missed the playoffs. One was Nuggets’ standout rookie Nikola Jokic. The other was apparently Tony Snell. As a Bulls fan… weird.</li><li>If you’re wondering who’s been heating up lately, Charlotte’s Marvin Williams ranked in the top 10 +/- over the final 20 games. Toronto’s Patrick Patterson was in the top 10 since the All Star Break and Atlanta’s Kyle Korver was #4, behind only Warriors.</li></ul><h1 id="8c93">7. Assists and turnovers</h1><ul><li>You already know James Harden had the most turnovers in history with 374. Russell Westbrook had 342 himself, 13th most ever.</li><li>Only one player finished in the top 60 in scoring but had under 100 turnovers- Derrick Rose! Perhaps some hope after all.</li><li>Philly may not have done much, but they know how to pass the ball. Both TJ McConnell and Ish Smith finished in the top 8 in assists per minute.</li><li>There were 75 triple doubles this season, including 18 by Russ and 13 by Dray. Teams with a triple double went 63–12 this year, including 31–0 for Russ and Dray. Guys you may not have noticed with a triple double? Ray Felton, Marcus Smart, Victor Oladipo, Elfrid Payton, and Julius Randle!</li><li>Only 3 triple doubles this year did not feature 10+ assists, all three by Hassan Whiteside. He did it with blocks each time and had only two assists combined in those three games. Whiteside led the league with 269 blocks, as many as top eight Rudy Gobert and Kristaps Porzingis combined.</li><li>Klay Thompson didn’t pass much either. He had the fewest assists of any guard in the top 35 in points- barely half as many as the next fewest.</li><li>For all that the Warriors did well, they did have some turnover problems. Andrew Bogut and Draymond Green had the 3rd and 4th worst turnover rates in the league, both turning it over at least 20% of their possessions. In four of the nine Ws losses, either Steph or Dray had at least 7 turnovers.</li><li>Of course Draymond passes the ball pretty well too, especially for a big man. He had 598 assists, 7th in the league, to lead the team. That’s the 4th most ever for a non-guard behind only Wilt (x2) and Lebron- more assists than guys like Larry Bird, Scottie Pippen, or Grant Hill ever had.</li></ul><h1 id="21ba">8. DeAndre Jordan and Andre Drummond are revolutionizing the big man game</h1><ul><li>Drummond was a rebounding machine, grabbing 24.5% of all possible rebounds. That ranked 8th all time behind Reggie Evans and, incredibly, six different Dennis Rodman seasons!</li><li>Drummo

Options

nd had 395 offensive rebounds to lead the league, 47% more than Tristan Thompson in second. He had at least 5 in half of his games.</li><li>DeAndre Jordan excels at FG% where he shot 70.3%, 3rd best in history. That ranks only behind Wilt and himself last year. He’s now at 67% in his career. No one else in NBA history is even over 60%!</li><li>Jordan does his damage from up close. 424 of his 508 shots came from 0-3 feet from the rim, where he shot 77%. He made just 28 other shots.</li><li>Of course Jordan also scored from the free throw line… occasionally. He took more free throws this year than FGs by over a hundred, averaging 1.22 free throws per FG attempt, the highest rate in NBA history.</li><li>Drummond shot a lot of free throws too and was absolutely dreadful, making just 208/586 for 35.5%. Only 20 players in history averaged at least 5 FT attempts over a season while shooting under 50%- and Drummond was the worst of all of them.</li><li>Jordan and Drummond combined to take 1205 free throws and made just 474 of them. Boogie Cousins shot 663 field goals and made 476 of them.</li></ul><h1 id="f993">9. Karl-Anthony Towns is changing the big man game too — already</h1><ul><li>Just a rookie, Towns had the third most games with 10+ rebounds behind only Drummond and Jordan.</li><li>Towns finished 4th in the league in rebounds and 6th in blocks. He made the 2nd most two pointers on only the 8th most attempts.</li><li>KAT had 28 games this year with 15+ FG attempts where he shot 50% or better. That was third most in the league behind only Steph and Lebron.</li><li>KAT had 51 double-doubles, 3rd behind Drummond and Russ. Five other rookies have had 50 double-doubles: Olajuwon, Sampson, Duncan, D. Robinson, and Griffin. That’s four 4-year seniors and a guy who sat and learned his whole actual rookie season (Blake). KAT turned 20 midseason.</li><li>Just 12 rookies have averaged 18 points and 10 boards shooting 50% like Towns. That includes 9 current or future Hall of Famers: Kareem, Shaq, Hakeem, Robinson, Mourning, Sampson, Bellamy, Duncan, and Griffin. KAT does have the lowest minutes and PPG in that group and needs to draw more free throws, but he’s also the youngest of the group.</li><li>Towns also shot 81% from the line, highest of anyone in the above group. There have been only 16 seasons with a player averaging 18/10 with 50% from the field and 80% from the line. That’s not rookie seasons- that’s EVER. That list includes 12 Hall of Famers- KG (x2), Bird (x2), Yao (x2), Lanier (x2), Robertson, and McAdoo. It’s only been done three times by someone under 25. Again: Towns was 19 when this season began.</li></ul><h1 id="88c0">10. So who are the most consistent players and who had the best games of the year?</h1><ul><li>Not surprisingly, the player with the most “good games” this year was Steph Curry. He had 36 such games with at least 15 FG attempts and a Basketball Reference Game Score of 25 or better. Harden was next with 28 and Westbrook had 20. Some surprises- Kemba Walker had the 6th most, Paul George was 8th, and Karl-Anthony Towns finished top 10.</li><li>On the other end of the spectrum are players who hurt their team with a “bad game”- 15 FG attempts and a Game Score <10. You can guess some of these guys… Derrick Rose and Dwyane Wade had 15 such games and Kobe Bryant had 22. These are guys that shoot and miss a lot of long 2s.</li><li>Surprisingly the player with the most bad games was Most Improved Player candidate CJ McCollum of the Blazers. He had 23 such games, and Portland won only 9 of them. Even worse, he had only 3 “good games.” McCollum might not be as improved as everyone thinks. He needs to greatly improve his shot selection- and make them too.</li><li>Others with double digit bad games include streaky bombers like Jamal Crawford, Klay Thompson, Damian Lillard, and Dirk Nowitzki. Not too surprising. Steph Curry? He had only <i>two</i> bad games all season. Wow.</li><li>The Spurs incredible defense allowed only 1 of the 230 best individual games of the season- that of course belonged to Steph Curry.</li><li>Steph’s best Game Score of the season came on opening night against the Pelicans when he had 53 points, 9 assists, 4 rebounds, 4 steals, and 8 threes. His 12 threes against OKC were certainly more memorable but he shot just 2/8 on 2s that game so that dropped it to #21.</li><li>Kobe’s final game came in as the 34th best Game Score of the season. It was the 7th best ever by a player over the age of 35.</li><li>The best Game Score by anyone this season? That was Anthony Davis in February in Detroit. He had 59 points and 20 boards and shot 24/34 that night. AD had only the 38th game with 59+ points, and he’s the youngest of any of them. Perhaps next year this article will be mostly about him…</li></ul><p id="74e5"><i>All stats and data courtesy of <a href="http://www.basketball-reference.com/">Basketball Reference.com</a>.</i></p><p id="8f97"><i>If you like this article, please comment below and share it with your friends. Be sure to follow Brandon on Medium or <a href="https://twitter.com/wheatonbrando">@wheatonbrando</a> for more sports, humor, pop culture, and life musings.</i></p></article></body>

10 More Incredible Ways to Appreciate the 2015–16 NBA Regular Season

Kobe, Harden, the Ws, Premier Big Men, and More!

The incredible 2015–16 NBA regular season is in the books, and a lot more happened than just the 73–9 Golden State Warriors. Kobe Bryant played his final game, James Harden played mental games, and big men began to revolutionize the game. Steph Curry did amazing things, but he was not the only one taking a ton of shots or putting up absurd stats to remember.

So with the playoffs just getting underway and not a lot of great first round series on tap, let’s pause once more to look back on an incredible season. Here are 10 more ways to appreciate this amazing season:

1. Kobe Bryant had a finale to remember- but a season to forget

Kobe’s final game was his best of the season, scoring 60 points on 24/50 shooting to lead the Lakers to a comeback win. That included 17 in a row in the final minutes and the go-ahead shot with 31 seconds left.
Those 60 points were Kobe’s fifth most ever. They’re the 4th most points ever scored by someone in their 30s- and Kobe is 37! Sixty points is incredibly rare at any age- just 32 such games in the last fifty seasons.
Kobe’s 50 field goal attempts broke the record for most FGA in a game- he finally broke one of MJ’s records! 21 of those 50 shots were threes, which was just one short of the all time record for 3 point attempts as well. That record is held by the immortal JR Smith, who else?
It if seemed like Kobe was always chucking, you’re right. He had the highest FG attempt rate of anyone, almost 22 shots per 36 minutes on the court. He shot just 35.8%, the first player since 1960 with 1000 shots and under 36% shooting. Kobe also had the 4th highest three-point attempt rate this year, one every 4 minutes, shooting just 28.5%.
Kobe became one of only 12 players ever with 1000 FG attempts in a season but negative win shares, joining a moribund group that includes Lamond Murray, Rex Chapman, and Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf.
Kobe retires with the third highest FG attempt rate of all time, behind only Michael Jordan and Dominique Wilkins. Melo, Lebron, TMac, and DWade all rank in the top 10 too- there’s that Kobe legacy you’re looking for.

2. James Harden might be ready to carry the Kobe mantle

James Harden did a lot of things this season, some good, some bad. He shot a lot, he passed a lot, he turned it over a lot, he played a lot.
Harden played 40+ minutes an amazing 36 times, almost half of the season. Kyle Lowry had the next most 40+ minute games with 21. By comparison, Steph and Kawhi each had only 6 such games.
The Beard turned the ball over 374 times, breaking a 38-year-old record. He had 7+ turnovers 17 times, more than once every five games.
Harden took- and missed- a lot of shots. He finished 3rd in the league in three pointers made behind Steph and Klay. His 236 made were the 12th most in history. Harden shot and missed an incredible 907 times this year. He missed more shots than guys like Kyrie, Jabari, and Redick even took!
Harden also led the league in free throws made, by a wide margin. He made the 12th most free throws ever in a season.
For all that chucking, Harden finished the year averaging 29 points, 7 assists, and 6 rebounds a game. In the past three decades only Lebron (twice) and MJ have done over a whole season. Not bad, Beard.

3. Kobe and Harden weren’t the only guys this season shooting a ton

Usage rate defines how often a player uses a team’s possession- by shooting, assisting, turning it over, etc. The NBA’s top 20 usage rates were filled with a lot of guys you’d expect- Kobe, Harden, Lebron, Steph- but two surprising names too: Michael Beasley and Mo Speights.
You saw above that Kobe took the most shots per minute of anyone in the league this year. Speights ranked 6th, and Beasley came in 4th!
Beasley was particularly unconscionable. After an MVP year with Chinese team Shandong Golden Stars (where he averaged 32 and 13!) Beasley signed with the Rockets for the final 20 games and kept on shooting.
Beasley scored 7 points every 10 minutes, the 7th highest points per minute behind Steph, Durant, Boogie, Harden, Lebron, and Dame. He had only 16 assists all season and took only 9 threes. Nobody loves the midrange game quite like Michael Beasley.

4. Of course Steph shot a lot too- mostly 3s

Steph made a record 402 threes. He made more than KD and Russ combined (373) and almost as many as Dame and CJ (426). He made nearly as many threes himself as Clips trio CP3, Redick, and Crawford (439) and Cavs quartet Lebron, Love, Kyrie, and Delly (427).
The highest non-Warrior was James Harden at 236 threes. Steph could’ve stopped shooting when he last played Harden on February 6th in his 48th game and still finished with more threes.
Curry actually improved his career 3-point percentage this year- this was his best ever full season. He’s now up to 44.4%, second in history behind his coach Steve Kerr- though Steph has already made almost as many threes as Kerr attempted. Curry is remarkably consistent too- he’s shot 45.33%, 45.37%, and 45.45% across three different seasons.
Only 8 players had double digit games with 5+ threes- Steph did it 43 times, over half his games. There were 77 games this season with 7+ threes by an individual. Curry had 24; only he and Klay had more than three. Out of 36 games with 8+ threes, Steph had 16 of them. Incredible.
Curry shot 21/45 from 30+ feet for 47%. Everyone else combined to shoot 73/988, just 7%. The next most makes by a single player was 3.
From 30–34 feet, Steph shot 16/27. That’s 59% and equal to 1.78 points per shot, basically a layup line. The 3-point line is 23.75 feet.

5. Curry did a few other remarkable things too

With his final 46-point outburst, Curry averaged over 30ppg. That’s happened only 67 times in history, and Curry played the fewest minutes per game of any of them. He had the highest effective FG%… by 5%!
Curry scored 0.88 points per minute to lead the league by a wide margin. That’s the 6th most in history behind Wilt (x2), MJ (x), and Gervin.
As far as net ratings, Steph finished at least +10 in 51 games this season. Almost 2/3 of the time he played a game, he spotted the Ws 10+ points.
Curry led the league in free throw percentage at 90.8%. He’s now 3rd in NBA history all time at 90.2% behind Steve Nash and Mark Price.
Baby bro Seth Curry wasn’t too bad this year either. He shot 45% from downtown and had the 5th best effective FG% of any guard behind only Steph, Klay, Redick, and Troy Daniels. There’s something in those genes.

6. Fun with plus/minus ratings

This season both Draymond Green and Steph Curry broke the all-time plus/minus record for a season, going +1070 and +1022 respectively. They broke their own records from last year. Lebron is the only other player this century to go over +800 and he’s done it once.
As you might guess, the worst +/- in the league all belong to players on the worst teams. The bottom 10 is made entirely of Sixers and Lakers.
Five players ranked in the bottom 100 for +/- despite playing for a playoff team. There’s Devin Harris and Charlie Villanueva (Dallas), Matt Barnes (Memphis), and rookie Stanley Johnson (Detroit). The worst of the bunch was Rockets’ Terence Jones at -238 in 1045 minutes played. Woof.
Only 2 of the top 100 +/- ratings went to guys whose teams missed the playoffs. One was Nuggets’ standout rookie Nikola Jokic. The other was apparently Tony Snell. As a Bulls fan… weird.
If you’re wondering who’s been heating up lately, Charlotte’s Marvin Williams ranked in the top 10 +/- over the final 20 games. Toronto’s Patrick Patterson was in the top 10 since the All Star Break and Atlanta’s Kyle Korver was #4, behind only Warriors.

7. Assists and turnovers

You already know James Harden had the most turnovers in history with 374. Russell Westbrook had 342 himself, 13th most ever.
Only one player finished in the top 60 in scoring but had under 100 turnovers- Derrick Rose! Perhaps some hope after all.
Philly may not have done much, but they know how to pass the ball. Both TJ McConnell and Ish Smith finished in the top 8 in assists per minute.
There were 75 triple doubles this season, including 18 by Russ and 13 by Dray. Teams with a triple double went 63–12 this year, including 31–0 for Russ and Dray. Guys you may not have noticed with a triple double? Ray Felton, Marcus Smart, Victor Oladipo, Elfrid Payton, and Julius Randle!
Only 3 triple doubles this year did not feature 10+ assists, all three by Hassan Whiteside. He did it with blocks each time and had only two assists combined in those three games. Whiteside led the league with 269 blocks, as many as top eight Rudy Gobert and Kristaps Porzingis combined.
Klay Thompson didn’t pass much either. He had the fewest assists of any guard in the top 35 in points- barely half as many as the next fewest.
For all that the Warriors did well, they did have some turnover problems. Andrew Bogut and Draymond Green had the 3rd and 4th worst turnover rates in the league, both turning it over at least 20% of their possessions. In four of the nine Ws losses, either Steph or Dray had at least 7 turnovers.
Of course Draymond passes the ball pretty well too, especially for a big man. He had 598 assists, 7th in the league, to lead the team. That’s the 4th most ever for a non-guard behind only Wilt (x2) and Lebron- more assists than guys like Larry Bird, Scottie Pippen, or Grant Hill ever had.

8. DeAndre Jordan and Andre Drummond are revolutionizing the big man game

Drummond was a rebounding machine, grabbing 24.5% of all possible rebounds. That ranked 8th all time behind Reggie Evans and, incredibly, six different Dennis Rodman seasons!
Drummond had 395 offensive rebounds to lead the league, 47% more than Tristan Thompson in second. He had at least 5 in half of his games.
DeAndre Jordan excels at FG% where he shot 70.3%, 3rd best in history. That ranks only behind Wilt and himself last year. He’s now at 67% in his career. No one else in NBA history is even over 60%!
Jordan does his damage from up close. 424 of his 508 shots came from 0-3 feet from the rim, where he shot 77%. He made just 28 other shots.
Of course Jordan also scored from the free throw line… occasionally. He took more free throws this year than FGs by over a hundred, averaging 1.22 free throws per FG attempt, the highest rate in NBA history.
Drummond shot a lot of free throws too and was absolutely dreadful, making just 208/586 for 35.5%. Only 20 players in history averaged at least 5 FT attempts over a season while shooting under 50%- and Drummond was the worst of all of them.
Jordan and Drummond combined to take 1205 free throws and made just 474 of them. Boogie Cousins shot 663 field goals and made 476 of them.

9. Karl-Anthony Towns is changing the big man game too — already

Just a rookie, Towns had the third most games with 10+ rebounds behind only Drummond and Jordan.
Towns finished 4th in the league in rebounds and 6th in blocks. He made the 2nd most two pointers on only the 8th most attempts.
KAT had 28 games this year with 15+ FG attempts where he shot 50% or better. That was third most in the league behind only Steph and Lebron.
KAT had 51 double-doubles, 3rd behind Drummond and Russ. Five other rookies have had 50 double-doubles: Olajuwon, Sampson, Duncan, D. Robinson, and Griffin. That’s four 4-year seniors and a guy who sat and learned his whole actual rookie season (Blake). KAT turned 20 midseason.
Just 12 rookies have averaged 18 points and 10 boards shooting 50% like Towns. That includes 9 current or future Hall of Famers: Kareem, Shaq, Hakeem, Robinson, Mourning, Sampson, Bellamy, Duncan, and Griffin. KAT does have the lowest minutes and PPG in that group and needs to draw more free throws, but he’s also the youngest of the group.
Towns also shot 81% from the line, highest of anyone in the above group. There have been only 16 seasons with a player averaging 18/10 with 50% from the field and 80% from the line. That’s not rookie seasons- that’s EVER. That list includes 12 Hall of Famers- KG (x2), Bird (x2), Yao (x2), Lanier (x2), Robertson, and McAdoo. It’s only been done three times by someone under 25. Again: Towns was 19 when this season began.

10. So who are the most consistent players and who had the best games of the year?

Not surprisingly, the player with the most “good games” this year was Steph Curry. He had 36 such games with at least 15 FG attempts and a Basketball Reference Game Score of 25 or better. Harden was next with 28 and Westbrook had 20. Some surprises- Kemba Walker had the 6th most, Paul George was 8th, and Karl-Anthony Towns finished top 10.
On the other end of the spectrum are players who hurt their team with a “bad game”- 15 FG attempts and a Game Score <10. You can guess some of these guys… Derrick Rose and Dwyane Wade had 15 such games and Kobe Bryant had 22. These are guys that shoot and miss a lot of long 2s.
Surprisingly the player with the most bad games was Most Improved Player candidate CJ McCollum of the Blazers. He had 23 such games, and Portland won only 9 of them. Even worse, he had only 3 “good games.” McCollum might not be as improved as everyone thinks. He needs to greatly improve his shot selection- and make them too.
Others with double digit bad games include streaky bombers like Jamal Crawford, Klay Thompson, Damian Lillard, and Dirk Nowitzki. Not too surprising. Steph Curry? He had only two bad games all season. Wow.
The Spurs incredible defense allowed only 1 of the 230 best individual games of the season- that of course belonged to Steph Curry.
Steph’s best Game Score of the season came on opening night against the Pelicans when he had 53 points, 9 assists, 4 rebounds, 4 steals, and 8 threes. His 12 threes against OKC were certainly more memorable but he shot just 2/8 on 2s that game so that dropped it to #21.
Kobe’s final game came in as the 34th best Game Score of the season. It was the 7th best ever by a player over the age of 35.
The best Game Score by anyone this season? That was Anthony Davis in February in Detroit. He had 59 points and 20 boards and shot 24/34 that night. AD had only the 38th game with 59+ points, and he’s the youngest of any of them. Perhaps next year this article will be mostly about him…

All stats and data courtesy of Basketball Reference.com.

If you like this article, please comment below and share it with your friends. Be sure to follow Brandon on Medium or @wheatonbrando for more sports, humor, pop culture, and life musings.