Hornets247.com

Lately there has been more than a little Emeka Okafor bashing, with some even going to far as to say that an injured Tyson Chandler is better than a healthy Okafor. It's time that we get into some real detail about Okafor's play, and how much worse he has really been than Tyson.

First let's take a look at Tyson's first year in NOLA compared to Emeka's. Seems fair since it obviously takes some time for centers to adjust to playing a pick and roll offense, especially in a point guard dominated offense. Granted Tyson was a bit younger than Okafor when he started with the Hornets, but they both had accumulated about the same amount of NBA experience prior to coming to the Hornets. Here are some basic stats.

Continue reading »

Normally after a game, I want to write about some items of interest about the Hornets game plan, and then bring up some other items to  illustrate styles of play from either team.  Tonight, however,  I'm flabbergasted.  Nothing in that game was normal or consistent.   Well, other than the fact Tyson Chandler wasn’t playing and Okafor was.

Where was the vaunted Charlotte defense?  Why did Nazr Mohammed not play in the second half for the Bobcats?  When was the last time Peja Stojakovic took 12 shots and every one was a different type of shot?  How does Morris Peterson end up with the best +/- of any player in the game?

Darren Collison

Tonight Collison had to score rather than create.  Despite having a great skillset for a rookie, he does not have the best court vision on drives.  He’ll find guys in the corner, or the big rolling to the basket, but he rarely finds the shooters on the wings unless he’s turned back on his drive and uses them to bail him out.  The Bobcats are a disciplined team, keeping fairly tight on the guys in the corner, and mostly relying on the guard and big in the paint to contest on penetration.  That style of defense left Collison with few of the passing options he was comfortable with . . . so he did other things:  he pushed the ball hard on fast breaks,  hit a few nice foul-line jumpers, and got to the rim on the biggest play of the game, dropping a tough layup over Ray Felton with his off hand.  Big shot.   He’s proven to be scary good in the closing minutes of games this season.

David West

Continue reading »

After going 0-3 on their homestand, the Hornets are back on the road again with a stop in Charlotte this evening. Game tipping at 6 Central.

The Bobcats are 24-24 on the season, but they've been outstanding at home, boasting an 18-5 record and holding opponents to NBA lows in points per game (90.6) and effective field goal percentage (46.2). Kevin Arnovitz showed why Charlotte are so good defensively on TrueHoop a few weeks back.

The Bobcats are coming off a six-game West coast road trip which saw them go 3-3. On Wednesday they lost 97-99 to the Lakers, despite 30 points on 16 shots from Stephen Jackson. All-Star Gerald Wallace did not play in L.A. due to a hamstring injury, but is expected to play against the Hornets.

This will be the first meeting of the Hornets and Bobcats since the Chandler-Okafor trade last summer. Okafor has yet to miss a game this season and is averaging 11.3 points and 9.6 rebounds, while Chandler has played just 25 games due to a foot injury and is averaging 6.6 points and 7 rebounds. Don't get your hopes up for a battle of those bigs tonight though: Tyson has not played since December, and while he did practice fully yesterday he remains on the inactive list for tonight's game.

No word yet on whether Marcus Thornton (lower back contusion) will return to action for the Hornets tonight. Hopefully so, because they'll need all the help they can get trying to put points on the board against these Bobcats.

Numbers:

Pace: Bobcats 93.2 (27th), Hornets 94.3 (20th)
Offensive Efficiency: Bobcats 100.7 (25th), Hornets 104.8 (14th)
Defensive Efficiency: Bobcats 100.0 (4th), Hornets 105.7 (19th)

Linkage:

• Lagniappe: Hornets' Haiti telethon plus some video
  
• Rival bloggers: Queen City Hoops (THN) | Rufus on Fire

(Many thanks to Dariusz for today's banner featuring Matt Bullard, who played 31 games for the Hornets back in 2001-02 and is now an announcer with the Rockets. Be sure to check out more of Dariusz's designs in our Wallpapers vault.)

Basketball is a deceptively simple game.  On offense, five guys work together to generate a good shot for a player who can knock it down.  On defense, five guys work together to try and make the opposing team take bad shots, and miss them.  Simple, right?

The concept may be simple, but for a long time, there have been few publically available statistical stats that could help people like me more easily understand the details behind those simple ideas.  Sure, I had FG%, and eFG%, and TS%, but other than three-pointers I  didn't really have any readily available statistical information to evaluate the types of shots the team was getting - or their success with those types of shots.  Were they at the rim?  Were they 20 footers?  No clue, unless I charted the game myself.

Happily, that has changed over the past couple years, as play-by-plays and the resulting available stats have progressed to the point that we now know the types of shots teams and players are taking, how successful they are from specific places on the floor, and how they compare to the other teams in the league.  My personal favorite site is now Hoopdata.com,(in fact, when I was first directed there, I had a bit of a statgasm) which has a wonderful set of sortable data.   I have probably spent hours pouring over their numbers now, and I wanted to talk about one derived stat that stood out to me:  XeFG%.

XeFG% is the Expected effective Field Goal percentage for a team.  It takes the types of shots they get - I.E. number of shots taken at the rim, from closer than 10 feet, from 10-15 feet, from 16-23 feet, and from downtown - and then takes the league average for shots of those types, and derives what the team should be expected to produce on those shots. Now, before your eyes glaze over, these numbers are useful.  They give us two bits of information:

• How good the team's offense is at generating high percentage shots
• How good the team is at converting the shots they get.

The same sort of information is available for opponent percentages per team, so you can judge just how good your team is on the other end of the floor too.  To illustrate, we'll start with the Hornets. (of course)  Then I'll go on to some other interesting teams like Charlotte, Portland, and OKC.

Offense

Continue reading »

The Hornets played the Bobcats in Greensboro, NC this evening, losing 101-108 and falling to 0-2 in the preseason.

Linkage: box | recap

I didn't see the game, caught the end on the radio broadcast. Some quick notes:

• The Hornets feel behind by 21 points in the first half, but rallied back to tie it in the second half and made the Bobcats sweat down the stretch.
  
  
• Chris Paul: 24 points, 6 assists in 24 minutes.
  
  
• No DNP's for the rookies tonight, with 24 and 28 minutes for Collison and Thornton respectively. Collison shot 4-of-13 for 12 points while dishing 6 assists. Thornton shot 7-of-14 from the field for 19 points.

Continue reading »