Basketball: Are We Doing the Deep Work? More Efficient Offense, Inside EFG% and More

"The key ingredient in a cooking show...is the audience." - From Julia, HBOmax

Thinking is "deep work." Someone tells us, "the sky is blue." Is that true, sometimes true? 

Take a basketball concept like the "Four Factors" (shooting, offensive rebounding, turnovers, free throw attempts) that impact winning. "Deep work" expands our knowledge and wins games. 

Cal Newport wrote, "Deep Work" examining how to work to success. "Newport defines the two most important characteristics in these ‘successful workers’ as; 1) the ability to take on hard tasks/things and master them at pace, and 2) producing content/products/services at what can be considered an ‘elite level’ in both speed and quality."

High-Quality Work Produced = (Time Spent) x (Intensity of Focus) 

Consider shooting, specifically "effective field goal percentage." 

Formula from Wikipedia

It shares insights but there's more. The obvious is that more field goals and three point goals per shots taken, the more 'efficient'. Where do 'efficient shots' arise? 

• Type of shot (e.g. uncontested layup)
• Area of shot (e.g. mid-range, "below the break" 3 point shot)
• Type of play (isolation, cut, pick-and-roll)
• Quality of shooter 
• Initiation, off the catch, off the dribble
• Contestedness of shot - how open is the shot?
• Optimization (e.g. using the backboard as appropriate)
• Recent results (the "hot hand" theory)

It DOESN'T tell us the impact of:

• Leading passes (relative EFG% assisted or unassisted shots)..."the quality of the shot relates to the quality of the pass" - Pete Carill
• The degrading impact of pressure (time and score)
• the origin of the possession (points/possession higher off a turnover/steal than off opponent's made basket)

If we want to increase our EFG%, what logically and statistically is likely to do that? 

Better shooters via player development

Better shot quality via type of shot, decreased contestedness

Better passing 

Situational practice including special situations

Teaching players better offense with video

Lagniappe. Player development. Quicker release. 

Lagniappe 2a. Opening a gap creates opportunity. 

5 Out into an across cut to set up an iso or a fake handoff drive to score. pic.twitter.com/jBu4X9OoJj

— Chris Oliver (@BBallImmersion) April 1, 2022

Lagniappe 2b. Geno knows Xs and Os.

 

1-4 into screen-the-screener action. 

Lagniappe 3. "Turnovers bleed into defense." 

Steals result in higher percentage/shot than dead balls or rebounds. 

Ditto. Note how the guard attacks with the ball in the inside hand allowing a one-handed pass. 

Cut urgently. In the NBA, scoring off cuts is the highest point/possession type of play. Bueckers cuts hard and gets rewarded.