I tried to watch the Bulls and Knicks try to play basketball

By Stephen Shea (@SteveShea33)

January 13, 2017

Last evening, I stumbled upon the nationally televised matchup between the Bulls and Knicks.  Even after enduring the nonsensical ramblings of a certain TNT crew, my better judgement lost to my undying passion for basketball and I stayed tuned.

I spent the first several minutes of the contest seriously wondering if the two teams were trolling shot selection.  (If you’re going to play 80s basketball, at least wear the sweet short shorts.) I watched in awe as a professional basketball team in 2017 ran an offense that led to an 18-foot contested pull-up 2-pointer from Michael Carter-Williams.  He missed.  Unfazed, MCW spoiled the next possession by taking a 10-foot pull-up contested fadeaway… that got close to the rim.

I decided to handle the situation like I would any Twitter troll.  I turned off the screen, took a deep breath and dwelled on the insignificant slight until it grew to an unbearable inferno roasting me from the inside out. Then I ran the numbers.

The Bulls and Knicks are both in the top 5 in pull-up 2-point attempts per game.  They are both part of a select group of 8 teams that still take more pull-up 2-pointers than catch and shoot 3s.

Why is this a big deal?

Every team in the NBA gets at least 0.20 more points per catch and shoot 3 than they do per pull-up 2.  On average, a team gets 0.34 more points per catch and shoot.  To put that in perspective, the worst shooting team in the NBA (Brooklyn) gets 0.94 points per FGA.  The best shooting team (Golden State) gets 1.132 points per shot.  That’s a difference from the best to the worst of 0.19 points per shot.  So, 0.20 points is a bigger difference than is typical between the best and worst NBA teams.

But wait, the Bulls are terrible at shooting threes.   Should they look to kick out more often instead of pulling up from mid-range?

Yes. While the Bulls are pulling a junior-varsity-esque 0.97 points per catch and shoot 3, they knock down pull-up 2s like college kids hit solo cups in the last beer pong match of the night. (You know, the one after the 2^nd keg and just before the Domino’s delivery guy shows up.)

Chicago scores 0.73 points per pull-up 2, and they take almost 19 of them a game.  A 3 from a 25% 3-point shooter (think Elfrid Payton or Ricky Rubio bad) would generate more points on average than a Bulls’ pull-up 2.

The Knicks take over 20 pull-up 2s per game among their 89 shots in total.  (A whopping 23% of their FGA are pull-up 2s.)  The median of the other 29 NBA teams is 14.3.  Suppose the Knicks took the median number of pull-ups by redirecting 6 of their pull-ups to catch and shoot threes.  Suppose further that they could continue to shoot 1.15 points per shot (or 38%) on those catch and shoot 3s.  They would generate an additional 2.19 points per game.

Point differential per game is highly predictive of team Win % (R-squared of 0.96 on a linear regression for the 2015-16 season).  Everything else the same, if the Knicks were to score an additional 2.19 points per game, they’d be predicted to win an additional 6 (or more specifically, 5.79) games!

Remember that we’re not suggesting that the Knicks be Golden State, Boston, and certainly not Houston savvy with shot selection.  By simply being average, they could win an additional 6 games.

The Bulls could also benefit from better shot selection, but their offensive issues run deeper.  The team’s 0.97 points per catch and shoot 3 is by far the worst in the league.  Even Brooklyn generates 1.05 points per such shot.  The top 3 teams in catch and shoot 3P% are San Antonio, Golden State and Cleveland. In other words, the Bulls are the antithesis of today’s most successful teams.

NBA offenses should always maintain some level of balance in their shot selection. There is value in being unpredictable. In addition, there will always be players that buck the trend by being efficient enough on what are typically poor shots. That said, there are still NBA teams that take too many bad shots.  Two of them were in action last night.

Full catch and shoot (C&S) and pull-up points per shot (PPS) data together with attempts per game (through the January 13th games and courtesy of NBA.com):