Beyond the Eye Test: An Attempt to Quantify Basketball IQ

What is Basketball IQ, and is it something that can be quantified? I first became interested in this during the In-Season Tournament Final, in which the Indiana Pacers were taking on the Los Angeles Lakers. Tyrese Haliburton came into this game after a string of great performances, including 28 assists to 0 turnovers in the proceeding two games leading up to the championship. He was on top of the world, and the Pacers offense was the best in the league. So what happens next? Well, on the Pacers third possession of the game, Haliburton throws a lob to Obi Toppin, as he has done so many times before, only this time it is intercepted by LeBron James.

Then, just 4 possessions later, the Pacers run a high pick n roll with Myles Turner screening for Haliburton. Turner rolls to the rim and like 1,000 times before Haliburton throws the ball to him on the roll, yet once again, LeBron slides over from the weak-side corner and intercepts the pass. The man who had zero turnovers in his last 80 minutes of basketball just had two passes intercepted in less than one minute by a guy who seemingly knew what was coming. We all know how the story ended.

For our purposes, we distill Basketball IQ into two pivotal components: anticipation, the precognition of in-game developments, and decision-making, the capacity to choose the optimal course of action under varying pressures and situations. The quest to quantify these elements leads us to an fairly complex formula based on ten chosen metrics, each representing some aspect of our two main components:

1. Shot Selection
   1. Do you take the best shots for you? We define this by breaking the shots each player takes into 5 buckets. 
      1. At the Rim
      2. 3-10 feet
      3. 10-16 feet
      4. 16-23 feet
      5. 3 Pointers
   2. We then take each players points per shot and percentage of attempts from each range. We compare this to the league average points per shot and percent of attempts from each range and formulate a rating based on whether a player is taking good or bad shots, for them! The "for them" is the important part here, b/c while a midrange jumpshot for Daniel Gafford is leaving money on the table, for Kevin Durant it is just fine.
2. Passer Rating
   1. How efficient are you with your passing? You can get into the nitty gritty of this via our glossary.
3. Rebounding
   1. Some players just have a knack for knowing where the ball is going to go? We know that this is not random, as the same players lead the league in rebounding stats year after year. But, there is the issue of size. Taller players get more rebounds, for obvious reasons. So, we solve for this by giving each player a rebounding rating by comparing their rebounding rates only to players of a similar height/wingspan/weight and also defensive role. A big, like Gobert who stays glued to the paint should naturally get more rebounds than a switch heavy big who spends time out on the perimeter. 
4. Shooting Foul Percentage
   1. Free throws are the most efficient shots in the game. You do not want your opponent shooting free throws. To measure this we have data from nba.com which gives us the total number of "shots defended", aka shots where this player was the closest defender to the shooter. We also have play-by-play data from basketball-reference which gives us the number of shooting fouls a player commits. You defend 10 shots and foul on 3 of them, then you have a Shooting Foul Percentage of 30%. 
5. Cutting
   1. Cutting shows an ability to react to what the other 9 players on the court are doing. To measure this we use the percentage of a players points that come via cuts, and we compare this to players with their same offensive role. We would not expect a player who plays constantly with the ball to score as much off of cuts as someone who plays primarily off the ball, so we only compare players to other with a similar role.
6. Deflections
   1. Can you anticipate what is coming and then act on it? 
7. Creation to Turnover Percentage
   1. How often do you turn the ball over relative to your offensive usage. We use Box Creation instead of Usage %, for many reasons, which are mentioned in this article by Ben Taylor for Nylon Calculus. 
8. Relative Personal Foul Percentage
   1. How often do you foul relative to the league average foul rate. This is also pretty simple, but you do not want your opponent shooting free throws. The more you foul, the more free throws your opponent gets, whether that be via getting into the bonus, or via shooting fouls. Fouling is bad!
9. Non-Box Offensive Plus Minus & Non-Box Defensive Plus Minus
   1. Nearly all advanced plus minus statistics have a box score factor of some sort, so the thinking behind this is to see if we can pick up on something that the traditional box score is unable to see. Thankfully, DARKO shares both their Darko Plus Minus and the Box Plus Minus that they use in their calculations. So, if we subtract a players Darko Plus Minus from their Box Plus Minus, we will have a value that we will call "Non-Box Plus Minus". This is what we use as a stand-in for all the things in which we cannot measure. We hope that this picks up on some things like being a good teammate, feeding the hot hand, giving your defensive big a touch early in the game so that he plays with intensity on the defensive end, and the myriad other immeasurable ways in which a player can impact the game.

Now that we've laid the groundwork, let's dive into the rankings.

1. Nikola Jokic - 100

2. Jimmy Butler - 90

3. Tre Jones - 88

4. Domantas Sabonis - 86

5. T.J. McConnell - 85

6. Jrue Holiday - 84

7. Jordan McLaughlin - 83

8. Luka Doncic - 83

9. Jacob Gilyard - 83

10. Dante Exum - 83

As you can see here, Jokic is a pretty extreme outlier by this metric. He does it on the strength of his overall contribution, as he doesn't rate better than 9th (passer rating) in any of our ten inputs, but he also ranks in the top 100 for all metrics aside from Non Box Defense. The thing that seems to tie most of the top 10 together is that they take care of the ball on offense, and force turnovers on defense without fouling. Now that we have our Top 10 out of the way, let's give out some superlatives based on a few of our inputs.

Pound for Pound Rebounding

This metric uses each players height, weight, and wingspan to compare their rebounding rates to those of their "size peers". Essentially, how well do you rebound compared to players around your size.

1. Andre Drummond
2. Day'Ron Sharpe
3. Domantas Sabonis
4. Amen Thompson
5. Jabari Walker
6. Josh Giddey
7. Tari Eason
8. Kevin Love
9. Ausar Thompson
10. Russell Westbrook

To the surprise of exactly zero Memphis Grizzlies fans, Jaren Jackson Jr. came in last. Some other notables near the bottom of the list were OG Anunoby, Jeff, Green, Danilo Gallinari, Rui Hachimura, and De'Andre Hunter.

Shot Selection Efficiency

We have broken shot attempts up into 5 buckets. 0-3 feet, 3-10 feet, 10-16 feet, 16-23 feet, and three pointers. We then calculate each players points per shot from each zone and compare that to the league average from that zone. Once we have this, we can look at the percentage of shots a player attempts from each zone and create a rating for whether they are taking "good" or "bad" shots. Note that this is specific to the player, so while a midrange attempt may be considered a poor shot for some players, for someone like Kevin Durant it is a perfectly reasonable shot. To simplify; are you great at shooting threes and you take a bunch of threes? Good! Are you poor from floater range and take a lot of floaters? Bad!

1. Dereck Lively II
2. Jalen Smith
3. James Wiseman
4. Garrison Mathews
5. Trayce Jackson-Davis
6. Grayson Allen
7. Daniel Gafford
8. Luke Kennard
9. Nikola Jokic
10. Kevin Durant

Towards the bottom of the list you will find guys like Johnny Davis, Zeke Nnaji, Scoot Henderson, David Roddy, and Andre Drummond.

Cutting

What percentage of your offense comes via cuts, compared to other players with your similar offensive role.

1. Amen Thompson
2. Jarred Vanderbilt
3. Gary Payton II
4. Markelle Fultz
5. Jimmy Butler
6. Zion Williamson
7. Precious Achiuwa
8. Peyton Watson
9. Ochai Agbaji
10. Draymond Green

Stop Fouling!

The percentage of shots defended where the player commits a shooting foul.

1. Aaron Nesmith
2. Jalen Suggs
3. Garrison Mathews
4. Isaiah Jackson
5. Ben Sheppard
6. Blake Wesley
7. Obi Toppin
8. Jordan Poole
9. DeAndre Jordan
10. Andre Jackson Jr.

To see four Pacers amongst the top 10 worst offenders when it comes to fouling shooters in the act is really something and could explain why the rank dead last in opponent free throw rate. Not great!

You're in Safe Hands

This is not simply turnover rate, but answers the question of how often you turn the ball over relative to the amount of "stuff" you do. The metric used here is Creation to Turnover Percentage (CTOV%).

1. Monte Morris
2. Sam Merrill
3. Trey Murphy III
4. Ben Sheppard
5. Delon Wright
6. Davis Bertans
7. Tyus Jones
8. Miles McBride
9. DeMar DeRozan
10. Tyrese Maxey

These guys just don't turn the ball over. On the other hand, we have guys like JaVale McGee, Alex Len, Drew Eubanks, Mitchell Robinson, and Jaxson Hayes who turn the ball over quite a bit given the amount of time they spend on the ball.

To see the full list, please visit the BBall IQ Page