I've been using the Synergy Scouting Tool this season and thought I'd share some stats that kind of stood out to me. Overall, I think a lot of these stats probably back up the observations that we've been seeing in these games (probably not too many surprises here). Either way, I still thought it was helpful to look at these #s as they offer up solutions instead of just pointing out the issues.

The Ugly

How bad has Toney Douglas been this season?

Well, on offense he is contributing 0.73 points per possession, which gives him a rank of 245 (out of all players that qualify) in the league....yeah, not really what you want from your starting PG. His shooting has obviously been abysmal but what makes his play even worse is his defense. On D, opponents are scoring 1.11 points per possession on Douglas, which ranks him at 244. Opponents are shooting 51% against him and 68% from 3 point land. In other words, Toney's defense has been as bad as his offense.

The good news is we may be able to survive until Baron gets healthy b/c of Shumpert. Iman doesn't have a large enough sample size in some stats, but his defense has been top notch so far. Opponents are only scoring 0.43 ppp against him so far on 27% shooting from the field. Moreover, Shumpert is causing turnovers 30% of the time in his one on one matchups on D. That turnover number obviously won't hold up over a long season as Iman gets more time, but still impressive.

Amare's offense/defense

Everyone here knows that Amare isn't known for his D. Problem is, his offense obviously hasn't been good enough this season to make up for the lack of hustle on the other end. Offensively, he is at 0.89 ppp (rank of 130) and that is being driven by isolation play, which accounts for 27% of his possessions (0.41 ppp). Story here is that while Amare is obviously depending on iso too much which is hurting his overall efficiency on offense (not a big surprise to anyone watching the games). D'Antoni has mentioned that we need to run more pick and rolls for Amare so hopefully we start to go more in that direction...

The Good

Tyson Chandler

This is one of the areas where having these Synergy stats is helpful as a lot of these #s don't make it into the box score. Anyone paying attention to Chandler's D this season would probably tell you that he is doing a decent job, but how good has he been?

Well, in one-on-one matchups, opponents are shooting only 26% against him on 0.61 ppp (ranks him at 23).

On offense, Chandler is giving us a surprising 1.21 ppp (ranks him at 6 in the league). We knew before we got Tyson that he has been one of the more efficient guys in the league but even I was a little surprised by this. What is driving the offensive efficiency? Well, as many have pointed out this season, Chandler is taking Amare's spot in being the pick and roll man and that accounts for 22% of his offense (1.5 ppp). The other big reason is 34.5% of his offense is coming off cuts (where he also puts up 1.5 ppp).

Basically, these stats seem to indicate that he is more than earning his paycheck for us.

Melo

Melo hasn't been great in terms of offensive efficiency (meaning he's not on LeBron's level) but he still has been pretty damn good. For someone averaging 29 ppg and taking the amount of shots that he takes, a 1.02 points per possession stat is very good (ranks him at 49).

His offensive rating would be even higher if he cut down on the isolation (31% of his offense on a 0.85 ppp). Melo is obviously one of the top iso players in the game but he would definitely be better served to only go to that in scenarios where he cannot be more efficient.

For example, many people criticized D'Antoni's decision to put the ball more in Melo's hands for the PnR. However, that is proving to be a wise move as that accounts for 16% of his offense on a 1.52 ppp (that ranks Melo at number #1 in running the PnR as a ball handler). He also is shooting 72% from the field in those possessions.....not bad at all.

The other place where Melo is deadly is when he is used as a spot-up shooter. That accounts for 14% of his offense on a 1.41 ppp (ranks him at #4 in the league) as he is shooting 54% in those situations.

FYI, as a team, we're ranked 13 right now in offense (0.90 ppp) and 24 in defense (0.89 ppp).

Great Post s3231! There are some very good signs in the midst of this disappointing start. Really liked the stats on Melo as Point Forward. He's actually been good in that role and the more he's doing it the better he's getting. There are changes taking place that will really manifest themselves later in the year.

Sometimes with all the complaining cuz the team has been losing you don't take notice of certain trends. Right now the most important thing is to continue to develop chemistry and fix the little things that aren't being handled right at the moment, like more PnR for STAT.

Very interesting statistics. Has this been used for scouting ?

Good stuff and lines up exactly with my own thinking. Was surprised by the Tyson Chandler offensive efficiency. That was revelation and an important one, bit he dunks a lot do that would indicate a high percentage unless you ate Jeffries. I wasn't sure about Melo at POint Fwd either, but he seems to have bought in to that role. In fact he reminds me of Lebron in Cleveland when he was doing the same thing.