Jump Shot Study 1

We decided to study the efficiency of Jump shots based on footwork, and what quality of passes are thrown to see if there were differences in the Points Per Possession among them and to see the total volume of what happens the most in a Basketball game. There are many debates in the Basketball world about what is the “proper” footwork on a jump shot. The footwork taught most often is a “left-right 1-2 step” for righties, and a “right-left 1-2 step for lefties”, we wanted to dive into the film and stats to see if this is what happens most often and if it is the most efficient way to shoot. Some people believe the “Hop” is a better way to shoot and gets you more rhythm. We also wanted to test if there was a difference in these results for off-the-catch shooting vs off the dribble shooting. There have been many studies already showing an off-the-catch shot is much more efficient than an off-the-dribble shot, but we wanted to see what the differences were for each footwork type. We also wanted to study passing, because in the vast majority of workouts the only pass players practice shooting off of is a perfect pass from the coach. We wanted to see how realistic that is, and how much it happens in a game. This will test whether these consistent perfect passes are preparing players for the shots they will be taking in games. The whole point of all this is to make sure we are maximizing our time in the gym and training/teaching most effectively. That is the motto of “Film Don’t Lie”, so we wanted to put the time in on a study to make sure we are doing that.

The majority of analysis was focused on determining the points per possession (PPP) as well as the frequency of shots based on different aspects of the shot; there was an emphasis placed on understanding the effects of pass quality and the shooter’s footwork from both a points per possession standpoint to understand the efficiency of said shot, as well as the frequency of a type of shot. Using the Tidyverse in R we were able to manipulate the data to answer our questions. To gather data, we watched 50 shots from 40 different NCAA DI players, focusing on teams that ran a more modern style of offense. This amounted to 2000 records in our dataset with 10 fields. One important thing to keep in mind is that because the data is not normally distributed and is not a random sample of shots, all of our results show correlation (if any) and NOT causation.

When looking at shots that were not following a jab step, off the catch, or dribble, it was found that shooting off the catch is the more frequent of shots occurring 56.2% of the time and it is also more efficient generating a PPP of 1.13 compared to 0.811 for shots off the dribble. We will use this to let our players know it is a more efficient option to shoot off the catch in most situations.

Analyzing the effects of pass quality, we found results that did not make sense. For reference, each shot off the catch had a pass quality grade between 1 and 3, with 1 being an awful pass and 3 being the perfect pass. Our results found that as the pass quality improved, the PPP decreased; this was the opposite of our hypothesis. Pass quality of 1 had a PPP of 1.44, those with a quality of 2 generated a PPP of 1.13, and the best passes led to a PPP of 1.05. One potential reason for this result is that only 11.5% of shots that were off a catch (124 shots) had a passing quality of 1, so this could be due to the small sample size. We may do a larger study on just passing at another time to find out if these results stick. Also 38.9% of passes of shots that were off the catch had a passing quality of 3, so in our workouts this will be the percentage of perfect passes we throw.

When looking at footwork, we have to be careful and remember that we already found differences in PPP based on if the shot was off a catch or dribble. Our results show that shooters catching a pass with a 2-foot hop have a higher PPP than those who catch and use a 1-2 step into the shot with a PPP of 1.19 and 1.09, respectively. The one caveat there is that shots off the 1-2 step occur 38.6% of the time as opposed to only 16.4% of shots coming off the 2-foot hop. Furthermore, we found a correlation between those who use the opposite footwork (the first step is with shooting foot, followed by a second step) and improved PPP for shooting off the dribble. With similar frequencies, the PPP for 1-2 step shots off the dribble is 0.795, the PPP for 2-hop shots off the dribble is 0.740, and the PPP for opposite footwork shots off the dribble is 0.929.

These results will impact our training going forward, and we hope they will also impact other trainers/players. Like other studies before us, we can see that off-the-catch shots are way more efficient than off-the-dribble shots, therefore we will encourage our clients to make the game easier on themselves by taking more off-the-catch shots. We can see that the different types of footwork have different results, but they are not drastic enough where if somebody is shooting “1-2 steps” off the catch, I will change them to a hop, or if somebody is shooting off the “hop” off the dribble I will change them to a 1-2 step. If somebody is unsure of footwork to use, I will guide them to a “hop” off-the-catch, and a “1-2 step” off-the-dribble”, as those were the more efficient footwork. We can see that a 1-2 step is the most common footwork, but far from the only footwork, which means it can’t be the only footwork we teach. The passing results are where our training will be affected the most. I was guilty in the past of being the coach that throws only perfect passes, but I’m not going to do that anymore because these results show that is not game-realistic. Since roughly 4/10 passes are right on the money in a game that’s what workouts should simulate. There are times to do it the old school way of perfect passes every time, and that is with less skilled players, when a player is in a slump, or a player needs to have a significant focus on their form. Other than that we will lean to 4/10 perfect passes because that’s what the film shows and the Film Don’t Lie!