Does it feel like his FG shooting is getting worse? And does it feel like he’s taking more? Turns out both are true and might be correlated.
Point 1 – If you believe that AG is going to make less than 68% of his free throws, it is better to foul him every time he goes to the rim.
According to his shot chart, AG makes 68.8% of his shots around the rim (almost 9% above league average(. So every time he takes one of those shots, the team expects to get 1.37 points (in addition to a small uptick for putbacks at the rim, etc). So call it 1.4 points/shot.
source: https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask/what-is-aaron-gordon-shot-chart
So if the defender is quick with his math, he should know that if AG is expected to make less than 70% of his FT’s, it’s better to foul him and put him at the line than it is to let him finish unencumbered.
This is where AG gets into that Shaq/Howard/Hack-a-whoever status – great finisher at the rim and poor FT shooter. Consider the following –
The orange line is his running FT% the last 8 games looking back to December. When the orange line dips into the red, it begins to make more sense to put him on the line rather than let him finish. This is kind of a blurry area because game situation, individual foul count, chances of an and1, etc all matter, but the generally speaking, the lower the FT% goes, the better off teams are having him at the line. (he’s shooting 56% from the line the last 8 games, so opponents are a whooping 25 points/100 possessions better off with him at the line than finishing at the rim – Yikes)
Point 2 – Other teams are making this a priority. His FT/game has gone up dramatically while his usage has stayed nearly the same.
The blue line represents the average number of FT’s that AG takes each game (over his last 8 games). As the orange line drops lower into red zone, his FTs per game are going up. And fast! This negative correlation could be a coincidence but it seems much more likely that opposing coaches are noticing his widening gap in expected points from the line vs expected points at the rim and are at least mentioning it to his defenders pregame. Also, for reference, his usage was 21.6 in Dec and 21.8 in Jan. No real change in how often he’s going to the rim (which could explain a higher average FT/game).
So does this matter? IDK. Maybe? The trend is certainly accelerating (he’s averaging 8 ft/game his last 5 games, which puts him top 10 in the league over that span). It certainly was a factor in the loss last night. And could make the difference in a tight seeding race. And certainly in a tight playoff game. But it seems like this is unlikely to last. AG is a career 69% FT shooter (not great but not low enough to put him on the line 8x/game) and shot a career high 74% from the line last year. Odds are that this is just a slump and that he will regress to his mean and this will all be over before we even realize it happened.
Right or wrong, it game me an interesting distraction to dive into this morning. And it gave you something interesting enough to read this far. So we’re all winners here!
by 13specials
14 Comments
I trust AG to fix it
The hack technique goes in and out of trend. I trust we can fix the FTs or we’ll be better at converting the shots. At the end of the day getting into foul trouble is a shaky strategy to hedge your bets on especially when we’re a top tier outside shooting team.
Ehh. The things is teams usually have to deal with Jokic who already puts your big men in foul trouble easily. The absolute most important thing when playing Denver is keeping anyone what has any hope of guarding Jok available. Those are generally gonna be the guys near the rim that would foul AG. Are you really gonna waste a couple of those on AG who’s not actually that bad at the line?
Shhhh, opposing coaches could be lurking the subreddit
I don’t see this as a problem, though it’s always been a concern for teams in the past. Any dominant big man would sometimes be defended by denying the entry pass with a double team; and then if that did not work, foul him with the guy whose specific purpose is to be big enough to prevent being backed underneath the goal and also to foul out implementing this strategy.
With AG, he’s getting setup in positions where even if you do foul him, he still might make the dunk. And I just don’t see teams throwing guys at him to foul to the same extent. If you do it early, then a lot of other good FT shooters can take advantage of being in the Bonus. I think it will only be situational and not necessarily directed specifically to AG (ie we’re in the bonus already, no easy layups/dunks allowed).
Edit: also it’s just common/good practice to foul anyone who is bigger/stronger/faster than you when they are too close to the basket and have you out of position
Imo (complete average fan), the “foul that guy a lot” strategy always reads out pretty logically on paper. But then in game just puts one team in the bonus for so many more game minutes.
So the team that is target fouling the player ends up with death by 1000 free throws from the entire team, instead of just the one guy they’re fouling…
>So if the defender is quick with his math
Lol no one is doing that math on the court. It will either be in the game plan for the other team or not.
AG is better over his career, and you rarely see FT% tank, so it’s more than likely a short term blip where he needs to get out of his head and see some go through. Also, hack-a-player strategies are easier to exploit nowadays with the abundance of switches on defense. If teams do that, the Nuggs can hunt the matchup for the player they want in foul trouble and push the issue.
This is very different than someone like Shaq who had such a big disparity in expected points in the paint vs the foul line his whole career. We’d need to see several more months of this to be concerned. The fact that his 3pt% is up at the same time as his FT% is down suggests this is the normal variance we expect over careers.
Watch him bait other teams into fouling him from now on and shooting 100% FT
This is only an issue when Jokić is out. When he’s in, teams don’t have the luxury of wasting fouls on the Nuggets 2nd or 3rd option. You’re seeing this right now because Jokić has missed 3 of the last 6 games. There’s more AG iso happening in these games, and the playmaking dip on dump offs leaves more of a window for teams to react. It’s gonna be fine.
Great analysis/ explanation
Ag will fix it imo
He will move his free throw routine after hard practice. He wrestles in the paint, it affects the shooting. Plus he’s a hard worker in general. He will improve.
The only thing is, when Jokic is on the court, you can’t double both of them and Jokic seems to have radar to detect when players are open. I am not too concerned, but last night FT percentage was atrocious.
Can’t afford to foul AG all night and have your big guys in foul trouble. Jokic would have easy shots all night if the guys were saving their fouls for AG. This strategy can work better when AG is the biggest threat alone but not when it’s both of them playing