Suns News: Week 3 1/4-1/10

[Shabazz]

It’s not entirely surprising. Chris Paul’s teams don’t historically play at a high pace.

We’re also going to have a poor shot profile (% of shots that are in the mid-range), but when we have Booker, Paul and Ayton as our 3 primary options, that’s how it will be.

[Indy]

Deandre Ayton is leading our team in And1s.

I would hope so. I would expect the number to be even higher though.

He had 15 all of last season.

[In2ition]

Deandre Ayton is leading our team in And1s.

I would hope so. I would expect the number to be even higher though.

He had 15 all of last season.

What's it at now? 15 doesn't seem very good for playing 38 games, or for a center.

[In2ition]

That Booker stat...boy he hasn't started off hot at all. He's got to get that under control.

[Superbone]

Deandre Ayton is leading our team in And1s.

I would hope so. I would expect the number to be even higher though.

It's a great start though!

[Split T]

[O_Gardino]

What is TPA?

[Oatmeal]

What is TPA?

toilet paper to ass ratio?

[O_Gardino]

What is TPA?

toilet paper to ass ratio?

Tiny Polish Acrobats?

[Superbone]

Turnovers per assist, ya big dummies!

[Superbone]

TPA Model
The concept of total points added (TPA), isn’t particularly complicated. We’re looking at both defensive and offensive effectiveness on a per-possession basis while also incorporating the amount of playing time the contributor in question receives.

At the heart of the theory is this comparison between two hypothetical players:

Player A makes an average team 5 points better per 100 possessions than an average player would in his spot, and he plays 500 possessions.
Player B makes an average team 10 points better per 100 possessions than an average player would in his spot, and he plays 250 possessions.
Player B is more effective on a per-possession basis—twice as effective, in fact. But Player A spends twice as much time on the court. Theoretically, they should have identical values, as they would both add 25 points to an average team.

As such, the formula for TPA is rather simple. It’s broken down into two parts—offensive points added (OPA) and defensive points saved (DPS)—and each is calculated in the same vein.

OPA is derived by adjusting offensive box plus/minus (OBPM) to account for the number of possessions the player in question is present for. Similarly, DPS is derived from a similar adjustment of defensive box plus/minus (DBPM) with that same number of possessions. OBPM and DBPM, both calculated by Basketball-Reference.com, estimate the per-100-possessions value of a player on either end of the court.

Add OPA and DPS together, and you have TPA. A score of zero indicates a player was perfectly average (by no means a bad thing for rookies or lifelong end-of-bench players), while anything positive means they were better than an average-level replacement.

For scores prior to 1972-73, we’re estimating OBPM and DBPM using historical correlations with offensive and defensive win shares per 48 minutes. That data goes all the way back to 1951-52, allowing us to come up with rough estimates for the early legends of the sport. These numbers are by no means perfect, but they can still serve as baselines.

[Nodack]

Deandre Ayton is leading our team in And1s.

I would hope so. I would expect the number to be even higher though.

I would hope so too but, that hasn’t been the case at all I don’t believe since we drafted him. To see him do it now gives me warm fuzzies.

[bajanguy008]

[BKinSJC]

Six of those guys -- all except Saric -- have scored at least 20 points in a game so far this season, too.

[Mori Chu]

It's interesting that they draw their cartoon with Cam as our PF and not Crowder.

[Cap]

It's interesting that they draw their cartoon with Cam as our PF and not Crowder.

The tweet’s about scoring. Those are the top five scorers.

[Shabazz]

There are a lot of things to like about our team, but one thing really I appreciate is that we don’t have some random shitty swingman like Jake Layman going off on us for 25 point every game.

[O_Gardino]

There are a lot of things to like about our team, but one thing I appreciate is that we don’t have sown random shitty swingman nails Jake Layman going off on us for 25 point every game.

YES

[BKinSJC]

With tonight's San Antonio victory over the Lakers, the Suns are temporarily back in first place in the West - half a game ahead of the two L.A. teams, and then followed by seven teams at exactly 4-4 right now. It's starting off as a bit of a weird season.

[Superbone]

With tonight's San Antonio victory over the Lakers, the Suns are temporarily back in first place in the West - half a game ahead of the two L.A. teams, and then followed by seven teams at exactly 4-4 right now. It's starting off as a bit of a weird season.

Let's just keep winning. How about that?