NBA’s Best Scorers: Kevin Durant Reigns Supreme

By Harrison Chase

Years ago, in a time when basketball analytics didn’t yet exist, determining the best scorer in the NBA was easy: it was simply whoever won the scoring title. It was decided by points and points alone, forget about shooting percentage or effective field goal percentage or any of that stuff.

Nowadays though, it has become a bit more complicated. In addition to looking at the metrics mentioned above, we also have even more complicated statistics like true shooting percentage, and, more recently, ShotScore. We now understand that high scoring players who take a lot of shot attempts (like the infamous Rudy Gay) can be bad, and that uber-efficient players (like LeBron James this season) can be good.

Using the same techniques I used here and here, I will now look at the top ten scorers in the league so far and determine how many points above average they have actually scored for their teams. I will be looking at scoring in the four (really six) categories SportVu tracks: drives, close shots, pull up shots (both twos and threes) and catch and shoot shots (also both twos and threes). For drives and close shots I calculated the points above average contributed using the average points per shot, rather than shooting percentage. I did this because drives and close shots often draw foul shots, which I believe should be factored in. For pull ups and catch and shoot shots I just used the field goal percentage.

The top ten scorers as of January 24th are Kevin Durant, LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony, Kevin Love, James Harden, LaMarcus Aldridge, Stephen Curry, Paul George, Blake Griffin, and DeMarcus Cousins. Here is how many points above average (PAA) they contributed in each category (all stats current through 1/24):

  Player Team Games Drives C&S 2s C&S 3s Pull up 2s Pull up 3s Close Shots Total shots

1

Kevin Durant OKC

43

2.326

0.124

0.688

0.830

1.156

0.597

5.721

2

LeBron James MIA

42

1.838

0.079

0.942

0.440

0.060

0.665

4.024

3

Carmelo Anthony NYK

39

0.618

0.406

1.402

0.193

0.113

0.140

2.873

4

Kevin Love MIN

40

0.329

0.223

1.582

-0.146

0.028

0.693

2.710

5

LaMarcus Aldridge POR

43

-0.214

1.440

-0.065

0.712

-0.025

0.081

1.929

6

James Harden HOU

38

1.668

0.101

0.566

0.466

0.024

-0.072

2.752

7

Stephen Curry GSW

39

0.676

0.270

0.738

1.191

1.305

-0.065

4.116

8

Paul George IND

41

0.600

0.263

2.009

0.722

-0.078

0.019

3.535

9

Blake Griffin LAC

44

0.386

0.158

0.010

-0.017

-0.025

1.000

1.511

10

DeMarcus Cousins SAC

39

0.084

0.245

-0.072

-0.147

-0.063

-0.027

0.020

As you could have probably predicted, Kevin Durant is absolutely killing it. Besides leading the league in scoring, he is also leading in PAA. He is contributing positively in every single category, the only player in the top ten scoring besides LeBron and Carmelo to pull that off. He leads the league in PAA on drives, thanks to both a high shooting percentage and a tendency to draw lots of fouls. He is top five in pull up threes, shooting over 46% on those, which is way above average for what is widely considered the hardest shot to hit.

LeBron is very similar to Durant; he is also killing it on drives (second overall). Unlike Durant though he is barely positive in pull up threes, although he is more dominant in catch and shoot threes and close shots.

Carmelo has the lowest field goal percentage (43.8%) of all the top ten scorers, but in terms of PAA he isn’t doing so bad. That’s because he’s taking the second most catch and shoot shots and the third most pull up shots – both of which are harder to make than drives or close shots. Now some of the blame can fall on him for not driving more and getting better shots, but he’s also had to completely run a New York offense which is floundering, and he actually hasn’t done that bad. The only players among the top ten in scoring that rank above him in terms of PAA are Durant and LeBron, mentioned above, and also Stephen Curry and Paul George, both of who have been ridiculous in their own ways.

George is very close to being positive in every single category. He doesn’t drive or get inside as much as the other small forwards on this list, but he is making up for it by having a great season from outside the arc on catch and shoot shoots – sixth overall in PAA on that type of shot. And he is only slightly negative in pull up threes.

Curry has been having another incredible season from not just behind the three-point line but really from everywhere. He ranks above LeBron in PAA, thanks to being second in pull up twos and third in pull up threes. This explains why his field goal percentage can be second lowest among this group but his PAA can be second highest – he takes by far the most pull up shots but still manages to convert them at a rate second only to Durant, who admittedly takes far less of them. Stephen Curry is the heart of the Warriors offense, a shooting extraordinaire, who can pull up from anywhere on the court and nail a shot. This forces the defense to guard him at all times, no doubt freeing up his teammates, which has allowed him to dish out 9.2 assists per game – second best in the league.

Now onto the big men, all of who are different in their own ways. Kevin Love is a classic inside/outside guy, getting most of his points from close shots and catch and shoot threes – he is among the top fifteen in terms of PAA for both. LaMarcus Aldridge loves the midrange jumpers. He is leading the league in PAA for two point catch and shoot shots, and is among the top 25 for pull up twos. But his inside game is surprisingly average. He’s barely making over fifty percent from there, with very few free throws. Fifty percent sounds good until you look at a player like Blake Griffin, who excels down low, shooting over 62% on close shots. Add in the fact that Griffin takes nearly one more close shot per game than Aldridge, and that explains why Aldridge is merely average while Blake Griffin ranks forth in the league on close shots.

Finally we get to the most controversial case: DeMarcus Cousins. He’s a top ten scorer shooting over 48% from the field, which happens to be forth best among the top ten scorers, trailing only LeBron, Durant, and Griffin. So how in the world is he basically an average player by PAA standards?

Most of it comes down to the fact that he’s not as dominant around the rim as we like to think he is. No one’s expecting him to nail threes, and he doesn’t seem to have much of a midrange game (only a slight positive in catch and shoot twos) but Cousins is 6-11, 270 lb. bruiser who just forces his way to the rim, right?

Wrong. Cousins is only scoring 44% of his close shots. That’s actually below average, even counting all his fouls drawn on those shots. While Griffin is scoring basically three out of five close shots, Cousins is only hitting two of them. Kevin Durant is shooting a higher percentage on pull up threes than Cousin is on close shots. Cousins true shooting percentage of 54.9% ranks 142nd in the league, his effective field goal percentage of 48.8% ranks even worse at 216th. Those stats seem to hint at how mediocre a scorer Cousins really is, and my PAA only serves to back them up.

So there you have it. Like Kirk Goldsberry’s shot score metric, Durant, LeBron and Curry seem to be entrenched in the top three spots of PAA. Durant’s commanding lead validates the idea that he could end LeBron’s reign of being MVP, and Curry’s dominant season this year from behind the arc supports his cause for an All-Star game start and maybe first team all NBA at the end of the season. With so many different advanced stats out there, it may not be a clear consensus on who the best scorers are. But I think we can all agree that we should identify them more clearly by looking at more than just total points scored.

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