A couple of good points Cato made besides the obvious Powell and Doncic takes
https://theathletic.com/2294231/2020/12/...oncic-nba/
The nature of a four-game sample is that nothing means anything. More specifically, it means that any trend or stat outside of what you would reasonably expect to be the case shouldn’t be assumed to be correct. For example, the Mavericks have hit 31.6 percent of their 3s this season, just 26th in the league. Last season, they cracked the league’s top 10 with a 36.7 percent conversion rate.
Opponents have also recorded a 55.3 effective field goal percentage against Dallas through these first four games, which is 24th in the league. According to Second Spectrum data obtained by The Athletic, though, those opponents are outperforming their expected shot valuations by more than six percent, which is easily the league’s largest disparity. Basically, teams are hitting a ton of difficult shots against the Mavericks, and Second Spectrum’s tracking analysis says they’re doing so at abnormally high rates. The data company comes to this conclusion by analyzing shot type, shot distance and nearby opponents, and it compares those factors to hundreds of thousands of shots in its NBA database to find averages. (If you’re familiar with soccer analytics, its concept is similar to xG.)
https://theathletic.com/2294231/2020/12/...oncic-nba/
The nature of a four-game sample is that nothing means anything. More specifically, it means that any trend or stat outside of what you would reasonably expect to be the case shouldn’t be assumed to be correct. For example, the Mavericks have hit 31.6 percent of their 3s this season, just 26th in the league. Last season, they cracked the league’s top 10 with a 36.7 percent conversion rate.
Opponents have also recorded a 55.3 effective field goal percentage against Dallas through these first four games, which is 24th in the league. According to Second Spectrum data obtained by The Athletic, though, those opponents are outperforming their expected shot valuations by more than six percent, which is easily the league’s largest disparity. Basically, teams are hitting a ton of difficult shots against the Mavericks, and Second Spectrum’s tracking analysis says they’re doing so at abnormally high rates. The data company comes to this conclusion by analyzing shot type, shot distance and nearby opponents, and it compares those factors to hundreds of thousands of shots in its NBA database to find averages. (If you’re familiar with soccer analytics, its concept is similar to xG.)