Freshman Self Creation Study

- Henry NBA Draft

First Substack article. Was going to do this on Google Docs but I presume I’m too young to be doing something like that.

This is Study #1 of a large and lengthy list that I have been working on over the past couple weeks and that I plan to post frequently over the summer.

Monster by Yung Lean is playing right now, I strongly suggest everyone check it out. Great song. OK. Back to the article. No time to be distracted.

I started this study because I was thinking about Kasparas Jakucionis and how only 37% (!!!) of his three pointers were assisted this past college season. Then I started thinking about how important that creation truly was to NBA success. So I decided to compile all of the assisted% stats since 2010, per barttorvik.com. The one problem was that these stats were single season only, so the sample is only O&D freshmen since they only played one season of college to analyze assisted% from. (Assisted% is the percent of shots made that were assisted by another player).

I then combined this study with shot diet (which I may potentially also do a study on in the future) and other statistics like USG% and EFG% in order to get a FULLER scope of context.

At first the study was done for all total freshmen, and I decided to run correlations for all of the important shot creation numbers as well as volume shot creation such as unassisted rim makes per game. The correlations were done on VORP/Year, an impact metric that I already had a database for. VORP/Year is not a great impact metric for an NBA career, as it is less accurate than things like RAPM and DPM, but it is good enough for the purposes of this study. The correlation was extremely low, and this was very obviously because self creation would have differing levels of importance within different positions, so I split the sample into three positions: Guard (Pure PG, Scoring PG, and Combo G on barttorvik), Wing (Wing G, Wing F, Stretch 4), and Center (PF/C and C). The correlations were more clear.

What We Learned:

- Self Creation for Age does not matter too much.

The 10 youngest freshmen to have a 40 or less TOTAL assisted% on all of their shots:

Clearly being young and self creating a lot of your shots does not matter, with 90% of the players falling in negative or middling territory.

- Neither does only self creation.

The 15 players with the lowest assisted% are a mixed bag in terms of production in the NBA. However, it is telling (perhaps) that the 5 guys above 1 VORP/yr are >25 AST%, >2.5 STL%, and EITHER >80 FT% (Trae, Shai, Kyrie) or > 20 DunkAtt (Fox and Scottie). One cannot survive in the NBA simply off of creating your own shot, you must be able to create extra points offensive and defensively, as well as SHOOT/ATHLETICISM. Dennis Smith Jr. does fit the second query, and he has been one of the guys that continue to puzzle me as to their NBA performance.

- Self creation for certain positions matters more.

After adjusting the stats to each position and running the correlations for each part of shot diet and the assisted percentages, this is what they come out to

:

I included EFG% as a reference since that is a basic advanced stat that we know holds some value in prospect evaluation, and to show the difference between the importance of that and assisted%. I also included basic shots made and attempted per game in order to show the difference between that and unassisted shots made per game. It did not seem as if there was a stark contrast, although unassisted rim shots made per game were still somewhat important for guards and wings.

The largest correlated stat on this list was RIM% for freshman bigs, which is not actually related to the true topic at hand, but tells me that I must be valuing that part of a big’s profile more than anything else, self creation or efficiency wise.

The overall trend within the assisted% is that the more unassisted your total shot diet is, the better. That much I assumed was true. The fact that Guards and BIGS had unassisted% as much more important than wings was more surprising to me, at least the bigs part.

Back to the Kasparas Jakucionis point: Much less important than it first seemed.
ASSISTED% on 3PT Makes is barely important for guards, and actually inversely important for wings and bigs (to the point where it has no actual effect on player outcomes in an entire sample).

IMPORTANT NOTES FOR NOTABLE 2025 FRESHMEN:

- Khaman Maluach has a 76.9 RIM%, good for 17th of all drafted freshmen (20 MIN%+) since 2010, right behind Dereck Lively. He is the only one under 19 years old on draft day in the top 20 of RIM% though, signaling to a better touch at the rim for his age group. He also has a total ASSISTED% on all shots of 77.94%, good for 3rd all time behind Johnny Furphy (84.02) and Grant Jerrett (80.95). However, he is 7 foot 2, so this is not as worrying as one would think. I shall mention another prospect that has a very similar ASSISTED% on his shots that I would worry a lot more about.

- Dylan Harper has a 25.74 ASSISTED% on all of his total shots made, putting him 15th lowest out of all freshmen, behind Marquis Teague and above Scottie Barnes. He did this with a 54.6% EFG, which ONLY Kyrie Irving was higher with under a 30 ASSISTED% ( 61.5 EFG. Kyrie Irving was a special prospect man, even if he had no dunks and a 20.5 MIN%). Also made 3.38 Unassisted Rim Shots per game, good for 5th of all freshmen guards, behind Sharife Cooper, Tony Wroten, DeAaron Fox, and Isaiah Collier. The only one who shot >62% ATR was DeAaron Fox, and Dylan clears this shooting 70% ATR, with a 17.6 ASSISTED% on these Rim Makes.

- Jase Richardson has a 40 ASSISTED% on all of his Made 2PTs. Measuring out to 6’0.5 barefoot at the combine, he is a very teensy guard. Looking at all freshmen listed 6 foot 4 and under on barttorvik, the ONLY two who were at or above 40% assisted on all of their made 2s were Bronny James and Jahmius Ramsey, at 52 and 43 percent respectively. Notable others between 40 and 35 percent were Cory Joseph at 39%, De’Anthony Melton at 38%, Avery Bradley at 36%, Keyonte George at 35%, and Malik Monk at 35%.

- Derik Queen and Egor Demin, have a 39.48 and 36.47 ASSISTED% on all of their shots made. This puts them within a group of 6’8+ freshmen with a sub 40% ASSISTED% on made shots: Scottie Barnes, Cade Cunningham, Julius Randle, Jaden McDaniels, and Jayson Tatum. The only one that did not reach 1+ VORP/Yr was Jaden McDaniels, who shot 46.9 EFG% on his shots, while the rest shot >50 EFG%. Egor Demin shot 48 EFG% on the season and Derik Queen shot 53.5 EFG%. Self creation + Height + Baseline efficiency = ?

- Carter Bryant has a 77.79 ASSISTED% on ALL of his shots, as a 6’8 forward. This is extremely concerning in my eyes, as the only guys 6’9 and under to have a 70%+ are Johnny Furphy (84.02), Anthony Bennett (72.92), Caleb Houstan (72.47), Max Christie (70.52). Even going a step above that, let’s see anyone 6’9 and under with a 60+ ASSISTED%:

Youch. Seems like being a non BIG and not being able to create for yourself at all almost always results in immense failure. I wonder how Carter Bryant shall fare.

- Kon Knueppel had a strange case of self creation, as a majority of his 2 Pointers were self created, but a majority of his 3 Pointers were assisted. The only 5 freshmen to have a sub 25 ASSISTED% on 2s and over a 90 ASSISTED% on 3s:

The 3 players to have great positive VORP all had a 0.6+ Rim-NonRim ratio, while the 3 players to have negative VORP all had a sub 0.6 Rim-NonRim ratio. The trend points toward self created 2s with a smart shot diet of Rim attempts and 3s (of which it seems the ASSISTED% is not as important as I thought). Kon has a 2.48 Rim-NonRim ratio, signifying he may be on the positive side!

This ends off the study.

Link to the data is here.

- Henrich