The SCOUTing Report: Attribute Breakdown, Part II
This is meant to be a continuation of the deep dive Stuart Scout did in his last breakdown covering attributes in the Swoopsverse. While the last article looked at which attributes appeared in the Top 3 the most often for Swoopsters (and includes looks at how often they occurred among each prospect-tier), this one is going to look at revealed attribute ratings.
Before I go any further — did you hear the news? We launched a website, swoopsillustrated.com! This has been such an insanely cool journey since we launched back in early November, and we are thrilled for what lies ahead. If you haven’t already, please check out the website and the player database where you can filter by attributes or game stats. Probably the coolest aspect is that you can filter to find the leaders in stat and attribute categories, click on a Swoopster, then there are buttons in top right corner of the screen to either take you to the detail page in the Locker Room so you can see their game boxscores, or jump on OpenSea so you can place an offer or purchase that Swoopster.
But enough about that — let’s dive in.
Of the 1,500 Swoopsters in the initial mint ahead of Season 0, all Swoopsters were aged season 2 through 7. With 15 available attribute categories, that means less than half of the attributes are revealed on every single Swoopster (not for too long, though. The end of Season 0 will bring the first development period and each Swoopster will age one season and have an additional attribute rating revealed, plus their ratings could increase or decrease).
It’s previously been stated by the Swoops team that the absolute lowest rating available for an attribute is 30. We also know thanks to some revealed attributes that the absolute highest rating available is 100. So effectively all 15 attribute categories have that range of 30 to 100, but what is considered average? The midpoint is 65, but how are the Swoopsters distributed within that range?
To help with the distributions, we separated out the range into 4 zones: Zone 1 (30–47.5), Zone 2 (47.51–65), Zone 3 (65.01–82.5), and Zone 4 (82.51–100). From there we went through each attribute category and identified the total number of Swoopsters with that attribute revealed, then went into each zone and identified how many revealed ratings were in each, and we also broke it down by prospect rating.
INTANGIBLES
Let’s start by looking at the intangibles, or the bottom six attributes on the Swoopster player cards: Physicality, Longevity, Hustle, IQ, Leadership, and Coachability.
On each chart, you are going to see the attribute in the top left corner highlighted in green. Next to the attribute name, you will see the total number of Swoopsters that have that trait revealed as of Season 0. Then you will see the 4 zones, and below each zone will be the number of Swoopsters that had a revealed rating in that zone, the breakdown of how many Swoopsters in that zone were a 1 through 5 star prospect, then the percentage of revealed ratings for that attribute that are in that particular zone.
On the right side of the chart you can see the breakdown by prospect rating. You can see the total number of 1 through 5 star Swoopsters that have that particular attribute revealed, then the percentage breakdown of how many Swoopsters from that particular prospect rating have their attribute rating fall within each zone.
For reference, there are currently 450 1-stars, 450 2-stars, 375 3-stars, 150 4-stars, and 75 5-stars in the current 1,500 population.
For most of the intangible attribute categories, it seemed like a fairly even distribution across the board. Physicality has a slight positive skew above the midpoint of 65, with more currently revealed ratings greater than 65. Particularly interesting is the skew for 5-star prospects — only 16% land in zone 1, and 56% of the currently revealed are above 65. While Physicality is still kind of an “unknown” category, it certainly seems advantgeous to have a high rating.
At the 3-star level, a little less than 43% of players were above the midpoint, and 4-stars also had less than 45% above 65. All other prospects rating groups were above 50%.
Hustle was an interesting category to me because as you reach the 5-star level, less than 31% of players in that tier are revealed above the midpoint. In other words, the majority of these potential superstars are not doing the “little things”. But do you really want that out of All-Star caliber players? Meanwhile nearly 53% of 2-star players are revealed above the midpoint. In Swoops GM, a winning recipe definitely seems to involve surrounding elite players with at least one player that is doing the dirty work — I think the same is true for Swoops proper.
Basketball IQ seems negatively skewed below the midpoint. My speculation here is that IQ is going to be an intangible attribute that largely grows as players age. Since every single Swoopster is currently season 7 or younger, I think this distribution for these 1,500 will shift to the right over the next 3 seasons. This seems on-par with NBA players — the game slows down as they gain more playing experience in the league and go through film study. Interestingly, only 35% of Swoopsters at the 5-star level are above the midpoint where as the other groups were all well above 40%. This could easily be chalked up to the slim number of 5-star prospects, as one or two extra in a Zone makes a larger impact than the lower tiers.
Look at the Zone 4 breakdowns by prospect ratings for 1-, 2-, and 4-stars. These are going to be the ones that ultimately will make the best potential “forges” as you move to retire players and have them serve as mentors for younger Swoopsters in the future. Even if it’s a lower tier prospect, if they are absolute studs in one or two skill categories, they could eventually be paired with a highly coachable, high tier prospect and turn them into an absolute monster (think about forging a 1-star Guard that has a high 3PT rating with a young 4-star F/C with no range but that excels in the paint — that’s gonna be so fun to watch out for).
No real surprises here with Coachability, as it appears very evenly distributed.
BASKETBALL SKILLS
For the top nine categories on the player card, these seemed to be much, much more negatively skewed charts than we saw in the intangibles. These are going to be where you can find the market inefficiencies and gain an advantage in Swoops.
A long time ago, it was revealed in a Swoops Twitter Space that 80 would be considered elite for 3PT rating — they weren’t kidding. Only 1.78% of the 451 Swoopsters with a revealed 3PT rating are above 82.5 — that’s 8 Swoopsters. Who’s the best? Swoopster-1145, a 2-star with a perfect 100 rating and a Longevity of 97 that is also an average interior and perimeter defender.
Over 70% of Swoopsters fall under the midpoint here. An important note on shooting categories to remember: the rating is made up of both quantity and efficiency. The player could be a low volume shooter with deadly accuracy, and that could cause them to be in the 60s — or the opposite, and high volume, low efficiency. Trust the stats!
Only 19 Swoopsters have a revealed 2PT-INT rating above 82.5 — that’s only 4.24% of the 448 with the attribute revealed. Just under 70% of Swoopsters with the attribute revealed fall under the midpoint. The 5-stars, though? None of them currently have a revealed rating in Zone 1, and 11 of the 26 with this category revealed are above the midpoint. So if you are eyeing a 5-star that’s unrevealed for 2PT-INT, there’s a good chance they are above 47.5.
For 1-stars, I think the reason we see 55% above the midpoint is simply because of volume. This tier will likely have more specialist players, like bigs who aren’t taking perimeter shots, so that will cause their 2PT-INT ratings to be higher because of the volume attempted is greater in this area of the floor.
2PT-MID also has zero 5-star players in Zone 1, and 60% are above the midpoint, while no other group has 32% above a 65 rating. Zero 1-star players have a revealed midrange above 82.5, so if you have a 1-star with an unrevealed 2PT-MID in their top 3 (and you know the rating is greater than 82.5 because of a revealed non-top 3 attribute being greater than 82.5), you have a truly rare player on your hands! In the entire population, only 6 Swoopsters currently are revealed above 82.5.
I feel like part of the reasoning for this is that the midrange is a dying art in the game of basketball at the NBA level. It’s an inefficient shot from an analytics standpoint, but the guys who are really good at it, (DeRozan, Durant) are also stud scorers that can put up incredible numbers but also put up a high volume of shots in this area. If you have a high Zone 4 player here, chances are they may be All-Star caliber as this seems to be a skill that demonstrates ability to create their own shot.
Only 101 Swoopsters have a currently revealed FT rating above 65. I think this is largely due to FT taking into account the frequency of players getting to the line and converting. For players with at least 20 games played, The Answer currently is the league leader averaging 11.87 FTA per game and converting at a 84.6% clip. He’s a 1-star Guard that has FT as his top attribute and is guaranteed to be above 93, as Coachability is his second attribute and is revealed at 93 (Full disclosure: I currently own The Answer; no I do not intend to sell).
Barely over 20% of the 479 Swoopsters with DREB revealed have a rating above 65, and only 18 are above 82.5. So when you are evaluating bigs, don’t write one off immediately because you see the rating is in the 60–70 range. You can find Guards and others in the frontcourt with ratings in the 60s and take a team rebounding approach. The league leader in DREB per game is currently Swoopster-1433 (13.52), who just changed squads yesterday after a 0.28 ETH sale. He is also the league leader in rebounds per game with 17.09.
1-stars have 36% of their currently revealed DREB players above 65, and some of these are likely oddities, like Guards (Hops Hopper, for example). With an 85.35 rating, Hops currently pulls in over 12 defensive rebounds a game! This is the perfect sort of player to pair with weaker rebounding frontcourt players, and rebounding Guards that can pass are triple-double threats (like Diamond).
Offensive rebounding is the second-most negatively skewed chart, with less than 17% of the revealed ratings above 65. Interesting, just like we saw with Hustle, 5-stars are not very involved here as 52.38% of their revealed ratings are in Zone 1, and none are in Zone 4. Only 2 are above 65!
I find offensive rebounds to be a huge difference maker in Swoops GM, and I think it’s an excellent idea to have at least one player that can absolutely gobble up second chance opportunities for you squad. It also seems to lead to drawing more fouls. With no foul-outs in Swoops, you could live in the bonus if you are dominating the offensive glass!
Swoopster-1436 is the league leader with 5.96 OREB per game and has it as his top attribute. Though unrevealed, it’s guaranteed to be above 87.
Passing, like in the last attribute breakdown article, is the rarest attribute to be revealed over a rating of 65. Only 46 of 470 Swoopsters with a revealed Passing rating are above the midpoint (less than 10%), and only 6 are above 82.5. The league leader here in assists is Kovan Bridges, but that average is less than 8 per game (assists are tough to come by — is it poor shooting?). It’s his top trait and is guaranteed to be a rating greater than 91. If you look in Zone 1, you can see that over 45% of the revealed ratings land there.
The outliers here are the 5-stars, again. About 21% of them are revealed above 65, while every other group has less than 11%. So, if you have a 5-star, chances are they are an elite playmaker, and having at least one of those is crucial in Swoops.
The defensive categories see a negative skew but not nearly in the same capacity as the other basketball skills. Over 36% of revealed IDEF ratings are above the midpoint. The lesson here is that Swoopsters with guaranteed IDEF ratings above 82.5 are hard to come by, so don’t sleep on a player with IDEF in his top 3, especially when it’s unrevealed and guaranteed to be in the 80s or better.
PDEF is more commonly occurring above 65 than any of the other basketball traits, and I think that goes hand in hand with playing defense being more akin to an “intangible” skill than being able to create scoring opportunities for teammates or hit a tough midrange jumper. This category actually has the smallest number of revealed ratings in Zone 1, although the majority are still below the midpoint.
While 4-star prospects were the tier with the most above a 65 rating for IDEF, interestingly enough, they are the smallest group above 65 for PDEF — and it’s not particularly close. Only 29.82% of the revealed 4-stars are above the midpoint while the other groups are all above 47%.
The goal of these deep dives is to help community members get a clearer picture of what the entire Swoops collection looks like. With Season 0 having launched and having game stats available, we are getting a clearer picture, but there is still so much we are continuing to learn! And that’s what makes this engaging.
What are your key takeaways from the distributions?
Want to support Swoops Illustrated? Buy us a coffee!
