Effort Elasticity & The Philosophy NBA GMs Aren’t Telling Us About
One of my favorite sayings in basketball is “Shooters shoot.” The point is both so obvious on its surface and deeply nuanced beneath it. Some may interpret the point of this saying as an idea of specialization — everyone has a job to do, and their job is to do that job… If you’re a shooter, shoot, if you’re a big, defend the rim, command the post, rebound, etc. The point is, this saying is often interpreted as “do what YOU do.”
Another way of interpreting this saying is understanding that a player only has control over so much. Every announcer in the sport has, at least once, referred to the NBA as a “make or miss” league. They’re not wrong, and this saying carries a similar message, which is that at the end of the game, a player can make all the correct decisions, and play with maximum effort, and their fate will ultimately solely be decided on whether the ball went in the hoop enough times to win. So, shooters shoot!
This idea of effort’s ultimately capped impact on winning in the NBA has shown itself through a shift of philosophy in team building over the last ~decade by front offices across the league. Does Jrue Holiday try harder in a basketball game than Marcus Smart? That’s a tough argument to make. One that’s not tough to make, however, is that Holiday shoots 5% better from the three-point line, 8% better from the field, and has a 5% higher eFG% — the difference between Marcus Smart and Jrue Holiday is simply that Jrue Holiday’s offensive possessions more frequently end in made baskets. That’s it.
To further this, there’s no impact that effort has on either of these players’ ability to make shots. One could argue that a player could improve their shooting through an effort to find better shots, but that’s also dependent on the structure of the offense, amongst other uncontrolled variables (coaching) that make for an incredibly difficult argument in favor of effort’s ability to have any tangible impact on a player’s shooting splits.
All of this thinking led to the idea of effort elasticity, or in other words, which areas of the game are most affected by a change in a player’s individual effort? A great example of a team that showed incredible effort elasticity was the 2015–16 Cleveland Cavaliers who went on to defeat the best regular season team by record in league history, the 73–9 Golden State Warriors.
There’s a fair case to be made that the 2015–16 Warriors were the most unstoppable regular season offense in league history. They led the league in offensive rating, effective field goal percentage, true shooting percentage, and three-pointers made, and Stephen Curry became the only player in league history to hit 400 3PTs in a season. In contrast, Cleveland’s regular-season defense was middling. Over the last twenty seasons, they allowed the second-most points per 100 possessions and forced the fourth least amount of turnovers of any team to win the NBA Finals.
The Warriors averaged 114.9 PPG (1st of 30) during the regular season. In the finals, they failed to reach 110 points in any of their seven games versus Cleveland, averaging 99.8 PPG throughout the series. So, how did this exceedingly average team defense seemingly turn into a defensive stalwart when it mattered most versus what at the time was viewed as the greatest offense in modern NBA history?
The answer: effort-elasticity.
J.R. Smith, Kyrie Irving, Matthew Dellavedova, Kevin Love, James Jones. None of these players will be remembered as defensive greats. Most of the above names are associated with the opposite. However, in the 2015–16 NBA Finals, all of these players upped their defensive effort and intensity to unseen levels from them in the past. All of a sudden, J.R. Smith and Kyrie Irving were a tenacious backcourt defense hounding the Splash Brothers the second they crossed over half-court. It was as if the Cavaliers players had become possessed… Even Kevin Love was defending… KEVIN LOVE? DEFENDING?!
Albeit, none of this would’ve been possible had LeBron James not averaged a staggering 30, 11, and 9 on 50–40–70 shooting splits while playing all-NBA level defense and controlling the entire tempo of the series. Likewise can be said about Kyrie Irving, who showed off his incredible shot-making, averaging 27 PPG, culminating in an incredible game-winning three-pointer in the final seconds of game 7.
These stats, while incredibly impressive, were less surprising than the rise in defensive effectiveness from Cleveland’s role players. We’ve seen LeBron put on jaw-dropping performances on basically a nightly basis for the better part of the last two decades. Kyrie’s incredible skill level and shot-making ability are the primary reasons he’ll ultimately be remembered as an all-time great player. Yet, we’d never seen him, J.R. Smith or Kevin Love play the level of defense that they showcased in that 2015–16 NBA Finals. For seven games, those players were different than they’d ever been before or ever were again.
How does this translate into modern team-building philosophies?
Understanding which areas of the game are most reactive to change in effort, and which are not, can clue GMs into the specific types of players they need to pursue when building a roster to compete for an NBA Championship. While teams used to view team building from a positional and specialization standpoint (we need a shooter, a great screener, or a rim protector who can rebound), teams now are being built on a ‘floor-ceiling’ basis.
DeJounte Murray was an all-NBA defender in his early years on the San Antonio Spurs, but in recent seasons with the Hawks, his defense has regressed. There are no physical or aging reasons behind this decline, it’s simply a product of a decrease in effort on that side of the court. However, his ceiling as a defender remains high. NBA GMs want players who have a high floor in effort-inelastic statistics (shooting, play-making), and players who have high ceilings (even if they have low floors) in effort-elastic statistics (multiple defensive metrics).
The question isn’t Could a player shoot well, it’s Does a player shoot well?
Conversely, the question isn’t Does a player defend well, it’s Could a player defend well?
The future of NBA team building will revolve largely around the above two sentences.
