We looked at Player Efficiency Rating in the first installment of this series of posts. You can read that here.

We learned that Thaddeus Young was the most efficient player on the team, but where did he and other players on the current roster fare as far as other metrics go?

Effective Field Goal %:

Again, this measures a player’s shooting percentage based on shots made adjusted for three point shots, as well as all other field goals made. Three point shots made are adjusted not based on how many were made against how many were missed. The stat also takes into account that three point shots count for one more point than lay ups, dunks and all other shots taken inside the three point line. In this catagory the winner is:

The Top of the Heap

Arnett Moultrie .582

The Sixers’ top five in this category were:

Moultrie .582

Royal Ivey .559

Thaddeus Young .532

Dorrell Wright .508

Shelvin Mack .500

Mack played in only 4 games last season, so when we throw him out of we end up with

Jason Richardson .487

Of those players, only Moultrie and Young remain on the active roster. How did it come to this? Let’s take a look.

Molutrie, Ivey, Mack and Richardson saw limited minutes for most of the 2012-13 season. Wright was brought in to be a scoring threat and has been considered one of the better shooters in the league over the past five years. Young takes mostly high percentage shots and spends a lot of time playing near the basket as does Moultrie, when he plays.

We already have seen that Young, Moultrie and Wright were three of the team’s most efficient players last season, so it makes sense that they would have high Effective Field Goal numbers.

Molutrie’s Traditional Field Goal % last season was .582. Because he took no 3 point shots at all last season, his shooting % did not need to be adjusted at all.

Royal Ivey has been known as an ok 3pt shooter throughout his career. He did not play much and on higher % shots came out with a .431 shooting %. However, he shot .420 on three pointers, a very high 3pt %. He made 37 three pointers last season, which accounted for 37 more points to add to the 124 points he scored (on 62 makes) inside the 3 point line.

Young shot .538 (509 of 958), but hit only one 3 point shot all season. The good news for him was, he attempted only 8 of them for a .125, which did cause his % to be adjusted down, but not enough to really change his eFG%

Dorell Wright shot .396 (237 of 599), very poor for a good shooter, so how did his adjust up? On 3 pt shots he shot .374 (135 of 361) which again, is a very good number.

Finally, because Mack played in only 4 games we look at Jason Richardson. J-Rich was shooting at a clip of .402 at the time of his injury last season.  He also shot .341, so his was adjusted because he shot a high 3pt.

Who were the bottom five players in eFGP%?

For the purpose of this article, let’s throw out Justin Holliday, Jeremy Pargo, Charles Jenkins and Maalik Wayns who played in a total of 56 games between the four of them.

Here’s what we have:

Nick Young .482

Jrue Holiday .466

Kwame Brown .459

Lavoy Allen .454

Evan Turner .446

Allen had a bad year last season, this is well-documented. Nick Young was a gun who never saw a shot he didn’t like and thought he was a 3pt specialist. Brown sucks, and Holiday had to carry the load of the offense often last season. This leaves us with Evan Turner.

The Bottom of the Heap

Turner was 9th on the team in PER, so it makes sense that his eFG% was low. He shot .419 (441 of 1053) with a .365 3pt % (58 of  159).  We will see as we dive into these stats, Turner is not an effective player. He is still young and can become one, but right now, he has the most glaring weaknesses of any full-time player on the team.

Compare Turner to other starting SF in the East from last season and here is what we see:

Kyle Korver (Hawks) .618

Lebron James (Heat) .603

C.J. Miles (Cavs) .518

Paul Pierce (Celtics) .502

Carmelo Anthony (Knicks) .502

Paul George (Pacers) .491

Kyle Singler (Pistons) .483

Aaron Affalo (Magic) .478

Luol Deng (Bulls) .461

Michael Kidd-Gilchrist (Bobcats) .460

Rudy Gay (Raptors) .449

Gerald Wallace (Nets) .448

Evan Turner (Sixers) .446

Chris Singleton (Wizards) .442

Luc Mbah a Moute (Bucks) .418

Of those players at the bottom, Singleton was a rookie, Wallace’s best days are behind him and Mbah a Moute is a player who left college before he was developed and has struggled to find a foothold in the NBA. Another interesting name near the bottom of that list is Rudy Gay.

Gay played most of last season with the Memphis Grizzlies who employ statistics guru John Hollinger in their front office.  When Gay was traded people didn’t get it, they saw a multi-talented player who has always been one step away from being a star. Gay is a good scorer, but takes and misses too many shots in a game. The Grizzlies’ offense changed once
Gay was gone, and coach Lionel Hollins, who had been resistant to Hollinger’s analysis-driven advice was been replaced after the season. Is Evan Turner soon to be in the same boat as Gay? We’ll see.