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Top 5 Scorers Who Are Hurting Their Teams

By Adrian Lawhorn

Mar 19, 2017; Toronto, Ontario, CAN; Toronto Raptors guard DeMar DeRozan (10) controls the ball as Indiana Pacers guard Jeff Teague (44) defends during the third quarter in a game at Air Canada Centre. The Toronto Raptors won 116-91. Mandatory Credit: Nick Turchiaro-USA TODAY Sports
Mar 19, 2017; Toronto, Ontario, CAN; Toronto Raptors guard DeMar DeRozan (10) controls the ball as Indiana Pacers guard Jeff Teague (44) defends during the third quarter in a game at Air Canada Centre. The Toronto Raptors won 116-91. Mandatory Credit: Nick Turchiaro-USA TODAY Sports /
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Mar 19, 2017; Toronto, Ontario, CAN; Toronto Raptors guard DeMar DeRozan (10) controls the ball as Indiana Pacers guard Jeff Teague (44) defends during the third quarter in a game at Air Canada Centre. The Toronto Raptors won 116-91. Mandatory Credit: Nick Turchiaro-USA TODAY Sports
Mar 19, 2017; Toronto, Ontario, CAN; Toronto Raptors guard DeMar DeRozan (10) controls the ball as Indiana Pacers guard Jeff Teague (44) defends during the third quarter in a game at Air Canada Centre. The Toronto Raptors won 116-91. Mandatory Credit: Nick Turchiaro-USA TODAY Sports /

In the past, the definition of an elite NBA player had a great deal to do with offensive production. With more sophisticated metrics now available, we can see that some big-time scorers do not help their teams win games.

Scoring has always been the flashiest part of sports, and that is certainly the case where NBA basketball is concerned.

Fans and media are typically mesmerized by individual players who can light up the scoreboard, and when box score statistics were considered the measure of a great player, no one received more hype than those who could post huge scoring numbers.

As NBA analytics became more advanced, questions about high-scoring players began to arise — could it be that some of the players who are thought of as superstars are not as effective as we previously thought?

Can the performance of a highly-productive scorer actually be counter to winning basketball?

Also See: 50 Greatest Players of the 1990s

In the modern age of the NBA, we have been able to confirm in a tangible way that there are many nuances to what goes into winning, and offensive prowess is just one of many.

Chances are if a player excels at “filling it up” but does little else to contribute to his team’s success, he ultimately may not be helping his team at all.

We are going to examine the top five scorers in the NBA this season who are actually dragging their teams down. The way we are going to define how effective a player is at contributing to winning is by utilizing each player’s on court/off court numbers.

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This statistic is calculated by looking at a team’s scoring margin against their opponents while a player is in the game, then doing that same calculation while that particular player is on the bench.

Particularly when there is a great deal of data available (teams have played roughly 70 games each at this point in the season), patterns start to emerge that show what impact a player actually has on his team — good or bad.

Scoring averages will be extracted from NBA.com, while on court/off court statistics will be supplied courtesy of 82games.com. We will also discuss a metric called NBA Real Plus-Minus, which is one of the best measures we have to rate the defense of individual players (per ESPN).

We’ve identified five players, all averaging 18.9 points per game or above, who have a negative on court/off court value for the entire 2016-17 season to date.

Let’s take a look at these players and try to make some sense of why in these instances, a single player scoring in bunches isn’t translating into team victories.