Indiana Pacers: Are we all underestimating Darren Collison?
Darren Collison is no one’s idea of a premier point guard, but that doesn’t change the fact that the Indiana Pacers’ starter is actually quite underrated.
Finding statistical quirks that disproportionately beef up undeserving players has become a cottage industry among NBA fans. It’s a cheap and easy way to make it seem like you’ve unearthed some hidden gem of analytics. Plus, falling down the NBA.com rabbit hole is a good way to kill time when you’re waiting for the bus.
“Did you know that Boban Marjanovic is one of only eight players to have a true shooting percentage above 60 and a usage rate of 28? And that the other seven guys are All-Stars? Free the Boban!”
Most of the time they’re ridiculous (although I have to admit, the Boban thing is kind of cool). Sometimes though, they’re instructive, especially when we’re talking about players who play a lot, have a solid reputation, but don’t seem to ever get the credit they deserve.
The Indiana Pacers seem to have a team full of unheralded dudes this year, but one in particular has fallen way below the radar, even for them.
Not getting his due
Darren Collison has always been more of a placeholder for the next guy in line than anyone’s idea of the answer. Surprisingly, he’s started nearly 70 percent of the games he’s played in over the course of his career, including all but five games this year when he was recently working his way back from a knee injury.
Still, he never appeared on anyone’s list of the top 20 point guards in the league, let alone top 10.
More from Indiana Pacers
- 5 NBA teams on the rise that will surprise everyone in 2023-24
- 5 NBA players facing do-or-die 2023–2024 seasons
- New to the NBA? 5 reasons to join the Pacers’ fandom in 2023-2024
- 5 players who will challenge Victor Wembanyama for Rookie of the Year
- Ranking the 10 championship-less NBA teams by closeness to title
That’s what makes this little nugget so particularly interesting: Of all the players in the NBA, only two have a true shooting percentage over 60, a usage rate over 15, and an assist-to-turnover ratio over three.
One is Darren Collison (duh). The other? Chris Paul.
As with any statistical comparison, the devil is in the details. Chris Paul’s usage rate of 24.9 is 76th in the league; Collison’s is 264th. Clearly, Paul is responsible for way more of his team’s offense than his former understudy could ever dream of.
With that being said, Collison averages 12.7 points and 5.3 assists per game, so it’s not like he doesn’t have the ball in his hands a fair amount. For comparison’s sake, his usage rate is higher than both Draymond Green (17.3) and Lonzo Ball (17.2).
The real fun starts when you get into the other numbers. Not only does Indiana’s starting point guard have a higher true shooing percentage than Paul (61.4 to 60.5), but his assist-to-turnover ratio blows away that of his Rockets counterpart, 4.4 to 3.5.
Better than we think?
This isn’t some half-cocked argument vying for Darren Collison’s place among the elite point guards in the NBA.
He’s not someone that can get into the lane, which is somewhat important skill for ball-handlers these days. He averages a pedestrian 5.7 drives per game. Chris Paul, by comparison, averages 11.8, right around most of the league’s starting guards who don’t possess Russell Westbrook or John Wall levels of athleticism, or the craftiness of a James Harden or DeMar DeRozan. All of those guys are above 15 drives nightly.
In addition, to put his usage rate into perspective, he’s in the 22nd percentile of all NBA point guards where that’s concerned, according to Cleaning the Glass.
So no, he doesn’t do a lot of the things that his starting peers around the league typically bring to the table, but what Collison does, he does very well. As our original stats indicate, he hits a bunch of shots, rarely turns the ball over and distributes it effectively. That also translates to wins. Cleaning the Glass has the Pacers as a 51-win team when Collison is on the court and just a 40-win team when he’s off. Indiana is also a whopping 13-2 when he dishes eight or more assists in a game.
Next: 2017-18 Week 24 NBA Power Rankings
That’s not terribly surprising, given that ball movement generally leads to wins. Still though, it’s a reminder to everyone rushing to look for Collison’s replacement as the Pacers build for the future that maybe point guard is one position they don’t need to worry about.