How do the Brooklyn Nets fare at “hustle” statistics?

From deflections to charges, NBA.com offers a variety of what it calls “hustle” statistics. How did the Brooklyn Nets fare last season?

Long gone are the days of the simple box score of points, rebounds, assists, etc. Modern tracking technology has enabled seemingly everything that happens on a basketball court to be quantified and analyzed. There’s no better representation of this shift than NBA.com’s “hustle” statistics, which include charges, deflections, loose balls recovered and screen assists. What should Brooklyn Nets supporters take away from this statistical treasure trove from last season? Let’s dive in.

(Credit to NBA.com for statistics and NBA on ESPN and NBA for GIFS)

Screen Assists

“Screen assists” are defined as “the number of times an offensive player or team sets a screen for a teammate that directly leads to a made field goal by that teammate.” The Nets were tied for second in the NBA in screen assists per game last season, trailing only the Portland Trail Blazers. Brooklyn was 16th in this category in 2017-18 and 27th the season prior.

Jarrett Allen led the way in this category, averaging 4.7 screen assists per game, 5th in the entire league. DeAndre Jordan was tied for 7th, so his addition should make Brooklyn even more “screen heavy.”

Deflections

NBA.com defines “deflections” as “the number of times a defensive player or team gets his hand on the ball on a non-shot attempt.”

Brooklyn was 24th in deflections per game last season. Although he’s not known for his defensive acumen, Kyrie Irving was 28th in the league in deflections per game at 2.5 (most of any current Nets player). Caris LeVert and Taurean Prince were next in line, both averaging 2.0 per game. For reference, Paul George was 1st in deflections at 3.8 per contest.

Charges Drawn

Irving also had the most charges drawn (13) last season of any current Nets player. LeVert next with four. Ersan Ilyasova was far and away the league leader at 50, with Blake Griffin coming in 2nd with 31. Brooklyn as a whole was 26th in charges drawn at 0.32 per game last season but the 15th season prior at 0.84 per contest.

Contested Shots

“Contested shots” are defined as “the number of times a defensive player or team closes out and raises a hand to contest a shot prior to its release.”

It’s hard to know quite what to make of this statistic. From a defensive perspective, it’s better to contest a shot than to leave a shooter open. The question, however, is whether ranking highly in contested shots is truly a strong indicator of defensive success.

If a team gives up a lot of offensive rebounds for example, then this would lead to more opponent shot attempts and thus more contested shots. In this case, more contested shots would not be positive. Along the same lines, if a defense barely generates any turnovers, this would also lead to more opponent shot attempts and thus more contested shots.

Something of this nature might have been going on with the Brooklyn Nets last season. The team’s defense contested the 2nd most shots per game in 2018-19 (3rd the season prior) at 67.5 but ranked only 15th in defensive net rating. The fact the team was only 23rd in defensive rebounding and 22nd in defensive turnover percentage surely contributed to this disparity in the rankings.

Still, it might bode well moving forward that Brooklyn contested as many shots as it did. The Milwaukee Bucks were 1st in this category last season at 67.5 and also had the #1 defensive rating in the NBA. Three of the top five teams in defensive rating were also top five in contested shots as well.

More analysis is required to determine the extent the two factors are connected. Last season at least, there was a modest correlation between defensive rating ranking and contested shots ranking across the NBA (see below chart).

Just as Jarrett Allen drove Brooklyn’s high screen assists ranking, the same goes for contested shots. Only two players contested more shots than Allen’s 1,264 last season: Rudy Gobert (1,296) and Brook Lopez (1,584).

These statistics are fun to look at, but what are the main takeaways? (1) With the addition of DeAndre Jordan, ball screens should continue to be a significant part of the Nets offense. (2) With his deflections and drawn charges, maybe Kyrie Irving can provide more on defense than his reputation would suggest. (3) As Brooklyn strives for improvement defensively, its high contested shots ranking may bode well.

What “hustle” statistic do you think is the most interesting? Let us know in the poll below!