In this series, I'm going to look at players you think are good but aren't. For those who don't know where the title comes from, watch this crazy guy do NFL highlights (NSFW).
David Jones scored 27 goals this year, his first full year in the NHL. He's big, he's from North Vancouver, and plays on a hapless underdog in Colorado. What's not to like?
Let me tell you why that guy can hold my dick.
David Jones scored 27 goals!
Well, yes he did. He also had a less flattering 18 assists. More importantly for us, he had a miserable 67.3 fantasy points on the year. And his monthly splits suggest a very streaky player.
Streaky? All players have streaks - why is Jones being singled out?
If you had David Jones in November or February, you must have thought you were a genius. He had 29 fantasy points between those two months - a 'whopping' (read: just above waiver fodder) 1.2 points per game in those heady days. If you had him in the other 4-1/2 months of the year, his 0.7 points per game average must have been demoralizing, as well as damaging to your 'win' column.
Wait, how does a guy who gets 27 goals get 67 fantasy points?
I already mentioned that he only had 18 assists. In addition, he was a slight minus on the year and only had 153 shots. Plus, he wasn't a PP demon although he did get time there (20% of his points game from the PP).
Then we value shots too much! He scored 27 goals!!
Yeah, which means he shot at a 17% clip, or 3 points higher than Kovalchuk's career percentage (the highest career shooting % in the modern era). If he had shot at league average (~8%), he would have scored 13 goals. Even if we split the difference and call it a 20 goal season, the guy wouldn't have even made it into the top 25 free agents, never mind being a roster player. His 27 goals are not repeatable unless he gets a lot more ice time and a lot more shots. Counting his shots allows year-to-year stability in league scoring and maintains a divide between players who score 27 goals at a reasonable and repeatable 10% shooting, and those that have lucky seasons like David Jones.
Ha! This was his first full year in the NHL, so he probably will get more ice time next year!
It was his first full year, but he was 26 when it started and it was his 4th year playing more than 20 games in the show. In the three years previous he's had a torn ACL and two shoulder surgeries (same shoulder). So he hasn't even been developing somewhere. He's just been rehabbing for three years.
He played for the Coquitlam Express in the early 2000's, so it's hard not to like the guy. But any player who scores considerably more goals than assists (and does it with an elevated shooting percentage) is unlikely to repeat his success year to year. And honestly, his success was very modest. Still, Jones was held by at least 3 teams during the year, and was coveted by many more. I wouldn't be surprised to hear if some managers considered him a potential keeper.
That's why David Jones can hold my dick.
What do you think of the argument that shooting percentage is not that useful in judging a player like him, because he is likely to score his goals from in close? If you were to compare him to other garbage goal scorers, his numbers might be more sustainable. For example, the career leader in shooting percentage as per hockey-reference.com is Craig "wore pads on his back and the backs of his legs because of the beating he took in front of the net" Simpson, at 23.66%(!). Other career leaders include players like Charlie Simmer (22.34%); Paul MacLean (21.41%); and Rick Middleton (19.69%). The active leaders are Alex Tanguay (18.78% - does not fit the pattern); Andrew Brunette (17.77%); Mark Parrish (17.32%); Tomas Holmstrom (16.67%); Brendan Morrow (15.66%) - all of whom fit the pattern very well. I will admit to not watching a lot of David Jones, and I will also admit that I think your analysis of him is probably accurate. But I think shooting percentage perhaps has a contextual element.
ReplyDeleteUnrelated to my point here, how fucking good was Mike Bossy. He has the fourth highest shooting percentage (21.18%) of all time, but he was an outside shooter most of the time. Just really amazing. That dynasty (the Islanders I mean) featured a number of great players who never receive their full due.
Yeah, there's some great work on that around the internet. Have a look at these cool maps for a great taste of that exact phenomenon:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.arcticicehockey.com/2010/7/30/1594614/where-players-spend-their-time-in
The AVs had the best team shooting position of any team two years ago (when they won a ton of games unexpectedly). David Jones had 26% shooting that year. Brandon Yip had 17% or something. I agree that different players and different systems change the expected rate of scoring. But I suppose I could re-title this piece 'David Jones is not Andrew Brunette' because I don't believe that his rate of scoring is sustainable.
Brunette consistently gets more assists than goals (as almost all players do), despite his high shooting %. He has 250 goals to 450 assists over his career. To me, when a player is frequently getting to high scoring areas, he gets points, not just goals. When a player has a higher than expected number of shots go in but he doesn't get a similar rise in his assist totals, it means he was lucky, not standing right next to the net.
Another season, another chance to be wrong.
As it happens, a good discussion of high % shooters with reference to Ryan Jones claiming he'll always have a high % because of where he scores from.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.mc79hockey.com/?p=3820
Great read.
That's funny, I read that too, and I didn't think it proved what Dellow thought it did. It proved that not all of the people who have high shooting percentages can keep it up (we knew most don't) and I thought he decisively proved that Ryan Jones does not really shoot from that close (average distance - 30 feet!) But I still feel like the jury is out here a little bit. Am I reading the article wrong?
ReplyDeleteYeah, I don't think it proves anything about David Jones, but I think it's a decent piece debunking the narrative of the high % scorer. Even Ryan Jones himself trots it out in his interview while my first thought was, 'didn't he score all his goals on rush plays from the top of the circles?' Sure enough...
ReplyDeleteRegardless of Ryan Jones, I think the context still speaks to that high % phenomenon as being as much luck as anything.
Here is a good piece arguing that shot location is only 27% of the cause of high shooting %, while 54% is unacccounted for (Gabe Desjardins calls it luck).
http://www.arcticicehockey.com/2010/5/24/1482659/a-tale-of-two-talents-one-true-and
And here is a good piece on team shooting % in 2010 vs 2011.
http://www.arcticicehockey.com/2011/3/19/2060418/are-there-certain-teams-that-are-more-likely-to-get-a-scoring-chance
Finally, here is a bit more advanced piece on shot quality. It finds that shot quality is meaningful on the margins (for a select group of teams), but is not meaningful for the majority of teams. Moreover, shot quality is 4 to 5 times less powerful at explaining goal differential than is shot differential. Still, the Avs from 2010 are one the teams for whom shot quality is very meaningful.
http://puckprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=540
My overall feelings are this: David Jones has had a high shooting % for two years in a row. In 2010, the Avs are shown to have impressive shot quality. In 2011, that disappears. We can see the difference in their win column. We can also see it in David Jones's %, as it drops 9 points between 2010 and 2011. So at the very least, David Jones is not driving his own shooting position (like an Andrew Brunette).
There are very few fowards who consistently score more goals than assists, and they're all chuckers. Brett Hull, Peter Bondra, Mike Gartner, Ilya Kovalchuk, Rich Nash. These guys shoot between 3-4 times a game for their careers. David Jones shot roughly 2 times per game this year. That makes his only real comp Mike Knuble. Knuble scores roughly as many goals and assists with only 2 shots per game (and is big, goes to the net, and skates in mud just like David Jones). If David Jones is Mike Knuble, he'll have a long and productive career. But he won't be a fantasy keeper. He'll be waiver wire fodder.