Jan 31

Kirk Goldsberry, both on his own blog and at ESPN.com little brother Grantland, creates images with the goal of "examining the NBA through spatial and visual analytics." Basically he makes it easier to understand statistics, via graphics, that have a relationship to specific spots on the court. You've probably seen his recent work on Grantland creating images that display who the best shooters and worst shooters are in the NBA by location.

Today on his own CourtVisions blog, Goldsberry examines the "Mayors" of the NBA, which he defines as "which players shoot the most at different spots." Damian Lillard and LaMarcus Aldridge are featured prominently, as you can see on the graphic.


As you can see, Aldridge is truly the "mayor" of the midrange shot, to which Goldsberry notes ...

No NBA player shoots as much in the mid-range than Aldridge. He shoots so much in the mid-range that he is the mayor of two adjacent sections on the chart. Although he only shoots about 41% from these zones, his ability to get the kind of volume he gets there is still impressive. Aldridge narrowly beat out Kobe and KG for the top spots in these two zones.

This probably doesn't surprise you if you saw how coolly and confidently Aldridge took the mid-range jumper to win the game Tuesday against the Mavericks. Some might argue Aldridge spends too much time in the mid-range, but hearing that both Kobe and KG were right there with him might make some reconsider.

As for Lillard, Goldsberry writes:

The potential rookie of the year is the most frequent shooter in the zone where point guards shoot most of their 3′s. As of January 22nd, Lillard had attempted 126 shots from this spot, but he’s only making about 37% of them.

I don't know, I'll take 37 percent from three any day. As a comparison, Clippers point guard Chris Paul is shooting an NBA-worst (according to Goldsberry's "worst shooters" graphic) 27 percent from the top of the arc.