Why did I lose? Why did I win? In order to answer to these 2 equivalent questions, we will design a ‘Scoring Points Differential’ Boxscore. Its data will be derived from traditional Boxscore and Play-by-play. ‘Scoring Points Differential’ Boxscore will illustrate the points differential between the two teams in FTs, 2pts, 3pts, Points from Turnovers and Points after Offensive Rebounds (2nd chance points). The sum of all these categories will produce the difference in game score. Hence, in this new Boxscore traditional stats will be replaced with the evaluation of each Team’s advantage or disadvantage (why did I win or why did lose).
So, actually we are producing Team points according to this formula:
Team Points = (Pts from Turnovers) + (Pts from OffRB) + (Rest Points from FTs + 2pts + 3pts)
Using as example the FIBA World 2019 game Spain-Serbia 81-69 , the traditional Boxscore of the game is:
While, the ‘Scoring Points Differential’ Boxscore will be:
From the table above we can see that the main difference and the key aspect to win is the productivity on 3pts of Spain compared to Serbia.
This ‘Scoring Points Differential’ Boxscore it’s not enough to have the full accurate picture of the game; among other things we will also have to count the actual number of each shots (FTs, 2pts, 3pts), which are not depicted.
Warning: In current stats (euroleagθe, nba.stats, basketball-reference), Points from Turnovers are also including points from Offensive Rebounds (2nd chance points). For example, when we have a turnover which leads to a missed shot, an offensive rebound and then a make, this points are going to be counted in the ‘points from turnovers’. Though, in above analysis the term ‘points from turnovers’ will not count 2nd chance points. We don’t want to count twice the points after an Offensive Rebound.
So, Points after Offensive Rebound will only be counted to OffRB, and not to Turnovers.
Having as input Play-by-play, we:
(1) Will calculate stats and points after Offensive Rebounds
(2) Will calculate stats and points from Turnovers (without counting the cases where after a Turnover, and an Offensive Rebound we have a make)
(3) Then from the total stats we subtract above aggregation, in order to calculate stats and points for the Rest Possessions
This is the table that will be generated for the FIBA World Cup Game Spain-Serbia:
(4) Finally, we can see the evaluation of each Team, if we subtract points from each Category, ie:
(Team A Points) – (Team B Points),
per FT/2pt/3pt/ at OffRBs, Turnovers and ‘Rest Possessions’.
‘Scoring Points Differential’ Boxscore can be highlighted with text or bold to illustrate the positive or negative numbers for better (TV) illustration: