Why starting Brice Johnson makes UNC’s offense more efficient

In any other season and for any other team, losing a player of James Michael McAdoo’s caliber would be a death knell for a college basketball team. McAdoo averaged 14.2 points and 6.8 rebounds last season for the North Carolina Tar Heels and played a big role in the team’s successes and failures over the past two seasons. McAdoo opted to enter the NBA Draft a year early and is now fighting for a roster spot on the Golden State Warriors. Losing a guy like McAdoo is a big blow, but that blow is lessened when your team has a backup that is very capable of replacing his production and is possibly more talented than the incumbent starter from last season.

That is the case for the Tar Heels, who have Brice Johnson ready to break out as a star forward in the 2014-15 season. Johnson averaged 10.1 points, 6.1 boards and 1.3 blocks last season. All that production is really remarkable when you consider that he played under 20 minutes per game, while McAdoo played over 30 a game in the 2013-14 season.

Johnson is a much more efficient player than McAdoo and a much better scorer. I’m not ready to say that Johnson is better, because McAdoo provided a lot of leadership, stocks (steals and blocks), and intangibles like hustle plays to the Tar Heels that Johnson hasn’t yet proven that he can bring to the table. But Johnson is ready to break out and average 14 or 15 points and eight rebounds a game for the Tar Heels playing with the extra minutes left behind from McAdoo’s departure.

Offensively, Johnson is an upgrade over McAdoo because of his high scoring output without using a lot of possessions. Last year, McAdoo averaged 14.2 points while Johnson averaged 10.3 points a game. Purely looking at just the points per game outlook is very misleading when judging the impact of the two players. McAdoo played around 30 minutes a game last season, while Johnson played 20 minutes a game. Accounting for minutes played, Johnson leapfrogs over McAdoo in the scoring column. Johnson averaged 21.2 points scored per 40 minutes, while McAdoo averaged 18.9 points per 40 minutes, via sports-reference.com.

Deeping even deeper, Johnson again proves to be a better player than McAdoo offensively. Per kenpom.com, Johnson laps McAdoo in Offensive Rating (ORtg). Johnson had a 114.3 ORtg, while McAdoo had a 103.9 score. For context, Marcus Paige had a 120.1 ORtg (good) and Nate Britt had a 88.6 ORtg (bad). Offensive Rating is a “measure of personal offensive efficiency,” according to kenpom.com, which means that Johnson was much more efficient that McAdoo with his minutes. While the stat is very hard to calculate, we can pinpoint a specific reason for Johnson’s higher number. Johnson used less possessions than McAdoo, but did more with the possessions he did use.

This chart, shown above, shows part of the reason why Johnson’s efficiency numbers are so high. (If you want more information about the chart and the definitions of stats used, go to the bottom of the post.) He used less possessions than McAdoo (%Poss), but took more shots in those possessions (%Shots), and also made a higher number of them (2PFGP).

Now that McAdoo is gone, all the starters minutes will be going to Brice Johnson. This will lead to more minutes and shots for Johnson, which in turn will lead to a more efficient, effective offense. Johnson will take more shots with increased minutes and make more of them than McAdoo did.

I would like to see Johnson become the focal point of the Tar Heels offense and take up around 26 or 27% of Carolina’s possessions. Establishing him in the post early will force the defense to collapse into the paint more, giving Marcus Paige and North Carolina’s improved three point shooting more open looks.

James Michael McAdoo was a very good player for North Carolina, putting up good numbers while adding in loads of hustle points and plays. But McAdoo’s post up game was not the greatest…

and now with Brice Johnson playing more minutes in his place, we should see a much more efficient, effective North Carolina offensive attack develop.

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I will go more in depth to explain some of the numbers in the chart. I already covered Offensive Rating, so onto %Poss. The definition of %Poss is
A measure of personal possessions used while the player is on the court. Simply assigns credit or blame to a player when his actions end a possession, either by making a shot, missing a shot that isn’t rebounded by the offense, or committing a turnover.
%Shots is
This is the percentage of a team’s shots taken, while the player is on the court. This is a pretty good proxy for %Poss, and significantly easier to calculate. It is PlayerFGA / (%Min * TeamFGA).
Both definitions from kenpom.com.
I used two point field goal percentage because McAdoo was 0-7 from three point land last year, and that would have thrown off the stat.