NBA 2K15 Badge Analysis: Lob City Finisher

[Real2KInsider]

http://thereal2kinsider.blogspot.com...-lob-city.html

Tables don't convert, videos removed, it's easier to follow the link for the full article, but I'll still post the data here.

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Two weeks ago I speculated that some badges in NBA 2K15 were given out too freely. Unfortunately, I lacked the necessary data to back my theory. Enter NBASavant, which offers specific shot type data.

I decided to start with "Lob City Finisher", a badge that enhances alley-oop ability. There are 66 NBA players with this badge, which seems to me like a very high number. Alley-oops are a spectacular and otherwise RARE basketball play that only a handful of players are able to replicate on a regular basis. Running a search on alley-oops, the results were at times surprising, but ultimately, in a word, disappointing.

Data is accurate as of 2/17/15, courtesy of NBASavant and Basketball-Reference

GOLD Lob City Finisher (26 Players)
DeAndre Jordan (LAC): 81-98 FG (73 Dunks)
Tyson Chandler (DAL): 69-85 FG (63 Dunks)
Andre Drummond (DET): 56-80 FG (48 Dunks)
Dwight Howard (HOU): 46-50 FG (40 Dunks)
Anthony Davis (NOP): 41-49 FG (34 Dunks)
Tristan Thompson (CLE): 32-39 FG (26 Dunks)
Mason Plumlee (BRK): 29-33 FG (21 Dunks)
Hassan Whiteside (MIA): 19-21 FG (17 Dunks) - 489 minutes
Kenneth Faried (DEN): 14-17 FG (10 Dunks)
**Paul George (IND): 10-10 FG (10 Dunks)** (2014 Season)
Terrence Ross (TOR): 9-12 FG (8 Dunks)
Gerald Green (PHX): 8-10 FG (5 Dunks)
K.J. McDaniels (PHI): 8-8 FG (8 Dunks)
JaVale McGee (DEN): 8-8 FG (7 Dunks) - 195 minutes
Blake Griffin (LAC): 7-9 FG (3 Dunks) - 1800 minutes
J.J. Hickson (DEN): 6-9 FG (5 Dunks)
LaMarcus Aldridge (POR): 6-9 FG (3 Dunks)
Carmelo Anthony (NYK): 6-7 FG (3 Dunks)
Andrew Wiggins (MIN): 5-6 FG (5 Dunks)
Zach LaVine (MIN): 4-4 FG (3 Dunks)
Aaron Gordon (ORL): 4-4 FG (3 Dunks)
Derrick Williams (SAC): 3-3 FG (3 Dunks)
Jeremy Evans (UTA): 1-1 FG (1 Dunk)
Eric Bledsoe (PHX): 1-1 FG (0 Dunks)
Trevor Ariza (HOU): 0-0 FG
Ronald Roberts (FA): 0-0 FG

It's easy to make a case that only a handful of these players are actually elite Alley-Oop finishers. Nobody in their right mind is ever going to confuse Tyson Chandler with Carmelo Anthony as alley-oop finishers (yet 2K begs to differ). Trevor Ariza hasn't even attempted an Alley this year (you can even watch him laugh off his dunking badges in a recent 2KTV episode that discussed his badges). What is most disturbing about these badges is that they were recently "re-evaluated" and it's abundantly clear that data was not factored into those evaluations.

Blake Griffin is an interesting case, as he is one half of duo that inspired the "Lob City" moniker, and certainly not a player anyone would expect to show poorly here. However, Blake's dunk rate has declined hard each of the past two seasons, as the development of his offensive game takes him further away from the basket.

TABLE

It is abundantly clear that even though Blake is still dunking at a reasonably high rate, he has all but abandoned alley-oops. Is this an effort to keep him healthier? Has his athletic ability declined some? Or has he merely ceded all of his half-court attempts to DeAndre Jordan, who still leads the league by a large margin? I think it's some combination of the three, but what is clear is that so long as Blake has abandoned the alley-oop, so should we too abandon his Gold badge until he returns to his previously bonkers production in this field.

SILVER Lob City Finisher (22 Players)
Brandan Wright (PHX): 32-32 FG (28 Dunks)
Timofey Mozgov (CLE): 22-25 FG (18 Dunks)
Ben McLemore (SAC): 13-14 FG (9 Dunks)
Kevin Durant (OKC): 9-9 FG (6 Dunks)
Thomas Robinson (POR): 8-8 FG (7 Dunks)
LeBron James (CLE): 7-8 FG (5 Dunks)
Michael Kidd-Gilchrist (CHA) 5-6 FG (5 Dunks)
Victor Oladipo (ORL): 5-6 FG (4 Dunks)
Gerald Henderson (CHA): 4-5 FG (3 Dunks)
Rudy Gay (SAC): 4-4 FG (3 Dunks)
Andre Iguodala (GSW): 3-3 FG (3 Dunks)
Taj Gibson (CHI): 2-3 FG (2 Dunks)
DeMar DeRozan (TOR): 2-2 FG (2 Dunks)
Harrison Barnes (GSW): 2-2 FG (2 Dunks)
Ryan Hollins (SAC): 2-2 FG (2 Dunks)
John Wall (WAS): 2-2 FG (1 Dunk)
Josh Smith (HOU): 1-1 FG (1 Dunk)
Jerami Grant (PHI): 1-1 FG (1 Dunk)
Corey Brewer (HOU): 1-1 FG (0 Dunks)
Russell Westbrook (OKC): 1-1 FG (0 Dunks)
Nate Robinson (FA): 0-0 FG
James Michael McAdoo (GSW): 0-0 FG

Even fewer players here are prolific alley-oop finishers. LeBron James is 30-years old now and his alley-oop rate has declined quite a bit (30 alley dunks last year). Most of these players won't even get to 5 Alley Dunks by the end of the season.

VIDEO

Looking at how Westbrook gets his dunks they are all blowing by his man and rising up over the defense - an impressive feat for an NBA point guard. We don't need to sugar coat his ability anymore than that. Westbrook has 12 alley-dunks in the last 5 years - that's 2.4 per season, and certainly not worthy of a badge that allows him to get two per game.

And no, I don't give a damn what he did in a no-defense All-Star game.

BRONZE Lob City Finisher (18 Players)
Nerlens Noel (PHI): 15-21 FG (9 Dunks)
Jonas Valanciunas (TOR): 13-14 FG (6 Dunks)
Miles Plumlee (PHX): 11-13 FG (10 Dunks)
Jeff Green (MEM): 9-12 FG (9 Dunks)
Alex Len (PHX): 8-9 FG (7 Dunks)
Bismack Biyombo (CHA): 7-7 FG (7 Dunks)
Giannis Antetokounmpo (MIL): 6-7 FG (6 Dunks)
Ed Davis (LAL): 6-7 FG (5 Dunks)
Wesley Matthews (POR): 3-4 FG (0 Dunks)
Robin Lopez (POR): 3-3 FG (1 Dunk)
Mike Scott (ATL): 2-4 FG (1 Dunk)
Maurice Harkless (ORL): 2-3 FG (2 Dunks)
Cleanthony Early (NYK): 1-2 FG (1 Dunk)
Nene (WAS): 1-1 FG (0 Dunks)
Evan Turner (BOS): 1-1 FG (0 Dunks)
Cody Zeller (CHA): 0-1 FG
Anthony Bennett (MIN): 0-0 FG
Julius Randle (LAL): 0-0 FG

The top eight have 59 dunks between them. The bottom ten have 5 dunks. I don't know what kind of research went into these evaluations but it doesn't cut the mustard.

NONE (Min 5 FGM)
Andrew Bogut (GSW): 21-30 FG (17 Dunks)
Rudy Gobert (UTA): 19-22 FG (17 Dunks)
Chris Andersen (MIA): 18-21 FG (13 Dunks)
Al Horford (ATL): 18-20 FG (9 Dunks)
Jimmy Butler (CHI): 13-18 FG (5 Dunks)
Marcin Gortat (WAS): 12-14 FG (6 Dunks)
Amir Johnson (TOR): 10-12 FG (5 Dunks)
John Henson (MIL): 8-10 FG (8 Dunks)
Samuel Dalembert (FA): 8-9 FG (5 Dunks)
Nikola Vucevic (ORL): 8-9 FG (3 Dunks)
Kevin Love (CLE): 8-9 FG (3 Dunks)
Andre Roberson (OKC): 8-8 FG (7 Dunks)
Brook Lopez (BRK): 6-8 FG (2 Dunks)
Tim Duncan (SAS): 6-6 FG (0 Dunks)
Jerryd Bayless (MIL): 6-6 FG (5 Dunks)
DeWayne Dedmon (ORL): 6-6 FG (5 Dunks)
Thaddeus Young (MIN): 5-8 FG (1 Dunk)
Meyers Leonard (POR): 5-7 FG (3 Dunks)
Otto Porter (WAS): 5-6 FG (5 Dunks)
Pau Gasol (CHI): 5-5 FG (3 Dunks)
DeMarcus Cousins (SAS): 5-5 FG (0 Dunks)

Most of these players are without a doubt better than the Silver/Bronze players (though there is a also a greater abundance of non-dunkers like Love, Duncan, or Cousins).

TABLE

Birdman seems like a no-brainer for this badge, especially given his performance last season. His alley-oop rate is actually trending upward as he gets older.

Jerryd Bayless' five alley-oop dunks is actually an impressive feat...

TABLE

Contrary to what NBA 2K would have us believe, alley-oop dunks from guards are uncommon, with only a total of 19 recorded by Point Guards this year.

TABLE

A grand total of 19 were recorded last season, so this season's PG production is actually slightly up (which we can probably credit to Zach LaVine).

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Now, I know what you're thinking. I'm a kill joy. It's just a video game, and dunks are entertaining and fun. All of this a true. You know what else is fun? BASKETBALL. Post moves, passing, and jump shots are not balanced in NBA 2K15 because dunkers continue to have an advantage when it comes to triggering dunk animations, and badges are a cause of this.

The best solution that can be provided is making adjustments to ratings and badges. Otherwise you'll have games like this.

VIDEO

There were 32 dunks in this Online game I played two weeks ago. 17 for my opponent, including 13 for Blake Griffin (refer to Blake's season total for a chuckle). That's on 5 minute quarters with one OT period, on Superstar Simulation setting. In many instances my opponent was able to trigger a ridiculous alley-oop that had no prayer of being stopped, simply due to overpowered ratings and badges.

Based on the data I've provided and my understanding of the game mechanics, these are my personal changes to the Lob City Finisher badges.

GOLD (12): DeAndre Jordan, Tyson Chandler, Andre Drummond, Dwight Howard, Anthony Davis, Brandan Wright, Tristan Thompson, Timofey Mozgov, Mason Plumlee, Hassan Whiteside, Chris Andersen, JaVale McGee

SILVER (11): Rudy Gobert, Nerlens Noel, Kenneth Faried, Ben McLemore, Kevin Durant, John Henson, Thomas Robinson, Bismack Biyombo, Aaron Gordon, Derrick Williams, Jeremy Evans

BRONZE (23): Al Horford, Andrew Bogut, Jonas Valanciunas, Jimmy Butler, Marcin Gortat, Miles Plumlee, Paul George, Jeff Green, Terrence Ross, Gerald Green, K.J. McDaniels, Andre Roberson, Alex Len, Giannis Antetokounmpo, LeBron James, Blake Griffin, J.J. Hickson, Andrew Wiggins, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, Jerryd Bayless, Victor Oladipo, Zach LaVine, Ryan Hollins

REMOVED (29): Ed Davis, LaMarcus Aldridge, Carmelo Anthony, Rudy Gay, Gerald Henderson, Andre Iguodala, Wesley Matthews, Robin Lopez, Harrison Barnes, DeMar DeRozan, Maurice Harkless, Taj Gibson, John Wall, Josh Smith, Jerami Grant, Mike Scott, Cleanthony Early, Russell Westbrook, Nene, Evan Turner, Eric Bledsoe, Corey Brewer, Trevor Ariza, Nate Robinson, Cody Zeller, Anthony Bennett, Julius Randle, James Michael McAdoo, Ronald Roberts

I've slashed in half the number of Gold and Silver players, which places a premium highlight on the players who are notable in this regard. I removed the badge from 28 players, yet I still have 45 Total players with the badge, due to a few additions. I don't expect 2K will ever adopt my methods and fix the Online/MyTeam metagame, but the hope of balanced NBA 2K15 gameplay in an Online League using a custom roster is certainly within reach.

[LionsFanNJ]

Thanks for these posts. Love the breakdown of the badge

[NDAlum]

Maybe the folks at 2K are just trying to be "buddy buddy" with the NBA players and hook them up with better badges to make them feel good?

[Sundown]

Nicely done. I can barely get Bogut to dunk when he actually finishes alley oops seemingly as much or more than any other Warrior.

Does removal of a badge completely disable the ability alley oop? That would be disappointing for the players that can highlight oop but don't do it often for whatever reason.

Also basing badges merely on dunks performed isn't really reflective of a player's ability when the team is going away from that play or don't have the personnel to complete it. For instance, Westbrook might not oop as much as his badge indicates, but OKC doesn't have anyone that sets him up for oops either. Now if Chris Paul was on that team, we might see it a bit more. So maybe the difficulty of completing oops without a player with the corresponding oop pass badge and/or very high pass rating should be much more difficult.

Same can be said of say Iguodala, who spends a lot of minutes anchoring an offensively challenged lineup with weak spacing as a secondary ball handler. If he spent more time next to Curry, I would expect the oop attempts to go up. I certainly except him to still throw it down with some flair when set up right.

[BigT34]

Great stuff as always.

LOL that Carmelo gets any kind of lob-city badge--he basically stopped dunking around age 27. He dunks on less than 3% of his total FGA now.

If you comb NBASavant (great site), you see that in 2013-2014, only 8 teams ATTEMPTED more than 1 alley-oop per game. Only 6 teams averaged >1 successful alley oop per game.

One issue here is that we as humans are not very good at estimating actual frequencies. If we assume that players will not attempt alley-oop plays unless the circumstances favor a reasonably high degree of success, then you get into a situation where a ton of things must go right. If you model that properly in a video game, you'll get a ton of people attempting alley oops all the time with CP3/Jordan/Griffin and complaining that they don't work nearly often enough and the game is broken.

There's a huge disconnect between what we THINK real basketball looks like and what real basketball actually looks like, and to some degree, most people don't want a perfectly realistic basketball game, no matter how much they say they do.

I think it was Leftos who pointed out that they crunched data on NBA injuries and found that injuries are ~2x as common as they are in NBA 2K, and that most people, devs included, would have no enjoyment of MyLeague/MyGM if injuries were truly realistic.

[Taer]

Quote: Originally Posted by BigT34

Great stuff as always. ... most people don't want a perfectly realistic basketball game, no matter how much they say they do. I think it was Leftos who pointed out that they crunched data on NBA injuries and found that injuries are ~2x as common as they are in NBA 2K, and that most people, devs included, would have no enjoyment of MyLeague/MyGM if injuries were truly realistic.

Related to this are two other videogaming realities:

• Many of the playbooks ingame do not reflect the NBA reality. DaCzar is doing great at combing through playbooks and not only updating them but in tweaking the plays to run more realistically. He isn't done yet and this is a problem, especially when considering players like Griffin - his game and the plays being called for him are evolving. Has the 2K playbook for the Clippers? Not yet. So should we have Griffin ala 2013 or 2015 if the Clipper playbook is calling plays of 2013?

• There is a tendency within the 2k team to take a "trend" prevalent within the NBA and turn it into a gimmick go-to. The most recent example is the flop. There is flopping within the NBA but 2k has taken it to the next level, even redesigning controls that everyone actually liked to enable more of a gimmicky flop. After two or three years of trying to get everyone to accept this type of thing, they move on to a new trend to gimmick in.

I think these too realistic to be fun issues would be lessened if other aspects of the game were redone and re-implemented. As an example. the number of injuries would not be as much of an issue if the ai handled rotations, time-outs and minute allocations better. If the ai were handling these things better then more injuries would be palatable to more people.

[iboughtshoes]

On point, as always. Thanks for sharing.

[Yesh2kdone]

Isn't this about abilty rather than numbers attempted?

Take Blake, just because he doesn't finish oops as frequently as he once did, does that mean he's lost the ability to do so? Besides which, if myplayers were lobbing up oops all the time, and no one was finishing them, or constantly laying them up, then the community would moan about that.