Which former Cat would help this year's team the most?
If you could put a UK alum from the past 10 season on this team in place of anyone, who would make the biggest impact?
One of my highlights of UK game day is my regular appearance on the WLXG 1300 AM pregame show. During last Tuesday’s pregame show, WLXG’s Angelo Carriero asked a great question…which former Wildcat did I think would make the biggest difference if put on this team? I always like a good challenge, so I decided to see if I could come up with a way to test this using real data.
Here are the ground rules I came up with:
I can take any Wildcat from the past 10 seasons and put them in place of any current Wildcat who plays at least 15 min per game. That meant I would swap out one of: Olivier Sarr, Keion Brooks, Devin Askew, Davion Mintz, Brandon Boston, or Isaiah Jackson.
For any former player who played multiple years, I assume you get the stats from their final year at Kentucky
I’ll assume whatever former Cat I swap in will play the same amount of time (measured in possessions), but I’ll measure how much they upgrade the offense and defense on a per-possession basis and multiply it times those possessions
I’ll use the following data on offense: points per possession (per Synergy), usage rate (per KenPom), and the points per possession scored by each current UK player’s teammates when that player is on the court
I’ll use the following data on defense: points allowed per possession (per Synergy), defensive usage rate (per Synergy, equal to possessions where they were the primary defender), and points allowed by UK when the player is on the floor
Here’s how I calculated the offensive impact of a switch:
I replaced the current Cat’s usage rate and points per possession with the former Cat’s usage rate and points per possession; for example, instead of Devin Askew scoring 0.704 pts per possession and 16.6% usage rate, Kentucky now gets Tyler Ulis’ 0.993 pts per possession and 24.4% usage rate
The usage rate for the rest of the team goes down by a corresponding amount; in the example above, it drops from 83.4% to 75.5%. The points per possession for the rest of UK’s roster are assumed to stay the same when switching Askew out for Ulis; this season, that’s been 0.955.
After crunching the numbers, swapping Tyler Ulis in for Devin Askew improves Kentucky by about .05 points per offensive possession. This is because Ulis scores more effectively than Askew or Askew’s teammates, and would use many more possessions than Askew. Askew has played 919 possessions, so that equates to almost 47 points of improvement
For defensive impact, it’s similar:
I replaced the current Cat’s defensive usage rate and points allowed per possessions with the former’s. These stats are from Synergy and only include possessions where that player was the primary defender. For example, Devin Askew is credited as the defender on 17.2% of defensive possessions and allows 0.747 points per possession, and Tyler Ulis was the defender on 14.4% and allowed 0.701 points per possession.
Similar to the offensive impact, the change in usage rate is applied to the rest of the team at their points allowed per possession. With Askew in the game, his teammates have allowed 1.029 points per possession on their possessions.
After crunching those numbers, swapping Tyler Ulis in for Devin Askew would make Kentucky about -.001 points worse per defensive possession. Thisis because Ulis was the primary defender on fewer possessions, meaning the rest of UK’s team would be more involved, and they have allowed a much higher number of points per possession than either Ulis or Askew. Across 919 possessions, UK would allow about 1 more points total.
Adding the offensive and defensive impact, swapping Tyler Ulis in for Devin Askew would make UK better by 46 points (all on the offensive end of the court). That’s about 2.5 points per game Askew has played. That’s a good impact, but it’s not the best I found in my analysis.
Anthony Davis is the easy answer…
Instead of running the numbers on every single former Wildcat, I picked 14 former standout Wildcats for my comparisons:
John Wall
Demarcus Cousins
Brandon Knight
Anthony Davis
Doron Lamb
Karl-Anthony Towns
Tyler Ulis
Jamal Murray
De’Aaron Fox
Malik Monk
Bam Adebayo
PJ Washington
Nick Richards
Immanuel Quickley
I only looked st swaps of players who could reasonably play the same position; no swapping Anthony Davis for Devin Askew, for example. So, what swap came up the best?
Going in, my assumption was that swapping Anthony Davis in was going to be the best option. Anthony Davis is one of the best college basketball players of all time, and Kentucky’s frontline players have not been very good. Lo and behold, swapping Anthony Davis in for Olivier Sarr is a big positive, worth 3.9 points per game! This is because:
Davis is a much better offensive player than Sarr; in fact, Davis’ 1.197 points per possession is the highest of any ex-Cat in my analysis. This is worth almost 38 total points across Sarr’s 783 possessions, and would be even more if Davis had used more offensive possessions (just 19%, vs 23% for Sarr)
Davis is also a much better defender than Sarr, allowing 0.742 pts per possession vs 1.016 for Sarr. Sarr allows the highest points per possession of any current Cat, so replacing his defensive possessions is a big help. This is worth 34 points, as Davis was a primary defender about twice as often as Sarr is.
Overall, replacing Olivier Sarr with Anthony Davis is worth 72 points, or 4 points per game that Sarr has played. That is a huge number, and as I kept trying out different swaps I couldn’t beat it…until I did, with a surprising one.
…but not quite #1
Brandon Boston has not had a very good season, to put it kindly. To put it bluntly, he plays poorly and plays a lot. Synergy rates him in the 38th percentile on offense and 28th percentile on defense in the entire country. He has played more possessions than any one on Kentucky’s team this season (976 total). It would be very beneficial if Kentucky could swap him out for a player who was good on both offense and defense, and had high usage rates in both areas.
Every ex-Wildcat in my sample scored more points per possession than Boston and allowed fewer, so anyone I swapped in would be some sort of positive impact. Malik Monk and Jamal Murray were great scorers, but not enough of a defensive upgrade. Tyler Ulis and John Wall had great defensive numbers, but weren’t as efficient offensively as other former Cats. The surprising best choice has great offensive and defensive efficiency numbers in his sophomore year despite only starting 20 games. He is now a bit of a rookie sensation for the New York Knicks….Immanuel Quickley!
It’s surprising, but the numbers make a compelling case:
Quickley had a 22% usage rate as a sophomore and scored 1.075 points per possession; no ex-Cat scored more points per possessions with a usage rate above 20.2%
Quickley also allowed only 0.705 points per possession as the primary defender, and was the defender on 16% of his possessions played. Only John Wall and De’Aaron Fox defended a higher % of possessions as a backcourt player, and neither allowed as low of a points per possession number
When I crunched the numbers, Quickley-for-Boston was by far the best swap for Kentucky. The Wildcats would be 5.1 points per game better with that swap. Considering that UK has lost 6 games by 5 or fewer points, that swap could be the difference between an 11-7 UK headed to the NCAA Tournament after a brutal schedule and the current 5-13 debacle. If Kentucky’s KenPom rating improved by 5.1 points per game, they would be somewhere around 25th instead of their current 62nd ranking.
Brandon Boston committed to Kentucky on his official visit in July 2019. We were so innocent then, living without face masks or social distancing! On that day most Kentucky fans would have swapped Brandon Boston in for Immanuel Quickley in a heartbeat, as Quickley had a subpar freshman year and Boston seemed like the next great Wildcat scorer. 18 months later, Kentucky fans now wish they could have had one more year of IQ in place of the struggling freshman Boston.
This year’s freshman disappointment could become next year’s sophomore sensation and eventual NBA player. Next year’s eagerly awaited recruit could become next year’s on-court disappointment due to the learning curve at the college level. In 18 months, will Kentucky fans be fondly remembering the sophomore year of Brandon Boston when he fulfilled the promise everyone saw in him? It’s probably more likely than you might think.