Hey, I'm back! We got a ton of a great feedback on my investigation into the true value of Avery Bradley (which you can read HERE). I thought that this should become a series with the features selected by you guys via a poll.

Robert Covington is many things: Lord Covington, RoCo, Rock, Rob, undrafted player out of Tennessee State. Earlier in the summer, some of you might remember a post I made called "The Robert Covington Love Affair," in which I questioned the assumption that he's automatically worth resigning for $18M/year. I thought since the jury was split on him, he'd make a great subject of my next deep-dive, in which I go into as open-minded as possible. I tried to mirror the structure of the AB case study for continuity. This article will focus on his 2016-17 season.

Let's start off basic:

Of all the minutes the Sixers played during the 2016-17 regular season, Covington was on the floor for 53% of them. While he was on the floor, the Sixers were outscored by the opponent by 157 points. Hypothetically, if Covington played the entire game (48 minutes), the Sixers would, on average, be 3.6 points worse than their opponent.

Covington emerged as a pivotal role player for the Sixers in his second season (2014-15). For his career, well over half of his shot attempts come from behind the arc (61%). You may look at his stats, and wonder: "How good of a shooter is Robert Covington?"

Let's take a look at his split stats from last season:

As we can see, he started off miserably shooting just 28.7% from three over the first three months (yuck!). Over the last three months, he regressed closer to the mean, connecting on 37.3% of his three-point attempts.

His career average from 3-point land is 35.4%, coming in just under league average over that span. But this has come on volume far exceeding league average from wings -- where he's jacked up approximately 8.1 3PAs per 36 minutes over the last three seasons. Of the 109 players who played more than 2000 minutes last year, Covington's 8.1 3PA/36min would rank 7th most -- last year he shot 7.0 3PA/36, the lowest of his career (he ranked T-14 3PA).

His defensive BPM (while noisy), has improved each of the last three seasons, culminating in him finishing 4th in the Defensive Player of the Year voting last year -- despite missing the All-NBA Defensive Teams.

These are the Sixers lineups that garnered over 45 minutes played together last season. Despite the Sixers only collecting 28 wins on the year, the top 3 most-used lineups that Covington appears in were a net positive. You may wonder, "Why are his three most-frequented lineups positive but he's a negative overall?" The answer is two words: Jahlil Okafor. The most used lineup that contains Covington and Okafor has a -0.15 differential (yikes!) The second which contains both, replaces Ilyasova (alias: Arsen Ilyasov) for Saric, and has a -0.20 differential (bigger yikes!) So, no Covington wasn't to blame for his negative overall differential.

As we take a look at Covington's Production by Position - we notice he played 85% of his minutes at SF and approximately the other 15% at PF. When he was playing the PF, Covington had a NET 48-MIN PER Differential that was 4.5 points better than when he played the SF. This doesn't surprise me, as I will explain when I get to the film study section. As we see here, he was able to score more effectively as a 4, and played a much bigger role as a weakside rim-protector.

We now look to some of his miscellaneous stats. These might not mean much as standalone numbers, but I've looked through enough of these to understand the context, my conclusions: he's mediocre at drawing fouls, he's not an effective passer, he's a tremendous rebounder for a hybrid 3/4, not terrific block numbers overall, but much more effective when playing the 4, and has a penchant for clumsy turnovers whether it's via bad passes or dribbling aimlessly.

These do a decent job of encapsulating miscellaneous events on the court, but I think I can do better. Through a little elbow-grease and API scraping, I put together a spreadsheet that has every relevant statistic of players from 1996-Present, including the player tracking stats that have been captured over the last few seasons.

The statistic I created captures the effectiveness of contributions that don't hit the box score. For those interested in what it contains and how it's calculated:

Per 36: (Screen Assists / 2.25) + (Deflections * 1.25) + (Inverse Defensive FG% plus-minus /1.5) + Total: (Drawn Charges/10) + (Loose Balls Recovered / 82) + (Contested Shots/10) + (Hockey Assists * 1.5) + (RPM / 3)

I used regression analysis to determine the weights of each predictor variable's correlation to a blended formula containing VORP and WS/48, while simultaneously normalizing the data.

In layman's terms, I looked at each variable (e.g screen assists) relationship with winning basketball, then determined how much each factor should be worth, adjusting for varying units (per 36, totals, %'s).

WOW! So in my "Uncaptured Box-Score Statistic," Covington only ranks behind Draymond Green (who blows away the field), Anthony Davis, Steph Curry, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Rudy Gobert, and Kevin Durant. Each of these guys made their way onto the list in different ways. This is how Covington made the list: He accumulates the most deflections in the league (4.81 per 36), which is an extremely valuable trait, his DFG% +/- is a stellar -3.4%, meaning player's shoot 3.4% worse than expected when he contests their shots, has a solid RPM, and is a decent screen-setter.

3&D Worksheet

The general principle of this worksheet is to use defensive win shares as the Y-axis and a composite 3-Point rating (3PA/36 * 3p%) for the X-axis. The reason Covington and LeBron James share a block is due to the fact that their dots are almost on top of each other -- this chart describes the relative value of different player archetypes. Given the plot points, I think it does a pretty good job: Draymond Green is a defensive stopper, Kyle Korver is a sharpshooter, Paul George/Kawhi Leonard are 3&D Stars, and poor Kenneth Faried is just ineffective -- but perhaps that's not his role anyway (or maybe he just sucks). If you're interested in where a certain player falls, ask in the comments!

Openness

The next study I did was juxtaposing how open the average 3-pointer a certain player took, their conversion rates, figuring out if there's a correlation, and then decide if they should shoot more/less.

So of the top 25 players who attempted the most 3-Pointers per game, Covington was the one guy who my model said should "shoot less." Then we glance to the left and see, he ranked in the 13th-percentile in openness on shots! It would not be ludicrous to predict his Openness percentile was drastically better next season.

The natural question is: "Where would he rank if you removed the first three months?" He would land in the neutral category of "shot the right volume."

Film Study

His ability to disrupt passing lanes, ball-handlers, and players driving to the rack jumps off the screen. He displays uncanny timing coupled with long arms to wreak havoc on the offense in the half-court.

jumps off the screen. He displays to wreak havoc on the offense in the half-court.

Routinely disrupts players attempting to shoot-off-the dribble , once again showing great anticipation -- can get a little too physical which is conducive to getting fouls called on him.

, once again showing great anticipation -- can get a which is conducive to on him.

When he attacks closeouts, tends to be a semi-outta-control bowling ball towards the rim, frequently charging into defenders or losing control of the ball.

bowling ball towards the rim, frequently charging into defenders or losing control of the ball.

Can be overly deliberate in his decision-making on the perimeter, holding the ball for a few seconds before deciding to attack, pass, or shoot.

on the perimeter, holding the ball for a few seconds before deciding to attack, pass, or shoot.

Doesn't understand the concept of spacing in transition , frequently assuming the same positions in the lane or on the perimeter as teammates.

, frequently assuming the same positions in the lane or on the perimeter as teammates.

Calls for the ball a comical amount, it's funny how often he raises his arms while someone else has the ball

it's funny how often he raises his arms while someone else has the ball

An opportunistic player who makes well-timed cuts, lone-wolf offensive rebounds, and end-of-shot-clock bailouts. Uses his strength and length to occupy good positions on the court.

Uses his strength and length to occupy good positions on the court.

A very capable finisher with his off-hand, but rarely uses it while driving. It seems to be a theme within his game that he's capable of doing all these things: tremendous outlet passes, putbacks, back cuts, deep 3's, using off-hand -- but he just rarely taps into his full arsenal.

but he just rarely taps into his full arsenal.

A much more effective three-pointer shooter uses a 1-2 stepping into it with rhythm as opposed to stationary.

as opposed to stationary.

Perhaps it's recency or confirmation bias but seems to be an absurdly clutch player . In his first few years, I found that he would flounder in the last minute, tossing careless turnovers, but over the last 2 seasons, he has exceeded the number of clutch plays you'd expect from an equal player by three times.

. In his first few years, I found that he would flounder in the last minute, tossing careless turnovers, but over the last 2 seasons, he has exceeded the number of clutch plays you'd expect from an equal player by three times.

Over the past two seasons, has shown the ability to be a good help defender, providing weakside rim protection, the ability to defend in the post, and strip opposing big men if they try to face up. This is why I think he's better suited guarding 4's on defense, but this shouldn't be extrapolated to the offensive end, where he's better in a spot-up role on the wing/corner. He played 74% of his minutes in 2015-16 at the PF, and once agained performed statistically better in that time than he did at 3, where he -10.0 Net-48 PER differential against opposing SF's, where 23% of his minutes came at.