As most of us know, the neat NBA stats site has lots of cool player tracking data, including how often they pass:

Passing

Unfortunately, the Nuggets rank among the worst in team passes per game. However, the first thing you’ll notice on that page is that sorting by almost any assist related stat puts Ty at or near the top. If we have an elite distributing PG, and yet we’re near the bottom of the league in passing, it must be the backups fault, right? Well, not so fast. This page doesn't break down anything but points generated on a per minute basis, so I took the liberty to do so myself. Here are your Denver Nuggets on a pass per minute basis, with their NBA rank on the left (qualifier: 10MPG. Note that that excludes Green and Nurkic).

So what jumps out at us? First off, our elite distributing PG is a putrid 75th in passes per minute in the NBA – conveniently he’s sandwiched by noted score first guys Kyrie Irving and Isaiah Thomas in this metric, and that puts him somewhere in the late 20’s in terms of starting PG’s. He’s also barely ahead of JR – WTF. Second, outside of him and Nate, the wings we have all rate in the bottom of the league, most notably Afflalo. That makes sense for finishers like Manimal and McGee, but looks odd on Arron, Chandler and Gallo – somewhat notably, Melo passes more on a per minute basis than any wing player on our roster. Finally, Nate ranks fairly low for a PG as you might expect, but given that he’s been used in tandem with Foye handling the ball much of the year, that isn’t as bad as you might think – he’s in the same range as players like Goran Dragic, Nate Wolters, and well ahead of some more notable combo guard types like Jason Terry. PG’s who bring the ball up every possession get a big boost here, and Nate doesn't do that as much as most of his counterparts.

So obviously there’s something going on here – Ty assists with the best of the league but passes like a score first guy. To quantify this, I calculated a rate stat for this effect: points generated per pass. Here are the league leaders:

As you might expect Ty leads the league, but ignoring Rubio for a minute, you’ll quickly note that all other contenders are both 0.05 points per pass behind Ty in this stat and shooting guards. It makes sense if you think about it: a star shooting guard doesn’t bring the ball up the court, so their pass numbers aren’t inflated with the "initiate the offensive set" pass, but they tend to draw a lot of help and therefore easy opportunities for others off the first or second pass. Rubio was doing a similar job to Ty in this early on, but he actually passes more per game in less minutes; he was living in a world where the baby wolves were converting 17.8 assist opportunities a game into 24.2 PPG, whereas Ty is seeing 19.8 assist opportunities a game turn into 23.6 PPG. This may say something about the quality of the opportunities created over a larger sample, but in 5 games it’s likely just noise, and Rubio will see these numbers regress for him when he returns from injury (though he’s still likely as close to Ty as any other PG in this metric).

Finally, let’s look at this metric for the roster as a whole to see if there is anything more we can tease for the team, as opposed to just Ty:

Here we have some interesting stuff. Nate is also very good at converting passes into points, falling in the ~17 range for PG’s league wide. Foye also ranks well here – that shows that while the guys don’t pass a ton, they do create opportunities when they pass. The bigs – including the ones that pass a lot – understandably fall quite a bit here, as we don’t run sets that expect bigs to get assists like, say, the Grizzlies do. Gallo and AAA jump to respectable levels, showing that while they don’t pass a lot, they do pass effectively. Chandler is low here as well.

What does this all mean? I get a couple things out of it.

1. Our low passing numbers as a whole are due in part to Ty Lawson, who appears by both the numbers and the eye test this year to be perhaps in a league of his own in terms of driving and finding a teammate for a direct open look, without a swing pass needed. This results in a lot of 1 pass possessions, and deflates the numbers for the entire team. The backups, for perhaps worse, tend to operate in a similar manner – 1 guy, be it Nate, Foye, or more recently Gallo, tends to create a shot for either themselves or someone else with relatively few passes out of the action (often pick and roll).

2. Nate doesn’t pass as much as he could or perhaps should, but when he does those passes lead to points, putting him firmly in the middle of the pack for backup PG’s in my eyes (on the other end of the spectrum you have guys like Prigioni, who pass a ton to no real effect. Swing it back around, Pablo). We could afford an upgrade here, but most of the options available won’t be much better.

3. Just as big of a piece of the puzzle as either PG is our wing rotation, which as a whole doesn’t pass. This needs closer watching over the coming weeks, as these guys may be forced to make the extra pass against the best defenses in the league. Can they/will they do it? I don’t know. Ty may be the best in the league at getting them looks where they don’t need to, and all of them are capable and have shown a willingness to put the ball on the floor against closeouts, something that often negates the need for a swing pass. Spurs ball is pretty, but if you have the open shot or driving lane off the first pass, it’s good offense to take it – and I think that’s what we’re seeing.