The 2021-22 NBA regular season which began on October 19, 2021 has ended on April 10, 2022. As an NBA fan, I would love to use Python programming skill to explore and find some interesting facts from the dataset which contains player stats per game.
Note: A team labeled as “TOT” means the player had played for multiple teams in a regular reason and the row of record will be used as player’s combined stats across all teams.
Below are 10 interesting facts that I found from the dataset using Python programming language.
1. Average age of NBA players in 2021-22 Regular season was 26.
2. Top 10 players with most 3-point field goals per game.
| Rank | Player | Team | 3P | 3PA | 3P% |
| 1 | Stephen Curry | GSW | 4.5 | 11.7 | 0.38 |
| 2 | Fred VanVleet | TOR | 3.7 | 9.9 | 0.377 |
| 3 | Klay Thompson | GSW | 3.6 | 9.3 | 0.385 |
| 4 | Donovan Mitchell | UTA | 3.5 | 9.8 | 0.355 |
| 5 | Kyrie Irving | BRK | 3.4 | 8.2 | 0.418 |
| 6 | Buddy Hield | TOT | 3.2 | 8.8 | 0.366 |
| 7 | Damian Lillard | POR | 3.2 | 9.8 | 0.324 |
| 8 | Lonzo Ball | CHI | 3.1 | 7.4 | 0.423 |
| 9 | Anfernee Simons | POR | 3.1 | 7.8 | 0.405 |
| 10 | Trae Young | ATL | 3.1 | 8 | 0.382 |
3. Top 10 players with most 2-point field goals per game.
| Rank | Player | Team | 2P | 2PA | 2P% |
| 1 | DeMar DeRozan | CHI | 9.5 | 18.3 | 0.520 |
| 2 | Giannis Antetokounmpo | MIL | 9.2 | 15.0 | 0.616 |
| 3 | Nikola Jokić | DEN | 9 | 13.8 | 0.652 |
| 4 | Anthony Davis | LAL | 8.9 | 15.6 | 0.571 |
| 5 | LeBron James | LAL | 8.6 | 13.8 | 0.620 |
| 6 | Ja Morant | MEM | 8.6 | 16.2 | 0.534 |
| 7 | Kevin Durant | BRK | 8.4 | 14.8 | 0.568 |
| 8 | Joel Embiid | PHI | 8.4 | 15.9 | 0.529 |
| 9 | Pascal Siakam | TOR | 7.7 | 14.5 | 0.527 |
| 10 | Deandre Ayton | PHO | 7.5 | 11.7 | 0.642 |
4. Top 10 players with most free-throws per game.
| Rank | Player | Team | 2P | 2PA | 2P% |
| 1 | Joel Embiid | PHI | 9.6 | 11.8 | 0.814 |
| 2 | Giannis Antetokounmpo | MIL | 8.3 | 11.4 | 0.722 |
| 3 | James Harden | TOT | 7.2 | 8.2 | 0.877 |
| 4 | Jimmy Butler | MIA | 6.9 | 8.0 | 0.870 |
| 5 | Kevin Durant | BRK | 6.8 | 7.4 | 0.910 |
| 6 | DeMar DeRozan | CHI | 6.8 | 7.8 | 0.877 |
| 7 | Trae Young | ATL | 6.6 | 7.3 | 0.904 |
| 8 | Shai Gilgeous-Alexander | OKC | 5.9 | 7.2 | 0.810 |
| 9 | Luka Dončić | DAL | 5.6 | 7.5 | 0.744 |
| 10 | Damian Lillard | POR | 5.5 | 6.2 | 0.878 |
5. Top 10 players with most blocks per game.
| Rank | Player | Team | BLK |
| 1 | Myles Turner | IND | 2.8 |
| 2 | Jaren Jackson Jr. | MEM | 2.3 |
| 3 | Anthony Davis | LAL | 2.3 |
| 4 | Robert Williams | BOS | 2.2 |
| 5 | Rudy Gobert | UTA | 2.1 |
| 6 | Mitchell Robinson | NYK | 1.8 |
| 7 | Mo Bamba | ORL | 1.7 |
| 8 | Evan Mobley | CLE | 1.7 |
| 9 | Jakob Poeltl | SAS | 1.7 |
| 10 | Hassan Whiteside | UTA | 1.6 |
6. Top 10 players with most rebounds per game.
| Rank | Player | Team | ORB | DRB | TRB |
| 1 | Rudy Gobert | UTA | 9.5 | 11.0 | 14.7 |
| 2 | Nikola Jokić | DEN | 2.8 | 11.0 | 13.8 |
| 3 | Domantas Sabonis | TOT | 3.2 | 8.9 | 12.1 |
| 4 | Clint Capela | ATL | 3.8 | 8.1 | 11.9 |
| 5 | Joel Embiid | PHI | 2.1 | 9.6 | 11.7 |
| 6 | Giannis Antetokounmpo | MIL | 2.0 | 9.6 | 11.6 |
| 7 | Jonas Valančiūnas | NOP | 3.1 | 8.3 | 11.4 |
| 8 | Jusuf Nurkić | POR | 3.0 | 8.1 | 11.1 |
| 9 | Nikola Vučević | CHI | 1.9 | 9.1 | 11.0 |
| 10 | Jarrett Allen | CLE | 3.4 | 7.3 | 10.8 |
7. Top 10 players with most assists per game.
| Rank | Player | Team | AST |
| 1 | Chris Paul | PHO | 10.8 |
| 2 | James Harden | TOT | 10.3 |
| 3 | Trae Young | ATL | 9.7 |
| 4 | Dejounte Murray | SAS | 9.2 |
| 5 | Luka Dončić | DAL | 8.7 |
| 6 | Darius Garland | CLE | 8.6 |
| 7 | Tyrese Haliburton | TOT | 8.2 |
| 8 | Nikola Jokić | DEN | 7.9 |
| 9 | LaMelo Ball | CHO | 7.6 |
| 10 | Kyle Lowry | MIA | 7.5 |
8. Among the MVP finalists, Nikola Jokić came out on top in 3 out of 5 stats.
It’s definitely fair for Nikola Jokić to be named as a League MVP for 2021-22 regular season even though he had lower average points per game than Joel Embiid and Giannis Antetokounmpo. We have to know that basketball is a team game and it is not just about individual score. Other stats like assists, rebounds and steals are important too for helping a team to win.
| Player | Team | G | TRB | AST | STL | BLK | PTS |
| Nikola Jokić | DEN | 74 | 13.8 | 7.9 | 1.5 | 0.9 | 27.1 |
| Joel Embiid | PHI | 68 | 11.7 | 4.2 | 1.1 | 1.5 | 30.6 |
| Giannis Antetokounmpo | MIL | 67 | 11.6 | 5.8 | 1.1 | 1.4 | 29.9 |
9. There are only 4 players older than 30 with +25 points
| Player | Team | Age | PTS |
| LeBron James | LAL | 37 | 30.3 |
| Kevin Durant | BRK | 33 | 29.9 |
| Stephen Curry | GSW | 33 | 25.5 |
| DeMar DeRozan | CHI | 32 | 27.9 |
10. Clustering Golden State Warriors Players by Performance
I also played with a machine learning algorithm called K-Means Clustering, trying to divide players into clusters based on their similarity.
Image below shows the data points (which have been reduced to 2 dimensions using PCA method) are classified into three different clusters after applying the K-means algorithm with k=3 (determined by Elbow method).
Out of curiosity, I also tried to narrow down the data points to Golden State Warriors players to see which players are in the cluster 0, 1 and 2. And it turns out I am quite happy with the outcome produced by the unsupervised machine learning algorithm.
| Cluster | Players of Golden State Warriors |
| 0 | Stephen Curry, Draymond Green, Kevon Looney and Jordan Poole |
| 1 | Chris Chiozza, Andre Iguodala and Quinndary Weatherspoon |
| 2 | Nemanja Bjelica, Jonathan Kuminga, Damion Lee, Moses Moody, Gary Payton II, Otto Porter Jr., Klay Thompson and Juan Toscano-Anderson |
I hope you like my case study on 2021-22 NBA Regular Season and you can click here to view my data works.
