Who Are the Cavs’ Biggest Hustlers?

Hustle is often underrated. Who hustles the most for the Cleveland Cavaliers?

Some players in the NBA make an impact on the game in obvious ways, through actions like scoring and assisting. But for other players, their impact comes from “intangibles,” like hustling hard.

“Intangibles” are plays and actions that we use our eyes, rather than statistics, to assess and judge. But now, some of these intangibles have become tangible, thanks to NBA’s expanding statistical analysis. One type of intangible not previously documented is a player’s hustle, which the NBA is now tracking using SportVU data in the 2016 postseason.

“Hustle stats evaluate player performances that affect outcomes but cannot be found in traditional box scores. Hustle and activity stats take offensive and defensive analysis to the next level.” -NBA.com/Stats

According to the NBA hustle statistics page, “hustle stats evaluate player performances that affect outcomes but cannot be found in traditional box scores. Hustle and activity stats take offensive and defensive analysis to the next level.”

In addition to blocks and steals, the hustle stats track: ball deflections (when a defensive player gets his hand on the ball on a non-shot attempt); charges drawn by a defensive player; loose balls recovered (when a player,on offense or defense, gains sole possession of a live ball not in the control of either team); screen assists (when an offensive player sets a screen for a teammate that directly leads to a made field goal by that teammate); and contested shots on two- and three-pointers (when a player closes out and raises a hand to contest a shot prior to its release).

So now that we understand what the hustle stats are, which Cavaliers players hustle the most? You may be surprised by some of the answers but not by others. This postseason,the leader in deflections is Kyrie Irving with 2.6 per game, followed by J.R. Smith, Iman Shumpert and Kevin Love. The leader in charges drawn is LeBron James with 0.19 per game, followed by Dahntay Jones, Tristan Thompson and Kyrie.

But after these two categories, Tristan Thompson leads the team in almost every other hustle stat. He leads in loose balls recovered with 0.9 per game, followed by Love, LeBron and Kyrie and he leads in screen assists with 3 per game, followed by Love, Timofey Mozgov (in his limited action) and LeBron.

Contested shots are broken down into overall shots, two-pointers and three-pointers. Thompson leads the team in overall contested shots with 11.1 per game, followed by Love, LeBron and Kyrie, and in contested two-point shots with 8.3 per game, followed by Love, Channing Frye and Kyrie.

But Love leads the team in contested three-pointers with 3.2 per game, followed by Kyrie, Tristan and J.R. Smith.

From this data, we can see that Tristan Thompson and Kevin Love dominate the hustle stats. Tristan Thompson is the leader in four of the seven categories and is top-3 in two more, six overall.

Kevin Love is the leader in one of the categories, runner-up in four of them and falls in the top-4 of one more.

Kyrie Irving appears to be the third biggest hustler on the Cavs, leading one category and falling in the top-4 of five categories, while LeBron James is the fourth biggest hustler falling in the top-4 in four categories.

It’s no surprise here that Tristan Thompson is the leading hustler for the Cavs, given his 5 year $82 million deal to mostly hustle. However, some people may be surprised to see Kevin Love so high on the list, given the criticism he receives for his lack of aggressiveness, engagement and overall effort, especially on the defensive end and off the ball.

These hustle stats were only released for the postseason, so to see how much players hustled in the regular season you have to depend on blocks, steals and rebounds. Mozgov was actually the leader in blocks throughout the year, followed by LeBron and Thompson. LeBron led the team in steals, followed by Kyrie and J.R. Smith. And Love led in overall rebounding (as well as in defensive rebounding, specifically), followed by Thompson (who led in offensive rebounding, specifically) and then LeBron.

These stats did not change too much during the playoffs, with the leaders in steals and offensive and defensive rebounding staying the same. But during the playoffs, LeBron passed Thompson as second most in overall rebounding and LeBron led the team in blocks, followed by Thompson and Kyrie.

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Furthermore, while these new stats allow us to see which individuals lead the Cavs in hustle, they also allows us to see where the Cavs rank as a team among the hustlers. The Cavs ranked 11th in deflections (San Antonio ranked 1st), 9th in charges drawn (Golden State ranked 1st), as well as 11th in loose balls recovered and 10th in screen assists (L.A. Clippers ranked 1st in both). The Cavs also ranked second to last in contested shots overall (Atlanta ranked 1st), 14th in contested two-point shots (San Antonio ranked 1st) and 8th in contested three-pointers (Detroit ranked 1st).

It’s important, however, to keep in mind that the stats are somewhat clouded by varying factors. For example, the Cavaliers have only played 16 total playoff games to this point in time. But the Toronto Raptors played 20 games, while Detroit and Atlanta only played 4 total.

How important are hustle stats to you? Do the results surprise you?