Devin Vassell Tops an Advanced Statistic Leaderboard

After Devin Vassell forced his way into FSU's rotation toward the end of the 2019 season, FSU fans were excited for what he would bring to the team in the next year. Although he was a raw prospect, especially on the defensive end of the floor, he flashed a unique blend of length, explosiveness, shooting, and instincts. An unheralded prospect with only four other scholarship offers, he has once again demonstrated the genius of Coach Leonard Hamilton's and Coach Cy Young's scouting prowess.

This year, Vassell has managed to come closer to his potential than fans could hope for. He has managed to maintain his lofty per-possession averages despite averaging the second-highest minutes on the team. (All stats courtesy of barttorvik.com)

Season	Offensive Rating	True Shooting%	Defensive Rebound Rate	Turnover Rate	Block%	Steal%
2018-2019	117.8	56.3	12.2	10.3	3.4	3.0
2019-2020	125.3	58.9	16.8	8.3	4.6	2.8

I'll include an appendix at the bottom of the article, but needless to say, those are quite good. In fact, one stat indicates he is a historically good player. See anyone familiar in this tweet?

UPDATE: pretty bad error in my code has been rectified. pic.twitter.com/uoHSpHZJi3
— Bart T🏀rvik (@totally_t_bomb) February 18, 2020

That's right - Vassell finds his career in 19th place since 2008 in the advanced stat Box Score Plus/Minus (BPM). BPM attempts to combine all of a player's box score stats into one all-encompassing statistic by comparing them against the college average and weighting for how important the stat is. Notably, it is a rate statistic, which means simply playing more minutes won't necessarily increase it.

The natural question is "how good of a metric is BPM?" My quick way to answer this question is to look at the top of the leaderboards and see if they pass the sniff test. Examining this, a list headed by Zion Williamson, Anthony Davis, Stephen Curry, Kevin Love, and Karl-Anthony Towns seems legit to me.

Digging a little deeper, Vassell is in 6th place on that list when excluding consensus top-100 recruits, getting beat out by Curry, Delon Wright, Frank Kaminsky, Derrick White, and Jae Crowder. Of those, only Curry and Kaminsky started their careers in Division 1, and Curry's freshman season happened the season before the play-by-play stats are available, so that one isn't counted either.

This season, Vassell leads the ACC in BPM and is 9th in the country.

Stats Appendix

Offensive Rating - How many points a player scores in 100 possessions used. A player "uses" a possession when they take a shot or turn the ball over, and can regain a possession by gathering an offensive rebound.
True Shooting% - A combination shooting percentage that weights Free Throw Shooting, 2-Point Shooting, and 3-Point Shooting according to how many points each is worth.
Defensive Rebound Rate - The percentage of opponent live-ball misses that a player rebounds.
Turnover Rate - The number of turnovers that a player commits in 100 possessions used.
Block% - The estimated number of blocks on opponents per 100 of their shots.
Steal% - The estimated number of steals that a player accrues in 100 possessions on the court.

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