As lovers of fantasy basketball, we often have eyes trained to identify the valuable box score stats. But that’s not to say that we don’t appreciate the nuances of the game of basketball. Many of the most important players on an NBA roster provide help in areas that don’t get credited. Today we’re going to give credit where it is due.

The NBA just recently started tracking box out statistics (and defense box scores), which made me nerd out in embarrassing fashion. Box outs ensure that the opposing team has less of an opportunity to get to key rebounds, but often this may lead to a teammate getting the credit for a rebound while another player is performing the box out (Helloooooo Westbrook). I got to thinking about how a hustle stat like box outs leads directly to a key fantasy category in rebounds. Looking at players who perform well in box outs could help determine potential at creating rebounds, even if the player changed teams. For example, Enes Kanter, who got moved to the New York Knicks this season, is second in the NBA in box outs. He now is top 10 in the league for per-game rebounds, a vast improvement from last season.  The predictive nature of statistics strikes again!

I also began to draw connections between other hustle stats that the NBA had already been curating. Contested shots lead to increased potential at blocks, and deflections lead to increased potential at steals. I added these to the analysis of hustle stats. Let’s see what narratives are being created through these hustle stats.

NBA Hustle Stats: Hustle Beats Talent When Talent Doesn’t Hustle

For each category of hustle stat, I created a list of the top 15 players and then a list of the top 15 players for the corresponding box score stat. Then I looked at the corresponding box score stat leaders from the previous season. Consistency is key in fantasy basketball, and you want to rely on players that can perform from season to season. I color coded the charts to show connections between the various lists. (See key). Let’s start with box outs and rebounds.

From looking at the chart, some general questions come to mind. If the player is a rebound leader but not a box out leader, then who on their team boxes out for them? For a player like Karl-Anthony Towns, he actually still leads his team in box outs, but he shares the responsibility with another big man (Taj Gibson), therefore splitting the numbers. This is a fairly common occurrence among teams. It is an interesting note to make that even with the addition of Gibson to the Timberwolves, Towns still retains the same level of rebounding. The second question: If the player is a box out leader but not a rebound leader, does this mean they are leaking potential for the future or are they just a bad rebounder? For some of the 30+ veteran players like Robin Lopez and Marcin Gortat, it seems to be a matter of them knowing their role and relinquishing the rebound to their teammates who can move the ball quicker back into transition. For relatively younger players like 20-year-old John Collins or even the 28-year-old Ed Davis, I believe it means potential. Davis had been showing much better rebounding numbers (8.3 per game over the past month) despite playing with another big in Jusuf Nurkic. John Collins has incredible bounce and seems to be a lynchpin in the tanking Hawks future so he could be up to double digit rebound averages next season.

Another key point to notice about rebounds is that Bam Adebayo and Kelly Olynyk have been taking some of Hassan Whiteside’s box outs (and his minutes, to be frank), and this has resulted in a slip in his monster rebounding. Lastly, I believe a team like the Rockets shows to be very healthy in sharing box outs between its big men (Ryan Anderson, Clint Capela, PJ Tucker, Nene, Tarik Black), meaning that even if a primary box out player is injured, it won’t impact the primary rebounder’s numbers (Capela). For fantasy basketball, it is important to target the players highlighted in yellow, for they show consistency as a top rebounder, despite changes to their team.

For the other two hustle stats, we are more fortunate since they have been tracked in previous seasons. It adds another layer of analysis. Blocks is a little trickier because it’s likely the least correlated of the hustle stats, just because of the difficult nature of blocking shots. However, one can see the consistency in the names across the list. Defensive stalwarts make their mark in this arena, and it’s hard to move up to the top of the league. The changes here usually happen due to injury or the introduction of a defensive big (ex. Taj Gibson and Domantas Sabonis)

Our last category is deflections and it is a more volatile category. The turnover of leaders from one season to the next is quick. Deflections and steals is mostly dominated by quick handed guards and 3&D specialists. But also it surprisingly includes Andre Drummond! Deflections is interesting because sometimes it leads to a steal being credited to a teammate who might end up with the deflected block. So teams with strong defense will end up having a greater number of steals. This wraps up our quick analysis on hustle stats and what they can affect. Feel free to hit me up on Twitter for more discussion!

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