FIBA World Cup stats confirm Doncic's leadership, reveal surprising fact about Team USA / News - Basketnews.com

FIBA World Cup analytics indicate Luka Doncic's impact on Slovenia, especially when the Mavs star decided to pass the ball. On the other hand, Steve Kerr would probably be both angry and pleased to see Team USA's numbers in two important categories.

Credit: FIBA Credit FIBA

The FIBA World Cup is now history, with the winners and losers preparing for the next tournament.

Luka Doncic

Position:SGAge:24Height:201 cmWeight:104 kgBirth place:Ljubljana, SloveniaProfileNewsStatistics

FIBA published some interesting stats and figures made available through the AutoStats Data Report by Stats Perform. The evidence just serves to prove how the tournament's best teams and leading players performed.

Although Dennis Schroder was the best player in points per possession (1.448) after ball screens (pick and rolls), Luka Doncic topped two categories. The Slovenian superstar saw a whopping 92.5% of his jumpers being contested at the World Cup - the highest rate at the event among players who attempted at least 20 jumpers. South Sudan's Carlik Jones came in second with 87.5%, Jordan's Rondae Hollis-Jefferson third with 85.1% and Canada's Shai Gilgeous-Alexander fourth with 83.3%.

But apart from having opponents respect his jump shot, Doncic also confirmed his leading role in the ranks of the Slovenian squad. Overall, 50,7% of his ball touches ended up in him attempting a field goal, whether it was a drive or a shot.

Conversely, only 49.3% of Doncic's touches ended with a pass, the lowest percentage among players with 300+ touches. It's an impressive figure, since 63.6% of touches among all players in the tournament resulted in passes. Of Luka's passes, 29.7% resulted in shots, the highest rate in the tournament among players with 100+ passes. That's an indication of the 24-year-old's unparalleled ability to create space for himself and his teammates.

The other four players that made up the Bottom 5 in terms of ball-passing were Hollis-Jefferson (57.5%), Bogdan Bogdanovic, Tremont Waters and Gilgeous-Alexander.

The downside for Doncic and Slovenia was that the team's star player didn't make a strong impact while playing isolation. While Dennis Schroder topped the list with 1.77 points per iso possession and Austin Reaves followed closely with 1.73, Doncic came in 25th on the list with 1.13.

Making the extra pass is supposed to lead to better shots. But that didn't seem to be Team USA's concern, since the American squad averaged only 114.1 passes (including only front-court, non-out-of-bounds passes) per game, the lowest among all teams. Spain averaged a tournament-high 212.4 passes.

Two more teams that reached the semis weren't too keen on passing the ball either: Canada (7th from bottom, 26th overall) and Germany (8th from bottom, 25th from top).

Yet the USA had the highest-scoring team at the World Cup, averaging 104.5 points, while Spain were tied at No. 11 with New Zealand at 85.8 points per game.

However, the figure that might look the most surprising is linked to Team USA's defensive effort.USA were criticized for their poor defense throughout the tournament. They gave up 110 points to Lithuania in the Second Round, 113 points to Germany in the Semi-Final and 127 points to Canada in the Third-Place Game (which went to overtime).

In those three outings, they allowed their opponents to make a combined 44 of their 102 3-point shot attempts (43.1%). That's a total of 132 points from distance out of the 347 points conceded (38%).

Yet, numbers show that Steve Kerr's players did in fact (try to) play defense. They contested 64.5% (almost two-thirds) of the jumpers they faced in the tournament, the highest rate at the World Cup. Serbia, who reached the Final, ranked 24th after contesting just 50.5% of the jumpers they faced.

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