SB Nation • 10 min read

Kyshawn George Was Good at AmeriCup, and I’m the Nerd Who Double-Checked

Okay everyone, I got it — Kyshawn George played in the FIBA AmeriCup tournament. He made the all-tournament team, and the consensus view is that he played well.

Regular readers know that at this point,

I will uncritically accept the consensus view and look no further. It would be highly unlikely for me to do something rash like pull up stats, crunch some numbers and compare his statistical performance with his competitors. So, just how great will George be? Will he post an all-time great season or merely an epic one?

Editor’s Note: This is the opposite of what Kevin does.

Yeah, I ran some numbers. And, the numbers suggest George was good though not really dominant for Team Canada this summer. This may sound like I want to inspire mass depression, but good is…well…good!

Sure, the level of competition wasn’t elite. There were some good players in the tournament, but AmeriCup was not a place where high level NBA players went to play for their countries — this competition was home to role players and guys who struggled to stick.

I mean, the Team USA roster included someone named Andrew Andrews, which a) sounds like one of the made-up names I used for solo shooting games I played when I was a kid, or b) sounds like someone in witness protection.

I kid — As a senior at University of Washington, Andrews was first team All-Pac-12 and led the conference in scoring. He’s made a living playing in international leagues the past nine years. In 2022, he was MVP of the EuroCup Eight Finals — the first round of the EuroCup playoffs where teams that finished third to sixth place in their regular season play a single-elimination tournament for a spot in the quarterfinals. That’s a pretty good resume.

Anyway, this is not to dismiss what George did. He played well against the competition that was available to him. Which is good!

Let’s talk numbers. Note: PPA (short for Player Production Average) is my all-around production metric. In PPA, average is 100 and higher is better. The sample size is so small (George totaled 155 minutes) that I didn’t apply the usual calculations for role or defensive impact. Also, PPA scores are for this tournament only — they’re a measure of relative dominance in this tournament, this year.

USG% — 23.3%
ORTG — 115 | tournament average (TA): 104.3 — ortg is short for offensive rating, which is points produced per individual possession x 100
eFG% — 63.5% | TA: 50.2%
2pt% — 57.7% | TA: 52.2%
3pt% — 46.2% | TA: 31.6% — 26 total attempts
FT% — 78.9% | TA: 71.5%
Points — 25.1 (per 48 minutes) | TA: 18.9
Rebounds — 7.7 | TA: 8.4
Assists — 5.9 | TA: 4.7
Steals — 2.2 | TA: 1.8
Blocks — 0.9 | TA: 1.1
Turnovers — 4.6 | TA: 2.7
Fouls — 4.6 | TA: 4.1
Ast/tov ratio — 1.3 | TA: 1.7
PPA: 148 | TA: 100

Compared to the tournament average, George shot better from everywhere and produced more points, assists and steals. He also committed more turnovers and fouled more. His assists-to-turnover ratio was a subpar 1.3, but his overall offensive efficiency was +11.1 points per 100 possessions relative to the AmeriCup average.

His PPA was 148, which is solidly above average for the tournament. Based on the numbers, I don’t think that merited all-tournament honors, but it’s still good.

Okay, let’s take a look at tournament leaders in various categories — minimum 4 games and 50 minutes played.