In basketball, more than any other sport, hustle matters. Whether it's diving for that loose ball or racing down the length of the court to block a layup that would win a playoff game (a la Tayshawn Prince blocking Reggie Miller in what turned out to be his final game as a pro), players need to hustle. Maybe it's just stepping in the way of the driving forward in order to take a charge. The point is that hustle matters. However, there is no statistic to decipher who is the best hustler - and no, we're not talking about Cassidy.
This is where I come in; over the past month I have been tinkering with a formula for how to tell who is hustling, and who is pulling a Carmelo Anthony, sitting on the wings and waiting for the ball. I call the formula Hustology, or the study of hustle. It involves a very simple math equation, but before we get there, let's decide what constitutes hustle.
Offensive rebounding is the most important type of hustle that a forward can perform. Not only does it help your team keep the ball away from the opponent, but you are giving your team a second chance to score. In Hustology, you count offensive rebounds twice.
However, this gives forwards an unfair advantage in Hustology, and Hustology is all about keeping a level playing field. So in the interest of fairness, I, the Director of Hustology, have decided that steals will also be doubled. Steals are the best way to tell whether a guard is hustling or not. Whether it is pestering an opponent until he loses control of the ball or jumping into the passing lane, the steal is the ultimate in hustle when it comes to guard play.
If you can find a player who grabs offensive rebounds and is a master in thievery, well then, that's solid gold, baby.
Defensive rebounds are an important stat in determining who is hustling and who is dogging it. Whether you need to block your opponent or out-jump someone three inches taller than you, rebounding requires several watts of hustle. Unlike offensive rebounds, you should be in a position to grab the board, so defensive rebounding counts only once.
Besides steals and rebounds, another way to tell if a player is hustling to analyze his number of free throw attempts. The more times a player gets to the charity stripe, the more times he has drove to the lane and risked his body in order to score points for the team. If you're a big man and getting to the free-throw line, that means you outworked your opponent to get to the line... advantage hustle.
The last part of the Hustology equation is blocked shots. A blocked shot helps your team regain possession of the ball without the other team scoring, and gives your team momentum while deflating your opponent. That's a hustle.
Now come the negatives. While being a hustler means giving 100 percent for 100 percent of the game, it also means playing in control of yourself. The final piece of the Hustology equation is subtracting each turnover that a player commits.
After all of the addition and subtraction you take this number and divide it by how many minutes you played in the game, and you have the hustle stat. The hustle stat is not a percentage, however, it is a rating. When you write out the equation on paper it should look like: O.rebounds(2)+steals(2)+D.rebounds+blocks+free-throw attempts - turnovers/ minutes played
After admittedly minimal research, I have discovered that Michael Beasley, a freshman forward from Kansas State is not only one of the top freshmen in the nation, not only one of the top players in the nation, but also breaks the bank on the Hustle Scale, clocking in with a rating of 85. Tyler Hansbrough of North Carolina is second in the rankings with a tidy 80.
But the reason I came up with this stat was to see where Bulls forward Calvin Betts stands in the hustle category. The man gives 110 percent of himself every time he's on the court. We don't know where that extra 10 percent came from, but it may be a part of Vadim Fedotov's torn ACL. For the season, Betts' rating is 54, which is not horrible. Yet it is not as good as I thought it would be.
If you only look at his conference stats, where Betts has proven himself to be a force in the paint, Betts' ranking improves dramatically to a whopping 92, which tops Beasley's season total of 85.
When I first came up with this stat, the idea was that it would reward the unsung hero who doesn't get the credit that he deserves. However, the more research that was done, the more it was proven that the players who hustle the most are also typically the best players on the court. Hence, Hansbrough, college basketball's best player this year, is second in hustle, whereas Beasley is number one.
While I don't expect to be getting any calls from NBA General Managers anytime soon, I dare you to tell me that this doesn't make sense. Besides, if Bill Simmons can write an entire column on ChemistiLarryBirdwasactualythegreatesthustlereverandLenBiaswouldhavebeenifhedidn'tdiecology, or whatever he called it, I think the world is ready for Hustology.
Photo: Courtesy of Laron Fomby
