Written by – Mike Driggs  

I put high values on assists.

Someone can have a quiet game, or even a forgettable one, but with one perfect pass, they can alter ultimate outcome (take for instance James Tavernier against Falkirk when he lofted it to Billy King’s gracious head).

In my opinion, it’s always been tough to VISUALIZE this. Sure we see XX amount of assists next to someone’s name, but how can we SEE that better?  And how can we SEE who they are passing to?

My work since mid 2015 has been trying to help The Rangers Report visualize data.   My goal creation charts have had a few revisions, and I am happy with where they are. This was my next project, and boy it was a doozy.

I used a standard chord graph, found a way to “split” it apart, and then had to do a lot of coding to get it to work right.

What you have below is what has emerged from my limited coding skills, and very recent plunge into the Visual Analytics world.

If you visit the link below, the graph is interactive – you can hover and click over players and it will show who they are assisting to, or who they are assisted by.

There are some things I am working on to spruce it up even more (some pop up data for instance), but this “look” and “feel” is what I was craving.

The thicker the lines, the more assists to that certain player.

I’ve also included “Unassited”, “Freekick” and “Penalty” assists. They’re not traditional “assist” categories, but I feel it helps visualize the data.

This graph will be updated with each game played, so keep an eye on it!

Any comments or suggestions, please let me know…

You can see the interactive version of this graph here

Follow Mike Driggs on Twitter @RSCPDX