NBA analyst Zach Lowe thinks about basketball differently. On Friday, he posed a simple question to his followers on X (formerly Twitter): why does Phoenix Suns guard Bradley Beal need to tie his shoes so much?

In doing so, Lowe may have inspired an all-new advanced statistic.

"Why are Bradley Beal's shoes coming untied multiple times per game?" Lowe wrote on X. "Some working member of the media needs to investigate. He has to lead the league in in-game shoe-tying instances per 36 minutes."

Todd Whitehead, an analyst for Synergy Sports, did some digging after Lowe's bat signal. Synergy specializes in basketball analytics and data tracking. Their analysts and automated camera tracking systems monitor and catalog player actions in 75,000 basketball games each year. From there, Synergy can provide analysis on play types, player behavior and specific game situations.

Whitehead knew he could gather data to answer Lowe's inquiry, finding that Beal does in fact lead the NBA in time spent tying his shoes this season.

To find find the league's leading shoe-tiers, Whitehead used tracking data to find instances in which players' thumbs were near their ankles.

"If you're curious, I'm using skeletal player-tracking data to look for instances where each player's thumbs were near one of his ankles," Whitehead wrote on his X account. "Which would be the case if he were tying his shoes (or adjusting his socks, I guess)."

Advanced stats have really gone places, haven't they? Next thing you know there will be a season-long award for the player who keeps their shoes tied for the most amount of time. And for Beal and the most frequent shoe-tying offenders? Maybe a new pair of sneakers is on the docket.

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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Bradley Beal Spends More Time Tying His Shoes Than Anyone in NBA, Niche Stat Shows.