Here is a solution accomplished by (1) converting factor to numeric and adding an offset, (2) manually specifying y-limits and (3) manually setting y-axis breaks and labels:
library(reshape)
library(ggplot2)
# Using ggplot2 0.9.2.1
nba <- read.csv("http://datasets.flowingdata.com/ppg2008.csv")
nba$Name <- with(nba, reorder(Name, PTS))
nba.m <- melt(nba)
nba.m <- ddply(nba.m, .(variable), transform, value = scale(value))
# Convert the factor levels to numeric + quanity to determine size of hole.
nba.m$var2 = as.numeric(nba.m$variable) + 15
# Labels and breaks need to be added with scale_y_discrete.
y_labels = levels(nba.m$variable)
y_breaks = seq_along(y_labels) + 15
p2 = ggplot(nba.m, aes(x=Name, y=var2, fill=value)) +
geom_tile(colour="white") +
scale_fill_gradient(low = "white", high = "steelblue") +
ylim(c(0, max(nba.m$var2) + 0.5)) +
scale_y_discrete(breaks=y_breaks, labels=y_labels) +
coord_polar(theta="x") +
theme(panel.background=element_blank(),
axis.title=element_blank(),
panel.grid=element_blank(),
axis.text.x=element_blank(),
axis.ticks=element_blank(),
axis.text.y=element_text(size=5))
ggsave(filename="plot_2.png", plot=p2, height=7, width=7)