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On November 22 2010 07:10 andrewlt wrote:Show nested quote +On November 19 2010 10:37 Judicator wrote:On November 19 2010 06:49 Kishkumen wrote:On November 19 2010 04:54 Jibba wrote:On November 19 2010 03:33 Kishkumen wrote:
As a Trailblazers fan, I need a hug. It's not fair for both Roy and Oden to have their careers go this way. A couple of years ago, I thought we might win a championship, or at least a conference title. That doesn't seem possible now.
T.T http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/columns/story?columnist=adande_ja&page=Oden-101118Maybe some problems with Portland's medical team? It's a possibility. I would just hate it if they were just made scapegoats for injuries that were beyond their control. If there are any firings because of this, it should only be after some kind of peer review. It's really easy at a time like this to find someone to blame even when it may not be anyone's fault. Well I can see where both sides are coming from. I think any draft spot not first would have elicited far less is Oden a bust talk, but the fact that he was taken ahead of (or rather instead of) Durant does leave a bitter aftertaste. A bust in the traditional sense? No. A disappointment? Yes. That's what happens when a team gambles on injury risks, though. Both Oden and Roy had medical concerns coming into the draft. Portland took a gamble. If it worked out, they'd be geniuses. If it didn't, we have what we currently have. I don't think anybody can say they're surprised at this. Oden has one leg significantly shorter than the other one. The medical staff of some teams blacklisted him because of this and other reasons relating to his knees.
See that isn't what's creating all this fuss, what creates all this coverage and really unjustified negativity (because the average fans don't really analyze drafts) is that you passed up on Durant. That's the problem with where Portland was sitting back at the draft time is that people do the whole you took so and so over this eventual HoFer, 5-10 years down line. Medical concerns or not, the fact that they were first bit them more than anything. Oden could be just average or solid role player right now and he would still catch the same flack.
The other teams can afford to do the blacklisting thing because the chances of them picking up Oden are close to 0 in that very shallow draft with Yi Jianlian being taken 6th. At least Doc Rivers is honest about it and said he would have taken Oden had they not traded their 5th pick to form the big 3.
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I don't think a single GM said they would have taken Durant over Oden, and I don't know why people do some pretend second guessing.
At best, people were considering Durant as an alternative position. Forget their names for now. The top two picks in the draft were two freshmen players with a lot of potential. One was a very long forward who carried his team and scored a bunch in college, you know, kind of like most decent nba players. The other was a skilled big man who carried his team and had some big games in college.
Basically we had almost no information. Then little tidbits came in that everyone started to overanalyze. The forward was the only player at the combine who couldn't even do the 185 bench. The big man dominated some games, but was average in some others. They did measurements, and one of the big man's legs was slightly shorter than the other one.
What if the big man turns out to be a Tim Duncan, Shaq, or Hakeem? If there were a 25% chance of getting a hall of fame big man, would you take the gamble? Are Dwight Howard or Blake Griffin also a stupid number 1 picks? Drafts aren't sure things.
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And Brandon Roy, people passed up on Brandon Roy (and media Captain Hindsights pointed out how stupid they were) because he a history of knee problems. Now that Roy has knee problems, alternate Captain Hindsights are pointing out how stupid the Blazers are for picking a guy with potential and knee problems.
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igotmyown, I'm still anxiously awaiting your defense of PER. Any idea when you might be able to oblige?
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Sure, why not?
I'm not sure whether this is how they do it, but you win if you score more than your opponents. Therefore, if you want to run some super stat, you'd want to consider factors that increase a player's team's points over the opponents.
So obviously we want to include field goal/attempts, free throws/attempts, and 3 points and attempts. We'd also want to include fouls, because that gives the opponents free throws.
Now what about possessions? Creating a possession is helpful, so steals, and to a lesser extent rebounds and blocks help. Does 1 block create 1 possession? Probably not, since players like to smack the ball out to the stands, but presumably a regression will either a) determine if it's even worth including and b) how much it matters. Same with rebounds, while 1 rebound gives you a possession, it probably doesn't work out so nicely since your teammates could have gotten it. Similarly, it's not clear how much an assist is worth. But you have a large data set, and you can run a regression to find out the appropriate coefficient. What does he regress it to, points or possessions? No idea.
Not all of these factors might make it, but again that's not a bad thing. If you find some factor is relatively insignificant, that's still useful.
Are using these traditional box score measurements stupid, compared to rebound rate? Yes, but I have a feeling PER was created to utilize box score data. But since basketball has a very objective way of winning, you should be able to tell whether some quantifiable statistic (rebounds, assists) helps you win/score more/gain more possessions, and how much it does so.
Basketball isn't a one on one game, so there's less of a direct correlation, but the question you should ask is how much is the correlation. Are there situations where correlation does not match the effect? As Sarah Palin says, you betcha, but statistics doesn't prove that a person who sits in the sun will get cancer while the person with the sunblock won't.
And remember in baseball sabermetrics, Bill James originally worked off of box scores, and used relatively dumb statistics to figure out what wasn't important (RBI's), figure out what was (K's), and come up with more useful statistics (ops, DIP).
Pace/minutes arguments, people should be able to figure out.
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I read that PER defense as something is better than nothing.
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Its sad to see AI go. He was such an amazing player.
Also that video makes me miss T-mac's allstar play. He had probably the most legendary 34 seconds in the NBA, where he scored like 11 points or something...pure legend.
GO BULLS!!!
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Sure, why not?
I'm not sure whether this is how they do it, but you win if you score more than your opponents. Therefore, if you want to run some super stat, you'd want to consider factors that increase a player's team's points over the opponents.
That makes sense, except statistics can never account for the myriad intangibles that tend to correlate with success. So, from the beginning, we accept that even the most finely tuned efficiency statistic will be flawed in determining a player's value. Given this, it makes one wonder why Hollinger used PER as his lone argument in ranking Wade's 2006 effort as the greatest NBA Finals performance of all time.
So obviously we want to include field goal/attempts, free throws/attempts, and 3 points and attempts. We'd also want to include fouls, because that gives the opponents free throws.
Sounds great. Unfortunately, the era in which a player competes affects how liberally referees will whistle fouls and award free throws. Moreover, changes to the rules (say for example, the three point line) have generally favored the offensive player over the years, and since offense is more heavily factored into PER than defense, modern-era players are looked upon more favorably by the metric.
Also, it's evident to me that you haven't really dissected the formula, because field goals/attempts are implemented quite ridiculously in PER. As long as you shoot about 31% from the field and 22% from downtown, your PER will increase as you keep taking more shots. This means that Gilbert Arenas was actually increasing his efficiency with all those 11-31 FG games...three cheers for volume shooting!
Now what about possessions? Creating a possession is helpful, so steals, and to a lesser extent rebounds and blocks help. Does 1 block create 1 possession? Probably not, since players like to smack the ball out to the stands, but presumably a regression will either a) determine if it's even worth including and b) how much it matters. Same with rebounds, while 1 rebound gives you a possession, it probably doesn't work out so nicely since your teammates could have gotten it. Similarly, it's not clear how much an assist is worth. But you have a large data set, and you can run a regression to find out the appropriate coefficient. What does he regress it to, points or possessions? No idea.
It's weird that you have so many questions about how the stat works, when the entire formula was posted a few pages ago.
Moreover, the block discussion is meaningless because it changes depending on the person. Some players, like Dwight Howard, senselessly knock a high percentage of their blocks out of bounds, which doesn't result in a lot of extra possessions. Others, like Camby, try to tip blocks to teammates so as to make the block that much more valuable. Unless you're going to affix some arbitrary number to each player to measure how well he keeps blocks in bounds, PER or any other statistic can never properly account for this issue. But what's the alternative, leave blocks out and risk further undervaluing defense? It's a catch-22...and a paramount reason why sabermetrics isn't meant for basketball.
Are using these traditional box score measurements stupid, compared to rebound rate? Yes, but I have a feeling PER was created to utilize box score data. But since basketball has a very objective way of winning, you should be able to tell whether some quantifiable statistic (rebounds, assists) helps you win/score more/gain more possessions, and how much it does so.
Basketball has a very objective way of winning, namely to score more points as a team than the opposing team. Quantifiable statistics often explain why one team was able to beat the other team, but that has nothing to do with an individual player's worth. As I said in my post on this subject last week, there are simply too many other factors to consider. For example, Kobe's PER in 2006 was 28.0, and his PER last year was 21.9, a difference of ~22%. Was Kobe 22% less valuable to the Lakers in 2010? Absolutely not. In 2006 he was a selfish gunner and a malcontent, without any real trace of leadership or accountability. If you somehow recreate the 2010 finals, but switch 2010 Kobe with 2006 Kobe, you can't possibly think the Lakers would beat Boston.
Basketball isn't a one on one game, so there's less of a direct correlation, but the question you should ask is how much is the correlation. Are there situations where correlation does not match the effect? As Sarah Palin says, you betcha, but statistics doesn't prove that a person who sits in the sun will get cancer while the person with the sunblock won't.
I'm scratching my head trying to figure out what the point of this paragraph is. The answer is: the correlation between both raw and rate statistics and winning is limited at best, on an individual player basis. Therefore, it is wrong for Hollinger to use a single flawed metric to carry the brunt of his reasoning for ranking NBA players.
And remember in baseball sabermetrics, Bill James originally worked off of box scores, and used relatively dumb statistics to figure out what wasn't important (RBI's), figure out what was (K's), and come up with more useful statistics (ops, DIP).
Just to nitpick, Bill James didn't come up with OPS. OPS is worthless because it doesn't take park factor into consideration.
The problem is more with John Hollinger than with a specific metric. The man is using his extremely flawed reasoning to goad people into paying his bills. More importantly, he's helping create a new generation of clueless basketball fans who value statistics above all else. Maybe you missed the hype over LeBron, Wade, and Bosh all being in the top 4 in 2010 for PER. That graphic was recycled daily on ESPN and ESPN.com for a good 3 months.
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The formula is listed, but note his espn page leaves out how he's coming up with the coefficients.
Points and rebounds are also affected by era, we could have a pure points and rebounds metric called the Isiah Thomas metric.
If your position is basketball is impossible to quantify, then it's pointless to worry about anything and just be pleasantly surprised when a team wins.
But very few people are like that. Everyone has their opinions, and for the most part they have hidden weights to dozens of different variables, like how fast a player is or how good their breakaway dunk looks. The difference between a formula and someone's opinion is that it's out in the open.
If I wanted to single out a stats guy for intellectual criticism, and not the pseudo intellectual criticism I've seen so far, it would be Wayne Winston (+ - guy), and I'm pretty sure you can figure out why.
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It's not impossible to quantify, but the way that PER quantifies it is pretty poor and is misleading.
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United States22883 Posts
That was a pretty poor defense of PER, and does nothing to show how it's more valuable than a regular box score (which I'd argue it's worse than, since at least they're less convoluted and we're shooting for parsimony here.)
Also, yes, you take the star guard over the big man with potential. Yes, yes, yes. Suitable big men can be built over time and usually get traded anyways, since they don't meet their potential with their first team. The trade value of a star guard and a star big men are relatively close, even though it's much, much easier to cultivate and predict the guard. That's a mistake on GM's parts, but it's still usually the case.
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On November 22 2010 12:32 igotmyown wrote:
The formula is listed, but note his espn page leaves out how he's coming up with the coefficients.
Points and rebounds are also affected by era, we could have a pure points and rebounds metric called the Isiah Thomas metric.
If your position is basketball is impossible to quantify, then it's pointless to worry about anything and just be pleasantly surprised when a team wins.
But very few people are like that. Everyone has their opinions, and for the most part they have hidden weights to dozens of different variables, like how fast a player is or how good their breakaway dunk looks. The difference between a formula and someone's opinion is that it's out in the open.
If I wanted to single out a stats guy for intellectual criticism, and not the pseudo intellectual criticism I've seen so far, it would be Wayne Winston (+ - guy), and I'm pretty sure you can figure out why.
http://www.basketball-reference.com/about/per.html
That should explain pretty much everything about how the formula is calculated.
Also, everything you're saying is supporting my argument. Yes, points and rebounds are affected by era (example: Wilt's rebounding stats were inflated not only by the pace and FG% of his era, but the average height/strength of his competition), which is yet another reason why no statistic can place a nominal value on a basketball player.
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Gasol got a jumpshot this summer. Lakers are imba
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Lin played really well 2nite. Played decent D and ran the offense well. his teammates couldnt knock the shots down to save their lives.
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I miss David Lee. When's he coming back?
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On November 19 2010 03:33 Kishkumen wrote:
As a Trailblazers fan, I need a hug. It's not fair for both Roy and Oden to have their careers go this way. A couple of years ago, I thought we might win a championship, or at least a conference title. That doesn't seem possible now.
T.T
im a blazers fan too *hugs* at least matthews was some good money.
portland went to the playoffs last season with almost no big men, so i still believe the team and nate mcmillan can still go the distance hoping for a good recovery from my boy brandon roy 
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On November 22 2010 17:26 bearbuddy wrote:
I miss David Lee. When's he coming back?
It would only happen to the warriors where a cut on the elbow would lead to someone being out for 2+ weeks. At least they have shown vast improvements in rebounding/defense when david lee is out there. I still think .500 is a good possibility for the warriors as long as there are no huge injuries
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On November 22 2010 19:00 Ducci wrote:Show nested quote +On November 22 2010 17:26 bearbuddy wrote:
I miss David Lee. When's he coming back? It would only happen to the warriors where a cut on the elbow would lead to someone being out for 2+ weeks. At least they have shown vast improvements in rebounding/defense when david lee is out there. I still think .500 is a good possibility for the warriors as long as there are no huge injuries
If Monte keeps up his MVP numbers and Curry keeps drastically improving, they will be competing for the 8th seed in the East.
Sigh i miss the old Warriors with Baron Davis...
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The Warriors are West?
Bucks failing hard so far =[
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EPT
