Are Offensive and Defensive Ratings Garbage Stats?

Patterns · Post #1 » by **Patterns** » Sun Jan 30, 2011 10:07 pm

Offensive Rating
1. Tyson Chandler-DAL 136.0
2. Nene Hilario-DEN 128.8
3. Arron Afflalo-DEN 125.7
4. Amir Johnson-TOR 125.3
5. Chris Paul-NOH 124.9

Defensive Rating
1. Kevin Garnett-BOS 93.8
2. Dwight Howard-ORL 94.9
3. Joakim Noah-CHI 95.7
4. Taj Gibson-CHI 96.5
5. Carlos Boozer-CHI 97.0

By definition, Tyson Chandler is the best offensive player in the league followed by Nene Arron Afflalo, and Amiar Johnson. Are you serious? I don't really care how offensive rating works but that's a garbage stat.

For defensive rating, it's a little better but it's very biased. You have 3 Bulls on the top 5, including Boozer and Gibson. If you have 3 Bulls players on there, then it has more to do with the Bulls system that they play in and Tom Thib. The Bulls are the #1 defensive team because of their genius coach and system but not because they have 3 of the best 5 defenders in the NBA.

kabstah · Post #2 » by **kabstah** » Sun Jan 30, 2011 11:06 pm

If you don't know or don't care how a stat works, or even what it purports to measure, then you're not capable of providing a meaningful critique on that stat. ORTG and DRTG are points per 100 possession. It means that Tyson Chandler is really efficient at producing points the few times that he gets the ball but says nothing about volume. Not sure where you got the idea that leading the league in ORTG means a player is the best offensive player in the league. Doesn't make sense to compare low usage players like Tyson Chandler to high usage players like CP3.

Patterns · Post #3 » by **Patterns** » Sun Jan 30, 2011 11:15 pm

kabstah wrote:If you don't know or don't care how a stat works, or even what it purports to measure, then you're not capable of providing a meaningful critique on that stat. ORTG and DRTG are points per 100 possession. It means that Tyson Chandler is really efficient at producing points the few times that he gets the ball but says nothing about volume. Not sure where you got the idea that leading the league in ORTG means a player is the best offensive player in the league. Doesn't make sense to compare low usage players like Tyson Chandler to high usage players like CP3.

My point is, if a stat is so inaccurate at measuring how good of an offensive player is, why even feature it on any website?

kabstah · Post #4 » by **kabstah** » Sun Jan 30, 2011 11:27 pm

Patterns wrote:
kabstah wrote:If you don't know or don't care how a stat works, or even what it purports to measure, then you're not capable of providing a meaningful critique on that stat. ORTG and DRTG are points per 100 possession. It means that Tyson Chandler is really efficient at producing points the few times that he gets the ball but says nothing about volume. Not sure where you got the idea that leading the league in ORTG means a player is the best offensive player in the league. Doesn't make sense to compare low usage players like Tyson Chandler to high usage players like CP3.

My point is, if a stat is so inaccurate at measuring how good of an offensive player is, why even feature it on any website?

No one's ever tried to claim that a player's personal ORTG is the unilateral benchmark for offensive prowess. Just because you misinterpret a stat doesn't mean everyone else does also. Use personal ORTG the same way you use TS%, the main difference being ORTG tries to account for passing and offensive rebounding as well, and you're on the right track.

Jimmy76 · Post #5 » by **Jimmy76** » Mon Jan 31, 2011 12:10 am

Treat ortg like fg%, being higher is better but having a hig fg% doesn't mean you're the best offensive player either

Post #6 » by **Doctor MJ** » Mon Jan 31, 2011 12:20 am

Patterns wrote:My point is, if a stat is so inaccurate at measuring how good of an offensive player is, why even feature it on any website?

It's not supposed to measure how good an offensive player a guy is. Beyond that, the creation for the stat was part of a conclusion that it was not possible to create one stat based on box score stats that measured how good of an offensive player a guy is. The point is simply to measure raw efficiency separate from usage which is measured in a separate stat.

Honestly dude, I don't get this type of thinking which assumes that anything that doesn't make sense after 5 seconds of thought must have a glaring flaw in it, instead of the much more reasonable approach of simply "This isn't making sense to me, I should assume the issue is with me until I put some seriously thought into it and politely ask everyone who knows more what's gone over my head?".

Vinsanity420 · Post #7 » by **Vinsanity420** » Mon Jan 31, 2011 2:15 am

You gotta read some Dean Oliver material to understand how the stat works. You clearly don't. But as a quick way of summarizing how things work - By balancing usage rates and the varying offensive ratings of the five players on the court, a team can achieve optimal offensive production. Tyson Chandler has a 13.5 usage rate - so while the O Rating is very impressive, the usage rate would suggest that he isn't capable of demanding the ball as much as say, Dirk.... who has a 28.8 usage rate and produces a 115 O Rating.

This is really important to understand

The stats show that, for all players, as the player uses more possessions, his efficiency decreases. What defines a superstar, in Dean Oliver's statistical analysis, is that he can shoulder a larger proportion of a team's possessions with only a relatively small drop in efficiency. Meanwhile, the opposite is also true: players perform more efficiently when they are asked to use fewer of their team's possessions. As a result, the greater burden on the superstar means that supporting players maintain low usage rates, allowing them to operate closer to their peak efficiency.

mysticbb · Post #8 » by **mysticbb** » Mon Jan 31, 2011 7:31 am

Doctor MJ wrote:Honestly dude, I don't get this type of thinking which assumes that anything that doesn't make sense after 5 seconds of thought must have a glaring flaw in it, instead of the much more reasonable approach of simply "This isn't making sense to me, I should assume the issue is with me until I put some seriously thought into it and politely ask everyone who knows more what's gone over my head?".

I don't even think that the reason for the outburst of the op was "it doesn't make sense", but rather "my favorite player isn't as good as this other guy". ;)

That wasn't the first time someone has no clue what he is talking about regarding stats, the inability to properly use stats is a great problem when evaluating players. People somehow can grasp what a difference 25 and 20 ppg is, but they most times have no clue what kind of difference a 58 ts% and 54 ts% makes when players have the same volume. One thing they most times completely ignore is the turnover ratio as a part of the efficiency.

That numbers like the ORtg and DRtg aren't measuring the skills of the players, but more how the skills are transfering to successful basketball on the court while playing within a teamgame, seems to be too hard to understand. The op is a prime example of this. A more skilled player is not per se also the better and more impactful player on the court, because basketball is not just a skills competition or 1on1. And when people are using stats to evaluate player performances (and they are doing that properly), they are comparing the impact of a player on a teamgame, not whether someone has a better skillset than another player. If the skills would translate to impact linear, Rafer Alston would have been a much better NBA basketball player.