Antman is in great company

[bledredwine]

You quoted Jordan at 23, at 22 he had a PER of 24.7


At age 22 (playoffs) -

LeBron James - 23.9 (got to Finals)
Anthony Edwards - 26.8 (2nd round so far)
Michael Jordan - 24.7 (got to first round)

On basketball reference, next to 22 it lists "30.1". I listed that for Lebron/Jordan/Ant without realizing that Jordan
would have turned 22 by the playoffs.
Fixed.

Listing 1st round 2nd round would be stupid since it takes time for GM's to build a team around a player and MJ was a rookie, not to mention how awful the eastern conference was in Lebron's run anyway. This is a thread about individual stats and ANT's development as a player.

We list those things when a career is over, because by then, you will have witnessed the players having a team built around them and how well they were able to carry those teams.

Well context matters because going against first round teams is different to finals teams. The data is skewed

If you want to include context and want to delve further in, then you must also include the following:
PER was far more inflated in the 00's and on then in the 80s
PER generally favors point players
Jordan was a rookie and Lebron in his 3rd season in the league.

And you're acting like Lebron's number was from the finals. Lebron didn't just play in the finals. It included his entire playoffs run in a weak eastern conference, if we're talking context.

Jordan's was against the defensively stacked Milwaukee bucks, rated 2nd in defense, which is more context. So no, it shouldn't skew the PER given that context. Stating "finals" as if it should change the PER number is very inaccurate, given the context.

But we can always make a whole separate thread with PER numbers and finals runs, the defenses they played, etc, if you want that. This thread is not for that. It's kind of funny to hear about context when everyone used to post those "up to age 27 achievements" GIFs and triple double GIFs between the two without any context.

[dhsilv2]

I realize that PER is a somewhat dumb stat when comparing across eras

Not really...it's normalized season by season to a 15 league average. Obviously as the league grows it kinda gives more room for the tails, but it's designed to be kinda era comparable.

Now...it also basically just tells us at the top who plays like Magic or Jordan with a huge bias to MJ. So being great in other ways is kinda ignored. But..as long as we know that. It's good.

[dhsilv2]

Am I missing anyone who might have a PER of 23 or higher?

Duncan in 99 won the title, finals MVP, and had a 25.1 in his age 22 season if that's what you're using.

Magic was 22.5 and won his second title. Also lead the playoffs in the MUCH better BPM metric (still flawed)

Jokic missed the playoffs at 22, but in his 23 season it was 29.6

[zimpy27]

On basketball reference, next to 22 it lists "30.1". I listed that for Lebron/Jordan/Ant without realizing that Jordan
would have turned 22 by the playoffs.
Fixed.

Listing 1st round 2nd round would be stupid since it takes time for GM's to build a team around a player and MJ was a rookie, not to mention how awful the eastern conference was in Lebron's run anyway. This is a thread about individual stats and ANT's development as a player.

We list those things when a career is over, because by then, you will have witnessed the players having a team built around them and how well they were able to carry those teams.

Well context matters because going against first round teams is different to finals teams. The data is skewed

If you want to include context and want to delve further in, then you must also include the following:
PER was far more inflated in the 00's and on then in the 80s
PER generally favors point players
Jordan was a rookie and Lebron in his 3rd season in the league.

And you're acting like Lebron's number was from the finals. Lebron didn't just play in the finals. It included his entire playoffs run in a weak eastern conference, if we're talking context.

Jordan's was against the defensively stacked Milwaukee bucks, rated 2nd in defense, which is more context. So no, it shouldn't skew the PER given that context. Stating "finals" as if it should change the PER number is very inaccurate, given the context.

But we can always make a whole separate thread with PER numbers and finals runs, the defenses they played, etc, if you want that. This thread is not for that. It's kind of funny to hear about context when everyone used to post those "up to age 27 achievements" GIFs and triple double GIFs between the two without any context.

PER is standardized to the league season average of the season though. So what you're saying doesn't make sense. It's a measure of a players efficiency in a season compared to league average efficiency of that same season.

[dhsilv2]

Well context matters because going against first round teams is different to finals teams. The data is skewed

If you want to include context and want to delve further in, then you must also include the following:
PER was far more inflated in the 00's and on then in the 80s
PER generally favors point players
Jordan was a rookie and Lebron in his 3rd season in the league.

And you're acting like Lebron's number was from the finals. Lebron didn't just play in the finals. It included his entire playoffs run in a weak eastern conference, if we're talking context.

Jordan's was against the defensively stacked Milwaukee bucks, rated 2nd in defense, which is more context. So no, it shouldn't skew the PER given that context. Stating "finals" as if it should change the PER number is very inaccurate, given the context.

But we can always make a whole separate thread with PER numbers and finals runs, the defenses they played, etc, if you want that. This thread is not for that. It's kind of funny to hear about context when everyone used to post those "up to age 27 achievements" GIFs and triple double GIFs between the two without any context.

PER is standardized to the league season average of the season though. So what you're saying doesn't make sense. It's a measure of a players efficiency in a season compared to league average efficiency of that same season.

The larger the population the more you'll see values at the tails. Also the metric was designed with a LARGE bias for usage not points. With the "point scorer" as bledredwine noted, it does come with higher PER. The reasoning by John was that he believed coaches knew more than math did. So if a player has higher usage it's for a reason, even if perhaps the numbers don't show it. I don't think it's wrong but clearly it does throw a bit of a wrench at things with how coaching has changed their thinking.

[NZB2323]

I realize that PER is a somewhat dumb stat when comparing across eras, but I think that it's still impressive that Ant is in some good company for playoffs at age 22.

At age 22 (playoffs) -

LeBron James - 23.9
Anthony Edwards - 26.8
Michael Jordan - 30.1

He also had an awesome showing in last year's playoffs.
Pretty damned impressive, especially for someone who doesn't play point-scorer.
The future is bright for this young man

Am I missing anyone who might have a PER of 23 or higher?

You quoted Jordan at 23, at 22 he had a PER of 24.7


At age 22 (playoffs) -

LeBron James - 23.9 (got to Finals)
Anthony Edwards - 26.8 (2nd round so far)
Michael Jordan - 24.7 (got to first round)

If you’re saying a player has to be 22 for the playoff games then it would count the first 7 playoff games Chris Paul played in 2008, but not the last 5.

Overall he had a PER of 30.7 in the playoff run. I don’t know how we get numbers of his PER in his first 7 games.

[zimpy27]

If you want to include context and want to delve further in, then you must also include the following:
PER was far more inflated in the 00's and on then in the 80s
PER generally favors point players
Jordan was a rookie and Lebron in his 3rd season in the league.

And you're acting like Lebron's number was from the finals. Lebron didn't just play in the finals. It included his entire playoffs run in a weak eastern conference, if we're talking context.

Jordan's was against the defensively stacked Milwaukee bucks, rated 2nd in defense, which is more context. So no, it shouldn't skew the PER given that context. Stating "finals" as if it should change the PER number is very inaccurate, given the context.

But we can always make a whole separate thread with PER numbers and finals runs, the defenses they played, etc, if you want that. This thread is not for that. It's kind of funny to hear about context when everyone used to post those "up to age 27 achievements" GIFs and triple double GIFs between the two without any context.

PER is standardized to the league season average of the season though. So what you're saying doesn't make sense. It's a measure of a players efficiency in a season compared to league average efficiency of that same season.

The larger the population the more you'll see values at the tails. Also the metric was designed with a LARGE bias for usage not points. With the "point scorer" as bledredwine noted, it does come with higher PER. The reasoning by John was that he believed coaches knew more than math did. So if a player has higher usage it's for a reason, even if perhaps the numbers don't show it. I don't think it's wrong but clearly it does throw a bit of a wrench at things with how coaching has changed their thinking.

Well John mad the metric in 1995 and you can see that it most accurately predicts what we know to be the best players in the league for the decade prior. After he made it it made less and less sense over the years.

The logic of it is there but you can see some clear illogical points where it seems like John has made an argument after the fact. The truth is that he played around with an equation until it gave him the results he already expected (Jordan being number 1 for many years). Then it was validated and caught the interest of others because it did what John designed it to do (to match the eye test to stats of the top 5, etc).

[ScrantonBulls]

Lmao OP with another failure for the ages. He jumped at the chance to show that LeBron had a far lower playoff PER than MJ and Antman, despite LeBron having a sample size of 20 games and MJ having a sample size of 3 games - only for Zimpy to point out that he had the years all wrong. Not to mention his complete lack of understanding of PER.

Have you ever talked a professional about your negative LeBron James obsession OP? It may help.

[NZB2323]

PER is standardized to the league season average of the season though. So what you're saying doesn't make sense. It's a measure of a players efficiency in a season compared to league average efficiency of that same season.

The larger the population the more you'll see values at the tails. Also the metric was designed with a LARGE bias for usage not points. With the "point scorer" as bledredwine noted, it does come with higher PER. The reasoning by John was that he believed coaches knew more than math did. So if a player has higher usage it's for a reason, even if perhaps the numbers don't show it. I don't think it's wrong but clearly it does throw a bit of a wrench at things with how coaching has changed their thinking.

Well John mad the metric in 1995 and you can see that it most accurately predicts what we know to be the best players in the league for the decade prior. After he made it it made less and less sense over the years.

The logic of it is there but you can see some clear illogical points where it seems like John has made an argument after the fact. The truth is that he played around with an equation until it gave him the results he already expected (Jordan being number 1 for many years). Then it was validated and caught the interest of others because it did what John designed it to do (to match the eye test to stats of the top 5, etc).

I don’t think that a stat being reversed engineered is necessarily a bad thing though. Other stats that aren’t, like VORP, has Stockton 3rd all time.

[dhsilv2]

PER is standardized to the league season average of the season though. So what you're saying doesn't make sense. It's a measure of a players efficiency in a season compared to league average efficiency of that same season.

The larger the population the more you'll see values at the tails. Also the metric was designed with a LARGE bias for usage not points. With the "point scorer" as bledredwine noted, it does come with higher PER. The reasoning by John was that he believed coaches knew more than math did. So if a player has higher usage it's for a reason, even if perhaps the numbers don't show it. I don't think it's wrong but clearly it does throw a bit of a wrench at things with how coaching has changed their thinking.

Well John mad the metric in 1995 and you can see that it most accurately predicts what we know to be the best players in the league for the decade prior. After he made it it made less and less sense over the years.

The logic of it is there but you can see some clear illogical points where it seems like John has made an argument after the fact. The truth is that he played around with an equation until it gave him the results he already expected (Jordan being number 1 for many years). Then it was validated and caught the interest of others because it did what John designed it to do (to match the eye test to stats of the top 5, etc).

Sure but again, the 15 average makes it useful if you know the metric bias. And the point forward is a metric bias he didn't think about.

[dhsilv2]

The larger the population the more you'll see values at the tails. Also the metric was designed with a LARGE bias for usage not points. With the "point scorer" as bledredwine noted, it does come with higher PER. The reasoning by John was that he believed coaches knew more than math did. So if a player has higher usage it's for a reason, even if perhaps the numbers don't show it. I don't think it's wrong but clearly it does throw a bit of a wrench at things with how coaching has changed their thinking.

Well John mad the metric in 1995 and you can see that it most accurately predicts what we know to be the best players in the league for the decade prior. After he made it it made less and less sense over the years.

The logic of it is there but you can see some clear illogical points where it seems like John has made an argument after the fact. The truth is that he played around with an equation until it gave him the results he already expected (Jordan being number 1 for many years). Then it was validated and caught the interest of others because it did what John designed it to do (to match the eye test to stats of the top 5, etc).

I don’t think that a stat being reversed engineered is necessarily a bad thing though. Other stats that aren’t, like VORP, has Stockton 3rd all time.

BPM which is the base of VORP was designed the correlate with RAPM so we could get insight into players pre 1997 when we didn't have +/- data. That makes perfect sense and has no real issues. The way you're using it might be the biggest issue.

[bledredwine]

I realize that PER is a somewhat dumb stat when comparing across eras

Not really...it's normalized season by season to a 15 league average. Obviously as the league grows it kinda gives more room for the tails, but it's designed to be kinda era comparable.

Now...it also basically just tells us at the top who plays like Magic or Jordan with a huge bias to MJ. So being great in other ways is kinda ignored. But..as long as we know that. It's good.

This is not true. PER doesn’t adjust to era and 90s era PER we’re significantly lower. All time greats like Hakeem had lower PER as well because it doesn’t factor defense much and favors assisting. PER factors in various stats and their efficiencies- look up the formula.

a stating that it favors Jordan is strange- there’s no logic to that and the formula has nothing to do with him, especially considering that he was a high volume midrange shooter who played off ball, not point to rack up stats. And even if it did, it certainly can be more capitalized on now. PER tends to favor point scorers and bigs. Those are the players who rack up the most and efficient stats. Point scorers can also cherry pick since they have the choice of driving, shooting or passing from the top of the key.

Now if you look up the top PER, you’ll see that what I state holds true. Even players like CP3 had a huge PER while Hakeem did not. And ease of scoring obviously matters as well. Even Westbrook had a PER hovering around 28 for three seasons straight.

[bledredwine]

If you want to include context and want to delve further in, then you must also include the following:
PER was far more inflated in the 00's and on then in the 80s
PER generally favors point players
Jordan was a rookie and Lebron in his 3rd season in the league.

And you're acting like Lebron's number was from the finals. Lebron didn't just play in the finals. It included his entire playoffs run in a weak eastern conference, if we're talking context.

Jordan's was against the defensively stacked Milwaukee bucks, rated 2nd in defense, which is more context. So no, it shouldn't skew the PER given that context. Stating "finals" as if it should change the PER number is very inaccurate, given the context.

But we can always make a whole separate thread with PER numbers and finals runs, the defenses they played, etc, if you want that. This thread is not for that. It's kind of funny to hear about context when everyone used to post those "up to age 27 achievements" GIFs and triple double GIFs between the two without any context.

PER is standardized to the league season average of the season though. So what you're saying doesn't make sense. It's a measure of a players efficiency in a season compared to league average efficiency of that same season.

The larger the population the more you'll see values at the tails. Also the metric was designed with a LARGE bias for usage not points. With the "point scorer" as bledredwine noted, it does come with higher PER. The reasoning by John was that he believed coaches knew more than math did. So if a player has higher usage it's for a reason, even if perhaps the numbers don't show it. I don't think it's wrong but clearly it does throw a bit of a wrench at things with how coaching has changed their thinking.

Exactly. It’s a matter of teams playing system ball (80s 90s, lower PER as a result) and running a team’s offense which inflates PER (CP3, Lebron, Luka, Westbrook, Jokic, etc). That’s obviously a factor.

And I’ll state once again that I believe the formula prioritizes assists way too much. It may have been important in the past when it wasn’t simpler to cut and dish, but it blows PER numbers up since players started prioritizing the three and spacing.

If we want to continue adding context, we add that alongside the fact that Jordan did this with a ton of crazy two point shots and no prioritization of the three ball.

Look at PER numbers of the 90s. MJ was far ahead of his peers. There were no point scorers because you could not do it effectively. You were Hakeem, you were Jordan, or you were Stockton. You could not combine rolls because you had your positions in a clogged court, as you all say.

And if you were a point scorer, you were a Grant Hill or Penny at best. It just was not as accessible for the drives or the open assisting, and if you made the assist, it was usually by threading the needle inside or a two because only your three point specialists were reliable for a 3 catch and shoot. And the players were guarded more closely since handchecking prevented players from blowing by eachother.

The commissioner himself stated the rule changes were to open up the game for scoring.

And as Luka said, people don’t know how easy it is with the three second violation (his own words) He just waits for the bigs to leave and drives for a bucket. This all factors into PER.

But once again, I made this thread to praise Edwards, not to reel in the Lebron crowd fan club to defend him. So let’s let it rest for the purpose of the thread, which is fair. Jordan leads in career/playoff PER anywayNd Jokic might eclipse that, who cares. Era does matter.

And as a testament to ease of scoring effecting PER, just look at regular season vs playoff Embiid.

[dhsilv2]

I realize that PER is a somewhat dumb stat when comparing across eras

Not really...it's normalized season by season to a 15 league average. Obviously as the league grows it kinda gives more room for the tails, but it's designed to be kinda era comparable.

Now...it also basically just tells us at the top who plays like Magic or Jordan with a huge bias to MJ. So being great in other ways is kinda ignored. But..as long as we know that. It's good.

This is not true. PER doesn’t adjust to era and 90s era PER we’re significantly lower. All time greats like Hakeem had lower PER as well because it doesn’t factor defense much and favors assisting. PER factors in various stats and their efficiencies- look up the formula.

a stating that it favors Jordan is strange- there’s no logic to that and the formula has nothing to do with him, especially considering that he was a high volume midrange shooter who played off ball, not point to rack up stats. And even if it did, it certainly can be more capitalized on now. PER tends to favor point scorers and bigs. Those are the players who rack up the most and efficient stats. Point scorers can also cherry pick since they have the choice of driving, shooting or passing from the top of the key.

Now if you look up the top PER, you’ll see that what I state holds true. Even players like CP3 had a huge PER while Hakeem did not. And ease of scoring obviously matters as well. Even Westbrook had a PER hovering around 28 for three seasons straight.

The PER in every single season is EXACTLY the same. The league average PER is 15 in every single season in NBA history.

John has openly said he used Jordan as the basis for his metric and made sure he was at the top.

PER isn't a defensive metric...

Like...what in the hell are you talking about dude?

And yes, we all agree that CP3 should have a higher PER than Hakeem. That's a given. But we'd also all agree it's more important for PER to get Tony Delk right than get Hakeem right...

[dhsilv2]

PER is standardized to the league season average of the season though. So what you're saying doesn't make sense. It's a measure of a players efficiency in a season compared to league average efficiency of that same season.

The larger the population the more you'll see values at the tails. Also the metric was designed with a LARGE bias for usage not points. With the "point scorer" as bledredwine noted, it does come with higher PER. The reasoning by John was that he believed coaches knew more than math did. So if a player has higher usage it's for a reason, even if perhaps the numbers don't show it. I don't think it's wrong but clearly it does throw a bit of a wrench at things with how coaching has changed their thinking.

Exactly. It’s a matter of teams playing system ball (80s 90s, lower PER as a result) and running a team’s offense which inflates PER (CP3, Lebron, Luka, Westbrook, Jokic, etc). That’s obviously a factor.

And I’ll state once again that I believe the formula prioritizes assists way too much. It may have been important in the past when it wasn’t simpler to cut and dish, but it blows PER numbers up since players started prioritizing the three and spacing.

If we want to continue adding context, we add that alongside the fact that Jordan did this with a ton of crazy two point shots and no prioritization of the three ball.

Look at PER numbers of the 90s. MJ was far ahead of his peers. There were no point scorers because you could not do it effectively. You were Hakeem, you were Jordan, or you were Stockton. You could not combine rolls because you had your positions in a clogged court, as you all say.

And if you were a point scorer, you were a Grant Hill or Penny at best. It just was not as accessible for the drives or the open assisting, and if you made the assist, it was usually by threading the needle inside or a two because only your three point specialists were reliable for a 3 catch and shoot. And the players were guarded more closely since handchecking prevented players from blowing by eachother.

The commissioner himself stated the rule changes were to open up the game for scoring.

And as Luka said, people don’t know how easy it is with the three second violation (his own words) He just waits for the bigs to leave and drives for a bucket. This all factors into PER.

But once again, I made this thread to praise Edwards, not to reel in the Lebron crowd fan club to defend him. So let’s let it rest for the purpose of the thread, which is fair. Jordan leads in career/playoff PER anywayNd Jokic might eclipse that, who cares. Era does matter.

And as a testament to ease of scoring effecting PER, just look at regular season vs playoff Embiid.

PER was written with the idea that coaches gave the ball to their best players and thus USAGE is the bias. Not points or assists. The formula further assumes that it's rule changes NOT players who change scoring efficiency so no...Jordan's use of long 2's doesn't hurt his PER at all. The fact MJ dominated his era in terms of efficiency is fully baked into the metric. Had MJ taken more 3's...sure that could have helped him if he hit them. But then...that was a different era. And again, PER assumes all eras are equal. You're judge for your efficiency vs your peers, not future peers.

The metric is player efficiency rating. It is NOT player value ranking. When John went back and tried to turn his metric into a value estimator, he realized it was so broken he had to adjust it by position (which clearly doesn't work today) and the biggest factor was that he over valued rebounds.

When used correctly PER is a tool to realize Carl Landry should get more minutes. Not for people debate Jordan vs Luka.

[B-easy]

Need to see how he does against good rim protection teams. He played Denver, Suns, Denver last 3 times in the playoffs. He's shooting 70ts% this series which is not close to sustainable.

[durden_tyler]

Sure, have no doubts he can be the next super(duper)star but if he loses this series vs the Nuggets, that's going to leave a black mark in his career, especially after leading 2-0 in the series and choking it away. We'll never know if he gets this chance again.

[life_saver]

Need to see how he does against good rim protection teams. He played Denver, Suns, Denver last 3 times in the playoffs. He's shooting 70ts% this series which is not close to sustainable.

his first playoff series was vs Grizz who had pretty good rim protection and Ant had a pretty good series in his first playoffs

[dhsilv2]

Sure, have no doubts he can be the next super(duper)star but if he loses this series vs the Nuggets, that's going to leave a black mark in his career, especially after leading 2-0 in the series and choking it away. We'll never know if he gets this chance again.

A black mark...for losing a series while averaging 30+ a game on 70% TS vs the defending champs when you're 22????