Post#14 » by Outside » Sun Jul 2, 2017 12:30 am
My criteria for ranking players are highly subjective, but I like to say that they are informed by stats. I'm a fan of going beyond basic stats like points, rebounds, and assists to look at true shooting percentage, pace, offensive and defensive rating, and things like that, but the advanced analytics get murky. I'm impressed by the time posters have put into presenting detailed arguments in the threads thus far, and I try to read what others have obviously put so much effort into, but I've arrived at a difficult place.
For someone not versed in the details of advanced analytics, posts that present tables and charts and refer to unfamiliar metrics have turned into visual white noise. I'd like to use this data to inform my opinions, but for the most part, that's not working for me.
-- I often don't know what these numbers mean or how they're derived. Yeah, I get that player A looks better than player B when viewed through the prism of a particular stat, but how am I to know whether the basic premise of that stat is flawed? I understand what TS% is and how it can give a better overall picture of shooting efficiency than FG% or even EFG%, but I also know a stat like PER may have some value but is inherently flawed, so I generally try to avoid it. I barely have time to write these posts and read everyone else's posts, so I don't have time to research what these various complex stats are.
-- There seem to have been multiple attempts to quantify attributes like "gravity" or "impact." That seems like a perilous endeavor that attempts to put a number on something that is ultimately subjective, and while I'm open to general arguments about things like gravity and impact and appreciate using stats to support those arguments, I'm skeptical of attempts to actually quantify those things.
-- I'm concerned about using advanced stats to compare players across eras when the stats available for players from early eras is so incomplete compared to current players. How can we judge defensive impact for a more current player like Tim Duncan for whom we have a multitude of information like opponent shooting percentage at the rim vs shooting percentage at 15-18 feet, compared to guys like Russell and Wilt for whom we don't even have blocks and steals? My fear is that numbers get plugged in and that players from old eras don't rate well because the data for them is incomplete. If someone has a stat that shows Dirk is a greater overall player than Wilt, I'm skeptical of the stat, not Wilt.
-- For those who use advanced stats, they seem to be the primary metric used to judge players, but from my point of view, they should be used to augment, not replace, basic stats. My impression is that those who find advanced stats to support a particular player will use those stats to make a judgment and disregard all the basic stats that support other players.
A big part of this is my lack of understanding, and a benefit of this process will be me getting more educated about this stuff. Any help others can give to provide context to advanced stats is appreciated, like I've seen in the discussion about RAPM. I just thought I'd give a few observations from a poor guy at the back of the room.
If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention.
