Why are Anthony Edwards impact metrics so poor relative to his hype?

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Re: Why are Anthony Edwards impact metrics so poor relative to his hype? 

Post#21 » by OkcSinceSGA » Mon Apr 29, 2024 6:35 am

dk1115 wrote:I never thought Anthony Edwards was the best SG in the league. But be honest, other than OKC/Minnesota fans, how many would rather watch SGA over Edwards?

Nikola Jokic, who is probably the best player in the league, isn't hard to watch, but I think I can name a good 30-40 players I'd rather watch than him.


If someone made that argument I would agree with you. Anthony Edwards to me is like Vince Carter in that sense. He’s must see TV as a God gifted, freak human highlight. Similar to Vince he has plenty of substance to back it, but there is a 50/50 chance that almost every single game he does something insane. That’s what made Blake so fun to watch as a young guy.

In terms of entertainment value, I’d take him over everyone I think.
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Re: Why are Anthony Edwards impact metrics so poor relative to his hype? 

Post#22 » by runtmc » Mon Apr 29, 2024 6:46 am

1) Because offensive players are generally far more "hyped" than defensive players. Points per game is probably the single most overhyped stat. Numerous examples of this currently/historically. A huge portion of Ant's low advanced stats are related to having average defense.

2) Ant's best skill is his shot creation ability and high usage, and shot creation/usage are generally far more hyped than other offensive skills, but actually, in terms of offensive skills, shot creation and high usage arent particularly valuable (they do have value, but other things matter more). Numerous examples of players that can create for themselves/shoot a lot being overvalued currently/historically as well. The problem is that a big portion of Ant's low advanced stats though are related to having low efficiency, and low efficiency with high usage is particularly problematic -- his TS+ is 99 for comparison, meaning he's below league average efficiency.

Along that line, people are bad at noticing the difference between a player with say 55% TS and 60% TS. Say for example you score 30 but need 27 possessions vs say 25 possessions.. most people won't notice or care about that difference, but using two extra possessions a game loses your team ~2-2.5ppg (a possession on average is worth ~1-1.2p), and each ppg is worth about ~3 wins, so that costs your team something like 6-7 wins over the course of a season. They will notice that you scored 30 though, and overly value that.

3) Similar to efficiency, people don't notice as much things that effect possessions like offensive rebounding, steals, low turnovers, blocks (blocks are worth about half a possession) etc., but these are also extremely important for advanced stats, as each of these provide an extra offensive possession (or doesnt lose one). Again, each possession gained/not lost per game is worth a little over 1ppg, or about 3 wins per season for your team.

For example, Jordan, as a 21 year old rookie, averaged 2 oreb, 2.4stl, 0.8blk, to 3.5TO -- this is generally an extremely overlooked part of Jordan's game, 2oreb as a guard is ridiculous. In total, he gained his team +4.8 possessions and lost 3.5 to turnovers, a net of +1.3. Wade as a 22yo rookie was +0.9, Kobe as a 22yo was +0.3, SGA this season is +1.1, Jokic is +1.6, Ant is -0.9. The difference between SGA and Ant for example, purely in oreb, steals, blocks and turnovers is 2 possessions a game, or about 6-7 wins. I doubt many fans realize just how big of an impact that is.

4) Players that make flashy plays get more hype, and Ant is athletic/flashy. Young players also generally get overhyped because people assume best case scenarios for improvement, injuries, etc. because they are fans and want to see the next great player.

5) He's in a situation/team that emphasizes his strengths and hides his weaknesses. He's surrounded by a bunch of low usage extremely good defensive players, so naturally his defensive shortcomings are hidden and he has free reign to take as many shots as he wants more or less. If he were on a team with a bunch of scorers that were bad at defense, his lack of defense would be a lot harder to ignore, and not having as high a usage rate would lower his most visible contribution, eg scoring. Imagine him on Phoenix -- he wouldn't look nearly as good.

Thats most of it.
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Re: Why are Anthony Edwards impact metrics so poor relative to his hype? 

Post#23 » by thinktank » Mon Apr 29, 2024 6:48 am

OkcSinceSGA wrote:
thinktank wrote:Better check his playoff numbers.

And he’s 22!

The guys you mentioned are 5 years older.


Luka and SGA are 25. Ant is 22. Is that 5 years? As for his previous years, it’s fair. He does level up for the playoffs it seems. I’m not taking that away. Just found it weird that his impact isn’t keeping up in the data.


They’re three years older?

Someone should’ve told the OP. ;)
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Re: Why are Anthony Edwards impact metrics so poor relative to his hype? 

Post#24 » by winforlose » Mon Apr 29, 2024 6:51 am

OkcSinceSGA wrote:Face of the league. Superstar. Best SG in the league. Things I’m seeing a lot right now. He’s basically the league darling right now. People talk about him like he’s the next Jordan. You even have insane people trying to partake in revisionist history and saying he’s in the same tier this season as Luka and SGA.

But something I find odd is he’s not well liked by impact metrics. SGA and Luka for example are .250-.270 WS/48 players which is HOF/MVP tier. Ant is at .130, which is literally not even all star tier basically. Normally players at that level are high end starters, to low end all stars. .100 is a league average player, .150 area is typically an all star, .200 is a superstar, .250-.300 is usually a first ballot HOF/Multiple time MVP (guys like Jokic, Wilt, CP3, LeBron, KG etc).

EPM has SGA and Luka at #2 and #3 for example with 8.8 and 7.9. Edwards is at 4.2 which is ranked 22nd in the league after guys like FVV. Why is his hype/reputation so much better than his impact metrics?


He doesn’t get the whistle and takes a ton of contact. When he gets the whistle guys cannot defend him as physically. When that happens he gets more looks and scores more. You cannot take things from a purely statistical perspective. If Joker got the same whistle as KAT he would average less points and probably be injured more. If Wemby gets the same whistle as Embiid he will be better than Lebron.
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Re: Why are Anthony Edwards impact metrics so poor relative to his hype? 

Post#25 » by OkcSinceSGA » Mon Apr 29, 2024 6:56 am

runtmc wrote:1) Because offensive players are generally far more "hyped" than defensive players. Points per game is probably the single most overhyped stat. Numerous examples of this currently/historically. A huge portion of Ant's low advanced stats are related to having average defense.

2) Ant's best skill is his shot creation ability and high usage, and shot creation/usage are generally far more hyped than other offensive skills, but actually, in terms of offensive skills, shot creation and high usage arent particularly valuable (they do have value, but other things matter more). Numerous examples of players that can create for themselves/shoot a lot being overvalued currently/historically as well. The problem is that a big portion of Ant's low advanced stats though are related to having low efficiency, and low efficiency with high usage is particularly problematic -- his TS+ is 99 for comparison, meaning he's below league average efficiency.

Along that line, people are bad at noticing the difference between a player with say 55% TS and 60% TS. Say for example you score 30 but need 27 possessions vs say 25 possessions.. most people won't notice or care about that difference, but using two extra possessions a game loses your team ~2-2.5ppg (a possession on average is worth ~1-1.2p), and each ppg is worth about ~3 wins, so that costs your team something like 6-7 wins over the course of a season. They will notice that you scored 30 though, and overly value that.

3) Similar to efficiency, people don't notice as much things that effect possessions like offensive rebounding, steals, low turnovers, blocks (blocks are worth about half a possession) etc., but these are also extremely important for advanced stats, as each of these provide an extra offensive possession (or doesnt lose one). Again, each possession gained/not lost per game is worth a little over 1ppg, or about 3 wins per season for your team.

For example, Jordan, as a 21 year old rookie, averaged 2 oreb, 2.4stl, 0.8blk, to 3.5TO -- this is generally an extremely overlooked part of Jordan's game, 2oreb as a guard is ridiculous. In total, he gained his team +4.8 possessions and lost 3.5 to turnovers, a net of +1.3. Wade as a 22yo rookie was +0.9, Kobe as a 22yo was +0.3, SGA this season is +1.1, Jokic is +1.6, Ant is -0.9. The difference between SGA and Ant for example, purely in oreb, steals, blocks and turnovers is 2 possessions a game, or about 6-7 wins. I doubt many fans realize just how big of an impact that is.

4) Players that make flashy plays get more hype, and Ant is athletic/flashy. Young players also generally get overhyped because people assume best case scenarios for improvement, injuries, etc. because they are fans and want to see the next great player.

5) He's in a situation/team that emphasizes his strengths and hides his weaknesses. He's surrounded by a bunch of low usage extremely good defensive players, so naturally his defensive shortcomings are hidden and he has free reign to take as many shots as he wants more or less. If he were on a team with a bunch of scorers that were bad at defense, his lack of defense would be a lot harder to ignore, and not having as high a usage rate would lower his most visible contribution, eg scoring. Imagine him on Phoenix -- he wouldn't look nearly as good.

Thats most of it.


Fantastic post. Thank you for sharing this. Very well thought out IMO.
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Re: Why are Anthony Edwards impact metrics so poor relative to his hype? 

Post#26 » by SweaterBae » Mon Apr 29, 2024 7:04 am

He's a chucker and people like dunks.
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Re: Why are Anthony Edwards impact metrics so poor relative to his hype? 

Post#27 » by Primedeion » Mon Apr 29, 2024 7:09 am

The question doesn't make much sense. WS48 is not an "impact" metric, and stuff like EPM is heavily influenced by the boxscore. Look at the actual adjusted +/- numbers and Ant-man looks phenomenal.

For example, he's top five in single season RAPM and top 15 in three year RAPM:

https://psteve.shinyapps.io/RAPM/

Also, most of the hype is tied to how good he's been in the postseason and his two-way play. The boxscore is pretty much useless for picking up defense.
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Re: Why are Anthony Edwards impact metrics so poor relative to his hype? 

Post#28 » by shangrila » Mon Apr 29, 2024 7:18 am

OkcSinceSGA wrote:
shangrila wrote:I'll just leave this here...

https://stathead.com/tiny/cJAtk


So SGA took 4 less shots while having better efficiency and impact? Seems accurate. Now let’s see if Ant can get to #2 in one of the most stacked MVP races in history arguably within the next two seasons.

I'm sure he will
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Re: Why are Anthony Edwards impact metrics so poor relative to his hype? 

Post#29 » by runtmc » Mon Apr 29, 2024 7:24 am

+/- stats are notoriously very, very noisy, meaning they can jump around a lot year to year (which to the creator's credit, is likely why they are also showing 3 and 5 year metrics), they can have issues with correlation (eg if you and another player are always on the court together, it can be difficult to separate out who is having an impact) and without knowing more about methodology it would be hard to say much about accuracy.

I havent seen this particular site before, but I can just say any metric that has Kentavious Caldwell Pope as the 4th best player in the NBA and Jokic 11th is probably not particularly accurate (and probably suffering from correlation issues as mentioned) -- along the same lines, Naz Reid, Mike Conley, and Ant are all rated higher defensively than Gobert, which also doesnt pass the smell test.

Also, quite a number of other adjusted plus minus advanced stats dont have Edwards nearly as high -- EPM has him 22nd, LEBRON has him 52nd, etc.
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Re: Why are Anthony Edwards impact metrics so poor relative to his hype? 

Post#30 » by SpreeS » Mon Apr 29, 2024 7:25 am

SGA is the best SG at the moment and no one is close to him. He took team with full of rookies contracts and won the WC. Minesota is very good team with good combination of young/prime/vets players. Also they have 6MOY/DPOY/All-STAR/ALLDEF level players. The diference in impacts of both players is quite big (dont need to look at all these adv stats) and I dont see MIN as competitor to OKC in couple years at all.
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Re: Why are Anthony Edwards impact metrics so poor relative to his hype? 

Post#31 » by FarBeyondDriven » Mon Apr 29, 2024 7:33 am

advanced stats don't always tell the real story. Gobert CAN run PnR but he's not elite at it. And when he's not running it, he clogs the lane preventing a lot of Edwards' dribble drive game which let's be honest is really his strength. KAT and Gobert on the floor together introduces another big on defense as well, further clogging the lane. If he had driving lanes defenders would go into drop coverage more to stop him and then he'd have even more open looks from outside. This would improve his advanced stats.

Edwards is absolutely in the same class as SGA and Luka. I don't know why this suggestion triggers so many. The differences in counting stats is the result of usage and FGA. Only 7 other players averaged 25-5-5 like Edwards and he is much younger than the others and plays defense better than many of them. He's a bonafide star.
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Re: Why are Anthony Edwards impact metrics so poor relative to his hype? 

Post#32 » by lambchop » Mon Apr 29, 2024 7:35 am

SweaterBae wrote:He's a chucker and people like dunks.


Tell me you didn't watch him play without telling me you didnt watch him play. In a closeout game he had an awesome 4th quarter with a ton of key buckets and two blocks against a team whose two stars were simply on fire. Yes, he capped it all off with what was the best dunk of playoffs so far (bar was pretty low), but that dunk was the least impressive thing he did last night.

That said, I'm a big fan of consistent impact and bringing it night in and out. That's why I'm taking the SGA, Luka, Jokic, LBJ (prime) types over dudes like Kawhi, Butler, Murray, Edwards who to varying degrees turn it up in the playoffs relative to their regular season performance.

Given Edwards' age, I wouldn't be surprised, if he can rack up a couple of MVP type seasons, provided he stays healthy.
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Re: Why are Anthony Edwards impact metrics so poor relative to his hype? 

Post#33 » by socal74 » Mon Apr 29, 2024 7:49 am

OkcSinceSGA wrote:Face of the league. Superstar. Best SG in the league. Things I’m seeing a lot right now. He’s basically the league darling right now. People talk about him like he’s the next Jordan. You even have insane people trying to partake in revisionist history and saying he’s in the same tier this season as Luka and SGA.

But something I find odd is he’s not well liked by impact metrics. SGA and Luka for example are .250-.270 WS/48 players which is HOF/MVP tier. Ant is at .130, which is literally not even all star tier basically. Normally players at that level are high end starters, to low end all stars. .100 is a league average player, .150 area is typically an all star, .200 is a superstar, .250-.300 is usually a first ballot HOF/Multiple time MVP (guys like MJ, Jokic, Wilt, LeBron, KG etc).

EPM has SGA and Luka at #2 and #3 for example with 8.8 and 7.9. Edwards is at 4.2 which is ranked 22nd in the league after guys like FVV. Why is his hype/reputation so much better than his impact metrics?

You know who else isn't like by the metrics and stat nerds? Kobe! You saw what he brought to the table night in and night out
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Re: Why are Anthony Edwards impact metrics so poor relative to his hype? 

Post#34 » by crows2 » Mon Apr 29, 2024 7:59 am

The American media is desperate for a black American “face of the league”. The best players in the league right are non-Americans and likely will be into the future with Doncic continuing and Wemby ascending.
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Re: Why are Anthony Edwards impact metrics so poor relative to his hype? 

Post#35 » by crows2 » Mon Apr 29, 2024 8:00 am

FarBeyondDriven wrote:advanced stats don't always tell the real story. Gobert CAN run PnR but he's not elite at it. And when he's not running it, he clogs the lane preventing a lot of Edwards' dribble drive game which let's be honest is really his strength. KAT and Gobert on the floor together introduces another big on defense as well, further clogging the lane. If he had driving lanes defenders would go into drop coverage more to stop him and then he'd have even more open looks from outside. This would improve his advanced stats.

Edwards is absolutely in the same class as SGA and Luka. I don't know why this suggestion triggers so many. The differences in counting stats is the result of usage and FGA. Only 7 other players averaged 25-5-5 like Edwards and he is much younger than the others and plays defense better than many of them. He's a bonafide star.


Edwards isn’t in the same stratosphere as Luka. Pretty much any stat (basic or advanced) shows that.
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Re: Why are Anthony Edwards impact metrics so poor relative to his hype? 

Post#36 » by SweaterBae » Mon Apr 29, 2024 8:08 am

lambchop wrote:
SweaterBae wrote:He's a chucker and people like dunks.


Tell me you didn't watch him play without telling me you didnt watch him play. In a closeout game he had an awesome 4th quarter with a ton of key buckets and two blocks against a team whose two stars were simply on fire. Yes, he capped it all off with what was the best dunk of playoffs so far (bar was pretty low), but that dunk was the least impressive thing he did last night.

That said, I'm a big fan of consistent impact and bringing it night in and out. That's why I'm taking the SGA, Luka, Jokic, LBJ (prime) types over dudes like Kawhi, Butler, Murray, Edwards who to varying degrees turn it up in the playoffs relative to their regular season performance.

Given Edwards' age, I wouldn't be surprised, if he can rack up a couple of MVP type seasons, provided he stays healthy.


I wasn't making a referendum. He had a great 2nd half. For his handles, he has no mid range(where actual Jordan ate), he shoots too many threes and he doesn't get to the line enough for someone with his "talent". He's a great player at 22. With his gifts, he needs more Zion in his game and less Tatum. They were both on display tonight in that 2nd half.

I was answering the question as to why he's so highly esteemed yet actually less impactful than his estimation (in less than 2500 words). He's not efficient, and he is exciting. Capiche?
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Re: Why are Anthony Edwards impact metrics so poor relative to his hype? 

Post#37 » by RollingWave » Mon Apr 29, 2024 8:09 am

IIRC Devin Booker also kind of had the same issue where the stats got good first but the impact still sucked for a year or two then it caught up.

If he's still like that at age 25 or something I'd be more concerned..
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Re: Why are Anthony Edwards impact metrics so poor relative to his hype? 

Post#38 » by Bloodbather » Mon Apr 29, 2024 8:51 am

As far as I know, based on the opinion of stats experts, most publicly available catch-all impact metrics out there are complete trash, and even the good ones are quite noisy. So it depends on what metrics you're talking about. Analytics are moving toward context-dependent specific stats and reports based on a compilation of such stats.

I look at EPM and DARKO, personally, because of the heavy use of tracking stats and decently set boxscore priors. PER, BPM, WS, VORP are all trash. LEBRON and RAPM are decent but too noisy.

Anthony Edwards shows up as a Top 20/25 player in EPM and DARKO, which is pretty good when you pair it up with the eyetest and the context of the team where he has a hugely impactful defensive player like Gobert who keeps the team at least solid defensively by himself, and someone who can still anchor an offense when Edwards is off the floor like Towns playing alongside him.

One reason his impact is getting better is his improvement as a playmaker. He's doing a much better job leveraging his scoring threat to create opportunities for others. This was especially the case against the Suns. If he keeps it up, I'd expect his impact numbers to get better next season.

As for the hype, Edwards is a player of the Jordan/Kobe/Wade prototype, that type always dazzles crowds and brings a psychological edge that may not show up in stats. He's also an up-and-comer, not a star whose greatness we're already used to.
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Re: Why are Anthony Edwards impact metrics so poor relative to his hype? 

Post#39 » by ChipotleWest » Mon Apr 29, 2024 8:52 am

thinktank wrote:he’s 22!



/thread
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Re: Why are Anthony Edwards impact metrics so poor relative to his hype? 

Post#40 » by NoStatsGuy » Mon Apr 29, 2024 9:25 am

im sure i could pick 2 advanced stats categories that paint a different picture.

you probably wanna see your boy to get that recognition and thats why you picked those two, that you mentioned
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