Win Shares is the most worthless stat ever

[HB2]

All stats are worthless IMO. Even if you put them all together, you still won't know the true impact of a player, you will just have a general idea that has a good chance to be wrong. I'll probably get blasted for saying that though.

This hencforth shall be known as "the Rubio argument"!

[iElusive]

@OP
With that said, it's not too surprising that for example Detlef Schrempf had a higher WS than Hakeem, as his team had a significantly better record.

Way to ignore all the other examples.

[kobe_vs_jordan]

Win shares stats heavily favor bigs or players who do most of their work in the paint. I agree OP, what does win shares really tell you? With nearly every other stat it can tell you that Player A does something better or worse than Player B.

[DJDanji]

@OP
With that said, it's not too surprising that for example Detlef Schrempf had a higher WS than Hakeem, as his team had a significantly better record.

Way to ignore all the other examples.

Look, the last thing i want to do is advertise WS, and i agree i should have completely left your examples out, because regarding them WS is absolutely (Please Use More Appropriate Word).
Again WS is imo not usefull when comparing players from different teams.
If one wants to use it, then compare players from the same team.

[Chicago76]

The resources on the net do a pretty inadequate job of explaining Ortg, Drtg, and WS and Dean Oliver's chapters on it in his book are pretty complex, so it looks like a very simplified nuts and bolts explanation is in order. There are several ways to calculate WS, but they're all variation on what is essentially the same theme. This will only be 95% correct, but it's the 95% you need to understand indiv. Ortg, Drtg, and WS.

The first thing to understand is that WS does not attempt to tell you how many wins a player is responsible for. What it actually does is attempt to allocate credit for wins a team should have achieved, given its offensive and defensive efficiency (or pt differential, since possessions for both teams are roughly equal over a season anyway). This is a pretty small distinction, but an important one, because a team's Ortg and Drtg will set a benchmark for each player.

We get expected team wins from the difference between off and def efficiency in the following formula: Ortg^14/(Ortg^14+Drtg^14) x total games. Assuming team Ortg = 108, Drtg=102, a team would be expected to win 57 games. If league avg. efficiency = 104, then 31 wins come in the form of OWS and 26 come in the form of DWS because the offense outperforms the league avg more than the defense does. Note: you might think the ratio should be 2:1 Off wins to Def wins, but it isn't for a reason we don't need to get into.

These two pools of OWS and DWS (and the corresponding Ortg and Drtg) from the example above are the parameters used to determine individual WS for a player. Individually:

Ortg: is a linear weights measure which tabulates the positive things a player does (made FG, FT, AST, and ORB) against the negative (TOV, missed FG, missed FT) that can be readily obtained in a box score. The objective is to quantify points generated and possessions used for each player to arrive at Ortg for each player. If a player nets to exactly what the team does per poss, then their rating should also be 108. Do less, and you're less than 108. Do more, and you're over 108. Each player is anchored somewhat to the team in such a way that if you possession-weight everyone on a team, this should reconcile to the team Ortg of 108 in our example.

Drtg: a linear weights measure which tabulates all of the positive defensive things a player can do that is captured in the box score: STL, BLK, and DRB. Missed opp FGs and turnovers not from steals are evenly distributed based upon minutes, which is part of the credit problem we'll get into later. Everyone gets a Drtg based upon these "stops" per poss. Just like the offense, if you do more, your rating will be better and so on.

You can then use the formula for team expected wins above on an individual level. You simply need to apply indiv. Ortg and Drtg into the formula just as you would for the team. OWS and DWS are possession-weighted and minutes weighted, respectively vs. team totals to get to this score.

Before we get into the credit issue, it's also important to note that even if a player performs below team avg, some credit will be given. As an example, let's say a player performs 10 pts worse than league average offensively and plays the entire season. On a team level, if a team is 10 pts worse than league average on both ends of the court, they're all-time awful. The would be expected to win 5 games (2.5 on each end of the court) out of 82. So a player responsible for 1/5 of the team's possessions who is 10 pts worse than league avg offensively is still worth 0.5 wins on that end of the court.

This nice thing about WS is that it reconciles well with the team. Now for the bad things, using the player examples earlier in the thread:

-Olajuwon. The value of elite interior defenders is undervalued due to the defensive credit problems. Olajuwon produces value with BLKs, STLs, and DRBs, but a big part of his value is in missed FGs, which are evenly credited among his teammates based upon minutes played. Opposing offenses don't even enter the lane to even attempt shots vs. Olajuwon. Instead, they rely upon lower percentage mid-range and perimeter shots, and Olajuwon doesn't get credit for this. The Rockets went from being the second best D in the league in 93-94 to an avg team (12th) in 94-95. Why? The 3 pt line moved in and their perimeter D wasn't particularly good. Those 2s teams were taking before to avoid Olajuwon were now worth 3 pts. Teams took more of them, and there were longer rebounds on those misses which more frequently became ORBs. On the offensive end, 3s became a more efficient weapon too, making Olajuwon's offensive production relatively less efficient. Olajuwon wasn't worse. The rules changes just made him relatively less valuable. The Rockets adapated their D in subsequent seasons and improved here (along w/ Olajuwon's DWS). Also: in 94-95, Hakeem only played 72 games vs. full seasons for Schrempf, Miller, Barros, which certainly hurt his gross WS number.

-Kidd. True creators are undervalued in WS. They provide easy shots for teammates, and the incremental production is credited in the form of efficiency to the scorer. Sure, there is an assist component, but all assists aren't equal. A guy who can demand double teams on penetration before dishing has value that a more run of the mill PG doesn't have. The same goes for scorers. Speaking of which, Kidd was horribly inefficient as a scorer. This killed his Ortg and WS. Also: great defenders who don't necessarily generate a ton of steals or blocks will be undervalued. Kidd did get a lot of steals but hardly any blocked shots.

-Very efficient third and below option scorers are almost always overrated. These players are efficient because they're good at knocking down shots the defense concedes to take away the primary scoring threat. In a perfect world, some of this credit would be given to the lead offensive players, but how much? There is no clean way to allocate. This is why the Jon Barry's of the world (and Detlef Schrempfs on more balanced teams) can generate huge WS. The distinction here isn't so much efficiency as where in the offensive pecking order a player is. Steve Kerr got wide open looks and was efficient in hitting them thanks to Jordan, Pippen, Kukoc, and the need to defend easy buckets inside. He was the net beneficiary of great scorers/creators. Reggie Miller on the other hand was deadly efficient as a primary scorer. He played off Smits probably about as much as Smits played off him, but defenders weren't exactly preoccupied with the Davises, Derrick McKey, the shooting touch of Mark Jackson, etc. Miller's deep threat at volume benefitted team spacing and offense rather than the offense benefitting Miller.

Hopefully this helps someone conceptually. The stat isn't flawed. It's a gross stat (as opposed to PER, which is a rate stat). As far as gross stats go, it is a very useful one. Just compare WS to another gross stat (like total points scored in a season) and tell me which one does a better job of ranking players. Like any statistic, you just need to understand what it can and can not measure rather than discarding it indiscriminately.

[parapooper]

Win shares work very nicely for standard high usage star players. Look at the yearly best players in the NBA according to WS:
http://www.basketball-reference.com/lea ... early.html
Pretty much perfect. Also note every MVP award that correlates with WS leader is pretty much undisputed while the ones where the MVP did not lead in WS are widely questioned (Iverson, Nash, Kobe, Rose) and are generally all story- instead of performance-based.
Although WS does undervalue a guy like Nash - what he does just can't be quantified from his box score.
PER is more a measure of expected public-perception-impact than a performance-meter because it rewards chucking even if it's very inefficient.

[Doctor MJ]

Here is the problem.....99% of the people don't understand win shares and don't know how it works. I don't either and I think it's pointless altogether. I don't know how you take win shares into context either. It's just random jibberish thrown into a digital.

99% eh? So precise! I'm amazed that you talked to 100+ people and got 99% of them to say they didn't understand the stats they used. Clearly you are a very thorough analyst who doesn't jump to conclusion rashly. I'm only puzzled that you were able to spend all this time doing this and still haven't figure out how this stat works.

Generally though, I'd say you're under a misconception about what these stats are for. Stuff like WS and PER exist because it's just kind of obvious to try to take a box score, add up the good and the bad, and get a single number to represent a player. This is then useful for convenience sake, but obviously since even the complete box score doesn't tell the whole picture, a one-number simplification of a box score was never intended to be taken as gospel for how good a player was.

And here's the thing: If you had earnestly tried to understand this from the get go by talking to people who really use advanced basketball stats the most, you'd have gotten this same kind of even handed answer rather than get some impression that we all insist that whoever has the most Win Shares is the better player.

[Doctor MJ]

From what I understand win shares is similar to per, in that it's 1 number that represents a players overall value. The main difference is that it meant to correlate with the amount of wins a team would hypothetically get by having that player. I don't know why, but the number is actually 3 or 4 times higher than the team wins the number is supposedly representing (This might explain the Kevin Love thing).

Also, you cannot have a negative WS, so it's not an accurate average. If you create a false floor, then you are not penalizing players enough for consistently playing below that point. I'm not sure how often a player scores below the 0 mark, but it's hard to put credibility in a stat that cannot differentiate between having a very off night and being straight terrible.

I'm no expert on these stats, so if anything I said about WS is wrong, let me know.

Win Shares are really based on two things:

1) Assigning a weight to various box score stats based on how it correlates with team wins.

2) Apportioning credit on defense based on a team's actual defensive success based on the stats we have.

Kevin Love's numbers illustrate an extreme example which should quite rightly be considered a weakness in the stat, albeit a pretty understandable one.

You can indeed have negative WS (Adam Morrison's entire career WS is negative), however one problem with WS is that no real attempt is made to set a replacement-level baseline. PER on the other hand essentially does do that by setting the league average to 15, however the average player-minute of NBA time is played by a player of much higher quality than a true replacement level player would be, so it's fair to say that WS overrates longevity whereas a 15-adjusted PER take on a players career would underrate longevity.

[grimballer]

Seriously..... I always laugh when people bring up win shares in an argument especially since 99% of the time the person doesn't even know what it means. It is just some bogus way for a person to defend the player they are arguing for in a comparison.

Here is why it is worthless....

-Detlef Schrempf, Dana Barros, Reggie Miller, and Stockton were all ahead of Hakeem in win shares in 1995. The year he won his second ring and was at worst...the second best player in the NBA(in reality...the best). Hakeem wasnt even top 10. Not sure how far he fell but it amuses me to know numbers can be bent that far.

-In 1990 Hakeem put up 24/14/5 blocks 2 steals and 3 assists a game. But his teams record was bad(well...average) so he was behind Terry Porter, Reggie, and so on. And odd thing is Reggies team had almost the exact same record as Hakeems.

-Brent Barry ended up having more win shares than Kidd in 2002. And that was in 02 when midseason Kidd likely would have been voted MVP.

-Oh and also that year in 2002...Elton Brand over Dirk, Shaq(3rd ring year) and KG somehow.

Some of the results mock themselves just by existing.

ws is not perfect but you should try to understand few things before saying somethings worthless.

1. you gotta look at total numbers instead of per game. so if one player player 82 game n the other only 50, guess whos probably gonna have more ws?

2. gotta look at off n def ratings + usage% (off n def ratings are points produces/allowed per 100 possessions)


so lets look at your examples:

in 95 miller was 6th, barros was 5th, stockton was 4th n srchemft was 1st, while olajuwon wasnt even top 20.

in 90 again guys like porter n miller were top 10, while hakeem wasnt even top 20.

in 02 brent berry was 1st in offensive rating, while jason kidd was shooting below 40%.

also brand was 5th in off rating.

for off its pretty accurate.

the only problem is d, since d rating is based on points allowed per 100 possessions n there are 4 other guys on the floor playing d.

[Chicago76]

You can indeed have negative WS (Adam Morrison's entire career WS is negative), however one problem with WS is that no real attempt is made to set a replacement-level baseline. PER on the other hand essentially does do that by setting the league average to 15, however the average player-minute of NBA time is played by a player of much higher quality than a true replacement level player would be, so it's fair to say that WS overrates longevity whereas a 15-adjusted PER take on a players career would underrate longevity.

Which is why when you try to determine career value using PER, you should use a 12 adj. rather than 15 or a true replacement level of 6 to 8.

Use 7 and a 5 seasons of 12 PER play looks about as good as 2 fringe all-star seasons at 19 to 20 PER (assuming the same min.) Use 15 and solid bench players have a negative contribution, which doesn't make sense either.

Split the difference and rotation guys still aren't assigned a negative value, but the actual value of hanging around for an extra few years doesn't have a huge impact.

[See5]

JordanBulls needs to read this thread. All he does is spew nonsense about how Player X's WS is higher than Player Y's WS so they had the better season and are better players. So simplistic and misused.

[SideshowBob]

JordanBulls needs to read this thread. All he does is spew nonsense about how Player X's WS is higher than Player Y's WS so they had the better season and are better players. So simplistic and misused.

http://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?f=64&t=1045196

[See5]

JordanBulls needs to read this thread. All he does is spew nonsense about how Player X's WS is higher than Player Y's WS so they had the better season and are better players. So simplistic and misused.

http://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?f=64&t=1045196

There was in a post that was spot-on. He comes up with some convoluted way to rank players and when it gets refuted he comes back with win shares or PER.

What a goober.