Apologies and a New Discussion

[Ruzious]

Did we point out that the East was historically bad the last 2 seasons and is no longer historically bad this season?

[TheSecretWeapon]

Do you count Lebron, Durant, Melo as SF or PF?

I just used b-r's position designations. They have the following:

- Lebron SF
- Durant SF
- Anthony SF

Anthony, by the way, rates only a little better than Porter so far this season. In my last update, Anthony was at 137; Porter at 127.

I haven't watched a single minute of Knicks basketball this season, but that seems very silly Kevin, do you agree?

Wait, what seems silly?

Position designation for Anthony?

If you mean the ratings...very different kinds of players, of course. Anthony guzzles possessions at average-to-below average efficiency. Porter uses relatively few possessions, efficiently. Otto is shooting better from 2pt and 3pt range this season. Anthony rebounds better and gets more assists; Porter rates as being a bigger defensive impact. And Porter commits half as many turnovers.

This season, I have Carmelo with 633 zero-point possessions -- 15.8 per 100 possessions. For Porter, it's 290 -- 8.4 per 100 possessions.

Anthony's shooting has cost the Knicks 76 points so far this season (compared to league average shooting); -1.9 points per 100 possessions. Porter's shooting has added 26 points compared to league average (0.7 pts per 100 possessions).

[TheSecretWeapon]

Never change, deneem.

Never change.

[payitforward]

Good stuff, TSW. I'm really surprised that Porter ranks so high!

SF rates as the least productive position in the league. Porter wouldn't rank as high with the same production at any other position.

Whoa there.... Will you please define "least productive"? Also, "rates" where -- in PPA?

In re: "least productive" -- do you mean viewed through box score numbers?

I do remember you saying (correct me if I'm wrong) that PPA didn't incorporate a position adjustment. I've never understood why it wouldn't need to, given that bigs are higher on the productivity metrics that correlate closest w/ wins and losses (mostly that's rebound rate and TS%), yet (obviously) you can't field a team of 5 bigs.

One more question -- what are the factors that put productivity by 2s above 3s overall?

[payitforward]

Good stuff, TSW. I'm really surprised that Porter ranks so high!

Nate -- boxscoregeeks ranks Porter #7 among SFs (500+ minutes) on the season:

http://www.boxscoregeeks.com/players?direction=desc&minimum=true&positions%5B%5D=SF&sort=per48_wins_produced

Considering that Leonard, Durant & James are the top 3, that's some nice company. (Note that Jae Crowder is in that top 7 as well: such a shame we passed on him!).

That's a "wins produced" site -- some people don't like wp48, for whatever reason (too geeky?). IMO, it ain't a religion, but it's useful, because it has a 93% correlation w/ actual team wins -- higher than any other such by a good bit.

Now... TSW says PPA correlates just as well, and I don't doubt it -- but we can't check on that, as it's not a published methodology like wp48.

[TheSecretWeapon]

Good stuff, TSW. I'm really surprised that Porter ranks so high!

SF rates as the least productive position in the league. Porter wouldn't rank as high with the same production at any other position.

Whoa there.... Will you please define "least productive"? Also, "rates" where -- in PPA?

In re: "least productive" -- do you mean viewed through box score numbers?

Yes, using PPA.

I do remember you saying (correct me if I'm wrong) that PPA didn't incorporate a position adjustment. I've never understood why it wouldn't need to, given that bigs are higher on the productivity metrics that correlate closest w/ wins and losses (mostly that's rebound rate and TS%), yet (obviously) you can't field a team of 5 bigs.

I don't include a position adjustment for a few reasons. One is that position is fairly undefined. Another is that the things that help win games are the things that help win games, regardless of what position the guy plays.

As for fielding a team of five bigs (or guards or whatever), I sorta figured I could just use my general basketball knowledge to avoid doing that.

One more question -- what are the factors that put productivity by 2s above 3s overall?

All that said, I should have been a little more precise. And I should have checked before generalizing. The more accurate statement would be: The top players classified by basketball-reference as SG are more productive in PPA than top players classified as SF.

When I've looked at positions (last time I considered a position adjustment), I found only a minor difference between SG and SF. I just looked, and this year SF is ahead by a little over SG. So, SG is actually the least productive position -- at least as positions are assigned by basketball-reference.

[deneem4]

Never change, deneem.

Never change.

What does that mean?