Moderators: Clyde Frazier, Doctor MJ, trex_8063, penbeast0, PaulieWal
SPM is easily beating out PER in terms of explaining and predicting, it is better than WS/48, even though not by a huge margin. It is a far better metric in order to predict than WP48. The only other boxscore based metric I would consider is DsMok's ASPM, a statistical plus minus approach based on the regression of some boxscore based values on a multiyear RAPM.
"The Portland Trail Blazers, formally announced the firing of Lenny Wilkens yesterday naming Jack Ramsey to succeed him as a coach of the National Basketball Association team. Ramsey, fired by Buffalo after guiding the Braves into the Eastern semi-conference finals, is the fourth coach of the Blazers, who joined in the 1970. Ramsey said, "I think this the best coaching opportunity in professional basketball, and I took the position here for that reason."
"I have great regard for the talent of this team" Ramsey said. "It is like an iceberg. What you see isn't the mass that is really there. Sure Bill Walton has to be healthy and play almost a full season if we are to achieve great success.
"I want a team that can run, a team that can make the transition from offense to defense and be aggressive when it gets to defense. Bill Walton is a great big man and he will give us up front quality. I am looking forward to his playing a major part of the schedule."
"Depend on the health of center Bill Walton, this could be the turnaround season for the Portland Trail Blazers in the National Basketball Association. So far, Walton is healthy -- the healthiest he's ever been since he's turned pro -- and Portland is in a high state of optimism.
"Our future has to be now" says Ramsey, a successful veteran of the NBA wars who left Buffalo after three straight playoff seasons after falling out with the Braves front office. Ramsey admits Walton is the key to a turnaround. "I want at least 60 games out of Bill this season" he said. "If we get that, we will be in good shape."
Walton, the former UCLA All-American, can be awesome when healthy. But he was an injury prone in his first two pro seasons, getting in the equivalent of only one season's play over two years. For the first time, he came to training camp with no injuries:
"Walton is such a fine talent, so coachable, and unselfish." said Ramsey. "He does everything well. I like the spirit on this club. These players want to win. You can see it in practice and we saw it in exhibition games."
"His third season's been a charm, so far, for big Bill Walton of the Portland Trail Blazers. The sometimes controversial redheaded is off to his best National Basketball Association start ever, and the reason is simple.
For the first time in his pro career, Walton's completely healthy. "I don't think about the injuries. I try to keep up in the best physical condition that I can prevent injuries, but I don't think about them" Walton says.[/b]
But he's had a bad reason to think a lot. He had nine broken bones of one kind or another in his first two NBA seasons. Coach Jack Ramsey wanted the 6-11 center, who was drafted No.1 from the UCLA in 1974, to come to camp a bit lighter this season. And he did -- about 10 pounds.
Ramsey thinks with less weight, there's less chances of an injury from pressure on the legs and knees. The Blazers have something of a new attitude under Ramsey, more of a team concept. But Walton says his attitude are about the same ever.
"I don't think I've changed. I have the same values and the same interests." says Walton, who turned 24 last week. Still bearded, he says he's got long hair cut for comfort, nothing else. The coach has nothing but praise for Walton.
"He is a blend of all the skills of the game" Ramsey says. "He'll do whatever is necessary to win, and that's all he's concerned about.
"I think he could be the most valuable player in pro basketball." But Walton, who has been a leading scorer for Portland and tops the league in rebounds so far in this season, says what counts in the end is the final tally on the scoreboard.
"I go by wins and loses and not by the boxscore. Boxscores are extremely misleading." Walton says. And he's glad to be mended. "It is pleasant to go to practices this season and be able to practice." [/i]
"The red ponytail is gone and so is the bandanna. So, too, are the aches and pains, the injuries that dogged Bill Walton through his first two years as a pro. "I'm healthy, that's the biggest difference" said Walton, who is playing the way Portland folks had hoped when they drafted him at No.1 in 1974 out of UCLA.
The 6-foot-11, 225 pounded is in great shape and is playing nearly 40 minutes a game. He still wears bandages on his knees, and after games he soaks his chronically sore feet in a tray of ice. But to have gone through seven weeks of the season with no injuries is a new experience, one he is enjoying.
"This is the most I've played in the NBA in one strach" Walton said following a 114-96 victory over the New York Knicks Tuesday night in which he contributed with 16 points, 15 rebounds and 8 blocked shots.
"Consistency, that's the most important thing," he said. "I've been able to develop all the areas of my game. When you play two weeks and then get hurt and sit out two weeks, you can't do that."
Ramsey who has nothing but praise for Walton, who leads the league in rebounds and blocked shots and is Portland's leading scorer at 21.1 points a game. "Bill's been just super" Ramsey said. "He's a very team first oriented guy. He's been working his tail off to help this team. He has great rapport with his teammates."
Walton, 24, is the captain of the Blazers. a position which he was voted to by other players. "It was nice of the guys to select me captain" he said with a smile. "but this team doesn't really need a captain to get them going. They know what to do, how to win games. But it was nice."
"Center Bill Walton of the Portland Trail Blazers will not play Sunday in the National Basketball Association All-Star Game in Milwaukee because of an inflamed Achilles tendon. He will be replaced by Don Buse of the Indiana Pacers.
Walton, who leads the NBA in rebounds and blocked shots, hasn't played in two weeks because of the injury. He said there has been noticeable improvement in the injury in the past three days."
"A jubilant coach Jack Ramsey called it the return "of the old Portland Trail Blazers" and the New Orleans Jazz felt the sting, losing 131-104 in a National Basketball Association game here Tuesday night.
The win broke a three-game Portland losing streak and put the Blazers back within 2 and half games within the leading Los Angeles in the Pacific Division. Center Bill Walton made his return to the Portland lineup after missing five games because of an ankle sprain. He played only 17 minutes, but tallied 12 points, eight rebounds, four assists and four blocked shots.
"We ran well" said Portland forward Maurice Lucas who scored 18 of his 20 points as the Blazers built 66-44 lead. "It makes so much difference with Bill (Walton) back. Also I can do many more things with him there."
"They were both All-Americans at UCLA and now the match up will be Kareem Abdul-Jabbar against Bill Walton as the Los Angeles Lakers battle the Portland Trail Blazers in the National Basketball Association semifinals.
The best of seven series starts Friday night at the Forum, home of the Lakers and where they've 41-4 record this season. The latest was a 97-84 triumph Wednesday night over the Golden State Warriors, who had beaten the three times in Oakland but lost all four playoff games at the Forum.
Abdul-Jabbar, who was Lew Alcindor when he played at UCLA, stands 7-foot-2 which gives him a three inch height advantage over Walton, who followed him at UCLA. "He's a good center and they're a good team" said Abdul-Jabbar, who spearheaded the Laker attack in the triumphant quarter-finals. He scored 40 or more points and 36 in the last one.
"It's going to be a tough series. There's no doubt that the home court is an advantage, at least it has been for us this year. But I've seen things turn around quickly."
"Portland became National Basketball Association champions Sunday, mostly because Coach Gene of Philadelphia 76ers could not find any way to stop Bill Walton of the Portland Trail Blazers. Shue tried four different men on Walton in Sunday's sixth game of the championship final but none could handle him.
Caldwell Jones, Darryl Dawkins, Harvey Catchings and George McGinis all tried, but failed as Portland posted a 109-107 victory to overcome the multi-talented 76ers 4-2 in the best of seven series.
"Bill Walton has been our lead all the way" said Portland coach Jack Ramsey. "He is our team captain in every sense of the word. There is no better player, no more co-operative player, no better person than Bill."
Shue said: "Bill Walton is the best player for a big man who has ever played the game of basketball. We couldn't contain him. He dominated the middle and that threw us out of our game." Walton, who scored and rebounded in double figures in every game of the series, had 20 points, 23 rebounds, seven assists and eight blocked shots in the series finale.
He was named Most Valuable Player in the series for the way he anchored Portland's offense and defense."
ThaRegul8r wrote:I still have '76 Erving over LeBron.
bastillon wrote:why would I vote him over LeBron ? because Hakeem had bigger postseason impact and was a better player. I've already asked why LeBron 09 should be ranked ahead of LeBron 12 and I don't think the arguments were compelling. LeBron 09 was somewhat flawed player for an all-timer, LeBron 12 was just a lot better player, more skilled, more versatile, had better playoff performances when it counted, played hell lot better in heavily pressurised games. the last one is what impresses me the most about LeBron 12 - that guy just didn't let his team lose
ronnymac2 wrote:Regarding '12 LeBron (but I think this is important to keep in mind when evaluating how one values changes in a player): Who gets the credit for LeBron cutting baseline to the basket for post-up pin-downs in the 2012 playoffs: LeBron, Spoelstra for using LeBron that way, or the Miami Heat for being good enough around LeBron to allow that to even be an option?
How much credit do you give LBJ there? Does this make you think Mike Brown was a truly terrible offensive coach for not using this enough, or did Brown need to keep 2009 LBJ perimeter-oriented for the sake of CLE's functionality?
Tim_Hardawayy wrote:I think the big difference is LeBron has an answer for any situation now. In the past, he was so athletic that he could get to the rim against 95% of defenses... but when he met the ones he couldn't (Boston, San Antonio, Dallas zone etc) he was stuck unless his jumper was on fire.
Now you'll see a lot of possessions where he'll start off calling for the ball in the post with his back to his man right at the start... it opens up so much more not only for him, but the whole entire offense. Instead of the defense sagging and waiting to meet him, he gets himself a chance to go 1-on-1... if they do double, he's a brilliant passer out of the post.
Of course, he did start to make strides with that back to the basket game in 2011, the issue was he was too content to pass out if the defense even hinted at a double. Now he's much more comfortable making a move to score, or re-posting if they do double him.
People talk about what a great playoffs LeBron had last year until the Finals, but tbh, he looked like the same player in every series... his jumper was just red hot in the Chicago and Boston series, whereas it betrayed him against Dallas. This year was a totally different look, he always had that post game to go to and so even when the jumper wasn't there, he was still effective.
MisterWestside wrote:Would like to see the numbers for all of this.
mysticbb wrote:MisterWestside wrote:Would like to see the numbers for all of this.
Retrodiction test:
http://sportskeptic.wordpress.com/2012/ ... -happened/
http://sportskeptic.wordpress.com/2012/ ... the-goods/
My metric was tested later, because I was just not invited in the first place.
Error for explaining from 2000 to 2011: 0.22
Error for prediting from 2000 to 2011: 2.14
The out of sample test was done by Engelmann (RAPM guy).
If you don't believe the numbers, feel free to test that by using my webblog. Keep in mind that only the regular season numbers were used in this test with RAPM being the exception.
ronnymac2 wrote:Nice post by Bastillion (along with Fatal's monster post).
Hakeem Olajuwon's defense during his overall peak (1993-1995) is getting underrated here. His D may not have been where it was in 1990, but it was still all-time level elite (especially in '93 and '94...in '95, there was a regular season regression in his defense).
And for ****'s sakes, it wasn't just blocks and steals. Hakeem's positional defense and ability to guard the paint- everywhere in the paint- was insane.
The guy's reflexes, flexibility, and ability to react to a dump-off pass by spinning, balancing, and exploding off the ground following the spin to contest the shot were special. Bill Russell-esque, even in '94 and '95.
Tim Duncan could never do that. So though Duncan and Hakeem's awareness and ability to get into position were fairly equal (maybe slight edge to Duncan- maybe), Hakeem's ability to recalculate what to do and nimbly react after an offensive player made an astute adjustment to Hakeem's initial positional defense gives him the edge as a paint defender.
The fact that he forced more turnovers, actually blocked more shots, defended the perimeter and mid-range better, and defended scoring big men better, seals it for Hakeem on defense to me.
This guy embarrassed a prime Patrick Ewing. Made him shoot under 40 percent from the field. Blocked a shot to potentially save an NBA Finals. A 3-point shot attempt. All in one NBA Finals. Think about that.
The fact that Duncan has led better defensive teams over the course of his career means **** for two reasons:
1.) We're using one season here.
2.) One player can't salvage a defense.
So many people (correctly) champion Kevin Garnett's defense with Minnesota. He never led an elite defense with Minnesota, and that wasn't his fault. If he had never gone to Boston, dumbasses would still be asking questions about his defense and critiquing his ability as an anchor.
We have impact data that says Garnett made Minny's defenses about as good as they could get because of his great impact. His box-score defensive stats are fantastic. The eye-test says he was legit in Minny. So do All-D teams. He goes to Boston and anchors the best defense ever, providing us more context.
All of this proves that one guy can't do it all.
Hakeem never got his Thibs or a bevy of solid enough defensive pieces to anchor an all-time defense (though Dream still anchored the best defense in the league once or twice, IIRC). Duncan had all of that throughout his defensive prime.
BUT.....if you absolutely NEED team defensive rankings to validate one player's ability...
A slightly past his defensive prime Hakeem anchored the 2nd and 3rd best defenses in 1993 and 1994. And he was a defensive beast in the playoffs as well.
Hakeem has a better argument for GOAT peak than Duncan has over Hakeem.
MisterWestside wrote:Didn't say I didn't believe you; I just never saw your SPM being used in any retrodiction analysis on the web.
therealbig3 wrote:I'm not even clearly siding with Duncan lol. I just don't think Hakeem has separated himself from the Duncan/KG tier, so I'm objecting to his name being thrown around, while those two are being ignored. I haven't seen anything that clearly gives him the edge over those two. If Hakeem is a legitimate contender at this point, so are Duncan/KG. I don't think they are, and so I don't think Hakeem is.
therealbig3 wrote:Doctor MJ wrote:Re: Duncan doing well by RAPM. What specifically are you seeing that you like? I'm not saying he's bad by any means, but from what I see, his offensive impact in his peak according to that metric is very underwhelming. I don't know how you can take that seriously, and also take his productivity that seriously. In fact, I'll say that Garnett's clear edge in APM & RAPM stats is part of what made me reconsider Duncan vs Garnett, Hakeem, and other people.
Year by year, RAPM from 04-08:
04 Duncan: +4.9 (+0.9 offense, +4.1 defense)
04 Garnett: +8.0 (+4.5 offense, +3.6 defense)
05 Duncan: +6.0 (+2.2 offense, +3.8 defense)
05 Garnett: +4.4 (+3.1 offense, +1.3 defense)
06 Duncan: +6.1 (+2.4 offense, +3.6 defense)
06 Garnett: +4.4 (+2.5 offense, +1.9 defense)
07 Duncan: +8.8 (+6.3 offense, +2.5 defense)
07 Garnett: +7.0 (+2.7 offense, +4.3 defense)
08 Duncan: +6.3 (+3.2 offense, +3.1 defense)
08 Garnett: +8.1 (+3.0 offense, +5.2 defense)
Where is KG's clear advantage here?
therealbig3 wrote:So I'm not seeing why it's silly to not think Garnett in 08 is better defensively than anything we've seen from Duncan, because Duncan wasn't even in his defensive peak from 04-07, and he was still better than Garnett, including Garnett's peak year.
therealbig3 wrote:And Duncan has more post seasons than just 02 and 03 in which he clearly surpasses Hakeem's 94 and 95 post seasons. At the very least, I'm seeing a guy in Duncan that's elevating his game from the regular season to the playoffs even more than Hakeem.
colts18 wrote:I'll post my rationale in a later thread when he is up for debate, but you compare his impact and its higher than CP3, KG, Wade, Kobe, T-Mac. The 2011 season was an all-time great one from start to finish.
mysticbb wrote:Last season, 374 qualified players, correlation between SPM and STL% was 0.12, correlation between RAPM and STL% was 0.15. We can expect a similar result for other seasons.
SPM is basically just a conversion from a boxscore metric to a +/- numbers. The conversion is based on a regression of the average team boxscore metric on the MOV. Then I use that model to convert the individual boxscore metric into an unadjusted SPM. The last step is the adjustment for the strength of schedule. It is just a way better approach to say a player is +3.5 per 100 possession based on boxscore than say a player has a PER of 20 based on boxscore. Essentially both mean the same. I can use SPM much easier to predict outcome of games for example, because it is already converted into a suitable number. When I have a team with an average SPM of +2 and another with -1, I can predict that the +2 team will likely win by +6 at home (2-(-1)+3=6; 3 is the HCA). That is a pretty simple way, if you would take the PER you would probably get something like this: average PER of 16 vs. average PER of 14.5. As you can see, it is rather difficult to make a predicition based on that.
My SPM was tested by Engelmann (same approach as the one for RAPM) and the result was that SPM was actually slightly better at predicting the outcome of future games than RAPM in terms of scoring margin. It was worse at predicting offensive and defensive efficiency. The reason is simple: The boxscore is heavily biased towards offense and important defensive informations are missing. Take Carlos Boozer for example. In terms of boxscore stats he looks like a great defender, but his help and team defense as well as his man-to-man defense are not good at all. Boozer is a bad defender. Well, but to make the split between offense and defense I have to use the boxscore somehow, and that split is doing well for a lot of players, but is pretty bad for other. That completely explains why SPM is worse than RAPM in terms of predicting offensive and defensive efficiency. But the main feature is the overall value, the overall scoring margin, which determines the outcome of the game. The split between offense and defense can be seen as some sort of gimmick, something which has to be taken with a grain of salt. Also, SPM is just telling you what kind of combination of production and efficiency a player has. It does not tell you anything which is not captured by the boxscore. That goes not just for the defensive part, but also for the offensive part.
The underlying boxscore metric is my PRA. That is a descriptive non-linear model. It has a 0.96 correlation coefficient to win%. There is an offensive part (points, assists, offensive rebounds, turnovers) and a defensive part (steals, blocked shots, defensive rebounds, fouls). The offensive part is extremely good. I get the exact amount of points per possessions for each team. Offensive rebounds and assists are handled in the same fashion, but the coefficients are differently for each team. For example, an assist by Steve Nash on the Suns is more valuable than an assist by John Stockton. The team overall assist-rate is taken into account in order to determine whether assists are generated rather by the offensive setting than by the individual player. If we look at the 2007 Nash vs. 1990 Stockton, Stockton is seen as the better player by a combination of WS/48 and PER by about 3%, while SPM has Nash being better by about 10%.
A similar thing happens with offensive rebounds. In that way I can capture the impact of offensive rebounds on the overall outcome of games much better than a static value.
SPM is easily beating out PER in terms of explaining and predicting, it is better than WS/48, even though not by a huge margin. It is a far better metric in order to predict than WP48. The only other boxscore based metric I would consider is DsMok's ASPM, a statistical plus minus approach based on the regression of some boxscore based values on a multiyear RAPM.
Right now I prepare some sort of relaunch of the numbers on my blog, because I found an error in the subroutine for splitting between offense and defense. I will also add further years (all years between 1978 and 2012).
Doctor MJ wrote:ElGee wrote:As for James, I think his 2012 defense was absolutely astounding. The best I've seen from a non-big since Pippen. That, and his versatility makes me want to side with 2012 him over 2009. I realized what happened in the PS, and especially the first 5 Orlando games, makes people gawk. It's understandable. But what about after G3 against Indiana, with Bosh out and Wade below his standards, what James did for the rest of the PS?
2009 PS ----------------- 35.3 ppg 9.1 rpg 7.3 apg 61.8% TS 8.7% TOV
2012 PS after G3 ESCF: 31.7 ppg 10.8 rpg 5.9 apg 58.3% TS 11.5 TOV%
For my money, he did it against tougher competition in 2009. For my money, the way he played in 2012 lends more favorably to different scenarios. People should remember his 2012 TS% in the RS was +7.8%. And his defense was better which scales to more teams well too. Although it's looking strongly like I'll have Magic and LeBron in a battle for 10th. (!)
I'm actually leaning LeBron right now, what's your rationale for having him a tier down from your top 3 contenders here?
mysticbb wrote:colts18 wrote:I'll post my rationale in a later thread when he is up for debate, but you compare his impact and its higher than CP3, KG, Wade, Kobe, T-Mac. The 2011 season was an all-time great one from start to finish.
I take Garnett 2004 over any version of Nowitzki. Also, 2008 Garnett has a great case over Nowitzki 2011. Thus, Garnett should be voted in earlier than Nowitzki.
therealbig3 wrote:Hakeem missed 26 games in 91. His team posted an average 105.8 DRating vs an average ORating of 108.2 (-2.4). On the year, they were -4.0 defensively. Rough math, but with Hakeem, it seems they were around -4.7. So they go from a -4.7 defense with Hakeem to a -2.4 defense without Hakeem. Decent lift, but nowhere near catastrophic without him, and it doesn't seem to be near the kind of impact that he's described as having. And isn't this earlier, freakishly athletic Hakeem, who was supposed to be better than 94/95 Hakeem defensively?