tkb wrote:I'm with TrueLA on this btw. I don't think PER is the most valuable stat out there. Sure it is the best way to gauge a player overall (with exceptions), but it's not the best statistic at what it does. I don't really need one semi-flawed stat to show who is having a good overall year. It's a nice tool, don't get me wrong, but there are other statistics I find more interesting.
Stats like TSP and RbR are more valuable IMO because they are more accurate at what they intend to show.
Exactly. And you'd be surprised at how easy it is to come up with a statistic that tells you what's obvious. I mean, I did it a couple of pages ago.
That took me 90 seconds to come up with. And you know what? It was a little off. I plugged in a player's numbers, and made a couple of adjustments. So, instead of 90 seconds, it probably took 3-4 minutes to come up with. According to the "TLA Power Formula," the top 20 NBA players right now are:
1.LeBron James--31.157
2.Chris Paul--30.789
3.Dwight Howard--30.430
4.Steve Nash--28.562
5.Kobe Bryant--27.973
6.Amare Stoudemire--26.645
7.Allan Iverson--26.568
8.Dirk Nowitski--26.112
9.Jose Calderon--25.707
10.Carlos Boozer--25.041
11.Yao Ming--24.745
12.Tim Duncan--23.951
13.Chauncey Billups--23.903
14.Al Jefferson--23.492
15.Chris Bosh--22.949
16.Kevin Garnett--22.829
17.Paul Pierce--22.508
18.Manu Ginobili--21.533
19.Pau Gasol--20.957
20.Dwyane Wade--20.392
Mmm...good mix of frontcourt and backcourt, obvious guys listed...looks good. It's very similar to Hollinger's top 20; better in a couple of ways, not so much in a couple of others. It took me 3 or 4 minutes to come up with it. When I first thought of it, it was kind of a joke. If I thought it was worth anything, I'd be kind of pleased now. My own rating system--and look how accurate it is! That must mean something!
Except it doesn't. It is a joke. Coming up with a statistic that "shows" what's obvious isn't meaningful at all. (For example...PGA golf. Let's say you add the percentage of fairways hit and greens reached in regulation and divide by putts per hole. Multiple that by 1000 and divide by average score per round. I'm not going to do it, but I bet if you applied this, the top guy would be...drum roll please...
Tiger Woods!!!) The problem is that when you apply these formulas to lesser players, they're wrong. Not all the time, but pretty often. So you've got a statistic that tells you what you already know about great players, and is wrong pretty often on other players. How is that useful? It's useful for people that don't watch basketball, I guess.
A big part of this come from baseball. Baseball is a far more statistically oriented sport. We try to apply some of the same functions and parameters to basketball. Doesn't work nearly as well. Different sport. And in all sports, we're faer better served using our eyes than our spreadsheets. A very clear example--and one that I was, um, called out on--would be to compare the All-Time top 15 in PER to the All-time top 15 in Top 5 MVP finishes. The top 15 all-time according to PER are:
1.Michael Jordan
2.Shaquille O'Neal
3.George Mikan
4.David Robinson
5.Wilt Chamberlain
6.Bob Pettit
7.Tim Duncan
8.LeBron James
9.Neil Johnston
10.Charles Barkley
11.Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
12.Magic Johnson
13.Dwyane Wade
14.Kevin Garnett
15.Karl Malone
which is, possibly, the stupidest top 15 list I've ever seen in every conceivable way. It doesn't have players in the right order in their
own eras. Sheesh. As for the top 15 players in top 5s of MVP voting....
1.Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
2.Bill Russell
3.Michael Jordan
4.Wilt Chamberlain
5.Magic Johnson
6.Larry Bird
7.Karl Malone
8.Julius Erving
9.Tim Duncan
10.Oscar Robertson
11.Shaquille O'Neal
12.Bob Pettit
13.Jerry West
14.Hakeem Olajuwon
15.Patrick Ewing
Hey, that isn't perfect, but it's a damn sight closer than PER. That's for sure. At least it has the sense to mention Larry Bird.
