Can someone explain PER to me.

[JordansBulls]

As many have mentioned regarding PER it is for a purpose. For instance,

How to compare different players from different eras? Raw statistics are misleading, individual awards are not the best indicators and championships are team accolades. Very often arguments become heated and emotional because of the subjective nature of player comparisons.

It was with this in mind that Player Efficiency Ratings (PER) were developed. The PER attempts to factor in all of a players contributions into a single rating that is adjusted on a per minute basis so as not to penalize players who play in a slow down system and not overly reward players in an uptempo team that inflates stats.

While not perfect as a quantitiative tool, it cannot model intangibles, it's the best measurement currently available.

What does it mean? A PER rating of 15 is considered average for an NBA Starter. A PER of 22.5 is a True All Star, a PER of 25 is a weak MVP Candidate and a PER of 27.5 is a strong MVP Candidate.

[Ryoga Hibiki]

While not perfect as a quantitiative tool, it cannot model intangibles, it's the best measurement currently available.

"There is nothing as inefficient as doing efficiently something that shouldn't be done at all", that's what comes always in my mind when I think PER.

[Kosar86]

Its a worthless stat used to justify john hollinger's salary.

[MrDollarBills]

I think PER is a great stat, if you look Jason Collins' PER and watch him play you'd realize how accurate Hollinger's creation is!

[technologic]

-= original quote snipped =-


"There is nothing as inefficient as doing efficiently something that shouldn't be done at all", that's what comes always in my mind when I think PER.

There's nothing wrong with stat-based offensive rankings.

[TommyTheCat]

Its a worthless stat used to justify john hollinger's salary.

ding, ding, ding...........we have a winner.

nothing but $$s to PER

[litex]

I agree completely with Ryoga Hibiki. Its entirely illusory- there's no way at all to test it, it regularly produces bizarre aberrations, it overvalues high energy guys who play below average minute for a starter or who come off the bench, it overvalues scoring without telling you anything at all about how that scoring came about, it ignores defense altogether while incorporating the obviously horribly flawed measure of steals and blocks, it ignores how good the team is, clutchness, intangibles (which in basketball, are actually very tangible. things like stretch or collapsing the d, making extra passes, boxing out, setting a pick, etc. they just don't show up in box scores), it undervalues pure point guards and dominant centers who don't put up huge scoring numbers, etc. etc.

Basically, stats in general are flawed and misleading and take away the focus from what it should be on- dissecting someone's game within the context of their team. Which isn't possible unless you, you know, actually know what you're talking about, have sat down and watched the team and that player play a lot, and making an informed opinion that recognizes that the number of points, assists and rebounds accumulated is meaningless without context.

PER accumulates those flawed stats and then weights them according to mathematical precepts derived from themselves to come up with a completely untestable measure of a player's productivity that regularly produces aberrations that fly in the face of even the most basic observation. Its obfuscatory, and its a cop out for so-called analysts (both professional and otherwise) to make sweeping generalizations or to give the illusion of mathematical objectivity to an opinion.

[nate33]

I agree completely with Ryoga Hibiki. Its entirely illusory- there's no way at all to test it.

How do you test any individual statistic?

[Goubot]

To me, the PER stat by itself isn't that informative except as a quick but unthorough way to evaluate a player's contributions relative to the average (15). ESPN has marketed it as a ranking system, in spite of Hollinger's own acknowledgments of the stat's flaws. His player cards are generally informative and his analysis there is not solely dependent on PER, which makes some of the more militant posters on ESPN seem even more ridiculous.

PER by itself doesn't tell you much about how the player is productive, but Hollinger's other stats, such as rebound rate, turnover rate, TS%, and usage rate are actually fairly informative:

http://www.knickerblogger.net/stats/2008/jh_ALL_PER.htm

Taken together with PER, these stats give a more complete picture regarding a player's offensive abilities (TS% tells you how efficient a player is scoring, rebound rate is the percentage of available rebounds that a player gets when he's on the floor, etc).