Those aren't stats. That's counting.

[wigglestrue]

The great irony, of course, is that ppg and wins ARE STATS. The people who are denigrating anything more detailed than those two stats are often themselves banking a huge amount of their analysis ON STATS. (And 2 horribly confounded ones, at that.) They are measurements we've had since the beginning of the sport, only no one bothered to think of the game ITO of efficiency, which, as a possession-based sport, it simply is.

What about this approach:

The mathematics of that approach were obvious. If we took 100 shots and made only 40 percent, we’d still have as many points as a team that took 80 shots and made 50 percent. The meant if the other team was trying to limit its number of shots by playing a slower game, it was going to have to shoot a much higher percentage than we did in order to beat us.

There is so much wrong with that statement, it is really sad, because in essence his earlier point was a good one. Getting easier opportunities than the opponent is the key. The Celtics lived off their abiltity to make it really tough for the other team to score. Providing stuff like more advanced transition defense with a really fast Russell inside. Basketball is a possession-based game, you can't get more shots than the opponents just because you run a faster paced offense. You can limited their shots by forcing turnovers and limiting the offensive rebounds. And the latter was what the Celtics did.

You can't just with just a faster offense, but you can maximize the advantage you get from forcing turnovers and winning the rebound battle. So say the Celtics were to get 10% more possessions than their opponent over the course of a game because they can rebound better and force turnovers. Wouldn't their advantage in terms of possessions increase numerically if they increased the total number of possessions in the game? Assuming they're 10% better at 100 possessions and 10% better at 150, they'd much rather be at 150.

Is that not a way to win a basketball game despite scoring inefficiently? I don't think the semantic distinction between a single possession and an extra field goal attempt via an offensive rebound makes a difference here. What matters, if this was indeed the Celtics' philosophy, is that this philosophy flouts the now-precious idea of offensive efficiency, that Red Auerbach had bothered to think of it (in however an unsophisticated/roundabout way) long before Dean Oliver or John Hollinger were born, and that it fueled the most successful run in NBA history.

So, sticking with the ppg/efficiency issue...if we count up all the possessions in a game, and count up all the points, we can figure out how efficient a team is. The more efficient team wins 99.99% of the time. Similarly, we can count up all the points a player scores when he shoots (TS%) and this tells us more, as a game of possessions, than raw ppg and FG% about the value of WHAT WE'VE COUNTED. Literally, there is NO NEW COUNTING occurring, just a better way to understand what we've counted.
That's it -- we are measuring "when he shoots the sphere at the cylinder, how often does it go in?"

Wait, has that actually been demonstrated? Link? Was each game counted, one by one, or was efficiency just correlated over a huge sample to winning, more than any other existing stats? Exactly which kind of efficiency, how was efficiency defined?

That people reject this and view O/DRtg and TS% (or other concepts, even the +/- family) as "made up" is missing a concept about as badly as anyone could possibly miss a concept. It's like declaring 2+2 = apple and that math is imaginary. (I don't think I'm being too extreme with that analogy - thoughts?)

Finally, the common criticism of almost every one of these people is "your new stats doesn't tell you everything." But somehow, they don't hold ppg and wins to the same standard.

Horrified, I will now end this rant.

I can understand how exasperated you and your brethren must feel, considering all the jackasses who complain in jackass ways about stats. But I think y'all have defended yourselves and the usefulness of stats for so long, to the point where you stopped being mindful of the limits. So, for example, no matter how extremely useful a stat points-per-possession is, it's still going to wildly overrate/underrate a few players out of, say, 100, isn't it? But if there's a player whose PPS surprisingly puts him in an elite echelon or surprisingly kicks him out of it, you won't find a PPS proponent willing to entertain the notion that that player is the mistake that is sure to occur, instead the proponent will always treat that player as a new revelation. I can understand how maddening it must be to defend stats against claims of zero utility. But I don't see much or any real recognition from you all that a stat is bound to fail big time here and there, or fail a little everywhere.

[mopper8]

What about this approach:

You can't just with just a faster offense, but you can maximize the advantage you get from forcing turnovers and winning the rebound battle. So say the Celtics were to get 10% more possessions than their opponent over the course of a game because they can rebound better and force turnovers. Wouldn't their advantage in terms of possessions increase numerically if they increased the total number of possessions in the game? Assuming they're 10% better at 100 possessions and 10% better at 150, they'd much rather be at 150.

Is that not a way to win a basketball game despite scoring inefficiently? I don't think the semantic distinction between a single possession and an extra field goal attempt via an offensive rebound makes a difference here. What matters, if this was indeed the Celtics' philosophy, is that this philosophy flouts the now-precious idea of offensive efficiency, that Red Auerbach had bothered to think of it (in however an unsophisticated/roundabout way) long before Dean Oliver or John Hollinger were born, and that it fueled the most successful run in NBA history.

Not really. Every advanced stat guy recognizes that differences in efficiency are magnified by increased pace. That was one of the biggest criticisms level at the Miami Heat in the first year of the Big 3 playing together -- they played at a slow pace, which minimized their efficiency advantage.

And those ideas that Bodhi threw out there were not incongruous with prizing efficiency. If you force a lot of turnovers without it hurting your defensive fg%, then that will show up in your defensive efficiency. If you rebound well, that shows up in your defensive efficiency. If you hit the offensive glass well, that shows up in your offensive efficiency. So, of course, what you're really saying is:

If you can do things that increase your offensive efficiency, and do things that increase your defensive efficiency, and doing those things gives you a big efficiency advantage, then doesn't it make sense to increase raw # of possessions? And the answer to that is obviously yes, and not at all incongruous with prizing efficiency first, and volume second.

The problem is the mistaken causal connection that Tommy makes -- the idea that running down the floor creates extra possessions for one team or the other, or creates extra fga for one team or the other. It doesn't it. It's a way to leverage an efficiency advantage.

edit: so, in short, if team A is, through turnovers and offensive rebounds, able to shoot .1 more fga per possession than Team B, then yes, pushing the pace can magnify that difference, which can help make up for a low fg%. But that doesn't mean they're making up for low efficiency with high pace. It means they're making up for low fg% by getting offensive rebounds, to keep their efficiency solid. A perfect example of this is the 11-12 Bulls. They were

14th in eFG%
26th in FTA/FG
8th in TO%

Not looking good for their offense, right?

But they were 1st in Orb% by a large margin. Those extra FGA per possession upped their efficiency - they finished 5th in Drtg, despite being mediocre from the field and not getting to the line very well at all. But they maximized their # of raw attempts by not turning the ball over and hitting the boards. This is precisely the approach you're describing. It's an approach that people who prize efficiency appreciate. Its an efficient offense/.
---------

But if Team A is just less efficient than team B, any attempts by Team to simply increase the raw # of possessions in a game by fastbreaking is actually going to hurt them -- the more possessions, the more the efficiency difference is exaggerated, the worse it is for Team A.


*edit: and what fueled their great run was their incredible defense, not some ground breaking offensive philosophy that defied the laws of mathematics

I can understand how exasperated you and your brethren must feel, considering all the jackasses who complain in jackass ways about stats. But I think y'all have defended yourselves and the usefulness of stats for so long, to the point where you stopped being mindful of the limits. So, for example, no matter how extremely useful a stat points-per-possession is, it's still going to wildly overrate/underrate a few players out of, say, 100, isn't it? But if there's a player whose PPS surprisingly puts him in an elite echelon or surprisingly kicks him out of it, you won't find a PPS proponent willing to entertain the notion that that player is the mistake that is sure to occur, instead the proponent will always treat that player as a new revelation. I can understand how maddening it must be to defend stats against claims of zero utility. But I don't see much or any real recognition from you all that a stat is bound to fail big time here and there, or fail a little everywhere.

Then you're not paying attention, and that's on you. The vast majority of people who use stats recognize their individual and collective limits. In fact, the whole point of using a lot of different stats is precisely a recognition that each one has its limits.

[ElGee]

The mathematics of that approach were obvious. If we took 100 shots and made only 40 percent, we’d still have as many points as a team that took 80 shots and made 50 percent. The meant if the other team was trying to limit its number of shots by playing a slower game, it was going to have to shoot a much higher percentage than we did in order to beat us.

Is that not a way to win a basketball game despite scoring inefficiently? I don't think the semantic distinction between a single possession and an extra field goal attempt via an offensive rebound makes a difference here. What matters, if this was indeed the Celtics' philosophy, is that this philosophy flouts the now-precious idea of offensive efficiency, that Red Auerbach had bothered to think of it (in however an unsophisticated/roundabout way) long before Dean Oliver or John Hollinger were born, and that it fueled the most successful run in NBA history.

You mean, if your offensive efficiency was better than the other team's offensive efficiency would you win the game? Yes, almost EVERY time. As mopper pointed out, if you have a per possession advantage, increasing your sample (# of pos) increases your margin of error. This is why in a 1 pos game it's hard to say whether a +10 per 100 team would win. In a 1000 possession game, you aren't going to see many upsets.

Tommy's quote does not say that though. His quote is 100% nonsensical.

So, sticking with the ppg/efficiency issue...if we count up all the possessions in a game, and count up all the points, we can figure out how efficient a team is. The more efficient team wins 99.99% of the time. Similarly, we can count up all the points a player scores when he shoots (TS%) and this tells us more, as a game of possessions, than raw ppg and FG% about the value of WHAT WE'VE COUNTED. Literally, there is NO NEW COUNTING occurring, just a better way to understand what we've counted.
That's it -- we are measuring "when he shoots the sphere at the cylinder, how often does it go in?"

Wait, has that actually been demonstrated? Link? Was each game counted, one by one, or was efficiency just correlated over a huge sample to winning, more than any other existing stats? Exactly which kind of efficiency, how was efficiency defined?

As to generating more possessions, you can only generate 2 more possessions in a game than an opponent, by definition. If you'd like, you can go through all the 5-point regulation games in the NBA (about a quarter of games) and see how many teams won because they hit 3-pointers on each of their two extra possessions. I will tell you from analyzing end-of-quarter data it is almost a non-occurence.

Of course, in such instances your criterion wouldn't be met. The 5 points would be too much. You'd need a team to win a 1-point game while still having 2 extra possessions. Given the amount of possessions in an NBA game, some 2-point games qualify as well. About 1 in 13 regulation games are 2-point games. About 1 in 30 are are 1-point games. A team gets the extra 2 possessions randomly 6% of the time. Now were already in the "less than 1% of the time a team wins with a lower efficiency" games.

It's not literally 99.99%, but it's certainly 99.x% of the time.

Btw, A possession is when one team has the ball -- it ends in 4 ways
-time (end of Q)
-turnover
-defensive rebound
-score

That's it.

ORTG, often synonymous with efficiency, is the points scored per 100 possessions. Since it's impossible to generate a substantial number of possessions in basketball based on these rules (you get a turn, I get a turn, on and on), the key to success can be measured in per possession efficiency.

I can understand how exasperated you and your brethren must feel, considering all the jackasses who complain in jackass ways about stats. But I think y'all have defended yourselves and the usefulness of stats for so long, to the point where you stopped being mindful of the limits. So, for example, no matter how extremely useful a stat points-per-possession is, it's still going to wildly overrate/underrate a few players out of, say, 100, isn't it? But if there's a player whose PPS surprisingly puts him in an elite echelon or surprisingly kicks him out of it, you won't find a PPS proponent willing to entertain the notion that that player is the mistake that is sure to occur, instead the proponent will always treat that player as a new revelation. I can understand how maddening it must be to defend stats against claims of zero utility. But I don't see much or any real recognition from you all that a stat is bound to fail big time here and there, or fail a little everywhere.

Then you aren't reading the right people. I spend most of my time discussing exactly WHAT a stat is telling us when we have these discussions. It's frustrating because, while I don't expect people to have science degrees, it's hard for me to believe

(a) I'm (we) are THAT bad at teaching the concepts
(b) The concepts are so "hard" that one really does need years of pre-requisites to "understand" what seems very basic (eg analytic skills for simple research methods)

The other alternative is that people are plenty capable and the teaching is plenty good, but they don't want to listen because of their ego and need to win arguments. That's frustrating, even if it is what it is. We're on anonymous Internet forums talking about a game! It's supposed to be fun! Of all the places where you'd think ego wouldn't be a problem, it seems to be a major problem for some people who really really identify with their basketball opinions the way many do about politics and religion, and having openminded discussion is threatening to them. Unless you subscribe to one of the two other possibilities I outlined.

So in summary, stats don't make "mistakes." That's part of where you're going wrong. The mistake would be in the CONCLUSION one draws from a stat. If by "fail" you mean the composite stats won't predict everything, you should go read the Dave Berri blog post where I'm banned from his site for questioning the structural failures in WP. Or where I, and many others, have written about the issues with PER. But no non-composite stat can "fail," it can only be misinterpreted. (And yes, some measurements are more relevant than others, if that's what you're thinking.)

[EvanZ]

How many successful investors buy a stock based on their "gut"? Not many.

Next time I see Warren Buffet, I'm going to tell him, "Watch the market with your eyes! P/E, book value, Debt ratios can be made to look good by anyone."

[wigglestrue]

Thank you mopper8 and ElGee. I'm going to re-think some things, and I'll try to pay more attention when statheads acknowledge limits.

[wigglestrue]

I do have some nagging half-informed concerns, though. So I'll try to get them out of the way in the meantime.

edit: so, in short, if team A is, through turnovers and offensive rebounds, able to shoot .1 more fga per possession than Team B, then yes, pushing the pace can magnify that difference, which can help make up for a low fg%. But that doesn't mean they're making up for low efficiency with high pace. It means they're making up for low fg% by getting offensive rebounds, to keep their efficiency solid.

This is where I smell some semantics, the old matter of whether an offensive rebound extends one possession or creates a new one. Yes, technically it's the former. I know. But it feels like it's effectively, essentially, all-but-technically the latter. I'm sure that there are dozens of threads about this on the Comparisons board already, and that you guys are sick of explaining it to n00bs and fogeys, and hearing rebuttals with terrible logic, etc. But bear with me. I apologize in advance. I'm a little right-brained.

There may be a statistical need to divide the game neatly in two, between when one team has the ball and when the other team has the ball, a need for it to be one or the other at any and every juncture in the game. But when playing, it certainly feels like there is a limbo region where neither team has possession of the ball, and that's when shots miss. It feels like every rebound is a kind of jump ball. Obviously, it's not literally a jump ball, which explicitly tries to create a 50/50 situation, carefully controlled by the ref, with just a touch of randomness. A few factors let teams/players increase or decrease their chances of snagging a rebound -- individual boxing out, team boxing out, anticipation of the ball's trajectory, taking/forcing good/bad shots, etc. But it does feel like the ball is neither team's when it's in the air.

So, not saying that this approach would be preferable, viable, rational, whatever...but humor me: What would the current stats look like if you did count offensive rebounds as new possessions? How would that affect overall efficiency, offensive efficiency, defensive efficiency? Maybe it wouldn't?

(p.s. I'm sure I'm using a bit of sloppy logic and misplaced vocab somewhere. But if you can get my gist, then I thank you.)

[wigglestrue]

Another concern: Regardless of whether the Celtics won despite their shooting inefficiency because their defensive efficiency was so great and their offensive rebounding helped prop up their overall offensive inefficiency or whether they won in some way because of an offensive philosophy that resulted in shooting ineffiency...regardless of whether the philosophy quoted by Tommy was smart or not...doesn't the fact that it was their team philosophy excuse some of those Celtics from being discredited today as woefully inefficient shooters? I mean, even if they were barking up the wrong tree, those were still their orders, which they followed. And they happened to win the title almost every year. Can't blame them for thinking that philosophy was working. My point is, any accounting of that era's Celtics players will fail unless it is emphasized (not just merely acknowledged) that they were trying to take as many shots as possible and didn't really care about shot selection. So, for example, listing Cousy's or Heinsohn's FG% as evidence in a comparison without excusing the bulk of that efficiency deficiency as merely following team philosophy, is failing. Citing the team's ORTG in a comparison without emphasizing the team's philosophical disregard for shooting efficiency and consequently excusing much of the ORTG deficiency, is failing. No?

The stats don't fail, correct. Stats (except composites with arbitrary formulae) are just counting. It's the interpretations which wind up failing. Good to be reminded of that.

[penbeast0]

It might. OF course Bill Sharman, Sam Jones, and Bailey Howell were much more reasonably efficient and Frank Ramsey had some truly incredible playoff runs while Cousy was even worse -- significantly so -- during the Celtics playoff runs. So, it might not.

[Doctor MJ]

Another concern: Regardless of whether the Celtics won despite their shooting inefficiency because their defensive efficiency was so great and their offensive rebounding helped prop up their overall offensive inefficiency or whether they won in some way because of an offensive philosophy that resulted in shooting ineffiency...regardless of whether the philosophy quoted by Tommy was smart or not...doesn't the fact that it was their team philosophy excuse some of those Celtics from being discredited today as woefully inefficient shooters? I mean, even if they were barking up the wrong tree, those were still their orders, which they followed. And they happened to win the title almost every year. Can't blame them for thinking that philosophy was working. My point is, any accounting of that era's Celtics players will fail unless it is emphasized (not just merely acknowledged) that they were trying to take as many shots as possible and didn't really care about shot selection. So, for example, listing Cousy's or Heinsohn's FG% as evidence in a comparison without excusing the bulk of that efficiency deficiency as merely following team philosophy, is failing. Citing the team's ORTG in a comparison without emphasizing the team's philosophical disregard for shooting efficiency and consequently excusing much of the ORTG deficiency, is failing. No?

The stats don't fail, correct. Stats (except composites with arbitrary formulae) are just counting. It's the interpretations which wind up failing. Good to be reminded of that.

Well, I think the key here is in the nature of what you see in "excuses". If what you want to do is keep all players on the Celtics from dropping in estimation now that we understand more about efficiency, then you're coming at it backwards. The key with this stuff is to come at it with fresh eyes, and to see how things might have been perceived differently if people were more aware of the data back then.

It's not a question then of refusing to give a guy credit for team success because of efficiency, but simply looking at what makes sense. After all, for the most part, those of us being more critical that historical norms when we talk about Cousy are also being more positive toward Russell, so it's not like the Celtics as a whole are getting the shaft. Wouldn't you expect some shift in the allocation of credit with more information handy?

[wigglestrue]

The Celtics won 11 out of 13 titles in the era being re-evaluated, so of course they're the franchise getting the biggest shaft, the franchise with the most players being written down. While some of you are more positive about Russell, others are more negative regarding his FG%. The point is, what makes sense today as basketball philosophy shouldn't necessarily be retroactively applied. I see some effort to contextualize here and there, but there still seems to be this idea that the Celtics' offense was incompetent because it was inefficient. But if Red was effectively giving his players orders/license to score inefficiently, and it resulted one way or another in 11 out of 13 titles, then #1 - why even care about their scoring efficiency, because whatever they did, it worked and #2 - players like Cousy and Heinsohn and Russell shouldn't be judged by FG% on its face, ever, and metrics like ORTG shouldn't be used as a significant measure of Cousy's PG ability.

Look, if someone living in 1970 but with today's glossary of stats had tried to find the highest correlation between certain stats and winning, then he might have concluded that inefficient scoring was a key to winning, because that was a prime characteristic of the majority of champions up to that point. Would he have been wrong? No, because that's what his primordial Excel-ish program would have told him. But today that wouldn't make any sense. There's a problem here. I'm not versed in statistics enough to name it or point a finger at it, but I can smell it.

And yes, I'm motivated to smell it because it might dramatically affect the statistical legacy of my favorite franchise. Homerism can be a potent impetus for statistical introspection.

[wigglestrue]

What would the current stats look like if you did count offensive rebounds as new possessions?

Would love an answer on this one. Maybe this is worthy of a new thread?

[Nivek]

The Celtics won 11 out of 13 titles in the era being re-evaluated, so of course they're the franchise getting the biggest shaft, the franchise with the most players being written down. While some of you are more positive about Russell, others are more negative regarding his FG%. The point is, what makes sense today as basketball philosophy shouldn't necessarily be retroactively applied. I see some effort to contextualize here and there, but there still seems to be this idea that the Celtics' offense was incompetent because it was inefficient. But if Red was effectively giving his players orders/license to score inefficiently, and it resulted one way or another in 11 out of 13 titles, then #1 - why even care about their scoring efficiency, because whatever they did, it worked and #2 - players like Cousy and Heinsohn and Russell shouldn't be judged by FG% on its face, ever, and metrics like ORTG shouldn't be used as a significant measure of Cousy's PG ability.

Look, if someone living in 1970 but with today's glossary of stats had tried to find the highest correlation between certain stats and winning, then he might have concluded that inefficient scoring was a key to winning, because that was a prime characteristic of the majority of champions up to that point. Would he have been wrong? No, because that's what his primordial Excel-ish program would have told him. But today that wouldn't make any sense. There's a problem here. I'm not versed in statistics enough to name it or point a finger at it, but I can smell it.

And yes, I'm motivated to smell it because it might dramatically affect the statistical legacy of my favorite franchise. Homerism can be a potent impetus for statistical introspection.

The more efficient team wins even in an era of general inefficiency. If you get 85 points per 100 possessions and hold your opponent to 80 pts100, by definition you're the more efficient team. Correlations from the 70s or 60s (if we had the necessary stats to calculate efficiency stats) would show similar relationships between efficiency and winning percentage. What might vary a bit are relationships between individual components of the four factors.

I haven't been reading whatever folks have been posting to knock Bill Russell's FG%, but I suspect it's wrong-headed "analysis." It's just plain wrong to judge players of one era by the norms of another. Players need to be evaluated within the context of their own time. Russell's FG% looks bad to the modern eye, but he had a higher FG% than his team's in 11 of his 13 seasons. The only two where he shot worse -- his 10th and 12th seasons (ages 31 and 33). He shot worse by .002 and .015, respectively.

When I do era translations, FG% is one of the stats I adjust. The only era translation I have handy in a spreadsheet is actually Hakeem back to Russell's time. Hakeem shot .512 from the floor for his career on teams that collectively shot .471. Translate that to 1958-59 (Russell's 3rd season) -- the Celts won the title that season shooting .395 from the floor -- and the equivalent is .430. That season, Russell shot .457.

[QuantMisleads]

Sorry, Mufasa, but group B does not exist. Those are people who are thinking they understand stats, but in reality they don't. If someone really understands stats, he will use it, if the context fits. The unfortunate thing is: Most people don't understand stats, they are using them in the wrong way. I also think that group C is rather small, really small. Most people still arguing with points, rebounds, etc.

Took the words out of my mouth. It makes absolutely no sense to understand statistics and them not use - it would be like closing your eyes while you drive a car.

I'm sorry, but this is complete and utter nonsense, the type of nonsense someone uses when fooling himself into thinking he's doing scientific analysis.

Some (very few) of us know that many people cannot separate "objective knowledge", that is, how the world REALLY is, from our personal beliefs, while some of us (like yourself) believe in positivism. So you throw your statistics around (cherry picked of course) and show it as a sort of objective analysis. I then throw you my statistics, and then you say your statistics are more valid than mine.

But I understand that statistics is meant to complement your analysis, not BECOME your analysis. IE, I make theory from the facts (some facts being W/L record and individual statistics) while you deduce (deductive analysis) facts from your theory regarding the statistics. Qualitative analysis is analysis that can be tested, and doesn't hide silly assumptions. On the other hand, quantiative analysis (the favorite tool of the positivist) cannot be tested, and certain assumptions have to be made to make the numbers say what you want them to say. Guess what that means? That your analysis is no better than mine, and in fact is worse, because you give it the veneer of scientific analysis when it is nothing of the sort. Not only that, but it's dangerous because it makes others believe the same thing. Out of this our contemporary society has created an entire set of falsehoods which unfortunately cannot be debunked but through education. You, my friend, need to become educated.

[EvanZ]

Qualitative analysis is analysis that can be tested, and doesn't hide silly assumptions. On the other hand, quantiative analysis (the favorite tool of the positivist) cannot be tested, and certain assumptions have to be made to make the numbers say what you want them to say.

This is gobbledy-gook to me. Can you explain in English words what point you are trying to make?

[Dr Positivity]

Quantitative analysis can't be tested as much as qualitative? Where is that coming from? Isn't quantitative analysis even a better fit for testing because it has specific numbers (thus giving a clear "right" or "wrong" verdict). I agree with the sentiment otherwise about qualitative analysis and theory getting my vote over statistics that can be doubted and that the more specific to an area and farther away from "the whole picture" of a player's impact, the more I treat the stat as useful. The number of variables is usually negatively correlated with how trustworthy the stat is and any stat trying to pack an entire player's impact into 1 is going to be overflowing with variables

[QuantMisleads]

What I meant by "tested" is that the assumptions made in order to make the statistics cannot be verified (particularly when we make estimations from data pre-mid 70s), and hence their validity is not only questionable but entirely invalid from a scientific point of view. Even worse, the validity of the statistics cannot all be pinned down to one player as some would like to do. For example, some like to examine the impact of a team when a specific player is playing and when he's not. There are so many things wrong with doing this, but people use it as a measure and then say "well, we can't do any better than this!". yes we can! We can see what newspapers said, what players during that time said, what actual statistics we have, etc. That's what qualitative analysis is all about. Now, there ARE some issues that people would like to bring up. One is that there is too much information out there that we have to search for, and even if we compile it you can't necessarily judge one player against another. My answer, and the answer of other scientists: TOUGH, buddy. What is inherent in qualitative analysis is that we recognize as well that our judgements are never objective. It takes a lot of back and forth to straighten things out. Many objectivists (positivists) do not like this. Not only that, the numbers and the advanced statistics give one the comfort about that they are doing an objective, scientific analysis. There is great danger in this, in that it not only fools the person himself but others that would have otherwise resorted to qualitative analysis (or certainly a mix). It gives one comfort when in reality it should give one great doubt.

[wigglestrue]

The more efficient team wins even in an era of general inefficiency. If you get 85 points per 100 possessions and hold your opponent to 80 pts100, by definition you're the more efficient team. Correlations from the 70s or 60s (if we had the necessary stats to calculate efficiency stats) would show similar relationships between efficiency and winning percentage. What might vary a bit are relationships between individual components of the four factors.

Right, and the Celtics of that era were bad (by our standards) at scoring efficiency, and so in 1970 there would have been a strong correlation between winning championships and bad scoring efficiency.

[Dr Positivity]

Quant -

I agree the +/- stats for when a player gets injured for 10 Gs being used as evidence for players' quality is wrong, for a few reasons. One is that small sample sizes in general very rarely mean anything useful. Even the Adjusted Plus Minus guys with all their information over an entire year have a big margin of error - So how are we supposed to trust like 300 minutes of play? I don't know if it means anything more than how a baseball team or player does for 10 games in a row

Secondly, I think there's something to be said for adjustments in the NBA. I think there was a Bulls forum PC forum once who said how he's very familiar with the plays and gameplanning each teams do, and that he finds it takes 2-3 weeks for a team's new lineup to be adjusted to. Many of the injury +/- stats can be effected by this IMO. New lineups can surprise teams and put off their weaknesses being exposed. Furthermore I'm a huge proponent of the concept of energy in basketball. It's pretty clear that everyone doesn't play pedal to the metal all 82 games or 48 minutes, except for maybe a rare situation like the Thibs Bulls. For everyone else there's another gear they go to in the playoffs. But what's to say that if a team loses their star for 10 Gs, that they don't engage "Playoff mode" to keep their playoff seeding alive until he comes back to take pressure off them? A good example is that in the top 100 project people were taking away some of the shine of Pau's Memphis years because of how his 45-50 W team, continued to play like a playoff team whenever he got injured for a few months. The Grizzlies of course with Battier, Miller, Bonzi, White Chocolate, simply weren't to me, the caliber of team that their "without Pau" small sample size record would indicate. What would make sense is if they managed to keep their playoff season going through a combination of a lag to catch up to their style of play + putting in their greatest efforts of the season, so their season wouldn't fall apart. But if they had played the entire season led by Battier, Miller, Bonzi, they'd likely be somewhere between 20 and 35 Ws, since nobody makes the playoffs with talent that bad

Thirdly, I think there's something to be said for just how exact the In/Out +/- stats would have to be to be useful. A margin of error of +/- 2.5 in either direction would sink the entire thing. Durant having a score of +6, with the possibility that he's as high as +8.5 or as low as +3.5, tells us literally nothing. Any conclusions based on a player's number being 0.5-2 points higher or lower than another player he is compared to, means absolutely nothing unless the margin of error is like less than 1 pt. So the question is, does of the combination of a) Natural faults with small sample sizes, b) Adjustments by teams, c) The "expend energy to make up for stars not being there" factor, add together for a margin of error that big? I think the answer to that question is "Hell to the yes". In fact a margin of error of like 3 pts in either direction is probably on the low end for expectations of how off those numbers can be

So I agree with you - people can use the methods they want but I have reason to believe there is zero value in using small sample sizes "when the player is injured" In/Out statistics, there's simply not enough information there

[Nivek]

The more efficient team wins even in an era of general inefficiency. If you get 85 points per 100 possessions and hold your opponent to 80 pts100, by definition you're the more efficient team. Correlations from the 70s or 60s (if we had the necessary stats to calculate efficiency stats) would show similar relationships between efficiency and winning percentage. What might vary a bit are relationships between individual components of the four factors.

Right, and the Celtics of that era were bad (by our standards) at scoring efficiency, and so in 1970 there would have been a strong correlation between winning championships and bad scoring efficiency.

What matters is a team's efficiency relative to its opponents. What looks inefficient to our modern eye may have been efficient for that era. The question is where Boston's efficiency stood as compared to the teams they faced. I don't know the answer to that, but I'm curious to look at the issue tomorrow if I have time.

[EvanZ]

Of course teams were less efficient in the 50's, 60's, and 70's. Without a 3-pt shot to space the floor, teams could just crowd the interior and middle of the floor. You think long 2-pt jumpers look bad now? Back then, you'd give up the 23-ft 2-pt shot all day.

Why people would even bother to compare between eras like that is beyond me. It's a fool's errand. The best you can say is the guys who were considered the best then would probably be among the best now and vice-versa. Human beings haven't evolved in 40 years. It's the same people.