ESPN adds new overall stat...REAL PLUS/MINUS..Finally!

[dice]

augustin has been a well above average point guard offensively.

Yeah ... wait ... no, he isn't

57+% ts, 3:1 assist/to ratio...what else do you want from a point guard?

[mysticbb]

57+% ts, 3:1 assist/to ratio...what else do you want from a point guard?

Making it easier for his teammates. With Augustin on the court, the players are scoring less efficient than with Hinrich and they are turning the ball over more often. Well, and when the coach decides that running the offense more often through the C, who is actually not that great at being a playmaker, maybe that should tell you something about the playmaking abilities of the PG ... but maybe it doesn't ... and despite having Noah's playmaking and the supposed great playmaking by Augustin the other Bulls players are sucking that much offensively that the Bulls are still one of the worst offensive teams in the league. But as I said, if you believe that it makes sense to declare Augustin such a good offensive player as you believe, I will likely not change that perception based on facts anyway ...

[dice]

57+% ts, 3:1 assist/to ratio...what else do you want from a point guard?

Making it easier for his teammates. With Augustin on the court, the players are scoring less efficient than with Hinrich

augustin assists more than hinrich

[mysticbb]

augustin assists more than hinrich

Having more assists does not necessarily equate to "making it easier for the teammates". Matter of fact is that in average when with Augustin on the court the players are scoring less efficient and are more turnover prone. That his more efficient scoring and his lower own turnover ratio is in the end more helpful than his lack of improving his teammates is, doesn't take those things away.

[Keller61]

DJ Augustin has helped the Bulls tremendously. I don't see how anyone could deny that.

[Keller61]

This thing has Anthony Davis ranked 88th. Hmm...

[dice]

augustin assists more than hinrich

Having more assists does not necessarily equate to "making it easier for the teammates". Matter of fact is that in average when with Augustin on the court the players are scoring less efficient and are more turnover prone.

coincidence, perhaps. small sample size? i don't see how two different point guards can reasonably have such a big differential in how many times their TEAMMATES turn the ball over

That his more efficient scoring and his lower own turnover ratio is in the end more helpful than his lack of improving his teammates is, doesn't take those things away.

i'm not gonna argue for a second that d.j. has the intangibles that hinrich does. just that he's better offensively than hinrich. by a significant margin

[Keller61]

augustin assists more than hinrich

Having more assists does not necessarily equate to "making it easier for the teammates". Matter of fact is that in average when with Augustin on the court the players are scoring less efficient and are more turnover prone. That his more efficient scoring and his lower own turnover ratio is in the end more helpful than his lack of improving his teammates is, doesn't take those things away.

DJ has to play in the unit with Tony Snell and Nazr Mohammed. Kirk does not. Kirk also shares almost all of his minutes with Noah, while DJ plays the minutes when Noah is on the bench.

[jinxed]

This thing has Anthony Davis ranked 88th. Hmm...

We do have to ask ourselves, why does it not seem to matter that much to the Pelicans whether Anthony Davis is on the game or not? He makes a positive impact, but not much. When he is in the game the Pelicans are outscored by 2.2 pts, when he is out of the game, they get outscored by 3.2 points.

Young players usually don't score well on this stat, as they are still figuring out the NBA and how to be efficient, especially on defense. Durant didn't score well in this stat his first few years in the league either, now he's an RPM monster. I think Davis will get there eventually. And hey, 88th isn't bad, it means he is in the top 20% of the league and he's only 21.

[WesleyExChiFan]

im familiar (im an actuary).

i still dont see anything as to how it negates the other 9 players on the floor. It moves the needle a bit but not nearly enough.

Then you simply don't understand the stat. And let's be honest, you are just saying that to back up your original assertion, you don't want to hurt your pride of admitting you're wrong. Be better than that. No one who understands the stat would agree with that assessment.

Or else you can write a detailed paper explaining how the math is wrong and that all NBA teams who spend hundreds of thousands of dollars a year these past 10 years hiring mathematicians to calculate this stat for them are wrong and you are right. Even though you have at most spent 2 minutes looking at it.

Good Luck.

clearly i dont, and it has nothing to do with pride. i understand the math, i dont understand how it removes the impact of the other 9 players on the floor. im not saying its a useless stat that doesnt paint a good picture of a players value... i just dont see how its a defensive stat that removes the impact of your 4 teammates and the 5 opponents.

here is what i find flawed:

It is in this regression where the effects of the other players on the floor are accounted for. The bs in equation (1) measure the point differential difference (measured per 100 possessions) of the given player relative to the reference players, holding constant all of the players that shared the floor with that player (and with the reference players), i.e. holding the other players constant. What does this “holding other players constant” mean? Strictly speaking, it means that we can take a player and surround him with four teammates and five opponents and compare how that player’s team would do versus how it would do if he was replaced by a replacement player keeping all of the other players the same. This is what is meant by “holding the other players constant,” since we can repeat this exercise with any other combination of other players.

you are taking something that is inherently variable, and making it constant. you are also ignoring situation circumstances, which is fine when evaluating team defense, but it becomes immensely important for evaluating individual defense. it is operating under the assumption that all things are constant outside of the player in question, at that the level all 9 other players play at is the same regardless of the player who is swapped out -- and that any change would be as a result of the player who was replaced -- which simply can not be assumed.

again, im not saying its a garbage stat that cant help indentify a player worth. but i dont see anything introduced that takes plus/minus down to an accurate individual metric

good rebuttal. I agree with you. It's not realistic to treat the other nine players as constants. They're just not.

[WesleyExChiFan]

I see Ricky Rubio is no. 12. That's pretty damned high. I wonder what all the Rubio haters will say now.

Get a jumper. Other than that he's golden.

[dice]

This thing has Anthony Davis ranked 88th. Hmm...

We do have to ask ourselves, why does it not seem to matter that much to the Pelicans whether Anthony Davis is on the game or not? He makes a positive impact, but not much. When he is in the game the Pelicans are outscored by 2.2 pts, when he is out of the game, they get outscored by 3.2 points.

Young players usually don't score well on this stat, as they are still figuring out the NBA and how to be efficient, especially on defense. Durant didn't score well in this stat his first few years in the league either, now he's an RPM monster. I think Davis will get there eventually. And hey, 88th isn't bad, it means he is in the top 20% of the league and he's only 21.

blah, blah, blah. this is just another case where the stat produces a screwy result

sum of pelicans individual WAR? 15.41. the team has won 32 games in a tough conference

[jinxed]

This thing has Anthony Davis ranked 88th. Hmm...

We do have to ask ourselves, why does it not seem to matter that much to the Pelicans whether Anthony Davis is on the game or not? He makes a positive impact, but not much. When he is in the game the Pelicans are outscored by 2.2 pts, when he is out of the game, they get outscored by 3.2 points.

Young players usually don't score well on this stat, as they are still figuring out the NBA and how to be efficient, especially on defense. Durant didn't score well in this stat his first few years in the league either, now he's an RPM monster. I think Davis will get there eventually. And hey, 88th isn't bad, it means he is in the top 20% of the league and he's only 21.

blah, blah, blah. this is just another case where the stat produces a screwy result

sum of pelicans individual WAR? 15.41. the team has won 32 games in a tough conference

LOL...I don't think you quite know what Wins Above Replacement means.

Hint: It is not the same as Wins produced..It's not supposed to equal your teams win total..

[Doctor MJ]

I don't understand how these stats can be part of a puzzle. What puzzle do they fit into? They are just numbers that tell you no specific information.

This is a really honest question. I think I can help. I wrote a blog post on this a few years back. The article is here:

http://asubstituteforwar.wordpress.com/ ... tatistics/

But to be succinct, just focus on this one image I used there:



There are two key concept to consider when we look at any means we use to draw conclusions: Validity & Reliability.

Validity is basically whether you're aiming in the right place. Sometimes it's called accuracy.
Reliability is whether you're hitting the same place consistently. Sometimes it's called precision.

The optimal metric has perfect validity and reliability. It's aiming in the right place, and hitting that target every time.

Obviously, to the extent we are looking for a metric that says how much a guy is helping his team, we don't have one of those optimal metrics. But the reason why +/- stats are so exciting is that introduce something that is actually valid in a sea of existing stats that really aren't.

Now, that probably sounds crazy to you but understand it from the perspective of bias. Take any individual box score stat, and even any all-in-one stat of the PER mold, you can improve how you look with them by doing things that hurt your team.

You can increase your scoring by taking bad shots.
You can increase your shooting efficiency by refusing to take any tough shots even when the team needs you to.
You can increase your offensive rebounds by refusing to get back on defense.
You can increase your defensive rebounds by sagging off your man and then crashing the boards instead of boxing out.
Most generally, you can make yourself look better by trying harder on offense than on defense.

There's no such way to distort +/- stats as a player. You look better by making your team do better on the scoreboard. The end. It doesn't favor scorers, or passers, or shotblockers, or anyone. It just favors who helps their team more. That's validity my friend.

So then the issue is of course the weakness in reliability. Using a metric that gives a guy some credit for things he was lucky to be on the floor for means that there is noise in the signal. It means you cannot just look at that valid metric and be done with it...but that doesn't make it something to be thrown out either. A good analyst treats any metric that has some good data to it with some degree of confidence and some degree of skepticism. And the more sample size you get, the more confidence you get.

We now have a TON of data long these lines, and as a result we have a pretty clear sense of how much skepticism is warranted about any claim. Some apparent trends indeed should not be used to make conclusions. But other are crystal clear year after year. To have a valid data source give you consistent results over years on something and then to ignore it, that's simply not an option for a skilled analyst.

[dice]

We do have to ask ourselves, why does it not seem to matter that much to the Pelicans whether Anthony Davis is on the game or not? He makes a positive impact, but not much. When he is in the game the Pelicans are outscored by 2.2 pts, when he is out of the game, they get outscored by 3.2 points.

Young players usually don't score well on this stat, as they are still figuring out the NBA and how to be efficient, especially on defense. Durant didn't score well in this stat his first few years in the league either, now he's an RPM monster. I think Davis will get there eventually. And hey, 88th isn't bad, it means he is in the top 20% of the league and he's only 21.

blah, blah, blah. this is just another case where the stat produces a screwy result

sum of pelicans individual WAR? 15.41. the team has won 32 games in a tough conference

LOL...I don't think you quite know what Wins Above Replacement means.

Hint: It is not the same as Wins produced..It's not supposed to equal your teams win total..

if you've been following the thread, you'll find that i know exactly what WAR means

timberwolves sum WAR: 39+. team wins: 38. i'll wait for the next round of excuses

LOL

[jinxed]

blah, blah, blah. this is just another case where the stat produces a screwy result

sum of pelicans individual WAR? 15.41. the team has won 32 games in a tough conference

LOL...I don't think you quite know what Wins Above Replacement means.

Hint: It is not the same as Wins produced..It's not supposed to equal your teams win total..

if you've been following the thread, you'll find that i know exactly what WAR means

timberwolves sum WAR: 39+. team wins: 38. i'll wait for the next round of excuses

LOL

If I've been following the thread? I started the thread.

And noo it's not. Wins above replacement means how many wins you add to your team over what a replacement level player would add..say Robert Sacre..

If it was wins added, then you wouldn't have 150 players in the league who have NEGATIVE wins added. Which is only possible, because it means that add less value than a replacement level player.

And the Timberwolves score is because the Timberwolves by all measures should have way better record than they are.

Almost all other teams have about 15 more wins than the sum total of WAR.

[dice]

comically misguided on every point there

[LoveDaBoo]

DJ Augustin has helped the Bulls tremendously. I don't see how anyone could deny that.

Normally, I'm pro-stats. But I have to agree with Dice here. I've watched all the Bulls games. There's simply no way Augustin has been one of the worst Bulls. He's clearly been one of the best. Maybe he's the best outlier there is for this stat. But really, if anyone who has watched this team thinks it functions better with Hinrich... well, I don't know what they're watching.

[jinxed]

comically misguided on every point there

Why troll? Do you think posting that is going to change my mind. We both know you were wrong. Just man up and admit it. Don't be insecure. It will only make everyone think less of you.

[jinxed]

DJ Augustin has helped the Bulls tremendously. I don't see how anyone could deny that.

Normally, I'm pro-stats. But I have to agree with Dice here. I've watched all the Bulls games. There's simply no way Augustin has been one of the worst Bulls. He's clearly been one of the best. Maybe he's the best outlier there is for this stat. But really, if anyone who has watched this team thinks it functions better with Hinrich... well, I don't know what they're watching.

Well I don't know what you are watching..

With Hinrich in the games the Bulls outscore their opponents by 4.8 pts per 100 possessions compared to when he is off, according to 82games.com com

The Bulls play 1.1 points better when Augustin is on the bench than when he is in the game.



Almost all of this variation takes place on the defensive side of the ball where Augustin is just awful.