Texas Chuck wrote:none of them isolate impact nearly as well as they purport. Not sure why they continue to be relied upon so heavily especially in small samples. Especially when sometimes we don't rely on them at all if they give us numbers that don't fit what we've already decided.
I don't understand why we can't accept there is no single-metric available to tell us how good a basketball player is or isn't. That we have to work harder, and look beyond just someone's attempt at an all-in-one metric. Nothing against the creators of those who I'm sure all all brilliant stats guys doing their best, but its too dynamic and the samples sizes with the same people on the court are just way too small for us to say yep, this guy is the best or even yep this guy is the best in his role.
And if its really is as simple as just who has the best +/- then we should just shut this subforum down, because you can just look at the numbers and the job is done for you.
i think the best xRAPM metrics provide insight on the impact of NBA players. no i don't think they're the end all be all, nor do i think they're useless. i do think they give u more insight than anything in the box score can. i do not think it's as simple as who has the best +/- but i don't think that's really been suggested in this conversation
here's one way to put it: we do not have metrics like EPM for an era like the 1980s. if we did, i believe we'd have more insight on player impact in the 1980s than we do now. would we have "solved" basketball? no of course not. it's just more information at our disposal
i think some people have the wrong idea of what the purpose of these metrics are. sometimes i see people cite something like "oh my god player X has a higher EPM than player Y? how stupid!" as if this is supposed to be a definitive player ranking. it's not.
