SGA, Jokic and Giannis and the breaking advanced stats

[Mavrelous]

Disclaimer:
SGA is having the best guard season in modern history other than Steph in 15-16, and Jokic is playing at his peak as top 10 ATG,they are having amazing ATG seasons, we are watching greatness, and we should be highly appreciative of this, this is more of a discussion of the breaking of advanced stats, what is leading to this, and why outlier seasons are becoming so common nowadays.

EPM combines volume stats and RAPM to come up with estimation of the the points certain player contributes per 100 possessions.
Highest EPM on record is LeBron James in 2009, he had 9.1 EPM, this is also the only 9+ EPM season, and one of the few that are 8+.
SGA is on pace to break the EPM record at 9.2
Jokic is on pace to have the 3rd best EPM season on record (since 2001) at 9.0
This is a list of all 8+ EPM seasons on record

Code: Select all

SGA     25   9.2
LBJ     09   9.1
Jokic   25   9
Jokic   24   8.3
Jokic   23   8.4
Steph   17   8.2
LBJ     10   8.1

In fact, despite the stat being adjusted to pace, since the offensive explosion of 2020s, 6+ EPM became an all NBA tier stat, when it was before exceptional MVP season stat.

In a way, EPM today is a much better indicator than EPM 20 years, if you look at the top 5 in EPM and their order, it actually follows the consensus and order of who the best players are in the league, this wasn't the case 20 years, but comparing great seasons from 00-10 season to great season in 20-25, give huge difference in favour of modern era.


For example, Dirk Nowitzki 2007 MVP season, Mavs started 0-4 and finished 67-15, Dirk dominated the league, he had no rivals, only one that was in contention for MVP was Kobe who carried a non-NBA roster to the PO, Dirk EPM that year 4.9, he ranked 4th, Kobe wasn't in top 5.
Kevin Garnett 2004 season, where he went to WCF and was the best player in the league, was 5.9, to wit, this is worse than Lillard in 2023 and Luka this year.

We are seeing EPM levels that are double absolutely great seasons, in addition to 07 Dirk and 04 KG,Tim Duncan is a top 5 all time player, they never approached levels all NBA players are posting regularly in the last 3-4 years.


BPM models volume stats + effeciency, the breaking of BPM is different than EPM and much less dramatic, it's more of a position thing combined with archetypes that weren't common before, double digit BPM used to mean amazing year of an all time player, now it's more of all NBA year.
Jokic reigns supreme in this stat because it gives massive weight to assists at center possession, and it punishes TOs, so and offensive hub centers who doesn't usually bring the ball up and PFs like Jokic and Giannis have inherent advantage, these are unicorns in terms of style and way of impact.
BPM kings are Jokic, Giannis and LeBron
Jokic repeatedly has 13+ BPM season in his 5 year peak, topping at 13.7 in the year he had no one else on roster in 22.
LBJ had 13.2, 11.7, 11, 11.8, 11
Giannis notable BPMs, 11.2, 11.5 and 10.4 in his 19-21 peak

Guards are typically lower
SGA has 11.5 BPM this year, peak Harden topped at 11 BPM, triple double MVP Westbrook 11.1, he is second only to unanimous MVP Curry in 2016 who topped at 11.9, highest guard ever at this stat.

Notable 10 BPM season -- Steph 15, Durant 14 (lower BPM due to lower assists and being marked as SF), CP3 08 + 09, TMAC 03, Wade 09, Luka 24.

To use same examples of marquee seasons from before, Dirk MVP was 8, KG MVP was 10.2, Shaq 9.3 at the peak of his dominance.

I think it's fair to say Jokic has better season than 07 Dirk or 04 KG, but it's also fair to say it's not 13 Vs 8 in BPM or 9 Vs 4.8 in EPM.
Damian Lillard had a very good season in 23, but it shouldn't be better than anything ATGs like Duncan, KG and Dirk ever posted in terms of EPM.

I think there are lots of factors at play:
Analytics and intensive video analysis moved the league light years ahead in terms of efficiency, elimination of less efficient shots systematically, allocating specific shots to specific players based on their efficiency profile, etc...
Coaching is able to identify game breaking players and utilize them more and more.
Archetypes that were foreign to previous eras, greatest passing big and one of the best passers of all time who is an elite scorer on his own, the best transition and rim pressure force in league history, freak in size, length and athleticism who has guard skills.

[Godymas]

Jokic has a 13.9 BPM but it's always interesting how for whatever reason his DBPM is so high. This year 3.3 DBPM. Everyone knows Jokic is not THAT impactful on the defensive end.

I feel that the stat might overrate rebounding for centers when in reality a lot of rebounds can be uncontested or given up, and of course if a teammate is helping to box someone out that rebound is not actually the center.

Imo the bigger measure is how many rebounds are contested, how many are being given up, and that requires looking at the opponent stats and an interesting thing about Denver is that they are top 5 in opponent offensive rebounds which means that Jokic as a rebounder might be a little overrated.

[Mavrelous]

Jokic has a 13.9 BPM but it's always interesting how for whatever reason his DBPM is so high. This year 3.3 DBPM. Everyone knows Jokic is not THAT impactful on the defensive end.

I feel that the stat might overrate rebounding for centers when in reality a lot of rebounds can be uncontested or given up, and of course if a teammate is helping to box someone out that rebound is not actually the center.

Imo the bigger measure is how many rebounds are contested, how many are being given up, and that requires looking at the opponent stats and an interesting thing about Denver is that they are top 5 in opponent offensive rebounds which means that Jokic as a rebounder might be a little overrated.

Jokic is one of the best rebounders in the league, the stat isn't overrating his rebounds, the stat does over-emphasise assists for centers and PFs, that's one of the reasons Jokic and Giannis break it.

[Godymas]

Jokic has a 13.9 BPM but it's always interesting how for whatever reason his DBPM is so high. This year 3.3 DBPM. Everyone knows Jokic is not THAT impactful on the defensive end.

I feel that the stat might overrate rebounding for centers when in reality a lot of rebounds can be uncontested or given up, and of course if a teammate is helping to box someone out that rebound is not actually the center.

Imo the bigger measure is how many rebounds are contested, how many are being given up, and that requires looking at the opponent stats and an interesting thing about Denver is that they are top 5 in opponent offensive rebounds which means that Jokic as a rebounder might be a little overrated.

Jokic is one of the best rebounders in the league, the stat isn't overrating his rebounds, the stat does over-emphasise assists for centers and PFs, that's one of the reasons Jokic and Giannis break it.

why would DBPM ever take assists into account? Please read the post

[TheNG]

So you're telling me the old generation players were not so good at a stat which they were not even aware of?
That's surprising.

SGA, Jokic, LeBron might all be the greatest at EPM, but I'll tell you a secret: they pretty suck at SNSFYFN

Spoiler:

SNSFYFN
Some New Stat Fifty Years From Now

[lethalizer]

Jokic has a 13.9 BPM but it's always interesting how for whatever reason his DBPM is so high. This year 3.3 DBPM. Everyone knows Jokic is not THAT impactful on the defensive end.

I feel that the stat might overrate rebounding for centers when in reality a lot of rebounds can be uncontested or given up, and of course if a teammate is helping to box someone out that rebound is not actually the center.

Imo the bigger measure is how many rebounds are contested, how many are being given up, and that requires looking at the opponent stats and an interesting thing about Denver is that they are top 5 in opponent offensive rebounds which means that Jokic as a rebounder might be a little overrated.

Jokic is one of the best rebounders in the league, the stat isn't overrating his rebounds, the stat does over-emphasise assists for centers and PFs, that's one of the reasons Jokic and Giannis break it.

why would DBPM ever take assists into account? Please read the post

DBPM's calculation is very simple. It's OBPM minus BPM.

Both OBPM and BPM take assists into account, so yeah, DBPM is broken by big men with good assist numbers.

[Sane]

You can't compare across eras. If Jordan's coach and front office were aware that a certain mix of shots would result in a higher advanced stat, they would have implemented it. All of the players' training has adjusted to advancing these new numbers, but none of them players in the 80's and 90's were training on the basis of this mix of shots. So your judgement too heavily involves front offices and coaching staff in the formula. They are going to keep discovering new stuff and the best offensive player in the NBA will keep pushing that EPM. We're not ever at a peak in raw numbers so it's kind of crazy to mark a point in time and say "wow we're higher than ever". Of course we're higher than ever.

The person who was ranked #1 in EPM in 1992 would be battling for #1 EPM in 2025 if they all knew the same stuff. We can't know how much lower in EPM Lebron/Curry would be in 1992. We can't know how much higher in EPM Michael Jordan would be in 2025. There are too many factors that are not related to the players' skill, talent and effort.

For that reason they keep saying over and over and over and over again: you can't compare across eras so for the love of god please try to stop your thoughts when it tries to go there. Just be happy for whoever is number 1 right now and who was number 1 back then. It's not that hard.

[Mavrelous]

So you're telling me the old generation players were not so good at a stat which they were not even aware of?
That's surprising.

SGA, Jokic, LeBron might all be the greatest at EPM, but I'll tell you a secret: they pretty suck at SNSFYFN

Spoiler:

SNSFYFN
Some New Stat Fifty Years From Now

No one plays to maximize certain advanced stat, even if one tries, it's hard to do, players play to win or score/assist/rebound...

[TheNG]

So you're telling me the old generation players were not so good at a stat which they were not even aware of?
That's surprising.

SGA, Jokic, LeBron might all be the greatest at EPM, but I'll tell you a secret: they pretty suck at SNSFYFN

Spoiler:

SNSFYFN
Some New Stat Fifty Years From Now

No one plays to maximize certain advanced stat, even if one tries, it's hard to do, players play to win or score/assist/rebound...

So maybe it's worth judging players based more on what they do try to maximize...

[FrodoBaggins]

DBPM is just BPM - OBPM. The truth is that it's hard to separate/isolate offense and defense. A great offensive player limits opponent transition and early offense opportunities. A great defensive player does the opposite but for his team.

What we do know about Jokic is that he has one of the best defensive rebounding impacts on record per his career regularized adjusted (RA) four factors. +5.2% DREB, which is tied #1 all-time in the 1996-97 to 2024-25 age-curve adjusted database. Nikola significantly limits opponents' second-chance opportunities. Additionally, his DFTR (+3.5%) is strong, and he generates a healthy amount of steals, deflections, and kicked ball violations.

Impact, whether offense or defense, comes in various forms. Jokic's defensive value is of the positional, possession-based variety.

Per RA four factors, he has similarities to Nurkic, Vucevic, Nene, Jason Collins, Domantas Sabonis, and Steven Adams. Here's how they rank in DRAPM and RA four factors:

Jokic: +2.0 DRAPM; +0.3% DEFG, -0.3% DTOV, +5.2% DREB, +3.5% DFTR
Nurkic: +3.0 DRAPM; +1.0% DEFG, 0.0% DTOV, +4.7% DREB, +2.9% DFTR
Vucevic: +0.3 DRAPM; -0.8% DEFG, -0.7% DTOV, +4.7% DREB, +3.7% DFTR
Nene: +4.2 DRAPM; +1.2% DEFG, +0.8% DTOV, +4.8% DREB, +2.5% DFTR
Jason Collins: +4.0 DRAPM; +0.9% DEFG, +0.9% DTOV, +4.2% DREB, +3.3% DFTR
Domantas Sabonis: +1.2 DRAPM; 0.0% DEFG, +0.3% DTOV, +3.4% DREB, +2.5% DFTR
Steven Adams: +0.9 DRAPM; 0.0% DEFG, -0.8% DTOV, +4.0% DREB, +3.5% DFTR

Collins and Nene played in a different era so the comparison isn't as straightforward as with the other guys. Jokic is somewhere between Sabonis/Adams and Nurkic. The numbers may undersell Nikola a little bit too because of his large offensive load. He seems to play better defense in fourth quarters when avoiding fouls is less important.

[Godymas]

Jokic is one of the best rebounders in the league, the stat isn't overrating his rebounds, the stat does over-emphasise assists for centers and PFs, that's one of the reasons Jokic and Giannis break it.

why would DBPM ever take assists into account? Please read the post

DBPM's calculation is very simple. It's OBPM minus BPM.

Both OBPM and BPM take assists into account, so yeah, DBPM is broken by big men with good assist numbers.

so what you are saying is..they calculate an OBPM and they calculate a BPM but then the DBPM is not even a formula?

[LeBronSpaghetti]

One thing that gets overlooked with Jokic’s very good defensive advanced metrics is that your defense has a huge advantage if the other team has to take the ball out of bounds after a made bucket as opposed to a missed shot where they can just run. In other words, when Jokic is on the court their offense is so good that the other team can’t fast break. Or at least rarely can fast break because the Nuggets score so frequently.

[lethalizer]

why would DBPM ever take assists into account? Please read the post

DBPM's calculation is very simple. It's OBPM minus BPM.

Both OBPM and BPM take assists into account, so yeah, DBPM is broken by big men with good assist numbers.

so what you are saying is..they calculate an OBPM and they calculate a BPM but then the DBPM is not even a formula?

yeap, that is indeed how it works. DBPM is a useless stat to determine a player's defense. IIRC it's based on positions and the assist contribution for a C in the BPM formula is just slightly below blocks.

It paints a player like Jokic as a godlike defender as a result of it.

[Special_Puppy]

FWIW

Read on Twitter

[lessthanjake]

One thing to keep in mind is that EPM in recent years and EPM in the past actually isn’t calculated the same. In particular, the defense component of EPM incorporates tracking data nowadays, while it doesn’t include it for earlier eras (since tracking data doesn’t exist if you go back a bunch of years). I don’t think that that’s systematically resulting in the EPM values of top players being higher, but just wanted to flag that looking at EPM values in recent years and EPM values in the 2000s is not *entirely* comparing apples to apples. The fact that EPM uses more sophisticated data for recent years might in part explain why it appears that EPM is a better indicator today than it was 20 years ago.

More generally, I think one factor at play here is that top players play fewer minutes now. A lot of that is because the game has more space and therefore is more tiring. But when you combine with load management and whatnot, I think you may have a situation where a lot of top players are probably playing less but are more fresh when they do play—which we might expect to result in higher per-minute impact/production but not necessarily higher impact/production on a per-game basis. Which is important, since things like BPM and EPM are rate stats. I don’t know that I feel strongly about this point, though, since I do think the fact that top players play fewer minutes now is about the game being more tiring due to greater space.

[Mavrelous]

FWIW

Read on Twitter

z-score will definitely help, though eye test and perception wise, EPM order in 20 years ago seems also off.
Interesting that his conclusion is that players are better now.

[Primedeion]

Yeah, we know stats have become comically inflated across the board.

[Blame Rasho]

The game is remarkably different today compared to to 20 years ago. If you just got off of stats, you can sat that KAT is/was better than Tim Duncan/KG/ and Dirk in their MVP years.

[dhsilv2]

Jokic has a 13.9 BPM but it's always interesting how for whatever reason his DBPM is so high. This year 3.3 DBPM. Everyone knows Jokic is not THAT impactful on the defensive end.

I feel that the stat might overrate rebounding for centers when in reality a lot of rebounds can be uncontested or given up, and of course if a teammate is helping to box someone out that rebound is not actually the center.

Imo the bigger measure is how many rebounds are contested, how many are being given up, and that requires looking at the opponent stats and an interesting thing about Denver is that they are top 5 in opponent offensive rebounds which means that Jokic as a rebounder might be a little overrated.

BPM uses assists as a proxy for spacial awareness because...that's what the RAPM correlation data shows. It's kinda right, but obviously misses for Jokic. But remember you calculate BPM first. You don't calculate O and D separately and add them.

Oddly all the RAPM data has Jokic's defense dropping some this year and BPM followed. So while it's over stated, clearly, it's tracking reasonably well after you realize it's giving him about a 2 point bump. And likely those 2 points should just be added back to his OBPM.

[dhsilv2]

So you're telling me the old generation players were not so good at a stat which they were not even aware of?
That's surprising.

SGA, Jokic, LeBron might all be the greatest at EPM, but I'll tell you a secret: they pretty suck at SNSFYFN

Spoiler:

SNSFYFN
Some New Stat Fifty Years From Now

If the stat is good, the player being aware of it wouldn't have any factor in it. Unless the stat is making players simply play better. Which I guess is possible? But 09 lebron wasn't aware of EPM either.

The more likely factor is that with more 'off' data RAPM is a bit more accurate now and it's better able to quantify the extra value of stars. Add in all that "load management" likely means guys are playing better when they're on the court. Guys play less minutes banged up.