Comment from vitality08
Time July 29, 2009 at 2:26 PM

What’s the 10 Squad?

Comment from SportzWiz
Time July 29, 2009 at 2:38 PM

the article is talking about team usa. So the 2010 olympic squad.

Comment from Babakism
Time July 29, 2009 at 2:49 PM

if all these players in the wages wins category are all so undervalued than why does it seem like most of them are from teams with losing records?

Comment from SportzWiz
Time July 29, 2009 at 3:02 PM

babakism im sure thats a great question for Tom, this is a formula he believes very strongly in.

although,
moon, varejao, battier, dalembert, west, marion, posey, odom, kidd, horford, rondo and chalmers all made the playoffs last year.

Comment from Tom Mandel
Time July 29, 2009 at 4:49 PM

If you do a WP48 analysis across the league, you find that the best players in the NBA are, pretty largely, the ones you and I think are best: LeBron, Chris Paul, Kobe, etc.

The main *difference* between WP48 analysis and that of a casual analysis is that the latter overemphasizes scoring. Most people think pretty simply that the more you score the better you are — no matter how *efficiently* you score and no matter what else you do. By and large the underrated players are those whose game is based on something other than scoring. Many other things are important to actual wins: above all rebounds, lack of turnovers, and *efficient* scoring.

The reason the most underrated players this year play for teams with bad records is that their teams didn’t have many *other* players who excel. Minnesota had two really effective players last year, Mike Miller and Kevin Love. No one else did much — hence they only won 25 games.

In the case of the Wizards, we were missing two of our top players, and our other top players (antawn and caron) had pretty bad seasons for them — atypically lower production (measured by WP48) than in the past — probably because of the fact that tapspott forced them to have the ball too much. Dominic spent the season being very efficient in his work, but we didn’t have enough horsepower to win games.

Comment from Tom Mandel
Time July 29, 2009 at 5:03 PM

Here’s a thought experiment that helps understand WP48 (Wages of Wins analysis):

Suppose 2 players each play 30 minutes of a game, and they each score 20 points. Player A takes 5 3-pointers and makes them all and also goes 5 for 5 from the line. Player B goes 8 for 20 from the floor (all 2 point attempts) and 4 for 7 from the line. Everything else they did was the same.

If you understand that player A had a better game than player B — contributed more to winning the game — then you are on your way to understanding WP48.

If you *don’t* understand that A played better than B, then… I don’t know what to say.

Comment from SportzWiz
Time July 29, 2009 at 5:05 PM

Tom who won the game?

Comment from ta1ent
Time July 29, 2009 at 5:31 PM

I understand that A played better than B, but what is WP48?

Comment from Rick
Time July 29, 2009 at 6:34 PM

Is this an SAT question?

I think we all understand that there is more to a good player than scoring.

To me the failure of ALL of these statistical models is that they are evaluating one individual’s performance. Yet basketball is a team game. For example, it doesn’t matter how great of a passer you are, if your teammates are blowing open shots, your assists numbers aren’t going to be very high. Similarly, there are extremely important aspects of the game, like an ability to play team defense, which don’t show up directly in a stat sheet at all.

So if the question is “are stats, regardless of the model you use, an indicator of a players skill?” Then the answer is “Absolutely.”

But to use any model to conclusively say “see this proves that so and so is better than so and so” is simply ridiculous.

Comment from GlingGling
Time July 29, 2009 at 7:00 PM

Rick, basketball is a team game that revolves around the skill of individuals. For the most part the skill of a team comes from the coaches (who are also individuals). In order for a team to be good, the individuals have to be good (whether it be the coaches or players). Some players ARE better than others. Statistics can go a long way in presenting a case that one player is better than the other.

Proving it? Well I know when one player plays better than another player when I watch them one on one in a game. Statistics don’t tell you who crossed out who or who stole the ball from who or who trapped their man and forced them to give up the ball. But a lot of times statistics are all we have to go on, so we are forced to rely on them in our discussion.

Comment from Babakism
Time July 29, 2009 at 7:46 PM

And how do you measure gilbert arenas’s ability to knock down game winning buzzer beaters into that equation???

Comment from Babakism
Time July 29, 2009 at 8:03 PM

or how brenden haywood tells people where to move on D??

or how Ben Wallace’s hustle and attitude wears off on his team mates ?? cause thats why detroit lost their muster

Stats do hold value but there are so many things that aren’t measured through stats but are of the utmost importance.

Why don’t they record how many times a player dives on the floor for a loose ball.

How many times a player hustled back on D even though it apeared the other team had a sure bucket

How many times a player taped a ball out of bounds off another player or saved the ball inbounds

How man times did a player hustle downcourt even though his team had a wide open fastbreak lay up

How many times a game did a player step in front of the cutter

How many times did a player call an in game team meeting during a free throw

How many times did a player give a coach feedback on what he sees on the court

How many times per game does a player have the ball in his hands on the last posession of a game

How many times did a player make a play so spectacular or ballsy on offense and/or defense that it brought his entire bench to their feet

How many times did a player back down from a ref or hold his teamates back from a ref to avoid or attempt to stop his team from getting a technical foul

How many times did a player complete a succesful dive securing the ball and calling time out

How many times did a player commit a hard foul on a player preventing an easy layup or sending a message to the other team

Comment from Rick
Time July 29, 2009 at 9:17 PM

@glinggling, as i said, stats are a good indicator, but inconclusive. as Babakism has helped highlight, the statistical data points that all of the different models include are too few.

that said, even if somehow EVERYTHING that a player did on the court was tracked, there are still so many important variables that would be left out when determining a player’s value. for example, what kind of person is he? well liked? a good locker-room influence? good in the community to help gain fan support? all of these things and many others are important for team chemistry and to help achieve success.

overall, i say again that stats are a good reference but they never tell the entire story. relying too heavily on stats is a mistake.

Comment from GlingGling
Time July 29, 2009 at 10:26 PM

Babakism, you listed a ton of stuff I’d like to see tracked in the NBA . From what I hear the teams themselves track many stats that they do not release to the public. One I have heard about specifically is tracking deflections (as in deflecting a pass).

Rick, we’re on the same page. I like stats but I like watching the players more.

There’s nothing like a good stat line after a game to help emphasize how awesome a player was that night.

Comment from GrifonRacing
Time July 29, 2009 at 10:28 PM

SportzWiz…. “Tom who won the game?”. NOW THAT’S FUNNY. SportzWiz I fear we are becoming a bad influence on you

Comment from GrifonRacing
Time July 29, 2009 at 10:33 PM

Well guys is Lamar Odom going to stay in La La Land or come and make our lives miserable?

Comment from Rick
Time July 29, 2009 at 10:40 PM

he will stay in LA for the money and the chance to win another title.

Comment from GrifonRacing
Time July 29, 2009 at 10:57 PM

I hope Rick! I don’t want that guy anywhere around the Southeast.

Comment from GlingGling
Time July 29, 2009 at 10:59 PM

I’d rather try to equalize the east and west. Taking Odom out of LA would help even the field in the west.

Comment from GrifonRacing
Time July 29, 2009 at 11:04 PM

That’s being too much of a true basketball fan for me GlingGling lol. I’d prefer that dude stay put in the West and let them all fight for the last playoff spot with 50 win seasons. I’m more of a Wizards fan than a pure basketball fan ie. I’m stingy and only want what can benifit us. Mr. Odom to Miami for more than going to the beach would not be my dream scenario

Comment from dmac
Time July 30, 2009 at 7:30 AM

Rick I agree that stats have their place but to me it takes away the gut feelings we have about players and the teams. That is the fun in looking at facial and body expressions telling the story about a player or the team or coach.
I love getting to games early and seeing the players coming and working on individual parts of their game. i can pick out lazy, just trying to cash the check at the end of the week players. Then i see those who have focus and really good work ethics. That to me is the fun part getting inside of a players head instead of the computers. I will leave that to the coaching staff and Tom Mandel.
Oh by the way if LO signs with Miami then maybe we should check with Bobby Bonds so we can pump up Javale and Andray. Just a joke!!!!!!!

Comment from SportzWiz
Time July 30, 2009 at 8:55 AM

grifon the humor has to come out a little more in the off-season .

Comment from Tom Mandel
Time July 30, 2009 at 9:08 AM

Nice to see everyone so lively.

Stats, properly analyzed, are the best single guide to what a player does to help his team win. That’s all they are. No more, but also no less. They aren’t a *total* guide, and they aren’t *the only* guide.

ta1ent — For more on WP48 (Wins Produced per 48 minutes), look at Dave Berri’s book The Wages of Wins or, more easily, at the WoW blog:
http://dberri.wordpress.com/

Comment from Tom Mandel
Time July 30, 2009 at 9:09 AM

Lamar Odom is obviously a tremendous basketball player — stay in a Laker uniform, Lamar. You look good in the purple and gold!

Comment from Tom Mandel
Time July 30, 2009 at 9:26 AM

One more note on stats: please keep in mind that a team’s win/loss record is *a stat.* The score at the end of the game is *a stat.* And that score is produced by *other stats.*

In other words, numbers can only explain *other numbers,* they can’t explain anything else. But the final score is a number, so numbers can and do explain it.

As to “hitting the clutch shot when the game is on the line” — keep in mind that if you hit the shot in the first quarter, maybe the game isn’t on the line? The final score counts up the points but not when they were made.

Comment from SportzWiz
Time July 30, 2009 at 12:45 PM

and there are a lot of stats that some people look at that are not included in some formulas

Comment from getabigboyoffense
Time July 30, 2009 at 1:03 PM

Is there a stat for getting a rebound because a teammate tipped it and you were able to go-get-it? Who gets the rebound? DMac gets a lot of rebounds because the “bigs” tip the ball toward him. DMac is an opportunity rebounder…not a bad thing. His rebounds are primarily because he hustles to the spot for uncontested rebounds. He rarely gets a rebound in traffic. He’s simply too small to be successsful battling the “bigs”.

Comment from getabigboyoffense
Time July 30, 2009 at 1:14 PM

“As to “hitting the clutch shot when the game is on the line” — keep in mind that if you hit the shot in the first quarter, maybe the game isn’t on the line? The final score counts up the points but not when they were made.” – Tom M.

True, the basket in the first quarter counts the same as the basket in the final minute…but, the basket in the final minute is much harder to make because, in the NBA, the defense wakes up in the final minutes. The money players take and make the “big” shots. That’s why they are the $$$$ players. They are the reason why we watch the games. Who would pay to watch 10 mediocre players run up and down a court matching points?

Comment from wizards_fusion
Time July 30, 2009 at 1:42 PM

“Who would pay to watch 10 mediocre players run up and down a court matching points?” – GABBO

Um, WNBA fans?

Comment from SportzWiz
Time July 30, 2009 at 2:04 PM

lets play nice now wiz_fusion…

Comment from wizards_fusion
Time July 30, 2009 at 2:55 PM

alright – i’ll play nice. i would have made the same comment if this is a mystics blog …

ironically, i enjoy wnba basketball. i have been to a few (less than 10) mystics games in the last decade and also a couple fever games. i also had the pleasure of going to the wnba all-star game here in dc a couple of years ago and met talented ladies at the verizon center club level after the game (a discover card giveaway admittance pass thingy). shaking hands with cheryl ford (one of karl malone’s daughters) was about as close as i’ll ever get to “the mailman”.

if you think the pace of the men’s game is frantic, you haven’t seen how the women play today. alana beard is a bit of a ballhog but she pushes the ball like agent zero. there are so many 3s from the women’s game today … and they swish them from nba range!

lastly, the true wnba fans are complete fanatics. they swear and emote far more than typical nba fans. i hope the league doesn’t fold but with the “great recession” upon us and many nba teams losing money, the wnba is in trouble.

with that, i have no idea why tulsa is the next most likely wnba franchise destination. something about oklahoma is drawing basketball interest for both mens and womens and i don’t know what. i’d always thought football is it in that state.

Comment from Rick
Time July 30, 2009 at 2:59 PM

I think there is a big difference between team stats and individual player stats. The team stats are, obviously, an aggregate that properly accounts for the fact that basketball is a team game. Individual stats may be the tell-all in golf or singles tennis, but in basketball they can often be misleading. That’s why we need gurus like Ernie Grunfeld, to see past the stats. Otherwise we wouldn’t have GM’s just number crunching computers.

As for the WNBA, I’ve been to a Liberty game in NYC, and it was fun. It’s a different game, to be sure, but the fans get into it and I would argue that the atmosphere is more kid-friendly than the intense NBA games.

Comment from SportzWiz
Time July 30, 2009 at 3:04 PM

no problem wizards_fusion…glad to hear we got fans of both the mystics and wiz on here.

Comment from GlingGling
Time July 30, 2009 at 3:29 PM

wizards_fusion, some WNBA teams have started putting advertisements on their jerseys. Just another way to stay in the game. If they keep adding sponsorship and lower the price of tickets they may be able to stabilize their revenue stream.

Comment from maggicman11
Time July 30, 2009 at 4:19 PM

stats are important but i think most people look at the wrong stats. for an example, i dont care how many points a guy scores per game. i only care about points per min played and fg %.

rebounding is probably the single most important stat in the game. anybody in the nba is capable of a 20 point game. but if u get 20 rebounds, that says something about the character, intensity and passion to win of a player.

i hate players who average alot of steals because those are the guys who gamble way to much and are beatin off the dribble alot. (gil top 5 in steals, caron as well)

then there are the things that cant be measured in statistical form. such as players like kobe and garnett who actually make their team mates better. i hate when people say guys who average alot of assist make their team mates better. they dont. they are good for a team by getting guys good looks and they make their team mates look better but not actually better. lebron, nash, cp3, etc. all make great plays for team mates but when they get traded after all those assist bring their demand up they disapoint because they no longer have pgs to get them the ball in those small windows of opportunity so it turns out that they diddnt actually get better thanks to these assist masters. they just looked better.

players like kobe and garnett actually make their team mates better by- in kobe’s case- making their team believe they are the best and teaching how to get open and play better while they are on the floor. garnett on the other hand makes his team affraid to not play to their top potential. their is no inconsistency playing with kg. if he knows ur good he will pull it out of u every night. but that cant be measured in stats.

stats also dont measure on the ball defense or hustle plays. keeping balls alive that would have been out of bounds otherwise, or keeping quick guards out of the lane.