Jerry Seinfeld has observed that a sports fan will “love” a player when he plays on the fan’s team, then “hate” the same player when he plays elsewhere. For Seinfeld, this means fans are not rooting for players and teams, but just for clothes.
Certainly I am not immune to this tendency. The clothes I root for are worn by the Detroit Pistons. And when a player wears these clothes, I tend to raise my appreciation for that player’s talents. To illustrate, consider Bill Laimbeer.
Laimber was one of the most hated basketball players in the NBA when he played. It was hard at time for opponents of the Pistons to see what function Laimbeer served on the court beyond physically abusing more talented players (and perpetually whining). Still, fans of the Detroit tended to think Laimbeer was a key player on the back-to-back championship teams in the late 1980s.
In today’s New York Times, Jere Longman offered a lengthy profile of Laimbeer. After years away from basketball, Laimbeer has returned as the head coach of the Detroit Shock. In this capacity he has led the Shock to two WNBA titles in the past four seasons.
Longman’s story is an excellent read, especially if you wore Pistons attire back in the 1980s. The story did more than entertain me last night when I returned from class. It also led me to wonder exactly how good a player was Bill Laimbeer?
I began my study of the NBA back in the mid-1990s (yes, I have been doing this awhile). Given when I started, my own collection of player data extends back to the 1991-92 season. That season Laimbeer played 2,234 minutes and produced 1.7 wins. His Wins Produced per 48 minutes [WP48] stood at 0.036, which is well below the average mark of 0.100.
In 1991-92 Laimbeer was 34 years old. Two years later he was out of the NBA. So that season was hardly Laimbeer in his prime.
I have not calculated Wins Produced prior to 91-92, so I can’t simply scan back through my files to see how Laimbeer performed early in his career. Fortunately, we have PAWSmin. PAWSmin is Position Adjusted Win Score per minute, which as I have noted previously, has a 0.99 correlation with WP48.
Although I don’t have the data collected to calculate PAWSmin, thanks to Basketball-Reference.com (run by Justin Kubatko – the likely winner of the True Hoop Stats Geek Smackdown), we need not despair. Kubatko’s website gives us the career performance of every single player who ever lived.
Looking at Basketball-Reference we learn that Laimbeer played more career minutes than any player who debuted in 1980. Second on the list is Kevin McHale, the only Hall-of-Fame player in this class. So how does Laimbeer compare to McHale?
Let’s start with the numbers.
Table One: Bill Laimbeer vs. Kevin McHale
As the above table notes, Laimbeer and McHale actually offered similar levels of productivity in their respective careers. Laimbeer finished with a 0.082 PAWSmin while McHale’s career mark was 0.071. We can utilize the strong relationship between PAWSmin and WP48 to provide some perspective on these numbers. Laimbeer’s estimated WP48 for his career (given his PAWSmin) is 0.231. McHale’s career WP48 was 0.214.
Although these player produced a similar number of wins, how these wins were produced differed. Laimbeer was a much better rebounder, capturing 0.306 boards per-minute; while McHale only garnered 0.236. Although McHale was not as strong on the boards, he was a very good scorer. Per game McHale scored 17.9 points with a points-per-field goal attempt {PPS = [PTS-FTM)/FGA]} of 1.11 (average is about 1.0). Laimbeer finished his career with a PPS of 1.01 and a per-game scoring average of 12.9.
Although the productivity of each player was similar, perceptions have not been the same. McHale was elected to the Hall-of-Fame (and Laimbeer was not). McHale has also survived as general manager of the Minnesota Timberwolves despite an inability to build a consistent winner around the most productive player (Kevin Garnett) in today’s game. Meanwhile, Laimbeer continues to win championships in the WNBA while being ignored for every coaching job in the NBA.
Certainly come of the difference between how McHale and Laimbeer are regarded is a result of their different personalities. Still, one suspects that the McHale-Laimbeer story is but one more example of how one produces wins (scoring vs. non-scoring) is as important (if not more) than the wins themselves.
By the way, tomorrow I plan to offer a preview of the NBA Finals. For a preview of my preview, check out Henry Abbott’s TrueHoop’s Stat Geek Smackdown.
– DJ
Wages of Wins Journal 
Pacifist Viking
June 5, 2007
If Bill Laimbeer had played on a front court with Larry Bird and Robert Parrish for the bulk of his career, would he still still statistically be a superior rebounder to McHale? I’ve always figured Bird, McHale, and Parrish were better rebounders than their numbers looked, since there are only so many rebounds to go around.
Later in his career Laimbeer played with Dennis Rodman (who became one of the greatest rebounders ever), so later he was splitting rebounds with another great. But I don’t think he was doing that throughout his career.
Jason
June 5, 2007
I have to second that. If there’s really such a thing as diminished returns for rebounding, playing alongside two other guys who averaged more than 10 boards a game for the decade likely cost McHale a board or two a game. In Laimbeer’s top days, he was getting roughly twice as many as the next best rebounder on the team.
(I’m still working on some way of analyzing whether or not there’s a penalty for such a high variance between players in terms of team results, but still haven’t finished crunching the numbers. Anecdotally, the Pistons weren’t as good when Laimbeer was their lone dominant rebounder as they were when Rodman and Mahorn were much closer to his then lower total.)
That said, Laimbeer was a very good player, no doubt, though unless he’s mellowed greatly, his reputation as a dirty player will probably follow him forever.
dberri
June 5, 2007
I don’t disagree with the concept of diminishing returns (and of course I can’t since it is in the book). Still, this tends to be over-stated. There is an impact from your teammates production, but it appears to be small.
That being said, McHale’s rebounds may have been reduced because he played with Bird and Parish. Or Bird and Parish rebounded better becuase they played with someone like McHale.
I would also add that McHale may have had more open looks because he played with Bird.
But all of that ignores the point of the post. Laimbeer was a very productive player. And yet, I do not think that is how he is perceived. My sense is that Laimbeer is thought of as a thug, when in fact he did make a substantial positive impact on his team’s wins.
dberri
June 5, 2007
I would add that it doesn’t look like McHale was a great rebounder in college. We don’t know his minutes per game, but his rebounds per game were less than ten. Typically great rebounders in the NBA post amazing numbers in college. And less than ten a game is not amazing.
Pacifist Viking
June 5, 2007
After looking closer at the Celtics’ and Pistons’ rebounding numbers, I think the rebounding discrepancy between Laimbeer and McHale would be diminished if McHale didn’t play with Bird and Parish; for most of his career Laimbeer didn’t play with other great rebounders to take them away from him (one reason KG has led the league in rebounding the last four seasons is because the Wolves have nobody else to help on the boards). Still, Laimbeer was significantly superior, and I suspect if they switched teams, Laimbeer would still prove the better rebounder.
I think it would be Robert Parish who would have made the greatest statistical rebounding improvement without Bird or McHale: his two best rebounding years were ’79 (two years before joining Bird on the Celtics) and ’89 (when Bird was out for most of the year).
Pacifist Viking
June 5, 2007
It seems logical that diminishing returns would affect rebounding numbers more than any other statistic. Is that logical but baseless?
dberri
June 5, 2007
When it comes to diminishing returns, I think mostly of shot attempts. Clearly if I take the shot, you didn’t. But most rebounds seem to be taken from the opponent, not your teammates. So although I don’t disagree with the notion that rebounds suffer from diminishing returns, I think the issue of returns is most applicable to the distribution of shot attempts.
And of course the best example of this is the 76ers trading Iverson. Iverson takes close to 25 shots a game. When he leaves, the 76ers still took about 78 shots a game. This means the other players on Philadelphia increased their shot attempts considerably when Iverson left.
Pacifist Viking
June 5, 2007
That makes sense, and I’d trust your analysis.
It seems, though, that if you have two great scorers, you could distribute shots to both of them (taking them away from the other three players on the court). However, there is going to be a relatively fixed number of rebounds for all ten players on the court to go for.
Pacifist Viking
June 5, 2007
Another consideration: we don’t tend to evaluate players by their cumulative numbers, but by how they performed in their prime (at least I do). Laimbeer had an excellent stretch of rebounding from ’83-’89 and deserves credit for it. For McHale, it’s not just that he averaged 17.9 ppg for his career; it’s that in his prime he was consistently over 20 ppg (he has eight seasons with a higher scoring average than Laimbeer’s career high). McHale also seems to be a better playoff performer than Laimbeer (he has better numbers, anyway), and playoff performance has a lot to do with all-time legacy.
This doesn’t affect your argument (that Laimbeer was comparable to McHale, and that he’s underrated because he contributed more as a rebounder and McHale contributed more as a scorer). I’m only adding that these players’ legacies are not based on their cumulative numbers, but also on how they performed when each was at his best, and on their playoff performances.
Pacifist Viking
June 5, 2007
In the playoffs, McHale averaged 18.8 ppg and 7.4 rpg shooting 56% from the field (in 169 games). Laimbeer averaged 12.0 ppg and 9.7 rpg shooting 47% from the field (in 113 games). I think that also has a lot to do with their respective legacies.
Still, you raise a valid point. If Wes Unseld came along today and dominated rebounding rather than scoring, he almost certainly wouldn’t have been MVP and ROY the same year, and who knows if he’d be a HOFer–and that’s based on perception, not performance.
(I, too, love basketball-reference.com!)
dberri
June 5, 2007
Okay, you made me look. McHale had a career PAWSmin of 0.054. Laimbeer had a career mark of 0.049. So you are correct. McHale was a tiny bit better in the playoffs. For their careers, though, Laimbeer more often had a better mark in the regular season than McHale.
Jason
June 5, 2007
I never liked the brutish Pistons teams but always thought of Laimbeer as an elite defender.
I don’t have an answer for this one, but the difference between Laimbeer and McHale’s rebounds is more pronounced on the defensive end. the Celtics shot the ball very well, McHale included. This *should* have meant fewer opportunities for offensive rebounds. Yet here they were very similar. It was on defense the difference was pronounced.
Thoughts?
Pacifist Viking
June 5, 2007
If we’re just talking about the playoffs, given that the metric puts them so close, we can turn to a more subjective take. When examining a career, I’ll take a 19-7 player shooting 56% in 169 playoff games over a 12-10 player shooting 47% in 113 playoff games (given that both Laimbeer and McHale are highly touted for their defense). I can see why you put them so close, but I can also see why one is a HOFer and the other isn’t.
By the way, it’s not like Laimbeer had the thug reputation hoisted upon him–he did a lot to cultivate that reputation. Besides what he did on the court to gain the reputation as a violent player, he profited from it by releasing the video game “Bill Laimbeer’s Combat Basketball.”
Pacifist Viking
June 6, 2007
I’ve been looking closer at the conventional numbers, and I can see your point. Laimbeer has an edge in rebounding and FT%; McHale has an edge in scoring and FG%. Their other stats are negligibly different. I’ve never liked cumulative stats for evaluating players; I prefer to look at how the player performed in individual seasons. At Laimbeer’s best, he was a great rebounder and decent scorer; at McHale’s best, he was a great scorer and decent rebounder.
I know honors are also subjective, but Laimbeer was never named to the All-Defense team; McHale was first-team three times and second-team three times. I have no idea if McHale was a superior defender to Laimbeer, but it is clear that in people’s perception, McHale was a top-10 defensive player in his prime, while Laimbeer was not. It may be, then, that people already view McHale as a superior offensive player (given the PPG and FG%), and also view McHale as a superior defensive player. Whether Laimbeer’s superiority as a rebounder makes up for that, I’m not sure.
Harold Almonte
June 6, 2007
Of course that rebounding diminishing return would be small if you are the Center (75% of rebounds are grabbed inside the painted zone), and that’s your job’s main order. However, I don’t consider McHale (who had maybe the best PF’s post scoring moves in the League) Hall of Fame material.
MT
June 6, 2007
I arrived in Boston at the same time as McHale and got to watch him in probably about 200 games. To my mind, there is little doubt that McHale was a superior player individually than Laimbeer. Specifically, (1) on offense, McHale was often asked to play center against players bigger than he, and had to create his own shot, which he was able to do well despite the physical challenge. Laimbeer was merely a spot up perimeter shooter, with no independent ability to score, who picked up shots as the superior offensive players Thomas, Aguirre, etc. drew attention and kicked him the ball. (2) on defense, McHale was often asked, due to Bird’s defensive weakness as well as McHale’s superior defensive skills, to play the best forward on the opposing team, big or small. That he was able to handle those assignments is a testament to his abilities (and wingspan). Laimbeer could not handle those demanding assignments. McHale could alter shots close to the basket and take away driving lanes on the wing. Laimbeer’s principal defensive skill was to play dirty against big centers and push them away from the basket a bit. Conclusions like these make me question the weightings in the box-score based model. A personnel director could easily build a team around McHale. Laimbeer was merely a complementary role player.
Jason
June 6, 2007
I think part of Dave’s point is that the value of the “complementary role player” is largely overlooked. The defense of McHale often comes to more high-profile skills that people argue you can build around, namely scoring points.
The issue with relative value would, to me, be how much worse either team would be without said player. And that’s something that the popular perception may not accurately reflect.
Jason
June 6, 2007
So more interesting Celtic rebounding trends and stats. From the 85 through 90 seasons, Boston usually heavily outrebounded their opponents. However, in 86-87, they were actually -6 on the year (not average, but cumulative) and in 87-88 they were +54. That’s compared to +401 in their 67 win 85-86 season, +351 in the 42 win 88-89 season where Bird missed most of the year, and +401 in 89-90 when Bird was back.
The rebounds per minute for the Bird/Parrish/McHale trio didn’t change much over that time either so clearly other people on the team had to contribute, and contribute substantially.
Again, not sure what to make of it, but food for thought for those who are better at this stuff than I am.
MT
June 7, 2007
I recognize Dave’s point about the value of the complementary role player being overlooked. But the complementary role player can be replaced by another one and another one and another one. A multitalented player like McHale could not be replaced by a complementary role player, any more than Tim Duncan could be replaced by Bruce Bowen, or Lebron James by Daniel Gibson. As my post indicated, it’s not just McHale’s scoring I was focused on, but his defense and the range of positions he could play – the range of “roles” if you will – that made him a greater asset.
Also, when a player is playing 3 different positions in a game – SF and C on defense and PF and C on offense, as McHale did – I think the position adjustment factor in the model misses that altogether and misses therefore the value to a team that such flexibility creates.
In addition to not capturing flexibility, the current model overvalues rebounding relative to positional defense, because rebounds show up in the box score opposite a player’s name, whereas box scores do not capture the absolute value of stopping an opposing player from scoring, without a block or steal. The model subtracts the missed shot from the offensive player’s rating but does not make an offsetting positive credit to the defensive player’s overall rating (or conversely). Yet if you watch a game, you can see the value of good positional defense. Well-coached modern teams have assistants who keep track of these nonboxscore items like setting a pick, saving a ball heading out of bounds, denying a pass, switching on the pick and roll, closing out on the spot up shooter, altering a shot, deflecting a pass, etc. and use them in their day-after reviews with players. Obviously that raises the issues of weighting and correlations but those are for future model builders to worry about, since those data are not available at this time.
dberri
June 7, 2007
MT,
The problem with your story is that payroll and wins have very little correlation in the NBA. And when it comes to salaries, it is still the case that points scored is the dominant factor. So the decision-makers in the NBA who you appear to be claiming are able to see the true value of a player, don’t seem to have a very good track record when you look at their decisions systematically.
AC Slator
June 7, 2007
Laimbeer is one of the most underrated players in history. His winning attitude helped push that team to two championships. I hope that Dumars makes him coach soon. Aside from his attitude he was a superior defender, had an underappreciated outside shot, set some of the best picks ever, knew how to give a hard foul, was one of the better rebounders. Those who argue that Kevin Mc was hurt because of Parish and Bird should realize that Laimbeer played with some better rebounders like rodman, salley, mahorn, acquire. Laimbeer will hopefully make HOF as a coach. He’s a guy you WANT on your team.
Jason
June 7, 2007
I think the question is, was Laimbeer more or less replaceable than McHale. If you subtracted what Laimbeer did would you have a substantially worse team and could you have found his production in another player any more or less easily than you could do the same for McHale.
Complemetary players can be replaced, but you need to replace them with a good complemetary player, else you’ve done no better than replacing the scorer with a less productive player. Simply calling a player complementary in the sense that Dave has been using it isn’t a terribly useful indication of their value or their replaceability.
Laimbeer did play with some very, very good rebounders, and his rebounding numbers weren’t as good then as they were when he was the only guy who could rebound.
dberri
June 7, 2007
My sense is that the conventional wisdom regards scorers as less easily replaceable. But when Iverson left the 76ers, the 76ers found someone else to take the shots. Looking at the numbers, it does seem like productive centers like Laimbeer (WP48>0.200) are fairly scarce. So he would have been hard to replace. Of course, McHale had similar numbers. So I suspect that he would have been just as hard to replace. Which is my point. Both offered the same level of productivity. But only one is considered a HOF player.
Harold Almonte
June 8, 2007
Payroll and Win won’t never be correlated, because a lot of veteran rules and rights that does exist in NBA, allthough it’s true there are a lot of hands tied bad bussinesses. Scorers will be allways the most paid, because you can’t easilly make up a lack of scoring skill, that a big hole, but you can do it with lack of defense. It’s bigger the piramidal distribution among scorers than defenders. The new use of defense zones back again, just will increase the wage disparity.
Harold Almonte
June 8, 2007
“It’s higher and narrower the piramidal distribution” is the correct expresion.
Jason
June 8, 2007
I’m not convinced that scorers will always be so disproportionately high paid. Right now low-productivity scorers with high ppg but low efficiency scoring and/or nothing else they bring to the table get closer to what high efficiency, multi-talented scorers get while high efficiency ‘non-scorers’ tend to make less. The recognition of problems with the market sometimes take time, though once someone exploits them and shows some success, it’s not long after that everyone tries to copy and the market ‘corrects.’
But in the NBA, this will be difficult in part because, unlike MLB, the cap does have significant impact on player-movement and salary decisions. It’s not so much that it keeps salaries down or prevents trades–it doesn’t seem to do either–but it does make it such that mistakes take a long time to correct and trades tend to be about matching salaries rather than production. The collective bargaining agreement more or less dictates that this is so. I believe these factors contribute as much to the disconnect between payroll and salary as anything else.
Harold Almonte
June 8, 2007
Jason, Detroit traded Wallace, one of the best three interior defender of the game, making a hole in the paint, and they still got the final four (allthough this made them finally loose from Clev.). Had they traded a main scorer (Billups or Hamilton) for an ¨efficient¨ role player, they would not have even reached the playoffs.
Jason
June 9, 2007
Actually, they let Wallace walk as a free agent, rather than trading him. We’ll never know if they’d have had as easy a time replacing one of their scorers as they did Wallace. It is speculation to say that without Billups or Hamilton they’d have been that much worse. Please don’t confuse speculation with actual evidence. The two are not the same thing.
Detroit *wasn’t* as good a team without Wallace as they were with him and their record showed that, though they did manage to do better than the WP swapping Nazr in for Big Ben would have indicated. This didn’t seem to be because Nazr was any better than he was, but because they got more out of other players, including Webber who wasn’t previously in the mix. Nonetheless, it wasn’t far off from what
Dave’s model suggested in terms of their expected wins.
The evidence that losing a scorer is going to be more of a detriment is lacking beyond the conventional wisdom, and there’s evidence that teams don’t suffer just because points per game disappear at a rate different from what they suffer from equal statistical contribution in rebounds, blocks, steals, or other non-scoring contributions. Certainly Philly showed no similar decline losing Iverson and Denver didn’t show any real gain from getting him.
dberri
June 9, 2007
See what I mean about Jason. Another brilliant comment.
Harold Almonte
June 11, 2007
How many times a game can a player rebound, steal and block? That can go from about 2 to 20 the worst and best of cases. Rebounds, steals and blocks is not the defense. Rebounds is more a result of teammates defense, and steals and blocks can be both: good defense and just gambling. Those stats have the same gambling scoring has every FGA, but metrics hide that. The most part of the defense is not about this.
Look at Bowen, he rarely rebounds, steals and blocks. Would you say he is a bad defender. When he shoots down Lebron from 30 to 15 points, you give his credits after you make a team adjust, but the rebounder take all the possession credit, and the big part of the rating, why? These are metrics shortcuts, and an unbalance of creditings.
Harold Almonte
June 11, 2007
In an attempt to equalize scoring and defense (50-50), which I totally agree, Berri overpunished scoring gambling and overweighted defensive rebounds apllying so much logic as he criticized to others metricians. He knows that boxscore doesn’t give him too much chances, and it’s more what you need to adjust, even at the offensive end. But because there is a fitting with team wins, what more alibi you need?
Jason
June 11, 2007
Harold, you seem to suggest that Dave came to his model with a conscious decision to include factors and weigh them as he did. From my reading, that is not at all the case. The model was generated by seeing how particular items that are in the box score correlate with victories and assigning them values according to the change in probability of victory for each unit change in those items. There’s no decision to ‘punish’ offense. It’s simply that the values obtained through analysis indicate that missed shots (actually shots taken, though if the shot goes in, the points scored raise the probability of winning to more than offset the ‘penalty’) detract from win probability enough such that the offensive end stats do not dominate the evaluation.
Actually, defense as it actually effects the outcome of a game does come down to some simple factors: defensive rebounds and turnovers. Effective defense means getting the ball back without the other team scoring and it’s virtually impossible get the ball back without a defensive rebound (which indicates that a shot was missed), a steal, a recovered blocked shot or a turnover (be it forced or otherwise). These are recorded in the box score and thus the *results* of defense are recorded. While this may not capture defensive *effort* all the effort in the world and all the subjective evaluation of a player and/or team’s defensive prowess are meaningless *if* they do not result in stopping the opponent from scoring at some point.
I tend to agree with you that some of the ‘credit’ for defense *may* at times be mis-assigned. Specifically, a defensive rebound requires a missed shot, but the guy causing the missed shot doesn’t get any credit for his action unless
However, the degree to which this factors into actual player evaluation through the model is unclear. If the model was assigning credit incorrectly too often, then player rankings should vary wildly throughout their career, especially when a player changes teams. Is this the case or not? If not, if there’s a high degree of correlation between a player’s evaluation via the model as they change environments, then the model would appear to be ‘close enough’ to indicate that it’s capturing what’s going on.
In my judgement, it comes down to whether or not the model is sufficiently close as to make it reasonable as a metric in making personnel decisions. I think it is, but do suspect that there will be cases where it makes mistakes. I didn’t think that the Warriors would be better off after their trade this year because they lost out statistically, but watching them play and watching the results afterwards indicates otherwise. Perhaps there were other reasons unrelated to the trade, but I now tend to think that Dunleavy and Murphy are players for whom the metric overly credits their contribution such that their loss didn’t really detract much if anything. I could go on as to why I believe this, invoking subjective (though I still believe accurate) analysis of the two players, what they did and did not do on the court and why they would defy the WP model specifically, but I suspect that these are the minority cases and, by and large using the model will make the correct decision far more often than not. That’s all you can ask of a model. Anything more and it’s not a model, it’s an oracle and to date I do not know any statistician or economist who has produced an oracle.
Harold Almonte
June 11, 2007
Jason, Do you know 4 factors weights? it has been analyzed by a lot of metricians and all of them got about the same, it’s obtained also by a regression. I would like to see how WP fits with 4F, especially at rebounds.
Repeat. There are three stages in basketball defense: 1- defense on the ball movement with the goal to steal the possession, something that ocassionally is accomplished, 2- defense on the shot attempt, which happens all the time, even if you didn’t block, 3- the defensive rebound once the ball is in the air and is “gonna be missed”, which is splitted between the rebounder and the teammates, but however a 75% (82games) will be grabbed by a) a defensive player (spot advantage), b) a defensive player inside the painted zone (ball bound). What do you think is the most and least weighted defense by 4 factors and by WP?
The overpunish of scoring usage is just an economical logic, valid if all scorers had the same skills to carry a ball to the basket, and even to spot themselves near the basket with the less danger and use of time and team energy.
Harold Almonte
June 11, 2007
If you look at the top 10 defenders team (according to deff. efficiency), you will see a lot of teams that aren’t top ten defensive rebounders, but rarely you see a top ten “on the shot defender: that is not inside the best 10 defenders.
dberri
June 11, 2007
Harold,
This is a bit off the subject, but I am curious. Have you read The Wages of Wins?
Jason
June 12, 2007
Harold, I’m not sure if you’re a native English speaker or not, but I have a hard time following your prose well enough to answer your questions, if indeed you actually asked questions.
Again, it seems like you’re talking past me rather than talking about what I wrote. Again: The *effective result* of defense is captured in the box score in the few ways that you can get the ball back without points being surrendered. Whether these are properly assigned to a particular player is a different issue as to what the value of the stats are to a team.
It seems to me that team defensive FG% in some sense measures the “on the shot” defense since it’s a measure of how often the opposition misses. Misses are good, but misses only matter if you capitalize on it by grabbing the potential rebound, else the miss is negated in terms of the other team’s ability to score. If you look at the range this year in terms of def FG%, the best team allowed only 42.95% of the shots taken by their opponents to drop through. The worst team saw 48.62% of their opponents shots fall.
Similarly, there’s a range in various teams’ abilities to grab the available defensive boards with the best grabbing 76.9% of the available boards, the worst getting only 68.1%. For sake of argument, for every 100 shots taken by the opponents if the best def fg% team rebounded like the worst def rebounding team, they’d come away with 38.9 “stops” per 100 shots taken. The converse (worst def FG%, best rebounding) comes away with a very similar 39.5. That’s based on this years numbers, so the slight edge given to a favorable rebounding stat. Of course the best def fg% team probably isn’t going to be the worst rebounding team, but for sake of argument, it’s a way of demonstrating that the strategy of “get the damn ball after the shot attempt” puts a team that does the least to force bad shots in a similar position to the team that forces the worst shots but can’t grab rebounds afterwards. My guess is that a team tending towards the latter will “incorrectly allocate” WP to the actual player contribution, but this is a guess since there’s no real way to reward the guy who forced the bad shot in WP. However, since the range in defensive FG% for teams last year meant the difference between 57 and 51 misses per 100 shots, unless one guy was responsible for the majority of those extra misses on a team (I make no claims about that here) the difference in terms of that particular player’s influence on wins won’t be huge.
(Perhaps there’s a way of making a ‘team allocation index that looks at some ratio of defensive FG% and rebounding rates to see if the rebounds secured are more a result of a larger number of missed shots being available or if it’s more a matter of a tenacious rebounder capitalizing on the less common missed shots. Something to think about in refining the model perhaps.)
Dave’s question seems apt. Have you read his book? You seem insistent on how certain aspects of the WP model came to be, though your insistence contradicts what Dave has written on the subject.
Harold Almonte
June 12, 2007
I liked your example, but still are the “scoring points” in the middle. In the def. FG% you are avoiding “points”-FGM, with def. Reb. you are just avoiding Of. Rebs. that doesn’t necessarily mean secured points. A simple regression would double the weight to the first. That’s the problem, points are points, rebounds not.
Harold Almonte
June 12, 2007
Obviously I’m not an english speaker. Nothing against the book. A revolutionary book with revolutionary ideas, and even a revolutionary metric, but just I don’t agree with the possession logic of that and every not polished boxscored linear metric. And I’m not from the school which praises def. Rebs. although yes the TOs.
Jason
June 13, 2007
A defensive rebound is the most common indicator of a defensive stop. There is no way it cannot have value and, as far as the team is concerned, its value is equivalent to a turnover. Both mean the same thing: the opposition did not score.
It seems to me that people who discount the rebound seem to focus on the ensuing possession, noting that there’s no guarantee that the team will score. This is, in my humble opinion, the wrong focus. Rather, the rebound means that the opposition *did not* score on their possession.
Harold Almonte
June 13, 2007
A not so wrong focus. And yes, is equivalent to “almost” a turnover.
Harold Almonte
June 13, 2007
Considering that there are continuation play (stolen) and non continuation TOs.
Rick Mahorn
September 17, 2007
Bill Laimbeer is the greatest player that ever lived. Let’s look at credentials:
4 championships (2 as player, 2 as coach)
4 time all-star
10,000 career rebounds
4 consecutive seasons with 1000 rebounds
great three-point shooter
665 consecutive games played
Rescued Shock and turned them into champs within a year
Put Big Billy Boy in the hall of fame NOW
G Meyers
October 25, 2007
Actually Laimbeer had 685 Consecutive games played and that streak was only ended due to suspension.
It will be a travesty if Laimbeer is not voted into the Hall of Fame.
S. Graham
November 1, 2007
Laimbeer vs. McHale…..Let’s see here. McHale was a fantastic low post player, Laimbeer was not but he was a much better high post player. As far as rebounding was concerned Laimbeer was a better rebounder than McHale but McHale was a much better shotblocker. Laimbeer was an outside inside player while McHale was an inside outside player. If I had to choose between the two of them I’d take McHale hands down, but Bill Laimbeer was a very good player and he played hard every night.
G Meyers
November 2, 2007
Laimbeer was only the 19th player to have 10k points and 10k rebounds.
One would be led to believe that stat should put him in the Top 50 of all time, let alone a shoe-in for the hall of fame.
S. Graham
November 2, 2007
Had McHale been a starter his first 6 years instead of a 6’th man off of the bench he probably would have had more than 20,ooo points and 10,ooo rebounds. Had he been the main player on another team where he was “THE MAN” then he surely would have. Even Charles Barkley himself said “Kevin McHale was the greatest player he ever played against”.
G Meyers
November 2, 2007
“Had he been the main player on another team where he was “THE MAN” then he surely would have.”
Purely speculation. Also, Barkley says a lot of things. Most of them pretty amusing.
S. Graham
November 2, 2007
I saw both of them play in person and on television dozens and dozens of times and believe me Laimbeer wasn’t anywhere close to being the player McHale was and I’m a Pistons fan who lives 10 miles from the Silverdome and the Palace. I love Laimbeer but he was nowhere near thr player McHale was. And that quote from Barkley was from his book. He’s not all hot air.
S. Graham
November 2, 2007
It’s not speculation look at his stats. He almost did it on the Celtics, not to mention his first 6 years he came off the bench. It’s not speculation it’s a fact.
G Meyers
November 4, 2007
Still speculation. Thanks though.
dberri
November 4, 2007
Meyers and Graham,
Interesting debate. This is the kind of conversation I hope to see from our work. Thanks for coming.
S. Graham
November 4, 2007
Factual Meyer’s. Do the math.
S. Graham
November 4, 2007
Laimbeer’s chance of making the hall of fame is from my opinion 60/40 on the downside. His strengths, rebounding, passing and outside shooting were great. However he han no low post game and was not a very good shotblocker. Don’t get me wrong the Piston’s could and would not have won those championships without Laimbeer but he still ain’t no McHale and I don’t think he’ll get in the Hall because he was invisible down low except for his rebounding. I still love the guy though, He’s still a better player than Sheed’ though. I would take him over of Sheed’.
G Meyers
November 4, 2007
Graham’s just because you say it, doesn’t make it so.
Quite a few people in Hall have no low post game. It didn’t preclude them. The fact that he could shoot outside better than any big man should count for something. Playing to your strengths is what it is all about.
S. Graham
November 4, 2007
It makes it so in my mind and most other people’s. Maybe we should take a poll?
M Davis
November 7, 2007
Another vote for Laimbeer here…. He wasn’t one of the darling Celtics so his great accomplishements were severely downplayed.
If I had to choose someone for my team, I’d pick Laimbeer everyday of the week and twice on Sunday…. Mchale was great but Laimbeer brought many intangibles that don’t show up on the score card…
Great topic BTW!
S. Graham
November 9, 2007
So did McHale…along with his inside outside scoring, rebounding, shotblocking and passing and also his intangibles. No comparison, McHale= 2 Laimbeer’s at least.
james
November 9, 2007
Mchale was a great player. One of the greatest inside scorers I have ever seen. He most deservedly belongs as one of the greatest players of all-time.
Laimbeer was one of the greatest outside shooting big men I have ever seen. probably the best pick-and pop big ever. Was arguably the best box oot defensive rebounder of his era. I actualy say he is. His stats for nearly a decade agree with me. Laimbeer got less offensive touches, BUT was an intergral part of the Pisotns offense at all times. Passing, setting picks to free the guards, and pulling bigs out of the paint.
Laimbeer was probably the greatest mental intimidator in NBA history, his stats were very good, and he was a championship player and all-star. Lets not go carzy and say 2 Laimbeer’s equal a Mchale. Thats hogwash
S. Graham
November 9, 2007
Your opinion James. I don’t even understand why were comparing the two since Laimbeer was a center and McHale was a power forward. As far as mental intimidator I’d have to go with Shaq.
james
November 9, 2007
Of course it’s my opinion. They are being comapred by the original topic creator – Thats why. They were of equal size and weight, WHY not compare them?
And tell me what big man of Laimbeer’s size was a better perimeter player than he, in his era? And who collected more defensive rebounds in a near 10 year span from 82-90? Laimbeer. Please tell me this is just “MY” opinion. Numbers are Numbers.
Shaq = physical intimidator not mental. What mental games does Shaq use? And speaking of Shaq, how can a guy that big and dominant post such decent rebound numbers and blocks? For a guy with his size he should have dominated these statistics.
S. Graham
November 9, 2007
You can only physically intimidate people if people fear you mentally, ther’s alot of big guys who are pussys and alot of little guys who are fearless. Shaq had complete physical and mental intimidation, and as far as rebounding and shotblocking are concerned he did dominate. As he got older and fatter he wasn’t as good but neither was Laimbeer as he got older. I didn’t say Laimbeer wasn’t a very good player (remember I bleed piston’s red,white and blue),I’m merely stating a fact that McHale was a great and better player and he was. Are you one of these guys out there who can’t be objectionable when it comes to compairing player’s? I bet you think Mark Aguirre was a better player than Bird. The front line of Bird, McHale and Robert Parish was THE GREATEST front line ever and Ainge and Dennis Johnson although not nearly as good as Thomas and Dumars were still damn good. If that Celtic team from the 1980’s would have had more than just Scott Wedman coming off of their bench like the Laker’s did (Mychal Thompson, Bob McAdoo, Norm Nixon, Micheal Cooper) then they would have won even more titles than they did.
G Meyers
November 10, 2007
“Are you one of these guys out there who can’t be objectionable when it comes to compairing player’s? ”
You appear to fall into that category. The minute you said “McHale= 2 Laimbeer’s at least.” you lost all credibility.
The whole “(I bleed piston’s red,white and blue)” sounds like the cover for Boston fan that wants to appear unbiased.
S. Graham
November 10, 2007
Nope, just a guy who lives in michigan who’s gotten over his hatred for those celtic’s teams and has had years had years to reflect on those teams and those times. Bostons front line was better then the pistons front line but our guards were much better, that plus we were much deeper and younger added up to Boston falling apart in the late 80’s due to thier age and the death’s of Len Bias and Reggie Lewis.
S. Graham
November 10, 2007
Meyer’s, I saw these guys play in person with my eyes in the silverdome back in the early to mid eighties and also on televison dozens and dozens of times over a period of years. Were you even born back then or are you just thinking that you know what your talking about because you’ve talked to people about this subject or read some books on it. I LIVED it, I SAW it and there ain’t no comparison between the two trust me.
G Meyers
November 10, 2007
Graha’m I was born well before the Silverdome days.
You didn’t live anything, you saw it just like anyone else that was a fan from that era.
BTW a true fan would never get over his hatred of the Celtics from that era. I know first hand that many of the Pistons from the era haven’t.
S. Graham
November 10, 2007
I saw it in person. I did live it, I was there. I got over the hate and it turned into respect just like I got over hating Shaq. It appears that you can’t get over it and appreciate those great players and all of those great memories in and honest and objective manor. Like I said, I saw them in person many times and on T.V. dozens of times and McHale was better. Don’t get me wrong McHale was better then any other power foward of that time and maybe today. Laimbeer was a very good player but he isn’t a McHale just like Dennis Johnson isn’t an Isiah Thomas. And as far as credibility is concerned I have alot more then you since you think that a very good but limited player is better than a great one.
S. Graham
November 10, 2007
You really like to minimize other peoples experiences don’t you. Well at least I did live through it and was there which I highly doubt that you were. Have you ever been to a pistons game and how long before the silverdome days were you exactly born. I bet you’ve never been to any Piston’s game and I’ll just bet your at most 20 years old.
S. Graham
November 10, 2007
Just curious who would you have on a team if you could, and I mean any player from any era in their prime. I’m curious. Your favorite 12 players. You give me your’s and I’ll give you mine.
S. Graham
November 10, 2007
Just curious I’d like to know who you would have on your dream team. By this I mean give me the names of 12 players you would and could have on a basketball team in their prime from any era. Give me your’s and I’ll give you mine. Give me your all time best twelve.
G Meyers
November 10, 2007
Your input is no longer constructive. You question my age without any basis other than I disagree with you. The funny thing is that this is your most compelling argument of the thread!
I have been to many a Piston game. I have been to the Silverdome, The Palace many times in the 21,454 era and since including game 5 of the NBA Finals in 2004.
I have seen the Pistons for many a game on the road including: Gund Arena, The Fleet Center, Boston Garden, TD Waterhouse Center, and The Spectrum. (I am using the names that were in use when I visited said arena.)
S. Graham
November 10, 2007
It’s very constructive. You attacked me so I did it to you. Instead of debating you choose to say that it’s no longer constructive and quit. So who’s your top 12?
S. Graham
November 10, 2007
Don’t get the wrong idea Meyers I won’t say anything nasty to you about your top twelve if you don’t attack mine. I’m just curious. You give me your’s and I’ll give you mine and then we’ll just disagree to disagree. It’s no big deal, I mean were both just people.
S. Graham
November 10, 2007
I guess Elvis has left the building.
S. Graham
November 11, 2007
pussy’s.
S. Graham
November 11, 2007
I’ve tried to put in a statement 3 times yet it’s been edited every time I’ve tried. You babies.
james
November 11, 2007
Graham, you never answered my question. Who was a better perimeter big man in Laimbeer’s era than Laimbeer?
In importance to their teams, you believe that it would take 2 Laimbeer’s on the Pistons to give 1 Mchale? Why is that? Please explain.
Do you believe that the Pistons could have won any championships without Laimbeer? And where do you place Laimbeer’s importance on those Pistons teams.
Please tell me why you believe Laimbeer was not one of the greatest intimidators of his era, when many of the great minds of the game have stated that he was.
What Piston front line player, completely outworked, and out foxed the entire Portland Trailblazer front line in the 1990 fianls. To be frank, I believe that player got under the skin, of the entire Trailblazer team, and it’s thousands of fans.
For Laimbeer’s limited offensive repertoire of offensive ability, and limited speed and jumping ability, who in NBA history did more with less than Laimbeer?
S. Graham
November 12, 2007
If you would have read my previous posts then you would have had all of the answers to the questions that your asking me. Yes he was an excellent outside shooter and no the Pistons would not have won those championships without him. He was a very good player and one of the better big men of his era. That being said as far as pure talent is concerned he wasn’t as good of a player as McHale was. But so what McHale was probably the best big of his era. It’s not an insult believe me, nobody was as good as McHale. Bill was a very good player and I’m not saying he wasn’t. All I’m saying is he wasn’t as good as McHale was but NOBODY in the entire leauge was at the time.