For those playing fantasy basketball, here is an interesting article from Andre’ Snellings at Yahoo!
And yes, it mentions Wins Produced.
Hat Tip to Owen Breck
– DJ
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Taking aim at the lies and damned lies in sports with stories written by the numbers.
17 Responses “Hoops Lab and Wins Produced” →
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Animal
February 25, 2008
From that Hoops lab article: “Finally, Kidd was such a strong rebounder that his absence creates more opportunities on the glass. On Wednesday, Josh Boone (15 boards) stepped up, and he along with new Net DeSagana Diop are in the best position to step into that gap. ”
The author doesn’t think rebounds are additive. :-()
dberri
February 25, 2008
Does anyone think rebounds are additive?
Animal
February 25, 2008
Wow, Jason Kidd has 17 assists tonight, http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/boxscore;_ylt=AoCOd1ks3UgGev7q2nqGq7OLvLYF?gid=2008022416
Harold Almonte
February 25, 2008
But the key of the win was neither the rebounds, nor the assists. Dallas had a worse eFG% even with all those assists (although that’s an illusion caused by the bech), but the FT/FG and the TS% was crushing. Also the fact that almost all Minn’s fouls were shooting fouls, while the opposite happenened on Dallas’s fouls.
Westy
February 25, 2008
Does anyone think rebounds are additive?
Aren’t they treated as such in the individual player valuation formula of Wins Produced?
dberri
February 25, 2008
Hi Westy,
Let me state my positon on this again:
In calculating Wins Produced, we simply look at the value of the statistics in terms of wins. So Wins Produced are a measure of how productive the player has been.
But it doesn’t tell us why. One of the “why” factors is diminishing returns. As the Wages of Wins makes very clear, diminishing returns exists. And we can see this when we look at the link between a player’s performance and the production of his teammates.
So no one here believes that a player’s performance is not impacted by his teammates. Or in Animal’s words, no one believes that rebounds are additive. We are disagreeing about how to meaure the effect and how much it matters. Those are empirical questions. I prefer we measure performance first, then look at issues like diminishing returns, coaching, etc… Others prefer that we do this all at once.
Westy
February 25, 2008
In calculating Wins Produced, we simply look at the value of the statistics in terms of wins. So Wins Produced are a measure of how productive the player has been.
I guess I see this as the crux of the issue. Yes, the value of the rebound *at the team level* may be accurate in terms of wins, and that serves its purpose in evaluating performance at the team level. But without the ‘non-performance’ factors, I don’t think we can say that it accurately measures how good a player is. It measures the stats they got, but without the correct coefficients that take into account all these other factors (and much trial and error will be necessary to determine what those correct values are) it will not fairly assign credit within the team to what the results in production are as measured by the stats we have.
If there are diminishing returns, assigning the entire 1.0 to an individual player does not seem to accurately measure players against each other. While the team total will still sum up, the individual rankings will be skewed.
If the formula as it is right now does not take into consideration ‘non-performance’ issues, it would seem that it does not fairly valuate players.
Animal
February 25, 2008
Harold, Dallas won by 30 points and Jason Kidd had 17 assists. Not that one can extrapolate from a single game but for you to say that Kidd wasn’t improving Mavs becasue their field goal % didn’t go up in the game is absolutely absurd.
Eli W
February 25, 2008
Maybe no one thinks rebounds are additive, but the Wins Produced calculation treats rebounds as additive.
Harold Almonte
February 25, 2008
Animal. Dallas didn’t won by 30, and if you see all columns totals, the only difference is FTA and FTMade, the game was there, and was won by the coach first,the good true shooting second, and good defense at the end of the game third. Had Dallas shot average from the line (failed more FTs), they both were been more even at the rebounding department, and more even the game too.
About Kidd I think all it was already said. He will improve the scoring efficiency of the team in the long term (something they need-they are just average here). He also will produce another kind of “increasing return” in teammates’s stats, making them to commit less TOs (they already are good here). But what every analyst in the world have said is that he lost steps at the defensive end, and that they’ll remain weak at ball defense, you know, a minimal weakness at the defensive end can cost a team the finals.
Harold Almonte
February 25, 2008
Westy. A basketball action is composed by the final action (to score/to allow, or to gain/lost the possession), and the direct and non direct help/non help. The only help accounted in boxscore and therefore in linear metrics is final passing help (assists), and shots deflected (blks), but there are also: not passing assists, assists allowed, screens allowed, double teams, rotations, deflections, boxing out, and a lot of subjective bad help.
If all that help could be weighted (plus minus attempts to do that) a total player rating would be: Player final actions + help on teammates. But, given that’s not possible, the most we can approach is something like: Total Player Rating = K*Player Rating + K1*teammates rating/total teammates. Where K and K1 are percentages, probably 70%-30%, who knows.
Animal
February 25, 2008
Harold A,
Oops, Dallas only won by 16. My bad.
Animal
February 26, 2008
Harold, Kidd and the Mavs won again tonight. How do you like them apples?
Harold Almonte
February 26, 2008
That’s excellent. You know, in order to keep my critical nature, I need to find some “but-s”: They have won three “must win”games, with or wohout Kidd. He has manage to be the best stealer guard right know… and the worst turnoverer. About 80% of his steals are against neglected passes from bigs at under average ballhandler teams, but he could get three steals from NOH (good sign). But, I’ll make up like everybody does it: not enough sample size.
GV
February 26, 2008
What I don’t understand about win score is that everyone seems to agree that the statistics don’t necessarily reflect how good a player is, but only how helpful his stats were to his teams wins. But when talking about who should be MVP or who should make the all star game, a player’s win score is treated as if it does reflect how good of a player he is.
For example, if Jason Kidd’s rebounding numbers are more of a reflection of his poor rebounding big man (as opposed to his own skill), how can someone argue that Kidd should be in the all star game simply because his win score number is 1.5 higher than some other guard? Should Kidd be in the all star game simply because he was blessed with crappy power forwards on the nets?
Owen
February 26, 2008
“Everyone seems to agree that the statistics don’t necessarily reflect how good a player is”
Really? I don’t remember signing on that dotted line.
Kidd wasn’t “blessed” with crappy power forwards. He was burdened by them. In his first two years he lead the Nets to the Finals and averaged 6.6 rebounds per 36. In the last two years he averaged 7.9. So yes, having better teammates will impact your productivity, as the Wages of Wins shows in great detail. But he has always been an outstanding player and an All-star.
Ruey
February 27, 2008
I’m not dissing Wins Produced as a useful tool but I doubt it is all that useful for fantasy basketball. Not that I have done it yet, but I’m sure I can easily field a great fantasy basketball team with a bunch of inefficient players who have a tons of PT. Until Wins Produced become used by coaches/GM to determine who gets more PT or not, it really has little use in standard fantasy basketball leagues (even if you count Turnovers as a category). Nevertheless, it’s good to see Wins Produced getting some much deserved publicity though.