Who is the most “underrated” player in the NBA? As I noted a few days ago, the answer to such a question requires two perspectives. The first metric should capture popular perception. The second should approximate reality. Of course, to make such an argument you have to argue that your reality differs from popular perception (so the overrated/underrated story requires a bit of an attitude).
Measuring Popular Perception
The discussion of the “overrated” focused on three measures that appear to capture popular perception: NBA Efficiency, Game Score (John Hollinger’s simple measure), and the Player Efficiency Rating (PER or John Hollinger’s more complicated measure).
When we consider how each of these measures is calculated it appears that we would get a different answer from each. For example, compare the formulas for NBA Efficiency and Game Score.
NBA Efficiency = Points + Rebounds + Steals + Assists + Blocked Shots – All Missed Shots – Turnovers
Game Score = Points + 0.4*Made Field Goals – 0.7*Field Goal Attempts – 0.4*Free Throws Missed + 0.7*Offensive Rebounds + 0.3*Defensive Rebounds + Steals + 0.7*Assists + 0.7*Blocked Shots – 0.4* Personal Fouls – Turnovers
These metrics look to be different. But when we look at the population of players from the 2008-09 regular season, we see a 0.99 correlation between a player’s NBA Efficiency and Game Score value.
PER – as the description at Basketball-Reference indicates – is more complicated than both NBA Efficiency and Game Score. But when we compare Game Score per-minute and PER (a per-minute metric), again we see a 0.99 correlation.
In sum, each of these measures is capturing something very similar.
And that something is scoring. As the following posts on each measure indicates, players who score -whether efficiently or not – tend to look good according to each measure.
NBA Efficiency: Do We Overvalue Rebounds? (November 9, 2006).
PER: A Comment on the Player Efficiency Rating (November 17, 2006)
Game Score: Marvin Williams Makes a Hypothetical Deal (December 16, 2007)
Scoring, as The Wages of Wins argues, is the one factor that drives popular perception. Consequently, metrics that are driven by scoring are also going to be good measures of how players are generally perceived.
The Preferred Measure
With the measures of popular perception once again explained, let me take a slight detour before I get to the underrated. Let’s imagine that you wanted a measure of popular perception. Which of these three should you choose?
The answer depends upon how you view complexity. If you wish people to think you are clever, then complexity is considered a benefit. In other words, the simple tends not to impress.
But in empirical research, complexity is a cost (in time and effort). In other words, if all else is equal, a simple approach should always be preferred to a complex approach. Or to put it another way, complexity is only good if the complexity actually gives you something.
Given this argument, NBA Efficiency should be preferred over either Game Score or PER. As outlined above, NBA Efficiency tells essentially the same story and it is the easiest to calculate. My sense, though, is that PER often tends to be preferred to Game Score. And Game Score is often preferred to NBA Efficiency. In sum, it looks like some people prefer complexity, even if that complexity isn’t giving them anything.
The Underrated
Okay, enough detours. Let’s get to the question this post is supposed to be addressing. Who is the most underrated player in the 2008-09?
The answer to this question will follow the same approach taken in examining the overrated. Again, we need two reference points. Given that this is The Wages of Wins Journal, our measure of reality (or what passes for reality in this forum) will be Wins Produced. The ranking from this metric will be compared to three measures of popular perception: points score per game, NBA Efficiency, and PER.
Let’s start with points scored per game.
Table One: The Underrated Scorers
Table One reports – via a comparison of points-per-game and Wins Produced – the fifteen most underrated players. Topping the list is Jason Kidd. He is followed by Mike Miller, Jamario Moon, Rajon Rondo, and Anderson Varejao. Each of these players produced a significant quantity of wins, but generally not via scoring.
Next we turn to the Wins Produced-NBA Efficiency story.
Table Two: The Underrated in NBA Efficiency
Points-per-game has a 0.89 correlation with NBA Efficiency (0.93 correlation with Game Score). Although this is fairly high, we see some differences in the names reported in Table One and Two. Specifically Kidd and Rondo– who were ranked towards the top of Table One – do not appear on Table Two. Although these names disappear, Moon (who tops Table Two), Miller, Varejao, Dominic McGuire, Samuel Dalembert, Shane Battier, and Shawn Marion appear on both lists.
The final table looks at PER. Because this is a per-minute measure, we have to compare the PER ranking to the ranking we see from WP48 [Wins Produced per 48 minutes].
Table Three: The Underrated in PER
Leading this list is McGuire. He is followed by Miller, Moon, Battier, and Dalembert. Again, we see familiar names. But the name at the top is again different.
So who is the most underrated? If we add together the difference reported from each approach the most underrated player in the NBA for 2008-09 is the latest player added to the best team from the 2008-09 regular season. Yes, Jamario Moon (the newest player in Cleveland) tops the underrated rankings. And here is the complete top 20.
- Jamario Moon
- Mike Miller
- Dominic McGuire
- Anderson Varejao
- Shane Battier
- Samuel Dalembert
- Delonte West
- Anthony Parker
- Shawn Marion
- James Posey
- Mike Conley
- Lamar Odom
- Luc Mbah a Moute
- Jason Kidd
- Ramon Sessions
- Jose Calderon
- Al Horford
- Luke Ridnour
- Rajon Rondo
- Mario Chalmers
Moon is not the only Cavalier to appear on the list. Varejao – who the team recently resigned – and Delonte West are also listed. Although people tend to think of the Cavaliers as a team that begins and end with LeBron, it appears that King James did not get some underappreciated help last year.
Let me close by noting that there were some changes in the underrated rankings from 2007-08 to 2008-09. One player that dropped out was Tyson Chandler, who had a relatively poor season this past year. Now Chandler has been traded to the Bobcats for Emeka Okafor. John Hollinger made the following comment on this trade (Insider access required): …Okafor is the better player. Both players consistently have been honorable mentions in my all-defense picks, but Okafor is the superior scorer. That might not be saying much — both players are somewhat limited offensively — but Okafor can score on post-ups occasionally and make short bank shots, while Chandler’s range ends at the charge circle. Over the past three seasons, Okafor has averaged nearly five more points per 40 minutes — that’s big.
If we look at the past three seasons, Chandler has a 0.230 WP48 while Okafor has a 0.222 WP48. If we focus on just the 2006-07 and 2007-08 seasons, though, Chandler trumps Okafor 0.271 to 0.235. Again, Chandler – primarily because of injury – had a poor season last year. If Chandler is now healthy it’s more than possible that the Bobcats come out ahead on this deal. At least, that appears to be true if we look past scoring.
– DJ
The WoW Journal Comments Policy
Our research on the NBA was summarized HERE.
The Technical Notes at wagesofwins.com provides substantially more information on the published research behind Wins Produced and Win Score
Wins Produced, Win Score, and PAWSmin are also discussed in the following posts:
Simple Models of Player Performance
What Wins Produced Says and What It Does Not Say
Introducing PAWSmin — and a Defense of Box Score Statistics
Finally, A Guide to Evaluating Models contains useful hints on how to interpret and evaluate statistical models.
Wages of Wins Journal 
Peter
July 28, 2009
Not so fast, Dave!
If you look more closely, Chandler shot 62.3% from the field in those two seasons while only shooting 51.9% in every other season. That is by design.
Chandler has gotten to play with one of the most productive point guards in the league in that span, Chris Paul, a luxury he didn’t have in Chicago. Consequently, Paul’s ability to attract defenses has been a boon for Chandler’s numbers.
When Chandler goes to Charlotte, he could very well experience a regression in his stats because he’s going to get more attention than usual, while Okafor could boom. That, in turn, would benefit New Orleans. And his superior scoring will be welcomed by both Paul and West.
John Mowat
July 28, 2009
Jamario Moon, Anthony Parker, Shawn Marion, and Jose Calderon all played for the Raptors last year.
I don’t know if Colangelo is responsible for all those players being a Raptor…but over time, the Toronto management has obviously understood (or had an instinctive feel for) Wages of Wins. Why aren’t they a better team??
(I suppose counterexample #1 is going to be Andrea Bargnani…)
dberri
July 28, 2009
Peter,
Here is what Chandler did his last two years in Chicago:
2005-06: 10.3 Wins Produced, 0.234 WP48
2004-05: 15.2 Wins Produced, 0.333 WP48
Here is what he did his first two years in New Orleans:
2006-07: 15.8 Wins Produced, 0.301 WP48
2007-08: 10.3 Wins Produced, 0.244 WP48
Basically he looks the same with and without Chris Paul. At least if he is healthy.
Peter
July 28, 2009
Yes, but he achieved those marks in slightly different fashions. As I stated, he shot better in New Orleans from the field than in the other seasons, so he had to make up that ground elsewhere.
Also, Chandler played fewer minutes in Chicago, but WP48 measures play in full-game chunks.
But there’s another nuance in play. Before the trade, there wasn’t a third option to take some of the scoring load off of Paul and West. Now, there is.
I still like the trade for New Orleans.
Peter
July 28, 2009
Here’s what happens when you look at Chandler’s per-minute numbers in the last two Bulls seasons and first two Hornet seasons:
He shoots more efficiently from the field but less efficiently from the free throw line, he passes less but turns the ball over less frequently, he grabs fewer steals and swipes less blocks, but also fouls less. Believe or not, he rebounds actually stays roughly the same.
So, overall, while Chandler’s WP48 remained the same, it happened because he shot better at the expense of some other statistics. Think those lobs might have anything to do with it?
sportsbabel
July 28, 2009
Anthony Parker is also now in Cleveland…..nice signing.
Rob O'Malley
July 28, 2009
and Jamario Moon
Brent
July 28, 2009
Dave,
In your post last week on Cleveland, you noted a WP48 of 0.097 and 5.4 Wins Produced for Anthony Parker last season:
However, in this post you’ve got his WP48 as 0.114 along with 6.3 Wins Produced in 2008-09. Just roughly looking at his basic stats, I’d guess the former is correct. And it seems like a small difference, except I would also guess that the change in Wins Produced rank would change rather dramatically since it’s pretty close to average.
In any case, it’s nice to see another illustration as to why so many people seem to be misinformed about the nature of LeBron’s supporting cast. There’s no true “Pippen” or a “Big Three” like a lot of the elite teams, but don’t let that obscure how solid the first eight players are 1-8.
Jeremy
July 28, 2009
As a Cavs fan, can I officially get optimistic?
dberri
July 28, 2009
Brent,
I noted this on my overrated post (but left it out of the underrated column):
For the WP48 numbers offered in this post, player performance was compared to the exact position played (i.e. center, power forward, etc…). Over the past year or so in this forum I have only been considering three positions (big men, small forward, guards). But the numbers used for this post came from a spreadsheet where averages from all five positions were used, so some differences will be observed if you compare these results to past postings.
Brent
July 28, 2009
Dave,
Okay, I missed that. Thanks.
Jimbo
July 28, 2009
Yeah but scoring is a part of the game isn’t it??? The reason I have problems with the WoW is that it just looks at one aspect of the game – without a usage component, it is possible for a player to have a high score even if he cannot score as long as he scores efficiently and rebounds well – ie Chandler scoring off dunks. There is more to basketball then rebounding or scoring efficiently – how much you score absolutely matters and WoW does not take that into account – shooting effiiency is NOT a proxy for how much you score. A true barometer of a player’s ability would take into account both his shooting efficiency but ALSO the amount he scores.
Jeremy
July 28, 2009
Jimbo… are you positing that the WP48 number does not include the amount of points a player scores? Cause it does… it absolutely does…
Rob O'Malley
July 28, 2009
Hey Dave have you ever done a post on the Win Shares metric used on basketball-reference.com? It seems to attempt what you do with some times vastly different results. It would be interesting to hear why this is.
And Jimbo…what? WP48 definitely includes scoring totals. There are plenty of people with high usage who have high wins produced. The tops in the league last year for WP48 were players like Dwyane Wade, LeBron James, Chris Paul, etc. What are you talking about?
Jason
July 28, 2009
I cannot fathom how Mike Miller was underrated in 2008-9. He passed up open shot after open shot, deferring to teammates who are less capable scorers. Combined with his lackluster defense, I find it hard to believe that he “produced” 14 wins on a 24 win team.
Bartley
July 28, 2009
As a Raptors fan, I was sad to see Anthony Parker leave. He can take it to the basket, has a nice mid-range shot, and can definetly knock down threes.He’s also a solid defender. Good pick up by the Cavs!
chan man
July 28, 2009
I think sometimes us readers are confused between the over/underrated and over/underpaid. I think it’s way more difficult than it seems to convince people in regard to over/underrated, as the evaluation of this aspect is rather subjective.
As your journal is geared towards the critism of the (often screwed) relationship between player’s production and player’s wage, I think an article regarding the over- and underpaid would have been more relevant. (similar to the past summers)
Thanks, good post as always!
rc
July 28, 2009
first off, i really respect the qualitative angle you bring to basketball analysis. and though it’s true that what you see with your eyes don’t tell the whole story, it must be said that simply looking at numbers wouldn’t tell the whole story either.
Which brings me to Jamario Moon. Jamario Moon, and I’m speaking as a (long suffering) Raptor fan, is maybe one of the most frustrating players in recent memory. Here’s a player who is blessed with extroardinary athleticism, who has the ability to take it to the hole anytime he wants to and finish with authority, yet *insists* on taking soft, long range jumpers (insert Bargnani retort here).
The difference is that while Bargnani was given the kid gloves treatment, as in, “Hey, just do what you’re comfortable with, we just want you to succeed, because if you’re a bust, it would make me (BC) look really really bad,” Jamario Moon was a D-Leaguer whose very *life* depended on doing what the coaches told him to do (because honestly, if he was out of the NBA, what else would he really be doing?), and he STILL couldn’t do what the coaches asked him to do, namely, defer, slash, finish with contact and play smart defense.
And before you talk about how Jamario Moon was an underrated defender, and granted I don’t know how the numbers look like, but Jamario Moon is a terrible, terrible defender. His length and quickness might stymie you at first, but once you realize he has the basetball IQ of a toddler, it’s really, really, really easy to score on him.
He openly admits to not reading scouting reports, first off. Secondly, if they kept a stat for biting for pump fakes, he would be the runaway, all time leader. Because he relies on his athleticism, and solely on his athleticism, blocking is really his only defensive weapon, and once you know that, he’s exposed.
I remember a game last year with the Raptors against the Hawks (I might be wrong on the team and the player, but honestly, it happened so often it all sorts of blurs together), and it was a situation where it was tied or near tied, going into the last minute. The Hawks isolated Joe Johnson on Jamario Moon, and we (the chat room) were all praying that if enough people thought about the same thing about the same time to the same person, we would be able to telepathically communicate with Moon and implore him “for the love of God, don’t bite on his fake, just this one time, just once, don’t bite on his fake. It’s exactly what he’s counting on.”
And what does he do??
and he was grinning afterwards too. that’s maybe what bothered me the most, that he was grinning like somebody just pulled a fast one over him. Don’t get me wrong, i’m sure he felt really bad, and that was probably just a coping mechanism or whatever, but that smile meant “ouch. you got me. I don’t know how, but you got me….”, and when you give credit to someone else for your failures, that’s when you stop growing. Case in point: Did you know that Toronto literally had a coach whose sole responsibility was to remind Moon about what he should be doing and what his role is during a game? and he *still* didn’t get it. There’s a reason why, as athletically gifted as he is, he balled as a Harlem Globetrotter all those years when he should’ve been developing in the NBA. And there’s also a reason why both Riley and Wade soured on him after initially bragging about how they stole him away from Toronto.
But hey, there’s also a reason why he earned himself an 8 million dollar contract, so what do i know. Just one final word to this (embarassingly long winded) comment: Last season, the Toronto Raptors were statistically even or superior PER-wise in every position except for SG/SF where we got murdered every single night, often to the point of comedy. And we ended up going 33-49. Was signing the worst 20% of our starting lineup really the best move for Cleveland? I just sincerely think, and no disrespect in the slightest, that when your stats start to indicate that Jamario Moon is the most underrated player in the *entire* NBA….that’s a moment you should realize your formula might need some refinement.
Cheers.
Caleb
July 29, 2009
rc… everything you say may be true (and I assume it is – but I’ve barely watched Moon play), but that doesn’t mean that the positives Moon brings dont outweigh his negatives… and its still quite possible that he’s a very productive player despite the fact that he constantly bites on pumpfakes, takes too many jumpers, etc.
That said, I do agree that all the things you mentioned are important and things like Wins Produced don’t and can’t take that into account. Frankly, I find the idea that “wins” can be measured based on the box score pretty ludicrous.. precisely because there is so much about basketball that the box score can’t take into account. I’m tempted to call it hubris this whole “wins produced” thing.
But I still like the metric because it does draw attention to undervalued players and players who make a living off of efficiency/rebounding/etc… and sometimes leads to interesting discussions. I just view it as one of many statistical tools – Win Shares, Adjusted Plus/Minus, PER, etc.
As for your last statement… while I’m not going to say that the “smell test” is completely invalid (like others on this blog probably will), your argument is not a very good one. Just because something sounds strange or unexpected to you doesn’t automatically make it false. The fact is our observations are often wrong.
Paul
July 29, 2009
You have the two underrated timberwolves players – Miller and Love – producing just under 23 wins together, and Al Jefferson already having produced just over 8 well before going down with injury. Together with another few postive-win producing guys and a few small negatives, it looks like the Twolves both fielded some key underrated players and didn’t win nearly as many games as you expected them to.
I’m probably missing some positional effects here – as the Love and Miller numbers don’t match up with your midseason report, but I suspect the basic point stands.
123
July 29, 2009
I don’t understand why Dominic McGuire is rated so high. He is:
-shooting low % from 2
-not an exceptional rebounder
-not blocking or stealing alot
-turning the ball over a whole lot.
what’s there to like?
todd2
July 29, 2009
I think it’s pretty obvious Chandler has more ability; bigger and agile with better hands. New Orleans didn’t have a post game. Was it because of Byron Scott or Tyson Chandler? Larry Brown might be the better coach to develop Chandler. Time will tell. The Eastern Conference is going to be fun to watch this year. The Cavs get quicker and more athletic with Moon. If they have any kind of interior game offensively/defensively, they’ll cause problems for the Celtics. Davis, Poe, Wallace and Garnett are all statues defensively.
Todd
July 29, 2009
Actually Moon’s poor defense and unwillingness to take it to the whole are accounted for in Win Score, they are simply not attributed to him. His poor defense lowers the rebounding totals of his teammates, particularly the big men, resulting in guys like Bargnani and Bosh having lower win scores than they would have playing with someone like LaBron James. His unwillingness and inability to score against tight defenses results in other players having to take more difficult shots, lowering their shooting efficiency. So, in sum, a great power forward like Labron makes the win scores of the players around him better by giving them more rebound opportunities and requiring them to take fewer hard shots, while a guy like Moon lowers the win scores of those around him by taking away rebounding opportunities and forcing them to take more low efficiency shots. shots. Win score is simply a way of distributing wins to players in a way that satisfies Professor Berri’s perception of what is important.
DR
July 29, 2009
“Was signing the worst 20% of our starting lineup really the best move for Cleveland?”
Bargnani & Kapono don’t play with Cleveland…
“Moon lowers the win scores of those around him by taking away rebounding opportunities and forcing them to take more low efficiency shots. shots.”
This is moronic, even by the standards of people who whine about Berri’s stats. Moon INCREASES the win scores of those around him by getting them more high percentage shots with his EXCELLENT rebounding and steals.
Joe
July 29, 2009
Todd,
You forgot your /sarcasm
dinosaur_dan
July 29, 2009
This is interesting, but totally off in the case of Jamario Moon. When it contains information such as “Defensive Assignments Blown”, “Bad Shots Attempted That the Defense Wanted You to Take”, “Plays Disrupted Because You Didn’t Know Them”, or “Defensive Blow-Bys Because You Refuse to Watch Game Film”.
Factor in all of these, and I’m sure you’ll see what Jamario Moon is not overrated.
simon
July 29, 2009
Moon has made his share of very high-profile mistakes, but his overall contributions seems to outweigh the negatives. We humans tend to remember the memorable events such as bit pumpfakes and dumb expressions on his face after missing a wide open three, but miss on little things he did to get rebounds unless it was a high-flying variety.
However the Raptors will probably get better. If Delfino comes back and play like he did before, between him and Turkoglu the Raptors will cover much of what Marion and Parker produced last season. Add the improved bench of Rasho, Jack and Douby to that, and I can see a fairly good season by a Raptors standard, especially if Bargnani can keep improving and Calderon gets healthy. But if that happens I’m sure the Raptors fans will credit the success to the Turkoglu signing.
Italian Stallion
July 29, 2009
Jimbo,
Scoring does have an impact on Win Score.
It’s just that efficiency requirement for Win Score is just higher than for NBA efficiency.
For NBA efficiency, all you have to hit is over 33% of you shots for your scoring to have a positive value. That seems like much too low a threshold in a league where if you hit 40% of your shots you are usually considered a poor shooter (unless of course you shoot a ton of 3s).
On the flip side, I believe the threshold for Win Score is a FG% of 50%.
IMO, even though that might be a reasonable number overall, I don’t think it captures the value of scorers whose primary role and skill is to shoot from the outside and space the floor for the big men and slashers etc…
Those outside shooters will typically shoot lower than 50% because many of their shots are from just inside the arc etc… (difficult). They also don’t get fouled as often as players that score on the inside .
You can argue that those are less efficient shots and the players should be punished for their less efficient scoring, but the problem is that most successful teams NEED players like that. You need some outside shooting, floor spacing etc…
Some of this issue is captured in the positional adjustments (because most outside shooters are PGs, SGs or SFs), but if you are big man that has a decent outside shot, IMO you should hardly be punished for having enough of that skill to be contributing from the outside also.
Plus, there are exceptions. There are a handful of very big men whose PRIMARY offensive skill is outside shooting and drawing other big men out. When they compared to the traditional PFs and Cs, they look horrible, but IMO that is balderdash. They are simply big men that play like SFs.
The goal is to always get the best possible shot, but you can’t always get a dunk , layup, or very close jumper every time down. You need some of those slightly less efficient outside shooters/scorers.
So I’m not so sure any model captures the efficiency/scoring relationship perfectly (not to mention the very high usage vs. very low usage issue).
Matt
July 29, 2009
WHAT?Jamario Moon is NOT the #1 underrated player in the NBA! As a Raps fan, I am happy we got rid of him. Yea, he’s athletic and can rebound, but he is definetly one of the worst defenders in the league…The Cavs fans will realize that once they watch him play. Why do you think the Heat let go of him? He also makes poor decisions(when to pass, when to shoot). Even Bosh showed his frustrations with him during games. Cavs fans can get all exited, but once they watch him play, they will see what kind of player he really is.
Joe
July 29, 2009
IS,
Points + Rebounds + Steals + ½Assists + ½Blocked Shots – Field Goal Attempts – Turnovers – ½Free Throw Attempts – ½Personal Fouls
Scoring torn from the equation = Points – FGA – .5*FTA
Win Score is an extremely simple measure. Use a version of PPS at least instead of FG%. FG% is like batting average. Use OBP at least.
Italian Stallion
July 29, 2009
Joe,
I was trying to simplify my point by using FG% instead of talking about TS% and perhaps made it more complex instead. ;)
Point being, the efficiency hurdle is higher for Win Score than for NBA Efficiency. That’s why it sometimes seems like high scorers don’t get much credit for their scoring and low usuage but highly efficient scorers do.
But IMO perhaps it’s too high for some players.
Rob O
July 30, 2009
Well Toronto has made a lot of changes this offseason. They have replaced WP fave Shawn Marion as well as Parker with a whole lot of guys not looked on so favorably from WPs stand point, including Turkoglu. They were a 33 win team, we’ll just have to wait and see if they improve like a lot people think they will. I think I’ll stick with Berri on this one, but that’s just me.