A nice article at Slam Online on my favorite topic: the evolution of basketball analysis using more advanced statistics. http://slamonline.com/online/nba/2009/03/future-shock/ [rquoter] ... Think about it. The year I was born, 1969, the NBA awarded all its statistical titles to cumulative category winners, not for averages. So in ‘68-69 Oscar Robertson finished fifth in scoring with 1,955 points rather than fourth, with a 24.7 average. Dave Bing finished fifth in assists with 546 instead of fourth, averaging 7.1. Nate Thurmond finished fifth in rebounding with 1,402, instead of second, averaging 19.7. You might think this statistical subjectivity is as relevant to today’s NBA as a .400 hitter from the 1890s getting plopped into the major leagues of today. So let’s take a more recent, and relevant, example. Defenses were long measured by points allowed, the lower the PPG, the better. The fact that by this measure a “bad” defensive team could win a whole buncha games 120-115, or a “good” defensive team could lose just as many 90-85, leaves such a simplistic statistical measure of defense in tatters. These days, defensive field goal percentage has overtaken PPG as the supposed best measure of a defense. And that certainly is a step forward. But still, how directly does a low defensive field goal percentage correlate to a great defense, or wins? If a club is stocked with lousy rebounders, for example, it’s of little consequence how many shots they force opponents to miss; those opponents can launch bricks with impunity, knowing they’ll have two or three or four cracks at a basket every trip down the floor. Savvy fans have moved on to possession and pace statistics to most accurately judge teams on both sides of the ball. Defensive and offensive ratings even the hardwood for all teams by judging them per 100 possessions. A fast-paced team won’t be penalized for its cheesecloth-appearing D, while a sluggish club won’t be scored poorly for clay feet on offense. Standardizing statistics in order to measure team efficiency per possession seems about as true to the game as the final score: maximize scoring on your possessions, squelch opponents on theirs. ... [/rquoter]
True, it's a pretty simple concept. But a lot of people, even basketball analysts on television, don't seem to get it. It's not like its some fancy nerd stuff. It's as old school as Dean Smith, who was describing good offense and defense in terms of points per possession way, way back.
Yeah I know what you mean. I love when they put LeBron's stats next to D-Wades and say, "look, D-Wade is as good, if not better than LeBron!" I'm just left thinking..do they realize LeBron has sat about half of his teams fourth quarters? I know that's not exactly the same as comparing paces, but its along the same lines of looking at bottom line stats and making assumptions off that.
Although after looking it up, it seems although LeBron hasn't played a lot of fourth quarters, he apparently plays huge minutes in the previous 3. So much so that he only averages .5 min less per game than Wade. So once again someone (me) has been duped by looking at bottomline stats and making assumptions
You're right and I think this is the kind of article that needs to be written over and over again in order to start to change people's thinking about statistics. All I was saying is that I got really excited to read another cool article about statistics and was let down a bit.
