[HP] The Arbitrarian: Empirical Estimates of Team Rotation Size

Hayesfan · Sep 4, 2008

http://hardwoodparoxysm.blogspot.com/2008/09/arbitrarian-empirical-estimates-of-team.html

I thought this was a really interesting article on the dynamics of rotations in the NBA.

What does it mean to describe a basketball team's rotation? Most commonly, teams are said to have somewhere between an eight and ten-man rotation, implying that N number of players (8, 9, 10, etc.) see significant playing time in a typical game. But what, more specifically, does this mean? What is "significant playing time"? What is a typical game? How can we know, from observation, how many players compose a team's rotation? Do all teams use the same number of players in their rotations? Does the size of a team's rotation vary much over the course of the season?

One difficulty with identifying team rotations is that it isn't as simple as counting then number of players who appear in any given game. There is a subtle difference between identifying the number of players who might be used in a game versus the number of players in a rotation, and that difference mainly has to do with playing time.

As such, it is common to see a threshold of playing minutes employed to identify where the rotation ends. Perhaps the rotation is all players who see more than 10 minutes of playing time in a game... but perhaps the number should be eight minutes. Regardless of the cutoff employed, this method will give an authoritative-sounding answer, but using a minutes cutoff only means that rotation size is a function of the threshold chosen, which is a telltale sign of arbitrariness.

For example, imagine two teams: a team in which five starters play 40 minutes each, and then four additional players play 10 minutes each. Using a 10-minute rotation threshold, we would say that this team has a 9-player rotation. The second team has five starters play 41 minutes each, and four more players play 8.75 minutes each. Again employing the 10-minute cutoff, we note that this team has a 5-player rotation. Certainly there is a difference between the rotations of these two teams-- the second team's minutes are slightly more highly concentrated among the starters--but is the difference equal to a 4-man difference in rotation size? I would submit that it is not. This is a somewhat contrived and extreme example, but I hope it highlights the way in which such arbitrary definitions can be misleading.
Click to expand...

That's just the beginning, my suggestion is to go over to the link and hit the whole thing.

Some of it goes a bit over my head but it is still interesting reading!

JuanValdez · Sep 4, 2008

That's funny, when I saw the subject I thought, you could just use concentration statistics like they do for antitrust cases. And lo and behold, they did.

Ziggy · Sep 4, 2008

Lets take something easy and make it hard. Thats all I took.

ghettocheeze · Sep 4, 2008

It doesn't take a math wizard to figure out all the really good teams have the following

5 quality starter at each position
Bench: good backup PG, versatile wingman, decent big man.

Celtics
Rondo, Allen, Pierce, KG, Perkins
Cassell, Posey , Powe

Lakers
Fisher, Kobe, Odom, Gasol, Bynum
Farmar, Walton, Turiaf

Spurs
Parker, Finley, Bowen, Duncan, Oberto
Barry, Manu, Elson

Pistons
Billups, Hamilton, Prince, Sheed, Nazr
Stuckey, Maxiell, McDyess

8 man rotation is no secret in the NBA

Noob Cake · Sep 4, 2008

Barry is OURS!!!! Update the list

durvasa · Sep 4, 2008

ghettocheeze said:

It doesn't take a math wizard to figure out all the really good teams have the following

5 quality starter at each position
Bench: good backup PG, versatile wingman, decent big man.

...

8 man rotation is no secret in the NBA
Click to expand...

It's useful if you want to perform studies that correlate rotation depth to other measurements. How often did we hear people debate the merits of a deep rotation versus a short rotation, and how it impacts wins or injuries? This method can help lend some support to those discussions/debates.

mlwoo · Sep 5, 2008

ghettocheeze said:

It doesn't take a math wizard to figure out all the really good teams have the following

5 quality starter at each position
Bench: good backup PG, versatile wingman, decent big man.

Celtics
Rondo, Allen, Pierce, KG, Perkins
Cassell, Posey , Powe

Lakers
Fisher, Kobe, Odom, Gasol, Bynum
Farmar, Walton, Turiaf
Click to expand...

Davis? Vujacic?

Easy · Sep 5, 2008

Statistical analysis of basketball always intrigues me. I wish he sorted it by coach. Only San Antonio and Utah has a long tenured coach. Adelman's rotations are supposed to be small. Hubie Brown's are supposed to be large.

AzNaNsZ · Sep 5, 2008

Originally Posted by ghettocheeze
It doesn't take a math wizard to figure out all the really good teams have the following

5 quality starter at each position
Bench: good backup PG, versatile wingman, decent big man.

Celtics
Rondo, Allen, Pierce, KG, Perkins
Cassell, Posey , Powe

Lakers
Fisher, Kobe, Odom, Gasol, Bynum
Farmar, Walton, Turiaf
Click to expand...

Turiaf is with the warriors now

also what bout rox: alston, Tmac, Artest, Scola, Yao
bench: Barry, Battier, Landry (dw we'll resign him) stevie if healthy( im still a believer) see we can beat those top teams

Forums

[HP] The Arbitrarian: Empirical Estimates of Team Rotation Size

Hayesfan Member

JuanValdez Member

Ziggy QUEEN ANON

ghettocheeze Member

Noob Cake Member

durvasa Member

mlwoo Contributing Member

Easy Boban Only Fan
Supporting Member

AzNaNsZ Member

Share This Page

About ClutchFans

Rockets Content

Support ClutchFans!

[HP] The Arbitrarian: Empirical Estimates of Team Rotation Size

Hayesfan Member

JuanValdez Member

Ziggy QUEEN ANON

ghettocheeze Member

Noob Cake Member

durvasa Member

mlwoo Contributing Member

Easy Boban Only Fan Supporting Member

AzNaNsZ Member

Share This Page

Easy Boban Only Fan
Supporting Member