We need this guy <object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/SpFy-5ZCgjQ&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/SpFy-5ZCgjQ&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>
I just come here to enlighten newcomers like u to the game of hoops. I'm a very successful business owner that played d-1. When or if u base players effect on the game by stats, u will fail. There isn't a scout that even keep track of points when they scout players. I know u have a man crush on morey because he has shown u the way. He's showing you that playing hoops past jr high isn't a requirement to running a pro team. Just crunch numbers and create formulas and someone will give u a chance. You have motivation.
Nope. To analyze stats, you have to know what they mean and how to interpret them first. Because some stats are more favorable for Player A than Player B, it does not necessarily make Player A a better basketball player than Player B.
That's why I keep telling stats don't mean much. They have a small part in evaluating players. That's why reddick,morrison and guys like that are great college players, but can't make it in the nba. To me, its not even about points scored. That's why garnett couldn't get out the 1st rd until cassell showed up. Some guys impact can't be measured in stats. Stats would tell you Yao is the best player on the team, but in terms of winning will tell u its tracy.
Statistics can be far more in depth than a mere box score. Numbers can describe everything. It is a question of being clever enough to use them
I'm talking about the plus/minus stuff. The per and 82 games stat doesn't register with me. Those stats don't take into account who else is on the floor. When landry comes in, he comes in with hayes and yao foes out. When yao goes out, teams attack the paint and score more points because the rox are small. Just like with the yao touches, I track those things when he goes out. That's why this team is flawed. If they had anyone that could contest a shot at the goal when yao is out, they would be blowing teams out.
We already have Earth. That's Chuck Hayes (solid as the earth). I don't know who came up with it but Earth wind and fire was what the announcer called our top reserves
You "track" things. So do others. When they track them in a quantifiable manner, they call them "stats". All the numbers that Morey et. al. are crunching aren't simplistic +/- or PER. They're looking at contextual information. Touches and efficiency in certain areas on the court, given certain combinations of players and a particular offensive set, and facing certain types of opponents/defenses, with X seconds on the shot clock. They track all those minute details, they store it, and they can mine that wealth of information for relevant info that the coaches can use. You want to dismiss stats, but the really stats-savvy people in the NBA, including our GM, understand all the qualifications that come with this data. Anyways, here's a little more context to add to the +/- numbers for our front court. Here's what the data says (from here) about our front court combinations, ordered by minutes played together: Yao+Scola on the floor: +7.2 (490 minutes) Yao+Landry on the floor: +10.6 (212 minutes) Landry+Hayes on the floor: -3.3 (188 minutes) Scola+Landry on the floor: -24.4 (100 minutes) Scola+Hayes on the floor: -5.2 (64 minutes) Yao+Hayes on the floor: +18.8 (63 minutes) I think we should also keep in mind here that the time Chuck spends on the court is more dependent on his performance than the other three players, so that can inflate his +/- relatively speaking. Based on these numbers, and yeah its still early so this can change dramtically as the season progresses, Yao is clearly the most valuable front court player. No surprise. In limited minutes, Yao+Hayes has done well overall, though again we keep in mind the first sentence of this paragraph. Landry and Scola also do well with Yao, but overall the team has not played well at all with both of them on the court. It seems we've done better with Landry+Hayes then Scola+Landry -- probably because with those two there's a better offense/defense balance. None of that analysis is considering other players on the floor. For instance, Brooks plays quite a lot when its Scola+Landry -- maybe the absence of a seasoned PG like Alston is contributing to their poor +/-? We can take a look at "Adjusted +/-", a technique which derives player ratings from the +/- of all the various combinations of 5-man unit matchups played across the league. BasketballValue looks at 2 years worth of data, and derives the following ratings for our players: Yao Ming: +7.38 Tracy McGrady: +6.12 Chuck Hayes: +4.76 Ron Artest: +4.68 Rafer Alston: +1.50 Carl Landry: -1.06 Luis Scola: -2.66 Brent Barry: -8.74 Aaron Brooks: -10.4 Shane Battier: n/a (not enough minutes this season) Note that these players ratings don't give a fig about how much a particular player scores, or rebounds, or takes charges, or anything like that. It's purely based on who's on the floor, and how the score changes. The usefulness of such ratings is debatable, since it strips away all context. But based on these numbers, we can see the connection to the front-court combination +/- cited above. Yao is the most valuable, so he'll make the others look better from a +/- standpoint when he's on the court. Chuck's also good, so Yao+Chuck has worked particularly well in general. Scola and Landry are actually weak by this analysis, and consequentially we see how much we struggle when they are both on the court. Also, according to this, Aaron Brooks is absolutely the most overrated player on the team. It will be interesting to see if the Rockets manage to stay afloat without Rafer. They did a fine job against New Orleans in November when Rafer missed that game.
There's a lot more stats than just points scored. The plus/minus absolutely takes into account who else is on the floor... that's what it measures! Don't want to confuse that stat to be some sort of absolute individual stat to rank players. It never was supposed to be interpreted that way. A lot of times you see someone like Hayes have a better +/- than Yao. Doesn't necessarily mean that Hayes > Yao or even Hayes > Yao in that one game. The +/- is more of a measurement of best rotations to use in a game. Like you said, when someone scores, all 5 players on the court have their +/- 's changed, not just one player.
I love it when people discredit Morey as someone not having played past jr. high basketball who can only crunch numbers, when they don't know 10% of what Morey does with statistical analysis in player evaluation.
