http://www.countthebasket.com/blog/2008/06/03/offensive-and-defensive-adjusted-plus-minus/ There's a lot of information in this post, but somethings that I wanted to point out on it... then yall can discuss Top Ten adjusted defensive players... Chuck is number 3, Dikembe is 9 Top offensive adjusted PF's... Landry is 8th, Luis 16th Top offensive adjusted C's.. Yao is in the middle of the pack (I expected him to be much higher) Here's how he calculated the information
Apparently Chuck Hayes is a SF?? Look, I'm not trying to discount what is clearly a bunch of work that may have some statistical merit, but if you don't know that Chuck Hayes is a PF and not a SF, how can I possibly put any faith in the rest of the work?
He's listed at nba.com as a SF, PF because of his size. So I would imagine that is why he is listed there. Fantasy sites list him there too... even though he plays PF or C.
I usually don't dismiss statistical analysis as easily as some posters here. But any system that ranks Amare offensively behind Spencer Hawes, and Yao behind everyone from Collison to Noah must be seriously flawed.
snyder is well above tmac in that list, so it's either wrong, or it's totally random, or it's sorted by age or something not related to bball.
I doubt that the position were entered in manually. I suspect they were grabbed from some stats site like dougstats.com (where Chuck is labeled a SF).
and hence the problem...statistics help, but basketball isn't all statistics. if you're going to put out a list comparing players, at least put them at their actual position, don't just grab data from a bunch different places and rely on that. I honestly can't think of a single minute Chuck has played at PF...ever?
With all the random and obscure stats that people post here, you would think the Rockets were some kind of dynasty.
Yao is always underrated by +/- statistics, because the Rockets' play has been downright freakish the last couple of seasons. They'll have their full team and play okay or good. Then they lose a top guy and get into the zone, hustling their way to win after win. A performance level they probably couldn't sustain, but they come down to Earth just in time for their star's return, making the star look bad. Just look at the Rockets this year. They lost Yao but went on an insane for the rest of the regular season. Then the playoffs come and they start missing Yao like everyone knew they would, which inconveniently isn't counted in the regular season statistics. I'm a huge stats supporter, and I usually hate it when people go on "gut feeling" and disregard the evidence, so I don't want to make this a formal rebuttal of the numbers. It just seems really anomalous to me.
In some sports (usually the ones i don't like) stats can tell you much of the story. In basketball there are so many variables to these stats that i find them more annoying than useful. I love my sig.
Offensive Adjusted Plus/Minus, Top Ten: Nash, Steve Paul, Chris Bryant, Kobe James, LeBron Wade, Dwayne Quinn, Chris Harris, Devin Crawford, Jamal Jamison, Antawn Young, Thaddeus Aaron Brooks + Carl Landry + 1st round pick for Chris Quinn, lets make this work
But it's impossible to NOT relate stats to games. You just can't. One can call BS on these long formulas and calculations, but in the end we never bother questioning the basic stuff. Points per game. Rebounds per game. We just regurgitate these numbers without even thinking. Anyway, I'm sure the formula is not playing-time dependent. Or bit players like Landry and Hayes would not be making any lists. And Yao would be in the top 10 if he gets single covered all the time. I still don't think there's a formula in calculating offensive prowess that counts double teams.
I think stats can be used when comparing similar players in similar situations but when you get beyond that you start to lose validity. I guess they're useful in some way but more often than not they aren't. Most of the time people use them to compare two guys who aren't even close in skill level but because they have similar numbers people start to think they are similar. It gets even worse when people start extrapolate per minute. Wouldn't Landry be like the 2nd best PF? It even makes GM's look stupid when they pay guys like Michael Redd big money for scoring alot on a terrible team. They are good if you have watched enough basketball but all too often i see people on the net disputing a worthless 2% difference in fg% or saying how much a guy who plays 5 minutes a game is similar to an all-star. Its insane.
