You and panda really need to pay more attention. Easy - give it up; you can't lead these sheep anywhere; they've got an agenda and it doesn't make any difference what you do or say.
SamF - Its clear to me that you are the guy with an agenda - hoping to prove you are more intelligent than everyone else. Why not explain your position? This is not a MENSA meeting. The data is worth talking about, but it's also worth noting the flaws in taking the analysis to far. Almost any objective person would look at the rating and his introductory paragraph and think that the guy is trying to show the ranking of these players on their value to a team. But when you see Amare Stoudemire floating at the bottom of his overall rating system (notice I have no Yao Ming agenda), while Ostertag (a guy that barely touches the ball) ranks up top - you have to wonder. To me, the greatest difference between the two is: (1) the data on Ostertag is aberrant because he actually has VERY LITTLE impact on any game whether IN or OUT and (2) they play for different teams. I know there is some discussion in his methodology of factoring out the effect of his teammates but, honestly, it didn't make sense to me. We are still looking at the team's raw scoring and margin over opponents and that statistic can only come from the team Ostertag or Stoudemire are playing on. As another poster said, there are key differences in team chemistry and in coaching (and even coaching philosophies) that may affect these numbers (thereby making the interpretation of them very difficult). I actually believe that raw statistics without the odd formulation here are more telling (except I am not keen on the IN/OUT comparisons for the reasons discussed). Sam - I can handle if I missed the point, but please try to explain it in your own words without the condescending pictures and one-liners.
The difference is that the efficiency rating FAVORS players who do more things. An average player who plays more scores more in that rating than the same player who plays less. (I don't want to get into details why this is so. It takes another long post to do that.) Rosenbaun's method doesn't do that. Again, you misunderstand the method. You forgot about the factor of opponent's strength. The strength of the bench players' opponent strength is also factored in. So, no, if your scrubs beat up other scrubs, that won't give them more impact than the starters in this methodology. Hey, you guys have been told repeatedly that you should UNDERSTAND the thing first before you trash it. This method is not meant to judge a player's contract/trade value. How many times do I have to say this? There are other factors to evaluate a player's worth in roster considerations such as potential (upside), age, probability of injury, fitness for the team's needs, etc. that are not measured in this method. Sometimes a bench player might be ranked higher because of energy factor. Yao, for example would probably rank a lot higher if he were a bench player playing less than 20 mpg because he'd avoid the tired minutes he had less impact on the floor. That's another flaw in this methodology, which is in almost all efficiency rating. These ratings are best used to compared players with similar PT. Do you really believe that? How many times do you see people here arguing about "those stats don't give you the whole picture"? Besides, how do you compare players who are good and bad at different categories? Does Peja have more impact than Ben Wallace? What about the popular debate about whether Kobe or Shaq is more valuable to the Lakers? There's no way you can use conventional stats to settle this kind of argument. Usually people would point to the records of the team when one of the player was absent. That, actually is a crude version of Rosebaum's method. Yet, nobody disses that here.
I agree there's no absolutely objective and comprehensive way to measure the impact of an individual player. Does that means any effort in doing it is worthless? No method is totally objective doesn't mean every method is equally subjective. No method is comprehensive doesn't mean every method is equally narrow. So far so good. You are using a crude version of the Rosenbaum method. Good question. That's exactly what this thing is trying to measure. The crude way is to see how many more games Cato wins without Yao. But that's not very exact, because they play different opponents. Ideally, you should be able to see which player has more impact and how much more by comparing him playing with EXACTLY the same lineup against exactly the same opponents to other players in EXACTLY the same situations. But that's practically not possible. So Rosenbaum tries to factor in the strength of the other 9 players on the floor. Man, I love this debate because it's about logic. And logic is my love.
caphorns, What you say has a lot of good points. I think SamFisher has lost patience with some posters who don't even try to look at the thing before they want to shoot it down. I, on the other hand, love a hearty logical debate. There are clearly some anomalies there. The basic approach, imo, is sound, with some deficiencies (such as chemistry) that cannot be solved by any objective data. It also does not measure the variation of players performance. For example, it could be that you played against a strong opponent who was having an off night. You would get lot of points in this system even though they might not be deserved. There is no way to avoid this kind of things. But if the sample size is large enough, these variations tend to even out and you still get a pretty accurate picture. But I digress. I find this method and other similar approaches compelling because it eliminates the subjective side of deciding which statistical categories are more important than others. It concentrates on measuring the pure result--points differential--of a player's presence on the court. To me, that makes a lot of sense. The fact that Ostetag is so high might be an anomaly. But it might also be an indicator that he is very underrated by subjective methods. Of course, it might also mean that he is a luck dude whenever he's on the floor the opponents just mysteriously play bad. Maybe his ugly face has something to do with it? It's sort of like the category of opponent's free throw average.
I can't believe this thread is still alive. In his methodology, Rosenbaum said: "I develop adjusted plus/minus ratings similar to the WINVAL ratings designed by Jeff Sagarin and Wayne Winston. " By following his link, you'll find "According to Winval, Houston's Yao Ming leads the league in impact." in that article. "Similar rating system" get you such different results. Isn't it story telling? Can one of the systems be wrong? Can both systems be wrong? Put Ostertag above Yao can't be right no matter how you look at it. That's pretty close to saying a man is older than his father to me. But people who criticized this system and methodology get called "cry baby","narrow minded" etc. What gives? Is blindly treating a fomula created by an ecnomic professor like Bible no matter how unresonable the result looks like truely open minded?
Now, does everybody see how frustrating this is? Chouije: my advice to you is the same as it was yesterday: read the articles. Failing that, read a few pages back to see why the underlined statement is wrong.
What frustrating are you talking about? So if the rating says Ostertag is better than Hakeem and I don't agree that's frustrating too? Can you tell me one thing Ostertag does better than Yao? I've read the artible and I'm regretting that right now. In fact, that showes the entire plus_minus idea might be flawed. Put Yao on Utah last year, he might be ranked a lot higher. And everybody saw Rasheed Wallace's impact is so different on different teams. But the system can't show that. The entire conecpt doesn't consider the team chemistry, how the team strategy affects certain players impact, etc. Give me some fact or explaination about what you're trying to prove instead of just calling me frustrating etc, fair enough?
Rosenbaum needs to better define what his rating system is measuring. Is it... Team game ability? Leadership?
Chouije: my advice to you is the same as it was yesterday: read the articles. Failing that, read a few pages back to see why the your statement about Ostertag and Yao is wrong.
Easy: This thing is starting to get boring. I repeatedly argued that bench player being better than the opponents should not be used against the starters, all I get in return repeatedly is that the opponents bench strength is also considered and you don't understand the formula blah blah blah without presenting a counter point. Hey buddy if you don't understand it yourself just say it out loud and stop accusing others. I repeated said this formula's usage is limited, all I get is no it's not blah blah blah without giving me your actual oppinion on its merits. I presented logical deduction based on self evident facts to present the fallacy in this formula, and I get silence in return. There is still one key issue that poses a problem to this formula though. How does Rosenbaum seperately gauge the individual impact of a player in a set lineup? In other words, how does he know the amount of Yao's impact, Francis impact, Mobley impact, JJ impact and Cato impact respectively with all those impact interwined together? If he use stats to determine the individual impact of a player then it's flawed since we agree that stats are limited in scope, if not what can he hang on to save his formula?
This paragraph of yours clearly shows that you haven't read the article. Read it and you'll find the answers there. Until then, we are just wasting your time and my time. After you read it and if you still have questions, we'll discuss it. Fair enough?
The problem is I don't think you read it or understand it. So I'm not sure if further discussion is needed.
Don't you think this kind of one liner is getting old? You keep saying I should read the article despite the fact I told you I already did in the previous reply. And you keep accusing I'm wrong without giving any valid argument. Have you answerd any of my questions yet? People like Easy gave his arguments which I may or may not agree. I'm cool with that. You? no fact, no explanation, just accusing.
Chouije? What is the problem here? Go back and read the thread; it's not that hard to figure out what you are wrong about with regard to Ostertag and Yao and why; it is spelled out very clearly; the fact that you don't recognize it illustrates how pointless it is to try to discuss this with you.
Is it so hard for you point out why I'm "wrong"? Why would I keep asking you if I believe I'm wrong? Now do you see your problem?
