I found an error in the graph for Kobe. Here's a revised one: Nothing wrong with setting expectations by comparing players. However the question is by what basis does a person set the expectations and how realistic is that basis? 2ndly relative comparisons are always tricky things. For instance who's the better player, Wilt Chamberlain or Bill Russell? G---FG%---FT%---Rebs---RPG---Asts---APG---Pts---PPG 1,045---.540---.511---23,924---22.9---4,643---4.4---31,419---30.1 <----Chamberlain 963---.440---.561---21,620---22.5---4,100---4.3---14,522---15.1 <---- Russell Wilt Chamberlain was clearly more dominating yet only had 2 NBA championships while Bill Russell was a cornerstone in the Boston Celtics dynasty winning 11 NBA championships in 13 years. -------- Regarding some of the disussion about learning curve comparisons between players- just a caveat- my analysis above with the other players was just a check to see if the learning curve projections have any merit or not in projecting development. To do learning curve comparisons between players however means a little different exercise than I have done. That being said here are some quick observations: Some folks brought up Dirk, Ginobili, Nash, Parker as international examples: Dirk's performance improvement % was 34% (not counting his 1st season). Ginobili: 25% (not counting his 1st season) Nash & Parker: can't quickly calculate this. Sabonis & Deke: left them out since their PPG's trend negative. Some out of HS examples brought up - KG, Jermaine O'Neal, Kobe, Tmac, Rashard Lewis. KG: 23% (not counting 1st season) Kobe: 88%, (not counting 1st season) Jermaine O'Neal: can't quickly calculate Tmac: can't quickly calculate Lewis: 14% Kobe's is pretty high but I had included his 2nd season into the mix and that skews it off since he only played 26 MPG vs. near the 38-41 MPG he sustained later. Hakeem, Robinson, Shaq, Duncan: Hakeem: 14% Robinson: 5% Shaq: <2% (1st to 2nd season was a jump but pretty much flat since then) Duncan: 3% Yao appears to be trending in the 20-23% range. This is basis a 30 MPG figure. The interesting thing is if he can improve his MPG to up to 35 MPG+ we might see a definite bump. Nothing new about this but interesting to see it re-inforced. All that says is that Yao's rate of offensive development is probably closer to the internationals & the fresh out of high school players. If you're expecting him to be contribute as quickly as a Hakeem, Robinson, Shaq or Duncan then you certainly have been disappointed. The good news is those guys had much lower rates of improvement compared to Yao. For Yao expect more of a KG or Ginobili-like timeframe of development. ---- Nah - I nor the analysis draw any conclusion about (a)Yao being a little above average or (b) how close/far from being a "superstar" he is. ---- Couldn't have said it better myself . Anyhow the learning curve exercise and my subsequent posts have been to try and move people from perceptions to something a bit more objective.
Fact is when it comes down to it - no one in the world knows what Yao Ming will become. Well, we know he won't be Shawn Bradley, and he certainly won't be Kareem or Wilt. But no one knows anything else because really it's up to Yao Ming.
I don't think Yao bashing will help him progress as a player. As Rockets fans, let's just put a little faith in the system and Yao. I've been frustrated watching him this season, but I still believe he'll get better.
I think their are way too many variables involved in basketball to make useful predictions based upon a S-curve. Basketball is athletic, which is quite distinct from intellectual pursuits. Atheltic skills start degrading as early as your mid twenties. Despite this, most players can continue to improve their statistics into their thirties because they learn new skills to make up for it. An S-curve assumes a continual improvement over time, which is ridiculous. Additionally, since it's a continuously repeating S-curve, over time it closely approximates a linear relationship between improvement and time, which makes me wonder my the whole S-curve thing was brought up in the first place. I'm not an engineer so maybe I'm missing something. Yao Ming will improve or he won't. Graphs and equations can't approximate what's in a man's heart. Frankly, I think if Yao was going to break out into mega-superstar status, he would have done it already. He's been in the league for a three years now, and he wasn't a seventeen year old kid like McGrady or Kobe when they entered the league. It only makes sense to compare him to college players who were the same age as him when they entered the league. (I recall one scout/coach saying that the CBA was roughly on par with the Pac-Ten). Based on that scale, at three years in the NBA, Yao isn't up to the same level as other marquee big men in the past who went to college (Robinson, Olajuwon, Duncan, O'Neal).
Guys calm down, Yao's only problem is minutes played put him at 36 he will be a 20 and 10 guy. Basketball has changed with zone it does not favor the big guys anymore with double and triple teaming. MORE MINUTES HE WILL BE 1 OUT 5 GUYS IN THE NBA BEING A 20 AND 10 GUY HE LPAYS GREAT DEFENS CLOGS THE MIDDLE AND CHANGES SHOTS HE IS NOT HAKEEM GUYS. PUT HAKEEM IN NOW WITH THOSE TRIPLE TEAMS HE WILL NOT SCORE AS MUCH LOOK AT SHAQ'S NUMBERS DAY IN AND DAY OUT HE IS THE BEST AND DOES NOT PUT MONSTER STATS. ENOUGH WITH THESE CRAPPY TOPICS THEY WILL BE CONTENDERS FOR YEARS TO COME
I studied engineering but never did anything about engineer. Basically, I forget everything about engineering. But one thing I learned at school was that if I want to debate with someone about something, I better come up with some theory/data, or point out some logic flaw or something inaccurate in that person's view or statement. A simple "I don't think so" won't cut it. The guy gave you stats, graphs, statistics, and more importantly some proven theory IN VARIOUS AREAS. The beauty of statistics is that it was generated from a big sample data pool. The guy already said it's proven in different areas even as airplane production. Of course there are variables in each area, but it's proven despite the differences. He didn't draw any conclusion, just gave us a hint, a thought, maybe a little advise in our perceptions. How many guys debated him with facts, data and theory? I kept hearing "NO, I don't THINK so. Basketball is just different, it can't apply." Why? Did anybody bother to prove why it doesn't apply to basketball to us? More importantly, did anyone bother to prove to YOURSELF why it doesn't work here? Or you just conveniently ASSUME? Because it's different than what you thought? The guy spent lots of time to come up with the data, and he followed up with some of the players' names thrown out here. if you want to debunk his "false theory", you better come up with something credible at the same level. What you THINK or BELIEVE isn't good enough.
Sorry, we Americans are just poor in math. Most dont even know how to do simple arithmetic, let alone STATISTICAL ANALYSIS.
Take it sleezy People, as they say, take what you like and leave the rest. The same people that say you can't quantify heart/attitude need to realise that Tango is just putting this out there, not as definitive fact, but as a general line that Yao probably will follow. Anyways, I appreciate it, thanks for the analysis, Tango. I love this above paragraph. Its been a common assumption on the board that Yao would have a bump in production when more minutes are played, but it's nice to have a different angle statistically (different than the normal multiplying points/rebs by additional minutes played) As a analytical guy, I find this to be a very interesting point. Stuart
winwook: What's your basis for making this claim? I think the recognized reality is quite the contrary. The whole basis of peaks, troughs, & plateus in "learning" is recognized to encompass physical skills as well. Infact the whole telegrapher study near the turn of the century that started all this demonstrates that cognitive & physical development are intertwined. http://www.smithsrisca.demon.co.uk/situational-awareness.html (read under the "Motor Skills" section) Not only that even in basketaball we find that the idea of learning curves coming into play - take the following quote from a basketball coaching website: http://www.bbhighway.com/Talk/Coaching_Box/Ask_Coach/atc_q302.asp "3. How do you teach your players? Most coaches learn to teach their players the way they were taught. There are classes now in many colleges in a discipline of Sports Science called Motor Behavior which go into the science of teaching sports skills. This involves understanding things such as acquisition of skills, learning curves, memory retention and transfer of skills, and how feedback helps your players learn to perform at higher levels." Infact here's a specific slide regarding the idea of s-shape learning curves as it relates to motor behavior in sports which comes from the following website with a full presentation on sport motor behavior & control: http://plato.acadiau.ca/courses/kine/bmcleod/kine2013/ppoint/a/ I'm sorry but I'm afraid you're the one being ridiculous about what an s-curve shows. The name only applies what the curve generally looks like, but there are an infinite number of unique s-curves with different amplitudes and frequencies. Nowhere does this assume "continual improvement". 2ndly repeating s-curves with the EXACT same amplitude & frequency "might" be approximated by a line in the right circumstances. But even the whole idea that you use lines to represent s-curves is even more ridiculous. Why even have 3rd order polynomials then when you can explain everything with an linear equation? This is basic high-school pre-algebra math folks, not some rocket science engineering. All this is crazy anyhow because I used the idea of an s-curve to illustrate the concept of slow-fast-slow learning. For the calculations I specifically used the production learning curve methodology which has nothing to do with the notion of individual s-curves whatsoever. The production learning curve concept is based on a power or exponential curve. This is where the "continuous improvement" on a power/exponential curve fits in and I've already noted the limitation there of. And by the way just doing a little poking around we find that there those in the Motor Behavior Sports Sciences that have already applied the concept of power/exp function learning curves to analyze this exact concept (which I didn't know about until today). Look at the following quote: "A common feature of all complex system is that in one way or another they show a form of adaptation that we can call learning in a broad sense of the word. In the following we present a number of historical examples of human motor learning that suggests a power law behavior of performance as a function of practice time." You can find the full report here done by folks from university kinesiology departments. Fancy that. http://www.personal.psu.edu/faculty/g/x/gxm21/NECSI98/index.html You can question if Yao will improve or not or how he compares to other big men in the NBA. I personally come to different conclusions. However if you're going to question my analysis then come ready to discuss it intelligently instead of coming up with stuff that makes no sense whatsoever.
Mrs. Krabapple, my head hurts Thanks for posting all the different analysis. It's been a long time since I've looked at some of that stuff
Maybe charting player efficiency ratings is more telling? These graphs tell me that Shaq didn't develop much after his sophomore season...
Dude, you need to chill out. If you disagree with something I wrote, fine. You might think some of what I wrote makes no sense. I think your stuff makes no sense. Deal with it. Regardless of all the studies you quote, your s-curve hasn't been a reliable predictor of player's statistics, even according to your own graphs. If there's no correlation between your predications and the real world results, what's the purpose of it all? I can make predictions based upon equations but it's all worthless unless these predictions reflect the real world. Athletic skills decline over time. You completely ignore this. There's a big difference between learning telegraph skills and dunking a basketball. I can probably improve my typing words per minutes into my forties, but that doesn't mean I can improve my baksetball skills into my forties. Finally, take a deep breath. There are more important things in life than this.
winwook: I'm just fine thank you . (1) Your statements make no sense and unlike you I've proven where they make no sense. (2) The graphs DO show a decent correlation up to about the 600-800 game mark. You are ignoring that. (3) I've already pointed out & agreed that there is a divergence the further into the future you go because of the very thing you state regarding cap on development. You're ignoring that as well. (4) I've just given you more than enough SPORTS research above that talks about the very thing I was doing. So I guess you think that all this sports science is "worthless" as well or you're conveniently ignoring this as well. If you refuse to have any intellectual integrity then that's your prerogative.
thats because dominant players demand more than 12 shots a game. when have you seen yao demand the ball. as a previous post stated yao lacks "it" point blank. you cant force anybody to be great they have to want and accept the responsibility of being great. i recall in a pregame interview tmac said the rockets will play better when they get yao more shots. yao responded by sayin oh well i took 8 shots and 12 free throws or something of that nature (not that the numbers are relavent) but that response right there explains to the fans that he would rather not have the responsibility of being the man on a great team. enough said!!!
its great to see the intelligence of rocket fans shine its a beautiful thing to see especially since im a pharmacy major. its a new perspective based on more of a fact based argument rather than the opinionated argument we deal with on a daily basis. not that anything is wrong with it but when i see the motives behind a select group of fans (hmm cough yof cough) and the arguments they make it makes me smile sarcastically followed by a moment where i would like to puke.
