Tuesday, January 9, 2024

Basketball: Measuring Contributions to Winning

Measuring a player's effectiveness crosses numerous boundaries. During a recent Celtics-Spurs game, analyst Brian Scalabrine described Jaylen Brown as increasing his percentage of good basketball plays, making the right decisions. I don't know how to score that. 

Let's examine some alternatives. 

Positive possession enders - scores, rebounds, assists (lead to scoring), stops (forced turnovers, charges taken, steals). 

Hustle plays. The NBA Hustle/stats include:

  • Screen assists
  • Deflections
  • Loose balls recovered
  • Charges drawn
  • 2 point shots defended
  • 3 point shots defended
Hollinger Player Efficiency Rating PER. It's too cumbersome to apply routinely and is acknowledged to underweight defensive metrics. For example, Bill Russell doesn't appear among the top 100 career leaders (118) and Larry Bird is 22.  

Ratings Performance System. I adapted my system from Lee Rose with simple calculations based on raw numbers. It's not adjusted for level of play, minutes played, or pace. Players get credits and debits for the positives and negatives of play. 

+/- 3 points (drawing a charge, committing a charge)
+3/-3 making or missing a three point shot

+2 (offense) two point goal, assist, screen leading to a basket, offensive rebound
-2 (offense) two point miss, turnover, missed free throw
+2 (defense) steal, forced turnover, blocked shot
- 2 (defense) lost assignment, bad foul leading to free throws

+1 made free throw, defensive rebound, forced held ball
-1 allowed held ball, common foul

Young players liked it because it credited them for hustle plays when they weren't big scorers. Scorers didn't always like it because sometimes they filled the scoresheet by taking the lion's share of shots. 

Lagniappe. 

Lagniappe 2. Nick Saban believes, "life is difficult." So does Greg Olsen. 

 

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