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Caution Is Costly, Scholars Say (July 30, 2003)

Posted 3:47 p.m., July 30, 2003 (#3) - kevin
I think we should start a blog on game theory and how it relates to the ways GM's deal with one another. Ostensibly, a trade is made that is supposed to help most teams. But the really good trades are the ones that help you and screw the other guy.

Tippett and DIPS (August 1, 2003)

Discussion Thread

Posted 3:08 p.m., August 1, 2003 (#6) - kevin
I've always felt that knuckleballers were a separate breed. They survive by not allowing solid contact or timed swings. I think Tom's research supports that. And I suppose that's why Wakefield et. al. get no respect. Everyone thinks they are some kind of fluke.

"Ball Four" actually did a pretty good job of portraying the prejudice these guys have to endure.

Tippett and DIPS (August 1, 2003)

Discussion Thread

Posted 5:18 p.m., August 1, 2003 (#18) - kevin
kamatoa,

If you expect to be taken seriously in any intellectual discussion, you are required to cite previous work, even it it contradicts your own. Tom Tippett was only doing what was required of him.

Nevertheless, he gave credit where credit was due. And I think his work refines Voros' work rather than contradicts it. Kind of like the concept of punctuated equilibrium refines Darwinism.

Aaron's Baseball Blog - Basketball (February 9, 2004)

Discussion Thread

Posted 9:14 a.m., February 10, 2004 (#33) - kevin
There's a ton of problems with rating basketball players based on stats, especially shooting stats.

First, unlike baseball, there is an elective element to shooting stats. The coach can call out a play for his "best" scorer. It penalizes the rest of the guys, who get to set picks and get no credit for the play.

Second, again unlike baseball, defense accounts for half of the players value. When a defender deflects a pass sufficiently to disrupt the flow of a play, he gets no credit but he should. Defensive statistics in basketball might be worse than the ones for baseball. If you cut your man off trying to go baseline and he steps on the line, the player gets no credit for that because those kinds of stops are not recorded.

I could go on and on with this but you get my drift. The way basketball games are scored needs a major overhaul before the statistics become meaningful enough to start accurately rating players.

Aaron's Baseball Blog - Basketball (February 9, 2004)

Discussion Thread

Posted 10:43 a.m., February 10, 2004 (#36) - kevin
Craig B,

Bill Russell didn't score all that much. He was a pretty bad free throw shooter. He never took a three-pointer in his life. But he was the most dominant player of his generation, maybe of every generation.

If you go back and start adding up the stats (I know, they didn't keep track of blocs and steals and turnovers then), Russell comes out below Wilt and Robertson and Pettit and Baylor. But he was better than those guys because he could prevent the other team from scoring and he allowed his own team to get easy baskets. What he was doing to effect those outcomes wasn't kept track of. A lot of them are still not kept track of.

How can offense be more important than defense? Name one team that played mediocre defense that ever won the title?

George Gervin has the reputation of being a great player because he scored a lot of points and his shooting percentages were pretty good. I went to a Celtics game against the Spurs and the Celtics. I was sitting right behind the Spurs bench and the Celtics on the floor were laughing at Gervin. They took turns posting on him. M.L. Carr was scoring at will on him. The other 4 guys could have been playing terrific defense and it wouldn't have mattered one bit. Because of Gervin, they had a massive hole in the defense. If they tried to switch, then the Celtics would just go to the guy Gervin switched off on. If they tried to double, then the Celtics would just find the open man.

Gervin was grotesquely overrated because you could not structure a consistent defense as long as he was on the floor. The Spurs had other good defenders like Johnny Moore, Mike Mitchell and Artis Gilmore but they always lost to the Lakers because they could not stop them from scoring. The only time they could win is if the other team was cold and played a bad game. That isn't going to get you very far.

Aaron's Baseball Blog - Basketball (February 9, 2004)

Discussion Thread

Posted 10:59 a.m., February 10, 2004 (#38) - kevin
There is, in my view, some anecdotal evidence, particularly based on salary structure, that defense is not as important as offense. At the very least, offensive ability appears to be much more variable than defensive ability - meaning that in an analysis of the player pool, offensive ability has more "value" than defensive ability.

The are two problems with this statement. Salary should not be used as a synonym for value because players are not strictly paid for how good they are. Even if you eliminate the errors in judgement, there is still the marketability angle that goes into paying players. There's a lot of irrationality that goes into how players are paid. Draft order, for instance.

Second, even if there is more variability in offensive ability than defensive ability (and I question this assumption), all that means is the the standard deviation of defense is tighter than offense, it doesn't change the balance of value, which is logically 50/50. Every time one team is on offense, the other is on defense and vice versa.

Aaron's Baseball Blog - Basketball (February 9, 2004)

Discussion Thread

Posted 11:16 a.m., February 10, 2004 (#40) - kevin
Rally, you have Pettit ahead of Russell per 82. You also have Olajawon and Robertson and Jabbar ahead of him. If your numbers are telling you that Bob Pettit and Kareem are better than Russell, then you have a problem with your metric.

No way is Jabbar better than Russell. He did two things better than Russell. he could shoot the hook better and he was better free throw shooter. Every thing else, Russell did better, some things a lot better.

For instance, centers get no credit for outlet passes that lead to baskets or free throws, usually because the ball hits the floor or another pass is made before the shot is taken. But the outlet pass is incredibly important because it leads to easy baskets. Russell did that as well as any center. I am willing to wager that, if that information were available, Russell would lap the field. Kareem couldn't throw an outlet pass if his life depended on it. The Lakers had a fsst break because Magic rebounded the ball himself and ran it down the floor. It would have been a lot easier for Magic if Kareem could have thrown him an outlet every now and then.

So what's the result? The Lakers post and Kareem gets credit for a basket that should have been scored by a guard or forward, if only Kareem could find the wherewithall to throw it to him. Because of this, and the fact that Kareem was such an effective post scorer, Kareems' teams were locked into a low-post offense. They had no other choice. It's a credit to Magic that his superior talents could override Kareems' limitations.

Aaron's Baseball Blog - Basketball (February 9, 2004)

Discussion Thread

Posted 11:21 a.m., February 10, 2004 (#41) - kevin
What you're doing, though, is closing your eyes and screaming "YOU CAN'T RATE PLAYERS ON STATISTICS!!!!". That's not helpful.

I'm not saying this at all. I'm saying the current statistics stink so bad they give erroneous valuations. I think it's very helpful to point out that alterntative statistics need to be recorded.

Aaron's Baseball Blog - Basketball (February 9, 2004)

Discussion Thread

Posted 12:04 p.m., February 10, 2004 (#43) - kevin
Stephen, your statement would make more sense if the Celtics won before Russell got there and won after he left. They were a good team but not a championship contender before he got there and they they tanked after he left. That is very telling as to his value. It's not whining. I just think you have a problem if you are using metrics to list the greatest and Russells doesn't come out in the top 5.

I'm going to say it. I think Russell was the best player of all time. He won in college, he won in the pros. He almost never lost. His college team had the record for consecutive wins before UCLA broke it. There is nothing subjective about counting championship trophies. And he was by far the most dominant player on every team he played for.

Let me redo RallyMonkeys list to WS/82:

o'neal,shaquille--675 165 20.0 C
Chamberlain,Wilt-1045 254 19.9 C
jordan,michael----990 234 19.4 G
duncan,tim--------370--83 18.3 F
robinson,david----923 196 17.4 C
johnson,magic-----906 190 17.2 G
bird,larry--------897 183 16.7 F
malone,karl------1353 265 16.0 F
Abdul-Jabbar,K---1560 300 15.8 C
barkley,charles--1073 203 15.5 F
robertson,oscar--1040 180 14.2 G
pettit,bob--------792 135 14.0 F
olajuwon,hakeem--1238 210 13.9 C
russell,bill------960 160 13.7 C

You see the problem you have? Russell comes in at #14. Do you really think Charles Barkley is a better player than Bill Russell? Charles Barkley, of the Erving/Malone/Cheeks/Toney/Barkley Sixers, who couldn't win 55 games? If you can't see something wrong with this list, then I don't know what to say.

OK, you think I'm biased for Russell. Let's choose another player. How about David Robinson. Are you trying to tell me that you honestly think David Robinson is one of the 5 best players of all time? Olajawon used to kick his ass left and right but the list indicates Robinson is better than Olajawon by a large margin.

And where is Bob Cousy? Cousy routinely led the league in assists by a whopping margin and was by far the best rebounding guard of his era, Cousy or Andy Phillip. Cousy's rebounding totals were as good as Magics. But your list has Kevin Johnson over Cousy. Kevin Johnson was a crappy rebounder and a mediocre defender. But he took a lot of shots so your metric likes him.

Are you beginning to see the problem?

Aaron's Baseball Blog - Basketball (February 9, 2004)

Discussion Thread

Posted 12:05 p.m., February 10, 2004 (#44) - kevin
Stephen, your statement would make more sense if the Celtics won before Russell got there and won after he left. They were a good team but not a championship contender before he got there and they they tanked after he left. That is very telling as to his value. It's not whining. I just think you have a problem if you are using metrics to list the greatest and Russells doesn't come out in the top 5.

Let me redo RallyMonkeys list to WS/82:

Are you beginning to see the problem?

Aaron's Baseball Blog - Basketball (February 9, 2004)

Discussion Thread

Posted 12:14 p.m., February 10, 2004 (#45) - kevin
Sorry for the double.

I do not wish to disparage the work being done. I just wish we would acknowledge the giant gaping holes in the available data and not take these lists too seriously. If anything, they highlight problems in what statistics are recorded.

Aaron's Baseball Blog - Basketball (February 9, 2004)

Discussion Thread

Posted 2:00 p.m., February 10, 2004 (#47) - kevin
One other thing. I'm old enough to have seen Russell play. It was near the end of his career but he was still a great player.

In a regular season game against the Knicks in Russells last year, Willis Reed outplayed Russell and he looked like he was sort of drifting through the game. Russell was notorious for this. In unimportant games, he would go on cruise control. Dennis Johnson did the same kind of thing. But when the playoffs came around, he would really turn it on. He kicked Reeds ass in the playoffs that year. That's why his playoffs stats are better than his regular season ones. I don't know what to make of this other than the fact that it is hard to argue with the results.

Another interesting case is Wilt. Wilt was a horrible FT shooter. One year, in 1968, he shot .380 from the stripe. This obviously invited the hack-a-shack defense, especially since, in those days, they would shoot a one-and-one on non-shooting fouls when they were in the penalty. That is, before the 5 team foul penalty, a non-shooting foul would earn 1 FT. After 5 team fouls, the shooter would shoot the second FT only if the first one was made. If the first was missed, the miss was in play. So, basically, you could not let Wilt touch the ball with less than 5 minutes to go in a close game, or even if the game wasn't close because he would miss all his freebies. Russell wasn't very good either but he was a lot better than Wilt and he didn't need to score to be effective so he wouldn't touch the ball much in crunch time. That's one big reason why Russells' team always seemed to beat Wilts' team in the playoffs.

Plus, I thought the never fouling out thing was pretty weird on Wilts part. If Wilt never fouled out once after over 1000 games, then he wasn't challenging the shooters enough.

RallyMonkey, hwo do you know how much Russells' WS should be adjusted if you don't have the blocks and steals data? And even if you did, you would also need the number of times he made someone miss just by intimidation and know the difference in intimidation misses that Russell earned against the number of the other players in the league.

Let's face it. the statistics are horrible for basketball. So horrible that giant mistakes can be made in valuing past performance.

Aaron's Baseball Blog - Basketball (February 9, 2004)

Discussion Thread

Posted 10:30 p.m., February 10, 2004 (#50) - kevin
Rally,

I don't know how Heeren can just stab at a number like that and plug it in. If you don't have the data, you shouldn't just make something up that seems to make sense to you. You will almost certainly be wrong. Nobody has a clue as to how many blocks Russell would get per night. I have heard some wild numbers thrown about. Russell himself said he blocked Walt Bellamys' shot 15(!) times in one game. Can you imagine someone doing that today?

I got one of Heeren's books and thought Tendex was a terrible metric. He doesn't really weight anything. His player evaluations are a joke. He says Dennis Johnson is an average player. Johnson was a superb player, one of the half dozen best guards in the league. Johnson gets underrated because his game was real subtle and weighted to the defensive end.

Heeren doesn't stop to consider that the defensive statistics he is using are incredibly superficial. All there are are blocks and steals and rebounds. Those things only measure a fraction of defense. It's kind of like trying to evaluate pitchers by how many triples they give up. Deflections aren't counted. Forced turnovers aren't counted, at least as a individual stat. Forced passes aren't counted. Opponent FG% isn't counted, on an individual defender basis. There is no metric to measure how good a guy is at lending help defense (Jordan would really shine there, as would Russell). When a shot blocker intimidates someone into a three-second call, he isn't given credit for that. If you had some of this stuff, you might start to make some headway. No distinction is made between good and bad fouls.

Cooper,

The problem with Kareem is that he had trouble finding the outlet man after he got a rebound. He wasn't all that strong and could be stripped unless he took pains to secure the ball. By the time he secured it, the defense was back in position. Russell and Walton were the two best at the outlet. The ball was on it's way to the outlet man almost before their feet hit the ground. That's what made the Celtics fastbreak so effective. They had 2 on 1s and 3 on 2s on a huge percentage of possessions.

Wilt's rebound numbers are a little better than Russell's but not much, until you calculate for rebounds/minute rather than game. Russell got more rebounds/minute in both the regular season and the the playoffs than Wilt did. The only competition either of them had for the rebound title was each other. No one else was even close until the late sixties.

Russells FG% was actually quite good. His first few years in the league, he was a top 5 guy. It gradually drifted down as he got older but it remained solid until his couple of years, when it wasn't very good. But his game was never really about scoring anyway.

I want to apologize for being too critical. I would actually like to stimulate discussion on this: if you could start all over, what statistics would you like to have? Once you decide what is missing, then you can adjust your valuations with consideration of the data gaps.

Aaron's Baseball Blog - Basketball (February 9, 2004)

Discussion Thread

Posted 7:17 a.m., February 11, 2004 (#53) - kevin
Really, Rob H? His numbers were much better before Magic but they didn't seem to translate to wins, especially playoff wins. And isn't that what being good is all about? The best players are the ones who contribute most to helping their team win?

Kareem wasn't a leader. In fact, he was disliked. His inability to get a job in the NBA speaks volumes about what his peers thought of him (did you see the HBO piece on him?). for better or worse, the best player on the team is the de facto leader. Kareem was so aloof and detached, he neglected his leadership responsibilities. If Magic hadn't come along, he would have gone down as the biggest enigma in the history of the NBA.

Plus, he didn't do the little things. He never hit the floor for a loose ball. He wasn't a good enough shooter to be able to draw the opposing shotblocker away for the basket. You were locked into a low-post offense with Kareem. That thing in Airplane was funny but it was also true. The kid was just summarizing the opinion of a lot of people about Kareem at that time.

Aaron's Baseball Blog - Basketball (February 9, 2004)

Discussion Thread

Posted 9:10 a.m., February 11, 2004 (#57) - kevin
Cooper, I'm not saying Kareem wasn't a great player. I'm using him as an example of how he might be overrated because the stats that are recorded are the ones that reward him the most and might underrate his superstar peers when he is compared to them. There's a bit of a Joe Carter element to Kareem. Same with Gervin, Theus etc. And his career pre-Magic was a big disappointment. He had been ouplayed by Walton in the '77 playoffs, he played poorly when the Warriors eliminated the Bucks in the '73 playoffs. Sure he went to the playoffs a lot. All the great players went to the playoffs a lot. But his teams always seemed to be getting upset for one reason or another.

You may or may not like the Celtics but you can't argue with their success. You may resent that but you have to respect it too. Auerbach constructed 3 different championship teams (4 if you consider that the Celtics teams at the end of Russells' career were completely different than the squad he entered the league with). I would think as an analyst that you would be curious as to how he was going about it, what types of players he was looking for, that caused that much success. You can do this with all the great teams, the Lakers in the early '50's, the Jordan Bulls, the late '80's Pistons etc.

I'm using the Celtics players to criticize the valuations because they're the ones I'm most familiar with. I could just as easily do it with players from other teams as well (Robinson-Olajawon for example).

Aaron's Baseball Blog - Basketball (February 9, 2004)

Discussion Thread

Posted 9:23 a.m., February 11, 2004 (#58) - kevin
For Dennis Johnson, I saw him play the last few years of his career, and at that time I think he was no better than average. He didn't have the speed to keep up with quick PG's (especially Isiah) and if the Celtics played a team I was rooting for, I was happy any time Dennis took a 20 footer. It sure beat watching Bird, McHale, and Parish score their automatic points.

I agree with this totally, Rally. The Celtics got one really good year and two pretty good years out of him. After that he was average or a bit above average.

But prior to Jordan, he was the best defensive guard in the league, Johnson or Moncrief. And he gets a big bump because he could play three positions. I never saw him do it with Seattle or Phoenix but the Celtics would sometimes use him at small forward to cover a 6:5 shooter and he would take the guy right out of the game. His play in the playoffs was damned impressive with Seattle in the late '70's. He was the key to that team (he deservedly got the playoff MVP in '79).

You don't have to be a Celtics fan to be a Johnson fan since most of his best years were with other teams. So for Heeren to say Johnson was average is just absurd (IIRC, it was a career valuation, not a yearly one). Again, a lot of Johnsons' game was about defense and not making mistakes (not making dumb fouls, for example). Most of the things associated with that element of the game are not recorded.

Aaron's Baseball Blog - Basketball (February 9, 2004)

Discussion Thread

Posted 9:59 a.m., February 11, 2004 (#60) - kevin
Cooper,

When Walton was healthy, he was better than Kareem. Maybe you didn't see that series in '77 but I did. The Lakers had a better regular season record than the Blazers in '77 but got swept. One of the principal reason was that Walton outplayed Kareem. His numbers don't look so good now because of his multiple injuries and his minutes were never very high but, when he was healthy and playing, nobody was ever better. By the time he got to the Celtics, he had lost a lot but could still play. And he only really played the one year for the Celtics. His best moments were with other teams, except for the trophy in '86.

The Celtics were a great team, but if they were as good as you claim then they greatly under performed and fell below expectations. Couldn't it be possible that your perception is clouded a bit?

Where the hell did this come from? The Celtics in the '80's were as good as their record. They were a consistent 60 win team until age and injuries degraded their effectiveness.

No, the Big Three are not top 20. Parish was very good but he was never an elite center. Rally's numbers have him around guys like Gilmore and Sikma and sounds about right. Bird is certainly top 20, McHale probably top 50.

Aaron's Baseball Blog - Basketball (February 9, 2004)

Discussion Thread

Posted 10:08 a.m., February 11, 2004 (#61) - kevin
Let's talk about fouling. There's a great deal of strategy in fouling. You can stop a team from scoring by fouling. You can work the clock by fouling.

Alternatively, you can give away easy points by fouling too. The good players make smart fouls. The dumb players allow themselves to be manipulated intoa situation where they have to give up a bad foul. Fouling is a major strategic option in basketball but distinctions between good and bad fouls are not made in the record. What does a coach tell his team last as they leave a timeout in a close game? "And whatever you do, don't foul!" Bad defenders get forced into making fouls that hurt the team.

Aaron's Baseball Blog - Basketball (February 9, 2004)

Discussion Thread

Posted 1:15 p.m., February 11, 2004 (#62) - kevin
The inadequacy of the available statistics can also be reflected in the similarity scores on basketball reference. Has anyone looked at those? The third most similar to Russell is Dick Barnett. I can say with absolute certainty that the only similarity that Russell had with Dick Barnett as a basketball player is that they both shot lefthanded.

Aaron's Baseball Blog - Basketball (February 9, 2004)

Discussion Thread

Posted 2:23 p.m., February 11, 2004 (#65) - kevin
It's a problem with the statistics too. There is no way that Dick Barnett should be anywhere near Russells list, low score or no. No matter how badly you muck the formula up, there is no way you should come up with shooting guards to match Russell. I think David Robinson is a pretty good match for Russell but he is not on the list.

Russell list

Similar Players (Career)
Nate Thurmond* (860)
Jerry Lucas* (845)
Dick Barnett (845)
Dave Debusschere* (840)
Tom Vanarsdale (830)
Johnny Kerr (827)
Bill Bridges (822)
Richie Guerin (816)
Bob Boozer (814)
Dick Vanarsdale (814)

Barnett, the VanArsdales and Guerin shouldn't be anywhere near this list. They are on it because they scored a similar amount of points and assists. That's the problem with measuring scoring. It's a very context dependent statistic, like RBIs. There have been lousy players who have been good scorers and good players who have been lousy scorers.

Barnett has Jack Twyman as his number 2 man at 926. that's a fairly high score. Twyman was a scorer/rebounder forward. He wasn't remotely like Barnett.

I don't know how the scores are done but there needs to be some serious weighting of the numbers according to position, for starters.

Aaron's Baseball Blog - Basketball (February 9, 2004)

Discussion Thread

Posted 5:37 p.m., February 12, 2004 (#67) - kevin
I'll take you up on your request, Rex.

Let's just chuck scoring average right out the window in terms of value for starters. Scoring average is a about as valuable for rating a player as ABs is for a baseball player. If you have a guy with a high scoring average but a low shooting percentage, that guy shold get a double whammy penalty because not only is he being selfish and not getting the ball to his more talented teammates, he is shooting his team out of wins. Lloyd Free comes to mind here. The difference between a good shooting percentage and a bad one is about .080, or 16%. But scoring averages, if we just count guys with similar min/game numbers can be up to 200-300% (the difference between Kobe and Ben Wallace say). So there's very little relationship between total points and effective shooting.

Second, versatility is important. A player that can play more than one position is very valuable because the coach can mix and match matchups and substitute more effectively. Joe Dumars was better than Byron Scott because Dumars could play the point while Isiah rested while Scott couldn't give Magic a blow. Versatility is defensive too. A guy that can cover players from different positions is extremely valuable, not only because they give the coach more strategic options but the defense doesn't get hurt when players are forced to switch off. That's why Auerbach loved big guards. Havlicek, Chaney, Johnson, Siegfried and Sam Jones could all do the job at more than one position. So if the defensive situation calls for a switch, so what? The big guards can handle it if they have to switch off on a small forward.

Points/possession is important but limited. For instance, if a team draws a lot of fouls, that is good but it doesn't really show up in the pts/possession column, at least not directly. Drawing fouls is one of the most important statistics that is not recorded. You can infer it by how many FT a player shoots but the numbers will probably be off by a bit because only a fraction of drawn fouls result in FTs. You can do a lot by drawing fouls. You get the opposing team in the penalty, eliminating strategic options, you can get their best players out of the game (a huge and underrated and unrecorded statistic) and you get to shoot easy shots to put points up on the board and freeze the clock. One might argue that the best teams are the ones that most effectively foul (or not foul)and draw fouls. Some players are much better at drawing fouls than others. Jordan, Bird and Magic all drew tons of fouls. Factor that in and those guys move up the list.

So the subject of fouling is neglected, important and very accessible to analysis, since the information is avaialble from game logs you can lift off of ESPN. It's just a matter of deciding how to weight them. Certainly, it would be easy to start just by counting drawn fouls.

Aaron's Baseball Blog - Basketball (February 9, 2004)

Discussion Thread

Posted 9:21 p.m., February 12, 2004 (#69) - kevin
Rally,

Iverson takes a ton of bad shots. The degree of difficulty quotient on his shots are probably the highest in the league. It really hurts the Sixers when he does that. But he makes up for it by drawing fouls and getting to the line a lot. He shoots a ton of freebies. That helps his teammates by giving them a blow so they can conserve their energy for defense. That's why the Sixers suffer when he is out.

He also gets a lot of points off of steals. And his passing has gotten better. His assist totals are very good for a 2.

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