Yesterday in my MVP post I came up with points over Par. A nice simple metric to rate scoring . It goes like so:
Four simple steps:
- Figure out the average league points per shot for the league. For 2011 its 1.225 points per Field Goal Attempt
- Find Shots taken and Points made for the player
- Multiply Shots (FGA) times average league points per game. This is Par or the average points expected for those shots.
- Calculate Points over par . Points -Par
Quick example: If a player gets 20 points on 22 FGA his Points over par are:
Par= 20 FGA* 1.225 pts/FGA= 24.5 expected points
Points over Par= 20 points -24.5 expected points = -4.5 points below par (and being below par is bad not good).
Today I take it out for a quick spin because it occurs to me I can use this metric to identify overrated and underrated scorers.
Evil Plan? What do you mean?
How so? The trick is to normalize (i.e calculate how much of an outlier for a particular stat a particular player is versus the typical nba player by measuring standard deviations from the mean) . The media and pundits focus on high scoring because it’s an extremely easy to identify outlier. By Normalizing for total points and points over par we will be able to quickly identify the largest perception differences.
But enough with the explanations, let’s get to today’s program.
Every player with >1000 Minutes Played sorted from must underrated scorer (our MVP Mr. Howard of course) to the most overrated scorer (Hint he plays for the Warriors, no not that guy and no not the other one). Enjoy.
Remember kids, the name of the game is not good/bad but overrated/underrated.
Leon
05/06/2011
Am I right in thinking (as a mathematician/economist) that the optimum would be to equalize everybody at 0?
If so are the best coaches the ones that are the closest at achieving this? (using my eyeball – Pop?)
arturogalletti
05/06/2011
Leon,
Yes. If you minimize the differential between perceived results and actual results you should be at the point of optimum efficiency.
I can rerun this adding teams into the mix (good for a followup post).
Rex
05/06/2011
Am I right that Norm Pts is std dev from mean *total* points scored?
If so, the shooting stat that gets quoted all the time isn’t total points, but points per game. So shouldn’t the latter be used as the proxy for public perception of shooting?
Your Norm Points over Par would then correct for two things, scoring from volume shooting and from “volume playing” (both total games and minutes per game played).
Doubt this would change the rankings all that much, but might be worth looking at.
arturogalletti
05/06/2011
Rex,
I thought about that . I ended up going with total points as I felt that volume drives and influences the perception as well . Points per 48 would be a better measure but I’m not going for better, I’m trying to quantify the irrational perception (so points and often).
Again, alsomaterial for a followup. I also thought about adding in TOV (or teeing from the pro tee).
Dan
05/06/2011
Very cool stuff. Any chance you could republish this data comparing the players at each position? It obviously makes sense that centers and forwards should dominate the top of the rankings (plus top three-point shooters), but I’d be interesting in seeing how the rest of the league stacks up against just their positional counterparts.
arturogalletti
05/06/2011
Dan,
)
I can do this as well. Ian Levy has done some interesting work with expected scoring by type of shot. I was going for meat and potatoes here though. It is important that Bigs who pound it inside and 3 Pt sharpshooter should always be option #1 (I hope no one tells the Lakers
Crow
05/06/2011
I am not sure about the value of stepping back to points per FGA or points over PAR. Points per play was a far better. more complete scoring metric. Points per FGA will advantage players who use additional possessions and get lots of points from the line. It is generally appropriate to reward that efficient activity but taking the points from it but not the possessions used skews the player comparison in a significant way, away that in my opinion should be avoid / left behind, not revived, in my opinion.
Crow
05/06/2011
I am not sure about the value of stepping back to points per FGA or points over PAR. Points per play was a far better. more complete scoring metric. Points per FGA will advantage players who use additional possessions and get lots of points from the line. It is generally appropriate to reward that efficient activity but taking the points from it but not the possessions used skews the player comparison in a significant way, away that in my opinion should be avoided / left behind, not revived, in my opinion.
Crow
05/06/2011
Sorry for the accidental double post. I always see a typo too late and tried to correct it. But too late this time.
arturogalletti
05/06/2011
Crow,
As I said, I’ll probably add Turnovers into the equation and that’ll give me a good quick benchmark. I know Points per Play is better but I’m skewing the curve towards the #DeadBasketballPoetsSociety
Evan
05/06/2011
Should these be position adjusted? Just looking at the top, it seems that big men tend to be underrated more often. That also makes sense, since big men tend to take fewer shots, and those they do take a close to the rim.
Little men though are going to rely on jump shots and 3pts more often, putting their points above par lower as those are lower % chances; contested or not.
BPS
05/07/2011
It’s not position related but usage related – which is kinda the point of this particular exercise. But what you’re seeing at the top is that the two metrics (total scoring and PoP) have different zero points, which automatically helps guys who don’t shoot. I.E., a theoretical guy who never shoots (1.7 by this metric, which puts him in top 10 underrated on offense…despite never shooting the ball.
That’s actually not all that different from Ben Wallace, who I really struggle to call ‘underrated’ on offense.
But I’m not sure what the right correction for that is.
EntityAbyss
05/07/2011
Arturo, I don’t know how your numbers got the Mavs winning the lakers series, but you were right. The Mavs are gonna win.