Latrinsorm
03-25-2014, 01:37 PM
So I really liked that tiers idea that was revealed to me by a loving God in the main NBA thread, and decided to blow it out. Here's how it goes:
tier 1 - >30 PER and >.300 WS/48
tier 2 - >25 PER and >.250 WS/48 and [>30 PER or >.300 WS/48]
tier 3 - >25 PER and >.250 WS/48
.
.
.
tier 12 - >0 PER and >.000 WS/48 and [>5 PER or >.050 WS/48]
tier 13 - >0 PER and >.000 WS/48
tier 14 - >-5 PER and >-.050 WS/48 and [>0 PER or >.000 WS/48]
Obviously we're going to see a normal sort of distribution where the middle tiers are densely populated and the fringes hardly at all. It is technically possible for the tiers to extend indefinitely, but it so happens that no one has played at least 1000 minutes and recorded a season worse than tier 14. The two that have:
Nikoloz Tskitishvili in his rookie year, the fifth overall pick(!) who put up 4.9 PER and -.035 WS/48 for the 2003 Nuggets thanks in large part to incredibly shooting 29.3% from the floor and 24.3% from 3 on 152(!!!) attempts, although to be fair he was at a crippling disadvantage due to Georgian vowel shortages (thanks a lot, Stalin). He would play a total of 626 minutes over the next 3 years before his NBA career mercifully ended. Clearly he should have gone to college first... except this way he made $8.9m dollars, so probably not.
Jungle Jim Loscutoff on the 1961 champion Celtics(!!!) put up 3.1 and -.036. His absolute shooting was as bad as the big Tsk's at 30.1%, although the shooting in his era was much worse so on a relative level it wasn't as big a deal. He also hurt himself by recording a total of 25 assists in 1153 minutes played, which... jeez, Jim. To be fair it does look like he had major injuries in '58 and '60 that he never fully recovered from, and he does have more rings than Kobe so therefore Kobe sucks hahahahahahaha.
.
So we've got these tiers, and before we see who falls where, wouldn't it be interesting if this analysis gave us a metric to define "superstar"? The first page of google results define them as so:
Jordan (yes)
LeBron (yes)
Carmelo (no)
Chris Paul (no, but really really close)
Paul George (no)
Magic (yes)
Bird (yes)
Erving (yes)
Barkley (yes, or in any event a hell of a lot closer than Carmelo)
Dirk (no)
Bosh (no)
Steph Curry (no)
A hard and fast metric is what we need, and a hard and fast metric is what we deserve. Let's see if we can put the tiers into words:
1 - all-time, for real
2 - all-time
3 - superstar
4 - elite
5 - all-NBA
6 - all-star
7 - star
8 - starter
9 - 6th man
10 - bench
11 - deep bench
12 - scrub
13 - bum
14 - all-time bum
For a quick read, let's look at this season's 234 players with >1000 MP.
all-time: Kevin Durant
superstar: LeBron James, Kevin Love, Chris Paul
elite: Anthony Davis
all-NBA: Blake, Steph Curry, Harden, Lowry
all-star: Boogie, Carmelo, Westbrook, Dirk, Andre Drummond, Wade, Dragic, Howard, Duncan, Pekovic, Isaiah Thomas, Paul George, Noah, Ginobili, Conley, Chris Andersen
Pretty good, I'd say! 9 guys declared all-NBA, 25 all-Stars, that's pretty close to 10 and 24. It's a little awkward to have two bench guys two tiers above the starter level in Andersen and Ginobili, but San Antonio is a very quirky team in terms of minutes and I'm comfortable having a couple outliers in a 25 size sample. Here's the full list:
1
Kevin Durant
2
none
3
LeBron James
Kevin Love
Chris Paul
4
Anthony Davis
5
Blake Griffin
Stephen Curry
James Harden
Kyle Lowry
6
DeMarcus Cousins
Carmelo Anthony
Russell Westbrook
Dirk Nowitzki
Andre Drummond
Dwyane Wade
Goran Dragic
Dwight Howard
Tim Duncan
Nikola Pekovic
Isaiah Thomas
Paul George
Joakim Noah
Manu Ginobili
Mike Conley
Chris Andersen
7
Tony Parker
Chris Bosh
Serge Ibaka
David Lee
Damian Lillard
Kawhi Leonard
Terrence Jones
Patrick Mills
DeAndre Jordan
David West
Tyson Chandler
Andrew Bogut
Tiago Splitter
Robin Lopez
8
Al Jefferson
LaMarcus Aldridge
John Wall
Kyrie Irving
Paul Millsap
Ty Lawson
Eric Bledsoe
Kenneth Faried
Andray Blatche
Rudy Gay
Markieff Morris
Amar'e Stoudemire
Kris Humphries
DeMar DeRozan
Deron Williams
Jordan Hill
Nikola Vucevic
Derrick Favors
Zach Randolph
Greg Monroe
Marc Gasol
Jamal Crawford
Anderson Varejao
DeJuan Blair
Marcin Gortat
Jeremy Evans
Kosta Koufos
Kevin Martin
Arron Afflalo
Trevor Ariza
Darren Collison
Vince Carter
Taj Gibson
Paul Pierce
Tony Allen
Samuel Dalembert
Tobias Harris
Wesley Matthews
Amir Johnson
Ricky Rubio
Gerald Green
Nicolas Batum
Timofey Mozgov
Luol Deng
Marco Belinelli
D.J. Augustin
Chandler Parsons
Jose Calderon
Lance Stephenson
Patrick Patterson
George Hill
9
Marcus Morris
Boris Diaw
Jonas Valanciunas
Trevor Booker
Roy Hibbert
Courtney Lee
Shaun Livingston
Jeremy Lin
Kyle Korver
DeMarre Carroll
Elton Brand
Mario Chalmers
Klay Thompson
Jimmy Butler
Channing Frye
Pablo Prigioni
Josh McRoberts
P.J. Tucker
Jeremy Lamb
Andre Iguodala
Danny Green
C.J. Watson
Mike Dunleavy
Draymond Green
Patrick Beverley
Mike Miller
Nick Collison
Martell Webster
Thabo Sefolosha
Steven Adams
Derek Fisher
Anthony Tolliver
10
Pau Gasol
Tyreke Evans
John Henson
Jrue Holiday
Kemba Walker
Monta Ellis
Thaddeus Young
Jeff Teague
Brandon Knight
J.J. Hickson
Ramon Sessions
Nene Hilario
Gordon Hayward
Jared Sullinger
Brandon Jennings
Alec Burks
Mike Scott
Spencer Hawes
Enes Kanter
Reggie Jackson
Joe Johnson
Eric Gordon
Brandon Bass
Andrea Bargnani
Miles Plumlee
Jodie Meeks
Jordan Crawford
Tristan Thompson
Marvin Williams
Bradley Beal
Kelly Olynyk
Shawn Marion
Brian Roberts
Carlos Boozer
Jameer Nelson
Rodney Stuckey
Ersan Ilyasova
Mirza Teletovic
Omri Casspi
Gerald Henderson
Al-Farouq Aminu
Jeff Green
Greivis Vasquez
Shelvin Mack
Kevin Garnett
Zaza Pachulia
Glen Davis
Louis Williams
Khris Middleton
Ray Allen
Wilson Chandler
Luis Scola
Tim Hardaway
Randy Foye
Cody Zeller
Aaron Brooks
Nick Calathes
Derrick Williams
Anthony Morrow
Dante Cunningham
Maurice Harkless
Terrence Ross
Jerryd Bayless
Richard Jefferson
Jae Crowder
Mo Williams
Michael Kidd-Gilchrist
Steve Blake
Matt Barnes
Kyle Singler
Marcus Thornton
Corey Brewer
Jason Thompson
Kirk Hinrich
Ian Mahinmi
11
Harrison Barnes
Kentavious Caldwell-Pope
Jared Dudley
Shane Battier
Tony Snell
12
Michael Carter-Williams
Nick Young
Josh Smith
Victor Oladipo
Dion Waiters
Raymond Felton
Nate Wolters
Jose Barea
Evan Turner
Trey Burke
Avery Bradley
Kendall Marshall
J.R. Smith
Caron Butler
Jarrett Jack
O.J. Mayo
Giannis Antetokounmpo
Austin Rivers
James Anderson
Wesley Johnson
E'Twaun Moore
Gerald Wallace
Evan Fournier
Iman Shumpert
Alan Anderson
Hollis Thompson
Norris Cole
Tayshaun Prince
John Salmons
Ben McLemore
Kendrick Perkins
13
none
14
Tony Wroten
And here's the chart for members by tier:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v456/johnnyoldschool/NBATiers_zps48de663b.png
It's off-centered, obviously, because players who are great play more and players who are as bad as the greats are great stop playing. This doesn't have much effect on normalness of distribution because players who are great are also rare. The jaggedness is more important, but for only one season it doesn't look like a big deal to me.
.
Another thing we can do is look throughout history for the top 3 tiers and see who ends up where. As it turns out there are only 68 seasons that exceed 25 and .25, and they look like this:
8 Michael Jordan*
6 David Robinson*
5 Chris Paul
5 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar*
5 LeBron James
5 Shaquille O'Neal
5 Wilt Chamberlain*
4 Magic Johnson*
4 Neil Johnston*
3 Charles Barkley*
3 George Mikan*
3 Karl Malone*
2 Dirk Nowitzki
2 Kevin Durant
2 Kevin Garnett
1 Amar'e Stoudemire
1 Kevin Love
1 Oscar Robertson*
1 Paul Arizin*
1 Tim Duncan
1 Tracy McGrady
1 Amar'e Stoudemire
3 Charles Barkley*
5 Chris Paul
6 David Robinson*
2 Dirk Nowitzki
3 George Mikan*
5 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar*
3 Karl Malone*
2 Kevin Durant
2 Kevin Garnett
1 Kevin Love
5 LeBron James
4 Magic Johnson*
8 Michael Jordan*
4 Neil Johnston*
1 Oscar Robertson*
1 Paul Arizin*
5 Shaquille O'Neal
1 Tim Duncan
1 Tracy McGrady
5 Wilt Chamberlain*
So clearly the metric needs work. No Russell, no Larry, more Dirk than Duncan. If we go out to tier 4, we get:
11 Michael Jordan*
10 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar*
9 Karl Malone*
9 LeBron James
9 Shaquille O'Neal
9 Wilt Chamberlain*
8 David Robinson*
7 Charles Barkley*
6 Dwyane Wade
6 Oscar Robertson*
5 Bob Pettit*
5 Chris Paul
5 Kevin Garnett
5 Magic Johnson*
5 Neil Johnston*
5 Tim Duncan
4 Dirk Nowitzki
4 Kevin Durant
4 Larry Bird*
3 George Mikan*
3 Julius Erving*
3 Moses Malone*
2 Amar'e Stoudemire
2 Chauncey Billups
2 Dolph Schayes*
2 Dwight Howard
2 Ed Macauley*
2 Elgin Baylor*
2 Hakeem Olajuwon*
2 Jerry West*
2 Kevin Love
2 Kobe Bryant
2 Larry Foust
2 Yao Ming
Better, but still no Russell and still a lot of Karl. At the same time, the advanced stats from Russell's era can only be loose approximations anyway due to the records kept then. It would probably make more sense to go from merger-present, but I still think we can get some useful information from this; namely, Kobe sucks hahahahahahahaha. :)
tier 1 - >30 PER and >.300 WS/48
tier 2 - >25 PER and >.250 WS/48 and [>30 PER or >.300 WS/48]
tier 3 - >25 PER and >.250 WS/48
.
.
.
tier 12 - >0 PER and >.000 WS/48 and [>5 PER or >.050 WS/48]
tier 13 - >0 PER and >.000 WS/48
tier 14 - >-5 PER and >-.050 WS/48 and [>0 PER or >.000 WS/48]
Obviously we're going to see a normal sort of distribution where the middle tiers are densely populated and the fringes hardly at all. It is technically possible for the tiers to extend indefinitely, but it so happens that no one has played at least 1000 minutes and recorded a season worse than tier 14. The two that have:
Nikoloz Tskitishvili in his rookie year, the fifth overall pick(!) who put up 4.9 PER and -.035 WS/48 for the 2003 Nuggets thanks in large part to incredibly shooting 29.3% from the floor and 24.3% from 3 on 152(!!!) attempts, although to be fair he was at a crippling disadvantage due to Georgian vowel shortages (thanks a lot, Stalin). He would play a total of 626 minutes over the next 3 years before his NBA career mercifully ended. Clearly he should have gone to college first... except this way he made $8.9m dollars, so probably not.
Jungle Jim Loscutoff on the 1961 champion Celtics(!!!) put up 3.1 and -.036. His absolute shooting was as bad as the big Tsk's at 30.1%, although the shooting in his era was much worse so on a relative level it wasn't as big a deal. He also hurt himself by recording a total of 25 assists in 1153 minutes played, which... jeez, Jim. To be fair it does look like he had major injuries in '58 and '60 that he never fully recovered from, and he does have more rings than Kobe so therefore Kobe sucks hahahahahahaha.
.
So we've got these tiers, and before we see who falls where, wouldn't it be interesting if this analysis gave us a metric to define "superstar"? The first page of google results define them as so:
Jordan (yes)
LeBron (yes)
Carmelo (no)
Chris Paul (no, but really really close)
Paul George (no)
Magic (yes)
Bird (yes)
Erving (yes)
Barkley (yes, or in any event a hell of a lot closer than Carmelo)
Dirk (no)
Bosh (no)
Steph Curry (no)
A hard and fast metric is what we need, and a hard and fast metric is what we deserve. Let's see if we can put the tiers into words:
1 - all-time, for real
2 - all-time
3 - superstar
4 - elite
5 - all-NBA
6 - all-star
7 - star
8 - starter
9 - 6th man
10 - bench
11 - deep bench
12 - scrub
13 - bum
14 - all-time bum
For a quick read, let's look at this season's 234 players with >1000 MP.
all-time: Kevin Durant
superstar: LeBron James, Kevin Love, Chris Paul
elite: Anthony Davis
all-NBA: Blake, Steph Curry, Harden, Lowry
all-star: Boogie, Carmelo, Westbrook, Dirk, Andre Drummond, Wade, Dragic, Howard, Duncan, Pekovic, Isaiah Thomas, Paul George, Noah, Ginobili, Conley, Chris Andersen
Pretty good, I'd say! 9 guys declared all-NBA, 25 all-Stars, that's pretty close to 10 and 24. It's a little awkward to have two bench guys two tiers above the starter level in Andersen and Ginobili, but San Antonio is a very quirky team in terms of minutes and I'm comfortable having a couple outliers in a 25 size sample. Here's the full list:
1
Kevin Durant
2
none
3
LeBron James
Kevin Love
Chris Paul
4
Anthony Davis
5
Blake Griffin
Stephen Curry
James Harden
Kyle Lowry
6
DeMarcus Cousins
Carmelo Anthony
Russell Westbrook
Dirk Nowitzki
Andre Drummond
Dwyane Wade
Goran Dragic
Dwight Howard
Tim Duncan
Nikola Pekovic
Isaiah Thomas
Paul George
Joakim Noah
Manu Ginobili
Mike Conley
Chris Andersen
7
Tony Parker
Chris Bosh
Serge Ibaka
David Lee
Damian Lillard
Kawhi Leonard
Terrence Jones
Patrick Mills
DeAndre Jordan
David West
Tyson Chandler
Andrew Bogut
Tiago Splitter
Robin Lopez
8
Al Jefferson
LaMarcus Aldridge
John Wall
Kyrie Irving
Paul Millsap
Ty Lawson
Eric Bledsoe
Kenneth Faried
Andray Blatche
Rudy Gay
Markieff Morris
Amar'e Stoudemire
Kris Humphries
DeMar DeRozan
Deron Williams
Jordan Hill
Nikola Vucevic
Derrick Favors
Zach Randolph
Greg Monroe
Marc Gasol
Jamal Crawford
Anderson Varejao
DeJuan Blair
Marcin Gortat
Jeremy Evans
Kosta Koufos
Kevin Martin
Arron Afflalo
Trevor Ariza
Darren Collison
Vince Carter
Taj Gibson
Paul Pierce
Tony Allen
Samuel Dalembert
Tobias Harris
Wesley Matthews
Amir Johnson
Ricky Rubio
Gerald Green
Nicolas Batum
Timofey Mozgov
Luol Deng
Marco Belinelli
D.J. Augustin
Chandler Parsons
Jose Calderon
Lance Stephenson
Patrick Patterson
George Hill
9
Marcus Morris
Boris Diaw
Jonas Valanciunas
Trevor Booker
Roy Hibbert
Courtney Lee
Shaun Livingston
Jeremy Lin
Kyle Korver
DeMarre Carroll
Elton Brand
Mario Chalmers
Klay Thompson
Jimmy Butler
Channing Frye
Pablo Prigioni
Josh McRoberts
P.J. Tucker
Jeremy Lamb
Andre Iguodala
Danny Green
C.J. Watson
Mike Dunleavy
Draymond Green
Patrick Beverley
Mike Miller
Nick Collison
Martell Webster
Thabo Sefolosha
Steven Adams
Derek Fisher
Anthony Tolliver
10
Pau Gasol
Tyreke Evans
John Henson
Jrue Holiday
Kemba Walker
Monta Ellis
Thaddeus Young
Jeff Teague
Brandon Knight
J.J. Hickson
Ramon Sessions
Nene Hilario
Gordon Hayward
Jared Sullinger
Brandon Jennings
Alec Burks
Mike Scott
Spencer Hawes
Enes Kanter
Reggie Jackson
Joe Johnson
Eric Gordon
Brandon Bass
Andrea Bargnani
Miles Plumlee
Jodie Meeks
Jordan Crawford
Tristan Thompson
Marvin Williams
Bradley Beal
Kelly Olynyk
Shawn Marion
Brian Roberts
Carlos Boozer
Jameer Nelson
Rodney Stuckey
Ersan Ilyasova
Mirza Teletovic
Omri Casspi
Gerald Henderson
Al-Farouq Aminu
Jeff Green
Greivis Vasquez
Shelvin Mack
Kevin Garnett
Zaza Pachulia
Glen Davis
Louis Williams
Khris Middleton
Ray Allen
Wilson Chandler
Luis Scola
Tim Hardaway
Randy Foye
Cody Zeller
Aaron Brooks
Nick Calathes
Derrick Williams
Anthony Morrow
Dante Cunningham
Maurice Harkless
Terrence Ross
Jerryd Bayless
Richard Jefferson
Jae Crowder
Mo Williams
Michael Kidd-Gilchrist
Steve Blake
Matt Barnes
Kyle Singler
Marcus Thornton
Corey Brewer
Jason Thompson
Kirk Hinrich
Ian Mahinmi
11
Harrison Barnes
Kentavious Caldwell-Pope
Jared Dudley
Shane Battier
Tony Snell
12
Michael Carter-Williams
Nick Young
Josh Smith
Victor Oladipo
Dion Waiters
Raymond Felton
Nate Wolters
Jose Barea
Evan Turner
Trey Burke
Avery Bradley
Kendall Marshall
J.R. Smith
Caron Butler
Jarrett Jack
O.J. Mayo
Giannis Antetokounmpo
Austin Rivers
James Anderson
Wesley Johnson
E'Twaun Moore
Gerald Wallace
Evan Fournier
Iman Shumpert
Alan Anderson
Hollis Thompson
Norris Cole
Tayshaun Prince
John Salmons
Ben McLemore
Kendrick Perkins
13
none
14
Tony Wroten
And here's the chart for members by tier:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v456/johnnyoldschool/NBATiers_zps48de663b.png
It's off-centered, obviously, because players who are great play more and players who are as bad as the greats are great stop playing. This doesn't have much effect on normalness of distribution because players who are great are also rare. The jaggedness is more important, but for only one season it doesn't look like a big deal to me.
.
Another thing we can do is look throughout history for the top 3 tiers and see who ends up where. As it turns out there are only 68 seasons that exceed 25 and .25, and they look like this:
8 Michael Jordan*
6 David Robinson*
5 Chris Paul
5 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar*
5 LeBron James
5 Shaquille O'Neal
5 Wilt Chamberlain*
4 Magic Johnson*
4 Neil Johnston*
3 Charles Barkley*
3 George Mikan*
3 Karl Malone*
2 Dirk Nowitzki
2 Kevin Durant
2 Kevin Garnett
1 Amar'e Stoudemire
1 Kevin Love
1 Oscar Robertson*
1 Paul Arizin*
1 Tim Duncan
1 Tracy McGrady
1 Amar'e Stoudemire
3 Charles Barkley*
5 Chris Paul
6 David Robinson*
2 Dirk Nowitzki
3 George Mikan*
5 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar*
3 Karl Malone*
2 Kevin Durant
2 Kevin Garnett
1 Kevin Love
5 LeBron James
4 Magic Johnson*
8 Michael Jordan*
4 Neil Johnston*
1 Oscar Robertson*
1 Paul Arizin*
5 Shaquille O'Neal
1 Tim Duncan
1 Tracy McGrady
5 Wilt Chamberlain*
So clearly the metric needs work. No Russell, no Larry, more Dirk than Duncan. If we go out to tier 4, we get:
11 Michael Jordan*
10 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar*
9 Karl Malone*
9 LeBron James
9 Shaquille O'Neal
9 Wilt Chamberlain*
8 David Robinson*
7 Charles Barkley*
6 Dwyane Wade
6 Oscar Robertson*
5 Bob Pettit*
5 Chris Paul
5 Kevin Garnett
5 Magic Johnson*
5 Neil Johnston*
5 Tim Duncan
4 Dirk Nowitzki
4 Kevin Durant
4 Larry Bird*
3 George Mikan*
3 Julius Erving*
3 Moses Malone*
2 Amar'e Stoudemire
2 Chauncey Billups
2 Dolph Schayes*
2 Dwight Howard
2 Ed Macauley*
2 Elgin Baylor*
2 Hakeem Olajuwon*
2 Jerry West*
2 Kevin Love
2 Kobe Bryant
2 Larry Foust
2 Yao Ming
Better, but still no Russell and still a lot of Karl. At the same time, the advanced stats from Russell's era can only be loose approximations anyway due to the records kept then. It would probably make more sense to go from merger-present, but I still think we can get some useful information from this; namely, Kobe sucks hahahahahahahaha. :)