Latrinsorm
11-11-2014, 10:12 PM
The VORP I was talking about in the other thread is based on Box Plus Minus, which tries to turn everything in the box score directly into a points per 100 possessions stat, like ORtg and DRtg but better because it actually works. For starters, if you give me the BPM and MP of every player on a team I can very accurately give you the team's net Rtg. It's also quite nicely correlated with on-off. I had thought it would be correlated with ±, but that was very wrong.
Who cares?
Well, actual on-off stats only go back to 2001, but full box scores go back to 1974. This means we can get a very good estimate of on-off for many players who had heretofore been relegated to the shadows of the statistical world. (The same caveats of all box score stats do apply: defense is not well modeled, etc.) Here are some players I find interesting:
avg black max min neg name
8.7 8 12.2 1.9 0 LeBron James
7.4 5 11.6 0.8 0 Michael Jordan
7.1 1 9.3 3.8 0 Charles Barkley
6.8 4 8.8 5.0 0 Larry Bird
6.8 1 9.1 5.1 0 Magic Johnson
6.8 0 10.3 4.2 0 Chris Paul
6.7 6 9.9 2.0 0 David Robinson
5.7 0 8.0 1.1 0 Clyde Drexler
5.7 1 9.9 1.3 0 Dwyane Wade
5.6 0 7.7 2.6 0 Manu Ginobili
5.2 6 9.6 -2.1 2 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
5.1 1 7.0 2.1 0 Tim Duncan
5.0 2 9.2 -1.9 1 Kevin Garnett
5.0 1 7.9 -0.1 1 Karl Malone
4.8 2 7.6 0.9 0 Julius Erving
4.5 1 8.8 -0.6 2 Shaquille O'Neal
4.0 0 5.9 -1.3 1 Kobe Bryant
The columns are (in order) the player's career BPM, the number of years leading the NBA, the maximum year, the minimum year, and the number of years in the red. I only included partial seasons in the first figure, so neither Kobe's -4.9 last year nor his -3.5 so far this year count as a negative year. Note that Kareem is probably underrated by this metric, as his second through fourth years took place before 1974 and were statistically incredible, but his career was so long that they wouldn't move his career number by much.
Chris Paul, man. There are eight years with double-digit BPM, seven of which were good for the league lead (five LeBron, two Jordan). The eighth is Chris Paul 2009, when LeBron posted the highest BPM ever. Meanwhile that bum Vince Carter led the league with a 6.6 in 2001. Throw in his having an MVP year when everyone decided to give it to Kobe, and he's got just the worst timing.
Bird and Magic are incredibly consistent, and it's really interesting to see a composite metric where Bird is competitive with Magic, usually Magic beats him pretty easily. The two Spurs are also quite consistent, though to me Duncan's is more impressive given how Bird and Magic only played 12 years while he's played 17 (and is on track to be above his min this year). It's also bizarre how outside of Kobe (who clearly doesn't belong) Duncan has the lowest max but kind of fitting.
basketball-reference.com hasn't compiled this stat for the playoffs yet, but THAT is going to be REALLY fascinating. Not just for who has the highest, but for how everyone compares with their own regular season numbers.
Who cares?
Well, actual on-off stats only go back to 2001, but full box scores go back to 1974. This means we can get a very good estimate of on-off for many players who had heretofore been relegated to the shadows of the statistical world. (The same caveats of all box score stats do apply: defense is not well modeled, etc.) Here are some players I find interesting:
avg black max min neg name
8.7 8 12.2 1.9 0 LeBron James
7.4 5 11.6 0.8 0 Michael Jordan
7.1 1 9.3 3.8 0 Charles Barkley
6.8 4 8.8 5.0 0 Larry Bird
6.8 1 9.1 5.1 0 Magic Johnson
6.8 0 10.3 4.2 0 Chris Paul
6.7 6 9.9 2.0 0 David Robinson
5.7 0 8.0 1.1 0 Clyde Drexler
5.7 1 9.9 1.3 0 Dwyane Wade
5.6 0 7.7 2.6 0 Manu Ginobili
5.2 6 9.6 -2.1 2 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
5.1 1 7.0 2.1 0 Tim Duncan
5.0 2 9.2 -1.9 1 Kevin Garnett
5.0 1 7.9 -0.1 1 Karl Malone
4.8 2 7.6 0.9 0 Julius Erving
4.5 1 8.8 -0.6 2 Shaquille O'Neal
4.0 0 5.9 -1.3 1 Kobe Bryant
The columns are (in order) the player's career BPM, the number of years leading the NBA, the maximum year, the minimum year, and the number of years in the red. I only included partial seasons in the first figure, so neither Kobe's -4.9 last year nor his -3.5 so far this year count as a negative year. Note that Kareem is probably underrated by this metric, as his second through fourth years took place before 1974 and were statistically incredible, but his career was so long that they wouldn't move his career number by much.
Chris Paul, man. There are eight years with double-digit BPM, seven of which were good for the league lead (five LeBron, two Jordan). The eighth is Chris Paul 2009, when LeBron posted the highest BPM ever. Meanwhile that bum Vince Carter led the league with a 6.6 in 2001. Throw in his having an MVP year when everyone decided to give it to Kobe, and he's got just the worst timing.
Bird and Magic are incredibly consistent, and it's really interesting to see a composite metric where Bird is competitive with Magic, usually Magic beats him pretty easily. The two Spurs are also quite consistent, though to me Duncan's is more impressive given how Bird and Magic only played 12 years while he's played 17 (and is on track to be above his min this year). It's also bizarre how outside of Kobe (who clearly doesn't belong) Duncan has the lowest max but kind of fitting.
basketball-reference.com hasn't compiled this stat for the playoffs yet, but THAT is going to be REALLY fascinating. Not just for who has the highest, but for how everyone compares with their own regular season numbers.