Basketball Statistics Blog

Friday Press Clippings:
Player Analysis through Advanced Statistics

From Chicago Now
By Doug Thonus
Download source here: ' Player Analysis through Advanced Statistics '

"... This isn't meant to take the place of actually watching games. I don't feel any player can be properly evaluated solely by their statistics, but when making an argument about whether a guy is a chucker or a scorer, there are simple measures that can objectively show which one of those is true. ..."

"... The most additional possessions one team can have vs their opponent in a game is one. If they get the starting possession and the ending one. Whether you win or not depends whether you score more points on your possessions.

I know this is obvious, but it's important. It should drive home the point that it's not how many points your team scores or holds the other team down to. It's how efficient you score yoru points or how inefficient you make your opponent...."

"... In my final precursor, let's talk about per minute statistics vs per game statistics. I used to not be a believe in per minute stats until someone put it to me this way.

If player A played 30 minutes in game 1 and scored 20 points and put up 10 rebounds, and his backup player B played 15 minutes in game 1 and 15 and game 2 and scored 20 points and grabbed 10 boards then they both played 30 minutes and had 20/10 over that stretch. ..."

"... I think my primary fault with PER is that, in my opinion, it may overvalue rebounders and usage a bit too much.

Reboundign is important, but the problem is rebounding is based so much on scheme. It's my feeling that there are far more uncontested rebounds than uncontested dunks in the game of basketball.

Thus players who play in the right system at the right possession collect more free rebounds than anyone else is able to collect free shots or other statistics. ..."

"... There are two primary flaws for TS%. First, it doesn't factor in turnovers, so a guy who throws the ball away like crazy will have an inflated TS% relative to his real offensive efficiency.

There's some good and some bad in that, because a PG who handles the ball shouldn't have his scoring ability taken away from turnovers generated trying to pass the ball. However, a guy who's making turnovers while trying to score should. ..."

"... For example, Michael Jordan had a huge usage rate, and that's a good thing for him. He's a dominant player and the team was helped by him taking 1/3rd of his teams possessions over his career.

Zach Randolph also has a high usage rate, and that's not such a good thing for his team, because Zach Randolph doesn't have a great TS%. His career average hovers around the league averaeg of 51-52%. ..."

Read more articles in Chicago Now.

To read Today's 'Press Clippings' in Spanish, click this week above on the 'Español' tab or afterwards click here: ' Básquetbol. Charla pre-partido, una herramienta estratégica ' por Martín Horacio Tesoro

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