Groat?

[DanH]

A quick glance at other top teams shows me your advanced stat tells but half the story. According to it, al horford is the batman, kyrie the robin. Draymond green is higher on the value list than durant. Clint capela has 2x the win shares of chris paul.

These advanced stats sure love the do all, savvy smart players (as do I) well not giving enough credit to the guy who EFFICIENTLY masters a classic old stat: PPG.

I've seen your biases in seasons past on posts. And I've watched every game this year. Lowry is my favorite, but derozan has been the best and most consistent player in the 1st half, end of.

Meh, he's using WP, probably the most obviously flawed win share stat. It dramatically overvalues rebounding, hence the Pippen/Rodman thing on the Bulls, and the Capela/Horford/Green thing (although I do think Horford has been gigantic for the Celtics this year).

WS is much simpler, and importantly doesn't rest on a flawed (IMO) valuation of rebounding. And is telling us for the first time that DeMar is the star producer on the team, even above Lowry. Lowry still wins in impact stats (BPM and RPM) but he might do that until he retires, he's an impact god.

[KeonClark]

Meh, he's using WP, probably the most obviously flawed win share stat. It dramatically overvalues rebounding, hence the Pippen/Rodman thing on the Bulls, and the Capela/Horford/Green thing (although I do think Horford has been gigantic for the Celtics this year).

WS is much simpler, and importantly doesn't rest on a flawed (IMO) valuation of rebounding. And is telling us for the first time that DeMar is the star producer on the team, even above Lowry. Lowry still wins in impact stats (BPM and RPM) but he might do that until he retires, he's an impact god.

Ok that makes a lot more sense. And I don't think Demar has been a TON better. I had kyle the better player thru November. DeMar passed him but it still could change as the season wears on. As majesiu said they're really a fantastic complimentary duo. But just as far as age difference and durability etc I'm calling the passing of the torch officially in this season, and the first time ever in his career demar could stake his claim as the raptors top dog

[Nilanka]

Stats aside, the eye test also shows that DeRozan is the one carrying the team so far this season.

[KeonClark]

Stats aside, the eye test also shows that DeRozan is the one carrying the team so far this season.

I'll nitpick the word choice. He's been the best player on a deep team. Harden and lebron and westbrook (though westbrook mostly last year) - those guys "carry" teams

[Nilanka]

I'll nitpick the word choice. He's been the best player on a deep team. Harden and lebron and westbrook (though westbrook mostly last year) - those guys "carry" teams

How about "doing the most heavy lifting on the team"?

[KeonClark]

How about "doing the most heavy lifting on the team"?

Depends- does he lift with his knees or his back

[S.R.]

Alvin Williams votes DeMar:



From http://www.sportsnet.ca/basketball/n...ptors-history/

[Quirk]

Meh, he's using WP, probably the most obviously flawed win share stat. It dramatically overvalues rebounding, hence the Pippen/Rodman thing on the Bulls, and the Capela/Horford/Green thing (although I do think Horford has been gigantic for the Celtics this year).

WS is much simpler, and importantly doesn't rest on a flawed (IMO) valuation of rebounding. And is telling us for the first time that DeMar is the star producer on the team, even above Lowry. Lowry still wins in impact stats (BPM and RPM) but he might do that until he retires, he's an impact god.

I'm certainly interested in your opinion, but that's all it is. Obviously David Berri and co have a different opinion, which they have explained, defended and elaborated on at length, including in two books, wages of wins and stumbling on wins.

The boxscoregeeks site is a great resource, while adding other information is always welcome, rejecting it out of hand is not compelling. It just amounts to a claim that you think you are smarter than David Berri, which is not a claim I'm able to evaluate, even if true.

If you have different resource that you feel shows DeRozan is better than Lowry, feel free to share it.

[Scraptor]

That looks pretty much spot on to me, Jordan in his 12th year, was already in decline, while still playing at a superstar level, on a very good, deep team, with two other superstars in Rodman and Pippen and great role player in Kerr.

At some point I think you need to step back from the advanced stat and say, does this make sense?

Jordan put up about 30/6/4 on 56.7%TS with 1.7 steals and 0.5 blocks per game for 82 games.

Rodman put up 6/16/3 on 47.9%TS with 0.6 steals and 0.3 blocks for 55 games.

If you honestly think that Rodman's contributions were superior to Jordan's, I don't know what to tell you. You seem to be treating a numerical model as an absolute and infallible truth, and allowing it to determine your narrative. That kind of statistical zealotry leads to ignoring reasonable, rational thinking.

Personally I think that kind of contrarianism is just a way to feel smarter than everyone else (which you made clear by trying to invoking the smartness of Dave Berri).

[Mitch P]

I don't know if this analogy makes sense but I compare it to the functioning of a hospital. If there were no janitors the whole place would have to stop functioning....just like if there were no doctors. So if there was some way to quantify that, the janitor's role is just as important. However.....the skill level required and relative rarity of the doctor makes them ultimately more valuable (reflected in earnings). Rodman was elite at what he did but there are more players who can do those things.....almost none who can do what Jordan did.

[DanH]

I'm certainly interested in your opinion, but that's all it is. Obviously David Berri and co have a different opinion, which they have explained, defended and elaborated on at length, including in two books, wages of wins and stumbling on wins.

The boxscoregeeks site is a great resource, while adding other information is always welcome, rejecting it out of hand is not compelling. It just amounts to a claim that you think you are smarter than David Berri, which is not a claim I'm able to evaluate, even if true.

If you have different resource that you feel shows DeRozan is better than Lowry, feel free to share it.

The majority of NBA stats minds have condemned Berri. People way smarter than I am. But the failures of the stat are obvious if you dig into it - it’s logically inconsistent with the way it values rebounds, scores and stops.

[3inthekeon]

The majority of NBA stats minds have condemned Berri. People way smarter than I am. But the failures of the stat are obvious if you dig into it - it’s logically inconsistent with the way it values rebounds, scores and stops.

Look at the leaderboard in Berri's WP thus far. DeAndre Jordan #1, Andre Drummond #2, Clint Capela #5 and Steven Adams #6. All good players, but 4 of the 6 most valuable players in the league this season? Yeah, logically inconsistent sums it up.

And on the subject of advanced stats, anyone who uses them should read this breakdown from Kevin Pelton. I bolded the last line for good reason. I've been guilty of that myself in the past.

Some stats (PER here) rate players on a per-minute basis, while others rate the value they've provided, factoring in playing time (win shares) and replacement level (VORP). Oftentimes, you'll see the same stat used in both ways: Win shares per 48 minutes is a per-minute stat, as is box plus-minus (used to create VORP). Meanwhile, PER can be translated into EWA (estimated wins added), a value stat.

In addition to the three you mentioned, all available on Basketball-Reference.com, there are two other all-in-one metrics I consider: my own wins above replacement player (WARP) metric and ESPN's real plus-minus (RPM), which is used to calculate RPM WAR.

RPM is unique among these stats because it incorporates plus-minus data, adjusted for teammates and opponents, while also utilizing box-score stats for stability. Even with them, RPM tends to be noisier than box-score stats, so it can fluctuate from season to season. (The version of RPM on ESPN.com incorporates only data from the current season; there's also a multiyear version that I use for projections that is not quite as noisy but also tells us less about what has happened this season.) The upside is that RPM can capture skills that aren't tracked in the box score, particularly on the defensive end of the court.

Box plus-minus was designed to replicate RPM using only box-score stats. (Specifically, it's a regression that's built to value component stats like offensive and defensive rebound percentages by how well they predict a player's regularized adjusted plus-minus, the predecessor of RPM that uses only plus-minus data and no box-score stats.) Therefore, the weights on different stats are well-calibrated in box plus-minus, though the use of interaction terms -- assists are multiplied by defensive rebounds, for example -- can create problems when players like Russell Westbrook go beyond the historical norms for these stats.

WARP is probably most similar to box plus-minus. While it wasn't built off a regression, I've also used adjusted plus-minus to calibrate WARP, adding value to 3-point attempts to account for how players with many of them tended to outperform their WARP in terms of team impact. The key difference is WARP doesn't have any of the interaction terms in box plus-minus.

Those three are the stats I utilize the most because I think they're the best at isolating player value. Because win shares attributes all of a team's defensive performance to individuals, it tends to be more sensitive to team success than other all-in-one stats. On the other hand, PER puts relatively low value on defensive stats and does not account for team defense whatsoever, meaning it primarily captures offensive value. PER also tends to overvalue players with high usage rates at the expense of those who are more efficient.

Because of the varying strengths and weaknesses I've laid out, I think it's useful to consider multiple all-in-one stats while using the eye test to help explain the differences between them and where they might not fully capture a player value. Do be careful, however, of looking at various stats until you find the one that confirms the conclusion you already wanted to draw.

[Puffer]

Look at the leaderboard in Berri's WP thus far. DeAndre Jordan #1, Andre Drummond #2, Clint Capela #5 and Steven Adams #6. All good players, but 4 of the 6 most valuable players in the league this season? Yeah, logically inconsistent sums it up.

And on the subject of advanced stats, anyone who uses them should read this breakdown from Kevin Pelton. I bolded the last line for good reason. I've been guilty of that myself in the past.

Great piece. Most of us simply want to confirm our own particular bias, so now I have a nice line up of tools to use. ��

[SkywalkerAC]

It was DeMar for me before this season, now it's DeMar by a landslide.

[Quirk]

The majority of NBA stats minds have condemned Berri. People way smarter than I am. But the failures of the stat are obvious if you dig into it - it’s logically inconsistent with the way it values rebounds, scores and stops.

Do you have resource that you prefer to WP that illustrates that DeRozan is better than Lowry this year? If so, I'd be really interested in knowing about it.

If not, then, then your opinion of Berri is not really helpful.

Also, if you in general know statistical communities that are as active as the WP community, and put usesable and up-to-date tools on line, I would like to know about them regardless of how they rank DeRozan.

I'm very happy with how DeRozan is playing this year. Ranking him above Lowry sounds dubious by any measure.