Hollinger's new stat

[Rastapopoulos]

John "PER" Hollinger has a new stat - VA (or "value added"). According to this stat, Brandon is the 6th best player in the league (now ahead of Tim Duncan), and Kobe Bryant should not even be in the MVP discussion. Also Greg and Rudy are the 10th and 11th best rookies, and Brook Lopez is ROY. I don't know what to think about it, but its ranking of PGs is interesting: turns out that a PG better than Deron Williams, Chauncey Billups, Steve Nash, Rajon Rondo, Jose Calderon or Derek Rose will be available on the FA market this summer...

 

[MIXUM]

for the morons who said we dont need miller... please watch mondays game a few times.

those same morons think "sergio" is the future

andre miller would be a MASSIVE UPGRADE AT PG... blake backs up and bayless watches.

 

[Minstrel]

Value Added seems to be a complement to PER. PER is basically an efficiency stat...it tells you how effective the player is when he's on the court. VA is a cumulative stat, so playing more minutes makes a huge difference (as it should...not playing reduces your value a lot). Thus, Oden is great by PER but, since he can't stay on the floor for big minutes, his VA is poor.

 

[oldmangrouch]

Some interesting notes.

LMA rates quite well.

Neither Oden nor Joel rank in the top 20 for centers.

Durant is second, albeit a distant second, at SF.

I hope we can somehow make a play for Miller. Will we have enough cap room? Can we lure Philly into a S&T?

Forget "bake it".....let's shake it (up)!

 

[oldmangrouch]

Value Added seems to be a complement to PER. PER is basically an efficiency stat...it tells you how effective the player is when he's on the court. VA is a cumulative stat, so playing more minutes makes a huge difference (as it should...not playing reduces your value a lot). Thus, Oden is great by PER but, since he can't stay on the floor for big minutes, his VA is poor.

Exactly. Some fans are fixated on Oden's occasional bursts of good play. This metric is slap upside the head from reality. Over the course of the season, his contribution to the team has been alarmingly modest.

 

[Minstrel]

Exactly. Some fans are fixated on Oden's occasional bursts of good play. This metric is slap upside the head from reality.

Not really. Not very many people have been arguing that Oden has been a tremendously valuable player for the whole season. They've just been pointing out that he's been excellent when on the court, so hardly a bust from a talent point of view.

His main problems have been fouls and injury. Fouls are almost sure to disappear as a problem over time, as he gets experience. That leaves injuries as the concern. None of us know the future on that issue, but it's at least nice to know that when Oden is healthy, his talent is as advertised.

 

[maxiep]

for the morons who said we dont need miller... please watch mondays game a few times.

those same morons think "sergio" is the future

andre miller would be a MASSIVE UPGRADE AT PG... blake backs up and bayless watches.

I appreciate and acknowledge your expertise in the area of moronitude.

 

[maxiep]

Exactly. Some fans are fixated on Oden's occasional bursts of good play. This metric is slap upside the head from reality. Over the course of the season, his contribution to the team has been alarmingly modest.

Are you kidding me? His impact on the game when he's in is huge. It doesn't always show up in the stats, but GO is a remarkably effective player when he's in the game. Only injuries and the striped shirts are keeping him from complete dominance.

 

[rocketeer]

for the morons who said we dont need miller... please watch mondays game a few times.

it would be incredibly dumb to base any decisions on one game. for the morons who say the blazers need andre miller, please watch the nets game that bayless took over a few times.

 

[hasoos]

What? Andre Miller playing well in a contract year? No fucking way! That has never happened before...

 

[GrandpaBlaze]

Exactly. Some fans are fixated on Oden's occasional bursts of good play. This metric is slap upside the head from reality. Over the course of the season, his contribution to the team has been alarmingly modest.

Are you kidding me? His impact on the game when he's in is huge. It doesn't always show up in the stats, but GO is a remarkably effective player when he's in the game. Only injuries and the striped shirts are keeping him from complete dominance.

I don't think he isn't saying his contribution when in the game is modest, but that his contribution to the Blazers, overall this year, is modest. I don't think most reasonable people will deny that when in the game (with some exceptions), Oden has a pretty significant impact. The issue is not his impact when in the game, but his TOTAL impact which, this year, has been "modest" due to either injuries or fouls which have limited his time on the court.

If Roy suffered the same injury/foul issues, we would all agree that when on the court, he has a huge impact; but that due to the fact that his time on-court is limited, his total impact (toward seasonal success) is modest.

If a highly effective player can only play a short period of time each game, his overall impact on the game is thereby limited.

At least, that is how I interpret OMG's comments.

Gramps...

 

[huevonkiller]

Value Added seems to be a complement to PER. PER is basically an efficiency stat...it tells you how effective the player is when he's on the court. VA is a cumulative stat, so playing more minutes makes a huge difference (as it should...not playing reduces your value a lot). Thus, Oden is great by PER but, since he can't stay on the floor for big minutes, his VA is poor.

I like this concept of Value Added more than PER, how long one is on the court should indeed be taken into account. I haven't see his ratings for past VA seasons though, I'll hold off complete judgment until I get a better look at that. It seems it still does not account for defense though.

 

[oldmangrouch]

I don't think he isn't saying his contribution when in the game is modest, but that his contribution to the Blazers, overall this year, is modest. I don't think most reasonable people will deny that when in the game (with some exceptions), Oden has a pretty significant impact. The issue is not his impact when in the game, but his TOTAL impact which, this year, has been "modest" due to either injuries or fouls which have limited his time on the court.

If Roy suffered the same injury/foul issues, we would all agree that when on the court, he has a huge impact; but that due to the fact that his time on-court is limited, his total impact (toward seasonal success) is modest.

If a highly effective player can only play a short period of time each game, his overall impact on the game is thereby limited.

At least, that is how I interpret OMG's comments.

Gramps...

Exactly correct. Thank you.

 

[BlazerCaravan]

Oden's "Estimated Wins Added" is 4.0, though. Given that we're 3 games better than we were last year... that's pretty dang close to reality. It's probably that close because Channing Frye was his replacement, and is a 12th Man Off The Bench guy.

I wonder if you can take the 4.0 EWA, divide by his games played, then multiply by 75 or 82 to get how his season would have been without the injuries...

 

[Da_O]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangulation_(social_science)

My position:

Stats can be flawed

Human cognition can be flawed

Stats can be valuable

Human cognition can be valuable

Because both of these things can be flawed or valuable, use both of them in conjunction to form your opinion. Using one in isolation leaves you more prone to errors in judgment.

 

[STOMP]

What? Andre Miller playing well in a contract year? No fucking way! That has never happened before...

his PER is 19.1 all the way up from 18.4 last year... he's missed a total of 5 games in his 10 years in the league

With a career PER of 18.0, maybe dude is pretty good?

http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/m/millean02.html

STOMP

 

[Minstrel]

I like this concept of Value Added more than PER, how long one is on the court should indeed be taken into account. I haven't see his ratings for past VA seasons though, I'll hold off complete judgment until I get a better look at that. It seems it still does not account for defense though.

I like the idea of both. It's good to have both an efficiency measure and a value measure. Oden may not have been hugely valuable this season, but his efficiency shows that he certainly can be when/if he plays more minutes.

 

[Денг Гордон]

I don't understand John Hollinger. He has Russell Westbrook ahead of Derrick Rose in the rookie ratings despite Rose dominating Westbrook the week before, but not only that, he now has a higher PER than Westbrook! Be consistent in using your own stat for goodness sake.

 

[Draco]

Forget "bake it".....let's shake it (up)!

HAHA Yes! I'm hungry for some SHake N' Bake!

 

[MARIS61]

Fairly useless stat for measuring players, but maybe helpful in rating a coach's decisions, since he's the guy who decides how many minutes each player plays.

Making it even less useful is the disparity of depth from team to team, so one team may only be able to play 6-7 guys big minutes while the Blazers and some others could easily play 10 guys every night.

 

[oldmangrouch]

Fairly useless stat for measuring players, but maybe helpful in rating a coach's decisions, since he's the guy who decides how many minutes each player plays.

Making it even less useful is the disparity of depth from team to team, so one team may only be able to play 6-7 guys big minutes while the Blazers and some others could easily play 10 guys every night.

An interesting observation, but not really relevant to Oden.

 

[rocketeer]

An interesting observation, but not really relevant to Oden.

was this thread specifically about oden?

 

[oldmangrouch]

was this thread specifically about oden?

No, but he is the *Blazer* player whose rating was under discussion.

If you want to pick nits, Maris' observation is also irrelevant to the Westbrook v Rose example that was raised. Neither of those players has been held back by their coaches either.

 

[axs88]

I don't understand John Hollinger. He has Russell Westbrook ahead of Derrick Rose in the rookie ratings despite Rose dominating Westbrook the week before, but not only that, he now has a higher PER than Westbrook! Be consistent in using your own stat for goodness sake.

The Rookie Rankings on ESPN is done by David Thorpe and he is just jerking that list around every week (except Westbrook has been at the top since forever -- I think his justification for that is Westbrook's defense). Hollinger doesn't do subjective rankings, only stats. Rose is ahead of Wesbrook in both VA and PER.

 

[The Sebastian Express]

No, but he is the *Blazer* player whose rating was under discussion.

If you want to pick nits, Maris' observation is also irrelevant to the Westbrook v Rose example that was raised. Neither of those players has been held back by their coaches either.

It is more likely Maris' observation was aimed towards the general concept of VA which would make it relevant to the overall picture.

 

[Denny Crane]

The stat is what the stat is.

I like Hollinger's line of thinking in coming up with the stat. A big criticism of PER is that some guy plays 10 minutes a game and has a big PER so people tend to extrapolate that to 36 minute kind of production. It doesn't work that way - at 10 per game, the guy might be playing against opponents' 2nd and 3rd stringers while at 36 per game he'd be shut down by bigger and faster players from the 1st string.

The benefit of this stat is also it's biggest flaw. A player's VA is higher if the coach plays him a lot. A guy like Jamal Crawford could rank pretty high if given enough minutes.

It's a good thing to "penalize" Oden for his inability to stay on the court or play a lot of games. You do want to quantify that kind of thing.

It's not a head to head kind of comparison at all. What Westbrook did vs. Rose or vice versa is irrelevant.