Oden: 2nd Best PER for a Second-Year Player in Last Ten Years

[Nikolokolus]

I'd happily exchange this silly stat for Oden posting a 19 or 20 PER and playing in 80 games a year

 

[STOMP]

Re: Oden: 2nd Best PER for a Second-Year Player in Last Ten Years

sure, but who has the best WS/48 for second year players in the last ten years?

STOMP

 

[Blazer_Mullet_Man]

http://www.emptythebench.com/2010/03/25/greg-oden-vs-joakim-noah/

"This is a tough decision because one guy provides a shot at extreme dominance for what’s bound to be a short amount of time versus a consistently good performer who will never be the chief reason a team is winning an NBA title. If my GM job was on the line, though, I’d have to take Joakim Noah simply because Oden is starting to look like damaged goods. If it’s not one thing, it’s another. He’s had multiple, long-term issues with his knees, and his temperament has swung back-and-forth each time. Noah is a known commodity who you can safely pencil in as your team’s best defender, rebounder, and hustle guy for years to come."

 

[HailBlazers]

We'll be lucky to see 20 games out of him this season.

Yea I wish we had Noah. His potential is tremendous

 

[espn_hall_of_famer]

Too bad that was his third season, and that the sample size was too small to be reliable.

Don't get me wrong - PER is a useful tool, and better than most of the advanced stats flying around. (at least IMHO) The catch is, the fact that it is playing time neutral can be both a strength and a weakness.

Not to get nit-picky, but statistically speaking, we find that PER has a very small variance (deviation from average total seaons' minutes) at around 400 minutes played for starters. So the translation for the non-"stat geeks" out there is that the couple hundred guys that start all of their games and play the majority of the season (usually around 2,000+ minutes) by the time those guys are at 400 minutes, their PER is 97% accurate as to what it will be for their full season. IE - 80 minutes would be a small sample size with a huge variance and his PER could be 20 and end at 12, but a starter with 400 minutes played and a PER of 20 would likely end around 19-21.

Oden played over 500 minutes, and all 500 minutes were as a starter, so he lines up with the statistical norm of likely ending around a 23-25 PER. One could make the case if he only played 16 mpg that he was getting extra rest playing smaller stints of time or against 2nd team defenses compared to guys that play 32 mpg. But in Oden's case was still starting and playing starters minutes (just slightly lower due to fouls but not enough to affect stamina one way or another) and he met the spirit of a starter going through to 500 minutes played. So that assertion of "sample size" is technically false in this instance.

 

[Blazer_Mullet_Man]

Noah has more upside simply because he's on the court, has improved year to year and is nearly leading the league in rebounds. I'd rather have a player with passion and fire with above average skills who gives 100% every play opposed to a player who makes 1/3 of the games, and even in those, plays around 20 minutes and looks out of gas.

I'm surprised that people think Oden will suddenly become healthy, when his issues date back college.

I'd love to see the guy prove me and a growing number of fans wrong...but, I'm simply realistic about his potential. He can't stay on the court.

 

[ebott]

Which season was Oden eligible, according to the NBA, for rookie of the year? Answer, his second contract season, because it was his rookie season on the court.

That's fine as far as his NBA career is concerned and maybe in the long run it will stand that his efficiency in his second NBA year was impressive and continued to be in his NBA career. Problem is I don't give a shit about his career in the NBA. I care about his career as a Blazer. The NBA isn't going to give us an extra year on his rookie contract because he was injured a lot. It's entirely possible that this will be his last year as a Blazer.

 

[MickZagger]

Noah has more upside simply because he's on the court, has improved year to year and is nearly leading the league in rebounds. I'd rather have a player with passion and fire with above average skills who gives 100% every play opposed to a player who makes 1/3 of the games, and even in those, plays around 20 minutes and looks out of gas.

I'm surprised that people think Oden will suddenly become healthy, when his issues date back college.

I'd love to see the guy prove me and a growing number of fans wrong...but, I'm simply realistic about his potential. He can't stay on the court.

Quit sipping on the hater-ade dude!

 

[BlazerCaravan]

That's fine as far as his NBA career is concerned and maybe in the long run it will stand that his efficiency in his second NBA year was impressive and continued to be in his NBA career. Problem is I don't give a shit about his career in the NBA. I care about his career as a Blazer. The NBA isn't going to give us an extra year on his rookie contract because he was injured a lot. It's entirely possible that this will be his last year as a Blazer.

If it is, then the length of the contract also doesn't matter, since we're just fucked retroactively. So if you have that opinion (that this is his final year as a Blazer) why contribute to this thread at all?

 

[andalusian]

Noah has more upside simply because he's on the court, has improved year to year and is nearly leading the league in rebounds.

Noah has more upside simply because he has French connection, and they smoke a lot in France, and as such, he can smoke more stuff that will make him high (thus his upside is higher). Luckily for us, we have Batum whose connection to France is upside'ier than Noah, so we are covered there.

 

[RipCityInsider]

Noah has more upside simply because he's on the court, has improved year to year and is nearly leading the league in rebounds. I'd rather have a player with passion and fire with above average skills who gives 100% every play opposed to a player who makes 1/3 of the games, and even in those, plays around 20 minutes and looks out of gas.

I'm surprised that people think Oden will suddenly become healthy, when his issues date back college.

I'd love to see the guy prove me and a growing number of fans wrong...but, I'm simply realistic about his potential. He can't stay on the court.

Has he had any wrist problems since then? These are bone breaks, where the the bone heals stronger than before. The bone "welds" together and get denser to deal with greater pressures placed upon it.

 

[noknobs]

It's his third year if a monkey farted in lemon pudding, his fourth year if my nuts get tasered by a PCP addled celebrity chef. At least it's not his fifth since Jenny Jones hasn't been skinned, revealing the inside-Jenny minny -Dick Van Patton.

I'm gonna go ahead and agree with this even though I don't know what it means. It just sounds like it's probably accurate.

 

[Blazer_Mullet_Man]

Quit sipping on the hater-ade dude!

Sorry, man. Sometimes even I get tired of listening to myself. I've been a Blazer fan dating back to the late 70's. The Blazers just piss me off with their decisions. I think Cho is a step in the right direction though! I do reserve the right to go off about taking Oden over Durant.

 

[Masbee]

I'd happily exchange this silly stat for Oden posting a 19 or 20 PER and playing in 80 games a year

In this world that isn't a choice that exists.

The choices are - Oden healthy and dominating vs. Oden not healthy and either not playing or working himself back.

There is no healthy and durable and middling performance option.

If you had the magic powers to grant your wishes come true, why don't you wish for 80 games per year of a dominating Oden?

 

[Idog1976]

Perfectly true....but you cannot evaluate a player's value to the team without factoring age and contract into the equation. When Cho and company sit down to evaluate Oden, they won't be grading a 3rd year player - they will be judging him as a 4th year player who they must extend, or let become a RFA. They will be judging Oden in a context that many fans want to ignore.

I don't think we can evaluate Oden's on the court production without factoring in his penis length. After all that has as much to do with the OP's post as your silly nit picking in an attempt to put Oden in the worst light possible. Ie you and half the boards MO when talking about Oden.

 

[Idog1976]

Yes, but this sort of rationality flies in the face of the rampant pessimism required to be one of the obnoxious doomsayer Posters on the forum!

Fixed.

 

[Blaz06Draft]

Oden is 1st, at 0.214. LeBron second, 0.203. Not bad, being 5% better than LeBron!

 

[Nikolokolus]

In this world that isn't a choice that exists.

The choices are - Oden healthy and dominating vs. Oden not healthy and either not playing or working himself back.

There is no healthy and durable and middling performance option.

If you had the magic powers to grant your wishes come true, why don't you wish for 80 games per year of a dominating Oden?

Because I'm trying to live in a dream world here for a second, I'm not on drugs ...

 

[Masbee]

Because I'm trying to live in a dream world here for a second, I'm not on drugs ...

Too bad. Now that it's Friday afternoon, what is your excuse?

 

[Blazer_Mullet_Man]

"your silly nit picking in an attempt to put Oden in the worst light possible"

Oden does a perfectly good job of this himself by hardly playing (not playing hard, but hardly playing) and carrying himself like he's the most depressed man on the face of the earth.

 

[Nikolokolus]

Too bad. Now that it's Friday afternoon, what is your excuse?

gainfully employed?

 

[oldmangrouch]

Not to get nit-picky, but statistically speaking, we find that PER has a very small variance (deviation from average total seaons' minutes) at around 400 minutes played for starters. So the translation for the non-"stat geeks" out there is that the couple hundred guys that start all of their games and play the majority of the season (usually around 2,000+ minutes) by the time those guys are at 400 minutes, their PER is 97% accurate as to what it will be for their full season. IE - 80 minutes would be a small sample size with a huge variance and his PER could be 20 and end at 12, but a starter with 400 minutes played and a PER of 20 would likely end around 19-21.

Oden played over 500 minutes, and all 500 minutes were as a starter, so he lines up with the statistical norm of likely ending around a 23-25 PER. One could make the case if he only played 16 mpg that he was getting extra rest playing smaller stints of time or against 2nd team defenses compared to guys that play 32 mpg. But in Oden's case was still starting and playing starters minutes (just slightly lower due to fouls but not enough to affect stamina one way or another) and he met the spirit of a starter going through to 500 minutes played. So that assertion of "sample size" is technically false in this instance.

Interesting. Does that consistency hold for both vets and relatively inexperienced players?

 

[Idog1976]

"your silly nit picking in an attempt to put Oden in the worst light possible"

Oden does a perfectly good job of this himself by hardly playing (not playing hard, but hardly playing) and carrying himself like he's the most depressed man on the face of the earth.

So he's hardly playing when he's out there and racking up a 23.1 per. Um, ok any other basketball knowledge you want to drop on us Mr. Wooden?

 

[espn_hall_of_famer]

Interesting. Does that consistency hold for both vets and relatively inexperienced players?

To be perfectly honest, when I tested the deviation from samples sizes of minutes, I just focused on that aspect of it and didn't attept to break the data into separate sub-categories to report out on. So I'd have to "reinvent the wheel" so to speak and add age (years in league) in there to see if that changes.

Logic would say that the younger you are, the more your PER would go up after the first 500 minutes because you're still on an "upswing". Meaning even if you want to say 500 minutes is a small sample, it is actually more likely that a player will start to acclimate to the NBA style of game from his college mindset and will begin to adjust to officiating and such and a PER would go up. Just an untested theory, but it makes sense.

 

[espn_hall_of_famer]

Interesting. Does that consistency hold for both vets and relatively inexperienced players?

Not to drone on analytics too much here. But one more thing I thought I'd mention on sample size. The theory of Oden's 23 PER being a small sample size is really using the .400 theory in baseball. That being that with only 100 ABs, a hitter may only be batter .400, but after time it evens out and they end up batting like .370 or whatever.

The key is there it is one stat (batting average) that derives from one numerator and one denominator (Hits/AB). So there truly IS a small sample size when you have 40 hits in 100 ABs, both stats are very small. Heck, three good catches to take away hits would make him .370 alone. So that is the example you are trying to use.

PER uses a large magnitude of statistics to infuse many different statistics into the numerator. You've got things like pts, asst, turnovers, FG%, rebound rate, steals, blocks, free throws, 3-pointers, etc. So the more factors you factor in, the more you smooth out the numerator. So you'd be much more likely to see someone with true small sample sizes have large variances in blocks per minute or assists per minute compared to the norm, than you'd find a guy with a 35 PER (or too far from the norm). That's a product of all of those stats going into the numerator, then still having a pretty sizeable chunk in the denominator like 500 minutes for Oden compared to our 100 ABs for the other example.

 

[oldmangrouch]

To be perfectly honest, when I tested the deviation from samples sizes of minutes, I just focused on that aspect of it and didn't attept to break the data into separate sub-categories to report out on. So I'd have to "reinvent the wheel" so to speak and add age (years in league) in there to see if that changes.

Logic would say that the younger you are, the more your PER would go up after the first 500 minutes because you're still on an "upswing". Meaning even if you want to say 500 minutes is a small sample, it is actually more likely that a player will start to acclimate to the NBA style of game from his college mindset and will begin to adjust to officiating and such and a PER would go up. Just an untested theory, but it makes sense.

There seems to be 2 countervailing forces at work here.

1 is the mental side of the game - experience/knowledge pushes in the direction of improvement.

2 is the physical side of the game, as there is no question the NBA season is a more intense physical grind than college ball.

I seem to recall an article last season that indicated that many of the leagues top rookies saw a drop in their stats, somewhere around the 40-60 games played mark. Obviously, I haven't taken an independent look at the stats, but it does sound reasonable that this would happen.

 

[axs88]

Not to get nit-picky, but statistically speaking, we find that PER has a very small variance (deviation from average total seaons' minutes) at around 400 minutes played for starters. So the translation for the non-"stat geeks" out there is that the couple hundred guys that start all of their games and play the majority of the season (usually around 2,000+ minutes) by the time those guys are at 400 minutes, their PER is 97% accurate as to what it will be for their full season.

Been meaning to ask you this for a while... are you John Hollinger? If not, what do you do? This kind of information is not something one comes across from checking basketball-reference.com from time to time.

 

[STOMP]

http://www.emptythebench.com/2010/03/25/greg-oden-vs-joakim-noah/

"This is a tough decision because one guy provides a shot at extreme dominance for what’s bound to be a short amount of time versus a consistently good performer who will never be the chief reason a team is winning an NBA title. If my GM job was on the line, though, I’d have to take Joakim Noah simply because Oden is starting to look like damaged goods. If it’s not one thing, it’s another. He’s had multiple, long-term issues with his knees, and his temperament has swung back-and-forth each time. Noah is a known commodity who you can safely pencil in as your team’s best defender, rebounder, and hustle guy for years to come."

to see some real dominance, take a look at the head to head numbers when these two have locked up. Both in college and the pros, it's Greg in an absolute landslide

STOMP

 

[Masbee]

There seems to be 2 countervailing forces at work here.

1 is the mental side of the game - experience/knowledge pushes in the direction of improvement.

2 is the physical side of the game, as there is no question the NBA season is a more intense physical grind than college ball.

I seem to recall an article last season that indicated that many of the leagues top rookies saw a drop in their stats, somewhere around the 40-60 games played mark. Obviously, I haven't taken an independent look at the stats, but it does sound reasonable that this would happen.

I would add one other counterveiling force:

Scouting.

When a young player turns out to be good, what ignored no longer is.

That effect would be compounded, I think, on a team where established stars are already the focus. The opposition is going to spend most of its energy on a Brandon Roy and make Oden prove he can hurt them before they get too excited.

 

[oldmangrouch]

I would add one other counterveiling force:

Scouting.

When a young player turns out to be good, what ignored no longer is.

That effect would be compounded, I think, on a team where established stars are already the focus. The opposition is going to spend most of its energy on a Brandon Roy and make Oden prove he can hurt them before they get too excited.

Excellent point.