Advanced Metrics Nonsense

#26
#26
It demonstrates why comparing Jordan to anybody in terms of titles is unfair. He was playing the with the best SF, and the best PF. The Heat would need to substitute K Love for Bosh to be on par. Those teams were incredible.
 
#27
#27
Exactly. I love the "LeBron now has a good supporting cast!" argument. As if Jordan was playing with Mo Williams and Fat Shaq.
 
#28
#28
Interesting article about the "eye test"

One of my biggest pet peeves in basketball (and more broadly, sports) is the “eye test”. The belief is that to truly understand the game you need to watch players play. Sure, stats are good but they’re not match for watching the game, right? Well I vehemently disagree with this.

A great book I’m currently reading is called “Mindless Eating” by Brian Wansink. It turns out humans aren’t great at being able to judge how much food they eat. Small things like the size of the plate or if the person thinks they are drinking an expensive wine with dinner will influence their judgement of their food. Basically, in regards to food, the eye test fails miserably.

One of the craziest tricks is height. If food looks taller then we think there’s more of it. This works in drinking glasses in fact. Give someone a tall slender glass with the same amount of liquid as that in a short stout glass and they’ll think they drank more in the tall glass. The author notices a funny aspect is that many people respond to such finding as “Sure that works on others, but not on me!” The punch line is then of course that experiments dispute this.

Their solution was to bring in a group of experts. They experimented with a group of bartenders. They gave them either a tall glass or short glass and asked them to pour a shot (1.5 ounces). In the tall glasses they were pretty close (1.6 ounces) but they over-poured in the stout glasses. How could this be? Bartenders are experts at pouring shots! Should you ask for your drink out of a shorter glass next time you hit the bars?

The trick is that the experimenters took away the bartenders tools. Bartenders may have bottles or drink dispensers that flow at a specific rate. The bar tender can count to two to know they’ve poured a shot. Bar tenders also have measuring devices they can use to measure out a shot. Take these away and trust them to just their eyes and they fail at a seemingly simple task.

This is huge in regards to basketball and sports. People make the claim that watching the game will give them extra information. Except, it’s the other way around. Without tools to guarantee they’re getting the right information, then even an experts’ eyes aren’t that useful! We want to believe our brains don’t have major flaws in them and that years of practice will help us overcome them. If bartenders can’t even judge a glass right using their eyes then why would something like a basketball combine even work? It’s tempting to believe the alternative, that these studies apply to other people and not us. But I’ll end with a nice Richard Feynman quote:

The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool.
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Bartenders, height and the eye test | The Wages of Wins Journal
 
#30
#30
You don't need advanced stats, check that, stats of any kind to tell you that Raymond Fatton was a bad signing.
 
#31
#31
The one that completely kills me is Lopez. I cannot believe that guy got a max contract. He is one of the softest centers to ever play the game. He can't rebound for crap, and look at this shot chart and tell me what's wrong with this picture:

Capture-11.png
 
#32
#32
n_huffhines said:
Marco Belinelli, Raymond Felton, Kirk Hinrich, Jamal Crawford, Chris Kaman, O.J. Mayo, Nick Young, Michael Beasley, Jeff Green, Brook Lopez

The NBA Geek gives us the Ten Worst Signings of the 2012 Off-Season (so far!) | The Wages of Wins Journal
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Good stuff.

I disagree with a couple though. Signing Marco Bellinelli, for a one year deal at $2M, with his previous success, isn't bad at all, especially for Chicago. Hinrich and Mayo's are decent deals. Not a Beasley fan, but that's not horrible either.
 
#33
#33
Suns snagged Gortat and Dragic and made me think they were playing moneyball, but then they went and got Beasley.
 
#34
#34
n_huffhines said:
Suns snagged Gortat and Dragic and made me think they were playing moneyball, but then they went and got Beasley.
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They have to get a scorer. Beasley is inefficient, but can put the ball in the hole. They should put at power forward. He's a beast 10 feet in.
 
#35
#35
zjcvols said:
They have to get a scorer. Beasley is inefficient, but can put the ball in the hole. They should put at power forward. He's a beast 10 feet in.
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See, I see him as a tweener who was an excellent rebounder in college, but is just not tough enough in the NBA. I don't think he likes to play close enough to the basket.

I prefer scoring by committee, rather than settling for a lead scorer who is crappy at his trade. Pistons won a title without top scorer because they rebounded well, protected possession, and shot efficiently. I think it's a myth that you need a "star". Letting Childress go was a huge mistake, IMO.
 
#36
#36
n_huffhines said:
See, I see him as a tweener who was an excellent rebounder in college, but is just not tough enough in the NBA. I don't think he likes to play close enough to the basket.

I prefer scoring by committee, rather than settling for a lead scorer who is crappy at his trade. Pistons won a title without top scorer because they rebounded well, protected possession, and shot efficiently. I think it's a myth that you need a "star". Letting Childress go was a huge mistake, IMO.
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Trust me, I know about that Pistons team. I'm a fan.

The problem is the rule change. They now have the hand check rule, and you have to have a good scorer now. You can't wain games 80-75 anymore.
 
#37
#37
zjcvols said:
Trust me, I know about that Pistons team. I'm a fan.

The problem is the rule change. They now have the hand check rule, and you have to have a good scorer now. You can't wain games 80-75 anymore.
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2004 Pistons averaged 90 points, and surrendered 84 points. That's more along the lines of what I'm talking about. Have PPG/shooting efficiency figures improved since the rule change? By how much? Interesting questions to ask

For guys who like to slash, or drive and dish, I think the rule change helped their game, but for guys who like to drive and do a pull up J? They're probably not scoring all that efficiently no matter what the rules are. Most of Beasley's shots come from 10'+.
 
#40
#40
PKT_VOL said:
Overrated in my opinion. The eye test is way better than stats if you know what the hell you are talking about. Sad part is not many people actually understand the game of basketball.

Listening to the fans around me in TBA is almost unbearable.
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I disagree. Good models based on metrics are much better predictors of talent than the eye test. GMs have about a 40% success rate when drafting in the lottery. They can't even give you 50/50 odds of getting value. There is a model with a 70% success rate.

Scouting is good for looking at mechanics, athletic ability, etc. but you can't watch a player and make an educated guess as to how productively he's going to score over the course of an NBA season. It's impossible.
 
#41
#41
n_huffhines said:
I disagree. Good models based on metrics are much better predictors of talent than the eye test. GMs have about a 40% success rate when drafting in the lottery. They can't even give you 50/50 odds of getting value. There is a model with a 70% success rate.

Scouting is good for looking at mechanics, athletic ability, etc. but you can't watch a player and make an educated guess as to how productively he's going to score over the course of an NBA season. It's impossible.
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Disagree. Sighting NBA GM's is a bit shady. Two reasons:

1) The NBA is a totally different game than college.

2) The NBA cares more about revenue than winning. Yes, they don't want to suck, but they would rather be exciting and have superstars to sell. Thus, they are more willing to go for a riskier pick.

I am not saying stats aren't helpful. However, to posit that stats ought to supersede the eye of someone who knows what they are talking about is crazy. Stats can easily be skewed and not many people actually understand the game of basketball.
 
#42
#42
PKT_VOL said:
Disagree. Sighting NBA GM's is a bit shady. Two reasons:

1) The NBA is a totally different game than college.

2) The NBA cares more about revenue than winning. Yes, they don't want to suck, but they would rather be exciting and have superstars to sell. Thus, they are more willing to go for a riskier pick.

I am not saying stats aren't helpful. However, to posit that stats ought to supersede the eye of someone who knows what they are talking about is crazy. Stats can easily be skewed and not many people actually understand the game of basketball.
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Then GMs are dumber than I thought, because it's clear from data that the home team sells tickets by winning, and the away team sells tickets by having a superstar.

If the college game is totally different from the NBA how come models based on college stats perform so well as predictors?
 
#43
#43
n_huffhines said:
Then GMs are dumber than I thought, because it's clear from data that the home team sells tickets by winning, and the away team sells tickets by having a superstar.
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That is not necessarily the the case. Three of the six division champions are not in the top ten for attendance. Two of the top ten teams for attendance were under .500, including the second leading team in attendance.

Oh, and the team with the second least amount of attendance was eighteen games over .500 and second in their division.

n_huffhines said:
If the college game is totally different from the NBA how come models based on college stats perform so well as predictors?
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Good college players normally, but does not necessarily, equal good NBA players. Hence, the Blue Devils. Statically good college players becoming statically good NBA players over time is not revolutionary.
 
#44
#44
PKT_VOL said:
That is not necessarily the the case. Three of the six division champions are not in the top ten for attendance. Two of the top ten teams for attendance were under .500, including the second leading team in attendance.

Oh, and the team with the second least amount of attendance was eighteen games over .500 and second in their division.
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Comparing Team X against Team Y is flawed because they face different markets. The data I cited controlled for that.

PKT_VOL said:
Good college players normally, but does not necessarily, equal good NBA players. Hence, the Blue Devils. Statically good college players becoming statically good NBA players over time is not revolutionary.
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So stats are better predictors than scouts? I don't get your point.
 
#45
#45
n_huffhines said:
Comparing Team X against Team Y is flawed because they face different markets. The data I cited controlled for that.
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Sketchy but ok.

n_huffhines said:
So stats are better predictors than scouts? I don't get your point.
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I have no problem with stats and statistical models being used as tool for scouting. However, stats and statistical models should never override the eye test of someone who truly knows basketball.
 
#46
#46
PKT_VOL said:
Sketchy but ok.

I have no problem with stats and statistical models being used as tool for scouting. However, stats and statistical models should never override the eye test of someone who truly knows basketball.
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Who are those people that "truly" know basketball? Michael Jordan clearly isn't one of them.
 
#47
#47
n_huffhines said:
Who are those people that "truly" know basketball? Michael Jordan clearly isn't one of them.
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Bobby Knight, Coach K, John Wooden, Pat Summit, Geno Auriemma, Adolph Rupp, Jim Boeheim, Jim Calhoun, Brad Stevens, Gregg Popovich, Phil Jackson, etc.
 
#48
#48
I get that they all know X's and O's, but when Coach K's Team USA was struggling on the boards he failed to make the proper adjustments. Lithuania was hanging with them and K had his best two rebounders on the bench for most of the game. Research shows the "experts" severely discount the value of rebounding. Coach K has 5 guys on the court that can score 20 ppg, and 0 guys that can get you 10 rpg. It doesn't make sense to me.
 
#49
#49
Are you seriously questioning Coach K's coaching?

To your overall question, I am not sure that "experts" are synonymous with who I mentioned. I don't know a basketball guru worth their salt that underestimates defense, rebounding, and chemistry. Certainly not Coach K.
 
#50
#50
Then why did Coach K choose only 2 dominant rebounders for his Team USA, and only use them sparingly? I'm telling you, he's not the only one. This is sport-wide. Data shows teams don't draft for rebounders*, and don't pay a lot for rebounding in free agency.

*Teams are more likely to draft a 7' who can't rebound than a 6' 8" guy who can rebound, all else being equal. This is despite the fact that the guy who can rebound outperforms the 7' time and time again. If you can't rebound at 7' you shouldn't even get looked at, but they get drafted anyways.
 
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