Stat Geekery

I thought I would start a thread where we could talk about the things only a stat geek could love and maybe provide some resources to those just coming around to the present and future of basketball player evaluation.

I just found the new NBA.com Advanced stats page, it's really shiny and has a ton of information that you usually can't get without paying for it...

http://www.nba.com/advancedstats/

As cool as that is, my go to for stats comparisons is still Baskeball-reference.com, their Play Index is just awesome...

http://www.basketball-reference.com/play-index/

And the Frivolities Index is endless hours of fun for the guy who may not be a stat geek, but cannot get enough useless information about sports....

http://www.basketball-reference.com/friv/

For example, did you ever ask yourself who has been the Jazz trade partner most often? Of course you did, and you found the answer was the Atlanta Hawks, right here.

Or perhaps you wanted to know what players share your birthday? boom.

Another awesome place for statistical analysis has been 82games.com, they were really pioneers in measuring clutch and situational statistics, Their breakouts of performance an opponent performance by position are very usefull, but they don't update as often as other sites, and it looks like the new NBA.com advance statistics page will have a lot of that information in a more interactive format. Still, it's a good rescource, especially since you can go back 5 or so years, vs NBA.com which only has 3 years worth.


Any other resources anybody wants to share? There are a ton of blogs that have cool tools and analysis, and I'll try to post those from time to time, but I figured I'd start with the heavy hitters.

This isn't another stat resource, but it is an unusual stat. In an era where I am under the impression that average age on NBA teams has been getting younger, the Knicks collected four of the oldest guys in the league together on one team: Kurt Thomas - 40, Jason Kidd - 39, Rasheed Wallace - 38 and Marcus Camby - 38. They are off to a nice start. Kidd is playing 22 mpg, and Thomas and Rasheed are logging 20 mpg between them. Camby is hurt, but I suspect he will grab some of Thomas and Rasheed's minutes when he comes back. Off the top of my head, I can only think of two other guys, 38 and older, that are not on the Knicks: Grant Hill, 40, and Nash, 38. Both of those guys are out with injuries.

Crunchtime1 wrote:

This isn't another stat resource, but it is an unusual stat. In an era where I am under the impression that average age on NBA teams has been getting younger, the Knicks collected four of the oldest guys in the league together on one team: Kurt Thomas - 40, Jason Kidd - 39, Rasheed Wallace - 38 and Marcus Camby - 38. They are off to a nice start. Kidd is playing 22 mpg, and Thomas and Rasheed are logging 20 mpg between them. Camby is hurt, but I suspect he will grab some of Thomas and Rasheed's minutes when he comes back. Off the top of my head, I can only think of two other guys, 38 and older, that are not on the Knicks: Grant Hill, 40, and Nash, 38. Both of those guys are out with injuries.

Well I think that pretty concisely identifies the pro's and con's associated with employing senior citizens in the NBA. On the pro side, they hit the ground ready to play, they know their strengths and limitations, and they know how to put younger players in position to succeed because they know how to play the game. On the con side they have a hard time staying on the court, they have to have their minutes reduced, and they are typically sub-par athletically.

I think the Knicks may continue to surprise, but they may also struggle a bit as the injuries pile up, Amare comes back, and Melo feels obligated to take more and more on himself. So far he's been playing really really well because he's not being asked to be a distributor. If (when) Kidd and/or Felton goes down, it will be interesting if he stays in his PF role or if he goes back to trying to be an all around facilitator on the wing. On the other hand it's easy to see 3 or 4 of the Knicks bigs being out with injury at any given time (Amare and Chandler haven't exactly been resilliant), so he may actually be forced to play PF most of the season.

TheMagnus wrote:

Well I think that pretty concisely identifies the pro's and con's associated with employing senior citizens in the NBA. On the pro side, they hit the ground ready to play, they know their strengths and limitations, and they know how to put younger players in position to succeed because they know how to play the game. On the con side they have a hard time staying on the court, they have to have their minutes reduced, and they are typically sub-par athletically.

Yes, Dallas has already had some older guys missing games --- Dirk, Kaman, Brand and Marion, although Brand was only out for one game while his wife gave birth. Kaman is back now and looking good. I was impressed that they won last night without Dirk, Brand, Marion and Beaubois. If Dallas can keep Kaman or Dirk on the floor for much of the season, a great big "if", along with OJ and Collison logging 30+, it looks like they may well be another team that we have to contend with in fight for playoff spot. JMO.

[quote="Crunchtime1] Brand and Marion, although Brand was only out for one game while his wife gave birth. Kaman is back now and looking good. I was impressed that they won last night without Dirk, Brand, Marion and Beaubois. If Dallas can keep Kaman or Dirk on the floor for much of the season, a great big "if", along with OJ and Collison logging 30+, it looks like they may well be another team that we have to contend with in fight for playoff spot. JMO. [/quote]

In old days on old frorum I often pointed how often teams play BETTER when copuple of their star are injured. Some teams always played better if "best player" or even 2 is out! This went for Jazz 2 years ago too. I did a lot of catch up in GTS based on this observation.

But this season it just ridiculous. Minesota ans Dallas projected to be in the middle as best case, lost more that one of their supposed liders and look at them!

Part of that is ball hoging of a stars and consequent flaws n chemistry but part - primitive and rigid "star" coached game plans.

vryadli wrote:

In old days on old frorum I often pointed how often teams play BETTER when copuple of their star are injured. Some teams always played better if "best player" or even 2 is out!

Good point. Regarding Minnesota, they are averaging about three more assists per game this season than last season so far, and this is without Rubio (and Love). Andrei had seven assists last night. It will be interesting to see what happens to Andrei when superstar Love comes back. Will the team continue to share and move the ball? Will Andrei fade away again? Right now Andrei is leading the Wolves in tendex per 48, a measure of overall efficiency. Rubio will likely be a net positive on total team assists when he comes back, but Love might be a negative; I don't know.

Update on Jazz players' Tendex per 48 mins (a measure of efficiency) after first seven games:

Millsap: 29.04
Jefferson: 28.04
Favors: 27.62
Mo Will: 25.15
Evans: 18.55
Hayward: 18.08
Marvin: 16.78
Kanter: 16.04
Foye: 16.09
Carroll: 15.08
Tinsley: 15.07
Burks: minus 4.57
Murphy: minus 4.80

Has the DWill advantage shrunk? I think the answer is "Yes". From 07-08 through 10-11 season, Paul, Nash and Williams pretty much dominated the tendex per 48 mins, a stat similar to NBA.com efficiency per 48 minutes. DWill was routinely named in the top three point guards in the league. But I contend there have been some significant changes. There are now many very good point guards in this league. The number ten point guard for tendex per 48 has gradually moved up from 26.67 in 07-08 season to 28.16 for this 12-13 season. And yes I know it is very early in the season to be trying to make any judgments; I know that DWill is still very good and that DWill will undoubtedly climb in the rankings, but right now he isn't in the top ten. He is at 24.46, which is slightly behind MoWill, and MoWill is playing with all new players except for Foye. Last season Deron finished number seven, and this season the competition at point guard is even fiercer than last season.

This brings me to my next point. Because there are so many good point guards in the league now, on any given night, it is far less certain or likely that DWill will outplay the man opposite him than it used to be, and hence, this raises a question of whether it was smart for NJ to tie up so much money in DWill. I think most of us were happy with the DWill trade primarily because we got a lot of good assets back instead of potentially letting him walk for nothing, but if we had been told at the time that we could be assured of tieing up DWill for a very expensive long term contract like NJ did, I think most of would have jumped on it (at least I would have). Now I think I am glad that we didn't tie up all that money in DWill, and not just because we got some very good assets back. I just don't think DWill gives a team the night in and night out significant advantage at that position that he used to.

Now Chris Paul? That is another story. I think at this point it is beyond contention that he has separated himself from DWill and the rest of the PGs. I would pay him the max, (but at the same time have a nagging worry about potential injuries). Also with regard to Paul, I would much rather have the ball in his hands for a potential tieing or winning last play of the game than in Deron's hands, although I haven't actually checked any stats on this. OK, there you have it. My ramblings on point guards for the day.

http://www.dougstats.com/12-13Tendex.html

Crunchtime1 wrote:

Has the DWill advantage shrunk? I think the answer is "Yes". From 07-08 through 10-11 season, Paul, Nash and Williams pretty much dominated the tendex per 48 mins, a stat similar to NBA.com efficiency per 48 minutes. DWill was routinely named in the top three point guards in the league. But I contend there have been some significant changes. There are now many very good point guards in this league. The number ten point guard for tendex per 48 has gradually moved up from 26.67 in 07-08 season to 28.16 for this 12-13 season. And yes I know it is very early in the season to be trying to make any judgments; I know that DWill is still very good and that DWill will undoubtedly climb in the rankings, but right now he isn't in the top ten. He is at 24.46, which is slightly behind MoWill, and MoWill is playing with all new players except for Foye. Last season Deron finished number seven, and this season the competition at point guard is even fiercer than last season.

This brings me to my next point. Because there are so many good point guards in the league now, on any given night, it is far less certain or likely that DWill will outplay the man opposite him than it used to be, and hence, this raises a question of whether it was smart for NJ to tie up so much money in DWill. I think most of us were happy with the DWill trade primarily because we got a lot of good assets back instead of potentially letting him walk for nothing, but if we had been told at the time that we could be assured of tieing up DWill for a very expensive long term contract like NJ did, I think most of would have jumped on it (at least I would have). Now I think I am glad that we didn't tie up all that money in DWill, and not just because we got some very good assets back. I just don't think DWill gives a team the night in and night out significant advantage at that position that he used to.

Now Chris Paul? That is another story. I think at this point it is beyond contention that he has separated himself from DWill and the rest of the PGs. I would pay him the max, (but at the same time have a nagging worry about potential injuries). Also with regard to Paul, I would much rather have the ball in his hands for a potential tieing or winning last play of the game than in Deron's hands, although I haven't actually checked any stats on this. OK, there you have it. My ramblings on point guards for the day.

http://www.dougstats.com/12-13Tendex.html

Paul... I'd rather take Rondo... they are comparable now, but RR goes up each year.

Never has high jope for DWill. Great scill and even(unlike Carmelo and like Kobe) good intention, but temper and pride stronger than brain.

82games has this seasons stats!!! Pretty surprising so far that only 5 players have positive rating so far and that list does not include Hayward, Mo or Foey. To me it looked like they had quite a positive influence for the Jazz wins, but maybe just to much negative in loses? All in all it is to small of a sample to make any conclusions yet, will keep an eye on it throughout the season.\
Millsap is the best player by far on the Jazz this season!

http://www.82games.com/1213/1213UTA.HTM

Crunchtime1 wrote:

Update on Jazz players' Tendex per 48 mins (a measure of efficiency) after first seven games:

Millsap: 29.04
Jefferson: 28.04
Favors: 27.62
Mo Will: 25.15
Evans: 18.55
Hayward: 18.08
Marvin: 16.78
Kanter: 16.04
Foye: 16.09
Carroll: 15.08
Tinsley: 15.07
Burks: minus 4.57
Murphy: minus 4.80

Compare it to 82games rating... pretty much similar with exception of Carroll.

Millsap +10.9
Favors +4.6
Carroll +3.4
Ma.Williams +3.4
Jefferson +2.5
Hayward -0.5
Tinsley -2.0
Mo.Williams -2.2
Foey -3.0
Kanter - 8.4
Evans -24.2
Burks -27.3
Murphy -40
.0

Calgary Jazz wrote:

82games has this seasons stats!!! Pretty surprising so far that only 5 players have positive rating so far and that list does not include Hayward, Mo or Foey. To me it looked like they had quite a positive influence for the Jazz wins, but maybe just to much negative in loses? All in all it is to small of a sample to make any conclusions yet, will keep an eye on it throughout the season.\
Millsap is the best player by far on the Jazz this season!

http://www.82games.com/1213/1213UTA.HTM

Thanks, If you click on the live blue "My Tendex" link at my Dougstats link, it gives you Doug's formula for tendex. I have compared the tendex results at Doug's with NBA.com's efficiency per 48 mins rankings many times in years' past, and the order of rankings for all players has been extremely close. Don't know how it compares with ESPN's PER. With regard to 82 games.com, I am familiar with them and recognize that they are powerhouse stat outfit with lots of info, including some info that people pay for, but for some reason I have never located the explanation keys for many of their formulas. What goes in to Millsap's 10.9 Simple Rating for example?

This link below always includes the Jazz players tendex per 48 minutes updated through the previous nights' games. Scroll down 'till you see TND/48. We now have eight games completed and Millsap has jumped further out ahead:

http://www.dougstats.com/12-13/UtahJazz.html

This link below makes it easy to go back and check past seasons. Click on the Season, then the specific team, or click on just plain "Tendex Rankings", then "Traditional Rankings" to get the top ten ranked players at each position for that particular season, or click on "All Team and Player Stats", to get all the stats, including tendex, for every player in the NBA for a given season.

http://www.dougstats.com/

vryadli wrote:

Paul... I'd rather take Rondo... they are comparable now, but RR goes up each year.

Yes, Rondo's rankings are climbing; he leads the league in assists and is a little younger than Paul, but Paul is still generally ahead in the overall type rankings that I look at, and Paul notably is a free agent this summer --- though it would probably be pretty hard to pry him loose from sunny LA.

Crunchtime1 wrote:

What goes in to Millsap's 10.9 Simple Rating for example?

as per 82games.com explanation:

The main components of the 'Simple Ratings' are a production measure (a variant of John Hollinger's PER rating) for a player's own stats versus the counterpart player on the other team while he is on the court, as well as a simple on court/off court plus minus. This rating is actually more of a placeholder until the more sophisticated analysis we produce is made public, but still offers a good fast read on player performance.

Lol. Well it didn't take long to get my DWill post publicly rebuked. On the Jazz-Celtics broadcast tonight, Harpring said given the same teammates around Chris Paul, Rajon Rondo and Deron Williams, that DWill is the best point guard in the league.

Crunchtime1 wrote:

Lol. Well it didn't take long to get my DWill post publicly rebuked. On the Jazz-Celtics broadcast tonight, Harpring said given the same teammates around Chris Paul, Rajon Rondo and Deron Williams, that DWill is the best point guard in the league.

Well he is wrong!

I would take Rondo over Deron everyday of the week. I'd probably still take Deron over Paul though.

Crunchtime1 wrote:

Has the DWill advantage shrunk? I think the answer is "Yes". From 07-08 through 10-11 season, Paul, Nash and Williams pretty much dominated the tendex per 48 mins, a stat similar to NBA.com efficiency per 48 minutes. DWill was routinely named in the top three point guards in the league. But I contend there have been some significant changes. There are now many very good point guards in this league. The number ten point guard for tendex per 48 has gradually moved up from 26.67 in 07-08 season to 28.16 for this 12-13 season. And yes I know it is very early in the season to be trying to make any judgments; I know that DWill is still very good and that DWill will undoubtedly climb in the rankings, but right now he isn't in the top ten. He is at 24.46, which is slightly behind MoWill, and MoWill is playing with all new players except for Foye. Last season Deron finished number seven, and this season the competition at point guard is even fiercer than last season.

This brings me to my next point. Because there are so many good point guards in the league now, on any given night, it is far less certain or likely that DWill will outplay the man opposite him than it used to be, and hence, this raises a question of whether it was smart for NJ to tie up so much money in DWill. I think most of us were happy with the DWill trade primarily because we got a lot of good assets back instead of potentially letting him walk for nothing, but if we had been told at the time that we could be assured of tieing up DWill for a very expensive long term contract like NJ did, I think most of would have jumped on it (at least I would have). Now I think I am glad that we didn't tie up all that money in DWill, and not just because we got some very good assets back. I just don't think DWill gives a team the night in and night out significant advantage at that position that he used to.

Now Chris Paul? That is another story. I think at this point it is beyond contention that he has separated himself from DWill and the rest of the PGs. I would pay him the max, (but at the same time have a nagging worry about potential injuries). Also with regard to Paul, I would much rather have the ball in his hands for a potential tieing or winning last play of the game than in Deron's hands, although I haven't actually checked any stats on this. OK, there you have it. My ramblings on point guards for the day.

http://www.dougstats.com/12-13Tendex.html

What you are really talking about here is WARP, or Wins Against Replacement Player only applied specifically to a position.

Using the idea of WARP, I have to ask the question, do you think it matters that PG's are better relative to Derron Williams, if on the aggregate he still occupies the same space overall in the NBA?

In other words, when you are evaluating the production and value of a player, should the position he plays really matter? Is Lebrons value diminished because Kevin Durrant and Carmelo Anthony can both play his position?

This was one of the original outcomes of Sabermetrics in Baseball, they found players that were productive in certain areas of the game, but were undervalued because of one weakness or another in the position that they played, so they gave them a different position where their weaknesses wouldn't be as big a deal.

Now Baseball is much different than Basketball because of the effect that the physical attributes of a player has on the game and his abilities on the court, but especially in the case of players like D-Will who have the size and skill to play multiple positions I have to think that maybe just a direct comparison to other players at their position is somewhat limited in terms of determining their value.

re: Dwill

Darnit. I had a post half completed; my browser crashed and I lost the post. From looking at a few more stats, my contention now is that DWill probably peaked at tendex/48min productivity at 32.19 in the 09-10 season, and that now we have a situation where he may be not quite as dominant, and at the same time, there are a lot of very good young point guards rapidly moving up the rankings that are matching or passing him. Last season he finished at number seven at 27.99, with Paul, Nash, Rose, Parker, Irving and Westbrook coming in ahead of him. So far this season, DWill is at 25.41; he is out of the top ten, and some more young PGs have climbed up the rankings ahead of him: Lowry, Rondo, Jennings, Teague, Dragic, Walker and Conley.

Unfortunately, I cannot sort the tendex/48 for PGs in to one list beyond the top ten for easy viewing. However, I can sort NBA.com efficiency/48 mins for all guards below, and pretty much the same starting PGs are ahead of DWill. Let's check back mid season, and again towards the end of the season, on various statistical measures and see where DWill stands relative to to other PGs and the league overall. I think my proposition that DWill's advantage over other PGs has shrunk will hold up. We can debate at that time whether or not he was a great buy for New Jersey at 5 years, 98 million dollars.

http://www.nba.com/statistics/player/Efficiency.jsp?league=00&season=22012&conf=OVERALL&position=5&splitType=9&qualified=Y&yearsExp=-1&sortOrder=7&splitDD=All%20Teams

TheMagnus wrote:

Using the idea of WARP, I have to ask the question, do you think it matters that PG's are better relative to Derron Williams, if on the aggregate he still occupies the same space overall in the NBA?

In other words, when you are evaluating the production and value of a player, should the position he plays really matter? Is Lebrons value diminished because Kevin Durrant and Carmelo Anthony can both play his position?

This was one of the original outcomes of Sabermetrics in Baseball, they found players that were productive in certain areas of the game, but were undervalued because of one weakness or another in the position that they played, so they gave them a different position where their weaknesses wouldn't be as big a deal.

Now Baseball is much different than Basketball because of the effect that the physical attributes of a player has on the game and his abilities on the court, but especially in the case of players like D-Will who have the size and skill to play multiple positions I have to think that maybe just a direct comparison to other players at their position is somewhat limited in terms of determining their value.

My initial idea was that a team would be best off putting their huge money contract on a guy that is likely to give you the most mismatches at his position on a night in and night out basis, and that Deron may not be doing this as frequently now. I briefly looked at your WARP links, and was only able to get Deron's WARP scores for when he was back in Utah. Regarding his overall position in the league, I suspect that is slipping a little bit right along with his dominance at his position, but I am too lazy to back it up with stats. It is early. Let's see where he is mid season and end of season.

I will tell you though, it is pretty tough criticizing Deron right now when I am watching what is happening to the Jazz without a true point guard. Still is time to get better chemistry though.

Here are some more point guard rankings that I stumbled in to even though I am not an ESPN INSIDER. By every stat measure I have seen, Paul has been opening a wider and wider lead over Deron the last couple of years. I think we may as well not fool ourselves that we could possibly sign Paul though; I suspect he believes that the Clips can contend for a championship. The Clips might be the best team in LA now.

http://insider.espn.go.com/nba/hollinger/statistics/_/position/pg

Crunchtime1 wrote:

My initial idea was that a team would be best off putting their huge money contract on a guy that is likely to give you the most mismatches at his position on a night in and night out basis, and that Deron may not be doing this as frequently now. I briefly looked at your WARP links, and was only able to get Deron's WARP scores for when he was back in Utah. Regarding his overall position in the league, I suspect that is slipping a little bit right along with his dominance at his position, but I am too lazy to back it up with stats. Let's see where he is mid season and end of season.

I will tell you though, it is pretty tough criticizing Deron right now when I am watching what is happening to the Jazz without a true point guard.

Here are some more point guard rankings that I stumbled in to even though I am not an ESPN INSIDER. By every stat measure I have seen, Paul has been opening a wider and wider lead over Deron the last couple of years. I think we may as not fool ourselves that we could possibly sign him though; I suspect he believes that the Clips can contend for a championship. The Clips might be the best team in LA now.

http://insider.espn.go.com/nba/hollinger/statistics/_/position/pg

Well that's kind of a different variable than the one you originally started out with, I'd say that if Brooklyn's big contract to D-Will isn't worth it it will more because of D-Wills decline than the relative increase of other PG's.

It is interesting to note that of the PG's that are considered "elite", only Paul and Irving are in the top 10 of Hollinger's rankings so far this season. Rondo, Westbrook, D-Will, all are outside of the top 10. If you use Value Added (VA) instead of PER things look a little better for Westbrook and Rondo, but D-Will is still down at 14.

I will also say that in terms of advanced stats, D-Will was never really in the same category as CP3. When D-Will was making a case for himself as a top tier PG it was mostly on his durability, his versatility, and his ability to control the game and score from anywhere on the court, especially in the clutch. Now that he has his own injury issues and his teams have not been competitive and built around his skill set that case is much much more flimsy. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to have him back, but I'm kind of glad we don't have him locked into a max contract for the next 4 years.

D will like it or not Sloan ran the pick and roll was just what D will needed to be a top three PG! And he ran off what was best for himself. Nobody cares to take there medicine that will make em better. D will ran his off? I'm ok with it because favers will easy be top three big man in couple years. beast.

Crunchtime1 wrote:

My initial idea was that a team would be best off putting their huge money contract on a guy that is likely to give you the most mismatches at his position on a night in and night out basis, and that Deron may not be doing this...

- You're initial idea seems good to me
- Deron's not doing it now... and he didn't do it when he was a Jazzman... ¿how many times we've went crazy about the other teams PG burning us? ¿how many times we went crazy being 10+ points down and Deron still slowly walking the court?

Let's not fool ourselves. I would have choosen Daron over Paul; I was glad Jazz did it. But time's demonstarted Paul's the best of them. I've said it many times and I will say it again: Deron Williams is essentially the same player he was when he was a rookie; he has no really bettered himself in any aspect of his game. And he's not a good teammate, glue guy either.

Of course, just MHO as a useless fan.

TheMagnus wrote:

Well that's kind of a different variable than the one you originally started out with, I'd say that if Brooklyn's big contract to D-Will isn't worth it it will more because of D-Wills decline than the relative increase of other PG's.

I think my alleged DWill decline in productivity is at least partially related to the increase in talent in opposing point guards. Deron probably has to work harder on both ends of the floor to deal with all these young talented point guards. For example, on defense, it has to be extremely taxing to try to stay in front of guys like Westbrook and Rose. Also, Deron is averaging four turnovers per game. Maybe some of these quick, talented young PGs are contributing to that; I don't know.

On the other hand, Deron didn't have Lopez all last season, and he might begin to heat up the assist column with that guy. Also, Joe Johnson has started out a little cold and there could be another assist there too for DWill when they get on the same page and Joe Johnson heats up.

Crunchtime1 wrote:

TheMagnus wrote:

Well that's kind of a different variable than the one you originally started out with, I'd say that if Brooklyn's big contract to D-Will isn't worth it it will more because of D-Wills decline than the relative increase of other PG's.

I think my alleged DWill decline in productivity is at least partially related to the increase in talent in opposing point guards. Deron probably has to work harder on both ends of the floor to deal with all these young talented point guards. For example, on defense, it has to be extremely taxing to try to stay in front of guys like Westbrook and Rose. Also, Deron is averaging four turnovers per game. Maybe some of these quick, talented young PGs are contributing to that; I don't know.

On the other hand, Deron didn't have Lopez all last season, and he might begin to heat up the assist column with that guy. Also, Joe Johnson has started out a little cold and there could be another assist there too for DWill when they get on the same page and Joe Johnson heats up.

Ya, tough to tell really. Right now it is hard to argue that he isn't overpaid no matter how you are choosing to look at it. I mean, say what you want about Mo, but in terms of production he's almost as good as D-Will at half the price.

This is more a of a Utah Jazz centric post, and you and Calg started to hint at this earlier before you talked about the "D-Will advantage".

I've read a lot of articles recently about how the NBA is moving past the traditional 5 positions and redefining on court roles. This is being driven by the stats.

One of the fundamental theories of Sabermetrics is that you need to look past classic roles and numbers and focus on the fundamental concept of winning games. What wins games? Scoring more points than your opponent. That's it. It's a simple premise, but sometimes get's forgotten in the midst of cliche's about "Defense wins championships" and "Defending the paint" and whatnot.

So one of the fundamentals of this type of statistical analysis is trying to find out how every action and every stat contributes to winning (scoring more points than the other team), regardless of position.

In addition to that, it involves breaking through the conventional thinking about roles and positions, and putting players in roles and positions where they have the greatest impact on the teams winning.

So lets apply that concept to the Jazz right now and see what it tells us.

First off, lets look at it from a pure production standpoint....

There are only 4 players right now that are clearly superior to the other Jazz players in terms of production, no matter what Metric you are using, and they are ranked in this order...

1) Millsap
2a) Favors
2b) Jefferson
2c) Carroll

Carroll may be a bit of an anomaly due to the fact that he is coming off a nearly perfect game, but even before that he was popular with the WS and +/- metrics.

Here's how those 4 rank in minutes played per game...

Millsap - 3rd
Favors - 7th
Jefferson - 2nd
Carroll - 10th


Now lets look at the other side, what players are clearly below the performance of the other Jazz players? This is also remarkably clear cut, and also is basically 4 players listed her from worst to best...


13) Murphy
12) Burks
11) Tinsley
10) Kanter

and how do those guys rank in terms of minutes?

Murphy - 13th
Burks - 11th
Tinsley - 8th
Kanter - 9th

So immediately I see opportunity to win more games and be a better team. Theoretically, if you cut those 4 guys out of the rotation and gave every minute they played to one of the 9 remaining guys, and also played the 4 most effective players minutes consistent with their performance, the Jazz would be at least 1 win better so far this season.