The Wizards have been using Gilbert Arenas as the "face of the franchise" for a while, but last season many fans came to suspect that Caron Butler might be the team's best player -- a theory their continued mediocrity success without Arenas this season seemed to support. In terms of adjusted plus/minus, however, Antawn Jamison's the man not only the best on the team, but actually one of the most valuable players in the whole league. For that matter, he looks great in terms of regular plus/minus, too. These stats can be misused because they make a player's quality in part a function of the quality of his backup, but I think they do provide a useful perspective given how much of the game's action doesn't seem well-captured by individual-level statistics.
« If At First You Don't Succeed, Try Again With Bigger Countries | Main | War Crimes »
Jamisonmania
10 Apr 2008 09:05 am
Comments (21)
Also: Chris Paul has a negative rating? WTF?
Sounds fascinating. Why no comment on the recent "Current" about how to make the NBA less boring?
Why no comment on the recent "Current" about how to make the NBA less boring?
Matthew commented on that yesterday.
And right is, er right. Adjusted +/- is an interesting concept, but in reality, it doesn't seem to work.
Chris Paul doesn't have a negative rating. New Orleans is +7.9 pts positive with him on the court, -2.6 pts with him off the court.
This is off-topic, but basketball related: I was wondering if Matthew is starting to rethink his impression of the Shaq trade. If anyone saw the Suns-Spurs game last night, Shaq looked awesome in the 4th quarter. He completely outplayed Duncan, and the Suns blew out the Spurs at the end of the game.
Chris Paul doesn't have a negative rating. New Orleans is +7.9 pts positive with him on the court, -2.6 pts with him off the court.
Not sure where you see that (although it sounds more accurate). On the first link in Matt's post, if you then click on an "NOH" link, you see Chris Paul's adjusted plus/minus is -0.26. Apparently Peja Stojakovic is the best Hornet around.
Also negative: Richard Hamilton, Carmelo Anthony, Yao Ming, Chris Kaman, Lamar Odom, Al Jefferson , Andre Miller, Amare Stoudemire, TJ Ford, and Jose Calderon. And apparently Al Jefferson is the second worst player in the league.
Feel free to draw your own conclusions.
"Matthew commented on that yesterday."
My mistake, thanks for pointing that out. Still no interest in watching the NBA. Let it do a single-elimination playoff tournament and maybe I'd watch the playoffs. But I doubt that would ever happen because the NBA needs to milk long series for gate receipts because it makes relatively little from TV.
Fred,
That's because you are not a true sports fan. But I bet you really like March Madness! And I'm sure Psycho T is your favorite player! Do you wish baseball and hockey also had single elimination tournaments? You are silly.
Adjusted +/- is problematic because it is noisy - just look at the standard errors. But the quality of backups should not matter like it does for regular net +/-.
Any metric that tells you Thaddeus Young is the second-best player in the entire league seems pretty flawed, to put it mildly.
right, have you watched the Sixers much this season? Thad Young is easily the most talented Sixers rookie since Iverson. He gives them quality minutes night in and night out and has the best inside game of any player on the team.
20 MPG, 53.6% FG, 7.8 PPG, 4.2 RPG, +9.69
Ok, he's no star...yet.
Stacy,
I didn't watch the NCAA tournament and baseball bores me. I do think hockey should have a single elimination tournament as well. Olympic hockey has one and tends to be more exciting than the NHL, but the NHL milks its playoffs for seven-game series for the same reason the NBA does.
My favorite sport is professional football, which, of course, has a single-elimination playoff.
+/- is an individual level statistic: 5 men play the game.
at petey's suggestion, i started watching +/- late last season, and there were times when it picked up something useful about a player that wasn't altogether obvious from the rest of the box score, but ultimately, i still prefer analysis of 5-man units.
Al, as i was not alone in noting, the shaq trade looked very iffy at the time but judging it after the first few games he played in phoenix was silly. it appears that he's fitting in fine as a 30-minute man....
Fred,
You don't have single elimination playoffs in those sports because that is the worst way to decide who the best team is. You can't be serious. Football has a single elimination playoffs because anything else would obviously fail to be practical. Be serious.
Thad Young is easily the most talented Sixers rookie since Iverson.
I don't know about "easily": Iguodala was a pretty good rookie.
But as talented as he is, it's absurd to suggest he's the second best player in the league. He's probably not even the second best rookie.
I was wondering if Matthew is starting to rethink his impression of the Shaq trade. If anyone saw the Suns-Spurs game last night, Shaq looked awesome in the 4th quarter. He completely outplayed Duncan, and the Suns blew out the Spurs at the end of the game.
Yeah, it's now a more interesting question. However, I'm not sure the Spurs are the big roadblock to the Finals that they once were.
Stacy,
The reason you don't have a single elimination playoff in the NHL or the NBA is because both sports make a lot more money from gate receipts than they do from TV; the more games, the higher the cumulative gate receipts. Olympic hockey gets along perfectly fine with something close to a single elimination tournament, and, if memory serves, so does Olympic basketball. Neither has ridiculous "best of seven" series.
Fred,
And baseball? You are a fool, and know nothing of sports. Olympic hockey gets along fine? What do you mean? Yes, they have the winner, but its certainly not always the best team. But that's okay, because that is JUST A TOURNAMENT. Hockey, Basketball, Baseball are all tournaments at the end of a season to determine a champion of the league. Seriously, you are an idiot.
Stacy, you ignorant slut:
Baseball, as I have said before, bores me, and I don't watch it. But I will concede that baseball requires multi-game series because its pitching rotations are part of the game.
Yes, Olympic hockey gets a long fine in the sense that it is entertaining because every game in the medal round is sudden death; that makes it exciting, and prevents players from mailing it in occasionally like NBA players do for most of the regular season and the early parts of their 7-game playoff series.
"many fans"? How fox newsish of you. Nobody who knows anything about basketball said such nonsense (at least pre injury).
As far as playoffs go, they're only there for excitement, not fairness. The only "fair" way to crown a champion is some number of iterations of a round robin format.
Fred,
You call me ignorant and then proceed to say that NBA players "mail it in" in the beginning of seven game series? You are a tool who doesn't know anything about sports. There's a lot of things you can do to make sports more exciting, but that's not the point. If all you want is excitement, go jerk off with a noose tightened around your neck. Idiot.
Hugs and Kisses,
Stacy
Comments closed April 24, 2008.
| 
Heads in the Sand
Any metric that tells you Thaddeus Young is the second-best player in the entire league seems pretty flawed, to put it mildly.
Posted by right | April 10, 2008 9:27 AM