RedsLakers24
02-12-2009, 01:20 PM
Originally Published: February 12, 2009
Insider
By Bradford Doolittle
Kobe's scoring tops LeBron's line
Great individual performances mark the high points of almost any NBA season. These days, the regular season runs 1,230 games, and the pecking order of the respective conferences has generally been established by December. As those team races are gradually unfolding, it's the great individual performances that keep us riveted.
Last week in the NBA was marked by a cluster of amazing displays. Kobe Bryant got the week started by scoring 61 points in the Lakers' win over the Knicks on February 2. That was a season high for the league, the fifth time Bryant has topped 60 points in a game and the 24th time he's gone over 50. Not to be outdone, Cleveland's LeBron James put on a show for Garden fans just two night later, scoring 52 points, grabbing nine rebounds, and handing out 11 assists in the Cavs' relatively easy win over the Knicks. Two days later, on February 8, Phoenix point guard Steve Nash capped the remarkable week by handing out 21 assists during the Suns' win in Detroit.
So, a 61-point game, a 52-point near-triple-double, and a 21-assist performance. The three spectacular performances by three of the NBA's biggest stars coming so close together serves as a perfect time to consider the ramifications of such a series of events. What do these performances really mean, both in the context of basketball history and in the practical sense of helping a team win a game?
Most, if not all, methods of establishing a value to overall player performance in basketball involve assigning some sort of point value to each statistical category. The method used in my system, called NBAPET, tries to separate production from efficiency, then combines them to determine the point and, ultimately, the win value of a player's offensive and defensive contributions. I don't subtract the "bad stuff" like missed shots, turnovers, etc., but instead attempt to look at positive production in the context of possessions used. We'll answer two questions about each player's line: how many points did it create, and how many possessions were burned to create those points?
Without getting into the hairy math of how these values were arrived at, I look at each of the box score categories as a fractional value of the actual points scored in a game. If you apply the various point values to the categories at a league-wide level, the sum will equal the actual number of points scored in the league. That's NBAPET in a nutshell and it tracks these numbers both for players on the offensive end, but also for the players they cover on the defensive end, with the hope of determining just how many points, and wins, a player's total contribution is worth.
Let's start with Kobe. Against the Knicks, Bryant's 61 points gets carved up a little bit because he didn't contribute much in categories other than scoring: no rebounds, three assists, no steals, and one block. LA scored 126 points in the game, and by the time you finish redistributing those points amongst the different box score categories, Bryant gets credit for 49 points. He burned up 41 possessions to get those points, a fairly efficient performance. Meanwhile, his various Knicks counterparts created 14 points in 16 possessions. I'd call that a win for Bryant.
LeBron James scored - and allowed - points at will against the Knicks.
To determine Bryant's net value in the game, NBAPET has two more steps. First, it calculates Bryant's net production as his points created (49) minus that of his counterparts (14), for a final net production value of 35. Next, we adjust for efficiency, which is based on the league-wide possession value of about 1.09 points this season. Bryant was 4.0 points better than average with his offensive efficiency while he saved 3.2 points with his defense, giving him an efficiency score of 7.2. The production score is averaged with the efficiency score, yielding a +21.0 net value (or gRATE as I call it) for Bryant against the Knicks. In short, you can say that Bryant's presence on the court for the Lakers that night was worth +21 net points for his team, which is one of the better game scores for a player this season.
Without going through the entire process again, let's run through the comparable figures for James and Nash. James' case is kind of murky since, on the defensive end, he gets hit with Al Harrington's 39 points on 16-of-24 shooting, to go with 13 rebounds. James created 48 points on 43 possessions, which means that his well-rounded line was a smidge less than Bryant's scoring burst. However, fair or not, by the time you factor in the defense that night, James was worth +2.1 points for the Cavs that night. His memorable performance was great, but if the defensive component is reasonable, always a question mark in basketball analysis, Bryant actually did much more to help the Lakers win.
Kobe, LeBron or Nash?
Which player's game created the most value for his team?
Player Production Value
Bryant 49 +21.0
Nash 26 +11.3
James 48 +2.1
Nash's production rating is considerably less than those of Bryant or James, simply because an assist in this system is not worth as much as a made basket, though it is worth more than a rebound. Nash created 26 points for the Suns in Detroit, but he used only 14 possessions to do so, giving him the best efficiency score of the trio. However, Nash spent a lot of time chasing around Allen Iverson that night. All in all, his net value to the Suns was 11.3 points.
You can sum this up like so:
There is no substitute for putting the ball into the hoop. Bryant was the most productive of the three players in the three games in question, and did the most to help his team win.
Bradford Doolittle is a contributor to Basketball Prospectus.
http://insider.espn.go.com/nba/insider/news/story?id=3900290&action=login&appRedirect=http%3a%2f%2finsider.espn.go.com%2fnba %2finsider%2fnews%2fstory%3fid%3d3900290
Insider
By Bradford Doolittle
Kobe's scoring tops LeBron's line
Great individual performances mark the high points of almost any NBA season. These days, the regular season runs 1,230 games, and the pecking order of the respective conferences has generally been established by December. As those team races are gradually unfolding, it's the great individual performances that keep us riveted.
Last week in the NBA was marked by a cluster of amazing displays. Kobe Bryant got the week started by scoring 61 points in the Lakers' win over the Knicks on February 2. That was a season high for the league, the fifth time Bryant has topped 60 points in a game and the 24th time he's gone over 50. Not to be outdone, Cleveland's LeBron James put on a show for Garden fans just two night later, scoring 52 points, grabbing nine rebounds, and handing out 11 assists in the Cavs' relatively easy win over the Knicks. Two days later, on February 8, Phoenix point guard Steve Nash capped the remarkable week by handing out 21 assists during the Suns' win in Detroit.
So, a 61-point game, a 52-point near-triple-double, and a 21-assist performance. The three spectacular performances by three of the NBA's biggest stars coming so close together serves as a perfect time to consider the ramifications of such a series of events. What do these performances really mean, both in the context of basketball history and in the practical sense of helping a team win a game?
Most, if not all, methods of establishing a value to overall player performance in basketball involve assigning some sort of point value to each statistical category. The method used in my system, called NBAPET, tries to separate production from efficiency, then combines them to determine the point and, ultimately, the win value of a player's offensive and defensive contributions. I don't subtract the "bad stuff" like missed shots, turnovers, etc., but instead attempt to look at positive production in the context of possessions used. We'll answer two questions about each player's line: how many points did it create, and how many possessions were burned to create those points?
Without getting into the hairy math of how these values were arrived at, I look at each of the box score categories as a fractional value of the actual points scored in a game. If you apply the various point values to the categories at a league-wide level, the sum will equal the actual number of points scored in the league. That's NBAPET in a nutshell and it tracks these numbers both for players on the offensive end, but also for the players they cover on the defensive end, with the hope of determining just how many points, and wins, a player's total contribution is worth.
Let's start with Kobe. Against the Knicks, Bryant's 61 points gets carved up a little bit because he didn't contribute much in categories other than scoring: no rebounds, three assists, no steals, and one block. LA scored 126 points in the game, and by the time you finish redistributing those points amongst the different box score categories, Bryant gets credit for 49 points. He burned up 41 possessions to get those points, a fairly efficient performance. Meanwhile, his various Knicks counterparts created 14 points in 16 possessions. I'd call that a win for Bryant.
LeBron James scored - and allowed - points at will against the Knicks.
To determine Bryant's net value in the game, NBAPET has two more steps. First, it calculates Bryant's net production as his points created (49) minus that of his counterparts (14), for a final net production value of 35. Next, we adjust for efficiency, which is based on the league-wide possession value of about 1.09 points this season. Bryant was 4.0 points better than average with his offensive efficiency while he saved 3.2 points with his defense, giving him an efficiency score of 7.2. The production score is averaged with the efficiency score, yielding a +21.0 net value (or gRATE as I call it) for Bryant against the Knicks. In short, you can say that Bryant's presence on the court for the Lakers that night was worth +21 net points for his team, which is one of the better game scores for a player this season.
Without going through the entire process again, let's run through the comparable figures for James and Nash. James' case is kind of murky since, on the defensive end, he gets hit with Al Harrington's 39 points on 16-of-24 shooting, to go with 13 rebounds. James created 48 points on 43 possessions, which means that his well-rounded line was a smidge less than Bryant's scoring burst. However, fair or not, by the time you factor in the defense that night, James was worth +2.1 points for the Cavs that night. His memorable performance was great, but if the defensive component is reasonable, always a question mark in basketball analysis, Bryant actually did much more to help the Lakers win.
Kobe, LeBron or Nash?
Which player's game created the most value for his team?
Player Production Value
Bryant 49 +21.0
Nash 26 +11.3
James 48 +2.1
Nash's production rating is considerably less than those of Bryant or James, simply because an assist in this system is not worth as much as a made basket, though it is worth more than a rebound. Nash created 26 points for the Suns in Detroit, but he used only 14 possessions to do so, giving him the best efficiency score of the trio. However, Nash spent a lot of time chasing around Allen Iverson that night. All in all, his net value to the Suns was 11.3 points.
You can sum this up like so:
There is no substitute for putting the ball into the hoop. Bryant was the most productive of the three players in the three games in question, and did the most to help his team win.
Bradford Doolittle is a contributor to Basketball Prospectus.
http://insider.espn.go.com/nba/insider/news/story?id=3900290&action=login&appRedirect=http%3a%2f%2finsider.espn.go.com%2fnba %2finsider%2fnews%2fstory%3fid%3d3900290