Crytek
02-28-2011, 05:41 PM
From Basketball-Reference (http://www.basketball-reference.com/blog/?p=8946) :
This idea of "where would Team X be without Star Y?" comes up so frequently in these discussions, and its advocates usually want you to treat it as an evidence-free thought experiment. I suppose you had no choice but to take those arguments on faith in the pre-internet era, but now that there is on/off-court data being tracked for public consumption, we can actually look at how a team performs when Star Y is not in the game -- in essence, we can gather evidence about roughly how good his team would be in his absence.
here's what we would expect from these MVP candidates' teams if forced to play without them:
Player Tm off_ORtg off_DRtg Pyth% expW-L
Steve Nash (http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/n/nashst01.html) PHO 98.09 110.90 0.152 9-48
Chris Paul (http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/p/paulch01.html) NOH 95.83 103.80 0.246 15-46
Dirk Nowitzki (http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/n/nowitdi01.html) DAL 101.41 107.91 0.296 17-42
Manu Ginobili (http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/g/ginobma01.html) SAS 105.84 105.64 0.506 30-29
Amare Stoudemire (http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/s/stoudam01.html) NYK 103.58 103.17 0.514 29-28
LeBron James (http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/j/jamesle01.html) MIA 107.43 106.21 0.540 32-28
Pau Gasol (http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/g/gasolpa01.html) LAL 105.62 103.80 0.560 34-27
Rajon Rondo (http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/r/rondora01.html) BOS 101.55 98.90 0.591 34-23
Kevin Durant (http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/d/duranke01.html) OKC 105.28 101.90 0.612 36-22
Dwight Howard (http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/h/howardw01.html) ORL 104.87 101.32 0.618 37-23
Dwyane Wade (http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/w/wadedw01.html) MIA 104.27 99.80 0.649 39-21
Tim Duncan (http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/d/duncati01.html) SAS 111.09 105.98 0.659 39-20
Derrick Rose (http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/r/rosede01.html) CHI 97.82 92.80 0.676 39-18
Kobe Bryant (http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/b/bryanko01.html) LAL 106.36 100.24 0.696 42-19
Tony Parker (http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/p/parketo01.html) SAS 114.21 104.37 0.779 46-13
Russell Westbrook (http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/w/westbru01.html) OKC 110.94 100.68 0.796 46-12
Obviously, this is a bit of an oversimplification; the performance of a team when a player is off the court is not exactly equivalent to the team's hypothetical performance if he went down with an injury. For instance, substitution patterns often call for not only the player to leave the floor, but also for his fellow starters to depart, causing this metric to capture backups-vs-backups and other unintended matchups.
Having said that, it is still a pretty useful sanity check when you hear the ubiquitous "where would they be without him?" debates. For instance, the evidence above shows us that the Bulls might still be the #3 seed in the East without Rose, which sort of deflates the pro-Rose arguments Haberstroh references in his article. And it also shows us that Chris Paul (http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/p/paulch01.html) and Dirk Nowitzki (http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/n/nowitdi01.html) are very clearly the top candidates if you want to take the "hypothetical team record without him" tack: West #5 seed New Orleans is Sacramento-level terrible when Paul rides the pine, while Dallas goes from being the #2 seed in the conference to the equivalent of the New Jersey Nets when Nowitzki isn't in the game.
So, without Westbrook, the Thunder would have won 10 more games. :wow
And there are only three teams that depend on their Star to really unhealthy degrees.
This idea of "where would Team X be without Star Y?" comes up so frequently in these discussions, and its advocates usually want you to treat it as an evidence-free thought experiment. I suppose you had no choice but to take those arguments on faith in the pre-internet era, but now that there is on/off-court data being tracked for public consumption, we can actually look at how a team performs when Star Y is not in the game -- in essence, we can gather evidence about roughly how good his team would be in his absence.
here's what we would expect from these MVP candidates' teams if forced to play without them:
Player Tm off_ORtg off_DRtg Pyth% expW-L
Steve Nash (http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/n/nashst01.html) PHO 98.09 110.90 0.152 9-48
Chris Paul (http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/p/paulch01.html) NOH 95.83 103.80 0.246 15-46
Dirk Nowitzki (http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/n/nowitdi01.html) DAL 101.41 107.91 0.296 17-42
Manu Ginobili (http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/g/ginobma01.html) SAS 105.84 105.64 0.506 30-29
Amare Stoudemire (http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/s/stoudam01.html) NYK 103.58 103.17 0.514 29-28
LeBron James (http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/j/jamesle01.html) MIA 107.43 106.21 0.540 32-28
Pau Gasol (http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/g/gasolpa01.html) LAL 105.62 103.80 0.560 34-27
Rajon Rondo (http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/r/rondora01.html) BOS 101.55 98.90 0.591 34-23
Kevin Durant (http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/d/duranke01.html) OKC 105.28 101.90 0.612 36-22
Dwight Howard (http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/h/howardw01.html) ORL 104.87 101.32 0.618 37-23
Dwyane Wade (http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/w/wadedw01.html) MIA 104.27 99.80 0.649 39-21
Tim Duncan (http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/d/duncati01.html) SAS 111.09 105.98 0.659 39-20
Derrick Rose (http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/r/rosede01.html) CHI 97.82 92.80 0.676 39-18
Kobe Bryant (http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/b/bryanko01.html) LAL 106.36 100.24 0.696 42-19
Tony Parker (http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/p/parketo01.html) SAS 114.21 104.37 0.779 46-13
Russell Westbrook (http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/w/westbru01.html) OKC 110.94 100.68 0.796 46-12
Obviously, this is a bit of an oversimplification; the performance of a team when a player is off the court is not exactly equivalent to the team's hypothetical performance if he went down with an injury. For instance, substitution patterns often call for not only the player to leave the floor, but also for his fellow starters to depart, causing this metric to capture backups-vs-backups and other unintended matchups.
Having said that, it is still a pretty useful sanity check when you hear the ubiquitous "where would they be without him?" debates. For instance, the evidence above shows us that the Bulls might still be the #3 seed in the East without Rose, which sort of deflates the pro-Rose arguments Haberstroh references in his article. And it also shows us that Chris Paul (http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/p/paulch01.html) and Dirk Nowitzki (http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/n/nowitdi01.html) are very clearly the top candidates if you want to take the "hypothetical team record without him" tack: West #5 seed New Orleans is Sacramento-level terrible when Paul rides the pine, while Dallas goes from being the #2 seed in the conference to the equivalent of the New Jersey Nets when Nowitzki isn't in the game.
So, without Westbrook, the Thunder would have won 10 more games. :wow
And there are only three teams that depend on their Star to really unhealthy degrees.