Kawhi is a slightly above average defender this season...

[Chinook]

?

He echoed my primary point in his post:



And this is what fanboys of certain players do all the time on here.

"He's a better option wholesale because, um, his RPM is higher!"

My central argument isn't that RPM is a useless stat, but it's useless when making player comparisons between players in different roles and on different teams. I have no problem with the stat if its sole function is to evaluate player impact vis a vis his specific role on his specific team, but I find it HIGHLY flawed when it's used to evaluate players in a vacuum and then attempts to quantify absolute player value.

Example: Danny Green had a superstar level RPM one season. Anyone with a brain can see Danny Green isn't a superstar, but for that specific season in his specific role, he had such an impact for the Spurs (I think RPM is too kind to players like Green, Korver, Battier, etc). And even then, NBA front offices took his metrics with a grain of salt. GMs weren't exactly knocking down his door with 20 mil per year contracts, which, if evaluating in a vacuum, an RPM like his should've demanded.

You were talking about why the stat sucked. Now you're agreeing that it was a problem with use. Don't trying to twist that. You literally said you didn't see how RPM could be calculated to make sense. This whole thread was how RPM was messed up because of Kawhi having a great dPER while also having a lackluster DRPM.

All advanced stats are opinions, and just like tweets and articles, the makers of them oversell what the stats do so that more people consume them. That doesn't mean they don't do good math or that the stat isn't informative. It just has to be put into a larger argument.

There's more to the qualification than just role. A guy being able to do more with the ball doesn't necessarily make him better, at least not in the sense anyone should care about. A guy perfectly suited for his role can be a better OVERALL player than a generalist with more skill, especially considering the economy for skills. Three-and-D guys, athletic rim-protectors/rim-runners, stretch-bigs: These guys are more helpful to a team than more skilled guys who can't do anything at an elite level, and great ones are rarer than hen's teeth. The guys who dominate RPM from these roles can be said to be straight-up better than a lot of guys below them. Are there exceptions? Yes. But not as many as folks want to think.

If you can cover for a center not being able to shoot better than you can cover for one who sucks on D, then you can argue that the metrics should reflect that.

[Chinook]

I wasn't anywhere near the Patty/Murray should start crowd this season, but to be fair to them, it's not enough to just say that Patty failed as a starter so that's it. There'd need to be time for everyone to adjust to the change of duties before you could say anything for sure. I think Mills is a horrible example for this, though, since I think the starting O is about as Mills-friendly as possible already

Let's just say like Prime Parker and Prime Paul. You could argue the Spurs would have been better with Prime CP3 instead of MVParker, but if you swapped them, the Spurs would have been worse. However, once the offense shifted to play to Paul's strengths (maybe more three-point shooting and less slashing/Zipper Series), perhaps it would improve? It's not easy to tell from most stats I'd put any stock into.

[Arcadian]

OP is one of the smartest posters on this board...not sure why he got so much hate in this thread. I mean come on, he didn't even insult anyone's favorite player, he just insulted a particular stat. How can someone be offended by that?

And when people attack him with stupid name-calling, he responds coolly and calmly with more logic and data. You gotta respect that.

[GSH]

OP is one of the smartest posters on this board...not sure why he got so much hate in this thread. I mean come on, he didn't even insult anyone's favorite player, he just insulted a particular stat. How can someone be offended by that?

And when people attack him with stupid name-calling, he responds coolly and calmly with more logic and data. You gotta respect that.

My beef is that he seems to be arguing both sides. The thread le was supposed to be sarcastic... I think. But then the talk about how Kawhi isn't as good of a defender as last year, isn't "crashing the boards", etc. Then bringing in PER. , I don't care if someone criticizes a Spur, especially when they deserve it. But at the very least, he keeps quoting stats, and then applying the "eye test" to defend his belief that Kawhi isn't defending as well this year. Pick one - not both.

I know a bit about the evolution of RPM and RAPM. And no matter what anyone says about them, they were designed for the purpose of finding "diamonds in the rough" - players who are contributing more than their "traditional" stats and/or their reputations might indicate. And the ultimate purpose was to identify good players who could be signed on the cheap. It was an attempt at "Moneyball" for the NBA. And I know that because I know some of the guys who were involved. I don't know how many of you even know or understand that RPM is absolutely intended to be predictive, and not a strict measure of this season.

You want to know the problem with RPM and RAPM (and xRAPM, and DBPM, etc.)? They work great... except when they don't. The biggest thing they do is point out the incredibly ing obvious. Tim Duncan looked good. LeBron looks good. I don't need some damn advanced stat to tell me that. But those same advanced stats got Brian Cardinal one of the worst FA contracts in history. People got twisted today, when those jagoffs said that Kawhi would be no better than Otto Porter if he was on any other team. They were saying that Otto Porter isn't a very good player. But even Otto Porter's DRPM is substantially higher than Kawhi's this year. When a stat tells you something that you know can't be true, you should figure out that the stat is flawed. Either that, or you can hand Brian Cardinal a juicy 6-year contract, because the stat says so.

One of the best examples I've come across said that if you look at RPM, it would say that putting the 5 best centers in the league on the floor at the same time would result in them blowing out other teams by 20+ points every game. But if you really did it, they would get their asses kicked every time by balanced teams. No matter how much RPM tries to adjust out the impact of teammates, there are situations where it can't do that. This is one of those extreme situations. I don't think that Kawhi is ANY worse defender than he was last season. And I don't think that he is neglecting to crash the boards, or any of the other silly I've read. He's in a situation where playing team defense means that he isn't free to be Kawhi. Add that to some of the other inherent flaws in RPM, and you've got a stat that doesn't mean a damn thing here. Nothing.

[midnightpulp]

You were talking about why the stat sucked. Now you're agreeing that it was a problem with use. Don't trying to twist that. You literally said you didn't see how RPM could be calculated to make sense. This whole thread was how RPM was messed up because of Kawhi having a great dPER while also having a lackluster DRPM.

All advanced stats are opinions, and just like tweets and articles, the makers of them oversell what the stats do so that more people consume them. That doesn't mean they don't do good math or that the stat isn't informative. It just has to be put into a larger argument.

There's more to the qualification than just role. A guy being able to do more with the ball doesn't necessarily make him better, at least not in the sense anyone should care about. A guy perfectly suited for his role can be a better OVERALL player than a generalist with more skill, especially considering the economy for skills. Three-and-D guys, athletic rim-protectors/rim-runners, stretch-bigs: These guys are more helpful to a team than more skilled guys who can't do anything at an elite level, and great ones are rarer than hen's teeth. The guys who dominate RPM from these roles can be said to be straight-up better than a lot of guys below them. Are there exceptions? Yes. But not as many as folks want to think.

If you can cover for a center not being able to shoot better than you can cover for one who sucks on D, then you can argue that the metrics should reflect that.

No twisting. I conceded that point to you which then Harlem echoed.

YOU:That sounds more like your assumption that the model's. It could well be controlled for role, meaning that it's not arguing who is better but only who plays better in their role. Like maybe it suggests that Korver was a more elite spot-up guy than Batum was a lead perimeter creator. Or that Boban was a better garbage-time big than LMA was a front-court anchor. That's a perfectly reasonable interpretation of that data -- it's just weaker to the point that it would have to be part of a larger argument.

ME:I have no problem if that's what it is doing.

And I stand by my position that RPM doesn't make much sense when used for absolute player comparisons (i.e Player A on the Bucks has a higher RPM than Player B on the Nets, ergo Player A is better).

And to clarify, that is the use of RPM I'm attacking. When people use it to compare their favorite/least liked players and such.

[midnightpulp]

My beef is that he seems to be arguing both sides. The thread le was supposed to be sarcastic... I think. But then the talk about how Kawhi isn't as good of a defender as last year, isn't "crashing the boards", etc. Then bringing in PER. , I don't care if someone criticizes a Spur, especially when they deserve it. But at the very least, he keeps quoting stats, and then applying the "eye test" to defend his belief that Kawhi isn't defending as well this year. Pick one - not both.

I know a bit about the evolution of RPM and RAPM. And no matter what anyone says about them, they were designed for the purpose of finding "diamonds in the rough" - players who are contributing more than their "traditional" stats and/or their reputations might indicate. And the ultimate purpose was to identify good players who could be signed on the cheap. It was an attempt at "Moneyball" for the NBA. And I know that because I know some of the guys who were involved. I don't know how many of you even know or understand that RPM is absolutely intended to be predictive, and not a strict measure of this season.

You want to know the problem with RPM and RAPM (and xRAPM, and DBPM, etc.)? They work great... except when they don't. The biggest thing they do is point out the incredibly ing obvious. Tim Duncan looked good. LeBron looks good. I don't need some damn advanced stat to tell me that. But those same advanced stats got Brian Cardinal one of the worst FA contracts in history. People got twisted today, when those jagoffs said that Kawhi would be no better than Otto Porter if he was on any other team. They were saying that Otto Porter isn't a very good player. But even Otto Porter's DRPM is substantially higher than Kawhi's this year. When a stat tells you something that you know can't be true, you should figure out that the stat is flawed. Either that, or you can hand Brian Cardinal a juicy 6-year contract, because the stat says so.

One of the best examples I've come across said that if you look at RPM, it would say that putting the 5 best centers in the league on the floor at the same time would result in them blowing out other teams by 20+ points every game. But if you really did it, they would get their asses kicked every time by balanced teams. No matter how much RPM tries to adjust out the impact of teammates, there are situations where it can't do that. This is one of those extreme situations. I don't think that Kawhi is ANY worse defender than he was last season. And I don't think that he is neglecting to crash the boards, or any of the other silly I've read. He's in a situation where playing team defense means that he isn't free to be Kawhi. Add that to some of the other inherent flaws in RPM, and you've got a stat that doesn't mean a damn thing here. Nothing.

The thread le was supposed to be sarcastic, yes. Personally, I don't think Kawhi has been AS good on defense as last season, but he is certainly better on defense than Luke Babbitt, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, and Paul Pierce. I'm not trying to play both sides here. Kawhi is still the best defensive wing in the league. He's only "slipped" on that end due to carrying more offensive load. I'm not slighting Kawhi but taking to task when RPM is used in a vacuum, as many people do in these player comparisons. To do such in this case would lead someone to state, "Trevor Ariza is a better defender than Kawhi Leonard." That's the argument I'm challenging.

As for the rest of your post, excellent stuff. Especially bolded

[Chinook]

No twisting. I conceded that point to you which then Harlem echoed.

And I stand by my position that RPM doesn't make much sense when used for absolute player comparisons (i.e Player A on the Bucks has a higher RPM than Player B on the Nets, ergo Player A is better).

And to clarify, that is the use of RPM I'm attacking. When people use it to compare their favorite/least liked players and such.

All right. That makes sense, and I agree with you on anyone using stats without thought to what they mean and where they fit within a larger narrative. They shouldn't be used to replace the eye-test or common sense -- they're supposed to supplement and inform those things.

At the same time, stats with a large enough sample base and long enough history of accuracy should often be given the benefit of the doubt in instances where their results seem counter-intuitive. In that way, it's extremely hard to break a stat by showing an example where it seems wrong, and that happens a lot.

[DMC]

I was talking about single game plus minus.

I can already tell I don't like BPM as much already if it's what you say. But still decent to know.

not knowing what BPM means but criticizing someone for using it
calculated bombs missing targets up in here

[dabom]

not knowing what BPM means but criticizing someone for using it
calculated bombs missing targets up in here

I have no problem saying when I'm wrong. Other people are wrong in this thread but my bump mine. I can see why you always been a got.

[Chinook]

BPM is not regular plus-minus. It's a derivative stat just like RPM. It's just a Lynux version made by BBRef.

Like seriously, there's a DBPM and an OBPM. Do you see that on a box score?

http://www.basketball-reference.com/about/bpm.html

[dabom]

BPM is not regular plus-minus. It's a derivative stat just like RPM. It's just a Lynux version made by BBRef.

So it's not total raw plus minus divided by games?

[dabom]

In that case Mid lied to me. and I've been using it right, gots. DMC got

[Chinook]

So it's not total raw plus minus divided by games?

Nope. I'm not sure that anyone really keeps track of that stat, since that would be useless AF. Instead, it's plus-minus that cares about the other stats you pick up and relative to the team. So a guy who just stands there while the others lead a run would get dinged by BPM while a guy who's the only one of the court making a difference would be raised up by it.

[Chinook]

In that case Mid lied to me. and I've been using it right, gots. DMC got

To be fair, before BBRef came out with this stat (I think it's only like two years old) "box-score plus-minus" used to just mean the regular version. But yes, if you were citing this stat from BBRef, then you were using a different stat than Mid thought you were.

[dabom]

[midnightpulp]

BBRef's BPM is pretty shaky, too.

They're open about its limitations:

Note: BPM does not take into account playing time – it is purely a rate stat.

There are limitations on all box score stats – if the box score doesn't measure a particular contribution, a box-score-based metric can only approximate that contribution. This is not a great hindrance on the offensive side, as nearly everything of importance on offense is captured by the box score (only missing things like screen-setting), but on defense the box score is quite limited. Blocks, steals, and rebounds, along with minutes and what little information offensive numbers yield about defensive performance are all that is available. Such critical components of defense as positioning, communication, and the other factors that make Kevin Garnett and Tim Duncan elite on defense can't be captured, unfortunately.

What does this mean? Box Plus/Minus is good at measuring offense and solid overall, but the defensive numbers in particular should not be considered definitive. Look at the defensive values as a guide, but don't hesitate to discount them when a player is well known as a good or bad defender.

And RPM is rather fruitless when comparing players in different roles and on different teams.

[DMC]

In that case Mid lied to me. and I've been using it right, gots. DMC got

being knocked off your confidence by a suggestion
still you have no ing clue

[poeticism707]

What are Parker stats tbh

[dabom]

being knocked off your confidence by a suggestion
still you have no ing clue

You said nothing, got.

[gambit1990]

OP writes "Kawhi is a slightly above average defender this season" using RPM

then writes tons of sentences on why it's not matching his "eye test" using bits and pieces of raw stats

then he states that Kawhi has indeed slipped defensively to save his energy for offense

Then goes back and says RPM is bad inconsistent.

Even though on other posts uses BPM(a very ing similar stat).

Which one is it OP? You everywhere, got.

[dabom]

[dabom]

So average defense but above that.

OP stay being a got. Should have won DPOY again anchoring the best defense in the NBA.

OP is one of those totals fans. Let me make it simple for you. Kawhi plays the most minutes on the team especially vs the best teams in the NBA. With the minutes he's getting, an above average defender doesn't get us the best defense in the league .

[testies]

danny green is our best defender and has been for years

[spurs1990]

I wanted to put this in a Leonard related thread:


https://youtu.be/PuzpcwOU4CY?t=2m5s

[dabom]

"But but but he ain't a point forward..."