"No team has a drop off like Portland when Lillard, Aldridge sit"

You're saying that PER and +/- are garbage, and that FG% is more useful than PER or +/- for determining which player is better. I'd like to see at least a little proof of that statement.

 

PER doesn't ever claim to say that something is "necessarily" true. It's just a stat that was derived using correlations. It won't perfectly fit the performance and "goodness" of every player, but in general it will give a good indicator of the better player.

 

Agreed. I just think that other stats are more useful than PER to add more details and layers of understanding of a particular player.
PER is kinda like sticking your finger into water to measure the temperature - it'll tell you if it's hot, but unless you have a lot of experience measuring water temperature with your finger you probably won't know whether it's 100* or 120*.

 

It's just like that ... except that it's 100% not.

 

Sure it is - it gives you a vague idea of whether a player is "good", but absolutely no detail on WHY they're good or what it is that they're good at.

 

Harvey Grant, yes Harvey Grant. I want stats to tell me about Harvey Grant.

When the Blazers signed Harvey Grant, I was excited - He put up a lot of points on a bad team. However, he failed the eye test after we signed him even before he was ever on the court. I knew he would suck when during his presser he was talking about going to the finals - the guy had never been to a playoff game. He indeed sucked as a blazer.

I want stats to tell me not to sign Harvey Grant.

Here's his stats: http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/g/grantha01.html

18.6 ppg on .487 shooting sounds like borderline all-star (the year before joining the blazers)
16.1 PER says he's above average, not borderline all-star.

the year after we signed him: 10.4 pts on 46%, with a PER of 12.3.
(for purposes of comparison, Meyers Leonard as a rookie has a PER of 13 after 29 games).

The problem with PER isn't that it's too advanced, it's that it's not advanced enough. It should be modified to reflect a team's win/loss record, and whether the skills translate to a better team (rebounding, FT translate, FG% doesn't).

 

Oh, I certainly understand it.

I just don't misuse and rely on it to form my opinion of players like many people here do.

Nice quote. Boring.

 

blue9, I agree that every stat has to be defined and cannot be taken at face value. However, to say +/- should be just thrown out while fg% is a true measure of a players effectiveness is wrong.

I will not debate how many factors need to be looked at for +/- since there are many. It could also be said fg% also has many other factors that need to be looked at. If there are no other offensive threats on the floor, the person shooting the ball is going to be guarded better. That has nothing to do with his ability. If a player creates no offense and the majority of his shots are putbacks and dunks, his fg% will be better than the person tasked with creating offense. A team with a point guard that can create and get the ball to the open man will also have a team with a better fg %. Again, the other players ability does not change even though their fg% does.

 

You touch on a post I was going to make: Given the dropoff due to the suckiness of our bench, in which direction do we go? I think--for better or worse--our core is Lillard, Batum and Aldridge. My guess is that's a core that can get you at best to the second round, so we'll need to attract a player better than one of those three. The question is, how do we get them?

It would be nice if we could sign Hickson as a backup PF or 20 mpg center, but he's going to command a big salary next year. Perhaps keep Wes; his contract was frontloaded. If he's your starting SG, however, you're in trouble. Other than that, we have rookie contracts and cheap vets. Harness cap space and draft picks and try to get lucky. Otherwise, sit back and enjoy average NBA basketball.

 

Fair points, Charcoal. And I hear where you're coming from. But in the way that I think of the game the recipient of the PG's passes is generally 50% responsible for creating the passing lane for the easy scoring opportunity - they must know where to go at a given point in time in order to receive the pass for an easy bucket. Same with put-backs - the player earns their higher FG% through the hard work of offensive rebounding. They are creating, or partially creating, easy scoring opportunities for themselves. If Player A works a pick/roll for a shot with a 70% success rate and Player B works a pick/pop for a shot with a 40% success rate, then I'm going to go with Player A.
But I get your point - FG% isn't as "pure" as I've made it out to be. Though I still think it's the most pure statistical measurement. And again, that's not to say it's the most important measurement. I just like to know what my stats are telling me and most stats have other factors that muddy the waters, or they just don't tell the full story within that statistical category - ie, not all assists are the result of good passing, not all rebounds are "equal", not all made shots are good shots, etc.

 

...said the old-school scouts in Moneyball.

 

Nope.

You certainly do misuse it by tossing it out because it doesn't have an r^2 value of 1.

 

The thing with FG% is you have to know what kind of shots that player is taking.

Batum and Lillard pretty much have identical numbers from beyond the arc when it comes to attempts and 3pt%.

Difference is Lillard creates most of his opportunities, while Batum mostly has to be set up just to get a good shot off.

 

K .

 

It doesn't say specifically for 3pt shots, but I thought these stats might be relevant.

Batum:


Lillard:


I think it shows statistically how much harder Lillard has to work for his shots.

 

Thanks for making it easier for everyone to see. I'll give you rep just for the effort.

And being the focus of the defense these days Lillard is definitely working much harder for his shots. He's still producing, though, and that's what makes him special.

 

I'd say that's likely a result of their differing positions. Nic's often a safety relief valve, spotted up in the corner and being fed the ball at the last second for an open look at a 3 pt shot. When Lillard has to jack up a last second shot, he's usually got the ball in his hands and the wheels have come off of the offense so he has to put up a contested jumper.

 

Exactly. Lillard shooting late in the clock means the picks have failed, he's double teamed, the pass out came back to him, and he's gotta heave it up.

 

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