This is much of what an Ultimate Game Breakdown-Players (UGB) is going to look like for the new season. It's a "just the important facts please, and give them to me quick" type of report. I will in many cases do a little commentary at the bottom of the UGBs, but most of the game and team commentary will be in the separate "Game and Team Reports." Game and Team articles are, with any luck, going to be produced for 26 Nuggets and for 26 Raptors games this season. Ultimate Game Breakdowns: Players, such as the one here, will be done for the 26 key games, and for other games as well, but not necessarily for all 82 games. I don't really know how all this new editing is going to play out time wise yet! The games that get the full treatment have been very carefully chosen to be the most important games, which are generally the games against the best teams. Full treatment including the kitchen sink report games have been chosen from among only games where neither team is at a disadvantage due to playing on back to back nights. Other internet basketball "experts" are really wasting their time to some extent when they report on a game where one team was playing on back to back nights and the other team was not, because the great majority of those games are almost automatically won by the team that has more rest. I used to do those stupid games, but I'm not doing them anymore, because I keep trying to get better and better at understanding and teaching basketball, so I make changes such as this. With an Ultimate Game Breakdown-Players report, you can see very rapidly who was most responsible for the winning or the losing of the game. Then someone like me can easily write a separate game report which explains how things might have worked out better for a team, or why things worked out just about as well as possible, as the case may be. The Real Player Ratings formula has been very carefully and accurately tweaked again and is currently as follows: POSITIVE FACTORS Points 1.00 (at par) Number of 3-Pt FGs Made 1.00 Number of 2-Pt FGs Made 0.60 Number of FTs Made 0.00 Assists 1.75 Offensive Rebounds 1.15 Defensive Rebounds 1.25 Blocks 1.60 Steals 2.10 NEGATIVE FACTORS 3-Pt FGs Missed -1.00 2-Pt FGs Missed -0.85 FTs Missed -0.85 Turnovers -2.00 Personal Fouls -0.80 ACTUAL COMBINED AWARD OR PENALTY BY TYPE OF SHOT 3-Pointer Made 4.00 2-Pointer Made 2.60 Free Throw Made 1.00 3-Pointer Missed -1.00 2-Pointer Missed -0.85 Free Throw Missed -0.85 ZERO POINTS: PERCENTAGES BELOW WHICH THERE IS A NEGATIVE NET RESULT 3-Pointer 0 score % 0.200 2-Pointer 0 score % 0.246 1-Pointer 0 score % 0.459 ASSISTS VERSUS TURNOVERS ZERO POINT Assist/Turnover Ratio That Yields 0 Net Points: 1.143 NOTES ON HOW TO USE ULTIMATE GAME BREAKDOWN RPR/RPP REPORTS RPR game reports show for each player the RPR (Real Player Rating) which tells you how good a player did (the good things minus the bad things) out on the court per unit of time. The RPP (Real Player Production) report tells you how much in total (the sum of the of the good things minus the sum of the bad things) a player did out on the court. Many and maybe most sports watchers and an unknown but probably disturbingly large number of sports managers make the mistakes of exaggerating the importance of quantity and overlooking to some extent quality. These reports allow you to expand your horizons. These reports put quantity and quality side by side, which is extremely valuable, because both are roughly equally important in explaining accurately why and how the game turned out the way it did. Players who over many games consistently have higher RPR (quality) but lower RPP (quantity) results are in many cases not getting enough playing time. Players that over many games consistently have lower RPR (quality) but higher RPP (quantity) results are in many cases getting too much playing time. The exceptional cases are very often going to be players who are either truly outstanding defenders or truly bad defenders. This is because the one and only thing that is not counted, because it is impossible to calculate it, is the number of shots that a player prevents from being scores. Investigation has to date revealed that, apparently, no one has even attempted, for the NBA, rough estimates of the actual value of each player's defending, in terms of number or percentage of scores prevented, or in terms of number or percentage of possessions made worthless. Another exception. where it is really alright when it looks like a player is playing too much, will be if a team has a point guard who has many more turnovers than the average point guard has. Because the point guard is so important, a good coach has to play his best guard who can make plays at the position for a full set of minutes every game, pretty much regardless of how many turnovers that player makes. If you take out your designated point guard due to "too many turnovers," it's most often going to be sort of like cutting your foot off because you have a bad case of athletes foot! Over the coming year, I am going to be working to see if it is possible to use some combination of advanced statistics that are tracked on certain internet sites as an accurate proxy for the number of shots and/or for the number of possessions ruined by a defender. REAL PLAYER RATINGS RPR 2.0B NUGGETS 77 SUNS 72 (Preseason Game Oct 11 2008) DENVER QUALITY Kenyon Martin, PF 0.746 Nene Hilario, PF 0.676 Chris Andersen, PF 0.602 Juwan Howard, PF 0.480 Mateen Cleaves, PG 0.446 Dahntay Jones, SG 0.393 Renaldo Balkman, SF 0.388 Ruben Patterson, SF 0.294 Linas Kleiza, SF 0.163 J.R. Smith, SG 0.124 Anthony Carter, PG 0.025 PHOENIX QUALITY Robin Lopez, C 0.986 Sean Singletary, PG 0.721 Louis Amundson, PF 0.546 Grant Hill, SF 0.498 Goran Dragic, PG 0.477 Alando Tucker, SF 0.385 Boris Diaw, PF 0.360 Raja Bell, SG 0.339 Steve Nash, PG 0.212 Shaquille O'Neal, C 0.088 Matt Barnes, SF -0.005 SCALE FOR RPR (QUALITY) RATINGS FOR A SINGLE GAME Historic Superstar for this game 1.300 and more Superstar 1.000 to 1.299 Star 0.800 0.999 to Outstanding 0.625 to 0.799 Major Role Player 0.525 to 0.624 Role Player 0.450 to 0.524 Minor Role Player 0.400 to 0.449 Very Minor Role Player or Very Important Defender 0.350 to 0.399 Poor Game or Extremely Importand Defender 0.275 to 0.349 Very Poor Game Regardless of Defending 0.200 to 0.274 Disaster Game Regardless of Defending minus infinity to 0.199 **************************************************** REAL PLAYER PRODUCTION DENVER QUANTITY Chris Andersen, PF 16.25 Nene Hilario, PF 14.20 Juwan Howard, PF 11.05 Mateen Cleaves, PG 10.70 Kenyon Martin, PF 9.70 Dahntay Jones, SG 7.85 Ruben Patterson, SF 5.00 Renaldo Balkman, SF 4.65 Linas Kleiza, SF 4.55 J.R. Smith, SG 3.85 Anthony Carter, PG 0.60 PHOENIX QUANTITY Robin Lopez, C 17.75 Boris Diaw, PF 12.60 Raja Bell, SG 11.85 Grant Hill, SF 9.95 Louis Amundson, PF 7.10 Steve Nash, PG 6.35 Goran Dragic, PG 5.25 Sean Singletary, PG 5.05 Alando Tucker, SF 5.00 Shaquille O'Neal, C 2.65 Matt Barnes, SF -0.10 SCALE FOR RPP (QUANTITY) RATINGS FOR A SINGLE GAME FOR STARTING PLAYERS Happens only a few times a year in the NBA 45.0 and more Massive and Memorable Game 40.0 to 44.9 Huge Game 35.0 to 39.9 Very Big Game 30.0 to 34.9 Big Game 25.0 to 29.9 Typical Average Game 20.0 to 24.9 Somewhat Below Average Game 16.0 to 19.9 Way Below Average Game 12.0 to 15.9 Bad Game 9.0 to 11.9 Really Bad Game 5.0 to 8.9 Total Disaster minus infinity to 4.9 SCALE FOR RPP (QUANTITY) RATINGS FOR A SINGLE GAME FOR NON-STARTING PLAYERS Massive and Memorable Game 35.0 and more Huge Game 30.0 to 34.9 Very Big Game 25.0 to 29.9 Big Game 20.0 to 24.9 Typical Non-Starter Game 14.0 to 19.9 Below Average Even For a Non-Starter 9.0 to 13.9 Way Below Average Even For a Non-Starter 5.0 to 8.9 Bad Game Even For a Non-Starter 2.0 to 4.9 Disaster: Nothing Much to Report minus infinity to 1.9 THE HIGH QUALITY PLAYERS IN THIS GAME OUTSTANDING QUALITY GAMES FOR THE NUGGETS Star During Minutes on the Court: Kenyon Martin OUTSTANDING QUALITY GAMES FOR THE SUNS Superstar During Minutes on the Court: Robin Lopez POWER PERFORMERS OF THIS GAME NUGGETS STARTERS POWER PERFORMERS NONE, partly because this was a preseason game and minutes were limited. NUGGETS NON-STARTERS POWER PERFORMERS NONE, partly because this was a preseason game and minutes were limited. SUNS STARTERS POWER PERFORMERS NONE, partly because this was a preseason game and minutes were limited. SUNS NON-STARTERS POWER PERFORMERS NONE, partly because this was a preseason game and minutes were limited. Note: For the rundown of the best players and the power performers, I bump up or bump down, by one category, certain players, due to adjustments for defending, wherever such adjustments are obvious. COMMENTS Ha ha, Smith finally gets a start and more than 30 minutes and he hardly does a thing. It's almost certainly just a fluke, but kind of funny considering how Karl swore that Smith was years away from starting as recently as a few months ago. So Smith starts, but then in real life plays out one of Karl's irrational nightmares about Smith not being qualified to start. It seems that the Nuggets in general, and Karl and Smith in particular, can not win no matter what they do. (Yes, I know it was just one game, but I could not resist that take given just how miserable Smith was.) JR teammates Linas Kleiza and Anthony Carter also were terrible. But Nash and O'Neal did almost nothing for Phoenix, so the game was pathetic in general actually.
You know what though, Denver was playing on back to back nights and was the road team, and that almost always means an automatic loss in the regular season. So in this game (yes I know it is just a preseason game, but regardless) Phoenix showed they are in some confusion and disarray after the loss of Coach D'Antoni and after the loss of Shawn Marion. I'm afraid the Suns panicked and really blew it with these changes, and are in for a lot of frustrations this season, though they will probably still manage to make the playoffs, as a road playoff team. I think they will be bounced in the first round assuming they get in.
I'm looking forward to these all season long Tremaine! The editing is similar to how the site was at JBB. We switched back to vbulletin because they enhanced their software and it loads a lot faster now. I had a quick comment on your ratings. How come a steal is worth 2.10, but a turnover is only a -2.0 rating? Shouldn't they be equal value?
What the factor for a turnover should be is complicated, because there are many point guards who are critical to their teams, but who can not operate without turning it over often. There are only a few "ultimate point guards" who have high assists and low turnovers, such as Chris Paul and Steve Nash. The problem is that with a turnover factor of greater than 1.25, high turnover point guards have their ratings reduced to a level that is a little misleading, despite how important they are to their teams. Oh well, that's why the Hornets went far. Actually it's an accident that the steal and turnover factors are almost exactly inverse, because I think the turnover factor has to be correlated more to assists than to steals. And believe me, I had a heck of a time setting what the turnover factor should be, even though the even number makes it look like I winged it! There are many types of turnovers not involving steals, although I know a fairly high percentage of turnovers are off steals. So the turnover factor should be roughly the inverse of the steals factor, but not necessarily an exact or almost exact inverse. The steal is often a forced turnover to some extent: the player who turned it over often didn't really do hardly anything wrong. Also of course, steals can often lead to automatic scores. So steals are very important, and can win a game for you. Allen Iverson used to win games as much from his steals as from his scoring. In fact, I might well tweak the steals factor up to 2.2 or to 2.25, at the most, in the future, if I can get real proof to do it. But overall there aren't going to be any big changes in this index, because I know for a fact that it is already just about as good as you can get it.
I only brought it up because of a scenario we see a lot in NBA games. A player makes a steal, pushes the ball trying to get a transition basket, and ends up turning it right back over. On your scoring this would be a +2.1 for steal, followed by a -2.0 for the turnover leaving a net of +.10 Should the player be rewarded in this scenario? I think it's more logical if they offset one another.
This morning I was thinking how you could give the centers and especially the point guards small bonuses in their ratings, just because it's difficult to win basketball games against the better teams without a good designated point guard and a good center or at least a good PF-C. Then I realized that that seemingly nice idea would not work out for teams that don't have a well defined point guard, with the Nuggets being a big example of that. How could you justify giving Iverson's rating a point guard bonus when he is not the designated point guard, and when he only makes plays if he's in the mood? What about games he "goes all 2-guard"? You would not be justified giving him a point guard bonus in those games, even if you usually gave him one. And then you have teams where the real center is listed and used as if he was a PF. So all in all, it was just another one of my proposals that was quickly trashed due to how differently different basketball teams are managed. The same general problem comes up all the time when I am trying to come up with ways to compare coaches. Some coaches are so far "out there in left field" that you can't come up with as many valid ways as you would think to compare them with the more ordinary coaches. So you just have to explain the mistakes of the lousy, far out coaches with words!
Not only should he not get even a +.10, he should get about a 1 or 2 point negative, because of the blown fast break. But a substantial number of turnovers are not too much the fault of the guy who turned it over, because the guy who stole it earned his steal. So due to that and due to turnovers that have nothing to do with steals, such as out of bounds, shot clock, and offensive fouls, you can't equalize turnovers with steals. If the play you described were identified and tracked by the scorekeepers, I'd factor that kind of turnover at at least a -3, so the player would have a net -1 or worse for blowing his steal payoff. The Nuggets are great at making steals pay off, but they don't go for enough steals in the first place.
