So, we’re ten games into the season, right around the 7:00 mark of the first quarter in the Game That Is The Season. In the game thread of our season, this is right about the time when Kingspeed mentions that Crabbe is on pace to score 90 tonight or something equally amazing. That’s the beauty of Stupid Stat Tricks when we’re still in the throes of Small Sample Size Theatre. Anything could happen. And so it’s time for some Stupid Stat Tricks. I’m periodically going to play around with some stats (courtesy of basketball-reference.com), and try to find interesting comparisons, spurious correlations, and bold conjectures based on the stats. No eye test needed here, we’re flying by wire. So what to tackle first? How about Damian Lillard. “He’s on pace to…” is the perfect statement to make on this guy, too. How good is he going to be this year (only his third year, by the way)? First a bit of back story: From a stat hound’s point of view, there are a few “Best Season EVAR” candidates for Blazer guards. Obviously, Clyde has a few of them, a streak from 1989-1992 (PER of 22.2, 22.1, and 23.6) that are his prime, and that team’s prime as well. Brandon Roy’s 2008-09 season (PER of 24.0) is what cemented him as a Blazer Legend, right before his knees gave out on him. Terry Porter, in the middle of Clyde’s prime, had two of his best seasons: 1989-90 (PER of 20.0) and 1990-91 (PER of 21.7). And real old timers might remember Dave Twardzik’s 1976-77 season where he shot 61% (!!!) His PER of 16.3 is skewed by the lack of three pointers and missing stats from the olden days, so we won’t bother comparing that. Classic player stats are all well and good, but what about Damian? Damian’s 10 games this year put him “on pace to” have not a Top 5 Blazer Guard season, not a Top 10 all-time Blazer season, but… but… The Best Blazer Season of ALL TIME* *according to some stats people may or may not agree with. “Better than Clyde’s 1987-88 season when he did everything but make the popcorn?” YES “Better than Sabas’s rookie year when he proved to the NBA he was probably the best player on the planet from the waist up?” YES Let’s talk Value Over Replacement Player. VORP (speed Mr Sulu) is an ESPN-ish Advanced Stat estimating how much more valuable a real player is above a player like Taurean “Two Wins” (err, "Three or Four Wins") Green. It’s another one of those “single number that says how awesome a player is” stats like PER, but that takes into account a bunch of 100-possession-team-normalized WHO CARES YOU SURE DON’T! It’s like PER, but less about efficiency and more about actual effect on the game, and discounting what team you’re playing for. It’s like WARP (Wins Above Replacement Player) but lower because reasons. You can multiply VORP by 2.7 to WARP. “Okay. Whatever, BC.” Right. So lets talk about VORP for those classic seasons above. Roy’s 2008-09 season? a VORP of 5.4. A PER of 24.0. A True Shooting % of 57.3% (that’s the one where you take into account Free Throws and 3-pointers). A Win Shares per 48 minutes of .223 — this is all very good. Think of of the games Roy had to get those stats. His game in Houston, his 52-point game against Phoenix, 11 games of 30 points or more, 55 games of 20 points or more, 49 games with 5 or more assists, 42 games with 5 rebounds or more. Roy had a MONSTER season, on a team coached by McScribble, with a rookie Batum backed up by Travis Outlaw, and Steve Blake as his setup man. But, he had Oden for his one good season, and this was the first season when Sergio and Rudy played together. What a crazy team, right? And Roy was the absolute centerpiece. So a VORP of 5.4, right? Must be pretty awesome. Not so fast, buddy… Clyde has SIX SEASONS of VORP above 5.4! From 1986-1992, Clyde has six straight seasons with a VORP of 5.8 (1986-87), 7.0 (1987-88), 6.9 (1988-89), 6.4 (1989-90), 6.5 (1990-91) and 6.9 (1991-92). This is Clyde’s prime. This is his legacy. We remember these years. A few with the pre-Finals teams, and three with probably the best teams Portland had. We won a LOT of games between 1989 and 1992 (179 but who’s counting?), and Clyde was the “second best SG in the game”, living at the edges of Jordan’s shadow (who had VORP above 10 twice in his career, and in 1990-91 had a VORP of 9.1) So Clyde’s fat stack of VORPs is pretty much the Blazer gold standard. But wait. What about Dame? Dame’s VORP today is just ten games old, but we’ve had a bit of a starting slump, and a couple of games where we didn’t really talk about him too much, despite his performances. We’re getting used to his play. But we really should savor it, because right now he’s got a VORP of 7.1, just above Clyde’s best, and way above Roy’s best, with a Win Shares per 48 of .251! And he’s doing it all so calmly. He goes out there, does his work, gives a great interview, shoots two commercials, then gets up the next morning. The story on Dame has been that his defense is a work in progress. We can see the progress this year; it’s the first year his DRtg has been below 110, and it’s well under: 105. His rebounding is way up as well: 5.3 rebounds per 36 minutes (versus 3.5 last year). Heck, everything is pretty much up when it should be and down when it should be. Here’s what’s better this year for Dame (Per 36 minutes): FG% (46.8% now, 42.4% last year) 3P% (46.5% now, 39.4% last year) FT% (93.2% now, 87.1% last year) TRB (5.3 now, 3.5 last year) AST (6.8 now, 5.6 last year) Points (21.2 now, 20.8 last year) Minutes Played (35.0 now, 35.8 last year) That shooting percentage is the pearl. He’s improved his shooting four full percentage points, bringing him up to a respectable level for a guard. But it’s not just that. This year, it seems, truly, like it doesn’t matter where he shoots on the court. His 2P% is 47.1%, and his 3P% is 46.5%… it really doesn’t matter! He just shoots, and almost half the time, it goes in. From anywhere. That’s dangerous. His True Shooting Percentage (that takes FT's and 3 pointers into account) is 64.2%. That's bananas! Last year, he improved over his rookie season by about 79% (VORP TY over LY), not quite doubling up his value. This year over last year? 109% better. He’s not just improving, but his improvement is accelerating year over year. His ORtg has gone up 8 points or more each year he’s been in the league (108, 116, 125), and his DRtg has gone down each year (112, 110, 105). If he’s peaking early, because he spent so much time in college, so what? If this is his peak, it’s a Top 10 player in the league, regardless of position, and a Top 3 or 4 PG in the league. How does he compare to some historical seasons? Who else has had a season with at least 6.5 Assists per 36, a PER over 23, a VORP over 7, and a True Shooting Percentage 60% or better? Magic Johnson - 4 times LeBron James - 2 times Larry Bird - 1 time Michael Jordan - 1 time Damian Lillard - 1 time (this year!) Stephen Curry - 1 time (this year too!) Think about all the names that aren’t on this list: John Stockton, Iasiah Thomas, Tony Parker. Think about this season, too, where we have two players on pace to have this kind of season. The last time that happened? 1988-89, when Magic Johnson and Michael Jordan both did it. It’s early, but it sure seems like this year is going to be pretty special. (By the way, if you crank the minimum True Shooting Percentage in that filter above to 64%, that list drops down to two: LeBron in 2012-13, and Damian in 2014-15.) Got a stupid stat trick you want me to perform? Want to see a stat where only Alan Crabbe and LeBron James show up in a list? Or maybe you want to compare our 8th men over the last 20 years? Let me know and I’ll try to get those stats to jump through some hoops of fire!
This was a great fucking post. Thank you, BC. It's people like you and BrianFromWA who make this forum worth paying attention to.
Holy cow, BC. Coming out of the gate STRONG. One edit (b/c I'm supposedly an editor and have to do this crap): Taurean was "three or four wins" Green, not two. Quick, you wanna back me up on this?
HAHAH! Fixed. Also, I somehow forgot Dame's great WS/48 of .251, which needed to be mentioned to complete the comparison with Roy's 08/09 season.
Nice post. On a completely different metric, I've heard three different non-Blazer fans say Lillard is a couple years away from being the best PG in the league. He really has been sensational, and people are noticing. He's averaging 27/9, 58%fg, 70%3fg, over the past three games, two of them without LMA, all without Batum. That's just nuts. It does make you wonder, though, if when Batum returns you'll see Nic handle the ball less. Lillard's ability to shoot from so far out just massively distorts team defenses--you can't leave him an inch of space ever.
The most amazing thing, to me, is that Lillard is doing all this without any huge scoring games. He's on pace to have the highest VORP in team history, but hasn't had a single game of 30, or more, points. During Clyde's three best seasons, he broke 30 points 26 times (VORP = 7.0), 24 times (VORP = 6.9) and 21 times (VORP = 6.9). During Roy's best season, he broke 30 points 12 times (VORP = 5.4). For Lillard to be at VORP = 7.0 without a single 30 point game shows how efficient he's scoring and how well he is playing at all aspects of the game. BNM
Geez, BC, I always knew you were a nerd, but this is nerdism at an epic level of brilliance. I'm going to rep you as soon as I get to my computer.
