Bonn1997 wrote:You're incorrectly assuming a strong negative correlation between shot attempts and efficiency. You can see a good statistical study here: http://www.countthebasket.com/blog/2008/03/06/diminishing-returns-for-scoring-usage-vs-efficiency/
There's a small negative correlation between shot attempts (or usage) and efficiency. So a volume shooter like Melo with average efficiency does help his teammates, but only slightly. It's more than zero help but much less than people assume. A more reasonable, neutral title might be something like "efficiency vs. volume" rather than vs. "effectiveness."

I'll admit that I'm not terribly familiar with advanced statistics related to basketball but I'll review this as best as I can later on. Having taken three total semesters of statistics though, I know that numbers can be tortured until you get them to say what you want them to. Not too many years ago, I recall the +/- statistic indicating that Kevin Durant had a negative influence on his team when on the court and another suggesting that David Lee had more of an impact on the floor than Kobe Bryant. It is why I think that the naked eye test is still the best method for evaluating a player; using statistics only as a means of augmenting these existing observations.

With that being said, I think Melo is an effective player because of the massive amount of game planning required to cover/contain him by opposing teams. Is he something of a one trick pony? Yeah but I think the point is overstated because we often juxtapose his versatile scoring ability (that ranks among the best in the league) with the rest of his game. That fault, in my opinion, obviously lies more with the observer than the actual player.

going into his 11th season, i may be mixing in the end result as a sign that he hasnt changed much. that disclaimer said, i would not count on him altering too much at this point. not a matter of age as much of service time.

Bonn1997 wrote:

NardDogNation wrote:

Bonn1997 wrote:You're incorrectly assuming a strong negative correlation between shot attempts and efficiency. You can see a good statistical study here: http://www.countthebasket.com/blog/2008/03/06/diminishing-returns-for-scoring-usage-vs-efficiency/
There's a small negative correlation between shot attempts (or usage) and efficiency. So a volume shooter like Melo with average efficiency does help his teammates, but only slightly. It's more than zero help but much less than people assume. A more reasonable, neutral title might be something like "efficiency vs. volume" rather than vs. "effectiveness."

I'll admit that I'm not terribly familiar with advanced statistics related to basketball but I'll review this as best as I can later on. Having taken three total semesters of statistics though, I know that numbers can be tortured until you get them to say what you want them to.

The solution is to make an educated interpretation of the data, not to ignore them. That's why almost all the teams are hiring statisticians now.

I'm not refuting the usefulness of statistics; that has never been my point. But as I've said in another post, the essence of statistics lies in identifying the realm of possibilities and probabilities and can never outright prove a point. It operates with an element of falsifiability, so to use any one or handful of metrics to confirm a players effectiveness is not apart of its intended use. For all the "projections" guys like John Hollinger makes, it does not necessarily play itself out in the real world as you indirectly pointed out in another post.

Red1976 wrote:Statistics are often a simplification of a much more complex model ... So yes numbers and significant tests can be misleading and in sport the eye test is very important IMO

You can also have a significant test out of 20 if you choose a 5% confidence level so I'm wondering if all these advanced statistics are correcting for multiple testing ?

Finally, the statistic and tests can be very complex but if your data are not good enough to begin with (e.g. Limited Sample size, incorrectness of the measurement, ...) this is just an elegant way of masking for this as no one will be able to understand what the statistic really measure for and if it is appropriate ...

I'm very suspicious and even more in sport where so many factors can't be controlled for ..and there is no way to reproduce the experiment ...

I completely agree with everything you said. To play devil's advocate though (because I don't know how to answer this for myself), if "so many factors can't be controlled for", how is there such a monopoly of NBA championships? In the past 38 years, there has only been 8 NBA champions, which I would imagine is the least of any major league sport during this same stretch.

Papabear wrote:

sidsanders wrote:how to avoid this going down the wrong path...
my concerns for anthony are that he doesnt seem to be a complete player. i would like the guy to be a consistent hardship for the opponent on both offense and defense. when his shot isnt falling, contribute in other ways be that rebounds, assists, defense, etc. at times he has with some solid rebounding. to me this would lower his effectiveness until he can do that. this bit may also be why folks hammer the guy compared to others.

going into his 11th season, i may be mixing in the end result as a sign that he hasnt changed much. that disclaimer said, i would not count on him altering too much at this point. not a matter of age as much of service time.

Papabear Says

I understand what you are saying and no disrespect to you but didn't we just do this thread a few days ago?? Or is this another one of those bashing Melo threads again?? There are sooo many.

i put in why i think when he is inefficient, he isnt effective - at least not in a consistent manner.
not my thread, and i suspect if things go as they do this will go in the normal direction.

NardDogNation wrote:I think guys like Andre Igoudala are "complete" players but would you say he changes the game more than a guy like Melo? I personally think that he doesn't and is why "complete(ness)" is an overexaggerated point when evaluating a player. I deem a player's worth by the degree to which he changes the overall game in a positive manner. Its why a guy like Shaq in his prime was a more effective player than KG in his. Despite KG being a dramatically more dynamic ballplayer, there would be a unanimous favoring of primed-Shaq to build a contender with.

i would say that for what the knicks need, they need anthony to be consistent if not complete -- play off/def. the knicks have too many flawed players as it is.

semantics in all this perhaps... AI is a solid role player who can help you on both ends. i may have read this to be that effective could include other ways to impact the game while not being offensively efficient. had started writing about wallace/rodman and others who had limited offense yet were still effective. i also think you can be effective without having huge impact as thats your role perhaps --> effective role players.

sidsanders wrote:

Papabear wrote:

sidsanders wrote:how to avoid this going down the wrong path...
my concerns for anthony are that he doesnt seem to be a complete player. i would like the guy to be a consistent hardship for the opponent on both offense and defense. when his shot isnt falling, contribute in other ways be that rebounds, assists, defense, etc. at times he has with some solid rebounding. to me this would lower his effectiveness until he can do that. this bit may also be why folks hammer the guy compared to others.

going into his 11th season, i may be mixing in the end result as a sign that he hasnt changed much. that disclaimer said, i would not count on him altering too much at this point. not a matter of age as much of service time.

Papabear Says

I understand what you are saying and no disrespect to you but didn't we just do this thread a few days ago?? Or is this another one of those bashing Melo threads again?? There are sooo many.

i put in why i think when he is inefficient, he isnt effective - at least not in a consistent manner.
not my thread, and i suspect if things go as they do this will go in the normal direction.

NardDogNation wrote:I think guys like Andre Igoudala are "complete" players but would you say he changes the game more than a guy like Melo? I personally think that he doesn't and is why "complete(ness)" is an overexaggerated point when evaluating a player. I deem a player's worth by the degree to which he changes the overall game in a positive manner. Its why a guy like Shaq in his prime was a more effective player than KG in his. Despite KG being a dramatically more dynamic ballplayer, there would be a unanimous favoring of primed-Shaq to build a contender with.

i would say that for what the knicks need, they need anthony to be consistent if not complete -- play off/def. the knicks have too many flawed players as it is.

semantics in all this perhaps... AI is a solid role player who can help you on both ends. i may have read this to be that effective could include other ways to impact the game while not being offensively efficient. had started writing about wallace/rodman and others who had limited offense yet were still effective. i also think you can be effective without having huge impact as thats your role perhaps --> effective role players.

Yeah, the intent of the post is to establish some semantics moving forward. As I replied to Papabear, so many of the threads are centered around suggestions for improving the team through the draft, trades and free agent signings. I was/am hoping to build some common ground with how we evaluate players as a group to limit the tension that seems to be building between factions of the board.

For the record, I think Igoudala is an effective player but I do not believe he is a more effective player than Carmelo because Carmelo has a greater overall impact on the floor albeit in a more limited scope. To embellish the point, Player A averages 30ppg, 3rpg and 3apg. Player B averages 8ppg, 8rpg and 5apg. Player B might affect the game in more areas but, judging by the numbers, Player A has a greater overall impact.

If I had to define the major difference between effectiveness and efficiency, effectiveness would be the sum impact of the individual parts of a players game whereas efficiency would relate to the prowess a player has in any given aspect of the game, which is often expressed as a rate(e.g. FG%, assist per turnover, rebounds per minute, etc.).

In the example you were offering between Ben Wallace and Dennis Rodman, I would say that Rodman was the more effective player because he had a greater overall impact on the game since he bested Wallace at many of Wallace's strong suits(top notch defense at multiple positions and a better rebounder). As for efficiency, I'm not sure. We'd have to look at the numbers. As you can tell, this is a bit abstract though, which is why I was hoping we could develop a better understanding for evaluating players together.

NardDogNation wrote:

sidsanders wrote:

Papabear wrote:

sidsanders wrote:how to avoid this going down the wrong path...
my concerns for anthony are that he doesnt seem to be a complete player. i would like the guy to be a consistent hardship for the opponent on both offense and defense. when his shot isnt falling, contribute in other ways be that rebounds, assists, defense, etc. at times he has with some solid rebounding. to me this would lower his effectiveness until he can do that. this bit may also be why folks hammer the guy compared to others.

going into his 11th season, i may be mixing in the end result as a sign that he hasnt changed much. that disclaimer said, i would not count on him altering too much at this point. not a matter of age as much of service time.

Papabear Says

I understand what you are saying and no disrespect to you but didn't we just do this thread a few days ago?? Or is this another one of those bashing Melo threads again?? There are sooo many.

i put in why i think when he is inefficient, he isnt effective - at least not in a consistent manner.
not my thread, and i suspect if things go as they do this will go in the normal direction.

NardDogNation wrote:I think guys like Andre Igoudala are "complete" players but would you say he changes the game more than a guy like Melo? I personally think that he doesn't and is why "complete(ness)" is an overexaggerated point when evaluating a player. I deem a player's worth by the degree to which he changes the overall game in a positive manner. Its why a guy like Shaq in his prime was a more effective player than KG in his. Despite KG being a dramatically more dynamic ballplayer, there would be a unanimous favoring of primed-Shaq to build a contender with.

i would say that for what the knicks need, they need anthony to be consistent if not complete -- play off/def. the knicks have too many flawed players as it is.

semantics in all this perhaps... AI is a solid role player who can help you on both ends. i may have read this to be that effective could include other ways to impact the game while not being offensively efficient. had started writing about wallace/rodman and others who had limited offense yet were still effective. i also think you can be effective without having huge impact as thats your role perhaps --> effective role players.

Yeah, the intent of the post is to establish some semantics moving forward. As I replied to Papabear, so many of the threads are centered around suggestions for improving the team through the draft, trades and free agent signings. I was/am hoping to build some common ground with how we evaluate players as a group to limit the tension that seems to be building between factions of the board.

For the record, I think Igoudala is an effective player but I do not believe he is a more effective player than Carmelo because Carmelo has a greater overall impact on the floor albeit in a more limited scope. To embellish the point, Player A averages 30ppg, 3rpg and 3apg. Player B averages 8ppg, 8rpg and 5apg. Player B might affect the game in more areas but, judging by the numbers, Player A has a greater overall impact.

If I had to define the major difference between effectiveness and efficiency, effectiveness would be the sum impact of the individual parts of a players game whereas efficiency would relate to the prowess a player has in any given aspect of the game, which is often expressed as a rate(e.g. FG%, assist per turnover, rebounds per minute, etc.).

In the example you were offering between Ben Wallace and Dennis Rodman, I would say that Rodman was the more effective player because he had a greater overall impact on the game since he bested Wallace at many of Wallace's strong suits(top notch defense at multiple positions and a better rebounder). As for efficiency, I'm not sure. We'd have to look at the numbers. As you can tell, this is a bit abstract though, which is why I was hoping we could develop a better understanding for evaluating players together.

should be interesting. i was gonna respond with some set notation since that seems to be a way to define this (for me a least). cant find any useful set notation smilies...

context for all this (role players, stars, end of bench guys, etc) will be a pain and not sure how folks will remove any bias they may have. how does one factor in off court shenanigans, should they matter, is there enough control from players coaches to deal with it? lots of routes this could go as all this can influence the impact/effectiveness/efficiency of a player. some of that may not matter or isnt relevant, though that in itself is subjective -- eye... beholder... etc.

that may be an overriding point though...

hope it proceeds well.

Q. callmened - this conversation is TOOOOOOOOO DEEPPPPPP...can someone break it down for me in english?

A. No man is an island

NardDogNation wrote:

Bonn1997 wrote:You're incorrectly assuming a strong negative correlation between shot attempts and efficiency. You can see a good statistical study here: http://www.countthebasket.com/blog/2008/03/06/diminishing-returns-for-scoring-usage-vs-efficiency/
There's a small negative correlation between shot attempts (or usage) and efficiency. So a volume shooter like Melo with average efficiency does help his teammates, but only slightly. It's more than zero help but much less than people assume. A more reasonable, neutral title might be something like "efficiency vs. volume" rather than vs. "effectiveness."

I'll admit that I'm not terribly familiar with advanced statistics related to basketball but I'll review this as best as I can later on. Having taken three total semesters of statistics though, I know that numbers can be tortured until you get them to say what you want them to. Not too many years ago, I recall the +/- statistic indicating that Kevin Durant had a negative influence on his team when on the court and another suggesting that David Lee had more of an impact on the floor than Kobe Bryant. It is why I think that the naked eye test is still the best method for evaluating a player; using statistics only as a means of augmenting these existing observations.

With that being said, I think Melo is an effective player because of the massive amount of game planning required to cover/contain him by opposing teams. Is he something of a one trick pony? Yeah but I think the point is overstated because we often juxtapose his versatile scoring ability (that ranks among the best in the league) with the rest of his game. That fault, in my opinion, obviously lies more with the observer than the actual player.

Regarding your original post, the analytics community is definitely not settled on this issue, though very few believe that high volume scoring is as valuable as fans believe it to be. Some give a little extra credit to high volume scoring while others give no credit.

Our reliance on heuristics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heuristic; like being able to remember lots of flashy plays from a high volume scorer) is probably a major reason why the eyeball test doesn't work better.