Ben Taylor
Basketball analyst and author of Thinking Basketball (2016). Runs thinkingbasketball.net (formerly Backpicks), with historical player metrics and rankings, and the Thinking Basketball YouTube channel on NBA strategy and history.
Ben Taylor did not write this page.
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Their wordsBut as I've mentioned before, superstars almost always require secondary stars to win!
↗Thinking Basketballthinkingbasketball.net 1st of 3 in this piece
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Their wordsNBA basketball follows the Pareto principle, or an "80-20 rule" - most of the impact comes from a small number of players.
↗Thinking Basketballthinkingbasketball.net 2nd of 3 in this piece
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Their wordsSo even with some wiggle room in these models, it still looks like three All-Star seasons is comparable to a single MVP season.
↗Thinking Basketballthinkingbasketball.net 3rd of 3 in this piece
- 8 months earlier
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Their wordsOne-number metrics relying on raw plus-minus data are adding a ton of noise.
↗Thinking Basketballthinkingbasketball.net 1st of 3 in this piece
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Their wordsBut changes in the scoreboard are everything - it's really the thing we care about when we reference "impact."
↗Thinking Basketballthinkingbasketball.net 2nd of 3 in this piece
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Their wordsActual playoff RAPM is insanely noisy because of the sample sizes.
↗Thinking Basketballthinkingbasketball.net 3rd of 3 in this piece
- 19 months earlier
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Their wordsTo "trust" raw lineup data, we almost always want samples that are more than a few hundred minutes and we want them to have played diverse opponents.
↗Thinking Basketballthinkingbasketball.net 1st of 2 in this piece
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Our reading
A sample of two hundred minutes is generally an unstable sample for assessing lineup data.
Their wordsEven two hundred minutes (or 400-something possessions) is generally an unstable sample.
↗Thinking Basketballthinkingbasketball.net 2nd of 2 in this piece
- 19 months earlier
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Their wordsThrough this lens, elite regular-season and postseason impact looks quite similar.
↗Thinking Basketballthinkingbasketball.net 1st of 2 in this piece
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Their wordsOtherwise, it appears that top-end value for superstars isn't materially greater in the playoffs than in the regular season, and many superstars fail to match their regular season value.
↗Thinking Basketballthinkingbasketball.net 2nd of 2 in this piece
- 4 weeks earlier
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Their wordsSo, it seems that beyond a simple difference in rating criteria, we intuitively undervalue longevity in these kinds of rankings.
↗Thinking Basketballthinkingbasketball.net 1st of 3 in this piece
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Their wordsSince we typically devalue these kinds of secondary seasons, we dole out more credit to "first options" and thus overestimate their worth.
↗Thinking Basketballthinkingbasketball.net 2nd of 3 in this piece
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Their wordsMost historical analysis has been offensive-centric - biased by the box score and ball-watching - and most rankings seem to underestimate both the high-end impact of defense and the wide range of defensive impact between most players.
↗Thinking Basketballthinkingbasketball.net 3rd of 3 in this piece
- 2 months earlier
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Their wordsI also apply themes that have emerged from historical research over the years, like the tendency of big men to have larger defensive impact, or that on-ball scoring, while incredibly important, doesn't outweigh other core skills like defense and passing.
↗Thinking Basketballthinkingbasketball.net 1st of 2 in this piece
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Their wordsWhile a player's value on a team can vary greatly from year to year, his actual quality - the theoretical average of all his values from every team - is generally much smoother, governed by aging and health.
↗Thinking Basketballthinkingbasketball.net 2nd of 2 in this piece