Playoff overachievers

[Mike G]

... and underachievers.
Of players active last season, 73 had at least 1500 career playoff minutes.
Relative to their regular season productivity, top and bottom 30 in career estimated 'extra' points created, per 36 playoff minutes, on offense and defense combined:

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playoff pts/36    P-R       playoff pts/36   P-R
Rajon Rondo      2.58      Tyson Chandler  -2.13
James Harden     2.51      Carlos Boozer   -2.05
Kawhi Leonard    1.61      Leandro Barbosa -2.04
Glen Davis       1.49      Caron Butler    -2.01
Roy Hibbert      1.36      Kyle Korver     -1.76
Mike Conley      1.33      Andrew Bynum    -1.44
Boris Diaw       1.17      Shawn Marion    -1.17
Dwight Howard    1.16      Jason Collins   -1.15
Derek Fisher     1.15      Serge Ibaka     -1.14
Mario Chalmers   1.02     Kendrick Perkins -1.12
Marc Gasol       1.01      Hedo Turkoglu   -1.06
Carmelo Anthony   .94      Tony Allen       -.96
Vince Carter      .83      Nene Hilario     -.90
Kirk Hinrich      .80      Chris Bosh       -.78
Tim Duncan        .79      Kevin Durant     -.76
Thabo Sefolosha   .79      David West       -.68
Kenyon Martin     .76      Jermaine O'Neal  -.65
Paul Pierce       .74      Joe Johnson      -.65
James Jones       .73      Matt Barnes      -.58
Manu Ginobili     .65      Tony Parker      -.55
Josh Smith        .59      Steve Nash       -.47
Tayshaun Prince   .58      Shane Battier    -.41
LeBron James      .53      Al Horford       -.40
Ron Artest        .47      Antawn Jamison   -.39
Paul George       .47      Luol Deng        -.26
Rashard Lewis     .46     Richard Jefferson -.26
Deron Williams    .46      Stephen Jackson  -.18
Kobe Bryant       .42      Ray Allen        -.17
Joakim Noah       .38      Pau Gasol        -.14
Russell Westbrook .31      Chris Paul       -.12

These are from individual postseasons relative to immediately completed seasons.

Multiplied by minutes, best and worst career total over- and under-achievement:

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pts+   playoffs      Min   p/r2       pts+    playoffs       Min   p/r2
253   Rajon Rondo   3533   1.08      -167   Carlos Boozer    2935   .82
217   Derek Fisher  6802   1.03      -137   Caron Butler     2459   .79
196   Tim Duncan    8899    .96      -124   Shawn Marion     3813   .86
125   James Harden  1790   1.07      -120   Tyson Chandler   2033   .78
114   Paul Pierce   5520    .97      -107   Tony Parker      7005   .90
103   Nick Collison 1452   1.14      -104   Kendrick Perkins 3333   .84
101   Kobe Bryant   8577    .95       -97   Leandro Barbosa  1715   .78
99   LeBron James   6708    .95       -86   Hedo Turkoglu    2918   .85
96   Manu Ginobili  5362    .96       -76   Devin Harris     1323   .79
92   Trevor Ariza   1442   1.10       -75   Kyle Korver      1546   .78
87   Danny Green    1498   1.08       -74   Wesley Matthews   998   .73
85   Kawhi Leonard  1892   1.03       -71   Andrew Bynum     1775   .85
84   Boris Diaw     2583   1.02       -69   Ryan Anderson     406   .55
84   Dwight Howard  2594    .98       -68   Serge Ibaka      2157   .86
81   Mario Chalmers 2839   1.01       -67   Chris Bosh       3089   .89
80  Tayshaun Prince 4954    .97       -66   Kevin Durant     3094   .89
75   Kenyon Martin  3574    .98       -65   Jason Collins    2037   .78
71   Chris Andersen 1162   1.08       -64   Blake Griffin    1029   .83
70   Joel Anthony   1117   1.19       -57   Joe Johnson      3140   .89
69   Glen Davis     1662   1.04       -56   Andrei Kirilenko 1490   .85
67  Carmelo Anthony 2570    .97       -56   Nicolas Batum     809   .76
66   Eric Bledsoe    285   1.49       -55   Steve Nash       4233   .90
64   Roy Hibbert    1708   1.01       -53   Al Harrington    1124   .81
64   Jameer Nelson  1425   1.03       -51   Matt Bonner       939   .77
60   Mike Conley    1627   1.01       -49   Louis Williams    902   .80
59   Vince Carter   2552    .97       -48   David West       2565   .89
56   Draymond Green  451   1.29       -48  LaMarcus Aldridge 1163   .85
52   Jrue Holiday    682   1.11       -47   Tony Allen       1776   .86
47   Marc Gasol     1686    .99       -46   Jermaine O'Neal  2565   .89
45   Ty Lawson       762   1.06       -46   Elton Brand      1139   .85

p/r2 is a playoff to regular-season productivity ratio, with production scaled to team and opponent averages.
A p/r2 of .9277 yields a net of zero overachievment over 275 current players with playoff experience, thus is modern NBA avg. Totals are adjusted to this avg, in other words.
Minute totals are subject to small rounding errors.

[Crow]

Is the data r-p or do you mean p-r?

Do you have the offense and defense broken out separately? I assume the defense does not rate individual shot defense or overall individual defense but rather implicitly uses some overall team shot defense numbers for all plays even when player is not on court?

[Mike G]

Thanks, it is indeed P-R (playoff minus regularseason)
Any surprises in these lists?

The only 'defense' included is to factor in opponent points and rebounds per game.
So, if you averaged 15 pts/36 in both the season and the playoffs; but you held opponents to fewer PPG in playoffs; that is seen to be an improvement in your scoring rate. And this boosts your 'standardized' productivity (all else being equal).

I always mean to get something like this out at the end of the season, in anticipation of playoffs. One could regress these to the mean, put in an age factor, etc. But I never have time at that time of year.
Meanwhile, these numbers will have the same validity in April as they have now. Maybe someone will remember and revive the thread.

[Crow]

So last season about 15% overachieved by 1 or more pts on this metric and the same for underachieving by 1 pt or more.

For career about 16 of the highest overachievers won titles. About 11 of the biggest underachievers did as well. Not that big a difference. Of course I can't see the title season in isolation from the career stats.

[Mike G]

^^ These are career rates, of players who were active in 2013-14.
Durant on the minus side was surprising to me. Here in a nutshell are his annual RS-PO changes in shooting% and various production rates (ratio RS/PO)

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year    Min     eff%    Sco     Reb     Ast     T
2010    231    -.105    .78    1.00    1.08    .79
2011    724    -.005    .90    1.05     .94    .93
2012    839     .022    .99     .87     .96    .93
2013    485    -.069    .94     .97    1.10   1.05
2014    815    -.061    .72    1.07     .68    .76

A disappointing first playoff appearance, but in short minutes; then 2 average runs and an exceptional one -- all relative to his regular season that year -- and this spring, a fairly terrible postseason, relative to his alltime-spectacular season.

Before the 2014 playoffs, his career po/rs was .943 -- above the norm of .927 and decent for a superstar. Now it's .893, and he's already breaking down.

I'd expect to see more disparity in East and West po/rs. With tougher matchups, the West players should have bigger dropoffs in the postseason. But I don't see a preponderance on either side.