AABS posts

[italia13calcio]

For Atlanta, by PAA I have Korver, Teague, Horford, and then Millsap. He adds most of his value though 3-pt shooting (surprise), and most of that coming by catch-and-shoot 3s, although he is above average in pull up 3s too. The rest of his game is fairly average, although he has been a decent passer this year too.

Is he just in the perfect environment for his skills?

I think it has a lot to do with it. If he had to create all his own shots, he wouldn't be nearly as effective. But as a catch and shoot 3pt specialist in a very good passing offense, he is deadly. And just to clarify, I think PAA measures more how much a player contributes to a team than how skilled he actually is, hence the reason for Korver's high rating. This also happened last year with Ibaka - he was rated really highly because he fit in perfectly with the Thunder - wasn't called upon to score a lot (but when he was he was effective), pretty good rebounder, and great defender. The Thunder missed him a lot against the Spurs. But at the same time, earlier this year when Westbrook/Durant were out, and he was called upon to do more things, his PAA was lower .

[italia13calcio]

PAA's take on the newly announced All-Star lineups:

http://aabstats.weebly.com/blog/january-22nd-2015

[italia13calcio]

Season awards: Neither Curry or Harden is MVP, Wiggins isn't ROY

http://aabstats.weebly.com/blog/2015-awards

[Crow]

Paul by a hair will surprise many. Wiggins falling short might not, but how short? Looks like a lot of places at least.

[italia13calcio]

Paul by a hair will surprise many. Wiggins falling short might not, but how short? Looks like a lot of places at least.

Curry, Harden and Paul were all neck and and neck for most of the season. Wiggins came in 8th, so not that great, but much better than how he started (which was terrible - his relatively high usage and low efficiency made him actually one of the least contributing rookies).

[Mike G]

It looks like your stat is all about efficiency, and not about context. Wiggins led all rookies and his own team in numerous "contributions" -- per game and season totals.

He might shoot a better % if he shoots less; but then some even weaker offensive player would have to step up, and the team wins even fewer games.
He played 82 games, and nobody else played even 50 for the Wolves.

[italia13calcio]

It looks like your stat is all about efficiency, and not about context. Wiggins led all rookies and his own team in numerous "contributions" -- per game and season totals.

He might shoot a better % if he shoots less; but then some even weaker offensive player would have to step up, and the team wins even fewer games.
He played 82 games, and nobody else played even 50 for the Wolves.

I agree efficiency is weighted highly. As for your point about context, I see what you are saying, but I guess I had created PAA to be an indicator of skill compared to the rest of the league, not relative to ones team. It is defined as "points above what an average player would have created," average of the league not of ones team.

Although that does bring up the question of whether I should be comparing it to an average player or to a replacement level player (say, 20th percentile player). In that case high volume players would be rewarded, and I would assume Wiggins would jump. Thoughts?

[Mike G]

...I guess I had created PAA to be an indicator of skill compared to the rest of the league, not relative to ones team. It is defined as "points above what an average player would have created," average of the league not of ones team...

What the league does or did in previous months doesn't really have any bearing on (for example) the Bulls-Bucks series, where a TS% of .480 is "above average".

Meanwhile, during the season, if you played for the Bulls, Warriors, or Blazers, the rest of the league -- the NBA at large -- shot just about 51% TS% in your games. Isn't that a relevant definition of 'NBA average'?
If you can shoot better than avg NBA teams/players, in the games that you are actually participating in, then it seems you are shooting above NBA average.

After all, the avg NBA player shot .534 this year. But when playing Por, Chi, or GSW, he shot .510-.512; and in those games, that was average. A guy off the bench who hits .520 may as well shoot.

It's a slippery area of describing what your stats mean. When you gauge a player's contributions relative to avg, context matters.

[italia13calcio]

If you can shoot better than avg NBA teams/players, in the games that you are actually participating in, then it seems you are shooting above NBA average.

I absolutely agree that context matters, and that my stat provides some context (shot type) but not all (against who, distance to defender, etc). However, I'm not that worried about the point you bring up, mostly because I feel there isn't a great disparity in the strength of defenses that teams face. Sure, some teams have a harder schedule than others, and as you mentioned teams playing the Bulls, Warriors and Blazers would shoot badly, but over the course of the season I feel like the difference in schedule isn't that large. For example, I don't have the numbers, but clearly you do: what team played the toughest TS% defensive schedule, what one played the easiest, and what was the difference? I'd be interested to see that.

If anything, I would actually get more specific with your statement. A larger part of the context that my stat is missing is the context of who the players are shooting/rebounding/passing against. Subs playing against subs for example may put up comparable numbers to starters playing against starters - doesn't mean they are equally skilled. I would change your sentence to say "If you can shot better than avg NBA players do against the defenders you are actually shooting against then it seems you are shooting above NBA average.