"Total Quarterback Rating" applied to PGs
Posted: Sat Aug 06, 2011 4:42 am
I saw this article on Dean Oliver & ESPN's new Total Quarterback Rating:
http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/68332 ... ack-rating
and I thought to myself, hey, it might be nice to apply something similar in approach to PGs in the NBA.
Why and for what impact?
To account (with standard stats and visual interpretation of other details) for the impact of plays involving PGs as a catalyst, leader or "Quarterback" on win probability added. And to account for the varying degree of clutch importance of the plays. Elements not in Offensive Rating or most other traditional statistic-based metrics.
To divide credit between the PG and other teammates on every play or at least most plays. The plays where the PG acts enough like a QB in the overall play implementation to be called that and rated for that role instead of just when a pass from the PG leads immediately to a shot attempt that goes in. To go beyond just registered assists or a pure point guard rating as leadership measures.
With TQBR, quarterbacks are responsible for producing good team performance not just good individual stats. They could look differently under the old version of QBR and TQBR. I'd have interest in a new metric that measured PG win impact. Most of the traditional snapshots of his individual stats don't fully account for all PG impacts on winning. Being a good individual scoring PG or a dominant passer might be ingredients for a good overall PG win impact but the PG win impact on the other 25-50% of plays where they didn't take the shot or get the official assist also impact their overall win impact and sometimes PGs who have great individual stats don't have great impacts in this other set of plays. Hence the discrepancies already visible between the offensive boxscore metric ratings of certain PGs and their estimated offensive Adjusted +/-. This approach would add another perspective to the mix.
A scorer who maneuvers to a better shot or score deserves more credit than one set up for a easy catch 'n shoot but maybe not all the credit (in the absence of an official assist) and, like in football, the quality of pass, reception and run after catch / shot release all matter and could be credited separately if one has the data, time and inclination to be detailed and accurate in accounting of relative performance impacts.
Players beyond the QB / PG and "the receiver" could get credit for useful motion- for picks but also more generally for spacing, motion for the sake of creating alternative perceived threats and deception. Other players beyond the PG (or just those few who do it enough to make it fairly significant) could get similar analysis for the times where they strongly act as the creator or Quarterback. While I have focused most of the discussion about applying the TQBR approach to basketball to learning more about PG win impact, it would produce visual evaluation enhanced ratings for all other players in their receiver and "lineman" roles and perhaps in their creator / QB roles too.
I don't know how ESPN plans to handle running plays in football. Apparently they not giving the QG partial credit but I assume they will still give partial credit to the linemen. In basketball, plays considered totally self-created could be treated as a separate pile and give full credit to the individual actor or one take a broader perspective and could give a bit of "lineman" to create that iso situation and QB credit or blame for it becoming an iso play. I think if TQBR were applied to basketball it would be good to do apply to most or all plays. A choice, a technique, to see what it says.
Defensive adjustment we are told will be left for later in the TQBR analysis for football. I understand the reasoning for going stepwise, but it would seem important to take that step fully before drawing final conclusions about players or making final comparisons. The results of the first step without the second part will remain a partial analysis and similar in that regard to the way most basketball Statistical +/-'s (and most other offensive focused / biased metrics) stop short of adding the defensive adjustment. Based the quality of defense is not that different but you don't know for sure until you check and there might be a few cases where it affects the takeaway. Might want to add a third step ultimately and adjust for teammate quality too or at least recognize that is also has consequence.
With or without adjustments, it would be interesting to match up the TQBR approach, especially for PGs, to their Adjusted +/- and maybe especially Wayne Winston's Impact Score version since it has endeavored to address win probability impacts and clutch context. And probably the Factor level Adjusted +/- too. A detailed statistical and visual evidence metric of win impact could be compared side by side with and used alongside the "pure" Adjusted +/- method (just using scoring as input), pure boxscore metrics and Statistical +/-. 4 legs to the stool, a richer resource set for evaluation and improvement plans.
http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/68332 ... ack-rating
and I thought to myself, hey, it might be nice to apply something similar in approach to PGs in the NBA.
Why and for what impact?
To account (with standard stats and visual interpretation of other details) for the impact of plays involving PGs as a catalyst, leader or "Quarterback" on win probability added. And to account for the varying degree of clutch importance of the plays. Elements not in Offensive Rating or most other traditional statistic-based metrics.
To divide credit between the PG and other teammates on every play or at least most plays. The plays where the PG acts enough like a QB in the overall play implementation to be called that and rated for that role instead of just when a pass from the PG leads immediately to a shot attempt that goes in. To go beyond just registered assists or a pure point guard rating as leadership measures.
With TQBR, quarterbacks are responsible for producing good team performance not just good individual stats. They could look differently under the old version of QBR and TQBR. I'd have interest in a new metric that measured PG win impact. Most of the traditional snapshots of his individual stats don't fully account for all PG impacts on winning. Being a good individual scoring PG or a dominant passer might be ingredients for a good overall PG win impact but the PG win impact on the other 25-50% of plays where they didn't take the shot or get the official assist also impact their overall win impact and sometimes PGs who have great individual stats don't have great impacts in this other set of plays. Hence the discrepancies already visible between the offensive boxscore metric ratings of certain PGs and their estimated offensive Adjusted +/-. This approach would add another perspective to the mix.
A scorer who maneuvers to a better shot or score deserves more credit than one set up for a easy catch 'n shoot but maybe not all the credit (in the absence of an official assist) and, like in football, the quality of pass, reception and run after catch / shot release all matter and could be credited separately if one has the data, time and inclination to be detailed and accurate in accounting of relative performance impacts.
Players beyond the QB / PG and "the receiver" could get credit for useful motion- for picks but also more generally for spacing, motion for the sake of creating alternative perceived threats and deception. Other players beyond the PG (or just those few who do it enough to make it fairly significant) could get similar analysis for the times where they strongly act as the creator or Quarterback. While I have focused most of the discussion about applying the TQBR approach to basketball to learning more about PG win impact, it would produce visual evaluation enhanced ratings for all other players in their receiver and "lineman" roles and perhaps in their creator / QB roles too.
I don't know how ESPN plans to handle running plays in football. Apparently they not giving the QG partial credit but I assume they will still give partial credit to the linemen. In basketball, plays considered totally self-created could be treated as a separate pile and give full credit to the individual actor or one take a broader perspective and could give a bit of "lineman" to create that iso situation and QB credit or blame for it becoming an iso play. I think if TQBR were applied to basketball it would be good to do apply to most or all plays. A choice, a technique, to see what it says.
Defensive adjustment we are told will be left for later in the TQBR analysis for football. I understand the reasoning for going stepwise, but it would seem important to take that step fully before drawing final conclusions about players or making final comparisons. The results of the first step without the second part will remain a partial analysis and similar in that regard to the way most basketball Statistical +/-'s (and most other offensive focused / biased metrics) stop short of adding the defensive adjustment. Based the quality of defense is not that different but you don't know for sure until you check and there might be a few cases where it affects the takeaway. Might want to add a third step ultimately and adjust for teammate quality too or at least recognize that is also has consequence.
With or without adjustments, it would be interesting to match up the TQBR approach, especially for PGs, to their Adjusted +/- and maybe especially Wayne Winston's Impact Score version since it has endeavored to address win probability impacts and clutch context. And probably the Factor level Adjusted +/- too. A detailed statistical and visual evidence metric of win impact could be compared side by side with and used alongside the "pure" Adjusted +/- method (just using scoring as input), pure boxscore metrics and Statistical +/-. 4 legs to the stool, a richer resource set for evaluation and improvement plans.