ISHGoat
05-16-2015, 12:28 PM
Conclusion: Kobe is dead last among the "top 10" in playoff impact.
Premise: advanced stats BPM, WS/48, PER, VORP put together is usually a good indicator of a player's impact. One stat could be inaccurate, but its difficult for all of them to be wrong at the same time.
Here are the top 9 players we wish to rank by advanced stats:
MJ
Kobe
Kareem
Magic
Bird
Duncan
Shaq
Lebron
Hakeem
Wilt and Russell are simply out of scope because not enough data and footage exists to judge them. In my opinion, Wilt would dominate in today's era and while Russell was dominant in his era, it was a much different game.
We will start with establishing the metrics we wish to use, BPM, WS/48, PER, VORP by validating their accuracy in the regular season. We use the regular season to validate because there is a much larger sample size. Further, using a weighted sum of 4 metrics reduces noise and generates a much smoother data set. Then, we will apply it to the post season where we finally rank the 9 players by their placement in each category of the 4 metrics.
BPM: A box score estimate of points per 100 posessions a player contributed above a league-average player, translated to an average team
We will inspect its validity by picking the two most recent seasons, and some seasons (by random) in the past that capture results for older generations.
Here are basketball reference's BPM numbers for 14-15 RS:
Westbrook 11
Curry 9.9
Harden 8.4
Paul 7.5
Lebron 7.4
Davis 7.1
Durant 6.1
Here are BK's BPM for 13-14 RS:
Lebron 8.9
Durant 8.8
Love 8.4
Curry 7.4
Paul 7.4
00-01:
Shaq 7.3
VC 7.0
Steve Francis 6.6
Karl Malone 5.9
KG 5.7
90-91:
MJ 10.8
Barkley 9.9
DRob 8.4
Magic 8.3
Drexler 7.3
85-86:
Bird 9.1
Barkley 7.9
Alvin Robertson 6.6
Magic 5.9
Hakeem 5.3
73-74:
Kareem 8.5
Lanier 8.5
Barry 5.6
Frazier 5.5
It seems to be telling us that Westbrook had a season on par with 91 jordan. Seems like a reach but not that far fetched. Pretty good representation of a individual impact on his team. Not perfect, but things will even out as we add more.
WS/48: An estimate of the number of wins contributed by a player per 48 mins (league avg approx .100). Its an all in one stat to try to credit a player's total measurable contribution to his team's win total during the season/per game.
Here is the WS/48 leaders from 14-15:
Curry .288
Davis .274
Paul .270
Harden .265
Durant .252
Westbrook .222
notably, Lebron is missing, which makes sense given the eye test on how he played this season (and continues to struggle, per his standards)
for 13-14 RS:
Durant .295
Paul .27
Lebron .264
KLove .245
Curry .225
90-91 RS:
Jordan .321
DRob .264
Barkley .258
Magic .251
Terry Porter .235
Again, WS/48 leaders seem very similar to BPM.
PER: A measure of per-minute production standardized such that the league average is 15
For 14-15:
Davis 30.8
Westbrook 29.1
Curry 28
Durant 27.6
Harden 26.7
13-14:
Durant 29.8
Lebron 29.3
Love 26.9
Davis 26.5
Cousins 26.1
07-08:
Lebron 29.1
Paul 28.3
Stoudemire 27.6
KG 25.3
Dirk 24.6
Again, PER seems to very closely match other lists and our expectations.
VORP: A box score estimate of the points per 100 team posessions above replacement level (-2), translated to an average team and prorated to an 82 game season.
14-15:
Curry 7.9
Harden 7.8
Westbrook 7.6
95-96:
DRob 8.5
MJ 8.3
Malone 7.4
Seems legit.
Now, we will establish the scoring system. It is essentially a big matrix of weighted averages of weighted averages, or something like that. We assign points to players like this:
1st place: 9 points
2nd place: 8 points.
..
8th: 2 points
9th place: 1 point
For their position in each metric, for 4 different categories (all post-season):
Single season peak
Top 3 average
Top 7 average (top 6 for hakeem, he only had 6 seasons of 10 or more postseason games)
Total
This measures their single greatest year (peak), best 3 year run(prime), best 7 year run (extended prime), and total postseason production (longevity). Only seasons where a player has games played > 9 & mpg > 30 count.
Here are the results:
http://i58.tinypic.com/a3o678.png
Premise: advanced stats BPM, WS/48, PER, VORP put together is usually a good indicator of a player's impact. One stat could be inaccurate, but its difficult for all of them to be wrong at the same time.
Here are the top 9 players we wish to rank by advanced stats:
MJ
Kobe
Kareem
Magic
Bird
Duncan
Shaq
Lebron
Hakeem
Wilt and Russell are simply out of scope because not enough data and footage exists to judge them. In my opinion, Wilt would dominate in today's era and while Russell was dominant in his era, it was a much different game.
We will start with establishing the metrics we wish to use, BPM, WS/48, PER, VORP by validating their accuracy in the regular season. We use the regular season to validate because there is a much larger sample size. Further, using a weighted sum of 4 metrics reduces noise and generates a much smoother data set. Then, we will apply it to the post season where we finally rank the 9 players by their placement in each category of the 4 metrics.
BPM: A box score estimate of points per 100 posessions a player contributed above a league-average player, translated to an average team
We will inspect its validity by picking the two most recent seasons, and some seasons (by random) in the past that capture results for older generations.
Here are basketball reference's BPM numbers for 14-15 RS:
Westbrook 11
Curry 9.9
Harden 8.4
Paul 7.5
Lebron 7.4
Davis 7.1
Durant 6.1
Here are BK's BPM for 13-14 RS:
Lebron 8.9
Durant 8.8
Love 8.4
Curry 7.4
Paul 7.4
00-01:
Shaq 7.3
VC 7.0
Steve Francis 6.6
Karl Malone 5.9
KG 5.7
90-91:
MJ 10.8
Barkley 9.9
DRob 8.4
Magic 8.3
Drexler 7.3
85-86:
Bird 9.1
Barkley 7.9
Alvin Robertson 6.6
Magic 5.9
Hakeem 5.3
73-74:
Kareem 8.5
Lanier 8.5
Barry 5.6
Frazier 5.5
It seems to be telling us that Westbrook had a season on par with 91 jordan. Seems like a reach but not that far fetched. Pretty good representation of a individual impact on his team. Not perfect, but things will even out as we add more.
WS/48: An estimate of the number of wins contributed by a player per 48 mins (league avg approx .100). Its an all in one stat to try to credit a player's total measurable contribution to his team's win total during the season/per game.
Here is the WS/48 leaders from 14-15:
Curry .288
Davis .274
Paul .270
Harden .265
Durant .252
Westbrook .222
notably, Lebron is missing, which makes sense given the eye test on how he played this season (and continues to struggle, per his standards)
for 13-14 RS:
Durant .295
Paul .27
Lebron .264
KLove .245
Curry .225
90-91 RS:
Jordan .321
DRob .264
Barkley .258
Magic .251
Terry Porter .235
Again, WS/48 leaders seem very similar to BPM.
PER: A measure of per-minute production standardized such that the league average is 15
For 14-15:
Davis 30.8
Westbrook 29.1
Curry 28
Durant 27.6
Harden 26.7
13-14:
Durant 29.8
Lebron 29.3
Love 26.9
Davis 26.5
Cousins 26.1
07-08:
Lebron 29.1
Paul 28.3
Stoudemire 27.6
KG 25.3
Dirk 24.6
Again, PER seems to very closely match other lists and our expectations.
VORP: A box score estimate of the points per 100 team posessions above replacement level (-2), translated to an average team and prorated to an 82 game season.
14-15:
Curry 7.9
Harden 7.8
Westbrook 7.6
95-96:
DRob 8.5
MJ 8.3
Malone 7.4
Seems legit.
Now, we will establish the scoring system. It is essentially a big matrix of weighted averages of weighted averages, or something like that. We assign points to players like this:
1st place: 9 points
2nd place: 8 points.
..
8th: 2 points
9th place: 1 point
For their position in each metric, for 4 different categories (all post-season):
Single season peak
Top 3 average
Top 7 average (top 6 for hakeem, he only had 6 seasons of 10 or more postseason games)
Total
This measures their single greatest year (peak), best 3 year run(prime), best 7 year run (extended prime), and total postseason production (longevity). Only seasons where a player has games played > 9 & mpg > 30 count.
Here are the results:
http://i58.tinypic.com/a3o678.png