Frequent JMID reader Holland sent Mike and me an email earlier today about a particular aspect of Mike Brown’s rotation that has been driving him insane. We decided to put it up as a Guest Post to spark debate among readers.
For those who may not have picked up on it, Holland is a staunch advocate of the Wages of Wins Journal and their Wins Per 48 (WP48) system of performance evaluation. As a direct result, he is also quite possibly the world’s biggest fan of Troy Murphy, AKA sweet-shooting Dino Velvet.
Holland’s analysis in its entirety is posted below. Instead of WP48, he’s used season-long per-40 minute stats as the basis for comparison. He has also refused to name the players in question, but it’s probably not terribly difficult to figure out who they are (both are reserves).
I’ve attempted to get the discussion going by posting a few of my own reactions to Holland’s thoughts in the Comments section. We invite everyone to read, consider, and react.
Without further ado…Holland:
Suppose you’re an NBA coach. You have two players who play the same position. How do you decide who gets more minutes?
You could just watch them play and make a totally subjective decision, but that doesn’t seem very smart in an industry where many millions of dollars are at stake. A more objective approach should - at the very least - have a strong impact on your decision. I’m talking about statistics.
So here is a very, very simple box score comparison - just their per 40 minute stats side by side (to compare apples to apples):
FG%
Player A: 43.9
Player B: 41.4
Advantage A
—-
3 Pt %
Player A: 29.3
Player B: 33.8
Advantage B
—-
FT %
Player A: 86.1
Player B: 74.1
Advantage A
—-
Rebounding
Player A: 7.5
Player B: 4.4
Big advantage A
—-
Assists
Player A: 1.9
Player B: 2.2
Advantage B
—-
Turnovers
Player A: .9
Player B: 1.0
Tiny advantage A
—-
Steals
Player A: 1.2
Player B: .7
Advantage A
—-
Blocks
Player A: 1.2
Player B: .4
Big advantage A
—-
Fouls
Player A: 2.7
Player B: 4.0
Advantage A
—-
Final Score:
Player A: 7 (2 big advantages)
Player B: 2
—-
This is assuming all stats are created equal, which they are not. For instance, rebounding is more important that getting assists, so Player A’s big rebounding advantage is far, far more significant than Player B’s slightly better assist average.
Seems like a pretty cut and dry case to me - you’ve got to go with Player A, and it’s not even close.
Unless you’re Mike Brown.
(view comments)
