Statistically Useless

One of the nice things about living in the Bay Area is that we have a lot of major professional sports teams: two NFL teams, two MLB teams, one NBA team, and one NHL team. Never you mind that they all stink currently, except for the Sharks. With so many teams, sports radio is a lot of fun. Today I was listening to Fitz & Brooks as they fielded a question from a listener about the Golden State Warriors and their lack of defense. They made the case that the Warriors have a lot of defensive talent because they are 6th in the league in steals and 1st in the league in blocked shots. They argued that the Warriors just needed to allow less "blow-bys." I looked around, but could not find this statistic.

I was almost really impressed by Fitz & Brooks. It seemed like they were on the verge of saying "NBA statistics are meaningless" but they could not go that far. The NBA keeps a lot of statistics, but they really are mostly meaningless. Points, rebounds, assists, steals, blocks, etc. None of these are particularly good at determining if a player will make his team more or less likely to win a game. That is why you see guys like David Lee, Troy Murphy, Jose Calderon, and Mario Chalmers as statistical leaders. Look at the league leaders in blocks. Their teams are ranked 8th, 18th, 25th, 30th, and and 20th in the league in points per game. In terms of team field goal% allowed, the ranks are 3rd, 4th, 25th, 23rd, and 19th.

The NBA is hardly the exception. Most sports have a lot of meaningless (from the standpoint of predicting team success) statistics. Baseball has terrible stats like batting average, runs batted in, stolen bases, and fielding percentage. Football is not quite as bad mostly just because there are less stats. Still things like rushing touchdowns and even passing yards are pretty worthless.

Of course baseball has seen a statistical renaissance and it is known as sabremetrics. Michael Lewis's Moneyball is a popular work that discusses the value of sabremetrics. It uses the success of the Oakland A's and their GM Billy Beane as proof, but if it was written today, then the success of the Boston Red Sox would be (more?) compelling. Lewis expanded this "nerdy numbers leading to unexpected success" plot to basketball recently by writing an article about the Houston Rockets' Shane Battier. Basketball is tougher sport to measure though. Maybe there will be sabremetrics in basketball eventually, who knows.

It was definitely easier in baseball, where some of the statistical ingredients for more meaningful sabremetrics were already measured (like number of walks, total bases, etc.) What would similar stats in basketball be? Certainly making shots is good, missing shots is bad. How do you measure a three point play vs. a three point field goal? If a player takes a shot and misses, but somebody else gets an offensive rebound and an easy field goal, how is this measured?

Stupid Cavs Fans

Just read about how pissed Cavs fans are that Mo Williams is not replacing Jameer Nelson in the All-Star Game. Seems most Cavs thought that Mo deserved to go over Nelson in the firs place, and are just plain insulted that Ray Allen was picked to replace Nelson. Do the Cavs fans have a legit beef? No.

First off, all three players are on teams with very good records. Boston, Cleveland, and Orlando are all winning their divisions by huge margins and all three have taken turns as the team with the best record in the NBA. With that out of the way, we can concentrate on stats. If you only consider scoring, then you'd rank them Allen (18.2), Williams (17.1), and Nelson (16.7). Nelson leads the group in FG% 50.3%, then Allen with 49.5%, and finally Williams at 46.4%. The FG% of Williams is pretty good for a guard, but Nelson and Allen's numbers are huge. Usually you only see those kind of numbers from guards who do not show 3pters, a la Tony Parker. However Nelson and Allen are both averaging more than two 3pters made per game, and both shooting over 40% on 3pters. Based on their ability to shoot and score, it's very hard to argue Mo Williams over either Allen or Nelson.

Basketball is more than just shooting, though. Williams averages 4.2 assists per game. That is better than Allens' 2.8 assists per game, but less than Nelson's 5.4 assists per game. However Williams is the worst of the group in turnovers, at 2.3 per game. Nelson only has 2.0 TOs/game and Allen 1.8 TOs/game. So based on ball handlings, maybe you could argue Williams over Allen.

What about defense? The only stat we can go on here is steals. Again Nelson is the best with 1.2 steals/game, then Allen at 1.0 and Williams at 0.8. So it is crazy to argue Williams over Nelson. Nelson is a better scorer, ball handler, and defender. To argue Williams over Allen, you can only consider ballhandling. Allen is better in scoring and defense (rebounding too, but these are guards.)

The final argument I've heard for William has nothing to do with Williams or the people chosen over him. It goes "how can Cleveland have only one All-Star when they have such a good record?" Perhaps the better question is "how can Cleveland have such a good record when they only have one All-Star?"