Comments on: Team Positional Production Allocation… or Something

By: Matt

Matt — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 16:40:26 +0000

Yeah...just saw that it was odd that Artest was counted as a guard for Sac in '07 while Butler was counted as a big for Was this past season - though both played similar roles on their respective teams. I know this isn't an exact science, but I'd be interested in seeing what the numbers would be if Artest was counted as a frontcourt and Butler as a backcourt player.

By: Neil Paine

Neil Paine — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 22:45:51 +0000

Thanks for the catch, I knew I forgot something in this post -- I also wanted to report what the correlation between "balance" (the difference between the ideal distribution, 2/5 guards and 3/5 FC, and the team's actual allocation) and wins was: 0.31, which while still small by statistical standards, is much higher than the 0.09 and -0.09 we reported for the guard-heavy and big-heavy teams. That's the missing piece; you're right that a correlation of 0 simply means no relationship in either direction (you could have a lot of wins with a guard-heavy team or few wins, but there's no relationship between wins and allocation), but when compared with the other correlation for "balance", we see confirmation that balance is far more correlated with success than heavy overbalance in either direction. I've changed the post to reflect this.

By: Kevin

Kevin — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 21:40:58 +0000

However, these correlations are truly microscopic in both cases, which confirms that a team with balanced production between its backcourt and frontcourt will tend to do the best. Am I missing something? I don't think that's confirmation at all. I accept that (a) there is essentially no correlation, and that (b) more balanced teams are probably the best (based on other evidence), but don't see at all how (a) leads directly to (b). If there were truly no correlation, then it wouldn't matter how frontcourt/backcourt-oriented you were, right? (the main problem here being the use of a linear model, which logically does not reflect reality)

By: Jason J

Jason J — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 21:03:56 +0000

I guess it's not surprising that being overbalanced w/ bigs or smalls is not a good formula for winning. It's a corruption of the idea behind the post, but I would be very interested to see what WS has to say about the best Trios in NBA history. I'd love to see how Magic, Worthy, Kareem stacks up against Timmy, Manu, Parker or Jordan, Pippen, Grant and KG, Allen, Pierce. Or maybe less successful trios who have zero help would dominate the list like Run TMC and the current Wiz (but I doubt it).

By: Neil Paine

Neil Paine — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 19:53:42 +0000

As far as positions go, yeah, they're not always accurate to each specific season. When a player is considered one position, we don't really change it across their career even if they played a different position in some seasons. Artest has played both G and F, but he's considered a G here for his entire career. That's why I threw in the height thing too, just to catch guys that might be incorrectly assigned a position. Positions are so fluid in basketball that any designation is going to be arbitrary anyway.

By: Neil Paine

Neil Paine — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 19:47:04 +0000

@Ben Smith
The fact that they don't appear just confirms that balanced teams have the most success, which we kind of already proved with the very low correlations between wins and a heavy allocation in either direction.

By: jd15

jd15 — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 19:42:53 +0000

@KneeJerkNBA
Yeah but SF is almost (basically) a guard. Depending on the offense it definitely can be. I think they were just taking a little liberty.

By: Ben Smith

Ben Smith — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 19:41:16 +0000

Wouldn't the fact that the two most dominant teams of the decade do not appear on any list seem to negate this premise? San Antonio and LA have won 8 of the last 11 titles.

By: KneeJerkNBA

KneeJerkNBA — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 19:08:08 +0000

Love the site. But did Artest play any guard for Sacto? Every box I've checked has him at SF. And the only time I can remember him getting extensive time at guard was his rookie year for the Bulls.