Comments on: High-Peak vs. Consistent Stars, Part II

By: Neil Paine

Neil Paine — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 18:26:56 +0000

That's true, but I don't think even the best scorers boost their team's probability of a title as much as the best basketball players do. Look at the history of Art Ross winners:

http://www.hockey-reference.com/awards/ross.html

Only 17 times in 61 years has the best scorer in the league led his team to a Cup. In the 21 seasons since Gretzky did it in 1987, it's happened 3 times, the 3rd of which came last season.

By: kevin

kevin — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 14:49:26 +0000

"In hockey, a transcendent star like Gretzky can be dominant, but he can't guarantee victory like a Michael Jordan because he's still only on the ice for 1/3 of the game (MJ was on the court for 80% of the game during the Bulls' championship years)." Yeah but look at what happens when guys like Gretzky, Orr and Lemieux are on the ice. They're all scoring machines. In a game where the margin of victory is so small, guys like that have an overwhelming effect on wins and losses.

By: Mike G

Mike G — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 11:41:27 +0000

The 'greater than' and 'less than' keys cause some deletions! Paragraph 3 should read "So, the sucky players are really the rank-and-file of less than 1 eW. Even the 'ensemble' champ '04 Pistons had 'stars' w greater than 8 eW (Billups, Ben, Rip), some role players w <5 (Prince, Okur, Corliss), and no-one in the 5-8 range."

By: Mike G

Mike G — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 11:13:24 +0000

Kevin wrote:
"Mike, it looks like the eWins below 5-6 represent players who hardly ever play and end up on winners by random chance, as end of the bench garbage time types.
The guys in the range where your stat craters represent guys who play a lot but suck, hence dragging dwon the team and preventing them from winning."

Worth looking into. Actually, there's a smooth correlation, and players in the 4-5 eW/yr group are right about average in eW/min. Players over 8 eW/yr tend to be at least 1.50 of avg eW/min; only below 2 eW/yr do they avg less than 80% of avg eW/min.

So, the sucky players are really the rank-and-file of 8 eW (Billups, Ben, Rip), some role players w <5 (Prince, Okur, Corliss), and no-one in the 5-8 range.

This is likely a flukish decade. Neil, perhaps you could look into this kind of breakdown with WS. With and without this past decade.
And thanks for the format fix on my table.

By: Neil Paine

Neil Paine — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 22:10:39 +0000

Probably just starting pitchers in baseball, like James found, and maybe a hot goalie in hockey. In no other sport can a singular superstar carry a team like he can in basketball... In football, even the greatest quarterback has to rely on his defense, receivers, O-line, and/or running game to be successful. In hockey, a transcendent star like Gretzky can be dominant, but he can't guarantee victory like a Michael Jordan because he's still only on the ice for 1/3 of the game (MJ was on the court for 80% of the game during the Bulls' championship years). A brick wall of a goalie who stops everything has a history of single-handedly taking a team to the Cup Finals, but those guys typically can't sustain it for longer than a few playoffs (if even that long). And in baseball, even Barry Bonds at his peak only came to the plate in 10% of San Fran's PAs. Yes, he created an ungodly # of runs (about 180, or 22.5% of the team's total), but can you imagine if Jordan only used 10% of the Bulls' possessions on offense? Even an unhittable starting pitcher like Pedro 2000 can only go to the mound every 5 days, so you could win 20+ complete games and still miss the playoffs by a mile if your offense can't hit and your fellow starters suck. I can't think of another sport in which a player who is that much better than everyone else can make such a drastic impact on his team's title chances. That said, LeBron proved last year that you can be arguably as good as anyone ever has been, but if your teammates continue to blow open shots, you won't win.

By: kevin

kevin — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 21:56:39 +0000

"I don't follow hockey enough to have an opinion, but does having a Gretzky or Lemieux bump up the title chances that dramatically?" It certainly looks like it. All the truly great players, Orr, Howe, Gretzky, Dryden, Lemieux etc, all ended up playing on at least a couple of winners. Once they got old, injured or left the team, the winning stopped.

By: Jason J

Jason J — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 18:57:38 +0000

Can you think of any other team sport where this would be true, where having a short-lived juggernaut of a player would be more likely to get you a title than having a long time with a group of good but not ridirkulous players? I don't follow hockey enough to have an opinion, but does having a Gretzky or Lemieux bump up the title chances that dramatically?

By: kevin

kevin — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 16:16:35 +0000

Mike, it looks like the eWins below 5-6 represent players who hardly ever play and end up on winners by random chance, as end of the bench garbage time types.

The guys in the range where your stat craters represent guys who play a lot but suck, hence dragging dwon the team and preventing them from winning.

By: Mike G

Mike G — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 18:34:44 +0000

I just looked at the eWins equivalent of what I asked (since that's what I have). Actually, I just did 2000-2008. In that time, 4 players had over 18 eW in a season: Shaq '00, Duncan '02 and '03, Garnett '04. Half were titlists. Just 2 of 11 players with 16-18 eW won: Shaq '01, Duncan '07 -- 18% The breakdown:

eWins   Title  Sample
18 +    .500      4
16-18   .182     11
14-16   .120     25
12-14   .038     52
10-12   .038     80
 8-10   .053    150
 7-8    .016    124
 6-7    .008    125
 5-6    .006    173
 4-5    .041    245
 3-4    .038    313
 2-3    .039    433
 1-2    .029    629
 0-1    .032   1600
< 0     .024    419

That crater at 5-8 eW is rather striking. Almost no one in that range has one a title. Maybe this has just been a superstar-dominated decade, and ensemble winners are rare. 1/30 of all players win a title in a given year, so .033 would be par.

By: Mike G

Mike G — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 17:41:42 +0000

Neil, in your sim, what % of the player-seasons with 10, 11, etc WS end with a title?
How does that compare to the real-life relation between WS and a title?

If we knew these, we could get 'expected titles' from a career, without running a sim.