Sunday, February 27, 2011

NBA Superstars About to Get Tagged




In the NBA, being known as a “Franchise Player” is currently considered the highest of compliments.  This is going to change fairly soon.  It’s about to be viewed as a curse.

When Lebron James and his handlers engineered their infamous “The Decision” circus, they struck many nerves on many people.  Clearly, Cleveland and to some extent the state of Ohio took the worst of it, having their collective heart broken in the most public, arrogant and callous way imaginable.  In practical terms, when James declared that, “I’m taking my talents to South Beach,” Lebron’s former team the Cavaliers, went from the winningest team in the NBA to record-setting losers.

While most of the country felt genuinely sorry for their Ohio brethren, there was a more gnawing and personal concern felt by many NBA fans.  James not only decided to join forces with fellow mega-star Dwayne Wade in Miami, he also brought along 26 year-old 6-10 forward Chris Bosh, a 5-time (now 6-time) All Star in his own right.  Overnight, the Heat not only became a contender, they had many experts predicting an invincibility for the team that the league hadn’t seen since the heyday of the Boston Celtics dynasty in the early 1960s.

The problem fans had with this wasn’t simply that the rise of the Heat diminished their own teams’ chances of winning the title.  It was bigger than that.  The problem was that the Heat was a potential dynasty built by the players themselves…the problem was that it felt like the inmates were running the asylum.

The formula for winning a championship also changed.  In the past, you needed one superstar and, as Michael Jordan called it, a talented and complementary “supporting cast.”  Suddenly, in order to compete with the Heat, one superstar wasn’t enough.  You now needed two and probably a third player who is just below superstar status.  This is a problem in a 30-team league that only has maybe 10 true superstars players.

These concerns have been kept alive by Denver Nuggets superstar forward Carmelo Anthony and his season-long quest to be traded.  Anthony was the Nuggets designated superstar and the team had used the traditional formula to build around him with quality players like point guard Chauncey Billups, former first overall pick Kenyon Martin, center Nene Hilario and promising shooting guard Aaron Afflalo.  The team has had some success, making the playoffs in each of Anthony’s 7 NBA seasons and winning 50 or more games in each of the last 3.  However, few experts considered the Nuggets to be a truly serious contender.

To be clear, Anthony is far from the first stud player who has demanded a trade.  What made Anthony’s “request” different is that he pretty much made it clear exactly where he wanted to be traded.  He wanted to go home to the New York Knicks where he could form another two-superstar tandem with perennial All Star forward/center Amare Stoudemire.  As the world now knows, “Melo” got exactly what he wanted.

It’s not surprising that “solo-superstar players” like the Orlando Magic’s Dwight Howard and New Orleans Hornets’ point guard Chris Paul are beginning to question whether their teams can effectively compete against these multi-superstar teams.  Both can become free agents after next season and there are already rumblings about them leaving to form two more superstar-studded teams.

Although NBA owners would never admit it, the increasing trend of star players looking to move for reasons not directly related to money is a bed that they themselves made.  In their 1999 collective bargaining agreement (CBA), they insisted on imposing a maximum salary scale, the first and still the only such provision in major professional sports.  Though there are some retention advantages granted to a player’s current team (they can offer higher annual raises and one more year in contract length), a “max player” can make about the same amount of money whether they stay or go.  Also, with the prevalence of “sign and trade” agreements, if a player can force a trade prior to their free agency, he can get exactly the same money and contract length with a new team as he could have gotten with his current team.

The ultimate result of making salary fairly neutral in the stay-or-go decision is a matter of common sense…players will weigh their alternatives based on non-salary considerations…like increasing their odds of winning a championship, endorsement opportunities and/or a more desirable locale.

For a league already suffering from a serious “haves and have-nots” problem, the consolidation of superstars on a small handful of teams is not a positive trend nor is the fact that it’s the players who are orchestrating this change.  There is growing sentiment among fans that something needs to be done.  This is particularly strongly felt among fans of small and mid-market teams who are most likely to be the ones who will be unable to attract or keep top-tier talent.

If you’re one of these concerned NBA fans, fear not.  Your timing is excellent and help is on the way.  This is because the CBA between the NBA and the National Basketball Players Association (NBPA) expires at the conclusion of this season and you can bet that restricting the movement of star players will be on the NBA owners’ agenda.  Fortunately for the owners, they won’t need to wrack their brains to come up with some clever and effective solution.  Their friends at the National Football League have been there and done that.

The NFL’s “Franchise Tag”

The NFL’s franchise tag has been a part of their CBA with the players since 1993.  It is used as a way of keeping star players from leaving their current teams, but it’s both expensive and temporary.

In the NFL, a team may designate only one player with the franchise tag each year and the same player may only be franchise-tagged for two seasons in succession.  There are two types of franchise tags – exclusive and non-exclusive. 

If a team uses the exclusive franchise tag on a player, that player must play for his current team for the following season.  The salary for that player is set based on the average salary paid to the top 5 players at his position (in 2010, these ranged from $16.4MM for a quarterback to $2.8MM for a placekicker or punter). 

Non-exclusive franchised players are allowed to negotiate with other teams for a new contract.  However, similar to “Restricted Free Agency” in the NBA, if the player receives an offer, his current team can match it and retain the player’s services.  Should the current team choose not to match the other team’s offer, the current team receives two future first round draft picks as compensation.

Despite the high salaries mandated by the franchise tag rules, NFL star players pretty much unanimously hate the franchise tag.  The primary reason is that most NFL contracts include a signing bonus, and for star players, these signing bonuses can be huge…often 20-30% of the contract’s total value.  Franchise tag salaries do not include signing bonuses, and given the very short average careers of NFL players, being “tagged” may mean missing out on a once-in-a-lifetime financial opportunity.  For this reason, even the mere threat of the franchise tag can often be sufficient motivation to get a long-term deal done.

Tagging in the NBA

While no one in an official NBA capacity has said that they’ll be looking to put a franchise tag provision in the new CBA, it seems like a natural fit and one that will be popular with fans.  Because of this, insisting on a NBA franchise tag will have a lot of public relations value for NBA owners.  Furthermore, NBA owners can point to the decades of success the NFL has enjoyed using the franchise tag.

While the NBA can easily borrow the franchise tag concept from the NFL, they’ll need to work out their own mechanics for it.  For example, I don’t think that the NFL’s “non-exclusive” tag would work in the NBA.  As noted, if a NFL team goes the non-exclusive route and elects not to match the offer, they are compensated by getting two first-round draft picks from the other team.  In the NBA, the difference between the quality of players at the top of the first round of the draft and those at the bottom is simply too great…getting two late first-round picks for a superstar is akin to getting 10 cents on the dollar.  Another difference is that, unlike the NFL, the NBA would not need to establish a schedule of franchise tag salaries based on the position a player plays since top NBA players are found at each of the 5 positions on the floor.

To make the franchise tag a little more palatable to the players, NBA owners may just want to keep it fairly simple:

A player who is scheduled to become a free agent may be tagged as a franchise player and will be paid the maximum salary (in the NBA this is based on a player’s number of years in the league) for that season.  Like the NFL, a team would only be allowed to name one franchise player per year and a player may only be tagged for 2 seasons in succession.

Again, the top players will hate it, but since the vast majority of NBA union members would be unaffected by the franchise tag, it’s unlikely that it would be a deal breaker.  In fact, this “divide and conquer” strategy is exactly how the owners were able to put their unique maximum salary provision into the 1999 CBA.

When the negotiating rhetoric begins in earnest after this NBA season, the owners’ underlying theme will be the need to bolster their small/mid-market franchises.  As the sorry state of the New Orleans franchise (the team is currently owned by the league) has shown, even with a superstar (Paul) it can be tough to make a go of it.  Without Paul, they have no chance.

On the court, players like Paul and Howard are virtually unstoppable, but any dreams they may have of taking their talents elsewhere are about to be crushed.  Chris and Dwight…tag, you’re it.

Sunday, February 20, 2011

I Hate All Star Weekend



I'm definitely not looking for support...just venting. And I have no doubt that my advanced age is a big factor. So is the fact that I stubbornly hold on to the belief that defense is a necessary, beautiful and important part of the game.

In past years, I've ended up watching a few minutes of the festivities, as much by accident as anything. This year, for reasons of both choice and necessity, I've watched not one second. I haven't missed it.

The rookie-soph game? Well, ya gotta love this country when they can hold a layup drill in prime time. Heard it was 148-140. I cashed in on "the under" so this has been my highlight of the weekend.

Justin Bieber? Professional basketball needs this? Really?

The Skills competition? What genius came up with this and what the heck is the point? Anyway, I heard the Warriors Steph Curry won, upsetting defending champ Derrick Rose of my beloved Bulls. Frankly, I can't believe it. Did they like add something new to the thing like spinning a ball on your nose for 30 seconds? I'm sure that some Bulls' fans are upset that Rose has devoted such an inordinate amount of his time to carrying his team to legitimate contender status when he could have been practicing threading those passes through the hula-hoop.

Heard that Griffin jumped over a car (The Official Car of the NBA, of course...even though almost no NBA player could fit in it) to win the Slam-Dunk competition. Yeah, I missed that too (please don't send links to the video...until the league decides to play their games in auto dealership parking lots, I truly don't see the point).

Haven't heard who won the 3-point shootout. Don't really care either, but admit that the event is appropriate for the weekend and admire its inherent honesty...shoot fast and shoot a lot without even the pretense of any defense.

If I failed to recognize any other preliminary events, I sincerely apologize, particularly if they involved innocent farm animals, clowns or really big brightly-colored balloons.

Last year was the first time in years that I made a point to be in front of the TV when the actual All Star Game started because, for the first time in what seemed like forever, a Bulls player was actually participating. I couldn't watch to the finish. It's somewhat embarrassing, but I have to admit that the nausea got the better of me and the whole exercise reminded me of why I had taken a decade off.

I've promised my 22 year-old son Tim that I'd dose-up with my Dramamine and give it another try tonight. I actually do want to see how Rose plays with the East's mega-star-studded starting team. Can't make any promises on how long I'll stick with it, but if I were you, I'd go with the under.

Monday, February 14, 2011

An Idiot’s Guide to the NFL Labor Situation



If you enjoy seeing big, tough men pushed around by old guys in suits, you’re going to just love following the coming NFL-NFL Players Association (NFLPA) labor negotiations. On the other hand, if you like a fair fight, I suggest that you change the channel.

The current collective bargaining agreement (CBA) expires on March 4. All you NFL draftniks out there, fear not! There will still be the combine in Indianapolis (February 28-March 1) and the draft (April 28-30). If there’s no new agreement by then (there won’t be), NFL operations will, for all practical purposes, shut down. This includes the ability to sign any of the drafted players.

So how did we get here, what are the issues and what happens next?

How did we get here?

The current CBA went into effect in 1993 and has been amended/extended a couple times since then, most recently in 2006. In 2010, the two sides had the ability to extend the agreement. The players happily agreed. The owners adamantly didn’t.

This sets up the very real possibility of a work stoppage for the 2011 season. If it happens, it will be the first such stoppage for the NFL since 1987 when the owners locked out the players and went on with the games using “replacement players.”

The basic revenue split

In most labor negotiations, each of the two sides claims to have briefcases full of issues. Most are nonsense and this NFL-NFLPA situation is no different. Because of the very high profile of NFL football, the negotiations will include a public relations war in which these relatively frivolous proposals are used to distract and sway public opinion to one side or the other.

Don’t be fooled. There’s really only one issue and to no one’s surprise, it’s who gets how big a portion of the approximately $9.0 billion NFL revenue pie.

In the current agreement, team owners receive the first $1 billion of revenue…you may hear this “off the top” portion referred to as “expense credits.” After that, 60% goes to the players and 40% to the teams. On the current revenue base, it’s roughly a 53-47 split in favor of the players. The owners have proposed that they double what they get off the top (from $1 billion to $2 billion) and that the players then get 58% of what remains. This would change the current 53-47 split that favors the players to about 55-45 in favor of the owners.

You can pretty much ignore all the other issues. If the players agreed to this owners’ proposal, they’d have a signed deal in a matter of days.

The NFLPA recently proposed to simplify matters by getting rid of the expense credits and go to a simple 50-50 split. Since this actually lowers the players’ percentage, it sounds pretty reasonable, particularly for an opening proposal. The owners said they were insulted and canceled future talks, leaving no doubt that they intend to play some “good ol’ country hardball” in their negotiations with the players. It’s because of this stance that most observers predict a protracted struggle.

Other issues

Among the secondary issues, the one that has gotten the most press is lengthening the regular season from its current 16 games to 18 games and eliminating 2 preseason games. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell claims that this proposal is essentially a fan mandate. On this point, Goodell is only kinda right. Many fans, and particularly season ticket holders, would like to see the preseason shortened, but in a recent AP poll, only 45% of those describing themselves as NFL fans favored Goodell's 2-18 proposal, and only 18% strongly favored it…hardly a mandate.

Despite fans’ lukewarm reception, Goodell continues to beat the 18-game season drum and for good reason…not because fans want it, but because the league receives far more in television revenue for regular season games than they do for preseason games…the estimate is that the lengthened regular season would add another $500,000,000 to the league’s coffers. The players are firmly against expanding the regular season, citing increased chance of injury. They also see the proposal as hypocritical in light of the NFL’s proclaimed increased emphasis on player safety.

If you’re looking for an issue where the two sides can agree it’s the NFL rookie salary scale. Well, at least they can agree that any system that pays rookie Sam Bradford more than this year’s unanimous selection for MVP, the Patriots’ Tom Brady, is seriously messed up. Importantly, it’s easy for both sides to take money from the pockets of players who are not currently members of the union.

Naturally, the two sides differ on what to do with the savings and I’ll only give you one guess as to the nature of their disagreement. Correct…the owners want to keep the savings and the players want the savings distributed to them. The players also want to shorten the length of rookie contracts from 5 years to 3 which would, for those who make it to their 4th season, enable them to begin recouping some of the money they lost due to their “sacrificial lamb” status in these negotiations. The owners of course, have absolutely no interest in hastening the onset of free agency for these players.

One last issue that is likely to be talked about a lot in the media is retired player pensions and health benefits. The reason that it will get more than its fair share of airtime is that it can (and will) be used by both sides as a “public relations club” with which to bludgeon their opponent. It also has the added advantage of posessing heartstring-pulling human interest angles…sad tales of our former heroes living in near poverty conditions, former players unable to afford costly treatment for their football-related disabilities and generally making fans feel that “someone has to do something about this, Dammit!”

I mean, it’s truly a great issue…too bad neither side really cares all that much about it.

Under the current agreement, the benefits for retired players are the responsibility of the NFLPA. They have control of the pension and welfare fund and can allocate it as they see fit. From ownership’s perspective, if the players association wants to relieve the misery of retired players, all they need to do is to direct more money their way. After all, the players remain a brotherhood even after their playing days are over, right? Thanks to NFL personalities like Mike Ditka’s (and his NFL Alumni organization’s) open confrontations with former NFLPA head, Gene Upshaw over this issue, the union has received more than a few black eyes on this one.

The players association is fighting back by proposing that the owners designate 2% of their profits to retired players. In essence, they’re tired of being beaten up on this issue by the owners and are telling them to “put their money where their mouth is.” Not surprisingly, the owners find the current situation, and the difficult PR position in which it places the NFLPA, completely satisfactory.

Naturally, there will be other issues discussed, like how quickly pensions become vested, limitations on suspensions and fines and player safety, but they can be easily resolved.

So what’s going to happen?

Unless I miss my guess, for the next couple months, nothing. Players have been paid for the past season and the first preseason game is still 6 months off. Sure, there will be talks and all kinds of posturing, but until the threat of lost earnings and revenues loom a good deal larger than they do now, neither side is likely to yield much from their opening positions. Expect an owners’ lockout…also expect most fans to incorrectly call it a strike…they always do.

After that, I expect this to be a pretty one-sided affair. It almost has to be since the owners hold just about all the cards.

Probably the biggest advantage the NFL owners have in this dispute is the unique way the league is run financially.  In the other professional sports leagues, local television revenue is a large portion of most teams’ revenue.  It’s also the key revenue item that creates the “big market vs. small market” distinction that is so important in those sports, since the differences between a local TV deal in New York is many times more valuable than a local package in, say, Kansas City.  NFL teams have virtually no local television revenue (preseason games only).  NFL teams live off of their national TV contracts that are negotiated by the league.  This revenue is shared equally among the teams.  The NFL also has the most even revenue sharing of game-day “gate receipts” at 60%-40% (home team-road team).  In contrast, NBA home teams keep 94% of gate receipts.  One result of the “all for one and one for all” NFL financial dynamic is that it creates one very cohesive group of rich guys.

Unfortunately for the players, an exceptionally tightly-knit ownership group is not all they need to overcome.

While most sports-related labor disputes are characterized as “millionaires squaring off against billionaires,” this isn’t nearly as true of the NFL (except for the owners being billionaires part) as it is of other pro sports. The NFL’s average player salary is “only” $1.3 million, ranking them behind the NBA ($4.9 million), Major League Baseball ($2.6 million) and even the NHL ($1.8 million). And averages don’t truly tell the story since a solid majority of NFL players earn less than $1 million per year. This is very important because, though the TV cameras will likely look for defiant comments from the players who are the most recognizable (and therefore highest paid), unions work on a “one member-one vote” basis.

Add to this the fact that no professional sport has a shorter average length of career than the NFL’s approximately 3 ½ years…and it’s not close. It will be unthinkable to a majority of the players to spend a season without football (and a paycheck that they can’t come close to matching outside the NFL).

And for those of you who say “the players are the game and owners can be replaced…the players should just start a new league,” please stop yourselves. It’s never worked before and certainly won’t work now. In addition to owning the teams, NFL owners own virtually all the premier football venues they play in and have standing agreements with the major networks. By the time “the players” could make this work, none of them would still be “the players.”

The players can’t win this one and my guess is that they know it. They’ll try mightily to plead for support through the media to force the owners to “be fair.” Unfortunately for them, poll after poll says that fans believe the players make too much money. The players know this too.

In the end, I see the real drama in all of this as being just how mercilessly the owners want to beat the NFLPA…it’s really their call. I don’t think that the owners have any particular ax to grind with the current NFLPA leadership, but that could change in the course of these negotiations. This said, the owners need a signed CBA with the rightful representatives of the players…without it, the player draft and other compensation-limiting aspects of the relationship between the teams and their players would violate US anti-trust laws.

My guess is that this dispute will last into the summer which means that Organized Team Activities (OTAs) will be scratched and the start of training camp will probably be delayed. My prediction is that no regular season games will be missed and the full 16-game schedule will be played…with the new 18-game schedule to begin in 2012. The owners will get their $2 billion in expense credits off the top and there will be something pretty close to a 58-42 split (favoring the players) on the remaining revenues. There will be a new rookie salary scale without a change to the length of rookie contracts.  If this sounds pretty much like a clean sweep for the owners, you’d be right.

Like I said, this one isn’t a fair fight.

Friday, February 11, 2011

Sloan's Resignation: A Love Story




In 1976 at age 34, Chicago Bulls two-time All Star and six-time NBA All-Defensive Team guard Jerry Sloan blew out his knee.  Age and circumstances had conspired against him and the handwriting on the wall was clear enough.  He had to walk away from the game he loved to play.

Yesterday, Sloan, now 68 and in his 23rd season as Utah Jazz Head Coach, could again read the writing.  Hard as it was, it was time for him to move on.

Word is that the end was hastened by increasingly-frequent disputes between Sloan and his superstar point guard Deron Williams.  The flashpoint occurred Wednesday night in a game against the Bulls when Williams reportedly ignored the play Sloan signaled for and ran one of his own.  A heated exchange between the two occurred at halftime.  In a report by Yahoo! Sports’ Adrian Wojnarowski, a league source said “He (Sloan) decided right there at halftime that he was done.  He felt like ownership was listening more to Williams than they were to him anymore. He was done.”

After the game (a loss, dropping his team’s record to 31-23) Sloan met with Jazz GM Kevin O’Connor. Reports are that Sloan resigned during the meeting, but O’Connor asked him “to sleep on it.”  Sloan agreed, but his mind was made up.  Sloan said he slept very well Tuesday night.

The story of a NBA superstar causing the departure of his head coach is certainly nothing new.  Though the head coach is nominally “the boss,” we all know the truth.  Superstars generally make 4 times as much as their head coaches…and that gap would be greater if not for the NBA’s maximum salary rules.  You do the math.  So it’s not surprising that when a head coach locks horns with his team’s superstar, the coach traditionally fairs poorly in the exchange. 

The thing is that, for nearly all of Sloan’s tenure in Utah, the Jazz were an exception to the rule.  The organization was committed to its head coach and his system.  If a player couldn’t or wouldn’t play within Sloan’s system, the player rather than the head coach was shown the door.  Sloan was the constant.  The result was a record of consistent excellence that was the envy of every other small and mid-market sports franchise.  In 23 seasons as the Jazz head coach, the team had only one losing season…one.  His record with the Jazz was 1127-682, a remarkable .622 winning percentage.

Truth be told, I don’t know that Sloan was any sort of coaching genius.  He was just a gym rat who turned into a basketball-lifer.  He understood the beautiful simplicity of the game and stressed the fundamentals of team play.  On offense, you move the ball, set screens and work for the open shot.  His best teams, the Karl Malone-John Stockton teams, simply ran the pick-and-roll until an opponent showed they could stop it…very few could.  On defense, Sloan’s specialty as a player, you got down low, got as physical as the referees would allow and helped your teammates.  Most of all, you played your tail off all the time…no exceptions.

Nothing tricky about it…it’s just how you’re supposed to play the game and how Sloan coached it.  It’s a credit to the Utah Jazz organization that for so many years, they allowed Sloan to be what a head coach should be, namely, the undisputed boss.  Unfortunately, Sloan saw this unwavering commitment to him and his system changing.  Their superstar Williams would become a free agent in 2012 and Williams wasn’t happy.  Sloan was asked to be reasonable, to appease his young star.  While in the NBA this seems like a reasonable enough request, Sloan knew only too well that what he was being asked to do had nothing to do with playing winning basketball.  He understood more keenly than his superiors that the secret to the Jazz’s success as a team and his success as a head coach is that “players play and coaches coach.”  When it becomes OK for a player, no matter how good he is, to decide whether the play the coach has called is the right one, you’re no longer the head coach…not really.

Sloan wanted none of it so he acted quickly, decisively and with characteristic class.  He rightly thanked the Jazz organization for giving him, for so many years, the increasingly-rare opportunity to be a genuine head coach in the NBA.

I only had two boyhood sports heroes – Dick Butkus and Jerry Sloan.  As a player, Sloan wasn’t particularly talented, but he was tough as nails and absolutely relentless on the floor.  When it came to the game he loved, there was no room for compromise.

Some people don’t change.

Godspeed,  # 4.

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

High-Tech Hoops Stats for the Casual Fan – VOL 2 – Player Efficiency Rating

When it comes to advanced measurement of the performance of a basketball player, the Player Efficiency Rating, or PER, is the biggest, baddest, 600-pound gorilla of a stat you can find. I mean, if basketball stats were pizzas, this thing would have absolutely everything on it, including the kitchen sink and other sundry fixtures.

The PER stat was developed by ESPN’s John Hollinger in the late 1990s. According to Hollinger, “PER sums up all a player's positive accomplishments, subtracts the negative accomplishments, and returns a per-minute rating of a player's performance.” The positives accomplishments included in the formula are points scored, offensive rebounds, defensive rebounds, assists, blocked shots and steals. Negatives include, missed field goals, missed free throws, turnovers and fouls committed. If there’s anything else you can think of that folks keep track of during a basketball game that I didn’t mention, I’m sure it’s my oversight, not Hollinger’s. Various weights are assigned to each positive and negative and then the raw score is adjusted for minutes played. Because of this adjustment, PER has the advantage of being useful in comparing the relative productivity of big-minute, small-minute players and everyone in between.

The formula? Oh, I suppose I could copy and paste it here, but last time I looked at it my head started hurting so I think I’ll spare you the experience. However, for the truly masochistic, here’s a link:

http://www.basketball-reference.com/about/per.html

Just remember I warned you.

In the first article of this series on True Shooting Percentage (TS%), I showed the current league leaders in TS%. It wasn’t a very impressive a list. My guess is that you'll like PER's leaderboard better:

1. LeBron James-MIA 27.0
2. Chris Paul-NOH 25.9
3. Dwyane Wade-MIA 25.3
4. Dwight Howard-ORL 25.3
5. Kobe Bryant-LAL 24.9

These may not be your personal top-5 players in the NBA, but if you watch many games, it’s probably not far off. As I see it, any performance measure that comes this close to being in sync with what my eyes tell me merits my respect if not a standing ovation.

Another interesting feature of the PER stat is that it adjusts itself so that a score of 15.0 is the NBA average. I mean, how cool is that? Just please, don’t ask me how it does it, because that also makes my head hurt.

Mr. Hollinger, you done good.

OK, enough of the hearts and flowers…time to take our cheap shots.

Measuring Defensive Performance

Some of the greatest statistical minds on the planet have attempted to quantify an individual player’s defensive impact on the game, and for my money, they’ve all been found wanting. Hollinger included (and in fairness, Hollinger agrees). I’m sure that my experience coaching the game colors my opinions on this, but playing good defense is about a lot more than defensive rebounds, steals and blocked shots. In fact, when it comes to steals and blocks, players who emphasize these in the way they play the game often trigger their coaches’ latent homicidal tendencies. This is due to the fact that missed steal and block attempts take the player out of position, frequently resulting in easy baskets for the opposition. As I see it, if PER (or any other “all-inclusive” performance stat) doesn’t negatively recognize when these defensive stat-hounds leave their teammates in the lurch, they ought to remove steals and blocks from the formula altogether.

But there’s more to it than that. Good defense is doing whatever you can to prevent the other team from scoring, including all the little things a defender can do to make it difficult for opponents to “run their stuff” - a hand that’s up, not down, a bump to take a cutting opponent off stride, a well-timed double-team or weakside help…the list goes on and on. The obvious problem is that much of this is subjective and cumulative in their effect. This is why I don’t think there will ever be a measurement of individual defensive performance that I’ll be able to fully embrace.

A few more things about PER that make me go “hmmm”
  • As mentioned earlier, each of the positive and negative on-floor accomplishments are given their own weight. As nearly as I can tell, a blocked shot has the same positive weight as an offensive rebound. I’m sure Hollinger had his reasons, but as I see it, an offensive rebound always results in an extra possession while a blocked shot doesn’t necessarily result in a change of possession. I mean, you could have 5 blocked shots in a single possession and your opponent could still score on that trip. Sorry, I don’t get it.
  • I’m not too keen on penalizing a player for fouls committed since we all know that not all fouls are created equal. There are good fouls and there are bad fouls. There are fouls the head coach specifically tells a player to commit. Heck, if Shaquille O’Neal has the ball under the basket and you don’t foul him, you’re an idiot. Opportunities to win games have disintegrated because a foul wasn’t committed quickly enough.
  • As I see it, if you want to penalize for fouls committed, limit it to fouls that result in an “And 1” for the shooter and any time a player fouls a jump shooter…those are virtually always bad fouls. Oh, and fouling a shooter on a 3-point attempt should immediately drop your PER to zero.
  • The inherent beauty of seeing a player hustle into position and take a charge is completely overlooked by PER. Oh wait…that’s not quite true. The player committing the charge is penalized by both the foul and the fact that it’s a turnover...but the poor guy lying crumpled on the court who actually made the play gets nothing, nada, zippo. Mr. Hollinger, that just ain’t right.

Of course the worst thing about the PER stat is how some people use it. In particular those who, in any discussion relating to the comparative abilities of two players, whip out the PERs and lay ‘em on the table like they’re revealing a royal flush. Hollinger doesn’t even see it that way, yet you’ll run into some insufferable know-it-alls who do...and they also make my head hurt.

If you believe that PER is all you need to know to assess the quality of a player then you believe that:
  • Golden State’s Stephen Curry is a better point guard than the Celtics’ Rajon Rondo.
  • There are 57 shooting guards you’d rather have on your team than Oklahoma City’s Thabo Sefolosha, a NBA second-team all-defensive team selection last season.
  • Chicago small forward Luol Deng is just barely an average NBA player (PER 15.3) and is only the 14th best small forward in the league.
  • Orlando power forward Ryan Anderson outshines the Celtics’ Kevin Garnett, New Orleans’ David West, the Lakers’ Lamar Odom, Chicago's Carlos Boozer, Portland’s LaMarcus Aldridge and Miami’s Chris Bosh at his position.
  • That this season the Milwaukee Bucks would be better off with the Mavericks' Tyson Chandler or Nuggets Nene Hilario at center than their own Andrew Bogut.

And it’s perfectly OK to believe these things…you’d just be wrong.

Hollinger’s Player Efficiency Rating is, in my opinion, a magnificent statistic and a credit to its creator. It’s just not perfect…none of the advanced hoops statistics are. So if you run into one of those people who offers up PER as a case-closed-discussion-over trump card, don’t be afraid to give your antagonist a steely glance and say in your best Clint Eastwood voice, “Very nice…now what else ya got.”

High-Tech Hoops Stats for the Casual Fan – VOL 1 – True Shooting Percentage

Before some people who know me start throwing things, let me begin by saying that I’m not any sort of stats expert and often chide those who I feel put too much stock in the numbers and not enough in what their eyes tell them when watching games. In fact, it’s because I’ve only recently become acquainted with the these advanced basketball statistics and view them with what I feel is a dose of healthy skepticism, that I decided to do this series. If you’re new to these stats, maybe this article will help you cozy up to them a bit. If you’re already a card-carrying stats maven, you may want to read my simplistic take to further enhance your feelings of superiority.

Once upon a time, when basketball fans wanted to know how their favorite teams and players were doing, they looked to a few simple numbers like win-loss percentage, simple shooting percentage, points scored, rebounds snatched and assists dished. The truth is that this is still about all you’ll find in your local newspaper’s box scores.

Then long about the 1970s, some new statistics surfaced including steals, blocks, turnovers and breaking rebounds into their offensive and defensive components. Of course today, these are considered to be as basic as the old standards.

Following on the heels of baseball’s “saber-metrics” movement of the 80s, the 90s saw the birth of a new generation of basketball measurements designed to bring us added insight into team and player performance. We’ll deal with something called True Shooting Percentage (TS%) today.

We’re all familiar with simple shooting percentage…you take 6 shots, make 3 and you’re shooting 50%. Then along came the three-point shot. Since these shots were harder to make, but carried a hefty 50% bonus for success, simple shooting percentage needed a new partner. “Effective Field Goal Percentage (eFG%) was created. The formula is fairly straightforward:

Effective Field Goal Percentage = (Field Goals made + (0.5 * 3-point Field Goals Made)) / Field Goal attempts

Put into words, the eFG% formula simply gives an extra 50% credit for a made three-pointer (the difference between 3 and 2). So with eFG%, if you take 6 shots and make 3, but one of them is a 3-pointer, you’re credited with 3.5 shots made in 6 tries and have a 58.3% eFG%.

The next question asked was "What about free throws?" They count as points and help your team. Shouldn’t they be taken into account as well? The answer was “Yes” and the stats gurus came up with the True Shooting Percentage statistic. When you read or hear media types writing or talking about a basketball player being efficient or inefficient, it’s a good bet that they’re basing their opinion on this statistic. The formula is a little hairier than eFG%, but let’s stay with it:

True Shooting Percentage = Points / (2 * (Field Goal attempts + (0.44 * Free Throw Attempts))

As you can see, since the formula starts with total points scored, 3-point shots are given full credit and made free throws are included. Whether intended or not, perfection is defined in several ways. If you took only 2-point shots and made all of them, you’d have a perfect score of 1.000. Converting on 2/3 of your 3-point shots yields the same result. For free throws, an 88% success rate results in a perfect 1.000 score. Then again, since making better than 2/3 of your 3-pointers or over 88% of your free throws would result in a TS% that exceeds 1.000, perfection is kind of, well, imperfectly defined with this stat.

Overall, I like the true shooting percentage stat. It does a good job of measuring the efficiency of a scorer and does a good job of exposing the hated “chuckers” who never met a shot they didn’t like. It’s particularly good for big men who don’t typically take many 3-pointers, but (ideally) make a high percentage of their two-point field goals and draw their share of fouls.

Of course, it has its quirks. Here are a couple examples:

Making 50% of your two-point field goal attempts is considered pretty good in terms of efficiency, while making only 50% of your free throw attempts is considered downright unacceptable. Yet with the TS% formula, a player who shoots 50% on two-point field goals actually improves his TS% by making only half his free throws. Go figure.

Player A is fouled and makes his two free throws. Player B makes a basket, is fouled and converts his “And 1.” You’d think that a statistic that seeks to measure scoring efficiency would just love the guy who got 3 points on one play, but it just ain’t so. Player A’s TS% is 1.136 (2 divided by 1.76) while Player B’s is only 1.04 (3 divided by 2.88). A head-scratcher.
I also don’t think the formula should include technical free throws made since the player did nothing to earn those opportunities…but that’s just me.

As with any statistic, the problem is often not with the stat itself, but with what folks try to do with it. Yes, TS% measures scoring efficiency nicely and efficiency is good, but a great TS% does not make you a great player, or even a great shooter for that matter. Players who “play within themselves,” seldom risking a shot they can’t easily make are likely to be TS%-studs, but average or below-average scorers. Again, efficiency’s nice, but in the end you’ve got to score more points than your opponent to win.

A quick look at the current TS% league leaders illustrates the point:

1. Tyson Chandler-DAL .732
2. Nene Hilario-DEN .694
3. Arron Afflalo-DEN .644
4. Steve Nash-PHO .642
5. Amir Johnson-TOR .631

Don’t get me wrong, these are all nice players, but other than Nash, none are close to being considered great. Chandler and Johnson each average fewer than 10 points per game. Nene and Afflalo are probably the third and fourth best players on their own team. When the Nuggets really need a basket, do they go these efficiency experts? Nope. They go to the pretty darned inefficient Carmelo Anthony (.523 TS%...the NBA median TS% is .532). Why? Because Anthony creates his own shot opportunities rather than waiting for them, and when the shot clock is running out and the game is on the line, you’ve got to get a quality (even if not ideal) shot up…NOW! Anthony, like many other superstars, is regularly asked to take these tough shots under pressure and as a result, sacrifice efficiency for effectiveness.

As you probably know, the NBA announced the starters for its upcoming All Star game last week. Of these great players (which includes Anthony), only Nash is in the top 20 in terms of True Shooting Percentage. Lebron James is 73rd. Kobe Bryant is 102nd and Derrick Rose is 155th.

In the 1997-98 season, Michael Jordan led his Chicago Bulls to their 6th title in 8 seasons and collected his 5th MVP trophy while posting a truly mediocre TS% of .533.

You get the idea…while scoring efficiency is worth measuring and considering in evaluating a player, it is seldom the deciding factor. In basketball, while it’s good to be efficient, it’s better to be, well, just plain good.

Next up, Player Efficiency Rating or PER. It’s a hummer.