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supersub15
Joined: 21 Sep 2006
Posts: 106
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 Posted: Mon Oct 01, 2007 9:22 am Post subject: Most consistent Scorers |
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read more here
| Quote: | So, where are the other big-time scorers? That is easy enough to explain. Out of last year's top 30 in scoring average, the two players who ranked lowest in terms of consistency were Gilbert Arenas (29th) and Kobe Bryant (30th). This makes sense because when you are an explosive player like Kobe or Gilbert, it actually hurts your consistency. Sure, they can drop 60 points on someone on a given night, but then they may post 25 the next night. That doesn't mean they aren't terrific players, just not very consistent!
One of the most overused phrases in basketball is stating that a player "brings it every night". Very few players truly live up to that with regard to effort or production. This study has taken the term "consistency" and made it more tangible, and also sought to recognize the players who put up points and do it with the most dependability. There is something to be said for unwavering effort and production - just ask the big guy at the top of the list who has all the championship rings. |
Thoughts? |
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kjb
Joined: 03 Jan 2005
Posts: 714
Location: Washington, DC
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| Posted: Mon Oct 01, 2007 10:07 am Post subject: |
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For fantasy purposes, this analysis is okay. In terms of looking at a player's actual consistency, I think other steps are necessary. When I look at a player's consistency, I don't use per game stats, which will fluctuate based on minutes played. I use per minute stats instead.
Also, I don't use straight standard deviation -- a player who averaged 25 points per 40 minutes with a standard deviation of 5 is more consistent than a guy who averages 10 points per 40 minutes with an identical standard deviation. To get at that difference, I divide the standard deviation by the season average to get a "percentage of deviation." I think that "percentage of deviation" is a far more meaningful and useful number.
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Mike G
Joined: 14 Jan 2005
Posts: 1705
Location: Delphi, Indiana
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| Posted: Mon Oct 01, 2007 10:11 am Post subject: |
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The term "explosive" is just a hype word for "inconsistent".
KJB has just said what I was about to say. Rather than limit the ranking to 'top 30 scorers' and then rank by StdDev, apply one standard to every player. A guy who scores 10-20 points every single game (Karl Malone, 2004) is most consistent.
A player can also "bring it every night", whether or not it's in the scoring column. Great players do more than just score, and even the greatest scorers have bad shooting nights. They can either go into a funk, or they can make up for their off-shots by rebounding, etc.
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Mountain
Joined: 13 Mar 2007
Posts: 348
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| Posted: Mon Oct 01, 2007 12:36 pm Post subject: |
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Supersub's article brings the basic issue to a larger audience and that is a good thing. kjb's comments do offer helpful refinements. I'd be interested in seeing a top list or full dataset
of scoring consistency done that way. |
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mtamada
Joined: 28 Jan 2005
Posts: 184
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| Posted: Tue Oct 02, 2007 4:11 pm Post subject: |
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| kjb wrote: | | I divide the standard deviation by the season average to get a "percentage of deviation." I think that "percentage of deviation" is a far more meaningful and useful number. |
That's a good idea, but there's already a name for it: it's the inverse of the "coefficient of variation". See e.g. footnote g at http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/SAS/output/univ.htm |
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supersub15
Joined: 21 Sep 2006
Posts: 106
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| Posted: Thu Oct 04, 2007 6:24 am Post subject: |
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This is what Sam Mitchell had to say about Joey Graham's lack of consistency:
| Quote: | | "If he can do it more consistently and do it three out of four games, which is quite normal for an NBA player, then we'll be awfully tough to beat." |
3 out 4 games. Is that a normal barometer? |
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kjb
Joined: 03 Jan 2005
Posts: 714
Location: Washington, DC
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| Posted: Thu Oct 04, 2007 8:53 am Post subject: |
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| mtamada wrote: | | kjb wrote: | | I divide the standard deviation by the season average to get a "percentage of deviation." I think that "percentage of deviation" is a far more meaningful and useful number. |
That's a good idea, but there's already a name for it: it's the inverse of the "coefficient of variation". See e.g. footnote g at http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/SAS/output/univ.htm |
Figures there'd already be an actual term for it. Thanks. 
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Mike G
Joined: 14 Jan 2005
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Location: Delphi, Indiana
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| Posted: Thu Oct 04, 2007 9:21 am Post subject: |
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But,
Inverse of the coefficient of variation
is a longer term than:
Percentage of deviation
(or
% of deviation
or
D% )
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mtamada
Joined: 28 Jan 2005
Posts: 184
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| Posted: Thu Oct 04, 2007 2:07 pm Post subject: |
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| Mike G wrote: | But,
Inverse of the coefficient of variation
is a longer term than:
Percentage of deviation
(or
% of deviation
or
D% ) |
Statisticians abbreviate it "CV" ... hence "inverse CV" (which is even shorter and easier to type than "% of deviation".
Abbreviations are trickier, they often need to have "community support" (as with e.g. "TS%"), but one could imagine using "invCV" or "iCV" or maybe even just "cv", with a footnote of explanation that it's actually the inverse of the CV.
Those abbreviations of course are ones that I simply made up, and have no "community support". But the other terms that I mentioned -- "CV", "coefficient of variation", "inverse CV" -- have a strong advantage over making up our own terminology: the existing terminology is well recognized by statisticians and other people (economists, psychologists) who work with statistics. So they can quickly understand what we are doing, rather than having to learn a bunch of apbrmetric jargon and abbreviations.
Some jargon and unique abbreviations (TS%) are inevitable and necessary. And any one article (or sometimes even posting) may need to create its own abbreviations and terminology. But we should try to minimize the creation of new terminology if there's already an existing one. |
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tsherkin
Joined: 31 Jan 2005
Posts: 126
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| Posted: Tue Oct 23, 2007 12:51 pm Post subject: |
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Just as an aside, how would you use the coefficient of variation?
I mean, let's say you have a 20 ppg scorer and the standard deviation of his performance is like 6, so he's between 14 and 26 on any given night.
If you take the SD and divide it by the average, you've got 30%, right?
Is that a really BIG CV% and if so, what does that mean? It means that he fluctuates a lot and isn't really consistent, right?
And isn't the CV% also called the relative standard deviation (RSD)? |
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kjb
Joined: 03 Jan 2005
Posts: 714
Location: Washington, DC
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| Posted: Wed Oct 24, 2007 11:02 am Post subject: |
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| tsherkin wrote: | Just as an aside, how would you use the coefficient of variation?
I mean, let's say you have a 20 ppg scorer and the standard deviation of his performance is like 6, so he's between 14 and 26 on any given night.
If you take the SD and divide it by the average, you've got 30%, right? |
I use it to compare a player's variation in performance to another player's. Looking at guys with similar roles can yield interesting information. Maybe Gilbert Arenas shows up as being a bit less consistent than another high-usage player. Then I can look at other stuff to see if there might be a reason I can find. Too many 3s? Too few 3s? Not getting calls? Etc.
I also like to look at the range of performance. What can you expect from a player on a typical night? In this case, his team could expect our 20 pts per 40 minutes player to produce somewhere between 14 and 26 points per 40 minutes each game.
By the way, the whole reason I started looking at this was to test the claim that Brendan Haywood is inconsistent, and therefore deserving of fewer minutes. My findings in that respect are on my blog. The findings could be interpreted a few ways. Compared to his teammates, Haywood was less consistent than several players, but significantly more consistent than other players who received about the same or more minutes than Haywood. On the other hand, he was a bit below average in consistency in a group of 38 centers (starters and significant minutes guys).
| Quote: | | Is that a really BIG CV% and if so, what does that mean? It means that he fluctuates a lot and isn't really consistent, right? |
30% is typically a pretty small deviation for the bigger volume stats like scoring, and summary stat measures. For that group of 38 centers -- the most consistent scorer last season was Bosh with a CV% of 25. CV% tends to get higher with lower volume stats like blocks, steals, etc. For example, Jermaine O'Neal shows up as the "most consistent" shot blocker, with a CV% of 61. Ben Wallace was the most consistent stealer (75);
| Quote: | | And isn't the CV% also called the relative standard deviation (RSD)? |
Could be. I'm not necessarily up to date on these fancy schmancy math terms. Where are our professors? 
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tsherkin
Joined: 31 Jan 2005
Posts: 126
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| Posted: Wed Oct 24, 2007 2:07 pm Post subject: |
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| Thanks, kev, that's very helpful. I'm going to have to look into that a little more. Mind if I send you what I'm fiddling with to see if it's reasonable? |
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kjb
Joined: 03 Jan 2005
Posts: 714
Location: Washington, DC
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| Posted: Wed Oct 24, 2007 2:37 pm Post subject: |
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| tsherkin wrote: | | Thanks, kev, that's very helpful. I'm going to have to look into that a little more. Mind if I send you what I'm fiddling with to see if it's reasonable? |
Sure. You have my email.
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deepak_e
Joined: 26 Apr 2006
Posts: 361
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| Posted: Wed Oct 24, 2007 5:52 pm Post subject: |
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| There was this thread (actually, I'm sure there's been more than one) on consistency a while back here. |
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Flint
Joined: 25 Mar 2007
Posts: 112
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| Posted: Thu Oct 25, 2007 9:36 am Post subject: |
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The problem for a lot of players is they just dont concetrate enough....
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