APBRmetrics

Mike G · Joined: 14 Jan 2005 Posts: 1705 Location: Delphi, Indiana

From a secret formula, I've analyzed 138 current player careers for their tendencies over the last 5 seasons. A few careers of 3-4 years are considered, for premier players. I didn't use age as a factor; whether a player is 25 or 35, if he's gotten better (or worse) each of the last 5 years, the formula predicts same next year.

Here are players to avoid, as their careers seem to be falling off the table. Some have already hit the floor, but they might yet appear as fill-in material; listed in order of productivity loss expected (as a decimal fraction):

kjb · Joined: 03 Jan 2005 Posts: 714 Location: Washington, DC

Interesting to see your secret formula predict a gain for Caron Butler while Hollinger is predicting a drop.
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deepak_e · Joined: 26 Apr 2006 Posts: 361

For each player, are you only considering his history the last 5 years, or do league-wide tendencies factor in?

bchaikin · Joined: 27 Jan 2005 Posts: 524 Location: cleveland, ohio

for the most part i'd say your magic formula is dead on, with just a couple of exceptions:

- i'd swap nazr mohammed to your loss in productivity list. of the 260 players to have played at least 2000 total minutes the past two seasons, he's got the 2nd highest rate of fouls committed (16 fouls per 100 minutes played), and he'll be 30 years of age in 07-08. also his turnovers per touch were the highest of his career the past two seasons since his first two years in the league. unless antonio mcdyess or rasheed wallace gets injured, i doubt he plays even 20 min/g in 07-08 (he did however play 28 min/g for the knicks in 04-05 when he fouled much less)...

- zach randolph will be sharing the low post with eddy curry in 07-08, after having been the blazers main low post threat last year and shooting better than he had in four seasons. thus in 07-08 he may suffer a significant drop in FG% like channing frye did in 06-07 compared to 05-06. in 05-06 curry and frye mostly split the C minutes, and frye shot more from in close to the basket than in 06-07 when curry played 81 games and 35 min/g at C and frye played C/PF...

Tim Lehrbach · Joined: 03 Dec 2006 Posts: 33

bchaikin · Joined: 27 Jan 2005 Posts: 524 Location: cleveland, ohio

Randolph was already taking 59% of his attempts as jump shots last season, anyway. My memory (having watched 75-80 Portland games) confirms that as accurate. He is still an effective post player, but his elbow-and-out face-up game is just as important to his arsenal now.

if you look at mr. randolph's 82games.com stats, his inside eFG%s the last 3 seasons have been pretty consistent, between 54%-55%. but his jump shot eFG%s were at just under 42% last season and below 39% each of the previous two years. last year his overall eFG% was 47.2%, which was 2.6% less than just the league average of 49.6%, and that was his best eFG% in 3 seasons. in 04-05 and 05-06 his eFG%s were more than 3%-4% less than just the league average eFG%...

i'm guessing that if in playing alongside eddy curry he ends up taking a higher percentage of his total FGA from outside compared to inside than he has in the past (which could very well happen if curry remains the knicks' primary low post threat), that his eFG% is going to go back down. plus even though he has gotten fouled alot and hit his FTs at close to 80% these last 3 seasons, his overall shooting or ScFG% these 3 years has still not been as good as even the league average overall shooting, primarily because while the average 2pt FG% for PFs the last 3 years has been 49%, randolph has shot less than 46% on 2s...

Mike G · Joined: 14 Jan 2005 Posts: 1705 Location: Delphi, Indiana

Yes, there are cases -- some more obvious than others -- of players who should not be expected to continue their 5-years trends. I don't really expect Nowitzki, Boozer, Parker, Nash, Camby, Zach, or Nazr to continue rising another year. But they might.

I was just using a trend analysis, irrespective of context. If, rather than being traded, the Blazers had decided to build a team around Randolph (and drafted Durant?), then his 'PER' improvement might be even greater than this modest couple of %.

The point is that players are going uphill in their career trajectories, until they aren't. Steadily down is seldom reversed.

Mohammed is one kind of anomaly. Five years back, his career kind of bottomed out. He's improved every year since (in T rate), or in 3 of 4 years (PER).

He's a steady 15-12 (per40) guy; last 2 years he shot 56%; 2.2 TO/40 is hardly alarming. He fouls way too much to get minutes, but PER doesn't care about MPG.
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Tim Lehrbach · Joined: 03 Dec 2006 Posts: 33

CareyScurry · Joined: 29 Jul 2005 Posts: 5

Is this the increase in production from last season, or from weighted average of the past five years, or something else?

Mike G · Joined: 14 Jan 2005 Posts: 1705 Location: Delphi, Indiana

Predicted PER change from last season to the upcoming season. I didn't study individual circumstances. Even though I think Wade's PER was overblown last year, his trend is still upward.

deepak wrote:

Mike G · Joined: 14 Jan 2005 Posts: 1705 Location: Delphi, Indiana

Having now looked at 301 current careers (of at least 2 seasons), another list. There's a lot more uncertainty in a 2-year 'trend' -- which amounts to just projecting last year's T-Rate improvement to next year's -- and so I'm just going to separate out 2- and 3-year careers. 4 years isn't a lot different from 5, so they'll be lumped in together.

From the 4+ years group, the biggest expected improvers, in the MikeG T-rate (no longer 'scaling' to PER):

Mike G · Joined: 14 Jan 2005 Posts: 1705 Location: Delphi, Indiana

By popular demand, players whose 4- and 5-year histories suggest downturns in productivity. Again, no outside influences are considered. As in the list above, players are listed with their 2007 teams. I've omitted players who do not seem to be on any roster at this time.