Posted: Sun Feb 26, 2006 3:22 am Post subject: Underrated/overrated players
We're having a very fascinating discussion in another thread about Reggie Miller's career, and it reminded me of something that Bill James wrote about in his New Historical Abstract, regarding overrated and underrated players. I'd like to list what he wrote here and then get some ideas on how those apply to basketball. I'll comment where appropriate. I'd love feedback on this.
"1. Specialists and players who do two or three things well are overrated; players who do several things well are underrated."
"2. Batting average is overrated; secondary offensive skills, summarized in secondary average, are underrated."
- To twist this for hoops: scoring is overrated, and other offensive skills are underrated. What do you all think?
"3. Driving in runs is overrated; scoring runs is underrated."
- See #2.
"4. Players who play for championship teams are often overrated; players who get stuck with bad teams are often underrated."
- No argument here. This may be less true for basketball, because very rarely perhaps is a very good player on a very bad team - Tracy McGrady on the 2003-04 Magic comes to mind. It seems that in basketball, a team's success hinges much more on the team's best players than in baseball.
"5. Players who play in New York or LA are sometimes overrated, while players who play in smaller and less glamorous cities are sometimes underrated, although this factor is not as significant as many people believe it to be."
- I think James is right. I heard a radio bit earlier this week where the host remarked that with the expansion and increased speed of news distribution (especially through the Internet), it's much easier for athletes who play in smaller markets to become stars. I thought it was an interesting consideration.
"6. Players who are glib and popular with the press are sometimes overrated, while players who are quiet are sometimes underrated, although, again, this factor is not as significant as many people think it is."
"7. Players who play in parks which do not favor their skills are always underrated. Players who play in parks which favor them - hitters in Colorado, lefties in Yankee, pitchers in the Astrodome - are always overrated."
- Obviously not applicable to basketball directly, but what about players who play in certain systems or under certain coaches, or even in certain situations? Joe Johnson goes from being the fourth option on a 62-win team to the main man on a lottery team - how does that affect the way he's thought of?
"8. Hitters from big-hitting eras (the 1890s, the 1920s and 1930s) are overrated in history, and pitchers from the dead ball era and the 1960s are overrated. Pitchers from the big-hitting era and hitters from the 1960s are underrated."
- It is my belief, and I may be wrong, that players from the higher-scoring eras of basketball are overrated in history because this is a historically low-scoring, slower-paced era, and so most people judge those players against today's standards and think that players of previous eras were somehow superhuman by comparison. If anyone wants to agree or disagree with this, please do so.
"9. Undocumented skills (leadership, defense, heads-up play) tend to be forgotten over time. Everything else deteriorates faster than the numbers."
"10. Anything which 'breaks up' a player's career tends to cause him to be underrated. A player who has a good career will be thought of more highly than a player who does the same things, but with three different teams. Switching positions causes a player to be underrated. A player who plays 1,000 games at second base and 1,000 games at third base may be underrated, because it's harder to form a whole image of what he has done... This also explains factor (1) above, the overrating of specialists as opposed to players of diverse skills."
Any thoughts from anyone else? Are there any players you think are relevant to any of these factors? How can the questions that James related specifically to baseball - numbers 2, 3, 7, 8, and 10 - be modified to work for basketball? Any thoughts?
As a big Bill James fan, I think that pretty much all of this has *some* parallel to basketball....
Quote:
"1. Specialists and players who do two or three things well are overrated; players who do several things well are underrated."
When I read this in the Abstract, the first basketball-related thing I thought of was "shotblocking centers are the LOOGYs of the NBA." Seriously. Big men in general are hugely overrated. Look at Jerome James' monstrous salary for what was essentially 6 good games against a team without a center. Look also at Bob Hill blaming the Sonics' malaise this year on not having him on the roster.
On the other hand, look at a guy like Ray Allen. IMO he is the quintessentially underrated player because he does a little of everything. There are players who shoot better than he does from range, players who come off of screens quicker, players who move without the ball better, shooting guards more adept at breaking down their opponent, non-bigs better at finishing. But Allen does a little bit of all of those, and for that reason, I think, he gets included as an "oh yeah him too" kind of player when fans make lists even though he's in the midst of what may well be a HOF career.
FWIW, I thought that Mitch Richmond was similarly criminally underrated.
Quote:
"2. Batting average is overrated; secondary offensive skills, summarized in secondary average, are underrated."
- To twist this for hoops: scoring is overrated, and other offensive skills are underrated. What do you all think?
Yep, absolutely agree, although to me "scoring" is really a combination of several skills. Specifically, finishing and penetration are overrated. Jump shooting isn't terribly overrated, though; in fact, I'd say that players who get a lot of their points on jump shots tend to be a little underrated.
Quote:
"3. Driving in runs is overrated; scoring runs is underrated."
- See #2.
Right. Also, assists seem to be overrated compared to actual scoring. Nash v Stoudemire, for example.
Quote:
"5. Players who play in New York or LA are sometimes overrated, while players who play in smaller and less glamorous cities are sometimes underrated, although this factor is not as significant as many people believe it to be."
- I think James is right. I heard a radio bit earlier this week where the host remarked that with the expansion and increased speed of news distribution (especially through the Internet), it's much easier for athletes who play in smaller markets to become stars. I thought it was an interesting consideration.
To be honest, I don't think this is much of a factor at all in basketball. Well, I guess it's a factor in reverse in that a lot of big-name players seem to like to flock to big-name cities. If anything, I think that good players on bad teams in big cities are actually underrated further. Stephon Marbury is a prime example. Kobe sans Shaq is another. Both great players, both constantly derided as not being "team" enough and thereby placed behind not-as-good players with "better attitudes" from smaller markets like Mike Bibby.
Really, though, what seems to happen more than anything else in the NBA is that once a team wins or gets to a championship, all the key players are talked of as being among the best in the business at their position. Often this hype has truth to it: Tim Duncan and Ben Wallace really are among the top bigs out there. On the other hand, anyone else remember the adulation heaped on Mike Bibby during the Kings' title run? Or how Robert Horry's clutchness made up for all the numbers he didn't compile during the first 47 minutes of games? Or any positive comment about any of those Lakers outside of Shaq and Kobe?
Quote:
"6. Players who are glib and popular with the press are sometimes overrated, while players who are quiet are sometimes underrated, although, again, this factor is not as significant as many people think it is."
I think that exposure, not popularity, is the key here. Players who are constant a-holes in the media like Chris Webber or Allen Iverson tend to get overrated, whereas guys who try to say all the right things like Ray Allen or Kobe Bryant get underrated.
Quote:
"8. Hitters from big-hitting eras (the 1890s, the 1920s and 1930s) are overrated in history, and pitchers from the dead ball era and the 1960s are overrated. Pitchers from the big-hitting era and hitters from the 1960s are underrated."
- It is my belief, and I may be wrong, that players from the higher-scoring eras of basketball are overrated in history because this is a historically low-scoring, slower-paced era, and so most people judge those players against today's standards and think that players of previous eras were somehow superhuman by comparison. If anyone wants to agree or disagree with this, please do so.
I dunno. I don't see a lot of people extolling the virtues of World B. Free.
Quote:
"9. Undocumented skills (leadership, defense, heads-up play) tend to be forgotten over time. Everything else deteriorates faster than the numbers."
That's a toughie because Bill Russell for one is still best known for stats that didn't even appear until after he retired. Dennis Rodman, too, is well-remembered even though he was just plain awful on D after he left the Bulls. Then again, the fact that he was uncoachable in San Antonio and at the end of his stay in Detroit is mostly not remembered now, so maybe there's a point to that.
Quote:
"10. Anything which 'breaks up' a player's career tends to cause him to be underrated. A player who has a good career will be thought of more highly than a player who does the same things, but with three different teams. Switching positions causes a player to be underrated. A player who plays 1,000 games at second base and 1,000 games at third base may be underrated, because it's harder to form a whole image of what he has done... This also explains factor (1) above, the overrating of specialists as opposed to players of diverse skills."
I don't know about that one... is Shaq thought of less than the Admiral or Hakeem because he's moved around a couple times in his career? People cite the foul shooting (ignoring Wilt's FT% I know, but stay with me here) and the supposed lack of finesse, but I don't see the teams he's played for entering into things so much.
Joined: 14 Jan 2005 Posts: 1506 Location: Delphi, Indiana
Posted: Sun Feb 26, 2006 8:05 am Post subject:
Johnny Slick wrote:
Quote:
"1. Specialists and players who do two or three things well are overrated; players who do several things well are underrated."
Big men in general are hugely overrated.
...Ray Allen. IMO he is the quintessentially underrated player ..
FWIW, I thought that Mitch Richmond was similarly criminally underrated.
Fans have a short-term memory and another, long-term appreciation. Ray Allen seems to be somewhat past his prime, doing less of the 'other things' these days. Yet he made the allstar game as if by default (and despite his team's poor showing), over many players with better stats.
Richmond got lots of accolades in his day (as another thread hammers on). How can he be underrated? Is he now underappreciated as a reaction to the over-adulation he once received?
Quote:
"5. Players who play in New York or LA are sometimes overrated, ..
When I have compared great careers to those in the Hall of Fame, it is remarkable how much NY/LA bias is present. Pretty much all of the most-overlooked players were not bigtime E/W Coast players. Since I rank players from statistics alone, I feel confident saying I have no geographic or demographic bias.
Also, being white is huge. Among the weakest MVP picks ever: Cowens, Walton, Nash. White guys are overrepresented in the Hall, too. And in the allstar game: Wally, Majerle ?
Quote:
...players from the higher-scoring eras of basketball are overrated in history...
Yeah. And from eras of plenteous rebounds. Of course, this is rather directly circumvented by multiplying (sco/reb) rates by a factor for the team. But other arguments being equal, people like bigger numbers.
Quote:
10. Anything which 'breaks up' a player's career tends to cause him to be underrated. A player who has a good career will be thought of more highly than a player who does the same things, but with three different teams.
I guess this one shows the split between short-term and long-term appreciation. Shaq (insert Nash, Kidd, etc) changes cities, becomes the toast of the town; favorable chemistry causes team to surge; the very same player that was merely allstar the year before is now the certain mvp...
But years down the road, yes, Reggie being the 'face of the Pacers' may be invoked in his legacy. I am personally unimpressed by players shopping themselves to the highest bidder every few years.
Exception granted to Wilt Chamberlain, who would use up all the women in a city, after 4-5 years. (And after accounting for pace, he'd only have accomodated about 12,000 in the modern era.) _________________ 40% of all statistics are wrong.
Posted: Sun Feb 26, 2006 12:59 pm Post subject: Re: Underrated/overrated players
94by50 wrote:
"2. Batting average is overrated; secondary offensive skills, summarized in secondary average, are underrated."
- To twist this for hoops: scoring is overrated, and other offensive skills are underrated. What do you all think?
Isn't the obvious parallel that field-goal percentage is overrated?
Before this year, you'd occasionally hear people talk about Chauncey Billups' low field-goal percentage and compare him to volume scorers. But Billups had an excellent True Shooting Percentage because he hit so many free throws and 3s.
Quote:
"7. Players who play in parks which do not favor their skills are always underrated. Players who play in parks which favor them - hitters in Colorado, lefties in Yankee, pitchers in the Astrodome - are always overrated."
- Obviously not applicable to basketball directly, but what about players who play in certain systems or under certain coaches, or even in certain situations? Joe Johnson goes from being the fourth option on a 62-win team to the main man on a lottery team - how does that affect the way he's thought of?
You really think Johnson is thought of better now? Remember he was considered worthy of a max contract (plus two first-round picks) last summer before joining the Hawks.
I don't think this is nearly a big of a factor in basketball because counting stats don't nearly have the same cachet, but I think the parallel here is pace.
Quote:
Big men in general are hugely overrated. Look at Jerome James' monstrous salary for what was essentially 6 good games against a team without a center. Look also at Bob Hill blaming the Sonics' malaise this year on not having him on the roster.
But James' contract was also mocked nationwide; he's not so much overrated as he is overpaid, and there's a difference between the two. I think you're reading too much into Hill's comments. Inevitably, people are regularly asking him (and everyone else) why the Sonics have dropped off, and when the team only lost two rotation players, both of them are going to come up.
I think, to the extent that players are "overrated" and "underrated" in the NBA -- aren't people sick of those terms by now? -- the primary factor is "things we can measure and things we can't measure."
I don't think everything but scoring is underrated, because as was said, I don't think assists are necessarily underrated. But I do think off-ball movement, screens, floor spacing, etc., are underrated because they haven't traditionally been measured. Same with most elements of defense. It remains to be seem how plus-minus data and more charting will (continue to) change that.
Posted: Sun Feb 26, 2006 1:20 pm Post subject: Re: Underrated/overrated players
admin wrote:
You really think Johnson is thought of better now? Remember he was considered worthy of a max contract (plus two first-round picks) last summer before joining the Hawks.
No, he's in a worse situation than he was last year, obviously. He's having a better year, statistically, than last year, but because he plays on a bad team, no one's paying any attention to it.
With the Suns, Johnson played in a system which took advantage of his skills, and he played for a team that was good enough that he got attention out of it. When he went to Atlanta, he became "just another guy".
Posted: Sun Feb 26, 2006 3:10 pm Post subject: Re: Underrated/overrated players
admin wrote:
I don't think everything but scoring is underrated, because as was said, I don't think assists are necessarily underrated. But I do think off-ball movement, screens, floor spacing, etc., are underrated because they haven't traditionally been measured. Same with most elements of defense. It remains to be seem how plus-minus data and more charting will (continue to) change that.
This ties in with point #9. Off-ball movement, screening, spacing - those are the kind of undocumented skills that certainly are forgotten over time - especially since it seems that they tend to go unnoticed by all but the most trained eyes.
Joined: 14 Jan 2005 Posts: 1506 Location: Delphi, Indiana
Posted: Sun Feb 26, 2006 3:24 pm Post subject: Re: Underrated/overrated players
admin wrote:
..I do think off-ball movement, screens, floor spacing, etc., are underrated because they haven't traditionally been measured. Same with most elements of defense. ...
There may be a horizon of observability, beyond which quantification will never be seen. Spacing? Movement? Anticipation? Pretty hard things to quantify.
Maybe having these qualities enables a player to get playing time with elite teams -- as opposed to PT with bad teams, or bench time with good teams. Maybe any player's career will reflect these intangibles by the simple quantity: playoff minutes.
So Bruce Bowen gets his minutes; Ginobili gets productive minutes; Duncan gets huge minutes and great production. Players who 'don't get it' don't get the minutes. _________________ 40% of all statistics are wrong.
Also, being white is huge. Among the weakest MVP picks ever: Cowens, Walton, Nash. White guys are overrepresented in the Hall, too. And in the allstar game: Wally, Majerle ?
And then there is the funny part - the white top-3 picks. Let's see: Danny Ferry (#2), Keith van Horn (#2), Mike Dunleavy (#3), Darko Milicic (#2), Raef LaFrentz (#3), Shawn Bradley (#2), Christian Laettner (#3)...
Okay, Pau Gasol (#3) is a pretty good player. But the odds are on Adam Morrison, JJ Redick and Tyler Hansbrough being drafted higher than they should.
Larue Martin (1), Michael Olkandandi (1), Joe Barry Carroll (1), Kwame Brown (1) . . .big black men are overdrafted too. White guys may be overdrafted but I would venture to say 6'10" and above are more likely to be overdrafted.
PS Van Horn went after Duncan and before Billups and if you did that draft three or four years later he would still have gone third (after Duncan and T-Mac). That draft included Tony Battie @ 5 and Foyle @ 8.
Mike . . .Walton was so clearly the MVP that year - a much more complete player than Gervin and Thompson - and the Blazer were a dominant team with him and average without him (which given his injury history we could actually see). That year was pretty weak on MVP canidates - (Gilmore really didn't seem that dominant to me despite his stats and Kareem was injured for 20 plus games). In reality Walton should have been the runaway candidate but Gervin's and Thompson's overwhelming scoring average carried more wieght then they should have.
Can't argue Cowens (pre-dated me), but although Nash's stats don't measure up that well recent work by Kevin demostrates some pretty intersting impact on teamate's turnovers (which IMO is probably the most underated stat). My guess is that not all assits are created equal and players who are actually really good at assits (Walton, Nash and maybe Cowens) just don't look right statistically bcs their better passing/creating ability is obscured by all the average assists that mediocore passer are getting.
Posted: Sun Feb 26, 2006 8:27 pm Post subject: Re: Underrated/overrated players
admin wrote:
94by50 wrote:
"2. Batting average is overrated; secondary offensive skills, summarized in secondary average, are underrated."
- To twist this for hoops: scoring is overrated, and other offensive skills are underrated. What do you all think?
Isn't the obvious parallel that field-goal percentage is overrated?
Before this year, you'd occasionally hear people talk about Chauncey Billups' low field-goal percentage and compare him to volume scorers. But Billups had an excellent True Shooting Percentage because he hit so many free throws and 3s.
I tried to come up with a secondary shooting measure; the best I could come up with was (pts-2*fgm)/(2*(fga+.44*fta)). The top ten for players with 10000 or more minutes played:
1. Cedric Maxwell
2. Corey Maggette
3. Reggie Miller
4. Chauncey Billups
5. Michael Williams
6. Mario Elie
7. Brent Barry
8. Hersey Hawkins
9. Mack Calvin
10. Paul Pierce
Joined: 30 Jun 2005 Posts: 118 Location: Sac Metro
Posted: Wed Mar 01, 2006 4:47 pm Post subject:
Johnny Slick wrote:
Really, though, what seems to happen more than anything else in the NBA is that once a team wins or gets to a championship, all the key players are talked of as being among the best in the business at their position. Often this hype has truth to it: Tim Duncan and Ben Wallace really are among the top bigs out there. On the other hand, anyone else remember the adulation heaped on Mike Bibby during the Kings' title run?
It's hard to argue that Mike Bibby hasn't been one of three best Western Conference point guards since 2001. He got a huge (HUGE!) contract after that near-title run, and he's still very tradeable towards the end of it. Is Mike Bibby actually overrated? I'm not convinced (and I've never been among Mike's biggest boosters). _________________ SactownRoyalty.com tziller@gmail.com
Joined: 13 Jan 2005 Posts: 202 Location: Iowa City
Posted: Wed Mar 01, 2006 5:49 pm Post subject:
I think Dan Rosenbaum has studied this. If I recall correctly, he found that per game pts, rebs, ast. stats were overrated by GMs (i.e. they overpaid for players with high numbers in these stats relative to their danval) and that defense was underrated. (I don't have a link handy so I'm going on memory.)
Joined: 12 Feb 2006 Posts: 23 Location: Philadelphia, PA
Posted: Thu Mar 02, 2006 6:53 pm Post subject: Re: Underrated/overrated players
94by50 wrote:
- It is my belief, and I may be wrong, that players from the higher-scoring eras of basketball are overrated in history because this is a historically low-scoring, slower-paced era, and so most people judge those players against today's standards and think that players of previous eras were somehow superhuman by comparison. If anyone wants to agree or disagree with this, please do so.
Well, I partially agree. I particularly hear this when the topic of rebounding is discussed.
It is true that during the late 50's and early 60's, the game was played at a faster pace. There were more missed shots which means there were more rebounds to be had. Therefore, a rebounding comparison of players from different eras would be difficult: Instead, it might be better to compare players relative to their peers.
For example: Let's take Magic vs. Oscar.
Oscar played in a time with more available rebounds than Magic, but when you compare them relative to their peers, then you will see that Oscar was better because he was the only guard to have ever finished in the top 10 in rebounds DESPITE playing in an era of the Wilt's, Russell's, Baylor's, Pettit's, etc.
Wilt vs. Rodman
Also, people bag on Wilt and say that he put up those numbers because there were so many to be had. I hear pinhead's always claim that Rodman is the greatest rebounder ever. Since using their actual stats would be misleading (due to different era's) we'll compare how many times each led the league in rebounds. Rodman led the league seven times, but Wilt led the league ELEVEN times. That means, relative to their peers, Wilt was better.
I could actually counter the available rebounds argument by using the assists rules of today. Assists were accredited on a stricter scale in the 1960's compared to today's lenient scale. Give Oscar today's rules, and he'd still be the all-time leader in assists.
Also, one could consider the rule changes implemented (see: 3-pt line, shortened 3-pt line, closely called handchecks, flagrant fouls, preferential treatment, etc) to help the productivity of modern players and say that if the older players were given these rules, then their numbers could be better.
Valid arguments could be made against today's and yesteryear's era.
Feel free to disagree with anything that I've said. I'm here to learn just like everyone else. _________________ "Ridicule is the burden of genius." Ras Kass
I hear pinhead's [sic] always claim that Rodman is the greatest rebounder ever. Since using their actual stats would be misleading (due to different era's) we'll compare how many times each led the league in rebounds.
The discussion of Rodman's value has been beaten to death here, but I'm just going to throw this out there:
Yes, they did play in different eras. Chamberlain played in an era with no international players, and, more importantly, virtually no Southern blacks. If you think that this doesn't make a difference, imagine the NBA in the last 20 years without Jordan, Malone, Barkley, Olajuwon, Ewing, Duncan, Garnett, Nowitzki, Pippen, Wilkins, McGrady, etc. How much better would guys like Magic Johnson, Bird, Kobe, Stockton, etc look to us today?
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