James, Marbury, Marion to be invited for Olympics

Not heathens, just Stu Jackson.

 

Well, there is the fact that Marbury's teams seem to underperform for their talent level, and their performance improves whenever he leaves or is replaced. I'd be interested in seeing Marbury's adjusted +/- for his career. Stats aren't everything - hell, Moochie had some gaudy stats his first few games with the Knicks - but that didn't convince them to make him the starting point guard.

 

This isn't career, just the last two seasons.

http://www.uncg.edu/bae/people/rosenbaum/NBA/wv2t3.txt

Ratings explained: http://www.82games.com/comm30.htm

Marbury comes in at 75th overall, right after Fred Hoiberg and before Michael Jordan.

 

For comparison based on that list:

Francis 41st
Yao 85th
Mobley 122nd
Cato 135th
JJackson 185th

 

Sam, good post. Couldn't have done it any better than that myself.

Marbury aside, I'm surprised at some of the people getting invites while Francis does not. I understand there are some issues regarding positions these guys play, but guys like Jefferson, Bibby, Allen, Martin, Odom, and Anthony shouldn't get consideration before Francis.

And, Lebron James' 20/5/5 is impressive, but Francis was 18/6/5 his rookie season, then 20/6/6, then 21/7/6, then 21/6/6, then 17/5/6 (all with poor rounding, because I'm lazy). Maybe they just want the young guy, who seems like an upstanding citizen so far, and is the annointed. Fine. But, then Carmelo Anthony too?

Then there is the character issue. Francis actually has a very good track record though he's still suffering from a bad first impression. It doesn't really compare though with the rep problems of Bryant (alleged rape), Kidd (domestic abuse and alleged coach firings), Marbury (forcing repeated trades), Malone (dirtiest player ever), Iverson (I think he's actually a decent guy but he cultivates a thug image), Martin (Malone wannabe), Odom (drugs, laziness), and maybe Artest (who started to get a thug image but has cleaned it up a good deal this season) and maybe McGrady (just for the plaintive whining).

 

Brent Barry is 13th
Brian Cardinal (who's he?) is 14th
Shawn Bradley is 16th

and James Posey at 28th is better than Webber, Iverson, B. Wallace, J. O'Neal, and Eddie Jones.

That probably tells you something is wrong if you use that list ALONE to evaluate a player's worth.

 

Nobody said it should be used alone.

But it does give a good indication of what players do to help their teams while they're on the court, and how the team performs overall while they're there...if you read the explanation, some of the high rankings of players that shouldn't be there can be attributed to sampling error. (note the "standard error" column). If I'm reading it correctly, the standard error chance for everybody on there is around 2%, so out of a 200 guys, you're going to have a handful of ratings that are entirely too high.

Brian Cardinal, btw, is an "instant energy" type off the bench for GS who does a lot of things well. If you recall he led a big run for Golden State in one of our road games against them. I would LOVE to get him on the ROckets. He has had an excellent past two seasons so it is no surprise to see him up there at all, although the author does indicate that Cardinal and Bradley are "outliers" in the ratings.

 

Wasn't Francis 1st or 2nd in the league in techs recently?

 

If there is a 2% chance of error, then there is no way to tell whether any particular player's place on that list is indicative of his worth. In other words, how do you know Francis, or Yao, or Marbury, or Cardinal is not in that 2%? Shawn Bradley's ranking, for example, is clearly totally worthless.

Sounds like, that kind of stats give you an accurate view of the overall trend of what kind of players help their teams and what kind of players don't. But you cannot use that to judge any individual player without risking gross errors.

Also, if that ranking is mostly based on the +/- stats, then it is more indicative of that player's worth relative to his replacement, rather than relative to the whole league.

 

First, I linked you to the wrong page, the final overall statistics drop Bradley down to the 40's...

http://www.uncg.edu/bae/people/rosenbaum/NBA/wv2t5.txt

But as to how do you know who is probably the result of a sampling error? You don't...but the fact that you can pick out names like Richie Frahm and Bradley out (Frahm has one of the highest error rates) indicates which ones are likely to be sampling errors...(the sample is too small and skews it high).

Edit, I'll let the author field your second concern.

The origninal question posed by Guttersnipe was the following; the rap on Marbury is that he plays well but that his net contribution to his team is really not that much as, for whatever reason his teams tend to get better without him, and that his new teams don't fare so well. This seems to be borne out in the stats.

 

Sam, thanks for the explanation.

In another thread, we were discussing a somewhat similar question. Why do some players have good numbers but do not help their teams win. Players like Brand, Juwan Howard, and SAR, and Dominique in the past come to mind. Now, is McGrady the same? How about Marbury? Rasheed seems to go both ways.

My contention was that there were just too many variables to pin a player down as "loser with good stats." The type of ranking you present might solve some of the questions. But it still doesn't address some intangibles like management, morale, chemistry, etc.

Why are some teams perenial losers? Clippers, Hawks, Warriors, Wizzards/Bullets, Nets before Kidd, Kings before the Maloofs, and Mavericks before Cuban come to mind. These teams have had some very good players but for decades they linger in the lottery or barely make the playoffs. Could it be coincidental for these team to always get "losers with good stats" or maybe it's not the players after all?

 

I believe he led the league this season. I don't know why this is a stat that people like so much. Obviously, he goes too far in talking with officials and slapping backboards and such-like. Big deal. This has been a popular stat because it quantified Rasheed Wallace's thuggery. However, Wallace had 41 Ts, which is twice as much as Francis this year and a record, and it only confirmed what a jerk we already knew him to be, it didn't make us aware of the fact. So, I don't think Ts are relevant.

As to my earlier post about people who don't deserve to be in line ahead of Francis, they're now reporting consideration for Amare: http://sports.espn.go.com/oly/news/story?id=1800465. I will go and complain in the Amare thread soon, but he definitely has to go to the front of the line of undeserving players. I appreciate that he wants to play but (1) he's good but not a great player, (2) there are many PFs better than him, (3) he's a very young guy, and (4) he's long on athleticism and short on skills. Do we want to send a guy to showcase how US basketball is more about power than skill?

 

Unless you think the refs are picking on him, JV, then techs would be an indication of a lack of class, would they not? What is the purpose of a technical foul? Why do they exist? (unless they're counting things like illegal defense, delay of game, etc, and Francis has an inordinate amount of these types of techs)

 

No, I don't think so. Most of his techs seem to be for complaining. Complaining isn't classy, but it isn't exactly unclassy; it isn't some kind of embarrassment to the nation. Techs for unclassy behavior is kicking the ball into the stands, cussing at refs, getting in shoving matches with opponents. He doesn't do that kind of stuff.

As for what techs are for, they are to curb behavior which isn't directly related to gameplay; that is why they are "technical." It isn't confined to unsportsmanlike conduct.

So overall, no I won't take his 19 techs as a measure of class. Here's a better stat: ejections. Payton leads ejections with 4. A number of invitees have got one. Ben Wallace has 2. Francis has 0. How about flagrant fouls? Raja Bell leads with 5 (plus he has 15 techs and 2 ejections). Francis has none there too, while Shaq has 3 (one would say the big men are more susceptible, but Jason Terry somehow has 2) and several other invitees have 1.