Scoring Assist Differential - Breaking Down The Kobe Laker E

[Jordan23Forever]

You can't compare players' FG% within the triangle and outside the triangle. Kobe is not the sole reason for anyone's jump in FG% when they come into the triangle. He helps, undoubtedly, but it isn't completely attributable to him. It would be more informative if we saw these players in the triangle without Kobe for a year or two and compared that to playing with Kobe in the triangle, since the triangle is a very unique and much more effective offensive system than the systems these players were coming from.

[microfib4thewin]

Cept Kobe didn't really create, and if he did he was absolutely not consistent. But you're not dumb though, so I appriciate your input.

I meant create as in trying to create his own shot, when the defense heats up and they cannot create any mismatches via the triangle, naturally the ball should go to Kobe. Does it work all the time? No, but it beats having Odom trying to attack with 3 defenders in the middle or have Gasol flip a heavily contested shot.

There are those times but I really don't believe that Kobe tries to score lots in response to them. He just tries to score lots all the time.

Oh really? That's some lofty assumption with a proof of.... 4 games.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHtZIZ3-ORE (part 1)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hh21KLjqo3Q (part 2)
http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/boxscore;_y ... 2008011713 (boxscore)

This was the game against Phoenix in Jan 17 of last year. Bynum was injured two games ago after averaging 17/12 during the last 7 games, and no doubt the Lakers became much less capable of beating the Suns and defend the #1 spot in the division. Kobe didn't try to go off despite that with Kwame committing 7 TOs and made every mistake possible. After the game Kobe told the media the fans should not have booed Kwame, and there were no reports of Kobe chewing on Kwame for his performance.

Had he been the young Kobe the results would be very different. Does Kobe still play selfishly when he doesn't have to? Yes. Are there games where he plays under control? Yes. Are there games where Kobe absolutely have to take over in order to win? Yes.

Those games were just examples and honestly were chosen arbitrarily. I took his top 10 games and examined the two best and worst results.

And you happen to take the two losses where the opposing team shot 38 Freethrows, so Lebron's teammates not putting up a formidable defense should be mentioned like in the Magic series, while Kobe's teammates stinking up on D should be disregarded? How many 40+ games did he have? And how many of those games did you bother to 'analyze''? How many external factors aside from Kobe did you weigh in? I might as well say that Lebron's performance is irrelevant to his team's success because when he shot badly his team either wins or makes the series close, but when he shot well his team becomes less competitive. Just look at the numbers against the 07 Pistons, the 08 Celtics, and the 09 Magic.

Code: Select all

      FGM FG%  3-PT  FTM FT% REB AST PT
2007 8.83 45%  5-14  7.1 73% 9.1 8.5 25.6
2008 7.85 35% 10-39  9.7 75% 6.4 7.5 26.7
2009 12.5 48% 11-37 11.6 74% 8.3 8.0 38.5


Looking at this, it's obvious that when Lebron scores less and goes to the line less his team becomes more competitive. When he shoots 48% it's bad because his team got eliminated in 6 games. My sample size are much bigger than yours, yet the idea of Lebron hurting his team is just as inane as your 'Lakers can win more just by having Kobe shoot less' hypothesis. It's very easy to use data and make up a conclusion of your liking when you decide to ignore any facts or numbers that goes against your theory. All you have really gone over are a few games where Kobe scored alot and determined if he helped or hurt the team by a two sentence description. By ignoring what happened to the 19 other players and the situations that have occurred throughout the game there is basically insufficient evidence to judge if Kobe really helped or hurt the team. Until you can provide more than just pulling up a couple of numbers that favor your opinion the games you have mentioned are considered inconclusive.

Besides, like TLAF said, if Kobe's team wins 65% of times when he scored over 40 it's rightful to ask how much he hurt the team, if at all.

Smush is just an example and Kobe was pissed with LA for getting players who needed work like Smush. I think he took it out on him and it caused a rift.

Assumption without proof.

I was nto saying they were all stars, but they wern't terrible either.

Define 'not terrible'. Odom is still one of the main players, but the rest? Smush is in China, Kwame can't get much playing time on a Detroit team that has terrible frontcourt depth, Luke is only playing half his minutes from his breakout year of 07, then we get to the bench. Evans is in Atlanta with similar production, Cook is no longer a rotation player, Mihm is hampered by injuries, Turiaf is only getting slightly more playing time despite GSW having a severe lack in PF, Devean George is playing arguably his worst season since his sophomore year in 01, Radmanovic is playing more minutes with Charlotte, but his percentages all across the board has gone down with higher usage. I would wait until next year to see how much he can contribute, but I think the Bobcats will be very disappointed. Butler was the only one that improved since his departure, and he was no longer with the team in 06, so he was hardly a contributor in the rebuilding period.

So, outside of Bynum who has improved greatly from the mediocre years, everyone else is either playing backup on a team worse than the 05-07 Lakers or are no longer in the league. Is this what you call not terrible? Maybe if you are talking about the Clippers.

Over 3 years, they should not have been 3 games under .500. Its underachievement when you've got a guy who's arguably the best player in the league, and 1-2 top shelf players on your team.

Define 'top shelf' player.

And its not just Pippen. Jordan won with the same guys getting better each year on his team and then took them to 3 titles. Of course Smush had something to do with it but seriously, the guy got minutes and responded with good numbers and then his star player started to get down on him and his play went down. I'm not blaming the guy with way less talent for losing or for lacking the maturity. Everyone in LA seems to just get sick of it after a few years and tunes out.

Yes. I am quite sure Jordan won the title with the same team that struggled in the playoffs in his first five years.

As for Smush, good numbers for a scrub team or good numbers for a contending team? His best year of 06.

44% FG 36% 3PT 3.3 REB 3.7 AST 11.5 PT

Those are average number at best for a fringe playoff team, and it is absolutely terrible on a 3rd option when the team has championship aspiration. When the players you aren't blaming goes to a different team and has similar issues that limits or denies their playing time, is it really Kobe's fault or the fault of the players?

As I said, they aren't babies anymore, and Kobe is not their father. There is only so much blame you can assign on Kobe before it goes back to the player himself.

Those guys couldn't match up with the Magic. You explain to me how Z or Ben are going to stop either of them? Shard can easily shoot over them and Dwight can easily overpower them. Mo didn't play well either. I think its totally apt though... should that team be contending for a championship in the east finals? No. They probably squeak in without Bron and go out in the first round. He lifted them up.

But that goes back to your original point. Kobe is not able to make his teammates better so he should take responsibility. According to you, Lebron should also take responsibility for Mo shooting like he got possessed by Antoine Walker, Big Z and Big Ben playing like Dinosaurs, and West for not being able to guard someone 8 inches taller than him. If all you care about is the bottomline, then both Kobe and Lebron should take the blame for leading a team to a disappointing loss. If you are going to dig and talk about matchups, then you should also talk about Smush's inability to stay infront of his man who had to guard Nash and how Kwame's terrible help defense plays right into the hands of Amare's pick and roll plays.

You can't prove a point when you base it on unproven assumptions and vague terms that requires definition. The only thing you did prove is that Kobe converts assists at a lesser rate than the other greats, everything else is either questionable or requires more information to reach an objective conclusion.

[wallflower]

Theres nothing rational about the stat. He had a theory in mind and then he made up some funny calculus that fits but it doesnt say anything substantial about the game. I wonder how many other "Stats" he came up with before he stumbled up on one satisfactory enough to bash Kobe? This article does prove one thing to me and thats Kobe trancends stats. I am a witness.

[LebronsCavs]

Solid article, now before I do anything:

Bookmarked, indiefan, if you find anymore relevant to this player, you post them.


Thanks

Hey, cool man, if you like the analysis you should subscribe. I wrote the article and created the stat... wanted to see if I was on to something so I thought I'd subject it to the hatred of Kobe's fans. Thanks again for the props!

great article!

[indiefan23]

Nice! I'm glad we agree on something frosty, even if we don't agree on old schoolers. ;0 but to be honest, I appreciate your input on the era debate. Thats the kind of stuff I come to places like this for.

Yah me too. Always looking to get challenged and hopefully learn more. I'll even admit you're wrong on Wilt.

Okay, well, since I said I think Wilt can play today, I'll finally accept that I am wrong. ;0

[indiefan23]

Theres nothing rational about the stat. He had a theory in mind and then he made up some funny calculus that fits but it doesnt say anything substantial about the game. I wonder how many other "Stats" he came up with before he stumbled up on one satisfactory enough to bash Kobe? This article does prove one thing to me and thats Kobe trancends stats. I am a witness.

I did nothing of the sort. I was in a discussion where I said Kobe played selfishly and that 'scoring to win' was a myth, that from what I saw, Kobe didn't need to score to win and actually didn't pass when he did get going. They said that thats ridiculous given Kobe's high assist totals, so I made a stat comparing his scoring directly with his passing. It goes down. Way down.

Its not wild and crazy calculus. Its using fundamental techniques to normalize data. Really just basic math. When Kobe starts scoring big his ability to involve his teammates goes way down, and the more he scores the more down it goes. For other players (who not coincidentally don't have a selfish label) it goes up. Its a fact. I think you can derive all sorts of good information and the stats also backed up by experience. Top to bottom, it ranks players almost in their direct reputation for selfishness. Kobe/Mike/Iverson at the bottom, Bron/Wade at the top.

[indiefan23]

From a statistical point of view, it's a limited analysis. It doesn't take into the account the way either individuals or teams score and set up to score their points, or how well individuals functions as primary ballhandlers within a system. A player that has gets a proportionately higher number of assists In 2005 and after, Kobe averaged getting about 23% of his team's assists; LeBron had over 35% last year. That's close to a 50% difference. AI is even higher. Someone like Nique is far lower. That's such a huge difference in the way an individual players works within a team offense that it makes an analysis like this very shaky from the get go.

Not shakey at all. Its not a stat reflecting who gets the most dimes or % of their assists. That's what those specific stats do and I'd never argue them with this. This measures how a single player changes his own passing game when he's scoring increasing points, or to increase points, if you will. You're a smart guy truelafan, or maybe you don't like me cuz of that other thread ;0 but did you read the article? The stat is not even suggesting who the better or more prolific passer is at all.

Then there's the difference in team offensive strategy itself. In the last three years (i.e. "Phil's Back), the Lakers have averaged 15% more assists per game than they did in the two years before. A shift in team offense can result in wild differences in both total assists and, causally, the individuals that produce them. (This, then is related to the reason above.) If an offense is geared toward a primary scorer with an minimum of secondary passing (or with one and only one primary distributor), it will affect the amount of secondary passing by the primary scorer. There is far too great of a variance within strategies to make equitable comparisons between teams and individuals on them.

Offensive systems do not affect this stat becasue the dataset is normalized to scoring vs assists. More assists per game do not hurt or help you for this stat at all. 'Nique kills Kobe but never had a season over his dimes.

Theres also no information that suggests the triangle really reduces assists. MJ's dimes went down .2 despite playing less minutes under a drastically reduced pace. I don't buy it.

Then there's the sample size issue. Even a guy like Dominique Wilkins only scored 40 or more points 45 times in 1074 games. That gives a confidence interval (in layman's terms, margin for error) of +/- over 14%, which is very high for any sort of analysis. In essence, that means that it can't be predictive or comparative because there's just too small of a group to make an accurate analysis from.

Hmm... I don't accept that at all. ;0

1. This is in response to "Kobe needs to score for his team to win" which is just about the exact same level of error.

2. You're referring to a predictive quality of a statistic, or if another 1000 games were played would the same results occur. The sample is too small for that. Just because you rolled a 6 on a die 30 rolls out of 100 does not mean its going to happen again. For showing what 'did' happen its another story totally. I can show I rolled the die 30 times and got 30 6's quite accurately and I'm showing that in high scoring games Kobe did not pass. Aside from that, all sports stats have low sample rates. 82 games is a low sample rate out of 1000 too but you'll still say Michael Jordan had a career year in 1988 won't you. No, he didn't have a great year for 35/8/8 was just a random statistic with low confidence. Its a silly argument because we mays well just not use any stats at all in that case. Except MJ did have a career year, did play at the highest individual level he ever had and Kobe was playing selfish basketball.

3. In sports trends are not random because they are connected directly to players who operate in non-random activities that are connected to real world events and those feed directly into the outcomes. Given your logic, a guy who was not given minutes for his first 5 seasons and made the leap in his 6'th to average 10 more boards a game would have a very low confidence to have another season at high boards but in reality it would be very high. I didn't only put up the stat and say ha, that proves it, but looked into many examples and social situations that all point to the same thing. Stats alone are just numbers if you don't put them in context and there's a lot of complementary evidence that's pushing that error lower.

The sample size also gets rather large when you start to consider that its not a head to head comparison but a comparison to 6 other players and none of them even come close to his differentials. I'm pretty confident that we could do 6 more scorers and wouldn't find someone close. This is basketball, not dice rolls.

4. Not so much in 'Nique's case, but in everyone else's case, you neglected to mention that there's a connection between passing and scoring. If you pass less and force more shots you're going to score more points and push up your sample size. How many more 40 point games do you think Lebron has if instead of 25 triple doubles over a 4 year span (some of which when he was raw, freakish to think) he was getting 1-2 assists per game?

5. For a guy who fabricates old school player's heights based on no evidence (unless you posted something since I looked at that thread last time) you seem to be awfully concerned about veracity now.

One way of checking into and complicating (in a good way) some of these issues is to look at field goal attempts rather than percentage. As noted, Kobe's FG% differential in +40 pt. games is the smallest here...my guess is that other players didn't really take many, if any more shots in the their high scoring games. This isn't really addressed here, except to say that "Kobe seem to be the most selfish. Of all time? No hate, but maybe. He's a great scorer but appears to pad his stats by ignoring his teammates as his dimes continuously drop as points increase." The more accurate conclusion is that Kobe takes more shots in his high scoring games...but if that's his designated role with the offense (or if it's his decision to take that role)...then it's not selfish unless it somehow undermines the team. Since 2005, the Lakers are .647 (44-24) when Kobe scores 40 or more, and .593 (199-143) when he scores less.

I'm neither a Kobe fan nor a hater, but if a player's team wins more when he, as the primary scorer, scores 35% more and gets credit for an assist 35% less often, I don't think selfishness has anything to do with it.

Dude, your name is 'true LA fan'. Its just a coincidence then?

And yea, except Kobe pads his stats agaisnt scrub teams. I don't think you read the whole article, did you? The average wins of his top ten scoring opponents is 33 games. With a loss to the expansion bobcasts with a 1-15 Adam Morrison and a 7-29 Felton. Or the game vs Memphis without Pau Gasol who won 22 games. Kobe put up record level shots in both games and shot his team out of them. When Kobe's scoring huge points his team should be winning those games 'anyway' but they are way closer then they should be because Kobe volume shoots for his place in record books instead of his place on the team. I call that selfish and thats teh credit he's getting.

Differences of that magnitude render an analysis like this moot as a real statistical tool, but interesting for comparing how/why high scoring players function the way they do, and the relative effectiveness in terms of team success...which is much more complex question, and would require considerably more study and analysis.

Well, you're not correct. Everyone knows stats are not everything but they're not nothing as well. I never said it made an irrefutable fact, but suggested it offered really good perspective into what happened and surrounded it by about 4,000 words of analysis.

[indiefan23]

But don't get me wrong, great post! You're the first person to actually address the statistical side of it really in any way. I really appreciate it!

[indiefan23]

I find it funny that people are calling Kobe a stat padder.

It must be nice to be a stat padder, and a champion at the same time.

The guy won by passing 8 dimes a game... its nice to be vindicated for years of Kobe fanboying even though their guy won. ;0

[indiefan23]

no, most of his career without shaq he's been an efficient and elite bulk scorer and playmaker.

Hmm... -10 FG% and -6 assists in high scorint games beg to differ with you.

kobe's teams have always been among the top offensive teams in the league, regardless of who he was teamed with. the problem you have is how badly you represent the talent he was surrounded with when he was leading them to 45 and 42 wins, and what the sources of their problems were. they were bad defensively. in part because of your heroes like smush, or luke, or vlad, or cook.

Heros? I said they were okay role players. And what about Butler? Kobe finished that season off 2-18 with Caron Butler on his team. Or Farmar or Vujacic or Bynum, who are all very good defenders. ;0

kobe's now been in 6 finals in 10 prime years, yet he has to prove he can elevate teams. you created a stat based on 40 point games, based on a 68% winning %, as a way to prove something AGAINST him? it's horrible analysis. you have your mind made up and invented a way to support your hypothesis.

Yea, thats why his opponents in his top 10 games average 33 wins, an injured franchise player and 13% from 3? ;0

[Malinhion]

Really, the story that the Lakers 'win less' when Kobe shoots more has been told for years.

Don't rip this guy for looking at the numbers. Sure, its a small sample size, but it is what it is. The box scores exist. It's not like he just didn't run enough 2k9 simulations.

[kflo]

I find it funny that people are calling Kobe a stat padder.

It must be nice to be a stat padder, and a champion at the same time.

The guy won by passing 8 dimes a game... its nice to be vindicated for years of Kobe fanboying even though their guy won. ;0

this is classic - kobe will never win. kobe wins. kobe won playing the way i said he should! i was right!

[kflo]

Really, the story that the Lakers 'win less' when Kobe shoots more has been told for years.

Don't rip this guy for looking at the numbers. Sure, its a small sample size, but it is what it is. The box scores exist. It's not like he just didn't run enough 2k9 simulations.

the lakers have a 68% winning % in his sample.

[TrueLAfan]

I read the article. You don't understand statistical analysis. A sentence like

Offensive systems do not affect this stat becasue [sic] the dataset is normalized to scoring vs assists.

is total and completely meaningless. It literally does not say anything. You can't normalize for offensive scheme (independent players represent functional variables that would make it next to impossible for anything but the most general observations). You haven't even attempted to normalize anything--between players, systems, eras, whatever. You're using raw numbers and, essentially, saying it all evens out. That is not statistical analysis. Kind of like saying

Hmm... I don't accept that at all. ;0

with regard to margin or error and sample size. It is not a matter of acceptance or lack of acceptance. Your sample size is too small to make statistical analysis or judgment; any conclusion you make about these games will have a high margin for error. In this case, you don't understand what confidence level and confidence interval are or indicate. I will make it very simple with regard to your attempt at analysis. The sample size--the games where a player scores 40 or more points--compared to the population--the total number of games the players plays--is simply too small. There are confidence interval/confidence level calculators available to make it easier for you. You're right to mention that having an outlier sixth season will affect margins for error in statistical analysis. But, the fact is that until you get into quite large populations, you need a very significant sample to make any accurate descriptive or predictive guess with regard to a general population. Michael Jordan scored over 45 points 69 times before his scored retirement. A statistical analysis based on that sample size will be off by up to 11.4% about 95% of the time. That's not very good...and Jordan is the best scorer you have on here. You're just wrong here.

The same is true with an idea like

you neglected to mention that there's a connection between passing and scoring.

There's a different connection for players based on individual skill sets and offensive schemes. The way you distribute--whether because of your personal skill set or how Jerry Sloan/Phil Jackson/Rick Adelman sets up your offense is going to be wildly different. The way you distribute when you're scoring more will vary just as much. Even if you completely ignore the margins for errors based on sample size, this alone would render an analysis of the type you are making useless for anything other than, "Wow, this guy seems to pass worse when he scores a lot...but this one passes better!" Which may mean something, Or it may not. You can guess or surmise or think whatever you want... but you are trying to use statistics to support your conclusions--and in this case, that cannot be done. So you are not "offer[ing]really good perspective into what happened and surround[ing] it by about 4,000 words of analysis." You are giving you opinions and trying to say that statistics support the conclusion. Except that there is (far) too much variance in performance population and functions of efficiency. If you really did understand statistical analysis, you'd know this--and that producing a kind of traceability metric for basketball would be a very, very advanced thing to attempt. Far more advanced than anything I could do or, frankly, come close to trying to do. You originally asked

Is anyone else here good with the numbers and would like to talk abut the legitimacy/illegitimacy of such a statistic and it's use in comparing players?

Well, I am that person. I am a University Professor that has done occasional work with various organizations, including sports teams at the collegiate and pro level. I'm not a "pure" mathematician, but I've got two years of advanced calculus and four other upper level courses in math and statistics--including Linear Algebra, and Quantitative Math for Economists--under my belt. I wasn't in the forefront or anything, but I was doing sabermetrics and baseball analysis back in the 80s. In general, I've done breakdowns and analyses--all of which involve the fundamentals I've noted above--for everything from Freshman Interest Groups to Fan Base Demographics. I've been one of the prime movers in modifying RebRate/Reb %, one of the best statistical tools out there. You asked the question and I answered honestly and thoroughly and politely. Your statistical analysis has no bearing on what you are saying. This is not something you can really disagree with. From a statistical analysis standpoint, you don't have a leg to stand on. We usually don't like it when people pimp their own websites or blogs at RealGM, but I allowed it here, and was quite polite in pointing out that, unfortunately, you don't actually have an analytic tool or formula that supports (or can support) your contentions. Nothing you say is going to change that.

btw...The "True" in TrueLafan has nothing to do with the Kobe Bryant or the Lakers. And any more commentary veering near the personal from you will get you suspended for a week or more. I'm telling you right now.

[Malinhion]

statistical analysis based on that sample size will be off by up to 11.4% about 95% of the time.

What does that mean? That the variance he shows will be +/- 11.4% of itself, or that it can fluctuate by 11.4%? If its the former, ignoring all of the other statistical shortcomings of this analysis, aren't we just talking about maybe tenths of an assist difference at most?

I'm just not really sure how this rate of error bears out.

[LebronsCavs]

indiefan is taking down 1 kobe homer at a time.

[NYKnick87]

indiefan is taking down 1 kobe homer at a time.

TrueLAFan has him on lockdown.

[microfib4thewin]

Really, the story that the Lakers 'win less' when Kobe shoots more has been told for years.

Don't rip this guy for looking at the numbers. Sure, its a small sample size, but it is what it is. The box scores exist. It's not like he just didn't run enough 2k9 simulations.

In that case, you should also agree with me when I said Lebron shooting well hurts his team in the playoffs. It is very easy to look at a player's number, compare that to how well the team was doing and throw in a couple of facts that supports the argument while ignoring everything else that surrounds the game.

That article actually didn't address Kobe's team would win more if he shoots less. All he did say was that his opponents aren't good on his best scoring games where he won. And he conveniently took the top 10 as well as mentioning the two losses where the other team shot 38 FTA. There's much more going on in a game than simply Kobe's numbers, and until he can make a deeper analysis there is no legitimate reason to make a direct correlation between what Kobe did and how well the team did. He didn't prove that the team can win if Kobe didn't shoot as many times.

The Laker's were 33-3 this year when Kobe shot less than 20 shots. Its obvious he kills ball movement when he ball hogs and kills everyone else's rhythm as well. When he feeds his immensely talented team the ball they flourish.

The Cavs are 29-4 when Lebron shoots less than 20 shots. It's obvious he kills ball movement when he ball hogs and kills everyone else's rhythm as well.

[LebronsCavs]

Lakers were 17-3 when Kobe shot under 40%, Cavs were 3-7 when Lebron shot under 40% is obvious Kobe doesn't really impact his team. See what I did there?

Lakers are 3-5 when Kobe shoots 30+ shots, Cavs are 3-0 when Lebron shots 30+ shots. There are many more stats that support Kobe's ball hogging ways.

[TrueLAfan]

statistical analysis based on that sample size will be off by up to 11.4% about 95% of the time.

What does that mean? That the variance he shows will be +/- 11.4% of itself, or that it can fluctuate by 11.4%? If its the former, ignoring all of the other statistical shortcomings of this analysis, aren't we just talking about maybe tenths of an assist difference at most?

I'm just not really sure how this rate of error bears out.

"Confidence interval" is equivalent to "margin for error." It's not an indication of how much the numbers will vary. In this case (and in terms of real statistical analysis), the margin for error is over 10% for the player with the largest sample size...and that margin for error, in terms of statistics, is still way too high to be meaningful. And, in this case, it's for the player with highest sample size; the potential for error is greater with the other players listed. Kobe has scored over 45 points 35 times in 387 games since 2005. You would think that would make the margin for error smaller, since he's got a (much) higher proportion of games related to his population (45 out of 387, compared to Jordan's 69 out of 930). But this type of analysis has a lot more to do with sample size than population size...and a sample size of 45 is simply too small unless your population is tiny. Kobe's margin for error is close to 20%. To get numbers that would be considered reliable--within +/- 3%, you'd need a sample size of at least 160 games for almost any player. And as a result of the initial large margin for error, any conclusions derived from the sample size are also subject to (even larger) errors. It may seem like an 11% (or 20%) error margin is small. From a statistical analysis POV, it's totally unacceptable. You'd have double or (more likely) triple the sample size...and that didn't occur.