Bellwethers: So Who Makes This Team Win?

[Bricklayer]

Since we seem stuck in an endless spiral of soap operatic he said/she said and trade talks at the moment, thought I would turn around with a thread focusing on the actual product on the floor again. Stinky french cheese that that product may be.

So, by the numbers, two ways of looking at who is making a difference for us ON the court -- the plus/minus stat of how the team does when guys are on the court vs. off the court, and then which players put up much better numbers in wins than in losses, which guys seem to be the ones who determine if we win or lose. (Note that I am never a proponent of relying too heavily on this kind of indirect stat since there are always other factors involved, but it is interesting, and at times surprising, to look at the numbers.)

I am omitting the guys who rarely play (Douby, Taylor, Hart, Potapenko). And only doing win/loss for the Top 7 true rotation guys.

Stat One -- Plus/Minus
Artest -- On: +4.5 Off: -8.5 Overall: +13.0
Corliss -- On: +3.8 Off: -3.1 Overall: +7.0
BMiller -- On: +2.2 Off: -3.0 Overall: +5.2
MBibby -- On: -0.3 Off: -3.1 Overall: +2.8
Martin -- On: -1.2 Off: -0.7 Overall: -0.5
RPrice -- On: -3.1 Off: -0.5 Overall: -2.6
Garcia -- On: -3.9 Off: +0.1 Overall: -4.0
Salmns --On: -3.5 Off: +2.0 Overall: -5.6
Shareef--On: -3.7 Off: +2.5 Overall: -6.2
Thomas--On: -6.6 Off: +5.3 Overall: -11.9

--Artest as by far and away the guy who can make us go is no surprise, nor really are the old guard of Mike/Brad being mildy positive as our only true PG/C, whatever their struggles. Just no adequate backups. Corliss is surprising though -- by these numbers, by far and away the most effective of our "PFs" and maybe some of the criticism aimed at him is misplaced? Or not. Kevin's apparent lack of positive or negative impact is a bit surprising though, and our PF tandem is languishing to say the least.

Stat Two -- Stats in Wins/Losses (highlighting key stats)

Ron Artest:
Wins: 36.4min 16.2pts (.439 .303 .778) 8.0reb 2.8ast 1.6stl 0.9blk
Loss: 36.0min 16.6pts (.349 .231 .729) 6.4reb 3.2ast 3.3stl 0.7blk

-- Ron rebs and shoots well, we win. Ron struggles from the field, we lose. How much he scores does not seem to matter, that he does efficiently does. Surprisingly he gets many more steals in our losses. Best guess = maybe Ron is generally more agitated in those games, racing around for balls on one end, but being hyper and forcing things at the other.

Mike Bibby:
Wins: 37.3min 19.0pts (.400 .323 .864) 4.4reb 6.4ast 1.4stl 0.1blk
Loss: 34.9min 14.3pts (.312 .185 .822) 3.4reb 5.6ast 1.1stl 0.3blk

-- As Mike goes as a scorer, so do we. Even in his wins, he doesn't shoot well. But in the losses...

Kevin Martin:
Wins: 35.1min 21.5pts (.514 .417 .945) 3.9reb 2.3ast 1.4stl 0.0blk
Loss: 37.0min 22.2pts (.492 .434 .865) 4.6reb 1.5ast 1.3stl 0.2blk

-- Kevin...does not matter to our success? Bit of a surprise, but combined with the +/- maybe means something. Not sure what. For whatever reason our fate does not seem to be hitched to his star at the moment, and when he plays well, or not so well, there does not seem to be much trickle down effect to the rest of the team.

Brad Miller:
Wins: 26.8min 12.0pts (.456 1.00 .760) 6.8reb 2.3ast 1.0stl 0.3blk
Loss: 26.9min 8.4pts (.413 .000 .762) 6.8reb 2.6ast 0.4stl 0.5blk

-- maybe there is a little life left in the old guard yet, Small sample size, but like Mike, when Brad shoots well and scores well (relatively) we win.

Kenny Thomas:
Wins: 29.2min 5.6pts (.531 .000 .308) 8.2reb 1.9ast 0.9stl 0.5blk
Loss: 24.9min 6.1pts (.462 .000 .609) 7.4reb 1.3ast 0.9stl 0.4blk

-- while the +/- suggest we would be better off wihtout Kenny out there, these are inconclusive. The FG% looks big, but considering how few times he shoots likely matters little. He plays 4 more minutes in wins...actualy the biggest difference would sem to be: if Kenny misses his FTs, we win! Woot!

Shareef Abdur-Rahim:
Wins: 28.9min 11.9pts (.472 .000 .805) 5.9reb 1.0ast 0.7stl 0.5blk
Loss: 25.1min 10.9pts (.494 .500 .745) 6.2reb 1.1ast 0.5stl 0.8blk

-- Reef appears to be in the Kevin Martin boat of it not really mattering how he plays so far. His numbers in losses actually being slightly better shooting % wise and rebounding wise (per minute) than in wins.

John Salmons:
Wins: 27.7min 8.7pts (.470 .385 .645) 4.1reb 4.1ast 1.0stl 0.4blk
Loss: 32.2min 12.5pts (.484 .346 .750) 3.8reb 2.7ast 0.9stl 0.5blk

-- John appears to be in the unenviable position of designated loser, although I suspect much of that is his position as designated fill in guy for better players when they are out. In any case, the numbers would say we have a better chance when he is creating for others rather than scoring himself.

 

[Circa_1985_Fan]

Good analysis Brick! I think the obvious one is Bibby, no-brainer. The other is Miller. If those two were playing up to at least 1/2 of what they're capable of, we wouldnt be having these discussions, I dont think. But unfortunately we are, as is everyone else...which brings change, it seems. Hello Corey Maggette.

edit: here's hoping Kenny Thomas NEVER makes another free throw again, in the name of winning.

 

[CruzDude]

If we look at the +/- stats only our best lineup would be:

Bibby & Martin
Corliss & Artest
Brad in the middle

Interesting idea tho' I think Salmons might be ready for more time on the floor with Martin, either when they go small or when the opposition does. Then SAR or KT in the middle depending on matchups. And Price for the spark off the bench. To lesser degree Cisco as a spark as well.

 

[thatguy]

I'm actually a big fan of these types of stats. I'll go ahead and try to address the Corliss enigma. If you include his man-to-man +/- he is pegged at -3.0 points. So, it seems for some reason the other four players on the court play better when he is in the game, but he performs worse than the player he matches up with.

The beautiful, and maddening, aspects to these stats is there are several different ways that they can be viewed and dissected. So it helps to have a frame of reference when viewing them.

EDIT: Back to Corliss for a second. He has also played 30% of the Kings' playing time. So it stands to reason, from my perspective, that his off-court production is skewed because the Kings are a losing team. Not to mention the first/third quarter debacles when Corliss rarely plays. To get a fairer sense of the actual +/- figures you have to be fairly close to 50% of minutes played.

 

[goggles99]

One must keep in mind that these types of stats (Stat One -- Plus/Minus) although amusing, are heavily skewed.

If you took these stats, and combined them with about 200 other factors, you may start to get somewhat of a clear picture of actual reality, but by themselves, they are heavily misleading...

These stats don't provide "subjective evaluation", and don't even consider things like

Playing time, and when? who are they ON and OFF with???
minutes at typical higher tempo games, or beginnings of quarters, ECT?
Who is on the floor with them in those minutes? maybe they are playing more minutes with better scorers.
How many minutes of garbage time?
How many minutes in wins vs losses, or 70pt games vs 120 point games.
What rotation do they play against? is it mostly bench players? (and they could start on many teams)
Some players play better with certain other players, whom they may play more minutes with.
Who were they matched up with in their higher minute games, vs their lower minute games?
Have they been out with injuries, or limited minutes against better defenses, than against terrible ones?
Maybe they play more minutes with someone who is being doubled, providing the team with open shots/layups, or they play more with someone who creates opportunities for the team (assists). Maybe they play more when the team is on a run, yet they aren't necessarily contributing to the run.
Bench players often score at a higher pace than the starters whom have much longer minutes. The tempo usually increases with a bunch of fresh legs out there, and there is a lot of quick back, and forth.
Minutes in home games, vs away games.
Are there better rebounders playing more minutes, when they play?


These are about 3 minutes of things I just thought of out of thin air. I could come up with many more and much better points with an hour of thinking, but I don't really think that is necessary. I just wanted to point out that statistics should be taken with a grain of salt, and often, rather than provide guidance, they actually mislead you.

 

[piksi]

Only stats that makes sense to me is that KT sucks the most which You can see anyways. Everything else is pretty relative

 

[BigWaxer]

I am a big stats guy, nice post Brick as I haven't looked at those this year.

Most interesting as you said was the Kmart stats and Rons stats really affecting us in a big way.

 

[Entity]

I get a different conclusion to K-marts stats. Instead of seeing him as no factor in our success or demise. I see the stats showing that he is very consistant and if the rest stayed as consistant as he is there would be more wins than losses. Take out his 20+ pts per game on the amount of shots he takes and we have a lot more losses. efficiency and consistancy don't show up in the basic stats but, they sure make for one hell of a player.

 

[nbrans]

I'm not a huge fan of +/- numbers, particularly not this early in the season. Not every minute is equal, but that's how the numbers are calculated. Garbage time, crunch time, counted all the same.

It's also affected a whole lot by who guys play with. For someone like Salmons, who as you point out is always filling in for people, he's also affected by the fact that he has spent most of the year playing with our subpar bench.

And as for Corliss, his +/- is hugely affected by the fact that he was on the floor for that big run in the "almost win" against Phoenix. And I watched that game -- Corliss was largely a bystander. But hey, he gets credit for those points. I'd be willing to bet that if you take out that +20 against Phoenix Corliss' +/- numbers would look a whole lot different.

As far as who is playing well in wins and losses, I think that's a huge insult to Kevin to suggest that how well he plays doesn't really matter. The same goes for Reef and Salmons. All that can be gleaned from those numbers is that those guys are consistent. They tend to show up and play well night in night out, win or lose, no matter the opponent. I guess you could say that the inconsistent players factor more into whether the Kings win or lose -- but that's not to their credit.