NBA FanHouse walks through the Valley of the Most Likely; we shall fear no topic.Some basketball statisticians think Kevin Durant has been overrated through two seasons of work, a tunnel-visioned volume scorer. Others believe him to be The Second Second Coming, a future pantheon invitee getting his sea legs. Where's the truth?
We'll find out more this season, I'd bet ... but not without a war.
The Durant Divide has always been there, but it's reached a fever pitch this fall as KD enters his third season as the star of the Oklahoma City Thunder. You may be surprised to know that lightning rod sports economist David Berri -- of Wages of Wins infamy -- is not at the center of this conflagration. Berri did bemoan the honors bestowed upon Durantula based on his rookie season, but last season admitted KD deserved the Most Improved Player award. After two years, Berri's controversial metrics have bought in.
John Hollinger of ESPN always bought in. Hollinger, who is behind PER and other box-score driven metrics, believes so much in KD that he projects him to be one of the best players in the league this season. The folks at Basketball Prospectus -- Kevin Pelton and Bradford Doolittle -- also think highly of Durant. Buy their incredible book for details.
The dissenter in all this would be adjusted plus-minus, with the fanfare played by former Mavericks adviser Wayne Winston. Adjusted plus-minus, made available publicly at BasketballValue.com, rates Durant very poorly in both 2007-08 and 2008-09. Plus-minus measures how a team does when a certain player is on the court. If a player leaves the court after five minutes of play, and his team is up 10-7, the player is a +3. Yahoo!, NBA.com and others have this basic stat available in box scores these days. But the metric isn't useful until statistical adjustments are made -- adjustments based on who the opponents are, and who the teammates are. As the Sonics/Thunder have been poor during Durant's career, it's no surprise that Durant's raw plus-minus would stink. But it's bad even after adjustments are made. Real bad. Winston (who won't be consulting for the Mavs this year for the first time this decade as Dallas switches to an in-house analyst) did a set of talks with TrueHoop's Henry Abbott this month. In one of the exchanges, Winston -- a devotee and pioneer of adjusted plus-minus -- reveals how little he thinks of Durant's game.
Knowing that just about any NBA general manager would trade his own children for a prospect of Durant's caliber, I asked Winston if he'd advise his team to accept if the Mavericks were (in some alternate universe) offered Durant for free. "I'd say probably not," he replied. "I would not sign the guy. It's simply not inevitable that he'll make mid-career strides. Some guys do. But many don't, and he'd have to improve a lot to help a team."Durant's adjusted plus-minus is so bad a legit stathead says he wouldn't advise a team to take him for free. Meanwhile, another legit stathead (Hollinger) projects Durant as the fifth best player in the NBA this season. There is a Divide.
Some APM practitioners aren't as adamant as Winston as to Durant's shortcomings, while not all "box-score" devotees are as high on Durant as Hollinger has been. But there is a clear Durant Divide. What the kid does this season will go a long way toward giving the correct side a legitimacy boost.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
10-12-2009 @ 3:26PM
Nedu Nnadi said...
Does anyone else think this invalidates PER as a statistical measure of anything in basketball? How can you have such a horrible adjust plus/minus while having a sky high PER? If that is the case then PER is not very useful in telling the story of what is happening on the basketball court.
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10-12-2009 @ 7:09PM
Giles said...
The combination of the two stats reinforces what folks should probably already realize, Durant is a resonably good player on a not yet reasonably good basketball team (maybe this season or next, but not so far). He is in the crucial minutes of games when his team just isn`t good enough, and most of what little they get comes from him. Not at all clear there is really another starting quality athlete on the roster, though Kristic started with the Nets, and Colison start some at Seattle, and hopefully the youngsters are getting better. But he would have to radically improve several more seasons to be a Hall of Fame candidate, or even an all star candidate, all star obviously being much less impossible than the Hall at this point seems.
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10-12-2009 @ 10:00PM
kopyjockey said...
To be fair, Hollinger does acknowledge this issue. In his 10/6 chat he says "the Thunder were massively better, by more than eight points per 100 possessions, when he was off the court. We're still learning about adjusted plus-minus stats and the things that they can and can't tell us, but suffice it to say a third straight year of such numbers would cause some very pointed questions to be asked."
Also, in his player scouting report, he says Durant's "adjusted plus-minus was a horrid -8.62 points per 100 possessions, a stat that's even more alarming because the Thunder had a bad bench. His rating from his rookie year wasn't much better."
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10-12-2009 @ 11:20PM
Giles said...
Durant is allergic to rebounding. He only had 6.5 boards on a team led by Colison with only 6.9 boards. Not bad for a wing guard, but he`s supposed to be a forward. The only reason the Olympic team is considering him is Yao is Chinese, injured, O`Neal is old, Duncan is not young (and the Virgin Islands can`t vote in US elections, they need to be out or in, not sat on the fence), Nowitzski is a Polish heritage German, Gasol is Spanish, Stoudamire is coming off eye injury, etc., Garnett is not young, and coming off injury, etc. So the team may have to go with Howard at center, James and Anthony at power forward, instead of their usual wing forward, and so may need two of three wing forwards, like Bosh, Lewis, Granger, maybe even Durant. A small, but quality team is better than no quality at all. But it is sad for the US, 24 all stars, and trouble getting even 10 or 12 American all stars for the international team.
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10-13-2009 @ 11:39AM
Bill Johnson said...
The plus/minus stat is dubious, as so much depends upon who the opposition has on the court. Durant always see's the opponents best.
You also must adjust for Thunder roster the past two years, when the starting five have not been much better than the second five. While Durants raw talents are head and shoulder above the rest, there was probably not much difference in players 2 through 10. So take out the opponents first line players, and the second five has an easier path.
I would not take Winstons plus/minus stat " for free " , its a waste of time.
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10-13-2009 @ 1:08PM
ebomb808 said...
Bill Johnson
You are incredibly stupid. What do you think Adjusted stands for in Adjusted +/-? I'll give you a hint, it's exactly what you say are the flaws in +/- evaluations specifically "Adjusting" the stats for opponents and teammates on the court. If the stat is so worthless, how is Westbrook and Green, both 30+ minute players on the same team and starters to boot have much better +/- numbers?
This debate is awesome because it forces to correllate Gaudy stats with real actual on court results. Yes Durant is a great Scorer, but defense, passing, rebounding and knowing how to play the pick and roll actually DO impact a game, maybe *gasp* more than scoring.
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10-13-2009 @ 2:23PM
Bill Johnson said...
Again, math boy ..........
Its a waste of time ........ go ahead, drivel your life away .
Stupid kids with calculators and too much time on their hands.
10-13-2009 @ 2:51PM
Bill Johnson said...
And adding, you boys with your calculators also don't account for Durant being developed in his rookie year. In the 2007/08 season, in Seattle , he was told to shoot the ball. Other players on the team complained that their season was being thrown away due to the FO desire to develop Durant.
In other words, when you can come up with a stat that measures how badly the FO wants to win games over developing players, then wake me up and tell me about it.
And last years first year in OKC was an aberration from many respects. Moving the franchise impacted play on the court. And you can not discount a coaching change very early in the season. Durant changed positions from the 2 to the 3 in mid December. It made for a very disjointed season for all concerned.
Events of that nature make stats irrelevant. Little wonder the stats are skewed.
And trying to come up with some " adjustment " to plus/minus for the caliber of opponent is folly. In other words its for fools with calculators.
Watch who your calling " incredibly stupid " , maybe you just incredibly misguided.
10-13-2009 @ 5:26PM
ebomb808 said...
Bill,
Bizarre for someone to be against Calculators so much. Stats that show us things that go against our preconceptions you dismiss irrelevant. Acknowledging that's your point of view, their really isn't much to say to you.
You have excuses and reasons as to why Durant's stats don't show he is this amazing player you think he is, but unlike you, I guess I need to see him become a better Passer, Defender, Rebounder and teammate in actual on the court action rather than just assuming because he's 21 he will get there.
Al Jefferson can put the ball in the hoop in the post in similar efficiency as Durant can on the wing. Neither play a lick of defense. Al is now 25 and he hasn't gotten better. Ask yourself this, what if Defense, Rebounding and Passing are honest to god skills that can't be just developed with more practice. Durant has been playing year round ball for 15 years, and in year 16 the light is someone automatically going to turn on and he will learn how to pass and play defense? You may take that on faith, but until he proves it to me, he is a highly efficient scorer a la Kevin Martin and not a franchise player.
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