Numbers
Box plus/minus and VORP, explained
Two baselines — league average and a replacement player — and the gap between them, priced in wins.
Explainer
Numbers
Statistics read slowly: what each number measures, and what it quietly leaves out.
10 pieces in this section, filed between and
10 pieces on this desk, from the 2014-15 season, under 2 bylines. The longest of them runs 792 words.
6 of them were written for this edition of the paper; the rest came out of the archive of the old site and were re-set, not rewritten — the wording, the numbers and the dates are the ones that were filed at the time.
Statistics, and the arguments about what they are worth. A number in basketball is never just a number: it was collected by somebody, under a definition somebody chose, over a sample somebody decided was long enough. This desk is about that second layer — what a figure counts, what it quietly leaves out, and what it can and cannot be used to say.
So the pieces here define before they argue. A figure that appears without its definition, its source and the span it covers is not evidence, and the desk treats it as decoration. Where a statistic is disputed the dispute is described rather than resolved by assertion, and where a sample is too small to carry a conclusion the piece says the sample is too small.
Latest
Statistics read slowly: what each number measures, and what it quietly leaves out.
Numbers
Net rating and on/off: reading a team by possessions
Points per hundred possessions at both ends, and what the on/off split does and does not prove.
Explainer
Numbers
Pace and possessions: the hidden variable in every per-game number
Why a scoring average tells you as much about the clock as about the shooter.
Explainer
Numbers
Player efficiency rating, and why analysts argue about it
A per-minute box-score summary pegged to a league average of 15 — and blind to most of defence.
Explainer
Numbers
True shooting percentage: the number that replaced field goal percentage
One figure that counts threes and free throws at what they are actually worth.
Explainer
Also here
Numbers
Usage rate: what it measures and what it does not
The share of a team’s possessions a player ends. It is a volume figure, never an efficiency one.
Explainer
Numbers
Bojan Bogdanovic Rookie Ranking
The Nets highly touted European rookie has not gotten off to the start many had hoped. Lionel Hollins named him the opening day shooting guard in preseason, but Bojan has yet to produce as an NBA starter.
Feature · 2014-15 season
Numbers
Deron Williams and Brook Lopez Top NBA 2k15 Ratings for Nets
The wait is finally over. The NBA 2k15 ratings for every Brooklyn Nets player have finally been released. Brook Lopez, the 42nd best player in NBA 2k, was rated an 83. On the other hand, Deron Williams is the 35th highest ranked player with a rating for 84.
Feature · 2014-15 season
Numbers
Joe Johnson's Ranking for NBA 2k15 Has Been Revealed
NBA 2K15 has released some more player ratings. In their latest release, Joe Johnson has an overall of 82. Only two Nets players are remaining to be ranked: Deron Williams and Brook Lopez. Both these players will likely be rated higher than 82.
Feature · 2014-15 season