Posted by cubcub113 on 5/10/2020 8:24:00 PM (view original):
This makes a lot of sense. Stats are even more useless in this game than I previously thought.
I pretty clearly need to stop using stats to evaluate players (outside of effective FG%). EFG% is pretty legit right?
So Gil, I have a question. Let's say I have a big with 90 Ath/REB/DE/SB/LP in high DI. You can have 60, 40, 20, and 10 SP/PER/BH/PA but numbers assigned to any of the 4 ratings you want.
I guess 60 SP 40 PER 20 PA 10 BH from your previous answers?
Also would you consider Church a super elite player then? Certainly has the Ath/Sp/De/Reb/Sb/Lp
I love speed in bigs, I'm about 98% sure I've seen some massive differences in efficiency.
'I pretty clearly need to stop using stats to evaluate players' - isn't it crazy, that this is the reality of HD?? i mean seriously, if you told 1.5 year into HD me this, i would have probably quit on the spot =) hehe
is EFG legit? mostly. scoring stats are the sanctuary stats. a player's 2pt%, 3pt%, and ft% are extremely closely tied to their actions/contributions. the real question for each individual stat, IMO, is 'how closely do the values of the individual stat reflect the actual contributions of each player to the team'? or something along those lines. for TOs, in the example from this thread, those guys bigs getting +40 bh/pass each might drop the team from 12.0 to 11.5 TO - that is probably a reasonable guess - but they could very easily drop 1.5 TOs between them with those stats - which would mean the change in their individual stats would 3x overstate the real impact... which is, you know, bad!
anyway, scoring is the sanctuary - but its still not perfect. FT is the closest to the golden standard - it is entirely based on the FT rating of the player and the level of fatigue. its possible iq is a teeny tiny stat, i never really took care to rule that out, but im pretty confident its nothing. anyway, the level of fatigue of an individual isn't a vacuum where you can point straight to that player's stamina. the whole rotation of the team, the depth, how many fouls you commit (which pulls in like, most of the ratings for every player on both teams - lol) - all that factors into the level of fatigue for an individual at a given time. so is FT 'pure'? no - but with good depth, its really damn close to being based on an individuals FT and sta (with a VERY heavy emphasis on FT).
2pt and 3pt scoring are more complex, and can you rely on EFG totally - no - but most of the way, yes. until about 7 or so years ago, they were more legit, but still not 100%. there's several possibilities, some for sure matter, some may not be a thing, i don't always know.
1) about 7 or so years ago, seble added an effect to the game in response to the situation where an AMAZING pg did *nothing* to directly better the fg% of his team mates. so, seble added this effect, where basically the team's pass/iq (nothing else is included) does impact the fg% of an individual, with a large portion of this coming from the PG, but as i understand it, all players contribute.
2) offenses adjust. distro is an input, but its not the only input - we know that offenses also try to get the ball to better scorers facing weaker defense. this is established fact, that this exists, even though the details are not all known to us. analogous defensive adjustments are not established fact, but i have always theorized that if offenses adjust in this way, that defenses are probably adjusting in some analogous way to avoid making offenses over powered. this may not be true, but it may be - and if so, the presence of other high end offensive players on a team would help a player shoot better, because the defense would prioritize him less. this would further muddy the waters about a player's contribution versus how his team mates are contributing - but in a way that feels fairly similar to #1.
3) the fatigue of a player is a MASSIVE factor in their shooting efficiency. as discussed with FT shooting, except that fatigue is a bigger factor on 2s and 3s, this pulls in basically every rating of every player on both teams (anyone who plays meaningful minutes, at least). depth and all the things that go with it are going to help skew these numbers.
also, there is the strength of schedule and even further you'd have to look at individuals and their matchups. this isn't really a problem in the stats - like i said, the question should be how well do individual stats reflect contributions to the team? whether your opponent is amazing or terrible, a player's 20 ppg very closely reflects their contribution to the team. their 50% shooting does, too. but it does mean that comparing stats from one player to another, it just gets very messy, you have to control for strength of schedule, the role the player is playing, and the team he has around them.
so - that said - while scoring stats (2pta, 3pta, 2pt%, 3pt%, fta, ft%, and all the things that are simple compositions of that, like ppg and ppm and efg and whatever else) are the sanctuary - they are still not *that* much of a sanctuary :) just because of how varied the situations are between two set of games, even for the same player on the same team, if you are trying to compare the first 10 games to the second 10 games, there are so many things that can differ between those sets of games. but at least, if you do control for SOS and all that - you are able to connect to something real, as the individual stats of a player for scoring stats are very close to representing their true contributions. that said, the fact that i do not know if defenses adjust and therefore having two stud 75 lp 95 per guys to shift defensive focus a bit, is helping that 90 spd/per/bh sg score more efficiently - it shows how much of a sanctuary scoring stats really are!!
alright, next question, would i put 60 points in speed - anyone who knows me can say the first sentence of my answer without even looking at the question - it depends on the role. for a non scoring big, a reb/def big, which is an archetype i love - is stamina an option? im sort of joking, but i do have to give a shoutout to stamina as the most important marginal stat in the game for almost every elite player in the game. reb/def type bigs included! but anyway, for those guys, i'd probably go with passing. speed is factually known to be useless in rebounding. for defense, in man and 3-2 zone, its almost completely worthless at the 4-5 - so for those sets, for non-scoring bigs, speed is really incredibly close to being durability! in press for the 4, i'd consider spd, but probably would still take passing. 5 press, passing. 2-3 zone, for the 4, no question - speed - the sf/pf use a 'forward' defensive equation which almost certainly includes speed as a secondary but meaningful rating. for the 5, no question - passing.
now, for scoring bigs, its going to be similar to the above but with per as the default #1 stat, and speed taking over in similar situations. for scoring bigs, in terms of scoring, its always per that is the most helpful. but in some of those situations, like PFs in the 2-3 and press, speed also has some defensive value and it also has offensive value, so i would take speed in both of those situations.
also, i agree there are significant (not sure about massive) differences in efficiency for speed - in terms of offense. which is just one piece of the puzzle. this is where play style makes my take slightly different than most of y'alls and my take needs to be taken with a bit of salt as a result. i prefer scoring from the 1-3 for many reasons, so i usually run half my bigs as offensive black holes - plus bigs used to be a lot less efficient offensively, and i haven't fully adjusted to the new reality (even though i was a major contributor for pushing for it! and then for getting it pushed back - lol - the first time seble adjusted big man scoring, a d1 big with just 90ath/lp went from shooting around 47% to just under 60%). speed definitely matters for bigs the more they score. also, speed and per are correlated in recruit generation - just like ath/spd or the golden standard, reb/blk - just less so. its VERY normal to get bigs who are like, **** spd/per, and very normal to get others with 50 spd/per. having 50 of 1 but none of the other is rarer - but it definitely happens - but i do think what a lot of folks end up comparing is the 90 ath/lp crap spd/per bigs to elite guys with 90 ath/lp and 50s/60s spd/per, and that is, you know, a big jump in ratings!
that 50 spd/per is a very significant thing, its worth a good 5% of 2s or so, maybe a bit more. but when you look at +100 ratings for 5%, that, you know, is just massively crushed by the value you get from 100 points of rebounding which makes all the difference in the world, or 100 points of ath. or perhaps its better to think of 50 ath/lp vs 100 ath/lp, and compare that impact to 1 spd/per and 50 spd/per! whats the difference in magnitude - at least 4x right? hence my claim that neither spd nor per are truly cores for any big in any scenario. so perspective is necessary. spd/per in bigs is more of a luxury than a requirement - but once you basically have all the requirements, the 2 strengths per player i prescribe for basic title favorite play, spd/per in bigs and reb in guards are two very nice things to add for a little boost over the competition! i *definitely* would expect you to find a majority of 50 spd/per bigs on my d1 teams when they were doing stuff like 5 titles in 10 years, or you know, in 5 years as the case may be :) but i also have had lots of titles with 1 spd/per types on the roster. that's where i place 50 spd/per bigs - you definitely don't need a stable of those guys, probably 1 is plenty, to build 'average #1 in the nation' type teams. you do need to be getting guys like that when your goal is to build teams even or better against the entire NT fields. given that about half the coaches with 10+ titles have had 0 teams reach the 50% to win a title mark, and the large majority have 1 or fewer, i tend not to focus on what it takes to build those teams - but rather on what it takes to build 'average #1 in the country' type teams. i feel like that strikes the balance, it lets me focus on what matters in championship play, which is what i know best and where i can add the most value - while still keeping things at a level that many coaches can relate to.
whew - last question - so church, let me go find him. no, he's not a super elite. can a 2 strength player be super elite? i don't know - i don't think i'd call it that - although i will say a team can essentially be perfect even with a number of 2 strength players. so i'll call them 2 strength elites (like a def/guard skills pg, or a reb/def big). for them to be 2 strength elites, they'd need that all-important rating for great players, that #1 rating for almost every elite player, stamina. church doesn't have it. this precludes him from being an elite 2 strength big. church runs zone which makes that sb a core and his ath/sb aren't super elite. now, a 95 ath/reb/def/blk/sta guy with literally 1 in every single other rating - i would call him an elite 2 strength player and would take him over church without hesitation, not knowing the rest of the team (if i already had 3 such bigs and no offensive big, and needed a 4th big, i'd definitely take church).
church is really what i call a reb/def/off- big. hes got a clear rebounding strength, a clear defensive strength (borderline due to ath/blk but ill give it to him), and a lower end offensive strength. its borderline, but his crap per and ft preclude him from being super efficient, and bigs are naturally crappier offensively, so its harder for them to get a full off strength, in my book. however, this guy is still really good - hes a worthy starter on a title team.
last note on super elites - i call the ultra-gaudy players super elites, but what is more important is elite contribution levels, and that quite often means stamina. a lot of the ultra-gaudy players can have their actual utility doubled, by a player with elite sta who will stick around longer. also, 3pt scoring pgs and 3pt scoring sfs with def and reb strengths can reach levels of contribution that just can't be matched by other players, its just ridiculous how much they can contribute, and for the SF especially in the zone when they are great at 2-3 and 3-2. can a big even be ultra elite? i suppose, but i consider the 90 stamina a bedrock requirement for that! i would take it either way - the high 90s ath/reb/def 90 sta types who are guaranteed 4yr players, they can make huge contributions over their 4 guaranteed years - and also the guys who are also elite scoring types, which means they are probably gone as juniors, but its worth if it they are true 3 strength bigs (off/def/reb) who also have great stamina.