Key Individual Stats Tracker

[Q-is-here]

20 Game Update Below:

PER - Very much individual box-score driven and rewards volume more than efficiency. Doesn't really account for defense. This tends to reward higher usage offensive players and guys that get lots of counting stats.
WS/48 - Combines individual box-score stats with team performance; tends to reward efficiency as much as volume; tries to apportion team performance to individual players, so a great team defense for example tends to lift all boats (or weight them down if the defense is poor).
VORP - Value over Replacement Player (see more below). I know Carlos likes this one!
Net Rating - Team points per 100 possessions minus opponent points per 100 possessions while player is on the floor.

Player - PER/WS48/VORP/Net Rating
KAT - 18.7/.159/.8/+8.5
Rudy - 18.8/.209/.6/+9.9
Ant - 19.7/.142/.9/+12.2
Conley - 15.1/.195/.7/+8.4
SloMo - 12.7/.119/.4/+3.3
NAW - 9.2/.083/.2/+2.7
Naz - 17.6/.158/.5/+2.0
Shake - 7.1/.030/-.3/-3.4
Jaden - 11.2/.123/.1/+9.4
TBJ - 11.1/.130/.1/+10.0

[Q-is-here]

Thoughts:

- If I stare at the stats stuff long enough and then combine that with my eye test, Rudy comes out as the best player on the team up to this point in the season. That's both good and bad. It's good because we see a resurgent Rudy in peak defensive form. It's bad because I'd love for Ant to be even better than Rudy right now. But he still has a lot of inefficiency to work out of his game and there are too many mini-funks he goes into.

- Don't get me wrong, Ant is having a great season and has shown incremental improvement in his rebounding and passing, but he has not made the leap to superstar yet in my opinion.

- Shake Milton, smh....To have a negative net rating on the #1 team in the NBA is actually kind of hard to do. And look at his anemic PER. Is there anything he does well!? He is such a weak link right now.

- NAW has been great for us, but there just isn't enough offensive pop there for him to be a full-time starter. I like him best as an energy defensive wing off the bench for 18-20 MPG. Hope Jaden is back soon!

- If you think about the NAW, Anderson, Reid, TBJ foursome off the bench on a 100% healthy squad (I'm assuming Finch would only play Shake spot minutes), I still think it's missing a volume 3-point threat.

[Coolbreeze44]

Great stuff and analysis Q. I enjoy your perspective on these metrics.

[Lipoli390]

Q - Your take, backed by stats, matches mine. I left the arena last night thinking three things:

1. Glad we got the win on a night when we performed poorly enough to lose

2. Man, Rudy was incredible as he has been all season so far

3. Please, let’s end the Shake Milton backup PG experiment. I talked to a friend of mine from Philly a couple days ago. He said the Sixers spent four years experimenting with Milton as a backup PG and it never worked. Shake doesn’t have the quickness to guard NBA PGs and he doesn’t have the skill set to contribute offensively at that position either. Perhaps he could flourish as a spot-up three-point shooter off the bench, but I really don’t want to see him in the rotation once Jaden or JMac returns. Right now, I view Milton as #9 in the rotation behind Naz, Anderson and Brown. Once JMac or Jaden returns, that drops him to #10 and when both are back he should be #11 at best.

[Monster]

Thoughts:

- If I stare at the stats stuff long enough and then combine that with my eye test, Rudy comes out as the best player on the team up to this point in the season. That's both good and bad. It's good because we see a resurgent Rudy in peak defensive form. It's bad because I'd love for Ant to be even better than Rudy right now. But he still has a lot of inefficiency to work out of his game and there are too many mini-funks he goes into.

- Don't get me wrong, Ant is having a great season and has shown incremental improvement in his rebounding and passing, but he has not made the leap to superstar yet in my opinion.

- Shake Milton, smh....To have a negative net rating on the #1 team in the NBA is actually kind of hard to do. And look at his anemic PER. Is there anything he does well!? He is such a weak link right now.

- NAW has been great for us, but there just isn't enough offensive pop there for him to be a full-time starter. I like him best as an energy defensive wing off the bench for 18-20 MPG. Hope Jaden is back soon!

- If you think about the NAW, Anderson, Reid, TBJ foursome off the bench on a 100% healthy squad (I'm assuming Finch would only play Shake spot minutes), I still think it's missing a volume 3-point threat.

That’s a good breakdown. I will say that the last 3 games or so NAW has shown a little more game scoring on a some more controlled maybe even a bit savy moves in the paint. I’m not saying so think he is breaking out to be some sort of threat there but if he could turn a drive or 2 a game into a legit scoring chance a game that would be nice. He doesn’t need to score a ton because he offers other value but being able to get some easier buckets here and there would help. I think in general he is capable of a little more to be a guy that given minutes can get 10-12 points a game instead of basically just being a spot up guy.

That bench group either needs a volume 3 point guy or someone that can just go get buckets. Still when Reid is the worst defender of that group…it’s nice to have guys that legitimately defend and one of the things that’s good about Anderson is he can get you a timely bucket and or create looks for players. I’d like to see what things look like with a healthy McLaughin.

[Monster]

Q - Your take, backed by stats, matches mine. I left the arena last night thinking three things:

1. Glad we got the win on a night when we performed poorly enough to lose

2. Man, Rudy was incredible as he has been all season so far

3. Please, let’s end the Shake Milton backup PG experiment. I talked to a friend of mine from Philly a couple days ago. He said the Sixers spent four years experimenting with Milton as a backup PG and it never worked. Shake doesn’t have the quickness to guard NBA PGs and he doesn’t have the skill set to contribute offensively at that position either. Perhaps he could flourish as a spot-up three-point shooter off the bench, but I really don’t want to see him in the rotation once Jaden or JMac returns. Right now, I view Milton as #9 in the rotation behind Naz, Anderson and Brown. Once JMac or Jaden returns, that drops him to #10 and when both are back he should be #11 at best.

Lip what I noticed in this game was it seemed like the Wolves were actually looking to have him play PG on more possessions and he seemed at times too willing to give it up. It seemed like the previous game he was doing a little more of a classic PG role as well. I’m not saying he is succeeding just that it seemed like that is what they are trying to do. He isn’t scoring so…it maybe makes sense. I was a big fan of the signing and he just hasn’t done anything. He isn’t scoring he isn’t making plays. In this game I have no idea what he did that Nix couldn’t do. Based on the way they dealt with Nowell last year they are gonna give Shake every opportunity to have success that they can. That probably makes sense. It’s clear Brown has passed Shake up and rightly so. Once the Wolves get healthy Shake may struggle to get any minutes. Let’s hope they get healthy. Maybe Shake will still figure it out but the clock is ticking. I would have no problems if they didn’t play him and gave Nix his minutes but I get that they are probably gonna keep giving Shake a shot. I will say he could have had some decent assist totals in this game if guys had made some 3’s. It wasn’t anything that great though again I think Nix would have done just as well and he might be a better defender.

[Carlos Danger]

Thoughts:

- If I stare at the stats stuff long enough and then combine that with my eye test, Rudy comes out as the best player on the team up to this point in the season. That's both good and bad. It's good because we see a resurgent Rudy in peak defensive form. It's bad because I'd love for Ant to be even better than Rudy right now. But he still has a lot of inefficiency to work out of his game and there are too many mini-funks he goes into.

- Don't get me wrong, Ant is having a great season and has shown incremental improvement in his rebounding and passing, but he has not made the leap to superstar yet in my opinion.

- Shake Milton, smh....To have a negative net rating on the #1 team in the NBA is actually kind of hard to do. And look at his anemic PER. Is there anything he does well!? He is such a weak link right now.

- NAW has been great for us, but there just isn't enough offensive pop there for him to be a full-time starter. I like him best as an energy defensive wing off the bench for 18-20 MPG. Hope Jaden is back soon!

- If you think about the NAW, Anderson, Reid, TBJ foursome off the bench on a 100% healthy squad (I'm assuming Finch would only play Shake spot minutes), I still think it's missing a volume 3-point threat.

Good stuff. But I will chime in that stating "Rudy comes out as the best player" at this point is subjective depending on which metrics you put the most weight on.

I make no apologies for valuing VORP as my main measuring stick which would put Rudy behind Edwards, KAT and even Conley. The margins are small, so I'm not saying blatantly better. Rather, that's just me using the VORP as it lays out currently on this day.

Even as a VORP guy, I don't think the best use of that stat is to split hair that fine to say Edwards at 0.9 is significantly better than KAT at 0.8. Rather, I think it's great to quickly identify your top and bottom performers. Using VORP, the rankings sort out as I would expect with the exception of McDaniels has never shown up well in VORP. I still don't know if that's an anomaly or if we as fans are over valuing him?

The biggest critique people have made of VORP is that it doesn't value defense enough. I'm not going to pretend to be an expert at the formula, but I do know it pulls in some defensive stuff. As an example, I see NAW as a 0.2 despite a pretty below average offensive output thus far. So again, back to McDaniels, I'm still puzzled as to why he doesn't do better in that stat.

Anyway - that's my 2 cents. Good stuff and thanks for posting.

[Q-is-here]

Thoughts:

- If I stare at the stats stuff long enough and then combine that with my eye test, Rudy comes out as the best player on the team up to this point in the season. That's both good and bad. It's good because we see a resurgent Rudy in peak defensive form. It's bad because I'd love for Ant to be even better than Rudy right now. But he still has a lot of inefficiency to work out of his game and there are too many mini-funks he goes into.

- Don't get me wrong, Ant is having a great season and has shown incremental improvement in his rebounding and passing, but he has not made the leap to superstar yet in my opinion.

- Shake Milton, smh....To have a negative net rating on the #1 team in the NBA is actually kind of hard to do. And look at his anemic PER. Is there anything he does well!? He is such a weak link right now.

- NAW has been great for us, but there just isn't enough offensive pop there for him to be a full-time starter. I like him best as an energy defensive wing off the bench for 18-20 MPG. Hope Jaden is back soon!

- If you think about the NAW, Anderson, Reid, TBJ foursome off the bench on a 100% healthy squad (I'm assuming Finch would only play Shake spot minutes), I still think it's missing a volume 3-point threat.

Good stuff. But I will chime in that stating "Rudy comes out as the best player" at this point is subjective depending on which metrics you put the most weight on.

I make no apologies for valuing VORP as my main measuring stick which would put Rudy behind Edwards, KAT and even Conley. The margins are small, so I'm not saying blatantly better. Rather, that's just me using the VORP as it lays out currently on this day.

Even as a VORP guy, I don't think the best use of that stat is to split hair that fine to say Edwards at 0.9 is significantly better than KAT at 0.8. Rather, I think it's great to quickly identify your top and bottom performers. Using VORP, the rankings sort out as I would expect with the exception of McDaniels has never shown up well in VORP. I still don't know if that's an anomaly or if we as fans are over valuing him?

The biggest critique people have made of VORP is that it doesn't value defense enough. I'm not going to pretend to be an expert at the formula, but I do know it pulls in some defensive stuff. As an example, I see NAW as a 0.2 despite a pretty below average offensive output thus far. So again, back to McDaniels, I'm still puzzled as to why he doesn't do better in that stat.

Anyway - that's my 2 cents. Good stuff and thanks for posting.

Thanks Carlos. Yes, my assessment on Rudy as the best player is indeed subjective, as I mentioned that I am using the eye test in addition to the stats. We simply are not the #1 defense in the NBA without him in my opinion. And the reason we're winning so many games is first because of defense. Our offense is about average as compared to the rest of the NBA.

As for VORP, remember that it's a cumulative stat and not a per game or per minute stat. The other stats here are normalized without regard to minutes or games played (for example, Leonard Miller has the highest PER on the team thanks to 6 minutes of brilliance, yet his VORP is 0.0).

So one reason NAW may be higher than Jaden may simply be because he's played more minutes. If games and minutes played is part of how you assess a player, than VORP is still very valid. Between Jaden's injuries and foul trouble, he simply hasn't been as available as NAW. But if you are trying to assess players on a per game or per possession or per minute basis, than VORP is not a good stat to look at. You should look at Net Rating (per 100 possessions), PER, or Box Score Plus Minus.

Now if you just look at the box score stuff, NAW still might have an edge over Jaden because he gets more assists, steals, and blocks and he does so while fouling less on a per minute basis. Jaden has the edge in scoring volume and efficiency. They both rebound at the same rate. But as we know, having more steals and blocks doesn't automatically mean better defender. So much defense doesn't show up in the box score and VORP primarily takes its data from the box score.

[kekgeek]

Q - Your take, backed by stats, matches mine. I left the arena last night thinking three things:

1. Glad we got the win on a night when we performed poorly enough to lose

2. Man, Rudy was incredible as he has been all season so far

3. Please, let’s end the Shake Milton backup PG experiment. I talked to a friend of mine from Philly a couple days ago. He said the Sixers spent four years experimenting with Milton as a backup PG and it never worked. Shake doesn’t have the quickness to guard NBA PGs and he doesn’t have the skill set to contribute offensively at that position either. Perhaps he could flourish as a spot-up three-point shooter off the bench, but I really don’t want to see him in the rotation once Jaden or JMac returns. Right now, I view Milton as #9 in the rotation behind Naz, Anderson and Brown. Once JMac or Jaden returns, that drops him to #10 and when both are back he should be #11 at best.

Dane Moore mentioned this on his podcast a couple weeks back. But I thought it was interesting, Shake Milton is apparently a very good transition player, however the wolves are a grind it out team and play a ton of half court basketball. Shake is struggling in that setting, you know where else you play half court basketball a lot is the playoffs where Shake would always fall out of the rotation for the 76ers. Just thought that was an interesting point.

[Lipoli390]

Q - Your take, backed by stats, matches mine. I left the arena last night thinking three things:

1. Glad we got the win on a night when we performed poorly enough to lose

2. Man, Rudy was incredible as he has been all season so far

3. Please, let’s end the Shake Milton backup PG experiment. I talked to a friend of mine from Philly a couple days ago. He said the Sixers spent four years experimenting with Milton as a backup PG and it never worked. Shake doesn’t have the quickness to guard NBA PGs and he doesn’t have the skill set to contribute offensively at that position either. Perhaps he could flourish as a spot-up three-point shooter off the bench, but I really don’t want to see him in the rotation once Jaden or JMac returns. Right now, I view Milton as #9 in the rotation behind Naz, Anderson and Brown. Once JMac or Jaden returns, that drops him to #10 and when both are back he should be #11 at best.

Dane Moore mentioned this on his podcast a couple weeks back. But I thought it was interesting, Shake Milton is apparently a very good transition player, however the wolves are a grind it out team and play a ton of half court basketball. Shake is struggling in that setting, you know where else you play half court basketball a lot is the playoffs where Shake would always fall out of the rotation for the 76ers. Just thought that was an interesting point.

Thanks, kek. That’s definitely an interesting point.