Minnesota Sports Forum

This ought to make one of us pretty happy:

http://www.espn.com/nba/statistics/rpm

Great marketing tool from ESPN.

See! They got me to mention that they're behind this entirely random, gimmicky stat that may or may not have relevance in the real basketball world.

18. D'Angelo Russell
30. Karl-Anthony Towns
44. Anthony Edwards
84. Patrick Beverley
112. Jarred Vanderbilt
200. Jaden McDaniels
210. Jaylen Nowell
229. Naz Reid
270. Nathan Knight
277. Malik Beasley
289. Jordan McLaughlin
309. Taurean Prince
355. Jake Layman
487. Josh Okogie
528. Leandro Bolmaro

Takeaways:

- Three Wolves in the top-45. That's pretty respectable.

- Malik Beasley and Taurean Prince have been underwhelming.

- Josh Okogie probably shouldn't be in the NBA next year.

- I'm surprised Patrick Beverley doesn't get more love with this metric.

- Should Nikola Jokic win Defensive Player of the Year? I think he had a case even before seeing this.

- Evan Mobley is the runaway Rookie of the Year.

- Did D'Angelo Russell, DeMar DeRozan, and Zach LaVine suddenly get much better late in their careers? Or did their environments get better -- ie. better teammates, natural roles, etc.?

I don't put too much value into these kinds of statistics on their own, but it's obviously better for Minnesota if they're performing well in every metric available. That must mean they're playing pretty good basketball and they have been this year. Love it.

Camden wrote:18. D'Angelo Russell
30. Karl-Anthony Towns
44. Anthony Edwards
84. Patrick Beverley
112. Jarred Vanderbilt
200. Jaden McDaniels
210. Jaylen Nowell
229. Naz Reid
270. Nathan Knight
277. Malik Beasley
289. Jordan McLaughlin
309. Taurean Prince
355. Jake Layman
487. Josh Okogie
528. Leandro Bolmaro

Takeaways:

- Three Wolves in the top-45. That's pretty respectable.

- Malik Beasley and Taurean Prince have been underwhelming.

- Josh Okogie probably shouldn't be in the NBA next year.

- I'm surprised Patrick Beverley doesn't get more love with this metric.

- Should Nikola Jokic win Defensive Player of the Year? I think he had a case even before seeing this.

- Evan Mobley is the runaway Rookie of the Year.

- Did D'Angelo Russell, DeMar DeRozan, and Zach LaVine suddenly get much better late in their careers? Or did their environments get better -- ie. better teammates, natural roles, etc.?

I don't put too much value into these kinds of statistics on their own, but it's obviously better for Minnesota if they're performing well in every metric available. That must mean they're playing pretty good basketball and they have been this year. Love it.

Ha.

Yeah, my own feelings about these contrived statistics aside... it sure is better to have guys in the top 100 or top 20 rather than complaining that the stat has the local team's best players in the 300 range as in year's past.

Wins lead to better stats... apparently. Or vice versa.

AbeVigodaLive wrote:Great marketing tool from ESPN.

See! They got me to mention that they're behind this entirely random, gimmicky stat that may or may not have relevance in the real basketball world.

Interesting that this entirely random, gimmicky stat seems to match what our own eye test would tell us who our top 5 players are (we can certainly quibble about whether the order is right, but they certainly have the tier correct). And what a coincidence that Jake Layman, Josh Okogie and Leo Bolmaro are at the very bottom of our team rankings! Even more shocking is the appearance of Nikola Jokic as the top player in the league.

The biggest flaw I see in the stat is that it doesn't apply any weight to role or minutes played. So you do get some outliers where low minute/high impact players are unjustly ranked ahead of guys that carry a lot more usage and minutes. But that's easy enough to factor in for someone with a dose of common sense.

Q-was-here wrote:

AbeVigodaLive wrote:Great marketing tool from ESPN.

See! They got me to mention that they're behind this entirely random, gimmicky stat that may or may not have relevance in the real basketball world.

Interesting that this entirely random, gimmicky stat seems to match what our own eye test would tell us who our top 5 players are (we can certainly quibble about whether the order is right, but they certainly have the tier correct). And what a coincidence that Jake Layman, Josh Okogie and Leo Bolmaro are at the very bottom of our team rankings! Even more shocking is the appearance of Nikola Jokic as the top player in the league.

The biggest flaw I see in the stat is that it doesn't apply any weight to role or minutes played. So you do get some outliers where low minute/high impact players are unjustly ranked ahead of guys that carry a lot more usage and minutes. But that's easy enough to factor in for someone with a dose of common sense.

It's fine to use as a statistic and as I also noted... player rankings do coincide with better team results... which makes sense.

To clarify... I'm not necessarily saying the statistic is a bad one. But I do think it was a bit of a marketing gimmick by ESPN.

And "entirely random" is probably a poor choice of words... but I believe the statistic has had multiple iterations over the years.

Camden wrote:18. D'Angelo Russell
30. Karl-Anthony Towns
44. Anthony Edwards
84. Patrick Beverley
112. Jarred Vanderbilt
200. Jaden McDaniels
210. Jaylen Nowell
229. Naz Reid
270. Nathan Knight
277. Malik Beasley
289. Jordan McLaughlin
309. Taurean Prince
355. Jake Layman
487. Josh Okogie
528. Leandro Bolmaro

Takeaways:

- Three Wolves in the top-45. That's pretty respectable.

- Malik Beasley and Taurean Prince have been underwhelming.

- Josh Okogie probably shouldn't be in the NBA next year.

- I'm surprised Patrick Beverley doesn't get more love with this metric.

- Should Nikola Jokic win Defensive Player of the Year? I think he had a case even before seeing this.

- Evan Mobley is the runaway Rookie of the Year.

- Did D'Angelo Russell, DeMar DeRozan, and Zach LaVine suddenly get much better late in their careers? Or did their environments get better -- ie. better teammates, natural roles, etc.?

I don't put too much value into these kinds of statistics on their own, but it's obviously better for Minnesota if they're performing well in every metric available. That must mean they're playing pretty good basketball and they have been this year. Love it.

I like your take-aways, Cam. This stat has limited value, but it's not entirely without value as an assessment tool. I especially like your question about DLO, DeRozan and Zach LaVine. I don't think you intended it entirely as a rhetorical question, but I also sense you suspect that a player's plus/minus has a lot to do with the quality of the teammates surrounding him and whether he's put in a role that fits his talents. No one could reasonably disagree with that.

DeMar DeRozan is legitimately a better player this year. He's at a career high in TS% and PPG - which is a powerful combination. So to me his turnaround in +/- is very much linked to actually being a better player, which is kind of crazy given the fact he's 32 years old. It's very rare to see a perimeter player have a career year at that age.

DLO has had a noticeable uptick in the "give a shit" meter on defense. All of us have seen that with our own eyes.

And LaVine really started to turn around his poor historical +/- ratings last year, when he made a noticeable leap in shooting efficiency (which he has largely maintained this season).

So while I think there is definitely a system fit/player personnel angle that can partially explain their uptick in +/-, these guys have legitimately improved as individual players as well.