Last Friday, ESPN’s Henry Abbott delved into the short career of Kevin Durant in a post titled “The Kevin Durant Conundrum.” Abbott skimmed the surface of the statistical movement in basketball, while pointing out that one of the most common new stats in basketball (+/- rating) say Durant is “one of the Thunder’s worst players.”
Now, if Abbott said that Durant will be one of the worst players on the 2012 Olympics team it would be ridiculous. Twenty-one-year-old, 6′9″ forward-guards with his ability to score (which is pretty much anyway he wants) are welcome on my team any time. I can find a way to get past the fact that his team was outscored by 501 points when he was on the floor last season.
Two years ago, I would have taken him over Greg Oden, and right now, there’s only a handful of people in the league I’d rather have. So, for this one statistic, especially one as unproven and simplistic as +/- rating, to say he’s one of the worst players on the Thunder, makes me more inclined to stop believing in math than it does for me to stop thinking Durant is going to be a superstar.
Plus/minus rating can’t change my opinion of Durant heading into this season. (And it seemingly can’t change the opinion of a lot of NBA GMs. Despite, Durant’s poor rating, he was voted the most likely to have a breakout season in the annual NBA GM survey. Still, I appreciate people a lot smarter than me looking to math to find more efficient ways to scout players, determine a player’s importance to his team and try to gain an edge for their team.
In some ways, front offices are getting closer to improving statistical analysis. “The No-Stats All-Star,” an article by Michael Lewis for The New York Times Magazine, further describes these advances and ways teams have improved finding value in players outside of points and assists. Despite improvements, basketball has yet to be fully Bill Jamesed; there is no VORP or WAR to appropriately values a player’s worth to his team, and who knows if there every will be.
Saying this, what I don’t understand is the harsh, vindictive reaction to Abbott and his article. I know you shouldn’t take everything you read on the Internet seriously, but reading some of the comments attached to the article makes you wonder about how these people can even figure out how to use a computer.
For example:
abbott i hope espn fires your dumb ####
worst blog topic ever, abbott u are a complete ####
In case you can’t figure it out, #### means some form of a curse word. When I skimmed the comments, I played Mad Libs with the ####.
And my personal favorite:
this article makes me want to come to your house and take a s-h-i-t on your front steps.
Those tricky ESPN commenters, using -’s to get through the censors.
It’s funny because when it comes to Durant, I’m on the same page with the guy who misspells the writer’s name and uses “i,” instead of “I.” I think Durant is going to have a great season, 30 points per game is a distinct possibility. But, if he scores 30 points per game, and the Thunder are still bad, I’d like to know why.
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