The performance of the rookies is always an interesting story in the NBA. Veteran players have an established track record. Although a few will deviate from this record, for the most part the deviations we observe are relatively small. Rookies, though, are the great unknown. We know what these players …
The Week Twelve Quarterback Rankings The Overall Rankings Jake Plummer is Benched The Denver Broncos are making a bold move, sitting veteran Jake Plummer in favor of rookie Jay Cutler. Plummer has not played particularly well this year. His QB Score per play is 0.54, which is below the mark …
Ben Wallace – relative to the old Big Ben we saw in Detroit, Orlando, and Washington – is not producing much this season for Chicago. Is he shirking? Here is the first sentence from a paper Tony Krautmann (DePaul University) and I published in Economic Inquiry last summer. Opportunistic behavior …
There has been much debate on which player evaluation in the NBA is “better.” Yesterday one of the participants in this discussion – Malcolm Gladwell – weighed in with some much needed perspective. In a post entitled “The Perfect and the Good,” Gladwell notes the role algorithms play in decision-making. …
NOTE TO VISITORS FROM GLADWELL.COM: If you are looking for my response to Hollinger, please look at the post entitled John Hollinger Responds. A few weeks ago I was asked at The Wages of Wins Journal to comment on how the Wins Produced metric differed from John Hollinger’s Player …
In 1964 William Clay Ford became the owner of the Detroit Lions. The franchise he purchased had already existed for 34 years and compiled a regular season mark of 207-179-5, or a winning percentage of 0.532. The team had some post-season success, winning championships in 1932, 1952, 1953, and 1957. …
A couple of weeks ago I was asked to explain how Wins Produced differs from John Hollinger’s Player Efficiency Rating (PER). The post I wrote in response to this question was eventually noted by Malcolm Gladwell, who asked Hollinger to respond. On Wednesday night at TrueHoop, an e-mail from Hollinger …
The Week Eleven Quarterback Rankings The Overall Rankings McNabb Finishes On Top The lead story in Week Eleven is that Donovan McNabb has played his last game in 2006. Because he only attempted 13 passes in week eleven he did not qualify for the rankings this week (you need 14 …
Readers of Malcolm Gladwell’s blog will have noted, with some disappointment, that Gladwell has not posted a new entry since September 29. Today he is back with a post entitled NBA Metrics Continued… . In this post Gladwell comments on the review of John Hollinger’s Player Efficiency Rating offered in …
Last week I noted the impact star players have on home gate revenue and road attendance in the NBA. The punch line: The star power of a player does attract a significant number of fans on the road but has little impact on a home team’s gate revenue. In response …