Individual and Team Stats '96

May 1996

Over the next few weeks, I will be putting stats from the '96 season in here. Currently, I have completed the following teams: When/if my computer is repaired (three weeks and counting), I should be able to churn out these out much faster.

Descriptions of most of the stats I present can be found in The Fundamentals for Analyzing Basketball. There are some miscellaneous columns at the far right and bottom of the stats that can be ignored or you can ask me what they are if you are really interested.

A Couple Comments

If you're careful, you'll notice that summing the individual wins and losses of players on a team doesn't quite reach the actual number of wins for the team, nor does it reach the Pythagorean Projection based on team points. This is a direct indication of the importance of correlation between players on a team. When one player is hot, it helps the others. This is a big project for the summer... if DEC ever fixes my computer.

The offensive rating of Steve Kerr at over 140 is the highest I have ever seen in the 8 years I've been computing the value. Prior to this, I'd seen occasional 130's from Reggie Miller and Terry Porter one season. But 145 is more than 10 points higher than anything I can remember. Note that this does not mean Kerr is the best offensive player in the league. It means that, when he attempts to score, he does it more efficiently than anyone in the league. But we know that Michael Jordan is the driver on this team. Kerr's numbers are so high because he is highly correlated with the performance of other players on the team -- he plays exceptionally well off of them. Kerr has always been a pretty efficient scorer, but playing on such an awesome offensive team makes him look so much better... Kukoc and Harper were also significantly helped by Jordan's presence. Interestingly, Pippen's numbers really didn't change from last year. Always interestingly, Dennis Rodman comes up as a 50% ballplayer using my basic methods, which really don't do an adequate job with him.

Michael Jordan's +7.3 Net Points/48 Minutes is also the highest I've ever seen. I've seen +6 before (from Jordan), but he's outdone himself once again.

Seattle's offensive numbers look strikingly like Houston's did the past two seasons, having one or two players with floor percentages above the league average (of about 0.52), but lots of players with offensive ratings above the league average (of 106.5). This is called a high variance team, one whose style increases its chances of beating favorites -- like Chicago.