Most Overrated NBA players

[ziggy]

http://dberri.wordpress.com/2009/07/26/who-was-the-most-overrated-in-2008-09/

A lot of stuff there, but this is the most pertinent stuff

The Most Overrated

Although Beasley tops the PER list, he is not the most overrated if we consider all three rankings.  If we add together the differences from each comparison the most overrated player in the NBA for 2008-09 is?.. yes, Al Harrington.  Here are the 15 most overrated players if we consider all three perspectives.

1. Al Harrington
2. Rudy Gay
3. Stephen Jackson
4. Andrea Bargnani
5. Danny Granger
6. David West
7. Mehmet Okur
8. Richard Jefferson
9. Jamal Crawford
10. Jermaine O?Neal
11. Charlie Villanueva
12. Jeff Green
13. Richard Hamilton
14. Thaddeus Young
15. Michael Beasley
16. O.J. Mayo
17. LaMarcus Aldridge
18. Carmelo Anthony
19. Ben Gordon
20. Wilson Chandler

One should be clear that ?overrated? does not necessarily mean ?bad.?  Granger and West were above average players [in terms of WP48] this past season.  These players just weren?t as good as the scoring based metrics suggest.

Two more notes:

1. For the WP48 numbers offered in this post, player performance was compared to the exact position played (i.e. center, power forward, etc?).  Over the past year or so in this forum I have only been considering three positions (big men, small forward, guards).  But the numbers used for this post came from a spreadsheet where averages from all five positions were used, so some differences will be observed if you compare these results to past postings.

2. I also took most of the text for this post from what I said about the Most Overrated Players in 2007-08.   In other words, much of this post is a re-run. This seems appropriate since there were players (Richard Jefferson, Rudy Gay, Stephen Jackson, Jamal Crawford, and David West) who managed to repeat an appearance on the overrated list.

UPDATE


Given that I am a Pistons fan, I thought I would note that the Pistons spent their free agent money on two players ranked in the top 20 on the ?overrated? list.  Meanwhile, some very good teams have been shopping from the ?underrated? list (which I will post soon).

[Derek Bodner]

I general I don't feel that basketball sabremetric stats have advanced enough (compared to baseball ones) to be able to isolate a players value well enough to produce an overrated/underrated list based solely on these stats, looking at wp48 in a vacuum.  Particularly on the defensive end (defensive efficiency).

[westkoast]

Half of those guys I don't think are overrated because.....well no NBA fans really rate them that high.  I get the basic idea behind what the article is saying but I don't think a guy like Jamal Crawford gets more attention than he deserves.

[rickortreat]

No-one talks about these players as being franchise makers or anything of the kind. Overrated in whose opinion is the question.

What annoyes me the most is that Thad Young has pretty good stats and is a 2nd year player. How can he be overrated, when he hasn't reached his potential yet?  I think he has the talent to be an all-star, but I'm not saying he is one yet, and no-one else is either.

I think the article is garbage, because it's based on someone's subjective opinion about how good a player is. It makes much more sense to talk about over-payed players relative to others.  There are lots of player who don't perform at a level consistent with their salary. Then again, no one forced their teams to sign them to those deals; they agreed to pay at a certain salary so if anyone is doing the overrating, it's the teams' management that's doing it!

Is Marcin Gortat worth what Orlando paid to keep him from going to Dallas? Obviously they thought so, even though he's a back-up signed just in case Howard gets into foul trouble. They made a choice and decided he was worth going over the cap to keep as a back-up. That doesn't mean he's over-rated, it means that Orlando decided that not having him could be a problem for Orlando's chances.

Sportswriters have a tough time when their sport isn't in season.

[Joe Vancil]

What annoyes me the most is that Thad Young has pretty good stats and is a 2nd year player. How can he be overrated, when he hasn't reached his potential yet?  I think he has the talent to be an all-star, but I'm not saying he is one yet, and no-one else is either.

Doesn't this explain why he made the list?



(Sorry.  Just couldn't lay off the hanging curve ball.)

[Derek Bodner]

Doesn't this explain why he made the list?

I think it explains that he's a 20 year old player.

[ziggy]

I general I don't feel that basketball sabremetric stats have advanced enough (compared to baseball ones) to be able to isolate a players value well enough to produce an overrated/underrated list based solely on these stats, looking at wp48 in a vacuum.  Particularly on the defensive end (defensive efficiency).

First I am not in a position to evaluate the quality of Win Shares as a statistical measurement, other than on an anecdotal basis, and I am sure when I do so I would end up cherry picking the data to make whatever point I want to make.

With regards to this particular article, he compared win shares to PPG scoring, win shares to PER, and win shares to NBA Efficiency.  So this is a comparison of Win Shares to these other measurement systems, and the argument he is making is that, for instance, Al Harrington is rated much higher using the other systems than the win shares rates him, not that Al Harrington is overrated per se, but that win shares rates him far lower than PER, or PPG, or EFF rates him.

One thing that clearly stands out to me though is that of the top 20 players

1. Al Harrington
2. Rudy Gay
3. Stephen Jackson
4. Andrea Bargnani
5. Danny Granger
6. David West
7. Mehmet Okur
8. Richard Jefferson
9. Jamal Crawford
10. Jermaine O?Neal
11. Charlie Villanueva
12. Jeff Green
13. Richard Hamilton
14. Thaddeus Young
15. Michael Beasley
16. O.J. Mayo
17. LaMarcus Aldridge
18. Carmelo Anthony
19. Ben Gordon
20. Wilson Chandler

in general these are players who can put up really nice stats, but that production does not lead to lots of wins.  Now you can make the argument that West, Okur, Hamilton, and Anthony have been winners, so that means that his argument is wrong, or you can place all of this within it appropriate context.

David West -  He is a good solid player, but does he contribute as many wins as PER would suggest, or as many wins as Win Shares would suggest?  Pick a team at random, and ask yourself the impact that he would make on that team.  If West put up his same stats with Indiana would Indiana greatly improve it's win total?  If Chris Paul put up his same stats with Indiana would they greatly improve their win total?  In my opnion at least, and I believe that WS would confirm this, Indiana would not see a significant improvement in wins by replacing their existing PF with David West, maybe 1 or 2, but their win total would improve by 15 if they replaced their PG win Chris Paul.  The difference in WS between Chris Paul and David West is huge (17.4 to 7.7), but the difference in PER or EFF is much smaller.

When I look at this I see a number of players I have always thought of as being highly overrated, and the kind of players who command big salaries, but don't add to a teams win total significantly.  That is the very definition of these players.  Their teams consistently under-achieve, they get paid big money, and they distract you with gawdy stats.

 Al Harrington
 Rudy Gay
 Stephen Jackson
 Andrea Bargnani
 David West
 Richard Jefferson
 Jamal Crawford
 Jermaine O'Neal
 Charlie Villanueva
 Michael Beasley
 O.J. Mayo
 Carmelo Anthony
 Ben Gordon

[Lurker]

Very good discussion, ziggy.  I was thinking along the same lines...that he is basing "overrated" on a comparison with his own stat.  But you put it together well.

In my opnion at least, and I believe that WS would confirm this, Indiana would not see a significant improvement in wins by replacing their existing PF with David West, maybe 1 or 2, but their win total would improve by 15 if they replaced their PG win Chris Paul. 

Partly because Indiana's power forward is the player listed just above West.  And no one would compare Indy's PG of the week with Paul.

I would say West & Granger are very similar players so replacing one with the other would produce about the same.  The basic theory of Wins Shares is to account for the other players on the floor and include some adjustment for defense.