Player Efficiency Ratings—A Bold ESPN Article Gets it Exactly Wrong

Tom Haberstroh, credited as a “Special to ESPN Insider” in his byline, writes this 16 paragraph article, about how “Carmelo Anthony is not an elite player.” Haberstroh boldly — if not effectively — argues that Carmelo’s high shot volume and correspondingly pedestrian Player Efficiency Rating suggests that not only is ‘Melo not quite the superstar his high scoring average makes him out to be, but that he is not even worth the max contract he will almost certainly get next summer.  Haberstroh further argues that this case is, in fact, a perfect example of why people should stop paying as much attention to Points Per Game and start focusing instead on PER’s.

I have a few instant reactions to this article that I thought I would share:

  1. Anthony may or may not be overrated, and many of Haberstroh’s criticisms on this front are valid — e.g., ‘Melo does have a relatively low shooting percentage — but his evidence is ultimately inconclusive.
  2. Haberstroh’s claim that Anthony is not worth a max contract is not supported at all.  How many players are “worth” max contracts?  The very best players, even with their max contracts, are incredible value for their teams (as evidenced by the fact that they typically win).  Corollary to this, there are almost certainly a number of players who are *not* the very best, who nevertheless receive max contracts, and who still give their teams good value at their price.  (This is not to mention the fact that players like Anthony, even if they are overrated, still sell jerseys, increase TV ratings, and put butts in seats.)
  3. One piece of statistical evidence that cuts against Haberstroh’s argument is that Carmelo has a very solid win/loss +/- with the Nuggets over his career.  With Melo in the lineup, Denver has won 59.9% of their games (308-206), and without him in the lineup over that period, they have won 50% (30-30).  While 10% may not sound like much, it is actually elite and compares favorably to the win/loss +/- of many excellent players, such as Chris Bosh (9.1%, and one of the top PER players in the league) and Kobe Bryant (4.1%).  All of these numbers should be treated with appropriate skepticism due to the small sample sizes, but they do trend accurately.

But the main point I would like to make is that — exactly opposite Haberstrom — I believe Carmelo Anthony is, in fact, a good example of why people should be *more* skeptical of PER’s as the ultimate arbiter of player value. One of the main problems with PER is that it attempts to account for whether a shot’s outcome is good or bad relative to the average shot, but it doesn’t account for whether the outcome is good or bad relative to the average shot taken in context.  The types of shots a player is asked to take vary both dramatically and systematically, and can thus massively bias his PER.  Many “bad” shots, for example, are taken out of necessity: when the clock is winding down and everyone is defended, someone has to chuck it up.  In that situation, “bad” shooting numbers may actually be good, if they are better than what a typical player would have done.  If the various types of shots were distributed equally, this would all average out in the end, and would only be relevant as a matter of precision.  But in reality, certain players are asked to take the bad shot more often that others, and those players are easy enough to find: they tend to be the best players on their teams.

This doesn’t mean I think PER is useless, or irreparably broken.  Among other things, I think it could be greatly improved by incorporating shot-clock data as a proxy to model the expected value of each shot (which I hope to write more about in the future).  However, in its current form it is far from being the robust and definitive metric that many basketball analysts seem to believe.  Points Per Game may be an even more useless metric — theoretically — but at least it’s honest.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *