The Larry Miller batting average
Hope you enjoyed the Larry Miller series over the weekend. I talked to one of our editors who said it was the most viewed set of stories on sltrib.com in a long time. Here's one more tidbit, for those of you who are interested in how the owner of the Jazz thinks.
For all those John Hollinger fans, Miller told me he uses his own statistical system to assess a player's value and contribution.
It's pretty simple: Add up points, rebounds, steals, blocks and assists. Subtract fouls, turnovers and shots taken. Then divide by minutes played. This gives you what Miller calls a player's batting average, to borrow from baseball.
Miller can figure it out approximately in his head after every game. When we talked, he was excited that Andrei Kirilenko's batting average for the Jazz's first preseason game (10 points, eight rebounds, four blocks) was .583. He's now at .490.
A player with a batting average of .300 usually approaches All-Star status, Miller said. A player with a .400 average is definitely an All-Star and a player with a .500 average is a likely MVP candidate. Karl Malone's career average, which Miller cited, was .457.
What's remarkable, Miller said, is how accurate he believes the formula to be. That's part of the reason the Jazz calculate it at the end of every season for every player in the NBA, then cross-check it against a couple of other statistical ratings.
Over the years, it regularly spit out John Stockton as the NBA's top point guard, Michael Jordan as the top shooting guard, Larry Bird as the top small forward, Malone as the top power forward and Shaquille O'Neal as the top center, Miller said.
We'll see if Ronnie Brewer can keep up his .521 average for the rest of the season.
--Ross Siler
For all those John Hollinger fans, Miller told me he uses his own statistical system to assess a player's value and contribution.
It's pretty simple: Add up points, rebounds, steals, blocks and assists. Subtract fouls, turnovers and shots taken. Then divide by minutes played. This gives you what Miller calls a player's batting average, to borrow from baseball.
Miller can figure it out approximately in his head after every game. When we talked, he was excited that Andrei Kirilenko's batting average for the Jazz's first preseason game (10 points, eight rebounds, four blocks) was .583. He's now at .490.
A player with a batting average of .300 usually approaches All-Star status, Miller said. A player with a .400 average is definitely an All-Star and a player with a .500 average is a likely MVP candidate. Karl Malone's career average, which Miller cited, was .457.
What's remarkable, Miller said, is how accurate he believes the formula to be. That's part of the reason the Jazz calculate it at the end of every season for every player in the NBA, then cross-check it against a couple of other statistical ratings.
Over the years, it regularly spit out John Stockton as the NBA's top point guard, Michael Jordan as the top shooting guard, Larry Bird as the top small forward, Malone as the top power forward and Shaquille O'Neal as the top center, Miller said.
We'll see if Ronnie Brewer can keep up his .521 average for the rest of the season.
--Ross Siler
5:58 PM
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4 Comments:
That's awesome! A simple way to numerically assess a player's performance, that apparently has proven to be accurate. Thanks for sharing Miller's "Batting Average" with us Ross.
According to a comment on fanhouse, here's last year's top 10:
Duncan 0.516140866
Camby 0.496624473
Garnett 0.474457429
Gasol 0.466479137
Howard 0.462454515
Boozer 0.455220962
Ming 0.437192118
Lee 0.433853264
Bosh 0.427012792
Stoudemire 0.425436965
Seems like this formula over-values rebounds.
This is fascinating. Thanks for letting us in on the Jazz' system of evaluating players. Looking at the list of last years top ten it seems weighted in the direction of big men. Perhaps comparisons across positions are not as helpful as comparisons within positions. I'd like to see the batting average of each Jazz player published after each game, as well as a running season average, and maybe even a running career average. That would be very interesting. Thanks again.
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