The first post of a series used explaining the statistics that have and will be used on this site, noting their strengths, shortcomings, and how they apply to the Knicks.

“The IQ of where to be” comprises a critical facet of a good basketball player’s mind, according to the general manager of the Houston Rockets. Traditional measures of the game rely on the most conspicuous actions to tell the story of the game. When a player attempts a shot, it is the first truly unambiguous point in the path to the basket. Perhaps the play began with a defensive rebound, would it have happened differently if it started with an inbound pass? Maybe the shot, if made, was assisted. But was the shot a product of the pass, or was the assist a product of the shot? But this does not account for shot difficulty (alluded to here). And nor does it account for the ability of the defenders, or the defensive scheme being employed.

There is an obvious dichotomy between the conventional and the novel. The box score is representative of the former, stressing the quantity or volume of statistics over efficiency and defense. But as was alluded to above, it avoids the fact that these statistics are merely the manifestation of a series of events that cannot be each shown numerically.

As such, the first goal of advanced statistics is to peel back the layers of the most popular metrics. Billy Beane is largely credited with launching the statistical revolution in baseball, and working for the strictly-budgeted Oakland Athletics his primarily goal was to find value before the market did – to find bargains. The most popular statistics in baseball are batting averages and home runs. But analyses have shown that an average is function of the defense, hit type, and luck. As a result, sabermetricians have created various metrics to compensate for these shortcomings. Defense can be measured to a degree with Ultimate Zone Rating (UZR); hit types have been split and are tracked as being fly balls, line drives, or groundballs; and luck has been quantified in the form of Batting Average on Balls in Play (BABIP).

In basketball, the same principles apply. What drives successful basketball teams is efficiency, and the currency of basketball is opportunities. Limiting wasted opportunities is inversely related to opportunities for the opposing team. Field goal percentage is a simple way of calculating efficiency, but it values all shots equally. There are, however, new statistics that recognize the different risks and rewards of two-point and three-point attempts. Along with these metrics which focus on shooting, there are new measures that add more layers to efficiency that extend beyond shot attempts. Efficiency is not just the relationship between converted shots and shot attempts, it is ability to make the most of each possession.

Novel statistics may never have the same psychological significance as the normal, perhaps a product of the level at which sports rely on tradition, but as fans crave all the information around and the media works to provide it, it’s key to be able to know how, when, and why advanced statistics should be used.

Photo: Jason Szenes/New York Times