The "ORtg" advanced stat is absurd

[G-train]

Relax... I'm not a proponent of the stat. I haven't really looked into how exactly its formulated, how that formulation came to be, nor have I ever heard anyone use it as a basis for an argument.

I am however a proponent of understanding advanced metrics before you either use them in argument, or completely trash their relevance.

Would have thought it was a pretty calm post, containing a simple question.
You came out pretty aggressive towards OP.

[BankShot]

After looking into the ORtg.... here's an interesting excerpt from the creator and author of the publication in which it made its first appearance:

In a later chapter of Basketball on Paper, Oliver emphasized that Offensive Ratings shouldn't be viewed in a vacuum. Introducing a concept he called "Skill Curves", he acknowledged that a player's ORtg needed to be judged in conjunction with his Usage Rate, a measure of how big a role the player fills in his team's offense. The bigger the role, the more difficult it is to maintain a high ORtg; the smaller the role, the easier it is to be highly efficient. Because of this, Oliver stressed that a player's ORtg should primarily be compared to those of other players in a similar role.

LOL even the creator explicitly has said its not the end-all-be-all rationale for player judgement and that it has its limitations.

[BankShot]

Would have thought it was a pretty calm post, containing a simple question.
You came out pretty aggressive towards OP.

[BankShot]

Sure, I just found the all-time ranking interesting. Was not expecting to see Chris Paul at the top. Now Charles Barkley and Adrian Dantley in the top 10 doesn't surprise me. But then it has Sydney Moncrief ahead of both of them. I would like to know exactly what the formula is trying to measure. Or what it means and how you can apply it. Nobody is going to say Moncrief was a superior scorer to Jordan. You wouldn't even troll that. So what does it mean to have him 8 spots ahead of MJ? If they both had 100 possessions, are we really going to say that Sid the Squid would score (or facilitate) more points?

As far as I can gather, its yet another examination of statistical production that attempts to take many single metrics and combine them into a encompassing metric to quantitatively express a player's impact on the court.

This impact is gauged by point production versus usage.

As for the actual "rankings"..... its not really an ordinal system where the difference between 1-2 is the same as 8-9 and so on. I haven't seen the values associated with the top 10 or 20 or whatever, so I won't comment on how much better one's career ORtg is than another's.

[DMAVS41]

As far as I can gather, its yet another examination of statistical production that attempts to take many single metrics and combine them into a encompassing metric to quantitatively express a player's impact on the court.

This impact is gauged by point production versus usage.

As for the actual "rankings"..... its not really an ordinal system where the difference between 1-2 is the same as 8-9 and so on. I haven't seen the values associated with the top 10 or 20 or whatever, so I won't comment on how much better one's career ORtg is than another's.

It's really not hard. It's an estimate of how many points said player produces while trying to use a possession to score.

When comparing players...you simply need to look at similar scoring volumes and usages otherwise it is pretty worthless. But that is literally true with almost any stat. Nobody cares that Tyson Chandler has a better fg% than Kobe because we factor in Kobe scoring 3 times as many points or whatever it is.

So comparing Chandler and Kobe on offensive rating or fg% does not make sense. But comparing Lebron and Kobe on these metrics make a lot more sense.

It's not hard. It's just Kobe stans trying discredit every single metric other than ppg. They really, honestly, just want to go back in time when people thought ppg was all that matters.

[BankShot]

Nobody cares that Tyson Chandler has a better fg% than Kobe because we factor in Kobe scoring 3 times as many points or whatever it is.

Even then, without further context of where their shots are taken from, usage isn't even a proper variable if one was to compare Kobe and Chandler in terms of offensive impact.

All of these things are very small pieces of a large complex puzzle when trying to quantitatively compare players

[DMAVS41]

Even then, without further context of where their shots are taken from, usage isn't even a proper variable if one was to compare Kobe and Chandler in terms of offensive impact.

All of these things are very small pieces of a large complex puzzle when trying to quantitatively compare players

Of course they are all part of the big puzzle. I actually made that exact point in another thread.

My point is that you compare like with like. You don't compare a 10ppg scorer to a 30ppg scorer.

Trying to invalidate what a measure is in that way is just lazy and probably dishonest.

Same thing with PER...people think it's invalidated because sometimes a player rates higher than expected

[gts]

Even then, without further context of where their shots are taken from, usage isn't even a proper variable if one was to compare Kobe and Chandler in terms of offensive impact.

All of these things are very small pieces of a large complex puzzle when trying to quantitatively compare players

This...

Most stats are not for comparing players to players on other teams or eras. they're created for looking at a certain player within his team environment.

[BankShot]

Of course they are all part of the big puzzle. I actually made that exact point in another thread.

My point is that you compare like with like. You don't compare a 10ppg scorer to a 30ppg scorer.

Trying to invalidate what a measure is in that way is just lazy and probably dishonest.

Same thing with PER...people think it's invalidated because sometimes a player rates higher than expected

I agree what your'e saying with the like-with-like idea.... and how people try to invalidate advanced metrics because "Player X is higher than Player Y, but Player Y is a 10-time allstar.

I've said all along that it comes down to actually taking the time to critically think about what these metrics are conveying.

Take PER for instance.... its a per-minute accrual of basic statistical output. Everybody got in a huff about Eddy Curry having like a 35 PER a couple years ago at one point... but if they took the time to think about his stats and what PER means, they'd realize that he was averaging like 30/20/2 per-36 because he only played 2 minutes.

[zoom17]

I know is is off topic but I think the QBR rating is really absurd.

[I<3NBA]

i like stats. it's a science. science is better than religion. stats>eye test

[Young X]

That's because you don't understand what it means. It's a points per possession (efficiency) stat that doesn't factor in volume, it's not a "who's a better player" stat. The player with the higher ORTG is the player that used his possessions more efficiently. Plain and simple.

Player A: 20 pts on 50 TS% with 5 assists and 6 turnovers
Player B: 20 pts on 60 TS% with 5 assists and 2 turnovers

Player B used his possessions more efficiently and will have the higher ORTG. Simple.

[TheMarkMadsen]

Shaqs 2001 regular season, considered by most to be the MDE during this period..

his ORtg in 2001 was 114

Chris Bosh's Ortg in 06 was 118..

Chris Bosh a better offensive player than 2001 Shaq?

Bosh has had 6 or more seasons with a higher ORtg than 2001 Shaq


@ people defending this stat, it's hot garbage

[Young X]

Shaqs 2001 regular season, considered by most to be the MDE during this period..

his ORtg in 2001 was 114

Chris Bosh's Ortg in 06 was 118..

Chris Bosh a better offensive player than 2001 Shaq?

Bosh has had 6 or more seasons with a higher ORtg than 2001 Shaq


@ people defending this stat, it's hot garbage

No, it's saying Chris Bosh used his possessions more efficiently than Shaq without looking at volume. It's an efficiency stat only. Chris Bosh in '06 was more efficient than Shaq in '01.

[Marchesk]

i like stats. it's a science. science is better than religion. stats>eye test

There are lies, damned lies, and Lebron stans.