05/11/25
March 10, 2011
Why can't basketball stats nerds separate the superstars from the ball hogs?: "To number-crunching nerds raised on baseball, in which pitcher and batter compete in statistically delicious one-on-one duels, such messy "interaction effects" are a lumpy blemish in the box score. In January, seasoned baseball sabermetrician (and occasional Slate contributor) Phil Birnbaum argued in his blog that basketball's so-called "advanced" box-score stats are so gnarled with this problem that they can't be trusted. (He went so far as to call them "the RBIs of basketball"—a brutal insult to lovers of well-validated statistics.) Is Birnbaum right? Is this why people can't agree on the value of Carmelo?"
posted by rumple to basketball at 03:30 PM - 0 comments