Kobe vs Lebron: Who is the better player?

[mngopher35]

That doesn't explain not including CP3, which when included supports what I was saying. The problem with using those other guys is that like you said theyre not average on other aspects of the game, which means those other aspects are helping to make up for the inefficient shooting.

What Hollinger did is the right way to examine that impact shooting has on PER. To examine the direct impact of any variable, you have to hold other variables constant, which is what Hollinger is doing my assuming the average. It's a common practice in statistics actually to do what he did. To examine this question, we actually can't look at what players are doing because those other variables will drive up PER. Instead, we have to approach it purely from a mathematics perspective, which is what Hollinger did. What it amounts to is saying when we hold everything else constant at the league average, a player has to shoot efficiently to reach the league PER average.

He gave examples and the passing players are like Magic and Kidd and Nash and Stockton already, sure add CP3. The reason they may end up higher still is the others are like Gentile/Melo. They are better players, again common sense. So why does PER put all time great passers close to the level of guys like that is the question you should be asking?

You seem to not understand the basic concept of PER and what is being pointed out. Did you read the articles? Do you understand that shooting high volume at low efficiency can still raise your PER? You are essentially just repeating what you already said about Hollinger without actually addressing any of the obvious issues being pointed out overall and in relation to what he said. Sure if everything else was average a player would have to be more efficient but if that player had a higher volume of shots then what? That is the issue and as I covered as did the articles that is where PER benefits... people that shoot MORE. You can not have everything be average and it is still mathematics lol. I am not saying shooting innefficient is the best way to raise PER, I am noting that shooting a high volume inefficiently can still raise your PER even if not actually helpful to the team because the % is far below average the volume makes up for it with this statistic.

[Big Moves03]

He gave examples and the passing players are like Magic and Kidd and Nash and Stockton already, sure add CP3. The reason they may end up higher still is the others are like Gentile/Melo. They are better players, again common sense. So why does PER put all time great passers close to the level of guys like that is the question you should be asking?

You seem to not understand the basic concept of PER and what is being pointed out. Did you read the articles? Do you understand that shooting high volume at low efficiency can still raise your PER? You are essentially just repeating what you already said about Hollinger without actually addressing any of the obvious issues being pointed out overall and in relation to what he said. Sure if everything else was average a player would have to be more efficient but if that player had a higher volume of shots then what? That is the issue and as I covered as did the articles that is where PER benefits... people that shoot MORE. You can not have everything be average and it is still mathematics lol. I am not saying shooting innefficient is the best way to raise PER, I am noting that shooting a high volume inefficiently can still raise your PER even if not actually helpful to the team because the % is far below average the volume makes up for it with this statistic.

No, shooting at high volume at low efficiency cannot raise PER if you are not above average on the other variables. That was the point Hollinger was making. If you have nothing above average, then you have to shoot above average to raise your PER. Volume shooting below the average won't do it. This also does not speak to my point that unless you have a super high percentage shot, you're better off passing.

[mngopher35]

No, shooting at high volume at low efficiency cannot raise PER if you are not above average on the other variables. That was the point Hollinger was making. If you have nothing above average, then you have to shoot above average to raise your PER. Volume shooting below the average won't do it. This also does not speak to my point that unless you have a super high percentage shot, you're better off passing.

You missed my post on Magic compared to AI, maybe addressing that will help you understand.

Here I will use one example quoted from the article to show this further and how shooting more at a poor volume will still raise a players PER. We are not talking about the other factors like rebounding etc. here this is just how volume scoring affects PER and Hollinger only focused on efficiency with everything average not this aspect as I keep noting.

For the 2016 season, using inputs from the average team, that field goal percentage is about 32.4%. This means that if a player only increased his 2-pointer field goal attempts with even just a field goal percentage of 33, his PER would increase, all other things being equal. Let’s take an example: say, oh I don’t know, Brook Lopez had decided to take 400 more midrange shots last season, because he’s funny like that, and we’ll assume this didn’t affect his free throw totals. We’ll also assume his team’s ratio of assists to field goals also didn’t change. Out of those 400, he made 140 for a field goal percentage on those shots of 35. What would happen to his PER?

Running through the numbers, his PER would increase slightly from 21.7 to 22.2. I know that’s not much, but there’s no penalty either for some awful efficiency. His true shooting percentage would fall from 56.2 percent to 51.3 percent, and his team would have almost certainly lost more games. Of course, it’s better to be efficient; if he had made 60 percent of those shots, his PER would be 27.3.

So when you have X as your averages already just shooting more at a very inefficient rate like 35% STILL raises a players PER. This is exactly what myself and Valade were pointing out so long as you are over a certain extremely low threshold simply shooting more will raise your PER. Doing so even just close to league average levels will raise it even more than like worst all time %'s like this too.

Well I noted the Magic/AI comparison already and it seems to show the greatest passer of all time not matching up with a volume scorer like AI. This actually does kind of show your point might be off base but you haven't addressed that comparison yet.

[valade16]

If we want to include Chris Paul we must include the other high scoring guys I omitted because I figured using inferior scoring players to superior passing ones would demonstrate my point.

Paul’s PER is 25.1.

KD’s is 25.2.
Wilts is 26.1 (and his highest PER seasons came when he was scoring not passing)
Shaq’s is 26.4
AD’s is 27.4
Bron’s is 27.5
MJ’s is 27.9


The guys who score more have higher PERs than the guys who pass more (like CP3).

You simply don’t know what you’re talking about here...

[Big Moves03]

You missed my post on Magic compared to AI, maybe addressing that will help you understand.

Here I will use one example quoted from the article to show this further and how shooting more at a poor volume will still raise a players PER. We are not talking about the other factors like rebounding etc. here this is just how volume scoring affects PER and Hollinger only focused on efficiency with everything average not this aspect as I keep noting.



So when you have X as your averages already just shooting more at a very inefficient rate like 35% STILL raises a players PER. This is exactly what myself and Valade were pointing out so long as you are over a certain extremely low threshold simply shooting more will raise your PER. Doing so even just close to league average levels will raise it even more than like worst all time %'s like this too.

Well I noted the Magic/AI comparison already and it seems to show the greatest passer of all time not matching up with a volume scorer like AI. This actually does kind of show your point might be off base but you haven't addressed that comparison yet.

I did read the article and yes, it seems to be showing that the penalty for shooting a lower percentage isn't super low (it is still there though)...so long as the usage rate is really high though. Fair enough, but that was never really my point. My point was that there is a greater benefit to assisting on baskets than there is to scoring (especially if you're not taking super high percentage shots), because the penalty associated with getting an assist is lower (given the lower relative likelihood of a turnover compared to missing a shot) than the penalty associated with missing a shot (given the much higher likelihood of missing than of turning it over on a pass).

The magic/AI comparison is just a single instance though. PER is going to be inflated based on usage and AI simply had a super high usage rate that season. I believe that PER (I could be wrong though) is adjusted based on league averages for that season so it's not just a direct comparison where we can say Player A had an X number of assists and Player B had an X number of points. I really don't think it's useful to compare players' PER here because there's a bunch of other factors. For example, AI averaged over twice as many ft attempts in 01 as magic did in 84. AI also shot 12% higher from 3 than magic did.

[Big Moves03]

If we want to include Chris Paul we must include the other high scoring guys I omitted because I figured using inferior scoring players to superior passing ones would demonstrate my point.

Paul’s PER is 25.1.

KD’s is 25.2.
Wilts is 26.1 (and his highest PER seasons came when he was scoring not passing)
Shaq’s is 26.4
AD’s is 27.4
Bron’s is 27.5
MJ’s is 27.9


The guys who score more have higher PERs than the guys who pass more (like CP3).

You simply don’t know what you’re talking about here...

As I already noted, the guys who score more do a lot of things more than guys who pass more. They tend to have more blocks, rebounds, higher fg%, take more ft, and also usually put up a decent number of assists themselves. Not that it matters, but big men don't belong in this discussion for various reasons (e.g., they have inflated fg% because a lot or most of their shots are super high percentage and are at the rim and they get a ton of rebounds and tend to not turn the ball over as much because they don't handle it as often); LBJ also doesn't belong on the shooters list because he's a super high passer (didnt he lead the league in assists this season?) At any rate, as I've noted, we shouldn't be comparing players here for all of the noted reasons.

[mngopher35]

I did read the article and yes, it seems to be showing that the penalty for shooting a lower percentage isn't super low (it is still there though)...so long as the usage rate is really high though. Fair enough, but that was never really my point. My point was that there is a greater benefit to assisting on baskets than there is to scoring, because the penalty associated with getting an assist is lower (given the lower relatively low likelihood of a turnover) than the penalty associated with missing a shot (given the much higher likelihood of missing than of turning it over on a pass).

The magic/AI comparison is just a single instance though. PER is going to be inflated based on usage and AI simply had a super high usage rate that season. I believe that PER (I could be wrong though) is adjusted based on league averages for that season so it's not just a direct comparison where we can say Player A had an X number of assists and Player B had an X number of points. I really don't think it's useful to compare players' PER here because there's a bunch of other factors. For example, AI averaged over twice as many ft attempts in 01 as magic did in 84.

It notes a similar threshold Valade mentioned earlier, it essentially reinforced that point he made previously to you. Your point has been trying to ignore this and tell him he is off base but he was actually on point. You haven't actually proven your point in any meaningful way though while this can clearly be done with his. So he has statistical backing to what he is saying and you have an opinion pushed while seemingly arguing against how the stat actually works in relation to scoring. What you describe has tons of variables involved but I would be interested to see how you decide which is better in a clear manner broken down statistically like I just did.

It is an instance that shows how a player can rebound more, be more efficient scoring, and be the best passer of all time leading the league in assists yet still have a lower PER to someone who has volume scoring over him. EXACTLY. Shooting more raises your usage lol that is the point. Your usage isn't going to raise as much being a passer like Magic even when the best in the league it just does not work that way. That is also why Kidd and Nash are lower in usage as well because volume shooting is raising usage more than all time great passers. This is what helps show your points on this are off base as even the greatest passers ever don't benefit from their passing as much as a volume scorer like AI. PER benefits volume scorers more than passers and while this is just one example you can also do the same with those other players too this one is just a clear extreme where he rebounds and was more efficient scoring while being a top 10 player all time on top. If that type of passer is lower in PER than a volume scorer like AI you have a lot of explaining to do about the points you are trying to make about passing being better.

[valade16]

As I already noted, the guys who score more do a lot of things more than guys who pass more. They tend to have more blocks, rebounds, higher fg%, take more ft, and also usually put up a decent number of assists themselves. Not that it matters, but big men don't belong in this discussion for various reasons (e.g., they have inflated fg% because a lot or most of their shots are super high percentage and are at the rim and they get a ton of rebounds and tend to not turn the ball over as much because they don't handle it as often); LBJ also doesn't belong on the shooters list because he's a super high passer (didnt he lead the league in assists this season?) At any rate, as I've noted, we shouldn't be comparing players here for all of the noted reasons.

LeBron is a good example of scoring being more valuable than passing. Yes Bron led the league in assists this year, his PER was 25.5. He led the league in scoring in 08. His PER was 29.1.

Your the one who made the claim and wanted to compare scorers PER to passers PER and now you’re saying we shouldn’t? Listen to Gopher, I was correct in saying being a high volume scorer is going to positively impact your PER more than being a high volume passer.

And I agree, we shouldn’t be using PER because it’s a very flawed stat. Which was my original point. Regardless of whether you think it’d be advantageous to pass to improve your PER, the stats we use today (such as PIPM or CORP) you cannot protect your score in the stat by playing bad basketball (like passing up open shots), so your entire premise is moot.

[Big Moves03]

It notes a similar threshold Valade mentioned earlier, it essentially reinforced that point he made previously to you. Your point has been trying to ignore this and tell him he is off base but he was actually on point. You haven't actually proven your point in any meaningful way though while this can clearly be done with his. So he has statistical backing to what he is saying and you have an opinion pushed while seemingly arguing against how the stat actually works in relation to scoring. What you describe has tons of variables involved but I would be interested to see how you decide which is better in a clear manner broken down statistically like I just did.

It is an instance that shows how a player can rebound more, be more efficient scoring, and be the best passer of all time leading the league in assists yet still have a lower PER to someone who has volume scoring over him. EXACTLY. Shooting more raises your usage lol that is the point. Your usage isn't going to raise as much being a passer like Magic even when the best in the league it just does not work that way. That is also why Kidd and Nash are lower in usage as well because volume shooting is raising usage more than all time great passers. This is what helps show your points on this are off base as even the greatest passers ever don't benefit from their passing as much as a volume scorer like AI. PER benefits volume scorers more than passers and while this is just one example you can also do the same with those other players too this one is just a clear extreme where he rebounds and was more efficient scoring while being a top 10 player all time on top. If that type of passer is lower in PER than a volume scorer like AI you have a lot of explaining to do about the points you are trying to make about passing being better.

Valade said that even if you miss shots it helps PER. That was not correct, although it is possible he misspoke. All this shows is that if you take enough shots and shoot at a high enough percentage, it will slightly increase your PER (very, very slightly over a simulated number of unrealistic additional shots). This is merely a side point though. How is that relevant to what I said about assists? All this is saying is that if you shoot enough you can overcome the penalty of misses. It in no way speaks to the point about assists I was making.

As to the Magic/AI comparison this is again not an appropriate comparison (I believe one of the links you sent me explicitly states that only players who have similar minutes should be compared; for the record, AI played over 4 additional minutes per game than magic did). Also, as I noted, these numbers cannot be compared directly. Magic averaged 7 or so rebounds per game in 84 (but that is normed to the league average in 84). AI averaged something like 4..the difference is 3 rebounds, but that's not the true difference in PER because all of these numbers are normed to the league average for that specific year. AI also had a decent number of assists and had fewer turnovers and more steals than Magic. AI also shot about 11% higher from 3 than magic. All of those things make a critical difference (and also those additional 5 fta per game.

The issue with looking at any players here, but especially someone like AI is that AI did a ton of other things. He averaged 6 assists per game for his career and had several seasons where he was over 7 per game he also averaged almost 4 rebounds per game and had a few where he was close to 5 per game. AI also led the league in steals 3 consecutive seasons and averaged over 2 per game for his career. AI also averaged 9 fta per game for his career. These are going to lead to really high PERs so it's silly to compare someone like that to someone like Stockton.

[valade16]

Valade said that even if you miss shots it helps PER. That was not correct, although it is possible he misspoke. All this shows is that if you take enough shots and shoot at a high enough percentage, it will slightly increase your PER (very, very slightly over a simulated number of unrealistic additional shots). This is merely a side point though. How is that relevant to what I said about assists? All this is saying is that if you shoot enough you can overcome the penalty of misses. It in no way speaks to the point about assists I was making.

As to the Magic/AI comparison this is again not an appropriate comparison (I believe one of the links you sent me explicitly states that only players who have similar minutes should be compared; for the record, AI played over 4 additional minutes per game than magic did). Also, as I noted, these numbers cannot be compared directly. Magic averaged 7 or so rebounds per game in 84 (but that is normed to the league average in 84). AI averaged something like 4..the difference is 3 rebounds, but that's not the true difference in PER because all of these numbers are normed to the league average for that specific year. AI also had a decent number of assists and had fewer turnovers and more steals than Magic. AI also shot about 11% higher from 3 than magic. All of those things make a critical difference (and also those additional 5 fta per game.

The issue with looking at any players here, but especially someone like AI is that AI did a ton of other things. He averaged 6 assists per game for his career and had several seasons where he was over 7 per game he also averaged almost 4 rebounds per game and had a few where he was close to 5 per game. AI also led the league in steals 3 consecutive seasons and averaged over 2 per game for his career. AI also averaged 9 fta per game for his career. These are going to lead to really high PERs so it's silly to compare someone like that to someone like Stockton.

Why do you persist in repeating this lie? I quoted my statement TWICE showing you I did not say that.

You want to know why I respond to you unkindly? Because you do stuff like this. Stop lying and maybe you’ll get respect.

[Big Moves03]

LeBron is a good example of scoring being more valuable than passing. Yes Bron led the league in assists this year, his PER was 25.5. He led the league in scoring in 08. His PER was 29.1.

Your the one who made the claim and wanted to compare scorers PER to passers PER and now you’re saying we shouldn’t? Listen to Gopher, I was correct in saying being a high volume scorer is going to positively impact your PER more than being a high volume passer.

And I agree, we shouldn’t be using PER because it’s a very flawed stat. Which was my original point. Regardless of whether you think it’d be advantageous to pass to improve your PER, the stats we use today (such as PIPM or CORP) you cannot protect your score in the stat by playing bad basketball (like passing up open shots), so your entire premise is moot.

I never said we should compare players like that, I simply said that the way efficiency metrics are measured, it favors being a high volume passer over being a high volume scorer. In the LBJ example, yes he scored more in 08 and had more assists this season, but he also did a bunch of other things more in 08. LBJ shot double the ft in 08, he had almost twice as many steals, over twice as many blacks per game, and had fewer turnovers. What all of these really show is that you can inflate your PER if you have the ball a lot.

[valade16]

Side note: It shows BigMoves’ ignorance that he says you can’t compare AI’s PER ti Stockton’s because AI did more like lead the league in steals, because so did Stockton lol. Stockton also averaged 17 PPG and grabbed as many rebounds as Iverson.

It’s a great comparison of the relative value of passing vs high volume scoring (even at inefficient levels). But of course it proves him wrong so we can’t use it...

[Big Moves03]

Why do you persist in repeating this lie? I quoted my statement TWICE showing you I did not say that.

You want to know why I respond to you unkindly? Because you do stuff like this. Stop lying and maybe you’ll get respect.

It was in a follow-up comment. Either way, if that's not what you meant then that's fine.

[valade16]

It was in a follow-up comment. Either way, if that's not what you meant then that's fine.

I posted what I meant and have quoted it twice now. You’ve being trying to argue against something I didn’t mean because you know what I meant is correct.

[Big Moves03]

Side note: It shows BigMoves’ ignorance that he says you can’t compare AI’s PER ti Stockton’s because AI did more like lead the league in steals, because so did Stockton lol. Stockton also averaged 17 PPG and grabbed as many rebounds as Iverson.

It’s a great comparison of the relative value of passing vs high volume scoring (even at inefficient levels). But of course it proves him wrong so we can’t use it...

AI did a lot more than just score though. He shot a ton more fts than Stockton and had more rebounds. For what it's worth, (even though again, I dont think we should be making these kinds of comparisons), Stockton has the higher career PER by about 1 pt so making that comparison does actually help my argument because AI scored a lot more pts pre game than AI (10 more pts per game)