The Lazy Statistician - STATRIBUTES SERIES PART II: ATHLETICISM
Posted: Wed Sep 13, 2017 3:09 pm
The Lazy Statistician is back, and this time, we're taking a look at athleticism, one of the most coveted areas of the game. It's long been accepted that points in athleticism are more valuable than points in different attributes. That's why it costs more to train an athletic attribute than a skill attribute.
I did a lot of poking around with athleticism and total attribute points overall, and truth be told, I didn't find much that was really surprising. More points translate to better stats (at least for the 2015 season dataset I've been using). Of course, if I wanted to be really lazy and end it there, I could, but I probably wouldn't get the full 5 article points without some nifty graphs and such.
So let's take a look at the first graphic. This separates the four athletic attributes (jmp, qkn, str, sta) into graded bands and shows both the PER and per 36 minute stats on points, rebounds, assists, steals, and blocks. Here we go:
As a caveat, PER doesn't do much justice for defensive specialists. I'll try to take a look at defense in another article. But as you can see, increases in each individual athletic attribute translate to increases in player efficiency. However, it's not as cut and dry as this graphic would have you believe.
Centers, for example, don't have to be incredibly athletic. The most important attribute for a center to have is strength, and strength tends to correlate positively with rebounds per 36 minutes:
+------+----------+---------+
| str | rp36min | players |
+------+----------+---------+
| 90-100 | 9.882353 | 21 |
| 80-89 | 9.794118 | 11 |
| 60-69 | 9.191489 | 6 |
| <60 | 9.047120 | 8 |
| 70-79 | 8.050633 | 14 |
+------+----------+---------+
There were some outliers dragging down the 70-79 group...guys like Kelly Olynyk, James Peacock, and Jeff Withey, who rank towards the bottom in combined rebounding attributes. However, the 80-89 group had the 2nd lowest average rebounding attributes, but their high strength helped compensate.
In any case, we also see that quickness is an attribute heavily weighted towards height (or lack of height). Thus, it's a no-brainer that quicker players will have more assists...although that's because point guards are the quickest players and playmaking falls under their job description.
Perhaps jump is the most interesting category to look at. All five positions fall relatively evenly at jumping, so that serves as the best indicator to me that athletic attribute points do have the expected effect on stats when you look at the first image in this article.
Finally, let's take a look at athleticism totaled together and its effects on stats for another balancing measure.
This adds up to me, too. You'll notice that the stats rise for blocks and rebounds as the athletic totals lower. This is again because of the decreasing need for athleticism for frontcourt players. Centers will be primarily focused on these two attributes, so there won't be many guards who have less than 200 athleticism. In fact, there are only 2...one is Matthew Dellavedova, and the other is Adrian Wetzel, who is technically listed as a SG on the 2015 rosters, but at 6'11, that's obviously not the case.
In any case, keep the athletic total in mind (strength plus stamina plus jump plus quickness) because in the next comment (I can only add 3 graphics) we'll look at total athleticism and its effect on points per game.
I did a lot of poking around with athleticism and total attribute points overall, and truth be told, I didn't find much that was really surprising. More points translate to better stats (at least for the 2015 season dataset I've been using). Of course, if I wanted to be really lazy and end it there, I could, but I probably wouldn't get the full 5 article points without some nifty graphs and such.
So let's take a look at the first graphic. This separates the four athletic attributes (jmp, qkn, str, sta) into graded bands and shows both the PER and per 36 minute stats on points, rebounds, assists, steals, and blocks. Here we go:
- Screen Shot 2017-09-13 at 2.21.09 PM.png (95.98 KiB) Viewed 722 times
As a caveat, PER doesn't do much justice for defensive specialists. I'll try to take a look at defense in another article. But as you can see, increases in each individual athletic attribute translate to increases in player efficiency. However, it's not as cut and dry as this graphic would have you believe.
- Screen Shot 2017-09-13 at 2.33.23 PM.png (60.41 KiB) Viewed 722 times
Centers, for example, don't have to be incredibly athletic. The most important attribute for a center to have is strength, and strength tends to correlate positively with rebounds per 36 minutes:
+------+----------+---------+
| str | rp36min | players |
+------+----------+---------+
| 90-100 | 9.882353 | 21 |
| 80-89 | 9.794118 | 11 |
| 60-69 | 9.191489 | 6 |
| <60 | 9.047120 | 8 |
| 70-79 | 8.050633 | 14 |
+------+----------+---------+
There were some outliers dragging down the 70-79 group...guys like Kelly Olynyk, James Peacock, and Jeff Withey, who rank towards the bottom in combined rebounding attributes. However, the 80-89 group had the 2nd lowest average rebounding attributes, but their high strength helped compensate.
In any case, we also see that quickness is an attribute heavily weighted towards height (or lack of height). Thus, it's a no-brainer that quicker players will have more assists...although that's because point guards are the quickest players and playmaking falls under their job description.
Perhaps jump is the most interesting category to look at. All five positions fall relatively evenly at jumping, so that serves as the best indicator to me that athletic attribute points do have the expected effect on stats when you look at the first image in this article.
Finally, let's take a look at athleticism totaled together and its effects on stats for another balancing measure.
- Screen Shot 2017-09-13 at 2.58.00 PM.png (58.39 KiB) Viewed 722 times
This adds up to me, too. You'll notice that the stats rise for blocks and rebounds as the athletic totals lower. This is again because of the decreasing need for athleticism for frontcourt players. Centers will be primarily focused on these two attributes, so there won't be many guards who have less than 200 athleticism. In fact, there are only 2...one is Matthew Dellavedova, and the other is Adrian Wetzel, who is technically listed as a SG on the 2015 rosters, but at 6'11, that's obviously not the case.
In any case, keep the athletic total in mind (strength plus stamina plus jump plus quickness) because in the next comment (I can only add 3 graphics) we'll look at total athleticism and its effect on points per game.