Updated NBA 'Moneyball' Rankings

Not everybody likes it, but analytics are taking root in the NBA.

More and more advanced statistics are being created and used as a way to evaluate players and teams. It's happening relatively slowly, but the use of these stats is permeating through all levels of the NBA—from the front offices to the fans themselves.

One of the challenges stat gurus face is trying to convince non-believers (like Philadelphia 76ers head coach Doug Collins) that these new stats have merit. But, with people like Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey leading the charge, advanced statistics are coming to be accepted and trusted by many involved with the NBA.

As ESPN's Kevin Arnovitz explained, there's a reason that the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference—basically the biggest analytics-based sports conference in the world—has suddenly become popular. People are starting to realize that there might be something to this stat stuff. And beyond that, people are starting to use these stats to get a real edge.

All stats accurate as of 3/23/2013

Honorable Mention: Matthew Goldman and Justin Rao

UC San Diego economics professor Matthew Goldman and Microsoft researcher Justin Rao get honorable mentions because, since they're not a part of the NBA, they can't really use these stats.

Goldman and Rao presented a paper at this year's Sloan Conference that analyzed the situations in which a team should choose to rely primarily on two- or three-point shots.

You can read the paper, “Live by the Three, Die by the Three? The Price of Risk in the NBA,” here (but be warned that it's pretty math-heavy).

Interestingly enough, Goldman and Rao found that it's almost always better for teams to rely on the three-point shot. They said that while teams generally have the right idea when they're down—try to cut the deficit quickly with threes—they play far too safely when they have any kind of lead.

Yahoo! Sports' Dan Devine wrote:

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I guess it sort of boils down to, "Whether you're up big, up little, down big or down little, continue to run your stuff, like the Houston Rockets did when they tied a 3-point record against the Golden State Warriors a few weeks ago." (Provided, of course, your stuff is "looking to shoot 3-pointers rather than 2-pointers," which is true for more teams now than it used to be, but still isn't the case for everyone.)

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It's an interesting finding and goes a long way to explain why there are so many huge comebacks in the NBA. Teams tighten up and try to play too safely when they should instead be doing what they did to give them such a big lead in the first place.

This clearly has practical implications in the NBA, but the question is—will anyone actually use it? Again, few NBA coaches put a lot of faith in advanced stats. Is anyone really going to go against the grain just because a theory is mathematically sound? It's hard to believe, but who knows?

Honorable Mention: Kirk Goldsberry and Eric Weiss

Kirk Goldsberry and Eric Weiss are another pair that made some waves at the Sloan Conference. The two wrote and presented a paper called “The Dwight Effect,” which used SportsVU camera technology to try to determine the best interior defender in the league.

They ultimately found the Milwaukee Bucks' Larry Sanders to be the NBA's top inside presence, but that's actually not the big takeaway from the paper. What's really interesting is the paper's namesake—the “Dwight effect."

Essentially, the “Dwight effect” explains that opposing teams attempt far fewer shots at the rim if certain players (like Dwight Howard) are on the floor defending them. For example, Goldsberry and Weiss found that just 48.2 percent of shots come from near the rim when Dwight is on the defensive end compared to a league average of 57.2 percent.

That's a massive decrease, and along with the “close field-goal percentages” metric (an opponent's field-goal percentage when the qualifying defender is within five feet of the shot attempt), it gives us a whole new way to analyze big men on defense.

Obviously, there are a lot of other factors to consider—most specifically, the perimeter defenders surrounding the big man being evaluated—but it's still incredibly valuable data. Of course, that all depends on if and how NBA front offices use this information. As Yahoo! Sports' Dan Devine wrote:

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The real key, of course, is if Goldsberry and Weiss' analysis of which bigs are best at reducing efficiency up close and getting out to contest a high volume of shots winds up becoming something NBA teams look at more closely come contract time.

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Below-average big men getting huge contracts has been a real problem in the NBA. Again, it's up to the front offices to use it correctly, but this data could go a long way toward properly evaluating (and paying) big men.

No. 5: Dave Benz and Jim Petersen

It’s hard to find anyone associated with the NBA who is more clueless about advanced stats than broadcasters. A lot of broadcasters rely on outdated metrics like points per game or field-goal percentage to analyze a team, even though most people know that these stats simply aren't accurate.

There are only so many times you can hear about things like the Brooklyn Nets’ “stifling defense” (they rank fifth overall in points per game but 16th in defensive efficiency via Basketball-Reference) without wanting to put your foot through the TV.

That’s why it’s important to appreciate guys like Dave Benz and Jim Petersen—the Minnesota Timberwolves' broadcasters. You rarely find broadcasters who understand the importance of pace and efficiency and are willing to at least attempt to educate the general population about them. But Benz and Petersen do it, bless their hearts.

Would it be easier if graphics for things like points per game didn’t keep popping up on the screen and undermine everything they were saying? Of course. But you’ve still got to love the effort.

(Via NBA.com's John Schuhmann)

No. 4: Shane Battier

While most NBA players scorn advanced stats, Shane Battier embraces them. It makes sense considering that Battier is one of the all-time “can’t measure his impact with a box score” guys.

What’s interesting about Battier is that he’s one of the few in the NBA who trusts the numbers more than he trusts himself.

The few players and coaches who use advanced stats usually use them to back up what they know (or what they think they know). But Battier is different. In 2009, when he was a member of the Houston Rockets, he told the New York Times’ Michael Lewis:

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The numbers either refute my thinking or support my thinking, and when there’s any question, I trust the numbers. The numbers don’t lie.

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For players like Battier, “the numbers” refer to a player's tendencies and their abilities at certain aspects of the game. His goal is to force that player into the spots or situations that they are least comfortable. For example, Lewis wrote about a game in which Battier was assigned to guard Kobe Bryant, saying:

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The data essentially broke down the floor into many discrete zones and calculated the odds of Bryant making shots from different places on the court, under different degrees of defensive pressure, in different relationships to other players — how well he scored off screens, off pick-and-rolls, off catch-and-shoots and so on.

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Interestingly enough, the best thing that Battier's doing with his data now (besides playing his typically great defense) might be sharing it. Awful Announcing's Andrew Bucholtz wrote about a Blogs With Balls (a large sports media event) panel earlier this year, in which ESPN's Tom Haberstroh told a story about Battier and teammate LeBron James. Bucholtz wrote:

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He said in the NBA, players like LeBron James have started doing this, citing an example where Shane Battier told James the data supports letting Carmelo Anthony shoot long two-pointers and James started doing so as a result.

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If Battier is getting superstars like LeBron to buy into a data-driven approach, then he deserves every bit of this ranking.

No. 3: Toronto Raptors Analytics Team

Get ready to see something really cool. A number of NBA teams over the years have invested in a camera-tracking system called SportVU. But no one ever really knew what the system did until just recently, when the Toronto Raptors gave Grantland’s Zach Lowe a sneak peek at the system. And it’s awesome.

According to Lowe, the SportVU cameras track player movement in each game, which the Raptors' analytics team eventually turns into the type of thing you see above—a video of Jason Kidd hitting a three-pointer. Here’s what Lowe wrote about the cameras:

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In simple terms: The Raptors' analytics team wrote insanely complex code that turned all those X-Y coordinates from every second of every recorded game into playable video files. The code can recognize everything — when a pick-and-roll occurred, where it occurred, whether the pick actually hit a defender, and the position of all 10 players on the floor as the play unfolded. The team also factored in the individual skill set of every NBA player, so the program understands that Chris Paul is much more dangerous from midrange than Rajon Rondo, and that Roy Hibbert is taller than Al Horford.

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The coolest thing about what the Raptors’ data team is doing involves the translucent circles in each video. Those circles are “ghosts” of the Raptors on the court and are intended to show what that particular Raptor should have been doing on the play. It goes without saying that a system like this has the potential to change the NBA and the way teams approach analytics.

So why isn’t this ranked No. 1? Because while the Raptors’ analytics team is generating incredible data, Toronto is 26-44. Obviously that’s mostly a personnel thing and doesn’t fall on the shoulders of the data team. But it’s still hard to justify giving them the No. 1 ranking this year when the Raptors haven’t really improved.

One thing that’s really interesting about the system is that it clearly shows the disconnect between analytics guys and more traditional basketball thinkers. For example, Alex Rucker, the Raptors’ director of analytics says that, mathematically, every team should shoot many more threes than they do. He told Lowe:

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When you ask coaches what's better between a 28 percent 3-point shot and a 42 percent midrange shot, they'll say the 42 percent shot. And that's objectively false. It's wrong. If LeBron James just jacked a 3 on every single possession, that'd be an exceptionally good offense. That's a conversation we've had with our coaching staff, and let's just say they don't support that approach.

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That’s for sure. Raptors’ head coach Dwane Casey said (via Lowe):

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You can shoot as many 3s as you'd like, but if you don't make them, that philosophy goes out the window. There's always going to be disagreements. Analytics might give you a number, but you can't live by that number.

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Still though, the potential implications of this level of analytics are incredible. We’ll have to wait a few years to see if the SportVU system takes the league by storm and if a compromise between stats guys and traditional NBA thinkers is ever reached.

No. 2: John Hollinger

It should come as no surprise that the man who invented the popular PER metric ranks highly on this list.

John Hollinger was hired into the Memphis Grizzlies' front office not four months ago, but he’s already made one of the best moves of the NBA season in trading Rudy Gay to the Toronto Raptors. And while the deal was financially motivated at its center, you can be sure that analytics played a big role, too.

Honestly, it’s hard to overstate how much trading Gay helped Memphis. Not only did getting Gay’s contract off the books allow the Grizz to avoid a brutal luxury-tax bill, but it also helped to provide the Grizzlies offense with some much-needed spacing.

Though Gay has a star’s reputation, his production with the Grizzlies this season never came close to living up to that. He posted just a 14.2 PER during his time with the Grizzlies (you can bet Hollinger was paying attention to that one) and was one of the least efficient offensive players in the league.

According to Synergy Sports Technology, Gay was the league's 281st-most efficient offensive player when he was with the Grizzlies this season, averaging just 0.85 points per possession (PPP).

To put that in perspective, if a team posted that kind of efficiency, they would easily be the worst offensive squad in NBA history, shattering the pace set by the 2002-03 Denver Nuggets and 1976-77 New Jersey Nets by over seven points per 100 possessions (per Basketball-Reference).

The problem was that Gay, a woeful outside shooter, was taking a ton of deep twos and three-pointers for the Grizzlies (via HoopData). Memphis needed someone to space the floor for Zach Randolph and Marc Gasol, but Gay certainly wasn’t the player to do it.

The newly added Tayshaun Prince, however, is a career 37-percent shooter from deep and a much more attractive option for a team as space-challenged as Memphis.

Throw in the fact that Memphis got a productive young big in Ed Davis, and the deal becomes an absolute robbery. But if you look at Gay as some more traditional thinkers would, the trade doesn't look all that good for Memphis.

After all, Gay is relatively young, scores a lot of points and has the size and athleticism to match up with players like Kevin Durant. Why would you want to trade a guy like that? Clearly Hollinger, one of the first to dive into analytics, didn't see it like that, but you can bet that a lot of other front office guys would have.

Hollinger told NBA.com’s John Schuhmann:

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Rudy was a very good player but Tayshaun’s ability to pass and hit catch-and-shoot jumpers hopefully replaces some of the athleticism and shot-creating ability we gave up in this deal. Defensively we probably get even better, because we still have that 6-9 small forward who can guard, but now we also have an athletic big who plays above the rim in Ed, which is something we really didn’t have before.

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Grizzlies coach Lionel Hollins certainly didn’t love the deal, but his team has gone 18-7 since then, and the long-term benefits speak for themselves.

No. 1: Daryl Morey

Daryl Morey’s No. 1 spot in the “moneyball” rankings was a foregone conclusion as soon as the Houston Rockets traded for James Harden. All that was left was to figure out who was taking second.

Morey took a small gamble in assuming that Harden’s brilliant efficiency with the Oklahoma City Thunder wouldn’t nosedive with the Rockets, but the payoff has been tremendous. Harden’s having quite the season and has transitioned seamlessly to his new role in Houston.

What’s even more impressive is the general effect that Harden has had on the Houston offense. The Rockets rank fourth in the league in offensive efficiency (per Basketball-Reference), and their offensive system is the envy of stat geeks and efficiency gurus everywhere.

The Rockets rely almost solely on three-pointers and shots at the rim, which just happen to be the two most efficient shots in the game. They rank third in attempts at the rim per game and second in three-point attempts per game (per HoopData).

In fact, Houston takes a combined 59.2 shots per game from one of these two areas, compared to just 21.5 shots per game from anywhere else on the court (per HoopData).

Those are staggering numbers, especially if you take into account that the Rockets are the youngest team in the league, have the lowest average salary (per HoopsHype.com and HispanosNBA.com) and have tons of room to improve—particularly when it comes to the backcourt duo of Harden and Jeremy Lin.

Despite all of their youth and inexperience, the Rockets are 38-31 and are slated to take the seventh seed in the ultra-competitive Western Conference. Congrats, Daryl. It took a while, but you wear the "moneyball" crown.