tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4744762735048025778.post2651437402779570479..comments2009-08-16T09:18:30.513-07:00Bob Briscohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07258585706210271803noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4744762735048025778.post-3262243765836257442009-06-16T17:51:10.078-07:002009-06-16T17:51:10.078-07:00Regarding the dollar value of 10 wins, you shouldn&#39;t look at the salary of a player who&#39;s worth 10 wins. The worth of a player, weather measured in wins or in dollars, isn&#39;t measured against the absence of the player on the court, but rather against the next best player available. You&#39;ve incorporated this precept intuitively when you talk about a player who&#39;s worth 10 wins (after all, a team that played down a man would be lucky to win any games at all), but not when you talk about their salaries being $10M/yr. The real dollar worth to a team of its star player is the difference between his salary and the salary of the guy who would come off the bench if the star got injured.<br /><br />Re the previous comment about the value of good FT shooters on the team: the point is that if Dennis Rodman could spend an extra half-hour per day working with Dr. Tom, and thereby improve his FT% from 58 to 68, it seems likely that that&#39;d improve his overall contribution to the team. You&#39;re right in that it&#39;s probably not worth it for Rodman to get his FT% up to 90--there are deminishing returns here, both in time spent per % improvement in shooting, and also because the better he gets at shooting FTs, the less likely opponents are to foul him, making his skill at FTs less important--but if his FT% is worse than a team of high school students coached by Dr. Tom, then it might be worthwhile to have the good doctor on retainer.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4744762735048025778.post-47332783476372786002009-06-16T10:18:26.568-07:002009-06-16T10:18:26.568-07:00While obviously these stats make sense and are precisely measurable, they are also only a partial picture.<br /><br />If an NBA team could win with all 90% free throw shooters, it would have tried it by now. To give a counter example, rebounding is also an impact statistic, since more opportunities to score lead to more made baskets. As a (now former) Sonics fan, I clearly remember Dennis Rodman winning two games for Chicago in the &#39;96 finals due to his amazing ability to rebound. Dennis Rodman&#39;s career FT% is 58%.<br /><br />The correct overall context for winning is always team. All relevant statistics are important, but without given a proper context one can easily make the mistake of using the importance of one facet of the game to throw the overall system fatally out of balance.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com