"ANYBODY CAN BE BEAT!" - Bart Scott

Saturday, May 14, 2011

Living in Acronymity and the Statistical Revolution

Last Tuesday afternoon, young Derrick Rose won his first Most Valuable Player award.

That same afternoon, bloggers and sports nerds everywhere had a moment of silence for LeBron James, Dwight Howard, and Skip Bayless' sanity.

Now imagine you came across someone who had never watched an NBA game , and had to explain to them why Derrick Rose shouldn't be MVP. How would you do it?

Did he not have the statistics for his position (scoring and assists)? No, he was top-10 in both.

Did he not make big shots in crunch time? No, he did that...and did it again...and did it again.

Did he come through as a Sprewell-type, getting in trouble with the law and drawing the ire of his peers and outsiders? No, he was widely praised as a genuine individual, deflecting much of his accolades to his teammates and coaches, and of course, his mother.

So why was Rose not worthy of MVP?

Could you tell this nameless, basketball-deficient person that it's because of a statistic that wasn't known until a few years ago and has a formula better suited to a college course?

Revenge of the nerds

I am not a fan of the statistical revolution, I cannot lie. I thought it was useful when it became a staple for baseball. After all, baseball has always been a haven for stats and stats junkies, people who craved something deeper than batting average and home run totals. There had to be some better way to determine which players were better infield defenders, had more range in the outfield, and who would be a better pinch hitter when the game was on the line.

So I embraced it. I looked for things like Value Over Replacement Player (VORP) and On-Base Plus Slugging Percentage (OPS) to see how a player was really doing at a certain point in time.

Then I stopped playing fantasy(-land) baseball.

Now, as I've gotten back into basketball following the Bulls-Celtics series from three years ago, I've become wary of the many bloggers who tout rates and efficiency over scoring, assists, rebounds and intagibles. Yes, most of these guys were downplaying Derrick Rose's MVP credentials, but even before the avalanche of criticism, I was having trouble dealing with them.

In short, the nerds had truly taken their revenge.

Internet thugs attack!

None of the statistical revolution would have been possible without the Internet. In the past, it would have taken years for new ways of quantifying success to gain credibility, solely through newspapers and magazines. But with the Internet, the theories of Bill James and John Hollinger were verified, tested and hailed with relative ease and little time. And right behind them were hundreds of bloggers, armed with a love for the game, little athletic talent, a TI-83, and a membership in every fantasy baseball league.

The League of Extra-Ordinary Geeks. Or as Chamillionaire would say, internet thugs.

It's not that these are bad people. They levy good arguments plenty of times, and it's difficult to argue with statistics that correctly placed. But, as any hip-hop fan knows, there's hardly anything worse than a person bashing your favorite player or team from behind the safety of a computer screen.

That's exactly what happened with Derrick Rose's season. As soon as the calendar turned over to 2011 and Rose was mentioned as a possible MVP candidate, it seemed the LEoG was chomping at the bit to find a more deserving player than the Chicago Kid. Whether it was Dwight Howard, Kobe Bryant, or the Unmentionable Punk Player from Akron, Ohio, no one could stomach the thought of Derrick Rose as the Most Valuable Player.

But what was most perplexing was that while the LEoG was detracting was Rose's abilities, it seems the former NBA players-turned-color analysts were recognizing that Rose was well-worthy of the award. One after another, the ballplayers in the ESPN-tailored suits were confident in D-Rose's MVP credentials.

Doesn't it seem like the guys who played the game would be best suited to recognize who was the MVP?

Only time will tell

It's always been odd for me that the Most Valuable Player award doesn't take into account the postseason. After all, the season doesn't end with the regular season; it ends with one team holding the big trophy.

Tomorrow night, the Chicago Bulls and the Miami Heat will play for the right to go to the NBA finals. It's the matchup everyone has looked forward to since the playoffs started, and many sabermetricians believe the Heat, based on all the numbers available, will advance. But the games must be played, and those nerds-turned-internet thugs will be sitting in the bleachers like they always have.

Too bad for the rest of us that now, they'll have a laptop in front of them.

See you in the cheap seats.

JS