On Estimating the Ability of NBA Players

TL;DR

This paper presents a new model for estimating NBA player abilities by analyzing team performance with and without players, accounting for changing team dynamics, and evaluating offensive and defensive skills separately.

Contribution

It introduces a novel methodology that isolates player ability using multi-season data and controls for team composition, providing more accurate individual performance metrics.

Findings

LeBron James was identified as the best overall player in 2008/9.

Lamar Odom was the top defensive player that season.

Game statistics poorly predict defensive ability.

Abstract

This paper introduces a new model and methodology for estimating the ability of NBA players. The main idea is to directly measure how good a player is by comparing how their team performs when they are on the court as opposed to when they are off it. This is achieved in a such a way as to control for the changing abilities of the other players on court at different times during a match. The new method uses multiple seasons' data in a structured way to estimate player ability in an isolated season, measuring separately defensive and offensive merit as well as combining these to give an overall rating. The use of game statistics in predicting player ability will be considered. Results using data from the 2008/9 season suggest that LeBron James, who won the NBA MVP award, was the best overall player. The best defensive player was Lamar Odom and the best rookie was Russell Westbrook, neither of whom won an NBA award that season. The results further indicate that whilst the frequently-reported game statistics provide some information on offensive ability, they do not perform well in the prediction of defensive ability.