Calculated Positions

[EvanZ]

I remember volunteering to calculate positions from Aaron B's matchup files a while back. Here they are for 2010-11 (csv):

http://tinyurl.com/3n5qkmb

The column "CPOS" is the calculated position based on the following formula:

Code: Select all

calculated_position=(player.pos1+2.0*player.pos2+3.0*player.pos3+4.0*player.pos4+5.0*player.pos5)/player.pos

where

Code: Select all

player.pos = player.pos1+player.pos2+player.pos3+player.pos4+player.pos5

[J.E.]

How do you determine who is the C/PF/SF/SG/PG in the current lineup?

[EvanZ]

Aaron B. made initial estimates of each player's position, and then for each unit, the players are ranked according to that nominal position. What I'm doing is simply iterating on that ranking.

I can give one example where it shows the improvement. Stephen Curry is a 1.5 according to the initial estimate. According to the calculated position, he is a 1.05, which is much closer to reality. He almost always plays point.

[J.E.]

Aaron B. made initial estimates of each player's position

And how did he do that?

[DSMok1]

He asked Crow and others who watched a lot of games who was playing what for each team. We had a thread on it a while back.

Evan: is this for offense or defense or just whatever? Defense can be more useful to know, but may be less cut-and-dried. Good defenders will cross-match onto whomever is the best opposing player.

[EvanZ]

Evan: is this for offense or defense or just whatever? Defense can be more useful to know, but may be less cut-and-dried. Good defenders will cross-match onto whomever is the best opposing player.

No, but that would be extremely useful. Somebody would have to track that.

[DSMok1]

ElGee may have tracked defensive positions somewhat; in fact, I'm sure he has. So he may have more info.