Most and Least Unique Players

[Mike G]

In terms of statistical production, what players are closest to NBA avg across the board?
I've got a standardized per-36-minute rate for players, in which the standards are per 100 points and per 44 rebounds per game (per team). With additional adjustments, the goal is to estimate a player's Sco, Reb, etc rates for any team; but especially for a historically average one.

So I take a Euclidean distance from the avg for each stat and get a difference measure. Other similarity scores may do it such as to approach 1.00 for 100% identical, but in this exercise, zero is identical.
Our hypothetical all-average player is thus .00 different from himself:

Code: Select all

dif   per-36 rates    tm   Sco    Reb   Ast    PF   Stl   TO   Blk
.00   aaavg Joe      nba   15.0   6.6   3.0   3.0   1.1   2.0   .8
.25   Max Strus      Cle   13.9   5.6   3.4   2.8   1.0   1.6   .7
.26   Naji Marshall  NOP   14.1   7.6   2.9   2.4   1.3   2.1   .5
.29   Deni Avdija    Was   14.0   6.8   3.6   3.1   1.2   1.9   .4
.32   Kevin Huerter  Sac   15.1   6.3   3.3   3.0   1.1   1.2   .5

.38  Shaedon Sharpe  Por   15.2   5.6   2.8   3.0   1.1   3.0   .4
.39  Keldon Johnson  SAS   14.8   7.3   3.3   2.8    .9   1.4   .3
.40   Jaime Jaquez   Mia   15.1   5.4   2.9   3.1   1.5   1.9   .3
.41 Donte DiVincenzo NYK   15.7   5.1   2.6   2.4   1.6   1.9   .5
.43   Buddy Hield    Ind   15.4   4.4   2.8   2.9   1.0   2.2   .9

Most of these guys are SF at least part of the time, I think. The exercise includes about 300 players who have played 100 minutes or more this season.

[Crow]

Per game, the average is 44 rebounds, but also 114.3 points.

By BPM: Strus, +1.0, Marshall +0.3, Avdija -0.5.

"Worth" of all average guy vs. similar metric score but more unique skills / stats? Compared to a "shooter" or "scorer"? Impact and versatility of impact in lineups? Profile 3rd - 4th guy? 7th - 8th?

Exactly 0 BPM: LaVine, D Robinson.

+0.4:Anunoby, Siakam, Lowry.
+0.1 Jerami Grant. Kuzma, -0.1. Jaylen Brown, biggest contract yet, -0.1.

[Mike G]

Per game, the average is 44 rebounds, but also 114.3 points...

Yeah but I like to compare across eras, and this present era is pretty inflated relative to, say, the 90s.

This Sco column doesn't distinguish between dunking and 3-point specialists or any other way that points are gotten.
"Points is points."

[Crow]

Traditional position designations may be less important these days but I wonder how the all average players look by those designations and how the stats have changed fir them in last 5 - 10 - 20 years, especially for scoring.

[Mike G]

I have tweaked the diff values to try and make each 1.0 of diff roughly equivalent to one position difference.
Centers and point guards therefore tend to be around 4 diff from one another. And players with large production differ the most relative to the unproductive ones. Joel Embiid and PJ Tucker are off by about 7.

These most-avg players are not that different from anyone. Like a number of SF can play C for a few minutes, or PG.