Dean Oliver at ESPN introduces Net Points

[Mike G]

Last season, about 20% of players were +2 or better on net points. Currently in new season it is about 30%. ...

According to this page --
https://www.basketball-reference.com/le ... anced.html
The median BPM of players w >50 minutes this season is -1.5.
Other than that anomaly, current 3-4 game stats are similarly further from avg than over a full season.

Sorting by PER, WS/48, and BPM we get rankings of players with significant minutes. Last year, 179 appear in the Sort; the top and bottom 20th percentile marks would be 36th best and worst.

Code: Select all

year    PER+   PER-    WS+    WS-    BPM+   BPM-
2025   19.6   11.8    .144   .065    3.1   -1.8
2026   21.0   10.2    .197   .031    3.2   -4.6

So 20% of PER this year are above 21.0; last year it was 19.6. 20% below 10.2, etc.
I can't imagine how overall BPM are so low this year. But I don't know to whom players are being compared. This year or last year or some blend?

[Crow]

PER has nothing for shot defense. The other metrics do in some rough fashion.

The bottom 20% by D-BPM are heavier than proportionately perimeters. And by O-BPM.

The very heavy foul rate and lowest defensive rebounding rate in 11 years probably affect some more than others.

The defensive losses are probably offset by offensive gains league wide but are still worth noting at the beginning of a search for possible explanations.

The potential to show factor level net points by player was a promising opportunity for net points. Suggested but not adopted yet. It would help in identifying sources of change that overall metrics do not reveal (without manual deconstruction).

Might be worth checking on performance trends among rookies (and sophomores). Compared to last season overall and last season start. And with the old uncs.uncle.

I assume DMok1 would have said something if BPM calculation had changed.


The bottom 20% of net points starts around -4.6 (the avg for BPM bottom 20%) but then plunges to -40 and 1 case of -60.

Are more terrible players getting time now than typical across a season? Or are typical players just having terrible starts, a typical phenomenon or not?

Is training camp too late and too short? Are player blaise about the start of the season? Are players rattled by the physicality?

The bottom 20% of rotation players starts at about -2.6 on net points. Only about half as bad as the all players starting point.

For full last season, bottom 20% of rotation players started at about -1.6 and bottom 20% of all players at about -3. Both groups starting slow but moreso bottom end players.

The very bottom on net points for rotation players last season was about -6 conpared to about -12 so far this season. For all players it was -23 compared to that -60 low so far this season.

Minutes given to top and bottom 20%s would be worth knowing, this season so far vs. last full season.

It would be expected that a short sample distribution would be spread wider than for a full season. Looking at distribution after 3-4 games in recent years would help to try to sort out how normal or abnormal this season distributions are.

Poor / worst than average lineup management might hurt player performance numbers early.