APBRmetrics

I am looking to come up with a model that will project an NBDL player's performance in the NBA, on a per minute basis, based on their statistics in the D-League. Can anyone help point me in the right direction to get this project started? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

JimStats wrote:I am looking to come up with a model that will project an NBDL player's performance in the NBA, on a per minute basis, based on their statistics in the D-League. Can anyone help point me in the right direction to get this project started? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

I'd learn about Major League Equivalencies (MLE's) from the baseball stats folks, which are a well developed part of Sabermetrics. One link: http://www.fangraphs.com/library/index. ... valencies/

That at least might help you understand the mathematical issues with translating stats.

You may already be thinking of this, but if you plan to use per-minute stats it's important to pace-adjust because paces in the D-League can vary more widely than in the NBA.

I am looking to come up with a model that will project an NBDL player's performance in the NBA, on a per minute basis, based on their statistics in the D-League. Can anyone help point me in the right direction to get this project started? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

there have been 1586 different players in the D-league since 2001-02. of those 1586 only 477, or less than 1/3, ever played in the nba. if you omit the 15 or so nba players who played in the D-league in their mid-30s in an effort to make an nba comeback (i may have missed a few), you're then looking at about 462 out of 1571 D-league players to ever play in the nba...

of those 462 D-league players:

- only 222 played more than 500 total nba minutes...
- only 155 played more than 1000 total nba minutes...
- only 106 played more than 2000 total nba minutes...

or:

- just over 1/2 have played 500 nba minutes...
- just 1/3 have played 1000 nba minutes...
- less than 1/4 have played at least 2000 nba minutes...

of the 1571 D-league players who did not play in the nba first prior to playing in the D-league, just under 7% have played 2000+ minutes in the nba, just under 10% have played 1000+ minutes in the nba, and just 14% have played 500+ minutes in the nba...

i.e. the sample size is quite small, such that you might also want to include the players' college stats along with their D-league stats to project performance in the nba...

I will be following this project closely.