Can we boil a basketball players value down to a single number?
• What better describes a player’s value: his individual statistics or plus-minus data describing his impact on the team? If you would have told me five years ago that neither question would yet be answered to anyone’s satisfaction, I would have been disappointed and somewhat surprised. What happened? Simmons notes one key explanation in his column: Teams got interested in this stuff. Five years ago, no NBA team employed an analyst on a full-time basis. Oliver was attempting to get just such a position, a process that culminated in his hiring by the Seattle SuperSonics that fall. While full-time statistical analysts remain the exception rather than the rule, at least nine teams use at least one person, with Morey’s Rockets employing a full roster. This is, in general, a great development for the statistical community and a validation of its work. It has also been an enormous setback for a couple of reasons. First, whatever progress Oliver, the Houston team and others have made toward a
