Hollinger's PER Projections are out for this season

No projections for Arenas and Haywood because of their injuries. Antawn Jamison has the highest projected PER on the team at 18.46. That would be a drop-off from last season (20.63), but still pretty doggone good for someone his age.

There were a few surprises, however:
* JaVale McGee with a higher PER than Caron Butler. I know McGee is a PER darling, but if he ends up with a higher PER than Tough Juice, we either have a star on our hands or a very long season before us.
* The three players the Wizards acquired this summer (Foye, Miller, and Oberto) are all projected to have lower PERs this season than last season. If that happens, especially with Foye, we have some big, big problems.
* Of the twelve players projected, only five players (McGuire, Crittenton, Young, Blatche, and McGee) are projected to have their PERs go up this season.

If you want more on how Hollinger came up with his projections, click here.

5 months ago JakeTheSnake 14 comments 0 recs |

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To this I say:

Boo, hiss, fie, fooey and woe!

Well, it will make the “wizards on the front page of ESPN: A cracker Jack attack, who knew!?!” article all the more exhilarating.

I’d wager that will be up by week four of the season. As much as the Wiz get dumped on, no one can resists a high octane dark horse.

by Hoopalotta on Oct 6, 2009 12:45 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Hold on a second, grandpa

What, exactly, is a “cracker jack attack”? Is that some kind of 1920s slang?

"One-on-one? You can't." -Gilbert Arenas
JC Bandwagon all day!

by kseandoyle on Oct 6, 2009 7:45 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

It's a...

Slap-Happy-Full-Bore-Score-Galore offense with wiggles and waggles and swishes and swoops, such is the way that they play the hoops.

by Hoopalotta on Oct 6, 2009 10:28 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Yawn

Hollinger has always underestimated the Wizards. I remember looking at Hollinger’s PER for Jamison before the season 2 years ago and he had Jamison’s PER declining rapidly as “a player declining with age”. Fail.

by JonathanJoseph on Oct 6, 2009 1:49 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs

That’s because part of the evaluation process is
Calculate PER
Deduct 1.5 points, or Add 1.5 points depending on the name on the front of the shirt
Add 3-4 points depending on the name on the back of the shirt.

Bullets Forever - where "Dagger ! " happens......

by Rook6980 on Oct 6, 2009 10:04 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Of all the useless uselessness available on the Internet, Hollinger’s PER projections are the uselessiest uselessfulness.

by disgrunted on Oct 6, 2009 4:44 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Methodology

Anybody know how the projected PERs are calculated? Hollinger normalizes the numbers so the league average comes out to 15, right? Since he doesn’t have numbers for the incoming rookies, does the normalization mean that everyone else’s PER will instantly go up as soon as the regular season starts and this year’s crappy draft class steps onto the court?

I hope Dominic can improve as much as Hollinger projects. I was psyched to see him knocking down the midrange J in the drills and scrimmages yesterday. If he can continue to improve defensively and also become a halfway decent scoring threat, he might be a dark horse candidate for the starting SG spot. Here’s hoping Dominic becomes our Shane Battier. (Speaking of Battier, I just noticed that Dominic’s PER was higher than Battier’s last year! Who knew?)

by yop32 on Oct 6, 2009 9:31 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Battier's never been a PER player at all

In his six years, he’s been below double digits three times, and never really sniffed the normalized 15.0 “average” score.

The calculation for PER is available and quite arcane. I don’t think I’ve ever stumbled across the method for projecting it out. Particularly with college players, Hollinger seems to proceed from extremely little data and to make rather sweeping pronouncements…. All the signs of the precious metals statistician who thinks he’s found the alchemical One Stat To Rule Them All.

by feral on Oct 6, 2009 10:12 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

If you read the scouting reports and don't just focus on PER, Hollinger has a lot of interesting stuff to say

He doesn’t do a great job with the Wiz this year though because he won’t assign a ranking to Arenas and Haywood due to injury.

I believe the projections are based on similar players from the past. Not perfect, but how else do you propose he do it systematically?

You know you'll get devoured by Cheaney, Wallace, and Juwan Howard.

by Mike Prada on Oct 6, 2009 10:21 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Similarity scores

The calculation of PER is performed using a weighted formula of player stats. The projected PER is performed looking at the career progressions of “similar” players. I think Hollinger’s operation is fairly similar to what the Secret Weapon did over the summer for the Wiz’s young players, just with some different approaches to the analysis. (Different people will have different views of what is “similar”.)

I don’t think he applies any normalization in the projections, though there I suppose would be some normalization implied in working with the “similar” players’ stats, since their scores were normalized already.

by bwoodsxyz on Oct 6, 2009 11:37 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Speaking of Battier, I just noticed that Dominic’s PER was higher than Battier’s last year!

And therein lies the problem with only relying any of the current publicly available statistics to evaluate a player.

And as a side thought, I wouldn’t be surprised to see a deal for Shane Battier at the Trade Deadline. Boston, Miami or even Toronto (if they’re still in the Playoff hunt) could use him. I’d love to see the Wizards trade for Battier (Mike James’ expiring contract would work) except with all the Wizard’s perimeter players, I’m not sure where Battier would fit in. Besides, if Dom continues to improve – he could fill the same role; except cheaper.

Bullets Forever - where "Dagger ! " happens......

by Rook6980 on Oct 6, 2009 10:03 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Funny you should mention “publicly available stats”—that’ll be the subject of my post tomorrow.

by bwoodsxyz on Oct 6, 2009 11:38 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

I hate PER

I’d rather look at the basic stats (points, rebounds, assists, all per 36 or 48) 100% of the time. Hollinger ratings are so useless, in my opinion. He’ll say something like “Team X won 50 games last year, but according to my stats, they should have only won 38 games. So even though they played in the conference finals, they didn’t actually have a good season.” Just because players/teams don’t play according to Hollinger’s idea of good basketball, that doesn’t mean that they aren’t good at basketball.

"One-on-one? You can't." -Gilbert Arenas
JC Bandwagon all day!

by kseandoyle on Oct 6, 2009 7:49 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs