Player Offensive Ratings

After some initial errors, I believe my numbers are looking more solid for individual offense. I am working from the ratings formulas in Dean Oliver's book. His system attempts to adjust player contributions based on team contributions. For example, an assisted basket is credited partially to the the player scoring, and partially to the person assisting. Since a number of players and their roles in the rotation have changed, I list the comparisons here based on the number of individual possessions that were computed. I drop the players with the least minutes that were cut during the course of the season.
(edited 9/28/05 to fix numbers based on formula repairs)

Player in Rotation	2004 Off. Rtg	2005 Off. Rtg.	Change
Bird	115.42	107.68	-7.74
Lennox	101.63	93.72	-7.91
Sam/Castro Marques	99.74	94.51	-5.23
Jackson	117.34	117.56	+0.22
Vodichkova/Burse	93.73	102.01	+8.27
Burse/Batkovic	91.29	100.10	+8.81
Barnes/Wright	91.26	93.68	+2.42
Bevilaqua/Zara	95.02	85.69	-9.32
Edwards/Thompson	83.44	91.85	+8.41
Thompson/Edwards	98.99	119.91	+20.92
Greco/Vodopyanova	103.74	89.59	-14.15

Of interest to me here were the big drops in ratings from Sue, Betty and the transition from Sheri Sam to Izianne Castro Marques. Sue took and made a lot less shots (2's and 3's) and free throws this year than she did in 2004. Betty just made a lot less 2 point shots than she did in 2004. She took 12 less shots but missed 49 more than she did last year. Izzy simply didn't shoot as much as Sheri, but her percentages from the field and the line were lower as well. The real hurt for the SF slot was the significant reduction in rebounding and assists. Sheri had almost twice as many offensive boards and assists in 2004 as Izzy did this year.

Though Kamila was my favorite player while she was in a Storm uniform, Janelle was an offensive improvement over her. She took only 2 more shots in 2005 than Kamila did in 2004, but she hit 33 more of them. She also got to the line more, though she shot a lower percentage. Janelle also proved to be a marginally better offensive rebounder than Kamila, but was not as savvy a passer. She outboarded Kamila by 16 but got 32 less assists.

The bench, overall, was an improvement on the offensive end of the floor for the Storm. Suzy proved a better reserve for the post than JB did last year, clearly JB benefits from the consistency of starting. Suzy took and made more shots than JB did last year, and she made less turnovers. JB was a better offensive rebounder but Suzy is a better passer. Zara did not step up as much offensively as Tully was able to do, but we all knew that already. Tanisha essentially filled in exactly in her rookie year, offensively, for Adia Barnes. Tanisha took and hit more shots and provided more assists, but Adia was a better rebounder and turned the ball over twice as much. The good news, is that Tanisha should turn the ball over less as she matures, and we have already seen what confidence has done for her shooting percentage. The reversal of minutes for Simone and Alicia was great for the team. Alicia's shooting dropped off this year...she took more shots and her shooting percentage suffered. Simone took less shots and made about the same number as last year. She also turned the ball over a lot less. From the bottom of the bench, Michelle Greco was much more efficient with her shot selection. She took less than Natalia, and made more.

What's Next

Tomorrow I will look at possessions and scoring possessions which will show us Floor %, or how often a player scores when they are trying to score, and Points Produced per Game, which is the relative amount of points which can be attributed to an individual player with weightings for assists and offensive rebounds being distributed among the players on the team. This is where I believe we will see the impacts on the team which led to an offensive drop overall for the Storm this season vs. last season.

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