Stats📈Score

Stats📈Score

This is where the Prime v Longevity debate comes in the strongest. What's more impressive, the highest prime stats but only in a couple years, or decent prime stats but for many many years with consistency? This is how I tackled it.

I clearly divided the Stats📈Score into two parts. It is essentially the addition of PrimeStatsScore and CareerStatsScore. The latter is simply the score awarded for your career averages relative to x number of years. The former is simply the score awarded for averages during your "prime years" relative to x number of years. A player's prime statistical years are decided by me, player by player, relative to era. I have tried to be as objective and unbiased here as possible, for some players it was slightly more difficult to draw the lines of what was their prime, but in most other cases it was pretty easy.

After a player's "prime years" and "career years" are both defined, I use their per75 stats and relative TS% (rTS%) for their years in both of these different calculations. The reason is because it best accounts for differing era's (pace of play, minutes played per game, rules, 3pt line, skill, etc). Per75 is immune to the differences of pace of play and minutes played per game, and rTS% is immune to efficiency differences between era's caused by a 3pt line, differing rules, and improving skills.

The boxscore stats I record for per75 is PTS, REB, AST, BLK, STL, and TOV. Before accounting for the longevity of these scores, I calculate the raw scores of each of these per75 boxscore stats, and I do so by using equations more resembling logarithmic progression rather than linear progression. The idea here is that the "gap of impressiveness" between averaging 10 assists and averaging 7.5 assists is faaaaar larger than the "gap" between averaging 7.5 assists and averaging 5 assists. Even though the gap between both cases is 2.5 assists, that doesnt describe the different levels of impressiveness accurately enough. If you dont fully understand, think earthquakes. Comparing a 9.1 earthquake to a 7.1 earthquake is WORLDS apart different than comparing a 7.1 earthquake to a 5.1 earthquake. That is the idea I wanted to replicate in awarding Legacy Points to these per75 stats. Its not calculated exactly the same, but the idea is similar.

The only problem here is that per possession stats were only recorded as far back as the 1973-1974 season. For players with seasons before that, only per36 stats are available. Also to note, BLK, STL, and TOV were not recorded before this season either. So I used the same formulas for the per36 PTS, REB, and AST stats for players before this season.

This is done for both a player's "Prime Stats" and their "Career Stats". Then for the final step we add them together, but not straight up. They get slightly modified as they are added together.


SS  =  (PS  *  (PY/15)^(1/3))*1.2  +  (CS  *  (CY/15)^(1/3))*(0.3)


The # of Prime Years is fractioned out of 15, and then is cube rooted to curve the results. It is curved because the idea is that the value of adding peak seasons from 10 to 12 is less valuable than the value of adding peak seasons from 4 to 6. So the more seasons you achieve, the added value curves off over time. Diminishing returns. This fraction is then multiplied with the calculated Prime StatsScore, and then multiplied by 1.2, which will be explained why shortly.

The # of Career Years is also fractioned out of 15, and then too is cube rooted to curve the results. This fraction is then multiplied with the calculated Career StatsScore, and then multiplied by 0.3.

The reason for the final multiplications of 1.2 and 0.3 is that the both scores are now ratio'd to eachother, 1.2:0.3. That is, the Prime StatsScore will always make up 80% of the final Stats📈Score, and the Career StatsScore will always make up 20%. Thats the ratio.

So Prime numbers are taken into account by calculating the raw scores of their peak statistics, and the Longevity of them is also taken into account by multiplying them by a curved fraction of the # of years they were achieved during. And that is how the Stats are calculated.