Paul Pierce, Mr. Consistency?
Posted by Neil Paine on January 20, 2009
Just the other day, I was glancing at Paul Pierce's stats from this year and something struck me -- Paul Pierce essentially has the same season (especially on offense) every year. It doesn't matter if he's been on a good team, a bad team, or whatever, his rate stats have been very stable. Translated to the 2008-09 scoring environment, here are Paul Pierce's career numbers:
Year Ag Tm G Min trORtg %Poss trDRtg -----+-----+--------+------+---------+--------+------+-------- 1999 21 BOS 48 1632 112.3 22.7 106.3 2000 22 BOS 73 2583 113.3 23.8 106.8 2001 23 BOS 82 3120 111.9 29.2 107.2 2002 24 BOS 82 3302 112.4 27.9 102.4 2003 25 BOS 79 3096 108.0 32.6 103.6 2004 26 BOS 80 3099 105.9 30.0 107.4 2005 27 BOS 82 2960 115.8 26.1 106.4 2006 28 BOS 79 3084 113.9 30.5 107.8 2007 29 BOS 47 1740 111.5 29.7 108.9 2008 30 BOS 80 2874 115.2 24.5 100.0 2009 31 BOS 42 1543 112.9 23.9 102.0 -----+-----+--------+------+---------+--------+------+--------
Aside from some fluctuations in 2003 & '04, those look like some really consistent performances. Which had me thinking: who is the NBA's most consistent active player? And who are the most consistent players of all time?
Well, first we need to define "consistent". Some players are consistent quarter-to-quarter, some game-to-game, and some season-to-season; the latter is what I'm going for here, players who have seasons of similar quality year in and year out. Also, note the phrase "similar quality" -- we're going for consistency of value, not consistency of playing style. Some players are able to change what type of player they are over their career without losing a lot of performance, so while their playing style isn't very consistent, we'd still say their value is consistent. Finally, we're talking about cumulative regular-season value, not talent or ability. Frequently-injured players may keep the same skill level every year, but it doesn't matter all that much if they can't stay in the lineup consistently.
OK, so now that we've established the ground rules, how exactly do we go about measuring consistency? I'm going to use a formula introduced by Bill James in his Gold Mine 2008:
Consistency = (Career WS - 2 * Inconsistency) / (2 * Career WS)
Where "Inconsistency" is simply the sum of the player's year-to-year changes in Win Shares (including his rookie year, where he changes from 0 WS to his rookie total, and his last season, where he goes from his final-year WS back to 0). The result is a sort of percentage, measuring how close a player is to "perfect consistency", which of course would constitute no year-to-year changes in production except in one's first and last seasons.
I calculated this metric for every player's career starting in 1973-74, the first year that Win Shares are available (data from 2008-09 isn't included, as pro-rating the current numbers would throw things off a bit for guys who have missed some time with injuries). According to James' measure of consistency, who are the steadiest active players from year to year? And where does P-Double rank?
Rk Player Min WS Incon. Con. ---+----------------+------+-------+-------+------- 1 Jason Kidd 38269 106.97 30.20 0.859 2 Kevin Garnett 37864 150.63 48.98 0.837 3 Ben Wallace 26577 80.88 26.51 0.836 4 Rip Hamilton 22444 51.26 17.13 0.833 5 Tim Duncan 30616 138.82 47.36 0.829 6 Dirk Nowitzki 27644 127.49 45.78 0.820 7 Mike Bibby 26185 58.09 21.05 0.819 8 Shaq O'Neal 37674 169.99 61.80 0.818 9 Michael Finley 34952 80.52 29.40 0.817 10 Rasheed Wallace 32044 93.45 34.23 0.817 11 Shane Battier 18677 50.26 18.55 0.815 12 Tony Parker 17879 52.20 19.30 0.815 13 Stephon Marbury 31479 78.19 29.72 0.810 14 Rashard Lewis 23996 68.22 26.11 0.809 15 Dikembe Mutombo 36695 115.46 44.21 0.809 16 Kobe Bryant 31572 125.78 49.29 0.804 17 Steve Nash 26528 97.72 39.33 0.799 18 Mike Miller 18229 42.05 17.42 0.793 19 Cuttino Mobley 27254 51.91 21.68 0.791 20 Jason Terry 24667 66.48 28.24 0.788 21 Shawn Marion 25550 97.12 42.51 0.781 22 Yao Ming 13139 53.83 23.75 0.779 23 Mehmet Okur 13250 40.77 18.08 0.778 24 Ray Allen 32223 101.22 45.19 0.777 25 C. Billups 24087 87.43 39.51 0.774 26 Antawn Jamison 26258 65.18 30.10 0.769 27 Vince Carter 26325 82.78 38.40 0.768 28 Brad Miller 19327 65.20 30.43 0.767 29 Juwan Howard 33715 55.78 26.08 0.766 30 Chris Bosh 13361 42.35 20.01 0.764 31 Ricky Davis 20643 28.64 13.61 0.762 32 Manu Ginobili 12056 53.55 25.59 0.761 33 Jermaine O'Neal 20431 51.07 24.50 0.760 34 Malik Rose 12933 26.54 12.79 0.759 35 Morris Peterson 17856 34.00 16.69 0.755 36 R. Nesterovic 16357 36.71 18.07 0.754 37 D. Marshall 24839 58.09 29.16 0.749 38 Jason Collins 12980 19.13 9.65 0.748 39 Kurt Thomas 22333 51.80 26.23 0.747 40 Paul Pierce 27490 95.16 48.68 0.744 ---+----------------+------+-------+-------+------- (Min. 10000 MP)
Well, it turns out Pierce wasn't quite as consistent (relative to his peers) as I had suspected -- of the "Big Three", he actually the 3rd most consistent! His slump in 2003-04 and the injury in 2006-07 are the major contributing factors; Kidd, by comparison, hasn't missed a significant amount of playing time since 1996-97, and while he's not as valuable as Pierce when each is healthy, he truly does have basically the same season every single year.
For comparison's sake, here are the most consistent players of all time (well, since 1974 at least):
Rk Player Min WS Incon. Con. ---+----------------+------+-------+-------+------- 1 Karl Malone 54852 231.62 52.03 0.888 2 George Gervin 34908 117.02 26.36 0.887 3 Reggie Miller 47621 172.37 40.23 0.883 4 John Stockton 47764 205.35 48.00 0.883 5 Sam Perkins 36598 104.00 25.83 0.876 6 Charles Barkley 39330 175.95 44.63 0.873 7 Alex English 38063 106.51 28.42 0.867 8 Jack Sikma 36943 110.61 29.90 0.865 9 Dennis Johnson 35954 81.83 22.14 0.865 10 Bill Laimbeer 33956 104.62 28.82 0.862 11 Bobby Jones 25728 95.18 26.79 0.859 12 Kevin McHale 30118 111.97 31.57 0.859 13 Jason Kidd 38269 106.97 30.20 0.859 14 P.J. Brown 33823 88.11 25.02 0.858 15 Maurice Cheeks 34845 102.37 29.87 0.854 16 Robert Parish 45704 145.69 42.82 0.853 17 Gary Payton 47117 145.93 43.02 0.853 18 K. Abdul-Jabbar 43787 190.15 56.11 0.852 19 Sedale Threatt 22436 47.31 14.06 0.851 20 James Worthy 30001 80.82 24.08 0.851 21 Shawn Kemp 29295 89.64 26.75 0.851 22 Julius Erving 38721 158.30 47.31 0.851 23 Jeff Hornacek 33964 109.45 33.66 0.846 24 Hakeem Olajuwon 44222 163.39 50.35 0.846 25 Dale Davis 29607 85.24 26.56 0.844 26 R. Blackman 32087 73.88 23.22 0.843 27 Dan Issel 31409 122.33 38.81 0.841 28 Fred Brown 21743 61.16 19.42 0.841 29 Xavier McDaniel 25201 47.44 15.08 0.841 30 C. Robinson 42561 90.74 29.43 0.838 31 Kevin Garnett 37864 150.63 48.98 0.837 32 Scottie Pippen 41069 122.60 39.91 0.837 33 Clyde Drexler 37537 139.14 45.34 0.837 34 Horace Grant 38621 116.46 38.17 0.836 35 Ben Wallace 26577 80.88 26.51 0.836 36 Detlef Schrempf 33597 109.84 36.14 0.835 37 Brad Davis 22302 52.49 17.33 0.835 38 Johnny Davis 21200 38.00 12.59 0.834 39 Buck Williams 42464 121.80 40.39 0.834 40 Hersey Hawkins 32034 90.13 29.95 0.834 ---+----------------+------+-------+-------+-------
Michael Jordan's 3 retirements leave him with a poor consistency score, ranking just 262nd overall, between those paragons of consistency Josh Howard and Dick Snyder. And the least consistent players of all time? A couple of ex-Clippers: Darius Miles and Michael Olowokandi, whose consistency scores are actually negative because the sum of their year-to-year changes in WS is actually greater than twice their career WS totals! Now that's inconsistency.
The good news for Paul Pierce is that he's on pace for 11.32 WS this season, which is right in line with the rest of his career numbers, so there's hope for him to move up that list yet. But right now, his Celtic teammates Kevin Garnett & Ray Allen have actually been steadier from year to year than PP.
January 25th, 2009 at 4:49 pm
In baseball, Pujols. In basketball.. Dirk is quite consistent. KG is but with the blowouts his minutes are down.