Getting serious about stats

The recent signing of Utah Jazz forward Andrei Kirilenko to a 6-year, $86 million contract raised a pertinent question: Is he worth it?

And here's the answer: "Absolutely."

That's the informed opinion of Roland Beech, an NBA stat analyst who runs the Web site www.82games.com.

"Kirilenko's a no-brainer," Beech said. "He's one of the top players in the league and the Jazz are lucky to have him. He just does it all."

Beech has contracts with NBA teams to provide statistical analysis that goes beyond the points, rebounds and assists so beloved of fantasy-game geeks.

"We're trying to do the 'money ball' kind of stuff for the NBA," Beech said. "There are a lot of statistics — known events — that can be tracked. We're trying to take statistical detail to the next level."

Beech said he can not only tell you such rudimentary stats as the difference between a player's shooting percentage on layups and jumpers but also such things as how a player performs on contested and uncontested shots or how productive a player is when a certain play is run.

He can even tell you how a specific pair of players perform together. An analysis of the Shaquille O'Neal-Kobe Bryant duo revealed that the Lakers were great with both players on the floor, but a lot better with O'Neal on the floor without Bryant than the other way around.

That conclusion was arrived at by study of one of the chief things Beech and his colleagues look at: the "plus-minus" statistic. It's a measure of how a team performs when a player is on or off the floor.

There are several approaches to making such calculations, but Beech's site offers ratings of the top 50 players in the league, as gauged by a couple of the simpler measures.

According to that system, Kirilenko ranked fourth in the league last year. If you think that sounds high, consider that the top three players produced by this measure were, in order, Kevin Garnett, Tim Duncan and Shaquille O'Neal.

It's hard to argue with results like that.

But people do still argue, preferring to go with their gut instinct about a player over statistics derived by a system that to them seems nothing short of alchemy.

"We can show people statistics, but if it disagrees with their opinion, they just go, 'Bah, stats don't matter,' " Beech said. "A lot of people look at players' points-per-game average, and that's as far as they go."

Surprisingly, it's not just fans who resist, but team executives. Many of them are old-school guys who are suspicious of anything that goes beyond what they see on the court.

"Not a lot of teams are doing the in-depth statistical work yet," he added. "And it can be a huge edge, both in terms of personnel evaluation and game scouting."