Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Shooting in Traffic

Lately a lot of people have been asking me about how I come up with my Shoot in Traffic (SIT) ratings. A magician never reveals his secrets ;)

However, I will give you guys the tools to figure it out for yourselves, and I'll provide an explanation of my logic when that happens.

My system is certainly better than 2K Sports' which essentially comes down to a player's reputation. Whenever people complain on the 2K Insider's blog that a player is rated too low, they will inevitably receive a 2-3 point boost to their Shoot off Dribble (SOD) and SIT the following week whether they actually deserved it or not. I devised ways for both to be fairly measured.

I will now list the SIT ratings of the top 10 overall players at each position, and compare to 2K Sports.

Point Guard (Rashidi)
Billups: 76
Parker: 68
Arenas: 68
Westbrook: 67
Williams: 63
Rondo: 62
Rose: 61
Davis: 61
Paul: 60
Nash: 50

Point Guard (2K Sports)
Parker: 81
Arenas: 78
Billups: 76
Paul: 76
Nash: 75
Williams: 73
Rose: 69
Davis: 69
Rondo: 67
Westbrook: 60

2K Sports has Russell Westbrook far behind the top PGs in the league which is a bit absurd when you consider how frequently he drives into traffic compared to Steve Nash who is always looking to pass the moment the defense collapses onto him.

Shooting Guard (Rashidi)
Martin: 77
Wade: 76
Bryant: 72
Roy: 68
Evans: 67
Ginobili: 65
Jackson: 63
Monta: 62
Carter: 59
Johnson: 57

Shooting Guard (2K Sports)
Kobe: 84
Wade: 81
Monta: 78
Ginobili: 77
Evans: 77
Roy: 73
Jackson: 73
Carter: 73
Johnson: 72
Martin: 71

Going through two guard positions, it is clear that I have lower ratings than 2K Sports.

Rashidi
80-89: 0
70-79: 4
60-69: 13
50-59: 3

2K Sports
80-89: 3
70-79: 13
60-69: 4
50-59: 0

They're actually symmetrical... I certainly didn't expect when writing this up. It does show I didn't go overboard, and players that most players recieved a fair decrease from their value... one that won't become clear without including the front-court players.

Small Forward (Rashidi)
Maggette: 87
James: 79
Pierce: 79
Durant: 78
Anthony: 77
Wallace: 72
Gay: 69
Granger: 67
Artest: 64
Iguodala: 63

Small Forward (2K Sports)
James: 84
Artest: 84
Durant: 83
Anthony: 82
Pierce: 79
Iguodala: 78
Maggette: 72
Granger: 72
Gay: 69
Artest: 69
Wallace: 62

While many of you will be focusing on the huge jump I've given Maggette (one that ends up being substantially higher than anyone else thus far), I'd also like you to compare the Iguodala and Wallace gap for each ratings set. Maggette, btw, has played a ton of PF this season.


Power Forward (Rashidi)
Bosh: 87
Jefferson: 84
J.Smith: 84
Stoudemire: 80
Gasol: 79
Boozer: 74
Randolph: 66
Nowitzki: 66
Garnett: 62
Scola: 61

Power Forward (2K Sports)
Jefferson: 84
Boozer: 79
Gasol: 79
Garnett: 77
Scola: 77
Nowitzki: 76
Stoudemire: 75
Randolph: 75
Bosh: 72
J.Smith: 64

The differences between Kevin Garnett and Chris Bosh was the main reason I knew something was off with 2K Sports' SIT ratings. You'll notice that my ratings are getting much higher; I did not raise everyone however, as half of the players still went down while the rest went up.

Center (Rashidi)
Howard: 88
Nene: 82
S.O'Neal: 79
Okafor: 79
Duncan: 74
Oden: 74
Lee: 73
Yao: 73
Horford: 66
Bogut: 63

Center (2K Sports)
S.O'Neal: 79
Howard: 78
Okafor: 74
Duncan: 74
Lee: 68
Bogut: 68
Nene: 67
Horford: 66
Oden: 64
Yao: 63

Centers received substantial increases. Shaq is 2K's top SIT center, which just isn't really accurate anymore given the whole being 37 years old thing.

Let's combine C and PF now...

Rashidi
80-89: 6
70-79: 8
60-69: 6

2K Sports
80-89: 1
70-79: 12
60-69: 7

Does anyone else find it weird that 2K thinks guards finish better in traffic than bigmen? Is there any sane person out there who REALLY thinks Tony Parker finishes in traffic better than every center in the league?

I certainly don't - which is why I don't follow 2K's seemingly methodless approach.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for writing this. Helped a lot and makes a lot of sense. Glad you're more conservative with the ratings than 2k sports. Gives people room to grow. Tyreke still finishes at the rim well despite having only 67 SIT but I have a knack of wanting to overrate players I like. A bad habit.

Just one final question. Off topic on this blog but I'm not sure where to post it.

Have you noticed that some players like Dorell Wright, Omri Casspi and some others I forgot never progress no matter how much potential they are given? I sent both of them to potential camps but they made no changes. Maybe it's just my game but there's a chance it might be happening to other people as well.

Anonymous said...

Moron.

Anonymous said...

the potential camp just gives them more potential so they can grow it doesnt make the progress any just give them the ability to

Rashidi said...

I think he's trying to say that they don't improve whether their potential is 50 or 99.

Most players have pre-programmed progression it would seem.

Everytime I run a sim, Udonis Haslem regresses 3 overall points, which is enough to leave him unsigned by every team. Brendan Haywood also regresses the same amount. These players are only 30 years old, which is really still a player's prime, and it's not like their potential is terrible - the progression is pre-programmed, and I believe the only thing potential really does for existing players is act as a variable for trade value. The game's trade engine won't know Blake Griffin will be a good player down the road otherwise.

Anonymous said...

anything new getting posted soon?