Remember, to make the calculator work you must first click "click to edit" at the top and to the right. Complete instructions for how to use this tool are found below it.
User Guide for Real Player Ratings Calculators on Quest for the Ring Toolbox, September 2010
Welcome. Exactly how good players are does not have to be a mystery anymore! The Quest for the Ring Toolbox is the only known place on the Internet where anyone can find out almost exactly how good basketball players are. The Toolbox enables you to rate players by entering game or season performance measurements. The most important rating calculated is called the Real Player Rating (RPR). That and the three other ratings that you can calculate on Toolbox are explained in detail at the User Guide for Real Player Ratings on the Quest Reference page. That and almost all User Guides are periodically updated and only the latest versions are kept. Look for and find the latest version there.
The Toolbox is ahead of its time in many ways, including because, as of 2010, even most document sites on the Internet including Google Documents do not allow for interactive spreadsheets to be placed on Internet pages. But we found a site which does provide that capability. Due to how tricky it is to use that source and for other reasons, it took awhile to get all of this perfected. For awhile there was an error on Toolbox we were blissfully unaware of. But as of summer 2010 we are sure we have finally achieved the capability to provide full spreadsheet interactivity on web pages and we are sure Toolbox is working perfectly.
Most of what you can do with any Excel file you can do on the calculator that appears in the embedded Excel at the Quest for the Ring Toolbox site. For example and to the point, you can quickly calculate player ratings right on the Quest Toolbox Web page.
As of January 2010 there were two calculators on Toolbox which are almost identical. One of them included the Hidden Defending Adjustment (HDA) and the other one did not. As of September 2010 having two was regarded as more confusing than it was worth and so now there is just one Real Player Rating (RPR) calculator on Toolbox.
Real Player Ratings with no HDAs are relatively crude (but still valuable). HDA makes RPRs state of the art and world class. HDA requires a large separate section in this User Guide. The HDA section will follow the following section, which gives you basic instructions on how to use the calculator on the Toolbox.
========== BASIC TOOLBOX CALCULATOR INSTRUCTIONS ==========
SIMPLY REFRESH THE PAGE TO START OVER
Sometimes with Excel, the mouse will "do something" unintended and will foul up a cell. It’s as if you made a mistake even though you really didn’t make a mistake. Sometimes in other words you may lose control over what the Excel worksheet is doing. If you can not correct the malfunction any other way, you can refresh the entire Toolbox page and start over. So let’s start by saying that if you ever make a mistake and you don't know how to reverse what you did using Excel, you can simply refresh the entire Toolbox page with your browser and start over.
How to use Excel at a high level is beyond the scope of this Guide. But even if you know nothing about Excel, you should be able to nevertheless calculate Real Player Ratings and the associated measures using the Toolbox page. You definitely do not need to know much of anything about Excel to be able to calculate Real Player Ratings using the Toolbox Internet page.
On the other hand, if you are well versed in Excel, you can make changes because the spreadsheet is fully (or almost fully) interactive. Specifically for example, you can change the formula used for calculating Real Player Ratings to one you for whatever reason think is more appropriate.
HOW TO USE THE REAL PLAYER RATING CALCULATOR
IMPORTANT FIRST STEP: Before you start entering points, rebounds, and so on, you must click "click to edit" at the very top of the calculator (which is a spreadsheet.) The spreadsheet will not be interactive until you click this.
You need the items shown on the calculator to find out what the Real Player Rating is for one or more players for a single game or for multiple games. Specifically, you need:
-Minutes
-Points
-3-Point Shots Made
-3-Point Shots Attempted
-2-Point Shots Made
-2-Point Shots Attempted
-Free Throws Made
-Free Throws Attempted
-Offensive Rebounds
-Defensive Rebounds
-Assists
-Steals
-Blocks
-Turnovers
-Personal Fouls
-Hidden Defending Adjustment (HDA)
The last item, HDA, is very recommended but not required. How to enter Hidden Defending is explained in great detail shortly. If you are skipping HDA than simply leave the cells for it blank.
Simply enter all of the above items in any order you wish to enter them in the cells. When calculating RPR for multiple games you enter the combined totals for all games for each item. When calculating RPR for a single game you enter the counts for that single game for each item and for each player.
If you make a mistake in any of the item cells, simply click the cell and then click delete and enter the correct or revised data.
Type the first name initial and the last name of the player(s) you are rating just above where you enter the counts, where it says "Name of Player >>>>>". Very long names will not entirely fit in the cell but presumably you will know who it is from just most of the name.
Below where you enter the items you see the performance measures starting with Real Player Rating itself. Stay clear of this area with your mouse, do not click any of these cells, and definitely DO NOT enter anything into any of the cells corresponding to these performance measures. These cells are formatted to show you the ratings based on what you enter in the items above them. The whole point of this tool is that it will calculate these things for you based on the counts for the basic basketball actions entered. If you enter anything in any of the four performance measure rows, the spreadsheet will no longer calculate that item in that cell anymore and you then might have to refresh Toolbox and start all over. At the least, you will have “lost” that column.
When all the items above have been entered for all players the following will be automatically calculated for you:
-Real Player Rating
-Real Player Production
-Offensive Sub Rating
-Defensive Sub Rating
Complete explanations of these four ratings are at the User Guide for Real Player Ratings on the Quest for the Ring Reference Page.
The calculator on Toolbox is set up to allow for as many as twenty players to be calculated at a time.
High level evaluation of ratings requires knowledge and experience. See the evaluation section in this Guide, which is one of the later sections below, and you may also want to see the evaluation section of the overall User Guide to Real Player Ratings.
YOU CAN USE THE CALCULATOR FOR ANY TIME FRAME YOU NEED
Provided you have the correct statistics, you can look at a player's performance for an individual game, for his or her entire career, or for anything in between, such as a season.
YOU CAN USE THE CALCULATOR TO COMPARE TEAMS
You can also use the tool to rate and compare entire teams, simply by using the combined measures for all the players. Suppose you have two teams in a League that were considered extremely close, and they play in the Championship, and the Championship is decided in overtime. In such a case you might not be convinced that the team that won the Championship was really the better team. To investigate, you could compare the team RPRs of the two teams to try to get at which was really and truly the better team.
One interesting idea for Team RPR is to use combined team RPR (the sum of the player RPRs) to compare the same team from one year to another, which would go a long way towards answering a question that everyone asks all the time but that often no one ever has a very good answer for: which team was better: last year's or this year's?
CUSTOMIZED RATING
What if you have a formula you want to use instead of ours? If you know Excel well you can simply change the formula in the interactive spreadsheet. Or, you can request a customized calculator by emailing thequestforthering1 at Gmail.
========== THE HIDDEN DEFENDING ADJUSTMENT ==========
The following instructions are for how you supply a Hidden Defending Adjustment (HDA) so that you will have an overall rating very close to perfect. If you are opting to skip the HDA, though, you can simply leave the cell(s) where the HDA is supposed to go blank.
HDA is basically what is left out from the everyday scorekeeper counts of points, assists, blocks and so on. Unfortunately what is left out by scorekeepers is very important. Scorekeepers can not possibly calculate HDA during a game so you can not blame this situation on them or on those who mange them or on the League commissioner or on anyone else.
For its’ regular NBA coverage, Quest for the Ring (QFTR) uses a multi-step, statistically valid process to fairly and competitively rate NBA players on their “hidden defending,” which are all actions NOT recorded by scorekeepers that succeed at preventing scores by the opponent. Here are many of the things that HDA measures:
--effective man to man defending
--effective rotation / switching on defense, especially off screens and picks
--effective pick and roll defense
--effective defensive recognition
--quickness of defensive reaction
--energy and hustle on defense
--effective taking of charges (causing a driving offensive player to be called for an offensive foul)
--effective hustling after loose balls
--effective calling of time-outs, for example, to avoid a jump ball being called
These things would be counted by scorekeepers if it were possible. Not only can these things individually not be counted exactly, but also there is in general no way to know exactly how many shots a defender has changed from being a score to a miss. But you can indirectly and relatively find out and we have a way to do that.
In this Guide we are giving you many but not all details about HDA. See the HDA section of the User Guide to Real Player Ratings for full details about the HDA and about RPRs.
TO USE OR NOT TO USE THE HDA, THAT WAS AND IS THE QUESTION
Back in 2008 and 2009, the accepted doctrine was that HDAs would be used only when more than 300 minutes of playing time data was available. This is because HDA uses the basic sampling theory of statistics and a 300 minute sample is the minimum needed for high statistical validity.
For more about exactly how HDA is calculated, see the full Real Player Rating User Guide on the Quest for the Ring Reference page.
Since 300 minutes obviously covers multiple games, the conception was that HDA would be associated with and also be mandatory for partial or full season RPR calculations. Therefore, RPR with HDA included could not be calculated for full teams until roughly mid January because it would take until then before all of the main reserves had played 300 minutes or more. RPR for single games (and technically for whenever less than 300 minutes of playing time data is available) would be without HDA. RPR without HDA is generally called Base RPR.
The problem is that Base RPR may be a valuable thing but it is not quite an extremely value thing. HDA on average constitutes about one fifth of a players’ RPR. For the defensive specialists, HDA can constitute as much as two fifths (40 percent) of the RPR. So HDA is so important that leaving it out makes reporting RPRs for playoff games limited in value. In general, without the HDA included, Real Player Ratings are not a complete and totally accurate representation of basketball players.
QFTR is striving to make every single Report we do very or extremely high value so we decided in the spring of 2010 to somehow bring HDA into RPR calculations for single NBA playoff games. This is not yet accepted procedure for regular season single games; for them Base RPR is still the by the book way. For regular season games we will probably be supplementing Base RPR with a separate reporting of players’ HDAs from the prior or possibly the current season.
But for NBA playoff games the "HDA doctrine" was modified as of Spring 2010. It was decided that HDA would be included in RPR calculations for single playoff games.
But how did we do it, given that by are own admission HDA can not be validly calculated for a single game? (In fact, not only can it not validly be calculated but calculating it at all for a single game apparently requires a large investment of time at a little known advanced basketball site and we are not totally sure it can be done at all.)
We had to compromise so we did. For the NBA playoff games, we decided to use HDAs from the full regular season just prior, which are of course statistically valid for that season.
In most cases, the value of a players’ defending in the playoffs will be close to the value of his defending in the regular season. But not in all cases, so unfortunately in some cases a players’ RPR for a playoff game will be either too high or too low. There will sometimes be players who do not defend quite as well in the playoffs as they did in the regular season and there will sometimes be players who defend a little better in the playoffs than they did in the regular season. Worse still (and I say worse because the magnitude of this problem will often be greater than the other problem I just mentioned) in a particular game a player might defend much worse, or much better, than he did on average in the regular season.
So in summary there are two problems with transferring regular season HDAs to playoff game RPRs. The first problem is that players will sometimes in general and overall be better or worse in the playoffs compared with the regular season. The other problem is that in individual games players will sometimes be much better or much worse defensively than they were on average in the regular season. Therefore, including HDAs in playoff RPRs is controversial.
However, not including HDA at all is worse than including it knowing that in some cases it is inaccurate. If you don’t include it at all then obviously all the good defensive players come up looking worse (less valuable) than they are and vice versa. Also, it needs to be noted that HDA is only about one fifth of the average players’ overall RPR, so if it is wrong for a particular game it is not going to mean that the overall RPR is wildly inaccurate. In general it would be very rare for the RPR to be distorted up or down by more than .100. For comparison, the average RPR is about .700.
YOU ALMOST CERTAINLY CAN NOT DO HDA THE WAY WE DO
That extended excerpt from the full User Guide for Real Player Ratings was provided mainly to impress on you the importance of the HDA. Exactly how we validly calculate HDA for NBA teams is explained in that full Guide.
Unfortunately the method we use for the NBA can not be used by you because most likely the data needed is not available to you. The data needed is how many points scored by opponents while the player is on the court for at least 300 minutes of playing time. There is no known place to find this data for any League other than the NBA. And we are lucky, actually, to have the needed data for the NBA. The needed data is only available from 2004-05 on.
Even that data is not enough because then you would also have to be able to translate that data into a valid HDA. QFTR uses several sophisticated Excel worksheets which contain numerous formulae to do this. This is very high technology and is not as of yet completely explained in total detail even in the full Guide. The bottom line of this discussion is that you need HDAs to make your Toolbox calculations high value but it is completely unrealistic to think that you can calculate HDAs the way we do it for the NBA.
But does that mean you should get out the white flag? No it does not. Just as QFTR compromised a little when it started including HDA in single playoff games, we are going to instruct you to compromise a little statistical validity so that you can have high statistical value. We are instructing you to not let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
HOW TO CORRECTLY ESTIMATE HIDDEN DEFENDING ADJUSTMENTS
First let’s look at the actual final product of the QFTR HDA and eventually we will end up giving you exact instructions on how you can include HDAs in your calculations.
The Quest for the Ring Hidden Defending Rating has a scale running from 0 to .330. The ratings more or less follow a “bell curve” statistically. The vast majority of NBA players have ratings between .030 and .290. Only about the top 1% of all defenders have hidden defending ratings higher than .300. Only about the bottom 1% of all defenders have hidden defending ratings lower than .020. At least 95% (19 out of 20) basketball players have hidden defending ratings between about .040 and .275. The average hidden defending rating is about .140, which is about 20% of the average overall RPR which is about .700.
In order to incorporate hidden defending into Real Player Ratings (and into defensive sub ratings) you should use your knowledge of how well the player stops scores using hidden defending actions, which include the following:
--effective man to man defending
--effective rotation / switching on defense, especially off screens and picks
--effective pick and roll defense
--effective defensive recognition
--quickness of defensive reaction
--energy and hustle on defense
--effective taking of charges (causing a driving offensive player to be called for an offensive foul)
--effective hustling after loose balls
--effective calling of time-outs, for example, to avoid a jump ball being called
You need to make the most reasonable statistical estimate you can make even though you lack hard data. So you simply look at any player you are rating and ask yourself: how good is that player, compared with other players, in the above (and perhaps a small number of other related) actions that prevent the other team from scoring points it would have scored.
Notice I said “compared with other players”. This is very important. You are making relative statistical estimations. In order to give any player an HDA which is a good estimate, you need to be aware of how good that player is compared with as many other players as possible.
In fact, the best way to do this (at least the first time you do it) is to estimate HDAs for many players simultaneously and then bring those HDAs to the calculator. When you do this you want to keep changing your HDA estimations until they all “fit together,” until in other words they make as much sense as possible and seem to be as close to perfect as possible.
After you have experience you will not necessarily have to do it this way; once you instinctively know the scale and once you are extremely familiar with how players stack up defensively, you can instantly rate one player alone without doing a lot of HDA estimations and corrections beforehand.
THINGS YOU MUST NOT CONSIDER WHEN YOU DO YOUR HIDDEN DEFENDING ESTIMATES
This is very, very important. When correctly estimating HDA you MUST avoid bringing in things that are not part of HDA.
Be very careful not to simply rate a player’s defensive or overall style: this is a relatively common mistake that many basketball fans and sometimes coaches make. Managers, though, seldom consider a player’s style when deciding on acquisitions and contracts and that is one of the reasons they are managers.
For about the same reason, be careful not to consider a player’s personality when you estimate his hidden defending. Remember, styles and personalities are completely irrelevant: the only thing ultimately relevant is whether and to what extent what the player does on defense prevents what would have been scores from being scores.
You also must NOT include tracked defensive actions in your estimations:
--Defensive Rebounds
--Steals
--Blocks
--Personal Fouls
You must DISREGARD all of these while estimating hidden defending. It is crucial that these things not be thought of or considered in your estimates, because these things are already included in the calculator (outside of HDA). Be warned that there are some players who get a lot of the above but are actually not very good hidden defenders and vice versa: there are some players who don’t make many defensive rebounds, steals, or blocks but are actually very good as far as hidden defending is concerned. There is some correlation between HDA and those four items, but less than you think, and for some players there is virtually no correlation at all.
To emphasize, when you estimate how good a player's hidden defending is, do not be biased either for or against players who make a lot of defensive rebounds, blocks, and/or steals.
In fact, players who make a large number of defensive rebounds and blocks often have lower hidden defending ratings than do "defensive specialists" who do not make a truly large number of defensive rebounds and blocks. This makes sense insofar as that it is not automatic or all that easy for players to be extremely good at rebounding and blocking and at for example man to man defending at the same time. To some extent with defending, it is an either/or proposition. Great defenders can be either great rebounders and blockers or alternatively they can be great man to man defenders and defensive recognizers and rotators. Only a small number of great defenders are great at both tracked and hidden defending.
There can be any number of combinations. For example, there will also be players who are average in rebounding and a little above average in man to man defending. It's just that it would be rare for a player to be an outstanding rebounder, blocker, and man to man defender all at the same time.
And obviously, you should avoid bias for or against good offensive players. Or for or against bad offensive players. Quite honestly, how good or how bad a specific player is on offense has almost nothing to do with how well or bad that player is on defense, although broadly speaking across the whole universe of players there is a limited degree of correlation.
NOW THAT YOU UNDERSTAND EXACTLY WHAT YOU ARE DOING IN THEORY, THIS IS HOW TO PROCEED
What you want is your best estimate of the combined effect of the quantity and the quality of the player’s hidden defending actions. Both the quantity and the quality must be considered, not just one or the other. The best defenders use high quality hidden defending most of the time. Defenders who are just “ok” will be for example high quality hidden defenders but they are too lazy or whatever to show the high quality very often. Other defenders who are just “ok” will be players who try hard most of the time but they simply don’t at this time have the skills needed for high quality hidden defending. The higher the quality of the defending, the more often it will turn what would have been scores into stops.
The most important thing, of course, is to be objective and fair, which is really saying about the same thing with two different words. To sum this up in one sentence, you have to judge how good a player is, relative to other players, in terms of the quantity and the quality of his hidden defending.
Once you have in your head how good the player is relative to all other players, use the following to give that player a hidden defending rating. The percentage shown on each of the following lines is how the player stacks up compared to all other players with respect to hidden defending:
HIDDEN DEFENDING ESTIMATION SCALE
1% > better than 99% of other players: about .320
2% > better than 98% of other players: about .310
5% > better than 95% of other players: about .295
10% > better than 90% of other players: about 275
20% > better than 80% of other players: about .250
30% > better than 70% of other players: about .220
40% > better than 60% of other players: about .180
50% > better than 50% of other players: about .140
60% > better than 40% of other players: about .110
70% > better than 30% of other players: about .85
80% > better than 20% of other players: about .65
90% > better than 10% of other players: about .45
95% > better than 5% of other players: about .30
98% > better than 2% of other players: about .20
99% > better than 1% of other players: about .10
If you are estimating more than one player, when you are done, if you have not already done so (as recommended above) review all your estimates by making sure that your players correctly rank according to who really is better and who is worse with respect to hidden defending.
VERY HIGH, VERY LOW, AND VERY AVERAGE RATINGS
Theoretically, a player who never changes any shots from makes to misses would have a hidden defending rating of as low as .000. But even most of the bad defensive players in terms of "made them miss" defending, via untracked actions will generally have hidden defending ratings of between about .040 and .060. Exactly in the middle players in terms of hidden defending will have hidden defending ratings of between .130 and .150. And the best defensive players in terms of hidden defending will generally have hidden defending ratings of between .250 and .280, although the absolute best such player in your League can theoretically deserve a rating of up to an absolute maximum of .330.
========== EVALUATION OF CALCULATED RATINGS ==========
The following evaluation scales are as of 2010 the same ones used for the high level professional players of the NBA. Since obviously the players in your League might not be as great, you may want to adjust the scales (unless you want to compare them relative to NBA players). You will need to compare and contrast many players at the level you are looking at in order to come up with a completely valid evaluation scale that will be customized to the level of players you are looking at. To make things easier, you can if and when you construct your own scale keep the descriptions and change only the numbers. Of course, you will probably be lowering the numbers (thus making it easier for players to reach categories).
Every Quest for the Ring Evaluation Scale uses terms that the vast majority of basketball fans, coaches, and managers understand as important descriptions of just how valuable players are to the team and also as explaining the usual role of players.
At one time there was just one QFTR evaluation scale but now there are more than a dozen. In giving you the following scales, we will keep things as simple as possible without sacrificing high value and quality.
EVALUATING A SINGLE GAME OR A SMALL NUMBER OF GAMES
Use the following scale if:
--You are using HDA
--You want to rate players in general, without regard to position
--You are rating a single game or more than a game but less than 300 minutes of playing time
Perfect Player for all Practical Purposes / Major Historic Super Star 1.200 and more
Historic Super Star 1.080 1.199
Super Star 0.960 1.079
A Star Player / A well above normal starter 0.860 0.959
Very Good Player / A solid starter 0.780 0.859
Major Role Player / Good enough to start 0.700 0.779
Good Role Player / Often a good 6th man, can possibly start 0.620 0.699
Satisfactory Role Player / Generally should not start 0.540 0.619
Marginal Role Player / Should not start except in an emergency 0.460 0.539
Poor Player / Should never start 0.380 0.459
Very Poor Player 0.300 0.379
Extremely Poor Player and less 0.299
Use the following scale if:
--You are NOT using HDA even though it is very recommended
--You want to rate players in general, without regard to position
--You are rating a single game or more than a game but less than 300 minutes of playing time
Perfect Player for all Practical Purposes / Major Historic Super Star 1.060 and
Historic Super Star 0.940 1.059
Super Star 0.820 0.939
A Star Player / A well above normal starter 0.720 0.819
Very Good Player / A solid starter 0.640 0.719
Major Role Player / Good enough to start 0.560 0.639
Good Role Player / Often a good 6th man, can possibly start 0.480 0.559
Satisfactory Role Player / Generally should not start 0.400 0.479
Marginal Role Player / Should not start except in an emergency 0.320 0.399
Poor Player / Should never start 0.240 0.319
Very Poor Player 0.160 0.239
Extremely Poor Player and less 0.159
EVALUATING A SEASON OR AT LEAST MANY GAMES
Use the following scale if:
--You are using HDA
--You want to rate players in general, without regard to position
--You are rating at least 300 minutes of playing time up to an entire season. But if you are rating a player for more than a season (for two seasons or for a career for example) then do not use this scale, there is a better one below to use.
Perfect Player for all Practical Purposes / Major Historic Super Star 1.100 and more
Historic Super Star 1.000 1.099
Super Star 0.900 0.999
A Star Player / A well above normal starter 0.820 0.899
Very Good Player / A solid starter 0.760 0.819
Major Role Player / Good enough to start 0.700 0.759
Good Role Player / Often a good 6th man, can possibly start 0.640 0.699
Satisfactory Role Player / Generally should not start 0.580 0.639
Marginal Role Player / Should not start except in an emergency 0.520 0.579
Poor Player / Should never start 0.460 0.519
Very Poor Player 0.400 0.459
Extremely Poor Player and less 0.399
Use the following scale if:
--You are NOT using HDA even though it is very recommended
--You want to rate players in general, without regard to position
--You are rating at least 300 minutes of playing time up to an entire season. But if you are rating a player for more than a season (for two seasons or for a career for example) then do not use this scale, there is a better one below to use.
Perfect Player for all Practical Purposes / Major Historic Super Star 0.960 and
Historic Super Star 0.860 0.959
Super Star 0.760 0.859
A Star Player / A well above normal starter 0.680 0.759
Very Good Player / A solid starter 0.620 0.679
Major Role Player / Good enough to start 0.560 0.619
Good Role Player / Often a good 6th man, can possibly start 0.500 0.559
Satisfactory Role Player / Generally should not start 0.440 0.499
Marginal Role Player / Should not start except in an emergency 0.380 0.439
Poor Player / Should never start 0.320 0.379
Very Poor Player 0.260 0.319
Extremely Poor Player and less 0.259
EVALUATING MULTIPLE SEASONS AND CAREERS
Use the following scale if:
--You are using HDA
--You want to rate players in general, without regard to position
--You are rating more than a season (generally two or more seasons, up to and including a career).
--Note, HDA is considered mandatory for multiple season and career evaluations; therefore, there is no scale shown here for HDA not being used.
Perfect Player for all Practical Purposes / Major Historic Super Star 1.000 and more
Historic Super Star 0.925 0.999
Super Star 0.860 0.924
A Star Player / A well above normal starter 8.000 0.859
Very Good Player / A solid starter 0.750 0.799
Major Role Player / Good enough to start 0.700 0.749
Good Role Player / Often a good 6th man, can possibly start 0.650 0.699
Satisfactory Role Player / Generally should not start 0.600 0.649
Marginal Role Player / Should not start except in an emergency 0.550 0.599
Poor Player / Should never start 0.500 0.549
Very Poor Player 0.450 0.499
Extremely Poor Player and less 0.449
ADJUSTING FOR POSITIONS: HOW TO “WASH OUT” POSITON BIASES WHEN EVALUATING PLAYERS
Not all positions are created equal. These are the average ratings by position among all NBA players who play 300 minutes or more. There are very few small forwards and shooting guards who are superstars. Most (but definitely not all) superstars are players who can play point guard, power forward, or center.
Point Guard .750
Shooting Guard .640
Small Forward .640
Power Forward .720
Center .750
All Positions / All Players (NBA Overall Average) .700
As you can see, point guards and centers on average have RPRs about .050 higher than the NBA average. Power forwards average out to about .020 higher than the NBA average. Shooting guards and small forwards average out to about .060 below the NBA average.
What if you want to evaluate players after taking out the position advantages and disadvantages shown just above? What if you want to, in other words, compare all players at all positions on a completely even plane? When you do this, you will be adjusting reality a little for the cause of getting a direct, fair comparison of all players.
If you want to rate your players after removing any advantage or disadvantage they get from their position, you could adjust the scales above by the difference between the average for the position and the overall NBA average. Quest for the Ring of course has these position-specific evaluation scales.
But you don’t need them; you can accomplish the same thing by changing the Ratings you calculated themselves. Then you can use the same scales above with your new. To do it this way, add or subtract the following from your players’ ratings:
Point Guard: Subtract .050; for example, a .750 becomes a .700
Shooting Guard: Add .060; for example, a .640 becomes a .700
Small Forward: Add .060; for example, a .640 becomes a .700
Power Forward: Subtract .020; for example, a .720 becomes a .700
Center: Subtract .050; for example, a .750 becomes a .700
Now you can in effect compare all of your players without regard to position. For example, now you can fairly compare a shooting guard with a center.
SAVING DATA TO YOUR OWN COMPUTER
You can save your data (your ratings) all you wish but the calculator is copyrighted and it is illegal to place a copy of the calculator on any website.
CAUTIONS ABOUT REAL PLAYER RATINGS
See the User Guide for Real Player Ratings for more detailed information about how to evaluate the ratings, and also for cautions about using the Ratings. The latest Guide will be found on the page that the above link leads to.
As the main User Guide will inform you, although Real Player Ratings are very valid and extremely valuable, there are nevertheless reasons why they are not absolutely perfect and why they can not be the absolute final word on basketball players. See the cautions section of the User Guide for complete details on this subject.
The Toolbox is ahead of its time in many ways, including because, as of 2010, even most document sites on the Internet including Google Documents do not allow for interactive spreadsheets to be placed on Internet pages. But we found a site which does provide that capability. Due to how tricky it is to use that source and for other reasons, it took awhile to get all of this perfected. For awhile there was an error on Toolbox we were blissfully unaware of. But as of summer 2010 we are sure we have finally achieved the capability to provide full spreadsheet interactivity on web pages and we are sure Toolbox is working perfectly.
Most of what you can do with any Excel file you can do on the calculator that appears in the embedded Excel at the Quest for the Ring Toolbox site. For example and to the point, you can quickly calculate player ratings right on the Quest Toolbox Web page.
As of January 2010 there were two calculators on Toolbox which are almost identical. One of them included the Hidden Defending Adjustment (HDA) and the other one did not. As of September 2010 having two was regarded as more confusing than it was worth and so now there is just one Real Player Rating (RPR) calculator on Toolbox.
Real Player Ratings with no HDAs are relatively crude (but still valuable). HDA makes RPRs state of the art and world class. HDA requires a large separate section in this User Guide. The HDA section will follow the following section, which gives you basic instructions on how to use the calculator on the Toolbox.
========== BASIC TOOLBOX CALCULATOR INSTRUCTIONS ==========
SIMPLY REFRESH THE PAGE TO START OVER
Sometimes with Excel, the mouse will "do something" unintended and will foul up a cell. It’s as if you made a mistake even though you really didn’t make a mistake. Sometimes in other words you may lose control over what the Excel worksheet is doing. If you can not correct the malfunction any other way, you can refresh the entire Toolbox page and start over. So let’s start by saying that if you ever make a mistake and you don't know how to reverse what you did using Excel, you can simply refresh the entire Toolbox page with your browser and start over.
How to use Excel at a high level is beyond the scope of this Guide. But even if you know nothing about Excel, you should be able to nevertheless calculate Real Player Ratings and the associated measures using the Toolbox page. You definitely do not need to know much of anything about Excel to be able to calculate Real Player Ratings using the Toolbox Internet page.
On the other hand, if you are well versed in Excel, you can make changes because the spreadsheet is fully (or almost fully) interactive. Specifically for example, you can change the formula used for calculating Real Player Ratings to one you for whatever reason think is more appropriate.
HOW TO USE THE REAL PLAYER RATING CALCULATOR
IMPORTANT FIRST STEP: Before you start entering points, rebounds, and so on, you must click "click to edit" at the very top of the calculator (which is a spreadsheet.) The spreadsheet will not be interactive until you click this.
You need the items shown on the calculator to find out what the Real Player Rating is for one or more players for a single game or for multiple games. Specifically, you need:
-Minutes
-Points
-3-Point Shots Made
-3-Point Shots Attempted
-2-Point Shots Made
-2-Point Shots Attempted
-Free Throws Made
-Free Throws Attempted
-Offensive Rebounds
-Defensive Rebounds
-Assists
-Steals
-Blocks
-Turnovers
-Personal Fouls
-Hidden Defending Adjustment (HDA)
The last item, HDA, is very recommended but not required. How to enter Hidden Defending is explained in great detail shortly. If you are skipping HDA than simply leave the cells for it blank.
Simply enter all of the above items in any order you wish to enter them in the cells. When calculating RPR for multiple games you enter the combined totals for all games for each item. When calculating RPR for a single game you enter the counts for that single game for each item and for each player.
If you make a mistake in any of the item cells, simply click the cell and then click delete and enter the correct or revised data.
Type the first name initial and the last name of the player(s) you are rating just above where you enter the counts, where it says "Name of Player >>>>>". Very long names will not entirely fit in the cell but presumably you will know who it is from just most of the name.
Below where you enter the items you see the performance measures starting with Real Player Rating itself. Stay clear of this area with your mouse, do not click any of these cells, and definitely DO NOT enter anything into any of the cells corresponding to these performance measures. These cells are formatted to show you the ratings based on what you enter in the items above them. The whole point of this tool is that it will calculate these things for you based on the counts for the basic basketball actions entered. If you enter anything in any of the four performance measure rows, the spreadsheet will no longer calculate that item in that cell anymore and you then might have to refresh Toolbox and start all over. At the least, you will have “lost” that column.
When all the items above have been entered for all players the following will be automatically calculated for you:
-Real Player Rating
-Real Player Production
-Offensive Sub Rating
-Defensive Sub Rating
Complete explanations of these four ratings are at the User Guide for Real Player Ratings on the Quest for the Ring Reference Page.
The calculator on Toolbox is set up to allow for as many as twenty players to be calculated at a time.
High level evaluation of ratings requires knowledge and experience. See the evaluation section in this Guide, which is one of the later sections below, and you may also want to see the evaluation section of the overall User Guide to Real Player Ratings.
YOU CAN USE THE CALCULATOR FOR ANY TIME FRAME YOU NEED
Provided you have the correct statistics, you can look at a player's performance for an individual game, for his or her entire career, or for anything in between, such as a season.
YOU CAN USE THE CALCULATOR TO COMPARE TEAMS
You can also use the tool to rate and compare entire teams, simply by using the combined measures for all the players. Suppose you have two teams in a League that were considered extremely close, and they play in the Championship, and the Championship is decided in overtime. In such a case you might not be convinced that the team that won the Championship was really the better team. To investigate, you could compare the team RPRs of the two teams to try to get at which was really and truly the better team.
One interesting idea for Team RPR is to use combined team RPR (the sum of the player RPRs) to compare the same team from one year to another, which would go a long way towards answering a question that everyone asks all the time but that often no one ever has a very good answer for: which team was better: last year's or this year's?
CUSTOMIZED RATING
What if you have a formula you want to use instead of ours? If you know Excel well you can simply change the formula in the interactive spreadsheet. Or, you can request a customized calculator by emailing thequestforthering1 at Gmail.
========== THE HIDDEN DEFENDING ADJUSTMENT ==========
The following instructions are for how you supply a Hidden Defending Adjustment (HDA) so that you will have an overall rating very close to perfect. If you are opting to skip the HDA, though, you can simply leave the cell(s) where the HDA is supposed to go blank.
HDA is basically what is left out from the everyday scorekeeper counts of points, assists, blocks and so on. Unfortunately what is left out by scorekeepers is very important. Scorekeepers can not possibly calculate HDA during a game so you can not blame this situation on them or on those who mange them or on the League commissioner or on anyone else.
For its’ regular NBA coverage, Quest for the Ring (QFTR) uses a multi-step, statistically valid process to fairly and competitively rate NBA players on their “hidden defending,” which are all actions NOT recorded by scorekeepers that succeed at preventing scores by the opponent. Here are many of the things that HDA measures:
--effective man to man defending
--effective rotation / switching on defense, especially off screens and picks
--effective pick and roll defense
--effective defensive recognition
--quickness of defensive reaction
--energy and hustle on defense
--effective taking of charges (causing a driving offensive player to be called for an offensive foul)
--effective hustling after loose balls
--effective calling of time-outs, for example, to avoid a jump ball being called
These things would be counted by scorekeepers if it were possible. Not only can these things individually not be counted exactly, but also there is in general no way to know exactly how many shots a defender has changed from being a score to a miss. But you can indirectly and relatively find out and we have a way to do that.
In this Guide we are giving you many but not all details about HDA. See the HDA section of the User Guide to Real Player Ratings for full details about the HDA and about RPRs.
TO USE OR NOT TO USE THE HDA, THAT WAS AND IS THE QUESTION
Back in 2008 and 2009, the accepted doctrine was that HDAs would be used only when more than 300 minutes of playing time data was available. This is because HDA uses the basic sampling theory of statistics and a 300 minute sample is the minimum needed for high statistical validity.
For more about exactly how HDA is calculated, see the full Real Player Rating User Guide on the Quest for the Ring Reference page.
Since 300 minutes obviously covers multiple games, the conception was that HDA would be associated with and also be mandatory for partial or full season RPR calculations. Therefore, RPR with HDA included could not be calculated for full teams until roughly mid January because it would take until then before all of the main reserves had played 300 minutes or more. RPR for single games (and technically for whenever less than 300 minutes of playing time data is available) would be without HDA. RPR without HDA is generally called Base RPR.
The problem is that Base RPR may be a valuable thing but it is not quite an extremely value thing. HDA on average constitutes about one fifth of a players’ RPR. For the defensive specialists, HDA can constitute as much as two fifths (40 percent) of the RPR. So HDA is so important that leaving it out makes reporting RPRs for playoff games limited in value. In general, without the HDA included, Real Player Ratings are not a complete and totally accurate representation of basketball players.
QFTR is striving to make every single Report we do very or extremely high value so we decided in the spring of 2010 to somehow bring HDA into RPR calculations for single NBA playoff games. This is not yet accepted procedure for regular season single games; for them Base RPR is still the by the book way. For regular season games we will probably be supplementing Base RPR with a separate reporting of players’ HDAs from the prior or possibly the current season.
But for NBA playoff games the "HDA doctrine" was modified as of Spring 2010. It was decided that HDA would be included in RPR calculations for single playoff games.
But how did we do it, given that by are own admission HDA can not be validly calculated for a single game? (In fact, not only can it not validly be calculated but calculating it at all for a single game apparently requires a large investment of time at a little known advanced basketball site and we are not totally sure it can be done at all.)
We had to compromise so we did. For the NBA playoff games, we decided to use HDAs from the full regular season just prior, which are of course statistically valid for that season.
In most cases, the value of a players’ defending in the playoffs will be close to the value of his defending in the regular season. But not in all cases, so unfortunately in some cases a players’ RPR for a playoff game will be either too high or too low. There will sometimes be players who do not defend quite as well in the playoffs as they did in the regular season and there will sometimes be players who defend a little better in the playoffs than they did in the regular season. Worse still (and I say worse because the magnitude of this problem will often be greater than the other problem I just mentioned) in a particular game a player might defend much worse, or much better, than he did on average in the regular season.
So in summary there are two problems with transferring regular season HDAs to playoff game RPRs. The first problem is that players will sometimes in general and overall be better or worse in the playoffs compared with the regular season. The other problem is that in individual games players will sometimes be much better or much worse defensively than they were on average in the regular season. Therefore, including HDAs in playoff RPRs is controversial.
However, not including HDA at all is worse than including it knowing that in some cases it is inaccurate. If you don’t include it at all then obviously all the good defensive players come up looking worse (less valuable) than they are and vice versa. Also, it needs to be noted that HDA is only about one fifth of the average players’ overall RPR, so if it is wrong for a particular game it is not going to mean that the overall RPR is wildly inaccurate. In general it would be very rare for the RPR to be distorted up or down by more than .100. For comparison, the average RPR is about .700.
YOU ALMOST CERTAINLY CAN NOT DO HDA THE WAY WE DO
That extended excerpt from the full User Guide for Real Player Ratings was provided mainly to impress on you the importance of the HDA. Exactly how we validly calculate HDA for NBA teams is explained in that full Guide.
Unfortunately the method we use for the NBA can not be used by you because most likely the data needed is not available to you. The data needed is how many points scored by opponents while the player is on the court for at least 300 minutes of playing time. There is no known place to find this data for any League other than the NBA. And we are lucky, actually, to have the needed data for the NBA. The needed data is only available from 2004-05 on.
Even that data is not enough because then you would also have to be able to translate that data into a valid HDA. QFTR uses several sophisticated Excel worksheets which contain numerous formulae to do this. This is very high technology and is not as of yet completely explained in total detail even in the full Guide. The bottom line of this discussion is that you need HDAs to make your Toolbox calculations high value but it is completely unrealistic to think that you can calculate HDAs the way we do it for the NBA.
But does that mean you should get out the white flag? No it does not. Just as QFTR compromised a little when it started including HDA in single playoff games, we are going to instruct you to compromise a little statistical validity so that you can have high statistical value. We are instructing you to not let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
HOW TO CORRECTLY ESTIMATE HIDDEN DEFENDING ADJUSTMENTS
First let’s look at the actual final product of the QFTR HDA and eventually we will end up giving you exact instructions on how you can include HDAs in your calculations.
The Quest for the Ring Hidden Defending Rating has a scale running from 0 to .330. The ratings more or less follow a “bell curve” statistically. The vast majority of NBA players have ratings between .030 and .290. Only about the top 1% of all defenders have hidden defending ratings higher than .300. Only about the bottom 1% of all defenders have hidden defending ratings lower than .020. At least 95% (19 out of 20) basketball players have hidden defending ratings between about .040 and .275. The average hidden defending rating is about .140, which is about 20% of the average overall RPR which is about .700.
In order to incorporate hidden defending into Real Player Ratings (and into defensive sub ratings) you should use your knowledge of how well the player stops scores using hidden defending actions, which include the following:
--effective man to man defending
--effective rotation / switching on defense, especially off screens and picks
--effective pick and roll defense
--effective defensive recognition
--quickness of defensive reaction
--energy and hustle on defense
--effective taking of charges (causing a driving offensive player to be called for an offensive foul)
--effective hustling after loose balls
--effective calling of time-outs, for example, to avoid a jump ball being called
You need to make the most reasonable statistical estimate you can make even though you lack hard data. So you simply look at any player you are rating and ask yourself: how good is that player, compared with other players, in the above (and perhaps a small number of other related) actions that prevent the other team from scoring points it would have scored.
Notice I said “compared with other players”. This is very important. You are making relative statistical estimations. In order to give any player an HDA which is a good estimate, you need to be aware of how good that player is compared with as many other players as possible.
In fact, the best way to do this (at least the first time you do it) is to estimate HDAs for many players simultaneously and then bring those HDAs to the calculator. When you do this you want to keep changing your HDA estimations until they all “fit together,” until in other words they make as much sense as possible and seem to be as close to perfect as possible.
After you have experience you will not necessarily have to do it this way; once you instinctively know the scale and once you are extremely familiar with how players stack up defensively, you can instantly rate one player alone without doing a lot of HDA estimations and corrections beforehand.
THINGS YOU MUST NOT CONSIDER WHEN YOU DO YOUR HIDDEN DEFENDING ESTIMATES
This is very, very important. When correctly estimating HDA you MUST avoid bringing in things that are not part of HDA.
Be very careful not to simply rate a player’s defensive or overall style: this is a relatively common mistake that many basketball fans and sometimes coaches make. Managers, though, seldom consider a player’s style when deciding on acquisitions and contracts and that is one of the reasons they are managers.
For about the same reason, be careful not to consider a player’s personality when you estimate his hidden defending. Remember, styles and personalities are completely irrelevant: the only thing ultimately relevant is whether and to what extent what the player does on defense prevents what would have been scores from being scores.
You also must NOT include tracked defensive actions in your estimations:
--Defensive Rebounds
--Steals
--Blocks
--Personal Fouls
You must DISREGARD all of these while estimating hidden defending. It is crucial that these things not be thought of or considered in your estimates, because these things are already included in the calculator (outside of HDA). Be warned that there are some players who get a lot of the above but are actually not very good hidden defenders and vice versa: there are some players who don’t make many defensive rebounds, steals, or blocks but are actually very good as far as hidden defending is concerned. There is some correlation between HDA and those four items, but less than you think, and for some players there is virtually no correlation at all.
To emphasize, when you estimate how good a player's hidden defending is, do not be biased either for or against players who make a lot of defensive rebounds, blocks, and/or steals.
In fact, players who make a large number of defensive rebounds and blocks often have lower hidden defending ratings than do "defensive specialists" who do not make a truly large number of defensive rebounds and blocks. This makes sense insofar as that it is not automatic or all that easy for players to be extremely good at rebounding and blocking and at for example man to man defending at the same time. To some extent with defending, it is an either/or proposition. Great defenders can be either great rebounders and blockers or alternatively they can be great man to man defenders and defensive recognizers and rotators. Only a small number of great defenders are great at both tracked and hidden defending.
There can be any number of combinations. For example, there will also be players who are average in rebounding and a little above average in man to man defending. It's just that it would be rare for a player to be an outstanding rebounder, blocker, and man to man defender all at the same time.
And obviously, you should avoid bias for or against good offensive players. Or for or against bad offensive players. Quite honestly, how good or how bad a specific player is on offense has almost nothing to do with how well or bad that player is on defense, although broadly speaking across the whole universe of players there is a limited degree of correlation.
NOW THAT YOU UNDERSTAND EXACTLY WHAT YOU ARE DOING IN THEORY, THIS IS HOW TO PROCEED
What you want is your best estimate of the combined effect of the quantity and the quality of the player’s hidden defending actions. Both the quantity and the quality must be considered, not just one or the other. The best defenders use high quality hidden defending most of the time. Defenders who are just “ok” will be for example high quality hidden defenders but they are too lazy or whatever to show the high quality very often. Other defenders who are just “ok” will be players who try hard most of the time but they simply don’t at this time have the skills needed for high quality hidden defending. The higher the quality of the defending, the more often it will turn what would have been scores into stops.
The most important thing, of course, is to be objective and fair, which is really saying about the same thing with two different words. To sum this up in one sentence, you have to judge how good a player is, relative to other players, in terms of the quantity and the quality of his hidden defending.
Once you have in your head how good the player is relative to all other players, use the following to give that player a hidden defending rating. The percentage shown on each of the following lines is how the player stacks up compared to all other players with respect to hidden defending:
HIDDEN DEFENDING ESTIMATION SCALE
1% > better than 99% of other players: about .320
2% > better than 98% of other players: about .310
5% > better than 95% of other players: about .295
10% > better than 90% of other players: about 275
20% > better than 80% of other players: about .250
30% > better than 70% of other players: about .220
40% > better than 60% of other players: about .180
50% > better than 50% of other players: about .140
60% > better than 40% of other players: about .110
70% > better than 30% of other players: about .85
80% > better than 20% of other players: about .65
90% > better than 10% of other players: about .45
95% > better than 5% of other players: about .30
98% > better than 2% of other players: about .20
99% > better than 1% of other players: about .10
If you are estimating more than one player, when you are done, if you have not already done so (as recommended above) review all your estimates by making sure that your players correctly rank according to who really is better and who is worse with respect to hidden defending.
VERY HIGH, VERY LOW, AND VERY AVERAGE RATINGS
Theoretically, a player who never changes any shots from makes to misses would have a hidden defending rating of as low as .000. But even most of the bad defensive players in terms of "made them miss" defending, via untracked actions will generally have hidden defending ratings of between about .040 and .060. Exactly in the middle players in terms of hidden defending will have hidden defending ratings of between .130 and .150. And the best defensive players in terms of hidden defending will generally have hidden defending ratings of between .250 and .280, although the absolute best such player in your League can theoretically deserve a rating of up to an absolute maximum of .330.
========== EVALUATION OF CALCULATED RATINGS ==========
The following evaluation scales are as of 2010 the same ones used for the high level professional players of the NBA. Since obviously the players in your League might not be as great, you may want to adjust the scales (unless you want to compare them relative to NBA players). You will need to compare and contrast many players at the level you are looking at in order to come up with a completely valid evaluation scale that will be customized to the level of players you are looking at. To make things easier, you can if and when you construct your own scale keep the descriptions and change only the numbers. Of course, you will probably be lowering the numbers (thus making it easier for players to reach categories).
Every Quest for the Ring Evaluation Scale uses terms that the vast majority of basketball fans, coaches, and managers understand as important descriptions of just how valuable players are to the team and also as explaining the usual role of players.
At one time there was just one QFTR evaluation scale but now there are more than a dozen. In giving you the following scales, we will keep things as simple as possible without sacrificing high value and quality.
EVALUATING A SINGLE GAME OR A SMALL NUMBER OF GAMES
Use the following scale if:
--You are using HDA
--You want to rate players in general, without regard to position
--You are rating a single game or more than a game but less than 300 minutes of playing time
Perfect Player for all Practical Purposes / Major Historic Super Star 1.200 and more
Historic Super Star 1.080 1.199
Super Star 0.960 1.079
A Star Player / A well above normal starter 0.860 0.959
Very Good Player / A solid starter 0.780 0.859
Major Role Player / Good enough to start 0.700 0.779
Good Role Player / Often a good 6th man, can possibly start 0.620 0.699
Satisfactory Role Player / Generally should not start 0.540 0.619
Marginal Role Player / Should not start except in an emergency 0.460 0.539
Poor Player / Should never start 0.380 0.459
Very Poor Player 0.300 0.379
Extremely Poor Player and less 0.299
Use the following scale if:
--You are NOT using HDA even though it is very recommended
--You want to rate players in general, without regard to position
--You are rating a single game or more than a game but less than 300 minutes of playing time
Perfect Player for all Practical Purposes / Major Historic Super Star 1.060 and
Historic Super Star 0.940 1.059
Super Star 0.820 0.939
A Star Player / A well above normal starter 0.720 0.819
Very Good Player / A solid starter 0.640 0.719
Major Role Player / Good enough to start 0.560 0.639
Good Role Player / Often a good 6th man, can possibly start 0.480 0.559
Satisfactory Role Player / Generally should not start 0.400 0.479
Marginal Role Player / Should not start except in an emergency 0.320 0.399
Poor Player / Should never start 0.240 0.319
Very Poor Player 0.160 0.239
Extremely Poor Player and less 0.159
EVALUATING A SEASON OR AT LEAST MANY GAMES
Use the following scale if:
--You are using HDA
--You want to rate players in general, without regard to position
--You are rating at least 300 minutes of playing time up to an entire season. But if you are rating a player for more than a season (for two seasons or for a career for example) then do not use this scale, there is a better one below to use.
Perfect Player for all Practical Purposes / Major Historic Super Star 1.100 and more
Historic Super Star 1.000 1.099
Super Star 0.900 0.999
A Star Player / A well above normal starter 0.820 0.899
Very Good Player / A solid starter 0.760 0.819
Major Role Player / Good enough to start 0.700 0.759
Good Role Player / Often a good 6th man, can possibly start 0.640 0.699
Satisfactory Role Player / Generally should not start 0.580 0.639
Marginal Role Player / Should not start except in an emergency 0.520 0.579
Poor Player / Should never start 0.460 0.519
Very Poor Player 0.400 0.459
Extremely Poor Player and less 0.399
Use the following scale if:
--You are NOT using HDA even though it is very recommended
--You want to rate players in general, without regard to position
--You are rating at least 300 minutes of playing time up to an entire season. But if you are rating a player for more than a season (for two seasons or for a career for example) then do not use this scale, there is a better one below to use.
Perfect Player for all Practical Purposes / Major Historic Super Star 0.960 and
Historic Super Star 0.860 0.959
Super Star 0.760 0.859
A Star Player / A well above normal starter 0.680 0.759
Very Good Player / A solid starter 0.620 0.679
Major Role Player / Good enough to start 0.560 0.619
Good Role Player / Often a good 6th man, can possibly start 0.500 0.559
Satisfactory Role Player / Generally should not start 0.440 0.499
Marginal Role Player / Should not start except in an emergency 0.380 0.439
Poor Player / Should never start 0.320 0.379
Very Poor Player 0.260 0.319
Extremely Poor Player and less 0.259
EVALUATING MULTIPLE SEASONS AND CAREERS
Use the following scale if:
--You are using HDA
--You want to rate players in general, without regard to position
--You are rating more than a season (generally two or more seasons, up to and including a career).
--Note, HDA is considered mandatory for multiple season and career evaluations; therefore, there is no scale shown here for HDA not being used.
Perfect Player for all Practical Purposes / Major Historic Super Star 1.000 and more
Historic Super Star 0.925 0.999
Super Star 0.860 0.924
A Star Player / A well above normal starter 8.000 0.859
Very Good Player / A solid starter 0.750 0.799
Major Role Player / Good enough to start 0.700 0.749
Good Role Player / Often a good 6th man, can possibly start 0.650 0.699
Satisfactory Role Player / Generally should not start 0.600 0.649
Marginal Role Player / Should not start except in an emergency 0.550 0.599
Poor Player / Should never start 0.500 0.549
Very Poor Player 0.450 0.499
Extremely Poor Player and less 0.449
ADJUSTING FOR POSITIONS: HOW TO “WASH OUT” POSITON BIASES WHEN EVALUATING PLAYERS
Not all positions are created equal. These are the average ratings by position among all NBA players who play 300 minutes or more. There are very few small forwards and shooting guards who are superstars. Most (but definitely not all) superstars are players who can play point guard, power forward, or center.
Point Guard .750
Shooting Guard .640
Small Forward .640
Power Forward .720
Center .750
All Positions / All Players (NBA Overall Average) .700
As you can see, point guards and centers on average have RPRs about .050 higher than the NBA average. Power forwards average out to about .020 higher than the NBA average. Shooting guards and small forwards average out to about .060 below the NBA average.
What if you want to evaluate players after taking out the position advantages and disadvantages shown just above? What if you want to, in other words, compare all players at all positions on a completely even plane? When you do this, you will be adjusting reality a little for the cause of getting a direct, fair comparison of all players.
If you want to rate your players after removing any advantage or disadvantage they get from their position, you could adjust the scales above by the difference between the average for the position and the overall NBA average. Quest for the Ring of course has these position-specific evaluation scales.
But you don’t need them; you can accomplish the same thing by changing the Ratings you calculated themselves. Then you can use the same scales above with your new. To do it this way, add or subtract the following from your players’ ratings:
Point Guard: Subtract .050; for example, a .750 becomes a .700
Shooting Guard: Add .060; for example, a .640 becomes a .700
Small Forward: Add .060; for example, a .640 becomes a .700
Power Forward: Subtract .020; for example, a .720 becomes a .700
Center: Subtract .050; for example, a .750 becomes a .700
Now you can in effect compare all of your players without regard to position. For example, now you can fairly compare a shooting guard with a center.
SAVING DATA TO YOUR OWN COMPUTER
You can save your data (your ratings) all you wish but the calculator is copyrighted and it is illegal to place a copy of the calculator on any website.
CAUTIONS ABOUT REAL PLAYER RATINGS
See the User Guide for Real Player Ratings for more detailed information about how to evaluate the ratings, and also for cautions about using the Ratings. The latest Guide will be found on the page that the above link leads to.
As the main User Guide will inform you, although Real Player Ratings are very valid and extremely valuable, there are nevertheless reasons why they are not absolutely perfect and why they can not be the absolute final word on basketball players. See the cautions section of the User Guide for complete details on this subject.
