So this was interesting. ESPN rolled out its new stat, RPM, just yesterday. While it seems to be a descendent of RAPM, I’m not entirely clear on the distinctions. In any event, here is the full list of rankings. It’s interesting to note that Patrick Beverley is #14 in the entire league, just ahead of Mike Conley. What’s fascinating to note, and quite counter-intuitive, as Rob Dover pointed out [in the opening post of this forum thread], is that Beverley’s glossy rating is primarily from his offensive stat rather than his defensive one. What’s going on here?
One might initially surmise that this occurrence is simply a factor of playing next to James Harden and Dwight Howard in one of the league’s most high octane units. But on the contrary, the stress of RAPM was that it sought to mitigate such advantages; it also claims to account for intra-squad discrepancies such as, for instance, the boost seen from having a bad backup. The way I always understood RAPM was that rather than measuring “how good” a player was, it was a measure of how good a player was at the role they were playing on their team. As the statistic is gleaned from play-by-play data, rather than your stats in the box score, its a composite of the impact you are having while in the game as indicated by the ebb and flow of the scoreboard.
For Beverley, it might not really be too big of a surprise that he is so impactful offensively. I noted upon his injury, incurring the ridicule of Jeremy Lin’s faithful band of Twiter loyalists, that one of Beverley’s greatest qualities was his decisionmaking abilities on offense. While he’s prone to over-agressiveness on defense (subsequently racking up stupid fouls), he’s extremely calm and composed on the scoring side of the ball. He protects the ball, rarely forces the issue, and also hits down wide open 3’s. Contrast this with Jeremy Lin (just as an example; the statistic is not meant as an intra-team replacement comparison) who often looks like a chicken with its head cut off and you can see how the overall offense could be effected. There is certainly something to the hazards of indecisiveness.
I think that Beverley is great at his role because when he’s on the court, everyone’s role becomes more clearly defined. You’ll note that Harden trusts him to set the play up because he knows he’ll get it right back (ala the Rafer Alston – Tracy McGrady dynamic). Beverley also rarely looks to drive in unless he has a clear shot; this leads to less errant passes and a smoother machine.
Ultimately though, this is all conjecture as, until the formula for RPM is released, we don’t really know exactly what is going into this ranking. For now, we can just speculate upon the purported results.
View this discussion from the forum.
