The NBA’s data obsession and the new age of player performance evaluation.

In modern day American sports judging players performance has become a common occurrence on every talk show, article, or video produced. Now a new level of evaluation has begun based on advanced statistics.

One such statistic that often draws praise or criticism to a player is wins above replacement, also known as WAR. This advanced metric calculates a player’s impact on a team and how a “league average” player would impact their team if they were to replace them.

The implementation of advanced statistics has offered a new perspective on sports and shown different ways players impact their teams. However, these advanced metrics are changing the perception of how players are evaluated.

The NBA has recently relied more into data and advanced metrics, so if you don’t watch and look at the advanced stats for some of the top players in the league, you would get the impression that they aren’t as valuable as they may seem.

Players like Lebron James (3) and Luka Doncic (4) were ranked in the top 5 of the league’s best players by ESPN before the season, but their WARS are 0.9 and .44 respectively. Those numbers are not what you would expect for top five players in the league, as replacing them with what would be considered a league average player yields nearly the same amount of wins.

Sources: https://data.fivethirtyeight.com/