More nuanced approaches in sports that aren't baseball

In the most abstract form, it's similar. I buy into the stathead stuff for the most part, although it's way over my head. But the original idea is the same - combine relevant stats into one that can be used to rank players over all facets of the game.

WAR and VORP and the baseball stats do a MUCH better job of this, mind you. They're way, way better than QB rating. But the stats were created with the same goal in mind. The fact that QB rating is a shitty stat doesn't change that.

 

I left that one alone because it's both false and irrelevant.

It had the same goal as sabermetrics, but the people behind it weren't half as smart as the leading members of SABR. That's a crucial differentiating point.

 

I don't know of a soul who really gives a shit about QB rating.

And, for all those snarking about Jordan-James:
--Jordan never had a center the quality of Ilgauskas.
--Pippen was largely a creation of Jordan, probably not terribly much better than Jamison
--James had some decent guards in Cleveland; Jordan had woodwork next to him.
--However, James didn't have Phil Jackson and Tex Winter on his side either.

 

Not to the general public.

 

Someday the Jordan jocksniffers are just going to take the next logical step and say that Pippen was actually just a hologram cast off by Jordan's awesomeness.

 

Nah, that would be Stacey King.

 

- The center thing is sort of missing the point. Big Z produced points on long jumpers, only occasionally good rebounding totals, a few pretty assists, little defense and few free throws. Cartwright played D and knew his role. But MJs centers were routinely the worst starters. Just saying LBJ had a better one does not really account for Z not being terrific to begin with.

-Who is this Jamison? You can't mean Antawn, the soft, no defense, tweener forward.

-Tell me about these awesome guards. I see Mo Williams, whose came to Cleveland after being the Bucks third guard, Larry Hughes, Sasha Pavlovic, Eric Snow, Devin Brown. I'll admit they had some OK bit guys in West, Parker and Damon Jones. But you'd put that over guys like Paxton, B.J. Armstrong, Kerr and Harper?

 

Your point?

 

OK. After I saw later responses, I gauged that you were using that as a springboard to fight another war. At first, though, it seemed as if you were just making some crazy, non-related point.

Carry on, flubber.

 

No problem, dummy. Glad to see you admit not knowing what the hell you're talking about.

 

That the NFL has been using an accepted, sabermetric-like stat for years.

 

But it's not actually a sabermetric-like stat. It doesn't matter if the general public sees it that way, it's not. This really isn't a hard concept.