December and November-BOP Style

Posts a 68% TS and only plays 40 more minutes than Gray. Awesome.

at the beginning of the season, that he posted a ridiculous 133 ORtg and equally ridiculous 67.7 TS% in the month of December. Granted in November he did start significantly slower, with just the 110 ORtg and 45 TS%, but people hadn’t adjusted their opinions to reality in December when he was playing great. There were still claims that he was out of shape. Also, Noah’s DRtg was a very solid 101.9 in November, which also didn’t jive with a lot of people’s complaints about him not being where he was supposed to be.

November was a pretty good defensive month for the team (by DRtg), but the offense was bad. Then in December the Team ORtg got better and the defense dropped off. Now, in January the ORtg and DRtg appear to have caught up to one another and the Bulls are almost even in ORtg and DRtg (which would correlate to them being a .500 team, but being balanced). The ORtg unfortunately dropped in January, but the defense got appreciably better (more Tyrus and Noah and less Gooden and Noc, perhaps?) Maybe that’s a function of Vinny implementing his defensive philosophy first and then shifting the focus to offense, but in the process of the shift guys to offense guys forgot about the defensive side of the ball, and now finally they are understanding what he wants on both ends. Or it could just be a function of personnel and who’s been getting the minutes in each month. Just throwing out theories to make sense of the somewhat odd numbers showing a really unbalanced team one way one month and then unbalanced in just the opposite way the next month and now finding some balance and settling in as an average team. Anyway, hope the improvement on both sides of the ball improves.

Glossary

AST%
Assist Percentage (available since the 1964-65 season in the NBA); the formula is 100 * AST / (((MP / (Tm MP / 5)) * Tm FG) – FG). Assist percentage is an estimate of the percentage of teammate field goals a player assisted while he was on on the floor.

Award Share
The formula is (award points) / (maximum number of award points). For example, in the 2002-03 MVP voting Tim Duncan had 962 points out of a possible 1190. His MVP award share is 962 / 1190 = 0.81.

BLK
Blocks (available since the 1973-74 season in the NBA)

BLK%
Block Percentage (available since the 1973-74 season in the NBA); the formula is 100 * (BLK * (Tm MP / 5)) / (MP * (Opp FGA – Opp 3PA)). Block percentage is an estimate of the percentage of opponent two-point field goal attempts blocked by the player while he was on the floor.

DPOY
Defensive Player of the Year

DRB
Defensive Rebounds (available since the 1973-74 season in the NBA)
 
DRB%
Defensive Rebound Percentage (available since the 1970-71 season in the NBA); the formula is 100 * (DRB * (Tm MP / 5)) / (MP * (Tm DRB + Opp ORB)). Defensive rebound percentage is an estimate of the percentage of available defensive rebounds a player grabbed while he was on the floor.

DRtg
Defensive Rating (available since the 1977-78 season in the NBA); for players and teams it is points allowed per 100 posessions. This rating was developed by Dean Oliver, author of Basketball on Paper. I will point you to Dean’s book for complete details.

DWS
Defensive Win Shares (available since the 1977-78 season in the NBA); please see the article Calculating Win Shares for more information.

EFG%
Effective Field Goal Percentage; the formula is (FG + 0.5 * 3P) / FGA. This statistic adjusts for the fact that a 3-point field goal is worth one more point than a 2-point field goal. For example, suppose Player A goes 4 for 10 with 2 threes, while Player B goes 5 for 10 with 0 threes. Each player would have 10 points from field goals, and thus would have the same effective field goal percentage (50%).

FG
Field Goals

FG%
Field Goal Percentage; the formula is FG / FGA.

FGA
Field Goal Attempts

FT
Free Throws
 
FT%
Free Throw Percentage; the formula is FT / FTA.
 
FTA
Free Throw Attempts

Four Factors
Dean Oliver’s “Four Factors of Basketball Success”; please see the article Four Factors for more information.

G
Games

GB
Games Behind; the formula is ((first W – W) + (L – first L)) / 2, where first W and first L stand for wins and losses by the first place team, respectively.

GmSc
Game Score; the formula is PTS + 0.4 * FG – 0.7 * FGA – 0.4*(FTA – FT) + 0.7 * ORB + 0.3 * DRB + STL + 0.7 * AST + 0.7 * BLK – 0.4 * PF – TOV. Game Score was created by John Hollinger to give a rough measure of a player’s productivity for a single game. The scale is similar to that of points scored, i.e., 40 is an outstanding performance, 10 is an average performance, etc.

GS
Games Started (available since the 1982 season)

L
Losses

L Pyth
Pythagorean Losses; the formula is G – W Pyth.

Lg
League
 
MVP
Most Valuable Player

Most Similar at Age
The player who had the most similar season at a given age (available since the 1973-74 season in the NBA). Please read the full description of the method.

MP
Minutes Played (available since the 1951-52 season)

ORtg
Offensive Rating (available since the 1977-78 season in the NBA); for players it is points produced per 100 posessions, while for teams it is points scored per 100 possessions. This rating was developed by Dean Oliver, author of Basketball on Paper. I will point you to Dean’s book for complete details.

ORB
Offensive Rebounds (available since the 1973-74 season in the NBA)

ORB%
Offensive Rebound Percentage (available since the 1970-71 season in the NBA); the formula is 100 * (ORB * (Tm MP / 5)) / (MP * (Tm ORB + Opp DRB)). Offensive rebound percentage is an estimate of the percentage of available offensive rebounds a player grabbed while he was on the floor.

OWS
Offensive Win Shares (available since the 1977-78 season in the NBA); please see the article Calculating Win Shares for more information.

Pace
Pace Factor (available since the 1973-74 season in the NBA); the formula is 48 * ((Tm Poss + Opp Poss) / (2 * (Tm MP / 5))). Pace factor is an estimate of the number of possessions per 48 minutes by a team.

PER
Player Efficiency Rating (available since the 1951-52 season); PER is a rating developed by ESPN.com columnist John Hollinger. In John’s words, “The PER sums up all a player’s positive accomplishments, subtracts the negative accomplishments, and returns a per-minute rating of a player’s performance.” Please see the article Calculating PER for more information. Also see VAA and VAR.

Per 40 Minutes
A statistic (e.g., assists) divided by minutes played, multiplied by 40.

Per Game
A statistic (e.g., assists) divided by games.

PF
Personal Fouls

Poss
Possessions (available since the 1973-74 season in the NBA); the formula for teams is 0.5 * ((Tm FGA + 0.4 * Tm FTA – 1.07 * (Tm ORB / (Tm ORB + Opp DRB)) * (Tm FGA – Tm FG) + Tm TOV) + (Opp FGA + 0.4 * Opp FTA – 1.07 * (Opp ORB / (Opp ORB + Tm DRB)) * (Opp FGA – Opp FG) + Opp TOV)). This formula estimates possessions based on both the team’s statistics and their opponent’s statistics, then averages them to provide a more stable estimate. The formula for players is rather lengthy and can be found in Dean Oliver’s book.

PProd
Points Produced; Dean Oliver’s measure of offensive points produced. Please see Dean’s book for details.

PTS
Points

ROY
Rookie of the Year

SMOY
Sixth Man of the Year

STL
Steals (available since the 1973-74 season in the NBA)

STL%
Steal Percentage (available since the 1973-74 season in the NBA); the formula is 100 * (STL * (Tm MP / 5)) / (MP * Opp Poss). Steal Percentage is an estimate of the percentage of opponent possessions that end with a steal by the player while he was on the floor.

SRS
Simple Rating System; my colleague Doug Drinen of Pro-Football-Reference.com has written a great explanation of this method.

Stops
Stops; Dean Oliver’s measure of individual defensive stops. Please see Dean’s book for details.

Tm
Team

TOV
Turnovers (available since the 1977-78 season in the NBA)

TOV%
Turnover Percentage (available since the 1977-78 season in the NBA); the formula is 100 * TOV / (FGA + 0.44 * FTA + TOV). Turnover percentage is an estimate of turnovers per 100 plays.

TRB
Total Rebounds (available since the 1950-51 season)

TRB%
Total Rebound Percentage (available since the 1970-71 season in the NBA); the formula is 100 * (TRB * (Tm MP / 5)) / (MP * (Tm TRB + Opp TRB)). Total rebound percentage is an estimate of the percentage of available rebounds a player grabbed while he was on the floor.

TS%
True Shooting Percentage; the formula is PTS / (2 * (FGA + 0.44 * FTA)). True shooting percentage is a measure of shooting efficiency that takes into account field goals, 3-point field goals, and free throws

Usg%
Usage Percentage (available since the 1977-78 season in the NBA); the formula is 100 * ((FGA + 0.44 * FTA + TOV) * (Tm MP / 5)) / (MP * (Tm FGA + 0.44 * Tm FTA + Tm TOV)). Usage percentage is an estimate of the percentage of team plays used by a player while he was on the floor.

VAA
Value Above Average (available since the 1950-51 season); the formula is (PER – 15) / 15 * MP. By definition, the league average PER in a given season is 15, so this measure computes the player’s value above the league average taking playing time into consideration. Please note that defensive specialists (e.g., Bruce Bowen) will be drastically underrated using this method.

VAR
Value Above Replacement (available since the 1950-51 season); the formula is (PER – 9) / 15 * MP. Replacement-level PER is estimated to be about 9, so this measure computes the player’s value above the league replacement level taking playing time into consideration. Please note that defensive specialists (e.g., T.R. Dunn) will be drastically underrated using this method.
 

W Pyth
Pythagorean Wins; the formula is G * (Tm PTS14 / (Tm PTS14 + Opp PTS14)). The formula was obtained by fitting a logistic regression model with log(Tm PTS / Opp PTS) as the explanatory variable. Using this formula for all BAA, NBA, and ABA seasons, the root mean-square error (rmse) is 3.14 wins. Using an exponent of 16.5 (a common choice), the rmse is 3.48 wins.

WS
Win Shares (available since the 1977-78 season in the NBA); please see the article Calculating Win Shares for more information.

Sorry for some of the ones you probably already know but I figured I’d give everything here.

I remember reading somewhere that they though those numbers weren’t reliable but I don’t know how they are calculated, only what they represent, so I can’t judge myself.

I can only imagine how lengthy calculating this numbers are, especially splitting them month for month. How are you calculating these numbers? Are you running a script, using excel, finding it from another site, or just crunching them on a calculator?