Loyalty, Greed, Winning, and Re-Signing: Part 1

[tonger]

Loyalty, Greed, Winning, and Re-Signing: Part 1
Re-signing risk is one of the biggest swing factors in the game, and from my perspective as a new GM, one of the things that's been hardest things to figure out. Whether a player re-signs or not has a huge impact on a team’s future and that player’s value, and getting any sort of insight into which data points can "predict" whether a player 1/ offers to re-sign with their team, and 2/ if not, whether they still end up re-signing with their team after testing the open market would be hugely beneficial.

The goal of this analysis is to find any patterns in whether or not a player offers to re-sign, and if so, whether that offer is “reasonable” (that is, accepted). Potential learnings from this analysis could be applied to determining a player’s value to the team and how to handle the player - e.g. if you believe a player is unlikely to offer to re-sign, or unlikely to give a reasonable re-signing offer, then maybe it’s better to trade that player before the deadline. This is Part 1 in the analysis, in which I'll share the metadata I gathered and the first set of high-level takeaways. Hopefully this isn't a topic that's been drilled to death and that the takeaways here are somewhat novel and educational.

Dataset:
I (manually) pulled down the following data for each “desirable” FA in this class (50 total players), with “desirable” loosely defined as a player who would sign for the MLE or above.
- The “tier” of that player, separated into: 1/ Superstar - Carmelo Anthony, Rashad McCants; 2/ Star - Darko Milicic, Deron Williams; 3/ Strong role player - Kris Humphries, Elton Brand; 4/MLE talent - David Lee, Joe Johnson
- Whether the player offered to re-sign - 23 did, 27 did not
- If the player offered to re-sign, whether that re-signing offer was accepted - 15 were, 8 were not
- If the player offered to re-sign and that re-signing offer was denied, whether that player re-signed with the same team - 4 same team, 4 different team
- “Loyalty” score
- “Play for winner” score
- Years with current team
- Overall years of experience
- Age
- Career Championships
- Team’s prior season record
- Team’s all time record
- Team’s all time championships

Note that because I pulled this data manually, I’m bound to have missed a player or two.

Initial Takeaways
I know some of you have stats/analytics degrees and can do two-sided T tests in your sleep and will probably pick apart everything I’m writing below. I’ve forgotten all that shit and mostly just use Excel. Pulling this dataset together was also a pain in the ass so I just wanted to get this initial set of very simplistic takeaways out the door.
A player’s Greed rating seems to be most correlated with whether or not a player stays with their existing team

• The 23 players who offered to re-sign had an average Greed rating of 51

• The 27 players who did NOT offer to re-sign had an average Greed rating of 58

• The 15 players whose re-signing offers were accepted had average Greed ratings of 49

• The 8 players whose re-signing offers were NOT accepted had average Greed ratings of 56

At first glance, a player’s loyalty score in independence isn’t a strong predictor of whether the player offers to re-sign or ends up re-signing

• The 23 players who offered to re-sign had an average Loyalty rating of 47

• The 27 players who did NOT offer to re-sign also had an average Loyalty rating of 47

• The 36 players who ended up re-signing with the same team had an average Loyalty rating of 47

• The 14 players who signed with new teams had an average loyalty rating of 46

At first glance, a player’s “play for winner” rating and whether a player’s team wins a lot or not doesn't seem to impact re-signing

• Players for whom winning is important (>50) and offered to re-sign (13 players): Average team wins of 36

• Players for whom winning is important (>50) and didn’t offer to re-sign (13 players): Average team wins of 43

• Players for whom winning isn’t important (<50) and offered to re-sign (10 players): Average team wins of 43

• Players for whom winning isn’t important (<50) and didn’t offer to re-sign (14 players): Average team wins of 42

I'm sure there are deeper predictive patterns that will come out with more analysis - these are just the initial takeaways.

Follow ups
In part 2, I’ll aim to dive deeper into re-signing offers and correlation with:

• The player’s “play for winner” rating and the team’s “winning pedigree” (their historical win record and number of championships)

• The player’s loyalty rating and how long they’ve been with the team

• Whether behaviors change as players get older or win championships

Other ideas welcome!

Let me know if any feedback y’all, and thanks for reading. First piece of content!

[jwoo]

This is sick even though i have no idea if we learned anything lol

[tonger]

This is sick even though i have no idea if we learned anything lol

My learning so far is: don't read too much into the player ratings... if at all. Hopefully there's something more predictive under the surface

[Joe]

Tonger bout to get that n00b bonus plus frenzy plus 100 posts…this is going to be worth like 4 supercamps

[Merv]

This definitely took a lot of time! Interesting stuff

[The Transfer Portal]

Great idea!

[SoNicks]

Tongers got the stuff

[Matt]

This is awesome

[Joe]

One piece of this to consider next time @tonger - each team has a "win rating" that's recalculated every season (I don't know what exactly goes into the formula), and I believe that's what's factored into the "play for winner" part of the re-signing equation. Still not sure how it factors in, but thats for you to find out

[tonger]

One piece of this to consider next time @tonger - each team has a "win rating" that's recalculated every season (I don't know what exactly goes into the formula), and I believe that's what's factored into the "play for winner" part of the re-signing equation. Still not sure how it factors in, but thats for you to find out

Nice. Is that stated somewhere or a hidden rating?