Loyalty, Greed, Winning, and Re-Signing: Part 1
Posted: April 17th, 2024, 11:07 pm
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
Follow ups
In part 2, I’ll aim to dive deeper into re-signing offers and correlation with:
Let me know if any feedback y’all, and thanks for reading. First piece of content!
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
- 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
- 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
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
Let me know if any feedback y’all, and thanks for reading. First piece of content!