Why is the Answer not the Answer?
The U.S. Olympic team recently announced the players it will invite to “try-out” for Team USA, and Allen “The Answer” Iverson of the Philadelphia 76ers was not invited.
Why is “The Answer” not the answer? Iverson is a great scorer, having led the NBA in scoring four times. He can also steal the ball. In fact, he set a record leading the league in steals per game for three consecutive seasons.
The official story on why Iverson will not be an Olympian focuses on his age in 2008 - 33 - when the games will be played in Beijing. But there might be other reasons not to include Iverson on the Olympic team.
Our research in sports and economics offers a simple and accurate way to measure productivity in the NBA, and it doesn’t involve looking strictly at points per game. It also doesn’t suggest Iverson is one of the league’s best players.
Let’s begin with turnovers. Although Iverson has demonstrated the ability to take the ball away from his opponent, he is equally adept at giving it back. In four different seasons Iverson has led the NBA in turnovers per game. In fact, his propensity to give the ball away consistently eclipses his ability to create steals. He would be a better player if he never stole the ball and never turned it over.
A bigger issue than turnovers is the problem Iverson has with shot selection. Consider his work beyond the NBA’s three point line. For his career Iverson has averaged more than four three point shots per game, or nearly one third of the shots his team takes from this distance. One would think that a player who took this many shots from beyond the arc would convert these shots with some consistency.
Well, the average NBA player converts about 36% of these shots. The average Philadelphia 76er not named Iverson has converted on 33% of these shots during Iverson’s career. Iverson, though, has a career average of only 31%.
Inside the three-point arc the story does not get better.
The average NBA player makes 47% of his two-point shots. Iverson’s conversion rate for his career is only 44%. So Iverson does not post lofty points totals because of his efficiency, but primarily because he is willing to take a large number of shots.
By comparison, Chauncey Billups and Jason Terry, point guards on two of the top teams in the league, are generally more valuable. Billups and Terry don’t score as much as Iverson does, but they score far more efficiently, wasting fewer of their team’s offensive opportunities. This is one reason why Billups and Terry more often leave the court as winners.
To put Iverson’s scoring in perspective, think about baseball for a moment. Way back in the 1870s baseball began to track batting average. When people began to notice that number of hits per at-bat didn’t tell the whole story, measures like on-base average, slugging average, and even OPS (on-base average plus slugging average) were developed.
What do all these measures have in common? The answer is efficiency, a topic near and dear to the hearts of economists. Baseball fans know that players should not be evaluated in terms of totals, but rather in terms of efficiency. In basketball, though, this lesson is not often heeded.
In the 2004 Olympics Iverson led Team USA in scoring, but he was hardly his team’s best player. From three point range, Iverson converted on 37% of his shots, about average for an NBA player, although not quite so good when one considers that the international three point line is closer than the NBA’s arc. From inside the arc Iverson only shot 39%, well below the performance of an average NBA player, and even below what Iverson normally offers in an average NBA contest.
What should be surprising is that decision-makers on Team USA would allow an inefficient scorer to take the most shots. What isn’t so surprising is that Team USA took the bronze medal, rather than the expected gold.
Economics teaches that resources must be allocated efficiently if an organization is to maximize the probability of success. Across Iverson’s career he consistently leads his team in shot attempts yet he does not score efficiently. So it is not surprising when Iverson’s team barely win more often than they lose. And since the objective in 2008 is to win the gold medal, perhaps Team USA is wise not to build its team once again around inefficiency.
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Originally Posted by KingMJames
