How the Sausage Is Made: Detail Needed for Accurate Value Add Basketball Cards

 Sometimes I get offers to create a program to create Value Add Basketball Game teams at will. Once people see the process of making accurate cards after adjusting for eras, level of competition etc., people give up. Only for stat nerds like me, feel free to look at these 22 teams in progress on this google sheet.

Stats need to be compared to the average performance of opposing players to calibrate rebounds, steals etc. Someone may have a lot of rebounds, but if opponents were grabbling as many rebounds then we know the rebounds were a result of pace of play. See the red average of opponents stats after the 10 player rows for each team.

In some cases we have all the stats we need for most of the 19 figures we need for each card. For example, for the teams before blocked shots we start with a ratio based on rebounds. For times before steals we rely on a ratio of assist (in most cases the player that can figure out the angles to deliver an assist can figure out the angle to steal a pass). For teams before the 3-point shot we take the normal breakdown of 2-point shots made and missed as well as 3-pointers of each by position - or if they shot 3-pointers in the NBA we base a ratio on that (obviously assuming they would have shot better and more often from a college arc closer).

This sheet lists which players have which assumptions.

Here is a snap shot in case you want to peak in the weeds, but it will still take quite a while to get through the manual steps.

The columns in blue are the ones that will actually be on the cards.