Hollinger's way of calculating the Game Score mystifies me. He considers a steal to be the equal of a point scored a little less than 50% more important than a block, an offensive rebound and assist, 2 and 1/2 times more important than a field goal and over three times more important than a defensive rebound.
This skews the formula towards guards scoring higher in my opinion. Just another in a long line of examples that make me question his mathematics.
A steal guarantees your team possession of the ball. A block does not, only 50-55% of blocks result in a change of possession.
A defensive rebound is about 70-75% but that number is largely a constant irrelevant of who is on the court. So even though "player X" grabbed the ball there is still a strong a chance that another player on that team could have snared it if he didn't. Also, subject to diminishing returns. Which is not true of a steal.
They had some study on offensive rebounding and they showed great rebounders improve their team's rebounding more through this avenue than defensive rebounding. I don't think I really explained the rebounding part good ... but there is a good article somewhere online that I'll try to find. I think it's on basketball-statistics.com.
Assists are low because the NBA hands them out too freely and they do not have great analytic value as a result. With a field goal, if the player doesn't take the shot, another guy can take the shot.
It guarantees your team possession and it's an individual action that cannot be done or partially/largely replaced (field goal/points/defensive rebounds) by another player.
Anyway ... that's the idea behind a steal having so much value. Whether it's correct or not is highly debatable but that is the idea beyond it.
Topic: Best single-game performances (Read 2985 times)