A couple of weeks ago I went out and played full court for the first time in about six months. I was kind of terrible (5-17 shooting or something like that) but I wasn't THAT terrible. Even though my stats were atrocious, I saw that I impacted the game in a positive way and we came from behind to win.
So in the spirit of Moneyball, I want propose a new statistic. At first I thought I'd count 1/2 rebounds, like football counts 1/2 sacks. I created a ton of offensive rebounds even though I didn't get credit for them. This would create a disproportionate amount of rebounds, though, because you couldn't withdraw a 1/2 rebound from the person who eventually did make the rebound. Still, I knew that anyone who looked at my box score would assume that I sucked it up, even though I was crucial to our victory.
Just as Moneyball values on-base percentage more than anything else, I needed to sort out what I would value as a coach. And I think the answer to that is possessions. The team with the most possessions wins the game, and the key to possessions is offensive rebounds. If you can't hit your shots, that's one thing, but if you outrebound the opposition by 2:1 you will win the game.
So here's my proposed stat, the Hustle Play (HP):
Any deliberate action (not already acknowledged statistically) which results in a gain of possession or prevents the loss of one. For example: leaping out of bounds to save the ball, taking a charge, tying up another player for a jump ball/possession arrow, creating an offensive rebound by tipping the ball to a teammate, assisting a steal (but not getting credit for one), forcing a turnover.
I also noticed that although I didn't really score we were up by 10 points when I left the game and we were down by 5 when I came back in. We ended up winning by 10. So you could say my Team Impact Differential (TID) was +25 for the last third of the game.
It might be a better way to measure ability... look at how the team does as a whole when the player is in the game, as opposed to how many points he is getting. I will definitely use this system if I ever have offspring to coach.
