As a math major, I'm always fascinated by numbers. I took this years NBA stats and have started tinkering around with them. One major stat stands out so far---offensive rebounds. If you compare offensive rebounds to the wins a team has, you will find that it produces a slightly negative correlation. Meaning, the MORE offensive rebounds a team has, the FEWER wins it will produce. The reason is this: teams with lower field goal percrentages lose more games and have more opportunities for offensive rebounds. When determining the value of a player through statisics, offensive rebounds can be very misleading.
Defensive rebounds tell us a completely different story.I have many more stats to interperet. So far, the strongest positive correlation is defensive rebounds. The more defensive rebounds a team has, the more likely it is to win games. Therefor, to determine a players statistical value, it is much more important to look at defensive rebounds than offensive, or total for that matter. There will be more to come and hopefully a way to determine how many wins a player generates.
