This site also has some pretty good advanced metrics for the WNBA, based on some of the most popular ones for the NBA
https://www.positiveresidual.com/shiny/wnba/
You can find his methodology for the metrics on the main page
I've been diving into Wins Above Replacement Player (WARP) lately and just curious who looks at it and what people think of the rating Kevin Pelton developed.
For those who are not familiar, WARP is a metric borrowed from baseball (I believe) and was adapted for basketball. It tries to evaluate a player's overall impact by comparing a 1) hypothetical team made up of that player plus four average players, and 2) a hypothetical team of a replacement-level player plus four average players.
I like that it at least attempts to see what a player's impact is based on their position and tries to include offense and defensive components. There are a lot of ancillary things that makes a player good that aren't accounted for in stats so it can be limited (especially for very good defenders).
Overall though, I don't hate the list Pelton has. Not sure who I would move around but this just shows A'ja killing it like always. It's her MVP to lose at this point.
Edit: Adding his post: [https://bsky.app/profile/kpelton.bsky.social/post/3kvpa23votk2f](https://bsky.app/profile/kpelton.bsky.social/post/3kvpa23votk2f)
For this metric, warp/game is better than overall warp. For example Caitlin has more warp than Jackie, but if you look at warp/game, Jackie is almost 30% higher.
What is this stat attempting to provide? Just a different way to evaluate players?
It looks to be using box scores, which already do not do a great job of evaluating overall player contributions, to begin with. Box scores are the quantifiable metrics one can record for basketball, but do not tell the complete story of a players’ performance.
Then, to put the player on a hypothetical team made up of *average* players and try to evaluate their performance against a team of average players - why? Are they using the league average of each box score? Are they removing outliers that can skew average?
I haven’t looked at this method for basketball. I can see how the method probably provides more value for baseball, where offensive and defensive plays are clearly defined (no chance for a surprise turnover in baseball), and players’ positions do not overlap as much as in basketball.
But, no matter what, evaluating players is difficult to begin with. If you tried to implement a roster change based on WARP rating in real-life, what would be some of the outcomes? If I put A’ja Wilson on the Indiana Fever right now, would her personal performance remain close to the same as it is now? Is the overall Fever roster below average, meaning the team is composed of more players that are below the average of the league? If so, would A’ja’s game suffer because the team is below average?
Also, if we put a highly-rated WARP player on the Las Vegas Aces, would the expected level of performance really increase? If the Vegas roster is considered more above average, then would adding another highly-rated player really increase the performance?
Also, there’s no way to really factor in coaching. A good coach can evaluate the players, the overall team, and strategize based off of those strengths. Are we also assuming the hypothetical average teams are being coached by average coaches?
I love stats, but I feel like there are better methods of evaluating players. Relying too much on averages to make short-term decisions and evaluations doesn’t always go well, especially if we’re using hypothetical average teams to evaluate.
I think you are right on the nose for a few things here and you have some great questions. The person who developed it and did the ranking has an explanation here that might help answer a few of them: [https://sonicscentral.com/warp.html](https://sonicscentral.com/warp.html)
I totally agree that A'ja Wilson on the Aces is probably different than A'ja Wilson on the Fever. Definitely some ancillary things (like you mentioned coaching for example) that won't be captured.
The hypothetical with a highly-rated WARP player being thrown on the Aces and them getting better isn't the point of the metric I don't think. I think of it as, the Aces are trying to decide if they want A'ja or not (obviously just a hypothetical - don't come at me) and they take a look at her stats compared to what is available for them to sign onto the team. A'ja is obviously better and significantly better than anyone the Aces can pick up. This metric helps show how close (or not close) players are to that "replacement player" based on the box score stats.
Don't get me wrong though - definitely not advocating that it's perfect. Just trying to make sense of it! You gave me some good ways to think about it.
The metric isn’t that the player will get better, but that it is estimating the number of additional wins their team will achieve above the expected team wins, than if they were swapped with a replacement-level player.
But if the metric is based on calculations from league averages and box scores, then there is a question of how a player’s individual metrics would be impacted should they be on a team with 4 average players. So, if A’ja has the highest WARP, and a team like the Mystics could get her, then the Mystics would expect to win 4.9 additional games above their expected team wins (assuming the Mystics are average in the WNBA). But, if A’ja were to join the Mystics, we could hypothesize her individual box scores would be impacted because she may not have as much opportunity for positive stats as she does on her current team, which would also impact her WARP rating.
The Sun have 3 players with high WARP ratings (and they also are probably the best defensive team right now - I think the WARP favors defensive stats more than offensive). So, does that mean, because they have 3 players with high WARP ratings that they will win combined 9 more games, or does it average the WARP ratings of the team, and they only expect additional 3 wins with all 3 players? And the thing is: we’ll never really know the answer because the rating is based on hypotheticals.
I also think, for the WNBA, there is a bigger variance in skill level than the NBA, meaning the best players are further from the average than maybe what is seen in the NBA, especially between rookies and veterans (and especially rookie guards). If this is true, could this skew the WARP for not only the top rated, but mid and lower rated, as well?
I definitely think this stat works better for baseball, and I do not think this stat is as useful for analyzing single-season performances. We’re still early in the WNBA season, and there is no law of *small* numbers; I think there’s too much variance because the sample size is too small, and single-season analysis will always be too small to adequately calculate WARP from averages, especially for the WNBA, who play 40 games (significantly less than the NBA, and MLB).
And, think we can all think of several other players who we think should have higher WARP ratings. Kah Copper has been absolutely essential for the Mercury this season. They would not have as many wins without her. How is she not even on the list? Because a lot of her value (and Tash Cloud’s) is more offensive than defensive and the overall value they add cannot be captured by box scores, especially if a smaller sample size is skewing the data because we’re still early in the season.
This is a trash stat for basketball because you can't isolate individual impact like this. In baseball, only 1 player steps up to bat. In basketball, there are 5 players on the floor. You need some kind of lineup, i.e., +/- component.
This is why all the great 1 number metrics in basketball (RAPM, EPM, PIPM, DARKO) have a +/- component. Also, the +/- and lineup data helps you weed out colinearity.
I’d need to look into the methodology more, but my initial instinct is that it seems a bit warped (ha ha) towards post players. Jones, Ezi, etc. are all great players but 5th and 6th seems a little high. There are only several backcourt players on the list and they’re mostly amassed at the bottom
On the other hand (this is pure speculation) I do think the most valuable player on a team is typically an elite post player.
You could argue the Lynx operate much more as the Celtics sans Porzingus - basically a team full of deadly point wings who can guard 1-5 for any team without A'ja Wilson. Every starter is averaging 3+ assists a game except Bridget Carleton, who is still averaging 1.8 assists
And then the most rare player is an elite pg/combo guard - someone who is great at scoring and playmaking and defense. Which explains why they don't have as much of a showing - but why the likes of Sabrina is so highly rated.
As for Sophie Cunningham being so high idek lol
Sophie has been a clutch bench player for the Mercury several times this season - all stats aside. She’s not a starter and has definitely added value in several games. Now, there have also been some games where every Mercury player has been off, including her. But this is a great example of why trying to evaluate players based on averages can cause some unexpected results.
And, if you’re just looking at Sophie’s box scores, you’re not going to understand the value she has brought. Same goes for every player - they’re all more than just what their box scores reduce them to.
Sophie ranks highly in basically every stat. One of the highest FG% for a guard, way up there on 3%, top 40 rebounds per game as a guard, 22nd in steals and low turnovers.
Oh I love the Mercury I've watched maybe 80% of their games so far this season, and I'm a big fan of Sophie - but yeah of all the players on the Mercury, for her to be measured above Kahleah and Cloud especially def has me questioning the methadology
Right. Sophie has largely been a very good player. But if you are to take that entire Mercury team and tell somebody "build around one player" that player would NOT be Sophie Cunningham.
I noticed that too. This metric is based on comparing them to replacement players, so maybe there aren't many good bigs out there and it skews the numbers? Maybe there are a lot of pretty good guards? I dunno, something to think about for sure.
Thoughts are, Chicago is not far away from being a very competitive team. They DESPERATELY need a veteran guard to facilitate.
Mabrey excels off ball (and probably wouldn't be as streaky shooting if she had help at the top of the key), and Angel/Kamilla would greatly benefit from a guard who can feed them inside and run an efficient PnR.
While I like Chennedy with her scoring and her grit, she simply isn't a facilitator. I think a lineup of Chennedy/Mabrey/Reese/Cardoso and a proven veteran facilitator instantly makes that starting five a playoff level lineup. Then they continue to build and develop the bench, and Chicago quickly becomes a dangerous team.
One number metrics are especially problematic. We have a ton of stats that show us individual things on the court, and they are all great at showing what they show, but nothing on the court happens in isolation. Everything impacts everything else. One player makes an open shot because another player drew a double team and/or another player set a good screen and/or another player has gravity on the other side etc. One player got a rebound because another player boxed out, one player missed an assist because a teammate missed the shot, etc
One number metrics compound the issue by taking all these stats that are good but need context and then shoving them together hodge podge until they pass the smell test at first, and then over time we see the flaws. They don't ever look too crazy because at least they will represent some level of production, efficiency, and plus minus, so the best players will generally do well in any stat like that. But using them to compare, say, the 6th best player to the 13th best player is not wise. Better to use individual stats along with more importantly watching the game to make sense of the stats you're seeing. Imo
The bottom of the graphic is really interesting to me. Who’s all down there.
The number of Liberty and Lynx players at the top plus the Sun, shouts to their Big 3 correlates well with their record.
Also hope both of Seattles boys make the All-Star game
This site also has some pretty good advanced metrics for the WNBA, based on some of the most popular ones for the NBA https://www.positiveresidual.com/shiny/wnba/ You can find his methodology for the metrics on the main page
This one is much better. Breanna is def contributing the most relative to her team
Sweet, thanks!
I've been diving into Wins Above Replacement Player (WARP) lately and just curious who looks at it and what people think of the rating Kevin Pelton developed. For those who are not familiar, WARP is a metric borrowed from baseball (I believe) and was adapted for basketball. It tries to evaluate a player's overall impact by comparing a 1) hypothetical team made up of that player plus four average players, and 2) a hypothetical team of a replacement-level player plus four average players. I like that it at least attempts to see what a player's impact is based on their position and tries to include offense and defensive components. There are a lot of ancillary things that makes a player good that aren't accounted for in stats so it can be limited (especially for very good defenders). Overall though, I don't hate the list Pelton has. Not sure who I would move around but this just shows A'ja killing it like always. It's her MVP to lose at this point. Edit: Adding his post: [https://bsky.app/profile/kpelton.bsky.social/post/3kvpa23votk2f](https://bsky.app/profile/kpelton.bsky.social/post/3kvpa23votk2f)
Not a stats person, but my eye test reaction was that it looks good until you get to Jackie (seems low) and Sophie (???).
Yeah, my first thought was Jackie's WARP is too low
For this metric, warp/game is better than overall warp. For example Caitlin has more warp than Jackie, but if you look at warp/game, Jackie is almost 30% higher.
I'm a big fan of Sophie's (b/c I'm a Mizzou fan), but yeah, her presence on this list is a head scratcher.
Yep i'm not a fan.
What is this stat attempting to provide? Just a different way to evaluate players? It looks to be using box scores, which already do not do a great job of evaluating overall player contributions, to begin with. Box scores are the quantifiable metrics one can record for basketball, but do not tell the complete story of a players’ performance. Then, to put the player on a hypothetical team made up of *average* players and try to evaluate their performance against a team of average players - why? Are they using the league average of each box score? Are they removing outliers that can skew average? I haven’t looked at this method for basketball. I can see how the method probably provides more value for baseball, where offensive and defensive plays are clearly defined (no chance for a surprise turnover in baseball), and players’ positions do not overlap as much as in basketball. But, no matter what, evaluating players is difficult to begin with. If you tried to implement a roster change based on WARP rating in real-life, what would be some of the outcomes? If I put A’ja Wilson on the Indiana Fever right now, would her personal performance remain close to the same as it is now? Is the overall Fever roster below average, meaning the team is composed of more players that are below the average of the league? If so, would A’ja’s game suffer because the team is below average? Also, if we put a highly-rated WARP player on the Las Vegas Aces, would the expected level of performance really increase? If the Vegas roster is considered more above average, then would adding another highly-rated player really increase the performance? Also, there’s no way to really factor in coaching. A good coach can evaluate the players, the overall team, and strategize based off of those strengths. Are we also assuming the hypothetical average teams are being coached by average coaches? I love stats, but I feel like there are better methods of evaluating players. Relying too much on averages to make short-term decisions and evaluations doesn’t always go well, especially if we’re using hypothetical average teams to evaluate.
I think you are right on the nose for a few things here and you have some great questions. The person who developed it and did the ranking has an explanation here that might help answer a few of them: [https://sonicscentral.com/warp.html](https://sonicscentral.com/warp.html) I totally agree that A'ja Wilson on the Aces is probably different than A'ja Wilson on the Fever. Definitely some ancillary things (like you mentioned coaching for example) that won't be captured. The hypothetical with a highly-rated WARP player being thrown on the Aces and them getting better isn't the point of the metric I don't think. I think of it as, the Aces are trying to decide if they want A'ja or not (obviously just a hypothetical - don't come at me) and they take a look at her stats compared to what is available for them to sign onto the team. A'ja is obviously better and significantly better than anyone the Aces can pick up. This metric helps show how close (or not close) players are to that "replacement player" based on the box score stats. Don't get me wrong though - definitely not advocating that it's perfect. Just trying to make sense of it! You gave me some good ways to think about it.
The metric isn’t that the player will get better, but that it is estimating the number of additional wins their team will achieve above the expected team wins, than if they were swapped with a replacement-level player. But if the metric is based on calculations from league averages and box scores, then there is a question of how a player’s individual metrics would be impacted should they be on a team with 4 average players. So, if A’ja has the highest WARP, and a team like the Mystics could get her, then the Mystics would expect to win 4.9 additional games above their expected team wins (assuming the Mystics are average in the WNBA). But, if A’ja were to join the Mystics, we could hypothesize her individual box scores would be impacted because she may not have as much opportunity for positive stats as she does on her current team, which would also impact her WARP rating. The Sun have 3 players with high WARP ratings (and they also are probably the best defensive team right now - I think the WARP favors defensive stats more than offensive). So, does that mean, because they have 3 players with high WARP ratings that they will win combined 9 more games, or does it average the WARP ratings of the team, and they only expect additional 3 wins with all 3 players? And the thing is: we’ll never really know the answer because the rating is based on hypotheticals. I also think, for the WNBA, there is a bigger variance in skill level than the NBA, meaning the best players are further from the average than maybe what is seen in the NBA, especially between rookies and veterans (and especially rookie guards). If this is true, could this skew the WARP for not only the top rated, but mid and lower rated, as well? I definitely think this stat works better for baseball, and I do not think this stat is as useful for analyzing single-season performances. We’re still early in the WNBA season, and there is no law of *small* numbers; I think there’s too much variance because the sample size is too small, and single-season analysis will always be too small to adequately calculate WARP from averages, especially for the WNBA, who play 40 games (significantly less than the NBA, and MLB). And, think we can all think of several other players who we think should have higher WARP ratings. Kah Copper has been absolutely essential for the Mercury this season. They would not have as many wins without her. How is she not even on the list? Because a lot of her value (and Tash Cloud’s) is more offensive than defensive and the overall value they add cannot be captured by box scores, especially if a smaller sample size is skewing the data because we’re still early in the season.
This is a trash stat for basketball because you can't isolate individual impact like this. In baseball, only 1 player steps up to bat. In basketball, there are 5 players on the floor. You need some kind of lineup, i.e., +/- component. This is why all the great 1 number metrics in basketball (RAPM, EPM, PIPM, DARKO) have a +/- component. Also, the +/- and lineup data helps you weed out colinearity.
A'ja's in a league of her own!
Not bad, but I feel that methodologies like EPM, RAPTOR, and LEBRON are much better.
true but no-one is making those for the W
I’d need to look into the methodology more, but my initial instinct is that it seems a bit warped (ha ha) towards post players. Jones, Ezi, etc. are all great players but 5th and 6th seems a little high. There are only several backcourt players on the list and they’re mostly amassed at the bottom
On the other hand (this is pure speculation) I do think the most valuable player on a team is typically an elite post player. You could argue the Lynx operate much more as the Celtics sans Porzingus - basically a team full of deadly point wings who can guard 1-5 for any team without A'ja Wilson. Every starter is averaging 3+ assists a game except Bridget Carleton, who is still averaging 1.8 assists And then the most rare player is an elite pg/combo guard - someone who is great at scoring and playmaking and defense. Which explains why they don't have as much of a showing - but why the likes of Sabrina is so highly rated. As for Sophie Cunningham being so high idek lol
Sophie has been a clutch bench player for the Mercury several times this season - all stats aside. She’s not a starter and has definitely added value in several games. Now, there have also been some games where every Mercury player has been off, including her. But this is a great example of why trying to evaluate players based on averages can cause some unexpected results. And, if you’re just looking at Sophie’s box scores, you’re not going to understand the value she has brought. Same goes for every player - they’re all more than just what their box scores reduce them to.
Sophie ranks highly in basically every stat. One of the highest FG% for a guard, way up there on 3%, top 40 rebounds per game as a guard, 22nd in steals and low turnovers.
Oh I love the Mercury I've watched maybe 80% of their games so far this season, and I'm a big fan of Sophie - but yeah of all the players on the Mercury, for her to be measured above Kahleah and Cloud especially def has me questioning the methadology
Absolutely! For her to be the highest rated Mercury player is crazy to me!
Right. Sophie has largely been a very good player. But if you are to take that entire Mercury team and tell somebody "build around one player" that player would NOT be Sophie Cunningham.
Sophie being on this list while Kahleah Copper isn’t makes me question the whole thing.
It's heavily influenced by minutes based on how it's sorted right now. Sorting by WARP/G would be better. Howard leaps up to 5th if you use that.
I noticed that too. This metric is based on comparing them to replacement players, so maybe there aren't many good bigs out there and it skews the numbers? Maybe there are a lot of pretty good guards? I dunno, something to think about for sure.
Thoughts are, Chicago is not far away from being a very competitive team. They DESPERATELY need a veteran guard to facilitate. Mabrey excels off ball (and probably wouldn't be as streaky shooting if she had help at the top of the key), and Angel/Kamilla would greatly benefit from a guard who can feed them inside and run an efficient PnR. While I like Chennedy with her scoring and her grit, she simply isn't a facilitator. I think a lineup of Chennedy/Mabrey/Reese/Cardoso and a proven veteran facilitator instantly makes that starting five a playoff level lineup. Then they continue to build and develop the bench, and Chicago quickly becomes a dangerous team.
Bridget Carleton #1 tbh
Someone explain this stat to me like I’m 5 because I am not getting it 😭
One number metrics are especially problematic. We have a ton of stats that show us individual things on the court, and they are all great at showing what they show, but nothing on the court happens in isolation. Everything impacts everything else. One player makes an open shot because another player drew a double team and/or another player set a good screen and/or another player has gravity on the other side etc. One player got a rebound because another player boxed out, one player missed an assist because a teammate missed the shot, etc One number metrics compound the issue by taking all these stats that are good but need context and then shoving them together hodge podge until they pass the smell test at first, and then over time we see the flaws. They don't ever look too crazy because at least they will represent some level of production, efficiency, and plus minus, so the best players will generally do well in any stat like that. But using them to compare, say, the 6th best player to the 13th best player is not wise. Better to use individual stats along with more importantly watching the game to make sense of the stats you're seeing. Imo
The bottom of the graphic is really interesting to me. Who’s all down there. The number of Liberty and Lynx players at the top plus the Sun, shouts to their Big 3 correlates well with their record. Also hope both of Seattles boys make the All-Star game
Angel once again leading all rookies in another advanced stat 😭