NBA Sneakerheads: Sole Collector Rankings vs. Campless Data

Our last few posts have been pretty deep . . . quantifying the Instagram resell market, introducing the Hypebeast Hierarchy, explaining eBay sales decline . . . it felt like time for something lighter.  And, it doesn’t get any lighter than Swaggy P . . .

Obvious statement of the year:  Many NBA players are sneakerheads; many rock heat on the court.

Sneaker blogs track what players are wearing what kicks like The Fun Police tracks kids who haven’t learned how to pass. (“Man, you ain’t even lettin’ the ground touch the ball!”).

Nice Kicks was perhaps the first with Kicks on Court.  Sole Collector has recently gotten in on the action with #SoleWatch.  Both sites have developed a ranking system which, as far as we can tell, is not scientifically based.  While we certainly respect the editorial opinions of the writers at Nice Kicks and Sole Collector, whenever we see any subjective analysis we are reminded of the famous John F. Kennedy quote, “Ask not what you can do for your rankings, but what your data can do for rankings.”  Pretty sure that’s how it goes . . . yup.

So when we saw #SoleWatch Power Rankings: The Best of the Season back in April, we immediately starting working on this post, eager to see how the quantitative would compare to the qualitative.  (Interesting side note, “quantity vs. quality” is also the topic of every conversation between Nick Young and his shooting coach.)

Methodology:

The Sole Collector article lists all sneakers worn by each each player during the season.  Unfortunately, we don’t have data on every pair, so our rankings are only based on the 1508 sneakers currently on our site.  This led to removing LeBron, Westbrook, Kyrie and Steph from the analysis altogether, as their rotations were heavy on Player Exclusives, which we don’t track.  Plus, while having a signature shoe is powerful in its own right, it doesn’t quite equate to legitimate on-court sneakerhead status.  Case in point:  there’s more blog hype when LeBron is spotted wearing Air Max 95s off court than most of his in-game footwear.

Here is the complete and culled list of players and sneakers included in this analysis:

Using the sneakers in the shaded area of the above chart, we calculated a weighted average Campless Score and Average Deadstock Price for each player, and ranked them accordingly. (For a detailed explanation of these data points, see the Data page.)

The result:

Analysis:

The next step is to compare the Campless rankings with the Sole Collector editorial list:

If the Campless and Sole Collector rankings were identical we would see all player heads line up on the “Equal Ranking Line” which runs diagonal from the lower left to the upper right of each chart.  But as you can see, only two players line up on the Campless Score chart (left), and only one matches for the Average DS Price chart (right).

What can we make from the differences?

Key Insights:

• P.J Tucker is the undisputed quantitative and qualitative on-court sneakerhead in the league.  He sits on the line as #1 for both charts, by both methodologies. Rocking shoes like the Jordan 9 Doernbecher and Zoom Rookie Galaxy on court certainly helps explain why.
• Marcus Morris is the only other player on the line.  His Campless Score ranking is the same as his Sole Collector ranking (#3).  What does this mean?  Nothing, directly, but we should note that Marcus has worn a bunch of Jordan 11s (Bred, Cool Grey, Gamma).  Jordan 11s are always relatively high on the overall Campless Score rankings, but are rarely in the top 50.  Landing at #3 makes sense.
• The biggest differences?  Sole Collector ranked James Johnson at #6, but he’s #2 according to Campless Score.  On the other end, SC has Swaggy P at #2, but we got him at #5.  Our take?  Nick Young won the Nice Kicks “Kicks on Court” crown last year, and he hangs out with Ickey Woods* or Iggy Pop or someone . . . so that led to an unconscious editorial bias to ranki him higher.
• *Semi-related side note:  Gonna get some cold cuts today!

As it invariably happens, once we start down one path of analysis, we see another opportunity – hey, we’re data nerds, this is our idea of fun.  In this case, after comparing Campless data to SC ranking we thought it would be cool to do a similar comparison using NBA game stats.

Do sneakerheads perform better than non-sneakerheads?  Do certain shoes lead to better on-court results?

Those are some pretty big hypotheses to undertake.  Not sure we have enough data to really answer those questions, but as a starting point, we’ve created two comparisons:  1) Campless Sneakerhead Signicance to Player Efficiency Rating (PER); and 2) Average Deadstock Price to Points Per Game (PPG).  Our rationale is that Campless Score and PER are both overall barometers, while Price and Points are the most popular single stats.

As with the Sole Collector comparison, if the Campless and NBA rankings were identical we would see all player heads line up on the “Equal Ranking Line”.  In this case we hit 4 of 12…and batting .333 will get you into Cooperstown, so we’re not mad about that.

Key Insights:

• James Johnson has the highest PER and the second most significant sneakers, which include the Jordan 10 Doernbecher and Jordan 12 Flint Grey from 2003.
• On the other end of the stick, Terrence Ross has the lowest PER and least significant sneakers.  Although, to be clear, significance is all relative on this list:  Ross rocked Legend Blue 11s and Slam Dunk 6s, amongst others.
• At 16 points per game, Markeiff Morris led all sneakerheads by at least 2 points.  And at $362 he’s got the second most expensive kicks, just three bucks shy of P.J. Tucker.
• P.J. Tucker, our undisputed sneakerhead champ from the previous chart, doesn’t rank nearly as high according to game stats – he’s 5th in both PER and PPG.
• Tucker is evidence that expensive sneakers don’t make you play better.  Not coincidentally, this is the same rationale my mother used for not buying me Jordans my entire childhood.
• Guess what, Mom?  I got Jays now and my game is on point!  If you’re wondering why I never made the league and never made millions of dollars and never bought you and Dad a new house .  . . now you know!  You shoulda listened to Mars Blackmon!  It’s the shoes, Money!!
• But I’m not mad anymore. Seriously. I love you, Mom.

On that note, it’s probably time to wrap this thing up.  What did we learn today?  Well, not nearly as much as we’ve learned from other posts, but it was fun to make those little player-face things and feel like I work at Pardon The Interruption for a day.

p.s. – Can someone make sure P.J. Tucker sees this?  I’m sure he’ll be super excited to know he won whatever the heck this was.  Probably won’t mind the implication that he should spend less time worrying about kicks and more time working on his game, either.  Crap, I hope I don’t run into P.J. Tucker . . .