Boy Meets World, and by Boy I mean decision-making software and by World I mean NBA Jam

by Gavin Byrnes

Boomshakalaka! Of the many many things I already miss about college, few have the nostalgic pull that is the arcade version of NBA Jam.

I have played over 300 games on our club arcade, dressed up as the game, memorized everyone in it, rocked people with Laura Bock, won a game 127-25 (you know who you are), and generally had the best times. I also love my job in which I use decision-making software. One day last year I thought…couldn’t I go through the appropriate comparisons of the relative value to me of all NBA Jam characteristics (Speed, 3 pointers, Dunks, Defense, and Height), combine them with the known ratings of players, and come up with the ideal player for any strategy? Then, this year, I thought…couldn’t I write an article about that? Damn right I can.

Each player in the game has a rating from 0 to 10 on the aforementioned categories, except for height…I put it on its own 0-10 scale as best I could. Anybody could vote on how they value these categories to determine the optimal team and player for their personal strategies. The way this works is that each player’s rating in each category is multiplied by the weight given to that category and then all summed up to give an overall rating between 0 and 1. To give an idea of the ranges, when all five categories were rated equally, the highest score was Patrick Ewing’s .7822 and the lowest Mark Price’s .3862. When I combine scorings from different prioritizations, I will mostly use Z-scores, or number of standard deviations above or below the mean. A score above 2 is phenomenal, in the top 2.5 percent. Since there are 54 players in NBA Jam, we expect an average of 1.35 players to be in this top tier for a given prioritization. A score above 1 is very very good, in the top 16 percent. We expect 8.64 players to meet this threshold.

The following is a breakdown of several different NBA Jam strategies, both for an individual player and as a team using any combination of them. There are so many more strategies, but I have only so much space before people get overwhelmed by my verbosity and stop reading. Anyway:

Individual Strategies:

Man Thugging Another Man: 40% Def, 20% Dunk, 20% Height, 15% Speed, 5% 3’s

Launch The J: 50% 3’s, 15% Height, 15% Def, 15% Speed, 5% Dunks

Point Guard: 40% Speed, 30% 3’s, 20% Def, 5% Dunks, 5% Height

Dunk Man: 40% Dunks, 20% Speed, 20% Height, 10% Def, 10% 3’s

Even-Steven: 20% everything

Even-No Height Bonus: 25% everything, 0 Height

Team strategies:

All 21 combinations of the above strategies

All players and teams in each tier are listed in descending order. So in the Thug Man tier, David Robinson is better than Patrick Ewing, and John Stockton is better than Scott Skiles.

Thug Man:

Top Tier (2+ SD above mean, or top before a dropoff):

David Robinson, Patrick Ewing, Hakeem Olajuwon

Second Tier (1+ SD above mean):

Shaquille O’Neal, Scottie Pippen, Shawn Kemp, Dikembe Mutombo, Rony Seikaly, Karl Malone

Avoid (1- SD below mean):

Mike Iuzzolino, Benoit Benjamin, HORNDOGG (Jeff Hornacek), Drazen Petrovic, John Stockton, Kenny Smith, Scott Skiles, Terry Porter

The Worst Dudes (2- SD below mean):

Mark Price

Launch The J:

Top Tier:

Chris Mullin, Glen Rice

Second Tier:

Reggie Lewis, Mike Iuzzolino, Patrick Ewing (?!), Scottie Pippen, Derek Harper, Kendall Gill

Avoid:

Karl Malone, Blue Edwards, Shaquille O’Neal, Christian Laettner, Charles Oakley, Benoit Benjamin, Brad Daugherty, Horace Grant

The Worst Dudes:

Dan Majerle

This is weird, because Dan Majerle was a good three-point shooter in real life…for some reason, he’s terrible in NBA Jam.

Point Guard:

Top Tier:

Spud Webb, Scottie Pippen

Second Tier:

Derek Harper, Isiah Thomas, Patrick Ewing (again!), Tim Hardaway, Mike Iuzzolino, Shawn Kemp, Kendall Gill, John Stockton, Stacey Augmon, Reggie Lewis

Avoid:

Kevin McHale, Vlade Divac, Dan Majerle, Derrick Coleman, Charles Oakley, Christian Laettner

The Worst Dudes:

Brad Daugherty, Benoit Benjamin

Dunk Man:

Top Tier:

Shawn Kemp, Patrick Ewing

Second Tier:

Shaquille O’Neal, Scottie Pippen, Hakeem Olajuwon, Dikembe Mutombo, David Robinson, Clyde Drexler, Dominique Wilkins, Karl Malone, Charles Barkley, Spud Webb

Avoid:

Tim Hardaway, Terry Porter, Kenny Smith, Bill Laimbeer, Isiah Thomas, Jeff Hornacek (HORNDOGGGG), Mike Iuzzolino, John Stockton, Drazen Petrovic, Scott Skiles

The Worst Dudes:

Mark Price

Even Stevens:

Top Tier:

Patrick Ewing, Shawn Kemp

Second Tier:

Scottie Pippen, Dikembe Mutombo, David Robinson

Third Tier:

Clyde Drexler, Shaquille O’Neal, Spud Webb, Karl Malone, Dominique Wilkins, Larry Johnson, Kendall Gill, Rony Seikaly

Avoid:

Mike Iuzzolino, Isiah Thomas, Terry Porter, Kenny Smith, Benoit Benjamin, Scott Skiles, Jeff Hornacek (HORNDOGGGG), Drazen Petrovic

The Worst Dudes:

Mark Price

Even No Height Bonus:

Top Tier:

Spud Webb, Scottie Pippen

Second Tier:

Patrick Ewing, Shawn Kemp, Kendall Gill, Clyde Drexler, Hakeem Olajuwon, David Robinson

Avoid:

Kenny Smith, Christian Laettner, Mark Price, Brad Daugherty, Drazen Petrovic, Jeff “Horndogg” Hornacek, Bill Laimbeer, Kevin McHale

The Worst Dudes:

Benoit Benjamin

One thing that jumps out to me immediately about this is: in what universe was Patrick Ewing, who hit 19 three-pointers in his entire NBA career (and, through the 1992-93 season, was 3 for 42), a better three-point shooter than Dan Majerle, who hit 19 or more in every season of his career and hit over 190 two seasons in a row? That’s NBA Jam for you though, and it means that Ewing is one of the game’s truly dominant players, somebody who ranks high no matter how the categories are sorted. Scottie Pippen also shows up on the first couple tiers of pretty much any prioritization, and Shawn Kemp, Hakeem Olajuwon, and David Robinson rate highly as well. If height didn’t matter at all (though I believe it does), Spud Webb would be one of the best players in the game.

On the low end, we get a heavy dose of Mark Price, Benoit Benjamin, and even everybody’s favorite horndogg, Jeff Hornacek. I was expecting Kevin McHale to be viewed as more worthless. (McHale!)

Ok, I’ve waited 900-odd words, I need to get this out of my system.

HAWKS! HAWKS! HAAAAAWKS! HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWKKKKKKKKKSSS! Hawks. Hawks. Hawks hawks hawks hawks. HAWKS!

Warriors! Iuzzolino! McHale! Hawks! Ewing! Magic! Hawks! Blazers! Shaquille O’Neal! Isiah! Hawks!

(hawks)

Phew. Ok. Just knowing what players are good at what you want isn’t the whole battle though. NBA Jam requires cooperation between two players and complementary styles. What if you want to be a thug-man and your teammate loves launching J’s? Well, good teams for that are the Heat, Rockets, Magic, and Spurs. But we’re getting there.

I described six basic strategies at the outset of this article, which means that if you consider every possible combination of them (including the double-up strategies, like all-out thugball) I have analyzed 21 possible team-building strategies. I’m not going to post the mass of spreadsheet and tables and such bother, but if anybody’s interested, I’ve got it alright. Instead, let’s break this down cucumber-style, whatever that means.

A rating for a team for a given strategy combination is the highest sum of the team’s two players for the given prioritizations. As an example, suppose you are playing as the Jazz and you want to use a “Thug Man-Launch The J” strategy. Karl Malone’s Thug Man score is .7278 and his Launch The J score is .4654. John Stockton’s Thug Man score is .4258, and his Launch The J score is .6287 (although if you’ve ever seen Travis Faust or Jose Mena use him, you’d swear that was too low), so their possible combinations are .8912 (Malone-J + Stockton-Thug) or 1.3565 (Malone-Thug + Stockton-J). Obviously, if you’re using this strategy with the Jazz, you want to be shooting threes with Stockton and knocking dudes out with Malone. Of course, you have to use both players in the team score, even if one player is better in both categories (Shawn Kemp rates higher than Benoit Benjamin in every prioritization I ran, and by substantial margins. Same for David Robinson and Sean Elliott, Scottie Pippen and Horace Grant, and a couple other teams).

There are a few obvious questions that this data can help us answer.

1. Which team-strategy combinations are the most dominant?

This is really two questions: first, what are the highest raw team scores over all the strategies, and what are the highest Z-scores for team-strategy combinations (calculated in the same way as the player Z-scores)?

The highest raw team scores are:

Team	Strategy 1	Strategy 2	Score
New York Knicks	Thug Man	Thug Man	1.5446
New York Knicks	Thug Man	Dunk Man	1.5149
Chicago Bulls	Thug Man	Dunk Man	1.4803
Chicago Bulls	Thug Man	No Height	1.4803
New York Knicks	Even Steven	Thug Man	1.4753

The raw scores are dominated by the Knicks and Bulls, because raw player scores tend to be slightly higher on the Thug Man and Dunk Man prioritizations, and those two teams are phenomenal in that area. I don’t remember the most steals from thugging Travis Faust and I have ever gotten against the computer as the Knicks, but I think it’s in the mid-to-high 60s, possibly even 70. I know we’ve had more than 30 each on multiple occasions. That’s more than a steal every 12 seconds, so I’m not surprised to see the thugball Knicks high on this list. But let’s get some new blood onto the list, by Z-score this time and removing duplicates:

Team	Strategy 1	Strategy 2	Z-Score
Golden State Warriors	Launch The J	Point Guard	2.36
Sacramento Kings	No Height	No Height	1.99
New York Knicks	Even Steven	Even Steven	1.88
Chicago Bulls	Thug Man	Thug Man	1.85
Sacramento Kings	Launch The J	No Height	1.81

The thugball Knicks still rank first in Z-score, the Even Steven-Thug Man Knicks rank third, and the Thug Man No Height Bulls rank fifth. This list, I suspect, might be a little more surprising to Jam fans, but it underscores that in the right hands, the Warriors can be a formidable team. I particularly enjoy the Warriors when playing with somebody new to the game, as hanging out shooting threes with Chris Mullin is a good way to ease into altitude with an attitude and Tim Hardaway is fast enough to play most of the defense by himself and draw double-teams. The Kings are fast and can shoot and dunk, but are hampered by their lack of height. For players who don’t mind that drawback, they can be a fun option.

2. Which teams are the best overall?

I added up all the scores and all the Z-scores for each team to break them down into tiers. The elite tier consists of four teams, three I’m sure everyone would expect and one people might not: Chicago, San Antonio, New York, and Charlotte. They were followed by a second tier of Denver, Miami, Sacramento, Houston, Atlanta, and Orlando, with Portland and Utah rounding out the above average teams. The bottom six in Z-score are pretty far removed: Minnesota, Milwaukee, Indiana, Cleveland, New Jersey, and, rounding out the bottom with Horndogg, Philadelphia.

The surprise for me is that the Spurs rank this high, but in fact they have the highest combined Z-score. The Spurs are so versatile that they don’t have any weak strategies. Granted, this might not be the best way of ranking teams (nobody would choose the Knicks and build their game strategy around team speed, so their pedestrian ranking in that category really doesn’t mean much), so I also ranked teams based solely on their best strategy. That was interesting enough to deserve its own large table.

Rank	Team		Strategy 1	Strategy 2	Z-Score
1	New York Knicks		Thug Man	Thug Man	2.47
2	Golden State Warriors		Launch The J	Point Guard	2.36
3	Sacramento Kings		No Height	No Height	1.99
4	Chicago Bulls		Thug Man	No Height	1.93
5	Charlotte Hornets		Launch The J	Launch The J	1.80
6	Miami Heat		Thug Man	Launch The J	1.79
7	San Antonio Spurs		Thug Man	Dunk Man	1.77
8	Orlando Magic		Launch The J	Dunk Man	1.76
9	Denver Nuggets		Thug Man	Thug Man	1.62
10	Detroit Pistons		Launch The J	Point Guard	1.62
11	Houston Rockets		Thug Man	Launch The J	1.56
12	Atlanta Hawks		Point Guard	No Height	1.43
13	Utah Jazz		Point Guard	Dunk Man	1.29
14	Dallas Mavericks		Point Guard	Point Guard	1.17
15	Seattle Supersonics		Dunk Man	Dunk Man	0.91
16	Portland Trail Blazers		Launch The J	Dunk Man	0.90
17	Boston Celtics		Launch The J	Launch The J	0.82
18	Los Angeles Lakers		Dunk Man	Dunk Man	0.82
19	Phoenix Suns		Dunk Man	Dunk Man	0.72
20	Washington Bullets		Thug Man	Dunk Man	0.56
21	Los Angeles Clippers		Point Guard	Point Guard	0.55
22	Philadelphia 76ers		Point Guard	Point Guard	0.26
23	Minnesota Timberwolves		Dunk Man	Dunk Man	0.08
24	Cleveland Cavaliers		Point Guard	Dunk Man	-0.12
25	Indiana Pacers		Thug Man	Dunk Man	-0.33
26	New Jersey Nets		Launch The J	Dunk Man	-0.35
27	Milwaukee Bucks		Thug Man	Dunk Man	-0.48

Some of this is exactly what somebody who has played 300-odd games of NBA Jam (like, I don’t know, me) would expect. As I said earlier, Thugball with the Knicks is one of the most time-tested successful strategies. The Warriors don’t fit every strategy, but they are tailor-made for a game plan built around Hardaway’s speed and Mullin’s threes. The Bucks suck, no matter how I try to make “Lohaus!” a catchphrase. The way to play with the Magic is to take threes with Skiles and dunk with Shaq (and NOT the other way around). The Heat and Rockets are perfectly built for Thug-And-J with Seikaly/Rice and Olajuwon/Smith.

So what doesn’t jibe with our preconceptions? Can there be hidden ideas in here that would help a man win a thing? One thing that surprised me was the highest-ranking strategy for the Charlotte Hornets. Probably the most balanced team in the game, I’ve always believed that they were adaptable to pretty much any way of playing. And they are. But the data suggests that the best way to win with them is to let it fly from range, which, while I have shot my fair share of threes with Johnson (Johnson!) and Gill (Rudejoy!), is somewhat surprising to me. I’ve never thought of the Clippers as being particularly fast, but maybe they’re just not that good at other things. And the three-heavy strategy of the Celtics! I guess that makes sense, cause that’s what Reggie Lewis is best at and I don’t have a strategy for “Be So Fucking Slow That You Literally Can’t Do Anything But Brick Layups” (McHale!)

I also want to say a word about one of my favorite teams, the HAWKS! I’m a little stunned to see them rank so low on the best strategies table, and with the strategy of Point Guard-No Height listed highest, as I have always used the Hawks in a Launch The J-Dunk Man format or something close to it, with Wilkins flying above dudes and Augmon popping J’s. And the Hawks do rate well in LJ-DM, but only fourth, and well behind the Magic and Heat. Interesting.

3. Can you encapsulate the lessons learned from this article into seven haiku?

I thought you’d never ask!

Ewing and Oakley

Are some bad mothafuckas

Turbo. Blue button.

If Bucks you must be

Don’t shoot very many threes.

Lohaus can’t make them.

It’s fun to say Hawks.

But for what they are best at

Magic are better

Mark Price is useless.

Brad Daugherty is bad too.

Beware of the Cavs.

Majerle can’t J.

Neither can Reggie, really.

But Ewing can? Weird.

Horndoggg is pretty bad.

But it’s worth it for the name.

Run fast if you’re him.

I love and miss J.

It’s pretty much “the bomb dig”

Iuzzolino! Hawks!

4. Is it the shoes?

Yes. It is the shoes.