Hypergraph adjusted plus-minus

Abstract

In team sports, traditional ranking statistics do not allow for the simultaneous evaluation of both individuals and combinations of players. Metrics for individual player rankings often fail to include the interaction effects between groups of players, while methods for assessing full lineups cannot be used to identify the value of lower-order combinations of players (pairs, trios, etc.). Given that player and lineup rankings are inherently dependent on each other, these limitations may affect the accuracy of performance evaluations. To address this, we propose a novel adjusted plus-minus (APM) approach that allows for the simultaneous ranking of individual players, lower-order combinations of players, and full lineups within a team. The method adjusts for the complete dependency structure and is motivated by the connection between APM and the hypergraph representation of a team. We discuss the similarities of our approach to other advanced metrics, demonstrate it using NBA data from 2012-2022, and suggest potential directions for future work.