Which teams did best in terms of extensions

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Zach Lowe has a great piece over at the Point Forward summing up which teams extended their draft picks from the 2008 draft, exercised their options on 2009 draftees and which players’ contracts were put on the back burner. I decided to add some Wages of Wins Analysis. I’ll go over some of the good and bad decision of yesterday.

Kevin Love signs a three year max deal with a fourth year player option

  • Player rating: A+
  • Contract decision rating: D+
Kevin Love career stats
Player Season MP WP48 WP G PPG
Kevin Love 2009 2048 0.16 6.8 81 11.1
Kevin Love 2010 1714 0.251 9.0 60 14
Kevin Love 2011 2611 0.335 18.2 73 20.2
Kevin Love 2012 714 0.24 3.6 18 25.3

Patrick over at the NBA Geek has a great piece summing this up. Kevin Love is an amazing player and getting him re-signed is a major victory for a pretty terrible franchise. However there were some major flaws. As Patrick aptly sums it up, the Wolves had Kevin Love completely outmaneuvered negotiation wise and they messed it up. As Patrick aptly explains:

Basically, Taylor tried to play hardball with Kevin Love and got swindled in a huge way. And all for “future flexibility”. Wait, so you didn’t want to lock up a franchise player so that you could later, maybe…lock up…a…different…franchise player?

and then of course the real punch line:

The Timberwolves had Kevin Love in a bad negotiating spot…They were definitely playing hardball. And playing hardball is fine. But you should know what the hell your homerun scenario is when you are playing hardball. And your homerun scenario is most definitely not ’Our franchise player will be an unrestricted free agent just as he enters his prime years.’

So despite getting one of the best players in basketball the Timberwolves still managed to mess it up. That sounds familiar right?

The Orlando Magic do not offer an extension to Ryan Anderson

  • Player rating: A
  • Decision rating: D
Ryan Anderson career stats
Player Season MP WP48 WP G PPG
Ryan Anderson 2008-2009 1312 0.087 2.4 66 7.4
Ryan Anderson 2009-2010 910 0.129 2.4 63 7.7
Ryan Anderson 2010-2011 1424 0.211 6.3 64 10.6
Ryan Anderson 2011-2012 517 0.267 2.9 17 16.8

Oh wow what another terrible move by this franchise. The reasoning real boils down to the fact that until they know what is happening with Dwight they don’t want to make any major moves. The issue is that Howard is a great player and not only that he’s great via conventional wisdom. His points per game have increased every season. Guess what? In the NBA talented scoring bigs are valuable! So by not even attempting to lock him up they run the risk of another team inflating his price in the offseason. They are essentially saying instead of dealing with locking up a good player they’d rather wait until their roster is more in shambles and his price could be higher. There’s a reason this franchise is the Wages of Wins Network reigning “Worst Management of the Year” winner.

The Wizards don’t offer an extension to JaVale McGee

  • Player rating: B
  • Decision rating: B
JaVale McGee’s career stats
Player Season MP WP48 WP G PPG
JaVale McGee 2008-2009 113 0.050 1.2 75 6.5
JaVale McGee 2009-2010 968 0.098 2.0 60 6.4
JaVale McGee 2010-2011 2193 0.164 7.5 79 10.1
JaVale McGee 2011-2012 523 0.159 1.7 18 10.9

Alright I know I just went off on Orlando for not locking up a talented big, so why does Washington (who we’ve been less than kind to) get a pass? Well it turns out McGee isn’t a fantastic scorer. At 10 points per game his market value is not likely to be huge. When “role players” are restricted free agents in the offseason then teams are tentative about approaching them. So basically the Wizards are saying they think they can get a bargain come the offseason. At least, that’s the reasoning for their grade.

The Nuggets re-signed Danilo Gallinari to a four-year, $42 million deal.

  • Player grade: B
  • Decision rating: B
Danilo Gallinari’s career stats
Player Season MP WP48 WP G PPG
Danilo Gallinari 2008-2009 412 0.122 1.1 28 6.1
Danilo Gallinari 2009-2010 2747 0.066 3.8 81 15.1
Danilo Gallinari 2010-2011 2104 0.096 4.2 62 15.6
Danilo Gallinari 2011-2012 616 0.172 2.2 18 17.7

As a Nuggets fan I’m very excited about the potential of Gallinari. That said, he’s been around average for his first few seasons. To be fair, he did have some injury issues and both the Knicks and Nuggets have been playing him out of position. This move is definitely better than the alternative and if Gallinari keeps progressing then I will be happy to admit I graded too harshly.

The Bobcats picked up Gerald Henderson’s $3.1 million team option.

  • Player rating: D
  • Decision rating: C
Gerald Henderson’s career stats
Player Season MP WP48 WP G PPG
Gerald Henderon 2009-2010 355 0.073 0.5 43 2.6
Gerald Henderon 2010-2011 1661 0.083 2.9 68 9.6
Gerald Henderon 2011-2012 629 0.052 0.7 18 15.4

It’s not like Gerald Henderson has been a particularly bad player. The thing to remember is that Charlotte is a smaller market so players are actually more expensive. When Jordan and company chose to gut their franchise they oddly chose to get rid of all of their good players. This move is keeping a mediocre to bad player around. As a small market if you want to compete you can’t really rely on players like this to help you through. It’s not as if I’m surprised though and if we grade using the Bobcats front office as the standard then this really ranks closer to a B+.

The Hornets and Grizzlies luck out with Eric Gordon and O.J. Mayo

  • Player ratings: C
  • Decision ratings: A (via luck)
Eric Gordon’s career stats
Player Season MP WP48 WP G PPG
Eric Gordon 2008-2009 2677 0.098 5.5 78 16.1
Eric Gordon 2009-2010 2229 0.073 3.4 62 16.9
Eric Gordon 2010-2011 2112 0.110 4.9 56 22.3
Eric Gordon 2011-2012 78 0.035 0.1 2 21.0
O.J. Mayo’s career stats
Player Season MP WP48 WP G PPG
O.J. Mayo 2008-2009 3120 0.041 2.7 82 18.5
O.J. Mayo 2009-2010 3113 0.093 6 82 17.5
O.J. Mayo 2010-2011 1869 0.038 1.5 71 11.3
O.J. Mayo 2011-2012 420 0.100 0.9 17 11.8

The Grizzlies decided against extending an offer to O.J. in large part because they already have a lot of salary commited thanks mostly to Marc Gasol (worth it), Zach Randolph (worth it when healthy) and Rudy Gay (not worth it). However, O.J. hasn’t been much more than average thus far in his career. He does score points though, so his salary will probably be above his production. The Grizzlies are actually lucky they may not be able to re-sign him. In fact an identical story can pretty much be told for…

Eric Gordon declined the offer put forth by the Hornets (allegedly it was a four year high salary deal). Eric Gordon is an average player. New Orleans is a small market and thanks to Gordon’s high points per game his salary demands were apparently similar to Kevin Love’s. The Hornets may still make the mistake of signing Gordon is they chose to match in the offseason. For now though they’ve avoided a bad mistake.

And the rest!

Those were the highlights for me. I know I left some names out as I wan’t too thrilled one way or the other. However, if you want to see the stats for the rest of the players with extension statuses I’ve listed them below. Enjoy!

Players with extension/option status changes at deadline
Player Season MP WP48 WP G PPG Status
Hasheem Thabeet 2009-2010 883 0.128 2.4 68 3.1 Not extended
Hasheem Thabeet 2010-2011 373 -0.052 -0.4 47 1.1 Not extended
Hasheem Thabeet 2011-2012 11 0.444 0.1 2 3.1 Not extended
Roy Hibbert 2008-2009 1009 -0.04 -0.8 70 7.1 Not extended
Roy Hibbert 2009-2010 2035 0.028 1.2 81 11.7 Not extended
Roy Hibbert 2010-2011 2244 0.021 1.0 81 12.7 Not extended
Roy Hibbert 2011-2012 502 0.198 1.5 17 14.4 Not extended
Brook Lopez 2008-2009 2501 0.097 5.1 82 13.0 Not extended
Brook Lopez 2009-2010 3027 0.095 6.0 82 18.8 Not extended
Brook Lopez 2010-2011 2889 -0.003 -0.2 82 20.4 Not extended
Brook Lopez 2011-2012 0 0.000 0.0 0 0.0 Not extended
Jonny Flynn 2009-2010 2339 -0.021 -1.0 81 13.5 Not extended
Jonny Flynn 2010-2011 983 -0.08 -1.6 53 5.3 Not extended
Jonny Flynn 2011-2012 70 -0.028 0.0 5 3.6 Not extended
Terrence Williams 2009-2010 1764 -0.006 -0.2 78 8.4 Not extended
Terrence Williams 2010-2011 290 -0.133 -0.8 21 5.0 Not extended
Terrence Williams 2011-2012 138 0.023 0.1 7 6.4 Not extended
Courtney Lee 2008-2009 1939 0.116 4.7 77 8.4 Not extended
Courtney Lee 2009-2010 2375 0.106 5.2 71 12.5 Not extended
Courtney Lee 2010-2011 1723 0.102 3.7 81 8.3 Not extended
Courtney Lee 2011-2012 224 0.111 0.5 10 9.0 Not extended
George Hill 2008-2009 1270 0.046 1.2 77 5.7 Negotiations fell apart
George Hill 2009-2010 2276 0.113 5.3 78 12.4 Negotiations fell apart
George Hill 2010-2011 2148 0.124 5.6 76 11.6 Negotiations fell apart
George Hill 2011-2012 398 0.186 1.5 16 9.5 Negotiations fell apart
Nicolas Batum 2008-2009 1454 0.161 4.9 79 5.4 Negotiations fell apart
Nicolas Batum 2009-2010 918 0.230 4.4 37 10.1 Negotiations fell apart
Nicolas Batum 2010-2011 2522 0.111 5.9 80 12.4 Negotiations fell apart
Nicolas Batum 2011-2012 470 0.221 2.2 19 11.1 Negotiations fell apart
Toney Douglas 2009-2010 1087 0.107 2.4 56 8.6 $2.1 million option exercised
Toney Douglas 2010-2011 1971 0.116 4.8 81 10.6 $2.1 million option exercised
Toney Douglas 2011-2012 411 -0.135 -1.2 18 8.7 $2.1 million option exercised

Flip Gets the Blame…Again

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In what can only be described as an act of desperation, the Washington Wizards fired third year coach Flip Saunders after an abysmal 2-15 start. Firing coaches seems to be all the rage in big money sports these days. The reasoning behind it is simple: firing a coach is a lot easier than making good trades and free agency acquisitions, drafting well, and having patience. But while it’s relatively easy, firing coaches isn’t particularly helpful, at least in the NBA. In fact, it’s basically pointless. Indeed, in Stumbling on Wins, Dave Berri studied the impact of coaches in the NBA on player production. The study revealed that NBA coaches generally have little, if any, impact on their teams. Of course, that doesn’t mean a deck chair would do just as well as anyone as an NBA coach; rather, one NBA level coach probably isn’t going to produce results that are any different from what another NBA level coach would. However, there are a few coaches that have actually had a significant positive impact on their teams in the past. One is Phil Jackson. Another? That’s right, Flip Saunders. What makes this truly more amusing is that in defending the move Wizard’s owner Ted Leonsis made the claim that Flip was fired as the team should be doing better. If Flip is one of the few productive coaches then what has been the cause of his firings?

Flip Always Gets the Short End of the Stick

Saunders began his NBA coaching career in Minnesota the same year Kevin Garnett came into the league (I guess he started his career with luck on his side). During his tenure there, the Wolves were a generally above average team. The only problem was they couldn’t get out of the first round of the playoffs. Until they did. And suddenly expectations became sky high. After seven straight first round exits, Minnesota finally got to the conference championship, and the following season Saunders was fired after 50 games when the team was one game under .500. Of course, management failed to see the real reason for the team’s decline: Sam Cassell’s age finally caught up with him. Cassell’s WP48 dropped from 0.181 in 2003-04 to 0.061 in 2004-05, when he was 36. That and the team had a 14 million dollar (not enough to feed his family) black hole named Sprewell. Seriously, go look at his Wins Produced numbers. And you thought Carmelo was overrated…

Flip got another chance in Detroit when Larry Brown left the Pistons to coach the Knicks. Three years in Detroit, three conference championship appearances. Not to mention the best record in franchise history. But losing to the 2008 eventual champion Boston Celtics, who had the 3rd best team ever in terms of efficiency differential (after the 96 and 97 Bulls, respectively) wasn’t good enough, and Flip was fired again.

That brings us to the Washington Wizards, who were exceptionally bad during Flip’s first two years there, and look to be even worse this year, which of course is why he was fired.

The Real Problem in Washington

Let’s take a look at some team stats in order to understand where Washington struggles:

Team REB AST TO BLK STL PF eFG%
WAS 41.5 16.8 14.9 7.5 8.2 20.5 43.9%
AVG 42.3 20.4 15.1 5.0 8.0 20.3 48.0%

Washington is pretty close to average in all categories except two: assists and shooting efficiency. These two are obviously related, but there is a correlation-causation issue. It could be that players are taking bad shots instead of passing to open teammates. It could also be that shots that would go in when taken by most teams aren’t going in for the Wizards, and since no assist is credited for a missed shot, the Wiz don’t record as many assists as most teams. Both are probably true to some extent.

But since we don’t know for sure, let’s focus on Washington’s effective field goal percentage, which is the second worst in the league (somehow Sacramento’s is even worse), and over 4% below the league average. To put it mildly, Washington’s shooting is absolutely terrible. Of its six players with the most minutes, only one, JaVale McGee, has an above average effective field goal percentage. John Wall and Andray Blatche are especially bad. Both have an effective field goal percentage over 10% below average! You can look at the rest of the team at The NBA Geek.

The players don’t deserve all the blame though. They may be bad, but it’s not their fault they have to play on a team with a bunch of other bad players. It’s the management’s fault. Indeed, management has made some questionable decisions over the past year or so. First, it extended Andray Blatche’s contract. Blatche has been consistently well below average since he entered the league out of high school in 2005. In addition to shooting poorly, he is a poor rebounder, and he turns the ball over a lot. Now Washington is stuck paying him a mid level salary until 2015 unless they can dupe some sucker into trading something of value for him. Normally, I would urge the team to use its new power of amnesty on Blatche. But there’s a much more deserving player, which brings me to my next point: why didn’t Washington use the amnesty clause to waive Rashard Lewis?! Besides Kobe Bryant, Rashard Lewis makes the most money of everyone in the entire NBA! Waive him and the Wiz have twenty-two million dollars to play with. They could have had their pick from the free agent pool. In addition to Lewis, the Wizards made another big mistake in the offseason: they re-signed Nick Young, who was 6th from the bottom of my offseason free agent guide, valued at an estimated negative two million per year. So far, Young has lived up to this prediction. Luckily they only signed him for a year.

The poor management of the Wizards is particularly surprising because Ted Leonsis, the owner of the Wizards, endorsed Stumbling on Wins. Apparently he isn’t ready to apply what he learned in the book to real life.

Hope in the Capital

So You're Tellin' Me There's A Chance!

Washington can’t fix its past mistakes (like firing Flip Saunders). But it can control the future, and there is some hope. First, the team is super young, and its super young players, with the exception of John Wall and Jordan Crawford, have played well. Second, it isn’t too late to use the amnesty clause to waive Rashard Lewis.Third, Nick Young is only signed to a one year contract. With the money Lewis and Young would free up, Washington could make some big moves in free agency, and transform itself into a team that can at least compete. That is, if the new coach plays the right players.

Summing Up

The Wizards are really, really bad this year. Because of the team’s lack of success, it made a desperation move and fired its coach, Flip Saunders. But Saunders wasn’t the problem. The problem is that the team is riddled with bad players. And the team’s management has failed to remedy this problem by holding on to the bad players. Thus, Washington will continue to be bad in the absence of Saunders unless its management starts making good decisions. Unfortunately firing Flip doesn’t signal that the management understands this. Flip has been fired several times thanks to unrealistic expectations. While good moves can make a franchise good, unrealistic expectations seem to lead to bad franchises and fired coaches.

-James

Did Toronto beat Phoenix because of the Bargnani effect?

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via http://blog.raptors.com

Recently I read Tom Liston’s article over on Raptors Republic. While he completes the article with two comments that I agree with — that Gary Forbes should see more playing time and that DeMar DeRozan takes too many long jumpers — at the very top of the article he also repeated a tired old cliché:

The Raptors’ offence certainly suffers without their main weapon.

For those of you who haven’t paid much attention to the NBA’s lone Canadian team since Bosh (or even Vince Carter) left town, the “main weapon” Liston is referring to here is Andrea Bargnani, who has missed the past six games due to injury. The Raptors started the season with a 4-5 record, and when Bargnani went out, the team was sporting a 4-7 record. Without Bargnani, Toronto has gone 0-6. To some, this is a clear sign that the Raptors are playing worse without Bargnani. The fact that Bargnani just returned, scored over 30 and helped Toronto end its winless streak against Phoenix cements it for others.

To Liston’s credit, he doesn’t simply cite the win-loss record to support his claim; instead, after four games (and yes, he mentions the small sample size as well), Liston uses the following numbers:

Table 1: Selected Toronto Raptors team statistics with and without Bargnani after game #15

W/ Barngani W/O Bargnani Change
FG% 43.9% 39.7% -4.2%
3P% 32.1% 25.9% -6.2%
eFG% 47.7% 42.0% -5.7%
AST 21.3 16.3 -5.0
PTS 87.8 77.8 -10.0

In the four games without Bargnani, the team’s field goal shooting efficiency, assists, and point scored declined, suggesting that Bargnani has some sort of “Melo Effect” on his teammates. According to this theory, his teammates’ shooting, passing, and scoring suffer without him in the game to “draw attention” from defenders. As of today (January 23rd), Toronto has now played six games without Bargnani. Perhaps the numbers have changed?

Table 2: Toronto Raptors team statistics with and without Bargnani after game #17

W/ Bargnani W/O Bargnani Change
FGM 33.4 30.2 -3.2
FGA 76 78.3 2.3
FG% 43.9% 38.7% -5.2%
3PM 5.7 4.5 -1.2
3PA 17.7 14.7 -3.0
3P% 32.3% 38.7% 6.4%
FTM 15.4 16.2 0.8
FTA 19.3 22.8 3.5
FT% 79.7% 64.4% -15.3%
ORB 9.4 11.2 1.8
DRB 32.5 29.7 -2.8
TRB 41.9 40.8 -1.1
AST 21.3 17.8 -3.5
STL 6.4 6.7 0.3
BLK 5.3 4.5 -0.8
TO 16.1 14.8 -1.3
PF 24 25.5 1.5
PTS 87.8 81 -6.8

A few things have changed, but the story remains largely the same. While the team’s three-point percentage has increased significantly, the decrease in three-point attempts, decreased field-goal percentage, and increase in field-goal attempts still add up to poorer team shooting in Bargnani’s absence. Without Bargnani taking free throws, the team’s free-throw percentage has also plummeted, but this is simply because Bargnani’s free-throw shooting is no longer there to prop up the averages of his teammates. It would be hard to argue that Bargnani makes his teammates better at making free-throws, now wouldn’t it?

Beyond this, the team is also doing worse with respect to defensive rebounds, assists, blocks, and points. The team is doing slightly better with respect to offensive rebounds, steals, and turnovers. But basically, it’s pretty clear that the team has performed worse in the games without Bargnani.

But why is this? If the reason is due to Bargnani’s absence, we’d expect the rest of the team to be performing worse than they do when Bargnani is playing. The above table doesn’t address this, so we’ll have to come up with something else to check this out. A simple method is to take Bargnani’s numbers and add them into the numbers his teammates accumulated without him. Then we control for minutes played — I multiplied the team totals by 85.3% and then added in the stats Bargnani would’ve accumulated in six games (given his averages). Finally, we compare this to the numbers his team posted while he was playing. If the totals achieved without Bargnani are smaller than the ones achieved with Bargnani playing, then the team has done worse without him.

Table 3: Comparing the Raptors with a real and an imaginary Bargnani

W/ Bargnani W/O Bargs, Bargs added Change
FGM 33.4 33.8 0.4
FGA 76 83.4 7.4
FG% 43.9% 40.6% -3.3%
3PM 5.7 4.8 -0.9
3PA 17.7 16.1 -1.6
3P% 32.3% 30.1% -2.2%
FTM 15.4 18.9 3.5
FTA 19.3 25.6 6.3
FT% 79.7% 73.8% -5.9%
ORB 9.4 10.3 0.9
DRB 32.5 31.1 -1.4
TRB 41.9 41.4 -0.5
AST 21.3 17.1 -4.2
STL 6.4 6.0 -0.4
BLK 5.3 4.5 -0.8
TO 16.1 14.7 -1.4
PF 24.0 23.4 -0.6
PTS 87.8 91.4 3.6

Perhaps surprisingly, the numbers seem to suggest that Bargnani’s presence is having an effect. Without him, the team did worse with respect to all aspects of shooting (although free-throw attempts were up significantly), defensive rebounds, assists, steals, and blocks. On the positive side, the team did grab more offensive rebounds and had fewer fouls and turnovers, but that isn’t enough to make up for the negatives.So that’s it then: when Bargnani plays, he makes it easier for his teammates. It says it right there in the data!

Not so fast. Sure, it appears that Bargnani’s teammates performed worse without him. But why? Is it because of Bargnani, or perhaps something else? What about controlling for the quality of the opponents?

Table 4: Toronto Raptors opponent strength before and after Bargnani injury

W/ Barngani W/O Bargnani
Opp W% 46.3% 65.3%
Opp Exp W% 45.7% 65.3%
Opp Ortg 101.2 104.4
Opp Drtg 102.6 99.6
Opp Diff -1.4 4.8

As we can see, there is a far more obvious answer as to why the team performed more poorly without Bargnani: they faced better opponents. It’s a lot harder to maintain your performance level when the competition gets tougher. Accordingly, the Raptors’ stats suffered without Bargnani because they faced better teams than they did before Barngani was injured.

Does this completely rule out the existence of a “Bargnani effect”? No. But it certainly doesn’t support it. And this isn’t all that surprising, as the numbers from last year’s Carmelo Anthony trade don’t support the existence of such an effect either. As a matter of fact, given the data, it seems more likely to me that the Raptors actually performed better than we would’ve expected them to, given the quality of their opponents. And this is likely because — year after year — Andrea Bargnani is one of the least productive players in the league.

Of course his triumphant return last night against Phoenix may very well signal the possibility of a Bargnani effect. When we look at Phoenix’s record prior to playing Toronto, their team stats were:

  • 6-10 record
  • expected record 7-9
  • 101.4 Ortg
  • 103.7 Drtg

So the real Bargnani effect for this season appears to be that when he is healthy, the Raptors play weaker opponents, and when he is injured, they play more difficult ones. Of course, with only a small fraction of the season completed, we’ll have to wait and see if this trend holds up :)

- Devin

Was the Melo trade really that lopsided?

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New York is doing terribly. Of course last season after they traded for Melo they didn’t do too hot but most people didn’t notice as the Knicks managed to make the playoffs and Amare was able to score lots of points. Melo is getting a decent share of the blame for this season, though. And as a Denver Nuggets fan I’ll be the first to admit I’m more than happy with Melo hate.

All that being said, when we examine the trade that resulted in New York getting Melo it’s hard to say it was bad for New York.  At least, it wasn’t bad for the reason people think.

Point Guard gains and losses for New York
Gained/Loss Player MP WP48 Wins Produced
 Gained Chauncey Billups  2310 0.158 7.6
 Gained Anthony Carter 463 0.045 0.4
 Lost Raymond Felton  2737  0.121  6.9 
Shooting Guard gains and losses for New York
Gained/Loss Player MP WP48 Wins Produced
 Gained Corey Brewer 1510 0.37 1.2
Small Forward gains and losses for New York
Gained/Loss Player MP WP48 Wins Produced
 Gained Carmelo Anthony 2751 0.088 5.1
 Gained* Renaldo Balkman* 780 0.301 4.9
 Lost Danilo Gallinari 2104 0.096 4.2
 Lost Wilson Chandler 2401 0.081 4.0
Power Forward gains and losses for New York
Gained/Loss Player MP WP48 Wins Produced
 Gained Shelden Williams 911 0.100 1.9
 Lost Anthony Randolph 590 0.017 0.2
Center gains and losses for New York
Gained/Loss Player MP WP48 Wins Produced
 Lost Timofey Mozgov 524 -0.021 -0.2
 Lost** Eddy Curry** 1530 -0.039 -1.2

Balkman and Curry have been getting limited minutes. Numbers taken from last season with over 500 minutes played
* Balkman’s numbers for 2008-2009 season
** Curry’s numbers for 2007-2008 season

So from a numbers stand point this worked out well, or at least decently for the Knicks. Let’s break down why they “lost” the trade.

The Knicks picked players on the wrong side of 30

Chauncey Billups was actually a better point guard than Felton last season. The issue of course is that Billups was 34 last season compared to Felton’s 26. Sticking with Felton would have meant a young affordable option at point guard. Sticking with Billups meant gambling with age. Of course that’s not the worst part of it.

The Knicks let the good players go or are sitting them

Chauncey Billups was playing well to end last season and had a reasonable opt out (or a short term deal for this season). The Knicks chose to let him go (oddly they needed to save money after giving almost $40 million a season to Amare and Melo). His play has been iffy but given the lack of help at the point, letting go the only viable option seems foolish. (I personally applaud making cap space for Tyson Chandler. I just debate letting go the short term deal of your only decent point guard as the way to do it.)

Williams was an average power forward last season. The Knicks could definitely use more help in the front court as it turns out Amare has ceased being a good player. Of course the Knicks let him walk.

Renaldo Balkman was once a very good player for both Denver and New York. Both teams had a pesky habit of not playing him. Sadly their attitudes have not changed. So despite getting a potential gem out of the Melo trade, the Knicks are instead letting Melo just shoot as much as he wants. Speaking of Melo…

The Knicks gave up picks and money

The real way the Knicks lost this trade was as follows. By picking up Melo the Knicks decided to pay $18 million a year for Melo as opposed to less than $5 million a year this season for Gallo (and less for an extension given the fact that contracts are cheaper for younger players). The Knicks also gave both the Nuggets and the Timberwolves cash as part of the trade. Finally the Knicks gave up two second round picks and a first round pick. From a financial standpoint this trade was quite bad.

Summing up

The Knicks are doing bad in large part due to bad management. The truth is that the trade was bad, primarily because of age and expense. In terms of production the Knicks didn’t do too poorly. Of course that would require the Knicks front office to both keep the right players from the trade and play the right players from the trade (when Dave analyzed the trade last season he thought the Knicks could be a 50 win team). Given that the Knicks gave Amare a long term contract — and also gave him lots of minutes — it didn’t seem likely this would happen.

Now that the Knicks franchise is in a familiar situation it seems the best move is to point at Melo and blame him for not being a superstar. Of course, he’s never been a superstar. The truth is you can’t just will bad or average players to play great. The Knicks front office seems to think that by paying lots of money for some players they should be getting more production. The fact, though, it’s hard to blame the players for taking the money New York was offering.

It is fairly easy to blame the Knicks front office for making bad moves. After all it’s nothing new.

-Dre

Are the Jazz winning because they have the best power forward in the NBA?

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The Utah Jazz played four games in December.  Of these, three were losses.  Furthermore, the Jazz were out-scored by 54 points in these four contests.  Given these results, the mood in Utah wasn’t too good as 2012 began.

Once the calender turned to 2012, though, something happened with the Jazz.  In January the Jazz are 9-2.  And Utah now has the third best winning percentage in the Western Conference.

Before we get to why the Jazz are suddenly so good, we should note that the Jazz are not quite as good as their record indicates.  To illustrate, here is a ranking of all teams in the Western Conference by efficiency differential (offensive efficiency minus defensive efficiency, as of Sunday morning):

  • Denver Nuggets: 5.4
  • Oklahoma City Thunder: 5.1
  • Memphis Grizzlies: 3.8
  • Dallas Mavericks: 3.7
  • San Antonio Spurs: 3.0
  • Portland Trail Blazers: 2.9
  • Utah Jazz: 2.5
  • Los Angeles Lakers: 2.2
  • Minnesota Timberwolves: 1.4
  • Los Angeles Clippers: 0.50
  • Houston Rockets: -0.1
  • Phoenix Suns: -2.0
  • Golden State Warriors: -4.0
  • New Orleans Hornets: -5.2
  • Sacramento Kings: -11.6

In terms of differential, the Jazz only rank 7th in the conference.  So Utah’s record is a bit deceptive.  Still, the Jazz appear to be have improved.  Last season the Jazz only won 39 games with a -1.9 differential.  Additionally that mark was when we consider the full season. The Jazz started out last season with Deron Williams playing well and traded him mid-season. So the Jazz actually ended last season as a worse team than they appeared.

In addition to the loss of Williams, the Jazz also said good-bye to Andrei Kirilenko (8.7 Wins Produced and 0.209 WP48 – or Wins Produced per 48 minutes).   To replenish the roster, the Jazz added Enes Kanter and Alec Burks in the draft and signed Josh Howard and Jamaal Tinsley.  Obviously Kanter and Burks had never played in the NBA.  And Howard and Tinsley hadn’t played more than 1,000 minutes in an NBA season since 2008-09 and 2007-08 respectively.  Such additions didn’t exactly inspire much hope that the Jazz were on the verge of a playoff berth in 2012.  Yet, that now seems a possibility.

So what happened? To answer this question, let’s look at the 2011-12 Wins Produced numbers for the Jazz from Patrick Minton the NBA Geek himself (@nbageek)

2011-2012 Utah Jazz through January 21st 2012
Player Position Games Minutes Points
per 48
minutes		 WP48 Wins
Produced		 WP for
66 games
Paul Millsap PF 15 451 26.5 0.309 2.90 12.8
Earl Watson PG 15 316 9.4 0.168 1.10 4.8
Enes Kanter C 15 209 16.3 0.210 0.91 4.0
Al Jefferson C 14 465 26.4 0.077 0.74 3.3
Gordon Hayward SF 15 395 15.3 0.076 0.63 2.8
Raja Bell SG 15 340 12.0 0.072 0.51 2.2
Derrick Favors PF 14 276 17.4 0.089 0.51 2.2
Jeremy Evans SF 8 53 19.0 0.404 0.45 2.0
Devin Harris PG 15 381 15.4 0.038 0.30 1.3
Josh Howard SF 11 253 22.4 0.048 0.25 1.1
Jamaal Tinsley PG 7 35 4.1 0.151 0.11 0.5
Alec Burks SG 14 178 24.0 0.025 0.09 0.4
C.J. Miles SF 15 274 24.7 0.014 0.08 0.4
Sum of WP 37.8

If the team’s Wins Produced after 15 games continues throughout the 66 game season, this team can expect to win about 38 games.  Of these 38 wins, about 21.6 can be linked to the play of Paul Millsap, Earl Watson, and Enes Kanter.

An average NBA player offers a 0.100 WP48 and so far Kanter is twice as good as an average player.  And last season, Millsap and Watson were about average, posting a 0.133 and 0.091 WP48 respectively.  If all these players were average in 2010-11, this trio would only be on pace to produce 8.9 wins this year.  That would mean the Jazz would only be on pace as a team to win about 25 games this year.  In other words, if this trio were average – which would have been a reasonable expectation – the Jazz would be about what we might have expected before the season started.

But these players are not average.  So what’s changed?

Let’s start with Kanter.  He is a rookie, and rookies are hard to forecast.   Kanter is especially hard to forecast, since he didn’t play college basketball.  Nevertheless, it is unusual for rookies to play quite this well.  When we look at the numbers – again from Patrick Minton and theNBAGeek – we see that Kanter is above average (relative to an average center) with respect to true shooting percentage (driven by an ability to get to the free throw line and hit those shots at the line) and rebounding.

Following the same process with respect to Watson, we see that Watson is – relative to his career average – doing better with respect to shooting efficiency, defensive rebounds, blocked shots (really), and assists.  These improvements have resulted in the highest WP48 marks of Watson’s career.

A similar story can be told for Millsap.  Thus far in 2011-12 his WP48 is a career high.  When we look at the individual stats we see that Millsap is posting career high numbers with respect to shooting efficiency from the field, field goal attempts, steals, turnovers (career low), and personal fouls (tied for career low).

If there is a trend in these numbers (and really – with a sample of three – we can’t call it a “trend”) we see that these players are hitting some shots.  And if that continues, the Jazz will continue to win a bit more often.

Again, the person leading the team to more wins is Millsap.  And Millsap isn’t just leading the Jazz in Wins Produced.  Millsap in 2011-12 is currently the most productive power forward in the game.

Again, we turn to Patrick’s numbers(sort by power forward if you wish to see the complete list).  Here are the top 10 power forwards this season (before Sunday’s games):

In looking at these names it is important to note who is not in the top 10.  Chris Bosh, Blake Griffin, Dirk Nowitzki, and Kevin Garnett are all currently offering less than these 10 players.

So does that mean these 10 are all “better” than this quartet of All-Stars? Baseball fans may be better equipped to answer this. The Phillies first baseman Ryan Howard posted a 0.835 OPS in 2011, a mark that ranked 36th in the league.  Such a ranking suggests the Phillies should be trying to trade Howard for any of the 35 players ranked ahead of Howard.  But is that the case?  Maybe not.  We are only looking at one season of performance, and we might want to consider more before suggesting trades.  Players can have up and down seasons.

So it might be a bit premature to argue that Millsap is the “best” power forward in the NBA. It does appear, though, that across the first 25% of 2011-12, Millsap has been the most productive power forward in the game.

As great as Millsap has played, though, he currently ranks second on the Jazz in WP48. The leader on this team is Jeremy Evans.  Across 53 minutes, Evans has posted a 0.404 WP48.  Last season – as a rookie — Evans posted a 0.311 WP48 in 463 minutes.   So Evans hasn’t played much in the NBA.  But he has played more than 500 career minutes against other NBA players (perhaps not the best NBA players, but these weren’t high school players he was facing) and he has been very productive.  Such numbers suggest that maybe the Jazz should find more minutes for Evans.

Surprisingly, this season the Jazz may find a way to still compete despite losing some of their good players (Deron Williams and Andrei Kirilenko). Of course, it helps if they consistently player their most productive players.   If the Jazz are willing to play Evans more, they may find winning even easier. And if they Jazz decide not to play Evans… well, maybe another team should give him a shot.  In limited minutes, Evans has really been quite amazing so far.

- DJ