The Grizzlies Make a Move The Grizzlies in 2005-06 were led in Wins Produced by four players: Pau Gasol, Mike Miller, Shane Battier, and Eddie Jones. In the off-season, Battier was traded for Stromile Swift and Rudy Gay, two players who one would not expect to offer the production of …
The voting for the NBA’s all-star game has concluded. And the starters for the 2007 game are as follows [Wins Produced and Wins Produced per 48 minutes in parenthesis]. Western Conference Kobe Bryant, Guard (7.4; 0.241) Tracy McGrady, Guard (4.3; 0.174) Kevin Garnett, Forward (11.5; 0.351) Tim Duncan, Forward (9.6; …
The All-Star game in the NBA is considered the mid-season classic, but it hardly falls in the middle of the season. Given an 82 game schedule, the mid-point is 41 games. With Denver’s game on Saturday, each NBA team has finally reached the middle of their respective season. As each …
A few days ago I commented on the performance of NFL quarterbacks in the playoffs this season. The results were less than satisfying, since my data set only included 10 playoff games. Fortunately Yahoo! Sports reports complete playoff statistics for quarterbacks back to 2001. With this larger data set we …
In 2000, William Putsis and Subrata Sen asked in Applied Economics whether the 72 hour local TV blackout ban should be abolished. While much has changed in the NFL television broadcasting market over the last few years – NFL Sunday Ticket and the new NFL Network – the need for …
The Charlotte Bobcats won 26 games last year. After 41 games this season the Bobcats have won 14 contests. So the team is on pace to win about as many games as it did last year. If we look at the individual players, though, we do see one instance of …
Yesterday the Minnesota Timberwolves fired their head coach, Dwane Casey. Currently Minnesota has a record of 20-20, which apparently is not what the general manager – Kevin McHale – expected. Before I get to the quality of this decision, let me just comment on the team Casey was charged with …
The myth of the prime-time performer is one of the stories we tell in The Wages of Wins. Specifically, we find that in the NBA, players do not systematically play better in the playoffs. This finding is based on a study of regular season and post-season per-minute Win Score. Our …
Who is the best team in the NBA? One could look at the standings, but this is too simple and frankly doesn’t offer much room for discussion. Various writers – such as Steve Kerr , Tony Mejia, and Marc Stein – offer team rankings that argue that various teams are …
Last summer the Indiana Pacers signed (via a sign-and-trade with the Hawks) Al Harrington to a four year, $35.3 million contract. At the time, a few people thought this would vault the Pacers into contention. Those who looked at Harrington’s career Wins Produced reached a different conclusion, which one can …