The Memphis Grizzlies, as I have told Chip Crain of 3 Shades of Blue, are the Detroit Lions of the NBA.  Like the NFL team I follow, the Grizzlies have an owner that tells the fans that winning is important.  At the same time, though, this same owner takes actions (or inactions) that contradict the stated desire to field a winner. Consequently, the results in Memphis and Detroit are quite similar.

The Grizzlies completed their 14^th season in 2008-09.  In all but three of these seasons, the Grizzlies have failed to win 30 games.  Even when the team had a winning record, it failed to surpass 50 regular season victories and the Grizzlies are still waiting to win their first post-season game.

The 2008-09 season was quite consistent with this history. Memphis finished with 24 wins, 24 games behind the 8^th seed in the playoffs.  When we look at the how the team’s players performed, we can see who was responsible for this outcome (other than the owner, of course):

Table One: The Memphis Grizzlies in 2008-09

An average NBA player posts a 0.100 WP48 [Wins Produced per 48 minutes].  Last season Memphis employed three above average players: Mike Conley [0.135 WP48], Kyle Lowry [0.114 WP48], and Hamed Haddadi [0.270 WP48].  Lowry finished the season in Houston and Haddadi was on the bench for all but 120 minutes.  This means the Grizzlies finished the season with only one above average player who actually played on a regular basis. And Conley was not very far beyond average. 

Looking at the history of the players Memphis employed on 2008-09 reveals that the final results were unsurprising.  Of all the players who played 1,000 minutes or more in Memphis last season, Lowry was the only player who had ever posted an above average mark in his career prior to last season.  And once again, Lowry wasn’t with Memphis when the season ended.

With the end of each season, though, hope springs eternal.  The Grizzlies have once again been granted an entire summer to build a winner.  And now that September is about to begin, it seems like a good time to evaluate this team’s progress.  As of right now, here is the depth chart in Memphis (WP48 from 2008-09 at the position listed reported):

First String

PG:  Mike Conley (0.135)

SG: O.J. Mayo (0.054)

SF: Rudy Gay (0.049)

PF: Zach Randolph (0.163)

C: Marc Gasol (0.093)

Second String

PG: Marcus Williams [0.067 WP48 in 2007-08]

SG: Marko Jaric (-0.005)

SF: DeMarre Carroll (rookie)

PF: Darrel Arthur (0.032)

C: Hasheem Thabeet (rookie)

When we look at this depth chart we see that the population of above average Grizzlies has at least doubled.  That’s progress, but probably not enough.  In the Western Conference this team shouldn’t expect to make the playoffs.  But it might win more than 30 games. 

To make this happen it would help if Thabeet could be an above average performer.  Of the players selected out of college on draft night, Thabeet was one of the most productive players last season.  So it’s possible that he will be a productive NBA player his first season. If that happens, the Grizzles have potentially three above average players (Randolph, Gasol, and Thabeet) in the frontcourt. Not only could these players help with their own production, they also might push Rudy Gay permanently into the small forward slot.  Gay is not a great small forward, but he’s a very poor power forward.  So keeping him out of the four spot is a plus.

Looking at the backcourt… the starters are Conley and Mayo.  Conley led the team in Wins Produced last season and he has a chance of repeating that ranking this next season (by itself, not a good sign).  Mayo was selected by the coaches to the First Team All-Rookie team.  His productivity, though, was inconsistent with that ranking.  Nevertheless, young players can get better so it’s possible Mayo will do more next season.

There is talk of adding Allen Iverson to the back-court mix.  Some have suggested that Iverson can substantially boost ticket sales.  As I noted in July, I am skeptical of this story.  If Iverson is going to help the Grizzlies he is going to have to produce on the court.  But last season Iverson’s WP48 was only 0.037.   So although he does a bit more than Marko Jaric, Iverson doesn’t appear to be an upgrade over Marcus Williams.  At least, Williams did more when he got semi-regular minutes in 2007-08. 

If we put all this together – with or without Iverson – this is not a playoff team and it’s unlikely this team will win 40 games.  But it’s possible the Grizzlies could surpass the 30 win mark.  Yes, that doesn’t sound like much.  But this team has only reached that mark three times in its entire history.  So for Memphis, 30 wins is an achievement.

So the Memphis Lions will continue in 2009-10.  Let me close by noting, though, that there is one big difference between the Grizzlies and Lions. When we look at the players that will be employed by Memphis this next season it seems pretty clear that post-season basketball is not going to happen in Memphis in 2010.  For the Lions, though, hope remains.  The Lions have changed at least half their starting line-up from last season.  Plus they have a host of new reserves and an entirely new coaching staff.  Because football performance is so hard to predict, fans of the Lions can continue to hope for a few more days.  Of course, a week from Sunday the Lions go to New Orleans and reality will begin to be established.  And at that point, the Detroit Grizzlies may indeed appear. 

Then again…. last season, Drew Brees and the Saints scored a touchdown the first six times they got the ball against Detroit.  This year, it’s possible the Lions new defense can stop the Saints once or twice.  And maybe Matthew Stafford (or Daunte Culpepper) will hook up with Calvin Johnson for two or three (or four or five) touchdowns and Kevin Smith will run wild.  And then maybe, the Lions can keep this close and maybe….

Okay, football may be hard to predict but even I am having trouble maintaining this much hope. Still, I think the Lions are on the right path.  As for the Grizzlies… well, the team is on a path.  I am not sure, though, that this path is going to the playoffs any time soon.

- DJ

The WoW Journal Comments Policy

Our research on the NBA was summarized HERE.

The Technical Notes at wagesofwins.com provides substantially more information on the published research behind Wins Produced and Win Score

Wins Produced, Win Score, and PAWSmin are also discussed in the following posts:

Simple Models of Player Performance

Wins Produced vs. Win Score

What Wins Produced Says and What It Does Not Say

Introducing PAWSmin — and a Defense of Box Score Statistics

Finally, A Guide to Evaluating Models contains useful hints on how to interpret and evaluate statistical models.

Although the summer is not quite over, Chris Mannix of CNNSI.com has decided to rank the teams in the NBA right now.  And coming in at the #8 spot is…. the Washington Wizards?

Last season the Wizards won 19 games and finished with a -7.9 efficiency differential (offensive efficiency minus defensive efficiency).  This differential ranked 28^th in the league and 0nly the Sacramento Kings and LA Clippers finished lower.

Looking at the top of the 2008-09 differential rankings we see that the 8^th best team was the Denver Nuggets, a team that posted a 3.5 differential and won 54 games.  The Wizards franchise has not fielded a team that was this good since 1978-79.  At that time the team was named the Bullets and Washington was competing in the NBA Finals.  Since that season, the best finish by a Washington team came in 2005-06 when the Wizards posted a 1.9 differential and won 42 games.*  In sum, it looks like Mannix will only be correct if this is the best Washington team in 30 years.

Again, last year this team was very bad.  And when we look at the players on this team, we can see why.

Table One: The Washington Wizards in 2008-09

An average player will post a 0.100 WP48 [Wins Produced per 48 minutes].  Last season the Wizards employed only four players – Antawn Jamison, Caron Butler, Dominic McGuire, and Gilbert Arenas – who were above average.  And Arenas only played 63 minutes.  Of the thirteen remaining players employed, eight were producing in the negative range.  Consequently, we should not be surprised this team played so poorly.

What would it take for this team to play as well as the Nuggets last season?  Again, the Nuggets won 54 games and posted a 3.5 differential.  This means the Wizards would have to win 35 more games and improve its differential by 11.4.  To put this improvement in perspective, here is the list of all teams since 1973-74 who have improved by 30 wins.

• Boston (2007-08): 42 more wins, 14.5 increase in differential
• San Antonio (1997-98): 36 more wins, 13.1 increase in differential
• San Antonio (1989-90): 35 more wins, 10.1 increase in differential
• Phoenix (2004-05): 33 more wins, 11.1 increase in differential
• Boston (1979-80): 32 more wins, 11.9 increase in differential

What do these five teams have in common?  All of these teams added a very productive player.  The Celtics added Larry Bird in 1979 and Kevin Garnett in 2007.  The Spurs added David Robinson in 1989 and Tim Duncan in 1997.  And the Suns added Steve Nash in 2004.

The Wizards traded away their lottery pick for Mike Miller and Randy Foye.  Yes, Gilbert Arenas is coming back from injury.  But even with a healthy Gilbert Arenas in the past, this team didn’t win 50 games.  So what is Mannix thinking?

Well, maybe he looked at everyone who was expected to play for Washington in 2009-10.  Here is the expected first and second string for Washington (WP48 = Wins Produced per 48 minutes):

First String

PG – Gilbert Arenas [2006-07]: 39.8 minutes per game, 10.7 Wins Produced, 0.174 WP48

SG – Mike Miller: 32.3 minutes per game, 13.9 Wins Produced, 0.282 WP48

SF – Caron Butler: 38.6 minutes per game, 8.1 Wins Produced, 0.150 WP48

PF – Antawn Jamison: 38.2 minutes per game, 10.1 Wins Produced, 0.157 WP48

C – Brendan Haywood [2007-08]: 27.9 minutes per game, 5.4 Wins Produced, 0.116 WP48

Second String

PG – Randy Foye: 35.6 minutes per game, 1.3 Wins Produced, 0.026 WP48

SG – Nick Young: 22.4 minutes per game, -1.2 Wins Produced, -0.032 WP48

SF – Dominic McGuire: 26.2 minutes per game, 7.5 Wins Produced, 0.174 WP48

PF – Andray Blatche: 24.0 minutes per game, -1.5 Wins Produced, -0.042 WP48

C – JaVale McGee: 15.2 minutes per game, 0.6 Wins Produced, 0.025 WP48

Adding together the Wins Produced of these players we get 54.8 wins.  The minutes of these players, though, summed to 22,456.  For these minutes to be played, the Wizards would have to average about 274 minutes per game.  Assuming the Wizards are not playing a large number of overtime games, someone is going to have to play fewer minutes, and therefore, 54 wins is not quite right (assuming these players offer the same level of production).  Nevertheless, it does look like these ten players can win between 45 and 50 games.  And with a bit of improvement here and there, maybe this edition of the Wizards can indeed post numbers similar to what the Nuggets did last year.

Of course, we are assuming

• Arenas returns to what he was two years ago.
• Haywood returns to what he was a year ago.
• Miller maintains the productivity we saw last year in Minnesota

So we are assuming quite a bit and therefore, there is no guarantee that the Wizards will approach 50 wins.

That being said, it does look like what Mannix argued – as unbelievable as it appeared at first glance – is at least possible.   Without adding a future Hall-of-Fame player, the Wizards might improve by 30 games in the standings.  And Washington fans might see a team that is better than any edition of this franchise since Jimmy Carter was president. 

*- the Wizards did win 45 games in 2004-05 but the team’s differential was only -0.3.

- DJ

The WoW Journal Comments Policy

Our research on the NBA was summarized HERE.

The Technical Notes at wagesofwins.com provides substantially more information on the published research behind Wins Produced and Win Score

Wins Produced, Win Score, and PAWSmin are also discussed in the following posts:

Simple Models of Player Performance

Wins Produced vs. Win Score

What Wins Produced Says and What It Does Not Say

Introducing PAWSmin — and a Defense of Box Score Statistics

Finally, A Guide to Evaluating Models contains useful hints on how to interpret and evaluate statistical models.

If the Warriors can repeat their 2008-09 record this next season (and I think they could do much better), Don Nelson will become the career leader in regular season wins for a coach. And if that happens, Nelson will probably be elected to the Hall of Fame.  Such an achievement suggests Nelson is an amazing coach.  All of this success, though, can be traced back to “ The Squid”.

The 1979 Draft

Nelson began his coaching career with the Milwaukee Bucks in the midst of the 1976-77 season.  The Bucks finished that year with a losing record, but in 1977-78 Milwaukee won 44 games.  The next seaso, though, the Bucks only won 38 games. Consequently, Nelson’s career winning percentage in 1979 was below 0.500 (and few would have believed that someday he would be the career leader in coaching wins).

The Bucks held the 5^th pick in the 1979 draft.  With the first pick, the LA Lakers selected Magic Johnson.  Magic finished his career with 228 Wins Produced, so that pick appeared to work out.  The next three picks — as the following numbers indicate — didn’t work out as well.

2. Chicago Bulls: David Greenwood (70.4 Career Wins Produced)

3. New York Knicks: Bill Cartwright (38.1 Career Wins Produced)

4. Detroit Pistons: Greg Kelser (6.5 Career Wins Produced)

With these players off the boards, the Bucks were able to select Sidney “The Squid” Moncrief.  Moncrief’s career only had six seasons where he played more than 2,000 minutes.  Despite limited career minutes, he still produced more wins in his career – 126.8 Wins Produced — than the combined output of Greenwood, Cartwright, and Kelser. 

In Moncrief first seven seasons (he never played more than 2,000 minutes after his seventh season) his production was as follows (WP48 = Wins Produced per 48 minutes):

1979-80: 8.5 Wins Produced, 0.263 WP48, Bucks win 49 games

1980-81: 15.8 Wins Produced, 0.314 WP48, Bucks win 60 games

1981-82: 21.1 Wins Produced, 0.340 WP48, Bucks win 55 games

1982-83: 18.0 Wins Produced, 0.319 WP48, Bucks win 51 games

1983-84: 19.0 Wins Produced, 0.296 WP48, Bucks win 50 games

1984-85: 14.7 Wins Produced, 0.259 WP48, Bucks win 59 games

1985-86: 15.7 Wins Produced, 0.293 WP48, Bucks win 57 games

Moncrief’s Wins Produced in these seven seasons sum to 112.8, and the Bucks won 381 regular season contests.  This suggest that “the Squid” was a big reason why the Bucks were so good in the 1980s.

Life Without the Squid

Now let’s imagine the 1979 draft played out differently.  At the time of the 1979 draft, the head coach for the Detroit Pistons was Dick Vitale (the same Dick Vitale who is widely regarded as an expert on college basketball).  Although we don’t know who decided to draft Greg Kelser, one suspects that Vitale had some input into the decision.

Prior to the draft, Vitale and the other decision-makers in Detroit would have noted that Kelser won an NCAA title with Michigan State (and Magic Johnson) in 1979. One suspects – given the NBA performances of Magic and Kelser — that Magic had more to do with that title than Kelser.  But at the time of the draft, Vitale and the Pistons clearly thought Kelser would be a very productive NBA player.  He certainly looked like a “winner” (whatever that means).

What if Vitale and the Pistons, though, were able to separate the contributions of Magic and Kelser?  If that happened, Vitale and the Pistons might have concluded that Kelser was not going to be very good; and then maybe Moncrief is off the board before the 5^th pick (and yes, the Bulls and Knicks could have also made a different choice).  So if a different decision was made on draft day in 1979, Nelson and the Bucks wouldn’t have had the services of “the Squid.”

Someone, though, would have had to play Moncrief’s minutes.  Let’s imagine that he Bucks were able to find an average player (i.e. WP48 of 0.100) to take Moncrief’s minutes.  If nothing else on the team changed, the Bucks could have expected to post the following records from 1979-80 to 1985-86.

1979-80: 44-38

1980-81: 49-33

1981-82: 40-42

1982-83: 39-43

1983-84: 37-45

1984-85: 50-32

1985-86: 47-35

An average player is not a “bad” player.  But the difference between Moncrief and “average” is substantial.  And with an average player taking Moncrief’s minutes, Nelson would probably not win 50 games with the Bucks until his 8^th full season coaching the team.  One suspects, given how often coaches are fired in the NBA, that Nelson never gets to that 8^th season.  If that happens, one suspects that Nelson doesn’t have the same coaching career we currently observe.  He certainly wouldn’t have been given the opportunity to coach in almost every season from 1976-77 to the present. 

All of this suggests that Moncrief is a big reason why Nelson is about to set a record. Yes, there were other productive players on the Bucks (for example, the original MJ – Marques Johnson – was also very good).  But it was Moncrief that led the Bucks to the success we observed in the 1980s.  And without “the Squid” it seems likely that Nelson gets fired by the Bucks and his coaching career goes in a very different direction.

So when Nelson breaks the coaching record this year, let’s hope someone thanks Moncrief.  And when Nelson eventually enters the Hall of Fame, perhaps someone should think about adding Moncrief (yes, he was that good).

UPDATE: Ty Willihnganz of Bucks Diary [mvn.com/bucksdiary] provides an insightful comment on this post.  Here is how Ty’s comment concludes (one should read all he had to say at Bucks Diary):

I guess I would disagree with one of the premises of Professor Berri’s post.  I don’t think the Bucks lucked into Moncrief at all.  I don’t think Gregory Kelser, given the information at the time of his selection, was such an absurd pick (even though Dick Vitale was an absurd NBA coach, to be sure).  Quite the contrary, I think MSU SF Kelser — not Arkansas SG Moncrief — was and would always have been the more conventional choice. 

Moncrief was the reach.  He was the unconventional pick.  Therefore the Bucks created their own “luck” in selecting him.  The Bucks somehow saw in him what I’ll bet a lot of others couldn’t — a seemingly undersized, unconventional player without a position who could nevertheless win a lot of ball games for you with his overwhelming production.

- DJ

The WoW Journal Comments Policy

Our research on the NBA was summarized HERE.

The Technical Notes at wagesofwins.com provides substantially more information on the published research behind Wins Produced and Win Score

Wins Produced, Win Score, and PAWSmin are also discussed in the following posts:

Simple Models of Player Performance

Wins Produced vs. Win Score

What Wins Produced Says and What It Does Not Say

Introducing PAWSmin — and a Defense of Box Score Statistics

Finally, A Guide to Evaluating Models contains useful hints on how to interpret and evaluate statistical models.

In response to the last post, reader Matt Dalton asked for more information on Michael Ray Richardson. 

Here are Richardson’s career numbers (WP48 = Wins Produced per 48 minutes).

1978-79: 2.0 Wins Produced, 0.078 WP48

1979-80: 21.4 Wins Produced, 0.336 WP48

1980-81: 19.7 Wins Produced, 0.298 WP48

1981-82: 14.0 Wins Produced, 0.221 WP48

1982-83: 6.5 Wins Produced, 0.151 WP48

1983-84: 3.2 Wins Produced, 0.121 WP48

1984-85: 14.6 Wins Produced, 0.225 WP48

1985-86: 7.0 Wins Produced, 0.210 WP48

Totals: 88.6 Wins Produced, 0.229 WP48

Richardson was suspended (for taking drugs) by the league in 1986, so his career ended when he was 30 years old.  Prior to that suspension, though, Richardson was one of the better guards in the NBA.  His teammates, though, were generally lousy.  For his career his teammates posted a 0.076 WP48 [average is 0.100].  To put that in perspective, Kobe Bryant’s teammates have posted 0.113 WP48; and in only one season were Bryant’s teammates as bad as the average we see for Richardson.  

The perceptions of a player’s value are influenced by scoring and winning.  Richardson averaged only 14.8 points per game in his career and he generally played for losers.  So people probably would not think he was as effective as Kobe.  But the data – at least the Wins Produced data – suggests otherwise.  

Update: After the 2008-09 season, Kobe’s Wins Produced stood at 149.0.  His WP48 was 0.207.

- DJ

The WoW Journal Comments Policy

Our research on the NBA was summarized HERE.

The Technical Notes at wagesofwins.com provides substantially more information on the published research behind Wins Produced and Win Score

Wins Produced, Win Score, and PAWSmin are also discussed in the following posts:

Simple Models of Player Performance

Wins Produced vs. Win Score

What Wins Produced Says and What It Does Not Say

Introducing PAWSmin — and a Defense of Box Score Statistics

Finally, A Guide to Evaluating Models contains useful hints on how to interpret and evaluate statistical models.

Magic Johnson celebrated his 50^th birthday this month.  It is generally believed that when Magic and Larry Bird entered the league in 1979, the NBA entered a new era.  This led me to wonder…

Who led the league in Wins Produced before Magic and Bird arrived?

and…

Who led the league in Wins Produced after the arrival of Magic and Bird?

For the answer to the first question, let’s look at the Top 40 players in the NBA (reported in Table One) during the 1978-79 season. Topping the list is Moses Malone. This marked the only time Malone led the league in Wins Produced, although he did place in the top 10 in each season from 1978-79 to 1984-85. 

Table One: Top 40 Player in 1978-79

Following Moses in Table One is Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.  Kareem finished first in 1977-78, and as we see in Table Two, Kareem again led the league in 1979-80.  The next season, at the age of 33, he finished 5^th.  And then Kareem failed to place in the top 20 the rest of his career.  Although one might suspect this is due to the emergence of Magic, I suspect it is mostly due to age.  Once a player passes 30 years of age his productivity tends to decline fairly rapidly.  So it should not be a surprise to see Kareem’s numbers decline after the age of 33.

Table Two: Top 40 Players in 1979-80

Despite the decline we see in the 1980s, it seems fairly clear that Kareem was clearly the dominant player of the 1970s.  In 1979, though, we see the beginning of the Magic-Bird era.  Each player ranked in the top ten in 1979-80.  And Bird went on to lead the league in Wins Produced in 1980-81. He then repeated this finish in 1984-85 and 1985-86.  Magic also took a turn leading the league, topping the list in each season from 1981-82 to 1983-84.  Yes, either Magic or Bird led the league in Wins Produced from 1980-81 to 1985-86.

The conventional wisdom tells us that Kareem dominated the 1970s and Magic-Bird led the 1980s.  It appears that Wins Produced confirms this wisdom. 

If we look over the two tables, though, I am sure there are a few results that defy conventional wisdom.  So this very short post has some value (although perhaps not much).

- DJ 

The WoW Journal Comments Policy

Our research on the NBA was summarized HERE.

The Technical Notes at wagesofwins.com provides substantially more information on the published research behind Wins Produced and Win Score

Wins Produced, Win Score, and PAWSmin are also discussed in the following posts:

Simple Models of Player Performance

Wins Produced vs. Win Score

What Wins Produced Says and What It Does Not Say

Introducing PAWSmin — and a Defense of Box Score Statistics

Finally, A Guide to Evaluating Models contains useful hints on how to interpret and evaluate statistical models.