Kurt Rambis has left the World Champion LA Lakers to be the head coach for the Minnesota Timberwolves. Marc Stein of ESPN.com reports the following:
Long considered a potential heir apparent to Los Angeles Lakers coach Phil Jackson, Rambis was lured away from Jackson’s staff by a four-year deal believed to be worth in excess of $8 million.
Wolves owner Glen Taylor confirmed ESPN.com’s report in an interview with the St. Paul Pioneer Press late Saturday, telling the newspaper that he expects Rambis to formally sign the contract Monday.
“Kurt, with his experience playing and coaching for a winning organization and working under people like Pat Riley, will bring a lot to our organization,” Taylor told the Pioneer Press. “In meeting with him and talking to him, I know he’s very excited about having an opportunity to help build his own team.”
We don’t know what kind of team Rambis will build in four years. We do suspect, though, it will be a better team than what he’s inheriting. Here is what the veteran players Minnesota will employ in 2009-10 did last season (according to the roster reported at ESPN.com, WP48 = Wins Produced per 48 minutes):
Ryan Gomes: 2,614 min., 0.6 Wins Produced, 0.012 WP48
Kevin Love: 2,048 min., 8.9 Wins Produced, 0.208 WP48
Quentin Richardson: 1,894 min., 3.9 Wins Produced, 0.098 WP48
Al Jefferson: 1,836 min., 6.1 Wins Produced, 0.160 WP48
Darius Songaila: 1,521 min., -0.8 Wins Produced, -0.024 WP48
Brian Cardinal: 909 min., -0.6 Wins Produced, -0.033 WP48
Damien Wilkins: 626 min., -0.6 Wins Produced, -0.046 WP48
These seven players are the only players who logged at least 500 minutes last season. The team also has Chucky Atkins (-0.120 WP48 in 413 minutes), Corey Brewer (0.053 WP48 in 307 minutes), Oleksiy Pecherov (-0.014 WP48 in 277 minutes), and Bobby Brown (-0.045 WP48 in 256 minutes).
The Wins Produced of all these players only sums to 16.5. The team has also added Jonny Flynn and Wayne Ellington (and maybe Ricky Rubio) in the draft. Of these, Flynn is most likely to play significant minutes in 2009-10. Flynn’s performance in college, though, suggests he may not be very productive next year (although that’s just a suggestion, college performance does not predict perfectly).
All of this suggests that the Timberwolves might benefit more from hiring Rambis the player, rather than Rambis the coach. Of course, Minnesota would have to turn back time to get Rambis the player. If they did, though, it would help. How much would it help? Before we answer this question, let’s ask another: How many veteran players currently on Minnesota’s roster posted a higher WP48 last year than what Rambis did for his entire career?
Rambis played fourteen seasons in the NBA (from 1981-82 to 1994-95). Across these seasons he produced 68.2 wins in 16,299 minutes. This results in 0.201 WP48. Only Kevin Love produced at a higher rate last year. So if the T-wolves could have Rambis the player, the team would be improved.
But even with Rambis, this team is still going to struggle. There are simply too many below average players; and too many of these are in the negative range. So it’s a good thing Rambis has a four year contract. In four years this roster should change dramatically. And it better. Because if it doesn’t, the head coaching career of Rambis is going to be quite short, and he might wish he would have just waited for Jackson to retire in LA.
- 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
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.
Am I the only one stunned at Kurt Rambis’ career WP48? I loved the Showtime Lakers as a kid and Cooper and Rambis were my favorites. Even at that I’m stunned to find his career rate over .150.
I barely remember Rambis the player, but I do remember collecting basketball cards back in the day. I always remember being impressed by his stats, oddly enough.
I wonder if I’ve still got any of those cards …
Q-Rich has already been with four teams in the offseason, and could be headed for a fifth because of his contract. As for Rambis the player, he’d be entering something of a logjam at the 4 and 5 spots with Love and Jefferson.
Although, I can’t help but get the feeling that Minnesota’s current coach and the coach he replaced are intertwined. Kevin McHale, Kurt Rambis. Kevin McHale, Kurt Rambis.
Where have I heard those two names mentioned together before?
The title of this post should be “McHale clotheslines Rambis… again”
David, Darrell Kurt Rambis – “Rambo” – had a 13.1 career PER. Therefore I find it unlikely that Rambis would benefit the team, especially when he would be taking minutes away from Al Jefferson (23.1) and Kevin Love (18.3).
Flynn and Ellington are going to have to make contributions right away. This team desperately needs speed. Rambis could model them after another plodding, but successful, team, Utah. Jefferson and Love could be successful together in the right system.
Dear Mr Hollinger,
I suspect you are the “real” John hollinger who writes on a regular basis for ESPN.com.
I am an avid reader of both Dr Berri’s Wages of Wins and your columns (as an Insider subscriber). I consult both the PER metric and WoW when it comes to evaluating players. That said, judging by your comment, it seems like you have not read Dr Berri’s extensive take on PER and why it falls short.
By and large, the productive players according to PER are also productive according to WoW.
However for players like Mike Miller (now of the Washington Wizards) or David Lee (whom PER just rates as an above average player, but WoW rates him as a legitimate star), the difference in metrics become all the more apparent.
Again, I would like to encourage you to search “PER” in the Wages of Wins Journal for your reading pleasure. The wealth of new knowledge you will glean from them is remarkable :)
A few points.
Jefferson only produced 6 wins because he only played half the season. Assuming he’s healthy, that’s another 6 wins that should be factored in.
Songaila, Cardinal and Wilkins all played more minutes at negative wins produced than they will this season. Using statistics from last season where each enjoyed a bigger role further lowers the Wolves “Wins Produced” number.
Is it unrealistic to expect Al Jefferson to be healthy, Gomes to return to somewhere between his 07-08 season and 08-09 season, and a combined 5-7 wins from Rubio/Flynn/Ellington?
I don’t think so, 30 wins is possible, and Hollinger is right, Rambo the player wouldn’t have a role on this team with Love and Al.
http://dberri.wordpress.com/2009/07/30/beasley-or-boozer/
This link being a good example comparing Boozer vs Beasley.
They are equal in terms of PER, but are radically different according to Wins Produced.
I seriously doubt that’s the real Hollinger, but an impostor on a blog comment section is pretty much expected. In any case, a productive 3rd big man would probably be a great adBdition for the wolves.
At least the Rubio situation sorted itself out, right?
I am confused by something in this post. Berri posted that Jefferson had a WP48 of .16 last season. Here (link at end), though, in his mid-season analysis of the Wolves after Jefferson had played his last game he had a WP48 of .215 and he had already played his last game of the season (that was the reason Berri wrote the entry).
If a player’s Win Produced per 48 can drop that precipitiously despite them not playing a game it would seem that Wins Produced is not terribly robust.
http://www.wagesofwins.com/TWolves510809.html
I can’t see how this could be a simple error in transcribing data but it seems like it must be.
Ailuridae– if I recall correctly, at some point this year Professor Berri was using a different source for his position adjustments. There have been a few posts recently pointing out the same sort of discrepancy, and I believe that this different source for the position adjustment numbers has been the explanation.