Last season the Atlanta Hawks finished with the 4^th best record in the Eastern Conference.  Such a mark gave this team home-court advantage in the first round.  After barely defeating the Miami Heat, the Hawks then were swept by the Cleveland Cavaliers in the second round.

In the off-season the Hawks made very few changes.  Atlanta drafted guard Jeff Teague in the first round.   And then the Hawks acquired veterans Jamal Crawford and Joe Smith.  Last October I summarized these moves as follows: Hoping for a Plan in Atlanta.

Here is the essence of my argument.  The Hawks last year had a 1.70 efficiency differential (offensive efficiency minus defensive efficiency).  Such a mark is consistent with a team that wins 45 games (the team actually won 47 games).  In the off-season the Hawks added three players who were not expected to produce many wins.  Consequently, the Hawks were really just hoping that their existing players would suddenly get much better.  Although I acknowledged improvement within was a possibility, I argued it would take a very dramatic change in the productivity of Atlanta’s players to close the gap between this team and the top contenders in the Eastern Conference.  In sum, the Hawks plan appeared to be “We hope these guys get a lot better”.  And as I noted last October, hope is not a plan.

Wrong and Right

Well, twelve games into the 2009-10 season and here is what we see from the Hawks.

Record: 10-2

Efficiency Differential: 8.46

Projected Record (given efficiency differential): 63-19

Wow, that’s quite a leap forward.  So I guess I was wrrrrrr……  I mean, I might have been wrrrrr…..  Okay, maybe there was a problem with what I said a few weeks ago.

To see where I was wrrrr….. (okay, I will stop doing that), let’s look at the players.

Here is what Hawks acquisitions have done thus far:

Jamal Crawford: 347 minutes, 0.044 WP48 [Wins Produced per 48 minutes]

Joe Smith: 110 minutes, 0.082 WP48

Jeff Teague: 110 minutes, -0.044 WP48

Combined, these three players – if this level of productivity continues – can expect to produce 2.8 wins by the time the season is over.  So it looks like I was right about these guys.  The additions are not really helping.

Now let’s look at the players the Hawks returned.  Here is what the team’s top four producers of wins in 2008-09 are doing this year (after 12 games):

Al Horford: 0.201 WP48 [2008-09], 0.279 WP48 [2009-10]

Joe Johnson: 0.138 WP48 [2008-09], 0.172 WP48 [2009-10]

Mike Bibby: 0.136 WP48 [2008-09], 0.138 WP48 [2009-10]

Marvin Williams: 0.149 WP48 [2008-09], 0.058 WP48 [2009-10]

Yes, Horford and Johnson are doing more.  But M. Williams is doing less. If we project to the end of the season (again, assuming per-minute performance stays the same), this quartet will produce 37.4 wins.  Last season these four produced 32.2 wins.  Again, that is more wins.  But the size of the improvement we see in these players is not enough to explain what we are observing for the Hawks.  In sum, if we look at the team’s acquisitions and the top producers of wins in 2008-09, it looks like I was right (didn’t have trouble saying that, did I?).

Josh Smith as Superman

But then there is Josh Smith.  The Hawks selected Josh Smith with the 17^th pick in the 2004 draft.  Across the next five seasons, he posted the following numbers:

12,533 minutes played

35.9 Wins Produced

0.138 WP48

Last season, Smith produced 5.9 wins and posted a 0.116 WP48.  Yes, Josh Smith was a bit above average.  But he was not one of the most productive players employed by Atlanta.  And what we have seen from Josh Smith had been remarkably consistent for five seasons (and more than 10,000 minutes of playing time).

Something, though, had happened to Josh Smith.  And if this continues, this could be THE STORY of the 2009-10 season.  Table One reports what Josh Smith had done across his career.

Table One: The Career of Josh Smith

Prior to this season, Josh Smith’s career numbers indicate that he was slightly below average with respect to shooting efficiency, rebounds, and turnovers.  He could, though, block shots, get steals, and get assists. So on average, he was a bit above average.  But he was hardly outstanding.

Thus far in 2009-10, though, Josh Smith is one of the most productive players in the entire NBA.  No, I don’t just mean on the Hawks.  If Josh Smith was this productive in 2008-09, only Chris Paul and LeBron James would have produced more wins.  That is how good Josh Smith is playing.

So what is he doing well?  Well, his shooting efficiency had increased dramatically.  But relative to last year, he is also getting more rebounds, blocked shots, steals, and assists.  And he has reduced his turnovers.  In sum, across the board Josh Smith is a much more productive player.

Converting all these numbers into wins we – if this production continues – Josh Smith will finish the 2009-10 season with 22.4 Wins Produced and a 0.387 WP48.  Again, only Chris Paul and LeBron James did more last season.

To put Josh Smith’s production in perspective, let’s imagine that all the players on the Hawks keep doing what they are doing in 2009-10, but Josh Smith only produces at the level we saw in 2008-09.  If that happens, the Hawks should expect to win 47.2 wins.  Yes, without this amazing leap in Josh Smith’s production, the Hawks would be essentially the same.

So it appears that the Hawks did have a plan.  The plan was for a five-year veteran who had never been much better than average to suddenly become one of the very best players in the game.  In essence, the Hawks were hoping that Josh Smith could suddenly offer the same production the Orlando Magic get from Dwight Howard [22.2 Wins Produced and 0.378 WP48 in 2008-09].

Now had I know about this “plan” (i.e. Josh Smith is now going to be as productive as Dwight Howard), I would have definitely agreed that the Hawks were going to get better.  But to be honest, I just didn’t see this coming.

And again, if this continues then this should be the story of the 2009-10 season.  A slightly above average NBA veteran has suddenly become another Superman.  I can’t remember seeing something like this happen in all the years of NBA data I have examined.  So what we are seeing from Josh Smith is truly something special.

- 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.

A few days ago I was reading Marginal Revolution and I came across the following: Pinker reviews Gladwell.

A few months ago I saw Steven Pinker – a Harvard psychologist — in a rather lengthy interview on C-SPAN.  After the interview I ordered Pinker’s latest book: The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature.  So I was familiar with Pinker’s work and was curious to see what he had to see about Gladwell.

The above link takes one to the New York Times review Pinker wrote of Gladwell’s latest book: What the Dog Saw.  The review begins by praising Gladwell’s gifts as a writer.  But it soon takes a turn as Pinker begins to argue that Gladwell – a journalist – is often not an “expert” on the topics he writes about.  My reaction when I read this was that this seemed to be an unfair criticism.  Journalists – as anyone whose work has been discussed by members of the media would know (and Pinker falls into this group) – do not claim to be “the expert.”  In fact, this is why the call on people like Pinker.  In other words, if journalists were the experts, they could skip the practice of talking to people like Pinker entirely.   

Pinker, though, had apparently not considered this point and quickly moved on to an effort to illustrate Gladwell’s perceived shortcoming.  What the Dog Saw is a collection of essays Gladwell originally wrote for the New Yorker.  And part of this collection is the following article Gladwell published last year: Most Likely to Succeed: How do we hire when we can’t tell who’s right for the job?  Readers of this article will discover that part of the story Gladwell tells focuses on how hard it is to draft a quarterback in the NFL.  The “experts” Gladwell called upon to tell this story were two economists named David Berri and Rob Simmons. 

In an article Rob and I published in the Journal of Productivity Analysis, we discuss how the statistical relationship between a quarterback’s draft position and his future performance is quite weak.  Pinker, though, apparently disagrees.  Nestled in his New York Times review is the following: It is simply not true that a quarter­back’s rank in the draft is uncorrelated with his success in the pros….

Upon reading this I went from “Hey, I think Pinker is being unfair to Gladwell” to “Hey, I think Pinker just attacked my research.”  So I decided to e-mail Malcolm and ask if he knew of Pinker’s source for his statement.  The question was mostly a joke.  My thinking was that Pinker’s reaction was simply a manifestation of the problem sports economists often face.  Sports are a subject matter with an abundance of “experts”.  Essentially, many people who have only watched sports often believe that they are an “expert” on the subject.  Having conducted research on sports and economics since the mid-1990s, I am accustomed to people who have only watched sports disputing the findings of my co-authors and I.  So I was thinking along the lines… maybe Pinker is a fan of the Jets, and he really hoped Mark Sanchez was going to live up to his lofty draft status.

Pinker’s response to Malcolm, though, revealed that Pinker was not just stating his belief as a sports fan.  Pinker claimed he actually had sources.  Specifically — as Malcolm detailed at his blog– Pinker found some stuff on the Internet that contradicted what Rob and I said in our article.

My sense is that Pinker never read our article.  What he did find on the Internet is evidence that a quarterback’s aggregate performance (i.e. passing yards, seasons played, Pro Bowl appearances) is indeed related to draft position.  And as Rob and I detailed in our article, this is true.  Aggregate performance and draft position are statistically related.  But as Rob and I argue, this is because in the NFL (like we see in the NBA) draft position is linked to playing time.  And this link is independent of performance.  In fact, Rob and I find that draft position – again, independent of performance – impacts a quarterback’s pay many years into a quarterback’s career.

To correct for this bias, we focused on per-play statistics.  And here is a sample of what we found.  After a quarterback has played five seasons in the NFL (minimum 500 career plays), here are the correlation coefficients between draft position and various career statistics:

Completion Percentage: -0.01

Passing Yards per Pass Attempt: -0.02

Touchdowns per Pass Attempt: -0.12

Interceptions per Pass Attempt: 0.00

QB Score per Play: -0.01

Net Points per Play: -0.02

Wins per Play: -0.02

QB Rating: -0.06

Our data set runs from 1970 to 2007 (adjustments were made for how performance changed over time). We also looked at career performance after 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, and 8 years.  In addition, we also looked at what a player did in each year from 1 to 10.  And with each data set our story looks essentially the same.  The above stats are not really correlated with draft position.

But that is not all we did.  Rob and I also looked at what factors determine where a quarterback is selected in the draft.  We then looked at how the factors that determine draft position predict performance.  This study revealed that the factors that get a quarterback drafted are not related to what he does in the NFL. 

Again, I don’t think Pinker read our paper before commenting.  And in this sense, he did the same thing he wants Gladwell to stop doing.  Pinker commented on a subject where he was not well-informed. But the difference is this… Gladwell makes an effort to understand the subjects he discusses.  Pinker didn’t make this same effort.

Beyond this point, let me also comment on the tone of Pinker’s critique (which is similar to the tone of many comments at Gladwell’s blog).  Many people seem to want Gladwell to only write about “the truth.”  In other words, people want Gladwell to focus on research that everyone agrees upon.  But for research to be “interesting” it must say something new.  And more often than not, the “new” research will contradict “old” beliefs.  Consequently, people who liked the old stories will disagree.  So when Gladwell talks about Allen Iverson not being a great player, or Kevin Garnett being underrated, or the inability of draft position to tell us much about a future quarterback’s performance, people who hold the “old” beliefs will disagree (and argue the “new” research is clearly bad).  According to Gladwell’s critics, Gladwell should see this disagreement and find something else to write about. 

But that is not a particularly reasonable approach.  Again, “interesting” research will challenge people.  Such challenges often provoke negative reactions.  To only choose topics that will avoid such reactions reduces your range of topics to a number close to zero. 

One last note… Martin Schmidt and I have a book coming out next March called Stumbling on Wins.  This book will provide more details on quarterbacks and the NFL draft, and also discuss a host of other decisions made in sports.  If you enjoy this story about the NFL draft, we hope you will enjoy our next book.  Of course, if you didn’t like our draft story…. well, we are sure you will love all the other stories we tell :)

- DJ

The WoW Journal Comments Policy

On the Other Hand, Maybe Sports Make Us Happy.  This is the title of my latest for Huffington Post Sports.  Here is how the column begins:

Harry Truman once asked if he could have only “one-armed economists.” This is because too often economists told President Truman, “on the other hand…”

Although I am sure some economists only have one-arm, I have been blessed with two. And consequently, today’s column is going to somewhat contradict what I said last week.

Last week I noted that there was a problem with the decision in California to suspend environmental laws so that a new NFL stadium could be built in Los Angeles. More than two decades of research have indicated that stadiums don’t create significant economic growth (i.e. income) or jobs. Given this research, it seems likely that California didn’t have a very good reason to circumvent its environmental laws.

Of course, on the other hand… there’s a different perspective on the value of sporting events. For this perspective we turn to Soccernomics: Why England Loses, Why Germany and Brazil Win, and Why the U.S., Japan, Australia, Turkey — and Even Iraq — Are Destined to Become the Kings of the World’s Most Popular Sport (by Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski; Nation Books).  Read the rest at Huffington Post Sports…

As noted, this column is derived from Soccernomics.  For many American sports fans, soccer is simply not their favorite sports.  Nevertheless, many readers are going to find this book to be their favorite sports book in 2009.  This is just an extremely well-written book, filled with numerous stories any sports fan will find interesting. 

- DJ

The WoW Journal Comments Policy

Who is the best team in the West?  If we consider preseason hype, it’s the Lakers.  If we consider won-loss record, it’s the surprising Phoenix Suns.  But if we consider efficiency differential (offensive efficiency minus defensive efficiency), the top team is the Portland Trail Blazers.  Yes, the Phoenix Suns have the best record (9-2).  The Suns’ differential, though, is only 3.90 (the Lakers without Pau Gasol have a 2.02 mark).  The Trail Blazers, with a mark of 7.89, clearly lead the conference (second is the Dallas Mavericks with a mark of 6.76).

So why are the Blazers doing so well?  Last year the Blazers finished second in the conference in efficiency differential with a 5.93 mark.  In the off-season, the team added Andre Miller and let Channing Frye and Sergio Rodriguez depart.   These moves left the Blazers with the following depth chart (Wins Produced and WP48 numbers from 2008-09):

Potential First String

Steve Blake: 2,188 min., 5.3 Wins Produced, 0.117 WP48

Brandon Roy: 2,903 min., 15.3 Wins Produced, 0.253 WP48

Nicolas Batum: 1,454 min., 3.7 Wins Produced, 0.123 WP48

LaMarcus Aldridge: 3,004 min., 6.7 Wins Produced, 0.107 WP48

Greg Oden: 1,314 min., 4.2 Wins Produced, 0.154 WP48

Potential Bench

Andre Miller: 2,976 min., 11.1 Wins Produced, 0.178 WP48

Rudy Fernandez: 1,993 min., 6.9 Wins Produced, 0.167 WP48

Travis Outlaw: 2,246 min., 2.6 Wins Produced, 0.055 WP48

Joel Przybilla: 1,952 min., 11.7 Wins Produced, 0.288 WP48

Average WP48 [Wins Produced per 48 minute] is 0.100. So last year, eight of the nine players the Blazers were planning on employing in their regular rotation in 2009-10 were above average.

Before this season started, Nicolas Batum was hurt.  His replacement – Martell Webster – only played five minutes last year; and in 2007-08 he only posted a 0.057 WP48 (that was his best season ever).  So losing Batum hurts, although not too much.  In fact, as noted, the Blazers are better this year.  And when we look at the team’s depth chart, we can see who is responsible for Portland’s early success.

Potential First String

Steve Blake: 354 min., 0.053 WP48

Brandon Roy: 441 min., 0.192 WP48

Martell Webster: 246 min., 0.091 WP48

LaMarcus Aldridge: 390 min., 0.171 WP48

Greg Oden: 291 min., 0.271 WP48

Potential Bench

Andre Miller: 348 min., 0.087 WP48

Rudy Fernandez: 262 min., 0.270 WP48

Travis Outlaw: 231 min., 0.015 WP48

Joel Przybilla: 232 min., 0.231 WP48

These numbers are from the first 12 games of the season. So once again we need to remember that the sample is still small.  In other words, forecasting from this sample for each player is not advised (although that won’t stop me from talking about the future). But we can say who is responsible for the outcomes observed across the first 12 games.

Of the nine players listed above, only five are above average.  But these five – Brandon Roy, LaMarcus Aldridge, Greg Oden, Rudy Fernandez, and Joel Przybilla — have played very well. Judging by past performance, we should not be surprised by the productivity of Roy, Fernandez, and Przybilla.  And it looks like Oden is finally becoming the dominant player people expected to see when he was taken with the first pick in the 2007 NBA draft.  The only real surprise is the play of Aldridge.  At least, given that Aldridge has been called “overrated” in this forum, readers of The Wages of Wins Journal might be surprised.

Then again, maybe this isn’t a shock.  Here is what Aldridge has done across his first three seasons:

2006-07: age 21, 0.055 WP48

2007-08: age 22, 0.078 WP48

2008-09: age 23, 0.107 WP48

Perhaps what we are seeing from Aldridge is just the standard progression we generally see with young players.  If this is true, then a) Aldridge won’t be considered overrated in 2009-10, and b) the Blazers have one more extremely productive player.

Before the season started it was argued that the addition of Andre Miller was important.  As the above numbers indicate, though, Miller has been below average.  However, one should note that Miller was inserted into the starting line-up after Portland’s first five games.  And he has been above average since this move was made (so that would give the Blazers six above average players). 

With so many productive players on the roster, it seems like Portland is probably going to remain one of the top teams – if not the top team – in the West.  So, all those people who expect the Lakers to automatically return to the NBA Finals might want to think again.  The Blazers are a legitimate contender to win the West.  And given the age of many of their most productive players, Portland should (barring injury) remain a contender beyond 2009-10.

- 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.

The Sacramento Kings are one of the worst teams in the NBA.  That would have been the consensus of most NBA observers before the 2009-10 season began.  In fact, I asked in October: Will the Kings be Crowned the Worst Team in 2009-10?

Explaining Expectations

Reviewing the Kings potential depth chart before the season began, it’s easy to see why someone (okay, me) would conclude this team would be so bad:

Potential First String

PG: Tyreke Evans [rookie]

SG: Kevin Martin [4.7 Wins Produced, 0.115 WP48]

SF: Andres Nocioni [-0.4 Wins Produced, -0.009 WP48]

PF: Jason Thompson [3.0 Wins Produced, 0.063 WP48]

C: Spencer Hawes [-1.0 Wins Produced, -0.021 WP48]

Potential Second String

PG: Beno Udrih [1.6 Wins Produced, 0.034 WP48]

SG: Desmond Mason [-0.3 Wins Produced, -0.014 WP48]

SF: Francisco Garcia [1.8 Wins Produced, 0.044 WP48]

PF: Sean May [-0.6 Wins Produced, -0.093 WP48]

C: John Brockman [rookie]

As noted in the post detailing this depth chart, the returning veterans produced less than nine wins last year.  And only one player –Kevin Martin – was above average last year.  These numbers suggest the Kings were going to struggle in 2009-10.  After nine games, though, the Kings have already won five contests. Yes, the Kings have a winning record.  And although it’s early, it doesn’t look like Sacramento will be the worst team in the NBA in 2009-10.  So how did this happen?

Meeting Expectations

The obvious first place to look is the play of Kevin Martin.  Thus far Martin is averaging 30.6 points per game and his WP48 [Wins Produced per 48 minutes] of 0.261 is clearly an improvement over what we saw last year (and closer to what we saw before 2008-09). Martin, though, has only played five games and the Kings lost four of these contests. So maybe it ain’t all about Martin.

Well, what about Tyreke Evans, the Kings lottery pick in 2009 (the reward for being so bad last year)?  Thus far Evans is second on the team in scoring, averaging 16.8 points per game.  Evans, though, is not a very efficient scorer so his WP48 is only 0.058 (average is 0.100).

What about Andres Nocioni, Spencer Hawes, Beno Udrih, Desmond Mason, or Sean May?  These players were all below average last year.  And this year — as the following list illustrates – all are still below average.  In fact, Mason played so poorly that he went from the starting line-up to the unemployment line.

 Spencer Hawes [266 minutes, -0.063 WP48]

Desmond Mason [66 minutes, 0.023 WP48]

Sean May [82 minutes, -0.184 WP48]

Andres Nocioni [239 minutes, 0.016 WP48]

Beno Udrih [237 minutes, 0.069 WP48]

Okay, let’s summarize.  Martin did return to form (this was expected), but this apparently hasn’t helped much yet.  Most veterans are playing as badly as they did last year (this was also expected).  And Evans is not very productive yet (this was also somewhat expected).   So thus far, most players on the Kings are who we thought they were (quoting Dennis Green).  But the Kings as a team are much better.  So what gives?

An Answer

There are three players who are part of Sacramento’s rotation who have not been mentioned.  Omri Casspi [170 minutes, 0.126 WP48] and John Brockman [60 minutes, 0.133 WP48] are rookies, and each has been above average. 

Although both Casspi and Brockman have helped, neither player is doing enough to transform the Kings.  Last year the Kings had an efficiency differential (offensive efficiency minus defensive efficiency) of -8.9.  This year the Kings have a -0.5 differential.  This difference in these differentials is worth about 22 wins across an 82 game season.  To get all these wins, a major producer of wins had to be added to the roster.  But none of the players we have reviewed so far is doing enough to produce such a large leap.

Fans of the Kings know there is one name that has been ignored so far.  And fans of the Kings probably know who is responsible for Sacramento’s improvement.  As a rookie, Jason Thompson was below average [3.0 Wins Produced, 0.063 WP48].  After 310 minutes this year, though, Thompson’s WP48 stands at 0.257.  If Thompson continues to produce at this level – and he continues to play 34 minutes per game – when the season ends Thompson will produce about 15 wins.  Last year the Kings only won 17 games.  So Thompson’s dramatic improvement is enough to significantly change the fortunes of this team.

Forecasting Problems

This story highlights a problem anyone has forecasting the NBA. Relative to what we see in baseball and football, basketball players are far more consistent.  Nevertheless, performance can change.  Injuries – as we see with Kevin Martin – can cause performance to change dramatically.  And age will cause players to get better early in their career (and cause declines later on).  In general, the shape of the age profile is a gentle slope (we discuss this in our next book).  But in Thompson’s case, we are seeing a dramatic leap; a leap that I don’t think we could have expected given his performance last year.

Hence we see the problem of forecasting.  On average, we see gradual changes as people age. But sharp changes are possible (both upwards for young players and downward for the aged).  Injuries – and recovery from injuries — are hard to forecast.  And finally, the performance of rookies is hard to predict.  Given all this, forecasts before the season are difficult.  In sum, we can do a pretty good job explaining what happened after the fact.  But the future – even with all the great numbers the NBA producers – will still be cloudy.

Of course, this is just a problem for people like me who like to play with numbers.  For fans of the Kings, the important story is what has happened to this team.  Assuming Jason Thompson is for real (it is early, so maybe he isn’t), the Kings now have two players (Martin & Thompson) who can be significant producer of wins.  If Brockman and Casspi get minutes and keep producing, Sacramento is suddenly a team this isn’t horrible.   If this story starts to be understood by fans in Sacramento, maybe attendance for this team can rebound.  And then, just maybe, Sacramento – primarily because of the play (and rebounding) of Jason Thompson — can keep its NBA team. 

- 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.