One might expect a team that’s close to winning a title to be the biggest mover at the trade deadline.  But the biggest mover was actually a team sporting a 0.358 winning percentage. The New York Knicks made three moves this past week, with the biggest the trade that brought Tracy McGrady to the Big Apple.  

It’s well understood that the Knicks primary motivation is to clear salary cap space so that the team can make significant moves this summer.  So it wouldn’t be suprising to learn that the Knicks current cast of characters might not be as competitive as the team’s fans might like.  But looking at this team’s current roster yields perhaps a pleasant surprise.

Here is a quick glance at this team’s current line-up [WP48 or Wins Produced per 48 minutes reported].

Starters

Chris Duhon: 0.046

Tracy McGrady 08-09: 0.163

Danilo Gallinari: 0.100

Al Harrington: -0.012

David Lee: 0.244

Bench

Sergio Rodriguez: 0.107

Eddie House: 0.023

Wilson Chandler: 0.090

If McGrady can play as well as he did last year, the Knicks will have three above average players in the starting line-up (Gallinari is an above average small forward) and one above average performer off the bench.

The problem for this team is a lack of production in the frontcourt.  Yes, David Lee is the most productive player on the Knicks (and yes, it doesn’t seem wise to just let him go this summer). But after Lee the Knicks don’t have much at power forward or center.  Al Harrington is currently in the negative range.  And a similar story can be told about Eddy Curry and Jonathan Bender (about the only big men left on the roster).  So the Knicks will probably have to play a smaller line-up much of the season.

Despite this problem, given the above WP48 numbers, this current roster could expect to win about 35 or so games across an 82 game season.  Yes, after all these moves the Knicks might be a bit better.  So if this team was worth watching before these moves (and I am not sure that’s true), then they are still worth watching across the last 29 games of the 2009-10 season.

- 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.

It was announced today (or maybe last night) that the Rockets and Kings have a deal involving Tracy McGrady and Kevin Martin.  Here is my first impression of this move (and I am ignoring completely what the Knicks might do today).

Once upon a time, McGrady was one of the most productive players in the game.  From 2000-01 to 2002-03 he posted the following WP48 [Wins Produced per 48 minutes] marks. 

2000-01: 0.279

2001-02: 0.303

2002-03: 0.325

But after peaking in 2003 (around the age of 23), McGrady’s production has tumbled.  In 2003-04 and 2004-05 his WP48 mark barely surpassed 0.200.  And while McGrady has been consistently above average (average WP48 is 0.100), his marks the past four years have been below 0.200.

2005-06: 0.152

2006-07: 0.186

2007-08: 0.110

2008-09: 0.163

Of course this year he has only played 46 minutes.   So at this point, McGrady was offering essentially nothing to the Rockets on the court. 

Today, though, it was announced that McGrady’s nothing has been traded for Kevin Martin.  Here is what Martin has done [with respect to WP48] across the past four year. 

2005-06: 0.160

2006-07: 0.199

2007-08: 0.192

2008-09: 0.115

In three of the past four years, Martin has offered more than McGrady.  Plus Martin is four years younger.  So it looks like the Rockets have turned a nothing into quite a something.

There are, though, some issues to consider.   Martin was only barely above average last year.  And this season, after just 22 games (he missed more than 30 due to injury), his WP48 stands at 0.100.  Obviously these numbers are not quite what we saw the last time Martin played 80 games in a season (2006-07).

Beyond questions about Martin’s ability to produce and stay healthy is the additional players included to make this trade happen.  The Rockets are sending Carl Landry and Joey Dorsey (plus cash) to the Kings for Kenny Thomas, Hilton Armstrong, and Sergio Rodriguez.  At the moment, Landry’s Wins Produced of 4.7 represents the third highest mark on the Rockets (Luis Scola and Kyle Lowry have eached produced 5.1 wins this season).  And Dorsey – in just 54 minutes – has posted a 0.304 WP48.  The loss of these two players leave the Rockets with Scola and Chuck Hayes as the only above average performers at power forward and center.  So although the transformation of McGrady into Martin could be quite a feat, the loss of Landry in the frontcourt is going to limit the positive effects of this trade. 

As for the Kings…Landry is already the most productive big man on the roster.  And with Tyreke Evans and Omri Casspi, it looks like the Kings now have a trio of productive players to build upon. 

Putting the whole picture together… it looks like the Kings are now a better team and Houston – Martin can return to form – could be somewhat better.  And now that I see this, I wish I had spent more of this quick post on the Kings (but that’s what you get when you write before you finish thinking about something).

Quick Update: The pieces added to this trade from the Knicks don’t really change the story.  Jordan Hill, Jared Jeffries, and Larry Hughes are all below average performers this year.  Hill, though, is a rookie.  So he might develop into something (although his college numbers weren’t encouraging).

Another quick update:  Forgot to note the draft picks.  If the Knicks continue to make poor choices (a real possibility) and therefore do not build a winner in the near future, this could be a very good deal for the Rockets. 

- 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 race in the Western Conference seems quite similar to many of the races we are seeing at the Winter Olympics.   The Portland Trailblazers took the lead out of the gates.   But injuries to both Greg Oden and Joel Przybilla (among others), knocked the Blazers from the list of contenders. 

Meanwhile, after a slow start, Pau Gasol returned from injury and the Lakers surged into the lead.  Heading into the All-Star break it seemed like no one was going to catch the Lakers in the West.

Then the Mavericks made a trade that allowed them to narrow the substantial distance between Dallas and LA.  Now the Blazers – with the acquisition of Marcus Camby – are also posed to make a late-season charge. And we still haven’t reached the trade deadline.

To see why Camby allows the Blazers to start charging, let’s briefly look at where this team was at the All-Star break. After 55 games the Blazers had posted a 2.4 efficiency differential (offensive efficiency minus defensive efficiency). This is consistent with a team that wins between 31 and 32 games (out of 55).  The team actually won 31 games, putting this team on pace to fall short of 50 victories across an entire season. In sum, the Blazers were not contenders.

Table One: The Portland Trail Blazers after 55 games in 2009-10

As often noted, Wins Produced is derived from efficiency differential.  And when we review each player’s Wins Produced – as reported in Table One – we can see why Portland had fallen back to the pack.  Of the four top players in WP48 [Wins Produced per 48 minutes], two players (Oden and Przybilla) were lost for the season. 

The player who took many of the minutes from Oden and Pryzbilla was Juwan Howard. Across his career, Howard has been paid more than $140 million.  But as noted back in 2006, Howard has never been a very productive NBA player.  And although he has played better in 2009-10 than he did in limited minutes last season, he’s still below average.

Now it’s possible that many of Howard’s minutes can be given to Camby.  To understand the impact of this change, consider that…

• Howard has produced 1.5 wins in 1,067 minutes this season.  Hence his WP48 is 0.067 (average is 0.100).
• Camby has posted a 0.431 WP48 this season.  Such a mark across 1,067 minutes is worth 9.6 wins.  In other words, if Portland had been able to switch from Camby to Howard when Oden and Przybilla left the scene, the Blazers would have already won about eight additional games.

So adding Camby to this roster – if he primarily takes the minutes of Howard – is enough to transform the Blazers back into contenders.

Now there’s a downside to this move.  Steve Blake, who has been above average, is gone.  And his minutes probably go to Jerryd Bayless.  As one can see in Table One, Bayless is the least productive player on the Blazers.  So losing Blake does hurt.

Then again, the team does have Nicolas Batum back, and that’s going to help. Consequently, I think I am going to stick with my story.  Portland is once again a contender.

Of course, Portland is more than 10 games behind the Lakers and this move doesn’t really make Portland better than LA.  It just means that the gap is not going to grow much anymore. 

So although the Lakers will probably finish first in the regular season, the Western race to the NBA Finals suddenly looks very interesting.  Entering the All-Star break the list of contenders that looked capable of surpassing 55 wins began and ended with the Lakers.  Now the moves the Mavericks and Blazers have made – while too late to actually get either team to 55 wins – suddenly increases the quality of each team to the level of a 55-win team.  So the road to the finals for the Lakers suddenly looks much more difficult. And again, hopefully the moves are not finished. 

Let me close with a quick note on the Olympics.  JC Bradbury – the Baseball Economist – is now working on Olympic research.  He has started blogging at Olympic-Reference.com, and so far has already put up four posts on the Winter games (with two of these on the topic of aging and performance).  Furthermore, he’s scheduled to present a paper on the Olympics at the Western Economic Association meetings this summer.  JC is actually part of an entire session on the Olympics, so look for more research on this topic in the future. 

- 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 Dallas Mavericks entered the All-Star break on top of the Southwest Division.  The team’s winning percentage, though, only ranked 4^th in the Western Conference.  And when we turn to efficeincy differential (offensive efficiency minus defensive efficiency) – reported in Table One – we see that Dallas currently ranks 8^th in the West.

Table One: Efficiency Differential Rankings at the All-Star Break

Given these numbers, we would expect the Mavericks to make the playoffs.  But a first round exit seems likely.

When we move from efficiency differential to Wins Produced we can see who is responsible for this team’s performance.

Table Two: The Dallas Mavericks after 52 games in 2009-10

As Table Two reports, Jason Kidd is once again leading this team in Wins Produced.  After Kidd, though, the team only has three above average performers (among players who have played more than 300 minutes).  Consequently, despite the play of Kidd, the Mavericks are only slightly above average as a team.

Dallas Makes a Move Up the Western Conference Standings

The “averageness” of this team has driven the team to make a significant move.   Drew Gooden, Josh Howard, Quinton Ross, and James Singleton have been sent to the Washington Wizards for Caron Butler, Brendan Haywood, and DeShawn Stevenson.  Of these players, it’s tempting to focus on Butler. Last season Butler averaged 20.8 points per game.  This year his average has dropped of to 16.9 (a mark close to his career average). Nevertheless, Butler is still the top scorer in this transaction.

Although Butler can score, the most productive player the Mavericks acquired– as the following numbers report – is Brendan Haywood.

Haywood: 6.5 Wins Produced, 0.192 WP48

Butler: 3.2 Wins Produced, 0.083 WP48

Stevenson: -0.5 Wins Produced, -0.038 WP48

The addition of these players give the Mavericks the following rotation across the last 30 games of the regular season (at least, I think this is a reasonalbe guess at the rotation):

Starters

Jason Kidd: 0.308 WP48

Caron Butler: 0.083 WP48

Shawn Marion: 0.138 WP48

Dirk Nowitzki: 0.130 WP48

Brendan Haywood: 0.192 WP48

Bench

Jose Barea: 0.024 WP48

Rodrigue Beaubois: 0.053 WP48

Jason Terry: 0.065 WP48

Erick Dampier: 0.170 WP48

Note: The Mavericks have an abundance of guards.  So it seems likely that Butler will spend quite a bit of time at small forward and Marion will often shift over to power forward.   

Given this roster, how good are the Mavericks today? Looking back at Table One we see that Howard was the least productive player on the Mavericks this season.  So replacing Howard with Butler is an upgrade.  And once again, Haywood is very productive.  Consequently, it’s possible the Mavericks could win about 21 of their final 30 games (this estimate is based upon my guess of how many minutes each player will play down the stretch).  Had the Mavericks stayed the same, this team could have expected to win about 17 more games.  So in terms of the final standings, this move doesn’t really alter the final record dramatically. But that’s because there are only 30 games left. 

If we look at how this team would be expected to perform across 82 games, though, we see a bigger difference.  Winning 21 out of 30 games translates into a final mark of 57 wins.  Looking back at Table One, we see that a 57 win team would rank just behind the LA Lakers in the Western Conference.  

So here is what the Mavericks have done.  Prior to the trade the Mavericks were on pace to make the playoffs but exit in the first round.  Now the Mavericks have caught the Utah Jazz and Denver Nuggets and are quite close to the LA Lakers.  Now Dallas shouldn’t be favored to reach the NBA Finals.  But this move might make it possible for Dallas to reach the Western Conference Finals (or at least, the LA Lakers in the second round if Dallas can’t get above the fourth seed in the West).  And all of this means that Dallas has moved from the status of pretender to contender in the West. 

John Hollinger of ESPN.com (Insider access required) argues that this trade will cost the Mavericks about $30 million.  Since it seems unlikely that this move will generate that much additional revenue, from the perspective of the bottom line this move isn’t great.  But if the purpose was to lengthen the team’s stay in the playoffs, this move will probably work (BTW, Hollinger doesn’t appear to agree on this point, but that is because the Player Efficiency Rating – as we briefly note in our next book — doesn’t really connect very well to team wins).   

The Season that Wasn’t in Washington

Okay, enough about the Mavericks.  What about the Wizards?  Of the players acquired, James Singleton – who doesn’t often play – is the only above average performer.  So in the short-run, the Wizards are much worse off.  This means the Wizards – who were going to miss the playoffs anyway – are likely to secure a higher draft choice. 

It’s unfortunate that Washington’s season has taken this turn.  Before the season started it looked like Washington would be able to field the following starting line-up: Gilbert Arenas, Mike Miller, Caron Butler, Antawn Jamison, and Brendan Haywood.  All five of these players are capable of being above average, and consequently, Washington should have expected to make the playoffs.  According to 82games.com, though, this line-up only played 45.8 minutes together this season.  And with different players on the court, we shouldn’t be surprised that Washington has never contended in the East.

Now Washington has effectively blown-up their roster.  At the moment, the Wizards only have two above average players [Miller has a WP48 of 0.278 while Jamison’s mark is 0.108].  As noted, the Wizards will be able to add a very high draft choice.  But it looks like Washington is going to need more help than what they will find in the draft.  So although this move will save money, it looks like the Wizards have quite a distance to travel before playoff basketball once again returns to Washington.

Last Notes on Efficiency Differential

Let me close with a final observation from Table One.  At the All-Star break, the Cleveland Cavaliers are the best team in the NBA.  And now there is talk that the Cavalies are going send two below average players (J.J. Hickson and Zydrunas Ilgauskas) for Amare Stoudemire (a slightly above average player).  Such a move makes Cleveland even better.  So it is seems increasingly likely that LeBron will win his first title this season.   Of course, upsets do happen in the playoffs (as LeBron learned last year).  But at the All-Star break, it does look like Cleveland is going to be one happy town this summer.

- 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.

My latest for Huffington Post focues on the coaches’ original selections (not the injury replacements) of the reserves to play in the 2010 NBA All-Star game. Not surprisingly (at least, hopefully it’s not a surprise for readers of this forum), the coaches’ code was easy to break. Essentially, NBA coaches focused on the top scorers from the NBA’s winning teams.

Columns at HuffPo are limited to 800 words and it turns out I had a few more words to offer on this subject.  Consequently I thought I would continue the dicusssion here.

Let me start by noting that the story with respect to the NBA’s Rookie Challenge – as told a couple of weeks ago – is essentially the same.  Yes, the assistant coaches also focus on scoring (much to the chagrin of Ty Lawson).

Stars vs. Snubs

The focus on scoring means that some productive players are not going to Dallas this weekend.  And that leads to a related questions.  Specifically, Kevin Arnovitz at TrueHoop asked on Thursday if it was possible to create a better team than those selected to play in the All-Star game.  After reading the discussion, I thought it would be interesting to answer the question via Wins Produced per 48 minutes [WP48].

Let’s start with the quality of the original teams selected (this is ignoring the injury replacements).  Here is the original team in the East (WP48 after 41 games reported for each player):

Eastern Conference Starters (selected by the fans):

• Allen Iverson [0.036]
• Dwyane Wade [0.245]
• LeBron James [0.420]
• Kevin Garnett [0.266]
• Dwight Howard [0.341]

Eastern Conference Reserves (selected by the coaches):

• Rajon Rondo [0.276]
• Joe Johnson [0.157]
• Paul Pierce [0.209]
• Chris Bosh [0.264]
• Al Horford [0.242]
• Derrick Rose [0.053]
• Gerald Wallace [0.344]

The average WP48 for these twelve players is 0.238 (average in the NBA is 0.100, so this is a very good team).

To see if one can do better, all players in the Eastern Conference who played at least 700 minutes in the first half of the season – and who were not originally selected by the coaches and fans – were examined with respect to WP48.  The team was restricted to at least four guards (two must be point guards), four forwards, two centers, and two wild cards.  Here are the top remaining players given this criteria.

Eastern Conference Snub Starters

• Luke Ridnour [0.167]
• Andre Iguodala [0.234]
• Matt Barnes [0.191]
• Troy Murphy [0.315]
• Joakim Noah [0.279]

Eastern Conference Snub Reserves

• Raymond Felton [0.163]
• Jose Calderon [0.149]
• Luol Deng [0.156]
• Josh Smith [0.272]
• Ben Wallace [0.274]
• David Lee [0.247]
• Samuel Dalembert [0.232]

The average WP48 of this group is 0.223.  So that’s close.  But the Eastern Conference stars have a higher average.

Now let’s do the same in the Western Conference. Here are the starters and reserves.

Western Conference starters (selected by the fans)

• Steve Nash [0.296]
• Kobe Bryant [0.184]
• Carmelo Anthony [0.160]
• Tim Duncan [0.357]
• Amare Stoudemire [0.144]

Western Conference reserves (selected by the coaches)

• Chris Paul [0.372]
• Brandon Roy [0.202]
• Kevin Durant [0.240]
• Dirk Nowitzki [0.150]
• Pau Gasol [0.359]
• Deron Williams [0.216]
• Zach Randolph [0.255]

The average WP48 of this collection is 0.245. So this team has a higher average than either team listed above from the East.  Can we do better with the players originally ignored out West?

Again, the approach taken for the East is applied.  And here are the Western Conference Snubs:

Western Conference Snub Starters:

• Jason Kidd [0.314]
• Manu Ginobili [0.266]
• Lamar Odom [0.275]
• Kevin Love [0.431]
• Marcus Camby [0.448]

Western Conference Snub Reserves:

• Chauncey Billups [0.214]
• Kyle Lowry [0.200]
• Andrei Kirilenko [0.193]
• Carlos Boozer [0.243]
• DeJuan Blair [0.273]
• Corey Maggette [0.188]
• Chris Andersen [0.221]

The average WP48 of the Western Conference snubs is 0.272.  So out West, one can build a “better” team [at least better in terms of WP48].

The Bigger Picture

As I noted at Huffington Post, the fans and coaches primarily focused on scoring. Often this does lead one to find productive players (see LeBron James, Chris Paul, etc…). But often less productive players (see Carmelo Anthony, Amare Stoudemire, etc…) can attract attention from their scoring that their overall production suggests is unwarranted.  Consequently, players who are quite productive end up being ignored.

Does this matter? After all, don’t the fans just want to see the best scorers?

If we only saw this pattern when it comes to selecting All-Stars, it probably wouldn’t be a very intersting story.  But we see the same focus on scoring for a host of other decisions in the NBA (free agent salaries, minutes, voting for the All-Rookie team, the NBA draft).  That suggests that NBA players are not being evaluated in terms of their contribution to wins, revenue, or profit (team revenue is really about wins, not scoring). And that suggests that even an environment where managers have an abundance of information on their worker’s productivity, consistent errors can occur.  Which might lead you to wonder, if NBA managers aren’t getting it exactly right, is your boss evaluating you correctly?

- 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.