Pau Gasol, Kobe Bryant, and something from Lamar Odom

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Here is the Wins Produced view of the NBA Finals after Game Six:And here are a few additional thoughts…

  • Before Game Six the story for the Lakers was Pau Gasol, Kobe Bryant, and not much else.  After Game Six, the story is now Pau Gasol, Kobe Bryant, and Lamar Odom.  After this trio, though, there isn’t much else.  This trio, though, might just be enough. 
  • The gap between Kobe and Pau Gasol has narrowed.  But Gasol has still produced more wins than Kobe. Of course, as Kobe fans argue, this is because Gasol plays with Kobe; and Kobe makes Gasol hit a higher percentage of his shots.  And apparently, playing with Kobe also makes Gasol grab more rebounds and turn the ball over less. You might guess that I am somewhat skeptical of this story.  I would add, Gasol posted a 0.556 ADJ P48 in Memphis in 2006-07 (his last full season in Memphis). He posted a 0.563 ADJ P48 with the Lakers in 2008-09 (his first full season with the Lakers).  Gasol did post a 0.616 mark this past season.  So it seems the Kobe effect takes a year to appear. 
  • It also seems to me that it was good that Kobe shot less in Game Six.  As I noted after Game Five, I suspect the Lakers would be better off if a few shots Kobe would like to take would go to Gasol (or Lamar Odom).  That would be probably be good for the Lakers (but not so good for Kobe).
  • The loss of Kendrick Perkins is certainly not good news for the Celtics.  If you look at regular season production (see the Wins Produced numbers from Andres Alvarez), you see that Perkins was above average in the regular season. In contrast, Rasheed Wallace and Glenn Davis were in the negative range.  Yes, Davis has generally played well in the Finals.  The careers of Perkins and Davis, though, suggest that Boston is better off with the former on the floor.
  • That being said, Davis has guaranteed a victory and Perkins (as far as I know) never made any such guarantee.  So Davis is already having an impact.  By the way, we all know Joe Namath made a successful guarantee in Super Bowl III.  What is the record on these guarantees across the past 40 years?  I have to think it is well below 0.500.
  • If the Celtics somehow make good on the Davis guarantee and overcome the loss of Perkins – and the love affair with Kobe doesn’t still give Kobe the MVP – someone on the Celtics will have to be chosen as MVP.  The leading scorer is Paul Pierce. But the leading producer of wins has been Rajon Rondo.  Look for more on the Rondo story on Friday (regardless of who wins tonight). 

- DJ

65 thoughts on “Pau Gasol, Kobe Bryant, and something from Lamar Odom”

  1. The media love-affair with Kobe is really rubbing you the wrong way eh?

    It is for me too. In fact, I haven’t watched much of the finals for that simple fact.

  4. I’m hoping someone is going to post the game 6 numbers, like the previous game’s numbers have been posted.

  5. Here is the WP48 for the Lakers in Game Six (which you can find by subtracting the minutes and Wins Produced from the Game Five table from what is reported in the Game Six table).
    Artest 0.127
    Brown 0.130
    Bryant 0.627
    Bynum 0.037
    Farmar -0.067
    Fisher 0.041
    Gasol 0.471
    Ilunga-Mbenga -0.486
    Odom 0.288
    Powell -0.421
    Vujacic 0.279
    Walton -0.580

    And here are the results for the Celtics from Games Six.
    Daniels 0.485
    Davis 0.154
    Finley -0.657
    Garnett 0.038
    Perkins -0.527
    Pierce -0.117
    R. Allen 0.222
    Robinson 0.054
    Rondo -0.019
    T. Allen 0.118
    Wallace -0.770
    Williams -0.315

  6. The blowout really put a dent in the Celts WP48, didn’t it? To me the numbers say that Paul Pierce is the key player for the Celtics and Andrew Bynum for the Lakers. Both are playing well below their regular season PAWS. Bynum’s hurt, though. Not sure what’s up with Pierce. Is Artest doing a good job on him defensively? Anyway, the Celtics need Pierce to step up and play SOMETHING like he did during the regular season in order to win tonight.

  7. Hey DJ,

    Michael Wilbon was analyzing the game six results, and he couldn’t figure out why the Lakers got better results when Kobe shot less. His brain couldn’t come to the obvious conclusion, because that would conflict with what he’s been telling himself all along “Kobe has to carry the Lakers.” So annoying!

    I’m actually starting to get a little jaded. The more compelling the WS argument, the more logical, the more resistance it seems to get. What are you supposed to do? Maybe I just need to stop reading these idiotic “message boards”.

    And then there’s this idiotic “Alternate Win Score”? Dan Rosenbaum, APBRmetric hero, developed it because your metric didn’t reflect “reality” you see, Dave. Yours just matched the evidence, that’s all. Didn’t you know you were supposed to skew your research to match popular opinion??

    Oh, this “Alternate Win Score” takes the cake! First of all, it drives me bananas because its NOT WIN SCORE!! If you change the metric, you can’t call it the same metric! Its like this Tool came along and just said, “Oh, Dave. Let me help you out there, Dave. You don’t know basketball like us APBRmetricians know basketball!” Oh, it irritates me!

    Anyway, for the life of me I couldn’t figure out how this guy rationalized changing the opportunity cost of a field goal to a cut rate, discount of 0.7 per shot opportunity.

    Then last night I learned this guy justified his tinkering because 30% of all shots — on average — are rebounded by the offense, so really you shouldn’t charge the shooter the full opportunity cost, because its likely someone else will step in and get the ball back for him.

    I ALMOST PUT MY HEAD THROUGH THE COMPUTER! Thats so illogical on so many levels.

    Guy 1: “You can’t pay your brother back the $20 you owe him, you won’t have any money left over for the movie tonight!”

    Guy 2: “Oh, sure I will because he usually gives me back $7… so its really like I’m only paying him $13. So I can pay him back and still plan on going to the movie”

    Guy 1: “But you’re giving him all $20, so really you’re out $20, aren’t you? You don’t actually KNOW that you have money for the movie until he gives the money back to you, right?”

    Guy 2: (Sounding like Butthead) “Ahhhh….”

  8. So, who’s doing off season analysis for the Kings. A little improvement from their young players, less play time for Hawes and Green (which hopefully Dalembert will help with) and next season could be bright!

  9. Love the site. And I’m loving this finals! Its a rare treat to have such awesome games in the finals.

    Anyway, I think you’ve got a really good point about Gasol and Bryant. It is empirical support for what Phil Jackson wrote about in his book “The Last Season” (And absolutely amazing book, BTW, for any NBA junkies out there. Its extremely candid and well written.) that, when Kobe did what Phil wanted him to do, the Lakers usually won. When Kobe did what Kobe thought was going to win the game, they tended to lose more.

  10. Ok so preface this anti-Adrian Wojnarowski not Kobe. I would put Kobe in top 20 all time playoff players, just not top 5. http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news;_ylt=AnIfugSIrw19DaACEnsl3628vLYF?slug=aw-kobelakers061710

    Adrian says Kobe might belong top all time, because Magic and Jordan were “lucky” to win their MVPs because it was “easier” to win championships without cap restrictions.

    The flaw in his logic is that during this time multiple teams had powerhouses and it was hard to win championships as you had to beat those powerhouses.
    LAL in 80s beat PHI, BOS and DET for their 5 champs and those three teams all had multiple finals appearances and at least one champion season.
    Jordan did arguably have an easier time in the 90s only beating one other championship team in the Lakers and only one multi appearing team in the Jazz.

    With a win tonight Kobe’s Lakers will only have played two teams that have multi finals appearances and only one with a win (very similar to Jordan). Kobe has been arguably the best player in this and the last championship. However, Shaq was easily top banana in the first three. It is hard to argue Kobe’s route was harder than Magic’s and that he was always the best player.

    Finally the cap comment got me as LA just signed its top 4 players to extensions putting it at over 60 million for just those four(the salary cap is around 53 million I believe).

    Again a column of “Kobe is one of best all time playoff players” would be fine. “Kobe is better than Magic and Jordan because they were lucky and their teams didn’t have to worry about the cap.” is ridiculous.

  12. Game Seven between LAL and BOS. Cannot wait. Now, I can finally say since 2008 that the rivalry actually means something to me (and hopefully to a new generation too).

    Hollinger suggest the Celtics will be better off without Perkins because he offers little, especially since he only scores 9.9 ppg. Hilarious.

  13. Can you hear that? The scales of destiny are approaching. On one side, Kobe is the greatest player of all time, on the the other, Kobe is a flawed champion, not quite good enough to be the Big Dog. Game 7. Any randomly good or bad game by any player can make or break the legend. We are all witnesses.

  18. The biggest game of the season, and who was the biggest player? Ron Artest!!! Huge in the clutch–and that’s the only time production matters, right? If Kobe is worth 67 milli0n a year, Ron at 5.5 is the ultimate bargain.

    Sorry, I just can’t stop. Yay, Lakers; seriously, very happy here. Just cringing at Kobe winning the Russell trophy. I know he wants to be that kind of player; I wish he was.

  19. Somebody back me up here; I’m tired of listening to Jackson and Van Gundy tell me how IMPORTANT it was for Kobe to keep shooting at 8 percent. I don’t think Kobe takes those tough shots because his teammates won’t; I think his teammates won’t because they think those shots are Kobe’s personal property–because he acts like they are. Am I wrong?

    Huge Laker fan here; I should be having more fun, shouldn’t I?

  20. So Kobe gets 15 rebounds and still has a bad WP48 night. . . Almost sounds like he heard about it. “People say I am not the best cause I’ve been shooting inefficiently? And all they care about is rebounds? So if I get tons of rebounds I can just throw the ball into the stands? Awesome!”

  21. I’ll still give you Kobe and Ron for LeBron, plus anyone except Pau, Lamar, or Bynum, PLUS 4 first-round picks over the next seven years (the maximum allowed, I think). Any takers?

  22. One of the stories I have heard is that defensive rebounding is simply about a player’s role. Apparently, Phil Jackson decided that it would be Kobe’s role to grab 11 of these tonight. Now that is coaching genius.

  23. Worst part is now I have to listen to these yahoos defend Kobe’s terrible night by pointing at his rebounds. So now rebounds mean something?? ARgggghhh!! I will now turn my put my junk in a blender(channeling my inner Bill Simmons)

  24. Good point, Dr. Berri. I would add that those 11 boards should probably be discoounted to 7 or 8, since if Kobe hadn’t grabbed them a teammate would have, right?

    ( Though I must admit: When looking at 6 for 24 from the floor, I do think that if Kobe had not missed all those shots, his teammates could have missed them just as well tonight. Wow, that was ugly shooting.)

  25. KOBE IZ BEST EVAAARRRR!!!!!

    What an awful basketball year 2010 has been, first Duke now Kobe. Kobefans are recharged back to 100% and we’ll never hear the end of it until the next great (hopefully not overrated) volume scorer arrives in LA or NY and wins a bunch of championships.

    Damn You Sasha Vujacic!!!

  26. The scrutiny is somehow less important right now. Tomorrow will be a different story, at least for me….. LOL JK LAKERS RULEZZZ

  27. I’m looking at ESPN’s box score, which has a column labeled +/- . Is this the much discussed plus-minus, in its raw form? Artest was minus 1; guess they played him way too much.

    Kobe in the postgame has been surprisingly and refreshingly humble; I suppose shooting 3 percent from the floor will encourage that. He has 5 more rings than LeBron, more all-star and all-NBA selections, more all-defensive selections; I guess that makes him about 11 times more valuable. Still, offer me LeBron and some kind of sweetener, and I’ll listen….

  28. -Dr Berri -”One of the stories I have heard is that defensive rebounding is simply about a player’s role.”

    Only marginally related to Kobe, I don’t how many of each he had, they may all have been uncontested , but I wish they would differentiate between contested rebounds and uncontested rebounds.

  29. I’m hardwired to hate all things Celtic, but I like Doc Rivers whether I want to or not. I wanted to applaud him along with the press corps. Is ‘breath of fresh air’ too much the cliche?

  30. The bitterness coming from some of the posters, with Berri being at the extreme forefront is absolutely hilarious. Keep on hating guys, the rest of the world will keep on ignoring you and your contrived stat that you are basing your entire analysis of the game on. The internet stat community is putting itself more and more on an island every day.

    My advice to you guys is this. Enjoy one of the best players to ever play the game. Your cute little stat may say that he’s not as good as Kevin Love but take some time away from your computers and play the game a bit and then watch the game for awhile. You’ll like this little game we call basketball, it’s quite intriguing when you try to understand it instead of trying to quantify it.

  31. Oh, Sasha, you don’t want to go down that rabbit hole.

    Enjoy the win. It’s something that no one will ever be able to take away from Kobe, Gasol, Artest, and the rest of the Lakers.

  32. Right Sascha, this people don’t get it.

    But i might explain it to them:
    Did you see the charts at truehoops concluding that the superior rebounding team wins the game this series?

    Well, what Kobe did was jack up a lot of bad shots leading to offensive rebounding opportunities, which leading to an advantage in rebounding and therefore to the win.
    qed.

  33. So, if 2009 was the “KG injured title”, does that make 2010 the “Kendrick Perkins injured title”?

  36. No actually the cute little stat points out that Gasol saved Kobe’s volume shooting ass. Isn’t Kobe normally the highest win producing shooting guard(though I’m sure he wasn’t this season)?

    This is the Gasol saved the best player in the world’s legacy title. He didn’t just outplay him he showed up(19 and 18) and Kobe didn’t. Kobe didn’t deserve the MVP. The Lakers deserved the title though. My problem is this terrible game has a good chance of being conveniently forgotten.

  37. I’m not sure the box score from last night’s can be taken literally.

    The game was extremely physical.

    IMO that’s at least partly why almost everyone shot poorly (even those that do most of their shooting around the basket)

    If the officiating is different in the playoffs and specifically in a finals game 7 relative to a meaningless mid season game, it’s almost like you have to grade these shooting stats on a curve.

  38. People are now saying Kobe is the best Laker ever. Better than Magic, better than Kareem, better than Shaq…

    I seriously feel I might be done with the game of basketball.

    Time to dust off soccernomics and pay attention to the World Cup I guess.

  40. I think a very good argument can be made that offensive rebounds are more valuable than defensive rebounds.

    There is rarely another player in position to get an offensive rebound and in many instances (depending on the player) it leads to an above average scoring opportunity.

  42. Yesterday Boston outrebounded LA in defensive rebounds(32 vs. 30) but they were outrebounded on the offensive end(23 vs. 8).

    Boston was just killed at the ft line. And it could/should have been much worse as LA only shot 67% while LA shot 88%.

  43. It may have been Dean Oliver’s work, I seem to recall that the team that gets the most orb’s loses more often. More missed fga’s=more orb’s?

  44. A smart economist that resembles a badass villain once said,

    “Let me close by noting that if you are a Lakers fan, seeing your team win in 2008, 2009, 2010, etc… is going to be fun. But if you are not – and I assume most NBA fans are in the ‘not’ category – NBA basketball might be on the verge of less interesting times. At least, I think seeing the Lakers win year after year is less interesting for the majority of basketball fans who do not ‘Love LA.’ So for [2008], all non-LA fans should hope the Celtics can ‘Beat LA.’ Because I don’t think that’s going to happen in 2009 (or 2010, etc…).”

    You know this was coming, stop whining.

  45. Celtics fans (i.e. Arturo, Tball):

    Where do the Celts go from here? Only 5 players under contract for next season (6 if Pierce exercises his player option) with one of them talking retirement (‘Sheed) and one with a blown out knee (Perkins). That leaves 3-4 players and no cap space (unless Pierce opts out). Can the team re-tool for another title run or has the window officially shut on the KG era?

  46. Well reservoirgod, if Danny Ainge is to be taken at his word, it looks like his intention is to bring this team back intact. Interviewed shortly after the game, Ainge said that he thought the Celts aging core “have a lot more basketball in them,” and said he didn’t want to overreact by dismantling a team that came so close to winning a title.

    This brings us to a pivotal question for Dr. Berri. Looking at the Celtics’ regular season performance and the WS of each player, one would have said it was extremely unlikely that they would come six or so minutes away from an NBA title. And yet they beat two teams with better records and nearly beat another.

    Now, if I looked at WS, I’d say Danny Ainge was full of beans. Garnett, Pierce and Allen are all declining with age. Of these three, Allen is the most worrisome. If Ray can’t score and shoot a high percentage, there’s not much else he can bring to the team.

    The Celts have plowed an enormous amount of money into their aging core–plus more for Rasheed Wallace. Other than Rondo, they have no up and coming young players. According to WS, seems like the best thing that could happen would be for the big three to retire so that they could clear some cap space and sign players in their prime–say, Dwayne Wade and Carlos Boozer/David Lee.

    And yet, maybe Ainge is right. The Celtics were able to succeed this year despite a lousy regular season and players with inferior WS. Maybe they’ll do it again next year.

    Why were the Celts so successful in the playoffs this year? Did they sandbag the regular season? Is Doc Rivers that good a coach? And what should Ainge do now?

  47. I think the key of the Celtics rebirth was reallocating of the minutes. If you consider how many minutes the most productive players of Celtics have spend on the bench/in the training room during the regular season – then their trumph during the playoffs all of sudden isn’t so surprising.

    No, I haven’t seen it before the playoffs, but next year I’ll be wiser.

    BTW who is Finals WoW MVP? Gasol, right?

  48. Gil,

    It would be interesting to see the WP weights for each type of rebound. However, I wouldn’t be surprised if it turned out that uncontested rebounds were also strongly tied to players for the following reasons:

    [1] If a player boxes out their man well enough then that man may realize that they are unlikely to be able to get the rebound and give up on it thus causing an ‘uncontested’ rebound.

    [2] Uncontested rebounds could be a product of a group of players boxing out well. Still, the individuals involved should get some credit particularly if it’s just two.

    [3] A player is better than others at determining whether or not a shot will miss and where it will bounce to, again creating an uncontested rebound.

    [4] A player just tries harder and thus gets to more of these rebounds, in which case the uncontested rebound stat is a proxy for some other ability that is likely related to winning.

  49. todd,

    It makes a lot of sense the team that’s getting a lot of offensive rebounds is probably missing a lot of shots (as LA was yesterday) and losing more quite often.

    But the extra possession (many times high quality possession) still has to have a lot of value even for a team of crappy shooters.

  50. ilikeflowers,

    you are 100% right about the uncontested rebounds. But you see, people don’t SEE someone boxing someone out, or reading the bounce off the rim better as an exciting/noticeable play. So while being in position to get the easy rebound is a skill/effort/talent, people like to believe that putting themself into a position to have to fight for a rebound in the air, as the more impressive feat, since it appears harder.

    People don’t think of basketball as something where someone can work smarter, rather than harder.

  51. dberri,

    No doubt a defensive rebound prevents an offensive rebound, but I’ll take a Gasol/Bynum offensive rebound over a Gasol/Bynum defensive rebound every day of the week.

    If one of the two gets an OREB, it’s going to lead to a score a lot of the time and the no one else probably wouldn’t have gotten it.

    If one of the two gets a defensive rebound, it’s going to be an average possession and any one of four other Lakers might have gotten it if he didn’t.

  52. IS and others,

    There are lots of good theories on rebounds. I do find it interesting that the WP weights them about equally (and this is based on how they correlate with wins).

    Think of the following. I come home and tell my wife that on the way home I was offered $20 to help move some heavy furniture. Another day I come home and tell my wife I found $20 on the street. Certainly the first seems more impressive, but the net result is the same, I now have $20. Dan Gilbert of Stumbling on Happiness had a good quote “The money in your wallet doesn’t care how it got there.” So while certain rebounds are certainly highlight reel more impressive, the net result is an extra possession for your team.

  53. The Lakers are the 2010 Champs… the haters can dream of 2011…but it’ll be your nightmare because there’s another 3-Peat on the horizon. Mark my words!

  55. Robbie,

    Love the post! Seriously an amazing move by Sac. One may question Philly though. Signed Brand, let Miller walk, resigned Iverson, traded Dalembert for two negative players. It’s almost a lesson in how not to be a GM. I’m prepared to offer Martin straight up for Iggy. Think Philly would go for it?

    Also I really hope you’re wrong about Denver even thinking of trading Lawson for a pick. That’d be like winning the lottery and then spending all the winnings to buy more lottery tickets. . .

  56. Robbie- I’m putting together my season review of the Sixers this weekend, and I’ll probably include something about the Dalembert trade. Do you mind if I just steal your chart (assuming it makes sense to include it)?

  58. Dre,

    I doubt the Lawson rumor is true. From all I’ve read the Nuggets love Ty.

    As for the Sixers, they don’t really seem to have a big picture point of view. At this point it seems like they’re building their team around their coach, which seems really stupid. As if there’s a window with this coach they have to take advantage of, like Doug Collins makes a huge difference. Give’em players and make them coach said players. You don’t build your team around your coach.

  59. Um, I’ve been meandering around Dre’s fabulous Wins Produced site, comparing playoff numbers with regular season, and, well…

    The only Celtic who significantly improved his level of production in the playoffs was Big Baby; he soared to average. The only Laker who showed any real improvement?

    (um, that would be Kobe.) Sorry, come again?

    Alright, it was Kobe, OK? He played like the star some of us think he is, if not the superstar the crazies see–and it was pretty impressive for a 30-plus, with around 400 games over 3 years on his ailing, taped-up body. Was it Jerry West in ’65, or ’69, or ’70? Doubt it, very much. But it wasn’t half bad.

    Who outplayed him overall? Gasol and Rondo, that’s it. He was the third-best player in the series; while that fact would cause the walls to crumble at ESPN, on this site it’s a compliment. Did he gak in Game Seven? Oh, yeah. He also pulled back, shot less, shared the ball, refocused on rebounding, AND got better at the end. He ain’t ever gonna be MJ, and he couldn’t carry Magic’s jock with a bulldozer, but he’s pretty good.

    There. Now EVERYONE can disagree with me.

  60. Lakers have a real good chance of a 3 peat. Kobe just has to shoot less. 40% shooting this finals almost lost it for them. Especially when teamates are shooting better.

    With a healthy Bynum, and Gasol, Odom still relatively young I definately tyhink they are the team to beat. This of couse depending on what the Cavs can do this offseason.

  61. What metric would possibly have Rondo ahead of Kobe? Definitely not WP. Whatever metric it is, you should probably throw it out. Rondo’s inability to make a jumper was the sole and defining reason the Celtics lost; the fact that he led the team in any stat measure is confusing to say the least.

  62. Kendrick Perkins was sorely missed, the Celts are a donut team when he’s out. LA doesn’t get 23 orb’s if he plays. The Lakers also dominated in terms of points in the paint. Garnett and Wallace are 3′s in 4 bodies and play like they’re allergic to the rim. Garnett has 3 reb’s and 1 fta in game 7? Lakers can 3peat. They need to upgrade in the speed department and they can’t continue to rely on Fisher. Strong point guards light them up: Rondo, Westbrook, et al.

  63. The Lakers have had problems with scoring/speed PGs in the entire 32 years of my lifetime. Given that they seem to be targeting Raymond Felton and Steve Blake with their MLE this year, there’s little chance the problem will be fixed this year either.

    If they could somehow pry JJ Redick from Orlando or convince him to take the MLE that would probably fix some of their problems but I don’t think his defense vs. smaller guards is any better than Blake/Felton or the 3 they already have.

    Another year of having @LA and vs. LA circled on the calendars of Aaron Brooks, Chris Paul, Deron Williams, Russ Westbrook et al

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