Shawn Ryan is a 24 year old student currently living in Austin, TX and pursuing dual degrees in Computer Science and Economics. He found the Wages of Wins at a time when he had become newly infatuated with the field of behavioral economics, and it has greatly influenced his educational goals. He has been a fan of basketball from a young age, but has tended to have different favorite teams over time, including the Suns, Cavaliers, Blazers, Hawks, and Rockets among others. He loathes NBA play-by-play commentary, and often has to resort to turning off the sound for the sake of his mental welfare. He is glad to have the opportunity to contribute to this blog, because for some reason, his fiancée tends to fall asleep at unfortunate times while he discusses his very interesting ideas about the NBA with her.

This is part one of a two-part post on the Houston Rockets.  In this first part, Shawn will review the various moves the Rockets made in building their 2009-10 roster.  Part two will be a look ahead to the future.

The 2009-10 season was a season of flux for the Houston Rockets. The team’s two most recognizable faces, Yao Ming and Tracy McGrady were non-factors for the Rockets; Yao was sidelined for the entire season, while McGrady played only 46 minutes for the Rockets before being shipped off to New York. Additionally, the Rockets swapped Ron Artest with the Lakers for Trevor Ariza. At the trade deadline, the Rockets entered a complicated 3-team trade with the Sacramento Kings and New York Knicks, the highlights of which are detailed below:

Houston Rockets

to Knicks:      Tracy McGrady

to Kings:        Carl Landry

New York Knicks

to Rockets:    Jordan Hill

Option to swap 2011 1^st round picks (top-1 protected)

2012 First Round Pick (top-5 protected)

Sacramento Kings

to Rockets:    Kevin Martin

So did the Rockets come out ahead in these trades? To answer this question, let us first take a look at how many wins all of the players involved in these transactions produced in and out of Houston. Figure One shows the 2009-10 production of the major players involved in the trades mentioned above.

As a point of interest, the players involved in this trade played nearly the same number of minutes in Houston as they did with the various other teams involved in these transactions.  But in Houston these players produced more than five additional wins.  Most of this difference, though, can be attributed to Carl Landry’s post-trade decline.  So the quick snapshot in Figure One might be skewed. That being the case, let’s look at the production of these players over the last three years (see Figure 2). 

From these numbers, we can see that the Rockets again appear to do quite well in these transactions.  Over the last three seasons, the players the Rockets acquired outplayed the players lost when we look at performance per 48 minutes.  Furthermore, the players acquired are 5.66 years younger.  And finally, the Rockets also acquired two first round draft picks form the Knicks.  Unless the Knicks can land LeBron James or Dwyane Wade (while keeping David Lee), it is quite possible these picks from the Knicks will be towards the top of the draft.   And since these are the Knicks, a more likely scenario is the Knicks add Rudy Gay, let David Lee walk, and send very good picks to Houston. 

Beyond these draft picks, the play of Jordan Hill has also been a pleasant surprise.  If Hill maintains the level of production that he showed in Houston after the trade (from Fig. 1: Wins Produced per 48 minutes or WP48 of .181 in 384 minutes), then he will be able to largely fill the hole left by Landry’s absence (of course this is dependent on the number of minutes he is given). And while it is more likely that the production over his career will resemble his performance in Houston than New York (i.e. rookies tend to improve over the season) the sample of minutes is on the small side; so it can not be guaranteed that this is what we’ll see in the future.

On the other hand, neither Ariza nor Martin have played as well as expected this season. Martin’s drop-off in production might be attributed to his playing through injuries for the second year in a row. If he is able to re-attain something in the vicinity of the WP48 he achieved in the 2006-07 and 2007-08 seasons (.154 and .182 respectively) then he will be a very welcome addition.

Trevor Ariza, though, doesn’t seem to have the same excuse. In 2008-09, he achieved a career high of 7.58 Wins Produced with aWP48 of .182 (in just under 2000 minutes). This season, he only produced 4.37 wins  with a WP48 of .080 (while having played in excess of 2600 minutes). Fig. 3 compares Ariza’s 2008-09 production with that of 2009-10.

As you can see, Ariza increased his field goal attempts per 48 minutes significantly (by 27.4%) while his shooting efficiency dropped precipitously.

As shown in Fig. 4, Ariza’s shot selection in 2009-10 shifted a great deal in favor of jump shots and away from inside shots. Since Ariza is a below average jump shooter, and a very talented inside finisher, this shift in shot selection was very ill advised.  And this change in shot seletion can plausibly be considered cause for his decreased shooting efficiency (though it should be noted that shooting percentages are relatively volatile from year to year, so one should be careful when attributing meaning to changes in shooting percentages, as sheer randomness plays a larger role than most fans, and even NBA “experts” realize).

This increased focus on taking relatively poor shots also coincided with a decrease in steals and rebounds and an increase in turnovers.   Consequently, per 48 minute Ariza’s Net Possessions declined 2.94.

Still, Ariza’s points per 48 minutes increased by two, so given the bias of the majority of the NBA’s decision makers to overvalue scoring totals and undervalue stats that increase Net Possessions, it is likely that he has only increased his market value (which was not very high, in spite of his terrific production, at the end of the 2009-10 season).  So perhaps there is a market for Ariza’s services.

If a market for Ariza’s services doesn’t emerge, the Rockets would be well served if Coach Rick Adelman and his assistants did their best to influence Ariza to shift back to his prior focus on possessions and efficient shots. If this happens, maybe we’ll see Ariza once again break his single-season wins production record. And perhaps then we’ll see the Rockets back in the playoffs.  In the second part of this article, we will look at that very prospect.

- Shawn Ryan

The WoW Journal Comments Policy

Patrick Minton was born and raised in Minnesota.  After graduating with a degree in Psychology, he travelled abroad in Germany.  In Germany he did a number of odd jobs to pay the bills, including coaching basketball at all levels.  He says he has always been a numbers freak, going so far as to enlist friends to score-keep the games he coached, keep shot charts, track turnovers, rebounds and assists.  In his late twenties, he finally turned one of his hobbies into a ‘career’ and became a software engineer at Amazon, where he worked for quite a while before taking a gig at Microsoft.  In 2007, he did an MBA at the University of Washington and discovered a love for economics.  Scouring the internet for economics blogs, he came across the Wages of Wins Journal.  He says he always had a coaching philosophy similar to the tenets of the WoW story (scoring totals don’t matter much, rebounds and turnovers are really important, etc), but this was the first time he had seen someone quantify this philosophy.

In evaluating the Minnesota Timberwolves 2009-2010 season, two thoughts become prominent.  First, it appears that the organization has some large misconceptions about who their “star” player is.  Additionally, it seems the organization is having as much trouble surrounding today’s “star” as the McHale-run front office had surrounding Kevin Garnett with enough talent to compete for championships.  This may be all part of a ‘rebuilding’ plan.  Or, it may be that David Kahn is reluctant to rely on advanced statistics.

Of course, the writers and fans of this site are big proponents of using advanced statistics such as Wins Produced to evaluate players.  With that in mind, let’s take a look how the Minnesota Timberwolves players performed according to Wins Produced in 2009-2010:

All You Need is Love?

As we can see, although Al Jefferson is often referred to as the “franchise” player in Minnesota, the Timberwolves best player (according to Wins Produced) was far and away Kevin Love.  When we look at Kevin Love’s box score numbers, the reasons are obvious; although he is a bit below average in shooting efficiency from the field, blocks, and turnovers;  he makes up for this by committing fewer personal fouls, creating more assists, and by being a rebounding machine.  In 2009-2010, Kevin Love grabbed 18.4 rebounds per 48 minutes — a mark that not only far surpasses the average power forward’s 11.6, but also makes him the best rebounder in the entire NBA (unless we count Joey Dorsey, who managed to grab 43 rebounds in a small sample of 106 minutes).  Of course, the observation that Kevin Love is a good rebounder is a familiar story.  But it’s interesting to put in perspective just how good he is;  of the top 5 rebounders per-48 minutes in the NBA  only Love and Mr. Dorsey play the power forward position;  Dwight Howard (18.3), Marcus Camby (18.1), and Samuel Dalambert (17.7) all primarily play the center position (at least, historically).

So Wins Produced suggests that Kevin Love is not only the best player in Minnesota, but possibly one of the best players in the NBA.   It has been suggested before in this column that the threshold for stardom in the NBA is a WP48 of .200 (a .200 player produces twice as many wins as an average player per 48 minutes) and that the threshold for “superstardom” is .300.  For the record, only 9 players with more than 1,000 minutes had a WP48 above .300 in the 2009-2010 regular season:  Kevin Love, Marcus Camby, Lebron James, Dwight Howard, Jason Kidd, Chris Paul, Gerald Wallace, Pau Gasol, and Tim Duncan.  That is elite company, and would seem to provide the Wolves with an elite building block, similar to when they had Kevin Garnett.

The Rest of the Wolves

Unfortunately, to win in the NBA, you need more than love, and Kevin Love’s teammates didn’t contribute much.  Only Al Jefferson was significantly above average (although Al would probably have posted a higher level of Wins Produced if he had not spent a good deal of time at the center position), and only six Timberwolves managed to post Wins Produced numbers in the positive range. In fact, therein lies the Timberwolves real problem:  many of Kevin Love’s teammates didn’t simply fail to contribute wins; they actively hurt the Timberwolves with production in the negative range.  Table 1 suggests that if every player other than Love, Jefferson, Gomes, Sessions, and Wilkins had been replaced by players who contributed literally nothing to wins (players with WP48 of 0.000), the Timberwolves could have won an additional 11 games.  Yes, switching out those players for a bunch of worse-than-average players would have been an upgrade.

Of course, one might argue that the Timberwolves office is aware of this, and did not care.  Much has been made of the fact that this past season was a “rebuilding” year and Minnesota faces the current free-agent class with copious cap space.  But then, if this is true — and considering the importance that has been placed on salary cap space in the 2010 free agency market — one might wonder why the Timberwolves signed Ryan Hollins to a two-year deal. Hollins has the dubious distinction of being the worst player in the league (according to Wins Produced).   Additionally, why did they chose to pick up the option on Corey Brewer (who is not very far ahead of Hollins with respect to Wins Produced)?  Is the 2010-2011 season also a “rebuilding” year?

Going Forward

In the coming offseason, the Timberwolves have some interesting choices to make.  Al Jefferson and Kevin Love both play the power forward position, and Kurt Rambis (the team’s head coach) was often reluctant to play both players together.  In fact, for much of the past season, Rambis didn’t start Love or give him the most minutes per game (leading to further speculation that management disagrees with us about who the “star player” is).  At the moment, it looks very much as though the Timberwolves might end up drafting DeMarcus Cousins, a very productive college player.  If Cousins turns into a productive NBA player, the Timberwolves could replace Ryan Hollins’ minutes with his, and improve substantially.  What other moves might management make?  Only the summer will tell (and when it tells us, there will be another post on the Minnesota Timberwolves).

- Patrick Minton

The WoW Journal Comments Policy

Once upon a time, Kevin McHale was a frequent topic in this forum. McHale led the Minnesota Timberwolves for more than a decade.  And as the following posts indicate, often I disagreed with McHale’s decisions.

Kevin McHale and Blogger Power

Is Minnesota the Worst NBA Franchise in the History of the League?

Missing and Missing and Missing in Minnesota

T-Wolves Minus Garnett Equals the Worst NBA Team

But You Are Consistent

The Timberwolves Change Coaches

Today, though, I learned that McHale and I are actually in agreement.   Art Garcia – in Cash-rich teams can’t afford to come up short in free agency (posted today at NBA.com)– quotes two people in an article on the 2010 NBA free agent market.  And both McHale and I agree: There are going to be a number of disappointed teams this summer.

By the way, I didn’t disagree with everything McHale did in Minnesota.  Remember, it was McHale who traded O.J. Mayo for Kevin Love.  And I think that move has worked out.

- DJ

The WoW Journal Comments Policy

Here are a few more details on my latest column at the Huffington Post.

• The quote from the National League was taken from Dean A. Sullivan (Ed.) 1995. Early Innings: A Documentary History of Baseball, 1825–1908. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.  This was also quoted in Woodrow E. Eckard. 2001. “The Origin of the Reserve Clause: Owner Collusion Versus ‘Public Interest.’” Journal of Sports Economics, 2, no. 2 (May), 113–130.
• The “Short Supply of Tall People” was detailed in an article I wrote with Stacey Brook, Aju Fenn, Bernd Frick, and Roberto Vicente-Mayoral.  This was published back in 2005 and the story was detailed in The Wages of Wins.  It was also mentioned in this forum HERE and HERE.  The first of those links includes an excerpt from The Wages of Wins.
• On the rating of ESPN Classic, here is what we said in a footnote from The Wages of Wins: In 2005, ESPN was in 80 million homes in the United States, while ESPN Classic was only in 25 million houses. Even though ESPN Classic is the only channel devoted to re-runs in sports, its popularity is relatively low. Apparently people would rather watch a live game between two lesser contestants on ESPN than watch a classic game without uncertainty of outcome on ESPN Classic. We would like to thank Darren Rovell at ESPN.com for information on the market penetration of the various ESPN channels.
• The Wages of Wins also details evidence that competitive balance and consumer demand are not strongly linked.

Speaking of the Huffington Post… Dan Ariely offered a column a few days ago.  The Irrational Side of Corporate Bonuses begins with a discussion of Ariely’s latest book – The Upside of Irrationality – and specifically details how money isn’t quite the motivator people suspect.  Ariely’s discussion, though, moves on to the subject of clutch shooting in the NBA.  One should note, his column is brief and so I believe some details of his story are omitted.  Nevertheless, given the discussion we have had about clutch shooting in this forum lately (check out the comments) — and the further discussion we will offer in the future — Ariely’s brief story is worth reading.

- DJ

The WoW Journal Comments Policy

Darren Rovell – on his CNBC.com blog (Sports Biz with Darren Rovell) – offered a discussion today of what the NBA Finals tells us about the lack of parity in the NBA.

For the fifth time in 30 years (27 to be exact), the Boston Celtics will play the Los Angeles Lakers.

It’s the most any two teams in the four major sports have played each other in championship games over the last three decades.

But perhaps more statistically interesting is the fact that over the last 30 years, the NBA has only had eight different champions—the Lakers (9), the Bulls (6), the Celtics (4), the Spurs (4), the Pistons (3), the Rockets (2), the Heat (1) and the 76ers (1).

Compare that to the other leagues.

Counting this year, the last 30 Stanley Cup Finals, will have yielded 14 different champions.

The last 30 Super Bowls have crowed 15 different teams as Lombardi Trophy winners.

And the league that often gets mentioned the most as somehow having the least parity, Major League Baseball, has produced an amazing 19 different teams as winners over the last three decades.

Rovell then goes on to note…

Take a look at how many different teams, over the last 30 years, made it to their league’s respective final series.

• NBA: 18
• NHL: 22
• NFL: 25
• MLB: 25

Why is it harder for more basketball teams to make the Finals and ultimately win?

In answering this question Rovell cites The Short Supply of Tall People argument (discussed HERE and HERE in this forum).  He also notes, though, that “only 44 percent of teams that have played in it over the last 30 years have managed to win once.”  Percentages are much higher in other sports, suggesting that teams that have won a title before have a significant advantage when reaching the NBA Finals again (relative to teams that have never won a title).

Why would this be the case?  Rovell notes that the lack of parity in the NBA may make a seven-game series in basketball more predictable (a point I agree with).  He also notes that maybe some organizations are simply better at finding the star players a team needs to win a title.  Certainly the success of the Lakers and Celtics suggests that this is possible.

A Final Pick

Regardless of the answer, we are now faced with another NBA Finals contested by the NBA’s most successful franchises (which is good news for fans of the Celtics and Lakers and probably bad news for fans of every other team).  And although I have lost the TrueHoop Smackdown, we are still asked to forecast the winner of this series.  So I thought I would share my thoughts on the Finals (for whatever these are worth).

The model I employ considers only two issues: The efficiency differential of the two teams and who as home-court advantage.  This model led to my victory last year, and has correctly chosen the winning team in eleven of the fourteen series this year.  And if we used this model for the NBA Finals, the Lakers would be expected to win in six.

But the Boston Celtics are the Lakers’ opponent.  And twice the Celtics have won a series when the model said otherwise.  In fact, the Celtics have defeated the two best teams from the NBA’s regular season in the playoffs.

So now I have a choice. I can stick with the model and pick the Lakers.  Or I can remember the words of Stephen Colbert.  In discussing George W. Bush, Colbert observed sarcastically that Bush “…believes the same thing Wednesday that he believed on Monday, no matter what happened Tuesday. Events can change; this man’s beliefs never will.”

Such inflexibility is not considered the hallmark of great decision-making. And I suspect, if I pick against the Celtics again, I am essentially ignoring what happened on Tuesday.  Consequently, I am going to argue – as I noted was possible early in the playoffs* –that the Celtics we saw in the first half of 2009-10 are the Celtics we are seeing today.  And if we assume the Lakers today – with an injured Andrew Bynum – are not much better than the Lakers team we saw in the second half of 2009-10 then the Celtics are to be favored (even if the Lakers have home-court advantage). 

Given all this, I am going to pick Boston to win in six games. 

By the way, the above argument echoes some of what Jeff Ma said at Huffington Post about the balance between intuition and statistical analysis.   And although Jeff is going to win this contest – and I am doing as he has done (picking the evidence that fits the desire to favor the Celtics) – I am not really convinced by the “intutition vs. statistics” argument.  After all, how would anyone replicate this approach in the future?  Should we just pick the half of a season (or some other data points) that happen to be consistent with our desired pick?  This approach just doesn’t seem like something that can be verified with systematic analysis.

That being said, here are two more reasons to pick the Celtics:

1. This is a Jeff Ma-Tribute pick.  He stuck with his team (we have to remember that Jeff justified his pick earlier by noting that he was a fan of the Celtics) and now is the True Hoop Smackdown champion of 2010.  So I am picking the Celtics as a tribute to Jeff.

2. I really don’t wish to hear anymore about how Kobe Bryant is the greatest player ever (this might be the real reason for this pick).

History of Using Not-So-Good Models

One last note on this choice:  When I was kid in the 1970s I was a fan of the American League (I grew up in Detroit) but I hated the Yankees (I grew up in Detroit).  So I wanted the Dodgers to defeat the Yankees in 1977 and 1978.  I then wanted the Orioles to win in 1979 and the Royals to win in 1980. 

In 1981 – after many years of picking wrong (for a kid, four consecutive years counts as “many years”) — I was again picking against the Yankees.  But when New York went up 2-0, some kid (I forget who) bet me 50 cents that the Dodgers would come back and win.  Of course, I knew better.  The Yankees – as I “knew” – were not going to lose to the Dodgers.  So I took this bet and thought I was going to make some easy money.  Right after I made this bet, though, the Dodgers won four consecutive games and I was out 50 cents.

All of these picks were made without the benefit of a statistical model.  Well, actually I had a model.  Bet on the American League and against the Yankees (unless the Yankees are up 2-0 in the series).  So it might be better to say that I made these World Series picks with a not-so-good model.  And when I look back at my justification for my Celtics pick, I think that once again I am using a not-so-good model.  Therefore, fans of the Celtics – given my history with not-so-good models – should be a bit worried.   In sum, I think I am about to lose my “50 cents” again (and once again, have to hear about the greatness of Kobe).

- DJ

The WoW Journal Comments Policy

*-Here is what I said in discussing the Boston-Cleveland series: “The question,” says Berri, “is if Boston can replicate what we saw in the first half of the season. If that happens, this series can go to seven [and Boston might win]. If that isn’t true, Cleveland takes it in four or five.”