Monthly Archives: August 2010

Time for August Optimism for Fans of the Detroit Lions

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The Detroit Lions will win at least nine games in 2010.  At least, that’s what Tiki Barber claims.  And it is with this bold prediction that I begin my latest for the Huffington Post.

Although Barber’s forecast will make any fan of the Lions happy (at least, it made this fan happy), my post actually built upon an observation made by Brian Burke of Advanced NFL Statistics.  Specifically, preseason forecasts are worthless.

That being said, I am optimistic that the Lions are about to get better. 

What leads to such optimism?  Obviously years of abuse have had their effect. But beyond this point, let’s note a few positive signs.  Only four of the eleven players who started on defense for the Lions in the majority of the team’s games last year will be in the opening line-up in 2010.  And on offensive, Matthew Stafford is now in his second season (supposedly this helps a quarterback play better).  And he now gets to throw to a receiving core that not only includes Calvin Johnson and Brandon Pettigrew, but also Nate Burleson and Tony Sheffler. And when Stafford is not throwing to these targets, he will be able to hand the ball to Jahvid Best.

Beyond an influx of talent, I am also encouraged by offensive scheme the Lions are supposedly going to employ.   During the offseason the Lions traded Ernie Sims – a starting linebacker (and former top ten pick) – for Sheffler.  The addition of Sheffler means the Lions are going to often work out of a two tight end formation.  This formation puts Pettigrew and Sheffler at the end positions, Johnson and Burleson at wide receiver, and Best in the backfield.  From this formation the Lions can obviously run, which I believe is what you tend to do out of this formation. But because Sheffler and Pettigrew are also receiving threats, the Lions can also employ essentially the approach the team used when it reached the NFC title game in 1991.  Yes, the Lions can return to the run-and-shoot. 

For those who don’t remember, the run-and-shoot was essentially the hurry-up offense teams employed for years.  But instead of using it with two minutes to go in a half, the Lions (as well as the Houston Oilers and Atlanta Falcons) used this as their base offense.  This meant the team always lined up with four receivers and one back.  On each play, all four receivers would go out for a pass.  This meant the defense had to play pass on every down, which opened up running lanes for the back (and it helped that this was Barry Sanders).

The problem with this offense was that if the other team knew you wanted to run – which it would suspect was the case if you had the lead – the offense became easier to stop.  Consequently, holding leads seemed difficult during the run-and-shoot days.

The current offense, though, is the run-and-shoot on steroids.  Instead of four little receivers, the Lions will have three giants (Johnson, Pettigrew, and Sheffler).  And this means when it is time to run, the Lions should have success.

Jim Schwartz – the Lions head coach – is not a system guy.  He basically will do whatever he thinks works. This means the Lions are not going to be in the two tight end formation all the time. But when they are, I expect success.  Defenses cannot know when they see this formation if the Lions are going to run or pass.  And that uncertainty should make the offense more successful.

As for the defense, the Lions front four of Kyle Vanden Bosch, Corey Williams, Ndamukong Suh, and Cliff Avril should be able to put pressure on opposing quarterbacks without the need of a blitz.  And that was evident during their first exhibition game.  Unfortunately, once you get past the front four, there are question marks.  Still, as Barber argues, if the offense does well, the defense doesn’t need to do much for the Lions to win more frequently.

So does all this mean the Lions will be successful?  As I noted at Huffington Post, turnovers and injuries defy predictions. Plus the interaction effects in football are quite large (much larger than anything you see in basketball). This makes forecasting football difficult.  In other words, despite all that I just said, there really is no way to know what the Lions will do in 2010 in August.  And this isn’t just true for the Lions.  No matter what people might think, we really don’t know what will happen in the NFL in August.

The upside of this difficulty is that fans of the Lions can always be optimistic in August.  In contrast, fans of the Pistons should already start thinking about the summer of 2011.  Because it looks like the Pistons will not do well in 2010-11 (and yes, we will probably touch on this story again and again in this forum).

- DJ

Learning from Past Mistakes in New York?

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The following is from Frank Isola of the New York Daily News (via ESPN.com).

(Isiah) Thomas has convinced (James) Dolan that he can deliver Carmelo Anthony to the Knicks next summer – assuming the All-Star forward doesn’t sign a three-year, $65 million contract extension with Denver. With the Knicks failing to sign LeBron James last month, Dolan’s faith in team president Donnie Walsh and head coach Mike D’Antoni has waned, particularly when it comes to recruiting today’s young players.  It is Thomas’ thinking that if he can land Anthony or a player such as New Orleans point guard Chris Paul, it will enhance his tarnished image among Knicks fans and potentially clear the way for him to return to take over the club again. Dolan’s telling statement last Wednesday all but guarantees Thomas playing a role.

So Isiah Thomas can restore his reputation by bringing Melo to the Knicks?  As Tom Haberstroh and I noted last week, Carmelo Anthony is not worth the money the Nuggets have offered.  But Anthony does fit the profile of the “star” players Isiah Thomas consistently brought to New York when he was in charge. 

These statements suggest that Isiah Thomas and the Knicks still haven’t figured out why the Knicks failed to succeed with Isiah in charge.  Maybe someone needs to write a book about this :)

- DJ

P.S. And yes, if Isiah could land Chris Paul, then this is a different story.  One senses from the article, though, that Thomas and the Knicks see Melo as the better player.  At least, the focus of the article is on Anthony.

Missing Links from this Past Week

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As I noted in my last post, I was on vacation for part of this past week.  While I was away there were a few events that deserved some comment.  Thankfully we now have a Wages of Wins Network, so even when I am not around someone else tends to step forward and offer some thoughts (that are often better than anything I was going to say).

So here is a quick list of links I missed, as well as some other items that I think people might find interesting.

Let me close with a quick comment on some comments in my last post.  The last post noted that David Lee and Troy Murphy are two players on losing teams that are actually quite productive.  This led to some speculation that the race of Lee and Murphy impacted the evaluation of each player.  The subject of race and player evaluation in the NBA has been examined by economists since at least the 1980s.  Much of this literature was summarized in the following paper I published in 2006: “Economics and the National Basketball Association: Surveying the Literature at the Tip-off.” in The Handbook of Sports Economics Research; edited by John Fizel; M.E. Sharpe, Inc.: 21-48.

Stacey Brook, Martin Schmidt, and I also published the following study of salaries in the NBA: “Does One Simply Need to Score to Score?”International Journal of Sport Finance, 2, n4; (November): 190-205.

This paper looked at a variety of factors that could impact a free agent’s salary.  In addition to considering past performance, market size, injuries, and position played; we also considered the player’s race.  In none of our formulations was race statistically significant.

Going back to the literature review… there is some evidence that race played a role in salary determination in the 1980s (and there is also some evidence that race did not play a role back in the 1980s).  But I think most studies of recent data offered the same conclusion we reached.  Specifically, I don’t think race plays a significant role in player evaluation in the NBA today. 

- DJ

P.S. By the way, some of you have noticed that this blog looks a bit different lately.  That is because WordPress accidently made some changes.  I am working with WordPress to get this blog back to what it was before it was attacked by a bug.  Not sure how long this will take, though.  One thing to remember about this blog.  Not only do I work for free, but WordPress hosts the blog for free.

Underrated Statistics and Underrated Players

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Zenon Zygmont – one of the co-authors of The Economics of Intercollegiate Sports – alerted me this morning to the following from Tyler Cowen of Marginal Revolution. 

Very Difficult Questions: I have spoken at Jane St. Capital a few times and it is perhaps my favorite audience; everyone wants analytic content and everyone came prepared.  All of the questions were tough, but two in particular I was not prepared for.

First, I was asked “Which is the most underrated statistic for judging the value of an NBA player?”

My attempted answer was the player’s presence on a very good, consistently winning team.  There are many players with impressive statistics, including unselfish statistics such as assists and rebounds, who are only of value on bad teams.  We overvalue such players.  Overall, really good teams don’t keep bad players and really bad teams don’t keep good players.  If a player has never been on a really good team, he might not be so good, with apologies to the earlier Kevin Garnett.

Tyler’s response is —-hmmm…. okay, rather than comment on the quality of this response, let me just offer some thoughts.

Player statistics are tracked to separate a player from his teammates.  This is necessary because we can see which teams are successful.  What decision-makers need to do is determine which players were responsible for the team outcomes observed.

When we look at player evaluations in the NBA (i.e. salaries paid to free agents, the allocation of minutes, where a player is selected in the NBA draft, and various NBA awards) we see that scoring totals dominate the decision.  Factors like shooting efficiency, rebounds, and turnovers are not consistently found to matter.

Such a story has been told before (see The Wages of Wins, Stumbling on Wins, or just this post on Carmelo Anthony).  And this story indicates that scoring totals are overvalued, and shooting efficiency and factors associated with gaining and keeping possession of the ball (rebounds, steals, and turnovers) are undervalued.

Once the statistics are valued in terms of wins, we do discover players on bad teams who are good.  For example, here are the top 10 producers of wins on losing teams from the 2009-10 season (a similar list – with some of the same names – can be produced for other seasons):

  • David Lee, New York Knicks: 15.5 Wins Produced
  • Andre Iguodala, Philadelphia 76ers: 14.4 Wins Produced
  • Troy Murphy, Indiana Pacers: 14.4 Wins Produced
  • Zach Randolph, Memphis Grizzlies: 14.3 Wins Produced
  • Kevin Love, Minnesota Timberwolves: 12.1 Wins Produced
  • Chris Bosh, Toronto Raptors: 11.7 Wins Produced
  • Chris Paul, New Orleans Hornets: 11.5 Wins Produced
  • Samuel Dalembert, Philadelphia 76ers: 10.6 Wins Produced
  • Ben Wallace, Detroit Pistons: 9.9 Wins Produced
  • Marc Gasol, Memphis Grizzlies: 9.1 Wins Produced

And to be balanced, here are the top ten least productive players (minimum 2,000 minutes played) on winning teams in 2009-10:

  • Derek Fisher, LA Lakers: -0.2 Wins Produced
  • Rashard Lewis, Orlando Magic: 0.1 Wins Produced
  • Jeff Green, Oklahoma City Thunder: 1.o Wins Produced
  • Boris Diaw, Charlotte Bobcats: 1.1 Wins Produced
  • Channing Frye, Phoenix Suns: 1.3 Wins Produced
  • Mehmet Okur, Utah Jazz: 2.0 Wins Produced
  • Michael Beasley, Miami Heat: 2.2 Wins Produced
  • Aaron Brooks, Houston Rockets: 2.5 Wins Produced
  • Martell Webster, Portland Trail Blazers: 2.7 Wins Produced
  • J.R. Smith, Denver Nuggets: 2.8 Wins Produced

One should note, the Minnesota Timberwolves have acquired two of the players on this latter list.  And with players who “know” about winning, we can expect Minnesota to get much better.

Okay, that probably isn’t going to happen. Yes, the T-Wolves have Kevin Love. But beyond Love, the cupboard in Minnesota is essentially bare.  After all, this is a team that seems committed to giving Darko Milicic significant playing time.  

Now let’s imagine that Love keeps producing but the T-wolves keep acquiring unproductive players and unnecessary point guards.  What should we conclude about Love if this continues for five or six more years?  One might be tempted to argue that if Love keeps playing for losers that he is a bad player. But I think the stats – just as they did with Kevin Garnett when he was employed by Minnesota – would tell a very different story.  Again, stats are supposed to separate a player from his teammates.   And when we make this separation, we do discover that good players can be found on persistent losers.   In other words, team outcomes are really not an underrated stat.

- DJ

P.S. Not sure anyone noticed, but I was gone for much of this week (as in, away from the Internet).  Hence there were no posts after my comment on Carmelo Anthony on Monday.  While I was away there was some stuff happening in the NBA.  Hopefully I can post some comments on this stuff this weekend (or at least link to the brilliant stuff written by other people).

Is Melo Max?

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My latest for The Huffington Post asks whether or not Carmelo Anthony is worth the money the Nuggets are currently offering.  Readers of this forum – as the following few posts illustrate – have seen the argument that Melo is overrated before.

Kevin Durant vs. Carmelo Anthony

Disagreeing with Doug Moe

Melo for MVP?

Melo, King James, and the Human Highlight Film

The latest “Melo is overrated” argument begins with a column written by Tom Haberstroh at ESPN.com.   The column requires insider access, so everyone may not get to read what I think is a great offering from Haberstroh. 

What’s so great about this story?  As I note at Huffington Post, Haberstroh argues that Melo is overrated because his scoring efficiency is not exceptional — and beyond taking shots — Melo doesn’t do much more than an average small forward with respect to any other aspect of the game. 

What’s interesting about this argument is that it is essentially the Wins Produced story. Wins Produced is a single number that estimates a player’s impact on wins.  Although having a single number is useful, people tend to focus too much on the number and less on the story the number is telling.  And that is why the Haberstroh story is so good.  Wins Produced argues that players should be evaluated in terms of shooting efficiency and the non-scoring factors that impact outcomes.  Furthermore, players should be evaluated relative to the average performance at the player’s position.  Haberstroh makes all these points in the discussion of Melo.

So hopefully this will help more and more people understand why focusing on just scoring – or scoring based metrics like PER – leads to incorrect conclusions.   Again – as Haberstroh demonstrates — you don’t need Wins Produced to see this point (although I still think it is useful to have one number to summarize a player’s value).

- DJ

P.S. The Wins Produced numbers offered for Anthony, LeBron James, and Kevin Durant at The Huffington Post are just for what these players did at small forward.  James and Anthony probably played some power forward, so the Wins Produced numbers you see at Huffington Post are higher than what has been reported previously.