Ted Leonsis became the new owner of the Washington Wizards a few months ago. The team he now leads won only 26 games in 2009-10. But through the quirks of the bouncing lottery balls, the Wizards managed to land the number one pick in the 2010 NBA draft. And with John Wall now leading the team, Leonsis and the Wizards seem to be feeling good about the team’s future prospects.

Arturo Galletti – a mere blogger – is apparently less impressed. Mr. Galletti argued this past weekend that the Wizards have a chance to be the worst team in NBA history in 2010-11. Mr. Leonsis – via his own blog – took exception to this forecast.

As I will note below, I have some reason to be interested in the debate between these two individuals. Before I get to this reason, though, let me briefly discuss how I see Washington’s 2010-11 prospects.

The story of next season begins with where the team was last year. The table below lists the ten players who played the most minutes for the Wizards last year. It also reports each player’s Wins Produced (here is an explanation). As one can see, these ten players produced about 27.7 wins last year. In other words, whatever success the Wizards had last year can be linked to these players.

The second half of the table details how many wins the Wizards could have expected had their players maintained what they did in the past. And as one can see, if we knew how many minutes each player was going to play before the 2009-10 season started, we would have expected the Wizards to do about as well as they did. In other words, we should have expected the Wizards to be a below average team last year.

This analysis also tells us why the Wizards might have even more problems next year. The quartet of Mike Miller, Brendan Haywood, Caron Butler, and Antawn Jamison were expected to produce about 23 wins in 2009-10. When the season was over, these four had produced 22.0 wins. The remainder of the roster, though, didn’t produce much more. And unfortunately, all four of these players will be playing elsewhere in 2010-11.

Who did Leonsis and the Wizards get to replace these four? According to ESPN.com and Yahoo.com, Washington’s depth chart currently is as follows:

Starters
PG: John Wall
SG: Gilbert Arenas
SF: Al Thornton
PF: Andray Blatche
C: Javale McGee

Bench
PG: Kirk Hinrich
SG: Nick Young
SF: Josh Howard
PF: Yi Jianlian
C: Hilton Armstrong

Of these players, only John Wall didn’t play in the NBA last year. The following table details what these nine veterans did last year. In looking at these numbers keep in mind that an average NBA player will post a 0.100 WP48 [Wins Produced per 48 minutes]. As one can see, every single veteran on this team was below average last year.

If we make a guess at how many minutes each player will play per game we can estimate the number of wins each player will produce. Adding up what we see for all nine players and we see a team – before we get to John Wall’s contribution – that only wins six games. In other words, this is a very poor collection of NBA veterans.

Now there are two things to keep in mind. First, we have not considered the contribution of John Wall. Unfortunately, there is reason to think – as Mr. Galletti noted in his post – that Wall may not make much difference next year. One should remember, though, that we cannot forecast perfectly what rookies will do (and there is evidence the NBA doesn’t do this well either). So it is possible that Wall will defy Mr. Galletti’s analysis.

It is also possible that the veterans can do better. For example, Gilbert Arenas produced 8.6 wins in 2006-07. That same season, Kirk Hinrich offered 5.6 wins while Josh Howard produced 8.7 victories. And Hilton Armstrong – again back in 2006-07 – wasn’t nearly as awful as he has been every year since (he produced 1.1 wins that year). If these players return to what we saw four years ago (and yes, that is the best these four ever played in the NBA), the Wizards will be better next season.
Of course, hoping players will return to what we saw in what is now the ancient past appears to be the very definition of “grasping at straws.” And that illustrates why the Wizards look to be in trouble.

At the end of the day, wins do not happen by magic in the NBA. Someone has to take the actions necessary to create wins. Such actions include shooting efficiently, rebounding, getting steals, and avoiding turnovers. It is these tangible actions that produce wins in the NBA. And when you have a collection of players who haven’t produced wins in the recent past, it seems likely you will not be very successful in the near future.

In other words, it looks like Mr. Galletti is on to something. The Wizards may not be the worst team ever (then again, maybe they will be). But they are not likely to be very good next season.

For me to essentially agree with Mr. Galletti is not surprising. If you look at his blog post you will see he is also employing Wins Produced, the same method my co-authors and I detailed in The Wages of Wins and Stumbling on Wins.

Why should you believe what is written in these books? Well, let’s consider the following comment offered on Stumbling on Wins last May:

David Berri and Martin Schmidt have written a very interesting book called Stumbling on Wins: Two Economists Expose the Pitfalls on the Road to Victory in Professional Sports.

I just concluded reading it. I recommend it highly to the passionate, opinionated fan. The stats speak loudly and clearly.

This is a wonderful counter cultural look at the world of sports by economists and math majors. Buy it today.

The author of this wonderful comment on our book was Ted Leonsis. Yes, the stats do speak loudly and clearly. And the message they send is that this collection of Wizards will probably be a very poor team in 2010-11 (and one suspects, this is not the message Mr. Leonsis is hearing from his employees in Washington).

This post was originally written for the Huffington Post.

And here are a three more thoughts on this post.

• Arturo (Mr. Galletti in the post) has offered even more thoughts on the Wizards.
• John Wall’s summer league performance (which wasn’t very good) was discussed in this forum last July.
• John Wall’s production in college (which wasn’t outstanding for a player selected in the NBA draft) was discussed in this forum last May.

And I should also offer a comment on Ted Leonsis.  As the post noted, Leonsis endorsed Stumbling on Wins.  But he took exception to Arturo’s analysis of his team, even though Arturo was simply applying what is said in Stumbling on Wins.  I think this gets at something I said a few months ago (not sure where I said it, but I think it was in a Huffington Post column).  People are okay with the idea that decision-makers are making mistakes (with the exception of a few economists I know).  But when you move from criticizing people in general to criticizing specific individuals – as we often do in sports – then people are not as happy.  I think this is what I am seeing with respect to Leonsis.  Before he fully took over in Washington, he was probably okay with the notion that some people in the NBA make mistakes (hence he liked our book).  But when people start questioning his decisions, then he is less happy. 

I would add, most people (including myself) behave in the same fashion.  People can criticize professors and economists.  People can even criticize sports economists.  But if you criticize me…. well, I am not as happy as I could be (although I tend to get over it pretty quickly).  So I am not surprised by the reaction we see from Leonsis.  And he should not be surprised if he sees his team losing quite a bit in 2010-11.

- DJ

The Minnesota Timberwolves have announced that they will not contend for a title in 2011.  How many other teams should be this honest with their fans?  

- DJ

Our tour around the Wages of Wins Network begins at Courtside Analysis.  First, Ty Willihnganz offers an Updated Team USA Win Chart, as well as commentary on Team USA vs. Russia. 

Ty then observes: The Four Factors are just Win Score by another name

To encourage everyone to read this last post, here is Ty’s entire comment on the Four Factors (and just for the record, Dean Oliver — author of the Four Factors — doesn’t have a beard):

You ever notice fans and writers who are skeptical of Win Score seem to worship the so-called “Four Factors” as though they were brought down the hill in a golden box by a guy with a beard.

They never seem to see the irony.  The “Four Factors” are simply a parsed-out version of Win Score.

The Four Factors are (1) Field Goal Percentage; (2) Free Throw Rate; (3) Offensive Rebounding Rate; and (4) Turnover Percentage.  That’s just Win Score.

Win Score is a formula calculating a player’s ability to do one or all of the following: (1) create possessions, (2) turn possessions into points; and/or (3) commit acts that help the aforementioned or harm the opponents ability to do the same.

If you look at it “Factors” (1) and (2) are simply a measure of the team’s ability to turn possessions into points.  Field goal percentage is a self explanatory measure of the ability to turn possessions into points, and ”Free Throw Rate” is such a measure because free throws are much more easily converted into points than field goals — even for the very worst free throw shooters – so the more times a team gets to the free throw line, the more efficient they are at turning possessions into points.  

Similarly, Factors (3) and (4) are simply a measure of a team’s ability to create and protect possessions.  “Offensive Rebounding Rate” is a misnomer, or rather it is simply an indirect measure of overall rebounding.  Since Defensive Rebounds are simply “Anti” Offensive Rebounds, Defensive Rebounding Rate could do just as well, as could any sort of measurement of rebounding proficiency.  And of course turnover rate, or a comparison thereof between a team and its opponents, encapsulates a team’s ability to better protect against and better create turnovers.

And the other “half stats” or ”helpers” as I and others call them (assists, blocked shots, and personal fouls) are measurements of actions that indirectly help the two categories above.  (Thus the half value).

So there you have it.  If you worship at the throne of the Four Factors, you are actually already a fan of Win Score… you just didn’t know it. 

Its like, remember those old cheap colognes that would say right on the label, “If you love Drakkar, you will LOVE _________”.   Same deal.  Except Win Score smells better.

Continuing our tour…

Ty is not the only one offering excellent analysis.  Arturo Galletti has updated his NBA Free Agent Guide.  I would love to re-post this analysis, but Arturo loves adding picture, figures, and tables to his posts.  These make his posts even better, but make copying even harder (since each picture needs to be loaded separately).   Arturo also offered a guide to NBA general managers.  These posts were offere a couple of weeks ago (should have posted a link last weekend).

Build me a winner rev. 1

Build me a winner rev. 1.1 now with the Salary Cheat Sheet

I was reminded of Arturo’s advice to general managers when I saw that Tom Sunnergren – at Philadunkia – posted a comment about the Sixers hiring of Rod Thorn. Within Tom’s comment was the following advice for the Sixers:

What we at Philadunkia would have done then was hire Pritchard to serve as President, put under him as GM/chief interlocutor, a young upstart who’s learned at the hip of one of the heads of the Suns or the Thunder or another of the league’s success stories, and then thrown a wild-card in the mix as a special advisor.  Our wild-card would be Professor Dave Berri.

Berri, the author of Wages of Wins, Stumbling on Wins, and editor of and prime contributor to the Wages of Wins Journal, is a relentlessly clear-eyed sports economist at the University of Southern Utah who, amongst other terrific sporting insights, developed an algorithm that translates box-score statistics into how many actual wins a player responsible for.  How accurate is it?  His model explains and predicts team win totals with 95 percent accuracy.  He’s gained almost Bill Jamesean stature (For the record, the Red Sox won their two world series after hiring James as an advisor) amongst the small coterie of stat nerds that troll the web extolling the virtues of rebounding and making snarky comments about Al Harrington in the comment stream of any blog that hasn’t blocked them yet.  He’s smart, and because he’s spent his life in academia, pretty much any offer we made would be a huge raise.

This triumvirate strikes a near-perfect balance between age and youth, convention and originality, experience and innovation, certainty and risk.  It’s a completely reasonable arrangement.  

Which is exactly why it would never happen.

Tom has sent along some questions for me to answer, and these answers will touch upon why I am not really interested in working for a professional sports team (despite a number of conversations I have had with various teams in the past). Arturo, though, already has a cheat sheet ready to go.  Perhaps someone should be giving him a call :)

And we are walking and walking…

Andres Alvarez has been having fun with the historical data. His Time Machine Series has been looking at what would happen if the each team was allowed to use the best season of their players instead of the performance in the actual season the player played with the team.  So far Andres is up to the conference quarterfinals.  So keep checking back in to see who ultimately wins.

Much has been made about the play of Yi Jianlian in the FIBA World Championship.  Rob O’Malley – at Roblog – explains why he doesn’t think these numbers necessarily mean Yi Jianlian has actually improved.

Let me close by noting that Devin Dignam – at NBeh? – has offered a handy glossary of terms.  This is obviously something I should have offered years ago.  So I am going to put a permanent link to this on the right. 

- DJ

Once upon a time there was a player named Baby Jordan.  Today that same player – Harold Miner – is 39 years old and unemployed in Las Vegas.  

But don’t feel sorry for Miner.  There is a very good reason why he is unemployed.  To see this reason, let’s review the Miner story (as recently reported at Yahoo!):

Miner became a household name almost two decades ago as a junior at USC by piling up points and dunks during the 1991-92 season. Miner had the shaved head, No. 23 jersey, MJ mannerisms and the spectacular slams that reminded many of “His Airness.” Suddenly, the “Baby Jordan” nickname he picked up on the playgrounds of Inglewood had spread across the nation and made him a star…

Miner led USC to a No. 2 seed in the 1992 NCAA Tournament, becoming USC’s all-time leading scorer (a record he still holds) and earning Sports Illustrated’s college basketball’s Player of the Year award over LSU’s Shaquille O’Neal and Duke’s Christian Laettner. But the storybook season came to an abrupt end when Georgia Tech’s James Forrest knocked the Trojans out of the second round on a legendary buzzer-beating 3-pointer. Weeks later, Miner held an emotional press conference to announce he would be turning pro.

Taken 12th overall in the ’92 draft, the lefty swingman was expected to become a scoring and marketing machine. He signed a five-year, $7.3-million contract with the Heat as a rookie and an endorsement deal with Nike reportedly worth $14 million.

As Yahoo! reports, Miner still is living off the more than $20 million he was given back in 1992.  In other words, Miner is unemployed because he doesn’t have to work. 

What did Miner do for this privilege?  Again, he left USC as the school’s all-time leading scorer. And as an NBA player, he averaged 23.1 points pe 48 minutes played across the 200 games he appeared.

But his overall production was quite low. Here is his year-by-year production of wins.

• 1992-93: 0.2 Wins Produced, 0.007 WP48 [Wins Produced per 48 minutes]
• 1993-94: 1.4 Wins Produced, 0.050 WP48
• 1994-95: -0.7 Wins Produced, -0.039 WP48
• 1995-96: -0.5 Wins Produced, -0.177 WP48
• Career: 0.4 Wins Produced, 0.005 WP48

Yes, across these 200 games, Miner essentially produced nothing.  He did score when he played.  But he really didn’t help his team win.

At the age of 25 – as Miner notes in the article – injuries ended his career. 

And now his career reminds us again of a lesson all young players should learn. 

Young players should focus on scoring.  And furthermore, learn to score as dramatically as possible (Miner won two slam dunk titles).  If you can score in a fashion that attracts attention, scouts – and apparently Nike – will give you plenty of money. And even if your career doesn’t work out — and even if you never really produce wins —  you will still be fine.

- DJ