Amare Stoudemire is currently ranked third in All-Star votes for Eastern Conference forwards (behind LeBron James and Kevin Garnett).  Mark Stein of ESPN.com, though, apparently disagrees with the voters.  For Stein, Stoudemire is the Most Valuable Player in the Eastern Conference for the first third of the season.

Michael Schwartz – at Valley of the Sun – appears to disagree.  At least, Schwartz argues that Stoudemire is essentially the same player we saw last year in Phoenix.  

Here is some of what Schwartz had to say:

As for Wins Produced, STAT(Amare Stoudemire) has produced 3.1 wins with a 0.118 WP48, which is in the middle of what he did the last two years (0.140 last season and .0103 the year before) but a good chunk worse than what he produced his three healthy years before that.

Amare is averaging 26.4 points and 9.0 rebounds per game but he is taking almost five shots more than his career average and is shooting over 50 percentage points worse than last year from the field.

Stoudemire’s PER (23.85) is the highest it’s been since 2007-08 and is ninth best in the NBA (just behind Nash), but his usage rate is also at a career-high level, his true shooting percentage is the lowest it’s been since he was paired with Nash (and a good chunk lower than most of his years), and his rebound rate has only been lower twice his entire career. Only Rajon Rondo averages more turnovers per game than STAT’s 3.8 per contest and his turnover ratio has only been higher once since 2004-05.

This isn’t to say Stoudemire isn’t having a fantastic season. He’s just doing the same thing he’s always done just slightly less efficiently, without Steve Nash and in a bigger market that’s craving a winner. Amare Stoudemire put up better second-half numbers than almost every player in the NBA last season as he carried the Suns down the stretch, so watching him do something similar in New York really is no surprise.

Let me add to the story being told by looking at Stoudemire’s per 48 minute stats after 34 games this year and across the entire regular season last year in Phoenix.  Stoudemire is spending quite a bit of time at center this season (hence his WP48 numbers overall are somewhat lower), but I am going to compare him to the average power forward.

As Schwartz noted, Stoudemire is taking more field goal attempts in New York. But he is a less efficient scorer, more prone to turnovers, and less able to get rebounds.  So although is scoring is up, his overall production is slightly down.  And that means Stoudemire is not the most productive player in the Eastern Conference. 

Now is he Most Valuable?  Well, MVP is not formally defined.  I would argue that Most Productive is essentially the same as MVP.  But others may disagree and I am sure one can come up with a definition that makes Stoudemire the MVP. For example, how about leading scorer in the biggest NBA market? 

- DJ

It’s not often you see a 65-year old man referred to as a boy-toy.  But this is what Mark Cuban called Phil Jackson this week.  Cuban’s “odd” statement was in response to another “odd” statement from Jackson.

In response to the season-ending injury suffered by Caron Butler, Jackson said (according to the Los Angeles Times): “He just leaves a vacuum that’s going to be very hard for them to fill.”

Jackson attempted to clarify this comment with the following:

“I feel badly for [the Mavericks], that’s what I was saying. It’s hard to replace a player that good,” Jackson said. “They do have a good player that’s sitting behind him. Shawn [Marion] is a fine player, but it’s not Caron Butler, so it’s hard to replace a player like that.”

Hopefully it is easy to see why Cuban’s comments about Jackson are best described as “odd”.  What about Jackson’s comments about the Mavericks and Caron Bulter?

First of all, I am not sure I believe that Jackson really feels badly about the Mavericks. But beyond this point, I also don’t agree with his assessment of Butler.

Before we get to what Butler has done this year, let’s note the following numbers:

• Entering this season, Butler had produced 52 wins in his career with a 0.122 WP48 [Wins Produced per 48 minutes]
• His best season was in 2007-08, when he produced 10.4 wins with a 0.216 WP48
• Last year, though, he produced 4.7 wins with a 0.080 WP48
• Butler is now 30 years of age.

Okay, now let’s look at the numbers for this year.  And let’s not just look at Butler.  Let’s look at the Mavericks in 2010-11.

After 34 games, the Mavericks have won 26 games and currently have the second best record in the Western Conference.  This record, though, is a bit of an illusion.  Currently the Mavericks are scoring 105.7 points per 100 possessions, while allowing 100.6 points.  So the team’s efficiency differential is 5.1.  Such a mark is consistent with a team that will win around 53 or 54 wins across an entire season.  This is close to what was projected for the Lakers earlier this week, but in terms of efficiency differential, Phil Jackson’s team has the edge.

Although the Lakers have the edge, the Mavericks have been quite close.  Does the injury to Butler make Jackson breathe a bit easier (contrary to his public comments)?

To answer this question, let’s move from efficiency differential to Wins Produced.  The following table reports the productivity of the Mavericks’ players this season.

Again, the Mavericks are projected to win about 53 games.  Of these wins, 48.6 can be linked to the play of Jason Kidd, Tyson Chandler, Dirk Nowitzki, Shawn Marion, and DeShawn Stevenson.  These five players are the only Dallas players to play more than 100 minutes and post a WP48 beyond 0.100.  In other words, the remainder of the roster – a remainder that includes Caron Butler – are either not playing much and/or are below average.

If we look at Butler specifically, we see a player who has posted a 0.018 WP48 and is on pace to produce 0.8 wins.  Such numbers suggest that the loss of Butler does not leave “a vacuum that will be hard for the Mavericks to fill.”  And moving from Butler to Shawn Marion is probably not a big problem. 

What is a big problem is the loss of Dirk Nowitzki, who has missed the last six games due to a knee injury.  Behind Nowitzki is Brian Cardinal, a player who has produced in the negative range in each of the past three seasons. And he is in the negative range this season as well (if only barely).  So moving from Nowitzki to Cardinal isn’t very helpful.

Reportedly, though, Nowitzki only has a knee sprain.  And when he returns, the Mavericks will have a fairly impressive starting line-up of Kidd, Stevenson, Marion, Nowitzki, and Chandler (or maybe, Kidd, Jason Terry, Stevenson, Nowitzki, and Chandler). 

Two more observations on this team:

First, Tyson Chandler appears to be back. Here are the WP48 numbers Chandler has posted across the past seven years:

• 2009-10: 0.093
• 2008-09: 0.078
• 2007-08: 0.244
• 2006-07: 0.301
• 2005-06: 0.234
• 2004-05: 0.333
• 2003-04: 0.228

As one can see, Chandler was far above average for five consecutive seasons.  But injuries (and it is injuries that seem to change player performance more often than not) caused his production to fall the past two years. Now Chandler appears to be healthy.  So the Mavericks acquisition of Chandler is looking good.

The other player who has improved is DeShawn Stevenson.  Prior to this season, Stevenson had produced 0.6 wins for his entire career (a career that stretches back to 2000-o1).  His best season was 2007-08, when he produced 4.4 wins – and posted a 0.082 WP48 – with Washington.  So at his best, Stevenson was below average.  This year, though, his WP48 is 0.139.  What explains the difference?  Currently Stevenson has an adjusted field goal percentage of 0.634.  Obviously this mark is well above average; not just for Stevenson, but for any player in the NBA.  And it seems obvious (but it may not be) that Stevenson can’t keep hitting shots at this rate. After all, for his career he has hit on less than 35% of his shots from beyond the arc and this year he is hitting on 47% of these shots.

If Stevenson can’t keep hitting his shots, the Mavericks might decline a bit.  Nevertheless – even if Stevenson reverts to form — the Mavericks are a “good” team.  But I don’t think they are a “great” team or a title contender in 2011 (at least, I don’t think they are as good as the Heat, Celtics, and Spurs).  And I think that assessment stands, with or without Caron Butler. 

- DJ

On Sunday the LA Lakers lost at home to the Memphis Grizzlies.  Actually the defending champions didn’t just lose.  The Grizzlies – a below 0.500 team that has never won a playoff game – beat the Lakers by 19 points.  And that clearly indicates that the defending champs have taken a step back.  Maybe several steps back.

On the other hand (a phrase economists love)…

Well, one game does not a season make.  And when we look at the entire 2010-11 season — and also look back at what we saw in 2009-10 — we see a somewhat different story.

Let’s start with what we saw last year.  Our story begins with efficiency differential (offensive efficiency minus defensive efficiency).  Last season the Lakers scored 105.6 points per 100 possessions while allowing 100.7 points.  So the team’s efficiency differential was 4.9.  Relative to what we saw in 2008-09 [differential of 7.8] and 2007-08 [differential of 7.3], the Lakers had declined.  Nevertheless, the Lakers did win 57 games, and this mark was good enough to give this team the number one seed in the Western Conference.

Although the Lakers won 57 games last season, the team’s differential of 4.9 is actually consistent with a team that would win about 54 games (so this team was not the “best” team in regular season in the Western Conference last year).  And when we move from efficiency differential to Wins Produced – detailed in the following table — we can see who was responsible for these victories.

Of the Lakers 53.6 Wins Produced, 47.2 could be traced to the production of Pau Gasol, Lamar Odom, Kobe Bryant, and Andrew Bynum.  Of the nine remaining players employed, only Sasha Vujacic – with a WP48 [Wins Produced per 48 minutes] of 0.109 – was above average (average WP48 is 0.100).  So the sucess of this team was almost entirely traced to the play of Gasol, Odom, Bryant, and Bynum.

In the off-season the Lakers added Matt Barnes (0.201 WP48 with Orlando last season).  So it looked like the Lakers would be improved.  But with the loss to Memphis, it is clear this team isn’t better (at least, people might think this is clear).  So what happened?

Again, we start with efficiency differential.  After 34 games the Lakers have scored 107.2 points per 100 possessions while allowing 101.4.  So the Lakers’ differential stands at 5.8.  And that means, relative to last year, the Lakers are somewhat improved.  Yes, despite what Memphis did to this team, it looks like the Lakers are a little bit better than they were in 2009-10.

When we turn to Wins Produced we can see who is producing wins for this team in 2010-11.  Last year the Lakers had nine players who didn’t help much.  And as the following table indicates, the Lakers have also employed nine players this season who haven’t done much.  But there are six other players –  Pau Gasol, Lamar Odom, Kobe Bryant, Matt Barnes, Shannon Brown, and Andrew Bynum – who are posting above average numbers.  And these six are on pace to produced 56.8 wins.  

Of these six, Andrew Bynum – due to injury — has only played ten games.  And has only played more than thirty minutes twice.  If Bynum can stay healthy and continue to produce, one might expect the Lakers to be even better.

Unfortunately for the Lakers, the competition in the league has also gotten much better.   Here were the top five teams in efficiency differential in 2009-10.

• Orlando Magic: 7.9
• Cleveland Cavaliers: 6.9
• Utah Jazz: 5.5
• San Antonio Spurs: 5.4
• Phoenix Suns and Atlanta Hawks: 5.0

And here are the top five in 2010-11.

• Miami Heat: 10.2
• San Antonio Spurs: 9.2
• Boston Celtics: 8.4
• LA Lakers: 5.8
• Chicago Bulls: 5.5

The Lakers mark this season would rank 3^rd in the NBA in 2009-10.  This year the Lakers ranks fourth, and the gap between where the Lakers currently stand and the top teams in the league is even larger than it was in 2009-10.  So while the Lakers have improved, the competition this team faces for the 2011 title has gotten even better.

And that means the Lakers’ chances for a three-peat are not great.  That is not to say it can’t happen.  The playoffs are a small sample of games.  And odd things can happen in small samples.   But the odds are not with the Lakers.

If the Lakers fail to win a title in 2011, people will argue that this team got worse.  But I think that is not entirely accurate.  The Lakers –despite what happened Sunday night – are in an absolute sense a little bit better this year.  But the competition this team faces is much better.  So the Lakers have declined, but only in a relative sense. 

In other words, whether or not we think the Lakers have declined depends on your perspective.  And that is an answer that probably only an economist could love.

Update: Henry Abbott at TrueHoop offered a quick post today detailing some analysis of the last six games the Lakers have played (a post I just noticed). There is a temptation to read quite a bit into the latest performance of each team.  It is best, though, to resist this temptation.  The Lakers are probably going to lose more than twenty games this season.  We probably could have guessed that before the season started, and it seems quite likely now.  After each loss, or collection of losses, we might want to leap to some conclusion (after all, when a team loses they tend to play badly).  But remember, they are probably going to start winning soon.  When that happens, is everyone leaping to conclusions today just going to leap to another conclusion? 

Okay, they probably will.   This is not, though, the best way to do analysis.

- DJ

After 34 games the Utah Jazz boast a 23-11 record and currently are on top of the Northwest division (as of games of Saturday night).  Despite this record, though, Deron Williams – the team’s star point guard – is unhappy.  Here is some of what was reported on New Year’s Day in the Salt Lake City Tribune (the paper delivered to my house in Cedar City each morning).

Williams is frustrated, disappointed and unsure. He believes in the 2010-11 Jazz and knows exactly what it feels like when the unit plays Jerry Sloan basketball. But Williams also knows other things. Utah’s execution has often been sloppy this season. It is taking much longer than he expected for a significantly revamped team to jell. And the Jazz’s constant flirtation with major deficits and even larger comebacks is starting to wear seriously thin.

“We’re going to burn out,” said a candid Williams during a postgame one-on-one interview.

Buried beneath his on-the-court critique is a deeper concern. Williams knows that Utah’s 22-11 record looks impressive on paper, highlighted by the fact that the Jazz entered Friday night tied with Oklahoma City for first place in the Northwest Division. But to the All-Star guard who never stops thinking about victory and constant improvement, Utah’s 66.7 winning percentage is obscuring the obvious: The Jazz had issues when training camp ended, and those issues haven’t faded away. And Utah still has a long way to go before it’s ready to compete with the NBA’s elite once mid-April arrives.

“I’ve only felt we’ve played good in a couple stretches,” Williams said.

He added: “It’s not time to panic, but we’ve got to play better.”

Williams goes on to discuss problems the team has with offensive execution and the failure of the team to come together. 

Essentially, Williams – and other players on the team – seem to believe that the Jazz

• are not currently contenders with the top teams in the NBA, and
• could be contenders if the team simply came together.

In looking at the data, I think I agree with one of those statements.

After 34 games the Jazz have an efficiency differential – offensive efficiency minus defensive efficiency – of 3.1.  Such a mark is consistent with a team that will win about 49 games across an 82 game season.

When we move from efficiency differential to Wins Produced, we can see the players responsible for producing these projected wins.  As the following table indicates, the Jazz currently have five above average performers [average WP48 – Wins Produced per 48 minutes – is 0.100]: Williams, Paul Millsap, Andrei Kirilenko, Earl Watson, and Jeremy Evans.  These five players are projected to produce 43.3 of the team’s 48.8 projected wins. 

If we focus on last year’s performance we see that Williams, Millsap, and Kirilenko were above average.  Watson was slightly below average [WP48 of 0.091] while Al Jefferson was slightly above average [WP48 of 0.116].  But the remainder of the veterans on the roster were below average in the recent past and continue to be below average this season.

What is the point of this exercise?  What we wish to note is that most of the veterans employed by this team are offering a level of production this season similar to what was seen recently.  In fact, if we forecasted Wins Produced for this team based on what these veterans did in the past the forecasted wins would be about 47 wins (or only about two wins different from what we see this year).

Now maybe the Jazz didn’t come together last season.  Or maybe the Jazz are just not that great of a team.

My sense is that the latter explanation is closer to the mark.  The problem for the Jazz is that this team would like to contend for a title.  And on a given night, the Jazz can defeat any team in the NBA.  But a team that struggles to reach 50 wins is not likely to win a seven game series against a team that passes the 60 win mark. 

So the Jazz are probably not going to contend for a title in 2010-11.  Again, this doesn’t reflect a failure of coaching or team chemistry. It simply reflects the quality of players the Jazz have assembled.  And that means Deron Williams should have expected to be disappointed; and therefore, maybe he shouldn’t be disappointed.

Let me close with three more observations:

• Al Jefferson is not much different from what he was in Minnesota.  His shooting efficiency and rebounds have declined, but so have his turnovers.  The net effect is only a slight drop-off in productivity.  He is capable of playing better, but as noted before the season started, Jefferson was not likely to be as productive as Carlos Boozer (the player he is replacing) .
• Gordon Hayward – the team’s lottery-pick in 2010 — is starting to get more minutes and is hitting his shots (at least this past week).  But his overall productivity level for the season is in the negative range.  Jeremy Evans  – the team’s second round draft pick in 2010 – has been extremely productive in very limited minutes.  Evans has only reached double figures in minutes in three games.  One wonders if he played more minutes if he could continue posting the same per-minute numbers observed so far.  Maybe if he could, Williams would be less disappointed.
• And my last observation… Deron Williams leads this team in Wins Produced.  But Williams is not as productive as Chris Paul (and it isn’t really close).  Williams – despite the problems he has with this team – does have better teammates than Chris Paul.  So that is at least something (I think).

- DJ