The Regular Season Awards: WoW Network Style

The following is from Andres (Dre) Alvarez.

The season is over and it’s time for the playoffs to erase everyone’s memory of regular season records. While it’s still fresh on our mind, we can hand out the regular season award winners. While the exact standards for each award aren’t well defined, we here at the Wages of Wins Network prefer to look at the stats and hand out the awards accordingly.

Most Valuable Player: The player that has generated the most wins for their team.

Player	Team	Pos	G	GS	MP	WP48	WP
Kevin Love	MIN	4.5	73	73	2610	0.458	24.9
Dwight Howard	ORL	5.0	78	78	2935	0.398	24.3
LeBron James	MIA	3.1	79	79	3062	0.361	23.0
Chris Paul	NOH	1.0	80	80	2865	0.350	20.9
Dwyane Wade	MIA	1.9	76	76	2823	0.302	17.8

Was he on a bad team? Yes! Don’t let that take away the fact that Kevin Love put up a career year and hit levels not seen in Minnesota since Kevin Garnett. Dwight Howard has been a top five MVP candidate for the last five years. He finally overtook LeBron for the lead only to lose out to a surging Kevin Love. LeBron James and Chris Paul aren’t really surprises as both are previous Wins Produced MVPs (or Most Productive Player or MPP). Dwayne Wade helps give the Heat not one but two MVP candidates. Will it help them in the playoffs?

Sixth Man of the Year : The player that has generated the most wins for their team while starting 60% of their games or fewer.

Player	Team	G	GS	MP	WP48	WP
Kris Humphries	NJN	74	44	2060	0.329	14.1
Lamar Odom	LAL	80	34	2557	0.248	13.2
Marcin Gortat	ORL-PHO	78	12	1960	0.225	9.2
Greg Monroe	DET	78	46	2163	0.183	8.3
Serge Ibaka	OKC	80	42	2160	0.182	8.2

I had thought this award was all but locked up for Lamar Odom, but Kris Humphries made a strong push and pulled it out for the year. Lamar Odom is no surprise on this list and hopefully this is his year to really get the award. Marcin Gortat shows up as well, but that makes me question Phoenix’s judgment on starting centers. Greg Munroe is a bright spot on an otherwise dismal Detroit team. Finally Ibaka has been killing it for Oklahoma, but he may finally be getting his due as a starter.

Rookie of the Year: The rookie that has generated the most wins for their team.

Player	Team	Pos	G	GS	MP	WP48	WP
Blake Griffin	LAC	4.5	82	82	3111	0.236	15.3
Landry Fields	NYK	2.2	82	81	2541	0.255	13.5
Greg Monroe	DET	4.8	80	48	2221	0.188	8.7
John Wall	WAS	1.0	69	64	2606	0.105	5.7
Ed Davis	TOR	4.8	65	17	1601	0.166	5.5

Blake Griffin ends the year as Rookie of the Year, which is not a surprise. Landry Fields gave him a good run for his money though, which was definitely a surprise. Detroit and Toronto have good young big men in Monroe and Davis, and the hope is that those franchises don’t mess it up. John Wall turned out to be a productive player for Washington. Still, the end of the season does show he wasn’t a “sure-fire #1 pick”

Most Improved Player: The Player that has increased their peak wins the most.

At the start of the season I had some definition based on playing within 750 minutes of their previous season’s minutes and improving. However, that is really more a definition for Comeback Player of the Year (a now defunct award). After talking with Devin Dignam, the definition I came up with for this award was the following: the MIP is a player that has played at least one season of 1000 minutes or more prior to this season that increased their peak Wins Produced the most.

Player	Team	MP	WP48	WP	WP Increase
Kevin Love	MIN	2610	0.458	24.9	13.9
Kris Humphries	NJN	2060	0.328	14.1	10.9
JaVale McGee	WAS	2192	0.182	8.3	7.5
Marcin Gortat	ORL-PHO	2034	0.226	9.6	6.0
Derrick Rose	CHI	3026	0.189	11.9	5.7

Look who shows up again? Kevin Love managed to up his peak performance by a stunning 14 wins! Almost as impressive is Kris Humphries in New Jersey with an 11 win increase. Two other beneficiaries of finally getting minutes are Javale McGee and Marcin Gortat. Derrick Rose has also seen a great increase in productivity, and unlike the other players on this list he was already getting the minutes.

Comeback Player of the Year : The Player that increase their win output the most from last season while playing within 750 minutes of their last season’s minutes.

I felt obligated to put this one in as it was my initial definition for “Most Improved”

Player	Team	MP	WP48	WP	WP Increase
Elton Brand	PHI	2809	0.137	8.0	8.7
Thaddeus Young	PHI	2134	0.121	5.4	6.3
Ramon Sessions	CLE	2132	0.168	7.5	5.8
Paul Pierce	BOS	2774	0.240	13.9	5.7
Derrick Rose	CHI	3026	0.189	11.9	5.7

Philadelphia definitely lucked out with Elton Brand and Thaddeus Young coming back strong. As mentioned, Derrick Rose did see a big boost from last season. The Celtics definitely needed the Truth to come back strong but it may not be enough. Finally, I suspect it’s of little consolation to Cleveland, but hey Ramon Sessions is playing better.

Stat Smack Down

If you recall at the start of the season many of the Wages of Wins analysts made predictions about a few things. One of these was which players would win various awards.

Analyst	Most Valuable	Rookie	Most Improved	Sixth Man
NBeh?	LeBron James	Blake Griffin	Kevin Love	Lamar Odom
Sport Skeptic	LeBron James	Blake Griffin	Kevin Love	Lamar Odom
Nerd Numbers	Dwight Howard	Blake Griffin	Chris Kaman	Lamar Odom
Arturo’s S.L.S	LeBron James	Blake Griffin	Trevor Ariza	Lamar Odom
RoBlog	LeBron James	Blake Griffin	Javale McGee	James Harden
The Miami Heat Index	LeBron James	Blake Griffin	Andris Biedrins	Manu Ginobli
The City	Kevin Durant	Blake Griffin	Monta Ellis	Samuel Dalembert
Peter (commenter)	LeBron James	DeMarcus Cousins	Dujain Blair	Lamar Odom
Hickory High	LeBron James	DeMarcus Cousins	James Harden	Manu Ginobli
Consensus	LeBron James	Blake Griffin	Kevin Love	Lamar Odom

No one predicted Kevin Love would be the MVP this season. No one predicted Kris Humphries would be the 6^th man of the year. With that said, the preseason predictions for individual player performance were quite impressive. Going by the initial set of rules for “Most Improved” I win the challenge! However, I do think picking Kevin Love on Alex and Devin’s part was a great stroke and I have no problem declaring them Super Expert Extraordinaires! Here’s hoping we can do as well next season.

-Dre

24 Responses to "The Regular Season Awards: WoW Network Style"

WoW Awards » Stathead » Blog Archive says:

April 15, 2011 at 4:08 pm

[...] Berri of The Wages of Wins Journal hands out his 2011 NBA awards. Link Posted on Friday, April 15th, 2011 at 6:08 pm, Category: Basketball, Tags: awards, mvp, nba, [...]
An NBA Preview Worth the Price of Admission* | The Sports Geeks says:

April 16, 2011 at 10:13 am

[...] series over the fallen star Johnson. I myself won’t go so far as declaring Howard the MVP (or Kevin Love), but his defensive prowess and rebounding domination are great arguments that lots of people will [...]
Nate says:

April 16, 2011 at 2:42 pm

So without Love, the Wolves would have won -8 games. That is impressive for Love, the Wolves and Wins Produced.

With Love instead of Mayo (and fit into all the non-Randolph / Gasol minutes and a few from Gasol) the Griz would have been clearly the best team in the league and would have challenged for the greatest or second or third greatest team of all-time.

Thanks ‘context-free, wiser than all other metrics Wins Produced’ for clearing those things up.
drryanpepper says:

April 16, 2011 at 9:22 pm

Unclear…Nate are you suggesting that if Kevin Love was unavailable this year the T-wolves would have just gone 4-on-5? If so, then I think negative 8 wins could have actually been in play somehow.

This measures what DID happen not what would have. Similarly, If Love were on Memphis they would not have been allowed to play 6-on-5. They would have had to forego the wins contributed by another player. And changing out Zach Randolph’s wins for Kevin Love’s does not figure to make them a 73-win team according to Wins Produced or my estimation.

It’s called OPPORTUNITY COST, look it up…it’s real.
Nate says:

April 16, 2011 at 10:36 pm

“Nate are you suggesting that if Kevin Love was unavailable this year the T-wolves would have just gone 4-on-5?”

Of course not.

-8 was from actual wins – Love’s Wins Produced . Which one might think would equal Win Produced for every other player and throw in a neutral player if you want to replace Love. Presumably that it supposed to equal what the Timberwolves would have been without Love’s 25 WP wins. At least according to Wins Produced.

“This measures what DID happen not what would have.”

Actually this “measures” what Wins Produced said happened and often here players are added or subtracted and it is stated that they will have the effect in the future as before and presumably their absence will have the same sized negative effect (if no one new or different from neutral is introduced as I assumed).

“If Love were on Memphis they would not have been allowed to play 6-on-5.”

Again a straw man false argument as I specifically stated that Love would almost completely fit into the non-Randolph / Gasol minutes and would only require a minor adjustment for fair accounting. Look it up.

Adding Love to the Griz with only a few minutes of value subtracted from Gasol and Mayo subtracted would put the Griz in the very high 60s: 46 actual wins +25 added – 2 for Mayo and a fraction of a point off Gasol= 68.5 wins according to Wins Produced or nearly tied for 2nd best all-time. I said near the best or 2nd or 3rd best. Sorry (slightly) for my slight exaggeration.

Subtracting off Randolph would be a completely different scenario than what I specified and thus none of your objections stand up, except maybe that Wins Produce can’t predict the future in the manner used here many many times similar to what I did.
Nate says:

April 16, 2011 at 11:02 pm

Wins Produced probably does reasonably well on average at predicting the range of what will happen in the future for players and teams, like some other metrics; but it is subject to error and noise, like other metrics too. In this case of subtracting an extreme rebounder, actual wins minus that player produces an impossibly low answer. So the simple explanation would seem to be that Love’s win impact is overstated, largely due to the high weight for defensive rebounds, the main thing he is exceptional on.
Nate says:

April 17, 2011 at 12:01 am

Turns out in my focus on the parts I was most interested in, I did fail to include the opportunity cost of the bench Griz Love would mainly replace (save for a small sliver of Gasol time which I did account for). Looking at Arthur, Hadaddi and Thabeet they produced about 2 wins combined. So replace them with Love would according to Wins Produced would produce 2 less wins than I stated. My apologies and thanks for pointing that accounting lapse. Instead of being near the best or 2nd or 3rd best, they would have only been in a near tie for 6th – 9th best of all-time. Sorry for this overstatement.
Nate says:

April 17, 2011 at 1:03 am

But then remembering a little more, the Love-Mayo trade was really much bigger than 1 for 1. It also involved trading away Brian Cardinal, Jason Collins and Mike Miller to the Minnesota Timberwolves and taking on Greg Buckner, Marko Jaric and Antoine Walker who were probably worse or much worse than those other guys given away besides Love. I don’t know the exact net win change estimated by Wins Produced for that part of the transaction, especially several years later, but perhaps without that trade they really would have been, according to this simplistic analysis using Wins Produced, estimated even closer to the greatest team of all-time (or perhaps above it).
Statophile Volume 19 | Regular Season Review | Raptors Republic | ESPN TrueHoop's Toronto Raptors Blog says:

April 17, 2011 at 10:35 am

[...] at Basketball Prospectus (where he’s ranked 5th, just behind John Wall) or the Wages of Wins blog (also ranked 5th, again just behind Wall).The [...]
Mike says:

April 17, 2011 at 2:17 pm

How did Kevin Love produce 25 wins if Minnesota won only 17 games?
drryanpepper says:

April 17, 2011 at 3:27 pm

So it sounds like we agree on the following:

*Wages of Wins seems to claim that Kevin Love (coming off the bench to back up Randolph and Gasol) would make Memphis better (a LOT better)
-I think this is pretty easy to stomach for anyone who has watched Love or the Grizz. Playing different combinations of those 3 players for an entire game would be an unbelievable situation.

* Opportunity cost is a really big factor in sports.
Taking Love out of Minnesota’s lineup and inserting an average guy does not give them -8 wins, but zero. Sounds extreme but so is Johnny Flynn having a turnover % of over 26! So does Flynn and Corey Brewer BOTH shooting under 42% ADJUSTED and each playing a ton of minutes. Again, sounds ridiculous but I don’t find it to by any means cast major doubt on wages of wins.

This exact complaint was leveled against Kevin Garnett when he was the lone producer for Minnesota. Seemed to me like he took a lot of those wins with him when he left town. His “overvalued” rebounds didn’t just get replaced by Ryan Gomes.
Statophile Volume 19 | Regular Season Review – Toronto Update says:

April 17, 2011 at 3:40 pm

[...] at Basketball Prospectus (where he’s ranked 5th, just behind John Wall) or the Wages of Wins blog (also ranked 5th, again just behind [...]
Mike says:

April 17, 2011 at 7:53 pm

Kevin Love is no Kevin Garnett. Garnett is one of the greatest defenders of all time. Love is not a good individual defender, and he doesn’t handle nearly the same offensive load that Garnett did

And can someone please explain how it makes sense that Love created almost 150% of Minnesota’s wins?
Schermeister says:

April 17, 2011 at 8:25 pm

Have you guys seen the players he has on his team, If they went to any other team and took over any amount of minutes they would cause those teams to lose more games. Its obvious really. If love had average players around him or even just below average players they would win more games. Where u shoot 42% adj u lose your team games duh!
drryanpepper says:

April 17, 2011 at 9:40 pm

@Mike
http://www.stumblingonwins.com/CalculatingWinsProduced.html
Mike says:

April 18, 2011 at 7:42 am

@drryanpepper
Thanks for the link, but I’m already familiar with how WP48 is calculated.

My problem with the numbers above is that they do not seem connected to reality. It can not be possible that Love was responsible for 25 of his team’s 17 wins.

Hypothetically, if Andrea Bargnani had been traded straight up for Kevin Love before the season and Bargnani had played all of Kevin Love’s minutes, how many games does WP48 say they would have won?
Revisiting Darko Milicic vs. Shaquille O’Neal | The Wages of Wins Journal says:

April 18, 2011 at 8:18 am

[...] One last note… having Kevin Love as a teammate didn’t help Milicic. Love led the league in Wins Produced this season. And the existence of diminishing returns indicates that having Love as a teammate diminishes a [...]
DKH says:

April 18, 2011 at 9:37 am

I can’t believe this is that astounding. The Wolves without Kevin Love would be very bad, most likely. In the 9 games at the end of the season in which Love didn’t play (low sample size, not SOS-adjusted, yadda yadda), the Wolves were 0-9 with an average point differential of -11, 4.4 points worse than their current margin and 2.0 points worse than the Cavs, even. That’s not a very rigorous analysis, but I think it’s pretty clear the Wolves would have been terrible without Kevin Love. Obviously not negative wins, but if they got five wins, maybe we’d all be talking about how they “outperformed”.
nerdnumbers says:

April 18, 2011 at 10:19 am

Mike,
I disagree with this statement “I’m already familiar with how WP48 is calculated” when you follow it with “My problem with the numbers above is that they do not seem connected to reality.”

The Wins Produced metric used Point Differential to estimate wins. 33 net points earns a team a win. When we start getting into the crazy land of “negative teams” not matching with reality that is simply not true. A team could be completely negative if they were blown out by more than 33 net points on a nightly basis.

In terms of negative players not making sense, it translates rather well. A player that every night is essentially costing you points is a negative player. Look at Kevin Love’s numbers and look at some of his team mates. While Kevin Love is putting points and possessions in his team’s bank a lot of players are working even faster to pull them out. How does that not match reality?
Mike says:

April 18, 2011 at 11:13 am

Are you saying that without Kevin Love Minnesota would be blown out by 33 points on a nightly basis?
Schermeister says:

April 18, 2011 at 11:18 am

For every rebound K. Love gets u an average team should be able to turn it into around 1 point??? His teamates manage to turn it into turnovers and missed shots more often then not. Its simple really…

Nerd numbers explanation is great

And it matches the game film too. Just watch the timbers, its a train wreck cept for love. And it isnt cause he is “stealing” rebounds. These guys cant do anything.
Mike says:

April 19, 2011 at 8:28 am

Love missed 9 games this year. In those 9 games, Minnesota scored 102.5 points per 100 possesions and gave up 113.7. That efficiency differential of -11.2 is consistent with a team that would win about 12 games in an 82-game season. That is awful but not anywhere near being outscored by 33 points on a nightly basis.
Mike says:

April 19, 2011 at 2:50 pm

Whoops, I meant win about 15 games in an 82-game season.
Podcast – Finals with Devin and Dre « Arturo's Silly Little Stats says:

June 14, 2011 at 11:54 pm

[...] Ian got busy and stopped updating his picks. Dre was content to rest on his laurels in terms of predicting player awards. [...]