The following post — which we hope is a regular feature during the playoffs — is from Andres Alvarez:

This year — thanks to an increase in staff — the Wages of Wins Network is able to offer series wrap-ups as each playoff round finishes. Inspired by Arturo’s 30-16-1 pieces from last year, we’ll take a look at the winner and losers in the playoffs and figure out who will be champ.

The Bulls finished off the Indiana Pacers in five games. This was a surprise to virtually no one. In the Wages of Wins Smackdown, not a single analyst picked against the Bulls and only Ian Levy (a Pacers fans) had the series lasting longer than four games. With the league’s best record, the front-runner for MVP, and the only opponent with a losing record this series played out exactly as it was supposed to. Or did it?

A Close Series?

The best line I’ve heard about this series was “Is it possible to have a close sweep?” Despite losing their first three games — and getting finished in five — the Pacers made this series seem tight. Of course sometimes our perceptions don’t match reality. What did the Pacers vs. the Bulls look like game by game?

Table 1: Game by Game Breakdown of Indiana vs. Chicago

Up until game five when they were blown out,  the Pacers kept this series “neck and neck”. After game 4 the Wins Produced difference stood at 2.34 to 1.63. Not too shabby. Of course in the end the Bulls showed they were the better team and a possible feel good story ended.

The Players

Table 2: Chicago Bulls Numbers

Despite the close series,  the Bulls actually improved their WP48 relative to the regular season. It wasn’t the clutch play of Derrick Rose though. Noah, arguably the team’s best player, was able to play close to his regular season levels (but played more minutes relative to his regular season numbers). This helped the Bulls look even better. Keeping with their regular season strategy of playing good players (and yes, every team doesn’t do this), the Bulls managed to employ a roster of some very good players, with only C.J. Watson, Taj Gibson and a surprising Carlos Boozer playing significantly below average.

Table 3: Indiana Pacers Numbers

Despite some close games, the eventual game 5 blowout had the Pacers finish off playing worse than their regular season numbers. Danny Granger was a bright spot, finally playing up to the star expectations of his contract. Unfortunately Mike Dunleavy, Jeff Foster and Josh McRoberts weren’t able to keep up their regular season play.

Towards the Championship

Arturo’s Half Baked Notion is that in the playoffs a team’s top six players in terms of minutes played decide their fate. The Bulls are looking strong after round one, but a key question remains: Where is Carlos Boozer? Despite playing the fourth most minutes on the team, his performance ranks him below Rasual Butler, who has only played four minutes! Noah, Deng, Rose, Korver and Bogans are looking very strong, but against tougher teams like Boston and Miami the Bulls will need Boozer to show up.

Another question to ask is if this team is for real? The Bulls minus Boozer put up very respectable numbers and do look to be for real. Of course, against a stronger opponent that may not be the case. I still predict them to take down Atlanta or Orlando in round two.  As for Boston or Miami… well, let’s wait on that one.

Gone Fishing

Any Pacers fans should be proud of the performance put on in the first four games of the post season. There’s a little room for optimism with Danny Granger playing well (although four games is not much of a sample in our evaluation of Granger). That being said, this team is far removed from being a threat. With Jeff Foster and Mike Dunleavy getting older, this team needs some new blood to make it a contender. The plus side is that this team is in the East where a losing record can still mean a playoff berth. However, with such teams as Miami and Chicago looking to stay strong, just making the playoffs for the Pacers may simply mean more first round exits.

-Dre

Chris Broussard and Ric Bucher debated the following question at ESPN.com: Who will make a Bigger jump in 2012: Nets or Clippers? (insider access required).

The debate begins with the following comment from Chris Broussard:

Every season there’s a surprise team in the NBA, one that comes “out of nowhere” to either reach the postseason or challenge for a playoff spot. Last season, the Milwaukee Bucks and Memphis Grizzlies were among the teams that did it. This season the list included the New Orleans Hornets and Philadelphia 76ers. Who’s going to do it next year?

When I read this statement I immediately thought, “The Hornets were a surprise team this year? Really?”

Okay, the Hornets are surprising in the playoffs.  The playoffs, though, are a small sample and upsets can happen.   And by upset, I mean a better team can be beaten by a team that is not as good.   When that happens – and it could happen in the series between the Lakers and Hornets – it is surprising.

But Broussard wasn’t talking performance in the playoffs.  He was talking about the Hornets regular season.

Broussard’s comment reminded me of an Ian Thomsen story that appeared in Sports Illustrated last November.  Thomsen argued last fall that the Hornets have improved dramatically because of all the changes made to the team’s roster and their front office.  At the time, though, I thought something else was going on.

To see this something else (assuming you are too lazy to click on the above link), let’s look at the Hornets in 2009-10.

The Hornets won 37 games in 2009-10 and missed the playoffs.  The team’s efficiency differential (from which Wins Produced is derived) suggests this team should have won about 34 wins.   So this was not a “good” team last season.

When we look at the individual players, we see the following:

• Paul, Okafor, and West in 2009-10 produced 24.9 wins
• Everyone Else produced 9.5 wins

Again, this is not a good team.  And not surprisingly, decision-makers in New Orleans decided to make a few changes.  Actually, few is an understatement.  Of the players listed above, only Paul, Okafor, West, and Gray finished the 2010-11 season with the Hornets.  That means, that the Hornets changed virtually everyone else that comprised “Everyone Else” for the 2010-11 season.

Despite all these changes, though, the results for “Everyone Else” – as the following table indicates — didn’t really change.

The above numbers can be summarized as follows:

• Paul, Okafor, and West in 2010-11 produced 35.9 wins
• Everyone Else in 2010-11 produced 7.8 wins

Had Gray maintained his performance, Everyone Else would have produced 9.2 wins.  In other words, the Hornets made extensive changes to their roster.  But all the new players were essentially the same as the old players. And when we look at the past performance of these players, this is not surprising.  Everyone Else’s performance in 2009-10 suggests these players would have produced about 13.2 wins in 2010-11.  Except for Jarrett Jack, every veteran player the Hornets added was below average in 2009-10.  And since Jack slipped this year, every single veteran the Hornets added was below average in 2010-11.  So all the changes the Hornets made to their roster simply consisted of swapping a collection of mostly below average players for another collection of mostly below average players.  The result of this swap was not exactly surprising.

So how did the Hornets become a “surprise” team?  The key is the health of Chris Paul.  In 2009-10 he 1,712 minutes and produced 11.5 wins.  This past season he played 2,865 minutes and produced 20.8 wins.  Those nine additional wins represent most of the improvement we see in the New Orleans Hornets.

Now maybe we are surprised that Paul’s health improved.  One suspects, though, that Broussard was not talking about how surprising it is that Paul was able to play more than 2,800 minutes this year.

That being said, there is something that seems somewhat surprising in New Orleans (and again, I am not talking about the playoffs).  As noted, the Hornets made substantial changes to their roster.  Twelve players who played in 2009-10 did not finish the 2010-11 season in New Orleans.  And thirteen players who played in 2010-11 were not with the team in 2009-10. With all this movement, one would think that the Hornets would find someone to add significantly to the production the team was getting from Paul, West, and Okafor.   But it didn’t happen.

All of this suggests that the decision-makers in New Orleans are just guessing.  They know that Chris Paul is an amazing talent.  They know that West and Okafor help more (although I am not sure they know that Okafor offers more than West).  Beyond that, though, they don’t know how to find additional role players who can help.

This is essentially the same scenario that played out (or is playing out) in

• Minnesota with Kevin Garnett (and perhaps again with Kevin Love)
• Orlando with Dwight Howard

Teams acquire a player – like Paul, Garnett, or Howard (are there other examples?) – who produce wins in large quantities.  All the team has to do to build a team that can contend for a title is find role players who can also produce wins. But instead of identifying those players, decision-makers acquire relatively unproductive role players.  Eventually the star player gets frustrated and then leaves. The team then has to try to build a contender without the star.

Of course, if you can’t build a contender with a player like Chris Paul (or Garnett, or Howard), what are the odds you can do this without one of these stars?

Let me close with one ray of sunshine for fans of the Hornets.  People have trouble understanding that upsets happen in the playoffs.  When upsets do happen, they tend to think that the lesser team that won is really much better than we thought.  So maybe the Hornets can pull off an upset of the Lakers.  If that happens, Paul might think his team is really better than he thought.  And then maybe he will stay when his contract expires.  This isn’t much hope to cling to (I still think the Lakers will win).  But the other hope is that the decision-makers in New Orleans can re-shape the roster again and find productive role players.

- DJ

P.S. Quick note on the above numbers.  There are slight differences in the 2009-10 numbers for players in each table.  That is because I am using the position averages in 2009-10 in the first table and the position averages for this past season in the second table.  And in writing this post, I discovered I made a small error (actually Excel made the error).  So I will need to re-post my hand-crafted numbers.  Hope to get to this sometime this week (the differences are quite small, so it is not a very big deal).

The following is from Mosi Platt of the Miami Heat Index. 

Bloggers from the Wages of Wins Network got together for their regular weekend podcast to discuss the NBA playoffs, Derrick Rose, the Dead Basketball Poets Society, Best (and Worst) Defensive Players of the Year, Sixth Man of the Year as well as the Most (and Least) Improved Players of the Year.

Listeners can enjoy the podcast one of three ways:

• Download it from nerdnumbers.com, 
• Subscribe to the RSS feed or 
• Check it out at iTunes.

The Cast

• Mosi Platt from the Miami Heat Index
• Andres Alvarez from NerdNumbers.com

The Synopsis

• Platt and Alvarez covered a lot of different topics in this free-flowing discussion. Here’s a rundown of the conversation:
• Alvarez starts the podcast off by comparing the Heat to a killer in a slasher movie and Chris Bosh to J.R. Smith. Yes, it sounds weird.
• A lot of fans complain that stat-heads just focus on the numbers and don’t watch the games. In Alvarez’s case, blame it on the recession or The Matrix. Plus, the pros and cons of NBA League Pass were also discussed.
• The WoW Network bloggers briefly discuss the Blazers-Mavericks series. On Wednesday’s PTI Show, Tony Kornheiser compared Brandon Roy to Penny Hardaway. Both bloggers agreed that it was a good comparison, but the numbers say Penny was more productive than Roy (see the figure below). In addition to being more productive, Penny got to play with a 22 year-old Shaquille O’Neal in the 1995 NBA Finals (even though Shaq dissed him later) and make commercials with Chris Rock before succumbing to knee injuries. Roy, on the other hand, has rarely gotten the chance to play with a 22 year-old Greg Oden and has never advanced past the first round.
• After Blazers-Mavs, the conversation turned to the Bulls-Pacers series, Derrick Rose and the Dead Basketball Poets Society’s myth-making about his exploits. What is the Dead Basketball Poets Society? It’s a group of sportswriters that use lazy cliches to describe what they can’t understand on the court. For example, if the Bulls win despite Derrick Rose shooting 4-18, then they won because of Rose’s “toughness”, “leadership” or “confidence.” In fact, that’s what Charles Barkley and Kenny Smith said on “Inside the NBA.”
• Platt and Alvarez both agreed that Adrian Wojnarowski is a hater, but they had different reasons. This was Platt’s reason and this was Alvarez’s reason.

The podcast ended with a discussion of the Wages of Wins Network Awards, the Anti-Awards and the three Kia Performance Awards the NBA released this week:

• Defensive Player of the Year - Dwight Howard. Platt and Alvarez discussed who should win the Worst Defensive Player of the Year award.
• Sixth Man of the Year - Lamar Odom. Platt said that Marcin Gortat should have gotten more consideration than a ninth-place finish.
• Most Improved Player - Kevin Love. Alvarez suggested Andrea Bargnani should win the Least Improved Player award. Platt’s spreadsheet froze during the podcast, but afterwards he determined that Troy Murphy would be a good nomination, too, with a Win Score that declined by 8.7 points this season.

- Mosi Platt

The following post is from Andres Alvarez.  And since Dre gave us Automated Wins Produced, it is these numbers he uses to tell the story of Kevin Love and the Minnesota Timberwolves.

For over half the league the season is still going on. For a select few the season is over. For an even more select few the season never really began. The Minnesota Timberwolves season can be summed up as terrible. To put a positive spin on this I can say they “exceeded” my expectations. Before the season started I recall nodding my head to an article by Ty over at Courtside Analyst about how this season had to be better for the Wolves than last because it couldn’t possible get any worse. I also recall knowing Kevin Love was a very good player and somehow he blew my expectations away. Let’s take a look back at the Wolves.

Kevin Love was good but his team was terrible.

Maybe you’ve had some time to play around with the new Gadget Arturo Galletti came up with. I used it to make a pretty nice picture of how the roster of the Wolves looked this season.

2011 Minnesota Timberwolves Wins Produced vs. WP48

That’s a player’s Wins Produced vs. their Wins Produced per 48 minutes. If a player is in the top right it means they’re at least as productive as an average starter that played 2000 minutes. We notice Kevin Love is amazing by this standard, Ridnour was about spot on average and the rest of the team was terrible. Here’s the same data in table format

Table 1: 2011 Minnesota Timberwolves Wins Produced

They were Unclutch or Unlucky

Wins Produced is built on point differential (more specifically, efficiency differential). Essentially when we look at how much they were outscored by night in and night out we’d expect them to be a 23 win team. Yet somehow they only won 17 games. A fun stat to look at is how did the Wolves do in close games?

Table 2: 2011 Minnesota Timberwolves record in close games

The Wolves managed to have an abysmal 4-16 record in games decided by 5 points or fewer (or OT). It’s not as if winning a few of those close games would have changed the Wolves season, and in fact it may be the opposite of what a lottery bound team wants. Still I hope it makes a few Wolves fans happy to know their team wasn’t that bad.

Employing — and then playing — the wrong players

When Love went down a funny thing happened. The team didn’t play amazingly worse. We can point out after Love’s injury on the 20^th of March, the team did not win a game for the rest of the season. This actually helps illustrate two great problems with the Wolves

Table 3: 2011 Minnesota Timberwolves record with Kevin Love

Table 4: 2011 Minnesota Timberwolves record with out Kevin Love

Much of the time Love was out, so was Darko. With their best and worst players off the floor, Rambis had to play Tolliver and Randolph more minutes. These two players managed to play average in their increased time. Even with that in mind, the Wolves played less than half as well without Love than with him. With David Kahn — the team’s general manager — emphasizing players like Johnny Flynn, Michael Beasley and Darko as the future of the team, it is unlikely Love will get the support he needs.   In other words, just like we saw with Kevin Garnett, it looks like we once again see a dominant player fail to win because his supporting cast is so poor (in other words, just like the Tragedy of Kevin Garnett we now have the Tragedy of Kevin Love).

David Kahn is also not the only problem.  We can see that Rambis insisted on playing many of the poor player he was given, and left more productive players on the bench.

Rambis may be gone, and we can hope that maybe a new coach will play the right players and make the Wolves semi-respectable. If I was a Wolves fans, though, I would probably not be optimistic.   After all, Kahn would have to choose the next coach (and he hasn’t done so well in the past when he had to make a choice).

-Dre

Last November I posted the “handcrafted” Wins Produced numbers for 2009-10.  As I noted last fall…

….these numbers are slightly different from the numbers Andres Alvarez posts throughout the season.  The numbers from Andres are referred to as “automated Wins Produced”.  This is partially because the position adjustment Andres employs is derived from an algorithm that considers such factors as the position designations listed on-line, a player’s height and weight, and the height, weight, and position designations of his teammates.  In general, this algorithm is good enough to tell us if a player was a center, power forward, small forward, shooting guard, or point guard.  But sometimes it might place a player at a position “incorrectly.”

The approach I have taken could be called “hands-crafted” Wins Produced.  Essentially, I go through each roster, and assign positions by considering height, weight, position designations (i.e. same factors as Andres) and also my understanding of what position the player is probably playing.  This process is fairly tedious (hence the inability to provide updated numbers throughout a season).  In general, Andres and I reach the same conclusion for most players (so the automated approach – since it is easier – is preferred). Sometimes, though, there are differences.

It is also possible that a person looking at the lists Andres and I offer would disagree.  If that is the case, I have presented the ADJ P48 numbers (you can look here for what the means) and the position averages.  This will allow one to calculate their own WP48 numbers for each player.

Now that the 2010-11 regular season is complete, I can now post the “handcrafted” numbers for this past season (yes, I can do this almost seven months earlier than last year).

The following two websites report these numbers.  The first takes you to a ranking of all 453 players, starting with Kevin Love and ending with Andrea Bargnani (more on Bargnani below):

Table One: Ranking All Players by Wins Produced in 2010-11

And this table allows you to look at each team. 

Table Two: Ranking All Players on Each Team by Wins Produced in 2010-11

As noted, you may not like how positions were assigned.  So if you wish to see what a player would look like at a different position, here are the ADJ P48 position averages for 2010-11.

• Center: 0.425
• Power Forward: 0.377
• Small Forward: 0.272
• Shooting Guard: 0.229
• Point Guard: 0.272

To illustrate how these averages can be used, consider a question I was asked by Kevin Clark of the Wall Street Journal yesterday.  Kevin noted — in It’s Carmelo Anthony, Plus the Not-So-Fantastic Four —  that the Knicks closed out its last playoff game with the following five players on the court:

• Center: Jared Jeffries [ADJ P48: 0.241]
• Power Forward: Carmelo Anthony [ADJ P48: 0.364]
• Small Forward: Bill Walker [ADJ P48: 0.244]
• Shooting Guard: Roger Mason [ADJ P48: 0.170]
• Point Guard: Toney Douglas [ADJ P48: 0.271]

Kevin asked the following question:  Imagine these five players played all the minutes for the Knicks in a regular season (and the added time didn’t impact per-minute performance). How many games would these five be expected to win?

Here was my answer (from Kevin’s artice):

Basketball analyst David Berri, an associate professor of economics at Southern Utah University, said the Knicks’ lineup in crunch time Tuesday night was far from impressive. According to his projections, that lineup would have produced just 17 wins over an 82-game regular season.

Yes, that isn’t a great collection of talent on the court for the Knicks. 

One last note on these numbers.  Brendan Nyhan pointed me to the following story (from Eric Freeman at Yahoo! Sports) on Andrea Bargnani yesterday. 

Raptors GM thinks Bargnani can become a good rebounder

The article notes that Bryan Colangelo – the Raptors General Manager and person responsible for bringing Bargnani to Toronto – still thinks Bargnani can get better on the boards (yes, hope can spring eternal).  But as Freeman notes, that seems unlikely at this point. 

Freeman also notes that Bargnani plays like a 7-foot small forward.  Let me close by noting that even if Bargnani were a small forward, with an ADJ P48 mark of 0.191, Bargnani would still be below average (but not the least productive player in the game).

- DJ