The following comes from our resident WOW Heat blogger Mosi Platt of the Miami Heat Index. A fun fact about the Wages of Wins network is that we disagree about a lot of things (just follow Mosi and myself on twitter or go here if you don’t believe me).

Those disagreements make for very fun e-mails and posts. Our hope is to start capturing some of those here for the readers.

Here then is Mosi’s spirited defense of the Allen Iverson Pick (from 1996).

The 2011 NBA Draft is Thursday and the typical articles on draft busts have been popping up on the blog circuit. An article at Hoopism was very good but an article at the new Wages of Wins Network blog, Shut Up and Jam, could use some work.

Allen Iverson has been a popular target for criticism on the Wages of Wins Network because the statistical models published in the Wages of Wins illustrated that he didn’t have the winning impact the media claimed. There’s no denying that Iverson’s poor shooting percentage and turnovers created as many problems as his scoring and steals created highlights, but James Brocato made a mistake when he used Wins Produced to label Iverson a mistake as the first pick in the 1996 draft.

Yes, it’s a little silly to defend an 11-time All-Star and future hall-of-famer labeled a “bust” by a blogger, but it just takes a little context and the same statistical models to illustrate why Iverson was the right choice for the Philadelphia 76ers in the summer of 1996.

This article will use Win Score, a statistical model created by Professor David Berri from the Wages of Wins Journal, to measure how much a player’s box score statistics contributed to their team’s efficiency differential and wins. More information on these stats can be found at the following links:

Simple Models of Player Performance
Introducing PAWSmin — and a Defense of Box Score Statistics

The Philadelphia 76ers in 1996

The Philadelphia 76ers had the second-worst record in the NBA in 1996 at 18-64 (the Vancouver Grizzlies were worse at 15-67).  Obviously the 76ers were bad and needed a lot of talent, but where did they need it the most? This spreadsheet lists the Win Score per 48 minutes (WS48) for the 76ers guards, forwards and centers in 1996.

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The average WS48 for an NBA guard from 1994 to 2005 was 6.2. The average WS48 for a 76ers guard in 1996 was 3.7. That’s 40 percent less than average. Jerry Stackhouse (3.8 WS48), Vernon Maxwell (3.7 WS48) and Trevor Ruffin (4.2 WS48) played 85 percent of the minutes in the 76ers backcourt and they were terrible. Stackhouse was a rookie and Ruffin was in his second season, so they could improve, but Maxwell was 31 and declining.

The average WS48 for an NBA forward from 1994 to 2005 was 8.8. The average WS48 for a 76ers forward in 1996 was 10.0. Clarence Weatherspoon was an above average forward with a 12.2 WS48 that played 78 percent of the available minutes. The 76ers expected to be set in the frontcourt the next season with Derrick Coleman returning from injury. Coleman produced an average of 13.9 WS48 from 1991 to 1995 so the 76ers would have two above average forwards if he stayed healthy (see this spreadsheet for stats from Coleman’s first five seasons).

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The average WS48 for an NBA center from 1994 to 2005 was 10.8. The average WS48 for a 76ers center in 1996 was 9.0. That’s 17 percent less than average, but the “true” centers on the roster only played 32 percent of the available minutes. Coach John Lucas used power forwards like Sharone Wright (9.2 WS48), Tony Massenburg (9.1 WS48) and Ed Pinckney (13.8 WS48) at center for 66 percent of the available minutes.

As illustrated by the numbers above, the glaring weakness in the 76ers’ lineup was the backcourt. Since Stackhouse was the team’s star rookie at shooting guard (and young enough to improve), the focus was going to be improving the point guard position since an aging Vernon Maxwell was not going to be the solution.

The Best College Point Guard in 1996

Who was the best point guard in the 1996 draft? This spreadsheet lists the position-adjusted Win Score per 40 minutes (PAWS40) for the first and second-team All-Americans in 1996.

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Allen Iverson was the 4th-most productive All-American entering the NBA draft in 1996 (Tim Duncan did not enter the draft until 1997). He was the most productive point guard with a 12.5 PAWS40. At 6’1”, Tony Delk was going to have to play point guard in the NBA and he was more productive than Iverson in college with a 13.4 PAWS40, but he played shooting guard for the national champion Kentucky Wildcats and only averaged 2.7 assists per 40 minutes. Not exactly the solution for a team looking for a point guard to pair with Stackhouse. Iverson, on the other hand, averaged 5.7 assists per 40 minutes.

There were only two All-American point guards in 1996: Iverson (12.5 PAWS40) and Jacque Vaughn (8.6 PAWS40). It was an easy decision for the 76ers to make.

For those that would suggest the 76ers should have gone with size and chosen Player of the Year Marcus Cambyto improve their below average production at center, there are two counter-arguments:

• First, the production at point guard was much worse than the production at center; and
• Second, Camby was less productive than Iverson in college with a 9.4 PAWS40.

By the numbers, Iverson was indeed The Answer for the 76ers in the 1996 draft.

Go to Bleacher Report and vote on who you think the 76ers should’ve taken with the No. 1 pick in 1996: Iverson, Camby or Nash.

If you are (or were?) a Pistons fan – and you think college performance means something – then last night did not fill you with hope.  The Pistons selected three players — Brandon Knight, Kyle Singler, and Vernon Macklin – who were described as “good kids”.

Unfortunately when each actually played college basketball in 2010-11, all three managed to post Win Score numbers that were below average for their position.  In fact, as noted below, each posted numbers that were far below average.  And although college numbers do not predict future NBA numbers perfectly, when a player doesn’t actually play basketball well in the past, we tend to wonder if he will play basketball much better in the future.  Yes, it could happen.  Brandon Knight could be a star.  But in general, his poor performance last year in college shouldn’t make fans of the Pistons happy.

And I am not the only one to think Knight may not be a sure-thing.  Peter Newmann and Dean Oliver – at ESPN TrueHoop – had the following to say about Knight about two weeks ago:

To help us, let’s use one of the key metrics for evaluating point-guard prospects: pure point rating (PPR), which calculates assists and turnovers into a single number projection of how a particular player will fare as a distributor in the NBA. The average PPR of all current NBA starters while they were in college is 1.2.

… Knight has a one-in-four chance of being good, but the numbers suggest that his chances of success ride heavily on his shooting ability, not his passing. Knight had a minus-1.4 PPR in college, which is extremely low for a point guard — lower, in fact, than any NBA starting point guard’s college PPR except for Stephen Curry, who did not play point guard until his third and final year at Davidson.

Knight’s youth and specific metrics on steals and rebounds also raise red flags. In short, studies show that point guards with his characteristics don’t live up to first-round expectations. Knight has about a one-in-three chance at failing — he is an NBA player, but he is a poor risk for a lottery team.

Other guys have succeeded with such a low PPR; for example, Gilbert Arenas and Jerryd Bayless are point guards who are better as shooters than distributors. But it takes more than 40 minutes for Knight to get a steal or block, far more than either of these guys. And while his shooting is probably good enough to keep him around, Knight’s defense could prove to be a problem, too.

Of course, Newmann and Oliver are relying on Knight’s college performance to predict his future NBA production.  And again, the correlation between college and the NBA is far from perfect.  So it is possible that Knight will prove Dumars is right.  But I think there might be another explanation for the choices Dumars made on Thursday night.

To see this other explanation, let me first note that yesterday (June 23) Kathleen Hays of Bloomberg Radio and I had another great conversation about a number of current stories in the world of sports (our discussion begins at the 11:38 mark and lasts for about 20 minutes).  Kathleen and I covered the following topics

-         the Dodgers meltdown

-         the NBA draft

-         the NBA labor dispute

-         the NFL labor dispute

With respect to the NBA draft I noted (as others have observed) that a number of college players – who likely would have been lottery picks — decided not to enter the NBA this year.  And that means next year’s draft might be much better.

If this is true, then I think I understand what Dumars is doing.  Rather than draft players who might actually help the Pistons in 2011-12, Dumars drafted players who would help the Pistons move up in the 2012 draft.  Yes, Dumars is this clever.  He actually drafted Knight, Singler, and Macklin in an effort to “trade-up” in next year’s draft.  WoW!! That is an amazing strategy.

Okay, I really don’t think Dumars was making choices in 2011 to improve Detroit’s draft position in 2012.  I think Dumars really believes Knight is going to help the Pistons.  The numbers, though, currently suggest a different story (and again, it is only a suggestion).

Enough on that story.  Let’s move on from the Pistons and briefly discuss the other teams who drafted players last night.

The following two tables present a rather simple perspective on each player (at least, the analysis is simple when compared to the recent analysis offered by Arturo Galletti, Ty Willihnganz, and others).  All I am noting is each player’s Win Score per 40 minute numbers (with and without a pace adjustment) and each player’s Position Adjusted Win Score per 40 minutes (the box score numbers used to make these calculations were taken from DraftExpress).  The PAWS40 number is calculated by

1. subtracting the average WS40 for players at each position who were recently (i.e. last few years) drafted out of college, and then

2.  adding back the overall WS40 for all players recently drafted out of college.

In looking at these numbers one should note that a PAWS40 of 10.2 is average.  Players who are one standard deviation above this average (12.9 or higher) have a good chance of being above average NBA players.  Players who are one standard deviation below this mark (7.3 or lower) have a good chance of being below average NBA players.

So based on these numbers, who should be happy today?  The Denver Nuggets managed to add two above average players — Kenneth Faried and Jordan Hamilton – to a 2011 playoff team.  Faried has the highest PAWS40 in the draft, primarily because he is an outstanding rebounder.  And as noted in Stumbling on Wins (and also noted by a number of other people), rebounding is a skill that does translate from college to the NBA (and I should note, Peter Newmann and Dean Oliver argued that Faried should have been a lottery pick).  So our very own Andres Alvarez – who wrote this week about all the problems Denver historically has drafting talent – is singing a different tune today.

Of the teams with multiple picks like Denver, the Houston Rockets, New Jersey Nets, and New York Knicks are the only other teams to spend all their picks on players with PAWS40 marks that are above average (although none of these picks were one standard deviation above average).

In contrast, the Boston Celtics, LA Lakers, Milwaukee Bucks, and Washington Wizards were like the Pistons.  Yes, these teams spent all their picks on players who were below average.  Of these teams, though, the Pistons were the only team to draft a player who was at least one standard deviation below average.  And the Pistons – if we look at the pace adjusted numbers – managed to do this all three times!  Again, WoW!  Dumars drafted three players who were really far below average (again, doesn’t that suggest he is trying to move up in the 2012 draft?).

Two more notes…

There is a 0.99 correlation between WS40 and Pace-Adjusted WS40.  So I am not sure the pace adjustment is necessary (but people seem to like to see this).  Pace adjustment does matter when you look at teams. But for individual players I have never found that this mattered much.

And back to my conversation with Kathleen Hays… in our conversation Kathleen asked me why NBA teams don’t appear to be learning.  In response I noted that I think there is evidence that NBA teams are actually changing how they evaluate talent. I will offer more on this subject in the future.

- DJ