Monthly Archives: August 2011

FIBA U19 WC: Team Summaries II

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Devin Dignam (of NBeh? “fame”) is the Toronto Raptors writer for the Wages of Wins Network. His background with the Raptors gives him unique insight into many areas including the draft, overpaid players and overrated players.

The FIBA U19 World Championships took place from June 30th to July 10th, but it has taken me until now to compile all 62 box scores and calculate the Estimated Wins Produced numbers. Over the next week or two, I’ll be writing several posts about this tournament that focus on familiar Wages of Wins themes.

Team Summaries (Part II)

Last time I started off with the three bottom ranked teams – Tunisia, Korea, and Taiwan. Today I’ll be following up with China, Egypt, and Canada.

13. China

Record: 2-3
EWP: 3.29
EWP40: 0.125

China's MVP: Ailun Guo

Despite placing 13th, China played like a good team. In five games China amassed 3.29 wins, 10th amongst all teams (and remember, that was done in only five games). If we rank all the teams by EWP40, China looks even better: by that measure, they rank 6th. Why the disparity between their rank, record, and stats? China was in a pool with two strong teams: the US and Serbia. They barely lost to Serbia (5 points) and were soundly beaten by the US (16 points). In order to advance, China had to beat Egypt…and unfortunately for them, they lost a close game (4 points). Following this, China beat Korea (18 points) and then in a battle of the Chinas blew out Taiwan (43 points). The relatively close losses to Serbia and Egypt, combined with the large wins over Korea and Taiwan, means that China was a better team than their record showed. Only three players on the team produced in the negative range: Xuhang Zhu, Pu Wang, and Hanchen Luo. Four players managed EWP40s above 0.200: Tonglin Sun, Ailun Guo, Quan Gu, and Zhelin Wang. The MVP of the team was Guo, who produced 0.77 wins. The LVP of the team was Zhu, who produced -0.23 wins. The best performance in a single game was by Guo, who produced an estimated 0.52 wins. The worst performance in a single game was by Zirui Wang, who produced an estimated -0.24 wins.

Player

Position

EWP40

EWP

H. LUO

G

-0.012

-0.02

ZI. WANG

G

0.072

0.22

A. GUO

G

0.227

0.77

P. WANG

G/F

-0.060

-0.03

M. JU

G/F

0.080

0.29

Q. GU

F

0.221

0.25

X. ZHAI

F

0.142

0.52

X. ZHU

F/C

-0.237

-0.23

T. SUN

F/C

0.297

0.74

T. XU

F

0.059

0.03

ZH. WANG

F/C

0.211

0.61

M. LI

C

0.058

 0.15

12. Egypt

Record: 1-7
EWP: -0.18
EWP40: -0.004

Egypt's MVP: Ezz Ahmed

By virtue of the upset win over China Egypt advanced into the second round and played a total of eight games. Unfortunately for them, they only managed the one win. The silver lining is that they still finished ahead of China, but Egypt really did not play well. They were blown out by the US (55 points) and Serbia (18 points) in round one, lost to Croatia (2 points), Canada (20 points), and Lithuania (19 points) in round two, and lost to Brazil (14 points) and Canada (5 points) in the final round. Ranked by Estimated Wins and EWP40, Egypt falls to 14th in the standings. Only five players on the team produced in the positive range, with only one player – Ezz Ahmed – finishing with a EWP40 above 0.200. Ahmed finished as the team’s MVP, with an estimated 1.04 wins produced, while Ahmed Mostafa had the fewest estimated wins produced, with -1.04. The best performance in a single game was by Omar Mohamed, who managed half a win – an estimated 0.50 wins – in the close loss to Croatia. The worst performance in a single game was by Ahmed Gamal, who produced an estimated -0.26 wins.

Player

Position

EWP40

EWP

A. MOSTAFA

-0.309

-1.04

O. MOHAMED

0.000

0.00

M. ELMOATAZ

-0.057

-0.05

H. HOSSAM

-0.022

-0.04

M. HANY

-0.031

-0.12

E. AHMED

0.213

1.04

S. SAMIR

-0.090

-0.30

A. GAMAL

-0.196

-0.56

Y. SHOUSHA

0.004

0.01

M. MOHAMED

0.162

0.41

Z. MOHAMED

-0.106

-0.34

A. AHMED

0.133

 0.83

11. Canada

Record: 3-5
EWP: 2.44
EWP40: 0.061

Canada's MVP: Dyshawn Pierre

Despite a close loss to Serbia (4 points) and a blowout loss to powerhouse Lithuania (43 points), Canada beat Korea (13 points) to advance to the second round. In the second round they lost handily to the US (29 points) and Serbia (21 points), but beat Egypt (20 points). In the final round they lost a close game to Latvia (3 points) – a game in which they actually outplayed Latvia – and then beat Egypt once again (5 points) to sew up 11th place. Overall, the team finished ranked 12th by Estimated Wins and EWP40. Half of the twelve players on the team finished with positive win totals – led by team MVP and WoW All-tournament team member Dyshawn Pierre, who finished with an estimated 1.74 wins and a EWP40 of 0.313 – and half of the team finished in the red, “led” by Julian Clarke, who finished with an estimated -0.76 wins and a EWP40 of -0.167. The best performance in a single game was by Pierre, who managed 0.58 wins. The worst performance in a single game was by Clarke, who produced an estimated -0.26 wins.

Player

Position

EWP40

EWP

K. PANGOS

G

0.203

1.29

J. CLARKE

G/F

-0.167

-0.76

S. BHULLAR

C

0.161

0.47

M. LETKEMAN

F/C

-0.194

-0.37

J. LOMOMBA

G/F

-0.064

-0.27

O. HANLAN

G

0.119

0.52

D. PIERRE

F/C

0.313

1.74

P. SCRUBB

G/F

-0.172

-0.56

N. WEBSTER-CHAN

F/C

-0.228

-0.08

J. SHAVER

F/C

0.148

0.50

B. BUNCE

C

0.126

0.14

S. JANKOVIC

C

-0.097

-0.18

Profiled so far:

Rank Team Record EWP40 EWP
16 Tunisia 0-5 -0.072 -1.80
15 Korea 2-3 -0.004 -0.10
14 Taiwan 1-4 -0.025 0.63
13 China 2-3 0.125 3.29
12 Egypt 1-7 -0.004 -0.18
11 Canada 3-5 0.061 2.44
- Devin

Author’s note: You’ve probably noticed that I refer to “Estimated Wins Produced” in this article. Estimated Wins Produced are slightly less accurate, but easier to calculate than “regular” Wins Produced. To calculate Estimated Wins Produced, take a player’s Win Score per minute and adjust it for position played. From there, PAWSmin is plugged into a formula to determine Estimated WP40.

NBA Players that Peaked Late

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There are two general truths about NBA players:

  • they hit their peak around age 25 (it’s increased to 26 thanks in part to better training and medical treatments)
  • and after age 30 their production tends to decline.

There is a special breed of player though that waits until after their 30th birthday to finally hit their peak. Given the fact that many 30 year old players get very good contracts, we might expect this number to be high. The truth, though, is that this type of player is very rare.

I looked for players that put up a peak season that was also what I call a “stat season” (WP > 10.0) in their thirties, and could only come up with twelve names.

Table 1: Players with a peak (Adjusted Production > 5.0) after age 30 ordered alphabetically
Player Peak Age Peak WP Peak WP48 Pre-30 Peak Age Pre-30 Peak WP Pre-30 Peak WP48
Brent Barry 30 19.9 0.314 28 11.5 0.203
Darrell Armstrong 30 14.3* 0.279 29 4.2 0.162
Dennis Rodman 30 33.1 0.481 29 19.4 0.392
Dominique Wilkins 31 17.0 0.265 26 11.2 0.176
Donyell Marshall 30 15.7 0.252 29 9.9 0.2
Gary Payton 31 20.4 0.287 29 16.9 0.258
Jon Barry 32 10.8 0.261 29 6.9* 0.277
Kurt Rambis 31 12.2 0.262 25 7.6 0.202
Marcus Camby 34 19.0 0.332 27 16.4 0.37
P.J. Brown 33 14.1 0.26 27 8.1 0.15
Robert Parish 35 21.3 0.36 29 15.9 0.311
Steve Nash 33 19.0 0.34 28 10.8 0.183

Here’s a brief rundown of each player. I’ve ordered them by biggest jump to smallest jump.

Dennis Rodman

Detroit Greats.

The Worm was a great player that wasn’t really given many minutes in his youth. Once he started getting minutes, he produced wins in large quantities. His 1992 season saw a perfect storm, as he produced his best per-minute numbers, while also hitting 3,000 minutes for the first and only time in his career.

Darrell Armstrong

Magical!

In Darrell’s case, his peak season had more to do with opportunity. It wasn’t until 1999 when he was given real “starters” minutes (despite starting only 15 games). He played well for a few more seasons before falling off at age 36.

Brent Barry

Dunk First, be productive later.

Brent Barry was an average to good player that was given limited minutes in Los Angeles (despite being an awesome dunker). When he reached Seattle he was given minutes and played like a star. in 2002 he had a monster year and saw a rare spike right at age 30. Maybe there’s something in the water in Seattle.

Steve Nash

Steve Nash defied expectations by becoming a star player in spite of a rocky start. He defied expectations yet again by peaking well after age 30. It’s hard not to be impressed with our Canadian star, who seems to exist to make ultra-rare lists.

P.J. Brown

<img class=”aligncenter size-full wp-image-5658″ title=”

P.J never once hit 10 wins before his 30th birthday. He then somehow managed to improve every year until his 33rd birthday. Unfortunately he just missed out on Chris Paul‘s peak and a chance at being part of a great team.

Dominique Wilkins

The Human Highlight Reel was never that great of a player (at least, his production never matched his reputation). He managed to hit one year, though, where he played at a star level in his early 30s. That seemed to be enough, as he ended up in the Hall of Fame in 06.

Donyell Marshall

Donyell Marshall had been a good player most of his career. His raw productivity saw a massive jump when he played up north briefly. He didn’t stick around, which turned out to be a good thing for Toronto as his productivity fell shortly thereafter.

Robert Parish

By the time 1989 rolled around Robert Parish had nothing left to prove. He’d already been an MVP candidate playing next to Bird (at least, MVP in a Wins Produced sense). Somehow the Chief found a way to take it to the next level and add to an already great legacy.

Kurt Rambis

Rambis was an underrated player for much of his career. Despite being very productive on the Lakers he didn’t see much playing time. He signed as a free agent with Charlotte just in time to get the minutes to have a career season. After that he succumbed to the post-30 decline.

Jon Barry

Despite being a very productive player most of his career, the other Barry brother never saw much playing time. In the only season he came close to sniffing 2,000 minutes he put up a star season. He played productively for a few more seasons but never saw the minutes for it to really matter.

Gary Payton

Like Steve Nash the Glove was not very productive early in his career. He still managed to string together ten consecutive star seasons, which had a monster year of 2000 in the middle. Payton was definitely a patient player in accomplishments, including his title with Miami.

Marcus Camby

Last but not least on our list is the greatest Nugget of all time himself: Marcus Camby. Camby had in fact been a great player before 2008, but had never played the minutes. This was in part due to injury (and in part due to playing behind Patrick Ewing). When Camby managed to stay healthy he was rewarded with a killer season, defensive player of the year honors, and then was traded for nothing immediately afterwards.

Summing Up

Most of these players are surprising in that they saw a massive increase in their per minute production. Only Camby and Barry, who both got low minutes for various reasons buck this trend. The tendency for a player that hits 30 is to slowly diminish in quality. All of these players broke that mold. The takeaway is of course that there’s hope for any player after 30.  But given the short list above, not much hope.

-Dre

A Major Loss for Fans of the Detroit Lions

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Dave Berri offers the following about Tom Kowalski and the Detroit Lions.

Tom Kowalski you will be missed.

On most mornings I go on-line and check out the latest on the Detroit Lions at MLive.com.  This is certainly part of the routine when something is normally going on with the Lions (i.e. during the draft, training camps, preseason, and regular season).  But it’s also part of my routine during the off-season.

The primary reason MLive.com has become a part of my daily routine is Tom “the Killer” Kowalski.  Kowalski has covered the Detroit Lions as part of the Michigan media since 1982.  For nearly 30 years he has covered the ups (very few of these) and the downs (quite a few of these).  And his reporting is not just part of the season, but also a major part of the off-season.  It is not a stretch to say that most days, Kowalski manages to offer a story that gives Lions fans a much needed information fix.

This morning began like any other.  After a weekend where Kowalski offered numerous stories about the Lions-Patriots game on Saturday night, this morning Kowalski filed a story examining how Matthew Stafford performs in the hurry-up offense.

After reading this story, I took the kids to school, did my morning work-out, and then did my morning bike ride. After an interview with a reporter from the United Arab Emirates (about labor problems in sports), and a brief phone call with a co-author about some research, I went and taught my two Monday classes. At 2pm I returned to the office, and once again, checked in with MLive.com.  Because Kowalski often files more than one story a day, I often go to this website in the afternoon to see if there is any more news on the Lions.

Unfortunately – much to my dismay – there was indeed major news.  Tom Kowalski had passed away.  Kowalski was only 51 years of age.  And as you can guess, his death was an immense surprise.

And as you can guess, it also leaves fans of the Lions very sad.  I am clearly not the only one who has relied on Kowalski for news on the Lions.  As MLive.com reported today, Kowalski’s work on the Lions was not only the most popular stories on the Lions.  And it wasn’t just the most popular reporting at MLive.com on sports.  Kowalski’s work was also the most popular work on any topic reported on by MLive.com.

And Kowalski didn’t just impact fans of the Lions.  MLive.com gathered a number of Twitter responses to this news.  As one can see, these responses came from members of the sports community from around the nation.  In essence, is you wanted a story on the Lions, everyone – a list that includes fans of the Lions and members of the national media – knew you turned to Kowalski.

Just hours before he passed away, Kowalski gave what is now his final radio interview on the Lions.  In this interview he argued the Lions are not quite as good as fans of this team would like to believe after the trouncing of the Patriots on Saturday night.

In classic Kowalski fashion, he let out a deep, bellowing laugh as one of the hosts predicted the Lions would finish the season 12-4. 

“Wow,” Kowalski responded. “You are aware that they start with three of their first four on the road, and two teams in their division were in the NFC Championship game last year?” 

After getting burned a few years back with his now famous 20-wins-in-two-years prediction, Kowalski wasn’t willing to make another bold prognostication.

“Here’s the problem. Everybody sees they went from zero to two, from two to six, so it’s just going to be a natural progression,” Kowalski explained. It doesn’t work that way. I picked them to be 8-8.”

Kowalski reminds the listener how difficult is to win consistently in the NFL.

“It’s difficult to get over the hump,” Kowalski explained.  ”A lot of teams get right on the edge, but they can’t get over the hump. For you to think this team is going to go from six wins to 12 wins, or even 11 wins, I think it’s crazy.”

While his expectations were tempered, Kowalski was looking forward to the product the Lions are going to put on the field this season. 

“I think they’re going to be a good team,” Kowalski said. “I think it’s going to be one of the most fun teams to watch in years, because I think they’re going to score a ton of points.”

Despite Kowalski’s words of wisdom, fans of the Lions are still hoping this season is going to be something special.  And we are all very sad to learn that Kowalski – after nearly thirty years of reporting on the Lions – will not be here with us to see this.

- DJ

Another Call for the NBA Players to Start a League of Their Own

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Editor’s Note: Back in July I asked: Do the Players — and Cities — Really Need NBA Owners? That post argued that NBA players need to consider starting their own league. That argument has now been advanced by Stuart Anderson from Forbes.com.   Below is the column Anderson wrote for Forbes.com this weekend.

Tall People Who Can Dunk Unite: Start Your Own League

by Stuart Anderson (of Forbes.com)

The NBA lockout is months old and there is no end in sight. One reason is that NBA players have not shown the owners that the players possess a viable alternative to playing in the NBA. To date few players have announced they would play in Europe. NBA owners likely interpret that to mean there is nothing to worry about and if the players want to eat, then they’ll make a deal favorable to the owners. After all, the owners assume, these guys can either play basketball or star in a reality TV series – and there are only so many Kardashian sisters available to marry.

But imagine if NBA players decided to start their own league. That would change the dynamics of the negotiations. And it wouldn’t be that difficult. The players could start a new league, for example, by creating a large cooperative to which all players share in the revenues. None of the teams need an owner; each team just needs a general manager, who can be paid out of revenues. The players – or the cooperative to which the players belong – will be the owner(s).

The idea of players starting their own league originated on the website Wages of Wins Journal.

The primary cause of the NBA lockout is that the owners want the players to swallow much lower salaries, something that has received little attention in the media. “The 30 owners of the National Basketball Association have told the players to take a substantial pay cut,” writes David Berri, co-author of Wages of Wins and Stumbling on Wins and a professor of Economics at Southern Utah University. “And if the players don’t agree, these players are not going to be playing in the NBA for a long time.” You can find a description of Berri’s proposal for a new league here.

Under the most recent NBA collective bargaining agreement, the players receive a fixed 57 percent of revenue. That means the league could attract far less revenue and the players would still come out ahead. (Arturo Galletti explains some of the numbers at the heart of the labor dispute here.)

After teams are established in major cities and venues secured, there is no question a television contract would follow. And then the teams would be selected. Imagine the excitement created by a draft that involves not only recent college players but also all NBA players. The order of the draft would be chosen by lottery. Then the order in the first round could be reversed in later rounds.

Imagine the excitement of a draft where teams get to choose first, second, third, etc. among a group that includes Dwight Howard, Kobe Bryant, Lebron James, Dwayne Wade, Chris Paul and every other NBA star. It would be a real-life fantasy league draft. Perhaps there could be a new draft every year, so every city gets a new chance at securing a star each season.

General managers would be given a pool of money to sign their picks to contracts. Provisions could be made to give players sufficient leverage in these negotiations, while also allowing general managers to stay within a budget.

The beauty of the proposal is that it likely would never get that far. As soon as NBA players presented a credible plan for a new league, the owners would come running. “If the players get serious about this new league, this current lockout will end very quickly,” notes economist David Berri. “The NBA owners appear to think that players are going to be forced give in. After all, there is only one NBA. But the scarce resource in this conflict is not the 30 owners. It really is the players.”

And the owners have a great deal to lose. There is little value in an NBA franchise that does not actually play basketball games in the NBA. So far, the owners have been fortunate that the players have thought like employees, not like entrepreneurs. Underestimating your opponent is never a good idea.

Does a Team Need a Superstar to Win the NBA Championship?

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James is a law student from Tacoma, Washington. He is a lifelong Seattle SuperSonics fan, but is still able to enjoy the NBA, perhaps more objectively, without his favorite team. Check out his great work at Shut  Up and Jam.

One player can make all the difference in the NBA. It follows that having one elite player can help a team tremendously. In fact, a number of observers have even declared that a “superstar” is imperative in building a championship team. But how important is a “superstar”? Unfortunately, the term “superstar” in inherently subjective, and though a past post observed that only 3 teams since 1980 (5 now) have won a title without a player who posted a WP48 of at least 0.300, I decided to look deeper into the topic.

Rather than attempt to define “superstar,” I looked at players in the top five percentiles of all players in Wins Produced since 1977. The 99th percentile includes players who produced at least 19.9 wins in a particular season. For example, Michael Jordan’s ’96 season is in the 99th percentile, but his ’97 season isn’t. In a given season, we would expect to see 4 players at this mark. In 2011, Kevin Love, Dwight Howard, LeBron James, and Chris Paul were the only players in the 99th percentile. The 98th percentile includes players who produced at least 16.8 wins in a season. We would expect to see about 8 players hit this mark in a given season. The 97th percentile includes players who produced at least 14.8 wins in a season, and the 95th percentile includes players who produced 12.4 wins. We would expect to see about 12 players who were at least in the 97th percentile, and 19 in at least in the 95th. In 2011, there were 19 players in at least the 95th percentile, and exactly half of the teams in the league had at least one of these players.

Now let’s take a look at some of the numbers. The following table represents all teams that have made it to at least the conference finals since 1977, and then NBA champions since 1977 alone. The numbers indicate the percentage of these teams that have had at least one player in the 99th percentile, 98th percentile or better, and so on.

Percentage with at least one player in the: Top Percentile 98th Percentile+ 97th Percentile+ 95th Percentile+
Teams in Conference Finals 35% 61% 74% 90%
NBA Champions 50% 85% 91% 97%
Example Player (from ’11) LeBron James Dwyane Wade Blake Griffin Paul Pierce

As you can see, a 99th percentile player isn’t essential to building a champion. Only half of the NBA champions have had one. But after that, things begin to look daunting for teams without a top player. In addition, the champions really begin to separate themselves from the rest of the conference finalists. 85% of championship teams have had a player in the 98th percentile or better, and only one team since 1977 has won a championship without a 95th percentile or better player. In fact, only 10% of conference finalists have made it without a 12.7+ win producer.

Unfortunately, the “superstar” theory seems to hold true at least to some extent. There are, of course, exceptions, and well rounded teams can beat top heavy ones. But the numbers suggest that having big producers can separate the great teams from the good ones. Moral of the story: if you have an extremely productive player, keep him! If you don’t, get one! But you probably already knew that.

-James