Monthly Archives: September 2011

Why the Lockout is a Blessing in Disguise for the Denver Nuggets

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Future is looking Good!

This offseason the Denver Nuggets may have dodged a bullet. The Nuggets have the least committed salary of any team in the NBA. With a core of talented young players and a likely bargain on Aaron Afflalo (due to his restricted free agent status) this would usually be a good thing. Taking a lesson from history, though, makes me a little more wary.

When GMs have money and no players to spend it on.

In 2008 the Pistons had come off of their seventh consecutive 50 win season. They traded away a top player to free up cap space in 2009 (a move that cost the team an 8th consecutive 50 win season). They then went into the 2009 offseason with tons of cap space. The issue was the free agent market didn’t have much. The top names included Andre Miller, Jamario Moon and Matt Barnes. Of course none of these players were “stars” according to conventional wisdom. When looking to make a splash with free agent money, Joe Dumars turned to what NBA people always focus on when they want to make noise – scorers! This focus ted the Pistons to blow all of their  extra cash on two overrated scorers and tank a once amazing franchise.

The Denver Nuggets have just come off their best season in their NBA tenure  (according to the numbers). Additionally they look to be in good shape with the following roster:

If we ignore Harrington (and that would be easier if he was on a another roster), the Nuggets should make any fan optimistic.  At least, until we consider how being a GM works. To keep your job as GM it is important to convince the owners you are actually doing something. Standing pat is hardly ever viewed as a good plan. A splashy move is better than no move for job security, even if it comes at the cost of wins.

Unfortunately for the Nuggest — as Mosi has pointed out — there is simply not a lot of star power in the 2011 free agent crop. Nene, Marc Gasol and Tyson Chandler are really the only players to be excited about. It is unlikely that Gasol or Chandler will get free from their respective franchises (I’m still hoping Nene will be back).  And that means the Nuggets probably can’t add a productive player in this market.

Please not again!

But the Nuggets might feel compelled to make a move.  Once again, a move might mean “add a scorer”).  The scary part about this market is that there are some overpaid scorers lurking in free agency, a list that includes David West, Nick Young, Caron Butler and Tayshaun Prince. If the Nuggets miss out on Nene and try and make a Detroit like splash, we could end up with two terrible overpaid names that could bring our 50 win streak to a skid.

Looking back to what Mosi has said, though, brings hope. This offseason sucks if you have cash burning a hole in your pocket.  But next season some big names become available including the ultimate prize in Kevin Love.

It’s unlikely good sense could convince the Nuggets to be patient. But a lockout may have the unintended benefit of preventing the Nuggets from spending their money poorly.  And that means — unlike fans of the Pistons — fans of the Nuggets don’t have to see their team take away wins by adding unsuccessful scorers.

-Dre


Dre Alvarez (@nerdnumbers) is a Co-Editor for the Wages of Wins Network and is also in charge of handling the stats data. He’s a long time fan of Colorado Sports, depending on the weather. He’s an even bigger fan of the stats, data and all things nerdy.

The 100 Best NBA Regular Season Teams from 1978 to 2011

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Arturo Galletti is the Co-editor and Director of Analytics for the Wages of Wins Network. He is an Electrical Engineer with General Electric in the lovely isle of Puerto Rico, where he keeps his production lines running by day and night (and weekends) and works on sport analysis with his free time.

 

I bring you good news and bad news.

First the good news, I finally have some free time which means I get to start writing again.

The bad news is that the NBA lockout is still in full effect and we’ve beaten this particular horse to death (at least until something new comes up to write about).

NBA basketball to write about? Not yours.

I guess I could take advantage of all that data I have lying around and come up with something fun.I am going to rank every NBA team from 1978 to 2011 (all 908 of them) and I am going to do it based on their average Margin of victory per 48 minute game for the regular season.

First the raw data (courtesy of basketball reference) shown below.

Did I mention I was doing infographs as well? Let’s clean that up by taking it down to the top 100 and give it to you in a nice poster.

What lessons can we learn here?

Putting three all-timers together with the best coach possible is a really good idea.

Happy Labor day weekend everyone.

The Moneyball Bible and Other Sunday Thoughts

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That's not a football or a basketball!

Dave Berri is the General Manager of the Wages of Wins Network.  He is a Professor of Economics at Southern Utah University, lead author of both “The Wages of Wins” and “Stumbling on Wins”, and past president of the North American Association of Sports Economists.

Over the past few days I have seen a number of stories where I thought: “that would make for a good blog post.”  But then I got busy doing something else (spending time with my wife, daughters, and dog, teaching classes, working on various research projects, etc…). And so the posts haven’t been written.

So tonight I thought I would just gather the stories I found and offere a brief story with the link.  In essence, all my ideas have been reduced to a Sunday Bullet list.

The above story is from Dan Peterson at Science 2.0 (Stacey Brook .  Peterson’s story is about the new Moneyball movie (starring Brad Pitt as Billy Beane).  Beyond discussing Billy Beane’s work in baseball, he also notes how Beane has worked in soccer. And then Peterson transitions to basketball, where he refers to The Wages of Wins as the Moneyball-bible of the APBR movement.  Here is all that Peterson has to say:

 Not to feel left out (or safe from scrutiny), the NBA now has its own sport-specific zealots.  The Association for Professional Basketball Research (APBR) devotes its members time and research to finding the same type of meaningful stats that have been ignored by players, coaches and fans.  They, too, have their own Moneyball-bible, “The Wages of Wins ” by David Berri, Martin Schmidt, and Stacey Brook.  David Berri’s WoW journal/blog regularly posts updates and stories related to the current NBA season and some very intriguing analysis of its players and the value of their contributions.

None other than Malcolm Gladwell, of Tipping Point, Blink and Outliers fame, provided the review of Wages of Wins for the New Yorker.  One of the main stats used is something called a player’s “Win Score” which attempts to measure the complete player, not just points, rebounds and assists.

Win Score (WS) = PTS + REB + STL + ½*BLK + ½*AST – FGA – ½*FTA – TO – ½*PF.   (Points, Rebounds, Steals, Blocked Shots, Assists, Field Goal Attempts, Free Throw Attempts, Turnovers, Personal Fouls)

WS is then adjusted for minutes played with the stat, WS48.  Of course, different player positions will have different responsibilities, so to compare players of different positions the Position Adjusted Win Score per 48 minutes or PAWS48 is calculated as: WS48 – Average WS48 at primary position played.  This allows an apples to apples comparison between players at a position, and a reasonable comparison of players’ values across positions.

Will these statistics-based approaches to player evaluation be accepted by the “establishment”?  Judging by the growing number of young, MBA-educated GMs in sports, there is a movement towards more efficient and objective selection criteria.  It appears the evidence-based general manager is here to stay.

 

Yes, the Peterson story is my favorite in this list.  But it is not the only story I want to note.

Here are some football stories I found interesting.

  • It has been reported that Terrelle Pryor’s Wonderlic score was only seven.  Later reports denied this story.  Readers of Stumbling on Wins (not “the bible”, but hopefully a good read nonetheless), might wonder why we care.  Wonderlic scores are somewhat related to where a quarterback is selected in the draft.  But these scores are not related to future NFL performance.  And this shouldn’t be a surprise.  The Wonderlic test doesn’t seem to have much to do with the job of an NFL quarterback.  As I mentioned to someone a few days ago, it would be a bit like asking candidates for assistant professor positions in economics whether they understood the workings of the engine of a Ford Gremlin.  Yes, I know… people like to look at everything before making a decision.  But as we note in Stumbling on Wins, the human mind isn’t designed to look at everything.  Good decision-making requires that information be sorted systematically.  And when something isn’t relevant, it should be ignored (and better yet, not even collected).
  • Mark Martinez is a political science professor I worked with at Cal-State Bakersfield (Mark’s office was down the hall from mine).  Mark generally blogs about politics (not surprising). But he is also a fan of the Oakland Raiders.  So he wants you to know: Ken Stabler Should be in the Hall of Fame
  • Of course, I am a Lions fan.  And for the first time that I can remember, the Lions are not planning on starting any draft picks from the draft in April on opening day.  Part of this is due to injury.  But even without injuries, I am not sure Nick Fairly or Mikal Leshoure would have started on opening day.
  • Perhaps related to the prior point, the odds of the Lions winning the Super Bowl are much better than I can remember.  Here is one website which shows how Detroit’s odds have evolved over the past few months. The Lions opened at 60 to 1.  Now it is 30 to 1 (and I think it was 25 to 1 right after the Patriots game).  Gambling has never been my thing.  But even if one doesn’t want to place bets, Vegas odds do provide us a look into how a large number of people view the likelihood of a certain outcome.  Consequently, academic research in sports economics has made use of posted odds to evaluate what people think an outcome will be before it happens.  Today I want to follow the lead of my colleagues in sports economics.  I am not motivated, though, by the desire to solve some academic problem.  No, I have a far sillier desire.  I just wish to say “Damn those Lions look good!”
  • Of course, the Lions aren’t the only Detroit team to look good.  The Tigers are currently in first place.  Entering tonight’s game, though, the Tigers had only scored 11 more runs than they surrendered this year.  As Lee Panas observed at Tiger Tales, the Tigers in 2011 really aren’t that different from the team we saw last year.  Of course, right after Lee made this observation the Tigers defeated the White Sox 18-2.  And I would add, since the All-Star break, the Tigers have a won-loss record that is similar to what we have seen from the Yankees and Red Sox.  Does that mean the Tigers will do well in the post-season?  Well, post-season baseball is really hard to predict.  If I weren’t a Tiger fan, I wouldn’t predict a title for Detroit.  But as a Tiger fan let me say: “Damn those Tigers look good!”
  • Let me close with a comment on how labor disputes continue to be a part of professional sports.  Yes, we know about the NBA dispute (and I am going to offer more on this soon).  But did you know about professional cricket?  Yes, as Osman Samiuddin notes, professional cricket – like sports in North America – also has labor issues (and yes, I am working on research on this sport as well).

- DJ

What if the Lockout Doesn’t End in 2011?

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If this were a normal off-season, the stories posted in this forum would address all the moves teams make each summer.  Numbers would be posted that would suggest this team made a “good” move and this team made a “bad” move.  And then people would post comments and arguments would be waged back and forth.  In other words, fun would be had by all.

But this is not a normal off-season.  In an effort to get more money, the owners have locked out the players.  And unfortunately, I am not optimistic this will end any time soon.  Certainly we will offer more stories on the lockout in this forum.  Furthermore, I think more can be said about the 2010-11 season (for example, we still need posts on each team’s past season).  But clearly we have to talk about something else.

So what else should we talk about?  The Wages of Wins and Stumbling on Wins both discussed much more than basketball.  Should we offer more posts on football?  How about baseball or hockey?

If you have anything you would like to see us discuss, please let us know in the comments.  Again, this lockout might not end soon.  So we better find something else to entertain us.

- DJ

Why Did Steve Nash Defy the Odds?

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Steve Nash’s Career Wins Produced
Team Season G GS MP WP48 Wins
Phoenix 1997 65 2 684 -0.004 -0.1
Phoenix 1998 76 9 1664 0.119 4.1
Dallas 1999 40 40 1269 0.034 0.9
Dallas 2000 56 27 1532 0.097 3.1
Dallas 2001 70 70 2387 0.193 9.6
Dallas 2002 82 82 2837 0.183 10.8
Dallas 2003 82 82 2711 0.211 11.9
Dallas 2004 78 78 2612 0.204 11.1
Phoenix 2005 75 75 2573 0.281 15.1
Phoenix 2006 79 79 2801 0.317 18.5
Phoenix 2007 76 76 2,682 0.340 19.0
Phoenix 2008 81 81 2780 0.273 15.8
Phoenix 2009 74 74 2484 0.232 12.0
Phoenix 2010 81 81 2660 0.277 15.4
Phoenix 2011 75 75 2497 0.283 14.7

Steve Nash is an outlier. At every point in his career he defied expectations. Despite playing terrible during his rookie contract Nash went on to be a star. Nash became even greater in his 30s. And somehow he’s still going! Jeremy Britton asked me a very interesting question, which I promised to answer in 500 words or less: Why did Nash defy the odds? Here are a few answers we can glean from the data.

Nash stopped fouling

Steve Nash Career Fouling
Year PF per 36 minutes
1997 4.8
1998 3.1
1999 2.8
2000 2.9
2001 2.4
2002 2.1
2003 1.8
2004 1.9
2005 1.9
2006 1.6
2007 1.6
2008 1.5
2009 1.6
2010 1.5
2011 1.3

Nash has impressively gotten better at controlling his fouls over his career. As a young player he was quite foul prone. As he got older he got his fouls under control. And as a much older player he really learned how to keep his personal fouls low.

Nash got better at Shooting

Steve Nash Career Shooting
Year TS% 3P% FGA per 36 FTA per 36
1997 0.539 0.418 9.2 2.7
1998 0.556 0.415 12.6 1.9
1999 0.471 0.374 8.9 1.3
2000 0.601 0.403 8.5 2.0
2001 0.603 0.406 11.9 3.9
2002 0.602 0.455 13.8 3.7
2003 0.576 0.413 14.8 4.5
2004 0.590 0.405 11.6 3.5
2005 0.606 0.431 12.0 3.3
2006 0.632 0.439 14.5 3.8
2007 0.654 0.455 13.4 3.4
2008 0.641 0.470 12.6 3.2
2009 0.615 0.439 12.3 3.0
2010 0.615 0.426 13.3 3.0
2011 0.601 0.395 11.7 3.6

Nash was actually not a great shooter as a young player.  And this was in spite of being a good three point shooter and good from the line. By his fourth season, though, he had figured out his shot selection, and since then he has consistently seen his TS% exceed the 0.600 mark. Additionally, in his fifth season he started taking enough shots to make his efficient shooting matter.

Nash got better at Rebounding and Passing

Nash’s shooting and fouling alone explain his improvement from a bad rookie to a good player. His final transition into the great player we have seen recently comes from the rest of his game

Steve Nash Assist and Rebound Career Numbers
Year RBD per 36 AST per 36
1997 3.3 7.3
1998 3.5 5.7
1999 3.2 6.2
2000 2.8 6.4
2001 3.4 7.7
2002 3.2 8.0
2003 3.1 7.9
2004 3.2 9.5
2005 3.5 12.0
2006 4.6 11.3
2007 3.7 12.2
2008 3.7 11.8
2009 3.2 10.4
2010 3.6 12.1
2011 3.7 12.3

In 2005, Nash saw a small increase in his rebounds per game and a major increase in assists per game. This of course, coincided with him joining the run and gun Suns. Now an important thing to note is pace. The Dallas Mavericks with Nash had a pace of around 93-95. With the Suns it was around 95-96. This translates to 2-3 more possessions a game. While this can definitely help, on it’s own it doesn’t explain Nash’s massive improvement.

Putting it all Together

Nash has improved virtually every aspect of his game with time. He started with fouling less and taking better shot selection. Later in his career he improved his passing and rebounding.  He also took advantage of his improved shooting by taking more shots.

In sum, it appears Nash is a smart player and does know what things help teams win in the NBA. And as a side note, he also seemed to post the biggest improvements right after contract extensions. It’s possible that this means that Nash only attempted to improve his game after he was assured he wouldn’t get dinged for it. If that’s true then the real answer to all of Nash’s improvement boils down to him being a smart player (it must be that extra year of high school in Canada)

- Dre