Monthly Archives: October 2011

Was Pat Riley the Worst Coach?

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Coaches — what are they good for? In terms of improving players the data shows that one coach is pretty much the same as the next. The most important thing a coach does is to decide who suits up and who sits on the bench. With that in mind, I found some players that had the distinction of playing for the worst coaches. When a coach has a terrific talent and decides that, instead of playing them, they would rather play someone else, they’ve failed in their duty. I looked for players that had great seasons but were limited in minutes thanks to iffy coaching. My full criteria was:

  • Played 24.0 minutes per game or fewer
  • Had a WP48 of over 0.200
  • Played more than 41 games (half the season)
  • Fulfilled the above criteria for more than one season

I came up with a fun list. Here are the players and their career stats for seasons they were underplayed:

Table 1: Underplayed Players stats for Underplayed Seasons

Player Teams G MPG WP48 WP
Kurt Rambis L.A. Lakers 351 18.8 0.227 31.2
Jeff Foster Indiana 284 20.4 0.245 29.6
Chris Andersen New Orleans – Denver 259 20.5 0.255 28.2
Michael Smith Sacramento – Vancouver – Washington 240 21.4 0.261 28.0
Nate McMillan Seattle 205 21.2 0.262 23.7
Ed Pinckney Boston 227 20.3 0.227 21.8
Fred Hoiberg Indiana – Chicago – Minnesota 265 16.7 0.232 21.4
Joel Przybilla Portland 159 23.7 0.269 21.1
Arvydas Sabonis Portland 151 19.5 0.342 21.0
John Stockton Utah 164 23.1 0.266 21.0
Dikembe Mutombo Houston 219 15.8 0.290 20.9
Jerome Williams Detroit-Toronto 186 19.6 0.258 19.6
Larry Smith Golden State – Houston 161 23.7 0.239 19.0
Jon Barry Sacramento 185 18.9 0.250 18.2
Reggie Evans Seattle – Denver 145 20.8 0.289 18.1
Alton Lister Milwaukee – Seattle 163 22.2 0.219 16.5
Will Perdue Chicago – San Antonio 157 19.6 0.234 15.0
Scot Pollard Sacramento 156 20.6 0.222 14.9
Jayson Williams New Jersey 155 18.3 0.248 14.7
Cedric Ceballos Dallas-Phoenix 121 21.5 0.270 14.6
Chuck Hayes Houston 157 20.9 0.213 14.6
Paul Pressey Milwaukee 160 20.4 0.215 14.6
Lester Conner Golden State – Milwaukee 156 18.2 0.239 14.1
Adam Keefe Utah 157 19.0 0.219 13.6
Brent Barry San Antonio 149 19.4 0.218 13.1
Tracy McGrady Toronto 113 20.2 0.256 12.2
Ed Nealy Kansas City – San Antonio 142 18.5 0.221 12.1
James Donaldson Seattle 150 17.9 0.203 11.4
Renaldo Balkman New York – Denver 121 15.2 0.284 10.9
Glen Gondrezick Denver 132 15.9 0.247 10.8
Adrian Griffin Chicago – Dallas 121 15.8 0.211 8.4.

Some of these players — for example: John Stockton, Tracy McGrady, and Chuck Hayes – got out of their reduced roles and went on to get starter’s minutes. Others – like Dikembe Mutombo and Arvydas Sabonis – were older players who were not able to keep playing major minutes. With that said, many of the players on this list played at a very high level and were restricted in their playing time. Some fans may be willing to side with the coaches and claim that there were good reasons to keep these players on the bench. I’ll stay on the more cynical side and say it’s entirely possible that coaches don’t always know what they’re doing. And that just might mean that we should crown Pat Riley a bad coach given the way he handled Kurt Rambis’ playing time.

-Dre

Heads the Owners Wins, Tails the Players Lose

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“If we are victorious in one more battle with the Romans, we shall be utterly ruined.”-King Pyrrhus of Epirus

Ready for the long winter ahead

The NBA lock out is a toss up.  Heads the owners will win.  Tails the players will lose.

Yes, as I explain at the Huffington Post – in “NBA Owners to Players: This is a Stick-Up”– I think the owners are clearly going to win these negotiations.  And that is because the players – who seem to lack a negotiating strategy – are essentially unarmed.

The story at the Huffington Post details my review of the players’ inability to negotiate.  In addition to this story, I also want to briefly comment on an interview I gave on Monday.

Yesterday I spoke to a television station in Charlotte.  The reporter repeated the claim the NBA has offered that if the owner’s position is accepted by the players, teams like the Charlotte Bobcats will become more competitive.  That position, though, doesn’t seem consistent with the evidence.  Whether the players are paid more or less, Charlotte will still struggle as long as their team is populated by players who are not as productive as the players we see in Miami, Los Angeles, and Boston.

The owners have said that a more level playing field might make a difference.  In other words, the owners have indicated that they want every team to pay roughly the same for talent.  The owners, though, have given up on the hard cap.  That means that for teams to spend the same, more revenues would have to be shared.  And that means the negotiations that need to take place today are not between owners and players, but rather between rich teams and poor teams.  Since these talks don’t really seem to be happening, it doesn’t look like a more level playing field is in the NBA’s future.

Of course, I would add that even if teams spent the same, it is unlikely teams would end up with equal levels of talent. As I have noted before, the NBA can adopt any rules it likes but the supply of elite players – such as LeBron James, Chris Paul, and Dwight Howard – is limited.  So one should not expect a particular revenue sharing scheme or hard salary cap to dramatically impact competitive balance.

- DJ

What’s the Deal with Football on TV?

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Here at the Wages of Wins we are lucky enough to have a resident Sports Economist on staff. When we have crazy questions about things like the cost of beer and its effects on ticket prices we need only e-mail Dr. David Berri to get the lowdown. This week Mosi Platt (@MIA_Heat_Index) of the Miami Heat Index was interested in the NFL and college football on TV and the good doctor was kind enough to chime in. Here are Mosi’s questions and Dave’ answers.

Why do the BCS & NFL handle TV so differently?

The BCS is every school/conference for itself, but the NFL negotiates as one entity. Why is that?

The NFL under Pete Rozelle got a law passed through Congress in the 1960s that allowed the NFL to violate anti-trust laws.  The NCAA, though, was found guilty of violating anti-trust laws in 1984 (in a case brought by Oklahoma).  Since then, conferences and schools were able to cut their own deals.

Right, but why hasn’t an NFL owner bucked the system to forge their own TV deal? Couldn’t Jerry Jones make more money with his own deal for the Cowboys?

Maybe.  But Jones might have a hard time finding anyone to play if he tried to forge his own national deal.  The NFL has immunity to anti-trust laws on this issue.  So they can stop Jones from doing this.

So, as an economist, which organization is better at maximizing its TV revenue in you’re opinion – the BCS or NFL?

The difficulty with the BCS is that they have oversupplied the market, and that has reduced the price of each game.  But I am not sure of the actual prices.  So I am not sure how the revenue numbers compare (although I am sure someone knows).

Until next time

Hope you enjoyed a brief refresher on football on television. The next time we have a question for Dave we’ll make sure to post it.

-Dre

New York Fans Are the Most Worthless Fans?

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The most worthless fan in the NBA?

At least that’s the thought process behind a hard cap. When the hard cap idea is thrown around it is often backed up with the idea of fairness. Every team deserves an equal chance to win! Here’s an important follow up to that: why? When we’re told every team deserves a chance to win it is supposed to be for the benefit of the fans. In that regard not every team is equal. New York has a population of nineteen million people, and even counting New Jersey as a New York team, that means that’s almost ten million fans a team. Compare that with Utah that has only 2.7 million people. Why is it that the 2.7 million Utah residents should get a team with the same bankroll as a team in New York that could be representing 10-20 million people? Doing this in essence states that the fans in Utah are worth more than the fans in New York.

In fact if the NBA was interested in the benefit of the fans it would move teams to more populated areas. New York only has one team despite being the third most populated state. California and Texas could support even more teams! While doing this might be unfair to some states, who cares? A state isn’t a living breathing entity like a fan. If the NBA were concerned with pleasing more fans it would not move teams out of higher populated areas to less populated areas, which is what happened when they moved the Hornets from Charlotte to New Orleans and the Sonics from Seattle to Oklahoma city.

The truth is that NBA owners are greedy. They put teams in cities that will pay for stadiums, and they get them to do it with lies about how the stadium will help the local economy. They are in favor of things like the hard cap because they restrict worker wages. The owners are not concerned with fairness, at least not for the players or for the fans. It is a convenient line to use.

Be aware when the NBA claims it wants all teams to be equal it is saying that fans in larger markets are less valuable. And that means New York fans are the most worthless.

-Dre

State population data courtesy of Wikipedia

40 Better Options than Darko or Bargnani

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My last article looked at the players from this year’s Eurobasket who have ties to the NBA. This time I’m interested in the top players who are not in the NBA, have never played in the NBA, and who have never been drafted by an NBA team.

In this table, I’m only going to be showing players who managed to produced an estimated 0.50 wins or more. Why? Most of the NBA players managed to produce above that level, and the whole point of this exercise is to look at players who might be NBA calibre. Besides, if I included all of the non-NBA players, we’d have a list of 220 players — much too long. As it stands, this list contains 40 players.

Like last time, this list is ordered by estimated wins:

Of these 40 players, the top 25 — with the possible exception of Pero Antic, who achieved high win totals based on a large number of minutes played — definitely merit consideration for the NBA; the remaining 15 are players on the bubble. The top three players on this list — Bo McCalebb, Simas Jasaitis, and Mirza Begic — were named to the WoW all-tournament team. McCalebb was also named to the real all-tournament team. And a few of these players — McCalebb, Earl Rowland, and Henry Domercant — are US citizens who previously played in the NCAA. It is quite clear that there are many good players here.

Whenever the NBA resumes its business operations, the smartest teams will take a good look at many of these players and try to lure them over. The third path is one that is seldom trodden, but, if taken, can make the way to a championship much easier.

- Devin