Author Archives: Devin Dignam

Why tanking doesn’t work in the NBA

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Summing up the successful top three draft lottery picks in one picture.

Over and over we hear it: losing NBA teams tank in order to secure a better position in the NBA draft and draft young talent — talent that they hope will eventually lead to an NBA championship. This is an observable fact that actually jives with conventional wisdom. But what is also true is that this tanking doesn’t actually work. Don’t get me wrong — tanking does help to secure a better position in the NBA draft. But this doesn’t mean that landing a lottery pick will actually help out your team. The proof is in the results accumulated over the past 27 years of the NBA lottery.

Table 1: Results within 4 years of drafting a top three pick

Criteria Absolute Percentage
Total # of players: 81 100.00%
Teams missing playoffs: 25 30.86%
Teams losing in 1st round: 21 25.93%
Teams losing in 2nd round: 18 22.22%
Teams losing in Conf. Finals: 3 3.70%
Teams losing in NBA Finals: 9 11.11%
Teams winning Championship (1st 4 years): 2 2.47%
Teams winning Championship (career with team): 5 6.17%

After four years — the amount of time on rookie scale contracts — about 31% of the teams with top three picks hadn’t made the playoffs even once. Almost 26% of these teams’ best showing was only the first round. And a further 22% of teams topped out in the second round. Only 17% of teams have managed to do better than the second round, with only two teams managing to win an NBA championship within four years of drafting their top three pick. Who were these two teams? In 1999, San Antonio won a championship in Tim Duncan‘s second season. And in 2004, the Detroit Pistons won a championship in Darko Milicic‘s rookie season. But Milicic only played in 159 regular season minutes that year. So we are being generous when we say that two teams have managed to win a championship within four years of landing a lottery pick.

Perhaps it takes more than four years for lottery players to have an impact on the team that drafted them? Well, only five players taken in the lottery have won a championship with the team that drafted them: the aforementioned Duncan and Milicic, as well as David Robinson, Sean Elliott, and Jason Kidd. It took Robinson eleven years to win with his drafting team, and Elliott was actually traded away and then reacquired before winning his…nine years after being drafted. Jason Kidd was also traded away and then reacquired before winning a title with his drafting team, and that took him 16 years. So let’s break it down, in the draft lottery era a top three pick resulted in a title for:

  • Getting an amazing franchise player with a top three pick – San Antonio with Duncan and Robinson
  • Reacquiring a top draft pick – Dallas with Kidd and arguably San Antonio if you believe Elliot mattered
  • An already stacked Detroit Pistons that drafted a bench warmer

“Ah,” I hear you say, “it’s hard for top three picks to win a championship with the team that drafted them because so few franchises have won a championship during the lottery era.” This is true; only eight franchises have managed to win at least one NBA championship since 1985. But there’s a reason why only a few franchises have won an NBA championship: the NBA has a competitive balance issue. Teams that are good stay good, and teams that are bad stay bad.

And that brings us back full circle. Teams that win a top three pick in the draft generally do so because they are bad. One or two top three picks is usually not enough to help these franchises advance far into the playoffs because — even assuming you draft well, which is definitely not a given — it takes more than one or two good players to have a successful team. So to reiterate: losing to win is a bad strategy. Hoping the draft will get you a top player is a bad strategy. And it doesn’t matter how many times we go over NBA history, this has been the case.

-Devin

In unrelated news: Dre’s brother Dan, who has been absent from the podcast, has a good reason. He’s been working with Blurred Pictures. They’re making a short film. If you want to help out a cool project you can check out their Kickstarter page here.

Are there more bad shooters during lockout seasons?

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Keith Booth — perhaps the worst shooter in the history of the modern NBA

Recently I read an article written by Harlan Schreiber over at Hoops Analyst. Harlan noticed that some big name players have been shooting poorly this year (which he defined as having a FG% worse than 37%), and he wondered if there were more players shooting terribly this year than in previous years. Using both a game (30 games) and a minute (15 MPG) cutoff, he found that there were two seasons that stood out — this season and 98-99 — which are both lockout years.

Well, I’ve looked at the data, and I disagree. I think there are some problems with Schreiber’s methodology. First of all, I don’t see the point of even bothering to look at FG% when eFG% is a much better way to evaluate field goal shooting. Second of all, rather than using both a game and a minute requirement, I’d rather just use a minute requirement. This is because I only care that a player has played enough minutes for their stats to be meaningful. It also avoids running into a problem that Schreiber ran into: how do you correct for a shorter season? Schreiber decided that the game cutoff for the lockout years would be 20 games instead of 30, but not only was this arbritrary, it also introduced a difference between lockout seasons and non-lockout seasons that may account for his results.

So how would I do it? I’d look at eFG% instead of FG%, because eFG% corrects for the added value of three point shots. I’d also like to look at TS% (which is like eFG%, except that it also corrects for the added value of free throws) and FT%, just in case there are some similar trends in those areas as well. The actual percentages I ended up using (TS% =<0.45, eFG% =<0.40, and FT% =<0.50) aren’t important; what really matters is picking a benchmark that is hard to beat and examining the trend. And my playing time cutoff would be 400 minutes, which is the minimum amount of minutes played during a season that I feel comfortable using. Using these parameters, I looked at seasons dating back to the 79-80 season, which was the first season to use the three-point shot.

Under these parameters there are some fairly obvious trends. There were more bad shooters in the NBA from 98-99 to 03-04 — almost twice as many — than there have been during the current season so far, and this is true whether we use eFG% (the red line) or TS% (the blue line) to determine who a bad shooter is. Also, there is an upward trend with regards to the number of bad free throw shooters (the green line) in the league. From 79-80 to 93-94, there were only 2-7 bad free-throw shooters each season. But from 94-95 onward, the number of bad free-throw shooters has varied between 9-18.

Going even further, we can even see the effect (or lack of effect) that two rule changes have had on the number of bad shooters. In the graph above, the area highlighted by the thicker green rectangle represents the three seasons where the three-point line was closer to the basket; oddly, it doesn’t appear that the closer three-point line had any effect on the number of bad shooters. But the thinner green rectangle highlights the first year of the NBA’s new hand-checking rules, and that appears to have had an effect. Ever since those rules were enacted, the number of bad shooters has been much lower.

But that isn’t to say that the lockout hasn’t affected the number of bad shooters. In the graph above, the red rectangles highlight the two lockout seasons. The 98-99 season did have a small spike in the number of bad shooters as determined by TS%, but not eFG% or FT%. And the current lockout season seems to have increases in all three areas. So the lockout does appear to have had a small effect on the number bad shooters.

But before we tout these results, there’s something else we should probably control for. A lot has changed since the 79-80 season; there are now 30 teams in the NBA instead of the 22 that played that season. Accordingly, there has been a rather large increase in the number of players meeting the 400 MP cutoff (from 237 in 79-80 to a peak of 360 during the 10-11 season). We should make sure that the increase in the number of bad shooters is not simply due to the increase in the number of players meeting the cutoff. Doing that makes the graph look like this:

The graph has flattened somewhat, but the story is basically the same. There were more bad shooters in the league during the 89-90, 91-92, and from the 97-98 to 03-04 than there have been during the current season so far. Bad free-throw shooting is still trending upwards — it seems that coaches and GMs have become more tolerant of players who can’t make their free throws – but the peak seasons for bad free-throw shooters were the 97-98 and 98-99 seasons.

- Devin

Even effective clutch is overrated

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Over at Liberty Ballers, Jordan Sams compiled several tables of data on “clutch” shooting using Basketball Reference’s handy shot finder. Using various different parameters, Sams compared various players with regards to field goal percentage (FG%), three-point percentage (3P%), and the percentage of shots that were assisted. But it was missing something important (and easy to calculate) that Basketball Reference includes in its search results: effective field goal percentage (eFG%).

Effective field goal percentage — also known as adjusted field goal percentage (AdjFG%) — is a field goal percentage that takes into consideration the extra value associated with three-point shots. You can calculate eFG% using the following formula:

eFG%: (field goals made + 0.5*three-pointers made)/field goal attempts

Think of it this way: player A goes 3-6 on two-point shots, scores 6 points, and has a FG% of 50%. But player B goes 2-6 on three point shots, scores 6 points, and has a FG% of 33%. Why the disparity? Both players attempted the same number of shots and scored the same number of points. But eFG% fixes all that:

Player A: (field goals made + 0.5*three-pointers made)/field goal attempts

= (3 + 0)/6
= 0.500

Player B: (field goals made + 0.5*three-pointers made)/field goal attempts

= (2 + 0.5*2)/6
= 0.500

Adding eFG% to Sams’ tables improves our ability to interpret the data he has compiled — and it should change some of the narratives that you take away from the tables. For example, take Sams’ second table (with eFG% added):

Player FG FGA FG% 3PM 3PA 3P% Ast’d %Ast’d Best Worst eFG%
LeBron 333 714 0.466 74 231 0.320 79 0.237 55% 42% 0.518
Vince 185 420 0.440 42 117 0.359 72 0.389 50% 38% 0.490
R.Allen 151 391 0.386 78 215 0.363 105 0.695 44% 34% 0.486
Roy 166 371 0.447 24 71 0.338 26 0.157 48% 36% 0.480
Dirk 235 541 0.434 34 107 0.318 107 0.455 48% 40% 0.466
CP3 187 430 0.435 23 73 0.315 22 0.118 50% 37% 0.462
Melo 193 447 0.432 23 72 0.319 84 0.435 52% 42% 0.457
Kobe 317 769 0.412 58 185 0.314 69 0.218 46% 39% 0.450
Durant 191 479 0.399 40 123 0.325 103 0.539 47% 35% 0.441
JJ 174 449 0.388 40 114 0.351 47 0.270 46% 32% 0.432
Iggy 158 394 0.401 24 112 0.214 28 0.177 48% 31% 0.431
Wade 205 507 0.404 27 101 0.267 34 0.166 47% 32% 0.431
Pierce 167 430 0.388 32 97 0.33 60 0.359 44% 21% 0.426
Rose 168 401 0.419 4 31 0.129 23 0.137 44% 40% 0.424
Russ 150 403 0.372 13 56 0.232 23 0.153 42% 30% 0.388
Avg. 199 476 0.415 36 114 0.3 59 0.300 47% 35% 0.456

And here are Sams’ comments regarding this table:

When we look at eFG%, some of these observations change. Kobe (45%) remains slightly below average (45.6%), LeBron (51.8%) still has the best percentage, and Russell Westbrook (38.8%) still has the worst percentage. But the comment about Andre Iguodala is no longer true. When we take into consideration the extra value of three-point shots, Ray Allen (48.6%), Kevin Durant (44.1%), and Joe Johnson (43.2%) are all better shooters than Iguodala (43.1%). Most noticeably, Ray Allen moves up from 14th (in FG%) to third (in eFG%) due to his three-point shooting, which is quite a lot.

Instead of copying all of the other tables and posting them in this space with eFG% added in, I’m going to quote Sams’ final observations, and note what changes when we make use of eFG% instead of FG%:

  • The extreme volatility of the average ‘Best season’ and ‘Worst season’ of the players suggest “clutchness” can vary from year-to-year.
  • LeBron ranked ahead of Kobe in 7 of the 8 samples, including all three playoff samples.
  • Indeed, Brandon Roy could cook.
  • LeBron is obviously in a major clutch slump right now, but it happens to every player, because the sample sizes are so small every year. The statistics indicate he will bounce back at some point.
  • If being the “best closer” means “converting shots at a fairly average rate in any and all ‘clutch’ situations since 2000″, Kobe Bryant is clearly the best.
My response:
  • “Clutchness” does indeed vary year-to-year. This is because “clutch” situations make up only a tiny fraction of a player’s time on the court, and crazy things can happen with small sample sizes.
  • When we look at eFG%, LeBron was ahead of Kobe in five of the samples, not seven, although he was still ahead of Kobe in all three playoff samples.
  • Brandon Roy does very well in these tables, but Ray Allen‘s excellent three-point shooting bumps him down a spot in tables two, four, and five. Vince Carter also moves ahead of Roy in the second table.
  • Despite the use of the word “obviously”, LeBron may or may not be in a “clutch slump”; such an assertion would require different data than this. But certainly it can be said that LeBron is a very good player and an efficient shooter, and that small sample sizes can lead us to draw faulty conclusions.
  • Generally, it’s true that Kobe Bryant is a shooter of average efficiency who simply takes a lot of shots to score his points. But when we look at tables four (45.7) and five (42.9), Kobe beats the average (38.7 and 36.4) significantly. So actually — and I hate to write this, because I know it will be misconstrued — Kobe has been significantly better in the clutch since 2006.

It should also be noted that something else is missing from these tables, and that is free-throw data. The addition of free-throw data would probably change how we view even these eFG% numbers, but alas, Basketball Reference does not have this ability as of yet.

Beyond these tables, there is plently more to be said about “clutch” situations. Like many stat-heads, I don’t think there is anything particularly special about the ending of a game. A player could be the most efficient shooter in the league in clutch situations and still be a terrible player, because clutch shots only make up about 4% of their total shots. Likewise, even if LeBron — who is by far the best player in the league this year — is terrible in crunch time, his outstanding play during the rest of the game would far outweigh any crunch time negatives.

- Devin

Mid-season award watch

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Because of the lockout this year, each NBA team will only play a total of 66 games. After yesterday’s games, 24 of the league’s teams have played at least 33 games — or half of their regular season schedules. That means it’s a good time to see which players are in the running for the various awards that will be handed out at the end of the year.

Mid-season MVP: LeBron James

LeBron is absolutely running away with the MVP this year. According to Wins Produced, James has produced 9.4 wins for the Heat this season; the next closest player in the league is Tyson Chandler, who has produced 7.9 wins. Beyond that, there are only five players in the entire league who have managed to produce six or more wins: Dwight Howard (6.6), Kevin Love (6.5), Kevin Durant (6.3), Andre Iguodala (6.1), and Ryan Anderson (6.0). That means that LeBron has produced almost 50% more wins than the fourth-most productive player in the league, which is insane (Editor’s Note: Don’t you mean LINsane?). And it’s not just because he plays a lot of minutes — James has posted the highest WP48 of any player who has played significant minutes, so he’s the most productive player on a per-minute basis as well.

Don’t “believe” in Wins Produced? Then simply check out his numbers. Here’s how LeBron’s season stacks up against the years where he won the MVP (with last year thrown in for fun):

08-09** 09-10** 10-11 11-12 Average SF
PTS 36.2 36.5 33.1 36.2 19.1
FGA 25.4 24.7 23.3 23.8 16.4
FTA 12 12.5 10.4 11.9 4.3
TS% 59.1% 60.4% 59.4% 62.6% 52.3%
REB 9.6 9.0 9.2 10.6 7.3
STL 2.2 2.0 1.9 2.2 1.6
TO 3.8 4.2 4.5 4.8 2.6
Net Poss 8.0 6.8 6.6 8.0 6.3
AST 9.2 10.5 8.7 8.9 3.4
BLK 1.5 1.2 0.8 0.9 0.8
PF 2.2 1.9 2.6 2.2 3.4
WP48 0.362 0.350 0.283 0.387 0.100
Wins* 23.0 21.6 18.0 23.6 3.8

*Wins for the 2011-12 season pro-rated for an 82 game season for comparison’s sake

**Won MVP

LeBron is shooting fewer shots than he did during his MVP seasons, yet he is scoring about as much due to increased efficiency. His rebounding is also better, his steals and fouls remain unchanged, and his blocks, assists, and turnovers have taken a small downward turn. Once you put it all together, James is having a better year than he did when had 97% and 98% of the MVP votes.

LeBron is also the best player on the team that has the best record in the league. Failing that, LeBron is ranked second in the league in terms of points per game, trailing only the notoriously shot-happy Kobe Bryant. Some in the media may be tempted to give this award to Kevin Durant, who is the third leading scorer on the team with the second best record. While Durant has played exceptionally well, James has been even better. The big question is this: will these kind of numbers be enough to make those in the media forget their anti-LeBron bias?

Mid-season DPOY: Dwight Howard?

Usually this award goes to a rebounding and shot-blocking big man — the past winners of this award are a who’s who of defensive big men. Very few guards or small forwards have won this award; since 1990, Gary Payton and Ron Artest are the only “non-bigs” to win. This year’s top contenders seem to be Dwight Howard, Tyson Chandler, LeBron James, and Andre Iguodala. In order to help us make up our minds, I’ve included the defensive stats of the best defensive players on the best defensive teams (as measured by team defensive rating):

Player DREB BLK STL Team DRTG
Tyson Chandler 9.1 2.0 1.4 99.2
Marcus Camby 13.4 3.0 1.7 99.6
Andrew Bynum 13.0 2.8 0.7 100.7
Dwight Howard 14.7 2.7 1.8 101.2
Average Centre 9.3 2.0 1.3 103.1
Player DREB BLK STL Team DRTG
Josh Smith 10.3 2.9 2.2 100.5
Serge Ibaka 7.7 5.6 0.9 102.4
Average PF 8.0 1.6 1.4 103.1
Player DREB BLK STL Team DRTG
Andre Iguodala 7.4 0.7 2.5 97.0
Shawn Marion 6.1 0.8 1.6 98.3
LeBron James 8.9 0.9 2.2 100.2
Kawhi Leonard 6.6 0.8 2.6 103.2
Average SF 5.7 0.8 1.6 103.1
Player DREB BLK STL Team DRTG
Dwyane Wade 4.5 2.2 2.5 100.2
Average SG 4.4 0.4 1.6 103.1
Player DREB BLK STL Team DRTG
Tony Allen 3.9 1.1 3.5 100.5
Ricky Rubio 5.4 0.3 3.2 101.9
Kyle Lowry 5.8 0.5 2.7 103.3
Average PG 3.9 0.4 1.9 103.1

The guard/forwards with the best chance of nabbing this award are probably Andre Iguodala and Tony Allen; both are good defensive players with good defensive stats and on good defensive teams. Of the power forwards, Ibaka is only good (albeit very good) at shot blocking. Josh Smith posts numbers that would be impressive even if he was a centre. Of the centres, while Chandler’s individual defensive stats are not very impressive, Chandler has managed to help turn around the Knicks defense, which has gone from being the 22nd best defense to the 6th best defense. Camby’s per-minute stats are very good, but he just doesn’t play enough minutes. Likewise, Andrew Bynum posts Howard-esque numbers in fewer minutes. Dwight Howard looks to be the best of the centres, and personally, I tend to agree that the DPOY should be awarded to a big man. For this reason, my pick is Dwight Howard, but the award is far from wrapped up as far as I’m concerned. If the voters get tired of picking Dwight Howard year after year, I would expect Josh Smith to have a good chance of winning instead.

Mid-season ROY: Ricky Rubio

Ricky Rubio leads all rookies with 4.3 wins so far. With 4.0 wins, Kawhi Leonard is currently the only one giving him a serious run for his money. Of course, there is next to zero chance that Leonard will garner enough votes from the media to have any real shot at winning, because Leonard’s per-game points average won’t impress voters. In the actual vote, Kyrie Irving is the only rookie who has a chance of taking this one away from Rubio. That is because Irving scores a lot of points, and everyone loves points. While Irving has been a good rookie — he’s bounced between the third and fourth most productive rookie all season long — he’s a far cry from Rubio and Leonard. Other pseudo-contenders — players who shouldn’t be in the discussion, but probably will be — include MarShon Brooks, Kemba Walker, and Brandon Knight.

Player WP48 Wins PPG
Ricky Rubio 0.174 4.3 11.3
Kawhi Leonard 0.244 4.0 7.1
Gustavo Ayon 0.247 2.4 5.8
Kyrie Irving 0.114 2.1 18.1
Nikola Vucevic 0.213 1.9 6.6
Chandler Parsons 0.104 1.8 7.7
MarShon Brooks 0.081 1.3 14.6
Kemba Walker 0.022 0.4 13.3
Brandon Knight 0.003 0.1 12.8

Mid-season 6th MOY: James Harden

Another James is on track to land an award: James Harden has produced 5.3 wins so far this season — good for 13th best in the league — but has only started two games this year. That means that he is the front-runner for the 6th Man award, which is given to the best player who comes off the bench more often than he starts. Voters love to vote for who they think is the best bench player on a contending team, so it doesn’t hurt Harden’s chances with the media that he is on the Thunder, who have the league’s second-best record. It also doesn’t hurt that Harden’s per-game scoring average is impressive as well. Nicholas Batum — who has produced 4.5 wins in three starts himself — is Harden’s closest competitor at the moment. Kawhi Leonard is currently in third place for this award as well, but he is dangerously close to failing the criteria (more games off the bench than starts) and — as with the ROY — isn’t likely to get many votes. The other contenders for this award either don’t have a high enough PPG to be considered by the media or play for a team with a worse record. As far as pseudo-contenders go — players who will be considered for the award, but shouldn’t be in the discussion — Jason Terry probably has the best chance of stealing Harden’s hardware.

Player Wins Start% PPG Team Winning %
James Harden 5.3 6.1% 16.8 78.8%
Nicholas Batum 4.5 8.8% 13.9 52.9%
Kawhi Leonard 4.0 48.5% 7.1 69.7%
Matt Barnes 2.9 51.6% 7.2 60.6%
Andre Miller 2.5 17.6% 10.3 52.9%
Jason Terry 2.4 0.0% 14.8 61.8%
O.J Mayo 1.4 0.0% 11.9 55.9%
Jamal Crawford 1.0 5.9% 14.2 52.9%
Al Harrington -0.2 2.9% 14.5 52.9%

Mid-season MIP: Nikola Pekovic

Last year Nikola Pekovic was not a very productive player; in fact, Pekovic played so poorly that he actually generated losses for his team. But this season Pekovic is one of the most productive players in the league, finally helping (along with Kevin Love and Ricky Rubio) the Timberwolves return to relevance. Ryan Anderson shows up second on this list, largely due to an increase in playing time, although he has improved his per-minute productivity as well. Andrea Bargnani is third — he’s still well below average…just not nearly as much as he was in the past. The increased playing time and productivity of Mario Chalmers has helped the Heat with their “point guard problem” (now if only they could solve their centre problem!), and the list is rounded out by two young Thunder players, James Harden and Kevin Durant.

Player 2010-11 WP48 2010-11 Wins 2011-12 WP48 2011-12 Wins* Change (Wins)
Nikola Pekovic -0.080 -1.5 0.295 8.9 10.4
Ryan Anderson 0.224 6.6 0.279 14.5 7.9
Andrea Bargnani -0.126 -6.2 0.039 1.0 7.2
Mario Chalmers 0.072 2.4 0.188 8.7 6.3
James Harden 0.154 7.0 0.246 13.2 6.2
Kevin Durant 0.160 10.1 0.242 15.7 5.6

*Wins for the 2011-12 season pro-rated for 82 games for comparison’s sake

So there’s all you could ask for in a midseason award watch. As you’re all aware when the voters do vote it will not be all on the stats. Well, likely they will use one stat heavily, but it is unlikely it will be purely driven by player performance. That said, it is nice that this year many of the more deserving players mesh with conventional wisdom. We’ll have to see if that remains true as the season progresses.

- Devin

DeMar DeRozan is killing the Raptors

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Recently, the perennially unproductive “offensive weapon” of the Toronto Raptors — Andrea Bargnani — went down with another injury. Although he’s having the best season of his career to date, Bargnani is still a below average player, and there is little evidence to suggest that he makes his teammates better. Shouldn’t that mean that the Raptors will be playing better without him?

Theoretically, but unfortunately, Toronto seems to generate unproductive players like the Hydra grows heads; when one is eradicated, another couple materialize. Exibit A is the Raptors’ Wins Produced for the 2011-12 season to date (taken from Patrick Minton’s wonderful The NBA Geek):

As noted above, Bargnani is now producing in the positive range, and will be out for the next couple of weeks. But the Raptors also added four new unproductive players during the offseason: Rasual Butler, Gary Forbes, Anthony Carter, and Jamaal Magloire. While Butler and Forbes figured to be unproductive even before the season started, Carter and Magloire projected to be close to average (at almost 37 and 34, respectively, age may have taken its toll on these players). Another unproductive player — Linas Kleiza — has returned from injury, and he is barely producing in the positive range. Still on the roster are Jerryd Bayless — who has never been productive — and Leandro Barbosa, who has not been productive since 2008-09 season.

On top of all that, DeMar DeRozan — who undeservedly made the All-Star Sophomore team last year and is regarded as one of the team’s promising young players — has reached a new low in productivity. At this point in the season, DeRozan is playing much worse than he did last year; as a matter of fact, DeRozan’s productivity has declined during each of his three years in the league:

DeRozan's career stats.

*Note: average SG/SF taken from 2011-12 season; wins pro-rated for an 82 game season

As you can see, DeRozan has really struggled this year. Every single statistical category is either worse off than last year or shows no change. His shooting percentages are particularly painful — especially given that he has not reduced his shot attempts — but DeRozan is also below average when it comes to rebounds, steals, turnovers, assists, and fouls. The most positive part of his game right now is his ability to get to the free throw line, and even there he is doing worse than he did last season.

All told, excluding the injured (and so far improved!) Bargnani, that leaves the Raptors with eight unproductive players. And already these eight players have cost Toronto about two wins. This number grows to about 7.5 wins if we replaced them with average players. This is a shame, because Toronto actually has some good players on its roster. Well, at least three: Jose Calderon, Amir Johnson, and Ed Davis.

There are unfortunately two problems with Toronto’s “big three”. The first is that Calderon is very often underrated. Calderon’s lone below average season was his rookie year. Since then he has never failed to produce fewer than five wins in a season, and at his best he was a top five player in the league. That hasn’t stopped the Toronto front office from almost pulling the trigger on moving him or kept fans from considering him overpriced. As the only good player pulling significant minutes on the Raptors it is not a good place to be with him so close to the trading block.

The problem with Johnson and Davis is they play the same position. This puts the Raptors in a bind as when one of their top players in on the floor it pretty much comes with the expense of another being on the bench. With so many bad players guaranteed to be on the floor at once it hurts to have one of the few bright spots of the team seated.

The Raptors will not be a good team with so few good players and so many bad players. It’s also unlikely that things will turn around for the Raptors if they remain willing to shop their good players and insist on holding onto their bad players. In fact, the Raptors’ problems are so plentiful that blaming a single player or fixing the team is not a simple task. If we wanted to point at the biggest culprit though, as it currently stands DeRozan is killing the Raptors. And for that the front office seems ready to pay him even more money.

-Devin (with a little help from Dre)