Category Archives: Arturo

Picking the Games for Round 1 of the 2012 NBA Playoffs

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“You have no responsibility to live up to what other people think you ought to accomplish. I have no responsibility to be like they expect me to be. It’s their mistake, not my failing.”
― Richard P. Feynman

I set a pretty high standard for myself. As I said in a recent post, I’ve been prepping like a madman recently.I had to compress what took about six months last year into about six nights.

The end result is the full slate of probability for every series and every outcome for Round 1 of the 2012 NBA playoffs. The reason for the time crunch is that I’m taking part in a certain stat geek smackdown (Yes it’s Year 6 of the ESPN Stat Geek smackdown now featuring 100% more Arturo!!!) . Last year I picked the playoffs for fun, this year we are taking this very seriously. Let’s talk method and then we’ll get to the picks by series.

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The MVP and the Player on the other side

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He brought us Points over Par, he predicted Faried and Leonard. Nerd MVP of the year.

Editor’s Note: Arturo did not add that picture or caption himself. Given the subject matter though, I couldn’t help myself.

“The chess-board is the world; the pieces are the phenomena of the universe; the rules of the game are what we call the laws of Nature. The player on the other side is hidden from us. We know that his play is always fair, and patient. But also we know, to our cost, that he never overlooks a mistake, or makes the smallest allowance for ignorance.” -Thomas Henry Huxley

I like to think that we take the unconventional approach.

Last year we had everything down to a science. We had the tools. We had the know how. We could make the numbers dance and quickly come to interesting conclusions to help us write our sparkling copy.

It would have been easy to rest on our laurels.

But it wasn’t quite perfect and we had some time on our hands this summer. So we blew it up and it was good.

There was a dark side to this tale however. This year we had to rebuild everything. But hopefully from the ashes something better arose. We have two fantastic data sites for all your statistical needs (The NBA geek and Nerd Numbers) that are miles better than what we used to have. As for the analysis bit, I’m ready to step up to the plate again. Thankfully I find that for me Revision 2 is much better than the original. Case in point, let’s talk about the MVP race.

Warning: Math content ahead! Brought to you by the number 6 and the word choke

Disclaimers first of course.

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Bad to Good: The treadmill TO mediocrity

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Data or it didn’t happen -Arturo

We’ve spent some time explaining while tanking is not a good strategy. The basic concept is a team that is not a contender needs to tank to become a contender. The idea is that you must bottom out to effectively rebuild. Now, we are not talking about losing a few games to improve your draft position. The idea is that you must burn your team to the ground before you are able to reach the elite level.

How's that worked out for you so far?

We called silly buggers on this particular notion.

Dave Berri tackled this problem in his most recent Freakonomics post: You Don’t Need to be Bad to be Good in the NBA.

We revisited this in detail in another post and Patrick threw down the hammer but still there were doubters. Let’s talk data.

That’s all the data from 1978 to last Year. The summary?

Hmmm, who would have thunk it? It’s harder to get to the top if you tank. In fact here’s the data graphed by year:

You’re not seeing the result of any particular strategy. What you are seeing is called regression to the mean. Editor Dre: I’ll be tagging in briefly here. We’d like to ride on Pritchard’s naming convention a little more and name this: The Treadmill to Mediocrity. And In fact while the above graph is much shinier, it’s nothing new either. Dean Oliver in Basketball on Paper had a similar graph for teams 1 year after and 5 year after (figures 9.1 and 9.2 in Chapter 9) Coincidently, the same chapter also includes a footnote from Martin Schmidt and Dave Berri on competitive balance. Dre out.

Good teams tend to stay good, Bad teams tend to stay bad but over time everyone trends to 0.500. Yes, you can luck out in the draft but really the draft is a lottery. Your best bet is to find and keep good players (without overpaying them) and keep playing that draft until you hit one.

Cause sometimes you win despite yourself

-Arturo

 

Fantasy trades starring Steve Nash, Dwight Howard and Pau Gasol

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Nothing endures but change -Heraclitus

I admit I have a dirty little secret. In the darkness of the night, in the privacy of my own home, when no one is watching I like to pretend I’m something I’m not.

I like to play act like I’m an NBA GM. I like to play with the cap and fondle the player contracts. I like to properly massage my imaginary NBA rosters until I reach full satisfaction. Thankfully all the tools I need are available on the internet.

Because a trade can change your life

My name is Arturo and I am an NBA Trade Machine addict.

Now don’t be to quick to condemn me because I’m fairly certain you know someone who shares that particular passion. Hell, if you’re reading this website you’re what they would call a high risk.

Admit it, you like playing this game too.

Now, As with all proper games, It is important to set some ground rules. They are quite simple actually.

  1. The trade must work under the current cap rules. Thankfully we have ESPN’s NBA Trade Machine to help us with that.
  2. The trade must be something that could reasonably happen without some sort of a hostage crisis, credible threat of blackmail or Hornets GM David Stern being prominently involved.  Any moron can come up with a trade that works and turns his team into a super team (case in point). It must however be something that does not get you immediately laughed at by any of the teams involved.

Shall we play the trade Game? Your safeword for the day is Pau. We will proceed one theme at a time. For each, I will start slow and build to a climactic finish.

Trade theme: Free Steve Nash

Poor Steve Nash, like Jason Kidd he’s a historic point guard and a true dream date for an NBA fan on game night. Unlike Jason, he has not yet found the place where he can reach the promised land. Let’s see if we can help him get there while at the same time getting the Suns something in return.

Trade #1

Why do the Spurs do this?: Fully embrace the run and gun while clearing the deck for their young guns.
Why do the Suns do this?: Get two viable starters for Nash before he leaves. Do a solid by Steve and give a real chance to win one title
Who does the media think wins this trade? The Suns.
Who actually wins this trade? The Spurs and fans of basketball everywhere. This Spurs team would be a very real threat to win it all.

Trade #2

Why do the Sixers do this?: Go all in to try to win the title this year.
Why do the Suns do this?: Again get two viable cheap young starters for Nash before he leaves. Do a solid by Steve and give a real chance to win one title
Who does the media think wins this trade? The Sixers.
Who actually wins this trade? I’d call this dead even actually. The Sixers are giving up two good cheap pieces here. Their chances of winning the title or even making the finals are not great.

Trade theme: The Lakers lose their mind

Seriously, they’ve gone mental. They signed that ridiculous Kobe extension. They traded the best sixth man in the game (Lamar Odom) for a late first round pick. Not only that they gave him to a hated conference rival. Now they’re looking to give away Pau Gasol their leading win producer and MVP for the length of his stay in Laker Land. Who am I to stand in the way of such inspired lunacy? I believe the german word is schadenfruede.

Trade #1

  • Teams: T-wolves, Lakers
  • Trade:  Lakers trade Gasol/Barnes to the Twolves for Beasley/Webster and Williams
  • The Stats (courtesy of NBA Geek)

Why do the T-wolves do this?: You’re kidding right? This instantly makes them a contender.
Why do the Lakers do this?: BWAHAHAHAHAHA. They are dead set on being the second best basketball team in LA for the next five years perhaps? Sorry my Celtic fandom came out.
Who does the media think wins this trade? Minnesota
Who actually wins this trade? Everyone who is not a Lakers fan. Here’s the thing: this trade will not happen. I’m only putting this here because of some of the reporting out there. Any trade between these two teams would involve Gasol and Love as the principals and that is a non-starter. Let’s get some real options on the table.

Trade #2

Why do the Nets do this?: Deron is not staying. They think they can use Pau as a trade chip with the Magic.
Why do the Lakers do this?: Because Zombie Derek Fisher of course.
Who does the media think wins this trade? Lakers
Who actually wins this trade? New Jersey. Particularly because I think this doesn’t happen until after March 1st and multiple other player and picks are involved. That and the fact that if I made a deal with a Russian billionaire i’d expect him to win.

Trade #3

  • Teams: Bulls, Lakers
  • Trade:  Lakers trade Gasol/Barnes to the Bulls for Boozer/CJ Watson and Taj Gibson
  • The Stats (courtesy of NBA Geek)

Why do the Bulls do this?: They believe Gasol gives them the final piece of the championship puzzle. Barnes is not chump change either.
Why do the Lakers do this?: Not actually a bad trade for them as they get a decent big back for Pau a point guard to takeover from Zombie Derek Fisher and Taj Gibson.
Who does the media think wins this trade? Chicago but it’s close
Who actually wins this trade? I think this is a fairly even trade actually. It helps the Lakers by giving them pieces. For the Bulls it puts them over the top as a championship contender. It makes way too much sense to me so it won’t happen.

Trade theme: The Superman Sweepstakes

You might have not heard but Dwight Howard is leaving Orlando. Some might argue this is not a done deal. I would simply point out that the big man always leaves the small market.

The evidence

Trade #1

  • Teams: Magic, Thunder
  • Trade: Thunder trade Westbrook/Perkins/Mohammed/Sefolosha to the Magic for Howard/Duhon and Smith
  • The Stats (courtesy of NBA Geek)

Why do the Magic do this?: This is a significant haul for Orlando and would give them a starting Center in Perk as well as a budding if controversial star in Westbrook. Add in the extra pieces and it’s perceived as a good haul.
Why do the Thunder do this?:  This is the Thunder throwing all their chips in the middle of the table and calling all in. Harden, Durant and Dwight is enough to make a championship team.
Who does the media think wins this trade? Thunder.
Who actually wins this trade? This depends on a series of Factors. Can Oklahoma win it all? Could they resign Howard? Who exactly is Russell Westbrook going to be? Is he more Steve Nash or Allen Iverson? Both teams risk in this scenario. The potential gain is great though. Let’s move to more likely options though.

Trade #2

Why do the Magic do this?: This to me is fantastic salve to their fans. They get the highest perceived value player they can possibly get in Griffin and a young Starting Center. It keeps them as a playoff team in the east (which may be damming with faint praise) and gives them hope for the future
Why do the Clipper do this?:  You’re kidding right? If there is any scenario in which you wind up with Chris Paul and Dwight Howard on your team you do it. Throw in a very good and underrated Ryan Anderson and this is the easiest yes so far.
Who does the media think wins this trade? Magic. I’m totally serious.
Who actually wins this trade? The Clippers. It’s not even a question. If I told you twelve months ago one team had a chance to wind up with Paul and Howard you’d have been skeptical. If I said it was the Clippers, I would have been mocked. The Magic look good in this trade in getting an exciting and marketable star in Griffin. The Clippers take out an option on the Western Conference for the next decade

Trade #3

  • Teams: Magic, Knicks
  • Trade:  Knicks trade Melo and Amare to the Magic for Howard/Hedu and Redick
  • The Stats (courtesy of NBA Geek)

Why do the Magic do this?: If the Magic get this offer a year ago, they do it in a heartbeat I think. Now they would have some reservations. They could sell their fans on this one though.
Why do the Knicks do this?:  Please be serious. A team of Lin,JR, Fields,Tyson,Howard is a scary prospect for the rest of the conference.
Who does the media think wins this trade? Again, twelve months ago I say Magic. Now? The debate leads PTI for a month at least.
Who actually wins this trade? Let’s call this trade the Lin dividend. The Knicks cannot do this trade in a Pre-Linsanity NBA simply because they could not keep Dwight with what would have been assumed to be a bare cupboard. The world has changed. If you are an agent and you care about money, the Knicks are your number #1 choice for your client. Dwight stays and becomes part of the NBA’s world poster team for the next decade. Orlando thinks it does well here but if you are a regular reader you know that scoring is overrated. They would spend the next few years fighting it out for the right to lose in the first round.

Trade #4

  • Teams: Magic, Lakers
  • Trade:  Lakers trade Gasol/Bynum and Barnes to the Magic for Howard/Hedu and Jameer
  • The Stats (courtesy of NBA Geek)

Why do the Magic do this?: If offered, the Lakers’ godfather offer trumps everybody elses. This trade would completely rebuild the Magic and avoid that pesky post losing the franchise player hangover that Cleveland is mired in.
Why do the Lakers do this?:  The Lakers add arguably the best player in the league. They also address their point guard issues and get a serviceable piece in Hedu for the 3 and 4 position.
Who does the media think wins this trade? Lakers
Who actually wins this trade? This is a trade-off. Orlando wins the short term as they get the best possible deal for their departing superstar. Long term, it’s the Lakers as by having Dwight the Lakers remain relevant and are almost assured historically by virtue of having the best big to win a title at some point in his prime. The Lakers are virtually assured of keeping Dwight and can afford to wait for the remaining pieces to walk thru that door. In fact, the only reason I don’t call them a contender right now is that they stupidly gave Odom away. Orlando’s long term prospects are really tied to the health of Bynum. On paper, the Magic would have arguably the best Power Forward and Center in the East.  Throw in Ryan Anderson and the Magic’s prospects are suddenly abundant. Again, this trade makes way too much sense to actually happen.

I hope everyone enjoyed the game. When we do this again, we’ll get a little crazier.

-Arturo

Jeremy Lin and the Ghost of NBA Drafts Past

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“Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts.”
― Richard P. Feynman

Yes, before you ask, as is contractually required by any and all bloggers I will be talking about the unlikely Jeremy Lin. Now, I know we touched on this yesterday but our goal today is different. My take will be different. You see rather than waxing poetic about the unbelievable and unpredictable nature of basketball or focusing on how no one could have seen this coming, I’m going to focus on how we kind of did.

Because when faced with a supposedly unsolvable problem, we brought the science and science once again beat the experts.

The problem I’m alluding to is evaluating talent in the NBA draft. Anyone who knows me knows I love to write about the draft. For those who don’t, hello you must be new here. Just in case, let me illustrate that by throwing some links up for your viewing pleasure.

This lead to a lengthy draft strategy segment in my guide to running an NBA franchise (Build me a winner rev.2).

The key takeaway was that talent was that I needed to build an effective draft model to predict player performance based on publicly available data. I built two (go here for the model build parts 1 & part 2 ). In very general terms the models use the available data to predict future performance for each player coming into the draft from college. Based on that prediction a ranking is done and a draft recommendation is generated.

Now this model is a work in process, I build it then publish it then go back at some future point to review to see if it worked. I will make corrections as needed over time.

One of the key ideas is having a public build to allow for peer review and answer the skeptics.

For the purposes of this discussion for example I will focus on the last 2010 build (see here) because at the request of some of our loyal readers I had included the best undrafted rookies. Can you guess who was number one?

Do you want to answer for the class?

Mr. Lin actually was the number tenth overall ranked prospect on our draft board and easily the best undrafted. The model had him slightly below the draft treshold. Given this and a few other similar data points, I moved the treshold slightly down  to .090 WP48 for Model #1 and .060 WP48 for model #2. You will see the results of that in the numbers that follow.

Why should you care exactly?

It’ll make more sense if I just give you the full story:

That’s every drafted player coming from the NCAA’s from 1995 thru 2010 who’s played at least 400 minutes in the NBA (2010 shows additional players who haven’t played those minutes yet). It shows the player’s draft year, where he was picked, the model predictions and the player actuals for his first 4 years and his career. For 2010 for example, we can see both the Knicks starting guards in the top 10 but this could simply be coincidence. Did the models actually do anything?

A simple test is to look at correlation between the place the player was picked, where the models suggested picking him and actual rank by draft in terms of production. Draft order vs production shows minimal correlation with an R-square of about 5%. It jumps to 25% for the predicted production rank.

A more complex and interesting test is to look at:

  • The probability of landing a better than average player (>.090 WP48)
  • The probability of landing a good player (>.150 WP48)

If I do this for all picks by the Models as well as  all draft picks and Model picks taken after the top 5  picks I get:

The models perform as well or better than the majority of lottery picks.  The only real difference is superstar talent at the number one pick (which isn’t really an every year affair).

So to review, using publicly available data we built a model that picks draft winners at a 75% rate which is better in general than having the #1 pick in the draft and big winners at a 40% rate which is better than everything but the #1 pick.

Science!

-Arturo

P.S. How about one more bonus table?