Melo forgets to show up for the playoffs

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Writing about a top seed defeating a low seed isn’t exactly thrilling. While this series has had some drama, the simple fact is it ended just like everyone expected. We’ll do our due diligence though and wrap up the series and throw at least a few insults Melo’s way.

The Knicks leave their front court in the past

2012 New York Knicks Playoffs Round 1 Totals

Player Pos G MP WP48 WP PoP/48 PoP/G
Jerome Jordan 5.0 1 3.7 0.662 0.05 17.5 1.3
Mike Bibby 1.0 5 118.1 0.184 0.45 2.6 1.3
Toney Douglas 1.0 1 8.3 0.244 0.04 4.5 0.8
Landry Fields 2.4 5 115.0 0.082 0.20 -0.5 -0.3
Steve Novak 3.6 5 94.7 0.072 0.14 -0.8 -0.3
Jared Jeffries 4.3 5 33.7 0.027 0.02 -2.2 -0.3
Tyson Chandler 5.0 5 166.6 0.070 0.24 -0.9 -0.6
Josh Harrellson 4.5 4 24.9 -0.051 -0.03 -4.7 -0.6
Amare Stoudemire 4.3 4 139.0 0.051 0.15 -1.5 -1.1
Baron Davis 1.0 4 97.4 -0.096 -0.19 -6.1 -3.1
Carmelo Anthony 3.3 5 204.1 -0.023 -0.10 -3.8 -3.2
Iman Shumpert 1.5 1 19.3 -0.209 -0.08 -9.6 -3.9
J.R. Smith 2.0 5 175.1 -0.186 -0.68 -8.9 -6.5
Total 5 1200 0.008 0.21 -14.1 -14.1

As always, to try and get a handle on the Knicks playoffs hopes we’d want to look at the top six of their roster. Let’s take quick rundown of the Knicks top players courtesy of the NBA Geek

Player Pos GP MP WP48 Wins
Tyson Chandler C 62 2061 0.311 13.34
Landry Fields SG 66 1894 0.170 6.71
Carmelo Anthony SF 55 1876 0.104 4.05
Steve Novak PF 54 1020 0.143 3.04
Jeremy Lin PG 35 940 0.131 2.56
J.R. Smith SF 35 967 0.108 2.19
Jared Jeffries PF 39 729 0.124 1.88

The Knicks top six consisted of an amazing Tyson Chandler, a very good Landry Fields, an average Melo, and an assortment of above average role players. Of course, Jeremy Lin managed to have a hot streak for the Knicks before getting injured. In the playoffs there were a few problems:

The Knicks had no point guard. Behind Lin the Knicks had nothing. Mike Bibby and Baron Davis both got major minutes. Bibby did indeed surprise a few people, but this was not a good recipe for success.

Amare came back. Amare has not been good in a while. Playing Melo at the 4 (which seemed to work well during Amare’s injury) or giving Jeffries or Novak more time seemed like a good idea. Instead the Knicks moved Melo back to the three, where Bron shuts down everyone, and left Jeffries on the bench.

The Knicks stars were mediocre The players pulling the Knicks this season have been Fields and Chandler. Fields has been up and down and against Dwyane Wade and LeBron James he did not play at a top level, which might be understandable. But Chandler not showing up is surprising. The Heat’s one weakness is supposed to be a lack of a legitimate big and Chandler wasn’t able to exploit that.

The former Nuggets didn’t show Melo and J.R. are filled to the brim with talent. Their problem, as Dan Filowitz has keenly observed, is their decision making skills. Sadly, the talented players did not show up and J.R. and Melo were two of the worst players for the Knicks.

Be afraid of the Heat

2012 Miami Heat Playoff Round 1 Totals

Player Pos G MP WP48 WP PoP/48 PoP/G
LeBron James 3.6 5 189.2 0.225 0.89 3.9 3.1
Dwyane Wade 1.8 5 179.4 0.215 0.80 3.6 2.7
Mario Chalmers 1.0 5 179.9 0.200 0.75 3.1 2.4
Mike Miller 2.5 5 116.0 0.234 0.56 4.2 2.0
Shane Battier 2.7 5 138.2 0.191 0.55 2.9 1.7
Chris Bosh 4.9 5 166.8 0.178 0.62 2.5 1.7
Joel Anthony 5.0 5 85.0 0.170 0.30 2.2 0.8
James Jones 2.5 4 19.8 0.245 0.10 4.5 0.5
Udonis Haslem 4.0 5 95.2 0.110 0.22 0.4 0.1
Norris Cole 1.0 3 18.1 0.060 0.02 -1.2 -0.2
Ronny Turiaf 5.0 1 7.2 0.043 0.01 -1.7 -0.3
Juwan Howard 4.0 1 5.2 -0.624 -0.07 -22.5 -2.4
Total 5 1200 0.190 4.76 14.2 14.2

With top Chicago Bulls dropping like victims in a horror film, the East seems to be merely a warm up to the Heat returning to the finals. There’s not too much surprising about this. For Heats fans in a gloating mood, let’s go down the list though.

Having the MVP in the playoffs is a good thing LeBron is the league MVP. Having that kind of player on your team in the playoffs is huge. His first series was up and down, but he’s already recorded one of the top games of the playoffs, leaving the Heat in a good spot.

Chris Bosh may be back Bosh’s play was iffy this season, but he played rather well in this series against one of the top centers in the league. If he keeps up his great play, the Heat may be unstoppable.

The Heat finally have health to their role players Few realize just how good the Heat could have been last season if not for injuries. Heading into the playoffs Haslem, Miller and Battier seem to be doing fine and that’s huge.

Chalmers has matured and Cole is on the bench Chalmers growth has been bumpy but this season he’s finally been playing well. Cole has been one of the few sore spots on this otherwise fantastic team. Luckily, Chalmers has kept it up and Cole has been left on the bench.

Summing up

In the battle between Melo and Bron, Bron took this easily. The Knicks got to end their drought of playoff wins at least, which had been going on for over a decade. The Knicks have bigger problems with which players will be able to come back next season and which will stick around. As for the Heat, we’ll just have to see if they’re for real when they take on the Pacers

-Dre

Ryan Anderson is not the Most Improved Player of the Year

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The other day the NBA announced that Ryan Anderson has won the Most Improved Player (MIP) award. Like most NBA awards, the MIP is determined by a panel of sportswriters and various other media. Also like most NBA awards, this award was given to the wrong player.

Don’t get me wrong — Ryan Anderson is a good player. In fact, here at the Wages of Wins Network he’s ranked 12th in the entire NBA in terms of total wins for the regular season. The problem is that Anderson was also this good last year — he just didn’t get the same kind of playing time that he managed to get this season.

Take a look at the voting for the 2011-12 MIP:

Player Voting Points MPG Increase PPG Increase WP48 Increase Wins Increase*
Ryan Anderson 260 9.95 5.42 0.004 4.95
Ersan Ilyasova 159 2.50 3.52 0.146 7.51
Nikola Pekovic 104 13.25 8.33 0.322 9.45
Greg Monroe 96 3.77 5.99 -0.037 -0.26
Andrew Bynum 96 7.42 7.38 -0.073 2.51
Jeremy Lin 91 17.03 12.01 -0.026 2.33

The list above includes the top six players in the MIP vote. Wins for this season were pro-rated for an 82 game season in order to make it a fair comparison.

As I said, Anderson won the award — he ended up with 43% of the maximum available points. But other than having a large increase in the number of minutes per game he played, Anderson was nearly as efficient as he was last year, as demonstrated by his unchanging WP48. There were also three other players in the top six for this award — Greg Monroe, Andrew Bynum, and Jeremy Lin — who actually played better last season than they did this season! How could these players be in the running for MIP if they didn’t actually improve?

For my money, here are the real MIP candidates:

Player Voting Points MPG Increase PPG Increase WP48 Increase Wins Increase*
Nikola Pekovic 104 13.2 8.3 0.322 9.5
Brandan Wright 3 5.9 3.1 0.151 4.7
Ersan Ilyasova 159 2.5 3.5 0.146 7.5
Roy Hibbert 7 2.1 0.2 0.140 7.1
Jason Thompson 0 2.6 0.3 0.139 6.3
Goran Dragic 54 8.9 4.3 0.138 6.7
Spencer Hawes 0 3.7 2.4 0.128 3.0
Brandon Rush 0 0.2 0.7 0.111 5.7
James Harden 7 4.7 4.7 0.109 6.2

Nikola Pekovic ran away with the award this year, and it’s a shame that he didn’t win it. Last year he was a really bad player, and this year he was a really good player; he showed the most improvement on a per minute basis and in terms of win totals. His per minute improvement was twice as much as the player with the second largest improvement. If that isn’t the definition of most improved, I don’t know what is. The other eight players on this list were also far more deserving of the MIP than Anderson was, and only two of them — Ilyasova and Dragic — placed in the top seven in terms of voting.

We here at the Wages of Wins Network are not the only ones who have noted this mistake, and this is not the first time this mistake has happened. The MIP award usually goes to a player who simply gets more playing time than the year before. The extra playing time increases these player’s PPG, which is what the voters care about the most.

Season Player % of Vote WP48 Increase MPG Increase PPG Increase Wins Increase
2011–12 Ryan Anderson 43.0% 0.004 9.9 5.5 5.0
2010–11 Kevin Love 69.0% 0.094 7.2 6.2 9.7
2009–10 Aaron Brooks 65.5% 0.041 10.6 8.4 2.7
2008–09 Danny Granger 60.2% 0.009 0.2 6.2 -0.6
2007–08 Hedo Türkoğlu 60.8% 0.063 5.8 6.2 5.2
2006–07 Monta Ellis 54.6% 0.036 16.2 9.7 3.7
2005–06 Boris Diaw 78.9% 0.067 17.3 8.5 5.7
2004–05 Bobby Simmons 62.4% 0.013 12.7 8.6 4.0
2003–04 Zach Randolph 62.6% -0.107 21.0 11.7 -1.0
2002–03 Gilbert Arenas 48.8% -0.047 10.4 7.4 2.0
2001–02 Jermaine O’Neal 41.3% -0.030 5.0 6.1 -1.5
2000–01 Tracy McGrady 59.7% 0.055 8.9 11.4 4.8

After Kevin Love was selected last year, I had some hope that perhaps the voters had finally learned that improvement involves more than getting more playing time and scoring more points. But Anderson showed the smallest amount of improvement of any MIP winner since Zach Randolph in 2004, leaving me to believe that the media panel still has no clue about what it’s doing.

- Devin

Indiana outpaces the Magic

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Stan Van Gundy or Dwight Howard? In the first round of the playoffs the Magic got a chance to test drive this choice with Dwight on the bench. The result do not look good for Stan. In a completely predictable feat, the Pacers took down the Magic in 5. There were a few surprises with the series, let’s check them out.

Where the heck was Ryan Anderson?

2012 Orlando Magic Playoffs Round 1 Totals

Player Pos G MP WP48 WP PoP/48 PoP/G
Earl Clark 3.5 5 88.1 0.258 0.47 4.9 1.8
Ishmael Smith 1.0 1 4.6 0.409 0.04 9.6 0.9
Daniel Orton 5.0 4 9.1 0.251 0.05 4.7 0.2
Chris Duhon 1.0 5 61.0 0.038 0.05 -1.9 -0.5
Jason Richardson 2.4 5 148.1 0.070 0.22 -0.9 -0.6
J.J. Redick 2.0 5 123.3 0.063 0.16 -1.1 -0.6
Von Wafer 2.0 1 6.0 -0.089 -0.01 -5.9 -0.7
Quentin Richardson 2.6 5 74.1 0.019 0.03 -2.5 -0.8
Jameer Nelson 1.0 5 181.6 0.054 0.20 -1.4 -1.1
Justin Harper 4.0 1 4.6 -0.424 -0.04 -16.3 -1.6
Glen Davis 4.8 5 190.2 0.025 0.10 -2.3 -1.8
Hedo Turkoglu 3.4 5 162.1 -0.046 -0.15 -4.5 -3.0
Ryan Anderson 4.5 5 172.2 -0.093 -0.33 -6.0 -4.3
Total 5  1225  0.031  0.71 -10.6 -10.9

The Magic only had one player above average for the series with any real minutes and that was Earl Clark. What about the newly minted Most Improved Player of the Year? Well he decided to jump from playing great in the regular season to worse than Glen Davis in the postseason! Without Dwight or Ryan Anderson this team had no shot. Heck, the fact they won a game… it’s a miracle. Otis Smith made this team Dwight Howard, Ryan Anderson and not much else. Of course, both of them have contracts that are almost up so this may be one of the last playoff games the Magic see in a while.

Darren Collison makes a statement

2012 Indiana Pacers Round 1 Playoff Totals

Player Pos G MP WP48 WP PoP/48 PoP/G
Darren Collison 1.0 5 93.7 0.499 0.97 12.4 4.9
Roy Hibbert 5.0 5 146.1 0.340 1.03 7.5 4.6
George Hill 1.4 5 159.3 0.276 0.91 5.5 3.6
Paul George 2.4 5 170.7 0.166 0.59 2.1 1.5
Lance Stephenson 2.0 2 4.9 0.262 0.03 5.1 0.3
Louis Amundson 4.0 5 37.3 0.154 0.12 1.7 0.3
David West 4.1 5 197.2 0.094 0.39 -0.1 -0.1
Leandro Barbosa 1.5 5 117.0 0.093 0.23 -0.2 -0.1
Dahntay Jones 2.6 1 4.6 0.053 0.01 -1.4 -0.1
A.J. Price 1.0 2 2.8 -0.273 -0.02 -11.6 -0.3
Jeff Pendergraph 5.0 2 2.8 -1.190 -0.07 -40.1 -1.2
Danny Granger 3.1 5 202.8 0.046 0.20 -1.6 -1.4
Tyler Hansbrough 4.9 5 86.0 -0.055 -0.10 -4.8 -1.7
Total 5 1225  0.168   4.29 10.7  11.0 

The Pacers were much more predictable. The Top Heavy Playoffs theory says that your best six players from the regular season dictate your playoff fate. In the regular season the top six Pacers were:

While Granger and West played iffy, the other top players played very well. This included an absolutely amazing game out of Collison to close out the series. Roy Hibbert, a true Most Improved Player candidate, decided to improve his play in the playoffs as well. Unfortunately the fate that awaits the Pacers is a surging Heat team. Well, it’s nice to get out of the first round.

Summing up

In terms of exciting playoff series I don’t how highly this one ranks. Would Dwight Howard have kept Hibbert from playing so great? Does this series deserve an asterisk? Given Anderson’s poor play and the fact that the top of the Pacers played so well, I’d say no. Frankly, any team with Glen Davis on the roster come playoff time need 3-4 Hall of Fame players to compensate. This series was just to decide who would fall to the Heat, and after the debacle in Orlando this season, I’m happy it was Indiana.

-Dre

Malcolm Gladwell discusses banning college football

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In half an hour Malcolm Gladwell will be on FORA.tv discussing if we should ban college football. You can catch that here:

http://fora.tv/live/intelligencesquared_us/college_football

College football is nothing new to Gladwell. Here are some highlights of his work:

 

Advanced Box Scores for the 2012 Playoffs (5/7): Consistency

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“Consistency is the foundation of virtue.” – Francis Bacon

The story for me was one of Consistency.

We receive constant stimulation and information in our day to day lives. To manage that overwhelming amount of input  our brain puts up filters on what sensory information it deals with. We focus on new stimuli, on changes, on differences. So much so in fact that the brain has the capacity to erase that which remains consistent. This is called the Troxler Effect, or Troxler Fading. We lose sight of what’s always there and see things that are not.

 

If you focus on the red dot below, after less than thirty seconds, the circle should just fade away.

Your brain is erasing that which is consistent. It really shouldn’t, because that fact that the  Spurs are consistently good should not blind you to the fact that this year they are in fact great.

Let’s get to the boxscores and recaps. There will be a surprise as well.

Continue reading →