Tag Archives: Kevin Durant

Why Spencer Hawes could be the next LeBron James

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Prior to this season, Spencer Hawes had not been a very productive player. He was below average in most statistical categories. And yet — just this past weekend — I added Spencer Hawes to my Fantasy Team. Why? To begin to answer this question, let’s first take a look at his career Wins Produced numbers:

Year Age Minutes WP48 Wins
2007-08 19 931 -0.047 -0.9
2008-09 20 2259 -0.041 -1.9
2009-10 21 1904 0.003 0.1
2010-11 22 1718 0.011 0.4
2011-12 23 133 0.388 1.1

Hawes has been shockingly and uncharacteristically productive so far this season. As a matter of fact, Hawes has produced more wins in his first 133 minutes this season than he did in all of his previous minutes combined. Given his career history, is this small sample size a sign of things to come, or should we expect significant regression to the mean in the coming weeks?

Truthfully, I must say that it’s more likely that Hawes will regress back down to his more typical production levels. But there is definitely a chance — and it’s hard to say how big of a chance — that Hawes has actually improved. This is because Hawes is still only 23 years old, and young players can improve significantly in their first few years in the league. Three recent examples of this are LeBron James, Kevin Durant, and Derrick Rose:

Year Age Minutes WP48 Wins
2003-04 19 3112 0.069 4.5
2004-05 20 3388 0.228 16.1
2005-06 21 3361 0.211 14.8
2006-07 22 3190 0.196 13.0
2007-08 23 3027 0.257 16.2
Year Age Minutes WP48 Wins
2007-08 19 2768 0.009 0.6
2008-09 20 2885 0.126 7.6
2009-10 21 3239 0.219 14.8
2010-11 22 3038 0.155 9.8
2011-12 23 221 0.260 1.2
Year Age Minutes WP48 Wins
2008-09 20 3000 0.087 5.4
2009-10 21 2871 0.090 5.4
2010-11 22 3026 0.161 10.2
2011-12 23 174 0.243 0.9

Each of these players had/has improved significantly by age 23. Also of note is that each of these players played heavy minutes leading up to age 23. While Hawes’ jump would seem out of place amongst these other players’ jumps, Hawes played significantly fewer minutes than the other players. In fact, Hawes played just over half of the minutes that LeBron James did, 57% of the minutes that Durant played, and 77% of the minutes that Derrick Rose played (and in one more season than Rose). It’s not out of the question that Hawes needed more on court experience before he was ready to become more productive.

Of course, there are also examples of players who never become productive. Jason Collins, Darko Milicic, and Andrea Bargnani are examples of such players:

Year Age Minutes WP48 Wins
2001-02 23 1407 0.085 2.5
2002-03 24 1900 0.076 3.0
2003-04 25 2220 0.077 3.5
2004-05 26 2542 0.046 2.5

Darko:

Year Age Minutes WP48 Wins
2003-04 18 159 -0.216 -0.7
2004-05 19 254 -0.196 -1.0
2005-06 20 767 0.063 1.0
2006-07 21 1913 0.078 3.1
2007-08 22 1663 -0.033 -1.2
2008-09 23 1034 0.060 1.3
2009-10 24 685 0.015 0.2
2010-11 25 1686 -0.052 -1.8
2011-12 26 98 0.087 0.2
Bargnani:
Year Age Minutes WP48 Wins
2006-07 21 1629 -0.013 -0.4
2007-08 22 1861 -0.096 -3.7
2008-09 23 2453 0.002 0.1
2009-10 24 2799 -0.007 -0.4
2010-11 25 2353 -0.126 -6.2
2011-12 26 182 0.011 0.0

Unfortunately, this type of player is far more common than the previous group. And while there are a few cases of players improving after the age of 26, this doesn’t happen very often; if Hawes is ever going to step up his play, it will almost certainly be sometime during the next three seasons. I added him to my fantasy team on the off chance that his early play is a sign that it happens this year.

- Devin

The 2011-2012 NBA Wins Produced Cheat Sheet

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I was born not knowing and have had only a little time to change that here and there.

Richard Feynman, Letter to Armando Garcia J, December 11, 1985

The New Kings

At the end of last season, I was arrogant. I was at the top of my game. I felt I had an answer or a model for every possible scenario the NBA could throw at me.

Then everything changed.

First, we didn’t know if we would have a season.Then we didn’t know where Chris Paul and Dwight Howard would end up. We still don’t know who’s going to be playing where exactly. Never mind the fact that the schedule for the season is so strange that Vegas refused to post over/unders for wins for the season.

But I wasn’t worried, All I had to do was adapt all my existing models slightly to account for the variation right?

Yeah, about that…

One of the projects that we had been working on is on improving the Wins Produced model . The Lockout gave us a great opportunity to do so and we did. This is a very good thing.

Except that it means that the world changed. Up is not quite down but it’s not exactly up anymore. The value and contribution of each player has changed and it’s going to take a while to adjust to the new reality.

It’s easy for anyone to be confused.

Luckily, I’m here to help you with that and I’ve been in the lab working on the problem. To start, I decided to come up with a nice little cheat sheet for the New Wins Produced model. It features every veteran currently on an active roster and it’s sorted by team and by the players Wins Produced for the 2010-2011 season. It has basic information for each player, totals for the last five years, each players average year and the numbers for the 2010-11 season.

Hopefully, that will help everyone involved.

-Arturo

The Wages of Wins 3 on 3 Fantasy Draft

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On the Miami Heat Podcast Mosi Platt and Alfredo Artuaga brought up a great idea. If the NBA players put on a 3 on 3 tournament in a great venue such as Las Vegas who wouldn’t want to watch? Mosi even did a rundown of how the best three person combos on each team looked. With no NBA to watch the Wages of Wins Network decided it would be a lot of fun to draft three person teams (and one alternate) using a snake draft. We’ll be posting the results the next couple of days. Here are our contestants

  • Greg Steele, our Houston Rockets experts, has the 1st, 12th, 13th and 24th picks
  • James Brocato of Shut Up and Jam (a Seattle Supersonics/Oklahoma City Thunder blog) has the 2nd, 11th, 14th and 23rd picks
  • Patrick Minton of The NBA Geek (a Timberwolves blog) has the 3rd, 10th, 15th and 22nd picks
  • Arturo Galletti, co-editor of the Wages of Wins and head writer at Arturo’s Silly Little Stats has the 4th,9th, 16th and 21st picks
  • Ben Gulker of Pistons by the Numbers has the 5th, 8th, 17th and 20th picks
  • Devin Dignam of NBeh? (a Toronto Raptors blog) has the 6th, 7th, 18th and 19th picks.
Each contestant kindly added a few words explaining their pick. With that let’s run down the first round of picks.

Round 1

1) With the first pick Greg selects Kevin Love:

The differences between the 5-on-5 game and the 3-on-3 game
necessitate certain adjustments in player evaluation. Players whose
primary strength is attacking the basket are slightly less valuable in
ahalf-court game with no referees. Players with good long-range
jumpshots, good passing skills, and high basketball IQ are somewhat
more important in the 3-man game. K-Love gets checkmarks in each of
the above three areas, and is the best rebounder available in 3-on-3,
5-on-5, or any other permutation. The only downside to the pick is
that it leaves my team with relatively weak interior defense. -Greg

2) With the 2nd pick James selects LeBron James:

Love him or hate him, there’s no denying that LeBron is the best all-around player in the NBA. He can score (yes, he’s even a decent 3 shooter), rebound, pass, and defend with the best of them. He’s nearly impossible to guard, which makes him super valuable to a 3v3 team. He can get the basket practically at will, and if he doesn’t like his chances at the shot, he can find his teammate on the wing over the open 3 when the defenders collapse on him. If he decides not to drive, and to shoot the 3, I still like his chances. His ability to defend the wing and the post would also prove to be very valuable in a 3 on 3 game. -James

3) With the 3rd pick Patrick selects Kevin Durant:

When playing by 2s and 3s, Wade or Howard would clearly be the best choice her, but Durant is a beast in a game by 1s and 2s because he shoots so well from 3 and so efficiently when he drives.  I’m actually thrilled with this pick as I believe he’s the #1 pick in this format. -Patrick

4) With the 4th pick Arturo selects Dwight Howard:

Rough choice here for me and I’m torn. Best big or best small? I believe someone said something about a short supply of tall people. My pick is Dwight Howard. The defense, interior presence on offense, defense and the boards we all know about but I think the fact that it’s street ball pushes it over the top for me. Lots of no calls on fouls and lots of ridiculous blocks that would have been goaltends in an NBA game. I could see some two pointers getting blocked. Totally happy with this pick. -Arturo

5) With the 5th pick Ben selects Chris Paul

He’s a fantastic ball handler, excellent at breaking down defenses off the dribble, fantastic distributor, and pesky defender. With little-to-no help defense in a 3-on-3 setting, Chris Paul will have a field day. -Ben

6) With the 6th pick Devin selects Pau Gasol

I’m going to start with my big man – Pau Gasol. Other than Howard, he’s the best all-round big for this format. He can shoot from almost everywhere (don’t believe me? Check out his Eurobasket stats – 7/11 threes in 10 games), can rebound, pass, defend reasonably well. I have him ahead of Love because of his defense and basketball IQ. -Devin

Any surprise omissions? Also to clarify the rules this is a 3 on 3 tournament played half court, counted by 1 and 2 and the players honorably calling their own fouls.

-Dre

Get a great player and win! The NHL vs. the NBA

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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.

Lessons in being a GM

Today I’ll be giving a lesson in how to be a GM in not one, but two sports. The NBA and NHL both have their ideas about how to improve a team. I’ll address the notion that an NBA team needs a superstar to contend and the theory that an NHL team needs a top goalie.

You Need a Star to Contend in the NBA

In the NBA everyone knows to be a contender your team needs a star. This thinking is actually quite accurate. I’ll define a star as a top 25 player in the NBA using the Wins Produced metric. As a GM if you knew all the stats of last season could you find a star? Let’s take a look at the top 25 stars of this season with their last season rank and numbers for perspective.

Team 2011 Rank 2011 WP 2010 Rank 2010 WP
Kevin Love 1 25.3 22 12.1
Dwight Howard 2 24.3 2 22.3
LeBron James 3 22.6 1 27.2
Chris Paul 4 20.8 24 11.5
Dwyane Wade 5 18.1 7 17.8
Pau Gasol 6 17.0 12 15.4
Zach Randolph 7 16.8 17 14.3
Blake Griffin 8 15.5    N/A N/A 
Steve Nash 9 14.5 13 15.4
Kris Humphries 10 14.3 141 3.4
Kevin Garnett 11 14.2 28 10.1
Al Horford 12 14.2 21 12.7
Paul Pierce 13 13.8 52 8
Lamar Odom 14 13.6 14 14.6
Kevin Durant 15 13.5 3 19.7
Landry Fields 16 13.3    N/A N/A 
Rajon Rondo 17 13.2 8 17
Jason Kidd 18 13.1 4 19.6
Tim Duncan 19 13.0 10 16.2
Andre Iguodala 20 12.8 15 14.4
Tyson Chandler 21 12.2 178 2.3
Derrick Rose 22 12.0 78 5.7
Manu Ginobili 23 11.7 20 13.4
Russell Westbrook 24 11.6 43 8.7
Kobe Bryant 25 11.6 32 9.9

Table 1: 2011 Top 25 NBA Players using Wins Produced and their 2010 numbers.

Taking a look at these numbers here’s some strategies I’d offer to NBA GMs to acquire a star.

Strategy 1) Have and Keep a Top 25 Player

Good Players Stay Good

  • Success rate in 2011 for top 25 player: 15/25

Yup, if you have a great player you should keep them. They’ll probably be great next season. Only seven returning players on our list weren’t in the top 25 last season and only LeBron actually left his team for another. Not only do the top players stay at the top, their play seems to stay pretty consistent. Most of the players on this list stayed within 5 Wins Produced of last year’s totals.

Strategy 2) Have a Former Top 25 Player that had some injury problems and hope they get better

Out of Street Clothes and back at the top.

  • Success rate in 2011 for top 25 player: 4/25

NBA players — when they recover from injury — can revert to form, and if you had a formerly great player they can get back there. Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce, Kobe Bryant and Chris Paul fall in this category. In the last three years each of these players has been a top 25 player in the league. Last year hindered their performance (it still didn’t keep Paul out of the top 25 though!) but this year they returned with a vengeance.

Strategy 4) Have a talented young player mature into a star

Young and improving.

  • Success rate in 2011 for top 25 player: 3/25

Young players improve. If you’ve got a talented player that’s been improving next year they make finally jump into the top level. Derrick Rose, Kevin Love and Russel Westbrook all saw a marked improvement this season and for the most part saw a jump in team performance. (2 out of 3 aint bad)

Strategy 4) Get a top Rookie

Can you imagine it?

  • Success Rate in 2011 for top 25 player: 2/25
The rate of a top rookie showing up is less than one a year (Dave’s looked over this) This year Landry Fields and Blake Griffin managed to play amazing and help keep their teams respectable. Of course there were 60 players in the draft and most years not even one of them is a top player so this strategy is risky at best.

Strategy 5) Get a Top 25 Player

South Beach wins!

  • Success rate in 2011 for top 25 player: 1/25

This is a great strategy but good luck getting teams to give up their stars. Only LeBron James falls in this category. Turns out Miami’s decision to get him worked out well. The 76ers are rumored to be shopping Andre Iguodala. Other GMs should take note.

Strategy 6) Find a former top 25 player that has recovered from injuries.

<img class=”size-medium wp-image-4360″ title=”

  • Success rate in 2011 for top 25 player: 1/25

Tyson Chandler in 2008 was ranked 17th with 14.1 Wins Produced. In 2009 he got injured and has been bounced around since. This year he returned to form and helped the Mavericks win a finals. A risky move, but it can work.

Strategy 7) Get an above average player that has been played limited minutes and hope they reach the next level

Do Women and Clothes make the NBA player?

  • Success rate in 2011 for top 25 player: 1/25

I wouldn’t rank this as a great strategy but sometimes teams have good players that have been cast as “role players” and are given limited minutes. It’s not the biggest stretch to assume if they play well in limited minutes, they might play well with starter minutes. You might also get extremely lucky and the player will play amazingly.

General Notes

The idea that these players are needed for success in the NBA is very accurate. A case in point is every team that made it to the 2nd round of the playoffs last season had at least one. The hard part is getting one of these players. Only Miami, New Jersey and Dallas were able to grab one in the last offseason and we can see the fates of two of those franchises turned around immediately. The problem is that there are over 500 players in the NBA. and with only a small handful of great players, it’s simply not possible for most teams to hope of getting them. This gets even harder when we notice multiple teams (Boston, Dallas, Los Angeles, Miami, Oklahoma City and San Antonio) grabbing more than one. In short, when your GM tells you they’re going after a star to contend next season you should be happy. Just don’t be optimistic that they’ll actually get one.

You need a top Goalie to Contend in the NHL

Recently we reviewed the great work of Stacey Brook and Dave Berri about NHL goalies. Here are the important lessons from this study.

  • NHL goalies are for the most part the same. The difference between a great goalie and an average goalie is small. And even the best goalies aren’t huge difference makers. The best goalie will earn you around an extra five wins and the worst may cost you around three.
  • Goalies are inconsistent year to year.

If your GM is spending the offseason in the front office doing their best to acquire last year’s top goalie, I wouldn’t be that thrilled. For fun though let’s redo our NBA exercise and ask our GM in 2011 to acquire a top 10 goalie based on the 2010 season using the Wins Above Average (WAA) metric (save% and shots on goal in terms of wins).

Player 2011 Rank 2011 WAA 2010 Rank 2010 WAA
Tim Thomas 1 4.75 19 0.67
Jonas Hiller 2 2.74 10 2.01
Ondrej Pavelec 3 2.36 66 -1.07
Pekka Rinne 4 2.10 38 -0.04
Henrik Lundqvist 5 1.99 6 3.11
Roberto Luongo 6 1.88 21 0.45
Marc-Andre Fleury 7 1.80 73 -1.66
Tomas Vokoun 8 1.71 2 4.26
Carey Price 9 1.59 26 0.21
Cam Ward 10 1.57 15 0.93

Table 2: 2011 top 10 NHL goalies with 2010 numbers.

The ideal strategy

Just pick one, doesn't matter.

I don’t need multiple bullet points and examples to explain the ideal strategy here. It’s actually pretty simple.

  • If you’re an NHL team and you want a top 10 goalie: Have a goalie on your team. Play them. Hope they play like a top 10 goalie.

Yes, that is about the best strategy you can adopt.

One should also note — as Dave and Stacey noted in their paper — that performance of goalies seems to depend on the defense playing in front of the goalie (i.e. goalies depend on their teammates).  So maybe if your goalie isn’t playing well maybe you should take a closer look at your defense.

We repeat ourselves: Goalies are hard to predict.

Only three goalies in the top 10 from last season return to this year’s top 10. Even then it’s not that great. Lundqvist and Voukun both saw massive drops offs in performance. Hiller saw a slight increase. Tim Thomas, this season’s top goalie, was barely better than average last season. What’s more the number of terrible goalies from last season (Pavelec, Rinne and Fluery) that  are top ten matches the number of great goalies that returned top the top ten! In terms of making the right choice it’s next to impossible. Compare this with the NBA where a top player regardless of position is almost a lock.

Being able to predict a top goalie has not been shown to be easy. That isn’t to say a top goalie doesn’t help. Tim Thomas and the Bruins did win a Stanley cup and Thomas’ regular season help amounted to around ten points in the standings (the difference between 3rd place and 8th place in the Eastern Conference). But can the Bruins count on him leading them to greatness again next season? Should other teams pursue him like crazy and hope he throws a press conference saying he’s bringing his talents to their town? No. The best strategy might just be to put the same goalie back in net, even if they played badly last season, and hope they play like a top 10 goalie.

-Dre