Mosi Platt from the Miami Heat Index analyzes how the new max salary provision in the tentative agreement to end the NBA lockout would affect past, present and future classes of restricted free agents.
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
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
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
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
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
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
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.
I asked the members of the Wages of Wins Network a set of questions for fun. Now, you lucky readers get to enjoy their commentary. I hope this will be a reoccurring thing and welcome any suggestions for questions. Here’s this week’s set:
Chiming in were:
The one on the left.
I would use the amnesty clause on Ben Gordon. He’s paid about as much as Rip and Tayshaun, and all of them will need to go, hopefully sooner rather than later. Gordon is the worst in my opinion because he’s the youngest and has the kind of game (inefficient scoring) that can trick people into keeping him around.
Am amnesty clause for my entire team? That would be fantastic. Unfortunately, I get the sense that you’re looking for one player, not the whole roster. Charlie Villanueva, Richard Hamilton, Ben Gordon and Jason Maxiel – all of these contracts are bad to awful, but if I had to pick one, it would be Ben Gordon. Charlie Villanueva is still a 6’11” player who can shoot three’s, so a trade may still be possible. Rip is washed up, but only one more year of his contract is guaranteed. Ben Gordon is a one-dimensional shooter who’s paid like a star for three more years. He has to go.
I think Houston’s only player on which I would use the amnesty clause is Johnny Flynn. Over two years in the NBA he’s managed to produce -1.1 wins on a -0.016 WP48 at a position where Houston already has a good starter and passable backup (Kyle Lowry and Goran Dragic, respectively). Brad Miller contract is unguaranteed after the coming year, so you can’t even say the Rockets dealt a bad contract in return for Flynn.
You would think that this would be an easy one for the Timberwolves, but there are so many choices. Still, there’s really no question that Darko Milicic fits the bill perfectly as a player that is both terrible and overpaid. The 2010 summer was the real indication that David Kahn has never had any type of plan. He cleared up cap space and declared to the media that he was putting the team in a position to be a “real player” in the free agent market. Then he signed Darko and Nikola Pekovic to nearly $9 million in contracts the moment free agency opened, when literally no other team was competing with Minnesota for either players’ services (with very good reason, as together they are certainly the worst NBA front line duo).
You like me!
My favorite underrated player historically is Bill Laimbeer; I loved that guy. My current favorite underrated player might be Arron Afflalo, who isn’t great but I think is underrated. The Nuggets became something of a second favorite for me last year when they made their run after trading Carmelo. Afflalo was a big part of that. He’s also a former Piston and was on my fantasy basketball team.
Arron Afflalo. Dumars’ knack for finding productive players later in the draft, and thus on the cheap, is often overshadowed by his big-time draft busts. Unfortunately, he has a track record of giving those players away for nothing – at least as of late. Amir Johnson and Carlos Delfino are good examples. Afflalo is a great example. He was was selected 27th overall in 2007 by Detroit – 12 spots after Dumars selected the middling Rodney Stuckey at 15. Afflalo had a breakout season for Denver in 2010-2011, ironically emerging as a starter next to former Piston Chauncey Billups. According to Shamsports.com, Afflalo made under $2 million in 2010-2011 and produced over six wins for Denver. Richard Hamilton and Ben Gordon? Over $23 million combined and fewer than one win for Detroit.
My answer is definitely not the best underrated player, just my personal favorite: Aaron McKie. He put 53.9 Wins Produced with a 0.135 WP48 over a long career, but started only 36% of the games he played in. I also like Brent Barry a lot. He’s the kind of guy that always gets overlooked: good at a few things, good at avoiding the things he’s not good at, but he has little athletic ability or flair.
Not to sound like a broken record, but Kevin Love. I was a junior at Washington State when Love was at UCLA, and although he dominated my Cougs, it’s fun to see these guys I used to watch in college blossom into great NBA players. Love is among the best, he doesn’t get the respect he deserves because of his team, and he’s a pretty likeable guy. That and he can hit a 100 foot shot (at least, he can if you give him 100 tries).
We all know it’s Kevin Love. We must live in some Bizarro-world for a player who averages 20/15 to be ranked 9th among power forwards in All-NBA votes and 14th in All-Star votes. He led the league in rebounding and is an efficient scorer, and there are THIRTEEN better power forwards? Come on, even if I concede a “he’s bad at defense” argument, nobody’s defense is bad enough to make those stats less than top-5 caliber.
Does he count as a serial team killer?
I’m picking Darko as the player who’s killed my team the most. The Pistons essentially had a free pick in a draft with Carmelo Anthony, Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh, Chris Kaman, Nick Collison, David West, Kendrick Perkins, Josh Howard, Steve Blake, Matt Bonner, Mo Williams… just to name a few guys still playing that I’d rather have. We could have stuck with our ‘earned’ picks and flipped the freebie for a veteran. Pretty much anyone other than Darko would have been a better choice. It turned out that we didn’t need anyone in 2004, winning the title, but if we’d had anyone besides a body on the bench in 2005 or 2006 maybe we would have made it through the Spurs and Heat. Instead of being a dynasty, the Pistons ended up being a pretty good team that everyone considers lucky to have won their one title during 7 straight years of 50+ wins.
The easy answer is Darko Milicic, but hindsight is 20/20. At the time, the Darko pick didn’t look nearly as bad as it does now. The real franchise-killer has been the summer of 2009, when Ben Gordon and Charlie Villanueva were signed to five-year deals worth over ninety million dollars combined. Gordon is paid like a star, Villanueva like starter, but both have played like scrubs. It’s hard to focus on much more than the lottery as long as these players are on the books.
Brent Price; Dr. Berri actually wrote a good article about the ’96-’97 Rockets. They had Hakeem Olajuwon, Charles Barkley, and Clyde Drexler all a bit past their primes but still productive, as well as a somewhat above average Mario Elie. With a decent point guard, they might have had a legitimate shot at the title. Price got hurt after 300 minutes and the season was not what it might have been.
Well since I can’t choose Clay Bennett, David Stern, or Howard Schultz because none of them are players, I’ll go with Dikembe Mutombo. Michael Jordan was retired. The Sonics ended the regular season with the BEST RECORD IN THE NBA (I think that’s the only time that’s ever happened). And we lost. In the first round. Yes, Dre’s favorite moment is my least favorite.
There are so many choices here, and the obvious one is Darko, by taking so many shots, but I’ll give him a pass because the reason he takes them is that Kurt Rambis insisted on running his offense through his worst player. No, I’ll use this for Michael Beasley, because B-Easy basically could be Kevin Durant if he had any shot selection at all. In his first 1.5 seasons, Kevin Durant was not very good, largely because he was an inefficient scorer who took far too many long 2-point jumpers and didn’t rebound enough. Somewhere along the way, he stopped doing that (I’ve heard credit given to Scott Brooks, but who knows?), and now his outside shots are all 3s and his 2 point shots are all at or near the basket, and he’s started rebounding like he did in college, and BINGO, he’s an elite player. B-Easy needs to do the same. Check out his shot selection according to this article. He takes twice as many shots from 10-15 ft as the average wing, about 25% more 16-23 footers as the average wing, fewer than average at the rim, and about ONE-THIRD as many 3s as the average wing (despite an OK 36.5% 3FG). If he basically stopped shooting between 10 and 23 feet, his FG% would go way up (and I bet his turnovers would go way down from shooting more 3s instead of taking ill-advised dribbles) and he could go from B-Easy to Beastly.
While unexpected, I definitely enjoyed the general Pistons tone of the article. It’s definitely nice to have different opinions on fun questions. Feel free to submit any you’d love to have a group of stats nerds answer and maybe we’ll do this again soon.
-Dre
Mosi Platt (@MIA_Heat_Index) is the Miami Heat writer for the Wages of Wins Network. You can normally find him at the Miami Heat Index. In addition to making sure the world knows the greatness of Dwyane Wade, Mosi also helps keep haters in line. Mosi makes his own lists of people that spread false information and he checks them twice thanks to his trusty Blackberry.
Kobe Bryant, Amar’e Stoudemire, LaMarcus Aldridge and Yao Ming were the most overrated players at their positions by NBA fans and the media in 2011.
I used the following steps to identify the players most overrated by the fans and the media:
Ten guards were overrated on the fans’ All-Star ballots in 2011 and nine were overrated by the media.
The 2011 All-Star game MVP was the most overrated guard by NBA fans and media.
Seven guards were underrated by the fans and media in 2011.
The oldest point guard in the league was also the most underrated by NBA fans and media.
Eleven forwards were overrated by the fans and seven were overrated by the media in 2011.
The new east coast bias: Stat and Melo were the most overrated forwards by the fans.
The man from Brandon Roy’s shadow was the most overrated forward by the media.
Nine forwards were underrated by the fans and six were underrated by the media in 2011.
Kevin got no Love from the fans and media in 2011, just David Stern.
Four centers were overrated by the fans and five were overrated by the media in 2011.
Much like Allen Iverson, fans loved Yao whether he played or not.
Four centers were underrated by the fans and six centers were underrated by the media.
What’s hurt fan appreciation of Horford more – playing out of position or playing in Atlanta?
The most underrated center by the media got the best of the most overrated in this clip.
Check out this spreadsheet for all the analysis of the overrated and underrated players.
One of the stories told in the Wages of Wins is that NBA fans and writers love scoring. All of the players at the top of the most overrated lists scored more than 20 points per game, with the exception of Yao. The only player at the top of the most underrated lists that scored more than 20 points per game was Love. How much cologne does that guy have to shell out to get some respect?
How many bottles of “Numb#rs” did David Stern get to put Love on the All-Star team?
-Mosi
Arturo Galletti is the Co-editor and Director of Analytics for the Wages of Wins Network. He is an Electrical Engineer with General Electric in the lovely isle of Puerto Rico, where he keeps his production lines running by day and night (and weekends) and works on sport analysis with his free time.
The Wins Produced metric works great when looking over how much a player helped our hurt your team for a season or over their career. When trying to discuss game to game though it can be a little abstract. Luckily the Wins Produced formula is all about converting points (or the difference in points using efficiency differential) to wins so what if we convert wins back to points? It’s easy enough to do with the following formula.
Point Margin = 31 .0 (Wins Produced-Wins Produced by an Average player)
(Editor Arturo’s Note: I screwed this up again :-) . Fixed now)
Basically the difference in Wins Produced for a player versus an average player can be mapped directly to point margin (go here if you want the full detail behind that equation). Let’s illustrate this as well (for simplicity I’m using .100 WP48 as the player average, it’s actually .099). Here’s a break down of how that works on a minute by minute basis.
Trotting out a star (0.250 WP48) is like spotting your team 4-5 points. Trotting out a player like Bargnani? Just the opposite. Trotting out an average player doesn’t gain you any points, but it doesn’t lose you any either.
For quick review of how the best players are helping their team here are the top 30 players, in terms of Point Margin per game.
| Name | Team | G | MP | PM | PM/G |
| Kevin Love | MIN | 73 | 2611 | 612.3 | 8.4 |
| Dwight Howard | ORL | 78 | 2935 | 571.5 | 7.3 |
| LeBron James | MIA | 79 | 3063 | 505.2 | 6.4 |
| Chris Paul | NOH | 80 | 2880 | 463.9 | 5.8 |
| Dwyane Wade | MIA | 76 | 2824 | 380.7 | 5.0 |
| Zach Randolph | MEM | 75 | 2724 | 339.0 | 4.5 |
| Kevin Garnett | BOS | 71 | 2220 | 298.6 | 4.2 |
| Kris Humphries | NJN | 74 | 2061 | 305.1 | 4.1 |
| Pau Gasol | LAL | 82 | 3037 | 337.0 | 4.1 |
| Andrew Bynum | LAL | 54 | 1500 | 210.8 | 3.9 |
| Marcus Camby | POR | 59 | 1540 | 227.3 | 3.9 |
| Joakim Noah | CHI | 48 | 1576 | 183.7 | 3.8 |
| Rajon Rondo | BOS | 68 | 2527 | 260.2 | 3.8 |
| Steve Nash | PHO | 75 | 2497 | 285.8 | 3.8 |
| Reggie Evans | TOR | 30 | 798 | 113.2 | 3.8 |
| Andre Iguodala | PHI | 67 | 2469 | 238.1 | 3.6 |
| Al Horford | ATL | 77 | 2704 | 272.0 | 3.5 |
| Tim Duncan | SAS | 76 | 2156 | 266.1 | 3.5 |
| Blake Griffin | LAC | 82 | 3112 | 279.3 | 3.4 |
| Tyson Chandler | DAL | 74 | 2059 | 250.0 | 3.4 |
| Paul Pierce | BOS | 80 | 2774 | 256.1 | 3.2 |
| Landry Fields | NYK | 82 | 2541 | 249.4 | 3.0 |
| Lamar Odom | LAL | 82 | 2639 | 249.2 | 3.0 |
| Kevin Durant | OKC | 78 | 3038 | 232.3 | 3.0 |
| Jason Kidd | DAL | 80 | 2653 | 232.2 | 2.9 |
| Deron Williams | UTA | 65 | 2465 | 178.1 | 2.7 |
| Manu Ginobili | SAS | 80 | 2426 | 206.7 | 2.6 |
| Andrew Bogut | MIL | 65 | 2297 | 160.2 | 2.5 |
| Nene Hilario | DEN | 75 | 2291 | 176.7 | 2.4 |
| Kobe Bryant | LAL | 82 | 2779 | 184.2 | 2.2 |
Table 1: Top 30 Players for 2011 based on Point Margin per game
Starting Kevin Love is like giving your team an eight point advantage (we’ll get to that more in a second.) The Heat got a 11.4 point boost every game LeBron and Wade showed up. Why don’t teams with these players win every game? Well let’s also check out the bottom players.
| Name | Team | G | MP | PM | PM/G |
| Andrea Bargnani | TOR | 66 | 2353 | -337.0 | -5.1 |
| Craig Brackins | PHI | 3 | 33 | -12.4 | -4.1 |
| Bobby Simmons | SAS | 2 | 16 | -6.5 | -3.3 |
| Brook Lopez | NJN | 82 | 2889 | -237.0 | -2.9 |
| Darko Milicic | MIN | 69 | 1686 | -193.8 | -2.8 |
| Earl Barron | MIL | 21 | 305 | -55.4 | -2.6 |
| Jeff Green | BOS | 75 | 2427 | -193.4 | -2.6 |
| Aaron Brooks | PHO | 59 | 1284 | -150.2 | -2.5 |
| Jordan Crawford | ATL | 42 | 1027 | -106.6 | -2.5 |
| Glen Davis | BOS | 78 | 2298 | -194.5 | -2.5 |
| Michael Beasley | MIN | 73 | 2361 | -179.3 | -2.5 |
| Samardo Samuels | CLE | 37 | 701 | -90.1 | -2.4 |
| Ekpe Udoh | GSW | 58 | 1030 | -140.6 | -2.4 |
| Travis Outlaw | NJN | 82 | 2358 | -198.3 | -2.4 |
| Jonny Flynn | MIN | 53 | 983 | -127.6 | -2.4 |
| Nick Young | WAS | 64 | 2034 | -149.7 | -2.3 |
| Al Harrington | DEN | 73 | 1665 | -170.1 | -2.3 |
| Jawad Williams | CLE | 26 | 391 | -59.2 | -2.3 |
| Ryan Hollins | CLE | 70 | 1182 | -158.1 | -2.3 |
| Eduardo Najera | CHA | 31 | 372 | -69.4 | -2.2 |
| Carl Landry | NOH | 76 | 2008 | -167.9 | -2.2 |
| Sonny Weems | TOR | 59 | 1413 | -130.0 | -2.2 |
| Linas Kleiza | TOR | 39 | 1032 | -85.5 | -2.2 |
| Jermaine O’Neal | BOS | 24 | 431 | -52.6 | -2.2 |
| Dante Cunningham | CHA | 78 | 1637 | -166.2 | -2.1 |
| DeMar DeRozan | TOR | 82 | 2851 | -173.2 | -2.1 |
| Gilbert Arenas | WAS | 70 | 1796 | -147.7 | -2.1 |
| Derek Fisher | LAL | 82 | 2297 | -172.5 | -2.1 |
| Nikola Pekovic | MIN | 65 | 887 | -136.2 | -2.1 |
| DaJuan Summers | DET | 22 | 199 | -45.9 | -2.1 |
Table 2: Worst 30 players of 2011 based on Point Margin per game
Bargnani is essentially an anti Dwyane Wade giving his team a 5 point handicap each game. Kevin Love’s 8.4 points can only handle Darko, Beasley and Flynn and the Wolves have even more bad players after that. Luckily the bad players hurt a little less than the good players help. For the most part at least.
If you want the entire league in a shiny image you can get them all here:
Point Margin for every player in 2011
-Arturo
