Tag Archives: Shawn Marion

Losing your star in a bad trade

Posted on by
15

Via Zimbio

Picture this scenario. Your team has been doing great the past few seasons. They even had a disappointing loss in the conference finals just two years ago. Your team is having contract negotiations with its star forward. Finally things break down, the team trades the player for pennies on the dollar and your once great franchise goes into a tailspin.

We’re not talking the Nuggets, which of course you know! However, this exact story did play out just a few seasons ago. In 2008 the Phoenix Suns decided to trade Shawn Marion to Miami for Shaq. This move was bad in so many ways. Let’s do a quick rundown.

Marion was a much better player than Shaq

At least that was true in 2008 (Totally checking to see if you read the articles as opposed to skim!)

Shawn Marion2006-2011
Season G MP WP48 WP
2006 81 3263 0.267 18.2
2007 80 3010 0.265 16.6
2008 63 2315 0.253 12.2
2009 69 2470 0.187 9.7
2010 75 2385 0.129 6.4
2011 80 2253 0.168 7.9
2012* 25 736 0.197 3.0
*2012 is through February 4th 2012. 2012 numbers provided by the NBA Geek. All other numbers via Wages of Wins.
Shaquille O'Neal 2006-2011
Season G MP WP48 WP
2006 58 1805 0.158 5.9
2007 40 1135 0.078 1.8
2008 61 1748 0.088 3.2
2009 75 2252 0.139 6.5
2010 53 1240 0.052 1.3
2011 37 752 0.138 2.2

In 2006 Shaq was still a decent big but was clearly second fiddle to Wade. By 2007 and 2008 Shaq was pretty much done. In his remaining life as an NBA player he only had one decent season left in 2009. Going into 2008 Marion was at the top of his game. In 07 the Suns were arguably a bad ref call (or stupid play by Amare) away from a third consecutive trip to the conference finals. There’s really no way to slice trading a top player in the league for a washed up former great.

It didn’t help money wise

I’ll throw Phoenix a bone here (and promptly snatch it back). Marion allegedly was asking for a three year $60 million extension. In 2009 Marion was turning 30 and this is right around the time players start to degrade. In fact, if we look at Marion’s numbers above, we see that’s what happened. However, had the Suns just ignored Marion’s demands then the following would have happened. They would have kept Marion’s services for 08 and kept a core of greats together that had recently made it far in the playoffs. Marion would probably have signed his 09 extension. The Suns would have kept Marion for another season and a half of greatness. At the end of that they’d have first rights to bargain for him or let him walk and free up cap flexibility.

What’s more, if the Suns complaint was money and age then Shaq was a confusing trade choice. Understand that the Suns got no picks or money from the Shaq trade. Shaq also had two years remaining on his contract taking him into 2010 whereas Marion’s contract would have expired in 09 (and that’s if he had taken the extension) Finally Shaq’s contract was more expensive than Marion’s ($20-$21 Million as opposed to $16-$17 million) So to avoid giving a great player they feared would degrade with age an expensive contract they traded for a former great player that had degraded with age an expensive contract! That’s some dramatic irony right there!

2010 would have been the same

I do feel I should put this out there. In 2010 the Suns surged back to prominence. A lot of this was by getting Jared Dudley and Jason Richardson from Charlotte. This of course a familiar story as Charlotte enjoys improving other teams. At the same time Marion had his worst season and was about as good as Grant Hill was in 2010. As such 2010 would have been a similar season if Marion was around instead of Hill (and the Suns still made the Richardson/Dudley deal).

The Suns could use Marion now

This season the Suns have Nash, Gortat and Dudley playing well. Childress is also a very good player that if given more playing time would help. As we can see this clears four out of five positions. Where the Suns are weak is at their forward spot. Channing Frye and Hakim Warrick are simply not good players. Clearly the Suns could use Marion this season. The Suns can be content that they were fine off in 2010 (a season where they traded Shaq for Ben Wallace and then paid Ben Wallace $10 million to go away to be just as good as they would have been with Marion). However they gave up the 08 season where Amare was playing at his highest level. They missed the playoffs in 09 and are currently sporting a losing record. Trading Marion is a perfect example of how losing a star player can impact a team. I hope all of the current people calling Melo a star will look back and take note. Of course I find it more likely that Melo will continue to be overrated the rest of his career and Marion will end his career underrated.

-Dre

It’s not 2008 anymore

Posted on by
30

This post uses the Wins Produced metric. For longtime fans we’ve made a few changes in the offseason, you can read up on them in the walkthrough. For all fans you can find up to date numbers at the NBA Geek.

I listened to a very enjoyable video cast over at Truehoop yesterday with Haralabos Voulgaris (@haralabob) and he had a great line that I can’t agree with more:

You shouldn’t call a player that’s not currently playing at an All-Star level an All-Star regardless of what he did in the past

It is common to consider a player’s legacy when discussing their skill. This season Kobe has not been playing well. However, I have consistently ended up in twitter fights where Kobe’s legacy is included to justify his current performance. The idea that experience helps a player is a bit off.

In Stumbling on Wins Berri and Schmidt showed that players do not age like wine, they age like milk. This especially matters to Kobe, who is 33 this season. Of the 405 players that have suited up this season only 41 of them are 33 or older. In that group of veterans there are some players with some great legacies. In fact if we jump back to Kobe’s MVP season we can see how close these players are to greatness.

Greats over 33 years of age in 2012 back in 2008
Player Age MPG WP48 WP League Rank
 Chauncey Billups  31 32.3 0.287 15.1 4
 Marcus Camby  33 34.9 0.257 14.8 6
 Steve Nash  33 34.3 0.253 14.6 7
 Kevin Garnett  31 32.8 0.298 14.4 8
 Jason Kidd  34 36.3 0.236 14.3 9
 Kobe Bryant  29 38.9 0.194 12.9 14
 Tim Duncan  31 34.0 0.233 12.9 15
 Shawn Marion  29 36.7 0.253 12.2 18
 Paul Pierce  30 35.9 0.195 12.7 22
 Ray Allen  32 35.9 0.181 9.9 30
 Dirk Nowitzki  29 36.0 0.162 9.4 34
 Vince Carter  31 36.8 0.151 9.3 35
 Ben Wallace  33 32.5 0.174 8.0 49

Using the WP48 metric a player is generally considered a star if they have a WP48 above 0.200 (twice as good as an average player). They are considered a good player if they have a WP48 above 0.150 (50% better than an average player). In 2008 seven of our thirteen greats were playing at star level. All of them were playing much better than average and all ranked in the top 50 in the league for production. How big of a difference does four years make?

Greats over 33 years of age in 2012 (through January 10th 2012) via the NBA Geek
Player Age MPG WP48 WP
Ray Allen  36 34.9 0.334 1.7
Marcus Camby  37 25.2 0.264 1.3
Steve Nash  37 29.3 0.222 1.2
Ben Wallace  37 12.9 0.178 0.5
Jason Kidd  38 28.1 0.168 0.8
Shawn Marion  33 27.1 0.153 0.9
Kevin Garnett  35 30.4 0.126 0.6
Kobe Bryant  33 36.4 0.115 1.0
Paul Pierce  34 30.4 0.099 0.3
Chauncey Billups  35 30.6 0.089 0.3
Vince Carter  35 20.8 0.066 0.3
Dirk Nowitzki  33 31.0 0.059 0.4
Tim Duncan  35 25.2 =0.002 0.0

Excluding Ray Allen, Marcus Camby and Ben Wallace all of our former greats have degraded since their old days. Even Camby and Wallace are hard to give much credit to as their production is around the same on far fewer minutes. All of our players have decreased their playing time (I have no doubt the insane lockout induced schedule has contributed to that). In 2008 over half of our players were stars. Four years later less than half of them are much better than average. In fact, a few have fallen off a cliff.

Here’s a reminder from Stumbling on Wins how we expect players to change year to year as they age.

Player performance with age.
Age change Expected performance change from previous season
23 to 24 +2%
24 to 25 no change
25 to 26 -2%
26 to 27 -4%
27 to 28 -6%
28 to 29 -9%
29 to 30 -11%
30 to 31 -17%
31 to 32 -22%
32 to 33 -35%
33 to 34 -57%
34 to 35 -146%

Players peak around 25. Up until they’re around thirty their decline is slow. Once they hit thirty-two though their degradation is very swift. All of our greats are now in that range and some of them were already there four years ago.

When players age in sports it’s not a question of if they’ll stop being great it’s a matter of when. Sure some players can defy expectations. However, when we look at our current crop of older players with good resumes in the NBA it doesn’t look good to think that as a group they’ll even stay a shadow of their glory days. People can quote player awards, that they’re clutch (even if they’re not), or that they have experience. If they’re in their thirties though they’re a ticking time bomb waiting to fall apart and that even includes great players. So when someone reminds you that Kobe or Dirk was an MVP just a few seasons ago, it’s not out of line to ask what they’ve done for you lately.

-Dre

North Carolina and UCLA Produced the Most Wins for the NBA

Posted on by
11

In my last post I noted that the longer NBA players are in college, the less they offer in the NBA.   Today it is a different question.  Which universities are turning out the most productive NBA players?

The NBA drafted players from 346 different institutions of higher learning from 1978 to 2010. See this spreadsheet for the full list.

Below is a list of the top 10 schools in wins produced. As one can see, NBA players from the University of North Carolina and UCLA produced over 200 more wins than players from any other college since 1978.

1. University of North Carolina: 54 players produced 1285.8 wins

You were expecting someone else?

  • Most productive alum: Michael Jordan with 284.2 wins produced
  • Least productive alum: Joe Wolf with -17.7 wins produced

2. University of California, Los Angeles: 65 players produced 1052.5 wins

Miller time.

3. Duke University: 38 players produced 826.5 wins

If not for the Pistons he coulda been a contender.

  • Most productive alum: Grant Hill with 137.9 wins produced
  • Least productive alum: Bobby Hurley with -5.2 wins produced

4. Michigan State University: 26 players produced 759.5 wins

Magic Johnson was worth about four players.

5. University of Houston: 21 players produced 724.6 wins

Houston's Dream #1 Pick and Robinson's Nightmare.

6. Georgetown University: 25 players produced 721.6 wins

Rejected!

7. University of Arizona: 39 players produced 570 wins

A.I who?

8. Clemson University: 13 players produced 568.8 wins

See Cleveland it's not so bad.

9. University of Nevada-Las Vegas: 29 players produced 561.6 wins

Finally a title and a spot on a top ten list!

10. Wake Forest University: 20 players produced 547.1 wins

Just happy to be here.

Summing Up

Let me close with a few more observations…

The stats required to calculate wins produced only go back to 1978. The first eight seasons for the career of UCLA’s best alum in the NBA, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, were not included in this analysis. That’s why Kareem is not the most productive UCLA alum since 1978. See this spreadsheet for the full list of alumni for each school in the top 10.

Traditional basketball powerhouses, Kentucky and Kansas, placed the third and fourth-highest number of players in the NBA after UCLA and UNC, but only rank 15th and 18th in wins produced (of course, if Wilt Chamberlain from Kansas could be included, Kansas might be ranked a bit higher).

No Kentucky Wildcat produced more than 100 wins in the NBA since 1978. Rajon Rondo is the all-time leader with 65 wins produced.

Paul Pierce is the all-time leader in wins produced for Kansas Jayhawks with 157.9 wins produced but no other alum produced more than 50 wins.

University of Houston is the only school in the top 10 with two alumni that produced more than 200 wins in their careers; Hakeem Olajuwon and Clyde Drexler (222.9 wins produced). The next closest school is Georgetown with Mutombo and Patrick Ewing (172.2 wins produced).

Clemson powered its way into the top 10 with three power forwards that produced more than 100 wins each: Larry Nance, Horace Grant (142 wins produced) and Dale Davis (120.8 wins produced).

Tim Duncan and Chris Paul combined to produce 368.2 wins (fifth-highest of any duo in the top 10) to land Wake Forest among the top schools.

Now that we know which colleges produced the most wins, the next question is whether the NBA overpaid for the college education of those players. That issue will be addressed in a future post.

-Mosi (check out more from Mosi Platt at the Miami Heat Index)