Sunday, August 22, 2010

2009-10 Player Review: Sonny Weems and DeMar DeRozan

For our next 2009-10 player review, as requested, let's take a look at the Young Gunz, Sonny Weems and DeMar DeRozan:










Weems doesn't have that much of a player history beyond what he did last year. In very limited minutes in Denver he was not very productive, but this past season he neared the production of anaverage player. At only 24 years old, it is likely that he will improve on last year's WP48, but we'll have to wait and see how much; I have conservatively projected him to reach a WP48 of 0.080 next season.









DeRozan's rookie season was rather underwhelming - he was about as close to producing 0 wins as Weems was to producing at an average level (so...not that good). But he is only 21 years old, and should improve next season to an even greater degree than Weems. I have projected DeRozan to reach a WP48 of 0.050, but young players can improve by leaps and bounds, so his improvement could be more pronounced. Then again, DeRozan wasn't that productive in college.

Here are the advanced stats:












Weems is clearly the better of the two; his shooting, points scored, rebounding, stealing, blocking, assisting, and fouling are better than DeRozan. DeRozan has the edge in FT attempts, TOs, and, consequently, a slight edge in net possessions. Neither player should be spending much time at SF, but DeRozan may be spending some time there this season.

For the Raptors to be putting so much hope into these two players is somewhat unsettling to me as a Raptor fan. Neither is likely to be producing at a "star" level (WP48 of 0.200) - let alone "superstar" level (WP48 of 0.300) - this upcoming season. Rather than retain these players (and, in the case of Weems, overpay to retain him next offseason) and hope for improvement from within, the Raptors should look to replace them with players who have a history of efficient production.

 - Devin.

3 comments:

  1. Devin,

    Do you have an idea of what the average year 2 increase (or decrease) in production that a typical player sees, given his PAWS40 college data?

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  2. This would be a good question for Shawn Ryan and David Berri. I personally don't have the data (or tools) to do that kind of analysis, but I can show you a couple links from the Wages of Wins Journal that may provide some insight:

    http://dberri.wordpress.com/2010/06/30/post-draft-analysis/

    http://dberri.wordpress.com/2009/06/14/superstar-search-in-the-nba-draft/

    http://dberri.wordpress.com/2008/05/14/the-second-rookies-trump-the-first/

    These can't answer your question specifically, but look at what that second article says:

    "Since 1995, no player who posted a below average college PAWS40 [Position Adjusted Win Score per 40 minutes] his last year in college managed to post a career WP48 above the 0.200 mark (after five seasons, minimum 5,000 minutes played)"

    And the last article:

    "From 1993-94 to 2006-07, the average rookie posted a WP48 of 0.047. Second year players have an average mark of 0.076. It’s not until the third year that players on average approach the NBA average level of productivity."

    Weems hit that mark spot on in his second year. DeRozan failed to reach the average rookie number and was a below average player in college. We'll probably see Weems approach average and DeRozan continue to be a below average player (and certainly below a WP48 of 0.200) for the next five years.

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  3. Thank you for that depressing info :)

    ReplyDelete