AG Standards for Front Offices Audit: Toronto Raptors (Draft History II)

This article uses the Wins Produced metric to discuss the productivity of NBA players. This metric is based on box score statistics that are adjusted for other factors including pace, position and team. A general scale is given for these, and links to advanced explanations are listed at the bottom of the page.

Wins Produced per 48 Minutes (WP48) – The number of wins a player produces in 48 minutes of play. 0.100 is average and 0.250 is considered the “superstar threshold”. A player a WP48 of 0.000 produces no wins, and any player with a negative WP48 produces a negative number a wins (or, if you prefer, a positive number of losses)

For more information on the terms used in this post, please consult the Glossary of Terms.



Last time we looked at the last ten years of Toronto's draft history. The general conclusion? The Raptors are really bad at drafting productive players (or, if you want to put an optimistic spin on it, the Raptors are excellent at drafting unproductive players). But, as bad as they were, maybe some of those draft choices were the best available options? Let's take an individual look at each draft pick and see if the Raptors could have gotten anything better than they did (you might want to follow along with this spreadsheet).

• 2000: #21 Morris Peterson; #56 DeeAndre Hulett 

As a Raptor fan, I gotta love the man. But looking at the numbers, Mo Pete wasn't so good in his first four seasons; he only managed a WP48 of 0.050. At the 21st pick, you would expect there to be some more palatable options than that, but was that the case? While there were 7 players with higher WP48s selected after him, the only truly useful players available were Michael Redd and Eduardo Najera. Overall, Mo Pete wasn't too bad of a pick.

DeeAndre Hulett never played a minute in the NBA, and neither did most of the players selected after him. While Jason Hart eventually played 5289 NBA minutes, he didn't play enough in his first four years to qualify. I'd give the Raptors a pass on this pick.

• 2001: #17 Michael Bradley; #46 (traded) 

Michael Bradley was actually a pretty good player in limited minutes. Despite that, he never made much of an impact on the NBA, and after the Raptors cut him in 2004, his NBA career was pretty much over. Instead of Bradley, the Raps could've had Mehmet Okur, Jamaal Tinsley, or Samuel Dalembert. The Raptors didn't do too badly with Bradley - now if only they had had the intelligence to play him more minutes.

The 46th pick was traded. Which was fine, because that year there were no useful players available at that number. So far the Raptors have been pretty good.

• 2002: #20 (traded); #27 Chris Jefferies; #42 (traded) 

And so begins the trading of useful draft picks. Kareem Rush was not a productive player - and Chris Jefferies didn't last long enough for us to find out how good he was. Trading down from #20 to #27, the Raptors missed out on the opportunity to draft Tayshaun Prince. Useful players available at #27 included Carlos Boozer, Dan Gadzuric, Luis Scola, and Matt Barnes. Given that the other two players involved in the exchange of these draft picks were Lindsey Hunter and Tracy Murray, I have no choice but to fail this draft decision. Drafting Carlos Boozer or Luis Scola would've been much better than Jefferies.

At #42, Scola and Barnes were still on the board. Yes, the Raptors could've picked up Boozer and Scola in the same draft if they knew what they were doing. And that is why you don't trade away your second round picks: when you hit with them, they have the potential to turn your franchise around.

• 2003: #4 Chris Bosh; #52 Remon Van der Hare 

Chris Bosh was a very good fourth pick - accordingly, Arturo ranks him 144 out of 980 draftees. But there were three players available who were even better than Bosh: Wade, Josh Howard, and Luke Walton. Now, keeping in mind that this ranking only considers the first four years, the only player I would think about drafting instead of Bosh would be (of course) Wade. So the Raptors did very well on this one.

Van der Hare never played in the NBA - and no one else drafted after him was useful. Looks like 2003 was a good drafting year.

• 2004: #8 Rafael Araujo; #39 (traded); #47 Pape Sow 

Ah, the first monumental Raptor bust of the 21st century! Araujo was such a bad pick that he only managed to last 1585 career minutes. In those minutes, he was very bad (WP48 lower than -0.07). Who could the Raptors have chosen instead? Oh, only Andris Biedrins, Andre Iguodala, Al Jefferson, Kevin Martin, Anderson Varejao, Trevor Ariza, Dorell Wright, Josh Smith, Delonte West, Chris Duhon, Tony Allen, and Jameer Nelson - all above-average (WP48 greater than 0.100) players. It's funny, because the recent development of Bargnani had almost made me forget about Hoffa.

The 39th pick could have been useful - Trevor Ariza and Bernard Robinson were both available. Robinson wasn't all that good, but Ariza certainly was.

Ah, good old Pape. Well, he didn't play enough minutes to get ranked, and he wasn't that productive...but there was nothing after him. Hmmm. Maybe Toronto should have just taken Ariza at the 39th instead of trading down...but they only missed one really decent player, so you can't hold it against them too much. Overall though, 2004 was a bad year.

• 2005: #7 Charlie Villanueva; #11 (traded); #16 Joey Graham; #38 (traded); #41 Roko Ukic; #58 Uros Slokar 

Busy draft year for the Raptors - let's start with the pick that had so many "experts" laughing: Villanueva. He actually wasn't that bad of a player - he managed a WP48 of 0.072 - and, as a scorer, was overrated, but the biggest problem with picking Villanueva so low was that...there were so many better players available. How many? Only David Lee, Marcin Gortat, Amir Johnson, Andrew Bynum, Luther Head, Danny Granger, Travis Diener, Jason Maxiell, Monta Ellis, Jarrett Jack, Ersan Ilyasova, and Ronny Turiaf. The Raptors could've at least chosen Granger there instead. This pick gets a D.

With Graham, you were never sure if you were getting "good Joey", the player who rebounded well and attacked the basket for easy shots, or "bad Joey", the player who hoisted up silly jumpers and didn't do much else (maybe the twins were playing tricks on us all?). Over his first four years his WP48 was 0.056. Again, instead of Graham, the Raptors could've had David Lee, Marcin Gortat, Amir Johnson, Luther Head, Danny Granger, Travis Diener, Jason Maxiell, Monta Ellis, Jarrett Jack, Ersan Ilyasova, or Ronny Turiaf. This pick gets a D minus.

Instead of seldomly played Roko Ukic, the Raptors could have had Gortat or Amir Johnson. But Ukic is exactly the kind of pick you want to make in the second round: high risk, high reward. All things considered, not a terrible choice.

Uros Slokar: another high risk, high reward pick. This time it didn't pan out, but again, at least Toronto went for it. There were no useful players selected after Slokar either, so this was an okay pick.

• 2006: #1 Andrea Bargnani; #20 (traded); #35 P.J. Tucker; #56 Edin Bavcic 

Everyone should know by now how badly the Raptors did by choosing Bargnani; I've talked about it several times before. In fact, if you've read those posts you'll know that Bargnani is ranked 970/980 draftees on Arturo's list. Instead of Bargnani, the Raptors could have chosen: Rajon Rondo, Renaldo Balkman, Brandon Roy, Paul Millsap, Ronnie Brewer, Leon Powe, Josh Boone, Kyle Lowry, Thabo Sefolosha, Tyrus Thomas, or Shelden Williams. This pick is an F.

Had the Raptors not traded #20, they could've had Rondo, Balkman, Millsap, Powe, Boone, or Lowry. Instead, the 20th pick was used to sweeten up the Jalen Rose trade, which was simply a correction of a previous mistake...and the resulting cap room led to future mistakes. Dumb.

P.J. Tucker didn't get much of a chance to play in the NBA, but when he did play, he showed promise. And after he left for overseas, he actually managed to achieve some measure of success. So the Raptors took exactly the kind of player they were supposed to, only to cut the guy in favour of Luke Jackson.

As Arturo would say

Edin Bavcic didn't play - and there was nobody useful picked after him - but again, at least the Raptors were looking for hidden gems

• 2007: #22 (traded); #52 (traded) 

Ah, the year of no picks. Why no picks? Because - years before Colangelo - they needed to get rid of Yogi Stewart and wanted to acquire Lamond Murray and John Wallace. Who could they have picked at #22? Rudy Fernandez, Carl Landry, Marc Gasol, Ramon Sessions, and Jared Dudley. At #52, they still could have had Sessions. Lesson? Don't trade away your picks.

• 2008: #17 (traded); #41 Nathan Jawai; #45 (traded) 

Really? T.J. Ford, Rasho Nesterovic, and the 17th pick for Jermaine O'Neal? The only saving grace of the trade was the cap room that it created, and BC did not use it wisely. The returns are still pretty early, but at #17, the Raptors could have had Luc Mbah a Moute, Serge Ibaka, DeAndre Jordan, Bill Walker, J.J. Hickson, Mario Chalmers, Courtney Lee, Goran Dragic, Ryan Anderson, and Sonny Weems. I'd take any of those players over Jermaine O'Neal, and I'd have been happy to keep T.J. Ford for a bit longer, thank you very much.

Instead of Jawai, Toronto could have had Walker or Dragic. Not too bad, and Jawai was an okay gamble. Those same two players were still available at #45 as well.

• 2009: #9 DeMar DeRozan; #39 (traded); #51 (traded) 

Another lottery pick, another poor choice. DeRozan didn't have good numbers coming out of college, and his first year wasn't very good (nor was his preseason this year). DeRozan is shaping up to be your classic Raptors lottery pick bust. Who could the Raptors have had instead? DeJuan Blair, Ty Lawson, Jon Brockman, Chase Budinger, Rodrigue Beaubois, Jonas Jerebko, Austin Daye, Jeff Pendergraph, Taj Gibson, Omri Casspi, or Darren Collison - just to name the above average players. It'll be a few more years before we can fully evaluate this draft class, but it's looking very likely that the Raptors made another poor choice.

Picks #39 and #51 were traded. Remember what I said about trading draft picks? Imagine Jerebko, Budinger, Marcus Thornton, or A.J. Price on the team. At least the Raptors got Carlos Delfino out of it...er, I mean, Amir Johnson (not bad, actually, although I would've preferred to have kept Delfino).

• 2010: #13 Ed Davis; #42 (traded), #50 Solomon Alabi 

Ed Davis seems like he's going to be a very good NBA player, and eventually we will get to see him in action. Based on nothing other than college numbers, it looks as if the Raptors made good pick. Although it must be said that the fact that there were 12 teams drafting ahead of them was probably a big factor in them choosing Davis.

In dropping down from #42 to #50, the Raptors may have missed out on a man with a sexy name, Devin Ebanks, and a man with a humourously erroneous name, Tiny Gallon. I'm not so sure that Alabi was a high risk/high reward player...high risk, certainly, but given that he played in the NCAA and didn't post good numbers, it's not likely that he will turn out to be too productive.


Draft Verdict?

In the last ten years, the Raptors have hit on a draft pick only once (maybe twice if Ed Davis turns out be as good as we think). That is a terrible, putrid rate. Some of the middling picks (late teens to early 30s) were okay, but the Raptors ended up cutting/trading away the draftee too early. Some of their second round picks were at least adventurous, but none of them succeeded. Any time the Raptors get into the lottery, there is a very good chance that they will select someone who not is very productive. To make matters even worse, Toronto has also traded away a rather large number of picks and hasn't made many trades to acquire any back - except for the occasional forced trade, such as the trades involving Carter and Bosh. So really...you can't blame good players for avoiding Toronto.

Next week I'll post Week 1 team stats (as reader Mattt points out, the Raptors are at 0.500 at the moment!), as well as the final part of this AGS front office audit and suggestions for turning the franchise around.

 - Devin

• All basic NBA stats, including play time, salary, and age, are from Basketball-Reference 
• Shooting data by location are from Hoopdata 
• The Wins Produced (WP and WP48) metric is the work of Berri and Schmidt. I use the Automated Wins Produced site, which is powered by data from Basketball-Reference and Yahoo Sports and put together by Andres Alvarez. 
• Positional averages (for PPS, etc) are from The Wages of Wins. 
• All of the draft data is the work of Arturo Galletti 

Updates: Season and Team Projections

This article uses the Wins Produced metric to discuss the productivity of NBA players. This metric is based on box score statistics that are adjusted for other factors including pace, position and team. A general scale is given for these, and links to advanced explanations are listed at the bottom of the page.

Wins Produced per 48 Minutes (WP48) – The number of wins a player produces in 48 minutes of play. 0.100 is average and 0.250 is considered the “superstar threshold”. A player a WP48 of 0.000 produces no wins, and any player with a negative WP48 produces a negative number a wins (or, if you prefer, a positive number of losses)

For more information on the terms used in this post, please consult the Glossary of Terms.


I have made a few slight changes to both the season predictions and the Raptors prediction; in the case of the Raptors, it looks like Jay Triano is going to play Reggie Evans as much as he did in the preseason, and, due to his struggles, Calderon will be playing less. I adjusted the numbers accordingly and the Raptors improve by...less than one win (although it rounds up). With my season numbers, I knocked off 8 wins to make sure all the league wins added up to 1230. Previously, I was happy with close enough, but...might as well make it more realistic. While all of the previous wins were calculated using the numbers, this knocking off business was done rather subjectively. So here are the last numbers:


Eastern Conference:

1. Miami Heat (65-17)
2. Chicago Bulls (55-27)
3. Orlando Magic (54-28)
4. Boston Celtics (53-29)
5. Atlanta Hawks (46-36) 
6. Milwaukee Bucks (44-38)
7. New Jersey Nets (41-41)
8. Cleveland Cavaliers (39-43)
9. New York Knicks (38-44)
10. Charlotte Bobcats (33-49)
11. Detroit Pistons (29-53)
12. Toronto Raptors (28-54)
13. Indiana Pacers (26-56)
14. Philadelphia 76ers (19-63)
15. Washington Wizards (10-72)

Western Conference:

1. Portland Trailblazers (61-21)
2. San Antonio Spurs (58-24)
3. Los Angeles Lakers (56-26)
4. Golden State Warriors (48-34)
5. Dallas Mavericks (47-35)
6. Denver Nuggets (45-37)
7. Oklahoma City Thunder (44-38)
8. Phoenix Suns (44-38)
9. Sacramento Kings (43-39)
10. New Orleans Hornets (43-39)
11. Houston Rockets (42-40)
12. Utah Jazz (42-40)
13. Memphis Grizzlies (29-53)
14. Minnesota Timberwolves (26-56)
15. Los Angeles Clippers (22-60)

The spreadsheet with the updated projections for the Raptors has been automatically updated, but I'll repost it:




In addition to continuing the front office audit, I'll be doing weekly posts on the Raptors' performance during the season using Andres' automated wins produced numbers.

 - Devin

• All basic NBA stats, including play time, salary, and age, are from Basketball-Reference
• Shooting data by location are from Hoopdata
• The Wins Produced (WP and WP48) metric is the work of Berri and Schmidt. I use the Automated Wins Produced site, which is powered by data from Basketball-Reference and Yahoo Sports and put together by Andres Alvarez.
• Positional averages (for PPS, etc) are from The Wages of Wins.
• All of the draft data is the work of Arturo Galletti

AGS for Front Offices Audit: Toronto Raptors (Part 1:Draft history)

This article uses the Wins Produced metric to discuss the productivity of NBA players. This metric is based on box score statistics that are adjusted for other factors including pace, position and team. A general scale is given for these, and links to advanced explanations are listed at the bottom of the page.

Wins Produced per 48 Minutes (WP48) – The number of wins a player produces in 48 minutes of play. 0.100 is average and 0.250 is considered the “superstar threshold”. A player a WP48 of 0.000 produces no wins, and any player with a negative WP48 produces a negative number a wins (or, if you prefer, a positive number of losses)

For more information on the terms used in this post, please consult the Glossary of Terms.
 

As promised, let's take a look at the Raptors' management plan. To start, I have been analyzing the organizational philosophy of the Raptors, and after hours of work, I have come up with an image that summarizes my findings:

Hey - I never said I was an artist

There are certainly more than a few obstacles for the Raptors to overcome in order for them to simply win a playoff series, let alone a championship. So, using Arturo's standards for evaluating front offices - previously employed by Andres to evaluate the Nuggets front office - let's see what the Raptors are doing well and where they can improve.


1) Get an advanced stats model to gain an edge over other teams. Make sure this model correlates with winning.

Raptors GM Bryan Colangelo seems to be skeptical about stats, and, as far as I am aware, does not have any dedicated statistical analysts working for the team. While he claims to have read parts of The Wages of Wins, he clearly doesn't buy into Wins Produced or he wouldn't have made a lot of the moves has has (Bargnani, Turkoglu, etc). So that's a fail.


2) Bolster your roster with draft picks rather than free agency.
3) Flip scorers for draft picks (see 2).
4) Use later picks on high risk/reward players for a cheaper price.

Let's take a look at what happened to all the draft picks the Raptors have had since 2000. Although Colangelo has only been around since 2006, I think we should also look at how the Raptors did BBC (before Bryan Colangelo), so let's look at the last 10 years of Raptors drafting:

• 2000: Morris Peterson (21st), DeeAndre Hulett (46st)
• 2001: Michael Bradley (17th)
• 2002: Kareem Rush (20th)
• 2003: Chris Bosh (4th), Remon Van der Hare (52nd)
• 2004: Rafael Araujo (8th), Albert Miralles (39th)
• 2005: Charlie Villanueva (7th), Joey Graham (16th), Roko Ukic (41st), Uros Slokar (58th)
• 2006: Andrea Bargnani (1st), P.J. Tucker (35th), Edin Bavcic (56th)
• 2007: none
• 2008: Roy Hibbert (17th)
• 2009: DeMar DeRozan (9th)
• 2010: Ed Davis (13th)

That list doesn't look too good - but we are not done yet. We also have to consider that some of those picks were immediately traded to other teams:

• Kareem Rush, along with Tracy Murray, and a 2003 draft pick (Luke Walton), to the Lakers for Lindsey Hunter, Chris Jeffries, and a 2003 draft pick (Ramon Van de Hare)
• Roy Hibbert, along with T.J. Ford, Rasho Nesterovic, and Maceo Baston, to Indiana for Jermaine O'Neal and Nathan Jawai
• Acquired Pape Sow and a 2005 draft pick (Uros Slokar) from the Miami Heat for a 2004 draft pick (Albert Miralles)

And what about the draft picks that Toronto traded away:

1. 2001 draft pick (Ousmane Cisse), along with Kevin Willis, Alex Radojevic, and Garth Joseph, to the Nuggets for Keon Clark, Tracy Murray, and Mamadou N'Diaye
2. 2002 draft pick (Jason Jennings), along with Charles Oakley, to the Bulls for Brian Skinner
3. 2005 draft pick (Fran Vasquez), along with Corliss Williamson, Tyrone Corbin, and Kornel David, to the Kings for Jerome Williams and Eric Montross
4. 2005 draft pick (Travis Diener), along with Mengke Bateer and Remon Van der Hare, to the Magic for Robert Archibald and a 2005 draft pick (Roko Ukic)
5. 2006 draft pick (Renaldo Balkman), along with Jalen Rose, to the Knicks for Antonio Davis
6. 2007 draft pick (Jared Dudley), along with Michael Stewart, to the Cavs for Lamond Murray and a 2004 draft pick (Albert Miralles)
7. 2007 draft pick (Taurean Green) to Portland for John Wallace
8. 2008 draft pick (Goran Dragic) to the Spurs for the rights to Giorgos Printezis
9. 2009 draft pick (Jack McClinton), along with Matt Bonner and Eric Williams, to the Spurs for Rasho Nesterovic
10. 2009 draft pick (Jonas Jerebko) to the Pistons for Carlos Delfino
11. 2010 draft pick (Da'Sean Butler) to the Heat due to the Shawn Marion trade
12. 2011 second round draft pick to the Pistons for Carlos Delfino
13. 2013 second round draft pick to the Mavs (to acquire Slomon Alabi)
14. 2014 second round draft pick to the Celtics (to acquire Patrick O'Bryant)
15. 2015 second round draft pick to the Rockets (to acquire David Andersen)
16. 2016 second round draft pick to the Grizzlies (to acquire Turkoglu)

And what about future draft picks they've acquired:

1. 2011 first round draft pick from Miami (Chris Bosh trade)
2. 2015 second round draft pick (51-55 only) from the Clippers for Hassan Adams

Phew! That was a lot of work. By the way, these last two lists may not be complete - it turns out that it's actually quite difficult to find out what happened to all the draft picks that the Raptors have acquired or traded away over the years (my best resource was, unsurprisingly, Wikipedia). Adding everything above together, how successful has Toronto been with its picks? To evaluate drafted players, we'll turn to Arturo's handy Draft Score spreadsheet, which ranks the past 30 years of draft picks. Since the total number of players drafted is 980, each draftee can be expressed as a percentage (1-n/980). Please note: Arturo's draft numbers are based only on the first four years of a player's career (their rookie contract) and includes only those players who managed to play at least 1600 minutes over four years (400 minutes a year). Numbers for players drafted after 2006 are calculated using Andres Alvarez's Automated Wins Produced.

If you'd rather view this spreadsheet as a webpage, click here.



Given that list, what can we say about the Raptors' recent draft history? Abysmal. Of the 15 retained draftees that could have played four seasons by now, only six were even ranked (ie: nine players didn't even manage to play 400 minutes/season in their first four seasons). The six rankable players - including Chris Bosh - had an average ranking of 517/980 (48%). Take out Bosh (144), and the remaining five players had an average rank of 585/980 (40%). The Raptors simply do not draft well.

Toronto has been the team trading the draft picks in order to get...mostly unproductive bench players. The Raptors fail #2 and #3 big time. Up until 2006 (the first year with Colangelo at the helm), the Raptors were doing okay on #4, but since then, they haven't had any second round picks to use, because they traded them away (not entirely Colangelo's fault, as many of the transactions happened years ago). But because they demonstrated that they have no understanding of the value of second round draft picks, I'm giving them a fail there too.


This post is getting far too long, so I'm going to split it into at least two parts. In the next part, I want to review individual draftees and then see how the Raptors measure up to the last three aspects of Arturo's requirements.


 - Devin
 

• All basic NBA stats, including play time, salary, and age, are from Basketball-Reference
• Shooting data by location are from Hoopdata
• The Wins Produced (WP and WP48) metric is the work of Berri and Schmidt. I use the Automated Wins Produced site, which is powered by data from Basketball-Reference and Yahoo Sports and put together by Andres Alvarez.
• Positional averages (for PPS, etc) are from The Wages of Wins.
• All of the draft data is the work of Arturo Galletti

David Berri Interview with RaptorsHQ

Go on over to RaptorsHQ to see what David Berri, author of The Wages of Wins and Stumbling on Wins has to say about several Raptors-related issues, including everyone's favourite player, Andrea Bargnani.

Unsurprisingly, Mr. Berri and I have very similar opinions, but it's a good read nonetheless - particularly if you are interested in the history of Wins Produced.

 - Devin.

Updated 2010-11 Team Projection

This article uses the Wins Produced metric to discuss the productivity of NBA players. This metric is based on box score statistics that are adjusted for other factors including pace, position and team. A general scale is given for these, and links to advanced explanations are listed at the bottom of the page.

Wins Produced per 48 Minutes (WP48) – The number of wins a player produces in 48 minutes of play. 0.100 is average and 0.250 is considered the “superstar threshold”. A player a WP48 of 0.000 produces no wins, and any player with a negative WP48 produces a negative number a wins (or, if you prefer, a positive number of losses)

For more information on the terms used in this post, please consult the Glossary of Terms.


It has come to my attention that some readers are still looking at the projection I made several months ago and believe that is current. That is not the case.

The Raptors - as currently constructed - are going to fare a bit worse this season. Although I have revealed my predicted win totals a couple of times in the past week or so, I haven't posted a detailed account. So here it is, the updated team numbers for the coming season:



So the Raptors - barring significant trades or injuries - stand to win around 27 games this season. Unless, of course, some Raptors play like they did during the preseason. But previous seasons are a better predictor of player productivity than preseason numbers, so the above spreadsheet is a more reliable prediction than anything based on preseason numbers.

Some factors that might affect these predictions:

• Based on last year's numbers, I have Reggie Evans down for only 762 minutes. If Evans gets more playing time this year (and it looks like he might), the Raptors will win more games
• Calderon has a projected WP48 of about 0.180. If he continues to struggle like last year (and this preseason), the Raptors will lose more games
• Barbosa might have a better WP48 this season (then again, he might not). His production has been rather unstable over his career, and the Raptors win totals could decrease by as many as 2 wins or increase by as many as 3 wins depending on his production.

All in all, 27 wins seems like a pretty good projection. For more WoW based season predictions, head on over to the Wages of Wins Network 2011 Super Stat Geek Smackdown.

 - Devin.

• All basic NBA stats, including play time, salary, and age, are from Basketball-Reference
• Shooting data by location are from Hoopdata
• The Wins Produced (WP and WP48) metric is the work of Berri and Schmidt. I use the Automated Wins Produced site, which is powered by data from Basketball-Reference and Yahoo Sports and put together by Andres Alvarez.
• Positional averages (for PPS, etc) are from The Wages of Wins.

Raptors Preseason Review #4 (of 4)

This article uses the Wins Produced metric to discuss the productivity of NBA players. This metric is based on box score statistics that are adjusted for other factors including pace, position and team. A general scale is given for these, and links to advanced explanations are listed at the bottom of the page.

Wins Produced per 48 Minutes (WP48) – The number of wins a player produces in 48 minutes of play. 0.100 is average and 0.250 is considered the “superstar threshold”. A player a WP48 of 0.000 produces no wins, and any player with a negative WP48 produces a negative number a wins (or, if you prefer, a positive number of losses)

For more information on the terms used in this post, please consult the Glossary of Terms.


After reviews #1, #2, and #3, here are how the preseason numbers ended up:



I've added some fancy colours to the per 48 minute columns - but please note that the colours are based on totals only and are not adjusted by position. For example: Bargnani doesn't fare so poorly in rebounding when compared to the team as a whole (he's yellow), but compare him to other centres and he'd be terrible (red). Anyways, how are the stats different from the last time we checked in?



Here are my thoughts about the last two games, as well as the preseason as a whole:

• Raptors' preseason MVP: Jarrett Jack. Runners-up: Dorsey, Kleiza, and Evans
• Raptors' preseason LVP: Andrea Bustiani. Runners-up: Calderon and DeRozan
• Of the players who played significant minutes, Kleiza and Johnson lowered their EWP48s (read: got worse) the most over the last two games
• Barbosa and Evans raised their EWP48s (read: improved) the most over the last two games
• Calderon, Banks, Alabi, and Bargnani ended up producing a negative number of wins
• Calderon watch: his best game of the preseason was against the Knicks (EWP48 0.397 and EWP 0.132)
• Calderon only did one thing well: rack up assists. But his shooting was terrible
• For another guy who's supposed to be good at shooting...Bargnani didn't shoot well at all
• Bargnani moved "up" to 11th least productive in the league during the preseason on a per-minute basis (according to Arturo). In terms of total wins produced, Bargani is 4th last, behind Marcus Thornton (2nd year player), Sharron Collins (rookie), and Kenny Hasbrouck (rookie). So...is Bargnani a bust yet?
• Bargnani's only game in the black this preseason was the second game against the Suns - every other game he was negative
• Bargnani accumulated a Win Score of exactly 0 in 216 minutes
• I'd prefer David Andersen to Bargnani - even excluding Bargnani's massive contract. Andersen was better in every area, except blocks and fouls
• Not news: Reggie Evans rebounds like a madman
• News: Joey Dorsey out-rebounded the madman
• Julian Wright was pretty good in limited minutes. He benefited from playing most of his time at SF
• Going by these numbers, the team's bigs are probably going to have foul trouble most games. Maybe it's time to acquire a decent centre?

There are other stories in those numbers, but those were the ones that spoke to me the most. If you spot any other interesting tales, let me (and others) know in the comments.

 - Devin

• All basic NBA stats, including play time, salary, and age, are from Basketball-Reference
• Shooting data by location are from Hoopdata
• The Wins Produced (WP and WP48) metric is the work of Berri and Schmidt. I use the Automated Wins Produced site, which is powered by data from Basketball-Reference and Yahoo Sports and put together by Andres Alvarez.
• Positional averages (for PPS, etc) are from The Wages of Wins.

2010-2011 Season Predictions

Rob O'Malley of Roblog decided that the writers of the Wages of Wins network should all participate in a contest to see who is the best at predicting the outcome of the 2010-2011 NBA season. Andres took the ball and created a web page that will keep everyone's predictions in a public place. Here are my picks (unless rosters change significantly in the next couple of days):


Eastern Conference:

1. Miami Heat (68-14)
2. Chicago Bulls (56-26)
3. Orlando Magic (54-28)
4. Boston Celtics (53-29)
5. Atlanta Hawks (46-36) 
6. Milwaukee Bucks (44-30)
7. New Jersey Nets (43-39)
8. Cleveland Cavaliers (39-43)
9. New York Knicks (38-44)
10. Charlotte Bobcats (33-49)
11. Detroit Pistons (29-53)
12. Toronto Raptors (27-55)
13. Indiana Pacers (27-55)
14. Philadelphia 76ers (19-63)
15. Washington Wizards (10-72)
 

Surprise teams? In the East, there was only one team that really surprised me: Philadelphia. Unfortunately for Philly fans, the 76ers are a one-man team with no supporting cast. Andre Iguodala (13), Louis Williams (4), and Evan Turner (4) are probably going to produce around 21 wins by themselves. Everyone else? About -2 wins.

Many of the other Wages of Wins Network writers have already mentioned how good the Bulls, the Nets, and the Cavs are likely to be, so these teams didn't surprise me (but might surprise casual fans).

If the seeding ends up like this, we'll get to see a Heat-Cavs matchup in the first round (fun!), as the Cavs would make the 8th seed despite being under .500.


Western Conference:

1. Portland Trailblazers (62-20)
2. San Antonio Spurs (59-23)
3. Los Angeles Lakers (56-26)
4. Golden State Warriors (48-34)
5. Dallas Mavericks (47-35)
6. Denver Nuggets (45-37)
7. Oklahoma City Thunder (44-38)
8. Phoenix Suns (44-38)
9. Sacramento Kings (43-39)
10. New Orleans Hornets (43-39)
11. Houston Rockets (42-40)
12. Utah Jazz (42-40)
13. Memphis Grizzlies (29-53)
14. Minnesota Timberwolves (26-56)
15. Los Angeles Clippers (22-60)

Surprise teams? Portland, Golden State, and the Kings are going to be good, but a lot of other WoWN writers have already pointed them out. To me, the Spurs remaining so good was news, as was the crapitude of the Grizzlies. With Krstic and Green hurting their team, I don't see the Thunder doing as well as last year.

Some fun playoff matchups in the West would be: a Portland-Suns rematch, a "youth" vs "experience" matchup in Spurs-Thunder, and a hopefully interesting renewal of the Mavs-Warriors rivalry. Interesting that of the 15 Western Conference teams, I have 12 finishing above .500. This year (barring injuries and trades...which, come on, almost never happen) there will be a logjam in the West.


NBA Playoffs:

• Eastern Conference Finalists: Miami Heat, Chicago Bulls
• Western Conference Finalists: Portland Trailblazers, Los Angeles Lakers
• NBA Champions: Miami Heat

Media Awards:

MVP:

1. Kevin Durant
2. Dwight Howard
3. Lebron James

Rookie of the Year:

1. Blake Griffin
2. DeMarcus Cousins
3. John Wall

Defensive Player of the Year:

1. Dwight Howard
2. Rajon Rondo
3. Thabo Sefolosha

6th Man Award:

1. Udonis Haslem
2. Reggie Williams
3. Matt Barnes

Most Improved Player:

1. Kevin Love
2. DeJuan Blair
3. Stephen Curry

Coach of the Year:

1. Tom Thibideau (Bulls)
2. Keith Smart (Warriors)
3. Paul Westphal (Kings)

Executive of the Year:

1. Pat Riley (Miami)
2. Larry Riley (Golden State)
3. Billy King (New Jersey)

Wins Produced Awards:

MVP:

1. Lebron James
2. Dwight Howard
3. Kevin Durant

Rookie of the Year:

1. Blake Griffin
2. DeMarcus Cousins
3. Ed Davis

Sixth Man Award:

1. Lamar Odom
2. Chris Andersen
3. DeJuan Blair

Most Improved Player:

1. Kevin Love
2. DeJuan Blair
3. Chris Paul

At the end of the regular season, I'll be able to look back and see what I missed (which I'm sure will be plenty). Regardless of how I fare, one thing's for sure: my predictions are going to be a lot better than my ESPN fantasy team (never miss the start of a draft, because the computer will pick for you; I'm stuck with Kobe, Carmelo, Aaron Brooks, Joe Johnson, and Danny Granger in a Win Score league).

 - Devin.

Arturo's preseason WP for all players

This article uses the Wins Produced metric to discuss the productivity of NBA players. This metric is based on box score statistics that are adjusted for other factors including pace, position and team. A general scale is given for these, and links to advanced explanations are listed at the bottom of the page.

Wins Produced per 48 Minutes (WP48) – The number of wins a player produces in 48 minutes of play. 0.100 is average and 0.250 is considered the “superstar threshold”. A player a WP48 of 0.000 produces no wins, and any player with a negative WP48 produces a negative number a wins (or, if you prefer, a positive number of losses)


I've been posting preseason EWP - that's Estimated Wins Produced - numbers for Raptors players in my Preseason Reviews, but today Arturo Galletti posted WP - the real Wins Produced - numbers for every player in the league as of 10/19!

Please note that there are differences between the numbers I've posted and Arturo's numbers - there are two reasons for this. One, EWP is exactly what it claims to be: an estimate. EWP uses Win Score to estimate WP numbers. And two, Arturo uses simple positions in his calculations. That means that players who play multiple positions are assigned to one position only, which makes the calculations slightly inaccurate. But Arturo didn't have the time to adjust hundreds of players' positions! So both numbers - his and mine - are slightly off. But his are certainly more accurate for players who have only played one position all preseason long.

I'd like to point out a few observations from Arturo's league-wide WP numbers:

• Blake Griffin is destroying the league - making it even more obvious that Bargnani is a bust
• Kleiza (9th), Jack (11th), and Johnson (24th) are in the top 25 for players who have played at least 60 minutes
• Dorsey (6th) and Wright (13th) are in the top 15 for players who haven't played at least 60 minutes
• Bargnani is 12th among players who have played at least 60 minutes....12th last, that is. Hey, at least he's better than unproductive ex-Raptor Jason Kapono.

Go check out the list, and while you're there, take a look at all the other stuff Arturo has on his great site.


 - Devin

• All basic NBA stats, including play time, salary, and age, are from Basketball-Reference
• Shooting data by location are from Hoopdata
• The Wins Produced (WP and WP48) metric is the work of Berri and Schmidt. I use the Automated Wins Produced site, which is powered by data from Basketball-Reference and Yahoo Sports and put together by Andres Alvarez.
• Positional averages (for PPS, etc) are from The Wages of Wins.

World Statistics Day

Today is the first World Statistics Day, a day to "raise awareness of the many achievements of officials statistics premised on the core values of service, professionalism, and integrity."

This finally gives me the opportunity to bring something up: the cancellation of the Canadian Long-Form Census.

Now the purpose of this blog is not to talk about politics - this is a site devoted to covering the NBA's Toronto Raptors and other basketball related issues. However, I will make an exception in this case, because I have to believe that statistical validity knows no political bounds (although unfortunately, that might not be true). The official statistics gathered by the Canadian census are far more important than the statistics that I and other Wages of Wins network writers rely on to produce the content of our blogs, but they remain statistics, and it is important that everyone - especially government - understands how statistics work.

Replacing a mandatory census with a voluntary one introduces sample bias to the data. Sending out more forms and getting more responses from a voluntary census will not correct this error; once the survey is made voluntary, certain populations of Canadians will be under-represented. Dozens of organizations across the country have voiced their objections to the changes to the census based exactly on these grounds, but the Canadian government shows no signs of reversing the decision. Even worse: the voluntary census will be more costly than the old census.

With that - if anyone is still reading this - I leave you with two video links (I don't want to embed them):

• Canadians: Funeral for the Long-Form Census
• Americans: Elect the Willfully Ignorant!
• Everyone else: sorry, nothing special for you, but you have my permission to watch both!

In the next few days I will be posting the following: preseason review 4 (of 4), 2010-11 NBA predictions, and (thanks to reader TotalFuckwad) an evaluation/discussion of Raptors management.

 - Devin

Raptors Preseason Review #3 (of 4)

This article uses the Wins Produced metric to discuss the productivity of NBA players. This metric is based on box score statistics that are adjusted for other factors including pace, position and team. A general scale is given for these, and links to advanced explanations are listed at the bottom of the page.

Wins Produced per 48 Minutes (WP48) – The number of wins a player produces in 48 minutes of play. 0.100 is average and 0.250 is considered the “superstar threshold”. A player a WP48 of 0.000 produces no wins, and any player with a negative WP48 produces a negative number a wins (or, if you prefer, a positive number of losses)


Here are what the team numbers look like after six (of eight) preseason games:



And here is how the numbers have changed since the last review:



Here are my thoughts about the last two games (against familiar opponents):

• We're still seeing a lot of regression to the norm, particularly for players who haven't played many minutes (Alabi, Wright, Banks, Dorsey, and Dupree)
• Kleiza, Jack, and Dorsey continue to produce at excellent levels, and in fact improved upon their already excellent per-minute production
• Evans and Johnson have gotten themselves out of the holes they dug in the first four games. Both are now approaching their expected WP48s for the coming season
• Barbosa, Weems, and DeRozan have all seen a decline in production, mostly due to poor shooting from the field
• Playing against the Suns for the second time, Bargnani had his first positive contribution: EWP48 0.258 and EWP 0.134
• Unfortunately, even including that game, Bargnani has almost caused one whole loss (EWP -0.919) in only six games (yikes)
• Calderon watch - he had his best game of the preseason against the Suns: EWP48 0.276 and EWP 0.121
• Calderon continues to slowly improve his per-minute production, but is still a negative contributor at the moment
• Jack and Kleiza have produced more than one win apiece. Together these two players have been responsible for about 69% of the team's wins.
• Amir Johnson had a huge game against the Suns: EWP48 0.781 and EWP 0.407
• David Andersen is a rich man's Andrea Bargnani - he shoots better and rebounds better
• The Suns have been out-rebounded by the Raptors twice; with Amaré gone, their lack of a quality big man is apparent
• Last review I forgot to mention Jrue Holiday's huge game against the Raptors: a triple-double, EWP48 0.612 and EWP 0.587. Too bad for him he only got help from Evan Turner and Jodie Meeks

Final observation for this installment: the Raptors EWP totals add up to 3.13 wins, and after six games their record is 3 wins and 3 losses. Who knew that Wins Produced was so good at explaining player productivity in NBA games?

 - Devin

• All basic NBA stats, including play time, salary, and age, are from Basketball-Reference
• Shooting data by location are from Hoopdata
• The Wins Produced (WP and WP48) metric is the work of Berri and Schmidt. I use the Automated Wins Produced site, which is powered by data from Basketball-Reference and Yahoo Sports and put together by Andres Alvarez.
• Positional averages (for PPS, etc) are from The Wages of Wins.

Introducing Required Readings

Up until now, it has been my policy to leave comments as is on this blog and to refrain from censoring them, even if the comments weren't necessarily productive. However, in light of the recent comments that have been left on my "Is Bargnani a bust?" series of posts, I will have to change my comments policy.

And a big part of that change in policy will be the "Required Readings" page, which is located at the top of every page under the site logo. This page will contain links to what I consider to be some of the most important articles/posts on several issues relating to Wins Produced (WP), including how to calculate WP, how WP stacks up against other metrics of player productivity, and the responses to several common criticisms, such as "WP overvalues rebounding" and "WP hates scorers".

From now on, I will no longer be responding to the old, frequently brought up criticisms of WP; instead I will be directing readers with these comments toward Required Readings. So, if you make a comment with a question/point that relates to one of the issues covered on the Required Readings page, it is likely that I will address it by directing you toward that page. If you leave a comment that has already been addressed in the past and use vulgar or insulting language, please count on your comment being deleted.

 - Devin

More on More on Bargnani

This article uses the Wins Produced metric to discuss the productivity of NBA players. This metric is based on box score statistics that are adjusted for other factors including pace, position and team. A general scale is given for these, and links to advanced explanations are listed at the bottom of the page.

Wins Produced per 48 Minutes (WP48) – The number of wins a player produces in 48 minutes of play. 0.100 is average and 0.250 is considered the “superstar threshold”. A player a WP48 of 0.000 produces no wins, and any player with a negative WP48 produces a negative number a wins (or, if you prefer, a positive number of losses) 

An anonymous reader (by the way, you guys do realize you can create blogger profiles, right?) posed a logical question: if the Raptors shouldn't have selected Bargnani with the first overall pick in the 2006 NBA draft, who should they have chosen instead?

I'll begin answering this question by first looking at the productivity of the 2006 lottery picks (picks 1-14):

As you can see, there weren't that many productive players selected in the top 14. But amongst these 14 players the most productive was Brandon Roy. Roy produced more than 50 more wins than Bargnani over his first four years - not too shabby. I think, given the chance to do the 2006 draft over, everyone in their right mind would be happy with Roy instead of Bargnani.

But Roy was not the most productive player available. The next table shows the productivity of all the players in the 2006 draft who managed to play at least 1600 minutes over four seasons (why the cutoff? Any fewer minutes than that and we don't really get a good indication of a player's productivity):



Rajon Rondo was the most productive player of the 2006 draft. He'd be my number one pick if I had to do the draft over. Renaldo Balkman (who hasn't produced that many wins due to lack of playing time) and Roy are next on the list. Given that the Raptors already had a very productive point guard at the time (Jose Calderon), you couldn't blame them for passing on Rondo and choosing either Balkman or Roy instead.

But notice the trend? Look at the draft numbers of everyone on the list. The most productive player was chosen at #21, second at #20, and the third at #6. Rounding out the top ten most productive players are numbers 47, 14, 49, 23, 24, 13, and 4. And that brings up one of Arturo's most important points: teams are not very good at drafting the best players available. If they were good at recognizing talent, they wouldn't have let Rondo drop all the way to #21, Milsap to #47, etc.

Also note that Bargnani was the 4th least productive player (on a per-minute basis) in the entire 2006 draft. I think the fact that the #1 pick ranks 27th out of 30 players shows that:

1. It was a mistake to draft him so high
2. He was a monumental bust.

Hopefully that answers all the questions everyone has about Bargnani. I know that - as with everything else - there will be those who will not be swayed by the huge amount of evidence suggesting that Bargnani is a bust. Given that people ignore mountains of evidence all the time, I am not insulted or surprised by this. However, if you are going to come onto this blog and make a case that I am wrong, be prepared to support yourself with facts rather than subjective judgments.

Penny Arcade says it best

 - Devin

• All basic NBA stats, including play time, salary, and age, are from Basketball-Reference
• Shooting data by location are from Hoopdata
• The Wins Produced (WP and WP48) metric is the work of Berri and Schmidt. I use the Automated Wins Produced site, which is powered by data from Basketball-Reference and Yahoo Sports and put together by Andres Alvarez.
• Positional averages (for PPS, etc) are from The Wages of Wins.
• All of the draft data is the work of Arturo Galletti

Raptors Preseason Review #2 (of 4)

This article uses the Wins Produced metric to discuss the productivity of NBA players. This metric is based on box score statistics that are adjusted for other factors including pace, position and team. A general scale is given for these, and links to advanced explanations are listed at the bottom of the page.

Wins Produced per 48 Minutes (WP48) – The number of wins a player produces in 48 minutes of play. 0.100 is average and 0.250 is considered the “superstar threshold”. A player a WP48 of 0.000 produces no wins, and any player with a negative WP48 produces a negative number a wins (or, if you prefer, a positive number of losses) 

Here are the Raptors' numbers after four (of eight) preseason games:



As you can see, there have been a few changes in the team rankings. How have things changed?



Looking at the numbers, here are my thoughts:

• Notice the general trend of players with larger EWP48s becoming less productive, and the players with highly negative WP48s becoming more productive? That's regression to the mean. The players at the top were performing abnormally well, and the players at the bottom were performing abnormally poorly; it was only a matter of time before things normalized
• Productive players who played poorly over the last two games: Weems, DeRozan, Kleiza, and Dorsey
• Productive players who have stayed productive: Jack
• Unproductive players who continued to play poorly: Bargnani and Calderon
• Unproductive players who were productive: Evans, Dupree, Barbosa, Wright
• Jack had a huge game against the 76ers: EWP48 0.824, EWP 0.566
• Jack had a terrible game against the Bulls: EWP -0.359, EWP -0.195
• Kleiza had a terrible game against the 76ers: EWP -0.345, EWP -0.129
• Bargnani's best game so far: v. Bulls,  EWP -0.074, EWP -0.040
• Calderon's best game so far: v. Bulls,  EWP 0.001, EWP 0.000
• The last two games have been a better indication of how things are going to go during the regular season, because the Bulls will be a good team and the 76ers are going to be bad

Nothing is too far out of the ordinary for the Raptors so far, apart from the play of Jose Calderon. If he plays like this during the regular season, the Raptors are going to struggle to break 20 wins.

That's right - 20.

 - Devin

• All basic NBA stats, including play time, salary, and age, are from Basketball-Reference
• Shooting data by location are from Hoopdata
• The Wins Produced (WP and WP48) metric is the work of Berri and Schmidt. I use the Automated Wins Produced site, which is powered by data from Basketball-Reference and Yahoo Sports and put together by Andres Alvarez.
• Positional averages (for PPS, etc) are from The Wages of Wins.

More on Bargnani

This article uses the Wins Produced metric to discuss the productivity of NBA players. This metric is based on box score statistics that are adjusted for other factors including pace, position and team. A general scale is given for these, and links to advanced explanations are listed at the bottom of the page.

Wins Produced per 48 Minutes (WP48) – The number of wins a player produces in 48 minutes of play. 0.100 is average and 0.250 is considered the “superstar threshold”. A player a WP48 of 0.000 produces no wins, and any player with a negative WP48 produces a negative number a wins (or, if you prefer, a positive number of losses)


I thought the last post was pretty exhaustive, but some readers want to see what Bargnani's numbers would look if he had been playing SF. Now, before I post the numbers, keep the following things in mind:

• His numbers were accumulated playing C and PF. If he had moved to SF, he might have seen a decrease in his AdjP48, and therefore see his WP48 (SF) decline from what is shown here
• For Bargnani to play SF, that means that at all times there must be two other players on the court who play PF and C.
• Bargnani has never been a SF, and will not be a SF this season. Even when Bosh was around, Bargnani was a defensive 5. If we squint as much as possible, we might see him as an offensive 3. That means - at the very best - Bargnani is 100% PF (which he isn't)

With that out of the way, here is the table:



As you can see, even if Bargnani had accumulated all his stats as a SF he would still have been less productive than both Kwame Brown and Greg Oden. Yes: moving Bargnani over to the SF spot - which, for the reasons listed above, shouldn't be done - would still make him the most unproductive first overall pick of the last 10 years...but at least he would beat Griffin and Wall.

In order for Bargnani to be a complete player, someone needs to carve him some legs, arms, and a torso (because right now, he's just a bust).

 - Devin

• All basic NBA stats, including play time, salary, and age, are from Basketball-Reference
• Shooting data by location are from Hoopdata
• The Wins Produced (WP and WP48) metric is the work of Berri and Schmidt. I use the Automated Wins Produced site, which is powered by data from Basketball-Reference and Yahoo Sports and put together by Andres Alvarez.
• Positional averages (for PPS, etc) are from The Wages of Wins.
• All of the draft data is the work of Arturo Galletti

Is Bargnani a bust?

This article uses the Wins Produced metric to discuss the productivity of NBA players. This metric is based on box score statistics that are adjusted for other factors including pace, position and team. A general scale is given for these, and links to advanced explanations are listed at the bottom of the page.

Wins Produced per 48 Minutes (WP48) – The number of wins a player produces in 48 minutes of play. 0.100 is average and 0.250 is considered the “superstar threshold”. A player a WP48 of 0.000 produces no wins, and any player with a negative WP48 produces a negative number a wins (or, if you prefer, a positive number of losses)

Over on TrueHoop today, Zach Harper writes that we shouldn't call Andrea Bargnani a bust just yet:

In the last 10 drafts, Oden, Andrea Bargnani and Kwame Brown are probably the only players considered a bust. While Oden’s injury issues and Kwame’s issues with being able to play NBA basketball at a high level are the reasons for their bust label, trying to determine why Bargnani is a bust might be as simple as figuring out if he’s even been playing the correct position.

The reason I bring this up is because of the reputation Bargs has garnered in his short career. Is he simply a case of Kwame Brown, in which he’s just not good enough? Or is he more like an Andrew Bogut-type of first pick that was playing out of position early on and needed the right fit to start to blossom? 

And additionally, Zach Lowe of The Point Forward, after talking at length about how poorly Bargnani has played thus far in his career, writes:

Still, through four seasons, Bargnani has proved to have a single valuable skill: an ability to score from the perimeter, both off the catch and off the dribble. That’s a great and unique thing for a 7-footer to be able to do, but it will not be enough anymore. The Raptors need more from Bargnani, and it’s unclear if he can give it to them.

I have already taken a look at Bargnani's production before, but sure, let's go ahead and revisit this issue.


"Bargnani is not a bust"

A first overall pick is expected to not only be a good player, but a great player, and, hopefully, better than any other player in that year's draft. Although NBA teams don't always get it right, the productivity of first overall picks is much higher than the productivity of any other pick. Arturo Galletti has done a lot of work on the productivity of draft picks, and he determined that the average WP48 of the first pick (for the years 1977-2006) is 0.169. The next most valuable pick is the third pick (yes, ahead of the second) at a WP48 of 0.133. The best player in the draft usually has a WP48 around 0.278, and the 20th best player usually has a WP48 of around 0.048. With that in mind, who were the last 12 first overall picks in the NBA draft (12 because John Wall and Blake Griffin have yet to play in a regular season game), and how productive have they been over the course of their careers?



Hmm. So Bargnani doesn't really compare very well to those players, or to what we should come to expect from a first overall pick? Who would've known. Bargnani and Bogut are not even remotely comparable (Bogut has almost 34 wins on him). In his first four years, he actually managed to produce a number of losses even greater than the number of wins that Kwame (who is popularly - and deservedly - regarded as a bust) produced in his first four seasons. You think that's bad? It gets even worse for Bargnani when you consider that:

• Bogut, Howard, and James all improved significantly in the years following their 4th season
• Rose and Oden improved on their rookie years during their second seasons
• Blake Griffin is on the cusp of what appears to be an excellent rookie season
• Without playing a single game, Griffin and Wall have been more productive than him

Maybe it was a weak draft year? Well yes, 2006 was a weak draft class (thanks again to Arturo), but there were still plenty of productive players available in that draft.

Nope, I think I'm going to have to pull a Bill Walton again: Andrea Bargnani was a terrrrrrible first overall pick. In fact, the expectation to be productive magnifies his lack of production, and so Arturo ranks him the tenth worst pick - at any draft position - of the last 30 years.

Let me let reiterate: the choice to select Bargnani as the first overall pick was worse than every other draft decision made in the last 30 years, with the exception of the drafting of the following players:

• Maurice Taylor
• Lancaster Gordon
• Tom Hammonds
• Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf
• Doug Smith (no, not that Doug Smith)
• Brad Sellers
• Joe Wolf
• Dajuan Wagner
• Nikoloz Tskitishvili
• Adam Morrison

Not exactly elite company, is it? I think it's safe to say that - by any stretch of the imagination - Bargnani's been a bust of colossal proportions.


"Bargnani has a single valuable skill"

Basketball is about scoring more points than the other team, something I've written about before (and you should probably read that if you haven't already). In order to win, you have to be good at both scoring and preventing your opponent from scoring. Andrea is not good at preventing others from scoring; he doesn't rebound well, pass the ball well, or steal well, and is around average when it comes to getting blocks. He doesn't turn the ball over. His defense is below average; he's improved over the years and isn't as bad as he used to be, but no one is going to mistake him for Dwight Howard. The one advantage Bargnani has over other bigs is his shooting, as he is above average with regards to Adj.FG%, FT%, FG attempts, and points scored.

The problem is that Bargnani's "unique and valuable skill" of perimeter shooting...isn't all that valuable. If you want to score points, there are two areas on the court you should be shooting from: 1) the immediate basket area and 2) the three-point line. All those deep twos and midrange shots? Inefficient. That's because the farther you get from the basket, the harder is is to make your shots, and the lower your percentages get. The reason why three-point shots are useful is because of the extra point. If you are shooting from somewhere other than the immediate basket area, it should be from the three-point line.

How have Bargnani's shot attempts changed over the years?



As you can see, shot attempts increased everywhere on the court, except for 3pt shots. The shots that increased the most were <10ft and 16-23ft shots (also of note: his percentages for shots other than threes and layups were abnormally high. I expect that, while part of the increase may be due to true improvement, most of it was due to random luck). He takes deep twos at almost the same rate that he takes threes; if you are going to be taking long-range shots, why not take a few steps back and go for the extra point? So, while Bargnani is a good shooter, he'd be even better if he started taking more threes and driving to the basket more often, and cut back on the other types of shots as much as possible.

And I think that's the reason why deep-shooting big men are so rare: big men are the tallest players on the court, and as such, are able to park themselves right next to the basket and score a bunch of easy points. A big man who doesn't do this is wasting his key talent - being tall. The big guys on your team must be able to rebound and get easy points next to the basket and Andrea doesn't do either of those things. Until he learns how to do those things, he will forever be an inefficient, unproductive player.

 - Devin

• All basic NBA stats, including play time, salary, and age, are from Basketball-Reference
• Shooting data by location are from Hoopdata
• The Wins Produced (WP and WP48) metric is the work of Berri and Schmidt. I use the Automated Wins Produced site, which is powered by data from Basketball-Reference and Yahoo Sports and put together by Andres Alvarez.
• Positional averages (for PPS, etc) are from The Wages of Wins.
• All of the draft data is the work of Arturo Galletti

Preseason: Raptors v Bulls

I love the little factoid Doug Smith dropped today after the Raptors lost their preseason game against the Bulls:

Oh, had Tuesday's game in Chicago been a regular season affair, you would have witnessed history, had you witnessed the game.
The 22 rebounds collared by the collection of Rodmanesque Raptors represent the fewest in any game ever played by Toronto.
The low for games that count is 24, set one night in February, 1998 against Miami.

When Bargnani is your starting centre, your team will get outrebounded - unless you have Dennis Rodman playing beside him, in which case you might break even (and yes, Bargnani didn't start the game, but he played the most minutes of anyone at any position). This will be a season-long trend unless the Raptors can replace Bargnani with a centre who at least rebounds as well as an average PF.

By the way, the preseason spreadsheet will be updated every time I input new data, so its numbers no longer match the text I included in the last preseason review - in case anyone freaks out.

 - Devin.

NBA GMs: Making the best decisions given limited information

Andres over at Nerdnumbers has his weekly podcast up - go check it out.
Done yet (and don't say no)? Good.

In the podcast, Arturo comes right out and says that NBA GMs are stupid. Then Andres reminds him that if he wants to do stat work in the NBA, he should be more friendly to GMs, and so Arturo amends his statement: "NBA GMs make the best decisions given their limited information." What led to this discussion? The annual NBA GM Survey. My favourite one - when it comes to the Raptors, because there's a lot of crazy stuff in there - is the following prediction:

Which team will be most improved in 2010-11?

1. Miami - 39.3%
2. New York - 14.3%
3. Washington - 14.3%
4. Clippers - 10.7%
5. New Jersey - 10.7%
6. Philadelphia - 7.1%
7. Toronto - 3.6%

That means that at least one out of the 30 NBA GMs (and the percentage actually works out to 1/28, so two GMs didn't vote, or something weird happened) thinks that the Raptors are going to improve on last year's 40-42 record to such a degree that they improve more than any team in the league. Now, at the start of the summer (before free agency) things looked much more optimistic than they do now; when Matt Barnes was going to sign with the team, things looked a lot better; before Ed Davis injured himself playing pickup ball in Mississauga, things looked better. But right now, things don't look good for the Raptors. And you, Mr. Anonymous NBA GM, are telling me that not only are the Raptors going improve on last year's record, but that the Raptors will actually improve more than any other team in the league? More than Miami? How did you get your job again?

Previously, my prediction for the Raptors was around 35 wins, but I was being optimistic and it was done using a rather simplistic method. Pretty soon I will post my more complicated win predictions for all teams, predict all the award winners, and take a pre-season stab at who will win the Championship. But for right now, I will leave you with the following number:

28

(Gold star if you can guess its significance)

 - Devin.

Raptors Preseason Review #1 (of 4)

This article may use several advanced stats. All of these are based on box score statistics that are adjusted for other factors including pace, position and team. A general scale is given for these, and links to advanced explanations are listed at the bottom of the page.


* Wins Produced per 48 Minutes (WP48) – The number of wins a player produces in 48 minutes of play. 0.100 is average and 0.250 is considered the “superstar threshold”. A player a WP48 of 0.000 produces no wins, and any player with a negative WP48 produces a negative number a wins (or, if you prefer, a positive number of losses)


After two preseason games (or 25% of the preseason...season), the Raptors stats look this:


If you're too lazy to look at the spreadsheet, here are the players in order of most productive (by EWP48) to least productive:

1. Linas Kleiza, EWP48 0.725 (0.649 EWP)
2. Joey Dorsey, EWP48 0.656 (0.369 EWP)
3. Solomon Alabi, EWP48 0.651 (0.109 EWP)
4. Jarrett Jack, EWP48 0.406 (0.372 EWP)
5. Sonny Weems, EWP48 0.136 (0.125 EWP)
6. Amir Johnson, EWP48 0.107 (0.067 EWP)
7. DeMar DeRozan, EWP48 0.095 (0.099 EWP)
8. Marcus Banks, EWP48 0.025 (0.006 EWP)
9. Leandro Barbosa, EWP48 -0.040 (-0.031 EWP)
10. Julian Wright, EWP48 -0.056 (-0.016 EWP)
11. Jose Calderon, EWP48 -0.110 (-0.089 EWP)
12. David Andersen, EWP48 -0.111 (-0.088 EWP)
13. Ronald Dupree, EWP48 -0.142 (-0.032 EWP)
14. Reggie Evans, EWP48 -0.175 (-0.128 EWP)
15. Andrea Bargnani, EWP48 -0.585 (-0.609 EWP)

Here are my thoughts about the team's performance so far:

• Is anyone surprised that Bargnani is, once again, the least productive player on the team? Whether you're ranking using rates or totals, he's at the very bottom and is a huge detriment to the Raptors. Now that he's playing as a centre full-time, he's hurting the team even more than he did in the past.
• By the same token, is anyone surprised that the two most productive players on a per-minute basis on the team have been Kleiza and Dorsey? In terms of totals, is anyone surprised that the three most productive have been Kleiza, Jack, and Dorsey?
• What is surprising is Alabi's play; granted, it is only two (preseason!) games, but for a below-average guy coming out of college he's done extremely well.
• DeRozan also performed better than expected - although only nearly average.
• Calderon and Evans have played very poorly.
• Interesting fact: the top five players, in order, play the following positions: SF, PF, C, PG, SG. 
• How about that Phoenix game? The score was 129-78 for the Raptors, Kleiza and Dorsey were near EWP48s of 1.000, and Kleiza almost won the game by himself (0.481 EWP).

- Devin.

Stats used

• All basic NBA stats, including play time, salary, and age, are from Basketball-Reference
• Shooting percentages by location are from Hoopdata
• The Wins Produced (WP and WP48) metric is the work of Berri and Schmidt. I use the Automated Wins Produced site, which is powered by data from Basketball-Reference and Yahoo Sports and put together by Andres Alvarez.
• Positional averages (for PPS, etc) are from The Wages of Wins.

2009-10 Player Review: Reggie Evans

Tip o' the hat to Andres for essentially forcing me to include what I like to think of as a "statistical prologue" and a "statistical epilogue" (and...I largely "borrowed" them as well). So, from now on, I will include some variation of the following at the top of my posts (and another at the bottom):

This article may use several advanced stats. All of these are based on box score statistics that are adjusted for other factors including pace, position and team. A general scale is given for these, and links to advanced explanations are listed at the bottom of the page.

• Wins Produced per 48 Minutes (WP48) – The number of wins a player produces in 48 minutes of play. 0.100 is average and 0.250 is considered the “superstar threshold”. A player a WP48 of 0.000 produces no wins, and any player with a negative WP48 produces a negative number a wins (or, if you prefer, a positive number of losses)

With that out of the way, as promised, here is the 2009-2010 player review for Reggie Evans:

Once upon a time, Evans was a very good player - he actually managed to produce at a level exceeding the "superstar threshold" (a WP48 in excess of 0.300) and spent several years above the "star threshold" (a WP48 in excess of 0.200) - but time stops for no one, and Evans' production and playing time has declined rapidly over the past couple of seasons. That being said, let's see how his production from last year compares with his previous three seasons, as well as the average PF:

I think the advanced stats show something quite clearly: Reggie Evans is not your normal NBA player. He does several things quite poorly, including take shots, making free-throws, getting blocks, assists, avoiding fouls, and avoiding turnovers. That would be enough to doom most players to a very unproductive career - but not Evans. Evans does one thing incredibly well: he rebounds like a madman. As a consequence, his free-throw attempts are also quite above average, because he often gets offensive rebounds close to the basket. As a bonus, he's also above average at getting steals, but it's really his rebounding that helps him out. If only he could shoot free-throws!

The major determinant of a good year for Evans revolves around shooting: is his PPS above or below average? Is his free throw shooting disgustingly terrible or merely atrocious? When Evans shoots well from the field, he posts star and superstar calibre WP48s. If he makes free-throws above the break-even point (47%), that's helpful as well. But both of these things have only happened about 50% of the time in the past four years.

Interestingly, Evans hasn't really shown any signs of age-related decline so far. Sure, his WP48 has declined as he's approached 30, but his rebounding, steals, and other athletic indicators haven't changed significantly. No, it appears that Evans' decline is related to his shooting. That being the case, I can't imagine that his WP48 will be any worse than last year's 0.129, and in fact, he may improve on that mark. The biggest problem is that he's not likely to get many minutes. He's also in the last year of his contract and may be traded - if he manages to find himself on a team that actually plays him, he'll get a chance to produce some wins.

 - Devin.

Stats used

• All basic NBA stats, including play time, salary, and age, are from Basketball-Reference
• Shooting percentages by location are from Hoopdata
• The Wins Produced (WP and WP48) metric is the work of Berri and Schmidt. I use the Automated Wins Produced site, which is powered by data from Basketball-Reference and Yahoo Sports and put together by Andres Alvarez.
• Positional averages (for PPS, etc) are from The Wages of Wins.