Eurobasket 2011: Raptors Edition

It's been a long time since my last post here at NBeh? - given the lockout, there hasn't been much Raptors news to write about. But with the 2011 Eurobasket tournament having just wrapped up, there is finally a bit of tangential analysis that I can write about: how players with various Raptor connections fared playing for their respective teams.

Andrea Bargnani: The Centre who plays like he’s 6 inches shorter

New readers, please check out the basics before leaving any comments. The following post is a post I wrote (with Dre's help) over at the Wages of Wins Journal.


Andrea Bargnani is a bad player. He is a historically bad player. His assigned job is centre. Yet, he does none of the jobs expected of a centre. Some people defend Bargnani and it’s often with one of these two arguments:

• Bargnani isn’t your run-of-the-mill centre. Treat him like a shooting guard. 
• Bargnani is an offensive centre [You can say that again!]. His scoring is his skill and any good team could use it. 

Quick thoughts: 2011 NBA Draft

New readers, check out the basics before leaving any comments.

I’ll offer more in-depth coverage shortly, but here are my quick thoughts on the 2011 NBA draft. If you need more draft data in the meantime, take a look at my full draft prospects preview.

Full 2011 NBA Draft Prospect Overview

New readers, please check out the basics before leaving any comments.

**(Note: the images are too large to be properly uploaded into Blogger, so I will be moving them into Google Docs format)**


About a month ago I posted my numberless preview of the NBA draft. The draft is coming up this Thursday, so now's the time to put out the full version of the post (it's been ready for a whole month, I swear!).

In case you've been stuck under a rock for the past few months, you'll know that the NBA draft is coming up shortly. My team of choice (for now....) is the Toronto Raptors; the Raptors will have the fifth pick this year. My question is, according to the numbers, which players should the Raptors (or any other team, for that matter) target?

2010-11 League Opponent Stats

New readers, please check out the basics before leaving any comments.


It's been over a week since I posted the league team stats...time to get the league opponent stats up.

Here they are (full spreadsheet available here):

2010-11 League Team Stats

New readers, please check out the basics before leaving any comments.


As promised, here are this year's team stats for every team in the NBA (full spreadsheet here):

2011 NBA Draft Prospects Overview

New readers, please check out the basics before leaving any comments.


In case you've been stuck under a rock for the past few months, you'll know that the NBA draft is coming up shortly. My team of choice (for now....) is the Toronto Raptors; the Raptors will likely have a top three pick and can fall no lower than 6th. My question is, according to the numbers, which players should the Raptors (or any other team, for that matter) target?

Well, I have a post written up and ready with all of the numbers included, but I'm actually going to keep that unpublished until right before the draft. Why? Let's just say that it'll be some good content to help launch a new website. So for now, I'm going to operate contrary to my normal M.O. and post some stat-free player assessments, organized into five categories: players to avoid, promising players, overrated players, underrated players, and "mystery box" players

2010-11 Raptor Charts Part II

New readers, please check out the basics before leaving any comments.

Yesterday I posted part one, which included both team and individual charts showing the game-by-game distribution of both field goal attempts and scoring efficiency (as determined by the formula PTS-FGA-0.5*FTA). Today I'll be posting the part two, which does the same for Net Possessions and "Helpers".

A player's Net Possesions is determined by the formula REB+STL-TO. This formula rewards those who gain possessions for their teams, and punishes those who give the ball away. Who do we think is going to show up first using this method?

2010-11 Raptor Charts Part I

New readers, please check out the basics before leaving any comments.

I have a couple of things to post today (with more to come in a bit). The first is a link to a piece about the "most harmful players" of the regular season by Ty Willihnganz over at Courtside Analyst (take a stab at why this article would be relevant to the Raptors). Ty also has posted his MWS Charts for every NBA team - go and take a look at Toronto's numbers. The overall numbers are very similar to Wins Produced - although by MWS, Bargnani looks even worse, Reggie looks even better, and Ed Davis looks more average.

I have also been working on various Raptor charts over the last few weeks. Several weeks ago, I looked at how the Denver Nuggets' FGA changed before and after the Carmelo Anthony trade, and the intention was always to apply the same technique to the Raptors at the end of the season. Well, the season has been over for the Raptors for a while now, so it's time to get this up.

2010-11 Raptors Season Review

New readers, please check out the basics before leaving any comments.


Now that the season is official over for the Raptors, it's a good time to review how the season went.

Team Overview:
Team Record: 22-60 (28th)
Eastern Conference Standing: 14th
Team Wins Produced: 23.3 (27th)
Point Differential: -6.28 (27th)

Even the brief numbers aren't pretty; in a little bit I'll take a deeper look at the team numbers, but for now let's just take a quick look. The Raptors finished with the 3rd-worst record in the league (2nd-worst in the East), behind only Cleveland and Minnesota. In terms of Wins Produced and point differential - both better indicators of team quality than Win-Loss record - the Raps finished with the 4th-worst numbers in the league.

Certainly not very happy numbers. And actually, even worse than the paltry amount of wins I predicted that the team would end up with (which was 28 wins). What happened to the Raptors this season? Well, it would make sense if I compared what I thought would happen against what actually happened.

Fake Trades: Jazz Edition

New readers, please check out the basics before leaving any comments.


Short post today.

For shits and giggles, I was playing around on the ESPN NBA Trade Machine, which is what happens when your favourite team has been out of the playoff picture since December. Unfortunately, now isn't the best time to be fiddling around with it - as many contracts can't be traded at the moment - but it's still fun.

I was looking at the Jazz as a trading partner for the Raptors. Why? Well, since the Deron Williams trade, it looks like the Jazz are trying to move in a new direction (aka blow it all up). They still have plenty of good players, including some up-and-comers, and thus are ripe for the picking.

NBA Today and rebuilding the Raptors

New readers, please check out the basics before leaving any comments.


Mosi Platt of the Miami Heat Index sent me a link to a recent NBA Today podcast where (starting at around the 27th minute) Ryen Russillo talks about how to rebuild the Raptors. Mosi wanted to hear my thoughts on Russillo's comments about the Raptors, and so I sent him a quick email reply.

I've expanded on my brief thoughts below. Each of my comments is made in response to something that Ryen Russillo said on the podcast; Russillo's comments are italicized.

The Regend and the Ninja: A Response (part II)

New readers, please check out the basics before leaving any comments.

On Saturday, Tom Liston of Raptors Republic - TrueHoop's Raptors' affiliate - wrote a column about Reggie Evans and James Johnson. In his column, Tom mentions that he has some problems with Wins Produced and my analysis of Evans and Johnson in the past. Specifically, Tom's main issues seem to be:

• Evans' WP48 is near the top of the league (currently at 0.356), but Reggie doesn't seem to belong with the other players (Kevin Love, Dwight Howard, Chris Paul, LeBron James, Dwayne Wade) at the top.
• If Wins Produced doesn't overvalue rebounds, and the only thing Evans' does well is rebound, why is Evans' WP48 so high?
• James Johnson is playing well in Toronto - "he’s pretty much exactly the same player" as he was during his rookie season. So why did I say that he probably wouldn't be a good player when Toronto traded for him?
• Wins Produced is one measure of player productivity among several, and one should "never rely on one metric to draw conclusions".

The other day I responded to these first two points. Today I'm going to tackle the last two.

Nerd Numbers Guest Post: The Regend Continues

New readers, please read the basics before leaving any comments.


I'll have part two of my response to Tom Liston of Raptors Republic up shortly, but in the meantime, Andres Alvarez - the currently blogless nomad of the Wages of Wins Network, and the man who created the automated WP site - has graciously offered some additional commentary on Reggie Evans.

Here's what Nerd Numbers has to say (with very slight editorial changes):

The Regend and the Ninja: A Response (part I)

New readers, please check out the basics before leaving any comments.


Yesterday, Tom Liston of Raptors Republic - TrueHoop's Raptors' affiliate - wrote a column about Reggie Evans and James Johnson. In his column, Tom mentions that he has some problems with Wins Produced and my analysis of Evans and Johnson in the past. Specifically, Tom's main issues seem to be:

• Evans' WP48 is near the top of the league (currently at 0.356), but Reggie doesn't seem to belong with the other players (Kevin Love, Dwight Howard, Chris Paul, LeBron James, Dwayne Wade) at the top.
• If Wins Produced doesn't overvalue rebounds, and the only thing Evans' does well is rebound, why is Evans' WP48 so high?
• James Johnson is playing well in Toronto - "he’s pretty much exactly the same player" as he was  during his rookie season. So why did I say that he probably wouldn't be a good player when Toronto traded for him?
• Wins Produced is one measure of player productivity among several, and one should "never rely on one metric to draw conclusions".

Let's start with Reggie.

No, no, no: DeMar DeRozan is not the MIP

New readers, please check out the basics before leaving any comments.


During the Raptors’ blowout loss at the hands of the Nuggets, I listened in disbelief as the commentators - Matt Devlin and Jack Armstrong - made the case that DeMar DeRozan should be in the running for the Most Improved Player (MIP) award. Now, I’ve already written about this in the past, but the fact that this idea is still out there means that I need to keep addressing this topic.


The argument for DeRozan as the MIP

During the game, the stat used to back up this argument was...drumroll...PPG increase from last season. Here were the names that they included on the graphic that popped up onto the screen:

Nuggets, Knicks, and the 'Melo Effect'

New readers, please check out the basics before leaving any comments.


While the Raptors haven't been very interesting lately - although they did pull off a nice upset of the Thunder before getting absolutely walloped by the Nuggets last night - I've been looking into other things. One of these things, incidentally, was the improvement in the play of the Nuggets since they traded away Carmelo Anthony. And if you don't believe that the Nuggets have improved, here are some stats for you, because here at the Wages of Wins Network, we're all about stats:

Raptor Trivia: Pounded (or Pound for Pound: The Sequel)

New readers, please check out the basics before leaving any comments.


Last time my trivia question was about the best 'pound for pound' players in Raptors history. This week, I figured we should take a stab at the players with the worst 'pound for pound' seasons in Raptors history.

Jay Triano: Raps "seventh or eighth best shooting team in the NBA"

New readers, please check out the basics before leaving any comments.


According to Doug Smith of the Toronto Star, Jay Triano offered the following evaluation of the Raptors' shooting performance this season:

“Listen, we’re the seventh or eighth best shooting team in the NBA without being able to make a three-point shot. We have one game where we don’t really get it going from a variety of guys so let’s just (bleeping) relax a little bit.”

Really? Seventh or eighth? Other than that comment about not being able to make threes, I don't believe you have a handle on the stats, Mr. Triano. Thanks to dougstats, I have the shooting percentages of every team in the league for games played up to 03/12/11. Here's the table:

An important difference between Canada and the US

New readers, please check out the basics before leaving any comments.


Warning: this post may contain political content.

Thanks to original author Gery Woelfel, via ESPN/TrueHoop, there are at least two articles going around about Kim Hughes's pancreatic cancer, and how - when his employer, the Clippers, wouldn't pay for it - some of the players on his team got together and covered his whole bill:

"I contacted the Clippers about medical coverage and they said the surgery wouldn't be covered," Hughes said. "I said, ‘Are you kidding me?' And they said if they did it for one person, they'd have to do for everybody else."

When Dunleavy learned the Clippers wouldn't cover the cost of Hughes' surgery, he mentioned it to his players.

Several of them, including now Milwaukee Bucks forward Corey Maggette, Chris Kaman, Elton Brand and Marko Jaric, were taken aback by the news and decided to offer their assistance.

WOW Network Podcast for 03/13/11

New readers, please check out the basics before leaving any comments.


On Friday - along with David Berri of the Wages of Wins Journal, Arturo Galletti of Arturo's Silly Little Stats, and Mosi Platt of the Miami Heat Index - I participated in a WOW network podcast, which you can listen to here. We talked about "Small Market Teams" and "Super Teams", the NBA draft, and the NFL labour (yes, that word is spelt with a 'u') issue.

Dave also has a short little summary of the podcast on his site.

Basketball Research: take it to the bank

New readers, please check out the basics before leaving any comments.


I've subscribed to ScienceDaily's daily RSS feed (yes, I'm a big nerd; but everyone knew that already). Every day I skim through the articles to see if there are any interesting new scientific developments; today I noticed an article on bankshots in basketball.

I haven't taken an in-depth look at the methodology of the research, but from the summary and the accompanying image, it seems that this article supports conventional basketball wisdom and my own observations - which is that there are some spots on the floor where it is easier to make a basket if you go for a bankshot instead of a direct shot. Of course, if you have been paying any attention to the career of Timmy "D&D" Duncan, you'd probably know that too.

But to me this was the more interesting tidbit:

Raptor Trivia: Pound for Pound

New readers, please check out the basics before leaving any comments.


Last week I asked a question about players who were capable of getting triple-doubles. Today I want to ask a question based on a term that is often thrown around in sports: 'pound for pound'.

Back in the day, we used to hear about how Allen Iverson was, 'pound for pound', the "best scorer in the league" (of course, I beg to differ on that one). Frequently, boxers (the athletes, not the undergarments) are referred to as the best 'pound for pound' fighters. So, given my interest in basketball and the Toronto Raptors, what I want to know is, pound for pound, who are the most productive players in the history of the franchise?

The 50 greatest NBA players of all-time

New readers, please check out the basics before leaving any comments.


Given the team's record right now, Raptor news is a bit boring these days; eventually I will take another look at how the individual players have been playing, but Nerd Numbers is down (and the Game Splits tool - which I had just started to rely on for my weekly player evaluations - has been down for a while now). So today I will write about a topic that is barely even tangentially related to the Raptors - my version of the NBA's 50 greatest players.

Raptor Trivia: Triple-Double Potential

New readers, please check out the basics before leaving any comments.


I haven't been posting much recently, so I figured I'd try to add another (mostly) regular feature. Because I am almost completely unoriginal (hi Andres), I thought I'd go with some Raptor focused trivia.

Due to the fact that I only have one team to pull from, I'm not necessarily going to limit myself to Wins Produced related queries; instead I'll try to find interesting and novel questions.

WOW Podcast - Talking Raptors and "Trading Up"

New readers, please check out the basics before leaving any comments


Yesterday - along with Andres (of Nerd Numbers) and Daniel Alvarez - I appeared on the Wages Of Wins Network podcast. Because I was replacing Arturo Galletti of Arturo's Silly Little Stats, Dre decided to title the podcast "Trading Up".

Just kidding; I'm the Keanu Reeves to Arturo's Doug Flutie. The title actually refers to the Carmelo Anthony and Deron Williams trades that feature prominently in the podcast. We also talked about the All-Star game, the huge James Johnson deal, some Raptors issues, and got into a heated debate about Kobe in the clutch.

 - Devin

Raptors trade: Another PF?!?

New readers, please check out the basics before leaving any comments.


According to ESPN, the Raptors have traded a first round draft pick (originally Miami's and acquired during the Bosh sign-and-trade) to the Bulls in exchange for James Johnson. Here's what Bryan Colangelo had to say about the deal:

“James Johnson is a strong, athletic and versatile small forward that we have had our eye on dating back to the 2009 NBA Draft."

This whole thing is rather odd. First of all, James Johnson is more of a power forward than a small forward - both 82 games and Andres' automated WP site (Nerd Numbers) say that Johnson has spent more time at PF than at SF this season. For last season - Johnson's rookie year - the Auto WP site had Johnson playing more of his time at SF than at PF, but 82 games still has him playing most of his minutes at PF. This all makes sense because Johnson is 6'9" and 245lbs; he's as heavy as Reggie Evans and one inch taller, tied for third heaviest player on the roster, and tied for fifth tallest on the roster. He also doesn't have much of an outside game and is best playing close to the basket...like a power forward.

Just what the Raps need

New readers, please check out the basics before leaving any comments.


Yes, the fabled Carmelo Anthony trade supposedly finally happened. But apparently the Nuggets aren't totally happy with newly acquired Danilo Gallinari - here's what ESPN had to say about it:

Denver may also be working on plans for newly acquired players Danilo Gallinari and Raymond Felton.

League sources told ESPN The Magazine's Ric Bucher that the Nuggets are not expected to keep Gallinari once their three-team trade is completed. 

ESPN The Magazine's Chris Broussard reported that the New Jersey Nets may be interested in acquiring the perimeter-shooting forward but the market for the Italian may also include the Los Angeles Clippers, Cleveland Cavaliers and Toronto Raptors.

Really? One deep-shooting, poor rebounding, 6'10"+ Italian forward isn't enough for the Raps?

Well actually, he's a much better shooter than anyone else on the team right now, and he would give the team another three-point shooter (which the team desperately needs). But if the Raptors do acquire him, please, please, PLEASE play him at small forward and DeRozan at shooting guard! A front court of Bargnani and Gallinari would probably shatter the team record for fewest rebounds in a game, which is 24 - keep that number handy if Gallinari ever starts at PF in Toronto.

 - Devin

WOW Network Podcast for 02/18/11

New readers, please check out the basics before leaving any comments.


This Friday, along with David Berri of the Wages of Wins Journal, Mosi Platt of the Miami Heat Index, and Arturo Galletti of Arturo's Silly Little Stats, I participated in a WOW podcast. If you are interested in listening, the link is here. Dave also has a short little blurb about the podcast - and some relevant links - on one of his recent posts.

Now you can finally put a voice to the words that appear on this website!

 - Devin

(P.S.: If you'd like to complain about my performance - maybe you don't like the way my voice sounds, thought my comments were silly, or just plain don't like me - please do so here)

Bargnani's big night against the Heat

New readers, please check out the basics before you leave any comments.


In the wake of the Toronto-Miami game that took place on February 16th (the Raptors lost 103-95), I immediately - and predictably - received comments about what a great game Andrea Bargnani had. After all, Bargnani scored 38 points on 15-26 shooting!

Well, yes, Bargnani ended up with an efficient shooting night. But when I look at his shooting and scoring by quarter, I don't feel so good about how his night went:

• 1st: 4-9 FGA, 1-2 FTA for 10 points
• 2nd: 2-5 FGA for 4 points
• 3rd: 3-4 FGA for 7 points
• 4th: 6-8 FGA, 2-2 FTA for 17 points
• overall: 15-26 FGA, 3-4 FTA for 38 points

ESPN's Chad Ford: Colangelo won't trade Bargnani

New readers, please check out the basics before leaving any comments


Raptors HQ brought the following quote from Chad Ford of EPSN to my attention today:

Herman (Toronto)
With Ed Davis and Amir Johnson showing signs of potential. Does there come a time when Toronto looks to trade Bargnani? Maybe they should take a shot at Odem?

Chad Ford(1:36 PM)
It's a good question. The answer is ... not as long as Bryan Colangelo is the GM. GMs fall in love with the players they draft. It's part of our psychological need to justify our decisions. Colangelo took him No. 1 over Rudy Gay and Brandon Roy. He needs to be right. Trading him is tantamount to admitting he was a bad pick. Lakers are suffering from the same problem with Bynum. As a rule around the league, teams tend to overvalue their own players and undervalue other team's players. It's partly why we don't see more trades in the NBA. But if Colangelo were to leave the Raptors, my guess is the first move a new GM would make would be to trade Bargnani. He's talented, but it's tough to have a 7 footer on the floor who refuses to rebound or defend anyone.

David Berri on DeRozan and the Raptors

New readers, please check out the basics before you leave any comments.


David Berri, author of the Wages of Wins, Stumbling on Wins, The Wages of Wins Journal, and the founder of the Wages of Wins Network, has posted a new article about the Raptors. While it is very similar to what I've already discussed on this blog (after all, we both use Wins Produced to analyze basketball statistics), Dave is always a good read, and I encourage you to check it out if you haven't already done so.

 - Devin

Week 15 Auto WP numbers

New readers, please check out the basics before you leave any comments.


Hey, it's been a week, and I'm still around! What's going on?

Some good news for this week: Linas Kleiza is out for the season. Not only does that mean that someone else (hopefully someone more productive this time, like Wright) will get more minutes, but it might also be the explanation for why Kleiza has been so unproductive this year; in the past, Kleiza had been much better. There are also concerns about how the Raptors' training staff handled the injury, and the Raps seem to have a recent history of injury disputes with certain players. Oh well - what's a little more dysfunction for this franchise?

Here are the numbers for the season so far, which are Powered by Nerd Numbers (full spreadsheet here):

Kevin Love to the Raps!

New readers, please read the basics before leaving any comments.


According to Doug Smith of the Toronto Star, Kevin Love loves playing under Raptor head coach Jay Triano. Said Love:

“I loved him. I loved having him as coach. He lets his players play, he is definitely a players’ coach. He is a guy that I would love to play for and he is a lot of fun to be around. I enjoyed him.”

How could the Raps get him? If I was in charge of the team, I would be open to trading away any assets - even the team's upcoming first round draft pick - if I could get my hands on Love. Here are some scenarios that could make it happen:

Champions and Drafted Players

New readers, please check out the basics before leaving any comments.


I've been away for a while, so I've been writing a bunch of new posts in the short term. Today I'd like to revisit a classic topic: NBA champions and the draft.

Congraturation!

I've already shown that securing a top tree draft selection is generally not the ideal position to be in for an NBA team. To recap, I found that:

• in the lottery era (1985-present), 60% of teams that have ended up with a top three draft pick haven't made it past the first round of the NBA playoffs during their draftee's first four years in the league.
• to put it another way, only 40% of teams with a top three draft selection managed to advance past the first round in one or more of their draftees' first four years.
• during the lottery era - only four (Duncan, Robinson, Sean Elliott, who was traded away and then reacquired, and Darko Milicic, who shouldn't count because he didn't really play) out of the 78 players (5%) taken with a top three pick have won a championship with the team that drafted them.
• all that makes sense, as top three draft picks generally start their careers on bad teams. The Spurs lucked out with Duncan because, rather than being a bad team, they were a good team that had injury problems. The Pistons "lucked out" with Milicic because the Grizzlies were dumb enough to trade away their 2003 1st round pick in exchange for Otis Thorpe. Robinson and Elliott won their championships well after they were drafted, and Elliott was actually traded away and reacquired before he got his.
• top three picks fared a little bit better in the pre-lottery era - ten players (Jordan, Olajuwon, Worthy, Thomas, McHale, Magic, Walton, Kareem, Unseld, and Cazzie Russell) out of the 57 top three draftees (17.5%) eventually won with the team that drafted them, and only 28% of teams couldn't make it past the first round in their draftee's first four years.
• this also makes sense, as there were fewer teams in the pre-lottery days, which gave each team a better chance of moving up in the standings.

Rookie Challenge Rosters

New readers, please check out the basics before you leave any comments.


On Tuesday the lineups for the All-Star Rookie Challenge game were released. Andres of Nerd Numbers already wrote a post about which team he thinks will win, but I want to look at those names a different way. According to ESPN, the rookie roster is as follows:

• Blake Griffin
• Landry Fields
• John Wall
• DeMarcus Cousins
• Greg Monroe
• Derek Favors
• Gary Neal
• Wesley Johnson
• Eric Bledsoe

It's a pretty decent team; as Dre notes, it's good enough to be favoured over the sophomore team. But I wonder - are there some rookies who got snubbed? Check out this table (full version here):

Week 14 Team Opponent Stats

New readers, please read the basics before leaving any comments.


Yesterday I posted the Team Stats update for week 14, and the day before that I posted the player stats for week 14. Today I'd like to post something I haven't done before: opponent stats. I figure that it would be interesting (and useful) to see how well other teams perform against the Raptors. Here's another of those weird double-scrolling charts:

Week 14 Team Stats Update

New readers, please check out the basics before you leave any comments.


Surprised? I said I'd be back again soon!

Yesterday I posted the individual Wins Produced for week 14, and as I mentioned, the numbers aren't pretty. But what about the team numbers? With those, perhaps we'll be able to put together some theories as to why the Raptors aren't playing well? Well, it just so happens that I have everything up and ready to go. Here's a nice - albeit somewhat strange, what with the double scrolling thing going on - sortable table of every team in the league:



Here are my thoughts:

• The end of the 3PT streak wasn't really surprising - the team still can't shoot threes. The team is dead last in 3P%, as well as second last in 3PA/FGA, which measures a team's tendency to take threes. That isn't all bad - that means that the team is somewhat aware of its lack of ability and at least limits the number of wasted possessions. Unfortunately, it also means that opponents can sag off perimeter players and clog up the paint, making closer shots more difficult.
• The Raptors are 16th in AdjFG% (adjusted FG%), at 49.27%. The league average is 49.66%, so while the Raps are a little behind in this department, they don't fare terribly here.
• When we account for free-throw shooting and look at TS%, the Raptors fall a few spots to 19th, at 53.20%. League average is 54.04%. This is because the Raps don't shoot that many (FT/48 and FTa/FGa are low) and they shoot them poorly (74.15% compared to a league average of 76.15%).
• The Raptors are 22nd in net possessions (REB+STL-TO), at 6.7/48mins. The league average is 7.0, so again, the Raps aren't doing too badly here.
• The big problem is that Toronto is below average in both TS% and net possessions. While there are some good teams that can't shoot (Portland, Memphis, Chicago, and Philadelphia), these teams make up for it by being able to secure extra possessions. Likewise, the good teams that can't secure extra possessions (Phoenix, Boston, and Atlanta) make up for it by being above average at shooting. The teams that are below average in both of these statistics (Cleveland, Toronto, Washington, New Jersey, Detroit, Charlotte, and the improving Clippers) are just...bad.
• There are three additional "helping" stats that can slightly improve performance: assists, blocks, and fouls. The Raptors are 12th in assists, 27th in blocks, and are 8th in fouls committed. The helping stats aren't really helpful, are they?

The trade deadline is coming up in about three more weeks - will the team make any moves to shore up its weaknesses? Will I stop posing rhetorical questions in my future posts? Keep tuning in to find out.

 - Devin

Week 14 Auto WP Numbers

New readers, please check out the basics before leaving any comments.


Well I'm back - and hopefully for good. After an eight day delivery delay, an OS crash, and a one day delay in the delivery of the new OS installation disk, my new computer seems to be up and running just fine.

For now.

Meanwhile, in a disturbing parallel, the Raptors - suffering through injuries and the return of unproductive players - have crashed as well. How bad has it gotten? In terms of record, the Raps are now in 14th place in the East, only ranking ahead of...the Cavs. In fact, the Raptors are 27th in the league standings, cavorting with the likes of the aforementioned Cavs, the Kings, the T-Wolves, the Nets, and the Wizards. Not only that, but the beloved "most consecutive games with at least one 3pt FG" streak finally came to an end, and the Mavericks are about to break the record, erasing Toronto from the record books forever.

Yes, it's been ugly lately.

But what do the WP numbers look like? Are the Raptors playing better than their record? Here are the numbers - as always, Powered by Nerd Numbers (full spreadsheet here):



Here are my thoughts:

• See all that red? Of the 21 players the Raptors have employed so far this season, ten - almost half of the roster - 47% - have produced in the negative range. "Oh well," you might say, "most of those players haven't played many minutes," and you'd be right: six of the ten haven't managed any more than 89 minutes played. Unfortunately, that also means that the remaining four have played significant minutes; Kleiza, Weems, DeRozan, and Bargnani (the current Four Horsemen) have combined for 4920 minutes of playing time, which is only 39% of the team's minutes.
• These four players have also combined to produce -4.9 wins. Yes, by playing these four unproductive players this many minutes, the Raptors have cost themselves almost five games in the standings.
• Barbosa gets a reprieve for now, as he is barely positive for the time being, but if you add him to the above numbers, you get five players producing -4.5 wins in 45.5% of the team's minutes. That is just an absolutely astounding level of putridity.
• Jerryd Bayless has not played well ever since his first few glorious games in a Raptor uniform; he's now a below average player over the course of his tenure with the Raptors. This is probably because he feels bad for defying my prediction that he won't be a productive NBA player, and is simply playing worse to make me feel better. Either that, or injuries, or small sample sizes, or some combination of the three.
• With all the injuries lately, the Raptors had to sign some fringe players to 10-day contracts and managed to acquire Alexis Ajinca (and the second round draft pick they sent to the Mavs to acquire Solomon Alabi) from the Mavs (in exchange for the rights to an old draft pick who will never play in the league). Although they have played limited minutes of the course of their careers, Dupree, Trey Johnson, and Ajinca have not looked like good players. Gaines is the more interesting case, as he was pretty decent when he played for the Jazz last year, but he hasn't shown anything so far this season.
• I like the idea of acquiring young centres on the cheap, but if you're going to do it, do it right and go after undrafted players, productive D-League players, or productive players from other leagues. Gaines was certainly worth the gamble, but - despite having impressive scoring averages - Trey Johnson was merely an above-average D-League player (WP48 0.150), and not even the best player on his team.
• The players who should be playing the most minutes: still Calderon, Bayless, Wright, Amir Johnson, Dorsey, and Davis.
• Add up the Wins and you get 14.9; since the Raptors have won 13 games, that means that they have been a little bit unlucky over the course of the season. Unfortunately, if you look exclusively at more recent numbers (thanks Arturo!), the Raptors are actually playing even worse than their record.
• Do I have to mention Bargnani's poor play? Last time I mentioned that his play was likely to get worse, and it has. He now has a comfortable lead over the other contenders for the Darius Songaila award. Is Bargnani a bust? Most definitely.

Player trends

Good:

• Ed Davis: 11 GP, AdjP48 +0.069, Wins +1.5
• Amir Johnson: 11 GP, AdjP48 +0.018, Wins +1.6
• Jose Calderon: 10 GP, AdjP48 -0.008, Wins +1.4

Meh:

• Julian Wright: 10 GP, AdjP48 +0.004, Wins +0.7
• Leandro Barbosa: 2 GP, AdjP48 0.000, Wins +0.3
• Linas Kleiza: 4 GP, AdjP48 -0.006, Wins -0.1

Ugly:

• Joey Dorsey: 6 GP, AdjP48 -0.034, Wins 0
• Alexis Ajinca: 3GP, AdjP48 --, Wins -0.1
• Sony Weems: 4 GP, AdjP48 -0.018, Wins -0.3
• DeMar DeRozan: 11 GP, AdjP48 -0.025, Wins -0.8
• Jerryd Bayless: 9 GP, AdjP48 -0.040, Wins -0.1
• Andrea Bargnani: 11 GP, AdjP48 -0.040, Wins -1.9
• Trey Johnson: 3 GP, AdjP48 --, Wins -0.2
• Solomon Alabi: 4 GP, AdjP48 -0.450, Wins -0.2

More posts to come over the next few days - I promise!

 - Devin

Week 11 Auto WP Numbers

New readers, check out the basics before leaving any comments.

Okay, so I'm late again this week - at least I can blame this one on not having a computer (the name of the company that is responsible for this travesty rhymes with bell). Here are the numbers (full spreadsheet here), which are Powered by (the new-look) Nerdnumbers:

Here are my thoughts:

• Calderon continues to play well (when he plays).
• Amir Johnson maintained his previous rate of production over his last five games.
• Joey Dorsey's production is still declining slightly, mostly due to his increased foul rate. And have I ever mentioned his terrible free-throw shooting? He really is the perfect replacement for Reggie Evans.
• Bayless has remained largely unchanged, although his FT rate is down more than half an attempt per 48 minutes.
• Ed Davis' production also declined slightly - his shooting is better, but his rebounding is down from 14.2 to 12.6 and his fouls are up (5.4 to 6.1). Luckily his blocks are up as well (1.8 to 2.5).
• Julian Wright continues to improve and has nearly matched the production of an average player. His AdjFG% is finally above 50% and his net possessions have increased by 0.7 per 48 minutes.
• Barbosa has once again left the red with improvements across the board (shooting, net possessions, and assists, blocks, and fouls). How long will he stay there? Your guess is as good as mine.
• Kleiza's production declined again, but at least he isn't hurting the team - he has a WP48 of 0.000. That is, if we believe that he spends approximately half his time at SG, which he doesn't, so his real numbers are somewhat worse.
• For all the recent talk that DeMar DeRozan has improved during his second year, his WP48 continues to remain in the negative range this season (at least last year he posted a WP48 of 0.026). But do you want to take a stab at what has increased for DeRozan this season? PPG and his scoring rate, of course. Even though his shooting percentages are down. When will people learn? DeRozan is Bargnani all over again.
• Meanwhile, Bargnani is getting...better? His AdjFG% and FT% are up and blocks and fouls have improved. While I'm happy at the reversal, it's likely only temporary; given that shooting percentages fluctuate over the course of the season, real improvement from Bargnani will have to come from the non-shooting aspects of the game (ie: rebounding).
• The team's most productive players right now, by position: Calderon, Bayless, Wright, Johnson, and Dorsey, with Davis as the 6th man.

 - Devin

Pre-season predictions: how have I done?

New readers, please read the basics before leaving any comments.


Well, it's the first week of the new year, and I'm reading a book I received as a Christmas gift (thanks Mom and Dad) called Future Babble, which is written by Ottawa Citizen columnist Dan Gardner, who has also written the excellent Risk: The Science and Politics of Fear. The gist of Future Babble is that people suck at making predictions. For instance, in his latest article, Gardner says:

People want to hear predictions. And for the expert, there's no way he can lose. If the prediction hits, he can boast about it and reporters will cite it as proof of his wisdom. But if it misses, no one will ever hear about it again.

Heads, I win. Tails, you forget we had a bet.

Of course the rules of the game would be a little different if, at the end of the year, instead of asking for new predictions, we looked back at what was predicted to happen in the year ending. Think of it as holding people to account for the predictions they make.

While admittedly I don't consider myself an "expert" and I've previously noted the difficulty of predicting the outcome of the NBA season before the season starts, I did make some predictions that we could examine. I'd  like to be accountable and trustworthy, and I'd like to learn from my mistakes, so let's start out with my predicted NBA standings - how have I done so far (full spreadsheet here)? All win totals are accurate as of January 5, 2011.



Included in the table are several columns - predicted wins (what I predicted before the start of the season), current record, a simple win projection (which multiplies current winning percentage across 82 games), a point differential win projection (which uses Arturo's formula to determine wins via point differential), and the average difference between my pre-season predictions and the two projection methods.

What does the table show? Generally, I was either really close or way off - not much in between. Thirteen of my predictions came within 5 wins of the current projections, 12 predictions were off by ten or more wins, and only five predictions were off in the 5-10 win range. The teams I overrated the most: Sacramento (a whopping 22.4 wins off target), Cleveland (21.3 wins off), Portland (18.3 wins off), Golden State and Philadelphia (each 17.1 wins off), and New Jersey (16.3 wins off). The teams I nailed: Orlando (0.4 wins off), Chicago (0.6 wins off), the Lakers (1.0 wins off), and (of course) Toronto (1.1 wins off). Where did I go wrong with those six teams?

Sacramento



Carl Landry has fallen into the toilet and can't get out, Dalembert isn't playing up to his usual standards, and I was burned by one rookie (Cousins) and one second-year player (Evans). As we saw with Kevin Durant, sometimes the rookies that we think are going to be good NBA players start out slowly, so either of these two players could turn it around in the future. Of course, some players never get it - we've been saying the same thing about Michael Beasley, who is still not playing well during his third season.

A few players - led by Udrih, Casspi, Garcia, and Head - have out-performed my expectations, but if you combine the bonus wins provided by every player in the green (6.6 wins) it is barely enough to make up for Evans or Landry by themselves.

Cleveland



J.J. Hickson has, to paraphrase Jason Kidd, performed a complete 360 this season. Last year Hickson was just a shade below an average player, and this year he is giving the lovable Andrea Bargnani a run for his money in the competition to win the Darius Songaila award. Hickson is only 22 years old, so his volatility is somewhat understandable...but you can't blame me for not forseeing such a huge change. Antawn Jamison is finally starting to show his age - you could argue I should have seen a decline coming there. Mo Williams is also down this year - his shooting efficiency (which is supposed to be his strong point) is way down and his turnovers are up, but thankfully he's been able to up his assists. Other than that, the other players who haven't met my expectations have only been slightly below what I had penciled them in for; however, all those small changes add up quickly.

Andersen Varejao is really the only player on the team who has stepped up his play this season. It seems that the turmoil associated with LeBron's departure has really messed with the players who stuck around - probably one part new roles and one part psychological.

Portland



The big letdown here is Brandon Roy - I expected him to account for 10.8 wins on the season, and right now he is not even on pace to win a single game. And even though I only allocated 800 minutes to Oden, his rate of production is so good that I expected him to account for 4.7 wins. Well, there's about 16 wins out the window. Joel Przybilla is also on pace to be down about 5 wins, but, as he returns from injury, his minutes will go up and so will his projected wins. The rest of the players who have let me down have combined to produce 10.4 wins fewer than I expected.

On the plus side, the two old guys (Miller and Camby) have upped their games, as has Batum and Mathews. These four players have combined to exceeded my expectations by 10.7 wins. It's a testament to the Blazers that they've been able to stick around 0.500 with injuries to some of their top players.

Golden State



The big problem with my Warriors prediction has been the play of David Lee. After receiving an early Christmas present from Wilson Chandler, Lee had a serious infection in his shooting arm and hasn't played well since. The other players that are hurting my prediction are Stephen Curry, Reggie Williams, and Louis Amundson - all players with limited playing histories.

On the plus side, human sine wave Monta Ellis is playing better than I expected...for now.

Philadelphia



The Sixers are the only one of these teams to be off in a positive direction - I predicted they would win around 19 games, but right now they're on pace for 39 wins. The big differences are due to the return of Elton Brand (finally) and Andres Nocioni, the emergence of two young players (Jrue Holiday and Thaddeus Young) as average to above-average players, and a lower than expected amount of minutes being allocated to unproductive players (perhaps coach Doug Collins is actually helping the team in this case?).

While he has been slightly better than I expected, Iguodala's minutes have been low due to injuries. Rookie Evan Turner hasn't lived up to expectations so far, and Louis Williams has offered less than he has in the past. Still, things are much rosier in Philadelphia than I thought they would be.

New Jersey



Brook Lopez is another young player who seems to have taken a huge step backwards, as has old WP favourite Troy Murphy.  Additionally, Outlaw and Terence Williams aren't playing the way I thought they would.

On the bright side, ex-Raptor Kris Humphries has improved drastically, nearly making up for Murphy's poor performance on his own (he's also the star of my Wins Score Association fantasy team). New Jersey should also get a little better as Vujacic gets a larger percentage of the team's playing time.

Once the season finishes, I'll take another look back and see if anything's change significantly. Hopefully things regress back to my expectations!

 - Devin

Week 10 Auto WP Numbers

New readers, please check out the basics before you leave any comments.

Okay, so I didn't get that week 9 post up. After missing my target, I figured that I'd just wait and post the week 10 numbers on time for a change! A lot of injuries have started to pile up for the Raptors, although in some cases (*cough*Bargnani*cough*) that hasn't necessarily been a bad thing. The last numbers I put up were from week 7, so that gives us a larger number of games than we usually have and thus more definite trends to analyse.

Without further ado, the stats, which are always Powered by Nerd Numbers (full spreadsheet here):



Here are my thoughts:

• Jose Calderon - despite his injuries - has maintained his production and finally caught up to Reggie Evans in terms of total wins produced, with 0.9 wins over the last six games.
• Amir Johnson has struggled recently. In eight games he's put up -0.3 wins. Apparently he's been a bit hurt, but since the Raptors have been low on bodies he's had to suit up.
• Joey Dorsey produced 0.9 wins in eight games. Even though he's only 6'8, he's been playing a lot of centre with Bargnani out, so he's not as productive as he should be. That being said, his raw productivity has also declined somewhat.
• In six injury-filled games, Jerryd Bayless produced -0.3 wins. I guess it was a bit early to proclaim him a star, but we'll see how he performs once he returns to health.
• Rookie Ed Davis produced 0.6 wins in eight games. Like Dorsey, Davis has been spending a lot of time out of position at centre, although Davis has actually boosted both his raw productivity and his WP48.
• Over seven games, Julian Wright's wins produced numbers have remained almost completely unchanged, although his PPS has increased substantially (from 0.897 to 0.983).
• Ronald Dupree is back and has literally done nothing during his nanoscopic playing time.
• Linas Kleiza increased his AdjP48 by 0.03 over eight games, which is enough to move him out of the red for the first time this season. Unfortunately, that is true only if we consider him to have split his time almost equally between shooting guard and small forward, and he's actually spent more time at power forward than at SG in reality (remember, these positions are determined by an automated formula, so there are a few positioning issues every now and then).
• Sonny Weems managed to enter into negative wins territory in his one game; DeMar DeRozan and Leandro Barbosa used their eight games to enter into the red as well.
• Andrea Bargnani played two games and his wins produced numbers remained almost completely unchanged (still deep in the red). As of right now, J.J. Hickson of the Cavs has finally caught up to Bargs and has produced fewer wins and has an even more negative WP48. The only other player who seems to be in the running for the Darius Songaila award this season is Brook Lopez, but he'll have his work cut out for him.
• The foul-prone big men - Johnson, Dorsey, and Davis - have seen a decrease in their foul rates. This could be because they are trying to be less aggressive and stay on the court longer without Bargnani mopping up a large number of minutes...or they could simply be learning how to stay on the court. Or some combination of the two.
• The Raptors really, really need to find some help at the shooting guard position - Weems, DeRozan, and Barbosa are terribly inefficient. When Bayless gets healthy, I hope they go with Calderon and Bayless together in the backcourt for long stretches, although it remains to be seen if Bayless can be a productive player for more than a couple of games at a time.

 - Devin