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

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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.

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

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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

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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.