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.

NBA Today and rebuilding the Raptors

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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.

Week 15 Auto WP numbers

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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):

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 6 Auto WP Numbers

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Ahhhh, I now (temporarily) have my own computer to work on for the next couple of weeks, and because of that, I can now post the Week 6 numbers. These stats are up-to-date as of 12/08, with the exception of the WP numbers, which are an additional day behind. So here are the numbers, which are - as is always the case - Powered by Nerd Numbers (full spreadsheet here):



Here are my thoughts:

• Bargnani had finally had a good game against the Knicks, but it won't be enough to offset his previous two bad games, let alone his whole season to date (and remember, the WP numbers are a game behind right now). I'm not the only one who has noticed Bargs' lack of productivity, by the way. If he played every game as well as that one, I'd be his biggest fan! But it's far, far more likely that he'll continue to play poorly.
• Bayless really seems to have decided to play better ever since I proclaimed that Jarrett Jack's current season would be better than Bayless would ever be. I sure hope he keeps proving me wrong! He's almost been playing at a superstar level ever since he came to the Raptors...and he has been out-rebounding the team's starting centre.
• Ed Davis has been quite good during his first few games as an NBA player - something that I (and others) expected - although he's been even better than we thought. In fact, he's already sixth on the team in wins, despite only having played 88 minutes so far.
• As good as Davis has been playing, Joey Dorsey has been better. Dorsey is pretty similar to Reggie Evans - as I and others have noted in the past - so why not give Dorsey some more minutes?
• All of the Raptors' bigs - with the exception of Bargnani - have been quite productive. Maybe the team would have more success if Bargnani played fewer minutes and took fewer shots? The team isn't exactly tearing it up...why not give it a try?
• The other four horsemen - Barbosa, Kleiza, and DeRozan - have continued to be unproductive. I'd like like to nominate Sonny Weems as a new addition to the group, as his shot-happy ways have lowered his productivity. What new term should we use for this group of five players? The Five Tenors? The Final Five? Nothing really works quite as well as what David Berri came up with...I guess that's why he makes the big bucks.
• I'm glad Calderon is back to his old self - let's hope he keeps playing well.
• Still waiting for the Raps to make an additional roster move - Stojakovic has missed a bunch of games and the team needs some more useful guard/forwards. There is also still an open roster spot, and with Dampier landing (and - strangely - not playing very much) in Miami, I really have no idea what's going on on that front.

Team stats update coming soon!

 - Devin

Week 5 WP numbers

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After almost a week travelling to and fro, I'm back and ready to post the Week 5 auto WP numbers. A lot of important things have happened, especially Reggie Evans going down with a broken foot and the imminent return of Ed Davis. Here are the numbers (spreadsheet here):



Here are my thoughts:

• Reggie. The player with the third highest WP48 in the league (minimum 100 MP) was the driving force behind the relatively surprising Raptors. Now that he's out for 4-6 weeks with a broken foot, the team is going to have to find a way to replace his productivity (which was mainly due to rebounding).
• Could that player be Joey Dorsey? I've said it over and over - when Dorsey gets playing time, he produces at a very high level. He started in Evans' place the other day and replaced him quite nicely. Surprisingly, Dorsey's rebounding is very similar to Reggie's. The only problem he might face is foul-trouble and a lack of minutes.
• With Jack gone, Calderon has picked it up quite a bit. Perhaps the Hornets trade has lead to some psychological gains in his case. He's really only improved with regards to shooting, something I've been waiting for, so it's not unexpected.
• Bayless and Stojakovic have been quite good in limited minutes (and Jack has been terrible - with a WP48 of -0.159 in 70 min - over in New Orleans). But it's too early to fully evaluate stats just yet, so no one jump on me just yet. Bayless still can't shoot, but so far he's been getting to the line like crazy.
• Bargnani still "leads" the league with -1.5 wins, and his closest competitor is Knicks centre Tomofey Mozgov at -0.9 wins. Barring injury, I think Bargs is a lock to win the fewest wins produced this year.
• Bargnani is shooting less accurately, but a decrease in FGA and an increase in FTA has helped to offset that. Overall, he is playing slightly better than he was last time.
• Kleiza has gotten a little bit better across the board, and it's showing in his numbers. Mind you, he's still been terrible so far this year, but he's improving.
• Sonny Weems has gotten quite a bit worse. His FGA have stayed about the same, but his FTA have decreased and his PPS and AdjFG% have dropped quite a bit (from 1.11 to 0.98 and 55.7% to 49.1%, respectively).

And how was Bargnavans doing?



Pretty well, actually. With Evans out, who will the Raptors pair up with Bargnani, and will they make up for his flaws? Only time will tell; tune in next week to find out!

Or, you know, watch the games. But if you come here, you won't even have to!

 - Devin

AGS for Front Offices Audit: Toronto Raptors Part 3

For you new readers out there, make sure you know about the basics before you leave a silly anonymous comment.



Continuing with the third part of the front office audit series (please see part 1 and part 2), I'll examine the last three components and offer some suggestions on how to turn the franchise around.

5) If you are going to the free agent market then look for low-priced underrated players.

Colangelo has actually done a pretty good job on this one historically. The Raptors have signed Jose Calderon (Rob Babcock's work, actually), Anthony Parker, Jorge Garbojosa, and Linas Kleiza (all at cheap salaries) from Europe. David Berri, founder of the Wages of Wins Network and creator of the Wins Produced metric, called it Colangelo's "third way" (in addition to drafting and NBA free agents/trades). He also found the undrafted, cheap, and very productive Jamario Moon. He recently re-signed Amir Johnson to a reasonable contract. But at the same time, Colangelo has also signed Hedo Turkoglu to a terrible free agent deal, given Bargnani a ridiculously huge (and long) extension,  traded for the Player Formerly Known as Jermaine O'Neal, and actually gave Jason Kapono a positive amount of money in his contract (rather than asking Kapono to pay him to stay on the team, which is what he'd have done if this was a rational world). So he's done very well on the "small" deals, but very poorly on the "big" deals. In this case, the good outweighs the bad, but the bad has been so bad that I can only give him partial marks on this one.

6) For the playoffs it is more important to have stars than average players. If given the opportunity trade for stars even if it means losing a few slightly above average players.

Playoffs? You're talking about playoffs?!?!? [that's the first and probably the only time I will reference North American Football on this blog] Well, in terms of stars, the Raptors haven't had much luck. Damon Stoudemire and Vince Carter asked to be traded. Tracy McGrady, Shawn Marion, and Chris Bosh left as free agents. Good players like Jerome Williams and Marcus Camby were stupidly traded away. Older but good players like Hakeem Olajuwon, Charles Oakley, and Mark Jackson faded and were either traded away or decided to retire. The Raptors have failed in this area completely.

7) Target good big men (Power Forwards – Centers) and ball handlers (Point Guards).

The Raptors have targeted big men in draft after draft - but other than Bosh, their decisions have been terribly poor. They have had good point guards fall into their hands, only to watch them struggle with injuries (Alvin Williams, Calderon) or suffer from age-related decline (Mark Jackson). In one instance, Colangelo actually traded a big (Charlie Villanueva) for a small (T.J. Ford), something that is a "no-no" according to traditional basketball wisdom; given that Ford was productive and Villanueva was not, it was actually a good move. I'm going to give them an A for effort, but an F for their execution.


Summary:
Five failures and two partial marks out of seven


Verdict:
Do not pass go, do not collect $200.



Future Direction?


Let me start by stating the obvious: hire a GM who knows what they're doing (allow me to suggest a Mr. Galletti). That means that the Raptors should not renew Colangelo's contract once it expires at the end of this season (or fire him sometime during the season), even though they are probably going to ignore that advice.

The next step is figuring out which contracts the Raptors should keep on the books. Most of the players on the team are signed to relatively cheap contracts, but Calderon, Bargnani, and Barbosa have the biggest deals. Bargnani needs to be traded. Barbosa is overvalued and it shouldn't be hard to trade him to a contender or pseudo-contender. Calderon is the interesting case. His history suggests that he is a good player, but he has been declining, his recent play has been poor, and his contract is pretty hefty. I'd keep him for one more season and see how he fares; if he does poorly, he'd be gone before the start of next season. In each of these cases, I would only make trades that would net me at least one (hopefully more) of the following: young players on rookie contracts, players with expiring deals, stars/superstar players (determined by Wins Produced), and draft picks.

The next issue is the Bosh trade exception: it needs to be used. If I had to include it in a package with one of the above players, I would. But preferably I'd used it to acquire a superstar player. I'd go after every star/superstar that I could get (your Wades, Lebrons, Howards, Durants, Rondos and Pauls) but most of those players aren't on the market, so I'd target up-and-coming stars like Westbrook, Noah, Batum, Love, and the like. I'd also look at non-star players if I couldn't do any better.

Once that was done, I'd have a cheap, young, and better team. I'd make sure to continue to flip scorers for draft picks and to use WS40 to determine which players I should draft (or I could just ask Mr. Galletti). The only time I would trade away draft picks is if I could obtain a superstar calibre player in return.

Of the cheaper players on the roster, I'd trade away DeRozan after this season if he maintains his current trajectory. I'd try to include Marcus Banks in deals, but if I couldn't find a use for him I'd be fine with letting his contract come off the books. I'd resign Reggie Evans and Joey Dorsey to really cheap contracts as long as they produce like they have in the past, but I'd avoid long-term deals. Julian Wright and Sonny Weems are quite replaceable, so I'd probably shop around for better players on the free agent market, or use the "third way" and find hidden gems in Europe.

I guarantee that this plan would have better success than whatever Colangelo is doing right now. Such a plan would likely net a playoff berth in the next two seasons, followed by advancing to the second round in the following two years after that. And if the Raptors hired either Arturo, myself, or any of the other Wages of Wins Network analysts, I doubt that they would regret it.

 - Devin

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.

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.

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.

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: Jose Calderon

For our second 2009-10 player review, let's heed Andres' (over at Nerdnumbers) request and take a look at Jose Calderon. Here is his summary table:

As you can see, Calderon has a history of good performance. The fact that Bryan Colangelo wants to get rid of him is puzzling to me. Yes, his production has decreased for three straight years, but injuries were partly to blame last year. In my projections for next season, I have Calderon performing at a WP48 of 0.210, which is somewhere between last year's 0.154 and the previous year's 0.245.

What changed for Calderon these last three years? Let's take a look at some more specific statistics from the past three seasons:

Wins for average PG calculated from a WP48 of 0.100 over a season of 1968 minutes

Calderon is still an efficient shooter, but he has been getting worse each of the past three years. His free throw percentage dropped from an all-time NBA record of 98.1% in 2008-2009 to a strangely average 79.8% this past year. Rebounds, steals, and assists were all down, and fouls were up (not a good thing). While his shooting efficiency is down, FG and FT attempts, as well as points, have been rising. It's almost as if Calderon has been neglecting to do all the things that made him an efficient player in favour of taking more shots - or maybe his injuries cost him some athleticism and forced him to take more jumpshots. Either way, here's hoping Calderon returns to form next season.

I'm also hoping Calderon will at least split the PG minutes with Jack this upcoming season, but I'm betting that he'll be traded either before the season starts or a few games into the season. If Calderon does get traded, it would be nice if he gets traded for someone who is productive (and not, say....Carmelo Anthony), but the Raptors (and Bryan Colangelo) haven't had the best track record lately when it comes to personnel moves.

 - Devin.

Another updated team projection

Just noticed that I still haven't included Linas Kleiza in my team projections. So here is the current team projection:

Trying to fit another G/F into the mix really makes it obvious that the Raptors are planning to trade away one of their guards, because right now the minute distribution doesn't really make any sense. If they trade away Calderon - as I expect -  the Raptors will be losing a significant number of wins. It would be better to package a couple of players - any one of Weems, DeRozan, Barbosa, Kleiza, and Banks (expiring contract) - to get one more productive player.

In the next post I will have a more detailed list of some players the Raptors might want to target.

 - Devin.

Projections for the 2010-11 NBA season

Without further ado, here are my projections for next season:

The projected WP numbers are based on a very complicated formula....Well, actually, I averaged each player's yearly WP for the last 5 seasons, calculated their total WP over the last 5 seasons, and then used that data to come up with my own educated...projections. Guess wouldn't be an appropriate word in this context, because WP tends to be relatively stable over time, but yes, my projections include a tiny bit of "guessing".

The projected minutes is where it gets interesting. The Raptors aren't exactly renowned for their player usage, and they have several players who are interchangeable. My projected starters are in bold in the chart above. Note that I project Andrea Bargnani to be the starting centre - not Amir Johnson. Calderon and Jack split the PG minutes, but either could be designated as the starter.

There is also the matter of the rookies. How well and how many minutes will they play? Based on his college performance, I've projected Ed Davis to be an average NBA player in his first year. Based on the playing time the Raptors gave DeMar DeRozan last year, I'm predicting that Davis should see around 1600 minutes of playing time. Solomon Alabi does not project to have a good season, and I doubt that he will see much court time this year.

So, without Bosh (and Turkoglu), the Raptors project to win around 35-36 games. If rookie Ed Davis has a good season and/or the Raptors pick up a few "lucky" wins, they might actually sneak into the playoffs as an 7th or 8th seed.

In the coming days I will start posting my individual player "reviews" for the upcoming season, where I will discuss each player in greater detail.

 - Devin.