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.
Well, if I could've predicted the minute distribution at the start of the season (which, obviously, I couldn't do before the season started), I would've been within 0.6 wins of what actually transpired, which is pretty damn good. Of course, that doesn't mean that I nailed every player perfectly; there are some discrepancies, and that is to be expected. While player performance is relatively stable from year to year, players can get injured, improve their level of play, or see their performance decline due to age or regression to the mean. That being said, the majority of the players on the team were very close to what we would expect based on their historical performance.
Based on these numbers (and the more detailed numbers that are up on the 2010-11 Raptor Season Stats page), I'm going to hand out a number of team awards. I don't want to give any player more than one award, because I'll be using each award to offer a brief comment on the player's season, but each award is well-deserved in every case.
Team MVP - This award is given to the Raptor who produced the most total wins over the course of the season.
Jose Calderon led the Raptors with 8.1 wins in 2102 minutes - rather comfortably ahead of Amir Johnson (6.1 wins), Ed Davis (5.5 wins), and Reggie Evans (5.3 wins). Calderon followed up a poor preseason with a slow start to the season, but once former starter Jarret Jack was traded to the Hornets, Calderon largely returned to form. Despite the constant complaints about Calderon's defense and his low scoring totals, Calderon is still - without question - the team's best point guard, and ended the season with the most wins of any player on the team.
Team LVP - This award is given to the Raptor who produced the fewest total wins over the course of the season.
Andrea Bargnani wrapped up this award earlier in the season; in fact, Bargnani actually "led" the entire league in terms of fewest wins this season and won the eponymous Andrea Bargnani Award (formerly known as the Darius Songaila Award). What else is there to say about Bargnani? His performance this season was so poor that even Bryan Colangelo seems like he's finally had enough. I've spent so many words on this subject that I really don't feel like I have anything new to add at this point, other than to point out the fact that he played even more poorly than I expected.
Team 6th Man - This award is given to the Raptor who produced the most total wins while coming off the bench (fewer than 50% of games started).
Ed Davis finished 3rd on the team in wins - with 5.5 - and only started 17 out of the 65 games he played. Although I thought Davis would be a productive rookie, he exceeded my expectations. Of the 34 rookies who played 500 or more minutes this season, Davis finished with the 5th most total wins and was only one of six rookies to post better than average expected scoring numbers. Like most rookies, he'll have his work cut out for him on the defensive end, but it was still quite a positive rookie season for Davis.
Team 12th Man - This award is given to the Raptor who produced the fewest total wins while coming off the bench (fewer than 50% of games started).
Leandro Barbosa produced the 3rd fewest wins on the team (at -0.6 wins) because - although he didn't start any games - he played 1392 minutes on the season (7th on the team). Technically Sonny Weems should win this award, as he produced fewer wins and started only 47.5% of the games he played this season, but Weems was so much closer to the cut-off mark that I wanted to give this award to someone who was more of a bench player (and besides, Weems is going to get a much more "prestigious" award). Barbosa's story on the season is a familiar one for the Brazilian over the last couple of years; his shooting is very slightly above-average and he scores a lot of points, but unfortunately, like a lot of Raptors this season, he doesn't offer much else.
Team MIP - This award is given to the Raptor who improved on their historical performance the most (as measured by total wins).
Earlier on in the season - before the injuries - it looked like Reggie Evans was going to end up playing a decent amount of minutes this season. Actually, based on his preseason playing time, I changed his predicted playing time up to 1700 minutes - from the 762 minutes I predicted based on last season's numbers - and then Reggie ended up playing 795 minutes due to injuries. Go figure. Anyways, although Evans didn't play that many minutes, he stepped up his play quite a bit. The Regend improved his win totals by 2.9 wins, and, more importantly, his WP48 by 0.176. While Reggie has played well in the past, he has never played as well as he did this season. Why is Reggie so productive? Simple: the man rebounds at a historical level and doesn't attempt to do what he can't.
Team LIP - This award is given to the Raptor who improved on their historical performance the least (as measured by total wins).
I expected a lot more out of Sonny Weems this season. Last year he was close to an average player (his WP48 was 0.073); this year his WP48 was -0.050, and he produced the second fewest wins on the team (and was 17th from the bottom league-wide). Based on his past performance, I expected Weems to produce 2.1 wins given the minutes he played this year, but in reality he ended up producing -1.5 wins. Last year Weems looked like a more promising prospect than DeMarr DeRozan; this year, while both players are significantly below average, Weems no longer offers anything that DeRozan - or anyone else, for that matter - cannot provide. As Weems is a free agent, it is unlikely that he will return, and for Raptors fans that is undoubtedly a good thing.
Most Surprising Player - This award is given to the Raptor who was the most pleasant surprise (cannot be the same player who won the MIP).
When James Johnson came over from the Bulls in exchange for a late first-round draft pick, I did not expect him to be a very productive player, but so far during his brief stint in Toronto, Johnson has been slightly above-average and improved across the board. However, he still doesn't offer very much more than Julian Wright - another player who is unlikely to return next season - and I still think that the trade was a waste of a first-round pick, which could potentially be used to draft a very useful player. That being said, across his 698 minutes of play, he produced 1.6 wins - 2.3 more wins than I expected - and was the Raptor who surprised me the most.
Most Disappointing Player - This award is given to the Raptor who was the most disappointing player (cannot be the same player who won the LIP).
Back when Linas Kleiza played in Denver - before he went to play over in Europe - his WP48 was around 0.088 and he was close to an average player. Given that he had benefited from a year of European ball and was one year older, I was hoping that we'd see some improvement from him. Sadly, Kleiza struggled with injuries all season long and never posted season win totals in the positive range. If Kleiza can get healthy, there is a good chance that he'll return to his nearly average self next season, but it's not likely that he'll ever be much more than an average player.
Bang for the Buck Award - This award is given to the Raptor who produces the most wins per million dollars of salary (only players who do not have a rookie contract are eligible for this award).
Joey Dorsey produced 0.8 wins and had a $854 390 salary this season, which makes his wins/$million ratio 2.57 and also makes him the winner of this award. Ed Davis (2.87) had a higher wins/$million, but he's still on his rookie contract. Dorsey was very productive when he played; here's hoping that he's back again next season, and may he play many of the minutes that would otherwise go to Bargnani!
Black Hole Award - This award is given to the Raptor who passes the least relative to their position (fewest passes per touch - minimum 30 minutes played/game).
DeMar DeRozan passed the ball on 36% of his touches this season. Once we adjust for position, he ties for the 7th biggest black hole in the entire league! While Bargnani passed even less (28.5%), on average, shooting guards pass more often than centres and power forwards; relatively speaking, DeRozan (z-score of -1.35) passes less often than Bargnani (-0.73), and this is true whether or not we classify Bargnani as a centre or a power forward. Going forward, DeRozan will have to improve his passing, three-point shooting, and rebounding if he wants to become a productive player.
Best Scorer - This award is given to the Raptor who has the highest True Shooting percentage (minimum 400 minutes played).
Amir Johnson is the Raptor who was the most productive shooter on the team. What really impressed me this year about Amir was his free-throw shooting; Johnson went from 63.8% last season to 78.8% this season. In addition, his time spent with assistant coach Alex English also help to expand his range (although he should continue focus on shots closer to the basket, as those shots are more likely to go in). Johnson's TS% was 60.8%, and don't think that that was out of character for him; his career TS% is 61.6%. Whoever is coaching the team next season, it would be wise of them to put Johnson in a position to take additional efficient shots.
Master of Disaster - This award is given to the Raptor who has the most turnovers per 48 minutes (minimum 400 minutes played).
Jerryd Bayless had the most turnovers per 48 minutes on the team this season, with 3.9. While his assist rate was pretty decent, Bayless is more of a combo-guard than a point guard, and is not a good replacement for Calderon at this point in his career. If you take into to consideration the amount of time Bayless had the ball in his hands, of course there are other players on the team who turned the ball over more often (Dorsey, Evans, Wright, Calderon, and James Johnson), but hey, I'm trying to hand out awards to everyone on the team! I had to come up with something for Bayless!
So Long and Thanks For All the Fish Award - This award is given to a useful Raptor who is not likely to return next season.
Julian Wright is a serviceable (WP48 0.098) and young (24 years old in May) forward who, before James Johnson arrived, was getting a decent minutes as a backup. Well, once James Johnson showed up, Wright was glued to the bench...so much so that when the time came for him to get off the bench and into the game, he decided that his glutei were accustomed to the feel of pine and didn't want to play. If the Raptors were better at evaluating talent, they would've kept Miami's first round pick and simply re-signed Wright this off-season...but hey, the Raptors would have probably wasted the the pick anyways, as they don't exactly have a stellar drafting record.
I'll be working on some more end-of-season posts in the coming weeks. Next up will be a look at the more detailed team stats and how they compare to the rest of the league.
- Devin
Since both Reggie Evans and Andrea Bargnani will probably change teams next year, will you expect (assuming no majorly counter balancing moves occur, that the team Evans joins will have significally more total rebounds at the end of next year? And that the team Bargnani joins will have significally less, in total? When this most likely turns out not the be the case, will you reflect on WP's ability to isolate individual contribution? Or will you ignore it and focus only on WP's accurate productions for team wins and consistent year-to-year player ratings, neither of wich have any bearing on isolating individual performance, as WP per ports to do?
ReplyDeleteNice read. I thought Weems deserved more-or less depending on how you look at it. He was just not present this year.
ReplyDeleteQuirk:
ReplyDeleteI won't be baited.
And I can't give you an answer to your question, because rebounding is a messy, complex thing. All I can tell you is that, year in and year out, Evans is an awesome rebounder and Bargnani is a putrid one, and I don't expect any changes in that regard.
'Purports' is the word you were looking for.
Mattt: I couldn't believe how much Weems had declined...maybe the fact that he was in a contract year affected his play? It's too bad, because the Raptors could've used an average-ish SG.
Hey, nobody is questioning the fact that Reggie is a better rebounder than Bargnani, but the fact remains that neither type of player seems to have a significant impact on total rebounds the team gets, meaning that individual rebounds can not realy be looked to as a measure of contributing to team wins, especialy with outliers like reggie. Whenever you have a guy rebounding at 'historic' level, you seem to have a case of the rest of team rebounding at historicaly low levels. Do guys like Reggie somehow make the players they play with worse rebounders? Or is rebounding more of a collective effort that can be allocated to individual contribution?
ReplyDeleteQuirk,
ReplyDeleteYou can't tell anything useful about a player's contribution towards WINS from looking at relationships between a small subset of stats. The regression that establishes the value of rebounding as measured in WINS is a black box that takes into account ALL the standard boxscore stats and their hidden interrelations. If you want to debunk the straightforward regression conclusions as to the value of a given stat towards WINS then you too need to account for ALL the stats in your analysis. This of course is hard to do and is the reason that we use the regression tool in the first place.
That being said, here are two very broad reasons why having a dominant rebounder might help a team win more even when the total team rebounds remain steady:
[1] the other teammates can focus more on non-rebounding tasks that contribute to winning, presumably enhancing their effectiveness at these other tasks (i.e. the rebounding version of the theory that a superstar scorer's presence helps his teammates)
[2] the team has more strategic flexibility in which lineups to play. This means that you can pair the dominant rebounder with a frontcourt player who is good/better at other tasks - efficient scoring, riskier defensive strategies etc... This allows you to maximize the win contributions of other players with complementary skillsets. This means that you don't want Camby and Rodman on the same team, but Camby and the Mailman would be perfect.
To sum it up, the presence of a dominant rebounder (or dominant efficient scorer) allows the other team members to expend their limited energy on fewer tasks, presumably allowing them to execute those tasks better. I also allows players with specialized/limited skillsets to maximize their contribution towards wins.
ilikeflowers
I know I said I wouldn't be baited, but I'm a glutton for punishment.
ReplyDeleteQuirk, do guys like Dirk, Paul Pierce, LeBron, and Dwayne Wade somehow make the players they play with worse scorers? The answer is yes, because those high usage players take away shot attempts from their teammates. But of course these players are still valuable, and you still want those players on your team because they score so efficiently.
Likewise with Reggie, Camby, Rodman, and Ben Wallace. Do they make the players they play with worse rebounders? Yes; undoubtedly, there is a small effect - and we know it's small because rebounding tends to be very stable from year to year. But that doesn't mean that those players aren't valuable and you still want them on your team.
And this is always the most important point that many people miss: even if rebounders are stealing rebounds from their teammates at ridiculous rates (and they aren't), we can't get all hypothetical and try to guess at how "good" the teammates are at rebounding in the absence of the stellar rebounder. We can only look at what actually transpired and perform analysis from there. Otherwise, statistical analysis becomes meaningless (and yes, I realize there are wackos out there who believe that statistical analysis is meaningless regardless of this, but those people are lost to ignorance and not worth debating).
Also, you should back up your assertions:
"Whenever you have a guy rebounding at 'historic' level, you seem to have a case of the rest of team rebounding at historicaly low levels."
Really? Show me the numbers. Looking at the team stats for the Bulls during Rodman's time there (it's a three year period), I fail to see what you are talking about.
Again, no dispute that Rodman is a great rebounder. But the year before Rodman arrives, the Bulls had 3400 rebounds, In Rodman's best year (97-98) they grabbed 3681, for just under 3.5 more rebounds per game. Not bad. I suppose you might be able to say that whatever 3.5 rebounds means in wins could be attributed to Rodman.
ReplyDeleteBut wait.
Interestingly, the year before (96-97), Rodman only played 55 games, grabbing 883 rebounds, yet the Bulls totaled more, 3696. Odd, no?
So it seems they where a pretty good rebounding team with out without Dennis in the lineup. Funny then, that this good rebounding team, that hauled in 2813 rebounds (subtracting Rodman's) in 96-97, only grabbed 2480 when he played 80 games, in other words much worse than before Rodman was on the team, despite the fact that 3 of the best rebounders from that 94-95 team where still on the team: Pippen, Kukoc and Longley.
Did they all suddenly get worse? Or are rebounds created and "assisted" by team play in a way that individual rebound totals do not show?
In any case, since the regression that WP uses comes from the correlation between team wins and team rebounds, and since great individual rebounders do not necessarily seem to significantly improve team rebounds, it's not clear that you can assign an individual "wins produced" based on individual rebounds.
The WP community is always (correctly) pointing out that high scoring totals do not necessarily mean a player is productive, but seem to accept high rebound totals without question, even when the calculation produces ludicrous results, such as attributing Reggie Evens with historic levels of productivity. Odd.
(of course, this is due to relying only on boxscore stats, meaning that rebounds can't be compared to missed rebounds like shots can be, and there is not such thing as rebound "assists" in the box score, so team contributions to a rebound are not taken into account)
ReplyDeleteIf you guys don't mind me adding to the conversation, a couple of things no one is taking into consideration is the type of play the team played on offense and defense, which affect rebounding numbers, and when those rebounds were grabbed. Rebounds are FAR more important near the end of a close game. A good rebounding team isn't necessarily good because of the number of rebounds they grabbed, but for their ability to grab rebounds when it matters most.
ReplyDeleteAs for the type of play the team played, a slower paced team is going to grab fewer rebounds than a faster paced team because there are simply going to be more rebounds. That is why looking at team totals or averages for rebounds is pretty much pointless. You have to look at percentages.
As for the column, a good read. The only surprise was that Davis was higher than I would have expected. Only because he was a rookie, though. Rookies don't tend to make much of a positive impact, at first.
Quirk,
ReplyDeleteYour premise : Box score stats can't tell you about wins.
Your argument: The Wins Produced Model is wrong and useless and Dennis Rodman and and more stuff (sorry it kinda blurs together)
My Suggestion: Instead of trolling a blog that uses stuff you don't agree with you should go away. . . like there's cool stuff on the internent. . . like pictures of cats and stuff.
Sorry Quirk, I'm not getting into that tired argument again. But I will say that you are over-simplifying a complex phenomenon - you are only looking at team rebounds, for example. What about opponent rebounds? What about other personnel changes and minute distribution? As Tim W. mentions, what about defensive, pace, free throws, and other factors that influence the availability of rebounds? I have already considered your argument, and I find it lacking.
ReplyDeleteTim W.: As I said in the post, I was expecting Davis to be good, but he exceeded my expectations by quite a bit. Of course, if you take his defense into consideration he didn't fare so well, but I'm sure he'll get better as he gains more experience. Part of his poor showing on defense also might have to do with the fact that he's on a team with really shitty team defense.
Man are you guys defensive, trolling, baiting, etc.
ReplyDeleteI have never said that WP is useless! In fact, I'm quite interested in it. But I think there are flaws in the way it deals with rebounds, and that yes, those flaws come from the fact that it is limited to box score stats, which can not give you the equivalent of opportunity and assist type stats for rebounds, leaving you with only totals, exactly as I said above.
Imagine trying to value individual offensive contribution using only shots made, for instance, and not having shots attempted or even assists available. Would that work well? I doubt it! Luckily Shots attempted and assist are in the box score, yet nothing similar exists for Rebounds.
My belief is that these flaws manifest themselves most with regard to players at the top and bottom end of individual total rebounds (the most outside the norms in terms of rebounding). You may find my argument "lacking," but you have not explained why it is wrong.
To be clear, I think WP is an interesting indicator (I visit automated wins produced regularly, thanks nerd numbers!). I think the issue is most evident with from the outliers , i.e. Evans and Bargnani type players, whom, IMO, it fails to value accurately. And BTW, I agree that Bargnani is not a productive player, but more due to his defense that simply rebound totals.
Tim,
ReplyDeleteYou're basically talking about clutch rebounds. Since rebounds in terms of wins are valued relative to all the other stats you then have to do this for all the other stats as well (which actually makes it easier to do). The necessary sample size issues that result can probably be overcome. The real deal killer is that you are now devaluing the contributions of those players who may or may not be clutch, but are good (or bad) at preventing clutch situations in the first place. If you made me choose between a non-clutch player who was good at preventing clutch situations and a clutch player who was bad at preventing clutch situations, I'm going with the bad clutch player because close end game circumstances are so dominated by strategy and luck.
ilikeflowers
Quirk,
ReplyDeleteAs long as you phrase the issue as a general lack of efficiency measures for all of the other stats other than scoring then I doubt that you will get much argument. The issue for me is that this issue is almost always brought up only with respect to rebounding and is invariably accompanied by 'evidence' that consists of a few cherry picked stats. This description fits your initial posts.
Having said that the general lack of efficiency measures is certainly a legit concern, but those measures are very difficult to establish. What is a missed rebound? What is a missed assist? It's not a turnover. What is a contested rebound caused by a poor blockout and what is an 'uncontested' rebound caused by a good blockout (or even reputation)? What is a missed FGA? I'm not talking about a missed shot here, but a missed opportunity to take a high percentage shot and it's opposite. Even this is only measured by proxy with scoring efficiency. In a perfect world plus-minus would capture all these things. It is definitely the better approach in theory. Unfortunately, that measure has critical technical issues that haven't been overcome yet. WP48 although a lesser approach in theory doesn't have so many technical issues, making it more useful at this point. It's straightforward, consistent, adjusts for team/strategy via the position adjustment, and until some other similarly robust method is demonstrated to be superior, I think that its relative valuing of each stat should be assumed to be legit baselines. Now, I also think that more positions need to be defined but we all have out pet concerns.
I certainly agree that at the extremes we need to be careful especially when predictig how a player will perform for another team, since there is by definition a smaller sample size of these types of players (especially for those who have changed teams while uninjured and still in their prime - although since the extreme rebounders are often undervalued they may actually be very well represented). Arturo has done some work regarding this and even at the extremes (at least for rebounding) he didn't find any red flags.
ilikeflowers
Hi Flowers, what sort of "Red Flags" did Arturo look for and not find?
ReplyDeleteThe fact remains that I have not seen an explanation as to how individual rebounds totals can be reliably correlated to team wins, you can ignore it as merely a "a legit concern" that you have decided to overlook because the alternative is to develop extremely difficult measures, and that is certain valid, stats operate in an imperfect world, but you can only do this so long as you take high results from players do, mainly, to rebounding totals with a large grain of salt.
This does not seem to be the case when proponents of WP continuously treat WP as proof that players like Reggie Evans are playing at Hall of Fame levels, when they do nothing other than rebound, do not defend particularly well, and are offensively so much of a black hole that they force their teammates to play 4 on 5 on offensive.
Instead, it would be nice to simply admit that a lack of efficiency measures causes WP to overvalue extremely one dimensional players. Yet, even raising the issue brings defensive overreactions, accusations of trolling and baiting, invitations to "go look for cats on the Internet" and having all kinds of words being put in your mouth, as if rejecting that Reggie is playing at LBJ-like levels means thinking that WP is "useless."
WP is not useless, just like PAWS is not, I really looking forward to (more) draft analysis from Berri, and from this blog too. I read this blog with interest, and those of the rest of the WP network. These are very interesting measures, and should certainly be used to help get a picture of a player.
But, since we know that stats are not perfect, when they produce ridiculous results, we should not just shrug and say, well thats what the calculation says, it must be true! We should instead try to identify cases when certain stats may produce unreliable results, and look to other data to understand the player.
The article above claims with a straight face that Reggie Evans "produced" 5.5 wins in 798 minutes. While I don't deny that Evans is a productive, and useful player, that is absolutely, straight out, freakin plainly ridiculous. Yet the article above treats this as a fact, for the sole reason that WP says so.
And since the Raptors are lucky enough to have both extremes, with the rebounding inept Bargnani on the team, we have the incredible result that if you we had Evans playing all of Bargnani's minutes, then removing Bargnani gains 6 wins, plus tripling Reggie's 5.5, and wamo, we gots 22.5 more wins! Damn, forget the youth, build around Reggie! We've got our dude!
Does anybody seriously believe that replacing all of Bargnani's minutes with Reggie Evans produces 22.5 more wins? Really? Honestly, truly, really?
Does not believing that make somebody a baiting, trolling, WP hater?
Does trying to understand why a stat would produce such a result, by, you-know, asking expert proponents of it to explain this amount to baiting and trolling?
Quirk,
ReplyDelete[1] I don't think that I've put any words in your mouth, or accused you of trolling, baiting, or hating. I also don't think that I've overreacted or been defensive - other than, by explaining why I disagree with your original posts, I am necessarily defending the wp48 stat valuations against your position.
[2] From your scenario it sounds like Evans usually gets to play with Bargs. If this is the case, then his stats are benefitting from playing with an historically bad player. So, let's dock him more than the standard 10% for that, let's use 20%. Assuming that he plays Bargs' minutes and that Bargs doesn't get any minutes, that gives Evans 15.9 - 3.2 wins produced, or about 12.7 wp. He was already giving you 5.3 wins, so we have an additional 7.4 wins directly attributable to Evans. You could add in another 6 wins to compensate for Bargs' negative performance but now you're assuming that it's hard to find a big man with a wp48 of greater than zero. Even so, how many more wins would you expect to get when you remove an historically bad high-minute player and replace them with a really good player? Does 13 at the high end sound unreasonable? Put it to you this way, does going from 20 wins to 33 sound crazy for the Raptors or any team just from not playing an awful player and then also playing a great specialist more? BTW, taking a quick look at how many minutes vet big men typically play says that 2400 minutes is at the high end.
[3] Regarding specialists, I agree to an extent. I think that more positions need to be defined in order to deal with them and to properly establish their stat baselines. Here's the crux though, what is your rationale for assuming that they're overvalued rather than undervalued or correctly valued? I certainly don't know which it is.
[4] I believe that Arturo looked at rebounding efficiency back during the last epic Rebound-Around near Thanksgiving. I'll try to find the link.
[5] Ultimately, I agree with your concerns about efficiency and recognize that given the lack of efficiency data in all of the non-field goal stats that there is likely more uncertainty in the correctness of the non-efficiency values at the individual level. This is indeed a potential weakness of any boxscore method and is certainly a cause for salt. However at this point I don't think that you've provided any reasonable arguments for why at the individual level rebounding specifically is overvalued rather than correctly valued, undervalued, or randomly misvalued.
ilikeflowers
Quirk,
ReplyDelete[1] I don't think that I've put any words in your mouth, or accused you of trolling, baiting, or hating. I also don't think that I've overreacted or been defensive - other than, by explaining why I disagree with your original posts, I am necessarily defending the wp48 stat valuations against your position.
[2] From your scenario it sounds like Evans usually gets to play with Bargs. If this is the case, then his stats are benefitting from playing with an historically bad player. So, let's dock him more than the standard 10% for that, let's use 20%. Assuming that he plays Bargs' minutes and that Bargs doesn't get any minutes, that gives Evans 15.9 - 3.2 wins produced, or about 12.7 wp. He was already giving you 5.3 wins, so we have an additional 7.4 wins directly attributable to Evans. You could add in another 6 wins to compensate for Bargs' negative performance but now you're assuming that it's hard to find a big man with a wp48 of greater than zero. Even so, how many more wins would you expect to get when you remove an historically bad high minute player and replace them with a really good player? Does 13 at the high end sound unreasonable? Put it to you this way, does going from 20 wins to 33 sound crazy for the Raptors just from not playing an awful player and then also playing a great specialist more? BTW, taking a quick look at how many minutes vet big men typically play says that 2400 minutes is at the high end.
[3] Regarding specialists, I agree to an extent. I think that more positions need to be defined in order to deal with them and to properly establish their stat baselines. Here's the crux though, what is your rationale for assuming that they're overvalued rather than undervalued or correctly valued? I certainly don't know which it is.
[4] I believe that Arturo looked at rebounding efficiency back during the last epic rebound-around near Thanksgiving. I'll try to find the link during the next work week.
[5] Ultimately, I agree with your concerns about efficiency and recognize that given the lack of efficiency data in all of the non-field goal stats that there is likely more uncertainty in the correctness of the non-efficiency values at the individual level. This is indeed a potential weakness of any boxscore method and is certainly a cause for salt. However at this point I don't think that you've provided any reasonable arguments for why at the individual level rebounding specifically is overvalued rather than correctly valued, undervalued, or randomly misvalued.
ilikeflowers
Hey Mary/Ilikeflowers,
ReplyDelete1- Yes, your responses have been appreciated, they are not the ones I was referring to. Sorry if that was unclear.
2- I don't think having a player like Evans playing starting minutes will lead to very many wins at all, because he is not very good at defense, and horrible on office. Thus he puts his team at a disadvantage at both ends of the floor, which many teams will be able to exploit. He is a good specialist of the bench. That's all. Talk of him producing all-star amounts of wins seems like fantasy land. When the numbers suggest this, the numbers should be questioned.
3- Yes, I agree they could be undervalued, but when the player in question is attributed with hall of fame levels, as above, I tend to think they are rather more likely being overvalued.
4- Look forward to it.
5- We agree here, uncertainty is exactly the issue.
Quirk,
ReplyDelete[1] Likewise, I appreciate that your posts have forced me to focus upon an interesting viewpoint...let's not turn this into a love fest though, I'm not really a woman. :)
[2] Defense, of course is a whole other can of worms. Still, how many wins would you dock Evans due to defense if he took away say 1600 of Barg's minutes? Is Evans worse defensively than Bargs? If he isn't then it shouldn't negatively effect the team at all to trade 1600 bad defensive minutes for another 1600 bad defensive minutes.
[3] That is certainly cause for scrutiny.
[4] I couldn't find where Arturo looked at rebounding efficiency specifically (I don't think anyone even has that fuzzy data), but I did find where he looked at rebounding diminishing returns by rate and totals here. Clearly there must come a point at the extremes at which diminishing returns becomes non-linear and a limit is established. Arturo found only linear DR in regards to rebounding for individuals - he did note a difference however for duos. At this point is seems likely that the threshold for non-linear DR (with regards to wins) is higher than is possible for any single person to attain but less than what is possible for two people to attain. In other words you'd have to pair Evans with another great rebounder before you start thinking about reducing the individual value of their rebounds in terms of wins.
ilikeflowers (or Mary on this particular blog)
2- Probably not, but he is way worse offensively. And having a player in the team that is liability on both offense and defense will certainly not produce many wins, let alone double digit wins. In any case, I'm certainly not trying to make a pro-Bargnani argument. Although, as I just joked on the RR forums, if, as according to this blog, Evans is not a liability on offense because he takes so few shots, well then Bargs is not a liability on the boards because he attempts so few rebounds! I'm joking, but you get the point.
ReplyDelete4- Thanks. I'll try to grasp what that means. I'm no stats guru.
Quirk,
ReplyDeleteIf he's grabbing loads of defensive boards then surely he's boxing out? And keeping a big man further from the goal and ball than you are has to be one of the primary goals of defense, correct? I've never heard anyone claim that offensive boards are overrated - at least not for a player who doesn't shoot much.
But really, who cares after this gem...
if...Evans is not a liability on offense because he takes so few shots, well then Bargs is not a liability on the boards because he attempts so few rebounds!
FTW! Thread. Over.
PS - I gotta use this joke's logic again. Is it ok to (humorously of course) refer to it as Quirk's Law?
ilikeflowers
Hey Mary.
ReplyDeleteOffensive boards are not overrated, and yes Evans does contribute defensively. But keener observers than I have commented that Reggie is, all-in-all, still not a good defender. And in any case, any picture of his overall productivity has to account for this phenomenon:
http://liston.ca/Reggie.jpg
(image provide by Tom Liston)
Glad you like like the joke, but "law" is too string, how about "Quirk's Conjecture?"
Cheers.
"Quirk, do guys like Dirk, Paul Pierce, LeBron, and Dwayne Wade somehow make the players they play with worse scorers? The answer is yes, because those high usage players take away shot attempts from their teammates."
ReplyDeleteWhich of the Heat's many benchwarmers and 12th men would you like to see the SuperFriends giving more shots to? The only Miami players getting minutes who are shooting better percentages than the aforementioned SuperFriends are Joel Anthony and Z. So, I guess if they just give more shots to those guys, perhaps mid-range jumpers, the Heat will win more games than they already are.
Subtracting shots from the two most unstoppable sons-of-bitches in the NBA, LBJ/Wade, and giving them to a guy who couldn't hit an open jumper if the hoop was 45 feet wide -- Anthony. Yeah.
Shots are not "taken". Basketball offense is not a zero-sum game and it's not about egalitarianism. Shots are created. Created by great shot makers and passers. That is why players like James Jones and Bibs can hit those wide open 3-pointers. LBJ/Wade/Bosh are creating those open shots for their teammates. That's why players like Jones and Bibs score more points than they otherwise would, when in the presence of superstar players who draw defensive coverages away from them.
brandon:
ReplyDeleteYou are guilty of quote-mining, my friend. The sentence immediately after that, I wrote: "But of course these players are still valuable, and you still want those players on your team because they score so efficiently." I also never said that those two players should not be getting all the shots they are getting.
The point was not that LBJ/Wade should shoot more/less. The point was that, by taking more shots, yes, they are indeed taking shots away from their teammates. If LBJ/Wade were suddenly taken away from the team, some other players would be taking those shots. That is why we see little change (and if there is change, it is almost always positive) in teams that trade away high-usage, relatively inefficient scorers like Melo and Iverson, because their shooting is easy to replace.
Shots are not "created". Easy shots are created, perhaps. But teams will shoot approximately every 48 seconds or so, regardless of who is on the team...because they have to, and NBA players are not shy about shooting the ball. The question is, who is going to take the shot, and what is the likelihood that the shot will go in?