Thanks to Mosi over at
Miami Heat Index, I have managed to put together the Estimated Wins Produced numbers for all of the players on the Canadian men's national basketball team. These numbers include only the five games played in Turkey (against Lebanon, Lithuania, France, New Zealand, and Spain) and none of the qualifying or exhibitions. Putting everything together was a long process and also taught me about some new excel functions - and I wouldn't have been able to do it without Mosi's help.
First I'll embed the spreadsheets into this post and then follow up with some analysis.
If you are too lazy to look through all those numbers, let me give it to you in summary form. The players can be sorted into three categories: the good, the barely positive, and the negative.
The Good:
Only four players on the Canadian team managed to produce at an above average level (greater than 0.100 EWP40). They are (in order of EWP40): Levon Kendall, Kelly Olynyk, Ryan Bell, and Joel Anthony.
Levon Kendall was not only the most efficient player with a EWP40 of 0.302, he also produced the most wins at 0.907. In fact, Kendall - by himself - was more productive than the entire team...which also includes Kendall. Yes, after Kendall, the rest of the team actually produced a negative number of wins. Despite being below the average forward with respect to all aspects of shooting, he was above average in every other category. Where he excelled was rebounding and net possessions; at 12.7 reb/48 and 12.0 possessions/48, he even crushed the numbers for an average centre. All those extra possessions are very valuable and so boosted his WP40 to a superstar level.
Kelly Olynyk was the second most efficient player on the team with a WP40 of 0.284; unfortunately he was also 8th on the team in minutes played and as a consequence only produced 0.46 wins. Olynyk was productive mainly because of his shooting efficiency, scoring, ability to avoid fouling, and, to a lesser extent, his ability to protect the ball. In all other areas he was below average, but not very much so. So Olynyk was successful mostly due to his scoring skills and not much else.
Ryan Bell was the third most efficient Canadian team member, with a WP40 of 0.255. Unfortunately he played even fewer minutes than Olynyk did, and so only produced 0.340 wins. Bell scored an amazing 1.75 points per shot! That rate is so high, he could've halved it and still had an above average PPS! Unfortunately he only attempted 3.0 shots per 40 minutes - so ridiculously low that it's also the same as his free-throw rate (which is still below average for free-throw attempts). Thus, despite his crazy PPS, he still scored substantially less than an average guard. He also rebounded at a rate slightly below average and was poor at getting assists. Other than that, Bell was above average with respect to steals, TOs, net possessions, blocks, and fouls.
The team's only player with NBA experience, Joel Anthony, was the fourth most productive and last member of the Canadian team who managed to produce at an above average level. He produced at a rate of 0.158 WP40, and because he played the most minutes on the team (149 MP) he produced the second most wins (0.571). Anthony did three things very well: block shots, avoid fouls, and shoot efficiently. He did two things quite poorly: free-throw conversion and rebounding. He was also poor at gaining possessions and getting assists, but not too far away from average.
Together these four players produced 2.277 wins, or 253% of the team's wins, in 38.6% of the team's minutes.
The Barely Positive:
Only two other players managed to produce a positive number of wins for Team Canada during the 2010 WBC. They are (in order of EWP40): Denham Brown and Jermaine Bucknor.
Denham Brown was not very productive, but at least he managed to produce in the posivitve range. He scored at an above average rate, but was not very efficient while doing so. Other than that, in every other area, with the exception of TOs and fouls, Brown was below average. Because he played the 4th most minutes on the team, he managed to produce 0.081 wins.
Jermaine Bucknor was slightly less efficient than Brown, posting a WP40 of 0.027. He shot very efficiently, but did not take very many field goal attempts, keeping his scoring below average. Other than his steals and TOs, everything else was below average, particularly rebounds and fouls. He ended up 7th on the team in minutes and produced 0.023 wins.
Together these two players produced 11.5% of the team's wins in 18.6% of the team's minutes.
The Negative:
The remaining six players produced in the negative range. They are (in order of EWP40): Jermaine Anderson, Robert Sacre, Andy Rautins, Aaron Doornekamp, Jevohn Shepherd, and Olu Famutimi.
Jermaine Anderson just missed being a positive producer of wins. His assists, steals, and FT attempts were all slightly above average, but other than that everything was below average. Especially poor was his AdjFG%. Anderson somehow managed to play the second most minutes on the team, and in that time he produced -0.026 wins.
Robert Sacre was the backup centre (behind Anthony) on the team. His steals, rebounds, FT%, and net possessions were above average; unfortunately everything else was below average (with the exception of FG attempts...and at his PPS, this actually hurt his numbers), particularly his PPS and PFs. In 44 minutes, Sacre managed to produce -0.123 wins.
Andy Rautins was injured and did not play well. His scoring and rebounding numbers were the only areas that were above average; particularly poor were his net possessions and (especially) his PFs. In 39 minutes across three games, Rautins produced -0.153 wins.
Aaron Doornekamp also played while injured, and like Rautins, did not play well in that time. His poor shooting and rebounding really hurt his productivity, but he managed to be above average wit hrespect to steals, TOs, and assists. Rautins was 5th on the team in minutes played and produced -0.464 wins.
Jevohn Shepherd accumulated steals, avoided TOs, and shot free-throws at above average rates. Unfortunately he couldn't shoot (0.69 PPS) and rebounded worse than the average guard (3.6 reb/40). Everything else was also below average, but his shooting efficiency and rebounding were what hurt him the most. He played the 6th most minutes, and in that time, produced -0.512 wins.
Olu Famutimi played very limited minutes over the course of two games, which is very fortunate, because he didn't manage to perform at an above average level in any category. In his limited time he somehow managed to produce -0.203 wins.
Together these four players produced -165% of the team's wins in 42.8% of the team's minutes.
Overall Team Performance
The fact that the four worst-performing players on the team managed to play 42.8% of the team's minutes suggests there were a few errors in player management. In fact, if the minutes were divided amongst the players by productivity, the team would've produced 2.43 wins instead of 0.900.
What's interesting is that the top 5 players consist of two forwards, two guards, and one centre, and the top 3 off the bench are a forward, a guard, and a centre. Of course, it's easy to say which players should've played the most minutes after the fact. The coaches of the team had the very difficult task of dealing with determining minutes on the fly, often with limited sample sizes (that is...if they used stats to determine minutes). In any case, this tournament should provide some good data going forward - and the good news is that the oldest member of the team is 28 year old Joel Anthony. If the coaches can fine tune their minute allocations, this team could be more successful in future (look out for Kelly Olynyk in the years to come).
- Devin.
