Introducing Required Readings

Up until now, it has been my policy to leave comments as is on this blog and to refrain from censoring them, even if the comments weren't necessarily productive. However, in light of the recent comments that have been left on my "Is Bargnani a bust?" series of posts, I will have to change my comments policy.

And a big part of that change in policy will be the "Required Readings" page, which is located at the top of every page under the site logo. This page will contain links to what I consider to be some of the most important articles/posts on several issues relating to Wins Produced (WP), including how to calculate WP, how WP stacks up against other metrics of player productivity, and the responses to several common criticisms, such as "WP overvalues rebounding" and "WP hates scorers".

From now on, I will no longer be responding to the old, frequently brought up criticisms of WP; instead I will be directing readers with these comments toward Required Readings. So, if you make a comment with a question/point that relates to one of the issues covered on the Required Readings page, it is likely that I will address it by directing you toward that page. If you leave a comment that has already been addressed in the past and use vulgar or insulting language, please count on your comment being deleted.

 - Devin

2009-10 Player Review: Reggie Evans

Tip o' the hat to Andres for essentially forcing me to include what I like to think of as a "statistical prologue" and a "statistical epilogue" (and...I largely "borrowed" them as well). So, from now on, I will include some variation of the following at the top of my posts (and another at the bottom):

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)

With that out of the way, as promised, here is the 2009-2010 player review for Reggie Evans:

Once upon a time, Evans was a very good player - he actually managed to produce at a level exceeding the "superstar threshold" (a WP48 in excess of 0.300) and spent several years above the "star threshold" (a WP48 in excess of 0.200) - but time stops for no one, and Evans' production and playing time has declined rapidly over the past couple of seasons. That being said, let's see how his production from last year compares with his previous three seasons, as well as the average PF:

I think the advanced stats show something quite clearly: Reggie Evans is not your normal NBA player. He does several things quite poorly, including take shots, making free-throws, getting blocks, assists, avoiding fouls, and avoiding turnovers. That would be enough to doom most players to a very unproductive career - but not Evans. Evans does one thing incredibly well: he rebounds like a madman. As a consequence, his free-throw attempts are also quite above average, because he often gets offensive rebounds close to the basket. As a bonus, he's also above average at getting steals, but it's really his rebounding that helps him out. If only he could shoot free-throws!

The major determinant of a good year for Evans revolves around shooting: is his PPS above or below average? Is his free throw shooting disgustingly terrible or merely atrocious? When Evans shoots well from the field, he posts star and superstar calibre WP48s. If he makes free-throws above the break-even point (47%), that's helpful as well. But both of these things have only happened about 50% of the time in the past four years.

Interestingly, Evans hasn't really shown any signs of age-related decline so far. Sure, his WP48 has declined as he's approached 30, but his rebounding, steals, and other athletic indicators haven't changed significantly. No, it appears that Evans' decline is related to his shooting. That being the case, I can't imagine that his WP48 will be any worse than last year's 0.129, and in fact, he may improve on that mark. The biggest problem is that he's not likely to get many minutes. He's also in the last year of his contract and may be traded - if he manages to find himself on a team that actually plays him, he'll get a chance to produce some wins.

 - 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.

Nerd Numbers: Dan and Dre podcast

Andres of Nerd Numbers has recently started a weekly podcast in which he discusses the NBA, basketball, and other sports (mostly Denver teams) with his brother Dan. Andres, of course, analyzes the stats from a Wins Produced perspective; Dan is a stats "skeptic" and prefers his own original blend of traditional basketball thinking and idiosyncratic whimsy. Last week I determined that Dan was more convincing. This week's podcast has a few interesting topics:

• Andres has declared me to be "the stats ambassador to Canada". I need to put that on my resumé.
• Dan would rather have Rudy Gay and Marc Gasol than Luol Deng and Joakim Noah. Given that Deng is better than Gay and that Noah is better than Gasol, I'll have to go with the pair of Bulls.
• Dan keeps seems confused about the definition of a "good player". Good players don't necessarily have the best skills; they don't necessarily win games of one-on-one against everybody. "Good players" are those who help their team win more than the average player; the greater the degree to which they help their team win, the better the player.
• Apparently not even Dan likes Bargnani. Somewhere, somehow, someone in a position of power on another team is going to be impressed by Bargnani's PPG average and make a bid for him. At this point I can't imagine that there are many offers that I would turn down.
• They talked about baseball and football (snooze).

This week's contest was a lot closer, but...I declare Andres the winner! Dan put up a good fight, but in the end, Andres gave 110% and just out-hustled him.

I also have some strategic advice for Andres:

• Explain how Wins Produced determines "good" players and "bad" players. Explain which events on the court lead to "positive outcomes" (aka winning) and which lead to "negative outcomes" (aka losing). Use general situations and avoid using specific players at first. Once you've convinced him of the logic behind Wins Produced, he'll have to agree with its evaluation of players.
• I think Dan is better at using rhetoric than Andres. Andres: practice makes perfect!

Dan's doing pretty well - given that he's on the wrong side. I guess my only advice to him is to keep up the style that made him successful in the past and deny, deny, deny.

 - Devin.

Introducing the Glossary of Terms

When I make images, for simplicity's sake, I don't like putting in formulas underneath my tables; they take up space and complicate formatting. The problem with this is that, if you are unfamiliar with how I put together my table, you may not know what the hell I am talking about.

So let me introduce the Glossary of Terms, located on the right-hand sidebar under the "Pages" section. On that page I'll be adding most of the acronyms, jargon, and formulas that casual fans may not necesssarily be familiar with. If you are used to basketball stat terms you probably don't need to visit the page, but if you are ever curious about anything, it's there for you.

 - Devin.

Mission Statement

Thanks to an (of course) anonymous commenter, it has come to my attention that some people may misunderstand what it is I am trying to achieve with this blog.

So, what is it that I'm trying to do here? This blog will cover the performance of the Toronto Raptors using (almost exclusively) data from a Wins Produced perspective. Information on the Wins Produced methodology can be found at The Wages of Wins Journal.

What is it that this blog (and by extension, me) is not trying to do? This blog will post very little (if any) novel ways of looking at basketball statistics, and by that, I mean that all the statistical methods that will be used on this blog will have already been developed by someone else. I am not an expert in the field of statistics; I have taken (and passed with flying colours, thank you) university classes on statistics and excelled in math during my formative years, but I will not pretend to hold expertise when I do not. Now, just because I am not an "expert", that does not mean I am ignorant to statistical arguments. As a general rule, I try to make sure that nothing that comes out of my mouth (or my fingers) is stupid, and I do my homework before I say something. That being said, if you ever see me write something that isn't completely true, let me know via comments.

But please, rather than assuming complete incompetence, give me the benefit of the doubt and assume instead that I was simply being lazy and/or careless. While those are not necessarily the best qualities either, we can all admit to having lazy and careless moments on occasion.

 - Devin.

Advice? Constructive criticism?

I'm new at this here blogging thing, so if anyone has any suggestions on how to improve the blog (or the content of the blog) please feel free to to give them to me in the form of comments.

Now, obviously, that doesn't mean I want to hear about how much I suck, or how much the Raptors suck, or how great Kobe Bryant is (kidding). I'm asking for constructive criticism. And just because I am taking suggestions doesn't mean that I will implement everything that comes my way, either.

Rest assured, however, that any good idea thrown my way will be hijacked.

 - Devin.