2010-11 League Team Stats

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As promised, here are this year's team stats for every team in the NBA (full spreadsheet here):

2010-11 Raptor Charts Part I

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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.

Raptor Trivia: Pounded (or Pound for Pound: The Sequel)

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Last time my trivia question was about the best 'pound for pound' players in Raptors history. This week, I figured we should take a stab at the players with the worst 'pound for pound' seasons in Raptors history.

Jay Triano: Raps "seventh or eighth best shooting team in the NBA"

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According to Doug Smith of the Toronto Star, Jay Triano offered the following evaluation of the Raptors' shooting performance this season:

“Listen, we’re the seventh or eighth best shooting team in the NBA without being able to make a three-point shot. We have one game where we don’t really get it going from a variety of guys so let’s just (bleeping) relax a little bit.”

Really? Seventh or eighth? Other than that comment about not being able to make threes, I don't believe you have a handle on the stats, Mr. Triano. Thanks to dougstats, I have the shooting percentages of every team in the league for games played up to 03/12/11. Here's the table:

Bargnani's big night against the Heat

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In the wake of the Toronto-Miami game that took place on February 16th (the Raptors lost 103-95), I immediately - and predictably - received comments about what a great game Andrea Bargnani had. After all, Bargnani scored 38 points on 15-26 shooting!

Well, yes, Bargnani ended up with an efficient shooting night. But when I look at his shooting and scoring by quarter, I don't feel so good about how his night went:

• 1st: 4-9 FGA, 1-2 FTA for 10 points
• 2nd: 2-5 FGA for 4 points
• 3rd: 3-4 FGA for 7 points
• 4th: 6-8 FGA, 2-2 FTA for 17 points
• overall: 15-26 FGA, 3-4 FTA for 38 points

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):

Rookie Challenge Rosters

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On Tuesday the lineups for the All-Star Rookie Challenge game were released. Andres of Nerd Numbers already wrote a post about which team he thinks will win, but I want to look at those names a different way. According to ESPN, the rookie roster is as follows:

• Blake Griffin
• Landry Fields
• John Wall
• DeMarcus Cousins
• Greg Monroe
• Derek Favors
• Gary Neal
• Wesley Johnson
• Eric Bledsoe

It's a pretty decent team; as Dre notes, it's good enough to be favoured over the sophomore team. But I wonder - are there some rookies who got snubbed? Check out this table (full version here):

Week 14 Team Opponent Stats

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Yesterday I posted the Team Stats update for week 14, and the day before that I posted the player stats for week 14. Today I'd like to post something I haven't done before: opponent stats. I figure that it would be interesting (and useful) to see how well other teams perform against the Raptors. Here's another of those weird double-scrolling charts:

Week 14 Auto WP Numbers

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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 11 Auto WP Numbers

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Okay, so I'm late again this week - at least I can blame this one on not having a computer (the name of the company that is responsible for this travesty rhymes with bell). Here are the numbers (full spreadsheet here), which are Powered by (the new-look) Nerdnumbers:

Here are my thoughts:

• Calderon continues to play well (when he plays).
• Amir Johnson maintained his previous rate of production over his last five games.
• Joey Dorsey's production is still declining slightly, mostly due to his increased foul rate. And have I ever mentioned his terrible free-throw shooting? He really is the perfect replacement for Reggie Evans.
• Bayless has remained largely unchanged, although his FT rate is down more than half an attempt per 48 minutes.
• Ed Davis' production also declined slightly - his shooting is better, but his rebounding is down from 14.2 to 12.6 and his fouls are up (5.4 to 6.1). Luckily his blocks are up as well (1.8 to 2.5).
• Julian Wright continues to improve and has nearly matched the production of an average player. His AdjFG% is finally above 50% and his net possessions have increased by 0.7 per 48 minutes.
• Barbosa has once again left the red with improvements across the board (shooting, net possessions, and assists, blocks, and fouls). How long will he stay there? Your guess is as good as mine.
• Kleiza's production declined again, but at least he isn't hurting the team - he has a WP48 of 0.000. That is, if we believe that he spends approximately half his time at SG, which he doesn't, so his real numbers are somewhat worse.
• For all the recent talk that DeMar DeRozan has improved during his second year, his WP48 continues to remain in the negative range this season (at least last year he posted a WP48 of 0.026). But do you want to take a stab at what has increased for DeRozan this season? PPG and his scoring rate, of course. Even though his shooting percentages are down. When will people learn? DeRozan is Bargnani all over again.
• Meanwhile, Bargnani is getting...better? His AdjFG% and FT% are up and blocks and fouls have improved. While I'm happy at the reversal, it's likely only temporary; given that shooting percentages fluctuate over the course of the season, real improvement from Bargnani will have to come from the non-shooting aspects of the game (ie: rebounding).
• The team's most productive players right now, by position: Calderon, Bayless, Wright, Johnson, and Dorsey, with Davis as the 6th man.

 - Devin

Pre-season predictions: how have I done?

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Well, it's the first week of the new year, and I'm reading a book I received as a Christmas gift (thanks Mom and Dad) called Future Babble, which is written by Ottawa Citizen columnist Dan Gardner, who has also written the excellent Risk: The Science and Politics of Fear. The gist of Future Babble is that people suck at making predictions. For instance, in his latest article, Gardner says:

People want to hear predictions. And for the expert, there's no way he can lose. If the prediction hits, he can boast about it and reporters will cite it as proof of his wisdom. But if it misses, no one will ever hear about it again.

Heads, I win. Tails, you forget we had a bet.

Of course the rules of the game would be a little different if, at the end of the year, instead of asking for new predictions, we looked back at what was predicted to happen in the year ending. Think of it as holding people to account for the predictions they make.

While admittedly I don't consider myself an "expert" and I've previously noted the difficulty of predicting the outcome of the NBA season before the season starts, I did make some predictions that we could examine. I'd  like to be accountable and trustworthy, and I'd like to learn from my mistakes, so let's start out with my predicted NBA standings - how have I done so far (full spreadsheet here)? All win totals are accurate as of January 5, 2011.



Included in the table are several columns - predicted wins (what I predicted before the start of the season), current record, a simple win projection (which multiplies current winning percentage across 82 games), a point differential win projection (which uses Arturo's formula to determine wins via point differential), and the average difference between my pre-season predictions and the two projection methods.

What does the table show? Generally, I was either really close or way off - not much in between. Thirteen of my predictions came within 5 wins of the current projections, 12 predictions were off by ten or more wins, and only five predictions were off in the 5-10 win range. The teams I overrated the most: Sacramento (a whopping 22.4 wins off target), Cleveland (21.3 wins off), Portland (18.3 wins off), Golden State and Philadelphia (each 17.1 wins off), and New Jersey (16.3 wins off). The teams I nailed: Orlando (0.4 wins off), Chicago (0.6 wins off), the Lakers (1.0 wins off), and (of course) Toronto (1.1 wins off). Where did I go wrong with those six teams?

Sacramento



Carl Landry has fallen into the toilet and can't get out, Dalembert isn't playing up to his usual standards, and I was burned by one rookie (Cousins) and one second-year player (Evans). As we saw with Kevin Durant, sometimes the rookies that we think are going to be good NBA players start out slowly, so either of these two players could turn it around in the future. Of course, some players never get it - we've been saying the same thing about Michael Beasley, who is still not playing well during his third season.

A few players - led by Udrih, Casspi, Garcia, and Head - have out-performed my expectations, but if you combine the bonus wins provided by every player in the green (6.6 wins) it is barely enough to make up for Evans or Landry by themselves.

Cleveland



J.J. Hickson has, to paraphrase Jason Kidd, performed a complete 360 this season. Last year Hickson was just a shade below an average player, and this year he is giving the lovable Andrea Bargnani a run for his money in the competition to win the Darius Songaila award. Hickson is only 22 years old, so his volatility is somewhat understandable...but you can't blame me for not forseeing such a huge change. Antawn Jamison is finally starting to show his age - you could argue I should have seen a decline coming there. Mo Williams is also down this year - his shooting efficiency (which is supposed to be his strong point) is way down and his turnovers are up, but thankfully he's been able to up his assists. Other than that, the other players who haven't met my expectations have only been slightly below what I had penciled them in for; however, all those small changes add up quickly.

Andersen Varejao is really the only player on the team who has stepped up his play this season. It seems that the turmoil associated with LeBron's departure has really messed with the players who stuck around - probably one part new roles and one part psychological.

Portland



The big letdown here is Brandon Roy - I expected him to account for 10.8 wins on the season, and right now he is not even on pace to win a single game. And even though I only allocated 800 minutes to Oden, his rate of production is so good that I expected him to account for 4.7 wins. Well, there's about 16 wins out the window. Joel Przybilla is also on pace to be down about 5 wins, but, as he returns from injury, his minutes will go up and so will his projected wins. The rest of the players who have let me down have combined to produce 10.4 wins fewer than I expected.

On the plus side, the two old guys (Miller and Camby) have upped their games, as has Batum and Mathews. These four players have combined to exceeded my expectations by 10.7 wins. It's a testament to the Blazers that they've been able to stick around 0.500 with injuries to some of their top players.

Golden State



The big problem with my Warriors prediction has been the play of David Lee. After receiving an early Christmas present from Wilson Chandler, Lee had a serious infection in his shooting arm and hasn't played well since. The other players that are hurting my prediction are Stephen Curry, Reggie Williams, and Louis Amundson - all players with limited playing histories.

On the plus side, human sine wave Monta Ellis is playing better than I expected...for now.

Philadelphia



The Sixers are the only one of these teams to be off in a positive direction - I predicted they would win around 19 games, but right now they're on pace for 39 wins. The big differences are due to the return of Elton Brand (finally) and Andres Nocioni, the emergence of two young players (Jrue Holiday and Thaddeus Young) as average to above-average players, and a lower than expected amount of minutes being allocated to unproductive players (perhaps coach Doug Collins is actually helping the team in this case?).

While he has been slightly better than I expected, Iguodala's minutes have been low due to injuries. Rookie Evan Turner hasn't lived up to expectations so far, and Louis Williams has offered less than he has in the past. Still, things are much rosier in Philadelphia than I thought they would be.

New Jersey



Brook Lopez is another young player who seems to have taken a huge step backwards, as has old WP favourite Troy Murphy.  Additionally, Outlaw and Terence Williams aren't playing the way I thought they would.

On the bright side, ex-Raptor Kris Humphries has improved drastically, nearly making up for Murphy's poor performance on his own (he's also the star of my Wins Score Association fantasy team). New Jersey should also get a little better as Vujacic gets a larger percentage of the team's playing time.

Once the season finishes, I'll take another look back and see if anything's change significantly. Hopefully things regress back to my expectations!

 - Devin

Week 10 Auto WP Numbers

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Okay, so I didn't get that week 9 post up. After missing my target, I figured that I'd just wait and post the week 10 numbers on time for a change! A lot of injuries have started to pile up for the Raptors, although in some cases (*cough*Bargnani*cough*) that hasn't necessarily been a bad thing. The last numbers I put up were from week 7, so that gives us a larger number of games than we usually have and thus more definite trends to analyse.

Without further ado, the stats, which are always Powered by Nerd Numbers (full spreadsheet here):



Here are my thoughts:

• Jose Calderon - despite his injuries - has maintained his production and finally caught up to Reggie Evans in terms of total wins produced, with 0.9 wins over the last six games.
• Amir Johnson has struggled recently. In eight games he's put up -0.3 wins. Apparently he's been a bit hurt, but since the Raptors have been low on bodies he's had to suit up.
• Joey Dorsey produced 0.9 wins in eight games. Even though he's only 6'8, he's been playing a lot of centre with Bargnani out, so he's not as productive as he should be. That being said, his raw productivity has also declined somewhat.
• In six injury-filled games, Jerryd Bayless produced -0.3 wins. I guess it was a bit early to proclaim him a star, but we'll see how he performs once he returns to health.
• Rookie Ed Davis produced 0.6 wins in eight games. Like Dorsey, Davis has been spending a lot of time out of position at centre, although Davis has actually boosted both his raw productivity and his WP48.
• Over seven games, Julian Wright's wins produced numbers have remained almost completely unchanged, although his PPS has increased substantially (from 0.897 to 0.983).
• Ronald Dupree is back and has literally done nothing during his nanoscopic playing time.
• Linas Kleiza increased his AdjP48 by 0.03 over eight games, which is enough to move him out of the red for the first time this season. Unfortunately, that is true only if we consider him to have split his time almost equally between shooting guard and small forward, and he's actually spent more time at power forward than at SG in reality (remember, these positions are determined by an automated formula, so there are a few positioning issues every now and then).
• Sonny Weems managed to enter into negative wins territory in his one game; DeMar DeRozan and Leandro Barbosa used their eight games to enter into the red as well.
• Andrea Bargnani played two games and his wins produced numbers remained almost completely unchanged (still deep in the red). As of right now, J.J. Hickson of the Cavs has finally caught up to Bargs and has produced fewer wins and has an even more negative WP48. The only other player who seems to be in the running for the Darius Songaila award this season is Brook Lopez, but he'll have his work cut out for him.
• The foul-prone big men - Johnson, Dorsey, and Davis - have seen a decrease in their foul rates. This could be because they are trying to be less aggressive and stay on the court longer without Bargnani mopping up a large number of minutes...or they could simply be learning how to stay on the court. Or some combination of the two.
• The Raptors really, really need to find some help at the shooting guard position - Weems, DeRozan, and Barbosa are terribly inefficient. When Bayless gets healthy, I hope they go with Calderon and Bayless together in the backcourt for long stretches, although it remains to be seen if Bayless can be a productive player for more than a couple of games at a time.

 - Devin

Week 7 Raptors Auto WP

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Time for week 7 WP numbers, which are Powered by Nerd Numbers (full spreadsheet here):



Here are my thoughts:

• Bargnani, Kleiza, and Barbosa have all had good games over the past week or so, and it's now showing in their WP48. Bargnani is up almost 0.035, Kleiza's up 0.040, and Barbosa's up around 0.040. Despite what many people think, I would love to see these trends continue.
• Those three are still really unhelpful: only Barbosa is in the positive range (WP48 0.004), and only barely.
• Weems and DeRozan remain mostly unchanged, and continue to offer very little as well.
• Julian Wright has improved slightly.
• Calderon and Evans haven't played, and so have remained stable.
• Everyone else - Johnson, Bayless, Dorsey, and Davis - has declined. Other than Johnson, these players haven't played that many minutes, so the variation is not surprising. Johnson's been up and down all season long.
• Even though his WP48 decreased, Bayless improved his AdjFG% by 5%. So why did his WP48 decrease? More minutes at PG (due to Calderon being injured) and fewer net possessions (his rebounding had been exceptional and was bound to regress).
• Reggie Evans and Amir Johnson are 27th and 37th, respectively, on Arturo's list of most important players
• Bargnani, DeRozan, Kleiza, and Weems (1st, 21st, 44th, and 47th, respectively) are on Arturo's naughty list.
• Maybe we'll just kick Barbosa out of that group for the time being and stick with the four horsemen again.

I'll try to keep posting regularly, but as the holidays get close, I have more and more things to do. Andres has kindly given me the WP numbers for the entire history of the Raptors franchise, so I'd like to do some work with that in the near future. I'm also still working on another Top 3 picks post. Hopefully these will be up shortly.

 - Devin.

Week 6/7 Team Stats

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Time for a team stats update! These numbers are provided by dougstats and Nerd Numbers (full spreadsheet here):



Here are some thoughts:

• Toronto's fallen a few places - down from 20th to 22nd place - in terms of team WP48. As before, there is a log-jam - now narrowed to 18th-22nd place - so don't don't read too much into it.
• The 3pt shooting is slowly getting better, from around 31% to almost 34%. 3pt attempts have also increased slightly. Team shooting in general is doing a bit better.
• Last time the surprises were the Hornets, the Pacers, the Nets, and the Kings. This is how they are doing now: Hornets (league 9th, West 5th); Pacers (league 8th, East 4th); Nets (league 23rd, East 12th); and Kings (league 25th, West 13th). The Trailblazers (league 15th, West 8th) are doing a bit better, but the Warriors (league 28th, West 15th) are really stinking it up.
• The Cavs (league 29th, East 14th) are also not playing well at all.
• Meanwhile the Spurs (league 1st, West 1st) have ascended to the top spot, ahead of the other front-runners (Heat, Celtics, and Lakers).

Plenty more stats to look at - have fun finding the interesting stories on your own. I'm working on some other things and wanted to get this up quickly!

 - 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

Full TOR-NOH trade analysis

New readers, please check out the basics before you leave any comments.


It turns out that yes, the Raptors and Hornets did make a trade, and the details of the deal haven't changed since I posted my initial reactions. But I promised I would come up with some fancy graphs, so here is one:



Now everything I mentioned earlier becomes that much clearer. Over the past three seasons, the players Toronto had before the trade were better on a per-minute basis (WP48 of 0.077) and in terms of total wins (14.5) than the New Orleans players (WP48 of 0.051 and 9.2 wins produced). This year, the former Raptors have also been more productive on a per-minute basis (WP48 of 0.073 vs -0.046) and in terms of wins (0.8 vs -0.2). The Raptors take on $5.5 million in extra salary this season, but manage to save about $3.6 million over all of the years after that. Additionally, the Raptors seem to have spent about $2.3 million of the Bosh trade exception (as far as I can gather). So, to recap, the Raptors:

• traded for players who have been less productive in the past
• traded for players who have been less productive so far this season
• traded for players who are likely to be less productive in the future
• take on an extra $5.5 million in salary this season
• save $3.6 million over the years after this season
• spent $2.3 million of the TPE
• opened up a roster spot

No, this is not a good deal. If the trade was "made with the future in mind", whoever's responsible for approving the trade either wants the Raps to do worse as an organization or is incompetent (we know where I stand on that issue). It doesn't improve the team on the court in the short term or long term, and financially, it hurts the team more in the short term than it helps in the long term. At least Bryan Colangelo is up front about the team being worse in the short term:

"whether or not we win games is really not the true issue right now, it's how much we're growing as an organization, how much these young kids are coming along." 

Unfortunately for the Raptors, Bayless probably won't become a useful player, and everyone knows what BC has done with lots of cap space in the past (see Turkoglu, Hedo).

 - Devin

Team Stats Update

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Here are the updated team stats (current as of 11/20/10) (full spreadsheet here):



Raptors have moved up quite a bit (and this doesn't even include the victory over the Celtics earlier today). Last time I took a look at this, the Raps were ranked 25th in the league in WP48 and 12th in the East; now they are ranked 20th in the league and 10th in the East. There's a bit of a log-jam from 18th-24th though, so don't read too much into it yet. The story remains largely the same; the Raptors still can't shoot, especially three-pointers. Perhaps the Raptors actually intend to use Peja to boost their production for the three-point line?

Right now, the surprises for me are the Hornets (league 5th, West 3rd), the Pacers (league 10th, East 6th), the Nets (league 23rd, East 11th), and the Kings (league 25th, West 13th). The Warriors and Trailblazers haven't really lived up to my expectations either, but they have dealt with relatively unexpected injuries (Oden was expected; Roy, not so much).

 - Devin

Week 2 WP Numbers

New readers, please check out the basics before you leave any comments.


Andres Alvarez has been updating the automated WP site regularly, so it's time for week two of the Auto WP numbers (spreadsheet here):



From now on, this spreadsheet will be updated automatically, so in the future, this entry will have current data (ie: my comments in this post might not make sense if you view this post next week)

Here are my thoughts for the season so far:

• Reggie Evans has still been playing rather well, but (as I predicted) not quite as well as he had been playing. He still leads the Raptors with 1.4 wins
• Jarrett Jack and Amir Johnson are next with 0.7 wins apiece. Johnson has been playing at a more productive rate, but he still hasn't been getting much playing time behind Evans
• Calderon, Andersen, and Weems are in the next tier with 0.4, 0.3, and 0.3 wins, respectively
• Banks, Dorsey, and Wright are all around 0.1 in limited minutes
• And then we have the Four Horsemen - DeRozan, Barbosa, Kleiza, and Bargnani - all producing at negative levels (-0.2, -0.2, -0.4, -0.5, respectively)
• Each of these players are in the team's top five for shot attempts. Unfortunately none has managed to score an average amount of points per shot
• Also unfortunate is that three of the Four Horsemen are in the Raptors' top four for minutes played
• Reggie's shooting is mind-blowingly bad - but the guy rebounds like a madman and that makes up for it (and then some)
• Johnson has foul trouble - big surprise. But as I've said before, all he has to do is be able to play 30 minutes; Johnson could still play just over 31.5 minutes a game at his current foul rate of 9.1 per 48min
• David Andersen is still the rich man's Bargnani. Based on his play so far, he should probably be the Raptors' starting centre
• Calderon's been productive without shooting well - hopefully he'll regress back to his normal shooting and see a jump in productivity
• Kleiza has really fallen off what he was doing during preseason play

And let's check up on how Bargnavans is doing:



Oh, not so good. Who could've predicted that? Now that Reggie has fallen back down to earth and Bargnani is starting to work his "magic", the two don't look nearly as good together. The problem lies with Bargnani, of course, but don't tell that the kool-aid drinkers (unless you are a masochist).


Overall, there haven't really been many surprises for the Raptors so far - if they continue to play like this, they should finish the season with around 27 wins, which is what many people predicted before the start of the season.

In the next few days I'll be posting team data for every team in the league and seeing how the Raptors compare in various categories. But before I sign off, I'd like to say one thing: the state of basketball coverage is atrocious here in Victoria. I haven't been able to catch a single game on basic cable since the start of the season, and weeks can go by between showings. I blame this on the fact that the Raptors always put their games on stupid specialty channels like TSN2 or Sportsnet One. As the only Canadian team in the entire league, the Raptors should really focus on two things: 1) putting a better product on the court and 2) building their fanbase. Putting more games on basic cable across the country would go a long way towards the latter, although unfortunately I suspect that lack of success with regards to the former is to blame.

 - Devin