The Clippers now hold a commanding 2-0 lead against Memphis Grizzlies. Much of this had to do with the heroics of Chris Paul. But here's an important question: should he have been playing? While it can be hard to remember the entire flow of a game, Popcornmachine.net provides us a way to know how the flow of the game was. Here's a breakdown of the boxscore.

PopcornMachine.net MEM-LAC Game 2 Gameflow

Play whoever's hot?

Chris Paul actually had a pretty mediocre first half. He had 5 assists to go with 1 turnover , which is pretty typical for Paul. However, with only 1 steal, 1 defensive board and 5 points on 5 attempts and 3 free throw attempts, Chris Paul was playing way below his usually self!

Bledsoe has the misfortune of being Chris Paul's backup. In a mere 8 minutes of play he managed to score 4 points on perfect shooting and get a block. Of course, he was benched due to foul trouble.

Starting the second half though we knew the following - Chris Paul was slumping and Bledsoe was hot. So clearly, the wise plan would have been to play Bledsoe and not Paul, right? Of course not! Paul would go on to score 19 points, get 4 assists with 0 turnovers and pulled down 3 boards. And in a two point win, his play was absolutely key! Basically, the Chris Paul in the second half is the Chris Paul we've seen all season.

Bledsoe is a good player. Chris Paul though, has been an MVP candidate every year he's been healthy in his career. He's played insane in the playoffs. A few bad minutes from Paul should not convince any coach to bench him (unless there's a legitimate reason like injury) Chris Paul is normally over twice the player Bledsoe is, so playing Paul over Bledsoe, even after a subpar half, is the right move!

Summing up

As a Nuggets fan I have to deal with George Karl making insane rotations on a nightly basis. And every night someone on the blogosphere tries to explain "No, you see player X was playing poorly so Karl HAD to bench them." as if that made any sense. The best coaches play their best players. Yes, there are definitely strategies around limiting minutes for health and rest. Yes, there are definitely set plays that can make sense for very quick rotations. However, benching a good player because he had a bad stretch? That would be as insane as benching Chris Paul in a playoff game.

-Dre

Categories: Chris Paul, Eric Bledsoe, Los Angeles Clippers, Memphis Grizzlies, NBA Playoffs

Hey folks! As you know, real life is making it hard for me to update articles lately. Luckily, my friend Andres Alvarez (@nerdnumbers) has agreed to step up and help fill the void. Today, Dre takes on one of our favorite arguments: RINGZ. 

The narrative we often hear when it comes to LeBron James is that he is in Jordan's shadow. "COUNT THE RINGZ!" has been a common argument against LeBron whenever the two are compared. And, of course, now that Bron has a ring, the question is whether he can ever get enough to be considered elite like Michael and Kobe? I do consider rings to be a foolish metric of greatness. A lot of this can boil down to luck. Hakeem can thank his stars that Jordan "retired" and Clyde Drexler decided to hop ship. Now, that said, a very common fact eludes many: If we're examining where LeBron is in his career relative to where Jordan was in his at the same age, it's Jordan that needs to keep pace, not the other way around!

The Regular Season

In 1984, Michael Jordan entered the NBA as a 21 year and 257 day old player. He had spent three years at the Unversity of North Carolina where he eventually won an NCAA title. In 2006, LeBron James entrered the NBA as a 21 year and 311 day old player. He had spent three years playing for the Cleveland Cavaliers. For this he earned millions in salary and sponsorships. The pinaccle of his career thus far was winning 50 games and taking the Detroit Pistons to seven games in the second round of the NBA playoffs. Of course, these scenarios are apples to oranges. NCAA vs. NBA fans can start fighting now. Let's get on to comparing Jordan and James' careers in the NBA.

 

*Two notes on the above chart. LeBron's 6th year was the lockout shortened season. For a full 82 game season, LeBron would have earned 21.5 wins, roughly the same as Jordan's 21.9. Also, in 2013 I have moved LeBron to an SF. We are comparing Jordan's early career as a SG vs. LeBron's early career as a SF

This season marks an important point in LeBron's career. At the same age, this is the season that Jordan won his first title. The question we can ask is how well Jordan and Bron played over the same stretch. The a funny tale. In Jordan's first 7 seasons he earned 127.0 wins. Guess what? LeBron James earned 135.5 wins in the same span! If we go per-minute this puts Jordan at 0.310 WP48 (three times above average) vs. James at 0.317 WP48. We can see that per-minute the performance was roughly the same. A combination of Jordan missing most of his second season and the lockout shortened 2012 results in LeBron being slightly ahead. It is true that Jordan's 1989 is arguably the best season of the bunch. Of course, others will say LeBrons 2013 ranks higher. (If there isn't a post from Arturo on this subject out there, make sure to heckle him!)

Regardless, if both players started at the same time and played as they have (I know, it's hypothetical!) Jordan would actually be behind Bron. In terms of accolades LeBron James has already won three MVPs and is a lock for his fourth. At this point Jordan had *only* won two MVPs (although, he had also won a defensive player of the year in 1989) In short, LeBron is ahead of Jordan in terms of mainstream accomplishments as well.

The Playoffs

Alright, well we all know that the playoffs are what decides a player's worth. And with six finals MVP, Jordan is second only to Bill Russell in terms of measuring greatness. At least, that's the mainstream thinking. And here we'll find that Jordan is once again short of LeBron.

In Jordan's first seven post seasons he earned 18.1 wins. In the same span (and understand, we still haven't included this season's numbers) LeBron sits at 22.1! What's more, LeBron's 2008-2009 season was the best individual performance. On a per-minute basis things do slide a bit toward Jordan. Jordan's has a 0.295 WP48 for the post-season. LeBron on the other hand has a 0.241 WP48.

It took Jordan a longer time to get a supporting cast to go far in the playoffs. James on the other hand has already made it to three finals, won a title and a finals MVP. That's excluding this season. Jordan's post season career is well behind LeBron's at this point. By the "count the rings" logic, Jordan is a weaker player than Bron.

Summing up a legacy

We remember Jordan as great because he was. His six rings did involve a lot of Jordan playing at a top level. It's worth noting that 1991 was when Jordan peaked in terms of post season play and he peaked in 1989 in terms of regular season play. The reason Jordan went on to win six rings had an awful lot to do with Dennis Rodman hopping ship, and Phil Jackson and Scottie Pippen staying put. Yes, Jordan was an all-time great. But to compare an in progress LeBron to Jordan's entire career, and to use team accomplishments to do it, is just silly. And if we're going to compare Jordan to LeBron, what we have to accept is that Jordan is the one that needs to catch up, not the other way around.

-Dre

Categories: LeBron James, Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, Chicago Bulls, Miami Heat, Phil Jackson

Someone asked me to write about the MVP debate in the comments to my last article. I was thinking, "you mean there is a debate? For realz?" I'm honestly confused about why there would be an MVP debate. Let me paint the following scenario:

You and your buddy have won a contest where you get to play pick up ball with the pros (like in that commercial for...Sprite?). You're playing against your buddy and picking teams, with the whole NBA to choose from. You've won the coin flip and you get the first pick.

Now tell me, with a straight face, seriously, I mean, for real, that you are picking anyone but LeBron James with that first pick. I mean, unless you ARE LeBron James and somehow were not excluded from participating in this contest.

To me, this time every year for the last 6 years or so just seems like a bunch of people gathering around to vote for the MVP, and when someone says "LeBron," everyone collectively rolls their eyes and groans. Booooooooooorrrrrrrriiiiinnnnnng. That's how we voted last year. And the year before that. I'm sick of voting for LeBron!

*Stamps foot and huffs*

Now imagine that contest was for 20 pickup games, and you'll get the first pick 10 times. Are you ever going to come in to the gym and mix it up and say "Well, today I'll take Derrick Rose first!" If you do, you're probably doing to lose this series 11-9 to your buddy, who got to pick LeBron 11 times. I'm sure he'll praise you for thinking outside the box when he accepts his trophy. People might get sick of voting for the same guy year after year for MVP, but I doubt they would put their money where their mouth is about picking anyone but LeBron. If the NBA disolved all contracts and did a draft tomorrow, LeBron would be #1 and not one single GM would hesitate one microsecond about it. Be honest, did anyone think Derrick Rose was more valueable than LeBron? Or were people just being stinky about "the decision"?

Don't get me wrong, if I'm picking second, it's not like I am crying if I think Kevin Durant and Chris Paul are scrubs. But come on, folks...we're only having this debate because we are bored. Year after year after boring year of watching LeBron do this.

Consider that James (deservedly) won the MVP last year, and this year, he is even better (so, by the way, is Durant):

SEA	POS	Min	WP48	PoP48	WP	PTS	DRB	ORB	REB	AST	TO	BLK	STL	PF
12-13 MIA	SF SG PF	2783	.399	9.3	22.7	33.9	8.5	1.6	10.2	9.1	3.8	1.1	2.2	1.8
11-12 MIA	SF SG PF	2326	.358	8.0	17.3	34.7	8.2	1.9	10.2	8.0	4.4	1.0	2.4	2.0

	FG%	2FG%	3FG%	FT%	eFG%	TS%	FGA	3FGA	PPS	FTA
James 12-13	56.2%	59.9%	40.5%	74.9%	60.0%	63.7%	22.7	4.3	1.49	8.8
James 11-12	53.1%	55.6%	36.2%	77.1%	55.4%	60.5%	24.1	3.1	1.44	10.4

Assists, Blocks, turnovers, fouls all a little better, and shooting...I mean, wow. Who would have thought there was room for LeBron to get even more efficient? My goodness. Frankly, it is a little weird that his free throws are down, which makes me think that yeah, maybe James is right to bitch about it, and maybe Danny Ainge should just shut the **** up and manage his own team. You would have a very hard time convincing me that this year, with LeBron shooting a little more, teams aren't hammering him even more than they were last year. Maybe James needs to borrow a few plays from Melo; perhaps he should work on that move where he elbows his defender away with his offhand, and then flails widely backwards with his dribble as if he were the one being knocked off balance. Gets 'em every time (in Madison Square Garden, anyway).

Anyway, you win the MVP, and then you do everything better the next year while spending even more time playing multiple positions? And your team wins 27 games in a row? I think that kind of makes you the MVP again. Anyone picking someone besides LeBron is just trolling (or bored of picking LeBron).

Categories: Kevin Durant, LeBron James

I apologize to my loyal fanbase (all, like, 6 of you, if there are any of you left) for my prolonged absence. The "real job" has been crazy the last month. And it probably won't get much better soon. So I'll just take a few minutes to throw out some random notes.

• Yes, I am aware that JaVale McGee is not a point guard. Thank you all for the feedback! And I am flattered that many of you seem to think that my positional data is the result of me watching all of the NBA every night and then editing my player positions one-by-one based on my interpretation. Alas, as much basketball as I watch (which 'real work' has also gotten in the way of), it's not enough for me to claim expertise on the position assignments of all 400+ players. So I get my data from a third party, which had an error. Or, as I prefer to think of it, a clever commentary on how bone-headed JaVale McGee can be sometimes (but he's still a better option than Wilson Chandler).
• It seems I got mentioned in Forbes yesterday. Well, Ok, they thought that I was David Berri, and not just a guy using Dr. Berri's metric. And they also mixed up WinShares and WinsProduced. But hey, they identified Melo as being horribly overpaid. I guess no publicity is bad publicity. Dr. Berri's actual site, The Wages of Wins Journal, should have more comments soon.
• You may have seen Dave Berri, who's been bugging me to write more, was on CBS Sports talking about why NCAA athletes should be paid. I know I am late to this bandwagon but it should be no surprise that as an amateur economist, I agree with Dr. Berri. But I'd love to call to attention this quote by NCAA director Mark Emmert from that piece:

There are many, many students around the world who would love nothing more than to be able to come to an American university and gain access to American intercollegiate athletics, because it's such a great place to develop skill and to have that great experience," he said.

• One wonders if Dr. Emmert realizes that willingness to play college basketball and being great at basketball are not the same thing (insert Football in that's your thing). Of course, my long time readers (again, all 6 of you), might remember a piece I wrote about a little concept called Economic Rent:

Confusingly, rent has two different meanings for economists. The first is the commonplace definition: the INCOME from hiring out LAND or other durable goods. The second, also known as economic rent, is a measure of MARKET POWER: the difference between what a FACTOR OF PRODUCTION is paid and how much it would need to be paid to remain in its current use. A soccer star may be paid $50,000 a week to play for his team when he would be willing to turn out for only $10,000, so his economic rent is $40,000 a week.

• Although, the cynic in me thinks that Dr. Emmert knows quite well what economic rent is (he's a very educated man, after all), and is simply making an argument that he knows will play well with laymen. And if players like Anthony Davis and Andrew Wiggins do not have market power, then why do so many universities compete so hard for their services? Does Dr. Emmert really expect us to believe that the NCAA is just trying really hard to do Andrew Wiggins a favor?

Categories: links

My last article on the Low Usage Myth, which explains that usage itself has no effect on wins produced, has at the time of this writing garnered 119 comments. Which is unusual because it's not even close to the most provocative thing I have ever wrote (I talked about amnestying Kobe almost 2 years before Mark Cuban brought it up!). Most of the discussion revolves around the way the value of an assist is incorporated in the WP model, and reading the comments, it has become clear to me (or, us, since much of this content is paraphrased from Dr. David Berri, creator of the model) that most of the commenters do not understood how this works. This article is an attempt to clear some of that up.

Firs, I get the sense that people think this is just a mindless team adjustment, where some value for an assist is just allocated across all players.  That is not really the process.

Dr. Berri began by looking at how a player's shooting efficiency is impacted by his teammates' assists. The theory was that as assists went up, an individual would shoot better. To test this, he regressed a player's shooting efficiency in a given year on his shooting efficiency the previous year (this is an attempt to control for talent), his teammate's assists, and a variety of other factors that might influence performance. What he found was that as a player's teammates had more assists, the player shot better.  This impact was then incorporated into the model so that for each player, he was credited for the impact of his assists and debited for the impact of his teammates' assists.  So this is not just some team adjustment.

Let's revisit one statement: "as a player's teammates had more assists, the player shot better." Notice that this doesn't say "as a player is assisted more"; the statement describes a correlation observed over time, not a determination of cause and effect.

Nowadays we have new data on how many shots a player had that were assisted upon. This is fine. But the method people are suggesting to incorporate this effect reveals they did not understand how this was all done in the first place. First, one would have to establish with this new data the value of an assist. Dr. Berri used over 30 years of data to determine the value. How many years of data do we have with assists being directly allocated to beneficiaries? Are we sure that the value of an assist would be the same using this data? Would it be greater or lesser if you evaluated them using this new method? That coefficient detailed in step 2 of the adjustment process? It does not just come out of our sleeves. Would it be the same number?

Once you have a model at the player level, you would then need to repeat the steps above. You need to credit a player for his assists and debit the impact of teammate assists. Again, all of this requires a bit more work (than just leaving comments in a blog post with some simple algebra). 

Furthermore, this part of the adjustment bears reqeating:

Note: In the above formulation, a teammate’s adjusted field goal percentage does have a small and positive impact on a player’s shooting efficiency. One should note that the effect is small, and the statistical significance of the effect does depend upon the specific formulation of the model. In other words, this result is not as robust as the result we see for defensive rebounds and assists.  So it is ignored in the calculation of Wins Produced.

Note that this does not mean that Kobe Bryant (who isn't assisted much) is "penalized" in comparison to Tyson Chandler (who is assisted a lot). Rather it means that players who produce assists at an above average level get their WP48 adjusted higher, and players who do not assist much will get their WP48 adjusted lower. To understand this, re-read steps 5, 6 and 7:

• Multiply step (4) by the impact points have on wins 0.032586.  This allows us to see how much of a player’s production of wins should be credited to his teammates.
• Sum step v across all players on a team.
• Allocate the outcome of step #6 across all players on a team by the percentage of assists on the team that are credited to each player.

In other words, the process is to figure out how much of wins produced for a whole team is from assisting, and then distribute those "wins" on a weighted basis to all players, based on the assist percentage. The higher your assist rate, the more credit you get. This is important. This is not about how much credit a player gets for the points he scores. This is about how much credit each player gets for the points that all of his teammates scored. Most of my commenters are understanding this backwards.

In other words, take a hypothetical team, where all of the assisted buckets are scored by Tyson Chandler, no one else on the team ever benefits from an assist. We could then calculate that X% of Chandler's points are from assists. Those X assisted points are worth N wins. Then we divide up N wins according to who had the most assists.

In contrast, take a hypothetical Knicks team where all of the assists are spread out perfectly evenly, i.e. each player benefitted exactly equally from all the assists. We could then calculate how many total points all the players had that resulted from assists. Those X points would, again, be worth N wins, and we would divide up the N wins according to who had the most assists (in fact, this is the assumption that WP currently makes).

In both scenarios, nowhere does any player get extra credit for high FG% or less credit for low FG% (at least, for the purpose of this adjustment; those things certainly impact one's production), it is strictly about who gets the credit for the assists and how much credit that is. The adjustments many people are suggesting might change the total "point" value of all assists (for instance, it might lead to data that suggest that passing to Chandler is worth .6 points, but passing to Kobe is worth .7, or something like that). It's possible that therefore, the sum of N wins that the team then divides up would be different.

So, to take Kobe for an example, messing with this adjustment will determine how much his WP is impacted by his assists. However, it would have no effect whatsoever on how Kobe's points scored would impact his WP.

Now, you might want to argue about this very impact. You might argue that passing to Tyson is worth more (or less) than passing to some other player. You might want to argue that Tyson Chandler's points scored should be worth less because they are all assisted on. And if so, why don't you do the work to "improve" the model? In other words, if you think the current model is incorrect, do the work to generate a new model. And show that each change you are suggesting is supported by some empirical evidence (in other words, a simple retrodiction test is not going to be enough to justify your work).

But those aren't the arguments I see being brought forth in that thread of commenting doom.

Categories: Assists, Models