Twice in the past month ESPN.com’s Bill Simmons has made reference to our book. Generally when members of the media mention our book I get pretty happy. Of course, that's because typically the response to our work – by people who have actually read our work – has been really positive. Simmons, though, has been an exception. Not in the reading the book part (which I don’t think he has) but in saying positive stuff about our work (which he doesn’t). And this is odd.
Bill Simmons clearly likes Malcolm Gladwell (see here and here). And Gladwell clearly like The Wages of Wins (see here). And I really like the writing of Bill Simmons (I have no link to prove this, so you'll just have to believe me). But despite all this “liking” going around, Simmons seems none to fond of our book.
A few weeks ago he wrote the following: “Next time, Malcolm Gladwell needs to consult with me before he recommends an NBA book that argues Jerome Williams was among the strongest players of his generation.”
A few days ago Simmons said, “One more note on this: we get carried away with basketball statistics nowadays, as evidenced by the new book that rated Allen Iverson as the 90th best player in the league during his MVP season. Why make it so complicated? Just add up the point, rebound and assist averages for franchise guys during the playoffs: If the number tops 42, you're probably talking about a pantheon guy. You could even call it the 42 Club, just as exclusive as the Five-Timer Club on SNL, only without the NBA equivalent of Elliott Gould.”
Now one should notice, that's two references to our book without saying “The Wages of Wins”, or even “Dave Berri, Martin Schmidt, and/or Stacey Brook.” Would it kill the guy to say the name of the book?
Okay, he doesn’t like what our book says about Jerome Williams or Allen Iverson. What we say is of course based on our Wins Produced measure, which as we detail in the book is a simple, complete, and accurate measure of player performance in the NBA.
Simple is of course a relative term. What Simmons proposes is really, really simple. Simmons says we should just add up points, rebounds, and assists. So Simmons has cornered the market on simple.
His metric also has other advantages. First of all, Simmons stated after the season that Kobe Bryant was the MVP. Although during the playoffs he fell in love with Dirk Nowitzki, and then later Dwyane Wade, the measure Simmons has developed does list his first love, Kobe, as the best player in the 2005-06 season. As for Allen Iverson, he joins both LeBron James and Kobe as the only members of his 42 Club in the regular season.
Of course, critics might note a few problems with what Simmons proposes. The weaknesses of Iverson – poor shooting and turnovers – are magically whisked away by this measure. And if we look at the relationship between team wins and its points, rebounds, and assists we uncover another difficulty. A team’s summation of points, rebounds, and assists – by itself – only explain 17% of team wins.
Okay, the 42 Club misses some stuff so it can’t be called complete. And it can’t explain much of wins, so it’s not accurate. But it is simple and it does allow Simmons to remain in love with Kobe. And it let’s Simmons maintain his belief that Iverson is great. So that’s at least something.
Of course we have proposed a measure that is still pretty simple, much more complete, and certainly more accurate. And Simmons can read all about it in The Wages of Wins. But to read what we have to say, doesn’t Simmons have to fork over some cash? Actually that’s true for most people living on the planet. But for famous members of the media – and Bill Simmons is in that group — the book comes free. Yep, all Simmons has to do is ask, and I will see that a book is delivered free of charge to either his home or office. And you thought exchanging e-mails with Malcolm Gladwell was the only perk Simmons had in his job (having exchanged e-mails with Malcolm Gladwell I can confirm that this is a pretty cool perk).
With all that said I want to emphasize that I really like what Bill Simmons writes. Okay, maybe not the stuff where he takes shots at our book (I mean, can he at least say “The Wages of Wins”?). And the 42 Club stuff was kind of silly. But the rest of the stuff is gold. Really.
– DJ
Wages of Wins Journal 
JC
June 24, 2006
By focusing on only the good things that players do, Simmons commits a common mistake: focusing on the side of the ledger that is easiest to see.
To quote 19th century French economist Frederic Basitat.
Josh Ballard
June 26, 2006
You have to understand, this is a guy who’s said before that he believes in karma, reincarnation, ghosts, and other such things. You also have to understand that he has always bashed the sabermetrics movement in baseball (even as his own team used it to help “break the curse”) and takes occasional potshots at Football Outsiders (again, as his own team uses similar stats for player evaluation). Don’t be surprised if this isn’t the last time he mocks you without mentioning any of you by name.
He is a legitimately talented writer, and still entertains me despite all this. Just know that he is a vigorous defender of the conventional wisdom, in all fields.
matt27
June 30, 2006
A few things (I’ve been meaning to write this stuff for a while):
a. Bill Simmons is probably being willfully ignorant. It’s a huge step to say “90% of what I said about players in the past can be demonstrated false” and it’s probably hard to take from an economist (whereas the moneyball stuff really came from a baseball insider so it was easier to swallow, pride-wise.)
b. This is an extremely well-written book far beyond economics, and you make observations that are tremendously insightful even for long-time sports fans. One thing I come back to is your discussion of how NFL quarterbacks are completely inexperienced relative to basketball players. That’s a way of explaining your data, sure but it’s also the astute observation of serious sports fans.
c. There is a prevalent fallacy (or phallacy even) in the sports world. It’s when fans equate “favorite player” with “Best Player.” Who hasn’t done this? What this book did for me was really draw a line between favorite and best, and once I did I felt fine about things. I’d like to say more on this subject but I’m late for work (I also wanted to talk about how you say imply unorthodox things in economics-in a good way- about the market not being self-correcting.) Anyway, great book.
Matt
anon
July 4, 2006
Is ben Wallace overpaid?
I’m a HUGE Bulls fan and also a HUGE “Wages of Wins” fan, so you know I’m excited about the signing. But $60 million for four years? And he’s 32.
Well, it will be good for Chandler and Thomas to work under Wallace and learn from him.
Travis
July 5, 2006
By signing Ben Wallace the Bulls did two very important things:
1. They added the leagues top defender to a team that has led the league in opponent FG% for the past two seasons.
2. They took Ben Wallace away from their division rival Pistons and the Pistons responded by signing Nazi Mohammed.
As far as being “overpaid” that remains to be seen. Wallace keeps himself in great shape and is an emotional leader on what is a young Bulls team. The Bulls could have got Big Ben for less money but they will definitly be a top team in the East for the next four seasons.
Bryce
July 5, 2006
Ben Wallace is being paid more than his productivity would warrant if his age becomes a factor. The Bulls signed him because Paxson recognized the need to win now. Supposedly, Reinsdorf (the Bulls/White Sox owner) has won with the White Sox and now wants to prove he can win with the Bulls sans Jordan.
Paxson is a very smart man and the upcoming trade of Chandler to New Orleans will add PJ Brown (a productive PF with an expiring contract )and J.R. Smith (a young, relatively cheap SG). The loss of Chandler nearly offsets the contract signed with Wallace so the question becomes: Who would you rather have, Ben Wallace or Tyson Chandler?
Next up for the Bulls will be deciding the future of Gordon, Hinrich, Deng, and Nocioni. They will all demand high salaries (Gordon not deservingly so according to Win Score) and it will force Paxson to make some very difficult decisions.
Mike
July 5, 2006
Actually, Simmons referenced OPS in the late 90’s, before most of us had even heard of it. Though he’ll poke fun at Neyer’s stats sometimes, I think he understands more than his writing lets on.
Which is the whole problem here – he probably has the biggest readership of any sports writer on the internet, and people who know stuff about stats (or think they do) probably make up .02% of his audience. If someone really wanted to read about stats in sports… they’d be reading this website, or Hardball Times or something. Most people read Simmons for the jokes about girls at his college, or bars in Boston.
It’s often frustrating to read some things he writes because of the blatant hindsight bias (“you just KNEW that _____ was going to _____”… or “______ had a sense of the moment that night”, etc). He’s sort of like the newsperson who always talks about things being “fitting”. “How fitting, that the gold medal had a red ribbon around it as the redheaded snowboarder won it”. “How fitting that a Yankees catcher hit the game-winning RBI today, 37 years to the day after Yogi Berra hit his first double in pinstripes”. Stats is trying to make things make sense in a whole different way than a prose writer is.
Just do what I do – ignore him when he talks about stats, and just pay attention to the OC, Anna Nicole Smith, and Charles Oakley jokes.
Jeremy
May 2, 2009
Awesome. Simmons and Berri my two favorite bloggers by a long shot. I tend to side with what Berri believes when it comes to evaluating basketball performance than Simmons, but it is beyond mind boggling for most any average person to try and comprehend that an MVP could only be the 90th best performer in the league according to a formula.
Hence the beauty of the WoW journal. I’d love to see Rondo’s WP48 for the first round of the playoffs…
Kent
May 31, 2011
Bill Simmons for President!