Earlier this week Steve Kerr asked the following question:
Who could have predicted the Sixers would win 29 of 57 games since trading Allen Iverson?
Hmmmm….. I wonder.
Last December 19th, when the trade was made, I offered my first impressions of the Iverson trade. Here is most of that post:
Iverson, as we noted in The Wages of Wins and in this forum, has been slightly below average for his career. Although the past two seasons he was above average, this year he was again slightly below average.
In contrast, Miller – with the exception of his one season with the Clippers – has always been well above average. So the 76ers have exchanged a guard that hovers around the average mark for a guard that has consistently ranked among the top players at his position.
… How exactly does this trade impact the 76ers? Miller comes in and probably takes many of the minutes of Iverson. I would also suspect that Smith allows the 76ers to play at the center and power forward spots a combination of Samuel Dalembert, Steven Hunter, Chris Webber, Smith, and Alan Henderson. In other words, the team going forward should stop playing players at the big men slots that are not big men, a problem I noted a few days ago.
At the small forward spot the team will should now use Kyle Korver and Andre Iguodala, with Rodney Carney seeing his minutes limited. Given how little Carney has contributed thus far, that will also be a positive development.
In the backcourt the team still has Willie Green and Kevin Ollie. Both of these players are very unproductive. But the addition of Miller does boost what this team is getting out of the guard positions.
Put it all together – as I have done HERE – and we see that this team could win half its games going forward. Now I am assuming that what these players have done so far this season will continue. And I am assuming that I can truly guess how the minutes will be allocated. But if both my assumptions are correct (and what are the odds an economist can get two assumptions right?), then the 76ers can expect to win about 30 more games. This gives the team a final record of 35-47, which should leave them out of the playoffs and with very few balls in the lottery hopper.
Last night the 76ers won their 30th game since the Iverson trade, giving the 76ers a final record of 35-47.
In my career I have taught fifteen different courses in economics, including the History of Economic Thought. Although HET is not one of my research fields, I understand enough of this subject to know that this is the first time in the history of our discipline that an economist made a prediction that was actually right.
Okay, that was a joke (really, economists get stuff right all the time). And this specific prediction had the right outcome, but still had a few flaws. I still have no way to predict how many minutes each player is going to play in the future or see that the 76ers were going to cut Chris Webber. Fortunately, the loss of Webber did not adversely impact the team.
Still, despite being unable to perfectly forecast everything, I had the big picture painted correctly. Exchanging Iverson for Miller made the 76ers a better team. This is exactly what Wins Produced indicates, and we see more evidence of this in the final record of the team.
A Brief Hiatus and the Relief Pitchers
If I were a showman, I would exit the stage on a high note. And in the next few days it might look like I am doing just that. Actually, though, I just need to take a brief hiatus. Over the next few days I need to work on an important project that must be completed by the end of this month. So although I love writing for The Wages of Wins Journal, there can be no more posts from me until May (which is just 12 days away).
I am not, though, leaving this forum unattended. Stacey has agreed to step in. Plus, I have asked for a couple of guest bloggers to fill the void. The first is The Baseball Economist himself – JC Bradbury. JC says he will try and post something next week. Plus, Steve Walters – a brilliant sports economist at Loyola College and occasional contributor to The Sporting News – is also going to offer some thoughts. So The Wages of Wins Journal is in good hands while I am gone.
Before I go, though, let me just tip my hat to Brian for alerting me in the comment section to Steve Kerr’s question. I will be reading the comments over the next few days, so keep those coming.
– DJ
Wages of Wins Journal 
Mike Smrek
April 19, 2007
OK, now go revisit your comments on the IND-GSW trade……..heh. Everybody gets a few free passes. Seriously, very nice work here.
dberri
April 19, 2007
Mike,
Two key players on the GSW-IND trade. Jason Richardson and Jermaine O’Neal. Richardson got much, much better in the second half (returning to what he did in 05-06). O’Neal got much, much worse. Was O’Neal hurt? Did he quit trying? Something was very different about O’Neal in the second half.
joe
April 19, 2007
I have been a hearty proponent of the wp48 metric to my friends (Last night I told my friend that David Lee should have been an all-star, and a case could be bade that he was the best player in the league).
When this trade happened and my buddies were raving about how sick the Nuggets were going to be, I was the one in the corner quietly explaining why the Sixers completely fleeced the Nuggets. In the deal, Sixers also gained the right to obtain good players and pay them below their value.
In sum, this trade will cripple the Nuggets for many years to come. Additionally, it would not surprise me if the Sixers became a contender in the East next year with the addition of three first-round picks and the expiring (I think) contract of Joe Smith.
Jason
April 19, 2007
I believe that O’Neal was less than healthy, but playing alongside Troy Murphy cannot be discounted.
dberri
April 19, 2007
Jason,
I knew you would say that. But this time I am not so sure. Murphy didn’t play well. So I don’t think you can say he took rebounds from O’Neal.
JChan
April 19, 2007
I definitely think O’Neal had a lot to do with the poor second half showing from Indiana. It’s seems like he’s pretty unhappy there and might ask for a trade this summer.
Jake
April 19, 2007
Another factor that contributed to the sixers success was the improvement of both Joe Smith and Lou Williams, Smith especially.
Smith raised his play from being an overpaid below average player with denver (0.061 wp48) to a slightly above average player with the sixers (0.109) outperforming the departed chris webber. Smith showed he is capable of being about average, which makes hima pretty solid bench player in the NBA.
Williams posted the first positive wp48 of his career, i believe, and really outplayed kevin ollie (wp48 of 0.081 and 0.008 respectively)when he took over as millers backup.
If the sixers can get a starter in the draft (maybe brewer, or roy hibberd) they may very well be a contender in the east soon. especially considering billups couldl eave detroit, and shaq is only gettin older (i guess everyone only gets older though)
Jeremy
April 21, 2007
I can’t crunch these numbers as efficiently as our blog’s author or Jason Chandler, but I hammered the Warriors’ 21 game (16-5) finish into a spreadsheet for four of their players. The WP looked like this:
Jason Richardson – .287 and 4.4 wins
Baron Davis – .308 and 3.9 wins
Andris Biedrins – .240 and 2.9 wins
Matt Barnes – .238 and 2.5 wins
This is incomplete and I’m likely off by a bit, but these should be in the ballpark. At the very least the story I start of the Warriors’ late season success starts to revolve around the healthy return and improved play of Richardson, Davis and Barnes. Biedrins just kept on being Biedrins.
Anybody care to take a closer look?
Jeremy
April 21, 2007
One more point on the Warriors: That Richardson and Davis were healthy again is the biggest part, but I have to wonder whether the small-ball, run-and-gun style of play helps these two guys excel that much more.
And isn’t it easier for Richardson and Davis to get steals and fastbreak for higher percentage shots with Stephen Jackson and Al Harrington as teammates than it was for them with Dunleavy and Murphy?
dberri
April 21, 2007
Jeremy,
Good analysis. I agree that the turnaround was fueled by Richardson, Davis, Biedrins, and Barnes. The key player, of those four, was Richardson. He played much better in the second half. His productivity, in terms of WP48, was comparable to Kobe Bryant. In the first half, Richardson’s WP48 was close to zero. So basically the Warriors added Kobe Bryant in the second half.
I doubt very much that Jackson or Harrington had any real significant impact. Neither played differently for the Warriors (relative to what they offered the Pacers). And if these two had such a positive impact on teammates, why is that only Richardson’s performance changed so dramatically? I suspect the key difference was Richardson getting healthy, not the trade. Certainly I will post on this in May.
Owen
April 27, 2007
Good piece re the Pacers-Warriors trade. It makes many of the points made above:
http://blogs.indystar.com/pacersinsider/archives/2007/04/the_trade_winds.html
dberri
April 28, 2007
Owen,
Good article. This is the key point made in the article about the trade from the Pacers point of view:
“The Pacers won six-of-seven games shortly after the trade to get five games above .500 after winning at Memphis. That was the game in which Jermaine O’Neal suffered a knee injury that would require postseason surgery. That injury and coach Rick Carlisle’s ever-loosening grip on his players’ attention and devotion were the primary factors in the slide, not the trade.”