Way back on November 16 I posted the following column:
Choosing the Best Rookie in November
Almost two weeks have passed since this comment, so clearly it’s time to write an update on the rookies (sarcasm alert).
This time I want to build upon the weekly rankings of top rookies provided by David Thorpe of ESPN.com (Insider Subscription Required). Hopefully I am not violating anything by revealing a few of Thorpe’s choices:
1. Juan Carlos Navarro
2. Kevin Durant
3. Al Horford
4. Yi Jianlian
6. Jamario Moon
I am not going to list all of Thorpe’s choices or repeat his reasoning (you should read the article for this). But I do want to note the projected Wins Produced (for the season, assuming per-minute peformance doesn’t change) and WP48 [Wins Produced per 48 minutes) of all the players Thorpe listed in his top ten. One should note that these calculations do not include Wednesday’s games.
1. Al Horford [10.3 Wins Produced, 0.188 WP48]
2. Jamario Moon [8.4 Wins Produced, 0.239 WP48]
3. Sean Williams [5.1 Wins Produced, 0.192 WP48]
4. Juan Carlos Navarro [3.8 Wins Produced, 0.104 WP48]
5. Luis Scola [3.2 Wins Produced, 0.094 WP48]
6. Joakim Noah [2.8 Wins Produced, 0.204 WP48]
7. Daequan Cook [1.8 Wins Produced, 0.109 WP48]
8. Jeff Green [0.2 Wins Produced, 0.005 WP48]
9. Yi Jianlian [-0.1 Wins Produced, -0.002 WP48]
10. Kevin Durant [-2.4 Wins Produced, -0.041 WP48]
If the Rookie of the Year must score at least ten points per game, than Thorpe placing Navarro at the top of the rankings makes sense. Of these ten players, only Navarro, Cook, Yi, and Durant are averaging more than ten points per game. Of course, even if scoring is a pre-requisite, it’s hard to see how Durant ranked second (a point made earlier in the week).
I don’t want to re-hash the Durant story in this post. Such re-hashing can wait for my next column.
For here I just want to note the abundance of productive rookies this year. An average player has a WP48 of 0.100. Of the ten rookies listed, six are above average and Scola is getting close.
Of these, Al Horford is projected to produce the most wins. So Horford is currently the favorite to win the prestigious Wages of Wins – Most Outstanding Rookie award (WOW-MOR).
Of course, if Jamario Moon can match Horford’s minutes – and he might – then Moon will win the WOW-MOR.
It‘s important to note that neither Horford or Moon are scoring in double figures. So given the value placed on points, it’s very unlikely that Horford or Moon will win the actual Rookie of the Year award. And I am pretty sure, the WOW-MOR will not be much consolation.
Let me close by noting the same thing I have said all November. It’s still very early. These rankings are going to changes as the season progresses. All we are seeing right now is who has gotten off to a good start (and who hasn’t).
– DJ
Our research on the NBA was summarized HERE.
The Technical Notes at wagesofwins.com provides substantially more information on the published research behind Wins Produced and Win Score
Wins Produced, Win Score, and PAWSmin are also discussed in the following posts:
Simple Models of Player Performance
What Wins Produced Says and What It Does Not Say
Introducing PAWSmin — and a Defense of Box Score Statistics
Finally, A Guide to Evaluating Models contains useful hints on how to interpret and evaluate statistical models.
Wages of Wins Journal 
Baba O'Riley
November 29, 2007
I’ve said it before and I”ll say it again, this will be the first year ever that the freshman beat the sophomores in the freshman vs. sophmore all-star game this year. Make my words.
Devin
November 29, 2007
That will be hard considering the Rookies have already beat the Sophomores twice before.
Anyhow, I don’t think it’s that bold of a prediction considering that, because of the new rule requiring players to attend at least one year of college, last years class was one of the worst, whereas this years class is one of the best.
mrparker
November 29, 2007
Moon came out of nowhere(I think Alabama) so I didnt even put him in my rankings but if you look back at the draft talk from the summer you will find that my 4 favorite rookies were
Noah, Oden, Horford, Conley Jr…and though you dont have Conley listed I believe his wp48 is fairly high as well.
My system so far works….pats on the back
mrparker
November 29, 2007
in fact this is exactly what I wrote:
My system grades Conley,Noah, Oden, Horford, and
Law as championship pieces or what WOW would
call perfect players(.200 wp48 or better)
It doesn’t like Durant as much but doesn’t
think he will be a bust either. I have him
rated as solid contributor in a supporting
cast. Any team in the lottery that picks him
should get better but would get much better
if they chose someone else.
Here’s to hoping my wizards don’t pick
Jason Smith.
It also likes players like Aaron Gray as 20-
25 minute players.
as well as this…….
mrparker
November 29, 2007
wrote this on june28:
I like the wow metric. I have my
own metric which I am unwilling to share
but which has captured at a high rate
the correlation between college production
and NBA production.
I’ve learned a couple of things. 1. Beware of
the system player(Julius Hodge). Jeff Green
plays the same position in the same system. 2.
Rebounds from sf dont translate as well to the
nba(Carmelo Anthony). Durant has the same
amount of rebounds per game and from the same
position. Carmelo has not averaged 6 for his
career. 3. Beware of giving up on a great
player. It takes until the 4th year to see
the full potential of someone who never played
against major college competition. For someone
like Lebron that is ok because 80% of him is
still pretty good. But for someone like Pippen
who is a second fiddle it took until year 4
for him to get to his peak. Moral of the story
Bogut could be about to turn a major corner very
soon. On the other hand someone like Chris Paul
who played a top 5 schedule for two years you can
expect him to take less than half a season.
Anyway love your system. It was great to find
someone with a completely different method
get the same results. Kind of like how PER
and Player win % have to be taken with a grain
of salt by themselves but combined tend to
point to which players are most productive
as far as winning is concerned.
ty w
December 1, 2007
Mr. Parker,
I like your use of historical precedent, and I’m intrigued by your “Bogut Moral”. I write a blog about Bucks basketball at bucksdiary.blogspot.com. The reason I bring that up is I’ve recently said its about time to give up on Bogut while he’s “overvalued” and try to “flip” he and Villanueva into some actual productive players (and I’ve been getting burned at the stake for it — but that’s not important).
Anyway, my question to you is: What evidence do you have that Bogut will improve? Believe me, I’ve been trying to look for an historical precedent, or some statistical rationale, and I have come up empty.
To me it looks like player’s establish their productive norms around their first or second full season of action, and pretty much stay there. Bogut’s in his third season, though some of his numbers are certainly up (but, apparently, not his Win Shares).
I’m open to persuasion, if you wouldn’t mind visiting my site and giving your two cents.
As for the “Wages of Wins” guys… brilliant, brilliant book and site. Thank you for both.
mrparker
December 1, 2007
I have no precedent that Bogut will turn around for sure. I just started putting my numbers togethere in 2005 so Bogut was in my first year. I gave him a huge strength of opponent decrease which I had no idea how much to make. But in looking through past players I noticed that a couple of guys took a while to become all-star caliber and they tended to come from smaller colleges. The learning curve seemed to be 3-4 years. However for me this is a work in progress approximation.
There have been lottery picks who did not hit their stride until well into their careers. Scottie Pippen is the first guy to come to mind. Until 1991 he had been a below average player. However in that year he got his assists up, turnovers down, fg% up and increased his rebounding.
Another example is Marcus Camby. This guy was atrocious until year 3 but still saw better competition than Bogut in the A10 and with a few games against stiff competition in the NCAA tournament.
IMO Bogut should improve most in his “aggresive stats”. Rebounding(which he’s already decent but not great yet) and getting to the line are two aspects where Bogut should improve greatly.
Villanueva on the other hand was pretty far down on my list. I don’t think he’ll ever be an above average player. I have him as what equates from my numbers to about a .1 wp48
Justin
December 1, 2007
Mr. Parker, where do you get that he was atrocious for his first three years? First team all-rookie and 14 points a game in his first season. Yao Ming is a much better example of getting better over time, but I think Joe Smith is a more likely future for Bogut than Pippen. Bogut has gotten his chances, if it was going to happen big there would have at least been a hint of it by now.