The NBA has announced the media’s selection of the league’s Most Valuable Player as well as the members of the All-NBA First, Second, and Third teams. With voting complete and reported, we can now evaluate the media’s choices.
Table One reports the Wins Produced and WP48 [Wins Produced per 48 minutes] of the 42 players who received consideration for the MVP and/or All-NBA teams.
Table One: Evaluating the Candidates for MVP and All-NBA in 2008
Here are some quick thoughts I had when looking over this table.
- Kobe Bryant - the league MVP and top choice in voting for the All-NBA team - ranks 9th in the league in Wins Produced. Because he ranked 6th in the league in minutes played, his Wins Produced is a bit inflated. If we consider WP48, we see that he is only the 14th most productive player listed in Table One.
- Among shooting guards, only Manu Ginobili posted a higher WP48 than Kobe. So Kobe is one of the very best shooting guards.
- If we consider all guards, Chris Paul is easily the most productive. And that is the same story if we consider all players.
- Four players received first place votes for MVP (Kobe, Paul, Kevin Garnett, and LeBron James). Of these four, Kobe was the least productive. In terms of WP48, only Paul and Dwight Howard did more than KG.
- The most over-looked player in the league was Jose Calderon. Calderon posted a WP48 of 0.309 and produced 16.0 wins. That mark ranks 12th in the league. Despite this production, Calderon received no consideration in MVP voting or voting for the All-NBA teams.
- When we look at players for Denver, the media ranked Denver’s players in this order: Allen Iverson, Carmelo Anthony, Marcus Camby. WP48 offers an exactly opposite ranking.
- Four players who were quite close to league average received consideration for the All-NBA team: Tracy McGrady [0.107 WP48], David West [0.105 WP48], Joe Johnson [0.100 WP48], and Michael Redd [0.087 WP48]. McGrady - as has been noted in this forum in the past - is not the player he once was. The other three have never really been as productive as some people seem to believe.
- Not a single rookie received any consideration for these awards. Al Horford - the most productive rookie in Wins Produced - produced more wins than 12 players who received consideration for the All-NBA team. Of course, Kevin Durant did not.
Okay, those are some quick thoughts. Previously I posted the top 15 at each position. Below these lists are re-posted.
Again, the MVP and All-NBA teams are selected by the media. As I have noted in the past, the MVP vote is dominated by scorers from winning teams.
Hopefully next week we will see the All-Rookie teams. These teams are selected by the coaches. I will be most interested in seeing how the coaches reward (or penalize) the production offered by Kevin Durant this season.
- 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.
10 responses so far ↓
Tball // May 9, 2008 at 10:44 am
To be fair to the media, Calderon didn’t get the respect from his own team at the end of the season to hold onto a starting position. When your own team states (in action more than words) that you are not as good as TJ Ford, and the media knows TJ Ford is not an All-NBA nominee, and you are not good enough to crack the starting lineup of Canada’s team, how do you crack the All-NBA team.
Besides the ring-bearing Ginobili (who still plays 30+ minutes/game as a ‘6th man’), how many bench players received All-NBA votes? I think Calderon would have received some votes if he had held onto that starting job.
Evaluating the Sportswriters Choices for MVP and All-NBA | GOT FANATICS! // May 9, 2008 at 11:03 am
[...] The NBA has announced the media’s selection of the league’s Most Valuable Player as well as the members of the All-NBA First, Second, and Third teams.A With voting complete and reported, we can now evaluate the …http://dberri.wordpress.com/2008/05/09/eva… [...]
Tom // May 9, 2008 at 6:41 pm
Can you please comment on the following paper? Its conclusion is that WP is a poor measure of wins in the NBA. Thanks.
http://www.uncg.edu/eco/rosenbaum/nessis.pdf
Jason // May 10, 2008 at 7:45 am
Tom, that paper has been addressed several times in previous threads over the last several months.
Tommy_Grand // May 10, 2008 at 10:01 am
NBA Rookie of the Year Kevin Durant will be on the all-rookie team. There is no way the coaches don’t selected him. Although the arg. that KD should not have won ROTY has merit, he’s clearly one of the 5 best rookies. The picks should be Moon, Horford, Durant, Scola and….I’m not sure. Would they pick two from the same team?
Tommy_Grand // May 10, 2008 at 10:04 am
Speaking of the Rockets, my guess is that Battier produced more wins this season that any other Houston player.
Animal // May 10, 2008 at 10:13 am
Jason, that paper has never been addressed adequately. It was just glibly dismissed as “it has not appeared in a refereed academic journal.” Yet that paper shows that there is no predictive power to win score! It is a devastating critique.
Jason // May 10, 2008 at 11:48 am
‘Animal’, I’m not sure what you mean by “adequately.” Inadequate for you?
I’ll stand by my original assessment. It needs work. The paper as presented in that link has some interesting things in it, but as it stands, it’s a mess and, IMHO, not adequate for publication. Consequently, what discussion has been had of it is really about all that can be had. Though it’s interesting data, I don’t think their conclusions are nearly as pronounced as their data suggest and it still strikes me as a “hit piece”. My take on the appendix draws me to that conclusion as well as their discussion of the WP method seems a bit at odds with my understanding of the method. It’s not even apples and oranges.
Dave has commented on the rather peculiar use of residuals in their evaluation. Seriously, that’s not minor criticism and it *is* the sort of thing that, if not cleared up, really makes more meaningful discussion of what they’ve shown pointless.
Seriously, you should be able to find the old threads discussing it. Until something revised comes out, I think it’s been adequately addressed. You feel otherwise? Then address it.
Jason // May 10, 2008 at 11:49 am
Further, Animal, the statement that their paper shows that there’s no predictive power for Win Score is false.
Tim // May 10, 2008 at 10:37 pm
A real nitpick: your use of “hopefully” (”Hopefully next week we will see the All-Rookie teams”
may not raise any eyebrows in normal conversation, but I don’t think the NY Times would approve. I suggest “I hope” or “One would hope” (he said hopefully).
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