Most awards in the NBA are determined by the sportswriters. The lone exceptions are the All-Defensive and All-Rookie teams. Each of these is determined by NBA coaches.
The All-Rookie team appears to be fairly simple. This year there were 64 players who began their NBA careers. From this pool of talent, each coach selects five players for the All-Rookie First Team and then five more for the Second Team (coaches cannot select players from their own team). The five rookies who receive the most voting points (2 points for first team vote, 1 point for a second team vote) – regardless of position played – are placed on the All-Rookie First Team. The next five in voting points are on the Second Team.
Second Team is Tops
One would expect – since the coaches are making the selections – that the First Team is “better” than the Second Team. At least you might expect this if you didn’t consider Wins Produced per 48 minutes [WP48]. Here is the All-Rookie First Team in 2008, with Voting Points and WP48 reported for each player.
Al Horford: 58 voting points, 0.170 WP48
Kevin Durant: 57 voting points, 0.012 WP48
Luis Scola: 53 voting points, 0.124 WP48
Al Thornton: 48 voting points, -0.081 WP48
Jeff Green: 43 voting points, -0.082 WP48
And here is the Second Team:
Jamario Moon: 38 voting points, 0.196 WP48
Juan Carlos Navarro: 24 voting points, 0.013 WP48
Thaddeus Young: 23 voting points, 0.099 WP48
Rodney Stuckey: 22 voting points, 0.069 WP48
Carl Landry: 18 voting points, 0.258 WP48
The average First Team player posted a WP48 of 0.028. The Second Team players, though, averaged a 0.127 WP48. Yes, the Second Team All-Rookie squad consists of players who are collectively more productive than the members of First Team.
A Quick Look Back and an Explanation
When I saw this result I wondered whether this had ever happened before. Table One reports the average WP48 of the All-Rookie First and Second Teams back to 1995.
Table One: Comparing All-Rookie First and Second Teams
As noted in the above table, most years – as we would expect – the First Team is the best. But in 1997, 2004, and 2007 (as well as 2008), the Second Team came out on top. And in 2008, the second team had its greatest advantage ever (if ever begins in 1995).
So how does this happen? The answer is detailed in The Wages of Wins. The coaches are not evaluating rookies in terms of Wins Produced or WP48. We can do a much better job of explaining the coaches’ voting with a simple model like NBA Efficiency. We can do even better if we just looked at points scored per game. In other words, just like we see when we look at the player evaluation of general managers and the media, scoring dominates the player rankings of coaches.
The All-Rookie story in The Wages of Wins was told with some simple regression analysis. We can see the same story, though, just looking at the 2007-08 rookies.
Table Two: The Rookies of 2007-08
Table Two reports the Wins Produced, NBA Efficiency, and scoring of the 64 rookies who debuted in 2007-08. The players are ranked first in terms of the All-Rookie Voting and then points scored. Of the top ten rookies in voting points, five finished in the top ten in Wins Produced. Eight rookies, though, were in the top ten in NBA Efficiency and scoring. As we see when we look at past votes, scoring dominated the selection of the 2007-08 team.
Ranking All Rookies with Wins Produced and WP48
How would our story change if we focused solely on Wins Produced? According to this metric the All-Rookie teams would be as follows:
First Team:
Al Horford: 9.0 Wins Produced
Jamario Moon: 8.8 Wins Produced
Luis Scola: 5.2 Wins Produced
Joakim Noah: 4.9 Wins Produced
Carl Landry: 3.8 Wins Produced
Second Team
Thaddeus Young: 3.2 Wins Produced
Ramon Sessions: 2.2 Wins Produced
Sean Williams: 1.9 Wins Produced
Nick Fazekas: 1.6 Wins Produced
Arron Afflalo: 1.6 Wins Produced
The first team is dominated by big men. This is primarily because the rookie guards in 2007-08 were almost all below average. Only Ramon Sessions and Coby Karl posted WP48 marks that were above average, and neither played 500 minutes this past season.
If we focus strictly on rookies who played at least 500 minutes – and ranked these rookies in terms of WP48 – then the All-Rookie teams would be as follows:
First Team
Carl Landry: 0.258
Jamario Moon: 0.196
Al Horford: 0.170
Joakim Noah: 0.154
Luis Scola: 0.124
Second Team
Thaddeus Young: 0.099
Julian Wright: 0.086
Arron Afflalo: 0.079
Sean Williams: 0.070
Rodney Stuckey: 0.069
Of all rookies who played 500 minutes, only five posted above average marks. The best guards played for the Pistons (Afflalo and Stuckey) and each fell short of the 0.100 threshold. The general poor play of the rookies is why Fazekas and Sessions can be among the rookie leaders in Wins Produced without playing much.
It’s important to remember that rookies tend to play badly. From 1993-94 to 2006-07, the average rookie posted a WP48 of 0.047. Second year players have an average mark of 0.076. It’s not until the third year that players on average approach the NBA average level of productivity.
When we consider what rookies do on average, our list of above average players gets larger. In addition to each player listed on the WP48 All-Rookie first and second teams we can add Mike Conley (WP48 of 0.054) and Jared Dudley (WP48 of 0.053).
Even with the lower threshold, though, Kevin Durant, Al Thornton, and Jeff Green were below average performers. Yes, each showed some ability to score. But none showed that they could score efficiently.
Despite such performances, each player has now been told that they are “good.” So although we can expect rookies to get better, how much better will players get when a “bad” performance is mislabeled? And in the case of Durant and Green, if these players do not improve, will this ultimately dim the enthusiasm people in Oklahoma City have for NBA basketball?
- 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.
35 responses so far ↓
Chad // May 14, 2008 at 2:43 pm
It seems to me that the best WP48 stats are going to be produced by rookies that go to better teams, i.e. rookies taken later in the draft, or to good teams who acquired a better draft pick via trade.
Kevin Durant played for a god awful team. His WP48 stats are going suck, even though he had a decent season (Horford should have won ROY).
Jason // May 14, 2008 at 4:43 pm
Chad, what about Durant’s season made it “decent?” Why exactly would his wp48 have to be bad because he played on a terrible team? Another way of looking at it is that his stats were bad *and* this was a big part of why his team was terrible.
Andrew G // May 14, 2008 at 4:52 pm
Horford was drafted by a bad team and played on a bad team all season (assuming a team with a losing record is considered bad). He had great WP48 stats, especially for a rookie.
Dave: How much of the improvement in the 3rd year for average WP48 is the result of survivorship bias? The worst players in the rookie class (who bring the average way down) probably don’t get to see a 3rd year in the Association.
dberri // May 14, 2008 at 4:57 pm
Andrew
Good point. I am not sure, but you would expect that survivorship bias is part of the story. I will note, though, that its not everything. Even when you look at players who have long NBA careers you see that they were generally not as good as rookies.
Tommy_Grand // May 14, 2008 at 10:39 pm
Professor Berri,
Do you think Horford or Moon had the better season? I see Horford produced .2 more wins, whereas I expected Moon to have produced slightly more. Regardless, I’d put both players on my all rookie (first team) ballot.
Some guy // May 14, 2008 at 10:46 pm
Wow…
How hard is it to see that the top rookies go to bad teams and therefore are going to have shitty Ws per 48 minutes?
Imagine being Durant on a horrible team and the main focus of double teams. Now imagine being Carl Landry and never EVER seeing a double team and being able to grab loose rebounds and score garbage points because no one ever pays attention to you cuz they gotta worry about your two superstars and super good role players.
Don’t make a comment simply to say something. Geez…
mrparker // May 14, 2008 at 11:45 pm
Did you know that you could pass out of a double team? Every other “great” player that started off on a crappy team had to deal with the same phenomenon yet their numbers prove them to be great despite their teams weaknesses. Every time a perceived great player hits the league and falters its suddenly not their fault that they aren’t that good.
Carl Landry never had a play run for him in Houston yet he still played great defense and was a superb garbage man. He made up for his “superstar teammates” deficiencies yet received absolutely no credit for doing so.
Sam Cohen // May 15, 2008 at 12:08 am
Who were the rookies on the 2005 1st and 2nd all-rookie teams? I was shocked to see a year that had such high WP48 for both teams. In looking at the draft, I see a number of players that are considered “good” now (Howard, Okafor, Gordon, Devin Harris, Deng, Igoudala, Al Jefferson, Biedrins), but who was considered good then?
Blitz // May 15, 2008 at 1:50 am
In answer to Andrew G:
remember that a standard first-round draft pick ‘rookie’ contract is for 4 years. So survivorship bias will generally only apply to second-round picks (who tend to receive 2-year contracts at best). A rookie first-rounder has to COMPLETELY blow it not to get to the third-year of their rookie deal. Also high picks tend to get given 4+ years no matter how poorly they play (c.f. Brown, Kwame; Olowokondi, Michael)
As an addendum, the tendency to give 2nd-round picks 2-year deals has actually hurt teams in the past. It is the reason Gilbert Arenas could only be offered the mid-level exception by Golden State (as a restricted free-agent) and thus signed with Washington. It is also why it was an act of insanity on Cleveland’s part to let Carlos Boozer out of his team option 3rd year of his rookie contract. This enabled Boozer to sign a max-deal with Utah when Cleveland could only offer him the amount they had available under the salary cap or the mid-level exception.
mrparker // May 15, 2008 at 6:27 am
Blitz,
You just taught me some things that I didnt know. This kind of information is highly lucrative when you are a bartender at a sportsbar. I swear 50% of my regular costumers come to get in arguements with me about basketball players.
We are currently in the midst of arguing about how well our olympic team will play this year. I’ve got some “suckers” giving me even money on the USA to win the gold.
Anyway thanks for putting that info out there Blitz
Andrew // May 15, 2008 at 6:44 am
I’m a big fan of stats like WP48 in the right context, but using it as a final ranker of first- and second-team rookies isn’t the right context.
Durant clearly wasn’t ready to be the focal point of a good NBA team last year, but he was asked to take around 20% of its shots. There is a certain number of shots that Durant could have taken in an efficient manner, but because of his team composition, he was forced to take a larger role. In my estimation of Durant’s “efficient baseline,” I don’t think he should be punished for this.
Also, to whoever is saying that Durant can pass out of double-teams…I mean, who’s he passing to? Chris Wilcox? That team is really bad. If he’s not passing to Wilcox or Collison right underneath the basket, whoever he passes to is going to be an even less efficient shooter than Durant.
mrparker // May 15, 2008 at 7:54 am
Whoever he’s passing to is not going to be defended by two defenders. Guys who play basketball like Durant does have never helped a team win. He’s a nice kid but he plays basketball wrong. It wouldn’t matter who his teammates were.
Faizan // May 15, 2008 at 10:16 am
Also, the double teams hardly explain the lack of rebounding and other “hustle” stats.
Faizan // May 15, 2008 at 10:16 am
Sorry for the two messages. Nor do they explain the large volume of 3’s despite inefficient shooting.
VS // May 15, 2008 at 10:30 am
“Whoever he’s passing to is not going to be defended by two defenders. Guys who play basketball like Durant does have never helped a team win. He’s a nice kid but he plays basketball wrong. It wouldn’t matter who his teammates were.”
This is the sad truth.
The sadder truth is some team is going to get stuck paying him millions just because he likes to shoot.
antonio // May 15, 2008 at 11:12 am
Mr. Parker, why are you so consistent on ripping apart a rookie? Do you really think he won’t get any better and won’t improve. Not every skinny 19 year old that is completely overmatched physcially has a great first year
antonio // May 15, 2008 at 11:13 am
And also mr parker, you dont thin the USA will win gold this year? or you do think so?
Dan // May 15, 2008 at 11:19 am
MrParker, Faizan, & VS,
I think you guys might be reading a little bit too much into the stats of a rookie.
Take a look at these two per 36 minutes stat lines (from Basketball-Reference.com):
PTS | REB | AST | BLK | STL | FGA | FTA | TO | PF
a) 19.1 | 5.0 | 5.4 | 0.7 | 1.5 | 17.2 | 5.3 | 3.1 | 1.7
b) 21.1 | 5.8 | 2.5 | 1.0 | 1.0 | 17.8 | 5.8 | 3.0 | 1.6
One of these players is LeBron James as a rookie,
the other is Kevin Durant as a rookie.
That don’t look that different do they?
I’m not saying that Kevin Durant will be as good as LeBron. just that his lackluster rookie season doesn’t mean that he can’t become a productive elite player.
Owen // May 15, 2008 at 11:22 am
I don’t think anyone is saying Durant will never be a great player. I think its still very possible he will. That doesn’t change the fact that he wasn’t very good this year.
If it’s an award for who might be the best in the future, by all means give it to Durant. But Horford clearly deserved the award more. He actually helped his team win basketball games.
Joe // May 15, 2008 at 11:35 am
Blitz,
Regarding your Arenas comment, that loophole has been closed down by the NBA with the new CBA in 05.
Now, the current team only has to keep the first year of the contract under the cap and the “new” team would have to keep the average under the cap. In addition to this, the first year cannot surpass the “nba defined average salary” in any offer.
So essentially now the original team always has the option to match an offer sheet due to the MLE which is based off the “average” salary. That is at least my understanding.
mrparker // May 15, 2008 at 12:33 pm
Dan,
I’m taking the USA to win huge this summer. I guess I should have phrased that better.
Offensively, Durant and Lebron are comparable as rookies. However there is no comparison between there defense. Thats what Durant will always be missing. Kevin Durant will probably be a very good offensive player but if he sucks on defense without a Duncan or Garnett type player to help out on defense the Sonics will never be good.
Lebron was arguably a top 3 defender on his team in his rookie season. Durant is not even close to that. Look at some of the other advanced stats on basketball-refernce that point to this “fact”
Jason // May 15, 2008 at 12:59 pm
It does appear that many people in supporting Durant are confusing two issues, 1) what he has done and 2) what they think he *will* become. I realize that for some, keeping these separate seems to be a Herculean task, but it’s critical if someone wants to have a productive conversation.
What he has done is not particularly good. That’s really a hard-to-debate fact. There may be reasons for this and you may regard these reasons as enough to discount that his effect *this year* was overall not positive, but to some degree they’re excuses. They do not change outcomes. They do not change the results. His *results* don’t suggest he *was* a good player. They suggest someone who struggled and in struggling was a part of the losing cause, not an exception standing apart from the losing cause. It’s still the “talent” (coupled with what he did in college and HS) that suggest that it may not always be the case.
Who could he have passed to? The options weren’t great, but based on the team’s fg%, better options *did* exists. No, he wasn’t surrounded by particularly good teammates (though mysteriously some coaches regarded Green as good enough to be an “all rookie” despite being sub-abysmal). Nonetheless, if they were so bad, their effect wasn’t such that when Durant was out the team got worse. If Durant’s numbers were suppressed by double-teams, it suggests that someone else was open. If these guys were always missing baskets and Durant was the best option, it doesn’t explain why the team was just as effective on offense when he came out of the game.
In fact, when Durant was out, the offense was *equally* efficient in points per possession and slightly better in effective FG%. This suggests that whomever was making the decision to have him shoot as much as he did (and I suspect that it wasn’t all the coach’s doing–he was the one who actually took the shots) was not a good one, even considering the poor teammates. His replacements didn’t make the team worse. This suggests that other people could have been used to a greater degree. Since his effect on defense *was* clear (and clearly terrible–they were a much better unit when he sat) it suggests that he was over-used *if* the goal was to be a better team. Perhaps that wasn’t the goal. Perhaps the goal was to have an 82 night competitive scrimmage to see what he could do, to see what they’d have to work with next year. But that’s hardly cause for giving someone an award for being the best rookie.
WP suggests he was not very good. His net +/- on his team suggests that he was not a positive influence on the team. His component +/- on various statistical categories that correlate well with wins does not suggest he was a positive influence.
These are not comments about what Durant will do next year or in the future. It is not a comment about what Lebron did in his first year. It is a comment about what Durant did and commentary about the excuses presented for them. *If* someone sees reason why he’ll be better, that’s a different issue. [I do not regard that Lebron got better as a reason why Durant will be very good, but rather a case to suggest that it's still possible.]
It’s not true that all rookies on bad teams, even ones who were the ‘focal point’ from day one had as many struggles, but it is true that some very, very, very good players started out not as good as they became. Some did not. Let’s not confuse the two issues though of what a player did and what he might do at some point in the future. He was on a bad team. He did not make them better.
Dan, you gifted Durant an extra 1.3 rebounds (his per36 was 4.5, not 5.8).
Reading is Great! Thursday’s NBA Rumors, Breaking News, and Blog Links - EmptyTheBench.com // May 15, 2008 at 3:44 pm
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antonio // May 15, 2008 at 4:27 pm
Jason, you are not commenting on Durant’s future, but some people seem to already label Durant as a player. The point I make, and I feel many make regarding to Durant is that it is too early to label him.
Mr Parker says ” Guys who play basketball like Durant does have never helped a team win. He’s a nice kid but he plays basketball wrong.”
This is a statement I think that is jsut too strong. And with regards to his defense, I think it is the same thing to already judge him. Asking him to guard shooting guards is a tough task. He clearly does not have the lateral quickness and speed to guard the two. Once his body fills out and he is moved to his natural position, the 3, he will be at least an average on ball defender, and his long arms will make him a great help defender who should post solid steals and blocks. Comparing his defense to Lebrons is ridiculous. When Lebron came into the league he was already a man, already one of the strongest players at his position if not already the strongest. Durant may have been the weakest player at his position, and by a long shot (could not bench press 185 pounds once). As he gets older and works out more, (the next few years), he will be a much better defender.
Jason // May 15, 2008 at 6:38 pm
I think it would be an accurate statement that guys who play the game like Durant *has* played never help their team win. There is no guarantee that he will continue to play so ineffectively, but if things do not change, this will continue to be true.
Andrew G // May 15, 2008 at 6:48 pm
IIRC, Lebron was average as a rookie, something like .099 (close enough to .100). Durant was far from it. So yes, Lebron wasn’t the Lebron we see today as a rookie, but he was still an effective player and offered much more than Durant, especially versus the rookie average of .045.
VS // May 15, 2008 at 11:34 pm
I dunno the only thing I see when I watch him play is Chris Webber in his twilight years with less rebounding and worse defense. I just can’t see him (or anyone with his style for that matter) being a helpful component in this league.
antonio // May 16, 2008 at 12:46 am
i agree with that. durant did not have a productive season and did not help his team win games this year
mrparker // May 16, 2008 at 1:16 am
Antonio, Jason:
I’m not trying to mount a personal attack on Durant. There are a few stats from college ball that when taking into account have never produced a good pro basketball player. Durant had these type of numbers in college. So does Beasely.
I guess I have prejudged the kid but so far the judement doesn not seem far fetched. My problem is not with Durant but with teams that draft these type of players and thus put pressure on them to be the man from day 1. He just doesn’t posess the ability to make his team better.
antonio // May 16, 2008 at 1:02 pm
Besides carmelo anthony, who has their stats. And baseball, which is by far the most advanced sport in using staistics, knows that stats alone cannot tell whether a player will successfully move from high-school/college to the pros. “Moneyballers” such as Billy Beane do not rely just on numbers to decide who should be drafter. Scouts are valued as well. The same goes for basketball. You cannot forcast a player’s future based solely on numbers. Scouting, by watching a player, is a tool that will never go away. It is still highly valued in baseball.
There is no substantail proof to your argument that players who score at a high volume in college (regardless of whether they are efficient) and rebound highly at the forward position do not translate well to the pros. You recite Carmelo Anthony as proof that this is right. One person is an extremely small sample size though and does not really say much of anything. What do you think Amare Stoudamire, Lebron James, Dwight Howard, Kevin Garnett and other great bigs who went straight from high-school to the pros would have put up in college? All of the above easily could have averaged a 25 and 10 in college, but simply went to the NBA instead. And these are only recent examples of players, it could go much farther back. I am sure if I sifted through college stats I could find players who have succeeded posting similar numbers, but I have not done that and don’t play on doing it.
To say he does not possess the ability to make his team better is a strong statement. While yes he has to do so, that does not mean he will not soon aquire it. As pointed out above, Lebron James was still below average according to WP his rookie year. (Don’t know how many times I hvae repeated this, but while James had a better rookie year than Durant, he was also much more physically developed. This, IMO, is the strongest factor in Durant’s lackluster rookie season.) I am not saying that Durant will be the next Lebron, but Durant has done very little to make people think he will not turn it around and eventually become a very productive player, especially considering the fact that he got stronger as the season went on (notably March and April).
antonio // May 16, 2008 at 1:04 pm
If every player were judged after their rookie season, as you seem to be doing for Durant, most teams would do a terrible job a of drafting.
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2007 NBA Draft Preview - One Year Later « The Wages of Wins Journal // May 17, 2008 at 12:10 pm
[...] reading David Berri’s recent review of the All-Rookie teams, readers may wonder why players like Carl Landry and Rodney Stuckey [...]
Matt // May 19, 2008 at 4:03 pm
No mention of the dramatic improvement by Durant over the course of the season? Is this because the idea of a 19 year old kid without an NBA body at this point developing over the course of a year and changing from a poor player to a very good one is somehow implausible? Lets look a little further…
We see that from November-February, Durant averaged between 38% and 41% shooting from the floor in each individual month. We also see that he launched between 3.1 and 4.4 3 pointers per game. This is clearly a player who is hurting his team. HOWEVER……
Suddenly, something changed. In February Durant only shot 1.1 3 pters per game. It didn’t help that month, but look at what comes after. Durant once again shoots 1.1 3pters per game, and astonishingly he shoots 53% from the floor for the month! We then see Durant turn his shot numbers back up, but NOT his 3 pters in April. Durant shoots 1.4 3’s per game and hits 46% from the floor.
Anyone who actually watched Durant over the course of the season saw those adjustments. They didn’t become wins because a 19 year old Kevin Durant isn’t yet able to carry a team on most nights. However, to dismiss him as hurting his team shows a lack of basketball knowledge.
miguel // June 3, 2008 at 11:29 am
How well does a rookie’s play predict their career according to wins produced? What if age is factored in?