A few days ago Henry Abbott – of TrueHoop – stated the following in a story about the Josh Childress experience in European basketball:
If it really is true — that little things that win games are more valued in Europe — then that confirms just about every negative stereotype of American basketball development. And it fits perfectly with the message from just about every new-breed statistical expert: That scoring is overvalued here, at the expense of other things that are hugely important but less obvious.
Pacer Pessimism
If you can imagine, these words were floating about ESPN.com. And with these words in the air, Chris Broussard decides that the Indiana Pacers are the worst team in the Eastern Conference this year. Okay, I am not sure Abbott posted his comment before Broussard offered his thoughts on the Pacers. Still, let’s imagine that despite Abbott’s argument (and this is something he said before), Broussard still picked Indiana to finish 15th out of fifteen teams in the East.
And how is this pick defended? Here is what Broussard said in ESPN’s preview of the Indiana Pacers:
Jim O’Brien is a good coach, but he needs more to work with. Not one Pacer has ever averaged 20 points a game. The only other team in the league you can say that about is Portland.
This statement suggests that the lack of a major scorer in Indiana – in Broussard’s view – dooms the Pacers.
To be fair, Broussard is not the only one down on Indiana. The following writers – listed with their ranking and comments – picked Indiana to finish in the bottom three in the East:
Chris Sheridan (ranked14th): Hard to decide which of Larry Bird’s decisions was worse: Trading Jermaine O’Neal for a bag of spare parts or benching Jamaal Tinsley at the start of camp rather than allowing him to display whatever value he has to potential suitors.
Ric Bucher (ranked 14th): Dear Larry: Loved you as a player. Liked you as a coach. As a GM … Did I mention I loved you as a player?
Marc Stein (ranked 13th): Don’t know how Jim O’Brien got 36 wins out of the Pacers last season. And don’t think he’ll be able to get that many out of them this season, with almost all of the East’s non-playoff teams making upgrades.
Jon Barry (ranked 13th): There’s been a serious change of culture in Indy, helped further with T.J. Ford now at the point. But the bottom line is there’s still not enough here for this team to get in the playoffs.
Jalen Rose (ranked 13th): This team is in total rebuild mode in terms of roster, image and fan base. T.J. Ford and Jarrett Jack will push the tempo to go with the scoring of Danny Granger and Mike Dunleavy. One key question: Can they trade Jamaal Tinsley?
Although every other writer participating in ESPN’s preview ranked Indiana higher, the average ranking of all the writers only placed two teams in the East below the Pacers (the Nets and Knicks were ranked lower). In sum, a number of writers are clearly pessimistic about the Pacers. And I find this to be more than just a bit odd.
Where Indiana Has Been and Where They Are Going
To see why this odd, let’s go back a few months. The Pacers finished the 2007-08 season with the following marks:
Wins: 36
Offensive Efficiency: 103.45 points per 100 possessions
Defensive Efficiency: 104.84 points per 100 possessions
Efficiency Differential: -1.40
Summation of Wins Produced: 37.2
In terms of wins, the Pacers ranked 9th in the East and missed the playoffs. Efficiency differential, though, ranked Indiana 8th. In other words, if we repeated the 2007-08 season, we would expect Indiana to make the post-season.
Of course, we are not repeating the 2007-08 season. Indiana has made changes to their roster and these differences should impact what the Pacers will ultimately achieve in 2008-09.
Before reviewing the changes, let’s just make it clear – contrary to Marc Stein’s contention – the 36 wins the team achieved last year can be connected back to the players on this team.
Table One: The Pacers in 2007-08
As Table One reports, about 35 of this team’s Wins Produced can be linked back to the play of Jeff Foster, Mike Dunleavy, Troy Murphy, and Danny Granger. And all of these players will be returning in 2008-09.
The following players – who played at least 500 minutes last season — will not be joining this quartet (with Wins Produced and WP48 – Wins Produced per 48 minutes – reported):
Kareem Rush: 0.0 Wins Produced, -0.001 WP48
Ronald Murray: -0.1 Wins Produced, -0.005 WP48
Jermaine O’Neal: -0.4 Wins Produced, -0.017 WP48
Shawne Williams: -1.4 Wins Produced, -0.070 WP48
David Harrison: -2.8 Wins Produced, -0.189 WP48
In addition, Indiana appears to want Jamaal Tinsley (2.2 Wins Produced and 0.083 WP48) to play someplace else this next season.
When we look at these six players, we see four who offered production in the negative range. And the other two were below average (average WP48 is 0.100). In sum, none of the departing players were really helping the Pacers last year. In fact, Indiana is better off with some of these players in a different uniform.
Okay, enough of the subtractions. Here are the veteran players – who played at last 500 minutes last season– the Pacers are adding:
Jarrett Jack: 4.6 Wins Produced, 0.098 WP48
T.J. Ford: 4.0 Wins Produced, 0.160 WP48
Rasho Nesterovic: 3.2 Wins Produced, 0.104 WP48
As one can see, the three main veteran additions to this team are each average or above average.
In addition to the new veterans, Indiana also selected Roy Hibbert and Brandon Rush in the draft (two players who were about average — for an NBA draft pick — in college last season). Although Hibbert and Rush will probably not help much, they probably won’t hurt much either. At least, it’s not expected that the rookie’s production of wins will drift into the negative range.
Heeding Hollinger
When we compare what the Pacers have added to what the team lost, it’s hard to see how this team dropped towards the bottom of the conference. Yet several of the experts at ESPN reached this conclusion.
One should note that not all the ESPN experts reached this conclusion. John Hollinger’s forecast differed from his fellow writers at ESPN. Hollinger thinks the Pacers are the 7th best team in the Eastern Conference. In sum, he thinks Indiana has gotten relatively better.
In the past I have noted that Hollinger and I agree that teams should be evaluated in terms of efficiency differential (where we disagree is on how to move from the team to the player). Although I don’t know this for sure, I think Hollinger begins the process of forecasting the next season by considering where a team finished the previous campaign. So when Hollinger creates the forecast of the Pacers, he starts with a team that is just a bit below average. And since he concludes the team is better, he must think – as I conclude – that the additions Indiana has made trump the subtractions (not sure how PERs gets Hollinger to that conclusion, but I think I have accurately captured his approach).
Apparently, though, the other writers at ESPN are not listening to Hollinger or paying much attention to what we saw in 2007-08. These writers see a roster in Indiana that is devoid of anybody who averaged 20 points per game last season and conclude that without a major scorer, the Pacers cannot compete in the resurgent Eastern Conference.
Projecting the Pacers
Again I return to the words of Abbott noted at the onset of this column. Scoring is simply over-emphasized by many NBA analysts. When we look at all the stats – whether we use the Wages of Wins measures, the work of Dean Oliver, of the adjusted plus-minus approach of Wayne Winston – we see that there is more to wins than points scored per game. And I think all the stats tell us the Pacers are going to get better.
How much better? Well, I still think the East will be led by Boston, Detroit, Orlando, Philadelphia, and Cleveland. After these five, I think Toronto and Indiana have the best chance at the post-season. In sum, I think Indiana has a good chance of seeing playoff basketball next April. At least I think the chances of that outcome exceed the probability the Pacers will finish – as Broussard contends – as the worst team in the Eastern Conference.
– DJ
The WoW Journal Comments Policy
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 
dan fitz
October 23, 2008
Come on.. Do the Knicks and tell me how bad they will be. I can take it. I just want to know is there a glimmer of hope anywhere
stephanie
October 23, 2008
Ah, so the wizards at ESPN is where this idea came from. I was reading a random forum post which said the Pacers were “arguably the worst in the East this upcoming season” and it left me puzzled. I mean you don’t even need any model or to know anything about Ortg or Drtg to know that’s nuts. The Pacers missed the playoffs by what, a single game? JO and Tinsley barely played and when they did they weren’t very impressive. Most people agree that the JO trade was pretty good for Indiana and they got valuable players. But they’re somehow going to be a lot worse? Weird.
Johnny
October 23, 2008
I think it’s Probably cause of the reoccuring idea that the east is getting stronger. I remember right before the start of last season when people were saying the east was gonna be stronger due to the trades sending big named players like garnett, allen, lewis, randolph etc to the east. (heck i think i even remember there being espn commercials based on this idea starting either bosh and/or arenas – but i could be wrong) And aside from the fact that the celtics won the title, the east was in the worst shape it had been in awhile. This year, again i keep hearing that the east is on the rise again, for the same reason (ie. brand). This idea that the east is suddenly getting better is probably a major reason those espn analysts think the pacers are worse off this year. I don’t think the east will truly improve until the suns/mavs/spurs era truly dies out cause the west is just getting more and more stacked
Tball
October 23, 2008
I think once you get past the top 5 or so teams, most analysts lose interest. They stop trying to identify the qualities that gives one team a chance to be better than another and just start looking at the shiny baubles. Miami has D-Wade, Marion, and the best player in this year’s draft. Let’s give them the 6th spot. Arenas is fun and he has some complementary scorers, so the Wiz can be seventh. Oh, and Toronto has that ‘next Steve Nash’ along with Bosh and O’Neal to catch his passes, so they can be 8th.
If you think any more goes into predicting spots 6-15 beyond ‘shiny bauble count’, I think you are mistaken.
Mountain
October 23, 2008
Few mainstream media writers are very good analysts. John Hollinger is one. Marty Burns is another. The ESPN panel is missing the boat on the Pacers. I picked them 6th. Now of course there are only a few games that separate 5th from 8th but I fully expected them to be in that range, barring major injury. On that I agree with Hollinger and Berri completely.
Jason J
October 23, 2008
The only major concern I have with locking Indi in as a top 7 team is Ford’s health. I worry about what an extended injury to TJ might do to the team. Though they functioned pretty well with Diener in that spot last year. Injury prone starters always worry me when making projections (or drafting fantasy teams).
Speaking of injury prone starters, has anybody done a Wins Produced-based projection of the Heat using stats from healthy and invested Wade & Marion? Just interested in where the team lands.
Owen
October 23, 2008
Great post. Classic WOW stuff. The media qoute, the WP analysis, love it.
Jason J – I am very interested to see how productive Marion is this year. I basically dropped him from my keeper fantasy league because I was very worried about the numbers he posted last year in Miami.
While I would emphatically agree that players are what they are, no matter where they are or who they are playing with, it’s going to interesting to see whether Marion reverts to his form in Phoenix pre-Nash.
John W. Davis
October 24, 2008
I will preach Wins Produced to the masses!
Joe
October 26, 2008
Owen,
Marion was pretty much just as good pre-Nash. Wasn’t he? The only cause of concern I have is that he forgot how to shoot free throws. And I don’t think Nash was helping him out there.
fien' X
October 27, 2008
Brilliant article. I had already come to the same conclusion based on your 07-08 WP ratings for the players added and subtracted (and some common sense – the players lost obviously contributed very little). Hopefully, Bird has utilized similar statistical analysis to rebuild this team on the fly (while other teams focus too much on scoring credentials). If he has, perhaps this trend will continue and some additional high efficiency players can be added. I would love for the Pacers to make a move for Lamar Odom (3rd in 07-08 WP for a PF) who fits the team concept well and fills a position of need.
Xavier
November 11, 2008
I preach “Wins Produced” to just about anyone who’ll listen. Most basketball fans can’t seem to follow the logic though.