When the NBA merged with the ABA in 1976, four ABA franchises – the Denver Nuggets, Indiana Pacers, New Jersey Nets, and San Antonio Spurs – were added to the NBA. Of these four, Denver was the most successful that first season in the NBA. The Nuggets won 50 regular season games and were the only ABA survivor to win a playoff series (or a game). When we look at efficiency differential – offensive efficiency minus defensive efficiency – we see that Denver had a mark of 4.53 in 1976-77. Only the Portland Trail Blazers – the eventual league champ (and team that eliminated Denver in the playoffs) – posted a better differential (5.00). Such an inaugural season certainly suggested that Denver’s future in the NBA would be quite bright.
Although that might have been the suggestion in 1977, reality has been quite different. In terms of efficiency differential, the 1976-77 team remains the best in the NBA history of the Denver Nuggets. To put this point in perspective, Denver has only posted an efficiency differential in excess of 3.00 twice [1987-88 and 2007-08]. And only two more seasons saw a mark in excess of 2.00 [1984-85 and 2004-05].
If we turn to wins, a similar story is told. Denver’s best NBA season – in terms of wins – occurred in 1987-88. That year Denver won 54 games. In only three other seasons – 1976-77, 1984-85, and 2007-08 – did this team reach 50 victories. In contrast, the team has reached 50 losses eight different times. In sum, despite a promising start, NBA basketball in Denver has not generally been very successful.
Losing Camby
And that brings us to this season. After 35 games, Denver has a record of 23-12. With a winning percentage of 65.7%, the Nuggets are currently on pace to tie the NBA franchise record for wins in season. When we look at efficiency differential the results are not quite that promising. Denver’s differential is currently 3.30, a mark that suggests 50 wins are a possibility. Although this mark is quite good relative to Denver history, it lags far behind the top teams currently in the NBA.
Of course, given the move the Nuggets made this summer, it seemed unlikely the 2008-09 team was likely to challenge the best in the NBA or even the best in Denver history. In July the Nuggets sent Marcus Camby to the LA Clippers for a Wal-Mart gift certificate (or something like that). Camby led the 2007-08 Denver Nuggets with 21.0 Wins Produced. Apparently Denver’s plan was to replace Camby with Nene Hilario, who missed most of the 2007-08 season. In 2006-07 Nene posted a 0.158 WP48 [Wins Produced per 48 minutes], which would be worth 8.7 wins in the time allotted Camby last season. In other words, the move from Camby to Nene would cost the Nuggets about twelve victories.
This decline was partially offset by the addition of Chris Andersen and Renaldo Balkman, two additions designed to make-up for the loss of Eduardo Najera. Last year Najera produced 1.3 wins with a 0.038 WP48. As Table One indicates, Andersen and Balkman are both above average talents, and their addition cuts the cost of losing Camby about in half.
Table One: The Denver Nuggets in 2008-09 after 35 games
What’s interesting about this season is that Denver really hasn’t decline at all. Their most productive player is gone and the team’s efficiency differential – as the above numbers indicate – has only declined about 0.30. In other words, the team is about what they were last year. So how is this possible?
Adding Billups
As noted last November, the trade of Allen Iverson for Chauncey Billups looked to be enough to completely offset the loss of Camby. We can see this if we look at the relative performances of each player.
Here is what Chauncey Billups produced from 2002-03 to 2007-08 [the six years he played in Detroit].
2002-03: 0.220 WP48
2003-04: 0.177 WP48
2004-05: 0.209 WP48
2005-06: 0.268 WP48
2006-07: 0.252 WP48
2007-08: 0.304 WP48
And here is what Allen Iverson did across this same time period.
2002-03: 0.086 WP48
2003-04: 0.020 WP48
2004-05: 0.152 WP48
2005-06: 0.127 WP48
2006-07: 0.072 WP48
2007-08: 0.134 WP48
As one can see, Iverson at his best didn’t match Billups at his worst. If we look at averages, Billups has posted a mark of 0.238 while Iverson’s average stands at 0.104. In words, Billups has been consistently very good while Iverson has struggled to surpass the average mark (average WP48 is 0.100).
When we look at the individual stats -which I did at the time of the trade (and also last summer) – we can see where Billups excels. The key for Billups – as illustrated by Table Two — is avoiding mistakes. Specifically, Billups doesn’t commit many turnovers and he tends to hit his shots. In contrast, Allen Iverson (and Isiah Thomas) is essentially the opposite player.
Table Two: Comparing Chauncey Billups, Isiah Thomas, and Allen Iverson
Billups ability to avoid mistakes makes him like a quarterback who doesn’t throw interceptions. Although this is a valuable skill, avoiding an interception is not as memorable as throwing a touchdown pass. Likewise, not committing a turnover is not something people tend to remember. Consequently, people who only watch basketball tend to be a bit confused about the relative value of Billups and Iverson (while those who watch basketball AND look at the stats tend to be a bit less confused, at least about basketball).
A Denver Dream
The Camby move was clearly motivated by money. Camby’s combined salary in 2008-09 and 2009-10 is $15.65 million. By sending Camby to the Clippers, and acquiring the talents of Andersen, Balkman, and Billups, the Nuggets have managed to assemble a team that is essentially as good as what we saw last year. This team, though, costs somewhat less.
Although this might make sense from a business perspective, fans of Denver have to wonder what would have happened if the Nuggets had kept Camby and still acquired Billups? The above numbers suggest that Denver could right now be on pace to win more than 60 games. This may not have been enough to challenge the Lakers, Celtics, and Cavaliers. But it would have easily been the best team in Denver history.
As it stands now, Denver only has one of the very best teams in franchise history. And if a few players improve slightly, it could still be the very best team in NBA franchise history. The path to this mark, though, will be much harder with Camby producing all those wins for the Clippers.
- DJ
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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.
25 responses so far ↓
Michael // January 5, 2009 at 1:19 am
If you believe everything you read on the internet then the Nuggets also had the opportunity recently to acquire David Lee in exchange for Linas Klieza. Maybe if they had kept Camby and made the trade for Billups and Lee, they really would be championship contenders!
More interesting (at least to me) is that Carmelo Anthony seemed to be promising a large jump in productivity from the second half of last year (he lept into the 0.250’s if I remember correctly?) but so far this year that hasn’t carried over.
Perhaps if he does revert to the player he was in the second half of last season this Nuggets team really be their best one ever. Though there still will be what ifs.
What Might Have Been in Denver « The Wages of Wins Journal | NBA Star : Allen Iverson // January 5, 2009 at 6:04 am
[...] More here: What Might Have Been in Denver « The Wages of Wins Journal [...]
nick // January 5, 2009 at 8:01 am
i’d be interested to hear how you breakdown the ‘00-’01 sixers that went to the finals. i haven’t seen an analysis of that. if not iverson, who produced all of the wins on that team? dikembe was the only one to have any success after that. most of the other guys went on to warm benches with other clubs. was this just a confluence of a few players having career years all together or were there some hidden gems on that team?
Westy // January 5, 2009 at 8:21 am
Who would Camby be getting minutes from, though?
If it was Nene or the Birdman, the net improvement would seem to be slight?
Michael // January 5, 2009 at 8:30 am
Well I am just bored enough to help with this
http://dberri.wordpress.com/2006/07/24/how-did-philadelphia-get-to-the-finals-in-2001/
I’m sure George Lynch and Aaron McKie and Tyrone Hill qualify as “Hidden Gems’!
If in future you need to search within the site go to googles advanced search, put http://dberri.wordpress.com/ into the “Search within a site or domain” section, and enter your query into the “Find web pages that have” section.
Westy I have Cambys WP48 at well over 0.400 right now. Even if he took all of Nene’s minutes, the net improvement in terms of wins would be significant over the course of a season.
TK // January 5, 2009 at 10:17 am
Nick: DBerri had a full discussion of the 2000-2001 Sixers a couple of years ago. Here’s the link:
http://dberri.wordpress.com/2006/07/24/how-did-philadelphia-get-to-the-finals-in-2001/
Short answer: Dikembe produced a ton of wins, and several role players produced more than one might expect.
TK // January 5, 2009 at 10:18 am
Sorry… I misspoke. Dikembe produced at a prodigious rate (.346 WP/48) — but not a huge number of wins.
Brett // January 5, 2009 at 12:03 pm
Another interesting hypothetical is what if a decent team had offered a gift certificate and a Wii to get Camby’s services? Could a Chandler/Camby duo in New Orleans put them on par with LA? And would the Wii have been too big a distraction in Denver, leading to high Mario Kart ratings but few wins on the court?
Michael // January 5, 2009 at 12:16 pm
Westy I have Cambys WP48 at over 0.450 right now. Even if he took all of Nene’s minutes, the net improvement in terms of wins would be significant. But in reality Nene could shift to PF anyway, which could possibly increase his current productivity (less the potential impact of diminishing returns). Of course this would be at the expense of Kenyon Martin, who has been productive so far, but still a significant net gain.
In case anyone is interested, if you have a query like Nick that you need to search within the site for go to googles advanced search, put http://dberri.wordpress.com/ into the “Search within a site or domain” section, and enter your query into the “Find web pages that have” section. This is much more effective than the built in search (at least in my experience.)
Mountain // January 5, 2009 at 1:19 pm
As a team Denver is better on both rebound rates this season without Camby (individual rebounding is fairly replaceable). Just .1 pt worse on defensive efficiency while efG% allowed is down 1.3 %pts.
What might have been is still a good question but the answer is unclear. He might have made an important difference even if it was off the bench.
mrparker // January 5, 2009 at 2:57 pm
Mountain,
For what its worth,
From what I’ve “researched”(I’m not a professor or anything like that, obviously) Some of the most productive players just become more productive in other aspects when their teammates get better at one of their specialties. So, maybe Camby would be able to take a few more shots, or a few more assists, or less fouls chasing rebounds, etc.
Mountain // January 5, 2009 at 4:43 pm
Possibly. Tracking Camby’s career thru many teams might provide some evidence one way or the other.
Mountain // January 5, 2009 at 5:06 pm
Early in his career he shot the most and rebounded the least but there hasn’t been much correlation since with shots, FG%, assists, etc. at least on quick eyeball check. This year he is at career highs on TS% and defensive rebounding at the same time.
Vince Gagliano // January 5, 2009 at 8:42 pm
Truth be told, even if Denver found a way to acquire Billups and Camby together, I still don’t see how the Nugs win 55+ games.
First off, Camby has usually been very injury prone throughout his career.
Second, he’s past his prime at 34, and will turn 35 during this season. It’s simply tough to maintain a high level of performance at that late age in the league.
Third, he wasn’t happy about doing the dirty work in Denver, and would have likely been undermotivated.
And fourth, Nene is showing himself to be a more than capable replacement with a .211 WP48.
Stop me if you’ve heard this before – but most of Denver’s problems are at the defensive end. Here is a season-by-season look during the Camby years and the first season after. This excludes the first season where he was hurt and played only 29 games:
2003-04: 100.9 points per 100 possessions
2004-05: 101.9
2005-06: 103.1
2006-07: 103.7
2007-08: 104.2
2008-09 (ATOW): 104.1
Ironically, even though Camby won a defensive POY in the Mile High City, the Nugs steadily got worse and worse as the seasons went by with him. Karl didn’t exactly do much to buck the trend.
However, with Billups, Denver has managed, at least in part, to reverse this pattern. That, and better offensive efficiency, has led to their quality of play.
Italian Stallion // January 6, 2009 at 8:47 am
If Renaldo Balkman is an above average player someone has to explain to me why Isiah Thomas hardly used him at all at times last year, Walsh and D’Antoni didn’t even want him, and except for a period when there was an injury in Denver, he’s been reduced to DNP (coach’s decision) and garbage time?
He’s an efficient scorer around the basket, plays good defense, and is an above average rebounder for a SF.
Is the problem that his skill set is more like a PF, but he’s too small for that position and doesn’t provide the outside shooting and more versatile offensive skills required/expected from a SF and that causes harder to measure downsides elsewhere?
It’s hard for me to believe that all these guys are so wrong when they get to see him in action almost daily in practice and then during games.
It seems to me that low usage efficient inside scorers that can rebound well but that can’t shoot from the outside often rate very well on this statistical model relative to perceptions and the time they are actually given on the court.
John W. Davis // January 6, 2009 at 12:51 pm
Go Stuckey. Conference Player of the week!
How do you think our savior Rodney Stuckey now Prof D?
You are a die hard Pistons fan at heart!
Phil // January 6, 2009 at 5:37 pm
Melo is out about a month. We’ll get a great chance to see how they Denver performs without him – he’s considered a top-tier player by the mainstream media, but has been quite pedestrian according to WP.
Vince Gagliano // January 6, 2009 at 6:05 pm
Here’s the tricky thing about Wins Produced:
If you want to describe the effect a player will have on a team, it’s not as simple as adding the wins a player produced in one season and subtracting the wins (or losses) a player leaves behind, or even changing around WP48s.
Minutes get reassigned. People need time to work together. Offensive and defensive strategies work for different types of players.
Perfect example: John Stockton is arguably the most productive point guard of the 1990s. A quick glance at his Jazz days using PAWSmin reveals a career WP48 at about .370 and approximately 367.8 career Wins Produced. Truly fantastic numbers indeed.
If we look at running mate Karl Malone as a power forward, then his numbers come out at .380 and 434.6.
That being said, don’t dare tell anybody in Salt Lake City that Malone was more productive. Truth be told, they were both key cogs in Jerry Sloan’s pick-and-roll scheme for years.
In their primes, how would either of those two have fared without the other? We’ll never know.
Stockton was a rookie in his one season without Malone, and Malone was well on in years in his one season with the Lakers.
So even though Anthony’s numbers seem pedestrian, Denver could be in for an even bigger slide in the standings and numbers.
For one thing, on many of ‘Melo’s baskets, somebody is giving him assists.
Phil // January 6, 2009 at 7:52 pm
Vince,
You make a good point. Marion and Nash is another modern-day example, as Marion’s scoring notably improved with Nash dishing to him, and Nash certainly benefited from having Marion to loft alleys to.
As for Denver’s situation, Melo provided a lot of volume scoring, albeit somewhat inefficiently. Smith and Billups can take up a lot of the scoring load, and they’ve got bigs that are great transition finishers, so they might look to run a bit more. If they were a team short on creative players – say, Toronto losing Bosh – they’d be far worse off. (And not just because Bosh is better than Melo).
Vince Gagliano // January 6, 2009 at 8:46 pm
Look for Nene’s numbers to slip. Without defenses double-teaming Melo, he’s going to get more attention in the low post.
However, the primary point of attack for opposing defenses will now be the perimeter (Billups shoots over 40% from 3, J.R. over 37%), even moreso than when Anthony is on the floor.
In other words, without Melo, the Nuggets are more predictable. And that means a tumultuous few weeks ahead.
At best, Denver will play like a 6-8 seed in the West. At worst, they’ll go into a freefall and have to work to get back into the playoffs.
Vince Gagliano // January 6, 2009 at 8:54 pm
Oh, and Jazz fans, much of Malone’s boost in Wins Produced was due to more career minutes than Stockton.
So, for all intents and purposes, Stockton’s and Malone’s legacies as equals will remain intact.
Ralph // January 6, 2009 at 10:01 pm
Dave Berri, what do you think of this article, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/07/sports/baseball/07depression.html ? Didn’t you find a study that showed a recession wouldn’t even influence attendance?
too many steves // January 7, 2009 at 6:24 pm
Perhaps the answer is that Marcus Camby isn’t as good as his numbers suggest. He rebounds and he blocks shots, but he’s not a very good individual defender. He’s also a disaster on the offensive end. All he does is shoot 17-foot jumpers, and he’s not very good at them.
spike // January 9, 2009 at 8:37 am
steves,
that would imply that Wins Produced is not a good model, when Berri has clearly showed that all that matters in basketball is getting rebounds and not turning the ball over.
The Other Better Bynum « The Wages of Wins Journal // April 9, 2009 at 8:46 pm
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