Last summer the Indiana Pacers signed (via a sign-and-trade with the Hawks) Al Harrington to a four year, $35.3 million contract. At the time, a few people thought this would vault the Pacers into contention. Those who looked at Harrington’s career Wins Produced reached a different conclusion, which one can see in the following posts:
Do we under-value scorers and should Al Harrington cash in?
Al Harrington is Like Andrei Kirilenko?
Harrington’s Not Stojakovic Either
After 38 games the Pacers posted a record of 20-18. Per 100 possessions the team was averaging 99.7 points scored while surrendering 100.7. In other words, in terms of offensive and defensive efficiency, the Pacers should have expected to be a sub-0.500 team. The mediocrity of the club prompted Jermaine O’Neal to question if the Pacers were on the right course. O’Neal’s outburst led me to ask: Should Jermaine O’Neal be Unhappy?
My answer focused on the expectations the Pacers should have had given that Al Harrington and Stephen Jackson were part of their starting line-up. In essence, the Pacers should have expected to be an average team, not a contender.
Less than two weeks after O’Neal questioned the team’s direction, Indiana’s management has decided to abandon the Harrington project, trading both Harrington and Jackson to the Warriors. After looking at the numbers, one suspects this course correction could do wonders for the happiness level of O’Neal.
The Trade – By the Numbers
The Pacers are sending Harrington, Stephen Jackson, Sarunas Jasikevicius, and Josh Powell to the Warriors. In return the Pacers are receiving Troy Murphy, Mike Dunleavy, Ike Diogu, and Keith McLeod.
Let’s start the analysis with the Wins Produced per 48 minutes [WP48] each player had posted in his career entering the season, as well as what the player has done in 2006-07.
Here are the newest members of the Golden State Warriors:
- Al Harrington: Career (0.22), 2006-07 (-0.20)
- Stephen Jackson: Career (0.047), 2006-07 (0.003)
- Sarunas Jasikevicius: Career (0.108), 2006-07 (0.032)
- Josh Powell: Career (-0.040), 2006-07 (-0.290)
Here are the newest members of the Indiana Pacers:
- Troy Murphy: Career (0.138), 2006-07 (0.138)
- Mike Dunleavy: Career (0.100), 2006-07 (0.031)
- Ike Diogu: Career (0.032), 2006-07 (0.116)
- Keith McLeod: Career (-0.031), 2006-07 (-0.003)
Golden State’s Acquisitions
Now that we see the numbers, let’s review what the Warriors are taking on. The key players are Harrington and Jackson. Each has experience, with Harrington currently playing his 9th season while Jackson is in his 7th. Although these players have played, neither has ever played very well. Entering the 2005-06 season, neither player had posted a WP48 above the average mark of 0.100. And this year is not any different. So the key attractions for the Warriors are both below average performers.
Jasikevicious and Powell were also added to the deal. Powell has only played 64 minutes this year, so we do not expect much from him. Jasikevicious, though, was about average last year. This year he has offered a bit less in fewer minutes. The problem for Jasikevicious is that he is joining a team with a surplus of guards. So it’s hard to see how he plays major minutes with the Warriors.
In sum, the numbers tell us that the players the Warriors have acquired are probably not going to help this team. Given the players Golden State employs, Harrington will once again play power forward, where his inability to rebound will reduce the ability of his team to win. If Jackson takes minutes from Monta Ellis, that would help a little bit. One suspects, though, that he will take minutes from Matt Barnes and Mickael Pietrus, and that would not make the Warriors a better team.
Indiana’s Acquisitions
The numbers suggest that the Warriors are worse off. The Pacers, though, look to be improved. Let’s start with Troy Murphy. Murphy has consistently been an above average performer in his career. If Murphy had played for the Pacers from the start of the season in place of Harrington, we would projec the Pacers to already have won four additional games. Over the course of an 82 games season that translates into 8.6 additional victories. So just replacing Harrington with Murphy is a big step up.
Not only did they get to replace Harrington – again, their big off-season mistake – with an above average player, the Pacers also get Mike Dunleavy. Dunleavy was the third player taken in the 2002 draft and has hardly lived up to his draft status. This year his productivity has suffered because the Warriors appear to be playing him at power forward. As a small forward, Dunleavy is capable of being average, and given the talent on the Pacers, that is where he will most likely play. Although Dunleavy is only average, he will be taking minutes at small forward that were going to Jackson. As we saw, Jackson is below average. So again the Pacers are winners.
But that’s not all the Pacers get. Behind door number three we see the Warriors lottery pick from 2005, Ike Diogu. Diogu did little his rookie season. But this year his WP48 has been above average. He will be joining very solid front court that feature Jermaine O’Neal, Jeff Foster, and Murphy. With Danny Granger and Dunleavy taking the small forward slot, the Pacers appear to have above average players in abundance at the 3, 4, and 5 positions.
The only problem is the backcourt. The loss of Jackson and Jasikevicious leaves only Marquis Daniels with any real experience at the shooting guard position. Daniels was an above average player in Dallas, but has struggled with Indiana. Looking at the roster, though, the shooting guard position is his to lose. And if he reverts to what we saw in Dallas, again the Pacers come out ahead.
Impact of New Teammates and New Coaches
Throughout this entire discussion I have been looking at what these players did on their previous team and projecting this performance into the future. It is important to remember that players are not machines. Although past performance is the best predictor of future production, other factors can cause these players to offer more or less.
Two factors are important to note with any trade. Players who play with the same teammates over time will tend to play better. In other words, familiarity breeds improvement in basketball. Obviously these players are now getting a collection of new teammates and that can cause performance to fall.
Additionally, changing coaches can also cause productivity to decline. One bright spot for the Warriors, though, is that Don Nelson has been shown to get more productivity from his players than a generic coach. So it’s possible that the newest Warriors will play better for Golden State.
Finally, the more productive your teammates the less productive you will be. The newest Pacers will be playing with better teammates, so we can expect these players to play a bit worse.
All that being said, it’s important to note that the impact of being on a new team with a new coach, the brilliance of Don Nelson, and the productivity of teammates is relatively small. In other words, I still expect Troy Murphy to be an above average player for the Pacers. And I still expect Al Harrington and Stephen Jackson to be below average performers for the Warriors.
A Quick Forecast
There is only about half a season left to play. Although I expect this trade improves the Pacers, I do not think there is enough time left for this team to get to 50 victories in 2006-07. Still, given the weakness of the Eastern Conference, I do expect this team to be competitive in the NBA playoffs.
As for the Warriors, this trade makes a team that was not in serious contention in the Western Conference worse. Hence, this move makes it more likely that Golden State will be personally observing the NBA’s annual draft lottery. Given the expected talent in the 2007 draft, perhaps this is what Nelson and the Warriors are trying to achieve. Golden State has talent in Andris Biedrins, Baron Davis, Jason Richardson, and Matt Barnes. A lucky break in the lottery could add a talent that could turn Golden State into a legitimate contender in 2007-08. So in the long-run, this trade might end up working for both teams.
– DJ
Wages of Wins Journal 
Keith Jennings
January 19, 2007
Your breakdown is pretty much what I expected, given the traded players’ former production, and I don’t disagree on the W’s acquisitions.
Problem is, you need to watch Murph and Dunleavy play a little more to accurately evaluate. Murphy has regressed significantly over the last three years or so, he has looked lost on the court this season….to say nothing of his evaporated athleticism. Dunleavy still not close to the sum of his talents, and while a new set of fans may help his mental outlook, the defense and contract should always make him a liability.
JB
January 19, 2007
I am curious about how Pacers fill SG minutes. it might be expected to mainly be Daniel/MCLeod/Greene/ Marshall but I think they might also look hard at Dunleavy or Williams there some for better outside shooting. Sure some guys will blow their doors off and get in the paint but ONeal is supposed to help cover that and keep it from being too painful.
JB
January 19, 2007
They probably should try to trade for a natural SG shooter but might have trouble prying one before summer.
Jeremy
January 19, 2007
What “Mister” Jennings articulated is the core of the argument I’ve been up against with fellow Warrior fans. Faced with the spectacularly unpopular Dunleavy and Murphy, Wins Produced seems to be asking them, ‘Who you gonna believe, me or your lying eyes?’
For instance, Murphy doesn’t commit a lot of fouls, but then this could be attributed to his matador defense. This would show up as a positive effect on WP, but surely has a negative impact on team defensive efficiency. Or so the counter argument would go, I think.
Jeremy
January 19, 2007
I really like the idea of improving the Warriors odds in this years lottery. They’ve been bad, but not *really* bad for three or four years now. Last time they really dipped down all they came up with was Dunleavy.
I’d like this time to be better. I’d recommend trading Matt Barnes for a pick or a non-contributor to help achieve this goal.
kjb
January 19, 2007
I agree with the analysis in the posting today (using different stat measures, I’d come to basically the same conclusion). What I’m curious about is how you’re calculating possessions.
JB
January 19, 2007
Listening to Donnie Walsh on Chad Ford’s podcast, he referred to Dunleavy as capable at both guard positions and less positively at forward positions. But of course the remark may or may not mean much. The coach, presumably, will decide.
Jason
January 19, 2007
I agree that the Warriors aren’t getting much back and that thoughts that they’re improving themselves by picking up guys who didn’t really improve another club seem peculiar. Don Nelson commented yesterday that Harrington’s numbers weren’t very good, largely because a guy his size needs to rebound.
But I’m not sure about the value of what they gave up to get him. The notion that Dunleavy is average strikes me as more or less the perfect description of him. He’s average in so many ways too. But Murphy an above average contributor? That’s where I have to take issue.
Murphy has been, by and large, the player that gives me the longest and most serious pause when looking at ‘wins produced.’ He gathers a bunch of rebounds, but if ever there were a case of this meaning little to the actual outcome, it’s in his case. He’s in negative +/- land which means that when he’s in the game, the Warriors fall behind. No matter what his raw stats translate to in the final average, being negative in the +/- means that his ‘contribution’ isn’t resulting in the team doing better. This isn’t just a small sample size either, but it’s been true for more than a season.
Perhaps he’s the case where he really *does* get his rebounds largely due to taking them away from teammates because for two seasons, when he’s in the game, the Warriors have gathered a smaller fraction of the available rebounds than when he’s on the bench. It seems he’s a classic case where the partitioning of the box score gives him more credit than he’s due because his presence detracts more from others than he himself makes up for.
I think the Warriors probably gave up a bit more and will miss Dunleavy more than they thought and grow tired of Jackson and Harrington sooner rather than later, but all told, as ‘blockbusters’ go, this really was a case of two teams starting a conversation with “you think YOU have problems” and then deciding to swap them rather than look for real solutions.
KC
January 19, 2007
As for Jackson’s bad numbers this year, how much can be attributed to attitude and off-court problems? A change of scenery, and Nelson’s hi-octane offense, could help him a whole lot.
Murphy was undervalued by Nelson. The notion that he stole rebounds from teammates is laughable. He is a good rebounder period. He is pretty efficient with the pill too. He will do well with the Pacers.
Dunleavy may thrive too, but i doubt it. Does Indiana play a lot of zone? That would be the only way he could play 2. man-on-man he would be torched badly having to guard the opposing 2’s. The best anyone can hope for Mike is a 6th man role. But that was not going to happen with the W’s, so I’m glad he’s gone. He probably is too.
Jason
January 19, 2007
Why is the notion that Murphy stole rebounds from teammates laughable? Gut reaction or do you have counter argument to the fact that his presence diminished the *team’s* ability to secure boards?
When Murphy was in the game, the Warriors had fewer rebounds than when he was out of the game. This has been true for a couple of years now. It isn’t an opinion, but a statistical observation. If not stealing them from his teammates, whatever he was doing didn’t add to the *team’s* overall rebounding. I’m open to other suggestions for this observation, but dismissing it as “laughable” seems to be a “laughable” attempt to avoid data contrary to your position.
Keith Jennings
January 19, 2007
“Faced with the spectacularly unpopular Dunleavy and Murphy, Wins Produced seems to be asking them, ‘Who you gonna believe, me or your lying eyes?’”
_______________________
Its definitely a funny disconnect. However as much as I appreciate the WP ratings and what goes into them, its impossible to quantify defense outside of rebounding. Its always been a big problem having Dunleavy at 3 and Murphy at 4, Foyle was playing help defense on every play and nobody was on the boards….possible explanation for the REB decline when Murph was on the floor.
I stuck up for Dunleavy forever, but had enough around midseason last year. Supremely average, softest player in the league. Nice offensive facilitator of course, always moves to the right spot and smart passer. But about a 5 million/year skill set.
dberri
January 20, 2007
Let me try and respond to some of these comments.
KJB,
We explain how possessions are calculated in WOW. Was this not clear? Please let me know if it was not.
JB,
I am not sure Dunleavy can play shooting guard. Then again, I am not sure how he gets minutes at small forward.
Jason and KC.
First of all, nothing Jason says is “laughable.” In fact, I have never like that line of argument. We either consider an argument valid or invalid, or consistent or inconsistent with the evidence.
That being said, I am not sure I agree with Jason. At least I have problems relying on the plus-minus approach. As we detail in the book, this approach has serious problems.
It’s possible that Murphy is a horrible defensive player, and therefore WP over-states his contribution. Although Murphy may have troubles on defense, I still can’t see how exchanging Murphy for Harrington improves the Warriors. Harrington is one of the least productive big men in the game. And given that the Warriors have also added Stephen Jackson, this trade just looks like a very bad deal for Golden State.
Jason
January 20, 2007
Firstly, don’t confuse considering WP to overvalue Murphy the same thing as considering this a good trade for the Warriors. My hunch is that they got rid of one of the few guys that WP doesn’t do a good job of evaluating (Murphy) in exchange for a guy that it correctly indicates isn’t much of a contributor (Harrington). My basic argument is that they may not have regressed their team as much as the WP comparison indicates simply because I believe Murphy is in that class of players for whom the model doesn’t correctly assign the components of wins.
There’s clearly some error in WP, like any statistical model, but I wonder if the error is evenly or randomly distributed or if particular players routinely defy it. My argument for the latter would use players like Murphy as a test.
+/- has problems. It’s heavily influenced by teammates and combinations, but over a long sample, I think it can tell us something, at least in a rough picture. In each of the last 5 seasons, the Warriors as a team have been outscored when Murphy has been on the court. This isn’t surprising. They’ve been a bad to terrible team for more than a decade. But in 4 of those 5 seasons, they’ve actually scored *more* than their opponents for the time that Murphy was on the bench and in the other season, the scoring margin without Murphy was much, much better without him in the game (-0.1 points per 100 possessions vs. -3.3 when he was in the game). In a small sample, I can accept that he’s part of the solution but just gets paired with terrible teammates and his stats accurately reflect his contributions. But over 5 seasons where his team keeps coming up shorter when he’s on the court than when he’s on the bench, it really looks like he isn’t producing the wins he’s credited for. If they keep coming up short when he’s on the court but not when he’s on the bench , how can he be producing wins with his statistics?
John DePalma
January 20, 2007
You wrote: “… Additionally, changing coaches can also cause productivity to decline. One bright spot for the Warriors, though, is that Don Nelson has been shown to get more productivity from his players than a generic coach. So it’s possible that the newest Warriors will play better for Golden State.”
Relatedly, the NY Times had a great article this week on how the Dallas Mavericks hired a free throw coach. (“The Dallas Mavericks, the N.B.A.’s top team this season, are no strangers to winning ways, but in getting an edge on opponents over the past several years, they have gone beyond sheer talent … ” http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/15/sports/basketball/15boren.html )
And Michael Lewis wrote something similar on Texas Tech football coach Mike Leach. (“…Leach was finding new and better ways to extract value from his players…” http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/04/magazine/04coach.html?ei=5090&en=c9f46201dc95f91d&ex=1291352400&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=all )
JB
January 20, 2007
DBerri and all,
Just a quick update. My suspicions and reading of clues appears to right, at least for today. Dunleavy started first game with Pacers with Tinsley, Granger ONeal and Foster. Call it SG or only true wing but that is 2 on the position list.
JB
January 20, 2007
Unless… they moved Granger to SG? Anybody watch the game?
KC
January 20, 2007
OK, I apologize for the poor choice of adjectives. But I fail to see how he was taking rebounds from his teammates.
The fact that the team gets fewer rebounds when he’s on the floor might have to do with the fact that he’s a starter and the W’s are a poor rebounding team. When he was out there, he anchors the rebounding — and the center is playing help D for him and Mike.
dberri
January 21, 2007
John DePalma,
Just another note on Don Nelson… our study of head coaches did find that players play better for Nelson. I would add that the majority of coaches we examined did not have any impact on player performance. So Nelson appears to be one of the better head coaches.
KC,
I am also skeptical that Murphy is stealing very many rebounds from his teammates. It is the case that player productivity can negatively impact the performance of teammates. In other words, players do take field goal attempts and rebounds from teammates. I have found the effect, though, to be rather small.
I would agree, though, that it is possible that Murphy is a very poor defender. Wins Produced only considers the average defensive ability on a team. So if you are much worse than your teammates it will over-state your impact.
That being said, I do have trouble intepreting plus-minus results. A number of factors can drive those findings, and although people make an effort to control for these issues, I do not think the controls are perfect.
JB,
I was suprised to see Granger and Dunleavy start. One of them has to be the shooting guard. If anyone saw the game, please let us know where you think each player played.
JB
January 22, 2007
Not the same as seeing how it looked but Indy Star newspaper said it was Dunleavy at starting point guard.
Both Walsh and Carlisle also mentioned his ability to play PG.
They may try a little of everything. SG may be the main place right now but it is hard to say what sticks. Despite the denials they might not have Dunleavy long, depending on whether it fits and produces above average at any position.
The coach should get another round of tough scrutiny too. If his system and style doesnt do better with the new guys, I think it will be docked more of the blame by more people.
The Franchise
February 1, 2007
On a sports radio show last night, an analyst mentioned that now that the players have started playing for their new teams, this deal is looking even more lopsided than he thought at first.
It is odd to think that Golden State would make such a profoundly poor decision with respect to on-court performance when they are in the running for post-season play. If they were worse, then their decisions could be rational in a “season-tanking” model, but for a team like the Warriors, they still have a chance to get to the playoffs, which would be a great success for a tean with such a long history of losing.