The final edits for The Wages of Wins were completed soon after the 2006 Super Bowl. In fact, the paragraph describing that game in Chapter Nine was the last paragraph added to the book.
In the weeks after the book was completed JC Bradbury – of Sabernomics and The Baseball Economist – suggested that we start a blog (in other words, the WOW journal is his fault). At the time, the only blog I had seen was Sabernomics and the Freakonomics blog. I had no idea how to start a blog, write for a blog, or anything else about blogs. Nevertheless, we thought it couldn’t hurt. Thankfully WordPress makes it pretty easy to get started.
The book was officially released at the end of May. Given that publication date, we decided to start the blog in April. Specifically, on April 10, 2006, the WOW Journal went on-line and the first comment was posted. So as noted, today is our anniversary.
Looking Back
I thought it might be fun to note this day by looking back on the past year. Let me start with a bit of data provided by WordPress.
Number of Posts = 335
Number of Comments = 1,483
Number of Page Views = 221,785
We are averaging nearly one post per day. Each post attracts about 4.4 comments. And per day, we have about 600 page views.
Of course some days we do better than others. On May 22, 2006, Malcolm Gladwell’s review appeared at The New Yorker’s website (the print version appeared a week later).The day before Tyler Cowen noted The Wages of Wins at Marginal Revolution. That combination pushed our page views to 1,491 on that Monday (our previous high before Cowen’s review appeared was 116 page views). The following week, on May 30, Jason Kottke at Kottke.org noted The Wages of Wins and our page views – just for that day – passed the 3,000 mark. That remains our daily record.
After the furor over the Kottke mention faded our page views failed to pass the 1,000 mark again until last November. Around that time I was asked to comment on John Hollinger’s Player Efficiency Rating. My comment led to a comment by Gladwell, a response by Hollinger, my reply, and another comment from Gladwell.
Since this event, our blog has averaged about 950 page views per day. To put that number in perspective let me refer to the ranking of economics blogs posted by Brian Gongol. Gongol has created a ranking that compares a blog’s page views – and visits – to the top economics blog. He then compares that blog ranking to a similar comparison of newspaper circulations. Consequently, Gongol can give each blog a sense of their audience size.
To see how these rankings work, let’s note that the top econ blog is The Big Picture, which has 29,878 page views per day. ElectEcon – a blog similar in size to the WOW journal – ranks 45th on the list and has about 842 page views per day. The relative size of ElectEcon to The Big Picture is similar to the circulation rates of the Argus Leader – Stacey’s local paper in Sioux Falls – relative to the USA Today.
In sum, the WOW Journal is the Argus Leader of Econ blogs, which is the same story you can tell for The Sports Economist (the other blog where I occasionally post).
If our reference group is the very top econ blogs, the WOW journal comes up quite a bit short. But for a blog strictly on sports economics, our audience appears comparable to both the Sports Economist and Sabernomics (at least before Bradbury’s book was published).
What it All Means
Okay, what does all this mean? Gregory Mankiw – who has one of the top econ blogs – has said his blog is primarily about selling his textbooks. This might be true for Mankiw, but I find it hard to believe the WOW journal has sold many copies of our book.
Our Amazon.com ranking rose above 300 (or is that below?) on two occasions. The first time was when Malcolm Gladwell’s review appeared in The New Yorker. About a month later (June 24, 2006) Joe Nocera’s review of The Wages of Wins appeared in the Saturday edition of The New York Times. That weekend The Wages of Wins became the #1 sports book at Barnes and Noble. At Amazon.com, our ranking among sports books reached #2.
Clearly the attention from the New York press had an impact. In fact, both the attention and impact caught us very much be surprise. It’s important to remember that The Wages of Wins was published by Stanford Press. Stanford Press is a university press, not a major commercial publisher. For a book from a university press to garner this much attention is a bit unusual. So we were more than a bit surprised when our book was briefly ranked so high.
According to Gongol, the New York Times has a daily circulation of 1.6 million. Clearly this dwarfs the viewership we see at the top econ blogs or in this forum. Consequently it’s not surprising that the on-line conversations on this book do not have much impact on our sales.
So if the blog is not helping book sales, why keep this venture going? When I asked Marty what we should say to mark our anniversary he sent back a one word answer: “good-bye.” My wife very much echoes that sentiment. Both Marty and my wife see the WOW journal as a waste of time that detracts from my academic research.
I am not prepared to admit that the blog has reduced my research output. In the last six months I have submitted two papers for publication and completed two book chapters for academic collections. Furthermore, writing for the blog may have actually helped my research. Both PAWS and PAWSmin – at least these names — came about because of this blog. And then there is… okay, not sure I can think of anything else. But I am sure if we went over all the writing I have done for the WOW Journal there is something else that has helped my academic research.
Beyond the research value is the issue of when I write. My children go to bed at 8:45 each night. My wife likes to read until 9:30pm. For those 45 minutes, I have very little to do besides working on this blog. In other words, I am unlikely to write a journal article in these 45 minutes, but I can easily compose a blog entry in that time.
Plus, the blog gives me a reason to look at issues that would never be addressed in an academic article. In the past few weeks I have looked at why the Spurs, Mavericks, and Suns are good teams, why the Memphis Grizzlies became a bad team, and why Kevin Martin is not the most improved player in the league. Certainly I could look at these topics without writing a blog entry, but then I would just be “wasting my time.” The blog gives me a reason to look at stuff that I would look at anyways, but this way I feel like I am actually “doing something.”
As long as this is the case, I think The Wages of Wins Journal should continue. As I noted a few weeks ago, my teaching schedule this quarter means entries here will be less frequent. In eight weeks, though, the spring quarter at CSUB will end and I might have the time to do daily entries again.
What, though, should I write about?
Let me open this up to the people who have taken time out of their day to look at this site. What analysis would you like to see Stacey or I do? Please let me know in the comment section.
I do not know when I or Stacey will get to these requests, but hopefully I will find plenty of time when this quarter is completed. In the meantime, thanks to everyone for stopping by and hopefully the second year of this venture will be as much fun as the first.
– DJ
Wages of Wins Journal 
Bill
April 10, 2007
How about a look at the 2007 free agent pool. Who are the underrated gems ripe for a team to pick up? Who are the overrated chuckers likely to command a large salary but produce few wins?
What are some off-season moves you would recommend specific teams make? Take Charlotte, for instance. Should they sign Rashard Lewis? Should Hermann take Morrison’s minutes next season? Is it worthwhile to resign Gerald Wallace? Matt Carroll?
Perhaps a month-long run-down of your advice for each team during the offseason (taking into account draft picks, free agents, salary cap, style of play, ownership, etc.).
I’m very grateful for your blog, and I certainly urge you to keep up the great work!
The Franchise
April 10, 2007
I like Bill’s ideas–a ranking of pro prospects would be interesting.
In particular, though, it would be especially compelling to see your thoughts on what positions each NBA team should be making changes at to improve themselves. (Utah Jazz, for example, have plenty of forwards, and other than Deron Williams, little else–it’s clear Okur plays center by default, rather than by design. Such a team should be looking to improve at SG, and possibly at Center.)
Ryan J. Parker
April 10, 2007
Like the first two commentators, I’d like to see you show how the Wins Produced metrics can be used to suggest changes for teams (add specific players, remove specific players, etc.) to help garner more wins next year.
DJF
April 10, 2007
I really enjoy the website. Lots of baseball-specific sites out there, but few tackle the NBA in depth like yours. I would love to see you revist past NBA Drafts and calculate projected draft order, as ranked by Wins Produced. So who should have gone in the lottery in the 1996 Draft? What order? Or the loaded 1998 class with Pierce, Carter, Bibby, Jamison, Dirk, etc.? Lebron, Carmelo, Bosh, Wade in 2003?
I visit nearly every day, depending on whether I have time after work. I like historical reviews, more than projections of the future. The periodic rookie rankings by Wins Produced/48 Minutes are great, too.
Keep up the good work!
Dan
mt
April 10, 2007
Your blog is great and i read it in australia (i’ve read the book too). I agree with ‘bill’ that you should suggest some off-season moves for teams in the nba
Tom Sunnergren
April 10, 2007
This blog has become a daily read for me. I rue the day when your win score will become the dominant metric for NBA player evaluation and my window of opportunity to GM the Sixers back to prominence will close. Happy anniversary.
Tom Sunnergren
April 10, 2007
I also look forward to some posts regarding the upcoming (sort of) NBA draft and your projected win scores for the top prospects.
Troy
April 11, 2007
Agree with several of the suggestions above. I’d also be curious to hear more about the D-League. I wonder if success in the D-League translates to success in the NBA? This may nicely coincide with the internship program you’re undertaking.
Also, what I’ve been reading seems miles ahead of the criteria most use when evaluating players,. It makes me wonder what the next set of improvements might be. I’d love to be in on that discussion.
Great blog, it would be sorely missed if it were gone.
Owen
April 11, 2007
It would be a terrible shame if you stopped posting Dave. Your academic career is very important of course, but it would be a real shame if you gave it up.
I agree with the above that the offseason should be a great time for you. Making predictions and doling out advice seems to be your bread and butter. You should be looking for more opportunities like the Iverson-Miller trade, where you can flex your analytical muscle, go against the grain, and be right. Plenty of opportunities should present themselves. For instance, how much should a team pay Gerald Wallace, who has been playing unbelievable basketball of late.
I also think the historical posts are very interesting. As a Knicks fan, I would love to know, how good were the Knicks of the nineties, especailly how good were Ewing, Oakley, and Starks. Was there a hole in Ewing’s game, was he overrated, or did he just fall short of Jordan’s greatness.
Love this blog,I definitely hope you keep posting.
JChan
April 11, 2007
Let me add my voice to those clamoring for you to keep posting. If it weren’t for this blog, “The Wages of Wins” would have just been another good book that I read. But having a place where the methods are being actively discussed and improved upon makes it much more interesting.
As far as requests, I think the most interesting posts have been those looking at moves that have already been made, i.e. trades, injuries, draft picks, and predicting what will come of them. Obviously the Iverson trade was the big one here, but I think there will be plenty of things happen over the off-season that will make for good analysis.
Again, thanks for using 45 minutes of your day to build a community. I think it’s great.
Mark T
April 11, 2007
Dave
Thanks, I read your blog most days and I find it really valuable. I have been wishing there were a place where one could pose you questions or ideas that are not comments on a specific blog entry. For example, after seeing Vince Carter’s 46 point, 16 rebound, 10 assist, 3 block performance April 7, I wanted to ask if that was the best single game performance this year as measured by your metrics , or where to look to know the answer, but could not find an appropriate vehicle to ask you that.
Also I echo the discussion earlier in the week that it would be a great longterm project to integrate in some ways the additional data in Roland’s 82games.com site, or even more desirably but more expensively, synergy sports’s data and also possibly to refine the model by filters or weightings for things like garbage time, end of quarter flings, and so on. Finally, in terms of analysis that can be done on existing boxscore data, the recent Wade-less Heat and Iverson-less 76er records lead me to suggest that you might consider analyzing whether setting up a team with balanced scoring is systematically superior to a team with scoring concentrated in one or two stars, although the league has always been thought of as a “star” league and the Jordan era seemed to validate that. Keep up the great work!
Finally,
anon
April 11, 2007
Mark T,
To answer your question, yes, Vince Carter’s was the best of the season. And there is a place where you can find the answer to this question:
JChan’s wonderful Win Score stat site:
http://www.jasonchandler.com/basketball/index.php
julius
April 11, 2007
Dave
Don’t stop posting, please. I enjoyed the book and I enjoy this journal very much because almost every day offers a new view about basketball.
I wonder if you had any offer from NBA general managers to made some kind of consulting now that we are near the post-season and it’s time to think in the building of the teams. I found your research is pure gold for the basketball operations departments.
Thank you
Paulo
April 11, 2007
Dave,
Congratulations! I’m very happy for you and the rest of the people who’ve worked on this blog.
I think it’s inevitable that you’ll rank/evaluate on the upcoming free agency period. The few weeks off would time perfectly with the deadlines for exercising player and team options (thus clarifying the free agent pool), the draft, and the finals.
Paulo
April 11, 2007
Mark T,
I just wanted to comment about your assessment of the NBA being a “star league.”
I, for one, never saw it as such, even if you called great teams as “Russel Celtics,” the “Bird-Magic era” and the “Jordan’s Bulls.” What those teams had was a great balance of scoring (IIRC, the 85 Celtics had a game where all 5 guys scored at least 20 and one of the Showtime Lakers had a ridiculous 55% FGM, correct me if I’m wrong), defense, and effort. It just so happens that those teams had a “star” player that brought out the best of those teams.
One-trick pony teams (T-Mac Magic, KG Wolves, early Kobe-only Lakers, early MJ Bulls, AI Sixers) won’t cut it, and never will. Yes, the NBA started to market itself as a “star” league in the 80’s, and it only got worse. But teamwork, effort and defense will always be what wins championships. And WOW supports that using metrics that indicate such. PAWS, and WP48 might not be end-all formulae, but it sure makes much better sense for me than PER (with all due respect to John Hollinger).
Speaking of effort, Dave, have you heard about the defensive index used by Pat Riley? I first heard about it watching (I think) a Heat-Cavs game. I didn’t give it much thought until Henry Abbott mentioned it in his blog. I know it’s too complicated given the fact that you’re tracking stuff like “closing in on shooters”, “hands in face” and the like. According to Mr. Abbott, the Van Gundy brothers have been using this. Do you know something about this? Can you get further info?
Dan Honig
April 12, 2007
Hey,
Just wanted to throw in my two cents that you should keep posting. I’m a daily reader, and also a graduate student at Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School (Public Policy). In terms of exposure, I had one of my professors read your blog, and he used wages of wins to make points about expectations and irrational analysis of markets to a class of 70 as a result. I’ve got him working on Moneyball and Wages of Wins now. I’ve probably circulated my copy of wages of wins to 30 people or so, and the hook is always seeing win scores for your favorite team broken down online …
Maybe I’m just regression-minded, but I’d love to see some work done on the positional analysis section of your work. What makes someone a G? Should there be a distinct G-F category? In what situations in which you don’t have all 5 ‘positions’ do you end up with over-predicted, or under-predicted, win scores? What are the implications for the kinds of complementary skills necessary to win? In other words, how do certain rosters – say, the Pistons (also my team, I’m from Detroit), without a true center, fare if you call Webber a 3rd forward?
Additionally, what factors other than college performance are significant in predicting the pro-college jump? Could you weigh into the Durant-Oden argument?
Thanks,
Dan
Mark T
April 12, 2007
Hi, Paulo. I don’t necessarily disagree with you that a full examination will lead one to conclude that balance beats star power. Note how I said the league has always been thought of as a star league, not necessarily that it was a proven proposition. But there are contrary anecdotal examples to yours – not just Jordan-era Bulls. Two-star combinations (Shaq / Kobe or Shaq / Dwade) often do very well vs. more balanced teams in the playoffs. For example, the first Nets team to go to the Finals had 5 guys scoring 14 or 15 points a game, incredibly balanced, but they were pummelled by the Shaq-Kobe Lakers. Then two years later the balanced Pistons crush Shaq-Kobe. So I am wondering if there is a way to test the proposition by comparing the W-L records of teams with compressed scoring differentials among teammates who get significant minutes to those with extreme scoring differentials and see whether there is a meaningful difference, and relatedly whether WOW metrics assist in predicting that result.
Owen
April 12, 2007
A follow up on my Knicks request, might be interesting to evaluate Ewing in terms of Bill Simmons’ famous Ewing Theory.
Also, what has Nene’s return meant to the Nuggets? It seems like they have gong 20-15 with him back, and he has played quite well, and according to NBA Babble he looks like a big contributor.
dberri
April 12, 2007
Thanks to everyone for these comments. I will try and answer some of these this weekend.
Mark T
April 13, 2007
Another possible topic is how well WOW metrics predict future performance of a low minutes player when his minutes increase substantially.
dberri
April 13, 2007
As I wait to go teach at 2pm, let me offer some comments.
Paulo… All I know about the Pat Riley defensive model is what I saw at TrueHoop. Not sure he will ever let this be published.
Mark T and Paulo were also discussing the role “star” players play in building a winner. We observed that Wade and Iverson left their respective teams but the teams did not appear to suffer. This does not suggest to me that star players do not help. When we look at the data we see that Wade is a very productive player. The issue in Miami is that his departure coincided with a re-emergence of Shaq and the insertion of Eddie Jones in the starting line-up. So Miami could overcome the loss of Wade because they had other productive players. As for the Sixers, they replaced a supposed star in Iverson with a more productive player in Miller. So it is not surprising that the 76ers played better.
Dan Honig,
If I read your comments correctly, I think you cost me 30 sales :). Seriously, its nice to hear the book is making it around Princeton. As for the position adjustment… there is a clear difference between the production of a center and a guard. So unless your metric is dominated by scoring (like PERs or NBA Efficiency) you are going to need to note position in evaluating players.
That being said, what happens if a team goes to a three guard line-up? I say that one of those players still has to be evaluated relative to a small forward. If not, a team could declare that all their players are point guards. Consequently, their projected wins would rise significantly. Of course that would be wrong. Someone has to offer the production you expect from each position.
Jason Chandler and I are trying separately to figure out how to incorporate the 82games.com position designations into the analysis. I would prefer to use this data, simply because it is already completed (and saves me the trouble). The trick is getting into a form we can easily use.
Owen,
You are correct that Nene has helped the Nuggets. He has become an above average player this year.
Thanks again for all the comments. There are a lot of good ideas here for future posts. It certainly saves me the trouble of thinking of ideas. For the stuff on the draft we have to wait until we get our paper finished. My plan is to do that well before the 2007 draft, so I hope to weigh in on this subject before the draft. The free agent moves will happen after the draft, and I will discuss those as they occur. Again, thanks for the comments.
Owen
April 19, 2007
Bill Simmons has a long NBA column ripe with assumptions to examine. I think his writing is always a very fertile area for examination when myths in modern sports is your topic of choice.
One thing that jumped out at me was this bit about the odometer:
“For NBA purposes the past five years, “30 is the new 38.” Jalen Rose, Stephon Marbury, C-Webb, Walker, Francis, Juwan Howard, Shareef Abdur-Rahim, Mike Bibby, Antawn Jamison, Peja Stojakovic … these guys are all breaking down or losing steam before they pass 30. See, age doesn’t matter as much as odomoters in the NBA — if your odometer passes 800 games and 30,000 minutes (regular season + playoffs), you’re probably going to become a different player with very few exceptions.”
I am engaged in a bit of a debate over whether Lee is preferable to JO and Garnett going forward. Is there any evidence that tenure in the NBA, NBA age it were, is a more accurate indicator of player decline than chronological age?
Is a player more likely to washed up at 32 if he came into the league at 18 than if he came in at 23?
I know you are taking the rest of the month off, something perhaps to look at down the line. As always, love your work.
Jeremy
April 21, 2007
Congratulations on making it this far. I’ll tell you that while I subscribe to an absurd number of news and blog feeds, this is the first or second one I read after a new post shows up. I would be very disappointed to see it run dry!
Keep trying to wear your kids out earlier and keep helping your wife find engaging books to read. A time-intensive hobby may be just the thing. :)
Seriously, thanks for keeping up with this and providing such good insights into these games we’re all so obsessed with.
Owen
April 24, 2007
Dave – I have been attempting WOW evangelism in various corners of the internet. Was a bit stumped by the following comment, what would be an appropriate response?
“…think about some implications of Berri’s metric. For instance, because Berri sets the threshold efficiency for scoring at league average the sum of Wins Produced by scoring in the league is zero. Thats right, Berri’s metric says that throughout the entire league scoring did not contribute to any wins, that all 1230 wins in the league were created acquiring possession of the ball.”
Owen
April 27, 2007
This piece just poster over at true hoop on how fouls are called in the playoffs, seems to be something you guys would be well equiped to explore. Very interesting topic I think, especially considering the general fascination with conspiracy.
http://myespn.go.com/blogs/truehoop/0-23-125/The-Lakers-WON-that-game-.html
Jeremy
April 28, 2007
Owen’s mention of fouls and officiating in the playoffs is a good topic, but it also leads to a very simple one I’d like to know more about. Why do teams play so much better on their home court than on the road?
Or maybe the better way to put it is, ‘*how* do they play different?’ What measurably changes and what can we predict?
Do home teams really get the benefit of more calls in their favors? Do they foul less while forcing more turnovers and getting more steals? Do they attack the basket for higher percentage shots while their offensive fouls go down?