The Boston Celtics traded away much of their roster from 2006-07 to acquire both Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett. Although these two moves resulted in a starting line-up with four very productive players (Rajon Rondo, Paul Pierce, Allen, and Garnett), it left the team with very little depth. Consequently the Celtics have turned to the NBA free agent market to fill out its roster.
Signing Pollard and House
This past week the Celtics signed Scott Pollard and Eddie House. This past season Pollard posted a WP48 (Wins Produced per 48 minutes) of -0.004 for the Cleveland Cavaliers. So he wasn’t too good. House offered a WP48 of 0.067 to the New Jersey Nets, which is below the average mark of 0.100. So if we look at each player in 2006-07 it looks like neither player is going to help Boston much in 2007-08.
Our information on these players, though, extends beyond what each did last year.
Table One: The Careers of Scott Pollard and Eddie House
For example, Pollard has played 10 seasons in the NBA. Across these ten seasons he has played 8,202 minutes, and only 109 of these minutes happened last season. In the 8,000 plus minutes before Pollard briefly played in Cleveland, he has generally been quite good. His career WP48 stands at 0.159. In only three seasons has he played 1,000 minutes. But in all three of these campaigns his WP48 – like his career mark – was well above average.
Unfortunately for the Celtics, the same story can’t be told for House. He has played seven seasons in the NBA and has yet to be an above average player. Certainly the Celtics need depth in the backcourt, but if that depth is going to be provided by House, it looks like this will be an area of weakness for this team.
Who else could the Celtics have selected?
The NBA free agent market opened in early July. Had I been on top of things I would have posted an analysis of available free agents at that point. But alas, that didn’t happen. Still, given the question at hand, an analysis this week is not entirely useless.
The available free agent pool has been evaluated in terms of WP48 and NBA Efficiency per 48 minutes [NBA48]. Again, the average WP48 mark is 0.100. Although it’s not widely known or intuitively obvious, the average NBA48 mark in 2006-07 was 21.4. So now we have reference points for the numbers in Table Two.
Table Two: The Remaining Free Agents in 2007
When we look at the 21 unrestricted free agents who played at least 500 minutes this past season (and who had not signed when I created this table this past weekend) we see seven players who were above average in terms of WP48, but only five above average in terms of NBA48. Interestingly there is not much overlap on the two lists. Four of the seven above average in WP48 are considered below average when we look at NBA48.
For the restricted players we see the same pattern. Anderson Varejao is above average with respect to WP48 and NBA48. But after Varejao, there are no above average restricted free agents in terms of WP48. NBA48, though, says that both Lawrence Roberts and Andray Blatche are above average performers.
What does all this mean for the Boston Celtics and other NBA teams? NBA Efficiency, which over-emphasizes scoring, is a good measure of how productive a player is perceived to be. Consequently, if we see a player who is above average in WP48 but below average in NBA48, this is a player who can probably be acquired at a reduced rate. And if the reverse is true, you will probably end up over-paying for that player’s production.
– DJ
Our research on the NBA was summarized HERE.
Wins Produced and Win Score are Discussed in the Following Posts
Simple Models of Player Performance
What Wins Produced Says and What It Does Not Say
Wages of Wins Journal 
JChan
August 15, 2007
I have been wondering for a while why I haven’t heard of any bidding for Mutombo yet this summer. He seems like the perfect fit for any team looking to try to win a championship this year. You’d think Phoenix or Utah (or Boston, of course) would throw a chunk of their exception at him and see if he’ll sign a one or two-year contract. I also don’t get why Posey, who started for the world champions two years ago, isn’t getting any love. Maybe there are issues there I don’t know about, but the NBA sure confuses me sometimes.
hsfear
August 15, 2007
“Certainly the Celtics need depth in the backcourt, but if that depth is going to be provided by House, it looks like this will be an area of weakness for this team.”
They call it an average for a reason – something like 50% of the players are going to be worse. I would guess that players signed for “depth” are generally below average players – otherwise they wouldn’t be “depth”. House may not be good, but he may not be worse than the equivalent player on Chicago, Detroit, or Cleveland’s benches.
Jason
August 15, 2007
Interesting numbers. Tony’s page shows the estimated wp48 for Mikael Pietrus at .126. Could the estimate really be that far off or is there an error in one of the computations? In the “missing tables” you’ve also got him at the low wp48.
From his stats, I can’t see how Pietrus could be that bad, considering that he shot ~49% from the field and ~39% from beyond the arc–both would seem above average for a small forward/shooting guard. His rebound rate seemed pretty much in line with small forwards in the Association as well.
Mr Parker
August 15, 2007
This is completely off topic, but I have
noone else to talk to about what I find.
I’m hoping some people who check in
regularly can give me some extra insight.
I’m looking at New Orleans with a dynamic
duo of Paul(.25) and Chandler(.32). HOw
are these guys not a much better team?
Oh thats right Desmond Mason is a negative
wp48 player who played the most minutes
on the team. By subtraction they should
be much better next year. All they need is
an average player to take his spot in the
rotation. Who might that be? I have no clue.
Tangent alert……
Could it be that the top 3 teams in the
west had such gawdy records because the
bottom teams employed players like
Desmond Mason and didn’t have Baron Davis
healthy for the entire season?
Looking at all these players is giving me
a headache. Playes like Mason and Iverson
belong on the and1 mixtape tour and not
stealing from valuable productive players.
This is why the Nba sucks.
William
August 15, 2007
The Bobcats bought out Brevin Knight and haven’t signed Derek Anderson. Meanwhile, they are in talks to re-sign Jeff McInnis. Very frustrating.
I sympathize with Mr. Parker’s point. The Bobcats’ version of Mason is Adam Morrison. Replacing him with an average player would make a huge difference.
Back to Berri’s post –
Devin Brown looks like an absolute steal. He’s young, affordable, and big-bodied. He’ll make a nice backup 2-guard.
Mr Parker
August 16, 2007
and something else random,
Can they please let me select Team USA?
Here’s how I would construct it, based on
Wow and some assumptions about how
production would change by having other
highly productive players on the team:
Amare Stoudamire, Shawn Marion, Jason Kidd
Phoenix has shown that this basic model
works with a huge season last year. What
I would do is switch Nash for the more
productive Kidd and run the same offense.
My SG would be Dwayne Wade because he has
proven to be highly productive and under
stand how to share the ball with his
teammates. I think he would be able to
do the same thing with Team USA. That would leave only the SF position to be filled.
This would be tough. This guy would have literally no responsibility. You wouldn’t want this guy stealing any touches from the rest of your team. You would literally ask him to stand far away from the basket and shoot if open. He would have to be a very good defender. I’m thinking Shane Battier.
The second unit would be a little bit more difficult to put together.
I would use Chris Paul as my point gaurd
and pair him with Dwight Howard, Elton Brand(because brand is not a great rebounder being on the court with Howard shouldn’t hurt as much), Lebron James and a shooting guard along the same lines as the starting small forward. I’m thinking Brent Barry.
How could Team USA ever lose a game with this crew.
To round out the 12 man roster I would add Tyson Chandler and Kobe Bryant.
Thats one big man and one swing man. I would hardly ever play either which might make Kobe want to cry but I would enjoy watching him cry.
Me
August 17, 2007
How can you explain such drastic swings in Pollard’s production from year to year? It seems to suggest WP48 has very poor predictive power.
B
August 20, 2007
But do House and Pollard have to be better than the average player to help the Celtics or merely better than the average sub? And if they are better than the guys on their bench, isn’t that a help to the Celtics? Though I think they should have signed either Wang Zhi Zhi or Kevin Pittsnogle as it is big benefit when you play either Miami or Houston to have a center who just stands in the corner as it forces Yao and Shaq to guard Kevin Garnett which he cannot do, and since almost no one can stop Yao (Tyson Chandler did a surprisngly good job last year), that’s the best way at getting it back is by forcing him to play defense, hence limiting any help defense effect that they may have had (ie. the Houston-Utah playoff series in which Yao was absolutely abyssmal on the defensive end of the court.)
Pete
August 25, 2007
Interesting to see the Celtics signing James Posey, number 2 on the WP48-ranked free agents list…
Pete
August 25, 2007
B asks an interesting question:
We know that the average NBA player has a WP48 of 0.100. What is the WP48 of the average NBA bench player?