Tony Mejia of CBSSports.com offered an interesting assessment of Carmelo Anthony in his preview of the Denver Nuggets.
(Anthony is) not the all-around threat James is, but he does exude greatness, able to put the ball in the basket as well as anyone in the game. All that has been missing are key ingredients like maturity and help. He feels he has both now. Excuses are out the window.
….If for some reason, injuries or inconsistency derail Denver, then there’s no other conclusion left, even at this early stage of their careers, that critics are right about the difference between James and Anthony. One makes the players around him better and the other doesn’t. Anthony has Iverson as his primary running mate, not to mention reigning Defensive Player of the Year Marcus Camby. James has Boobie Gibson and Zydrunas Ilgauskas. Get the gist?
Although many already do, it would be unwise to bet against Anthony. He’s not destined to be the new Dominique Wilkins, a volume shooter who isn’t going to succeed in a team game. He’s someone who has improved every season he has been in the league, a force who has become one of the most feared scorers in the world and who is a proven winner, the driving force behind Syracuse’s national championship in his only season of college.
Let me see if I can summarize what’s being said. The primary difference between Anthony and James is that LeBron makes his teammates better while Melo so far hasn’t. And Anthony is not the next Dominique Wilkins, Melo is going to be better. This might surprise, but I am going to quibble with both statements.
LeBron vs. Melo
My sense is that most NBA fans know King James is better than Anthony. You can see this quite clearly if you look at the numbers.
Table One: Carmelo Anthony vs. LeBron James
Table One compares Anthony and James to the average small forward in the NBA. James bests the average player at his position in everything except free throw percentage and turnovers. Consequently, it’s not surprising that King James posts a Win Score that is much higher than the average small forward. And it’s also not surprising that LeBron’s Career Wins Produced currently stands at 65.9 and his career WP48 [Wins Produced per 48 minutes] is currently 0.242, well above the average mark of 0.100.
In contrast, for his career Anthony is below average with respect to shooting efficiency, rebounds, steals, blocked shots, and turnovers. He does well with respect to free throws and assists. Plus he tends to stay out of foul trouble. But the net effect is a career Win Score that’s below average. And you can also see this when you look at Wins Produced and WP48. For his career, Melo has only produced 12.1 wins and posted a 0.053 WP48.
Yes, it’s the case that Melo played better last year (although he declined after Iverson arrived). But even this improvement leaves him well short of LeBron.
In sum, LeBron is better than Melo because he does more on the basketball court. Consequently LeBron produces more wins.
Okay, LeBron is a better all around player. What about making teammates better? When you look at the career of Ilgauskas and Camby (the two player Mejia named), we see that Ilgauskas had his best season in 1997-98, which occurred before James arrived. And although Camby posted his highest WP48 in 2000-01 (when he was with the Knicks), Camby produced his most wins last season. It’s important to remember that the story with respect to both big men is mostly about injuries. I doubt whether James or Anthony has much to do with either player’s overall productivity. Still, it doesn’t look like we have significant evidence that James makes his teammates better or Anthony does not. In fact, the law of diminishing returns tells us that it’s likely that teammates play a bit worse with King James.
The Human Highlight Film
Meija also compared Melo to The Human Highlight Film, Dominique Wilkins. Wilkins entered the league in 1982 and after a 15 year career was voted into the Hall of Fame in 2006. His best years were with the Atlanta Hawks, a team that consistently made the playoffs with Wilkins (the Hawks only missed three times with Dominque) but never advanced very far. Consequently, although Wilkins was a prolific scorer, he’s not often associated with winning basketball.
Of course there’s a big problem evaluating an individual player via team outcomes. A team might succeed even though an individual player isn’t very good. Or an individual player might be great, but his teammates are holding him back. Consequently, sports teams – starting in the 19th century in baseball – started tracking statistics for individuals. It’s these statistics that are supposed to tell us how much a player is helping or hurting.
When we turn to the statistics on Dominique Wilkins we see that he was indeed a good player.
Table Two: The Career of Dominique Wilkins
When we compare the career performance of Wilkins to the average small forward we see that Wilkins was above average with respect to rebounds, steals, blocked shots, and free throw percentage. And he was about average with respect to shooting efficiency and assists.
When we turn to Win Score we see that Wilkins was not quite King James, but he was clearly a more productive player than Anthony. And his advantage over Melo persists when we look at Dominique’s performance his first four seasons as well as his last four.
Now defenders of Melo will note that Dominique began his career at 23, and Anthony only turned 23 last May. So it’s possible that Anthony is going to suddenly improve. Although this is certainly possible, I am somewhat skeptical. For Anthony to improve, he is going to have to focus on more than scoring. And after four seasons, we simply haven’t seen any signs that he is willing (or has any incentive) to do this.
– DJ
Our research on the NBA was summarized HERE.
The equation connecting wins to offensive/defensive efficiency is given 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 
disappointmentzone
October 24, 2007
It is extraordinary difficult to talk about Ilguaskas in respect to other players if the focus is over his entire career. Simply put, in the first half of his career he was either injured or coming off an injury/surgery pretty much the entire time. He didn’t play a lot until right before LBJ was drafted so it’s tough to say whether it was LBJ making him better or being healthy that made him better. It’s hard to lend much credence to Mejia’s thesis.
Ryan Schwan
October 24, 2007
CBS Sportsline used to be my preferred site for keeping up to date on Basketball coverage a few years ago. Then Tony Meija became the primary writer there. It only took about a month and a half before I pretty much stopped going there. At times it seems like he’s just randomly picking player names out of a hat to try and support some point or another – without any regard to reality. I was pretty astonished that a leaper like ‘Nique only averaged .8 blocks a game over his career.
holla123
October 24, 2007
Having graduated with a major in Econ, I appreciate economists who take on the task of challenging NBA stats. I have some questions for you which I have been mulling over for a long time – the stats that you provide for a supposedly average SF are not average stats. There are very few SF who score 20 points a game and pull down 7.6 rebounds a game – eg Richard Jefferson, whoever starts for the Heat, Lakers, NY, GSW, SAC, 76ers, Twolves, Bruce Bowen etc. I would consider Richard Jefferson to be an above-average SF, but even his stats do not compare favorably to the stats of your “average” SF. So how did you decide these are the stats of an average SF in the NBA? And pardson my stupid screen name…
dustin
October 24, 2007
the stats are per48 minutes
dustin
October 24, 2007
let me clarify, berri is comparing per48 minute stats of the selected players to per48 minute stats of the “average” small forward
Rashad
October 24, 2007
I vaguely remember this getting mentioned before but a quick search couldn’t find it. Are the averages for the 06-07 season or are they the average over several seasons? Also, when you compare someone like Dominique who played quite a while ago, does this change the analysis?
Thanks for all the great posts lately. Although I’d be curious to see some more precise predictions. =)
dberri
October 24, 2007
Rashad,
The averages are from 1991-92 to 2004-05 (or is it from 1993-94?).
Ideally we would compare Dominique to the averages from the 1980s, but I haven’t extended my data set back that far yet. I don’t think it would change the basic conclusion (Wilkins is “good” but not “great’).
I will try and post a forecast before the season starts. Not sure how precise I will be, though.
Vik
October 24, 2007
holla123 does raise an interesting point – how do you arrive at the projections for an average player at a given position?
dberri
October 24, 2007
Vik,
These are not projections. These are simply per 48 minute averages. And they are calculated by looking at what small forwards have done across time.
Paulo
October 24, 2007
Dave,
“And Anthony is not the next Dominique Wilkins, Melo is going to be better.” — dberri
“For Anthony to improve, he is going to have to focus on more than scoring. And after four seasons, we simply haven’t seen any signs that he is willing (or has any incentive) to do this.” — dberri
It’s pretty much early in the morning here, and I still haven’t had my coffee, but I’m pretty sure those statements got me confused.
demcavs
October 24, 2007
Paulo,
He was just restating the sportswriter’s opinion with that sentence.
Get your coffee and read it again :)
dberri
October 24, 2007
Paulo,
As demcavs notes, the first statement I am re-stating from the quote. The second statement is about the likelihood that Anthony will improve. For him to get better he is going to have to do more than just score. So far he hasn’t done this in his career. And they just gave him a max contract last summer, so why would he add to his game at this point?
I wrote this post early in the morning for me, so it may not be entirely clear.
Rashad
October 25, 2007
One reason I was curious about the averages was I bet you could get an interesting post looking at how averages have changed over time. Was the average player in the 80s more or less productive than the average player in the 90s for example? Have average turnovers gone up or down? You constantly hear older writers (especially charley rosen) talking about how the game used to be played better and players don’t know fundamentals now. Is that reflected in wins produced at all?
demcavs
October 25, 2007
Dave,
I was wondering how you calculated the averages also. Is it all players who played SF in a given year across all minutes, or is it just the starting SF’s (i.e. top 30)?
dberri
October 25, 2007
It is all players who played SF in a given year.
CBuck
October 27, 2007
Dave,
Good stuff here; I think what you will do when you incorporate 80’s stats in regards to ‘Nique that you will, at best, reinforce your argument that he was a good player; late in his career, ankle and knee woes slowed him down to the point that his numbers may have in some ways been diluted. That may be offset by his youthful transgressions (i.e. higher turnovers, youth being wasted on the young), but I wonder and somewhat expect these numbers will cancel each other out.
aflam arabia
January 25, 2011
Nice Work man Your blog is so great.Thanks very much for posting this topic