Success and failure are relative terms. If your parents are worth millions, but the best you can do is land a job paying $100,000 per year, you might think you are a failure. But if your parents lived on food stamps, and you land a job paying $100,000 per year, you might consider yourself a success. How you view your achievements clearly depends on where you started and what you expected.
This same lesson applies in sports. The Rockets have won six of their first twelve games and are clearly disappointed. The Washington Wizards, though, have won six of their first eleven and are clearly pleased. How could such similar results lead to such different reactions?
The Rockets entered the season thinking they could contend with the best teams in the league. A 0.500 record after 12 games suggests this team is not exactly on par with San Antonio, Dallas, and Phoenix. Hence Houston and their fans are disappointed.
In contrast, the Wizards started the season without Etan Thomas, the team’s most productive big man in 2006-07 (0.179 Wins Produced per 48 minutes and 4.7 Wins Produced). Plus Gilbert Arenas, who led this team in Wins Produced each of the past three seasons, started the season hurt and is now lost to the team for three months. Despite these losses, the Wizards have a winning record after eleven games. How is that possible?
Let’s start with what we would have expected had this team’s players maintained the per-minute productivity we saw last year.
Table One: Projecting the Wizards in 2007-08
As Table One reveals, given the minutes and positions assigned to date, had Washington’s player maintained the per-minute performance we saw last year this team should be on pace to win about 37 games in 2007-08. Instead, even with the loss of Arenas, this team is on pace to win about 43 games. Which players are causing this improvement?
The story begins with Andray Blatche. Blatche entered this season with 860 minutes of NBA experience. And in these minutes – as I noted last summer – he was below average. Thus far this year, though, he has been above average. Such a leap in a young player is not uncommon, and certainly welcomed by a team that lost its major star.
The improvement in Blatche’s performance is clearly important. But this is not the big story. The biggest leap we have seen is in the play of Brendan Haywood. And for Haywood, the key to his improvement is rebounding. For his career he has grabbed 11.9 rebounds per 48 minutes. Given that an average center grabs 12.4 boards, Haywood has been a bit below par. This year, though, he is grabbing 16.5 rebounds per 48 minutes. This is more than three rebounds more than Haywood has ever grabbed per 48 minutes in a single season. Given that Haywood is now in his seventh season, such improvement is quite unexpected. In fact, it’s so unexpected it seems unlikely that this spike can continue. Still, if Haywood can keep rebounding (and his ankle sprain isn’t that serious) the Wizards might just be contenders for the playoffs when Arenas returns in three months.
And if that happens, the Wizards are going to have a question to answer next summer. If the team can contend for the playoffs without Arenas, should they give Agent Zero the money he demands on the free agent market?
– DJ
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.
Wages of Wins Journal 
mrparker
November 24, 2007
I watch every wizards game. Blatche has been unbelievable. He has been only taking good shots and is always around the ball. Haywood played this way during the 10 game win streak last year so what he’s doing now is actually what he usually does whenever etan thomas(these two ate each other) is not around.
Daniels is playing very well and also does not take bad shots. Actually without Arenas on the court there is almost noone around who gets major minute to take bad shots.
The defense sucks but the offense is going to score points.
I actually like the team better without Arenas and am hoping that everyone gets hurt this season so that we can have a chance at a high draft pick and no Arenas.
Love the attitude of Arenas hate his shooting percentage.
sa11
November 25, 2007
I agree with mrparker that the Wizards have an odd lineup when Arenas plays. They have a point guard (Arenas) who doesn’t pass much, a shooting guard (Stevenson) who doesn’t shoot much or very well (although he doesn’t commit many turnovers), a power forward (Jamison) who is more of a finesse player, and a center (Haywood) who until recently didn’t play very big. Yet somehow until Butler was injured last year they were on a pace to win a lot of games.
They would have a better lineup when Arenas comes back if Daniels took Stevenson’s minutes and played point guard, while Arenas played shooting guard, though I don’t think Arenas would like not being the point guard. But Daniels actually tries to run the Princeton offense and usually makes good decisions with the ball.
I agree on Blatche. He also gives the team a shot blocking presence. I wonder whether even Win Shares underestimates the value of a shot blocker, since even shots that aren’t blocked can be altered by a good big man and a good shot blocker can have a deterrent effect (guys decided to pull up rather than drive to the hoop) that statistics may not easily measure.
mrparker
November 25, 2007
sa11,
They have been some good studies on shotblockers on 82games.com
The basic conclusion was that some players are good at keeping blocked shots in bounds and these players are not credited enough for their work.
There was a complete list of players and which keep the blocked shots in bounds at which percentage.
mrparker
November 25, 2007
dj,
I’m not sure where to post my question. But I was thinking about the best way to create a team.
My basic thoughts are that it seems as though every championship team has 3 players.
Player a. High rebound rate guy. Over 10 per 40 minutes or rebrate higher than 15%
player b. Main shot taker. Ts% over 55.
playerc. Distributer. assistrate higher than 20 or higher than 6 per 40 minutes.
The wizards got me thinking about this.
They have all 3 as long as Arenas is not in the lineup. Problematically they do not have any backup options so once one of them sits they do not get replaced.
There is no team in the NBA that can keep a lineup with all 3 on the court all times currently but the Wizards do join the ranks of teams who have a starting lineup with each of the 3.
Its funny because there a couple of teams who do not employ one of these lineups but have the pieces to do so. 2 immediately come to mind
New Jersey.
It seems that they should play Josh Boone alot more.
player A. Boone
playerB. Richard Jefferson
playerC. Jason Kidd
Memphis
playerA. Conley Jr
playerB. Rudy Gay
playerC. Brian Cardinal/Darko
Pradamaster
November 26, 2007
sa11, the Wizards have played Arenas and Daniels together a lot in the backcourt over the past three seasons. While it’s their best offensive lineup, and it has been fairly successful at times (Arenas and Daniels, as a player pair, averaged a +7 last season) neither Arenas or Daniels is a good enough defender to sustain it.
The point guard stuff is just semantics, especially in the Princeton. It doesn’t really matter who plays the position.