Brent Brent began the season with the Spurs, but was traded to the Sonics last month. The Sonics then waived Brent, and he’s now waiting to re-sign with the Spurs.
As we wait for Brent to return home, I thought I would ask a few Barry related questions.
1. How good is Brent Barry?
2. Who is the best Barry brother?
3. What do the Barry brothers do well (or not so well)?
4. And most importantly, how do the Barry brothers compare to the father?
How good is Brent Barry?
Quick answer… really, really good.
Brent Barry is in his 13th NBA season. In every season he has posted a WP48 [Wins Produced per 48 minutes] that was above average. His career mark of 0.209 is more than twice the average performer (average is 0.100), and he has surpassed the 0.200 mark in eight of the past nine seasons. That streak includes the remarkable 2001-02 season when he produced 20.1 wins and posted a 0.317 WP48.
Barry entered the 2007-08 season with 96.9 Wins Produced. This year he has only played 541 minutes so his wins production – despite a 0.213 WP48 – is only 2.4. But if he comes back and maintains his current WP48, he will hit the 100 win mark with just 158 more minutes.
Who is the best Barry brother?
Brent has produced nearly twice as many wins as Drew and Jon combined. So in terms of Wins Produced, Brent is the best Barry. But Brent has also played nearly 8,000 additional minutes. And when we look at each brother on a per-minute basis, the difference becomes smaller.
Table One: Wins Produced by the Barry Brothers
Table One reports the career performance of each Barry brother in terms of both Wins Produced and WP48. Jon Barry finished his career in 2005-06 with 51.2 wins. In terms of WP48, he was above average in eleven of the fourteen seasons he played. The lone exceptions were his first season, his last season, and his last season in Sacramento. His career mark was 0.177, which is not quite Brent-like, but still very good.
Although Brent and Jon were very productive, the same cannot be said about Drew. The youngest Barry played only 598 minutes in his NBA career. His rookie season – when he played 256 minutes – he posted a 0.151 WP48. After this promising start, though, he was below average in his second year; and then quite bad his last season. Of course, Drew wasn’t given much of a chance. His NBA minutes were quite limited and he did have to play for a different team each year he played. So one could argue that Drew might have been as productive as his two brothers.
What do the Barry brothers do well (and not so well)?
Okay, two of the three Barry brothers were very good (the third brother didn’t play enough for us to see for sure how good he was going to be). Exactly why, though, were Brent and Jon so good?
Table Two: Comparing the Barry Brothers to Rick Barry
Table Two reports the career performance (for Brent, prior to the 2007-08 season) of each Barry across each of the box score statistics.
When we look at Brent and Jon we see some clear similarities. Both Brent and Jon excelled with respect to shooting efficiency. In addition, they also offered some steals and assists. What separates the brothers is adjusted field goal percentage. Jon had a very good mark of 52.4%. Brent, though, had an outstanding career mark of 56.9%.
To put Brent’s career performance in perspective, last season only two guards in the NBA managed to play at least 500 minutes and post a better mark. All-Star point guard Steve Nash’s adjusted field goal percentage was 61.3% in 2006-07. And Brent Barry had a mark of 62.6%, a conversion rate that was unmatched by any player in the Association last year who played significant minutes (more than 500).
What about Drew? Like his brothers, Drew was also able to hit his shots. But his numbers with respect to every other statistical category, except assists, were quite a bit below average.
How do the Barry brothers compare to the father?
So the Barry brothers could shoot. Oddly enought, when we turn to the father we see a different story. Rick Barry averaged nearly 25 points per game in his Hall-of-Fame career. Yes, he could score. But unlike his sons, he couldn’t score efficiently.
Before we get to that issue, let’s review the career of Rick Barry. He began his NBA career in 1965. After two seasons he joined the ABA, where he lasted for four seasons. In 1972 he was back in the NBA with the Golden State Warriors.
In 1973-74 the NBA began tracking offensive rebounds, defensive rebounds, steals, and blocked shots. Although turnovers weren’t tracked until the 1977-78 campaign, we do have enough turnover data from Rick Barry – from the ABA and his latter NBA career – to guess what his turnover numbers looked like in 1973-74. And with turnovers estimated, we can evaluate the last seven years of Rick Barry’s career.
This evaluation is reported back in Table Two. From this evaluation we can see – as noted above — that Rick was not quite as good as his sons with respect to shooting efficiency. In the NBA his best mark with respect to adjusted field goal percentage was 46.9%, and that occurred his last year in the league. Across his last seven NBA seasons his adjusted field goal percentage was 45.3% (his career NBA mark was 45.1%).
Yes, the elder Barry did play in an era when shooting percentages were lower. And yes, he took more shots than his sons (although the link between shot attempts and efficiency is weak, at best). Still, you would expect the father of three great shooters to be better at getting shots to go in the basket. And his marks -given the time he played – were still just average (at best).
Despite his woes from the field, the elder Barry did post a career Win Score above that of an average small forward. He was able to do this because he was above average with respect to assists, steals, and free throw shooting. Still, despite some positive aspects to his game, I don’t think Rick Barry contributed as much as either Brent or Jon. At least not on a per-minute basis.
So let me summarize. Brent is the most productive Barry brother. Despite this honor, Brent will never be in the Hall-of-Fame as a player (scoring only 9.7 points per game for your career probably disqualifies you from that honor). But if we look beyond total points at the entire package, Brent did produce more wins than his father. And that makes Brent the better Barry.
-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 
Andrew
March 9, 2008
Good stuff, Dave.
Rick Barry shot 33% from the 3-pt line the first season the NBA put that shot in place (and the last year of his career). I wonder how his Win Score would change if he had played with a 3-pt line for his entire career and shot a similar percentage.
However, if during his career, he shot “long” 3-pt type shots, he probably deserves to have his Win Score nicked, since there’s really no benefit to shooting 22 ft. two-pointers.
Thanks,
Andrew
Ben Guest
March 9, 2008
Great post. Brent Barry is one of the most underrated players of the past ten years (as the numbers clearly show). Given how well Kurt Thomas is performing this season, and that Barry is going to re-sign with the Spurs after being traded (and waived) for Thomas, the Spurs have to be the favorites to win the championship.
Side note: I wonder what Drew’s college WP48 at Georgia Tech looks like. I remember being more impressed with him than Marbury when they played together.
Kevin Lee
March 9, 2008
Just a few days ago, I tried convincing my friend, a huge maverick’s fan, that Stackhouse loses games for his team. After much huffing and puffing, he asked me to find a bench player to replace Stackhouse, and I found Brent Barry.
his response: “No way! All Brent Barry can do is catch and shoot the high percentage three. He cannot make his own shot. He is not athletic, cannot slash, and would not do well in the iso-heavy maverick offense. Sure, Stackhouse misses more shots, but you have to give him credit for running around and trying. As long as it’s a good shot, I’m fine with it even if it doesn’t go in. Sure, Brent Barry misses less, but he simply doesn’t do as much as Stackhouse on the court, his repertoire is less.”
Here is another observation comparing Stackhouse and Brent Barry: in the videogame, NBA 2k7, Stackhouse is much more effective than Brent Barry. But that’s because my brain is controlling Stackhouse’s body.
Jed
March 9, 2008
Shouldn’t Drew Barry’s rebound numbers be in black since they are above the average PG? Or is his career average wrong?
Cat Lover
March 9, 2008
This is a great post. Thanks.
Daniel
March 9, 2008
A quick aside about the Spurs/Sonics trade.
It was pretty clear (at least to me) that there was
a handshake arrangement to release Barry after the trade. The two of them are probably of equal value to both teams as Kurt Thomas is, and the only way that a first round pick is added to the mix is if San Antonio is getting more in return than just Kurt Thomas. The Spurs desperately need Barry, and the Thomas trade put them just enough under the cap threshold to allow them to resign Barry at the veteran’s minimum for the rest of the season while squeezing under the tax threshold.
Here’s the final tally of the exchange:
Barry gets needed rest and an extra $300k.
Seattle gets to replace Thomas’s minutes with significantly less productive players for the rest of the season, achieve higher odds for the number 1 pick in the draft (Beasely, hopefully), add a future first rounder to use in building in OKC (hopefully not), and continue to alienate their fan base by losing even more.
San Antonio trades Francisco Elson (.025 WP48) for Kurt Thomas (.302 WP48) and adds close to ten wins to their ceiling as a team, making them the best team in the NBA.
Financially, the Spurs avoid the luxury tax and grab the approximately $3 million grand prize for being under the tax threshold
Also, they have $14 million in cap space this summer with their top TEN players already signed. If they bring Tiago Splitter over next season (almost a mortal lock) and carry over the 4 D-League players who know their system, they have somewhere in the neighborhood of $10 million to throw at a top-tier free agent this summer when only the Grizzlies, Nets, Heat, Pistons, Hawks, Warriors, Clippers, Bulls, Wizards and Bobcats have anywhere close to that much to offer and most of them are mediocre to bad teams who are trying to hang on to their restricted free agents/ETO players.
Things look good in San Antonio.
Westy
March 10, 2008
Interesting. Based on Eli’s latest work, I’m not sure he’d entirely agree with the statement, “…the link between shot attempts and efficiency is weak, at best.”
And I tend to think likewise. I have no doubt that based on FT%, which is a good proxy for who is (or could be) a great shooter that Rick Barry could have shot every bit as well as his sons if that had been his role on the team.
And likewise, I have no doubt that there is no way that Brent Barry would shoot as well as he does if he carried the brunt of his teams’ scoring loads as his father did. Let’s just say that it is a lot easier to put up good numbers when the opposing D is not focused on you.
who cares
March 19, 2008
this is the most laughable analysis i’ve ever seen and completely discredits the value of statistics, or discerning a player’s ability from numbers. brent and jon better than their father? rick barry was the mvp of a championship team. as The Man to be stopped his degree of difficulty on shots was infinitely higher, something your stats couldn’t possibly factor. nor do they take into consideration the array of shots he took or the pressure he faced as his team’s go-to guy in every game. brent and jon, while arguably underrated, have never been more than the third or fourth option on their teams and, quite honestly, couldn’t hold a candle to their dad. i do credit you for one thing — it takes an incredible chutzpah to put something like this out in public and expect to be taken seriously.
Tyson
June 4, 2008
According to wins produced, San Antonio could have had a much better team in 2006-2007 if Gregg Popovich had only used his starters effectively. In that season, Bruce Bowen had a WP48 of -0.028 and played 2464 minutes, which gave him a total of -1.5 wins produced. Brent Barry, who is apparently better than his hall of fame father Rick, had a WP48 of 0.221 and played 1631 minutes, which gave him a total of 7.5 wins produced. That total was only exceeded on the Spurs by Duncan, Ginobili, and Parker.
Bowen played 51% more minutes than Barry, but Barry produced 9 more wins for the Spurs according to your formula. If Popovich had switched their minutes, then, assuming that their WP48s remain constant, Barry would have produced 11.3 wins while Bowen would have only cost the Spurs 1 win.
So with a switch in minutes played, Barry would have an advantage of 12.3 wins produced over Bowen instead of 9 wins produced. This switch in minutes would have caused San Antonio’s summation of wins to increase from 63.5 to 66.8. This would push San Antonio’s actual record from 58 wins to either 61 or 62 wins.
I’m pretty sure that not even the biggest stat geek would believe what I wrote is actually realistic. Bowen was 3rd on San Antonio in minutes for a reason, and it isn’t because of his statistics, and it isn’t because Popovich doesn’t recognize talent. Either Popovich didn’t recognize that he had a hall of fame caliber player in Brent Barry, or, and this is more likely, Barry was only 6th on the team in minutes because he is a role player. He’s obviously a very good role player who posts better stats than Bowen, but he isn’t close to Bowen as a defender. Saying Brent is better than his father is ridiculous, and with all due respect to your site because I think you do excellent work, that conclusion makes anyone who uses basketball stats look bad.
shen
June 7, 2008
rick barry has a lesser FG% because he was the main scorer in his team and thus he was always doubleteamed, but brent isn’t doubleteamed most of the time because he isn’t the best scorer. Rick is responsible for making his teammates by paasing them the ball when doubleteamed, but brent is on the receiving end and is good because tim duncan made him good. this site has totally zero understanding of what a real game is like. believing in the absurd that replacing Rick by his son will make the warriors better.
Basketball Statistical Analysis
March 10, 2009
Brent and Jon contributed less than their father? Are you f@#ing kidding me? Unbelievable. I literally can’t believe anyone on earth would actually type that, even in jest.
Professor Berri, I just want to take the time to thank you again for making a total laughingstock out of me, and destroying everything I’ve worked so hard to establish over the years. I hope you’re happy.
Max
March 10, 2009
Bill Simmons, in his podcast with Daryl Morey, highlighted this post as an example of one of the worst examples of statistical analysis, one that makes the field look populated with people who don’t watch the sport.
Nick
March 11, 2009
I think the key here as to why this isn’t as “crazy” as some people are trying to say it is. Is because this isn’t saying Brent is more talented. It’s saying that he is better at what he does, being a role player who hits 3’s who passes really well for a SG. Rick was a very talented player, all this is trying to say is that based on NBA rules, having a Brent Barry as your 3pt shooting SG instead of an average 2000 era NBA SG, is better than having an average 1970 NBA high volume shooting SF.
Also remember there are 30 NBA teams now, and there used to be 16. The average NBA player logically would have been relatively better, there wouldn’t have been as many players diluting the talent pool, and making the average player a lesser talent. I bet most stats projected backward would be less favourable. Comparing Brent to the average of the top 16 SG’s in the league would have dropped his WP significantly.
This doesn’t take into account defense at all.
Also, while a logically different conclusion that seems to be on the surface bizarre. It promotes discussion, and in reality opens up an interesting point. I’ve always seen these posts to be conversation starters rather than enders. If you put Rick in today’s NBA, things would be completely different, and he may have just destroyed Brent’s #’s. But it would be tainted for Berri to smudge his formulas to conform to “common sense”. He presents his findings with some logical analysis, and opens the forum up for discussion.
I’ve never had a conversation with Berri, but if he is like how he writes, I assume he would be open to discussion on his findings. At the end of the day, he came up with something that seems quite accurate when dividing up team wins to players, and he is just posting what that process comes up with.