Although the deal is not official, it’s been widely reported that the Indiana Pacers and Toronto Raptors completed a trade prior to the 2008 draft. The Toronto Raptors will get six-time All-Star Jermaine O’Neal. The Indiana Pacers are adding four non-stars: T.J. Ford, Rasho Nesterovic, Maceo Baston and the draft rights to Roy Hibbert.
The general rule of thumb in the NBA is that the team that gets the All-Star in a trade is the team that comes out ahead. This rule is consistent with the idea of “Bobby Layne Rigidity”, offered by Walter Neale in a 1964 article (appearing in the Quarterly Journal of Economics and titled: “The Peculiar Economics of Professional Sports”). According to Neale – as the name Bobby Layne Rigidity implies — a team cannot replace one good quarterback with two poor signal callers.
Likewise, it’s difficult in the NBA to substitute a collection of non-stars for one star player. As noted previously in this forum, the Pareto Principle appears to hold in the NBA. In other words, roughly 80% of wins are produced by 20% of the talent. Consequently, when a team loses a major wins producer, it tends to suffer.
Losing an Unproductive Star
Of course there is one exception to this story. If the player in question is an “unproductive star”, then the issue of Bobby Layne Rigidity goes away. For example, the 76ers lost Allen Iverson – a “star” player who is not quite as productive as popular perception indicates – and actually improved.
Similarly, one suspects the Pacers loss of Jermaine O’Neal should also lead to additional victories. To see this, let’s first consider the career of J. O’Neal.
Table One: The Career of Jermaine O’Neal
As Table One indicates, once upon a time J. O’Neal was an above average player, but not a “star”. Although NBA Efficiency still indicates he is above average, Wins Produced tells a different tale.
This is what I said about O’Neal last January.
When we look at O’Neal’s career we don’t see a major star. His career WP48 [Wins Produced per 48 minutes] is above average, but a mark of 0.143 (prior to the 2007-08 season) pales in comparison to the top players in the game. Still, O’Neal has generally been a good player and he did lead his team in Wins Produced for three seasons.
What makes O’Neal “good” is his ability to get rebounds and block shots. Shooting efficiency, though, has been a consistent problem. Except for the 2002-03 season – again, his best year – O’Neal has always been below average with respect to getting his shots to go in the basket.
And this season the inefficient scoring issue has worsened. In addition, O’Neal is now below average on the boards. As a consequence, his overall productivity is now well below the average mark.
As noted, these were my words in January. And these were the same words I used when I noted that J. O’Neal is the most overpaid player in the game.
With respect to shooting efficiency, rebounds, steals, and turnovers, J. O’Neal is below average. So although he’s still taking and blocking shots, his overall contribution is below par.
The Pacers in 2007-08 and 2008-09
Once we realize that J. O’Neal is not quite as productive as his star status suggests, this trade looks much better for Indiana. The team is losing a player whose wins production was in the negative range last season. And in return, the Pacers are getting Ford (WP48 of 0.160 last season), Nestrovic (WP48 of 0.104 last season), and Baston (WP48 of 0.161 in very limited minutes last season). Plus the Raptors gave up their first round pick in 2008 (Hibbert). Put it all together, and the Pacers look like a better team after this move.
It’s important to remember that – despite an underperforming O’Neal – the Pacers were not a terrible team in 2007-08.
Table Two: The Pacers in 2007-08
Table Two indicates that this team’s Wins Produced (based on the team’s efficiency differential) summed to 37 wins. Had the Pacers won this many games the team would have been tied with the Hawks for the last spot in the Eastern Conference playoffs (Indiana actually finished one game back). Adding a very productive point guard and a serviceable center to this roster, while losing a player who didn’t produce any wins last year, has to help the Pacers return to the post-season.
And we have to remember that in addition to the O’Neal trade, the Pacers also acquired Jarrett Jack (0.098 WP48 last season) in a draft day trade that also netted guard Brandon Rush. Given these moves, the Pacers will now have the following collection of above average veterans in the rotation: T. J. Ford, Mike Dunleavy, Troy Murphy, and Jeff Foster. In addition, the Pacers have three more players who are right around average (Danny Granger, Jack, and Nesterovic). If Rush and Hibbert can come in and produced positive wins (not above average, just greater than zero), the Pacers should definitely improve.
The best Win Score draft goes to the Indiana Pacers for picking up solid players in Brandon Rush and Roy Hibbert. Both are NBA-ready and excellent Win Score prospects. Along with their trades, the Pacers are primed to pass .500 this season and are a franchise on the upswing.
If the analysis Doerr and I offer is to be believed, the Pacers are right now strong candidates to return to the post-season in 2009. Of course we will know more when the roster of the Pacers – and every other team – is finalized. At this point, though, the evidence suggests that losing O’Neal was a good move for the Pacers.
Does this mean that this trade is bad for the Raptors? I will try and answer that question in my next post. And that answer is not as clear as one might think.
– DJ
The WoW Journal Comments Policy
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 
Erich
June 29, 2008
A lot of the WP48 #’s went up from 2006-07 to 2007-08. One question going forward is whether those increases represent player growth or were just career years.
Joe
June 29, 2008
Financially, the Pacers took on worse contracts in the deal which should be something a “rebuilding team” doesn’t do.
Evan
June 29, 2008
Erich — you should tout your work more here. I’m interested in reading anything you write.
Jason
June 29, 2008
Joe, I’m not sure how you conclude that the Pacers took on “worse contracts”.
The Pacers got rid of perhaps the worst contract in the league when O’neal departs. Nesterovic is in the final year of his deal, as is Baston. The Jack trade is salary neutral. He’s not a bad contract (2 mil) and only has a year remaining. McRoberts is on a min salary deal and the Rush pick is on the rookie scale for the next 4 years. It’s a bit less than they’d be paying Bayless since Bayless was picked a few spots earlier, but in either event, rookie deals are hard to consider “worse contracts.”
If they want to do a salary dump and only retain Ford from the Toronto trade , next season, they’ll be paying him $8.5million instead of a shade less than $23mil for O’neal. That sheds more than $14 million from their payroll. Again, hard to see that this is “worse”. Shedding salary for a player who doesn’t contribute anymore *is* what rebuilding teams do.
I’ll jump the gun on the Raptors situation. While I don’t anticipate O’neal to help them much, if he takes minutes away from Bargnani, they’ll be better off.
Tyson
June 29, 2008
I can believe that O’Neal is below average, but this trade probably helps Toronto. Calderon gets more minutes, and Bargnani gets less. That’s a good thing.
Tball
June 30, 2008
Even if Toronto is better after the deal, I am not sure it is a good deal for Toronto. Trading away an above average point guard, an average center, and a mid-first round draft pick should net more than a below average PF/C. They could have accomplished the same by starting Nestrovic with Bosh, playing each 30+min/gm and starting Calderon over Ford.
Giving away talent and a draft pick for a below average player with a bad contract is a net loss. It would have been cheaper to replace the coach with someone who will give the productive players the most playing time.
Tball
June 30, 2008
According to the Charlotte Observer and a quote from Michael Jordan, the Raptors could have had Gerald Wallace for TJ Ford, before the Raptors began requesting a draft pick with Wallace. At this point in O’Neal’s career, I’d rather have Wallace, Nestrovic, and the 17th pick than take O’Neal and his contract.
Jake
June 30, 2008
All of the negativity surrounding this trade assumes that O’Neal will not benefit greatly from Bosh’s presence (ie his shooting percentages won’t increase), that O’Neal was not hurt in the seasons past and that O’Neal will not be motivated to play now that he actually is with a decent team.
In short, I expect this deal to be a huge positive for the Raptors – even at his worst, O’Neal is a capable defender and exactly what the Raps need next to Bosh at the 5 spot. I also believe that the Raps will improve without the malcontent TJ Ford around and Calderon knowing that the starting gig is firmly his.
Vince Gagliano
June 30, 2008
That’s not the worst part of the deal.
In order to secure O’Neal, Toronto had to take his $20 million a year contract, which significantly hurt their cap space come the summer of 2010 – after all, Chris Bosh IS going to be an unrestricted free agent at that time.
Also, over the past 4 seasons, O’Neal has only played in 206 out of 336 regular season games (61.3%), showing signs that injury may be slowing him down. By contrast, Dwight Howard has played in every Orlando Magic game since he was drafted.
Indiana got Ford for $8.5 million, got expiring contracts in Nesterovic and Baston, AND a solid rookie in Roy Hibbert, who might very well be underpaid under the salary cap.
Take away Nesterovich and Baston’s contract, and factor in that Hibbert will still be paid under his rookie, and you get a Pacers team well-positioned to make a run in a deep free agency class, aside from the depth and productivity on their roster that they now have on their roster.
That’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it.
Karl
June 30, 2008
Vince, doesn’t Jermaine O’Neal’s contract expire in two years? That being the case, two seasons from now, when teams really start gearing up to clear cap space for the great free agency class of 2010, wouldn’t his $20+ million expiring contract be quite attractive for any team that wants to make a run at those free agents?
Owen
June 30, 2008
JO does come off the books in two years. I don’t know if I would call a 22 million per year contract for a below average player friendly, but it won’t stop them from making a run at a premer free agent in 2010.
Vince Gagliano
June 30, 2008
Oh well, you know what they say about asking about salaries.
Call me stupid, but if there aren’t any other trades, personell deals tend to be zero-sum.
Something about the deal just doesn’t seem quite right for Toronto…
Anon
June 30, 2008
I just wish they’d traded J. O’Neal to the Lakers for Odom last summer. Then we could have seen how well Kobe did with a “star” center to help him out.
Andrew
June 30, 2008
Love the stat analysis!
Jacob Rosen
June 30, 2008
Indiana looks a lot better this coming season. With the young core of Ford, Dunleavy, Murphy and Granger, it looks like they should be on the right road after the long tenure of Jermaine O’Neal as the main star. But it is still hard to see them being better in the East than Toronto, Charlotte, Atlanta, and maybe even Washington. I would be genuinely surprised if they made the playoffs this season, but they should be good to go as long as they four stay together.
How competitive do you think New Jersey will be this coming season?
mrparker
July 1, 2008
Rubbing my hands togethere in anticipation of what Berri will have to say about the Wizards new contracts. Thats right in your wheel house.
Vince Gagliano
July 1, 2008
Same here with the Love-Mayo trade.