On Tuesday the Denver Nuggets essentially gave their most productive player – Marcus Camby – to the LA Clippers. Well “gave” is not quite the correct word. The Nuggets did get a trade exception and the right to swap second round picks in 2010. Although these resources could have value, it’s not clear at this point what that value is going to be. It does seem clear that a player who produced 21 wins for the Nuggets – and posted a 0.365 WP48 [Wins Produced per 48 minutes] – should be worth more. In sum – and I think you can tell this from the reaction of both Denver fans and head coach George Karl – it looks like Denver has taken a step back.
Forget Pareto
The impact this move has on the Nuggets, though, is not the subject of this post. This post is going to examine the impact of this transaction on the Clippers.
At first glance it looks like the Clippers are suddenly quite good. The team already signed Baron Davis (11.8 Wins Produced and 0.177 WP48 last season). And Chris Kaman (10.1 Wins Produced as 0.233 WP48 last season) is returning. With Camby on board, the top three players on the Clippers in 2008-09 produced 42.9 wins last season.
To put that number in perspective, the three most productive players in Boston in 2007-08 – Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce, and Rajon Rondo – produced 41.6 wins. And led by this trio the Celtics went on to win 66 games and an NBA Championship. Typically, the top three players produce 80% of a team’s wins (refer to the original post on the Pareto Principle for details on this rough rule of thumb). The top three in Boston, though, produced only 61% of the team’s Wins Produced. So the Celtics had more than just Garnett, Pierce, and Rondo (Ray Allen, James Posey, and Leon Powe immediately leap to mind).
The Clippers supporting cast – as detailed below – is not going to remind anyone of the Celtics. Still, if the Clippers supporting cast could follow the dictates of the Pareto Principle, and Camby, Davis, and Kaman maintained their production from 2007-08, the Clippers could expect to win about 54 games and contend for a playoff spot.
But it doesn’t look like the Clippers have heard of Vilfredo Pareto.
Unlike the Celtics, after the top three the Clippers have basically nothing.
Table One: The LA Clippers in 2007-08
As Table One notes (posted in May in my review of this team), the Clippers received 17 wins from Kaman and Corey Maggette last season. The rest of the team, though, produced only 4.6 wins.
To this meager supporting cast the Clippers have added rookies Eric Gordon, DeAndre Jordan, and Mike Taylor. Erich Doerr’s analysis, though, indicates that all three struggled last year. So it seems unlikely that the Clippers will get much help from their 2008 draft choices.
With little help from the draft or the supporting cast, it looks like the Clippers are going to be relying primarily on Camby, Kaman, and Davis to produce their wins. And if these players give what they gave last season, this team can expect to win about 42 games.
Challenging a Record
For most NBA teams, 43 wins is nice, but hardly cause for celebration. For the Clippers, though, 43 wins is not far off the Clippers best mark of 47 victories in 2005-06 (the Buffalo Braves won 49 games in 1974-75). In fact, if the Clippers do manage to get a little something beyond their top three, it’s possible the Clippers could post the franchise best mark for victories in 2008-09.
Unfortunately, that plan depends upon Camby playing and producing the entire season. This is the same Camby who has played more than 70 games only twice in his career and who turns 35 next March. In other words, there is a reason why the Nuggets decided to move forward without the aging Camby.
And Camby is not the only player who has trouble staying on the court. Although Baron Davis played in all 82 games last year, the previous five seasons saw Davis miss 110 regular season contests (or nearly one-third of all games). Furthermore, Chris Kaman missed 26 games last year (yes, that’s also nearly one-third).
Obviously if any of the top three miss a substantial chunk of the season, the franchise record set by that immortal team from 2005-06 will not be threatened. And then people might question the wisdom of swapping second round draft choices to acquire Camby (okay, can’t see that happening).
Let me close this brief post by noting that much of what I said was already noted in the comments in my last column (The Brand Value). So if you already read those comments (or actually wrote those comments), I apologize for wasting your time with this post. Unfortunately I can’t comment on these events quite as fast as the astute readers of this blog. Maybe it would be better if I just started posting the comments (hmmmmm…, now that would be a time-saver).
– 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 
ilikeflowers
July 16, 2008
I’m guessing that the Clippers best hope for average net SF/SG play is to sign Iguodala at SG and then hope that Al Thornton can play SF and improve his ‘productivity’ to at least -0.070 (lol) in his second year.
Daniel
July 16, 2008
Clips havs $3-$4 million in cap space left. Camby was their move. The only thing they can do now is spend their remaining space, use the MLE, and add veteran’s minimum players. The player that most intrigues me most in this situation is DeAndre Jordan. He has one of the best low post defenders in the league and a very good offensive big man to play against in practice every day. For a high-ceiling guy like Jordan, having good players to go after in practice will really help him become a more productive player.
Jeremy
July 16, 2008
Obviously the question is what now for the Nuggets? Give Nene all of Cambys minutes. Curious to see how they project next year sans Camby.
Jacob Rosen
July 16, 2008
No way Denver makes the playoffs now. Here is a list of teams that are locks for the post-season out in the Western Conference:
LA Lakers
New Orleans
San Antonio
Houston
Utah
After that, there is Portland, Phoenix, Dallas and the LA Clippers, all teams I find much better than Denver. Even if they are able to retain J.R. Smith, I think Denver is in serious trouble of falling under .500. As Dave noted, Camby produced 21 wins last year for that team. Without him, but with a little bit of luck, and progression from their younger players (Kleiza, Smith, Nene, Melo’), they might get to 40 wins this coming year (down from 50 this past year.) My guess as of right now would be somewhere between 35-39, placing them tenth or eleventh in the conference.
Joe
July 16, 2008
@Daniel
Long story short. You get the MLE or cap space. Not both, so the Clippers have their remaining cap space and the NBA minimum to offer. It is a bit more complicated than that, but that is the basic gist.
Mike
July 17, 2008
But DJ,
As you detail in the book, similar players will decrease each others’ productivity. Camby and Kaman are both successful players for the same reasons – they are centers who rebound and block shots well. There are only so many rebounds to be had, so one of the two (or both) should see a drop in their rebounding totals.
It is no coincidence that Kaman’s one hugely productive season came with Elton Brand on the disabled list. Kaman’s raw skills may have improved this year, but his biggest improvement was situational: he no longer had to contend with Brand for rebounds. As a result, he rebounded more. With Camby on board, we should expect him again to rebound less.
As the book mentions, a team of 5 Shaquille O’neals, no matter how productive Shaq was in his heyday, would have significant problems. While the Clippers do not have 5 Shaq’s, they do seem to have 2 Camby’s. I would be hesitant to predict that both Kaman and Camby will maintain their former pace – and as a result I’d cut a few wins off the prediction.
Daniel
July 17, 2008
@Joe…
You’re right about the Clips only having cap space to use– I screwed up the research. However, if a team holds the rights to a Disabled Player, Bi-Annual, Mid-Level and/or Traded Player exception, the amount of those goes towards the cap figure. This is why Trade exceptions expire before luxury tax figures are given. This means that a team with a payroll $7 million under the cap can only use the MLE and Bi-Annual because their cap figure includes the $5.8 million MLE and the $1.9 million BAE UNLESS they renounce both to sign a $7 million player. This is the reason the Clippers don’t have the MLE or the BAE–they had to renounce both to get far enough under the cap to sign another restricted free agent after Brand left (not because they had cap space). Depending on how Davis’s deal is structured (5*$13 million or $11 million with raises), the Clippers have somewhere between $3million and $5 million in cap space because Camby’s contract, though only for $8million, provides for over $3million in incentives/year, which does count against the cap. After spending that, it’s summer league players for the Clips!
Dan
July 17, 2008
Camby and Kaman have very different playing styles. Camby cleans up garbage and takes ill-advised 18-footers. Kaman has real post moves and you can run a set offense through him. Both pass moderately well, and Kaman has a low basketball IQ on defense and is poor at weak-side rotations, though has become a much better shot-blocker over the last year. Their skill sets really complement each others’ strengths and weaknesses, and both are athletic enough to keep from clogging up the low block on offense. They’re not going to be close to matching Duncan/Robinson-type production (and defense), but they can definitely be close to Gasol/Bynum-production, which is a massive improvement over the potential prospect of picking up Josh Smith and his insistence on scoring 20ppg.
ilikeflowers
July 17, 2008
Maybe the Clippers will play Fazekas some this year. If he can fulfill upon the promise of his college career then maybe he can provide a boost to the bench.
Continuing on the How To Make The Clippers SF/SG/Bench play better, Here’s a list of UFA’s with their midway W48’s from last season who at least won’t negate the production of other players.
Kurt Thomas, 0.302
Dwayne Jones, 0.233
Eddie House, 0.163
Randolph Morris, 0.156
Bonzi Wells, 0.132
Carlos Arroyo, 0.121
Sam Cassell, 0.119
Adonal Foyle, 0.111
Kirk Snyder, 0.105
Ira Newble, 0.097
Michael Finley, 0.088
Mario West, 0.083
Jason Williams, 0.082
Dikembe Mutombo, 0.076
Alonzo Mourning, 0.074
Brian Skinner, 0.064
Damon Stoudamire, 0.064
Devin Brown, 0.060
Tony Allen, 0.057
Devean George, 0.054
Austin Croshere, 0.052
DerMarr Johnson, 0.051
Fred Jones, 0.050
Chris Duhon, 0.043
Matt Barnes, 0.040
Derek Anderson, 0.039
Jake Voskuhl, 0.029
Francisco Elson, 0.025
Scot Pollard, 0.017
Lorenzen Wright, 0.017
Lindsey Hunter, 0.013
Ricky Davis, 0.009
Maurice Evans, 0.007
Anyone, are any of these possible or likely for the Clips?
Dan
July 17, 2008
Bonzi Wells would be a perfect fit to give the Clippers a very productive (over .200 WP/48 in the past) 25-30 min/night bench player (or starter if Dunleavy figures out Al Thornton is terrible) who can play the 2-3-4 and rebound very well. If Thornton decides to let his teammates shoot once in a while, Bonzi would make the Clippers a very good team. He hasn’t garnered much interest in the free agent market and could probably be had for $3-4 million/season, and I hope the Spurs pick him up to replace some of Finley/Horry/Barry’s minutes.
Todd
July 17, 2008
Great post Mike. I think you really hit the nail on the head. Rebounding numbers are largely situational, as has been mentioned many times in these posts. Camby was great because he played on a fast paced team where nobody else wanted to rebound, and Kaman was great last year because he played alongside out of position small forwards. We will likely see a return to the numbers of both players earlier in their careers when they were not asked to be their team’s primary rebounder when on the court.
mrpaker
July 18, 2008
Todd,
Camby has been a top 3 defensive rebounder every season since 00-01. I wouldn’t call the Knicks of 00-01 a fast paced team. In fact they were the 29th out of 29th in pace that season. All stats found on basketball-reference.com
Jason
July 18, 2008
If rebound numbers are largely situational, it seems like players who rebound largely dictate the situation. Rebounding seems to be ridiculously consistent from year to year for a player, even when he changes teams.
Yeah, the pace and situation can have an effect, but it sounds like some people are saying that the situation can turn an 8rpg center into a 12rpg center if only the situation was right. (And it’s true, if that situation involved an NBA player a parks and rec league. OK, maybe it still wouldn’t be true for Eddy Curry.)
Todd
July 18, 2008
Rebounding numbers are normally very consistent because players fill similar roles from season to season. Last year we saw change in the rebounding of players who were put in considerably different situations like Kevin Garnett and Kaman. When you put two good frontcourt rebounders on a team together, at least one of them will have fewer rebounds because there are only so many missed shots each game. Dennis Rodman’s career is a testament to this. Look at the rebounding numbers of Bill Laimbeer, David Robinson, Scottie Pippen, and Luc Longley before they played with Rodman vs. when they played with Rodman. Each player’s rebounding numbers were adversely affected. The same is true of most statistics. AI’s shot attempts went down about 5 per game when he went to Denver, despite the faster playing pace, because there were other players there that took shots. It is possible that Kaman and Camby will have the same WP48 this year as last, but at least one of them will have to do it in a different way, probably with less rebounding and better shooting.
ilikeflowers
July 18, 2008
Kelenna Azubuike looks like a decent fit for the clippers. His production is below average at 0.070, but he’s better than what they currently have and he’s only been in the league for a couple of years so he could improve to an average or more SG. Now if they can just get rid of Al Thornton.
ilikeflowers
July 29, 2008
Nice try for Azubuike, but the Warriors wisely matched the offer. Ricky Davis won’t help – but at least he’s not in the negative.