Here is one reaction Wisconsin fans could have to the Brett Favre saga: “Well, at least we have the Bucks”.
Okay, I don’t expect most Wisconsin sports fans are thinking the Bucks are going to provide much of a distraction. At least, you wouldn’t think so if you looked at their performance in 2007-08.
Milwaukee in 2007-08
The Bucks won 26 games last season, their worst mark since the 1995-96 season. The story is even more depressing when you look at efficiency differential and Wins Produced. The Bucks posted a differential of -7.25 last season, the worst mark in franchise history.
Table One: The Milwaukee Bucks in 2007-08
When we turn to Wins Produced (which is based on the efficiency differential elements), we see that the Bucks should have expected to win about 23 games in 2007-08. Such a mark is actually a small improvement upon what this team should have expected given the past performance of its players. Had Milwaukee’s players maintained what they did in 2006-07, this team would have won only 20 games last year. In sum, the Bucks were not good and this result shouldn’t have surprised.
Last March the Bucks decided to fix this problem by firing Larry Harris, the team’s general manager. Because a team’s GM is the person primarily responsible for picking the players, this can be a very good move. Of course that depends upon the ability of the new GM to pick players.
The Bucks new GM is John Hammond. And one of Hammond’s first moves was to send Yi Jianlian (the Bucks 2007 lottery pick) and Bobby Simmons to the New Jersey Nets for Richard Jefferson.
Evaluating Hammond’s Big Move
Last May I identified Jefferson as the Most Overrated Player in the NBA. I have also noted that the decline of the New Jersey Nets can be directly tied to the declines we observe in Jefferson’s performance. In sum, Jefferson used to be a prolific producer of points and wins. Now his wins production is lacking (although he still gives you points, for whatever that’s worth).
Although Jefferson is not what he used to be, he’s still more productive than the small forwards employed by Milwaukee last year. Desmond Mason and Bobby Simmons played 3,223 minutes last year and produced a combined 1.2 wins. Jefferson played 3,200 minutes for the Nets and produced 2.6 victories. So Jefferson is a small step up.
The Bucks also lose Yi Jianlian. As Table Two reports (taken from an earlier post), only Al Thornton and Jeff Green offered less production than Yi among the NBA’s 2007-08 rookies.
Table Two: The Rookies of 2007-08
Although Yi could improve, his first year was clearly not promising. Given Yi’s shortcomings, one wonders what would happen if the Bucks transferred all of Yi’s minutes to Charlie Villanueva (as I note, this can’t actually happen)?
Yi posted a -0.056 WP48 in 1,647 minutes last season. Villanueva’s WP48 was 0.014 in 2007-08, so in Yi’s minutes Villanueva would have produced 2.4 additional wins. Of course this means Villanueva would have to play 3,476 minutes or 42.4 minutes per game. So clearly the Bucks need to give minutes to someone else at power forward.
A possibility is to shift 2008 lottery pick – Joe Alexander – from small forward to power forward. Alexander’s college production, though, doesn’t compare favorably to an average small forward taken in the draft in recent years. Therefore – given that he probably won’t be a productive small forward — moving him to power forward doesn’t seem like such a good idea.
It seems likely the Bucks will have to add another big man to the roster. Until we see who that person is we are not going to have an exact forecast of what Milwaukee will do in 2008-09. That being said, unless that unknown big man is quite good and Richard Jefferson returns to the RJ of old, it doesn’t look the trade of Yi Jianlian is really going to help much.
So at this point the Bucks of 2008-09 don’t look much different from what we have seen in recent years. This team is still led by three players – Andrew Bogut, Mo Williams, and Michael Redd – who are average or somewhat above average. The rest of the players projected to be part of the rotation were below average last years, or for the rookies, expected to be below average this season. Such a combination suggests that the Bucks will once again field a losing a team, and therefore not make sports fans in Wisconsin forget the Brett Favre saga anytime soon.
Comment on Bogut Deal
One last note on the Bucks. A few days ago I noticed that Bogut signed a $72.5 million contract. This led me to offer a very quick post on how Bogut – given what he had done before – was not really worth this amount of money.
It is important to note that I did not investigate the details of the Bogut contract. Nor did I spend much time thinking about the post. Basically, I saw the news, grabbed some data, and started writing.
After I posted this comment, though, I realized that given my own calculations – posted a few weeks earlier – Bogut might be worth $72.5 million. And then I also learned that Bogut was actually scheduled to get $60 million, with the remainder in incentive pay. In sum, the whole Bogut post just didn’t work.
Hopefully this post will be better. If it is not, perhaps my previous posts on the Bucks might be more enlightening.
The Bucks Are Stopped Here and Now
The Least Interesting Team in the NBA
Maybe Players Are What They Are
Mediocrity in Milwaukee and Number One Choices the Second Time Around
The Milwaukee Bucks in 2005-06
As you can see (if you read all these), my story on the Bucks doesn’t seem to change.
UPDATE: Okay, just saw that the Bucks added Tyrone Lue and Malik Allen to the team yesterday (yes, one should always do the research after you write). If Allen is the mystery big man the Bucks were going to add, then Wisconsin fans can just keep thinking about Favre. Allen’s career Wins Production is in the negative range. And yes, that doesn’t help. So although the linked article by Charles Gardner says the Bucks are trying to “build a winning team in the near term”, unless we are defining “near” as in the next ten years, this move is not consistent with that sentiment.
– 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 
Owen
July 18, 2008
Hmmm, well, at least we Knicks fans won’t be alone in our misery….
Ryan
July 18, 2008
What I see here is poor coaching, that is choosing what players are on the floor for a majority of minutes. The Bucks’ three worst players by WP48 each had over 1,000 minutes (Simmons, Jianlian, Ivey). If the coach and GM had made more of an effort to transfer the minutes from those three laggards to Mason, Bell, Villanueva, Sessions, and Ruffin (the sample size for these last two might not be enough to guarantee improved performance), the Bucks could’ve been a little more competitive.
Jacob Rosen
July 18, 2008
The Bucks have to be on the verge of a big move. I can’t fathom a team with Bell, Williams, Sessions, Mason, Jefferson, Alexander, Mbah a Moute, and Redd all co-existing. One of those guards should be traded for a big. As a Cavaliers fan, we have all been hoping to land any one of those players (any one would at least be another body at the guard position), but I am not sure how that will happen. Bucks won’t make the playoffs this year, Charlotte, and Indiana look to be progressing a little bit better than them.
Tommy_Grand
July 18, 2008
Props to you for mentioning the Bogut column. Most writers lack the stones to admit even a minor misstep.
Keep up the great work; love the blog.
don
July 19, 2008
Was there an adjustment in the WP48s from the ’07 season (as found in the season end review). For ’07 bogut then had .145; in this article, however, his ’07 is .131. Williams was listed at .118 for ’07; here his ’07 is .104. Redd, .133 then; not same season is listed .106. Villenuava .051 then, .036 now. Gadzuric .046 then, now .031. Only Bell’s ’07 WP48 is as reported in the end of the season article.
If I recall the WinScore I kept for ’07, the W48s in last season’s review appear my likely than those attributed to the players now.
Like I said, has this article included adjustments from the last publishing of ’07’s WP48s? Or was a mistake made?
dberri
July 19, 2008
don,
The numbers for 06-07 and 07-08 are adjusted for 07-08 position averages. That is the small variation you see.
don
July 19, 2008
Thanks, that makes sense. Yet I am not sure of the statement then being made. Orginally I thought it was if these players the following season (this case ’08)contributed, as measured by the weights, in relation to the average player at their position of the previous season (’07), then the team should win x games once we multiply the number of minutes to the each players WP per minute. Now it seems that the relationship is with average players’s contributions of the respective positions in the following season. Sorry for the muddle, but why adjust WP48 of the previous season(’07 in this case) with the postition averages of the next season (’08)? How can their respective production in one year be adjusted for postion averages in the next year? Or maybe I mean, why?
Say for redd, he was orginally determined to make a contribution (as measured by the WoW algarythm) at .133, which is his weighted score + position adjustment (his performance in relation to the average position player) + other adjustmenst (not of concern here). That same box score performance the following year, because of the better average position player’s performance, would be only .106 ( a twelve percent loss). But the reality was the performance occured in ’07 and not ’08. Why would it be adjusted for the ’08 position average to predict ’08 performance (and then measured against actual ’08 performance)? Is not this an adjustment to many and in this case rather large?
dberri
July 20, 2008
don,
I forgot to note also… it is 06-07 numbers that are also adjusted for position the player played in 07-08. That is primarily what causes the numbes to vary some.
All I am doing is taking the adjusted productivity of the player from the previous season and plugging into the 07-08 spreadsheet.
To the extent I am making a statement, I am saying that given the player’s box score performance the previous season, and the minutes played and position played this season, this is how many wins you could expect.