Over the last few days there have been a number of wonderful suggestions for blog topics.
Josh suggested a post on the career of Karl Malone.
Ken asked for a post on David Robinson.
Stephanie would like more information on how performance changes with age.
And William would like me to post the Wins Produced numbers from every player who played in 2007-08.
Looking over these suggestions I knew exactly what I should write about… Emeka Okafor.
Okafor vs. Bogut
Okafor just signed a 6-year, $72 million contract with the Charlotte Bobcats. And although I liked the suggestions, I thought I should offer a comment on this deal.
A few weeks ago the Milwaukee Bucks signed Andrew Bogut for $60 million over five years ($72 million with apparently some hard to reach incentives). So Bogut and Okafor are both receiving $12 million per season.
Here was my first thought when I saw the two deals were basically the same: “That seems wrong. One of these players is much more productive.” At least, that’s what I see when I glance at the numbers.
Table One: Comparing Emeka Okafor and Andrew Bogut
Table One looks at the last two seasons from both Okafor and Bogut. As one can see, in both years Okafor’s per-minute performance was superior. And this is primarily because Okafor is the better rebounder.
When we turn to Wins Produced per 48 minutes [WP48] we see the same story. Okafor posted a 0.208 mark last season and a stellar 0.290 WP48 in 2006-07 (see the Greatness of Okafor for more on his 2006-07 campaign). Meanwhile, Bogut’s numbers were 0.145 two years ago and 0.157 in 2007-08.
When we look at the per-minute numbers it’s hard to see how Okafor and Bogut should be paid the same amount. But then I thought about Wins Produced.
Bogut has only played three seasons. And across these three seasons he has produced 22.6 wins. Okafor just finished his fourth season, so his career Wins Produced is higher. But when we look at Okafor’s first three seasons we only see 23.4 wins. Yes, Okafor’s per-minute performance was much better (0.193 WP48 vs. a 0.148 mark for Bogut). Bogut, though, played 1,522 more minutes in his first three seasons. Consequently Bogut was able to nearly match Okafor’s production of wins.
When we move past per-minute performance and consider Wins Produced, then the offers each of these players received make some sense. Now if Okafor can stay healthy, it seems likely the Bobcats will got more bang for their buck. But Okafor’s history with injuries – his fourth season was the first time he played in 82 games – probably cost him some money.
The Bobcats Review
Okafor has been with the Bobcats from the inception of the franchise. In these four seasons Okafor has produced 35.2 wins. The rest of his teammates, though, have only produced only 80.7 wins. This works out to only 20.2 wins per season. In sum, even if Okafor produced 20 wins per season the Bobcats would still have been a sub-0.500 team the past four seasons.
Entering the 2007-08 season, though, there was some reason for optimism. Last August I noted that the Bobcats could have expected to be about average last season. This projection, though, was not realized.
Just before the season ended I noted why this happened. And as I stated in April, the key reason why the Bobcats finished about 10 wins off the pace is that Okafor, Matt Carroll, and Gerald Wallace offered less. This point is also made in Table Two below.
Table Two: The Charlotte Bobcats in 2007-08
At the conclusion of my April post I offered some thoughts on what Charlotte should do going forward. The return of a healthy Sean May (0.175 WP48 in 2006-07) will help. And if Adam Morrison cannot improve dramatically, a return of a healthy Morrison could hurt.
Beyond May and Morrison, though, I focused on the point guard spot. Raymond Felton, Jeff McInnis, and Earl Boykins were all below average performers last season. So it looked to me that the Bobcats needed a new point guard.
In the NBA draft, the Bobcats took point guard D.J. Augustin in the lottery. Can Augustin be the answer to this team’s point guard woes? Erich Doerr – who analyzed the NBA Draft with Win Score – is pessimistic about Augustin’s NBA chances. Still, at least the Bobcats made an effort to address an area of weakness.
Beyond the draft, the Bobcats really haven’t done much to improve their talent level. They have changed their coach. Perhaps Larry Brown can get these players to be more productive (then again, maybe he can’t).
Other Topics
As I wrote this post I learned that the
1. the Rockets may have acquired Ron Artest.
Quick thoughts on each topic…
1. Not sure how Artest dramatically improves the Rockets. But then again, I haven’t looked at all the numbers yet. But my first reaction is not as positive as what I saw on ESPN when the story broke.
2. Pierce is not the most productive player in the game. But he could argue that he is as productive as Kobe (see Kobe Myths and Kobe Myths – Playoff Edition).
Perhaps additional posts on each topic would be a good idea. And more on Karl Malone, David Robinson, and the impact of experience on productivity would also be good topics.
As for every player’s Wins Produced numbers… I hope to post that after I have reviewed each team. So far 12 teams have been reviewed. That leaves me 18 more teams to review before the season starts. Looks like I better get these out a little bit faster. If not, I will still be reviewing teams from 07-08 next January.
– 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 
Adam
July 30, 2008
Adjust your formula to include charges drawn, and Bogut will surpass Okafor in wins produced.
jmugema
July 30, 2008
Another great post. If you’re still looking for topics on which to post, I’ve got an idea. Actually, it’s something I’ve long wrestled with.
While wins are obviously the most important things in sports, in some sports, I think they fail to capture the essence of the “best.” That is, in any given sport, the best team will not always win.
Of course it’s difficult to determine who is the “best” team because team perhaps team A>B>C>A.
Now, in some sports, this isn’t a huge problem. In the NBA a series makes it much more likely that the better basketball team will win. And furthermore, the best team is determined as whichever team wins against it’s peers in the playoffs.
However, in a sport like college football, there is no playoff. Pollsters and computers make estimations of which teams are better. HERE is where I think wins can become overrated.
A notorious example is last year’s Michigan V App state game. Michigan lost on a field goal block. Aside from the fact that a fg block is almost a random luck play, IF Michigan had made that field goal, they’d have stayed in the top 25 (probably even in the top 10). Yet because of it, they dropped more than 10 spots. Does one field goal block matter 10 entire spots?
Perhaps most galling are games featuring top 25 teams. If, let’s say, team #1 beats team #5, team #5 will drop in the rankings. But according to the pollster’s previous information, team #1 was SUPPOSED to beat team #5. So, why drop them in the rankings?
Is there some metric by which the “value” of wins as a predictor of future wins for different sports can be calculated?
JazzFanInHouston
July 30, 2008
What is the true effect of adding Artest to the Rockets? It is not just a matter of adding Artest’s wins produced for 2008 and subtracting Jackson’s wins produced for 2008.
Artest will take minutes (and wins produced) from Hays, Landry, Battier and Scola. All have good to decent win 48 scores. He may also take some minutes from McGrady (when hurt or rested).
Some feel he will have a positive impact by reducing McGrady’s minutes which will make the minutes that McGrady does play more productive.
Is there any way to predict in wins produced what net effect Artest is going to have on the Rockets?
mrparker
July 31, 2008
jmugema,
Wins produced is based on efficiency differential which has proven to be one of the best indicators of team success.
Evan
July 31, 2008
Is there any way that this starting 5 could work? mcgrady, artest, battier, landry, yao…
i know it’s weird for TMac to be the 1, but i think it could work. tons of size in that lineup, great WP, tough to defend, but great at defense.
mrparker
July 31, 2008
Evan,
I would love to see a coach have the stones to try that lineup. If only for experiments sake.
JazzFanInHouston
July 31, 2008
The addition of Artest to the Rockets line up is more complex than his partial correlation with wins (unique contribution above Jackson that does not overlap with existing players). I strongly suspect that adding Gasol to the Lakers created more wins than his win score stats indicated it should. Adding Korver in replacement of Giricek appeared to dramatically improved the Jazz beyond the substitution of the win score stats.
It appears to me that some players add unique partial correlation to the team wins that create a positive synergy for the win stats of at least some of the existing players on the team and/or the overall team.
It is not clear if Artest will have a negative or positive synergy effect on the Rockets beyond his partial correlation. He is already demanding an extended contract and Ming is expressing concerns about team chemistry.
Artest was a starter in Sac. Artest’s and Battier’s win scores are pretty similar. Artest will mainly take Jackson’s 23 minutes (mostly backs up McGrady) and Battier’s minutes (starts). Battier then moves to the second team and makes them stronger.
Artest also demands a lot of touches and tends to disrupt the normal flow of the existing offense at times. If you look at Artest’s individual game win stats there are wild swings in them from one game to another. He and Jackson tended to be erratic in quality of play. Battier tends to be more stable. (Someone please run the variance on the above. I made this comment based on visual data).
What effect does Artest have on LA, SA, NO and the Jazz? His play against weaker teams is not nearly as important as his impact in playoff games.
Artest is not an average player and his play may not be accurately captured by the win score models.
Anyway it would be nice if someone could address these issues. The win stats are based on averages and the stability in the relationships among the variables. Artest may be an anomaly.
JazzFanInHouston
July 31, 2008
In regression outliers are usually trimmed (removed) from the data. Is Artest an erratic outlier who does not fit the patterns and relationships produced by the more typical NBA players? There for the win score models would be misspecified for predicting his specific impact.
How do you determine if a particular player is included in the wages of win analysis? How do you determine if they are some type of atypical outlier?
Jordan
July 31, 2008
Berri, how do you feel about the fact that Bogut draws so may charges to go along with the same amount of blocks as Okafor?
Not only does he gain possession for his team, but he also causes a foul on an opposing player. I would think that a charge would be worth more than a block (which the offense could recover), but less than a steal (no chance of getting into transition, but it does add a foul so who knows?)
Curious of your thoughts?
Thanks for the post.
dberri
July 31, 2008
Jordan,
If you treat drawing a charge like getting a steal (it does give you possession), Bogut does improve. But Okafor still has a higher Win Score per 48 minutes.