Last week every single team finally played its 41st game in the 2008-09 season. Consequently, I was able to analyze every player and every team at the season’s midpoint. And although there are many stories this data set could tell, I thought I would just post the data. So without further introduction, here is the Wins Produced and WP48 [Wins Produced per 48 minutes] of every player at the midpoint of the 2008-09 campaign.
Table One: All Teams at the Midpoint of the 2008-09 Season
Table Two: All Players at the Midpoint of the 2008-09 Season
Table One organizes the players by team. Table Two organizes by Wins Produced. Here are a few quick stories this data tells (again, I am sure there a many others).
A Few Stories
- As noted a few days ago, the most productive player in the NBA is Chris Paul.
- Obviously Paul is the most productive point guard. The top players at the other positions are as follows:
- Center: Dwight Howard
- Power Forward: Kevin Garnett
- Small Forward: LeBron James
- Shooting Guard: Dwyane Wade
- There are a number of outstanding centers and point guards. Of the top ten players in Wins Produced, five are centers and three play the point. Garnett, the top power forward, only ranks 12th in the league in Wins Produced.
- I was going to write a post on the All-Star selections, but I think it would read the same as my post on the Rookie Challenge. David West, Joe Johnson, Danny Granger, and Rashard Lewis can all score. But none of these players are really that productive (at least, not relative to the top players in the game). Yes, scoring is once again being rewarded. And although people might claim that fans are most interested in scoring (and the game is for the fans), the role scoring plays in all-star selections is consistent with what we see when we look at free agent salaries. In sum, players are consistently rewarded when they score (even if they do not do much else).
Stoudemire, the Suns, and Red Auerbach
The emphasis on scoring is why All-Star Amare Stoudemire is currently frustrated. Stoudemire may lead the Phoenix Suns in scoring, but his shot attempts are down from last year (and so is his rebounding and overall productivity). As a consequence, he has suggested that he’s not happy with how the offense is being run in Phoenix.
Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports has a column on this topic that contains the following quotes and observations:
- One Western Conference scout, who’s watched the Suns several times, believes that when Stoudemire and O’Neal are on the floor, Porter runs two out of three plays for Shaq. Stoudemire confessed to a level of frustration with a diminished scoring role, but ultimately more offense isn’t what Kerr and Porter have yearned to get out of him.
- Without getting the ball, without getting his rhythm, Stoudemire insisted that it’s costing the Suns on defense and the boards. “It is harder,” Stoudemire said. “When you’re in the flow, everything flows. When you’re not, sometimes it’s hard to get involved.”
- Nash sighed.”A lot of mouths to feed,” he said. “I’m willing to just feed and feed. But then they get mad at me because they want me to be aggressive. They want me to make big shots down the stretch, so they need me to shoot periodically during the game.
- “It’s difficult. It’s difficult for the reasons you said, and it’s difficult to find the balance, that aggressiveness for me.” Nash needs the ball in transition, needs to run, because Shaq clogs the lane in the halfcourt. “Or otherwise,” Nash said, “I’m going to be a little sacrificial. …So trying to get Amare off, getting, Shaq off … getting [Jason Richardson], Grant [Hill], Leandro [Barbosa]. …A lot of mouths to feed.”
In sum, the Suns have problems because they have many players who want to shoot and only one ball. As a consequence, some players are not happy.
When I see players expressing frustration over their lack of shots, I am reminded of the Wisdom of Red Auerbach.
Currently I am reading “Let Me Tell You a Story: A Lifetime in the Game” by John Feinstein and Auerbach. As I have read this book I have become convinced that Auerbach was successful because he understood why teams win and lose in basketball.
Although I highly recommend the book, I think you can get a sense of what I am talking about from the following paragraph (originally posted in this forum a couple of years ago).
Consider the following from a biographical sketch posted at ESPN.com.: Auerbach didn’t focus on the individuals on his teams. He looked at the “whole package.” While many of his players were outstanding, the Celtics were the first organization to popularize the concept of the role player. “That’s a player who willingly undertakes the thankless job that has to be done in order to make the whole package fly,” Auerbach said. …. Auerbach said that the Celtics represent a philosophy that in its simplest form maintains that victory belongs to the team. “Individual honors are nice, but no Celtic has ever gone out of his way to achieve them,” he said. “We have never had the league’s top scorer. In fact, we won seven league championships without placing even one among the league’s top 10 scorers. Our pride was never rooted in statistics.”
When I look at this quote I wonder what Auerbach would be saying to Stoudemire today. I can imagine much of it could not be printed in a family friendly forum. And I imagine, the same could be said to a number of other players who think scoring first (and winning and team somewhere down the list).
– 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 
Eyal
February 2, 2009
Hi. I’ve been reading this blog and I think it’s great. It has consistently confirmed my feeling that scoring is way overrated. But I wonder about the +/- stat that the NBA has started publishing. A player like David Lee, for example, rates very high in your metrics, but has a negative plus minus. I’d love to hear your comment on this.
Tball
February 2, 2009
Eyal,
The response is rooted in ‘who is Lee playing beside and against?’ The Knicks have surrendered more points than they have allowed, so the average Knick is going to have a negative plus/minus. If Lee is playing/starting next with four other players who, cumulatively, are average or below average, then going up against teams that have starters that are cumulatively above average, then he is at a regular disadvantage.
Bearing in mind that .100 WP48 is average, and 0.0 WP48 is bad, the Knicks only have four players on their roster with a WP48 above 0.0 and 100 minutes played – and two of those four play the same position. LeBron would have a negative plus/minus on this team, which wouldn’t take anything away from his talents.
Daniel
February 2, 2009
He has a negative +/- because besides him, the Knicks are terrible. Look at wins produced– his teammates are on pace to produce 12 wins ALL SEASON without him. Of course his +/- will be negative.
PJ
February 2, 2009
“There are a number of outstanding centers and point guards. ”
Won’t this generally be the case with Wins Produced? Big men — who score efficiently, block shots, and collect rebounds — and point guards — who dish it to the big men for efficient shots, and probably grab some steals — seem to produce the most wins in this system (and perhaps in the game itself for that matter). Wing players — who are generally asked to create shots for themselves and often to shoot from deep — seem to be less productive generally.
Is there any era in which Wins Produced does not show point guards and centers contributing the most to their teams’ victories? Or, to make it simpler, when was the last single year that shooting guards and small forwards were over-represented among the top 25 or top 50 most productive players according to Wins Produced?
Chris
February 2, 2009
I read this and the Auerbach post and my thought was that Stoudemire is exactly right to complain. If his paydays are based on points and nothing else, he would be a fool to play any other way.
If teams were really focused on winning, then players would conform since salaries would coincide. Unfortunately, GMs have other goals, not just winning. A flashy scorer probably puts more butts in the seats, so it may make financial sense for the GM to overpay for flash at the expense of wins. Also, GM’s may be under pressure to win now, and might not have the luxury to build a team slowly. If I have one year to make the playoffs, then I’m stuck signing who is available whereas if I can afford to wait, many better values will appear over time.
PJ
February 2, 2009
“A flashy scorer probably puts more butts in the seats, so it may make financial sense for the GM to overpay for flash at the expense of wins. ”
I think there was a post on this site a little while back which showed that attendance is connected more to wins than to anything else…
Michael
February 2, 2009
From what I have read, player scoring in the NBA is an uncertain variable year to year, and by definition this requires that scorers recieve compensation above the value of this product in order to justify the risk involved. This is basically the reason that scorers are overpaid according to their actual level of productivity.
Also I believe that the study Professor Berri et al carried out on attendance showed that wins were the main reason for increased home attendance, and that ‘flashy scorers’ only increased road attendance. Which would suggest both of you are right.
Horsecow
February 2, 2009
I would like to stick up for Stoudemire. His main skill is and always has been scoring, and the Suns have inexplicably decided to not utilize that skill. The pick and roll as run by him and Nash is one of the most unstoppable offensive weapons in the game (Stockton and Malone unstoppable). For some reason, Terry Porter seems determined to force the ball into a relatively unproductive scoring option — Shaquille O’Neal — and leave Stoudemire (and the rest of the team) standing around. This arrangement not only hurts Stoudemire’s scoring, but his offensive rebounding too, as he has to stay away from the paint so that his man can’t double Shaq.
Asking Stoudemire to become more like a role player is insane. It would be nice if he played better defense, but that’s never been a big part of his game and probably never will be. I agree that the Suns have acquired too many offensive players and not enough role players, to the point that their number #2 offensive weapon (Steve Nash) feels that he shouldn’t take many shots, but the solution isn’t to try to turn Nash and Stoudemire into Bruce Bowen and Kurt Thomas. You might as well ask Peyton Manning and Reggie Wayne to play safety and cornerback. The real solution is to hire Bruce Bowen and Kurt Thomas.
Stoudemire should be frustrated. Bad management and bad coaching have transformed this team from one that capitalized on its strengths and hid its weaknesses into its mirror image.
Mark Wylie
February 2, 2009
Hi Dave, I know this is a pretty old debate but are you listing Tim Duncan as a center? He is 9th and KG is 12th
Peter
February 2, 2009
With Andrew Bynum out, Win Scores suggests that the Lakers, which were already lagging in efficiency differential with him, are no longer the favorites to win the NBA championship.
However, the injury does not carry nearly as much impact as, say, losing Chris Paul would for the Hornets. However, it is unlikely that LA will earn home-court advantage for the duration of the playoffs.
Evan
February 2, 2009
“A flashy scorer probably puts more butts in the seats, so it may make financial sense for the GM to overpay for flash at the expense of wins. ”
I think there was a post on this site a little while back which showed that attendance is connected more to wins than to anything else…
Unless my memory is really bad, this was addressed in a little book called The Wages of Wins. You may have heard of it. You might even want to pick up a copy.
But — again by memory — home attendance is driven by wins.
Dr. Brent Goff
February 2, 2009
I would like to run an analysis on the Utah Jazz for last year and all of the current stats for this year. If possible I would like to each individual players stats, plus team stats and differential stats for each game. I would like to be able to treat each game as one observation. I would like to run the data in SPSS so I would need it in a form that can be converted to an SPSS file. Do you know where I could get such data?
dberri
February 2, 2009
Mark,
This year I think Duncan is spending more time at center.
Brent,
Try Basketball Reference.com (link on the right).
And as people have noted, fans do not appear to go to games to see the stars on their own team. A team’s fans want to see wins (not stars or scoring). On the road, though, stars do matter (but teams that employ the star don’t get that money).
Eyal
February 2, 2009
I understand the concept of “who is he playing with.” Intuitively. But still, I have a creeping suspicion that maybe his vastly negative plus minus has something to do with defense? What I’m looking for is a proof in the numbers. Can anyone do a test case? Lee is only an example, but can someone analyze his numbers according to exactly who is he on the court with at a given time? The Knicks have some mediocre, and some very bad players. If wins produced is accurate, and if plus minus is any kind of a good indication at all, there should be some consistency in Lee’s plus minus given the quality of wins produced of the players he’s on the court with. Does this make sense?
Anon
February 3, 2009
82games.com has the +/- of each lineup each team has employed over the course of the season.
Phil
February 3, 2009
Winning may put fans in seats, but GMs are by and large more concerned with keeping their job than anything else. This means making “good trades”, even if this means trading for overall mediocre players that excel at volume scoring.
Consider the past off-season. Toronto’s acquisition of O’Neal was supposed to improve them. Ditto the Sixer’s acqusition of Brand. Both players have missed significant time due to injury, but both teams are playing better without and despite their “star”. They both mortgaged a lot of cash and cap space on players that were not, and are not, producing. But neither GM is on the chopping block.
I will say that both players were coming off significant injuries, and thus both were a risk. So maybe they were risks that did not pan out. Maybe the GM’s are not good production evaluators. Maybe their are more concerned with their job security, and the perception that they made good signings/trades, then making unpopular trades that are more likely to pay off.
Maybe all three.
Peter
February 3, 2009
The “what have you done for me lately” is a reality for coaches and GMs alike, with a rash of mid-season firings.
Trading for a “star” brings instant gratification in terms of the potential for the future. However, if losing starts to set in, fingers point at each other.
Or GMs might knowingly trade for an aging star with an expiring contract in order to sign stars who really can produce wins in the future.
Jimbo
February 3, 2009
So Mr. Marcus Camby is the second most productive player in the entire NBA per WP48. Yup, that makes perfect sense.
PJ
February 3, 2009
Well, he is second in the league in rebounds per game (the one guy ahead of him is Dwight Howard, with whom he’s essentially tied in WP48). In fact, his rebound rate is the best it’s ever been.
He also blocks a lot of shots, makes his free throws (74% this year), rarely turns the ball over, and commits very few fouls (I think he’s superior to Howard in all those categories except block shots, in which it’s close).
I never see him play (don’t catch many Clippers games…), so I’m not personally willing to say he’s the second most productive player per minute in the NBA this year. But his numbers certainly suggest a very good player.
Peter
February 3, 2009
It’s really bad when Camby produces 11.1 wins and the Wins Produced of the entire team amounts to 11.1 wins.
ilikeflowers
February 3, 2009
I watched Camby a few times last year, he seemed to be everywhere. My eyeballs were impressed.
Eyal
February 3, 2009
I’m sure it was discussed in this blog in the past and I probably missed it, but how does wins produced account for defense?
Owen
February 3, 2009
Eyal – Lee has posted strong +/- numbers in the past, and was doing so until Jeffries got inserted into the starting lineup as far as I can tell.
I don’t know why he has gone negative but D’Antoni of late has been starting a pretty awful lineup of Jeffries, Q, and Chandler, and They have taken Lee down with them.
As for how Wins Produced accounts for defense, first may I suggest purchasing the book. But second, see the post “incorporating defense.”
JAW
February 3, 2009
Owen, I just read the post on incorporating defense, and despite the author’s great protestations, they fudge on the defensive stuff. For things that can’t be accounted for by blocks, steals, etc. the author just divides defensive efficiency by minutes played.
This means that Kevin Garnett gets the same credit for his minutes defensively as Ray Allen does.
Owen
February 4, 2009
JAW – Finally, a person willing to argue that Kevin Garnett is underrated by Wins Produced.
Evan
February 4, 2009
Finally, a person willing to argue that Kevin Garnett is underrated by Wins Produced.
The circle of life!
JAW
February 4, 2009
The reason I think that might not be the case is because I believe there is likely a high correlation between rebound numbers, blocks, and steals with the sorts of defense that gets measured. Of course we all know of the player who takes lots of risks to get steals, but then lets down the team. This will of course get kicked back to that player some in the team numbers. However, the bigger point is that there is just a strong correlation between steals and playing good defense, though it’s not perfect.
kevin
February 5, 2009
“I read this and the Auerbach post and my thought was that Stoudemire is exactly right to complain. If his paydays are based on points and nothing else, he would be a fool to play any other way.”
That’s why Auerbach was such a great GM. He didn’t pay players based on their stats. He paid them based on their contributions to team wins. He knew who was sacrificing and who wasn’t and paid them accordingly. So the players under him had no incentive to be selfish. Indeed, they had incentive to be unselfish.
Mark T
February 5, 2009
Hard to credit a system that rates Camby as he number 1 C and Kidd as the number 2 PG in the NBA. The system overvalues rebounding.
Dave
February 17, 2009
WP is a very interesting formulation but I think that the published/available stats to work with are flawed a bit. Does Rajon Rondo really have more of an impact on his team’s win/loss column than Kevin Garnett? I think we need more stats available on defense to more accurately reflect what happens on the court.
Kudos, nonetheless. WP adds to the discussion and enjoyment of the game and I don’t see it as affecting the discussion of Mo Williams heavily.