A quick question: Should Maurice Williams been named to the All-Star team in 2008?
As I recall, no one thought that was the case when Williams was the second leading scorer for the Milwaukee Bucks last season. But as the second leading scorer in Cleveland – the team with the best efficiency differential (offensive efficiency minus defensive efficiency) in the NBA today – people thought it was a “shamockery” (Ben Wallace’s word) that Williams was passed over in 2009.
Is Mo Williams, though, suddenly a different player? As always, let’s look at some numbers.
Table One: Evaluating Maurice Williams in 2008-09
As Table One indicates, Williams is virtually the same player in Cleveland that he was in Milwaukee. His shooting efficiency is somewhat better with the Cavs (although not much better) while his assists are down. In fact, the drop-off in assists appears to more than offset his improved shooting. Despite a small overall decline in Win Score, Mo Williams is suddenly an All-Star.
And this leads one to the obvious conclusion. To be an All-Star you simply need to score for a winning team. Last year Mo Williams scored some for a loser. And no one thought he was an All-Star. This year he gets to play with LeBron James — and Wallace, Zydrunas Ilgauskas, Delonte West, and Anderson Varejao – and suddenly Mo Williams is one of the very best players in the game.
As I have noted before, the purpose of statistics is to separate a player from his teammates. Mo Williams is essentially the same player he was in Milwaukee (and you don’t need Win Score or Wins Produced to see this). So if he wasn’t an All-Star last year, why is he going this year? For fans of the Rajon Rondo, Vince Carter, Andre Miller, Jose Calderon, Mike Bibby, Andre Iguodala, Caron Butler, Rodney Stuckey, and even Delonte West; the Mo Williams selection is truly a “shamockery”.
By the way, my list of players who have done more than Williams is incomplete. To see the names of the 78 players who produced more wins than Williams in the first half of the 2008-09 season, please see Every Player at the Midpoint of the 2008-09 Season.
– 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 
Rashad
February 12, 2009
Poor Rondo. Over at basketball reference they just did a post on worst all star snubs of all time. It seems like a general pattern was people not recognizing how good young players are, but that they were often rewarded with all-star games in later years. Here’s to Rondo maintaining his performance and going to many all-star games.
Eddy Rivera
February 12, 2009
I highlighted your point a few weeks back, David, when I conducted a mini-comparison on Jameer Nelson, Rajon Rondo, and Mo Williams after the All-Star rosters were initially announced .. over at Third Quarter Collapse.
Nelson & Rondo were neck-and-neck statistically, and Williams was a distant third in every statistical run-down.
I find Williams to be a good player, but definitely not an All-Star. The fact that he was named as a replacement to Bosh is odd, given that you would think David Stern would select another forward/center to fill in that open slot. It is what it is.
Just goes to show that this whole ‘All-Star needs to be from a winning team’ argument is inherently flawed and needs to be eliminated as reasoning for selecting players.
Andrew
February 13, 2009
What a shock, Mo’s assist rate drops dramatically when he joins a team that doesn’t always use the point guard as the primary ballhandler.
Is it possible that instead of magically “offering less,” “Maurice” has fewer opportunities to dish assists on a team that has LeBron as its primary distributor? It seems foolish to punish Williams for not having the ball in his hands when he is actually more productive to his team that way.
By the way, it is ridiculous that Williams would be chosen over Rondo and a number of other players, but it’s pretty clear that All Star Game selection is about some bizarre mixture of winning, scoring, and star power.
TRad
February 13, 2009
Andrew,
If it seems foolish to punish Williams for not having the ball in his hands (and no, he isn’t more productive this way, he’s maybe more useful more Cavs, when his role is diminished, but not more productive), then what about Arenas? Isn’t it foolish to punish him for his injury?
Williams playing doesn’t justify ASG nomination. Rondo is much, MUCH more productive – and plays the same position. He would have been a 4th player from the same team, but so what? It isn’t baseball, I could imagine a great team without ASG players.
mrparker
February 13, 2009
My wife doesn’t want to watch good rebounding. My wife will watch a game full of dunking and difficult shot attempts. She doesn’t understand basketball but she does understand blatant showing off of one’s athleticism even if it comes at the expense of good basketball.
BTW, please check this out
Peter
February 13, 2009
Going back to the discussion of All-Star teams a few weeks back, this is the case of coaches rewarding a player from team rather than individual achievement.
The system isn’t ideal. But…wait, Devin Harris? I hate to badger (deliberate pun intended) you on this one, Dave, but the selection isn’t a shamockery for his fans because he already IS on the All-Star team!
Besides, there will always be a limited number of spots and pre-specified positions available and not all productive players can take them. David Lee, anyone?
dberri
February 13, 2009
Peter,
Oops, I forgot that Harris was added. I changed the post accordingly. Thanks for noting this.
Palamida
February 13, 2009
Andrew, while it’s safe to assume that less “dishing opportunities” are somewhat responsible for his drop in Assists, as for the “foolishly punishing” part, you might wanna consider this: Last season for the Bucks Mo’ played approx. 36 mins, to this season’s 34. Last season in that PT he dished 6.4 AST to this season’s 4.1. If indeed this is all about Lebron handling the ball which results in reduced “dishing opportunities” why has Mo’ been turning the ball over at a very similar rate?
2.8 TO’s with the Bucks and 2.4 with Cleavland.
His Ast\To ratio last season is 2.28 to 1.
This season : 1.7 to 1. that’s a significant drop. If he doesn’t have the ball as much how does he manage to turn it over at virtually the same rate?
As for the the core of this post, I think every WoW reader knows the story already :p
Mo’ is a scorer, in fact he’s an efficient scorer, but that’s all he’s good for and scoring is merely a part of winning ball games, and not the complete picture and there is just no justification for him to be invited to the ASG with so many other PG’s contributing significantly more to their teams.
John W. Davis
February 13, 2009
The All-Star game is a fraud. I mean come on. No one in the right mind would make Allen Iverson an all-star. He is not even a Top 3 Player on the Pistons!
Peter
February 13, 2009
In other news, the Raptors have completed a very, very, very good trade by shedding Jermaine O’Neal’s contract in exchange for Shawn Marion and Marcus Banks.
Sound familiar? Those were the same two guys that the Suns traded for Shaquille O’Neal last year.
Long story shorts: It’s like Miami traded Shaquille O’Neal for Jermaine O’Neal and Jamario Moon.
Peter
February 13, 2009
And, regardless of if you look at it from a Wins Produced perspective or a financial perspective, it looks like Toronto comes out on top, at least for now.
Andrew
February 13, 2009
Dave’s numbers actually say that Williams is above-average in terms of turnovers this year, so I’m not really sure what your point is. Also, it seems like Williams makes most of his turnovers when he’s driving to the basket, not trying to pass. So I would expect that in a system in which he is asked to make fewer plays with the pass, he would still turn the ball over on drives quite a bit, and his turnover rate would go slightly down as his passing attempts decreased. Which is pretty much exactly what the numbers show, though I can’t say whether it’s for the reason I described or not, because I’ve only seen the Cavs play a handful of times this year.
Anyway, it’s not like I’m some old guard basketball purist who thinks that stats are for weirdos and dorks. I’m a 21-year-old college student who once stayed up two straight nights trying to make a Markov chain spreadsheet to calculate expected pitcher ERA. I just think that Win Score is a flawed measure of individual ranking, and it seems to me that Dave does not consider its shortcomings or attempt to figure out how to make a better system.
Dave’s system produces interesting results, and results that I think have to be taken very seriously at the team level. But I don’t necessarily agree with the simplistic way that Win Score calculates individual numbers.
In the case of Williams and his assists, well, there are only so many chances that a non-LeBron Cavs player gets to be the primary playmaker. So to compare raw assists for Mo to the league average point guard who has many more assist opportunities seems to punish Mo for being in a certain system; maybe Mo is actually an above-average distributor who dishes 5.7 assists where the league-average point guard would only have 5. I don’t actually know.
But I do know that it’s pretty naive to assume that Mo is a worse player this year because he lost 2.6 assists per 40 minutes from last year to this year, especially when there’s a perfectly intuitive explanation for the change in numbers.
Also, I have already agreed that Rondo deserves the nod, because he’s clearly a superior all-around player.
stephanie
February 13, 2009
A couple points:
1. This is a perfect example of players on good teams being overrated in the popular conscience.
2. As mrparker said, the ASG is about entertainment. You shouldn’t complain about AI or whoever being in it. It’s not the all NBA team.
3. It used to be that the ASG was open to all — players from horrible teams would make it as long as they were good and entertaining. I’m not sure when this changed, but I’ve only heard the “he’s not on a winning team” excuse in the last two or three years.
Joe
February 13, 2009
Aren’t you overlooking an obvious statistic though. At this point last year the Cavs were 29-23 – this year they are 40-11. That’s a relatively significant upgrade for a team that only added Mo this offseason. Sure the other players from last years trade deadline had time to gel with the team, but no one would ever believe the Cavs were capable of winning this many games in the regular season. Someone stated Mo is only a scorer – he is. In fact, he’s one that’s good enough to come to a team that needs a selfless player to play alongside LeBron. 3 years ago, they thought that was Larry Hughes. That didn’t work out as well as planned. But adding Mo? They are one of the best teams in the league – and you’re suggesting he’s not worth an All Star nomination (who needed 2 players injured before getting the nom)? I’m sorry, but that’s downright laughable. He came to a team that has become significantly better since trading for him and are now one of the top 3 teams in the NBA. And that doesn’t deserve a All-Star vote???
He belongs there far more than Rondo. There’s not a PG in the league that couldn’t get 8.5 assists playing for Boston. Rondo’s a talented player, without question he’s talented, but playing for anyone other than Boston and he wouldn’t even be in discussion right now.
And why on earth did you even mention Delonte West? He’s been injured for over a month. Fans of Rodney Stuckey? That is implying fans of Detroit Pistons, right? Cause last I checked, they aren’t so happy with their team at all right now.
Italian Stallion
February 13, 2009
I think this was mostly a political selection.
Stats guys need to realize that the criteria for selecting All Stars is not the players that look best on Win Score, Wins Produced, PER or any other stat etc… and probably shouldn’t be.
Evaluating players and their value to a team is both objective and subjective. Many people feel that Mo Williams put the Cavs over the top because they are basically the same team as last year except for Williams yet they are a MUCH better team. So people want to reward him. I don’t see that as a horrible decision given that he wasn’t even an original selection.
Italian Stallion
February 13, 2009
I should add one other thing.
Even though I don’t actually believe what I am going to say, one could put the opposite spin on this selection.
It’s not that Williams is being rewarded for being on a good team. It’s that he was punished when he was on the Bucks and deserved consideration all along.
JoeM
February 13, 2009
Joe,
You are a shamockery of a Joe. You assuming all else is constant, sans Mo, from last year is what is really laughable.
NickP
February 13, 2009
I’m the biggest Cavs fan that posts on this site.
1) Never thought Mo was an All-Star.
2) Didn’t think Ray Allen was, either.
3) David West was a bigger joke “All-Star” than either Mo or Ray. Is he the worst All-Star pick ever?
Italian Stallion
February 13, 2009
“I just think that Win Score is a flawed measure of individual ranking, and it seems to me that Dave does not consider its shortcomings or attempt to figure out how to make a better system.”
Andrew,
With all due respect to the host, I still haven’t seen a statistical model I think isn’t flawed
(for any sport).
I have no particular expertise in basketball other than being a fan for close to 40 years. However, I do have 35 years of expertise working with horse racing statistics and think much of what I’ve learned about that sport over the years translates quite well to other sports like basketball.
Without question, you need objective tools like statistics to help evaluate performance and ability. However, IMO, the complexities of almost every game and the uniqueness of almost every situation also requires visual skills and a high level of intuitiveness to help you interpret the meaning of the numbers. You simply can’t program everything that comes up. The numbers alone with often lead you astray.
IMO, it might be possible to tweak any of the popular basketball models to improve on them. But after 35 years of handicapping the races and becoming the rare bird that can actually “beat the horses” I can say with a lot of confidence that I think you should stay on your present course if you want to reach the highest possible level of understanding.
Like me, you seem to use stats as a tool, but your thinking is not held hostage to them.
Pointing out the limitations or problems with with any statistical model isn’t going to win you any popularity contests on a blog like this or with people very geared towards numbers only, but if you seek the “way, light, and truth” stay the course.
Tommy_Grand
February 14, 2009
Durant sucks. He is not one of the best 4 rookies or sophomores. That was a bad draft pick by seattle/okc. What an error.
???
Tommy_Grand
February 14, 2009
The All-Star game is a fraud. I mean come on. No one in the right mind would make Allen Iverson an all-star
word!
Michael
February 14, 2009
“Durant sucks. He is not one of the best 4 rookies or sophomores. That was a bad draft pick by seattle/okc. What an error.”
46 points on 17 of 25 shooting, perfect at the line and lead the sophmores in rebounds. Your right Durant really sucks.
Beth
February 14, 2009
I think players on winning teams are doing different things than players who are not. If you’re performing well for a successful team, you’re contributing to a dynamic and working in outstanding fashion among a group of other players who are *already* also doing that. The level of play/proficiency that requires is greater than that in the “big fish in a little pond” situation. So I would have to say that for me, it is NOT the same thing to perform well in both contexts. With a winning team there’s more pressure and more is at stake. Therefore, I have no problems rewarding players who are functioning well on winning teams over those who are functioning well on losing teams.
Phil
February 14, 2009
Joe,
Last season, at the midway point, the Cavs had not yet traded for Wallace, Wally, and West. Sasha and and Varajao had missed much of the early season holding out for a better contracts.
That’s over half of their current rotation players.
You should really get your facts straight before criticizing others for “overlooking obvious statistics.”
Italian Stallion
February 14, 2009
phil,
This year Ilgauskus and West missed a lot of games.
That is the problem with a strictly numerical analysis. You need the numbers, but the details are never the same. You have dig deeper, use common sense and intutiveness etc… to make sense of them.
IS
Anon
February 14, 2009
as a bucks fan who watched a lot of bucks games last year and watches a lot of cavs games in general, I’m reasonably certain that Mo Williams is a good player but is not the primary reason for Cleveland’s vast improvement
Tommy_Grand
February 15, 2009
mike,
Switch sarcasm detector to “on”
Phil
February 15, 2009
IS,
Good point, and not one I meant to diminish. My point was that a lot has changed in Cleveland player-wise beyond just Williams.
That Cleveland went from an excellent defensive team to an astounding one has largely to do with adding Wallace and Varajao, for instance. Williams isn’t the only offensive threat they added, and the Cavs’ offense is a lot less stagnant this year, which is partly a credit to the coaching staff.
All I’m saying is that “Cavs = 29 wins, whereas Cavs + Williams = 41 wins” is not just misleading; it’s outright wrong, because the Cavs are a different team in multiple ways beyond Williams.
mr. parker
February 15, 2009
ba
Linked is an article about Shane Battier’s approach to basketball. This is probably the greatest basketball article I have read in the past 5 years. If you agree with wow, alot of what is said in this article goes a long way to explain how certain players get such high wp48 compared to conventional wisdom, or lower.
anon
February 15, 2009
mr. parker,
agree, the article was incredible. it was, after all, written by the unimpeachable michael lewis. who, by the way, wrote the best article on the financial crisis to date.
anyway, I’m not sure I agree with your assessment. if anything, the article reads like an anti-wow manifesto. One thing the article failed to mention is how the stats community is deeply divided between the box score people and the +/- crowd. the box score people believe that box score, couple with other refinements, is all you need. wow falls into this category, as do a few of the apbrmetrics crowd. but morey appears to be relying on adjusted +/- (with proprietary adjustments), which stands in stark contrast to wow. in fact, battier has pretty low wow numbers and I don’t think wow would anticipate much of what is said in that article, which is largely unmeasurable contributions made by battier to his team.
mr. parker
February 15, 2009
anon,
I’m pretty sure that Battier has been +.2 at times in his career. But, thats besides the point. What I took away from the article is that Battier has a superior basketball brain trapped in an inferior body. Yet, somehow he is at least an average basketball player. He doesn’t try to do things that he’s not good at. Isn’t that the principal behind this metric? The best basketball players are those that maximize their strenghts and minimize their weaknesses.
I would love to see Berri write a post based on this article.
mr. parker
February 15, 2009
https://dberri.wordpress.com/2007/11/01/what-the-box-score-data-says-about-shane-battier/
This is a link to a previous article about Battier. I think you will get a kick out of the comments if you get a chance to go back to that article. BTW, it states that ws has always found Battier to be an above average player
Anon
February 15, 2009
But more is using proprietary adjustments, so you can’t really tell what battier’s value is under more’s metric by looking at 82games or popcornmachine or soemthing similiar. I don’t wow has any value prescriptions embedded in it. I think tends to reward selfishness in the same way traditional box score does. For example, under winscore, carl landry is the real undervalued asset (because of his rebound rate) not battier. The unmeasurable things battier may do to create easier rebounding situations for landry do not factor into wow.
Now, wow is based on regression analysis, so it’s unfair to say it’s the same as boxscore state. And, in general, there’s a lot of crossover between boxscore based state and plus-minus (with notable exceptions like chris Paul). Further, plus-minus has it’s limitations.
That said, he article does cut to a fundamental point of contention between the two systems. At their core, boxscore based stats and plus-minus are about improved decisionmaking. Specifically, better evaluation of marginal talent and identifying undervalued assets. The systems generally converge with respect to stars. But if battier is undervalued under one system and rondo/milsap under another, you can’t rely on both for guidance.
anon
February 15, 2009
two other things to note:
according to morey, battier isn’t merely an above-average player, he’s a star. a player whose impact on the game far outweighs what measurable stats can tell us.
second, wow has nothing to do with maximizing strengths, as I understand. wow is premised on the fact that basketball is meant to be played by tall, athletic people. and it’s statistically very difficult to overcome physical limits, even with an outrageously high basketball IQ.
I do think there’s deep tension between the two, and you can’t simply say that this article is consistent with wow’s prescriptions.
mr. parker
February 15, 2009
anon,
I disagree with Morley’s using +/- when he could be using win score. However, that doesn’t take away from the fact that most other GM’s seem to be using nothing and Houston is better off for using some sort of statistical model with a positive expecation of predicting wins.
mr. parker
February 15, 2009
anon,
I seem to have given off the idea that I think that Morrey’s and Berri’s metrics are the same. This is not the case. I know that they are different.
From reading the article its clear that the Battier maniphesto is to get the ball back for his team by any means necessary and not lose the posession on the other end doing something that has a low success rate.
Battier is a poor rebounder and a poor scorer(though his effeciencey is good). I equate that kind of play with maximizing one’s strengths. Maximizing strengths might mean something different to you, but to me it means not doing that at which one is below average.(Hence Battier likes to box out the other teams best rebounder instead of going for the rebound himself).
To me thats what win score is all about. Players that frequently try to do things they aren’t good at cost their team. Players that don’t help their team.
masterdeviance
May 28, 2009
How prophetic does this article look now? Once a scrub, always a scrub. The Magic have exposed Mo once and for all.