Two years ago this was the question. Both the Memphis Grizzlies and Boston Celtics – the two teams with the worst records in the NBA – were dreaming of Greg Oden and Kevin Durant. And accusations were flying that at least the Celtics were doing whatever they could to land one of these two talents. Unfortunately, the lottery gods failed to smile on Memphis or Boston. After the lottery balls stopped bouncing, neither team was able to land one of the top two slots in the draft.
Boston and Memphis after the Lottery
Despite this misfortune, one could argue that both of these franchises did better – at least in 2007-08 — than the teams that won the lottery. The Boston Celtics – who had the fifth choice in the 2007 draft – used that selection to trade for Ray Allen. The acquisition of Allen led to the trade of Kevin Garnett, and in 2008 Garnett led the Celtics to the NBA championship.
An NBA championship remains a distant dream for Memphis fans. The Grizzlies won only 22 games in 2006-07 and matched that record last year. In 2008-09 the team has 20 victories after 74 games, so the team doesn’t appear to be any better (and in terms of efficiency differential it’s actually getting worse). But if we focus just on the 2007-08 campaign, the Grizzlies did better in the draft than the two teams that actually ended up paying Oden and Durant. With the fourth selection the Grizzlies took Mike Conley. Conley finished last season with 1.5 Win Produced. Although this level of production is quite low, it was actually more than twice the combined production of Durant and Oden.
This year Conley is even better. After 74 games Conley has produced 6.7 wins (only Marc Gasol with 6.8 Wins Produced has more on the Grizzlies). And with a WP48 [Wins Produced per 48 minutes] of 0.147, it appears the Conley is developing into a sold NBA player.
Despite Conley’s rookie year production (again, double what Oden and Durant did together) and his leap forward his sophomore campaign, one suspects most fans of Memphis would rather have Durant or Oden today. And the numbers – at least the Wins Produced numbers — agree.
Oden and Durant in 2007-08
It should be noted, again, that Durant and Oden didn’t offer much in 2007-08. Obviously Oden offered nothing since he was hurt the entire season. Durant did actually play. But despite being named Rookie of the Year and nearly being a unanimous choice for the All-Rookie team (selected by the coaches), Durant’s play – as detailed in Kevin Durant was not the Best Rookie — did not result in many wins. When the season was over Durant had only produced 0.7 wins with a 0.012 WP48.
The initial returns on Durant and Oden contradicted the pre-draft hype. And these returns also contradicted the college numbers these players posted (see Looking Back at the NBA Draft, Part Two).
The sophomore years of these two players, though, remind us why teams were so anxious to acquire the services of of these two players.
Oden and Durant in 2008-09
Let’s start the 2008-09 story with Durant.
Table One: The Oklahoma City Thunder after 74 games in 2008-09
As Table One indicates, after 74 games the Thunder players have combined to produce 23.3 wins. Of these, 9.6 of these Wins Produced can be credited to Kevin Durant. And his 0.178 WP48 suggests that Durant is now one of the better small forwards in the NBA.
Before we get to Oden, we should note that Jeff Green — the player the Thunder took with the Celtics 5th pick in 2007 – has also improved. Unfortunately, he’s still below average. The below average story would also be told about most players in Oklahoma. Once you get past Durant, of the eleven players who logged at least 500 minutes, only Nick Collison has been above average. This is why, despite the play of Durant, the Thunder are still not very good.
A different story is told about the Portland Trail Blazers. Portland is currently second to the Lakers in the Western Conference (albeit a distant second) in Efficiency Differential (offensive efficiency minus defensive efficiency). When we look at the individual players – reported in Table Two – we can see why Portland is likely to win 50 games this year.
Table Two: The Portland Trail Blazers after 74 games in 2008-09
Like the Thunder, eleven Blazers have logged at least 500 minutes. Unlike the Thunder, though, the majority of these Blazers – six to be exact – have posted above average WP48 marks (none of these are named LaMarcus Aldridge). One of these above average players is Greg Oden. Injuries have caused Oden to miss 21 games. Despite missing nearly one-third of the season, Oden has produced 4.8 wins and posted a 0.199 WP48.
Answering the Question Today
So Oden and Durant are above average. But let’s go back to the original question. Who would a team rather employ today?
If we look at Table Three we can see why Durant and Oden are so productive in 2008-09. Durant has improved with respect to shooting efficiency and rebounds. Oden is not quite as efficient a scorer as Durant and he has a real problem with personal fouls. But Oden is extremely good on the boards.
Table Three: Comparing Kevin Durant and Greg Oden
Despite Oden’s per-minute performance, though, he still has trouble staying on the court. And until he shows that he is going to play on a regular basis, Durant might be the better player to employ going forward.
Let me close this discussion by responding to one of the reactions people had to my many previous comments (listed below) on Durant.
July 17, 2007: Disappointing Durant
July 21, 2007: Durant Disappoints Again
October 31, 2007: Will Kevin Durant Be the Best Rookie?
November 16, 2007: Choosing the Best Rookie in November
November 27, 2007: Evaluating Future Stars in Baseball and Basketball
November 28, 2007: The Top Rookies, Again
November 29, 2007: Re-Hashing Durant, Melo, and Stack
December 31, 2007: Should the Rookie of the Year Help His Team Win More Games?
February 13, 2008: The Assistant Coaches Choose the Best?
March 25, 2008: Horford Also Tops Durant in March
Many people (well, at least a couple) looked at my evaluations of Durant as a rookie and argued that someday Durant would prove me wrong. But that is not possible.
Okay, let me clarify. It is possible that I could be wrong. But on this issue…the future performance of Durant cannot change what he did in the past.
The data from Durant’s rookie season is quite clear (see Table Three above). Durant did not play well as a rookie. And if the Rookie of the Year is based on what a player does as a rookie (which seems obvious to me), then Durant should not have been given this award (or named to the All-Rookie first team by the coaches).
We now see, though, that Durant’s numbers have changed. So is it a contradiction to say Durant is “good” now but “not good” last year? I think it’s important to emphasize that the evaluations posted last year were statements about how Durant was playing in 2007-08 (a point made last year). And the evaluation based on this year’s numbers is simply a statement about this year’s performance. What these two evaluations tell us is that Durant has clearly improved.
This improvement, though, does not change what happened last year. No matter what Durant does the rest of his career, his production from his rookie season will remain below average. And I will continue to think Durant should not have been Rookie of the Year.
One last note… David Biderman had a nice story on NBA assists in the Wall Street Journal (which quotes a certain economist at Southern Utah). My post on Sunday will be on this column (at least, that is the plan at the moment).
– 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 
mrparker
April 2, 2009
I suspect that similar wow articles will be written about Beasley next year. Fortunately the rookie class of this year has a very worthy number 1 pick.
For my money I would still rather have Oden. Wasn’t having Walton worth it for Portland. t
Though they probably didn’t get the wins production that some other players in his draft ulimately had, they did reach the ultimate goal of winning a championship.
Its my opinion that Oden has .3 wp48 potential,while .2wp48 is about what we could see out of Durant.
alyosha8
April 2, 2009
Can you explain why Oklahoma City performed so well without Durant? Nearly a quarter of their wins for the season came while he sat for seven games.
Does it have something to do with the fact that the team is ~6.7 pts. better with him off the court?
John W. Davis
April 3, 2009
Hey DB, Whats better?
Being in the WSJ or on Pistonscast? (LOL)
John W. Davis
April 3, 2009
Anyway, I agree that Oden needs to stay on the court. He is obviously more athletic than Joel Pryz and Joel Pryz is quite effective.
Oden can be better than him and that will make him a great NBA Center one day.
Tommy_Grand
April 3, 2009
“No matter what Durant does the rest of his career, his production from his rookie season will remain below average. And I will continue to think Durant should not have been Rookie of the Year.”
That is a solid argument. IMO, the only possible refutation would concern any implication that Seattle/OKC erred drafting Durant #2. If someone said Durant was unlikely to be an all-star, or was overdrafted, KD’s performance at SF in 09 should give that critic pause. No future result can change Durant’s rookie stats. But his current + future performance might eventually put the lie to any claims that Seattle goofed by selecting him, or that the team shouldn’t have given him so many minutes in his first two season, a decision that’s paying dividends now.
I’d rather have Durnat that any other player in his draft class. A strong case can be made that he’s is the best SF in the west right now. If you look at average performance for games played at that position this season (in the west), the only guys who come to my mind are s. jackson, j. richardson, ron artest… maybe grant hill?
I’m probably omitting someone awesome.
Arturo
April 3, 2009
I love watching Kevin Durant play.
However, we know that no team has won the NBA championship without a big (PF/C) with a WP48 around .25 since the 91-93 Bulls (if Horace Grant hit that number then no one has)
Typically bigs take a longer time to develop into their prime (seems to happen at around 22-24 years of age).
If your goal is to win the championship you would think that you are better of going with a big like oden (unless you think durant will end up as a PF which seems unlikely).
Durant has more perceived value (wins) for your dollar in the short term but Oden has more projected value in the long term (assuming they have similar careers healthwise)
There is however a flaw in that conclusion. Oden & Durant both came out as an underclassman and both will be free agents before they are 24, and if we assume that economic theory holds and assets will go to where they have more economic value (see the WOW book :-) , OKC and Portland don’t have a high probability of retaining their services. This means that for both those teams, these players can only be realistically considered team assets for the length of their contracts. So a GM in OKC or Portland should only be looking at three things cost (contract amount), added value (projected win totals over the span of the contract) , projected trade value of the asset in the final two years ( How many wins can I trade the player for).
So even though I think Oden gives you a better chance to win the championship in the long term and given the way the NBA overvalues scoring when it comes to trades, I think Durant would have been a better draft pick because he will generate more wins for OKC by playing for them and by proxy through the players he could be traded for (in the 2012 season).
spike
April 3, 2009
Dude, you were killing Durant all last year. You’re just too proud to admit you were wrong so you’re like “No, No, his production was still bad last year, I was still right, I was still right!”
Not convincing.
Oren
April 3, 2009
One of the things I would note is that Durant primarily played SG last year. This year, he was switched to SF. If I remember correctly, he was a SF in College.
Is the data showing that Durant improved or is it showing the impacts of playing Durant at his proper position? I suspect some of both.
Oren
April 3, 2009
Looking at 82games.com, it seems that over the last two years, when Durant has had the chance to play SF, he’s been much more productive then when he played SG.
dustin
April 3, 2009
You can’t really admit you were wrong when you are using the exact same, objective methodology to evaluate a player at different times in their career…
You also forgot to mention he was too proud to admit he was wrong twice, as Dberri expected KD to be very good coming out of college since his WS was through the roof, but was a mediocre rookie.
ilikeflowers
April 3, 2009
I was talking to Spike the other day and he was like all ‘Dude, in 2007 I drove 1,0oo miles, and this year I drove 10,000 miles, that’s like 20,000 miles in two years! Dude, I might as well walk.’
Michael
April 3, 2009
“Dude, you were killing Durant all last year. You’re just too proud to admit you were wrong so you’re like “No, No, his production was still bad last year, I was still right, I was still right!”
Not convincing.”
In the profs defence on this one he has said repeatedly in the past that young players often tend to get better. What you have to remember is that the most common recurring theme in this blog is that the mainstream press and most league offices overvalue scorers regardless of their actual usefulness. Durant receiving so much negative attention here last year because he was basically the poster boy for that argument. It may seem that Durant’s improvement casts a shadow on that analysis, but I think Berri is right to maintain that last year is last year. Besides there are a number of caveats that apply to a player like Durant (rookie, young, playing out of position, a relatively small sample size compared to veteran players etc) which would absolve him of any negative fallout in this case regardless.
Personally I would prefer it if the wow paradigm was slightly broader than it is right now, but with Iverson talking about retiring and Durants improvement who knows, that wish may soon come true!
Then again, a lot of people (including myself) still think Kobe is one of the leagues best players, so I guess there will always be something in that vein to discuss!
Mark
April 4, 2009
Dave,
Are you rooting for Michigan State?
dberri
April 4, 2009
Mark,
I grew up a Michigan fan. Then again, I am not a big fan of North Carolina.
Clipfan
April 9, 2009
WOW, have you noticed that the vast majority of the “predictions” here have no predictive power? Shouldn’t this make you pause and maybe think you are wasting everyone’s time by mis-assigning “win value” to random elements that don’t sustain? People who want to read about how win value is randomly carved up to explain the past but with very limited accuracy in the future should continue to read this blog. Enjoy.
jbrett
April 10, 2009
Clipfan,
“no predictive power”? Read the book, or any random one hundred predictions you can find here. Why bother to post if you’re not going to put in enough effort to form a reasonable opinion? Your handle means Clippers fan, correct? As in Los Angeles Clippers, the NBA franchise? A pro basketball team, by some definitions? As such, you simply cannot lack for the kind of fortitude, stamina–endurance, even–to commit to READING some of the research you dismiss out-of-hand. You clearly have to have oodles of perseverance just to be who you are. On the other hand, based on your post, there isn’t any significant intellectual process required to be Clipfan, is there?
Clipfan
April 10, 2009
Ad Hominem. My point is that if you take the WOW estimates of win contributions of each player and use them to predict forward into the future, they are near noise and no better than anything else out there yet they are presented here as near fact and when they are wrong (often) the errors are explained as new “fact”. It is laughable people don’t see through this. You and others should take the time to critically examine (not just read) the book and accept it as religion.
jbrett
April 11, 2009
I can’t see your axe, but I can definitely hear you grinding it. Your sweeping generalizations in your first post aren’t exactly loaded with critical examination, either. I went back and looked at the first three articles cited above–all written before Durant played a regular-season NBA game–and the gist, in essence, is that while Durant should eventually end up above average, he wasn’t on track to perform well or help win many games. That’s two for two. Dave is also two for two on Allen Iverson alone; twice he stated with conviction that the team acquiring AI would get worse, and the team trading him would improve–actually, that’s four for four, isn’t it?
I realize those are anecdotal, and hardly comprehensive. They are all facts, though. Can you offer anything to support your allegations that resembles a fact? Give me seven bad predictions and/or errors explained as new fact–seven total–and I’ll kick my keyboard to the curb simply out of appreciation of the critical examination you’ve invested.
blitz
April 22, 2009
Need we have more evidence than the results of the Iverson / Miller trade and the Iverson / Billups trade? Bill Simmons disparaged Berri’s work for rating Iverson the 36th best player in the league in his 2000-2001 MVP season.
The problem is Berri has cracked it and noone wants to admit it. What matters is gaining possession and efficient usage of it.
By way of interest, look at the Bulls rebounding percentages in their title years, same for the Spurs. Title teams rebound extremely well. And I remember this from playing NBA Live in the 90’s.
The most important attributes in basketball are shooting percentage, rebounds per minute and assists-turnovers. Billups shoots well, doesn’t turn the ball over, but apparently its his ‘intangibles’ that have made the difference in Denver, not the fact that he doesn’t put up 15 bad shots a game (probably wasting 8 possessions). They argue he is a winner, because he plays on winning teams, but isn’t it more accurate that he is a winner because he is a better player than most of the other players in the league?