While NBA fans are intently focused on the NBA draft, the following trades were made.
San Antonio Spurs get Richard Jefferson [0.064 WP48 in 2,929 minutes]
Milwaukee Bucks get Amir Johnson [0.106 WP48 in 911 minutes]
Detroit Pistons get Fabricio Oberto, who they reportedly are going to let depart as a free agent.
RJ Helps?
The biggest name in these transactions is Richard Jefferson. Here is what Jefferson has done across the past three seasons:
2006-07: 0.044 WP48, 1.8 Wins Produced
2007-08: 0.040 WP48, 2.6 Wins Produced
2008-09: 0.064 WP48, 3.9 Wins Produced
So across the past three seasons Jefferson has produced 8.5 wins. To acquire his services the Spurs had to surrender the ancient Kurt Thomas, who produced 5.3 wins by himself in 2008-09. Furthermore, this trade apparently puts the Spurs over the luxury tax threshold and takes San Antonio out of the 2010 free agent market. And yet we are told this trade clearly helps the Spurs.
Once upon a time – as Table One reveals – Jefferson might have helped quite a bit.
Table One: The Career of Richard Jefferson
But across the past three seasons, Jefferson has generally been below average with respect to everything not associated with scoring. And when we look at scoring, we see a player that is only slightly above average.
When we compare Jefferson to his new teammates on the Spurs, RJ’s scoring prowess looks even worse. Jefferson took 14.9 field goals per game last season and posted a 48.7% adjusted field goal percentage. Here is what some of his teammates did last year with respect to field goal attempts per game and adjusted field goal percentage:
Tony Parker: 17.5, 51.3%
Tim Duncan: 14.8, 50.4%
Manu Ginobili: 11.2, 52.4%
Roger Mason: 10.0, 52.6%
Michael Finley: 8.5, 53.2%
Drew Gooden: 7.6, 49.0%
Matt Bonner: 6.6, 60.6%
As one can see, relative to all of his new teammates not married to Eva Longoria, Jefferson took more shots per game last season. And his ability to get his shots to go in the basket falls below what many of his new teammates can do. So the Spurs have acquired someone who likes to take shots but can’t get them to go in as well as San Antonio’s existing options.
Of course, someone might argue that Jefferson won’t need to take as many shots with the Spurs. After all, as the above list demonstrates, the Spurs already have very good options on offense. But if Jefferson isn’t going to score, what exactly is he going to do to help his teammates win games? Once again, with respect to the non-scoring aspects of the game RJ is below average. Jefferson’s only redeeming quality – at this point in his career — is that he is a slightly above average scorer.
When we put the whole picture together, it appears the Spurs might have fallen victim to the Isiah Thomas fallacy, i.e. you can never have too many scorers. This is a fallacy, because there really is only one ball. It is not possible for all these players to get their shots. And if Jefferson is not going to get his shots, then how does he help the Spurs close the gap between San Antonio and the LA Lakers?
The Other Trades
The other two trades are harder to comment on at the moment. The key for the Timberwolves is what they are going to do with the 5th pick. For next year it seems unlikely that they will draft someone who is as productive as Mike Miller. Miller, though, will be 30 next February and that is old for a basketball player. So it’s possible that T-Wolves will be better off in the long-run with this trade. Then again, I suspect most of the players taken in the top 10 in this year’s draft will be below average NBA players. But before we draw any conclusions, let’s see who the T-wolves select.
As for the Bucks and Pistons… once upon a time Amir Johnson looked like he would develop into a very productive NBA player. Last year, though, he was just average. Although average is… well, average; on the Bucks an average player might help. Last year the Bucks gave 579 minutes to Malik Allen [-0.137 WP48] and only employed two big men – Andrew Bogut and Austin Croshere – who posted above average numbers. And Croshere only played 77 minutes. So Amir will probably help Milwaukee.
As for the Pistons, it looks like they are doing everything they can to get under the salary cap this year. And as a Pistons fan I am looking forward to seeing what they will do with all that cap space.
Let me close by noting that these are not the only potential trades before the draft. It looks like Jamal Crawford might once again be packing his bags. But I am going to hold off posting on any more trades until after the draft. Right now the plan is to have the next post be an evaluation of the NBA draft, and that should appear on Friday morning (with the help of Erich Doerr).
– 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 
Tom Mandel
June 24, 2009
Hey, if Randy Foye takes minutes from Nick Young, he might be helping despite his anemic numbers! :)
And, obviously, Miller is a big upgrade.
romalley
June 24, 2009
Thats a good point Tom! I’m a Wizards fan and I hadn’t thought of that, it makes me feel a little bit better.
simulator
June 24, 2009
I’ll wait until judging on the Jefferson trade. Berri always assumes that player’s productions are independent. (roughly reasonable assumption).
He’s an awesome athlete, the type of the player that Spurs never had in the last few years. Having such a player in the lineup can also have a lot of positive impact on the other guys.
I can already see… if Spurs do improve substantially, Berri might conclude that it’s the other Spurs that improved, and Jefferson had minimal impact. Lol.
Palamida
June 24, 2009
The Wizards end of this deal could turn out great for them: Miller is aging but he’s still JUST 30 ; in the immediate future he’ll still be very productive. Assuming he’s going to play primarily SG, since Butler has a firm hold at the SF position, my only concern is their ball-handling. Miller should have enough to keep most SG’s at bay and not be a total defensive liability, however, he’s offensive ball handling may not be up to par. with that said a starting lineup of: Arenas, Miller , Butler , Jamison and Haywood is quite competent. Foye is an upgrade over their existing backups and would probably flourish as a reserve. With Mcgee and Mcguire entering their soph years they even have a semi productive bench. They got all that by trading the fifth pick while dumping bad contracts! (Thomas is ok, but with health issues and Songalia and Pechevrov… oh well :()
Naturally several players they could have picked would have been eventually productive, but with no truly alluring options at PF\C (mocks had them getting Hill which isn’t a very promising prospect) and their PG locked with Arenas owed max money long term, the best they could have hoped for is Harden\Evans which are promising prospects but in all likelihood will take time (a couple of years) to get to where Miller is right now, IF they ever get there.
Great Move.
As for the T-Wolves, Unless their new GM considers Telfair to be their PG (which I doubt :p) they are effectively now without a real Backcourt, so i’m assuming they’ll use 5-6 to take 2 guards. Latest Mocks suggest Rubio might even be available at 5#, and perhaps Evans will be there at 6# (even though reports are the kings are taking him at 4#, we’ll see).
That’s a bright future for the T-wolves. Al Jeff is still young, and with love+Rubio and good use of the 6th pick to grab a promising SG, they can be fun :p.
Anon
June 24, 2009
If the spurs improve substantially, I would guess it will be because ginobili plays an entire season and stays healthy. But it’s not like they were bad last year.
As a bucks fan, I can assure you that Jefferson is NOT going to be a big help. He’s a streaky shooter and when he isn’t hitting shots he’s not particularly useful. I mean he’s way better than Bruce Bowen, but right now the spurs look to be in a lot of trouble if Duncan gets injured, because their frontcourt sucks.
I really like the Amir Johnson trade for the bucks, I hadn’t heard about that for some reason.
simon
June 24, 2009
Simulator, Jefferson’s clearly not the athlete he once was and that’s evident in statistics too. Looking at him playing these days, he’s just not as active as he used to be and not even that good of a defender.
romalley
June 24, 2009
I just wish the Wizards would clean slate Knicks style and just start over. I don’t know what they’re striving for here. They cannot win a championship with this team. Over the last couple years their efficiency differential hasn’t gotten better than +3. They might reach that this year and maybe win 50 games if everything goes according to plan and everyone is healthy. That still puts them a distance fourth behind Cleveland (maybe adding shaq), Boston (may be getting healthy), and Orlando (healthy Jameer Nelson). So yippy, I’m so excited for mediocrity every year and paying high dollar for it!
Jeff
June 24, 2009
I certainly respect the analysis that the Jefferson deal is not the homerun everyone says it is. However, I disagree with the idea that the Spurs have fallen into the Isaiah Thomas mindset.
Pop has been quoted already as expecting Jefferson’s scoring to diminish with the Spurs. He specifically stated that he expects Jefferson to tackle the defensive assignments Bowen use to get, and that he expects to get Jefferson’s defense back to what it was 2 or 3 seasons ago.
Even with diminished athleticism, Jefferson is still vying for the title of “Most Athletic Spur” and fit’s in at the 3 spot, something the Spurs have been searching for for a while. I think the Spurs know very well the limitations of Jefferson as a scorer, and made this move anyway with an eye on what else he could bring to the table.
Ravenred
June 24, 2009
Jefferson’s also coming up for what is probably the last decent contract for his career. If Pop can sell him on the idea that he’ll ignore the “raw PPG=big money contract” correlation identified by Professor Berri then he could very easily spike upwards in terms of his WS. He’s an awfully old leopard to change his spots, however.
simulator
June 24, 2009
I haven’t watched Jefferson a lot (who watches Bucks anyways?). Could he have really started a physical decline at 29 and only after 8 seasons? Possible, but his body shouldn’t have gone through wear and tear like Mcgrady or Kobe who played right outta the college.
His drop in productivity also overlaps a lot with him becoming the first scoring option for the team (in NJ and Bucks), which I don’t think that he was really suited for anyway.
And still, from what I’ve seen, he can still run/dunk/jump better than any Spur except maybe Ginobili.
If you ignore what players can do physically and believe everything that stats tell you, then you’d think that Matt Bonner is an above average player.
simulator
June 24, 2009
I mean ‘Mcgrady and Kobe who played right outta highschools’.
simon
June 25, 2009
As a person who watched Matt Bonner play a lot as a Raptor, I can tell you that stats do show that he’s not a very physical player with the underwhelming rebound, steals and blocks. But since he shoots it so well and doesn’t make much mistake, he definitely can be considered an average player in a good year, or at least an servicable NBA rotation guy.
I suppose you can argue that Jefferson is athletic but doesn’t show it on stats, but what’s the point of being athletic if he doesn’t grab rebounds, block shots or get higher offensive efficiency by using it? Jefferson could suddenly decide to put all his energy into defensive efforts and grab more boards, etc, but I have hard time believing it’ll be enough to put the Spurs back into contention.
simon
June 25, 2009
And the drop in Jefferson’s production didn’t coincide with being the #1 option. His shot attempts actually went down by a bunch a few years ago. So that argument doesn’t hold water either. An age of 29 seems a little bit premature but we have seen many other players who began to decline a lot earlier than that. Heck I remember watching Gary Payton around 1998~1999 thinking he just wasn’t the same Glove that I had remembered.
simon
June 25, 2009
To clarify, I was talking about Payton’s defense only, not his offensive production. I felt he just didn’t seem to have the “it” in his Glove-ness.
luke
June 25, 2009
It may be reasonable to consider each player’s respective roles on the team when assessing their relative efficiencies. What I mean by that is if Roger Mason or Michael Finley were in Richard Jefferson’s role in Miluakee, it would seem that their scoring efficiencies would be much lower. I feel that much of their success is due to the offensive system that they are in, and in terms of skill set, Richard Jefferson is ostensibly superior to either Mason or Finley.
simon
June 25, 2009
luke, the problem with that theory is, Michael Finley’s production didn’t change much when he switched the team from Dallas to San Antonio. His shot attempts went down his eFG% in 2005 and 2006 were the exactly the same even though he changed the teams and like you suggested, be in a different system.
mrparker
June 25, 2009
Maybe the Spurs are thinking he can be the player he used to be. He has been a very solid offensive player at 110 and 112 ortg the pass two seasons with a usg in the mid 20s. If I’m the Spurs I get him to hang out around the 3 pt line and jack open 3s. Cleveland had success(regular season) by increasing the 3pa/fga of its good 3 pt shooters. If RJ shoots 1/3 of his fga from 3 IMO his wp48 is gonna get a big jump from increased offensive efficiency and team defense. I don’t know if he can be a .2wp48 type player but I expect him to be above average. IMO the spurs are still one player away from being a championship team.
Fellas
June 25, 2009
Looking at Jefferson’s production over his career a lot of his production seems to be tied to how (in)efficient he is scoring. Apart from his rookie season, when he shot less he shot more efficiently. Could you then argue that the number of shots and their relative production follows a Smith-Malthusian curve? Logically it makes sense, i.e. that you want a player to set a point at which he thinks a shot is worth taking or not, and you want him to set it at a point that produces the more productive outcome (i.e. the most points in the least shots). Would this work statistically though? I ask that because Mr Berri has stated that diminishing returns doesn’t exist in basketball, but surely if a player takes an excessive amount of shots and starts shooting at a production relating to diminishing returns then other players will have a smaller likelihood of shooting at the same diminishing returns rate.
brgulker
June 25, 2009
As for the Pistons, it looks like they are doing everything they can to get under the salary cap this year. And as a Pistons fan I am looking forward to seeing what they will do with all that cap space
Me too. What’s their best move, in your estimation? I have theories, and I’ve love to compare them with yours!
@simulator:
RJ used to be very athletic. He’s not anymore. And we’ve seen time and again that below average players don’t all of a sudden become productive out of thin air.
John Giagnorio
June 25, 2009
Fellas,
The data we have for Jefferson are not enough to make your point. Using all of his seasons, the correlation between shot attempts and shooting efficiency is -.36, and if we do not include his rookie season – and you’d need to make a case for why – it changes to -.67. Either way, it’s 7 or 8 data points. I believe that Professor Berri’s research shows that there isn’t a strong correlation between shot attempts and scoring efficiency, although I can’t recall where he said this. He would have been looking at a much larger sample.
dberri
June 25, 2009
Fellas,
I have never said diminishing returns doesn’t exist in basketball. In fact, the Wages of Wins explicitely notes that it exists both theoretically and empirically.
Oren
June 25, 2009
Professor,
You didn’t comment what you thought about the Minn-Wiz trade for Washington. Does that mean an article about Washington will be written after the draft?
Also, are you planning to post the 2008-2009 final WS for each team/player?
Jimbo
June 25, 2009
Goes to show what a joke Wins Produced is. As the Spurs improve next year, your “model” will be torn to shreds b/c you are clearly predicting that they will be worse than last year.
DSM
June 25, 2009
“Goes to show what a joke Wins Produced is. As the Spurs improve next year, your “model” will be torn to shreds b/c you are clearly predicting that they will be worse than last year.”
Not necessarily…. all they need is a healthy team to be a lot better than this year. What he is saying is that this trade doesn’t help them.
John Giagnorio
June 25, 2009
From Mountain in the comments on the last Amir Johnson post:
“Cherokee_ACB used the adjusted +/- of opponents to show Amir Johnson’s strong performance in limited minutes came against the weakest on average opponents of any player in the league playing over 250 minutes. Will be interesting to see what he does against starters. I’d think the mistakes will be higher and opportunities for positive contributions lower. How dramatic a shift? And how much has he developed since then to offset these effects?”
It’d be interesting to know what Johnson’s opponents were like last year.
Brian Tung
June 25, 2009
@Jimbo: On the off chance you aren’t trolling, no single result can “tear a model to shreds.” The model is just a model, and I’m sure Berri would be the first to tell you it can be improved. If the Spurs do in fact improve, it will be interesting to see to what extent Jefferson plays a role in that improvement.
@simon: Your point is well taken, and as a Lakers fan, I don’t feel the Lakers’ superiority is really threatened by this acquisition, so I’m naturally going to agree with any assessment that jibes with that. :)
All that being said, I think it’s worth pointing out that a sample size of Mark Finley isn’t very conclusive one way or the other, and since the notion that playing with Duncan would affect the array of shots available to Jefferson (and therefore his efficiency) is plausible, I’m still going to withhold judgment.
What I’m really looking forward to is the next generation of game logs, where the positions of all players and the ball are noted at all times, in full XML-ized glory (or whatever markup wins the day). When that happens–and it will eventually happen–I expect that models will be more complex and more successful in predicting results and assessing trades, and they will make today’s PER, WP48, and Adjusted Plus-Minus seem like spears and stone knives. That’s not a knock on those models or their developers, but just an observation on the limited amount of materials that they have to make do with.
And even then they will have to deal with a substantial random factor. As always, STUFF will continue to happen.
simulator
June 25, 2009
simon,
As a person who watched Spurs regularly, no – I’ll emphatically say that Matt Bonner is NOT an above average player.
He’s strictly a catch-and-shoot 7 footer, who is below average in almost every aspect besides his 3 point %. And stats don’t tell you how he’s a major liability in defense. I believe that it’s no coincidence that Spurs had their worst year defensively in a decade.
He’s a type of player who, when he’s not getting open-looks from teammates, actually hurts the team (as shown in his DAL series).
Also, yes, Jefferson WAS team’s No.1 scorer the past two seasons.
In NJ 07-08, he was the leading scorer, above Vince Carter.
In Milwaukee, he was again the leading scorer after Michael Redd went down.
I suspect that when a player is put in the role of the No.1 scorer for a team and he doesn’t really fit the mold, then his other games might suffer.
simon
June 25, 2009
Simulator, notice that I never said he an “above” average player, I just claimed he’s a useful rotation player who’s somewhere around average when he’s at his best. Having watched him a lot, I know his limitations well, but he also brings a lot of positives too, but Bonner’s not really the point of contention here, so..
About Jefferson, it’s like Luke’s theory about Finley. If he wasn’t that productive overall because he concentrated to score in 2007-2008 as you’ve said, why did Jefferson’s production was about the same in 2006-2007 when his shot attempts were significantly less?
Anon
June 25, 2009
If I remember correctly, Jefferson was actually worse in the beginning of the year when Redd was still playing, and improved after he got injured, both in efficiency and overall production.
Italian Stallion
June 26, 2009
I agree with the analysis of Jefferson 100%.
Is is possible that if Jefferson has a reduced scoring role, he will be able to put more energy into other areas of the game and get some of those other stats back up a little.
Italian Stallion
June 26, 2009
“The model is just a model, and I’m sure Berri would be the first to tell you it can be improved. If the Spurs do in fact improve, it will be interesting to see to what extent Jefferson plays a role in that improvement.”
The problem with this thinking is that if the model is not evaluating Jefferson properly now, then if San Antonio improves and you use the same model to evaluate his contribution, it will automatically say that Jefferson wasn’t the reason for the improvement (unless of course Jefferson actually plays a lot better).
I happen to agree with the model’s evaluation of Jefferson, though I usually rate scorers a little higher than this model, but I don’t think we can use this model (or my own thinking) to prove the point next year.
Shareef
June 26, 2009
After viewing the draft I came away frustrated with what I didn’t know about international basketball. John Hollinger has made these observations: On average, switching from the Euroleague to the NBA does the following to a player’s pace-adjusted per-minute stats:
# Scoring rate decreases 25 percent
# Rebound rate increases by 18 percent
# Assist rate increases by 31 percent
# Shooting percentage drops by 12 percent
Given these, is it possible to calculate wp48 estimates for incoming internationals?
P-Dawg
June 26, 2009
Dude! We’ve had two HUGE trades since the Jefferson move! And there’s the ongoing madness about the Celtics trading Rajon Rondo. GET BACK IN THE GAME!
Bills
June 26, 2009
This is a good example of why you do not use statistics to evaluate a trade (or do not just use statistics). Dberri seem to have missed the point of the trade. Noting the loss of Thomas, he compares RJ’s WP48 with Thomas’s and sees a deficit. But they do not play the same position. Jefferson is not coming in to replace the production of Thomas but of Bowen (and to a certain extent Mason, as explained below).
Dberri’s own model shows that Bowen’s WP48 is negative (I will show mercy on dberri for this ridiculous evaluation, because its cause is a well-known flaw in the model. There are no box score components that relate to perimeter defense, which is Bowen’s primary contribution. Nonetheless, the score is probably an accurate evaluation of his OFFENSIVE production.) Hence, the substitution of RJ’s production for Bowen results in a positive improvement in offense even if it rather modest. Moreover, I suspect, along with others here, that RJ is capable of more. If he produced WIN scores north of average in the recent past, he may be capable of it still.
Dberri has said repeatedly that the productivity of players is remarkably consistent from year to year unless something like an injury intervenes. There are lots of things that can cause a player to play below his capabilities. I cannot think of many that can cause him to play above his capabilities for a whole season. Since age or injury are not issues for RJ now, gambling a little on RJ’s returning to his level of previous seasons is probably a good bet, even by dberri’s own standards.
There is another issue here. Dberri just looked at the statistics and saw that the Spurs have other scoring options with better percentages and suggests that scoring should be obtained from them. This ignores the point that there is another team out there trying to stop that. The season stats are an average of 82 games against good teams and bad teams, good players and bad players. When you get to the playoffs and there are very few bad players, the stats can show very different things. In the playoffs both Mason’s and Bonner’s scoring collapsed. This is due to two things. 1) that is the kind of thing that just happens to young or inexperienced players in the playoffs. 2) Both are mostly spot-up shooters who cannot drive to the basket. Mason can, to some extent, but he also is mostly a spot-up shooter. Finley’s scoring tanked as well. These days he is mostly a spot-up shooter as well. Against a good defense (and defensive scheme) by Dallas they could not get their shots off.
RJ can drive to the basket and either score or get fouled. It is much more difficult to defend a player if he can either spot up or drive. If you look at RJ’s free throw attempts, they are much above average. This comes from being fouled while driving. Even if RJ is a 47% shooter on the drive, it is still an extra offensive option that the opposing team will have to deal with.
If you think you can use a player’s performance in the regular season to judge what they will do in the playoffs, try generating Bonner’s and Mason’s win scores for the playoffs and compare to their regular season scores. Finley’s too for that matter.
The loss of Thomas and his production was the price that the Spurs had to pay to shore up the wing. Nevertheless, they probably thought that it would be easier to replace his production than it would be to fix their problems on the wing with what other options they had available.
They have partially replaced Thomas’ production with the drafting of Blair, and Ian Mahinmi will be available for them this year. The Spurs apparently believe he is ready to be productive at Thomas’s spot.
The Spurs FO are well aware of the value of Thomas and the deficiencies of Jefferson. I am sure that the Spurs’ FO does not think they have grabbed another Manu or Tony. Sometimes you make progress on solving your problems by trading them for problems that are more easily addressed.
Jason
July 1, 2009
Miller seemed to be trying to kill the Wolves last year by increasing his WP numbers. He would not shoot. Every game I saw him in, he’d pass up a wide open shot to “assist” Bassy or Carney. It was disgraceful to see a great shooter pass up open looks so that worse shooting teammates could fail. Calling Mike Miller a productive player (based on the last year) is a joke. He was punished on defense and refused to shoulder the offensive load for a short-handed Wolves team. If he’s going to help the Wizards, he’d better remember that what he’s good at is shooting, not passing and rebounding.