Last week I attended the Western Economic Association meetings in Vancouver. The North American Association of Sports Economists (via the efforts of Brad Humphreys, Tony Krautmann, and myself) organized fifteen sessions – consisting of more than 50 papers – on various topics within the field of sports economics.
On June 29th I flew into Vancouver, and along the way (while sitting in DIA) I wrote Detroit Refuses Rondo? The meeting was held at the Sheraton Wall Centre in Vancouver and it took me a couple of days to figure out where I could get wireless access in the hotel (it was not available in my room). While I was out of touch, though, this short post on Rajon Rondo attracted quite a few comments. At this point, most of these I still have not read (hopefully no one has said anything that is overly offensive). Although I didn’t find time to read these comments, I did squeeze out a little bit of time to post a short comment on Detroit’s signing of Ben Gordon and Charlie Villanueva.
Now I am back in Cedar City. It was my intention to post a longer comment on what was learned at these meetings, but I think that is going to have to wait until later in the week. For now I want to offer a brief comment on the following table:
Table One: Comparing Ron Artest and Trevor Ariza
Essentially the Houston Rockets and LA Lakers have swapped these two small forwards. The consensus seems to be that this move strengthens the Lakers. Although I don’t think this move severely harms LA, I don’t see how it helps. As Table One reports, last season Ariza was a more efficient scorer, was better at grabbing rebounds and steals, and was less likely to commit turnovers. When we look at the past three seasons of Wins Produced and WP48 [Wins Produced per 48 minutes] we see the following:
Trevor Ariza:
2008-09: 8.0 Wins Produced, 0.192 WP48
2007-08: 2.6 Wins Produced, 0.225 WP48
2006-07: 5.8 Wins Produced, 0.217 WP48
Ron Artest:
2008-09: 4.2 Wins Produced, 0.083 WP48
2007-08: 4.5 Wins Produced, 0.100 WP48
2006-07: 8.9 Wins Produced, 0.161 WP48
The 2006-07 season was Artest’s most productive season [in terms of WP48]. Artest will turn 30 in November, so it seems unlikely that he is going to return to this peak. Even if he did, Ariza has already surpassed this peak on three occasions. Furthermore, Ariza is younger and apparently less prone to cause his organization distress. So if this was a trade, it looks like the Rockets have come out ahead.
Unfortunately, the standings might not tell this story at the end of the 2009-10 season. The Rockets will probably struggle somewhat without Yao Ming. And the Lakers will still be very good. So it might appear that the conventional wisdom on this move will look okay. But if we take the time to look past scoring, and separate a player from his teammates, the Rockets with Ariza look better today. And that should still be the story in 2010.
Let me close by noting that July 8th is a big day in the NBA and there should be plenty of news. But I am going to try and ignore these events and focus my next post on last week’s meetings and all that we learned in Vancouver. That post, though, is going to have to wait until I catch-up at the office.
– 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 
chibi
July 7, 2009
The Lakers are usually one of the faster teams in the league, while the Rockets are average, with regard to Pace. Assuming this will be the case for next season, will Pace have an effect on the productivity of Artest and Ariza?
Peter
July 7, 2009
Better question:
Will not playing with Yao negatively affect Ariza, and will playing with Kobe positively affect Artest?
Without Yao potentially commanding multiple defenders inside, it will be easier for teams to try and force Ariza to take long jumpshots and contested three-pointers, something he had more than enough trouble doing in the regular season WITH KOBE FREAKIN’ BRYANT. Conversely, having Yao and T-Mac around helped Artest shoot 40% from the perimeter, his best percentage since the ill-fated season of the Palace brawl.
Evan
July 7, 2009
I did pretty good!
dberri
July 7, 2009
Peter,
Ariza has been about the same the last three years with very different sets of teammates. I don’t think Kobe is why Ariza is productive.
brgulker
July 7, 2009
Dr. Berri,
Does pace have a drastic effect on productivity? I don’t remember reading about that in the book or on the blog.
dberri
July 7, 2009
brgulker,
Pace matters in the evaluation of teams. For players it is not as important (although pace is accounted for in Wins Produced).
Lior
July 7, 2009
Had this post been written with adjusted +- numbers rather than WP48 (say from basketballvalue.com), the conclusion would have been the opposite: Ariza is about average, Artest somewhat about average.
I thus have a low level of confidence in a prediction in either direction. Personally I think Ariza (younger, still improving, shooting a higher percentage) is the better option, but the statistical analysis available right now is not enough to clearly distinguish the two players.
dberri
July 7, 2009
Lior,
There are very serious problems with adjusted plus-minus numbers. Unfortunately these problems are not often explored by the on-line community.
brgulker
July 7, 2009
Read the book, Lior. It will help you understand the differences between adjusted plus minus and WP48.
Andrew
July 7, 2009
I would rather have Ariza than Artest.
The reason is that Ariza can finish better, and plays within the flow of the offense.
Artest throws off the offense he is in, and he is losing some of his explosiveness.
This could change now though, as Artest has less pressure to score and Ariza has more.
brgulker
July 7, 2009
Why does Ariza have more pressure to score?
Caleb
July 7, 2009
“There are very serious problems with adjusted plus-minus numbers. ”
And I think many would argue that there are also serious problems with Wins Produced. I’m with Lior… the statistical analysis currently available isn’t enough to really distinguish which player helps their team more.
Caleb
July 7, 2009
@brgulker. I think Andrew is assuming that Ariza will be expected to carry more ofthe offensive load in Houston than he did in LA. The fact that Yao will be gone, and the fact that Ariza is basically replacing Artest who is a fairly high usage player… makes that a reasonable assumption.
We’ll just have to wait and see whether its actually the case though.
Lior
July 7, 2009
brgulker: not to be rude, where did you get the idea that I don’t understand the difference, or that I haven’t read the book?
In fact, there are problems in all evaluation methods.
The main problems with WP are: (1) it does not produce a confidence interval around the numbers it produces; and (2) it has a very tenuous underlying model (rough recap: first a “wins” value is given to the marginal point; second, a team-wide regression gives the point value of box-score stats; finally an argument is given why this team-wide analysis applies on a player-by-player level).
Adjusted +/- hasn’t been validated this way (evaluating year-to-year correlations for individual players and correlating averaged player values to team efficiency and wins), but should be more believable since it has a better underlying model.
It’s clear that the values given by adjusted +/- are very noisy; I don’t think it’s understood if that is because of noise in the observations (noise which box-score methods automatically average over) or because the model is not a good fit.
dberri
July 7, 2009
Lior,
I don’t think you have accurately described how Wins Produced was developed.
I will add that much of the discussion on-line (at least initially) of Wins Produced was led by adjusted plus-minus people. And much of what they said was incorrect.
As I have looked at adjusted plus-minus in more detail, this model looks worse and worse. This is something that is addressed in the next book.
simulator
July 7, 2009
Adjusted +/- I think is less useful than WP when trying to determine ‘absolute’ ability of a player.
However, I do think that it sort of takes into account various dependencies among teammates and non-numeric aspects of the game.
Both will produce questionable results from time to time.
rockandroel
July 7, 2009
A smaller but interesting surprise in these numbers is Ariza’s WP48. Conventional wisdom (and my eyes) say that last season was by far his best. But the number say otherwise. Hopefully (for him and for Houston) this is related to playing time etc. And not an indication that he peaked in 07-08 seasons ago. On the non-statistical side, Ariza is much more fun to watch, hope this remains true with Houston.
TRad
July 7, 2009
Ariza played this season a little different than the previous two. Earlier he was a slasher and opportunistic scorer. Now he developed a long jumper and started to shot open threes.
The effect: less FTA and lower TS%.
It will be interesting to watch how Ariza will play in Houston. I mean he _will_ be effective, but would he return to his early form or stay in ’09 mode – this is the question.
What a shame that Houston couldn’t sign Gortat. There was a chance of WoW team. Imagine such starting five (WP48 after 41 games):
Gortat .244
Scola .151
Landry .169
Ariza .251
Lowry .155
On paper such five should give Lakers a fit. Too bad we won’t be able to test WoW theory in practice. Of course there’s still a chance Rockets trade for Dampier (.268).
Tony Cohen
July 7, 2009
As a Laker fan and a devoted follower of this site, it is tough for me to ‘square the circle’ and try to explain why Artest is better, but I have to try right.
1) A lot of the difference is in shooting efficiency. As per what happened to Jason Kidd, what will happen to Artest’s shooting when he is getting the open looks rather than facilitating?
2) Adjustment for Kobe: will Artest’s D mean that Kobe has to exert less on D, leaving him ‘fresher’, which would show up in Kobe having a better year by the numbers.
3) Lebron: He is 24, and at some point he will probably be winning a lot, making a lot of other players go ring-less. Ariza can’t guard him….too much size difference. If you assume that overall the Lakers got worse, but better in this one key match-up, is it worth it?
Lior
July 7, 2009
Prof. Berri: I have never read that on-line discussion. Certainly all I know about Wins Produced I learned from reading the book.
In detail, WP48 assigns a points value (hence a “wins” value) to the box-score stats mainly based on the expected value of the possession. Thus a rebound is one possession, a made short is worth its points value minus the opportunity cost of the used posession etc. The value of non-possession related stats (blocked shots, fouls, and assists) is determined by regression. Adjustments are then made for team defence. Finally, player WP numbers are shifted by the difference between the average contribution of a player in their position and the average contribution of a player overall (8.2 wins/full season).
So far, this assessment is entirely based on team-level values. In other words, the value of the rebound is the marginal value to the team of getting an extra rebound, which makes sense since the whole team produced the rebound. It is less clear that the individual player that caught the rebound actually produced the defensive stop that WP credits him with.
In other words, it is not surprising that player WP numbers add up to the team totals: except for fairly small adjustments the total team WP is mostly given by a linear combination of the team-wide boxscore with weights as described above.
So what is the main justification for crediting individual players with their WP or WP48 numbers? How do we tell if Dennis Rodman caught more rebounds per minute because his team-mates’ stifling defense caused the opponents to miss or because he was better at getting the ball than the opposing power forward? The best justification known to me is found on page 116 of the hard-cover: 72% of the variation in the players’ WP48 in any season is explained by WP48 from the previous season. Thus the number reported actually reflects individual production by the player.
dberri
July 7, 2009
Lior,
Okay, I see the problem. The book provided a very intuitive explanation and it gives the impression that this was all intuitively derived.
That is not the case, though. For the math and econometrics one has to see an article I published last year.
Lior
July 7, 2009
Berri & Lee (2008) simply recaps the description of WP48 given in the WoW without adding any math or econometrics. I assume then that you are referring to your chapter in Humphreys & Howard? That’d be harder to get my hands on.
dberri
July 7, 2009
The chapter in Humphreys and Howard is the important one. We are going to try and detail some of this in the next book.
WDM
July 7, 2009
I really enjoy this blog.
TRad
July 8, 2009
@Tony
Ariza’s TS% in Orlando, 06-07, was .567 in 1278 minutes.
In LA, 07-08, was .594 in 431.
In LA, 08-90, was .544 in 1998 minutes.
I can’t see how playing next to Bryant improved his shooting.
Artest’s career TS% is .513.
I’m Lakers fan too and it was a sad day for me when Lakers replaced Ariza with Artest. I think the positive comments were based on name recognition and ppg.
Tony Cohen
July 8, 2009
To TRad:
I did say I had to try and square the circle, not that I could actually do it :-)
Now if you excuse me I am going to make more mental ideas about my this site is wrong….because now MY TEAM is involved in a bad trade by the stats….grrr….
simon
July 8, 2009
Kobe & Ariza is an interesting case. Ariza saw a huge jump in his jumpshot % when he played for the Lakers. This could mean that Ariza benefited from having Kobe around. But one problem with that theory is Ariza’ 3 pt shooting.
Prior to joining the Lakers, Ariza shot 9 for 43 in his career beyond the arc. With the Lakers he went 61 for 191. Even if Kobe was the greatest offensive facilitator of all time, such difference probably cannot be credited to Kobe alone. I’d think it’s more along the line of a young player finding confidence in his jumpshot and adopting his game to his new found weapon.
In any case, Ariza was just as efficient finishing around the basket in 06-07 as he was in 08-09, which makes me wonder why Kobe couldn’t get more easy baskets to Ariza.
simon
July 8, 2009
Lior:
About Rodman. He was an amazing rebounder for the 98-99 Lakers and the 99-00 Mavericks in his late 30’s and those two teams were bad defensive squads. It’s still amazing how good the 6-7 forward in rebounding.
TRad
July 8, 2009
@Simon
Sorry to rain on your parade.
……………DReb%……OfReb%
LAL’98….31,6%(11)..68,8%(15)
LAL’99….30,6%(14).70,2%(12)
LAL’00….30,6%(5)…73,1%(4)
With Rodman Lakers were a mediocre rebounding team, just like the season before.
They became a good rebounding team after they let him go.
Rodman individually wasn’t “amazing rebounder” that season. His DRB% was still very good, but his ORB% was down to 11.2% (28th in the NBA), while Rodman’s lowest ORB% before 98-99 season was 15.0% and his career average is 17.2%.
I remember charting several Lakers games in 98-99. Rodman typically had one, maybe two “tough” rebounds. Usually he took his rebounds from Shaq’s hands. Coincidentally O’Neal’s DRB% was that season 22.6, the only time between 95-96 and 00-01 Shaq had DRB% below 24%. And Rodman played only half of the season.
Rodman was probably the greatest rebounder since Russell/Chamberlain (and maybe he was even better than they), but in 98-99 he wasn’t particularly good.
Anon
July 8, 2009
My only memory of the lakers with rodman is that they got him and then won like 10 straight games or something, then they traded eddie jones for glen rice and started doing poorly. Somehow Rodman got blamed for that, and I never really understood why.
mrparker
July 8, 2009
Re Russell/Chamberlain as great rebounders,
Aren’t their numbers skewed because someone could tap the ball to themselves three times on receive three rebounds while only causing one change of posession?
ilikeflowers
July 8, 2009
@TRad
Sorry to sunshine on your rain:
D. Rodman 97-98 15 in 35.7 mpg (Bulls)
D. Rodman 98-99 11.2 in 28.6 mpg (Lakers)
D. Rodman 99-00 14.3 in 32.4 mpg (Mavs)
He averaged 11.2 rebounds in 28.6 minutes per game. That’s very good even though it’s about 13% less rebounds per minute than his rate with the Bulls and Mavs. For some perspective, using his Bulls minutes and his Lakers rebound rate we get 13.9 boards per game. If he was amazing with the Bulls then he was amazing with the Lakers.
John Giagnorio
July 8, 2009
Lior and/or Prof Berri,
I looked at “A Re-Examination of Production Function and Efficiency Estimates…”, which I believe is Berri and Lee (2008) referred to earlier, and it seems to provide all of the math/econometrics behind Wins Produced. What’s missing?
dberri
July 8, 2009
John,
There is an entire discussion of how the basic wins model is derived. This is only in the paper I published in Humphreys-Howard. I am pretty sure Lee and I also left out a complete discussion of how you connect the wins model to the evaluation of players.
Michael
July 8, 2009
When is the new book due out?
John Giagnorio
July 8, 2009
Prof Berri,
The paper in question does not directly connect the wins model to the evaluation of players, so I’ll check out Humphreys-Howard. Just to clarify, the derivation you are speaking of is why you use Wins = B + B1*PTE/PE+B2*DPTS/PA + error?
John Giagnorio
July 8, 2009
(which is just another way of writing out point differential)
Daniel Suhr
July 8, 2009
Is Dr. Berri’s book available at most bookstores? Or do I need to order it online?
Daniel Suhr
July 8, 2009
Also what is the title of this book? Apologies if I sound like a D-leaguer.
Jason E.
July 8, 2009
Off topic, but just saw that the Raptors decided that Bargnani was worth a reasonably large extension. I guess they’ll continue to try to squeeze water out of that rock, figuring that they invested a #1 overall in him.
Italian Stallion
July 8, 2009
I find myself in complete agreement with Caleb which may mean he might want to reconsider his position. :)
Seriously, the major difference between the two is related to scoring efficiency.
If they both shoot as often this season as they did last year, the change in their efficiencies is likely to be marginal with different teams. However, if Ariza is asked to do more scoring (without Kobe’s help) and Artest is asked to do less scoring (but with the help of Kobe, Gasol etc.. drawing doubles) I think it will become clear that the two players are very similar scorers. I don’t think that’s an unlikely scenario on either side.
The advantage Artest has is that he stronger and tougher on defense and can handle players that IMO Ariza cannot.
I would rather have Ariza though. He’s younger and still has potential upside. We’ve seen the best of Artest (and the worst).
Italian Stallion
July 8, 2009
Suppose we analyze this trade from a different perspective.
When I handicap a horse race, I sometimes find a horse I percieve to be getting bet much more than my own analysis suggests is appropriate. When I do, I don’t start with the assumption that my stats and model etc… are correct and everyone else is just an idiot. I ask myself if there’s something I could be missing.
In this situation we have one of the greatest organizations in the history of basketball, coached by one of the greatest coaches in the history of basketball, and supported by one of the greatest players in the history of basketball all seemingly concluding they would rather have Artest.
What could we be missing if anything?
mrparker
July 8, 2009
stallion,
That Ariza’s agent was apparently overplaying their hand and the lakers didn’t want to deal with it.
Lior
July 8, 2009
John: Berri & Lee (2008) reviews how WP and WP48 are calculated, and then proceeds to use them as measures of total and marginal player productivity, respectively, in order to study the quality of team management. The article is more terse than the 2006 book by using mathematical notation instead of words, but the calculation is the same.
What the article does not include (because that’s not what it’s about) is the justification for using WP and WP48 as measures of individual productivity, that is why we think that each player’s WP48 is attributable to the actions of that player. Compare the situation with “Quarterback” measures that in fact measure the productivity of the whole team.
Daniel: The book is titled “The Wages of Wins” and was written by Berri, Schmidt and Brook. It is non-technical and deals with many issues in sports economics.
Simon: While I specifically mentioned Rodman, my question was not about him but rather the general one about attributing a box-score line in general and the WP48 value specifically to the production of the player whose name appears on the box-score line.
Italian Stallion
July 8, 2009
mrparker,
Isn’t that what a negotiation is about?
David Lee’s agent is asking for 12 million, but does anyone really think someone is going to pay him that much?
Donnie Walsh is reportedly offering 8M and drafted Hill to serve as a backup plan to strengthen his position in case someone is crazy enough to give it to him.
Lee’s agent needs to lay off the magic mushrooms and join the real world, but they should be able to work something out.
I don’t see why the Lakers couldn’t do that?
simon
July 8, 2009
Exactly IS. I was wondering about that whole agent-negotiation part myself when the Raptors refused to give in to Marion’s demand and instead decided to go with Hedo Turkoglu for $53mil (or something like that) over 5 years. Arrrg
mrparker
July 8, 2009
Stallion,
I guess the Lakers are a hardball kind of team. I can’t think of a situation where they haven’t used a hardball kind of method. I don’t think Artest is as good as Ariza but he could come closer than we think because he is going to league’s best team.
Palamida
July 8, 2009
I have a problem with the term “role player”.
To me a “role player” is a player that lacks an all around game, and only excels or is above average in some aspects of the game; As such his “role” in a team is limited, and he can only be utilized in specific situations and being that those circumstances aren’t present at all times, his PT is limited as a result.
In actuality, the term is widely used and more often then not really, it signifies a player’s lack of scoring ability; Furthermore sometimes the term is used to describe players that are actually efficient scorers albeit in low volumes, you know who i’m talking about… The Carl Landry’s of this league. Rodman, Big Ben are two notable examples of stars that have also been called “role players”. While I can’t argue that their game is “limited” in the sense that they only contribute in certain aspects of the game, It’s quite evident that being THAT good, even in limited aspects, still leaves you enough room to be extremely productive and produce a large amount of wins.
The only caveat with these so called “role players” is that while I completely support Berri’s view of “shot creation” being somewhat of a myth (as examined through the case of post Iverson Philly) as true, one still has to argue that a team consisted of solely “role players” can in fact struggle, arguably. However that’s simply not the case in the NBA and without any precedent there’s just no way to analyze this scenario further. With that said, I completely fail to see how can certain individuals refer to Ariza as a “role player”. He is without a doubt a complete player. Is he a perfect player? certainly not, but his production is across the board as the table above me shows quite clearly.
as for the “one of the best organizations, one of the best coaches” etc. argument, that simply does not hold water. does the Fact that ALL of the teams passed on Blair and Lawson in this year’s draft and worsened things even further when they chose players who are clearly inferior AND play their position ahead of them suggest that they all know something we don’t?
I seriously doubt that. But think about it this way: Say the NBA is a fishing contest and all the GM’s choose to participate with a blindfold. They will all cancel out each other’s blindness.
Only when a person who knows his stuff assumes a GM position, the true test of certain methods, headlined by WoW , can truly begin. Until then we will sit on the sidelines, listening to players, coaches and the media alike miscredit teams and players for their contributions or the lack thereof.
P.S I don’t see Daryl Morey as one necessarily. From what I’ve read he’s more of a +\- kind of guy and frankly, I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around the notion of anyone putting real stock in those methods, adjusted as they may be. That being said, Morey’s system obviously has some things in common with WoW, or at least is more similar than, compared to a non statistics based methods of evaluating talent; Perhaps it’s just a small sample but a few notable picks: Landry, Dorsey, Taylor and i’ll add trading Alston for Lowry (popular conception deems the former the superior player) and Artest for ariza (not that that’s a trade, but the same goes for that). That’s more then other teams seem to be doing… for example I watched some summer league today (guilty as charged) , how is it possible that Richard Hendrix for example, is still unemployed?
Mind boggling.
Thoughts?
Steele
July 8, 2009
Just thought I would way in with an observation. Dr. Berri is correct in calling both players small forwards, but in this past season specifically Artest spent a significant amount of time on the floor with Brooks, Battier, Scola, and Yao. This would seem to mean that we should compare his play for this past season with other shooting guards, as that seems to be the most accurate classification for Artest in the above lineup.
Of course, I agree with Dr. Berri; Artest’s numbers across his career and recently demonstrate that he is not as effective a small forward as Trevor Ariza (and he will definitely be playing small forward in L.A.).
Ariza is younger, more likely to improve, and simply more productive than Artest. The move is thus solid from a personnel perspective for the Rockets. However, I think this situation could provide an excellent opportunity to study the effect of playing out of position. If the Rockets continue to start Battier at SF, then it would seem that Ariza would be playing a big SG, similar to what Artest did last season. If T-Mac is healthy, Ariza would likely start at SF at the discussion would be moot. However, if the rumored T-Mac for Kirilenko trade does happen, the situation will be amplififed-the Rockets will have two SFs (and several effective PFs, thus no reason to play Kirilenko or Battier out of position) and no one with experience as a starting SG in the NBA on their roster. Presumably, Ariza would start alongside one of the SFs, with the other coming off of the bench. Thus, we would really be able to see how much playing out of position affects one player (not that this is true for all players, but it would give us some solid data).
Of course, if Tracy McGrady magically plays an entire NBA season without injury, none of this will matter (and everyone will probably agree that Ariza made the Rokets better, as they would likely be in the playoffs without Yao if McGrady were healthy).
Finally, I should probably qualify my comments by admitting that I am a Rockets fan.
John Giagnorio
July 8, 2009
Lior,
Thanks for your help. It’s been a few years since I’ve read the book, so I wasn’t really clear on your criticism.
Palamida,
I have mixed feelings on Morey, although he is no question a cut above the rest of the GMs. A lot of his picks/personnel moves mesh well with WoW. Some things that he says don’t make a lot of sense. Unfortunately he is also friends with Bill Simmons, and unless this is being done for publicity reasons I see it as a big black eye on him. If I were the Rockets GM and Simmons tried to talk to me, I’d send Ron Artest to make him stop :)
Palamida
July 9, 2009
John, Personally I find Bill Simmons very amusing :p.
Naturally, he cares very little for the aspects of the game that we delve into in this blog (Thanks Prof.!) and isn’t informed at all but I cannot say that his writing isn’t amusing.
I imagine we’re going down the Marion route (next post, that is) again soon. (“Nash made him better” and all those arguments are about to be revived :p).
What a summer by the Cuban Boys: Resigning Kidd. Signing Gortat. and now Getting Marion while getting rid of Stackhouse and Antoine Wright in one fell swoop… WoW!.
How do you guys see the “big ball” lineup that the Mavs can assemble now?
IF Howard can make the transition to SG, wer’e talking about a starting five of: Kidd, Howard, Marion, Dirk , Dampier\Gortat. Not to mention if Bass Stays – 3 wonderful backups in 3 diff. positions – Bass, Terry and whomever isn’t starting out of The Dampier\Gortat Duo.
A contender? no doubt. Too bad the disparity in the league is getting simply outrageous.
So many small market teams, just cutting salary, Trading Picks for Cash, and Players for “considerations” and “trade exceptions” while the Bigger names simply end up in the Larger markets, Sheed in Boston, Dice a Spur, etc.
Looking back it’s hard to see a season in which there were so many “Uber-Teams”.
Cle, SaS, Lal, Bos, Dal and perhaps a few more simply have teams that would be sure finalists in the past and now, some of them might not even make it to the second round. That obviously means some teams have to be “bad” in a historical perspective.
Think about the SaS-Cavs finals a few years back. Aren’t the current roster of those two this coming season clearly superior to those who made that final? (and I doubt they’ll both be there this coming season).
Am I taking this too far, or is the Disparity really quite extraordinary?
mrparker
July 9, 2009
re Ron Artest’s position last year,
82 games had him playing 53% of his minutes at SF last year.
re uber teams,
Didn’t the West have 7 50 wins teams a few years back. The league of Uber teams has been around for a couple of years.
Caleb
July 9, 2009
In the season before last… 07-08, every playoff team in the west had 50-57 wins. Denver was the 8 seed with a 50-32 record. Pretty crazy.
Palamida
July 9, 2009
Guys, I remember 07-08 as well, but that was more of a semi-elite teams.
I’m talking about the fact that those teams (this coming season) are probably teams that if placed in a random season of the past would probably be good for about 60-65 wins. Not too many teams in the NBA have even eclipsed that mark, (plenty of seasons without a single one).
Naturally when placed all together they will impede each other’s wins and end up with smaller win totals but you get my point.
DVD Video to Zune
May 16, 2010
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June 18, 2011
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