If the Warriors can repeat their 2008-09 record this next season (and I think they could do much better), Don Nelson will become the career leader in regular season wins for a coach. And if that happens, Nelson will probably be elected to the Hall of Fame. Such an achievement suggests Nelson is an amazing coach. All of this success, though, can be traced back to “ The Squid”.
The 1979 Draft
Nelson began his coaching career with the Milwaukee Bucks in the midst of the 1976-77 season. The Bucks finished that year with a losing record, but in 1977-78 Milwaukee won 44 games. The next seaso, though, the Bucks only won 38 games. Consequently, Nelson’s career winning percentage in 1979 was below 0.500 (and few would have believed that someday he would be the career leader in coaching wins).
The Bucks held the 5th pick in the 1979 draft. With the first pick, the LA Lakers selected Magic Johnson. Magic finished his career with 228 Wins Produced, so that pick appeared to work out. The next three picks — as the following numbers indicate — didn’t work out as well.
2. Chicago Bulls: David Greenwood (70.4 Career Wins Produced)
3. New York Knicks: Bill Cartwright (38.1 Career Wins Produced)
4. Detroit Pistons: Greg Kelser (6.5 Career Wins Produced)
With these players off the boards, the Bucks were able to select Sidney “The Squid” Moncrief. Moncrief’s career only had six seasons where he played more than 2,000 minutes. Despite limited career minutes, he still produced more wins in his career – 126.8 Wins Produced — than the combined output of Greenwood, Cartwright, and Kelser.
In Moncrief first seven seasons (he never played more than 2,000 minutes after his seventh season) his production was as follows (WP48 = Wins Produced per 48 minutes):
1979-80: 8.5 Wins Produced, 0.263 WP48, Bucks win 49 games
1980-81: 15.8 Wins Produced, 0.314 WP48, Bucks win 60 games
1981-82: 21.1 Wins Produced, 0.340 WP48, Bucks win 55 games
1982-83: 18.0 Wins Produced, 0.319 WP48, Bucks win 51 games
1983-84: 19.0 Wins Produced, 0.296 WP48, Bucks win 50 games
1984-85: 14.7 Wins Produced, 0.259 WP48, Bucks win 59 games
1985-86: 15.7 Wins Produced, 0.293 WP48, Bucks win 57 games
Moncrief’s Wins Produced in these seven seasons sum to 112.8, and the Bucks won 381 regular season contests. This suggest that “the Squid” was a big reason why the Bucks were so good in the 1980s.
Life Without the Squid
Now let’s imagine the 1979 draft played out differently. At the time of the 1979 draft, the head coach for the Detroit Pistons was Dick Vitale (the same Dick Vitale who is widely regarded as an expert on college basketball). Although we don’t know who decided to draft Greg Kelser, one suspects that Vitale had some input into the decision.
Prior to the draft, Vitale and the other decision-makers in Detroit would have noted that Kelser won an NCAA title with Michigan State (and Magic Johnson) in 1979. One suspects – given the NBA performances of Magic and Kelser — that Magic had more to do with that title than Kelser. But at the time of the draft, Vitale and the Pistons clearly thought Kelser would be a very productive NBA player. He certainly looked like a “winner” (whatever that means).
What if Vitale and the Pistons, though, were able to separate the contributions of Magic and Kelser? If that happened, Vitale and the Pistons might have concluded that Kelser was not going to be very good; and then maybe Moncrief is off the board before the 5th pick (and yes, the Bulls and Knicks could have also made a different choice). So if a different decision was made on draft day in 1979, Nelson and the Bucks wouldn’t have had the services of “the Squid.”
Someone, though, would have had to play Moncrief’s minutes. Let’s imagine that he Bucks were able to find an average player (i.e. WP48 of 0.100) to take Moncrief’s minutes. If nothing else on the team changed, the Bucks could have expected to post the following records from 1979-80 to 1985-86.
1979-80: 44-38
1980-81: 49-33
1981-82: 40-42
1982-83: 39-43
1983-84: 37-45
1984-85: 50-32
1985-86: 47-35
An average player is not a “bad” player. But the difference between Moncrief and “average” is substantial. And with an average player taking Moncrief’s minutes, Nelson would probably not win 50 games with the Bucks until his 8th full season coaching the team. One suspects, given how often coaches are fired in the NBA, that Nelson never gets to that 8th season. If that happens, one suspects that Nelson doesn’t have the same coaching career we currently observe. He certainly wouldn’t have been given the opportunity to coach in almost every season from 1976-77 to the present.
All of this suggests that Moncrief is a big reason why Nelson is about to set a record. Yes, there were other productive players on the Bucks (for example, the original MJ – Marques Johnson – was also very good). But it was Moncrief that led the Bucks to the success we observed in the 1980s. And without “the Squid” it seems likely that Nelson gets fired by the Bucks and his coaching career goes in a very different direction.
So when Nelson breaks the coaching record this year, let’s hope someone thanks Moncrief. And when Nelson eventually enters the Hall of Fame, perhaps someone should think about adding Moncrief (yes, he was that good).
UPDATE: Ty Willihnganz of Bucks Diary [mvn.com/bucksdiary] provides an insightful comment on this post. Here is how Ty’s comment concludes (one should read all he had to say at Bucks Diary):
I guess I would disagree with one of the premises of Professor Berri’s post. I don’t think the Bucks lucked into Moncrief at all. I don’t think Gregory Kelser, given the information at the time of his selection, was such an absurd pick (even though Dick Vitale was an absurd NBA coach, to be sure). Quite the contrary, I think MSU SF Kelser — not Arkansas SG Moncrief — was and would always have been the more conventional choice.
Moncrief was the reach. He was the unconventional pick. Therefore the Bucks created their own “luck” in selecting him. The Bucks somehow saw in him what I’ll bet a lot of others couldn’t — a seemingly undersized, unconventional player without a position who could nevertheless win a lot of ball games for you with his overwhelming production.
– 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 
Babyshoes
August 24, 2009
Wow, and the Pistons traded picks with Milwaukee to take Kelser over Moncrief! Is this listed on any “top 10 draft bloopers” lists?
dberri
August 24, 2009
I missed that part of the story. According to Basketball-Reference, the Pistons essentially traded Moncrief to get Kelser.
Kevin
August 24, 2009
Bill Laimbeer was drafted in the 3rd round that same draft year by Cleveland, and brought in to Detroit in the same year that Kelser was sent packing (81-82, to Seattle). At least Detroit’s management didn’t sit around for years, ‘believing.’ Mark Eaton, the great monolith of shot defense, was taken in the 5th round, by the way. How the hell do you block 5.6 shots per game (84-85)?
Leszczur
August 25, 2009
Dave,
Not to criticize your passion for rewriting the history and digging deep in your X-files, but some of us would appreciate your team reviews for 2008-2009 instead of reading how lucky Don Nelson is. He is lucky. He’s so damn lucky that nobody realized yet (at least nobody with any real power) that he in fact cripples GSW.
So please for God’s sake write these reviews (and delete this comment if you please, but write them!)
Kevin: have you seen Eaton? He was a 7-4 monster disguised as human. I don’t know what is more impressive – his 5.6bl or his durability.
todd2
August 25, 2009
Don Nelson—are you kidding? Who can forget GSW running a 67 win Dallas team out of the gym in the first round of the playoffs? And what about Run TMC? Beautiful! And Marques Johnson? I don’t know if the numbers bear it out, but I felt he did everything Scottie Pippen did better! Thanks prof and keep it up!
todd2
August 25, 2009
I ran across an article today listing the top 10 busts of the last decade. I don’t think it’s fair to the players; management should shoulder most of the blame. That’s led me to wonder which organizations have been the best (and worst) over the years at evaluating talent? Sounds like a lot of work, huh?
Rumblebuckets
August 25, 2009
Best talent evaluator in recent memory, at least in the draft, Isaiah Thomas. Neither a good nor bad head coach, a terrible general manager, but he’d make perhaps the best talent scout in the league, which is why I’d bet money on him being a great success at FIU, for college basketball is all about talent identification and recruiting. Look at how many NBA players he got late in the draft and good ones too like David Lee and Trevor Ariza. Add to that Wilson Chandler, Nate Robinson and Renaldo Balkman with late 1st round picks.
The Spurs are also incredibly good. Parker, late 1st and no one was scouting him. They also drafted Ginobili and Scola with 2nd round picks, not to mention George Hill more recently, and others as well. Steven Jackson? Right?
Rumblebuckets
August 25, 2009
Also add Danny Ainge to the list in terms of the draft. Rajon Rondo is the big guy, but he also got Al Jefferson (I think), Leon Powe, and whole car full of guys who are at least NBA players, even if some of them are only fringe guys (Glen Davis, Ryan Gomes, etc . . .)
The Rockets are probably the best evaluating the little things that guys may do to win, not in small part, because they rely heavily on statistics. Chuck Hayes, Carl Landry, acquiring Scola for bubkus, Kyle Lowry, etc . . .
The Trail Blazers have been pretty good as of late now also, but their problem is that they don’t realize what an asset is. Passing up on Amare Stoudemire is likely going to prove to be a mistake. Big men like that don’t come along very often, and he would have been perfect to pair with Oden/Pryzbilla, as they are primarily rebounders and shot blockers, and he is primarily a scorer, whose not the best in the world at the other things, especially considering his athleticism. Lamar Odom also probably would have been a better signing than Andre Miller, because Andre Miller is old for a point guard, already can’t defend his position, and isn’t going to get any more athletic. Besides that, signing Odom would have taken a key piece from the Lakers. And they might have even been able to sign Odom (to a deal between what they offered Hedo and what Odom signed for with the Lakers) and Miller (by offering an extra year on the mid-level exception), because everyone who was a player was already out of cap space, and he was only being offered short term deals at mid-level money anyway.
Nick
August 26, 2009
@Rumblebuckets :
I believe they did not get a mid-level exception. From my understanding, you only get the exception if your team is over the cap at the being of free-agency. You do not get one if you are under the cap. So they would not have been offer Miller more than the veteran’s minimum.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NBA_Salary_Cap#Mid-Level_Exception
Italian Stallion
August 26, 2009
One of the problems with evaluating the evaluators of talent is that the sample size of draft picks is typically quite small unless the GM has been around for a very long time. There are going to be some GMs that just got lucky or unlucky.
I also like to look at the young players a GM trades away and trades for to add to the sample size.
If you totally discard the contract aspects of the deals (a different GM skill) and just look at the talent/skill/character of the players traded, that can also give you a clue about the ability of the GM to recognize young talent with some upside.
Tim
August 26, 2009
Any comments on this story about cooking stats?
http://deadspin.com/5345287/the-confessions-of-an-nba-scorekeeper
The story talks about home vs. away stats, but I wonder if anyone has looked for statistical inflation over time, i.e., have stat keepers grown more liberal (or biased) over time? Also, stars known for blocks (Mutumbo) or rebounds (Rodman) or assists (Stockton) might get inflated stats not only at home, but also on visiting courts if the opposing team wants to be featured on ESPN.
dberri
August 26, 2009
Tim,
I am sure mistakes get made. But the link betwee the most important stats in basketball (rebounds, steals, and turnovers) and outcomes (points, shot attempts, or wins), is really strong. This suggests that widespread efforts to inflate or deflate these stats doesn’t happen.
As for assists, that is more subjective. Different people might count that stat differently.
Sam
August 26, 2009
It’s hard to predict “what if” because there’s an assumption that if you replace The Squid with an average player, the management is still going to make all the same signings and trades afterwards. But who knows what else may have changed if Nelson never had The Squid.
Mark Byron
August 27, 2009
I think Dberri was right in his first comment. The Pistons had #5 and the Bucks had #4 and the Pistons traded up, fearful that Milwaukee might pick Kelser. The Bucks had their eyes on Moncrief all along and were happy to pocket some extra cash and get the guy they wanted all along.
Kelser was a 3-4 tweener, too small and skinny (you can play the 4 at 6’8″ if you have a wide body) to play power forward and too slow and without the range to play small forward. However, he’s keeping himself busy doing color commentary on TV on Pistons broadcasts.
Rumblebuckets
August 27, 2009
Do you need a wide body? Or do you need to be strong and know how to use leverage? ie. Dennis Rodman 6’7″, 210-220 pounds, and was probably the best one-on-one defender of Shaq in the league.
I stand corrected on the MLE (though it seems strange to penalize teams for being under the salary cap), but I still think Portland mismanaged its cap space. They still could have traded for Vince Carter last year and signed Andre Miller this year and still have Outlaw, Batum, and Webster as tradeable assets.
If I were Portland I’d be on the phone trying to trade Outlaw and Webster for Mike Miller, as he is exactly the player they need at 3. Much cheaper than Turkoglu, and much more efficient in every part of his game, and yet everyone forgets how good he is because he was stranded in Memphis for most of his career. And has been injured a fair amount as well.
dan
August 29, 2009
I agree with the earlier statement—Moncrief belongs in the HOF. No way to claim in any way shape or form he wasn’t one of the best players of his era.
todd2
August 31, 2009
I just took a peek at Willihnganz ‘ piece. He makes a valid point and brings to mind a couple of others that made the transition to guard successfully: Mitch Richmond (another Nelson pick!) and Dwyane Wade. And who can forget Nelson’s point-forward experiment with Paul Pressey—check out his stats! Points, rebounds, assists and steals! I have to add Pat Riley’s draft record has been terrible and Wade was probably luck…
todd2
August 31, 2009
Put Dale Ellis on that list of successful forward-to-guard guys. He floundered behing Blackmon and Harper, was traded to the Sonics and given minutes and then it was lights out…