In general, if you tell fans of a team that there is little hope before the season even starts, those fans are going to become unhappy. At least this has been true when I have discussed the fortunes of the less-fortunate teams in the NBA.
Often when I state that a particular NBA team is not very good (or a particular player is not very productive), fans of that team will declare that I “hate” their favorite team (or favorite player). To prove that this is not the case I am going to return to the subject of the Detroit Pistons.
As the following picture illustrates, I am a fan of the Pistons.
When Henry Abbott asked me what I wanted for winning the TrueHoop Stat Geek Smackdown, I asked for an autographed banner of the Detroit Pistons. And for better or worse – and as we will see, last year, and probably this next year, are part of the “worse” – this banner is staying on my office wall.
The Pistons Decline
How did last year become part of the “worse”? In 2007-08, the Pistons won 59 games. And the team’s efficiency differential (offensive efficiency minus defensive efficiency) of 8.17 ranked second in the NBA (behind Boston).
At the onset of the 2008-09 season, the team that won 59 games was still essentially the same. But after winning the first two games of the 2008-09 season, general manager Joe Dumars made a bold move. Chauncey Billups – the team’s leader in Wins Produced in 2007-08 – was sent to the Denver Nuggets for Allen Iverson. Given the past performance of Billups and Iverson, one suspected this move would remove Detroit from the list of title contenders in 2009. Looking at Table One, we can see that’s indeed what happened.
Table One: The Detroit Pistons in 2008-09
Iverson ended up playing nearly 2,000 minutes in Detroit, producing only 1.4 wins. His WP48 [Wins Produced per 48 minutes] of 0.034 was below Iverson’s career average; but even if Iverson had performed at the level seen across his career the Pistons would have struggled. Iverson’s career WP48 entering the 2008-09 season was 0.083. Had Iverson played at this level the Pistons would have only won two more games last year [in contrast, Billups produced 16.0 wins for the Pistons in 2007-08].
Although I doubt that Dumars looks at Wins Produced in making decisions, I suspect he knew that going from Billups to Iverson was a step back. But the Pistons — with Billups — were not likely to win a title in 2009. Given the age of Billups, it was time to start building another title contender. And with Iverson’s expiring contract, Dumars had the ability to start building during the summer of 2009.
So in the short-run the Billups-Iverson trade looked bad. But in the long-run, this could be thought of as a stroke of genius. Unfortunately, the word is “could”. When we look at the moves Dumars made with this cap space, we (and I mean “fans of the Pistons”) are left disappointed.
Faltering on the First Steps to the Next Title
Ben Gordon and Charlie Villanueva – two players who have never been above average in their careers – were signed to relatively large contracts. And Antonio McDyess – the player who led the Pistons in Wins Produced in 2008-09 – was allowed to depart for San Antonio. Such moves leave the Pistons with the following depth chart.
Potential First String
PG: Rodney Stuckey [4.1 Wins Produced, 0.079 WP48]
SG: Richard Hamilton [2.5 Wins produced, 0.052 WP48]
SF: Tayshaun Prince [7.8 Wins Produced, 0.122 WP48]
PF: Charlie Villanueva [3.8 Wins Produced, 0.087 WP48]
C: Ben Wallace [4.3 Wins Produced, 0.159 WP48]
Potential Second String
PG: Will Bynum [0.9 Wins Produced, 0.052 WP48]
SG: Ben Gordon [6.1 Wins Produced, 0.097 WP48]
SF: Austin Daye [rookie]
PF: Jason Maxiell [2.6 Wins Produced, 0.090 WP48]
C: Kwame Brown [1.6 Wins Produced, 0.078 WP48]
As noted this past summer, the Pistons 2009-10 depth chart fails to inspire confidence. Ben Wallace and Tayshaun Prince were the only veterans who were above average last year. And the Wins Produced of the nine veterans listed above only sums to 33.7. This is hardly enough to contend for a title. Yes, maybe Big Ben to can return to what he was the last time he played for the Pistons. Any maybe the younger players will get much better. And maybe…. I am spending too much time looking at my Pistons banner (and drinking the Kool-Aid).
The numbers seem to suggest that if the Pistons get to play teams like the Memphis Grizzlies every night, then Detroit will look amazing. But against the better NBA teams the Pistons will probably have problems.
The silver lining in all this is that Joe Dumars is more than willing to make different decisions when things don’t work out as he originally thought. Past mistakes – see Rodney White, Darko Milicic, and yes, Allen Iverson – were soon allowed to go elsewhere. So when the Pistons don’t contend in 2009-10, we can expect changes to be made. Such changes could –and we must emphasize the word “could” – bring in some players who are truly above average. And if that happens, my banner will look so much better in my 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 
Daniel
October 29, 2009
Tell Obama that criticism and his cronies that criticism is not equal to hate. He doesn’t seem to think so as evidenced by the new “Hate Crimes Law”…
FanFeedr
October 29, 2009
I was unaware that AI had such a low WPA across his career, and I am certainly not trying to start a flame war over an entertaining player, but given that he is a volume shooter, and that he isn’t efficient, and that it has been shown that he doesn’t drive ticket sales, one has to question the entire premise behind his signing in Memphis (pardon the run-on sentence.)
Additionally, we all knew *when they were signed* that Villanueva were not very efficient.
Which brings me back to the Timberwolves: they signed Sessions, the player with the highest WPA on the Bucks, and have him playing little behind a rookie so far. They could have kept McHale to achieve the same thing.
Russell
October 29, 2009
Interesting point, Daniel. In a related matter, the mud behind mom house swampthing live that then the gum was never in the water bottle.
todd2
October 29, 2009
Prof, props to you for sticking with the Pistons. I’m in MIA and weeping. Lest we forget, fan is short for fanatic.
cougar
October 29, 2009
for once, it can be said that Iverson did actually bring in some ticket sales this year. There was an article I read earlier in the year talking about the two best days the Grizzlies had selling season tickets (and possibly single-game) were the two days right after the Iverson trade. So for one year at least, he is having an impact on ticket sales
Italian Stallion
October 29, 2009
I think the Pistons are a pretty good test case for the system. They added two fairly highly regarded players based on conventional wisdom that rate below average here. So it will be interesting to see how the team performs.
Lior
October 29, 2009
Does anyone know of a website posting WP48 numbers for the ongoing season, similar to the adj.PM in basketball-value and the WS numbers in basketball-reference?
dberri
October 30, 2009
Lior,
I will be posting numbers as we go along. But I don’t know of any other source. If someoene wants to set something up I can help.
chipc3
October 30, 2009
I don’t care what you say. You still hate the Memphis Grizzlies.
I’m not saying you aren’t right for feeling that way of course!
Christopher
October 30, 2009
Isn’t Dumars’ GM performance now just undergoing regression to the mean? He did some good things but he’s done some not good things as well.
brgulker
October 30, 2009
Dr. Berri,
I could swear that in one of your posts about the Pistons (either last season or this summer), Kwame Brown was above average (.15X is what’s in my mind for some reason).
Here, however, he’s below average.
I realize I could be wrong … maybe I’m just remember a mid-season post, and he performed worse over time?
Also, as a loyal fan of the Stones, it was bittersweet to let Dice go. We weren’t going to contend this year, and I think Joe knew that. Letting Dice walk to SA was the right thing to do … as tough as it is to see him in black and white.
One last thing, that Kool-Aid wouldn’t be Langlois brand, would it?
brgulker
October 30, 2009
Last thing for real:
Ben Wallace is still a blast to watch! Are you able to watch many of their games?
HE plays just like he did when he was younger … he’s just a little older. Same brand of basketball, though. Fun to watch, even if it won’t translate into 50 wins.
brgulker
October 30, 2009
Aha!
It was the piece on Kuester renting or buying.
Kwame is listed as having a .117 WP48: https://dberri.wordpress.com/2009/07/14/should-kuester-rent-or-buy/
What’s up with that discrepancy?
Tball
October 30, 2009
brgulker,
All of the team numbers seem to vary between the Kuester post and this post. I wonder if this chart career numbers or if a shorthand system was used to calculate one of the charts.
dberri
October 30, 2009
Sorry for the confusion. For awhile I was computing WP48 by comparing players to the average at guard, small forward, and big man. But that is not how I did it in the past. So rather than change the analysis of every year (back to 1977-78), I decided to return to the convention of comparing players to the average at PG, SG, SF, PF, and C. As I noted this past summer, this would cause some numbers to change (because the reference has now been changed).
Hans Goodman
October 30, 2009
hey smart guys, nobody “let dyess go.” we didn’t have his bird rights, so he was unrestricted. dumars wanted him bad. one could argue that we “let him go” by trading him to denver in the first place, but from the context of your statements it’s clear that’s not what you’re talking about.
brgulker
October 30, 2009
Hans,
That’s ridiculous. Dumars didn’t want Dice as badly as CV or Gordon — the two guys he paid. It’s not as if SA overpaid Dice. If Joe values Dice as much as you claim, he wouldn’t have traded him in the first place, and he definitely would have paid him MLE money to retain him.
khandor
October 31, 2009
With all due respect, last season’s Detroit Pistons did not fall apart because the Billups/Iverson trade failed to work out for the Pistons and the team’s Wins Produced numbers dropped as a result.
The 2008-2009 Pistons failed to execute like an elite level team due to the series of poor decisions made by Michael Curry, re: the use of their personnel and the culture which he allowed to develop around the team.
For example:
– Rip Hamilton is not an effective #3/SF and should not have been used at that spot in an effort to accommodate Allen Iverson at the #2/OG position
– A three guard line-up of Allen Iverson, Rodney Stuckey and Rip Hamilton fails to use the individual strengths of these players and does not minimize their weaknesses
– A three guard + 1 small forward line-up of Iverson, Stuckey, Hamilton and Tayshaun Prince, although effective vs certain 5-man units, has little chance to succeed if/when used for major minutes in a NBA season
– Failing to use, and therefore cement, Mr. Stuckey at the PG position for a minimum of 32 MPG
– Failing to use the following rotation immediately after acquiring Mr. Iverson:
POINT GUARD
Starter = Stuckey [32 MPG]
Back-up = Iverson [16 MPG]
OFF GUARD
Starter = Hamilton [32 MPG]
Primary Back-up = Iverson [16 MPG]
Secondary Back-up = Afflalo [extra only]
SMAL FORWARD
Starter = Prince [32 MPG]
Back-up = Herrmann [16 MPG]
POWER FORWARD
Starter = Antonio McDyess [28 MPG]
Primary Back-up = Amir Johnson [10 MPG]
Secondary Back-up = Jason Maxiell [10 MPG]
CENTER
Starter = Rasheed Wallace [30 MPG]
Back-up = Kwame Brown [18 MPG]
– Failing to tell Mr. Iverson BEFORE he was acquired that he would be used in a rotation that looked exactly like the example provided above
If the Pistons would have followed that prescription last season, instead of what Mr. Curry tried to do after adding AI, they would have remained a top team in the EC despite trading Mr. Big Shot and dropping down a notch or two in the regular season standings.