My latest column for the Huffington Post focuses on the woeful New Jersey Nets:
Fans of the New Jersey Nets can’t be a happy bunch these days. Thirteen games have been played and the team has still failed to taste victory.
Happiness, though, is often driven by relative standing. Sure, some folks are better off than you. But if you can focus on those who are worse off, sometimes – in a perverse way – that can make you feel better.
Such a fact probably can’t make fans of the Nets that happy. After all, they are the only team without a win. But wins and losses aren’t always the best measure of a team’s quality. If we want to forecast the future we are better off looking at a team’s efficiency differential. Read the rest at Huffington Post Sports…
The rest of this column moves past efficiency differential and on to the subject of Wins Produced. If you are a regular reader of this forum, Wins Produced is a familiar concept. It will be interesting to see, though, how the audience at Huffington Post reacts.
Huffington Post also prefers that columns be kept to 800 words or fewer. Regular readers of the Wages of Wins Journal know that I have a problem shutting up keeping it short (I almost always go past 1,000 words). Had I more space I would have noted…
- after 13 games the Nets have two above average players: Josh Boone [0.137 WP48] and Chris Douglas-Roberts [0.174 WP48]. Every other player is below the average mark of 0.100. Rafer Alston, Courtney Lee, Bobby Simmons, and Sean Williams are in the negative range.
- after 13 games the Timberwolves (the other team I mention) have only one above average player. Damien Wilkins has a 0.147 WP48 [Wins Produced per 48 minutes]. Corey Brewer, Brian Cardinal, Wayne Ellington, Jonny Flynn, and Ryan Hollins have all played more than 100 minutes and all have a WP48 that is in the negative range.
- Al Jefferson’s mark is 0.044 (last year his mark was 0.160). And Ramon Sessions has a 0.096 WP48 [last year his mark was 0.198].
- After these two teams, the New York Knicks have the lowest differential (after games on Saturday night). The Knicks’ mark is -6.79. So the Knicks are quite a bit better than the Nets and T-Wolves.
- The top five teams are the Celtics (10.03), Trail Blazers (7.77), Hawks (6.89), Nuggets (6.71), and Mavericks (6.26). Again, this is after Saturday’s games.
- And finally… it’s obviously very early. Numbers will change as more games are played. I was going to emphasize this point at Huffington Post, but I ran out of space.
– 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 
khandor
November 24, 2009
Hopefully the Nets will win at least a few games sooner rather than later and, in the process, save Lawrence Frank’s job. Frank is a very solid NBA coach who has been dealt a relatively poor hand in New Jersey this season. If the Nets eventually decide to relieve Lawrence of his head coach duties, whoever replaces him will be made to “look better” with:
1. The eventual return to good health of Devin Harris and Courtney Lee;
2. The continued maturation of Brook Lopez, CDR and Terrence Williams; and,
3. The fortuitous “bounce of the ball” eventually
turning in the Nets’ favour.
The overall talent level on this team’s actual roster is much better than an o-for outfit, and it won’t be too, too long before they will turn the proverbial corner.
A.S.
November 24, 2009
Well, this Nets fan isn’t happy being better than the T-Wolves in efficiency differential. For one thing, in wins/losses, the T-Wolves have already beaten the Nets (that’s Minnesota’s one win – opening night, when the T-Wolves stormed back from a 15 point deficit in the 4th quarter).
On the other hand, the Nets are somewhat of an enigma. Prof. Berri says that at this point in the season, “Rafer Alston, Courtney Lee, Bobby Simmons, and Sean Williams are in the negative range [in WP48].” Well, that’s kind of odd, since last year Alston, Lee and Simmons were about average (all were over 0.075 WP48). So, my question for Prof Berri is, can we expect them to improve through the rest of the season? They aren’t especially old, and one of Prof Berri’s repeated points is that individual NBA players don’t vary especially much over season in WP48. So does this mean that we should expect those three players to get better (thus helping the Nets improve as a team)?
I note also that Brook Lopez appears to be playing worse than last year too (last year’s WP48 was 0.104). So that’s another player who we might expect to improve over the course of the year.
Chicago Tim
November 24, 2009
I’m looking forward to the nationally-televised (TNT) Hawks-Magic game on Thanksgiving day. More so than Bulls-Jazz, I’m sorry to say, since the Bulls are visiting Utah and will likely lose. Unfortunately, the Magic will play the Heat on Wednesday, and will be visiting Atlanta. So they may get tired. But I’m hoping for a good game, or at least a good three quarters.
Friday’s Timberwolves-Suns game on ESPN? I think I’ll skip that one.
mrparker
November 24, 2009
Still waiting for the blog post concerning the suck coming from Gilbert Arenas and Caron Butler. I’m pretty sure both those characters are in the negative range right now.
ilikeflowers
November 24, 2009
Here’s what I get from estimating WP48 from PAWSmin
NAME…………….EstWP48
Gilbert Arenas……0.01
Caron Butler……..0.05
Andray Blatche……0.08
Brendan Haywood…..0.22
Randy Foye……….0
Mike Miller………0.37
Antawn Jamison……0.28
Earl Boykins…….-0.01
DeShawn Stevenson…0.03
Fabricio Oberto….-0.08
ilikeflowers
November 24, 2009
So, outside of Mike Miller the entire back-court is playing poorly as is their SF. Front-court looks great now that Jamison is back.
ilikeflowers
November 24, 2009
Just for kick, here are the Bucks,
NAME…………………..EstWP48
Brandon Jennings………..0.17
Andrew Bogut……………0.19
Ersan Ilyasova………….0.37
Hakim Warrick…………..0.03
Luke Ridnour……………0.14
Charlie Bell……………0.09
Carlos Delfino………….0.11
Jodie Meeks…………….0.06
Luc Richard Mbah a Moute…0.05
Dan Gadzuric……………0.07
Michael Redd……………0.07
Kurt Thomas…………….0.18
ilikeflowers
November 24, 2009
Jennings is lighting it up at just age 20 and his other back-court mates are solid as well. I’m going to have to catch some footage on Ilyasova. Bogut looks good also
Oren
November 25, 2009
“Still waiting for the blog post concerning the suck coming from Gilbert Arenas and Caron Butler. I’m pretty sure both those characters are in the negative range right now.”
They’ve both been forced to play while being pretty beat up.
Ray
November 25, 2009
Wow, I’m actually surprised to see Jennings with such a good WP. I thought his high turnovers, low assists would trump his scoring and be like AI in this metric. Good for him.
Mark T
November 25, 2009
The Boone ranking points up the problem with this system. He rarely shoots because he does so poorly. Opposing teams ignore him offensively. Yes, he does rebound, that is one thing he does and the only thing that he does that shows upin a box score . So he gets a relatively high ranking, basically by avoiding what he is bad at. But teams don’t win by not shooting. Conversely Lopez has real offensive talent so more of a demand is made of him and opposing teams pay more attention to him than Boone. As a result he faces greater opposition when trying to shoot than Boone does. But no one who watches the two of them in a half court set would rank Boone ahead of Lopez. This is the flaw in your model.
DRed
November 25, 2009
Mark T,
So you think Boone should be penalized for avoiding what he’s bad at? That sounds like smart basketball to me.
todd2
November 26, 2009
The last few remarks bring to mind a debate that I ran across a few years ago: who would you rather have on your team, Ben Wallace or Tracy McGrady?
todd2
November 26, 2009
I think the Nets have a decent core. Lopez and Douglas-Roberts have played well in stretches. Devin Harris has been sorely missed, he’s a very good defensive player. If they have some money to spend and draft smart they could look like the Hawks in a year or two.
Celtzfan8617
December 2, 2009
John Hollinger seems to be running with your idea in his article “Wolves worse than winless Nets” (http://insider.espn.go.com/nba/insider/columns/story?columnist=hollinger_john&page=PERDiem-091201)