Here is my latest for Huffington Post Sports:
Upon graduating high school in 2008 Brandon Jennings made an unusual move. Although he had a scholarship to the University of Arizona, Jennings decided to skip college and sign a contract to play professional basketball in Italy. Skeptics derided the move when it was announced. And after 43 games of European basketball, it looked like the skeptics were right. According to Draft Express, Jennings averaged less than seven points per game in Italy and his shooting efficiency was well below average.
Despite this performance, the Milwaukee Bucks invested the 10th pick in the 2009 NBA draft in Jennings. Again, there was skepticism. How could a player who couldn’t excel in Italy make a significant contribution to an NBA team?
Read the rest at Huffington Post Sports…
The column goes on to put the start of Brandon Jennings’ career in some historical perspective. But it completely ignores the rest of the Milwaukee Bucks, something I can briefly rectify below.
After 13 games the Bucks have posted a 3.3 efficiency differential (offensive efficiency minus defensive efficiency). Such a mark translates into about 50 wins across an 82 game season. As the column notes, Brandon Jennings is responsible for about 10.6 of these projected victories. Most of the remaining victories are projected to come from the following players:
Ersan Ilyasova: 295 minutes, 0.226 WP48, 8.8 projected wins
Luke Ridnour: 311 minutes, 0.196 WP48, 8.0 projected wins
Andrew Bogut: 302 minutes, 0.164 WP48, 6.5 projected wins
Charlie Bell: 405 minutes, 0.104 WP48, 5.6 projected wins
Hakim Warrick: 309 minutes, 0.086 WP48, 3.5 projected wins
Kurt Thomas: 143 minutes, 0.170 WP48, 3.2 projected wins
These six players are projected to produce 35.6 wins. Now this projection is not entirely accurate. It presumes minutes played will stay the same and Bogut is expected to out for four more weeks. Michael Redd – who also missed time (and has yet to play well) – is also back. If Redd returns to form the Bucks should be even better.
Regardless of the injuries, it looks like this might be the best Bucks team since 2000-01. And a bit more improvement (i.e. Redd comes back strong) and this will be the best Milwaukee team since the mid-1980s.
Much of this improvement is due to Jennings. But as the above list notes, he’s not a one-man team. Ilyasova, Ridnour, Bogut, Thomas, and Bell (only slightly) have been above average players this year. And Redd should join the list.
Although it’s early (so the usual disclaimers apply), it looks like the Bucks can certainly expect to make the playoffs. Which is not too bad for a team many thought would be one of the worst teams in the league (not sure I thought that, but I also didn’t foresee the play of Jennings and Ilyasova either).
– 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 26, 2009
Although he has only played in 8 of the Bucks [5-3] games so far, it’s a major oversight to fail to include the name of Luc Richard Mbah a Moute in any review of player contributions to Milwaukee’s good start this season.
What #12 provides for the Bucks isn’t easy to decipher from a statistical examination of their games but … there’s a VERY good reason he has averaged 29.0 MPG [4th highest] so far this season.
PJ
November 27, 2009
It’s also worth noting that the Bucks appear to have had, by a pretty wide margin, the easiest schedule in the NBA so far. They’re certainly better than a lot of people were expecting, but if (when?) they come back to earth a little, it may be due simply to an increase in the toughness of their schedule.
todd2
November 27, 2009
Nice article about the NBA powers-that-be and their short-sightedness, if not provincialism: http://thepaintedarea.blogspot.com/
Italian Stallion
November 27, 2009
The Bucks were decimated by injuries last year so it wasn’t that difficult to know they would be better this year. The one question mark in my mind was what the loss of Sessions would mean, but I think management obviously saw that Jennings was the superior player before they decided to let Sessions walk for what I consider a very reasonable price.
Ray
November 28, 2009
I would like to see a post that makes some order in the Western Conference. It seems that the West has 7 teams that are very competitive and title contenders. Lakers, Blazers, Nuggets, Mavericks, Suns, Spurs, and Jazz. I’d like to be able to see who’s for real and who’s probably going to fade.
And by the way, what’s up with the Blazers? The Grizzlies? It just never seems like these guys can pull it together for some reason.
benamery21
November 28, 2009
How about a look at the Suns and Channing Frye (of whom you’ve been rather dismissive on more than one occasion)? Frye took more 3-point attempts in his first 12 games this season than all of his previous 4 seasons combined. What does the resultant change in Frye’s WP48 have to say about the limitations of the metric?
Italian Stallion
November 28, 2009
benamery21,
I suspect that Frye will still not look extremely productive because he’s playing C for the Suns. He’s not the typical C in that he plays on the perimeter a lot and is not much of a rebounder or shot blocker. His TS% is excellent this year. That should improve his overall productivity rating, but a lot of other Cs also have high TS% by being effective on the inside and also rebound and block shots well.
I think this comes down to how effective you think Frye has been in helping the other players on the team by being such a strong outside threat and spacing the floor.
ilikeflowers
November 28, 2009
EstWP48
Amare Stoudemire…0.11
Steve Nash………0.3
Jason Richardson…0.32
Channing Frye……0.16 (0.27 as SF)
Grant Hill………0.26
Jared Dudley…….0.24
Leandro Barbosa….0.08
Goran Dragic…….0.15
Louis Amundson…..0.17
Earl Clark………0.08
ilikeflowers
November 28, 2009
The Sun’s are playing well top to bottom.
ilikeflowers
November 28, 2009
Channing Frye has had a bizarre career so far. Here are his WP48’s per year:
05/06….0.069
06/07…-0.076
07/08….0.084
08/09…-0.146
Was he injured or being played out of position in 06/07 and 08/09?
Italian Stallion
November 29, 2009
In 06-07 Frye had some physical problems at the start of the season and never really got going after that.
He had some injuries again last year and got off to a horrific start, but was more or less buried in Portland behind several players anyway.
To me, he’s one of those tweener guys that are difficult to evaluate and fit with a team.
From a height perspective, you would tend to think he should be playing PF. But he’s not a rebounder, shot blocker, or really strong guy on the inside etc… He’s more of a perimeter shooter like a SF. I haven’t watched him enough defensively, but I’d guess he’d have a tough time guarding many SFs and I’m not sure he has all the SF skills anyway.
Maybe the Suns are using him properly. They are allowing him to shoot from the outside and help space the floor. You just have to wonder where the Suns are getting adequate rebounding if they are using him as a C (I haven’t been watching).
Ray
November 29, 2009
With their starting rotation, they aren’t getting adequate rebounding. They get outrebounded very often. Their offense is just too good, and they’re playing a lot of these bad teams.
benamery21
November 29, 2009
We get to see how the #1 Suns do against some stiffer competition as Dec 2nd thru Dec 17th they play the #2, 3, 4,5,6 in the West plus the #1,3 in the East with 7-8(.467) Sacramento thrown in for good measure.
Rocabatus
November 30, 2009
Actually, the Suns have so far been average on the boards. The wings are doing much of the heavy lifting, with Hill and Richardson getting more rebounds than usual for a perimeter player. Off the bench, Dudley and Amundson doing alright too.
Here’s hoping they come out of December more or less on their feet.