Rasheed Wallace has announced his retirement. Wallace was the 4th player selected in the 1995 draft. Across the next 15 seasons he posted the following numbers:
- $150 million in salary (according to Basketball-Reference.com)
- 1,088 games played
- 35,947 minutes played
- 15,860 points scored
- 68.2 Wins Produced
- 0.091 Career WP48 [Wins Produced per 48 minutes]
If we consider the first four numbers, Rasheed was an above average player who lived up to his lofty draft status. His Wins Produced numbers, though, suggest he was little different from an average player who was paid like a star. Consequently, he earned $2.2 million per win.
Of course, Wallace’s career WP48 is just an average. In some years – like 1995-96 [-0.025 WP48] and 2009-10 [-0.039 WP48] – Wallace was well below his career average. Yes, in Wallace’s first and last season he posted numbers in the negative range. But from age 25 to 34 he was generally average to slightly above average in most seasons. In other words, Wallace essentially hit his peak in his mid-twenties and then stayed productive until last season. But by 35, it looks like he is done.
Wallace actually stayed productive a bit longer than is typical for an NBA player. In other words, by the time an NBA player reaches 33 or 34 he is – in general — noticeably less productive than what we see in the mid-20s. Wallace was still able to contribute at that advanced age. Unfortunately for the Celtics, he couldn’t squeeze one more year out of his body.
Okay, that’s all I wanted to say about Rasheed. We have much better posts coming up in the near future. In the next few days…
- Shawn Ryan has a review of the 2010 NBA draft.
- Nicholas Yee has a review of the 2009-10 Boston Celtics.
- Devin Dignam has a post on the Toronto Raptors.
- and Arturo Galletti and Andres Alvarez have some very interesting research on the NBA draft that needs to be posted.
I am off to the Western Economic Association meetings in Portland. As I mentioned in May, there will be more than 60 papers presented on sports and economics at these meetings (unfortunately I agreed to be part of six of these papers, a number of co-authored papers I hope I never see again). Plus we will have a panel discussion of blogging about sports and economics. So I think we are all looking forward to a very interesting week.
While I am at the meetings, I do hope I can get some of the aforementioned columns posted. At least, that’s my hope. If that doesn’t happen, can everyone spend the next week discussing ‘Sheed?
Okay, I really will try to get other stuff posted.
Update: Robbie O’Malley has offered some thoughts on the Kirk Hinrich trade. Those thoughts might prove more interesting than what I said about Rasheed (and therefore, might be worth discussing).
– DJ
Wages of Wins Journal 
robbieomalley
June 27, 2010
If anyone is interested, I wrote a post on the Wizards trade for Kirk Hinrich. Being that I’m the designated Wizards fan blogger, I felt I should.
Enjoy.
http://robbieomalley.wordpress.com/2010/06/26/wizards-trade-for-hinrich/
robbieomalley
June 27, 2010
On Sheed, reportedly he will hold off on retiring and will give the Celtics the opportunity to trade his contract for something.
I think he deserves some props for knowing when to call it quits and doing it right. That isn’t often seen in the sports world.
marparker
June 27, 2010
I was surprised by Rasheed’s less than stellar career. I had it in my head that he had been a .2 player at one point. That turned out to be a very wrong assumption.
Scondren
June 27, 2010
Rasheed Wallace was one of the most frustrating and delightful players in the league. He’ll be missed, and like Robbie said, props to him for knowing when to hang them up.
szr
June 27, 2010
Robbie – nice blogs about our mediocre-to-awful wizards. I cringe when I think about our team next year. I haven’t run the numbers yet, but I frankly would be surprised if we can win 25 games. And in three years times, the Wizards will primarily be remembered for not taking Turner or Cousins.
Dre
June 27, 2010
David,
Have fun at the conference. I know I’ll sound like a broken record, but any hope of videoing some of the talks? The blog panel sounds interesting and especially pertinent seeing what’s happened at this site in the last several months.
dberri
June 27, 2010
Can’t imagine this will be videotaped. I will be taking notes, though, and I will do my best to report what is said. Kevin Arnovitz (from ESPN and TrueHoop) is also part of the panel. He might offer some thoughts afterwards as well.
Arturo
June 28, 2010
Marparker,
Ball don’t lie.
brgulker
June 28, 2010
Agreed. He’s leaving a lot of money on the table because he knows his career is over.
Rasheed is one of those players that makes me ask questions, because I watched so much of him as a player. Undoubtedly, his errant shooting and ‘meh’ rebounding didn’t helps his teams. However, he really was one of the best on-the-ball post defenders I’ve ever seen. Watching him frustrate Dwight Howard year after year was a joy to watch. That doesn’t make it into the box score, but it must have value. Or at least that’s the question Sheed’s career makes me ask.
And yes, Ball Don’t Lie!
marparker
June 28, 2010
I was fooled into thinking he would always play as long as “somebody CTC”
brgulker
June 28, 2010
I should also mention I’m really looking forward to the Draft analysis. Should be a great week of reading!
robbieomalley
June 28, 2010
The best compliment that I can think to give Sheed during his career is that not only his team but both teams played hard.
Arturo
June 28, 2010
robbieomalley,
That’s totally true my man.
Man of Steele
June 28, 2010
Umm, so this has nothing to do with Rasheed Wallace, or even with basketball really, but I’ve thinking about it and this is the only place I could think of bounce these ideas off of anyone.
Watching the Argentina-Mexico game on Sunday the commentators were noting that even Lionel Messi (think LeBron James, for non-soccer fans) hasn’t scored a goal during the World Cup, he has played well and has drawn attention from the defense and given Argentina’s other forwards more room to operate. Watching Argentina, it seems that this is right. Given what we think about such theories around here, I’ve been wondering if we can reconcile Argentina’s performance with WOW thinking. Perhaps an 11-on-11 game is sufficiently different from a 5-on-5 game so as to make “drawing defenders away from teamates” legitimate. Or perhaps a soccer field is so much bigger than a basketball court that causing a defender to shade toward a star player has a greater effect.
I don’t know, does anyone have any ideas?
I suspect it may also be that soccer is really zone defense, not “man-to-man” in the strict sense which basketball teams play man-to-man defense. Causing multiple defenders to leave their zone to converge on a single player, then, would actually open up their zones for other attacking players. In contrast, basketball teams rarely double-team a star at all times. Instead, they have the guy defending the closest player on the star’s team cheat over toward the star.
marparker
June 29, 2010
I too have been watching soccer and trying to think of it in terms of wow. I think certain players are very adept at taking of advantage of opponents over compensation. For instance, Rondo uses the space that defenses give him to shoot to get to offensive rebounds and make easier passes.
So my question would be what is it that Messi has an easier time doing because of how the other teams try to compensate for his skills.
I haven’t seen Argentina play, but Spain strikes me as a wow type team. If that makes any sense. They only take good shots and control possession of the ball. They also are very adept at the free stuff(corner and free kicks).
szr
June 29, 2010
Actually, they address the “make your teammates better” problem in WoWs. Which is why, initially, they thought they didn’t need to account for assists, but regression analysis proved that wasn’t the case. Also, since WoW does measure individual player productivity and efficiency, assuming you have a Messi-like player on the floor, you could easily see the impact it has in teammate efficiency.
And yes, while individual productivity is hard to measure the more players you have the field, its very clear that Messi is having an enormous impact on Argentina’s success. After all, I think with the exception of two goals, he was the assist man on all of them. That’s quite a feat when you remember that Argentina is the goal leader in the World Cup so far.
Arturo
June 29, 2010
I watch a hell of a lot of futbol and I’ve thought about this. I think possession time(probably by zone), touch time by player, passing, steals, blocks,assists,tackling, fouls, shots (on goal & total) would be the first things I looked at. It would be very interesting.
Chicago Tim
June 29, 2010
robbieomalley — I can tell you that the Chicago Bulls fans do not have mixed feelings about trading Kirk Hinrich — they’re all delighted. Of course, it may all go bust in the end, but everyone thinks management did the right thing to free up cap space, even if it was for very little in return.
dberri — Okay, I’ve run out of things to say about Sheed and Hinrich. I hope you can find time for another post (as author or editor).
robbieomalley
June 29, 2010
Tim,
If I was from Chicago I’d be delighted as well. Meanwhile, my Wizards used their trade exemption for Yi Jianlian. Delighted is not the word I would use to describe my feelings.
Chicago Tim
June 29, 2010
robbieomalley –
I’m not delighted about the Yi trade either, although for different reasons. Can the Wizards take any more Bulls’ contracts?
robbieomalley
June 29, 2010
Tim,
You see, the Wizards are trying to assemble the worst team of all time. Hopefully negative producers at every position.
Therefore, trading for Luol Deng would not be part of the plan. Al Thornton needs to be the starter.
Brightside – I’m pretty sure Wiz are a lock for a top 3 selection next year. Eyeballing it, I can’t imagine any team worse. (Maybe a Bosh-less Toronto)
Man of Steele
June 29, 2010
Wow, I’m glad some other folks are watching the World Cup. mrparker, I agree about Spain, it seems that they complete such a high percentage of passes, consistent with WoW’s high valuation of possession. szr, I think this is part of my problem. The same thing doesn’t seem to happen in basketball as in soccer. After posting, I got to thinking that perhaps the physics have an effect on the two games. In basketball, if a player is double-teamed, he can usually kick it out to a guy at the three point line. In soccer, if Messi has three defenders on him at the top of the box, he can’t pass the ball back farther away from the goal for a shot, most of the time. The space closer to the goal/basket is much more valuable in soccer than in basketball.
Artura, I think we would also need passing by zones. So, for Argentina, there would be a lot “Messi, pass to Maxi Rodriguez on right wing (undefended)” or something similar.
btw, mrparker, good call talking abot Spain before the game. They were my pick to win before the Cup began.
robbieomalley
June 29, 2010
http://robbieomalley.wordpress.com/2010/06/29/wizards-acquiring-assets-trade-for-yi/
Gil Meriken
June 29, 2010
Messi is the least productive, most overrated player. The numbers don’t lie! How does he magically make his teammates better?
It’s obvious that Gonzalo Higuain is carrying the team. I’m tired of hearing the opposition talk about how they plan around stopping Messi (as Germany is saying “it takes a team to stop Messi”), when the most productive player is El Pipita. Why don’t these supposed skills of Messi translate to production?
some dude
June 30, 2010
No way, Gil. Messi is far from that. He’s contributed to goals in the world cup without having scored directly. Did you not see his touch for the header last game (yeah, I know off-sides, but only a handful of soccer players would ever make that play which is why the sideline judge botched it. 99% of players shoot that).
I’ve watched all of Argentina’s games and in most of them I see 2 players trying to shade him at all times. This is very rare and it’s clearly opening up lanes for teammates. Teams are now over-compensating for him.
He’s also at the top of the list for being fouled the most and yellow cards drawn. This changes how the defense plays in terms of aggressiveness. He’s also tiring out the opponents. This is production even if he has 0 goals himself.
he’s also maintaining possession and making superb passes all game long which wreaks havoc on the D. These things matter and they also wear down an opponent.
And finally, he’s one of the best defensive players for his position. he’s relentless. Most players dive or stay down these days, but this cat gets right back up and goes after the ball and steals it right back.
People become enchanted by his ridiculous lateral footwork with the ball and ability to break double teams with ease, but he’s doing so much of the dirty work for Argentina as well and a lot of his strengths aren’t noticed or heralded.
Messi is a beast. He’s having a great tournament. germany will be a big test (I believe these are 2 of the top 3 teams, with Spain being the other so long as Torres is benched right now). The key to this game with be messi and Klosa of course, but Argentina’s shaky defense and if it will hold up to the precision and skill of the German offensive attack.
Arturo
June 30, 2010
Gil,
+1 for using the Kobe template.
some dude
June 30, 2010
I was afraid I fell into a trap. :(
Dre
June 30, 2010
Gil,
How does he magically make his teammates better?
Same way AI does! We talking bout practice. We’re not talking bout the game. We talking bout practice!