Here is a simple question: Can we separate how a player has performed from how we think he will perform in the future? For example, I think it is possible to simultaneously argue
- Kevin Durant did not perform well in the 2007 summer league.
- Although Kevin Durant was named Rookie of the Year in 2008, he did not perform well during his rookie season [2007-08].
- Kevin Durant is one of the most productive players in the game today.
Each of these statements is consistent with the objective evidence. Yet some people seem to think that the third statement above contradicts the first two statements.
One senses the same story could play out with respect to John Wall. To illustrate, consider the following from Kyle Weidie of ESPN’s Daily Dime. Weidie has written a review of John Wall’s summer league performance that stands in stark contrast to the statistical analysis offered by Ty Willihnganz. Weidie’s review notes the following about Wall:
- … (Wall) performed better than expected in those areas which don’t require physical talents, such as leadership and communication.
- … this kid has proven he has the unquestionable mental capacity to succeed.
- … In his first game action since the NCAA Tournament, Wall averaged 23.5 points, 7.8 assists, 4.0 rebounds and 2.5 steals over four contests.
Thus far, Weidie’s review is quite positive. In the 9th paragraph of the discussion, though, Weidie finally notes the factors that cause Wall to be listed so low on Willihnganz’s rankings:
- But he’s clearly not without faults. Wall shot 37.7% from the field and made just 1 of 8 3-point attempts.
- Turnovers have also been an issue. Wall surely doesn’t want to be like his childhood idol, Allen Iverson*, and give the ball away at a rate of 4.4 times per game his rookie season.
So Wall is a leader and communicator. And he can score and get assists. But he had two problems in Las Vegas. He missed a significant portion of his shots and he kept giving the ball away.
The turnover issue is something we also saw in college. And unfortunately, turnovers matter in basketball. When you give the ball to your opponent before you score, you don’t help your team win.
So at this point we can say this about Wall. His physical skills suggest that he has a great deal of potential. But so far, that potential hasn’t translated into actual production. Wall was not particularly productive in college. And he wasn’t productive in summer league.
Now it’s very important to emphasize what I am saying. I am not saying – and I repeat, I am not saying – that Wall will never be a great basketball player. What I am saying is that in college and summer league he was not a great basketball player (again, I am differentiating what Wall has done from what he might do in the future).
And I am trying to emphasize that ignoring missed shots and turnovers for eight paragraphs paints a misleading picture of Wall’s actual performance. Missed shots and turnovers really matter in basketball.
Yes, it is possible that in the future Wall’s shots will fall and the turnovers will stop happening (and it is possible this won’t happen as well). But until that happens, one shouldn’t tell us how great Wall has been. He hasn’t been good (and yes – once again—that doesn’t mean he won’t be good in the future).
Let me close with one last note… some might argue that people are simply impressed with Wall’s potential. And Durant’s improvement “proves” that people are able to see past low levels of production early in a player’s career. The counter-argument to that line of reasoning is the long list of players in NBA history who people claimed had “potential”, but who never developed into productive players. In sum, there are no guarantees with respect to John Wall. He may someday be a productive point guard. He might also turn into the next Stephon Marbury (or Allen Iverson). At this point, I am not convinced people really “know” Wall’s future in the NBA.
– DJ
* – one should note that it is a good sign that a player who hopes to be a future star does not wish to be like Allen Iverson. I suspect, though, that if Wall puts up the same numbers Iverson put up in 1996-97, Wall will be named Rookie of the Year in 2011.
Wages of Wins Journal 
some dude
July 18, 2010
I know this is about Wall, but I think it’s unfair to say Durant didn’t play “well” as a rookie. I agree he wasn’t the rookie of the year and that season was overrated, but he was not only on a terrible team, but PJ Carlisimo played him way out of position as a shooting guard.
Given the fact that everyone in the world outside his coach knew he wasn’t a SG, I think he did well given the circumstance he was put in.
I agree with most of this Wall post. It will be interesting to see.
I do believe there is a correlation between high turnover rate for rookies and rookies who become productive. Apparently high # of TOs early means you’re looking to make plays but adjusting while low TOs mean you don’t know how to do it at all, or something along those lines. It will be interesting to see if Wall can figure out how to walk the line.
I was most impressed by his first step and ability to get in the paint, but his shot selection and ability to maintain possession was pretty bad.
I still think Cousins was the best player in this draft coming in and probably for the future.
dberri
July 18, 2010
SD,
I know the excuse for why Durant didn’t play well as a rookie. But the fact is, he didn’t play well. And the media said he was the best rookie. And the coaches all chose him for the All-Rookie team.
Now in Durant’s case, it worked out. But there are other examples in NBA history where you tell a player early on he is already great and then he never really gets much better. That very well could happen with Wall (or maybe it won’t happen — again, I am not predicting the future here).
some dude
July 18, 2010
No, I understand. I just think context does matter. Dude was told to just jack up shots 100 times a game playing in the wrong position.
I look at it this way. How many rookies in NBA history could have done what he did in a similar position? Maybe 10 in the last 20 years.
The reason I say this is because when evaluating rookies, context matters a lot. I don’t think WP48 or ANY metric could possibly evaluate Durant his rookie season in terms or potential because of how incorrectly he was used. Yeah, I agree his production was mediocre and have admitted completely overrated, but given context i feel the production was better than almost anyone else could have given.
If Lebron, me and 3 of my friends went to go play ball against NBA teams, I’m sure Lebron’s WP48 and every other metric would be pretty much crap too. I know that’s extreme, but that’s sort of what’s happening.
Alvy
July 18, 2010
Some positive signs for Wall are that he reduced his TO from eight in the first two games, to only two in the final two games. In other words, it’s possible Wall is clearly aware of his mistakes and will try to correct them. Second, Wall can get to the free-throw very often, and almost every great wp/48 ranked player (Magic, LeBron, Jordan) always got the line at least eight times.
Michael
July 18, 2010
Not just Durant. Lebron improved massively over his rookie campaign as well. That said, I think it is perfectly valid to draw attention to a players short comings whilst maintaining that they may well improve in the future. In fact with young players I dont see another approach.
Let’s just say your approach is vastly superior to allowing judgements of ‘potential’ to cloud objectivity over current performance.
Future improvements cannot retroactively contradict prior assessments if those assessments allowed for improvement to begin with.
coachbean
July 18, 2010
The Wall/Durant comparison is a good one given their overrated summer league performances, but Durant’s college numbers pointed toward future success. See Draft Express:
http://www.draftexpress.com/article/Just-by-the-numbersEvaluating-this-Years-Small-Forward-Crop-2118/
Durant had the highest scoring numbers but also the highest rebounding numbers which are a better predictor of future success. John Wall’s college numbers were merely average so the comparison falls a bit short.
Also the “Kevin Durant played out of position during his rookie year” alarmists need to give up that argument. There is very little difference between the roles of small forward and shooting guard. I suppose it could have affected Durant’s rebounding numbers as he might be on the perimeter and out of position to rebound, but the real improvement for Durant came when his shooting percentage went up 4.6 % during his sophomore year (including 14% improvement on 3 pointers). This has little to do with position and a lot to do with a young player maturing and improving as young players do.
arturogalletti
July 18, 2010
Prof.,
I think the real problem both with Wall and with Durant as a rookie is age. Good play at 19/20 (Howard, Paul, Magic) is a good indicator of future performance but Bad/Avg. play at 19/20 ( Durant,Lebron) is not a good indicator of future performance. I think that it’ll be a while before we know who Wall will be (but he will not help the wiz at all this year and that may be the plan)
Italian Stallion
July 18, 2010
I don’t think it’s fair to broadly criticize the sports media or NBA coaches etc… for some of the players that have gotten hyped in the past that didn’t ultimately pan out.
That’s approximately equal to panning all statistical models because a few of them suck.
As with all other things, I think some people are better at measuring potential than others.
IMO Wall is such a gifted athlete and obvious basketball talent, the thing that will determine whether he becomes a highly productive star or another Marbury/Iverson is located between his ears and not what people are looking at right now.
I think I already know he has the talent to become a great PG, defender and could easily learn to become an efficient scorer IF he chooses to.
However, I also know that some people lack the intellect to do so and go through life being high scoring inefficient chuckers. We’ll see about Wall.
ian
July 18, 2010
I didn’t watch John Wall that much in college, so I will definitely give you the benefit of the doubt on that, but I watched all of his summer league games and it is hard for me to accept your claim that he “hasn’t played good yet.”
He was sloppy at times, yes, playing a new up-tempo game with completely new teamates.
But if you watch the game against LA when he had an 18 pt. third quarter and against Dallas, in particular, when he pretty much willed his team to come back and win the game, it seems pretty clear to me that he was playing well above his competition. That’s not potential. That’s actual.
Anyway, I understand you’re trying to counter some of the over-hyping that Wall has received from the media, but I dont think Kyle’s article is the right one to pick in that regard. I took Kyle’s piece to be highlighting the things on the court that made Wall worthy of the number one pick (and the fans’ optimism) – I didn’t take him to be annointing him Magic Johnson just yet.
khandor
July 18, 2010
re: “So Wall is a leader and communicator”
What is the specific measurement included in the WoW metric which accounts for these two categories of evaluation [according to what was written by Kyle Weidie]?
If, however, there are no related measurements for these two specific categories of evaluation associated with the WoW metric then, pretell, what is the purpose of being critical, in this space, of Mr. Weidie’s opinion of John Wall’s talents as an elite basketball player?
bduran
July 18, 2010
ian,
“But if you watch the game against LA when he had an 18 pt. third quarter”
Allen Iverson had plenty of amazing games/quarters. On the whole though, he was way overrated. People see tremendously talented players like Wall and ignore the fact that they take too many bad shots or turn the ball over too much. The question is, will Wall be able to elevate his game on the whole. This is unknown. I’m positive he will have good games.
marparker
July 18, 2010
Most of Wall’s good plays have come with Javale McGee on the floor who is like in his 7th year in the NBA which is kind of unfair.
PS- I know hes not in his 7th year but it seems like it to me as a Wiz fan.
Nick
July 19, 2010
@some dude:
I think in that scenario it would be you and your friends who would have the terrible Wins Produced. The thing that could alter LeBron’s would be if noone defended you and your buddies, and quintupled teams LeBron, and still he forced up shots against 5. If he passed to the open man, then it would be you and your buddies who would take the blame for the loss (WP-wise). And that makes sense, LeBron is making the right pass, you guys weren’t making your shots.
But if he forced up contested shots, it would be his fault. Now in theory, the fact that you guys weren’t scoring threats would contribute to his poor WP48, but he STILL had the choice to pass the ball to open shooters. He would be making the decision to shoot, and would suffer. Now, it may be better for LeBron to go 1-on-5 for the OVERALL team WP, but still, it makes sense if he shoots and misses he takes the blame.
No, to an extreme, I can see your argument here for Durant, but the fact is, sometimes, it makes more sense to pass to these open options. That is something that can’t really be estimated, or projected. The same argument could be made that Durant got a benefit, because since there were no other offensive threats, the entire offense was built around getting him good looks. Once you open this “context” door, you can argue almost anything. I understand that context can be important, but it’s a difficult argument to make.
Durant did not have a productive rookie season. He may have been playing as well as ONE could HOPE given age, and situation. But absolutely (I’m assuming Wins Produced is absolute here) he was not effective at helping the Thunder win games.
@ian:
Similar to what bduran is saying, a lot of players have great quarters. One thing I find people don’t realize, is that it’s easy for people to remember the great moments a player has. When he does an amazing cross-over and hits a fade away step back jumper with the space he created, it looks amazing, and it’s a difficult shot for most players. But, when he missed it 3 times, you just ring it up as “just another possession”. Without realizing, that possession could’ve ended differently, because instead of taking a 40% shot (which maybe is 20% for most NBA’ers, indicating great skill) they may have been able to get a 50% shot. On one possession, that can’t be judged, aka, the shot goes in or not, hard to gauge the long-term efficiency of a shot. But over a season, those step backs are bad shots unless the shot clock is running out.
Wall is an amazing talent, but right now, it seems he needs to work on reducing those negative plays, because I think the general consensus, is that he can make the great positive ones.
When people see potential, is because they see these moments of brilliance, that few NBA’ers can achieve. But they can’t judge a player accurately without taking into account these “unsexy” posessions as well. That’s what the main message of this post is to me.
Matthew Dalton
July 19, 2010
Dave,
You know what would be really interesting for evaluating rookie potentiall? Wins produced numbers for some of the greats their last year in college i.e. MJ, Magic, Larry, Stockton, Barkley, Duncan…..
Patrick
July 19, 2010
Prof Berri, love your blog, but aren’t you preaching to the converted? 99% of us already fully understand the point you were making here (which is, at most, a one-paragraph point anyway).
Also, in your quest to be unassailable, you back off of more interesting (and probably statistically valid?) points. I.e., you point out that maybe Wall will remain unproductive and maybe he won’t. But you only hint at, without being quite willing to say, that Wall’s poor production thus far makes it unlikely (not certain, of course, but unlikely) that he will be an especially productive pro. Why the reticence? You’ve come much closer to saying this (and you may have actually said it; can’t recall) in other Wall posts, but you seem to be backing away from that conclusion here. But wouldn’t such a conclusion be valid? If not, explaining why it wouldn’t be would be an interesting post.
So let’s move beyond WoW 101. How about some analysis of which kinds of production problems are likely to be corrected by which kinds of players? I.e., do the data indicate that a young PG has a good chance of correcting a bad assist/TO ratio? Or a low FG%? Which problems are most correctable? Most intractable?
I really do love WoW by the way – I read SoW in a weekend a couple of months ago.
Thanks,
Patrick
dberri
July 19, 2010
Patrick,
Thanks for the comment. The important comment was … read SoW in a weekend. I am assigning this book to my sports econ class. Hopefully my students find it to be as fast a read (although I always thought when I was a student that once I was forced to read a book, the book went much slower).
As for preaching to the converted… I love these comparisons to religion. Still waiting for my disciples to give me all their money.
And as for more draft studies… we are working on those. So hopefully we can say more about predicting performance in the future.
One last note (going back to the original point)… my sense is that there are people commenting who have not read Stumbling on Wins. As Patrick notes, it just takes a weekend. And Ty W. from Courtside Analyst said he read the book in one night. So really, there isn’t much excuse here :)
arturogalletti
July 19, 2010
Patrick,
Take a look at the GSW thread for the kind of beyond WOW 101 stuff that you’re talking about.
Prof,
Another Truehoop call out! Congrats.
All,
I put another post up on quality and pace adjustment (click my name if interested).
Filipe
July 19, 2010
It seems some agree with us, Wall didn’t make the All Summer League team:
Sam Young (Memphis)
JaVale McGee (Washington)
Reggie Williams (Golden State)
DeMar DeRozan (Toronto)
JJ Hickson (Cleveland)
Ty Lawson (Denver)
Dominique Jones (Dallas)
Derrick Caracter (LA Lakers)
Larry Sanders (Milwaukee)
Gani Lawal (Phoenix)
Jermaine Taylor (Houston)
Alonzo Gee (San Antonio)
the champ
July 19, 2010
One thing I noticed about Wall in college (that seems to have continued in the summer league) is that he’s not a particularly great ball-handler. He doesn’t seem to have a ton of quick half-court dribble breakdown moves (like a Steve Nash or even Baron Davis) and he’s not a guy you’d refer to as having the “ball on a string” (ie: Chris Paul). When most other top point guards turn the ball over, it’s because they’ve thrown the ball away. I can’t think of another elite point guard prospect that loses his dribble (or has it taken) as often as Wall does, and that’s a bit troubling.
madgamemike
July 19, 2010
This is a DONKEY article!!!
brgulker
July 19, 2010
First, if it can be observed, then it can be measured. How does one observe leadership? If you can answer that question, you can at least begin to measure how it can be measured. And if you can measure it correctly, you can explain how leadership is or isn’t related to winning basketball games.
Second, did you read the critique? Fundamentally, the critique is not about what was written; rather, the critique is about what was not written strongly enough.
In short, scoring a whole bunch of points doesn’t make up for missing a whole lot of shots and giving the ball to the other team.
————————-
I liked this one from Dr. Berri,
Preface: Not intended to hijack the thread or start a flame war. Got it? :)
I was trained in theology. I’m a Christian, and I also love Science. As a Christian, I find myself engaged in plenty of conversations with evolution-deniers. I find that in most cases, such people simply dismiss evidence.
Ironically, I find myself in a similar situation with many basketball fans. There is evidence to support the conclusions that are offered in this forum, the academic journals Dr. Berri et al have published, and the books. But that evidence is easily dismissed by many fans. Basketball is an art, they know what their eyes tell them, etc.
I’m not trying to make a point here or anything, just making an observation about my own experience about religion and basketball and only since someone else brought it up :)
brgulker
July 19, 2010
“measure how it can be measured”
answer how it can be measured…
arturogalletti
July 19, 2010
Updated the FA guide.
http://tinyurl.com/NBAFA2010
robbieomalley
July 19, 2010
Arturo,
Did you get the CJ Watson to Bulls deal? Three years, $10.2 million. Bulls are on fire.
Alvy
July 19, 2010
Rob,
Did you ever hear Noah’s comments regarding the Bulls? You could tell he is very psyched about having teammates who can “fight” and compete alongside him. He’s a chill bro.
arturogalletti
July 19, 2010
Rob,
I did now. Good deal for CJ. Chicago’s doing it right.
BV
July 20, 2010
I feel that the chances of Wall ever increasing his performance exponentially like Durant did are minimal. I see him becoming like Derrick Rose – highly regarded by the sports media, but an average player statistically…
Italian Stallion
July 20, 2010
BV,
Do you actually think Rose didn’t make enormous progress in the second half of the season last year (when healthy) and that he’s not extremely likely to continue progressing?
Personally, I think Wall may have more talent, but I think both are likely to become very high caliber players.
Tom Mandel
July 20, 2010
Dave —
1. No one who had ever passed a logic course would think the 3d of your opening statements “contradicts” the other two.
But *you* seem to think that the 3 statements in some way *support* the predictive powers of paws40 (I’ll get to your “not predicting the future” claim in a moment). That is, because there are more dissimilar cases than similar ones, Durant is as it were “the exception that proves the rule.”
But, no description of Durant’s development pattern has *any bearing at all* on what e.g. John Wall’s development pattern will be — none, zero, zip.
2. “I’m not predicting the future” — of course you are! Tell me honestly that you don’t think that statistical evidence across a range of players makes it more likely that John Wall will be less than stellar rather than just terrific and well worth the #1 pick. Of course you think that! Do I really need to find the *many* instances where you’ve said things of this kind — not about Wall necessarily but about other players? Come on.
3. Alas, you are wrong. All the stat data in the world about other players tells us *nothing* about John Wall.
4. What it *does* tell us is that if we choose drafted players at random one-by-one and measure their productivity over time, their college paws40 will turn out to provide a better future productivity map than their draft position — this is most definitely true.
5. Why? Because it is a statistical fact in relation to other statistical facts.
6. To take another example: the fact that more people who smoke get lung cancer than people who don’t tells me nothing about whether I’m going to get lung cancer — literally nothing, zero, zip. That’s true whether I smoke or not.
It does tell me that if I smoke, I’m in a group of people more of whom get cancer. That’s a *very different* learning.
7. I might add that no mathematician would disagree with what I have just said and no statistician would either. Typically, it’s economists who think statistical facts predict real-world particulars.
Tom Mandel
July 20, 2010
Above, Patrick suggests that Dave is pulling his punches and that Dave really thinks that “Wall’s poor production thus far makes it unlikely …that he will be an especially productive pro.”
In his response, Dave doesn’t deny Patrick’s claim or agree either. Does it, Dave?
How good are our data correlating *freshman* performance w/ success in the league?
Why do we make judgments based on a player’s *final* college year? Take Trevor Booker for example — why don’t we go off his Junior year? That year he was the 4th highest ws40 PF in the ncaa — behind only DeJuan Blair, Blake Griffin and Kenneth Faried?
He was followed by Tony Gaffney? Why hasn’t Tony been a success in the league? I know Dave wouldn’t claim that paws40 insured he would be, but *why not?*
NBA players tend to improve until @24 — surely they began before they were rookies? Why aren’t we looking at how steep the curve of improvement over a college career is — rather than just the last year? Why would that not be *more* relevant as a predictor (and therefore in decision-making)? Where’s the data on that?
Tom Mandel
July 20, 2010
There is no question that WP48 is the best metric for evaluating a player’s contribution to wins — best anyone has found so far certainly.
There is no question that if you show me some volume shooter and claim he’s great because he scores a lot of points, you can be shown to be wrong about the guy using wp48 (unless of course, he’s also a great rebounder, steals, etc.).
This is a matter of understanding the past — what’s already happened. It does not allow me to use the same analysis to predict the future of a 19 year old basketball player. You couldn’t have predicted how good KD was going to be, any more than Rajon Rondo’s *average* paws40 as a college freshman “made it unlikely” that he’d be productive.
Italian Stallion
July 20, 2010
Tom,
>>But, no description of Durant’s development pattern has *any bearing at all* on what e.g. John Wall’s development pattern will be — none, zero, zip. <<
I won't argue about a specific player, but if you are implying that it isn't possible to isolate sub groups of players that are way more/less likely to develop because they have similar characteristics to other players, I think you are way off base.
In fact, I think the NBA does a pretty great job of that despite the fact that some teams/GMs are horrendous at it (implication being that some are way above average)
To begin with, most teams do not draft players based on what they expect the player to do in the next year (unless perhaps they think they are one player away from a championship).
They draft players much the way "growth investors" buy growth businesses in the stock market.
They look at the "present value" of the long term future of that player discounted at a appropriate risk adjusted rate.
They know that some of their projections will be off and some will dead on.
They know some of the identifiable risks for a specific player (history of injury, character issues, no development etc) will come to pass and others will not.
On a net basis though, they know that if their projections are reasonable they will get good value for their picks regardless of how any individual one turns out or how they do in the first year.
Any study of draft picks has to look well beyond the first year (especially these days because so many young kids are drafted based on projections ) and look at the results of these kinds of projections on a NET basis.
I don't know if Wall will turn out to be a bust or not, but I would consider any team that didn't draft him first to be borderline retarded regardless of how HE specifically turns out.
It's blatantly obvious that he has massive athletic ability and basketball talent.
If you drafted 2-3 players like him, you might get a bust mixed in, but you'll also get at least one franchise PG. The net of the 2-3 players would also almost certainly be a better value than taking 2-3 23 year seniors that projected to be maxed out already just because they had some decent stats as a senior.
Tom Mandel
July 21, 2010
IS — I agree with everything you wrote. My point was not about *players* but about how one uses statistical facts.
Of course you can look at players, compare them to other players, make judgments about them, and expect to have much better results than if you simply picked at random. What a world it would be if you could not do that! :)
Put another way: if you *could* use paws40 to predict the future of John Wall, then you would also have to say that Brian Zoubek should have been picked 6th in the draft — he had the 6th best paws40 number. He’s a good kid, and I bet he plays in the NBA, but I don’t think anyone would be convinced by the number to rate him that high. Or, for that matter, to rate Artsiom Parakhouski 2 *above* Zoubek.
Same with Damion James — he’s likely to be a long-term successful NBA player. But no, paws40 or not, he wasn’t the #1 pick in the draft!
Tom Mandel
July 21, 2010
I don’t think anyone imagines that John Wall’s 130 minutes of SL action (the first competitive ball he played since March) represent a sufficient sample to judge what he’s capable of — either now or by way of development.
No doubt not even enough to predict how he’d play in a 5th or 6th SL game — if it continued this week.
Why don’t we do a little intellectual exercise and take his 2d and 4th games only, and see what kind of paws40 we get.
Working quickly and in my head (pls. correct if I’m in error), I get a raw +12WS for 64 minutes. I.e. 7.5 WS40. Of course, we need the position adjustment for a point guard, which I don’t remember.
Oh… gosh, looks like I forgot something. Note that in these 2 games, Wall went to the line 21 times in 64 minutes (not to mention 15 times in 28 minutes of the 3d game — is that a good rate, Dave?). And for the week, he shot 86% from the line.
But, you know, there was no penalty in SL. You only got to the line if you were fouled while shooting — not as in the NBA. I wish we knew what % of foul shots were caused by each of the 2 possible situations.
But, hey — lets model it that John would have gone to the line 25% more often and kept on shooting 86%; got to give him *something* for the WS disadvantage of this rule change, right?
Ok, again working quickly in my head, that takes him up to @ 8.9 raw WS40 for those 2 games. What was that position adjustment again.
Oh oh — I forgot something else, didn’t I? You’ve probably already thought of it. If he is causing the opposing team to foul him all the time (e.g. he pushed Roddy Beaubois into 4 fouls in 5 minutes in game 3), that wouldn’t just put *him* on the line more often — it’d also put *his teammates* on the line more often.
In those 2 games, his teammates went to the line 28 times (to his 21). Do we have a way to give him productivity credit for the extra times his teammates would have found themselves at the line had there been a penalty?
You know, somehow it just doesn’t look like John Wall is a bust yet.
Of course, I’m choosing only 64 minutes to judge on. Fair enough. Then again, you’re only choosing 130 minutes to judge on. And after all, I’m choosing a later spread of minutes than yours, which increases relevance.
Now, I am aware that elsewhere Arturo writes — without even the slightest qualifying clause — that “John Wall was a bad pick for them,” and given that Arturo is a mathematician — you are, aren’t you Arturo? — the above analysis must be wrong.
Why don’t we just say this: we’ll see. :)
Tommy_Grand
July 22, 2010
Professor,
To many readers, it felt as though you believed (for a time) that seattle had made a poor choice with the #2 pick, since Kevin Durant was unlikey to become an all-star level player.
So, do you think Wall was a good pick at #1? Will he be one of the 6 best players taken in this draft?
IMO, the whole point of the discipline is to use data & analysis to generate informed predictions about the future. It’s nice to look back using WOW to figure out who helped the 95 Rockets win (we can learn from that) but what everyone really wants to know is: which free agent is likely to rock in 2011? Which player should the Spurs draft at #20? Or which team is likely to win.
So, are you predicting that John Wall will be good? Average? Poor? Awesome? Undefined? No rational person expects your predictions to be accurate 100% of the time, but if you’re unable/unwilling to make a prediction…
Tom Mandel
July 23, 2010
The problem is, T_G, that statistical data for a *range* is only useful in predicting future results for that range. In the case of a guy like Wall, of whom no one knows how he will turn out, the dataset is pretty skimpy and from an immature player. You can’t predict on the basis of the data with any confidence.
Given that, you are sort of forced to predict on the basis of *your system,* and this is the first step by which an analytical tool devolves into a belief system. I.e. if you predict on John Wall, you have to be equally willing to predict on Brian Zoubek, and “the system” tells you Brian will be the 6th best player out of this draft (with confidence expressed as a range up and down from #6).
You could also call this the Nick Fazekas syndrome. A few years ago, Nick came out of college w/ an exceptional paws40, and wasn’t drafted. He had several cups of coffee in the league, and at every one of these stops Dave pointed out that he was doing great. He didn’t stick in the NBA — for all I know he’s gone to grad school to become a sports economist!
The “correctness” (i.e. usefulness) of PAWS40 (or, more accurately, of WP48) as an analytical tool (and it’s *very* useful) doesn’t enable it to be used to predict whether Wall or Zoubek or (obviously) Fazekas will turn out to be a good NBA player.
Tom Mandel
July 23, 2010
That said, I too want to hear Dave’s prediction! :)
By the way, Nick Fazekas plays in the French League for a team based in Dijon.
Tommy_Grand
July 23, 2010
so you’re saying it’s too soon to say? i can dig that.