Devin Dignam grew up in small town about 45 minutes north-west of Toronto, before moving to Ottawa (you know, the capital of Canada?), where he completed a B.Sc in Human Kinetics and a B.Ed. Devin is getting tired of tolerating the constant hockey coverage in Canada, and wishes for Canada’s lone remaining NBA team to one day re-attain the splendour [Canadian spelling] of a 45 win season in order to kick hockey off of the front page for at least a couple of days.
Last year the Toronto Raptors didn’t exactly have a season to remember; they finished the 2009-2010 season with a 40-42 record and missed out on the last playoff spot in the Eastern conference.
Furthermore, as expected, Chris Bosh left the team as a free agent this off-season. Without Bosh, where does that leave the Raptors for the 2010-2011 season? To answer this question, let’s look at what the Raptors had last year (numbers taken from the wonderful website of Andres Alvarez).
Okay: it doesn’t look so good for the Raptors. Last season Bosh led the Raptors in wins (with 11.84) and was second on the team in terms of WP48 (at 0.225, trailing only Amir Johnson). Now that Chris Bosh is gone, the remaining 2009-2010 Raptors stand to win somewhere near 30 games and would comfortably miss the playoffs again next season.
But even without considering Bosh, next year’s team will be different from what we saw last year.
In the wake of the Bosh departure, the team’s GM, Bryan Colangelo, has tried to change up the roster, sending the “disappointing” Hedo Turkoglu to the Phoenix Suns for Leandro Barbosa and Dwayne Jones. Last year, Turkoglu produced 1.04 wins for the Raptors, whereas Barbosa produced -0.52 wins for the Suns. Fortunately, even including last years’ data (when he was injured), Barbosa has averaged just over 3 wins a season over the past 5 seasons, and seems to alternate between bad and good years. So given that last year was a bad year, we can hope that his next will be better and that he will be an small improvement over the Turkish Delight (it shouldn’t be too difficult). Throw-in Dwayne Jones has played limited minutes and may even be waived by the Raptors in the coming weeks, so he should not have much of an impact.
Perhaps a bigger move for the Raptors has been reported in the past few days. It is possible (although there is some doubt about this move today) that the Raptors are going to come to terms with free agent Matt Barnes. This would be a very good signing. Over the past four seasons, Barnes has averaged 5.37 wins and has not dropped below a WP of 0.100, which is the mark achieved by an average player. So adding Barnes could help Toronto overcome some of the loss from Bosh’s departure.
Unfortunately, signing Barnes might not be the last move Toronto makes. There have also been rumblings that the Raptors are going to trade Jose Calderon. To do so would be a big mistake. Although Calderon underperformed (by his standards) last year, over the past three seasons, Calderon has produced the following numbers:
- 2009-10: 5.8 WP, 0.154 WP48
- 2008-09: 11.91 WP, 0.245 WP48
- 2007-08: 15.68 WP, 0.303 WP48
If Calderon returns to the Calderon of 2008-2009 next year, he stands to increase his win total by about 6 wins. If Calderon returns to the Calderon of 2007-2008, he stands to increase his win total by about 10 wins. A return to form for Calderon will not completely make up for the loss of Bosh, but certainly a player who has contributed an average of about 9 wins a season over the past 5 seasons is a good asset.
Using wins produced, is there anything else that can help give Raptor fans a more optimistic outlook for next year?
Three of the four least productive Raptors (Antoine Wright, Patrick O’Bryant, and Rasho Nesterovic) are unrestricted free agents and are unlikely to be re-signed. These players combined to produce -2.0 wins last year, so improving on their production should not be difficult.
The Raptors also managed to add Joey Dorsey and rookie Ed Davis during the off-season. Coming out of the 2008 NBA draft, Erich Doerr was highly optimistic about Dorsey’s NBA career, but Dorsey has only managed to play 112 NBA minutes over two seasons. Hopefully the Raptors give him a chance to prove himself this upcoming season. Ed Davis was a very good college player who projects to have an excellent chance of being a very good NBA player.
As of the writing of this article, the Raptors, as currently constructed, project to win around 35-45 games. This projection is based on past performance (WP48) and an educated guess on the number of minutes played. Barring any injuries, additional trades, or a superb rookie season from Ed Davis, it looks like the Raptors will be fighting for the last playoff spot in the East. In other words, the loss of Bosh might leave the Raptors right where they were.
Let me close by suggesting that Mr. Colangelo should consider moving a few players: For example, Toronto could move Andrea Bargnani and Andrea Bargnani (yes, that was indeed intentional). Bargnani has a reputation that exceeds his actual value and should be relatively easy to trade. The Raptors also have a large trade exception from the Bosh sign-and-trade deal with Miami. I’d like to suggest some players for the Raptors to pursue through trade or free agency: Troy Murphy, Samuel Dalembert, Andrei Kirilenko, and Brian Zoubek. Losing Bargnani and adding another productive player might be enough (assuming Barnes comes and Calderon returns to form) to return the Raptors to the playoffs. And just maybe, put the Raptors on the front page in Canada (at least, for a few days).
– Devin Dignam
Wages of Wins Journal 
Eliot
July 21, 2010
Amir Johnson is a productive player, but has had a very high foul rate, making it hard for him to stay in games. It seems that his minutes will definitely increase due to Bosh’s departure and his new contract, but unless he figures out his foul problem he will be limited to ~25 minutes a game. I hope he finds a way to stop fouling at such a high rate as he is a great player to watch and it would be nice to see him prove all the naysayers wrong about his contract.
robbieomalley
July 21, 2010
I think if you switched Turkoglu’s minutes at PF with Amir Johnson and Reggie Evans, then this chart would be more accurate.
Also the Raptors plan to employ and start Linas Klieza next season. Colangelo said this during summer league.
Bargnani!
July 21, 2010
Bargnani!!!
thparadox
July 21, 2010
Interesting take. I completely agree about Jose Calderon being underrated. I’m happy the Bobcats trade didn’t go through because I think Jose is very good PG surrounded by the wrong players. He gets exposed on D, so he needs good defensive players around him.
However, I have to disagree with your overall position. I think the best strategy for the Raptors is simply to tank for a couple years, and try to build around a couple top 4 picks.
I don’t see a point in having players around like Matt Barnes or Linas Kleiza. Calderon will hopefully have a good year and be traded for younger assets.
We should simply be following the OKC, Trailblazers blueprint for how to turn an organization around.
The one player who the Raptors should have is Michael Beasley. He still has star potential, so I think he’s worth the risk on his rookie contract
DMarsh
July 21, 2010
Sorry but I am not impressed by this article or the much acclaimed automated wins produced system.
As someone who watched virtually every Raptors game last year I can tell you this position designation is shockingly poor. Positional adjustment makes a significant difference and when it is presented so inaccurately it makes my ability to evaluate the players on my favorite team difficult.
All I wanted was accurate wins produced for my team last season and a 2010-2011 projection chart including all the new additions. Instead you provide shallow commentary and a rainbow graph that doesn’t even have totals or averages at the bottom.
Prof Berri I know you thought letting other people do the team reviews would add an extra level of knowledge and passion but this was much worse than any of your Raptor articles, despite your limited interest in them.
I don’t trust Andres numbers and I don’t agree his numbers becoming the standard. His system
has huge issues delineating players positions and until this is resolved (I hope efforts are still being made) I have to take them with a grain of salt. Not good enough when It comes to my beloved Raptors.
I like Professor Berri’s writing, he doesn’t try to wax poetic or make lame jokes which is refreshing compared to most sports writers. Not to mention despite the brilliant system he worked on being ignored by NBA decision makers and the mainstream media, his writing never feels snide or contemptuous to me. Which is seemingly miraculous considering he must consistently write about the repeated mistakes of NBA front offices.
OK time to end this rant. I understand people write differently and it’s not always going to be my cup of tea, I can accept that but……
Can I at least get some f-ing detailed graphs and charts with some f-ing precise numbers?!!!!
Joe
July 21, 2010
The magical world of wins produced: in which Amir Johnson is more productive than Chris Bosh and Jose Calderon has star, near-superstar potential.
I guess that’s why Amir got a $30 million contract as opposed to Bosh’s max. I guess that’s why teams around the league had almost zero interest in Calderon on the trading block, mainly because he doesn’t play a lick of defense and he’s soft.
Actually, I’ll be fair: Amir Johnson is indeed somewhat underrated, and many metrics reveal that picture. None besides this, though, takes the absurd position that he was somehow better than Bosh. And the Calderon nonsense is simply inexplicable.
Shelb
July 21, 2010
Your minutes per position are incredibly wrong. Amir and Reggie played SF 100% of the time? Hedo played 100% PF? Jack played 100% PF while Jose played 80% PG and 19% SG? ETC ETC
Completely inaccurate and effects your credibility.
shawnfuryan
July 22, 2010
-Devin Dignam
Hey, do you know how to use the AdjP48 on Andres site and readjust positions? If you don’t, send me your email, and I’ll detail how to do it. When I did the Rockets post, I had to adjust basically everyone (although the Rockets are a special case I think, a lot of non-prototypical players).
Probably the easiest way for you to give me your email privately is to leave it as a comment on my blog http://shawnfuryan.wordpress.com/ . Doesn’t matter where you comment, I’ll get it. I have to approve all comments, so your email won’t be published publicly (Perhaps I should get a public email address, I’ll have to look into that)
-DMarsh, Shelb
Come on, lighten up, this is Devin’s first post. I know that during this period, the Wages of Wins has varied in consistency. I’d ask that you be just a little more patient.
There have already been some good articles by the new bloggers in my opinion, and I think that once everybody begins to get it, things will be more consistently of high quality. Plus we should be getting more frequent deep analysis with the workload distributed which I don’t think anyone would be opposed to that.
Edmond
July 22, 2010
Joe:
So what’s the endgame here? Just keep making essentially the same comments here week after week, month after month until…what? We all change our minds? If you want to do something futile, my ghetto backyard needs a good cleaning.
Also, looks like the Rap’s euro-offense really gave automated WP a hard time, but hey–don’t blame the algorithm, it’s just guessing based on their stats (or something like that, right?).
I wonder how much less great we’d think Kevin Pritchard is if Hedo hadn’t backed out on Portland at the last second. Sometimes you’re good, sometimes you’re lucky.
bosh servis
July 22, 2010
thanks for information
khandor
July 22, 2010
re: your impression of Pritchard would/might be different if Turk had gone to Portland
It’s a mistake in basketball judgment to think that Turkoglu would have necessarily performed in Portland last season the exact same way he did in Toronto with similar ramifications for the team’s W-L record. Each situation in the NBA is, in fact, unique.
brgulker
July 22, 2010
Davin,
I ran into position assignment problems with reviewing the Pistons as well, specifically, Jason Maxiel is designated as a SF by the Automated system just as Amir Johnson is.
As others mention, you need to flip flop Hedo and Amir to get a more accurate picture of what’s going on. Hedo will look slightly better, and Amir will look worse.
Beyond that minor data quibble, what’s your take on the Jarret Jack / Calderon backcourt. Do you think the Raps want to keep both? If not, wouldn’t Jack be an easier piece to move given his reasonable contract relative to production?
Curious what your thoughts are on that front.
Kellen
July 22, 2010
Bargnani’s reputation might exceed his ability, but only because his ability is so low. Bargnani is pretty much poorly regarded throughout the league at this point in his career and with 5 years and $50 million left on his contract. While the league may not use WP for their personnel decisions, they certainly know about rebound totals and it seems unlikely that a team would want a $10 million dollar center for the next 5 years who barely rebounds.
I agree that trading Bargnani would be a great move for the Raptors, but I have a hard time imagining who would want a relatively unskilled player with such a long, potentially painful contract.
Statement
July 22, 2010
Huge Raps Fan here.
The article is missing Linus Kleiza and the positions are off, but it is a good first effort and people need to lighten up.
I’m going to make a very crude estimate here.
40 wins
minus 12 wins = 28
+ 2 wins (Increased Amir Johnson time)
+ 3 wins (Barbosa and Kleiza)
+ 2 wins (improvement from Demar and Sonny)
Gone are Patrick O’Bryant, Antoine Wright, Rasho but Bargnani will be worse this year (IMHO) so they are a wash.
So overall maybe 35 wins. Seems possible but I would think that the risks are heavily skewed to the downside.
arturogalletti
July 22, 2010
Dmarsh,
Andres is continuing to work on his algorithm. I think that we shall see improvements in the future. Andres does his minute allocation based on height,weight & BMI and minutes available. This is generally effective but a combo like Hedo/Amir throws it off.
(by the by all calculations being done on a piece of paper and a casio fx-280 so I apologize if I’m a little off)
Hedo should be a SF and Amir a PF
Hedo has a Pos adjust of about .358
Amir has a Pos adjust of about .292
If they were swithched as they should be
Hedo .280-.292+.1=.088 WP48 and 4.16 WP
Amir .444-.358+.1=. 186 WP48 and 5.63 WP
and the real bad news is that Amir probably spends time at center next year (where he’ll be below average). So my gut tells me this is closer to a 20 wins team than a 40 win team.
Oh and in case anyone’s interested I put a really nice long post (with charts) on the best ever draft picks in my blog (just click my name)
shawnfuryan
July 22, 2010
-brgulker
Hey, I went ahead and did some projections on the senario of the Raps trading away either Calderon or Jack. The projections make the following assumptions:
-with one of the two gone, the remaining PG will play 34min per game
-I adjusted games played based on how each did over the past 4 years (Jose’s been out a lot more than Jack)
-I averaged out WP48 for the last 4 years
-I assumed that each player would play through the age of 31.
-I assume that their production will drop off at age 30 and 31.
-I came up with the WP48 for each by finding each players WP/min for the last 4 seasons.
player……………….Calderon
past 4yr WP………10.12
past 4yr WP48…..0.237
Yrs left……………..3
Proj. Wins…………34.664
Wins 2011…………12.38
Wins 2012…………11.761
Wins 2013…………10.523
player……………….Jack
past 4yr WP………5.762
past 4yr WP48…..0.112
Yrs left……………..5
Proj. Wins…………30.941
Wins 2011…………6.446
Wins 2012…………6.446
Wins 2013…………6.446
Wins 2014…………6.124
Wins 2015…………5.479
So, I think it’s a smarter move to keep Calderon. Actually, last season was a major anomaly for Jarrett Jack. He’s hovered around average for his entire career besides his rookie year, and this last season. Now would probably be a good time to sell your Jarrett Jack stock. Then again, he could have actually improved and will maintain his current level of production for the most of the rest of his career, but I think that the odds are against that.
shawnfuryan
July 22, 2010
Oh, forgot to add this:
Projected games played:
Calderon…….221.25
Jack…………..406.25
shawnfuryan
July 22, 2010
Since he mentioned it, I do encourage everyone to check out Arturo’s new draft post. It’s excellent.
Italian Stallion
July 22, 2010
Time to lighten up guys.
Some of the positions need to be adjusted, but even with that tweaking the conclusion would be the same.
The Raptors aren’t making the playoffs.
bags fly free
July 22, 2010
I never knew why Flip Saunders didn’t like amir in Detroit, in fact i read him and his coachin staff hated him, but he can be a good player!
Also Adrian Wojnarowski from nba yahoo reports matt barnes will sign a deal with lakers, jeez and with CP3 rumors of going to either boston or orlando this summer free agent buzz just wont die!
brgulker
July 22, 2010
bags fly free,
I can speak to that somewhat as a Detroit fan. Amir made a lot of bad plays as a young player for Detroit. Fouls at awful times (end of the quarter while in the penalty), or just too many fouls all at once (three fouls in the span of five minutes, which forced him to the bench), and he just never really improved in those areas and other of weakness.
I think it was good for Detroit and Amir to part ways when we did. He certainly still has potential and is already effective in his role, but I’m not sure he could have improved in Detroit given the circumstances.
some dude
July 22, 2010
Barnes is going to Cavs or Lakers with Lakeshow reportedly in front. Toronto isn’t in the mix anymore.
Anyway, I would love Toronto to trade for Troy Murphy using just the TPE. A Calderon-Jack-Kleiza-Murphy-Bargnani line-up may just very well result in black hole spontaneously consuming the Earth. Holy crap that defense would be atrocious. 130 DRating possible? Anything is possible if we put our mind to it!
Gray_Jay
July 22, 2010
Shawn,
Where is that Rockets article you mentioned above? Can’t seem to find it on either your site or WoW. Any WoW analysis that doesn’t have Chuck Hayes listed as a SG is analysis I’d be interested in reading…
Regarding Calderon: I’ve wondered about Calderon’s effectiveness, and why he never seemed to get mentioned as a desired PG. Joe’s observation above seems to explain why, but I don’t understand why a team wouldn’t think about taking him on anyway, and try to scheme around his softness/deficiencies. Not many PGs with a near 4/1 A/TO ratio (comfortably over 4/1 in 08-09), while shooting 48% from the field (~40 from 3-pt). Is it just that he needs a change of scenery? Hard for me to otherwise explain the precipitous fall in FT% (90-95 to 80). Also difficult to see Toronto keeping Calderon when Jack gives you nearly as much, for half the money. As many of you have already noted, it’s not like they’re contending this year anyway.
some dude
July 22, 2010
The problem for Calderon is his defense is a major problem to the point that you either give up a ton of points or your bigs get into foul trouble too easily.
Calderon can be a very useful player with a strong defensive team behind him. I thought the original Charlotte trade would have worked out for them because Charlotte’s other players play solid defense. But on a team with mediocre to poor defensive players and rebounders (like Bargs), Calderon only exasperates the problem
khandor
July 22, 2010
re: Jose Calderon’s allegedly poor individual defense
Could one of the esteemed contributors to this site please provide the numeric representation of Calderon’s so-called “defensive rating” when he was not forced to play beside Andrea Bargnani AND also had the benefit of playing beside Chris Bosh?
If so, thanks, in advance.
[brgulker, I think you knew it would only be a matter of time. :-)]
shawnfuryan
July 22, 2010
-Gray_Jay
Here’s the link. Hope you like it.
https://dberri.wordpress.com/2010/06/07/evaluating-trades-in-houston-in-2009-10/
Vincent
July 23, 2010
re Jose Calderon
On the right team with an established culture of defensive accountability and performance, it’s possible Jose Calderon MAY not hurt you more than he helps you. On this particular Raptors team with young, impressionable players that are still establishing the team’s culture, I say no way Jose, get him the heck out of here. You cannot preach accountability if you have to design your whole defensive system around hiding one of your teammates. He’s just not good enough on the offensive end to warrant that type of potentially destructive special treatment.
khandor
July 23, 2010
re: You cannot preach accountability if you have to design your whole defensive system around hiding one of your teammates. He’s just not good enough on the offensive end to warrant that type of potentially destructive special treatment. – Vincent
Unfortunately, the 1 player who the Raptors have had to design their whole defensive system around hiding isn’t actually Jose Calderon … who, btw, just happens to be good enough offensively to warrant that type of team-wide level of compensation … but Andrea Bargnani … who, btw, just happens to not be good enough offensively to justify such a level of team-wide compensation, especially, when you also factor in his lack of rebounding prowess.
The most significant personnel problem for the Raptors during the Chris Bosh era was the increasing amounts of PT afforded to Andrea Bargnani … and, now that Bosh has moved on, unfortunately, this same problem – which requires wholly destructive special treatment – still remains for the Raptors organization.
nerdnumbers
July 25, 2010
Devin,
Excellent article! I really do feel bad for the Toronto franchise. Oddly it was three years ago when the Raptor’s GM praised Wages of Wins(https://dberri.wordpress.com/2007/05/18/the-value-of-wow/), but his actions do not match this.
DMarsh,
Thanks for the interest in my website. It is always awesome to get feedback. Please keep up your following of the WoW network including my Monday trivia and Thursday posts at http://nerdnumbers.wordpress.com/
Devin Dignam
July 25, 2010
Thanks everyone for the comments. I’ve been away on vacation and without internet up in the Ontarian wilderness.
Yes, this was my first post. Yes, I didn’t adjust positions from the automated WP site. I probably should’ve put in a disclaimer: warning, numbers coming directly from automated wins produced site, which relies on calculations based on (blah blah blah) to determine positions. I didn’t have the time to adjust the positions/numbers; this was already the second draft of the article I had written and I’ve been/will be busy this last little bit.
The position changes don’t change the gist of the article, which is why, in the end, I figured position tweaks were unnecessary. I also didn’t mention Linas Kleiza, because his past NBA experience doesn’t indicate that he is a significant contributor to wins.
Clearly, I forgot the most important rule of the internet: once you post something, people will nitpick through everything and always find something that needs fixing.
Dmarsh: What do you have against the ‘bow? Do you really think I was shallow in my analysis? I spent a lot of time on this article – both the first draft, which was completed before free agency began, and then this second version that has been edited by Dave. I went and did the in-depth analysis, noted the mistakes with the automated system, and projected win totals – none of which show up in the article. You can’t include everything in one blog post. As Dave has mentioned before, the Freakonomics guys try to limit their posts to 400 words (or whatever it was). Much beyond that and the damn thing is just too long.
Brgulker: Shawnfuryan’s numbers on the PG position should help answer anyone’s questions on the Calderon/Jack debate. I’d say keep them both if you can, but yes, Jack is less likely to perform better and easier to trade away. But GET RID OF ANDREA!
And now that Matt Barnes seems to be going to the Lakers…the Raptors are likely going to be around 30-40 wins (if you press me, I’d say 35). Maybe I’ll post an update sometime once the roster is more stable.
ohreally
July 26, 2010
It would be funny if Murphy got traded to the Raps. That would be the greatest WP fiasco of all time.