Burzin Daruwala is an engineer at a Fortune 500 company in Oregon, and has been a fan of the Portland Trail Blazers from the moment he learned about the existence of the NBA. Twelve years ago when he arrived in the US as a student, one of his friends persuaded him to take time off and watch a game of basketball at the Rose Garden. That game was so magical that he became a fan of the game and the team, and has since followed the Blazers passionately, riding the highs of the 1999 and 2000 western conference finals appearances, the heartbreak of the loss to the Lakers (the infamous 15 minutes in franchise history), and the lows of the contentious off court issues, to the rebuilding of the team in its current form.
The Portland Trail Blazers have been viewed as an upcoming team filled with the talent necessary to go far in the playoffs. And before the 2009-2010 season, the Blazers were picked by a stat geek champion to be THE team to watch out for in the west. While the team struggled to meet such lofty expectations last season due to injuries, there is skepticism in some corners that the team is not good enough to compete in the playoffs.
Citing its last two playoff series evictions from the first round (against Houston in 2009 and Phoenix in 2010) as evidence, some analysts have stated that the style of basketball the Blazers play could easily be overcome during the playoffs when teams pay more attention to strategies; and where overdependence on one player could cause offensive stagnation.
To see whether these criticisms have any validity, let’s use the Wages of Wins approach to compare the team’s production during the playoffs and regular season.
Let’s begin with regular season numbers from the 2009-2010 season:
As can be seen from the above table, the Blazers employed eight above average players during the season (an average player posts a WP48 – or Wins Produced per 48 minutes — of 0.100). These eight players produced a 49.41 wins, which is pretty close to the team’s actual win total of 50 wins. One interesting thing to note from the table is that Portland seems to have defied the Pareto Principle (which states that 80% of the outcome can be linked to 20% of the people driving the outcome). The team’s top 3 players – Brandon Roy, Andre Miller, LaMarcus Aldridge — only produced 44% of the win total (21.83 wins).
Another interesting factoid is that Portland employed two players who had a WP48 above 0.300 (Marcus Camby & Gred Oden), two other players who when healthy have shown WP48 above 0.200 in past seasons (Roy and Joel Przybilla), and a whole bunch of other above average players in Miller, Nicolas Batum, and Rudy Fernandez. Unfortunately, three of their most productive players play the same position (Camby, Oden and Przybilla), so some of the benefits of having them on the same team is diminished (unless the team finds a way to use them at different positions and still be productive).
Of course, productivity in the regular season is not all that matters. What happens when we get to the playoffs? Table Two reports the performance of Blazers during the 2010 post-season. The story that immediately leaps out is that among players who played more than 50 minutes in the playoffs, everyone’s per-minute production declined relative to what we saw in the regular season.
While this could be explained in the case of Roy, since he was coming back from ankle injury — and from Batum, who hurt his shoulder during the playoffs – injuries do not explain what happened to the other players.
Perhaps, though, we have a problem with sample size. After all, the Blazers were only in the playoffs for six games in 2010. So let’s take a look at the 2008-2009 regular season and the 2009 playoffs to see if we can see a similar pattern.
Again, looking at the WP48, we see a tremendous change in productivity for the top 3 players (Roy, Przybilla and Aldridge). Their combined WP48 has fallen by 36% as compared to their regular season performance. And they are not the only players who decline. Except for Steve Blake, everyone else had lower WP48 numbers in the playoffs compared to their regular season performance.
Now, some might argue that this change could be attributed to the fact that Portland was a very young team and were in the playoffs for the first time in 2009, hence inexperience played a role. And, looking at another young team that made the playoffs this year, the Oklahoma City Thunder did indeed show a 21% drop in WP48 from their top 3 regular season Wins Produced leaders. So maybe there is some truth to that, although an examination of two teams does not a study make (but perhaps age and the playoffs is a good subject for future study).
Another argument – offered in The Wage of Wins — could be that most players would see their performance drop in the playoffs; primarily because the level of competition is higher than what we see in the regular season.
For example, consider the LA Lakers. This team has won the title the past two seasons. Across these two years, fifteen times a player – not named Kobe – played at least 100 minutes in the post-season. And eleven times, the player posted lower per-minute numbers in the playoffs. So even for teams that win a title, we still tend to see lower numbers in the playoffs.
Kobe Bryant, though, does appear to be the exception. At least, he did post better numbers in the playoffs in 2009 and 2010. Before we conclude, though, that Kobe has some special skill we need to look at his entire career. Prior to 2009, Kobe played at least 100 minutes in the post-season eleven times. And nine times, Kobe’s per-minute performance in the playoffs declined relative to what we saw in the corresponding regular season. Yes, even Kobe — despite what we saw in 2009 and 2010 — tends to play worse in the playoffs.
Although that is interesting, this is not a Kobe post. What we want to know is if the Blazers can take a talented roster and win a title. What we have seen so far is that the Blazers tend to play worse in the post-season. And although this is due to the nature of the playoffs – as well as the small sample of games and perhaps other factors (like injury and experience) – it would still make the fans of this team happier to see better play in the post-season.
Hopefully this team can be healthy in 2010-11. And hopefully, this will lead to a better outcome in the playoffs. Yes, hope is what we have at this point. But given the regular season production on this roster, Portland fans can certainly be optimistic this summer. We can only hope we are just as optimistic next April.
– Burzin Daruwala
Wages of Wins Journal 
Robbo
July 31, 2010
Burzin, you raise an interesting point I’ve been mulling over recently: Might it be that WP48 is a better predictor of regular season success than playoff success? The theory behind such heretical thinking (and I welcome other’s comments and/or reasearch) is that perhaps experienced teams do better in the playoffs than their regular season WP48 results would suggest.
Looking at the two finalists vs younger/less experienced teams that performed well in the regular season e.g. in particular the Thunder, but perhaps also the Cavaliers (and others?).
Perhaps in the next Stat Geek competition, previous playoff experience & success should be considered along with points differential and home court advantage.
What do you think guys?
arturogalletti
July 31, 2010
Good post. Weirdly enough I just simulposted my Blazers Playoff review (http://wp.me/pYIAy-4P)
arturogalletti
July 31, 2010
Robbo,
Click my name. You’ll like my current series of posts on playoff performance.
Robbo
July 31, 2010
Just done that, we’re thinking along similar channels. Your main finding is that balanced teams don’t do so well in the playoffs, when teams shorten the lineups, slow the game down, and teams with 5-6 strong players do better, which fits what we saw from the Thunder & Celtics.
My query then (and perhaps this is something you can respond to) is to separate the results of teams relying on say 5-6 high performing players with good playoff experience vs a team of 5-6 high performing players with significantly less playoff experience. I.e. is the effect just due to having 5-6 high performing players, or what effect does successful playoff experience adds.
BTW, teams (rightly or wrongly) have always looked very favourably (and highly compensated) experienced successful players, and the thinking is that teams need to build several years of playoff experience to succeed i.e. 32 to 16 to 1. This is at odds with the WoW findings that players peak in their mid 20’s. It may be that statistically individuals peak then, but it tends to be more experienced teams that win playoffs.
Perhaps we’ll get a (small sample sized) case study comparing these effects with a Lakers-Heat Finals this season!
arturogalletti
July 31, 2010
Robbo,
This is a really good idea to look at. WP48 performance by age in the playoffs. I can put on cue for next week.
khandor
August 1, 2010
——————-
re: This is at odds with the WoW findings that players peak in their mid 20′s. It may be that statistically individuals peak then, but it tends to be more experienced teams that win playoffs. – Robbo
——————-
At last, someone is finally beginning to move in the right direction … but, is still not quite there yet, as accumulated years of experience, in isolation, is not the single key to determining playoff winners from losers.
There are very good reasons why my record of performance picking playoff series winners, in advance, as a Sports Consultant and authentic basketball expert, has been better than David Berri’s for each of the last 3 seasons.
thparadox
August 1, 2010
Thanks for the analysis. It’s an interesting discussion. The Suns this year were another team that were fairly deep, I wonder if they’re a similar case.
I have really enjoyed watching Portland piece together it’s team the past few years. But now I’m quite discouraged by Pritchard being fired.
The first post-Pritchard move, signing Wesley Mathews to 34M, was pretty crazy in my opinion.
Robbo
August 1, 2010
Thanks Arturo, will look forward to it.
Scondren
August 1, 2010
I’m pretty sure Camby can play the 4, so if Oden and Pryzbilla are healthy he can slot up next to either of them nicely.
JHR
August 1, 2010
maybe think about controlling for quality of opponent? Seeding should have a drastic effect on player production, unless they’re playing the 8th seed.
JHR
August 1, 2010
I bet if you looked at regular season matchups against the same opponents you would find similar numbers
arturogalletti
August 1, 2010
JHR,
I’ll try to get a large enough sample to account for that. I’ll do avg WP48 and ADJP48 delta.
btb I put up a post on the bulls vs heat (playoff 2010 numbers and 2011 preview-click the name for detail)
bduran
August 1, 2010
I wonder what would happen if regular season WP48 was recalculated for all playoff teams looking only at games played against other playoff teams. Would this be a better indicator of what to expect in the playoffs?
The experience things seems tricky to deal with. I think if a team acquires a talented young player it can take a while to get the right pieces around him, like MJ. It may also be easier to acquire veteran pieces than young talent since teams don’t want to trade away their future.
I think the Thunder will be a good case study going forward because they’ve clearly managed to acquire a lot of good young pieces who should remain the core of their team.
chibi
August 1, 2010
Phoenix made two series-changing adjustments against Portland. First, they put Grant Hill on Andre Miller, and that shut him down. Second, they blitzed LaMarcus Aldridge whenever he caught a pass, and forced him to give up the ball. On top of that, Brandon Roy was clearly not himself.
In other words, the Suns forced the Blazers’ offense to flow through players with inferior PPR(not that Aldridge is great in this regard, but he’s better than most of the other big men in the rotation).
IMHO, this is one reason they could never get into a rhythm(the other being unable to defend screen-roll). Conversely, the Suns got into a nice rhythm for long stretches: the got stops, scored regularly, and went on runs. That’s how the Suns dominated, and why the Blazers lost.
Keith
August 2, 2010
If the Blazers could get past their health issues, they could potentially play two .3+ players (Oden, Camby), two .2+ players (Roy, Batum), and two .15+ players (Miller, Pryzbilla). That would be an awfully potent team. It would also be interesting to see what would happen to their productivity if they actually started running an offense, instead of endless iso sets.
Sam Cohen
August 2, 2010
Portland was 7th in offensive efficiency last season according to ESPN so they must be doing something right on that end of the floor. They were only 13th in defensive efficiency.
arturogalletti
August 2, 2010
Just put up a post on playoff performers. I included the difference between regular season and post-season WP48. I’ll do some more studies on this data as promised.
Tom Mandel
August 3, 2010
Conceptually WP48 is derived from *team productivity* — not the reverse. Would this not *almost by definition* lead to lower individual performance levels in the playoffs?
I.e. in the regular season, Portland goes 50-32. Their playoff record is not nearly as good. Hence, lower WP48 scores for individual players.
At the very least we should see that the causal relationship doesn’t flow from players WP48 to team results. In fact there is no causal element to WP48; there can’t be.
Indeed, given that very few teams have a playoff record the equal of their regular season record, it is not a puzzle if WP48 scores go down across the board in the playoffs.
Or have I missed something?
Matt
August 3, 2010
There are certainly some interesting points raised in this overview. But isn’t this only peripherally addressing the most important question about the Blazers 08-09 season?
How well can we project this team to perform with a full season of its current players performing at a level consistent with their production last season?
Obviously, by WP48 (or PER, or most other per minute statistics), Oden played very well when he was on the court last season. And of course, Camby was only with the team for a portion of the year.
If you project a full season of those two players, with reasonable assumptions for their minutes, and for other players’ performance, how many wins would you expect the Blazers to rack up?
As you suggest, I’m guessing it’s a big number.
But what, exactly, is the projected number? How many wins would you project with those assumptions?
Keith
August 3, 2010
If we assume Oden and Camby for 1500 and 2000 minutes respectively at .3 WP/48, that’s 21.875 wins. Roy and Batum at 2700 and 2000 minutes with .2 WP/48 are another 19.5 wins. Miller and Przybilla at 2700 and 1000 minutes at .15 WP/48 give 11.5 wins. That’s 52.872 wins with 7780 minutes still unaccounted for. If the remaining players could average .05 WP/48 in those 7780 minutes that would be another 8 wins for a total of 60.
Of course, that would be assuming all those players are healthy, which would be a pretty shocking turn around from last year.
reservoirgod
August 4, 2010
If the over/under for #1 draft picks that will play in the Blazers-Clippers season opener is 1, then I’m taking the under.
Let’s be honest about what Pritchard did in POR – he gambled on injury-prone players w/ the hopes of striking it big (e.g. Roy, Oden & Camby). And last season that gamble cost the team about 10 wins and Pritchard his job. I think POR is about to experience a decline for the next few seasons unless the front office finds a way to get healthy superstars. I fear that Roy is about to become this generation’s T-Mac, Oden will be the non-scoring Yao Ming and LaMarcus Aldridge is the Pacific Northwest’s David West. That’s not a recipe for success. I hope I’m wrong because I like Roy’s game (and really HATE Kobe) but I think POR is going to watch the gap between them & OKC get wider & wider over the next 3 yrs unless they make a major move.