The following was noted in the comments section in the previous post (by ilikeflowers): Henry Abbott was discussing the proposed trade of Joakim Noah (and other stuff) for Carmelo Anthony today. In the course of the discussion he stated:
Noah is a promising young big man, but by almost any metric Carmelo Anthony’s production is vastly superior. Many have called Anthony the best pure scorer in the NBA.
Any metric?
Okay, here is one metric:
Joakim Noah WP48 [Wins Produced per 48 minutes]: 0.270
Carmelo Anthony WP48: 0.108
Now maybe you don’t like Wins Produced (not sure how that could be possible, but for the sake of this discussion…). What about Win Shares?
Joakim Noah Win Shares per 48 minutes: 0.154
Carmelo Anthony Win Shares per 48 minutes: 0.145
Yes, not as big a difference. But Win Shares is a metric that also favors Noah.
If you turn to scoring and Player Efficiency Rating (which is dominated by scoring), Anthony would be thought of as “vastly superior”. But there is more to the game than scoring. And if the Bulls do this trade, they will discover that winning will become a bit more difficult.
As for the Nuggets… well, the fans may not appreciate this yet. But if this trade happens, fans in Denver will ultimately be happier.
– DJ
P.S. By the way… let me defend what Henry is saying. First of all, Henry had heard of Wins Produced and Win Shares. The column he wrote was actually a fairly involved discussion of the pros and cons of this trade (and there is much to like about the column). It was also posted at 4:30pm, so I am guessing Henry might have thrown this all together fairly quickly (again, that is just a guess). And technically one could argue he is correct. Most metrics (or at least, a fair number) are dominated by scoring (i.e. PER, NBA Efficiency, TENDEX, Points Created). So one could say “almost any metric” favors Melo. If you restrict yourself to measures that actually try and connect the box score statistics to wins (and I think both Wins Produced and Win Shares are trying to do this), though, then Melo is not “vastly superior.”
Wages of Wins Journal 
Italian Stallion
September 21, 2010
I frequent a lot of Knicks forums. Many are celebrating the fact that the Bulls will probably not offer Noah for Melo because it improves the chances of the Knicks getting Melo. I’m all for signing Melo as a FA, but it’s sad that the fans can’t appreciate how overrated he is and seem willing to give up multiple young prospects and the Eddy Curry contract for another overrated player to team up with Amare.
Chicago Tim
September 21, 2010
Maybe the fans are smarter than the writers. An ESPN poll shows the fans across the country split 50/50 over whether to trade Noah and Deng for Anthony:
http://espn.go.com/sportsnation/polls?pCat=7&sCat=9
But a closer examination of the map associated with the poll shows that 68% of Illinois respondents are against the trade while 66% of Colorado respondents are in favor of the trade. In other words, the fans who know the teams also know that it would be a great trade for Colorado, and a terrible trade for the Bulls. Fortunately, all reports indicate that the Bulls refuse to trade Noah.
Austin
September 21, 2010
For another data point, Kevin Pelton’s Win% (per-minute version of WARP) rates Noah higher than Carmelo too (and it’s a metric that gives credit for usage to some extent).
http://www.basketballprospectus.com/card.php?id=anthoca01
http://www.basketballprospectus.com/card.php?id=noahjo01
ilikeflowers
September 21, 2010
I see that the Abbott post has been significantly edited overall (without any acknowledgment of this fact) since I first read it and the specific statement softened. I’ll have to post a screencap in the future.
reservoirgod
September 21, 2010
Here’s the thing I don’t understand about ‘Melo – who’s carried him to the playoffs every year he’s been in the NBA? Was it all Miller, Camby, Nene & Billups?
some dude
September 22, 2010
obviously not camby as the the team was no different having shipped him off (same off eff and def eff and reb rate, just slower paced).
Stats show the team with Carmelo on the court was better offensively with Billups over Iverson, but Iverson did a bit better for the team when he was out there so in a way it rules em both out to me
Miller it’s hard to say. The 05-06 team wasn’t good. they had HCA because of a dumb rule but were really the 7th best in the west record wise with just 44 wins (in a weaker West than the last few years) and were dismantled by the Clips because they had no shooters outside of Melo at all. The previous season the team was better but that was like Melo’s 2nd year.
That leaves Nene, who I think is often overlooked. Solid defender and pretty decent offensive player.
But I think what really misses the target is that Denver never was THAT good. They made the WCF, yes, but it was a fluke. They met a team in disarray in the 1st round of ’08 in the Hornets and met the weak Mavericks in round 2 who were only there because they caught the Spurs right as Duncan and Ginobili were hurt (and Manu not even playing). Had they been matched up with Utah, LAL, or Houston in the 1st 2 rounds, they never make it to the WCF. And the Lakers mostly toyed with them.
So really, no one has carried Melo anywhere. His teams have never been a true Championship contender and people got too excited about a run that was gift-wrapped for them. They were the 5th best team in the West (with Spurs healthy) and were the 5th-6th best last year after years of being 6-8 and killed in round 1.
No wonder Melo wants out. He realizes it.
evanz
September 22, 2010
It’s interesting to me when you have a case like this where WP and WS are so different. Why is Melo “helped” by WS and Noah by WP? Clearly, the Melo-Noah trade is an important case study. Up until now, I’ve only looked at WP48 numbers, and it was a slam dunk argument against a trade. The WS numbers are much closer, though. If I were the Chicago GM (or Scottie Pippen, apparently), I still wouldn’t pull off the trade. But putting all the leadership/work ethic issues aside, I’m really curious whether there is a vast difference in productivity between the two players, as WP48 indicates, or a slight one, as WS does.
evanz
September 22, 2010
Just to follow up on my last post, is Dean Oliver still the “stats guy” in Denver? If so, I wish I could be a fly on the wall in his office, so I could know what he thinks. If I understand correctly, WS is based on his metrics from Basketball on Paper.
Italian Stallion
September 22, 2010
evanz,
Noah is helped by WP because he’s the much better rebounder and rebounds get weighed heavily by WP.
On the flip side, WP does not give much credit for high usage scoring like Melo’s unless it’s also highly efficient scoring.
Maybe we should split the difference. lol
Evanz
September 22, 2010
@IS,
Speaking of splitting the difference, on a whim, last night I averaged the two metrics and came up with a list of the top 12 players last season (and I like it better than either list on its own). I posted this in a comment on Arturo Galletti’s recent NBA Now Rankings for 2010:
LeBron James
Dwight Howard
Kevin Durant
Pau Gasol
Dwyane Wade
Chris Paul
Tim Duncan
Manu Ginobili
Carlos Boozer
Steve Nash
Chris Bosh
Gerald Wallace
john adams
September 22, 2010
The more interesting thing about Henry’s column, as I remember it, was his comment at the very end to the effect that Luol Deng, according to efficiency metrics, is not very far behind Carmelo. If that’s true, it’s hard to imagine why Chicago would want to make a minor upgrade at small forward while taking a large step back at center. I would argue that the question should be framed as a Deng-for-Anthony trade, and the follow up question is what Chicago should reasonably give up in order to make this marginal improvement at small forward. A first round pick? Certainly not Noah.
ryan mallett
September 22, 2010
Melo is a much better player than Noah, but there are fewer people in the league that do what Noah does..play good defense, rebound, and block shots. Melo wants to go the Bulls or Knicks, but they would have to give up too much in a trade to get him.
nerdnumbers
September 22, 2010
Ryan,
Help me out. Could you please tell me why Melo is better than Noah. Given the forum you are in, is it possible for you to cite basic stats as your justification?
some dude
September 22, 2010
How many players in the league can score 30 points per game at Melo’s efficiency rate? I believe Oliver discovered that for every 1% increase in usage, your Orating drops by 1.
I mean, I know people here like to hate on him because of his efficiency, but he’s not THAT inefficient given his workload. He’s not Monta Ellis or close to it. And he also puts fouls on the other team. I do agree he’s overrated by the media/public, though.
Melo is a better basketball player than Noah. Truth is that if you have Melo and 5 “average” ballers, you’re better off than with Noah and five “average” ballers. However, Noah’s relative worth may be equal or greater because there aren’t many bigs who can defend, rebound, pass (an underrated skill of his btw) without being a total liability on offense like him. I think it’s easier to find a SF to go with Noah than it is to find another big to go with Melo and become a contender cuz there are a lot of wings that can score.
Would I trade Deng for Melo? No doubt. Deng is so often injured and that matters. Plus his range is shaky. However, I’d rather keep Noah and find someone else for Deng than trade Noah for Melo. Noah’s a really good compliment to Boozer, too. He can hide some of Boozer’s deficiencies on defense and that’s a very strong passing frontcourt, comparable to Odom-Gasol tandem.
jbrett
September 22, 2010
some dude,
I think I agree on trading Deng for Melo, mainly because of the health issues, but I’m not following your logic on Melo and Noah. You describe Noah’s skills as essentially rare, while you call scoring wings common; yet you say Melo is better. Is this the ‘khandor’ definition of better? Prettier? If you could remote-control each guy to the limit of their physical abilities, and eliminate each guy’s basketball sense, the Melo-droid could outperform the Noah-bot? Maybe so, but irrelevant anywhere outside the world of video games (and maybe not all of those).
I’m also confused by the idea that Melo is a better choice than Noah with 5 average ballers. Is this the ‘Kobe-in-the-clutch, got-to-have-a-shot-creator, Melo would make the big baskets’ theory? Whether your other five are WP .150, .100, or .050, Noah will add more wins than Melo. If you have a team you feel needs a guy who can hang 30 a night, for team balance, maybe Melo is a better fit, but that wasn’t a condition of your statements. I assume you have specific criteria for choosing him, but I’m not sure you made your case clear.
dberri
September 22, 2010
The point about Camby noted above is incorrect. We might need a post on this (and yes, it is “obviously” incorrect).
And Oliver discovered many things about basketball. But his work on usage was not a “discovery”. It was an assertion. Read the quote from Basketball on Paper in Stumbling on Wins to see what I am talking about.
evanz
September 22, 2010
The one thing not a lot of people have talked about is that even though Melo is not the most efficient player (not even close), he actually would be one of the more efficient players on the Bulls. In fact, his career TS (0.544), which isn’t that great would actually be 3rd on the current Bulls roster behind Noah (surprise, surprise) and Boozer. The problem with the Bulls is that Derrick Rose really has not been that efficient, and that’s saying something (bad) if we’re comparing to Melo. This is not to say that trading for Melo is a good idea. But I think it may explain why the “rumors” are still out there. The bottom line is that the Bulls probably do need another offensive threat to compete in the East, or they really need to hope that Rose ups his game.
Italian Stallion
September 22, 2010
DBerri,
I’m sure there were already a few posts about Denver and Camby’s contribution to wins, but I’d like to see another because Camby is one of those players that is rated much higher here than elsewhere.
jbrett
September 22, 2010
IS,
I was thinking the same thing. Camby seems to be the Anti-Iverson (sounds like a good thing, right?), in that he measures as productive, but fails many, many eyeball tests, and rates very low on what I have to call ‘unmeasured’ aspects of the game. I have grave doubts about constructive discussion when so many of the knocks on Camby rely so heavily on anecdote, but he’s such a focal point that it might be illuminating.
some dude
September 22, 2010
“I think I agree on trading Deng for Melo, mainly because of the health issues, but I’m not following your logic on Melo and Noah. You describe Noah’s skills as essentially rare, while you call scoring wings common; yet you say Melo is better. Is this the ‘khandor’ definition of better? Prettier? If you could remote-control each guy to the limit of their physical abilities, and eliminate each guy’s basketball sense, the Melo-droid could outperform the Noah-bot? Maybe so, but irrelevant anywhere outside the world of video games (and maybe not all of those).”
Rare doesn’t make you better. I mean, it can, but it’s not necessarily true.
Well, for starters I should say I never like to compare bigs to wings or points. Height changes things a lot. Bigs, not named Eddy Curry, are going to get a bunch rebounds by default where wings will not. Most bigs don’t shoot 3s (though this is starting to change a bit recently) and they don’t often have to handle the rock away from the basket as much and create off the dribble/perimeter.
It’s really hard to compare them because their roles and skills are so vastly different. Who was the better player? Michael Jordan or Shaquille O’neal in their best year? To me, it’s Mike, but you probably have an easier time winning with Shaq simply because no one could match up with him. Prime Hakeem or Lebron? Apparently you can stick Prime Hakeem with equivalent or lessor talent to non Lebron Cleveland and win a title with them than you can with Lebron.
Winning is just easier when you have a big that can score in the post and/or defend the paint extremely well. The Jordan Bulls are really the only team to come close to defying this (but they had Horace Grant and Rodman to defend the middle along with 2 of the greatest perimeter defenders of all time).
Hence, Melo is a better basketball player, but Noah’s skills are easier to turn into a championship contender because it’s easier to find scoring for him than it is to find defense and/or post play for Melo.
And some players are great complimentary players. Look at Ben Wallace. Ben Wallace on a crappy team = crappy results. Big Ben makes a crappy team at best slightly less crappy. However, Big Ben could take a good team and make it a great team because his attributes enhances the teams strengths or cover the minor flaws. This is how Noah seems to be.
Melo can take a mediocre cast and make them a respectable team, much like guys like Kobe, Wade, and Lebron have done (though to a lesser extent). Noah cannot do this. However, Noah can take a good cast and make it great while with Melo it’s less certain (but we’d have to see him get the chance).
What I’m trying to say is that “adding more wins” isn’t so simple to extrapolate. Noah may add 12 wins to Chicago next season, but would only add 4 wins to Washington if he went there for Blatche. His skills are more rare but are wasted on Washington. If Melo went to Washington, he would add 15 wins but if he went to chicago for Noah, perhaps Chicago loses more games next year with the gaping hole at C.
Does that get my point across better? Sorry for being long-winded.
Evanz
September 22, 2010
some dude,
Did you just make an argument using numbers pulled out of your, uh, nether region? It’s easy to think you’re right when you can just make up stats, but it’s not very helpful to actually getting at the truth. 12 wins? 4 wins? No! I say 7 wins. See? It’s really easy.
some dude
September 22, 2010
i was intentionally using random numbers to illustrate a point. I thought that was fairly obvious. The numbers themselves were irrelevant.
jbrett
September 22, 2010
some dude,
Interesting idea. It makes me think of my own take on diminishing returns; I’m told it is a minor effect, but I have a hard time shaking my subjective impression that it has a greater impact. The idea that a bad team could effectively neutralize an otherwise productive player strikes me as similarly subjective; I can’t bring myself to completely dismiss my own unverified theory, so I’m not prepared to blow off yours without evidence. The only thing that comes to mind that might either corroborate or refute your idea might be the two Iverson trades; do you have any recollection of your expectations about those deals, and how they compared with actual results? I’m sure there are other situations that might yield to analysis, but I’m coming up empty.
some dude
September 23, 2010
Since I put Iverson in the Melo camp, a guy who is good but not great (ala Wade, Lebron Kobe), I’d expect him to carry mediocre offensive players but not take a team over the hump when paired with better talent. I’d say this is what we saw.
The Sixers at their best with AI were a collection of defensive players who complemented Iverson. Iverson always improved their offensive games. At least from ’02 til the end in Philly, Philly always shot a better % with him on the floor, took more FTs, drew more fouls, and committed fewer turnovers (and were better with him on than off by a wide margin). He never had great talent in Philly and only came out of the East in a very weak East, but the team was very solid on D.
Once he was traded to the Nuggets for Andre Miller, Philly was already worse than the previous year and played like it, though I think Andre Miller was just as good at that point as AI. The next two seasons were an “improvement,” but the real improvement was in the bench and secondary players. Teams with AI or Miller in the game were roughly the same, but much better without Miller than they had been when AI was there and on the bench.
AI went to Denver and hurt their offense but helped their defense and the net was a wash. It was a completely lateral move as I’d expect since Denver had more efficient players than Philly. The following year they seemed to improve a bit, but this was more related to carmelo not missing 20 games.
As for the second trade, I don’t know what to evaluate out of that. From an expected talent standpoint, it was a lateral move. Denver was the same team in ’08 as it was in ’09 statistically, but the ’09 version got a lucky bracket draw in the playoffs. Billups has been overrated in recent years much like AI.
But the Detroit Philly experience is impossible to measure fairly. Detroit was the 2nd best team in the East the year prior and Iverson’s arrival correlated with the beginning of the fall. But Iverson missed a lot of games, played hurt, sulked, Sheed stop caring, I believe Prince got hurt too, etc. And by this point in his career, AI was now an old Monta Ellis. So really, nothing here matters.
I’m with everyone here that Iverson was vastly overrated during his career, but Philly built a team specifically around him carrying the offense and he fit that scheme well until they stopped bringing in players to compliment him and the scheme (or they broke down). Lebron fell victim to the same thing (though Lebron is world’s better). The problem for Iverson is he didn’t understand how to adapt and the team didn’t make him adapt til it was too late.
IMO, a better example is Ben Wallace. The ’07 Pistons got worse. Not by a lot, but they went from a great team to just a good team. Now look at his return to the Pistons. He replaced a below average Sheed and the team got much worse. Now, the team got worse in multiple areas, but you’d think Big Ben would offset some of this because of how much more productive he is than Sheed. However, his offense is so limited that with such weaker players he becomes a liability there and as great as a defensive player that he is, he can’t cover up for everyone all the time rather than just clean up some holes. And thus my prediction that he wouldn’t be that relevant matches up.
A.S.
September 23, 2010
In fact, the version of Henry Abbott’s post that Prof. Berri quotes here is changed from the original post that Abbott put up. In the original version, Abbott wrote that by “no metric” is Melo’s production even close to Carmelo Anthony’s. I pointed out to Abbott via email that WP48 tells a very different story (I saw later that his commenters also pointed it out). Abbott acknowledged the point and tweaked the post in response.
A.S.
September 23, 2010
Sorry – meant to write above that Abbott’s original post said that by “no measure” is NOAH’s production even close to Melo’s…
Kurt
September 23, 2010
By using the very phrase, “by ALMOST any metric” Abbot admits that there ARE metrics that Noah leads, but that Anthony leads in the great majority of stats. The difference just makes this whole article seem nit-picky.
kelvyn
September 26, 2010
yeah cuz your going to get a game winning shot from noah …you make me laugh with your number crushing