Chris Broussard and Ric Bucher debated the following question at ESPN.com: Who will make a Bigger jump in 2012: Nets or Clippers? (insider access required).
The debate begins with the following comment from Chris Broussard:
Every season there’s a surprise team in the NBA, one that comes “out of nowhere” to either reach the postseason or challenge for a playoff spot. Last season, the Milwaukee Bucks and Memphis Grizzlies were among the teams that did it. This season the list included the New Orleans Hornets and Philadelphia 76ers. Who’s going to do it next year?
When I read this statement I immediately thought, “The Hornets were a surprise team this year? Really?”
Okay, the Hornets are surprising in the playoffs. The playoffs, though, are a small sample and upsets can happen. And by upset, I mean a better team can be beaten by a team that is not as good. When that happens – and it could happen in the series between the Lakers and Hornets – it is surprising.
But Broussard wasn’t talking performance in the playoffs. He was talking about the Hornets regular season.
Broussard’s comment reminded me of an Ian Thomsen story that appeared in Sports Illustrated last November. Thomsen argued last fall that the Hornets have improved dramatically because of all the changes made to the team’s roster and their front office. At the time, though, I thought something else was going on.
To see this something else (assuming you are too lazy to click on the above link), let’s look at the Hornets in 2009-10.
The Hornets won 37 games in 2009-10 and missed the playoffs. The team’s efficiency differential (from which Wins Produced is derived) suggests this team should have won about 34 wins. So this was not a “good” team last season.
When we look at the individual players, we see the following:
- Paul, Okafor, and West in 2009-10 produced 24.9 wins
- Everyone Else produced 9.5 wins
Again, this is not a good team. And not surprisingly, decision-makers in New Orleans decided to make a few changes. Actually, few is an understatement. Of the players listed above, only Paul, Okafor, West, and Gray finished the 2010-11 season with the Hornets. That means, that the Hornets changed virtually everyone else that comprised “Everyone Else” for the 2010-11 season.
Despite all these changes, though, the results for “Everyone Else” – as the following table indicates — didn’t really change.
The above numbers can be summarized as follows:
- Paul, Okafor, and West in 2010-11 produced 35.9 wins
- Everyone Else in 2010-11 produced 7.8 wins
Had Gray maintained his performance, Everyone Else would have produced 9.2 wins. In other words, the Hornets made extensive changes to their roster. But all the new players were essentially the same as the old players. And when we look at the past performance of these players, this is not surprising. Everyone Else’s performance in 2009-10 suggests these players would have produced about 13.2 wins in 2010-11. Except for Jarrett Jack, every veteran player the Hornets added was below average in 2009-10. And since Jack slipped this year, every single veteran the Hornets added was below average in 2010-11. So all the changes the Hornets made to their roster simply consisted of swapping a collection of mostly below average players for another collection of mostly below average players. The result of this swap was not exactly surprising.
So how did the Hornets become a “surprise” team? The key is the health of Chris Paul. In 2009-10 he 1,712 minutes and produced 11.5 wins. This past season he played 2,865 minutes and produced 20.8 wins. Those nine additional wins represent most of the improvement we see in the New Orleans Hornets.
Now maybe we are surprised that Paul’s health improved. One suspects, though, that Broussard was not talking about how surprising it is that Paul was able to play more than 2,800 minutes this year.
That being said, there is something that seems somewhat surprising in New Orleans (and again, I am not talking about the playoffs). As noted, the Hornets made substantial changes to their roster. Twelve players who played in 2009-10 did not finish the 2010-11 season in New Orleans. And thirteen players who played in 2010-11 were not with the team in 2009-10. With all this movement, one would think that the Hornets would find someone to add significantly to the production the team was getting from Paul, West, and Okafor. But it didn’t happen.
All of this suggests that the decision-makers in New Orleans are just guessing. They know that Chris Paul is an amazing talent. They know that West and Okafor help more (although I am not sure they know that Okafor offers more than West). Beyond that, though, they don’t know how to find additional role players who can help.
This is essentially the same scenario that played out (or is playing out) in
- Minnesota with Kevin Garnett (and perhaps again with Kevin Love)
- Orlando with Dwight Howard
Teams acquire a player – like Paul, Garnett, or Howard (are there other examples?) – who produce wins in large quantities. All the team has to do to build a team that can contend for a title is find role players who can also produce wins. But instead of identifying those players, decision-makers acquire relatively unproductive role players. Eventually the star player gets frustrated and then leaves. The team then has to try to build a contender without the star.
Of course, if you can’t build a contender with a player like Chris Paul (or Garnett, or Howard), what are the odds you can do this without one of these stars?
Let me close with one ray of sunshine for fans of the Hornets. People have trouble understanding that upsets happen in the playoffs. When upsets do happen, they tend to think that the lesser team that won is really much better than we thought. So maybe the Hornets can pull off an upset of the Lakers. If that happens, Paul might think his team is really better than he thought. And then maybe he will stay when his contract expires. This isn’t much hope to cling to (I still think the Lakers will win). But the other hope is that the decision-makers in New Orleans can re-shape the roster again and find productive role players.
– DJ
P.S. Quick note on the above numbers. There are slight differences in the 2009-10 numbers for players in each table. That is because I am using the position averages in 2009-10 in the first table and the position averages for this past season in the second table. And in writing this post, I discovered I made a small error (actually Excel made the error). So I will need to re-post my hand-crafted numbers. Hope to get to this sometime this week (the differences are quite small, so it is not a very big deal).
Wages of Wins Journal 
reservoirgod
April 25, 2011
Donnie Walsh & the Knicks would love to have the problem Dell Demps & the Hornets have.
Nick
April 25, 2011
@reservoirgod:
Wait till 2012. Then the Knicks & Isaiah will have the same problem.
It seems like the Hornets have the good kind of problem. They have a bunch of bad players, Belinelli, Green, and Smith, which if replaced with average players will help a lot. It’s a much better situation than some of the teams who have a whole bunch of average players, who will have a really hard time finding stars to make the next jump.
David West’s injury will probably help them long term, as it will get them an extra year of West (assuming he does not opt-out, which makes sense since his value coming off of a knee injury should be low), and it gives them flexibility in case Paul wants to leave next year, then they can let West go as well, rather than overpaying for a 32 year old PF.
It seems to me like a team is much likelier to take a shot at resigning a healthy 31 year old PF to a 4 year contract, rather than signing a unhealthy 32 year old one to any sort of long-term deal.
Otherwise, I have the feeling David West might end up being this year’s Joe Johnson if he opts out.
szr
April 25, 2011
Yeah, there is another team that couldn’t put a decent set of players around a ridiculous talent – Cleveland!
Italian Stallion
April 25, 2011
Yea, but if Derrick Rose was on the Hornets, they would be the #1 seed in the West and the Bulls would be 2-2 with the Pacers. :-)
Willie N
April 25, 2011
Much of the personnel changes the hornets made were for financial reasons (IE getting the team under the luxury tax). So if the result of all of those changes was roughly the same talent for substantially less money, I would characterize those moves as successful and not simply blindly rearranging pieces.
ilikeflowers
April 25, 2011
Is DeJuan Blair injured? Or is Pop pulling a Mike Brown in San Antonio?
ilikeflowers
April 25, 2011
CP3 on the floor against Kobe is a great demonstration of the difference between a legit all timer vs a very good player.
NOEngineer
April 25, 2011
Agree that the Hornets’ objective this year was to balance the roster and trim costs, and that they did not improve with respect to Wins. I would like to see an exposition of which above-average players were available to be obtained by the Hornets (that went somewhere else and would have fit within the confines of the NBA trade rules). To me Landry had some past high-WP48 seasons that made him a potential steal. So far he has not returned to that form. Peja was performing about average, but was paid like a superstar. Teams like the Lakers and Boston can stockpile Winners because they have a solid nucleus that provides hope of a championship to established vets, they can afford to pay luxury tax, and they offer outside revenue far in excess of the small market teams. What options do small-market teams have to attract Winners?
GovernorStephCurry
April 26, 2011
They are both all timers. Kobe is a hall of famer. Chris Paul might be the 2nd best PG of all time.
todd2
April 26, 2011
This is the team that traded Tyson Chandler for Okafor . How has that worked out?
Jim Geary
April 26, 2011
Other examples? Jason Kidd who is by no means the archtype for the player who produces lots of wins, but throughout his career has taken average to below-average teams and made them good.
ilikeflowers
April 26, 2011
Gov, if you insist then make it
CP3 on the floor against Kobe is a great demonstration of the difference between a top 20 all timer vs a top 50 all timer.
Italian Stallion
April 26, 2011
reservoirgod,
The biggest downside of the Knicks getting CP3 would be revealed after they won 60-65 games and the debate was about who should get the MVP (Amare or Melo) and imagining how good they could be if Derrick Rose was the PG. ;-)
EntityAbyss
April 26, 2011
Italian Stallion, that’s exactly what I was thinking. Chris Paul would be by far their best player, but wouldn’t get nearly enough credit, which is sad. He needs a team where his supporting cast is good and his greatness is recognized.
ilikeflowers
April 27, 2011
I’m just hoping that Kobe gets to 100% before the next game, otherwise the Hornets don’t have a chance unless CP3 goes insane again. I hate it when Kobe defers to his big men because that’s when the Lakers are at their best. That’s why the Heat are such a poor finals matchup for LA. Kobe wouldn’t be able to allow himself to be overshadowed by LBJ or Wade so he’ll hurt his team trying to keep up over a sustained period.
jbrett
April 27, 2011
flowers,
You could not be more correct. Without some sort of countervailing influence, Kobe might miss 25 shots per game in a matchup with Miami. The only hope for us Laker fans is maybe Wade will torch him so badly in Game 1 that he takes it personally. Gasol and Bynum versus Bosh and whoever? I’ll take that every day. Could they offset Wade and LeBron, with Kobe and Ron and Barnes concentrating on defense? Could Fisher keep a PG in front of him? Of all the matchups, this is the one where 2004 Kobe could rear his ugly head and do the most damage.
That said, I could see him demanding to guard Derrick Rose, too–and I could see that series going sideways, as well, with Kobe on MJ’s old stomping grounds.
ilikeflowers
April 28, 2011
jbrett,
Man, I completely forgot about the ridiculous dominance that LA’s bigs have over Miami’s lightweights. If Kobe’ll just shoot a little less often that’s a devastating mismatch. The only hope for the Heat under that scenario is getting Haslem back at at least 75% and Bosh playing well or Wade moving to point to crush Fisher and Miller reverting to form at SG with increased minutes.
The Chicago matchup is probably worse since even if Kobe defers to his bigs, the Bulls bigs are almost as good. Of course that is assuming that Boozer and Bynum are somewhat healthy (which is about all that can be hoped for with those two).
Kobe guarding Wade or Rose could work out for you though if it forces LA to be more balanced.
reservoirgod
May 2, 2011
IS & ILF:
If CP3 took NYK from getting swept by BOS to 60 wins, then he would definitely win MVP. In a landslide not seen since… Well, probably this season w/ Rose.
ILF & JBRETT:
How would Kobe miss 25 shots after all that practice he’d get on the Heat’s court after the game?
On a more serious note, MIA PFs produced 0.180 est.WP48 vs LAL this season (Bosh averaged 0.272) but MIA Cs only averaged -0.060 est. WP48 vs. LAL. Bynum averaged 0.413 est.WP48 vs MIA, Pau 0.110 & Kobe 0.055.