Did Al Jefferson cause the lockout?
It's just not the same!
This is the question asked by Matt Moore at CBS Sportsline. Moore’s argument (click on the link to read the entire story) is as follows:
- The Utah Jazz decided after Carlos Boozer departed to maintain a high payroll by adding Al Jefferson.
- This decision was based on the expectation the team would still be a playoff team with Jefferson.
- When this didn’t happen, revenues fell and the team lost money.
- This situation – where a team makes a “good” decision that doesn’t work out – needs to be addressed in the new collective bargaining agreement. Teams shouldn’t suffer significant losses just because of “bad luck”.
To understand the problem with this argument, let’s begin with the following three stories I wrote on the Utah Jazz from October to January.
- Al Jefferson and Diminishing Returns
- Maybe Deron Williams Should Have Expected to be Disappointed
- Understanding Jazz
These stories indicate that what happened to the Jazz in 2010-11 was hardly the result of “bad luck”. Replacing Boozer with Jefferson was not a “good” decision. Boozer has generally been more productive than Jefferson. So as the following table indicates, the Jazz should have expected to be worse in 2010-11.
Table 1: Utah Jazz 2009-2010 vs 2010-2011 Numbers
| Utah Jazz |
Pos |
MP |
WP48 09-10 |
WP 09-10 |
WP48 10-11 |
WP 10-11 |
Change in WP |
| DeRon Williams | 1.0 | 2009 | 0.233 | 9.7 | 0.213 | 8.9 | -0.8 |
| Paul Millsap | 4.0 | 2605 | 0.140 | 7.6 | 0.153 | 8.3 | 0.7 |
| Al Jefferson | 4.9 | 2940 | 0.120 | 7.4 | 0.133 | 8.2 | 0.8 |
| Andrei Kirilenko | 3.4 | 1999 | 0.207 | 8.6 | 0.165 | 6.9 | -1.8 |
| Jeremy Evans* | 3.0 | 463 | 0.301 | 2.9 | 0.301 | 2.9 | 0.0 |
| Earl Watson | 1.1 | 1567 | 0.081 | 2.6 | 0.073 | 2.4 | -0.3 |
| Derrick Favors* | 4.0 | 444 | 0.119 | 1.1 | 0.119 | 1.1 | 0.0 |
| C.J. Miles | 2.5 | 1969 | -0.019 | -0.8 | 0.026 | 1.1 | 1.9 |
| Gordon Hayward* | 3.0 | 1218 | 0.024 | 0.6 | 0.024 | 0.6 | 0.0 |
| Raja Bell** | 2.0 | 2097 | 0.069 | 3.0 | 0.009 | 0.4 | -2.6 |
| Devin Harris | 1.0 | 530 | 0.051 | 0.6 | 0.026 | 0.3 | -0.3 |
| Kyle Weaver | 2.0 | 69 | 0.149 | 0.2 | 0.051 | 0.1 | -0.1 |
| Marcus Cousin* | 5.0 | 18 | -0.064 | 0.0 | -0.064 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Mehmet Okur | 5.0 | 168 | 0.055 | 0.2 | -0.097 | -0.3 | -0.5 |
| Francisco Elson | 5.0 | 610 | -0.134 | -1.7 | -0.076 | -1.0 | 0.7 |
| Kyrylo Fesenko | 5.0 | 456 | -0.103 | -1.0 | -0.167 | -1.6 | -0.6 |
| Ronnie Price | 2.0 | 717 | 0.008 | 0.1 | -0.134 | -2.0 | -2.1 |
| 41.2 | 36.2 | -5.1 |
* – Rookie in 2010-11, so 2009-10 numbers are the same as 2010-11
**- Raja Bell played less than 200 minutes in 2009-10. So his 2009-10 numbers are from 2008-09
As one can see, had Jefferson maintained what he did in Minnesota in 2010-11, he would have produced 7.4 wins for Utah. Jefferson did improve (ever so slightly), so he actually produced 8.2 wins for the Jazz. In contrast, Boozer produced 16.2 wins for the Jazz in 2010-11.
Yes, the trade of Deron Williams also didn’t help. But even when Williams was in Utah, this was not a title contending team in the West (as noted in the above posts). And even with Williams the playoffs were not a certainty (and even if the team made it to the post-season, the team’s stay would probably not have generated much revenue).
So Utah’s decline was not a result of bad luck. It was the predictable outcome of the decisions the team made in the past few months.
Matt Moore, though, suggests this is a problem. Utah’s decision to spend slightly more for fewer wins is somehow a problem with the NBA’s labor market. But as I have noted before, capitalism does not guarantee profits. If a firm makes bad decisions, then there should be bad outcomes. To create a system where this doesn’t happen is a very bad idea.
And in fact, Matt Moore knows this. Here is how his article concludes:
We don’t want everyone assured of equal success. That provides no incentive for improvement or innovation. And the last thing we need is a fleet of Donald Sterlings walking around.
In the end, Moore is exactly right. A system that doesn’t punish failure is not a good idea. The current system has certainly failed to punish Sterling. Creating a system that is further tilted towards the “Sterling model” is not a good idea.
– DJ
(Editor Dre’s Note: I would just like to point out that Dave has still not answered my comment from his previous post. . . .)
Wages of Wins Journal 
fricktho
August 3, 2011
One issue is that Moore brings up the BRI, which is a league-wide aggregate. The Jazz may have lost on the Jefferson deal by not winning or making the playoffs, but other teams gained. Memphis made the playoffs and had a great run. New Orleans also made the playoffs. While both those teams may or may not have lost money it’s likely they would have lost more had they not made the playoffs or had successful seasons.
Pheonix lost Stoudamire and thought it was a good business decision to replace him with Turkoglu and Warrick. They also missed the playoffs. The Jazz add to the list of teams that were in the red, but I don’t see how that contributes to the BRI. With the BRI isn’t it almost like one team’s loss is another team’s gain? If one team loses sponsorships/fan support by losing another team gains them by winning. Do we really want to protect losing teams that make bad decisions? I guess that’s the point here isn’t it?