Human Victory Cigar

From Luke Slippywalker @ Pistonforum.com

A recurring theme among all the game threads here at Pistonsforum.com is Age. Playing our athletic youngsters; overplaying our aging core; relying on older veterans; matching up with a young opponent; it all boils down to the same thing. So with round one tucked away, I thought it’d be interesting to look at our age/minute distribution versus the regular season.

The previous article outlined how we did as well as could be expected of a top seeded playoff team in distributing minutes to our younger guys. Below is the regular season distribution of total minutes.

No surprises. Each starter got roughly 12% of the total minutes. Five other players got smaller slices of the pie and the rest came and went. The average age per minute was calculated by multiplying the age by the percentage of minutes and came out to 29.1.

In the playoffs, we see a higher distribution of minutes among the top players and a shortening of the rotation as illustrated below.

Despite the shift, the team’s average age increased to 29.3. Taking in to account the variances (this wasn’t rocket science…or even quasi-science), it’s really not much at all. One would think that increasing the minutes played by the over 30 gang and the perceived switch to Hunter and Ratliff would tip the scales a little more. However, it was Stuckey and Maxiell spearheading the youth infusion. Both got roughly 50% more of the share of minutes than they did in the regular season.

There were a lot of factors contributing to the results: the extended garbage time in some games, McDyess’ injury opening a door for Maxiell, the demotion of Hayes, the fact that everyone is older now than at the start of the season. However, taken as a whole, it still all boils down to age, and it seems that the Pistons remain relatively consistent in that regard.

From Luke Slippywalker @ Pistonforum.com

After last years disappointing loss, the Pistons organization declared three goals for this season: reduce the starters minutes, develop its youth, and find a scoring option off the bench. As the starters stayed in games many fans thought they shouldn’t have, it was easy to get the feeling that this was business as usual all over again. Fellow forumite BillLaimbeer compared the minutes per game versus other championship teams so this time we’re going to step back and take a look at the total minutes played and see how we did.

Aside from McDyess who went from sub to starter, we’ve got a general reduction in minutes. Rasheed’s minutes are roughly the same but we see roughly 10% reduction in overall minutes for Rip and Tayshaun. Chauncey had the same total minutes but sat out eight more games in ’06-’07. Is this enough? If you even believed the tired legs reasoning for last year’s collapse, Bill’s piece highlighted that we’re in line with other championship teams. So for goal #1, reducing the starters minutes, we’re going to check that off.

Rookies Afflalo and Stuckey got significantly more minutes than any other doughnut fetching first year player of the Going to work era…except for Mehmet Okur. Aside from Okur, no rookie got more that 450 minutes - that includes Prince and Delfino. Milicic’s career minutes for the Pistons doesn’t even come close to Afflalo’s first year total. If you add in Amir’s 764 minutes which is comparable to a Delfino and Maxiell’s developing seasons, it’s a wonder they were able to find the time for all three. While you can argue that more time would have been more beneficial, the team is trying to balance winning and development. This year, over all previous years, the staff has managed to do just that. Goal #2. Check.

Dumars spent the offseason looking for a scoring punch to come off the bench to keep the team from bogging down while the starters sat. The answer was the affordable Jarvis Hayes. Hayes is your typical Dumars’ diamond in the rough player. He’s got the college/ lottery pedigree. He’s gone through some unfortunate events and hasn’t lived up to his potential and he’s cheap. Sure he can’t shut down Yi Jianlian any better than a sofa recliner but after watching uber athlete Mo Evans spot up for three and Delfino spot up for nothing, you had to figure our expectations were roughly the same. Ok so he’s better than Carlos but so is like 90% of the NBA and probably 75% of the NBDL. I like Hayes but, by the numbers, we’re going to have to say: Goal #3….brrrrt.

Well there it is. With Maxiell emerging as a bona fide bench presence, we’re in as good a position as we’ve been in years. Will it be enough to git er done? That’s what the playoffs are all about.

Introduction
Enough of the 2007 / 2008 NBA season has elapsed for me to evaluate the best of the best by position and to put up a candidate for league MVP. The approach, like all things statsprocket-ish, is empirical (at least up to the end), statistical, and semi-complicated. Briefly, what I’ve done to rank players is described below. As always, thanks must go to www.dougstats.com for providing NBA stats in formats easy to drop into Excel.

The ranking methodology…

• Select all players who have appeared in more than 50 games
• Rank by total Sprocket Points generated and select the top 50
• Create three Sprocket Points based ranking for each player…
• Rank by count of Sprocket Points for a measure of total statistical production
• Rank by percent of team Sprocket Points for a measure of how important the player is to his team
• Rank by relative production, the ratio of % of Team Sprocket Points to % of Team Minutes to distinguish players who produce more just because they play a lot of minutes
• Weight and average the three rankings for a final measure
• Weights are 0.4 for the first ranking, 0.2 for the second, and 0.4 for the third

(The tables in each section below show all of the measures used and the final ranking and include all player’s in the league’s top fifty.)

Point Guards

It’s either a bad year for point guards or Chris Paul is simply too good for everyone else. No other guard is even close. CP3 ranks 4^th among the top 50 players in Sprocket Points produced, 4^th in percent of team Sprocket Points, and has a productivity index (% Sprocket Points / % Team Minutes) of 161 which is 6^th best in the league. Kidd, Nash, Davis, and Williams round out the top five, but are a clear step down. Add in the Hornets overall team record and there really is no doubt about who’s having the best year.

Calderon is having a surprisingly good year and if he were playing the same number of minutes as the other top guards (assuming no drop off in production), would probably have cracked the top five. The Piston’s Billups is not having a bad year at all, but just isn’t the kind of player who generates as much on the court, and is playing the second fewest minutes (!!!) of any point guard among the league’s top 50.

Shooting Guards
Although not quite as clear as the point guard ranking, Kobe Bryant does stand alone at the top of the shooting guard ranking. In general shooting guards do not contribute a huge share of overall team Sprocket Points (tend not to generate assists, blocks, or rebounds, but tend to turn the ball over and to shoot a lower percentage than other positions). If you also consider team record, no one else comes close.

Roy is having an extraordinary year for a second year shooting guard, but many of the other top rated players are on bad teams – Wade, Carter, Iguodala, and Johnson. More top shooting guards are on bad teams than any other position.

Small Forwards
Nothing much to say here. Lebron James dominates his position more than any other player at any other position. Like him or hate him, he plays 14% of the minutes for the Cavs and produces 23.2% of their statistical productivity, for a gaudy Productivity Index of 166 – 66% more productivity per minute than the average NBA player. LBJ plays forty-one minutes a game (tied with Joe Johnson for the most minutes played of the top 50) and produces 47.7 Sprocket Points per game, ranked number one among the top 50.

He is the only small forward in the top thirty-nine players of the top fifty. Perhaps with the recent trade his share of team production will fall a bit, but it’s so far down to the second best small forward that James will still dominate the ranking.

Power Forwards
Often players are omitted from MVP type rankings because they play on bad teams. So, how about Marion who gets traded to a bad team mid-season? And is he a four or a three anyway? In any event, Garnett is more productive overall and has a productivity index a few points higher. Marion has a higher share of overall team productivity, but he doesn’t play with Allen and Pierce either (though at least part of the season with Nash and Stoudemire). If you consider the Celtics record and all the other things that Garnett brings to the game that never end up in the stat sheets, then it really isn’t close. KG is still #1. Boozer gets an honorable mention with a very strong season, but not a top tier one.

Centers
And last, the closest ranking of them all. I think you can make a case for any of the top three. Howard does as much with the minutes he plays as any other player with the top Productivity Index rank (though only fractions of a point higher than Duncan and James). He is the most important player to his team among the top fifty, accounting for nearly 27% of the Magic’s statistical production. (And it’s not as if no one else on the team is any good – Turkoglu is the 4^th best small forward this year.)

Duncan isn’t nicknamed the Big Fundamental for nothing. He’s so solid you could build a house on him, and that’s pretty much what San Antonio has done. In fewer minutes than any of the top three he’s the fifth best in the top 50 in total Sprocket Points, and in a virtual tie for first with Howard on the Productivity Index. His rank of 9^th on % of Team Sprocket Points probably says more about the balance and productivity of the Spurs than anything else.

Many wouldn’t put Camby in this ranking, but I think his performance this year forces the issue. He has played in 62 of the Nuggets’ 64 games and averaged over 35 minutes per game. He is second in the league in total Sprocket Points, only trailing James by 2.8 per game. He is 5^th best in share of team Sprocket Points despite playing with Anthony and Iverson who have the ball in their hands most of the time. He does slightly less with his time on the court (Productivity Index of 160) than the other top centers, but is still 8^th best among the top 50.

All considered though, I think the decision is between Howard and Duncan. Camby has had an extraordinary season so far, but no one would take him over either of the other two to build a team around, and he does rank third among the three. Add to that Denver will not (at this point), in a travesty of the rules, make the playoffs, and Camby must drop out.

For the Productivity Index Howard and Duncan are within 0.1 index points, so that’s a tie in my book. Duncan is a good step down in terms of % of Team Sprocket Points, but then Howard doesn’t play with Parker and Genobli. If Duncan were to play Howard’s minutes without a drop-off in production, he would rank higher in total Sprocket Points. If he were to play James’ minutes with only a small drop-off, he would lead the league in Sprocket Points. The Spurs’ record is very similar to the Magic (44-22 and 44-24 at this point), but they play in a much tougher conference. Put it all together and think Duncan gets the nod.

Perhaps the biggest surprise of the rankings is Al Jefferson who is having probably the strongest year of any player you never hear about – and stronger than most you do hear about. Maybe the coming Spring thaw will motivate a national sports writer or two to head north to the Twin Cities. One more year to go on his contract and after that Al becomes the biggest free agent deal going (big sign and trade deal this Summer?).

League MVP
Now it gets tough. James, Duncan, Paul, Garnett, and Bryant, and only one trophy.

• Kobe has to be the sentimental choice. He has never won the MVP and is perhaps the scariest guy in the league with the ball and the game on the line. The Lakers have the most wins of any team of the final five other than Boston, but Odom has been solid, Bynum was playing at a level that would have put in contention for best center, and Gasol has been reborn since heading west. But, he is the only one in the top five with not in the top ten in at least two of the key rankings. Best heart.
• Garnett is playing perhaps his best basketball and the force of his personality has melded the Celtics into a real team. Even with Pierce and Allen, perhaps in spite of Pierce and Allen, I’d argue Garnett has done the best job of team leadership of any in the top five. It could well depend on whether you think the MVP has to dominate his team’s production, which Garnett has not. Best leader.
• Paul is very consistent across the rankings, 4^th, 4^th, and 6^th. And the Hornets are only one game out of first place in the tough West without another star name on the roster, though the same could be said for the Lakers and the Cavs. Most consistent.
• Duncan is hard to ignore. His team is winning and he does as much with his time on the floor as any other player. No weaknesses.
• And finally, there is James – ranked the best of the bunch, but taking 41 minutes a game to do it in. And playing on the worst team in the group, with arguably the weakest supporting cast (at least until the trade). Most dominating one on one.

Knocking out Bryant, despite the fact that I’d like to see him win an MVP, isn’t too hard. His Productivity Index isn’t up to the standards of the other four. And at 38.5 MPG, at least some of his overall production comes from playing so much with relatively weak players. Garnett has subsumed his game a bit to fit in with his new team and ranks 23^rd in percent of team productivity. He isn’t dominating a good team the way Duncan, and Paul do. Sorry, KG. James has no problem dominating his team, he is the highest ranked of the five in % of Team Sprocket Points, but his team isn’t that hard to dominate, and it takes him 41 minutes per game to do it in. LBJ is out.

Duncan and Paul is a tough call. Their weighted average ranks are only 0.1 apart. If they played the same number of minutes their total Sprocket Points per game would be nearly identical. Paul has a higher share of team production – question is whether the Hornets with Paul, Stojakovic, and Chandler can be called a weaker team than the Spurs. They do have a better record playing against the same competition. I guess a tie won’t work. My MVP is Duncan.

At the end of the 2005-2006 season three Pistons were in my list of the league’s twenty most underpaid players. (Salary relative to statistical performance, see the Rating Players section below for details of the methodology used.) Ben Wallace was the fourth most underpaid player, Tayshaun Prince the ninth, and Chauncey Billups the thirteenth most underpaid player in the league.

Wallace

In the first season of his new contract with the Chicago Bulls, Ben Wallace appeared in 77 games for a cool sixteen million dollars. Last season Ben’s production justified a salary just under fourteen million. So did Ben get better and did the Bulls get their sixteen million dollar man? Not so much. Based on the 2006/2007 regular season Ben should have earned around eleven million, a good step down from the performance that earned him the big deal, but pretty much in line with what the Pistons offered. Score one for Joe D.

Prince

Last season Tay was still on his rookie contract and performed well over that level with a salary nearly seven million dollars below what his performance would suggest was fair. This year two things happened. First, Prince got some more money with a new contract starting at $7.9 million, and two, he dropped his game a bit, going from a season total of 2,153 sprocket points down to 1,962. That’s still nothing to sneeze at, and translates to a performance justified salary of $8.4 million. Score another one for Joe D.

Billups

Last season Mr. Big Shot performed at a level that should have earned him nearly $12.4 million. This season was not quite so impressive – a level of performance that would justify a salary only around nine million. Missed games due to injuries account for some of the decline though and if we were to project Billups’ performance to a full 82 game season his performance justified salary would go up to around $10.5 million (still not exactly what one might hope for in a contract year). CB’s reported new gig averaging $11.5 million (starting at $10.0) for your years looks right in line. Hat trick for Joe D.

Rating Players
To determine how much a player should earn based on his performance I first compute the number of sprocket points by player for the 2006/2007 regular season. Sprocket points are a weighted composite of a large set of basketball statistics. Then I sum sprocket points and salaries across all players and divide the totals to create the league average price paid per sprocket point. With this average value I can determine how much a player should have earned if each were paid solely based on performance.

In the tables which follow you’ll see these columns…

1. Player name
2. Team
3. Games played during the 2006/2007 regular season
4. Salary – the player’s 2006/2007 salary paid
5. For Games Played
1. Fair Salary – how much the player should earn solely based on performance
2. Gap – the difference between the performance justified salary and the actual
6. Projected to 82 Games
1. Fair Salary – how much the player would have earned based solely on performance and assuming he played in all 82 games, taking out the impact of injuries.
2. Gap – the difference between the performance justified 82 game salary and the actual

By this method, the list of most underpaid players in the league is headed by Josh Smith from the Atlanta Hawks. If performance alone determined player salaries, Smith would have earned in excess of ten million dollars this past season, closer to twelve million had he appeared in all 82 Hawks games. He’s a steal at $1.5 million. Note that Lebron James big new contract doesn’t kick in until next year when he will earn $12.5 million. Even at that level LBJ is still a bargain. If nothing else, this list proves yet again the value of drafting well and making hay while players are still on their rookie contracts.

On the other end of the scale are some familiar faces. By a substantial margin, Shaquille O’Neal was the most overpaid player in the NBA last season, out-earning his production on the court by well over fifteen million dollars. Even if we control for the forty-two games Shaq missed due to injury and general malaise, he is still the most overpaid NBA player. Only twenty-one other players made more money ($15 million plus) than Shaq stole. No one last year in the league was worth twenty million.

Across the entire list, only Yao Ming performed at a level sufficient to justify his salary had he managed to drag his fragile butt out onto the court for the full season. If he had played 82 games, at the level which he played in 48, Yao would have earned every penny of his $12.5 million. (Continued)

Looking at This Season - Tin Men

From about the two thirds mark of the regular season, every nationally televised Pistons game began with a discussion of bench development. The Pistons were playing the bench more, were sacrificing regular season wins for player development that would help them in the post season. After hearing it and reading it a few dozen times, we even began to believe it. And a cursory look at the data even supports the argument.

Top Six Players (counting Webber and Mohammed as one player in 2007)
84.1% of team minutes in 2006 / 72.9% of team minutes in 2007

Top Four Plus McDyess (excluding the center position)
68.9% of team minutes in 2006 / 62.6% of team minutes in 2007

This means that beyond McDyess, in the average game there were twenty-seven additional minutes to be divided up across the bench in 2007 than in 2006. So far, so good. But, the key is how often this average bench-developing game happened.

Of the possible 410 regular season player/games (five positions times 82 games) in 2006, Billups, Hamilton, Prince, Wallace, and McDyess appeared in 405. No one missed more than two games. However, injuries and suspensions took their toll in 2007 and this same group played only in 384 of the possible 410 player/games. Only Prince and McDyess played in them all, with Billups missing fifteen and Hamilton and Wallace both missing seven.

The effect of this increase in games missed by the top players is that the bench played more – that is, they started a number of games – Murray started eighteen, Maxiell eight, etc. To a large extent, these starts explain the overall increase in minutes played by the bench. If we look at average minutes per game played, the story reverses. When they played, Prince, Hamilton, and Billups all played more minutes per game in 2007 than in 2006. McDyess didn’t change and Wallace played three fewer minutes per game.

So yes, the bench played more of the team’s minutes, but the starters really didn’t get any more consistent rest. When the starters played they often played more minutes than last year. This means that the situations in which the bench players logged a lot of their minutes ended up being unlike the situations in which they would be asked to play in the playoffs. Experience is experience, no doubt, but having individual bench players tossed into the starting rotation does nothing to develop the play of bench players with other bench players. On the bench only Delfino got consistent playing time across the course of the season. However, when the playoffs came around those minutes were cut in half to 8.4 per game.

The net effect is the worst of all possible worlds. The starters got some time off, but it was concentrated and not consistent over the course of the season so they did not enter the playoffs any more well rested. And the bench got more minutes, but many of them were in situations different from those in which they would play come playoff time.

Looking at the Iron Men Across Five Seasons

Since 1980 five teams have played in at least five conference finals in a row.

1. 1984 – 1988 Boston Celtics
2. 1987 – 1991 Detroit Pistons
3. 1989 - 1993 Chicago Bulls
4. 1982 – 1989 Los Angeles Lakers
5. 2003 – 2007 Detroit Pistons

It is fairly safe to assume that the players who played all five years for their teams had the opportunity to play the most games of any players in the history of the league (at least since 1980). They at least played through the conference finals and many of them played in two or more finals series during the five year span. (For the Lakers who went to the conference finals for more than five years in a row I’ve selected the single continuous five year span for each player in which he played the most minutes.) The players who come to the top of this list are the true iron men of the NBA.

Among players with more than ten thousand minutes in the regular season across their individual five year spans, Michael Jordan leads the way as the ultimate iron man. Bird averaged more minutes per game, but played in fewer games. Laimbeer played in more games, but averaged a lot fewer minutes. For the Pistons’ Bad Boys, Laimbeer, Thomas, Dumars, Rodman, and Johnson all played more than ten thousand minutes, particularly interesting when you consider that Rodman and Johnson were bench players for several or all of those seasons.

In the top five, between Jordan, Bird, Pippen, Hamilton, and Johnson (Magic), who sticks out? Rip is a fine player, a consistent player, perhaps even a unique player particularly given how the game is played today, but is he a guy who is so valuable that he needs to be on the court as much as his cohorts in the top five? Sorry Rip, but I suspect that with fewer minutes you would be more effective, not less.

Likewise, between Worthy, Thomas, Billups, Dumars, and Abdul-Jabbar, is Chauncey really of a skill level sufficient to demand quite that much court time? And let’s not even mention Prince, who manages more than ten thousand minutes across the current Pistons five year run despite playing in the fewest number of games than anyone on the list (tied with McHale), and only averaging ten MPG across 42 games his rookie season (the first of the five years).

Prince’s playing time sticks out even more when we look at the four consecutive seasons with the most minutes within the five year conference finals runs of each team. Again, Prince is a fine player, a guy who does a lot of things on the court, including, as we’ve seen over the past two years, disappearing in the conference finals. Perhaps he just isn’t a guy who should have the fifth highest average minutes per game of any player over four seasons since 1980.

The runs some of these players made clearly indicate that it is possible, given incredible preparation, monumental physical stamina, and a lot of luck with injuries, to play an extraordinary number of minutes. Both Jordan and Bird averaged more than thirty-eight minutes a game over five long seasons with deep playoff runs. However, despite the wonders of mango extract, perhaps this course isn’t the best route to multiple championships if your name happens to be Billups, Hamilton, or Prince.

Most teams have played at least one third of their games by this point in the season. So, it seemed time to do some ratings and see who is surprising us this year and who has fallen into the dust. In the tables following you will find players ranked by Sprocket Points. The key measures are:

Sprocket Points per Game Played – The player’s Sprocket Point count divided by the number of games in which they have appeared. Dividing by the number of games levels the playing field since teams have played different numbers of games, and takes out the impact of injuries which seem higher than usual this year. This is a measure of total productivity for the times the player has played.

% Team Sprocket Points – The player’s Sprocket Point count divided by his team’s total. This provides a measure of how important the player is to his team. In this measure games lost to injury hurt the player.

(Continued)

Twenty games in the 2006/2007 edition of the Detroit Pistons are four games worse than last year at this time with a record of 13 up and 7 down. That’s good enough for the eighth best record in the league and second best, behind the upstart Magic, in the East. Eleven of the first twenty have been at home and the team has one of their two West Coast trips under their belts.

There have been some bad losses, most notably against the Bobcats and the Blazers, but also some quality wins against Houston, Miami, and Dallas. There have been a few close losses, Utah, New Orleans, and Portland, that could have gone either way.

Offensively there have been some big changes in how the team plays. A small ball lineup (if you can count the 6’ 9” Prince with his Manute Bol wingspan as small) has been introduced and has played well (#3 below). However, the most productive lineup has been the four remaining starters with Dale Davis. Davis brings the same kind of game as Ben Wallace (though certainly less of it) and it seems the team still feels most comfortable with that kind of center on the floor. (Continued)

One reasonably accurate way to think about the overall health of the NBA is through analysis of the average television ratings for the Finals. Higher ratings mean more fans and more money for the owners and subsequently the players.

Over the past 31 years the Finals’ broadcasts have averaged a 12.5 rating. This means that on average 12.5% of all U.S. households able to receive television signals (regardless of source) watched the NBA finals. To place this number in context, the average NBA finals game over the last 31 years would rank fifth on this television season’s ranking of top rated programs, just a bit behind Dancing with the Stars (Is this a weird country or what?). Average finals ratings have gone from a high of 18.7 for the 1998 Bulls/Jazz series to a low of 6.5 for the 2003 Spur/Nets extravaganza. For comparison, the highest rated NFL Superbowl of all time was in 1982 with a 49.1 rating. Four of the top ten most highly rated programs of all time are Superbowls (though still beaten by the finale of M*A*S*H, an episode of Dallas, and part 8 of Roots). (Continued)

Introduction

This summer the unthinkable happened. The best starting five in the league, the 2005/2006 Detroit Pistons, ceased to exist. Pax and Skiles came a calling, and Big Ben went a walking. Ben Wallace. Joe Dumars. Mr. Davidson. Scott Skiles. John Paxson. Space aliens in braids. Pick any two, add the expletive of your choice in front of the names, and you too can post on PistonsForum.

NBA players are paid to produce on the court and to draw in fans. They either help their teams win and entertain the fan base or they are sent away. They are paid based on their past ability to produce, which can be measured, and their ability to fit in and make their teams better, which cannot be directly measured. However, given the number of players who are perceived as poisonous but still sign big contracts, it seems safe to say that owners and GMs place much more importance on the former and far less on the latter. (Continued)