Wagesofwins on the Trade and the Clippers so far
by John R on Nov 26, 2008 11:08 AM PST
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PrintIts mostly obvious news that can be split into good and bad, and maybe one great.
The great news is we are not seeing significant diminishing returns from the Camby/Kaman combo. Both players are performing near the top of the career scales. The Clippers may have the top performing PF/C combo in basketball. (Gasol/Bynum = 0.584, Camby/Kaman = 0.588) There is no need to break this up. If you do need to break it up, you need two average players just to break even, sending both the 2 guard of the night AND Thornton to the bench as depth. If the Clippers can get both Richardson and Wallace for Kaman, now you are talking...maybe.
The big good news is that tandem is going to get even better with the addition of Zach Randolph as we have slowly talked ourselves into. ZBo is having a career year so far. The removal of the far-negative production Tim Thomas will in total add not just an all-star but the equivalent to an all-time player to the Clippers front court. The rotation of Camby/Kaman/Randolph with Skinner cleaning up is just sick deep. The article mentions the issue of minutes, which is fair. There are 96 minutes between the 4 and 5 and doesn't it make sense given these guys injury histories to split that up evenly and keep them all at about 32 each? There isn't a dropoff in production so why not? Randolph could get some duty at the 3 I suppose, but it would need to be proven he could be as productive there.
In further good news Thornton has clawed his way up from the depths of the NBA to be a merely below average player. I think thats ok from his spot and he may be a feast and famine guy throughout his career. He is going to go 3-15 sometimes and 5-7 for 20 points sometimes. The Clippers fortunes may continue to go as Thornton goes each night, but at least he isn't the worst anymore. I think this matches what we have seen this season. A continuation of the overall improvement, but generally he is still just a scorer.
Also good, and historically surprising, news: Gordon isn't killing the Clippers. You take his negative rating and love it since it is effectively zero. More minutes for EJ will make the team better.
The bad news is pretty obvious. Ricky Brickets has been just destorying the team so far. We don't need fancy metrics to figure that out. But it is fun to note that he has single handedly undone the good of BD, Thornton, and Skinner combined. Yikes.
I think we also file BD under bad news. He has been performing at the level of average PG. That's good in the sense that it isn't bad, but I think we need more out of him. He has seemed to be coming around the last few games, so maybe the stats will tell a different story soon. He isn't just walking it up and handing the ball to Mobley anymore. He's taking (and hitting) his shots without apology and mixing in some drives.
Overall, what we have been seeing all along. The frontcourt has been doing their job and begging for help from the backcourt and bench.
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Interesting
ZBo is having a career year, but that is on an up tempo team with no other viable inside presence. I personally don’t think that simply adding another big to the mix (one that costs $17 M per year) is going to produce dramatic results, unless EG steps up to the plate.
Gotta define dramatic
From current situation to title contender? Nope.
From current situation to something much better? Quite possibly.
Obviously you add a SG if the right move becomes available, but its going to be tough. If Brickets returns and doesn’t produce in about a week, its time to let him go and pick up a random SG off the wire. Just getting one that isn’t killing you should be dramatic.
Get me BD and 75 and I'm in
We can trade Ricky Davis
He still has trade value as some teams will decide to take a gamble to see if he gets hot again. Maybe other coaches will assume he doesn’t work within Dunleavy’s system.
by Newton Pham on Nov 26, 2008 12:45 PM PST up reply actions
In theory
Wins Produced should adjust for pace, so the up tempo itself shouldn’t inflate Z-Bos numbers. You could argue that it’s a better style for him, though most wouldn’t. The other argument would be that D’Antoni is just a terrific offensive coach, and devises schemes to get the most out of players.
The 32-32-32 plan with 3 quality big men on the roster is compelling. The Clippers will always have the equivalent of two starting bigs on the floor, going against the likes of Hilton Armstrong, or Chris Anderson, or whoever. We’ll see.
It’s also a pretty good mix of talents among the three of them. Camby is Mr. Defense, Randolph Mr. Offense, Kaman is a little of both, and all three rebound. So you go strong D if you continue to start Kam-Cam, you can go strong O with Kaman-Randolph, or a more traditional split with Camby-Randolph. Of those combos, Kaman-Randolph strikes me as the one that is potentially problematic. They both need the ball and some room to operate. I don’t think it’s a Randolph-Curry level problem, but we’ll see.
It should be interesting.
In this world, you must be oh so smart or oh so pleasant. Well, for years I was smart. I recommend pleasant. - Elwood P. Dowd
Camby is a great counter proof to the tempo issue
His numbers are up this year over last. The drop from Denver to LAC is even steeper than the drop from D’Antoni to LAC.
Get me BD and 75 and I'm in
Not sure I understand
What does production matter if the team is 2-10? Good players can produce on bad teams, probably more easily than they can on good teams.
The theory...
The theory of WOW and Wins Produced is that it truly does translate directly to wins. So Camby + Kaman + Baron, is supposed to equal 33 wins this year, based on their current productivity on a 2-12 team. Camby has missed games, Baron has missed some time… so those absences hurt the current record some, but still, 2-12 obviously doesn’t equate to 33 wins from those three guys. BUT, Tim Thomas and Ricky have also produced the equivalent of minus 13 wins. That’s not 13 losses – that’s minus 13 wins, i.e. suddenly the 33 wins we were getting from our top three is now down to 20.
Berri et al at WOW are also big believers in the Pareto principal, AKA the 80-20 rule. That is, 80% of the teams overall wins come from 20% of their players. That 20% equates to the top 3 produces on a team. As it happens, 33 is 80% of 41. So according to WOW, a team with a top 3 producing 33 wins is EXACTLY .500 with an average supporting cast. So WOW would lay the early season problems squarely at the feet of everyone else.
This is all in theory, and you won’t find any basketball metric that arouses more passion in hoops stat heads, both positive and negative, than Win Score. I don’t buy into it completely for any reason, but this trade is an amazing test tube for it.
One big knock is that it overvalues rebounding and undervalues scoring and more specifically shot creation. The other is essentially your argument – you can’t just put 5 centers with good win scores on the floor and expect to win. We don’t usually get to see the results of such an experiment, because GM’s and coaches don’t put 5 bigs on the team or on the floor. But the Clippers are trying three, which is more than most. So does it translate?
Because if Camby+Kaman+Baron + 20% from the supporting cast = 41 wins. Then simply by getting the supporting cast to NOT kill us (hello Eric Gordon. goodbye Ricky Davis) and then by adding Zach Randolph, suddenly this team is well above .500 in a universe where Wages of Wins is onto something.
We’ll see.
In this world, you must be oh so smart or oh so pleasant. Well, for years I was smart. I recommend pleasant. - Elwood P. Dowd
by Steve Perrin on Nov 26, 2008 12:44 PM PST up reply actions
Bill Simmons (ESPN Page 2) Doesn't Like WOW
Or MDSr for that matter. It’s a good read. And I agree (surprisingly) with almost all of it. The part about the logjam at forward is relevant to this discussion.
Ya, you don't like Dunleavy, we know
At any rate, I couldn’t find a reference to WoW in there, only PER. WoW is akin to PER in that they are both box score composite stats, not the super nitty gritty stuff. WoW is only built on what is in the box score. And he does use PER, so I don’t see a difference.
Get me BD and 75 and I'm in
Well, it's relevant to WOW
because he talks about the logjam at forward, which alludes to CS’s post about whether WOW makes sense when you play at the same time multiple players who separately have good WOW scores. I think that it is clear that any team with three good solid producers and a supporting cast that doesn’t kill the team will do well. What does WOW bring to the table other than confirming that?
And there are reasons why myself and a number of us here don’t like MDSr. Some of which are relevant to this discussion because we are trying to figure out whether the team he has put together will work. WOW may be one method of analyzing that.
WoW brings
Another way to look at the problem of building a team. That’s it. Simple as that. Unlike PER, however, it actually ties individual performance to the team’s success. And time and again its predictive power has been proven.
The red herring of 5 C’s is up again so I guess I’ll go into it. This is another place where WoW and PER split. PER doesn’t know what position you play. WP48 has a position adjustment built in. You are compared vs the averages for the position you play.
So you put Camby at PG, what’s going to happen? His FG% is going to go down because he is taking a lot more shots outside of his range. His rebounding is going to go down because he is away from the basket. His assists are not really going to go up, but his turnovers will. So Camby as PG his WP48 is going to tank, as his team would. But in WP48 its going to tank worse than PER, because he isn’t being compared to some average generic player. He would be compared vs what a PG is supposed to deliver. Its so obvious that it seemingly doesn’t need to be said, but for some reason is a criticism that keeps coming up.
Noone is suggesting that putting 5 centers out there is a good idea.
But with Camby at the 4 we see that you might be able to slide one position and still be successful. And we also see that diminishing returns hasn’t been a problem with Kaman and Camby so far.
Can Randolph he successful with some minutes at the 3? Time may tell. But with Thomas’ minutes up for grabs and no other compelling front court option, I just don’t see a logjam yet.
Get me BD and 75 and I'm in
Don't know
But again he should mostly be getting Thomas’ minutes which were at the 4. He has done spot duty at the 3 in the past.
Get me BD and 75 and I'm in
I think Zach could survive at the 3
F-Elton!
I guess
The question is if he can’t defend anyway, does it really matter if he’s defending a 3 or a 4? I guess they’re gonna have to pick their matchups carefully.
One problem
is that coaching is critical. MDSr has never been able to put a winning team together in his 7 years with the Clippers (ok, there was that one year when Cassell ran the team). Now he is going to have to devise a system that works with three bigs and let’s just say inexperience at the 2. Based on what he has done to date, I think the chances are that he won’t be successful. Hope I’m wrong.
It was a good move
To sign Cassell, or else he might never have had a winning season. And a better season than the Lakers.
He did put a winning team together in 05
and they did well. He and Elgin were great getting Cassell for nothing.
F-Elton!
Did Cassell fail to run it the other years he was here?
Your attribution of responsibility/praise seems arbitrary, at best. Dishonest is more my guess though.
Only players succeed, only coaches fail. We get it.
Let go of the Cassell ran the team thing. Simmons is entertainment, not reality.
Get me BD and 75 and I'm in
One winning season out of seven
The one year Cassell was healthy and ranthe team. There is a logical inference there if one is not afraid to admit it.
Now the gratuitous personal attacks start: “dishonest.” Says more about you than anyone else, my friend.
Clearly EG can shoot
Hopefully he’ll prove to be consistent. We will need him to be successful for the team to be successful. Asking quite alot for a 19 year old IMO.
Yes, D’Antoni is a terrific coach, but ZBo can produce anywhere. We’ve all seen that. Hopefully the character issues won’t kill us because he can play the game.
You are right – it should be interesting.
Thanks for sharing
That’s a good writeup of what I already was thinking. I think we all underestimated how difficult it would be for this team to come together, but they aren’t hurting for talent. I just hope Dunleavy can lead them. Frustration and quitting is a real danger now.
Baron and Ricky will get better, especially Ricky. He can’t possibly be this bad. He was decent for a terrible Miami team last year. When Baron’s shooting heats up, we will go on a winning streak, and other teams will dread facing our big men. Then we’ll lament that if we had only started a little better we would have made the playoffs.
I'm sold, for now.
While I still think the zbo trade just doesn’t make sense, based on John R’s numbers, I’d be willing to at least give the group a chance to succeed at least until the trade deadline. I mean, it can’t possibly get any worse right?
BTW, should we have any excuses not be be leading the league or within the top 5 in rebounds considering how we probably have 3 of the best 7 re bounders on our team? Also I’m starting to come around to CS’s way of thinking. Our second unit bigs should tear up any other teams second unit bigs.
by cantthinkofagoodname on Nov 26, 2008 12:57 PM PST reply actions
The excuse
The mental exercise: there is no rebound if the other team doesn’t miss shots. Defensive rebounds are much more common than offensive. This is why rebounding can be considered a defense stat. It indicates that your team took possession of the ball without giving up points.
So the other teams are getting more “stops” because of the horrendous shooting of the Clippers. Note that the Clippers are in a dead heat with Opp in offensive rebounds for the season.
Also note that that Camby and Kaman are combining to grab over 53% of the defensive rebounds when they are on the floor. Thornton is grabbing another 11. (10 players on the court, 64 rebounding) So those 3 guys are actually getting the rebounds of SIX players. The problem is the Clippers aren’t making the other team miss very often.
Note that Randolph also helps here. His defensive rebound percentage is higher than everyone but Camby, so he will be an upgrade over whichever big he knocks out of the rotation.
The difference in the missed shots, combined with Camby missing 3 games, explains away just about all the difference in rebounding. The rest is probably the rebounding black hole that is the Clippers’ 2 spot.
Get me BD and 75 and I'm in
Those are all valid points
However, putting Randolph in takes someone else out. Who? Kamby or Kaman most likely. So does he really change the equation in rebounding? Enough to make a difference? I suspect that it is his superior offense, if anything, that would make a difference, and that trading Kaman or Camby will open up even more wins.
He takes out Thomas
In both senses. Thomas was getting all of his minutes at PF. He also bumps out the majority of the rest of Skinner, Davis3, etc. So far this season he has far exceeded all of those in rebounding.
There are plenty of minutes for 3 players between the 4 and 5.
Get me BD and 75 and I'm in
I don't know
If I had a 20 and 10 guy I’d play him 40 mins.
Considering that he was only playing 35 in NY
Why push it to 40? 32, 33, 34 seems right in his comfort zone.
Get me BD and 75 and I'm in
I'm good with 32/33/35 around there...
Trading Kaman or Camby would be a BIG mistake.
Nice Info
The wins per game pretty accurately sums up what we’ve been seeing. Especially the up and down play of Thornton you described, and the train wreck that Ricky Davis has been. From what we’ve been hearing Thornton is as self-motivated as anyone, so hopefully he can continue to improve and realize what a good shot is, and what isn’t.
Nice to see Randolph was just about the main man on the Knicks, it doesn’t hurt that he’s in his physical prime right now. Too bad we couldn’t have done this deal earlier, but we’ll take it.
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