Basketball-Statistics: At Which Position Are Great Players the Most Important

Is Jon Nichols doing the most interesting work around right now or just the most interesting work I know about or just the most interesting work I know about and believe I understand? Regardless, his latest piece appears to support the Hawks' disinclination to rush into a big, long-term deal with great guy, nice player, probably underutilized, almost certainly not a franchise player Marvin Williams:

Overall, it appears that small forwards are the most important, followed by power forwards, centers, shooting guards, and point guards. I’ve heard people suggest small forwards are crucial to a team’s success in the past. Three of the remaining four teams in the playoffs last year featured a small forward as their main playmaker. And as my study on the shooting abilities of small forwards showed, it’s best not to have a specialist at that position. What you need is a player who can do it all because that position appears to be very important to your team being successful.

For those so inclined, I highly recommend clicking through to study the full range of data which is, as always, well presented.

FanHouse: Povtak: Hawks Showing No Love For Childress

Money quote:

"Things were close, very close. Milwaukee would have been a great situation," Childress said Friday evening from Los Angeles during a conference call with reporters. "Coach (Scott) Skiles made it clear that he really wanted me to be part of his team. The whole coaching staff and managements really let me know I was wanted. They saw me as a big part of their future."

Although Childress liked what he heard during his visit earlier this month in Milwaukee, his restricted free agency still gave all the leverage to the Hawks. Without enough room under the salary cap to match his contract in Greece, the Bucks needed to do it with a sign-and-trade deal that included either Bruce Bowen or Kurt Thomas.

Charlotte also pushed hard for a deal with Childress, but they were only offering Raja Bell in return to Atlanta.

Researching The Mini-Camp Invitees

The current roster. Leo Lyons, Dionte Christmas, and Shawn Taggart are the most interesting invitees to me. Lyons, Christmas, Taggart, Garret Siler, and Yaroslav Korolev are playing/have played in the Las Vegas Summer League. Christmas also payed in the Orlando Pro Summer League.

Hawks Hold Their Rights
Jeff Teague
Sergiy Gladyr
Cenk Akyol (Euroleague, Turkish League)

Those With NBA Experience
John Lucas III (D-League stats, TAU Ceramica)
Chris Taft (The only reference to Chris Taft I could find since his 8 game stint in the D-League in 2008)
Yaroslav Korolev (Dynamo Moscow: #45)

Undrafted 2009 Draft Eligibles


Veteran Free Agents (No NBA Experience)
Corey Williams (D-League stats, 2007) aka Corey "Homicide" Williams (HT: @langwhitaker)
Ivan Harris (D-League stats, 2009)
Frank Robinson (Euroleague)
Sundiata Gaines (Serie A)

Hawks Interested In Ike Diogu?

Sam Amick of The Sacramento Bee checks in with unrestricted free agent Ike Diogu (HT: CelticsBlog):

Diogu said "about 10 teams" have shown interest in him, including Atlanta, New Orleans, Boston, Dallas, Charlotte, Toronto, Denver and Washington. Depending on what transpires in the summer months on the free agency front or in terms of trades, the Kings – who have approximately $6 million in salary-cap room and are shopping for a frontcourt addition – could still be an option for Diogu. Diogu's agent, however, said he has no reason to believe his client is in the Kings' plans.

Diogu could be a very nice addition for the Hawks, and, depending on the cost, could be a better alternative than David Andersen. Digou lacks Andersen's range but possesses both a useful face-up jumper and post game and should be a far better offensive rebounder than Andersen. Andersen is likely to be the better defensive rebounder and might be the better defender if only by default.

The Last David Andersen Post

From The Australian, Andersen on the trade:

"This is a dream come true. I'd been on the books at Atlanta for seven years, but for one reason or another I never got to play with the Hawks. I still had a year to run on my Barcelona contract, but I had a get-out clause if I was picked up by either the Hawks or another NBA team. I'm really excited about the prospects of actually finally getting to play in what is the biggest league in the world."

"This move to Houston is a dream come true. I've always wanted a shot at the NBA to prove I can play at the highest level."

I'll miss the dream of his promise but I'll probably get over it soon.

Hawks Trade Andersen To Rockets

The return:

The Atlanta Hawks traded the rights to forward-center David Andersen to the Houston Rockets on Tuesday for an undisclosed second-round draft choice, cash and future considerations.

Daryl Morey:

"David has been a winner with every team he has played for in Europe. He is a very well-rounded player who possesses good offensive skills and a very good shooting touch for a big man."

The surprise would have been an announcement that the Hawks were bringing Andersen over to play in Atlanta as there's been no inclination the organization has any interest in building a deep bench.

The decision to pay Jamal Crawford $9 million to replicate Flip Murray's 2008-09 production suggests that cost is not currently an obstacle* so I suspect the driving force behind the (apparent) preference for bench players of the Solomon Jones/Mario West/Randolph Morris variety is the realization that (at least when given a real, live starting point guard) an eight-and-a-half man rotation is the most Mike Woodson** can manage, and, considering the list of players (Zaza Pachulia, Josh Childress, Anthony Johnson, Acie Law IV, Salim Stoudamire) who have been unconvinced by or simply left in the dark regarding the decision-making process by which minutes are allocated, perhaps it's best to augment that short (for an 82-game regular season) rotation with guys who are just happy to be there.

*Deciding to pay Jamal Crawford $9 million dollars does limit your remaining options, though.

**Who, it should always be pointed out when discussing personnel moves catering to his predilections, is in the final year of his contract.

A quick glance over the fence and it appears that the Rockets will have, if Yao Ming misses the entire season, a post rotation of Luis Scola, David Andersen, Carl Landry, and Chuck Hayes for the cost of three second-round picks, cash, and the rights to Vassilis Spanoulis. The injuries to Tracy McGrady and Yao (who combine to make up more than 55% of Houston's payroll) probably preclude the Rockets from contending for an NBA Championship but that hasn't stopped Morey (and Carroll Dawson before him) from making lemonade.

An Addendum To Yesterday's Prediction Post

Neil Paine, at Basketball-Reference.com Blog looks at Win Shares and aging. The concluding paragraph:

As you can see, on average guards do disappear sooner than players at other positions, starting at age 32. The conventional wisdom is that smaller players who rely on their speed/quickness tend to lose that ability (and therefore their viability as NBA players) in their early 30s; bigger players, of course, lose it at that point too, but it doesn’t matter as much for them because they were never very fast to begin with. Based on these results, I’d say the conventional wisdom has been confirmed — guards do appear to “lose it” sooner than big men, starting in their early thirties. That makes the recent re-signings of aging PGs Jason Kidd and Mike Bibby particularly risky, and the buyer should certainly beware when it comes to Allen Iverson, who could end up being the poster child for this phenomenon.

There's lots of interesting* data and charts for those inclined.

*There's a 59% chance that Jeff Teague peaks between his third and sixth year assuming he plays at least 2000 minutes in an NBA season.

Josh Childress Is Returning To Olympiakos

Sekou Smith has the quotes:

"I still have some unfinished business to tend to. I definitely have unfinished business in Greece."

"When I left Greece to come back [here to the U.S.], I had it in my head that was going back to Greece no mater what. Then when I got home and had my feet on the ground for a couple of days, I really wanted to explore my options and see what was out there. It was 50-50 from there."

"My team did well, but there’s no question, I didn’t have the year I wanted to have, and with that being said, I have some serious work left to do in Athens. That was part of my decision to go back, as well."

Best case scenario? Jeff Teague proves a useful NBA player this season and the Hawks use the rights to Childress as a sweetener to get some team to take the final year of Jamal Crawford's contract.

Worst case scenario? The Hawks lose the rights to Childress for nothing and the cost of the loss is likely underrated as, by the time it comes to pass, most everyone has gotten over the shock of the possibility of it happening.

Some Early Prediction Thoughts

all stats taken from Basketball-Reference.com

I'm researching and exploring some methods to utilize in the hopes of making a more objective, more accurate prediction for the 2009-10 season with the goal of getting within, let's say, ten games of the Hawks' final record. A small step but one which would constitute an almost 30% improvement for me over last year's prediction. It's all about setting attainable goals. That last sentence is surely a petard on which I'll be hoisted.

This first table looks at Win Shares, cataloging each player's rate of Win Shares per 1000 minutes for his career, the 2008-09 season, and while playing for the Atlanta Hawks.

	WS/1000 Min
Name	Career	08-09	w/ ATL
Bibby	2.24	2.44	2.19
Johnson	1.85	2.37	2.08
Williams	1.86	2.87	1.86
Smith	1.65	1.98	1.65
Horford	2.51	2.94	2.51
Crawford	1.39	1.34	N/A
Murray	0.69	1.57	1.57
Pachulia	1.86	2.58	1.96
Evans	2.14	2.01	2.01
Jones	2.35	2.81	2.35
West	1.67	1.49	1.67
Morris	-0.95	0.00	0.00

One can pretty easily take those rates, make an educated guess about each player's 2009-10 rate, assign minutes for 2009-10 season, and calculate a rough estimate of the team's projected wins. Something like this...

Name	Minutes	WS
Bibby	2700	5.9
Johnson	3100	6.8
Williams	2380	6.8
Smith	2655	5.3
Horford	2520	7.4
Crawford	1975	2.7
Pachulia	1400	2.9
Evans	1500	3
Teague	680	0.8
Jones	500	1.3
West	270	0.4
Morris	0	0
TOTAL	19680	43.3

Last year's 47-35 team (46-36 Pythagorean record) earned 45.1 Win Shares.

The reasoning behind that Jeff Teague projection will be the subject of a future post which I'll preview here only by saying that point guards drafted outside of the lottery over the last six seasons, even point guards who have gone on to be above average players, have pretty much all been below average players as rookies. Collectively, they've been well below average.

Though Win Shares is a useful tool for a rough exercise such as this (not least of which because one needn't make hundreds of calculations) it doesn't give you much of an idea about the shape of a player's contributions. Thus, as a complement to Win Shares I've also looked at each player's Offensive Rating (ORtg) and Defensive Rating (DRtg) for the 2008-09 season and their careers.

	Career		08-09
Name	ORtg	DRtg	ORtg	DRtg
Bibby	108	108	113	109
Johnson	107	110	110	110
Williams	109	110	117	108
Smith	101	105	103	104
Horford	111	105	114	104
Crawford	105	111	110	117
Murray	98	109	104	109
Pachulia	107	108	113	106
Evans	113	110	115	110
Jones	116	107	124	108
West	105	106	101	104
Morris	80	109	81	106

Two things to notice in the above table:

1. Lots of Hawks exceeded their career averages (last season inclusive) during the 2008-09 season. I think it's fair to expect the young players (Horford, Williams, Smith) to continue outperform their career averages even if they might not improve upon or even repeat their 2008-09 numbers. I think it's fair to expect the older players (Bibby, Crawford, Evans, Pachulia) to perform closer to their career averages in 2009-10. As for Joe Johnson, he's posted (in chronological order, 2005-2009) Offensive Ratings of 109, 109, 109, 110 and Defensive Ratings of 114, 111, 112, 110 in his four seasons in Atlanta. I suspect he'll post similar rates next season.
2. Notice the similarity between Flip Murray's 2008-09 and Jamal Crawford's career. I still don't think that Crawford is likely to provide an upgrade over what Flip Murray produced last season.

There are a couple of extra steps to projecting a record from individual ratings. I estimated each players minutes per game (eMPG) for 2009-10, multiplied their ORtg and DRtg by (eMPG/48), added up the results, divided both sums by 5 to get estimated Offensive and Defensive Efficiencies, and then used those to figure pythagorean wins. The estimates below resulted in an Offensive Efficiency of 109.4, a Defensive Efficiency of 108.2, and 44.3 wins.

Name	MPG	ORtg	DRtg
Bibby	33	108	110
Johnson	38	110	110
Williams	29	114	109
Smith	32.5	103	103
Horford	31	114	104
Crawford	24	108	114
Pachulia	17	109	107
Evans	18	113	110
Teague	8.5	99	109
Jones	6	116	107
West	3	105	106
Morris	0	80	109

Now, as to whether these objective measures confirm my suspicions that the Hawks have merely re-constituted last season's team (assuming they re-sign Marvin Williams) or whether this post just confirms that, before the fact, I can only conceive of avenues of inquiry which confirm my suspicions, I'm essentially neutral. What say you?

In lieu of content...interactivity

The Hawks plan to make re-signing Mike Bibby and Zaza Pachulia official this afternoon. No such official announcement is planned for Marvin Williams. Yet.

The NBA blogosphere is atwitter* abuzz about the summer league. Hawks fans don't have the pleasure of investing themselves fully in the proceedings** but that doesn't mean there aren't events of interest.

For example:

• David Thorpe's livetweeting
• Yesterday's New Orleans/San Antonio game: DeJuan Blair put up 13 (on 7 shots) and 10 in 22 minutes and Darren Collison had 19 (on 13 shots), 6 (against 3 turnovers), and 5 in 34 minutes.

Please share any links*** or thoughts of interest in the comments.

*Up, running, and logoed: The True Hoop Network Twitter feed.

**Not entirely unlike the 2003-04 through 2005-06 regular seasons.

***In the interests of fairness, a compendium of Celtics bloggers' attempts to describe how slow Nick Fazekas is would not be unwarranted.

Pachulia To Sign Contract On Monday

From the man himself:

I'm sure most of you heard already but we reached the agreement with Hawks:))had phisicals this morning and signing officially on Monday.

Also:

I'm glad it worked out and glad to be part of this team. And one more thing:HAWKS FANS U R THE BEST. Thanks for all the support. Love yo

I pretend the latter tweet was written with Drew in mind.

Cheap, Available Backup Power Forwards Who Might Be Useful

I don't think there's any doubt the Hawks have spent the lion's share of the money they're going to spend this summer, and, while the backcourt may be slightly over-subscribed I don't think anyone would complain were the Hawks to bring in a power forward to provide at least two out of the three following attributes: defense, rebounding, providing a viable alternative to playing Josh Smith on the nights the team needs a viable alternative to playing Josh Smith because Zaza Pachulia is, to Mike Woodson, a backup center rather than a third big man.

Ignoring, for now, the possibility that this fourth big man might arrive in exchange for the rights to Josh Childress, I present some free agent possibilities.

Suggestions (in alphabetical order)

• David Andersen
• James Augustine
• Maceo Baston
• Ike Diogu
• Nick Fazekas (training camp invite)
• Drew Gooden
• Richard Hendrix (HT: Third Quarter Collapse)
• Leon Powe (it would be like making a pre-emptive deadline deal to improve the team only cheaper)
• Chris Wilcox

I think those are all within the realm of possibility and more likely than either Solomon Jones or Randolph Morris to contribute (positively) next season. Please discuss these candidates and/or suggest your own in the comments.

Mike Woodson Is On To Something

At Hardwood Paroxysm, Jon Nichols looks at how the shooting ability of point guards affect a team's offensive efficiency (click through for graph and full analysis):

Although they all generally have the same duty (run the offense!), different point guards in the NBA possess a variety of skills. Whether they are big or small, quick or fast, or aggressive or passive, they come in all shapes and sizes...Is the ability to shoot three-pointers well a key skill for point guards?

The short answer is yes.

I would guess that better shooter = more efficient offense holds true across all positions. I suspect the next step is to study whether the difference of affect for point guards is appreciably different than that for players at other positions.

A Sentimental Tidbit For a Certain Demographic

You know who you are and if you'll love this, rue this, or skip it entirely: Salim Stoudamire wants Josh Childress to join the Bucks.

Stoudamire:

"Not only is he a great player who is willing to do all the little things to help a team win, but he's a good guy, too. He's a very honest and caring person. It would be a blessing if he came here."

AJC: Smith: Hawks, Pachulia Agree To Terms

No details yet:

Free agent center Zaza Pachulia has agreed to terms with the Hawks on a long-term deal, according to two sources familiar with the situation.

Pachulia, 25, spent the last four years with the Hawks on a $16 million deal. His new deal is believed to be for the same amount of years but with a significant raise, according to one of the sources familiar with the situation.

EDIT (9:15am, 7/9/09): As mentioned in the comments, it's "estimated" to be 4 years, $19 million. A fair deal for all involved, I say.