"Wages of Wins" on Shaq and Z

[kj1]

He got 1 shot a quarter, none of them closer than 17 feet, and spent the entire game setting picks 20-25 feet from the basket.

Other than that he is shooting around 50% from the field in December.

I'm sick of this whole topic. Ive been on message boards for about 10 years and have spent the majority of them having to debunk people who don't know the game who bitch about Z for one thing or another year after year.

umm, seems to me you make my point for me! he stands around and the ONE thing he is supposed to be good at, hitting the wide open jumper, he does not do except for a week or so of games so far.

and your last sentence is beyond pointless. we're talking about Z NOW. i know basketball plenty and i know that with very few exceptions (shaq being one) big men decline EXTREMELY rapidly, tradtionally. you can ignore the wages of win numbers or his PER or his FG% but guess what? they all point to him bringing nearly NOTHING to the cavs when he is on the floor. now, his plus/minus has been good in some games but i don't put as much stock in that number in general but it's especially true in Z's case as the other numbers are so bad as to out-weigh the +/-.

Z is an offensive and defensive liability. what part of that don't you get? what does he do that we can count on night in and night out? maybe defensive rebound a little? and as i said in another post, you can pretend Z is great all you want but it was windy who said that Z was the big man out of the rotation if powe comes back healthy. but i guess windy doesn't "know the game" right?

 

[kovanovich]

I'll just add that Dave Berri (author of the Wages of Wins blog) is a statistician, not an analyst. He could write his blog without ever having even seen an NBA game. So long as you are aware of this, his work is valuable. Its value is proved by the the internal validity of his algorithm. The total winscore of a team's roster almost always very closely matches their actual number of wins...Unlike Hollinger's PER, Berri's winscore actually explains why certain teams win and others don't, and why certain players are "good" and others aren't.

Furthermore, it's been speculated that Danny Ferry is an adherent of Berri's work, since so many of the players he has acquired in the last couple of years have scored well under Berri's system -- Moon, Parker, Powe, Shaq, before that West, Wallace, Joe Smith...I don't think that Ferry needs Wages of Wins to tell him that Z has slipped, but I also think he is aware of what Wages of Wins has to say about his players.

 

[Karma]

umm, seems to me you make my point for me! he stands around and the ONE thing he is supposed to be good at, hitting the wide open jumper, he does not do except for a week or so of games so far.

and your last sentence is beyond pointless. we're talking about Z NOW. i know basketball plenty and i know that with very few exceptions (shaq being one) big men decline EXTREMELY rapidly, tradtionally. you can ignore the wages of win numbers or his PER or his FG% but guess what? they all point to him bringing nearly NOTHING to the cavs when he is on the floor. now, his plus/minus has been good in some games but i don't put as much stock in that number in general but it's especially true in Z's case as the other numbers are so bad as to out-weigh the +/-.

Z is an offensive and defensive liability. what part of that don't you get? what does he do that we can count on night in and night out? maybe defensive rebound a little? and as i said in another post, you can pretend Z is great all you want but it was windy who said that Z was the big man out of the rotation if powe comes back healthy. but i guess windy doesn't "know the game" right?

Summing that up I've found you put stock in statistics that backup your argument, but dismiss statistics that show your logic is floored. Well played.

 

[Douglar]

Furthermore, it's been speculated that Danny Ferry is an adherent of Berri's work

No need to speculate here. Danny Ferry is an adherent of Dan Rosenbaum's work. You can't find Rosenbaum's latest work on the internet anymore. Ferry hired him back in October 2005 and pays him enough money so that he doesn't give out his NBA work to anyone other than Ferry.

http://www.cleveland.com/cavs/index.ssf/2009/03/nba_insider_going_way_beyond_t.html

The Cavs do not like to talk about it but they are right there, too. Their stat guru - an economics professor named Dan Rosenbaum who wrote a blog that Cavs GM Danny Ferry became a fan of when he was in the San Antonio Spurs' front office - advises them on an array of moves.

Yet, Rosenbaum is not listed in the media guide even though you can find the scoreboard animator's name or the person in charge of mail-order merchandise in there

As far as Berri's work goes, here is my opinion. David Berri attirbutes things to his numbers that don't really hold up under scruteny, such as having the ability to produce a single number that indicates win share. Berry isn't completely transparant on his methods, so some of his work is more magic than math. He's also a relentless self promoter who makes money selling his books, which helps him get his name everywhere, probably more than the value of his work deserves.

 

[Cleveland56]

Awesome, another thread about this.

Z is the best ever. That's why he is never on the court in the fourth quarter.

 

[cavsfever]

Dan Berri's work has a ton of problems. He basically just asks which combination of box score stats correlate statistically with wins, and then weights each individual players box score stats by those correlations. Box score stats are deceptive in basketball because they are so dependent on teammates. Dan Rosenbaum's work is based on examining +/- for all player combinations, and is much better. But I think basketball will always be resistant to simple statistical analysis.

It also takes no great statistical genius to pick up on Shaq's falloff this year.

 

[Maximus]

he stands around and the ONE thing he is supposed to be good at, hitting the wide open jumper, he does not do except for a week or so of games so far.

You people don't get it, that's not the ONE thing he is supposed to do. The ONE thing he is supposed to do is pull a big out of the paint....and he does that whether his shot is on or not.

The key to this team is LEBRON. So when comparing Z to Shaq you need to ask yourself "what does he do for Lebron" because the whole team revolves around him.

Last night was a great example. Z and Shaq had almost identical games - both were 7-9FG, both had 16pts, both had 5 rebounds, both had 3 blocked shots. Yet when Shaq was on the floor the Cavs were -4(worst on the team), and when Z was on the floor we were +12(best on the team). Why? Because Z opens the middle for players, most importantly Lebron, to cut to the hole for easy looks. Shaq on the other hand has to do the damage himself inside or kick out for perimeter shots. He clogs the paint for Lebron, Z opens the paint for Lebron. The numbers have been this way almost all year.

For the season-
Shaq's on/off net -9.4
Z's on/off net +4.3
Shaq's +/- for the season -4
Z's +/- for the seaon +90


Dont get me wrong, I think Shaq will be a critical part to the team in the postseason. That said, I think Z will be more crucial in helping us get wins and a higher seed. The team, and Lebron, play better when Z is on the floor than Shaq. I still think Z needs to be traded, but I also think it is imperative that he is brought back for the balance he provides this team. His ability to pull the center out of the paint is so huge for Lebron and others slashing to the hole for easy baskets.

 

[Maximus]

The key to this team is LEBRON. So when comparing Z to Shaq you need to ask yourself "what does he do for Lebron" because the whole team revolves around him.

Taking this a step further, here are the top player combinations with Lebron...

Lebron/Andy +181
Lebron/Z +122
Lebron/Mo +104
Lebron/Delonte +73
Lebron/ Gibson +70
Lebron/Moon +66
Lebron/Parker +52
Lebron/JJ +19
Lebron/Greene +1
Lebron/DJax +0
Lebron/Shaq N/A - not in top 50 player combinations.

Z doesn't appear to be the problem. Shaq having a NEGATIVE number when paired with Lebron does appear to be a problem. Hoepfully with time their chemistry will improve.

 

[Cavatt]

I keep thinking Shaq should spend the majority of time on the floor with a small lineup with no LBJ. Get that Boobie, Delonte/AP, Mo, Moon lineup out here with him. Get him he ball and rain 3's. It should definitely work as a bench lineup. We have some great shooters out there, and it would be a matchup nightmare with a bunch of fast dudes, and one huge guy. It is basically what Orlando runs all the time.

 

[Douglar]

For the season-
Shaq's on/off net -9.4

One thing to watch out for with player pair numbers is that not all players combinations are evenly distributed, especially early in the season. The Lebron-Shaq combo has not performed well, but the Shaq-Parker combination has been even more polarized and almost all of the Lebron-Shaq minutes have been dragged down by that. The Lebron-Shaq minutes without Parker are limitted, but have been OK. And Parker without Shaq has been OK.

So the problem might not be the Lebron-Shaq combo. The problem could be the Shaq-Parker combination. Maybe the Cavs need quicker perimeter defense when Shaq is on the floor.

The answer could be as simple as getting West back into the starting lineup.

 

[Maximus]

Zydrunas Ilgauskas again demonstrates his value
By Starting Blocks
December 16, 2009, 10:26AM

The Cleveland Cavaliers' Zydrunas Ilgauskas is adjusting to his new role of coming off the bench.

It may not always look pretty, largely because he long ago had to adjust his style thanks to five foot surgeries, but veteran center Zydrunas Ilgauskas continues to prove his value to the Cleveland Cavaliers.

Cleveland's 99-89 home win on Tuesday night over the lowly New Jersey Nets was another example. Yes, Ilgauskas came off the bench to score 16 points on 7-of-9 shooting, with five rebounds and three blocked shots in 22 minutes, identical to starter Shaquille O'Neal's numbers, with the future Hall of Famer playing 25 minutes.

But it's how Ilgauskas negated the Nets' outstanding young center, Brook Lopez, that most mattered. Lopez scored 22 points and grabbed 15 rebounds in 40 minutes. But, in the 15:25 that Ilgauskas and Lopez played against each other, Ilgauskas totaled 12 points and two rebounds, to Lopez's four points and three rebounds.

It's nothing new. Ilgauskas has always been one of Cleveland's best players in the plus-minus category, which measures how many points a player's team scores and gives up when he's on the court.

Even last season, in the Cavaliers' four-games-to-two Eastern Conference Finals loss to the Orlando Magic, Ilgauskas was better than, yes, how he might have looked. Although Orlando center Dwight Howard was a dominating player in the series, as he usually is, the Cavaliers were most successful with Ilgauskas on the court.

The Cavaliers outscored Orlando by 22 points in the 177 minutes Ilgauskas played. During the 116 minutes Ilgauskas was on the bench, Orlando outscored Cleveland by 37 points.

Compare that to former Cavalier Ben Wallace, who often was matched against Howard when Ilgauskas rested. Wallace played 88 minutes against Orlando, and in that time, the Magic outscored the Cavs by 61 points. In the 205 minutes Wallace was on the bench, Cleveland outscored Orlando by 46 points.

 

[Douglar]

Wallace played 88 minutes against Orlando, and in that time, the Magic outscored the Cavs by 61 points. In the 205 minutes Wallace was on the bench, Cleveland outscored Orlando by 46 points.

Poor Ben. If the December 2008 Wallace was playing, it would have looked much better. Instead we got the broken leg / jumper's knee version of Wallace in May. Injuries can happen to anyone and it's not the first or the last time it hurt a team in the playoffs.