Washington Wizards: Total Mediocrity

Ask a Wizards fan to describe the team, and odds are he’d say the starters are pretty good, but the bench is awful. And he’d probably take a shot at Randy Wittman’s coaching — something Wittman would deserve for no other reason than the passion he’s instilling for two-point jump shots (aka The Worst Shots in the Game; or The Shots the Defense Wants You to Take).

However, an analysis of starting lineups and benches around the league suggests that these assumptions may not be accurate. The analysis used my overall player rating metric, called Player Production Average (PPA), weighted by minutes played. I ran an overall minutes-weighted PPA for each team’s most commonly used starting five, and then for each team’s bench.

PPA credits players for things that contribute to winning and debits them for things that don’t — each in proper proportion. PPA is pace adjusted, accounts for defense and includes a degree of difficulty factor. In PPA, 100 = average, higher is better and 45 = replacement level.

The league’s average starting lineup produced a PPA of 129. Washington’s starters ranks 14th overall with a 127. The average bench produced a PPA of 67. Washington’s bench ranks 15th with a 69.

I’m as surprised as you are.

I suspect that a big reason the Wizards bench rates in the middle is because of Wittman’s short seven-and-a-half man rotation. Most nights, Wittman uses what amounts to a two-man bench of Martell Webster and either Nenê or Booker (whichever didn’t start). Nenê was counted as a starter, by the way. Garrett Temple plays only long enough for John Wall to catch his breath. The rest of the squad gets spot minutes when they can.

What does this show? This is a thoroughly mediocre team — starters AND bench.

Here’s a table showing minutes-weighted PPA scores for the starters and bench of each NBA team, sorted by Starter PPA:

TEAM	STARTER PPA	BENCH PPA	Starter Rank	Bench Rank
MIA	173	74	1	11
LAC	166	70	2	14
SAS	165	101	3	1
MIN	158	51	4	26
OKC	156	76	5	8
POR	156	52	6	25
GSW	153	40	7	30
ATL	148	76	8	9
IND	145	56	9	23
HOU	145	67	10	17
DAL	140	83	11	5
NOP	132	77	12	7
DEN	128	72	13	12
WAS	127	69	14	15
CLE	126	42	15	29
PHO	126	85	16	3
TOR	121	65	17	19
DET	120	51	18	27
NYK	119	71	19	13
SAC	118	63	20	20
MEM	118	85	21	4
CHI	116	75	22	10
CHA	116	55	23	24
LAL	114	69	24	16
UTA	109	58	25	22
PHI	107	43	26	28
ORL	106	59	27	21
BRK	100	88	28	2
BOS	93	67	29	18
MIL	70	79	30	6

AVG.	129	67

A few observations:

Only Boston and Milwaukee have starting lineups that rate below the league average PPA (100). Incredibly, the Bucks bench rates as slightly more productive than the starters.
San Antonio has the league’s third best starting lineup AND the most productive bench.
Oklahoma City has the fifth best starting lineup, which is downright incredible because it includes 876 minutes of Kendrick Perkins (PPA: 24).
Minnesota is continuing its decades-long practice of not putting an adequate roster around a high-quality PF named Kevin. In years past, the “Kevin” was Garnett. The past few years, it’s been Love. The Timberwolves roll with the 4th best starters and the 5th worst bench.
Brooklyn is kind of a reverse image of Minnesota. The Nets’ starting lineup has been bad (minutes-weighted PPA of 100 — good for third worst), but they have the league’s 2nd most productive bench.

Moving on to the Wizards’ PPA update…no real surprises.

PLAYER	GMS	MPG	LW	PPA
Trevor Ariza	38	34.8	144	151
John Wall	43	37.0	147	143
Trevor Booker	34	21.2	137	136
Marcin Gortat	43	32.6	135	136
Nenê Hilario	36	29.6	102	104
Martell Webster	41	30.4	105	100
Bradley Beal	34	32.9	84	89
Jan Vesely	28	16.0	72	72
Chris Singleton	14	10.6	60	60
Glen Rice	11	9.9	18	21
Kevin Seraphin	31	9.9	20	17
Eric Maynor	22	9.5	13	13
Al Harrington	7	18.6	7	6
Otto Porter	21	9.8	3	4
Garrett Temple	41	11.5	6	3

Trevor Ariza had a good week while the rest of the team performed “about the same.” Webster’s production slipped for a fourth consecutive update — he’s now right at league average. If Washington is to break out of this rut of mediocrity, they need someone to significantly boost his production. The prime candidate would seem to be Bradley Beal, who had a terrific second half last season.

Should Wall Be Part of National Team?

USA Basketball’s 28-man player pool for international tournaments in 2014 and 2016 got leaked to ESPN yesterday. Wizards fans were pleased to see the name of Bradley Beal on the “newcomers” list, but many were puzzled by the omission of PG John Wall.

SBNation’s Matthew Tynan put Wall atop his list of “snubs” — a list that included Greg Monroe and Chandler Parsons. Around the web and in private conversations, the reaction from Wizards fans runs the gamut from “Wall’s been disrespected” to “well, he didn’t play all that well in that USA Basketball camp last year” to “his game isn’t well-suited to international hoops.”

The discussion of Wall and the international team goes hand-in-hand with the question posed in this RealGM message board thread: Is Wall A Top 5 PG? The answer to that question goes to the heart of player evaluation. In my rating system (called Player Production Average — PPA for short), Wall is the number two PG in the East, but ranks just 10th in the league in doing the things that cause teams to win.

This result puzzles many fans, who watch the games and see the basic (and not very useful) stats presented during game broadcasts. It’s easy to understand why “watchers” hold Wall in such high esteem — he’s an active, dynamic player who does lots of stuff during the course of a game. And those per game stats are good too.

What’s the disconnect? Some fans (and perhaps some talent evaluators as well) pay attention to the good stuff a player does while discounting (or ignoring completely) the negatives. For an example, look at last night’s overtime loss to the Boston Celtics. Wall posted a triple-double — 28 points, 11 rebounds and 10 assists, and he added 3 steals to boot. The storyline from the game: Wall’s triple-double wasn’t enough because…fill in the blank (the Wizards bench was bad; Nenê isn’t what he used to be; Randy Wittman is a bad coach; Beal is still on his minutes limit).

What’s being left out is that Wall’s triple-double included 20 missed FGA, 6 turnovers, and 5 fouls. In a game where the Wizards produced an offensive rating (points per possession x 100) of 101, Wall’s offensive rating was a dismal 87. And he used nearly 40% of the team’s possessions while on the floor.

To further illustrate, I made up a couple new stats: Good Plays Only (GPO) and Bad Plays Only (BPO). The formulas:

GPO = fgm + 0.5 x ftm + reb + ast + stl + blk
BPO = missed fg + 0.5 x missed ft + tov + pf

Looking at total GPO, Wall is the number two PG in the league (behind only Stephen Curry) and ranks 12th overall. If we use per minute GPO, Wall drops to 5th among PGs (Chris Paul, Russell Westbrook, Curry and Michael Carter-Williams are ahead of him) and 27th overall. Hey, top 5 right?

So, Wall does a lot of “good stuff” out there — something that likely explains why he’s so highly regarded among fans, media members and league talent evaluators. Except…these categories aren’t weighted based on what they contribute to team wins, and they don’t include negative side of the ledger. It would be akin to evaluating personal wealth by adding up our paychecks without considering bills that have to be paid.

Turning to the “bills” part of the good/bad equation, Wall has the third highest total BPO (Bad Plays Only) among PGs (Curry and Monta Ellis have higher totals), and the 8th most among all players. In per minute BPO, Wall is 5th highest among PGs (behind Westbrook, Carter-Williams, Curry, and Kyrie Irving), and 15th overall in the league.

GPO shows that Wall makes a lot of good plays. BPO shows he makes a lot of bad ones. In financial terms, he earns a lot of money, but he spends a lot too. That “spending” reduces the “balance” (so to speak) and limits his positive impact for the Wizards. He’s a good player, but he could help his team win more by reducing those negative plays (missed shots and turnovers).

One final point with this GPO/BPO stat — call it Net Good & Bad Plays (NGBP). The formula is simple: GPO – BPO. In TOTAL NGBP, Wall ranks 4th among PGs (behind Paul, Ricky Rubio, and Ty Lawson) and 29th overall. On a per minute basis, Wall ranks 5th among PGs (behind Paul, Rubio, Lawson and Westbrook), but 66th overall.

Keep in mind — there’s no weighting done on these categories based on how these stats contribute to winning and losing. In PPA, which has that weighting, Wall ranks 5th in total production among PGs and 24th in the league (high-minute players logically lead in total production). On a per minute basis, he ranks 10th among PGs and 51st in the league. That’s good, but it’s not elite. And no, it doesn’t warrant being chosen for the U.S. national team.

Shameless plug: Click on the image below to read the FREE first chapter of my new mystery novel set for release later this month.

Cover Design Tricks

One of the most helpful articles I’ve read about designing a book cover — something sorta salient to me at the moment. If you’re publishing a book, check out this piece by Derek Murphy.

This piece by Murphy is also worth a read.