APBRmetrics

supersub15 · Joined: 21 Sep 2006 Posts: 273

Wages of Wins

He is not the worst according to Hollinger's PER, but I found the following entry by the Toronto Raptors' beat writer at the Globe & Mail newspaper:

read more here

Mike G · Posted: Sat Feb 02, 2008 8:35 am Post subject:

If, as WoW says, Camby is better than Garnett, Chandler is better than Duncan, Calderon is better than Kobe, then anything is believable.

On top of the systematic 'overvaluing of rebounds', WoW exacerbates the lunacy by a 'position adjustment'. At center, Bargnani is weaker than all but Jason Collins at rebounding. Even though the Raps are not a terrible rebounding team, they have an elite PF and some vigorously-rebounding SF's,... if their C doesn't rebound, he must be a dog.

WoW asserts that AB will produce minus-7 wins to the team this year. That would be pretty bad, and doesn't speak well for the coach that plays such a guy.

My own eWins projects +1.9 wins added by AB, which is 205th in the league. But he plays more minutes than most players who are only as good. In per36 productivity, he's in the bottom 27%.
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36% of all statistics are wrong

94by50 · Joined: 01 Jan 2006 Posts: 499 Location: Phoenix

Well, Bargnani's underperforming expectations terribly this year. It doesn't look like he's actually doing anything well this season, statistically. His 3pt% is fine, his FT% is fine. Everything else... ugh.

Even if Bosh and company are grabbing all the boards, I'd hope that Bargnani would be at least an average rebounder...

Neil Paine · Joined: 13 Oct 2005 Posts: 774 Location: Atlanta, GA

You could probably get the equivalent of Bargnani's performance this season (95.9 Ortg/21.5 %Pos/109.0 DRtg) from a waiver-wire player making the league minimum, but he's far from the worst player in the league so far. And by "worst" I mean, "the player whose actions on the court have most damaged his team's chances of winning".

Guys like Corey Brewer (83.9/15.5/110.4 in 1027 min), Darko Milicic (85.1/16.9/107.3 in 915 min), Jeff McInnis (95.6/12.5/113.8 in 1180 min), and Quentin Richardson (92.1/14.7/110.7 in 1206 min) have all been way more detrimental to their teams than Bargnani. And besides, even those guys have to have more talent than somebody else on the roster in order to get that much playing time, so it's also unfair to throw that "worst" label at them.

In reality, the worst player in the NBA is an end-of-the-bench guy who's so bad that no coach even gives him the chance to be detrimental to the team.

Mountain · Joined: 13 Mar 2007 Posts: 1527

Bargnani is a disappointment to date based on draft pick.

A modest positive surprise though is his 1 on 1 defensive numbers guarding centers at 82 games (to the extent that you give credence to the position assignment and 1 on 1 data). Neither WP or PER give credit for individual shot defense and miss that small piece though it is true that most of his time is at PF and is average to a little weak there. It is a sample of only about 200 minutes but it is something worth watching and explains why Mitchell is using him some at center. If he can guard centers adequately and take them outside on offensive and clear room for Bosh or others it is at least worth trying given the investment in him.

He probably doesn't rise above #3 option anytime soon but he is young and maybe improves further in next few years ... or perhaps based on modest early results is retained for second contract at reasonable cost and perhaps improves even later (another way it might work out).

A trade could eventually make sense if there isn't enough improvement or enough faith in future improvement but is probably at least a year off.

Ed **Küpfer** · Joined: 30 Dec 2004 Posts: 785 Location: Toronto

94by50 · Joined: 01 Jan 2006 Posts: 499 Location: Phoenix

Mike G · Posted: Sun Feb 03, 2008 8:48 am Post subject:

On further review, I don't see that Bargnani's performance is a lot worse than last year's. His rebounding is up about 14% (such as it is), assists up about 80% (from negligible to minimal).

I guess the 'advanced' stats at b-r.com don't account for the fact that last year he came off the bench, while he's started 2/3 of his games this year. Maybe he's just better off the bench, and yet everyone else who could start is even worse? The most 'anti-improved' Raptor in my list is their other center, Nesterovich.

I estimate he played vs 52% starters last season, and 72% this year.
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36% of all statistics are wrong

jkubatko · Joined: 05 Jan 2005 Posts: 702 Location: Columbus, OH

Mike G · Posted: Tue Feb 05, 2008 5:35 am Post subject:

d)

If you have played 200 minutes, at 72% vs starters, then of your (200*5) 1000 opponent player-minutes, 720 minutes have been played by starters, and 280 by subs.

At any given moment, your opponents are 100%, 80, 60, 40, 20, or 0% starters.

Consider a 72% FT shooter: he doesn't make all his FT 72% of the time; nor at least one 72% of the time. Never does he make 72% of a given shot; but of all possible makes, he has made 72% of them.
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36% of all statistics are wrong