Posted: Tue Sep 04, 2007 1:35 pm Post subject: Antoine Walker 06-07 season
Hello everyone. I'm a first time poster, long time lurker, and I'd like to start by saying that I enjoy this forum very much. Despite not being much of a statistics guy, I have found many of the threads and ideas in here to be quite illuminating.
Anyway, to get on topic: Antoine Walker. I recently noticed that Walker's shooting percentages for 06-07 were absolutely abysmal. He shot:
.397 FG
.275 3PT
.438 FT
Not only that, but he had more turnovers than assists (1.81 to 1.7 per game, respectively). What I'm wondering is if Walker's 06-07 season was the most offensively inefficient season ever among players who averaged 20+ minutes per game and played at least 65 games. I'm not sure how to do the calculations, but I assume those percentages translate into an absolutely abysmal True Shooting %. Does anyone know of a site where you can sort all players by TS%? Or has anyone ever done an all-time historical ranking of players TS% by season? Like I said, I'm pretty sure that Walker's 06-07 might be the most inefficient season ever, and I'd really like to know if this is the case.
Joined: 13 Oct 2005 Posts: 428 Location: Atlanta, GA
Posted: Tue Sep 04, 2007 1:54 pm Post subject:
Among players with at least 1300 min (65 GP x 20 mpg), Walker didn't even have the worst TS% in the NBA last year, much less all-time:
Code:
Name Season Tm Pos G Min TS%
Jason Collins 2006-07 NJN F 80 1844 40.8
Adam Morrison 2006-07 CHA F 78 2326 45.0
Ben Wallace 2006-07 CHI C 77 2697 45.6
Willie Green 2006-07 PHI G 74 1842 45.8
Eric Snow 2006-07 CLE G 82 1929 45.8
Gary Payton 2006-07 MIA G 68 1503 45.8
S. Telfair 2006-07 BOS G 78 1578 45.8
Antoine Walker 2006-07 MIA F 78 1818 46.2
However, you mention turnovers, so you might want to look at Dean Oliver's offensive rating as a measure of total player offensive efficiency. And by that standard, Walker was indeed one of the very worst in the NBA a year ago:
Code:
Name Year Team MP ORtg %Pos
Jason Collins 2007 New Jersey Nets* 1844 82.9 7.9
Antoine Walker 2007 Miami Heat* 1818 88.5 22.1
Adam Morrison 2007 Charlotte Bobcats 2326 90.5 21.3
Willie Green 2007 Philadelphia 76ers 1842 91.1 23.9
Marcus Williams 2007 New Jersey Nets* 1315 92.5 26.0
K. Perkins 2007 Boston Celtics 1576 93.6 13.4
Desmond Mason 2007 NO/OKC Hornets 2575 94.5 21.5
Channing Frye 2007 New York Knicks 1896 95.0 19.0
S. Telfair 2007 Boston Celtics 1578 95.2 18.2
P.J. Brown 2007 Chicago Bulls* 1456 95.3 17.2
Finally, by what I call WARP (Wins Above Replacement Player, which factors in a player's % of possessions used and defense in addition to offensive efficiency), Walker was the fourth-worst player in basketball last year:
Code:
Name Year Team MP WARP
Adam Morrison 2007 Charlotte Bobcats 2326 -2.88
Willie Green 2007 Philadelphia 76ers 1842 -1.67
Speedy Claxton 2007 Atlanta Hawks 1054 -1.51
Antoine Walker 2007 Miami Heat* 1818 -1.30
Jason Collins 2007 New Jersey Nets* 1844 -1.26
C.J. Miles 2007 Utah Jazz* 373 -0.77
Marcus Williams 2007 New Jersey Nets* 1315 -0.71
Desmond Mason 2007 NO/OKC Hornets 2575 -0.67
Rashad McCants 2007 Minnesota Timberwolves 554 -0.62
Rudy Gay 2007 Memphis Grizzlies 2103 -0.62
So while Walker's 2006-07 wasn't exactly historically bad, it was pretty awful. As a community, we've been dissing Walker's low-efficiency brand of basketball for years, but I think even the posters here were surprised at how bad he was last year.
Last edited by davis21wylie2121 on Tue Sep 04, 2007 1:57 pm; edited 2 times in total
Welcome. Walker's TS% was low but only 21st worst last season for players above 500 minutes or bottom 6-7% of the qualifiers. Claxton had the toughest year on this.
This search at basketball-reference.com provides the list
http://tinyurl.com/28ay6j
You can also search all-time and specifiy your own minutes or FG attempt qualifying level.
Wow. I had no idea Morrison looked that bad by some offensive metrics. I figured his FT% (acceptable, but not good) and his 3PT% (almost-acceptable) would have made him more efficient than Walker. And I'm surprised some of those other guys on those lists played so much last year. I guess it might have been Walker's all-round atrocious numbers that jumped out at me.
Thanks for that link, mountain. I'm going to adjust the criteria to 75 games and 1650 minutes (22 per game over 75 games). It's possible that many of those guys who ranked as worse than Walker played lots of minutes in short stretches due to injuries to other guys, or the coach benching them due to poor play. I know the Heat were a little thin at SF/PF last year, but Walker played virtually all-season at a terrible level. I suspect that might be more damaging to one's team than playing really terrible for half a season, especially if most of that time is accrued due to an injury to another guy.
EDIT: Oh man, this is the greatest site ever! Anyway, I did the search for lowest TS% in a season in the 3-point era according to my previous criteria, and Walker ranked as the 57th worst. One thing I noticed was that a lot of the guys worse than him took a lot less shots, thereby using less of the team's offensive possessions, therefor hurting the team less. So decided to refine it to include at least 500 FGA and 75 FTA, and see what I got. I would have added assist-to-turnover ratio, but I looks like I'm limited to 4 criteria. By those standards, Walker had the 32nd worst shooting season since in the 3-point era. If we bump those up to 600 FGA and 100 FTA, he jumps to the 23rd worst, and just in eyeballing that list, if I were to include at least 100 3PA, Walker soars to the 8th worst. Not that a missed 3 is necessarily any more damaging for your team than a missed 2, but it certainly reflects Walker's horrible all-around play last season. Finally, if we use the same criteria (75 GP, 1650 MP, 600 FGA, 100 FTA) but sort by ORtg, Walker's 06-07 season comes up as 4th worst all-time. 4 worst! I'd say that's historically bad. Here's the bottom 5:
1. M. Olowokandi 2000-01 (85.3)
2. M. Macon 1991-92 (87.9)
3. M. Olowokandi 1999-00 (88.0)
4. A. Walker 2006-07 (88.5)
5. R. Seikaly 1988-89 (88.9)
Finally, just to again reiterate how bad Walker was all-round last year, if you add at least 50 3PA as another criteria, Walker becomes the absolute worst. He ranks just as bad in WinScore, tying for 3rd worst with a WS of 3. PER is only marginally kinder, placing him a 6th worst.
Joined: 13 Oct 2005 Posts: 428 Location: Atlanta, GA
Posted: Tue Sep 04, 2007 3:37 pm Post subject:
I've never been one to stand up for Antoine Walker, but I think we're cherry-picking at this point -- in other words, if you define a set of criteria narrowly enough, you can make anyone look like the best or worst in a certain stat. So here's a fairer metric: take a player's individual Points Produced and Possessions Used, and calculate what their expected PProd would be if their ORtg was equal to the league average; then subtract that from their actual PProd, and you have a decent measure of how many points a player has cost his team on offense compared to the league average rate of offensive efficiency. Here are the worst seasons since 1977-78 by what we'll call Points Produced Above Average:
Code:
Name Year Team MP ORtg lgRtg Poss PProd PPAA
Karl Malone 1986 Utah Jazz* 2475 92.0 107.2 1278 1175 -195.0
Antoine Walker 2003 Boston Celtics* 3235 92.5 103.6 1685 1558 -187.7
Mark Macon 1992 Denver Nuggets 2304 87.9 108.2 906 796 -184.3
Kevin Edwards 1989 Miami Heat 2349 92.3 107.8 1187 1096 -183.6
Rony Seikaly 1989 Miami Heat 1962 88.9 107.8 906 805 -171.7
Ray Williams 1983 KC Kings 2170 92.6 104.7 1385 1282 -168.1
Tom Gugliotta 1993 Wash. Bullets 2795 95.2 108.0 1305 1242 -167.4
Gary Grant 1989 LA Clippers 1924 92.5 107.8 1066 986 -163.1
Bob Wilkerson 1978 Denver Nuggets* 2780 87.1 100.9 1180 1028 -162.6
Ron Harper 1987 Cleveland Cavs 3064 99.4 108.3 1837 1827 -162.5
Lionel Simmons 1991 Sacramento Kings2978 97.2 107.9 1477 1436 -157.7
Kevin Edwards 1990 Miami Heat 2211 92.4 108.1 1006 930 -157.5
Darrell Griffith1981 Utah Jazz 2867 95.5 105.5 1564 1493 -157.0
Herb Williams 1985 Indiana Pacers 2557 96.7 107.9 1371 1325 -154.3
Adam Morrison 2007 Char. Bobcats 2326 90.5 106.5 953 862 -152.9
That's an Antoine Walker season up at the top of the list, but it's not 2006-07. Walker's '07 ranks as the 33rd-worst since 1978 (-134.7 PPAA), which is still terrible, but not one of the absolute worst seasons ever (especially since he wasn't even the worst in the NBA last year, and '07 wasn't even Walker's personal worst season).
On a related note: Oh my God, did I just defend Antoine Walker? Eww. This whole thing gives me the heebie jeebies.
Davis, I'm not sure I like that stat. A player who's just slightly below average in efficiency but uses up a TON of possessions can actually help an offense if his team lacks offensive talent. But he might look like one of the worst offensive players on the team by your measure. E.g. Allen Iverson.
Joined: 13 Oct 2005 Posts: 428 Location: Atlanta, GA
Posted: Tue Sep 04, 2007 5:36 pm Post subject:
deepak_e wrote:
Davis, I'm not sure I like that stat. A player who's just slightly below average in efficiency but uses up a TON of possessions can actually help an offense if his team lacks offensive talent. But he might look like one of the worst offensive players on the team by your measure. E.g. Allen Iverson.
That's a great point, and I usually do add usage/skill curve effects into a stat like this, but I was trying to keep things simple for a first-time poster by using a quick-and-dirty metric (my WARP stat does include such modifications, which incidentally rates guys like Iverson far more appropriately than something like pW-pL does). If you did take into account %Poss in a rating, it actually would make Walker's 06-07 look better, since he did use 22.1% of possessions when on the floor.
I've never been one to stand up for Antoine Walker, but I think we're cherry-picking at this point -- in other words, if you define a set of criteria narrowly enough, you can make anyone look like the best or worst in a certain stat.
I agree to a certain extent. My criteria was certainly very arbitrary, and the further refinements to 600 FGA and 100 FTA were done specifically to see how bad Walker was compared to players of similar usage. At the same time, having a games played cutoff, and FGA/FTA cutoff, I feel is very fair. The more you play and the more shots you miss, the more you can hurt your team. And I agree with deepak_e in his estimation of your proposed metric. If there's a better way to filter out players who maybe played a ton in a half a season and players who barely shot the ball, I'd love to use that to size up Walker's season. But even if we scale things back down to 65 games, 1300 minutes, 500 FGA, and 75 FTA, 06-07 Walker still shows up as 10th worst in the 3PT era.
Maybe minutes played is irrelevant if I'm already taking into account games and FGA/FTA, because a player who plays 10 mpg for 65 games and takes 10 shots could conceivably help/hurt his team just as much as a player who played 30 mpg for 65 games and took 10 shots, so long as your looking only at offensive efficiency.
Quote:
On a related note: Oh my God, did I just defend Antoine Walker? Eww. This whole thing gives me the heebie jeebies.
Joined: 14 Jan 2005 Posts: 1647 Location: Delphi, Indiana
Posted: Tue Sep 04, 2007 7:18 pm Post subject:
The very worst players in the league do not play 1834 minutes (or 23.5 mpg) as Walker did. The median for 15-player rosters is 240/15, or 16 mpg.
Of players with at least 1600 minutes, I find 13 (of 185) who I rank as worse than 'Toine last year: Dixon, RButler, Snow, Ross, MEvans, Hayes, Blake, Webster, Morrison, Bowen, Hassell, Dahntay Jones, and Jason Collins.
Of this group, Walker's TS% is better than only 3 (Morrison, Snow, Collins). Only Collins is (barely) a better rebounder. Only 4 are better passers (Ast).
Including 1000-1600 minute players, there are another 30 players (of 76) with weaker numbers. 10 of these 30 played as much as 20 mpg, none more than 25 (Claxton 25.0).
Of 54 players in the 600-1000 minute range, Walker's productivity is right in the middle. So maybe he only deserved 10-12 mpg, on a team selected at random. With Miami, which was short on reasonable talent last season, he got more. _________________ 40% of all statistics are wrong.
Davis, I'm not sure I like that stat. A player who's just slightly below average in efficiency but uses up a TON of possessions can actually help an offense if his team lacks offensive talent. But he might look like one of the worst offensive players on the team by your measure. E.g. Allen Iverson.
That's a great point, and I usually do add usage/skill curve effects into a stat like this, but I was trying to keep things simple for a first-time poster by using a quick-and-dirty metric (my WARP stat does include such modifications, which incidentally rates guys like Iverson far more appropriately than something like pW-pL does). If you did take into account %Poss in a rating, it actually would make Walker's 06-07 look better, since he did use 22.1% of possessions when on the floor.
I like your stat unadjusted. If I was to adjust it at all, it would be to replace the league average with the team average. If Miami is below the league average then it's less of a bad thing for Walker to attempt field goals. But it should still be a bad thing, since any Walker field goal attempt is a lost opportunity cost since nearly anyone who plays with him is more likely to hit said shot.
Joined: 13 Oct 2005 Posts: 428 Location: Atlanta, GA
Posted: Tue Sep 04, 2007 7:59 pm Post subject:
mateo82 wrote:
I like your stat unadjusted. If I was to adjust it at all, it would be to replace the league average with the team average. If Miami is below the league average then it's less of a bad thing for Walker to attempt field goals. But it should still be a bad thing, since any Walker field goal attempt is a lost opportunity cost since nearly anyone who plays with him is more likely to hit said shot.
Well, that's the problem: we can't assume that the rest of the team's ORtg will stay constant without Walker on the floor. That's one of the mistakes Dave Berri makes in WP; he implicitly assumes that the opportunity cost of a player's missed shot is the shooting percentage of his teammates -- that they would have the same probability of making a shot whether the player was on the floor with them or not.
Can we make that assumption, though? I don't think so. We can only see shadows of the "skill curve" phenomenon because data is so hard to come by, but it's there, and it's real. The opportunity cost of an Antoine Walker miss isn't the shooting percentage of his teammates when he's on the floor, it's the theoretical shooting percentage of his teammates if they had to create more shots in his absence. Those percentages are two very different numbers, and this reality is what the usage-vs-efficiency adjustments are attempting to correct for.
Re: Mike G, when we say X number of players were "worse" than Walker, do we mean those players could be expected to perform worse than Walker if given the opportunity, or that those players hurt their teams more than Walker did? Sure, there are probably a lot of players out there who would have done more damage than Walker if they played as many minutes as he did, but the fact is that few players did more actual, real damage to their teams than Walker did. When you say a player is "better" or "worse", which definition are you using?
Of players with at least 1600 minutes, I find 13 (of 185) who I rank as worse than 'Toine last year: Dixon, RButler, Snow, Ross, MEvans, Hayes, Blake, Webster, Morrison, Bowen, Hassell, Dahntay Jones, and Jason Collins.
I'm more interested in players who played 70+ games as well as 20+ mpg than merely players who logged a total amount of minutes, as total minutes can be slightly misleading. Perhaps another player got injured, forcing someone else to play more minutes in less games, or maybe they get benched for poor play.
Quote:
Of this group, Walker's TS% is better than only 3 (Morrison, Snow, Collins). Only Collins is (barely) a better rebounder. Only 4 are better passers (Ast).
Another criteria was amount of shots. Somebody like Jason Collins or Eric Snow might be less of detriment to the team's offense, as they shoot considerably less. I realize that's not a guarantee, though, as perhaps they pass up a lot of shots that a competent or even mediocre shooter would take and could make. As for better passers, isn't assist to turnover ratio more indicative of one's passing ability than merely assist totals?
Joined: 14 Jan 2005 Posts: 1647 Location: Delphi, Indiana
Posted: Wed Sep 05, 2007 5:03 am Post subject:
I was using my own definition of 'worst', which is to say, basically, 'unproductive'. DW21 uses a very different measure:
davis21wylie2121 wrote:
Here are the worst seasons since 1977-78 by what we'll call Points Produced Above Average:
Code:
Name Year Team MP ORtg lgRtg Poss PProd PPAA
Karl Malone 1986 Utah Jazz* 2475 92.0 107.2 1278 1175 -195.0
Antoine Walker 2003 Boston Celtics* 3235 92.5 103.6 1685 1558 -187.7
...
This is the same (rookie) Karl Malone thought by Utah management to be good enough they could build their team around him. They jettisoned Adrian Dantley (and his alltime-great TS%); Malone subsequently improved all his weak points (notably TO, FT%).
In the Walker season above, he played over 40 mpg. Unless Walker owned the team, the coach gives him minutes because he feels he's the best for the job. Versatile players are always good to have on the floor.
Just benching players like these hurts their teams more than letting them play. Anyone may scan the lineups and speculate whether Jeff Cook or Fred Roberts (Uta'86), Grant Long or Eric Williams (Bos'03) could have handled 35-40 minutes as well.
Ast/TO ratio? Not all TO are the result of passes made. Players trying to score also turn it over.
What's a 'bad shot'? A 35% FGA? If 35% are made and 20% are rebounded back, that's 55% good, eh? _________________ 40% of all statistics are wrong.
Joined: 13 Oct 2005 Posts: 428 Location: Atlanta, GA
Posted: Wed Sep 05, 2007 9:01 am Post subject:
Well, I don't really prefer to use that method at all; like I said above, it was simply a quick-and-dirty measure of how many points a player cost his team by not having the league average ORtg. Nothing more, nothing less.
The method I do prefer is outlined here -- I compare the player in question to a "replacement player" of 95.0 ORtg/16.0 %Poss/107.5 DRtg (normalized to a league avg. of 106.3 pts/poss), while also taking into account the benefit a higher %Poss has on a player's teammates. The resultant number is roughly the number of wins a player would have added to an average team over what a replacement would have added.
In that framework, when I say a certain player is "worse," I mean he literally hurt the team in terms of wins, and that his minutes could have been replaced by a bargain-bin NBDL player without costing the team any victories. But when you say "unproductive," you mean on a per-minute basis, correct? Surely fewer than 13 players in '07 actually damaged their team's chances of winning through poor play more than Walker did, right?
You cannot post new topics in this forum You cannot reply to topics in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum You cannot vote in polls in this forum
FAQ
Search
Memberlist
Usergroups
Register
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Log in
