APBRmetrics

[bchaikin]

The Cavs other than Miller totalled 28 eWins. 28*2 - 41 = 15 wins from a Millerless '02 Cavs. This is apparently an inflated estimate, as discussed above regarding credit to assisted-scoring players like Person, Mihm, Jones... I don't think it was Andre getting too much (eW) credit that year.

the team won only 29 games - are you saying miller was, through the stats he produced, responsible for 14 of the team's wins and the other fourteen players were responsible for the other 15 wins? that miller was directly responsible for close to 1/2 of his team's wins? the team lost 53 games, and miller played 15% of the team's total minutes - how many eLosses (if there is such a thing) was he responsible for?...

outside of his assists there's nothing miller did that season that was out of the ordinary that would generate significant wins. his ScFG% was .526 when the league average was .512. his points scored per zero point team possession responsible for was just under the league average, so he was at best average in scoring efficiency that year. he took 17% of the team's scoring opportunities (FGA + FTA/2) and scored 17% of the team's total points. so far all this looks average to me...

he got 6 rebs/48min when the average PG that year got 5 rebs/48min, and accounted for just 11% of the team's total rebounds. he got over 1/5 of the team's total steals, but also over 1/5 of the team's total turnovers. he was an average defender at best, committed fouls at a rate slightly above (more) than what the average PG did that year (8 fouls per 100 minutes played versus 7). he was one of the better shot blocking PGs that year, but again we are talking about all of 34 BS for the whole season...

but because he led the league in assists you are going to attribute 1/2 the team's wins to him? perhaps you are placing too much value on his assists...

When Andre left the team, in 2003 the Cavs featured Davis for 40 mpg, had Ilgauskas for almost twice his '02 minutes, added Carlos Boozer and Darius Miles (replacing Person and Murray)-- and dropped to 17-65. Those guys played full seasons that year, and somehow the loss of Miller was coincident with 12 fewer wins.

you just said that not just miller, who led the 01-02 cavs in minutes played (3023), but also person and murray, who were 2nd (2793) and 3rd (2312) in minutes played on that team, weren't there in 02-03, but then go on to say "...the loss of miller was coincident with 12 fewer wins...". don't you mean the loss of miller, person, and murray (not to mention brian skinner, michael doleac, and trajan langdon) was coincident with the fewer wins? miller played less than 1/3 of those missing minutes...

The Pythagorean-expected records w/wo Miller were 31-51 and 16-66, respectively.

don't know what this is but again is this trying to say miller generated 15 wins through his stats produced?...

I asked what your sim would indicate with these scenarios.

simulation shows miller in 01-02 generating, on a 40 min/g and 82 game basis, only 6-7 more wins than the worst starting PGs that year, and 5-6 less wins than the best...

If you don't have '02, you might try the Timberwolves without Garnett, '05 or '06. Give his minutes to Mark Madsen, (or to anyone else on the team) and they drop to historic wretchedness.

simulation shows the team being 15-16 games worse each season with madsen replacing garnett (for 40 min/g and 82 games). that would take the 04-05 t-wolves from 44-38 down to 28 to 29 wins, and the 05-06 t-wolves from 33-49 down to 17 to 18 wins....

if you think the team would be worse its possibly because you are over-valuing garnett's assists. he routinely got 400+ assists a year this century, but the question is what is the value of those assists in terms of actually generating wins? pretty much most linear weights based systems overvalues assists. every year 60% of all FGM are assisted on, and at a minimum this century no team has assisted on less than 50% of their FGM, meaning that so far this century 50% of all assisted FGM are coming in the natural flow of the game...

to ascribe substantial value to all assists would be like ascribing substantial value to all FGM in our ratings formulas without considering FGA. but we don't do that because with FGA we can differentiate between a good and a bad shooter regardless of their total FGM. a player can lead the league in FGM but if he shoots less than 40% we generally know he's hurting his team with his shooting (unless he hits a ton of 3s or a ton of FTs at high percentages). not so with assists...

again, use your eWins formula on team stats rather than player stats, where a team will have credit for - at least 1/2 the time - the same FGM with a FGM and an assist. then see if your team eWins ratings match up with all the teams actual W-L records or percentages...

[Mike G]