Ja Morant is Great, but the Memphis Grizzlies are not a One Man Team
I love Ja Morant's game: he is explosive, he is versatile, and he is an unselfish player who revels in his teammates' success. Morant deserves the headlines and the highlights--he is not only a spectacular player, but he is a very effective player who is posting career-high numbers in scoring (27.4 ppg, matching last season's average), assists (7.9 apg), and rebounding (5.8 rpg). The 6-3 point guard who is a fan favorite because of his amazing dunks is leading the Grizzlies in scoring and assists while ranking third in rebounding.
However, it should be noted that the Grizzlies' success is based upon the often underrated factors that generally are the foundation for team success in basketball: they rank first in defensive field goal percentage, first in rebounding, and second in point differential.
In my 2022-23 Western Conference Preview, I ranked the Grizzlies as the second best team in the West, declaring, "Some teams rise up for one fluky season only to fall back into the
pack--Portland, Atlanta, and New York are three recent examples of
this--but the Grizzlies look like a team built for sustained high level
success."
As I noted last season, the Grizzlies "are an old-school type of team that rejects the notion that you have to take and make a lot of three pointers to be successful." In 2021-22, the Grizzlies finished with the second best record in the Western Conference (56-26) while ranking 17th in three point field goal percentage, 23rd in three point field goals made, and 23rd in three point field goals attempted, and this season they currently have the second best record in the Western Conference--29-13, just half a game behind the 30-13 Denver Nuggets--while ranking 18th in three point field goal percentage, 19th in three point field goals made, and 18th in three point field goals made.
You could say that the "analytics revolution" emphasizing--among other things--high volume three point shooting has not found its way to Memphis, but the reality is that the Grizzlies took a stab at using "advanced basketball statistics," and rapidly descended from the 2013 Western Conference Finals to missing the playoffs in 2018 as "stat guru" John Hollinger feuded with Coach Lionel Hollins (who the Grizzlies then fired right after the team's 2013 Western Conference Finals appearance) before distinguishing himself from the pack by destroying Memphis' roster.
Despite the media hype touting the value of "advanced basketball statistics," there are limitations to a narrow, mathematical approach to a complex subject that defies simple mathematical modeling/projections. Or, put another way, Economics is Not a Science, Nor is Basketball Statistical Analysis. I must emphasize that I do not "hate" statistical analysis; I oppose poorly done statistical analysis in general, and I specifically reject the notion that statistical analysis is as applicable to basketball--a free flowing game of near constant motion--as it is to baseball, a game of "discrete, one on one actions: the pitcher throws the ball, the batter
swings and, if he makes contact, a fielder attempts to catch the ball."
Is there value in looking at the performance of various five player lineups, at a player's shooting percentages from various spots on the court, and at other statistics not found in a traditional box score? Of course there is--but those data points are only meaningful when considered in a larger context of other data points, combined with the "eye test" observations of competent coaches and scouts. The notion that you can understand basketball without even watching the game--or the even more radical notion that the "eye test" is so biased that you are better off not watching the game and relying entirely on "objective" numbers, as some "stat gurus" insist--is foolish.
After their detour into "stat guru" purgatory, the Grizzlies have emerged as a team that is intelligently run, with a well-balanced roster that plays smart, hard-nosed basketball. There is nothing wrong with enjoying Morant's dunks and sensational moves--he is one of my favorite players to watch--but basketball purists can also enjoy Memphis' emphasis on defense and rebounding, which have been the cornerstones for team success throughout basketball history.
Labels: "advanced basketball statistics", "stat gurus", Ja Morant, John Hollinger, Memphis Grizzlies
posted by David Friedman @ 11:44 AM
First Impressions of the Rudy Gay Trade
There are many ways to evaluate an NBA trade but--contrary to the popular trend of providing "analysis" that is instant, not very deep and focused on the short term--I prefer to take a deliberate, in depth and long term approach. The Memphis Grizzlies, a legitimate championship contender, shipped leading scorer Rudy Gay to the Toronto Raptors in exchange for Toronto's Ed Davis, Detroit's Austin Daye and Detroit's Tayshaun Prince, with Detroit receiving Jose Calderon from Toronto and Hamed Haddadi from Memphis to complete the deal. Memphis also received Detroit's 2013 second round draft pick.
It is very unusual for a contender to trade their leading scorer in the middle of the season and it is even more unusual for a contender to make such a deal without receiving in exchange even the second best player involved in the transaction; Tayshaun Prince made the All-Defensive Team four straight years but his last appearance on the squad was in 2008, Austin Daye was the 10th man on a bad Detroit team and Ed Davis is a solid young big man but his career arc thus far hardly screams superstar in the making: Jose Calderon is clearly the second best player involved in this three team deal but Memphis gave up Gay without even getting Calderon. Everyone understands that Memphis' primary motivation was to save money by avoiding future luxury tax payments and no one disputes that Gay is overpaid but Memphis players and fans are understandably discouraged that management broke up a potential championship team purely for financial reasons.
The "stat gurus" have always hated Gay's game and now that "stat guru" John Hollinger is a member of Memphis' front office it is not surprising that Memphis made this deal; Hollinger's PER statistic ranks Gay just 26th out of 70 qualifying small forwards and just 152nd overall out of 334 qualifying players. By Hollinger's reckoning, Gay is roughly as valuable as Kyle Korver or Shannon Brown--but one of the major limitations of "advanced basketball statistics" is that most such formulas do not take into account the value of being able to create one's own shot and/or draw a double team. Gay's field goal percentage has been hovering in career-low territory all season but his presence still created space for Zach Randolph and Marc Gasol and he ranked third on the team in rebounds, steals and blocked shots; Gay provided a lot of value that is not captured by "advanced basketball statistics." It also is not good for team morale if the coaching staff and players believe that management is more interested in cutting costs than in producing a champion. Considering the paltry returns that the Grizzlies received for Gay, they should have let this season play out and then dealt Gay during the summer, if necessary; critics hammered the Grizzlies for the Pau Gasol deal but that trade made much more sense than this one: Pau Gasol was clearly not a franchise player and the Grizzlies needed to completely reboot their roster, which that deal facilitated not only directly (by bringing Marc Gasol aboard) but also by making it possible for the Grizzlies to later acquire Zach Randolph, Mike Conley and Tony Allen (among others). It is extremely unlikely that the Gay deal will have a positive impact for Memphis even remotely approaching that level; the Gay deal weakened Memphis in the short run and, other than saving some money, it is not at all clear that it will strengthen Memphis in the long run.
Memphis saved a ton of cash and acquired some spare parts but Gay will likely be a 20-plus ppg scorer for several years for the Raptors while Calderon--who ranks eighth in the league in assists and has finished in the top five in that category four of the past five seasons--solidifies the point guard position for the Pistons, perhaps indicating that Joe Dumars has overcome his
peculiar fascination with Rodney Stuckey; Dumars got rid of three perennial All-Stars (Chauncey Billups, Allen Iverson and Richard Hamilton) to create playing time for Stuckey, who has yet to prove that he is more than an average player. Unless Davis develops into a significant member of the Memphis rotation and/or Prince provides some flashbacks of his former defensive prowess the Grizzlies will get less value out of this deal than both the Raptors and the Pistons.
How is Memphis' cost-cutting different from what the Oklahoma City Thunder did with
James Harden? The two huge differences are that the Thunder have two players who are much more valuable than Harden and the Thunder replaced Harden with a player (Kevin Martin) who can more than adequately fill Harden's role; in contrast, Gay was Memphis' leading scorer--which is significant regardless of how much the "stat gurus" carp about Gay's efficiency--and the Grizzlies did not come close to acquiring a player who can adequately fill Gay's role (which, it must be emphasized again, involved not just leading the team in scoring but also creating floor spacing while being versatile enough to rank third on the team in rebounds, steals and blocked shots). Strip away all of the hype about Harden's individual numbers and look at Houston's bottom line: a .515 winning percentage in 2011-12 without Harden and a .531 winning percentage in 2012-13 with Harden, which over 82 games roughly translates into the difference between being a 42 win team and being a 44 win team. Meanwhile, the Thunder not only improved their financial situation by dealing Harden but they actually increased their winning percentage from .712 in 2011-12 to .745 in 2012-13. It is worth remembering that Houston has a 9-10 playoff record and three Lottery appearances during Daryl Morey's five year reign--and the Rockets (who are currently clinging to the eighth and final playoff spot in the West) may very well be heading for their fourth Lottery appearance by the end of Morey's sixth season. As Mike Lupica once said in a different context, it is time for the guru to start "guruing." The Grizzlies built a very strong playoff team after trading away "stat guru" favorite Pau Gasol--a player who Morey has openly coveted for quite some time--so it will be interesting to see if Memphis' "stat guru" fares any better in the next five years than Houston's "stat guru" has fared in the previous five years.
Labels: Daryl Morey, Detroit Pistons, Ed Davis, Hamed Haddadi, Houston Rockets, James Harden, John Hollinger, Jose Calderon, Memphis Grizzlies, Oklahoma City Thunder, Rudy Gay, Tayshaun Prince, Toronto Raptors
posted by David Friedman @ 3:33 AM
Economics is Not a Science, Nor is Basketball Statistical Analysis, Part II
Russ Roberts' recent Wall Street Journal article titled Is the Dismal Science Really a Science? makes some of the same points that I have stated forcefully for several years. Roberts--who is an economics professor at George Mason University--declares that economics is not a science because "most sciences make progress. Nobody in medicine wants to bring back lead goblets. Sir Isaac Newton understood a lot about gravity. But Albert Einstein taught us more." Roberts adds, "Facts and evidence still matter" but that instead of proving or disproving theories it seems like economists are primarily just "confirming our biases." Roberts concludes, "The economy is a complex system, our data are imperfect and our models inevitably fail to account for all the interactions. The bottom line is that we should expect less of economists. Economics is a powerful tool, a lens for organizing one's thinking about the complexity of the world around us. That should be enough. We should be honest about what we know, what we don't know and what we may never know. Admitting that publicly is the first step toward respectability."
The basketball "stat gurus" who received their training as economists should take heed of Roberts' words and likewise be "honest" about the limitations of their methodologies--but, of course, that will likely never happen, because how can Dave Berri and others sell books if they admit that all they are doing is shuffling numbers on spreadsheets to confirm their biases and that evaluating basketball players and teams is a far more complex enterprise than they care to admit?'
As I wrote in October 2008, Economics is Not a Science, Nor is Basketball Statistical Analysis. The data being used by "stat gurus" is incomplete and often inaccurate. Statistics can be a "powerful tool" (in Roberts' words) to help to understand basketball but they do not provide definitive answers: the player rankings produce by Berri or John Hollinger do not represent some absolute, objective reality but merely reflect the biases and limitations inherent in the formulas that Berri and Hollinger invented.
In The Difference Between Measuring Defense in Basketball and Baseball, I made the important point that basketball statistical analysis is pseudoscience because its practitioners do not base their research on the scientific method:
- Ask a Question
- Do Background Research
- Construct a Hypothesis
- Test Your Hypothesis by Doing an Experiment
- Analyze Your Data and Draw a Conclusion
- Communicate Your Results
If you are still wasting your time reading the proclamations of "stat gurus," then the next time one of these oracles speaks take note if he mentions a margin of error for his numbers, see if he explains the sample size from which he derives his calculations and monitor how he explains cause/effect relationships--i.e., it is one thing to note that a certain player's turnovers are down or his field goal percentage is up but quite another matter to explain, in the context of nine other players on the court at any given time, why that player's performance has fluctuated in a particular manner.
Labels: basketball statistical analysis, Dave Berri, John Hollinger, Russ Roberts
posted by David Friedman @ 6:39 PM
