Is Andrea Bargnani overrated?
by RaptorsHQ - Defensive Stance on Jul 26, 2009 3:34 PM EDT
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Dave Berri's Wages of Wins Journal looks at the most overrated NBA players from three perspectives (scoring, NBA efficiency and PER) with the caveat that "overrated" does not necessarily mean "bad". However, when coupled with Berri's WP48 metric, the inclusion of Andrea Bargnani -- who just received that $50 million extension -- has to be a little uncomfortable for Raptor fans.
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It depends
As noted in the article, being “overrated” depends on what metric you’re using. Based on the numbers that he uses you can’t argue with his conclusion, you can only argue that he’s not looking at everything he should be. I find it hard to believe that Danny Granger is the fifth most overrated person in the NBA.
I think the bottom line with Bargnani is that he still needs to improve. If he’s maxed out his production, Toronto’s not getting their money’s worth. If Bargnani can improve his shooting percentages, and his assists, and yes, his rebounds, the team will be a lot more productive when he’s on the floor.
Most Overrated
While I agree that it is important that Andrea improve his rebounding this year, I think most of us saw last year as effectively two seasons for Andrea. I would be interested to see where he placed on that list if you only included his numbers after December. While I suspect he might still be on the list, I also suspect he would be much lower down the list.
Overrated?
How does Dave Berri actually rate Andreas now? To overrate someone should he not have to be rated high? Andreas earned nothing so far, how can he be overrated? Looking at the list, its a mixture, a couple of guys I would take on my team.
I think Bargnani is on his way to becoming a good player. We all saw the second half of last season and if he could stay in that neighborhood….His defence got much better, and I’ll go on record as saying his rebounding will get up to seven boards this season. Then and only than can we consider the question being asked.
http://dberri.wordpress.com/2009/07/12/dashing-hope-in-toronto/
He is not high on Andrea: “Bargnani will also see much more money, but it seems unlikely he is ever going to produce many wins.”
My step back from these hyperstatistical evaluations
Is always Hollinger’s pronouncement 18 months ago that Hump was performing like an all-star and would soon be a starter. Here we have another one: in bigweeze’s link to Wages of Win, we find that Jamario Moon is almost as good as Hedo Turkoglu and was a better performer for the Raps last year than Shawn Marion.
I mean, it’s interesting and thanks for posting on it, but I wouldn’t plan my team around it.
I've been looking at the sky
by Back In Black on Jul 27, 2009 9:53 AM EDT up reply actions
I don’t deny that Turkoglu is a better player than Moon and is multi-skilled, but he is also deficient in areas. WP does not tell you what player is more skilled – how can it? It tells you what players do (limited by box score I believe) to the extent they can measure it.
Hedo 2007-08: 0.157 WP48 – 17.45 PER, 21.2 PTS/40 MIN, 57.6 TS%
Hedo 2008-09: 0.115 WP48 – 14.9 PER, 16.5 PTS/40 MIN, 54.1 TS%
Moon 2008-09: 0.210 WP48 – 13.7 PER, 10.0 PTS/40 MIN, 56.7 TS%
As we can see, Moon is a higher percentage shooter, better rebounder and and a low-turnover player. He avoids doing things that would be recorded as negative plays and that helps him in WP48.
Doing well in WP48 is very simple – score more per opportunity, get more opportunities (rebound and don’t turn the ball over). That’s really what basketball is about on the offensive end. A team that rebounds poorly will rarely have the ball, and a team that shoots poorly will score less points over time. Basketball is really a game of small percentages repeated over and over (over 100 possessions in a game, a team will lead by 5 points if they are only 5% better than the opposing team).
There are some things that the numbers cannot capture, yes. But looking at the numbers will help you put into context what you are seeing. It’s really difficult to see the difference between a 45% shooter and a 50% shooter – an extra miss every 20 shots. This is why people think the players who shoot often are better like Stackhouse – why would the coach let the worse player shoot more? But if you looked at the stats, you would know that Bosh typically scores more efficiently than Zach Randolph even though both are 20/10 guys.
Moon never turns the ball over because he never handles the ball (because he can’t) and never drives to the basket (because he won’t). In this sense, the statistical measure is rewarding his mental and physical deficiencies. It also emphasizes his blocked shots while ignoring his inability to handle pump fakes – a not-unrelated defect! (To be fair to Moon, it also neglects other things that he actually does well on defense.)
It’s an interesting measure in that it highlights the ineffectiveness of volume shooters like Stackhouse, Harrington and even Iverson; and it illustrates why teams can be surprisingly willing to let go of these top scorers. Coaches and GMs see this happening. Bargnani has to become more consistent in his shooting percentage to avoid this trap. However it’s very flawed in other areas and those flaws are easy to see in some of its conclusions.
I've been looking at the sky
by Back In Black on Jul 27, 2009 10:56 AM EDT up reply actions
Probably the best part of WP48 is that it goes against the grain and values the less glamorous portions of the box score. I think the truth is in the middle somewhat so you do need a variety of metrics. It constantly spits out an aging Jason Kidd as one of the league’s top players largely because of his rebounding which is a minus.
I find that it really identifies who the good role players are and who can be effective as the 3rd-5th option on the court. In this sense it’s quite useful as it is quite difficult for GMs to target and acquire the #1 and #2 pieces for your roster and they are usually easily identifiable. But once they have those pieces in place, the right mix of specialists/complementary players is what makes a contender into a champion.
Bargnani actually shoots a solid percentage (~50 eFG%, 56.9 TS%). 3s are obviously inconsistent, but the problem with his jumpers is that it doesn’t challenge the defense much or put them in foul trouble – it’s mostly just a question of whether the shot drops. The floor balance is also strange on defense with Barganani at the top of the circle and is trouble on long rebounds/fast breaks which happen off of jumpers much more often.
Man, my colleague and I have been disagreeing a lot lately about the team.
Every time someone points to rebounds, I always say that Andrea is sealing his man down… And watching all those Game in an Hour on Raptors TV just highlights it. No, he’s not releasing his man quite quick enough at times, but come on. I’ve seen him seal his man pretty effectively. The only question is fighting for position on the offensive end… But even there, he does tap the ball out quite a bit.
Kinnon "Vicious D" Yee
Author - RaptorsHQ.com
by Raptors HQ - Vicious D on Jul 26, 2009 10:13 PM EDT reply actions 1 recs
Wages of Win
Dave Berry’s metrics are crap. They simply do not correlate with observable evidence from watching actual games.
Well, what he’s actually trying to point out — in the case of this group of players — is that most people are only observing the scoring while discounting the many other aspects of the game of basketball.
by RaptorsHQ - Defensive Stance on Jul 26, 2009 11:00 PM EDT up reply actions
Even though WP is not entirely accurate, it does bring out some interesting results than metrics that just add pts/reb/ast/stl with different weightings. It is hard to say that +/-, adjusted +/- or PER are perfect metrics either.
Alot of the players who come out overrated are that – scorers that contribute little else. Two years ago, wasn’t Iverson an all-star? And now he isn’t even good enough for the Clippers. Players of that ilk (Stackhouse, Harrington, Crawford, etc…) are not particularly valuable or hard to replace.
It is hard to measure defense, but in this metric efficiency and rebounding are key. This makes sense – efficiency helps you score more points per possession, and rebounding helps you get more possessions which leads to more points scored.
A list of one-dimensional players
There’s nothing wrong with being a “specialist”, as long as you’re able to admit that’s your role and your team doesn’t expect much more from you.
Almost everyone on the overrated list is basically an offensive specialist that has below-average stats in the other major areas.
All-Stars like Carmelo and Granger can be quite one-dimensional, but can be valuable if you surround them with a balance of complementary players.
Bargnani is going to be a good player in this league for years to come. He is a pretty versatile player and handles the ball pretty well for a big. He is learning to play the north american game and last year was a massive step in the right direction. He impressed me to the end of the season with his defensive skills. He was blocking out with man better and getting better position down low. I’m very excited to see what this guy has in store for us this up coming season. He also is a phenominal shooter. This team can shoot and it looks like they will be able to spread the floor. Can’t wait for this season to start.
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