Kobe's Shameless Self-Promotion

This was Kobe's comment after yesterday's Lakers win:

"I rank this right up there with some of the biggest road wins we've had since I've been a Laker. Because in the past, we always had guys that had a lot of experience. Robert Horry, Rick Fox, Ron Harper, they've all been through this before. For our guys, this is brand new."

To me, this comment reveals that Kobe is very much aware that he is badly losing "the best baller in the world" debate to LeBron James. Part of the rationale for the emerging consensus on Lebron's supriority is that LeBron's and Kobe's teams have similar records but Kobe is doing it with another superstar (Pau Gasol), a borderline all-star (Lamar Odom), a future all-star (Andrew Bynum) and a strong bench, whereas LeBron is doing it with guys who have no business being on a championship contender.

By contrasting his current team with the Lakers' past teams, Kobe is trying to make his current roster look weaker than it is. If one accepts Kobe's premise that his supporting cast isn't that great because they have less experience than some of his past teams, then the inexorable conclusion is that Kobe must be doing something pretty special to have them winning so many playoff games. But alas, Kobe, we see right through you: Your supporting cast is the envy of the entire NBA, so please don't undervalue their skills.

The Lovers, The Dreamers, and Me

If you find yourself asking “Is that guy white or black?” (see: Shane Battier, Blake Griffin, Jason Kidd, Delonte West, Aaron Williams, Deron Williams, Mike Bibby, Jordan Farmar), the answer is almost always “he’s half and half.” Why is this complicated or surprising? Hey, it's 2009. Yet I hear this question all the time on internet discussions and, especially, in casual conversation from some close to me. Apparently "part this, part that" is not a psychologically salient category for many people: every human object of inquiry must be deemed one or the other. Of course, even Americans who phenotypically appear undeniably of either European or African descent probably have a little bit of ancestry from the other group.

(Being half one thing and half another, I hope I, Bhel, am insulated from charges that I am an obsessive racialist by dint of making these observations.)

Oompa Loompa, Doompadee Doo

ESPN’s television broadcast the morning of the final Bulls-Celtics game listed the results of a website poll whereby web readers could pick from among four predictions for the game: Bulls in regulation, Bulls in overtime, Celtics in regulation, Celtics in overtime. I don’t recall the precise numbers, and the poll does not seem to be available any longer online, but something like 30% of respondents predicted the Bulls to win in OT and 21% predicted the Celtics in OT. So more than half of poll-takers thought Game 7 would go to overtime! (In the event, Boston won 109-99, in regulation time.)

Now, the raw proportion of all NBA games across the land, across years that go to OT is probably no more than 5%. To the extent you know that two teams are evenly matched (and Chicago and Boston minus Garnett certainly are), you are probably on relatively safer ground to predict that the game will go to overtime. But I would think that for these even-steven Bulls and Celtics, the most prudently correct answer to the question “Will the next game go to overtime?” is surely “No”. So over half of poll-takers got it wrong, no?


At first glance, this looks to me like an example of the representativeness bias, whereby, e.g., if you ask a poll respondent, “Who would you more likely find in a library: (i) a woman, or (ii) a middle-aged woman environmentalist with glasses?” many respondents will choose the latter because it sounds more quintessentially library-esque. But, of course, back in the real world, maybe 55% of library patrons are women, while about 3% are middle-aged bespectacled tree-huggettes. People don’t handle probabilities well. An overtime game between the Bulls and Celtics feels more emblematic of that series, so people feel, however wrongly, that it will recur.

Perhaps my point is weakened because 4 of the first 6 Bulls-Celtics games actually did in fact go to OT, so out of that sample, it’s actually safe to predict extra minutes. But sometimes crazy shit goes down, just by fluke. It’s hard to believe that I should update my probabilistic expectation of overtime from 5% to 50%. What do the numbers say? Consider the following Bayesian probability formula:

Such an updating would require that the proportion of Bulls-Celtics games out of all the overtime games played in 2008-09 is roughly ten times the proportion of Bulls-Celtics games out of all the NBA games played this season. So let’s consider some data. (I obtained all these numbers from the wonderful basketball-reference.com.) In 2008-09, there were 1230 regular-season games and 45 first-round playoff games, for a total of 1275 games, of which 70 regular-season and 4 playoff, or 5.804%, were overtime games. Out of all those 1275 games, the Bulls and Celtics played 3 regular-season games and 7 playoff games, for a total of 10 games, which was 0.784% of the 1275 games. Out of the 74 overtime games, 4, or 5.405%, were Bulls-Celtics games. So, the answer to my equational riddle up above is 5.405% * 5.804% / 0.784%, which equals 40.0%. Hmmm, maybe I was too quick to criticize the masses. 40% is pretty close to 50%, so predicting an overtime game based on the available data is not such a stretch. What if we make the analysis more precise by truncating the data set just prior to May 2nd, the date of Bulls-Celts game 7? This would put us in the position of a Bayesian observer filling out that ESPN poll just after game 6. This only deletes two games from our data set — Bulls-Celts game 7 and Heat-Hawks game 7. Now the correct Bayesian probability of overtime is 44.4% ! Wow! My initial supercilious dismissal of the silly plebes was way off. It seems that ESPN web users internalized the available observations quite well. 44.4% is still not high enough to predict that Game 7 will go to OT, but it's dang close.

Meanwhile, the Atlanta-Miami series also seems to be indicative that the teams are evenly matched, but in a wildly different way. If Atlanta had won three games by huge margins and Miami had won three squeakers, then we might say that Atlanta is a better team and Miami has been touched by kind luck. But actually, the first six games were all settled by double-figure margins, and no game saw a lead change after the first quarter. We might say that the two teams are mediocre at best, and equally likely to suffer horrible mental holidays.

-------------------

UPDATE JUNE 17TH: I just became aware of this June 10th blog post from Northwestern University professor of economics Jeff Ely. Check out the two Youtube animated graphs, showing the how the distribution of score differentials changes in the last 60 seconds of an NBA game, averaged over 12 years of data. Absolutely amazing stuff. The basic gist is that tie outcomes after 48 minutes are far, far more likely than 1-point victories or 2-point victories. You should also read the comments, which provide some speculative explanations for that data. I don't think this new information contradicts anything in my original post above.

Into The Woods

Well, one of the Western Conference semifinal matchups is set, as both Houston and Los Angeles have finished off their foes. I lament Houston's lack of full strength. Los Angeles is hideously talented and athletic with Bynum, Odom, Ariza, Bryant, Gasol, and even quiet sojourners like Shannon Brown. Houston is very good, but consider that they have a four-time Defensive Player of the Year and a two-time NBA scoring champion sitting injured on their bench. Who will make key scores in crunch time for Houston? Who will contain the Lakers' tree trunks in the paint? Yao Ming is too stiff to effectively play Gasol and Bynum one-on-one without fouling his way to early departure. A contest between the strong and true Rockets and the extant Lakers would be awesome. As things stand, I predict the Lakers in five.

Thy Tears Are Womanish

Back in the last month of 2008, we gaped aghast when TNT’s Inside the NBA spent the whole evening ragging on Kenny Smith after he commented approvingly on Terrell Owens’s buff body. It was amusing once, but for several hours? Ernie Johnson, who really should police juvenile hijinks on his show, was actually quite glad to toss in purportedly hilarious gibes of his own.

Last night’s (April 22nd) edition of Inside the NBA moved from subjugated fear of man-love to an hour’s worth of penis worship. Charles Barkley began the show by relating an anecdote about a job he held as a teenager, hammering tar off of pipes on hot summer days down in Alabama. Kenny giggled and labelled Barkley a “pipe beater”, and for the next sixty minutes, Ernie and Kenny used every opportunity to utter a ‘pipe’-related phrase, including “Pipe down”, “piping hot”, “down the pipe”, and “pipe dream”. Smith also subtly hinted at old wives’ tales about masturbation, including blindness and hairy hands. Seriously, I’m not joking; watch the video!

How much homophobia / homoeroticism is acceptable on this show? At this rate, will Johnson, Smith, and Barkley be comparing the size and aromatic quality of their excrement next week?

How Do You Sleep?

Who voted Robin Lopez second on his or her Rookie of the Year ballot? My strong hunch is that the voter meant Brook Lopez, but had a cerebral malfunction. That's almost as bad as the elderly Jewish voters in Florida who meant to vote for Gore but somehow marked their ballots for noted philo-semite Pat Buchanan.

Hasenfeffer Incorporated

Well, congratulations to Cavs coach Mike Brown for winning Coach of the Year. But does this look like an NBA championship squad? From left, we have a Simpsons character, the hero of an after-school special, a Phil Collins lover, LeBron James, a would-be rapper, a leprechaun, and a 1980s-era pro wrestling villain. I'm just saying.

Kept In A Jar By The Door

Back in November, we bellyached about an advertisement near our home in Chicago wherein an image of Carmelo Anthony commanded us to drink a blue sports beverage. Why would Anthony consent to the use of his likeness without any charisma-enhancing performative oomph? Even more disturbing is a latter-day series of TV ads where a still photo of Chris Paul, twinned with an obviously not-Paul voice, endorses Right Guard deodorant.

We couldn’t find on Youtube the ad where a hopelessly smitten Chris Paul fan smothers his armpits into his buddy’s face. Right Guard’s website features a sadly static interactive exhibit where web visitors can learn a few factoids about Chris Paul, including his avid bowling habit. Isn’t that why Wikipedia was invented? In any case, the common feature of all of these advertising efforts is the absence of any active participation from Chris Paul himself (in addition to the rather odious presentation of Chris Paul's ’pits as something worth aspiring to). The association of a star athlete with, say, property insurance or underwear is always tenuous; the endorsement is a bit more convincing if the athlete feels like showing up for half a day of filming. (In the case of Dwyane Wade and his German mobile phone masters, how did he find the time to film all those spots with Barkley? Presumably they filmed them all at once last summer, but that must have taken at least three days with all the costume and scenery changes. That’s actually rather impressive for a guy defending against a bitter divorce and playing for Olympic gold.)

Anyway, Chris Paul needs a better agent.

In Which I Buck Your Wisdom

Other writers will preview the 2009 NBA Playoffs with greater care, but I wish to note the great burden that many of this year’s postseason teams surely feel: “Oh no, not this again.” Carmelo Anthony and his Nuggets have appeared in the playoffs in each of the 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2008 seasons — and lost in the first round each year. The same goes for Yao Ming’s Rockets, although they missed the 2006 playoffs due to myriad injuries. Dallas lost in the first round in three of those years (2004, ’07, ’08). Chicago lost in the first round in ’05 and ’06, before winning one series in ’07 and crashing into the lottery in ’08.

These vernal weeks are filled with teams that surely wish to prove they belong with serious squads and did not merely “fake” their way to 50 wins. Some teams finally find the right mix for a deep playoff run after several years of futility, as the Minnesota Timberwolves finally did in ’04. But, like the Raptors of 2000-2001-2002 or the Grizzlies of 2004-2005-2006, some teams realize that their core stars are just not championship-caliber, and they feel compelled to churn their roster and start over.

Of Denver, Houston, Dallas, and Chicago, I believe that the Mavericks have the greatest chance of making the conference finals or the NBA Finals. Needless to say, Chicago will probably lose in the first round against Boston, even if Kevin Garnett cannot play. Houston and its hard-working center, sadly, will probably lose again, playing Portland on the road and without a top-level point guard. Even if Houston got past the Blazers, the Lakers would likely eat them up; Houston lacks the size to defend Gasol, Bynum, and Odom. Meanwhile, I don’t have a lot of confidence in Denver. They did secure the second seed in the Western Conference, but they actually had as many wins as the third and fourth seed, and only six more than the eighth seed. Their putative leader, Carmelo Anthony, has never shown the defensive leadership or offensive explosiveness required for playoff laurels. And do you really trust Chris Andersen, Kenyon Martin, and JR Smith to keep their heads cool for six weeks of piercing intensity? That leaves Dallas, which fields a former MVP, a former MVP runner-up, and seven guys with NBA Finals experience (eight if you count their coach). The Mavs won nine of their last thirteen games, capped by a rollicking come-from-behind victory against Houston on the season’s denoument. I like the Dallas Mavericks to defeat the Spurs in the first round and the Denver-New Orleans winner in the second round. Of course, I still think the Lakers will beat Cleveland in the Finals, like every other pundit.

Worst NBA Snub Ever

Christian Laettner instead of Isiah Thomas on the 1992 Dream Team.
Seriously, what the hell was that about?!

Ain't Never Caught A Rabbit

I’ve noticed lately that for the first time in a while, the best offensive players are also the best defensive players. Most of the current fad of selections for Defensive Player of the Year or All-NBA Defensive Team include some combination of Bryant, James, Howard, Wade, or Paul, who are also the top five contenders for MVP on most analysts’ ballots. Paul leads the league in steals, and Wade is second in steals and ranks 16th in blocks, amazingly enough. Howard leads the league in rebounds and blocks, and Bryant and James have become on-the-ball bad-asses.

The correlation between defensive and offensive dominance seems to flow in cycles in this league. In the early part of this decade, the perennial best defensive players were Bruce Bowen, Ben Wallace, Doug Christie, Andrei Kirilenko, Ron Artest, and Dikembe Mutombo, who are not known for being dominating offensive forces. (Yes, Duncan, Bryant, and Garnett also showed up with regularity on the All-Defensive Team lists, but the league’s top scorers like McGrady, Iverson, Carter, and Nowitzki were nowhere near those votes.) Back in the ‘80s, the top defensive players were Paul Pressey, Sidney Moncrief, Mark Eaton, Bobby Jones, Michael Cooper, and Dennis Johnson, who were not synonymous with the league’s top scorers like King, Wilkins, English, Dantley, Gervin. (To his credit, Larry Bird made second team All-Defense three times.) In the ‘90s, top scorers and team leaders like Michael Jordan, David Robinson, Shaquille O’Neal, Gary Payton, Karl Malone, and Hakeem Olajuwon all routinely showed up on All-Defensive lists. On the other hand, other top scorers like Charles Barkley, Reggie Miller, Mitch Ritchmond, and Clyde Drexler were not defensive standouts, but then they also were not seen as offensive juggernauts who could will a team to victory in a tight playoff series. (Remember how many times the Pacers failed in the conference finals!)

We may very well be in a Golden Age of NBA awesomeness. These playoffs should be great. LeBron vs. Dwyane in the second round? LeBron vs. Dwight in the conference finals? Bryant vs. Paul in the conference finals? All are very plausible, given the likely seedings.

Papa Don't Preach

In our last two posts, we considered horrible and decent NBA executive performance over the last year. Now let us consider the truly best performances by executives in 2008-09. Last summer, the Cavaliers’ Danny Ferry traded Damon Jones and Joe Smith for Mo Williams, who has helped Cleveland to the best record in the league, 20 wins better than their 2007-08 performance, as of this writing. Ferry also signed Smith again several months later! He also drafted NCAA champion Darnell Jackson, who has cracked the rotation lately and sucked in lots of boards in limited minutes. Ferry’s moves were not as extensive as those of John Paxson, say, but a frenzy of activity does not always indicate intelligence. The greatest decisions are often actions eschewed. There were some rumors that Cleveland might seek to acquire Shaquille O’Neal this past February, but Ferry wisely showed restraint; the Cavs are simply not a dump-it-into-the-big-guy team, and O’Neal would likely whine upon realizing that. More generally, many critics wanted Ferry to trade Wally Sczcerbiak for a serious gamer (with a long contract) who could help the team win this season, but Ferry is taking a long-term view; he knows he will need flexibility to make the team better in 2010 and beyond, both to convince LeBron James to re-sign, and then to improve the roster around him. GRADE: A-

Miami Heat President Pat Riley’s first move of the voting year was his decision to demote himself from the coaching position and hire assistant Erik Spoelstra, who is young, smart, hard-working, well-liked by his players, and the first Asian-American head coach in the NBA. In June, Riley used high first-round and second-round picks to draft Michael Beasley and Mario Chalmers; he also signed free agents James Jones and Jamaal Magloire. Beasley and Chalmers have played well for rookies, though perhaps not quite at the level you might expect of a college player of the year and a Final Four MOP. Jones and Magloire have been injured most of the year and have delivered little. Later, in his biggest move of the year, Riley traded Shawn Marion, who was severely underperforming given his past achievement, for Jermaine O’Neal and Jamario Moon. This has been a decent move for the Heat; Moon mostly duplicates what Marion was doing (wing defense, rebounding, and general scrappiness) and O’Neal, when healthy, adds an imposing defensive presence in the paint. O’Neal’s contract runs through June 2010, whereas Marion’s contract ends in June 2009, but the extra financial commitment will do little to impede roster flexibility, as the Heat probably were not planning to sign any free agents this summer (Carlos Boozer’s injury history poses too great a risk). Miami is 14-14 since the trade, which is just about exactly the rate of success they were enjoying before the trade, when their record stood at 28-24. Recently, Riley plucked Luther Head off waivers; Head filled up some space as a backup guard in March, but has sat thus far in April. GRADE: A-

Donnie Walsh of the Knicks made several hits in 2008-09. First, he relieved Isiah Thomas of coaching duties and hired Mike D’Antoni, who averaged 58 victories during the previous four seasons with Phoenix, as his new coach. D’Antoni’s shot-happy “system” promised to win over Knicks fans hardened by too much futility, and his Italian-American identity probably couldn’t hurt in the New York area. Next, he drafted Danilo Gallinari, whose performance can only be deemed incomplete, given his back problems. Some players drafted lower than Gallinari, including Brook Lopez, Jason Thompson, Anthony Randolph, and Marreese Speights, have shown serious flashes of greatness; on the other hand, Gallinari hit a few big three-pointers for the Knicks during his short burst of health this winter. Walsh then cut a ton of 2009-10 and 2010-11 salary by dumping Zach Randolph on the Clippers for Cuttino Mobley (who promptly retired) and Tim Thomas (whom Walsh later traded for Larry Hughes, who like Thomas has a contract that expires in 2010). Walsh also traded Jamal Crawford for Al Harrington, turning a 2011 expiring contract into a 2010 expiring, while keeping an able athlete on the floor. Walsh traded Malik Rose for Chris Wilcox, which had little financial implication (both contracts expire in June ’09) but gave the Knicks a chance to test out Wilcox’s talents for two months. Finally, Walsh successfully kept Stephon Marbury, whom new Coach D'Antoni deemed a needless nuisance, away from the team for most of the season and managed to get rid of him (forcing Marbury to take a bit of a haircut on his salary) late in the season, depriving his new team, the Celtics, of more than a couple months of his services pre-playoffs. Walsh deserves credit for setting an exciting new direction for the team and cutting salary in advance of the 2010 free-agent market, though he has otherwise he has done little to improve the team’s on-court performance. The Knicks will miss the playoffs again this year for the fifth consecutive season, and the seventh time in the last eight. After Isiah Thomas's reign, Walsh's actions truly look like Total Quality Management. GRADE: A-

Orlando GM Otis Smith didn’t do a lot, but his few moves were indispensable for the team. First, he drafted college senior Courtney Lee, who has shown poised defense and adequately drilled 3-pointers to keep defenses honest. Lee beat out three other veterans — Mickael Pietrus (an athletic wing player whom Smith smartly signed as a free agent from Golden State last summer for only $5 MM annually), J.J. Redick, and Keith Bogans — for the starting spot. Later, when Jameer Nelson suffered a season-ending shoulder injury, Smith quickly and effectively scrambled to replace Nelson at PG, using the few tradeable assets on his squad. First, Smith traded Keith Bogans, who was effectively the team’s fourth option at SG, for Tyronn Lue so that the team could have a proper backup point guard as long as Anthony Johnson needed to start. Later, he traded Brian Cook and Adonal Foyle, plus a future draft pick, for Rafer Alston, who immediately walked into O-town and began running the ship like Capt. Chesley Sullenberger. Even better, Foyle later returned to Orlando in March ’09 after Memphis (which acquired Foyle in the complicated three-way deal) waived him. And Lue might seem superfluous now, but Johnson is old, and it never hurts to have a third-string point guard with an NBA championship ring. This summer, the team will have a problem with two starting point guards in Nelson and Alston. Presumably Smith will trade one of them, but that’s a problem for the summer. For now, Orlando is a serious contender for the NBA championship, something only three other teams can say. GRADE: A

In Denver, General Manager Mark Warkentien pulled off the fantastic Iverson-for-Billups trade that we extolled a few months ago, following the exile of Marcus Camby to the Clippers. Camby’s exit, in addition to saving the team a whole bunch of money, has allowed the younger Nene Hilario to thrive as Denver’s starting center, earning mention as a Most Improved Player candidate. Warkentien also pulled off some quieter but awesome moves, including the signing of Chris Andersen, the signing of Dahntay Jones, and the acquisition of Renaldo Balkman, who all have been defensive beasts off the bench, adding a combined total of slightly over $3 MM annually to Denver’s payroll. Today, after all these additions and subtractions, Denver is poised to grab the second playoff seed in the Western Conference, and could finally break the Carmelo Anthony-George Karl streak of four consecutive first-round playoff losses. GRADE: A

In Oklahoma City, Sam Presti chose Russell Westbrook at the fourth position in the draft, thus finding an able distributor to pass the ball to Kevin Durant well into the ‘Teens. He acquired Joe Smith and Desmond Mason for Luke Ridnour and Adrian Griffin, added some inside heft by luring Nenad Krstic back to the NBA from Russia, and acquired Thabo Sefolosha for a 2009 first-round draft pick. Sefolosha has been a defensive beast in the last six weeks, highlighted by a March in which he delivered 10 points, 5 rebounds, 2 steals, and 1.5 blocks per game from the shooting guard position. Presti nearly pulled off a huge heist by acquiring Tyson Chandler for some veterans with expiring contracts, but chose to cancel the deal due to concerns over an old foot injury. This already looks prudent and prescient, as Chandler played only 12 games after that trade, and has since missed 13 with an ankle problem. Most importantly, Presti hired assistant Scott Brooks to be the new head coach; Brooks then made the sensible decision of moving Kevin Durant to a frontcourt position, after former coach P.J. Carlesimo insisted on making him a guard. After starting the season 1-10 under Carlesimo, the Thunder went 2-13 in December, 7-7 in January, 3-9 in February, and 7-8 in March. It’s not the ’86 Celtics, but it appears that Brooks’s moves are paying off. Presti’s moves in the last 12 months have positioned his team to be a playoff contender for the next 10 years. GRADE: A+

……………….

Ultimately we had a tough time deciding among Ferry, Riley, Walsh, Smith, Warkentien, and Presti, but if we had a vote, we would deliver the NBA Executive of the Year Award out to Sam Presti for his patient, long-term planning. We can’t wait to see what he does next.

....................

UPDATE May 3rd: Denver's Warkentien won the award with 9 of 30 votes. We consider this a fine choice, as we had him second on our ballot. Surprisingly, Oklahoma City's Presti only received one vote!

I'm Happy Just To Dance With You

Welcome back to our weekend series on the NBA Executive of the Year Award for 2008-09. Last time we considered the worst performances; tomorrow we will consider the best. Today, we consider the notable jobs that fall somewhere in the middle.

Losing teams made a lot of lateral decisions that are hard to evaluate right now. For example, in Minnesota, team president Kevin McHale drafted O.J. Mayo and turned him (along with some veterans who weren’t in the Wolves’ plans) into Mike Miller, Jason Collins, Brian Cardinal, and Kevin Love. He also traded Rashad McCants and Calvin Booth for Shelden Williams and Bobby Brown. Meanwhile, in Memphis, GM Chris Wallace drafted NCAA champion Darrell Arthur and nabbed Mayo from Minnesota in the aforementioned trade. He finally dispersed his glut of young point guards, sending Javaris Crittendon to Washington for a draft pick and sending Kyle Lowry to Houston for a draft pick and Mike Wilks. However, none of these moves were particularly impactful. Memphis is still one of the worst teams in the league; unlike Dwyane Wade in 2003-04, the “combo” guard Mayo has not shown his squad how to win. Minnesota similarly did little this year. Love looks like a star, but Minnesota still sucks. GRADE for both: C+

John Paxson of the Bulls selected Derrick Rose first in the draft, refusing to imbibe the honeyed vapors of Michael Beasley or O.J. Mayo, whose amazing scoring skills helped them appear more “NBA-ready” at the time. Rose, who leads all rookies in assists and ranks second in points per game and minutes played, has validated Paxson’s gamble. Paxson also made the curious decision to hire Vinny Del Negro, who had never coached basketball at any level. The Bulls have played .500 ball in VDN’s first season, which probably is a bit poorer than a more skillful coach could have steered the team, which features six former NCAA Final Four stars. Later, in February, Paxson traded Nocioni and Drew Gooden for Brad Miller and John Salmons. Salmons has been rock-solid for the Bulls; his March included 21 points per game, nearly 5 rebounds, and 50% field goal percentage, and the Bulls went 9-7 in that month. Paxson traded Larry Hughes for Tim Thomas, Jerome James, and Anthony Roberson, although this trade did not help the Bulls much on the court or on the P/L sheet; all three of the new contracts, which sum to about the amount of Hughes’s contract ($13 MM), expire in 2010, just as Hughes’s deal does. Perhaps the disaggregation of the $13 MM into more “modular” assets gives the Bulls more flexibility for future trades. Finally, Paxson jettisoned Thabo Sefolosha for a draft pick. This last one didn’t make much sense to me. With the loss of Hughes and Sefolosha, the Bulls only have three rotation guards: Rose, Hinrich, and Gordon. Gordon likely won’t be re-signed after this spring, and Hinrich probably should be traded so he can properly play a starting PG role elsewhere. Possibly, John Salmons could be a starting SG with Luol Deng on the floor to play SF, but that still leaves only two decent guards on the team. Sefolosha was, and could continue to be, a solid bench contributor, but now he is playing le beau jeu in Oklahoma. So all in all, Paxson’s moves have brought mixed fortune to the team. I really think owner Jerry Reinsdorf needs to bring in a general manager with fresh ideas. Derrick Rose, Noah, and Tyrus Thomas are nice building blocks, but Chicago needs to ready the franchise to pull in a top-rate free agent such as Chris Bosh or Dwyane Wade next summer. GRADE: B-

Since June 2008, New Jersey’s Rod Thorn selected Brook Lopez in the draft, then moved Richard Jefferson for Yi Jianlian and Bobby Simmons. He also signed free agents Jarvis Hayes and Eduardo Najera, who have been mostly inconsequential to the team. Lopez has been awesome, a steal at the tenth position in the first round. Had Thorn pulled off the rumored trade of Vince Carter for young talent or draft picks, he might be a contender for this award, but we simply cannot put Thorn near the top of the list, given the poor performance of Yi, whom some thought could become a Nowitzki-like freak. GRADE: B-

In San Antonio, team president RC Buford drafted unheralded guard George Hill and signed Roger Mason Jr. and, more recently, Drew Gooden. Mason in particular has been a solid contributor as a middling starting guard with a penchant for hitting big shots in the clutch. Mason’s presence has helped to forestall complete disaster while Parker and Ginobili missed significant time to injury, but Spurs management has failed to add another big-time player to the team since drafting Tony Parker in 2001 and adding Manu Ginobili (drafted in 1999) to the team in 2002. The 2007 decision to trade Luis Scola to Houston has never made much sense to me. And touted Europeans Tiago Splitter and Ian Mahinmi are either still in Europe, or stuck on the Spurs’ bench. Granted, this is a referendum on 2008-09 actions only, but we long for a San Antonio general manager who could hit a home run instead of just being excited by a double. Four championships are hard to denigrate, but the Spurs sure could have used more help last season or this one. GRADE: B

In Portland, Kevin Pritchard drafted Nicolas Batum and Jerryd Bayless, which were perfectly respectable picks given Portland’s relatively wide-open pecking order at SF and PG. Pritchard also coaxed 2007 draft pick Rudy Fernandez (who dazzled with the Spanish team in Beijing) to join the Blazers after a year with his club team in Barcelona. These were fine moves, and the presence of strong role players has probably helped Portland make the transition from playoff also-ran to nearly a championship contender. The Blazers’ case helps to highlight that good executive performance need not bring your team out of the cellar or launch it to a championship, but can consist of taking the little steps to go from good to great. In any case, this evaluation is attenuated somewhat by Blazer management’s obnoxious email to the rest of the league regarding the team’s perceived rights vis-a-vis Blazers player Darius Miles, which letter we considered and analyzed in this January post. So all in all, I give Pritchard a GRADE of B for these moves.

Yet, I wonder what the Blazers could be if, counterfactually, they had drafted even more smartly. So far Pritchard has scored several good moves: In 2007 traded Zach Randolph for Channing Frye and (the soon-to-depart) Steve Francis; in 2006 he drafted Brandon Roy, LaMarcus Aldridge, and Sergio Rodriguez; and in 2007 he drafted Rudy Fernandez. His choice of Greg Oden over Kevin Durant looks increasingly poor, though. Imagine the Blazers with Joel Przybilla sucking in rebounds at an insane rate and bodying up to opposing centers as their full-time center, and Kevin Durant pouring in points as their starting 3. And how can we forget the previous regime’s decision to trade out of the #3 position in the 2005 NBA Draft when Chris Paul and Deron Williams were on the board? Their eventual booty from that draft, Martell Webster, is not all that good, and only played about 5 minutes this whole season. CP3 would surely be an upgrade over Steve Blake. But of course, the draft is a crapshoot, and the jackpots of Roy and Aldridge are better than most teams ever do in a three-year period.

Houston General Manager Daryl Morey had a pretty good year — first drafting Joey Dorsey, and then acquiring Ron Artest, Von Wafer, and Brent Barry before the season began. He then lured Dikembe Mutombo out of retirement, and then, observing that Aaron Brooks was ready for a starter’s role at the PG position, he revivified the team’s PG play by trading Rafer Alston for Kyle Lowry and Brian Cook. I believe, though, that Morey’s year is notable more for what he did not do: he could have traded Tracy McGrady while his value was still high (before he bowed out of yet another season, this time with microfracture knee surgery). Morey may deeply regret his excessive patience with T-Mac. Morey also organized a “sports analytics” conference in March ’09 at MIT’s Sloan School of Management. We nerds at JPO adore any attempt to impose rigor on the fuzzy realm of basketball “analysis”, so he gets some extra bonus marks therefor. GRADE: B+

…………………….

Next time, we will consider the absolute best executive performances of 2008-09 and announce our choice for NBA Executive of the Year.

Let Her Cry

Sports websites like ESPN.com and CNNSI.com need to publish fresh content every day of the week in order to satisfy hungry readers who have grown accustomed to a steady stimulus of commentary. (Luckily, the same economic and ethical duties do not bind us here at JPO.) Every spring, a tested genre of prose is the “Awards Prediction” piece, in which writers size up the top players’ regular-season performances and predict (or recommend) which players will earn the NBA’s individual awards. One thing they almost never do is talk about who should win Executive of the Year – probably because, while the criteria for awards like Most Valuable Player or Most Improved are poorly defined, the standards for a good management performance are completely inscrutable.

To our view, a good executive is one who keeps his players and fans happy, builds a well-coordinated roster (including the right coach) that can produce quality play on the court, maintains a reasonable payroll with flexibility for future roster moves, helps his owner turn a profit, maximizes some discounted stream of present and future team success. (The precise discount rate is probably higher than a typical financial discount rate, given the frenzied myopia of sports fans.) Obviously these criteria are not precisely defined, and not always mutually compatible. Still, we will consider these rules as we evaluate performance from the past year.

Let us keep in mind, first, that the term of consideration for Executive of the Year begins with the end of the regular season in April one year, and extends to the same date the following April. In 2007-08, two general managers stood out for excellent work – notably, it was the two executives who sparked their churned rosters to the Finals. In the summer of ’07, Danny Ainge, top man of the Celtics, acquired Ray Allen, Kevin Garnett, and James Posey, and later signed Sam Cassell and P.J. Brown for the season’s stretch run. Plus, he drafted Glen Davis and Gabe Pruitt. Meanwhile, on the other coast, the Lakers’ Mitch Kupchak acquired Derek Fisher, Trevor Ariza, and Pau Gasol for next to nothing (the latter by using as currency Javaris Crittendon and Marc Gasol, both of whom had been drafted in the ’07 draft), and later signed the earnest D.J. Mbenga when Andrew Bynum went down. There were few other executives whose performances really stood out that year. Orlando signed Rashard Lewis to a long contract; the Hawks drafted Al Horford and traded for Mike Bibby; Rod Thorn ripped off Mark Cuban in the Jason Kidd trade; and Isiah Thomas (yes, that guy) drafted Wilson Chandler and traded nearly-immobile Steve Francis, plus the disappointing young strapper Channing Frye, for a useful asset in Zach Randolph. But, of course, none of these teams made much noise when it counted in the spring of ’08.

Ainge won the award, but Kupchak easily could have taken the prize.

Let us now turn to executive performances in 2008-09. First, to be thorough, what of last year's award winners? To save money in 2009-10 and 2010-11, Kupchak traded Vladimir Radmanovic for Adam Morrison and Shannon Brown (who has seen playing time at backup PG for the Lakers, supplanting Jordan Farmar); and Ainge decided to cut costs by letting James Posey sign with the Hornets, before drafting Bill Walker and J.R. Giddens and signing Stephon Marbury and Mikki Moore as free agents late in the season. These decisions were all probably helpful for the respective teams’ long-run health, but none was terribly consequential. Neither Walker nor Giddens have played all year, and Marbury really isn't that useful when Eddie House is available as a sweet-shooting backup point guard. These moves are barely worth considering to bury or praise.

This post will address terrible executive management for the 2008-09 award year; future posts will examine strong executive performance. The worst General Manager of the Year has surely been the Clippers’ Mike Dunleavy, who committed about $14 million per year through 2012-13 to Baron Davis, who is often injured and usually unhappy. Then he foolishly let Elton Brand get away. Then he acquired Marcus Camby as an ostensible replacement for Brand, though Camby is more of a skinny shotblocker, not a low-post beast like Brand, and plays the same position as center Chris Kaman (who is signed at $12 million per year through 2011-12). Camby is owed about $8 million in each of 2008-09 and 2009-10 – thus ensuring that the Clippers would have two seasons of an unbalanced roster. Pushing a bad situation into total entropy, Dunleavy then traded some spare parts for the notoriously defense-averse Zach Randolph, who is signed through 2010-11 at $17 million per season. It would have been better to let the contracts of Cuttino Mobley and Tim Thomas expire, rather than adding this wide load to the team. Now it’s April, and with 80 games done in the season and two left, the Clippers have won less than 25% of their bouts. GRADE: F

In Golden State, team president Robert Rowell and de facto GM Don Nelson traded Al Harrington for Crawford after Big Al developed a feud with Nelon; drafted freakish big man Anthony Randolph; let Baron Davis get away; signed Ronny Turiaf, an energetic shot-blocker; traded for Marcus Williams (who hardly played a minute all season, before being inexplicably released in March despite a guaranteed contract) after Monta Ellis wrecked his ankle; and gave a five-year free agent contract to Corey Maggette, who adds nothing that other GSW slashers like Ellis, Stephen Jackson, and Kelenna Azubuike don’t. Later, Nelson threatened to trade Crawford if he exercises his player option for 2009-10. The Warriors also alienated Monta Ellis by muttering about terminating his contract after his Moped-induced ankle injury. Though they may have that contractual right, it’s a non-credible threat; they signed him to a market-rate deal for a young budding star – why would they want to lose him? GRADE: E

In Phoenix, Steve Kerr continued his odd tinkering with (some would say destruction of) the roster, trading Raja Bell and Boris Diaw for Jason Richardson and Jared Dudley. He drafted Robin Lopez and traded for second-round draft pick Goran Dragic, and later signed Matt Barnes and Louis Amundsen as free agents. Unfortunately, Lopez is not as skilled as his brother Brook; Dragic struggled when featured as Steve Nash’s understudy; and Amundsen and Barnes are little better than the role players on any other bench. Kerr’s worst move was hiring Terry Porter to coach a defensive-oriented team when he lacked defensive-oriented personnel, especially after trading away Shawn Marion the previous February. And why would he then trade Bell, the team's only remaining good defender? He also should have known that a team full of veterans, many hardly younger than Porter himself, would blanch at following Porter’s authority. Firing Porter in February was an admission that Kerr has no clue about the direction of the franchise. Kerr has already admitted that a run-and-gun style cannot work in the playoffs, so what is the point of installing Alvin Gentry as coach? Perhaps there is something to just pleasing the fans for a couple more months and aiming for a playoff berth, but Kerr needs to seriously rethink his strategy this summer. If defense wins, then trade Nash, Shaq, and Stoudemire, who all will fetch serious value in the form of draft picks, and start over. You’re not winning anything in 2009-10 anyway. GRADE: D

As general manager for Charlotte, Michael Jordan pulled off several trades: Jason Richardson for Boris Diaw and Raja Bell, Adam Morrison for Vladimir Radmanovic, and Ryan Hollins and Matt Carroll for Desagana Diop. Jordan also picked up D.J. Augustin and Alexis Ajinca in the 2008 draft. Working closely with new coach Larry Brown, Jordan has actually built a roster that can (nearly) land a playoff spot. As Diaw, Bell, Diop, and Vlad Rad are no longer youngsters, these were all moves for “today”, rather than moves for the future, which is odd, given that Charlotte has no hope of any significant success this season or next. Emeka Okafor and Gerald Wallace are not superstars who can take you to the promised land. Charlotte really needs to suffer through a cellar-dwelling season, score a high draft pick, and get lucky with a young stud. Finishing 9th in the Eastern Conference is not sound policy for Charlotte. GRADE: C

..………….

Next time we will consider the moderately creditable executive performances of the past twelve months.
Please keep reading.

Ain't Too Proud To Beg

An article in today’s Wall Street Journal ably outlines why “assists” is often a piece of data prone to enormous measurement error. Each team’s statisticians has total discretion over when to assign assists for both the home and visiting team, and the league-wide standard — “the last pass leading directly to a field goal, only if the player scoring the goal responds by demonstrating immediate reaction to the basket”— is maddeningly fuzzy. Could it be that the PGs often perceived as best in the league, due in large part to their outsized assist numbers, could benefit from measurement bias?

My first thought upon reading this is that each team faces the same biases, averaged over the season, right? Even if there is a home bias for assist tallies, each team has 42 home games and 42 road games. Every team gets a diverse sampling of different arenas around the league. … But that’s not quite right.

Each team in the league has a different mix of opposing teams on its schedule. For example, an Eastern conference team, say Miami, plays 52 games against Eastern conference opponents and 30 games (two per Western team) against Western opponents. Of the 52 games against Eastern opponents, Miami plays four times against each of its four Southeast Division rivals (Atlanta, Orlando, Charlotte, Washington), and three or four times against all other Eastern teams. Now consider Atlanta. Atlanta’s schedule mix is roughly the same, except that they play Miami four times, and they don’t play Atlanta! Next, consider Detroit’s schedule vs. Miami’s. Detroit plays each of the other Central Division teams four times, which is pretty similar to Miami, which plays each Central Division team (including Detroit) three or four times. Detroit plays the Atlantic teams three or four times each, just like Miami does. Detroit plays each Southeast team (including Miami) three or four times, whereas Miami played all the non-Southeast teams four times. Also, Detroit plays each Western team twice, just like Miami does.

But a Western team, say Utah, plays each Eastern team only twice, and each Western team three or four times (each Northwest Division team, four times for sure). So the greatest discrepancy of schedule is between Eastern vs. Western teams, rather than any discrepancy for teams of different divisions within the same conference.

We can assume that the home statisticians of each team will be roughly equally friendly (i.e. very) to home-team point guards in assigning assists. The real variation, I would hypothesize, comes in how friendly the home statistician is to the visiting team’s point guard. Some may have a strong sense of fairness, while some may just say “Screw it.”



It is notable that of the top seven players on the league assists leaders list (or equivalently, the players averaging 8.0 assists per game or above), five play in the Western Conference. Now, perhaps this limited sample is not fair; ten of the top twenty players come from the East. Still, it is instructive to consider the gaudy end of the distribution. If there are more arenas in the West where the statisticians happen to be unusually friendly to visiting PGs like Paul, Williams, or Nash, then they could have an advantage in amassing assist stats compared to guys like Rondo or Calderon who spend more of their time in the East.

The obvious solution, not mentioned by the WSJ writer, is for the NBA to assign official statisticians to each game. Really, I don’t understand why this isn’t done. Teams could still track and collect their own stats privately, but why not have a neutral, central, better-trained body take charge of the statistics? We trust the federal government to collect unemployment data; we don’t ask a local Chamber of Commerce or the National Association of Homebuilders to do it for us.

I Can Show You The World

Tonight’s 60 Minutes feature on LeBron James yielded few new insights, other than his amazing ability to hit trick shots. What really wowed me was that CBS chose to run the piece at all, immediately following their coverage of March Madness and pre-dating by six days CBS’s broadcast of the semifinals of the NCAA tournament. Remember, CBS has not shown pro basketball since the days of Dick Stockton and Hubie Brown in the late ‘80s. Why would CBS give free advertising to the NBA, which represents direct competition for CBS’s long-term college basketball commitment, and particularly just a few days before CBS’s highest-rated college basketball broadcast of the year? Given that 60 Minutes is more entertainment than news, this decision struck me as curious at best. Of course, if the 60 Minutes crew legitimately applied their investigative skills to the college basketball scene, what they discovered would likely not be pretty.

I was also puzzled at CBS’s decision to give free promotion during its segment on internet security to both Symantec and Google, both of which would be very glad to sell anti-badware products to the masses. Are there not academic or non-profit institutions tracking malware that could provide exactly the same neat-o demonstrations of security risks as the Symantec fellow provided? Why, I seem to recall the New York Times featuring a report by an internet security center at the University of Toronto just this very day.

Curious all around. I really and truly wonder whether David Stern, Eric Schmidt, and John Thompson (the CEO of Symantec, not the retired basketball coach!) will compensate CBS News down the road for 60 Minutes’ generosity.

I May Not Get There With You

During last night’s Suns-Blazers tilt, TNT announcer Doug Collins described Suns guard Jason Richardson as a “volume shooter” who needs to take a lot of shots to be “effective”. This is a common locution in pro basketball analysis, but I’ve never fully understood what it means. Is this is a backhanded way of saying that a player like Richardson plays no defense, grabs no boards, and is not much of a passer – so his only contribution to the team would be by scoring? But then the effect in toto of having him on the floor, considering all his negative contributions, would not be very good. Or is it a way of saying that J-Rich is an insecure and quirky guy who needs to develop a “rhythm”, or perhaps feel that he will be getting a lot of shot opportunities that day, in order for his shots to go in?

To try to further unpack some of these notions, we here at JPO did some simple statistical analysis and uploaded our data to public Google Docs spreadsheets. We considered J-Rich’s stats for the current season with Phoenix (though the data is a bit abbreviated, as he has only played about 50 games with the team after being traded from Charlotte) and his 2007-08 stats with Charlotte, during which he played in all 82 games.

In both seasons, we calculated some simple correlations between various offensive performance metrics. Some of the correlations are obvious: if a guy scores more points or makes more buckets, then his team probably tends to score more points, and is more likely to win, so we expect a positive correlation. In evaluating the question of whether J-Rich’s taking more shots helps his team win, we focused in particular on the simple correlation between his FG ATT and his team’s win or loss outcome.

We found a weak 7% correlation in both seasons. Of course, causality is hard to interpret. This could mean that the team thrives when J-Rich shoulders relatively more of the scoring responsibility, freeing guys like Okafor or Steve Nash to do their thing. On the other hand (particularly with Phoenix) it could simply mean that the team thrives playing a faster pace, and more FG ATT by J-Rich is indicative of more FG ATT by all players on the team, and thus a higher chance of winning. These calculations would be easy, though we did not explore them due to lack of interest in gathering the data.

We also calculated the correlation between J-Rich’s field goal attempts and his field goal percentage in any given game. We found a 31% positive correlation with Charlotte, and a 17% positive correlation in his Phoenix tenure. So there is some evidence there that he is more accurate when he shoots more. On the other hand, this evidence could mean that his teammates are passing him the ball more because his initial shots on a given night were relatively accurate and they perceived he had a ‘hot hand’. Again, we could track this more precisely by gathering intra-game shot cart data and measuring accuracy over time within one game, but we really didn't feel like it.

We also computed J-Rich’s average FG attempts in wins and his average FG attempts in losses, and performed a two-tailed t-test based on a null hypothesis that the two averages are the same. Similarly, we computed J-Rich’s average points in wins and his average points in losses, and performed a two-tailed t-test for the null hypothesis that the two averages are equal. Basically, the difference was not significant at any reasonable level. Richardson’s points output shows a statistically significant difference (at a 10% level) in his teams’ wins vs. his teams’ losses, but we kind of expected that, as discussed above.

So in sum, I still have no idea what is meant by “he needs a lot of shots to be effective”. If he can’t do much other than score, why keep him on the roster? Someone more scrappy who can score less but do more other good stuff would be more valuable. J-Rich has by far the worst net plus-minus rating of any of Phoenix’s stars. Perhaps the secret of his “effectiveness” is more economic: fans come to see fireworks, not box-outs and extra passes.

Waiting to Exhale

This article about scouting during the NCAA tournament suggests that NBA general managers are aware of their bounded rationality, and, even better, will go to extreme lengths to hinder their own bad impulses. It always seemed silly that a couple postseason games should receive outsized attention for purposes of evaluating player ability, compared to a few dozen regular-season games, possibly multipled by two or three seasons of a player's career. Rules like five-fouls-and-you're out, the 45-second shot clock, and the one-and-one free throw scheme can help weaker college teams to upset true powers given a few lucky breaks, so why pay too much attention to March Madness? John Paxson has built his Bulls team almost exclusively with players who thrived on their college team in late March -- Rose, Noah, Thomas, Gordon, Deng, Hinrich -- and look where the Bulls are now after several years of that nucleus. Similarly, Carmelo Anthony looked like the greatest star of the 2003 draft class after he led Syracuse to a national title, and now it's not even clear if he's better than David West.

Casualties of War

In previous posts, we’ve flagged basketball names that are just spoken flat-out wrong, from “Vitale” to “Kobe”. One of the oddest cases of bad pronunciations in basketball is a problem that pervades all major sports in the United States and Canada: the odd first-syllable stress when we speak of “offense” or “defense”. Have you noticed that these words always receive second-syllable stress in other contexts? Try saying the phrases “Department of Defense” or “The defense rests, Your Honor.” Stress on the second syllable, right? So why, then, would we switch the emphasis in an athletic context? Other sporty permutations of the word still place emphasis on the second syllable: Try muttering “Defensive Player of the Year” (a clear case of iambic tetrameter if there ever was one, making Ben Wallace nearly Shakespearean) or “He’s a subpar defender.” Yet, the iconic chant to spur your team to guard their own goal better is “DE-fense!” (which is probably unique to basketball) and the knock on Amar’e Stoudemire is that he “can’t get back on D” (omitting the unstressed syllable entirely).

These problems recur with that word’s opposite. If I make a rude comment, I might worriedly inquire: “I hope you didn’t take offENSE” (iambic tetrameter yet again); a hagiographer might dreamily write that a politician or a military leader is “on the offENSIVE” — again, the stress is with the second syllable. But consider: For the past five seasons, the Phoenix Suns have boasted the best OFFense in the league and have led the league in OFF-ensive efficiency.

Stress shifts in spoken language are hardly unheard of, but they are usually regionally based. Consider “CON-tro-ver-sy” in the United States vs. “”con-TRO-ver-sy” in England or India. Or “FI-nance” over here vs. “fi-NANCE” across the Atlantic. Are there any other cases where these discrepancies are found only in one industry or walk of life?

Perhaps one motivation for the first-syllable stress in ‘offense’ and ‘defense’ is to distinguish: when commentators are likely to be talking simultaneously about a player’s or team’s performance at both ends of the court, it helps to stress what is different in the two concepts, and to elide what is common (the –fense part!). Also, loading all the oomph upfront in those words emphasizes the aggressive, go-get-it spirit required to succeed. Finally, it could be that these mutations just happened by chance one day and caught on, without anyone thinking much of why. The sports world has venerated John Madden and Yogi Berra as commentators, although their elocution hardly made them Laurence Olivier or Alan Keyes. Finally, some linguistic analysts argue that stress shifts are more likely at faster speaking rates. This is likely to be the case in the rough-and-tumble toil of sports announcing. If only George Blaha could just chill out.

One For You, Nineteen For Me

Well, the trade deadline is gone, and there’s a lot of odd analysis going down in hoopsland these days. This Rocky Mountain News article frets that “The Nuggets already have eight players next season committed to make about $66 million. That gives them $4 million for five additional roster spots if they want to stay under the tax line.” Well, our journalist friend sure is begging the question there. Is it reasonable to say that an NBA team sees the aggregate salary threshold triggering luxury tax as a bad thing in itself, rather than simply a wrinkle that must be considered in the marginal cost of players? The typical analysis fails to consider how profit-maximizers (whether idealized or rough-and-ready) make decisions. Similarly, this article from February 16th suggests that the likeliest reason why the Detroit Pistons traded away backup PG Alex Acker, he of the $711,517 salary, was so they could get under the luxury tax line, rather than as a business decision like any other: is the cost of the investment justified?

It makes little sense to say that the Pistons dumped Alex Acker so they could get under (or close to) the luxury-tax line per se. Rather, one could say that given the Pistons’ aggregate salary position above the tax line, Joe Dumars noticed that, among other available roster shuffling options, by cashiering Acker they could save twice his annual salary of $711,517, or $1,423,034. Presumably if the Pistons were only $1 above the luxury tax line, they would have been less keen to jettison Acker to save $711,517 (his total salary, plus $1 in tax). And if, say, Acker’s annual salary were $20 and the Pistons were $5 above the luxury tax line, it is hard to imagine their dumping Acker just to save $25. There is some value to carrying a third point guard. And there is a nonzero probability that basketball value translates into economic value: if Acker is able to fill in during a couple games when Rodney Stuckey is injured, say, and he helps the team win a couple games and improve playoff position, his presence could be responsible for millions of dollars of extra revenue from playoff home games.

Perhaps we could say that owners are chary of paying luxury tax because they do not want to help competitor teams. But the orders of magnitude here are tiny: by dumping Acker, the Pistons avoided paying out $711,517 / 23 , or about $30,936, of luxury tax to each team (the dollar-for-dollar tax penalty is divided equally among all non-tax-paying teams). It is hard to imagine this making much of a difference to any individual owner’s P&L statement. Besides, a lump-sum cash transfer should not affect the recipient teams’ marginal decision-making regarding rosters: presumably, the acquisition or dumping of players should hinge on whether their contract value is justified by the attendant extra revenues, regardless of the team’s existing profit-or-loss level. Perhaps tax considerations (and here we mean real government tax, not NBA ‘tax’) might influence an owner’s decision-making if his distributions from the team corporate entity suddenly increase. Additionally, risk-averse owners might be slightly more willing to take on the gamble of a new player contract when they perceive they are pulling in more cash flow from the team. But again, thirty thousand dollars should hardly make much difference, so it is hard to see why Joe Dumars would think in such a way.

I have been assuming here that general managers act as pure profit-maximizers on behalf of their owners. But in some cases, owners place (the perceived chance of) winning above profits, such as when Knicks owner James Dolan signed off on Isiah Thomas’s rash acquisitions of Steve Francis, Jalen Rose, Jamal Crawford, and the like. Other rich or overzealous owners like Mark Cuban or Paul Allen may act similarly. If this is the case, then all bets are off: tax-paying teams would be less likely to worry about the tax, and also less likely to worry about transferring cash to other teams.



To be sure, irrational economic behavior is not rare: both corporate and individual decision-makers often fixate on avoiding thresholds that are better seen as arbitrary points on a continuum of financial positioning. For example, grandmothers from the Great Depression are likely to caution, “Don’t take on debt. Pay off your loans.” Well, if you can borrow at interest rates lower than the rates of return you are likely to earn from investing that money, then you certainly should keep your loans, or borrow more. Heck, Merrill Lynch carried a leverage ratio of 28:1 at the end of 2007. A leverage ratio of 1:1, or less, is one (extreme) point along a continuum of possible outcomes, but hardly the only logical one. Similarly, there’s little use in fixating on one rule, “Don’t go above the luxury tax line”, if that constrains you from making prudent investments. Other economic actors use crude heuristics, rather than careful analysis, to make decisions. It may be that, given how the luxury tax line has been constructed under the Collective Bargaining Agreement [i.e. the tax line is set at (i) 61% of average team revenues, minus (ii) average team benefits for players, including pension, 401(k), medical, and life insurance], breaching that line is a useful signal that a team is probably paying too much, given the typical magnitude of other team costs such as leases, administration, marketing, and other overhead.

So okay, it’s possible that team owners and management, crippled by bounded rationality, are anchoring on the luxury tax line as a fulcrum of decision-making. But still, most team owners have acquired their wealth through outsized success in other businesses, so they know how to run a business; it is unlikely that they would be distracted so. There is little evidence that they are in fact making decisions as NBA reporters suppose they are. (Sadly, team revenues and profits are not publicly reported, and so we cannot correlate profitability against player salary outlays.)

What about the scribes who write about the NBA: why do they so blithely accept the salary tax number as some kind of Demilitarized Zone, not to be breached? One writer said that “owners treat the luxury tax threshold the way Dracula treats sunrise” . Well, to put it nicely, most NBA reporters probably got started as college sports reporters and worked their way up; though constant learning is ostensibly part of their job, they are not necessarily policy wonks. It is they who are more likely the boundedly rational ones, stuck in a conceptual scheme that makes no sense.