Yesterday: 7.5 - 1

Overall: 64.9 - 60

NBA (26-18)

Suns (-6.5) at Timberwolves: The Suns have returned to form since the return of Steve Nash, as they won by double digits against the Clippers and Celtics in their two games since the All-Star Break.  The Suns play almost as well on the road as they do at home, so bettors should take advantage of the friendlier road lines (16-11 ATS on the road).  Meanwhile, the Timberwolves, are a respectable 14-12 ATS at home, but they're just 3-7 ATS in their last ten games.  That includes recent home losses to the Bobcats and Celtics.

Jazz (+4.5) at Nuggets: Both Carlos Boozer and Deron Williams could be back tonight, which would return the Jazz to full strength.  Williams' return is especially important, as the Jazz seemed lost on offense without their point guard on Tuesday night.  The Jazz are 7-3 SU in their last ten games (5-5 ATS), and they've already beaten the Nuggets in their two meetings this year.  Also, the Jazz are playing on two days' rest, and they're 5-1-1 ATS in such situations.  On the other hand, the Nuggets have suffered two straight losses SU and ATS, and they're just 13-15 ATS at home.  Allen Iverson's ankle isn't completely healthy, and that limits his ability to create open shots.

Rockets (-4.5) at Hawks: This will be the third game in four nights for the Hawks, who have been beaten soundly by quality defensive teams since the All-Star Break (81-106 loss at Chicago and 96-103 home loss to the Spurs).  Meanwhile, this will only be the Rockets' second game since the break, so they're slightly more rested than the Hawks.  Also, the Rockets are 7-3 SU in their last 10 (5-4-1 ATS).

Pacers at Raptors (-5): The Raptors are 17-9-1 ATS at home, and they're 7-2-1 ATS in their last ten games.  They're also 18-12-1 ATS with a day rest between games, while the Pacers are just 12-13 ATS in the same situation.  The Pacers suffered through a tiring overtime game on Wednesday night where they couldn't close out the Bucks in regulation.  Overall, the Pacers are just 4-5-1 ATS in their last ten games.

College Basketball (38.9 -42)

Cornell (+250) at Yale: Both Yale and Cornell have been playing great lately (10-3 SU in last 13 games for Cornell, compared to 9-2 SU in last 11 games for Yale).  But Cornell provides a lot of value as an underdog for a couple of reasons.  For one, Cornell has been good on the road, going 4-2 in their last six road games and 6-6 overall.  Also, Cornell is a better defensive team than Yale, as the Big Red have held opponents to 42.8% on field goals, compared to opponents' 46% field goals against Yale.  Both teams shoot 46% on offense, so Cornell's defensive mindset could be the difference.  Moreover, Cornell just played Penn, the Ivy League's best team, last Saturday, so Yale should seem relatively easy by comparison.

I'm responding to a few of the comments on my last post about the Iverson-Miller trade.  Normally, I'd do this in the comments section, but this blog site only gives me a limited amount of space for each comment, so I'm doing it as a new post.

1. EdHardiman wrote: I like the post I just don't find arbitrarily cherry picking stats valid in micro-analyzing. It has some macro-validity in quantifying a team but no economic model however well padded with math has explained the movement of an individual item in any market, be it financial or sports. There are too many unquantifiable variables that exist from luck to injury to a butterfly flapping its wing in Mongolia that are and can't be accounted for. In other words no metric will ever predict the flip of a coin. Even if the metric is right 2300 times in a row, it is still simply an illusion that satisfies our need to impose order on a chaotic system. 

My Response: 

Regarding the cherry-picking of stats, I wanted to use the last four years of both Miller and Iverson in order to give me a sufficiently large sample size.  However, I ended up using the last five years of Iverson to be generous to Iverson fans, as Iverson had one of his better years five years ago.  If I had only used the last four years of his stats, his Win Score would have been even lower. 

I think that you are glossing over the value of statistical significance.  When the correlation between two variables is found to be statistically significant, there can be little argument that these variables move together, regardless of how minute the movement.  This is not to say that one variable "causes" the other one to move, but you cannot deny that a relationship exists.  And when you have a sufficiently large sample size (over 1000 observations), we know that the finding of statisical significance in the relationship between variables isn't just random luck of the draw.  On page 103 of Wages of Wins, the authors have a table that shows the impact on wins of a one-unit increase in any of 16 NBA statistics.  For example, every missed field goal decreases a team's total wins by .034.  Put another way, if you miss 100 field goals, you'll find that your team's wins will decrease by 3.4.  The calculations were made based on data from 1000s of NBA games, and the statistics were regressed against the dependent variable of winning.  These relationships will continue to exist as long as NBA basketball is played under its current rules.  I just don't see how such statistically significant figures can be compared to the "flip of a coin."

Also, while the metric doesn't predict who's going to win a game on any given night, it is very good at predicting how a team will perform over the course of a season.  Page 110 of Wages of Wins  shows the authors' predictions of team wins based on player production, compared to actual team wins from the 2003-04 season.  The average error was just 1.67 wins, and the largest amount that the authors' model was off is 4.41 wins.  I find this to be excellent empirical evidence of the validity of the models.  Moreover, the authors' model predicted that the Lakers should have won 51.7 games that year, and the Pistons should have won 56.7.  Actually, the Lakers won 56 games, while the Pistons won 54 games, and the sportsbooks had the Lakers as heavy favorites going into the Finals.  We all know who won that series, and the authors' calculations showed that it really shouldn't have been a surprise, as the Pistons players were more productive than the Lakers' players.  The unquantifiable factors of luck probably contributed to the Lakers overperforming during the regular season and the Pistons underperforming.  And when I say "luck," I'm talking about those factors that contribute to winning, yet are not quantified by any measurable statistic.

2. TrainontheBall wrote: I know all about win shares (consider ourselves in the minority), etc. I don't agree with it 100 percent (after all, it's a questionable formula that's being used), but I do think it makes a great gauge - if not fun one to check out.  Thus, bear in mind that the difference between Miller and Iverson is .054 points. Win Shares doesn't take into account variables like momentum, clutch performances, leadership, etc. But I understand what you're getting at, and yes, I would agree that Andre Miller is more efficient than Iverson.

My response:

The measurement that I used in my post actually isn't a Win Share.  Instead, it's a relative measure of player performance that doesn't actually have a meaning in terms of wins produced.  Win Score is simply a way of comparing the efficiency of players who play the same position.  However, it is possible to calculate each player's contribution to win production.  The authors use a measure called Wins Produced Per 48 Minutes (WP48), and this actually has a concrete meaning.  For example, Iverson's career WP48 is .086, meaning that he produces .086 wins for his team per 48 minutes that he plays.  Now, think about what an average player's WP48 would be.  If we assume that an average team wins 41 games, then the five "average" players on this average team would have a WP48 of .1 wins.  Since each contributes .1 wins per 48 minutes played, the summation of their efforts over 48 minutes is .5 wins.  82 games multiplied by .5 wins is 41 wins for the average team. 

Back to Iverson: his career WP48 of .086 is .014 wins below average.  That's not good if you're a Nugget fan thinking that he's the "answer" to the team's playoff woes.  Some of this is softened if you expect Iverson to perform closer to his performance in the last two years.  He had a .152 WP48 in 2004-05, and a .127 WP48 in 2005-06.  Still, that's a far cry from Andre Miller's .217 WP48 this year.  Perhaps, Miller would have eventually declined to his performance from last year of .170 WP48, but that's still better than Iverson has ever produced in a single year.  As a simple comparison, Steve Nash had a WP48 of .319 wins last year, so that's the elite level.  While Miller obviously hasn't approached that level this year, anything above .2 WP48 is great for an NBA point guard.  My main problem with the trade is that the Nuggets took a guy who had become a major contributor to their team in terms of win production, and they traded him for a commodity that's never been able to sniff a WP48 of .2 or higher.  Perhaps, George Karl will be able to harness Iverson's talent and turn him into a winner.  But Iverson's history suggests that won't happen.

I'm currently reading The Wages of Wins, which uses econometric methods to objectively valuate basketball statistics in terms of their impact on winning games.  The basic theory of the authors is that measurements of a player's efficiency are better tools for evaluating players than statistics like "points per game." Since teams have an equal number of possessions in a basketball contest, the team that efficiently uses those possessions is more likely to win.  Turning the ball over without scoring is "bad," while converting a possession into points is "good."  The authors regressed nine statistics to find their relative impact on wins.  Here's a simplification of their findings.

"Good" statistics: Each point, rebound, and steal have relatively equal impacts on winning.  They are about twice as important as each block and assist.  So, to quantify the positive statistics, here's a simple formula: points + rebounds + steals + 1/2(blocks) + 1/2(assists)

"Bad" statistics: field goal attempts and turnovers have equally negative impacts on winning.  They are twice as bad as free throw attempts and personal fouls.  Here's a simple formula for the "bad" stats: field goal attempts + 1/2(free throw attempts) + turnovers + 1/2(personal fouls)

Putting this all together we get what the authors call a "Win Score":

Points + Rebounds + Steals + 1/2(blocks) + 1/2(assists) - field goal attempts - 1/2(free throw attempts) - turnovers - 1/2(personal fouls)

Win Score proves to be an excellent method of comparing players who play the same position.  But since power forwards and centers tend to have higher average Win Scores than guards, adjustments need to be made when comparing little men to big men.  That's not necessary for this article, as I'm going to compare Allen Iverson to Andre Miller, who both play at the guard spot.  According to the authors of Wages of Wins, an average guard has a Win Score Per Minute of .13.

I used the last four years of Andre Miller's statistics and found that he had a Win Score of 1659.5 over that time period.  I then divided this number by the number of minutes Miller played (9449) to find that Miller's Win Score Per Minute is .176.   Clearly, Miller is an above average guard in terms of his contribution to winning.

For Allen Iverson, I used the last five years of his statistics because he was limited by injuries over some of the last few seasons.  Iverson's total Win Score over this time period is 1515.5, and he played 12,442 minutes.  That comes out to Win Score Per Minute of .122.  This reveals that Iverson is actually a below-average guard.

Now, before Iverson fans jump on me, let me point out that Iverson is definitely an athletically-gifted superhuman.  However, the statistics show that his usage of his abilities doesn't help his team win any more than an average guard's play.  A few stats jump out at me, including Iverson's large number of turnovers over this time period (1153) compared to his relatively low number of assists (2015).  When you consider that the authors' econometric analysis found that the costs of a turnover are twice as high as the benefits of an assist, Iverson's poor assist-to-turnover ratio actually cost his teams games.  When you half his assists, you get 1007.5, which is lower than the detriment (1153) caused by his turnovers. 

Another area where Iverson hurts his team is in the field-goal-attempts department.  Since there are a finite number of possessions in an NBA game, a team has a limited number of shot attempts.  When a player misses these shots, the team turns the ball over to the other team unless it can grab the offensive rebound.  By being a "volume shooter" who has trouble averaging better than a 42% field-goal percentage, Iverson causes his team to have many fruitless possessions.  (As a simple comparison, Jason Kidd also has a low career field-goal percentage, but he makes up for this inadequacy with his excellent assist-to-turnover ratio).  In the Win Score model, Iverson's 8675 points over the five-year span was almost completely offset by his 7071 field-goal attempts.

76er fans, you should be sending Christmas gifts to GM Billy King right now.  He just got you a point guard who can help you win games.  And the authors of Wages of Win predict that the 76ers will win about half their games the rest of the year now that they have Miller in the lineup.

Meanwhile, Nuggets fans should put coal in George Karl's and Rex Chapman's stockings.  What are they thinking in sending away a guy with a .176 Win Score Per Minute for a guy with a .122? Well, they probably weren't reading Wages of Wins, so maybe that should go in their stockings, too. 

This trade should be especially disappointing to Denver fans because of the development of Carmelo Anthony over the last two years.  Since the beginning of last season, his Win Score Per Minute has been .169.   That's a marked improvement after his awful field-goal percentage and selfish play during his first two years caused his Win Score Per Minute to be very below average among guards.  With Miller and a maturing Anthony, the Nuggets finally boasted one of the better backcourts in the Western Conference.  Plus, Miller and Anthony complemented each other, as Miller's assists aided Anthony's rise in field-goal percentage.  With Iverson, who isn't a true point guard,  now handling the ball, Anthony will see fewer open looks, and his ensuing frustrations could cause an ego clash between the two "superstars."

Remember, though, that the public still perceives Iverson as a superstar, so the betting world will favor the Nuggets once Anthony returns from his 15-game suspension and is paired with "The Answer." This will be a wonderful time for my blog readers to bet against the Nuggets until the public wisens up to the fact that the Nuggets aren't even going to make the playoffs this year (and, if they do, it'll be a first-round exit).

I also feel a bit sorry for George Karl, since his coaching efforts helped lead to Anthony's emergence as a premiere NBA player.  With Iverson "sharing" the backcourt, it's going to turn into a giant, inefficient headache.  But, you dug your own grave, George, so my sympathy is very minimal.

There's also a touch of irony here that stems from Saturday night's brawl against the Knicks.  Afterwards, Knicks coach Isiah Thomas stated that the fight wouldn't have happened if Karl hadn't been running up the score.  Karl, who's a close friend of Larry Brown, despises Thomas, and he emotionally called Thomas a "####" (among other terms) when the media confronted Karl with Thomas' comments.  (As an aside, Karl is correct that Thomas is a ####.  I know of few other people in business who can get away with incompetent decisionmaking for such a long time period.  But that's another story).  So, you'd think that if Karl was friendly enough with Brown to despise Thomas, shouldn't Karl have been clued in on Brown's nemesis from the Philadelphia days?  Iverson caused nothing but problems for Brown, who performed one of the all-time best coaching feats in guiding the 76ers to the NBA Finals in spite of Iverson's penchant for ballhogging.  Yet, two days after lambasting one of Brown's arch-nemeses, Karl embraces another one. 

As a jaded former Mavericks fan, I didn't think I'd have anything basketball related to be thankful about this Christmas.  Alas, I'm thankful that I'm not a Nugget.