Basketball Free For All

Wondering what will be the effects of all the major deals prior to today’s deadline?  Well, worry no more as Justin and I are here to help clear up any confusion.  I’ll handle the relevant fantasy perspective while Justin will tackle the realistic implications in a subsequent article.  If we happen to miss anything or you simply have a question, as always, feel free to leave a comment below.

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Coming into this NBA season, the New Jersey Net’s expectations were low.  However, no one expected them to challenge ineptitude of historic proportions.  The Nets recent loss to the Dallas Mavericks resulted in being associated with the distinct dishonor of the worst start by any franchise in NBA history.  Worse than any expansion team or some historical bad franchise like the Clippers.  Even though they’ve recently broken through with a win, will putting their worst leg(s) forward hurt the team beyond this season?

Just How Bad Have Things Been?

To put it bluntly, the Nets have been awful.  They have the worst offensive rating (94.7), the worst points per game (87.60), the worst FG% (41.0) and the worst assists (16.25).  Most of their losses haven’t even been close as their point differential stands a little over 10 points per game (only Minnesota is worse).

To be fair, at one point they only had one original starter available for a period of time.  Devin Harris, Yi Jianlian, Chris Douglas-Roberts and Courtney Lee have all missed time for various aliments.  One of these players, CDR, was the first NBA player infected with the swine flu.  Prior to their first win against Charlotte, this foursome had missed 34 games out of a possible 72.  Don’t forget that it takes time to get back into the swing of things such as chemistry and conditioning.

Can’t also discount they’ve had some key role players miss the majority of the season:  Tony Battie, Keyon Dooling, Jarvis Hayes and Eduardo Najera.  Without a solid bench, it’s no wonder this patchwork team has been tragic against the rest of the NBA.  The New Jersey Nets probably wish they had as many healthy legs as their cheerleaders.

Did Management Stoke the Fire?

Coming into the season, the Nets had no established veterans – star or even borderline.  Jason Kidd, Richard Jefferson and Vince Carter had all been traded away.  However, a number of followers and writers proclaimed this was a good thing.  New Jersey had some promising young talent including a potentially fantastic PG and C.  More importantly, they would have about 25 million in available cap space for 2010.  As you’re probably aware, there are some fantastic names that may be available in free agency including Lebron James, Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh and Amare Stoudemire.

There does lie a problem with this thinking – it’s a year away.  For 2009, most experts predicted they’d finish at or near the bottom of the Eastern Conference.  Nothing new here as I’m sure most of us felt the same.  With obvious turmoil looming, why then was Lawrence Frank fired?

I guess it’s Lawrence’s fault that they wanted to go young and [clear] cap space and that everybody got hurt,” Magic coach Stan Van Gundy said Sunday night, before his team beat another one that is dangerously walking the 2010 tightrope, the Knicks.  “Maybe he was banging them up in practice, taking a baseball bat to them or something.  I just know that with the lineups he’s had to put on the floor, I don’t think any coach would’ve done anything better than he’s done.”

Source:  CBS Sports

Pretty hard to disagree with Stan’s assessment when considering the roster and all the injuries they’ve had to deal with thusfar.  However, were there issues going on out of the public eye?  Apparently, yes.

Sources said Nets management had come to believe that Frank had lost much of the team, a fact that has played out in losses to Denver and Sacramento in the past week. Once the Nets played so poorly against the Kings – believed to be the most winnable game on the trip – management decided it could no longer go on with Frank as coach.

Despite the return of point guard Devin Harris and shooting guard Courtney Lee, the Nets have played long stretches of uninspired basketball. “Most of the guys have tuned him out,” one source with direct knowledge of the locker room environment said. “This isn’t all Lawrence’s fault, but everyone knows that this can’t go on anymore.”

Source: Adrian Wojnarowski

Beat writers close to the Nets also observed that Frank and Devin Harris were not seeing eye to eye.

“In the times I’ve been here, I’ve been so (angry) because of a lack of effort,” Frank said last week. “But these guys are giving virtually everything they’ve got.”

But they didn’t give him the effort lately and he had to go. Now, the next coach will have to coax more team play out of Devin Harris, who had problems with Frank’s controlling style and has gained the reputation of being a solo act.

“Last year we had Vince Carter and he was a positive influence on the young guys,” said one team official. “But he’s not here, and it hurts because the coach and point guard are not on the same page.”

Source:  Mitch Lawrence

Consequently, it’s not surprising the Nets let Frank go.  At least, they fired him before they set the all-time record so that his name wouldn’t have to be associated with it.

Therefore, on the surface, it would seem they’ve made the correct moves.  There is one thing still bothering me though.  Did they consider the consequences if this team loses too many games?

Will a really bad record have long term effects?

We’ll examine two aspects to gauge possible long term affect:

1) How historically poor teams fare with rosters primarily consisting of talented youth in following years.

2) How many big time free agents signed with historically bad teams in following seasons.

1) First, we’ll examine how promising teams reacted to severely disappointing seasons.  Specifically, we’ll look at the 1993-94 Dallas Mavericks, 1999-00 Chicago Bulls and the 1999-00 Los Angeles Clippers.  These teams were chosen because they were all in the midst of serious rebuilding with promising youth with a significant stretch of poor play.

The 1993-94 Mavericks team finished with a 13-69 record, but they were best known for posting a 2-39 record (OUCH) through the midpoint of the season.  The team wasn’t completely devoid of talent as they had two promising but young 19 point scorers in Jim Jackson and Jamal Mashburn.  So how dire did it get?

You hear about it and read about it, but words cannot really describe the hopelessness down here. At one point last night, the Dallas Mavericks called a 20-second timeout and spent a good 15 seconds trudging back to the huddle, defeated.

At courtside, owner Donald Carter sat in his hideous shirt and his jeans and his 10-gallon hat, cheering his team wildly while it was 15 down. The latest news? Jimmy Jackson says he’ll never, ever, EVER sign with the Mavs, no matter how many faxes they send.

Source:  Encyclopedia.com

Well Jim ended up staying (contracts will do that to you), but the Mavericks continued to flounder by averaging close to a 27-55 record the next 4 years.  This is impressive despite drafting win-producer Jason Kidd.  It seemed that the 3 J’s were destined to be part of a great future, but this wasn’t the case.  In 1996-97, all three were traded away as the team decided to go in a new direction under Don Nelson.

The 1999-00 Chicago Bulls finished with a 17-65 record, a few seasons removed from the Jordan era.  The team did have some promising rookies in Elton Brand and Ron Artest while bringing in John Starks and Bruce Bowen after trading away Toni Kukoc during the season.  The following season the Bulls drafted/acquired Brad Miller, Jamal Crawford, Marcus Fizer and Ron Mercer, but this time they won only 15 games including losing a franchise worst 21 straight games on the road.

Overall, the promise never amounted to anything as the team averaged a 22-60 during the four year stretch after the 1999-2000 season.  The overriding theme seemed to be concentrating on youth without enough experience as they fell into a pattern gambling on youth that failed to pan out including Eddy Curry, Tyson Chandler and Jay Williams.

The 1999-00 Los Angeles Clippers were able to collect some talent after two horrendous years.  However, Lamar Odom, Derek Anderson, Maurice Taylor and Michael Olowokandi only managed 15 wins while starting the season with a then NBA record of 17 straight losses.

On paper, this team’s untapped talent and balance — four players averaging more than 13 points per game, and arguably the largest collection of “he’s-got-great-upside” players — belies its results.

Source: NBA.com

In the following years, they garnered an impressive amount of talent on paper: Darius Miles, Quentin Richardson, Corey Maggette, Elton Brand and Andre Miller.  Guess what, all these young guys managed to contribute an average W/L record of 31-51 the following four years.

Now, there have been some deviations from the norm when franchises have decided to completely entrust their future in youth.  Namely, the Portland Trail Blazers come to mind.  After blowing up the Jail Blazers and some troubling players the next few years, they appear to be ready to challenge the league’s best for years to come.  However, it would appear it takes a special bunch of players like Brandon Roy and LaMarcus Aldridge among others to make it happen.

Therefore, where does this leave the current Nets?  Coming into this year, there were no illusions, but there was hope that the Nets had put together a solid young core.  However, Dave Berri of The Wages of Win Journal made an interesting analysis of the Net’s franchise.  Basically, when Jason Kidd has not been on their team, they’ve been a bad team and his predictions don’t have anything changing that.

In addition, their terrible start is already affecting their morale:

“We don’t have any heart,” Chris Douglas-Roberts, the second-year guard, said. “It’s like we’re laying down. Weak. It’s a sign of weakness.”

Douglas-Roberts said the word was out on his team: “All you got to do is come out, punch them in the mouth and they’ll give up and run with their tail between their legs.”

Although the Nets were decimated by injuries early in the streak, they are nearly back to whole. Yet the fight they briefly showed in close defeats in early November is nonexistent.

“The spirit’s been broken a little bit,” said guard Devin Harris, the Nets’ lone All-Star.

Source:  New York Times

Uh-oh – hopefully, this is just a fleeting attitude and the Nets can put together a lot of solid performances.  Otherwise, you’ve got to believe they’ll continue to be tested mentally as other historically bad teams and it will take all their effort to stay together and focused on a common goal.

2) A second method of attempting to change years of bad fortune is through free agency.  A key signing or two could significantly change a team’s outlook.  However, there are multiple obstacles to this theory.  Poorly performing teams seem to have trouble acquiring or keeping top talent.

Let’s look at the top 30 players by salary (all over $14M). 15 of them are on teams that had over a .600 win% (50+ wins), while just 3 of them are on sub-.400 teams. In other words, the most successful teams employed 1.67 of these elite players on average, while the worst teams employed just 0.375 elite players.

Source: Hawkonomics

These statistics were compiled from last year’s payroll and performance.  One can gleam two likely scenarios for this disparity.  One, top players usually have choices in their destination; thus, they choose to play for a winning team that gives them a shot for a championship.  Two, poor performing teams usually suffer from the lack of capital necessary to sign major free agents.  Media outlets aren’t interested to pay top dollar to carry broadcasts while businesses and fans aren’t interested in sinking money for tickets, suites and other endeavors.

In one of the other historically bad teams we analyzed, the Chicago Bulls attempted to go the free agency route:

Remember, the summer of 2000 was supposed to be it. Actually, scratch that, Chicago had big designs on the summer of 1999, if we’re honest. And, if we’re to be completely accurate, the summer of 1998 was supposed to see all sorts of free agents flock to Chicago to eat up the team’s cap space. The summer of 1998 didn’t happen, for anyone. GM Jerry Krause saw the writing on the wall when most FAs signed with their old teams for more money in the truncated post-lockout offseason, and after talking up the 1999 offseason, he decided to make a few more cap-clearing moves and parlay that money (and two lottery picks) to the 2000 offseason.

Source:  ChicagoNow

As we can observe, the free agency route failed the post-Jordan Bulls.  Players obviously had no desire to come to Chicago despite the apparent available capital.  Therefore, what is there to ensure the same won’t happen to the Nets?  They’re off to a horrendous start, have historically been a well below average team and have put all their faith into a roster comprised of largely unproven young players.

However, the Nets do have two things in their favor.  First, it appears the long proposed move to Brooklyn will definitely happen.  Second, the Nets also have a new principal owner – Mikhail Prokhorov – one of the wealthiest men in the world.  Playing in the most dynamic sports city in American coupled with the deepest pockets can potentially bring in a top player or two.

They want a basketball team in Brooklyn – but not this one.

After the New Jersey Nets broke the record Wednesday night for starting an NBA season with the most consecutive losses – 18 – some borough sports fans had a message for owner Bruce Ratner as he tries to bring the team to Brooklyn: Start winning or don’t bother.

“I don’t want an 0-and-18 team coming to New York, especially to Brooklyn,” said Assane Ethols, 21, a Canarsie security guard. “It’s go hard or go home here.”

Source:  New York Daily News

It looks like a lot DOES ride on this season so let’s hope the current group starts playing better.

Players earn their fantasy value in different ways. Some players provide well-rounded stat lines that are more or less without weakness. Other players’ fantasy value is derived from strengths in a few categories or even just one category. The flip side is that some players can hurt a fantasy team with large negative values in one or more categories. These large negative values often occur in the efficiency categories (shooting percentages and turnovers).

Over the past few years, no other player has embodied the spirit of the Cat Carrier and the Cat Killer than Orlando’s own superhero, Dwight Howard. D12 is a Cat Carrier for three categories; rebounds, blocks and field goal percentage. At the same time, Howard is also a Cat Killer in two categories; free throw percentage and turnovers.

When constructing a winning Roto or Head-to-Head team, it is important to build a cohesive team while finding value throughout the draft. In H2H it is much easier to overcome weaknesses than it is in a Roto league, thus allowing for managers to take on Cat Killers without completely destroying their team’s chance of success. In Roto leagues, the Cat Killers are much harder to handle.

But in determining which Cat Carriers to draft or which Cat Killers to avoid, it is important to have a method of comparing Carriers or Killers in different categories to each other. Enter player valuation systems such as Basketball Monster or Ziguana.

Player valuation systems commonly rely on Z-Scores to allow us to compare apples (counting statistics, such as blocks) to oranges (efficiency statistics, such as field goal percentage). Since all counting statistics are on different scales, they also allow us to compare one type of apple (rebounds) to another type of apple (threes). Z-Scores do this generally by using standard deviations to rank all players against the average of a particular category. These individual Z-Scores are aggregated to assign an overall value for each player.

In trying to predict future fantasy production, past production is one of the biggest factors that comes in to play. As with most statistics, the more data you have the more reliable your conclusions. Thus, by using multiple years of data, you can better control for suspensions, injuries, down seasons and other outliers.

What follows is a list of the largest Cat Carriers and Cat Killers based on cumulative values over the past three seasons based on Basketball Monster’s Player Rankings in the nine standard categories. To eliminate any fringe players, a minimum of fifty games played was enacted. I relied on BBM’s valuations over Ziguana’s because BBM has a simple filter to limit the data to the past three seasons. Three seasons of data was used to help control for anomalies while also allowing some of the younger players to make the list.

And now, the rankings.

*Table is sortable. Click on column headers to sort data.

Over the course of the last three seasons, the single largest positive contributor to any one category has been Marcus Camby in blocks (averaged 3.1 blocks over the past three seasons). The next three top dogs were a trio of elite point guards in Steve Nash (10.8 assists), Chris Paul (10.2 assists) and Deron Williams (10.1 assists). Rounding out the top five is Amare Stoudemire with his highly efficient scoring from the field (.572 percent shooting on 14.1 attempts per game) due in part to Nash’s aforementioned dimes.

In simply perusing the top five players on this list, it becomes apparent why punting assists is so popular in H2H leagues. If you miss a top shelf point guard in the draft, you will have trouble competing against the managers that get one of the assist Cat Carriers. If you broaden the scope to the top ten players, Jason Kidd makes an appearance at seventh overall for assists as well (9.3 assists).

If you re-sort the data to put the values in ascending order, Dwight Howard takes the top spot, also know as the best of the worst. Howard’s free throw percentage (.590 percent on 9.9 attempts per game) is the single biggest category contributor in fantasy basketball over the past three seasons, period. Unfortunately for Howard and his Roto owners, this contribution is negative. In a close second is Shaquille O’Neal’s free throw percentage impact (.524 percent shooting on 6.5 attempts per game).

To reiterate, these two values are by far the biggest single category contributions in fantasy basketball, whether positive or negative. Either of these two negative free throw percentage contributions dwarfs Camby’s positive value in blocks in comparison. For rookie managers, the lesson should now be crystal clear. When dealing with percentages, attempts matter. A lot. That is why Andris Biedrins‘ free throw percentage (.565 percent shooting on only 2.6 attempts per game) is not nearly as damaging as Howard’s or Shaq’s. It still hurts a team, but is much more managebale than Howard’s.

Another lesson that managers of all experience levels can learn from examining Cat Carriers and Cat Killers is that Cat Carriers that are not also Cat Killers are always in high demand. These players are much easier to move than Cat Carriers that are also Cat Killers. For Roto leagues, and to a lesser degree H2H teams, Cat Killers are difficult to incorporate into a team after the draft because teams need to have a specific means of moderating the impact of a Cat Killer. Thus, targeting Cat Carriers can give you lots of trade value because these players can almost singlehandedly make a team competitive in a certain category. Oftentimes, managers are looking to trade for players that help deficiencies and not players that provide solid across the board value.

By looking at these values and comparing them against each other, it is apparent why winning a Roto league with Dwight Howard is such a difficult task that few have accomplished in competitive fantasy leagues. Moreso than any other player in the league, Howard was built for H2H play and should only be drafted in Roto leagues by managers who have a clear-cut plan in place of reducing the harm caused by Superman’s free throw shooting and the chutzpah to take the plunge.

In deep keeper leagues and dynasty formats, the players that come out on top year after year are those that relentlessly search for any advantage and leverage it fully. In that spirit, it is always nice to get the early word on a promising prospect to put on your watch list for the next couple of years. Look no further than rookie point guard, Rodrigue Beaubois.

The 6′2″, 182 pound playground phenom was discovered by Mikael Pietrus in in their native Guadeloupe, France. Air France took quick notice of Roddy and his impressive physical skills on the court. The first time you have the opportunity to see Beaubois run the floor, you get to see just how damn fast this kid is. We are talking Leandro Barbosa or Devin Harris quickness here. Anytime you see someone with that kind of explosiveness, you immediately think of the high potential for steals (fantasy gold).

As most NBA fans have never seen this kid play, what is the scouting report on Beaubois?

Unsatisfied with just Jose Juan Barea as a lightning-quick foreign point guard, the Mavericks used their first-round pick on 21-year-old Frenchman Rodrigue Beaubois. Beaubois has a fascinating set of physical tools at his disposal; at the pre-draft combine, his wingspan was measured at 6′ 9 3/4″ and he posted a 39-inch vertical leap. Where Beaubois is still apparently a work in progress us in terms of running an offense and creating for teammates. Still, he impressed at the NBA Summer League in Las Vegas, putting up a 34-point game and averaging 17.0 ppg and 3.8 apg with solid shooting numbers. If Beaubois plays well in camp, he’s got the chance to push Barea for backup minutes at the point. If not, he’s got time to learn as the heir apparent to Jason Kidd.

Source: 2009-10 Pro Basketball Prospectus

Beaubois’ amazing physical gifts will allow Roddy to be a big time scorer in the League one day. The only reservations are whether he can learn to distribute the ball and initiate an offense effectively. If he can learn to balance the two duties, in the Tony Parker or Devin Harris mold perhaps (although hopefully not as injury-prone), he will have a long career in the NBA.

Take a look at a recent preseason game against the Bullets. In just over 20 minutes Roddy tallied 14 points on .500/.667 percent shooting, 2 threes, 0 rebounds, 3 assists, 3 steals, 0 blocks and 1 turnover. From observing the damage Beaubois did in limited minutes against Washington, Roddy’s potential becomes apparent. Again, notice the penchant for steals, even in only 20 minutes.

So why isn’t Roddy a legitimate fantasy pick right now if he is so talented?

Two words: Jason Kidd.

At the young age of 35 last season, Kidd played a very respectable 35 minutes per game while appearing in 81 games. Beaubois is strictly limited to playing point, as he is certainly too frail and short to play the two guard. Thus, Roddy should not regularly see over twenty minutes again next season. Instead, he should see extended time in garbage time.

But the silver lining is that through all of this, Roddy gets to learn and practice against the best point guard of past ten years, Jason Kidd. As a rookie point guard in the NBA, backing up Kidd is akin to being chosen to be a Rhodes Scholar; you get to learn from the best.

Barring an injury to Kidd, Roddy should not see enough minutes to post solid fantasy value next season. Kidd, Barea and the criminally underrated Jason Terry will all also be logging minutes at the point for Dallas next season. In fact Beaubois will more than likely serve some time in the NBA equivalent of detention; the D-League.

For managers in dynasty or deep keeper formats looking for that extra edge, put Beaubois on your real life watch list and pay special attention to the Mavericks’ garbage time. As Beaubois develops and adjusts to the Association (and hopefully bulks up a bit too), he should be a fantasy asset for the managers wise enought to spot the proverbial diamond in the rough.

If nothing else, Dallas Mavericks billionaire Mark Cuban is certainly not gun shy about making major moves and shaking up his roster. After a disappointing 2008-09 campaign, Cuban declared that nobody was safe from being moved.

Despite the declaration, Dallas’ core stayed intact with Dirk Nowitzki, Jason Kidd, Jason Terry and Josh Howard all still around. With the season just around the corner, the 2009-10 Mavericks are substantially similar to last season’s model, with versatile forward Shawn Marion and big man Drew Gooden being the main additions.

This was supposed to be a sleeper piece on Marcin Gortat or Brandon Bass. However, the Orlando Magic ended up locking down both players for very reasonable prices, which seemed to be one of the major themes of the summer of 2009. Man, it would have been awesome to finally see the Polish Sledgehammer unleashed. But it was not meant to be.

With Erick Dampier slowing down and showing his age (34), the Mavericks clearly needed an addition or two to the front court. What the Mavericks needed most was athleticism on the wing (Marion) and scoring from the paint (Gooden). Scoring in the paint is not exactly Dirk’s specialty, as he is much more of a jump shooter than Gooden.

If given minutes, Gooden has shown that he can produce and be fantasy relevant. His career per-36 minutes averages are 15.4 points on .471/.732 percent shooting, 10.1 rebounds, 1.4 assists, 1.0 steals, 0.8 blocks and 2.1 turnovers. Light on the blocks and not a great field goal percentage for a PF/C player, but useful nonetheless.

In the Mavericks-Magic preseason game, Gooden showed how he can play a big role in limited minutes. He had 18 points and 6 boards and a block while shooting a high percentage in 22 minutes. Granted it is only preseason, but that also means that Gooden should most likely see more minutes as guys like Kris Humprhies, Jake Voshkuhl and James Singleton should not be seeing nearly as much court time during the regular season (they played a combined 47 mintes against the Magic).

Starting status doesn’t matter for fantasy basketball. What matters most is the distribution of minutes, as minutes are a prerequisite to having fantasy value. With Dampier approaching senior citizen status in the NBA while also being almost completely offensively inept, Gooden has a solid opportunity to carve out a 30+ minute per game role for himself.

In recent years, Gooden has not played alongside such a talented group of players. Say what you will about his age, but there are few floor generals as talented as Kidd. Throw in Dirk, Terry and Marion and Gooden should be seeing a lot of open looks as players double off of him. Drew is most effective as a complimentary, scoring big man off the bench, which appears to be exactly how Coach Carlisle plans on utilize him.

With the Mavericks looking like the legitimate third seed in the West (with the Lakers and Spurs taking the top two spots), Gooden looks like a solid late round pick (Buser Sports ADP of 170 and a Yahoo! O-Rank of 194) for managers looking to efficiently solidify their points and boards from a center-eligible player.