Minnesota Timberwolves Blog

The Four Factors and Using the Timberwolves

2007-11-16T11:29:00.000-08:00

Right now, the Wolves are about seven hours away from heading into their weekend back-to-back, which should be a good indication of how the Wolves are playing now that they've got the first W down. The current coverage of Wednesday's game (especially Britt Robson's superlative column) is fairly complete, but there's one thing I would like to point out that I didn't see mentioned anywhere: the Wolves did a fine job on the offensive boards, grabbing 30.3% of the their chances. Not only is that 4% above the league average, but it actually below average for the Wolves. They have been doing an amazing job of recovering their misses (fourth in the league), which is one of the main reasons we've only seen on real blowout to date. They are fifteenth in the league in defensive rebound percentage, and 9th overall. It's probably the true strength of this team to date. It's also one of the four factors defined by Dean Oliver. He defines it as thus:

After looking at a lot of teams over the years, I have come to realize that teams like these are bad because they don't control four crucial aspects of a game:

1. Shooting percentage from the field.
2. Getting offensive rebounds.
3. Committing Turnovers.
4. Going to the foul line a lot and making the shots.

There is really nothing else to the game.

Dean Oliver, Basketball on Paper, p. 63.

The Wolves are one of the best teams on the offensive glass, one of the worst at the line, slightly above average at committing turnovers, and almost exactly average when it comes to points per shot (complete disgression: I prefer points per shot to percentage because it allows a quick comparison between. Example: Greg Buckner is currently shooting 51.6% on twos, and 36.7% on treys. But he is making 1.03 points per two, and 1.09 points per three. So if the Wolves wanted to play things purely by the numbers, it would be better to have Buckner shoot from the arc than the paint. A note to those of you who think that this is simply a different way of expressing effective field goal percentage: you are completely correct). The Wolves problem is that their defense has been poor. More precisely, their opponents' offense has been very good. The Wolves opponents have an average offensive rebounding percentage (26.0%, league average is 25.6%) and an average turnover rate (12.0% versus leaguewide 11.9%). However, the Wolves opponents have been outstanding in two areas. First is in free throw shooting. Wolves opponents are getting to line .49 times for every field goal attempt, which means that whenever someone drives to the basket against the Wolves there is a coin flip's chance that they're going to be taking a free throw attempt. The other problem is that the Wolves are giving up 1.03 points per attempt. So they're a regular team on the glass and on the floor, but their opponents are simply putting the points up. Part of it is that the Magic, Nuggets, and Lakers are in the top eight in pts/fga (the Nuggets and Magic are in the top 5), while Sacramento and Denver are in the top ten for fta/fga (the Lakers are 11th). A good test of the Wolves will be Cleveland next week, which is a team whose strengths and weaknesses in the four factors mirror the Wolves. Meanwhile, tonights game against the Wizards will be a good chance to see if the foul trouble is truly behind the Wolves, or if it simply took a day off. They turnover the ball more often than other teams, and are shooting a woeful 0.84. But they get to the line at an above average clip. If the Wizards prevail, it'll be at the line.

Last night I put together the usage percentages for the Wolves players. Usage is simply how many possessions involves a given player. The formula is FGA + TO + (0.44 * FTA) + (0.33 * AST). I then divided it by the number of possessions (FGA + TO + (0.44 * FTA) - ORB) to see what percentage of plays involved specific Wolves.

Three things to note. Percentages that are red indicate that the player was deactivated for that game. 0.00% that are not in red do not indicate that the player didn't play (though that is the most likely scenario), but rather that they weren't involved with a possession. Finally (and most important) the percentages are higher than 100%. That's because more than one player can be involved with a possession, and usage numbers don't consider offensive rebounds. The only game that will ever add up to 100% is when the Wolves don't have an offensive rebound or assist. So what do we see from this? First, Rashad McCants has been the focal point of the offense so far (shocking revelation, I know). Even though Jefferson has posted the highest numbers, remember that McCants missed 1.75 games with an ankle sprain, and that the in Game 2 who was in frequent foul trouble, fouling out with 6 minutes left in the game after playing only 5 minutes in the second half. At this point it looks like the goal is to get McCants the ball about one-fourth of the time, with Jefferson getting it about one-fifth of the time. The surprising thing is that this is actually demonstrates team play for the Wolves. With the exception of Orlando, where four of their five starters were involved in 20% or more of their plays, the leader of any team (Carmelo Antony, Kevin Martin, Kobe Bryant, etc.) the Wolves have played to date has been between 25-30%. Both McCants and Jefferson have hit this mark twice (both of Jefferson's was while McCants was injured). It'll be interesting to see what happens when Foye returns. The most obvious reductions are going to be in Telfair and Jaric's numbers, but I think we'll also see a decrease for McCants. Not too much, but I imagine something along the lines of 20-20-15 for the three.

1-8

2007-11-11T11:04:00.000-08:00

No, that is not the prediction for the Wolves' record come November 22. That is the shooting line for Sebastian Telfair last night. While he had a nice line otherwise (4 assists and a steal versus a turnover and 3 fouls in 30 minutes), Telfair's shooting last night was completely indefensible. He was even 0-3 beyond the arc, which has been his strength until this point. So far the Wolves best advantage has been their three point shooting. They are fourteenth in the league (ninth until last night) in threes, and Rashad McCants (50%), Marko Jaric (40%), Ryan Gomes (40%), and Sebastian Telfair (38.5%) are shooting above league average (36%). The game last night highlighted the biggest flaw in the Wolves offense; at this point McCants is the only player that is above average in both three point and two point shooting. The current NBA average for 2 point shots is 47.3%, the Wolves are currently shooting 44.8%. Right now, the two point shooters for the Wolves are Craig Smith (55.3%), Greg Buckner (53.3%), McCants (51.6%), Al Jefferson (50%), and Theo Ratliff (48.3%). Now, having eight above average scorers is a good thing, and something that Timberwolves fans can feel optimistic about. But the problem is they not distributing their shots according to type. Buckner has taken 21 three pointers (33.3%), while Sebastian Telfair taken 39 two point attempts (28.2%). 35 of Gomes 50 shots have been from inside the arc, where's he's shooting 37.1%.

Of course, it's too early to put any faith in percentages. If Corey Brewer's true shooting % is scary right now (48.1%), it was Freddy Kruger on steroids before last night (37.5%). Since we're still in the section of the season were a single good game can vastly turn the stats of any player around, I'll avoid making any predictions or recommendations, save one each; the Wolves will be most successful by having McCants and Gomes/Jaric/Telfair force defenses to spread out, and then either feeding it in to Jefferson and Smith/Ratliff/Buckner or taking an open shot if they aren't challenged, and the Wolves will beat Sacramento on Wednesday for their first win.

My favorite stat of the night: Antoine Walker - DNP-CD. Walker fell of the cliff last year, and was my choice to be cut from the Wolves trade with Miami. He's currently shooting the team worst in field goal percentage (23.8%), three pointer percent (12.5%), and second worst in two pointers (30.8%, just ahead of Telfair's 28.2%). Also (to stretch an analogy) his true shooting percentage is so bad that it's beyond your regular monster into some sort of Gieger monster/Lynch hybrid.

Oh Ye Gods!

2007-11-10T13:12:00.000-08:00

Once again the Wolves collapsed at line. It's gotten to the point that even the Star Tribune has started commented on it. The result is, of course, another loss for a team that really needs to get it's act together when it comes to getting to the line. But let's address a few issues surrounding fouls and free throws first. The Wolves still have the highest rate of fouls per game (30), and are twelfth on the list of overall fouls (they are tied for least number of games played to date). And individual numbers are just as atrocious. The average NBA player is committing a foul once every 10.8 minutes right now. The Wolves are fouling once every 8.8 minutes (worst in the league). They only Wolves above the average right now are Michael Doleac (who's logged 3 minutes this season), Theo Ratliff, and Ryan Gomes. Al Jefferson is a bit below average, at 10.3 minutes per foul. The worst offenders are Craig Smith and Corey Brewer, who foul once every 4.6 and 4.9 minutes respectively. While there is a tendency for veteran players to get the benefit of the doubt in calls, the severity of the issue seems to make it safe to assume that teams are going to be going to free throw line a lot against the Wolves. This is part of a total decline on the parts of the Wolves players from their performance last year. Last season they went 9.2 minutes per foul. This should put them on pace to commit 2258 fouls this season (assuming they play the 2006-2007 league average for minutes). Of course, if you multiply 30 by 82, you can make an assumption of 2460 fouls for the season, which is an absolutely staggering amount.

So, free throws. The Wolves are currently the worst team in free throws by pretty much any measure you want to use barring percentage (they are shooting 72.1%, which allows them to scale the dizzying heights of mediocrity to 22nd). Last year, these Wolves fta/fga was 0.271, while the league average was 0.327. In other words, they were getting to the line 82.9% of the league average. This year, they are hitting the line for every 0.194 field goal attempts, or 61.4% of the rest of the NBA. I don't know if there's anything I can truly add to the discussion beyond this. Even if they were league average at getting to the line, they would still be 1-3 (though the games would have been much more respectable).

And now for the non-free throw factoid: Currently the Wolves have been outscored 414 to 380 (-34) in their games. If you take away their worst quarter in each game (the 4th against Denver and New York, the 3rd against Orlando and LA), the Wolves end up outscoring their opponents 301 to 297 (+4), which is a 38 point swing. Why is this important? Well, the Wolves are being outscored by 9.5 points in these four quarters, which is disastrous for any team. But beyond those quarters, the Wolves are holding their own against their opponents. And on a positive note, they've gone from -11 to -11 to -8 to -8, so we can hold out hope that they are improving in this regard.

Next time: Something besides free throws, let us hope.

...and the foul!

2007-11-07T18:43:00.000-08:00

The Wolves are currently the second worst team in the NBA at drawing a foul (.210 FTA/FGA) behind Portland. The league average is .315, the league best is .486. An example of how poorly the Wolves are drawing the foul: the league leader in FTA/FGA is Memphis. While they have taken 17 more free throw shots than the Wolves, they have attempted 110 fewer field goals. Being the worst in FTA/FGA isn't necessarily the end of the season; the worst team in the league last year was the Phoenix Suns. Of course, the Suns had the fourth lowest turnover rate, and the third lowest number of personal fouls and opponent free throws (these numbers are particularly incredible since the Suns had the third highest pace last season). So the Wolves free throw issue is only a woe if they have an amazingly low number of turnovers, personal fouls, and opponent free throws.

The importance of the free throws becomes apparent when you compare the Wolves to the Pacers. The Wolves turnover the ball less often (10.2% to 11.6%), shoot equally well (44.5% to 44.6%), and are better with threes (40% to 38%). The Wolves also grab a greater percentage of their rebounds, both offensively and defensively (26.7% to 26.6% and 76.52% to 70.32%, respectively). Yet the Wolves are 0-3 while the Pacers are 3-0. There are two reasons for this. The first is that despite the Wolves being considered a defensive team, their opponents are currently shooting 47.39%. The Pacers' opponents are shooting 39.85%. Part of this is due to the matchups to date, as the Pacers' opponents have 40.85% in their other games, while the Wolves opponents' are shooting a healthy 45.65%. But the other problem the Wolves have is in their free throw shooting. The Wolves are 29th of 30 in free throws (18); the Pacers are 11th (28). The best way to show the impact this has on the teams is thus: the Wolves (0-3) have scored 287 point and made 38 free throws. The Pacers (3-0) have scored 327 points and made 67 free throws. So 72.5% of the difference between the points scored between the two teams is the difference in free throws. It's important to remember that the Pacers aren't even a superlative free throw team; they can best be defined as above average. It's also important to note that even if you change the Wolves FT/G to league average (and they had the same FT% that they had in the specific games), they would only be 1-2 right now.

Now it's important to remember this is just three games for each team; a huge (or terrible) game for either team would greatly impact their standings. If we assume these numbers would stand for the rest of the season, than Indiana would beat last year's best opposing field goal percentage by 3% (the difference between the best and worst opp fg% last year was 5.66%). The worst fta/fga ratio last year was .266. If the Wolves keep their pace of getting to the line they are going to be at .056 below that mark (the spread from last year was .126). Now I doubt that either the Wolves or the Pacers are going to be record setting teams this year. But to date a large part of the Wolves' troubles can be traced to the line.

(Note: the data here is current as of Tuesdays games. As of today the Pacers are now 3-1. However, I think the example is still illustrative of the Wolves' difficulties)

The Cost of Gerald Green

2007-11-04T08:35:00.000-08:00

While going through the old posts and attempting to edit the tables so they are, you know, readable, I realized that I got down to the specifics of Gerald Green. While I don't think much of his potential (my current rankings of the pups is roughly Jefferson, McCants, Foye, Smith, Gomes, Brewer, Green, Richard, Telfair), I do think the Wolves are shooting themselves in the foot in not picking up his option. His option would have cost the Wolves roughly $2.5 million. Assuming that he has a year similar to last year, does anyone think that Green is going to get less than that next offseason? Using a modified help value from Popcorn Machine (rebounds + assists + steals + blocks - (turnovers + personal fouls - (field goals attempted - field goals made))) I came up with some similar players to Green (22.75 PTS/48, 0.97 PFA, 52.10 TS%, -10.55 hv/48). First up, Jamal Crawford (22.69, 0.92, 51.66, -6.44). Playing for the Knicks, Crawford is due to make $7.9 million this year, $8.6 million next year, and has $9.3 and $10.8 million player options for the following two years. Of course, he was signed by Isiah Thomas, so that number is a tad inflated. Another player to look at is Willie Green (21.82, 0.88, 45.75, -11.23), who played out his rookie contract with Greenesque shooting, and is now making $3.5 million a year for the next four. Also on the list is Marcus Banks (21.17, 0.88, 49.69, -9.39). I don't think he needs any introduction to Wolves fans, so I'll just mention that he's making the midlevel exemption for the next four years. Juan Dixon is making $2.9 million this year, which is comparable to what Green would make next year. Of course Dixon's shooting numbers are all worse than Green's (19.38, 0.96, 51.59). I won't bore you by continuing to go on like this, but I will say that there are players with similarly terrible help values that shoot a lot better. They are guys like Ray Allen, Carmelo Antony, Michael Redd, and Wally Szczerbiak. If Green develops a solid shot within the next few years, he could be in line for a contracts like that

So what have we learned? Well, the approximate cost of someone like Gerald Green between $5.3 million (with Crawford's numbers), and $3.7 million (without). Best case scenario, by not exercising their option, the Wolves have cost themselves $1.2 million in salary. It's not the end of the world, but it's not something you want to see from a team that's dedicated to rebuilding.

At Least I Got A Hat

2007-11-02T20:34:00.000-07:00

Some quick notes about tonights game, while the details are still fresh in my head.

1) The Wolves assist to turnover ratio was healthier than I thought it would be (1.92), and 12 of the Nugget's 18 turnover's were steals. That's some good defensive pressure by the Wolves.

2) Sebastian Telfair had 3 steals and 5 assists for the night. That's good. He also had 4 personal fouls and 3 turnovers. That's bad. He shot 1-2 from beyond the arc. That's good, if limited. He shot 4-13 from the floor, with no free throws. That's horrendous.

3) Antoine Walker is going to be trouble. At 9:34 left in the fourth, he rebounds a missed shot, walks it up court, shoots from the free throw line, and misses (Denver rebound). At 9:11 he fouls Antony. At 8:41 there is a full timeout called by Denver; Walker stays in the game. At 7:11 he rebounds the ball, walks up, and misses a three. During Denver's possession Corey Brewer fouls Carmelo Antony; Brewer, Jaric, and Walker are all subbed out at that point. Hopefully Wittman pulled Walker as punishment for his terrible shot selection in those two and half minutes, but considering the three player switch I thing the message (if there was one) got lost in the shuffle.

4) The Wolves final shot at coming back in the fourth quarter was a play where Sebastian Telfair took the inbound pass and drove to the basket where he was promptly descended upon by half the Nuggets (bench players included). Either Telfair made an awful, awful decision to try make that play on his own, or Wittman really screwed up the call.

5) The Wolves 19 free throws puts them 26th in the league.

6) As predicted, Rashad McCants is coming back strong. He shot 50%, including 3-7 on three pointers. He also had some nice defensive work, though he needs to cut down on the turnovers.

7) The Nuggets had 0.52 free throw attempts per shot. The Wolves had 0.21.

8) No Gerald Green tonight. Hopefully this isn't a trend, as his scoring could have been the difference tonight. There was a 8:42 stretch tonight (10:49 to 2:07 in the fourth) when the Wolves scored four points. In this same stretch the Nuggets scored 16.

9) The Wolves had some ticky-tack fouls. Calling Jaric's hit a flagrant 1 was being kind to Jaric, I thought. Similarly, there was a point I thought Telfair would get a flagrant for pushing off Iverson to create space (from where I was sitting it looked like he pushed him in the face). Finally, there was a point when McCants was beat by Antony on a break, and McCants pushed him from behind as he went for the layup.

10) The Wolves simply cannot expect Ratliff to give 14 points a night. He account for 9 of the 19 free throws, however. Hopefully he will impart the secret of drawing the foul to Jefferson before he departs.

11) Jefferson's performance wasn't too bad, considering that the Nuggets had men on top of him all night. In Camby, Nene, and Martin the Nuggets have above average post defense. However, he's probably due for a rough start until opponents learn to respect McCants' play and Foye returns.

12) I am pleased by the number of threes that the Wolves took last night (they should be in the top ten in three point attempts by the end of the night). I'm planning a post on the importance of three pointers to this group of Wolves, but suffice to say the more they take, the better. If they had taken all their shots from the three line and converted the same percentage, they would have scored 98 points tonight (including free throws). Not that taking 88 three pointers is a viable strategy, but this fact amuses me for some reason.

Friday Night Lights

2007-11-02T14:24:00.000-07:00

I’m sure everyone’s heard the phrase “today is the first day of the rest of your life”, and it is certainly true for the Timberwolves tonight, where they start the first game of the post-Garnett era. And due to Randy Foye’s injury, the Wolves will be looking at starting either Jaric or Telfair at point tonight. It’s not something that should please many Wolves fans, as it a pretty much a rock and hard place situation.

Player	FG%	FT%	TS%	FTA/FGA
Marko Jaric	41.85%	76.14%	51.00%	0.271
Sebastian Telfair	37.13%	81.82%	45.85%	0.232

Player	PTS/FGA	2P%	3P%	TR/48
Marko Jaric	0.94	43.33%	37.65%	5.669
Sebastian Telfair	0.82	40.17%	28.91%	3.277

Player	PF/48	DQ/48	PTS/48	TOR
Marko Jaric	5.299	0.031	11.43	14.75%
Sebastian Telfair	5.037	0.03	14.534	11.69%

Player	AS/48	ST/48	TO/48	BK/48
Marko Jaric	4.467	2.311	2.711	0.493
Sebastian Telfair	6.614	1.305	2.973	0.334

It’s pretty indisputable that Jaric is the better player of the two, as Telfair only beats him in free throw percentage (but Jaric is more likely to get to the line), points per 48 (but Jaric is 0.12 points per attempt better), turnover percentage (though Telfair makes more turnovers per minute), and assists (though Jaric didn’t play point guard last year). So what is to be done? I personally believe that they should split Foye’s time equally between the two at the start, with minutes being added or subtracted based on Telfair’s performance. The reason for this that Telfair is a young man on the last year of his contract, and unless he changes his ways is probably at the end of NBA career. In this situation, it behooves him to play within himself. The best way to do this would be to simply look for the pass when he’s on the court. If he can show himself to be a standard backup point (sans shooting), then he should earn himself more playing time while Foye is out. If he does anything else – steps up defense and the boards, finds a shooting stroke – that would be a bonus. My only concern with playing Telfair is how that his shooting is so woeful that anyone the Wolves play have a free defender roaming the floor. Here’s how bad Telfair was at shooting last year: his points per attempt ranked 321^nd out of 329 (of players that had at least 500 minutes). The goat of last year was Speedy Claxton, whose 0.68 was 0.05 points per attempt worse than any other player that had over 500 minutes. I don’t think Telfair will do this badly again, but it’s fairly obvious he is a backup at best. From his hotzone data, the Wolves best bet would be to get him beyond the arc on the left side (the Bruce Bowen area), or else open looks from the free throw line. His numbers at both spots aren’t outstanding but are passable.

Tonight the Wolves open their season against Denver. I’m of two minds about this game: on one hand I expect the Wolves to look disjointed, as two-thirds of the team left over the offseason. On the other hand, I’m expecting that we’ll see a starting lineup of Telfair/McCants/Gomes/Jefferson/Ratliff, meaning four of the five starters played together last season. Additionally, I think the Wolves should spread the floor with some 3 point shooting. Ryan Gomes, Marko Jaric, and Gerald Green all shot above league average from behind the arc last year, which the Wolves should exploit by having whichever one is being guarded by Iverson take distance shots. And if three Nuggets are chasing guys around the perimeter, that gives Jefferson more room to work in the block. The Camby-Martin-Nene-Najera quartet is going to be bad enough to deal with, but if the Wolves can’t find some range, Jefferson is going to have to deal with small forwards hassling him as well.

Two steps forward, one step back

2007-11-01T20:13:00.001-07:00

After years of signing the Troy Hudsons and Mark Madsens of the NBA to overlong contracts where their annual salaries aren’t sympathetic with their value, it is nice to see the Wolves make a smart signing. Al Jefferson is set to make roughly $13 million for the next six year. I feel fairly confident that the Wolves were able to make the deal at below market value; an imperfect list of players set to earn $12-$15 million per over the next few years includes Gilbert Arenas, Mike Bibby, Chauncey Billups, Carlos Boozer, Chris Bosh, Vince Carter, Dwight Howard, Pau Gasol, Larry Hughes, Richard Jefferson, Joe Johnson, Andrei Kirilenko, Raef LaFrentz, Kenyon Martin, Yao Ming, Tony Parker, Zach Randolph, Michael Redd , Jason Richardson, Peja Stojakovic, Amare Stoudemire, Wally Szczerbiak, Ben Wallace, and Rasheed Wallace. We’re going to exclude Kenyon Martin from the list because he only played 62 minutes over two games last year (sorry, K-Mart). So if we’re counting (and we are), that’s three point guards, five shooting guards, four small forwards, seven power forwards, and four centers. I must admit to being shocked by this, as I was expecting the distribution to tend towards shooting guards and power forwards.

So how does Big Al stack up against the guys in his income bracket? Let’s go to the per minute numbers!

From this we can see that Jefferson stacks up amazingly well when compared to his peers. He’s second in offensive rebounds (third in total rebounds), and is seventh in blocks and turnovers (61^st in the league in blocking, 17^th among PFs; 53 in turnovers at his position). And though he scored 3 points less per 48 than the group’s average, this is mainly due to being the #2 scoring option behind Pierce. As the #1 option in Minnesota and with the ninth best floor efficiency, he should be able to pop the points up to at least group average. Being in 9^th in the group is no shame, as he is behind some absolutely insane numbers from Boozer, Howard, and Stoudemire. Actually, let’s divert to that for a moment (I’ll address age after the next paragraph).

Boozer, Howard, and Stoudemire put up 1.12, 1.21, and 1.15 points per field goal attempt (PTS/FGA, which is (Points – Free Throws Made)/Field Goal Attempts). The best PTS/FGA in the league was delivered by none other than Dejuan Wagner, who hit a perfect 3.00 for the season. Of course, he played a total of 7 minutes in 1 game, shooting and hitting one (1) three-pointer over the course of his season. Behind him, Boozardmire was 42^nd, 16^th, and 27^th. But if we take those who played less than 500 minutes last season, then the group comes in 27^th, 7^th, and 15^th. So I think the Wolves might want to preemptively double team these guys when they come to Minneapolis this year.

But back to Big Al. One of the key brilliances of this deal (for both sides) is that it ends when he is 28. At that point the typical NBA player generally has 2 or 3 years left at the height of his powers. So the T-Wolves can resign him for another 6 (and overpaying him until he’s 34 is fine, within reason), or he can go out and certainly get a max deal from another team.

His youth is also a mark of distinction among the class he is in he’s bracketed by Dwight Howard and Chris Bosh, and is five years younger than the average age. And he comes up well when compared to those two. I would say he’s firmly sandwiched in as the second best of those three. He beats Howard in everything except for assists, personal fouls, and free throw percentage. And the first two can be worked on with different coaching and game plans, while I don’t feature the free throws as disastrous, as he’s certainly not going join Ben Wallace at the stinginess stripe any time soon. On the flip side, Jefferson is no Dwight Howard. There are some things we take for granted in life, and until we examine them we don’t see how exceptional they really are. Dwight Howard’s play was like that for me until I started writing this post. He’s dominant at every aspect of the game outside of fouls and free throws. If he ever gets that figured out he’s going to be an unstoppable monster of a player. As a precaution, Japan should call out the National Guard and being to evacuate Tokyo.

I’m very pleased about this signing, less so about the decision to decline Gerald Green’s option. So far Green hasn’t demonstrated the ability to do much beyond score a lot of points. That’s something that there isn’t too much of on this team, as Jefferson, Green, and Foye were the only three to be above league average in points per 48 last year. A healthy McCants would make that a bit easier, but for a team like the Wolves it doesn’t hurt to have an extra scorer around, especially when he hit 36.68% on his threes last year (which is 6% higher than his rookie season mark). At worst, Green is a solid second unit scorer. Considering how much teams have to pay for that scoring, and that the Wolves should be waiting until 2009 off-season to make major free agent moves, I don’t see how the team can justify essentially giving up another year with their second youngest player (he's older than Brewer by 37 days). Fortunately, they picked up Rashad McCants’ option for next year. Based on how his apparent complete recovery from microfracture surgery, I expect him to be competing with Foye and Jefferson to be the face of the franchise by season’s end.

The More Things Change

2007-10-30T10:21:00.000-07:00

Now that the Wolves have processed their final preseason trade, they finally have settled on a 15 man roster for the year. And unless we see a major drop in a young player's market value (or an in-his-prime star, like Kirilenko), I imagine this 15 man squad is going to remain static for the rest of the season. The only 4 players that aren't young or expiring are Greg Buckner, Marko Jaric, Mark Madsen, and Antoine Walker. I expect Jaric to be the only one to draw interest from other teams, but I doubt they would offer anything for beyond expiring contracts, which the Wolves might not even need at this point.

So I went back and adjust my numbers for the 2007-2008 season, adding in Walker and Doleac's performances, and so my prediction has now dropped from 35 to 32 wins.

Player	PS	GP	Min	PTS
Corey Brewer	SF	82	2050	654
Greg Buckner	SG	31	652	145
Michael Doleac	C	60	1112	318
Randy Foye	PG	82	1640	727
Ryan Gomes	PF	82	1932	749
Gerald Green	SF	82	1476	699
Marko Jaric	SG	82	1264	295
Al Jefferson	PF	76	3060	1460
Mark Madsen	PF	20	270	35
Rashad McCants	SG	76	2020	853
Theo Ratliff	C	70	1050	270
Craig Smith	PF	82	1510	598
Sebastian Telfair	PG	82	1066	323
Antoine Walker	PF	51	578	20

So with that we're right back to last year, which would be considered an accomplishment by most. But one thing to consider is whether there is relationship between a team's possession percentages from year to year. The short answer: no. The long answer: depends on the team. Going back five years, there is a definite relationship for some teams (Houston, Washington, and New Jersey), and not for others (Minnesota). Having a possession percentage of 50% would give the Timberwolves between 28 and 35 wins. An average number of points surrendered per possession would give the Timberwolves a Pythagorean Win number of 32 wins.

Just for fun, I decided to use the +/- numbers for the Wolves to get an alternative win projection. I used the +/- from last year for all of the players except for Ratliff and McCants, where I used their preseason numbers. I also didn’t count any +/- for Brewer. Using this system, the Wolves should be expected to win 26 games next season. Not a successful season, certainly, but not a historically bad season like some are predicting. Now, Brewer’s preseason +/- is -14.7 per 48 minutes. When combined with the 2050 minutes I expect him to receive, that comes out to a +/- total of -628 points for Brewer and a +/- of 988 for the Wolves. That changes the expected Wolves wins to 9 for the season. Either the +/- for the preseason is off (which is most likely) or else Brewer is going to be dreadful. If it’s the latter, I doubt they’ll be playing him 2000 minutes.

The New-Look Wolves: The Rashad McCants Project

2007-10-27T22:22:00.000-07:00

At the end of the month, the Timberwolves are going to have to decide what they are going to do with Rashad McCants. Their deadline to pick up his option for next year is the 31st. Despite protestations about his last season, there are several reasons the Timberwolves should keep McCants. They are, in particular order:

1) Depth. With the Walker/Davis trade completed, the shooting guards are McCants, Gerald Green, Greg Buckner, and Marko Jaric. Of course, Buckner and Jaric are journeymen, and Green is young scorer who will probably be spending as much time at 3 as the 2.

2) Trade considerations. McCants is seen as a project, which is more or less accurate to where he is right now. If the Wolves don’t pick up his option, they’re guaranteeing that they won’t be able to trade him if they sour on the project. No rebuilding team would ever want to take him in for half a season, and if he’s good enough that a playoff team wants him in order to make a run, he’s good enough to stay in Minnesota.

3) He’s hasn’t recovered from mircofracture surgery yet. If you check out Wikipedia, it claims that the surgery takes at least 4 months of recovery. Most news stories on it in context to basketball seem to place it at 6 months. But it seems like it takes a lot longer for players to get to full speed.

To figure out a timetable for McCants’ return to form, I looked at several players who had microfracture surgery (Pat Garrity, Adrian Griffin, Penny Hardaway, Mat Harpring, Allan Houston, Jason Kidd, Kerry Kittles, Eduado Najera, Zach Randolph, John Stockton, Amare Stoudemire, and Chris Webber). There are several other players who have had the surgery but I didn’t include for various reasons, mainly those who retired after surgery and those that have yet to return.

Before diving into recovery times for microfracture surgery, I want to make clear that this uses a very small sample size and includes players of various heights, ages, and positions. So the conclusions from this are somewhere between “wild guess” and “informed opinion”.

Let’s start with the overall picture of the players’ performances (for simplicity and my own general sanity, “Year 1” refers to the season before the surgery took place, “Year 2” refers to the season played within a year of the surgery, and “Year 3” refers to the first season after a full year had passed since surgery).

Years	FG%	TS%	3P%	FT%	TR/48
Year 1	46.66%	55.70%	37.35%	79.77%	7.606
Year 2	43.86%	51.05%	36.18%	76.36%	8.554
Year 3	46.12%	53.53%	34.01%	77.85%	9.492

Years	AS/48	ST/48	TO/48	BK/48	PTS/48
Year 1	5.227	1.713	2.852	0.623	23.09
Year 2	6.162	1.723	3.134	0.456	21.79
Year 3	4.944	1.888	3.071	0.714	22.04

One of the things I find most interesting about this is that the statistics that are indicators of athleticism (rebounds, blocks, and steals) all increase in the third year. My armchair analysis would be that it returning players are attempting to demonstrate their full health, while simultaneously warding off any bench players who might have designs on keeping the minutes gained while they were on the IR.

Of course, Rashad McCants is a unique case. At 21 he’s the youngest player I can find who has logged NBA minutes, gone under the knife, and returned. Here’s how he’s done during his two seasons in the NBA:

Year	FG%	TS%	3P%	FT%	TR/48
2005-2006	45.05%	53.90%	37.22%	73.58%	5.029
2006-2007	35.03%	45.43%	26.67%	68.97%	4.065

Year	AS/48	ST/48	TO/48	BK/48	PF/48	PTS/48
2005-2006	2.215	1.547	3.024	0.774	6.189	22.048
2006-2007	3.286	2.249	3.459	0.605	6.141	15.914

Notice the prodigious drop in scoring, even beyond the norm for players coming right back from having surgery. The athletic statistics have decreased slightly, but could be within the year to year variation. But does this mean the Wolves should expect last season’s McCants back? Well, there is no simple way to answer that question. The two closest players in age to McCants that returned to the NBA are Zach Randolph and Amare Stoudemire. Both came back successfully from surgery, but neither of them (6’9’ and 6’10”) fit McCants in terms of body. The closest in terms of height are Jason Kidd (28,984 minutes played before surgery), Kerry Kittles (9,292 minutes), and Adrian Griffin (5060 minutes). None of them are great matches. Kidd was ten years older than McCants when he had his surgery, Kittles missed an entire season, and Adrian Griffin was a backup who took two years before he saw more than 1000 minutes in another season. Here are the numbers for the three players:

Player	GP	Min	FG%	TS%	3P%	FT%
Griffin Year 1	74	1373	43.32%	46.29%	25.00%	84.38%
Griffin Year 2	19	133	27.78%	27.83%	50.00%	0.00%
Griffin Year 3	69	667	36.02%	41.86%	22.22%	75.00%

Player	TR/48	AS/48	ST/48	TO/48	BK/48	PF/48	PTS/48
Griffin Year 1	9.229	3.671	2.692	1.643	0.21	5.489	11.362
Griffin Year 2	6.857	3.609	2.526	1.083	0.722	6.135	3.97
Griffin Year 3	10.51	3.814	3.094	2.159	0.288	5.613	10.867

Player	GP	Min	FG%	TS%	3P%	FT%
Kidd Year 1	67	2449	38.37%	48.48%	32.08%	82.73%
Kidd Year 2	66	2436	39.77%	50.61%	36.03%	73.96%
Kidd Year 3	80	2978	40.44%	52.60%	35.19%	79.51%
Player	TR/48	AS/48	ST/48	TO/48	BK/48	PF/48	PTS/48
Kidd Year 1	8.389	12.113	2.391	4.194	0.274	2.156	20.305
Kidd Year 2	9.616	10.739	2.424	3.291	0.177	2.167	18.739
Kidd Year 3	9.349	10.831	2.418	3.095	0.467	2.531	17.166

Player	GP	Min	FG%	TS%	3P%	FT%
Kittles Year 1	62	1896	43.70%	53.52%	40.00%	79.53%
Kittles Year 2	0	0	0.00%	0.00%	0.00%	0.00%
Kittles Year 3	82	2601	46.60%	54.25%	40.50%	74.42%
Player	TR/48	AS/48	ST/48	TO/48	BK/48	PF/48	PTS/48
Kittles Year 1	5.696	3.595	2	1.418	0.481	3.038	20.43
Kittles Year 2	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Kittles Year 3	5.075	3.986	2.399	2.012	0.572	1.993	20.337

These numbers offer 2/3rds of a hope for McCants. Kittles and Kidd were able to come back in Year 3 and shoot better percentages across the board, while not losing much on their non-scoring statistics (though Kittles did a better job in maintain his performance).

Of course, we can see that McCants has played remarkably well in this preseason. And as a point of comparison, he has done far better in this preseason than he did in his rookie year.

Preseason	G	Min	FG%	3P%	TS%	TR/48
2005 Rashad McCants	8	189	46.80%	47.40%	53.70%	4.83
2007 Rashad McCants	5	145	52.00%	33.30%	63.20%	4.3

Preseason	AST/48	STL/48	BLK/48	TO/48	PF/48	PTS/48
2005 Rashad McCants	3.3	1.52	0.76	3.05	8.89	23.87
2007 Rashad McCants	4.3	1.99	0	4.63	5.3	25.16

Of course, part of the reason for his success is that it’s the preseason, and established players aren’t playing as hard or getting regular minutes, and there are quite a few bubble players who are still with teams (I would personally like to see Carmelo or Kobe play a full forty-eight, just to see if they can break Chamberlain’s scoring record). And McCants has 1 ½ seasons of experience in the NBA. Nevertheless, these numbers seem to demonstrate that he is on the right track for his recovery, and should be a valuable part of the Wolves for the next few years.

--All stats are from http://www.dougstats.com, except for the Timberwolves Preseason stats, which are from the Timberwolves homepage.

Of Course

2007-10-24T12:49:00.000-07:00

The day after I post my prediction for the upcoming season, the Timberwolves trade Ricky Davis and Mark Blount for Antoine Walker, Michael Doleac, and Wayne Simien, plus a future first round pick. That opens up a 2658 minute gap in my prediction. Rather than dash off and try to figure out how this effects the Wolves' chances this year I'm going to wait until the 31st or the 1st to adjust my predictions, since this guarantees either a 2 for 1 trade or a buyout before the season begins. But this pretty much guarantees a Ratliff/Jefferson/Brewer/McCants/Foye Opening Night lineup, health permitting.

A Bright And Sunny Season For The Timberwolves

2007-10-23T15:14:00.000-07:00

The time is upon us once again, as the dawn of the new season approaches, like effusing golden rays heralding the new dawn. A unique crispness fills the air, settling with the comfort…

Sorry about that. I had some purple prose to work out of my system. But since we’re at the beginning of a new season, I thought it would be a good time to unleash my prediction for the Timberwolves’ next season. This is a long and complicated process, which I’ll explain in a lengthy piece here. Skip to the three ellipses if you want to avoid something that sounds like a high school math lecture.

The major problem is that I wanted to try something fairly scientific to determine what happens next. The first half of that is simple. I pulled out the Pythagorean Expected Win-Loss formula (Points^16.5/(Points^16.5+Opponent’s Points^16.5)), which is a predictor of how a team will do in the next season. Of course, I need to know exactly how many points the T-Wolves will score and surrender. Having offended the local witchdoctor, I needed to find a different way to divine the . The first part of it was figuring out who the T-Wolves are going to play, and for how long.

Player	GP	Min	PTS
Blount, Mark	82	1148	455
Brewer, Corey	82	1640	523
Buckner, Greg	4	154	34
Davis, Ricky	82	1510	687
Foye, Randy	82	1640	727
Gomes, Ryan	82	2132	826
Green, Gerald	82	1476	699
Howard, Juwan	4	198	72
Jaric, Marko	82	1264	301
Jefferson, Al	76	3060	1460
Madsen, Mark	4	270	35
McCants, Rashad	76	1520	642
Ratliff, Theo	70	1050	270
Smith, Craig	82	1722	682
Telfair, Sebastian	82	1066	323

This is based on my projections of how many minutes each player will have in the season. The games played is there as a rough marker of why I allocated certain minutes in the way that I did. If you’re curious (and I’m sure you’re waiting with bated breath) I’m predicting a starting lineup of Blount/Ratliff, Jefferson, Brewer, Davis/McCants, and Foye, with all of the young guys getting significant minutes this season. Minutes distributed like this means that the Wolves would be serious about their youth movement, and that the old guys would be getting the short shift, regardless of how good they actually are. Based on this, I took the Timberwolves numbers from last season, multiplied them out so that they would be equal the number of minutes I expect the players to get this year, and viola!, we have the Timberwolves points for the season. Well, almost.

The problem with this is three guys who should receive significant time this season: Corey Brewer, Rashad McCants, and Theo “the Contract” Ratliff. Brewer has yet to play a minute in regular season action, and McCants and Ratliff are recovering from surgeries that I prefer to describe as “horrific.” So I had to find some numbers and fudge them a little in order to describe (however loosely I could) what these three will do. McCants was the easiest; he had a ghastly 2006-2007 season due to the microfracture surgery (despite what the NBA and the doctors say, it seems to take 12-16 months for a player to recover from this surgery, something I will expand upon when I look a McCants more in depth) and so I simply took his career numbers and expanded them to a 1520 minute season. As for Ratliff, I didn’t know what to expect from him; back surgery at the age of 34 is a serious matter, even for those of us who aren’t 6-10 NBA centers. He only played three games last season, so his number from then were obviously unusable, but there is no way of knowing how similar he will to his pre-surgery form. Lacking a good option, I went with the least bad option and simply expanded out his preseason stats. Which sounds (and is) a crazy way to do it. Of course, I did the same thing with Brewer; these games are the only thing he has played at the NBA level, and even though the game is going to be exponentially more difficult in the regular season, it was the best I had.

So the numbers for Brewer and Ratliff are almost certainly optimistic (I believe the numbers for McCants to be about right, as this year’s model is going to be unrecognizable from the 2006-2007 itineration). However, everyone else’s projected stats are pessimistic. Assuming Wittman and McHale go and stay young, then the way these players will hit my expectations if none of them improve. If Al Jefferson is still a borderline star, if Randy Foye, Craig Smith, and Ryan Gomes continue to play more or less like NBA role players, if Gerald Green and (God help us) Sebastian Telfair play with more promise than skill, and if Ricky Davis doesn’t turn it on in a contract season, then this prediction will be accurate. Anything else is a bonus.

Of course, know the points scored is only half (well, 2/3rds) of the equation. The rest is figuring out how many points the Timberwolves will surrender in the season. To figure this out, first we need to know how many possessions the Timberwolves will have. A large part of how many points a teams scores (7736 for the 2007-2008 Timberwolves) depends on how many possessions a team has. Using the simplified possession formula from Dean Oliver’s Basketball on Paper (Field Goals Attempted + Turnovers + (0.4 * Free Throws) – Offensive Rebounds), the 2007-2008 Timberwolves will have 7529 possessions.

A quick diversion before I continue: these numbers are within the range put up by NBA teams last season, though on the low end. 7736 points would make the T-Wolves the third lowest scoring teams last season (1: Atlanta, 2: Portland), and 7529 possessions would put the Wolves as the sixth slowest team in the league (1: Detroit, 2: Dallas, 3:Miami, 4:Portland, 5: San Antonio). Quick math says that that comes out to 1.02 points per possession, which would be tied for 5^th worst in the league, behind Indiana, Boston, Atlanta, and Charlotte, and tied with Philadelphia, and, well, the 2006-2007 Timberwolves.

So using this information, we can know build an approximation of how the Timberwolves opponents will fair. If we look at the number of opponent possessions, it differs slightly from the number of possessions a team has. Even though possession always goes back and forth during play, it is possible to start and end a quarter with the ball, which will give you a +1 lead in possessions. It is possible to get as many as 164 additional possessions a season (assuming no overtime) by taking the buzzer beater in every quarter of every game. But I digress. Looking at the numbers from last season, I took the % of total possessions each team had.

As you can see from the chart, it is remarkably consistent. All but 4 teams ended up between 50.2 % and 49.8 %, and 16 teams are between 50.1 % and 49.9% The highs and lows are 49.63% and 50.21%, with the average being 50.00%. So taking this and a formula of Poss% * x = 7529, we find the number of possessions in a Wolves game. Subtracting the 7529 from this, we find that Wolves opponents should have anywhere from 7466 to 7641 possessions next season. Taking those two plus a 50% possession for the Wolves (7529), we can multiply them by the league’s opponents points per possessions numbers how many points the T-Wolves opponents are going to score (the Opp PTS/Poss range from 0.98 to 1.10, with 1.04 as the league average). So from all of this we come with a range of 17 to 59 wins for the Timberwolves.

Helpful, wasn’t that? Okay, seriously, to figure this out I simply assumed the Wolves would be average at defense and percentage of possessions. Doing that, I come out with…

…

35 wins for the Wolves! So after all that excitement and drama, why did I give such positive name to this post? Simple: everyone else is expecting them to be somewhere between historically bad and low twenties in wins. 35 wins would be a positive step for the Wolves, showing that they are on par with last season’s team (remember, the Wolves packed it in for the last seven games in order to ensure a draft pick. So they were better than 30 wins. Maybe 2 or 3 wins better, but they were) and pretty much guaranteeing that our draft pick goes to the Clippers after the season. I personally consider that a good thing, as dragging out the process of surrendering the pick simply means that the Wolves have to choose whether they are going postseason or bust every year, which in turn means there are factors besides winning that are part of every game. And stabilization would give the younger players hope as they look towards where they are going to play after their rookie contract finishes. And being that close will certainly allow the Wolves to be part of free agents deals if and when they end get out of salary cap hell.

Personally, I can wait for the Timberwolves next losing season!

---The data used for the basis of this post is from http://www.dougstats.com

The New-Look Wolves: The Curious Case of Mark Blount

2007-10-18T15:07:00.000-07:00

Out of the current Timberwolves, no one is likely to cause the fans more aggravation in the upcoming season than Mark Blount. The reason is quite simple: of the 7 players on the team that can be considered prospects for the teams, they break down like so: 2 point guards (Foye and Telfair), two shooting guards (Green and McCants), a small forward (Brewer), and a two power forwards (Gomes and Smith). So not only do the Wolves not have an up and coming center, but Chris Richard is their tallest of the prospects in camp (6’9”), and almost certain to be cut from the 15 man squad. This is a problem, as their other two ppssible centers for this season are the Contract Formerly Know As Theo Ratliff and Al Jefferson. Ratliff can be a decent backup, but unless the Timberwolves plan to keep Jefferson on the court for every minute of every game, he’s going to be paired with Smith, Gomes, Mark Madsen, or Juwan Howard. There’s potential for this combination to get horribly abused by any front two that consists of even average players.

If you were to make a list of Timberwolves that need to be traded, Blount would definitely be number one. I’d say with a bullet, but this has been the case since about halfway through last season. He’s certainly disgruntled, and hasn’t been doing anything for the Wolves besides scoring in bunches. He also makes $7 million a year, which is more than any team is willing to put out for a seven foot jump shooting center. If he was a small forward he’d be the anti-Bruce Bowen and would probably have some value on the trade market, but he’s a center, which is a position where teams look at more than just points per game. And so the Timberwolves are stuck with him, despite deleterious effects he could have on both the team’s and the fans’ morale.

The problem with Blount seems to stem from his apathy about the game. He’s 7 feet tall, not unathletic, and can definitely score, but he’s not interested in playing when he doesn’t have the ball. The thing is, there was a time when he used to care.

Season	PTS/FG	DRB/48	STL/48	BLK/48	TO/48	PTS/48	TO%
2000-01	1.01	5.86	1.71	3.32	2.71	10.84	19.19%
2001-02	0.84	6.82	1.85	2.20	2.66	10.87	18.36%
2002-03	0.86	6.74	1.44	2.33	3.52	13.72	18.16%
2003-04	1.13	7.63	1.60	2.12	3.00	16.85	16.19%
2004-05	1.06	5.72	0.74	1.44	3.56	17.38	16.17%
2005-06	1.02	5.76	0.86	1.63	4.16	19.59	17.25%
2006-07	1.03	6.96	0.81	1.09	3.00	19.06	13.82%
Fall 2000-Spring 2004	1.02	6.97	1.60	2.43	3.05	14.32	17.41%

The only positive from these stats are that Blount has figured out how to cut down his turnovers from horrifying to merely average (starting centers average 13.67%, centers in general 13.99%) as a percentage percent of possessions. The rest shows a player who entered the league with a strong number of blocks and steals, but gradually gave up on trying defensively in favor of putting up solid jump shot numbers.

How do we know he gave defensively? Well, I don’t feel entirely comfortable with advanced defensive measures from Dean Oliver or John Hollinger, so I’m simply going to look at the rebounds, steals, and blocks. And while they barely tell any part of the defensive story, some value can be squeezed from them. In Blount’s case, we can approach them the same way astronomers approach dark matter; the overall drop in the numbers imply that Blount’s effort on defense has dropped since he came into the league.

Now for the fun task of reversing course a bit: Mark Blount isn’t that bad. He’s certainly not a star, and he shouldn’t start, but he knows how to make jumpers, and would be an acceptable scoring option for the second squad. Of course, there’s no way the Timberwolves can move a backup making $21 million the next three years, meaning that he’s going to be taking valuable cap space during that time. But if the Wolves give him starter’s minutes, his terrible defense is going to end up costing them (not to mention that every minute plays at center is a minute Al Jefferson spends at power forward, depriving Gomes and Smith of playing time). My suggestion would be to put him in as a starter for the first month or so and make sure he scores at least 20 points game; follow up by shopping him around the leaguer as a scoring center. In the meantime he’s making money the Timberwolves could spend on Jefferson, he’s taking up time (and roster space) that younger (and probably better) players could use, and his sideline attitude is poor at best. And even though I expect to see Blount in a Timberwolves jersey the rest of the year, I hope that they can trade him by the beginning of next season. After all, there’s someone out there who needs a small forward trapped in a center’s body, right?

-The stats are based on Mark Blount's stats page at http://www.basketball-reference.com/