spectre
09-28-2009, 01:01 PM
MVN - Bucks' Diary (http://mvn.com/bucksdiary/2009/09/dissecting-the-no-superstar-world-champion-pistons.html)
The Team from Lake Wobegon
When someone wants to build an award winning house, and that someone was part of a construction crew that previously built an award winning house, you can be pretty sure that someone will follow the blueprints and methods used on the previous house pretty closely. With that in mind, I analyze the World Champion 2003-04 Detroit Pistons, a team blueprint from which Milwaukee Bucks GM John Hammond will try to rebuild the Bucks.
Click Here (http://docs.google.com/View?id=dd4nrbjq_989hrph56ck) to view the '03-'04 Detroit Pistons Win Chart
The Pistons of that season were known as a team without a superstar, and indeed my Win Chart shows they were. A superstar, or super elite player, by my definition, is a player who will produce "negative losses" for his team, meaning, he will outproduce his counterpart opponent so badly there will be a spillover effect that will make it easier for his other teammates to produce wins. No Piston regular from the '03-'04 championship team produced enough to cause such an effect (oddly, seldom used SF Darvin Ham did produce negative losses for those Pistons, something he never did as a regular PF playing for the Bucks). Yet conventional wisdom suggests you cannot win an NBA championship without a superstar. So how did the Pistons do it? Here's the blueprint:
1. Assemble an Unusual Number of Above Average Producers
Garrison Keillor used to describe the fictional town of Lake Wobegon, Minnesota as a place where "all the children are above average (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_superiority)". So was the home locker room inside The Palace of Auburn Hills, Michigan in 2003-04, or nearly so. If you look at the Pistons' Win Chart you will see that, although they had no true superstar as mentioned above, the team featured an unusual number of high win producers, both in the main rotation and in reserve. In fact, once the Pistons acquired PF/C Rasheed Wallace, and he replaced Corliss Williamson in the main rotation, the team featured 5 above average win producers in its top 6 minute players, and the lone below average producer (SG Richard Hamilton) was just slightly below average (he was actually above average if you consider the way the NBA's talent pool is skewed leftward). That's pretty remarkable, especially in the age of the salary cap. When you add the strong production the team got from several bench players (Sura, Hunter, Ham, James), you have a potent win producing lineup.
2. Replace Superstar Production with Stifling Defense
If you cannot afford to pay for highly productive players, you must replace their productive effect with defense. Defense is cheaper and more reliable, and has the same overall effect. The champion Pistons were just a slightly above average offensive team, producing a Team Win Score per 48 of 39.61 (compared to the NBA average that season of 38.83). But their defense was way above average. They produced an Opponent Win Score average of 28.94. Piston SF Tayshaun Prince's '03-'04 scoring numbers (http://www.82games.com/03DET8C.HTM) provide an excellent individual example of the defensive effect at work. In '03-'04, Prince was routinely outscored by his counterpart small forwards, finishing the season with a -1.3 marginal disadvantage in points produced per 48 minutes. However, his outstanding defense caused his opponents to use many more scoring possessions to produce their points than he had to use to produce his points. Prince's opponent small forwards had to use 4.8 more FG attempts and 0.5 more FT attempts than Tayshaun in order to outscore him by only 1.3 points. Thus his scoring was much more "effective" than his opponents scoring, and that effectiveness was created almost entirely by his defense (+3.7 pts/48 minutes... an excellent effective scoring margin). That is what defense can do. All of that is why I believe Scott Skiles is the perfect coach for the Milwaukee Bucks. He produces teams that play defense, and defense is the only way the Bucks will get back into serious contention.
3. Find and Acquire Undervalued but Productive Assets
Before he came to Detroit, the NBA establishment viewed Ben Wallace as an undersized PF/C who could not score. What they did not recognize was Wallace's huge per minute production in other areas (http://www.draftexpress.com/profile/Ben-Wallace-4747/stats/), production which, over full time minutes, would probably translate into big wins. It did. The same was true when the Pistons acquired PG Chauncey Billups from the Minnesota Timberwolves, except that Billups had a track record of underproduction (http://www.draftexpress.com/profile/Chauncey-Billups-1684/stats/). He turned that around in Detroit. Perhaps the Bucks will get some of the same type hidden value from the veteran castoffs Hammond has acquired this off-season. I am particularly referring to PF Hakim Warrick and G/F Carlos Delfino. Those two could really blossom in Milwaukee. Truth be told, though, I actually believe Hammond traded away his best hidden "Wallace-like" treasure when he retraded PF/C Amir Johnson to Toronto. But he needed a small forward badly, and Johnson's skill set became redundant on the Bucks roster, so I don't blame him.Every team that doesn't have a superstar aspires to the '03-'04 Pistons...but really that team was sort of unique. The one big thing we have working for us is of course Larry Brown. He might not have picked those players, but he was the guy who made it all work with HIS system.
The Team from Lake Wobegon
When someone wants to build an award winning house, and that someone was part of a construction crew that previously built an award winning house, you can be pretty sure that someone will follow the blueprints and methods used on the previous house pretty closely. With that in mind, I analyze the World Champion 2003-04 Detroit Pistons, a team blueprint from which Milwaukee Bucks GM John Hammond will try to rebuild the Bucks.
Click Here (http://docs.google.com/View?id=dd4nrbjq_989hrph56ck) to view the '03-'04 Detroit Pistons Win Chart
The Pistons of that season were known as a team without a superstar, and indeed my Win Chart shows they were. A superstar, or super elite player, by my definition, is a player who will produce "negative losses" for his team, meaning, he will outproduce his counterpart opponent so badly there will be a spillover effect that will make it easier for his other teammates to produce wins. No Piston regular from the '03-'04 championship team produced enough to cause such an effect (oddly, seldom used SF Darvin Ham did produce negative losses for those Pistons, something he never did as a regular PF playing for the Bucks). Yet conventional wisdom suggests you cannot win an NBA championship without a superstar. So how did the Pistons do it? Here's the blueprint:
1. Assemble an Unusual Number of Above Average Producers
Garrison Keillor used to describe the fictional town of Lake Wobegon, Minnesota as a place where "all the children are above average (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_superiority)". So was the home locker room inside The Palace of Auburn Hills, Michigan in 2003-04, or nearly so. If you look at the Pistons' Win Chart you will see that, although they had no true superstar as mentioned above, the team featured an unusual number of high win producers, both in the main rotation and in reserve. In fact, once the Pistons acquired PF/C Rasheed Wallace, and he replaced Corliss Williamson in the main rotation, the team featured 5 above average win producers in its top 6 minute players, and the lone below average producer (SG Richard Hamilton) was just slightly below average (he was actually above average if you consider the way the NBA's talent pool is skewed leftward). That's pretty remarkable, especially in the age of the salary cap. When you add the strong production the team got from several bench players (Sura, Hunter, Ham, James), you have a potent win producing lineup.
2. Replace Superstar Production with Stifling Defense
If you cannot afford to pay for highly productive players, you must replace their productive effect with defense. Defense is cheaper and more reliable, and has the same overall effect. The champion Pistons were just a slightly above average offensive team, producing a Team Win Score per 48 of 39.61 (compared to the NBA average that season of 38.83). But their defense was way above average. They produced an Opponent Win Score average of 28.94. Piston SF Tayshaun Prince's '03-'04 scoring numbers (http://www.82games.com/03DET8C.HTM) provide an excellent individual example of the defensive effect at work. In '03-'04, Prince was routinely outscored by his counterpart small forwards, finishing the season with a -1.3 marginal disadvantage in points produced per 48 minutes. However, his outstanding defense caused his opponents to use many more scoring possessions to produce their points than he had to use to produce his points. Prince's opponent small forwards had to use 4.8 more FG attempts and 0.5 more FT attempts than Tayshaun in order to outscore him by only 1.3 points. Thus his scoring was much more "effective" than his opponents scoring, and that effectiveness was created almost entirely by his defense (+3.7 pts/48 minutes... an excellent effective scoring margin). That is what defense can do. All of that is why I believe Scott Skiles is the perfect coach for the Milwaukee Bucks. He produces teams that play defense, and defense is the only way the Bucks will get back into serious contention.
3. Find and Acquire Undervalued but Productive Assets
Before he came to Detroit, the NBA establishment viewed Ben Wallace as an undersized PF/C who could not score. What they did not recognize was Wallace's huge per minute production in other areas (http://www.draftexpress.com/profile/Ben-Wallace-4747/stats/), production which, over full time minutes, would probably translate into big wins. It did. The same was true when the Pistons acquired PG Chauncey Billups from the Minnesota Timberwolves, except that Billups had a track record of underproduction (http://www.draftexpress.com/profile/Chauncey-Billups-1684/stats/). He turned that around in Detroit. Perhaps the Bucks will get some of the same type hidden value from the veteran castoffs Hammond has acquired this off-season. I am particularly referring to PF Hakim Warrick and G/F Carlos Delfino. Those two could really blossom in Milwaukee. Truth be told, though, I actually believe Hammond traded away his best hidden "Wallace-like" treasure when he retraded PF/C Amir Johnson to Toronto. But he needed a small forward badly, and Johnson's skill set became redundant on the Bucks roster, so I don't blame him.Every team that doesn't have a superstar aspires to the '03-'04 Pistons...but really that team was sort of unique. The one big thing we have working for us is of course Larry Brown. He might not have picked those players, but he was the guy who made it all work with HIS system.