Sports Economist Rejects Harris' Claims of Talented Roster

[Epicurus]

Nothing hugely surprising here for those who can wade through Harris' blarney. Dr. Berri can only find three above average, and not much so, Bucks and the rest of really below average performers on the Bucks. He doesn't seem to buy into Harris' talented team thesis at all. Read it for yourself at http://dberri.wordpress.com/2008/02/05/ ... e-and-now/

[icat2000]

Haven't you already floated this boat once before?

[smauss]

Thanks epi; the article was well done and I agree with the premise. From one cynic to another of course.

[europa]

This is where I have a bit of a problem:

The Bucks are not performing well this season. That is an objective fact. Why the Bucks are not succeeding, though, is something people might question. Harris would like us to believe that he has assembled a

[europa]

Good article and I agree with what the author wrote - the Bucks only have three above-average players and the bulk of the roster is comprised of below-average players (many of whom are considerably below average). This was a poorly assembled team in the off-season and because of that it should not be a surprise the team is doing poorly. And I disagree strongly with Harris that this is his most talented team. I think his first team with Porter as the head coach was more talented and I think Stotts' first team was more talented as well. Not surprisingly, those were the only teams in Harris' tenure so far that made the playoffs.

[Epicurus]

Haven't you already floated this boat once before?

This boat was just launched today, so when did i launch it before? Are you just stalking me? Read the damn thing, prior to whining.

[trwi7]

Haven't you already floated this boat once before?

No this is the same guy who wrote we were the most boring franchise in the past 20 years or something though.

[europa]

"Three slightly above average players does not a great team make. And all the coaching, attitude adjustments, etc

[Epicurus]

This is where I have a bit of a problem:

The Bucks are not performing well this season. That is an objective fact. Why the Bucks are not succeeding, though, is something people might question. Harris would like us to believe that he has assembled a

[europa]

It could also be argued that the team assembled before injuries hit wasn't all that good last season. Simmons has been able to play this season and certainly hasn't been very good. Villanueva has been healthy and hasn't been very good. So while the injuries were a factor last season, it's still quite possible the team Harris assembled wasn't all that good and wouldn't have done all that well even if it hadn't been hit hard by so many injuries.

[ReasonablySober]

I think, with the way our offense was performing under Stotts we would have been around .500. That was the record prior to the string of injuries.

[Epicurus]

I think the offense was even getting better (largely because the PGs were not missing wide open shots as they did in November). I think, with normal health, the Bucks would have been at least the 8 best offense in the league (by the end) and still the 29th defense. That would have put them around 44 wins or so, I think.

[paulpressey25]

I'm not sure we would have been around .500 last year even with the injuries.....we got there in December by virtue of that six-game win streak, just as the 5-game win streak this year got us to 7-4.....but the water returned to it's natural level this year and would have last year IMO.

While this is an indictment of the team's personnel decisions it isn't totally unreasonable what the Bucks did. Nor was Harris totally crazy in proclaiming the team talented.

They relied upon three very young players in Bogut, Yi and CV to all take a major step forward and/or provide solid play, which none really have. Bogut's score is somewhat mixed though given his good January performance, so he's stepped forward after a down first two months.

The bigger mistakes are the three guys that Harris and Kohl have paid big money to. Redd, Mo, and Simmons. All three of these guys do not have the excuse that they are young and learning. All three have been highly compensated with almost $200 million dollars of contracts. And none of the three are able to produce at level equal to their contracts according to his formula. Mo is close but still not there.

http://www.wagesofwins.com/AllPlayersMid0708.html

[europa]

It's difficult for me to envision a team that was as deplorable defensively as the Bucks were last season winning 44 games without an elite (i.e. Top 3) offense. The defensive issues were just too great to overcome in my opinion and that's not even taking into consideration the probability there would be injuries of some kind to key players. That would impact the record as well.

I think 35-40 wins was probably the best that team could have hoped to accomplish. Maybe .500 but I don't think it was that good.

[ReasonablySober]

It's difficult for me to envision a team that was as deplorable defensively as the Bucks were last season winning 44 games without an elite (i.e. Top 3) offense. The defensive issues were just too great to overcome in my opinion and that's not even taking into consideration the probability there would be injuries of some kind to key players. That would impact the record as well.

I think 35-40 wins was probably the best that team could have hoped to accomplish. Maybe .500 but I don't think it was that good.

Well, they were 10th in scoring last season despite missing 183 games from their starters. Even if you remove Simmons from the equation you're still looking at over 100 games missed, and they still were the 10th highest scoring team in the NBA.

[europa]

I agree they could score but I just think that deplorable defense would have gotten the better of them. Unless you have an elite offense it's very difficult to win consistently with that level of terrible defense in my opinion.

[paulpressey25]

They scored last year ok but not only was the defense bad but the rebounding was really poor as well.

I always need to point out that during that 6-game win streak Charlie Bell averaged 17.7ppg on 50% plus shooting. Is that something he could have sustained for the entire year? Or was that a fluke where a player got hot for a stretch?

Arguably that's what would have been needed to keep playing winning ball last season.

[Epicurus]

Whatever, we can all support our own counterfactuals and hypotheses, I guess. The point here is that once again Harris oversold the talent on the team. This one has three above average contributors for their positions, and thus far over the season they are much above average. In time Yi might add another above average performer and who knows maybe CV will be such also. But right now, both are far below average contributors for their postion (unfortunately the same one).

[paulpressey25]

Harris and Kohl have both done a crappy job here....no doubt....

[rrravenred]

Without at all disagreeing with Berri's hypothesis, I'm wondering to what extent coaching impacts upon a player's value. The Bucks past two coaches have been from the lower echelon of NBA payscales (pace Epi, I'm not trying to denigrate Terry Stotts in saying that) and if they'd had a more seasoned head coach the talent on the Bucks would have been statistically more productive and ergo more valuable. Can a good coach make a average / mediocre GM look good? Or, alternately, a coach has limited input to the "talent" rating of a playing group...

(as an aside, it'll be interesting to see if Bogut's January performance (if sustained) bumps up his WP by the end of the season)