Kahn and WS48

[Joseph_effect]

Hi all,

This is my first post and just to introduce myself I have an extensive background in statistics and am a professional poker player.

I have been following the new Timberwolves regime for the past year and I despite what some think they seem to be basing almost all of their decisions on a particular statistic. Every acquisition and even many of the rumored players we are supposedly acquiring can be boiled down to being in the top 100 by guards, forwards, and centers of WS48(win shares per 48 min) in the past two seasons. The exceptions are drafted players and players that Kurt Rambis has wanted.

Top 100 performances in WS48 from 2008-2010
Guards
Forwards
Centers

2009
Traded Quentin Richardson(who had was not on the top 100 list from 07-09)

Signed Ramon Sessions after season #69 on the guards list
Signed Ryan Hollins after season # 53 on the centers(I should also note last season he posted season #97)

Signed Sasha Pavlovic = not on the list which meant Rambis wanted him

2010
Signed Darko = not on the list which meant rambis wanted him
May sign Pekovic = no stats available

Traded for Martell Webster after he posted season #97
Acquired Michael Beasley(not in the top 100 but is 21 and we really gave them nothing for him)
Traded Al Jefferson after he failed to post a top 100 season and Kevin Love posted season #81 on the forwards list(I should also note that pre-injury Al only posted season #97)
Acquired Kosta Koufos who has posted season #48

Additional evidence
Rumored to be acquiring Luke Ridnour who last season posted season #20(which would be an upgrade over Sessions statistically)
Rumored desire of Dampier who posted season #30
Rumored trade of sessions who last season did not post a top 100 season
Rumored to be interested in Marcin Gortat who has posted seasons #8 and #23 on the centers list
An absence of rumors involving Hollins(he posted season #97 last year. Side note: I'll bet anyone that we do not trade him)
rumored interest in Nicolas Batum who posted season #20
rumored interest in rudy fernandez who posted season #32(who is unluckily behind Brandon Roy who posted season #4 and he supposedly doesn't want to come here)

My conclusion from this is that there is a definite pattern to Kahn's choices and that you can even detect who had the most say in a particular decisions.

Anyone who criticizes Kahn for signing Darko should be directed to this thread where they will see that it doesn't fit the pattern of his decisions thus it was a signing for Coach Rambis.

Anyone who thinks that Kahn doesn't use advanced stats should look at the pattern and see that it mostly fits that he indeed does except for social reasons(getting some players that his coach likes).

Also in evaluating any rumor that is likely to be true it would involve a player who posted a season in the top 100 or that Rambis has said he likes. Anything else is probably made up. Agree that it fits or am I cherry picking to come up with a convincing story?

[freakafied]

verry good post and interesting there might be some truth to this.

[DrEvil1996]

A few problems with the theory:

1. Our most important FA acquisitions so far Beasley and Darko both aren't in the top 100?

2. You don't think we're going further back than 2 years to evaluate player performance?

3. How impressive is it to post a season in those "top 100" lists? We're basically looking at the 300 "best" "seasons" in the past two years. Given 12 players getting some sort of PT on 30 teams each year, that looks like 720 "seasons" being evaluated so the list already casts a wide net over the NBA player population (300/720 = 41%). It also looks like many players on the list didn't get significant playing time (on the Guards list, about 30% had less than 1600 minutes or about 20 per game) so that yields a more variable "per 48" number for those players which is a lot less useful. Who cares that JR Giddens made #10 on the list playing only 8 minutes?

I'd find this more believable if he were targeting people higher on the list... Somehow I don't think it is a positive that Ryan Hollins is #97 for Centers when there are about 60 centers in the league (or 97 out of 120-140 "seasons")

[Swimmer]

I'd go with cherry picking.

You're looking at a remarkably small sample size of players, and not even players particularly high on the WS48 list. There are a bunch of other candidates on those lists that were close to attainable for us, but we passed on them for players like Hollins and Koufos? Doesn't make sense. Plus, I think Koufos was forced on us. Any contradictory evidence you determine to be Rambis' work.

Dampier -- Cap savings. We wouldn't use him as a player.
Sessions -- We aren't going to sign players because they post a good WS one year and a bad one the year after, especially since we put him on a worse team (fewer Wins) the second year. That doesn't make sense.
Gortat -- Were we really interested in Gortat? I think that was just one of the only ways Al Jeff could get to Orlando. He played far too many minutes in Orlando for legitimate speculation, statistically.
Batum and Fernandez -- Young wings who can shoot. We need those. Anyways, I don't remember us in the hunt for JR Giddens or JJ Redick, who are both quite high on the list. On the other hand, you blame Rambis for Pavlovic, but he was just a young wing who, reportedly, could shoot.
Koufos -- Forced onto us.
Webster -- See Batum/Fernandez. In fact, given Fernandez' unhappiness, he might have been easier to acquire, and is higher on the list -- even though he reportedly doesn't want to play here. That hasn't stopped us from bringing players in before, though.

If your point is that Minnesota wants to take young players buried away/backing up in winning teams, then yes, maybe so.

[Joseph_effect]

DrEvil1996 you are right that it's less significant for centers than for guards or forwards. I don't think everything contrary is Rambis work, I'm arguing that it is very likely that those moves are something that Rambis and also maybe Ronzone lobbied for and not something that Kahn had on his agenda.

We don't know for sure that we wouldn't have used Dampier. Giddens has a small sample size and Redick may have been a possible target, but we were persuing Lee(#38) at the time. I know people were confused about us going after Lee but #38 is better than #81 if that is your evaluation system. Also Gortat thought he had been traded to the Timberwolves and said so to Polish TV however it was probably information about a possible trade that was misinterpreted by Gortat. I also don't think we know about the details of getting Koufos.

I'm not at all surprised to see the news now that we have actually signed Luke Ridnour. I would also be willing to make the following predictions about the rest of the offseason.

1. We will trade Ramon Sessions
2. We very likely will trade Brewer(good chance but not certain). I think if we don't he's gone after this year without a top 100 season or really endearing himself to Rambis.
3. We may try and convince Koufos to stay(if so there's a small chance we trade Hollins or keep both if Pekovic doesn't sign). Kahn saying to his agent that he will try and trade him might be him just trying to communicate that we're an accomodating place for players and also possibly avoiding saying anything about Hollins possibly being traded .

[Calinks]

Interesting take. I'm not surprised you area pro poker player too. That's pretty cool, I used to hate the idea of poker but over the last 3 years I have really grown to like the game a lot. It's way more entertaining to watch on TV than I gave it credit for too.

[Devilzsidewalk]

My theory differs, Firstly, I think he's always looking for value and his door is always open to those value acquisitions, and that explains Darko, Beasley, and Sessions. He wouldn't go full-bore after those guys under normal conditions, but they represented great value at the time. But looking at his main acquisitions where made a concerted effort to go get a guy and had to use a real asset, talking about Ridnour/Flynn/Rubio/Wes Johnson/Hollins/Webster, I see a common theme.

I've said it before and still believe it, Kahn isn't a basketball guy, he's a business guy who happens to work in basketball. So I think right from that note, statistics and metrics will always take a back seat in his evaluations because he believes in marketability to the fans as much as bottom line wins and losses.

On that note, there's an 'aesthetically pleasing' angle to all of his acquisitions. As much of a non-factor Hollins is, he's got a surprisingly good highlight reel. Same w/ Webster. Rubio, Flynn, Wes Johnson, all highlight players. They don't just get it done, they get it done in an exciting fashion. Better yet, the main acquisitions have defensive potential too. With Ridnour, you take what you can get, he's a good enough value as a playmaker/shooter to let his mediocre at best defense fly.

So I think thats the key, if you're an exciting playmaker or finisher and have some defensive ability, or at least the athleticism to give you some defensive potential, you're a target.

[thesuperficial]

Not much to add other than some of the best current basketball minds come from a gambling background and Minnesota has the best poker players in the nation per capita. OP I think you're likely fooled by randomness on this one though.

[shrink]

I think its cherry-picking too. Your theory fits when it fits, and when it doesn't you say "Rambis wanted him." Being in the top 100 is also not such a strange.

I think if someone wanted to run some sort of analysis on Kahn's players vs the NBA population, I think you'd find a high correlation between youth, and between some aspect of athleticism that was reflected in high draft picks. We'd also see some sort of value correlation as well.

I'm not sure how familiar posters are with mutual funds, but one type that manager's put together that seems to reflect Kahn are value funds. In a nutshell, value funds generally contain the stocks from companies that have good fundamentals, but their prices are lower than market. These fund may have been dinged up by a specific bad incident in their past, or by a number of quarters where they didn't perform up to market expectations. Fund managers then try to buy a lot of cheap shares on these types of companies, expecting their performance and value to rise.


Welcome to the boards guys. I enjoyed your posts.

[DrEvil1996]

I'm not sure how familiar posters are with mutual funds, but one type that manager's put together that seems to reflect Kahn are value funds. In a nutshell, value funds generally contain the stocks from companies that have good fundamentals, but their prices are lower than market. These fund may have been dinged up by a specific bad incident in their past, or by a number of quarters where they didn't perform up to market expectations. Fund managers then try to buy a lot of cheap shares on these types of companies, expecting their performance and value to rise.

Or is the propensity to go after so many young, unproven players with the hope that some of them break out more like a growth fund? I think there are fundamental elements of both in Kahn's "strategery".

[Swimmer]

We don't know for sure that we wouldn't have used Dampier. Giddens has a small sample size and Redick may have been a possible target, but we were persuing Lee(#38) at the time. I know people were confused about us going after Lee but #38 is better than #81 if that is your evaluation system. Also Gortat thought he had been traded to the Timberwolves and said so to Polish TV however it was probably information about a possible trade that was misinterpreted by Gortat. I also don't think we know about the details of getting Koufos.

I'm not at all surprised to see the news now that we have actually signed Luke Ridnour. I would also be willing to make the following predictions about the rest of the offseason.

1. We will trade Ramon Sessions
2. We very likely will trade Brewer(good chance but not certain). I think if we don't he's gone after this year without a top 100 season or really endearing himself to Rambis.
3. We may try and convince Koufos to stay(if so there's a small chance we trade Hollins or keep both if Pekovic doesn't sign). Kahn saying to his agent that he will try and trade him might be him just trying to communicate that we're an accomodating place for players and also possibly avoiding saying anything about Hollins possibly being traded .

I think you're wrong on the Dampier take. He might have some value as a player at some point, but right now, every single team will use him as a financial trade chip or non-guaranteed contract right now. The value of that segment of cap space is waaay greater than his production there.

I don't believe Koufos was our choice in the deal, especially since we are rumored to flip him immediately.

I don't disagree with 1 or 3, but I don't believe you need statistics to guess at those. Point 2 is interesting, but if true, it might be sort of backwards logic. It applies to Sessions as well. The implication is that we will take players if they have good WS (which is partially impacted by whether they came from winning teams). Then, we put them on our team (fewer wins, perhaps lower WS), and then get rid of them when they are no longer in that "top 100." Funny.

In any event, I don't really see a pattern there. If you are trying to say that we like role players on playoff/contending teams (generally more WS to be shared), then I guess that might make sense. It's much harder to trade for starters on any team, without giving up more significant assets, and we wouldn't necessarily need role/bench players on non-contenders. Thus, the Fernandez, Darko, Hollins, Webster, Beasley, Sessions types (though I believe Beasley and Sessions had starting roles for some time?).

[Swimmer]

I'm not sure how familiar posters are with mutual funds, but one type that manager's put together that seems to reflect Kahn are value funds. In a nutshell, value funds generally contain the stocks from companies that have good fundamentals, but their prices are lower than market. These fund may have been dinged up by a specific bad incident in their past, or by a number of quarters where they didn't perform up to market expectations. Fund managers then try to buy a lot of cheap shares on these types of companies, expecting their performance and value to rise.

Or is the propensity to go after so many young, unproven players with the hope that some of them break out more like a growth fund? I think there are fundamental elements of both in Kahn's "strategery".

I would think it's more of shrink's case. With some of them, we can think of their fundamentals as the inputs that went into their high draft stock (Webster, Darko, Beasley). I see growth funds as more of draft picks when they are initially invested in. Our players seem to be the ones that have already been on the market, but are a bit undervalued.

[Joseph_effect]

I'm not sure how familiar posters are with mutual funds, but one type that manager's put together that seems to reflect Kahn are value funds. In a nutshell, value funds generally contain the stocks from companies that have good fundamentals, but their prices are lower than market. These fund may have been dinged up by a specific bad incident in their past, or by a number of quarters where they didn't perform up to market expectations. Fund managers then try to buy a lot of cheap shares on these types of companies, expecting their performance and value to rise.

You hit on many of the aspects of the way he picks up young players. There was an article in the Wall Street Journal that made the case that NBA players peak at 24, and we have only 1 player over 25 on our roster. Coincidence? It certainly reflects a business approach. I think he's using a database similar to the one I linked to at least start his searches or throw players out of his searches. He throws out the players with bad contracts or that are too old, and then starts making calls.

My 4th prediction is that we trade Sessions to the Trail Blazers for Rudy Fernandez or to Cleveland for Delonte West(especially if Ellington looks rusty).

[MN Die Hard]

I'm not sure how familiar posters are with mutual funds, but one type that manager's put together that seems to reflect Kahn are value funds. In a nutshell, value funds generally contain the stocks from companies that have good fundamentals, but their prices are lower than market. These fund may have been dinged up by a specific bad incident in their past, or by a number of quarters where they didn't perform up to market expectations. Fund managers then try to buy a lot of cheap shares on these types of companies, expecting their performance and value to rise

Value-based investing works for Warren Buffet; it better work for us too!

[Saltine]

I'm already way happier with this team over anything we've had the past few years. Lazar and Ellington looked like nice 10th and 11th men last night. Scoring punch and defense. It's nice to look at the roster and see talent and athletes all over the place, I'm sure Rambis is much happier

[Diggler]

Don't think this is very credible. You broke the first law of theories; they can be disproved, but never proved. There's no way to disprove this since it's always right, except when it's wrong, in which case the theory wasn't being applied in that particular situation. Pretty convenient.

Secondly, win share is obviously based on in-game performance. Instead of saying, "win-share determined who Kahn wanted," you could simply look at it as Kahn targeting people who had good years, which isn't very unusual. All you've really said is that Kahn is more likely to pursue players who played well and more likely to move players who played poorly. Well duh.

[Swimmer]

Value-based investing works for Warren Buffet; it better work for us too!

Although the media portrays him to be the premier example of a value investor, and he often suggests that path for people looking to get into investing, WB is far, far more complicated than a pure value investor. A lot of his money is made through other means -- we should too!

+1 to everything Diggler said, btw.