"Virtually no correlation between payroll and win%" - wrong

Spicy P · Post #21 » by **Spicy P** » Wed Oct 12, 2011 9:08 pm

It's not how much you spend, it's what you spend it on. The Knicks had a $120 million payroll at one point and a lot of it went to bums and mediocre players. You can't win with a team assembled like that.

7-Day Dray · Post #22 » by **7-Day Dray** » Wed Oct 12, 2011 9:09 pm

Vides990 wrote:LOL at telling the professional statistician that theyre wrong. NBA player sided fans have been saying this for months. Small market fans constantly turning a blind eye to facts.

THIS.

Post #23 » by **Heat11114** » Wed Oct 12, 2011 9:47 pm

One thing to remember is teams who were under the cap and signed big free agents skew the results. Miami and Chicago being prime examples. As those contracts age these teams will be among the highest payrolls in the league.

Also using playoff teams is a rather poor example. The 5-8 seeds have almost no chance at all of winning it all.

Just take a look at the top 4 teams in each conference...

1 seed SA # 13 payroll
2 seed LAL #3 payroll
3 seed Dal #1 payroll
4 seed OKC #24 payroll (with a huge advantage of rookie contracts, already 14th next year)

1 seed Chicago 26th (under cap for 10 FA)
2 seed Miami 15th (under cap for 10 FA)
3 seed Boston 4th
4 seed Orlando 2nd

Those 8 teams for next year already rank 1,2,3,4,7,8,9,14 in next years payroll.

magicman1978 · Post #24 » by **magicman1978** » Wed Oct 12, 2011 9:48 pm

Andrew Zimablist biographical info: "serves as consultant ....to the National Basketball Players’ Association in collective bargaining"

http://www.smith.edu/economics/faculty_zimbalist.php

Sun Scorched · Post #25 » by **Sun Scorched** » Wed Oct 12, 2011 9:50 pm

Honestly, you can use stats to say anything - that's the point of stats. You just have to phrase the question in the right way.

There won't be a strong correllation between win% and payroll because of teams like the Knicks of yore, etc.

You need to phrase the question differently - like a poster mentioned previously - and look at teams that made the playoffs and what their salaries where. You bet your sweet ass there's a correllation there.

shrink · Post #26 » by **shrink** » Wed Oct 12, 2011 9:53 pm

EvanZ wrote:Almost a 30% explanation of PyWins by salary is "practically nonexistent" according to this fella. :lol:

Code: Select all
> summary(salary.lm) Call: lm(formula = PYWINS ~ Salary, data = salary_wins) Residuals: Min 1Q Median 3Q Max -24.186 -7.223 -1.698 6.755 25.239 Coefficients: Estimate Std. Error t value Pr(>|t|) (Intercept) 14.1752 7.9204 1.790 0.08432 . Salary 0.5047 0.1433 3.523 0.00149 ** --- Signif. codes: 0 ‘***’ 0.001 ‘**’ 0.01 ‘*’ 0.05 ‘.’ 0.1 ‘ ’ 1 Residual standard error: 10.8 on 28 degrees of freedom Multiple R-squared: 0.3071, Adjusted R-squared: 0.2824 F-statistic: 12.41 on 1 and 28 DF, p-value: 0.001485

Well done. This should be a lesson to people that believe anything they hear.

Don't be a sap. If you doubt it, go test it out yourself.

EvanZ · Post #27 » by **EvanZ** » Wed Oct 12, 2011 9:56 pm

Sun Scorched wrote:There won't be a strong correllation between win% and payroll because of teams like the Knicks of yore, etc.

There *is* a strong correlation. I just showed that. The Knicks were a crazy outlier.

Also, folks need to understand that just because there is a correlation between salary and wins doesn't mean you can win simply by paying your current players more. The reason there is a correlation is because good teams have to pay a lot to keep their good players.

magicman1978 · Post #28 » by **magicman1978** » Wed Oct 12, 2011 9:59 pm

EvanZ wrote:Almost a 30% explanation of PyWins by salary is "practically nonexistent" according to this fella.

He has a very good reason to say there is no correlation - he's getting paid by the NBAPA.

EvanZ · Post #29 » by **EvanZ** » Wed Oct 12, 2011 10:01 pm

magicman1978 wrote:
EvanZ wrote:Almost a 30% explanation of PyWins by salary is "practically nonexistent" according to this fella.

He has a very good reason to say there is no correlation - he's getting paid by the NBAPA.

And there you go. If we can't question his credentials, maybe we can question his motivation. :wink:

Agenda42 · Post #30 » by **Agenda42** » Wed Oct 12, 2011 10:03 pm

SalamiNCheez wrote:It's not how much you spend, it's what you spend it on. The Knicks had a $120 million payroll at one point and a lot of it went to bums and mediocre players. You can't win with a team assembled like that.

It's both. You need to spend a lot of money, and you need to not waste much of it. Look at the recent champions:
2011 Dallas Mavericks -- $85M, overpaid for Brendan Haywood $7M and DeShawn Stevenson $4M
2010 LA Lakers -- $91M, overpaid for Adam Morrison $5M, Sasha Vujacic $5M, and Luke Walton $5M
2009 LA Lakers -- $78M, overpaid for the same guys
2008 Boston Celtics -- $74M, maybe overpaid for Brian Scalabrine $3M
2007 San Antonio Spurs - $65M, overpaid for Brent Barry $5M

If you're not way over the cap, you're also not winning a title, at least in recent history. Also, you'd better not have much in the way of overpaid players, either.

malcrk · Post #31 » by **malcrk** » Wed Oct 12, 2011 10:04 pm

Patting yourselves on the back is nice and all except that anyone can make a chart when the numbers you're using are completely wrong.

shrink · Post #32 » by **shrink** » Wed Oct 12, 2011 10:05 pm

malcrk wrote:Patting yourselves on the back is nice and all except that anyone can make a chart when the numbers you're using are completely wrong.

Can you back up your talk?

malcrk · Post #33 » by **malcrk** » Wed Oct 12, 2011 10:07 pm

shrink wrote:
malcrk wrote:Patting yourselves on the back is nice and all except that anyone can make a chart when the numbers you're using are completely wrong.

Can you back up your talk?

Really? He's using salaries right now. As in after last season. As in after contracts have expired.

EvanZ · Post #34 » by **EvanZ** » Wed Oct 12, 2011 10:13 pm

malcrk wrote:
shrink wrote:
malcrk wrote:Patting yourselves on the back is nice and all except that anyone can make a chart when the numbers you're using are completely wrong.

Can you back up your talk?

Really? He's using salaries right now. As in after last season. As in after contracts have expired.

The correlation would only become stronger. You realize that, right? For example, Denver was listed at $28M. I included that even though it clearly doesn't reflect their 2011 salaries. Add those contracts and the correlation improves greatly.

malcrk · Post #35 » by **malcrk** » Wed Oct 12, 2011 10:19 pm

EvanZ wrote:
malcrk wrote:Really? He's using salaries right now. As in after last season. As in after contracts have expired.

The correlation would only become stronger. You realize that, right? For example, Denver was listed at $28M. I included that even though it clearly doesn't reflect their 2011 salaries. Add those contracts and the correlation improves greatly.

None of those numbers reflect the teams' 2011 salaries.

Go ahead and do it. I'm indifferent. The order of teams would be completely rearranged, not just the Nuggets. Just saying that using current team salaries is completely pointless.

ciueli · Post #36 » by **ciueli** » Wed Oct 12, 2011 10:20 pm

Someone needs to tell him that the last 4 NBA championship teams spent heavily into the luxury tax. The only reason the Heat were competitive this year is because they signed LeBron, Bosh and Wade at below market value. Under the old CBA, the Heat almost certainly would have become a tax team, likely starting this season through use of the MLE.

EvanZ · Post #37 » by **EvanZ** » Wed Oct 12, 2011 10:20 pm

The thing that's really silly about the entire "debate" is that the current system actually *has* a cap. The only reason there is any correlation at all is because (rich) teams can break the cap by paying a luxury tax. Does anyone think if there was no cap, that the correlation wouldn't be much, much higher? I'd have to laugh at anyone who thinks Cuban wouldn't have bought LeBron and Wade if he could pay whatever he wanted.

vergogna · Post #38 » by **vergogna** » Wed Oct 12, 2011 10:21 pm

1 L.A. Lakers 91.569.650
2 Dallas Mavericks 90.289.530
3 Orlando Magic 89.139.540
4 Boston Celtics 83.330.700
5 Utah Jazz 73.968.477
6 Houston Rockets 72.587.610
7 Atlanta Hawks 70.257.365
8 Portland Trail Blazers 70.145.633
9 Memphis Grizzlies 69.957.370
10 Philadelphia 76ers 69.361.140
11 Toronto Raptors 69.207.988
12 San Antonio Spurs 69.004.626
13 Milwaukee Bucks 68.645.120
14 New Orleans Hornets 68.371.614
15 Golden State Warriors 67.222.521
16 New York Knicks 66.576.080
17 Detroit Pistons 65.917.860
18 Denver Nuggets 65.870.870
19 Charlotte Bobcats 65.840.630
20 Miami Heat 65.837.150
21 Phoenix Suns 65.686.161
22 Indiana Pacers 64.368.430
23 New Jersey Nets 59.855.163
24 Washington Wizards 59.113.370
25 Oklahoma City Thunder 57.478.992
26 Chicago Bulls 54.905.410
27 Cleveland Cavs 53.299.990
28 Minnesota Timberwolves 53.139.750
29 L.A. Clippers 51.888.797
30 Sacramento Kings 44.050.620

EvanZ · Post #39 » by **EvanZ** » Wed Oct 12, 2011 10:22 pm

malcrk wrote:
None of those numbers reflect the teams' 2011 salaries.

They reflect them all equally well or poorly depending on your perspective. You really think having the exact salaries would completely eliminate the correlation? Ok, fine.

When I find the data and show you, please do me the courtesy and don't tell me you knew it all along. k? :roll:

malcrk · Post #40 » by **malcrk** » Wed Oct 12, 2011 10:25 pm

EvanZ wrote:
malcrk wrote:
None of those numbers reflect the teams' 2011 salaries.

They reflect them all equally well or poorly depending on your perspective. You really think having the exact salaries would completely eliminate the correlation? Ok, fine.

When I find the data and show you, please do me the courtesy and don't tell me you knew it all along. k?

I highly doubt I'll be paying attention to this thread any further considering it was started with a false premise and now I'm not even sure where it's headed or why. You can make all the correlations you want. But you may want to use the correct data before doing so.