The idea is being floated about that Brandon's play is like Kobe's ball-dominant play before the L*kers acquired Pau Gasol. It does not feel right. I wanted to examine this premise with data to see what validity this idea might have and this is what I discovered.

I compared Kobe and the L*kers from 2006-2007 to Brandon and the Trail Blazers from 2008-2009. I used the most recent complete year for Brandon against the most recent year for Kobe prior to the acquisaiton of Pau Gasol. By most accounts that acquisiton and perhaps the USA Basketball team experience for Kobe changed his style to being unselfish. In 2006-2007 Kobe played 3140 minutes. In 2008-2009 Brandon played 2903 minutes or 92% of Kobe's minutes. We will adjust raw numbers when head-to-head comparisons are made to equalize.

Since we are talking about unselfish, I started with assists. Kobe had 413 assists to Brandon's 400. With equal minutes Brandon gets 435, advantage to Brandon. Kobe had 22% of the L*kers assists while Brandon had 24% of Blazer assists. So far so good.  

How about FGAs? Kobe had 1757 while Brandon had 1318. Again, equalizing for minutes, Brandon would get 1433 or just 82% of Kobe's attempts. So what about usage (an estimate of the percentage of team plays used by a player while he was on the floor).

Brandon's usage was significantly lower than Kobe's indicating Kobe's ball-dominance. Also note that the new Brandon and the old Brandon are nearly exactly the same, last year to the short period of this year.And Kobe's usage is even higher this year than last or in 2006-2007. This is likely higher this year with Kobe adjusting to the injury to Pau. But last year was nearly even with the old Kobe in 2006-2007.

I then calculated assists per shot attempts (FGA + 0.4*FTA). Kobe was 20% against Brandon's 26%. These shot attempts were 27% of L*kers' total attempts for Kobe and 21% of Blazers' for Brandon.

It would appear that Brandon's 2008-2009 sharing of the scoring and assisting teammates is significantly different than Kobe's for 2006-2007.

Finally out of curiosity I ran the same numbers for Kobe in 2008-2009 to see if the new Kobe was indeed significantly different than the old Kobe in 2006-2007. I was mildly surprised to find that they are not:

So it appears that the old Kobe is about the same as the new Kobe. His team is winning more games in 2008-2009, perhaps because they have more effieient scorers playing with Kobe in 2008-2009, but the inclination to share with teammates for Kobe has not changed.

It also appears that the new or old Brandon is not similar to new or old Kobe. While both are relied upon by their teams to score, the approach and results for the two players appear to be markedly different.

What do you take from these numbers? Is it helpful to bring statistical measurements into this discussion? Can you add additional light to this idea?

The signing of Brandon Roy today heralds the cornerstone of the franchise for years to come. Some think the likely max contract of around $75M is too much for any player. Others think Brandon got jobbed by a down economy. Most of us have never even met someone being paid $75M over 5 years except in a fan line. What is the reality of this contract?

I did some digging and found a good summary of the NBA salary cap and its history at Wikipedia.com. Using their history I worked out what a 5 year max contract (25% of cap) would have looked like over the years. The first year of the cap was 1984-1985 set at $3.6M. That cap would yield Brandon a total 5 year salary of $5.4M under today's rules. In 1988 Paul Allen purchased the Blazers when the cap was set at $7.2M. Taking 5 year intervals here are the estimated totals:

The 09-10 Salary Cap will not be official until July 2010 but NBA officials have indicated the $50M is a reasonable presumption per various news stories.

The 09-10 year at the bottom of the table calculates from an estimate of 8.43% average increase in the period 03-04-through 08-09 what might have been expected when Brandon joined the league. With $23M less, it would seem he did get jobbed by the economy, but wait -

A player given a max contract in 88-89 would get less over the 5 years total than any single year in Brandon's contract.Compared with the superstars who have gone before, Brandon has a gravy train.

On to Part 2 - the impact to the fans:

Ken Berger has written an interesting piece on CBSSportsline.com about the ticket revenue from last season in the league. In there he says this:

Portland, New Orleans and Orlando are great examples of why a better revenue sharing model is needed. All three teams were above the league average in total ticket sales but below average in ticket revenue simply because those markets can't support high enough prices. The Blazers are the most blatant example, selling an average of 17,872 tickets per game (third in the league) but generating only $813,809 per game (15th).

Berger makes the case for revenue sharing to lighten the load. It would seem to help but are the votes there to change ownership practice?

With max contract to Brandon and with LMA likely close behind the Blazers need more money from ticket sales. Hang onto your wallets because the next few years will likely bring significant increases each year. We have seen it before and it will price some fans out of the arena.

I do know the prevailing theory is Paul Allen can afford to lose money. That misses the point. Paul has invested many millions (maybe closer to $1B) in the Blazers. There needs to be a return soon. It is partly about ego - who wants to brag to their friends that you are losing $50M per year (as reported in the past) on an investment. If the Blazers can turn the corner and become profitable and steady in the profits then the fun is multiplied for Paul Allen.

So what do we glean from all this? The question are we willing to be patient with management regarding extensions? Are we willing to pay more to Comcast and for tickets to support these huge salaries?

Storyteller's correction for 2008-2009 is made above. His formula has not been incorporated (more later?).

The media buzz for the past two years has been huge around the free agent class of 2010. We are told that many teams are dumping salary to clear cap space for that year. The draw is, of course, LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Carmelo Anthony, Amare Stoudemire and Chris Bosh among the top players. All are either reported to have opt-out or player option clauses to exercise before June 30, 2010 making them possible free agents in 2010. Sorry folks the party might be over before it starts. In my review below you will see that the max contract players who are offered an extension this year will likely take them or lose huge salary money. The major free agent market in 2010 will instead deflate into mostly lesser players. I recognize that marketing contracts might offset this loss but that is a factor unknown to me so for the sake of discussion I am leaving it out. If you have specific facts that cover this factor you are welcome to cite them below along with the discussion. I also recognize the allure of two of the above playing together and that also is an unknown to be debated but one or both will take a monetary hit to do so. Read the review and consider the discussion questions below:

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With Shaq apparently traded to Cleveland for a $5.5M savings for Phoenix and with Phoenix needing further relief (They still have $73M on the books) and not likely to be a contender in Nash's remaining years the Blazers are primed to get the championship point guard they need and offer $11M $7.5M more in  cap relief (plus luxury tax savings to Phoenix) while offering a young point guard in replacement:

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It is not often that we have gone through the doorway of NBA History so I wanted to mark this moment for all of us. Only an numbers guy would ever take the time to do so but you will find this interesting.

The Trail Blazers under Coach Nate McMillan have improved at least 9 games each season for the past four years. How often has that ever occured? I wanted to find out.

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For many years I remember NBA coaches indicating in various ways that playing rookies meant losing and coaches just don't like to lose now so that the next coach will win. At the most 1 rookie might play (i.e. Tim Duncan)  surrounded by savvy veterans. Otherwise a team blew up the roster and lost miserably. I began to wonder how the Trail Blazers are winning so many games with mega-rookie minutes and if anyone else is able to do that. I looked at the data through Friday, Feb 6, to compare:

Portland this year plays more rookie minutes than any other team except Memphis by a substantial margin. And, Portland is winning far more with substantial rookie minutes than any other team. Here are the top ten teams in rookie minutes as a percentage of team minutes and their records:

• Memphis 36% rookie minutes 13-36 record
• Portland 30% rookie minutes 30-19 record
• Miami 23% rookie minutes 26-22 record
• New Jersey 21% rookie minutes 23-27 record
• Sacramento 19% rookie minutes 11-40 record
• LA Clippers 19% rookie minutes 11-39 record
• OKC 16% rookie minutes 12-38 record
• Chicago 15% rookie minutes 22-38 record
• Milwaukee 14% rookie minutes 24-28 record
• Golden State 13% rookie minutes 16-35 record
• Charlotte 12% rookie minutes 19-30 record
• Indiana 11% rookie minutes 20-31 record
• Minnesota 10% rookie minutes 17-31 record
• All other teams are below 10% rookie minutes

So it seems that only Portland and Miami have winning records with high rookie minutes. Moderate use of rookies has been successful at Orlando (8%), San Antonio (9%), and Cleveland (6%). No other top-ten teams (by winning percentage) uses even 1% of minutes for rookies. It is small wonder that the league is becoming afraid of Portland. As  this group matures and develops it promises to become the team that every team desires - combining youth, talent, culture and a winning mentality. Kevin Pritchard and Nate McMillan and staff have received early praise and, more recently, Coach Nate has heard stinging criticism for the use of players in the games. It looks to me as though we can have our cake and eat it too. We can win with rookies and early-career players and develop them with heavy playing time as well. A point to note: All five teams mentioned in this paragraph are anchored with superstars. Dwayne Wade, Dwight Howard, Tim Duncan, LeBron James and Brandon Roy all facilitate the use of rookies while still winning. Only San Antonio has an aging superstar in this group. I begin to think Portland, Miami, Cleveland and Orlando are the future class of the league (assuming they all keep their superstars and healthy as well).  Obviously rookies are not the only young players on teams and there is nothing scientific in this study - only food for thought.

For me, personally, It gives me the feeling that I want to stand and applaud this terrific team and organization called the Portland Trail Blazers.

What are your thoughts? Do you see other areas to explore  here or other conclusions to draw? Discuss freely....

The Question:

The recent excellent post by Dave responding to Henry Abbott has started all of us thinking about how to measure Greg Oden's becoming a significant factor on behalf of the team.

In my analysis of the games through 11/19/08 I found several measures that say he has definitely boosted the team. His effect is not seen in how many points or rebounds he gets or even his plus/minus. It is seen in improvement in overall team defense and overall team production and from production from the Center position.

Joel Przybilla is playing his best basketball. Why? Joel tells us why: He can finally be aggressive and risk some fouls because Greg is his backup. But even more so these two Centers are (one of) the best pair in the league on defense. They are intimidating. Teams that want to beat the Blazers have to hit outside shots. Perversely the Blazer perimeter defense has improved as well forcing them inside.

Data derived from NBA.com and ESPN.com box scores of each game.

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