Offseason boredom leads to Spurs WP48 post

This is my first fan post eva.

 I hate this time of year.  No college football and if you're a UT fan most of the recruiting has already happened (I'm a UT fan).  I don't really like baseball.  So all I'm left with is obsessing about the Spurs because at least they have the draft and FA coming up.  I'm a big fan of the Wins Produced (WP) metric which you can read more about at wagesofwins.com.  It's a production metric based on how the box score stats are correlated with wins.  I spent a lot of time the last couple of days looking at what or players produced this year and thinking about what we could expect from them next year based on WP.  So I thought I'd share.

Below is a site that automates the WP calculation.  You can look at seasons 2006-2010 and look at the playoffs for each season.  

http://www.permanent-sketch.com/WinsProduced/#/Season

The only problem with automating the WP calculation is that you have to compare a players production to the average at his position.  So you have to know the position of every player in the league.  The site has a good process for this, but it is not perfect.  To fix this the raw production for a player is included (Adj.P48 or adjusted production per 48 minutes) so you can make the correct position adjustment if you feel a players position is in error. This doesn't completely fix the problem because the average for each position will be calculated with some players at the wrong position, but it's really close.   Okay enough of that, now on to the Spurs.

So this year we produced 54.3 wins, which matches closely what you'd expect from our efficiency differential (54.7 wins in 82 games).  The reason we didn't match this in reality is because of all the close games we lost early in the season to good teams.  God I hated that.  

Alright here are the players we had this year with over 100 minutes who finished the season with us.  I'll list minutes, WP48 (wins produced per 48 minutes, average is .100), and WP

1. Timmeh  2438  .309  15.69
2. Manu      2150  .285  12.77
3. Blair        1494  .263  8.19
4. Hill          2276  .093  4.41
5. McD        1617  .099  3.34 
6. Bonner   1161  .113  2.73
7. RJ           2520  .052  2.73
8. Parker    1728  .072  2.59
9. Mason    1515  .038  1.2
10. Ian           165    .198  0.68
11. Malik       361    .081  0.53
12. Bogans   1559  .007 0.23
13. Temple    193   -.025  -.1

Blair, Timmeh, Manu were all production machines.  Hill had a WP48 of .052 through the first half, so he was above average through the second and should improve more.  He's a nice piece.  TP wasn't good, but has been in the .150 to .200 range the last several years and I think he should return to this next year given he's taking the summer off. McDyess was average and will probably continue to decline but he's nice to have on the bench.  Bonner had a WP48 of .190 in the first half so that means he was well below average in the second half. RJ had a .032 WP48 in the fist half so he did get better, but was still below average. Mason and Bogans were terrible.  Malik shows some promise but needs to step forward. Still it's okay for bench players to be a bit below average.  Temple still interests me but hasn't shown much.  Ian is intriguing but he averages enough fouls to foul out in 30 minutes.  He'd get a 20 and 10 doing it though so I'd like to keep him if our offseason moves give us enough roster space to get him 10-15 minutes a game.

Now here's what I think is a conservative estimate of what we can expect from our players next year.  

1. Timmeh  2016  .275  11.55
2. Manu      2016  .250  10.5
3. Parker    2448  .150  7.65
4. Blair        1875  .275  10.74
5. Hill          2700  .125  7.03
6. McD        864    .050  0.9
7. RJ           2550  .075  3.98

This gives us a total of 52.36 wins. I assumed all these players will miss 7-10 games.  I assumed fewer minutes and less productivity from Timmeh and Manu.  I assumed Parker returns to the bottom of his peak years.  I assumed that Blair and Hill will improve at least a little and get more minutes and that RJ would perform more like his second half of the season.  I gave McDyess so few minutes because I assumed he'd have a large decline and that we'll acquire another big or Ian will get some of his minutes.  Obviously these guys could be better than this.  I don't think they'll do much worse baring significant injury.  In addition to this we have guys like Hairston and Temple and a draft pick.  I believe the average draftee puts up a WP48 of .050 (I don't have a reference for this, just what I remember reading).  If we draft a wing with a .050 WP48 who plays 12 minutes a game, and we get Splitter or another big who plays 25 minutes at .100 (Ian or a non declined McDyess could also take these minutes) we get another 5.3 wins for a total of 57.65 wins.  We also have 2,177 minutes unaccounted for but in my conservative  estimate I'll say those were played by players who averaged 0 wins.

So this yields an estimate of almost 58 wins without major roster changes and not relying much on players not already on our roster. Not to shabby. This puts us solidly in contender status and this is with Timmeh and Manu playing only 28 minutes for 72 games during the regular season.  Obviously they will get more minutes come playoffs and increase team production.  The key will be allowing Blair to get good minutes alongside Timmeh so he needs to work on his jumper.

In summary, I think we can have a great team next year with relatively little change.  I am officially pumped for next season.