Getting Inside the Jrue Holiday Trade by the Sixers

GETTING BEHIND AND INSIDE THE JRUE HOLIDAY TRADE FOR NERLENS NOEL - THE STATS BEHIND IT

NERLENS NOEL IS ONE OF THE TOP DEFENSIVE PLAYERS EVER TO PLAY COLLEGE HOOPS - HE IS A REBOUNDING, SHOT-BLOCKING, DEFENSIVE MACHINE

Getting inside the numbers on this trade is not as hard as it might seem.

Some fans might think that Jrue Holiday was a pretty good player. After all, he was an NBA all-star.  However, the only categories he really was among the league leaders in was turnovers, in which he ranked 2d at 292 (that's very bad), FG attempts (10th), which means he was sort of like Iverson, and he ranked 3d overall in assists and 4th in Assists per Game (APG) with 8, which is pretty good.  That's his best stat.  

But when you sum it all up, Jrue Holiday is actually not a winning player.  His win shares have been in free fall for the last three years.  His win shares the past three seasons go 5.7, 4.2 and 3.3, which means he's been steadily declining, rather than improving.  His win shares per 48 minutes the prior two seasons, playing with Iguodala and Brand, were .094 and .092, whereas this past season he dropped off to .055.  

He has had one bright spot, and that is in the playoffs the season before, when the Sixers made their run in 2011-12, Holiday's win shares per 48 minutes were .148, which is an impressive number, and he played very well indeed as the Sixers beat the Bulls and took a very good Celtics team to seven games.  The other good point about Holiday is he plays a lot of minutes, and is quite durable.  He's among the top ten or fifteen in the league in minutes played and minutes per game played.  That's a good thing.

But he's a 6 foot 3 guard who ranks very low in effective field goal percentage, and has a poor turnover to assist ratio.  for an explanation of all this, we refer you to a sister site:

https://www.numberfire.com/nba/news/945/why-the-sixers-are-better-without-jrue-holiday

Quoting from this site:

Here is the public perception on Jrue Holiday: He's a playmaker. He can take control of a game. He holds a varied skill set. He's not Evan Turner. He quickly became the fan favorite in Philly, partially because any distraction from the Andrew Bynum Pro Bowling League was a welcome one.

However, those people clearly haven't looked at the numbers. Let's do a fun "Player A, Player B" breakdown. It's not particularly useful because you don't receive a larger context for a player, but man, it's so much fun when you can come up with comparisons like this.

Player A: .466 eFG%, 36.5 AST%, 17.3 TOV%, 99 ORtg, 107 DRtg
Player B: .493 eFG%, 32.2 AST%, 19.3 TOV%, 112 ORtg, 109 DRtg

Yeah, slightly more turnovers are a problem, but that extra 0.13 points per possession would sure be nice in Philadelphia when the offense sputters worse than a 1967 Oldsmobile. Oh, what's that? Player A is Jrue Holiday and Player B is Andre Miller, the now-37 year old point guard the Sixers pushed out four years ago in favor of young guys like Holiday and Lou Williams? Well then.

If that isn't enough for you, how about this context: according to stats.nba.com, among the 145 players that played at least 75 games last season, Holiday's .466 effective field goal percentage (eFG%) was 112th. His assist/turnover ratio, supposedly one of the best parts of his game, was only 31st behind such vaunted PGs as Kemba Walker, Darren Collison, andLuke Ridnour.

This was supposed to be Holiday's breakout All-Star season? Please.

So basically you have a good, not great point guard, who heaves the ball up a lot, and whose win shares are in free fall. 

Essentially, Jrue Holiday is like a bad version of Allen Iversion.  

Who doesn't score as much.  Most of Holiday's win share value is on the defensive end, but at six foot three, Holiday can't guard the taller players in the league.  His offensive win shares are low, and he is not an efficient point guard.  

On top of this, he was due for a salary bump to nearly $10 million a year the next three years.  Since he was only producing 3.3 win shares a year, that would be costing the Sixers nearly 3.3 million dollars a win.  That's expensive.  

Thaddeus Young, Dorrell Wright and Spencer Hawes all had more win shares last season than Jrue Holiday, with 7.4, 4.9 and 4.5 respectively.  Holiday's 3.3 was a distant fourth.  

In terms of win shares per 48 minutes, Holiday was even worst--his .055 win shares per 48 minutes was only 11th best on the Sixers, and one of the worst figures in the league.  The leaders on the Sixers were Arnett Moultrie, Thad Young and Dorrell Wright, all well over .130.  

Nerlens Noel

Now let's take a look at Nerlens Noel.  We only have one year of college data, but what amazing data it is.  

http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/n/noelne01.html

http://www.sports-reference.com/cbb/players/nerlens-noel-1.html

Nerlens Noel averaged .209 win shares per 40 minutes played.  That .251 win shares per 48 minutes played.  This is the list of win share leaders per 48 minutes played in the NBA last year:

Win Shares Per 48 Minutes

1.	LeBron James-MIA	.322
2.	Kevin Durant-OKC	.291
3.	Chris Paul-LAC	.287
4.	Tyson Chandler-NYK	.207
5.	Tony Parker-SAS	.206
6.	James Harden-HOU	.206
7.	Marc Gasol-MEM	.197
8.	Tiago Splitter-SAS	.197
9.	Blake Griffin-LAC	.196
10.	Russell Westbrook-OKC	.195
11.	Dwyane Wade-MIA	.192
12.	Tim Duncan-SAS	.191
13.	Brook Lopez-BRK	.191
14.	Carmelo Anthony-NYK	.184
15.	Deron Williams-BRK	.184
16.	Serge Ibaka-OKC	.181
17.	Stephen Curry-GSW	.180
18.	David West-IND	.179
19.	George Hill-IND	.177
20.	Chris Bosh-MIA	.175

Even assuming that Nerlens Noel only plays at some percentage of his college capacity, he would be among the top 20 NBA players in terms of win shares per 48 minutes played.  If he played at the level he played in college in the NBA, he would be among the top five players in the NBA, 4th actually, right after Chris Paul.  It would be LeBron James, Keven Durant, Chris Paul, and then Nerlens Noel in terms of win shares per 48 minutes.  

Wow.  

That's what I said.  Wow.  

Nerlens Noel's PER rating last year was 27.3.  Wow.

His defensive rating relative to 100 was 81.3, while his offensive rating relative to 100 was 112.9.  He was 32 points better than average, taking into account his superior offensive skills and superior defensive skills.

A team of five Nerlens Noels would hold a team that normally scored 100 points to 81.3 every night.  While scoring 112.9.  Every night would be a cake walk. 

In just 24 games played, he accumulated 4 win shares.  An NBA season is 82 games.  That means that in an NBA season, he would have something like 13 win shares plus.  

These were the leaders in win shares in the NBA last year:

Win Shares

1.	LeBron James-MIA	19.3
2.	Kevin Durant-OKC	18.9
3.	Chris Paul-LAC	13.9
4.	James Harden-HOU	12.8
5.	Russell Westbrook-OKC	11.6
6.	Marc Gasol-MEM	11.5
7.	Stephen Curry-GSW	11.2
8.	Kobe Bryant-LAL	10.9
9.	Deron Williams-BRK	10.9
10.	Blake Griffin-LAC	10.6
11.	Mike Conley-MEM	9.9
12.	George Hill-IND	9.7
13.	Dwyane Wade-MIA	9.6
14.	Carmelo Anthony-NYK	9.5
15.	Serge Ibaka-OKC	9.4
16.	Tony Parker-SAS	9.3
17.	Tyson Chandler-NYK	9.3
18.	David Lee-GSW	9.1
19.	David West-IND	9.1
20.	Paul George-IND	9.0

Wow.  If Nerlens Noel even played at a fraction of his potential from college, he'd be among the top twenty players in the NBA in win shares.  Only LeBron James, Kevin Durant and Chris Paul would be better than Nerlens Noel.  

Some other numbers:  He rebounded nearly 10 boards per game, blocked 4.5 shots per game, had an effective FG% of .590, averaged 1.6 APG and even averaged 2.1 steals per game.  

The NBA leader in blocks per game last year, Serge Ibaka, averaged 3 blocks per game.  

The mind boggles at the possibilities.  

Noel utterly, totally dominated the SEC last year.  

Michael Carter-Williams

The 6 foot 6 point guard that was drafted #11 by the Sixers to replace Jrue Holiday has some fancy numbers also.

He was #2 in the NCAA last year in defensive win shares.

He led the NCAA last year in minutes played.  

He lead the NCAA last year in Assists.

Take at look for yourself:

  http://www.sports-reference.com/cbb/seasons/2013.html

http://www.sports-reference.com/cbb/players/michael-carter-williams-1.html

Overall, from the numbers, it's pretty clear that Carter-Williams projects out to be a far better point guard both offensively and defensively than Jrue Holiday, at least from the stats.

And, of course, he is six foot six, and played in the Big East at Syracuse.  

Summing It All Up

You have to like this trade and this draft.  The Sixers end up dropping payroll.

The Sixers get younger.

The Sixers get better in the long run.  Not this coming year, but definitely in a couple of years.

They get a big man with huge upside potential, and not with attitude problems like Andrew Bynum.

They pick up a known quantity in Michael Carter-Williams who has two years of college ball under his belt who can play point guard and who led the nation in assists and defense at that position.  

And on top of this all, the Sixers picked up extra draft picks in the first and second rounds for next years draft, which is supposed to full of great college players, so the Sixers will have 4-5 picks in the top two rounds next year to re-stock the franchise.  

Right there, you feel as if the Sixers have already taken a huge step to undo the awful Andrew Bynum trade.

New Sixers GM Sam Hinkie has scored a slam dunk on draft night with this complex series of deals, and shown he understands modern basketball stats.  

Now if we can just get him to manage our stock portfolios....

The Sixers Dreadful Andrew Bynum Trade

The Sixers Dreadful Andrew Bynum Trade

The Philadelphia 76ers made the playoffs last year, beat the Chicago Bulls in the first round, and took the Celtics deep before losing to a very fine Celtics team.  In doing so, the Sixers made all of Philadelphia, and indeed, all of the NBA, feel that the Sixers were really back as a team.

DOUG COLLINS IS THE SIXERS COACH

This year, the Sixers have been successful on occasion, but they are a few games out of the hunt for the eighth and final playoff spot in the East.  They have had several positive development--Jrue Holiday has developed into a terrific point guard and an excellent scorer, and Even Turner has become one of the best defenders and rebounders.

But the top Sixers this year in terms of Win Shares ("WS") are Thaddeus Young, Jrue Holiday, Dorrell Wright and Spencer Hawes, and but for Young at 4.6 WS, all of them are around 2+ WS.  Nick Young and Evan Turner are close to 2 WS.  Jason Richardson had 1.5 WS in 33G, but he's gone with injury for the season.  He'd be around 2 WS if he'd been playing.  So what you have is one leader, Thad Young, and then seven players who are at or were on pace to get around 2.5-3 WS for the season.  A lot of depth but no stars.  

The Awful Andrew Bynum Trade

The Andrew Bynum Trade has been a disaster.  The Sixers traded Maurice Harkless, Nik Vukevic, Andre Iguodala for Andrew Bynum and Jason Richardson.  

NIK VUKEVIC HAS BECOME A STAR FOR ORLANDO SINCE BEING CARELESSLY TRADED AWAY BY THE SIXERS IN THE ANDREW BYNUM DEAL.  RIGHT NOW HE IS BETTER THAN BYNUM OR DWIGHT HOWARD.

So far, Jason Richardson has contributed 1.5 WS in 33 G.  He got hurt and won't play anymore this season.  Bynum has not played at all due to injury.  Worse, he appears not to really want to play.  He goes bowling and seems to be able to do just about anything except play hoops.  He has a bad attitude.

On the other side of the ledger, Iguodala has not had the season he had last year, but so far this year has accumulated 3.2 WS in 51 G, and .081 WS/48 minutes.  So the new AI is on pace for @ 3.5-4 WS.  That would probably lead the Sixers.  

Maurice Harkless has accumulated 1.3 WS in 44 G, .076 WS/48M, so he seems a lot like the seven Sixers on pace to get near 1.5-2 WS.  He'd of been a useful big body, and since he's just a rookie, his upside is high, and his cost is low.

Finally, Nik Vukevic.  He was shipped off to the Orlando Magic.  Vukevic has accumulated 4.3 WS in 50 G, and .126 WS/48M, and become one of the best rebounders in the game.  Right now, he's a much better player than Dwight Howard or Andrew Bynum, and he's only a second year player with total upside and low cost.  Vuke is on pace for a 5.0 WS season.  

So the total cost of the Bynum trade was huge--4 WS from AI, 5 WS from Vuke, and 2 WS from Harkless---10-11 wins lost from the Sixers total--versus 1.5 WS from Jason Richardson, who's done for the year, and none from Andrew Bynum, who looks like he's never going to play a single game for the Sixers.  

Right now, this nets out to minus 9.5 WS for the Sixers, just on this trade for this year, not counting the future lost WS from Vuke and Harkless, who will be good for years to come.  It still means the Sixers are down 9.5 wins just on this trade alone.

Now Bynum could still salvage some of this.  Bynum in 2007-08, in just 35 games, accumulated nearly 5 WS for the Lakers at a pace of .230 WS/48M, although his career numbers suggest a more likely scenario of @ 3 WS in 30 G and @ .175 WS/48M.  That would somewhat mitigate the Sixers' losses on the trade, but it would still net out to minus 6.5 WS on the season.

The Future

If you are the Sixers' Management, there is no way you sign Andrew Bynum to a long term deal.  He is a free agent at the end of this year.  Let Bynum walk.  He's frequently injured, and unlike guys like Elton Brand, who played hurt a lot the past few years, Bynum seems to have the attitude that if he's got a hangnail, he's not playing.  Guys like him, no team needs.  The salary cap room would be better spent on warriors with less talent and more willingness to give of themselves for the team.  

Other Off Season Mistakes

The Sixers WS leaders last year were Andre Iguodala, Thad Young, Elton Brand, Lou Williams and Jrue Holiday.  AI we already discussed.  Thad Young and Jrue Holiday are still here.  However, Elton Brand was let go as a free agent as was Lou Williams.  Were these wise decisions?

Elton Brand is with Dallas.  While not playing the way he did last year, Elton Brand has accumulated 2.1 WS in 46G at a clip of .101 WS/48M.  He's on pace to get 2.5 WS for the year, and that's playing pretty much part time.  His WS rate per 48M is very good.  He could definitely have helped the Sixers this year, both on defense and rebounding, and also scoring in the low post.  

Lou Williams signed as a free agent with the Atlanta Hawks for @ the same $5 million a year he was getting with the Sixers.  Lou Williams was a 2 guard who scored a ton of points last year coming off the bench as well as starting.  For Atlanta, in just 39 G before getting hurt, tearing his ACL and being done for the year, Lou accumulated 2.5 WS at a clip of .109 WS/48M.  Had he not been hurt, he was on pace to get 5 or more WS this year. Lou had 6.1 WS for last years' Sixers team, and it's not obvious that anyone on the Sixers has stepped up as a #2 guard with anywhere near the talent of Lou Williams, nor can anyone safely say that anyone as talented as Lou Williams would have cost but $5 million a year.  

So was letting Elton Brand and Lou Williams go a mistake?  Between them, 5.0 WS for the year, and even with Lou Williams getting hurt, Lou would have given the Sixers a lot of scoring in the first 39 G as well as 2.5 WS.  Those are wins as well as scoring.  

The Bigger Picture

Last years Sixers scored 103.9 ppg, 20th of 30 in the NBA, but only allowed 99.2 ppg, 3d best in the NBA.  They were one of the very best defensive teams in the NBA.  They played shutdown defense, largely due to players like AI, Elton Brand, et al.  Even Vuke had a WS last year, and Lou Williams had 2.2 defensive WS of his 6.1 total, so Sweet Lou could play D.  

This year, the Sixers are scoring 92.3 ppg, 29th of 30th in the NBA.  Defensively, they are allowing 95.5 ppg, 7th of 30 in the NBA.  So defensively, they are worse than last year, and offensively, they have totally cratered.  Only the awful Washington Wizards score fewer points at 91.4 ppg than the Sixers.  

Last season, the Sixers had the fifth best SRS in the NBA, and had an expected record of 43-23, even though their actual record was 35-31, so they performed 8 games below what their stats would have predicted.  

This season, the Sixers have an SRS which is 24th of 30th in the NBA, near the bottom of the league, and their expected won loss record is 19-31, which is actually worse than their actual record of 22-28, so their stats suggest that the Sixers are WORSE than their actual record.  

Doug Collins is a terrific coach, but even he can't overcome the horrible mistakes of management this past offseason in the Andrew Bynum trade, and in letting Elton Brand and Lou Williams walk as free agents.  Total, these moves cost the Sixers at least 15 WS, or @ 15 total wins on the season, and they have recouped next to nothing for them.  

Some Past Bad Moves by the Sixers

The Sixers have in the past let some young players go that would have been helpful to them now.  These include John Salmons, a 6'7" guard who can also play forward, who has put up huge offensive numbers as well as playing fine defense, from 2006-present, and put up a lot of WSs per season.  Kyle Korver, a very tall shooting guard/forward and 3 point shooting specialist, who since 2007-08 has plyed his trade with other teams, peaking at 5.1, 5.3 and 4.3 WS the past three seasons, marked by pinpoint three point accuracy, stellar defense, and excellent hoops skils, not to mention his Ashton Kutcher lookalike face.  Andre Miller, who the Sixers obtained in trade for Iverson, was allowed to leave as a free agent after 2008, and all Miller did was register consecutive 7.0 WS seasons while playing 82 games for the Portland Trailblazers, and then returning to Denver, where even in a diminished role, he's put up 2.9 WS seasons in 82 and 59 G.  Andre Miller is one of the best point guards in the game, and he never misses games.  Why was he let go?  This is a mystery to anyone.  Finally, Sammy D'Alembert, who played 82 G in a seasons for four consecutive years for the Sixers, was traded for Spencer Hawes a couple of years back--but D'Alembert is still putting up pretty good defensive numbers and WS numbers, and can still play all the games.  Hawes is good, but he has injury issues and one can question this move as well.  

CONCLUSION

Obviously the Sixers could not carry all of these players on their roster at once, nor could they pay them all, given the salary cap.  Nonetheless, Kyle Korver and his three point skills and defense could have been used the past few years.  John Salmons' defense, scoring and rebounding is not much different than Evan Turner, except Salmons is better at scoring.  Andre Miller, even at age 37, is still among the best point guards around.  It was premature to cut him loose.  Elton Brand and Lou Williams still had plenty of hoops left in them.  Andre Iguodala was far from done.  If all of these players had been kept--the Sixers would be a far better team, defensively and offensively, than they are now.  

Finally, the trading away of young talent like Harkless and Vukevic--tall big men who were YOUNG for an old big man like Bynum, who has a history of injury and questionable desire to win or play hard--well, this has to be questioned.  If the Sixers are rebuilding, they should go young.  If they are going with veterans, why are they releasing and trading away established stars like Brand, AI and Lou Williams?  When you look at the totality of it all, the strategy makes no sense and could have been predicted to fail.

At the end of the day, you can't win in this league with small guards.  The Iverson experiment proved this.  Guys like Korver and Salmons, with their size, can guard as well as score.  They can also swing to forward and help create mismatches.  Evan Turner is the closest the Sixers have to such players, and yet the rumors flying out of the Sixers is that they now want to trade Turner, even though he is the Sixer with the greatest upside.   

The Sixers need to stop thinking about superstars, and start thinking in terms of win shares and winning as a team.  It's enough to have a good team and make the playoffs.  Stars can develop within a team concept, and it's getting awfully tiring to watch ex-Sixers like Salmons, Vukevic, Korver, Miller et al. blossom into stardom with other teams while the Sixers continue to struggle.  Doug Collins is a terrific coach, but Sixers ownership and management needs to start thinking in terms of the statistics of winning and not in terms of star power or who draws fans.  

Art Kyriazis, Philly