Kristen Mann Signed by Washington (Again)

The Mystics have let Josephine Owino go and signed former Atlanta Dream player Kristen Mann. Mann had been signed by the Washington in the pre-season of 2009 but she didn't make the final cut. Mann remained unemployed for a grand total of 12 days.

Wonder what kind of reception Mann gets coming back to the ATL? Maybe she'll get some court time in the Mystics game this Friday.

Owino never played a minute of a regular season game. It just goes to show you...even if a team lets you go, that same team can always change its mind and hire you back.

UPDATE: The mystery is solved. Marissa Coleman is out 4-6 weeks with a high ankle strain. Someone has to fill the gap, and as a result, someone had to leave the roster.

Kristen Mann Waived by Washington

The various WNBA teams are cutting down their rosters, and another dream player gets waived. This time, it's Kristen Mann. Remember Kristen? She was traded to the Fever for Alison Bales in the 2008 mid-season. Now, Kristen and Alison are now looking for work. I suppose that Latvia and Turkey will be glad to have them back when the off-season starts.

If you're a Dream fan, it's been a tough week.

Kristen Mann to Mystics?

This is a rumor. So do what's right and spread it around, wildly. We'll get confirmation later.

Kristen Mann Waived

Kristen Mann, one of the original Atlanta Dream players, has been waived by the Indiana Fever. She was traded to the Indiana Fever from the Dream on July 4th in exchange for Alison Bales. It was a damned good trade for the Dream.

Mann had a great season in 2005 with the Lynx, but her stock has fallen every single year since then. I hope that Mann can get back on her feet with some other team.

The Mann/Bales Trade and More Crazy Stats

I was very much influenced by a post at Rethinking Basketball that was used to evaluate rookie talent in the WNBA. The point of the post was to determine which rookies had the potential for success given their limited playing time and which were likely to fail. This inspired me to do the same regarding Mann and Bales. Neither gets starters minutes so the tools used by Q to test rookies could be useful.

The first tool I want to develop is something called "Wins Score". "Wins Score" is what we call a linear metric. All that means is that Wins Scores is one of those tools that gives a player x points for something something good, y points for doing something bad, and adds all the points together for a final total. (Remember 3x - 2y in algebra? Just like that.)

If you just can't stand not knowing the metric, here it is:

(Points + Rebounds + Steals + ½Assists + ½Blocked Shots – Field Goal Attempts – Turnovers - ½Free Throw Attempts - ½Personal Fouls)

The WNBA uses a similar metric called "Efficiency"

((Points + Rebounds + Steals + Assists + Blocked Shots) - ((Field Goal Attempts - Field Goals Made) + (Free Throw Attempts - Free Throws Made) + Turnovers))/Games

There are two differences in the two formulas. The second divides by "games" at the end. All this does is reduce the second formula to a "per game" basis.

The other difference is that Wins Score only gives half credit for assists and blocked shots. It ignores field goals and free throws made, only gives half credit for free throw attempts, and unlike Efficiency, Wins Score takes points away for personal fouls whereas Efficiency ignores personal fouls.

Most Basketball APBRmetricians like "Wins Score" a lot better than they do "Efficiency". When I switched to "Wins Score" the following results popped up.

Betty "Noox" Lennox: 26th in Efficiency, 55th in Wins Score
Ivory Latta: 40th in Efficiency, 58th in Wins Score
Tamera Young: 51st in Efficiency, 53rd in Wins Score

Furthermore, Stacey Lovelace pops up to 56th in Wins Score, above Ivory Latta. Why does everyone take such a hit in Wins Score?

First, Wins Score doesn't care how well you shoot, as opposed to Efficiency. Wins Score just cares how many points you put on the board. Secondly, turnovers hurt you in Wins Score, and they don't hurt you in Efficiency.

Betty makes a lot of turnovers for the points she makes. As the end of 2007, she was 12th in turnovers all time in the WNBA. Wins Score appropriately devalues her overall worth to the team. With Tamera Young the highest overall Wins Score leader for the Dream -- at 53rd in the wNBA -- it's no wonder that the Dream is 0-17.

All right. Let's assume that we agree that Wins Score does a better job than Efficiency in predicting a player's worth. Where do we go from there? What does this mean both for Kristen Mann and for Alison Bales?

The first thing we need to do is create some way to answer the question, "if these two players played starters minutes instead of sub minutes, what is their potential for upside?" As it turned out, this question had already been answered by a man named Kevin Broom.

He created something called a "Diamond Rating". The point was to find "diamonds in the rough" which had been overlooked, players who might be able to make something happen if they had playing time.

The formula is a bit more complex, so I'll just summarize how it works. I changed Broom's formula and assumed that a WNBA starter would play 33 1/3 minutes per game. (His formula is an NBA formula, and he uses 40 as the starter's benchmark.)

a) Figure out what the Wins Score would be if the player played 33 1/3minutes and divide that by games played,
b) Subtract their current Wins Score per games played,
c) Add the difference between their win score per 33 1/3 minutes divided by games played and the league's average win score per 33 1/3 minutes divided by games played.

A and B determines how close the player comes to a starter. C gives them credit if they're producing more than an average player.

We then exclude certain groups of players. Anyone who's playing less than 2.5 minutes per game is chopped off -- we don't have enough data on them. Anyone playing more than 21 minutes per game is chopped off -- they're earning close to starter's minutes already.

WNBA leaders in PADR (Petrel Adjusted Diamond Rating)

CON Danielle Page 39.83
HOU Sancho Lyttle 19.28
MIN Vanessa Hayden 13.25
NYL Tiffany Jackson 10.95
WAS Crystal Langhorne 10.52
PHX LaToya Pringle 9.89
SAC Crystal Kelly 8.96
LAS Sidney Spencer 8.54
CON Tamika Raymond 6.98
MIN Kristen Rasmussen 6.66

As it turned out, Sancho Lyttle is lighting the league up now that she's had a chance to play. She lit up the Dream for 18 rebounds on Thursday. (Danielle Page is an outlier, as she barely makes the 2 1/2 minutes per game cutoff. I'd ignore her.)

Let's look at the Diamond Ratings of Alison Bales and Kristen Mann.

Bales 6.31 12th
Mann -0.61 67th

According to the Diamond Rating, Bales might have something extra to offer if you give her time. (We don't know yet where the cutoff in Diamond Rating for the WNBA rests. In the NBA, "diamonds in the rough" usually score eight or better in Diamond Rating.) Whereas Mann, according to Diamond Rating, doesn't have much to offer if you give her extra time.

Is Bales a real "Diamond in the Rough?" Is this going to be one of those trades that's going to work out very well for the Dream in the end and help us turn things around? The only way we'll know is that if Alison Bales is given significant minutes on the floor. We probably won't see that happen in todays Sky/Dream game, but we might see it later on in the year.

And just remember...sometimes the statistics lie...!

Kristen Mann Traded

The big news among Dream players is that Kristen Mann has just been traded for Alison Bales of the Indiana Fever.

We'll take a look at the stats to see if either side got a clear advantage in the trade.

Efficiency

Kristen Mann: 3.85 in 223 minutes
Alison Bales: 3.79 in 126 minutes

So we can see that Mann and Bales basically have the same output for their respective teams, with the caveat that Bales has played about half as many minutes as Mann.

Versatility

Kristen Mann: 1.76
Alison Bales: 0.84

Egad. Then again, Bales's versatility stats might be in a cocked hat. She's had a grand total of two assists, but she only plays nine minutes a game. For players who have at least ten minutes a game, the least versatile player is Lisa Willis of the New York Liberty.

Now, we're going to introduce a new stat called "usage". Usage basically counts turnovers, attempted field goals, assists (times 0.33), free throw attempts (times 0.44), multiplies the sum of all of those by 40 and divides by minutes played.

What does this algebraic mess add up to? It estimates "possessions used while on court" and tells how much the player participates in the offense.

Usage

Kristen Mann: 11.63
Alison Bales: 13.85

Here's an interesting statistic: of Atlanta Dream players, Mann is second to last in possessions used, contributing little to the offense in terms of minutes played. Whereas on the Fever, Bales is third from last. Bales contributes more to an offense in her minutes played than Mann does.

Furthermore, Alison Bales is 6 feet 7 inches tall. She's a center and she's a friggin tower. Imagine a night when Bales and Feenstra are clicking on all pistons.

So was this a good trade or a bad one? We'll know more when Bales gets more minutes. Who knows, it might be for the best.

Ivory Latta will be interested in reuniting with Allison Bales. Of course, they've met before....




Postscript: Usage values for all Dream players:

Lennox: 29.58 (fourth in WNBA)
Terry: 20.69 (all teams)
Latta: 20.28
Feenstra: 20.06
Castro Marques: 19.00
Lovelace: 18.24
Young: 18.23
Lacy: 18.17
De Souza: 15.66
Nnamaka: 14.78
Haynie: 14.69
(Mann: 11.63)
Strother: 7.25 (last in WNBA)