Recruiting vs. NCAA Tournament Success - The McDonald's All Americans

Time to answer the question: what do Ivory Latta, Kasha Terry, Alison Bales, Camille Little and Ann Strother all have in common?

Answer: all of them were McDonald's All-Americans.

Ann Strother: 2002
Ivory Latta: 2003
Camille Little: 2003
Alison Bales: 2003
Kasha Terry: 2003

Some background about the McDonald's All-American team. Since 1977, McDonald's - the guys who make the Big Mac - have been naming high school All-Star teams. Being like everyone else in organized basketball, they didn't even notice the girls until 2002, when the first girl's McDonald's All-American team was named.

Sports America makes a list of 1200 girls, which is pared down to 150 players. The 150 players are then reviewed by a selection committee that shrinks the roster down to its final size. An "East" and "West" team are chosen, but more for balance than for geographical correctness.

These McDonald's All-Americans are considered to be the cream of the crop that the country has to offer, and as far as I know, all are seniors. These kids are heavily recruited by college programs, and most of the kids already know where they're going by the time the next college season rolls around.

If you look at some of these lists, they look like a WNBA roster. The 2004 McD All-Americans were pretty impressive. This list had Candace Parker, Crystal Langhorne, Nikki Anosike, Sylvia Fowles, Essence Carson, Alexis Hornbuckle, Tasha Humphrey, Candace Wiggins, and a couple of others that are on rosters today.

Of course, this doesn't mean that every McDonald's All-American will be a WNBA All-Star. Look at the Atlanta Dream, which has five McDonald's All-Americans on the roster, but only one of WNBA All-Star quality.

Once I learned about the McDonald's All-Americans, I asked myself, "how much does having a McDonald's All-American on one's college roster have to do with tournament success?" If I were, say, Coach Joe Blow from Wassamatta U., and I could recruit two McDonald's All-Americans , what would be my chances of success in the NCAA Tournament if I could get that far?

I first drew up lists of all of the All-Americans from 2002 to the present 2008 class. I looked up their college records. Some McD All-Americans, like Lindsay Richards (2002), got two years before injuries ended their career (Richards played at Iowa in the 2002-03 and 2003-04 seasons.) Others, like Brooke Smith (2002) would transfer after one year. Richards played for Duke from 2002-03, then transferred to Stanford. NCAA rules require that students transferring sit out one year. (Smith concluded her career at Stanford in 2007.)

Other students were medical redshirts, due to blown out knees and the like. Others couldn't cut the mustard academically (Erica Brown in 2005) or questioned their commitment to basketball (Elena Delle Donne in 2008).

The first All-Americans that made it through four years were the 2002 class, and it wasn't until 2006 that a college team could have a McDonald's All-American on their roster for four years. This gave me three NCAA tournaments to review - the 2006, 2007 and 2008 tournaments.

I accounted for three cases:

a) teams that went to the tournament and had an All-American on the roster,
b) teams that went to the tournament and did not have an All-American on the roster - these teams were the majority of teams, from the mid-majors and automatic byes, and
c) teams that had an All-American on the roster, but did not go to the tournament. Texas Tech had Erin Grant (2002), Brooke Baughman (2003) and Darrice Griffin (2004) but still couldn't make the tournament in 2006.

I wanted to look at games played in the NCAA tournament as opposed to games won. Looking at games played made more sense to me, as games played seemed to apply to all Division I teams, whereas games won restricted the group (in my mind) only to teams that made the tournament. A team that lost in the first round has one game played, a team that didn't make the tournament has zero games played.

We then restrict to teams that have McDonald's All-Americans.

The next step is to perform what is called a linear regression. Linear regression answers the question: "if the relationship between All-Americans and games played is linear - if having x All-Americans means you get to play y games in the NCAA Tournament - then what is the relationship?"

In real life, the relationship is not strictly linear, but we can statistically draw a "best fitting line" that best approximates the data.

Here are the "best fitting lines" for the 2006, 2007 and 2008 tournaments.

Let "x" = # of McDonald's All-Americans on your team.
Let "y" = # of expected games played in the NCAA Tournament that year by your team.

2006: y = 0.630x - 0.237
2007: y = 0.705x - 0.004
2008: y = 1.116x - 0.910

Note that for each of the years, the slope of the line - the number next to x - increases year per year. For each successive year in the analysis, having a McDonald's All-American has more impact.

Why is this? My hypothesis is that the selection committee has gotten better over time. Remember that the 2006 tournament represents the very earliest McDonald's All-Americans whereas the 2008 tournament reflects a McDonald's All-American committee with more experience in picking players. 2008 represented the strongest correlation between roster and tournament success.

Here is the best fitting line representing three years of data:

all years: y = 0.798x - 0.337

If your team has zero All-Americans on it, you will play an "estimated" -0.337 games in the tournament. If you have two All-Americans, you will play an estimated 0.798 * 2 - 0.337 = 1.259 games. Two All-Americans on the roster might get you past the first round.

If this relationship is correct, or even close to correct, it explains why these girls are so highly recruited.
Note that

in 2006, you needed three McDonald's All-Americans to make the NCAA finals (Maryland)
in 2007, you needed five McDonald's All-Americans (Tennessee, Rutgers)
in 2008, you needed six McDonald's All-Americans (Tennessee, Stanford)

In all three years of the NCAA Tournament for which McDonald's All-Americans play a fact, only one team in each of those three years that made it to the Elite Eight had no All-Americans on it.

2006: Utah
2007: Mississippi
2008: Texas A&M

Neither Utah, Mississippi, or Texas A&M was able to make it to the final four. Three years isn't much of a sample, but recruiting success appears to be highly correlated with tournament success.

So which teams have the most McDonald's All-Americans on them now? Which teams are the ones to look out for in 2009?



As you can see, Tennessee and Pat Summitt have an amazing nine McD All-Americans on the roster:

Fuller, Cane, Baugh, Bjorklund, Gray, Johnson, Manning, Stricklen, Brewer

Up next is Rutgers with eight All-Americans:

Vaughn, Prince, Rushdan, Lee, Sykes, Dixon, Pope, Speed.

As a matter of fact, one could probably pass off the list above as a pre-season Top 25 list and the casual observer wouldn't give it a second glance. Except, of course, for the observers who live in Connecticut.

POSTSCRIPT: The third column of the graphic should indicate Tournament Games, not wins. Since I'm at work, I'll fix it when I get home.

Thou Art Not Forgotten

I regret to report that it is currently a dead zone out there, newswise. Unless you're following the saga of Elene Delle Donne. We know Nikki Teasley has signed with the Dream but we have no idea how's she getting along with everyone. We know Josh Bagriansky has an interview set up with Coach Meadors but we don't have an article just yet.

My next article will be another math post - all we got right now. What's it about? Hint: what do Ivory Latta, Kasha Terry, Alison Bales, Camille Little and Ann Strother have in common?

WNBA Salaries

ducky24 posted the following information on the Atlanta Dream Message Board. For the purposes of references, I'm reposting it here on the blog.

WNBA Salary Scale
Minimum


Years of Service 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013
0- 2 $34,500 $35,190 $35,880 $36,570 $37,260 $37,950
3+ $50,000 $51,000 $52,000 $53,000 $54,000 $55,000

* See Rookie Salary Scale below.

Maximum


(a) For Player Contracts entered into between a Qualifying Veteran Free
Agent with six (6) or more Years of Service and her Prior Team (including, but not limited to,
Contracts entered into with a Qualifying Veteran Free Agent with six (6) or more Years of
Service who has been designated as a Core Player) and Extensions of Rookie Scale Contracts
with Draft Rookies shall be:
2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013
$97,500 $99,500 $101,500 $103,500 $105,500 $107,500

(b) For all other Player Contracts, the Maximum Player Salary shall be:
2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013
$95,000 $97,000 $99,000 $101,000 $103,000 $105,000

For rookie salary scale, see WNBA Collective Bargaining Agreement pages 255-260.

Team Salary Cap


Maximum
2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013
$772,000 $803,000 $827,000 $852,000 $878,000 $913,000

Minimum
2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013
$750,000 $772,000 $796,000 $819,000 $844,000 $869,000


Bonuses
WNBA Champion - $10,500 per player
Championship Runner-up - $5,250 per player
Eliminated in semifinals - $2,625 per player
Eliminated in quarterfinals - $1,050 per player


Most Valuable Player Award - $15,000
All-WNBA First Team Award - $10,000 per player
All-WNBA Second Team Award - $5,000 per player
Defensive Player Award - $5,000
Sportsmanship Award - $5,000
Rookie of the Year Award - $5,000
Most Improved Player Award - $5,000
All Star Game Participant - $2,500

The Senior Prospects Metric: An Update

(Note: the following post might be stat-heavy and dwell obsessively on number crunching. If you have no interest in such things, you might just want to skip past this one.)

Q of Rethinking Basketball asked me in a comment about a post I had written which used the first version of the Senior Prospects Metric (SPM) to go back in time to the 2008 WNBA Draft and attempt to predict that draft. Here are the results:



So how did the SPM match up with how the players performed? And how well did the actual draft match up? The actual draft matched up very well, just creeping into the -0.5 area of large correlation. Whereas the SPM did not even reach -0.3, the generally hypothesized level of medium correlation.

Q suggested that instead of using Wins Score, I should use a metric that was more of a rate than a sum. Wins Score isn't high for players that don't get a lot of minutes, whereas a rate would measure "production per minute" and would not penalize players that had potential but didn't get a lot of minutes.

Therefore, instead of using Wins Score, I would use a metric I was already using for something else, called WS333 - "Wins Score for 33 1/3 minutes". WS333 asked the question, "how much Wins Score does the player produce per 33 1/3 minutes of play?". It would shrink the scores of players who had a lot of minutes, and expand the scores of players who didn't.

The results were...well....



AAAGGGHHH! When using a per/minute based metric, the SPM did worse - it got closer to randomness. Whereas the actual draft order got closer to a direct relationship.

I realized that I was going to have to add the height caveats that Hollinger wrote about in his inital ESPN article if I was to get any closer to an actual draft projection. I therefore added the height qualifications to the SPM and tried the entire result all over again.

Here are the final results. The "New Predicted Order" is the order you'd get if you use the updated version of the SPM to predict the draft outcome.



Kimberly Beck falls from 3rd to 10th. The new SPM punishes her for being a short point guard who didn't rebound well in college. Quianna Chaney also takes a hit for rebounding. Poor players get pushed down and the better players move up to take their places. Candace Wiggins moves to 8th from 10th, and Alexis Hornbuck moves all the way from 15th to 9th.

We'll look at the new correlations now.



The newest version of the SPM still does poorly against WS333 - but it does better than the older version. However, when using Wins Score, the correlation between SPM and actual player results actually moves from small correlation to medium correlation.

Even more interesting (to me anyway) is that the new SPM predicted order moves closer in correlation to the order from the 2008 WNBA Draft. It's still a small correlation, but it moves more in the direction of what the GMS of the WNBA actually do.

(* * *)

When thinking about this project, there were two matters on my mind.

The first matter is whether or not correlation is the correct statistical measure to use. As it turns out, correlation can be very misleading whenever non-normal variables are used.

A "normal variable" is a bell-curve type distribution. This implies a lot of numbers clumped up in the middle and trailing on both ends. If WNBA talent were normally distributed, it would indicate that most WNBA players have roughly the same amount of talent, with a few players being rather crappy and another few players being excellent.

This assumption is not true in baseball. In baseball, it's more of an exponential curve, with a whole lot of really crappy players and a small number of good players. (Go to this link for the image of an exponential curve.) I suspect that talent curves are the same way in the WNBA and this adds problems when using correlation.

The other matter on my mind is that we might not be explaining the relationship in the right terms - it might not be that draft position predicts player performance, but that player performance might be dependent on draft position! It might be the case that higher draft choices get more coaching attention to improving the fine points of their game than lower, non-playing draft choices. In short, there might not be some sort of "inherent ability" that never changes, but rather the ability is more likely to be coaxed out at the professional level by coaches and staff members the lower one is picked in the draft.

After all, if you're a first round draft pick, there's more pressure on GMs and coaches to get a better result. More attention is lavished on one's major investment than one's minor ones.

That's pretty much it for the conclusions. I hope to have an updated SPM at the end of the 2008-09 college season, so we'll see which players did better than the most recently concluded year, and which did worse. If your favorite college player does worse in the coming year, don't worry - Hollinger says that this happens in men's college basketall, and it will probably happen in the women's game as well.

New Link

Gotta add Sue F's new blog to the blogroll. The name of the blog is simply, "They're Playing Basketball". My suggestion is that you take some time, click the link, and go over there and read it.

Also, a shoutout to the Women's Hoops Blog, not just for providing the link, but to linking one of my articles on their blog. You wouldn't believe how many hits I got!

Small Market Blues

A Kansas City sports blog laments the fact that not only can the owners of the Sprint Center in Kansas City not "land" an NBA or NHL team, it can't land a WNBA team either. The arena's owners have been chatting up a Kansas City franchise for years now, including the years 2006 (when Charlotte disbanded and the players were dispersed) and 2008, when the Dream got its team.

The lone commenter writes "no tennant (sic) in the sprint center is better than a wnba team". It looks like the lone commenter is going to get his wish.

Here's what I don't get about the small market blues. When Baltimore's mayor talked up the possibility of a WNBA franchises, there were many more comments than the ones on the blog I linked to in the first paragraph. A third of the comments were the angrydumbjock.com crowd, who feared that some lesbian somewhere in Baltimore might be made happy by the arrival of a WNBA team. Another third focused on the perceived corruption of Baltimore's mayor.

The final third considered the arrival of a WNBA franchise as an insult. "Baltimore is a big league city," was the cry. They feared that the acceptance of a WNBA franchise would doom them to second-class status.

Here's one thing about dumbjocks and dumbjocksniffers - despite the fact that many of them are in sales, marketing, and the traditional "macho boy" kinds of business professions, when it comes to spots fandom they toss their business acumen right out the window. They forget about the necessity of networking.

First, take a look at all of the WNBA cities. They are all big league cities. In the entire history of the WNBA, there has been only one city that didn't have a corresponding NBA franchise - Uncasville, Connecticut, home of the Mohegan Sun casino. (The other is Seattle, but it did have an NBA franchise at the beginning of 2008.)

Second, many of these cities still have NBA ownership or staff operations.

Third, just about every WNBA game is attended by someone who knows something in the NBA. Either actual NBA players are watching (whenever I attend Dream games, the Dream make sure to highlight them on the jumbotron), or arena owners, or local businessment with money and sports connections, or whatever.

You would think that people would come to the obvious conclusion - if you want an NBA franchise, the best way to draw the NBA's attention is to start a WNBA team. Claims of the dumbjocksniffers set aside, the WNBA is assisted financially by the NBA because David Stern sees it in the NBA's best interest to have the WNBA around. And what does it cost the NBA to prop up the W? About as much as it costs for a low-scoring point guard on the New York Knicks. It's a low-cost subsidy that yields high results. (My fear is that the next WNBA commissioner will not be as smart as Stern is.) Those little kids that go to WNBA games might grow up to be WNBA fans -- and NBA fans as well.

When you start a WNBA francise, you make friends with WNBA President Donna Orender. Donna is in David Stern's back pocket. If you know Donna, you know David Stern by extension. And the rule in business is that it's easier to do business with people with whom you have some sort of "in", some sort of social connection.

What you don't do is belly up to the bar and claim, "We're a big league city and we deserve consideration". One thing about big league cities - they don't brag about how big league they are. It's little league cities that have some point to make.

So if you're living in Baltimore, or Kansas City, or Tulsa, why don't you use your brains? Get that WNBA team. A few seasons of good attendance, and when those NBA owners want to bail out on their teams - and you know that's going to happen sooner or later - guess where David Stern and the ownership will be looking first?

Atlanta Dream Sign Nikki Teasley

I'm excerpting this right from RebKell:

DREAM SIGNS FREE AGENT POINT GUARD NIKKI TEASLEY
-- Atlanta Signs Former University of North Carolina Star --

Atlanta, August 15, 2008— The Atlanta Dream announced today the signing of free agent point guard Nikki Teasley for the remainder of the season. Teasley spent the last two seasons with the Washington Mystics before parting ways with the team in March. She gave birth to her daughter in June and has missed all of the 2008 season to date.

“To have a 6-foot point guard is definitely an advantage,” said Dream Head Coach Marynell Meadors. “Nikki is a tremendous talent and excels at seeing the floor. She will be a huge plus for us and provides us with size at the point guard position.”

In her six year WNBA career, Teasley is averaging 8.7 points 3.2 rebounds and 5.0 assists per game. She started 33 games for the Mystics last season, averaging 5.2 points, 2.2 rebounds and 3.3 assists per game. Teasley was originally selected with the fifth overall pick in the 2002 WNBA Draft and spent her first four seasons in the league with the Los Angeles Sparks, where she hit the game winning shot in the 2002 WNBA Championship. Teasley was also named the MVP of the 2003 WNBA All-Star game.

During her collegiate career at the University of North Carolina, Teasley averaged an Atlantic Coast Conference record 5.8 assists per game. She finished her career as the Tar Heels all-time leader in assists (728) and three-pointers (236). She was the first player in conference history to lead the ACC in assists all four years and was only the second player to record 1,500 points and 600 assists in her career.

This will be very interesting. Wonder why she didn't decide to return to the Mystics.

Dream to Get Back to Work

We have a new post from Josh Bagriansky of Score Atlanta. It's about the Atlanta Dream players finally returning to practice.


...

“I would love to be here in Atlanta,” said Latta. “They just show so much love to women’s basketball. I love this crowd here. When we go to other places, we look at their crowd and we’re like, ‘man, we can’t wait to get back to Atlanta.’”

...

“I went to Orlando, had fun and relaxed,” [Lennox] said. “I got a lot off my mind. Overall, [the break] was great.”

I suggest that you go read the article in its entirety.

Best Performances by NCAA Coaches in the Post-Season

I'm going to replicate the work of an interesting blog called, "Yet Another Basketball Blog " and examine the success rates of women's basketball coaches. Like Dan Hanner, I'll look at the current leaders in appearances plus wins in the NCAA, but I'm changing the time frame to five years instead of ten years. The current school of each coach is listed, with annotations if the coach has changed schools

NCAA Appearances - Wins - Coach - School

5-24 Pat Summitt Tennessee
5-18 Geno Auriemma Connecticut
5-15 Tara VanDerveer Stanford
5-14 Gail Goestenkors (Duke 4/Texas 1) Texas
5-14 Sylvia Hatchell North Carolina
5-13 C. Vivian Stringer Rutgers
5-12 Brenda Frese Maryland
5-11 Kim Mulkey Baylor
5-10 Andy Landers Georgia
5-8 Melanie Balcomb Vanderbilt
5-7 Charli Turner Thorne Arizona State
5-6 Muffet McGraw Notre Dame
5-6 Sherri Coale Oklahoma
4-6 Pam Borton Minnesota
5-4 Doug Bruno DePaul (IL)
5-4 Jim Foster Ohio State
3-5 Kristy Curry (Purdue 3/Texas Tech 2) Texas Tech
5-3 Dawn Staley (Temple 5) South Carolina
5-2 Wendy Larry Old Dominion (VA)
3-4 Gary Blair Texas A&M
3-3 Sharon Versyp (Maine 3/Purdue 2) Purdue
3-3 Elaine Elliott Utah
4-2 Jeff Mittie TCU
4-2 Bill Fennelly Iowa State
5-1 Don Flanagan New Mexico
3-3 Deb Patterson Kansas State
4-1 Joanne Boyle (Richmond 2/Cal 3) California

We now want to develop an idea called "PASE", which is used both by Henner in the blog and by ESPN. PASE stands for "performance above seed expectations".

There aren't many benchmarks we can use to compare college coaches. Win-loss record certainly won't do it. A team's win-loss record depends seemingly on two things:

a) strength of other teams in conference, and
b) strength of non-conference schedule.

However, since 1994, the women's NCAA tournament has had 64 teams, with teams receiving a rank from "1" to "16" dependent on subjective assessment of strength (and later, Sagarin RPI). What we can do is compare a team's performance based on their seed with the performance of all the other teams that had that same seed in past tournaments.

We come up with an "expected win" count per seed - looking back over performance, we can say that a "6" seed is expected to win 1.03 games. Your average six seed makes it to the second round. If you're a college coach and can take your sixth-seeded team into the Sweet Sixteen, that's a plus. If you lose your first round game, that's a minus.

First, here are the expected wins associated with NCAA seed in the women's tournament:

1 - 3.73
2 - 2.65
3 - 2.38
4 - 1.78
5 - 1.15
6 - 1.03
7 - 0.85
8 - 0.48
9 - 0.60
10 - 0.35
11 - 0.37
12 - 0.23
13 - 0.13
14 - 0
15 - 0
16 - 0.02

Why isn't the #1 seed worth more wins? Because if you make it to the Final Four, you'll probably bump against the other #1 seeds.

Note that the #8 seed has had particularly bad luck. History shows that the #9 seed does better than the #8 seed.

The #14 and #15 seeds have never won a first round game in the history of the 64-team tournament. As for #16 being 0.02, I refer you to March 14, 1998, a dark day in Stanford history as they became the only #1 seed - in women's or men's play - to lose to a #16 seed as Harvard beat a Stanford team with two injured leading scorers by the score of 71-67 in the first round.

So given their assigned seeds, which coaches have done the best? We will look over the last five years only and determine how well, per year, each coach does above the expected number of wins.

Best Coaches vs. PASE (minimum 3 appearances in five years)

Pat Summitt 1.29
Tara VanDerveer 0.60
C. Vivian Stringer 0.59
Geno Auriemma 0.57
Brenda Frese 0.38
Pam Borton 0.34
Andy Landers 0.27
Muffet McGraw 0.14
Kim Mulkey 0.13
Charli Turner Thorne 0.13

This is pretty much a list of the big names in women's college ball - the best coaches are the ones with longevity, and they have that longevity because they can keep coming to the NCAA tournament and performing beyond expectations. Pat Summitt has won a few championships recently. That helps, and we see that on the average Coach Summitt gets one game beyond where she's expected to finish.

Worst Coaches vs. PACE (minimum 3 appearances in five years)

Don Flanagan -0.16
Wendy Larry -0.24
Tom Collen -0.25
Gary Blair -0.29
Joanne Boyle -0.40
Deb Patterson -0.52
Kay Yow -0.53
Sylvia Hatchell -0.54
Sherri Coale -0.73
Jim Foster -1.24

Flanagan is a good coach at a weak school. Tom Collen wasn't so weak that Arkansas didn't run off and hire him, and the same case goes for Joanne Boyle at California. Surprisingly, Sylvia Hatchell of North Carolina and Jim Foster have had some lousy post-season results. I wonder how well Sherri Coale of Oklahoma will do once Courtney Paris leaves the Sooners.

My next goal is to examine the relationship between a team's success and the number of McDonald's All-Americans it is able to sign. That should be fun.

It's Got What Plants Crave

"Verve has become the official energy drink of the Phoenix Mercury."

Pardon me. Grammatical error. I'll try again.

"Verve! has become the official energy drink of the Phoenix Mercury."

Another WNBA Prospect....

...Coach Meadors, if we get her into practice for August do you think she could see some minutes? (Link is here.)

Nancy Lieberman Looks Back...Using Mannatech!

I'm almost ashamed to link this. From Part One of a two part interview of Nancy Lieberman by Slam Online:

Lieberman: ...so, I’ve been taking this product since 1996. I swear by it. Anybody who knows me, I give the product to. You have to take this for 120 days because you won’t believe how you feel. Your recovery time, your stamina, your immune system and your overall health.

Players that have played for me or players I’ve trained have all at one point or another been on Mannatech. So, to be quite honest, that’s just a way of life for me. In my mind, I wouldn’t be able to do what I do without having been on these products. Like I said, it’s not an experiment. I’ve been on them since 1996. I would never take on a challenge without that being a part of what I do. They’re the best. They’re simply the best.

I’m just telling you, try it for 120 days. These people do not pay me, okay? Usually I like to brag and people are paying me to brag about them, but these guys don’t pay me. I want them to pay me, but that’s what I’m telling you. I couldn’t imagine doing what I do, getting up in the morning and not having that be the first thing that I do.

Nancy! Don't you have any dignity?

Oh wait....

More Than One Change for the Mystics

Nakia Sanford of the Mystics recounts the following on the Pass The Ball blog:

Afterwards, I had to kick off my heels and rush back to practice. I felt like wonder woman doing a whirlwind change. I had to be a little late. I was already pumped from having to rush, but when I walked in the gym, I was soooo Hype!!!! We were scrimmaging against a group of men. It was a nice change. As Taj said “I am so glad I don’t have to practice against y’all today”. My sentiments exactly!! We have been killing each other in practice. The whole mood of the team is different. The energy. Coach J has us in check. Even in our scrimmage, every singe mistake was corrected. I missed a box out and got pulled immediately, and she let me know exactly why. I feel so good. This break gave me a chance to rest my body and my spirit (AND SHOOT FREE THROWS!!!!). The scrimmage was great because guys are so much quicker; we couldn’t do the things like make lazy passes or not box out. They would make us pay. But it was great seeing their faces when we took it to them. It was fun. After my exciting day, I came home and ate, and before I knew it I was knocked out sleep. Dog tired, the way it’s supposed to be

A few comments:

1) Little did Nakia know that she might not practice against Taj ever again.
2) Looks like Jessie Kenlaw is already doing as coach what Rollins never did.
3) Furthermore, it looks like Rollins never had the Mystics scrimmage against men - which is what every good college team is doing.

2009 WNBA Prospects, Part II

I'm coming back to the Senior Prospects Metric (SPM) and I'm continuing to make small changes in it. I'll mention the changes I've made:

Height has now been built into the model. I've found the heights of all of the players and made the following assumpions:

Guard height. John Hollinger makes distinctions between short point guards and short shooting guards. Since it's hard to determine whether a guard is a point guard or a shooting guard just by statistics (he furthermore makes a distinction between "short" and "somewhat short" guards), I've simply penalized any guard who is 5'8" or less. These "short guards" get a penalty which is 3/4th of the penalites that follow. The reasoning Hollinger uses is that if a short guard is really good, the other parts of the metric will overcome the height penalty.

Forward/center height. If a forward center is shorter than 6'3", they will receive a penalty.

The 6'6" ers. We could call this the "Katie Feenstra" rule. Hollinger noticed that NBA prospects who were taller than 7 feet were generally a sorry lot. These big men had distorted statistics because their opponents were generally shorter than the players they'd face in the WNBA.

I've penalized any player that is taller than 6'6". Sylvia Fowles barely makes the cutoff at 6'6".

Guards who can't shoot from the perimeter. According to Hollinger, a guard should be able to make at least 25 3-pointers in a season, which is about 0.78-0.85 threes a game, depending on the length of the season. If a guard can't make that many threes, they get a penalty.

Bad rebounders. In order to make this one work, I had to drag in a formula from John Hollinger called "Rebound Rate". I am not going to drag out the formula, which depends on the player's minutes played, her rebounds, and her college team's rebounds and opponent rebounds. I'll just explain how it works.

Assume that during an average game against College Team's Average Opponent, both teams have 100 total rebounds (that's a lotta rebounds!) Rebound rate answers the question "how many rebounds would player X get out of those 100 rebounds?"

Of course, the Hollinger Rebound Rate he uses in the draft prospects article...isn't the same as the Rebound Rate formula that he uses everyone else. I had to depend on a converstion from Frisco del Rosario, for which I thank him.

The penalties assessed are for:
* guards with a rebound rate of less than 5.0
* guards between 5'11" and 6'1" with rebound rates of less than 7.5
* guards 6'2" or taller with rebound rates of less than 8
* forwards with rebound rates of less than 12
* centers with rebound rates of less than 13

With no further ado, here are the 2008-09 prospects reevaluated.

Taj McWilliams-Franklin Traded to Shock; Humphrey to Mystics

From this link, via Rebkell:

to Mystics

Tasha Humphrey (F)
Eshaya Murphy (F)
2009 WNBA Draft 2nd-round pick

to Shock

Taj McWilliams-Franklin (F)

I don't know if I would have made that trade. Very, very interesting....

Imminent Doom of WNBA Foretold

With the Houston Comets franchise in danger of either relocating or being folded, even WNBA fans are expressing some doubt about the WNBA's stability. Jock-ish sportswriters and perpetual detractors say that the WNBA can't work and that the financial troubles and franchise relocations are a sign that no one really gives a damn and that WNBA watchers need to turn their attentions to more serious and stable sports.

I think that to drive the point home, the WNBA should look at the following unstable sports franchises. If the names aren't known to you, you can go to Wikipedia or a sports encyclopedia - I don't expect readers to be experts on dead leagues.

(* * *)

1876: Baseball's National League founded with eight teams.
1877: League loses franchises in New York and Philadelphia. League stumbles forward with six teams.
1878: League loses three franchises. Picks up three expansion franchises. Still a six-team league.
1879: League loses another two franchises. This time, picks up four franchises and is up to an eight-team league.
1880: League loses one franchise, picks up another franchise.
1881: League loses one franchise, picks up one franchise.
1882: For the first time, the league actually continues with the same group of franchises it had last year. However, there's competition from another league called the American Association.
1883: League loses another two franchises, but picks up two.
1884: Amazing! Once again, the league continues with the same franchises it had the year before!
1885: Still unstable. Loses a franchise, but picks another one up.
1886: Loses two more franchises, picks up another two. How can you tell who's in the league and who isn't in the league by this time?
1887: Drops two franchises, picks up two more. When is this crap going to end?

(* * *)

1920: National Football League starts out with 14 teams. One of them only plays one game. Scheduling left up to individual teams. No championship game.
1921: League blows up to 22 teams - however, five of the teams will fold after this year. Muncie and Cleveland will also fold after the season.
1922: It's going to be 18 teams this year, I think.
1923: League expands to 20 teams.
1924: That didn't work. Back to 18 teams. Chaotic scheduling. no championship game.
1925: Back to 20 teams this year. Championship, however, is a joke. We still can't figure out who the 1925 NFL Champion was.
1926: The NFL had 22 teams playing...well, at least part of an NFL season. Some folded. Some moved to rival leagues. College fans sit around and mock NFL, predict the league will be out of business in three years.
1927: It's time for radical cost-cutting measures. The weak sisters of the league are eliminated. This cuts the league down to 12 teams, its weakest ever. One team plays 13 games, another team plays five games, much laughter abounds.
1928: Down to 10 teams now. Two teams from the year before folded. College sports writer Norman Aloysious Chad predicts that league won't make it to end of year. In a column that showcases Aloysious's literary brilliance, he pens the well-known line "Who watches that crap, anyway?"
1929: Back up to 12 teams. One team decides to play a game under floodlights. Press claims that stunts like that can't save the NFL.
1930: Some teams move. Some teams drop out. League expands. We have 11 teams...I think.
1931: League has to cut down to 10 teams. Due to the Depression, one team folds in mid-season. Writers write 14th column of year on "NFL: An Experiment That Failed".

(* * *)

1946-47: Basketball Association of America starts out with uneven assortment of teams - six in one league, five in another.
1947-48: Four of the teams from the year before immediately collapse. They have to bring in another team from some other league to even out the teams.
1948-49: Looks promising. Four teams from the National Basketball League join the BAA. It's a twelve-team league!
1949-50: With both basketball leagues in bad shape, they join forces and become the National Basketball Association. They have 17 teams in three divisions.
1950-51: The 17 teams have to be contracted down to 11. Then one of the teams collapses in mid season.
1951-52: At last, some stability. One team relocates.
1952-53: For the first time, the teams from this year are the same teams from last year.
1953-54: So much for hope. The team in Indianapolis folds. That leaves the new NBA with nine teams.
1954-55: The franchise in Baltimore collapses in mid-season. With eight teams, the verdict is in: "pro basketball is a joke!"
1955-56: One of the teams ends up relocating in the tenth year of the league's existence.
1956-57: Thank god. More stability in an eight-team league with Minneapolis the westernmost team.
1957-58: Two relocations this time. It looks like the NBA is doomed to be an afterthought.

(* * *)

When looking back on these old failed leagues, the WNBA needs to learn some hard lessons. Either that, or they'll be a sports footnote, like those old failed leagues known as the National League, National Football League, and National Basketball Association.

Houston Comets Update

This is from Randy's Rants, written by a radio journalist in Houston.

We have some more info on the Houston Comets.

1. Hilton Koch will officially step down as Comets owner this morning in Houston during a press conference.
2. Jim McIngvale has declined interest in purchasing the franchise. McIngvale, known locally as "Mattress Mack", is in the furniture business and is a competitor of Hilton Koch. He had expressed interest in acquiring the Comets in years past.
3. If no new owner is found by November 2008 or January 2009, the Comets will either a) relocate, or b) fold, according to WNBA sources.

More news as it develops.

P. S. This is the 200th post of the Pleasant Dreams blog. Here's hoping that we can make it to 400!

Take a URL, Leave a URL

I've added a link to the Women's Elite Blog. The blog is run by BDA Sports Management, which represents several top-ranked WNBA players like Diana Taurasi and Seimone Augustus.

However, it is with great regret that I'm removing "The Libertine" from my blog roll. A fan blog dedicated to the New York Liberty, the blog has gone un-updated for almost two months and I fear that the site owner will no longer update. Which is very sad, because "The Libertine" was a inspiration to me - I told myself, "I hope my blog is as half as cool as 'The Libertine'."

The WNBA's "All-Sexy" Team?

According to MKRob at his Sports Blog, this team would be:

C: Lisa Leslie, Sparks
F: Candace Parker, Sparks
F: Swin Cash, Storm
G: Armintie Price, Sky
G: Deanna Nolan, Shock

Coach: Dawn Staley (ex-WNBA, now head coach at South Carolina)

I would replace Staley - who isn't even in the WNBA - with Jessie Kenlaw of the Washington Mystics. Now if we're going to open up the game to male coaches, well, that's a different ballgame. (I'll leave it up to you to figure out who the sexiest male coach is.)

Is such an article sexist? I don't think so. Baseball does this kind of stuff all the time. All-Handsome, All-Ugly, All-Ethnic, All-Tall, All-Blonde, All-Players With Long Names, etc. If the post stated that sexiness was the only value these players had, it would be sexist. However, I'd put these five players against any five in the WNBA in terms of talent.

"Predicting" the 2008 WNBA Draft with the Senior Prospects Metric

One of my recent posts used a convoluted metric to try to predict who would be the best senior prospects for the 2009 WNBA Draft. One of my commenters suggested that the metric be applied to the 2008 WNBA draft class. This way, we could determine if the metric could isolate who would be the most successful players out of that group of college seniors (and in the case of Candace Parker, juniors.)

I limited my analysis to the first three rounds of the draft. This involves 43 players (Sacramento was given a bonus third round pick - 14 x 3 + 1 = 43). Here is who the Senior Prospects Metric (SPM?) predicted for the draft.



At least we have the top four draft picks - Parker, Fowles, Wiggins and Hornbuckle - in the first round. The metric also brings a lot of third round draft picks into the first round, including two - Lauren Ervin of Arkansas ans Marscilla Packer of Ohio State - who ended up not playing a minute of WNBA ball. Ervin's season ended in December or January of 2008 with an ACL tear if I'm correct, which would explain why no one has heard of her - her position in the metric is based on the 16 or so games she played with the Razorbacks.

Let's look at how these player ended up in the actual draft. Furthermore, let's see how well each of these players have done in the 2009 season so far.

The last sentence where we "see how well" players have done is a loaded one. By what standard are you going to decide that players did "well" and players did not do "well"? There are several metrics you could use to evaluate players. I decided to use the same metric that SPM uses, the Wins Score metric. I like Wins Score because I think it evaluates shooting better than Efficiency.

Furthermore, using Wins Score solves the problem of players like Ervin who for whatever reason never made it into the league. Since Wins Score is an additive metric as opposed to some sort of rate, I can give those players who never made it into the WNBA( a Wins Score = zero. It works for me. These players have no positive stats, and no negative stats. It all balances out and furthermore strokes my ego by telling me that I'm a better player than Matee Ajavon).

The new picture:



It looks like Candace Parker and Nicky Anosike were the big wins of the draft. Both the SPM and the actual draft put them in the same locations.

Now, we need to know how much "correlation" the SPM and the Draft have to eventual Wins Score. Correlation implies a linear relationship between two lists of numbers.

A "zero" in correlation implies that there is no relationship.
A "one" in correlation implies that there is a strict relationship in the positive direction. As one list of numbers gets larger, the other list gets larger.
A "minus one" in correlation implies that there is a strict relationship in the negative direction. As one list of numbers gets larger, the other list gets smaller.

What we're hoping for is a negative relationship between draft position and overall performance. As position increases (#1, #2, #3....) the Wins Score associated with these numbers should start big, then start to drop.

Here are the correlation results:



These meanings of correlation depend on a lot. Let's look at the first one: the correlation between the SPM Predicted Order and the Actual Draft Order. 0.1220 is a very weak correlation, fairly close to random. The relationship between what the metric predicts and the actual draft pick order have little to do with each other.

Looking at the correction between the SPM Predicted Order and the Wins Scores of the Draftees, we get -0.2528. This is at the border of a small and medium correlation, more on the small side. At least the correlation is negative, which is what we want -- if it were positive, we would know that the SPM had no value.

Now, let's see how the actual GMs of the WNBA do against Wins Score. We get a correlation of -0.5925, a medium-large correlation on the large side of the border. The negative correlation is expected - as draft position goes up, performance should drop.

On the other hand, the -0.5925 number could be misleading. Remember that the Wins Score metric is linear additive - it gives you points whenever you do something well and takes points away whenever you do something poorly. It's not a "rate", but a sum. If a player is more likely to produce points than have points removed, then Wins Score and time played will have a strong positive correlation.

It is definitely likely that early draft picks will get more playing time than late draft picks - the draft pick has to be justified, or the player has to "get experience" and is more likely to be left in despite a low rate of Wins Score point production than a lesser pick. In short, early draft picks get better chances to build their Wins Score, so some of that good correlation might simply be a function of playing time.

(* * *)

Am I happy? so far I am. My next goal is to build in all of the height caveats. Hollinger stated that players of certain heights should be able to do certain things, and have points removed for failure. However, Hollinger is working with male height, and working in a different kind of game. This little side project of mine, it seems, is ever expanding - but at least, it's fun for a number cruncher!