Could Any Laker Start for Another Western Conference Team?

Back on July 1, after watching Jim “Fredo” Buss and Mitch Kupchak make some of the most questionable free agent decisions I’ve seen in nearly fifty years of following the Los Angeles Lakers, I tweeted the following:

“Do the @Lakers have a single player on the roster who could start for anyone else in the Western Conference?”

 (To be fair, this was after the Mozgov announcement but before Deng.)

I was immediately called out by a Twitter friend, Le Musicien ‏(@LironDayo) who responded:

“Russell, Clarkson, Randall, Mozgov....and maybe Ingram”

I stewed for a few moments, wondering if someone with fewer than 1,000 followers could enter into something that would actually be called a Twitter “beef” before replying:

“Meh...maybe. I'll analyze this weekend but am not convinced."

So I decided to eschew my emotional response to the Lakers’ free agent activity and analyze the facts to determine who was right, me or arch-Twitter nemesis, @LironDayo.

The short answer is that I have to begrudgingly acknowledge that I was possibly wrong. It is possible that a player on the current Lakers roster might be able to start for another team in the Western Conference.

But LeMusicien was wrong, too. Based on my analysis of the 2015-16 NBA season, the only Laker likely to be able to start for another team in the West isn’t D’Angelo Russell, Jordan Clarkson, Julius Randle, Timofey Mozgov, or Brandon Ingram.

It’s Lou Williams.

(While it’s possible that Ingram may turn out to be a pretty decent NBA star, it’s not likely that he’ll be ready to start in the NBA by the start of the 2016-17 season.)

Before we dive down the advanced statistics rabbit hole, it’s important to point out that I’m an old-school basketball fan. I grew up with statistics like points, rebounds, assists, steals, and blocks as points of comparison between players. But most of all I relied on what I call the “Floor Test.”

It’s a simple test, really: Does a guy on the floor look like he belongs on the floor?

There weren’t many moments during the 2015-16 NBA season where any of the Lakers looked like they belonged on the floor of an NBA game. They were individually and collectively overmatched. At least according to my Floor Test (and the ol’ reliable wins/losses test).

But I’m nothing if not open-minded and progressive so I decided that instead of just relying on traditional statistics and my “you damn kids get off my lawn” eye for the game, it might be worthwhile to look at some of the more reliable advanced metrics to see if there was something in purple and gold that I was missing.

(Note: All statistics taken from Basketball-Reference.com.)

Now, I don’t want to open the debate over the value of advanced metrics. As I mentioned, I’m an old-school guy (also an old guy but that’s another column for another time) so I’m not sold on measures like Player Efficiency Rating (PER), Value Over Replacement Player (VORP), and Box Plus/Minus (BPM). But these seemed like a good starting point if I were to get an objective look at the 2015-16 Lakers as they compare to the other Western Conference teams.

As I mentioned, I’m not sold on all of today’s advanced metrics. For example, let’s take a look at PER. This advanced statistic can be a particularly misleading because in its raw form, it doesn’t necessarily reflect...well...sanity.

You may know that the PER was developed by John Hollinger to distill all of a player’s contributions into a single number by use of a complex algorithm that includes (but is not limited to):

• -       Field goals
• -       Free throws
• -       3-pointers
• -       Assists
• -       Rebounds
• -       Some squiggly lines
• -       Rum
• -       Blocks and steals
• -       Block and tackle
• -       Man of Steel
• -       Personal fouls
• -       Impersonal fouls

These factors are all cooked in a crock pot, then divided by minutes played to establish the PER. Every year the league average is normalized to an average of 15.0. This allows for year-to-year comparisons between players.

Now, here are the top 10 players in the NBA for 2015-16, according to raw PER:

Rk	Player	Pos	Age	Tm	G	MP	PER
1	Jimmer Fredette	SG	26	NYK	2	5	47.4
2	Briante Weber	PG	23	MIA	1	3	39.3
3	Thanasis Antetokounmpo	SF	23	NYK	2	6	32.9
4	Rakeem Christmas	PF	24	IND	1	6	32.0
5	Stephen Curry	PG	27	GSW	79	2700	31.5
6	Bryce Cotton	PG	23	MEM	5	6	29.1
7	Kevin Durant	SF	27	OKC	72	2578	28.2
8	Boban Marjanovic	C	27	SAS	54	508	27.7
9	Russell Westbrook	PG	27	OKC	80	2750	27.6
10	LeBron James	SF	31	CLE	76	2709	27.5

Notwithstanding the fact that the only list atop which Jimmer Fredette should be is a “Whatever happened to...” list, look at the G (Games) and MP (Minutes Played) columns. The top four PER ratings are players who played in a collective six games for a total of 20 minutes. Obviously players with five or six minutes played do not provide a decent representation of a player’s value. So it was clear I had to refine the measure.

The average number of minutes played in the last season was 1,105 so I limited the list to only those players who played a minimum of 1,000 minutes (>1,000 MP), then took another look at the PER ratings:

Rk	Player	Pos	Age	Tm	G	MP	PER
1	Stephen Curry	PG	27	GSW	79	2700	31.5
2	Kevin Durant	SF	27	OKC	72	2578	28.2
3	Russell Westbrook	PG	27	OKC	80	2750	27.6
4	LeBron James	SF	31	CLE	76	2709	27.5
5	Chris Paul	PG	30	LAC	74	2420	26.2
6	Kawhi Leonard	SF	24	SAS	72	2380	26.0
7	Hassan Whiteside	C	26	MIA	73	2125	25.7
8	James Harden	SG	26	HOU	82	3125	25.3
9	Anthony Davis	PF	22	NOP	61	2164	25.0
10	Enes Kanter	C	23	OKC	82	1721	24.0

This looks like a much more representative list of the top NBA players (Enes Kanter notwithstanding) so I used the 1,000-minute threshold as a starting point to determine where the Lakers fell in 2015-16.

And it ain’t pretty.

Here are the PER ratings for the 2015-16 Lakers, with their two new acquisitions -- Timofey Mozgov and Luol Deng -- added into the mix:

Player	Pos	Age	G	MP	PER
Lou Williams	SG	29	67	1907	17.7
Brandon Bass	PF	30	66	1342	17.4
Luol Deng (MIA)	PF	30	74	2394	15.0
Kobe Bryant	SF	37	66	1863	14.9
Timofey Mozgov (CLE)	C	29	76	1326	14.6
Jordan Clarkson	SG	23	79	2552	14.3
Julius Randle	PF	21	81	2286	13.9
Larry Nance Jr.	PF	23	63	1266	13.4
D'Angelo Russell	PG	19	80	2259	13.2
Roy Hibbert	C	29	81	1878	11.2
Nick Young	SG	30	54	1033	9.1

When evaluating PER, the highest rated Laker was again Lou Williams, with a PER of 17.7.

To put this into perspective, here are a few facts about where Lou Williams -- the higest PER rated Laker among players (>1,000 MP) -- and the rest of the Lakers fell in evaluating PER:

-       Every team in the Western Conference had at least one player with a higher PER than Williams. 71% of them (10 of 14 teams) had two or more.

-       With the exception of the historically bad Philadelphia 76ers team, every other team in the NBA had at least one player with a higher PER.

-       The average PER for players (>1,000 MP) was 14.8. There are only two Lakers from last year’s roster with PER higher than this average (Lou Williams at 17.7 and Brandon Bass at 17.4). Kobe Bryant (barely) finished higher than the average at 14.9 and Luol Deng tallied a 15.0 for Miami.

But trying to use a single statistical measure to perform this kind of analysis is like trying to watch ‘one sex tape to determine which is the trashiest Kardashian. So I looked next at Box Plus/Minus.

Box Plus/Minus uses a player’s box score statistics and the team’s performance to estimate a player’s performance relative to the league average, stated as a per-100-possessoions statistic. (Explanation courtesy of Basketball-Reference.com).

Here is a look at BPM scale in general:

-       0.0 is the league average

-       +5.0 means the player is 5 points better than an average player over 100 possessons

-       -2.0 is considered to be “replacement level”

-       -5.0 is really, really bad

Again setting 1,000 minutes played as the threshold, here are the top ten BPM scores in the NBA in 2015-16:

Rk	Player	Pos	Age	Tm	G	MP	BPM
1	Stephen Curry	PG	27	GSW	79	2700	12.5
2	Russell Westbrook	PG	27	OKC	80	2750	10.0
3	LeBron James	SF	31	CLE	76	2709	9.1
4	Kawhi Leonard	SF	24	SAS	72	2380	8.3
5	Kevin Durant	SF	27	OKC	72	2578	7.9
6	Chris Paul	PG	30	LAC	74	2420	7.8
7	Kyle Lowry	PG	29	TOR	77	2851	6.8
8	James Harden	SG	26	HOU	82	3125	6.7
9	Draymond Green	PF	25	GSW	81	2808	5.8
10	Paul Millsap	PF	30	ATL	81	2647	5.3

Here’s an interesting coincidence: the players with the top five BPM ratings for the 2015-16 season also finished 1-5 in the Kia NBA MVP Award voting. And almost exactly in the same order, too, with the only exceptions being Westbrook and Leonard finishing 2 and 4 in the BPM rankings, reverse of the finish in the MVP voting.

So I think it’s safe to say that the BPM rankings for 2015-16 provided a fairly decent representation of the top players in the Association.

So now let’s look at how the Lakers fared:

Player	Pos	Age	G	MP	BPM
Luol Deng (MIA)	PF	30	74	2394	1.9
Brandon Bass	PF	30	66	1342	0.8
Lou Williams	SG	29	67	1907	0.3
Timofey Mozgov (CLE)	C	29	76	1326	-1.2
Roy Hibbert	C	29	81	1878	-1.3
Jordan Clarkson	SG	23	79	2552	-1.4
Larry Nance Jr.	PF	23	63	1266	-1.4
D'Angelo Russell	PG	19	80	2259	-1.8
Kobe Bryant	SF	37	66	1863	-2.5
Julius Randle	PF	21	81	2286	-3.6
Nick Young	SG	30	54	1033	-4.8

Clearly 2015-16 Luol Deng will be a significant upgrade over the top rated Laker last year, assuming he hasn’t already peaked at age 30. So Deng’s signing could turn out to be a bright spot for the Lakers going into the 2016-17 season.

Unfortunately, that’s where all the good BPM news stops. The top 2015-16 Laker was Brandon Bass, who finished with a BPM of 0.8, just barely above average. He was the only Laker to rank in the top 100 BPM (again, players with more than 1,000 minutes). He finished tied for 96 with Dwyane Wade and J.J. Redick.

The only other Laker to finish above the league average of 0.0 was Lou Williams, at 0.3.

Every other Laker was below average, as compared to the rest of the NBA.

Fortunately, as bad as Nick Young was at -4.8, he did not finish dead last in BPM among players (>1,000 MP). He finished fourth from the last, ahead of Ty Lawson (-5.1), JaKarr Sampson (-5.4), and Rashad Vaughn (-6.1). But he was second to the last in the West, ahead of only Houston’s Lawson.

Looking at how Lakers compared to other rosters from the West, all fourteen teams had at least one player with a higher BPM than Bass and 70% of them (10 of 14) had three or more. Perhaps not surprisingly, the Spurs, Warriors, Thunder, and Jazz all had four or more. The Spurs almost had enough players with BPM higher than Bass (9) to be able to put two full five-man teams on the floor.

So as far as BPM is concerned, the Lakers were bad but at least had two players above average. There’s a marketing slogan Jeanie Buss could use:

“We Have Two Returning Players Who Were Above Average! Renew your season tickets now!”

Now let’s take a look at Value Over Replacement Player or VORP.

VORP is “a box score estimate of the points per 100 TEAM possessions that a player contributed above a replacement-level (-2.0) player, translated to an average team and prorated to an 82-game season.” (Basketball-Reference.com)

You then multiply by 2.70 to convert to wins over replacement.

Here are the top VOPR-rated players (>1,000 MP) for the 2015-16 NBA season:

Rk	Player	Pos	Age	Tm	G	MP	VORP
1	Stephen Curry	PG	27	GSW	79	2700	9.8
2	Russell Westbrook	PG	27	OKC	80	2750	8.3
3	LeBron James	SF	31	CLE	76	2709	7.6
4	James Harden	SG	26	HOU	82	3125	6.9
5	Kevin Durant	SF	27	OKC	72	2578	6.4
6	Kyle Lowry	PG	29	TOR	77	2851	6.3
7	Kawhi Leonard	SF	24	SAS	72	2380	6.2
8	Chris Paul	PG	30	LAC	74	2420	6.0
9	Draymond Green	PF	25	GSW	81	2808	5.5
10	Paul Millsap	PF	30	ATL	81	2647	4.9

Once again, the usual suspects; the players we already have determined simply by watching the game to be the best in the game.

The only other point of note is that Draymond Green is severely underrated if some of these advanced statistics are to be believed. That also translates into severely underpaid but that’s another problem for Warriors GM Bob Myers to figure out once he gets done laughing at the league for pulling off that Kevin Durant coup.

Anyway, how did the Lakers fare in VORP rating compared to the rest of the league?

Player	Pos	Age	G	MP	VORP
Luol Deng (MIA)	PF	30	74	2394	2.3
Lou Williams	SG	29	67	1907	1.1
Brandon Bass	PF	30	66	1342	1.0
Jordan Clarkson	SG	23	79	2552	0.4
Roy Hibbert	C	29	81	1878	0.3
Timofey Mozgov (CLE)	C	29	76	1326	0.3
Larry Nance Jr.	PF	23	63	1266	0.2
D'Angelo Russell	PG	19	80	2259	0.1
Kobe Bryant	SF	37	66	1863	-0.2
Nick Young	SG	30	54	1033	-0.7
Julius Randle	PF	21	81	2286	-0.9

Again, the addition of Deng is a positive. His 2015-16 VORP was more than double the highest rated Laker, Lou Williams who finished at 1.1.

However, considering that the 2015-16 NBA average (>1,000 MP) VORP was 2.4, not a single Laker on the roster finished as high as “average.”

But as bad as these numbers are, here’s where things get really ugly for the Lakers: all 29 other teams in the NBA -- including Philadelphia -- had at least one player with a higher VORP than the Lakers’ highest rated player, Williams. Twenty-eight of the other twenty-nine teams had 2 or more.

And since this debate began with my assertion that not a single Laker on the pre-Luol Deng roster would be able to start for any other team in the Western Conference, I looked and who on these rosters anyone from the Lakers might be able to replace.

Of the teams in the Western Conference, all had two or more players with higher VORP than Lou Williams.

Half of these have five or more.

Tm	# VORP > LAL
Spurs	9
Nuggets	5
Warriors	5
Clippers	5
Thunder	5
Trail Blazers	5
Jazz	5
Mavericks	4
Rockets	4
Grizzlies	4
Timberwolves	3
Pelicans	2
Suns	2
Kings	2

CONCLUSION: My analysis of these advanced statistics support an argument that there may have been players on the Lakers roster (before the Deng signing) who could have cracked the starting five for another Western Conference team.

So the winner is Le Musicien.

But after looking closely at some of these advanced statistics, it’s clear that the loser is anyone who is a Lakers fan.