Lewis: Rockets Go Way Beyond 'Moneyball' A's In Terms Of IP

There's this thing called a salary cap ...

 

most of those players are overpaid.

remember, this formula is a descendant of "moneyball."

 

If the Rockets were going to have a $40m payroll while going up against clubs with a $150-$200m payroll, you’d have a great analogy there. As it is, it’s an absurd analogy. The fact that the A’s even made the playoffs on a regular basis, given their payroll compared to competitors, is an incredible testament to just how sound Beane’s system is/was.

By the way, when the Rockets say undervalued, I can guarantee you they mean relative to their perceived worth as players and on the trade market – not relative to their current contracts. Les Alexander will pay for production. Morey’s work all comes down to asset management. Contracts certainly play some role, but not as big of a component as some of you think. A guy can make $15m and be undervalued, in the sense they’re talking.

 

The biggest question that everyone should be curious about:

In all of his statistics and measurements, where and to what extent does health play a role?

 

Thanks durvasa. Thats kinda how i watch the game. We always hear how poor a ft shooter howard is compared to yao. Yao has one of the best strokes of any big to ever play the game, but he shoots alot of jumpers. It doesn't matter if yao goes 5 for 6 but howard goes 7-11 or 6-10. either way, he's getting to the line more. Most guys that are high ft shooters don't get fouled alot. Of course a guy like wade,kobe, or even martin and lbj who go there alot and shoot a high clip is huge. Thats why a guy like Maggette is more valuable than what people on this board tend to think. He goes to the line 8 times in 31 mins and he shoots 80%. Thats point while the clock isn't running.

 

I agree, thats why i don't think those strategies really work. In baseball, its about pitching and timely hitting. A guy can go 4-4 and not make a dent in the end result vs wins and losses. In basketball, its about impact players. 1 guy can turn a franchise around. 1 guy to do more in hoops than 3 or 4 in baseball. Hakeem took a bunch of role players to a title. Lebron took a bunch of non starters to the finals. Moses took a .500 team to the finals.In basketball when the playing field is level, its about impact players.

 

Not enough, it seems.

 

I'm a skeptic of moneyball methods. If morey worked as GM for any other team, I would have to say that statistical analysis against regular scouting fails in the long term. How do you put a quantity on factors such as "heart"? How do you put a quantity on that willpower that some players have that makes themselves think that "there's no chance in hell I'm gonna have us losing this game". How do you differentiate the T-Mac's from the Kobe's? The Marbury's from the Wade's? It seems to get those kind of questions answered, you'd have to look at a player's career over a significant amount of time. But by the time you're done taking the sample, the player is old and goin down hill. I don't see how you can put a number on these type of qualities when analyzing a potential collegiate draftee.

But since it's the Rockets, I HAVE to believe .

 

This doesn't really support your thesis (and tends to contradict itself).

 

i disagree. its a huge factor. morey talked about it frequently during the playoff run, when answering questions about how this team continued to win despite the major injuries.

an ideal basketball team is a portfolio of versatile, complementary parts. you minimize risk of catastrophic failure by minimizing the extent to which one player has too many responsibilities and/or plays too critical of a role in your success. cleveland this year was one injury to LBJ away from catastrophic failure. miami as well, with an injury to wade. the biggest reason that the rockets continued to succeed after Yao, Tracy, and to a much smaller extent Deke went down is because of the way the roster was constructed to handle that possibility.

 

It's far from clear. Carl Landry didn't get the multiyear rookie contract, presumably due to the injury fear. They ended up paying more for him. Well, that's assuming moneyball did identify him of course.

 

Granger is not a zero on the defensive end by any means. Lee can rebound and guard the pick and roll.

 

I'm talking about Tracy McGrady, Yao Ming, even Ron Artest. All known to be injury-prone, and the Rockets decided to take their chances with them this year. I'm a little more concerned with our decision making with respect to the major players on the team rather than second round picks.

But regarding Landry, I do think the Rockets decision not to award him a multi-year deal as a rookie was sensible, considering the injuries to his knees. I don't recall too many people objecting to it at the time; maybe you did so and I missed it.

 

IMHO - When they say "undervalued", I'm pretty sure they're talking about guys who synergistically add to winning while otherwise going undernoticed, particularly at contract time.

 

We are talking about moneyball did or did not taking health into consideration, and I offered you Landry as an example.

And Moneyball is valued/weighted far more heavily in identifying someone like Landry than a Tmac or Yao Ming.

 

This is a very interesting scenario. I didn't know Morey premeditated the players he was interested in to this level. Makes you wonder how long he was watching Wafer and Co.

 

I would like to see Morey crunch the numbers on Pietrus and maybe start a trade talk this summer. Magic are already have high salary with two max contracts and Hedo is looking to get paid this summer after a stellar post season.

Pietrus is an excellent athelete can shoot the 3 and drive to the basket plus he guarded Lebron pretty well.

 

I never said health isn't taken into consideration. I said "not enough". I assume health was a major factor in the initial Landry contract, and I think that was appropriate.

It's also Morey's job to find impact players with which to build a winning, championship-level team. I assume the Rockets have their methods for forecasting our chances of winning X games during the season and advancing far into the playoffs, and a big part of that depends on the expected contributions of the stars. We had three "stars" on this team, and all three were injury-prone. It's been the same story for 3 or 4 years now. That needs to change.

 

It needs to change ASAP. I'm sorry to offend many of the YOF posters on this site, but you'd have better luck hunting for a unicorn that finding a healthy Yao or T-Mac. In order to achieve the pinnacle of our potential Morey needs to treat it as such. We need to build a squad that is fully capable of making a deep run even if it means trading those two away.

 

A better baseball comparison in recent years is the Red Sox and the Yankees (current Red Sox ownership took over in 2002). Two of the higher payrolls in baseball (the Yanks are higher though), one that is very into stats (Boston) and the other is behind in this area. And it's 2vs0 championships in favour of the Red Sox since 2002.

# Boston Opening Day payrolls for 25-man roster
(salaries plus pro-rated signing bonuses):

* 2009: $121,745,999
* 2008: $133,390,035
* 2007: $143,026,214
* 2006: $120,099,824
* 2005: $123,505,125
* 2004: $127,298,500
* 2003: $ 99,946,500
* 2002: $108,366,060

http://mlbcontracts.blogspot.com/2004/12/boston-red-sox.html

# NY Opening Day payrolls for 25-man roster
(salaries plus pro-rated signing bonuses):

* 2009: $201,449,189
* 2008: $209,081,577
* 2007: $189,639,045
* 2006: $194,663,079
* 2005: $208,306,817
* 2004: $184,193,950
* 2003: $152,749,814
* 2002: $125,928,583

http://mlbcontracts.blogspot.com/2005/01/new-york-yankees_111398168678860040.html

All this can be gleaned through looking at stats. Sounds like you are justifying what you were criticizing in your first post?