A few days ago, I found a fascinating basketblog called “The Wages of Wins”* At its core, it discusses how a team’s highest scorer may not help, and in fact may even hurt their teams’ win total. Berri is an economics professor, so he uses formulas to ascertain how many “Wins Produced” or “Wins Produced per 48 minutes” each player has.

Even though these formulas are designed for the NBA, they can be tweaked for the college game. Thus, I wondered what his research would say about last year’s Gator team. And so, at the risk of a collective tongue-lashing in the comments section of this post, I will delve into Florida hoops once more.

First and foremost is “Win Score”, a rough measure of good or bad someone played in a particular game or season. It is calculated by

WS: Points + rebounds + steals + .5*blocks + .5*assists - field goals attempted - .5*free throws attempted - turnovers - .5*personal fouls

Following is the win score of each of Florida’s nine scholarship players over last season. The three walk-ons played few minutes and skew their results.

M. Speights - 354.5
N. Calathes - 256.6
D. Werner - 232
C. Parsons - 158
W. Hodge - 140.5
A. Tyus - 87.5
J. Lucas - 63
J. Mitchell - 62.5
A. Allen - 27

So Mareesse Speights contributed the most and Adam Allen the least. But what if we adjust for minutes played? How much did each player actually do when they were on the court?

M. Speights - .406
D. Werner - .237
N. Calathes - .218
C. Parsons - .212
A. Tyus - .191
J. Mitchell - .157
W. Hodge - .127
A. Allen - .072
J. Lucas - .058

This is a little better, but we still aren’t done. Guards, forwards, and centers do not do the same things on a court, so their win scores are different. Here is the Position Adjusted Win Score per minute of each player, using the following guideline from the NBA:

Center - .225
Power forward - .215
Small forward - .152
Shooting guard - .128
Point guard - .132

M. Speights (C) = +.181
N. Calathes (PG) = +.086
C. Parsons (SF) = +.060
D. Werner (PF) = +.022
W. Hodge (SG) = -.001
A. Tyus (PF) = -.024
J. Mitchell (PF) = -.058
J. Lucas (PG) = -.074
A. Allen (SF) = -.080

These figures can be used to project a player’s WP48 (Wins Produced per 48 minutes). Yes, a college basketball game lasts 40 minutes, but it didn’t make sense to take the number, adjust it, and then use it to figure out the same Wins Produced I would have found out earlier.

Using the formula WP48 = .104 + 1.621*PAWSmin:

M. Speights = .397
N. Calathes = .243
C. Parsons = .201
D. Werner = .140
W. Hodge = .102
A. Tyus = .065
J. Mitchell = .010
J. Lucas = -.016
A. Allen = -.026

And finally, the Wins Produced [WP48/48 * Min.] of each player:

M. Speights = 7.2 WP
N. Calathes = 5.9 WP
C. Parsons = 3.1 WP
D. Werner = 2.9 WP
W. Hodge = 2.3 WP
A. Tyus = 0.6 WP
J. Mitchell = 0.1 WP
A. Allen = -0.2 WP
J. Lucas = -0.4 WP

Summation of Wins Produced = 21.5 Actual wins = 24

And there we have it, a description of each players’ productivity.

What can we draw, even if it’s obvious, from the results?

#1: Mo Speights is a beast.

Sorry, Independent Florida Alligator, but Big Mo was Florida’s real Player of the Year. When he’s on the court, good things happen.

Of course, as we’re all aware, his conditioning issues have kept him from contributing even more on the court. It goes without saying that returning for his junior season helps this club immensely.

#2: The 3rd most productive player was actually Chandler Parsons.

Walter Hodge was the team’s third-leading scorer, but it was Parsons who contributed the most to his team.

Despite logging a mere 21 minutes and 8.1 points per game, only good for sixth in each category, Calathes’s high school teammate was fourth in rebounding, shot 47% from the field, and had more assists than any forward not named Dan Werner. In other words, he did a heck of a lot with the minutes he did have.

#3: Walter Hodge is right around average

He’s not a terrible player, per se, but you’d expect more from the team’s senior member. If he improves in areas other than scoring, he’ll greatly help this Gator team.

And perhaps most importantly…

#4: Jai Lucas was one of the worst, if not THE worst, players for this team.

In hindsight, Billy Donovan should be kicking himself for this one.

Now, to be fair, there weren’t a lot of players available, and starting the son of a former first overall pick who worked very hard at the game made a lot of sense.

But Jai Lucas didn’t make very effective decisions with the basketball when he was on the court. Adding insult to injury, he was 3rd on the team in minutes played.

Or to put it more bluntly, Lucas was so bad, even Johnathan Mitchell would have made a better starter than him.

In fact, had he been replaced with an “average” point guard (.100 WP48), the new guy would have produced about 2.3 wins with Lucas’ minutes played. In turn, that would improve the team by 2.7 wins; call it 3.

That meant the Gators would have finished with a 27-9 record after 36 games, proportional to a 24-8 record by the time March Madness rolled around. Such a mark would have handily guaranteed a bid to the Big Dance, in spite of the soft preseason schedule.

Thus, if Mo-reese returns, I wouldn’t be surprised to see a starting lineup of Calathes, Hodge, Parsons, Eloy Vargas, and Speights.

If he doesn’t, let’s hope Kenny Kadji can pick up where he left off.

*http://dberri.wordpress.com