As previous mentioned on Brew Hoop, big trades get big treatment. We've covered five-player deal between the Milwaukee Bucks and Golden State Warriors that featured a swap of Monta Ellis, Ekpe Udoh and Kwame Brown's Expiring Contract for Andrew Bogut and Stephen Jackson from a multitude of different angles. Let us count the ways.
First came the initial reaction of dealing Andrew Bogut at the low-point of his value -- I lit myself on fire twice, if you recall. Then Frank Madden stepped in and provided some real analysis on everything from the Jennings-Ellis pairing to the salary cap benefits. Next I encouraged everyone to accept the clear signal from GM John Hammond that this is a win-now move prioritizing a short-term playoff run, so enjoying the ride for the rest of the season is important. Since then, Frank and I have waxed poetic on the details of the deal during a previous podcast, Monta has drafted a classy letter introducing himself to Bucks fans, Warriors fans have booed their owner in response to the deal, Dan Sinclair has highlighted the increased ball-sharing on offense, and I have emphatically declared Ekpe Udoh as the true centerpiece of the deal. Boom goes the dynamite.
What better way to put a bow on this mountain of trade analysis than to speak with Warriors writer and fan Evan Zamir, who runs a wonderfully insightful site called The City | A Grown Man NBA Blog and can also be found on SB Nation's Warriors blog, Golden State of Mind. He was writing about Ekpe Udoh's hidden value back when this trade was just a glimmer in John Hammond's eye, and he is still the official sponsor of Udoh's Basketball-Reference player page, so you probably couldn't find a bigger Udoh supporter if you tried. That being said, he's a reasonable man with statistical leanings who has watched the Warriors franchise bumble along without an elite interior defender for years, so he has plenty of thoughts on Monta Ellis, Andrew Bogut and everything else surrounding the transaction. More information on this podcast is beyond the jump, you can either click the flash player below or Download this episode (right click and save) if you can't wait any longer to hear what he has to say.
Evan has written more cool stuff about the Bucks just coincidentally by covering the entire NBA than I've written on purpose, so be sure to check out his blog, The City | A Grown Man NBA Blog. For example, this is a fascinating piece of work, but you need to follow the link to his article to find out what the visualization means:
He also recently wrote about just how good Andrew Bogut is as he looked closely at adjusted inside scoring averages on offense and defense. Here's a snippet of what he did:
I ran two separate regressions where the dependent variable is: 1) the number of inside shots taken per 100 possessions *at the team level*; or 2) the FG% of inside shots *at the team level*. For each regression, a player will have an offensive and defensive rating. Once I have those ratings, I then calculate the adjusted marginal scoring in the same way that I did here. The only difference now is that I ignore positional differences and simply compare to the overall league averages (you see, in theory, the adjustment should already have accounted for positional difference).
Here are the results, and remember that...
(O/D)INSR=marginal number of inside shots taken/allowed by offense/defense per 100 possessions. (Positive ratings are better in both cases.)
(O/D)INS%=marginal field goal efficiency (in %-points) on inside shots taken/allowed by offense/defense. (Positive ratings are better in both cases.)
Now because I liked them, here are some Udoh videos to enjoy.