Are the Warriors right? They believe their GM is smarter than yours
By Jeremy Britton · First published in the Wages of Wins Journal
I wrote this for Dave Berri’s Wages of Wins Journal. That site went dark in 2021, so this is a rebuilt copy: the original text and images, plus the comment thread. The original lives on at the Internet Archive.
Is Bob Myers any good? Joe Lacob, owner of the Golden State Warriors, demoted Larry Riley and promoted Myers to General Manager a little over a week ago. As Lacob told me by email recently: “Trust us. We will get to the promised land. I promise.” His premise is simple: Myers’ job is to fulfill his promise to win a championship for Oakland.
Joe Lacob doesn’t know the Warriors’ fate, but he sure has expectations for it. Can we peer into the future alongside Lacob and reasonably expect to see what he sees?
We already know the Warriors’ next few years will be just like their recent few years. Good teams beget great teams and the bad get worse. Lacob intuitively knows this dark vision of the future too, which is why he was anxious to hire Myers to change it.
As Business Week points out, there will be one dominant measure of Myers’ success: winning games. How many?
- Win more than Larry Riley.
- Win enough to make the playoffs… eventually.
Riley oversaw a team for three years that won only 37% of its games. Ouch! Lacob handpicked Myers, groomed him for this job, loves his hustle and handed him the reigns after about one year. (Lacob really loves him saying, “Bob Myers is 24/7. He would text me all during the course of the year night, day, call me 11 o’clock at night. I mean, the guy is always thinking about the Warriors and how can we improve this team.”)
Great! Myers has job security, a long rope to hang himself by, and a very low bar to step over. Unfortunately, it looks like he may be doomed to fail.
Is Myers Smarter Than the Average GM?
Why would Lacob have hired the guy if he wasn’t the best GM for the job, right? Except when you stop and think about it, every owner thinks that about every GM they hire. How many are right? Not many (if any).
Can we tell Myers apart from the average GM? Fortunately we know a lot about average GMs from their decision-making detailed on this blog. Let’s look at what Myers has said and done to see how he plans to give the Warriors an edge over the competition.
Mindset #1
“The question is health, and we’re addressing that this week.”
Unless Myers plans to trade for three new ankles to outfit Curry and Bogut, it’s not clear how he’s addressing this. More likely his comment that “a healthy ballclub [would be] a team to be reckoned with next year” is a passive caveat emptor to season ticket-holders.
Will hope differentiate the Warriors? Ouch, no. Injuries damage player’s productivity, but average GMs tend to gloss over this in favor of rosie projections based on pre-injury glories.
Is this a good tactic anyway? No. Even with the wonders of modern sports medicine, NBA competition is so steep that ‘losing a step’ can knock you down to rec ball status quick. (This creates opportunity to invest in younger, healthier, low-cost talent instead.)
Mindset #2
We are satisfied with our scorers.
Myers said, “We have players at the major positions that matter now.” He’s talking about Curry, Thompson, Wright, Lee and Bogut. What do they all have in common? They’re all double-digit PPG scorers.
Will scorers differentiate the Warriors? No. Readers of this blog will recognize this as the Yay Points! fallacy all GMs suffer from.
Is this a good tactic? No. Inefficient scorers can actually hurt your team and lose you games, in spite of their high PPG totals. (This creates opportunity to target efficient scorers who are undervalued by other GMs.)
Mindset #3
“We realize we need depth… It’s more about shoring up depth.”
Flowing from his satisfaction with their scorer-starters, Myers wants backups to his starting five, which likely means targeting what are called “role players.”
Will depth differentiate the Warriors? Not really. During the regular season, depth helps (in part due to replacing productive starters who can get injured). This benefit tails off during the playoffs when rotations tighten up. This is a generic tactic other GMs employ, however.
Is this a good tactic? Not really. It over-values existing assets and gets trapped striving for ‘structural symmetry’ in the roster. (There is far better opportunity in a far simpler tactic: always acquire better players no matter what position, role, or roster spot they can fill.) (Editor’s note: depth does not win titles. Quality at the top does)
Mindset #4
“We need to get a little bigger.”
Myers pegs a ‘front-line big guy who can rebound and defend’ as the key to making the playoffs and competing for a championship. He also backpedals to say he’ll “always be on the look-out” for such a player. He’d feel lucky to get such a player, which hints that he’d also overpay to get him.
Will this tactic differentiate the Warriors? No. This bit of conventional wisdom is partly right–height helps win basketball games to a point–but is exactly what other GMs also highly value.
Is this a good tactic? Sort of. Very tall people who can play basketball are exceedingly rare. Therefore, keep ‘em if you got ‘em. However, acquiring them usually means overpaying. (A better tactic is to get great players who happen to be slightly shorter than average GMs expect: see Rodman or now McCollum.)
Mindset #5
“Adding a veteran would be great.”
This old chesnut sounds perfectly reasonable. A GM acquires a “proven” name that fans easily feel good about. He’s typically a high PPG scorer they already know.
Will veterans differentiate the Warriors? No. Every average GM thinks this. Competition here drives up price for veteran talent and leads to settling for 2nd or 3rd options (see Kwame Brown, Richard Jefferson).
Is this a good tactic anyway? No. It leads to overpaying for inefficient scorers on the decline of their career. Remember, players age like milk after 25.
The deeper you go beyond these first five, the worse it gets. Myers seems to think Andrew Bogut is still the #1 pick even though he was drafted seven years ago and only won 43% of his games in Milwaukee. Draft status is apparently evergreen for Bob.
Myers also fell in love with Klay Thompson based on his PPG output in college (19.6 and 21.6 his last two years), even though Thompson is an average shooter and terrible at netting possessions. People who don’t understand the importance of net possessions don’t understand basketball. If Myers did, he would’ve draft Kenneth Faried or Kawhi Leonard instead and been 7 to 9 wins richer this year alone.
Sadly, Bob Myers Won’t Help At All
Myers mindset pegs him as an average GM trapped in conventional wisdom. That kind of leadership in personnel and payroll decision-making will get the Warriors nowhere, leaving their fate to chance alone. As a die hard Warrior fan, that sucks so much I can’t take it. I’m turning to this rant.
For the past 20 years the Warriors have served as losing yang to the Spurs, Lakers and others’ winning yin. For somebody to win, somebody else has to lose. That is the way of the game. But it doesn’t have to be the way of the Warriors.
“You’ve got to be very careful if you don’t know where you are going, because you might not get there.” – Yogi Berra
Joe Lacob needs a real plan. Right now he is overconfident about his own expertise, his GM’s ability to hustle, and the future. His strategy is no different and no better-informed than any other owner, nor are his tactics. I only wish he’d turn to his more experienced neighbor just across the way and ask…
Otherwise when Bob Myers calls him up at the eleventh hour with a deal, Lacob will have to ask: Should I pick up the phone or just flip a coin?
Comments
28 comments, rebuilt from the Internet Archive’s copy of the original thread.
Statmandu May 6, 2012, 5:56 pm
Well, look at is this way. At least they finally got rid of Monta Ellis.
Mike Senese May 6, 2012, 11:29 pm
It’s tough to put lofty hopes on a rookie GM — I’ll have to look into the records of other first timers. But one big advantage in Bob’s favor: having Jerry West as a mentor.
Charles Connaughton May 7, 2012, 12:52 am
It’s really tough to put lofty hopes on a new GM who got where they were from their ability to…sell the players they represented and get them good deals. If hiring the sales stud is the difference in closing a deal for, say, Dwight Howard, then it’s definitely a good move.
Somehow I doubt we’re going to see any revolutions in player evaluation from this, however; and that doesn’t exactly bode well, since acting like everyone else doesn’t get you ahead when you have a weak team with a bunch of bad contracts and not a lot of assets; you’re more or less betting on regression to the mean, and that isn’t even a good bet when you’re the Warriors and have a draft history of spending your top picks on D-league fodder.
Someone in that front office managed to convince the Bucks to give them Bogut for Ellis, though; and they were able flip the Bucks garbage into squeezing the last bit of basketball out of Richard Jefferson. So at least that’s a start. Not much, but a start.
EvanZ May 7, 2012, 10:24 am
I remember when Jeremy said the Warriors would win 50 games a couple seasons ago, because of David Lee.
http://wagesofwins.com/2010/07/14/warriors-stumble-on-50-wins/
But then some stuff happened, David Lee got hurt, so that probably was the reason they didn’t make it.
http://wagesofwins.com/2011/02/08/how-the-warriors-stumbled-instead/
So, then he said when David Lee got healthy, they’d probably win 40 or 50.
Alas, that didn’t quite work out the way Jeremy had predicted.
I think for now I’ll trust Myers who did what many of us had wanted for a long time. He shipped of Monta Ellis and he brought in a legitimate big man in Bogut. Injuries are risks that every team faces. But without taking these risks, the Warriors had very little chance of improving.
And for all the anti-tanking logic around here and elsewhere, the Warriors now have a much better chance of keeping their lottery pick than they did halfway through the season. A season that was going nowhere fast, anyway.
Andres Alvarez May 7, 2012, 10:29 am
Evan,
Definitely enjoying the prod at Jeremy using David Lee and injury and then listing Bogut — an injured big — as a legitimate big man.
Ultra-Humanite May 7, 2012, 10:49 am
The fact that they were able to part with Monta Ellis is a huge leap in the right direction. Despite his inefficient production, Monta was definitely the fan favorite around here, and there weren’t too many on board with that particular trade. Too many owners and GMs compound their failures by sticking to a formula that clearly doesn’t work. At least in this case they are willing to acknowledge failure and change strategies.
Also, it should be pretty clear that anti-tanking logic did not account for the Warriors unique situation. They didn’t fire up tank mode until they did the Bogut trade and at that point, it would have been ludicrously stupid not to tank as they had about as much chance to make the playoffs as they did to win the #1 pick. That’s not even mentioning the fact that they had to lose to even keep the pick to begin with.
Arturo May 7, 2012, 11:30 am
An important point is that the GSW did not tank as in blowing up their team (which is bad). They shut down some players to improve their draft position and traded some overvalued assets for a lottery ticket (bogut).
I liked the moves they made actually.
Brett Davis May 7, 2012, 11:38 am
Hopefully this is being sent to Lacob…
Jeremy Britton author May 7, 2012, 1:34 pm
Ultra-Humanite, I agree with you it took guts to part with Ellis, a popular player, for Bogut. You’d think they obviously knew this too, but then you watch Lacob’s dear-in-the-headlights moment being booed during the Mullin ceremony and have to wonder whether he really anticipated it. He seems aloof.
It’s not clear they changed strategies. All we know for sure is that they executed on a specific deal. The Ellis-for-Bogut deal (with Jax-for-Jefferson on top) was likely a positive move in the win department, assuming Bogut returns health and just as productive. However, it is not clear they understand *why* they are likely to benefit from it. My point is their strategy appears to be an overconfident application of conventional wisdom (i.e. luck).
Jeremy Britton author May 7, 2012, 1:36 pm
Brett, I’m considering that.
EvanZ, you could get lucky and be “right,” just like Myers.
Ultra-Humanite May 7, 2012, 3:37 pm
Fair enough. It’s equally possible they could have Klay Thompson starting next year and doing his best Monta impersonation by chucking up 20 shots per night, all the while trying to convince their fan base they he got snubbed from the Sophomore squad for the Rookie Challenge because he averages 22 points per game.
Statmandu May 7, 2012, 5:44 pm
Aside from injury last year, IMO David Lee has been the victim of a system change and different kind of usage.
1. Just before being traded to GS, Lee played for Mike D’Antoni. MD has no problem playing PFs at C to take advantage of their speed edge over bigger men on offense. Lee was particularly suited to that role because he has a good handle and can finish with either hand at the rim. In fact, almost the entire offense is based on the P&R between a big man and a PG with the rest of the players all having 3 point range to space the floor for them. So when he went from the Knicks to GS, he went from the optimal conditions for doing a lot of efficient scoring to a more average set of conditions.
2. Lee has been asked to expand his game to include more mid range jumpers. So while his PPG is still reasonably high, his efficiency has fallen because he’s no longer scoring at the rim most of the time.
I hate to bring it up again, but this is the usage/efficiency debate.
Arturo May 7, 2012, 6:06 pm
Statmandu,
Not really. It’s more the shot selection in the offensive system. The argument is injury and how the player is being used. It’s a fair and reasonable point.
Statmandu May 7, 2012, 6:38 pm
Arturo,
Player “X” takes 8 shots a game, 6 are at the rim (65%) and 2 are mid range (40%).
Player “X” has the same exact skill set the following year but ups his usage to 16 shots a game.
IMO, the distribution won’t be 12 and 4 at the same percentages. They’ll wind up being more evenly distributed between at the rim and mid range. Call it 8 and 8.
I say that because if the player could get that many more shots at the rim, he’d already be doing it. The incremental shots are going to be the type he was generally passing on before. So his efficiency will fall a little and he’ll be punished by a metric with a break even point of 50% because those incremental mid range jumpers are only 40% shots.
This is the mind numbing dilemma I think about so often. You don’t want to reward high usage that comes from poor shot selection, but you don’t want to reward high efficiency that comes from a lack of skill that leads to the player only taking easy shots.
Andres Alvarez May 7, 2012, 7:44 pm
Statmandu,
Arturo recently messaged me about shot distributions and systems and had some cool ideas. Frankly I can’t wait. I also fear one day Arturo may pull a Fermat’s Last Theorem. At the end of a post he’ll scrawl “I’ve solved basketball and the solution is elegant!” and then he’ll disappear!
Charles Connaughton May 7, 2012, 8:17 pm
The David Lee question is really interesting. Believe it or not his usage has not increased significantly since coming to the Warriors, so you can’t explain away his performance that way. Is the system he’s in now totally toxic to how he plays or has he just fallen off a cliff? It would be good to know.
In ’09-’10, David Lee shot 54.9% on 20.0 shots per 48, and pulled down 15.1 rebounds per 48 in his last year with the Knicks.
Last year with the Warriors, David Lee shot 50.6% on 20.9 shots per 48, and pulled down 12.3 rebounds per 48.
I do agree with sentiments that high volume guys are underrated somewhat by WP48, while low volume guys are overrated; mostly I see this with centers who are total deadweight on offense, but WP48 likes because they go 2 for 3 on their putbacks.
Yes, I’m firmly looking at Biedrins here – who now rebounds poorly for his position, never touches the ball, commits a ton of fouls, and yet WP48 loves. I’m not sure what I’m supposed to be missing here.
Ultra-Humanite May 7, 2012, 8:56 pm
I think Biedrins, under Wins Produced, actually benefits from how timid he is. Like you said, he never touches the ball, and these days it’s entirely by choice. It’s seriously like he’s afraid to play offense. How do you only get 9 free throws in an entire season as a center? He was the starting center for a long period too!
As for David Lee, I can’t tell you how many times I cringed in horror when David Lee would take an 18 foot jumper. I want to give David Lee a full year without Monta before I write him off completely, but it’s hard not to stare at that stupendous contract he has. Between he, Biedrins and Richard Jefferson, the Warriors have almost $32 million locked into just those 3, most likely for the next 2 seasons. Hopefully Bob Meyers is one slick salesman.
EntityAbyss May 8, 2012, 1:06 am
Charles, by wins produced, Andris Biedrins has been slightly below average this year so… yea.
David Lee usage % last year actually dropped. This year it went back up to what it was in new york. Looking at hoop data, his attempts at the rim dropped last year, then went back up this year. He’s taking more shots from 3-9 feet and shooting at a lower percentage. I don’t know what it all means though.
jbrett May 8, 2012, 9:17 am
Biedrins is the poster boy for head cases, and it appears to be caused by his foul-shooting troubles. I’ve heard he was offended by GS bringing in Rick Barry to teach him the underhand shot; maybe he thinks it’s too girly, like Wilt did. It appears he’s now truly afraid of going to the line, which makes him reluctant to touch the ball, and skittish about any kind of contact; given his style of play (when he’s productive, anyway), that’s very bad news. It’s a shame, for a player barely into his prime years, but it isn’t impossible he comes out the other side.
Jeremy Britton author May 8, 2012, 11:39 am
Statmandu and Charles, the David Lee question is interesting (though off topic!). The measurable change in his game is threefold: 1) He’s spending possessions much less efficiently due to changes in shot selection, 2) he’s turning the ball over a lot more, and 3) his defensive rebounding has plummeted. That sounds worth an article.
EntityAbyss and jbrett, Biedrins is another fascinating case. I have a draft of an article tentatively titled, “How You Are Destroying Andris Biedrins.” (Not provocative enough?) The basic premise relates in part to your point jbrett about self-confidence and free throw shooting (only I don’t blame him, I blame management and point a finger at several conventional wisdoms).
Charles Connaughton May 8, 2012, 2:50 pm
Well, we do know that New Guy is a master of his cliches if nothing else – and since he’s a salesman at heart, I’m not surprised. The question is if he knows anything about player evaluation – or, at least, knows how to listen to anyone the organization might hire that does know something about player evaluation.
The big question for anyone in the Warriors front office, in my mind, is still ‘why is Golden State a place productive players go to die?’ David Lee was an outstanding scoring and rebounding big with the Knicks, and has sucked with the Warriors (zombie elbow not withstanding). Biedrins was an utterly dominant center 3 years ago and is now a ghost for no good reason. They can’t possibly be any good as long as that’s happening to their players.
I’m more concerned about them keeping Brandon Rush (coming off a career year) on the bench to give starter minutes to Klay Thompson (pick and pop 3 shooter, bad at everything else) – because, hey, they’re the Warriors.
Genericca May 8, 2012, 7:52 pm
“I blame management and point a finger at several conventional wisdoms” why does that not surprise me? =D
This poor guy… it’s not conventional wisdom he’s selling, it’s platitudes! All of these quotes are just him making press conference noises because it’s press conference time. It’s a ritual where he gets easy questions and he gives obvious answers, and he said the same things you or I would have.
Jeremy Britton author May 8, 2012, 8:44 pm
Charles, your cynicism about salespeople aside, I’ll argue more of Myers was transparently on display at that conference than people admit. Heck, just witness the awkward “we wore the same tie!?” moment with Lacob. This stuff isn’t that scripted. You give them too much credit. Most people just show up. They don’t prepare that much, so their body language tells a lot.
Genericca, I have no idea what you’re talking about. Sorry!
Charles Connaughton May 8, 2012, 10:31 pm
Hey, I’m not saying that salespeople don’t know anything about basketball (or any other topic, for that matter); I’m simply saying that evaluating someone’s salesmanship tells you very little about how they will perform in other environments. Myers might have a fantastic head for basketball. He might not. I honestly do not know – I am just assuming that, as a successful salesperson (as an agent, he’s selling his client to teams after all) that he has a talent for communication and good instincts for handling questions and telling people what they want to hear.
This coming from a -1 sigma salesperson, in fairness.
I tend to agree with you though – I don’t see any evidence from anything he’s said that he’s going to be more than Some Guy making some deals that aren’t particularly better or worse than Some Other Guy’s, and will bounce around from statistical noise and regression to the mean. Doesn’t mean I won’t give the guy a chance, I’m just waiting for evidence to make a decision.
Jeremy Britton author May 10, 2012, 1:11 pm
Thought I’d share what Joe Lacob replied to me with when I sent him the link to this article.
Me:
Joe’s initial reply:
I asked if he would mind if I published and he left it up to me. I’m sharing this first exchange. To me this shows Lacob’s commitment to persevere as well as some resilience “taking hits” as he says and still bouncing back. That’s laudable.
Jeremy Britton author May 10, 2012, 1:12 pm
As the conversation has continued about my unfortunately naive assumptions about Klay Thompson, not giving them enough credit, and being too inflammatory, I am starting to sense someone who feels he needs to prove himself. That’s a stressful mindset to hold. In contrast, I’m recommending he just focus on winning. That’s an easier, more tactical, and less personal task.
Oh, and I also promised to eat crow if they do start winning. I guaranteed it would come in one of two forms:
Time will tell?
Ultra-Humanite May 10, 2012, 5:45 pm
As a Warriors fan in the Bay Area, I’m curious what those naive assumptions about Klay Thompson he thinks you have. Gratifying to hear that he even came to a Wages of Wins site though. Maybe we’ll get lucky and the Warriors will start using Wins Produced.
Z July 10, 2013, 2:24 am
One of the members from SB Nation blog Golden State of Mind linked to this after the completion of the Warriors acquisitions this past free agency.
Truthfully, I’m glad this is still up and Lacob stuck to his guns. Thoughts on the Warriors now over a year later, o wise ones?