Profile: Daryl Morey

Hey guys, figured I would add a weekly profile to the blog.  This week's profile, and the subject of a presentation for my New Venture Capitalism class, is Houston Rockets GM Daryl Morey.  Morey is the first General Manager in the NBA committed to analytics, some of which are described in a previous blog of mine in the preceeding link.  Morey became the GM of the Houston Rockets in May 2007 after serving three years as the Senior Vice President of Operations and Information for the Boston Celtics.  He previously attended Northwestern as an undergraduate, and received a degree in Computer Science, and then attended the Sloan School of Management at MIT for his MBA. 

Morey uses statistics to analyze qualitative actions in basketball.  His first project for the Boston Celtics was one in which he performed a regression analysis of 25 years of NBA drafts to determine which college statistics best equate with NBA success at each of the five positions.  Once hired as the Assistant GM in Houston in 2006, Morey scouted players that offseason that could make the team better in terms of these categories:

• decreasing opponents FG %
• usage rate
• increasing FG %

Morey figured out that Shane Battier was the best fit for the Rockets, as his team scored more, rebounded, better, fouled less, allowed, fewer points, shot better, and decreased their opponents shooting percentage when he was on the court.  Morey figured he would be the perfect complement to superstars Tracy McGrady and Yao Ming.  Morey also insists on trading for and drafting players which were versatile and capable of creating offensive and defensive advantages.  Such a player is Kevin Martin, a 6-6 Shooting Guard acquired in a trade with the Sacramento Kings last season.  Martin's height creates mismatches on both ends of the floor.

Will Daryl Morey's success in Houston continue to the point at which the Rockets are a championship contender?  Who knows!  However, it will be interesting to see if NBA teams keep hiring experts in analytics to advise or even run their teams.  About two thirds of NBA teams currently employ at least one expert of analytics, and this trend should continue to increase, especially of Morey's Rockets continue to improve!

The Value of LeBron James to the Cleveland Cavaliers and the aftermath of 'The Decision' on this year's Cavaliers

Wow Cleveland has fallen! Following some of last night's Los Angeles Lakers-Cleveland Cavaliers game made me cringe looking at the box score.  A final score of 112-57? Seriously? The last well publicized game I remember being so lopsided was when the Boston Celtics absolutely crushed the Lakers 131-92 in Game 6 of the 2008 finals.  57 was the least the Cavs had ever scored in a game and the least the Lakers allowed since the introduction of the shot clock in 1954.  The Cavaliers currently boast the NBA's worst record at 8-30, and LeBron seems to be reveling in the glory of their downfalls.  I received a text from my girlfriend earlier today citing a tweet from LeBron referring to last night's demolition of the Cavaliers. 

Obviously much of the Cavaliers decline hinged on one 'Decision,' in which superstar and two-time MVP Lebron James decided to 'take his talents to South Beach' to form 'The Heatles' with Dwayne Wade, Chris Bosh, and friends down in Miami.  To the chagrin of Cleveland fans, Lebron was gone and the Cavs were forced to carry on without him.  Lets take a look at the current Cavaliers lineup compared to last year's:

January 2010                  January 2011

G - Mo Williams                                        G - Mo Williams
G - Anthony Parker                                   G - Manny Harris
F - Lebron James                                     F - Antawn Jamison
F - JJ Hickson                                           F - JJ Hickson
C - Shaq                                                    C - Ryan Hollins

The only players that remain are Mo Williams and JJ Hickson, as Anthony Parker is currently injured and Shaq and Lebron have moved to other teams.  However, the loss of Parker and O'Neal is relatively marginal.  Lebron James WAS the Cleveland Cavaliers.  Below are some statistics that one may be familiar with, but some others that may truly stand out, courtesy of Basketball Reference.


Cavaliers All-time Free Throw Attempts
1. LeBron James 814 2005-06
2. LeBron James 773 2009-10
3. LeBron James 771 2007-08
4. LeBron James 762 2008-09
5. LeBron James 701 2006-07
6. LeBron James 636 2004-05
7. Shawn Kemp 635 1999-00
8. Brad Daugherty 579 1990-91
9. Ron Harper 564 1986-87
10. Shawn Kemp 556 1997-98

Cavaliers All-Time Season Points Per Game




1. LeBron James 31.4 2005-06
2. LeBron James 30.0 2007-08
3. LeBron James 29.7 2009-10
4. LeBron James 28.4 2008-09
5. LeBron James 27.3 2006-07
6. LeBron James 27.2 2004-05
7. Mike Mitchell 24.5 1980-81
8. World B. Free 23.4 1985-86
9. Ron Harper 22.9 1986-87
10. World B. Free 22.5 1984-85

The above individual statistics assert Lebron's dominance as the best player ever to play for Cleveland.  But lets be honest here, who was not aware of that?  The significance of Lebron's last two seasons with the Cavaliers, and the claim that he is the best player in the NBA, can be summarized by two short acronyms: PER and WS.  For those who are not familiar with basketball statistics, PER stands for Player Efficiency Rating.  PER, in short, measures a player's per minute productivity.  More information on PER can be found here. WS stands for Win Shares, which I found to be described well in this quote:

"In other words, a Win Share is kind of like baseball's VORP stat...it relies on the assumption that efficiency is the key to wins, looks at a player's offensive efficiency compared to the league average, a player's defensive efficiency compared to the league average, corrects for minutes played, then adds up the corresponding Offensive and Defensive Win Shares to get one number that estimates how many wins that player was worth."

Both PER and WS are sabermetrics.  Sabermetrics attempts to find answers objective questions in sports such as: Which player on the 2003-2004 Detroit Pistons contributed most to the team's offense?  Was Rickey Henderson faster than Tim Raines?  Does Lebron James contribute more to his team than Chris Paul or Kobe Bryant?  Below are recent statistics on PER and WS, cementing Lebron's meaning and impact on the Cavaliers and how different the team is without him.

Win Shares - 2008/2009 NBA       Win Shares - 2009/2010 NBA


1. LeBron James-CLE 20.3                                          1. LeBron James -CLE 18.5
2. Chris Paul-NOH 18.3                                               2. Kevin Durant -OKC 16.1
3. Dwyane Wade-MIA 14.7                                         3. Dwight Howard -ORL 13.2
4. Pau Gasol-LAL 13.9                                                4. Dwayne Wade -MIA 13.0
5. Dwight Howard-ORL 13.8                                       5. Dirk Nowitzki - DAL 12.3

PER - 2008/2009 NBA                   PER - 2009/2010 NBA


1. LeBron James-CLE 31.76                                           1. LeBron James-CLE 31.19
2. Dwyane Wade-MIA 30.46                                          2. Dwayne Wade-MIA 28.10
3. Chris Paul -NOH 30.04                                               3. Kevin Durant-OKC 26.23
4. Dwight Howard-ORL 25.44                                        4. Chris Bosh-TOR 25.11
5. Tim Duncan-SAS 24.51                                               5. Tim Duncan-SAS 24.79

PER Ratings and more Sabermetrics from ESPN

Based of off the win share data above, LeBron James was clearly the most valuable player to his team the past two NBA seasons, sporting the highest Win Share value as well as the highest Player Efficiency Rating in both seasons.  These ratings credit the supporting casts of superstars like Kobe Bryant, who does not show up on any of these lists.  The closest Cleveland player on the PER lists is Antawn Jamison in 2009/2010, with a PER of 17.66. He checks in at #66 throughout the entire NBA (don't let his contributions fool you though, he only played for Cleveland for the 2nd half of the year and was a larger contributor when he played for the Wizards earlier in the season).  For 2008/2009, Zydrunas Ilgauskas ranks #53 with a PER of 18.03.  Ilgauskas's Win Shares was 6.6 for that season, while Jamison's was 7.0 for last year. 

In addition to win shares, we have what I believe to be the most important statistic, EWA.  EWA stands for Estimated Wins Added, over a replacement player.  LeBron James had an EWA of 30.5 in 2009/2010 and 32.3 in 2008/2009, both being tops in the league.  Clearly this impact is gigantic, as if not for him, these numbers predict the Cavaliers would have won 30 or 31 games last year as opposed to the 61 that they did win in the regular season. 

In conclusion, LeBron was more important to the Cavaliers than any single player on any other team.  If not for him, they would have only won half the games they did last year.  His paramount PER, WS, and EWA make him not only the most indispensible player to his team for 2008/2009 and 2009/2010, but the most valuable player in the NBA.  Now that he's a member of the Heat these numbers may decline, but the Cleveland Cavaliers are getting crushed with out him, and the numbers prove their demise.