mreinman wrote:

Bonn1997 wrote:

martin wrote:

Bonn1997 wrote:For example, if we replaced our 4 highest minute backcourt players with guards with average win shares (a stat I know you've relied on), it suggests the team would have 4 more wins. (I'm estimating the amount of increase in season total win shares each player would have if his WS 48 rate were changed to .100.) If you argue the stats are underestimating the overall impact of the backcourt upgrade and you want to even double that total (8 more wins), I could go along with that, but that still only gets us to around .500. The main reason is that our frontcourt was reasonably good but not outstanding.

Bonn, can you share with us how you upgraded the 4 backcourt players and only came up with 4 wins? I don't get the WS correlation.

The total win shares is an estimate of how wins the player added for the season. Galloway was at 3.3, for example, and he had a WS 48 of .077. So, if he played the same minutes but had a WS of .100, as far as I can tell, he would have contributed 4.3 win shares. (I did .100 divided by .077. That comes to 1.30. I then multiplied 1.30 by 3.3.) I did that for each player.
I then acknowledged that improving the backcourt could improve the frontcourt and was willing to double that number and say it might add more like 8 wins.

I don't think that accounts for Jose's defense.

Bonn1997 wrote:

mreinman wrote:

Bonn1997 wrote:

martin wrote:

Bonn1997 wrote:For example, if we replaced our 4 highest minute backcourt players with guards with average win shares (a stat I know you've relied on), it suggests the team would have 4 more wins. (I'm estimating the amount of increase in season total win shares each player would have if his WS 48 rate were changed to .100.) If you argue the stats are underestimating the overall impact of the backcourt upgrade and you want to even double that total (8 more wins), I could go along with that, but that still only gets us to around .500. The main reason is that our frontcourt was reasonably good but not outstanding.

Bonn, can you share with us how you upgraded the 4 backcourt players and only came up with 4 wins? I don't get the WS correlation.

The total win shares is an estimate of how wins the player added for the season. Galloway was at 3.3, for example, and he had a WS 48 of .077. So, if he played the same minutes but had a WS of .100, as far as I can tell, he would have contributed 4.3 win shares. (I did .100 divided by .077. That comes to 1.30. I then multiplied 1.30 by 3.3.) I did that for each player.
I then acknowledged that improving the backcourt could improve the frontcourt and was willing to double that number and say it might add more like 8 wins.

I don't think that accounts for Jose's defense.

Well, when I said 4 could double and be 8, I meant more generally that I'm adding wiggle room for things beyond what win shares tracks. Win shares is respectable enough that I don't think many experts would say it would be off by even more than that.

I think that when it comes to defenders like Calderon, its off by way more than that. I think that he would need a WS48 of .200 to make up for his being on the defensive side of the court.

Bonn1997 wrote:

mreinman wrote:

Bonn1997 wrote:

mreinman wrote:

Bonn1997 wrote:

martin wrote:

Bonn1997 wrote:For example, if we replaced our 4 highest minute backcourt players with guards with average win shares (a stat I know you've relied on), it suggests the team would have 4 more wins. (I'm estimating the amount of increase in season total win shares each player would have if his WS 48 rate were changed to .100.) If you argue the stats are underestimating the overall impact of the backcourt upgrade and you want to even double that total (8 more wins), I could go along with that, but that still only gets us to around .500. The main reason is that our frontcourt was reasonably good but not outstanding.

Bonn, can you share with us how you upgraded the 4 backcourt players and only came up with 4 wins? I don't get the WS correlation.

The total win shares is an estimate of how wins the player added for the season. Galloway was at 3.3, for example, and he had a WS 48 of .077. So, if he played the same minutes but had a WS of .100, as far as I can tell, he would have contributed 4.3 win shares. (I did .100 divided by .077. That comes to 1.30. I then multiplied 1.30 by 3.3.) I did that for each player.
I then acknowledged that improving the backcourt could improve the frontcourt and was willing to double that number and say it might add more like 8 wins.

I don't think that accounts for Jose's defense.

Well, when I said 4 could double and be 8, I meant more generally that I'm adding wiggle room for things beyond what win shares tracks. Win shares is respectable enough that I don't think many experts would say it would be off by even more than that.

I think that when it comes to defenders like Calderon, its off by way more than that. I think that he would need a WS48 of .200 to make up for his being on the defensive side of the court.

OK, how many games do you think his defense cost us? We won 32. There's no way this was a .500 team if you look at the roster and addressed nothing other than his defense.

don't know but the stats don't help :-)

nixluva wrote:

Bonn1997 wrote:

mreinman wrote:

Bonn1997 wrote:

mreinman wrote:

Bonn1997 wrote:

martin wrote:

Bonn1997 wrote:For example, if we replaced our 4 highest minute backcourt players with guards with average win shares (a stat I know you've relied on), it suggests the team would have 4 more wins. (I'm estimating the amount of increase in season total win shares each player would have if his WS 48 rate were changed to .100.) If you argue the stats are underestimating the overall impact of the backcourt upgrade and you want to even double that total (8 more wins), I could go along with that, but that still only gets us to around .500. The main reason is that our frontcourt was reasonably good but not outstanding.

Bonn, can you share with us how you upgraded the 4 backcourt players and only came up with 4 wins? I don't get the WS correlation.

The total win shares is an estimate of how wins the player added for the season. Galloway was at 3.3, for example, and he had a WS 48 of .077. So, if he played the same minutes but had a WS of .100, as far as I can tell, he would have contributed 4.3 win shares. (I did .100 divided by .077. That comes to 1.30. I then multiplied 1.30 by 3.3.) I did that for each player.
I then acknowledged that improving the backcourt could improve the frontcourt and was willing to double that number and say it might add more like 8 wins.

I don't think that accounts for Jose's defense.

Well, when I said 4 could double and be 8, I meant more generally that I'm adding wiggle room for things beyond what win shares tracks. Win shares is respectable enough that I don't think many experts would say it would be off by even more than that.

I think that when it comes to defenders like Calderon, its off by way more than that. I think that he would need a WS48 of .200 to make up for his being on the defensive side of the court.

OK, how many games do you think his defense cost us? We won 32. There's no way this was a .500 team if you look at the roster and addressed nothing other than his defense.

Not just Jose's defense because we also started AA who was ATROCIOUS on defense. 2 Guards playing that many minutes and defending that poorly is gonna have a serious impact. Plus the fact that neither Jose nor AA drive or push the ball enough to help the team get more easy buckets or FT's.

We know that this team was 22-22 and then went 10-28 the rest of the way. Playing .500 over 44 games was a fair indication of what the team could be if things were going right. It was a complicated series of issues that led to the swoon after the team reached .500. Martin has pointed out the series of injuries and missed games that impacted the team the final 38 games. In addition to KP hitting the wall.

It's not hard to imagine this team playing above .500 if they can make the needed upgrades to the backcourt and have better depth next season. Improved Defense, Pushing the ball for more easy scores, Dribble Penetration and 3pt shooting from the guard spots will have the needed positive impact. For the most part getting the opposite of what Jose and AA gave us in starter minutes.

grant and larkin are 2 of the fastest penetrating guards in the NBA, in fact they love to run, calderon beat his teammates down the court on a lot of possessions.

You can bring in the road runner, if the idea is to run the triangle, than nothing else matters. That's what we see with every player that we have played (or guards for the matter) they run down the court to get into a half court triangle set.

that won't change unless the coach says run forest run...fck the triangle on this possession

nixluva wrote:

knicks1248 wrote:

nixluva wrote:

Bonn1997 wrote:

mreinman wrote:

Bonn1997 wrote:

mreinman wrote:

Bonn1997 wrote:

martin wrote:

Bonn1997 wrote:For example, if we replaced our 4 highest minute backcourt players with guards with average win shares (a stat I know you've relied on), it suggests the team would have 4 more wins. (I'm estimating the amount of increase in season total win shares each player would have if his WS 48 rate were changed to .100.) If you argue the stats are underestimating the overall impact of the backcourt upgrade and you want to even double that total (8 more wins), I could go along with that, but that still only gets us to around .500. The main reason is that our frontcourt was reasonably good but not outstanding.

Bonn, can you share with us how you upgraded the 4 backcourt players and only came up with 4 wins? I don't get the WS correlation.

The total win shares is an estimate of how wins the player added for the season. Galloway was at 3.3, for example, and he had a WS 48 of .077. So, if he played the same minutes but had a WS of .100, as far as I can tell, he would have contributed 4.3 win shares. (I did .100 divided by .077. That comes to 1.30. I then multiplied 1.30 by 3.3.) I did that for each player.
I then acknowledged that improving the backcourt could improve the frontcourt and was willing to double that number and say it might add more like 8 wins.

I don't think that accounts for Jose's defense.

Well, when I said 4 could double and be 8, I meant more generally that I'm adding wiggle room for things beyond what win shares tracks. Win shares is respectable enough that I don't think many experts would say it would be off by even more than that.

I think that when it comes to defenders like Calderon, its off by way more than that. I think that he would need a WS48 of .200 to make up for his being on the defensive side of the court.

OK, how many games do you think his defense cost us? We won 32. There's no way this was a .500 team if you look at the roster and addressed nothing other than his defense.

Not just Jose's defense because we also started AA who was ATROCIOUS on defense. 2 Guards playing that many minutes and defending that poorly is gonna have a serious impact. Plus the fact that neither Jose nor AA drive or push the ball enough to help the team get more easy buckets or FT's.

We know that this team was 22-22 and then went 10-28 the rest of the way. Playing .500 over 44 games was a fair indication of what the team could be if things were going right. It was a complicated series of issues that led to the swoon after the team reached .500. Martin has pointed out the series of injuries and missed games that impacted the team the final 38 games. In addition to KP hitting the wall.

It's not hard to imagine this team playing above .500 if they can make the needed upgrades to the backcourt and have better depth next season. Improved Defense, Pushing the ball for more easy scores, Dribble Penetration and 3pt shooting from the guard spots will have the needed positive impact. For the most part getting the opposite of what Jose and AA gave us in starter minutes.

grant and larkin are 2 of the fastest penetrating guards in the NBA, in fact they love to run, calderon beat his teammates down the court on a lot of possessions.

You can bring in the road runner, if the idea is to run the triangle, than nothing else matters. That's what we see with every player that we have played (or guards for the matter) they run down the court to get into a half court triangle set.

that won't change unless the coach says run forest run...fck the triangle

NOTHING stops any Guard or Forward from running just cuz of the Triangle. If you know anything about Tex Winter's approach to offense then you would know that he wanted the team to push the ball.

Tex Winter:

THE SEVEN PRINCIPLES OF SOUND OFFENSE
These are the seven principles of a sound
and effective offense.

1. Penetration of the defense. You must
penetrate the defense, and the best
way to do this is the fast break,
because basketball is a full court game,
from baseline to baseline.

He doesn't say setting up in the Triangle is the most important thing. He touts running the floor and getting early offense.

so you think we had players that didn't want to run or just couldn't..

martin wrote:

knicks1248 wrote:

nixluva wrote:

knicks1248 wrote:

nixluva wrote:

Bonn1997 wrote:

mreinman wrote:

Bonn1997 wrote:

mreinman wrote:

Bonn1997 wrote:

martin wrote:

Bonn1997 wrote:For example, if we replaced our 4 highest minute backcourt players with guards with average win shares (a stat I know you've relied on), it suggests the team would have 4 more wins. (I'm estimating the amount of increase in season total win shares each player would have if his WS 48 rate were changed to .100.) If you argue the stats are underestimating the overall impact of the backcourt upgrade and you want to even double that total (8 more wins), I could go along with that, but that still only gets us to around .500. The main reason is that our frontcourt was reasonably good but not outstanding.

Bonn, can you share with us how you upgraded the 4 backcourt players and only came up with 4 wins? I don't get the WS correlation.

The total win shares is an estimate of how wins the player added for the season. Galloway was at 3.3, for example, and he had a WS 48 of .077. So, if he played the same minutes but had a WS of .100, as far as I can tell, he would have contributed 4.3 win shares. (I did .100 divided by .077. That comes to 1.30. I then multiplied 1.30 by 3.3.) I did that for each player.
I then acknowledged that improving the backcourt could improve the frontcourt and was willing to double that number and say it might add more like 8 wins.

I don't think that accounts for Jose's defense.

Well, when I said 4 could double and be 8, I meant more generally that I'm adding wiggle room for things beyond what win shares tracks. Win shares is respectable enough that I don't think many experts would say it would be off by even more than that.

I think that when it comes to defenders like Calderon, its off by way more than that. I think that he would need a WS48 of .200 to make up for his being on the defensive side of the court.

OK, how many games do you think his defense cost us? We won 32. There's no way this was a .500 team if you look at the roster and addressed nothing other than his defense.

Not just Jose's defense because we also started AA who was ATROCIOUS on defense. 2 Guards playing that many minutes and defending that poorly is gonna have a serious impact. Plus the fact that neither Jose nor AA drive or push the ball enough to help the team get more easy buckets or FT's.

We know that this team was 22-22 and then went 10-28 the rest of the way. Playing .500 over 44 games was a fair indication of what the team could be if things were going right. It was a complicated series of issues that led to the swoon after the team reached .500. Martin has pointed out the series of injuries and missed games that impacted the team the final 38 games. In addition to KP hitting the wall.

It's not hard to imagine this team playing above .500 if they can make the needed upgrades to the backcourt and have better depth next season. Improved Defense, Pushing the ball for more easy scores, Dribble Penetration and 3pt shooting from the guard spots will have the needed positive impact. For the most part getting the opposite of what Jose and AA gave us in starter minutes.

grant and larkin are 2 of the fastest penetrating guards in the NBA, in fact they love to run, calderon beat his teammates down the court on a lot of possessions.

You can bring in the road runner, if the idea is to run the triangle, than nothing else matters. That's what we see with every player that we have played (or guards for the matter) they run down the court to get into a half court triangle set.

that won't change unless the coach says run forest run...fck the triangle

NOTHING stops any Guard or Forward from running just cuz of the Triangle. If you know anything about Tex Winter's approach to offense then you would know that he wanted the team to push the ball.

Tex Winter:

THE SEVEN PRINCIPLES OF SOUND OFFENSE
These are the seven principles of a sound
and effective offense.

1. Penetration of the defense. You must
penetrate the defense, and the best
way to do this is the fast break,
because basketball is a full court game,
from baseline to baseline.

He doesn't say setting up in the Triangle is the most important thing. He touts running the floor and getting early offense.

so you think we had players that didn't want to run or just couldn't..

isn't this a duh moment man? Knicks' guards sucked, we all know that

There's no way in hell that I could be practicing an up tempo offense, and have my team come out and be the slowest team in the NBA for the last 2 season.

The first 3 wks of the season we were right up there top 5 as far as pace, that was all fisher, then he started getting heat for not running the triangle, and that's when our gaurds level of play went south.

You would think that easy buckets would be the remedy considering grant isn't a good perimeter shooter, gallow is inconsistent, and calderon is a great spot up shooter. We needed to change the syle to fit the roster, we didn't.

VCoug wrote:

jrodmc wrote:

franco12 wrote:

jrodmc wrote:

Bonn1997 wrote:I'm glad that after 26 months, Phil has gotten respectable players for 3 of the 15 roster spots.

Maybe if you said "after 735 days,..." it would even sound more credible.

what a shame that by the time the KP hits his prime, Rolo & Melo will likely be out of the league or so old as to be ineffective.

Right, because after a historic rookie season, it may take 5-10 years before this project pick pans out.

Historic? He had a nice rookie year especially for a Euro but he's not even going to come close to winning ROY let alone has he had an historic rookie year.

Actually jrodmc is right for one time.

Porzingis is the first rookie in NBA history to record at least 1,000 points, 500 rebounds, 100 blocks, and 75 3-point field goals made.

According to Basketball-Reference.com, the only other player with at least 1,000 points, 500 rebounds, 100 blocks, and 75 3-point field goals made in 2015-16 is four-time All-Star Al Horford. Before Horford and Porzingis, no player had done it since Kevin Durant in 2012-13.

Beyond Durant, those statistical marks hadn’t been achieved since Shawn Marion reached them in 2006-07—a sign that Porzingis’ dynamic ability is rare for both rookies and veterans alike.

newyorknewyork wrote:

knicks1248 wrote:

martin wrote:

knicks1248 wrote:

nixluva wrote:

knicks1248 wrote:

nixluva wrote:

Bonn1997 wrote:

mreinman wrote:

Bonn1997 wrote:

mreinman wrote:

Bonn1997 wrote:

martin wrote:

Bonn1997 wrote:For example, if we replaced our 4 highest minute backcourt players with guards with average win shares (a stat I know you've relied on), it suggests the team would have 4 more wins. (I'm estimating the amount of increase in season total win shares each player would have if his WS 48 rate were changed to .100.) If you argue the stats are underestimating the overall impact of the backcourt upgrade and you want to even double that total (8 more wins), I could go along with that, but that still only gets us to around .500. The main reason is that our frontcourt was reasonably good but not outstanding.

Bonn, can you share with us how you upgraded the 4 backcourt players and only came up with 4 wins? I don't get the WS correlation.

The total win shares is an estimate of how wins the player added for the season. Galloway was at 3.3, for example, and he had a WS 48 of .077. So, if he played the same minutes but had a WS of .100, as far as I can tell, he would have contributed 4.3 win shares. (I did .100 divided by .077. That comes to 1.30. I then multiplied 1.30 by 3.3.) I did that for each player.
I then acknowledged that improving the backcourt could improve the frontcourt and was willing to double that number and say it might add more like 8 wins.

I don't think that accounts for Jose's defense.

Well, when I said 4 could double and be 8, I meant more generally that I'm adding wiggle room for things beyond what win shares tracks. Win shares is respectable enough that I don't think many experts would say it would be off by even more than that.

I think that when it comes to defenders like Calderon, its off by way more than that. I think that he would need a WS48 of .200 to make up for his being on the defensive side of the court.

OK, how many games do you think his defense cost us? We won 32. There's no way this was a .500 team if you look at the roster and addressed nothing other than his defense.

Not just Jose's defense because we also started AA who was ATROCIOUS on defense. 2 Guards playing that many minutes and defending that poorly is gonna have a serious impact. Plus the fact that neither Jose nor AA drive or push the ball enough to help the team get more easy buckets or FT's.

We know that this team was 22-22 and then went 10-28 the rest of the way. Playing .500 over 44 games was a fair indication of what the team could be if things were going right. It was a complicated series of issues that led to the swoon after the team reached .500. Martin has pointed out the series of injuries and missed games that impacted the team the final 38 games. In addition to KP hitting the wall.

It's not hard to imagine this team playing above .500 if they can make the needed upgrades to the backcourt and have better depth next season. Improved Defense, Pushing the ball for more easy scores, Dribble Penetration and 3pt shooting from the guard spots will have the needed positive impact. For the most part getting the opposite of what Jose and AA gave us in starter minutes.

grant and larkin are 2 of the fastest penetrating guards in the NBA, in fact they love to run, calderon beat his teammates down the court on a lot of possessions.

You can bring in the road runner, if the idea is to run the triangle, than nothing else matters. That's what we see with every player that we have played (or guards for the matter) they run down the court to get into a half court triangle set.

that won't change unless the coach says run forest run...fck the triangle

NOTHING stops any Guard or Forward from running just cuz of the Triangle. If you know anything about Tex Winter's approach to offense then you would know that he wanted the team to push the ball.

Tex Winter:

THE SEVEN PRINCIPLES OF SOUND OFFENSE
These are the seven principles of a sound
and effective offense.

1. Penetration of the defense. You must
penetrate the defense, and the best
way to do this is the fast break,
because basketball is a full court game,
from baseline to baseline.

He doesn't say setting up in the Triangle is the most important thing. He touts running the floor and getting early offense.

so you think we had players that didn't want to run or just couldn't..

isn't this a duh moment man? Knicks' guards sucked, we all know that

There's no way in hell that I could be practicing an up tempo offense, and have my team come out and be the slowest team in the NBA for the last 2 season.

The first 3 wks of the season we were right up there top 5 as far as pace, that was all fisher, then he started getting heat for not running the triangle, and that's when our gaurds level of play went south.

You would think that easy buckets would be the remedy considering grant isn't a good perimeter shooter, gallow is inconsistent, and calderon is a great spot up shooter. We needed to change the syle to fit the roster, we didn't.

Did he start catching heat first? Or did we start losing games first? I don't remember Phil speaking to much or anything negative comming out throughout the early part of the season.

If the Knicks were scoring successfully by pushing the ball and winning games NO ONE would ask Fish to stop doing it.

The thing is there's a huge difference between Jose and AA pushing the ball and Jerian and Wroten Pushing the ball.

nixluva wrote:

it's awesome, one guy is left-hand dominant and the other right-hand dominant. Defenses wont' know what hit them

foosballnick wrote:

Bonn1997 wrote:

martin wrote:

Bonn1997 wrote:For example, if we replaced our 4 highest minute backcourt players with guards with average win shares (a stat I know you've relied on), it suggests the team would have 4 more wins. (I'm estimating the amount of increase in season total win shares each player would have if his WS 48 rate were changed to .100.) If you argue the stats are underestimating the overall impact of the backcourt upgrade and you want to even double that total (8 more wins), I could go along with that, but that still only gets us to around .500. The main reason is that our frontcourt was reasonably good but not outstanding.

Bonn, can you share with us how you upgraded the 4 backcourt players and only came up with 4 wins? I don't get the WS correlation.

The total win shares is an estimate of how wins the player added for the season. Galloway was at 3.3, for example, and he had a WS 48 of .077. So, if he played the same minutes but had a WS of .100, as far as I can tell, he would have contributed 4.3 win shares. (I did .100 divided by .077. That comes to 1.30. I then multiplied 1.30 by 3.3.) I did that for each player.
I then acknowledged that improving the backcourt could improve the frontcourt and was willing to double that number and say it might add more like 8 wins.

I look at the data somewhat differently and come up with a different # of (Plus) Wins with an upgrade in the Back-Court. If the Knicks replaced their two Back-Court Starters (Calderon & Aflalo) with an average 2016 Top 30 Ranked player by each position in terms of WS the team would upgrade by 5 Win Shares. If the Knicks replaced their back-ups (based on average WS) with Average NBA Back-ups (Ranked by Position for 20 from 30-60 for WS) then they would add perhaps another Win. Note that the differential for a back-up is much less due to Galloway and Sasha having WS ratings that are in the range (plus or minus) with the average Top 30-60 Ranked NBA PG & SG for 2016. This would mean that replacing the Knicks back-court with average NBA Players would mean about a Plus 6 Win total.

In a real life models (note - taking into account that none of this is perfect as WS will not remain static based on Growth/Decay/Changes for players)

A) If the Knicks sign Conley (WS 5.3) and move Calderon (WS 4) to back-up. Then Move Galloway (WS 3.3) to SG to replace Aflalo (WS 2.7) - this would net a 2.5 WS upgrade (assuming Sasha and Grant remain in current roles). Note that Rhondo (WS 4.6) would be another option at PG which would net the Knicks less Wins based on 2016 WS Ratings. Given that Conely and Rhondo would not be cheap to sign (above $20 Million) - this would not seem like a preferable option for the Knicks in terms of Long Term Salary commitment.

B) If DeRozan (WS 9.9) opts out and the Knicks are able to sign him to a Max type deal. He would replace Aflalo for net 7 Plus wins by itself. If Grant (0.8 WS) can improve a bit to become an average back-up NBA PG (approximate WS 1.7) and the Knicks can slide Galloway over to back-up SG to replace Sasha - this would net a positive 11.6 increase in WS for the Knicks. Certainly this would be a much more preferable option than Option A......also further considering that DeRozan is only 26 years old.

Bonn1997 wrote:

foosballnick wrote:

Bonn1997 wrote:

martin wrote:

Bonn1997 wrote:For example, if we replaced our 4 highest minute backcourt players with guards with average win shares (a stat I know you've relied on), it suggests the team would have 4 more wins. (I'm estimating the amount of increase in season total win shares each player would have if his WS 48 rate were changed to .100.) If you argue the stats are underestimating the overall impact of the backcourt upgrade and you want to even double that total (8 more wins), I could go along with that, but that still only gets us to around .500. The main reason is that our frontcourt was reasonably good but not outstanding.

Bonn, can you share with us how you upgraded the 4 backcourt players and only came up with 4 wins? I don't get the WS correlation.

The total win shares is an estimate of how wins the player added for the season. Galloway was at 3.3, for example, and he had a WS 48 of .077. So, if he played the same minutes but had a WS of .100, as far as I can tell, he would have contributed 4.3 win shares. (I did .100 divided by .077. That comes to 1.30. I then multiplied 1.30 by 3.3.) I did that for each player.
I then acknowledged that improving the backcourt could improve the frontcourt and was willing to double that number and say it might add more like 8 wins.

I look at the data somewhat differently and come up with a different # of (Plus) Wins with an upgrade in the Back-Court. If the Knicks replaced their two Back-Court Starters (Calderon & Aflalo) with an average 2016 Top 30 Ranked player by each position in terms of WS the team would upgrade by 5 Win Shares. If the Knicks replaced their back-ups (based on average WS) with Average NBA Back-ups (Ranked by Position for 20 from 30-60 for WS) then they would add perhaps another Win. Note that the differential for a back-up is much less due to Galloway and Sasha having WS ratings that are in the range (plus or minus) with the average Top 30-60 Ranked NBA PG & SG for 2016. This would mean that replacing the Knicks back-court with average NBA Players would mean about a Plus 6 Win total.

In a real life models (note - taking into account that none of this is perfect as WS will not remain static based on Growth/Decay/Changes for players)

A) If the Knicks sign Conley (WS 5.3) and move Calderon (WS 4) to back-up. Then Move Galloway (WS 3.3) to SG to replace Aflalo (WS 2.7) - this would net a 2.5 WS upgrade (assuming Sasha and Grant remain in current roles). Note that Rhondo (WS 4.6) would be another option at PG which would net the Knicks less Wins based on 2016 WS Ratings. Given that Conely and Rhondo would not be cheap to sign (above $20 Million) - this would not seem like a preferable option for the Knicks in terms of Long Term Salary commitment.

B) If DeRozan (WS 9.9) opts out and the Knicks are able to sign him to a Max type deal. He would replace Aflalo for net 7 Plus wins by itself. If Grant (0.8 WS) can improve a bit to become an average back-up NBA PG (approximate WS 1.7) and the Knicks can slide Galloway over to back-up SG to replace Sasha - this would net a positive 11.6 increase in WS for the Knicks. Certainly this would be a much more preferable option than Option A......also further considering that DeRozan is only 26 years old.

Well, most of that doesn't get us above .500 unless everything you outlined goes perfectly. How did you come up with the 5 win shares in the first paragraph? It's also pretty risky to assume DeRozan's anomalous contract year performance will be repeated next year. Are you adjusting all your numbers for each player's minutes played (and the replacement's minutes played)?

My contention is that you have some very important intangible factors that can play a huge part in how players perform in different environments. So you may have an idea of what a player has done in one given circumstance but that may change drastically in a more conducive environment. Case in Point is Isiah Thomas. Going from Phoenix to Boston. Last year Boston won 40 games and this year they won 48. I think it's pretty clear who was the main reason for the team winning that additional 8 games if you look at the performance of Isiah Thomas. He actually bested his own previous high in Win Shares of 7.7.

My contention is that his role was extremely beneficial to his performance. That environment supported his abilities and he was able to max out his potential. So I think that it's possible that could happen to players we add in NY, depending on what the environment will be next year. As we add talent there is a change in the supportive environment for the players on the team. For example if your a big and you get a better 2 way PG and SG it will have a net positive impact on your game and on down the line it can positively impact the other players. There's a possible exponential improvement beyond just adding the net difference in WS for the players being replaced and the replacements. It may not end up being simple math of Jose with a .100 Win Share being replaced with PG X with a .120 Win Share. It may end up having a larger net impact on each player being made a little better by adding better players.

Season	Age  Tm  Pos G  MP   PER  TS%  3PAr  FTr   ORB%  DRB%  TRB%  AST%  STL%  BLK%  TOV%  USG%  OWS  DWS  WS  WS/48  OBPM  DBPM  BPM  VORP
2011-12	22   SAC PG  65 1656 17.6 .574 .384  .324  3.0   8.4   5.6   25.6  1.6   0.4   13.9  19.8  4.2  0.0  4.3 .124   3.2   -2.7  0.5  1.1
2012-13	23   SAC PG  79 2122 17.5 .574 .386  .345  1.5   7.3   4.4   24.6  1.6   0.1   12.7  23.0  5.2 -0.1  5.0 .114   3.5   -3.7 -0.2  1.0
2013-14	24   SAC PG  72 2497 20.5 .574 .332  .371  2.1   7.5   4.7   32.2  1.9   0.3   14.3  26.3  6.4  1.3  7.7 .149   5.0   -2.1  2.9  3.1
2014-15	25   TOT PG  67	1726 20.6 .579 .434  .437  2.1   7.7   4.9   27.2  1.6	 0.2   13.1  27.8  5.0	1.1  6.1 .169	4.6   -2.8  1.8	 1.6
2014-15	25   PHO PG  46	1181 19.7 .579 .404  .412  2.4   7.8   5.1   23.6  1.9   0.3   12.8  25.8  3.2	0.7  4.0 .162	3.8   -2.3  1.5	 1.0
2014-15	25   BOS PG  21	545  22.3 .579 .488  .481  1.4   7.5   4.4   35.2  1.1   0.0   13.5  32.1  1.8  0.3  2.1 .185	6.4   -3.9  2.5  0.6
2015-16 26   BOS PG  82	2644 21.5 .562 .336  .394  1.8   8.0   4.9   32.7  1.7   0.3   11.9  29.6  7.2  2.5  9.7 .177	5.0   -2.0  3.0  3.3