NBA All-Decline Team

[TheBlueVan]

I've decided to stop lurking and start posting on the forum again.

Is there anyone who is an insider on espn that could post Hollinger's NBA All-Decline Team article? It sounds like there's something about Dirk in there...

[LonghornDub]

Group VI: Reigning MVPs


Dirk Nowitizki, Mavs (last season 27.70; projected 24.76)
Let's not get carried away -- he still projects to have one of the league's top five PERs. It's just tough to play at such an exalted level for a full season, and doubly tough to do it two seasons in a row. And subjectively, in the wake of last season's first-round disappointment it wouldn't surprise me at all if he pulled a LeBron and decided to save some of his juice for the playoffs this time around.

Not too bad.

[ballin_boi]

Originally Posted by ProdigyDub

Not too bad.

I somehow had an idea that it would be something along those lines. You just can't straight out bash the reigning 29 yr old MVP.

[Usually Lurkin]

oh, "decline" as in this season compared to last. I was thinking career decline, as in

Shaq - still pulling in the occasional label of "best center in the NBA" but come on, his young self would make his now self look like a skinny version of shawn bradley. And how much longer will those delusional folks still throw the "best" label at him?

Nash - ticking time bomb of age

KG - you know that if this year doesn't go well for Boston, that guy is too weak mentally to keep trying like he has been.

etc.
etc.

[Evilmav2]

Technically, this thread probably should be in the 'Around the NBA' section, but what the hey, here's the requested article...


2007-08 All-Decline Team: Who's taking a step back?

By John Hollinger
ESPN Insider
(Archive)
Insider

Updated: November 8, 2007

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With the good must come the bad. And thus, with my All-Breakout Team of last week must come the companion piece. Players can only break out if other players take a step back, and inevitably some of them will.

Most of these guys are older players who you won't be surprised to see on the list. Some are a bit younger but have statistical trends pointing in the opposite direction. What they all have in common is I'm expecting them to contribute substantially less than they did last season.

As with the All-Breakout Team, my 23-man All-Decline Team is chopped up into groups, making it easier for you to figure out exactly how much of a decline we're talking about. As with the breakout players, I've included projected player efficiency ratings for each, as well as last season's PER for comparison.

But before we get started, let me go to great pains to repeat that everyone on this list is on it because I expect a decrease relative to what they did last season. There are some All-Star players on this list and my point isn't that I expect them to stink; I just think they're unlikely to match their numbers from a season ago.

With that out of the way, let's move on to the envelopes:

Group I: The Elephant in the Room


Yes, Miami's Shaquille O'Neal (last season's PER: 21.85; projected PER 22.65) doesn't look quite as bouncy as he once did. While his projected PER for this season is higher than last season's, I'm going to go ahead and disagree -- the projections don't know that he seems content to rake in $60 million over the next three seasons regardless of what kind of shape he's in.

This discussion requires more space than I have here, so I've devoted an entire blog entry to him. If that's not enough for you, our Marc Stein -- still riding the euphoria of Manchester City's 1-0 win over Sunderland on Monday -- went to San Antonio to see Shaq in person and discussed his struggles in detail in last night's Daily Dime, while our master trainer David Thorpe provided a scout's perspective on the Big Fella's troubles.

Group II: The Fluke Rule Guys

Continuing with the low-hanging fruit portion of the team, this group consists of last season's "Fluke Rule" players. To review, the Fluke Rule says that any player past the age of 28 who experiences an increase of three points or more in PER is almost certainly playing way over his head, and is likely to return to earth a season later.

In over 90 percent of the cases, the player's PER declines the next season; on average they drop right back to their previous level. There was one Fluke Rule guy from last season that I don't agree with (Tim Duncan), so I've left him off. But you have to think these other guys are very safe bets to do worse:


Chucky Atkins, Nuggets (last season 17.45; projected 13.25)
While Atkins was in relative anonymity in Memphis, statistically he had a monster season. It was easily the best PER of his career, not to mention that his scoring rate blew away his previous best and he shot better than he had in half a decade. Since 33-year-old, 5-foot-11 point guards rarely trend upward anyway, this one seems like a pretty safe call. Atkins hasn't played a game yet this season because he's nursing a groin injury that will have him out for several more weeks.


Darrell Armstrong, Nets (last season 15.19; projected 10.40)
Armstrong was another guy who played out of his mind for a bad team, providing one of the few positive notes for the Pacers last season -- primarily because some of the 3-pointers he chucks up actually found the net for once. Armstrong relies heavily on that shot, but made a third of his long-distance tries for just the first time in four years in 2006-07. He's in great shape, but he's also 39 and can't shoot nearly as well as he seems to think, so don't expect an encore performance.


Mikki Moore, Kings (last season 14.81; projected 10.85)
Moore entered last season as a 50.6 percent career shooter. Last season, at age 31, he made 60.9 percent and led the league in shooting percentage on long 2-pointers at a ridiculous 58.4 percent -- nearly doubling what he shot from that range the previous two seasons. Obviously, this was a fluke with a capital PH, but the Kings were gullible enough to give him three years and $18 million as a reward. Other than the two players above, I'd be hard-pressed to come up with a more likely bet to decline this season.


Devin Brown, Cavs (last season 14.31; projected 13.03)
Brown was 28 for his Fluke Rule season, and had he been born a few hours later he wouldn't have qualified at all, so his indicators aren't quite as negative as they are for some of the other Fluke Rule players. Nonetheless, his performance with the Hornets last season was easily the best stretch of his career, and one has to be even more suspicious of it in light of the fact he shot unusually well on 3-pointers.


Ruben Patterson, Clippers (last season 18.60; projected 15.97)
Patterson is still an effective, contributing player, one who was vastly undervalued in the free-agent market and is going to help the Clippers in a big way. But it's highly unlikely he'll match the numbers he put up in Milwaukee last season, when he was arguably the team's MVP after starting at power forward for much of the season and shooting 54.8 percent with career highs in points, rebounds, minutes and shooting percentage. Especially since he's 32 and depends entirely on his quickness to get by as an undersized forward.


Jamaal Tinsley, Pacers (last season 15.24; projected 13.37)
As with Brown above, Tinsley was 28 during his Fluke Rule season, so the downward trend won't be quite as strong as for the others. On the other hand, guards who can't shoot tend to decline rapidly in their late 20s and early 30s, and Tinsley's injury proneness doesn't figure to improve the situation any. Even with the Pacers' hot start he's struggled, hitting only 31.9 percent from the floor thus far.

Group III: South American Division

I don't expect this to be a good season to be a basketball player from Argentina or Brazil. (Or Uruguay for that matter -- alas Esteban Batista, we hardly knew ye).


Anderson Varejao, Cavs (last season 14.45; projected 14.23)
Here's one reason the two sides are so far apart on money: If you look at players similar to Varejao, they rarely move beyond "energy guy" status as they get older, but the energy inevitably wanes. Obviously Varejao is particularly low-hanging fruit for this list since, if and when he returns, he is unlikely to be in game shape. But even if he'd been in Cleveland since September, our expectations might have needed tempering.


Manu Ginobili, Spurs (last season 24.18, projected 21.7)
Don't take this too far -- the guy is still an All-Star caliber performer who remains one of the league's most underrated players because the restrictions on his minutes hurt his per-game averages (believe it or not, he had the league's ninth-best PER last season).

But Manu was so good last season that it would be very difficult for him to repeat it -- he put up his best numbers since coming to the NBA in pretty much every category. As a 30-year-old slasher, we'd expect his numbers to go down anyway, and I think it's a relatively safe bet that he won't finish in the top 10 in PER this season despite his strong start so far.

Nene, Nuggets (last season 17.83; projected 17.39)
Statistically, the expectation was for a very slight drop from last season's numbers. Then I looked at the guy and did a double take. Apparently somebody spent his summer training with Shaq, and Nene's poor conditioning helped him lose his starting spot to Kenyon Martin. Through four games he has a 10.39 PER and quite possibly the league lead in blown chippies around the basket.


Walter Herrmann, Bobcats (last season 16.17; projected 15.13)
I'm as bewildered as you are that Sam Vincent seems so reluctant to play this guy, given how well he performed a season ago. That said, I wouldn't want to bet anything I valued on Herrmann repeating the performance. His solid PER from last season stemmed from doing only one thing well: making a high percentage of his shots. That's valuable, but it's also the most fluke-prone stat, meaning we shouldn't necessarily buy that this is Herrmann's true ability level based on half a season with a 60.6 true shooting percentage. It hasn't held up in his limited minutes this season: He's 2-for-13 from the floor thus far.

Group IV: Solid vets in distress

These guys all had really bad indicators on their player projections for this season, and each offered at least one other subjective reason not to like their odds of improvement this season.


Matt Harpring, Jazz (last season 14.75; projected 13.44)
The numbers say he's 31 and is likely to do worse anyway, but this one is mainly a subjective call. Harpring had more knee trouble in the offseason, and was already quite possibly the league's slowest wing player -- something that became obvious when he was asked to guard anyone with even a modicum of speed. The worry here is that any further diminution in speed will compromise his quickness to the point that he can't defend the position any longer.


Andre Miller, Sixers (last season 16.18; projected 13.97)
Miller has one of the league's biggest projected declines this season, mainly because most guards of his age and body type tend to hit the wall at the same point in their careers. Miller isn't in great shape, isn't a good outside shooter, and at 6-2 isn't particularly tall for his position. Those are three huge risk factors for a guard entering his 30s, and Miller is now 31. I'm thinking that Denver definitely sold his stock at its peak.


Antonio Daniels, Wizards (last season 15.02; projected 12.99)
Daniels is a similar case to Miller. He's 32, he depends almost entirely on penetration for his offense, and most of the players similar to him began struggling mightily at the same age. He's in better shape than Miller, but like many of his teammates, he's off to a wretched start. He has just four points in 47 minutes of inaction and, even more shockingly for one of the game's best foul magnets, he doesn't have a single free-throw attempt.


Antonio McDyess, Pistons (last season 18.22; projected 15.50)
McDyess' second half last season was ridiculous. His PER after the break was 24.4, or just above Kevin Garnett's. He averaged 20 points and 12 rebounds per 40 minutes and shot nearly 60 percent. You expect that to keep up? Me neither. Dice will be an effective center for Detroit, no doubt, but the veteran big guy isn't going to be matching Garnett shot for shot again.


Bostjan Nachbar, Nets (last season 14.59; projected 12.32)
This is a bit of a risky call since he shot the lights out in the preseason (he was New Jersey's leading scorer and pumped in nearly 20 a game), but the numbers say that Boki will have a tough time keeping up his performance level of a season ago. He'd never shot above 39.2 percent in a season until 2006-07, when he hit 45.7 percent, and he more than doubled his PER from a season earlier. He was only 26, so it's possible he just got better; perhaps more likely, however, is that he was playing over his head.


Jerry Stackhouse, Mavs (last season 16.88; projected 14.08)
He's 32 and depends heavily on his penetration skills. He's coming off what was his best season in the last four, and missed only 15 games after missing a combined 109 the previous three seasons. The optimist in me wants to believe he's just training harder and reaping the benefits. The cynic in me says Dallas was awfully fortunate to get one season like this out of Stackhouse, and it's not realistic to expect another.


Brent Barry, Spurs (last season 16.65; projected 14.43)
Barry led the league in true shooting percentage last season, but has three negative indicators heading into this season. The first is that he turns 36 on New Year's Eve. But as a shooting specialist, that's not necessarily deadly. The second is his declining defensive ability, which made the Spurs reluctant to use him last season, even though he was shooting the lights out; the addition of Ime Udoka should further crimp his playing time.

Factor No. 3, believe it or not, is the fact that he led the league in TS% last season. To do so almost requires a player to play beyond his normal capabilities, and looking back at previous players to do so, nearly all declined the following season -- in fact, so did Barry the three previous times he led the league in this category.

Group V: Stars who might not be as starry


Kirk Hinrich (last season 17.09; projected 16.44) and Ben Gordon (last season 18.31; projected 18.12), Bulls
Last season both players saw their PERs shoot up, increases that came about almost entirely due to a rise in shooting percentage. Is it possible they just got more accurate? Yes. But we know shooting percentage tends to be the most fluke-prone stat, so when a player's performance improvement is built mainly on that one category, it should set off our radar.

Gordon and Hinrich should remain effective this season, but despite their youth they may not match the numbers they posted last season. Certainly they haven't come close in the early going -- Hinrich is at 36.7 percent from the floor during Chicago's winless start, Gordon at 34.7 percent.


Caron Butler, Wizards (last season 18.41; projected 17.05)
I'm skeptical about Butler's chances for a return visit to the All-Star Game for two reasons. Objectively, a lot of similar players had trouble keeping up the same production level, as you can tell by the projected PER decline. Subjectively, it's awfully difficult to rain in long 2-pointers the way he did last season, when more than two-fifths of his shots came from that range and he drained 44.1 percent of them. Don't be shocked if his numbers are a bit less scorching this time around.


Zach Randolph, Knicks (last season 22.81; projected 20.83)
Probably the easiest star player in the league to predict a decline for. Not only was he arguably playing over his head in his breakout season for the Blazers, but he's moving into a system where another player, Eddy Curry, has a similar role and is likely to take a big chunk of his shots. Randolph will still be effective -- he's too good not to be -- but don't expect the eye-popping stats he produced in Portland last season.

Group VI: Reigning MVPs


Dirk Nowitizki, Mavs (last season 27.70; projected 24.76)
Let's not get carried away -- he still projects to have one of the league's top five PERs. It's just tough to play at such an exalted level for a full season, and doubly tough to do it two seasons in a row. And subjectively, in the wake of last season's first-round disappointment it wouldn't surprise me at all if he pulled a LeBron and decided to save some of his juice for the playoffs this time around.

John Hollinger writes for ESPN Insider. To e-mail him, click here.

[jthig32]

Jerry Stackhouse, Mavs (last season 16.88; projected 14.08)
He's 32 and depends heavily on his penetration skills.

Hollinger needs to watch a few more Mavs games. Stackhouse transitioned out of that last season.

[MavsX]

sweet