Top Ten Players in Diamond Rating (So Far) This Year

by James Bowman on Jun 26, 2010 9:47 PM EDT

This is a list of players that might be very productive if they were just given more minutes. If you're a WNBA general manager looking to fill spots, you might want to consider any of the following players as trade targets. For an explanation of Diamond Rating and how it is calculated, go to this post from the Pleasant Dreams Blog. (I'm using Adjusted Wins Score these days.)

25.09     Kelsey Griffin     con
24.90     Plenette Pierson    nyl
24.33     Lindsay Wisdom-Hylton     las
22.21     Epiphanny Prince     chi
19.10     Mistie Bass     chi
18.91     Alison Bales     atl
18.23     Ticha Penicheiro     las
15.59     Chasity Melvin     was
15.50     Natasha Lacy     tul
15.45     Taylor Lilley     phx

Now, let's examine the chances that a GM could get any of these players.

You'll never get Griffin, who is a #1 Draft pick and whose only problem is breaking the Sun starting lineup. Plenette Pierson might not want to move a third time in 2010.

Linsday Wisdom-Hylton might get more minutes given Los Angeles injury problems.

Epipphany Prince? #1 Draft pick, and you won't get her from the Sky.

Mistie Bass is only scoring 2.3 points per game, but is hitting 56 percent of her shots and pulling down 2.6 rebounds in 10.4 minutes per game.

Alison Bales is a solid WNBA Sixth Woman candidate. The Dream won't give her up.

Ticha Penicheiro is only averaging 17.5 minutes per game this year - but she'll be 36 years old in September.

Chasity Melvin is 34 years old this year. She hasn't started a game this year, and if you promise her a starting spot....

You might be able to steal Natasha Lacy from Coach Richardson. He's a rookie, you know.

Taylor Lilley is a rookie who is only playing 7.3 minutes per game. However, she's shooting 8-for-18 so far this year and is averaging 4.6 points per game.

(* * *)

In conclusion, it looks like a tough market. Maybe you could steal Natasha Lacy or Taylor Lilley if you made the right offer.

Tweet Comment 10 comments | 0 recs |

Do you like this story?

Comments

Diamond Rating is definitely an interesting metric

However, in future efforts, it would be interesting to weight things that more or less strongly predict general future success.

For example, a system player who has a good Diamond Rating might do better with more minutes in their current system playing a specific role, but might not do well if moved to a different team that doesn’t complement their skills as well (one good example of someone I recall having a very good Diamond Rating but didn’t (hasn’t?) pan out was Tasha Humphrey).

The problem, as always, with the WNBA is the sample will always be imperfect to the type of predictive work for potential that’s needed.

(Also, heads up – the link above didn’t work)

SwishAppeal.com, women's basketball...covered SBN-style... twitter: @QMcCall3

by Nate Parham on Jun 26, 2010 11:56 PM EDT reply actions

Quite right....

…in that with Diamond Rating you’re already looking at players playing less than 20 minutes a game and that are generally filling very specific roles but who might not be suitable as starters. Alison Bales had a high Diamond Rating in 2008 but no one suggests that she’s going to be another Erika de Souza…but she might be a great pickup for a team with problems in the post that doesn’t have a Lyttle or de Souza.

(Also: fixed the link. Gracias!)

by James Bowman on Jun 27, 2010 12:24 AM EDT reply actions

Good work

But it means little, if anything at all.

by just checkin on Jun 27, 2010 10:48 AM EDT reply actions

Actually, it does have meaning -

It often does identify who stands to perform better with increased minutes assuming they remain on the same team in a way that is sometimes better than just per min or per 40 stats. In that regard, it’s an excellent proxy for the quality of one’s bench.

What I think is just always harder to figure out is what particular indicators of potential there might be for potential types of players. We may never get that and right now, this is possibly the closest.

SwishAppeal.com, women's basketball...covered SBN-style... twitter: @QMcCall3

by Nate Parham on Jun 27, 2010 2:49 PM EDT up reply actions

Maybe it has meaning to some

But it means very little, if anything at all. Having seen all these players play at least three times this season (exclude Taylor Lilley and I’ve seen everyone else seven or more times), the only players that I would feel most comfortable increasing minutes for are Ticha Penicheiro and Plenette Pierson, for two reasons:

(1) Their minutes will increase anyway because they missed time due to injury earlier this season/coach’s incompetence; and

(2) They are the only players on the list who have WNBA track records of success with increased minutes.

The rest are rookies who have limited responsibilities or scrubs who most couldn’t care less about. They’re playing well 1/3 of the way through the season in the minutes they’re given, but that’s all it means—they’ve performed well in what has been given to them minutes-wise. It doesn’t mean they’re likely to be effective going against different sets of defenders or playing in rotations with teammates who are more likely to control what goes on in rotations (i.e. the starters). Even you said something to that effect—that perhaps this is a metric for measuring bench strength. Maybe. But that’s all it is and can do at this point.

Oh, and Alison Bales is in no way, shape, or form, a viable candidate for 6th man on her own team—much less the league. This is coming from a fan of the Dream.

by just checkin on Jun 27, 2010 5:10 PM EDT up reply actions

"It doesn’t mean they’re likely to be effective..."

What are you basing this on? Contrary to your assertion, that’s exactly what Diamond Rating does… in 2008, it had Sancho Lyttle, Camille Little and Langhorne… last year, it got Shay Murphy.

Are there factors that interrupt that? Yes… but it doesn’t mean that the metric has little meaning.

To the point about what we have seen vs. what statistics say: if someone had said in 2008 that Little, Lyttle, and Langhorne would be at All-Star level in 2010, most people would have said they don’t see that. That’s why stats are useful: sometimes they catch things we miss. As such, to claim that the stats are meaningless because they contradict what we see is assuming that somehow our personal perceptions/opinions are objectively less flawed. They are simply different types of flawed observations that can be used together to great effect.

As for Bales not being a 6th woman candidate, again I’d ask: what are you basing that on? By most reasonable measures of productivity, she’s been in the mix all season and though she has fallen off a bit recently, she remains a “solid candidate”…not the best pick…but it’s not quite as absurd as you suggest.

SwishAppeal.com, women's basketball...covered SBN-style... twitter: @QMcCall3

by Nate Parham on Jun 27, 2010 7:02 PM EDT up reply actions

Well...

Houston Comets fans that I’ve spoken to have been on the Sancho Lyttle bandwagon since 2006. It seems their observations were being supported by the metric—all Sancho needed was an increase in minutes. They flooded message boards everywhere with that belief. So it’s not as though folks failed pick up on something that the Diamond Rating just so happened to detect. Houston knew what Sahcho could do.

Langhorne is a different story. Here you have a player who clearly struggled going against taller posts and wasn’t regarded one of the top rookies in her class despite her draft status. By her own admission, she had to change her game and did so in Lithuania during the 2008-09 Euroleague season. So let’s say that Langhorne remained the same player in 2009 and 2010 that she was in 2008 (not a threat from anywhere outside the paint, slow on defensive rotations, late in establishing rebounding position). Any chance she wins MIP? Does she even crack Plank’s starting line-up in 2009? I don’t think so. But based on the Diamond Rating, we’re to believe that the only thing holding Langhorne back from achieving All-Star status was the lack of minutes? Really? How many lopsided games did the Mystics participate in in 2008?

If this metric has as much merit as you suggest, then why are these players looking for jobs (even in Europe) as we speak?

Kristi Cirone, Sun, 28.59
Khadijah Whittington, Fever, 21.88
Katie Mattera, Silver Stars, 20.12
Janelle Burse, Storm, 19.21
Courtney Paris, Monarchs, 17.86

That’s why it’s hard for me to put much stock into this number. These players obviously have detectable flaws that are keeping them from receiving starter’s minutes (or, in the case of the 2009 players, from making rosters). For most of these players, it’s not suggesting to me that they need to play more. It’s saying to me that they’re doing a good-to-great job in the minutes provided and under the conditions in which those minutes are provided.

As for Bales and 6th man, I’d be surprised if the stats showed she was playing significantly better this season than the last time she played with the Dream because right now, slump or not, the observations are not holding up that theory one bit. She’s valuable in a limited role, though. But I tend to think of 6th man as a scoring spark and/or energy provider, and I don’t think Bales fits either category. I certainly wouldn’t put her up there with the likes of Bonner, Abrosimova, Pierson, or Toliver.

by just checkin on Jun 27, 2010 8:59 PM EDT up reply actions

"But based on the Diamond Rating, we’re to believe that the only thing holding Langhorne back from achieving All-Star status was the lack of minutes?"

I see your point… but I think you’re misunderstanding here…

The answer above is, “No.”

Diamond Rating (like any statistic) is not deterministic… meaning those other players might not pan out in the end. What it does do is demonstrate a “potential diamond in the rough”… there are many mitigating factors that prevent that… which was my original question.

To your insistence on the power of observation, I think you demonstrated the reason why stats are valuable: not all of us can be in Houston to watch players every single night. For those of us that couldn’t make it, the stats said quite a bit (Diamond Rating was one of many that would have predicted success for Lyttle). Until we find a way to fly to every single game and see every single player in person and understand every single team’s strategy, statistics are the best way to understand the landscape in any sort of consistent way. As I said above, the strongest judgments are those that use as many data sources as possible — cross-checking stats, with observation, with personal/insider accounts will always give you a stronger opinion than relying on any one of those things alone.

Many numbers have merit in context. Dismissing them out of context is just as short sighted as 100% acceptance out of context. Taking the time to understand just takes a lot more effort than either. And since it’s a just a game, I won’t fault people for the lack of effort, but that doesn’t mean I won’t point out the fallacy. ;)

SwishAppeal.com, women's basketball...covered SBN-style... twitter: @QMcCall3

by Nate Parham on Jun 27, 2010 10:46 PM EDT up reply actions

I just want to know....

…who you think the Dream’s 6th man is. Kelly Miller and Armintie Price are okay, but between Miller, Price and Bales, I’d definitely give it to Bales.

by James Bowman on Jun 27, 2010 8:48 PM EDT up reply actions