Ranking every Celtics player since 1977

[The Walker Wiggle]

What it says on the tin - David Berri over at the Wages of Wins ranks every Celtic since 1977 with respect to Wins Produced.

Topping the rankings is… Larry Bird.  Larry Legend produced 261.9 wins for the Celtics. Across these 32 seasons, this mark is easily the best.  Of course, one suspects that if we went back before 1977-78 we would see Bill Russell produced more than Bird.  But alas, we don’t have the data so we don’t really know (well, we have enough data to be pretty sure Russell would be number one in Boston history).

Sticking with the years where we have data, here is the rest of the top ten.

2.  Robert Parish
3.  Paul Pierce
4.  Kevin McHale
5.  Cedric Maxwell
6.  Danny Ainge
7.  Rajon Rondo
8.  Reggie Lewis
9.  Kevin Garnett
10. Dee Brown

Here's the full list, which is a lot of fun to browse. For example, Antoine Walker (13th!), Nate "Tiny" Archibald (15th), Ray Allen (16th), D.J. (21st), Al Jefferson  (22nd), Kendrick Perkins (23rd), Dino Rajda (24th), Chris Ford (27th), Bill Walton (34th), M.L. Carr (43rd), Mark Blount (46th!?!), John Havlicek, in his last season (73rd), Gerald Green (210th), Waltah (217th).

And last on the list? Right behind Greg Kite, our own Brian "Stat-heads hate me" Scalabrine (223rd).

[cdif911]

Scal worse than Greg Kite, nice job Scal

[Celtic]

This is interesting, but so statistically based that it isn't true at all.

[ToppersBsktball10]

If this is over someones whole career KG should be #2 and Ray should be in the top 8  Rondo shouldn't be in there yet and how is Russell not in the top ten?Scal shouldn't be last either

[The Walker Wiggle]

This is interesting, but so statistically based that it isn't true at all.

Eh, without going off the rails entirely into a Wins Produced debate; I'm a Wages of Wins fan, wouldn't agree with your "at all," and believe that while advanced metrics aren't the end all and be all, they are meaningful. And in this case, an interesting way to re-open the book on some Celtics of seasons past.

[Roy Hobbs]

Wages of Wins always gets ridiculous results.  In this case, it's Parish over McHale.  Ask any player or coach of that era who was the better player, and I bet it's near unanimous for McHale.

The idea that Rondo has already produced more -- or had a better Celtics career than -- Reggie Lewis is also silly.

[Casperian]

I already said it on the frontpage, but "Wins produced" doesn`t prove anything.

http://dberri.wordpress.com/2006/10/03/what-wins-produced-says-and-what-it-does-not-say/

[LB3533]

Russell isn't on this list because it isn't about the entire Celtic history.

The list covers from 1977 and beyond.

I am not a huge believer in "wins shares" by individual player.

[4THQTR]

A look at mark blount's ranking should make everyone realise that wages of wins are, well... not the most useful stat...

But maybe based on this list someone will come up with a briliant idea: "trade glen davis for mark blount"
he seems to be among the better big men in this league, while baby clearly stinks...

and if only doc had seen this list during the playoffs and realised that tony allen is such an incredible player...

[Roy Hobbs]

Kermit Washington played 32 games with the Celtics, and in those 32 games was more productive than Jerry Sichting, Gerald Henderson or Eric Williams were in their entire Celtics careers (3, 5 and 7 seasons, respectively).  Washington was the absolute most productive player on a per minute basis, surpassing Larry Bird and Kevin Garnett for that honor.  (Danny Fortson ranks 4th.)

Perhaps the most amusing slots are Walter McCarty and BBD, ranked 217th and 218th out of 223 players.  I find it hard to believe that Orien Greene was a more productive player in one season than Walter was in eight.

[snively]

I'm a big fan of Wages of Wins stats, though I'm not as confident as Dave Berri in their accuracy. 

I think the absence of reliable defensive statistics leaves out a lot of important contributions.  Also, the statistical "advantages" of players who are allowed to play within their limits and thus produce superior FG% and low turnovers overrates some of the great role players(Rodman, Fortson and Rondo for example).  However, I still think it's a great counter stat that underrrates the overrated and values the production of guys like Pryzbilla.

In answer to Roy Hobbs' doubts about McCarty or Baby's rankings, this is one area where I'm on Berri's side.  I believe that players can be net negatives for their team, and that playing a guy like McCarty for 8 years will simply increase his negative ranking.  He would have done less harm if he played less.  The same goes for Baby.  Look at Baby's season last year: for most of the year he hovered around 40 FG% at a position where the league average is around 50%, yet he took a high volume of shots.  His rebounding and shot-blocking were also well below average.  It's not that he produced nothing, it's that he produced so little relative to his peers and despite this played big minutes and took a lot of shots. 

Now we Celtics fans know that Baby played primarily because the threat of his shot spaced the floor, his girth allowed him to defend some centers and he was a smart guy who made few onerous mistakes while providing some exaggerated hustle.  He was not able to execute this skillset at a consistent NBA-level however, in fact falling far short, and thus was a net negative.  But Doc's only other alternatives in the same skillset were Mikki and Scal, who were arguably worse.