An awful beginning: Bucks Total Win Contribution boxscore from last night's opener

Click Here to view the Total Win Contribution boxscore from last night's Bucks game. I only finished the numbers for the Milwaukee Bucks. I meant to also do computations for the Chicago Bulls, but I just finished the Bucks computations... and its 2:09 am. Maybe I'll get at it tomorrow.

For those unfamiliar with these boxscores, Total Win Contribution is a numerical expression of the positive or negative IMPACT each player's offensive and defensive efforts had on the Bucks chances of winning compared with the impact one would expect the average NBA player at that position to have (with the average player's expected impact expressed as +0.000). Total Win Score, on the other hand, is a numerical expression of the EFFECTIVENESS of the player's performance compared with the effectiveness one would expect the average NBA player at the same position to have (with the average player's effectiveness expressed as the Win Score of +0.0).

Thus, while Charlie Bell had the largest negative impact on the Bucks, because he produced the lowest Total Win Contribution (-0.995), Charlie Villanueva actually had the worst performance on the team, with a Total Win Score of -13.3. Coach Skiles minimized Villanueva's impact by getting him the hell out of the game.

Here are some notes from the putrid Bucks Opener:

1. The Bucks cumulative Total Win Contribution for last night's game was somewhere under -3.000. By my calculations, not only would the Bucks not have won a single game last season with such a poor performance, they would have had the Bizzaro World negative record of (-11)-93, meaning they would have lost 11 more games than they played. I have no idea what that means, but it ain't good.

2. The only player on the Bucks who had a good game was Michael Redd. Dan Gadzuric had an average game. The rest of the team ranged from well below average to simply awful.

3. Chuck Diesel texted me around the third quarter "Derrick Rose is going to be awesome". I think the Bucks point guard tandem of Luke Ridnour and Tyronn Lue would second that. Rose ate them alive last night. Ate them alive!

4. If last night's rotation is going to be the pattern for the season, Coach Skiles is doing what I hoped he wouldn't do. He is using Luc Moute in the same role he used Andres Nocioni in Chicago. As an undersized power forward. As I explained a couple of posts ago, Moute, by basketball height (meaning "standing reach") is way undersized as a power forward. He is at an extreme disadvantage there. Last night he was guarding Tyrus Thomas, a player who has about an eight inch standing reach advantage over Moute. That's not the best deployment of assets.

5. Bucks Diary is the only place to go for accurate player deployment information. None of the sports websites, besides 82games.com, even try to get it right. For instance, all of them had Moute listed at SF. He did not play a minute at SF. I'm sure they don't think fans care. But they have an obligation to get it right. How stupid would it be if baseball boxscores started calling Derek Jeter the Yankees 1st basemen? That would be absurd. But that's the kind of erroneous information that compilers of basketball boxscores, including the ones at NBA.com, are passing on to basketball fans. We're not idiots.

6. I had some other comments regarding last night's game. They are listed in the previous posts.

7. Here's to a much better second act for "Scotty, Year One". I gotta get some sleep.