Here’s a follow-up to my post on Monday about the value of Mo Williams. Consider this “Part II” in which we look at the impact Mo has had on the team since he got to Cleveland for the ‘08-‘09 season.
Today, in his podcast (which is excellent by the way), Windhorst said that any talk of the Cavs being better without Mo Williams is “nonsense.”
Theoretically, at least, this makes sense. No one who’s really thinking right would ever try and use these last seven games without Mo as total and complete evidence of the case against Mo, which is what Windhorst was implying. Additionally, it’s very easy to argue in support of Mo by simply looking at wins: in ‘07-‘08, without Mo, the Cavs won 45 games. In ‘08-‘09, with Mo, the Cavs won 66 games.
What I think people sometimes tend to forget, however, is that Mo wasn’t simply added to the same team we saw in ‘07-‘08. There were other new pieces as well, including most notably Delonte West and Ben Wallace. We also have to consider that Bron had a monster season by sight and by stats, and Andy Varejao was fully healthy again.
In other words, let’s not pretend like Mo Williams was responsible for the Cavs winning 21 more games by himself.
According to 82games.com, this season, so far, the Cavs are +4.9 points with Williams on the floor and +9.6 points with him off the floor.
Translation: the Cavs have played 4.7 points worse with Mo in the game in ‘09-‘10.
Last season, the Cavs were +9.9 with him on the court and +6.3 with him off. So, the team actually played 3.6 points better with Mo than without him.
As I’ve written in the past, raw +/- stats can be tricky to analyze because a lot of variables factor in. Adjusted +/- numbers are less tricky, but still have some amount of imprecision to them, but let’s look at those as well:
RAPM ‘08-‘09: .449
APM ‘09-‘10: -11.95
2 Year APM: -3.70
We see then that overall, Mo seems to have had a negative impact on the number of points the Cavs score / give up since he’s been on the Cavs roster so far, based on adjustments for teammates and opponents.
If we look at more advanced stats, likes Wins Produced Per 48, we see a similar average to below average story:
WP48 in ‘08-‘09: .119 (average is .100)
WP48 in ‘09-‘10: .091
And nobody really wants to talk about last year’s playoffs do they? I know I don’t, so I’ll just link you to his playoff stats.
There are certainly times when Mo can win games because of his shooting efficiency, but there are also definitely times when he can lose games because of his shooting efficiency. In fact, if we’re going to talk at all about the improvements the Cavs made in their roster this year to deal with the issues they faced against Orlando in the Eastern Conference Finals, I think it’s critical to remember that if Mo had shot the ball even slightly better that series, the Cavs would have one.
My point is very similar to the one that Windhorst makes in his podcast, although we’re getting to it in separate ways. The other issue that the Cavs have to address is scoring. What we’ve seen from Shaq recently, makes you think he could be the guy … but there’s little question in my mind that a second reliable shooter / scorer would make everyone feel more comfortable in the playoffs.
To finish up, just remember that we’re not talking about Mo Williams versus Eric Snow, or Mo Williams versus Boobie Gibson. I’m not trying to argue that Mo doesn’t do more for this Cavaliers team than those two players, but whether or not he’s a true All-Star quality point guard - or better than Delonte West - is definitely up for debate.
Hopefully, this can start a conversation about how Mo fits with the Cavs, what he brings to the table, and what the team might look like without him, remembering, obviously, that Delonte is still here (the good Delonte, hopefully).
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