Owner Ratings: Final 2019

Remember when we dug into owner ratings at the end of December? Well the formula was Games Played + Moves + Wins. Now we're back to take a look at how the final 2019 owner ratings worked out.

[Google Sheet]

Our top five owners at the turn were Eddie, Thien, Trieu, Brian, Evan. Now that has changed to Eddie, Trieu, Brian, Evan, Jon. Okay so that didn't change all that much, but that's likely explained mostly by how the end-of-season wins column got added in.

Similarly, our bottom five owners remained mostly static, with the exception of Jimmy sliding down as Randall moved up a slot.

Games Played
Securing the top prize for Games Played is Roger, who despite pulling some players in WK20 to secure a seed, edged out Eddie by +1 game (530 to 529) for GP. Congratulations! Of course, Buffy also holds the distinction of being the only non-playoff team of the top five GP owners...

Looking at disparities between GP and wins, we can see who used the least number of games to acquire the most number of wins. Evan's Chunky Monkeys were a sterling +8 here as they had the tenth most GP but tied for second most regular season wins. Jimmy and Randall were right behind Evan at +5 and +4 in this category, respectively.

Roger "led" the way in the other direction, playing the first most GP but grinding out only the eleventh most wins for a -11 calculation here. There was a three way tie after Roger with -4 GP/W ratio, with were achieved by Thien, Frank, and Oliver.

In total we had fifty-two early maxed out weeks this season, thereafter referred to as "mismanagement." Our bottom five Games Played owners -- Josh, Jimmy, Brandon, Dave, Felipe -- accounted for a whopping forty of them, or 76.9%. Felipe led the way with fourteen mismanagement weeks while new owner Dave racked up eleven.

Coaches that didn't have a single mismanagement week: Roger, Frank, Brian, and Eddie. Attendance medals for these four! 🏅

Taking the top/bottom outliers out, the average Games Played per week was 24.9 per week.

Moves
As usual, Thien led the league in Moves, with a whopping 102 -- that's 5.1 a week! -- while Trieu and Brian were a distant second and third with 39 and 34 moves respectively. We saw no moves from both Brandon and Dave. What gives?!

Both Thien and Frank had much higher moves than wins, with Thien ranking a -9 for moves/wins ratio, while Frank was -5 for the same calculation. On the other end of the spectrum, Spade was a whopping +8 as they made only the thirteenth most moves but emerged with a tied for fifth best wins in the regular season. Similarly, Jon was a +5 in the moves/win ratio.

Taking the top/bottom outliers out, the average moves per franchise was 15.5, or about 0.78 moves per week.

Trades
Moving players aren't an indication of a good or bad owner, but trades are fun and the life/rumor blood of any league! We had a sterling twelve trades this season -- including our first actual three-way -- but it was basically a Jon and Trieu show as Jon was involved in eight of those trades and Trieu five. Eddie, Frank, Jimmy, and Thien snuck in two trades apiece though! Where were you Evan, aka our third most often trading owner?!

Owner Ratings

It’s been a year of coming up with ratings for everything, so why not come up with a management rating? It’s going to be: Games Played + Moves + Wins. I think there’s probably something to be said for Moves not necessarily being correlated to Games Played and Wins, but let’s just let it ride. This is all for run anyway right? Let’s take a look at each owner category.

[Google Sheet]

Games Played
Unquestionably the biggest correlation to GP is good coaching, right? After some early season mess ups with games limits, most every owner should now manage their team to maximum value. Take a look at our current Games Played through ten weeks.

Our top five coaches are Roger, Eddie, Trieu, Brian, and Thien, who lead the pack in GP management. However, there is a giant outlier here, as Buffy only has four wins despite being the best coached team. Every other top team in the top nine GP ratings are playing at a 0.500 or above clip. On the flip side, Spade is only thirteenth in GP but has five wins... Still there's little debate that a high GP is essential to winning, right?

Our average Games Played is 24.7 GP through ten weeks, with a high average of 26.1 for Buffy and a low of 21.0 for Cameltoe. Most everyone is within ten GP of the average except Randall, Jimmy, new owner David, and Felipe. Perhaps a review of the Weekly Games Cap Explainer? The bottom three coaches are all on the hot seat, as they’ve racked up a combined sixteen weeks of early GP violations. That’s 53% of the time. Jimmy has largely worked out his GP issues as he’s found his rhythm the past month, but David and Felipe are still hitting the game limit early most weeks.

Moves
I’ve been trying to figure out what ESPN means by “moves,” and it seems like it’s mostly an add/drop action, and possibly a trade. We haven’t had a trade yet all regular season so I can’t quite tell. Either way, I only started compiling stats since October 31st, so missed the first two weeks of the regular season. Since then, these are the top five general managers: Thien (41 moves), Eddie (11), Trieu (11), Brian (8), and Josh (8).

Making a lot of moves generally means lineup activity and wins, which proves to be true, as our top five general managers are a combined 30-17-3, for a 60% winning clip. The two outliers as far as few Moves to Wins correlation are Chunky Monkeys and Fat Jubas, who are currently a combined 18-2 overall, meaning they probably haven’t had to shift players around much as they are the current two best teams in SlamNation.

Every other GM has made at least three pickups since Oct 31st, except for Roger, Randall, Brandon, and David, who each have made none! While their zero Moves is not entirely accurate — each of them has made at least one pickup previous to Oct 31st — it is reflective of a lack of GM activity since the starting weeks of the season. These bottom four teams are a combined 15-24-1, which equates to a 0.375 winning percentage.

Is Moves a better indicator of winning? Looking this over, there could be a case made for the idea that good general managing is more important than coaching! Or wait, is a coach and general working hand-in-hand the best? Looks like both! But seriously guys, Thien has more moves, forty-one, than the bottom twelve teams combined. The rest of us need to work that free agent bin! In related news: who is Rodions Kurucs?!

Wins
Well, we know which teams are winning, but to break it down, our top eight teams have 53 wins combined, while our bottom eight have 25 wins. That means our so-far playoff teams at the midpoint of the regular season have 6.6 wins apiece, while our presumed Toilet Bowl participants are at 3.1 wins each.

Best Owner
So if we combine all three ratings — by ranking each of Games Played, Moves, Wins and then adding up the total — we get the following list of best owners so far this season: Eddie, Thien, Trieu, Brian, and Evan. Our number franchise, Swamp Dragons, features the second-best GP, second-best Moves, and a fourth-best Wins rating. Looks like Eddie is really out to make the playoffs this season!

The bottom five owners: Randall, Brandon, Felipe, Oliver, and David. C’mon guys, fantasy football is over. 2019 is around the corner. Let’s pick it up! Or wait, are people tanking for Zion?!? Remember that our new playoff/draft format is designed to discourage tanking!

Introducing: O/D/E Ratings

The NBA has advanced analytics? We have Google Sheets! With the help of some handy dandy new formulas I’ve learned -- hello my friend RANK -- we’re here to introduce some new ratings! [Ratings Sheet]

• Offense (O): PTS, AST, 3PT
• Defense (D): REB, STL, BLK
• Efficiency (E): FG%, FT%, TO

While they aren’t a real measure of offensive, defense, and efficiency — it could be argued that our nine categories aren’t so rigid — I think three cats per rating seems very nice. So there we are! And now I'll be taking a look at three teams off to a nice start.

Snack Bears (2-1)
According to our new rating system, Snack Bears are third in offense, twelfth in defense, and fifth in efficiency. They’ve risen to such heights on the strength of Blake Griffin, Bradley Beal, Tim Hardaway Jr., and De’Aaron Fox. All four hover around twenty points per game, with Griffin showing out with 28.6 PTS so far. Sophomore point guard Fox has been a revelation, as he’s averaging 18.6 PTS, 7.6 AST, with 1.3 STL on 49.6 FG%. While he is still working on his threes and free throws, Fox has already overcome his disappointing rookie season to emerge as Sacramento’s unquestioned leader.

And then there’s Wendell Carter Jr., who is up at 11.9 PTS, 8.3 REB, and 2.0 BLK the past two weeks. It looks like the 2019 fifth overall pick is making great use of all the Chicago injuries. Fellow rookie Shai Gilgeous-Alexander has show flashes too, and is already playing twenty-five minutes a night. More bigs would help on the boards and protecting the rim but that’s an area that may have to wait for Kristaps Porzingis’ return. The only disappointment here? Jaylen Brown’s shaky start of the season. Other than that, the surprising Bears could challenge for a playoff spot again. Who would have thought out of the three dispersal teams, Snack would be the best?!

Fat Jubas (2-1)
In the game-of-the-week for WK3, Fat Jubas used a nice Sunday to fend off Swamp Dragons as the teams were headed into the final day with a 4-4-1 face off. All that adds up to a nice start for Jubas in their new conference.

Eric's team uses its sixth rated defense to offset their slightly below average offense and efficiency. Chris Paul and Jrue Holiday are backcourt thieves while Robert Covington, Joe Ingles, and Kent Bazemore are perfect 3-and-D swingmen. With Myles Turner and a resurgent Serge Ibaka as excellent run-fast big men, you can see why Jubas have such as strong defensive rating.

Of course that means the twelfth rated offense could use a little boost as CP3, Holiday, and Ibaka (putting up a likely unsustainable 18.1 PTS) are the leaders here. Strangely this team is also low on three pointers despite seemingly enough shooters. Perhaps that is due to Jubas’ first two weeks dialing up less than optimal GP, so that means this team could be even better than the numbers say!

Squirtle Squad (3-0)
Chamberlain’s lone undefeated team after taking out a game capped Sour Snails, Squirtles own the top spot for now and have an outstanding second rated offense paired with a top three rating in efficiency. Coming off three losing seasons, this is a nice start for them.

A free flowing offense allows Squirtles to use a team wide effort to distribute the ball -- six players averaging 4+ AST or more. Plus the spread offense surrounds Giannis Antetokounmpo with plenty of outside shooting. Pair that offensive efficiency with a good-enough league average defensive rating and no wonder Brian's team is chugging along so well!

The return of Zach LaVine has helped tremendously too, as he’s throwing in 26.6 PTS on 46.8 FG%. A weak upcoming schedule could take Squirtles to six straight wins, right into an intriguing WK7 matchup with new conference rival So Buckets. Giannis for MVP!