Capstone Project — Analyzing Ben Simmons Value to the Toronto Raptors
Data Analytics Capstone Project by Google
Using 2020/2021 Box Scores to Analyze Toronto-Philadelphia Trade Value
By: Richard Moss
Date: July 28, 2021
UPDATE: Added additional scenario surrounding keeping VanVleet (see Table 14).
UPDATE 2: Added blockbuster three-team deal for the fun of it — why not! See Table 18.
Introduction: Business Problem, or as Philly would say, Simmons Problem
One of the top discussion points in the NBA since the conclusion of the 2020/2021 playoff season has been Ben Simmon’s future in Philadelphia. Simmons was the 1st overall pick in the 2016 draft by the Philadelphia 76ers. The 6’ 11” point guard is a 3x All-Star, 1 time All-NBA and All-Rookie Player, 2 time All Defensive Player and 2017–2018 Rookie of the year (Basketball Reference, 2021). Despite these accolades, his abysmal performance in this year’s playoffs and inability to shoot the ball under pressure has prompted Philadelphia to entertain trade offers, and raised concerns and questions about his current value in the NBA (Pompey, 2021). According to sources, one team interested in Simmons is the Toronto Raptors, however, the 76ers General Manager (GM) Daryl Morey reported ask of a package surrounding Fred VanVleet, OG Anunoby, Kyle Lowry and the 4th Overall pick in the 2021 NBA Draft is a monumental price for the organization which finished a disappointing 27–45 only 2 years after winning their first ever championship (Moore, 2021).
In this article, I will look to explore the value of a Philadelphia-Toronto trade to both teams, in order to investigate the impact this trade could have on the statistics of both teams and how it may influence their performance over the next three years. Obviously both Daryl Morey and Masai Ujiri will be looking at this deal over a greater timeframe, but for now, lets keep things simple. The simple question I will be trying to answer based on this article is “who wins?” but there are a few steps I will take in order to answer this question.
Process: Can Toronto Trust it?
The table below show the process I will follow in this investigation.
In the first section of this analysis I will look to answer the question does Ben Simmons have value to the Toronto Raptors, and to what degree? With this investigation we will only look at last years statistics, so while there is some recency bias, and a small sample size, this is the limit of the data I have available at this time, sorry.
Next, I will look at the reported package Philly requested from Toronto and answer the question: is it fair? Obviously, we have no way of knowing if this is accurate or if other pieces were involved, but for arguments sake lets assume the package of VanVleet, Lowry, Anunoby and the 4th pick were traded only for Simmons. I will try to answer this question over a three-year period considering changes in salary cap space, statistical value of players and predicting the value of the 4th pick under a couple assumptions listed below.
Finally, lets have some fun. Toronto is moving a lot of assets off their balance sheet. While they would pick up Simmons salary, they would still have some room to play, as outlined below. This table shows the money owed to each player over the next three years, and the cap space gained by the Raptors, the relevance of which will become clear shortly. I am not, nor have I ever been an accountant, but hey, lets give it a shot. Of note, I did not include the salary of the 4th pick, as they are not paying it now, and would not be paying it after the deal therefore it would not impact cap space. The cap space hit is calculated by considering what the Raptors are currently paying OG, and how much this will increase over the next three years (Spotrac, 2021) (Hoops Hype, 2021).
Now that we have this data, we can work to better understand this trade by answering the three questions below.
One last piece of analysis I will do is look at what happens if the Raptor’s decide to blow it all up, and go incredible young in a three team deal which sees them dishing their stars, and betting on the future. Stay tuned for that.
Finally, before I get started, I want to give a massive thank you to Joseph Mamone (u/joey2506 on Reddit), and the creator of Hashtag Basketball. Joey created the phenomenal box score data set I will be using for cleaning and analysis, and this project would not be possible without him. If you would like to access this data set, you can click here, you can find him on twitter @joephmamone, or you can check out his incredible website https://hashtagbasketball.com/.
Let’s get started.
Analysis
What Value does Ben Simmons bring to the Raptors
The first question we need to answer when evaluating Ben Simmons is what his value with is and without Joel Embiid on the court. This allows us to understand how Simmons adjusts to being a number 1 and number 2 option, and how he operates when he is allowed to work in the paint versus crowding it with Embiid. To do this, I first filtered the excel sheet to contain only Ben Simmons and Joel Embiid and copied these rows to a separate sheet. Then, I created a function in a new column which for each row of data where the player is Ben Simmons, it checks if the row below contains Joel Embiid and that the tipoff datetime value is the same in both rows. If this statement evaluates to TRUE, then the value in this column will be “Both”, and “Solo” if FALSE to indicate if Simmons played with or without Embiid, and if the player is Embiid the value is set to Embiid. This formula is written in excel as such “=IF(A2 = “Joel Embiid”, “Embiid”, IF(AND(A2=”Ben Simmons”,A3=”Joel Embiid”,C2=C3),”Both”,”Solo”))”. Using a countif statement, we can then determine that Simons played 42 games with Embiid, and 16 games by himself. Now, in a new sheet we can create a summary table to display Ben Simmons’ statistics with and without Joel Embiid and determine if there are truly any major differences. Each statistic analyzed is defined in the table below.
With those pesky definitions out of the way we can now analyze Simmons’ per game average across each category with and without Embiid and compare how he performs as the centerpiece of the championship-contending 76ers.
Let’s dive into these numbers a bit. On the one hand, Simmons attempts more shots and free throws without Embiid on the floor, which you would expect as the number one option on a roster, but to his credit he is converting on additional 0.55 field goals per game despite his percentage going down. The slight decrease in FG% is not overly concerning; its going to be tougher to take shots when you are the best player on the floor and the opposing teams defense is focused on you. Unfortunately, only gaining 1.67 additional points per game is not necessarily what you would hope to see when a player is put in a position to be the number one option for his team. However, there are a number of factors which could influence this, such as the team struggling to compensate for having an MVP caliber player such as Embiid out. A strong point for Ben is his ORB, DRB and BLK increasing. This is absolutely necessary if your star center is sitting, and to Simmons credit he is doing an excellent job filling Embiid’s rebounding role from a defensive perspective. Again, despite his turnovers increasing substantially, I’m going to chalk this up to the ball being in his hand more often and being defended more aggressively. My biggest concern from this data when evaluating Simmons is the assists and plus/minus numbers. As a star point guard, you would expect that Simmons should be able to distribute the ball and facilitate success in his team if he is the focal point for the opposing defense, and while you would expect some decrease in plus/minus with Embiid out, an 11 point swing is quite large. Philadelphia has solid shooters such as Danny Green, Tobias Harris and Seth Curry, so you would anticipate that if Simmons is acting as a heavily defended point guard in the paint he should be able to draw opposing players, pass the ball out, and allow his teammates to score, but the data would indicate that for whatever reason, this isn’t happening.
So, is Simmons a better player when Embiid is off the floor? Unclear. While he is clearly an elite defender, the argument that Embiid and Simmons hold the same role and as such would perform better without each other doesn’t seem to hold much weight. Maybe with a new team of different players he could succeed, so before knocking this trade lets analyze what he can bring to the Toronto Raptors. Since there is some difference between our two Simmons data sets, when analyzing Simmons for the rest of this article we will look at his per game averages without Embiid.
The Tampa Bay Raptors: A Season to Forget
The Raptor’s had the deck stacked against them this year. Playing in a different country, never mind city, without home games under strict health and safety protocols after losing your two veteran centers in free agency (Serge Ibaka and Marc Gasol) is a lot of adversity, and while the Raptors had good moments, they just couldn’t find a groove. So, rather than dwell on the past, lets go back to the numbers. In this section we will use the season per game averages of each team provided by the NBA to understand how the Raptors compare to the league average (RealGM, 2021). Obviously, we would all like the Raptors to be the best, but let’s start by understanding where they fell short from the league average, and work from there. Just for fun, we will also compare the Raptors directly to the 76ers who were the best team in the regular season of the Eastern Conference over the star-studded Brooklyn Nets and eventual championship winning Milwaukee Bucks.
So unfortunately, but not unexpected, that’s a lot of red. It would seem that the only areas in which the Raptors really excelled this year were fouling the opposing team (yikes) and shooting a lot of threes without actually scoring a higher percentage. So, lets focus on fixing this team for next year. One thing is abundantly clear: rebounding was a problem. The Raptors were well below the league average in rebounds, which means the opposing team has more second-chance opportunities to score on a miss, and the Raptors had less opportunities to attempt multiple field goals on a given possession. So, in a vacuum, this is great news for a Ben Simmons-centric deal for Toronto. Simmons’ average 8 rebounds per game without Embiid on the floor is monstrous and shows that when he is allowed to operate in the paint his height and skillset would be a massive benefit to the struggling Raptors. Unfortunately for the Raptors, this isn’t a charity league, and to get a star player like Simmons a lot of assets are required. So now that we know what both parties bring to the table, lets dive into the trade proposed by 76ers GM Daryl Morey in more detail.
That’s Not a Trade, that’s a Robbery
Look Raptors fans, I know this was all of your first thought when the news broke that Masai Ujiri had reportedly rejected the 76ers offer for Simmons, but before we lose our minds, lets take a look at the numbers. As a reminder, the assets in the trade are outlined in the table below.
First thought sheesh, why not take my kidney too while you’re at it, but maybe I’m overreacting, so let’s do a statistical comparison of this trade. To start, we need to predict the statistical value of the number 4 pick, which I will assume is going to be Jalen Suggs. To do this I took the per game averages of Dejounte Murray (Basketball Reference, 2021), Lonzo Ball (Basketball Reference, 2021) and John Wall (Basketball Reference, 2021) (Suggs’s scouting report player comparisons) over their first three seasons and averaged them. If a player did not play in one of their first three years their statistics were excluded from the dataset.
Now that we know with 100% certainty how Jalen Suggs will perform in his first three years in the NBA, lets see how the proposed trade stacks up from a statistical perspective over the next three years for each team.
So, the Raptors will turn the ball over less? I call that a win! In all seriousness this is expected as it’s a 4:1 trade, and despite Ben Simmons’ great value, he can’t produce the value of 80% of a basketball team by himself. What we can do now that we are armed with this data though is put on our GM cap for a minute. In the next section we will use the two methods I covered earlier in this report to see if a fair trade or signing can be created by matching salaries or using cap space, or if Simmons and Toronto’s love affair was just never meant to be.
Come on Morey, You Can do Better than That!
Looking back at Table 3, we know this trade leaves the Raptors with $20 million in extra cap space, so let’s see if Philly can sweeten the deal and if this makes the trade more equitable. First, here’s a breakdown of Philly’s payroll over the next four years, courtesy of Hoops Hype (Hoops Hype, 2021).
So right out the gate, lets assume Harris and Embiid are off limits in order to simplify this process. There are a multitude of possible deals, but from Toronto’s perspective parting ways with a large part of their core requires a few things in return: three-point shooters, young talent with the potential to improve, and scoring in general. With this in mind, and $20 million in cap space, the best assets available are Seth Curry at $8 million/year, Tyrese Maxey at $3–6million/year, and Matisse Thybulle at $3–6 million/year for a total of $14-$20 million/year. While this is a lot of young talent to part with as Daryl Morey, don’t forget that the 76ers are asking for a potential future hall-of-famer in Lowrey, one of Toronto’s best shooters especially during clutch-time in VanVleet and an incredible defender in Anunoby; in a year where the 76ers very clearly want to win now. So expensive yes, fair, lets find out! When evaluating these young players lets apply 20% improvement/year on Thybulle and Maxey as perhaps the Raptors are optimistic these very young players will greatly improve, especially in an increase role in Toronto. For Curry, I’m going to assume the same 5% improvement we applied to Siakam, Anunoby and Simmons.
So, still a loss in the short term in theory, however its clearly trending in the right direction as opposed to the original offer and doesn’t consider the potential improvement of other players on the Raptors roster. So maybe the Raptors see this trade in addition with the improvement of young assets such as Gary Trent Jr., Pascal Siakam and Malachai Flynn as a 5-year project instead of a 3-year project and are willing to accept the deal with say, the addition of a future second round pick or two. This plan seems solid, especially given the likelihood that the 76ers, Nets and Bucks are all projected to continue to be massive threats over then next three years, in which case competing for a title may not be feasible. It’s a good plan, one which Masai Ujiri would have to at least consider and not outright reject. The biggest issue with this deal is the Raptor’s ability to score field goals may improve by a few percentage points, but 5 less converted threes per game is a lot, which is why we see a ~17.5 point reduction in points, and that’s a tough pill to swallow for any Raptor’s fan in the short term. This team could be good one day, but is going to struggle immensely in the short term, and as many sports fans know, betting on young talent is not always a sure thing.
The second option for the Raptors is to counter with less assets. By taking OG Anunoby off the table and countering with the addition of Tyrese Maxey, the Raptors secure a solid young talent while holding onto their marquee 3-and-D player. OG Anunoby’s $18 million/year and Maxey’s $2 million/year also offset the $20 million/year salary cap surplus we found earlier in this article, so lets take a look at how that trade shakes out. Another way to remove assets an match salary would be to remove Fred VanVleet who is set to make $20 million/year over the next two years, and while he will make $22 million in year three, the Raptors can still stay under the salary cap at this price.
So, its still not ideal at a glance, but there are some nuances to this scenario which make it enticing. First, one of the biggest issues offensively is that there are less 15 three point shots made resulting in less points overall. The difficulty with analyzing this scenario using only the trade data is that you would want the increase in three point shots lost by Toronto’s two highest volume three point shooters (VanVleet and Lowry) to come from players mostly not considered in this trade. Gary Trent Jr. and Malachi Flynn would both see an increase in minutes and responsibility and would be expected to carry the brunt of the three point load, and it is possible that Anunoby would be asked to shoot more corner threes (think Danny Green’s role on the 2019 squad) resulting in a larger increase in his three point shots not considered by this model. The biggest issue with this model in my eyes is the assists. Lowry has been Toronto’s facilitator for years, and someone with both him and his apprentice VanVleet leaving in this deal, it has to be on Simmons to step up for this team in a big way.
Honestly, this one is unexpected. I was like the idea of a Siakam-Simmons-VanVleet core, and thought keeping Fred would stop the Raptors from losing too many three-point assets. While this is the case, the difference is marginal (~0.8 TPM/game) due to not gaining any other shooters back with Simmons. Having said that, without Lowry, VanVleet would be forced to become Toronto’s main three point shooter and point guard, so I would suspect a 5% improvement year-over-year is underselling what he would need to bring to the team, although whether or not he is able to no one can answer but Fred. While it does alleviate some of our assist woes, this deal fails to improve the Raptors defense (rebounding, blocks) as compared to scenario 2, so while it makes sense in the minds of NBA enthusiasts, it is also the deal with the most uncertainty. Having said that, if anyone is willing to take high risk-high reward deals; it Ujiri.
But let’s say the Raptors are excited about coming home to Toronto, want to impress the fans as they come back to the stadium, and want to win now. What if the Raptors accept the deal as is, and pursue pieces to match with Simmons and Siakam come free agency? Let’s explore that in the next section.
Who Doesn’t Like Shopping?
If the trade were to be accepted as proposed by the 76ers, the Raptors would need to find a player for $20 million/year who could provide them 40 points/15 assists/10 rebounds per night. Not going to happen. But there’s a lot of data missing in this statement. The Raptors are a young team with a lot of room for growth in this scenario, so if we apply the same model where young players grow 5–15% per year then the statistical load on any new free agent(s) signed is greatly reduced from this impossible feat and while they may punt a year or two due to growing pains, the team could look quite strong down the road. We will approach this by looking at what happens if the Raptors sign a single free agent with the ability to act as a number 2/3 option to Siakam and Simmons now, and while the Raptor’s could look in to bring in a collection of young players in the $5–12 million/year range the sheer number of possibilities and variables makes this quite complex, so lets leave that off the table for the purpose of this analysis. Lets first look at what high-cost free agents are available. In the $20 million/year range the Raptors could POTENTIALLY look to sign one of Victor Oladipo, Kelly Oubre Jr., Spencer Dinwiddie, Norman Powell, Lonzo Ball, Richaun Holmes or Jarret Allen. Oladipo scares the hell out of me, especially given his injury history, but the other six are great NBA starter caliber players. So, lets take each of these 6 remaining players, apply a 5%/year improvement to them, and take a look at what they could bring to the Raptors over the next three years to understand which player would be worth pursuing. Of note, for Spencer Dinwiddie I am going to apply our formula to his 2019/2021 season statistics. Dinwiddie only played 3 games this season due to injury in a reduced role with the Nets, and that does not represent his true value.
So, who should the Raptors pursue in this scenario? It’s not perfectly clear. While Jarett Allen is the clear best defensive option and has been associated with the Raptors in offseason rumors to the excitement of Raptors fans dissatisfied with big man Aron Baynes, it leaves them utterly miserable from beyond the arc. Spencer Dinwiddie provides great scoring and playmaking but is still not an outstanding shooter from range is very Simons-esque in his role; even more so than Embiid. Lonzo Ball is an interesting option. He shoots great from 3, provides a perfectly reasonable 15 points per game, is a source of blocks and steals, and 5 rebounds per game is nothing to scoff at. His interior scoring is lacking, but that isn’t what the Raptors need on a team with Siakam and Simmons. Another great prospect: a homecoming reunion with Norman Powell. With all the free agents this off season, Powell has slipped under the radar, but from a statistical perspective he had a breakout season in ever sense of the word. He can score from both in the paint and beyond the arc, hits free throws, can distribute the ball, and doesn’t foul or turn the ball over often. 3 rebounds per game is low, but if the raptors can bring in a cheap young center, with him, it could be a great fit.
My recommendation: Ball or Powell. Both players are a great fit with the needs of the team, and with Hoops Hype speculating they could seek offers in the range of $15 million/year, it leaves the Raptors with $5 million ($13 million if they can offload Baynes’ unfortunate contract) to try sign a starting caliber center such as Nerlens Noel, Mitchell Robinson, Cody Zeller, or perhaps a reunion with Serge Ibaka could bring some much needed veteran presence to this team. In any case, a starting 5 of Simmons-Trent-Ball/Powell-Siakam and any of these centers with Malachai Flynn and Chris Boucher coming off the bench won’t win the East now, but they could be a fun team to watch with a high ceiling.
Lets blow it all up!
Who doesn’t like a 2-for-1 deal! In addition to the reported deal with the 76ers, the Raptor’s star Pascal Siakam has also had rumors swirling surrounding his future. As JB Baruelo reported, the Warriors could package Canadian Andrew Wiggins, James Wisemen (the 2020 2nd Overall pick in the draft and great young player) and their 2021 7th Overall pick for Toronto’s superstar forward (Baruelo, 2021). This is interesting, it brings assets back to Toronto including some sorely needed scoring, allows them to acquire a great draft pick, and keeps their team young, with the obvious downside being the loss of their entire championship winning team and a complete rebuild. This will take a few steps to process, so lets start with the 7th overall pick. The 7th pick is tricky to predict as there are a number of potential options (Kuminga, Barnes, Giddey) so we will go with the player projected by ESPN’s draft day prediction in Franz Wagner (Givony, 2021). Wagner is a 6'9 SF out of the University of Michigan who is a great wing player and efficienct from the 3, making him a great fit on a young Raptors team. Aaron Goldstone of SB nation describes him as a similar player to Nicholas Batum, Otto Porter Jr. and Draymond Green, so similar to Suggs, lets use these players to make our three year projections (Goldstone, 2021). You will also notice an extra column at the end of this table. I want to do something different here, don’t worry, I will explain its relevance in just a moment.
So, the extra columns? Here’s how this is going to work. First, we will assume the Raptors take scenario 2 with Philly, where they trade VanVleet, Lowry and the 4th pick, retain OG Anunoby, and manage to acquire a young player in Maxey. Reason being: the more young players you can get, the higher the probability one of them becomes a star in theory (OKC would like a word on this point). When analyzing the improvement of Maxey and Wisemen who just finished their first years in the league, I’m going to predict they improve 79% in year 1 and 44% in year 2 before applying our 20% model used in year 3. These numbers are our average improvements year-over-year for the players above, and I want to use higher improvement numbers since rather than being bench players Maxey and Wiseman would be stepping into larger roles with more responsibility on the Raptors. In the future a better strategy would be to perform a liner regression analysis of all players year-over-year, but that will be another project for another day. For Wiggins and Siakam, I’m going to fall back on our 5% improvement model. So based on the information listed, here is what each team gets out of this trade. Since the Warriors are looking fairly barren in future assets here, lets throw in a pair of future second round picks, one from Toronto and one from Philadelphia to sweeten the deal, but for our statistical analysis since these would likely be players who do not develop into a larger role in 3 years they will not be considered.
So, let’s see how the Raptor’s look statistically after this deal.
Looks great, lets accept it right now! SLOW DOWN a second, if you immediately accepted this trade, you just fell for the number one mistake of overzealous General Managers (Looking at you Sam Presti). IF this trade shakes out exactly how we predict, the Raptors gain both offense and defense and have a great young core in Simmons-Maxey-Wiseman-Wiggins-Trent-Boucher-Wagner-Flynn-Annunoby which provides them a gain in points and rebounds sacrificing only assists, turnovers and fouls. This is the issue with predicting the future however, we simply do not know how these players will change over the next 3–5 years. If Wiggins is any indication; even top young picks can suffer from injuries, lack of motivation or can struggle to adapt their collegiate game to the tough, highly-skilled NBA. So while this trade has large upside, remember it involves the loss of our entire starting roster save Anunoby, and the only known quantity received in returns is Simmons. Obviously Wiggins is a great scorer, but he lacks consistency and predictability, and Maxey, Wagner and Wiseman are complete wildcards. In addition, who knows if OG will flourish in his new role as a number two option, or will crumble only the pressure; so I pass this question off to you: is the risk worth the reward, or do the Raptors stay the course?
Now I’ve heard some feedback in the vein of “Why would Golden State do this deal?”. Lets look into that.
So, looks like an absolute win for the raptors, but is it? Other than points and rebounds, not particularly, and while 30 points and 15 rebounds is a lot, here's why the Warriors don't care. First, remember that we are using our model where Wiseman improves at a 79%/44%/20% rate over 3 years based on the data we saw in our Wagner analysis. On Golden State who wants to win now with Steph Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green he isn’t getting those touches he would in Toronto, and isn’t making that big a leap. Same goes for Wagner who would sit on the end of the bench at best. The reason for growth would be a starting role on the Raptors or coming off the bench with plenty of minutes behind Chris Boucher. As for rebounds, the Warriors have a great rebounder in Draymond Green, and still hold the 14th overall pick which they could use to secure a young big man, or deal for a veteran center. Either way, its a big ask by the Raptors, and maybe a deal such as Siakam and 2 future second round picks for Wiseman-Wiggans and the 14th pick is more realistic, but if the Warriors want to win now a team of Siakam-Curry-Thompson-Green is a good start, and Masai Ujiri should make them pay through the nose for it.
Decisions, Decisions, Decisions
So, for anyone who made it here, thanks for reading! As easy as it was to write off this trade immediately, further analysis shows that a Simmons deal between Toronto and Philadelphia involving the pieces mentioned earlier this week has potential. Masai Ujiri has a lot of variables to consider, and while Simmons is clearly on the outs with Philly, he is a statistically great player, and could make Toronto into a fun, gritty young team, especially given Nick Nurse’s excellent coaching and defensive schemes. My recommendation? Other than accepting the deal as offered by Morey, Ujiri can’t really go wrong. Look, losing the 4th pick is a tough pill to swallow on top of long time Raptor Lowry, but let’s not pretend that Simmons is a bust based on this playoffs, and lets not forget they 76ers were one impossible shot away from the championship in 2019. If Raptors fans have faith that a return to Toronto and a fresh start for Siakam can return him to his 2019 form, why can’t the same be said of Simmons? If the Raptors can swing scenarios 2 or 3 (removing VanVleet or Annunoby) while securing a pick or two and resigning Gary Trent Jr. and offloading Baynes’ contract to potentially secure an additional young talent, the team looks to have a strong future, and could be an absolute menace on the defensive end night in and night out: a characteristic Milwaukee showed can win you a championship. Maybe you’re braver than I am, and see a full rebuild as the Raptor’s championship path, or maybe the risk is too great to accept. There's plenty of other options, such as resigning Lowry, and looking to create space to sign a free agent without giving up current players, but let’s get back to the question we started with: “who wins?”. In the trade as proposed: the 76ers, and yet, if the Masai Ujiri can build a young team with a bright future and make Daryl Morey pay for it, maybe the future is bright for basketball north of the border.
Works Cited
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