SPAB BIG Question! Andrew Bynum and the Sixers

Welcome to the Sports Pro and the Average Bro BIG Question! You ask us your big question, and we'll  pretend we know what we're talking about! Let's get right on with it!

Today's question: Where would the Sixers be if Andrew Bynum was playing right now?

Anyone who's a Sixer's fan or who has watched them play will tell you: They flat out stink! They're horrible! Good teams come in to Philly and either trash the team to pump their stats (because they know they can) or they do what Lebron and the Heat did and play the game like it should be in that situation, fun and casual. Like you're playing a pickup game at the neighborhood courts.

It's no secret that the Sixers were expected to be much better this year thanks to the blockbuster trade for one Andrew Bynum. The team gave up a decent amount in rookie Moe Harkless, center Nik Vucevic and defensive specialist Andre Iguadola. Anyone who says they were against this trade at the time is either lying or a Wizards fan. To this point, however, they have seen nothing in return.

So this begs the question: With the awful dreck the Sixers trot out onto the court night after night, would one play make that much of a difference? Could Andrew Bynum be the piece this team needed to put them in competition with the Pacers, the Knicks, and the Heat?




The Sixers have lost a lot of games, 37 on the season so far. In those games, their "loss margin" is 11.72 points. That's a pretty decent gap when stretching their loss totals out over the entire season. 12 points difference per game means towards the end of the game things aren't even close enough to be interesting. Could just one player change that?

The Sixers current starting center, Spencer Hawes, is averaging 10 points per game. Removing him from the line up means the Sixers are missing wins by about 22 points per game.

Plus, as a center, Hawes is charged with some defensive duty as well. He's averaging 1.3 blocks per game. He's also averaging 6.5 rebounds. Now this isn't an exact science but lets assume this means his defense is influencing those missed shots. The elimination of Hawes as a defensive threat brings that Loss point margin to about 29 points. That gap just keeps on getting wider.

Enter Andrew Bynum. The league's number two big man had a decent season last year. Though his injuries were still present, he didn't miss a game besides some suspensions. He scored an average of 18.7 points, while still being the number 3 guy behind Kobe and Pau.

Would he have similar success this year? We can assume that even if he didn't injure himself further he would still be playing under some pain. That would have limited him. But he also would have been DA MAN in Philly.

Now DA MAN, would have played more minutes and gotten more passes and generally been far more DA MAN-ly than he was allowed to be out west. Factoring his injuries into this however, I'll stay conservative and assume he would have had a similar season stats wise.

The coolness of this way-better-than-ESPN stats graphic is greatly diminished by
cutting off half of Bynum's hair.

Bynum adds about 19 points per game. This immediately brings the LPM down to 10. After that, even just factoring in his defensive presence according to rebounds takes him over the Loss Margin to Wins line.

It's like the number 23! It all comes back to Bynum! And his cut off hair!

So if we work just a little bit more ESPN Stats and Info magic we can see that:

Magic!

"Hey Average Bro!"
"Yes! You sir!"
"You said the Sixer's were losing games by an average of 11.72 points per game right?"
"That I did, you very specific reader you!"
"Well if Bynum's presence brings that number to a negative number...THAT MEANS THE SIXERS WOULD NEVER HAVE LOST A GAME!"
"Well not exactly--"
"THE SIXERS COULD HAVE HAD A PERFECT SEASON! BYNUM YOU'RE SUCH A BUM! I CAN'T BELIEVE THIS! RAHHHHHHHHH!!!"

Woah. Let's take it down a notch readers. I know this is groundbreaking stuff but there's no need for all that.

It's true Bynum's being on the court would have eliminated this completely made up and meaningless stat. However, there are outliers. The Sixers did still play the Heat this year (and once more tonight...*taps begins playing*). Six of their games this year were lost by 20 or more points. Would Bynum have helped in those games? Most certainly! But who knows if he would have pushed them over the threshold into a win.

"But Average Bro, You got me so excited! I was all ready to post on every sports blog about how some genius sports writer cracked the code about the Sixers being a #1 seed if it wasn't for degenerative knee conditions."

Please reader, I'm no sports writer. I'm just throwing facts together. But there is one more thing!

14 of the Sixer's 37 losses were by 7 points or less. These were close games that would have definitely been helped by the presence of a dominant big man with amorphous hair!

If we transfer only those 14 games we completely flip the Sixer's record from 23-37 team, bound for either a lottery pick or utter mediocrity, to a 37-23 team putting them a half game behind the Knicks and Pacers at the 4th seed. Suddenly, things look a little rosier!

Or at least they would, if anything went the Sixer's way this year.

Are there a lot more factors in play here than I'm mentioning? Of course? Perhaps given any real competition, teams would have played harder and ended up winning those games anyway. Perhaps Bynum being in a new system would have hurt his seasons stats. BUT, maybe moving Hawes to an off the bench position would have made him work harder and put up more points in his shorter minutes than the tandem of Lavoy Allen and Kwame Brown have.

Who's to know? Certainly not some Average blogger who pulled a stat out of nowhere that probably already exists in a way simple and more efficient form. But when you look at the numbers (and cool stat graphics!) it looks like this could have been the season all of Philadelphia thought we would have that day at the Constitution Center.

It's no one's fault. No one saw this coming. I'm sorry this never happened. And I'm sorry for pouring salt in the wound if you already thought about all of this. And I'm sorry to Andrew Bynum's barber. I'll never forgive myself for that one.

It's not the end though Sixer's fans! There is a future! Dwight Howard's a free agent this year! Maybe Bynum could even get his surgery and come back better than ever! Maybe Allen Iverson could get robot legs and come back on a sweet victory return with Hip Hop the Rabbit playing power forward! The possibilities are literally endless for this team!