NBA NBA NBA 2014-2015 Season ! ! !

[Latrinsorm]

After being WAY off on my preseason predictions last year, I've gathered more data this year so's to be only SORTA off.

DATUM ONE: Last Season; Regression

Close games come down to luck, both in who wins them and to a lesser extent who plays them. If we demand a team should play the average number of close games and win 50% of them, we can see who lost and gained the most wins due to luck last year, and we can therefore see who by luck alone should do better or worse this year. We do this by taking the net of wins - losses; thus, the Spurs will have 1 more close win but 10 more close losses and lose significant ground, the Heat will have 1 less close win but 1 less close loss so lose no ground. For all teams:


8 Orlando
7 Toronto
7 Minnesota
6 Phoenix
5 Boston
5 New York
5 Milwaukee
4 Detroit
4 Denver
3 Sacramento
3 Atlanta
1 Cleveland
1 LA Clippers
0 Brooklyn
0 Miami
-1 Washington
-1 LA Lakers
-1 Charlotte
-1 Golden State
-1 Portland
-2 Chicago
-2 Utah
-2 Houston
-4 New Orleans
-4 Dallas
-4 Philadelphia
-5 Oklahoma City
-9 San Antonio
-10 Indiana
-12 Memphis

3 Atlanta
5 Boston
0 Brooklyn
-1 Charlotte
-2 Chicago
1 Cleveland
-4 Dallas
4 Denver
4 Detroit
-1 Golden State
-2 Houston
-10 Indiana
1 LA Clippers
-1 LA Lakers
-12 Memphis
0 Miami
5 Milwaukee
7 Minnesota
-4 New Orleans
5 New York
-5 Oklahoma City
8 Orlando
-4 Philadelphia
6 Phoenix
-1 Portland
3 Sacramento
-9 San Antonio
7 Toronto
-2 Utah
-1 WashingtonNews just keeps getting worse for Indy, eh?

DATUM TWO: Offseason; Roster Changes

This includes both raw adds/drops and players aging into their primes but not players aging out, because that's harder to model. This is the least quantitative area, because there's also usage rates to consider. Let's look at three teams as examples:

Miami lost LeBron James, who was incredibly efficient at PER-USG = -0.5 (average is -5.0) on 31 USG. His leaving is a real problem because nobody in the NBA can match that level of efficiency at that level of production. However, Chris Bosh's efficiency was -3.6 and his USG was only 22, so he can probably be extended significantly without going into the red. (Wade's, unfortunately, was -5.9.) If we compare LeBron to just Deng and McRoberts it's a big loss, but we can wring more out of Bosh so the loss isn't too big.

Indiana lost Paul George, but he was a -8.2. Even giving already inefficient players like Hibbert (-5.9) more touches won't be that big a problem because Indiana's success last year was already predicated on overextended players. Indiana also had a useful wing (inexplicably) buried in the depth chart last year, so Copeland functions as another offseason acquisition even though he didn't change jerseys. What really stands out about Indiana, though, is that they have 0 young guys (where young is defined as entering their fourth season or earlier). Every other Eastern playoff team from last year has at least one and many are major contributors: Valanciunas in Toronto, Kemba in Charlotte, Butler in Chicago, Beal in DC. News just keeps getting worse for Indy, eh?

Chicago lost DJ Augustin, and at -5.7 that doesn't seem that big a loss, but Rose has consistently been in the -7 range and has a much higher USG than Augustin: a double whammy.

DATUM THREE: Preseason; First Look

It's easy to think preseason is meaningless. Many players that do play won't play a single regular season minute, many players that will play enormous regular season minutes are limited if not completely absent. These are true, and yet the correlation is there. If we go solely by margin of victory, we get the following playoff picture for each conference:


6.6 Boston
5.7 Cleveland
5.6 Toronto
4.6 Detroit
3.8 Brooklyn
3.7 Orlando
2.4 Chicago
2.1 Atlanta

-1 Indiana
-1.6 Washington
-1.9 Miami
-2 New York
-3.1 Milwaukee
-3.3 Charlotte
-5.6 Philadelphia


11.6 Golden State
10.3 Utah
8.7 New Orleans
8.5 Phoenix
6.8 Minnesota
6.5 Portland
2.2 Sacramento
1.6 Memphis

1.4 Houston
-0.1 Dallas
-4 Denver
-5.3 San Antonio
-8.3 LA Clippers
-11 LA Lakers
-11.3 Oklahoma City

So that's the method. Take all the data, try and figure out how it fits. Next post, the East!

[Latrinsorm]

EASTERN CONFERENCE

Cleveland
Toronto
Washington
Miami
Chicago
Charlotte
Indiana
Atlanta

Brooklyn
Boston
New York
Orlando
Detroit
Milwaukee
Philadelphia

.

Cleveland is just going to be fun to watch. There are still a hefty minority of plays in the half court where you can see them thinking "ok now I pass here, then I run there, then I screen here" and it's disjointed, but once they get it humming they'll rival the Spurs for pure aesthetic beauty. They are very different from the first year of Miami. Miami was a 5 seed the year before, the Cavs a 10 seed. Miami had a top notch defense from day 1 and did well on offense Thunder-style (with the brute force of individual brilliance), the Cavs need to figure out defense but are absolutely set on offense. Miami was a good rebounding squad the first year before plummeting into atrocious, the Cavs are going to annihilate people on the defensive boards: first from their enormous talent in that area, second because even if teams get back the Cavs are going to have fast breaks constantly. I saw Irving run a 1 on 4 fast break against the Grizzlies and get an easy layup, Love's outlet passing is famous for good reason, LeBron at 250 is at least going to maintain his terrifying quickness advantage.

Before I looked at the numbers I was thinking DC #1 and dropping Toronto significantly from last year. I can't, because Toronto is looking very good in all three categories: Jonas and Ross should grow more than Beal and Porter, 7 regression wins to -1, mov 5.6 to -1.6. Throw in Beal's injury and you need Wall to make a significant fifth year jump. I like him a lot, I just don't think this will be the year. Indy's drop is obvious, but I just don't get people putting Chicago at #2 or even #1. They've been okay this preseason and aren't due to lose anything huge in regression, there's a LOT of roster uncertainty and turnover (only East team to drop 3 starters from last year), and Rose hasn't shown me anything either pre- or post- injuries to make me think he can carry a team.

I don't see Miami dropping that much for the same reasons in reverse. Bosh and Wade carried teams to 4 seeds, even in their depleted states they can surely do so together. They've also added knowns: McRoberts was the second most productive player on a playoff team last year, Deng slipped a little last year but he was asked to do too much on both teams, Shawne Williams has looked surprisingly good. Not a contender, but people talking about them missing the playoffs in the EAST is baffling to me.

Carmelo sucks hahahahahaha

The fascinating thing about Indiana is as always the narrative. I fully expect them to play as well as they did last year, but regression alone could knock them out of the playoffs. The storyline won't be "regression to the mean" or "Pacers forget how to be clutch", the storyline will be "Paul George MVP". If as I expect they make the playoffs and are feisty in the first round, the storyline will still be "Paul George MVP", "they're a contender when George comes back!!!". These things are frustrating.

After lunch, the West!

[Latrinsorm]

WESTERN CONFERENCE

Portland
LA Clippers
Golden State
Oklahoma City
San Antonio
Houston
New Orleans
Phoenix

Dallas
Utah
Memphis
Sacramento
Minnesota
Denver
LA Lakers

Every team in the West made noise with their rosters, and the Blazers who made the least moves to me did the best job. Steve Blake is an upgrade over Mo Williams, Chris Kaman is valuable insurance if any of their ninety young bigs don't progress enough. They also have by far the most upside for growth: Lillard obviously, then Will Barton and Thomas Robinson are promising, then they have wild cards in McCollum, Leonard, Freeland, Claver. They've been good this preseason, don't have regression to worry about, and were only 8 games back of the Spurs for last year's #1 seed.

OKC is due significant regression, are missing Durant, didn't do anything worthwhile in the offseason, have youth but it doesn't look promising especially with their goofball coach, and they only have to drop five games to get down to the #4 seed.

The Spurs are a major candidate for regression from luck alone. Pop has done an amazing job managing his aging stars' minutes, but it's going to be too much for Kawhi and Cory Joseph (their only young guys) to make up for anymore. Ready for an incredible stat? Kawhi has never played 2000 minutes in a single season, even if you prorate 2012. Another way of looking at it; over the past three years...

player A - 172 games, 5791 minutes
player B - 188 games, 5267 minutes

One is Dwyane Wade, one is Kawhi Leonard. Another incredible stat is that Kawhi's PER-USG is + for every year he has played. Between minutes and touches he is clearly capable of doing a LOT more, and it certainly seems like he would do so at a high level, but it's hard to think of anyone following this career track. He's the first player in NBA history to start his career with three seasons of <2000 MP and >5 WS, and only six guys even managed two...

James Donaldson (2nd and 3rd) - hyperefficient center for the early 80s Sonics, played 82 games but short minutes behind Jack Sikma, never had his touches extended, had a breakout year with the Mavs and one All Star appearance.

Sam Jones (2nd and 3rd) - miraculously fell to the Bill Russell Celtics with the 8th overall pick (possible shenanigans), minutes and touches eventually ramped up, would no doubt have at least one FMVP if they had been awarded in those days.

Mitch Kupchak (1st and 3rd) - started strong as the third big behind Wes Unseld and Elvin Hayes (including Washington's only championship team), began to suffer injuries and never cracked 2000 MP in his career.

Joakim Noah (2nd and 3rd) - didn't become the full time starter until his fourth(!) year (round of applause for Vinny del Negro), has gradually improved every full season in the NBA... but has a disconcerting number of partial seasons on his record. Career TBD.

Arvydas Sabonis (1st and 2nd) - European legend entered the NBA at the age of 31. Not a good comparison.

John Stockton (2nd and 3rd) - also didn't become full time starter until his fourth year (round of applause for Frank Layden), wound up the best pure point guard to ever play the game, never finished higher than 8th in MVP voting and incredibly only made All-NBA 1st team twice.

.

Clearly the best scenario and best fit is Sam Jones. Drafted onto a dynasty, extremely modest box scores but good composite stats his first few years, similar type of player (points, some rebounds, no assists). The troubles are many, though. Sam Jones was drafted (the last time) 1 year after Russell, Leonard was drafted 14 years after Duncan. Like Auerbach before him the feeling is that Pop isn't going to coach after Duncan leaves. Sam Jones' peak was 21.7 PER, which he reached 83% of in his first three years. The same growth puts Leonard at 23.4 PER - I'd take it, but it's not superstar level. Sam Jones never made All-NBA 1st team, never finished higher than 4th in MVP voting. Again, I'd take that for a lot of players, but if we want Kawhi to be on the LeBron/Durant level it just looks incredibly implausible.

[Gelston]

No one cares.

[Tgo01]

No one cares.

^

But to be fair I'm just not much of a basketball fan.

[Androidpk]

Latrin you must be high as fuck when you write this shit.

[RichardCranium]

I care.

Is Kobe still the second best player in NBA history? Yes? Ok, I'll check back later.

[Gelston]

I care.

Is Kobe still the second best player in NBA history? Yes? Ok, I'll check back later.

No you don't. Shush.

[Latrinsorm]

Latrin you must be high as fuck when you write this shit.I must have been, for I awoke in a cold sweat late last night having realized I totally messed up the regression portion. The proper form is this:

82 games are played
22 should be close, won at 50% = 11 wins
60 games * non-close win% = remaining wins
11 + remaining - actual wins = regression

This methodology gives us...


4 Orlando
3 Toronto
3 Minnesota
3 Detroit
3 Milwaukee
2 Phoenix
2 New York
2 Denver
2 Boston
1 Portland
1 Miami
1 Golden State
1 Atlanta
1 Cleveland
1 Sacramento
1 Utah
1 Philadelphia
0 Brooklyn
0 Charlotte
0 LA Lakers
-1 LA Clippers
-1 Houston
-1 Dallas
-1 Chicago
-1 Washington
-3 Oklahoma City
-3 New Orleans
-5 Indiana
-6 Memphis
-7 San Antonio

1 Atlanta
2 Boston
0 Brooklyn
0 Charlotte
-1 Chicago
1 Cleveland
-1 Dallas
2 Denver
3 Detroit
1 Golden State
-1 Houston
-5 Indiana
-1 LA Clippers
0 LA Lakers
-6 Memphis
1 Miami
3 Milwaukee
3 Minnesota
-3 New Orleans
2 New York
-3 Oklahoma City
4 Orlando
1 Philadelphia
2 Phoenix
1 Portland
1 Sacramento
-7 San Antonio
3 Toronto
1 Utah
-1 Washington


These values turn out to be fairly well correlated with the first methodology, in general pushing all values towards the mean. The only interesting orders I see changing are flipping Phoenix for Dallas, as the new methodology predicts a 7 game relative gain, and Indiana for Charlotte because of a 4 game relative gain there. The other interesting possibility is Golden State for Clippers (4 game relative gain), but I think the gap there will be larger. New orders...

EASTERN CONFERENCE
Cleveland
Toronto
Washington
Miami
Chicago
Indiana
Charlotte
Atlanta

Brooklyn
Boston
New York
Detroit
Orlando
Milwaukee
Philadelphia

WESTERN CONFERENCE

Portland
LA Clippers
Golden State
Oklahoma City
San Antonio
Houston
New Orleans
Dallas

Phoenix
Memphis
Utah
Sacramento
Minnesota
Denver
LA Lakers

[Latrinsorm]

Is Kobe still the second best player in NBA history? Yes? Ok, I'll check back later.He's not even the second best player in the last fifteen years. Heck, he's not even the second best guard in the last fifteen years. Tough luck my friend, the answer is no.

[Rimalon]

Latrin, what do you think of Utah?

[Latrinsorm]

Latrin, what do you think of Utah?I think they'll be significantly better than most people seem to think (SI has them dead last), but nowhere close to a playoff spot. Dropping Jefferson (and Corbin for that matter) is addiction by subtraction, I'll take Booker over Marvin Williams, Hayward/Favors/Burks have plateaued but are useful, Gobert and Burke are tantalizing.

The Lakers and Timberwolves have gotten significantly worse and I don't see any way they finish behind them. Denver's preseason has me worried so they're behind too. Cousins is much better than anyone on the Jazz, but the Kings have too many new and ill-fitting pieces while Utah at least has continuity.

Long term, the best case I see for Utah is to copy Houston. Stockpile a bunch of good young players on the cheap, wait for a great player to become available via trade because they or their team are knuckleheads, hopefully that great player draws others. The nucleus they have now isn't going anywhere, but it doesn't really have to.

[RichardCranium]

He's not even the second best player in the last fifteen years. Heck, he's not even the second best guard in the last fifteen years. Tough luck my friend, the answer is no.

Chris Paul is obviously the first. Who's the second?

[Latrinsorm]

Chris Paul is obviously the first. Who's the second?Tossup between Chauncey and Wade.

Playoff rounds won as best player on team:
15 Billups
7 Bryant (and that's giving him 08)
6 Wade

Stats in peak years:
Bryant 01-09... 24.9 PER - 32.6 USG = -7.7, 112.6 WS, .206 WS/48, +7.0 on/off, 8.13 wins per season
Chauncey 04-09... 20.7 PER - 22.2 USG = -1.5, 74.0 WS, .217 WS/48, +6.6 on/off, 12.95 wins per season
Wade 06-11... 27.2 PER - 33.9 USG = -6.7, 67.1 WS, .208 WS/48, +11.0 on/off, 12.71 wins per season... and this includes 08

Bryant wins longevity going away, but longest ain't best. Chauncey's got the advanced stats and playoff wins, but Wade was more valuable to his team, so tossup between them.

[Rimalon]

Hayward/Favors/Burks have plateaued but are useful, Gobert and Burke are tantalizing.

Hmmm. Personally I think Hayward/Favors/Burks still have a lot of room to grow/improve And you look at someone like Enes Kanter, who was 12-17 from the floor, 27 pts and 2-2 from 3 pt land against the Thunder the other night... if they put it all together, and all improve, they could be killing cats. The 7-8 seed isn't out of the question this year...

And then like you say, the question is whether they choose to deal pieces for a "superstar" or hope Burke transforms into one, a la Westbrook, then they become Thunder Lite?

More excited about this Jazz season then I've been in a long time. We'll see!

[RichardCranium]

I just read that Anthony Davis' PER after the first game is 44.44...

[Keller]

Indiana wins.

Paul George MVP!

[Latrinsorm]

Carmelo sucks hahahahahaha, no but seriously. The interesting thing to me from the Chi-NY game was that Chicago's fourth big is apparently Mirotic, which is very interesting considering he played power forward in Europe and is projected to do the same, and the Bulls went for long stretches last night with him and Gibson playing together (they also started with Noah-Gasol obviously). Noah and Gasol are each true centers, Mirotic and Gibson are not, but Thibs is apparently comfortable with Gibson playing as a center. This may have just been because the Knicks were so pathetic and he was just trying whatever, but it seemed systematic: Gasol played all 12 minutes of the first, then didn't come back until two minutes left in the 2nd, then played all 12 minutes of the third AND 3 minutes into the 4th. It seems like playing an aging player in shorter bursts would be better, and again it was the Knicks, so we'll see how it goes.

One frivolity about the Bulls: they're dangerously close to fielding an all white guy lineup: Hinrich, Dunleavy, McDermott, Mirotic, Gasol all played 15+ minutes last night and are going to be in the rotation even when Butler gets healthy. It's in play.
I just read that Anthony Davis' PER after the first game is 44.44...Currently 45.9, but PER is a measurement of the player to the year they played in so it's going to change after tonight's games too (New Orleans is not scheduled to play).

My favorite numbers:

22 points, 8 rebounds, 7 blocks... the Roynaissance has begun!!! Hibbert for MVP!!!

Kobe takes 42 shots in his first 57 minutes, .737 per minute. Westbrook says "oh yeah???" and takes 26 in 33, .788 per minute. Add in free throws and turnovers, and Westbrook is currently at a 47.4 USG... the highest single game mark of his entire career. Brace yourselves, OKC.

[Keller]

Can they give the MVP to Roy and Paul?

[Latrinsorm]

Can they give the MVP to Roy and Paul?Co-MVPs? It is mathematically possible. We had 125 voters last year so they'd have to go... 62 people vote Roy #1 and Paul #2, the other 62 people vote Paul #4 and don't have Roy, nobody else gets more than 620 points. The last five years everyone has gotten at least 1000 points so it's not plausible but it's mathematically doable.

[Keller]

Co-MVPs? It is mathematically possible. We had 125 voters last year so they'd have to go... 62 people vote Roy #1 and Paul #2, the other 62 people vote Paul #4 and don't have Roy, nobody else gets more than 620 points. The last five years everyone has gotten at least 1000 points so it's not plausible but it's mathematically doable.

Ok. Well, in that case, Roy and Paul for MVP!

[Latrinsorm]

Bad game from the Cavs, with James being the worst player on the floor by ± and box score. With that said, I have no doubt the Cavaliers will make the Conference Finals and are the favorite to come out of the East. The offense and defense frequently looked bad but the scheme on both sides is extremely sound - reps will turn a lot of those James turnovers into pocket passes for his teammates in excellent spots. 16 shots between the paint and three compared to 37 for New York. This is how good offenses and defenses are made. Sometimes, as last night, teams will generate points efficiently on those long twos (40 on 37 for NY), but over a season there is strong correlation between denying the power zones and good defenses, and pursuing the power zones and good offenses. Against the Bulls the Knicks had 30 points on 40 long 2s. They didn't suddenly remember how to make them against Cleveland, they were just lucky yesterday and unlucky Wednesday.

Speaking of unlucky, Ooooooooo-OAK! lahoma where Kendrick Perkins found a way to hurt his team even more by elbowing Westbrook's hand, breaking it. Incredibly, the Thunder sans Durant and Westbrook played the Clippers to a draw for 39 minutes, and the -3 Westbrook posted in 9 proved to be the final margin. The Clippers had real issues in the preseason and it has carried over into at least their first game. If this game is any indication, their problems are fouling WAY too much on the defensive end and anemic shooting on the offensive. Jamal Crawford has always been unreliable but of greater concern is that after last year's woeful performance by Jared Dudley as fourth wing they have gone with Chris Douglas-Roberts, which... is not promising. Matt Barnes is at best an average three point threat, but at the same time this team should have plenty of artillery: Paul, Farmar, Reddick, Crawford, Hawes. Could have just been a cold night, it happens.

[Latrinsorm]

An illuminating Cavs-Bulls game last night for a number of reasons.

1. The Bulls are not an elite defensive team. Rose and Brooks have never been good defenders, Gasol and Hinrich are aging rapidly, Gibson is a good defender but can't quite defend the center position, and Mirotic and McDermott don't look good on that end so far either. The Bulls are absolutely going to gain more on the offensive side (especially from the Two Ms) than they'll lose on the defensive side compared to Mohammed, Deng, etc., but it's going to take awhile for the narrative to catch up with reality. Speaking of Gibson, people talk about how the Cavs are thin in bigs but the Bulls are much thinner. Gibson is the only one with a track record of health, Gasol and Noah are oft-injured and Mirotic has no track record at all.

2. The Cavs are an elite rebounding team. It was obvious that they were one on paper but it's turned out that way in practice too, and it's exacerbated by Coach Blatt going to a lot of big lineups: LeBron (or Marion) has already spent a few minutes at shooting guard, LeBron (and Marion) can easily play as big as a power forward even when listed at small, three of the four Cavalier subs to get minutes last night were forwards, and they've still got Brendan Haywood in reserve for plodding teams (Indiana, Memphis, etc.) or injury insurance. Tristan Thompson isn't getting TWELVE offensive rebounds every game, but he is very solid on that end which is crucial in a team that struggles to find enough looks for its three offensive superstars. This is the "you don't have to draw any plays for that guy!" trope that is usually misused but don't worry, I used it correctly. :D

3. Speaking of struggle, the Cavs in the half court offense. I have every confidence they'll work it out eventually but man, it's not good right now. They are involving James more than they did opening night which is always a smart move, but there's still too much confusion, too many guys trying to find the balance between over- and under- passing. The system generates all kinds of open looks, but guys aren't sure if they should take them or search for an even better look... yet. The saving grace is that unlike the Knicks (for example) nobody here has anything to prove. They're going to make the playoffs and win at least one round. LeBron has his rings. Kyrie and Love are young enough. The ideas are clever enough to appeal to cerebral players like this big 3: a stagger screen(!!!) on a pick and roll for James, inverted pick and rolls (where guards set the screen for James), James-Love pick and rolls, two point guard looks, off-ball actions... there's a clear philosophy here and it's a good one, they just need reps.

[Latrinsorm]

So why do the Cavs suck so bad?

On offense they have less turnovers, more rebounds, and draw more fouls than average... but have some of the worst shooting in the league.
On defense they force more turnovers and give less fouls than average... but have slightly less rebounds and give up some of the best shooting.

It's all about shooting. Always. The question is whether early season returns for any given four factor are more representative than others; or, whether some four factors regress to their mean faster than others. After everyone has played 5 games I'm going to compare spread to spread for starters. Cleveland's rim/three distribution is right around league average, it's plausible they're just going through some bad luck rather than having a bad process.

[Androidpk]

Cleveland has terribly access to good marijuana. Lebron is surely regretting his move to such a location.

[Latrinsorm]

Popovich apparently tired of how much money he has, sits Duncan/Ginobili/Splitter/Belinelli for a national TV game. The other interesting thing about the game so far is that Kawhi is playing horribly. Through three quarters: 5 points on 2 of 10 shooting, 4 rebounds. But also 5 assists to 0 turnovers, which is quite good. (I don't know who he's guarding but with 0 personals I'm guessing Ariza.) This got me to wondering: how well has Kawhi played in the past without the other two members of the Spurs big three?

Last year, Kawhi played 1922 minutes. His most common teammate was Tim Duncan at 1398, and he actually played very few minutes with Ginobili. While he was on the court, San Antonio had a 110.7 ORtg to 100.2 DRtg for +10.5 net, all very good numbers. Without Duncan these numbers actually got better, at 112.6 to 99.7 for +12.9 net, but removing Ginobili as well pinched them slightly to 109.2 to 100.7 for +8.5. So it looks like this game is just a fluke: the Spurs with just Kawhi are a little worse, but they shouldn't be getting annihilated.

[Latrinsorm]

Cavs get the win, showing signs of improvement in the half court. I've charted three games:
55/68 = .809 v Knicks
49/72 = .681 v Bulls
60/65 = .923 v Nuggets

There's also been much better balance with LeBron. The splits for full/half/no touches in those three games:
46/26/28
54/28/18
37/51/12

People keep saying LeBron is the best player in the game and that might even be true, but even if so it's going to be for this year at the most. Building good habits starts now, and part of that is not having LeBron do everything, not because he can't do a good job of it but because it's not best for a team with the other talent the Cavs have. Here's a list of the % of possessions on LeBron's teams that have ended with his FGA, FTA, TOV, or AST:


48.2 2004
52.8 2005
55.4 2006
51.1 2007
58.3 2008
59.0 2009
61.3 2010
55.4 2011
54.8 2012
55.6 2013
53.1 2014
49.3 2015

The dip in 2011 paid dividends, the dip in 2015 will do the same. With his size, mind, and shooting he's going to be a valuable player until he decides to retire, it's navigating the transition from #1 player in the world to still good that can be awkward not only for the player but the teammates used to giving him the ball as an escape valve after shoddy play.

[Latrinsorm]

My favorite play last night was about halfway through the first quarter. Cavs lineup: Kyrie - Marion - LeBron - Love - Varejao. (Side note: I love how big Blatt is going. It might just be because their roster is forward-heavy, but basketball is always easier for bigger people... so long as they have skill, which the Cavalier forwards all do.) Kyrie brings the ball up and stops, not sure what to do, and hesitantly calls Varejao up to start a pick and roll. A Kyrie pick and roll is a good play, Varejao is a good roll man...

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v456/johnnyoldschool/11082014bronchart_zps3167583a.png

...but LeBron starts SCREAMING from the other wing to set up Love as the screener instead...

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v456/johnnyoldschool/11082014bronchart2_zps7f6518e3.png

...and now we can see why. Instead of rolling to the hoop, Love pops out for three. Because he's Love you can't leave him open, but because Kyrie is Kyrie both the 1 and 4 of Denver have stayed in front of him, so that leaves LeBron's defender to rotate onto Love. Kyrie reacts well...

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v456/johnnyoldschool/11082014bronchart3_zps3e0e128b.png

...making the skip pass to James, and because he's James you can't leave HIM open either, so Marion's man rotates onto James, but James is no dummy so he makes the easy pass to Marion in the corner. The next rotation is Varejao's defender, but that's asking a center to cover 37 feet even if he's sagging all the way off Varejao. Not gonna happen, three points.

Notice how even though Marion is the second worst three shooter on the court this is the best play, and it requires good decision making at every step.

1. Listening to LeBron.
2. Love not grumbling, setting a good screen.
3. Kyrie has four options: split the double, shoot over it, pass to Love, pass to LeBron. The first two are only okay percentage plays given that his running was taking him across the basket rather than towards it, and last year that would probably be the best look the Cavs got in the possession, but this year he recognizes he should pass, has the intelligence to recognize that only the skip pass is fast enough to keep the Denver defense in rotation, and has the skill to make a pretty difficult cross court pass on time and on target.
4. LeBron is being closed down by Afflalo running across his body, he could easily pump fake and get an open look or just shoot over the 6'5" man, but he too realizes that an uncontested rhythm shot from the corner by Marion is the ideal look and keeps the ball moving.
5. Marion doesn't over pass, or try to drive so he can kick to Varejao. He has an open three, he takes it.
6. Varejao for his part stays in his no man's land. He's never going to get the ball in the corner, he's out of the play... but if he wanders over to the left side of the diagram then his man only has to close 10 feet to Marion and the play falls apart.

It's all well and good to say "yeah we should shoot corner 3s", and when you look at it on the diagram it's all pretty simple, but plenty of teams will spend all season trying and failing to have this perfect level of motion and unselfishness in their offense: not too much of either, not too little of either. Kyrie is going to be a much better player for studying LeBron's brain. For now acquiescing to LeBron when he (with his decade+ of experience) diagnoses the play so easily will do just fine.

This is why I have no doubt the Cavs will make the Conference Finals this year. They have these kind of plays every game - not enough, not often, but the sparks are there, the game plan is strong, the players are buying in. It's only a matter of time before the Cavs are catching fire.

[Latrinsorm]

And I forgot one part: what did LeBron have to do on this play, physically? How much exertion? He stood on the wing and made a single pass. Everyone knows that players can't go all out for 82 games at all, let alone if they expect to have anything left for the playoffs. These kind of plays where the young fellas do the heavy lifting and LeBron supervises are ideal.

[Latrinsorm]

Kobe is on track for 2821 minutes and -0.8 Win Shares. I wondered, has anyone ever played so many minutes and had negative Win Shares?

No.

Okay, how many minutes has someone played and had negative Win Shares? Woodie Sauldsberry played 2743 minutes for the 1959 Warriors of Philadelphia and took 0.6 Wins away by doing so. He's one of two players to have two 2000+ MP and <0 WS seasons, the other being the immortal Michael Olowokandi. You can see the full list here (http://www.basketball-reference.com/play-index/psl_finder.cgi?request=1&match=single&type=totals&per_minute_base=36&per_poss_base=100&lg_id=NBA&is_playoffs=N&year_min=&year_max=&franch_id=&season_start=1&season_end=-1&age_min=0&age_max=99&height_min=0&height_max=99&shoot_hand=&birth_country_is=Y&birth_country=&is_active=&is_hof=&is_as=&as_comp=gt&as_val=&pos_is_g=Y&pos_is_gf=Y&pos_is_f=Y&pos_is_fg=Y&pos_is_fc=Y&pos_is_c=Y&pos_is_cf=Y&qual=&c1stat=mp&c1comp=gt&c1val=2000&c2stat=ws&c2comp=lt&c2val=0&c3stat=&c3comp=gt&c3val=&c4stat=&c4comp=gt&c4val=&c5stat=&c5comp=gt&c6mult=1.0&c6stat=&order_by=ws), but here are some names that jumped out at me:

Joe Fulks led the BAA in scoring twice, was twice an All-Star in the NBA, and would make the Hall of Fame, but by 1953 his numbers were going off a cliff. Incredibly, he was also negative in 1952 but didn't play enough minutes to meet the 2000 criteria... and was named to the All-Star team.

Slick Leonard is the only other Hall of Famer on this list, and I couldn't figure out why given his mediocre numbers until I found out he was inducted as a coach.

The last year with multiple submarine players was of course 2003, and they of course played for the Nuggets and Cavaliers in that year's Tank-a-palooza. The Cavaliers inexplicably kept their reverse ringer on for half of the 2004 season before pulling an unbelievable heist by trading him to Portland for the serviceable Jeff McInnis.

The last submarine player was of course Adam Morrison in 2007, who also has the second lowest WS of any single season in NBA history with -1.5. And people wonder why I was skeptical of Dougie McBuckets.

There are a couple other notable names (Vernon Maxwell, Sidney Wicks) but the most striking to me was... Joe Bryant! In 1983, Kobe's dad put up -0.04 WS for the Rockets and decided to call it a career as far as the NBA was concerned. The Rockets turned that suckitude into the #1 overall pick in Ralph Sampson, weren't so hot the next season either and got Hakeem Olajuwon. So if anyone ever tells you the Bryant family has no connection to winning, you just point them to the heart of a champion clip. It's there! It's tenuous, but it's there!

[Latrinsorm]

Our long national nightmare is over. The Lakers have won a game. Kobe is currently on track for 1941 field goal attempts and 246 assists. That ratio looks pretty bad, but is it?

Yes.

It's pretty common for big men, but only 5 perimeter players in NBA history have managed 1900+ FGAS and 300- assists...

Jack Twyman, 1960 - 2063 to 260, small forward
Elgin Baylor, 1965 - 1903 to 280, small forward
Rick Barry, 1967 - 2240 to 282, small forward
George Gervin, 1980 - 1940 to 202, shooting guard
George Gervin, 1982 - 1987 to 187(!!!), shooting guard
Dominique Wilkins, 1988 - 1957 to 224, small forward

So Kobe (probably) won't be setting any black hole records this year, and such disparity has even been done by a guard before. He's still at negative WS, though, and his USG/PER ratio is well into historic territory. There have been only 147 player-seasons of 30+ USG and 2000+ MP, bump it to 35+ USG and there have been only sixteen... 4 for AI, 3 for Kobe, 2 for Jordan (in 87 and 02), 1 each for Carmelo, Gervin, King, McGrady, Stackhouse, Wade, and Dominique. The two most inefficient are of course AI at -16.0 and -15.9. Kobe is currently at -19.6. The worst ball hogging season ever is in play, especially since AI averaged 6 assists per game in those years and Kobe is currently at 3.

eta: To be clear, "worst" is not used in a moral sense, but a practical one. No one has ever ball hogged so ineptly as Kobe has so far this year.

[RichardCranium]

Anthony Davis for mvp?

[Latrinsorm]

Anthony Davis for mvp?Nope. James Harden is leading the NBA in WS and the Rockets are tied for first in their conference -> James Harden MVP. Going by SRS (combines margin of victory and strength of schedule) the two best teams in the West are the Rockets and Warriors, and Steph Curry is right behind him statistically, and he could tempt a lot of idiot sportswriters (due to their being idiots), but Harden should win if the season ended today. Only twice in the last thirty years has an MVP not come from a top 2 team: 06 Nash when everybody was drunk, and 88 Jordan when he unleashed the finest statistical season anyone had ever seen (until he and LeBron one-upped it in 91 and 13 respectively), and even then the Bulls had the third best record in the East, whereas the Pelicans are currently at sixth. The proper ballot would go like this:

1. Harden
2. Bosh
3. Lowry
4. Randolph
5. Curry

Davis' current line of 34.8 PER and .326 WS/48 would outdo even those other two seasons (both were 31.6 and .322), but given that the highest PER ever is only 31.8 it's unlikely Davis can keep that up all season.

[Latrinsorm]

Lakers lose again, even though 5 points isn't really a loss. Kobe also played quite well, 28 points on 32 touches isn't great but he did have 6 assists to only 3 turnovers, and his +8 led all Lakers. Sometimes he just makes it so easy, though...

6:37 left in the fourth quarter, Lakers down 17 points, Kobe enters the game. The Laker possessions for the rest of the game:
-Kobe 14 foot miss
-Lin three point miss, Boozer putback and-1
-Hill fouled in transition, free throws
-Kobe three point make
-Kobe three point miss
-Hill 10 foot make, Kobe assists
-Hill point blank make, Kobe assists
-Lin turnover in transition
-Kobe 18 foot make
-Kobe turnover
-Kobe three point make
-Kobe three point miss
-Johnson dunk
-Hill 21 foot miss (with 13 seconds on the shot clock and 28 on the game clock... in a 3 point game...)
-Kobe three point miss

14 half court possessions, at least 11 and as many as 13 of which Kobe either took the shot or set up the shot. Too much. Too much, Kobe.

.

Now, to be fair to him, the Laker coaching was appalling. After they're gifted a possession with 37 seconds left after a 5 second inbounds turnover by the Grizzlies, they end up with Jordan Hill taking a 21 footer halfway through the shot clock? Jordan Hill, who shoots 36% from 16-23 on his career? Then when they don't get the rebound, they DON'T FOUL down 3 with 27 seconds left?!?? Randolph scores with 5 seconds left and the game is over, and if the Grizzlies were smarter they'd have run the clock all the way down and just thrown the ball off the rim. Brutal incompetence from Byron Scott, not surprising given his "we shouldn't take more than 15 threes a game" nonsense.

[Latrinsorm]

The Lakers currently have a -9.3 net Rtg, which is points scored less allowed per 100 possessions. This is the third worst in the league, leading only Denver and Philadelphia.

The Lakers when Kobe Bryant sits have a +4.4 net Rtg. This would be the eighth best in the league, trailing only Houston, Toronto, Portland, Golden State, Chicago, Memphis, and Brooklyn.

Kobe's -10 per game is the worst of any player in the league playing more than 27 MP/g. Kobe is at 35.

[Latrinsorm]

Kobe is missing 14.7 field goal attempts per game. There are only 26 other players even taking that many. The Lakers are now 20.2 points per 100 possessions better when he sits than when he plays. It's getting ugly.

[Latrinsorm]

Cleveland has some issues too. LeBron is leading them in points, assists, steals; second in rebounds, third in blocks; leading in MP at 40.4 per game. They needed 41 and 7 assists to beat the friggin' Celtics by one point, a 32-11-9 triple double that wasn't to beat the Pelicans. His usage rate of 30.5 is slightly down from last year's 31.0, but it needs to be much lower. Kyrie's has dropped more than Wade's did, Love has dropped more than Bosh. They've got time, but this is one of the things I always lauded Spoelstra for as a coach: it's really tempting to just play LeBron all the time and have him run every play, because he's LeBron. But as his diminished efficiency and simple observation shows, he's not peak LeBron anymore, and is unlikely to regain that form after playing more minutes than all but three players in NBA history at the same point of their career. Is it worth losing a few games now if you can be reasonably sure it means winning games later? What if "later" isn't until next year? It's a dilemma.

At the same time, I thought it would be instructive to specifically revisit the Love trade...
-From a bird's eye view, Love has 0.8 Win Shares in 265 minutes, Wiggins and Bennett have combined for 0.2 in 305. Advantage: LOVE
-The Cavs have been +11.0 per 100 possessions when Love plays vs. sits, a fine number. The Wolverines of Minnesota are +8.1 with Wiggins and -15.9 with Bennett. Advantage: LOVE
Seems like a pretty good trade right now!

[Latrinsorm]

More Kawhi issues. His PER is barely down (-0.5) but his USG is up more (+2.3), his 3P% is way down (-10%) because his percentage of threes taken from the corner is as well (-19%), his 2P% is down too (-5%) even though his percentage of twos assisted is up (+10%). Like Roy Hibbert before him, people are going to remember the incredible series he had against the most public team in the league and therefore he's a superstar, but like Roy Hibbert before him his already modest production has slipped a little to start this year.

It could be this eye infection thing he's had, and it could be he's just a slow starter (the brevity of his career combined with Popovich style minutes makes the samples to small to tell), but I think it's something people would pay attention to a lot more if anyone cared about San Antonio.

[Stretch]

Otto Porter is playing significant minutes, and Washington is 7-2. Your statistics mean nothing to me.

[Latrinsorm]

Otto Porter, this generation's Scottie Pippen? Who has decreased his usage but somehow doubled his PER? Who has gone from a Kobe-esque -0.006 WS/48 and -0.3 VORP to +.156 and +1.4 respectively? And you say the statistics mean nothing???

I told you in 1987 (http://forum.gsplayers.com/showthread.php?89154-NBA-1987&p=1641587&highlight=pippen#post1641587), and the weight of history broke Paul George's leg, and Elton Brand retired after the Hawks pushed the Pacers to the limit in the first round, and the Heat won't reach a Conference Finals. Everything is proceeding as I have foreseen.

[Latrinsorm]

There are 30 teams in the NBA. I have looked into who has won a championship before, but I thought it would be fun to see who has had MVPs too, so here goes...



inc. years champ mvp players team name
1950 64 1 2 1 Atlanta Hawks
1950 64 17 9 4 Boston Celtics
1977 37 0 0 0 Brooklyn Nets
2005 9 0 0 0 Charlotte Hornets
1967 47 6 6 2 Chicago Bulls
1971 43 0 2 1 Cleveland Cavaliers
1981 33 1 1 1 Dallas Mavericks
1977 37 0 0 0 Denver Nuggets
1950 64 3 0 0 Detroit Pistons
1950 64 2 1 1 Golden State Warriors
1968 46 2 3 2 Houston Rockets
1977 37 0 0 0 Indiana Pacers
1971 43 0 1 1 Los Angeles Clippers
1950 64 15 8 4 Los Angeles Lakers
1996 18 0 0 0 Memphis Grizzlies
1989 25 3 2 1 Miami Heat
1969 45 1 3 1 Milwaukee Bucks
1990 24 0 1 1 Minnesota Timberwolves
1989 25 0 0 0 New Orleans Pelicans
1950 64 2 1 1 New York Knicks
1968 46 1 1 1 Oklahoma City Thunder
1990 24 0 0 0 Orlando Magic
1950 64 3 6 4 Philadelphia 76ers
1969 45 0 3 2 Phoenix Suns
1971 43 1 1 1 Portland Trail Blazers
1950 64 1 1 1 Sacramento Kings
1977 37 5 3 2 San Antonio Spurs
1996 18 0 0 0 Toronto Raptors
1975 39 0 2 1 Utah Jazz
1962 52 1 1 1 Washington Wizards


...and in chronological order...



inc. years champ mvp players team name
2005 10 0 0 0 Charlotte Hornets
1996 19 0 0 0 Memphis Grizzlies
1996 19 0 0 0 Toronto Raptors
1990 25 0 1 1 Minnesota Timberwolves
1990 25 0 0 0 Orlando Magic
1989 26 3 2 1 Miami Heat
1989 26 0 0 0 New Orleans Pelicans
1981 34 1 1 1 Dallas Mavericks
1977 38 0 0 0 Brooklyn Nets
1977 38 0 0 0 Denver Nuggets
1977 38 0 0 0 Indiana Pacers
1977 38 5 3 2 San Antonio Spurs
1975 40 0 2 1 Utah Jazz
1971 44 0 2 1 Cleveland Cavaliers
1971 44 0 1 1 Los Angeles Clippers
1971 44 1 1 1 Portland Trail Blazers
1969 46 1 3 1 Milwaukee Bucks
1969 46 0 3 2 Phoenix Suns
1968 47 2 3 2 Houston Rockets
1968 47 1 1 1 Oklahoma City Thunder
1967 48 6 6 2 Chicago Bulls
1962 53 1 1 1 Washington Wizards
1950 65 1 2 1 Atlanta Hawks
1950 65 17 9 4 Boston Celtics
1950 65 3 0 0 Detroit Pistons
1950 65 2 1 1 Golden State Warriors
1950 65 15 8 4 Los Angeles Lakers
1950 65 2 1 1 New York Knicks
1950 65 3 6 4 Philadelphia 76ers
1950 65 1 1 1 Sacramento Kings


...notice how simple age is the clear way to get rings and MVPs. Every one of the oldest 12 franchises has at least one championship, and 17 of the oldest 18 have made at least one Finals - the Clippers amazingly have never even made a Conference Finals. Only four teams left that haven't made the Conference Finals: Clippers, Pelicans, Raptors, Hornets (who've never won a single round).

17 of the oldest 18 franchises also have at least one MVP - the Pistons never managed it but probably should have in 2006 with Billups. It's also probably not a coincidence that every one of the new boys to win a title (San Antonio, Dallas, Miami) are also one of the new boys with an MVP.

[Stretch]

Did you exclude the '98-99 season or something? Spurs have more than four titles.

[Latrinsorm]

Oh I didn't update it since last season. Bink!

[Latrinsorm]

A headline: "Curry, Warriors drub Lakers despite Kobe's 44" Despite, or because of?

The Lakers scored 76 points in the 31 minutes Kobe Bryant was on the floor (2.45 / min)... which means they scored 39 points in the other 17 minutes (2.29 / min). If his presence helped their offense at all, it was just barely.

The Lakers gave up 110 points in the 31 minutes Kobe Bryant was on the floor (3.55 / min)... which means they gave up 26 in the other 17 (1.53 / min). There can be no question his presence hurt their defense dramatically.

Despite, or because of? I'm leaning towards the latter.

.

Incredibly, Byron Scott is almost guaranteed to not have the worst start of his coaching career. In 2005 he led the Hornets to a 2-29(!!!!!!) start before roaring to a 16-35 finish.

[RichardCranium]

Incredibly, Byron Scott is almost guaranteed to not have the worst start of his coaching career. In 2005 he led the Hornets to a 2-29(!!!!!!) start before roaring to a 16-35 finish.

Every time I see him on the Lakers bench I think about this. Thanks for bringing it up here.

Dick.

[Latrinsorm]

Every time I see him on the Lakers bench I think about this. Thanks for bringing it up here.

Dick.But you got Chris Paul out of it! You had to pay the troll toll to get picks for that boy's soul!

What's really crazy is 3-5 in the draft that year were all PGs, in this order: Deron Williams, Chris Paul, Ray Felton. You were literally one pick away from utter disaster in either direction. Think positive!

[Latrinsorm]

Joe Harris and Ed Davis.

Joe Harris spent four years in college, made a couple All-ACC teams, and was taken early in the second round by the Cavs. Played only seven minutes over the first five games combined but with Dellevedova's injury and Mike Miller being terrible he started getting 21 minutes a game over the last four. His traditional and composite stats are unremarkable, but the Cavs have been an incredible +41 points per 100 possessions when he plays vs. sits. He was a good three point shooter in college and teams appear to be giving him that respect, because even without shooting much or incredibly well the Cavalier eFG% explodes with him on the court. He also sews up the defense which isn't saying much considering the alternatives are Waiters or Miller. It will be very interesting to see how Blatt handles the return of Dellevedova who is really the backup point guard but had seen more time at shooting guard. The Cavs are running a 9 man rotation right now and they could slide Harris more to SF to take the load off LeBron.

Ed Davis has had a bizarre career. He showed a lot of promise as a freshman at UNC, came back for his sophomore year but saw it cut short due to injury, went at 13 in the draft to the post-Bosh Raptors, put up above average stats but couldn't crack the starting lineup, was sent to Memphis in the Rudy Gay trade and obviously wasn't going to do so there either, became an unrestricted free agent and incredibly wound up with the Lakers for the veteran's minimum, an absolute steal at the time that has become even more amazing considering that he is by far and away the best player on their roster: highest PER, WS, WS/48, VORP, WP, +18 on/off. He of course is not getting any more minutes because Byron Scott is a dope.

Everyone knows the Spurs are the smartest organization in the NBA, but it's worth remembering that everyone misses. The Spurs could easily have drafted Joe Harris instead of Kyle Anderson (who has been brutal) with the 30th pick, and they could be playing Ed Davis over Jeff Ayres (ditto). Everyone misses, because some players come out of nowhere.

[Latrinsorm]

Frustrating analysis: the Lakers win, and Kobe made a shot at some point, therefore "Kobe willed his team to an improbable comeback win on the road" (Goldsberry).

Facts: Kobe enters the game with 8:30 left and the Lakers down 7. He scores 9 points on 2 for 6 from the field and 5 for 5 from the line, 2 rebounds, 1 assist: all told 109.8 ORtg which is great except the rest of the Lakers scored 15 points on 4 for 9 and 7 for 7, which with one turnover gives 114.7 ORtg. He held the Lakers back on offense as he has been doing throughout the year, he just didn't hold it back as much last night, yet somehow the win counts as Kobe's (as all positive Laker events do). It's frustrating.

[Keller]

Who finishes the season with the best lottery odds: Pacers, Heat, or Cavs?

[Latrinsorm]

Tie: 0%. All three are making the playoffs. Heat and Cavs are already in and staying that way. Indy has...

-the Roynaissance
-mercifully ended the CJ Miles experiment
-mercifully given extended minutes to Copeland, leading all Pacers with +14.0 on/off
-Georgie and West coming back (as you know I don't care for Georgie but compared to Donald Sloan......)
-only percentage points to make up to catch Orlando for the eight seed

...and nobody serious behind them. I don't have faith in Charlotte, and even if I did the Bucks are in with the fourth easiest sched in the league so far and a lousy margin of victory, they're gonna drop.

[Latrinsorm]

Bulls thumped back to back. They actually held Portland slightly under their season ORtg, and they have in general been a good defensive team but only good as opposed to excellent, and it doesn't look good going forward. In all four Thibs years the Bulls were above average at rebounding on both sides of the ball. This year they are below average at both. Rebounding is overrated imo, but it is a stark change and leads into my next point: there was a lot of talk about how deep this Bulls team was... deepest Bulls team in years (http://www.csnchicago.com/bulls/nikola-mirotic-could-become-bulls-secret-weapon), more depth and versatility than any other squad (http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2135106-aaron-brooks-expected-signing-makes-bulls-deepest-team-in-the-nba), etc.

And it was completely, categorically wrong.

-Taj Gibson is about the same, which is fine, he's a fine player.
-Brooks is about the same, which is not fine, he's brutal. By on/off they're slightly worse on offense and MUCH worse on defense.
-Mirotic is in the same boat, which is really not fine due to the Gibson/Gasol injuries. Same on/off problems, and he's supposed to be a shooter.
-Speaking of supposed to be, McDermott has been BRUTAL. The Bulls are 12 points worse on offense and defense EACH when he plays.
-What's worse, Thibs has stuck with him over Snell, which should tell you all you need to know about Snell. (He did get more MP last night but for only the third time all season.)

The Bulls have stayed afloat because of Gasol's improbable renaissance (and in mostly two center sets no less!) and Butler's improbable leap. Butler is another fine player but he probably didn't suddenly figure out how to finish at the rim as well as Dwyane Wade and hit from midrange as well as Dirk Nowitzki, so his production is probably going to regress. Gasol might keep it up, I may have underestimated the getting away from Kobe factor, but he's hurt too now.

.

The craziest thing about Kobe isn't that this year would be the worst of any supposed all-time great by a pretty wide margin (blowing away Kareem staggering around in 1989), or even that his stats are so bad that after 45k minutes played they still have enough leverage to drop his career stats dramatically (7% for WS/48, BPM, PER-USG, 25%(!!!) for on-off)... it's that he intends to play another year after this one.

It's an interesting question when rating people all time. If Kobe (or Kareem or Shaq) hang around and hang around and hang around, we usually frame that in a positive way: "look how many points Kobe has scored! All the points!" And it's certainly true that nothing he does now can diminish what he did in the past, the dead do not improve. And it's certainly true Bird (or Magic) shouldn't benefit from injuries ending their careers before their production decreased as much. It's a puzzle, but I think overall it's best to include as much information as possible, if only to pre-emptively explode myths like "Kobe is still a marquee player / superstar / producing at an elite level!"

[Keller]

Worst downgrade: Lebron to Shawne Williams or Anthony Bennett to Lebron?

[Latrinsorm]

Watching the Spurs - Cavs game was a lot of fun. The Heat - Pacers games were always strength vs. strength and weakness vs. weakness which resulted in a lot of muck, but both the Spurs and Cavs were playing beautiful offense and questionable defense so it was good times. My favorite play, pretty basic set to start with (although they did some clever permutations with it later), bigs at the elbows, wings in the corners, point enters the ball to the post. But then! Kyrie runs down to set a screen for LeBron, an inverted pick that Miami used a little of with good success.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v456/johnnyoldschool/20141122brona_zpse66170a5.png

LeBron then comes flying up and gets the pass from Love, then gets ANOTHER screen from Varejao. This is called a stagger screen, which I don't think Miami ever used for LeBron but Cleveland has used several times. This is also a fairly untraditional way of doing it because LeBron's momentum is going across the basket rather than towards it, so his defender can really go under everything without much danger... but he's still LeBron, so Varejao's man comes out of the paint to double.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v456/johnnyoldschool/20141122bron3_zpsee1b7f74.png

It's kind of a jumble in the circle which is usually a no-no because it lets one man (the opposing power forward) guard two men, but when Love steps out to the three point line the opposing 4 has to go with him.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v456/johnnyoldschool/20141122bron4_zpsd2c1e999.png

The pass is very easy to draw but pretty hard to execute, you need to be pretty strong to be running one way and pass back in the opposite direction without it being an easy to intercept lob. LeBron is pretty strong, though, so it gets there promptly...

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v456/johnnyoldschool/20141122bron5_zps11c38608.png

...neither Spurs guard is going to leave their man in the corner in time, the Spurs 3 isn't going to leave LeBron ever, the Spurs 4 isn't going to leave Love with the ball behind the 3 point line, that leaves the Spurs 5 to try and run from three point line to rim faster than Love's pass. Not gonna be able to do it. Layup for Varejao. Good stuff!

[RichardCranium]

Dude, the Cavs are terrible. Do yourself a favor, get NBA League Pass, and watch Anthony Davis as much as possible.

[Latrinsorm]

Dude, the Cavs are terrible. Do yourself a favor, get NBA League Pass, and watch Anthony Davis as much as possible.The crazy thing is that even with him having the best year ever, the Pelicans are only 7-5. Some of this is because his defense is still only average, but still. 7-5!! What happens if he tapers off to a mere 30 PER .300 WS/48? It's going to be tough times in the Smoothie King Center.

.

Reading Zach Lowe's typically fine article (http://grantland.com/the-triangle/kobe-bryant-los-angeles-lakers-absurd-present-and-unknowable-future/) today, I was struck by the thought that without the Durant/Westbrook injuries the Lakers would have the worst record in the West. They are a famously consistent franchise, so I wondered if that had ever happened before, and it turns out yes! Twice!

1958 - 19 and 53, 26% winning percentage prorates to 21.6 wins in an 82 game season, their worst full season. With the #1 overall pick they select Elgin Baylor, which works out pretty well.

1975 - 30 and 52, lose the coin flip for first overall pick and thus do not get to select David Thompson, which works out okay because Thompson stays in the ABA and crosses over with the Nuggets. Instead they draft Dave Meyers and Junior Bridgeman, which they package in a trade for Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, which works out pretty well.

When they bottom out this year, what's the way forward? Elgin Baylor averaged 30 points and 20 rebounds a game in college, I think it's safe to say nobody in this draft class has that potential. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was a champion, three-time MVP, and statistical freak even then: 27 PER, .28 WS/48. The only active player matching those criteria is LeBron James who (a) is past his prime and (b) could have signed in LA this summer if he wanted to go there. The only active players who have even matched the stats over the last ten years are...
LeBron (4)
Chris Paul (3 and same problems as LeBron)
Dirk (2 last one in 2007)
Kevin Wayne Durant

That's the way forward. An MVP player dissatisfied with his podunk Midwestern franchise, a Laker team with rookie blue chippers that are going to amount to doodly-squat in the big picture, and best of all he won't have to fight for touches with a historically ball-dominating guard ohhhhh right. Sorry Lakers, better luck next superstar.

[Latrinsorm]

Just to illustrate a point I made before about how Anthony Davis probably won't keep up his best-of-all-time statistical production: he entered last night's game with a 35.9 PER and .332 WS/48, then put up 14 points on 4 of 12 shooting, 9 rebounds, 2 blocks, 1 steal, 2 assists to 0 turnovers. That's not a great game, but it's not terrible, right? Today he's at 34.5 PER and .317 WS/48. Imagine what will happen when he has an outright bad game.

The biggest change in the single-season PER record was in 1962, when Wilt's 31.74 supplanted Mikan's 28.75 by 2.99. Since then the league has seen statistical behemoths like Jordan, LeBron, Shaq, Kareem, David Robinson, not to mention the rest of Wilt's career, and the single-season record has increased by 0.08 (by Wilt in 1963). It's just not plausible for the ceiling to suddenly jump that dramatically after not having done so for anyone else for so long.

.

If we go by SRS (a rating system that accounts for strength of schedule and margin of victory) the top two teams in each conference are Warriors, Blazers, Raptors, Cavs, in order and with the Cavs being a distant fourth. The candidates by Win Shares:

2.7 Curry
2.5 Lowry
2.4 Lillard
2.0 Kyrie
3.1 Davis

Davis will benefit from people (mistakenly) thinking he is an elite defender, and the Pelicans by SRS are likely to (barely) make the playoffs, but it's just too much and the field is too strong.

[Latrinsorm]

On this Thanksgiving break, I have taken the liberty of calculating on/off figures for everyone in the NBA. The top and bottom 5 for players with at least 450 minutes played (avg 15 games have been played and 30 minutes / game):

+34.0 DeMarcus Cousins
+32.9 Steph Curry
+24.2 Rudy Gay
+23.4 Mike Dunleavy
+23.3 Mike Conley
...
-13.8 Wes Johnson
-14.0 Solomon Hill
-14.9 Kobe Bryant
-15.3 Jeremy Lin
-17.5 Josh Smith

[Atlanteax]

From Elias: Kobe Bryant totaled 31 points, 12 assists and 11 rebounds in the Lakers 129-122 overtime win over the Raptors. At 36 years and 99 days, Bryant becomes the oldest player in NBA history to record a 30-point, 10-rebound, 10-assist game. Larry Bird previously held that distinction, doing so at 35 years and 99 days in a double overtime game 1992

Followed by Latrinsorm's analysis of how KB > Bird


Lakers: Bryant made some more history against the Raptors. When he set up Johnson's 12-footer with 8:31 left in the third to become the first player in NBA history with at least 6,000 assists and 30,000 points

'dem assists... Kobe is a *team-player* !!

[RichardCranium]

Just to illustrate a point I made before about how Anthony Davis probably won't keep up his best-of-all-time statistical production: he entered last night's game with a 35.9 PER and .332 WS/48, then put up 14 points on 4 of 12 shooting, 9 rebounds, 2 blocks, 1 steal, 2 assists to 0 turnovers. That's not a great game, but it's not terrible, right? Today he's at 34.5 PER and .317 WS/48. Imagine what will happen when he has an outright bad game.

The biggest change in the single-season PER record was in 1962, when Wilt's 31.74 supplanted Mikan's 28.75 by 2.99. Since then the league has seen statistical behemoths like Jordan, LeBron, Shaq, Kareem, David Robinson, not to mention the rest of Wilt's career, and the single-season record has increased by 0.08 (by Wilt in 1963). It's just not plausible for the ceiling to suddenly jump that dramatically after not having done so for anyone else for so long.

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If we go by SRS (a rating system that accounts for strength of schedule and margin of victory) the top two teams in each conference are Warriors, Blazers, Raptors, Cavs, in order and with the Cavs being a distant fourth. The candidates by Win Shares:

2.7 Curry
2.5 Lowry
2.4 Lillard
2.0 Kyrie
3.1 Davis

Davis will benefit from people (mistakenly) thinking he is an elite defender, and the Pelicans by SRS are likely to (barely) make the playoffs, but it's just too much and the field is too strong.

That's assuming he has an outright bad game...

And he is an elite defender. Maybe not quite as good as Kobe yet, but he's close.

[Latrinsorm]

Followed by Latrinsorm's analysis of how KB > BirdKobe's work rate at his advanced mileage is truly incredible (and not at all suspicious ;)). The amount of determination it must take after 55,000 minutes to put in the work to be physically capable of putting up 24 shots is really commendable.

Unfortunately determination is value neutral. If you are determined to drive in a screw with a hammer you can, but really you should be using a screwdriver. Even last night, when Kobe appears statistically impeccable at first glance, he hurt the Lakers. They were +2 in his 42 minutes and won by 7 in 53... which leaves +5 in 11. Kobe's stats in the fourth quarter: 3 of 8 from the field, 2 of 5 (!!!) from the line, including missing on an attempt to give the Lakers the lead with 34 seconds remaining, 2 rebounds, 1 assist. This is your hero? I think not.
That's assuming he has an outright bad game...One of the 10 losses the 96 Bulls suffered was to the expansion and league-worst Raptors. Everyone has bad games. Like Judgment Day, it is inevitable.
And he is an elite defender. Maybe not quite as good as Kobe yet, but he's close.I don't see it. He's still weak in space, and there are a lot more open looks that result from his errors than highlight reel blocks. You see the blocks more because they're friggin' amazing to see, but it doesn't make him a net plus on defense. Currently the 'Cans are three points better on defense when he plays vs. sits, which is a grown man mark, but it's still a small sample.

[RichardCranium]

Kobe's work rate at his advanced mileage is truly incredible (and not at all suspicious ;)). The amount of determination it must take after 55,000 minutes to put in the work to be physically capable of putting up 24 shots is really commendable.

Unfortunately determination is value neutral. If you are determined to drive in a screw with a hammer you can, but really you should be using a screwdriver. Even last night, when Kobe appears statistically impeccable at first glance, he hurt the Lakers. They were +2 in his 42 minutes and won by 7 in 53... which leaves +5 in 11. Kobe's stats in the fourth quarter: 3 of 8 from the field, 2 of 5 (!!!) from the line, including missing on an attempt to give the Lakers the lead with 34 seconds remaining, 2 rebounds, 1 assist. This is your hero? I think not.One of the 10 losses the 96 Bulls suffered was to the expansion and league-worst Raptors. Everyone has bad games. Like Judgment Day, it is inevitable.I don't see it. He's still weak in space, and there are a lot more open looks that result from his errors than highlight reel blocks. You see the blocks more because they're friggin' amazing to see, but it doesn't make him a net plus on defense. Currently the 'Cans are three points better on defense when he plays vs. sits, which is a grown man mark, but it's still a small sample.

Dude is 21 years old. His ceiling is incredible.

[Latrinsorm]

Probably not. LeBron had a 28.1 PER when he was 21, Durant 26.2. (Interestingly they both took a step back in their age 22 seasons.) That's 89% and 88% of their peak PERs. Obviously being in the same conversation as LeBron and Durant is a good thing, I'm just advising against focusing on age over experience. He's on the Amar'e track: narrow net minus first year, narrow net plus second year, offensive explosion third year... and sans injuries that'll do just fine.

[RichardCranium]

You almost got me on that one, I'll admit. Damn fine work sir. Damn fine.

[Latrinsorm]

We have our fun with Kobe, but he is almost certain to retire with per-game averages of 20 points, 4 rebounds, and 4 assists, quite a rare feat in NBA history. Current members of that club, listed in order of year retired:

Baylor
Wilt
West
Robertson
Billy Cunningham
Havlicek
Maravich
Barry
Bird
Drexler
Jordan
Webber

And active members:
Kobe
LeBron
Wade
Westbrook
Curry

If we go to 24/5/5, the list shrinks to Oscar, West, Bird, Jordan, LeBron, Wade. Not bad. Not a bad list. But this is Kobe's moment. Hats off to a very good all around player, top 15 for sure for now.

[Latrinsorm]

It's very plausible to make an all point guard MVP ballot. MVP winner tends to be highest WS on top two records in each conference, and if we take the top two SRS (as more predicative than record) then we get Raptors, Cavs, Warriors, Blazers.

Current WS leaders for each: Lowry, Irving, Curry, Lillard.
Current WS leader otherwise: Paul.

Point guards in all five spots! It's pretty amazing, point guard is a historically underrepresented MVP position. If we look at the years that a PG did win the MVP (absurdly or otherwise) and look for other PGs in the top five, we find...

2011: none
2006: Billups 5th
2005: Iverson 5th
2001: none
1990: none
1989: none
1987: none
1964: West 5th
1957: none

...and this counts Magic and Oscar as point guards (and Iverson and West are stretches too). I would say LeBron is just as much a PG as Magic or Oscar, but even if we redo with him we only get...

2013: Paul 4th
2012: Paul 3rd, Parker 5th
2011: LeBron 3rd
2010: none
2009: Paul 5th

...so it's a wholly unique situation we're in! I also think each supposed candidate would probably get the vote if their team finishes so high except obviously Kyrie, and I think LeBron could very easily campaign for him and make things interesting.

[Latrinsorm]

Watched the Cavs-Knicks game. The half court was the most efficient I've seen, but I didn't like what I saw. Not a lot of movement, not a lot of balance, a lot of Kyrie brilliance and LeBron running pick and rolls while everyone stood around and watched. It worked, obviously, and it's a reasonably good plan to have especially as practice time dwindles... but hopefully they'll get back to the off ball motion they were flashing earlier in the season. It'll be best this season and going forward as LeBron continues to decline. I did like how they used 1-3 and 3-1 screen and rolls with such frequency, though, it was like pulling teeth to get Miami to run a Wade-James pick and roll. Sometimes they did both on one possession, which really scrambles the defense's brains. The main thing to keep in mind is that their being ahead of the 2011 Heat doesn't matter at all, until they lose a few games and get behind the 2011 Heat at which point it will be super duper important.

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I also got to see a full Davis game, and to make sure I wasn't succumbing to confirmation bias I kept track of every pick and roll he was involved in on defense. The results from a bird's eye view:

1. Monty Williams is a bad coach with a bad scheme.
2. The Pelican perimeter people are pretty poor protectors.
3. But even taking those into account, Davis is not a good defender of the pick and roll.

There are three basic ways to defend the pick and roll, which you can divide by how far up the court the big man goes. The most aggressive requires him to go past the level of the pick, where he can trap or hedge. The least aggressive (and most popular thanks to Thibodeau) requires him to not go past, after which he usually soft doubles before recovering to his man if he popped instead of rolled. The compromise is to go exactly to the level of the pick, where he can hard double or switch. The best defenses can change these subtly depending on own and opposing personnel (not to mention foul situation, refereeing, etc.), but generally they stick to basic rules because basketball is a team sport, and you're always better off executing a team scheme than every man for himself.

Keeping in mind that all my observations of the Pelicans have been limited, last year they and Davis were a disaster. Against the same basic pick and roll you'd see him flying all over the court, or sinking back to the rim, or getting caught in between, or literally facing the wrong direction. He was so bad you halfway wondered if he was doing it on purpose, because even guessing randomly what to do should eventually come out well. This year either Coach Williams has simplified the scheme or Davis has started to follow it better, either way Davis follows a basic pattern against pick and rolls: sink, stop the ball, recover to your man... and he has clearly been drilling this very hard, because he follows it to a T.

Unfortunately basketball is a fluid game requiring fine adjustment, which he is either unwilling or (I suspect) incapable of grasping. You can almost see him running through the bullet points in his head as he does each step, and exacerbating this problem is that he is quick/explosive/long enough to cover up some of the mistakes he makes, often with spectacular results, and almost never with fouls (microscopic 1.9 PF/g). It's easy for him to think "why bother with the little stuff? I got enough trouble carrying this team on offense, and look at my sweet blocks!" Throw in the media types christening him a superstar and elite defender and the prognosis doesn't look good to me.

I counted 12 plays where Davis was defending the man who set the screen for a pick and roll, and where his teammate's play wasn't so catastrophic as to render anything he did useless anyway (it happened kind of often). Obviously because they were playing the Warriors it wouldn't make sense to say "aha, the shot went in! you were bad!" because the shot goes in a lot for the Warriors. Instead I focused just on Davis' decisions, and found five good (three doubles two switches) three even (one double two switches) and four bad (all doubles). Important note! He's not a BAD defender of the pick and roll either, it was (very narrowly) mostly good, he's just not a good one.

A lot of the switches came later, as the Pelicans (including Davis) generally began giving up, so it's not clear whether they were scheme related or not, but even in a small sample it jives with the general picture. Put Davis against a man and he is a plus defender. Too big to be pushed around, too quick to get past, easy to fake but hard to fake so badly his ten foot wingspan won't make you wish you'd passed it. Put Davis in the two man game and he has to think, and you've got him. A couple examples:

First pick and roll I recorded, 1Q 8:30.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v456/johnnyoldschool/1_zps9e6891ac.png
Jrue X1 and Davis X4 guarding Curry O1 and Green O4. Green slips the screen, which means setting it then saying "nah screw it, I'm outta here!", Jrue goes over the sorta-screen (which you obviously have to do against Curry and the Pelicans inexplicably forgot to do several times) and Davis sinks to double. So far so good. The problem is that Davis abruptly leaves to recover to his man because that's how the drill goes, but Jrue isn't in position to single because he's expecting a double, so Curry gets a clear lane to the basket, forcing Asik X5 to rotate across the paint. This is still not a disaster, because Curry is contained. The cascading problem is that Green has popped to the three point line, leaving Babbit X3 to zone between two Warriors at the three point line, and the other Warrior he's nominally guarding (Barnes O3) reads the situation and cuts freely to the basket, and Curry hits him for an easy two points.


2Q 4:55.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v456/johnnyoldschool/a1_zps6b80fed5.png
Rivers and Davis guarding Livingston and Bogut. Just reading that it sounds like a disaster, and it was. Bogut sets the screen, Rivers goes over and Davis sinks. Going over isn't so crucial here because Livingston isn't really a three point threat, but they've got the situation contained either way... except Livingston doesn't politely stop where Davis has sunk, he keeps going. I kid you not, Davis literally turns his head to watch Livingston go by without moving his feet, and this wasn't the only time he did that in the game. He sinks, he stops, he recovers... regardless of where he is in relation to the handler. Livingston makes a pretty difficult pass between Davis and Rivers (would have been impossible if Davis' hands were up, more on this later) to Bogut, who is moving before he gets the ball so by the time Davis reacts he's already past him and thundering to the rim for a layup. It so happens that Evans made a smart rotation and blocked it, but if you're relying on Tyreke Evans to do anything but make flashy yet pointless dribble moves you're in trouble.

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The pick and roll is the most important thing, but there were little issues too.

Davis' swipes are incredibly accurate: he almost always gets the ball or nothing, and almost never the man. That's incredibly valuable for a big man, because he can defend without fouling even when out of position. The downside is that it's made him lazy, and he often doesn't have his hands up to block passing lanes, relying instead on reflex to get his hands up and on passes... and when that works it's spectacular, but he would be better off overall having his hands up 100% to prevent the easy passes from even being made rather than getting a couple amazing steals per game. He does get his hands up sometimes and good things happen, but it's something he should be doing all the time if he wants to be an elite defender. Watch Noah's hands sometimes, for example.

It may have just been this game, and it definitely has something to do with Williams' ridiculous substitution patterns, but he gave up on a lot of plays. There was the turnover late in the fourth quarter where he never crossed half court, the play late in the third quarter where he started out under the opposite basket with Marreese Speights and let Speights beat him down the floor by two strides for an uncontested layup. This is the same Anthony Davis who caught the ball at the three point line and dunked without dribbling, okay? (With an uncalled traveling violation, but still.) No big in the NBA should be beating him anywhere. Everybody dogs it sooner or later, just keep this in mind when some moron sportswriter tells you he never takes a play off.

Obviously if he can't process the two man game his intermediate rotations (where he has to help but not at the rim) are very suspect. As a power forward this doesn't come up much, but it's there, especially when Coach Williams throws up his hands and goes zone which he seemed to do in the early stages of the third and fourth quarters.

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Overall Davis' incredible athletic gifts make him net even on defense overall. With that said, if the Pelicans make the playoffs (which looks doubtful), he is going to get highlighted and picked apart. Of course, the Pelicans only have a prayer of making the playoffs because he is a transcendent offensive player. He can't really create his own shot as his 70% rate of field goals assisted demonstrates or for others as his 10% rate of teammate field goals assisted demonstrates, but he's not completely helpless with the ball. (I understand that he was a point guard in high school before he grew omg look at him dribble omg. He wasn't an NBA point guard, okay? Give it a rest. He's barely competent, which is pretty good for a big man but still just competent.) His jump shot has always looked good and has started to go in at a high enough % to keep defenses honest, and at the rim he is a destroyer so that's all he needs. His foul shooting is better than LeBron, which is plenty. He's got a weird floater game that kind of works but mostly is a foul magnet. His high center of gravity and lack of balance will keep him from ever being a real post threat, but he doesn't need it and like Howard it would only work against his strengths anyway, so good riddance.

He can be an MVP candidate with just his offense because he's not taking anything away from you on defense. His problem, like LeBron's and Garnett's before him, is that his team STINKS. They are just AWFUL. Evans and Rivers have to lead the league in cool looking dribbles that don't actually affect the defense at all and just lead to turnovers. Nobody can shoot. The bench is a joke. I have no idea how this team is going to ever seriously contend, and the end result will probably be the same as LeBron's and Garnett's: superstar exit stage right. Enjoy him while you can, New Orleans.

[Atlanteax]

tl;dr

[Latrinsorm]

At the quarter pole, SRS ratings for each conference...

East
Toronto
Cleveland
Atlanta
Washington
Chicago
Boston
Indiana
Milwaukee

West
Golden State
Memphis
Clippers
Portland
Dallas
San Antonio
Houston
Sacramento

.

So far I'm way off about Miami, Milwaukee, and Memphis, but I told you guys about Toronto, Cleveland, and Golden State, huh? :D

Kawhi Leonard is on track for 2000+ MP but is having the worst season of his career. The best player on the Spurs is Tim Duncan (2.5 WS). Age 38. nbd.

Anthony Davis has continued his inexorable slide from best of all time towards historical greatness, currently at a measly 32.7 PER.

The Bulls have always been above average in ORB% and DRB% since Thibodeau took over. They are currently below average in both.

The four-straight-Finals Heat were always a pronounced strength and pronounced weakness team. The Cavs are winning by being okay at everything and not terrible at anything: they're within 3% of the average for six of the eight Four Factors, the only extremes are that they draw a huge amount of fouls and give a tiny amount. People wag their fingers and say "oh they have no rim protection", and contesting at the rim is important, but not fouling at the rim is important too. The best players make 70% of their attempts at the rim, but even average players make 70% of their attempts from the line. Think about it. Think. Think about it.

Out of 430 NBA players Kobe is 430th in ±.

Out of 162 NBA players with 450+ MP, Kobe is 162nd in on/off.

Out of 430 NBA players Kobe is 1st in salary.

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Current MVP ballot:
1. Curry
2. Lowry
3. Marc of the House Gasol
4. Kyrie
5. Anthony Davis

Speaking of Davis, I charted the Knicks game too, and like the first game I did not focus on the outcome for the opposite reason... making the Knicks miss isn't exactly an accomplishment. By my count he did 5 good, 3 neutral, 3 bad as the roll defender which again is just about average. Monty Williams shenanigans included more bizarre substitution patterns, no zone this time, and Anthony Davis guarding J.R. SMITH!!! down the stretch. The Knicks were playing two point guards so J.R. Smith was basically the SF but still... it was ridiculous. If the Knicks were halfway competent they could easily have exploited it, because Davis is completely inept as the handler defender of the pick and roll. This makes sense, because he is a big man, and the "he used to be a point guard!!!!" meme is still stupid, but it's surprising it doesn't come up more often. His flagrant foul came when he was assigned to Carmelo as PF in an inverted pick and roll with J.R. Smith, he had another poor performance defending the handler later. A 4-x pick and roll is quite rare now that LeBron is playing SF again, but (in a small sample) Davis is a disaster at it, which makes the decision to assign him against even smaller players all the more absurd. (I also counted five distinct plays where Davis got dramatically beaten down the court by track stars Quincy Acy and Sam Dalembert. It's a trend, and not a good one.) They're playing Dallas tonight, and while Dirk doesn't run traditional pick and rolls he does have the ball a lot, it'll be interesting to see how Williams sets up the defense. I would assign the springy Davis to the runny/springy Chandler anyway, we'll see how it goes.

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As Chris Bosh said in an interview with Zach Lowe (http://grantland.com/the-triangle/qa-chris-bosh-on-being-no-1-in-miami-hitting-the-books-and-the-power-of-trust/)... "Everything happens by accident." It's a long season! I can't wait!

[Latrinsorm]

Also, in John Wall as the next MJ news, if you watched that John Wall postgame interview and didn't get a little misty I don't know what to tell you. Cultural significance. It's all happening.

[DoctorUnne]

What Davis is doing at his age is downright amazing. I don't care that he's only an average pick and roll defender. Through a full quarter of the season he's almost 40% higher than anyone else in the league in ESPN's Value Added stat which incorporates both efficiency and volume, and as you point out he currently has what would be an all-time best PER. AND HE'S 21!!!

In other news, yeah the Cavs are good, but I think most people thought they would be better. I know the guys at fivethirtyeight predicted something well north of 60 wins.

Also Latrin, don't take this the wrong way, but I'm curious what you do for a living such that you have time to do all of this analysis. It's pretty impressive.

[Latrinsorm]

What Davis is doing at his age is downright amazing. I don't care that he's only an average pick and roll defender. Through a full quarter of the season he's almost 40% higher than anyone else in the league in ESPN's Value Added stat which incorporates both efficiency and volume, and as you point out he currently has what would be an all-time best PER. AND HE'S 21!!!Value Added is just minutes multiplied by a lightly position-adjusted PER, so it has the same flaw of overrating blocks and steals, but yes, having the best ever of anything is certainly commendable. I've mentioned before and I would like to reiterate, though, that measuring age is not as useful as measuring experience. Jordan's age 21 season was only 80% of his peak because that was his first season. LeBron's age 21 season, by comparison, was 89% of his peak because it was year three. This also of course works on the other end: Jordan didn't go into decline until age 34 (year 13) while LeBron is in decline at age 30 (year 12).
In other news, yeah the Cavs are good, but I think most people thought they would be better. I know the guys at fivethirtyeight predicted something well north of 60 wins.They just have to go 50-10 the rest of the way, no problem! :D
Also Latrin, don't take this the wrong way, but I'm curious what you do for a living such that you have time to do all of this analysis. It's pretty impressive.Thanks! I'm still looking for full time employment.

[Latrinsorm]

Last night was just a debacle. Dirk is obviously a nightmare for any team's defensive scheme, but I'm pretty sure it was just sloppiness that doomed the Pelicans (perhaps due to being on a back to back). Davis was mostly guarding Dirk which I don't think is a great matchup anyway, but it seemed like the Mavs were targeting him and with good reason: out of the 20 pick and rolls he defended, he made good decisions 3 times, broke even 4 times, and made errors a whopping 13 times. I've talked before how the Pelicans scheme is a basic "drop, stop the ball, recover" for the big man, and how after being all over the court last year Davis had become a lot more disciplined this year. Last night that all went out the window.

On multiple occasions he decided to hedge, which is where you come just past the level of the pick and stick your arm out while the handler's defender goes under... except he didn't notify anyone else of this plan and so ran into his own man, taking them both out of the play. There were also switches all over the court for no reason and with no overarching plan. In one particularly egregious case, Dirk set a pick for Barea coming north (away from the basket) against Jrue and Davis. Barea is a threat to drive, but not when he's running away from the basket. Dirk is a threat to shoot, especially when he's standing still in the corner. Davis decides to hard hedge anyway (???) then literally turns his back on Barea to see where Dirk is. You can plan a switch, even an incredibly dumb one that leaves a 205 pound point guard on an island with Dirk Nowitzki, but this wasn't even planned. Just sloppy.

On multiple other occasions he decided to stay completely attached to Dirk, which is a reasonable idea because he's Dirk but you can't give up line drives to the basket, and you can't expect your point guard to get screened and stay attached to anyone. Just taking one step into the ball handler's path will slow him down enough for your point guard to recover, or give the guys behind you time to rotate. Yes, Ryan Anderson was repeatedly late in rotation as the last line of defense, but having someone to clean up your mistakes wouldn't mean they didn't happen.

Most bizarre of all, and this is something I don't think I've ever seen in an NBA game, there were multiple occasions where Davis took a step in the other direction, including on the last actual play of the game. This wasn't due to whatever knock he took, because he did the same thing in the second quarter...

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v456/johnnyoldschool/20141211daviswut_zps3a96ee44.png

...at least on the last play of the game you could say he thought he was overplaying Dirk somehow. In the second quarter he was overplaying Brandan Wright, who has taken exactly 1 shot further than 16 feet all season. It made absolutely no sense, and I watched it a bunch of times to make sure that's what he had done. By the way, I also don't know why Luke Babbit was guarding Monta Ellis on the charted possession. There was a lot of that going around last night, it's not like everyone was on a string and just Davis was la-di-dahing it (although he was beat down the court another four times on defense, once taking 12 seconds to even cross half court).

http://scores.espn.go.com/nba/recap?gameId=400578615

The last play starts at 1:28, and to be fair Davis defended the same pick and roll heading the other way very competently in the first 14 seconds of the possession. Speaking of the other way I noticed that every one of the first 12(!) pick and rolls the Mavericks ran against Davis resulted in the handler going from right to left. This seems pretty obvious because it puts the ball on the handler's stronger right hand, but it was a pattern I didn't see in the GSW game (or the NYK game, but that's no surprise). Anyway. Yes, Asik is late but he's coming from the other side of the lane because Tyson is positioned smartly and he's not beating Monta Ellis in a footrace. Yes, Monta has to make a comparatively difficult floater instead of a layup. This doesn't change the fact that Davis blew it, and if he even slows down Ellis it's a completely different picture.

Also note the play at 1:22. Why are Jrue Holliday and Tyreke Evans guarding Ellis and Dirk? Because the Mavericks ran Dirk up from the strong side corner through a Devin Harris screen (yes! he's still in the league!), and Davis got completely wiped out by it. To be fair, if you don't know a screen is coming it's going to sting no matter who sets it, and I would not be surprised if Jrue failed to call it out... but come on. Devin Harris weighs 185 pounds. Dirk manhandles Jrue and Tyreke, giving Ellis a wide open rhythm jumper. Davis did learn his lesson and started fighting through those screens on later plays, which lends credence to the "no notice" theory, but the overall point is this...

All these plays count too, and there's way more of them than shots he blocks. By on/off he is making the New Orleans defense better so far this season, but that might just be because they're so awful that even average play measures as an improvement.

[DoctorUnne]

Thanks! I'm still looking for full time employment.

That's surprising. You must set a pretty high bar. Data analytics are in pretty high demand these days (if that's what you're looking to do).

[Atlanteax]

That's surprising. You must set a pretty high bar. Data analytics are in pretty high demand these days (if that's what you're looking to do).

Yes, but real-world data analysis tends to preclude falsifying data, which Latrin is prone to doing.

[Latrinsorm]

That's surprising. You must set a pretty high bar. Data analytics are in pretty high demand these days (if that's what you're looking to do).Believe me, it ain't the bar I'm setting. Data analysis, data science, data dogs, I try them all. (I'm not Welsh but I am part Scottish, that's close enough.) All my informational interviews go so well, then all my actual applications apparently get thrown directly in the trash.
Yes, but real-world data analysis tends to preclude falsifying data, which Latrin is prone to doing.I could tell you that 0 of the conversations I've had on my shortcomings have included that issue, but I guess that would count as data I falsified, eh? :)

[Atlanteax]

Believe me, it ain't the bar I'm setting. Data analysis, data science, data dogs, I try them all. (I'm not Welsh but I am part Scottish, that's close enough.) All my informational interviews go so well, then all my actual applications apparently get thrown directly in the trash.I could tell you that 0 of the conversations I've had on my shortcomings have included that issue, but I guess that would count as data I falsified, eh? :)

Nah, your biggest issue is frequently diverging into the asinine.

[Latrinsorm]

Derrick Rose's jumper has had an interesting journey.

In the beginning (first two years), he took overwhelmingly (87%) long twos and hit them at an okay (44%) percentage. Not a complete catastrophe: point guards are small and don't get assisted much, so they generally have a tough time with long jumpers, but even in that frame he had to get better.

As a star (MVP year and 2012), he switched to mostly (58%) threes and hit them at a pretty poor (32%) percentage. Note how .32 * 3 = .96 > .44 * 2 = .88, and the same caveats as above apply, but still. It was a problem, and more importantly his long two percentage dipped to 38%. You could still talk yourself into it, though: he's learning to hit threes! Give him a second, GOD!

In his rereturn (now), it's all gone apart, and out go the lights. He's at a career low (33%) in long twos, a career high in percentage of threes as long jumpers (78%!!!), a career high in percentage of FGAs being long jumpers (50%), and a miserable (28%) percentage from three. His points per long jumper were pretty steady over the years, see if you can find the problem...

2009: .840
2010: .877
2011: .907
2012: .859
2015: .805

What's even more incredible is that the Bulls are actually good at offense this year! Gasol obviously is a huge upgrade over Boozer, Dunleavy and Butler have been on fire, Mirotic after a shaky start has been a reasonable backup, Brooks has done a fine Augustin impression... and Rose's offense has gone completely in the toilet. Jumper gone, passing gone, still driving well but doing it less than any time in his career, has already missed 8 of Chicago's 24 games.

It's a shame.

[Latrinsorm]

1. Of course Dallas' point guard production is low, because Monta Ellis is the actual point guard and Dirk Nowitzki is (still) a hub on offense. Throw in Chandler Parsons wanting to be a 2nd option minimum and there already aren't enough touches to go around. The job of the "point guard" in Dallas, like in LeBron-era Miami, is to stand around and hit jump shots.

2. Rondo's jumper makes Derrick Rose look like Steph Curry. Jameer Nelson has plenty of flaws, but he's shooting 37% from three this year. Rondo shoots 25% on his career and this year, and even more incredibly has a total of one year ever with 30+%... out of nine years. After flirting with respectability from the long two for a year or two here and there he's cratered to 35%, the lowest since his rookie year. It's really hard to take a worse shot than a 25% three pointer, but a 35% two pointer does the job. All told Rondo's jumper gives you 0.721 points. He's a disastrous fit for the Mavericks' offense.

3. Brandan Wright, reportedly included in the trade along with Nelson (and the replaceable Jae Crowder), has been doing a fabulous Tyson Chandler impression (on offense). Eight points a game doesn't seem like a big deal, but when you're scoring them at a 75% FG clip (and 70+% from the line) you're irreplaceable. Chandler and Wright are literally the only players to score that efficiently since Artis Gilmore. (DeAndre Jordan can finish that well but is of course a bricklayer from the line.) This is further exacerbated by the next man up in the Dallas bigs rotation being Charlie Villanueva or Greg Smith. Villanueva fancies himself a stretch 4 and he couldn't even get minutes in Detroit. DETROIT. Greg Smith is in the same mold as Wright at least but why would you give up the poor man's Tyson Chandler to play the homeless man's Tyson Chandler? That does not. Make. Sense.

I have no idea what Cuban is thinking with this trade. Giving up two strong-fitting rotation players for one ill-fitting piece of questionable talent... why?

[Latrinsorm]

Cavs continue to not really gel in the half court. Their .841 figure last night is actually above the .805 average I had recorded previously, but the distribution reinforces the underlying issue: they do okay when LeBron finishes the play (.859) or doesn't touch it at all (.853), anything in between and their efficiency craters (.714). This means that the interaction between LeBron and (mostly) Kyrie is still a struggle. There's still plenty of time, but it's got to be LeBron who takes the step back. I don't see how anyone can argue that he's in decline at this point. Traditional stats, composite stats, and just watching him play he's just not the same guy any more on either side of the ball. This isn't a surprise after the historic workload he's borne so far, but he needs to recognize it and start transitioning from primary option.

What's also worth noting, however, is that LeBron in clear decline is still putting up amazing numbers, they just don't seem amazing because his previous numbers were the best of all time. He's currently averaging 25 points, 5 rebounds, 7 assists per game. In NBA history, here are the people who have done that in chronological order:

Oscar Robertson (8)
John Havlicek (2)
Larry Bird
Michael Jordan
Dwyane Wade
LeBron James (7 including this year)

Not too shabby. He's also at +12.5 on/off, above his career average, although that probably speaks more to this year's Cleveland thus far being a worse team than his career average.

[Latrinsorm]

The Lakers included a 2015 first round pick in the Steve Nash trade. It is protected for picks 1 through 5, so if the Lakers are one of the five worst teams this year they would probably keep it, although the lottery can move teams around.

John Hollinger created a system (http://espn.go.com/nba/hollinger/playoffodds) for predicting where teams would end up both in the regular season standings and in the playoffs based on current data. According to that system, at the end of the year the worst teams will be, in order...

1. 76ers
2. Timberwolves
3. Pistons
4. Knicks
5. Hornets
6. Lakers

In other words, the Lakers are predicted to be the 14th seed in the Western Conference but just barely good enough to forfeit their draft pick to Phoenix. :D

[Latrinsorm]

Monta and Rondo played 30:45 together last night, the Mavs scored 64 points... 2.081 points per minute.
Monta played 9:31 without Rondo, the Mavs scored 26 points... 2.732 points per minute.
Rondo played 3:04 without Monta, the Mavs scored 5 points... 1.630 points per minute.
Neither was on the court for 4:37, the Mavs scored 4 points... 0.866 points per minute.

Get used to it, Dallas.

[Latrinsorm]

Kobe takes 30 shots and makes 8. The last player to take at least 30 and make no more than 8? Allen Iverson, eleven years ago. Box scores only go back to the 1986 season, and Kobe is now the second player to amass two such games (Iverson has four).

Kobe finishes the game -17, lower than every other player on both teams, and lower than Luc Richard Mbah a Moute's -5. Why does a random 76er matter? Because it extends his lead on said 76er for the worst ± in the NBA. 441 players have seen at least a minute, Kobe is 441st in ±.

[DoctorUnne]

I hope the Cavs sign Josh Smith

[Latrinsorm]

Two center lineups work, why couldn't two power forward lineups work?? Smith protects the rim on defense, Love drains 3s and cedes the post on offense! Yeah!

No. Don't be that guy, David Griffin.

[Latrinsorm]

The Cavs' half court offense was actually efficient against Miami, even though it really didn't feel that way, but nothing interesting about that. Instead, let's talk about LeBron being top 10 in points and assists per game! How often does that occur? It turns out to be 109 but with a very interesting distribution...

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v456/johnnyoldschool/NBATopTeninPointsandAssists_zpsae6bbf3b.png

...what the heck happened in the late 70s, you might ask? Well, the league went from 10 teams in 1967 to 22 teams in 1977, and it's obviously easier to be top 10 in something if there's only 100 entrants instead of 250. Between 1980 and 1998 there were four players who were top 10 in each: Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan, Tim Hardaway, and Michael Adams (point guard for the 1991 Nuggets, fastest-paced team of all time and one of the dozen worst, never recorded even 20 points or 8 assists a game in any other season).

The bump at the turn of the millennium is Gary Payton and Stephon Marbury, then the phenomenon returns in the 2000s. It could be a result of the talent (LeBron and Allen Iverson are pretty singular talents) but it could also be a result of the zone rule changes of 2001. Either way, here are the totals...


9 O. Robertson**
8 B. Cousy**
7 J. West**
6 E. Baylor**
5 L. James*
4 A. Iverson*
4 D. Bing**
4 J. Havlicek**
4 T. Archibald**
4 W. Chamberlain**
3 B. Sharman**
3 C. Hagan**
3 D. Wade*
3 E. Macauley**
3 R. Guerin**
2 B. Davies**
2 D. Schayes**
2 G. Goodrich**
2 G. Payton**
2 H. Greer**
2 P. Westphal*
2 R. Barry**
2 R. Beard*
2 R. Smith*
2 S. Marbury*
1 A. Clark*
1 B. Davis*
1 B. Wanzer**
1 C. Paul*
1 C. Scott*
1 D. Rose*
1 D. Williams*
1 F. Brian*
1 G. Shue*
1 K. Sailors*
1 M. Abdul-Rahman*
1 M. Adams*
1 M. Johnson**
1 M. Jordan**
1 M. Stokes**
1 P. Maravich**
1 R. Westbrook*
1 S. Curry*
1 T. Hardaway*

...and here are the totals since the 1977 merger...


5 L. James*
4 A. Iverson*
3 D. Wade*
2 G. Payton**
2 P. Westphal*
2 S. Marbury*
1 B. Davis*
1 C. Paul*
1 D. Rose*
1 D. Williams*
1 M. Adams*
1 M. Johnson**
1 M. Jordan**
1 R. Smith*
1 R. Westbrook*
1 S. Curry*
1 T. Hardaway*
...not counting the present year, which as it stands would put Harden on the list and add a year for LeBron and Curry. It's also interesting to note that LeBron and Wade were each on the list in 2005(!!!), 2008, 2009, and 2010, then neither were on the list from 2011-2013 (LeBron snuck on in 2014 when Wade missed 30 games). Had they stayed as undisputed primary options, it's very plausible LeBron's on the list for all the years and Wade gets one or two. Even as it stands, LeBron is ahead of everyone since the merger and stretching his lead. Neat!

Last note: twelve men have three or more of these kind of seasons and are eligible for the Hall of Fame. Twelve are in. The three not yet eligible: LeBron James, Allen Iverson, Dwyane Wade. I don't know if anyone disputes that Dwyane Wade is a lock for the Hall of Fame, but if they do they should apparently stop.

[RichardCranium]

...but given that the highest PER ever is only 31.8 it's unlikely Davis can keep that up all season.

Tell me more...

[Latrinsorm]

Tell me more...He was at 34.8, he's down to 32.5, he'll be down to 30 or so by the end of the season. Everything is proceeding as I have foreseen. :)

It occurred to me that the LeBron-Wade gap suggests something significant: that one player can't do that much for a team if that team is going to win the championship. So I went back and looked for all the occasions a player finished in the top 10 of apg and ppg and got a ring:

1987 Magic Johnson (10th PPG, 1st APG, the only time in his career he finished top 10 PPG)
1975 Rick Barry (2nd PPG, 6th APG)
1974 John Havlicek (9th PPG, 9th APG)
1972 Jerry West (7th PPG, 1st APG, was narrowly second on his own team in scoring to Gail Goodrich)
1967 Wilt Chamberlain (5th PPG, 3rd APG, and 1st RPG for good measure)
1959 Bob Cousy (8th PPG, 1st APG, was narrowly second on his own team in scoring to Bill Sharman)
1957 Bob Cousy (9th PPG, 1st APG)
1957 Bill Sharman (6th PPG, 7th APG)

Note that in 1975 there were only 18 teams in the league, but 6th place then is still like (30/18*6) 10th place now. Obviously this does not apply to any of the other men; even Wilt only placed 5th in a 10 team league and 30/10*5 > 10. The last two of course were teammates, and it's not a coincidence the only teammates came in a year when there were only 8 teams in the league.

This has interesting implications because as stated above, the current list is Curry Harden and LeBron. Harden might have an escape clause due to Howard missing so much time, but the Warriors' overreliance on Curry could ultimately prove to be their Achilles' heel...

...although of course Rick Barry did play for the Warriors...

[Latrinsorm]

I was hoping to lead this post with the news that our long national nightmare was over, that Kobe was no longer league-worst in ±... but even after last night's +15 he's still 4 net points behind Luc Richard Mbah a Moute. He's also still just barely at negative Win Shares on the season (-.02). But he still had a triple double last night! It turns out there have been twelve players with 20+ triple doubles from 1986-present:



107 Jason Kidd
69 Magic Johnson*
42 Fat Lever
37 LeBron James
31 Larry Bird*
29 Grant Hill
25 Michael Jordan*
22 Chris Webber
22 Rajon Rondo
21 Clyde Drexler*
21 Kobe Bryant
20 Charles Barkley*
Now, sometimes people are accused of gunning for triple doubles. How might we establish whether they do or not? One way is to look at distributions: take all the games a player has with 10+ points and 10+ assists, and see how his rebound frequency looks. We expect the distribution to peak at his average and decline monotonically in either direction. Taking Kobe as an example, he should not have more games with 10 rebounds than 9 rebounds because his average is lower than both, and same for assists. The trouble is that because is average is quite a bit lower than ten...

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v456/johnnyoldschool/kobe1_zpsd6aba1a2.png

...he only has 83 games with double figure pts and ast, so it's too noisy to really tell anything, even if we go to a moving three bin average...

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v456/johnnyoldschool/kobe2_zps40070d54.png

...there's a slight peak at 10, but nothing dramatic, and binning is kind of naughty anyway. Similar story with assists. If you want to see someone gunning for triple doubles...

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v456/johnnyoldschool/rondo_zps9eb0d53d.png

...Rajon Rondo, everyone! Speaking of Rondo, according to nbawowy.com the Mavericks through December 18th had a 116.2 ORtg vs 107.8 DRtg: +8.4 net. In the six games since their marks are 108.1 and 103.0: +5.1 net. Fit matters.

[Latrinsorm]

The Spurs are a 7 seed, and using fancy things like margin of victory and strength of schedule only puts them up to 6. What gives?

Kawhi is hurt!
But Kawhi only played 1923 minutes last year, and he could still hit that pretty easily. (Similar to Tony Parker only playing 1997 last year, Splitter playing 59 total games last year.) This is a team that hasn't ridden its stars hard in years, missing time from stars shouldn't matter because it's what they did last year too.

The West is so good!
The West was good last year too, and probably better. Aggregate winning % last year: 54.8%. This year: 54.5%. Number of teams with 2+ SRS last year: 10. This year: 7. Phoenix, Minnesota, and OKC out.

They're just too dang old!
They were old last year too, and outside of Manu their old stalwarts are better this year. After being a sixth big last year Aron Baynes has emerged as a solid bench player, and the absence of Patty Mills has been irrelevant due to Cory Joseph's improvement.

.

Here's what gives. 5 and 7. The Spurs are 5-7 in games decided by 5 points or fewer this year. Last year they only had 11 close games all season, and won 9 of them. They were always going to have more this year and not win as many, because having and winning close games is a matter of luck. Not grit: the Spurs have plenty of grit. Not clutch: the Spurs have three different Finals MVPs on the roster. Not coaching: the Spurs have the best coach in the game.

Luck.

If the Spurs had the same close game stats this year, they would have had only 4 close games and won 3 of them. That puts them at a 67.6% instead of 57.6%, a difference of 8 wins on the year. If the Spurs had this year's close game stats last year, they would have had 51 wins instead of 62, good for the sixth seed instead of the first.

Luck matters, and luck doesn't stick around.

[Atlanteax]

Latrin, how come you have not written about Kobe getting his 21st triple-double?

[Latrinsorm]

Not only did I write about it, I defended Kobe from accusations of triple-double chasing. :)

[Latrinsorm]

Entering play tonight Russell Westbrook had a 41 USG% and 50 AST%, leading the NBA in both categories. (This means he finished or assisted on 71% of OKC's possessions while he was on the floor, and frankly I wouldn't put it past him to shoot from the bench.) These figures can only be calculated back until the 1978 season, so it is unprecedented. Tiny Archibald famously led the league in points and assists in 1973, and somewhat less famously also led the league in FGAs and FTAs and so would absolutely have done so, and Wilt famously led the league in not giving a gosh darn about his teammates so probably would have done so three or four times, but it's still an incredible achievement (so to speak). The only players to even finish in the top 5 in both categories are...

2010 LeBron (2nd and 5th, 61%)
2009 Wade (1st and 5th, 62%)
2005 Iverson (2nd and 5th, 60%)
1978 Paul Westphal (2nd and 5th, 51%, white men can't jump)

Westbrook has the same weakness as a lot of the other point guards I've talked about: point guards can't jump shoot. But Russ is astonishingly not doing worse this year! I would think that Durant not being in the lineup would make everything harder for Westbrook, but when I think harder I realize it's the opposite. The OKC system has one set. Durant and Westbrook hang out on either side of the top of the three point line. One of them gets the ball and does stuff, the other patiently hangs out 27 feet from the basket for occasional spot up opportunities. This is why the "if Westbrook is so bad how come when he shoots a lot the Thunder still win???" idiocy works: Durant is a lethal spot up shooter (even standing 27 stupid feet away from the rim), so if Westbrook is the one doing stuff the Thunder are still in good shape. Westbrook is not, but if Durant isn't around it means the OKC offense runs entirely through Westbrook, which in turn means he's (almost) never spotting up, which he is bad at, which in turn means the only spot up shots he takes are the absolute best possible versions for him, which cancels out the no-Durant factor. The past three years he was at .91, .87, .91 points per long jumper, this year he's at .91 again.

I have not been seriously watching the NBA for very long on geological time scales. But it strikes me that coaches are doing bad jobs with distressing frequency. Mike Brown with LeBron, Monty with the Brow, Brooks with OKC. It is frustrating. But it makes for rather incredible statistical lines.

[Latrinsorm]

LeBron out for two weeks (http://espn.go.com/nba/story/_/id/12107680/lebron-james-cleveland-cavaliers-expected-miss-2-weeks), sprained his knee hustling into the stands after a loose ball. That's the problem with today's NBA athletes, they phone it in the regular season. Michael would have used telekinesis to keep that ball in play, that's how fierce his will to win was.

LeBron has missed no more than 7 games in any season before this one. The smart play is to bring him back after the road trip that ends January 16th, which means 9 games on top of the 3 he's already missed, but even if he's only gone a calender week that'll be 7 games missed already. This is how decline happens.

I think this is good for the Cavs' long term. First of all they're giving him time off which means he's lazy and coddled and disrespectful of the fans and DEFINITELY DOES NOT mean the Cavs are being smart like Popovich. Second of all Kyrie and Love should have been getting more touches this whole time, they'll have to now and it will show LeBron he can take a step back without hurting the team, and hopefully he'll embrace that. Third of all the absurd hyperscrutiny of his every move on the court must necessarily abate: you can't parse the offhand comments he makes to Wade at the scorer's table if he never goes to the scorer's table, you can't put a microscope to his body language in the huddle if he's not in the huddle.

The Cavs do have a pretty tough schedule coming up (Mavs, Rockets, at Warriors, at Kings, at Suns, at Clippers) but they can't and apparently aren't getting caught up in single season myopia. They'll have all these players next year, the young fellows will develop, the coach will get acclimated (and acclimated to), long term is the answer. Again, this is VERY DIFFERENT from Popovich refusing to overreact to any single play, game, series, or season.

[Androidpk]

Lebron will be leaving Cleveland after this season anyways so what does he care.

[Wrathbringer]

LeBron out for two weeks (http://espn.go.com/nba/story/_/id/12107680/lebron-james-cleveland-cavaliers-expected-miss-2-weeks), sprained his knee hustling into the stands after a loose ball. That's the problem with today's NBA athletes, they phone it in the regular season. Michael would have used telekinesis to keep that ball in play, that's how fierce his will to win was.

LeBron has missed no more than 7 games in any season before this one. The smart play is to bring him back after the road trip that ends January 16th, which means 9 games on top of the 3 he's already missed, but even if he's only gone a calender week that'll be 7 games missed already. This is how decline happens.

I think this is good for the Cavs' long term. First of all they're giving him time off which means he's lazy and coddled and disrespectful of the fans and DEFINITELY DOES NOT mean the Cavs are being smart like Popovich. Second of all Kyrie and Love should have been getting more touches this whole time, they'll have to now and it will show LeBron he can take a step back without hurting the team, and hopefully he'll embrace that. Third of all the absurd hyperscrutiny of his every move on the court must necessarily abate: you can't parse the offhand comments he makes to Wade at the scorer's table if he never goes to the scorer's table, you can't put a microscope to his body language in the huddle if he's not in the huddle.

The Cavs do have a pretty tough schedule coming up (Mavs, Rockets, at Warriors, at Kings, at Suns, at Clippers) but they can't and apparently aren't getting caught up in single season myopia. They'll have all these players next year, the young fellows will develop, the coach will get acclimated (and acclimated to), long term is the answer. Again, this is VERY DIFFERENT from Popovich refusing to overreact to any single play, game, series, or season.

They need to get the seats back from the court so these guys have room to hustle. Not so much pro as college. Pros don't have to hustle anymore. They're already pros so they play more slowly and with less motivation. I've always found it stupid that at every basketball game one inch out of bounds is a row of idiots that are never actually paying any attention to the game.

[Latrinsorm]

Oy.

CAVALIERS get
J.R. Smith and Iman Shumpert (currently out indefinitely with a dislocated shoulder)
OKC 1st round pick (protected)

THUNDER get
Dion Waiters

KNICKS get
CLE 2nd round pick

J.R. Smith and Dion Waiters are the same archetype. Talented but enigmatic backup SG, some attitude issues. The difference is that Waiters makes $3m less and has a TEAM option instead of a PLAYER option next year, is six years younger, has familiarity with the Cavs' players and staff. I get that Shumpert is the target but he's never played 2000 minutes in a season and isn't gonna this year either.

The Thunder, jeez Louise. Dion Waiters has (reportedly) gotten into a fist fight with Kyrie Irving over touches. Kyrie's not John Stockton or anything but his usage has been around 29%. Westbrook's is 41%. How in the world are those two going to co-exist? Thabo Sefolosha's usage never broke 12. It baffles me why the Thunder would try this. Their shooting guard options were terrible but (a) this doesn't appear to be an improvement and (b) do they seriously think they're in title contention this year? Everyone was talking big about how they were headed for the 5-6 seeds during the win streak, but they're still in the 10 seed.

The Knicks giving up on the season in January has got to sting. I didn't know it was possible but the Carmelo #1 MVP vote looks even dumber now.

[Atlanteax]

Does this Cleveland season going into the toilet indicate that LeBron is overrated as a teammate?

[Androidpk]

Does this Cleveland season going into the toilet indicate that LeBron is overrated as a teammate?

Nah, it just means he's going to sign with another team for even more money.

[Latrinsorm]

Does this Cleveland season going into the toilet indicate that LeBron is overrated as a teammate?Only as much as Kobe being 441st in the league in ± indicates that he is overrated as a basketball player. :) (Out of 445, though! No longer dead last in the league!)

[Latrinsorm]

Watched the Cavs-Rockets game last night, then part of the Suns-Wolves game which was way more interesting. A few thoughts:

1. Markieff Morris is going to get called for a 10 second free throw violation sooner or later. I don't envy the ref that calls it.

2. Eric Bledsoe doesn't seem that good to me. He openly gives up on ON-BALL defense, which is pretty amazing. He can't shoot. He rebounds really well for his size but at 6'1" (generous) that still isn't much. His passing is okay. 15/5/5 averages are tasty looking but I'm not sure what role he would fill on a good team. He certainly can't be your best player, he's too small to be a shooting guard, he doesn't pass enough or well enough to be a point guard.

3. Jon Barry reacted in astonishment to Kobe's pronouncement that Wiggins reminded him of a rookie Kobe. This is an insult to Wiggins. Kobe played 15 minutes a game his rookie year, and while his per-time production was better than Wiggins his efficiency was pretty much the same. Kobe 14.4 PER - 24.7(!!!) USG = -10.3, Wiggins 11.7 PER - 21.9 USG = -10.2. Kobe of course received 0 votes for Rookie of the Year, and while the season is young Wiggins has received a Rookie of the Month award.

This got me thinking: how have all-time greats done in Rookie of the Year?
LeBron, Duncan, Jordan, Bird, Kareem, and Wilt all won. (Wilt won the MVP his rookie year as well, nbd.) Voting records only go back to 84 so there's no information on Magic (same year as Bird), Russell missed 30 games his rookie year to play in the Olympics and (in)famously lost to teammate Tommy Heinsohn, and Erving started in the ABA and lost to Artis Gilmore. Other interesting names: Shaq, Oscar Robertson, Pettit win... Hakeem loses to Jordan... Kobe loses to Iverson. He's the only one without a ROY, a loss to an all-time great, or a plausible excuse.

[Keller]

You should probably be making these posts in the off-topic board of the sim league. You'd get much better thread participation.

[Latrinsorm]

The most important part of the Cavs' Mozgov acquisition: they now are a real threat to play 5 white guys at the same time.

PG Dellavedova
SG Harris
SF Miller
PF Love
C Mozgov

I'm also growing more confident in the Cavs long term. They were playing James Jones major minutes at small forward last night which was very hard to watch but then you remember that LeBron and Marion are both small forwards, and Shumpert could play there too. Once they get healthy, look out! It's the four seed for sure! Varejao coming back next year will give them four legit NBA bigs, which is always nice for injuries. People bleated that the Heat had to win every year or they were a failure, and whined that LeBron celebrated so it was a fair expectation. That was always stupid, and now they don't even have the celebration. The Cavs don't have to win this year to keep LeBron or Love or Kyrie or anyone else. Even if (;)) KD comes to Washington in 2016 the East is going to be the easier road to the Finals for years to come. The Cavs have Bird rights on everyone on their roster. They have some old players but plenty of young ones: Love, Kyrie, Thompson, Mozgov, Shump, Dellie, Harris. If LeBron takes a Dirk/Duncan paycut which I fully expect he will, they'll even have cap space. Long term looks good.

.

Always like watching the Wizards. Wall just has STYLE. Strongly considering adding him to my Pinterest board of that name. This is crucially different from swag. Puffing your chest out after you dunk and screaming after you block a shot is played out, Taj Gibson. Posing after flawlessly executing a 2 on 1 fast break with a brilliant drop off pass is what's in. The Wizards just seem like a playoff style team, and as I've demonstrated (http://forum.gsplayers.com/showthread.php?93448-NBA-Champions-the-Previous-Year) winning even one round the previous year (Wizards, Blazers) has a much better championship pedigree than not (Hawks, Warriors). One thing Breeny said struck me, especially in the context of the Bulls becoming "the favorites" to win the title. He said that the Bulls are much better on offense this year (true), then added as an afterthought that obviously Rose coming back was a big part of that... but are either of those true? Are the Bulls actually the most likely team to win the title, or does Las Vegas in fact operate by calculating what people believe? The latter. Duh. It doesn't matter if you win or lose, all they care about is if about half of the bettors wager on you, and they make their money on the vig.

Okay, that's obvious, but how did Derrick Rose get lumped into it? As it turns out, the 2015 Bulls are WORSE on offense with Derrick Rose playing than when he sits. How can this be? Everyone knows the Bulls are elite defensively and pedestrian offensively, and Derrick Rose transforms them into a good offense, just look at his highlights. In 2014 they had a 94.2 DRtg+ (2nd) but a 96.1 ORtg+ (28th). This year they have a 101.9 ORtg+ (11th). Derrick Rose! No. Their ORtg would be 10th when he sits or 11th when he plays. He has no net impact offensively. This is just a fact. His composite metrics are atrocious: 14.7 PER on 31.9 USG(!!!), NEGATIVE 0.2 offensive Win Shares. His traditional stats are pretty ugly too: 17 points a game on 40% shooting (WOOF), 1.5 assists to the turnover for a point guard, shooting 26% from 3 and 34% on long 2s.

The 2015 Bulls are better on offense because they aren't the 2014 Bulls. Brooks for Augustin is like for like, Gasol and Mirotic are huge offensive improvements over Boozer and Mohammed... and downgrades on the defensive end. Boozer couldn't make a rotation to save his life (or his contract, as it turned out), but he could get you a rebound. Gasol can't rotate either, but his low foot speed means they have to play him at center, moving Noah out onto PFs and diluting his defensive impact. Sure Gasol gets you the 2 blocks a game, but what about the other 98 plays? What about them? is pretty much Gasol's response, which is why opponents are shooting about 1% better when he's on the court.

People believe the Bulls are an elite defensive team and disregard the evidence to the contrary because defense is boring. They see the great offensive plays (including by D-Rose) and say a-ha! Now the Bulls are good on offense too! Title favorite! Nope.

Nope.
You should probably be making these posts in the off-topic board of the sim league. You'd get much better thread participation.I remain a friend to the Jews.

[Latrinsorm]

Less styling last night, but there was a demonstrative play. Wall-Beal-Pierce-Nene-Gortat vs. Rose-Butler-Hinrich-Mirotic-Gasol.

First of all, having Hinrich guarding a small forward is insane, and shows just how little depth the Bulls have on the wing. Butler is an All-Star, Dunleavy is a legit NBA player, then they have nothing. Snell is such a bad shooter that they've started letting him dribble because at least then his defender won't play 15 feet off him. McDermott is injured but was bru-tal when he did play. Hinrich is a point guard, has always been a point guard, and is in his 12th year. You can get a long way on defense just by wanting to play it, but 6'3" 190 lbs against an NBA small forward takes a heck of a lot more than that, and he just doesn't have that left athletically to give any more. Their wing depth is so bad that they're playing two point guard lineups with Rose and Brooks, and they have even less chance than Hinrich against small forwards so Thibs has to put Butler on the small forward, which means you have your best perimeter defender on Paul Pierce (9 shots a game) instead of Wall (14) or Beal (13), which is less than ideal.

Anyway, they're severely undermanned on the wing, but they're also just making bad decisions. Here's the play, and the most interesting thing about it to me is that it's a broken play. The first 10 seconds of the shot clock involve Beal meandering pointlessly from side to side, and getting so frustrated that he turns to the bench (which is on the other side of half court) and raises his arms in confusion? anger at his teammates? Who knows, but it wasn't the only time in the game. I don't think it's beef with Wall, who was patiently dribbling as the "action" happened. The irony is that Doug Collins went out of his way to chide the critics of Randy Wittman, but... seriously, Randy Wittman is a terrible offensive coach. He has no idea what he's doing.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v456/johnnyoldschool/1a_zps158726ca.png

Frame 1
Okay, so after they screw around for 10 seconds they have Pierce and Gortat come over to set a massive double screen for Wall, while on the other side of the play Nene half-heartedly sets a screen for Beal. Butler fights over that easily, Rose gets crushed. He had no chance here, but it's worth pointing out that throughout the game he was either going OVER the screen (moronic against a 32% three point shooter and speed demon in Wall) or just dying on it. He was never a good defender, but at this point he's openly poor. Gasol stays very low because (a) that's what Chicago's scheme is (b) Gortat isn't a three point threat (c) Gasol is old.

Frame 2
It's usually a bad thing to give up a direct line drive to the hoop, but Gasol and Mirotic are both in position to cut it off and do so. Hinrich has switched onto Gortat, Rose has switched onto Pierce, the situation is not good but not critical.

Frame 3
It turns out Hinrich gives up a foot and a hundred pounds to Gortat and so can't stop him from bulling past, but Gasol and Mirotic can easily deny any pass to the Washington bigs and Butler has stayed home on Beal, so Wall's only real choices are a 10 foot floater or passing back to Pierce, and while Wall is shooting a good percentage on floaters this year the sample size is small so he passes out to Pierce. As he does so, Hinrich moves towards Pierce, realizes Wall has switched onto him, and literally turns around to run back to Gortat's body rather than, you know, switching onto Wall. This is the critical error of the defensive play.

Frame 4
Pierce calmly passes to Wall at the three point line. Butler isn't going to rotate from Beal because Beal open in the corner is the worst possible outcome for Chicago. Mirotic isn't going to rotate up from Nene because that's way too far to go and offers a layup opportunity besides. Rose is the only one who has a chance, so he rotates onto Wall. Obviously this leaves Pierce open for 3, and Pierce is a much better 3 point shooter, but it's still the right play by Rose. Forcing another pass gives the rest of the defense time to mop up the situation... but Hinrich is still somehow under the impression that he should have switched onto the 5 instead of the 1, so he doesn't react when Wall passes back to Pierce for the open 3 until it's too late, and even when Hinrich tries to rotate up he runs into Gasol.

Rose took the blame from the announce crew, and you could argue that just conceding the open Wall 3 is a decent result for Chicago, but Hinrich is the one who made the biggest error and compounded it by not recognize it as such. He's not a good defender any more, and when you add that to Rose and Brooks being minuses you end up with a league average defense (13th) no matter how good your bigs are. It's not a question of scheme, we know the Bulls have a great scheme. It's a question of personnel, and Chicago just doesn't have the right one to manufacture an elite defense. Even a team with an openly bad coach like Wittman can exploit them quite easily, it's only going to get worse in the playoffs.

[Latrinsorm]

The Thunder are .500, 10th in the West, 5 games out of the playoffs.

"They've had injuries!" but even with Durant and Westbrook in the lineup they are only 14-7, which prorates to 55 wins. This doesn't seem like that big a drop-off from the last three years (58 prorated, 60, 59), but 55 wins would only be good enough for the 2 seed, 6 seed, and 4 seed over those years. Little differences matter a lot when you're at the top. Little difference also matter a lot when you're at the bottom. A 55 win pace over the remaining 38 games gives 47 wins, a mere 1 game ahead of Phoenix' current pace so the slightest stumble/injury/suspension would leave OKC out of the playoffs. A 59 win pace gives 49 wins, significantly more breathing room.

Alright, so WHY are the Thunder not doing as well? All the same old problems. They've finally sent Perk to the bench, but he's actually playing pretty much the same minutes he did last year as a starter at 19.2 to 19.5. Durant's usage has gone down this year and Westbrook's has gone up; this is not to the Thunder's benefit. And the big one: after years of shrewdly giving away established players for draft picks, the Thunder are left with an absolutely pathetic supporting cast.

1. Roberson is a joke. He was spotted up at the elbow of the three point line last night. His defender (LeBron) was at the outermost box where players line up to rebound free throws, a distance of just over 10 feet. LeBron happens to be tall, long, high IQ, and explosively fast, so he can get away with helping more than most people, but still. You can't run offense that way. The team's ORtg only when Durant and Westbrook are on the court is a laughable 104.9, below average. Durant + Westbrook = below average. It should be impossible. It should be illegal.

2. Adams and Ibaka are both useful offensive finishers, but they are on track for 150 assists between them for the season and neither can create for themselves. There are only 10 starters in the league so allergic to passing, and OKC has two of them. Some of this could be because that between Durant and Westbrook the other Thunder touch the ball so infrequently they are severely disinclined to give it up once they do have it, but I think most of it is skill and lack of offensive strategy; that is, they are TOLD to only shoot it once they get it. Regardless, both are seeing slight declines compared to last year.

3. Already touched on Perk, but the rest of the bench is catastrophic outside of Morrow who has lived up to his reputation. Jackson has improved his passing somewhat but his scoring efficiency has plummeted. Collison is in full decline, has tried to ward it off by adding a three point shot, and has failed. Jeremy Lamb has again improved slightly year-over-year so of course he has been benched in favor of Dion Waiters, who has continued to be brutal: can't finish, can't draw fouls, can't hit a jump shot, can't pass, can't rebound, can't defend.

I wouldn't be surprised if OKC makes the playoffs. I would be very surprised if they win a single round, and I think the people breathlessly telling us how afraid the top seeds are or should be of the Thunder haven't been keeping up on current events.

[Latrinsorm]

I have charted nine Cavs games pre-LeBron having a nap and four since. The Cavs' half court efficiency has gone way up in the second period, from .826 points per possession to 1.064 and not surprisingly they've won all four games compared to going 5-4 over the front nine. Great. But if we peek under the hood, there are some fundamental issues. Quick definitions: when I say a player is fully involved, they finish the possession with a shot, free throw, turnover, assist, pass that led to free throws, or pass that would have been an assist if the recipient had made the shot. When I say a player is uninvolved, they never touched the ball in the half court or set a screen (on or off ball). When I say a player is halfway involved, that's every other type of possession. If a shot is offensive rebounded, the possession is over and a new one starts. There is no such thing as a Kobe assist.

1. LeBron is doing too much and he's past his prime. This combination has sapped his efficiency from the greatest of all time to top ten this season. It's a little nit picky to complain about being a top ten player, but the Cavs need to be focused on the long term. LeBron isn't going to get better from this point, only worse. The sooner he embraces that and embraces a reduced role (a la Tim Duncan) the better off the Cavs will be, especially since retaining Love is not guaranteed and everyone likes shooting more. (Ideally LeBron would also embrace a reduced contract a la Tim Duncan.) Before the break LeBron was fully involved in 45% of plays, halfway involved in 34%, and uninvolved in 22% while on the court. This was already a bad split; in his Miami days the numbers were 45/39/16. Since he's been back it's gotten worse to 49/29/22. He shouldn't be doing nothing, although he is a very good spot-up shooter and thus contributes even when he stands still in the corner, but the "LeBron run every play" strategy didn't work when he was in his prime, and it'll work even less now.

2. The fit is still a bit awkward, and it's easy to avoid it by mimicking the Thunder style "offense" of KD shoot, now Westbrook shoot, now KD shoot, etc., but they'll be much stronger if they put in the work to make it fit. Before the break, the Cavs generated .875/.767/.817 on LeBron's full/half/no touches, again, already a bad sign that the weakest area was with LeBron in complementary action. Since the break, they're at 1.123/.789/1.288. They've gotten better across the board but mostly in the areas they were already strong, exaggerating the disparity.

[Drew]

In basketball your centers almost always are bad free throw shooters. Is this because free throw shooting is an ability that only manifests in a small percentage of all people and since big men are already statistically so small you don't get enough numbers to see lots of good free throw shooters, or is there something mechanically different about free throw shooting at 7 foot tall?

[Latrinsorm]

The demographic theory is interesting and one I hadn't considered, but I think it just boils down to form. The notorious big men (Shaq, Dwight) have terrible form, so they shoot free throws terribly no matter how much they practice. Form isn't genetic, anyone CAN learn good form. While there is very good correlation between height and FT%, the effect is pretty small: the regression I found for last year was 83% - 1% per inch over 6 feet. My guess is there's a hidden variable: shooting. Those bigs who are good shooters (Durant, Dirk, Love) are also good free throw shooters. Those smalls who aren't (Rondo, Elfrid Payton, Roberson) also struggle with free throws. Kidd could be an interesting illustration of this:

first three years 32% from 3 and 69% from the line,
next six years 33% and 82%,
next nine years 37% and 80%

Bigs who can't shoot (from anywhere) can still be NBA players, even great ones, but while all big men take free throws not all will take jump shots. Smalls who can't shoot from anywhere are much more damaging to the team, so they aren't around as much.