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Post by Deleted on Feb 12, 2015 0:01:24 GMT
m.espn.go.com/nba/story?storyId=12308938Charles is exactly right... Hes not always right but he got it right. All these GMs in sim leagues included. Stats only mean so much. So many things factor into situations. On paper you might be the best at several areas. Thing is those teams dont win it in the end. Its just like in other sports. You can break records and maybe even go undefeated .but when you lose the big games...all those statistics go out the door.
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May 4, 2024 9:09:15 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Feb 12, 2015 0:09:18 GMT
Interesting Read:
FINDING CREATIVE SOLUTIONS TO COMPLEX LEGAL PROBLEMS 401-456-0700 E-MAIL OPEN MENU
OPEN PRACTICE AREAS What Wins Basketball Games
Review of "Basketball on Paper: Rules and Tools for Performance Analysis" By Dean Oliver
Review by Tom Lyons
"Basketball on Paper" is a recently published book (Brassy's, Inc. 2004) that attempts to use statistical analysis to distinguish what is truly important to winning basketball games. The book also provides ways to analyze individual player performance. The jacket describes the author, Dean Oliver, as "a former basketball player, assistant coach, and collegiate scout" who founded the online "Journal of Basketball Studies" (www.rawbw.com/~deano/) and who has contributed to Basketball Digest and the Association for Basketball Research. Oliver attended college, played basketball and coached at Cal Tech. He has a Ph.D in engineering from North Carolina. Oliver worked for Bill Bertka's scouting service for four years. He has paid the bills as a computer consultant and risk analyst. Oliver is now with the Seattle Supersonics putting his basketball theories into practice. (As of the 2005 All-Star break, the Sonics were 35-15 and 10 games up in the new Northwest Division. Last year, they finished 40-42, 19 games back in the Pacific Division). Referring to Michael Lewis' book about the Oakland Athletics' use of statistical analysis to run their team, Oliver has called his book the "Moneyball" of basketball.
It is to some extent a compendium of material previously published on his website or elsewhere. One article on the website seems to be a revision of one chapter of the book. It is well written and appears to be a very thorough attempt to use a lot of data, mostly from the NBA, and, in some cases, very complicated formulas* to arrive at its conclusions. In that sense, the full-blown analytical methods themselves are not very useful for coaches unless you have a ton a data about your team and individual players as well as the ability to draft a computer program that uses that data. The book provides a detailed explanation of how to record data about a team manually. Oliver says on his website that he has developed an analytical program named "Roboscout" that he uses with the Sonics but it is generally not for sale.
Oliver believes his conclusions apply equally well to women's basketball, but he does not have the wealth of data there that he has for the NBA. Oliver has some WNBA data and states he is involved in a long-term project analyzing WNBA data but he does not have many conclusions from that analysis yet. Nonetheless, nothing in the data he has indicates his conclusions do not apply to women's basketball. His conclusions are useful and enlightening, at least to me. (Even if you already know them, you can now say science confirms them). Here are Oliver's main points.
Based on statistical analyses, the four most important keys for team success in basketball and their relative weights, in parentheses, are:
Shoot a high field goal percentage (10). Do not commit turnovers (5-6). Get offensive rebounds (4-5). Get to the foul line frequently (2-3). Teams that consistently win basketball games do at least three of these things well. If a team doesn't shoot well, it better do the other three things very well. I should note that Oliver says these factors should be considered on the basis of the number of a team's possessions compared to its opponent, not in absolute terms. In other words, he looks at efficiency, for example, the number of made shots per possession, or the number of turnovers per possession, not total points or turnovers, which can vary greatly depending on the pace of the game.
Obviously, these keys could also be stated from the defensive perspective, i.e., prevent easy baskets, cause turnovers, do not give up offensive rebounds, do not foul, etc. However, I have put them in the offensive perspective because of another of Oliver's conclusions: In the NBA, at least since the 1970's, offense wins playoffs and championships more often than defense . The difference in success between strong offensive teams and strong defensive teams is not large, but the data contradicts the old adage that defense wins championships. I suspect this may be even more accurate at lower levels of basketball where offensive skills are more rare than defensive skills. [On the other hand, in a one-game playoff, it is possible for a team or a critical player to have a bad shooting night, whereas defense may not be as variable].
But, if defense does not necessarily win championships, where did the idea originate? With Bill Russell's Celtics who were the best defensive team ever and won 11 of 13 championships during his tenure. They had Hall-of-Famers coming off the bench. Of course, basing the idea on those Celtics is like looking at Michael Jordan's Bulls who won 6 titles in 8 years and saying shooting guards win championships. The fabulously exceptional team or player is still the exception.
Oliver offers some comments on why he thinks these factors appear so important. The benefit of a high shooting percentage is obvious, especially since most missed shots result in defensive rebounds (and potential fast breaks). Oliver cites one study that found that the NBA team with the higher field goal percentage won 79 percent of the games.
Turnovers are important because a team cannot even shoot, never mind score, if it turns over the ball during a possession. The NBA team with fewer turnovers wins about 58 percent of the time. If field goal percentages are about equal, the team with fewer turnovers wins 69 percent of the time. In an email to me, Oliver commented that turnovers are even more important below the NBA level.
Offensive rebounding can make up for a poor shooting percentage, particularly as shots off of offensive rebounds generally are more likely to result in scores than initial field goal attempts. Oliver refers to a study of WNBA offensive rebounds done by an official with the Charlotte Sting. The study found that offensive rebounders increase their field goal percentage from 41 to 48 percent and their points per play from about .80 to .94. That improved the team's points per play from .80 to .90, which Oliver says is a huge difference. In the NBA, if shooting percentages are about equal, the team with more offensive rebounds wins 63 percent of the games. (This also emphasizes how important it is for the defense to box out).
Oliver discounts to some extent the value of defensive rebounding. He notes that 70 percent of missed shots result in defensive rebounds so they do not take much special effort or ability. Also, defensive rebounds are to a large extent the result of good defense making the offense shoot a low field goal percentage. In that sense, factoring in defensive rebounds is like double-counting the same affect.
Interestingly, it is more important for teams to get to the foul line frequently than it is for them to hit a high percentage of their foul shots. Perhaps, this is because lots of foul shots means the other team's starters are in foul trouble. Again, if shooting percentages are equal, the NBA team that commits fewer fouls wins 67 percent of the games.
Oliver also has some other observations based on his NBA data. Good offensive players are more important than good offensive systems. Oliver offers numerous examples of good scorers who succeeded regardless of the system in which they played and "good" offensive systems that floundered without a good scorer(s). Think of the Bulls' triangle offense with and without Michael Jordan. Think of Shaquille O'Neal in Orlando and Los Angeles. On the other hand, Oliver does note that a few NBA coaches have had offensive success with more than one team: George Karl, Phil Jackson and Don Nelson. This may be because they are good at recognizing and using scorers well, not necessarily because of any particular system. In other words, adapt the system to the players rather than vice-versa. However, I should note that Oliver believes offensive systems are more important at the college ranks and below but he cannot prove it.
Offensive efficiency is more important than pushing the pace of the game. Oliver quotes Dean Smith who said: "The biggest reason I'm against simply running the ball down and shooting the first shot available is that the defense doesn't have time to foul you." And, as noted, getting fouled and shooting lots of foul shots is a key to success. Slowing the game (reducing the total number of possessions) down does not seem to increase defensive efficiency (the percentage of stops), though, as will be described below, it does make the outcome of individual games more variable.
Good offensive teams have both inside and outside scoring, however, no single position is key to offensive success. A team does not have to have a great point guard or a great center to score efficiently. However, it does have to pass well. Most offensively successful teams have a high percentage of assists on their scores. Assists lead to higher quality shots and a higher shooting percentage. The NBA team with the higher number of assists wins about 72 percent of games.
Height is more important to offensive success than defensive success, though it is not critical. Statistically, the top offensive teams in the NBA have been somewhat taller than average, whereas the top defensive teams have been shorter than average. [Of course, the reason could be that shorter teams had to play tougher defense because they had a hard time scoring]. While there is a correlation between having a top shot blocker and having a very efficient defense, there is no correlation between a high team total of blocked shots and defensive efficiency. Oliver surmises that height may be more important at the high school and college level where there are greater variations in size among the players.
Contrary to what some coaches and commentators think, it is not easier for offenses to rebound three point shots. Oliver looked at numerous NBA games between 1999 and 2002 that included several thousand missed shots. The offense rebounded 33 percent of two point misses and 31 percent of three point misses. Generally speaking, the rebounds on three point shots do not go farther from the basket than two point shots. Also, many two point field goals are shot close to the basket and the shooter often has the best chance to get the rebound.
There is no such thing as a "hot hand." Oliver cites two studies of NBA players and one of college players that showed no indication that any particular players were more likely to make a shot if they had made the previous shot. The NBA studies were of the Philadelphia 76ers' field goal attempts during the 1981 season and the Celtics free throw attempts during the 1981 and 1982 seasons. If anything, the players were slightly more likely to make a shot if they had missed the previous one. Of the twenty-six college players only one was significantly streaky.
Underdogs should adopt a "risky" strategy even if no particular strategy is clearly better. A risky strategy is one that changes the dynamics of how the game would normally go. Examples of risky strategies are pressing, attempting many three point shots, slowing down the pace of the game, playing a zone, fronting the post, sending guards to the boards to rebound, releasing the guards on defense for a potential fast break, and playing oversized or undersized lineups. If one such strategy is clearly better, such as pressing a tall team with poor ball-handlers, then the underdog should use that strategy. However, even when no particular risky strategy is better, the underdog should still use one.
Oliver notes that the slow down strategy works by reducing the number of possessions each team has. This reduces the better team's advantages and makes the outcome more variable. Similarly, the other risky strategies make results more variable in different ways. For that reason, the otherwise superior team should avoid risky strategies. Oliver describes how Rick Pitino's talented Kentucky teams may have lost some games by pressing.
With respect to evaluating individual player's performances, Oliver says the goal is obviously to determine how well a player helps a team do the things that win basketball games. From an offensive perspective, the player should:
Shoot a high field goal percentage or help teammates shoot a high percentage through assists and playmaking. Avoid turnovers. Get offensive rebounds. Draw fouls. At the defensive end, the player should:
Make offensive players take low percentage shots. Cause turnovers. Box out and prevent offensive rebounds. Avoid fouls. Oliver discusses several different ways of evaluating individual offensive and defensive performance including his own methodology. Suffice to say, most of them, including his own, require much detailed data about what a player does in the game and a good computer program. However, if a coach does not have those resources, she can still pay close attention to these four factors.
Even using Oliver's methodology, individual defensive assessments in particular require a lot of subjective judgment. Which defender gets credit for causing the offense to take a bad shot, especially if the defense is in a zone? Which defender caused a turnover, the one harassing the passer or the one who stole the pass? Who failed to box out the offensive rebounder? Whose fault is it if a help defender picks up a foul? Should the credit or blame be split between two defenders? And, to what extent does the coach want to delegate that judgment to someone else?
Team chemistry is very important though it is more difficult to quantify. Chemistry has two parts: having a team that has well-balanced skills and having players who are willing to contribute to the team's good balance. If you already have several good shooters, you may need more ball-handling and defensive skills, otherwise, you will have too many turnovers and give up too many points. On the other hand, if your team dribbles and defends well, but cannot put the ball in the basket, you need shooters. Oliver discusses some statistical analyses to determine your team's needs.
The second part of chemistry, players with good attitude, is very important but very difficult to quantify. Oliver says that an important issue is giving players credit for the contributions they do make. He describes psychological studies about people's concepts of "fairness" that are not purely rational. He notes that very few players are willing to play on a team where one player takes all the shots and gets all the credit no matter how much better he or she is than the others. Good coaches have to find ways to balance players' abilities and give credit to maximize individual efforts and team success.
While the second part of Oliver's book may not provide much specific help to coaches who lack a substantial support staff, it does provide a lot of fodder for basketball buffs to debate. He has a huge amount of statistical analyses of individual players. The first part of the book has a large amount of data comparing NBA teams, past and present. For example, his analysis indicates that the most dominant professional basketball player in the last 25 years is not Michael Jordan, it is Cynthia Cooper. (Who volunteers to tell Mike?). Arguably, the single best offensive season for a male professional player in that period belongs to…..Reggie Miller in 1991. As great as he was, a good argument can be made that Jordan did not shoot the ball enough. Ditto for Cooper. Allen Iverson should shoot less. Who was a better NBA player, Bird or Magic? Well, statistically, it's a dead heat, for second place, behind Jordan. The top offensive NBA teams, compared to their competition, have been the Denver Nuggets of 1982, the Chicago Bulls of 1997 and the Dallas Mavericks of 2002. The top defensive teams were the Knicks of 1993, the Bullets of 1975 and the Jazz of 1989. Cooper made the Houston Comets simply unbeatable at either end of the court.
Oliver's book and website are very useful for coaches at all levels. Coaches who have the resources to gather substantial data on their teams and opponents and analyze it will have very helpful information. They can use that to evaluate their players, pick optimal offenses and defenses for their teams and decide good match-ups or combinations of players on the courts. Even coaches who do not have those resources can use this information as guidelines for making more intuitive decisions.
©2005 Thomas W. Lyons, no claim as to Dean Oliver's original material.
*For example, Oliver's formula for measuring the points produced by an individual player: Points Produced=(FG Part + AST Part + FT Part) x (1- (TMOR÷TMScPoss) x TMORweight x TMPlay%) + OR part, where FG Part is 2x(FGM+ ½ x FG3M) x (1- ½ x (PTS-FTM÷2xFGA x q ast ); AST Part is 2 x [TMFGM-FGM = ½ (TMFG3M-FG3m)] ÷ (TMFGM-FGM) x ½ x [(TMPTS-TMFTM)-(PTS-FTM)] ÷ 2 x (TMFGA-FGA) x AST; FT Part is [1-(1-FT%) 2 ] x 0.4 FTA; and, OR Part is OR x TMOR weight x TMPlay% x TMPTS ÷ TMFGM + [1-(1-TMFT%) 2 ] x 0.4 x TMFTA. [As a former history major, some parts of the book caused me severe MEGO where MEGO is "My Eyes Glaze Over."]
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Post by Hanamichi Sakuragi on Feb 12, 2015 0:12:19 GMT
I did not read your long post but I just want to make a statement.
Other than the STATS, everything else is opinion-base.
thanks.
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Deleted
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May 4, 2024 9:09:15 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Feb 12, 2015 0:13:04 GMT
Another Article: SPORTS BASKETBALL 12:55 PM DEC 18, 2014
Every NBA Team’s Chance Of Winning A Title By 2019
By NATE SILVER
I can see Madison Square Garden from my Manhattan apartment. This year, the arena installed LED lights along the exterior columns of the building — blue, red and white for New York Rangers games; orange and blue for New York Knicks games. They outshine everything else along a drab stretch of Eighth Avenue. When the Knicks colors shine, I’m reminded that there’s a dreadful basketball team playing a few blocks from me.
The Knicks are 5-22 on the year, on pace for their worst season in the not-exactly-glorious history of the franchise. But unlike a lot of bad teams, the Knicks are not yet in rebuilding mode. Their only players to have performed at an above-average level so far this season1 are 30-year-old Carmelo Anthony, 32-year-old Amar’e Stoudemire and 37-year-old Pablo Prigioni. They have a few (not many) good players and a few (not many) young players, but there’s almost no overlap on the Venn diagram.
Just how dire is the Knicks’ situation? Are they worse off than the Los Angeles Lakers? Than the Philadelphia 76ers, who very much are in rebuilding mode and are 2-22?
Let’s take a longer view. What are the chances any of these franchises will field a championship-caliber team over the next five seasons (from this year through 2018-19)? On the flip side, which NBA franchise has the most reason to be optimistic about its future? Would you rather be the Cleveland Cavaliers or the Golden State Warriors? Would you rather be the Memphis Grizzlies, with a sterling record so far this season but no superstar, or the New Orleans Pelicans, who aren’t so good yet but have a potential world-beating talent in Anthony Davis?
There have been some valiant attempts to answer such questions before (see ESPN’s NBA Future Power Rankings). Our method here will be simpler and more statistically driven. The idea is to project the number of NBA championships a franchise might expect to win over the next five seasons based on three easily quantifiable factors:
How good is the team now? How old the team? How good is its best player? To be clear, we are not claiming these are the only things that matter. You’d probably want to give a team some extra credit if it’s run by a genius like Gregg Popovich. You’d probably want to dock it if it has traded away some of its future draft picks (as the Knicks have) or if its salary cap situation is poor. And our approach will not be so great at handling teams with injuries to star players. But simple models like these can be a useful tool for understanding how NBA franchises evolve.
Some modestly technical bits follow. You can skip ahead a few paragraphs if you’re not sweating the small stuff.
As I mentioned, our goal is to estimate the likelihood of a team winning an NBA championship over the next five seasons. The method won’t give much credit to a team for being just decent. Unlike in certain other sports, an NBA team almost never backs into a championship by being slightly above average and then getting lucky in the postseason. A 52-win team in the regular season will win the NBA championship only about 2 percent of the time; a 64-win team will win it something like half the time.
More specifically, the model takes the form of a logistic regression analysis where the inputs are three factors I described above — age, overall team quality and the quality of its best player — and the output is the projected number of championships won.2 I’ve used data from the ABA-NBA merger season of 1976-77 onward.
To measure overall team quality, I’ve used the number of games a team won.3 But when looking toward future seasons, a team’s most recent win-loss record isn’t all that matters; so does the distribution of its talent. The presence of an actual or potential superstar significantly improves its chances of winning championships.
This shouldn’t be surprising. In the NBA’s economic structure, there are two types of players who routinely produce a high return on investment: young players (who often make far less than they would as free agents under the rookie salary scale) and superstar players (who are often underpaid because of the maximum salary). Teams built around superstars face downside risk; if the superstar leaves town or gets hurt, they’re screwed. But in the NBA, you’d rather take a high-risk, high-reward approach than settle for a No. 8 seed every year.
Our measure of superstar talent is how a team’s top player rated according to the statistic “wins added,” which is described at more length here. Wins added is based on a combination of Win Shares and Player Efficiency Rating (PER). Neither metric is perfect (far from it), but because each can be computed from readily available “box score” statistics, they allow us to compare players and teams on a level playing field dating back to 1976-77.
Having a younger team helps, of course, but it’s better to evaluate the age of a team’s best players rather than everyone on its roster. So, our calculation of a team’s average age is weighted based on wins added.4 This is important. The average New York Knick, weighted based on the number of minutes played this season, is about 28 years old. But the team’s better players are old; its average age is closer to 30 when weighted by wins added.
There are a couple of further details in the footnotes,5 but let’s see how this works in practice. Here’s how the 30 NBA teams ranked in future championship potential based on their statistics at the end of last season. We’ll run the numbers based on the current season’s data in a moment.
At the end of last year, the Oklahoma City Thunder had the most hopeful situation in the league, projecting to win 0.8 championships over the next five years. This total includes cases where the Thunder would win multiple championships, so this is not quite the same as saying they had an 80 percent chance of winning at least one championship. (Titles in the NBA can come in bunches.)
Still, this was a reasonably impressive figure; since 1976-77, only 12 teams had a better projection. The top one belonged to the Chicago Bulls going into the 1996-97 season. They projected to win 1.2 more championships to go with the four that Michael Jordan had won already; Jordan won two more in reality.
But the NBA is a tough league. Some of the teams that projected almost as highly as Jordan’s Bulls never won a championship. The Cleveland Cavaliers projected to win about 1.2 championships over their next five seasons heading into the 2009-10 season — but LeBron James left, and they didn’t win any. (A championship in Cleveland this season now that James has returned would be one year too late to count within the five-year window.) Other teams appeared likely to follow one championship with more but failed to do so. The Philadelphia 76ers, coming off a 67-win championship season in 1982-83, projected to add another title to Julius Erving’s mantle but never did.
Last season is old news, however. So, we’ve also come up with a projection that accounts for roster turnover and a team’s performance so far this year. This required a few modifications to our original model:
Team win totals are projected based on John Hollinger’s playoff odds, which account for potential reversion to the mean.6 For individual players, wins added are projected based on a combination of a player’s performance so far this year and in recent past seasons.7 Team ages are weighted based on projected wins added. To estimate a team’s chances of winning a title this year (2014-15), I used Hollinger’s playoff odds simulation. For the remaining seasons in the five-year window through 2018-19, I used the figures from our model instead. All projections are based on stats through Tuesday evening. One team is clearly ahead of the pack. It’s the Golden State Warriors.
The Dubs project to win 0.95 championships between now and 2018-19. Some of that is because they’re the favorite to win the title this year, according to Hollinger’s method, with a 36 percent chance. But they also rate as the best bet to win the championship in each subsequent season through 2018-19.
This isn’t rocket science: the Warriors are really good. They’re young — in fact, their average age has declined slightly from last year as older players like Andre Iguodala have come to play less important roles. And they have a superstar in Stephen Curry.
Following the Warriors on the list:
At No. 2, the Los Angeles Clippers. They’re not off to the start the Warriors are, and they’re a little older. But they have the talent they’ll need. At No. 3, the Cavaliers, who have a young core surrounding James, but who don’t yet look like they’ll stand head and shoulders above the pack as James’s teams did some years in Miami. At No. 4, the Toronto Raptors, another obvious choice. They’re young, Kyle Lowry is on the verge of being a superstar, and they have the benefit of playing in the Eastern Conference.8 At No. 5, the Houston Rockets, whose projection is largely unchanged from the end of last season despite a disappointing off-season. At No. 6, the Grizzlies. Note, however, that this year is probably their best hope of a championship drive. The roster is fairly old, and there’s not a true superstar to build around. At No. 7, the Pelicans. They haven’t gotten off to an especially strong start this year and have little shot of title contention this spring. But Davis has as bright a future as anyone in the league and the team’s average age (weighted by wins added) is just 23.6. They project to be the second- or third-best team in the league by the end of the five-year window, according to the model. At No. 8, the Portland Trail Blazers, whose numbers are similar to the Raptors across the board but who play in the tougher conference. At No. 9, the Chicago Bulls. Theirs is a decent projection, but the Bulls are older than you might think, and Derrick Rose hasn’t played like a superstar lately, even on the rare occasion he’s played. Instead, wins added thinks that Jimmy Butler is their best player. And at No. 10, the Thunder, whose projection has declined more than any other team since the end of last season.
Does this underrate OKC? Yeah, probably. As I’ve said, our simple method is liable to underrate teams dealing with injury problems. The Thunder have played pretty well since Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook have returned to the lineup. But two points to consider.
First, when a team has the talent the Thunder do, there’s no time like the present to win a title. But the Thunder are unlikely to win the championship this year. They’d be the No. 8 seed in the Western Conference if the playoffs started today, and while Hollinger’s method may underrate them, there’s a big gap between the Thunder and the top seven seeds. Even if they improve to (for instance) the No. 6 seed, they’ll probably have to win four playoff series as the road team to win the Larry O’Brien Championship Trophy. Not. Easy.
Second, Durant is a superstar by any definition, but the degree of superstardom matters. If Durant is the star Sirius, as he was last season, shining brighter than anyone else in the NBA firmament, the Thunder will always have a leg up on the rest of the league, other things held equal. If he’s merely “in the conversation” as the league’s best player, along with Curry, James, Chris Paul, James Harden and Davis, then the Thunder will perennially compete with Curry’s Warriors, James’s Cavs, Paul’s Clippers, Harden’s Rockets and Davis’s Pelicans — but not necessarily beat them.
To be even more geeky about it, championship contention in the NBA is nonlinear function. Being a 56-win team instead of a 60-win team — because, say, Durant has become a half-step slower or more injury-prone — could matter a great deal.
But how overjoyed Gotham would be if blue and orange stood for the Manhattan Thunder and not the Knicks! The Knicks, obviously, will not win the championship this season. And here’s how the model pegs their chances over the next four seasons. In 2015-16, they have a 0.3 percent of winning the title. In 2016-17, their chances are 0.6 percent. And then in the two subsequent seasons, 0.9 percent and 1.0 percent. Overall, there’s about a 3 percent chance the Knicks will win the NBA title in the next five years.
Three percent is not zero percent, so naturally you’ll find the exception to the rule if you dig in deep enough. The 2007-08 Miami Heat, who finished at 15-67, are the most favorable precedent. Their situation wasn’t entirely different from the Knicks’; in a down season, their roster featured one star (Dwyane Wade) and a lot of aging and overpriced “talent” around him. Three seasons later, they signed LeBron James, and in 2011-12 they won the NBA title.
So, maybe the Knicks will luck into Jahlil Okafor in next year’s draft. And maybe Durant signs with them two years from now, and maybe Anthony has a gentle decline. I’m telling you there’s a chance, Knicks fans! It’s just not bloody likely.
The Knicks, however, do not quite have the worst projection in the league; instead that belongs to the 76ers, whose title chances are lower still.
If your eyes are on the long-term, wouldn’t you rather be in a tanking rebuilding situation like Philly than in the predicament of the Knicks or Lakers? Maybe, but the history of teams who have been as laughably bad as this year’s Sixers is not good. Since the ABA merger, 51 teams have finished with fewer than 20 wins in a 82-game season or the equivalent amount in a shortened season. How many of them won a championship in the next five years? Only one — the aforementioned 2007-08 Heat, whose situation was more analogous to that of the Lakers or Knicks than that faced by the 76ers.
The thing about starting from a 15-win baseline is that you can add a 20-win megawatt superstar from the draft, and sign a 10-win free agent, and have another guy develop into a five-win talent … and still be a 50-win team, a No. 5 or 6 seed. It’s not clear there’s anyone on the Sixers’ roster who is a good bet to develop into a better-than-average NBA player. A team like the Detroit Pistons, who at least have Andre Drummond, is about twice as likely to develop into a championship contender, according to the model. The Pistons also face extremely long odds, but you’d rather have Drummond and a slightly inferior lottery position than the other way around. Tanking doesn’t pay, kids!
But there are a lot of ways to be awful in the NBA, and only one team wins the title. Golden State is the best bet to be pouring the champagne soon.
FOOTNOTES
FILED UNDER BASKETBALL, GOLDEN STATE WARRIORS, JOHN HOLLINGER, NBA, NBA FUTURE POWER RANKINGS, NEW YORK KNICKS, WINS ADDED
NATE SILVER @natesilver538 Nate Silver is the founder and editor in chief of FiveThirtyEight.
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Post by Charles Barkley on Feb 12, 2015 16:33:22 GMT
m.espn.go.com/nba/story?storyId=12308938Charles is exactly right... Hes not always right but he got it right. All these GMs in sim leagues included. Stats only mean so much. So many things factor into situations. On paper you might be the best at several areas. Thing is those teams dont win it in the end. Its just like in other sports. You can break records and maybe even go undefeated .but when you lose the big games...all those statistics go out the door. I appreciate your support on this JR, Daryl Morey is a bitch and a coward.
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Post by Hanamichi Sakuragi on Feb 13, 2015 0:10:28 GMT
m.espn.go.com/nba/story?storyId=12308938Charles is exactly right... Hes not always right but he got it right. All these GMs in sim leagues included. Stats only mean so much. So many things factor into situations. On paper you might be the best at several areas. Thing is those teams dont win it in the end. Its just like in other sports. You can break records and maybe even go undefeated .but when you lose the big games...all those statistics go out the door. I appreciate your support on this JR, Daryl Morey is a bitch and a coward. the d5 gm of Houston is bashing the real life gm of Houston.. haha.. thats great.
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Post by Alex English on Feb 13, 2015 0:42:58 GMT
That ESPN link was pretty dumb. The argument is basically just 'go out and get the best players' but how do you figure out who the best players are? You can't answer that question without using analytics in some way.
The game has already been changed by analytics too. The mid range shot is dying because threes, layups/dunks, and free throws have been shown to be the most efficient way to score. Even among just three point shots the focus is on the corner three, again because it's more efficient.
There are problems though as you can't just blindly follow analytics. The context, and every team's situation is extremely important. Defense is also extremely hard to measure since it's more about what doesn't happen than what does. It also is very dependent on teamwork and help defense. The system is just as important as the player's ability.
Ignoring analytics completely is pretty stupid though.
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Deleted
Posts: 0
May 4, 2024 9:09:15 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Feb 13, 2015 0:51:43 GMT
That ESPN link was pretty dumb. The argument is basically just 'go out and get the best players' but how do you figure out who the best players are? You can't answer that question without using analytics in some way. The game has already been changed by analytics too. The mid range shot is dying because threes, layups/dunks, and free throws have been shown to be the most efficient way to score. Even among just three point shots the focus is on the corner three, again because it's more efficient. There are problems though as you can't just blindly follow analytics. The context, and every team's situation is extremely important. Defense is also extremely hard to measure since it's more about what doesn't happen than what does. It also is very dependent on teamwork and help defense. The system is just as important as the player's ability. Ignoring analytics completely is pretty stupid though. I agree. But all we see here are stats. And more stars. Whiteside stats. Tons if rookie stats. Let the guys play and watch them more than a few weeks or months. Let them prove something first. Then talk stats and ask for a rating increase. Every post it increase this or that..and arguments. Thanks Magic for something new....
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Post by Hanamichi Sakuragi on Feb 13, 2015 0:56:12 GMT
That ESPN link was pretty dumb. The argument is basically just 'go out and get the best players' but how do you figure out who the best players are? You can't answer that question without using analytics in some way. The game has already been changed by analytics too. The mid range shot is dying because threes, layups/dunks, and free throws have been shown to be the most efficient way to score. Even among just three point shots the focus is on the corner three, again because it's more efficient. There are problems though as you can't just blindly follow analytics. The context, and every team's situation is extremely important. Defense is also extremely hard to measure since it's more about what doesn't happen than what does. It also is very dependent on teamwork and help defense. The system is just as important as the player's ability. Ignoring analytics completely is pretty stupid though. I agree. But all we see here are stats. And more stars. Whiteside stats. Tons if rookie stats. Let the guys play and watch them more than a few weeks or months. Let them prove something first. Then talk stats and ask for a rating increase. Every post it increase this or that..and arguments. Thanks Magic for something new.... and thats actually whats happening.. it is just a matter of how long does each one of us believe is enough to judge the rating of a player. and dont you worry because RCs does not hastily do rating changes to those players who are still not credible.
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Post by Charles Barkley on Feb 13, 2015 18:15:22 GMT
I have a question to the GMs of the league in here. Do any of you use advanced analytics to form your team? Like, do you guys think it truly matters in the SIM? And I am not talking analytics from bball ref advanced stats like TS% or shit like that. But beyond the numbers things?
I sometimes use them when scouting young guys, but when it comes to college kids for the draft, I mainly study their film and their video and go by what I see.
Also, to answer my own question that I have posed, I don't use analytics when making my team. I have a picture in mind of how I want my team to play with the players I have and do my best to build around them. For example, I have a slashing guard in Rose, so I know I need some floor spacing which is why I went after Love. And with Love, there's no inner defensive presence which is why Walt thru in Chandler and had he not suggested I take the two of them, I would have asked myself.
And in my own opinion, if I had to form my perfect team and how they'd play offensively, my team would not fit that picture. I'd want a floor general, a Conley/Paul type, 2 athletic wings, and a high and low post presence. Basically what the Grizzlies have now. But, Rose is my favorite player in all of the NBA, and I'd rather lose with the guys I love than win with some people I dislike. At least, that's my stance on it right now.
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