Random NBA Facts (2,195 views)

[eric]

Combined regular and post season minutes, NBA history:

66297 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
62759 Karl Malone
56199 Jason Kidd
55418 Wilt Chamberlain
55415 Kobe Bryant
55145 Kevin Garnett
54984 Tim Duncan

The bottom three are all technically active as of this moment. 50 games at 25 minutes a game will put any of them past Kidd. None of them will catch Malone. No one will ever catch Kareem.

.

LeBron can become the first player since the Russell Celtics to start in five straight Finalses, but which of the Russell Celtics did so too? It's a little tricky because the NBA didn't record games started until the 80s, but we can look at minutes played and make some educated guesses. The relevant period is 1957 to 1966, when the Celtics went to 10 straight Finals.

Russell started all 10.
Cousy started the first 7.
Bill Sharman started the first 5.
Sam Jones started the last 5.
Heinsohn started the first 7 or 8.

Loscutoff started at small forward for the first half of the dynasty but was injured in 1960 and definitely done starting by 1964, so he couldn't have gotten five in a row. 6'3" Frank Ramsey started in his place in 1960, and was the sixth man for those early teams too. He made up for his size disadvantage by flopping at every opportunity and even publishing a cover story about doing so for Sports Illustrated.

Tom Sanders started at power forward towards the end of this era, but seemed to play a lot of small forward while Heinsohn was still starting too. It's not clear when he took over the starting spot from Loscutoff. He might have started the last 5.

K.C. Jones and Havlicek didn't crack the starting lineup until it was too late in the run.

No single team prior (or obviously since) went to 5 straight Finals, and while there could be other situations like LeBron's hypothetical one it turns out there aren't. There hasn't even been a player who started back to back Finals for different teams. The only players to even play for such teams were...

Andy Phillip (56 Pistons, 57 Celtics)
Danny Ainge (92 Blazers, 93 Suns)
Don Nelson (65 Lakers, 66 Celtics)
Earl Monroe (71 Bullets, 72 Knicks)
Jim King (66 Lakers, 67 Warriors)
John Tresvant (70 Lakers, 71 Bullets)
Larry Foust (59 Lakers, 60 Hawks)
Pep Saul (51 Royals, 52 Lakers)
Steve Kerr (98 Bulls, 99 Spurs)
Steve Mix (82 76ers, 83 Lakers)
Todd MacCulloch (01 76ers, 02 Nets)
Wally Walker (77 Blazers, 78 Sonics)

Monroe (Bullets) is the only one to (probably) start for either Finalist, as he was a star player for Washington. However, the year he was traded to New York he volunteered to come off the bench in favor of Dick Barnett, and against the West-Goodrich Lakers the Knicks eventually opted to start Dean Meminger over both.

Steve Mix's story is the most incredible. He's the only one who managed to be on the wrong side of both legs of a Finals rematch, and he actually signed with the Bucks after nine years with the 76ers, was waived in April, signed with the Lakers in time to play a single regular season game for them (17 minutes off the bench), then played 26 minutes over 8 playoff games for them including a single minute in the Finals.

[eric]

In the Eastern Conference Semifinals against the Bulls, LeBron James led the Cavaliers in points, assists, steals, and blocks. He was one behind Tristan Thompson for the lead in rebounds.

[20s Navidad]

Love it.

[Heynong Man]

poor Steve Mix

[Heebs]

May 15, 2015 19:54:50 GMT -6 eric said:

In the Eastern Conference Semifinals against the Bulls, LeBron James led the Cavaliers in points, assists, steals, and blocks. He was one behind Tristan Thompson for the lead in rebounds.

Did Kirk Hinrich lead the Bulls in anything?

[eric]

TS%, 3Pr, ast/tov ratio, fundamentals, gogglery

[eric]

Timofey Mozgov is the second most accomplished Russian player (12.6 WS) in NBA history. Third is Sasha Volkov, fourth is Alexey Shved, fifth is Sergey Karasev, number one is AK-47 with 75.4.

[eric]

basketball-reference.com also has a page on roster continuity. The average NBA champion since the 1976 merger has 80% of its minutes played by players who were on its roster the previous season, the average team in general has 68% (expansion teams count as null). Only two champions in that span have been below 50%: the 1977 Trail Blazers (47%) and the 2006 Miami Heat (49%). Only one Finalist has been below 40%: the 1978 SuperSonics (33%).

2015 figures
88% - Atlanta
38% - Cleveland
80% - Golden State
48% - Houston

Perhaps surprisingly, a team having more continuity is not an indicator of success in the Finals: only 17 of the 38 (45% ± 16%) Finalists with higher continuity won.

[eric]

all stats courtesy of www.basketball-reference.com

Through 13 games, Steph Curry has made 64 threes. This is already the record for made threes in an entire postseason, and he has at least 5 games left.

The previous record was 58 by Reggie Miller in 2000, then 57 by Ray Allen in 2001, then 56 by Dennis Scott in the short line 1995 season and Ray Allen in 2010.

[eric]

LeBron James, Matador

The Bulls have made the playoffs in every one of the last six years. In four of those years they were eliminated by a team employing LeBron James.

There has been at least one other team with such a nemesis: the Lakers were eliminated by Bill Russell's Celtics in six of eight years from '62 to '69, but there were only 9 teams back then so it's not as impressive. I will look more into it tomorrow to see if it has happened post-merger.

[Bankz]

lol.. two of those years were wins against a team led by Deng... MATADOR folks

[eric]

Matador in this context refers to a bull fighter, not a rose fighter. OH FORGET IT, BANKS. YOU KILLED THE JOKE.

[Lazy Pete]

If LeBron James was the matador, then Thibs' minute rotations were the several stab wounds inflicted on the bull to slow it down before the matador comes out

[eric]

The Warriors are definitely going to win the championship. The MVP has been on the title-winning team 16 times since the Finals MVP was first awarded in 1969. 15 of those won the Finals MVP as well, the only one who didn't was Kareem who got injured during the 1980 Finals (but probably should have gotten FMVP anyway) and it went instead to Magic.

Four players got their first MVP, ring, and FMVP in the same year:
1970 Willis Reed
1971 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
1994 Hakeem Olajuwon (had been in one previous Finals)
2000 Shaquille O'Neal (ditto)

The abrupt ascension of the Warriors and Curry in particular is historically remarkable. The Warriors are already in the luxury tax next year without resigning Green. Lee comes off the books and the cap goes to ~$100m in 2017 giving them ~$41m of space (less whatever they sign Green to), but Barnes is a restricted free agent that offseason and Bogut/Iguodala are not aging well. It will be interesting to see if they can maintain their success or if they will be a Dallas 2011 style flash in the pan - the Mavericks have still not won a playoff series since winning the title.

[eric]

There have been 71 teams in NBA history with 60+ wins, 69 before this year. They have become much more common as the league expanded over the years, as more cases in the sample always makes outliers more likely.

There were 14 in the 18 years from 1962 to 1979 (0.77),
there were 24 in the next 16 years (1.50),
there were 33 in the last 20 years (1.83), ignoring the two lockout years.
There has been at least one 60 game winner every full year from 1980 to present except 2001. Shaq is lazy.
In the 41 years where there has been a 60 game winner, 23 won the title (63%).

The most 60 win teams in a single season was 1998 with 4: the SuperSonics, Lakers, and Jazz bled each other dry in the brutal Western Conference, gift-wrapping the title for the minor league champion Bulls.

The strangest period was 2004-2007, when there were seven 60 win teams of whom 0 won the title. This included noted choke job artists the 06 Spurs and 06 Pistons, but also clutch performers like Dirk Nowitzki's Mavericks.

Of all those 71 teams, only twice in NBA history has a 60 win team been swept by a non 60 win team:
In 1975 the 60 win Bullets were swept by the 48 win Warriors in the NBA Finals.
In 2015 the 60 win Hawks were swept by the 53 win Cavaliers in the Eastern Conference Finals.

[eric]

There have been 31 MVPs in NBA history, 24 of whom have won titles (77%). Four are retired without, two don't have titles but are still active, Steph Curry will have one in about a week. However, only 13 (soon to be 14) have won titles during an MVP year, and they make a pretty interesting pattern:

1957 Cousy
1961 Russell - teammate
1967 Wilt - beat Russell's Celtics in the Eastern Conference Finals
1970 Reed - beat Wilt's Lakers in the Finals
CHAIN BROKEN, injury

1971 Kareem
1983 Moses - beat Kareem's Lakers in the Finals
1984 Bird - beat Moses' 76ers in the 1985 Eastern Conference Finals, but won the title in 84 and 86.
1987 Magic - beat Bird's Celtics in the Finals
1991 Jordan - beat Magic's Lakers in the Finals
CHAIN BROKEN, minor league baseball

1994 Olajuwon
2000 Shaq - beat Hakeem's Rockets in the 1999 First Round, but won the title in 00
2003 Duncan - beat Shaq's Lakers in the Second Round
2013 LeBron - beat Duncan's Spurs in the Finals
2015 Curry - beat LeBron's Cavs in the Finals

We can get three groups of five by saying Dolph Schayes would have won MVP for the champion Nationals of 1955, because Cousy's Celtics beat Syracuse in 1957. The MVP wasn't awarded until 1956, but Dolph was one of two All-NBA 1st players on #1 seeds, and he was better than the other (Fort Wayne's Larry Foust). If we extend the chain broken patterns, in five years Curry will leave the NBA for... Major League Soccer? Or something.

.

It's also interesting to see which players have had multiple years as MVP on a championship team:

4 Russell, Jordan
2 Kareem, Bird, LeBron

[eric]

In 1966, Tom Hoover scored 4 points in game 2, the only Finals game he would ever play.
He played 0 regular season games for the 1966 Lakers.
His record would be unbroken for 45 years. (It was tied by Bob Weiss in 1967, also in game 2.)

In 2012, Royal Ivey scored 6 points in the only Finals game he would ever play (game 5).
In 2014, Michael Beasley scored 9 points in the only Finals game he would ever play (game 5).
In 2015, Kyrie Irving scored 23 points in the only(?) Finals game he would ever play (game 1).

[Souper Troopers]

that's a pretty interesting stat.

[eric]

Men to play only 1 Finals game and score 0 points:



Darrell Armstrong
Steve Bracey
Rick Brunson
Marty Byrnes
Fennis Dembo (still Wyoming's career leader in points scored) (the 11th [tied] child of his mother, named for finis)
Michael Doleac
Mal Graham (inspiration for Joss Whedon's Firefly)
Dennis Hopson
Tony Jaros (the original Greek Freak)
Reggie Johnson
Jason Kapono
Mike Lynn
Willie McCarter
Chris Mihm (the only playoff game he ever played for the Lakers)
Ira Newble (once kicked Mike Dunleavy Jr. in the face)
Scot Pollard
Sherwin Raiken (retired after his single Finals game, his single NBA season, his tenth total game)
Donald Royal (no relation)
Tamar Slay (where my people at)
Steve Smith
Jim Spanarkel (scores 0 points as an announcer too)
Bernard Toone
Phil Walker (won rings in 100% of his seasons. suck on that, bill russell)
Bob Warlick
Micheal Williams (still holds the record for most consecutive free throws made)

[eric]

LeBron has played 712 minutes so far this postseason. The next closest is Steph Curry with 700. Curry was ahead before the Finals started, and it is much more likely the Warriors blow out the Cavs than vice versa, so it is probable that LeBron will lead the NBA in playoff minutes played no matter how the series turns out. If he does, this will be the fifth season he has done so. Here is the list of players to do so twice or more:

leads name
5 Bill Russell*
5 LeBron James
4 Wilt Chamberlain*
3 Magic Johnson*
3 Michael Jordan*
2 Bob Cousy*
2 Elgin Baylor*
2 George Mikan*
2 John Havlicek*
2 Julius Erving*
2 Kobe Bryant
2 Larry Bird*
Dr. J also led the ABA in playoff minutes played once, which is not included in his figure. Minutes played were not recorded until the 1952 season, so Mikan probably has two more on his resume. Some of this of course is also a quirk of the evolving NBA playoff structure: from 1975 to 1983 there were varying levels of first round byes in the playoffs, so for example in 1978 Marvin Webster had a three game head start over Elvin Hayes and won by 36 minutes.

But the top three are indisputable.

.

Here are the top ten players in combined regular season and playoff minutes through the player's first twelve seasons:

mp name
46903 Wilt Chamberlain*
44777 Elvin Hayes*
44103 Bill Russell*
43198 LeBron James
42166 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar*
41723 Karl Malone*
41400 Oscar Robertson*
40547 John Havlicek*
39690 Magic Johnson*
39560 Larry Bird*
...and here is how many combined minutes they played after their twelfth season...

mp yrs all-nba name
8515 2 1 Wilt Chamberlain*
9383 4 0 Elvin Hayes*
4120 1 0 Bill Russell*
? ? ? LeBron James
24131 8 4 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar*
21036 7 4 Karl Malone*
6159 2 0 Oscar Robertson*
12784 4 2 John Havlicek*
1093 1 0 Magic Johnson*
1769 1 0 Larry Bird*
I've heard people saying LeBron is in his prime, but he's not. He's past his prime, and guys with his mileage have not aged well in the past. Only three guys in history played more minutes than LeBron to this point, none of them ever made All-NBA 1st again. Granted, Kareem and Karl are just behind him, LeBron is physically Karl-esque, and Kyrie could play a Magic role for him, but still.

[eric]

With LeBron in the conversation for receiving Finals MVP when the Cavs lose, I thought it would be instructive to review the only other time that ever happened: Jerry West, 1969.

Because it happened in 1969, there's a lot of data missing, but here's what we know.
For the series, West led all players in points (38 per game) and assists (7).
For the series, Bill Russell led the Celtics in rebounds (21) and assists (5) but was incredibly only seventh in points (9).
For the series the Lakers outscored the Celtics by 3 total points, with three games decided by 2 points or less.

In game 7, the Lakers were down 15 at the start of the 4th quarter, but with Wilt (controversially) on the bench staged a furious almost-comeback, ending the game with a 2 point loss. West finished with a magnificent game of 42 points, 13 rebounds, and 12 assists, or as LeBron James would call it "Tuesday".

(Aside: John Havlicek led the Celtics in points (28), was second in both rebounds and assists (11 and 4), and tied Russell by playing every minute of every game. This was his sixth championship, and his fourth year both as an All-Star and an All-NBA player. I can't find any references at the time that go into or gripe about the FMVP voting, but if I was him I think I'd have made a pretty strong case, especially when Sam Jones fouled out with more than six minutes left in the fourth.)

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LeBron James currently leads all players in points (37) and assists (9), and is second in rebounds (12) to only Tristan Thompson (13). His shooting efficiency at .968 is below average, which by his standards is well below average, but the rest of the Cavs are only managing .943, or .936 without Kyrie's shots. He also has been very efficient passing the ball: compare his 44 to 15 (3ish) ratio to Steph Curry's 29 to 25. No other Warriors presents a case. We all love Iguodala but he's putting up 15, 6, and 4, okay? Klay has been bricking 3s and not much else all series: two assists per game. Two!!!

I'm not going to calculate Win Shares until the series is over, but I'm very confident that LeBron will dominate that. Now, he won't be the first player on a losing team to lead the Finals in Win Shares (first calculable 1978)...

2011 Wade(!) 1.27 over Chandler(!!!) 0.90
2005 Billups 1.43 over Ginobili(!) 1.04
1996 Kemp(!) 1.02 over Jordan 1.02
1994 Harper(!!!) 1.23 over Olajuwon 1.18
1982 Erving 0.80 over Magic 0.75

Now, the three oldest are obviously really close. The last two not so much, and are made even more remarkable by the fact that the awarded FMVP wasn't even the high man on his own team. We like to think that we are getting stronger than yesterday, that now it's nothing but a better way, but especially for an award that you have to vote on literally as the deciding game is coming to a close maybe now ain't nothing but a mistake. Still, what LeBron has going for him that the other guys don't is that LeBron James is much closer to Dirk Nowitzki than Steph Curry is: an aging, decorated stalwart with no one else to turn to. To borrow Hobbes, these Cavs would be miserable, lonely and depressed, pathetic, poor unfortunate souls without LeBron. Curry could get hit by a bus today and the Warriors would probably still win the series at this point.

This could all change if LeBron lays a 15/4/1 egg tomorrow or Curry lights up the dark, but it's looking like the Warriors are going away from the double LeBron strategy and if I were the Cavs I'd put all my eggs in the doubling Curry basket, so my guess is LeBron's stats go up and Steph's go down.

It could matter to voters whether the series gets to seven games or not. I hope not, because that doesn't have anything to do with anything as far as I'm concerned.

[20s Navidad]

We like to think that we are getting stronger than yesterday, that now it's nothing but a better way, but

[dilworth]

"In game 7, the Lakers were down 15 at the start of the 4th quarter, but with Wilt (controversially) on the bench staged a furious almost-comeback, ending the game with a 2 point loss. West finished with a magnificent game of 42 points, 13 rebounds, and 12 assists, or as LeBron James would call it "Tuesday"."

lol

[Druce]

surprised kemp beat jordan in win shares in 96

[eric]

The last year a player averaged 10+ assists per game in the Finals, there were actually two, on opposing teams. See if you can guess who, the answer will be revealed at the end. Since that year, there have been four players to average 8+ assists per game:

02 kidd 9.8
98 stockton 8.7
97 stockton 8.8
95 penny 8.0

LeBron has 8.8 per game this year. If game six is the last game, he only needs 4 to maintain 8+. If it goes seven, he needs 10 total over the last two. It seems a pretty good bet that he'll maintain it.

.

In 1969, the MVP was Wes Unseld. His Baltimore Bullets had the best record in the league, although their margin of victory was much worse than the Knicks (who beat them in the first round) and the Celtics (who won the title). Records are sketchy for this era, and only players who received first place votes for MVP are recorded. Fourth place that year was Bill Russell, fifth place was Elgin Baylor, no other Celtic or Laker received first place votes.

Elgin Baylor and Jerry West were of course teammates for over a decade, and at least in the eyes of the players they went back and forth in terms of popular acclaim...
Baylor had more MVP votes from 59 to 63
West took over from 64 to 66
neither received votes in 67 for whatever reason
Baylor led in 68 and 69
then as Baylor stopped playing West led until 73
including three straight #2 finishes from 70 to 72 (never won MVP)

But the press votes for Finals MVP, so maybe we should look at All-NBA instead. (The press didn't vote for regular season MVP until 1981.) 1969 saw Oscar Robertson and Baltimore's Earl Monroe get first team guard over Jerry West, while Baylor and the Kangaroo Kid Billy Cunningham made first team forward over John Havlicek, and the two centers were Unseld #1 Reed #2. (All-NBA didn't expand to three teams until 1990.) In 2015, both LeBron and Curry made All-NBA first team, Curry won MVP over LeBron's 3rd place finish.

Unlike the best three candidates in 1969, both of the best candidates in 2015 have regular season credentials: high MVP finishes and All-NBA 1sts.

Jun 16, 2015 8:06:15 GMT -6 Druce said:

surprised kemp beat jordan in win shares in 96

Jordan had a pretty modest series by his standards: 27, 5, 4 per game; 42% FG% 1.076 pts/tsa; 25 to 18 ast/tov. Kemp's numbers were also not eye popping: 23, 10, 2 blocks; very strong %s with 55% FG% 1.266 pts/tsa; poor with 4 turnovers per game, but good with 4+ ORB/game. That's how it ended up so low and so close. Jordan's numbers in general took a bit of a dip post-baseball, compare to his 93 Finals line of 41/9/6 on 51% or his 91 Finals line of 31/7/11 on 56% vs. Magic's 19/8/12, but like LeBron today 90% of an all time top ten player is still elite.

[eric]

via Goldsberry via Dan McCarney via nba.com
LeBron hasn't played 22 minutes so far this series. Cleveland in that span:

18% FG%
00% 3P% (0 for 8)
54.6 points scored per 100 possessions
-39.2 points net per 100 possessions
(this includes the 4 points Kyrie scored on 2 for 5 shooting)

Numbers match what nbawowy.com has, so let's check some other names there.

Steph Curry 38 minutes off: Warriors 45% fg, 98.5 points per 100, +1.5 net per 100
Andre Iguodala 63 minutes off: Warriors 41% fg, 96.6 points per 100, -7.7 net per 100

[20s Navidad]

That is insane.

Then you have tweets like this: @btnbrentyarina: How can the NBA Finals "most valuable player" come from team that loses? Hey, your team would have lost in four or five without you!

[Lazy Pete]

The idiots on FS1 last night were ripping into LeBron because he called himself the best player in the world in that postgame interview. What a bunch of a-holes

[eric]

There have been 47 Finals MVPs, broken down by position like so:
5 point guards
11 shooting guards
13 small forwards
5 power forwards
13 centers

Of these, the following number were All-NBA in the same year:
11 centers
4 power forwards
9 small forwards
10 shooting guards
1 point guard

The only centers to not be All-NBA as FMVP were Wes Unseld and Willis Reed (1973), and Reed was All-NBA for his 1970 FMVP.
The only shooting guard to not be All-NBA as FMVP was Joe Dumars.
The only point guard to be All-NBA as FMVP didn't even win the title.
Jerry West, 1969.

Here's a breakdown of every other point guard FMVP:

1976 Jo Jo White - All-NBA the year before and after
1990 Isiah Thomas - All-NBA from 83 to 87
2004 Chauncey Billups - All-NBA in 06, 07, and 09
2007 Tony Parker - All-NBA in 09, and from 12-14

The only retired player to win FMVP and never make All-NBA remains Cedric Maxwell. Every other player either had already made the team, would make it within two years, or is Kawhi Leonard and Andre Iguodala. Iguodala clearly is not getting there - yet another reason his FMVP is historically obnoxious. Kawhi might make it next year, but check out the names of some forwards:

LeBron James
Kevin Durant
Anthony Davis
Blake Griffin
Paul George
Draymond Green
LaMarcus Aldridge
Gordon Hayward
Kevin Love
Carmelo Anthony
Greg Monroe

There's only six spots to go around.
The top four are locks barring injury.
LMA made it the last two years, PG13 made it the two years before his injury, gotta figure at least one of them will make it.
That leaves one spot. Don't like his chances.

[eric]

There has never been a Finals MVP who played exactly one year of college.

Five played zero:
LeBron James
Dirk Nowitzki (four years in the German second league)
Kobe Bryant
Tony Parker (two years in the French league), Moses Malone

Six played two:
Andre Iguodala
Chauncey Billups
Dwyane Wade (plus one year ineligible)
Isiah Thomas
Kawhi Leonard
Magic Johnson

Nine played three:
Paul Pierce
Shaquille O'Neal
Michael Jordan
Hakeem Olajuwon
James Worthy
Larry Bird (plus one year of community college)
Dennis Johnson (plus one year not in college, includes two years at junior college)
John Havlicek (presumably played a year of freshman college too, but I can't find any record of it)
Wilt Chamberlain (plus one year of Harlem Globetrotting)

Nine played four:
Tim Duncan
Joe Dumars
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
Cedric Maxwell
Bill Walton
Rick Barry
Wes Unseld
Willis Reed
Jerry West

One played five:
Jo Jo White (was eligible for only the spring semester of his first year and only the fall semester of his fifth)

Nobody played one.

.

It seems inevitable that one of Durant or Davis will get there but who knows. Curry played three years, Harden/Paul/Blake each played two, the NBA is always rumbling about upping the age limit. It's also interesting that we've already had four non-college players win FMVP from the 11 draft classes between 1995 (Garnett) and 2005 (last year before one-and-done rule implemented).