Random NBA Facts (2,194 views)

[eric]

Fun with MVP Top Three Finishes

With his third place finish this year, LeBron James now has nine to his name and an active streak of eight in a row. How does that stack up historically? Pretty well.

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The Modern Era of MVP voting starts in 1981, when the press takes over from the players. In those thirty six years there are four players with eight+ top three finishes (no one else has more than five), and the same four are the only ones with streaks of seven+ (no one else has more than four). They are...
Larry Bird (eight total, streak of eight)
Magic Johnson (nine total, streak of nine)
Michael Jordan (ten total, streak of seven)
LeBron James (nine total, streak of eight)

If we add the twenty five years prior, we add exactly one person to that company...
Bill Russell (nine total, streak of eight)

Pretty good group imo. Pretty solid. One more next year and LeBron ties Michael for the most all time and Magic for the longest streak all time. Pretty good effort.

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The MVP was first awarded in 1956. That year and 1957 three white players made the top three. It has never happened again.
In 1958 two white players were in the top three. That didn't happen again until 1977 (Walton and Maravich finished 2-3).
Then it happened three straight years from 2005-07 (Nash and Nowitzki).
No white player has made top three since (nine years and counting).
But that is not the longest whiteless stretch, which goes to the sixteen years from 1989 to 2004.

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The top three has been completely different from the previous year three times:
1958 (Russell Dolph and Yardley replaced Cousy Pettit and Arizin)
1969 (Unseld Reed and Cunningham replaced Wilt Wilkens and Baylor) (yes, Lenny Wilkens has a top two finish in MVP)
2005 (Nash Shaq and Dirk replaced Garnett Duncan and Jermaine)

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No player that never won MVP has finished in second more times than Jerry West (four).
The only other player to do so more than once is George Gervin (two).

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Only three players made their sole top three appearance as a winner:
1969 Wes Unseld (also Rookie of the Year)
2001 Allen Iverson
2011 Derrick Rose

[eric]

The MVP, the Scoring Champion, and the Champion Champion

Before 1991, there were exactly two players to lead the NBA in scoring and be on a team that won the championship in the same year: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in 1971 (won the MVP) and George Mikan in 1950 (MVP was not awarded that year).

Since 1991, we've had
Michael Jordan (1991, 1992, 1993, 1996, 1997, 1998; four MVPs), and
Shaquille O'Neal (2000, MVP)

Steph Curry lead the NBA in scoring this year and won the MVP. That alone puts him with Jordan, O'Neal, Durant (2014), and Iverson (2001) as the only players to do so since the ABA-NBA merger. Should his Warriors also win the title, he will become Number Five.

[eric]

No matter which way the Western Conference Finals go, it will be an historic collapse.

There have been three 69 win teams before the Warriors. All three won the title: 72 Lakers, 96 Bulls, 97 Bulls. The Warriors will have not even made the Finals.

Since 1984 (the first year of the current playoff bracket), teams have led the Conference Finals by three games to one on 22 separate occasions, and gone on to win all 22 times.

[eric]

LeBron has now made 7 Finals in 10 years.

There are two players besides LeBron remaining from the 2007 Cavaliers: Anderson Varejao and Drew Gooden. The others lasted until...

2008 Eric Snow
2008 Ira Newble
2008 Scot Pollard
2009 Damon Jones
2009 Donyell Marshall
2011 Zydrunas Ilgauskas
2012 Larry Hughes
2013 Boobie Gibson
2013 Sasha Pavlovic
2015 Shannon Brown

[eric]

Steph Curry and Klay Thompson made a combined 17 three pointers last night. Bill Simmons wondered how that stacked up against the all time record for combined made threes in a playoff game, and here is the answer c/o b-r:

15 Peja Stojakovic and Jason Terry in the game that killed the Lakers
14 Paul Pierce and Ray Allen
13 Danny Green and Gary Neal
13 Steph Curry and Klay Thompson
13 Klay Thompson and Draymond Green in the only loss on this list
12 seven pairs, including Pierce and Antoine twice in the same series

[[Account Deleted]]

Great read

[eric]

In the Western Conference Finals,
Kevin Durant shot 42% from the field, 29% from three, and 92% from the line (1.08 pts/tsa)
Russell Westbrook shot 40%, 32%, and 82% (1.02 pts/tsa)

In the fourth quarters of the Western Conference Finals,
Kevin Durant shot 29%, 33%, and 100% (0.86 pts/tsa)
Russell Westbrook shot 38%, 25%, and 81% (1.00 pts/tsa)

Of the 79 assists recorded by Russell Westbrook, 8 came in the fourth quarters.

[eric]

On/off is defined as the rate by which your team outscores opponents while you are on the court minus the same rate while you are on the bench. Here are the highest on/offs in terms of points per 1000 possessions (minimum 200 MP) for the champions going back to 2001, when this stat is first available at b-r:

Year num name
2001 156 Shaquille O'Neal
2002 099 Shaquille O'Neal
2003 148 Tim Duncan
2004 138 Rasheed Wallace
2005 178 Tim Duncan
2006 152 Dwyane Wade
2007 144 Tim Duncan
2008 118 Kevin Garnett
2009 177 Lamar Odom
2010 123 Kobe Bryant
2011 161 Dirk Nowitzki
2012 140 LeBron James
2013 153 LeBron James
2014 077 Manu Ginobili
2015 178 Stephen Curry
And here are the same values for the postseason:

Year num name
2001 142 Kobe Bryant
2002 228 Shaquille O'Neal
2003 231 Tim Duncan
2004 277 Ben Wallace
2005 198 Manu Ginobili
2006 222 Dwyane Wade
2007 125 Fabricio Oberto
2008 198 Kevin Garnett
2009 167 Lamar Odom
2010 096 Metta World Peace
2011 168 Dirk Nowitzki
2012 242 LeBron James
2013 183 Chris Andersen
2014 121 Manu Ginobili
2015 191 Draymond Green
There are to my mind only a couple surprises in the regular season (2014 Manu, Kobe) but the postseason is as we would expect much wilder with such a smaller sample size. Fabricio Oberto is a fabulous figure: 1995 slam dunk champion (Argentina), 1998 MVP and Finals MVP (Argentina), 2004 gold medalist, 2007 NBA champion. Manu Ginobili is the only player on this list twice: not Shaq, not LeBron, not even Duncan.

The players to be on both lists in the same year are...
2002 Shaq
2003 Duncan
2006 Wade
2008 Garnett
2009 Odom
2011 Dirk
2012 LeBron

This year the regular season on/off leader for the Warriors was Draymond Green (256) and for the Cavs LeBron James (165). They are also currently the playoff leaders for each team at 79 and 217 respectively. [Apropos of shout today, Kyrie is at -1 and -86, Love is at 56 and 133.] It's hard to say with postseason stuff but I wouldn't expect either one to relinquish his top spot given their leads, so either way we will probably add another entry to this list.

[eric]

In Zach Lowe's very good piece today, he made the claim that Klay Thompson had been the Warriors best player in the postseason. Obviously Curry is not the answer due to all his missed time and mediocre (by his standards) play while recovering from injury through the first half of the OKC series.

By box score stats, he is leading the team in points by a pretty wide margin. However, Draymond is leading the team by similar margins in rebounds, assists, steals, and blocks. He has 12 more turnovers than Klay and 64 more assists.

By composite stats, he is leading the team in PER but lapping the field in USG: his 20.7-28.8 is below average while Draymond's 18.9-19.8 is above. Draymond also has the edge in WS and VORP, and given his massive lead in ORBs almost certainly WP.

As stated above, Draymond is leading the team in postseason on/off, and he so happens to lead by 8 to 5 over Livingston, with Klay in third with 4. Another factor not visible in the box score is that Klay has been assisted on 78% of his field goals while Draymond only 66%.

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To my eye it seems like Draymond has been the best Warrior these playoffs, and by a pretty good margin.

[Lazy Pete]

Klay gets the nod from me solely because of his game 6 performance in the WCF

[eric]

One of b-r's very few flaws is that while they list on/off for each player they don't have a league-wide or even very easy team-wide pages. They do have a plus/minus finder in PI+, though, so I whipped up a little macro to calculate a player's career on/off only for seasons from 2001-present. (An important note is that they regrettably do not allow partial seasons to be returned, so anyone who was traded midseason was incalculable for that year.) I decided to make the cutoff 5000 career possessions because sim league favorite Jason Caffey represented that cutoff. Here are the top and bottom ten listed in points per 1000 possessions:

133 LeBron James
132 Draymond Green
131 Dirk Nowitzki
131 Kevin Garnett
124 Stephen Curry
117 Chris Paul
109 John Stockton
107 Khris Middleton
100 Klay Thompson
99 Tim Duncan
95 Shaquille O'Neal
92 Vince Carter
90 Blake Griffin
87 Ricky Rubio
87 Steve Nash
87 David Robinson
86 Kelly Olynyk
86 Robert Covington
82 Terry Porter
80 Jason Kidd

-70 Solomon Hill
-70 Patrick Ewing
-71 Jacque Vaughn
-74 Marreese Speights
-75 Hakim Warrick
-76 Rodney Buford
-76 J.J. Hickson
-79 Jason Caffey
-79 Kent Bazemore
-80 Zach LaVine
-82 Norris Cole
-83 Michael Curry
-83 Jelani McCoy
-84 Solomon Jones
-92 Monty Williams
-103 Tony Massenburg
-107 Samaki Walker
-117 John Amaechi
-119 Gary Trent
-131 Josh Powell
Robert Covington has played the bulk of his career for the 76ers so his number will probably come down once he starts playing in the NBA, but he does look like a good 3 and D guy. Khris Middleton has been on the mediocre Bucks so his number is a lot more credible. His composite stats don't blow you away and he's a poor rebounder for his size, but he's an efficient scorer across the court (while generating a very respectable portion of his own looks) and his teams' rebounding don't take a hit with him on the court. All in all he reminds me a lot of a smaller Chris Bosh. I'm not saying he's as good as Chris Paul but I am saying that the gap between him and Klay Thomopson is a lot smaller than we might first guess.

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Here are all other MVPs in this time period and their environs in reverse chronological order:

46 Antawn Jamison
46 Wesley Matthews
46 Ryan Kelly
46 J.J. Redick
45 Kawhi Leonard
45 Reggie Miller
45 Patrick Patterson
45 Jrue Holiday
45 Derek Fisher

51 Corliss Williamson
51 Paul Millsap
50 Chauncey Billups
50 Yao Ming
50 Kevin Durant
49 Jason Terry
49 Casey Jacobsen
49 Anthony Parker
49 Joe Johnson

-5 Evan Fournier
-5 Yi Jianlian
-6 Christian Laettner
-6 Jerome James
-6 Derrick Rose
-6 Chris Douglas-Roberts
-6 Earl Boykins
-6 Jason Smith
-6 Dale Davis

68 Kentavious Caldwell-Pope
68 Gilbert Arenas
68 Kevin Love
67 Wesley Person
67 Kobe Bryant
66 Eddie Jones
66 Dwight Howard
65 Damian Lillard
65 Paul George

[Lazy Pete]

I don't understand these last four tables

Jun 7, 2016 11:19:35 GMT -6 eric said:

-117 John Amaechi

[eric]

Lazy Pete the last four tables are MVPs not listed in the top 20, and the four closest players above and below them. I would have bolded the MVPs but you can't format inside a code tag.

[Lazy Pete]

Jun 7, 2016 11:40:04 GMT -6 eric said:

Lazy Pete the last four tables are MVPs not listed in the top 20, and the four closest players above and below them. I would have bolded the MVPs but you can't format inside a code tag.

Thanks, that makes sense. Was trying to figure out what the hell you meant by MVPs when I saw names like Earl Boykin and Casey Jacobson

[eric]

This Finals is shaping up like Rocky IV with each team trading vicious knockout blows that beggar credulity. Whatever you think of Kevin Love, he's not a -60 on/off player. We're told that the Cavaliers played much better defense last night, is that true?

In the regular season, the Golden State Warriors took 51% of their field goal attempts when a defender was within 4 feet. They generated 1.01 points per contested attempt and 1.25 per open attempt.
In the first two games of the finals, those numbers were 51%, 1.12, and 1.24.
In game three, those numbers were 50%, 0.95, and 0.97.

The Cavs may certainly have contested better, as not all defenders within four feet are equal. To my mind the fact that the Cavs contested a slightly lower percent of shots undermines the claim. Either way, open is open, and the Warriors simply missed a lot more open shots than they normally do. Please also note that in the regular season the Warriors scored 1.25 points per open field goal attempt at home and on the road. It's easy to look at the contested pts/fga numbers and say "aha! The Cavs were lazy in games 1-2 and got to work in game 3!" but this explanation does not cohere to the rest of the data.

We want there to be a reason, that's just how humans are. Sometimes there isn't, that's just how the universe is.

[eric]

Since 1950 (the first NBA title), there have been 59 seasons where an NBA Finals was held between two teams with different records in a non shortened season.
Of those, 45 were won by the team with the better regular season record: 76%.

If we dig a little deeper, we find that 19 of 21 (90%) were predicted between 1950 and 1972,
01 of 07 (14%) were predicted between 1973 and 1979,
13 of 17 (76%) were predicted between 1980 and 1998, and
12 of 14 (86%) were predicted between 2000 and 2015.

A total of 17 Finalses have been held where one team had a double digit advantage in wins.
That team won 15 of them (88%).
The only exceptions:
Rick Barry's 48 win Warriors over the 60 win Boston Celtics, and
Hakeem Olajuwon's 47 win Rockets over the 57 win Orlando Magic.
(This is why we remember John Havlicek and Shaquille O'Neal first and foremost as choke job artists.)

The current Finals is the 18th, and is well on its way to being the 16th. This shouldn't have been a surprise, considering the 16 win gap in regular season record is more than any Finals since 1981, when Cornbread's 62 win Celtics hammered Moses' 40(!!!) win Rockets.

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But are the all time greats beholden to regular season record? Well... yeah, pretty much. LeBron was 2-4 in regular season record and 2-4 in the Finals (headed towards 2-5 in each), Duncan was 4-1-1 and 5-1, Jordan was 4-1-1 and 6-0, Bird was 4-1 and 3-2, Wilt was 3-2 and 2-3, Russell was 11-1 and 11-1. (Even a second rate player like Kobe was 5-1-1 and 5-2.) Overall the numbers for the greats are 28-11 and 2 ties versus 29-12, a frankly eerie level of agreement.

[eric]

A brief thought on Kevin Love and matchups.

In the NBA Finals Kevin Love has played 116 minutes. The Cavaliers are -2 in that span.
The Cavaliers have played an additional 124 minutes. They are -12 in that span.

The Cavaliers have not been better than the Warriors in the Finals.
This stands to reason, the Warriors won 16 more games than the Cavs in the regular season.

The Cavaliers have been better with Kevin Love in the Finals than without him.
This also stands to reason, Kevin Love was a +6 on/off player in the regular season.

[eric]

Win Shares can be calculated back to the 1978 season. LeBron's 1.49 this year is good for fourth all time, trailing 88 Magic (1.64), 03 Duncan (1.54), and 10 Gasol (1.49).

It is the third time he has generated at least one Win Share in a given Finals. Here is how that list looks (again, only since 1978):

6 Jordan
3 Bird, Magic, Shaq, LeBron
2 Duncan, Billups, Gasol, Wade
1 fourteen various guys

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Full Finals Win Shares by team:

1.49 LeBron James
1.01 Kyrie Irving
0.86 Tristan Thompson
0.37 J.R. Smith
0.26 Richard Jefferson
0.11 Kevin Love
0.07 Dahntay Jones
0.03 Jordan McRae
-0.02 Channing Frye
-0.02 Timofey Mozgov
-0.02 James Jones
-0.09 Matthew Dellavedova
-0.14 Mo Williams
-0.18 Iman Shumpert

1.03 Draymond Green
0.52 Andre Iguodala
0.39 Leandro Barbosa
0.35 Klay Thompson
0.34 Stephen Curry
0.34 Shaun Livingston
0.08 Andrew Bogut
0.06 James Michael McAdoo
0.04 Harrison Barnes
0.04 Ian Clark
0.03 Anderson Varejao
-0.04 Marreese Speights
-0.05 Brandon Rush
-0.07 Festus Ezeli

[eric]

May 31, 2016 11:06:32 GMT -6 eric said:

In the Western Conference Finals,
Kevin Durant shot 42% from the field, 29% from three, and 92% from the line (1.08 pts/tsa)
Russell Westbrook shot 40%, 32%, and 82% (1.02 pts/tsa)

In the fourth quarters of the Western Conference Finals,
Kevin Durant shot 29%, 33%, and 100% (0.86 pts/tsa)
Russell Westbrook shot 38%, 25%, and 81% (1.00 pts/tsa)

Of the 79 assists recorded by Russell Westbrook, 8 came in the fourth quarters.

So when I originally wrote this I included the line "I can't wait for Royce Young to bring this up if Durant leaves" but I thought it was too mean so got rid of it. As it turns out I was pretty close:

"The Thunder had Game 6 at home, the moment of coronation, the light finally shining at the end of their tunnel. They led by seven with six minutes to go. They led by three with three minutes to go. They lost 108-101. In the fourth quarter, Durant scored four points on 1-of-7 shooting with two critical turnovers."

Look, I've heard Mr. Young speak and he seems like a decent enough fellow, but he is so far in OKC's pocket that it's really embarrassing. Every decision the Thunder make is brilliant. Everyone on the Thunder is a saintly superhero until they leave, then they're trashy trash. The NBA is always out to get the Thunder. The Thunder have the worst luck. The Thunder having a worse regular season record is smart. And on and on and on, and here we go again, and there is a 100% chance he'll do the same for Westbrook should he leave. Sad to see.

[eric]

leads name
5 Bill Russell*
5 LeBron James
4 Wilt Chamberlain*
3 Magic Johnson*
3 Michael Jordan*

This is how many times a player has led the playoffs in minutes played.

LeBron James is currently 9th with 497, but
everyone ahead of him is a Wizard, Celtic, or known loser LaMarcus Aldridge, and
the current high man Avery Bradley sits at 613, and
the highest Warrior is currently Draymond Green with 416.

Therefore, if the Cavaliers make the Finals, LeBron will almost certainly lead in playoffs minutes played.
He only needs to play 30 minutes per game over 4 Finals games to catch Bradley.
He only needs to play 20 minutes tomorrow to be an insurmountable 100 minutes ahead of Green even if the series ends.

[eric]

LeBron is now 33 minutes behind Avery Bradley for the playoffs minutes played lead, which would be his sixth, most all time.

He also is currently at 612. There is technically no limit on how many minutes he can play before the end of the series but if the sweep goes as expected he probably won't break 700. How low is that for a playoff MP leader?

In the four round playoff era (1984-present) the current lowest is Michael Jordan's 718 in 1989. This also happens to be one of only two in that span where the leader didn't reach the Finals, along with Kevin Durant's 815 in 2014. It was more common in earlier years because high seeds (i.e. those teams more likely to make the Finals) got a first round bye. Other than Jordan, the only leader to not break 800 was Allan Houston's 783 in 1999, whose team did make the Finals.

So if LeBron doesn't break 700 it'll be really low, and the series would have to go at least six for him to catch Houston, but #1 is still #1.