NBA Ten Game Hot Reads (414 views)

[eric]

Everybody but the Wizards have played ten games so it's time for some takes.

SRS

SRS is a system developed by b-r that takes into account margin of victory and strength of schedule. It suggests true standings as follows, with actual seed in parentheses:

SRS Eastern Conference
6.44 Boston Celtics (4)
5.23 Miami Heat (6)
4.58 Cleveland Cavaliers (1)
3.97 Toronto Raptors (5)
3.16 Charlotte Hornets (11)
2.87 Indiana Pacers (8)
1.94 Chicago Bulls (2)
1.74 Detroit Pistons (8)
1.23 Atlanta Hawks (3)
0.51 New York Knicks (10)
-1.77 Washington Wizards (7)
-2.02 Orlando Magic (11)
-7.78 Milwaukee Bucks (11)
-8.93 Brooklyn Nets (14)
-10.30 Philadelphia 76ers (15)
SRS Western Conference
12.02 Golden State Warriors (1)
9.65 San Antonio Spurs (2)
4.86 Oklahoma City Thunder (4)
4.68 Phoenix Suns (6)
3.13 Utah Jazz (8)
1.25 Minnesota Timberwolves (10)
1.05 Los Angeles Clippers (6)
-1.02 Portland Trail Blazers (13)
-1.68 Dallas Mavericks (3)
-3.46 Sacramento Kings (11)
-3.84 Denver Nuggets (4)
-4.14 Memphis Grizzlies (8)
-6.93 Los Angeles Lakers (14)
-7.20 Houston Rockets (11)
-8.02 New Orleans Pelicans (15)
Most of this isn't surprising. The Warriors are awesome, nobody thinks the Mavs and Nuggets can keep this up, etc. Thoughts by team:

Celtics were projected as the 2 seed in an interesting preseason preview I saw at nylon calculus. So far so good, and they should shoot better than friggin' 30% from three over the season. One possible concern is they're already down to one player that has started every game. Jerking around minutes is a classic college coach move that NBA players get tired of really quickly, but as always winning is the best deodorant.

Heat are trying to compete and cut salary, which isn't an ideal mix. Whiteside has stopped fouling at unplayable levels, but he's still a butcher from anywhere outside 10 feet, including from the free throw line. I don't think you can go far in the playoffs with a DeAndre Jordan that can't play defense, but just getting into the second round is a big step up from last year. Chris Bosh took 3 threes per 36 in 2014, 4 in 2015, 5 so far this year - he's the best jump shooting big man in the game, and it's great to see him back. Luol Deng has rebounded nicely from the Chicago grinder, I thought he was done but he's doing a lot of good things in reduced touches.

Cavaliers just need to be healthy in the playoffs, and they'll win the East. They somehow added depth and brought back every big name, and they're starting to buy into the Blatt offense. Whether they keep doing so through the marathon regular season and into the playoffs will be interesting to watch.

I don't really care about anyone else in the East. The Wizards will get it together, the Bucks probably won't. Of the 17 teams with positive SRS, 10 play in the East. The Warriors and Spurs are clearly the best teams and the Nets and 76ers are clearly the worst, but for the first time I can remember we're probably going to see an idiotic "it's not fair the 47 win Hawks stay home when the 43 win Mavs make the playoffs!" article. That'll be a fun change of pace.

Warriors are the best team. Steph Curry is the best player. They're not going to win 72. Just stop. One crazy thing is they have four players of the starters + Andre that have higher PER than USG, then Harrison Barnes at a respectable -2, then Klay Thompson diarrheaing himself to a -10. He's never been an efficient player but this year it's gotten really bad. He's slipped in getting to the rim, drawing fouls, creating his own looks and anyone else's, which were all weaknesses to begin with. Then his three point shooting has dropped from elite to merely good. I think his three point shooting will rebound, but all the others look like a guy whose athleticism is slipping, and reports are coming out that he has back issues.

As I said in the beginning, Steph Curry is the best player, and so long as he's healthy the Warriors are making the Western Conference Finals. Someone else has to step up if they're going to repeat, though. It doesn't look like it'll be Klay or Barnes, so can Green keep up 7 assists a game? I promise that Curry won't keep 69% true shooting up all season.

Spurs are a mixed bag. Ginobili is having a major turn back the clock year, Duncan remains eerily (suspiciously?) consistent, and Kawhi is threatening to add volume to his always efficient game. He's always been an iffy passer and the Spurs have apparently embraced that at this point, he's at a career low in assists per possession. He had fabulous percentages in their title year (52% fg, 38% from three) and he's at them now with 50% more uses. Like I always say, a perimeter player only needs two of [score, shoot, pass] to be an elite offensive player and he's got the first two now. Combine that with his elite defensive play and he just might live up to the hype.

Speaking of hype, Aldridge is having major Bosh/Love style adjustment issues. It's tough to tell because Green is also sabotaging the starters, but Aldridge's numbers are down across the board even though he's getting looks in the slightly better areas year over year. Aldridge was the best FA available last year, obviously, but that doesn't mean he's a great player, and it certainly doesn't mean he can fit anywhere.

Thunder are team shot selection, like every year. Durant has the ball in his hands less than ever while shooting better than ever. Ibaka has pushed in from three to long two which doesn't usually make a lot of sense, and it still doesn't in this case. He's a career 1.1 pts per three and .9 pts per long two guy, and this year he's shooting way below career from long two and way above career from three. Maybe people are chasing him off the line or something, but you gotta make it work. Dion Waiters is amazingly the best shot selection example on the team. His long jumper points of .929 is right around his mediocre career number of .933, but his usage has dropped dramatically even compared to last year's OKC number.

Westbrook's efficiency has actually taken a step up this year, but his 63% pm% is going to shatter the all time record. It's a joke. They still don't have a bench. Kanter has great box score stats and awful ±, Roberson is still useless on offense, Augustin is still useless on both sides of the ball, Morrow has forgotten how to shoot.

Timberwolves are where the Pelicans are supposed to be, and it's not like you can chalk it up to smart team construction. Wiggins still can't shoot or pass, Rubio still can't shoot or finish (40% at the rim!!!), three rotation pieces are 20 and three are 35+. Karl Anthony Towns looks like the real deal. Doesn't finish that well at the rim, but has a decent post game, hits his free throws, and has a long jumper. I haven't watched them yet this year for obvious reasons so I'll withhold comment on his defense until I do, but if he lives up to that end the Wolves will have a superstar for the first time since KG. And they have KG! That's got to be so weird.

Pelicans are blaming a lot of things on injuries, and they do have them, but to me the main issue is sharp regression from Anthony Davis. This isn't a surprise, as I pointed out LeBron and Durant both had regression in year four, but look at all the career worsts: free throw %, true shooting %, turnovers per 36, % of FGAs at the rim, rebounds per 36, PER - USG, WS/48. Yikes! His long jumper is now above league average which for a 7' guy who shoots in the 70s at the rim should be devastating, and yet here we are at 1-10. Watching the games he still has all his terrible defensive habits. It's frustrating, and for all their injuries this is a team that has gotten every game from Eric Gordon and Ryan Anderson. If we're supposed to take Anthony Davis seriously as an MVP level guy, that should be enough to get a better record than dead last, and it gets worse when you look at the schedule. Two Warriors losses, okay. Other than that they've played the Blazers, Magic, Hawks, Mavs, Raptors, Knicks, Nuggets. Not good.

[eric]

Andrew Wiggins has the worst on/off of the thirteen Timberwolves with the most minutes played. (Tyus Jones is an incredible -87.5 in 14 minutes played.) Even more incredible, the four other starters are in the top seven, so we can't blame any of them. Data:

on/off MP Name
-8.1 768 Andrew Wiggins
-4.7 443 Nemanja Bjelica
-3.5 404 Shabazz Muhammad
-3.4 155 Adreian Payne
-2.8 574 Zach LaVine
-1.4 575 Kevin Martin
-0.7 640 Karl-Anthony Towns
0.1 518 Gorgui Dieng
3.6 329 Kevin Garnett
4.4 93 Damjan Rudez
8.3 452 Tayshaun Prince
8.7 505 Ricky Rubio
10.3 152 Andre Miller
It's not clear to me why he's having such a devastating effect.

-His shooting is still terrible but slightly better than last year (.755 to .715). He's taking a lot more long jumpers per 36 minutes (7.6 to 4.6) but those shots were redistributed from the mid range where he was pretty much as bad so the net effect shouldn't be much if anything.

-His finishing at the rim has taken a big step back but he's drawing even more free throws so he's probably just getting hit a lot more and not getting any love from the whistle.

-His passing has taken a small step back but it was bad last year too.

-His defense is about as bad as it was last year, from +3.5 DRtg to +3.8, but this is playing alongside mostly Rubio/Garnett/KAT as opposed to Mo Williams / Dieng / Lavine. My guess is this is where he's fallen off the most.

[eric]

LeBron James is a better shooter than Kobe Bryant (.890 to .888 points per long jumper). That one thing you must remember, or nothing that follows will seem wondrous.

LeBron James is having a terrible shooting season, the worst of his career.

year pts/lj lj% %ast
2004 0.772 0.356 0.486
2005 0.876 0.431 0.455
2006 0.890 0.461 0.327
2007 0.809 0.432 0.354
2008 0.840 0.457 0.347
2009 0.898 0.501 0.343
2010 0.896 0.515 0.362
2011 0.932 0.450 0.345
2012 0.869 0.399 0.380
2013 1.050 0.390 0.411
2014 0.964 0.394 0.426
2015 0.947 0.424 0.355
2016 0.765 0.321 0.411
But note the patterns. He took slightly fewer long jumpers his first year in Miami, even less the second year, and established himself as an elite jump shooter the third without being tempted into overuse. His first year back in Cleveland, he regressed on both fronts. While his efficiency has plummeted this year, note that he is also taking by far the fewest long jumpers of his career as a proportion of his field goal attempts, and it turns out he has redistributed those touches mostly to right at the rim, where he is attempting a career high 43% of his attempts. Note also that his % of field goals assisted has rebounded...

...and this is all with Kyrie Irving sidelined. Like Erik Spoelstra before him, David Blatt has turned out to actually know what he's doing, resisting the temptation to just have LeBron run a high pick and roll every time down the floor. That still happens a lot, obviously, because it's a good play and because LeBron likes it, but in year two Blatt has begun to coax an actual offense out of a Cavaliers team with only two shot creators (LeBron and Love) and an actual defense with a laundry list of injuries: after being ranked 3rd and 18th in ORtg/DRtg last year, the Cavs are 4th/8th so far this year.

It's easy to suppose Kyrie coming back will compromise the defense, but he's going to be replacing the minutes of Jared Cunningham or Mo Williams, who have both been terrible on defense so far this year. Throw in the Shumpert over Jefferson upgrade and Mozgov continuing to recover from knee surgery and the Cavs only look to get better as they get healthier... and they're already the best team in the East by margin of victory! Ever since LeBron went to Miami we've been waiting for him to take a significantly reduced workload on offense and it's never really happened except in 2011, and we all know how that turned out. I'm really eager to see how they run offense when Kyrie gets back, I think it'll tell us a lot about how the rest of LeBron's career will go (or won't).

[MistleTacoe]

I think the on/off stats for the TWolves are misleading....the idea that Prince and Miller are "better" players than Wiggins is a joke. Yes they have a better on/off rating but they are playing WAY less minutes against worse players.

[eric]

Dec 16, 2015 10:52:23 GMT -6 MistleTacoe said:

I think the on/off stats for the TWolves are misleading....the idea that Prince and Miller are "better" players than Wiggins is a joke. Yes they have a better on/off rating but they are playing WAY less minutes against worse players.

I didn't say Prince or Miller were better players than Wiggins. I said Wiggins was having a devastating effect on the Timberwolves, and I stand by that. Basketball isn't like baseball, only one player gets to shoot per possession. Surely we agree that there are more efficient scorers than Wiggins on the Timberwolves, most notably KAT. Since you bring him up Tayshaun Prince is about as efficient a jump shooter as Wiggins (which is shocking) but doesn't draw fouls at all, so overall he's a less efficient scorer... but the trick is that Prince barely ever shoots, with a comical 7.3% USG. If those shots are redistributed to a more efficient scorer who is not saturated, the Timberwolves are better off with Prince on offense than Wiggins. There are other concerns like spacing and passing, but it turns out Prince while terrible at both is slightly better than Wiggins at both.

Teammates and level of competition are always a factor, but that's why I pointed out that the rest of the starters have very good on/off numbers. It is conceivable that a team could have below average starters and an above average bench, but if that was the case we'd see negatives for all or at least most of the starters and vice versa for the bench, and we don't see that.

[MistleTacoe]

Dec 16, 2015 11:32:07 GMT -6 eric said:

Dec 16, 2015 10:52:23 GMT -6 MistleTacoe said:

I think the on/off stats for the TWolves are misleading....the idea that Prince and Miller are "better" players than Wiggins is a joke. Yes they have a better on/off rating but they are playing WAY less minutes against worse players.

I didn't say Prince or Miller were better players than Wiggins. I said Wiggins was having a devastating effect on the Timberwolves, and I stand by that. Basketball isn't like baseball, only one player gets to shoot per possession. Surely we agree that there are more efficient scorers than Wiggins on the Timberwolves, most notably KAT. Since you bring him up Tayshaun Prince is about as efficient a jump shooter as Wiggins (which is shocking) but doesn't draw fouls at all, so overall he's a less efficient scorer... but the trick is that Prince barely ever shoots, with a comical 7.3% USG. If those shots are redistributed to a more efficient scorer who is not saturated, the Timberwolves are better off with Prince on offense than Wiggins. There are other concerns like spacing and passing, but it turns out Prince while terrible at both is slightly better than Wiggins at both.

Teammates and level of competition are always a factor, but that's why I pointed out that the rest of the starters have very good on/off numbers. It is conceivable that a team could have below average starters and an above average bench, but if that was the case we'd see negatives for all or at least most of the starters and vice versa for the bench, and we don't see that.

Certainly wasn't try to say that YOU thought Prince/Miller were better....or that you were implying anything close to that. I just believe this is one of those situations where the stats don't tell the entire story.

[Druce]

what about the warriors elite bench?

[eric]

Dec 16, 2015 14:03:38 GMT -6 Druce said:

what about the warriors elite bench?

on/off mp name
25.0 873 Stephen Curry
22.9 868 Draymond Green
11.1 705 Andre Iguodala
7.8 726 Klay Thompson
5.9 513 Harrison Barnes
4.6 499 Festus Ezeli
-3.1 362 Andrew Bogut
-11.1 481 Shaun Livingston
-11.8 312 Leandro Barbosa
-16.4 229 Brandon Rush
-19.8 70 Jason Thompson
-22.9 202 Marreese Speights
-25.2 84 James Michael McAdoo
-25.6 151 Ian Clark
Curry is the best player in the NBA, Klay has been struggling, AI is a fine player, Bogut is washed up, the rest are atrocious. Also please note that Brandon Rush has gotten nine starts with the various injuries and he's still got catastrophic splits.

[Druce]

didnt know jmm was on the warriors

[eric]

Dec 15, 2015 11:38:53 GMT -6 eric said:

Andrew Wiggins has the worst on/off of the thirteen Timberwolves with the most minutes played. It's not clear to me why he's having such a devastating effect.

So I watched the Knicks game and I think Wiggins has the same problem as Davis: he's a super elite athlete who just doesn't have a feel for the game. It's a lot more obvious with Davis because big men are called into rotation on defense so often, but you can see it with Wiggins now and again too, especially on offensive rebounds (for either team). Offensive rebounds are always scramble situations and lots of guys make the wrong play, but the issue with Wiggins and Davis is that they don't make any play. They just kind of stand around. It's not an effort thing and it's hard to practice, some guys just have an innate understanding of the ten man ballet... such as Kristaps Porzingis.

Two plays stood out to me with Kristaps. The first: he bricked some shot, and ended up backpedaling at the top of the key. Lopez got the offensive board, Kristaps immediately read the floor and made a hard cut through the scattered bodies towards the hoop, got the pass, slam dunk. The speed and power is great, but it's the reaction that's the most impressive. When you look at it in freeze frame it's obvious, the understanding in real time is very rare.

Second play: Carmelo is isolated on the wing. (Should be pretty easy to find such an unusual play in your DVR amirite.) Wiggins is guarding Afflalo at the top of the key but is cheating over to help, which he should do. Kristaps reads this and sneaks over from the other wing to set a back screen on Wiggins. The play is already over. The big man guarding Kristaps has no chance of closing out Afflalo unless he immediately sprints at him which would leave Kristaps a wide open cut to the hoop. Either way someone is getting an open look from a power zone. As it turns out the big guarding Kristaps doesn't see the play at all because when Carmelo makes the obvious pass Wiggins gets completely blindsided by the pick (not his fault) and Afflalo drains the open three.

KAT also looked great, but from what I saw Wiggins was at best a distant third in the prospect rankings that night. Kristaps has that creativity that you can't teach, like an elite soccer creator. When Wiggins isn't involved in the offensive play he stands with his hands on his knees. He might as well be on the bench. It's the kind of thing that doesn't show up in the box score but absolutely shows up in the ±, and I think it's this lack of instinct that is submarining his numbers.

[eric]

I was hoping Love would take the same touches when Kyrie got back but so far he's given up more: Pre-Kyrie (first 24 games) Love had 19.3 uses per 36 minutes to LeBron's 26.6, post-Kyrie (last 9 games) Love so far is down to 16.7 to LeBron's 25.6. LeBron especially at his reduced efficiency and increased age should be taking less touches, and even if he hadn't he should be at his Miami levels of 22-24. But it's early yet.

[eric]

Thoughts from last night's Cavs-Wolves game:

The Cavs are one wing short. Regular season NBA rotations are ten men deep: 2 point guards, 5 wings, 3 bigs. You can cheat on this a little by playing both point guards at the same time (as the Cavs did in this game), but you still need 4 competent NBA wings to have a real rotation. The Cavs have an elite wing in LeBron and two starting caliber wings in JR and Shump, and then they have Richard Jefferson . RJ is a 3 and D guy without the D that can't create his own look or move the ball and is providing a robust 2.4 rebounds per 36 minutes, all of which adds up to a Perkins-esque -19 on/off.

Some of this to be fair comes from backing up LeBron, but he's played 41% of his minutes with LeBron so that's not the whole reason. Mostly he's just terrible, and the Cavs have no real other options. Joe Harris is out for the year, Jared Cunningham and Mo Williams are comically undersized and pretty bad in their own right, James Jones is the same player and they prefer him as a big anyway. People have (very rightly) pointed out that LeBron should be playing a lot more 4, but I wonder if the Cavs would be better off trying Love at the 3 for at least some of RJ's 10 minutes a game. He can't stay in front of or blow past anyone at power forward either so it's not like they're losing anything on defense or with penetration, and he's a devastating post player. Something like a Delly - Shump - Love - Tristan - Mozgov lineup seems to me the best way to cover up this weakness, Delly and Shump are strong defenders and shooters... or they could just ignore it until the playoffs when rotations shrink to 8 guys anyway.

The Timberwolves are terribly constructed and terribly coached. Mitchell seems like a strong motivator, I don't know how much guys are buying in or what, but he is brutal at Xs and Os. Van Gundy ripped their floor balance all night long, multiple players took shots standing on the three point line (the worst possible two point shot), just terrible stuff.

All of which leads me to confidently predict that Karl Anthony-Towns will be a star in this league. Even in all this chaos he's averaging 16 points a game on 58% true shooting (a measure of efficiency that takes into account threes and free throw shooting), something only eight players this year can say: Steph Curry, Kawhi Leonard, Kevin Durant, Chris Bosh, James Harden, Klay Thompson, JJ Reddick (inexplicably giving commentary last night), KAT. After some odd early season troubles finishing at the rim he's up to 70% there, he hits 48% from long 2, 85% from the line. He's an elite scorer, period. Everybody loses their mind over Anthony Davis' supposed point guard skills, but KAT is actually assisted on less of his baskets (71%) than Davis (76%).

His on/off is in the red, but that comes from sharing the floor with Wiggins who remains an anchor on the starting lineup. Wiggins/KAT together are -4.1 in 959 minutes, KAT on Wiggins off is -0.4 in 114, and it's not because Shabazz Muhammad and Kevin Martin are elite backups. Sooner or later we're going to have to reassess as a society whether Wiggins is actually good, it baffles me how people simply declare him a star-in-waiting. He still can't shoot, he still can't pass, there's no data to back up the assertion that he's a good defender, and if you watch any game he plays you'll find multiple infuriating lapses. To be clear, I don't think he's dogging it or otherwise intentionally submarining his team. I think he just is not good at basketball. Example from last night:

KAT on the block. Prince cuts to the other block for some reason, Dieng loiters on the other baseline. (How KAT ever scores in what is effectively a permanent 1 on 3 is a big reason I like him as a future star.) He kicks to Rubio in the same side corner. Please note! This makes for FOUR Timberwolves players (out of a possible five) on the baseline. Wiggins is above the three point line being ignored by JR Smith, which if you're charitable is because he's a terrible three point shooter but if you're honest is probably because JR kind of spaces out sometimes. Any guard with any basketball experience has to be thinking about floor balance when your backcourt partner is shooting under any circumstances, let alone with your whole team on the baseline.

Wiggins crashes the boards.
LeBron gets the rebound, throws a pass half the length of the court.
JR Smith gets a dunk ahead of the flailing KAT.

Towns gets in the highlight, but he's the one who makes the good play. (I mean, he passes to Rubio which is a terrible play, but you work with what you got.) It's KAT that chases Smith the length of the floor while Wiggins is chasing a rebound he has maybe a 1% chance of getting. And it wasn't an isolated incident! Later in the game it was Prince bricking a jumper on a kickout from Rubio on the block. (Dieng chilling on the other.) Wiggins again decides to crash the boards, leaving KAT at the top of the key to try and stop a LeBron fast break... leading to the windmill dunk highlight. It's easy to see Towns flailing at a much faster player and conclude that he messed up, but floor balance isn't the power forward's job, and enforcing floor balance isn't the power forward's job. It's inconceivable to me how Wiggins doesn't understand the game at this rudimentary level, and it's inconceivable to me how in an openly lost season Mitchell doesn't crack the whip and bench him for repeatedly hanging his teammates out to dry.

.

Okay, let's get positive.

One of my favorite Miami possession in the Heat days was them going the length of the floor for a layup without dribbling. If the Spurs did that we would have gotten a million tweets about how team first and fundamentals and right way they were, but these were the Heat so the lame stream media ignored it. Same principle last night.

1. Tristan Thompson fights for a defensive rebound that eventually falls to LeBron on the baseline, who
2. while falling out of bounds hurls a pass to Kevin Love at half court, who
3. rather less dramatically rifles a pass towards the left corner that Kyrie Irving retrieves, and
4. dishes back to JR Smith who (always ready for the pass) steps into and drills a three from the left wing

Not only did no Cavalier dribble, they didn't even take a step. Beautiful (and thoroughly modern) basketball that every twitter nerd would cream their jeans over if it was the Warriors, but it's the Cavs and they don't play beautiful basketball so whatever.

.

I said we were getting positive!

Ricky Rubio. You look at his stats and it's inconceivable that he can play in the NBA. He's hitting 41% of his shots... at the rim. His long range jump shooting is almost as bad as Wiggins'. (And it should say a lot that notoriously terrible Rubio is putting up .834 points per long jumper, ahead of Wiggins' .744.) It doesn't look like a form or size issue, Rubio is 6'4" and very long, he should have no trouble getting shots up, and he in fact has no trouble hitting shots from the free throw line (83% this year).

He has two clear skills on offense: he has the quickness to get past the first defender and he is a sublime passer. The first premise shouldn't matter because defenses should just let Ricky Rubio take all the layups he wants, but team defense is built on habits and letting people get open layups is strongly discouraged, so Rubio routinely draws two defenders and even very good ones (such as Delly and TT) aren't going to be able to stifle his vast passing repertoire. "Getting past the first defender" definitely doesn't show up in the box score, and I know of no public database that tracks it, but for obvious reasons it is a vital NBA skill for ball handlers. Rubio is an interesting case because again defenses should really just let him take the layups such penetration would generate unmolested, because the alternative is dunk attempts for KAT and those are flushed at far superior rates.

He's a delight to watch and in the 50s would have won multiple MVP awards once you throw in his strong defense. Minnesota infamously passed on Curry to take Rubio, then even more infamously failed to use their designated player extension on Love to save it for Rubio (and then not give it to him), but I think he could have been the third best player on a championship team. It won't be these Timberwolves because they're going to max extend Wiggins and ruin themselves in the process, and he'll be 30 with bad knees by the time he gets out of Minnesota so it'll be too late then. It's a shame, but it'll still be fun to watch he and KAT manufacture an actual offense in these unbelievably hostile conditions.

[eric]

Before tonight's action the Warriors are 36-3 and the Spurs are 34-6.
However, by Pythagorean win-loss the Spurs are 35-5 and the Warriors are only 32-7.

A deeper look at the Four Factors shows the Warriors with a large edge in eFG%, but the Spurs are dramatically better in REB% and TOV%, and slightly better in FT/FGA (all figures net of offense and defense).

The Spurs have enjoyed a slightly easier schedule so far but I wouldn't be surprised if that flipped tomorrow after the Spurs play the Cavs and the Warriors play the FCS Lakers.

The Spurs are a better team, but because they're already so far behind the 70 win pace (keeping in mind that teams tend to be closer to .500 ball in the second half) neither is likely to make it to 70.

[eric]

Why Steph Curry is Underrated
stats c/o b-r and nbawowy

Draymond Green has excellent numbers. He is the eighth best player in the NBA by WS/48, his PER is higher than his USG, his on/off is +24. (The Warriors' starters' on/off is somewhat inflated by their terrible bench but 24 leaves plenty of room.) He should be an All Star, and should probably make second team All-NBA (behind LeBron, Kawhi, Durant) but could fall to third or not at all (behind Millsap, Bosh, Butler, Aldridge, or Davis) depending on how people try to squeeze the positions out. It would be unusual but not unprecedented for a 65+ win team to only have one All-NBA representative. Since the All-NBA Third Team was invented in 1989, 65+ win teams have been represented as follows:

92 Bulls - Jordan 1 Pippen 2
96 Bulls - Jordan 1 Pippen 1
97 Bulls - Jordan 1 Pippen 2
00 Lakers - Shaq 1 Kobe 2
07 Mavs - Dirk 1
08 Celtics - Garnett 1 Pierce 3
09 Lakers - Kobe 1 Pau 3
09 Cavs - LeBron 1
13 Heat - LeBron 1 Wade 3
15 Warriors - Curry 1 Klay 3

And the arguments people will make that the Warriors HAVE TO have a second All-NBA representative is why Steph Curry is underrated. The Warriors are not a great team in the same way that the 09 Cavs were not a great team. They are one transcendent player whose massive coattails turn all boats to gold.

And I can prove it.

.

Here are the four best Warriors by on/off (and I would assume by acclamation):

MP On/Off Player
1388 30 Stephen Curry
1450 24 Draymond Green
1348 15 Klay Thompson
1184 7 Andre Iguodala
And I assume the numbers also match what people would generally reckon. If we look at how the latter three perform without Curry, however, we see a far different picture:

MP on MP off On/Off Scenario
197 127 -15 Dray on Curry off
256 295 -32 Klay on Curry off
487 695 -22 Iggy on Curry off
In every scenario without Curry, the Warriors are a losing basketball team (worst in NBA history in Klay's case). In every scenario where Curry plays without one of his supposed best supporting cast, the Warriors still put up historically great scoring margins. Like prime Dirk and prime LeBron before him, you could put Curry with any supporting cast and they would be a very good to great team. Like Jason Terry and (09 all-star) Mo Williams before them, if you tried to build a team around Draymond or Klay you would be lucky to make the playoffs.

Steph Curry should be the unanimous MVP. Kawhi will definitely get some first place votes, LeBron might, some fools will give Draymond down ballot votes. All of those votes will be factually incorrect, and will only further underrate Steph Curry.

[eric]

I liked the analysis I did on Curry's teammates, so I thought I'd run the same on Wiggins and LeBron:

MP on MP off On/Off Scenario
60 406 46 Rubio
215 793 10 Prince
118 329 1 Towns
534 988 -1 Dieng
551 994 -5 LaVine
559 1183 -6 Muhammad

MP on MP off On/Off Scenario
346 681 -5 Dellavedova
217 309 -13 Love
327 630 -13 Thompson
461 1129 -23 Jefferson
197 530 -26 Smith
Looks right all the way down the line. Only ones I'm surprised by are Towns and Smith being so low.

[Bankz]

why did you not include Kyrie?

[eric]

Jan 22, 2016 22:24:29 GMT -6 Bankz said:

why did you not include Kyrie?

Same reason I didn't include Garnett: they've only played 500 some odd minutes this year.

[eric]

Why Narratives Are Annoying

Scenario 1: Cavs go to the Finals last year, this year barely lose to the Spurs and get waxed by the Warriors. Media response:
Trade Love?
Should the Cavs trade Love? (he says no, but felt the need to say so)
Kevin Love is Really Good! Trade Him!
Trade Love!
Seriously, Trade Him!
Love Doesn't Fit!
They Should Have Kept Wiggins!
They'd Be Better Off with Wiggins!

Scenario 2: Spurs lose in the first round last year (to a team that would lose in the second round), this year get waxed by the Warriors and blown out by the Cavs. During the Cavs loss they go to a zone defense for pretty much the entire third quarter. Media response:

...

.....

.................................

.

Certain People always complain that stats don't show you everything! You have to watch the games! Body language! The problem with narratives isn't that they don't use stats, it's that they don't hold themselves accountable. They make these subjective assessments and have no consistent basis for applying them. You can apply every argument for getting rid of Love as you could for getting rid of Aldridge, except you can make them even more... and they don't!

Spurs will probably have to beat all three of the Warriors, Thunder, and Cavs; Cavs will have to beat at most one of the top four teams.
The Spurs got blown out by two of the top four teams; the Cavs got blown out by one.

Where's the hand-wringing? Where's the hysteria? Where's the second guessing?

.

Here are what the stats say.

Love 16 points and 11 boards per game, Aldridge 16 and 9
Love 20 PER on 23 USG, Aldridge 20 on 25
Love .18 WS/48, Aldridge .18 WS/48
Love +11 on/off, Aldridge -6(!!!)
Love makes the Cavs defense 0.4 pts/100 possessions worse, Aldridge makes the Spurs defense 3.3 worse(!!!)

How Love is such a catastrophic fit but Aldridge is no problem and the Spurs are amazing? Imagine the reaction if the Cavs tried to hide Love's iffy defense with a zone.

.

.

And as for Wiggins, he's one of two starters shooting <25% on >100 threes in the NBA this season. (The other? Kobe Bryant.) He's one of four starting guards with more turnovers than assists (Tony Allen, CJ Miles, Ben McLemore). The Timberwolves are still playing better defense when he sits. Love has his very well documented weaknesses, what exactly are Wiggins' strengths? He's a 3 and D player without the 3 or the D, have fun trying to play offense against GS/SA with a player like that.

[eric]

I hate to keep harping on Anthony Davis but last night gave a perfect example of why he is actually NOT a good defender.

go here and watch the highlight starting at 24s

Shumpert in the left corner, Mo Williams on the right wing, Tristan Thompson on the right low post, high pick and roll with Varejao and James

1. Right away Ryan Anderson is 10 feet out of position. He's Ryan Anderson, but also he thinks Gee was going to force LeBron right. (Pelicans miscommunications like this are extremely frequent.) Either way LeBron has a line drive to the rim.

2. But Anthony Davis is already under the basket!! All he has to do is take one step forward and he can draw a charge, or he can jump straight up and verticality.

3. He instead hugs Tristan Thompson, which makes no sense for two reasons:
a. It's a foul.
b. You're worrying more about the possibility of an offensive rebound than an uncontested dunk.

4. You can say Jrue Holliday is just as much as fault but leaving the strong side corner three is a major no-no, and again, Anthony Davis is ALREADY in position!

.

The Pelicans have a lot of problems (coaching, roster composition, injuries) but their biggest problem is their best player has taken a big step backwards this year. Everyone has forgotten how Davis is a superstar MVP DPOY favorite because we're all in love with Curry now (see previous post), but in reality he's the same guy he was last year: transcendent offensive talent, average at best defender. In the post-2004 NBA it's really hard to build a contender around a big man like that.

[Bankz]

New Orleans needs to hire Thibs...

[eric]

People will apparently never tire of saying "Derrick Rose is back!!!" but luckily I will apparently never tire of demonstrating "no, no he isn't".

Derrick Rose in 2011: 24 points, 7.4 assists to 3.3 turnovers per 36 minutes; 45% from the field, 33% from three; .348 FTA/FGA
Derrick Rose in January 2016: 21 points, 3.9 assists to 3.0 turnovers per 36 minutes 47% from the field, 29% from three; .152 FTA/FGA

On/off in 2011: +2.7
On/off in January 2016: -6.3

He never deserved the MVP. He's never getting back to where he was. Just stop. Leave the guy alone to be a not quite starting level shoot first PG. You're embarrassing yourself and him by pretending there's ever going to be anything else.

[Bankz]

Who is making claims he's back? This seems so odd.

[eric]

Feb 19, 2016 20:48:38 GMT -6 Bankz said:

Who is making claims he's back? This seems so odd.

both Reggie Miller and David Aldridge in the broadcast two nights ago

[Bankz]

Feb 20, 2016 13:32:09 GMT -6 eric said:

Feb 19, 2016 20:48:38 GMT -6 Bankz said:

Who is making claims he's back? This seems so odd.

both Reggie Miller and David Aldridge in the broadcast two nights ago

lol Reggie Miller...

go sit in the car Eric

[eric]

Are We Looking at the Wrong Juggernaut?

The Warriors are on pace for 74 wins. That number is bigger than all the numbers. They shoot all the threes. Wanna see their shiny threes?

The Spurs are on pace for (yawn) 69 wins (big deal). They take the fifth fewest threes as a proportion of field goal attempts. Their best player is actually a robot: Q: Did you do anything fun this summer? Kawhi Leonard: No, not really. Tim Duncan actually died in 2011 and is controlled by Gregg Popovich via a complicated system of pulleys and voodoo (hence all the bats/snakes/general pestilence in San Antonio's "arena"). A group of thirteen doughnuts is actually called a "Boris' dozen" in San Antonio because it's what he eats during timeouts. Not even full timeouts, twenties.

but

by Pythagorean Win-Loss the Spurs are actually a (much) better team than the Warriors, at 70.2 wins over 82 games vs. the Warriors' 67.0, built mostly on the back of the best defense the league has seen since 2004, after which the league decided no more hand checking but for real this time, and let's start actually calling defensive three seconds.

At four games back in the loss column with under thirty to play, the Spurs almost certainly won't catch the Warriors for the #1 seed. But you heard it hear first: The Spurs Will Beat The Warriors in the Playoffs

.

You might be asking, "what's the big deal with Pythagorean Win-Loss anyway?" Well, here are the last three years.

2015 Warriors (65 to 58)
2014 Spurs (61 to 59)
2013 Thunder (64 oops injury to) Heat (62 to 59)

Looks like a pretty big deal to me. Pretty big.