76'ers Pride

Brand get hurs. Sixers get better.

2009-01-10T15:52:00.005-09:00

Well, I know that first part happened. The verdict on the second part of that title is still up for debate. But the results since he was hurt have been somewhat positive. Checking the schedule...the Sixers are 6-6 since Brand got hurt (including the game against the Bucks in which he got hurt) and just 10-14 before the injury.

Hmm.... Not a huge difference, but certainly everyone's view of how they're doing seems to have changed. I guess expectations will do that to you-- going sub-.500 with Brand was considered a let-down, but going .500 without him is considered playing well.

In all fairness to Brand, this "hot streak" is probably less impressive than it seems. After all, the Sixers have simply beaten the sub-.500 teams and lost to the above-.500 teams during this stretch. They did beat the Rockets, but they also lost to the Pacers to balance it out.

Still, it does appear that the Sixers are playing a little bit better. Much of the talk of the Sixers' "improvement" over the last couple of weeks has centered on their return to a running style of play that wasn't possible with Brand.

Maybe that's the answer, but the answer might actually be a bit simpler-- Brand simply wasn't playing that well, so having someone else take his playing time has made the Sixers better. It was a change in players, not a change in style that has been making the difference.

After Mo Cheeks was fired, Professor Berri took a look at the Sixers over at the Wages of Wins. Back in 2006-07 (pre-injury), Brand had a WP48 of .213. But before his injury this season, Brand only had a WP48 of .075. Remember-- .100 is an average player (and average starters are even higher), so Brand was playing worse than an average NBA player. And he was playing 35 minutes per game.

Samuel Dalembert (.138), Marreese Speights (.127), and Reggie Evans (.121) all had higher WP48 than Brand, but none of them were playing nearly the minutes he had played. So when you take Brand out of the rotation, all of a sudden the Sixers improve.

Now, Brand isn't alone in playing below expectations. From our core contributors, WP48 shows Dalembert, Thaddeus Young, Evans, and Louis Williams all playing worse than last year. (Igoudala has actually been playing better this year according to WP48, despite his scoring woes.) Still, Brand was playing worse than the other bigs. Not exactly what we were hoping for out of our big off-season acquisition.

Here's hoping that Brand's performance is just the result of him still not being 100% healthy after his major injury from before, and that he'll get better once he returns from his curent injury.

So Long, Mo. Thanks for the memories.

2008-12-13T16:44:00.005-09:00

Guess I missed the news. I'm sitting here watching the Sixers-Wizards game (I live in D.C. right now, so the game is on TV. Glad that I'm finally getting to watch a game.), and about half-way through the second quarter I hear the announcers mentioning the Sixers new interim head coach. Somehow I hadn't seen the news before now (I know the change was only made earlier today, but still...).

I know the generic reasons given for firing Mo Cheeks-- need to shake up the team, underperforming, etc.-- but I can't say I'm a big fan of the move. And that's coming from someone who's never thought Cheeks was anything more than an average coach. As my last post talked about, Cheeks was basically playing everyone the minutes that was expected. If the problem is that Andre Igoudala, Elton Brand, and Samuel Dalembert are playing worse than expected, then I don't see how getting rid of Cheeks helps anything. I especially don't see how it helps in the case of Igoudala and Dalembert-- after all, he was also the coach when they played really well last year.

So what do I expect? I expect the Sixers to start playing better and finish the season with somewhere between 40 and 50 wins. They have a few easy games over the next week that they should win (including tonight's game and next Friday's game against the Wizards that I'm going to!), so I expect the "improved" play to start right away. Of course, that's what I was expecting before the firing. Stefanski will get credit for shaking things up, and really it'll just be the players returning to their normal performance level.

As long as the Sixers start playing better I guess I won't be too bothered by the coaching change. After all, I don't follow the Sixers to watch the coach!

Update: I meant to post these two links from ESPN on the firing (by John Hollinger and Marc Stein) for a more detailed take on the firing. Take a look!

20 games in

2008-12-06T11:27:00.003-09:00

Well, we're twenty games into the season. A 9-11 record with a -0.3 point differential. Not exactly what we were all hoping for after the big off-season signing of Elton Brand. And not really in-line with the WP48 projection of the season I put together.

The big question is obviously "why?".

Taking a first crack at the question, I looked at the minutes per game for each player on the roster to see if that was the problem. Short answer: no. Based on current minute allocations and last year's WP48 for each player, the Sixers would be on pace to win somewhere between 43 and 53 wins (depending on which WP48 projection I use for Elton Brand).* Samuel Dalembert's playing less minutes, but other than that Mo Cheeks is generally playing everyone the expected minutes.

As for Dalembert playing less minutes, I guess that leads into the other possible explanation for the poorer than expected performance. You know, that the players just aren't playing as well as they have in the past. From what I've been able to tell (and what the news media has been reporting ), Dalembert and Andre Igoudala have both been playing worse than last year. I didn't do an in-depth look at their performance to see how much perception and reality matched up or check to see if anyone else's performance was way off, but a downturn in both of their performances could certainly explain the Sixers' performance so far.

Hopefully Professor Berri will take a look at the Sixers sometime in the near future and give us some answers!

*I did a rough estimate that did not take into account the extra minutes played so far this season in overtime.

A good season to be a Sixers fan

2008-11-03T17:49:00.004-09:00

Yes, I know the season has already started. But that's not going to stop me from finally posting my prediction for the Sixer's season. As with last year, I'm basing my prediction on Wins Produced.

And what does my prediction tell me? It tells me that it could be a very good season to be a Sixers fan.

I made two predictions. The first one is probably too optimistic-- it's based on the Sixer's playing a nine man rotation and limiting the playing time of many of the players not viewed favorably by Wins Produced-- but at the same time I don't think it's completely out of line with the line-ups that Mo Cheeks will probably favor this year. The second prediction is probably way too pessimistic, but it probably reflects what could happen if the Sixer's main players get a couple of nicks and miss some (but not a huge amount of) time.

Without further ado....

Prediction 1: For this prediction, I assumed that Mo Cheeks would play a relatively tight rotation of nine players. I assumed that he'd play all of our starters 35 minutes a night, split the remaining time at the PG, SG, & SF positions between Louis Williams and Willie Green, play Reggies Evans for the remaining PF time, and play rookie Marreese Speights for the remaining time at C. The two other big assumptions I made were that Elton Brand would return to his form from 2006-07 and that Mareese Speights would perform at the level predicted by Professor Berri based on his college (and preseason) stats; other than those assumptions I predicted the remaining players to perform at their 2007-08 level.

In numbers ([name] [WP48] [min/gm] = [Wins Produced]:

Andre Miller [.167] [35 min/gm] = 9.99
Andre Igoudala [.172] [35 min/gm] = 10.28
Thaddeus Young [.099] [35 min/gm] = 5.92
Elton Brand [.213] [35 min/gm] = 12.74
Samuel Dalembert [.197] [35 min/gm] = 11.78
Louis Williams [.080] [20 min/gm] = 2.73
Willie Green [-.019] [19 min/gm] = -0.62
Reggie Evans [.143] [13 min/gm] = 3.18
Marreese Speights [.068] [13 min/gm] = 1.51

That gives a projected win total of 57.51 wins. Wow. I was optimistic about this season, but that projection really blows my mind. Now, like I said at the outset, this projection is probably a little too optimistic, primarily because it assumes a tight rotation and no injuries to our key players. On the other hand, there's a decent chance that Cheeks plays some of the starters (especially Igoudala) closer to 40 minutes each night. So a super-best-case scenario could be even more impressive.

Prediction 2: For this second prediction, I assumed that the other players on the roster would get playing time over the course of the season. I didn't have a good way to figure out where those minutes would come from (at least not a quick way), so I just assumed that each of the starters would play 30 minutes instead of 35 minutes, Royal Ivey and Kareem Rush would split the newly available time at the PG, SG, & SF positions, and Donyell Marshall and Theo Ratliff would get the newly available time at the PF and C positons, respectively. The way I look at it, we can just assume that this playing time occurs when the starters need some time to rest from minor injuries that always occur over the course of a season (ankle sprains, etc.). The one other big assumption I made was that Elton Brand would play at his injury-reduced level from last season. Since Donyell Marshall played for two teams last year, I just averaged his production from both teams (without taking the different amounts of playing time into account).

In numbers ([name] [WP48] [min/gm] = [Wins Produced]:

Andre Miller [.167] [30 min/gm] = 8.56
Andre Igoudala [.172] [30 min/gm] = 8.82
Thaddeus Young [.099] [30 min/gm] = 5.07
Elton Brand [.058] [30 min/gm] = 2.97
Samuel Dalembert [.197] [30 min/gm] = 10.10
Louis Williams [.080] [20 min/gm] = 2.73
Willie Green [-.019] [19 min/gm] = -0.62
Reggie Evans [.143] [13 min/gm] = 3.18
Marreese Speights [.068] [13 min/gm] = 1.51
Royal Ivey [-.054] [8 min/gm] = -0.74
Kareem Rush [-.001] [7 min/gm] = -0.01
Donyell Marshall [-.043] [5 min/gm] = -0.36
Theo Ratliff [.059] [5 min/gm] = 0.50

That gives a projected win total of 41.71 wins. Not as good as the first projection, but still slightly better than the Sixers did this past season. What's the difference? Well, reducing the starters' playing time and replacing them with the end of the bench players accounts for a reduction of about 8 wins. The remaining reduction comes from assuming that Brand can't regain his pre-injury form.

I think it's likely that the end of the bench is going to get playing time (although it might be at the expense of the first tier of substitutes rather than at the expense of the starters if it isn't as a result of injuries), but based on the first three games of the season I think there's a decent chance that Brand will return to his old form (I'm pretty sure I read that he was averaging 18 points and 14 rebounds).

So my prediction for the year: I'll pretend I'm King Solomon and cut everything in the middle- 50 wins during the regular season, and hopefully home court advantage in the first round of the playoffs.

Like I said at the beginning, it looks like it could be a good year to be a fan of the Sixers.

What do you think?

[And for commenter Louis since I know he likes to pick on my grammar- is it Sixers fan, Sixer's fan, or Sixers' fan?]

Roll out the ball and let's play!

2008-10-01T18:49:00.003-08:00

Training camp has arrived, so the season is just around the corner. If by "just around the corner" you mean a month away. With training camp here, it's also time for predictions to come out of the woodwork. I'm not going to track them all down this year like I did last year (no time!), but I couldn't help noting John Hollinger's season preview. You can catch his views on the Sixers here. In short: he predicts them to come in 3rd in the Eastern Conference. I think he might be a bit optimistic (although not necessarily), but I also think that his thinking is going to be more or less in line with the views of most mainstream sportswriters. That's a sea change from last season when Hollinger, and most writers, predicted the Sixers to come in last. And that's definitely a change that I could get used to.

Jobs take a lot of time. And what the 1980s Sixers can tell us about Elton Brand.

2008-09-23T18:43:00.004-08:00

I know. Captain obvious speaking. And, yes, I did have a job all of last year. But I started working at my law firm last Monday (the 15th), and I feel like I haven't had a chance to breath since then. I had none work related stuff going on as well (all good things), but since I tend to not write that much about my non-basketball personal life here I'll just leave it at that. But needless to say, the spare time that I use to sporadically post about the Sixers and basketball took the hit.

I had a few spare moments tonight, so I browsed around my usual haunts (Truehoop, Wages of Wins). And, as usual, Professor Berri (at WoW) had an interesting post up about the Sixers--or, at least, the Sixers from the early 1980s.

In particular, in his post artfully titled "What Ever Happened to "Fo'-Fi'-Fo'"?", he focused on how the Sixers went from very good to NBA champions to first round losers. It's very interesting, so I'd go read it all.

But the upshot (for you lazy people who just want my take on things...) is that you can tie both the Sixers rise and fall primarily to Moses Malone. In his first season with the Sixers, he was fantastic, posting a WP48 of .378 and producing 23 wins. The next year he was still the Sixers' best player, posting a WP48 of .268 (Dr. J had a WP48 of .241 in both seasons) and producing 14.6 wins. But as you can see in those numbers, Malone wasn't nearly the player in the second season that he was in the first season. That said, he was still elite (top 10 in Wins Produced), but no longer super-elite (top 3 behind Magic Johnson and Larry Bird). The difference just goes to show you that even when a player has a very good season, he might not be quite the difference maker that he had been in the past or was expected to be.

And for the current Sixers, that should serve as a warning about getting too hopeful about Elton Brand taking the Sixers into the top tier of the league's teams. In 2005-06, Brand posted a WP48 of .274. In 2006-07, he posted a WP48 of .213. In his injury shortened 2007-08, Brand posted a WP48 of .058. Setting aside last season, we still see a huge difference between Brand's 2005-06 season and his 2006-07 season. At least we do looking at WP48. But I don't think the difference appeared that large to people (like myself) when watching him play. When I saw him play, in both seasons, I was just left with the impression that "Wow. He's a very good player."

And he was. But he was a better "very good player" in 2005-06. I haven't done a WP48 based prediction for the Sixers this year yet (although I hope to soon, especially since last year's prediction turned out to be pretty accurate in overall results), but I expect that the Sixers will be an elite team if the 2005-06 Elton Brand shows up in Philly, yet only a strong playoff team if the 2006-07 Elton Brand shows up. In both cases, we'll think we got a very good player (and we'd be right!), but the case study of the Sixers from the early 1980s and Moses Malone tells us that which version of the "very good player" shows up can make all the difference in the world.

Cheeks gets extension. Does it matter?

2008-09-12T12:26:00.002-08:00

The Sixers gave Mo Cheeks a contract extension the other day. Terms of the deal weren't disclosed, but since he had already signed a one year extension this past February, I guess it's safe to assume that this extension is a multi-year deal.

The team played well last year and the players seem to like Cheeks, so rewarding Cheeks with a contract extension seems like it was the right thing to do. That said, does it really matter?

Nothing against Cheeks, but I'm just not sure that most coaches make that much of a difference in the NBA. I guess if you compared a terrible coach to a great coach you'd be able to see a difference. But I think all the coaches in the NBA are within such a narrow range of ability compared to one another (or, to be on the safe side, let's say 95% of NBA coaches) that I don't think having one coach versus another really makes a huge difference.

I'm too lazy to look it up right now, but I seem to remember coming across articles that reference research that basically reached this same conclusion-- a few coaches were seen to have a measurable impact on performance, but most did not. I also remember seeing a recent article on a study that found the same thing to be true for investment fund managers. (And the number of managers that stand out from the crowd has been shrinking over time as the industry has gotten more sophisticated overall.)

I think that as long as a coach can get all of his players to buy into his system (no matter what type of system it is), the ability of his players then becomes the major factor in determining team success. Beyond that initial threshold, I think that coaches are considered good if they have good players (and thus win), and they're considered bad if they have bad players (and thus lose). Not a very complicated formula.

So congrats to Mo Cheeks on his extension. And I just hope that the Sixers continue to add talent and that our players continue to buy into Cheeks' system.

Welcome home, Mr. Marshall

2008-09-10T19:20:00.006-08:00

The biggest news, from my perspective, since my last post is that the Sixers have added another player to their roster. As detailed here, the Sixers signed Donyell Marshall as a veteran presence who can (in theory) spread the floor with his 3-point shooting ability.

Until reading the article, I hadn't known that Marshall had played at Reading in the early 1990s. Or, if I'd known, I'd someone forgotten. It's always nice to bring a hometown guy back to play (or, as appears to be the more likely case here, to provide a steadying veteran influence on the bench).

Having a veteran presence on the bench is nice, but the real question for me is always, "Can he contribute?"

To answer that question, we'll turn (as we have been all summer) to our three advanced statistical measures- PER, Adjusted +/-, and WP48. Last season, Marshall had a PER of 9.73 in limited minutes , didn't play enough minutes to have an Adj. +/- calculated, and had a WP48 of .007 while playing for Seattle and a WP48 of -.092 in Cleveland before he was traded.

Hmm. None of those numbers really make me want to go out and celebrate his signing.

Now, if Marshall is content to play hard in practice, dispense wisdom, and not complain about barely getting any minutes during actual games, then I guess I have no problems with the signing (especially since he reportedly signed for the veteran's minimum). You really can't ask for more than that from an end of the bench player. And, of course, you can always hope that Marshall returns to his 2006-07 form (WP48 of .102).

That said, I'm terrified that Mo Cheeks will fall into the trap of playing the veterans in tight situations-- i.e., putting not-as-good players on the floor because there's a comfort level with playing veterans. After last season (playing Thaddeus Young big minutes), I'm not as worried about that possibility, but it still worries me.

With Marshall signed, the Sixers now have 14 players on their roster. Not sure who they'll tab for the final roster spot, but it doesn't seem unreasonable to believe that it might be one of the three players who were on the Sixers' roster last season but are still currently free agents- Kevin Ollie, Herbert Hill, and Shavlik Randolph. Of the three, I'd go with Randolph. But we are talking about the 15th man on the roster, so I'm not sure it really matters.

Stop bugging me already!

2008-09-10T19:03:00.003-08:00

Okay, no one has actually been bugging me about my long posting absence. Commenter Louis did send me a (very polite) note the other day wondering when I was going to post again. I promised to put up a post today, but obviously that hasn't happened.

As you can tell by reading the "About me" blurb off to the right (assuming I edited it correctly-- always a big if!), I'm no longer in Anchorage, Alaska. Labor Day weekend I flew from Anchorage to a wedding in Colorado, and then after the wedding I flew directly to Washington, DC to my new apartment. Moving in has been a bit more hectic than I anticipated, but I think I now have everything under control-- just in time to start my new job on Monday. Yeah!!!

Tomorrow I'll start putting up posts briefly touching on the big developments in Sixers' land since my last post. Hint: They involve the signing of a player and a contract extension.

Thaddeus Young is our starting small forward

2008-08-24T22:53:00.003-08:00

Via TrueHoop the other day (and as I mentioned in the comments to the last post), we learn that Ed Stefanski reached out to a few Sixers bloggers for a conversation (apparently I didn't make the cut...somehow, with my daily readership of ten, I'm not completely shocked). Good PR move, I guess. But more to the point, the part of his interview that stood out to me was that he basically confirmed that Thaddeus Young would be our starting small forward this year and Andre Igoudala will be our starting shooting guard (from depressedfan.com):

When asked about Thad's transition from the 4 to the 3, it became clear that this could be the critical question of the season. Stefanski said Thad has been working hard all Summer on his handle and the plan right now is for him to play the bulk of his minutes at the three. Later he said definitively that as of now, Iguodala is the starting two guard. The only question is how well Thad will transition.

And in a related bit:

The roster is set, and Willie will be a part of the rotation. How big of a part he plays will depend largely on Thad's development. If he can handle the three, we won't see a whole lot of Willie. If he can't, well that's not a road we want to go down at this point. Moving Iguodala back to the three for most of his minutes would be a huge blow to the step forward this team has taken. There's a very good chance Green could find himself in the starting lineup again. That's not something anyone wants to see happen.

Filling out the roster

2008-08-21T18:27:00.000-08:00

After accounting for the draft (Marreese Speights), signing Elton Brand, and resigning our restricted free agents, the Sixers' roster for the upcoming season was basically set.

These moves left the Sixers' roster in the following shape:

PG Andre Miller, Louis Williams
SG Willie Green
SF Andre Igoudala, Thaddeus Young
PF Elton Brand, Reggie Evans
C Samuel Dalembert, Marreese Speights, Jason Smith (injured)

That's only ten players and every NBA team can keep fifteen, so the Sixers were clearly in the market for players to fill out the roster. These signing will hopefully contribute, but I don't really expect the 11-15th men on the roster to really be difference makers.

As of today, the Sixers have made three signings to fill these spots.

First, the Sixers signed two shooting guards-- Kareem Rush (most recenlty of the Indiana Pacers) and Royal Ivey (most recently of the Milwaukee Bucks). (FYI: I thought Ivey was primarily a SG--and the Sixers mentioned playing him alongside Williams--but Hollinger lists him as a PG. For now, let's just call him a combo guard.) Now, I'm glad the Sixers are looking to address the weakness at the shooting guard position that we identified in our original analysis of our off-season needs. That said, I'm not sure that either one of these players is really the solution.

Last season, Rush clocked in with a PER of 10.06, Adj +/- of -4.10, and a WP48 of -.001. Ivey, for his part, clocked in with a PER of 8.89, Adj +/- of -3.88, and a WP48 of -.054. If you want to get even more depressed, you can check out this chart (from the comments in this post at Pounding the Rock) showing the true shooting percentage of all guards last season who qualified for the points per game title. Our two new signees clock in at third (Ivey) and tenth (Rush) -- and this isn't a list on which you want to be first. Sort of makes the idea that Rush is coming in to be our dead-eye shooter from the perimeter (based on his 38% on 3-pointers last season) a little crazy. Making things even happier, guess who clocked in at number five on the list? (Yup, you guessed it. The man these players will be backing up, our very own Willie Green.)

In other words, the statistics tell us that basically every time either of these players take the floor, their team gets worse. To put it mildly, that's not very good. On the other hand, the Sixers are simply paying them the veteran minimum and they need to fill their final roster spots somehow.

The Sixers other "rounding out the roster" signing actually turns out to be a bit of a surprise (at least to me). Theo Ratliff officially signed with the Sixers today on a one-year veteran's minimum salary. Now, I'm a huge fan of Ratliff from his last go-round with the Sixers back in the Iverson glory years. But that version of Ratliff has very little to do with the now 35 year old player that the Sixers just signed. Between aging and battling injuries, Ratliff doesn't strike me as being the player he used to be. But when I looked at the numbers, I was shocked to see that last year's version of Ratliff posted a PER of 12.11, Adj +/- of 1.43, and WP48 of .059. His PER and WP48 are below average, but they aren't even close to being in the dismal range of Ivey and Rush (or Jason Smith for that matter, the player whose injury apparently led the Sixers to contact Ratliff in the first place). Ratliff is probably not as good at this point in his career as the players he'll be behind in the rotation, but I think he qualifies as a very, very solid option for our fifth big man.

The verdict-- While I appreciate the effort to address our weakness at shooting guard, the guard signings don't help us at all. The acquisition of Ratliff, on the other hand, helps to shore up our bench and bolsters what appears to be an already strong frontcourt.

There are still two more roster spots to fill, but I wouldn't hold your breath waiting for an impact signing. We know what this year's Sixers squad is going to look like, now it's just a question of how well they'll play.

I'm pretty excited to watch!

Resigning our restricted free agents

2008-08-20T18:04:00.003-08:00

I'm back! I know you all terribly missed me. Since I know you don't care about the three days I spent this weekend hiking, kayaking, and fishing near Seward, I'll just jump right back into looking at the Sixers' off-season moves.

The biggest part of the Sixers' off-season that we still needed to look at was the Sixers' success in resigning our restricted free agents-- Louis Williams and Andre Igoudala (or Andre Igoudala and Louis Williams if you insist).

I can happily report that as of a few days ago, the Sixers have now successfully signed both of them to long-term deals.

Louis Williams officially signed his deal with the Sixers on August 4, although he tentatively had reached agreement with the Sixers a few days before that. For $25 million over 5 years, it seems like the Sixers' got a decent deal. He's probably not quite worth it today, but he's already a solid player, he's gotten better each year, and he's still young (21 years old). It never seemed like he was interested in leaving, but it's still nice to get the deal done.

As for Igoudala, we've already discussed the Sixers' seeming difficulty in signing him a few times (notably with regards to the slight possibility of a European team targeting him and the Luol Deng signing meaning Igoudala's asking price was going to be higher than hoped). That all changed a few days ago, however, when the Sixers offered Igoudala a staggering (at least to me) deal for $80 million over six years.

I'm happy we signed Igoudala, but I need to admit the price tag scares me a bit. I said that I thought Deng received more than I thought Igoudala was worth ($71 million over six years), and now we've signed Igoudala for even more. Wow. Apparently Stefanski feels like Igoudala is going to be an all-star over the next few years. I think there's a decent chance that Igoudala reaches that level, but with the contract he signed we're in a pretty rough place if he doesn't reach that level.

Ignoring the amount of money involved in the contracts, the Sixers are clearly a better team with Igoudala than without him. So from a fan's perspective (and the perspective of checking off items from the off-season to-do list), I'm excited.

And since I'm not writing the checks, I guess that's the only perspective I really need to worry about...

Up Next: Filling out the roster

The Elton Brand chase

2008-08-13T20:08:00.000-08:00

The big news this summer has obviously been the Elton Brand signing. We've discussed the signing fairly extensively already (disbelief that we were really in the chase, excitement at the actual signing, evaluating whether Brand made the right choice in choosing the Sixers over the Clippers), but we obviously can't have a round-up of the Sixers' moves this off-season without evaluating the Brand signing.

For the purposes of this analysis, it's important to recognize that the chase for Elton Brand actually involved two transactions by the Sixers- (1) the trade of Calvin Booth and Rodney Carney to the Timberwolves, and (2) the actual signing of Elton Brand.

First, let's look at the trade of Booth and Carney.

When it comes to Booth, it quickly becomes apparent that the Sixers didn't lose anything by trading him away. He didn't play enough minutes to be evaluated by Adjusted +/-, but his PER (7.11) and WP48 (-0.033) don't exactly inspire confidence. It's hard to imagine that whoever takes his limited minutes this upcoming season won't be an improvement.

The Carney story is somewhat similar. Carney's PER (12.15) and WP48 (-0.032) are both somewhat dismal. However, his adjusted +/- is actually quite good (1.54). Still, going with our "majority rules" principle, I think that we can make the assumption that trading away Carney isn't going to have a negative impact on the Sixers' performance this year.

So not only did trading away Booth and Carney create the cap room needed to sign Elton Brand, but the act of trading them away also removed some deadweight from the roster (clearly the case with Booth, likely the case with Carney). Good work.

Next, we turn to the actual signing of Elton Brand.

I (along with everyone else) thought the Sixers scored a real coup by signing Brand. Looking at the numbers is a little tricky since Brand was hurt for most of last year, but I think they bear out everyone's intuition that signing Brand was a good move. The only question raised by the numbers is whether Brand was worth the max money he received.

Brand didn't play enough minutes last season to have an adjusted +/- calculated for him, but he had a PER of 18.04 and a WP48 of .058. His PER was good (although lower than Igoudala's), but his WP48 last season was below average. Of course, if you go back to the 2006-07 season (i.e. when he wasn't injured), Brand had a WP48 of .213. And if you go back to 2005-06, Brand had a whopping WP48 of .274. Plus, Brand's career average PER is 22.7.

What do these numbers say to me? If Brand can return to his form from three years ago, then he'll be worth every penny of the money we gave him. Even if he doesn't return all the way to that standard, but simply returns to close to his 2006-07 form then it was still a signing that will signficantly help the Sixers on the floor this coming season.

Signing a top-tier low-post scoring threat wasn't exactly on the list of most desperate needs, but it sure isn't a move you can argue with-- act while the iron is hot and all those other good expressions. And the addition of Brand does actually help the Sixers' bench by moving Reggie Evans to the back-up power forward spot and allowing Thaddeus Young to play more at small forward.

All in all, a very nice move.

Finger injury

2008-08-12T10:04:00.003-08:00

I hurt my right pinky finger playing basketball last night. Nothing too serious (probably a bad jam, but one of the guys said it looked like the finger very briefly popped out of joint before popping back into place). However, with my pinky taped to the finger next to it, I'm finding it a bit hard to type quickly. My plan is to post my thoughts on the "Elton Brand chase" tonight or tomorrow, but then I'll probably hold off until next week to finish off my evaluation of the Sixers' off-season moves (resigning our restricted free agents and filling out the roster).

Help from the Draft

2008-08-11T14:54:00.003-08:00

The 2008 NBA draft was held on June 26, 2008. The Sixers had only one pick in the draft, having traded our second round pick to the Utah Jazz. Picking 16th, the odds of landing a useful player were fairly low, but we'd managed to find Thaddeus Young at the 12th spot last year so there was hope.

As everyone reading this blog probably knows at this point, the Sixers selected Marreese Speights, a PF/C from Florida, with our selection. I freely admit that I knew nothing about him at the time, other than that there had been some rumors that he was not a particularly hard worker. But even the people he made that claim also said that he was a very talented player.

So will Speights help the Sixers this year? No way to really know until the season begins, but Professor Berri helpfully evaluated the play of all the featured rookies at the Las Vegas Summer League using Win Score (a version of Wins Produced). Now, he spends most of his post explaining that the sample size from summer league is so small that the resulting standard deviation makes the results somewhat (mostly) meaningless, but I'm going to ignore that part of the piece and just look at the (meaningless) numbers he puts up for Speights.

As this table shows, the average WS48 for an NBA center last season was 10.993. Speights posted a 10.7, putting him just under the average mark for a center. If that mark represents Speights's true ability for the year (a big if), then I think he'll help us this year. From another of Professor Berri's posts, we know approximately that WP48 = 0.104 + 1.621*PAWSmin. Thus, Speights's 10.7 WS48 --> PAWS48 = -0.3 --> PAWS/min = -.00625 --> WP48 = .094. Remember, average WP48 in the NBA = .100.

Erich Doerr's analysis (based on looking at the college PAWS of top prospects) is also very bullish on Speights's chances of being a productive NBA player.

To have a rookie selected 16th come in and be able to produce at close to the NBA average in his first season is a huge help. So while Speights obviously does not help with the Sixers' need to improve at shooting guard, the preliminary results indicate that he will help strengthen the Sixers' bench. All in all, a successful draft.

(Completely off topic, but one of the players I thought was being highly underrated in the run-up to the draft was Joey Dorsey from Memphis. The Rockets selected him in the second round, and the results from summer league look promising. Go Joey!)

Up next: The Elton Brand Chase.

Off-season moves

2008-08-10T13:30:00.000-08:00

The other week, we had looked at the Sixers' roster as of the end of last season in order to identify the Sixers' needs going into this off-season. I summarized my analysis in this fashion:

In general, I think the numbers show that the Sixers' most glaring need was to improve the shooting guard position. Resigning Igoudala also was a clear off-season priority (although, as noted, not for all-star money). Simply accomplishing these two goals would have made the off-season a solid success, most likely ensuring a return to the playoffs. Beyond that, putting together a bench that inspires a bit more confidence was probably the next most urgent need. Resigning Louis Williams seems likely to help in that regard, but he's not nearly as certain to help as I think most people believe (including me before I did this analysis).

The Sixers have now made a number of moves, so it's time to see how these moves match up with the needs we identified. To start with, I think that the Sixers' moves this off-season can be grouped into four general categories: (1) The Draft, (2) The Elton Brand chase, (3) Resigning Our Restricted Free Agents, and (4) Rounding Out the Roster. I'll take each off these categories one at a time over the next couple of days.

In the mean time, I saw that Jason Smith injured himself the other day (ACL tear) and is out for an indefinite period of time. I obviously don't wish injury on anyone. At the same time, since our analysis from the other day indicated that Smith did not help the team much last season, but was still likely to get signficant playing time based on the general perception of his play, his injury (and unavailability to play) could actually be a slight boon to our chances this year. Of course, he was obviously just a rookie last season and therefore could have improved this year, so maybe I'm being too hard.

Up next: The Draft.

Thanks for nothing, Chicago

2008-08-03T21:49:00.004-08:00

Well, re-signing Andre Igoudala probably just got a whole bunch tougher.

The Chicago Bulls recently came to an agreement with Luol Deng, their star small-forward, on a six year contract that will pay him at least $71 million, and up to $80 million if all the incentives are met. If you're keeping track at home, that's a contract worth somewhere between slightly less than $12 million/year and slightly more than $13 million/year.

I don't think Deng is worth that much money. And I also don't think that Andre Igoudala should command that much money, but I am sure that he (and his agent) will look at that contract and say "That's what I deserve."

And based on the numbers, it's hard to argue that Igoudala deserves less than Deng.

Looking at PER, Igoudala has a 19.05 rating (6th best small forward in the NBA) while Deng has a 17.07 rating (15th). Adjusted +/- gives Igoudala a +4.95, while it gives Deng a +3.88.

And finally, WP48 gives Igoudala a score of .172 for the year. Unfortunately, I don't think Professor Berri has posted the year end WP48 for the Chicago Bulls. However, 13 games into the season Deng had a WP48 of .147. That's a pretty small sample size, so for now I'm not sure that we can rely on WP48 in this analysis.

Even setting aside WP48, Igoudala compares well to Deng. And I'm sure that Igoudala's agent is making sure that the Sixers know it. And it'll be a little difficult for the Sixers to claim that the Bulls are paying Deng for potential, since they've both in the league for four years and Igoudala (Jan. 1984) is less than 1.5 years older than Deng (April 1985).

The one factor weighing in the Sixers favor is that most people seem to consider this a down year for Luol Deng after his "break-out" performance last season. (Many chalk up his decline this season to the fact that he was injured for a good chunk of the season, missing 19 games). For instance, Deng posted a very strong .237 WP48 last season. The difference between Deng's peformance last season and this season mostly seems to be a function of his shooting percentage (with this past season being a return to closer to his career norm), but the perception that Deng is really the player that he was last season (and not the good, but not quite as good player from this season) might be the best hope the Sixers have for convincing Igoudala that he should accept less money than Deng received.

(You can look at Deng's averages here, and let me know in the comments if you'd interpret them differently.)

I very much want the Sixers to re-sign Igoudala, but it sure seems like it's going to be much harder than I'd hoped. First we've needed to deal with the emerging threat of offers from European teams to restricted free agents. Now we need to deal with the benchmark that Chicago's offer will set in Igoudala's mind. And in my mind, that means re-signing Igoudala to a reasonable contract just got a whole lot harder.

Thanks for nothing, Chicago.

[Update: Another take on the Igoudala situation I just came across, although it looks like it was posted two weeks ago.]

Technical Difficulties

2008-07-31T09:43:00.002-08:00

Well, not really. But I'm heading out to do some backcountry hiking in Denali National Park this weekend (leaving after work today) and preparation for the trip has taken up most of my free time the last couple of days so I haven't gotten around to my follow-up posts on the Sixers' off-season moves. I promise that I'll write those posts as soon as I get back from my trip.

Looking at the Sixers' Roster

2008-07-29T22:42:00.005-08:00

After the NBA Finals, my plan had been to take a look at the Sixers' roster using PER, WP48, ,and Adjusted +/- to determine where the Sixers stood and determine what their biggest needs were. Then I was going to propose ways for them to get better this off-season.

Obviously, I didn't get around to it right away. And in the meantime, the Sixers have made a few minor moves. (What? You wouldn't consider the Elton Brand signing a minor move...?)

That said, I thought it would still be a useful exercise, and now we'll also be able to evaluate the moves the Sixers have made this offseason in the context of the needs we identify.

For now, let's just look at the Sixers' roster as it stood at the end of last season (I've posted these numbers for the starters before-- in the posts comparing the Sixers to the Clippers):

(by the way-- if anyone knows how to import a spreadsheet into blogger, please let me know. Typing everything in neat columns isn't really my forte!)

PER Adj +/- WP48 Status

Andre Miller 18.51 -8.70 .167 signed
Willie Green 12.91 -0.75 -.019 signed
Andre Igoudala 19.05 4.95 .172 restricted free agent
Reggie Evans 11.05 2.75 .143 signed
Samuel Dalembert 15.62 0.73 .197 signed
Louis Williams 16.71 -7.68 .080 restricted free agent
Thaddeus Young 16.58 12.33 .099 signed
Jason Smith 10.76 -1.37 -.039 signed
Louis Amundson 7.59 n/a -.172 free agent
Herbert Hill n/a n/a n/a free agent
Shavlik Randolph 15.05 n/a .029 free agent
Kevin Ollie 9.81 n/a .017 free agent
Rodney Carney 12.15 1.54 -.032 signed
Calvin Booth n/a n/a -.033 signed

So looking at these numbers for the Sixers' roster at the start of the off-season, what do we see?

First, these stats don't agree on the value of our players. Some players rank high on PER, but low on adjusted +/-. Others low on PER, but high on WP48. So it isn't clear just from putting up these numbers how the roster should be evaluated. Unless, of course, you believe unreservedly in one metric, in which case things are much easier for you.

That said, I think it's a safe assumption that a player who rates well on all three metrics is a good player. On that basis, it seems clear that Andre Igoudala and Samuel Dalembert were the Sixers' cornerstones last season, ranking above average on all three metrics. That said, neither one really breaks into all-star territory on any of the three metrics.

As far as the other starters go, Andre Miller and Reggie Evans were either good (on two metrics each) or bad (on one metric each) depending on which metric you rely on. For now, I'll go with the majority of metrics and view the Sixers as being solid at both of these positions. Willie Green, on the other hand, is considered below average (or bad) by all three metrics.

Looking at the bench, we can see that Thaddeus Young had a very good rookie season. Beyond that, the results are mixed, at best. Louis Williams is either slightly above average (PER), slightly below average (WP48), or downright crappy. Rodney Carney was either below average (PER, WP48) or above average (adjusted +/-). Jason Smith was poor, despite the relatively positive reviews he received during the season. And the rest of the roster didn't really play enough to be evaluated, although Shavlik Randolph seems to be the most promising from the end of the bench crew.

In general, I think the numbers show that the Sixers' most glaring need was to improve the shooting guard position. Resigning Igoudala also was a clear off-season priority (although, as noted, not for all-star money). Simply accomplishing these two goals would have made the off-season a solid success, most likely ensuring a return to the playoffs. Beyond that, putting together a bench that inspires a bit more confidence was probably the next most urgent need. Resigning Louis Williams seems likely to help in that regard, but he's not nearly as certain to help as I think most people believe (including me before I did this analysis).

And I guess I should note that if you think adjusted +/- is clearly the best indicator, then strengthening the point guard position, and not the shooting guard position, is actually the Sixers' biggest need.

So that would have been the doctor's prescription for this off-season. In my next post, I'll take a look at how the Sixers' actual moves (so far) have matched (or not matched) these needs.

Europe.

2008-07-23T18:26:00.002-08:00

It's a great place to visit (well, I've only been to Spain and England, but I've heard good things...), but is that where you want to go play basketball? Apparently for Josh Childress the answer is yes.

For those who don't know who he is, Childress is a small forward who was the 6th man on the Atlanta Hawks last season, and he probably should have been a starter. As a restricted free agent, Childress didn't have many options in the NBA-- the Hawks could match any offer from an NBA team, and apparently they were also reluctant to agree to a sign and trade.

So apparently Childress (and his agent) decided to think outside the box. He signed with Olympiacos (Greece) for about 3 years and $20 million, but with the added perk that his team would pay his taxes. That contract is apparently the most lucrative current contract in Europe, and probably ends up being more (once perks are included) than he could have earned here. And if Childress wants to return to the NBA (where the Hawks will retain his rights as a restricted free agent), he has an opt-out clause in his contract after every season. Not a bad deal.

This deal caught my attention for two reasons (aside from the general "Oh my god, an American chose to play in Europe over America" angle). First, I think Childress is a good player (WP48 of .206), and one I would have loved to have seen in a Sixers uniform. Granted that getting Childress was highly unlikely based on the Sixers' salary cap situation after the Brand signing, but he was starter quality (if not even better) while viewed as a back-up, so I had a vague hope that we could somehow steal him.

Second, the Sixers are currently negotiating with their own restricted free agent, Andre Igoudala. I've been assuming that there was basically no chance that Igoudala was going anywhere (and Mo Cheeks seemed to be under the same assumption, as evidenced by the article posted in the comments to one of my previous posts). The decision of Childress to head overseas gave me pause, but only for a moment. As I noted, Childress received the most lucrative current contract in Europe. Igoudala is almost certainly going to end up with a bigger contract than the one given to Childress (although according to WP48 he might not deserve a bigger one), so it seems unlikely that a European team is going to make Igoudala a better offer than the one the Sixers will (have?) put on the table.

On a more global view, I don't think that the decision of Childress (and a few international players) to leave the NBA for European leagues is really the start of a trend, but I guess it's always possible. If so, then it's possible we could end up in a situation where the top tier players remain in the NBA, the middle tier players go to Europe as the "big fish" over there, and the lower tier players make up the bulk of the NBA rosters. In that scenario, I think everyone in the NBA suffers because the quality of play becomes much more uneven. European basketball gets stronger, but still remains a step below the NBA. All in all, I don't think that's a great result for basketball fans (but maybe that's just because I watch the NBA and not European basketball).

What do you think?

Great for the Sixers. Great for Brand? -- Part III

2008-07-17T22:54:00.002-08:00

The Sixers are clearly a better team with Elton Brand than they were without him. In my last two posts, I've investigated the related question of whether Elton Brand made the right decision (in terms of being on the better team) by choosing the Sixers over the Clippers.

What I've found so far is that both PER and Adjusted +/- indicate that Brand made the correct choice in signing with the Sixers. To finish my trilogy of posts on the subject, today I'm going to see what Wins Produced (WP48, to be precise) has to say about this analysis.

And related to Wins Produced, Professor Berri put up an article the other day on how Brand's presence will help the Sixers. In addition to being as interesting as all his posts, his post made it very easy for me to find all the Sixers' WP48 information in one location. Thanks, Professor!

(He also put one up that details how the Clippers acquisition of Camby helps make up for the loss of Brand, but how the Clippers still aren't a particularly good team.)

Professor Berri also put up a post in May that looked at the Clippers' season, and that article was my source for the Clippers' WP48 information. I got my Baron Davis numbers from here.

We begin, as always, with the point guards. As with PER (but quite different from adjusted +/-), WP48 ranked Baron Davis (.177) and Andre Miller (.167) as very comparable point guards, but with Davis having the slight edge. At shooting guard position, Cutino Mobley (.029) held a slight advantage over Willie Green (-0.019). Andre Igoudala (.172) was, once again, ranked substantially ahead of Al Thornton (-0.081) (Corey Maggette, no longer with the Clippers, had a WP48 of .132). Finally, Chris Kaman (.233) was ranked ahead of Samuel Dalembert (.197), with each player having the highest WP48 on their respective teams.

As a result, based on WP48 the Clippers have an advantage at three positions while the Sixers have an advantage at just one position. However, the Sixers hold an overall edge in WP48 of .517 to .358. Thus, while a position by position comparison favors the Clippers based on WP48, the overall strength of the "other" starting four (excluding Brand) favors the Sixers.

If you move Thaddeus Young (.099) into the starting line-up as the SF and shift Andre Igoudala to the SG as seems likely to happen this year, then all of a sudden the Sixers and Clippers are back to having an advantage at two positions each. And the Sixers overall WP48 increases to .635 (increasing their advantage from .159 to .277. Again, even if Thornton improves, there's no reason to believe that he'll improve more than Young does. And I also don't think there's any reason to believe that Eric Gordon will have a better rookie season than Thornton did (or than Willie Green did last season). So if you move Young into the Sixers' starting line-up, I'd call the comparison a clear win for the Sixers.

So what have we learned?

Based on the advanced statistical metrics, it looks like the Sixers' "other" starters (excluding Brand) are better than the Clippers' "other" starters. With PER, the Clippers and Sixers each hold an advantage at two positions. With adjusted +/-, the Sixers hold an advantage at three positions. With WP48, the Clippers hold an advantage at three positions (although the positional advantage disappears when Young is inserted into the Sixers' starting line-up as seems likely to happen this season). In all three cases, the overall strength of the Sixers "other" starters is stronger than the overall strength of the Clippers "other" starters.

The verdict: Elton Brand made the right call. Welcome to Philadelphia, Mr. Brand.

(One final note: I did the comparisons using all three metrics comparing Igoudala to Thornton as the small forwards and Green to Mobley as the shooting guards because that seemed like the most accurate way to do it. Considering how interchangeable the wing positions are at times, I could have compared Igoudala to Mobley and Green to Thornton. For PER and
adjusted +/-, this change would have made no difference. For WP48, this change would have benefited the Sixers. Igoudala was better than Mobley and Thornton on all three metrics. Green was better than Mobley on two out of the three metrics, and Green was also better than Thornton on all three metrics. Considering the relatively low regard in which I view Green as a player, I found it a little shocking that he "outscored" Thornton on all three metrics, especially when you consider how well-regarded Thornton appears to be among Clippers fans. Statistical measures aren't the be-all and end-all (and Thornton was just a rookie), but if I were a Clippers fan I think these results would make me seriously question my belief in Al Thornton as a savior of the franchise.)

Great for the Sixers. Great for Brand? -- Part II

2008-07-16T21:44:00.002-08:00

In my previous post, I compared the Sixers' and Clippers' "other" starting four (apart from Elton Brand) based on PER to try and see whether Brand made a mistake in deciding to come to the Sixers if he was just concerned about being a part of the better basketball team. Based strictly on the PER numbers, the decision to sign with the Sixers appeared to be the correct one.

Today I'll be checking to see if Adjusted +/- gives a different take on the situation.

You can find adjusted +/- stats at basketballvalue.com. Sixers stats are here; Clippers stats are here. Baron Davis's stats from the Warriors come from here.

Looking at the point guards, Baron Davis (6.29) has by far the highest +/- of any of the eight "starting" players, while Andre Miller (-8.70) has by far the lowest. Compare that result to PER, which ranks Davis ahead of Miller, but only slightly. Also in contrast to PER, but this time in a good way for the Sixers, adjusted +/- ranks Samuel Dalembert (0.73) ahead of Chris Kaman (-2.23)

As expected with the shooting guards, Cutino Mobley (-3.63) and Willie Green (-0.75) both fall in the negative range, although surprisingly (at least to me) Green isn't in the realm of the terrible. On the other wing, Andre Igoudala (4.95) unsurprisingly trounces Al Thornton (-5.57). Corey Maggette (3.88) had a very respectable adjusted +/- (just as with PER), but he's no longer with the Clippers.

So based on adjusted +/-, the Sixers hold an advantage at three of the four positions. In addition, the Sixers' adjusted +/- total is -3.77 -- bad, but still better than the Clippers' overall total of -5.14.

As discussed with PER, this total ignores the likelihood that the Sixers slide Igoudala to the SG position and insert Thaddeus Young into the starting line-up at SF. Based on adjusted +/-, this change makes a huge difference in favor of the Sixers since Young had an extravagantly high adjusted +/- of 12.33 (not a typo; he had the third best adjusted +/- in the league last season). Putting Young in the starting line-up would leave the Sixers with their advantage at three positions, but it would increase the Sixers' overall total to 9.31-- increasing their advantage over the Clippers from 1.37 to 14.45.

I can't imagine Young will have such a high adjusted +/- next season. But even assuming he regresses towards an average performance and Thornton improves (as Clipper fans expect), it still seems like the Sixers come out ahead in this analysis. And I don't think anyone should expect Eric Gordon to put up better numbers this year than Cutino Mobley did last year, so I really don't see the addition of Gordon making much of a difference to this analysis either. I guess it's possible that if you just say Thornton improves and Green remains in the starting line-up than the Clippers can overcome the 1.37 adjusted +/- difference that exists between the starting line-ups based on what happened last season. But then again, we could make any assumption we want about how people will perform next year (after all, anything can happen) if we want to reach a certain result. So I think that we should just stick with the numbers from last season for now.

I will say that I was shocked to see that Miller did so poorly in adjusted +/-. He's generally considered a very good, if not quite top tier, point guard. Watching him play, he always seems to be doing positive things. In terms of the other advanced stats, he ranks well in PER, and I know that he also does well under Wins Produced (which I'll look at tomorrow). Hmm. Definitely something to think about.

(One side note-- Reggie Evans had an adjusted +/- of 2.75 last season, third best on the team. He'll most likely get reduced minutes to some extent with the arrival of Brand, but if he gets the vast majority of the back-up big man minutes (in a three man rotation of Brand, Dalembert, and Evans) then the Sixers will be very solid up front according to adjusted +/-.)

So what have we learned so far about whether Brand made a good basketball decision to sign with the Sixers over the Clippers?

According to PER, the Sixers and Clippers each have an advantage at two positions, but the Sixers are stronger overall.

Adjusted +/- leans even more in the Sixers favor, giving the Sixers an advantage at three positions, as well as an overall advantage.

Check back tomorrow to see what Wins Produced has to say on the matter.

Great for the Sixers. Great for Brand? -- Part I

2008-07-15T20:50:00.007-08:00

There's no question that the Sixers are a much better team with Elton Brand than without him. Somewhat lost in the hubbub around Brand's decision to come to the Sixers is whether the move is good for Brand in a basketball sense-- that is, are Brand's chances of winning with the Sixers better than they would have been if he had stayed with the revamped Clippers.

The one place that this question has been most frequently raised (the only place, really, that I've come across it) is on the Clipper fan blogs, notably Clips Nation. From the perspective of many Clippers fans, Brand went to a situation with the Sixers that is decidedly worse than the one he would have had in L.A.

In particular, I noticed that Clipper fans were saying that the "other" starting four on the Clippers was clearly better than the "other" starting four on the Sixers. I wasn't quite clear on how they were coming to this conclusion, so I asked for clarification in the comments to this thread. I noted that going solely by Player Efficiency Rating, the Sixers and Clippers each seemed to have better players at two of the four positions, but overall the Sixers scored higher. I got some interesting and thoughtful responses from some of their posters. I didn't necessarily agree with their conclusions, but they definitely were well thought out and had plenty of merit.

So, first, I suggest you go click on the links above and read the exchange there (particularly the responses from Citizen Zhiv and Clipper Steve). Second, I thought I'd reproduce my side of the argument related to PER here, and expand it to also include the results based on looking at Adjusted +/- (Part II) and Wins Produced.

So, setting aside Elton Brand, do the Sixers or Clippers have the better starting line-up? To start with, I'll assume that the Sixers start the same players at the other four positions as last season-- Andre Miller, Willie Green, Andre Igoudala, and Samuel Dalembert. I'll also assume that the Clippers start the same players as last year, only with the recently signed Baron Davis at point guard.

(Note- these next three paragraphs are copied from my comments at Clips Nation. I've put changes in brackets.)

Based on PER [(found here; average PER for the league is 15.00)], Baron Davis (19.87) is slightly ahead of Andre Miller (18.51), Willie Green (12.91) and Cutino Mobley (11.56) are both pretty bad, but Green ranks slightly higher, Andre Igoudala (19.05) is far ahead of any Clipper SF (Maggette was at 19.43, but he’s not a Clipper anymore; Al Thornton was at 12.71), and Chris Kaman (17.62) gets the nod over Samuel Dalembert (15.62).
That gives PER totals of Clippers 61.76 and Sixers 66.09. So according to PER, the Sixers and Clippers each have an advantage at two positions, but the Sixers have the overall advantage. If you assume the Sixers will start Thaddeus Young (16.58) at SF this year and play Igoudala at SG, then the Sixers and Clippers still each have an advantage at two positions, but the Sixers’ overall advantage increases by 3.67 PER.

If [Clippers fans are] assuming that Thornton is going to improve, I don’t see any reason to assume that he’ll improve more than Young. If [Clipper fans are] assuming that Eric Gordon will make the difference (i.e. he’ll play SG and be better than Willie Green), then that doesn’t take into account the plan for the Sixers to switch Igoudala to that position (or my belief that Gordon is unlikely to do any better than Thornton’s rookie PER which was less than Green’s PER last season).

So, all in all, PER indicates that the Sixers have the stronger starting line-up, although it's a close call in many ways.

I think the response of the Clippers fans (and clink on this link to read their full comments if you haven't already) can be summed up as (1) PER is not the be-all, end-all metric for player evaluation (agreed!), (2) the difference between Kaman/Davis and Dalembert/Miller is actually much greater than PER indicates, (3) Thornton is much better than PER indicates, and (4) the Clippers have more (and better) shot creators, and that makes a big difference in close games and playoff games.

The first three responses are all basically subsets of the same argument that PER has flaws. I don't disagree with this point, but I'm not entirely convinced that their views on the relative abilities of the players involved is the correct one (notably, I'm not nearly as impressed with Thornton as they are). As for the fourth response, I'd say-- yes, the Clippers have better creators overall, but I think this advantage is maybe a tad overblown in the importance given to it relative to all the other aspects of a basketball game.

Am I right or are they? Who knows. You can let me know what you think in the comments.

And what does Adjusted +/- say about this debate? Check out my next post to find out.

(And since we're talking Clippers, I just saw in this post at Clips Nation that Marcus Camby has been traded to the Clippers from the Nuggets. And he was traded for basically nothing-- a trade exception and the ability to swap 2nd round picks. Wow, what a steal.)

We got him! We got him!

2008-07-09T23:17:00.002-08:00

Wow. We got Elton Brand. Woo-hoo!

For the details, go here.

And for a positive assessment of what this means for the Sixers, go here:

Are the Philadelphia 76ers, as presently constituted, good enough to win the East in the 2008-09 season? Doubtful.

But are the Sixers good enough to win a playoff series or two and scare the bejeezus out of Detroit and Boston? You bet. And if they add a shooter and get another year of growth from all their young studs, will they be in position to win the conference in 2010? Absolutely.

The Elton Brand mirage (?)I

2008-07-08T18:47:00.005-08:00

If the Sixers were able to sign Elton Brand, I can't even begin to describe how happy I'd be. He's a great player, plus he fits the Sixers need for a strong low-post presence.

I was in the middle of writing that despite how excited I'd be and the flurry of articles today about the possibility, I seriously doubted that the Sixers were in real contention for his services. Then I went to ESPN.com to try and find links to the articles that I'd read on the topic earlier today, and I came across this article:

NBA front-office sources told ESPN.com on Tuesday that Brand has informed the Sixers that he will accept a five-year deal worth an estimated $82 million and spurn what was presumed to be a slam-dunk return to the Los Angeles Clippers to hook up with Clipper-to-be Baron Davis.

I mean...wow. Just, wow.

(I'm speechless)

(As a side note, all the articles from earlier in the day have been replaced by updated versions that include this more recent information, so no links to them. Sorry.)

As the articles from earlier today hinted (and this most recent article stated), the Sixers are creating more room under the salary cap to make this signing possible by trading Rodney Carney, Calvin Booth, and a first round pick to the Timberwolves for a second round pick and/or a part of a trade exception (depending on which article you read-- the trade has only been agreed to in principle at this point). It seems odd to trade away players for basically nothing, but I wasn't too bothered by the trade because I haven't been very impressed by Carney and hopefully the Sixers first round pick won't be a good one in coming years. If this trade actually makes it possible for the Sixers to sign Brand, I'll be one happy camper.

If I'm a Clippers fan, then I'm definitely one unhappy camper. And I'd probably feel a little used. After all, when Brand opted out of the last year of his contract, he talked about how he planned on resigning with the Clippers and was opting out in part to give the Clippers more payroll flexibility so they could get him some better support. So what happens? The Clippers go out and reach an agreement in principle with Baron Davis, using some of the money that could have been used for Brand, and Brand (apparently) agrees to sign with another team for less than the Clippers could have originally offered him (but more than the current offer). And less than the Warriors are offering. Huh.

(If you're keeping track, the reported offers are: Sixers, 5 years, $82 milliion; Clippers, 5 years, $75 million; Warriors, 5 years, $90 million.)

I guess we'll find out what's really going on tomorrow. And in the mean time, for a well-balanced, let's-not-get-all-hysterical-quite-yet take on the situation from the perspective of a Clippers fan, you can go here. For a Sixers fan, this paragraph is probably the key insight:

Look, we don't have any more information from Elton today than we did last Monday night. It's a little nerve-wracking, I'll grant you that. But we suspected most of this would happen from the start, didn't we? We suspected Philly would try to get in the game. We suspected (after the first day or so), that Elton would take his time and listen to everyone, if only to do his due diligence. Did Philly shed contracts in order to squeeze out a bigger offer to EB because of 'smoke signals coming from Brand's teepee' as John Hollinger so politically incorrectly put it? Maybe, maybe not. Remember, they've got their sights set on Josh Smith too, and a bigger offer there is just as relevant as a bigger offer to Brand. They'll offer the money to Brand first for two reasons - one, he's better. But more importantly, he's unrestricted and can answer with a simple 'yes' or 'no'. With Smith, if they make the offer and he accepts it, Atlanta has 7 days to match, which could tie up Philly's money for 7 days. So an offer to Smith precludes an offer to Brand. So you go after Brand first, whether or not it's a long shot.

The idea that the Sixers have a more exciting team for Brand to join just doesn't ring true. Andre Miller? EB's been there and done that, and even if he thought Andre was a great piece of the puzzle there, this is pretty clearly his last season in Philly. So I hardly see Miller as a big draw. Does Elton want to get into the Eastern Conference where he can make the all star team and the playoffs without breaking a sweat? Maybe. But I fail to see the Sixers as having a more promising future than the Clippers with Baron Davis.

(I disagree that the Clippers have a brighter future than the Sixers, but everyone thinks a little more highly of their own team's future)

Say hello to Josh Smith

2008-07-04T23:22:00.004-08:00

Before diving into the players available in free agency, I was hoping to get a post up looking at the current players on the Sixers roster. After all, its hard to know who you should go after in free agency unless you have a good sense of what your needs are.

It has quickly become apparent to me, however, that following that strategy might mean I don't get around to commenting on the major free agency story (involving the Sixers). In case you've missed it, the Sixers are involved in a full-court courtship of Josh Smith, a power forward on the Atlanta Hawks.

Smith is a restricted free agent, which means that the Hawks have the right to match any offer. The Hawks have said that they'll match any offer, but no one knows if that's really the case. Regardless, it doesn't seem to have deterred the Sixers from pursuing him. (Although last year it sure seemed to deter teams from making offers to some restricted free agents.) Based on the articles linked above, it appears the Sixers plan to offer Smith a 5 year, $67 million deal.

That's a good chunk of change. But is he worth it?

Let me start off by admitting that I don't think I've really ever had the chance to watch Josh Smith play. Of course, that's not going to stop me from commenting on him....

Off the bat, he's known for his athleticism-- he's a ferocious finisher and top-tier weakside shot-blocker. He's not particularly known for his handle or shooting, although he can apparently step out to the three-point line with some success. He's definitely not known as being a back-to-the-basket scorer, so don't expect him to solve that weakness for the Sixers. Qualitatively, he seems to fit in with many of the current Sixers-- athletic players who can play disruptive defense (even if not tremendous straight-up man-to-man) and get out on the break, but aren't particularly strong in a half-court set.

That's the general description. Now, what do the numbers tell us?

Looking at the basic boxscore stats, Smith averaged 17.2 points, 8.2 rebounds, and 2.8 blocks last season. He did, however, have a whole bunch of turnovers. Going further, there are three main "advanced" stats combining the basic box score stats in a variety of ways that get the most attention-- Wins Produced (which I've used a bunch over the past year), Adjusted +/-, and John Hollinger's Player Efficiency Rating (PER), so let's look at all three.

In terms of Wins Produced, Smith was the eleventh most productive power forward last season, producing 6.7 wins. However, that ranking seems to be a bit misleading. Smith accumulated much of his wins produced total because he played so many minutes. His WP48 was .110, not so spectacular when you consider that average WP48 is .100. For comparison purposes, Reggie Evans ranked 14th with 5.6 wins produced, but his WP48 was .143. So Wins Produced indicates that Smith was above average, but not by that much.

In terms of Adjusted +/-, Smith was the tenth best power forward last season (and 35th in the league), scoring a +5.14. For comparison purposes, Thaddeus Young was the best Sixer last season with a +12.33 (third in the league) and Andre Igoudala had a +4.95 (38th in the league). So Adjusted +/- shows Smith to be a good player, but not necessarily an elite player.

In terms of PER, Smith was the eleventh best power forward last season, scoring a 19.08 (average is 15.00). Kevin Garnett was the best power forward at 25.30, while Reggie Evans clocked in with an 11.05. The top Sixer, at any position, was Andre Igoudala with a 19.05. So by PER, Smith is again a good player, but not necessarily an elite player. However, he would be the Sixers' best player according to PER.

So what's the verdict?

The advanced stats tell us that based on current production, Smith is probably around the tenth best power forward in the NBA. That's good, and he'd definitely help the Sixers win more games, but that isn't necessarily elite. And for $67 million over 5 seasons, I think the Sixers probably need to find someone a little closer to elite. Of course, Smith is also only 22 years old and has apparently gotten better every year he's been in the league. If he keeps improving (really, if he just improves slightly), then signing him to this contract would probably be a good investment.

All in all, a very close call. Good thing that I'm not the one who needs to make these decisions. I just get to make snarky comments about the decisions that are made.

What's your verdict?

First the draft, now free agency

2008-07-01T19:32:00.002-08:00

Well, as Louis pointed out in the comments, no one drafted Mike Green. I hope the Sixers take a look at him for summer league, but somehow I doubt it. My other "sleeper," Joey Dorsey, was selected in the second round and eventually ended up on the Rockets (after being selected 33rd by the Trailblazers). He's a big defensive and rebounding presence, and I think he's going to have a successful NBA career. But probably not with the Rockets, since they already have Luis Scola, Carl Landry (if he resigns), and Chuck Hayes at power forward.

But who cares about the draft anymore? Free agency is here!

And things have gotten off to a wild start, with Baron Davis reportedly agreeing to terms with the LA Clippers (and Elton Brand supposedly ready to resign as well).

With the Clippers having already made their move, the Grizzlies and Sixers are the two teams with substantial space remaining under the salary cap. So hopefully that puts the Sixers in a good position to sign players at a reasonable price.

What's the best option for the Sixers? I don't know, but I'll take a stab at trying to figure it out over the next couple of days.

I heart Mike Green

2008-06-24T21:49:00.003-08:00

I know, I know. The draft happens on Thursday night. That's why I feel the need to make at least one draft-related post. Not really related to the Sixers...but possibly.

When I went to the Great Alaska Shootout this past year, I had a chance to watch Butler play. And after watching Butler play (and win the tournament), I tried to watch them whenever I noticed that they had a televised game.

The player who stood out to me every time I watched them play was their point guard, Mike Green. He didn't do anything flashy, but every time Butler needed a basket he seemed to find a way to get to the hole and score. He also seemed to come up with a ton of rebounds for a guard. I have no idea what the boxscore showed, but he definitely stood out to me.

As it turns out, he also stood out to a bunch of other people and was named the Horizon League Player of the Year. Still, not a player I expected to get much draft press, so I was pleasantly surprised to see him mentioned twice in the past week in a very positive fashion.

First, TrueHoop linked to an article about Green's workouts with the Pacers (and other teams), mentioning in particular that he had been shooting the three-pointer well (he hadn't been a big three point shooter in college from what I understand/remember, although Butler as a team relied heavily on the three-point shot).

Then I came across an even more pleasant surprise. In his article ranking the pro potential of college guards, John Hollinger ranked Green as the fifth best point guard prospect based on his statistical analysis, touting him as a fringe first round selection. Based on his comments, I think it's fair to say that Hollinger was surprised by this result, and also expected his readers to be surprised:

Mike Green, Butler (12.75)

Who? The four-year player from Butler is on the fence to even get drafted, but the numbers say he has a good chance at becoming a decent pro.

The Sixers don't have a second round choice this year (they traded it to the Jazz at some point) and the sixteenth pick in the draft is probably too early, but I really hope that the Sixers invite Green to summer league if he isn't drafted. Quite frankly, he reminds me a bunch of Andre Miller: unassuming, doesn't make moves that elicit "oohs" and "aahs," but scores important baskets and makes other big plays that help his team win. Louis Williams is the Sixers' heir apparent at point guard, but I think Green could become a solid pro and contributor to a winning team.

Or, at the very least, I hope he gets the chance to prove that he can. And that he gets that chance with the Sixers.

Give me one more chance, baby. I promise I'll do better.

2008-06-24T20:54:00.002-08:00

Well, I'm not sure I'm going to make a promise, but I am going to try. I started this blog last year on June 15, more than a year ago. And through December, I managed to post multiple times a week. And, at times, I like to think some of those posts were even pretty good.

Obviously, I've slacked off a bit.

I'll probably never get back to posting as much as I did when I first started, but I'm going to try and start posting a little more frequently again. My goal- let's say two or three posts a week.

Oddly, I've discovered that I actually enjoy posting more during the offseason. I chalk this preference up to two factors. First, I like the speculation that goes on in the offseason. Anything is possible, and it's a chance to explore different scenarios. Second, and related, I just don't find it interesting to post about every game that goes on during the season, especially when I can't watch all of them. I don't think you can draw big conclusions from a single game (or even a few games), so writing about the games often just involves me regurgitating what happened and maybe highlighting a stat I found interesting. I just don't have it in me to write as if every game is the rapture or the apocalypse.

If you read my posts, I hope you've enjoyed them. And I hope you'll continue to enjoy them moving forward.

The second pick in the draft

2008-05-20T22:26:00.007-08:00

The NBA Draft lottery was held tonight, and the Chicago Bulls ended up with the number one pick. The Miami Heat ended up with the second pick. From all accounts, this year's draft is dominated by power forward Michael Beasley (from Kansas State) and point guard Derrick Rose (from Memphis). So the big guessing game over the next month will be which of these two players Chicago will choose.

My question is: why settle for one?

The Miami Heat are looking to get back into contention quickly. With Dwayne Wade on the roster, they really can't afford to take a long-view (he becomes a free agent in 2010, and presumably he won't resign if they aren't competitive at that point). Either Rose or Beasley (or both) might become franchise players a few years down the road, but will they be game changers next year or the year after? Hard to say.

With that as the backdrop, what are the Heat's needs? Admittedly, I don't watch that many of their games, but I think it's safe to say that Wade, Marion, and Haslem form a solid shooting guard/small-forward/power-forward trifecta. Miami needs a quality center and point guard.

What about the Bulls? Coming into this season, many people (including myself) expected them to compete for the Eastern Conference championship. After this (disappointing) season, the sense I get from reading Blog-a-Bull is that Chicago fans would be willing to take a step backwards next season in order to create a "higher ceiling" for the team going forward. At the same time, the Bulls do have a number of solid players on their roster, even if they don't have a superstar. For big men, they have Drew Gooden, Tyrus Thomas, and Joakim Noah. Gooden has already proven that he can be an important contributor on a finals-worthy team (Cleveland, last season), Thomas is still viewed as having tremendous potential, and Noah had a very solid rookie season. At guard, the Bulls rotation is headed by Kirk Hinrich, Ben Gordon, and Larry Hughes.

I think the Bulls should offer Gooden, Hinrich, and either Hughes or Thomas to the Heat for the second pick in the draft. The Bulls most likely get worse next year as Rose and Beasley both struggle as rookies, but they'll have a very talented nucleus of Rose, Gordon, Luol Deng, Beasley, and Noah. And they'll all be young with a chance to grow together.

Would the Heat make this trade? It depends. In theory, it would meet their needs for a point guard and center that could immediately step in and help them be competitive. However, while he's been highly regarded in the past and played on Team USA, Hinrich had a very disappointing season this past year (the administrator at Blog-a-Bull considers him to be average at best). Gooden, for his part, is more of a power forward than a center, although I don't think there are many centers in the NBA at the moment who he can't guard. If the Bulls sweeten the pot by adding Thomas or Hughes (or both, or any other player the Heat want that isn't part of the nucleus I mention above), then I'd think the Heat would at least need to think about it. But maybe my valuation of the players on the Bulls is still too influenced by last season rather than the season that actually just happened.

Lakers-Jazz and homecourt advantage

2008-05-16T19:36:00.002-08:00

I commented on this post over at a Utah Jazz blog earlier today which touched on the always contentious issue of refereeing favoring the home team. It was originally supposed to be a brief comment, but it grew as I was writing it. I guess I just tend to be verbose... Anyway, since it ended up being more of a post than a comment, I decided I'd also post it here (with a few minor modifications).
----------------------

Assuming I’m reading the tables correctly (always a big assumption!), the link to basketball-reference shows that the Jazz’s opponents get 23.1 fouls called against them on the road (i.e., in SLC) and 23.0 called against them at home—in other words, no difference. The Jazz, on the other hand, get called for 24.8 fouls on the road and 23.3 fouls at home. That seems to indicate that either the refs do let the Jazz get away with a little more contact at home (1.5 fouls worth) or the Jazz simply move their feet better at home. In either case, the Jazz’s opponents do not seem to benefit from being at home in the same way.

More interesting to me is where on the court the fouls seem to occur. When the Jazz are at home, their opponents shoot 27.9 free throw attempts. When the Jazz are on the road, their opponents shoot 32.3 free throw attempts. That’s five additional free throw attempts, but only 1.5 additional fouls (from which I would expect 3 additional free throw attempts at most). So not only do the Jazz get called for less fouls at home (or more on the road, whichever way you prefer to look at it), but they also seem to commit those fouls further away from the basket (i.e. not in the act of shooting). A more energized, aggressive team (the way a team often plays at home) could certainly explain this difference, but I found it interesting.

So the Jazz seem to get some homecourt advantage related to the reffing (or at least the fouls called), but what about the Lakers?

Basketball-reference shows that the Lakers’ opponents get 23.3 fouls called against them on the road (i.e., in LA) and 21.8 called against them at home. The Lakers, on the other hand, get called for 20.6 fouls on the road and 20.7 fouls at home—in other words no difference. That seems to indicate that the refs do not let the Lakers get away with more contact at home. However, it does seem to indicate that the refs let the Lakers’ opponents get away with less contact in LA than at home (1.5 fouls worth). The Lakers’ opponents do not seem to benefit from being at home in the same way.

In terms of where the fouls are called, the Lakers shoot 29.2 free throw attempts at home and 26.1 free throw attempts on the road. This seems perfectly consistent with getting 1.5 additional fouls called against their opponents at home. The Lakers’ opponents shoot 24.3 free throw attempts in LA and 24.4 free throw attempts at home, again consistent with the number of fouls called. Now I’m even more curious about what changes in how the Jazz play defense at home vs. on the road.

Long story short: Both the Jazz and Lakers appear to benefit from the refs’ calls at home, but they benefit in very different ways. The Jazz appear to benefit because they are called differently in SLC. The Lakers appear to benefit because their opponents are called diffently in LA.

It would be interesting to know whether all so-called “physical” teams benefit in the same way as the Jazz while all so-called “finesse” teams benefit in the same way as the Lakers. Unfortunately, I'm too lazy to go through the whole league sorting teams into these categories.

Anyone else want to do it?

Back to Earth (Sixers-Pistons Game 4)

2008-04-27T17:19:00.003-08:00

Ouch.

The Sixers had a fairly substantial lead at halftime (46-36), but even at that point this game didn't have the same feel as the last one. The shots the Sixers were hitting seemed to have a much higher degree of difficulty, and the defensive rotations didn't seem to be as crisp.

Then, after halftime, the Pistons stepped up the defensive pressure a little bit more, and the Sixers' offense (which looked so good in game 3) ground completely to a halt. The Pistons had basically eliminated the halftime lead within the first two minutes of the second half, and the Sixers never managed to regain control. Rasheed Wallace draining threes (4-7 for the game, 3-3 in the third quarter), the Pistons asserting a huge advantage on the offensive glass (15 to 9), and Richard Hamilton getting hot in the fourth quarter (7-21 for the game, but 6-8 in the fourth quarter) didn't really help our chances.

Final score: Sixers 84, Pistons 93.

It also didn't help our chances that Igoudala was again completely overmatched by Tayshaun Prince. Quite frankly, it didn't really look like the other Pistons were giving Prince much help, and Igoudala still couldn't get anything going. He did have 6 rebounds and 5 assists, but he shot only 4-16 and had 5 turnovers. Not a very pretty boxscore line. Igoudala is a nice player, but I sure hope that his performance in this series convinces people not to overpay him this summer.

Oh well. At least Igoudala had a monster dunk early in the game that we can watch over and over again on youtube. (No one has posted the video to youtube yet, but I'm sure someone will post it soon...)

Go Sixers! (Sixers-Pistons Game 3)

2008-04-25T17:45:00.005-08:00

Wow. Sure glad I got to watch that game. I got home mid-way through the second quarter. The Sixers were up two at the time (I think), and it just got better from there. Final score: Sixers 95, Pistons 75.

Even before the Sixers broke the game open, I was thinking that the Sixers looked like they were playing within themselves. On offense, they weren't relying on contested fadeaways or circus shots to score. They were running there offense and getting good looks out of it. On defense, they weren't getting lucky deflections or frantically recovering on penetration. They were staying in front of the Pistons and making solid rotations on passes.

In other words, they looked like a team that completely belonged.

Why do I mention this? When an underdog is beating a favorite, the upset is often the result of a team that is playing above its head -- getting every lucky break, getting every loose ball, hitting shots as the shot clock exires, etc. I often think those games are frantic, and in the end I'm still left with the distinct impression from watching the game that the better team (the favorite) didn't win. Watching the Sixers tonight, I never once got the sense that the better team wasn't winning. If I hadn't known that the Pistons were favored, I would never have guessed that fact based on what I saw. I didn't see the previous games in the series to compare them with this one, but after tonight's game I'm actually believing that the Sixers can win this series. Of course, the Pistons won't have 23 turnovers every game...

The one negative from tonight's game? Igoudala still can't seem to find his rhythm offensively. Quite frankly, he looked like the worst player on the floor tonight. I know that the Pistons are gearing their defense to stop him, but that doesn't explain how bad he looked. Still, I'm feeling pretty happy right now, so no more negative comments from me.

Added bonus: Henry Abbott (TrueHoop) liveblogged from the game tonight.

Will I finally get to watch the Sixers?

2008-04-24T22:47:00.003-08:00

Game 3 of the Sixers-Pistons series is tomorrow. Because I'm in Alaska, tip-off is 3 pm local time. I played hooky on Wednesday (I took a vacation day, so hooky probably isn't the right term) to go skiing in the sunny, 50 degree weather, so I'm not sure that I'll be able to leave work early tomorrow. But I'm sure going to try to get stuff done so that I can!

Wish me luck!

Jazz- Rockets

2008-04-24T20:41:00.002-08:00

I'm sitting here watching the Jazz-Rockets Game 3. I saw a little of a previous game in which bodies were flying everywhere without whistles being blown. This game, the refs were calling it much closer. I felt like the refs were calling things tighter against the Rockets. Then the 4th quarter started, and the Jazz apparently decided to see how far they could take it physically. I think they picked up four fouls in the first three minutes of the quarter, and none of the calls were even debatable. Just very weird-- this quarter just has a much different feel to it then the previous quarters. It also happens to be a two point game right now (Jazz 79, Rockets 77), so maybe that has something to do with it.

[Pause as I watch the final nine minutes of the game]

Okay. After that timeout, things calmed back down, and the teams got down to just playing some good basketball.

It looked like the Rockets had sealed the deal on a victory when, with 1:40 left in the game, McGrady hit a jumper as Kirilenko ran over Carl Landry. The refs said that McGrady had released the shot before the foul, so the basket counted and then Landry got to shoot a free throw which he nailed to put the Rockets up 93-86.

Of course, it wasn't that easy. Korver hit a quick three with a minute left in the game, McGrady got called for an offensive foul when he pushed Kirilenko to the ground in an attempt to get free, and then Okur canned a three pointer with 40 seconds left to cut the Rockets lead to one (93-92). Even on the replay I couldn't figure out how Okur was so find open.

McGrady missed badly on the next trip down the court. Rather than call a time out, the Jazz looked to score in the flow-- basically looking for Deron Williams to create something. Houston played some great defense, but finally Williams managed to penetrate the middle of the lane. It looked like he was going to get a pretty good look at a lay-up, but Carl Landry got off his feet really quickly to make a fantastic block (making it even sweeter for Landry, he had lost a tooth earlier in the game when he'd accidentally been whacked in the mouth by a Jazz player). And then he made another great play to grab the ball before it went out of bounds and pass it to Luis Scola. Scola made one of two free throws, and after the Jazz missed their tip attempt at the buzzer, the Rockets had cut the Jazz's series lead down to 2-1.

Good game.

Spurs-Suns Game 2

2008-04-22T20:34:00.004-08:00

Just finished watching the Spurs-Suns game. Fun game. I missed the double-OT thriller in Game 1. While this game didn't match that one from all accounts, it was still a good game.

A couple of thoughts:

1. I started watching around the end of the first quarter. For the rest of the half, I was surprised at how much pushing and shoving the Phoenix Suns were doing without having anything called. The Spurs definitely seemed to be waiting on the refs to start making calls, but the refs weren't helping them out. Then the second half started. And the Spurs were a completely different team. They pushed, they shoved, and they no longer seemed like they thought the refs were going to blow the whistle. Basically, they did everything in the third quarter that the Suns had been doing in the first half. It seemed like at half time Popovich must have said, "Hey, see how the refs are calling the game? Now go out there and take advantage of it like the Suns are doing, or you're going to lose this game. The refs aren't going to start blowing their whistle in the second half." The Spurs did, and the refs didn't change how they were calling the game. And I think that was what turned the game in the Spurs favor.

2. Not that it's a newsflash, but Tim Duncan is an incredibly heady player. With about a minute left in the game, the Suns missed a shot and a Spur (I think it was Ginobili, but I could be mistaken) grabbed the defensive rebound a few steps from him. Duncan noticed that a Suns' player was sneaking up behind Ginobili to try and take a swipe at the ball. So what does he do? He sets a pick that completely seals the Sun player off from Ginobili. Let me repeat-- In about half a second he realized that Ginobili was going to be blindsided and prevented a turnover from occurring by setting a pick-- ninety (how long is a basketball court?) feet from the offensive basket. That's smart basketball. It doesn't show up in the stat sheet, but it is a steal that doesn't show up on the Suns' ledger, and it is the type of play that wins games. And just about every other forward in the league would have been so focused on heading down to the other end of the court after the defensive rebound that they wouldn't have noticed what was going on, much less have reacted quickly enough to stop it.

3. At the end of the game, the Spurs were trying to inbound the ball. Nash seemed to shove Ginobili, who stumbled. No surprise, considering how the refs had called the game to that point, no whistle was blown as a result of the contact (On the next inbounds play, Nash and Ginobili banged into each other, in a play on which a foul probably could have been called on either one of them, but the refs again decided to swallow their whistles). What did surprise was that Nash then stumbled over the endline right in front of Duncan who was inbounding the ball. As Nash stumbled right in front of Duncan, he reached out. He might have nicked Duncan's arm, but at the very least he clearly put up his arm to get in the way of Duncan inbounding the ball. As far as I'm aware, going over the endline and interfering with the inbounds pass is supposed to be a delay of game on the defensive team. But no call. Duncan, heady player that he is, just called a time out when he couldn't inbound the ball before the five second count was expiring so it ended up not being a big deal, but I was shocked that there was no call and the announcers didn't say anything. Duncan appeared to say something to the refs after he made the time out call, but it was unclear whether he was arguing that Ginobili had been fouled or if he was pointing out that Nash had interfered with him.

A few links: TrueHoop's Liveblog, Spurs comment thread, Suns Comment thread, and the boxscore. (Fair warning- I enjoy both the Spurs blog and the Suns blog that I linked to, but they definitely have a "personality" that is not for everyone.) I tried to find on-line video of the events I talked about in points 2 & 3 (to confirm my memory and to let you see what I'm talking about), but nothing is on-line yet that I could find.

I can't believe it!

2008-04-22T20:11:00.003-08:00

I can't believe the Sixers beat Detroit on Sunday. I also can't believe that I missed the game.

I was traveling this past weekend -- headed to Boston for Passover and to see my girlfriend. I was at my friend's parent's house for Seder on Sunday evening....thus, no chance to watch the game, and no chance to post any thoughts about this series.

(I'm also likely to miss the game tomorrow night. I can't believe I (occasionally) post on a Sixers blog, yet I'm going to miss the first two Sixers' playoff games in the post-Iverson era. Damn.)

Quick thoughts: A Sixers victory in this series would be a huge upset. As a fan, I'm hoping for it and I'm cheering them on, but as an independent observer I can't see the upset happening. And I don't really think the Sixers' victory in Game 1 changes that in any real way. But I sure hope they do! Also, as someone who liked the Reggie Evans signing this past summer, it was nice to see him get a bunch of credit for the victory.

Last second loss

2008-04-14T21:52:00.005-08:00

I'm at work. I check the score on ESPN, and I see that the Sixers have escaped with a one-point victory over the Cavaliers. Then I get home and check the boxscore and discover that the Sixers lost. Ouch.

I watched the video of the last play of the game. Dalembert clearly hit Brown before the buzzer...but I don't think it should have been a foul. And, no, I'm not crazy.

If you watch the video, Dalembert jumps to defend against Lebron's shot. When Dalembert lands, he suddenly lurches forward -- right into Brown. If you look behind Dalembert, you can see that Ilgauskas gave him a shove as he was landing, probably as an attempt to get better position for the potential rebound. At least that's what it looked like to me. Take a look and tell me what you think.

[note- I wanted to put a link in to both the game's boxscore and the video over at ESPN.com, but for some reason ESPN.com isn't loading on my computer right now so I can't get the URL. Sorry about that. Makes it a little harder for you to watch the video and give your thoughts.]

Regardless, it goes in the books as a tough loss for the Sixers. We'll have a hard time against the Pistons in the first round, but it's still good to be in the playoffs for the first time in awhile. Plus, a win in our last game will give us a .500 record on the year. Considering expectation coming into the year, I think that qualifies as a successful season.

[Update: apparently I'm not the only one who noticed the push from Ilgauskas]

Shaq looks good

2008-04-09T19:43:00.004-08:00

I'm an admitted Shaq "hater." I thought the Suns made a mistake in trading for him. But I'm sitting here watching the Suns-Spurs game on TV, and boy does he look good tonight.

In Miami, I thought he looked slow and old. Tonight, he's looking spry. He's making moves and getting some good lift. If he plays like this throughout the post-season, then I'm a believer.

[Update: I just looked at the box score for the game. Apparently I don't notice turnovers because Shaq had five in his 24 minutes of playing time. I really don't remember them at all. I thought he looked good all around.]

On the other side of the court, this game is the second time recently that I've watched the Spurs and in the second half just felt like they didn't have any desire. And that includes the whole team, from Duncan and Ginobili on down. Not sure if they're bored with the regular season, the whole "age" thing is actually catching up with them, or if I just caught them on bad nights (after all, they've still won more than 50 games). I think they've gotten a few bad calls against them in the last couple of minutes, but frustration with refs can't be the answer since they'd already dropped to more than 10 points behind (and looked lethargic) before I thought there were any bad calls worth noting.

[Update 2: John Hollinger over at ESPN has also noted that the Spurs have been looking lethargic in second halves recently. It's an "Insider" post, but is currently open to everyone.]

I feel bad for Memphis

2008-04-07T20:52:00.004-08:00

Not NBA related, but I enjoyed the NCAA championship game tonight. A little sloppy, but definitely fun to watch. I am curious to know if Derrick Rose was feeling under the weather, because he didn't seem to have quite as much zest the entire game as he seemed to have in previous games. He had moments where he seemed dominant, but other times he seemed to not have the same energy.

Congrats to Kansas, but I definitely feel bad for the players on Memphis. If Chalmers doesn't hit that last second three, they're going home champions.

(Mario Chalmers also happens to be from Alaska, so I'm sure all the papers here will be all over the story tomorrow morning....)

Sixers and Wages of Wins

2008-04-02T22:20:00.003-08:00

The Wages of Wins post on the Sixers is up. Professor Berri kindly linked to my post from the other day which was posted in response to the same comment that led to his post. Go read the whole thing.

The short version: Igoudala, Dalembert, and Miller are the primary win producers for the Sixers, and they've basically maintained their production from last year. Reggie Evans has not done as well this year as last year, but he's still been above average. Evans' decrease in production has been offset by having Thaddeus Young replace Korver in the rotation and by the improvement of Willie Green from terrible to bad. So taken all together, the Sixers are doing almost as well right now as they were predicted to do by Wins Produced at the beginning of the season.

Anyway, Professor Berri says it better, so go read the article here.

No one saw this coming...but we did!

2008-03-31T19:56:00.003-08:00

Apparently TrueHoop is going to be spending time this week covering the "surprising" Sixers.

I'm actually pretty excited to see what sort of information Henry digs up this week and shares with us, but I did want to take exception to one comment in his post from this morning.

A veteran Philadelphia beat writer just said to me that "if anyone tells you they saw this coming, they're lying."

I enjoy reading the Sixers coverage on-line every day at philly.com, so I don't want to come off as too critical of the "veteran beat writer." To the extent that he's saying that most pundits and experts predicted the Sixers to be bad this year, then he's certainly correct. That said, I think the idea that no one could have seen a .500 season coming is a bit absurd.

Last season, the Sixers were 26-21 after the Iverson trade and waiving Chris Webber. Considering the lack of roster turnover from last year to this year, a prediction of a .500 record seems like a perfectly reasonable prediction to have made for this season. And guess what? I actually did make that prediction at the start of the season.

Not good enough? Well, you could always have tried making a prediction based on some of the advanced stats that are hanging around the internet, like Win Score. Oh wait. I did that, too, and my WP48-based prediction was for the Sixers to be a slightly better than .500 team. That prediction was probably a tad optimistic (as Professor Berri pointed out in the comments to this post), but apparently not by too much.

So somehow I managed to come up with two completely independent methods for predicting the Sixers performance for the year, and they both give reasons for thinking that a .500 record for the Sixers was a perfectly reasonable prediction for this season.

Good thing no one saw this coming.

[Just to be clear, the Sixers are currently at 37-37 on the season.]

Salary cap hogs and consequences

2008-03-29T14:49:00.004-08:00

In one of the articles about the war of words between Shaquille O'Neal and Pat Riley last week, there was a quote from Stan Van Gundy that I thought was particularly insightful:

"I think it is very unfortunate anytime a player leaves a team and sees fit to trash former teammates," Van Gundy said. "I am also always puzzled when a great player takes up a large part of the salary cap and then complains about the talent around him."

Stan Van Gundy probably isn't Shaq's biggest fan (since many people think Shaq's desire to have Riley as his coach led to SVG's "resignation" from the Heat), but his comment about the salary cap seems right on target to me. Shaq, Kobe, Jason Kidd, and Kevin Garnett are all players that in the last couple of years have complained in some way about the quality of the players around them. They're also all players with max contracts taking up significant salary cap space. It isn't that easy to bring in additional talent when you don't have the available cap room.

In general, I wonder whether giving out max contracts is really the best strategy for teams looking to compete for the title. My guess is that it all depends on if you've correctly identified the players who are worth a max contract, and not paying players max money when they're no longer max players. From the looks of it, I'd say teams aren't so good at identifying the correct players.

In particular, SVG's quote makes me wonder about his current team, the Orlando Magic. The Magic signed Rashard Lewis to a max contract this past off-season. Combined with the money they're paying to Dwight Howard (the big money from his extension starts next season), the Magic don't really have much cap room available going forward. At the same time, I think the general consensus (as well as my opinion) is that they're in need of a power forward to complement Howard (and allow Lewis to slide back to his preferred small forward position).

So I'm curious: Does SVG's comment reflect a conversation that he's been having with his two stars this season? Seems possible.

Don't ignore your teammates at the foul line

2008-03-29T14:35:00.003-08:00

Wow. Just watch the video. (I came across this awhile ago, but hadn't gotten around to posting it.)

I used to think the whole "slap hands with the free throw shooter" thing was a little odd, but over the years I've started to come around to the notion that the way its done (naturally, seeming forced, or not at all) seems to reflect larger issues of team cohesiveness. I don't know why I have that impression, but it developed at some point over the years from watching lots of basketball games.

That being the case, what does it mean about a team when the free throw shooter needs to make up imaginary people with whom to slap hands? Ouch.

Greg Oden risks life and limb!

2008-03-29T13:40:00.004-08:00

Well, that's the impression I get when I read some of the recent news articles.

If you haven't seen the news, apparently Greg Oden decided to participate in a few games of pick-up basketball at his local fitness facility. Oops. Apparently that was a terrible thing to do.

The Blazer's weren't too happy about their recovering big man playing pick-up basketball.

Look, I understand that Oden's coming back from an injury and that the Blazers have a lot of money invested in him. On the other hand, from reading the reports it doesn't sound like he was engaging in any running or jumping beyond what he was actually cleared to do. The problem appears to be that he was doing it with "non-professionals."

Sorry, but I can't get too worked up about it. It doesn't sound like he was playing with players good enough to make him really exert himself. It sounds more like he was playing with a bunch of people like me-- decent high school level players, but nothing much beyond that level. In other words, they were excited to be on the same court as him, knew they were out-classed, and most likely were just enjoying the experience. Oden probably didn't get much beyond jogging and making some easy (for him!) dunks.

The summer after Rasheed Wallace graduated from high school, he spent a day at the swim club my family belonged to. He was on his way to UNC, and I'm pretty sure he had been told not to risk injury playing pick-up games with random people. Well, you know what? He played some basketball, some volleyball, and even a little tennis. I wasn't there for the basketball, but from all accounts he didn't really need to exert himself at all to be by far the best player on the court (not to mention the tallest player by a foot). If that's all that Greg Oden was doing, then he's just as likely to get hurt walking around his house (or getting up from the couch, as seems to have been the cause of his original injury) as by playing basketball.

I think everyone needs to just relax.

[I believe that commenter Louis played basketball with Rasheed that day, so hopefully he can add some details in the comments.]

[Late Update- 4/14/08- Just came across this CNNSI.com article that includes Oden's description of his pick-up basketball excursion, for what it's worth:

"I just wanted to get out there, I haven't been out there in so long,'' Oden said. "But the thing was, it wasn't as deep as people made it to be. It was a jog, a couple of jump shots, maybe one or two dunks. It wasn't that big of a deal. At least not to me.''

Am I going to jinx the Sixers?

2008-03-06T22:08:00.001-09:00

The Sixers are doing so well recently that want to comment on it, but I'm afraid that if I start posting regularly again I'll jinx them.

Because, of course, my blog holds ultimate sway over how they do...

Much to Louis' Chagrin...

2008-02-13T22:29:00.002-09:00

....after tonight's victory, the Sixers currently are holding down the eastern conference's final playoff spot. And by point differential, they're the sixth best team in the conference (these are per game, rather than per possession numbers, but good enough for this post). Granted, I think the Cavaliers' point differential is artificially low because of the games that Lebron missed with injury, but it still speaks well to the Sixers chances to make the playoffs.

That makes me happy, even if it doesn't make anyone other Sixers fan happy.

What would your All-star Weekend look like?

2008-02-12T21:03:00.003-09:00

TrueHoop today points us to this blog entry by the president of the D-League. In it, Dan Reed (the D-league president) talks about the introduction of H-O-R-S-E to the D-League All-star weekend, and more generally talks about the D-League's role in trying out new things for the NBA. He asked people to send in ideas for all-star weekend.

So that got me thinking. What would I want to see? Off the top of my head, I can think of two competitions I'd like to see.

1. An NBA Jam style full-court two on two competition. Maybe play the games to 50 by twos and threes (but with a 20 minute cap). Not sure if it could be played on a full court-- maybe a 3/4 size court would be better. Set it up like a tournament so that there's a steady stream of games.

2. A half-court 1 v 1 tournament. You'd need to play with the rules in some way to try and not give too big of an advantage to either smalls or bigs, but I think the odd match-ups would actually be the most interesting part. I'm thinking an 8 second shot-clock, need to take the ball back, and one "teammate" whose only role is to pass the ball in so that big men don't need to dribble from the top of the key. And have it reffed-- award foul shots and allow people to foul out.

I'd be interested in watching these games. Think these events would be interesting? How about other ideas? Share them in the comments!

A (very) belated link- self-promotion edition

2008-02-11T22:57:00.001-09:00

I find it amazing that for a number of months I was able to put a post up just about every day. Now, ever since I went onto my (very) sporadic posting schedule, I wonder how I ever had the time in my schedule to put up all those posts. I'm even more impressed now with the people who blog every day (while also maintaining a full-time job) than I was before.

That's all a long-winded way of saying that I've had a few links that I've been meaning to post for awhile, but somehow haven't gotten around to. At this point, they're pretty old, but I'll still give you two.

About a month ago, Lebron James got pulled over for going 100 mph on the highway. I thought Henry (from TrueHoop) was a little flippant about it, and I wrote him with the reasons that I didn't think a 100 mph ticket was really similar to your run of the mill 75 mph speeding ticket. He was kind enough to add parts of my email to his post. (It's the fourth bullet from the bottom. I told you this post was going to be self-promotional.) He did make a point in his email response to me with which I agree: while what Lebron did was wrong, it probably wasn't deserving of the media storm that followed it--especially when you consider all of the other types of more socially destructive behavior by athletes that doesn't get any coverage.

And while we're on the subject of old links from TrueHoop, I thought this paragraph from a post that Henry linked to by a player who signed with the Golden State Warriors was fascinating:

One thing that shocked me was during a timeout Coach Nelson doesn't say nothing. He just sits there and rubs his head and will occasionally draw up a play every now and then. When you have been in the league as long as he has, and accomplished the things he has at a high level, you shouldn't have to. I asked one of the players "why he doesn't talk during timeouts?" They said he just doesn't. They were like "if that shocks you about this team, then you are in for a bunch more surprises and weird things."

Yes, losing to the Knicks is bad...

2008-01-27T15:21:00.000-09:00

As Louis points out in the comments to my last post, the Sixers recently lost to the Knicks.

Not so good.

And, more to the point, the loss to the Knicks didn't happen in isolation. After starting out the season doing quite well on defense, the Sixers have regressed badly. In the meantime, the offense has been consistently bad. I've generally been more bullish on the Sixers' chances this year than most of the experts (and Louis), but certainly their recent play hasn't done much to support my optimism.

Still, and you knew I needed to find some piece of information that meant my early season optimism hadn't been completely misplaced, as of today John Hollinger's automated power rankings have the Sixers ranked 22nd, coming in as the 11th ranked Eastern Conference team. Plus, based on the standings, the Sixers are still only 2 games out of the playoffs. While they've been very bad, the Sixers are still very much in the thick of the playoff race.

So talk of tanking might still be a bit premature...although maybe not for much longer!

Do we really need to play the Raptors again?

2008-01-09T18:46:00.000-09:00

The Sixers just finished playing the Raptors for the third time this year. And for the third time this year, the Raptors carved up the Sixers defense.

The Sixers have been an above average team on defense this year (they started out the season very strong, but they haven't been quite as good recently), but not against the Raptors. In the three games against the Raptors, the Sixers have posted defensive efficiency ratings of 113.5, 112.7, and now 118.5 (I think that NBA.com indicates that league average is around 107). Ouch.
What exactly does Toronto do that well against us? Primarily, they shoot it well. Their turnover rate has varied from good to bad in the three games (11.8%, 17.2%, 14.1%) and so has their offensive rebound rate (20.5%, 32.5%, 20.0%). Shooting, however, has not been a problem. They've hit up the Sixers with true shooting percentages of 58.6, 58.2, and 64.1 in tonight's game. Remember-- last year the league average TS% was 54.2%.

Just think-- the Raptors are 15-17 against the rest of the league, but 3-0 against the Sixers. I bet they're much more excited to play the Sixers again in ten days then we are about playing them...

Reason number 2901 why I need NBA League Pass

2008-01-03T21:48:00.000-09:00

TrueHoop put up a link today about the Sixers-Jazz game, describing the difficulties the Jazz had scoring in the 4th quarter against a "mediocre" defense (i.e. the Jazz were only getting outside jump shots). Immediately my finely-honed "how come the media always bad mouths the Sixers" mindset kicked in. After all, the Sixers have been a very good defensive team this season. According to the numbers included with the Dec. 31 NBA.com power rankings, the Sixers were the seventh best defensive team in the league (in terms of efficiency) going into this week (giving up 104.7, compared to the league average of 107.1).

I was all set to post about how, yet again, people were not giving the Sixers enough credit. But then I plugged the numbers from the Jazz game into my spreadsheet. Oops. Turns out the Sixers defense was pretty crappy against the Jazz, turning in a 121.2 defensive efficiency rating. We didn't force turnovers (12.1%), nor did we force the Jazz into tough shots (TS% = 63.3). I guess I owe Henry an apology (or would have if I'd posted my initial thoughts)-- calling the Sixers defense in the game "mediocre" was actually being generous.

If I could actually watch Sixers games this year, I'd have known how poorly the Sixers had played defense and I'd be in a much better position to not get annoyed unnecessarily. Instead, I could get annoyed from actually watching the games!

365 days later (or so)

2007-12-21T19:44:00.000-09:00

Apparently, the one year anniversary of the Iverson trade was the signal for the pundits to come out of the woodwork and make snide comments about the Sixers. Two recent comments in particular rankled me a bit because they seemed to reflect a real lack of research.

First, over at ESPN.com, Marc Stein slammed what the Sixers got in return for Iverson. What made it even more bizarre to me was that he recognized that the Nuggets haven't had an amazing record with Iverson, but still talked as if the Nuggets had robbed the Sixers.

Then, over at CNNSI.com, Jack McMallum describes the Sixers as a team "playing over its head" in his Christmas list column.

It seems to me that both comments reflect the same basic bias-- that Iverson is a superstar and that the Sixers must be terrible and must have gotten fleeced in the trade because they didn't get a superstar in return. It seems to me that the way to evaluate a trade is to see which team got better as a result of the trade, not comparing the "names" that each team got in the trade. And on that basis, I think its pretty clear that the Sixers at least broke even (and maybe even got the better end of the trade).

Let's take a look at how the trade impacted the performance of both teams.

First, the Sixers. In the 2005-06 season with Iverson, the Sixers were 38-44 (.463). In 2006-07 after the Iverson trade (he was suspended before the trade, so those games aren't particularly informative), the Sixers were 30-29. After Iverson was traded and after Webber was bought out (two weeks later), the Sixers went 26-21. This season through 25 games the Sixers were 10-15 (.400). All told, the Sixers are 40-44 (.476) since the Iverson trade (or 36-36 (.500) since getting rid of both Iverson and Webber).

Next, the Nuggets. In the 2005-06 season, the Nuggets were 44-38 (.537). In 2006-07, before the trade, the Nuggets were 14-9 (.609). The trade happened one game into Carmelo Anthony's 15 game suspension. Excluding those 14 games (in which the Nuggets went 6-8), the Nuggets went 25-20 (.556) after the Iverson trade. This season through 25 games the Nuggets were 15-10 (.600). All told, the Nuggets are 40-30 (.571) since the Iverson trade (excluding the games for which Carmelo was suspended).

To recap: Before the trade, the Sixers were a slightly below average team (.463). After the trade, the Sixers have been a slightly below average team (.476). Before the trade, the Nuggets were an above average, but not great, team (.552). After the trade, the Nuggets have been an above average, but not great, team (.571).

Once you account for the fact that the Nuggets supporting cast has also improved, notably Marcus Camby has been healthy and was named Defensive Player of the Year last season, and the salary cap space that the Sixers will gain after this season as a result of the trade, then I don't see how you can say the Nuggets made out better than the Sixers in this deal. Even without accounting for these things, I still don't see how the Sixers got fleeced.

I also don't see how the Sixers can still be considered to be playing over their heads after playing at this level for the equivalent of an entire season. But I'm not holding my breath for the pundits to actually notice.

Sometimes you need to recognize how good you are

2007-12-18T19:27:00.000-09:00

In the offseason, Kobe's videotaped rant (and the surrounding drama) was based on the premise that the Lakers weren't in a position to compete for a championship. Even during the season, I've read a number of comments where Kobe (or someone else) talks about how the Lakers are "still growing" or some such comment.

Well, they might be still growing, but I think it's time for Kobe (and the rest of the Lakers) to realize that they are competing for a championship this season. We're more than a quarter of the way through the season and the Lakers have the second best per game point differential in the Western Conference. San Antonio is better (+7.0), but the Lakers (+5.4) are ahead of Phoenix (+5.0), Utah (+5.0), Dallas (+3.5), and Denver (+3.7)-- all teams normally considered better than the Lakers. (In the Eastern Conference, only Boston and Detroit have better per game point differentials) According to John Hollinger's power rankings, the Lakers are actually the best team in the Western Conference (and third overall- again behind Boston and Detroit).

As far as I'm concerned, these numbers make the Lakers legitimate title contenders-- not at some undefined point in the future, but right now.

[note: I would have preferred to have looked at efficiency differential rather than per game differential, but I couldn't find an easily sortable list anywhere.]

Blogging hiatus

2007-12-06T00:23:00.000-09:00

You might have noticed that I haven't blogged in about a week. I was traveling. Now I'm back, but I'm swamped at work. Plus, and I'm not making this up, my roommate was shot earlier this week (she's stable and was moved out of the critical care unit earlier today). Rather obviously, blogging is not high on my priority list at the moment. I might post things periodically, but I wouldn't check in that regularly.

I hope you're all healthy and happy.

We won! We won!

2007-11-27T19:50:00.000-09:00

After competing hard for the previous two games, the Sixers' effort was finally rewarded with a victory over the Milwaukee Bucks. You can check out the write up of the game here.

What led to the victory? In a word: offense! A bit of a shock if you've been following the Sixers this season, but there's no denying it. The Sixers had by far their best offensive game of the season-- they had their top offensive efficiency rating (126.4), lowest turnover rate (11.1%), best true shooting percentage (59.8%), and best offensive rebound rate (39.5%). It was basically a perfect storm. Well done, fellows.

On the other side of the ball, the Sixers forced their normal high turnover rate, but other than that it wasn't one of their better performances. But you know what? I'll take the victory.

If you want to see a perspective on the game from the other side, check out Brew Hoop's game recap and post-game thoughts.

Two "good" losses

2007-11-25T22:47:00.000-09:00

I hate to call any loss a "good" loss, but I think the Sixers' last two games fit the bill. After the miracle comeback against the Trailblazers and the blow-out loss to the Wizards, it was important for the Sixers to start playing their opponents tough through the entire game. And they did that in their last two games, an 88-93 loss to the Pistons and a 98-100 overtime loss to the Warriors. Sometimes the other team just hits a game-winning shot...not really much you can do about it at that point.

As usual, the Sixers' defense was very good-- limiting the Pistons and Warriors to offensive ratings of 99.0 and 94.8 respectively. On the other end, the Sixers' offensive efficiency was as dismal as ever, clocking in at 92.2 and 95.5 respectively. The efficiency ratings for the game against the Warriors demonstrate just how close (and perhaps fluky) that game was: the Sixers actually had a better rating than the Warriors, but lost because the Warriors had slightly more possessions-- 103 to 106 by my estimates. This three possession difference is somewhat fluky, and probably resulted from some freak occurrence of shot-clock management at the end of quarters.

I noticed that Reggie Evans had 9 rebounds in 22 minutes against the Warriors, so I'm a bit curious to know why he didn't play more. Unfortunately, the popcorn machine game flow isn't posted yet, so I can't see how the Sixers did while he was on the court. In general, I thought the lesson to be learned from the Jazz's demolition of the Warriors in the playoffs was that teams should go big and just kill the Warriors on the offensive glass. So in my mind, it would have been the perfect type of game to play Evans big minutes. Oh well.

We played two solid games, now it's time for a victory!

Another big deficit...and this time a loss

2007-11-22T10:48:00.000-09:00

In case you missed it, one game after coming back from a huge deficit, the Sixers found themselves in a big hole again the other night against the Washington Wizards. Only this time they weren't able to rally, losing 116-111.

The Inquirer's write-up gives a good sense of how quickly things got out of hand:

This was a competitive game for most of the first half. When Miller hit a layup with 4 minutes, 1 second left, the Sixers trailed by just 46-42.

The game then got away in the ensuing four minutes when Washington finished the half on a 14-2 run to take a 60-44 lead.

Things only got worse in the third quarter, when the Wizards scored one uncontested basket after another.

I was hopeful that the big come-back against Portland the other night would be a shot in the arm for the Sixers, but apparently not so much. Ugh.

Making this game a little different from the Sixers other big losses is that the main culprit was their defense instead of their offense. Throwing the numbers from the boxscore into our spreadsheet, we can see that the Sixers' offense actually had its best performance of the year--putting up an offensive efficiency rating of 109.7. The flip side is that the defense also had its worst performance of the year-- clocking in with an efficiency rating of 126.3.

How bad was this performance on the defensive end? The worst defensive efficiency rating posted by the Sixers in their previous nine games was a 113.5--given up in the first game of the year against the Raptors. In one game the Sixers managed to have their 2nd worst forced turnover rate of the season (13.1%), the worst defensive true shooting percentage (64.5%), and their 2nd worst defensive rebound rate (67.7%). I know the Wizards are generally considered a good offensive team, but they aren't this good! (Especially not with Arenas missing the game with an injury which was later revealed to require surgery and will keep him out for 3 months)

Time to get in your All-star ballot!

2007-11-19T18:40:00.000-09:00

Apparently the NBA all-star ballot for the 2007-08 season has been released, and it's brewing up some controversy (see item five).

First, let's just agree on one thing: it is way too early for anyone to be voting for all-star starters. No team has played more than ten games yet, and the all-star game doesn't occur until after most teams have played 50 games. Does anyone really believe that they've seen enough basketball to say right now who the best players over the first half of the season have been? I didn't think so. Anyone who votes right now deserves to have their vote thrown out (unless they vote for a Sixer, in which case it should count twice...).

The absurdity of the NBA's voting makes me want to support the effort to get Shane Battier and Antoine Walker voted as all-star starters...

The biggest absurdity, by far, on the all-star ballot is that Antoine Walker is listed as a guard. No one thinks he's a guard. He was an undersized power forward for most of his career, but he also occassionally played small forward. He's never played shooting guard, and he never will. The reason he's listed as a guard? Apparently, Ricky Davis was going to be listed in that spot before being traded for Walker, so the people in charge of the ballot just moved Walker into his slot.

Wow. That was lazy. (On a related note, I had no idea that a group of sportswriters was in charge of determining who, and at what position, will be listed on the all-star ballot. The league isn't capable of handling this internally? Or do they just want to be able to pass on the blame?)

The omission of Devin Harris from the ballot entirely is also absurd. By my count, he's better than thirteen of the twenty-four guards listed on the western conference ballot. Apparently he pissed off the wrong sportswriters.

Finally, I think it's absurd that Tim Duncan was listed as a center, rather than a power forward on the ballot. Sure, he spends some time in the pivot, particularly at the end of games, but not that much. Most of the time he's on the floor, he's playing with a true center. And that's been true for his entire career-- first with David Robinson, then Rasho Nestorevic, and now Fabricio Oberto and Fracisco Elson. He's also been listed as a forward on the all-star ballot every year of his career until now.

Duncan will still clearly be an all-star (even if Yao Ming wins the fan voting, Duncan will without a doubt be selected by the coaches as a reserve), so this "controversy" isn't really that important. That said, I think the debate over Duncan's position does bring into relief something I've thought for awhile: the way the positions in the NBA are split between guards, forwards, and centers doesn't really match the way most NBA teams are constructed these days.

For the most part, I tend to think of NBA teams as having "Bigs" (centers and power forwards), "Swings" (small forwards and shooting guards), and "Points" (point guards). I just think the difference between power forwards and centers is generally much smaller than the difference between power forwards and small forwards. And the same is true with the difference between between point guards and shooting guards compared to shooting guards and small forwards.

I'm watching a rerun of the Spurs-Rockets game at the moment (or I was, when I first drafted this post), so let's take these teams as examples. For the Spurs, Oberto and Elson are nominally the centers and Duncan is nominally the power forward. Is there really a difference between these players (besides skill level)? Bruce Bowen is called the Spurs small forward while Manu Ginobili is their shooting guard, but Bowen generally guards the other teams best perimeter scorer, regardless of whether he is listed as a shooting guard or small forward. Tony Parker, on the other hand, is clearly a different type of player than either Ginobili or Bowen.

For the Rockets, Yao Ming is clearly an interior player. And because he's 7'6", I guess he is a bad example for my cause. That said, Chuck Hayes, the Rockets starting power forward, also is exclusively an interior player--he's much more similar to Yao Ming than he is to Shane Battier (although clearly shorter and less skilled than Yao). Battier is the Rockets small forward, but his game (perimeter defense, three-point shooting) is much more similar to that of Tracy McGrady than it is to that of Chuck Hayes. Battier and McGrady function for the Rockets in a similar fashion to Bowen and Ginobili for the Spurs. Mike James/Rafer Alston are different types of players, and serve as the Rockets point guards.

Are there still combo guards in the league? Absolutely (Charlie Bell on the Bucks is the first one that comes to mind, but someone like Brandon Roy might also fit the bill). But for the most part, I think these players are less common than players that split the difference between being
shooting guards and small forwards. Are there also combo forwards in the league? Again, absolutely (Al Harrington comes to mind). But I think these types of players are much less common than players that split the difference between being centers and power forwards (now I'm watching a rerun of the Lakers/Pistons game, or I was when I reached this part of my first draft, so I'm watching Kwame Brown and Rasheed Wallace right now--both of whom split the center and power forward position).

I guess all of this is just a way of saying that I find the normal position distinctions (the ones used on the NBA all-star ballot) to be odd considering the ways I think the positions on the court are actually used.

Thoughts?

What a comeback!

2007-11-18T19:46:00.000-09:00

I have no idea what happened in the game against the Trailblazers on Friday night. I was checking the scores at work, and when I saw how big the deficit was at the end of three quarters (17 points) I stopped checking. Then when I checked the scores on Saturday, I saw that the Sixers had somehow come back to win, 92-88. Wow.

Just one of those games where the second team gave the team energy and production when the first team didn't have much to give. Igoudala helped seal the comeback, but it was definitely a night to thank the second unit.

The Sixers have needed a bit of a shot in the arm after the last couple of games, so hopefully this was it. Not a perfect game-- the boxscore shows that the Sixers turned the ball over on 23% of their possessions-- but their true shooting percentage was above 56% (our highest of the year by far), and they dominated the glass (80% defensive rebound rate, 33% offensive rebound rate).

After our last couple of losses, it's nice to get a win...even one that looked improbable three-quarters of the way into the game.

A stats note

2007-11-15T19:53:00.001-09:00

So I just realized that in the statistical analysis I've been doing so far, I've been neglecting to include team rebounds. I'm actually not sure how to divide them between offensive and defensive rebounds, so for now I'm going to keep on with my current method.

I'm going to take a look around and see if I can find a site that assigns these team rebounds to the offensive and defensive side of the equation, and I'll let you know if I find one.

Game Recaps- Mavericks, Hornets

2007-11-15T19:08:00.000-09:00

I promised some thoughts on the last two games, so here they are: Ouch. And let's forget about them as quickly as possible.

When I was watching the Sportscenter highlights of the Sixers-Mavericks game, I noticed the score of two highlights. In the first one, the Sixers were leading 50-43. In the second one, the Sixers were trailing 66-73. As a general rule, giving up a 16-30 run is a good way to lose a game. And guess what? They did-- 84-99. No shame in losing to the Mavericks, most people do, but it'd be nice to have been a little more competitive after getting off to such a good showing in the first half.

Speaking of first-half/second-half dichotomies... Against the Hornets, the score was 43-43 at halftime, but the final score was 95-76. Not such a good second half. The best thing I can say about the game is that at least we won't see the Hornets again this year. We've played them twice in the last 3 games, and both times we've lost by 20 points (if you want to be technical, we only lost by 19 in the second game, but we lost by 21 the first we played the Hornets).

The big cause for concern? The Sixers offense has had an efficiency rating in the 80s in each of the last three games while the defense has had an efficiency rating over 100 in each game. Not a good trend.

That was fun! And a gratuitous celebrity tie-in.

2007-11-14T23:28:00.001-09:00

I just got back from playing 3 hours of basketball at the gym. The first game I played in (the first game of the night), was by far the best basketball that I've been involved with since I arrived in Anchorage. The rest of the night was also quite good. The second best night? This past Monday. So I'd say things are looking up if these games weren't just a statistical blip!

Between games, I started chatting it up with one of the guys on the sidelines who I'd met on Monday night. Turns out the reason the games were so good is that a bunch of the guys playing play on the team for the army base located up here. Not sure why they decided to show up tonight, but I definitely appreciated it.

And that guy I was talking to? Turns out that he played basketball at LSU with Chris Jackson (who later changed his name to Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf-- I hope I spelled that correctly) after being high school rivals with him. Since I'm not sure that means anything to most people, Chris Jackson played at LSU in the early nineties and was featured by Sports Illustrated on its cover as possibly the best college player in the country. My sideline buddy played a little professionally overseas, but I didn't get a good sense of for how long. At the moment, he's recovering from a leg injury (shot in the leg while doing some bodyguard work*--and, no, I didn't ask for more details), but once he's recovered he has a tryout/workout lined up with the New Orleans Hornets arranged by his cousin...Scottie Pippen.

Nice to have a cousin who has that sort of pull. And nice of that cousin to do it.

I've now run into Scottie Pippen's cousin and Reuben Stoddard's (the American Idol singer) cousin in completely random situations. Bizarre. Even more bizarre, I remembered that I had had a basketball counselor in the early nineties at overnight camp who was a player for LSU, and my sideline buddy recognized the name as someone he had played with in school (the counselor's first name was Elmer, I think, but I can't remember his last name at all).

In other news, I know the Sixers have played the last two nights and I haven't commented on the games. They were pretty ugly, so I'm not sure you really want me to comment, but I'll put some thoughts together tomorrow. For now, I'm going to watch the rerun of the Lakers-Rockets game on ESPN while eating dinner (it's now 11:47 PM local time, so it's a bit of a late meal...).

*I learned about my sideline buddies gunshot wound on Monday night. As part of the same discussion, I learned that the other big guy in the game was also recovering from an injury-- the index finger (closest one to the thumb, right?) had been removed above the top knuckle as the result of an accident (and, again, I didn't ask for more details). I hadn't noticed anything unusual with his shot during the game, so he seems to be dealing with the loss pretty well. I thought I was tough for dealing well with my dislocated finder, but after talking with these guys I pretty much feel like a pansy. It's sort of like those NFL gear advertisements... (you know, the ones with the tag line "You wouldn't make it in the NFL...")

The Five Game Fix: Game 1-5

2007-11-13T21:22:00.000-09:00

Six games are in the books (actually, seven, since the Sixers lost to Dallas earlier this evening), and I thought it was a good time to look at the Sixers statistics to see what (if any) offensive and defensive trends are emerging. I'm going to do the analysis for just the first five games (ignoring the blowout loss to the Hornets for now), and then I'll do a follow up post after every five game increment.

Looking at my basic statistics, the first thing that jumps out at me is that the Sixers are a pretty good defensive team, but a terrible offensive team. The Sixers have held their opponents to an offensive efficiency rating of just 94.4 (last year, the league average was 103.8, and I assume it'll end up being close to that number again this year). How are they doing it?

First, they're forcing a huge number of turnovers, clocking in with a defensive turnover rate of 19.0%. Last year, the Sixers had a DTOR of 16.6% (2007 NBA average = 15.9%), so it isn't surprising that they have a high DTOR. That said, last year the highest DTOR in the NBA was the 18.2% rating posted by the Golden State Warriors. Right now, the Sixers are forcing turnovers at a higher rate than any team did over the course of last season. We should probably expect this number to come down a little as the season progresses, but for now the forced turnovers are an important and positive part of the story.

Second, the Sixers are holding teams to a true shooting percentage of 50.1%. Last season, the Sixers had a DTS% right at the league average of 54.1%. While last year's Sixers forced turnovers but gave up shots of average difficulty when they didn't get those turnovers, this year's squad is forcing turnovers AND forcing difficult shots. That's a pretty nice combination. The Sixers have been particularly good at defending 2-point FG attempts-- allowing opponents to shoot just 42.3% from inside the arc, compared to last year's league average of 48.5%. The Sixers are giving up slightly above average shooting from behind the arc (37.5% compared to the 35.8% league average from last season), but considering how strong this part of the Sixers game has been I think dwelling on the one negative shooting stat is a bit nitpicky.

Finally, at least on the defensive side of the equation, the Sixers are basically holding their own on the defensive glass, grabbing 71.2% of the other team's missed shots. Last season, the Sixers grabbed 70.8% of the defensive rebounds (compared to the league average last season of 72.9%). Not that different, but possibly some positive movement. I'd love to see improvement on the defensive glass, but I guess you can't have everything at once.

While the Sixers might be playing very good defense, they're playing horrible offense. With an offensive efficiency rating of 99.8, the Sixers are like a JV team compared to the NBA varsity. Last season, not a single NBA team had an offensive efficiency below 100.0 for the year, and only the Celtics and Hawks were even close. The Sixers weren't very good (101.1 compared to the league average of 103.8), but they weren't as mind-boggling bad as they have been this season.

Just like on the defensive end, turnover rate and true shooting percentage are the main factors driving the Sixers performance.

In the comments to my post yesterday, Louis wrote:

One of the catogories that bridges the offense/defense divide also gives me a little hope. Even though the Sixers are not getting many steals, they're 23rd in the league, they must be protecting the ball well because they are 12th in steal differential.

Unfortunately, the steal differential stat is very misleading since turnovers don't just result from steals (as far as I can tell, it also isn't pace adjusted, although I don't know how the Sixers compare pacewise to the rest of the NBA at this point). While the Sixers are forcing turnovers on 19% of opponents possessions, they're giving much of that advantage back by turning the ball over at a rate of 17.5% (remember last season's average TO rate was 15.9%).

And when the Sixers don't turn the ball over, they also aren't shooting it very well, putting up a putrid 50.8%. The shooting woes can't be traced to just one aspect (although 3-point shooting has been getting the attention)-- the Sixers are below average (compared to last season's NBA average) with regards to free throw shooting (68.8% vs. 75.2%), 2-point FG shooting (46.7% vs. 48.5%), and 3-point shooting (30.7% vs. 35.8%). Every one of these marks is below the Sixers mark for last season, and only the 2-point FG% is within one percentage point of where it was last year.

The lone bright spot on the offensive side of the equation for the Sixers is that through the first five games they were grabbing an astounding 33.9% of available offensive rebounds, compared to last season's NBA average of 27.1%. Last season, the Utah Jazz led the NBA with an ORR of 31.7%, and only the Jazz and NY Knicks(!; at 31.0) had ORR above even 30%. The Sixers had an ORR of 27.2%, just slightly above the league average.

The offensive picture is pretty negative, but what really scares me is that these offensive numbers include the Sixers blowout win, but don't include their blowout loss. That said, while the picture is bleak on the offensive side of the ball, all is not a lost cause. If the Sixers can just come down to the league average in TOR and FT%, they'll raise their offensive efficiency to at least close to the league average. If they can maintain their defensive performance at the same time (and I don't see how turning the ball over less and making more baskets can negatively imipact a defense--if anything it should help the defense), then the Sixers will be in the thick of the playoff chase all season long even with a below average offense.

While I was otherwise occupied...

2007-11-12T14:30:00.000-09:00

Apparently, the Sixers continue to play games even when I'm otherwise occupied. Who knew? My visiting polar bear has returned to warmer climes (only in Alaska can I describe Boston as a warmer locale...), so I'm catching up on the Sixers action from the last couple of days.

Two games to quickly comment on today, and then tomorrow I'll take a look at trends from the Sixers first five games.

On November 9, the Sixers dropped a game 103-105 to the Raptors. That makes two losses to the Raptors in the first five games of the season (dropping the Sixers to 2-3). Clearly, the Raptors are better than the Sixers at this stage of the season. Not a surprise since I expected the Raptors to be better, but I think we now have our proof. Reggie Evans had 12 rebounds in 22 minutes and Samuel Dalembert had 6 rebounds in 19 minutes, but I can't get mad at Mo Cheeks for not playing them more-- Chris Bosh went to the foul line 18 times, getting both big men in foul trouble (Evans had 4 fouls and Dalembert had 5 fouls). The Sixers will obviously need to do better in that department if they're going to have success this season. At least the Sixers did better this time than in the first game against the Raptors, so its a start.

On November 11, the Sixers got absolutely blown out by the Hornets (92-73). Shooting made the difference in this one-- the Sixers had a true shooting percentage of 44% while the Hornets had a TS% of 54%. So far, the Hornets look very good this season (as their 5-2 record demonstrates). Hopefully this result was just a one game blip since the Sixers have hung tough in all their previous games, but it did leave the Sixers with a very disappointing 1-3 record on their homestand. Ugh.

Sixers eat Bobcats- Game 4

2007-11-08T20:57:00.001-09:00

Well, the final score from last night (Wednesday) says it all: 94-63. The Bobcats rolled over in this one, and the Sixers took advantage. And good for them. When you're a team on the playoff bubble (as I view the Sixers), then you need to take advantage when teams decide to take the night off. Especially when the team you're playing is another bubble playoff team.

From looking at the boxscore, I think it's pretty clear that the story of the game was turnovers. The Sixers had 21 (23% of their possessions)-- not a very good performance. Thankfully, the Bobcats were dreadful, coughing up 29 turnovers (30% of their possessions). Considering most NBA teams turn the ball over about 15% of the time, you can get a sense of how sloppy the game must have been.

The Sixers also continued their fantastic work on the offensive boards, grabbing them at a 36% clip. I think the league average last year was around 25-27% (I'm too lazy to look it up right now), so the Sixers are really going gangbusters. My boxscore favorite, Reggie Evans, wasn't a big part of the action-- grabbing only one offensive board (and five total) in 18 minutes of play. All told it seems like the offensive rebounding was a team effort. Samuel Dalembert led the way with 5, but 7 other Sixers grabbed at least one.

On the downside, the Sixers grabbed defensive rebounds at a pathetic 62% clip (they'd been averaging a 76% defensive rebound rate coming into the game). I'll chalk up the poor performance to the fact that the game was a blow-out.

[Apologies for the light posting this week. I'll be back with some more intensive posting next week.]

My other favorite rebounder

2007-11-06T18:36:00.000-09:00

Over at SI.com today, Marty Burns was all over the Anderson Varejao story. (By that, I mean that he was clearly the reporter chosen by Varejao's camp to receive a leak to try and push his negotiations with the Cavaliers towards a resolution.) First, Burns posts an article quoting people "close to" Varejao saying that he would be willing to accept a $5 million, one year deal instead of the bigger money, longer term deal he was seeking. Such a deal would allow Varejao to become an unrestricted free agent next year, instead of the restricted free agent he is currently. Now, just a few hours later, Burns is back with an article basically saying the Cavaliers response was "thanks, but no thanks."

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Why don't the Sixers make Varejao an offer? If Varejao is really willing to sign for close to the mid-level exception for one year, the Sixers have nothing to lose by making the offer. If the Cavs match, then nothing has been lost (unless the Sixers really think Varejao and the Cavaliers won't reach an agreement, and that the Cavaliers will fall below the Sixers in the playoff race without him...). If the Cavaliers don't match, then the Sixers have a superb rebounder/defender to help out their frontcourt this year. Plus, I think they'd have the inside track on re-signing him for next year. I really wish someone could explain to me why the Sixers (or some other team) isn't making this offer right now.

Breakdown alert

2007-11-05T23:20:00.000-09:00

I'm a little concerned about the Celtics. In a 20 point victory over the Washington Wizards (the Celtics first game), Doc Rivers played his stars major minutes. Kevin Garnett played 38 minutes, Ray Allen played 38 minutes, and Paul Pierce played 39 minutes. If these guys are playing this many minutes in a 20 point victory, then you need to assume that they'll play at least this many (and probably more) in most of the Celtics' games this season. And that means the chances that one of the Big 3 breaks down by playoff time is that much greater. Bad news if you're a Celtics fan, good news for everyone else in the Eastern Conference.

[As with all my other first game observations, remember the caveat that this was just one game and might not be indicative of a larger trend...but not much changed in the second game...]

The Reggie Evans Experience- Part 3

2007-11-04T21:38:00.001-09:00

Yes, I promise, I'll stop talking about Reggie Evans all the time. But first, I hope someone can help me out. Since I'm in Anchorage (and the local cable company doesn't carry NBA League Pass), I'm not really able to watch the Sixers play. So I'm hoping that someone actually seeing the games can tell me what I'm missing.

Looking at the box score from the Sixers' third game (an 88-93 loss to the Nets on Saturday), I noticed that Evans had 11 rebounds in 21 minutes. That's an amazing performance, but I couldn't figure out why he only played 21 minutes if he was rebounding that well. He only had 2 personal fouls, so concern with fouling out couldn't have been the problem.

Is something going on that isn't showing up in the boxscore? Despite his rebounding, is the offense bogging down while he's in the game? Is he playing terrible man-to-man defense or is he rotating late on help defense? According to the game flow display over at the popcorn machine, he had two break-even stints and one brief, bad stint, but then he didn't even get into the game in the fourth quarter. (And the bad stint occurred during a small ball line-up-- the starters, except with Korver in place of Dalembert. Why are we playing this line-up? I give up.)

Over three games, Reggie Evans has grabbed 35 rebounds in only 71 minutes of play--a rate of .49 rebounds/minute. (Last year, Kevin Garnett grabbed .32 rebounds/minute to put that number in perspective.) I hope someone watching the games can let me know what's going on, because from my box score driven view of the games it sure looks like Mo Cheeks is not making very good use of a very useful player.

The Reggie Evans watch- Game 2

2007-11-04T21:38:00.000-09:00

Okay, Sixers games aren't entirely about Reggie Evans, but I am fascinated by his nose for the ball. In their second game, the Sixers defeated the Bulls 96-85. Evans played 29 minutes and had 9 rebounds. That's pretty good, and he wasn't even the Sixers best per minute rebounder. Dalembert had 11 rebounds in 31 minutes and Jason Smith grabbed 6 rebounds in 14 minutes. The guards also helped out the cause-- Igoudala grabbed 10 rebounds, and Willie Green (Willie Green!) grabbed 8. All in all, the Sixers rebounding in the first two games has been superb-- a 77% defensive rebound rate and a 40% offensive rebound rate. That offensive rebound rate in particular is pretty stunning.

Two other trends I noted from the box score: (1) Mo Cheeks is definitely sticking with the small line-up. The Sixers big men played 77 minutes out of the 96 minutes available to them. Two games still isn't proof, but I think we can see the trend. (2) In big games, Mo Cheeks is going to play Igoudala (45 minutes) and Miller (41 minutes) big minutes. Willie Green (38 minutes) also played big minutes, but from the box score it looks like he was having a pretty good all around game so his big minutes might have been an aberration (Igoudala's and Miller's big minutes confirm something we could have guessed, which is why I'm more willing to jump to a conclusion from one game.).

[oops- I thought I had posted this already, but apparently I just saved it as a draft.]

Rockets v. Lakers- An early season look

2007-11-02T20:56:00.000-08:00

On the first night of the regular season, the LA Lakers played the Houston Rockets. (San Antonio also played Portland, and Utah played Golden State, but let's ignore that for a minute.)

The game turned out to be a nailbiter-- the Lakers staged a furious comeback, tying the game on a Derek Fisher 2-pointer, only to see the Rockets regain the lead seconds later on a contested 3-pointer from Shane Battier. A foul to put Kobe on the line, an intentionally missed free throw, and a scrum for the ball later, the Rockets left LA with a 95-93 victory.

I didn't watch the entire game, but I did get to see a good portion of it. I watched the entire first half at home before leaving to do some errands. After the errands, I headed to the gym and watched most of the fourth quarter while running on the treadmill (well, mostly running--some walking might also have been involved).

The game looked like a defensive struggle from what I could tell, with both teams contesting shots and generally making life miserable for the other side. Ronny Turiaf, playing big minutes with Lamar Odom injured, looked particularly active and energetic on the defensive end. That said, the number of free throws that Kobe took (he was 18-27 from the charity stripe-- actually a bad night for him, percentage-wise) made me think that I might have been confusing good defense with a propensity to foul.

Well, was it good defense? Over the summer, I looked at how forced turnover rate, opponents true shooting percentage, and defensive rebound rate were the main contributors to good team defense (or defensive efficiency, defined as points given up per 100 possession). So I decided to look at the statistics from the game and see what information I could tease out.

I was particularly interested to see what these numbers told me for two contrasting reasons: (1) Last year, the Lakers were a very good offensive team, but a very poor defensive team. A strong defensive showing could give hope for a more successful season. (2) Last year, the Rockets were one of the top defensive teams in the league. They replaced Jeff Van Gundy, a defensive minded coach, with Rick Adelman, an offensive minded coach. A good defensive showing might indicate that they are likely to retain their stellar defensive play while integrating an improved offensive.

Of course, this was just one game, so the results might just as easily tell us nothing of lasting importance (Hey, I'm a blogger. That means I want instant satisfaction. No time for reasoned analysis here...).

First step was to take the information from the box score and convert it into the numbers that I needed.

[pause while I go and do this...]

Before sharing the numbers with you, I just want to put them in some perspective. Last year, the league average defensive efficiency (according to my unofficial numbers) was 103.85, average forced turnover percentage was 15.92%, average opponents TS% was 54.15%, and average defensive rebound rate was 72.91%.

And now the show... (boy, this post has already gotten long)

Last night, Houston (last year's numbers in parentheses) had a defensive efficiency rating of 96.25 (97.64) with a forced TO rate of 12.42% (15.03%), an opponent's TS% of 48.54% (51.16%), and a defensive rebound rate of 77.08% (76.97%). Last year Houston had a great defensive by playing stay at home basketball (i.e. not going for steals), forcing bad shots, and cleaning up the defensive glass. Based on their first game, it sure looks like Houston is going to feature the same sort of defensive again this year. And based on their personnel, I'm not surprised. Yao Ming is so big that his mere presence in the lane alters just about every shot in his vicinity. Obviously the Lakers offense suffered without the presence of Lamar Odom, but such an impressive performance still bodes well for Houston's ability to maintain their defensive efficiency this season under Rick Adelman.

The Lakers (last year's numbers in parentheses) had a defensive efficiency rating of 101.59 (106.22) with a forced TO rate of 19.25% (15.13%), an opponent's TS% of 54.20% (54.78%), and a defensive rebound rate of 68.42% (73.32%). Overall, the Lakers defense seemed to improve, but I think it really was about the same. The high TO rate is a bit of a mirage--it fueled their late comeback the other night, but last season the Warriors had the highest forced TO rate at 18.21%. Only the Warriors and Bulls had DTOR greater than 18% last season, and no other team cracked the 17% barrier. (If you assume the Lakers had slightly above a 15% DTOR, then defensive efficiency goes up to over 106) I was surprised that the Lakers didn't do better on the boards-- Odom is a good rebounder, but I assumed Turiaf and the other subs would fill in ably for him in that department. The Lakers were helped by Houston's inability to hit its free throws (they shot 21-31, last year Lakers' opponents shot 76% from the line), but even an average showing by Houston would only have added about 2 points to the Lakers' defensive efficiency. All in all, the Lakers had a good defensive showing, but I think its dependence on the turnovers makes that result a bit of a mirage. If the Lakers want to be a good defensive team, they're going to need some work (especially on defensive rebounding).

So I wasn't wrong-- the game was a defensive struggle. And the (very) early results are that both Houston and the Lakers are likely to replicate their defensive success (or failure) from a year ago.

[Don't worry, I haven't forgotten about the Sixers. I'll try and do a similar analysis for the Sixers after every five games or so. But compiling the stats takes time, so I won't always be able to do it.]

One more set of predictions

2007-11-01T20:11:00.000-08:00

[oops- meant to post this a few days ago. Season's started already, but these predictions are still worth looking at.]

As a complement to the predictions he made for Sports Illustrated, Ian Thomsen also convinced the scouts he talked with to make predictions for the year. I'd say the predictions from the scouts are pretty standard (that is, they think the Sixers will be bad-- 14th in the East), and they definitely rely heavily on what happened last year. In aggregate, they bump Orlando out of the playoffs because they move Boston to the head of the pack in the Eastern conference, but other than that they predict all the same teams to make the playoffs this year as made it last year (for both conferences). I don't think there will be much movement either (I only predict the Nets and the Warriors to drop out of the playoffs), but it's striking how little movement they expect there to be.

If I have the time, I'll try and put all the different predictions I've found into a spreadsheet so at the end of the season it'll be easy to compare how everyone did (including myself).

[Update: Make that two. The Wages of Wins predicts the Eastern Conference here, and the Western Conference here.]

[Update 2: Okay, there are tons of other predictions and previews out there, but I'm done tracking them down! You'll need to fend for yourself.]

Disaster strikes!

2007-10-31T18:54:00.000-08:00

Okay, disaster didn't actually strike, but the Sixers did lose their season opener to the Toronto Raptors. Since I assume the Sixers are going to finish the season behind the Raptors in the standings, I guess I can't be too surprised they lost to them. Still, stealing a few games against mid-tier teams like the Raptors will go a long way towards boosting the Sixers playoff chances.

Much to my chagrin, I can tell from looking at the box score that a few things happened in today's game that I really wished hadn't happened:

(1) Mo Cheeks played a small line-up. How do I know? Well, our centers and power forwards (Dalembert, Evans, Smith, and Booth) played only 64 out of the 96 minutes available for the two big man positions. I understand Dalembert only playing 25 minutes-- he's coming back from injury so maybe his conditioning and timing isn't that good (he picked up 4 fouls in 25 minutes which could be a sign of rust)-- but why did Reggie Evans only play 22 minutes? In that time period he had fifteen rebounds! The man is a machine on the glass, and he should be playing more even if he isn't doing anything else.

(2) Willie Green played big minutes, and so did Rodney Carney. Cheeks played Green for 33 minutes and Carney for 16 minutes. You know my opinion of the two of them, so as far as I'm concerned we effectively conceded the shooting guard position to the other team for the full game. To be fair, it doesn't look like either player was that bad tonight, but based on their playing time it's clear that Mo Cheeks and I don't see eye-to-eye on this issue.

[note: ESPN's box score only accounts for 229 out of the 240 minutes played by the Sixers. I'm assuming this is the result of the way they rounded minutes played, but it means my discussion of everyone's minutes might be a tad off.]

The good news is that for the most part it seems like the Sixers played the Raptors pretty tough. Most nights Igoudala isn't going to cough up 6 turnovers, and assuming a slightly better showing from AI2 the Sixers would have had a real shot at victory. And Dalembert will hopefully play more minutes as he gets healthier.

All in all, a mixed bag, but not a bad start to the season (although a loss is still a loss...).

Current Record: 0-1

Western Conference Predictions

2007-10-30T18:02:00.000-08:00

The Real Deal Holyfield (Toss a Coin)

(1) San Antonio- Tim Duncan. Manu Ginobili. Tony Parker. Bruce Bown. The random guy they’re playing at center this year. Best team in basketball. Do I really need to say anything more? They led the league with a +8.4 point differential last year—more than a full point higher than the next closest team (Phoenix). I love watching them play, but I understand why people don’t find them interesting—there’s nothing new to say, and no drama surrounding them. Maybe Duncan should grow his hair out and dye it green just to see how the media reacts. They just play top-flight, winning basketball. I’d actually be surprised if they end up with the best record (since it doesn’t seem to be a priority for them), but I just can’t see a reason not to pick them to finish first. [58 wins]

(2) Houston- I’m weighing the continued maturation of Yao, the splendor of McGrady, the theft of Luis Scola from the Spurs, the defense of Shane Battier, and the re-acquisition of Mike James and Steve Fancis against the loss of the miracle worker Jeff Van Gundy. Rick Adelman’s teams generally perform very well in the regular season, but Houston’s success last year was based on being one of the very best defensive teams in the league and the loss of JVG is definitely going to hurt them in this area (just remember how badly the Knicks fell apart a few years ago when JVG left them mid-season). Still, the Rockets are loaded. [58 wins]

(3) Phoenix- It’s hard to top Phoenix’s Big 3 of Nash, Stoudemire, and Marion. I’m not a huge Amare fan, but there’s no doubt that his hands and finishing ability are a great fit with Nash. And Marion is a great fit anywhere (as long as his pouting over not being “The Man” doesn’t interfere with his fantastic play). It’s also hard to keep playing your top players the number of minutes that Phoenix’s top guns have been playing the last few seasons. They have arguably even less depth this year than the previous two years, so we’ll see if they can continue to log the heavy minutes without breaking down. They remain a running team with the addition of Grant Hill, but I’m not sure I’d still consider them a team of 3-point shooters. It sounds like all I’m doing is bad-mouthing the Suns, but you know what? They’re still going to win close to 60 games this season. [58 wins]

(4) Dallas- I don’t think they’re going to have any problem bouncing back from last year’s crushing playoff loss to the Golden State Warriors. They have one of the league’s most efficient offenses as well as one of the five best defenses in the league. They had the third best point differential last season (+7.2), and they basically return the same group. They’ll be fine. The 67 wins last season were a bit of a fluke based on their point differential, so don’t be surprised if their win total drops by a decent chunk even though they’ll probably be basically as good as last year. [58 wins]

So Close and yet So Far

(5) Utah- It isn’t Utah’s fault that they’ve become good at the same time that the league is boasting four teams that have the potential to be juggernauts (just like it wasn’t Stockton and Malone’s fault that their Utah Jazz teams peaked at the same time Michael Jordan’s Bulls were peaking). They’re probably as good as the top three teams in the Eastern Conference (maybe even better), but they just aren’t in the same tier as the top four teams in the West. Maybe Deron Williams makes “the Leap” this year, maybe Andrei Kirilenko figures out a way to better fit in with the team as a small forward, and maybe someone fills the void left by Derek Fischer’s departure to give the Jazz a top quality shooting guard. It will probably take all three happening to boost the Jazz into the top ranks of the Western Conference. More likely, one of the three happens and the Jazz have the “misfortune” of being a really good team and racking up a whole bunch of wins, but then needing to play a really, really good team and getting bounced from the playoffs in the first round. Sorry, Utah. [52 wins]

What about us?

(6) Memphis- Last year, Memphis was absolutely horrible, losing a league worst 60 games with a -5.1 point differential. But the season started with Gasol injured, and by the time he returned to the line-up the Grizzlies had already dug themselves a hole from which they couldn’t get out. Two years ago, Memphis was the fourth best team in the Western Conference, winning 49 games with a +3.7 point differential. The off-season acquisitions of Mike Conley, Juan Carlos Navarro, and Darko Milicic, plus the services of Gasol (and Mike Miller) for the entire season make me expect that last season is going to become a fading memory in Memphis very quickly. [47 wins]

(7) Denver- They score a lot of points, but I don’t think they really worry any of the top teams. No one would be surprised if this was the year Iverson’s body finally broke down or if Camby misses significant time with an injury. Barring that, Denver will be again what they’ve been the last two seasons—a fun team to watch that squeaks its way into the Western Conference playoffs. It’s possible that Carmelo becomes the efficient scorer for the Nuggets that he is with Team USA, but somehow I doubt it. [45 wins, again] [After writing this prediction, it came to my attention that Kenyon Martin is apparently healthy again. If he regains his pre-injury form (from back when he was with the Nets), then I'd bump Denver up to Utah's level. Also, Chucky Atkins got hurt, but I didn't think he was that good so I don't think his injury matters.]

(8) LA Lakers- If Kobe gets traded, then all bets are obviously off and we can forget that I ever made a prediction for the Lakers. If he isn’t traded, then I think the Lakers will find their way into the playoffs again. And, with Kobe on the team, they’ll be the team that no one wants to face in the first round because of Kobe’s potential to explode. That said, the Lakers big issue will be defense. They actually had one of the most efficient offenses in the league last year, but they couldn’t have stopped a high school JV squad (well, maybe a bad one). You’ll laugh, but having a healthy Kwame Brown and Chris Mihm (along with a slightly more mature Andrew Bynum) should actually make a big difference here. On the other hand, Odom’s lingering shoulder trouble could make a big difference in the opposite direction. The Lakers could implode and find themselves out of the playoffs, or they could bring it defensively and find themselves just a hair below Utah. I’ll split the difference. [42 wins]

(9) New Orleans- They’ve been on the verge of the playoffs the last two seasons, and it looks like they’ll be on the verge of the playoffs again this year. I haven’t really seen them play, so it’s hard for me to comment on them. Tyson Chandler anchors them defensively, and he had a very solid summer with Team USA. Plus, a few of their key players will hopefully be healthier this season (Chris Paul, Peja Stojakavic). Add it all together, and you have another season where they’ll be in the mix right to the final whistle. But I can’t pick everyone to make the playoffs, and they’re the odd men out. [41 wins]

(10) Sacramento- Two years ago, they were a solid 8^th seed with 44 wins and a +1.5 point differential. Last season, they were pretty bad—winning only 33 games. What happened? Well, Bibby and Miller had bad seasons. Just as importantly, they had some bad luck—despite a point differential of -1.8, they lost 6 more games than New Orleans which had a -1.6 point differential (and they only won 1 more game than Portland which had a -4.3 point differential). I expect Bibby and Miller to bounce back (although I’ve never really been a big Bibby fan), and I expect the odds to at least even out a little bit. Unfortunately for them, the top of the Western Conference is loaded, and even a .500 record won’t get them into the playoffs. [41 wins] [Bibby is now expected to be out for the first two months of the season with a hand injury. I don't think it's a devastating blow since I've tended to think Bibby was overrated, but it might be enough of a blow to eliminate their chances at the post-season.]

It was nice while it lasted

(11) Golden State- Sam, weren’t you paying attention last year? Didn’t you see us knock off Dallas in the playoffs? Yes, I did. Then I watched Utah crush Golden State in the second round. And then in the off-season I watched Golden State trade away Jason Richardson for 10 cents on the dollar. The Warriors are really going to miss Richardson. And they’re also really going to be hurt by all the coaches in the league having had a chance to watch the playoff series against the Jazz. Everyone learned that if you slow the tempo down against Golden State, your big men will be able to abuse Golden State on the offensive glass. By mid-season, whichever small player is playing the bulk of his minutes at power forward in Nellie’s small ball offense is going to be incredibly sore. [35 wins]

I’ve heard the NBDL is looking for some teams

(12) Minnesota- Celtics West takes the floor in Minnesota this season, and it’s going to be a bit rough. That said, I’m probably a little bit higher on their prospects than most people, but most likely because I became invested in a number of these players from watching so many of their games the last few years in Boston. Al Jefferson is very, very good—an all-star if he had remained in the East, but probably destined to be overlooked in the West this season. I’m also much higher on Telfair than just about anyone else I know or have heard discuss him. With the players on the Timberwolves’ roster, I’d put the ball in Telfair’s hands and tell him to push it and get his teammates open looks in transition. Go small with Telfair, Foye, Green, Smith, and Jefferson (with Brewer coming off the bench), and see what you can create. You won’t get many (any?) defensive stops, but you’ll be fun to watch! I’m higher on this team than most, but I’m not crazy. [25 wins] [Since I made my prediction, the Timberwolves have traded Ricky Davis and Mark Blount for Antoine Walker, etc. I don't think this trade really matters for their record this year, and I also don't think Walker is going to be with the team in a few weeks. So what does that all mean for this prediction? Who knows!]

(13) Portland- The difference between this year’s team and last year’s 32 win (-4.3 point differential) team? They traded away Zach Randolph. Oh, and they reacquired Steve Blake. The trade of Randolph made sense with the expected arrival of Oden, but now that Oden is injured the Trailblazers are going to be in serious trouble. The only way they don’t drop in the standings is if all of their young players take big steps forward. I’m not saying it won’t happen with Aldridge and Roy, but I’m not sure which other young players are going to step up with them. This year will be a step backwards, but that will just set them up to take two huge strides forward next season. [23 wins]

(14) Seattle- Sam Presti, the Sonics new GM, comes from the Spurs so he gets the benefit of the doubt, but I have no idea what he was thinking this offseason. They lost Rashard Lewis and Ray Allen for basically nothing (sorry, I don’t think Jeff Green will be a difference maker in the pros). Durant will score a bunch of points this year, but I expect his shooting percentage to be in the low 40s because there won’t be anyone to take the pressure off of him. Plus, the looming specter of the move to Oklahoma City (if it isn’t thwarted by a pending lawsuit) means that the team is probably going to be playing a lot of home games in a mostly empty arena. I think it’ll be a long year in the Emerald City. One bright spot? I like the Kurt Thomas signing (I guess I should say trade), but I’m not sure what he’s doing on this team other than serving as trade bait when the trade deadline approaches. [22 wins]

(15) LA Clippers- Chris Kaman was the fifth best starter on the Clippers when they had their successful season two years ago, and he’s a really good player for your fifth spot. This year, he projects to be their second best player (assuming he bounces back from his poor performance last year). That is not a good sign if you’re a Clippers fan. Cassell and Mobley are old, Shaun Livingston still isn’t back from injury, and I don’t even want to talk about the injury to Elton Brand, which just seemed arbitrarily cruel on the part of the sports gods. The Clippers are going to be the Corey Maggette and Chris Kaman show, and that means it’ll be a long year for L.A.’s “other” team. [20 wins] [I stand by my prediction, but I came across this post over at Clips Nation which makes a strong argument that the Clippers don't deserve to be ranked 15th in the Western Conference (the writer suggests a ranking of 12th would be much more realistic). I think he makes some good points, so go read it.]

Eastern Conference Predictions

2007-10-29T18:11:00.000-08:00

Cream of the Crop

(1) Chicago- They led the conference with a +5.0 point differential last season, and during the off-season they replaced P.J. Brown with Joe Smith (call it even) and added Joakim Noah. Add in a little more seasoning for Tyrus Thomas, and you have probably the best team in the conference over the course of this regular season. What’s not to like? [50 wins]

(2) Detroit- Moving McDyess to the starting line-up makes the first five even tougher, but puts a lot of pressure on the bench players. Assuming they’re given a chance to play with a little leeway, the bench might struggle a bit early in the season and cost Detroit some wins, but it’ll help them in the long-run. This might be the year Rasheed blows up and takes the team down with him, but I’m a Wallace fan and think he’ll keep it in check. [49 wins]

(3) Boston- Call them the C’eatles (per Garnett) or the GAP kids (per me), but don’t call them pretenders. They’ll be for real. All the changes to their roster makes looking at last year’s results completely worthless. With three locks for the Eastern Conference all-star game on the roster, Boston has the Eastern Conference’s equivalent of the Suns’ Big 3 (only slower paced and playing in an area with much more snow...). If Doc Rivers is smart enough to not play his stars huge minutes during the regular season, it’ll cost them some wins during the regular season but help them in the long-run. Save the 40+ minute games by the Big 3 for the playoffs, and the Celtics will be heading all the way to the NBA Finals. [48 wins]

You need a Crystal Ball for these Guys

(4) Cleveland- They represented the Eastern Conference in the Finals last year. They had one of the best defenses in the league, and they had the third best point differential in the conference behind Chicago and Detroit (+3.8). Lebron has another year of experience. They basically stood-pat, which means placing them fourth seems appropriate (bumping Boston in front of them). On the other hand, if they don’t get the contract situation with Varejao straightened out (he’s currently home in Brazil) I think they could be fighting for their play-off lives—he’s a huge part of what they do defensively. [47 wins, but with a huge Varejao asterisk]

(5) Washington- They finished last season as a .500 team with a negative point differential (-0.5). On the other hand, they were ravaged with injuries to star players (most notably Gilbert Arenas) and were doing really well before everyone got hurt. I’m tempted to think they’ll do really well this year with their stars back from injury, but then comes the news that Etan Thomas needed heart surgery. He’s not a star, but he did a bunch of the dirty work for them. Plus, who do I put them in front of? They could be a 50 win team or they could be a 40 win team, and neither would surprise me. I’ll split the difference and put them here. [45 wins, with another big asterisk]

(6) Miami- If I had any guts I’d predict them to miss the playoffs, but I think I’m too scared because of the big names. (Shaq! Wade! It’s the NBA playoffs!) They had a negative point differential last year (-0.9) yet somehow managed to grab 44 wins. They were also plagued by injuries, and I don’t see this year being any different. They didn’t get any younger. Wade is going to miss a chunk of games at the beginning of the season. We know Shaq is going to miss games at some point. They lost quality wing players in Kapono and Posey, and an out-of-retirement Penny Hardaway isn’t going to be the answer. Yet I still can’t bring myself to put them below any of the remaining teams. I’m a wuss. [43 wins, with two asterisks!!!]

Two of these Things are going to Belong

(7) Toronto- Last year was a break-out year for the Raptors, and I think the run continues. John Hollinger predicts a drop-off because so many Raptor players had career-best years last season, but I think that was more a function of their new style of play. Plus, as one of just five teams in the Eastern Conference who had a positive point differential last year, I think they can decline a little and still make the playoffs. There are some lingering injury problems (Bosh, etc.) that will probably slow them down to start the year, but I think they don’t drop any lower than the seventh seed. [43 wins]

(8) Orlando- Change the name—they should be called the Stan Van Gundy Magic, rather than the Orlando Magic. I wasn’t a huge fan of the roster moves they made this summer (letting Milicic walk, signing Lewis to a contract way above market value), but I am a huge fan of SVG. He’s a miracle worker (as is his brother for that matter) who was absolutely knee-capped by Riley in Miami. If Orlando hadn’t changed coaches over the summer I’d be picking them to drop out of the playoffs, but not with SVG at the helm. Plus, I was surprised to learn that they had a positive point differential (+0.8) last season despite having a sub-.500 record. I don’t know how SVG is going to make Adonal Foyle a prime-time player, but he will. [42 wins]

(9) Indiana- Jim O’Brien is another coach that I consider a miracle worker. Remember, the Sixers were 43-39 in 2004-05 under him before falling back to 38-44 the next year under Mo Cheeks with basically the same roster (not to mention his work with the Pierce/Walker Celtics before that). His presence on the Indiana sideline is probably good for at least five wins. I also think his preference for fronting post-players will cover up some of Troy Murphy’s defensive shortcomings by allowing Jermaine O’Neal to cover up things with his over-the-top help defense, while at the same time allowing Murphy to concentrate on his offensive strengths—the outside jumper which also happens to be a JOB favorite. [41 wins]

(10) Philadelphia- The Sixers were 26-21 over the last 47 games of last season. I think being above .500 for that much of the season is a good sign, even if it might be a bit overstated because of some “cheap” wins racked up over the last month. They replaced Joe Smith with Reggie Evans, but other than that they pretty much stayed still. And as a result, I’m putting them slightly above .500 for the upcoming season. [41 wins]

(11) New Jersey- Um, Sam, you do realize that New Jersey has Jason Kidd, Vince Carter, and Richard Jefferson? Yup, but I also realize that they basically have nothing else. Possibly Krstic’s return from injury or their pick-up of Jamal Magloire will make the difference, but last year NJ was a .500 ball-club with a negative point differential (-0.8). Not enough has changed, so I think this is the year they fall out of the playoffs. But it’ll be close. [40 wins]

(12) New York- The interior pairing of Curry and Randolph will be poor defensively, but effective offensively. People keep talking about them as two low-post players, but my impression of Randolph is that he was more of a high-post player. The big keys will be whether the guards get them the ball, Quentin Richardson stays healthy, and they find a way to get David Lee on the floor. Oh, and making sure that Isiah Thomas doesn’t harass anyone on the way to the arena (yes, that was a low blow, but not an undeserved one). They have talent (and they should with their payroll), but the key will be how they mesh that talent. [40 wins]

Wait, you’re telling me that you’re a Professional basketball team?

(13) Charlotte- They have a killer line-up of players at the swing positions (Gerald Wallace, Jason Richardson, Walter Herrmann, Matt Carroll, and Derek Anderson, and that isn’t even counting Adam Morrison, who isn’t good [update: and is now injured--which might add a few wins to their total], and Jared Dudley, a rookie). Unfortunately, they’re pretty thin everywhere else, especially with the injury to Sean May. Still, I don’t see them being any worse than last year, and they might even be a few games better because of the addition of Richardson, but another injury to a front court player (I’m looking at you, Mr. Okafor) would be devastating. [36 wins]

(14) Atlanta- They’re another team with a strong contingent of wing players, although not quite as deep at the position as Charlotte (Joe Johnson, Josh Smith, Josh Childress, and Marvin Williams should take all the minutes). But they’re also another team that’s pretty thin everywhere else. Al Horford helps, particularly as a presence on the boards and on the defensive end, but he isn’t enough to vault them into playoff contention. Maybe Acie Law IV is the answer at point guard, but I doubt it. They’ll have a better year than last year, but not by much. [34 wins]

(15) Milwaukee- I like Michael Redd (and really liked him on Team USA this summer), but I don’t like anything else on this squad. For the life of me, I don’t understand why they were so insistent on bringing back Mo Williams and Charlie Bell—I don’t think either of them is really going to help the Bucks win. Yi isn’t going to be a difference maker this year, and I just don’t see a whole bunch on the roster to get me excited. [27 wins]

League overview

2007-10-28T13:37:00.000-08:00

I went and predicted results for every team in the league, and I'll share those predictions with you over the next few days (one day for the Eastern Conference, one day for the Western Conference). For now, I just wanted to share a few general thoughts I had about those predictions.

First, I made my predictions by thinking about each team, their finish last season, and the moves they made in the offseason, and then making an educated guess about how many games they would win. If someone is anal enough to go through and add up all the projected wins, that person will notice that I've predicted too many wins. Since one team needs to lose each game, the overall record of the league at the end of the regular season is always 1230-1230. My predictions give the league an overall record of 1251-1209 (626-604 Eastern Conference, 625-605 Western Conference). Clearly not actually possible. So sue me. It's the preseason--you're supposed to be overly optimistic for all the teams. (I was actually even more optimistic at first, but then I tried to adjust the numbers once I realized what I had done...and then I decided it wasn't worth the effort)

With that book-keeping out of the way, what insights do I think I gleaned from my look around the league?

1. The top teams are in the West. The top teams have been in the Western Conference for the last few years, so this observation wasn't exactly a revelation. This year I think the top five regular season teams will be in the West-- San Antonio, Dallas, Phoenix, Houston, and Utah. Those first four teams are the class of the league, and I think they'll all challenge the 60 win mark. While Utah is a step below, the Jazz are still as good as the top teams in the East over the course of the regular season (Chicago, Detroit, Boston).

2. Boston is the wild card. I don't expect Boston to be amazing over the course of the regular season because of the lack of depth, but the post-season will be a different story. Assuming the Big 3 (Garnett, Allen, Pierce) are healthy, they can play 40+ minutes a night in the post-season, making Boston's lack of depth a much less signficant factor. So don't judge Boston's title chances on their regular season record.

3. The top teams are in the West, but so are the worst teams. In predicting team records, I thought the top teams in the West would win close to 60 games while the worst teams in the West would win close to 20 games-- a 40 game spread. In the East, I thought the top teams would win close to 50 games while the worst teams would win close to 30 games-- a 20 game spread. Teams like Minnesota, Portland, Seattle, and the LA Clippers have no chance of even getting near the playoffs. In the East, I think Atlanta and Milwaukee are the only ones without a realistic chance of getting to the playoffs, and they'll still be closer than those teams from the West I just mentioned.

4. If you don't have a .500 record this season, you aren't getting into the playoffs. I think this year there are at least 10 teams in each conference that can legitimately claim a shot at having a .500 record. Maybe this is just a result of my total predicted wins being too high, but I do think that at least 8 teams in each conference will end up reaching that mark. No patsies in the playoffs this year.

5. The middle tier teams in the Eastern Conference are impossible to predict. Miami has injuries. Cleveland might be dealing with the absence of Varejao if his contract situation isn't resolved. Washington has players returning from injury, making it hard to figure out what last year's performance really means. I think one of these teams is likely to drop out of the playoffs, but I can't predict which one and I was too much of a pansy to actually make a prediction that included this belief.

6. Everyone' s favorite Cinderella team from last season, Golden State, is going to discover that the clock has hit midnight. They lost Jason Richardson and didn't really get anything in return. I don't see how they recover from that decision.

One final note-- Since I made my predictions last week, there have been a few trades (Antoine Walker to the Timberwolves) and injuries (Mike Bibby, Chucky Atkins) that probably would have impacted my predictions. I decided not to redo my predictions, but in a few cases I mention "major" events that have occurred since I made my initial predictions.

This scout stopped watching games five years ago

2007-10-28T13:19:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I'm not sure about NBA scouts...

Reading the scout's comments on the Dallas Mavericks over at CNNSI.com, I noticed this statement:

The key for Dallas is that when you get into the playoffs and people are stopping your transition game by getting back on defense, you've got to be able to run the half-court offense. The Mavericks struggle in the half-court when they have to play there on a consistent basis.

If he was talking about the Mavericks of five years ago, I'd say "Right on!" But we're not. Last season Dallas was 28th in the league in pace factor--only two teams in the league averaged fewer possession per game than Dallas. Dallas was almost exclusively a half-court team last year, and playing that style they had the second most efficient offense (points per 100 possessions) in the league (to go with the league's fifth best defensive efficiency rating).

The Mavericks don't generally struggle in the half-court; they excel at it. Obviously not the case in last year's playoffs, but generally so.

That said, this Mavericks blogger thinks the scout was dead-on with his observation. I think the blogger was mostly agreeing with the second half of the scout's discussion (not included in the quote above) in which the scout talks about Dallas' failure to make adjustments in the series and create mismatches, but it's hard to be sure.

But what do I know, I'm not a professional...(not that my amateur status is going to keep my from playing a professional on my blog!)

Ex-Celtics swapped just for fun

2007-10-25T19:54:00.000-08:00

Well, I'm sure it wasn't just for fun, but I'm still not sure what advantage both teams were looking for in the deal.

In case you haven't heard (and if you don't check basketball related websites religiously like I do, you probably haven't), the Miami Heat traded Ex-Celtic Antoine Walker, Michael Doleac, and some potato chips (potato chips = Wayne Simien and a conditional first round draft pick) to the Minnesota Timberwolves for Mark Blount and Ricky Davis.

When I first heard about the trade, my initial thought was that Kevin McHale was trying get as many former Celtics on his roster as he possibly could. Sort of like a scavenger hunt, but with real NBA players as the items you were supposed to collect.

Then I realized that both Ricky Davis and Mark Blount were also ex-Celtics, so McHale was actually lowering his number of former Celtics by making this trade. At this point, I decided it'd be impossible to figure out what the point of this trade was for either team (which doesn't mean I won't try).

As near as I can tell, this trade was done entirely for personality reasons. It's been all over the (basketball) news the last few days that Riley was unhappy with Walker for not being in condition to start training camp (I guess Shaq has a special dispensation to play his way into shape over the course of the season. Role players--and that's what Walker is these days--don't get that same luxury.) There were also reports earlier this summer (after the big trade for Garnett) that Al Jefferson hadn't really gotten along with Blount when they'd been in Boston together. If true (I have no idea), that would explain Minnesota's desire to make the trade.

In terms of playing ability, Michael Doleac and Mark Blount are basically the same player, and I don't buy the argument that Ricky Davis is a better offensive player than Walker--they're both high volume, low percentage shooters.

[brief pause as I go and actually look up Walker's and Davis' stats from last year...]

Well, it turns out Davis is a better offensive player, but not by that much. Last year Walker shot 39.5% from the filed, taking .37 shots/minute. Davis shot 46.3% from the field, taking .36 shots/minute. I was going to say that I thought Minnesota got both the better players and the better contracts (Walker's contract goes for two more years, but Blount's goes for three more years), but I guess I'll just need to say that Minnesota got the better contracts.

I guess for the first few weeks while Wade is out Davis will be an important player for the Heat, but I'm not sure I see him playing a major role once Wade returns. (And if Wade doesn't return, it really doesn't matter who the Heat have on their roster.) He can play pretty good perimeter defense, so maybe they can play him at the small forward position and have him guard the better perimeter players so Wade can rest on the defensive end. Still, I don't see this trade really doing much for the Heat's chances this year.

I'm also unclear what role Walker will have with the Timberwolves. Jefferson is clearly the centerpiece of the revamped team, and he and Walker both play the power forward spot. The Wolves could go small and play Jefferson at the center position, but if they were going to do that then I'd think they'd want Craig Smith to play the power forward position (a defensive and rebounding presence to complement Jefferson's offensive presence). The article I linked to indicated that McHale might have some other trades in the works, so my best guess is that Walker's stay in Minnesota will be a brief one.

And yes, I know that this trade doesn't impact the Sixers in any way.

Predictions galore!

2007-10-24T19:00:00.000-08:00

Good thing I've already given you my prediction for the upcoming Sixers' season, otherwise you might think that I was just copying all these predictions that have started appearing.

About.com came out with their NBA season preview yesterday (or, at least, that's when I found it). Their Sixers preview really focuses on how the Sixers' use of "small-ball" really hurt them last year, and might again this year unless Mo Cheeks stays away from those line-ups. It's a point I've made before, so I obviously think they're on to something important. No projected record for the season, but I forgive them.

The Miami Herald also got in the Sixers preview swing of things (although I'm not really sure why--maybe they did previews for all 30 teams). They laud the Reggie Evans signing, point out the critical nature of Dalembert's injury status, and pan the short-term impact of the Sixers' draft picks. Solid review, but no real surprises for someone who's been reading this website. They predict the Sixers to only win 25-28 wins this season, so I disagree with them there.

Finally, Sports Illustrated posted a good chunk of their NBA preview on-line today (maybe all of it, but I don't think so--I haven't gotten my copy in the mail yet). You can see an opposing scout's view of the Sixers here, and a more overall preview of the Sixers here. The scout's opinions generally seem on target to me-- he discusses Dalembert's importance, but also his tendency to be out of position defensively; he discusses Evans strength as a rebounder; and he puts Igoudala's importance to the team and his talents in perspective. The overall preview doesn't say much other than that the Sixers are young. SI thinks the Sixers will bring up the bottom of the Atlantic division because they more or less stayed still while the other bad teams from last season (Celtics, Knicks) made splashy moves. No need to reiterate that I think the Sixers will be around .500 this year (although I guess I just did).

Anyway, those are the previews I came across in the last 24 hours. Check 'em out!

[Update: And now ESPN.com has out its season preview. Check out the Sixers' preview here. I'll give you a hint-- they don't think the Sixers are going to be very good.]

My Sixers prediction (WP48 version)

2007-10-23T19:15:00.000-08:00

Well, after discussing my thoughts on the swing players that are going to get squeezed out of the Sixers' rotation in yesterday's post, it's time to move on to the main event.

To make things simpler on myself, for the purposes of making a Wins Produced based season prediction for the Sixers I made the assumption that none of the Sixers' rookies were going to play at all this year.* Why did I make this assumption? Two reasons: (1) I don't have WP48 numbers for the rookies, and (2) I have no good way to predict them. I'll make the assumption that the rookies will have the same WP48 as the player's that they take playing time away from. Probably not a perfect prediction, but it's as likely to benefit the Sixers as to harm them.

With those assumptions in mind, what did I predict (Reggie Evans WP48 from here, all other WP48 stats from here)?

The likely scenario (given in the form of [player] [WP48] (mins/gm) = [WP]):

Andre Miller [.161] (35) = 9.63
Andre Igoudala [.195] (37) = 12.33
Samuel Dalembert [.178] (30) = 9.12
Reggie Evans [.216] (30) = 11.07
Kyle Korver [.047] (30) = 2.41
Willie Green [-.120] (23) = -4.72
Calvin Booth [-.010] (15) = -.26
Shavlik Randolph [.158] (11) = 2.97
Louis Amundson [.061] (10) = 1.04
Louis Williams [.105] (10) = 1.79
Rodney Carney [-.105] (6) = -1.08
Kevin Ollie [.015] (3) = .08
Total = 44.39 wins!

[note: do I really think that Calvin Booth will play 15 minutes per game? No, but with Randolph coming back from injury and Amundson only having played 90 minutes all of last year, it seemed like the safe prediction to make.]

The best-case scenario (I'm not optimistic enough to predict that the Sixers drop Willie Green from the rotation, so for my best-case scenario I assume that the Sixers drop Carney, Ollie, and Booth from the rotation, play our starters slightly heavier minutes, and Randolph is healthy enough to pick up the other big man minutes that open up):

Andre Miller [.161] (35) = 9.63
Andre Igoudala [.195] (37) = 12.33
Samuel Dalembert [.178] (33) = 10.03
Reggie Evans [.216] (33) = 12.18
Kyle Korver [.047] (33) = 2.65
Willie Green [-.120] (23) = -4.72
Shavlik Randolph [.158] (20) = 5.40
Louis Amundson [.061] (10) = 1.04
Louis Williams [.105] (16) = 2.87
Total = 51.41 wins!

So there you have it. Based on WP48 and my predictions about playing time, I predict the Sixers to win between 44 and 52 games. I guess I should have also done a worse-case scenario prediction, but what' the fun in that?

In truth, my gut prediction (based on comparing the Sixers roster to the rosters of other teams) is that the Sixers will win between 40 and 42 games. I'll be really happy if the WP48 method turns out to be a better indicator of success, but I'm not sure I completely buy it. I'm already more optimistic than most predictions, and WP48 tells me I should be even more optimistic.

On the other hand, Dalembert's ongoing foot issues is making me more pessimistic.

That said, it'll be interesting to come back to this prediction over the course of the season-- looking at how actual playing time differs from my predictions, and how a WP48 prediction would have differed based on that information.

Tomorrow: Some general observations about the competitiveness of the league for this coming season.

*Yes, I know, this assumption contradicts what I said yesterday about Carney being squeezed out of the rotation in favor of Thaddeus Young. What do you want from me-- consistency?

Who isn't going to get playing time?

2007-10-22T18:25:00.000-08:00

For my Sixers' prediction, I thought I'd take WP48 numbers for the Sixers' players and then apply them based on my predictions of playing times for the various players on the roster to get at a total Wins Produced prediction.*

In trying to predict playing times, I realized that the numbers just don't add up. Someone who's expecting to get at least a decent chunk of time is probably going to spend most of the season sitting on the bench.

In particular, looking at the wing players (shooting guards and small forwards) on the Sixers' roster, I don't see how everyone is going to get playing time. The articles I've been reading talk about Andre Igoudala, Kyle Korver, Rodney Carney, Willie Green, and Thaddeus Young getting time on the wings, not to mention a few articles that talk about Louis Williams getting some playing time at the shooting guard position.

That's five players (excluding Williams) competing for 96 minutes of playing time each game (48 at each position). You can pencil Igoudala in for 35+ minutes a game (he was actually at 40/game last year), and Korver will almost certainly get 30 min/gm again as the sixth man. Once those two players are accounted for, we're really talking about 30 minutes of playing time (at most) being divided among three players.

Divide the time evenly and each player is looking at only 10 mins/gm. Well, Willie Green played 23 minutes a game last year and Carney played around 14 mins/gm. Just between the two of them, all the remaining available minutes are used up, leaving Young, our "prized" rookie, with no playing time.

As discussed yesterday, the Sixers' use of a small line-up means that more time will be available for these players (as evidenced by Green and Carney combining to play more than the remaining available small forward/shooting guard minutes last season). But the small line-up doesn't help the Sixers win games, so I don't think using it just to give players playing time is a very good idea (i.e. it's a very bad idea).

All of which circles us back around to the original point-- the numbers don't add up, and someone who is expected to see time this year is going to find themselves buried on the bench. Who's it going to be? I don't know, but my guess is that Carney will eventually find himself as the odd man out. The Sixers' coaches and management have an inexplicable love affair with Willie Green, so I imagine he'll get at least 23 mins/gm again. The battle for the remaining 10 mins/gm will then come down to Young and Carney, and I don't think Carney has shown enough to keep the Sixers' coaches from wanting to try out their shiny new toy (that would be the rookie, in case my metaphor wasn't clear).

Of course, since I don't think Green or Carney are good, and I don't expect much out of Young as a 19-year old rookie, I'm not sure it matters who the coaches end up playing for these minutes. But it does make for interesting speculation.

*(The reason WoW has given for not making specific predictions for each team is that it's too hard to guess how coaches will divide playing time for each team, but I figured it wouldn't be too hard to do for just one team. Having tried to get inside a coaches' head for one team, I can certainly understand why they didn't want to do it for 30 teams.)

Igoudala, Miller, Dalembert, and some guys off the street

2007-10-21T23:12:00.000-08:00

It's preview week here at Sixerpride!

Later in the week I'll give my specific predictions for the Sixers and the NBA as a whole, but for now we'll start by looking at the Sixers preview developed by the good folks over at the Wages of Wins.

I think the preview can be summarized pretty easily: Igoudala, Miller, and Dalembert are good, and the rest of the team is pretty worthless. Well, that's not entirely true since Reggie Evans has a very strong WP48 score, but it was true for last year's team. And with the exception of the aforementioned Evans, this year's team is pretty similar to last year's team.

Of course, since last year's team was above .500 for the second half of the season that statement isn't the death knell for the Sixers that most commentators have been treating it as.

WoW also makes two other observations about the Sixers that I think are spot on.

First, the Sixers played Willie Green and Rodney Carney significant minutes last year, and neither player is good (in fact, they're bad). Unfortunately, based on the articles I've been reading, it sounds like both players are going to be getting significant minutes again this year-- with Willie Green likely starting and Carney getting minutes as his back-up. It's not clear why the Sixers' coaches and management are so high on these two players, but I guess that's just something we need to live with as fans.

Second, the Sixers played at least 800 minutes last season with one of our small forwards (Korver or Carney) playing as the power forward in a small line-up. Neither of these players is capable of rebounding at the level needed from a power forward, so these small line-ups hurt the Sixers. Again, based on the articles I've been reading, it looks like Mo Cheeks is planning to use some small line-ups again this year (although possibly with Thaddeus Young as the power forward). Hopefully Mo Cheeks will decide against this strategy, but I'm not holding my breath.

All in all, Wins Produced gives a much more optimistic picture for the upcoming Sixers season than most other predictions. WoW doesn't give a firm prediction, but does expect the Sixers to end up with more than 35 wins.

As I've mentioned before, my personal prediction is much more in-line with this more optimistic view. But that's a story for tomorrow's (and the rest of the week's) posts.

Same old Larry Brown story

2007-10-19T22:47:00.000-08:00

If you went to ESPN.com today, you saw that the featured basketball story was about Larry Brown.

Now, when I see that story, I'm thinking "Did someone offer him a job? Did he get in a fight with someone in the Sixers' organization?"

Apparently not.

It must just have been time for ESPN to run an obligatory "what's going on with Larry Brown" article. If you remember, CNNSI.com had a somewhat similar story awhile back (see my post on it here). I'm not sure why, but they must have a contract clause somewhere that requires them to speculate about Larry Brown's future even if no current event has given them a reason to do so.

Larry Miller, stat man

2007-10-18T16:59:00.000-08:00

Apparently, Larry Miller has his own handy back of the envelope way to evaluate whether his players had a good night:

It's pretty simple: Add up points, rebounds, steals, blocks and assists. Subtract fouls, turnovers and shots taken. Then divide by minutes played. This gives you what Miller calls a player's batting average, to borrow from baseball.
[...]
A player with a batting average of .300 usually approaches All-Star status, Miller said. A player with a .400 average is definitely an All-Star and a player with a .500 average is a likely MVP candidate. Karl Malone's career average, which Miller cited, was .457.
[...]
Over the years, it regularly spit out John Stockton as the NBA's top point guard, Michael Jordan as the top shooting guard, Larry Bird as the top small forward, Malone as the top power forward and Shaquille O'Neal as the top center, Miller said.

It's presented in a slightly different format then other stat measures, but eye-balling it I see why it seems to do pretty well. Moving the pieces around a bit, you can see that points minus shots taken serves as a crude measure of scoring efficiency, steals plus rebounds minus turnovers gives a crude measure of how many extra possessions the player gains (or loses) for the team, and blocks plus assists minus fouls gives a basic measure of the player's offensive and defensive help ability. Miller's formula is actually very close to the Win Score formula.

All of these stats are also kept for a team, so do they serve as a good proxy for team performance? The short answer (based on quick look at last season's numbers): Somewhat.

The top sixteen teams based on this metric were, in order: (1) Phoenix (with a team average of .288), (2) Denver, (3) San Antonio, (4) Golden State, (5) Utah, (6) Detroit, (7) LA Lakers, (8) Dallas, (9) Washington, (10) Toronto, (11) Chicago, (12) Houston, (13) LA Clippers, (14) New Jersey, (15) Sacramento, (16) Memphis (.230).

This list includes all eight Western Conference playoff teams. It also includes five of the Eastern Conference playoff teams. Of the excluded Eastern teams, Cleveland and Miami are the next two teams on the list. If you took eight teams from each conference using this measure for last season, the only playoff team that would not make the cut would be Orlando (they'd be beaten out by our Sixers!). So as an off-the-cuff measure of who's good versus who's bad, I'd say Miller's "batting average" does a decent job.

That said, it definitely suffers from the bias that most non-possession based systems suffer from-- running teams rank higher, even if they actually aren't better. With more possessions, there are simply more opportunities to get the statistics valued by this measure. Memphis had only 22 wins last season, but in the second half of the season they played at a very high pace. Good offensive teams also benefit from this system relative to good defensive teams-- thus Golden State, Denver, the LA Lakers, and the Wizards are ranked higher than I would expect form a neutral system, while the Rockets are ranked lower. And the Cavaliers, who made it to the NBA Finals last year on the back of a fantastic defense, but a mediocre (at best) offense fall out of the top tier of teams altogether.

What's the takeaway from all of this? Well, I think it shows that the NBA has done a credible job in figuring out good statistics to track. They might not track the "best" statistics, but the statistics they do track have at least some bearing on how teams perform. The teams that do a better job acquiring the "good" stats tend to be better than the teams that end up with a ton of the "bad" stats. Put those stats into a formula that meets the common-sense test, and you'll probably end up with results that aren't too outlandish. Not an earth-shattering revelation, but always good to have this belief confirmed when you spend a lot of time looking at basketball statistics.

And this is a good thing? Why?

2007-10-17T18:10:00.000-08:00

It's a couple of days old at this point, but I was a little perplexed by something Marty Burns wrote in one of his columns over at CNNSI.com:

It's still early, but if Howard can knock down 15-footers, he could elevate himself into an MVP candidate. It wouldn't be unprecedented. Amaré Stoudemire radically improved his jumper in one summer a few years ago, taking his game to elite status.

I think it's great that Howard is working on his offensive game. The jump hooks and post moves that are also described seem great. If the Magic can go to Howard in the post, in addition to relying on him to get rebounds and finish off of feeds inside, then they'll become a very dangerous team. That said, I don't see how Howard shooting 15-foot jump shots is really a good thing.

Every time Howard sets up at 15 feet, that's a trip down the floor when he's not setting up 5 feet from the basket. He's an absolute monster underneath. Why on earth would you want him moving farther away from the basket? I just don't get.

I'll admit that I've never really enjoyed watching Shaquille O'Neal play because of how "unskilled" his game seemed, but, boy, his game sure was effective. If he had been on my team, I sure wouldn't have wanted him to start shooting 15-footers even if he could.

Versatility is great, but not when it means the player stops doing the things that make him dominant.

Not all rookies are created equal

2007-10-16T19:03:00.000-08:00

A couple of days ago I was browsing through some recaps of the NBA preseason games against teams from the EuroLeague, and I came across the recap of the Rockets-Panathinaikos game.

One line really caught my attention:

Rookie Luis Scola scored 17 points[.]

I know that Scola is in his first season in the NBA, so he's considered a rookie by the league, but do we really need to see him described that way over the course of the year?

I mean, he's 27 years old (the same age, as a I recently discovered, as the Sixers' "grizzled veteran" Reggie Evans). He's been a key member of Argentina's gold medal winning team, and he's been widely considered the best player in Europe for the last couple of years by NBA scouts. And from what I saw of him in the FIBA Tournament of the Americas, he's the real deal.

Should we really be evaluating his season the same way that we'll be evaluating Thaddeus Young's season (to take just one home team rookie as an example)? I don't think so.

I know that Kevin Durant is everyone's choice to win rookie of the year (especially now that Greg Oden is injured), but I think my money will be on Luis Scola actually being the best "rookie" this year.

[Over at ESPN.com, David Thorpe gives his take on the rookie class. It's an Insider article, but currently available to everyone, so check it out now before it goes back behind the wall. The short version: Durant is favored to win rookie of the year, followed by Scola and the other non-rookie rookie, Juan Carlos Navarro. The Sixers' rookies are both listed as "others to watch" which seems to stand for "don't bother to watch" since 16 rookies are listed before them!]

Finally finding some games here in Anchorage

2007-10-15T22:32:00.000-08:00

Last Thursday I went to the Alaska Club to play some basketball. There was an okay game, but what made the night worthwhile was that the players there told me that Monday and Wednesday nights were the best times to go to the gym for a game.

So I went to the gym tonight around 7:30 to check out the scene...and it was good.

The games didn't really get started until after 8 pm, but then there was a good group of people. Maybe 15-20 people all together, but never all there at the same time (at least not during the hour and a half I was there for). I got in the second game (which we won) and then got to play one more game (which we lost) before calling it a night around 9:30 pm. I would have stayed later, but I was supposed to be free to get a call at 9:30 (which I missed by two minutes, but that doesn't have anything to do with basketball).

In terms of the skill-athleticism-physicality balance that I prefer, I'd say the game was a bit more focused on athleticism and banging than is optimal for me, but it was still fun. Some of the players were quite skilled, but a decent chunk had athleticism that exceeded their skill level. And it was best to cover yourself if you went inside because someone was going to hit you!

Don't get me wrong--I don't want a game that isn't physical at all. Anyone who's played with me knows that I bang pretty good for a person my size (5'10, medium build), but I'm certainly not a bruiser. The first game I played tonight I guarded a guy who was 6'3", probably 240...at least (no joke, and he was still a high schooler--which raises another point: I was probably the oldest guy on the court by a good five years, most of them were still in high school and played for one of the local high school teams). I figure it'll be good for me; I'll need to get tougher with my finishing inside. I'd had an inkling that the games would be physical based on my experience last Thursday night when everyone used European-style moving screens, and tonight just confirmed.

I'm really sore right now, but it's a good sort of sore. It's good to have found a game.

CBS Sportsline thinks the Sixers should have tanked

2007-10-14T18:00:00.000-08:00

I told you I'd keep posting on season previews of the Sixers, otherwise I'd have just let this one from CBS Sportsline fall by the wayside.

One of the least informative previews I've ever seen in any forum. In fact, calling it a preview is probably being a bit too generous since all it does is talk about how not tanking last season was a terrible idea.

The writer predicts 21 wins for the Sixers, but doesn't explain why he thinks they'll be worse than last year so you're left to guess at his rationale. I'm guessing that his rationale is that 21 wins is how many John Hollinger predicted, but maybe I'm being too cynical.

Thanks, CBS Sports. I'm a much better informed Sixers fan thanks to your contribution.

At least you gave me an opportunity to be snarky.

You don't say....

2007-10-11T22:16:00.000-08:00

In an article talking about the battle for spots in the Sixers starting line-up and rotation, Phil Jasner drops this gem:

Carney could challenge if he upgrades his perimeter defense and rebounding and his perimeter shooting.

And if I grew two feet, became more athletic, and learned to swish all my shots from mid-court, then I could compete for a starting spot as well. I mean, based on this comment, what part of Rodney Carney's game does Jasner think doesn't need to be improved?

More troubling, if someone who needs to upgrade his defense, rebounding, and shooting might be competing for a starting spot, then I don't want to know what the other people competing for spots on the bench need to work on...

Noooooo!!!!! Don't start him!!!!

2007-10-10T22:33:00.000-08:00

On the heels of yesterday's post about the damage Willie Green does to the Sixers chances of making the playoffs, I came across this snippet:

Now the key is to get the starters playing well together. The starting lineup Monday could be the one that opens the season Oct. 31 at Toronto.

Andre Miller and Willie Green, the latter of whom had 10 points and an impressive driving dunk, were the guards, with Samuel Dalembert at center, and Evans and Iguodala at forward.

Well, there goes any hope that he's going to be pushed out of the rotation this year. Fantastic.

There were also some other gems in the same article.

First came the news that Cheeks is going to stress conditioning in the wake of the Sixers game against the Knicks. So you're telling me that after a week of training camp, the Sixers are just recognizing the importance of conditioning....? Again, Fantastic.

Finally, I really enjoyed this line from the same article:

Swingman Andre Iguodala, one of the better-conditioned athletes in the NBA, agreed with Cheeks' assessment of the team's physical condition against the Knicks.

Factual assertions like this one drive me crazy. Igoudala is one of the best-conditioned athletes in the NBA? Really? It might very well be true, but what's the evidence for it? Someone told the reporter this "fact" one day? Or did he just decide it on his own? And if so, based on what? I'm sure I have (and will again) made unsupported statements about players, but normally I at least preface it with some variation of "I think" or "in my opinion." In my day job (as a lawyer--well, I'm not technically a lawyer until I pass the bar exam, and I don't get my results until next month), this sort of assertion would be described as a "conclusory statement without any support." If the court says that about something you argued in a brief...let's just say it isn't a good thing. The court is probably about to say that you've lost that argument.

Say Igoudala's in good-condition. Say he does intensive cardio workouts. But if you're going to say he's one of the best-conditioned athletes in the league, please give us a reason to believe it.

Wages of Wins on Mean Willie Green

2007-10-09T23:00:00.000-08:00

Over at the Wages of Wins, they have a post up on "bad" players in the NBA. And the poster child for this post? It's no other than the Sixers' Willie Green.

I've never been a Willie Green fan, so I wasn't surprised to find out that someone else thinks he isn't a good player. On the other hand, I was astounded at how bad he is when evaluated by the Wins Produced metric. The short version: If the Sixers replaced him with an average shooting guard for the minutes he played last season (1,842 minutes), they would have won 8.4 more games. Put another way (as they do): Willie Green is as far below the average as Kobe Bryant is above it. Ouch!

The good news from all this: The post focused on Willie Green because the Wages of Wins was working on a post reviewing the 2006-07 Sixers and this information cropped up, so a full preview of the Sixers will be up at some point in the near future.

The other good news from all this: In response to a comment I left, Berri said that he didn't think the Sixers would be as bad as Hollinger's projection. I'll count that as good news, although he didn't indicate how much better he though the Sixers would be than that projection.

I'll be interested to see his preview.

He's only 27?

2007-10-08T23:57:00.000-08:00

Great to hear that Reggie Evans is becoming a vocal presence on the team. I think the fact that Andre Miller asked him to say something was a good sign--they played in Denver together, so I can't imagine Miller would have asked Evans to speak out if he didn't think that Evans could do it well.

I was shocked to see that Reggie Evans is only 27 years old. I feel like he's been around for ever. Maybe it's just because I remember him from the Sonics playoff series against the Spurs a few years ago when the Sonics just kept putting big bodies on Duncan. I thought that all the players the Sonics were using were established veterans, so I must have just classified Evans that way in my mind. The fact that he's actually still relatively young (although he's a grizzled veteran compared to many of the Sixers) is a nice bonus--if he does fit in well with the Sixers, we can hold onto him for a number of years.

Some more previews and predictions

2007-10-05T19:30:00.000-08:00

I came across a nice preview of the Sixers by Marc Narducci. Nothing staggering, but he gives a nice run-down of the players likely to be competing for playing time this season. I will just pull out one paragraph from the preview to comment on:

Dalembert will benefit from the team's offseason trade for rugged power forward Reggie Evans. He will provide next to nothing on offense but averaged 7.0 rebounds in 17.1 minutes for the Nuggets last season and could nearly double that average with the Sixers. Most important, he'll take some heat off -- and maybe fouls away from -- Dalembert by offering physical help on defense.

I absolutely think Reggie Evans will help, but I'm not sure he'll really help Dalembert stay out of foul trouble. After all, my impression is that Dalembert gets most of his fouls because he's late on rotations. Not sure how Evans corrects that problem, unless he hacks the man before Dalembert can get there!

Also, John Hollinger has posted his predictions for the season over at ESPN.com. The actually write-ups are behind the Insider subscription wall so I haven't read them, but he projects the Sixers to be last in the Eastern Conference with just 21 wins (and just one win better than the Clippers who he projects to have the worst record in the league). I think the Sixers will do substantially better than that, but I'd be curious to know what Holllinger's reasoning is for predicting such a terrible finish. If anyone reading has access to insider, let me know!

Welcome back, Aaron McKie

2007-10-03T19:00:00.000-08:00

Over the last couple of years, the NBA has had a nice little trend of hiring former players to assistant and head coaching positions. To the extent that this has opened up the coaching ranks to new blood (and not just the same coaches who were continually getting fired and rehired), I think it's been a good thing. Since most recent NBA players are black, this has also had the side effect of moving the NBA towards having a more mixed coaching community (being charitable, we'll assume that the traditional whiteness of NBA sidelines was simply the result of GMs and owners hiring people from their social networks, not the result of any hidden racial biases).

All of this is a long about way of saying, "Welcome Back, Aaron Mckie." The news was announced today that Mckie has joined the Sixers as an assistant coach. The blurb from the Associated Press is pretty short, so I'll reproduce it all here (or you can click on the previous link):

PIHLADELPHIA - Aaron McKie, who was the NBA's sixth man of the year when Philadelphia went to the NBA Finals, rejoined the 76ers as an assistant coach.
McKie averaged 7.4 points and 3.3 rebounds over a 13-year career with Portland, Detroit, the Sixers and the Los Angeles Lakers. His best season was in 2000-01 when he averaged 11.6 points and was named the league's top sixth man for the Sixers, who lost to the Lakers in the Finals.
McKie, who had his jersey retired at Simon Gratz High School in 2002, also starred at Temple. He finished his three-year career with the Owls tied for sixth on the school's career scoring list and was named Atlantic 10 Conference Player of the Year as a junior in 1993.

Will McKie be a good assistant coach? I have no idea, but I always enjoyed watching him play (first at Temple, then for Sixers after he eventually made his way here) so I'm rooting for him.

On a somewhat related note, the Sixers seem to be reaching out to former players more and more over the last few years (Mo Cheeks coming back to coach, Moses Malone was an assistant coach last year, now McKie), and as a fan it's always nice to see some continuity with your team. Maybe the Sixers have always done this, but it has just been with less visible positions. Whatever the case, I'm a fan of the trend and I hope it continues.

Why sign Igoudala to an extension now?

2007-10-02T22:30:00.000-08:00

In today's Sixers Notes, Marc Narducci shares with us the information that Andre Igoudala says he's not too concerned with his ongoing contract negotiations--his agent is taking care of it, and he's just going to play basketball.

This brief snippet leads to two comments:

(1) Good for Igoudala. You aren't supposed to let your play be affected by ongoing contract negotiations, especially when you're still under contract for another two years. I always get annoyed when I hear about Player X possibly being a distraction because of unhappiness over contract negotiations, so it's nice to see (or, at least hear) a player doing (saying) the right things.

(2) What's the hurry to sign Igoudala to an extension right now? He's under contract for this coming season and the Sixers own his rights for next season. As long as they make a qualifying offer ($3.8 million), the Sixers will have the right to match any offers that he receives next summer. As we've seen this summer with Anderson Varejao, there aren't necessarily that many teams out there willing to make offers to restricted free agents, even very good ones. If the number being bandied around for Igoudala's contract extension is $12 million per year (based on the contract Kevin Martin recently received from Sacramento), then I think the Sixers owe it to themselves to take a bit more time to evaluate Igoudala before tying up a substantial portion of their salary cap space with his contract. I made the case earlier this summer that Igoudala is more likely to be the 3rd best player on a legitimate title contender than to be the cornerstone of a contender. I stand by that claim, but for $12 million/year he would need to be more like the cornerstone that pundits describe him as. Maybe I'm wrong, but shouldn't the Sixers at least wait until after he's been the centerpiece of the team for a full season before making that decision? Like I said at the start--what's the hurry?

And the first set of rankings is out!

2007-10-01T22:32:00.001-08:00

Hard on the heels of my post yesterday, Marc Stein released his first NBA power rankings of the year. (I admit, he didn't release them because of my post; he released them because today was media day around the NBA and training camps are starting)

Not surprisingly, he had the Sixers ranked towards the bottom of the pack--27th out of 30, to be specific. As I said yesterday, I think a number of the prognosticators are going to be surprised by the Sixers this season. Of the teams that Stein had ranked ahead of the Sixers, my initial reaction is to expect the Sixers to finish ahead of the Hawks, Kings, Knicks, Trailblazers, and Sonics. I also wouldn't be surprised to see them finish ahead of the Bobcats and Bucks. If all that comes to pass, the Sixers would be one of the top 20 teams in the NBA. Obviously nothing to write home about, but substantially better than what Stein is predicting.

I'll wait until training camp is over to make my official predictions for the year, but I'll give my thoughts on the predictions from mainstream publications as a I come across them.

Does last year mean anything?

2007-09-30T20:39:00.000-08:00

An article in the Inquirer raises the question: does last year's end-of-season success actually mean anything for this coming season?

As the article says:

King believes the players will carry the momentum from the last 26 games of the season, when the Sixers went 17-9.

Normally, I'm not one for putting much stock into a strong end to a season. If you keep playing hard, you get some easy wins over teams that have checked out for the season. Considering the allegations of tanking that floated around the end of this season (so that teams would have a better shot at winning the draft lottery and getting Oden or Durant), this past season seems like it would be a candidate for having even more of these sorts of wins occurring than most years. You can also normally get a cheap win over a playoff team that has clinched its position and is taking its last game or two easy. Players with lingering injuries who might have played through pain earlier in the season often will also shut it down for the remainder of the season if their team isn't going anywhere.

The other reason for not normally putting much stock in late season surges is because there is often enough roster turnover before the start of the next season to make the performance of last year's team not particularly helpful. In the case of the Sixers, there has not been that much roster change so I think the end-of-season performance might give some indication of how they'll perform, particularly since the roster went through such major changes halfway through last season. (Basically, the Sixers added Reggie Evans and Calvin Booth in the off-season to replace Joe Smith and Steven Hunter. I like the addition of Evans, but for now I'll treat it as a fairly equal substitution.)

Andre Miller joined the Sixers on Tuesday, December 26. Then, Chris Webber was released before the Sixers game on January 12 (I don't remember if he was released the day before or not, but he was not on the roster for the game that night). Rather than look at just the last 26 games of last season, I think we can get a better sense of the Sixers by looking at all the games they played since those changes occurred. This method might underestimate them a little bit because it includes games when the new roster was trying to figure out how to play with one another, but it also might overestimate them a little bit because it includes wins in those late season, meaningless games. So with all those caveats, what happened since those changes?

Including the January 12, 2007 game against the Bucks, the Sixers went 26-21 after adding Miller and dropping Webber. Not too shabby considering their overall record. If you break the numbers out by month, you see that the Sixers went 6-6 in January, 5-6 in February, 9-6 in March, and 6-3 in April. Looking at these numbers, I see two plausible scenarios. First, you could say that the Sixers immediately became a .500 team, and then they really came together once they had the days-off to practice around the all-star break. In this scenario, the Sixers' record in March and April (a combined 15-9) is the true indication of their actual ability. This story seems to be the one that the Sixers management and coaching staff believe (or, at least, the one that they're telling to the media). The other scenario is that the Sixers are legitimately a .500 team, as indicated by their record in January and February, and that the better showing in March and April was the result of other teams shutting it down for the season.

Which do I believe? I probably lean a little more towards the latter story, but, in one of the world's great cop-outs, I think the truth is probably in-between the two scenarios. Quite frankly, either scenario would be really exciting. In both cases the Sixers project to being at least .500 this coming year; and in the Eastern Conference, .500 makes you a play-off team. I doubt any of the experts will predict the Sixers to make the playoffs this year, but it shouldn't really come as a surprise if they do.

All of a sudden, I'm a lot more excited for this upcoming NBA season.

Michael Conley's dribbling workout

2007-09-27T20:36:00.000-08:00

Over at Yardbarker, Michael Conley posts some video footage of his summer dribbling workouts. Nothing too surprising if you've seen dribbling workouts before, but it is some nice footage.

What struck me was that I felt like I could tell what hand was his dominant hand just from watching the footage. Now if we were talking about me (or any other rec player, or even college player), I wouldn't think a noticeable difference in dribbling ability between hands was a big deal. For an NBA level point guard, however, I think it does raise some flags. Of course, I've never seen footage of any other NBA point guard doing these drills, so maybe even this noticeable difference between his hands isn't that big a deal in the context of the sort of dribbling that actually is necessary during an NBA game.

Go take a look at the footage and see if you can tell a difference between his dribbling ability with each hand (and then come back!).

***************************

Gone and looked? Watching the footage, I immediately asked, "Is he left-handed?" I don't watch much college basketball, so I had just assumed he was right-handed (I did watch a few Ohio State games, so maybe I should have noticed). A quick google search turned up the information that while he's a "natural" right-hander (he writes and pitches right-handed), he bats and shoots left-handed, apparently having decided to do so in grade school. Generally speaking, he's considered a left-handed basketball player. Maybe I was seeing something that wasn't there, but I definitely thought this left-dominance was noticeable in the dribbling videotape. If I have the chance to see him play this year (I'm not sure that the Grizzlies are going to be appearing on my TV screen that often), I'm definitely going to be watching closely to see if it makes a noticeable difference during the course of an NBA game.

Changing to international rules

2007-09-26T21:20:00.000-08:00

Via TrueHoop, we get the news that Canadian college basketball will be adopting international (i.e. FIBA) rules for the coming season. This change reportedly leaves the USA as the only country not playing under FIBA rules. I don't necessarily think FIBA rules are better than the NBA rules, but I also don't see how they're any worse. I think I'd be perfectly happy if the NBA decided to adopt FIBA rules (or at least the FIBA court dimensions).

Yes, the lane is wider, but the NBA lane has been widened before to open up the middle (I believe it was widened originally because of George Mikan and then widened again later). Skilled big men will still be able to post-up even with the wider lane, and other players will have more room to cut through the lane. The only "downside" I can see is that power players will find it harder to catch the ball in the post and bulldoze the defenders until they're under the basket because they'll be starting from further away. Somehow the possible elimination of this sort of play doesn't make me feel particularly sad.

And, yes, the international 3-point line is shorter than the NBA 3-point line, but who cares? "People" (I hate the using the amorphous "they," but I don't feel like searching through old articles to find specific examples) say that the problem with a closer 3-point line is that it allows defenders to sag more into the lane and still recover to the shooters. Well, I have a pretty simple solution to that problem--tell the shooters to shoot from a few feet behind the 3-point line (i.e. from the distance they're currently shooting from). Either the extra space this spacing creates is worthwhile or its not, but offenses can choose whether they prefer the closer, more contested shot or the more distant, less contested shot. Nothing forces players to shoot 3-pointers from closer to the basket just because the line has been moved in.

I know American pride might be hurt by the idea that the rules of "our" game (we invented it, damn it!) are being handed down by people from other countries, but sometimes being part of an international game means needing to relinquish control of it in some ways. I doubt the NBA will switch to FIBA rules anytime in the near future, but I think it'll happen eventually.

Mo Cheeks and Larry Brown

2007-09-25T21:15:00.000-08:00

In a column from late last week, Ian Thomsen reports that Larry Brown almost accepted a position as an assistant coach with the Boston Celtics.

This report amazed me for a few reasons. First, can you imagine how confident Doc Rivers must feel in his position as coach of the Celtics? I don't know what Danny Ainge told him about his job security, but it must have been something really good considering how much criticism Doc gets from the Boston media (and the media in general). I don't care who you are (unless your name is Phil Jackson), I would imagine you would need to feel a bit insecure in your job as head coach if your GM knew that he just needed to fire you to have Larry Brown step-in as the new head coach. He might have had a terrible year with the Knicks, but Larry Brown is still a coaching legend. Brown's reputation for always angling for his next job probably wouldn't make you feel any more secure.

The second thing that amazed me is that Brown was ready to accept the offer, but Ed Snider and Billy King talked him out of it. Considering that Brown is staying away from Sixers practices because everyone knows his presence would lead to rumors that would undercut Mo Cheeks, I'm not sure I understand exactly why maintaining Brown's services in the executive suite is so important to the Sixers. He might be a coaching legend, but I have no idea what value Brown adds as an executive. Possibly King just likes having him there as a friend (since Brown helped him get the job in the first place) or possibly keeping him was really about keeping him from helping the Celtics or possibly he really is an amazing administrator, but from my outsider vantage point I don't really understand why he received the full court press.