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Understanding Advanced Stats: The Difficulty Of Defense

March 20, 2012 in by with 7 Comments

Continuing the quest to bridge the gap, another edition in the Hardwood Paroxysm series of Understanding Advanced Stats

One of the hardest things to quantify in basketball is the value of individual defense. The eyeball test can at times be as reliable as statistics here, but it can also fool you all the same. Remember that although it helps, “intensity” doesn’t automatically equal good defense (looking at you Mr. Kobe Nine-Time All-NBA Defensive First Team Bryant).

The standard blocks or steals per-game numbers are also very misleading — a good help defender can net dozens of rejections while being a poor man-D and/or rotation-D defender, and no one in their right mind would accuse steals leaderboard regular Monta Ellis of being a good defender. Even Chris Paul, who regularly leads the NBA in steals, is something more a gambler than an actual lockdown defender as many assume when browsing numbers.

Having a preconceived notion of a player’s abilities due to the standard accepted old school stuffed box score of stats, or a prominent analyst’s opinion, can then skew the viewer creating a bias in the mind’s eye. Because individual defense is so difficult to measure in the NBA we often make assumptions and excuses for particular plays or players. Reputations often rule masses, single spectacular plays net new contracts (has anyone made more money and gotten more burn off of a single clothesline than Raja Bell?).

Unlike on offense, there is no one place to go to get a fairly definitive defensive feel of a player — it really takes trips to a few different sites before we have enough information assimilated to even begin getting an accurate feel for a player on the D end that we can then take with us to the game.

Let’s start by taking a look at an All-NBA Defensive First Team selection from last season, one Kobe Bean Bryant, at BasketballReference. As you may recall from previous posts here at HP, lower is better for DRtg (defensive rating).

Kobe actually looks pretty on par by this rating, right at his career average. Let’s dig deeper, next stop 82Games, and opponent PER (player efficiency rating).

While PER isn’t universally accepted as an accurate offensive measure, it lends itself as a very useful tool as a piece of the defensive stats puzzle — there isn’t, after all, “opponent win shares,” or “opponent wins produced” — and while imperfect, it does have a place in furthering our quest. Keep in mind that we are always wary of small sample sizes.

Kobe Bryant, 2010-11 season

Bearing in mind that 82Games says “all stats reflect assigned responsibility to a player” when positional assignments are charted, Kobe looks pretty good here as well (15.0 is considered the “average NBA player” PER). As with DRtg, opponent PER can’t be trusted as a stand alone D-stat — there’s just too many variables, such as maybe his counterpart simply stinks at shooting the ball, a big portion of the PER formula, or that a team’s D-scheme may include a couple of towering seven-foot beasts that tend to force opposing guards to want to take a lot more lower-percentage long twos than they normally would, etc. Just because Kobe is assigned an offender on paper doesn’t strictly mean he defensed that player on a particular play.

For comparison, since we brought him up, Chris Paul’s opponent PER

My eyeballs have been telling me a different story concerning Kobe for some time, so since we’re seeking truth and not confirmatory bias, and knowing now that D-stats are difficult to quantify, we will continue on to another metric to see if it again holds up.

Over at mySynergySports we find dedicated cameras recording every play by every player in every game, then categorized by type. The result is a comprehensive points-per-possession rating, otherwise known as PPP, with accompanying video.

Note: While quite comprehensive, the calculation of PPP, as with any stat, does have it’s flaws as well, one of which is the inclusion of turnovers as a negative mark. This has the unfortunate effect of having a tendency to rate high usage guards, such as Kobe and point guards, lower offensively since they handle the ball much more, therefore turning it over more often, generally speaking. But that has no effect on defensive stats other than that maybe a particular player may have a penchant for floating around in passing lanes or anticipating passes, like say, Kobe or Chris Paul. While this is technically defense, it’s not exactly what one peruses when pursuing defensive measures of a player.

Kobe Bryant, 2010-11 season

Giving up 0.89 PPP overall isn’t awful. It’s not great either, especially when one considers that of the approximately 450 players in the NBA at any given time only about 300 or less are getting significant playing time (Kobe ranked 216 overall on defense, as you can see).

Kobe is good at isolation D and quite often guarded the opposing point guard, as we can glean from his second-largest sample size of 24.1% on the P&R (pick-and-roll) Ball Handler (duh, Derek Fisher. If I was Phil I’d have put Kobe on ‘em too). The best way to expose Kobe on defense is to come off a screen (he doesn’t like chasing guys around. At all.), or make your spot-up shot, where he allowed 1.01 PPP, which was by far the most used method to take advantage of the aged wonder at 40% of the time Kobe defended opposition.

You see, Kobe will play off you, dare you to shoot, because he just loves getting in those kinds of contests where he excels. They get him goin’. He thrives on ‘em. What he doesn’t thrive on is playing defense. Sure, he’ll gnash his teeth,  jut his jaw, talk smack, and stare you down something serious, but when it’s time he mostly just likes to occupy a spot to one side of the free throw line and take jabs at the ball as it passes in the paint. If he has to, he’ll offer a token couple of steps at a close-out with one hand up at the jump shooter. He’s not wasting precious offensive energy playing defense these days.

This is typical of a Bryant defensive setup. He’ll mostly just stand right about there waiting for the ball to come back to him on offense.

Kobe’s man here is CJ Miles, whom Bryant is playing way off of. Bryant has little or no respect for opposing shooters (notice he has his back to his man, granted Kobe knows his scouting reports and all, but this is also typical of Bryant on defense regardless), opting to occupy a space he doesn’t have to move much more than a couple of steps at.

Miles sees Kobe’s manner of defense on him and will astutely take advantage of it a few possessions later. No, not with an ill-advised three. Watch.

Again, same basic setup.

Paul Millsap has the ball, and Kobe’s full attention, inexplicably, on the low block. Pau Gasol has had a little trouble with Millsap this night, but Ramon Sessions is right there ready to cheat down on a double if necessary. Yet Kobe floats over anyway, and as he does he opens up a huge lane that Miles recognizes.

As Miles makes his move Kobe continues to gravitate toward the ball, y’know, cause it’s Kobe and all. He can’t help it. Notice the passing lane Millsap now has thanks to Kobe as Miles cuts to the paint.

You could drive a Kia through that passing lane and a Mack truck through that cutting lane. Millsap takes full advantage of his underrated court vision after pulling three of the floor’s five defenders to him and dishes off to the cutting Miles for an easy layup attempt.

Watch where you're pointing that finger, Mike Brown

No, Bryant doesn’t always make it this easy on opposing players to get clean looks, but he rarely challenges with more than a token effort. If you can shoot even a little, Bryant will let you try.

Watching every defensive spot-up play defended by Bryant in last season’s playoffs, Kobe’s man made 23, missed 26, and fouled three times. Assigning one point per foul, Bryant gave up 49% shooting to his man in the playoffs last year.

Perspective? Only three qualified shooting guards in the NBA last season made at least that from the floor, Dwyane Wade, Arron Afflalo, and Ray Allen, the latter two extremely good mid-range-to-long shooters by perimeter player standards (here’s your cue to go check em out at HoopData). After that the drop-off is pretty steep to DeMar DeRozan and Kobe himself, at .467 and .451 respectively. The median qualified shooting guard last season shot 44% from the floor, so Kobe gave up at least 5% more than he should have in the playoffs with his “defense.” To guys like Trevor Ariza, Marco Belinelli, Peja Stojakovic, and Jason Kidd, who together averaged .405 from the floor in the regular season.

And yes, he gave ‘em plenty of room to do it in. Ring up another victory for advanced stats.

_____

• Chris Paul’s 2010-11 Synergy defensive numbers

• Kobe’s current Synergy defensive numbers for the 2011-12 season. Interesting to note here that while spot-up and iso numbers remain about the same we see a pretty big drop-off in his ability to cover the ball handler this year. And while his overall rank is better this year than last, that’s as likely attributed to a league-wide fall-off in FG% due to the shortened season as anything else

• Handy sortable “simple ratings” from 82Games already sorted for you by opponent PER (remember, click the column heading)

• Dozens of sortable team and player stats by position from HoopStats based on efficiency differential (which they call Diff. Eff. Same thing), yet another metric you can use to fill in a piece to the D-puzzle

• A little something I’d like to see revisited and updated from Rohan Cruyff, defensive pace factor

HoopIdea: Embrace The Assist, Everyone Wins

March 20, 2012 in by with 1 Comment

Via Flickr - Toban Black

Over at the mothership Henry Abbott and the boys have begun a fan input session known as HoopIdea whose purpose is to further the game by expanding resources into the cyberworld, taking in new ideas on how to improve the basketball experience.

Assist:

A pass that directly leads to a basket

-Basketball U, NBA.com

 

Only the pass directly before the score may be counted as an assist… A pass that leads to a shooting foul and scoring by free-throws does not count as an assist.

-Hoopedia, NBA.com

But why? That last is counter-intuitive, seemingly penalizing a good play resulting from teamwork. Considering the often isolation-heavy nature of the NBA game today wouldn’t we want to promote and reward good teamwork? Not to mention that it’s simply common sense in the purest form in the spirit of the assist stat itself.

Long a staple of team play, the NBA big man is passing less and less these days, even as overall field goal percentages have been on the rise. David Stern has been very conscious of, and sensitive to, where his teams’ points-per-game stand on an annual basis, even tweaking defensive rules for several years to promote up-tempo pace and scoring, and to much success; this odd, shortened season aside, scoring in the NBA has hovered around the hallowed 100 PPG mark for several years now.

However, these same rules have also in part had the unintended effect of creating a brand of basketball that tends to reward hero-ball and somewhat selfish play. That’s not good basketball. Good basketball includes a lot of movement, not a lot of dribbling resulting in a low percentage clanker or hefty doses of momentum-freezing free throw line stoppages from ball-dominant, high usage players. When did we forget that a passed ball moves faster than a man?

Let’s say Andrew Bynum receives the ball on the low block and spots a streaking Matt Barnes as the double-team comes, whom he then dumps off to. Barnes, ahead of his man, finishes the play at the rim. Bynum is rewarded with an assist.

But what if the beat defenders aren’t happy about it, deciding they’d rather burn a foul than let Barnes and Bynum pad the stat box? Well, then Barnes is still rewarded for his part with a trip to the free throw line. Bynum, however, is not rewarded for making an unselfish play instead of forcing up an awkward attempt.

Just one of dozens of possible scenarios, give the assist-man some love here by rewarding him with 0.5 assists per made free throw. Isn’t that, after all, “a pass that directly leads to a basket,” the very definition of a basketball assist? Once that whistle blows the play is paused, officially resuming again only after leather meets iron or twine (or in the worst-case scenario, for the shooter at least, he draws no iron nor twine, essentially turning the ball over).

The man at the line is suddenly more motivated to help a teammate want to help him more by making this fundamental freebie, thereby also raising a game’s overall scoring at the same time as it leaves a man beaming for getting something in return for his unselfish play in the flow of an offense, while also causing a potentially cheap-shot defender from thinking twice about putting a more motivated shooter to the line.

Unselfish play is rewarded. Teammates are more motivated. The product is improved.

Everyone wins.

 

 

No, You’re Wrong: Trade Deadline Edition

March 16, 2012 in by with 2 Comments

Photo By @Seth_Bawl on Twitter

Connor Huchton and Scott Leedy like to argue. Instead of shouting at each other on Twitter, they’ve decided to try something more constructive: an actual, semi-coherent email conversation. What you see below are the results. 

Leedy: So this trade deadline…Where do we start? The Portland fire sale? The will he…won’t he..I think he might…no, he won’t….then he does Dwight saga? Daryl Morey striking yet again? NO, WE START WITH DENVER.

Huchton: Yes, let’s start with Denver. What seems pretty clear is this: For Denver, the trade was about unloading a scary contract. After an already disappointing season for Nene, four more years of that contract was probably a frightening proposition. If you can get a good, if Wizards-y, player like Javale McGee while also unloading  that contract, it’s a win. Maybe they won’t be able to keep McGee, and maybe this hurts the team’s playoff chances, but it saves them from a likely bad, weighty contract. With the new CBA, that’s considered a victory by many front offices.

Leedy: Indeed. The more I think about it, the more I like the trade quite a bit. I think McGee has a lot of ability that he’s yet to really fulfill; whether he can actually capitalize on this opportunity remains to be seen. This trade is great for the Nuggets in the long-term and perhaps not as bad in the short term as some might think, provided Karl plays the right people the right amount of minutes. As you know, I’ve long championed the Nuggets as a possible contender in the West. I think that’s pretty much dead now, as my hopes were contingent on Nene being both healthy and playing well. I think the Nuggets realized there was a pretty good chance that might not even happen this year and beyond that, it was likely to get ugly sooner rather than later. Coincidentally, how many general managers are doing a better job than Masai Uriji?

Huchton: A few, but not many. I’m lukewarm about the move, because I think it makes the Nuggets a slightly worse team but saves a ton of money going forward, but I do like when front offices have a sound, logical plan. I’m not sure the Nets can say the same.

Speaking of the Nets, what was the worst deal of the day?

Leedy: It depends on what you mean by that, but I’ll take the team that made the worst move. It’s the Nets, who gave up their lottery pick to get Gerald Wallace. This team likely isn’t going to have a superstar next year, and they needed to be focused on rebuilding rather than making a desperation attempt to convince Deron Williams to stay. Even if that was the logic behind this deal, it still doesn’t make a ton of sense. The Nets failed big time yesterday.

Huchton: Let’s pretend you’re the Nets.

1) You traded several significant assets for a top 10 player with about 1.5 years left on his contract. It’s an acceptable, if risky move. But time is already short. You’re moving to Brooklyn soon, a high-profile change that could be catapulted by the presence of said player, one Deron Williams. Again, time is quickly escaping your grasp.
2) You fail to sign any significant free agents in the rushed 2011 offseason.
3) Your franchise’s second best player, young center Brook Lopez, goes down with a foot injury before the season begins. The team is no longer able to compete at a respectable level with any consistency, and the season begins poorly. On a positive note, late first-round draftee MarShon Brooks is better than expected. You now have another player you can seek to retain upon a move to Brooklyn. On a more negative note, your starting center is now Johan Petro.
4) You reportedly try to trade Lopez throughout the first half of the season in order to acquire Dwight Howard, but ultimately fail.
5) With Howard now unlikely to join the team for at least another year, you’re now grasping for straws. How can you keep soon-to-be free agent Deron Williams in free agency with few good players under contract, and with Howard now unlikely to join the team until 2013?
6) You trade a top-3 protected pick, along with two unimportant (in regards to your team’s long-term future) players, for Gerald Wallace, an aging, but still capable, wing player. You are now within reach of the Eastern Conference 8th seed, if Lopez quickly regains his health.
7) You have now further mortgaged your future for the sake of convincing Deron Williams that all future appearances are positive, in truly stretching fashion.
8) If Deron Williams leaves in free agency, you are left with MarShon Brooks, an unsigned Brook Lopez, and very little else.
9) Welcome to Brooklyn. Hope you like it here.

I understand the Nets’ choice, though it seems rooted in desperation. That necessary desperation is a product of both the franchise’s own choices and unfortunate circumstances, but it’s bound to exist and motivate all the same.

Leedy: I don’t really now how to respond to this other than to say, “YES.” So what about the Lakers? I think this Sessions move makes them more of a threat in the Western Conference. Are they better than the Thunder? Probably not, but it isn’t inconceivable that they could beat them in a series.

Huchton: I’m not a big believer in this Lakers’ team. And they aren’t suddenly as good as the Thunder. But I don’t really know how good they are, or will be. This isn’t something we’ve seen before with the Lakers, at least not for many years: a fully competent, above-average point guard leading the team. How’s Kobe going to react to that?

I have a theory that part of the reason Kobe loved playing with Fisher so much emanated from a wish to play alongside a completely deferential point guard, someone who moved the ball to Kobe without any hesitation at almost any given moment. Sessions isn’t going to do that. The rhythm of the offense, to some extent, is going to change. So I’m interested to see how the team reacts to that, and whether it improves, as it’s rightfully expected to with Sessions and Hill joining the rotation.

Leedy: That would make sense, given Kobe’s attitude and persona, but Fisher is so terrible at this point that they had to do something. I think even Kobe realized that. They aren’t better than the Thunder, but they also can’t be easily dismissed, given how good their front line is. Speaking of Western Conference contenders, do you think Jax helps the Spurs?

Huchton: My first instinct is to say no. Stephen Jackson is 33 years old and played terribly for almost the entirety of his time with the Bucks. He shot under 36% and has a PER below 10. But it’s a forgivable move for the Spurs for three reasons:

1) Richard Jefferson hasn’t been much better than Jackson has this year.
2) They both have unseemly contracts, but Jefferson’s contract has an added year of duration.
3) Jackson didn’t fit in with Milwaukee (at all), but the Spurs’ franchise, including Popovich and Duncan, seem to like him quite a bit.

So I understand the move for the Spurs, and maybe Jax helps them. He’s more generally talented than Richard Jefferson, if nothing else. But this seems more like a replacement based in freeing up cap space, with the added hopes of a possible scoring spark that pushes the Spurs into full-fledged championship contender status, than anything else.

Leedy: I think he could help them a lot, mostly because the Spurs have the necessary players and the perfect coach to allow Jackson to maximize whatever ability he has left. We have to at least talk a little bit about the Blazers fire sale and the firing of McMillan, right? I think both made a lot of sense, and getting a lottery pick for Gerald Wallace was a pretty damn good get. Also, anyone who’s complaining about not moving Crawford and Felton, I don’t really understand. Felton was essentially untradable and getting Blake back on the Blazers would’ve been pretty much the worst thing of all time.

Huchton: I won’t prod at the hyperbole of that last sentence, because I know these are trying times for Blazers’ fans. But I think something poignant and representative of the NBA can be found in what the Blazers did at the deadline. A somewhat competitive team does their absolute best to trade several players and create a new identity, but is unable to deal Jamal Crawford and Raymond Felton, the two players pegged as most responsible for the team’s gradual demise.

Trade Deadline: The Atlanta Hawks Make An Incredibly Unimportant Trade

March 16, 2012 in by with 0 Comments

Photo by Donald Lee Pardue on Flickr

The Hawks, as expected, didn’t make any major trades by today’s 3 p.m. deadline. Instead, they sent a second-round pick to Golden State for cash to help offset their first-ever luxury-tax bill that will be due at season’s end.

Under CBA rules, picks can be sold for up to $3 million but the Hawks will receive much less for their pick since first-round picks routinely sold for $3 million under the old CBA. In addition, under the new CBA there is an annual cap of $3 million on cash involved in trades, further driving down the price of picks.

via The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Hawks Blog: Atlanta Hawks: Hawks trade second-round draft pick for cash

Lost in all the clamor and analysis of “meaningful” trades, benignity reigned in Atlanta. The Blazers dealt players with impressive frequency, the Lakers and Rockets upgraded at different positions, and the Nuggets made a leap of faith. What did the Atlanta Hawks do? The franchise enacted the most minuscule and practical deal of the day, and made the least eventful move possible.

If this is the first you’re reading of the Hawks’ sport-shattering deal, you’re not at fault. The system has failed you. The Internet has failed you. While the rest of the general blogs were off covering a myriad of shifting, ultimately meaningless trades, you were sitting at home, completely unaware of what the Hawks’ franchise was doing. But here at Hardwood Paroxysm, we wouldn’t allow that. The Hawks may not be our first priority in regards to astute coverage, but meaningless NBA moments certainly are.

Am I insinuating that the Hawks freeing up a couple million dollars in payroll is more interesting than Nick Young being traded to the Clippers? Maybe, maybe not. But do I believe singularly purposed, widely unrecognized trades deserve their moment in the sun? Yes, I do. There can be no question as to why the Hawks traded a second-round pick to the Warriors, but there can be many questions as to why a team like the Bucks chose to trade Andrew Bogut. It may have been a move grounded in improving team morale, stemming from a great belief in Monta Ellis, or based upon a simple wish to free up future cap space. The Hawks, in contrast, hold no interest in nebulous motivations.

While the NBA office whirred with activity, and media everywhere analyzed the fine points of complicated deals, the Hawks’ franchise (and by extension, the Warriors) allowed a quick respite from the madness. The Hawks made a simplistic deal with likely no long-term NBA ramifications on Thursday, and for that, they should be noticed, if not necessarily saluted or commended.

Trade Deadline: Portland is Tank City

March 15, 2012 in by with 2 Comments

I suddenly like this a lot. RT @: The proposed 2012 draft pick in Wallace deal would be protected only through the top 3 spots.
March 15, 2012 12:10 pm via Twitter for iPhoneReplyRetweetFavorite
@shighkinNBA
Sean Highkin

The Portland Trail Blazers were finally the ones to do it. In a series of moves, the GM-less Blazers embraced a philosophy that has been espoused by NBA pundits, writers and bloggers for a while now: they have broken up a middling fringe playoff team that was never going to contend for a championship as it was currently constructed, content to bottom out for the rest of this season and build from scratch through the draft and free agency. And they fired the coach of the sinking ship for good measure.

When the Blazers traded multiple first round picks for Gerald Wallace last season, it was with the intention of adding him to a blossoming core that included a budding star in LaMarcus Aldridge, a once-and-possibly-future star in Brandon Roy, rising youngsters like Nic Batum and Wesley Mathews and the possibly returning defensive stalwart center Greg Oden (at the time). When they then moved Andre Miller for Raymond Felton on draft day in 2011, it seemed they had completed the nucleus of what should have been a Western Conference contender for the next half-decade.

Despite Roy’s retirement and Oden’s umpteenth knee injury, the Blazers started off the season on fire. Nate McMillan’s normally slow and deliberate bunch was running up and down the floor with abandon, Felton and Aldridge had developed instant chemistry in the pick-and-roll, Mathews and Batum were filling the wings capably, Jamal Crawford was providing scoring off the bench and at 7-2 after the first couple weeks of the season, this group looked like legitimate contenders. Even as their record slid back toward .500 as the season moved along, their point differential suggested that they were much better than that record might indicate.

But somewhere along the way, it appears that McMillan lost the team and they began to implode. It’s gotten really ugly. The Blazers have gone 5-11 since February 11th, losing 7 games by double digits. This last week, in what seemed to be the final straw, they got blown out in 4 of their 5 roadies, beating only the Wizards. The Timberwolves, Celtics, Pacers and Knicks beat them by a combined 89 points (a 42-point loss to the Knicks yesterday helped things).

So whoever is really running the Blazers, whether it’s owner Paul Allen or interim General Manager Chad Buchanon, woke up today and decided that this group wasn’t working to work out and the only solution was to burn it all down. And burn it down they did. Gerald Wallace was sent to the New Jersey Nets for Mehmet Okur, Shawne Williams and the Nets’ top-3 protected 2012 first round pick. Marcus Camby was shipped to Houston for Hasheem Thabeet, Johnny Flynn and a future second round pick. Nate McMillan was sent packing. The Blazers, undoubtedly, are worse today than they were yesterday.

Wallace was their second best player after LaMarcus Aldridge, one of the most consistent forwards in the league. He’s a very capable defender on both the wing and the block, can play the 3 or the 4 and is a terrific rebounder and terror in the open court. Camby, despite his offensive limitations, is still an extremely sound defensive center. Without them, Portland’s slightly above averaged 13th ranked defense will get worse, as will their slightly below average 17th ranked rebounding rate. McMillan had been the coach of the team since 2005. His 34-year old assistant Kaleb Canales will take the reins. The Blazers currently sit in 11th place in the Western Conference, and without Wallace and Camby, they should drop even further in the standings.

The players they acquired won’t be very useful this season, and what remains of the team that imploded shouldn’t get much better. They’re bottoming out, plain and simple. For the rest of the year, they’ll embrace the suck. And it’s the right move, because things will get better, sooner.

Tanking the season isn’t the most admirable strategy, but it’s not against the rules. Embracing the letter of the law, if not exactly the spirit, will help the Blazers more than it will hurt them. The team likely won’t be very fun to watch for the rest of this season, but at least management recognized a situation that wasn’t working, formulated a plan and set it in motion. The Blazers will be brutal for a while, but they’ll be better off down the road.

Portland still has Aldridge under contract through the 2014-15 season, and they now have three years in which to assemble a team that will make him want to stick around even longer than that. They’ll likely have two lottery picks in what is one of the deepest drafts in years – their own and New Jersey’s as long as it doesn’t land in the top 3 – and have just $26 million in committed salary for next season without options. Batum will be a restricted free agent, and now that Wallace is gone it’s hard to see the Blazers not matching whatever he gets offered on the open market. And even though Dwight Howard will not hit free agency this summer, there will still be a robust group of players available that can help Portland build toward a brighter future.

Anatomy Of A Dunk Clip: Gerald Green

March 15, 2012 in by with 3 Comments

Photo by Crossett Library Bennington College on Flickr

I can’t stop watching this Gerald Green dunk from five days ago in a game against the Houston Rockets:

There’s simply no question that it’s a great dunk, just as impressive as Blake Griffin’s shoryuken of Kendrick Perkins, but different. In fact, these two dunks expose the dual nature of the dunk itself: on one hand, it can be a tremendously physical, assaultive act and on the other hand it can be fluid and quasi-balletic. In much the way that some running backs crush linemen to get yardage while others juke and spin their way up the field, so some dunkers smash and others soar.

But what keeps me coming back to this particular dunk again and again is not precisely the dunk itself, but rather the totality of the clip. The above clip illustrates why a great in-game dunk clip is the gift that keeps on giving. Let me take you back, as I often seem to do, to Greek tragedy. A huge part of the way the plays of Sophocles, Euripides, and Aeschylus work is through the tension between the audience’s understanding of the play and the characters’ inability to understand the play from within it. For example, we as the audience know that Oedipus has killed his father and married his mother but he does not, and so our enjoyment of the play comes from Oedipus’ understanding gradually reaching the same level as our own.

In the flow of the game, Green’s dunk is barely comprehensible. It happens so fast that we’re left only with the understanding that something kind of incredible just happened. As we watch the replay, or watch the clip again and again on YouTube, we can now see it and know what’s going to happen and so we get to enjoy the blossoming understanding of those who are just reacting to the moment. As you watch it again, take a look at the setup as the break evolves with MarShon Brooks leading it:

This is a pretty typical two-on-one fast break. Brooks sees Green coming up the other side of the floor and makes the smart play by throwing it up for him. At this point, we’re already expecting a dunk—there’s a clear path to the basket and Green is a terrific leaper—but most of the time this results in a straightforward two-handed dunk or, more likely, a basic one-handed jam.

But instead, Green jumps higher than really seems possible and delivers the windmill, turning this picayune fast break into something incredible. Take a moment to appreciate these two stills, which are separated by only a frame:

Somehow, every time you watch it, the sheer height of his jump manages to be surprising. You can watch it all day and the dunk itself just grows and grows. But what’s even more fun to pay attention to on repeated viewing is the reaction of the other players. I can let Kris Humphries’ face explain it to you:

It’s not the first time Kris has made that face, but maybe the first time that it hasn’t been related to a Kardashian. Allow me also to refer you to the Rockets’ bench:

Keep in mind this is the OPPOSING TEAM’S bench. It’s worth going back and watching the clip again just to observe their reaction. It’s like Kevin Martin and company are sitting on electrified chairs. Chase Buddinger’s “Oh face” is particularly priceless, given his recent participation in the worst All-Star Dunk Contest in recent memory. It is, in fact, the reaction of the Houston bench that makes this dunk clip for me, and that’s the great think about clips of dunks, as opposed to dunks themselves. The actual physical act is something that exists in space for a fraction of a second, but the video of that dunk incorporates a point of view and a commentary on the action. Consider, for example, Shawn Kemp’s iconic dunk on Alton Lister:

The dunk is, again, amazing, but how much of our understanding of that dunk is created by the low camera angle, by the way the camera follows Kemp’s finger guns to show Lister rising from the floor in defeat? And that’s the thing about a great dunk clip: it can be understood immediately but savored again and again for the little things.

So once again, here’s that Gerald Green dunk from a slightly different angle. Enjoy.

Mike D’Antoni Leaves, As Others Have Before And Others Will After

March 15, 2012 in by with 1 Comment

Photo from ejhobgin via Flickr

As Knicks owner James Dolan faced reporters for the first time since seemingly forever, it was hard to see anything but a transition period for the NBA’s worst marquee franchise. The beleaguered businessman had delivered an obligatorily stale, short statement, followed by GM Glen Grunwald introducing the team’s new head honcho, Mike Woodson. A different Mike, a different basketball philosophy, a different style of facial hair had just left after almost four years of great promise and little payoff, and now the franchise would embark on a different road. Hopefully better, possible just as bad, but different.

After all, Mike Woodson knows defense; Mike D’Antoni does not. Mike Woodson likes the dull drumming of isolation basketball, the kind that “superstar” Carmelo Anthony thrives on and yearns for; Mike D’Antoni likes the fluent song of the pick and roll, symphonic spacing at it’s side, the type of basketball that our cliché-spouting grandfather tells us is only good for teams without championship aspirations. That’s not good enough for New York. In the city where playoff games haven’t been won in a decade, the expectations declare championship or bust.

More than anything, Mike Woodson has the benefit of a future that has not yet been written, and that therefore, still has room for optimism. Mike D’Antoni has but a murky past. The New York Knicks don’t do murky pasts, not when the next messiah could be right around the corner. He really could. Don’t tell us otherwise.

Odds are, Mike Woodson’s future becomes Mike Woodson’s past very quickly. The Knicks are in no position to do anything more substantial than a respectful first round surrender, at which point a franchise attracted to glamour like a moth to a flame will have no choice but to choose the next shiny name from the never ending coaching pool over a dude with an interim tag and peculiar eyebrows.

Jerry Sloan, Phil Jackson, Stan Van Gundy after Dwight Howard fired him, a re-animated Isaac Newton – the identity of the new man or the absurdity that will surround his inevitable arrival is meaningless in the face of the role he’ll play. The same roles played by Jeremy Lin, Baron Davis, and Tyson Chandler this season, Carmelo Anthony and Amar’e Stoudemire last season, and yes, even Mike D’Antoni, back when he was still an offensive innovator that could turn a franchise around. That hopeful savior, he who succeeded so much elsewhere that bringing him to New York is a foolproof strategy, the name that will get the press a-runnin’ and the fans a-hummin’ and the Knicks a-winnin’.

I don’t know what James Dolan was thinking as he stared into the jam packed conference room where yet another false prophet was buried, his mustache not even cold yet. He may have been wondering where it all went wrong, again. Or maybe he already knows. Maybe he can see that bringing in Mike D’Antoni, The Name, but ignoring Mike D’Antoni, The System, was just like bringing in Larry Brown, The Name, or Zach Randolph, The Name, or Eddy Curry, The Name. Maybe he realizes that the only difference between a core of Melo-Amar’e-Tyson and one of Marbury-Francis-Rose is that the glitzy players who were available for the harvest in 2011 just happened to be slightly less crazy and slightly more talented than those that were reaped in 2006.

Maybe James Dolan realizes that the true problem in New York isn’t bad luck or a vengeful commissioner or any outward influence that may or may not be biased against TEH GREATEST CITY EVAHHHHHH, but a way of thinking that extends beyond a simple Isiah Thomas. Maybe he realizes that it is him, his attraction to the penny-wise headline above the pound-wise hibernation, that adding patch over patch over patch only gives you a very patchy quilt, that the only time his team was somewhat successful was when he allowed a respected professional carry out a respectful long-term plan.

Maybe James Dolan sat in that conference room and finally got it. Maybe, just maybe, James Dolan is the savior. Even if he’s not, I bet the messiah is just around that corner. He really is. Don’t tell me otherwise.

The End

March 14, 2012 in by with 2 Comments

I had to fall
To lose it all
But in the end
It doesn’t even matter

from In the End by Linkin Park

Goodbye, Mike D’Antoni. I’m a little sad, if not entirely surprised, to see you go.

Your tenure with the Knicks, like nearly every other coach who has passed through Madison Square Garden since Red Holzman, ended ugly, and there’s no doubt in my mind that you deserved far better. You’re not blameless in this mess, but shoving you out the door isn’t going to solve everything either.

You arrived from Phoenix in 2008 hailed as one of the best coaches in the NBA, an offensive visionary and “player’s coach” who all the big stars would flock to team up with in the Summer of 2010. The plan was to shed salary, create cap space and make a run at LeBron James and the other superstars whose contracts expired at the same time. The plan was to create a free-wheeling team in your image, one capable of being the best offense in the league and ruthlessly beating opponents into submission with an overpowering attack.

But you weren’t as big a draw with the stars as we thought you might be, and only one of the primary targets that summer signed up for the cause. But when Amar’e Stoudemire stood in front of Madison Square Garden in July 2010 and declared, “The Knicks are back,” it really felt like it was true. You had turned him into the most fearsome finisher in the NBA in your time together in Phoenix, and he was coming to New York to re-join your cause and help elevate this long-dormant franchise and fan base back to where we all believed it belonged. It felt like the start of something good.

And for a while, it was. The 2010-11 Knicks weren’t world-beaters, but they ran and they scored and they fought and damn it if they didn’t make us smile – and cry. It was a true D’Antoni team, warts and all. The offense, when firing on all cylinders, was beautiful to watch. The defense, at pretty much all times, wasn’t. But for the first time since you had arrived, you were coaching a team that was clearly designed to play your style of basketball.

There was Felton at the point, pick-and-rolling teams to death with Amar’e. STAT was STAT, dunking on heads, splashing mid-range J’s, not playing much D but, for the first time in his career, being a true team leader. Gallo and Chandler manned with wings; they slashed and they shot and they gave it their all on defense. Turiaf “protected the basket,” made funny faces and was French. Landry did Landry things. And everybody else just kind of picked up the slack.

And then, for reasons beyond your – and Donnie Walsh’s – comprehension, came the Carmelo Anthony drama. Through it all, there were those who maintained that it would never work, that his isolation and post-up heavy game wasn’t a fit for your coaching style and that his all-offense, no-defense, ball-stopping ways weren’t a fit with Stoudemire, who plays largely the same way. It appears they were right, though we’ll never know how it may have turned out had you been given more time with a roster that stayed the same for longer than even three months.

All that I been givin’
Is this thing that I’ve been living
They got me in the system
Why they gotta do me like that
Try’d to make it my way
But got sent up on the highway
Why, oh why
Why they gotta do me like that

From Why by Jadakiss featuring Anthony Hamilton

Despite your apparent protests, the Knicks brass did send out Danilo Gallinari, Wilson Chandler, Raymond Felton, Timofey Mozgov, Anthony Randolph, Eddy Curry and a couple of future first round picks for a package headlined by Anthony. At that point, regardless of whether it was a good fit or not, it became up to you and Carmelo to adjust to each other and to make things work.

You should have been able to fit him into your offense. You should have been able to get him to lurk on the baseline for mid-range jumpers. You should have been able to find ways to get him the ball on the perimeter for side pick-and-rolls. You should have been able to take advantage of his many, many offensive gifts. You should have been able to do a lot of good things with Carmelo Anthony. And he should have been able to help you.

He should have realized that with Amar’e in town to share the scoring load, he should buy in more defensively. He should have realized that with Jeremy Lin emerging to share the ball-handling and distributing load, he could get easier and better shots by working within your offense. He should have stopped worrying about who was “the man” and who got to take the most shots and the last shot. He should have done a lot of things. And it was up to you to help him.

But you – the two of you, together – failed. Miserably.

The Knicks team that was on the floor this season didn’t fit your ideals, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have been able to make it work. You weren’t the only – or even necessarily the biggest – problem with this group, but you were definitely one of them.

Finally, after years of waiting, you had the defensive stalwart center who was also a big time threat in the pick-and-roll, the staple and centerpiece of your offensive design. Finally, after years of waiting, you had a team that was constructed to win this year, rather than to sit around for hoping, praying for another future savior. This bunch should have been good enough to make some noise, should have been good enough to win. You said it yourself in the pre-season, you had championship aspirations. And when you throw around the C-word in THIS city, you better be able to deliver. You didn’t.

The team struggled early. The team has struggled lately. In between, there was 10 or so game stretch of magical basketball, and I imagine it was exactly what you envisioned when you signed up to coach this team four years ago, albeit with much different names on the back of the jerseys. But a 10 game stretch does not a coaching career make. For far too many other 10 – and more – game stretches, this team under-achieved. Badly. And you were the man in charge.

And that, above all else, is why you’re no longer the coach.

Trade Deadline: Pray For Ersan

March 13, 2012 in by with 1 Comment

[flash http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSNDCIVMhYs w=600 h=400]

Yes, indeed brothers and sisters. Let’s put our hands, our voices, our prayers together for Ersan Ilyasova.

The Turkish sensation will be put through a trial and tribulation of biblical proportions: playing alongside Brandon Jennings and Monta Ellis.

Now, I freely admit this analysis isn’t the most in-depth and I’ll readily defer to someone who really pounds the keyboard to get a more thorough take, but this Jennings/Ellis pairing is going to squeeze the amount of shots available for other Bucks players, including my beloved Ersan. This is where I also admit that I think Ersan is the greatest thing since Turkish Delight. Hell, he is Turkish Delight.

Here comes the breakdown courtesy of Basketball-Reference and all players tallied must qualify for the MP/G leader board:

Only 32 players this season have a usage rate above 25%. Two of them now play for Bucks. But this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Such luminaries as LeBron James, Kevin Durant and Dirk Nowitzki are in this club.

But only 14 of those players have a true shooting % below .520. Two of them now play for the Bucks. Now we start to worry because such questionable decision-makers like DeMarcus Cousins, Nick Young and Josh Smith are on this list. But other guys like Jordan Crawford and CJ Miles aren’t on the court a lot so, their damage is minimized.

But only 4 of those players play over 35 minutes per game. Two of them now play for the Bucks.

That’s a whole lot of usage (the number of plays that a player consumes while on the court). That’s a whole lot of poor true shooting (a measure combining FT, FG and 3PT shooting). That’s a whole lot of minutes (the amount of time a player spends justifying all the dolla dolla bills in his contract).

And now Ersan is going to feel a pinch in shots. Although there should be ample offensive rebound opportunities! But this is a player who has shown over the past few weeks he’s more than capable of being an offensive spark. But this may all become moot because the deadline is still two days away. Ersan may find himself traded as the Bucks look to cash in on his hot streak before Ersan himself does during his summer free agency.

If this happens, then I’ll truly be bummed.

The Bucks have always been my favorite Central Division team going back to the days of Lee Mayberry and Blue Edwards. I’m not sure I could live in a world where my favorite Buck, Ersan, is hampered by gung-ho guards or shipped away to god knows where… (please, Lord, not the Bobcats, although I do hear the Cult of Biyombo may be worth joining one day).

So again, let’s put our hands together. Lift all our voices and sing. Combine all our prayers and positive vibrations for Ersan.

 

(but really, we have no idea how this is going to work. Sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride. The NBA always has strange days).

Understanding Advanced Stats: Not All Stats Are Created Equal

March 11, 2012 in by with 0 Comments

Continuing the quest to bridge the gap, another edition in the Hardwood Paroxysm series of Understanding Advanced Stats

A new statistical category rarely makes it’s way into the mainstream, the box score. But that’s what +/- did relatively recently. This easily misunderstood stat can be useful if cited properly. Sadly, it gets misused more often than not.

Really transcendent players tend to have overall pluses simply because they are that good, but in the normal course of events really good players can often end up with a negative or about even +/-. This is due to teammates, not an individual, in most cases. One cannot simply look at a box score and assume that because a particular player had a negative +/- that they had a poor game; they may have won their matchup fairly handily, but if most of the teammates he was on the floor with at the time had a bad game it reflects poorly on everyone.

+/- is best used a couple of ways that we’ll explore here, in large sample sizes, in lineups, and in individual matchups, but only if you are looking specifically at that matchup alone and not in the context of a box score.

Steve Nash and the Phoenix Suns have had a rough year (even though they have found a rhythm of late).  The standard box score from a recent close loss to the Golden State Warriors leaves Nash looking like he got smoked, even though we know he’s one of those transcendent players with the sixth-best season-long +/- as of March 6.

Nash’s opponents’ box score tells us little more about what really happened except that Curry had a nice, if short stint.

 

From these stats it would appear that Robinson outplayed Nash. Let’s look closer, at PopcornMachine‘s Game Flow from that particular tilt. Note: If you mouse-over a particular player’s stint you get specifics. I’ve Photoshopped in several players’ stints in order to be more succinct

What we find is that it wasn’t so much that Curry was really good, or Nash really bad, as that David Lee had a spectacular first quarter stint. Curry wouldn’t play again after the first Q. Go ahead and mouse over the rest of Nash’s, and Curry’s replacement, Nate Robinson’s, stints  to get a better feel for how the game unfolded in the backcourt.

Alternately,  before we move on, you can check the stint by the man who’s job it was to be guarding Lee, assuming Gentry had the Suns playing man-D, Channing Frye (something you can confirm by checking mySynergySports or watching a replay). Frye would finish the game at a mere -1, so you can see how one can be deceived by a simple box score +/- stat, when in fact Frye was largely responsible for the early big deficit that Nash and Co. spent the rest of the game making up. The standard box may have you believing that Lee and Frye got in a personal shootout, however, by checking the PopcornMachine box score, and clicking on the specific players, we find that Frye got hot himself later in the contest helping to redeem that heinous first Q and rebound his game-long +/-.

Is what Curry did in his matchup with Nash this night usual? Click that last link and we can get a clue to that by using BasketballReference’s Head2Head Finder found under the Play Index tab.

In looking at the game flow, that graphed line between the two teams, we see that as the flow began to favor Nash and the Suns in the second half, Warriors coach Mark Jackson began experimenting with lineups to try and slow the comeback roll.

As we close this session, you can get a head start on a future post by checking at 82Games to see how these two teams’ lineups have stacked up playing together on the season, another of the fruitful and less suspect uses of the +/- stat.

In closing I would caution you to always be wary of small sample size numbers all by themselves. Until next time, happy advanced statting.

 

 

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