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Clusters of Scarcity

April 4, 2012 in by with 9 Comments

Revolution

Photo by a100tim via Flickr

Ian Levy is the author of Hickory High, a contributor to Indy Cornrows, The Two Man Game and HoopSpeakU, and now Hardwood Paroxysm, because you know, we felt like we didn’t have enough people writing here. He begins today in a discussion of talent clusters from the Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, and the confluence of megastardom. You can follow Ian on Twitter at @HickoryHigh. He’s also a pretty smart dude. – Ed.

Revolutions, loud and subtle, all share certain characteristics. New fronts are progressively opened, expanded and solidified, and the assimilation of advanced statistical analysis into the standard NBA experience is no exception to this revolutionary repetition. One of these new bubbles of creative production has been the move from evaluating individual players to evaluating combinations of players. Mountains of lineup and unit data are now publicly available, but these numbers are still mostly historically descriptive in nature. They look back at the recent past and tell us what happened. When it comes to examining why something happened or what circumstances may make it likely to happen again, statistical analysis hasn’t had much more to offer than that old stand-by – subjective observation.

At the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, three different analytic methods were presented,  each using numeric data to answer the precise questions of how to best fit players together and ensure synergistic skills sets are on the floor. Of the three, I found ‘Big 2’s and Big 3’s: Analyzing How A Team’s Best Players Complement Each Other’ by Robert Ayer, the most compelling. I will admit, with just a modicum of shame, that Ayer’s paper appealed to me because enough of his method was explained in the presentation that I could, in my own rudimentary way, access and use the information.

The title of the paper refers to two and three-man combinations of a team’s best players. Ayer’s method involved defining players by clusters of statistical production. This clustering looks beyond traditional positions to the types of production that are provided by different players. For example Pau Gasol-ish power forwards are considered differently than Ryan Anderson-ish power forwards. He then ran a multiple regression analysis to determine the extent to which certain combinations of those player clusters, among a team’s two or three best players, affected that team’s win total. The NBA’s Efficiency Rating was the metric used for separating out a team’s three best players.

The clusters Ayer identified are below, with his descriptions and examples.

Cluster 1 – Limited, role-playing centers: Erick Dampier, Tree Rollins
Cluster 2 – High scoring, dynamic guards, typically not great three-point shooters, or if they are they don’t shoot very many: Kobe Bryant, Dwyane Wade, Tracy McGrady, Adrian Dantley
Cluster 3 – Somewhat limited, role-playing backcourt players: John Paxson, J.J. Barea
Cluster 4 – Wing, three-point shooters: Dan Majerle, Shane Battier
Cluster 5 – Dynamic, well-rounded power forwards, strong rebounding, dynamic 3’s: Chris Webber, Pau Gasol, Kevin McHale
Cluster 7 – High scoring, high assists, high steals, high turnover point guards, who don’t shoot three-pointers: Kevin Johnson, Isiah Thomas
Cluster 8 – Multi-faceted, high scoring wings, with high assists for their position who are great three-point shooters: Paul Pierce, Danny Ainge
Cluster 9 – Pass first, low scoring point guards: Avery Johnson, Mark Jackson
Cluster 10 – Limited 4’s, very strong rebounders, defense oriented: Dennis Rodman, Ben Wallace, Buck Williams
Cluster 11 – Three-point shooting bigs: Rasheed Wallace, Antawn Jamison, Detlef Schrempf
Cluster 12 – High scoring post players, high rebounds, high blocks: Shaquille O’Neal, Hakeem Olajuwon, David Robinson
Cluster 13 – Well-rounded small forwards; generally don’t shoot many three-pointers: Luol Deng, James Worthy
Cluster 14 – Role-playing big men without an exceptional skill, but contribute in several categories: Udonis Haslem, Kurt Thomas

Here were the combinations he found to have an effect on team performance:

Big 2’s

  • Cluster 2 – Cluster 2: +3.97 wins
  • Cluster 10 – Cluster 12: +4.69 wins
  • Cluster 2 – Cluster 8: +4.35 wins
  • Cluster 8 – Cluster 11: +4.75 wins
  • Cluster 8 – Cluster 12: +7.59 wins
  • Cluster 8 – Cluster 8: -4.05 wins

Big 3’s

  • Cluster 2 – Cluster 2 – Cluster 5: +3.70 wins
  • Cluster 2 – Cluster 5 – Cluster 8: +3.43 wins
  • Cluster 7 – Cluster 8 – Cluster 12: +13.60 wins
  • Cluster 8 – Cluster 10 – Cluster 12: +5.43 wins
  • Cluster 5 – Cluster 5 – Cluster 9: -8.47 wins
  • Cluster 2 – Cluster 2 – Cluster 7: -4.78 wins
  • Cluster 5 – Cluster 8 – Cluster 8: -3.61 wins

It’s important to note that these relationships are ‘talent agnostic’. Having a 2-2-5 combination among your best three players has historically been worth an extra 3.7 wins. However, if your team has 20 win talent, including those three best players, that combination only bumps you up to 23 or 24 wins.

Intrigued by this entire project I decided to try and overlay Ayer’s player clusters with this season’s data, and see if any teams appear to have one of the statistically significant combinations he identified. I used similarity scores to place the top three players on each NBA team into one of those clusters. Like Ayer, I used the NBA’s Efficiency Rating to determine the top three players on each team.

The individual results can be found here. The first sheet of the spreadsheet contains the master results. There are also sheets, listed across the bottom, for each player showing how their statistics fit into each cluster.
Here are the teams that had statistically significant combinations:

Big 2’s

  • Cluster 2 – Cluster 2: +3.97 wins
    • Miami Heat: LeBron James (2) – Dwyane Wade (2)
    • Oklahoma City Thunder: Kevin Durant (2) – Russell Westbrook (2)

Big 3’s

  • Cluster 2 – Cluster 2 – Cluster 5: +3.70 wins
    • Miami Heat: LeBron James (2) – Dwyane Wade (2) – Chris Bosh (5)
  • Cluster 2 – Cluster 5 – Cluster 8: +3.43 wins
    • Sacramento Kings: DeMarcus Cousins (5) – Tyreke Evans (2) – Marcus Thornton (8)

In his presentation at Sloan, Ayer highlighted the positive value of a pair of Cluster 2 (High-scoring dynamic guards) players as a finding that bucked conventional wisdom. Looking at this season’s data we find two perfect examples of successful combinations swimming against the current of public opinion. The Heat and the Thunder are both elite teams, but there is a steady Gregorian chant from fans and analysts alike that their success is because immense talent is overwhelming the bad fit and duplication of their top players. The idea persists that their ceiling has somehow been lowered by the particular arrangements of talent. Maybe it’s time to acknowledge that duplication of skills and good player fit are not mutually exclusive.

No team this season has hit the ultimate jackpot with the 7-8-12 combination that Ayers found to be worth +13.60 wins. But the Clippers weren’t far off. They have their Cluster 7 player in Chris Paul. They have their Cluster 12 player in Blake Griffin. That gaping hole the Clippers have been sporting all season at shooting guard would be a perfect place to plug in that Cluster 8 player, the ‘Multi-faceted, high-scoring, high-assist, 3PT shooting wing’. The Timberwolves are in the same boat with a Cluster 12 in Kevin Love and Cluster 7 in Ricky Rubio. Finding a talented Cluster 8 could be the difference in both team’s long-term success.

Golden State is also an interesting situation. Up until the trade deadline they had a 5-8-8 combo, with David Lee, Monta Ellis and Stephen Curry, worth -3.61 wins. Just removing Ellis may prove to provide some measure of relief through addition by subtraction.

As interesting as what Ayer’s work is for evaluating current and potential player combinations, I was just as interested in what his clustering work reveals about the makeup of the NBA and the scarcity of talent at certain positions. Our data set here is somewhat skewed because we’re looking at the top three players for each team as opposed to the 90 best players in the NBA. Still there are some striking holes.

The chart below is an analysis of the prevalence and relative talent of each player cluster. The blue bars represent the number of players from our group of 90 that fell into each cluster. The black lines stretch from the Efficiency rating of the least talented player in that cluster to the most talented player in that cluster. The red diamonds are the average Efficiency Rating for all the players in that cluster. If you’re unfamiliar with Efficiency Rating it’s a per game average calculated with this formula: ((Points + Rebounds + Assists + Steals + Blocks) – ((Field Goals Att. – Field Goals Made) + (Free Throws Att. – Free Throws Made) + Turnovers)). To put the numbers into context, LeBron James leads the league with an EFF of 30.0. An average NBA player comes in around 10.0.

There is a lot going on in this graph, but look closely and you’ll see a fairly clear representation of how scarcity affects team building. The scarcity on this graph is of two different varieties. In our set of 90 players not a single one fell into Cluster 1 or 3. This is not because those player-types are few and far between, but because we were looking only at the three most productive players for each team. Cluster 12s on the other hand are rare in our sample because they are rare everywhere. Just three appeared in our sample, and it would be difficult to spot another three anywhere else in the league. That group also had the highest average Efficiency Rating of any player cluster.

Productive players in Cluster 8, 10 and 11 are fairly common, but few provide an elite level of production. It seems like relying on these types of players to drive a team, may lead an organization to set up camp on the 40-win plateau, trying to milk out a few extra wins a season with luck and a strategically designed supporting cast.

Clusters 8 and 2 appear in almost every single positive combination that Ayer identified, and a large group of players fell into both clusters. However, while it’s difficult to find elite production in Cluster 8, the average Cluster 2 player in our group had an EFF of 19.9, roughly twice the league average. While teams have shifted focus towards elite point guards or the handful of dominant big men, here is proof that the Jordan/Iverson model of building around an elite wing scorer still has merit.

While I really enjoyed Ayer’s work and think there is a lot to chew on here, I would be remiss in wrapping up with mentioning a few concerns I have about the clustering techniques. Ayer’s used per game averages to define his clusters. In a large study, over many seasons, it was probably plenty accurate. In just looking at a single season like I did, it almost certainly skewed the clustering for the handful of players who come off the bench and play significantly less minutes than some of their counterparts.

As I’m sure many of you did, I also found the way he described each cluster confusing. The moniker Cluster 1 or Cluster 3 means nothing to any of us, so Ayer has added some descriptive details about each. I appreciate the rationale for this but on some level it’s self-defeating.

The clusters provide a richer statistical complexity than the common terms he’s used to describe each. Cluster 11, is described as ‘Three-point shooting bigs’. But there is more to the cluster than that, otherwise the whole clustering exercise wouldn’t be necessary. Kemba Walker fell into this cluster. He is clearly not a three-point shooting big, but he is most certainly a Cluster 11. The generic terms used to describe SOME characteristics of MOST of the players in the Cluster omit some of the nuance of the way players are clustered.

While this ultimately has no bearing on the results or conclusions, I’m sure some readers have had a knee-jerk reaction that made it tougher to buy into this admittedly lengthy post. One of the challenges of a project as ambitious as Ayer’s is that there is no language to act as a bridge between the new and old ways of describing players. The solution is to use the new language consistently and comprehensively, but in the meantime it must be acknowledged that this will leave some basketball fans on the outside.

Paroxysm At Gametime: The State Of Andrea Bargnani

April 4, 2012 in by with 1 Comment

Just about a year ago, then-Raptors coach Jay Triano was asked in a season-ending presser about Andrea Bargnani’s potential to become a defensive anchor. “Is it asking a home-run hitter to bunt? Possibly,” he said.

Bargnani had just finished his fifth season with the team that drafted him No. 1 overall. While possessing a rare ability to score almost effortlessly from anywhere on the floor, his defensive deficiencies made many Toronto fans and media alike demand his departure. He was an underrated one-on-one defender, but had failed to show an understanding of team defense at the NBA level and was a historically bad rebounder at his height. Again, it had been five years.

Last May, a report surfaced that Bargnani wouldn’t mind leaving. In a statement, Bargnani denied having this desire, but the common sentiment around the city was that few would miss his missed rotations.

This year under new coach Dwane Casey, things changed. Drastically. Before a strained calf in January cost him almost a third of this shortened season, not only was Bargnani scoring more efficiently than ever before, Casey said he was beginning to become that anchor. He improved in every advanced metric, including the Raptors’ proprietary one, PNet, which they use to evaluate performance on both ends of the floor. If not for the injury, he may well have made his first All-Star Game.

It hasn’t been the same since Bargnani’s return three and a half weeks ago. It took a while for him to regain his scoring punch, averaging just 13.3 points on 33 percent shooting in his first 11 games back. Over the past week, his shots have started to fall, but as we learned in his first five years, making shots is only half the story. “He’s getting there but I don’t think he’s back to the level where he was before the injury,” Casey said before his team took on the Bobcats on Tuesday, hoping to avoid losing to the league’s worst team for the third time this season.

“He’s getting back to an offensive form. He still hasn’t reached his defensive form yet,” Casey said. “I thought he was playing at a high level on the defensive end before he got hurt and, whatever it is, it’s just not there.

“It’s a rotation here, a rotation there.”

Against Charlotte, Bargnani’s offensive numbers were more than solid. He scored 30 points, his highest total since January, and did so efficiently on 11-for-22 shooting. With his jumper deserting him for much of the game, he compensated with three uncharacteristic dunks on the break, layups and hook shots down low against Byron Mullens, and six-for-six free throw shooting. But the defense was a mixed bag.

When Toronto wasn’t playing zone, Bargnani spent most of his evening matched up with Mullens, a jump shooting big man who started the season strong before seeing his minutes fall, but was coming off a 20-point game in Detroit. Mullens shot the ball nearly every time he caught it, finishing with 20 points on 9-for-21 shooting and a career-high 14 rebounds. A career-high five of those came on the offensive end.

Some of Mullens’ field goals were highly contested and 21 on 20 shots isn’t exactly a killer performance. But with under two minutes left in the game, he almost became the hero and Bargnani almost became the goat.

With the Raptors up by four, D.J. Augustin and Bismack Biyombo ran a pick-and-roll as Mullens cut from the left block to the right wing. Instead of sticking with Mullens, Bargnani hesitated and helped on Biyombo when his teammate Aaron Gray already had him covered. This gave Mullens ample space to nail a jumper and cut the lead to two.

Bargnani put it back at four with a bucket of his own, but made another mistake on the next Bobcats possession. They ran the same play and, again, Bargnani failed to stick with Mullens. This time, Mullens hit a three to cut it to one.

Bargnani made up for it on the offensive end to save the game — he scored on the next two Raptors possessions, with a D.J. Augustin three in between them. A Mullens airball from deep effectively ended the game.

It should be noted, however, that Bargnani watched Augustin and Mullens’ jumpers from the bench. Casey elected to make offense-defense substitutions down the stretch, a strategy that would never come into play with your “defensive anchor.”

“He did a good job,” Casey said of Bargnani’s overall defensive performance after the win, before chuckling about the late-game breakdowns. “He had a couple of them that was very glaring. The shots that Mullens made on him was glaring at the end but overall I thought he did a great job in the pick and roll defense of showing, impacting the ball, which was our number one bugaboo in Charlotte.

“So he gets half the grade for it, but now he’s gotta recover and close back out and get to the shooter. And he knew it. He knew it.”

Casey never seems concerned when talking about his star player’s defense, but it’s evident he wants to see more as the season comes to a close. The Bargnani we saw before the injury is an All-Star player, one capable of being the best player on a good team. And in Toronto, with a full training camp under Casey and two impact rookies on their way next season, he could be on a good team in just a few months. It’s important to finish the season on a high note.

Bargnani’s first 13 games of the year earned him higher expectations. In the next 12, he has an opportunity to prove these expectations are justified.

Opportunity, The Mistress

April 4, 2012 in by with 3 Comments

Photo by Bruce Davidson - Subway Series (1980)

Opportunity is a fine, charitable mistress—one that has served as the muse for several players in this bizarre truncated season. As the rigors of the seemingly endless schedule chip away at even the most well-conditioned NBA athlete, unlikely figures have stepped in to fill the void and rewrite their own storylines. Opportunity finds cracks in our cynicism and provides just enough breathing room for events to reshape our understanding of a player. It can rehabilitate and re-establish players like it has with Gerald Green’s nomadic career. Jeremy Lin’s two weeks of inescapable brilliance will continue to serve as the prime case study for what a single opportunity can lead to. Opportunity hides in the folds of improbability, revealed only when a specific combination of improbable factors peels away. It’s entirely a matter of fortune. It can be an excruciating wait, but there is an undeniable magic when it all comes together for the best.

Yesterday, Timberwolves rookie Malcolm Lee was searching for playing time anywhere and anyway he could find it. Now, unless JJ Barea returns Wednesday, he is the last man standing at point guard. “It’s going to be a big challenge, but I’m looking forward to it. This is why you’ve just always got to stay ready. This game is so up and down. You just never know.”

via Jerry Zgoda’s Sulia account

Opportunity is knocking at Malcolm Lee’s door with all three of the Wolves’ rotational point guards out with injury. It’s an interesting situation. Lee has played a total of 94 minutes on the season prior to Wednesday’s game, which means he hasn’t even played enough minutes to satisfy two full NBA regulation games.  While he’s is an NBA-caliber player with a good deal of talent, Lee is jumping into the fire without much preparation at all. But there is no pressure for a fourth-string point guard. Lee’s first taste of meaningful minutes will be a test of faith in his coach, his teammates, and himself. He’ll fail much more often than he’ll succeed. That’s fine. It’s nothing he hasn’t already endured.

My admiration for Malcolm Lee’s game has been documented. I’ve been a fan since his first year at UCLA, where he was a part of a massively underwhelming recruiting class. I admired his fortitude. Playing for Ben Howland for three years is no easy task. As intense as Howland expects his teams to play, the games are a joyless ride through basketball hell and back, forcing free spirits like Lee to assimilate instead of nurturing their greatest strengths. But after three years, that bulldog intensity is instilled in a player’s basketball identity. Raymond Felton spent years of toiling in Larry Brown’s system in Charlotte. When was unchained in New York, he played outstanding basketball for half a season; a marriage of natural basketball instinct and ingrained systemic wisdom. That’s where Lee is, albeit on a much smaller scale. [Cue laughter, applause.]

While he spent much of his college career learning how to play off the ball, Lee is comfortable playing the pick and roll. He’s an exceptionally smooth athlete—so much so that it’s sometimes hard to discern just how fast Lee is. He covers length of the court quickly with long, fluid strides that can easily pierce the first line of defense. A few minor knee surgeries has taken some of the extra gear out of his game for the time being, but it has forced him to play at different speeds and rely on his vision to make plays rather than blazing toward the basket.

And when it works, his plays are a thing of beauty. Here, Lee catches JaVale McGee on a switch, and baits McGee for just long enough. You can almost sense the precise moment when McGee falls into a past fantasy of becoming an all-star point guard. Once Lee finds McGee locked in and committed to his dream defending him, he makes an incredible no-look pass to a rolling Kevin Love who scores over two powerless point guards. If you saw when, where, and how the ball got to Love on the first view, you’re lying.

Of course, it’s not all rosy on offense. His shooting mechanics have dramatically improved since his early days at UCLA, but he still suffers relapses once in a while.  And despite having superb quickness off the dribble and good body control, Lee still isn’t comfortable finishing around the rim in traffic, preferring to loft up awkward, overextended layups from afar. Avoiding contact to prevent any further injuries is one thing, but his ability to break down defenses and finish around the rim will be absolutely necessary as soon as, say, tonight.

Lee’s offensive potential is still being unearthed, but where he already has significant value (and can really only get better) is on defense. He has incredibly quick feet, and his long legs help him cover a lot of ground moving backwards or laterally.

In the video above, Lee defends Jeremy Pargo perfectly without smothering him. There are few wasted motions. One hop to the left as Pargo motions left. A slide to the right as Pargo veers right. As Pargo’s powerful momentum drives Lee backwards, he uses that force to plant himself with two legs, and create enough space between them in traffic to accurately measure the block.  It may have only been Jeremy Pargo—not to discredit Jeremy; he’s as explosive as they come—but the ability to stay in front of penetrating guards is an extremely valuable commodity.

This isn’t to say I have Malcolm Lee pegged to be a future star, but I am definitely happy he’ll be able to showcase what he can do without worrying about his minutes. It’ll be an introduction of sorts. And if all goes well, Wolves fans will get a glimpse of the talent that can be harnessed in the future whether the team wins or loses.

As fate would have it, the Wolves will be playing the Golden State Warriors tonight. Lee will be matched up against Charles Jenkins, another rookie who has been foisted the responsibilities of leading a team. Like I said, Opportunity is a charitable mistress, and she clearly gets around. This season has been full of disappointing injuries and heartwarming stories, with a steady flow of chaos filling the gaps in between. It seems Opportunity embraces the chaos. Let’s try to enjoy it as well.

Feeling Invincible

April 4, 2012 in by with 0 Comments

Photo by Fighting Tiger via Flickr

1.4 seconds left on the clock.

Down one point and looking for a chance to win, 18,203 people rise to their collective feet. Some of them are season ticket holders. Others have saved up for months and made this the only game they will go to in person this season. Still others are young children are attending an NBA game for the first time. What happens in the next second and a half will be the difference between an incredible night and a miserable drive back home. For over two and a half hours, they have sat there cheering every made bucket and feeling the slightest shred of despair for every point scored by the opposition. Though the previous 47:58.6 set the stage, none of that matters now. It is all about what happens next.

The ball is inbounded.

Nothing complicated here, just a simple catch and shoot. With so little time on the clock, it is really the only option. Hoisting a jumper from 28 feet out is far from the ideal shot, but beggars cannot be choosers at this point. Though it is early in the season, countless hours of shooting in the gym and driveway over the years have gone into being confident in this moment. It is almost an afterthought that this is coming against the defending NBA champions for just like those practice sessions shooting alone, there are only three principals in this play: the player, the ball, and the rim. The rest, as they say, are just details. It is an innocent enough play. A catch. A pivot. A jump. The shot leaves the shooter’s hand. All of this transpires in less than half of a second. For exactly one tick of the clock, the ball flies through the air with perfect rotation. All eyes in the arena are fixed on the orange sphere hurtling through the air for the similarly covered rim. What transpires next could have an effect on playoff seeding at the end of the year or it might not. It could add fuel to the who’s clutch and who’s debate or it might not. What is known is that a raw outburst of human emotion is about to be seen. Celebration or heartache is only a second away. Despite the 50/50 probability of feeling crushed, it is a moment that fans live for every time they go to a game. As the ball reaches its destination, the outcome is about to be decided.

SWISH.

The ball splashes through the net without the help of the rim. What once seemed like an impossibility has now become a reality. What once was almost assured disappointment has turned to euphoric joy. The bench rushes the court to surround their savior for the night while the crowd loses its mind. Though this crowd may have spent a portion of the game criticizing their star for the most minute mistakes, every missed shot is forgotten; every turnover is forgiven. Suddenly the, what some feel, exorbitant price some of them paid for their tickets does not matter, nor do the problems that are going on at home. All that matters right now is this moment that will stay with them the rest of their lives. Years from now, when someone asks, “What’s the greatest sporting event you have ever been to in person?” this game has given them their answer. The feeling that runs through the course of the fans’ bodies is something that is unequaled and unable to be replicated in any other walk of life. Though they came for a basketball leave, they are leaving with a renewed hope that they can do anything. They leave on top of the world.

As for the player himself, there is nothing that can touch him now. He has just taken the power given to him to shape the attitudes of nearly 20,000 people in person and thousands more watching the game at home and taken full advantage of it. There will almost positively be more moments like this in the future, but he will cross that bridge when he gets to it. The past created this moment; the future will bear itself out in time. For now, it is only about the present.

On this particular December night, this is what it is like to be Kevin Durant. This is what it is like to feel invincible.

The Hardwood Paroxysm Awards: Bench Mobs, Unemployment, and PINE

April 3, 2012 in by with 1 Comment

Because there can never be enough awards, acronyms, recognition, or roundtables, HP proudly presents the HPAs. In true HP style, the Matty goes to…


This particular season has been like cramming swordfish into a sardine can with the schedule compressed, meaning second units can be critical to success later on giving high-minute starters breathers. What team’s second unit gets your Bench Mob of the Year Award?

NoamSchiller: This feels like the lazy answer, but there’s no way any Bench Mob beats the Chicago Bench Mob. The Bulls haven’t lost a beat despite Derrick Rose missing large chunks of games for the first time in his career by fielding a team so ridiculously deep it’s scary. John Lucas and C.J. Watson are inexplicably viable options, Gibson-Asik might be the best defensive frontcourt in the entire league, and nobody on the team has a PER lower than 12.2. Not even Brian Scalabrine. BRIAN SCALABRINE!

Jared Dubin: Chicago. The Lucas-Korver-Deng-Gibson-Asik lineup (and yeah, I know Deng’s a starter) is sporting an absolutely preposterous 78.8 defensive efficiency on the year (all numbers current through Saturday, when I wrote this). You simply cannot score against the Bulls’ bench. But we know Chicago is good at defense. What’s even more amazing is that the aforementioned unit has a 110.8 offensive efficiency this season, a mark that bests OKC’s league-leading 108.0. THAT is a bench mob. (FWIW, subbing Jimmy Butler for Deng brings those numbers to 116.2 on offense and 93.5 on defense, both of which would still easily lead the league, but that unit has only played 42 minutes together this year.) Honorable mention goes to the Knicks, or really just to Steve Novak, Jared Jeffries and Iman Shumpert, who have been HUGE off the pine for New York this year.

Amin Vafa: I’m going to go with Denver, simply because it’s nearly impossible for me to tell Denver’s starters apart from their bench. That team is so freaking deep it’s crazy. Remember how they were the weird dark horse WCF favorites in the first half of the year? I know this isn’t part of the question, but next year they’re going to be as deep or deeper (if McGee goes elsewhere). Crazy.

Connor Huchton: I’d go with the Rockets’ bench. It might not be the best bench in the league (though it’s certainly good), but it’s complete. There are no weak positions on the Rockets’ bench, not after the Rockets traded for Marcus Camby at the deadline. Goran Dragic (assuming a healthy Lowry), Courtney Lee/Kevin Martin (assuming a healthy Martin), Chase Budinger, Patrick Patterson, and Camby form a unit that has no glaring weaknesses, and thus can be effective against nearly any second unit in the league.

Sean Highkin: I have no delusions about their ability to win a championship, but Denver’s bench this season is remarkably deep and versatile, with plenty of guys capable of sliding into the starting lineup when they’re hit with one of the many injuries to key players they’ve faced this year.

Who gets your Don of the Bench Mob Award?

NS: Again, I’d like to be special here, but James Harden is so far ahead of the back that it’s absurd. OKC’s bench mob isn’t so much of a mob as it is Harden, Collison, and several hopefuls (I miss the good version of Nazr Mohammed. I’m probably the only one), but those two pretty much make the Thunder bench a legitimate unit on their own. Hard to get more Don-like than Harden, with the kind of game that often has him operating as his team’s best player.

JD: James Harden. Is there really any other answer? He’s the league’s premier 6th man (though I’ll accept arguments for Jason Terry or Lou Williams), and is already a top 5 shooting guard in the league. His beard is feared throughout the league, and his game should be even more so.

AV: I’ll say Ramon Sessions for this one. Without him, the Cavs have gotten worse, and out in LakerLand fans assume he’s the second coming of Magic Johnson (it’s been a long time since they’ve seen a competent PG, I guess). I’m not saying he’s the 6th man of the year or anything. But he has the ability to be the best reserve on the floor at times, and for some reason people like to think he put the Lakers over the top in terms of getting back to the Finals.

CH: James Harden- He’s currently the best bench player in basketball by a decent margin, so this award belongs to no one else.

SH: Hard not to pick James Harden. He’s good enough to start at shooting guard on any team that isn’t the Lakers or Heat, which itself is enough to put him on here. But that talent is made even more deadly by how brilliantly and effectively he’s used off the bench, and also how seemingly okay he is with not starting. That’s a rare combination.

Some very good coaches suddenly joined the ranks of the unemployed this season. Give me your Best Available Coach Kickin’-it.

NS: If we’re assuming that Phil Jackson, Jerry Sloan, and Jeff Van Gundy are done for good – and I do – then I have Mike D’Antoni narrowly edging Nate McMillan in a battle of recently fired Team USA assistants. Both prefer to dictate the pace (slow for Nate, fast for Mike) and choose their personnel, but recent results have us forgetting just how good they both are at doing so when the front office plays along and their players don’t revolt.

JD: Mike D’Antoni, who I have no doubt will come into Madison Square Garden with a new team next season and beat the Knicks by double digits. Being in New York, I had to deal with my fair share of D’Antoni-haters for the better part of the last four years. They’re crazy. The guy is a good coach, he just couldn’t connect with one guy (whose fault that truly was is up for debate, and likely leans toward Carmelo) and lost his job because of it. But he’ll catch on somewhere this off-season and find success; I know it.

AV: Mike D’Antoni has got to be the answer here. And I hope he gets paired up with John Wall, Nene, and Anthony Davis or MKG next year. Oh man that would be so sweet.

CH: Phil Jackson is the obvious choice, but I have no idea whether he’s actually looking to coach anytime soon, and if a situation exists that appeals to him. New York has been mentioned, but it always is, whether or not validity is present. I think it’d be hilarious to see him coach in LA again, but only for the Clippers.

SH: Going a little unconventional here: appearing on the BS Report over All-Star weekend, Robert Horry told Bill Simmons that he’s always wanted to get into coaching but has simply never had the opportunity. On paper, doesn’t Big Shot Rob seem like he’d be a great NBA coach? He’s played on seven championship teams, alongside some of the all-time greats, and was an unselfish role player who was respected by everyone. In terms of being able to preach team-oriented basketball, manage egos, and command the respect of players, he’d be a great hire for anyone.

The tankathon is on, but a coach’s job is not to prepare the team for the next coach, but to win enough games to not join the ranks of the BACK coaches. Who’s your DEFY winner, Definitely Employed For another Year award winner?

NS: Mark Jackson. Not necessarily because he’s a good coach, or even a subpar one, but because we honestly don’t know it. And despite foolishly promising the playoffs before going down to Tankville, the Warriors probably realize that they owe him at least one more year of trying before declaring him a success or a failure.

JD: Monty Williams. I honestly have no idea how he’s won 13 games with this roster. It was a bare bones team to begin with, but when you factor in that he was missing Eric Gordon, Chris Kaman, Carl Landry and Emeka Okafor for about half the year, Trevor Ariza for a few weeks, and Jarrett Jack for a couple, it gets even more insane. Monty’s a very good young coach and the Hornets are lucky to have him. Keeping him around and adding two probable high-lottery picks makes their future a lot brighter than their record suggests.

AV: I don’t think he’ll be back with the Wizards, but this season has made me start liking Randy Wittman. His resume isn’t stellar, but the way he carries himself as a coherent human being while the rest of the Wizards organization is crumbling to pieces around him makes me think he definitely has a place in this league. If he gets hooked up with a team that’s assembling pieces in a rebuild, I think he’d be a great asset in that development process.

CH: Ty Corbin and Kevin McHale both faced many questions at the start of the season, including whether they’d be able to effectively replace two coaching legends in Jerry Sloan and Rick Adelman. Both have responded admirably. McHale has kept a team with two key players injured (Kyle Lowry and to a lesser extent, Kevin Martin) in the thick of the Western Conference playoff race, and shown a willingness to replace players in important units when necessary. Corbin has done the same, making a big difference in the overachieving, possible playoff performance of the Jazz.

SH: Monty Williams, because this year’s abysmal Hornets team became part of the plan the minute they traded Chris Paul. He’s a class act and a great coach who has gotten more than anybody could ever expect out of one of the thinnest rosters in recent memory. The Hornets are right to be committed to him long-term.

There’s always that guy on your roster who in hindsight should have played more, could have helped net that extra win or three. Which underused roster-place-holder earned the Player In No-man’s-land Endlessly award?

NS:  I don’t necessarily know if he helps the team this season, but it’s hard for me to see Marcus Morris’ rookie year get a DNP-CD. The Rockets generally know what they’re doing with the D-League, and have been fairly successful at developing mid-to-lower first round picks at their own pace before unleashing them on the league, but the 14th pick is a pretty high asset to just stash away. Maybe the Rockets drafted Morris assuming that their depth would be traded for a single star by now.

JD: It’s my main man Ish Smith. He was in Golden State and couldn’t get minutes at the point even while Stephen Curry was hurt. In his one and only start, he had 11 points, 6 rebounds and 4 assists in a win over the Knicks. Two weeks later he got released. Now he’s in Orlando and can’t get off the bench even though Chris Duhon gets actual playing time. Smith’s no world-beater, but he’s always had respectable assists per-36 numbers (6.4 for his career) and he can capably run an offense. I guess what I’m saying is #FreeIshSmith.

AV: To continue my Wizards-biased answers, I’m going to go with Shelvin Mack here. Now if you look at his minutes, you’ll see that they are fine. But I’ve been wanting him to play the 1 while Wall plays the 2 all season and they’ve never done it. They have no floor time together. A Mack-Wall backcourt is something this world needs, people. Let’s make it happen.

CH: There have been times this season when DeAndre Jordan has been severely underused. Del Negro has often relied on Reggie Evans or Blake Griffin-at-center lineups late in games, typically with little success or reasonableness. Jordan certainly isn’t a perfect defender or player, but the Clippers could have used his impact down the stretch in many close games this season, many of which turned into losses.

SH: CRAIG SMITH CRAIG SMITH CRAIG SMITH CRAIG SMITH AND DID I MENTION CRAIG SMITH! There’s no team in the league that wouldn’t love to have the Rhino on their bench, but he’s spent the season trapped behind Joel Przybilla and Kurt Thomas, who combined are almost as old as my colleague Andrew Lynch.

Tremendous Tandems: Kevin Durant And Russell Westbrook Aim To Make A Baker’s Dozen

April 3, 2012 in by with 1 Comment

Through 52 games the prodigious pair of Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook have scored 2,711 points this NBA season, a shade more than half of the Oklahoma City Thunder’s entire point total. Both lead not only at their position in points-per-game, but have been mainstays in the top five on the PPG leaderboard all year long.

Twenty two times this season has this potent pair of assassins posted at least 25 points in the same game, 42% of the entire OKC schedule. Any given night you have to pick your poison, choose which to tie up hoping your roulette gamble pays off and you don’t get torched by the other. Should RussWest, averaging 24.5 PPG as I write this a few hours before the Thunder will square off with the Memphis Grizzlies, go on one more tear and manage to bump up his scoring average to 25.0, he and Durant will become just the thirteenth tandem in NBA history to post 25 PPG for the same team.

The feat has been accomplished only 15 times previously in NBA history by a dozen sets of twosomes.

• Accounting for 57% of their team’s 100.6 average scoring in 2000-01, Shaquille O’Neal put up 28.7 PPG while Kobe Bryant chipped in 28.5 PPG. The Los Angeles Lakers would take the title in dominating fashion.

• Accounting for 57% of the Lakers’ scoring once again in 2002-03, 100.4 PPG, Kobe would knock back 30.0 PPG while Shaq played an increasingly disgruntled second-fiddle to Bryant putting up 27.5 PPG. The Lakers would lose to the eventual champion San Antonio Spurs in the second round of the playoffs.

• Accounting for 52% of the Lakers’ 101.3 points-per-game in 2001-02, Shaq continued his prime with 27.2 PPG to Kobe’s up-and-coming 25.2 PPG en route to the last three-peat seen in the NBA.

One other tandem, also of Royal Blue and Gold, decorates the annals of prolific pointdom with three appearances on this list of copious scoring in combos.

• Accounting for 52% of the 1964-65 Lakers’ 111.9 points, the logo himself, Jerry West, dropped 31.0 PPG to Elgin Baylor’s 27.1 PPG. The team would lose their third trip to the Finals since moving from Minneapolis to LA to the Bill Russell-led Boston Celtics. You will see these super-twins again shortly.

• Accounting for 51% of last season’s superteam Miami Heat 102.1 scoring on average, LeBron James threw down 26.7 PPG while Dwyane Wade followed closely with 25.5 PPG. Still fresh in the memory is their Finals loss to the Dallas Mavericks.

• Our current tandem chimes in here currently accounting for 50% of the Thunder’s 103.7 PPG offensive output, Kevin Durant in a heated scoring champ battle with Kobe knocking down 27.7 PPG as of April 1 to Russell Westbrook’s much-improved efficiency leading to 24.5 PPG. Postseason fate: TBD

• Dipping under the majority mark for the first time on this list with 49% of the total 109.7 PPG we find the 1963-64 Lakers led by Jerry West’s 28.7 PPG and Elgin Baylor’s 25.4 PPG. They would be bounced by the St. Louis Hawks in what was then the first of three rounds of playoffs, who would in turn be bounced by the eventual Finals-bounds San Francisco Warriors led by Wilt Chamberlain.

This season’s Heat also finds 49% of their 101.3 PPG led by LeBron’s 26.5 PPG and D Wade, although Wade is not near enough the 25 PPG highlighted here with 23.0 PPG. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing though. Dominating your team’s scoring in tandem is by no means a guarantee of a title. Only three on this list have managed to reel one in — all Lakers squads — and only three others even have a Finals appearance the year of making this list.

I can’t be the only one to be at least a little surprised that the Boston Celtics, in all their historical glory, only give us one fleeting glimpse in this group. Without looking I’d wager they do appear on more passing lists though. Nevertheless, I present to you…

• Larry Bird and Kevin McHale, accounting for 48% of the 1986-87 Celtics’ 112.6 PPG, Bird hitting at 28.1 PPG, McHale at 26.1 PPG. However, Magic Johnson and the Lakers would take the playoff cake. Sadly, this would be Larry Bird’s last Finals appearance.

Four different dynamic duos accounted for 47% of their team’s scoring, listed here in order of team PPG. Two would fail to reach the postseason, two others would get relatively early vacations, losing at the conclusion of round one.

• In 1960-61 the Cincinnati Royals would put up an astounding 117.9 PPG behind Oscar Robertson’s 30.5 PPG and Jack Twyman’s 25.3 PPG. But it would be in vain as Cinci would finish the season dead last in the Western Division, then the Western Conference, failing to make the playoffs.

The Big O and Jack Twyman

• Before Willis Reed and Walt Frazier there was Rich Guerin and Willie Naulls who, in the 1961-62 season, led the New York Knicks and their 114.8 PPG with 29.5 and 25.0 PPG, respectively. Despite leading the NBA in attendance in the famed Madison Square Garden that year the Knicks would finish ahead of only the expansion Chicago Packers in the regular season standings, missing the spring season.

• When you think Pistol Pete Maravich you think… Lou Hudson and the Atlanta Hawks?! Putting up a third-best-in-the-NBA 112.4 PPG in 1972-73, Lou Hudson would lead the Hawks with 27.1 PPG with Maravich a free throw behind at 26.1 PPG. Although his most prolific scoring years would be with the New Orleans Jazz, Maravich would never see the playoffs there. This particular year the “Hudson Hawks” would lose to the Boston Celtics in the “first round.”

• The Knicks and Amar’e Stoudemire isn’t the first time someone tried to build a super-core around Carmelo Anthony. In 2007-08 the Denver Nuggets acquired Allen Iverson to pair with Melo and put up an NBA second-best 110.7 PPG, AI dropping 26.7 to Melo’s 25.7 PPG. Hopes were high coming in.

But the Nuggets would fizzle rather than sizzle, getting swept in their first round playoff series with the LA Lakers. Denver is the only other team on this list aside from the Lakers that can boast more than one dynamic duo. Read on to find out who.

• For the third time in four years, in the 1966-67 season, Jerry West and Elgin Baylor would be most prolific on offense, leading the Lakers’ 120.5 PPG with 28.7 and 26.6 PPG each. Yet that elusive ring continued to evade The Logo, and would for a few seasons more as LA would fail to reach the Finals for the only time in a six-year span this year (they lost all five Finals visits between 1964-65 and 1969-70). But West isn’t done yet…

Our other Denver Duo checks in twice in the space of three years here:

• Accounting for 45% of the Nuggets’ 1981-82 point total of 126.5 PPG, Alex English at 28.4 PPG, and Kiki Vandeweghe at 26.7 PPG, terrorized teams with a fast-paced attack in Doug Moe’s first year in charge in Denver.  And then…

• …in the 1983-84 season the tandem would flip-flop, English leading with 28.4 PPG to Kiki’s 26.4 PPG accounting for 44% of the Nuggets’ 123.7 PPG. But like Carmelo Anthony they would be plagued by first and second round playoff exits.

• Battered but not broken, Jerry West would finally break through and get off the schnide in the NBA Finals, albeit it not with Elgin Baylor carrying the bulk of the load of sidekick scoring duties. West is the only player to appear four times on this list of monumental immortality, and the only one to lead the points punch for every tandem appearing more than once. But his partner in crime this time would be Gail Goodrich. In 1971-72 the Lakers would put up 121.0 PPG, West and Goodrich accounting for 43% of the total output, 26.6 and 25.9 PPG apiece.

• Russell Westbrook needs to average 26 PPG over the Thunder’s final 14 games to solidify his and Durant’s standing on this list of scintillating scoreboardery.

A Final Note, Taking It To A Trio

Last season, the trio of LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, and Chris Bosh all scored at least 25 points in a game four times, although two of those times were after the 66 game mark. This season they have done so only once thus far with the 66-game season quickly winding down.

This season, the trio of Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook, and James Harden have scored at least 25 points each in a game two times. Don’t be too surprised if they do so a lot more often in the near future.

The Dirty Little Secret Of PER

April 3, 2012 in by with 6 Comments

Photo by marcmo via Flickr

Much of the mainstream discussion of Player Efficiency Rating has tailed off lately, as LeBron James’s assault on the single-season PER record has faded along with his play of late. For the first two-thirds of the season, however, PER was on the tip of the tongue of everyone from SportsCenter anchors and fairly casual NBA fans to the diehard stat nerds.

PER is many things to many people. To some, it’s one of an array of tools. To others, it’s a demonic entity, the existence of which represents everything that’s wrong with a growing subset of fans and analysts who “don’t watch the games.” But did you know that there’s a sneaky, filthy little secret behind the always controversial* PER?

*Controversial among both the casual fan who thinks it’s a voodoo formula designed to buttress the case that LeBron James is the “greatest player in NBA history ever IN THE WORLD” and various enclaves of advanced statistics people who prefer their own calculations to those of John Hollinger.

It’s true. No, it’s not that ESPN “re-appropriated” all of the robots in Hollywood history (the T-800 and the Iron Giant excluded) and forced them into a slave labor camp to do Hollinger’s bidding, pumping out numbers at a breakneck pace, without even a moment’s peace to download Windows updates (Hollinger-bots run on Windows, right?). And no, there’s no conspiracy to make some players shine brightly while others seem lackluster by comparison.

Yes, PER has its flaws — which Hollinger and those who believe in the value of PER (myself included) readily admit. It doesn’t sufficiently punish players who shoot a large number of shots at a barely acceptable rate of roughly 40%. Its ability to measure defense on an individual level is negligible at best, and it doesn’t take into account team defense. In fact, its failings in measuring defense are the most pronounced of the problems with PER. I would argue that rebounding is slightly undervalued by PER, as well. And, of course, there are people who use PER in a flawed way, leaning too heavily on it as a determinant of the relative merits of vastly different players with vastly different skill sets.

Again, Hollinger is the first to acknowledge those issues. But beyond that, a quick Googling of “flaws PER” brings about a cascade of complaints of a different kind: people really don’t like what they see as a made-up stat, pulled from the ether by someone they see as a know-it-all who came up with his own variables and weightings on a whim to satisfy some je ne said quoi. In fact, some would go so far as to call it a “cooked up formula” and not a “real stat,” like MikeD in Monday night’s Daily Dime Live.

“Because [PER] is a cooked up formula that uses per minute and usage stats. Just because Hollinger made it up doesn’t mean it should be concrete. Sure, it can be used to get an idea of a players production and efficiency. But its not perfect and shouldn’t be considered a real stat. … Like points per game, rebounds per game, TO, blocks, assists.”

On the middle part, we agree, Mr. MikeD. It can — and should — be used to get an idea of a player’s production and efficiency. After all, efficiency is right there in the name! And it is not perfect, surely. I’ll even let alone the reasoning that points and rebounds per game are more valuable (or more real) stats than PER.

But the secret that rests at the cold, emotionless heart of PER, deep in the Hollingerian Fortress of Statitude, is that the ingredients in that “cooked up formula” really don’t matter. Neither do the numbers. None of them. Really!

What PER means — what it’s really about, and why it really matters — is a different way of approaching basketball. All of us attempt to ameliorate the various goings-on in a basketball game into something resembling a coherent conclusion. Those inclinations, though, are fraught with their own perils, ripe for manipulation by biases, incomplete information and inconsistencies. PER — and its various cumulative stats brethren, Win Shares and Wins Produced — simply aim to solidify that decision making process. The bevy of factors, variables and coefficients in PER (and in WS and WP) might seem arbitrary, and to some extent, they are.* Focusing on those specifics, though, loses sight of the forest for the trees.

*Though those “arbitrary” decisions stem from attempts to correlate the many facets of on-court production and their impact on the outcome of games; that is to say, these numbers aren’t simply drawn up based on how Hollinger (or whoever) feels that day, but with much thought and deliberation and, yes, tweaking over the lifetime of the formula.

Analyzing and critiquing the intricacies of PER, or any stat, is fine. Discounting the entire line of thinking simply because one doesn’t agree with the precise weight with which one views the relationship between defensive rebound percentage and missed free throw attempts, however, misses the point. PER isn’t about being right. It’s about getting us to think about things in the right way.

15-Footer 4/2/2012: Tank Showcase Tonight!

April 2, 2012 in by with 3 Comments

There are 6 NBA games on tonight, and they are all important. Why? Because every NBA game is always important because the NBA is awesome. Some of the stakes may be higher or lower than others, but they are always the most important thing happening whenever they’re on.

Oh, also, there’s this other thing happening tonight that’s kind of like the NBA where these younger guys try to imitate NBA players and their coaches are super-paternalistic. So if you feel like watching that, go for it. It might not be a bad idea to watch that thing, because a bunch of the dudes in the game will probably be parts of the the most important league in the universe next year.

Milwaukee Bucks at Washington Wizards (7:00PM)
John Wall was the star one-and-done point guard on Calipari’s Wildcats team two years ago. Brandon Jennings was also one-and-done, but he played a year in Europe instead of going to college. And New Orleans is the most European city in the United States. Full Circle!

Houston Rockets at Chicago Bulls (8:00PM)
Derrick Rose took the Memphis Tigers to the National Championship against the Jayhawks in his one-and-done year. Calipari was also Memphis’s coach that year. Kansas took the title. The Jayhawks and the Wildcats are also represented on the Rockets in Marcus Morris and Patrick Patterson.

Memphis Grizzlies at Oklahoma City Thunder (8:00PM)
Best one-and-done in this game? Kevin Durant. Hook’em Longhorns! (or something!)

Los Angeles Clippers at Dallas Mavericks (8:30PM)
Eric Bledsoe and Kelenna Azubuike both attended Kentucky! And that’s literally it. No other National Championship connections. I don’t even want to talk about Blake Griffin being a one-and-done because he was a rookie two years in a row and that just throws off my whole space-time-continuum, ya know?

Utah Jazz at Portland Trailblazers (10:00PM)
Portland set off a firestorm of controversy at the trade deadline when they all-but acknowledged they were tanking. However, they’ve gone 5 and 5 in their last 10 games. Hardly a good job tanking, guys. Did you want Anthony Davis or not?

Minnesota Timberwolves at Sacramento Kings (10:00PM)
These two teams are MORE than familiar with tanking and selecting in the top-5 of the draft. And while it looks like they both might be headed back there (Sacto moreso than Minny), this season showed a bit of promise for the fanbases of these two teams. Looks like they’re on the up and up!

Kansas Jayhawks at Kentucky Wildcats (9:23PM)
Here’s a piece of trivia I like about this game: If Kentucky wins, Anthony Davis will be the first consensus #1 pick to have won a NCAA title in the one-and-done era. And if we use this list of NCAA titles and Most Outstanding Players, he might actually be the only player to win a title, get MOP, and go 1st overall in the draft since Olajuwan in 1984 Worthy in 1982. That’s kind of cool, right?

You Better Recognize: Rajon Rondo Shredded the Heat

April 2, 2012 in by with 1 Comment

Welcome back to the ongoing series here at Hardwood Paroxysm, You Better Recognize. In each edition, I take a look at a specific aspect of a specific player’s (or team’s) game and tell you just how and why they are so successful (or unsuccessful). Previously, I covered Roy Hibbert’s hook shot. Today, I’ll show how Rajon Rondo shredded the Heat’s vaunted pick-and-roll defense. 

The Miami Heat have played smothering defense all season against the pick-and-roll. Their strategy is very aggressive, as they always call upon the screener’s man to make a hard show agains the ball-handler, looking to drive him away from the middle of the lane and toward the half court line, the sideline or the baseline. The Heat are willing to take the gamble that their athletic wings and bigs can rotate in time to contest shots either at the rim or on the perimeter.And for most of the season, it has brought them great success. Here’s how it looks when it works the right way.

Above, Joel Anthony is guarding the screener, Brandon Bass. Anthony’s objective is to force Rajon Rondo toward the baseline where he and Mario Chalmers can execute a trap. To beat the trap, Rondo either has to turn the corner quickly and get directly into the lane or head toward the deep wing and draw both defenders before turning around and zipping the ball back to Bass at the top of the key.

Rondo heads to the deep wing and draws both defenders. Right now his move should be to hit Brandon Bass at the top of the key, where he can take a jumper, drive the lane or swing the ball around to Paul Pierce on the opposite wing. Anthony is still trying to force Rondo toward the baseline, and Chalmers is on his way over to complete the trap.

This is exactly what the Heat want. Rondo is trapped in the corner by Anthony, Chalmers and the baseline. Paul Pierce and Greg Stiemsma are covered by Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh in the lane. Rondo can either try to hit Bass at the top of the key or Avery Bradley over the top of the defense, but look who is standing between them playing center field: LeBron James. The Heat are willing to bet he can rotate in time to contest a shot by either man or get there quick enough to pick off the pass and create a fast break basket.

Rondo tries to keep his dribble alive but winds up nearly falling out of bounds. He attempts to throw the ball off Anthony’s leg to save the play, but he misses and the pass gets intercepted by Wade. Wade immediately chucks the ball down the court to LeBron, who released on the play, for an easy dunk.

[flash http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyRhNTM0JXY&feature=youtu.be w=700 h=450]

This play (which is actually from earlier in the game) has the Celtics running the same left side pick-and-roll action, this time with Kevin Garnett as the screener.

Again, Joel Anthony is guarding the screener and Mario Chalmers is guarding Rondo. Anthony’s objective is to force Rondo toward the baseline so he can be trapped, but Rondo turns the corner quickly and attacks the lane. This is one downside to the Heat’s strategy of defending the pick-and-roll; for a split second after the screen is set, the point guard has the ball on the move against one of their bigs, and if the big doesn’t force the point guard to the right spot, he can get beat to the rack.

Rondo beats Anthony off the dribble and he’s headed into the lane rather than toward the baseline, so there is no trap. The Heat have Dwyane Wade there as a last line of defense, but Rondo puts up the lay-up over Anthony, and Wade never even challenges the attempt.

[flash http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4f83-7hXkAE&feature=youtu.be w=700 h=450]

On the first possession of the game, after a Paul Pierce-Brandon Bass pick-and-roll yielded no open shot (and look how far out Chris Bosh forces Paul Pierce before he has to turn around and pass it in the video below), the Celtics ran a dribble-handoff pick-and-roll between Bass and Rondo.

On this play, Rondo comes up from the left baseline and is basically getting a downscreen. Bosh, still guarding Bass, is supposed to force Rondo back outside the 3-point line so his only options are to reset the play or pass the ball back across his body to Bass. Rondo again wants to get into the lane.

Instead of forcing Rondo back outside the 3-point line, Bosh basically just follows him to the middle of the lane for a couple of seconds and then leaves to go recover back onto Bass. Chalmers is still coming over to pick Rondo back up, Anthony has left Kevin Garnett alone in the corner because he’s on rim-protection duty and Wade is sagging off Avery Bradley to disrupt Rondo’s driving lane. This leaves Rondo on the move and in the teeth of the defense with the option to drive to the hoop or hit one of three wide open teammates.

[flash http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gL20ODgc87w&feature=youtu.be w=700 h=450]

In the second quarter the Celtics run a Rondo-Garnett pick-and-roll on the right side of the court. Bosh is guarding Garnett while Norris Cole is now on Rondo. Bosh wants to force Rondo to the sideline so he and Cole can trap him there. This time, Rondo dribbles directly into the trap.

This really just isn’t fair. Rondo takes the Heat’s bait and dribbles directly into the trap, only he fires a behind-the-back bounce pass to KG while Cole is still on the move. Bosh is all the way out toward the sideline and about 8-10 feet away from Garnett, so he doesn’t have enough time to recover before KG sinks the jumper.

[flash http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qD_Z1ss7f5o&feature=youtu.be w=700 h=450]

Later on in the game, the Celtics ran some 1-3 pick-and-roll action with Rondo as the ball-handler and Paul Pierce as the screener. This time, LeBron was responsible for forcing Rondo either toward the sideline or the half court line. Again, as ever, Rondo’s main objective is to get to the lane and into the teeth of the Miami defense, where he can either get to the basket or draw defenders and open up passing lanes.

LeBron doesn’t do a very good job re-directing Rondo away from the lane. That’s actually putting it lightly; LeBron just lets Rondo turn the corner and get into the lane. He practically escorts him there and then just lays back and sticks on Paul Pierce. He doesn’t really do anything the man covering the screener is supposed to do in the Heat’s system of defending the pick-and-roll. This allows Rondo to get right into the teeth of the defense.

Rondo attacks the basket with abandon as Avery Bradley cuts from the weak side corner into the open space right next to the hoop. Rondo draws the defenders close and dumps it off for a wide open lay-up.

[flash http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpUfOz2mppQ&feature=youtu.be w=700 h=450]

Eventually, the Heat got tired of getting beat on the hard show and decided to go with the soft show strategy of pick-and-roll defense, a drastic change from their usual strategy. Rather than hedging hard and trying to force Rondo back outside the 3-point line, Bosh lays back in the lane and dares Rondo to take a mid-range jumper.

Rondo decides to ignore Bosh’s polite suggestion that he take a pull-up jumper and instead ventures into the middle of the lane yet again. This time he draws three defenders. Bradley again cuts from the weak side corner into the open space near the hoop, and Rondo again hits him with the dump off pass for an easy lay-up.

[flash http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgm1UdBZ2v0&feature=youtu.be w=700 h=450]

The soft show works only if the entire defense is committed to making Rondo beat them. If even one guy strays from the strategy, it’s very easy to get beat.

Even later in the third quarter, the Celtics go back to the Rondo-Bass pick-and-roll, and the Heat again try the soft show and dare Rondo to take a mid-range jumper. Rondo takes the bait and pulls up just like the Heat want him to.

LeBron gets caught napping – and ball-watching – here and allows Garnett to sneak in behind him for a backdoor lay-up. Twice in a minute and a half the Celtics took advantage of LeBron loafing on the defensive end instead of filling his responsibilities in the pick-and-roll defense. One time it was as an on-the-ball defender and once it was off the ball.

Rondo and the Celtics pulled out one last trick late in the third quarter. This time they went with a double screen for the pick-and-roll. Rondo, being guarded by Cole, gets picks from both Stiemsma and Sasha Pavlovic. Ronny Turiaf and LeBron are guarding the screeners. Turiaf makes a hard show and tries to force Rondo towards the half-court line, but Rondo goes right around him.

Because Turiaf got beat on the hedge, LeBron is now responsible for guarding both roll men. Rondo is way past Turiaf and Cole is still trailing him and trying to recover, so Bradley’s man has to slide over to cut off Rondo’s driving lane. Bradley is left wide open in the corner, and when he gets the ball from Rondo, has an open driving lane against an on-the-move defender. Bradley gets right to the hoop for a lay-up, which is goaltended for a basket.

[flash http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwqWIkYYHns&feature=youtu.be w=700 h=450]

The Heat are third in the NBA in defending pick-and-roll ball-handlers according to mySynergySports. They force turnovers 24.3% of the time and allow a score on only 35.3% of P&R ball-handler possessions. Yesterday, Rondo made 3 of his 5 shots as a pick-and-roll ball-handler and had 5 assists that came off pick-and-roll plays. He systematically destroyed the Heat’s pick-and-roll defense by getting into the lane with relative ease. He was so effective that the Heat eventually changed the way their defense defends the pick-and-roll, and then he torched them some more.

Random Musings on Rondo, PER, And The Heat

April 2, 2012 in by with 5 Comments

Photo by aussiegall from Flickr

After watching Rajon Rondo net yet another dazzling triple double, while also seeing the Heat fall short again, I find myself struggling with a few things that I think deserve more attention and thought. Without anymore pretense or attempt to make this seem more organized than it really is, I’m just going to take this issues one at a time:

1. PER and Points Per Game

Player efficiency is a fabulous metric, it truly is. It captures so much more about a player’s value to his team than points per game or any other basic statistic ever could, yet I feel we are doing it a great disservice in the way we utilize it in our discourse and rhetoric. The inherent issue with points per game as measure of value is both the narrow scope and the singularity; while our use of PER greatly broadens the scope, more caution needs to be taken in its use as a definitive measure. While throwing out “he has a higher PER” is certainly better than “MOAR POINTS” , it retains the inherent logical issue that comes with trying to grossly over simplify our basketball analysis. Basketball is such a beautiful, intricate game. There is much nuance and context that we lose when we rely on one tool, idea or measure no matter how sophisticated it may be. PER is a great stat, but it is not a determiner of a players fate as good or great, mediocre or bad, overrated or underrated.

Perhaps the player that is most often the victim of this death by PER analysis is Rajon Rondo. While there are often other reasons provided by those in the “anti-Rondo” camp, too often the refrain is something like “Rajon Rondo can’t be a top 10 point guard since he’s 21st at his position in PER” or “How can Rondo be the best player on his team when he has the 3rd best PER?” All this ignores the fact that both Pierce and Garnett would struggle to produce at such efficient levels without Rondo’s steady hand at the old creaky wheel. PER can’t capture how and why it’s results came about it, there’s a context to Rondo’s PER that deserves explanation. Now, this is not to say that those who question Rondo’s value are wrong; I’ve long said he is among the most difficult players to evaluate in the league. One can point to his terrific supporting cast and coach as upholding a player that is much worse than his perception, and while his court vision is close to unmatched, his inconsistency as a scorer and inability to make free throws have a negative affect on his team’s success. However, the fact that Rondo has clear, glaring, obvious flaws does not necessarily make him less than a great point guard, which brings me to my next topic.

2. Completeness

We often talk about having “complete” players — guys that seemingly do everything well. While this is a nice concept, and certainly no one is saying a very versatile game isn’t something to be desired, it’s not necessarily a standard that needs to be met. In fact, completeness is pretty much a myth. Everyone has flaws, be they large or small.

Beyond that, complete dominance in one area can more than make up for lack of performance in others. Kevin Durant lacks the strength to get adequate position late in games, Dwyane Wade can’t really shoot threes, Chris Paul is small with balky knees, Dwight Howard can’t shoot free throws (neither could Shaq) — the list goes on and on. Even as a thought experiment, completeness doesn’t necessarily hold up as a desirable standard. Take a player who was say slightly above average at literally everything, compared to a player who’s a completely and totally dominant defensive presence but below average at everything else. Don’t you want the totally dominant defender? At the very least, doesn’t it depend on the context of your team? Exceptional mastery of a couple important skills often proves more valuable than adequacy at many. Pointing out that a player isn’t “complete” or has glaring flaws doesn’t disqualify him from being a great player. Certainly, these flaws are important to our analysis, but they have to be weighed and measured against the value of the strengths to understand the full picture.

3. The Miami Heat Effort, Immediacy, Talent and Perception

I’m not really sure what to do with everything that surrounds the Miami Heat and, sort of by extension, the Oklahoma City Thunder. By nature, our opinions of teams and players are colored by immediacy, by the most recent images and impressions we have be given. And that recent history is unkind to the Heat, who have looked sluggish, lost, and a little disinterested. Meanwhile Oklahoma City is all sunshine, roses, exuberance, youth, backpacks, alley-oops and 3-gun holsters. Russel Westbrook is apparently never going to turn the ball over again, and Kevin Durant will never have another bad game. While the Heat suffer the wrath of now, the Thunder are basking in its deceptive promise of endless praise. The problem is that eventually the present becomes the past, and the new present doesn’t seem to care for the nature of its predecessor. It only takes a few tough losses, maybe an injury, or a tough shooting performance to completely change the narrative. When things are going great your are an impenetrable fortress, once things start to go wrong that same structure has foundational issues, the cracks start to show.

The same immense talent that allows the Heat to compete and play at such a high level also becomes their curse. When they lose a few games, look disinterested, maybe don’t give the requisite effort, we question whether they can contend, whether their might be a fatal flaw in the gorgeously destructive basketball force. We hold them against a nearly impossible standard, attack them for not demonstrating to us what they already know: this is a dominant basketball team. We want to see the evidence, want to believe that you have to try your hardest at all times in order to succeed. It’s too pollyanish, sometimes gift and talent will win over grit and determination. The Heat don’t have to care in the regular season, they don’t have to prove much of anything to anyone. Ultimately they know their performance in the playoffs is the only true measuring stick; let’s adjust our own evaluations of this team accordingly.

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