Scott S
Joined: 10 Feb 2008
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Location: East Rutherford, NJ
PostPosted: Tue Aug 05, 2008 8:33 pm Post subject: Quick Olympics Strength Progression Analysis since 1960 Reply with quote
I did a quick study on the strength of Olympic competition since 1960, the first Olympics in which the US sent a significant number of future NBA players to the games. I also included World Championships that featured NBA players from the US (1994, 2002 and 2006) and did a rough estimate of European NBA players in the 1996, 2000, 2002 and 2004 games.
There are a number of factors which make my measurements far from perfect, but I did the best I could with the data I could obtain and the amount of time I considered reasonable. First, I estimated adjusted plus minus based on the statistics of the NBA players (for all NBA seasons) based on the most recent coefficients provided by Dan Rosenbaum’s analysis. I then estimated the possessions of each player in the International event for the US teams (I could not find minutes for most years.) Based on these ratios in the next year of NBA competition (or previous in Bird and Magic’s case), I came up with an expected scoring differential of that year’s team against an average NBA team. I then took the ratio of that team’s expected results versus the NBA versus the actual ratio. I assumed 200 points in an NBA game. Thus, if an Olympic team combines for an expected plus 16 against the NBA one year, I assume they would win in an NBA game by an average of 108-92. If they outscore their opponents in Olympic competition by 70-50, I rate the Olympic competition as (108/200)/(70/120)=92.6% of the NBA level.
I will point out a few of the assumptions that I used. The first few years, there were a couple players who did not play in the NBA. Typically, these players were used sparingly (although not always) and I assumed their adjusted plus minus was 0. I could make an improvement on this by doing some replacement analysis, but I didn’t think it was worth the time. I did not adjust anything for age, which is usually reasonable since the players will often play in the NBA immediately following the Olympics, but not always. This factor is more important to note when I analyzed the European NBA players. I also did not adjust for ABA strength or league strength over time. There did not seem to be any oddities based on low minutes that I felt the need to address since most players had plenty of minutes. I also did not adjust for team fit such as a player being more valuable on one team than another based on his specific skill set. Finally, I didn’t adjust for strength of schedule. These would all be interesting to look into, but most would take an entirely different study to complete. Now that you have an idea what this data means and doesn’t mean, here are my results:
_________NBA Expected Pts Pts
Year Strength Margain Scored Allowed
2006 1.12 32.88 103.6 83.1
2004 1.34 34.07 88.10 83.5
2002 1.07 27.01 92.30 75.4
2000 1.02 27.49 95.00 73.4
1996 0.98 34.73 102.0 70.3
1994 0.88 25.30 120.1 82.4
1992 0.94 40.05 117.3 73.5
1988 0.78 15.09 91.60 61.3
1984 0.77 14.91 95.40 63.3
1976 0.96 11.18 97.30 83.3
1972 0.62 06.44 77.30 44.6
1968 0.69 00.41 82.10 56.1
1964 0.64 03.73 78.20 48.2
1960 0.76 26.32 101.9 59.5
(I apologize if it is difficult to read, I don't know how to format tables on these forums yet.)
First of all, the 2004 Olympics appears to be a very bad, somewhat unlucky appearance for the US. Also, the World Championships, on a whole seem to be less competitive, which is reasonable due to the decreased emphasis and increase in the number of competing teams.
As you notice, the Olympic competition improves at a reasonable pace for the first 30 years, as do most of the USA Olympic teams, with the exception of the astounding 1960 team. Then both improved dramatically in 1992. Although the US team’s improvement can be explained easily based on the addition of NBA players, the other teams improvement would not be as easily explained. Although there were a few NBA players on other teams, there seems to be something else going on. For one, there is quite possibly a diminishing return being experienced among the US team since I didn’t perform replacement oriented analysis. Notice that the international strength was also high in 1960. Also, I imagine that the NBA players were already more adjusted to the NBA game in 1992 than their former college representatives. I would guess that even the college players would be more acclimated to the NBA game than the Olympic game. In order to look at this quickly, I also compared the productivity of foreign players in International competition versus NBA competition. This effect would likely be reversed of what was experienced by the US teams. Since there weren’t many teams with significant NBA players, I estimated the adjusted plus minus’ of the players in the Olympic games and compared them to their career averages in the NBA. This is not ideal, but hopefully the results will be somewhat telling since the average ages of these players in international competition and their NBA careers was similar. Obviously, the coefficient would be different in a different style game, so I ratioed the results so the average would be the same. I also had to estimate turnovers and fouls and, in some years, blocks. I took the ratios of 20 (expected points produced) plus the estimated adjusted plus minus’. The results were that international players performed in the NBA at a rate of 92% of their international competition in these years. Note that I only found data for 57 player/competitions for this figure. As with all of my figures, with few data points, the results are quite variable, but I don’t think they are useless. It does seem surprising that the results are indicating that the Olympics could be stronger than the NBA, but I guess when you consider that my figures are weighed based on actual games played (The US and Argentina play more games than Angola, for example), these assumptions could be reasonable.
Sorry I wasn’t able to get the data for this past year to estimate this year’s US team’s NBA expected scoring margin. I will try to do this when I get the chance. I am certain that they should be the favorite again, but can probably be expected to lose about one game in the tournament since the scoring differential variability is much higher than in the NBA. In Olympic history, I estimate the Pythagorean exponential factor to be more like 6 in the Olympics opposed to the 14 used for the NBA.
I would appreciate any feedback. I am not sure what studies would be most appropriate to produce. I would like to have elaborate analysis to post, but it is difficult to finish them at a relevant time with my schedule as it is. Hopefully my quick study was helpful, obviously there are a ton of things I can do to improve on it, but then I will never finish an analysis. I guess it would be best to “master” specific and small analysis’s until I have something of larger scale completed. Let me know what you think.
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Mountain
Joined: 13 Mar 2007
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PostPosted: Tue Aug 05, 2008 11:41 pm Post subject: Re: Quick Olympics Strength Progression Analysis since 1960 Reply with quote
Scott S wrote:
I estimated adjusted plus minus based on the statistics of the NBA players (for all NBA seasons) based on the most recent coefficients provided by Dan Rosenbaum’s analysis.
I read this "estimated adjusted plus minus" as being statistical +/-, right?
As such I wonder if the offensive power of the US team might be overstated as not all of these players will get their NBA usage level in the international competition or play as prominent role on a team of stars as they do normally?
And although statistical +/- has a good part of defense related to possession changing activity it does not have shot defense. If shot defense quality of the team is less than their other skills perhaps the team is also over-rated?
Your research & writeup looks intensive, thoughtful and useful. I mean these comments as discussion and a way to hear & learn more about what you considered & did. Some of Mike G.'s work to adjust for usage levels and opponent scoring might make it even stronger.
Last edited by Mountain on Wed Aug 06, 2008 6:59 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Scott S
Joined: 10 Feb 2008
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Location: East Rutherford, NJ
PostPosted: Wed Aug 06, 2008 9:53 am Post subject: Reply with quote
Yes, estimated adjusted plus minus is statistical +/-.
For all of the things I did not take into account, usage level was accounted for at some level in international competition. Ideally, I would have created estimated plus minus' per individual possession on offense and per team possession on defense and then converted these to the percentage of possessions used on offense and the percentage of minutes played on defense for that person in international play. However, I could not find individual minutes for many years, so I created the best estimate of player possessions (usage) that I could and used this for both offense and defense. If you are referring to adjusting for usage level based on NBA statistical +/-, I definately agree with you. I would imagine that this could exaggerate the expected margains and, thus, the strengths. I plan on making adjustments to my NBA data for usage and other things in the future, but I haven't done that yet.
You are right in that there are certain aspects to defense that are not directly considered in statistical +/- and, to me, defense is not as accurately measured in this estimated stat, and therefore, my study. However, this does make me feel better about weighing my statistical+/- toward the offensive end. (This is predominantly coincidental.)
I really appreciate your comments and welcome any informative criticism you may have as well.
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Mountain
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PostPosted: Wed Aug 06, 2008 7:08 pm Post subject: Reply with quote
Sounds like we are on same wavelength.
If you take it further I (and I assume others) will appreciate the look. New data coming soon to add to any methodological adjustments. The story will add a chapter and perhaps some of the old chapters will be worth another look and might change and become sharper and more tied together or more blurry. Always appreciate as much narrative as the researcher feels they can or want to give to help digest the data and spur discussion.
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dquinn1575
Joined: 03 Jun 2008
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PostPosted: Fri Aug 08, 2008 9:48 am Post subject: Reply with quote
Good work, I like this topic a lot.
Can you explain the 1st column - maybe walk me through one year's calculation - I understand your example, but I would think the number for the 1960 team would be .897 -113.16/86.84 nba spread versus 101.59 - 59.5 olympic spread is .566/.631 or .897 - What am I missing?
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Scott S
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Location: East Rutherford, NJ
PostPosted: Sat Aug 09, 2008 10:54 pm Post subject: Reply with quote
Thanks and good point. I actually explained my strength different than I calculated it. The formula for 1960 is actually (113.16/86.4)/(101.9/59.5) = 1.30/1.71=.76. I don't know if one is better than the other and I didn't have any specific reason I chose that formula, but I think any reasonable measure would be useful. I appreciate the feedback.
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dquinn1575
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PostPosted: Sun Aug 10, 2008 3:48 pm Post subject: Reply with quote
I like the way you actually did it (.76) better. Two things:
I think rather than using 200 points, you should use the ppg for the league - 236.2 for 1960-61 instead of 200.
I think you somehow are overrating how these teams would do in the NBA - the 1960 team would rank as virtually undefeated -in the NBA -
If you took the 1964 Royals (Lucas,Oscar,Boozer,Smith,Arnette) Embrt/Twyman instead of Bellamy/Dischenger and add West (1st year in NBA) I dont think you get a 65 win team, let alone 80 wins (in 82 games)
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Scott S
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PostPosted: Sun Aug 10, 2008 10:07 pm Post subject: Reply with quote
I agree that I shouldn't have converted the margin to 200 and that the league average would be best, I will try to revise my results later this week. (I typically convert scores to an average of 200 to be consistent, but I don't think I did that this time (I calculated the adjusted plus minus' a while ago). As far as overestimating the NBA performances, I imagine that would be possible, since I did not look into the effect of diminishing returns (meaning that adding 2 estimated adjusted plus minus' of 9 might not reach a total of 18 points added) and regression factors Rosenbaum used were not designed for the 1960 game, but the first would at least be consistent from competition to competition and the second would be expected to at least be a reasonable approximation. Also, diminishing returns should not be a major factor in the comparison of European NBA players in their NBA performances compared to their international performances.
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dquinn1575
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PostPosted: Mon Aug 11, 2008 10:15 am Post subject: Reply with quote
34 points better than league average team seems way too high - so heres what I did for the 2004 team
I allocated the minutes based on their Olympic minutes.
I allocated the fga based on Olympic fga.
I calculated nba reb/min to get rebounds
I allocated fta and 3 pt fga based on nba ratios
I assumed nba average turnovers, and average assists to fga
I got a team that scored 102.9 pts on 92.8 poss - and one that got 55% of the rebounds which I think would be the best rebounding team ever in the NBA.
For defense, no player was all-defense in 2003-2004, so I assumed average defense other than rebounding.
It gave me a defense of 94.6 ppg on 92.8 poss -1.019 der- the league best was .988 or 1.1 points better
That gives me 8.3 pts better than average, or 62 wins -
That appears much more likely than 34 pts better
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Statman
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PostPosted: Mon Aug 11, 2008 9:52 pm Post subject: Reply with quote
dquinn1575 wrote:
34 points better than league average team seems way too high - so heres what I did for the 2004 team
I allocated the minutes based on their Olympic minutes.
I allocated the fga based on Olympic fga.
I calculated nba reb/min to get rebounds
I allocated fta and 3 pt fga based on nba ratios
I assumed nba average turnovers, and average assists to fga
I got a team that scored 102.9 pts on 92.8 poss - and one that got 55% of the rebounds which I think would be the best rebounding team ever in the NBA.
For defense, no player was all-defense in 2003-2004, so I assumed average defense other than rebounding.
It gave me a defense of 94.6 ppg on 92.8 poss -1.019 der- the league best was .988 or 1.1 points better
That gives me 8.3 pts better than average, or 62 wins
So - you think that the 2004 Olympic team would be definitely worse than the 2008 Celtics?
But, I agree, a 34 ppg margin appears too big.
Here's my ratings for the players from last season:
LeBron James 163
Chris Paul 160
Kobe Bryant 139
Dwight Howard 138
Carlos Boozer 127
Deron Williams 126
Chris Bosh 125
Carmelo Anthony 119
Jason Kidd 115
Dwyane Wade 113
Michael Redd 108
Tayshaun Prince 106
It's a ratio (based off 100) - so assuming every player played the same amount of minutes - the average is 128. Given your average defense of 94.6 points, I would expect this team to score 121.3 points, giving a final margin of 26.7 points.
Of course, I'd expect a team of that talent to play much better than "aveerage" defense - with about the same ratio overall. Lets say 90 ppg given up - which would be 115.4 ppg score - with a 25.4 ppg margin.
If we scaled the minutes - my "best" player playing 12 times the minutes of the worst, 2nd best 11 times, all the way down (Lebron would be 36.9 mpg, Paul 33.8 mpg, all the way down to Prince 3.1 MPG) - you get a team rating of 137. Assuming 90 pts given up - that would be a team that scored 123.6 pts - giving us a margin of 33.6.
Wow, ok, I guess I side more with Scott S on this issue. I would expect about a 30 ppg margin I'd say, which is pretty close to his 32 ppg margin for the 2008 team.
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Scott S
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Location: East Rutherford, NJ
PostPosted: Mon Aug 11, 2008 10:03 pm Post subject: Reply with quote
It seems like you are estimating some Offensive Rating equivalent, or at least a per possession basis. I think that, in extremes, this would likely be much more accurate than my method, but probably less accurate in "normal" margins. As I mentioned before, I didn't have a great deal of olympic stats available for all years, so I didn't think it would be worth it to allocate all of those stats. As far as comparing an Offensive Rating to an offensive estimated adjusted plus-minus, I had some reservations with each. I have already stated the problems with the plus minus method. I was concerned that the Olympic teams had recently been teams who were more of shot creators. The coefficients for the est adj pm indicate a player can be a well below efficient shooter, percentage-wise, and still produce value taking shots. I think that ideally circumstantial shooting percentages should be compared and incorporated into an Offensive Rating, (I plan on doing this study in time). A good shot late in the shot clock could be a bad shot early in the shot clock. I would have to agree that I suspect your figure would be more accurate, but I wanted to be as consistent as I could and had limited data. Out of curiosity, what weights did you give to offensive and defensive rebounds, steals, blocks and assists? And thanks again for the input.
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dquinn1575
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PostPosted: Tue Aug 12, 2008 8:45 am Post subject: Reply with quote
I was working up the 04 team, which Dean Oliver had as just a little better than an average team.
http://82games.com/comm52.htm
I really dont think the 04 team is 20 points better than the 08 Celtics
With a 40 minute game (less need for bench) I dont think the 08 team is 20 points better than the Celtics.
I took an excellent NBA defense, made a team 60% total rebound % (34 0ff/80 def). With 8 3 pointers a game, in order for the team to be 30 points better than average the team had to shoot 57%
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Scott S
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PostPosted: Wed Aug 13, 2008 11:57 am Post subject: Reply with quote
dquinn1575 - I don't know exactly how the US teams would have done in the Olympics, but I am almost certain that the 92 Dream Team is good enough to consistently beat the 96 Bulls when you compare player to player and skill to skill. If you look at Oliver's analysis, it indicates otherwise. There are definately some factors that can undervalue some players when analyzing them on offensive efficiency alone, although it may be a good estimator in general and generally moves in the right directions (positive and negative values). That said, I am not sure as of yet which methods are best in this environment.
Statman - what do your ratings mean and what are they based on? Rank-wise they seem reasonable I would suppose. Does Lebron's rating of 163 mean that if he plays the whole game on an average team the team will, on average, win by 63/5 = 12.6 points (ignoring other factors)?
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Statman
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PostPosted: Wed Aug 13, 2008 8:27 pm Post subject: Reply with quote
Scott S wrote:
dquinn1575 - I don't know exactly how the US teams would have done in the Olympics, but I am almost certain that the 92 Dream Team is good enough to consistently beat the 96 Bulls when you compare player to player and skill to skill. If you look at Oliver's analysis, it indicates otherwise. There are definately some factors that can undervalue some players when analyzing them on offensive efficiency alone, although it may be a good estimator in general and generally moves in the right directions (positive and negative values). That said, I am not sure as of yet which methods are best in this environment.
Statman - what do your ratings mean and what are they based on? Rank-wise they seem reasonable I would suppose. Does Lebron's rating of 163 mean that if he plays the whole game on an average team the team will, on average, win by 63/5 = 12.6 points (ignoring other factors)?
163 means that he is 63% more productive than an average NBA player. A team of LeBrons would theoretically beat a completely average team, say, 147 to 90.
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Statman
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PostPosted: Wed Aug 13, 2008 8:32 pm Post subject: Reply with quote
Scott S wrote:
Does Lebron's rating of 163 mean that if he plays the whole game on an average team the team will, on average, win by 63/5 = 12.6 points (ignoring other factors)?
Well, yes, if they give up 100 points, and he plays all 48 minutes at full 163 efficiency, they would theoretically win 112.6 to 100.
Another way to look at it - he is a 163, his other 4 teamates are 100. 164+400 = 563. 563/500=1.126. His team should theoretically score 1.126 times more points than their completely average opponents.
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dquinn1575
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 14, 2008 7:49 am Post subject: Reply with quote
Its really hard to do this evaluation unless we can determine how good the US teams are. I see Dean understating his start point (the Dream Team) which then overstates his change.
I think your amounts are too high.
A team of 10 all-stars would probably at minimum be a 60 win team. On the other hand there is some upper limit in how much you can beat an average NBA team by. I dont think 5 LeBrons would win by 57
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Mike G
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 14, 2008 8:08 am Post subject: Reply with quote
Statman wrote:
...
163 means that he is 63% more productive than an average NBA player. A team of LeBrons would theoretically beat a completely average team, say, 147 to 90.
You'd need at least 6 LeBrons, though. A given LeBron only goes 40 mpg, when healthy. Stop exaggerating !
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Statman
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 14, 2008 8:37 am Post subject: Reply with quote
dquinn1575 wrote:
A team of 10 all-stars would probably at minimum be a 60 win team. On the other hand there is some upper limit in how much you can beat an average NBA team by. I dont think 5 LeBrons would win by 57
I think 12 LeBrons would.
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dquinn1575
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 14, 2008 10:52 am Post subject: Reply with quote
82games.com shows Cleveland's defense to be worse with LeBron on the floor - let's say a team of 5 LeBrons would be = Cleveland's defense. That is a stretch due not only to the above, but your pg and post defense would be worse. The team gave up 96.7 ppg.
If I take LeBron's stats and prorate them to Cleveland's possessions, I get 104.0 ppg versus 96.4 ppg. Now I do get 4.9 assists more a game - and you need to add something for that - but the difference between unassisted fg% and potential fg% is about 10% - or .5 baskets, say 1 ppg.
Now, there will be less doubleteams and more open shots - call that an increase of fg% of 5% - that is 7.6 ppg
So, 104.0 + 1.0 + 7.6 = 112.6 ppg versus a defense of 96.7 - plus 16.1 ppg, shooting 54.7% fg, same 3fg% and ratio, same ft% and ratio, and to%. I have the same off reb per minute, so I am overstating his off rebounds.
And better defense than what 82games.com shows.
I get 16.1 ppg as a guess, with a decent amount of possible error.
40 ppg better than an NBA team is really really hard to get to statistically; you would have to shoot an incredible fg% and get an incredible % of the rebounds to do this.
Work out the team stat line off and def of a team that is 57 ppg better than an NBA team and see if it makes sense to you.
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schtevie
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 21, 2008 10:17 am Post subject: Reply with quote
Let me add my two and a half cents to this topic.
It seems to me that the most startling fact to leap out of Scott S's data is that the World (as represented by those countries participating in the Olympics) has long since (2000) caught up to the NBA in terms of ability. I think it is safe to say that this is still at variance with the conventional wisdom. The wiggle room remaining for the general superiority of the NBA game (vs. national teams) is "unfamiliarity" with the FIBA rules and a historically (at least) less impressive team organization by the USA. Against this, I would argue that the Olympic competition that Scott S uses in the average includes some regional stiffs (e.g. the Angolas of the world) and to cull these out emphasizes the real point that the World has long arrived at NBA parity.
This said, let me offer my interpretation of the numbers since 2002. What differs is less the emphasis on the World than on the USA (and it is largely a gruesome tale, but with what looks like a happy ending.)
Rather than use formulas for statistical +/-, I take a straight sum of Adj.+/- for team participants, assuming that each player's contribution has an equal weight, as an estimate of how the USA team would do against average NBA competition. (The equal weight assumption biases downward the contributions of the Tim Duncans but such errors are offset by a similar assumption for the Starburys. For present purposes this is a decent approximation). For the 2002 team, I assume that Dan R's initial estimates for '03 and '04 are servicable (at least for how heavy I will rest upon them). For 2004, this two year average is used again. For 2006 DLew's two year average is used. Then for the current team, I just take last year's numbers from basketballvalue.
As for the competition, I only look at a subset of international competition. I only include games against European teams, Puerto Rico, Argentina, and Australia. Apologies to Yao Ming aside, I think this is the best/most reasonable take on the World's elite.
Finally, the results are expressed in terms of net points prorated for NBA game length.
The results are these.
In 2002, the USA team (assuming no let-up when slaughtering) would have been expected to beat its NBA competition by 17.4 points. Against international competition, they only won by 7.2 points, a difference of 10.2 points.
For 2004, the team talent was much worse. Summed Adj+/- was "only" 5.9. They beat the competition by 1 point on average, a difference of 4.9.
For 2006, the USA team amped way up. Way, way up. 23.7 point expected NBA victory margin, and they beat the competition by 21.6, a difference of 2.1.
Before considering the ongoing Olympic competition, it is worth pondering this history.
First, 2002. May the name of George Karl and the phrase "international basketball" never be spoken together in polite company. He had a team of incredible talent - one with what will be multiple HOFers, one really lacking no skills except perhaps some size - and led them in a way that the AVERAGE competition appeared to be equal to the best champions ever in the NBA (the 10.2 point difference, by transitivity). Simply unbelievable.
(I note that this interpretation is at variance with DeanO's assessment of the talent level, but I simply don't see how one gets from the '02 roster an NBA equivalent of only plus 5.)
Next, 2004. Here the improvement in coaching was more than offset by the incompetence of team selection. The team that was sent was only equivalent in talent to an NBA team vying to appear in the FINALS (poor Tim Duncan, he deserved much better) and the apparent average opposition they faced was "just" '08 Rockets good (plus 4.9).
Moving along to 2006, we see a huge (HUGE) upgrade in talent and no feather in the cap for Coach K. This team was essentially beating the competition like what should have been expected (at the time) and then there was the Greece game, with all its one-off explanations (who knew Michael Redd was a no-brainer Olympian?) and the Coach not even knowing the opponents' names in the post-game interview. It seems to me that the fact of the matter is that this failure of Team USA to get the gold is just a step below the disaster of 2002. Yes, it is one and out, but they should have won with what they had. Oh, and as for the apparent talent of the opposition, it was apparently only equivalent to a slightly above average NBA team (net plus 1).
And this brings us to the current Olympics. This is a team essentially equivalent in talent to the 2006 team (plus 22.9) but what a difference two years makes (i.e. having a coherent "long-term" program). The medal-round is yet to occur, but there is no conceivable way that the next two game results (even with a loss) will overturn the larger story (based, of course, on a small sample of games) that world competition is not equivalent to average NBA competition. The so-called Redeem Team has beaten its opponents by 42 points on average. Assuming mere 10 point average victories in the remaining games would imply that the average NBA strength of the World would be equivalent to the absolute worst teams in the league.
So, what is the bottom line? If one assumes a constant quality Team USA since 2002, we see a dramatic apparent DECREASE in the ability of the World elite to play basketball (NBA equivalents of 10.2 to 4.9 to 2.1 to -19.1 pending). This is of course incorrect, but it underscores the main point which is that what really matters for correctly estimating the evolution of the strength of the World, is correctly estimating the talent and effective effort of Team USA.
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Mountain
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 21, 2008 12:19 pm Post subject: Reply with quote
I agree with dquinn and schtevie that defense matters a lot. I think dquinn's use of Cavs defense with LeBron raw on/off reveals something more than simple team based "defensive rating" (but I wouldn't hang my hat completely on either) or no defensive rating at all but I'd probably take pure adjusted +/- like Schtevie (with its defensive side at proper equal weight) over these.
Ultimately I'd probably go for some weighted meta-metric of pure +/- and an individual boxscore based metric (not a huge fan of statistical +/- above other approaches at the moment since it weights individual actions to value by league instead to a specific team) or a new adjusted +/- 2.0 with a different input than all 5 players get equal credit/blame on every possession as I have said before and will try to stop repeating though I still think it may be at least of the answer to get estimates even more accurate to true impact.
The USA/NBA team vs "the World" or even top countries with significant NBA players in those contexts isn't that important to me though I think trying to calibrate the strength of the two is an inevitable topic worthwhile from a historical perspective (if you are into that) and the methodological discussion is interesting to0 and advancing.
At the moment I would rather comment that if Lynn Greer,Will Solomon, Papa Sow, Macijauskas and Galinari are in or near top 12 Euroleague players then the players in the "world" last season, not playing in the NBA for their fulltime job, aren't that talented- yet.
How great will Childress look- on individual stats or as a "team leader" or teammate? I would think he'd be the best talent in the Euroleague (by far?) though I really have almost no direct observation of the Euroleague's best players and I don't know if he will be given a role that allows him to put up flashy individual stats or not and if he will take that request or opportunity. He has been and maybe prefers being a role player. I don't know the intended role of the team that acquired him.
Are Delfino, Pargo, Boykins, Nachbar going to push their way into the Euroleague top 12? In the long run I'd love the Euroleague to get even better and compete with or maybe eventually link up for true sustained team competition with NBA teams in some fashion whether it be a full "World League" or just a World team championship final series.
I also tend to agree with dquinn that huge projected margins of victory are very difficult to achieve - at least against any full team, average NBA team and would guess that the USA teams in World or Olympic competition wouldn't smash an average NBA by really huge margins and that a team of 12 LeBron's wouldn't either.
The success of the 12 LeBron's would depend on the willingness of the clones to accept different roles - at least on individual plays though for a full season would make more sense- and using their great versatilty they could be chameleons and probnably pull it off pretty well. 12 LeBron's trying to play like the one and only LeBron plays for the Cavs would be too much scorer over-duplication at least and might not be up to par in every other area. But 12 LeBron's with 2-3 trying to be wing scorers and 2-3 trying to be facilitators and 2-3 focused on rebounding and interior defense and 2-3 focused on plugging holes or providing specific spark and hustle when called on in stray circumstances and 2-3 busting their butt in practice to keep the others sharp or rested as the case may need be could indeed be a helluva team if they all agreed to do it that way instead of fight over roles.
12 LeBron's against 12 Magic's or 12 Bird's or Dr J's or Havileck's, Jordan's. Pippen's, Barkley's or whoever might make interesting computer sim or video games. Anybody done this or seen it done somewhere? The adjustments for player capable adjustment into roles would be a key.
Last edited by Mountain on Thu Aug 28, 2008 11:57 am; edited 1 time in total
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dquinn1575
Joined: 03 Jun 2008
Posts: 11
PostPosted: Thu Aug 21, 2008 5:01 pm Post subject: Reply with quote
I used the best defense in the league for 2002, and prorated shots based on WC stats, and other stats based on WC minutes - I get about a 10.7 differential.In 2002, the USA team (assuming no let-up when slaughtering) would have been expected to beat its NBA competition by 17.4 points
A 17.4 differential team wins 75 games; my 10.7 wins 68.
Of the 5 players who took the most shots in WC play, the best NBA shooter was Marion 46.9% There are no good passers on this team other than the pgs. It is slightly above average in rebounding.
The 2002 team did not have a first or second team all-NBA player, and no MVP candidate.
The 17.4 differential would be by far the best NBA team ever; it beats a 68 win team 2/3 of the time.
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schtevie
Joined: 18 Apr 2005
Posts: 150
PostPosted: Fri Aug 22, 2008 5:17 am Post subject: Reply with quote
The fact of the matter is that the Adj.+/- data say what they say. The 2002 estimate is misleading in as much as is represents the productivity of players in the two years after the year in question. And I wouldn't be surprised if the unknown "true" value were a bit lower, as most of the players were heading into their prime (as opposed to having already arrived there).
However, I don't think this will overturn the larger point that this was a team of studs. And looking at actual performance in the WCs doesn't overturn this. They stunk up the joint. The issue is how to explain this, and it cannot be based on a lack of raw material.
That Marion only shot 46% and was the team's best is an indictment of the system. The team had Andrew Miller and Baron Davis, two of the best assist guys in the NBA. And go down the roster, who are the guys on the team that had a demonstrated inability to pass? That there were no then current 1st or 2nd team NBA players and no MVP candidates is but a very minor criticism. Such accolades - for what they are worth - are typically retrospective. And in hindsight, the 2002 roster is damn good.
As for Mountains observations, I just want to emphasize that the point of my remarks was not to elevate Euroleague play. National teams of the World's elite often consist of a great NBA player, plus the best of the rest. It is in this context that the notional comparisons to NBA levels are made. Take a Kirilenko or a Nowitzki and throw in the best of the rest that a country can produce, and you seem have the basis of an NBA or near-NBA level team.
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Mike G
Joined: 14 Jan 2005
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Location: Delphi, Indiana
PostPosted: Fri Aug 22, 2008 7:12 am Post subject: Reply with quote
The most underachieving US Olympians in '92 were Jordan and Stockton. Not exactly guys you'd call slackers, but their focus was elsewhere.
Duncan in his prime is the ultimate competitor. But his motivational reservoir also isn't bottomless.
Kobe, CoachK, LeBron, Wade, Bosh, Howard, Paul, etc., all have something to prove. Good for them.
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Mountain
Joined: 13 Mar 2007
Posts: 749
PostPosted: Fri Aug 22, 2008 12:44 pm Post subject: Reply with quote
The shift to discussion of quality of players currently in the Euroleague was mine alone at this point and it is a tangent but I thought it was worth a brief mention. There are NBA caliber players coming from throughout the world- and playing international competitions for the home country- but to date they are almost all playing in the NBA otherwise.
Take the best non=playoff NBA team and put it in the Euroleague do they win the title? I'd guess they should but hard to say. Would the 2008 Heat or Sonics? I don't know but that would be another measure of how far the word has caught up or not. It is easier for Spain or Argentina to compete in a World Championship or Olympics with 5 NBA caliber players as they will this time than it is for any of their normally constituted professional teams to compete with any normally constituted NBA teams.
Last edited by Mountain on Thu Aug 28, 2008 11:59 am; edited 1 time in total
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Scott S
Joined: 10 Feb 2008
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Location: East Rutherford, NJ
PostPosted: Tue Aug 26, 2008 10:59 pm Post subject: Reply with quote
Obviously, a linear model of statistical plus/minus is likely to be less valid than actual plus/minus, but it would tend to be less variable and would only be available in most recent years, which is why I chose to use that model. Furthermore, the data I started with was somewhat spotty and limited as well as highly variable in game schedule and competition, I tried to use several years in order to observe some patterns.
One thing to note is that it is likely more accurate to adjust the addition of any plus/minus numbers to a plus/minus per possession rather than per minute. I would imagine that a typical utilization would be around 25% for a more recent US Olympic squad, meaning a team with an original predicted margin of 30 might actually really be closer to a margin of 24. Obviously, one might also suspect that the earlier teams with NBA players "slacked" more at times.
I suspect that it is possible that the talent level in the average Olympic team the US team plays could have been close enough that the other factors such as cohesiveness and (especially) rule changes/familiarity could make these games more difficult than their NBA games in the past decade or so. Of course, the successes in 2006 and 2008 might speak in part to the cohesiveness and adjustment to the international game made by the US players or, alternatively, just natural variability. Also, it seems to me that the increase in the influx of foreigners to the NBA is slowing, but I don't know if that means the talent is slowing compared to the NBA talent or this might be part of the apparent trend of players staying/returning/moving to Europe. Possibly a comparison of the NBA to the Euroleague would be more helpful in assessing the talent in the Olympics.
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dsparks
Joined: 22 Feb 2008
Posts: 61
PostPosted: Thu Aug 28, 2008 5:01 am Post subject: SPI Analysis of historical national team rosters Reply with quote
This is a digression from the current direction of this thread, but I've just written a retrospective on the Olympics (which you can read here: http://hardwoodparoxysm.blogspot.com/20 ... mpics.html). I don't go into much detail about this team's strength relative to teams of the past, but I do find a simple basic pattern from an EDA-type look at SPI plots of each team's composition. Essentially, it appears that the better teams have placed a priority on including strong Pure Perimeter-region types, while the less successful teams included fewer/weaker of these and stocked up on Perimeter Scorer types known more for shooting than anything else.
Also, it was widely claimed (though somewhat skeptically received) that Team USA's players were changing their style of play to better mesh as a team and fill the role to which they were assigned by the coaching staff. I find some evidence that this was actually the case, especially for LeBron James.
I would be very interested in hearing your feedback, especially regarding the strengths/weaknesses of this mode of analysis, and what you thought of the "small multiples." Thanks in advance.
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