2017-18 quick observations

[Crow]

By the four factors, the Thunder are a very average performing team outside of offensive rebounding and forcing turnovers. Both of these strong factors fell off for Thunder in last 2 playoffs compared to regular season. Will they again? If they do, it may not be a long playoff run.

[Crow]

Saric, good 2nd year. https://www.basketball-reference.com/pl ... cda01.html

[Crow]

Imo, the Lakers should be open to trading anyone on team. I'd probably trade or get rid of almost everyone. I don't expect a complete house cleaning. If they hold on to many, their upside probably isn't that great. Less than the optimists think, I'd say. Free agency... they might get George. I don't think that works out better than a low playoff seed though. LBJ? I'd be pretty shocked.

[Mike G]

Saric, good 2nd year. https://www.basketball-reference.com/pl ... cda01.html

Yeah, I hadn't noticed. Here's a monthly summary:

Code: Select all

mo.   mpg   Pts   Reb   Ast   ORt  DRt
Oct   24    7.7   4.3   1.6    88  112
Nov   30   12.9   7.4   1.9   109  108
Dec   34   17.3   7.9   3.9   113  110
Jan   30   15.4   6.8   2.6   114  107
Feb   32   17.1   7.0   2.8   118  107
Mar   28   15.4   6.4   2.1   119  109

https://www.basketball-reference.com/pl ... plits/2018
Approaching all-star level ORt/DRt, if he gets the minutes.
His 3fg% has improved every month, from .333 to .483 in March; TS% from .441 to .662

Oddly enough, he's the only member of the Sixers with noticeable improvement over last year. Their projected 20-win jump is mostly due to new guy Simmons, new guy Redick, and to Embiid perhaps tripling his minutes.

EDIT: Saric appeared in the first "most unimproved" listing of the season, thru Nov. 3

[eminence]

How was Royce O'Neale in Europe? I'm not familiar with European leagues and where to find info on them, but have liked what he's done as a rookie wing for the Jazz.

[shadow]

Royce O'Neale Euro page:

https://www.basketball-reference.com/eu ... ale-1.html

[Crow]

Everything counts and the overall gap between the Rockets and Warriors for the season is modest but several things are decidedly in the Rockets favor. In terms of shot distribution the Rockets are the best on Moreyball style. Warriors, very average. On the 4 factors, Rockets have no bottom ten weaknesses, Warriors 4. In the head to head games, the Warriors shot more efficiently everytime. The Rockets' 2 wins came from winning all the other factors. The some Warrior win came when they won two factors in addition to shooting efficiency.

The second half of season has strongly favored the Rockets. Past playoffs favor the Warriors. Should be quite the clash, unless someone or something interferes. Rockets on paper the better team but they probably will have to outshoot the Warriors at least once, probably more to take the series.

[Crow]

Few successful, famous, rich people want to allow critics any space to comment (right or not) or any power ever over them. Durant trying to belittle analytics and its practitioners is honest reaction from that position but defensive. Maybe he doesn't like ranking 36th on overall RPM or a -1 on DRPM. Selective eye test voters might buy into his DPOY campaign but those who check DRPM are more skeptical. A few years ago he made noise as one the few players employing his own stat guy. Did that end? Did that not make sense?

Become a part or majority team owner in the future with that attitude? Yeah, see how that works. Good tank strategy but not good get good strategy. Take that attitude with your startup corporate investments... not good get good strategy.

[Crow]

Is there anyone who would trade for Wiggins? If you took enough meh to junk back probably but I'd think it would be mainly meh to junk. Who is most likely? Knicks, Nets, maybe Hawks, Mavs, Griz, Clippers? Would it "work out" better elsewhere? Maybe but enough to be with it? I doubt it.

[Crow]

Thunder:

3rd seed? Um, no. 4th seed? Pretty unlikely. 5th seed? Probably lose it tonight. Get it back? I'd guess more likely no than yes. 6th seed? Maybe, not certain. 7th seed or worse? That would be a blow.

Summer of Sam last summer? May go down far more as the beginning of the end of relevance than the sustenance of it. The loss of Durant may seem like the beginning of the end but there was probably more chance of sustenance with what the Thunder had before last July (in retrospect) than what they had afterwards. It didn't seem like it but no bump from George / Melo at all. Very little from Abrines, Ferguson, Singler, Huestis.

But bigger than this season, it looks pretty bleak for future seasons. Will Westbrook win another playoff series as leader of the Thunder? It is not an easy answer. At the moment, I'd say no.

Would Westbrook have stayed without Melo? I'd think so. Would they have been meaningfully better without THAT trade? Maybe not but probably not much worse either. Next season, almost certainly way worse off with that deal.

[Crow]

Only a few teams are worse than the Thunder in divisional play. They win less than 1/3rd.

Nobody better in division tha Clips. Win 80% of those games.

May be influenced by randomness.

[Crow]

Almost 109 as the new average team offensive & defensive efficiency (per 100 possessions)? Will have to shift mentally to accommodate those values.

[shadow]

Final 17-18 single year vanilla RAPM:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... ingle=true

[Crow]

So by this the MVP candidates of Harden, Westbrook and James are 17th, 19th and 36th respectively. May be issues in the RAPM that make it less than simply and perfectly reliable guide. Of course the MVP voters are far from perfect either.

DeRozan, 48th. Small step up.

Huestis 40th overall on vanilla RAPM. Interesting. on RPM he finished -3, 91st best SG. That is a lot different fitting and / or adjustment.

[shadow]

I added an RAPM Wins metric which is a better measure of overall impact since it factors in minutes played. The rank in RAPM Wins for those players is 14th (Harden), 6th (Westbrook) and 13th (James).

As for Huestis, his BPM was -3.9 this year and given that he only plays about 14 MPG, his box score prior in RPM is probably carrying more weight than his RAPM rating.