2018-19 season commentary

[Mike G]

In this century -- now in it's 20th season -- the top 100 rookies in FGA/G:
http://bkref.com/tiny/NVUlA
The range is from 18.9 FGA/G (LeBron'03) to 9.2. At 15.2, Doncic ranks 10th.
Per100, they range from 27.4 (Ben Gordon '05) to 14.3 (Rubio '12). Doncic shoots 22.7, ranking 19th.

The median eFG% is .473 -- Amar'e '03 and Tyreke '10 -- and Doncic at .516 is tied at 19th with A Davis '13.
No rookie since 1999 has shot more FGA/G at a better eFG% than these guys:

Code: Select all

rookie    yr  FGA/G   eFG%
LeBron    04   18.9   .438
Carmelo   04   17.9   .449
Mitchell  18   17.2   .506
Griffin   11   16.8   .508
Doncic *  19   15.2   .516
Kyrie     12   14.6   .517
Curry     10   14.3   .535
Towns     16   14.1   .555
Ayton *   19   12.2   .597
Herrmann  07    6.9   .608
Drummond  13    5.7   .610
Landry    08    5.2   .616
Plumlee   14    4.3   .659
J Evans   11    2.3   .661
Ayres     10    1.7   .662
...

League eFG% has certainly risen over the years. Just about .050 since LeBron and Melo got in. Some is in the rules, and some of it is better shooting.
Take .020 off Doncic's eFG%, and he still ranks 30th, after Yao. Deduct .040, and he's in Wade/Marion territory, 45-ish.

[Crow]

He certainly isn't shy and he isn't getting ignored or blocked.

Putting aside the fickle RPM for a moment, he has generally been near neutral on raw on the court team plus minus and is there now. His on / off is better now that awful Dirk is affecting it but it is still negative. Mavs are way way better performing with Kleber at PF. Meh starters but I still assume that most of them are going away in not too distant future. They should imo. I'll be shaking my head if they bring back the entire starting unit next season. I'd change at least 3.

[Mike G]

Perhaps someone can explain this. The Mavs have outscored opponents by 0.3 PPG, at a pace of 99.9 -- call it 100.
Over on this page --
https://www.basketball-reference.com/te ... 19/on-off/
-- we see Doncic has played 65% of Dallas minutes, and his Offensive On-Off is +0.9 (The next 5 teammates, ranked by minutes, are all negative.)
But on the defensive side, the team has been 4.1 ppg better when he's off the court. His on-off would seem to be -3.2

Now jump to the general team stats page, Play-by-Play table.
https://www.basketball-reference.com/te ... ml#all_pbp
There you see Doncic with his +0.4 OnCourt and -3.3 On-Off. So the Mavs are +3.7 when he's off court?

If the Mavs are +0.4 for 65% of their minutes and +3.7 for the other 35%, then they should have:
MOV = (.65*0.4 + .35*3.7) = 1.6
But that's not right; it's 0.3

[Crow]

Should mention to folks at BRef. They have a contact form. Something or several things are wrong with their data.

They may be counting possessions differently for team pace and player stats. Or there is a variance in offensive and defensive possessions at team or player level. Or maybe they are going by position and making mistakes because of his assignment? Or some cell got wrong data from manual entry or faulty linkage or formula.

Their on/off data didnt match other sites data a time or two before, I recall. I don't recall it bring resolved.

[eminence]

26 rookies with 450+ minutes with Shadow's RAPM (updated 1/15)

Huerter 2.29
Brunson 1.37
Okogie 0.65
Doncic 0.63
B. Brown 0.47
Mikal 0.36
JJJ 0.31
Hutchison 0.26
Kurucs 0.23
Clark 0.18
Robinson -0.26
SGA -0.38
Okobo -0.39
Diallo -0.69
Miles -0.82
Melton -1.09
Ayton -1.17
Bagley -1.24
Shamet -1.33
Trier -2.25
WCJ -2.45
Spellman -2.53
Young -3.11
Knox -3.12
Sexton -4.01
Bamba -4.16

Give EvanZ all the credit in the world for riding the Huerter train all year.

[Mike G]

Just noticed on the b-r.com player Splits page for Clippers rookie Shai Gilgeous-Alexander:
https://www.basketball-reference.com/pl ... plits/2019
Go down to the split for Minutes. Separated out by minutes per game ranges.

Code: Select all

Min.    G   FG%  3fg%   TS%  ORtg  DRtg  TO/36   +/-
30-39   8  .584  .471  .661   129   116   1.4   +8.1
20-29  29  .476  .350  .551   100   112   2.9   -4.5
10-19   7  .311  .143  .371    81   115   3.3  -21.1

Does he play that much better when he gets more minutes?
Or does his coach play him more when he's hot?

[Crow]

Month to month, on raw plus minus and offensive and defensive ratings, SGA has mainly gone downhill. On minutes too in January. On discrete stats there are ups and downs.

He got pretty big minutes immediately and did pretty well with them early. In mid-December he had five straight negative plus minus games, most big & bad and Clips lost 4. His minutes were cut some then restored shortly thereafter but then he had some more bad games. Doc might have lost some faith after that or decided to reduce his workload perhaps to deal with rookie wall. He has not gotten the big minutes back yet. Moderate minutes.

[Crow]

This is a bit manipulated, but for players over 10 minutes for season, D Cousins is the new BPM leader with a 10% edge over Harden. A good 15 minutes to kick things off.



Westbrook has the top 2 DReb% of all time for those 6-3 or under (if you eliminate a few players who only played tiny minutes). Worst OReb% of his career.

Westbrook has worst efg% of career, worst ft%, 2nd worst 3pt fg%. Best at the rim fg% but by far worst fg% from 3-10 feet. Floater game broke?

Second best DBPM. Second worst OBPM. Lowest ever ft rate. Best steal rate. Lowest usage since he was an NBA sophomore.

How much of the change was requested by coach vs. just happened? I dunno. Probably some of both.

[Crow]

GSW, Raptors, Bucks, Rockets and Nuggets combined currently have about 76% of the probability to win title according to BRef. I'd estimate it at closer to 90%.

[Mike G]

Have you noticed the East teams are collectively about 64% likely to win it?
Bucks at 40% have a better chance than all West teams combined.
https://www.basketball-reference.com/fr ... _prob.html

[Crow]

Purely statistical projection gets really missed up by the Warriors. I not sure how probable it is they win the title. It may be 40-60%. It is more than the 16% BRef projects and far more than anyone else imo. Last season playoff performance should be considered in these projections in most cases without major changes affecting them.

Bucks? I know what they've done this regular season but they still have to prove it in April and beyond. I guess they are having a good W-L month but the 3ptas are way down to about average and the 3pt fg% this month is also average. Did they change or were they forced to change? More to look at.

It appears they play the least well against eastern playoff teams (compared to the other 3 groups by this split). 8-5 against them. Offense slips a lot. 25-7 against everyone else. It will be 3 playoff rounds of their toughest opponent type then probably the Warriors. BRef gives them 54% chance to win Eastern Conference Finals. I'd probably cut that below 40%. BRef projects 73% chance to win NBA finals. I'd cut that sharply too. Against Warriors I'd think 40% or less. Against Rockets, Nuggets, etc. higher but not much higher than 55-60% imo. So all told I'd cut their title chances from BRef's 40% to under 20%.

[Crow]

There are 10 teams with an obvious need for major or massive changes to get to or above average. More teams probably should do similar even though they are better than that first 10.

[Crow]

With last night's 0 for 8 game, Doncic's 3 pt fg% will fall to very close to league average (about a tenth of a percent above). A couple of other bad efficiency nights had pulled his ts% below league average previously and that will go lower too. His efg% has long been clearly below league average and will fall a bit further. FT% is clearly below league average as well.

Strong rookie. But average to mostly below average player on shooting / scoring efficiency marks at this point.

On the bright side, his A/TO has been very mildly higher than Dion Waiters' for awhile. I'd think he'd hold that edge from here but we'll see.

His defensive rebounding has helped the Mavs to 15th place on that.

5 games below .500. Doncic on court? Plus 1 point for the whole season. Not per game, for season. Was negative 1 before last night.

Better or worse for rest of season for him? I dunno. He faded significantly last season on Real Madrid. Team performance? Depends a lot on Carlisle and their effort. More likely flat to down than up I think.

Better or worse next season? Probably better on individual stats as Mavs likely to lose other offense and increase Doncic's role even further. Team performance? Depends how far they move away from current starters / promote bench or new guys. Playoffs in 2020? I doubt it. 2021? 2022? They'll need more from Doncic and / or rest of roster. A good amount more.

[Crow]

At factor level, Thunder are a middling team on most. Strong at offensive rebounds and opponent turnovers, weak at shooting. Weak shooting from every distance including FT line. Somewhat off set by getting to rim and FT line at high rate but offense is just average overall. Probably not enough offense to go far in playoffs as is.

2nd easiest SOS to date. 11th be st record against top 16. 7th best against top 10 but in less than average games. Probably should try to keep 3rd seed but that could change.

[Mike G]

Luka Doncic is on pace to get 5.8 WinShares and 3.3 VORP this year. Over the last 4 seasons, an avg of 23 players per year hit both of these marks, and 3/4 of them were named to AllStar teams.
The only rookie in that interval was Ben Simmons, last year.

Loosening the standards to 5.5 WS and 3.0 VORP, just 23 rookies in the 3-point era have done it. In 39 seasons.
http://bkref.com/tiny/cNka5

Doncic is of course near the bottom in both numbers, and he doesn't rank among the superstar rookies.
To find his statistical near-peers, we can look at rookie WS between 4 and 8, combined with VORP of 2.5 to 4.5
There are 25 such rookies. Only LeBron was as young (19), and 10 were as young as 21.
http://bkref.com/tiny/HFE5Q

Here are those 10 youngest in their first 3 seasons:

Code: Select all

. rook    yr    WS1   WS2   WS3  vorp1 vorp2 vorp3
Kellogg  1983   6.8   7.0   6.1    2.8   3.0   2.6
Barkley  1985   7.5  10.8  12.0    3.2   7.3   7.7
Iverson  1997   4.1   9.0   7.2    2.4   3.8   3.3
Brand    2000   7.5   6.1  13.6    2.9   3.0   6.2
Kirilenko '02   7.3   9.2  11.6    3.2   4.8   7.5

P Gasol  2002   7.6   8.5   8.1    3.2   3.0   2.9
Nene     2003   5.0   6.1   3.2    2.6   2.4   0.9
LeBron   2004   5.1  14.3  16.3    3.1   8.8   9.5
Iguodala 2005   6.6   7.5   7.7    2.9   3.2   4.4
Jokic    2016   6.7   9.7  10.7    3.0   5.3   5.6

average         6.4   8.8   9.7    2.9   4.5   5.1
% rookie avg    100   137   150    100   152   173

Applying those 3rd year improvements, Doncic would be expected to get 8.7 WS and 5.7 VORP at age 21.
That would put him in the company of Jokic or Garnett. Or Baron Davis at 22; Webber at 23; McGrady at 24; Wade at 25 ...
http://bkref.com/tiny/7wM0t