2018-19 season commentary

[nbacouchside]

Beyond new management and ownership and a new coach, what to do with the Bulls? I'd trade or drop almost everybody but Carter and Markkanen. GMs usually don't do much before February, so give LaVine, Dunn, Parker some time to try to improve their trade value; but I'd be surprised if any of them would convince me that keeping them is a good idea. Dunn, LaVine, Portis, Markkanen sucked as a quad last season (albeit in light testing). Unless they get much better (in more testing), Dunn and LaVine should go. Portis, probably. If can't fit in a good starting lineup, don't pay him as anything but a reserve. Try one more time with Valentine, but unlikely to be a keeper.

Dealing everyone except WCJ and Lauri is basically the right answer. I would hope that LaVine has a good scoring season and they could dump them at the deadline to the Kings, who tried to sign him this offseason.

[Crow]

So far LaVine is negative with his 8 most used player pairs and 6 bad to horrible. -17 per 100 possessions overall. Let's see if Dunn helps. Probably won't solve issue. LaVine has always had a negative raw plus minus. This is his worst yet.

LaVine has positive offensive box score metrics. For a team with a good overall defense, he might have value. That is not this Bulls team.

Holiday, Parker and Carter also have bad raw plus minus. Early of course, but gotta fix it for Carter in long run. By whatever means.

[Crow]

If you can't touch anyone on D, it probably makes length even more the priority defensive attribute (for vertical contest of shots, blocks and rebounds). And steals of passes, perhaps more so than dribbles. Toughness becomes refusal to bail-out the offense with light contact.

[nbacouchside]

So far LaVine is negative with his 8 most used player pairs and 6 bad to horrible. -17 per 100 possessions overall. Let's see if Dunn helps. Probably won't solve issue. LaVine has always had a negative raw plus minus. This is his worst yet.

LaVine has positive offensive box score metrics. For a team with a good overall defense, he might have value. That is not this Bulls team.

Holiday, Parker and Carter also have bad raw plus minus. Early of course, but gotta fix it for Carter in long run. By whatever means.

I'm not worried about Carter's plus-minus at all at this point. He's been playing with the starters which has included nothing but bad defensive players: Payne (awful), LaVine (putrid), Holiday (not good), Portis (terrible), so his raw +/- is going to be terrible.

[Crow]

I am not particularly worried ABOUT Carter; rather, worried for him. He is the probably the real core, but will have to prove that. His start has been much weaker than I expected.

Raw plus minus is indeed a lot about teammates (and opponents) but last night Carter had the best in a sea of negatives for the other starters and key reserves. It was his best raw plus minus to date I believe, far better than his average. His average is a lot better than LaVine, Holiday and Parker but still weak. (Porter and Dunn are actually far ahead of him & everybody though just near neutral.) The "fix" will be more experience and hopefully new starting partners. The experience might come quickly or slower. The new partners will probably come slow. Too slow. Maybe one new before season is over? Maybe none. Surely there will be change next summer? Probably at less one but probably shouldn't stop til it is most or all of them.

19 of the 20 most used player pairs for Bulls are negative, many badly. Most of Carter's bigger minute pairs are bad too. One tiny data bit that is favorable is Dunn - Carter but that is just one game so far. Overall Bulls probably need to try different. Different players than currently possible. A different coach is certainly needed and easier to shift to. Unlikely to be enough though. Need different players, different coach, different management. And lots of time.

Arcidiacono has been hot. Might not last but don't kill his minutes just because Dunn is back. That is what they did last night, trying Payne. Seems unlikely to work for him but I guess try. Lots of time for experiments.

[Crow]

70% of the Celtics 20 most used player pairs are negative, as are 3 of the 4 most used lineups including the starters.

All of Irving's top 10 player pairs are negative except with Baynes. Horford negative except with Baynes and a few bench players. Hayward, negative with all other starters but good with most bench. Tatum, mixed. Brown, negative with all starters but Tatum. Mixed after that. Smart, mixed with starters, positive with most bench. Rozier positive with everyone but Irving.

Fix play within existing rotation or change starters / rotation? One or other is needed. If you go with change, Hayward to 6th man and probably Smart in would make sense from the data to date. Quicker to the bench in general, subbing out the worst performer. So far, that is most often Irving (-10 on court, -36 on/off per 100 possessions). Horford next, half as bad but still terrible to date.

[Crow]

Doncic, bottom 20% of league on BPM at a vey low -6.4. Very weak on other published overall metrics. Waiting on RPM estimate and RAPM factors. On usage amped PER, he is still just an 11, well below average.

Ayton, 74th best on BPM so far. Jaren Jackson, 59th best. Strong on other box score metrics too.

Doncic's strengths to date are assist rate and defensive rebounding rate. 99th best on former, 102nd best on later. His offensive rating is "up" to 251st. Still bottom third. 183rd on TS%. Usage is 65th highest. But dropping a bit.

[Dr Positivity]

oDoncic, bottom 20% of league on BPM at a vey low -6.4. Very weak on other published overall metrics. Waiting on RPM estimate and RAPM factors. On usage amped PER, he is still just an 11, well below average.

Doncic had a bad first game, if just looking at the last two I'm sure his stats would be better

[shadow]

Way too early 2018-19 vanilla RAPM:

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

Updated through games on 10/22. Will try to update this every couple weeks, but no guarantees on that.

[Crow]

Super early, but out of curiosity, I see the following in the bottom 10: Zac LaVine, Jabari Parker, 3 Thunder players, L Ball, Olynyk, among others. W Carter quite low. Doncic in bottom 75. J Jackson and Bamba very low. LeBron James and Kuzma in bottom 25.

Raptors take the top 3 spots.

[Crow]

Magic, horrible offense. 3rd worst team efg% and very low on Moreyball. Clifford improves the defense but the offense slips a little more.

High concentration of minute with top 2 strong lineups, plus 26. -53 on everything else. Clifford's Hornets were strong last season with non-dink lineups (over one minute per game for season), slightly weak on dink lineups. Stick to your best as much as possible.

[Crow]

Ntilikina, modest passing, steals, not much else. Worst raw plus minus on team. Not seeing all the stuff you're talking about Fiz. Understand trying to talk him up but not really there right now.

[Crow]

Nick Nurse's Raptors: Plus 54 for 6 most used lineups (over 2 minutes per game). Everything else, -7.

[Crow]

Sixers starters with Fultz- minus 35 per 100 possessions. Fortunately only uses 5-6 minutes per game. For now.

Getting absolutely no edge on average so far from 6 most used lineups. Lightly used (just 35% of total minutes). Doesn't seem to matter right now as only plus 1 with rest of lineups. Can you detect any analytic or tactical coaching brilliance in this diffuse, meh lineup data? On the surface I don't see anything special.

[Crow]

Jazz's 10 most used lineups are -10 cumulatively and only 3 are positive. The super-dink lineups are plus 13. This isn't impressive. Generally you want to win with big / best lineups, not stray dink lineups.