APBRmetrics

Fwiw, the average playoff net margin of Nuggets' playoff opponents is about +4.5. Thunder close to -3.5. Pacers about +5.

These are composite numbers influenced by series they were in and the others they were not in..

Rockets lineup management:

https://x.com/bballstrategy/status/1973081960227442729

https://x.com/bballstrategy/status/1973089107380166765

Quads in general:

https://x.com/bballstrategy/status/1973842108718194707

Avdija - Camara - Clingan was tied for 2nd best performing trio among 80 most used but was only 21st in minutes.

Finney-Smith was in all 3 clear best pairs with the core starters and 6 of 7 best in 20 most used lineups but was not retained. Don't know what they offered but it wasn't enough. And probably an important loss.

DFS in 3 least negative playoff pairs among 10 most used. Hachimura in 4 of 5 worst. Hachimura remains.

Reaves in all the next tier good pairs. Will he be retained? I would guess no.

Castle Barnes Champagnie Wembanyama was the near best performing returning big minute quad.

Subbing in Vassell Sochan for Barnes Champagnie was better. Sochan was Vassell's best pair but still slightly negative. Really need to run with that and find more half decent pairs, peobably for a bench role. Or trade him, if possible, given cost, performance decline and poor fit.

Those should be the 2 bases for heavy concentration. Try out various 5th guys, focus on the best.

Booker Durant Plumlee was by far best trio among 20 most used but was only 17th in use.

The NBA is littered with inadequately tesed / used cases.

Build around Booker? They failed to keep 3 of his very best pairs. Dunn and Ighadoro are next best but slightly negative. 5th and 9th most used last season. How much / how good this season?

Sub-lineup usage across league:

https://x.com/bballstrategy/status/1980304050282479940


Focus on Blazers and Hawks:

https://x.com/bballstrategy/status/1980119068926787782

Lakers starting unit in game 1: -11. Everything else +1 combined. All 10 of the player pairs among the starters were negative overall.

6 of 8 most used lineups in game 1 were negative, with the Clippers and 76ers getting super horrendous results (near-50pts / 48 min.).

Jazz, Warriors, Spurs and Bulls with the best big minute lineups.

Average of 17 lineups per team. 2/3rds for 2 minutes or less.

3 worst pairs in 13 most used were all Lakers, involving the 3 combinations of Doncic Ayton and Hachimura.

Looking at rest of 50 most used, some of the much worse were Reaves with Doncic, Ayton and Hachimura, Durant-Thompson, Harden - Leonard and the Wizards pairs of Carrington, McCollum and Middleton.

Harden - Leonard was nearly the best in Clippers 20 most used last season, so probably consider game 1 a fluke for the time being.



Somebody is going to be up and somebody down in a game. But which repeats and become a pattern? Have to watch to find.

3 most used Hawks lineups were badly negative with starters -60 pts / 48 min.

Clippers similar but not quite as bad at the top.


Grizzlies used 28 lineups. They won, but repeating the high diffusion of last season?

832 lineups used last regular season. A +28 pts / 48 min. starting unit used less than 9 minutes per game when used and not much over 200 minutes for season. Only 3 lineups much above 50 minutes for season. All 5 of 5 most used lineups in brief playoffs were negative, 3 very badly. Only 3 of 60 lineups used over 2 minutes per game for series. Need to do better, with chaos or discipline. Going with chaos again?

Banchero and Magic lineup data:

https://x.com/bballstrategy/status/1982524008009793755

10 most used trios and 5 biggest quads all negative for Lakers. Still very early but that suggests major lineup construction concerns.

Very small samples are not significant but they are slowly building into something of note and are what we have.

Magic:

2 of 3 most used lineups negative. 5 of 10 most used negative. 6 of 43 used more than twice in 4 games.

3 of 3 most used quads negative. 8 of 12 most used negative.

All six of most used trios negative. 9 of 12 negative.

7 of 7 most used pairs negative, 6 badly.

Bane, negative with 9 of 12 pairs. No positive pairs with starters. Bad with 3, neutral with Suggs. Only positives with Black and Da Silva.

Banchero, negative with 9 of 12 pairs. No positive pairs with starters. Bad with 3, slightly negative with Suggs.

F. Wagner, negative with 6 of 11 pairs. Bad with 3 starters but moderately positive with Suggs. Other positives with Black, Da Silva and Bitadze.

Suggs positive with 7 of 9 pairs and them 2 slight negatives.

Obviously more Suggs minutes would help. How soon?

Appears more Black and Da Silva minutes would help.

Banchero with Da Silva is really great but in only 9 minutes per game. Double or triple that?

Banchero with Suggs, +19 pts / 100p. Bachero without Suggs, -13.


Bane - Banchero - Black
and Bitadze - F. Wagner - da Silva
are the only positive trios over 10 minutes per game. Double use of those?

What if any better ideas are there?

4 combinations of Suggs, Bane, F. Wagner, Banchero and Carter are near neutral and therefore currently desirable. Bane, F. Wagner, Banchero and Carter quad has been used twice or more than the others and is terrible so far. Reduce or stop using? Or wait how much longer?

F. Wagner, da Silva, Black without
Banchero and Carter
and
Banchero, da Silva, Black, Carter Jr. without F. Wagner are small sample winners worth emphasizing for more test ASAP.

Only 2 of 20 most used quads last season are still possible and both involved F. Wagner - Da Silva - Bitadze. Only 5 of 20 most used trios last season are still possible. 3 of them involve combinations of Suggs, Black, F. Wagner, da Silva and Bitadze. The only named trio in 20 most used last season that had Banchero and is still possible is F Wagner, Banchero, Carter. When that isn't working there aren't well proven alternatives.

Substituting Black or Jones for Suggs with rest of starters are both massive failures so far.

30 Banchero lineups have been tried so far this season. Slightly less than half are positive. But the only positive used over 15 minutes total is the starting unit.

Pick some of the 30 to focus on / test better.

Can either rely on general coaching lineup thinking or follow the numbers to try to find and use the best. General coaching lineup thinking does not seem to be working right now. So follow the numbers more literally and test more concentrated? I would.

Nuggets:

Only 28 lineups used. But 3 most used negative.

8 of 10 most used quads negative.

6 of 10 most used trios negative.

All 4 pairs for C Johnson with starters are significantly negative. Johnson at -5.7 on net points.


Poor defense. Not very Moreyball.

Newly extended C Braun at career worst from 3pt, efg%, ts%. Defensive rebounding just half of previous low. -5.7 BPM.

Brown and Hardaway with poor BPM but able to ride in positive team court time. JVal lousy early results individually and team. Big 3 with positive BPM and nobody else. D Holmes sent to G league before any real NBA test.

4th best net rating so far despite these many issues. Only 11th best in early, unreliable SRS.