Should we believe what we believe? If so, Celtics roll.

[Neil Paine]

Should we believe what we believe? If so, Celtics roll.
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schtevie



Joined: 18 Apr 2005
Posts: 408


PostPosted: Fri Aug 03, 2007 4:18 pm Post subject: Should we believe what we believe? If so, Celtics roll. Reply with quote
I was lazily waiting for someone to (calculate then) say what follows: The result of the trade for KG should be to make the Celtics the odds on favorite to win the NBA championship.

Forecasting team results, by summing "recent" adjusted plus-minus statistics for the relevant players, the 2007-08 Celtics would appear to be a team for the ages. Here are the calculations:


Career Career DLew's DanR's
Avg. Avg. 2004-6 Weighted 2002-4 Weighted
mpg (% of 4Cool Adj. +/- Results Overall +/- Results

R. Allen 37.5 0.78 6.43 5.02 8.5 6.64
T. Allen 18.9 0.39 8.18 3.22 8.18* 3.22
KG 38.3 0.80 8.78 7.01 16.2 12.93
M. Olowok. 26.3 0.55 -8.00 -4.38 -7.6 -4.16
K. Perkins 16.6 0.35 -4.18 -1.45 -4.18* -1.45
P. Pierce 37.8 0.79 10.16 8.00 6.8 5.36
B. Scalabr. 15.1 0.31 2.27 0.71 -4.1 -1.29
Other* 49.5 1.03 -7.7* -7.94 -7.7* -7.94

TEAM TOTAL 10.20 13.30

This table is, I think, reasonably self-explanatory. The primary assumptions (besides the validity of Adjusted +/- itself) are as follows:

(1) All Celtics players will play their career average minutes.

(2) Roster players not having estimated Adjusted +/-s are given the value of replacement players from Dan's 2002-04 estimates.

(3) Similarly, Tony Allen and Kendrick Perkins have imputed 2004-06 values for the 2002-2004 calculation, when they weren't in the league.

And what is the bottom line?

Well, that the Celtics will outscore their opponents by between 10 and 13 points per 100 possessions, which would put them in the same league as the greatest Bulls team, which had the highest margin of all time (around 12, if I recall correctly).

Is this a reasonable estimate? If we believe in Adjusted +/- it is.

There are two basic caveats though.

(1) One or more of the Big and Old Three may completely break down. This is true, but catastrophe could afflict any team in the league; the Celtics are just a little more susceptible.

(2) One or more of the Big Three could face a discernible degradation of their skills. This is true, but this effect is by definition marginal, albeit increasingly likely and significant over time. Given historical averages however, next year performance shouldn't be much worse. (It is noted, though, that last year's numbers were not included, so if David Lewin has the 2006-07 data in his pocket, these would be interesting to add.)

These two points aside, there is also an argument that the calculations above are biased downwards.

First and foremost, there is no reason to believe that the Celtics will fill out its roster with replacement level players as there will be an incentive for decent veterans, looking for a ring, to come along for the ride. Also, it was assumed that the current remaining youngsters only had replacement value, and I suspect (at least in the case of Rajon Rondo's) that this isn't the case.

Secondly, it may be the case that using Adjusted +/- calculations in the "non-marginal" manner above underestimates players' productivity. In particular, it will be very difficult for team's to successfully double-team the Big Three, and this will likely raise their shooting percentages. Against this, however, is the fact that someone has to take the below-average shots at the end of the shot clock. How these offsetting effects cut, one can only guess.

Regardless, the 5/1 odds of the Celtics winning the title seem rather low....if we believe what we believe.

That is all.
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Mountain



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PostPosted: Fri Aug 03, 2007 4:58 pm Post subject: Reply with quote
Berri has a post pegging them about around 50 wins.
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Neil Paine



Joined: 13 Oct 2005
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Location: Atlanta, GA

PostPosted: Fri Aug 03, 2007 6:43 pm Post subject: Reply with quote
Okay, let's put to the test a theoretical procedure to predict team performance... For every player, I have projected an ORtg, %Poss, and DRtg for the upcoming season. Using these projections, and predicting minutes per game, one can give a prediction for team offensive and defensive ratings, which in turn can project winning % through the pythagorean formula.

Using HoopsHype's depth charts, I constructed a theoretical Celtics lineup for 2007-08:

Code:
Pos Player MPG
PG Rajon Rondo 25
PG Eddie House 14
SG Ray Allen 37
SG Tony Allen 20
SG Jackie Manuel 7
SF Paul Pierce 37
SF B. Scalabrine 13
PF Kevin Garnett 39
PF Leon Powe 16
PF Brandon Wallace 5
C K. Perkins 27


I can also include the projected stats (not every player had enough minutes for a comp-based projection, so for some I used past performance -- normalized to a lgRtg of 106.3 -- or made an educated guess) to arrive at:

Code:
Pos Player Min/G ORtg %Poss DRtg Min
PG Rajon Rondo 25 101.0 19.7 105.5 2050
PG Eddie House 14 105.6 21.8 108.4 1148
SG Ray Allen 37 114.3 26.6 112.4 3034
SG Tony Allen 20 104.8 20.3 104.8 1640
SG Jackie Manuel 7 99.0 14.0 107.5 574
SF Paul Pierce 37 110.8 26.7 107.4 3034
SF B. Scalabrine 13 97.0 13.7 107.9 1066
PF Kevin Garnett 39 109.2 25.6 100.6 3198
PF Leon Powe 16 108.6 19.5 105.0 1312
PF Brandon Wallace 5 103.0 14.0 101.0 410
C K. Perkins 27 103.3 15.3 104.5 2214


However, when I add up the individual possessions, it exceeds the projected total team possessions (let's use last year's total of 7636). That means I have to scale down each player's possession total accordingly... You could actually do this in a number of ways (keep the stars' %Poss the same and downgrade the role players, etc.), but I simply kept the proportions the same and scaled to 7636 team possessions. After doing that, I have:

Code:
Pos Player Min/G Poss %Poss Min
PG Rajon Rondo 25 717 18.0 2050
PG Eddie House 14 444 19.9 1148
SG Ray Allen 37 1433 24.3 3034
SG Tony Allen 20 591 18.6 1640
SG Jackie Manuel 7 143 12.8 574
SF Paul Pierce 37 1438 24.4 3034
SF B. Scalabrine 13 259 12.5 1066
PF Kevin Garnett 39 1453 23.4 3198
PF Leon Powe 16 454 17.8 1312
PF Brandon Wallace 5 102 12.8 410
C K. Perkins 27 601 14.0 2214


I can't keep the offensive ratings the same, though, because the usage rates have changed. While some people disagree with this idea, I'm going to go with it until somebody can prove otherwise. I'm going to break down the ORtg sensitivity into three groups: high-usage, normal usage, and low-usage.

Code:
Initial %Poss Sensitivity
---------------------------
<18% +/- 0.8
18-23% +/- 0.6
>23% +/- 0.4


All this means is that low-usage players will see wilder swings in ORtg when their usage changes (penalties for increases, bonuses for decreases) than higher-usage players. Using this method, here are the new projections:

Code:
Pos Player Min/G ORtg %Poss PProd Min
PG Rajon Rondo 25 102.0 18.0 731 2050
PG Eddie House 14 106.7 19.9 474 1148
SG Ray Allen 37 115.2 24.3 1651 3034
SG Tony Allen 20 105.8 18.6 626 1640
SG Jackie Manuel 7 100.0 12.8 143 574
SF Paul Pierce 37 111.7 24.4 1606 3034
SF B. Scalabrine 13 97.9 12.5 254 1066
PF Kevin Garnett 39 110.1 23.4 1600 3198
PF Leon Powe 16 109.6 17.8 498 1312
PF Brandon Wallace 5 104.0 12.8 106 410
C K. Perkins 27 104.3 14.0 627 2214


Tallying up the points produced, we can project the Celtics to score 8315 points, for an offensive rating of 108.9. Now, defense... While DRtg is a crude measure, it will have to do for our purposes here. Since we have no "Defensive %Poss" metric (nor would I even know what its implications would be if it did exist), I'm going to assume that each player affects 1/5 of defensive possessions while on the court. Clearly, this is not necessarily true, but remember that this is a very rough projection right now. More detail can be added later, if one so chooses. Here is the final 2007-08 Boston projection:

Code:
Pos Player Min/G Min ORtg %Poss PProd DRtg
PG Rajon Rondo 25 2050 102.0 18.0 731 105.5
PG Eddie House 14 1148 106.7 19.9 474 108.4
SG Ray Allen 37 3034 115.2 24.3 1651 112.4
SG Tony Allen 20 1640 105.8 18.6 626 104.8
SG Jackie Manuel 7 574 100.0 12.8 143 107.5
SF Paul Pierce 37 3034 111.7 24.4 1606 107.4
SF B. Scalabrine 13 1066 97.9 12.5 254 107.9
PF Kevin Garnett 39 3198 110.1 23.4 1600 100.6
PF Leon Powe 16 1312 109.6 17.8 498 105.0
PF Brandon Wallace 5 410 104.0 12.8 106 101.0
C K. Perkins 27 2214 104.3 14.0 627 104.5


These Celtics would post a defensive rating of 106.1 (a hair under the league average). With a team ORtg of 108.9 and a team DRtg of 106.1, we can expect them to win about 58.9% of their games, for 48 wins next season.

And there you have it... A crash course in how I project team performance.
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schtevie



Joined: 18 Apr 2005
Posts: 408


PostPosted: Fri Aug 03, 2007 7:38 pm Post subject: Reply with quote
Yeesh, what a mess I made.

Here is what the column headers of the "self-explanatory" table were supposed to say. Left to right:

(1) Career Average Minutes per Game.
(2) Those minutes per game divided by 48, reflecting the fraction of position time played.
(3) David Lewin's Adjusted +/- averaged over the 2004 to 2006 season.
(4) Column (2) times Column (3), reflecting the Adjusted +/- per player.
(5) Dan Rosenbaum's Preferred Adjusted +/- for the 2002-2004 season.
(6) Column (2) times Column (5), reflecting the corresponding +/- per player.

The summation of these individual player contributions equals the expected team +/-. Then the TEAM TOTAL is the summation of these contributions.

I believe that this exercise is within the acceptable bounds of the adjusted +/- framework (again, recognizing that the estimate is not based on the most recent year's data).

Accordingly, and in rhetorical defense of same, it would seem to me that Berri's alleged estimates of 50 wins and davis21wylie2121 estimates of 48 wins seems a bit low.

Said another way, how can it be that you take three of the top 20 players in the league, each playing distinctly different positions (though admittedly perhaps slightly past their prime) and you only get a 48 to 50 win team? What would be the analogous antecedent that would bolster this case? Name a Big Three of any time that only won 48 games.
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Neil Paine



Joined: 13 Oct 2005
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Location: Atlanta, GA

PostPosted: Fri Aug 03, 2007 7:55 pm Post subject: Reply with quote
schtevie wrote:

Said another way, how can it be that you take three of the top 20 players in the league, each playing distinctly different positions (though admittedly perhaps slightly past their prime) and you only get a 48 to 50 win team? What would be the analogous antecedent that would bolster this case? Name a Big Three of any time that only won 48 games.


I would counter by saying that even a 50-win season for Boston would represent a 26-win improvement from last year... That would mean that adding essentially no one but Allen and Garnett, and subtracting Jefferson/Gomes/West/etc., would add almost 30 wins to the team! Berri estimates the departed players as being worth ~ 14.5 wins; DeanO's pW pegs them at ~ 17 wins... Are you telling me that taking a 24-win team, subtracting something like 16 wins from that, and then adding Allen + Garnett (and maybe 8 more wins from a healthy Pierce, depending on whose rating system you look at) adds up to 55+ wins? This is a much cruder analysis than what I did a few posts above, and it still doesn't see this team as much more than a 45-50-win squad, pending further moves. And I'm a Celtics fan. But apparently I'm not drinking the Kool-Aid as much as everyone else is.
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Mountain



Joined: 13 Mar 2007
Posts: 1527


PostPosted: Fri Aug 03, 2007 10:27 pm Post subject: Reply with quote
Someone compared this big 3 to 98-99 Rockets with Barkley, Pippen and Olujuwon. It is was the lockout shortened season but that team won about 60% or roughly 48-50 wins in a regular season. 5th on offense, 18th on defense. Something similar could happen in Boston. Boston was 18th on defense last year. Garnett's Wolves were 22nd and only that because they didnt foul. Boston did a lot of fouling last year and I'd guess will next season too. If team defensive efficiency is in 20s then I don't think Boston does any better than 50 wins. If Garnett and whatever supporting cast assembled can get defense ranking below 15 then they will be more powerful and perhaps closer to your expectations. I am not high of Doc Rivers but I don't know him well.
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schtevie



Joined: 18 Apr 2005
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PostPosted: Fri Aug 03, 2007 10:43 pm Post subject: Reply with quote
This is why I titled my remarks "Should we believe..."

As to whether the estimate provided based on Adjusted +/- results is plausible is open to debate. As noted, the fact of the matter is that last year's estimates are not publicly known. Perhaps they reflect a dimunition in the productivity of the key players. But there would have to be a big change, or the method would have to be rather unreliable to undo the estimated contributions of the Big Three.

That said, in estimating this upcoming year's record, it should be noted that three of the most productive Celtics had last year marred by injury: Allen, Pierce, and West. That, and the fact that the team may have been playing for the lottery, suggests that last years squad, at "ordinary" health, was better than their record indicated. The assumption of a return to career norms is the basis of the calculations.

At the end of the day however, the Adjusted +/- regressions say what they say (assuming I am listening correctly, and that the key players are still as productive as they were over the four years before last) and this is that the sum of Ray Allen, Paul Pierce, and Kevin Garnett add 20+ net points per 100 possessions. And that is a lot of wins over 41.

I look forward to the year as a nice experiment.
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Brian M



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PostPosted: Fri Aug 03, 2007 10:54 pm Post subject: Reply with quote
Is it a property of adjusted +/- that taking the minute-weighted sum of a team's players' adjusted +/-s equals the expected team point differential? I don't see any obvious a priori reason why this should be the case and I have not seen it demonstrated elsewhere, either formally or empirically.
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DLew



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PostPosted: Fri Aug 03, 2007 11:36 pm Post subject: Reply with quote
The minute weighted sum of a team's adjusted plus-minus will be roughly equal to the team's point differential given that there are no trades. In-season player movement messes up this property if players change their performance when they change teams (which they always do to some degree) because the model assumes player performance is constant for the year.

Schtevie, I would say that the problem with your calculations is that adjusted plus-minus, like almost any statistic, exhibits diminishing marginal returns. Also, I think we all know that KG, Ray Allen, and Paul Pierce are not as good as they were 2002-2006. I can't comment specifically on their adjusted plus-minus numbers last year, but I will say that all three are on the wrong side of 30.
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Mountain



Joined: 13 Mar 2007
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PostPosted: Fri Aug 03, 2007 11:41 pm Post subject: Reply with quote
Schtevie, it should be a good experiment indeed like B Wallace to Chicago and Kobe without Shaq and some of the other notable roster changes.

When I see your adjusted +/- data, my gut immediately expects shrinkage when all three play mainly from sharing limited shots and limited called or good situation, high on the pecking order shots. Maybe the adjusted +/- scores could be scaled, with a bit of estimation of importance of shooting to their adj. +/- to the new level of shots they are likely to get if that is less than less season? Davis estimated their shots to go down by about 15%. Does this seem about right to you?

Looking at the 4 factor data for these guys could be worthwhile but I am not sure how much it will transfer from one situation to another.

Davis, your estimates make a nice rough cut. If you feel like sharing any other team estimates later that would be interesting too.
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Brian M



Joined: 25 Nov 2006
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PostPosted: Sat Aug 04, 2007 1:00 am Post subject: Reply with quote
DLew wrote:
The minute weighted sum of a team's adjusted plus-minus will be roughly equal to the team's point differential given that there are no trades.


I assume you have investigated this in your own work then? Are there any good, formally specified reasons for anticipating that a team's point differential should roughly equal the minute weighted sum of its players' adjusted +/-s? Or is this just something that so far has been established observationally?
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mtamada



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PostPosted: Sat Aug 04, 2007 1:26 am Post subject: Reply with quote
schtevie wrote:
I believe that this exercise is within the acceptable bounds of the adjusted +/- framework (again, recognizing that the estimate is not based on the most recent year's data).

Accordingly, and in rhetorical defense of same, it would seem to me that Berri's alleged estimates of 50 wins and davis21wylie2121 estimates of 48 wins seems a bit low.

Said another way, how can it be that you take three of the top 20 players in the league, each playing distinctly different positions (though admittedly perhaps slightly past their prime) and you only get a 48 to 50 win team? What would be the analogous antecedent that would bolster this case? Name a Big Three of any time that only won 48 games.


I think the estimates of 48 and 50 wins are right on. Barring injury, the Celtics will be right in the race for the Eastern title -- but I don't think they'll win it, and I don't think they'll win the championship.

Most sports statistics, in particular most basketball statistics, are extremely nonlinear. Putting two 15 rebound per game players on the same squad doesn't mean they'll average 30 rebounds between them. Ditto plus-minus.

As for your final question, here's a team which comes close: the late 1960s Los Angeles Lakers, who'd already had two of the best players of all time in Elgin Baylor and Jerry West (forget about mere Top 20 current players: at that time those two were probably, at worst, the second-best forward and second-best guard of ALL TIME).

And in 1969 they added Wilt Chamberlain, even now at worst the 3rd best center of all time and a plurality or even majority of fans would probably vote him the best center of all time.



The Lakers won 55 games.


Which is more than 48 or 50, but hey, Wilt >> Garnett, Baylor >> Pierce, and West >> Allen.

And 55 >> 48, so 48 or 50 sounds about right.

My intuition says about 50.

I really like seeing Davis's worked out numbers, showing how he derived his estimate of 48. That procedure, and that number, looks sensible to me.

It'd be interesting to see others' estimates, e.g. what does BobC's simulation project?
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bchaikin



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PostPosted: Sat Aug 04, 2007 1:53 am Post subject: Reply with quote
It'd be interesting to see others' estimates, e.g. what does BobC's simulation project?

give me a listing of minutes played for each player (per game), in increments of 4 minutes, and i'll run the sim. wildcards are of course PF glen davis and PG gabe pruitt - to estimate them choose nba players whose games you think would best reflect davis and pruitt as rookies...
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Mike G



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PostPosted: Sat Aug 04, 2007 5:12 am Post subject: Reply with quote
There are a wide range of plausibilities. Supposing the 8 Celts (currently known) can play 82 games each, keeping their eWins/minute constant.
Code:
2007 2008 max
boston celtics G Min eW Eff% G2 Min2 eW2
Kevin Garnett 76 39 12.0 .536 82 40 13.2
Paul Pierce 47 37 6.0 .558 82 40 11.3
Ray Allen 55 40 6.8 .556 82 40 10.1
Tony Allen 33 24 1.9 .581 82 32 6.2
Rajon Rondo 78 23 3.1 .462 82 32 4.5
Kendrick Perkins 72 24 1.9 .508 82 28 2.5
Leon Powe 61 16 1.1 .530 82 16 1.5
Brian Scalabrine 54 16 .4 .533 82 12 0.5

total 33.1 49.8
I've given players (2008) minutes in 4-minute increments, just to be consistent. This is the most optimistic scenario as far the health of these 8, but anyone may improve on last year's rates. Consider Scalabrine a 'replacement' player (interchangeable), as well as any rookies.

If players don't improve, while missing as many games as last year; and their minutes are taken by replacement types; then 33 eW suggests (66-41=) 25 wins this year. The 50 eW 'max' scenario provides 59 wins.

I threw in Eff% (a shade lower than TS%) just for reference. Since all of these guys were with basically dysfunctional teams last year, they could all improve. (The Big 3 have all been much better.)

KG seems to be nearly indestructible. Three years of purgatory were probably wearing on him. I expect a major resurgeance and an MVP run.
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NickS



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PostPosted: Sat Aug 04, 2007 11:09 am Post subject: Reply with quote
davis21wylie2121 wrote:

These Celtics would post a defensive rating of 106.1 (a hair under the league average). With a team ORtg of 108.9 and a team DRtg of 106.1, we can expect them to win about 58.9% of their games, for 48 wins next season.

And there you have it... A crash course in how I project team performance.


*applause*

Very nice, an impressive use of the Ortg and Drtg stats.

Intuitively I feel like the estimate for Ortg looks convincing, but I would expect a better defensive rating. I feel like Allen and Pierce aren't as bad at defense as they look having played on terrible defensive teams last season. Just working off intuition I'd expect to see a defensive rating about a point lower than your estimate.

Of course, this doesn't include injuries, so I suspect 48-50 is a decent estimate, but if they're healthy I could see 50-52 wins for the team (matching what Detroit did last season).

[Crow]

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Harold Almonte



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PostPosted: Sat Aug 04, 2007 12:05 pm Post subject: Reply with quote
I agree this team won't have the def. eff. enough to be in the 55/60 wins range. But, given they will be one of the best off. team of the East (maybe the best), they only need to run a little more than the past year Boston's pace, something that probably they won't do. But they will go far inside the playoffs, to the point where their defensive level carries them. They won't be an under 105 deff. eff. team.
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jeffpotts77



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PostPosted: Sat Aug 04, 2007 1:22 pm Post subject: Reply with quote
davis21wylie2121 wrote:
schtevie wrote:

Said another way, how can it be that you take three of the top 20 players in the league, each playing distinctly different positions (though admittedly perhaps slightly past their prime) and you only get a 48 to 50 win team? What would be the analogous antecedent that would bolster this case? Name a Big Three of any time that only won 48 games.


I would counter by saying that even a 50-win season for Boston would represent a 26-win improvement from last year... That would mean that adding essentially no one but Allen and Garnett, and subtracting Jefferson/Gomes/West/etc., would add almost 30 wins to the team! Berri estimates the departed players as being worth ~ 14.5 wins; DeanO's pW pegs them at ~ 17 wins... Are you telling me that taking a 24-win team, subtracting something like 16 wins from that, and then adding Allen + Garnett (and maybe 8 more wins from a healthy Pierce, depending on whose rating system you look at) adds up to 55+ wins? This is a much cruder analysis than what I did a few posts above, and it still doesn't see this team as much more than a 45-50-win squad, pending further moves. And I'm a Celtics fan. But apparently I'm not drinking the Kool-Aid as much as everyone else is.


I'm a huge Celtics fan and hearing all these projections of 48-50 wins is so unexpected. I was thinking more along the lines of 55+ before I started reading Hollinger articles and some of the posts here. These projections are coming from people I respect and their methods are emotionally detached and scientific. It seems, sadly enough, I have to conclude that we're not looking at one of the NBA's elite teams here. I find myself in a familiar bostonian posture: cautiously optimistic.

Good work davis21wylie2121! You've successfully burst my bubble. :p
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Mountain



Joined: 13 Mar 2007
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PostPosted: Sat Aug 04, 2007 2:02 pm Post subject: Reply with quote
There have been 3 teams and 4 occurrences of an eastern team winning more than 53 games in last 5 years. Detroit twice for their championship year and the season after, Miami's championship season and Indy in 03-04.

Can Boston be close to 61 win Indy? Indy was 9th on offensive, 3rd on defensive efficiency. Not only that but Indy was top 16 on all 8 parts of the 4 factors.

07 Spurs top 20 in all but one. Miami in championship year was top 17 on all but one factor. 05 Spurs top 12 in all but one. 04 Pistons top 20 in all. 03 Spurs top 17 in all but one. Champs limited to one major flaw? All but one of the recent champion flaws, by this standard, were on offensive side of play with Miami opponent turnovers the exception.

Boston, at this point, seems likely to have several 4 Factor flaws and likely in defensive side.

I haven't done a full accounting of this more general question but from related searches I get impression that most of the recent 55+ or 60+ win teams are those with superiority on both offense and defense.

50 plus or minus 3-5 is a little vague but the chemistry unknown creates that range.

Last edited by Mountain on Sat Aug 04, 2007 2:51 pm; edited 7 times in total
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DLew



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PostPosted: Sat Aug 04, 2007 2:04 pm Post subject: Reply with quote
Brian M,

Look at the way in which adjusted plus-minus is derived. Roughly speaking, team point differential is divvied up among players on the team. I say roughly because quality of opponent is taken into account and regression tries to minimize the squared residuals, not the the residuals.

This will pretty much never be true for plus-minus done on actual data due to player movement, and will also fail if there is any crunch-garbage time weighting or statistical approximation like Dan did in his article. So, I would say that Schtevie's method is not inherently incorrect, but is far from the best method for predicting future team performance.
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bchaikin



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PostPosted: Sat Aug 04, 2007 5:18 pm Post subject: Reply with quote
using mike's scenario with min/g:

min/g - player - simulation stats
28 k.perkins (28 C) - 5 pts/g, 6 reb/g
40 k.garnett (24 PF 16 C) - 19 pts/g, 11/12 reb/g, 3/4 ast/g
40 p.pierce (40 SF) - 24 pts/g, 6 reb/g, 4 ast/g
40 r.allen (24 SG 16 PG) - 23 pts/g, 4 reb/g, 3/4 ast/g
32 r.rondo (32 PG) - 8 pts/g, 4/5 reb/g, 4/5 ast/g
16 l.powe (12 PF 4 C)
12 b.scalabrine (12 PF)
32 t.allen (24 SG 8 SF)
240

and using only 06-07 stats for the above players and their opponents, simulation shows the above sub pattern averaging 54-55 wins per average 82 game season when playing 8200 games against the celtics actual 06-07 schedule...

however the above assumes garnett, pierce, and r.allen all playing over 3200 total minutes. pierce has never done that (but has played over 3000 minutes five times), garnett hasn't done that in 4 years (but has played over 3000 minutes 7 times), and r.allen hasn't played 3200 minutes in a season in a decade (but has played 3000 minutes five times). in the past 30 seasons of the league only 8 times has a team had 3 players play even 38 min/g and over 70 games in a season (79-80 lakers, 90-91 warriors, 90-91 t-wolves, 96-97 hawks, 99-00 grizzlies, 00-01 hornets, 03-04 rockets, and the 05-06 76ers), and all three are 30+ years of age...

i think a more likely best case scenario would be each of the big three playing about 36 min/g, and assuming glen davis playing something like sean may has in the nba (their college stats were similar) and gabe pruitt something like telfair, a sub pattern like the one below might be a more realistic best case scenario:

min/g - player - simulation stats
24 k.perkins (28 C) - 4 pts/g, 5 reb/g
36 k.garnett (20 C 16 PF) - 17 pts/g, 10/11 reb/g, 3 ast/g
36 p.pierce (36 SF) - 21 pts/g, 5 reb/g, 3/4 ast/g
36 r.allen (36 SG) - 21 pts/g, 4 reb/g, 3 ast/g
32 r.rondo (32 PG) - 8 pts/g, 5 reb/g, 4/5 ast/g
16 s.may (16 PF)
16 l.powe (16 PF)
08 b.scalabrine (4 PF 4 SF)
20 t.allen (12 SG 8 SF)
16 s.telfair (16 PG)
240

simulation shows this sub pattern averaging about 49-50 wins per average 82 game season, and that's with garnett, pierce, and r.allen all playing over 2900 total minutes each. the bench is weak, so unless glen davis or brandon wallace (or someone else) plays better than expected, the big three could still play well and the team not win 50 games...

KG seems to be nearly indestructible. Three years of purgatory were probably wearing on him. I expect a major resurgence and an MVP run.

resurgence? garnett has been a dominant player, and a legitimate mvp candidate, each of the past 3 seasons - just not a dominant scorer. he's scored 22 pts/g playing 39 min/g the last 3 years. now you're going to team him up with not just one but two players who each averaged over 24 pts/g the last 3 seasons. its hard to see garnett being a better rebounder, passer, or defender (all-D 1st or 2nd team each of the last 3 seasons) in 07-08 than he has been the last 3 years. yet i just don't think he'll get the high touches on offense with the celtics like he did as a t-wolve, and will thus score less (allen and pierce had high touches/min for an SG and SF in 06-07). for garnett to win the mvp he'll need to score big like in 03-04, and unless allen or pierce miss time due to injury that most likely won't happen...

It seems, sadly enough, I have to conclude that we're not looking at one of the NBA's elite teams here.

could be if someone like glen davis or brandon wallace pans out, and pruitt becomes a capable backup, or you pickup someone else by november. otherwise the bench will be really poor...
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Mountain



Joined: 13 Mar 2007
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PostPosted: Sat Aug 04, 2007 5:45 pm Post subject: Reply with quote
Mike's and Bob's fine work adds to the convergence of expectations. Esimates could also be done using PER, WinShares or NBA efficiency. Any other approach I am forgetting?

It might be possible to try to use backward mapping Team Factor Wins approach for this forward looking purpose later.

Bob does your simulation find the all pieces necessary to assemble a standard 4 Factor rate chart for this team? Same question goes out to Mike and "DavisWylie".

Last edited by Mountain on Sun Aug 05, 2007 3:35 pm; edited 2 times in total
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94by50



Joined: 01 Jan 2006
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PostPosted: Sat Aug 04, 2007 6:23 pm Post subject: Reply with quote
I haven't seen anyone account for the Eddie House signing yet. Did I miss something, or are we assuming that he's just a warm body at this point?
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Neil Paine



Joined: 13 Oct 2005
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PostPosted: Sat Aug 04, 2007 7:27 pm Post subject: Reply with quote
Mountain wrote:
Esimates could also be done using PER, WinShares or NBA efficiency. Any other approach I am forgetting?


John H. apparently has a way to project wins from PER -- he pegs the 2007-08 C's at 46 wins, calling them "a glorified version of the Washington Wizards". Not sure if I'd go that far, but all of our projections seem to be in agreement, calling for about 45-50 wins.

Mountain wrote:

Bob does your simulation find the all pieces necessary to assemble a standard 4 Factor rate chart for this team?
Same question goes out to Mike and "DavisWylie".


I suppose you could use the same method, except use individual projections for eFG%, TO%, RebR, and FtR. Defense would be more problematic, though -- maybe 82games could shed some light on how each player would affect team D factors. But since those factors make up ORtg and DRtg anyway, I'd just as soon keep it simple and project ORtg/%Poss/DRtg like I did above.

94by50 wrote:
I haven't seen anyone account for the Eddie House signing yet. Did I miss something, or are we assuming that he's just a warm body at this point?


He's in my projection, although I don't have the rookies in there. Davis projects for an ORtg/%Poss/DRtg of 101.4/18.3/102.7; Pruitt projects to 102.2/20.5/107.3.
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Mountain



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PostPosted: Sat Aug 04, 2007 7:47 pm Post subject: Reply with quote
If past data changes essentially "one cycle" then adjusted offensive and defensive ratings ballpark things pretty well. But you consider the whole system interactive, and usage and eFG% levels change, and turnovers change and maybe turnover rates too, and available offense rebounds and that rate too, etc. and you go thru several cycles of interactivity (for lack of better description) and end up with a 4 Factor chart that shows more differences than the first movements do alone. The interative process I am describing is something Bob's simulation is built to capture but I didnt know if it showed offensive rebounds and free throws made and all the things needed to see the 4 Factor chart for the averages of the simulations, so I asked to see if it is available.

Last edited by Mountain on Sun Aug 05, 2007 4:09 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Mountain



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PostPosted: Sun Aug 05, 2007 4:09 pm Post subject: Reply with quote
In Minny Garnett was a one man defense according to revised DCS ratings. Boston does have 4 young guys near +10 or well above that. That gives Garnett a bit more help if Doc can stitch it together. Pierce a very modest positive on DCS while Allen a mild negative.
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jeffpotts77



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PostPosted: Sun Aug 05, 2007 4:35 pm Post subject: Reply with quote
Mountain wrote:
In Minny Garnett was a one man defense according to revised DCS ratings. Boston does have 4 young guys near +10 or well above that. That gives Garnett a bit more help if Doc can stitch it together. Pierce a very modest positive on DCS while Allen a mild negative.


Often you hear about great offensive players who conserve energy on the defensive end in order to carry their team on the offensive end. I'm curious about whether or not having to shoulder less of the offensive load will allow Pierce and Allen to play with greater intensity of defense. Statistically speaking, has this phenomenom been observed?
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schtevie



Joined: 18 Apr 2005
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PostPosted: Sun Aug 05, 2007 4:52 pm Post subject: Reply with quote
Various comments.

Regarding historical analogies to how teams acquiring Big Seconds and Thirds fared, two teams were noted, the '99 Rockets and the '69 Lakers. Regarding the Rockets, they won a fraction that would be equivalent to 50 wins in a full season. My only comment would be that their Big Three was significantly older on average (14 seasons and almost 35 years of age vs. 11 2/3 seasons and 31 years of age). Then the Lakers won 55 games with aging superstars of a more similar cohort (10 and 32).

Regarding the "crudity" of the approximation using minute-weighted Adjusted +/-, I would characterize it rather as a back-of-the-envelope calculation using a very sophisticated measure. And were I to have two additional pieces of information (the 2006-2007 numbers as well as some sense of trend to estimate the effects of aging) I would feel very comfortable with this approach. David Lewin implies that he has these numbers and that they suggest a less impressive performance. Fair enough.

As for David's rejoinder that "the problem with your calculations is that adjusted plus-minus, like almost any statistic, exhibits diminishing marginal returns" this merits some discussion. First, though I made reference to this potential in previous remarks, I am not sure in the particular instance that it is reasonable to expect significant diminishing marginal returns. Were I to have made "unrealistic" assumptions, such as stocking a hypothetical team with high Adjusted +/- Statistics, paying no mind to the role that they would be playing on the court, there would be a problem. This is not the case at hand. The three players play distinct positions and given their usage rates "should" not be getting in each other's way on offense. (At least that is my reading of the lovely data of 82games...thank you Roland.) And again, against this is the fact that they will be facing diluted defenses compared to their average career experience. And then on the defensive end, I am not sure what the diminishing marginal returns might be.

Taking another back of the envelope approach to things, here is a maximum estimate of diminished offensive productivity due to decreasing offensive marginal returns. Between the beginning and end of the shot clock (as defined in 82games) there is an approximate 20% reduction in field goal percentage (and let's assume this for every individual player as well). Suppose that within that mix Paul Pierce had been getting all the good early shots and not taking any of the bad ones (this is not true, but suppose). Along comes Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett who had been getting the same mix in with their clubs (also not true). Suppose, the two interlopers then agree that it really is Paul Pierce's team and they agree to let Paul have his and share the leftovers. This would imply no reduction in PP's efficiency (never mind the hypothetical gains realized by diminished defensive opposition) and a 20% reduction in productivity on the part of RA and KG.

This, I think, is wildly high (as it doesn't accord with the actual shot selection of any of the players in question) but doing this wouldn't dramatically change the picture (from an Adjusted +/- approach) of the Big Three being hugely effective (especially when such an adjustment would only diminish the effectiveness on the offensive and not defensive ends (of particular importance in the case of KG).

Finally, as for the intangibles, though I don't typically tend to put much weight on these, I think they strongly cut Boston's way. I expect that everyone associated with the franchise, players and coaches alike, know that this is the year where opportunity knocks. And given that all of the Big Three players are apparently very competitive (and unselfish) guys, I think we will see unexpectedly positive outcomes....barring catastrophic injury.

Anyway, as I said, this year will be very interesting. If John Hollinger were offering the 46 games, I would take the over and be very happy. And I expect MikeZ would too.
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DLew



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PostPosted: Sun Aug 05, 2007 6:50 pm Post subject: Reply with quote
Schtevie,

I didn't mean to imply that there was anything wrong with your calculations, just that one reason why the wins estimate may be extremely high is because diminishing marginal returns are not accounted for. This may or may not come into play, I was just offering it as one possible explanation if we do in fact believe the estimate provided by those numbers to be too high.
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Mike G



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PostPosted: Sun Aug 05, 2007 7:31 pm Post subject: Reply with quote
Using just last year's numbers to predict next year's performance might be questionable. All of the Big3 had worse team records than the year before, by an avg 5 W. Coincidentally, all had worse TS% than the year before, by an average of .030 . All 3 had Ast/40 rates last year lower than their career highs (avg -1.2).

I think all of these guys could improve their Ast rates and TS% with one another in the lineup. All 3 have peaked at 5.3-6.0 Ast/40, so they may not need a classic PG.
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Statman



Joined: 20 Feb 2005
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PostPosted: Sun Aug 05, 2007 8:36 pm Post subject: Reply with quote
davis21wylie2121 wrote:
Mountain wrote:
Esimates could also be done using PER, WinShares or NBA efficiency. Any other approach I am forgetting?


John H. apparently has a way to project wins from PER -- he pegs the 2007-08 C's at 46 wins, calling them "a glorified version of the Washington Wizards". Not sure if I'd go that far, but all of our projections seem to be in agreement, calling for about 45-50 wins.


Well, since PER is his baby - I wonder how often in history have three full time players with PER's over 20 (very possibly on different teams) played together the next season - and how the results were.

Honestly - IF Garnett, Pierce, AND Allen can get over 2800 minutes apiece - and the coach isn't a complete moron - I cannot see how they won't have the best record in the East. Garnett is a top notch defender - all they need the other "role" players to do is play defense and not make too many mistakes. How hard is that?

I'm not certain Allen and/or Pierce won't have injury issues though.
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Author Message MVP



Joined: 25 Jun 2007
Posts: 77
Posted: Sun Aug 05, 2007 8:55 pm Post subject:

To the person who said it would be a +26 in wins by only adding two players (minus jefferson, etc.): I think it would have to be slightly less than that as Paul Pierce was injured for quite some time and I think they were on that loooong losing streak during the time of his absence, but once he came back they were able to win a couple of ball games, again? (would have to see the win/loss ratios of when they played with vs without him to know if it had that big an effect or if its mostly just in my head! ).[/quote]
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jkubatko



Joined: 05 Jan 2005
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Posted: Mon Aug 06, 2007 8:29 am Post subject:

Statman wrote:
Well, since PER is his baby - I wonder how often in history have three full time players with PER's over 20 (very possibly on different teams) played together the next season - and how the results were.
The table below shows teams since 1978-79 that started the season with three or more players with at least 2000 minutes played and a PER of 20 or higher the previous season: Code:
-Previous- --Target-- Season Tm W-L Name MP PER MP PER 1978-79 DEN 47-35 Dan Issel 2851 21.5 2742 18.3 George McGinnis 2533 20.3 2552 20.6 David Thompson 3025 23.2 2670 19.9 1979-80 PHO 55-27 Alvan Adams 2364 20.4 2168 19.2 Walter Davis 2437 23.0 2309 21.3 Paul Westphal 2641 22.6 2665 21.1 1980-81 MIL 60-22 Marques Johnson 2686 22.0 2542 22.0 Mickey Johnson 2647 20.3 2118 16.3 Bob Lanier 2131 20.4 1753 19.7 1983-84 DEN 38-44 Alex English 2988 24.1 2870 22.2 Dan Issel 2431 21.6 2076 21.1 Kiki Vandeweghe 2909 21.8 2734 23.6 1986-87 LAL 65-17 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar 2629 22.7 2441 17.9 Magic Johnson 2578 24.0 2904 27.0 James Worthy 2454 20.4 2819 18.4 1988-89 ATL 52-30 Moses Malone 2692 21.1 2878 21.2 Doc Rivers 2502 20.4 2462 18.4 Dominique Wilkins 2948 23.7 2997 21.8 1992-93 CHI 57-25 Horace Grant 2859 20.6 2745 17.5 Michael Jordan 3102 27.7 3067 29.7 Scottie Pippen 3164 21.5 3123 19.2 1992-93 CLE 54-28 Brad Daugherty 2643 23.0 2691 22.0 Larry Nance 2880 21.4 2753 19.8 Mark Price 2138 22.7 2380 22.0 1995-96 SEA 64-18 Shawn Kemp 2679 21.7 2631 22.6 Gary Payton 3015 21.3 3162 19.6 Detlef Schrempf 2886 20.3 2200 17.3 1996-97 CHI 69-13 Michael Jordan 3090 29.4 3106 27.8 Toni Kukoc 2103 20.4 1610 20.2 Scottie Pippen 2825 21.0 3095 21.3 2001-02 MIL 41-41 Ray Allen 3129 22.9 2525 21.6 Sam Cassell 2709 20.1 2604 21.3 Glenn Robinson 2813 20.1 2346 19.1 2003-04 LAL 56-26 Kobe Bryant 3402 26.2 2447 23.7 Karl Malone 2936 21.7 1373 17.8 Shaquille O'Neal 2535 29.5 2464 24.4 Gary Payton 3208 21.1 2825 17.3 2005-06 PHO 54-28 Shawn Marion 3146 21.7 3263 23.6 Steve Nash 2573 22.0 2796 23.3 Amare Stoudemire 2889 26.6 50 17.8 Previous = performance in the previous season Target = performance in the season of interest
For example, in 1978-79 the Denver Nuggets started the season with three players who had put up a PER of 20 or higher in at least 2000 minutes played the previous season. They finished that season with a record of 47-35._________________Regards, Justin Kubatko Basketball-Reference.com
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FrontRange



Joined: 27 Jan 2005
Posts: 131
Posted: Mon Aug 06, 2007 11:37 am Post subject:

Thanks Justin. Looks pretty clear that if you can any defense and have 3 PER above 20, chances are the teram will be better than 55 wins. The only teams that didn't (Mil and Den) had pretty horid defense. I would guess most of the incremental focus should be on how to quatify the defensive expectations rather than the offensive . . .'course that is much harder to do.
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asimpkins



Joined: 30 Apr 2006
Posts: 245
Location: Pleasanton, CA
Posted: Mon Aug 06, 2007 8:15 pm Post subject:

This might be a good place to start. Based on this article there could be some significant improvement from their 17th ranked defense last year: http://www.82games.com/nichols2.htm 1. Their best defensive rated player from last year, Rondo, will probably start and play more minutes. They also kept highly rated Perkins. 2. Garnett is rated as one of the best defensive players in the league, and a huge improvement on Jefferson. 3. Ray Allen is rated as a slight improvement on Delonte West. 4. They traded away their four lowest rated players from last year: Gomes, Green, Szczerbiak, and Telfair.
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Statman



Joined: 20 Feb 2005
Posts: 242
Location: Arlington, Texas
Posted: Tue Aug 07, 2007 9:08 am Post subject:

MVP wrote:
To the person who said it would be a +26 in wins by only adding two players (minus jefferson, etc.): I think it would have to be slightly less than that as Paul Pierce was injured for quite some time and I think they were on that loooong losing streak during the time of his absence, but once he came back they were able to win a couple of ball games, again? (would have to see the win/loss ratios of when they played with vs without him to know if it had that big an effect or if its mostly just in my head! ).
Bosten was 20-27 when Pierce played. They were 4-31 when he didn't. So - suffice it to say that they will be MUCH better if Pierce plays almost every game - let alone Garnett & Allen playing almost every game (despite losing Jefferson). For a 20 year old, Rondo showed good promise at point (he & Pierce were easily had the best +/- numbers on the team). His obvious flaw is poor shooting, which can EASILY be masked by the Big 3. In fact - Boston kept their three most impressive young players (at least statistically & +/-) in Allen, Rondo, & Powe. Big Baby & Gabe Pruitt might be ok contributors. A hustle guy's HORRIBLE statistical contribution (Scalabrine) doesn't really matter now if he's on the court with the Big 3. Those players SHOULD be good enough bit players with the Big 3 for the team to be the best in the east barring bad injury issues. I'm sure Bosten will get a defensive veteran or two as well to add depth & role modeling (hustle & work ethic) for the youngins._________________Dan My current national college player rankings (and other stuff): http://www.pointguardu.com/f136/statman ... post355594
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Statman



Joined: 20 Feb 2005
Posts: 242
Location: Arlington, Texas
Posted: Tue Aug 07, 2007 9:28 am Post subject:

jkubatko wrote:
Statman wrote:
Well, since PER is his baby - I wonder how often in history have three full time players with PER's over 20 (very possibly on different teams) played together the next season - and how the results were.
The table below shows teams since 1978-79 that started the season with three or more players with at least 2000 minutes played and a PER of 20 or higher the previous season: Code:
-Previous- --Target-- Season Tm W-L Name MP PER MP PER 1978-79 DEN 47-35 Dan Issel 2851 21.5 2742 18.3 George McGinnis 2533 20.3 2552 20.6 David Thompson 3025 23.2 2670 19.9 1979-80 PHO 55-27 Alvan Adams 2364 20.4 2168 19.2 Walter Davis 2437 23.0 2309 21.3 Paul Westphal 2641 22.6 2665 21.1 1980-81 MIL 60-22 Marques Johnson 2686 22.0 2542 22.0 Mickey Johnson 2647 20.3 2118 16.3 Bob Lanier 2131 20.4 1753 19.7 1983-84 DEN 38-44 Alex English 2988 24.1 2870 22.2 Dan Issel 2431 21.6 2076 21.1 Kiki Vandeweghe 2909 21.8 2734 23.6 1986-87 LAL 65-17 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar 2629 22.7 2441 17.9 Magic Johnson 2578 24.0 2904 27.0 James Worthy 2454 20.4 2819 18.4 1988-89 ATL 52-30 Moses Malone 2692 21.1 2878 21.2 Doc Rivers 2502 20.4 2462 18.4 Dominique Wilkins 2948 23.7 2997 21.8 1992-93 CHI 57-25 Horace Grant 2859 20.6 2745 17.5 Michael Jordan 3102 27.7 3067 29.7 Scottie Pippen 3164 21.5 3123 19.2 1992-93 CLE 54-28 Brad Daugherty 2643 23.0 2691 22.0 Larry Nance 2880 21.4 2753 19.8 Mark Price 2138 22.7 2380 22.0 1995-96 SEA 64-18 Shawn Kemp 2679 21.7 2631 22.6 Gary Payton 3015 21.3 3162 19.6 Detlef Schrempf 2886 20.3 2200 17.3 1996-97 CHI 69-13 Michael Jordan 3090 29.4 3106 27.8 Toni Kukoc 2103 20.4 1610 20.2 Scottie Pippen 2825 21.0 3095 21.3 2001-02 MIL 41-41 Ray Allen 3129 22.9 2525 21.6 Sam Cassell 2709 20.1 2604 21.3 Glenn Robinson 2813 20.1 2346 19.1 2003-04 LAL 56-26 Kobe Bryant 3402 26.2 2447 23.7 Karl Malone 2936 21.7 1373 17.8 Shaquille O'Neal 2535 29.5 2464 24.4 Gary Payton 3208 21.1 2825 17.3 2005-06 PHO 54-28 Shawn Marion 3146 21.7 3263 23.6 Steve Nash 2573 22.0 2796 23.3 Amare Stoudemire 2889 26.6 50 17.8 Previous = performance in the previous season Target = performance in the season of interest
For example, in 1978-79 the Denver Nuggets started the season with three players who had put up a PER of 20 or higher in at least 2000 minutes played the previous season. They finished that season with a record of 47-35.
There are 4 teams on that list (2 Bulls teams & 2 Lakers teams) whose best player was probably as good (or better) than Garnett. Three of them NBA ended up champions, the other conference champion. It could be argued that Phoenix's best player (Nash, or maybe Amare) was as good as Garnett - Amare got hurt all the next season and they still won 54 games. So - considering his own metric historically, John H's projection may be a little low._________________Dan My current national college player rankings (and other stuff): http://www.pointguardu.com/f136/statman ... post355594
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MVP



Joined: 25 Jun 2007
Posts: 77
Posted: Wed Aug 08, 2007 10:01 am Post subject:

I'm a stats and analytics guy just like you guys are, but to be honest - I don't dare make a strong prediction. I won't use arguments such as "statistics suck, because we dont know if somebody gets injured anyways, thus all statistics are useless" but with predictions like that I'm really wondering one thing: Everybody is comparing similar teams to each other making the assumption they will have a similar performance. However is there really a lot of evidence that such similar player or similar team comparisons work out? I know statistics can end up being highly uneffective at making any predictions if the sample sizes are not big enough. Take a small sample size and your predictions might not be in touch with reality anymore. So is there like any evidence or confidence level for how well these compare similar player to similar player or compare similar team to similar team predictions have worked out in the past? Im not trying to be cynical but Im really curious about this one. Also I think there are so many factors: Predicting wins in a season, but not taking into consideration whether the team plays in the east or the west (and if we did that we would have to consider whether the west was stronger as the east as it is now) would be one of them for example. Id be really curious as to how well these comparisons really work (as they dont seem to be based on traditional statistical analysis and there dont seem to be any confidence levels, etc.). For example I remember reading an article on 82games.com by a guest writer that the trade of AI to Denver was a rather bad one (if I remember correctly)...and the first couple of games actually confirmed this view..however later in the season AI turned out to play quite effectively with mellow (I think this is yet another problem with small sample sizes..only a few games were looked at and those games were a biased sample as they were the first games that AI played, some of them without Carmelo who wasnt allowed to play..then they had to adapt...). Anyways, I'll keep an eye on the East and the Boston Celtics to see how well your predictions of team to similar team comparisons will work out (I know if it doesnt work out well, that wouldnt mean its ineffective as its just one game and not a significant sample size - but I still cant wait to see if these predictions will be on point). I really hope this didnt sound cynical or osmething, Im really just wondering if statistical analysis (by comparing similar teams to similar teams) really works well in such a case!
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MVP



Joined: 25 Jun 2007
Posts: 77
Posted: Wed Aug 08, 2007 10:03 am Post subject:

Quote:
Bosten was 20-27 when Pierce played. They were 4-31 when he didn't.
Wow! I didnt know the difference was this huge. I guess in this case I can say Pierce made a huge difference without trying to compute confidence intervals or bitching about the sample size ^^
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Mike G



Joined: 14 Jan 2005
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Location: Hendersonville, NC
Posted: Wed Aug 08, 2007 11:46 am Post subject:

Celts also were 12-21 when Tony Allen played (12-37 when he didn't) With both Pierce and Allen (games 1-24, not game 7), Bos was 10-13. With Allen but not Pierce (games 25-34), they were 2-8 . With Pierce but not Allen (games 7 and 49-71), they were 10-14. With neither Pierce or Allen (games 35-48 and 72-82), they were 2-23 . So with Pierce, Tony Allen was insignificant. But when missing Pierce, they were hopeless without Allen._________________` 36% of all statistics are wrong
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B Purist



Joined: 06 May 2007
Posts: 39
Posted: Thu Aug 09, 2007 11:09 am Post subject:

the celtics racked up 10 wins early in season .. they had th "easiest" schedule in the league for the first month and a half
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MVP



Joined: 25 Jun 2007
Posts: 77
Posted: Sat Aug 11, 2007 8:37 pm Post subject:

I hate coming off like a nerd, but with these extremely small sample sizes, I dont think you can make the statement that b/c of 2-8 with Allen, but not Pierce vs 2-23 w/o both..it means that they were bad without Pierce and just Allen playing, but were even worse (hopeless) when Pierce missed and so did Allen. 2-8 and 2-23 are such extremely small sample sizes, we can't really make a confident statement whether the fact that Allen missed in those games when Pierce missed weakened their performance. Maybe some of the games were just easier, maybe the rest of the team was playing better at the time? Maybe they had more home games and/or played weaker teams during 2-8 as opposed to 2-23, etc. there are so many factors that might play a role and make it so hard to make a confident decision with such small samples imho. Basically the same with 10-13 vs. 10-14 - though of course the numbers tend to show that Pierce was important, but Allen was not very important (whether he had a positive impact or virtually no impact at all I couldnt tell from these numbers alone)
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John Hollinger



Joined: 14 Feb 2005
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Posted: Sat Aug 11, 2007 10:15 pm Post subject:

Statman said "Honestly - IF Garnett, Pierce, AND Allen can get over 2800 minutes apiece - and the coach isn't a complete moron - I cannot see how they won't have the best record in the East." I think a lot of people think this, because the Celtics have the best 1-2-3 combo in the league. Just keep in mind that when it comes to players 4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12, they are the worst team in the league by a country mile. The idea that they can just get "role players" around these guys greatly underestimates the impact secondary players can have, even on good teams with multiple superstars.
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Statman



Joined: 20 Feb 2005
Posts: 242
Location: Arlington, Texas
Posted: Mon Aug 13, 2007 1:05 am Post subject:

John Hollinger wrote:
Statman said "Honestly - IF Garnett, Pierce, AND Allen can get over 2800 minutes apiece - and the coach isn't a complete moron - I cannot see how they won't have the best record in the East." I think a lot of people think this, because the Celtics have the best 1-2-3 combo in the league. Just keep in mind that when it comes to players 4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12, they are the worst team in the league by a country mile.
I just don't see how you can definitively say that. By your own PER measure, players 4-5-6-7 have PERs of 17.0, 15.0, 14.6, & 13.1 (at ages 25, 28, 23, & 20). So - players 4-5-6-7 are around league average by your measure - how in the world are their role players the worst in the league by a country mile?? It's not like they haven't shown ANY promise whatsoever statistically. That's not even including (obviously) the rookies Davis & Pruitt - either of which may suprise and be decent in their "roles". The Cavs were within 3 games of the best record in the east last season. Their top 3 of James, Ilgauskus, and Gooden theoretically isn't anywhere close to the top 3 of Garnett, Pierce, & Allen (definitely not close in PER). Their next 4 in PER were 15.3, 14.4, 12.1, & 12.1. I mean - seriously - are Hughes, Marshall, Varejao, & Pavlovic that much better than Tony Allen, House, Powe, & Rondo? Are Gibson, Snow, & Jones & their horrible PERs that much better than Glen Davis, Pruitt, or Perkins (or Scalabrine or Pollard)? Role players are just that - role players. Cleveland had ONE great player, couple other solid starters - and a bunch of "role" players that weren't really anything to write home about. Yet, they were the second best team in the conference and made it to the finals. I don't think it's ANY stretch to say that if Boston's big three stay healthy - they will have the best record in the conference. That being said - I have my doubts the big 3 will stay healthy, so I have my doubts they'll have the best record in the conference._________________Dan My current national college player rankings (and other stuff): http://www.pointguardu.com/f136/statman ... post355594
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Mike G



Joined: 14 Jan 2005
Posts: 3608
Location: Hendersonville, NC
Posted: Mon Aug 13, 2007 9:15 am Post subject:

MVP wrote:
...with these extremely small sample sizes, I dont think you can make the statement that b/c of 2-8 with Allen, but not Pierce vs 2-23 w/o both..it means that they were bad without Pierce and just Allen playing, but were even worse (hopeless) when Pierce missed and so did Allen.
True enough. But 'hopeless' is not a bad description of a 2-23 stretch, esp. when you consider their 2 wins: - Beat Cle 98-96, as LeBron sat. Shannon Brown started, Snow played 27 min, etc. - Next-to-last game for both Bos and Mia, Bos wins 91-89 as Mia rests starters after 24 minutes, while 4 top Celts go 37-44 min. (In Heat final game, 4 starters rest entirely, lose by 26 to Orl). So for all practical purposes, the Celts played 25 games in which they could not beat an (intact) NBA team, without either Pierce or T Allen. With just Allen, they won road games in Por and Mem, by 8 and by 9. BPurist made a valid point, and I see that in the Celts' 10-14 season-opening run, they beat just one above-average team. They trounced Indy by 26, beat the Nets by 2 -- and Den by 5, as Pierce, Jefferson, and Allen ALL had perhaps their best game of the season: combined 96 pts, on .837 TS% http://www.basketball-reference.com/box ... 61215.html_________________` 36% of all statistics are wrong
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Mike P



Joined: 06 Jul 2007
Posts: 8
Location: Toronto
Posted: Mon Aug 13, 2007 1:53 pm Post subject:

I think the best frame of reference for how this Celtics team will do is the 2004 Timberwolves with Garnett, Sprewell, Cassell and a bunch of role players. At the time Garnett was 27, Sprewell was 33, and Cassell was 34. Garnett was at his absolute apex then winning MVP that year but hasn't dropped off that much since then and I think we all can agree that a combo of a 32 year old Ray Allen & a 29 year old Paul Pierce is better than Cassell and Sprewell at 33 & 34 years old. The Timberwolves supporting cast that year was just as pathetic as the Celtics will be this year. Players 4-9 in total minutes played on that Minnesota team were: 4. Trenton Hassell 5. Fred Hoiberg 6. Mark Madsen 7. Gary Trent 8. Ervin Johnson 9. Michael Olowokandi They had Wally Szczerbiak too but he only played 28 games that year due to injury and only got 22 minutes a game when he did play. This Minnesota team went 58-24 in a Western Conference that had six fifty win teams and twelve of the fourteen teams won at least 37 games. The West was absolutely dominant that year. Bottom line is that I think everyone is underestimating what a team with three all-stars is capable of in the East regardless of who the supporting cast is. Most people seem to be predicting anywhere from 41 to 53 wins but I'm expecting this team to win between 55-60 games this year and to represent the East in the Finals.

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Author Message Mountain



Joined: 13 Mar 2007
Posts: 1527
Posted: Mon Aug 13, 2007 3:45 pm Post subject:

03-04 Wolves were 6th best on defensive efficiency. I don't think Boston gets near that high next season. If you have a big 3 on offense then the rest of the squad primarily has opportunity and responsibilty to contribute on defense- and PER mostly captures offensive contributions. How good Boston's rest of cast will be on defense with Garnett to anchor is all a projection. Rivers hasn't been a good defensive coach. Orlando's defensive efficiency declined every season under Doc from what he inherited from Chuck Daly. Boston's has stayed stagnant, just below average the entire time.Last edited by Mountain on Tue Aug 14, 2007 10:57 am; edited 1 time in total
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Statman



Joined: 20 Feb 2005
Posts: 242
Location: Arlington, Texas
Posted: Mon Aug 13, 2007 5:21 pm Post subject:

Mike P wrote:
I think the best frame of reference for how this Celtics team will do is the 2004 Timberwolves with Garnett, Sprewell, Cassell and a bunch of role players. At the time Garnett was 27, Sprewell was 33, and Cassell was 34. Garnett was at his absolute apex then winning MVP that year but hasn't dropped off that much since then and I think we all can agree that a combo of a 32 year old Ray Allen & a 29 year old Paul Pierce is better than Cassell and Sprewell at 33 & 34 years old. The Timberwolves supporting cast that year was just as pathetic as the Celtics will be this year. Players 4-9 in total minutes played on that Minnesota team were: 4. Trenton Hassell 5. Fred Hoiberg 6. Mark Madsen 7. Gary Trent 8. Ervin Johnson 9. Michael Olowokandi They had Wally Szczerbiak too but he only played 28 games that year due to injury and only got 22 minutes a game when he did play. This Minnesota team went 58-24 in a Western Conference that had six fifty win teams and twelve of the fourteen teams won at least 37 games. The West was absolutely dominant that year. Bottom line is that I think everyone is underestimating what a team with three all-stars is capable of in the East regardless of who the supporting cast is. Most people seem to be predicting anywhere from 41 to 53 wins but I'm expecting this team to win between 55-60 games this year and to represent the East in the Finals.
Good point. I would add that Cassell then & Allen now may be similar in quality (although definitely different style of players) - while Pierce is a significantly better player than SPrewell was, although Spree was a solid defender. So - I'd say the Big Three now with Boston is obviously more impressive than that Big 2.5._________________Dan My current national college player rankings (and other stuff): http://www.pointguardu.com/f136/statman ... post355594
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Statman



Joined: 20 Feb 2005
Posts: 242
Location: Arlington, Texas
Posted: Mon Aug 13, 2007 5:33 pm Post subject:

Mountain wrote:
03-04 Wolves were 6th best on defensive efficiency. I don't think Boston gets near that high next season. If you have a big 3 on offense then the rest of the squad primarily has opportunity and responsibilty to contribute on defense. How good Boston's rest of cast will be on defense with Garnett to anchor is all a projection. Rivers hasn't been a good defensive coach. Orlando's defensive efficiency declined every season under Doc from what he inherited from Chuck Daly. Boston's has stayed stagnant, just below average the entire time.
True - this Boston team probably won't be nearly that good in defensive efficiency as that 'wolves team, but offensively this Boston team could be very near the top - possibly second to Phoenix. We are still talking about the East - 54 wins would probably be a good guess for the top team. Toronto for God's sake won 47 games last season, and they were 12th in the league in defensive efficiency. Their Top 3 was Bosh, TJ Ford, & Anthony Parker. It'd be very suprising if Detroit could match their 53 wins this next season. So - that probably leaves Chicago & Cleveland as the cream of the crop in the East (not counting possibly Boston) - I don't think either team is gonna put up huge win totals._________________Dan My current national college player rankings (and other stuff): http://www.pointguardu.com/f136/statman ... post355594
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Mountain



Joined: 13 Mar 2007
Posts: 1527
Posted: Mon Aug 13, 2007 8:02 pm Post subject:

That Wolves team was 5th on offensive efficiency and the combined high ratings cause wins to leap up quite a bit more than just one will. I guess the new Celtics could well make somewhere in top 5 in offensive efficency but it could be closer to 10th.
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jmethven



Joined: 16 May 2005
Posts: 51
Posted: Mon Aug 13, 2007 11:09 pm Post subject:

Statman wrote:
The Cavs were within 3 games of the best record in the east last season. Their top 3 of James, Ilgauskus, and Gooden theoretically isn't anywhere close to the top 3 of Garnett, Pierce, & Allen (definitely not close in PER). Their next 4 in PER were 15.3, 14.4, 12.1, & 12.1. I mean - seriously - are Hughes, Marshall, Varejao, & Pavlovic that much better than Tony Allen, House, Powe, & Rondo? Are Gibson, Snow, & Jones & their horrible PERs that much better than Glen Davis, Pruitt, or Perkins (or Scalabrine or Pollard)? Role players are just that - role players. Cleveland had ONE great player, couple other solid starters - and a bunch of "role" players that weren't really anything to write home about. Yet, they were the second best team in the conference and made it to the finals.
I think the comparison to Cleveland illustrates why Boston's defense is what will make the difference between a 45-win and a 55-win campaign. I agree that at least offensively, Cleveland's role players are not a lot better than Boston's (although at least more experienced). One could reasonably expect their offense to be as low as the bottom five in the league without LeBron. Nonetheless, this group of players made for one of the top defenses. My personal feeling is that having 3 players of this stature is enough to make a top 5 offense, as they can handle a large load of possessions in a highly efficient manner. But defensive questions (don't forget Ray Allen's history of playing on good offense/bad defense teams) make me wonder how high their ceiling really is. There has been data from Dan Rosenbaum and others suggesting young players show up less in plus minus than their more experienced counterparts. Boston's bench is not devoid of talent, but its inexperience may be its downfall. Whatever the results, the Garnett trade has made me more excited about the NBA than I've been in some time. It's always interesting to see superstars in a new setting, to see how combinations of players work together on the court. Hopefully it will teach us what kind of things to expect in the future.
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NotoriousCPC



Joined: 13 Aug 2007
Posts: 2
Posted: Mon Aug 13, 2007 11:51 pm Post subject:

I apologize for not doing the work myself, but what if one of them suffers an injury setback. Hypothetically if Ray Allen (coming off an injury-plagued year and probably the most likely of the "big 3" to miss games) were to miss 20 to 25 games this year? I can understand a high 40s to low 50s as a best case scenario, but this team seems less equipped than anyone else to handle an injury.
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Mike P



Joined: 06 Jul 2007
Posts: 8
Location: Toronto
Posted: Tue Aug 14, 2007 10:05 am Post subject:

I'm a little confused why people keep mentioning injuries when talking about how this Celtics team will do. People keep asking what if one of the big three goes down, well don't they then have a big two to keep them afloat. What if Lebron, Arenas, D Howard, Wade or Kidd went down? Wouldn't all of those Eastern Conference contenders be affected more than the Celtics losing any one of their three stars? The other thing is that Pierce and Garnett are two of the most durable stars in the league. Before last season Pierce played at least 79 games for six years straight and last season's injury probably would've lasted no more than two weeks had the Celtics been in the playoff race. The only games Garnett has ever missed were due to Minnesota shutting him down early when they were out of the race, he's only missed a couple of games due to injury his entire career. The only legitimate concern is Ray Allen who has missed around 25 games two out of the last four years. Overall though if two out of your three key players are arguably the most durable top 15 players in the league I don't think injuries should constantly be mentioned as being anymore a key factor than it is with any other team. I for one wouldn't give injuries a second thought when projecting the Celtics win total this year as I put them in the top half of teams in the East as far as durability of their key players. I'd probably be more concerned about half the teams in the league in terms of injuries than I would about the Celtics. I also expect them to pick up another veteran bench player or two between now and opening night so their bench will look better than it does right now.
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tmansback



Joined: 12 Aug 2005
Posts: 129
Posted: Tue Aug 14, 2007 4:05 pm Post subject:

John Hollinger wrote:
Statman said "Honestly - IF Garnett, Pierce, AND Allen can get over 2800 minutes apiece - and the coach isn't a complete moron - I cannot see how they won't have the best record in the East." I think a lot of people think this, because the Celtics have the best 1-2-3 combo in the league. Just keep in mind that when it comes to players 4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12, they are the worst team in the league by a country mile. The idea that they can just get "role players" around these guys greatly underestimates the impact secondary players can have, even on good teams with multiple superstars.
Who playing 12 guys. Phoenix plays 7 or 8 guys a game and they win 60 games a year. Boston top 7 or 8 looks pretty impressive. Plus John u also projected Big Baby as one of the steals of the drafts. He looked good enough in summer league that you could be right. Couldn't you say the exact same thing after the Heat traded for Shaq. There roster outside of Wade and Shaq looked close to horrible. They won 59 games. When u have great players your depth seems less important. Doc could have a rotation of atleast 2 all-star players in the game almost the entire game. Seriously how important is your depth in that situation. All you need are rebounders and jump shooters. No doubt people are way underestimating a team with 3 guys with PER over 20. With one of them being the best big man in the East. Perhaps next to Shaq will be the best low post player in the East. Maybe if this team played in the West you could justify a 48 win projection. Although Garnett won more games than that when he had Troy Hudson at PG. I also think a lot of the low projections have to do with a underestimation of Garnett at this point. I projected the Celtics with 48 wins win they had Al Jefferson. I'm guessing that some of u must have had a team with Allen, Pierce, Jefferson, Rondo as a below 500 team in the Eastern conference. I have to wonder if I changed the name Garnett to Duncan what the projection would be. I would be surprised if it was anything less than 60 wins. Although I don't think Duncan is worth 12 more games Garnett. One thing that strikes me is even as bad as the Celtics were last year Pierce had a winning record against his opponents. 24-20 in minutes that he played. Rondo was 35 and 34. This tells me if the Celtics brought back the same team they likely would have been around a 35 win team. Are we underestimating Rondo in this thing as well. If he had a jump shot I think he could be one of the best PGs in the league. He a tremendous passer, rebounder, defender, creator, etc. If everyone is healthy then I don't think there any shot they are held under 55 wins. No way a team with a passionate Garnett, Ray Allen, and Paul Pierce is a 48 win squad. Garnett and Allen are passionate enough alone to carry the Celtics to 50 wins.
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Harold Almonte



Joined: 04 Aug 2006
Posts: 616
Posted: Tue Aug 14, 2007 4:56 pm Post subject:

Nobody is understimating Garnett. Perhaps Allen, Pierce and bench's "passionate" defense (probably with a good reason).
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tmansback



Joined: 12 Aug 2005
Posts: 129
Posted: Tue Aug 14, 2007 4:59 pm Post subject:

I don't know. If people think Garnett is truly a top 5 player. Then a team with Pierce, Allen, and a weak East is much better than 48 wins.
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gabefarkas



Joined: 31 Dec 2004
Posts: 1313
Location: Durham, NC
Posted: Wed Aug 15, 2007 7:55 am Post subject:

tmansback wrote:
One thing that strikes me is even as bad as the Celtics were last year Pierce had a winning record against his opponents. 24-20 in minutes that he played. Rondo was 35 and 34. This tells me if the Celtics brought back the same team they likely would have been around a 35 win team.
Can you explain what this means? How can Pierce, as an individual player, have a winning or losing record against his opponents? And what does "in minutes that he played" mean? Do you mean in games that he played?
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THWilson



Joined: 19 Jul 2005
Posts: 164
Location: phoenix
Posted: Wed Aug 15, 2007 10:51 am Post subject:

gabefarkas wrote:
tmansback wrote:
One thing that strikes me is even as bad as the Celtics were last year Pierce had a winning record against his opponents. 24-20 in minutes that he played. Rondo was 35 and 34. This tells me if the Celtics brought back the same team they likely would have been around a 35 win team.
Can you explain what this means? How can Pierce, as an individual player, have a winning or losing record against his opponents? And what does "in minutes that he played" mean? Do you mean in games that he played?
http://www.82games.com/0607/06BOS6A.HTM http://www.82games.com/0607/06BOS2A.HTM Check out the W and L in the first line of stats.
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Mountain



Joined: 13 Mar 2007
Posts: 1527
Posted: Wed Aug 15, 2007 11:33 am Post subject:

Who plays 12 guys? Not an argument, just a path to explore. The Spurs were close. They played 12 guys for about 12 minutes or more for about 70% of regular season games. (In playoffs 10 played 10+ minutes in nearly all games.) Close to 11 is common just looking at top 12 teams. Chicago, Detroit had 12 over 10 minutes in at least half the games, so maybe count that at 11 used. Regular season Mavs and Raptors had 11 over 10 minutes in strong majority of games. Miami nearly 13 in about half. Nets, Nuggets, Jazz Cavs nearly 11. Rockets are second lowest at 10 in at least half the games. Count that as close to 9. Phoenix are the lowest at 8.5 with Banks near the cut. Doc played 11 over 10 minutes last season with the key injuries. 10 the year before. I'd guess Doc plays 10 or more next season to this standard (which admittedly might be a lower threshold for counting as "playing" than some would use).
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tmansback



Joined: 12 Aug 2005
Posts: 129
Posted: Wed Aug 15, 2007 6:06 pm Post subject:

Mountain wrote:
Who plays 12 guys? Not an argument, just a path to explore. The Spurs were close. They played 12 guys for about 12 minutes or more for about 70% of regular season games. (In playoffs 10 played 10+ minutes in nearly all games.) Close to 11 is common just looking at top 12 teams. Chicago, Detroit had 12 over 10 minutes in at least half the games, so maybe count that at 11 used. Regular season Mavs and Raptors had 11 over 10 minutes in strong majority of games. Miami nearly 13 in about half. Nets, Nuggets, Jazz Cavs nearly 11. Rockets are second lowest at 10 in at least half the games. Count that as close to 9. Phoenix are the lowest at 8.5 with Banks near the cut. Doc played 11 over 10 minutes last season with the key injuries. 10 the year before. I'd guess Doc plays 10 or more next season to this standard (which admittedly might be a lower threshold for counting as "playing" than some would use).
You don't need 12 guys. You don't 11 guys. I'm not sure you even need 10 guys to win a basketball game. During the course of a season you will play more than 8 guys. How important is player 9 10 11 and 12 though. For some teams maybe more important than others. A team like last years Magic better be deep. There starters outside of Dwight werent good enough to get extended minutes. If everyone is healthy right now the Celtics would only have limited minutes available for a SG, SF, and PF anyway. If the argument is how good is a healthy Celtic team right now. Whats the purpose of talking about players 9-12?
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Mountain



Joined: 13 Mar 2007
Posts: 1527
Posted: Wed Aug 15, 2007 6:43 pm Post subject:

If 9-11 play just 10 minutes each that is 30 minutes or 12.5% of your total defensive play. Probably they give you a little less than proportionate pts, rebs and assists but with many games decided by just a few points the contribution of the end of the bench can affect things. As much as some individual starters or a 6th or 7th man. It is your last opportunity to balance your 4 factors performance. Detroit's 9-12 was Delfino, Maxiell, Hunter and Davis. They roughly contributed about 12 pts, 8 rebs, 3 assists per game, allowing for their absences from court to count as zeros. That production is significant.

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Author Message 94by50



Joined: 01 Jan 2006
Posts: 499
Location: Phoenix
Posted: Wed Aug 15, 2007 7:57 pm Post subject:

Players 9 through 12 aren't players 9 through 12 anymore if anyone in the 8-man rotation gets hurt.
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Mountain



Joined: 13 Mar 2007
Posts: 1527
Posted: Wed Aug 15, 2007 8:49 pm Post subject:

True for games affected by injuries. You could back out the minutes and production of the 9th - 12th men in those games to get a better measure of their significance in their main 9th-12th man roles. But their role as fill-ins is still significant to maintaining team performance during injury. So you 9th-12th men have two different roles... but the same average level of contribution, which is not large individually but combined is usually non-trivial.
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gabefarkas



Joined: 31 Dec 2004
Posts: 1313
Location: Durham, NC
Posted: Thu Aug 16, 2007 9:29 am Post subject:

THWilson wrote:
gabefarkas wrote:
Can you explain what this means? How can Pierce, as an individual player, have a winning or losing record against his opponents? And what does "in minutes that he played" mean? Do you mean in games that he played?
http://www.82games.com/0607/06BOS6A.HTM http://www.82games.com/0607/06BOS2A.HTM Check out the W and L in the first line of stats.
I see. Do you know what the W and L mean or how they are calculated (I sure don't)? Or are you just quoting them because they support your argument?
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Neil Paine



Joined: 13 Oct 2005
Posts: 774
Location: Atlanta, GA
Posted: Thu Aug 16, 2007 10:03 am Post subject:

Doesn't it mean that the Celtics, with Pierce on the floor, outscored the opposition in 24 of the games that he played, and got outscored in 20 games? Of course, PP played 47 games, not 44, but I think that's the general idea.
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MVP



Joined: 25 Jun 2007
Posts: 77
Posted: Sun Aug 19, 2007 3:42 pm Post subject: How do you feel about Reggie Miller as a 4th option?

No idea if he is coming back or not. Im sure he wouldnt be very successful as the #1 option anymore (I think with Indiana he sort of was the #1 option (or wasnt he?) when O'Neal and Artest were banned from the league for a while..if I remember anything of this correctly?). However, Im wondering if he could be effective as a fourth option mostly shooting the three (as a second extreme perimeter threat with Ray Allen). I'm sure if he had all that space he could sink the three very successfully (he wouldnt be required to run around the court all the time if there are 3 better plays that are a priority on defense). However, I assume his defense wouldn't be great as his lateral speed is probably not the best anymore... How do you feel about him making a comeback to the Celtics as a fourth (or fifth) option or as a bench player to give them more depth (I think somebody on here mentioned that they had three of the best guys in the East, but they also had the worst bench).
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tmansback



Joined: 12 Aug 2005
Posts: 129
Posted: Sat Aug 25, 2007 5:55 pm Post subject:

The Celtics now get Posey. No surprise because like I've said before that just get yourself a few great players and watch all the good role players that want to play with u for cheap. Posey should solidify there 2/3 rotation. Especially with Tony Allen coming off a major injury. I really like them as a 55-60 win squad min if they get a decent backup PG.
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MVP



Joined: 25 Jun 2007
Posts: 77
Posted: Sat Aug 25, 2007 7:47 pm Post subject:

Man, I really really really can't wait to see them play. Hopefully theyll meet or exceed my expectations!
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mikez



Joined: 14 Mar 2005
Posts: 75
Posted: Tue Aug 28, 2007 1:37 pm Post subject:

Quote:
Man, I really really really can't wait to see them play. Hopefully theyll meet or exceed my expectations!
I know the feeling! -MZ
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ishmael



Joined: 19 Jul 2007
Posts: 6
Posted: Tue Sep 04, 2007 12:54 pm Post subject:

Anybody want to re-run their analysis with this new projected 10 man rotation? Rondo 32 minutes / House 18 minutes Ray Allen 34 minutes / Tony Allen 12 minutes Pierce 36 minutes / Posey 25 minutes KG 38 minutes / Scalabrine 10 minutes Perkins 25 minutes / Pollard 10 minutes You could also assume that Leon Powe (or Glen Davis) will get 10 minutes per game over the course of the season due to injuries and maybe that Posey/TAllen/House will see an extra 15 minutes per game total for the same reason. The minute numbers above are all below career and 2006-2007 averages for the KG/PP/RA trio...
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mateo82



Joined: 06 Aug 2005
Posts: 211
Posted: Tue Sep 04, 2007 7:40 pm Post subject:

I still think the center rotation is a major concern. I don't understand why people have been so quick to forgive Perkins poor career thus far and assume that he's suddenly going to start being productive when he hasn't been in the past. Pollard used to be a solid player but that's been a while. I remember in 2005 when the Wolves center rotation became so bad that we signed John Thomas to start for a while. I could see something like that happening here.
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schtevie



Joined: 18 Apr 2005
Posts: 414
Posted: Sat Nov 10, 2007 8:38 am Post subject:

Anybody ready yet to jump off the 50 and under bus? The Kool-Aid sure tastes good on the glory train, and there still is seating available in coach.
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Mike G



Joined: 14 Jan 2005
Posts: 3625
Location: Hendersonville, NC
Posted: Sat Nov 10, 2007 9:10 am Post subject:

As a refresher (as of Oct. 11): Code:
Avg. team JohnH DW21 MikeG 55.3 Chi 55 57.7 53.2 54.9 Cle 54 57.1 53.5 51.7 Bos 51 50.2 54.0 48.1 Det 48 48.7 47.6 45.3 Orl 49 45.8 41.0 41.8 Tor 40 40.0 45.5 38.8 Mia 43 37.6 35.9 38.7 NJ 39 36.9 40.1
(from the thread) -- http://sonicscentral.com/apbrmetrics/vi ... php?t=1525 We saw a very wide range of predictions for the Celtics; I had a wide range myself. On p.4 of this thread, jmethven wrote:Quote:
... Boston's defense is what will make the difference between a 45-win and a 55-win campaign..
Early in the season, we find huge strenth-of-schedule differences. According to Sagarin, the Celts are 26th in SOS; yet Bos ranks #1, by a nice margin. http://www.usatoday.com/sports/sagarin/nba0708.htm_________________` 36% of all statistics are wrong
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schtevie



Joined: 18 Apr 2005
Posts: 414
Posted: Sat Nov 10, 2007 9:20 am Post subject:

Not sure how the SOS is calculated, but it must be the case that the apparent weakness of the Cs opponents, with so few games played, is quite substantively influenced by the apparent strength of the Cs. Ex ante, I find it hard to believe that this would have been considered the 26th easiest schedule in the league. We'll get a taste of the future when they play the Nets away tonight on a back-to-back.
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Mike G



Joined: 14 Jan 2005
Posts: 3625
Location: Hendersonville, NC
Posted: Sat Nov 10, 2007 10:10 am Post subject:

I've been seeing other predictions that conclude (inadvertently, I'm guessing) that the East will net as many wins as the West. This is in itself a shocking prediction, unless I've missed some great shift in balance. I'd have thought SOS includes 'opponent SOS'. But once again I forgot to check in when teams had played just one game (which would have revealed something). And, "26th in SOS" means 26th-best (5th-weakest). An understandable misstatement._________________` 36% of all statistics are wrong
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bchaikin



Joined: 27 Jan 2005
Posts: 690
Location: cleveland, ohio
Posted: Sat Nov 10, 2007 11:31 am Post subject:

Anybody ready yet to jump off the 50 and under bus? the big 3 have played in each of the celtics 4 games, with garnett and allen having played 39 min/g and pierce 38 min/g. allen is shooting a ScFG% of 80%, garnett 64% and pierce 57%. let's wait and see what happens when one or two miss a game here or there or falls into a temporary shooting slump... everyone knew their big three, if healthy, would be awesome - it was how many games each would miss and how well their bench would perform in their absence that was the primary concern...

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Author Message Ben



Joined: 13 Jan 2005
Posts: 264
Location: Iowa City
Posted: Sat Nov 10, 2007 11:34 am Post subject:

bchaikin wrote:
Anybody ready yet to jump off the 50 and under bus? the big 3 have played in each of the celtics 4 games, with garnett and allen having played 39 min/g and pierce 38 min/g. allen is shooting a ScFG% of 80%, garnett 64% and pierce 57%. let's wait and see what happens when one or two miss a game here or there or falls into a temporary shooting slump... everyone knew their big three, if healthy, would be awesome - it was how many games each would miss and how well their bench would perform in their absence that was the primary concern...
Good points about playing time. Clearly Allen can't keep up that shooting, but if KG returns to MVP form from a few years ago, I wonder how the projections would change.
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Harold Almonte



Joined: 04 Aug 2006
Posts: 616
Posted: Sat Nov 10, 2007 12:00 pm Post subject:

Another thing that should change is the way of making team defense predictions based on others lineups past performance. Boston's defensive efficiency is right now far better what everybody supposed (including me) they would perform as a team and individual.
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Mike G



Joined: 14 Jan 2005
Posts: 3532
Location: Hendersonville, NC
Posted: Sun Nov 11, 2007 6:33 am Post subject:

schtevie wrote:
Not sure how the SOS is calculated, but it must be the case that the apparent weakness of the Cs opponents, with so few games played, is quite substantively influenced by the apparent strength of the Cs. ...
After 5 games, Sagarin ranks the Celtics' schedule as only 23rd, though they are 4-0 vs top16 teams. Their opponents (and rank) have been: Was (30) Tor (10) Den (11) Atl (9) NJ (19) [edit: I guess by 'top 16', he refers to his 'blended' ranking (NJ is #16), not his 'preferred' ranking -- which is in the rightmost column.] Atl is #9 by virtue of 4 of 5 games being against top10 teams, the other #19 NJ. Beating Dal and Phx, losing big only to Bos._________________` 36% of all statistics are wrong
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schtevie



Joined: 18 Apr 2005
Posts: 407
Posted: Sun Nov 11, 2007 9:37 am Post subject:

bchaikin wrote:
Anybody ready yet to jump off the 50 and under bus? the big 3 have played in each of the celtics 4 games, with garnett and allen having played 39 min/g and pierce 38 min/g. allen is shooting a ScFG% of 80%, garnett 64% and pierce 57%. let's wait and see what happens when one or two miss a game here or there or falls into a temporary shooting slump... everyone knew their big three, if healthy, would be awesome - it was how many games each would miss and how well their bench would perform in their absence that was the primary concern...
Uh....I enjoy revisionism as much as the next guy, and perhaps there is a greater diversity of opinion about the meaning of the word awesome than I would have imagined, however one need but reread the thread to see that everyone did not know that the big three, if healthy, would be awesome. In fact, nobody putting out a specific number of predicted wins did. Stipulating good health, the most wins predicted was 54 to 55. And this was a bit of an outlier. Now, if a couple of folks believing that the Cs would a bit better than Detroit and Houston last year constitutes awesomeness, so be it, but it doesn't. The issue then is where did the conceptual errors lie? (And this post will be promptly deleted if the Celtics soon crash and burn with their three stars). A quick reread of the dialogue shows that both the defense and offense were underestimated. Leaving defense aside for now, why are the Celtics so much more proficient on offense this year? I think the simple answer is that this is what should be expected when you take three unselfish players who can pass the ball and who are, if not the best, almost the best at their very distinct positions, and put them on the same team. Each now has more space to do what they can do, leading to increased, not decreased, efficiency. Contrariwise, the common implicit assumption of the analyses used to generate the low estimates is decreasing or constant marginal efficiency. Now, such an assumption is surely serviceable for hypothetical player swaps where there are no dramatic changes is skill level but clearly isn't so for the case at hand. Barring an argument about folks bumping into each other on the court, I cannot in fact come up with any story which would justify the assumption of decreasing marginal efficiency. Finally, as to the likelihood of the C's scoring efficiency regressing to the mean, there is no doubt. However, one might also expect their turnover rate, which has not been stellar, to do the same. It will be an interesting year.
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John Beattie



Joined: 26 Jan 2007
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Posted: Sun Nov 11, 2007 10:18 am Post subject:

Has everyone heard the two terms mentioned on one of the recent broadcasts as applicable to the Celts this year?...: ...the PGA Tour... and ...the Boston Three Party.
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Mike G



Joined: 14 Jan 2005
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Posted: Mon Nov 12, 2007 7:38 am Post subject:

Nobody is 'awesome' all the time. But some of these 3-somes will be awesome some of the time. From my '08 predictions' file, expected wins added by top-3 players from each team; missing a final adjustment that exaggerates each by 1 or less (eW+). e1000 is (last year's) eWins added per 1000 minutes played; and I'm using minutes suggested by daviswylie21. Code:
eW+ team e1000 players 35.2 SA 14.3 Duncan,Tim Ginobili,Manu Parker,Tony 34.4 Dal 12.4 Nowitzki,Dirk Howard,Josh Terry,Jason 33.2 Bos 12.0 Garnett,Kevin Pierce,Paul Allen,Ray 32.4 Pho 11.7 Stoudemire,Amare Nash,Steve Marion,Shawn 31.1 Cle 11.6 James,Lebron Ilgauskas,Zydrun Gooden,Drew 30.6 Uta 11.5 Boozer,Carlos Williams,Deron Okur,Mehmet 28.8 NJ 10.6 Carter,Vince Kidd,Jason Jefferson,Richard 28.2 Hou 12.8 Ming,Yao Mcgrady,Tracy Alston,Rafer 27.6 Was 9.6 Arenas,Gilbert Jamison,Antawn Butler,Caron 27.6 Den 10.4 Anthony,Carmelo Camby,Marcus Iverson,Allen
The e1000 column might better represent the 'when healthy' provision. In which case, Miami (Wade, Shaq, Haslem) are competitive at 11.7 (yet just 23.2 for their season projected minutes). Houston's #3 can be any of several. Here too, minutes from their Big-2 have been unreliable. If PGA aren't 'awesome', who is?_________________` 36% of all statistics are wrong
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schtevie



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Posted: Mon Nov 12, 2007 10:12 am Post subject:

Mike, I think we may be speaking past one another here. The point I was trying to make is that there appears (admittedly, based on a small sample size) that there were uniformly gross underestimates made of the effect that bringing together three great players playing three distinct positions would have on winning/offensive (and defensive) efficiency. Awesomeness obtains to winningness, and this (if real) demands explanation. My take is that the various methods used to calculate offensive efficiency assume constant of decreasing efficiency and that this is the primary source of the error. Heck, even the "terrible" Celtics bench is probably scoring more efficiently that the next best team in the league. A direct consequence of the increasing returns to skill. Accordingly, the issue is not whether you can get three great players to put up gaudy summation of individual stats. Anyway, if I am reading your e1000 column correctly, PGA are a solid number four in the league. Maybe it is a semantic point, but being just out of the top decile isn't awesome in my book - very good, but not awesome.
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Mike G



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Posted: Mon Nov 12, 2007 10:46 am Post subject:

schtevie wrote:
... Awesomeness obtains to winningness, and this (if real) demands explanation. ...
Well, I did 'assume' last year's productivity, as defined by my own system -- which is designed to assume that a player will raise his efficiency when his shots are reduced by having better teammates. In other words, his stats may change, but he's equally productive, overall. I'm not going to look at their FGA/40 or anything right now, as I think it's pretty early. I don't think they will continue to average 40 MPG, nor will they continue to shoot >65%TS, etc. If they do, then for sure we'll have a whole new chapter in APBRmetrics evolution. They've taken 61% of the shots, playing 48% of the minutes. This doesn't seem inequitable really. They need to have at least 3 other guys seriously involved in the offense. Intensity takes its toll in an 82-game season, and KG is the definition of intense. Their big challenge may be to lighten up a bit, at least in their MPG. The key to your hope, and I agree, is that these guys' roles do not really overlap very much. A formula to predict future player combos should include a proxy for 'unselfishness' (Ast in addition to Sco?). The opposite of complementary might be observed in NY (Curry + Randolph)._________________` 36% of all statistics are wrong
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mtamada



Joined: 28 Jan 2005
Posts: 375
Posted: Mon Nov 12, 2007 11:40 pm Post subject:

I haven't seen the Celts play and haven't examined their stats in detail, so I don't have a detailed comment on their 5-0 start. But a 5-0 start to me is only big news for a team that was expected to do poorly. E.g. the Clippers' 4-0 start, that was news, but they are certainly showing signs of falling back to their more expected level So the 5-0 start doesn't make me change my predictions for the Celtics (again, maybe a detailed look might reveal something), except in one way: that's about 2 more victories than a .600 or .650 team would be expected to get, so we should certainly raise our predicted number of wins for them by a couple of games. My initial, off-the-cuff estimate was 50 or 48 wins for the Celtics, and the subsequent predictions that I thought were good were all in the 50-55 game range, so my view was that the good predictions were in the 48-55 range. Now we should probably change those to 50-57 (again, this is an quick-and-dirty estimate, doesn't take into account strength of schedule, home vs road, final roster revisions, etc.). The 2003-04 Laker team filled with Hall of Famers (Shaq, Kobe, Karl Malone, Payton) started out 20-5. Then Malone got injured and ... well we all know the rest of the story.
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schtevie



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Posted: Tue Nov 13, 2007 8:02 am Post subject:

Mike, fair comment. But there is more than one way to skin this cat. The (hypothetical) irrational exuberance was based more on the margin of victory (16+ over the first five games) than the 5-0 record. And this in turn was based, in half, on high shooting percentages, reflecting, impressionistically, wide open shots, more than lucky bounces. Given this, a two game adjustment seems a bit low. We'll see. Like I said, I will skulk away from the thread when it all crashes and burns.
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Mike G



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Posted: Tue Nov 13, 2007 8:30 am Post subject:

Here's what I wonder: - Why did the Big3 all play 38-39 minutes in the opener, when they led the Wiz by 22 at halftime and still won by 20? - Why does Garnett go even 36 min. vs the Nuggs, a game which was 77-38 at the half? No one for Denver went over 32 (Iverson). - Why did Ray Allen play 48 minutes vs the Nets, when that was a 21-point lead after 3 quarters? Garnett and Pierce also played over 40. This could be explained as over-exuberance, I guess. The smart approach might be to stay under the radar as much as possible, rather than go for an alltime record point-differential. The big question (by far, I'd say) is whether all 3 will keep their legs, thru the season and playoffs. These guys have been around the block, and none of them are going to be the scoring champ._________________` 36% of all statistics are wrong
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Mike G



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Posted: Tue Nov 20, 2007 8:33 am Post subject:

After 8-10 games, the best 3-somes in the league; in eWins projected to 82 games.Code:
40.0 Bos Garnett,Kevin Pierce,Paul Allen,Ray 34.7 Den Iverson,Allen Anthony,Carmelo Camby,Marcus 34.7 SA Ginobili,Manu Duncan,Tim Parker,Tony 33.2 NO Paul,Chris West,David Chandler,Tyson 33.0 Cle James,Lebron Ilgauskas,Zydrun Gooden,Drew 32.0 Orl Howard,Dwight Lewis,Rashard Turkoglu,Hedo 31.6 Dal Nowitzki,Dirk Terry,Jason Howard,Josh 30.4 Uta Boozer,Carlos Kirilenko,Andrei Williams,Deron 29.7 Phx Nash,Steve Marion,Shawn Barbosa,Leandro 28.2 Hou Ming,Yao Mcgrady,Tracy Hayes,Chuck
Hou really just has a Big2, and #3 could have been 3 other guys. Amare has Phx's best rates, but doesn't play much. And yes, Boston's Big3 looks more valuable than half the teams in the NBA. I've got them projecting to 74 wins. DW21's page says 72. Sagarin's SOS-adjusted ranking is less dominant._________________` 36% of all statistics are wrong
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schtevie



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Posted: Thu Nov 22, 2007 9:14 am Post subject:

Today seems to be a fortuitous occasion to give thanks for the local ball club. And invoking the Suggestion of Small Numbers, let's see how the Celtics are doing compared to the '95-'96 Bulls. Ten games into the relevant seasons, we see the Celtics having a winning margin of 14.2 to what was the Bulls' 11 (with both teams having played six home games, so no adjustment necessary on that account). In terms of opponent strength, the Bulls played teams that averaged 42.1 wins in the preceding season, compared to the Celtics' 40.6. And the Bulls' same opponents ended the year averaging 40.8 wins. So, the comparison is quite similar here. That said, the Bulls played in their first ten games two elite teams, Orlando and San Antonio, whereas the Cs have arguably only played one. Bottom line? To the extent to which elite competition will tell the tale, it won't be until January, really, that a good comparison can be made. That aside, all other indications (including relative offensive and defensive strength) strongly suggest that the Celtics are...well...really good.
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ishmael



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Posted: Sat Dec 01, 2007 3:44 pm Post subject:

Fifteen games into the season and I think it is still hard to say how good Boston will be, but that their win total should be exceed even the high end of what was tossed around in the pre-season. One reason for this is that the gap between the conferences has not really closed that much. While there is only a 5 game +/- swing between the conferences through 468 games, I have the West at +.5 scoring diff. and the East at -.9 (per game). For reference, the median Western Conference team in scoring margin is Houston at +2.0. The median Eastern Conference team is Philadelphia at -2.8. No better stat than that one right there to show the differentiated level of competition! So while the Celtics schedule may have been a little light so far (23rd according to Sagarin), we really should not expect the going to get much tougher since there are really only 3 to 4 other good teams in the East.
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schtevie



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Posted: Sat Dec 01, 2007 5:07 pm Post subject:

Trotting out the latest game-wise comparison with the '95-'96 Bulls... Through 15 games, the Cs margin of victory is 13.73, from which we could deduct 0.22 points for more home games than not, leaving 13.51. Furthermore, the average number of wins of their opponents in the previous year was 40.53. The Bulls on the other hand were 8.33 points up on average, to which 0.66 could be added for a preponderance of away games, yielding 8.99. And these games were against opponents averaging 41 games in the same year (and 40.93 the previous year, though this is imputing an identical number of wins for the new expansion teams). Surely a 45 point blow-out helps pad the stats, but that isn't all that's going on.

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Mike G



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PostPosted: Sun Dec 09, 2007 3:49 pm Post subject: Reply with quote
Is one wheel coming off?

Ray Allen's shooting dropoff, as the season progresses:
Code:
games PPG 3% 2% ft% ts%
1 - 4 22.5 .520 .773 .929 .847
5 - 10 18.0 .333 .393 .939 .480
11 - 19 17.0 .286 .423 .882 .468

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Ben



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PostPosted: Sun Dec 09, 2007 7:37 pm Post subject: Reply with quote
schtevie wrote:
Trotting out the latest game-wise comparison with the '95-'96 Bulls...

Through 15 games, the Cs margin of victory is 13.73, from which we could deduct 0.22 points for more home games than not, leaving 13.51. Furthermore, the average number of wins of their opponents in the previous year was 40.53.

The Bulls on the other hand were 8.33 points up on average, to which 0.66 could be added for a preponderance of away games, yielding 8.99. And these games were against opponents averaging 41 games in the same year (and 40.93 the previous year, though this is imputing an identical number of wins for the new expansion teams).

Surely a 45 point blow-out helps pad the stats, but that isn't all that's going on.


Has anybody looked at how good 15 game margin of victory is at predicting 82 game margin of victory?
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Harold Almonte



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PostPosted: Mon Dec 10, 2007 7:55 am Post subject: Reply with quote
Quote:
Is one wheel coming off?


Probably he's regressing to what is supposed to be his mean in that team full of stars.
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Mike G



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PostPosted: Tue Dec 11, 2007 10:48 am Post subject: Reply with quote
Here are Sagarin's ratings for the best teams of the last 10 years.
Code:
year best Sagar total WL Season Playoffs
1999 SA 97.96 52 15 37 13 15 2
2000 LAL 98.53 82 23 67 15 15 8
2001 not available?
2002 Sac 97.54 71 27 61 21 10 6
2003 SA 97.13 76 30 60 22 16 8
2004 SA 97.80 63 29 57 25 6 4

2005 SA 99.07 75 30 59 23 16 7
2006 Dal 97.11 74 31 60 22 14 9
2007 SA 99.04 74 28 58 24 16 4
2008 Bos 101.88 17 2

I couldn't find a way back to earlier than '99, so can't say how the Bulls rated. Yet I had thought this were possible.
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John Beattie



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PostPosted: Thu Dec 13, 2007 12:50 am Post subject: Reply with quote
Dang — Celts only meet Spurs twice during the regular season, and the first isn't until February 10 Sunday...

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/teams/schedule?team=bos

...in Boston.

Then March 17 Monday in San Antonio.
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Mountain



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PostPosted: Tue Dec 25, 2007 6:17 pm Post subject: Reply with quote
I developed 2 crude championship contender models previously. One said look at top 7 defensive efficiency teams and then pick the one with the best offense in that group as most likely contender and then the next closest are the main rivals. Another said sum offensive and defensive rank and set the order based on the average of the two.

By the first method Celitcs are the favorite and Pistons and Spurs are the biggest challengers. By the second Pistons actually come up 1 notch ahead and Spurs still third.

Magic, Nuggets, Hornets, Lakers and Suns (defense faded from good start back to just average) are in next group by either approach and closely bunched. Jazz, Mavs and Raptors further back and probably represent the final contenders. Rockets, based on performance to date and mostly the 22nd on offense (which could change of course) come up essentially same level as Philly and not on the short list right now.

But rank is not as good as actual efficiency. On net efficiency the contender rank order is Celtics, Pistons, Spurs (no change there), then Suns Mavs (they move up based on strong offenses) followed by Lakers Magic Nuggets, Jazz Hornets Raptors. So a couple teams move up but it is the same top 11.

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gabefarkas



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PostPosted: Wed Dec 26, 2007 9:15 am Post subject: Reply with quote
Mountain wrote:
I developed 2 crude championship contender models previously. One said look at top 7 defensive efficiency teams and then pick the one with the best offense in that group as most likely contender and then the next closest are the main rivals. Another said sum offensive and defensive rank and set the order based on the average of the two.
What was your rationale behind that?

Mountain wrote:
But rank is not as good as actual efficeincy. On net efficiency the contender rank order is Celtics, Pistons, Spurs (no change there), then Suns Mavs (they move up based on strong offenses) followed by Lakers Magic Nuggets, Jazz Hornets Raptors. So a couple teams move up but it is the same top 11.
I don't think that's necessarily true. When dealing with nonparametrics, rank is often preferred to the actual values. What makes you think rank isn't as good? And why not use z-scores, or something to level the playing field?
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Mountain



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PostPosted: Wed Dec 26, 2007 2:22 pm Post subject: Reply with quote
The rationale for these 2 predictions models is discussed / can be seen in the original thread http://tinyurl.com/392l2o where it arose out of dialogue mostly with Mateo and Johnny Slick.

i talked about the pretty good performance of these models in last several playoffs somewhere this summer /early fall - I'd add the link if I find it. (I also previously noted that there was some variation that suggested a bit more flexibility would be needed to capture more of the top contenders / title winners. http://tinyurl.com/2zfjv8 )

Maybe I backed off the rank method too far. But I wanted to mention the alternative in recognition of past criticism or caution about the rank method. There isnt much difference in predictions but how well Suns and Mavs do could be somewhat useful in choosing between the rank approach and the actual value approach.

Use of z-scores would be another format.

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Mountain



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PostPosted: Wed Dec 26, 2007 4:08 pm Post subject: Reply with quote
I've also wondered if performance (rank or actual) against top 16 or top 10 might be better than overall league performance (with a lot of games against non and low ranked playoff teams which may not be the best guide about performance in the upper playoff rounds).

I'd prefer using offensive and defensive efficency but hoopsstats.com has several splits easily available using NBA efficiency. Own and opponent efficency are available as is the differential.

http://www.hoopsstats.com/basketball/fa ... iffeff/9-1

Using differential against current playoff level teams as quick first cut the top 3 is again Celtics, Pistons, a big dropoff then Spurs . Phoenix 4, Jazz 5. Lakers 6 closely bunched behind Spurs. After another dropoff Dallas 7 then a dropoff to Denver and another to Houston. Hornets and Magic fair very poorly, too far back to look like a contender by this measure.

But looking at performance against west top 8 for west and same for east Dallas' standing is much higher- in fact #1 right now followed by Spurs then Rockets. In east it is Detroit on top by a clear margin then Celtics and really no one else. Of course these are very small sample sizes right now. By end of season it might be more enlightening. The guidance given in the the past could be checked. However regular season is not playoffs even against top teams.

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Mountain



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PostPosted: Wed Dec 26, 2007 6:25 pm Post subject: Reply with quote
Last season Spurs had 7th NBA own efficiency and best on efficiency allowed against playoff teams. They weren't in fact the top 7 defensive team with the best offense when the dataset is just playoff teams. Both Mavs and Jazz were just higher ranked on offense (Jazz by a very small amount) but lower ranked on defense. Spurs were however the best on combined strength rating, giving that method the edge on predictive correctness this season. 3 of the 4 conference finalists were top 4 by the combined strength rank against playoff teams in regular season method so it worked pretty well by that as well as identifying 15 of 16 playoff teams. Cavs werent anywhere close to the top contender by this method with the 5th worse offense against playoff teams. The top team identification performance (3 of the top 4) was equal for performance against the entire league. Whether performance against playoff teams is a better method than against league as a whole will take more checking.

Actual net efficiency differential picked 2 of top 4 and 14 of playoff 16. Only slightly worse. The rank method called Utah better while actual differential expected Dallas. This time rank got it right but seeding obviously played a role and you can't say which was more right about these team's realtive strength in an absolute sense from the playoff results. Using offense as the deciding criteria among top 7 defensive teams also gave the edge to Utah.


By combined strength method against playoff teams Pistons and Celtics this season are currently tied for 1st with Spurs third and same next 4 as found when looking at performance against all teams. By the look at top 7 defensive teams and then use offense to decide method Pistons have the slightest edge with Spurs again 3rd. But after you find the top 4 it comes down to the particular matchup rather than who scores higher by any of these methods.

By actual net NBA efficiency differential Suns are 4th best and Lakers are 6th right now. By rank Lakers are 6th and Suns in a 4 way tie for 9th. 2 more test cases for the method comparison. By defense first then offense neither is on the radar for top contention.


In 05-06 actual differential ranked the top 4 Dallas Detroit LA Clippers Phoenix. If you go by conference it picked Miami as 2nd best there. Combined strength did and Top 7 by defense then offense called those 4 by conference too.

You'd have to looked at much longer dataset to judge prediction based on performance against playoff teams vs all teams as the most recent 2 years didnt show better results from looking at performance against playoff teams. I don't think I will dig deeper right now. I was mainly interested in the early check on the 2008 race. The original thread cited above took the long historical view and demonstrated the relative power of the basic approaches.
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Mountain



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PostPosted: Sun Dec 30, 2007 3:14 pm Post subject: Reply with quote
In the east it appears to be Boston vs Detroit and little reason for me right now to expect others to get in the way.

In the west if top 7 on defense (or near it) is quite important then Spurs look like they have pretty good separation from the rest, with Nuggets and Hornets perhaps being leading contenders but maybe not enough offensive efficiency to go all the way. (Their weak performance so far against top 10 teams by record also mitigates.)

If both sides of play matter equally then Suns and Lakers are much closer than if this is not the case (Lakers 8-5 against top 10 is one of the best records in such games so far).

Mavs defensive efficiency at 20th pulls them to 6th best in west on each of the methods but as some teams have shown in past if you can crank up the intensity in April you can still do great things. 5-4 against top 10 makes them one of the 6 teams to be above .500 against that level of competition. Hanging around.

Of course the bracket and specific team to team matchups could help some have a better chance to go further than expected and trip up a few.
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schtevie



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PostPosted: Mon Dec 31, 2007 1:47 pm Post subject: Reply with quote
Not sure if periodic updates of the Bulls-Celtics comparison is especially interesting or illuminating, and maybe I will resolve to cease and desist. For now though, here's the year-ender.

29 games in, the Celtics - surprise, surprise - show no signs of not being better than the team the '95-'96 Bulls were. They surpass them in productivity by about 4 points per 100 possessions, a margin which is almost unimaginable.

The consistent caveat is that the Celtics' schedule to date has been weaker than what the Bulls faced. Last year's record of Celtics opponents so far averaged 41.2 wins, whereas the Bulls played in a stronger East and faced teams having averaged 43.3 victories. The point of this is that any intertemporal comparison must take this two game difference into account. At the same time however, given the relative weakness of the East, what this means is that the Celtics' schedule isn't going to get any harder on average (with possibly the opposite being true) so my current belief is what you see is what you are going to get.

Then, what remains interesting is a detailed explanation of how what has happened has happened. In particular, the improvement has been (just under) two thirds on the defensive end, and I don't think anyone imagined that this would be the expected ratio. Perhaps this failure of imagination is largely explained by the familiar arguments of defense being a statistical black box, but maybe there is more to it that that.
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Mike G



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PostPosted: Mon Dec 31, 2007 4:16 pm Post subject: Reply with quote
The Celts have had just the 26th-hardest schedule so far. It will probably get harder. 3 of the 4 weaker schedules are in the West; the East has won 48% of inter-conference games : more parity than we've seen in a few years.
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Ben



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PostPosted: Tue Jan 01, 2008 1:15 am Post subject: Reply with quote
Mike G wrote:
The Celts have had just the 26th-hardest schedule so far. It will probably get harder. 3 of the 4 weaker schedules are in the West; the East has won 48% of inter-conference games : more parity than we've seen in a few years.


The schedule adjusted Sagarin ratings still have the Celtics 3.5 points better than last year's Spurs.
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schtevie



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PostPosted: Tue Jan 01, 2008 3:29 pm Post subject: Reply with quote
What I see is that the Cs have played every team in the East at least once, and the average margin of victory has been 13. And they've played 6 of the 15 teams out West (including those finishing 4 through 8 last year) beating these by an average margin of almost 16 points.

What remains of interest, of course, are the results against the top four clubs of last year's West which must be the basis of the "26th hardest schedule" determination. But given who the Cs have played, I cannot see how there would be much difference between the 26th easiest and the median schedule.

As for the Sagarin "3.5 points better than last years Spurs" determination, if this metric is represents net points per 100 possessions, this suggests the Cs would finish better than the Bulls, if raw net points, merely the same. Whatever.

Again, to my mind, the interesting question now is how and why the dramatic change occurred.
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Author Message Jacob



Joined: 29 Nov 2007
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Posted: Thu Jan 03, 2008 8:02 am Post subject:

Quote:
Again, to my mind, the interesting question now is how and why the dramatic change occurred.
The "how" is due to four big changes on the team level: 1) Improved defensive personnel - most notably Garnett & Posey. 2) Strongly improved defensive coaching and systems - thanks to Tom Thibodeau. 3) Three allstars whose offensive games mesh perfectly. 4) Strongly improved concentration and effort, especially on defense - this team does not take plays off, and everybody is consistently playing up to his talent. (Note Paul Pierce becoming an elite defender on a nightly basis, instead of occasionally.) The last point may be a little "soft" for analytical types, but it may well be the most important factor. I personally think that defense seems a statistical black box because we try to explain too much on the individual level... There is so much more to D than individual stops. The greatest defensive teams have a collective will to dominate, and thus are able to muster the discipline and effort to carry out 48-minute smotherings. So, imho, the "why" is largely psychological. Like Chicago in 1996, Boston has a singular drive to dominate the regular season, starting with KG, Pierce and Allen. Yes, they have great defensive players and coaching, but I'm sure the Spurs could put up similar numbers if they had anything to prove.
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schtevie



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Posted: Thu Jan 03, 2008 8:18 am Post subject:

This is a nice outline of the issue. What I want to see (and may make an effort to produce) is a thorough accounting of the known factors (based on previous years' data) where point 4 pops out as the residual.
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Mike G



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Location: Hendersonville, NC
Posted: Thu Jan 03, 2008 8:46 am Post subject:

I think of defense as a boat, which always leaks a little. Sometimes it leaks a lot; in those times, an individual may work even harder to bail water and plug the leaks, or he may see his efforts as having no point. Probably he gets tired. When it's leaking an acceptable amount, and everyone is doing their part to bail-and-plug (with time and energy to do the other boat-jobs), then it's likely to be a successful voyage. With even one guy not working, there's a negative effect on everyone else. A coherent coaching strategy might be a big positive that's even harder to quantify in advance than the team dynamic. I still think the C's have to hit some kind of doldrums. It would be better if they're peaking at season's end. (And why was Ray Allen in the game with 3 minutes to play and the game in hand, so that Odom could take him down?)_________________` 36% of all statistics are wrong
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Harold Almonte



Joined: 04 Aug 2006
Posts: 616
Posted: Thu Jan 03, 2008 5:45 pm Post subject:

I think of defense not so different than the offense. You have individual matchups, points allowed and stops/DR (equivalent to FGM/Points/OR and FGMissed/TOs), rotations and matchup changes (equivalent to passes), and double teams/help (equivalent to assists and potential/hockey assists). The main difference is that at the offense, the usage and most of the final attempts are almost allways in hands of the better offensive players, and is not the same at the defensive end. It's very difficult for guards and wings (even the best defenders of them) to stop or even to avoid an attempt from a good scorer counterpart. They sometimes need the assist of a good defensive big for them to reach their full defensive potential, and the player who can increase the defensive potential (make teammates better like distributors and double team drawers do at the offensive end) is Garnett. You can say he and Camby are like equivalent to Nash at the defensive end.
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kjb



Joined: 03 Jan 2005
Posts: 865
Location: Washington, DC
Posted: Fri Jan 04, 2008 9:24 am Post subject:

I like Mike's analogy for defense a lot better than Harold's (no offense, Harold). Offense involves teamwork, but is (I think) more about individual talent. Defense needs some level of ability, but it more about teamwork than individual matchups. I've related this story before, but it's worth repeating. A few years ago, I had the chance to talk with Rick Carlisle about defense. This was during the first season after the Richard Hamilton for Jerry Stackhouse swap. I asked him why Hamilton was a solid defender in Detroit after being such a terrible defender in DC. Carlisle's response: "Anyone can be a good defender in our system if they follow our rules and play with effort." For another 10 minutes before the game, and nearly an hour after the game, he explained what he meant. Good defense IS teamwork.
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Harold Almonte



Joined: 04 Aug 2006
Posts: 616
Posted: Fri Jan 04, 2008 10:34 am Post subject:

What happens is that defense is a matter of will, even more than what some ability genetics or training could give you. Everybody suddenly becomes a good defender when the game is ending closed or barely trailed, but maybe spend the whole game focusing on scoring. Would you interested in defending playing in the Nicks? probably you wouldn't be pushed to do it either. A few players play at top level at defense, because it spends a lot of energy (specially running and jumping in the perimeter even if your man doesn't have the ball), that's probably why the most of the time extreme defenders are uni-dimensional players. But like at offense a good PG can improve teammates FG% creating for them, at defense a good defender near the ring can save energy and improve teammates's drtg. some points (by tm drtg. the most), because they don't need to follow their men all the attempt. But, when your point-defender is a perimeter-player (Sacramento), you have lot of problems. And, I would bet that the lack of B. Wallace did cost Det. the last game and the series against Clev. last year.
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John Beattie



Joined: 26 Jan 2007
Posts: 47
Location: NYC
Posted: Sun Jan 06, 2008 6:48 am Post subject:

This has definitely entered the land of wow as the Celts, after last night's 92-85 win over the Pistons, are now 29-3 i.e. .906 winning percentage. Everyone is noticing, I'm sure, one remarkable facet which how much the "Little Nine" are contributing - last night 49 points out of 92 i.e. more than half. Note that last night's high-scorer wasn't Pierce, Garnett, or Allen but rather, "Big Baby" Glen Davis with 20.
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Mountain



Joined: 13 Mar 2007
Posts: 1527
Posted: Mon Jan 07, 2008 12:54 am Post subject:

Celtics are a powerful green wave. One stat I worked up- offensive efficiency is down a little over 2 pts in last 10 games compared to first 22. Maybe just an ebb or related to Allen hurting and missing a few or other things. Could also be the grind setting in or opponents figuring out some counter measures. Greater use of the little 9 is a counter to the schedule and opponent's counters. Still have a large point differential but it slipped from about 14 previously to 10 in last 10 games so defense slipped a notch as well. A check back by around all-star game seems worthwhile.
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94by50



Joined: 01 Jan 2006
Posts: 499
Location: Phoenix
Posted: Mon Jan 07, 2008 10:45 pm Post subject:

Boston's defensive efficiency is 6 points per 100 possessions better than the second-place team (Detroit). Not 6 points better than average. 6 points better than second place. <shaking head>
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antcole



Joined: 12 Dec 2005
Posts: 74
Posted: Tue Jan 08, 2008 12:09 am Post subject:

94by50 wrote:
Boston's defensive efficiency is 6 points per 100 possessions better than the second-place team (Detroit). Not 6 points better than average. 6 points better than second place. <shaking head>
And that is why I'm skeptical that they can keep this performance up. If they can, then we are seeing a team for the ages and they could become the second team to win 70 games. Just amazing. (BTW on a side note I must say that this must be sweet vindiaction for Garnett seeing that the Celtics are crushing people and the Wolves without him might be ranked as one of the worst teams in league history if they keep this god-awful performance up.)
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Neil Paine



Joined: 13 Oct 2005
Posts: 774
Location: Atlanta, GA
Posted: Wed Jun 18, 2008 10:51 am Post subject:

I think Schtevie deserves some props for this. Most of us couldn't see the Celtics winning more than 50-55 games, and we certainly didn't see them as a legit championship-caliber team (and I'm a Celtics fan, too). Well, we were wrong, I was wrong. They really did "roll" -- 66 regular-season wins, and after a shaky start to the playoffs, truly an impressive performance over the 4th- and 2nd-best teams in the NBA by SRS. And as it turns out, using adjusted plus-minus could have helped us predict this. So congrats to the Celtics, but also congrats to those who nailed this prediction last August.
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Statman



Joined: 20 Feb 2005
Posts: 242
Location: Arlington, Texas
Posted: Wed Jun 18, 2008 12:37 pm Post subject:

Well, to quote myself: Quote:
Honestly - IF Garnett, Pierce, AND Allen can get over 2800 minutes apiece - and the coach isn't a complete moron - I cannot see how they won't have the best record in the East. Garnett is a top notch defender - all they need the other "role" players to do is play defense and not make too many mistakes. How hard is that?
Garnett missed 2800 by 472 minutes, and Allen by 176 - yet they still were pretty darn good. Quote:
For a 20 year old, Rondo showed good promise at point (he & Pierce were easily had the best +/- numbers on the team). His obvious flaw is poor shooting, which can EASILY be masked by the Big 3. In fact - Boston kept their three most impressive young players (at least statistically & +/-) in Allen, Rondo, & Powe. Big Baby & Gabe Pruitt might be ok contributors. A hustle guy's HORRIBLE statistical contribution (Scalabrine) doesn't really matter now if he's on the court with the Big 3. Those players SHOULD be good enough bit players with the Big 3 for the team to be the best in the east barring bad injury issues. I'm sure Bosten will get a defensive veteran or two as well to add depth & role modeling (hustle & work ethic) for the youngins.
And in reference to the list of teams that had three above 20 PER guys (from the season before): Code:
There are 4 teams on that list (2 Bulls teams & 2 Lakers teams) whose best player was probably as good (or better) than Garnett. Three of them NBA ended up champions, the other conference champion.
Go me. Of course - there were actually a number of others that saw the Celtics being better than a high 40s low 50s win team - it wasn't like EVERYONE disagreed with Schtevie._________________Dan My current national college player rankings (and other stuff): http://www.pointguardu.com/f136/statman ... post355594
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asimpkins



Joined: 30 Apr 2006
Posts: 245
Location: Pleasanton, CA
Posted: Wed Jun 18, 2008 2:04 pm Post subject:

Hey, I can pat myself on the back too: asimpkins wrote:
Based on this article there could be some significant improvement from their 17th ranked defense last year: http://www.82games.com/nichols2.htm 1. Their best defensive rated player from last year, Rondo, will probably start and play more minutes. They also kept highly rated Perkins. 2. Garnett is rated as one of the best defensive players in the league, and a huge improvement on Jefferson. 3. Ray Allen is rated as a slight improvement on Delonte West. 4. They traded away their four lowest rated players from last year: Gomes, Green, Szczerbiak, and Telfair.
Well, I guess I just made vague predictions and ultimately only summed up someone else's excellent work.
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Harold Almonte



Joined: 04 Aug 2006
Posts: 616
Posted: Wed Jun 18, 2008 4:01 pm Post subject:

Damn DRTG's predictive power, and damn that defensive assistant coach!
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Statman



Joined: 20 Feb 2005
Posts: 242
Location: Arlington, Texas
Posted: Wed Jun 18, 2008 4:46 pm Post subject:

Harold Almonte wrote:
Damn DRTG's predictive power, and damn that defensive assistant coach!
He sure taught some top notch defense. Garnett's defensive impact & and defensive intensity I'm sure helped (ie, rubbed off on his teammates some)._________________Dan My current national college player rankings (and other stuff): http://www.pointguardu.com/f136/statman ... post355594


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Author Message Mountain



Joined: 13 Mar 2007
Posts: 1527
Posted: Wed Jun 18, 2008 5:40 pm Post subject:

In the Finals the team better on regular season defensive efficiency has won 12 of last 14 times. The only exceptions were the Nets who lost twice, not being sufficiently good on offense (below league average on offensive efficiency) and facing opponents who were also very good on defensive efficiency but way better on offensive efficiency. Imbalance matters. Balance is common / important but defensive efficiency seems to matter more in recent era. Perhaps in part the way the Final is called or the way players shoot then or whatever.
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schtevie



Joined: 18 Apr 2005
Posts: 414
Posted: Thu Jun 19, 2008 6:03 am Post subject:

I accept the Stopped Clock award, regarding the Celtics and the 2007-2008 season, with honor and humility. A few (almost) final thoughts. When I get a spare moment, I intend to recalculate the estimate using Steve Ilardi's Adjusted +/- for 2006-2007. (Recall I based my guess on preceding years' data.) And in doing so, it seems fair to use actual minutes played. Eye-balling the values (what with three players having been in the top 20: KG, Pierce, and Rondo) I am pretty sure it won't change things. It would also be interesting to do a similar exercise for the Gasol acquisition. I don't know if Aaron might have the Adj.+/- Memphis/LA splits to share for this season? And heck, since this might be a learning moment, how about everyone who played the game rerun their estimates using last year's relevant productivities and this years minutes played, both for the Cs and for the two Laker teams, pre and post Gasol. And, what the heck, Mikez (and all those in the employ of NBA teams) it sure would be interesting to hear what your pre-season prediction was on this matter. Proprietary concerns have now surely fallen by the (Cause) wayside, no?
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Mike G



Joined: 14 Jan 2005
Posts: 3626
Location: Hendersonville, NC
Posted: Thu Jun 19, 2008 7:24 am Post subject:

Well, no one included Posey in their equations. Rondo improved, House had a good year. PJ and Sam came out of nowhere. Davis contributed. Offsetting these gains (in the unpredictable) were the games missed by KG, and Tony Allen's weak year. Still, I predicted a max of 59 W, and they won 66. So there's definitely some extraordinary elements of: - Coaching, - Chemistry, and - Complementarity These aren't necessarily separate things, but they coexist nicely.

[EvanZ]

I have to say, this is some really interesting new spam bot.

I've never had to put so much effort into deciding what the heck a post was about. Kudos to whoever programmed you piash006.

[Mike G]

No piash is found among 140 in the Members list, nor any posts.
Maybe we were a bit hard on him.

[EvanZ]

Huh, maybe the spam bots are programmed to be sensitive.