The NBA Offseason List - article forecasting Rox or the Spurs in the finals (charts/stats incl)

I predict 41 wins for the Rockets this season (with a margin for error of +/- 41)

I predict my prediction to be 100% accurate.

 

Exactly. Guys, don't look at PER, it's useless. And please stop advocating for Lamarcus Aldridge trades. The advanced stats that Morey's team relies on tells them that Aldridge is grossly overrated. 0% chance Morey trades for Aldridge and is interested in paying Aldridge a max salary.

 

im not sure if im doing this right but are they predicting that philadelphia will play only 200 minutes per night?

bold prediction

 

Thanks for finding a more appropriate term.

One word: injuries. Blazers were devastated with history of injuries to their franchise players. When Walton was healthy, Blazers were virtually unbeatable. They could've won more than one chip easily.

Their future looked very promising when they won 54 games with Roy, LMA, and Oden as their rookie. That was only 4 years ago! You just can't expect them to do well after losing both Roy and Oden.

It doesn't surprise me one bit that those who think LMA is severely overrated are the ones who support WoW data. Until this guy can tweak his formula and produce results that pass the 'conventional wisdom' test, I will take them with a grain of salt.

Aldridge 4.7
Novak 4.0
G Smith 3.9
Garnett 3.8
Nowitzki 3.7
Beverley 3.1
J Smith 2.9

Beverley who played 27% of Josh Smith minutes actually produce more wins. Novak and G Smith had more wins than Dirk, Garnett, and Josh Smith?

If you think Morey has 0% interest in Aldridge, why would he be interested in Josh Smith (who had a lot less WP) during free agency??

Do I think Morey would trade Asik for Aldrige straight up? In a New York minute!

I agree Aldridge is somewhat inefficient but he can be the go to player.
1. He doesnt turn the ball over.
2. He can create his own shots. With his length and shooting motion, he WILL get his shots off.

Rockets was a terrible team during the final minute of close games. We lost way too many close games for one simple reason: we didn't have a reliable scorer who can get off decent percentage shots...any shots!

How many times have we'd seen this. Harden drove, got hacked, lost the ball, and no calls. Why? Refs swallowed their whistles in the final minute. If Harden didn't get a call, he was useless in the final minute. Biggest reason? He didn't have reliable mid-range shots.

MJ had many seasons where his eFG% dipped well below .500 and his career eFG% in the playoffs is a measley .509. What made MJ so great? It certainly wasn't his efficiency; it was his ability to get off his midrange shots! Same thing can be said about Dream's game. He is unguardable with his mid-range shots.

Rim shots and 3's will win regular season games, but mid-range shots win championships!

I can say with certainty that if Rockets live by the 3's and rim shots will die by them in the playoffs. Aldridge might not be the answer but if Rockets don't have a reliable player who can get off decent percentage mid-rangers, we will not go far in the playoffs because PO's are nothing but close games.

 

Lakers 21 wins projected!
Philly 43 wins projected!

Wage of Wins is CRAP!

 

LMA is a very good defender.

Here's the study done and it was also posted at BlazersEdge:

http://www.sloansportsconference.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/The%20Dwight%20Effect%20A%20New%20Ensemble%20of%20Interior%20Defense%20Analytics%20for%20the%20NBA.pdf

According to that data he ranks as 5th best in FG% allowed within 5 feet of the basket.

 

The gold standard for rating players defense is stats.nba.com. If you peruse there you will find that LMA's Drtg is a not so sterling. His Drtg is a paltry 105.4 and his net rating (Ortg - Drtg) is -0.6. whereas the league average is 0. He actually seems to be a detriment while on the court! To put it into perspective both Steve Nash and Carmelo had a Drtg about a point better.

 

How do you KNOW that Morey was interested recently in Josh Smith?

Nice, that is what you think. It is your right. But I have to ask why the current Rockets roster has not a single player, not even a sub, who has a shot profile even resembling LMAs?

I have to propose that in close games Asik was gassed by the end. That had much more of an effect on the Rockets performance than the offense ever did.

Again you make another statement completely unfounded in facts.

Mid range shots of any variety are by far and away the worst shots in NBA basketball. Why is the end of the game any different?

<a href="https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/GVrdTDuP8xE90MMmNfnHEsAk7167_PxPxEZRX0bKUNY?feat=embedwebsite"><img src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-9Qjc9I8vdqU/Ug2TsnAN6_I/AAAAAAAAAGg/P6h34EM-YTo/s400/LMA%2520Rockets%2520Shot%2520PPS.jpg" height="88" width="400" /></a>

 

Josh Smith is an incredibly inefficient player. I cannot imagine that Daryl Morey was interested in giving him the big salary that he wanted.

I will again point out that Morey's team relies heavily on advanced stats that tell them to scoop up Omri Casspi and Ronnie Brewer and to let somebody else pay Lamarcus Aldridge more money than he's worth. Morey's team does not identify Aldridge as a guy to go out and get. I know this because I am looking at the sorts of advanced stats that Morey is looking at. All Rockets fans should realize this. When you understand what Morey is doing, you really start to appreciate how far ahead of the curve he is.

 

That is one way of putting it. The other way is that fans will have no clue what Morey is accomplishing until they put their gut instincts where they belong. Where they don't belong is in an analysis of NBA players.

 

are

Is this Charles Barkley in the flesh?! Advanced player statistics are turrible!

 

Right. Gut instinct = conventional wisdom.

I am not saying that Morey thinks that Aldridge sucks. Aldridge doesn't suck. What I am saying is that Morey thinks he can do better than Aldridge, and that Morey would not be interested in paying somebody like Aldridge or Josh Smith anything close to a max salary. There are, however, plenty of poorly managed teams that WILL pay a guy like Aldridge a max salary; thus, Aldridge will not be a Rocket

A Rockets fan who does not appreciate what Morey is doing is really missing out. You're going to appreciate, say, "Moby Dick" a hell of a lot more if you take class about Herman Melville taught by a leading Melville scholar. And you're going to appreciate Morey a lot more if you understand how and why he is building up this team in the way that he's doing it. If a Rockets fan is yammering about how Aldridge is the final piece of the puzzle then that Rockets fan is missing out!

 

Hardens defensive rating is 106, and Andre Iguodala's is only at 105. Does that mean Iguodala is only a point better than Harden on defense? That stat isn't that reliable.

 

Stats are great and all, but when you predict Philly at 43 wins, you need to take a step back and re-evaluate your freaking model. They're just unreasonable.

 

Advanced stats tend to look at things both offensively and defensively. Josh Smith is incredibly efficient defensively.

Aldridge comes in as a mixed bag in that he is part offense and defense. What is important is fit. Unlike a guy like Anderson, he can backup center and create a very spread out court for small ball.

 

For fan available stats, the "gold standard" for defense would be defensive RAPM in my opinion. Aldridge is not the greatest defender, but he is better than Nash.

 

The difference in value between mid-range and 3 point shots changes at the end of games because you are limited in the total number of shots available to take. In the trivial case, down by 1 at the last second, a midrange is shot is clearly a better shot than a 3pt shot because the odds are better that it goes in and you win with 2 points or 3 points.

That same argument extends out to the last two or three shots of the game, depending on the actual scores, people shooting, etc.

3 point shots are almost always better than long 2's, but the clock makes a difference.

 

Again, it's not that Morey thinks that Aldridge has no value, it's that he doesn't value him nearly as much as the sorts of teams that think he's worth a max salary. Same deal with Josh Smith. The market dictates that these guys wind up on the sorts of poorly managed teams that are stupidly willing to give them the max salaries that they want.

 

You completely read the table wrong.

The correct column to read projected wins from is "Average Last 3". The column you actually used is a projection out into the future of the nominal expectation of the most wins the team can expect over the next 3 years (if I understand things correctly). Therefore the projection next season is:

PHI 27.6 wins.
LAL 26 wins.

I blame the OP for the serious misunderstanding surrounding this data. He threw up a thread without any idea as to what the data represented. Not a very good idea to say the least.

I have a brief explanation of this in my post on page 1 of this thread.

 

But that chart appears to be sorted on nominal projected wins which gives you the team ranks.