Stats & JVG: How efficient were we really last season?

Oh yea, i completely agree. Intentional fouls of course exist, however, only in specific situaltions- Shaq, end of games, a sure dunk etc.

The offensive scheme of a team can not be based on just specific situations.

 

Aw crap, and i took 4 years of French too...


I think we will just have to agree to disagree. Remember, my original intent was defending Jeff's coaching. And as you stated, they are "probably applying the best style you can do". Isn't that the whole job of the coach, to provided the most efficient offense possible, given the circumstances.

So in conclusion, to have a truely efficient offense, you will need a coach who can draw up an efficient offensive scheme, but also efficient PLAYERS to run them, ie: players that can shoot.

 

Why do I get the feeling that we agre about to discuss the trapazoid defense?

 

Love for basketball and statistics together is a beautiful thing.

 

Houkom, these two sentences is really all you had to say. Offensive stats and defensive statistics are used to paint a picture of overall efficiency. But those stats don't jump off the page and do the work on the court. The are just statistical figures (obvious, I'm sure. Right? ). Your points regarding Orlando's lack of defense, low-turnovers and the Rockets high-turnovers (which has a negative effect on offensive efficiency) was important to point out. They were the root cause of each teams performance (or lack thereof) on the court.

The Rockets are not some static entity that plays out like a game of scraps (where stats rule the day). The decision making and ability of the players themselves have to be taken into account.

More about this below...

But it takes the right type mix (team) of players for that. How do you measure that? You can't. You have to actually watch them on the court and make assessments that are not so easily quantified (not statistical measurements). This is why CLOSING a game (lets say that last 5 minutes of the 4th quarter) is so much different that 95% of the game. Defenses ratchet up, offenses slow down, the window for mistakes becomes that much smaller. All these are factors that rely much on the strategies of the coach, the quick decision making of the players you have on the court, and their ability to play as a unit; chemistry. Over-all talent matter too (McGrady IS better than Lue! Duh!). We know who will probably get the last shot, although not always the "best player."

This should be clearly evident when a team like the Rockets, where we had many games where we *could* have won the last 3-5 minutes, but failed to. CLOSING! The statistical measurement for that particular game could have been good (first 3 quarters), but the last few minutes of the game we would have stunk! Measure that! Measure "fear" or "confusion" or "indecisiveness." It only takes one or two mistakes at the end of the game to result in a loss.

Hey, Tyler...I'm glad you brought up FTs....check this out...here's the Top 20 player list for FT ATTEMPS...now ask yourself WHY these players GET to the FT LINE? Check the list, and ponder that question...

Shaquille O'Neal 10.1
Allen Iverson 9.5
Corey Maggette 8.5
Tim Duncan 8.5
Kobe Bryant 8.2
Amare Stoudemire 7.9
Paul Pierce 7.9
Elton Brand 7.7
Tracy McGrady 7.5
Pau Gasol 6.6
Carmelo Anthony 6.4
Andrei Kirilenko 6.4
Ron Artest 6.0
Chauncey Billups 5.9
Jermaine O'Neal 5.9
Gilbert Arenas 5.8
LeBron James 5.8
Kevin Garnett 5.7
Richard Jefferson 5.7
Vince Carter 5.7

Physical ability...
Remember Jordan? Remember how he could *get* to the FT line so easily? He'd have a bad shooting night all game. And since he knew he was having a bad shooting night (say, 7-20), he'd supplement point production by trying to drawl fouls and get to the FT line. He was a special case because of his extra ordinary speed, quickness, and leaping ability. He just had a physical advantage over other players (they couldn't keep up with him and were forced to foul). Good thing that Jordan was a great FT shooter and would actually hit them (FT made matter, as well). I remember watching Jordan play and looking up at the score board see that Jordan had 25 PTs and I go, "How the hell did he get that! He's having such a bad shooting night..." Well, FTs saved the day. And most often save the game (win).

It's a luxury to have players like the list above...McGrady and Yao give us this!

Now, I was talking about *only* a players physical ability to drawl fouls above...but what about the offensive scheme?

X's and O's...
X's and O's can also be used to gain FT attempts. So, your statement where you said, "FT shooting is important to winning but is separate from the actual offense..." I'm not so sure that's correct. If *all* you are talking about measuring FT separately just for the hell of it, ok fine...Buy why? What good does that do when we are in the business of WINS and LOSES? Right? I mean we can agree that great X's and O's offensive teams (like you measure) have been know to be perennial losers (lack of defense, FT missed...). So, although, they look good on paper offensively. They don't produce wins. This is why FT made and attempted shout be looked at in ones total offensive output. Scrutinize both the coach and the players.

X's and O's (in terms of FT's) can be inherently important to achieving offensive advantages over your opponents. This is regardless of what player(s) has the ball. Case in point, Richard Hamilton. He's no Jordan, but was excellent at running screens, pick and rolls, and back door cuts. Opponents had a heck of a time chasing him around all those screens. This is pure X's and O's. It's true that Hamilton's innate knowledge to execute those plays matter. But he's no where near Jordan's physical ability (or even Kobe), those of which can depend more on their speed and quickness to get those FT attempts. Hamilton was able to utilize X's and O's which *got* him those *near* scoring attempts, which in turn caused the opposing team to foul him. "Let him earn it at the line..." we hear the opposition say. "No easy buckets!"

Saying, "No easy buckets" means that the X's and O's *IS* working! So, what does the opposition do? They foul the b*stard! That's pure X's and O's coupled with that players knowledge to execute within the offense; in Hamilton's case *extra ordinary athletic ability* was a secondary factor. Now, he's no sluggish scrub. But he can't generate his own FT attempts (ISOs) like Shaq (brute force), Kobe or Mcgrady can (one-on-one ability). Now, of course, the best players are able to have *both* extra ordinary athletic ability AND utilize X's and O's as well. Hence Jordan. He used both X's and O's AND his individual ability as *offensive* assets. Lets hope that McGrady can follow this trend. Because as well know, ISO *only* players end up hurting the *team* in the long run.

Houkom and Tyler, I think we can agree that Jeff's coaching (and talent on the roster) does have huge effect (offensive and defensive) at the end of games when substitutions can be crucial to the winning the game (can you include this into offense?). So, FT's although not part of the normal offensive X's and O's, coaches do make play changes and substitutions in the last minutes when FTs matter most (last seconds of the game). Shaq may be the exception to the *substitution rule* since the Hack-A-Shaq really hasn't been *that* effective in regards to deciding a game. His presence on the court is too much an advantage to risk him NOT being on the court. So, coaching decisions, players decisions, FTs, player that can hit them, those that can't hit them, X's and O's all become factors in over-all offensive output. This is why statistics alone don't tell the whole story.

P.S. I found myself agreing with both Houkom and Tylyer's over-all points (with a few exceptions). But it seems as though their definitions of offense (and what really matters: wins) was being defined differently.

 

Its like watching the birth of a baby Mongolian fighting chuwawa. Have you ever watched the birth of a baby Mongolian fighting chuwawa? If you haven't, you should, because its a beautiful thing. But i digress.

 

I said this because i was responding to a person that was bashing JVG's offensive coaching, so my arguments were all to prove his offensive capabilities.

Like you said, teams can have good offenses but still lose because of bad defense, poor rebounding etc. A prime example would be the Sonics. However, being a good team, or winning games, was not part of the argument, Jeff's offense was.

Besides, I wouldn't need to argue about whether Jeff can make a team win, cause he's never had a losing squad.

However, because his teams has always been low scoring, playing grind it out "ugly ball", theres the misconception that he can't coach offense, only defense. And this was the reason for my post and my arguments, to set that straight.

 

True.

One thing I've always wondered about some coaches is how they prefer to let their players run the court, but refuse to demand that they play hard-nosed defense. Why? Peer pressure? Please the players? Do they think they can just out-score their opponents? The Suns proved that theory wrong (although they did make it to the Finals in 93). As has Dallas the last few years.

I remember a HOFer coach talking about how he built teams. Not sure if was Riley, Jackson or Red. But he said, and I paraphrase.... "I get the best offensive players possible, then I teach them defense." Why? Because it's harder to "teach" players offense. The end product isn't really what you'd want to build your team around anyways.

I looked at both the Payton/Kemp Soncis and the Jordan/Pippen Bulls as examples of this. Both teams had explosive offensive players in Payton, Kemp, Jordan and Pippen...but those guys grew into excellent defensive players; taught by their coaches. The "key" here in this philosophy was that the best draftee's had aquired enough offesnive skills already. They fine tuned their offensive skills throughout their careers, but their natural talent and offensive skill-set was taken care of by the player themselves (and NCAA experience). The coach, unlike today, didn't have to spend hours trying to *teach* a player how to dribble, run the pick and roll, set a screen, hit their FTs, proper jump-shoot form, foot-work...etc....the player already knew many of these things. Yao is a good example. He had solid offensive fundamental skils from the onset. But has improved greatly on defense as time goes on. His offensive base came with the package and ready to play.

The coaches job (Riley, Jackson or Red) was mainly to worry about teaching individual defensive skills. What you got what a balanced player that could play on both sides of the court because the player *came* ready to play, already knowledgeable in strong offensive skills. Kind of a blend of natural offensive talent and knowledge, then add defense later.

I'm sure that JVG follows this mantra. Except he never had a player of McGrady and Yao's caliber. Ewing was at the end of his career. And Houston, Spree and Johnson were not of the same caliber of McGrady. Not on an offensive level, anyways. Plus we have McGrady and Yao at the early stages of their careers (young bucks!).

So, it's going to be interesting how JVG utilizes this offensive juggernaut in McGrady/Yao! Offensive players we have! And defense is mandatory! So, we have the best of both worlds! Good for us!

 

Hmmmmm.... that sounds eerily similar to what a certain YOU KNOW WHO is doing as of this moment.













Lord Voldermort!!

 

Maybe I was having a brain fart - but I was refering to the the extreme case:

Team1 conversions = 51
Team1 possessions = 100

Team2 conversions = 100
Team2 possessions = 200

Team1's 51% looks better than Team2's 50% But Team1 had many more successful possessions.

Obviously such an extreme case is unlikely - at the game level - possessions will tend to be even - because of the back and forth nature of the game - but over the course of a season a run & gun team will have incrementally more total possessions than a half court offensive team.

I interpreted your stat - as a way to correct for varying levels of possession - to compare success rates. Again, using the extreeme case - if all teams have the same number of possessions - we could just rank them by gross successful possessions - because the % success would give the same ranking.

Summing it up. The percentage success rate is a way to compare the conversion rate of teams that have differing total possessions - it in effect factors out the difference in total possessions. Total possessions is a variable in the forumula - because it is being factored out. That was my point.

 

I agree.

But on the other hand you can be 100% efficient on 1 for 1.

The scoring champ is not most efficient score - but neither can we give the title to the person who has the highest shooting percetage.

Efficiency can be a matter of semantics.

I was just taking the position that the brute measure of points scored is probably the most effective measure of team offensive efficiency - it takes into account all factors.

 

There was entirely too much math involved in this thread but it's a good one none the less.

 

I had a brain freeze half way through reading this thread....glad someone else decided to do the math becuase no way in hell am i reliving my days in college =)

 

The problem with your interpretation is that you are only considering shot attempts as possessions. Therefore, if a team can for alot of turnovers, he will have more possessions than his opponents, like you stated-

Team1 conversions = 51
Team1 possessions = 100

Team2 conversions = 100
Team2 possessions = 200

With Team1 having 100 turnovers.

The thing is, Houkom's formula takes into account of turnovers as well. In his formula, total possessions = total shot attempts + turnovers. In that case, with turnovers accounted for, two opposing teams will always have the same number of possessions.

 

I really do think offensive tactics made by the coach should be involved in this theory as well. JVG has no idea how to exploit the strengths of his players and as you could see last year, people were just standing around not knowing where they were going and basically we were very predictable and depending on off the dribble forced shots. This isn't as if it is the first time, he did it his whole time as the Knicks coach.
With McGrady this should be ok because he doesn't usually have anyone quick and athletic enough to defend him (plus he likes alot of his shots off the dribble) but I really see his numbers going down this year.
Also watch for Jim Jackson to take 10-15 shots a game, he will get into a slump and ya'll will be b****in about him, but he will start over Sura for defense.
Juwan Howard? Two Mo-T's on the same team wanting the ball all the time, how many touches is Yao really going to get?

Anyway, I really wish the Rockets well this season. I would love to see them top the Mavs, Lakers, Kings and Spurs! Only time will tell.

 

Also I'd like to add for the JVG fans, can you honestly say that JVG could have made, for example, the Pistons go that far into the play-offs last year? Hell no, could you imagine the team without Billups taking the shots and being pass only (basically). Detroit would have had the great defense like last year, there's no doubt in my mind. But JVG gets so carried away with the importance of defense, that he doesn't wake up to see that it is not as simple as dumping it down to Yao EVERY time. Yao is not as efficient as Shaq (as much as ya'll say he is). Just watch tape from last year, you have guys not knowing what is going on and Jim Jackson forcing alot of shots off dribble which we were lucky he was having a great year. However, we make the play-offs and none of this is going to be allowed. JJ and Cuttino had a horrible play-off series because defense stayed tight and there was no movement (no offensive scheme) and Yao was out of gas by the end of the season which JVG had him pounding away all season.

Your really only fooling yourself (and maybe DavidS) by saying JVG is a good offensive coach, numbers are against him and play on the court is against him.