I'll quote from a recent NYT article on Daryl Morey: [rquoter]Whatever revelations Morey has found for assessing players, they remain proprietary for now. But at the team level, he said, there are four statistics that are now widely accepted as indicative of a team’s success rate: “effective” field-goal percentage (a combination of 2-point and 3-point percentages), rebounding and turnover rates (which determine how many more possessions a team gets), and free-throw edge (in attempts, not percentage). [/rquoter] Morey references four statistics that are indicative of team's success rate. Each statistic can be looked at from both an offensive and defensive perspective. Further, when you take them all in total, they will pretty closely determine the team's offensive and defensive efficiency. I think this is a good way to evaluate how the team has progressed over the course of the season. Below, I charted 6-game moving averages over the first 50 games of the season (not including the Blazers game). I'll clarify what each chart shows first: pace: possessions per 48 minutes off/def: points scored / points allowed per 100 possessions eFG/eFG_d: field goal efficiency for Rockets and Opponents ORB/ORB_d: offensive rebounding% for Rockets and Opponents TO/TO_d: percentage of possessions resulting in turnover for Rockets and Opponents FT/FT_d: free throws made per 100 FGA for Rockets and Opponents If you're curious what these numbers are like for teams league-wide, check out Knickerblogger's Stat page. The Rockets offense efficiency has been on the rise since mid-January, while the defense has remained steady (I make no adjustments here for quality of competition, btw). On offensive side, the main contributing factors are improving eFG% and reduction in turnovers. On the defensive side, our defensive rebounding has been improving fairly steadily since mid-December. We're not forcing as many turnovers as we were earlier in the season, but we're also doing a better job protecting the ball.
Two conclusions: 1. We've been good about fouling less since the beginning of the season. Scola's development is a likely contributor to that. 2. We've never really forced as many turnovers as we've given ourselves. Whether we force and give up a lot or a little probably depends more on our opponents. It looks like that stretch where we stole tons and coughed it up tons may have been when we played Golden State twice. The reason why we turn the ball over more seems fairly simple: Yao.
The big ones are the TO's and Off eff. Our TO's are down now that we have a nice flow and chemistry. Off eff is up due to the same reasons, and also the emergence of a team attitude to score. No longer are our players waiting for Yao and Tmac to do something, but are taking matters in their own hands. We have had a nice schedule recently, but we still beat the tough teams (GSW, Portland twice, a surging Cavs team, and Spurs. Not to mention that the NO and Utah game were winnable games even though we weren't healthy). What I really want to see is the same data but only included our supporting players (take Tmac and Yao's numbers out), and see how the trends go. I'm sure there will be a even more dramatic change in the TO's and Off eff.
The one that bothers me is the FT disparity category. Yao is the only guy that gets to the line, and most of the calls he gets are inconsistent. Bonzi attacks the basket but he doesn't play big minutes (maybe that's why Adleman saves him for the 4th quarter lately?). I'd like Mcgrady to attack the basket but he's one hit away from another back injury. I see a big FT disparity for us if we go against teams with attacking perimeter people...
Durvasa, good job! I believe all these numbers in your figures are from ONE game stats, how about opponents' season average stats, which are good indicators for the quality of competition. There are only 2 curves in each your figure, if possible, it'd better to see 4 curves in each figure, which includes opponents' season average stats. As for rebounding rates, I think the total rebounds per 100 possessions is important as well. I know there are lots of work, well done. .
You know how the celtics got good? They got KG and jesus. I don't need stats to tell me that. Stats are a little overrated in basketball.
Just one question....How do you know that the Celtics are good? ...and please do not give me a win/loss record because that is a stat. You will be hard pressed to qualitatively provide an explanation without providing some quantitative analysis. Stats are not overrated...you just have to know how to use them and read them. Unfortunately, many people do not!
Old school coaches like Dean Smith and Hubie Brown heavily emphasized the use of statistics. And when Mike Breen asked JVG what statistics he pays attention to on ESPN earlier this season, he said he considered shooting from the field, rebounding, turnovers, and free throws for both offense and defense at the team level as the most most important stats. Sound familiar? It's tough to come up with a set of stats that captures all the positive and negatives for an individual. But at the team level, this is much more feasible.
That would be interesting, and it's relatively easy to do. But I think it would clutter up the graphs. Alternatively, I could plot adjusted curves that takes into account season averages for the opponent. As for rebounding, I don't think rebounds per 100 possessions tells us any more about the team's rebounding that isn't already captured by off reb% and def reb% (that is, 1 - ORB_d). That would just be the product of rebound rate and the number of missed field goals per possession for each team.
Durvasa, can you create the same charts with 4-game moving averages? This mostly confirms what I've observed --- the Rockets defense has been rock solidly consistent since mid-December, and the offense has started to pick up since January.
