link Thought that part was very interesting. There are a lot of people here who are box score people... as the title of the column suggests... "Behind the box score" is something all together more interesting. Good stuff from Kelly D
Good read, thanks for sharing. Some people have been critical of Kelly lately. People need to read this and recognize.
Who's been dissin' KD?? I'll fight em! He is one of my favorite NBA writers and not even because he posts here occasionally.
great read. thanks. i always say monte ellis's stats, along with his defenseless warriors, are all inflated. inflation can be dangerous!
I'll admit i'm more for pace adjusted stats than per-minute stats but i think either has to be taken with a grain of salt. How effective would this player actually be if he had to play in 100 possession games all the time? How effective would these role players be if they played more minutes? Sometimes you can answer these questions and the pace adjusted/per-minute stats are very useful, sometimes not. I think it's silly to swear by any stat, box score or not...I love how our very own Shane Battier pretty much debunks that.
eh, that's just a bunch of thin skinned people who don't like that don't understand without tracy we have exactly two people on our roster than anyone thinks is any good... Ron and Yao (maybe a few might remember Shane) but the majority of our roster are "no-names" hence the weak on paper. The intelligent people in that thread knew what was up.
There are two different issues here. One of them is how a player can be expected to play in a different situation. That may be playing more minutes, or playing with different teammates, or playing at a faster (or slower) pace. The other issue is just describing how effective the player was in the situation he was in while he was on the floor. That's what Kelly was describing, and I think per-minute or per-possession stats are generally more informative there than per-game stats.
To be honest, the Rockets got rather lucky in quite a few possessions last night as the shot clock ran down. It's typically difficult to score with only less than, say, 5 seconds on the clock, but the Rockets hit tough jumpers and drew fouls pretty often last night. At least it seems to me they did. I recall contested Js from Wafer and Ron falling, and at least once Lowry got fouled with like 2 seconds left on the clock.
Durvasa and i have this discussion all the time. I'm not a pace adjusted person or box score guy, i just watch the games. People try to link them up as in per 100 poss, but the team is who they are. If your team gets 78 shots thats your pace. Its kinda like trying to assume a guy avg 10ppg in 18mins that he would automatically get 20ppg in 36. It doesnt work that way. That guy comes in and plays against 2nd team guys and is exerting more energy. He may get more shots, but that deosn't mean he's making them. Guys are starter's for a reason and bench players for another reason. Now if a guy has traditionally been a starter and now he's on the bench, thats different. Teams that play slower usually have offensive limitations to their team. Its nothing wrong with that, but just because the pace quickens oesn't mean the defense has to suffer. We've seen teams like the old bulls be top 5 in offense and top 1 or 2 in defense. In fact, if you're defense is really good, you get more possessions for your offense. Why? If you're a great defensive team, you're probably a great defensive rebounding team which means the opponet is only getting one shot. When teams know they're getting 1 shot, they take quick shots or really try to get great shots. as a result, the pace slows down just as much. There are a few exceptions like phoenix, but a good offensive team is negated by a good defensive team.
I'm not sure there's any inherent tendency for a good defensive team to get more possessions. You're right that limiting second chance opportunities can reduce the length of opponent possessions. But bad defensive teams also tend to give up transition baskets. Sometimes they gamble a lot, which can shorten a possession as well (for good or bad). So it goes both ways. And I don't agree that slower paced teams are usually more limited on offense either. That may be true in college or something, but not in the NBA. Just one counter example, and many more can be given: Portland plays at the slowest pace in the league, while the Golden State Warriors play at the fastest pace (they get nealy 12 more possessions per game than the Blazers). I don't think anyone who watches those teams play would conclude that Portland is more "limited" than Golden State on offense. In fact, Golden State has to play up and down because they are limited in what they can do in a half court set. At a team level, evaluating offense/defense based on per-possession efficiency just makes too much sense. There isn't a single action a team can do on offense to improve their chances of winning that does not improve points scored per possession. Similarly, there's nothing a team can do on defense to improve their chances of winning that does not also improved their points allowed per possession. You've said many times that the Rockets are an average defensive team, regardless of what the per-possession stats tell us. But let's think about that for second. Suppose you're right, and the Rockets are average on D. They are on pace to win an above-average number of games -- about 53 or 54. So, if they are merely average on defense (as per opponent PPG or FG% or whatever you're looking at), than necessarily that must mean they are very good at offense. Otherwise, it wouldn't make sense that they're winning an above average number of games. But I don't think anyone could look at this Rockets team and conclude that their offense is better than their defense. So, there's a contradiction.
Every team hits some tough shots against the shot clock in every game. So to try and use it against the Rockets is a bit close minded.
Wonder if Durvasa knows somewhere they keep track of this. I would venture to say that they are actually in the bottom half of the league as far as tough shot clock buzzer beaters.
Not really avg, but when you look at their offense vs their defense vs good teams, that where i say average. Like during the jvg era, they were a great defensive teams. They limited fg% and ppg and it was a pretty good ways also. Now they shoot 44% but the opponets shoot 45%. They used to hold opponets to 42-43%. Right now also, they give up more shots on goal also. The thing that really concerns me is the fg% of all the things. When you look at 45%, that means 2/3 of the time, the opponet is shoooting 45% or higher. When they were giving up 43%, opponets were shooting 43% 2/3 of the time. That means 1/3 the time, the opponet is at 47% vs 1/3 at 45%. Thats huge to me and it has nothing to do with the pace. That why you see a team like Cleveland and Orlando holding people down and scoring alot of points without sacrificing defense. Now i can say playing against the east does have alot to do with it. there is a differnce between playing indy or milw 4 times vs dallas or denver 4 times.
