Hi all, as it's commonly known - there are lies, damn lies and statistics, so please take what I am presenting with some grains of salt or you can go take a hike for all I care - I'm just killing time until the action starts next season....so bear with me. What I am going to do is to take the VA (or Value-Add) values from Hollinger's stats for 2012-2013 season for players and see how our team scores add up in comparison to NBA Champs (Heat) and WCF champs (Spurs) and see what turns up or whether we can predict anything. So based on last season values our best scoring players in terms of PG-SG-SF-PF-C were: JLin 155.1 + JHarden 556.9 + CParsons 198.8 + GSmith 77.4 + OAsik 157.9 This gives a total of 1146.1 Heat's make up was: MChalmers 70.5 + DWade 483.1 + LBJames 909 + CAndersen 55.4 + CBosh 347.3 Giving a total of 1865.3 Spurs make up was: TParker 392.7 + MGinobli 177.7 + KLeonard 160.9 + TDuncan 401.7 + TSplitter 242 Giving a total of 1375 So what does adding Dwight Howard to us do? DH VA was 360.7 last season. Lin+Harden+Parsons+Smith+Howard would only give us 1348.9 Close to the WCF winner but maybe not enough. But interestingly, if we drop GSmith put in Asik instead (and don't give a damn about having 2 centers) - we get a score of 1429.4 certainly good enough to beat the SAS. But no where close to Miami's score - from the VA - we would need someone like Carmelo Anthony or KD to replace CP to have a chance at beating Miami in terms of VA Scores..... Of course this is all paper exercise, we will not know what will change until next season starts (players may retire, get injured, get married, improve their skills etc. etc. which could change their VA significantly). But on paper at the moment - we may be just good enough to content for the WCF - but I think we are alright....
Dwight and Lin will beat their numbers from last season. Both were still recovering from injury for more than half of the season.
As per Hollinger's site here's the definition: VA: Value Added - the estimated number of points a player adds to a team’s season total above what a 'replacement player' (for instance, the 12th man on the roster) would produce. Value Added = ([Minutes * (PER - PRL)] / 67). PRL (Position Replacement Level) = 11.5 for power forwards, 11.0 for point guards, 10.6 for centers, 10.5 for shooting guards and small forwards
FWIW, from what I read by some of the analytics people, just by adding Dwight Howard we're basically top-5 team. Miami and OKC are definite 1 and 2. Houston falls just short of that in the next group, perhaps leading that group at #3 overall in the NBA. So yes, on paper we should be duking it out with OKC to face Miami in the finals.
Maybe, but I am not so sure, let's just say both of them go super-saiyan (sorry for DragonballZ reference) - and double up their VAs.... we will get a total of 1945.2 (yep that would beat Miami's 1865.3) - but to double up power could be challenging, let's see how the new season develops.... I am definitely would like to see that happening but the chances?
WCF is an optimistic, but not unrealistic, prediction for us next season. There are still some lineup questions for us to address...
Wow very interesting, i wonder if its a pattern in which starting lineup has a higher VA ends up winning against another starting lineup with a lower VA
Also, I think this sort of metric is likely much much better at predicting win% through a season. When it comes to the playoffs and especially WCF/Finals matchups are mutch more important. The Pacers match up extremely well against the Heat even though their starting 5 aren't remotely close to the Heat's in hollinger value add.
This along with the utter dysfunction of the Lakers (Nash injury, etc.) suppresses the values assigned to Lin and Howard. I am wary of a big man coming off back surgery, but if Howard gets back to 100% and gets to play with Lin and Harden, Howard should get back to being the 3rd best player in the league. That is even before he gets a season of work with McHale and Olajuwon on how to get position and utilize the left block.
Not really matching - FYI, OKC had a total of 1767.8 they still lost out to MEM (1221.9) - but that could be due to injury to WB... replacing RJ for WB - OKC would be about 1262 - making it very close to MEM.... and MEM lost to SAS (1375)....so maybe it still holds up somewhat...
Well he did play a full season for the Lakers averaging 17/12/2.5blks while coming back a month or two early from back surgery... I think with a full off season he'll be just fine. He might not get back to where he was three years ago, but he'll be better than he was last season. JVG had a good point about guys working out with former stars... It's not just spending a couple weeks with a dude and practicing with him for a few hours.. . Howard already did that with Hakeem... It's about focusing on it and working on it every day, hours and hours in the gym. If McHale keeps him on that regimen and he puts forth the effort, there's definitely room for improvement.
Yeah, Howard won my respect the way he came back form injury. I don't think he gets enough credit for fighting through it and pretty much regaining much of his form. I posted this in another thread: http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id...-game-become-highly-efficient-scoring-machine It is a Grantland statistical analysis of the effect working with Olajuwon had on Lebron James' game. The key is that Lebron himself states he was totally dedicated to developing what Olajuwon taught him and worked the new skills into game action. Howard is in the best place for developing his post game. With a body like his, he knows how to work. It will be interesting to see how we develops over the season and, especially, next season.
LOL yall are deep in the stat machine I see. We have to build chemistry 1st with Howard on board now. The offense will change now that we have a low post player that will demand a double team. There are so many factors, so I will wait until after the 1st 20 games to see how good we will be. We should however make it to the playoff's.
When asking yourself the question "who should improve next year," your answer should be EVERYBODY. They're all still young enough to where they can reasonably expect gains via experience while still maintaining athleticism at an elite enough level to at least replicate their previous years. That means Lin should get better. Harden should get better. Chandler should get better. Whoever is at PF will definitely get better. And finally a healthy Dwight will be an upgrade over what he was last year. Gotta love where we are headed
Hollinger is journalist, not a statistician, so pretty much every formula he concocts is arbitrary and useless. I mean, if you want to use PER to quantify player production and ignore efficiency, fine. But using it as a predictive value? LOL. Good luck with that.
Dwight Howard is exactly what we need to beat a player like Lebron. Making him take contested jumpers (play tight) works well with a great interior defender like Howard.
