Sheer rebounds don't tell the whole story. It's rebounding differential and shooting percentage in tandem that are the key statistics. Because really good shooting teams are not going to have a lot of rebounds to get offensively. By the same token, they should be a good defensive team and hold down the opponent's shooting percentage and clear the defensive boards. So, ideally, you want a team that is very low in offensive rebounding because they have a high shooting percentage and a team that outboards their opponents. That would tell us that they are clearing the defensive glass effectively and not allowing the opponent any extra possessions while making the most of their opportunities offensively.
Check my post above krosfya's. That's based on team offensive rebound% and team defensive rebounding%. Rockets were last in offensive rebounding in the first championship season, second to last in offensive rebounding in the secon championship season.
yep, I remember when analysts used to talk about that. you don't need rebounding, what you need to be a championship team, proved by the bulls, rockets, shaq's lakers, spurs, pistons, is be able to shut down teams in key moments of the game.
EXACTLY. What makes a championship team are players that understand the eb and flow of a game. They know key possessions and don't squander them. Usually that comes with experience but not always. People can reel off as many stats as they like but stats rarely, if ever, tell the whole story. Identifying a championship team is like p*rnography, you know it when you see it but it's nearly impossible to define. Thank you very much. I'll be back after a short break. Here's my attempt at defining a championship team: Rule #1: About the most universal rule to championship teams is that they are ALWAYS carried by a superstar that knows how to win close games. Even that rule has one recent, but only one, exeption being the Pistons. Rule #2: A secondary rule is championship teams are built around vets. "Young" teams NEVER win championships. Other than that, it's seems pretty wide open. Every stat in the world, such as rebounding, is probably easily debunked with counter examples. So I hold onto my statement that if Yao and/or TMac bring the wood this season, we have a chance to at be contenders. If Yao and TMac have subpar seasons, we won't contend REGARDLESS of what trades we make to replace our point guard, two guard or power forward.
Total rebounds are not what are important. Rebounding % is far more important. The Rockets 93-94 team was good at rebounding, 5th in defensive rebounding %. Offensive rebounding was low--both totals and %, but that was because we had a philosophy to get our players back on defense rather than crash the boards. As tight as the Rockets half court defense and as good as their defensive rebouding was (resulting in very low opponent's scoring per possession), it made sense. So the team with Hakeem-OT-Horry in the front line was very good in rebounding, they just emphasized defensive rebounding and setting up their terrific half court defense (versus going for orbs). By the way you do have to rebound to be successfull, or at least if you don't you make it really hard to win. Why do you think Phx lost to the Mavs despite outshooting them by a fair margin.
Regarding Rule 1, you also had the Bad Boy Piston teams. Regarding Rule 2, Duncan lead his team to a ring his 2nd season, Wade in his 3rd. Thus the teams were built with vets but around young stars. My rules for championships are different: You should be a top third offensive team (FG%, shooting efficiency). You should be a top quarter defensive team (opponents marks for above). I don't care how you accomplish this--around 1 star (Duncan teams, 1st Hakeem ring, Wade's ring), 2 stars (Kobe & Shaq, MJ and Pip--though you could put MJ in the 1 star camp, Hakem and Drex) or 4 or more excellent players (3-Pistons teams, plus multiple Blazers, Kings and Pacers teams that got close to titles).
1. When you say contend, do you mean playoff team or do you mean a championship team? If the answer is playoff team please go to 3. If the answer is championship team please go to 2. 2. On your rule #2, you contradict yourself by saying young teams never win championships because the Rockets this year are full of young role players, Lucas, Snyder, Novak, Hayes, Yao are all around 25 or younger. 3. Then yes, will always be a playoff team if we have yao and tmac and whomever else
Kidding me? They had hall-of-famer, 11-time all-star, two-time league MVP, 3-time 1st team all-NBA. It doesn't get much more decorated than that! I didn't say the stars had to be vets ...I simply said the team was not considered a "young" team. I'm sure somebody could come up with a stat that has average age of championship teams vs. average age of the rest of the league. I'd venture to guess the avg age of championship teams FAR FAR FAR exceed that of the rest of the league. Just a hunch though. BTW, the Spurs also had David Robinson and the Heat had Shaq ...both hall-of-famers in the "top 50" list. So both the Spurs had a young star but they also had a veteran star that balanced the team. Give me an example of a championship team that did not have a veteran star. I can't think of any. As of yet, you have not contradicted any of my rules. I'm curious to see if you can because I've long held that my rules are valid.
I mean a team that has a viable shot winning the championship but they often don't actually win (since there can only be one winner). Typically 7th and 8th seeded teams are no real threat to win the championship. Typically the 1st 4 seeds are considered the contenders by most but others may contend for various reasons despite not being seeded high such as the '94-'95 Rockets. But our likely starting lineup would be Yao, TMac, Battier, Rafer and Howard. Those are solid vets right there. Furthermore, Lucas and Novak are coaches son's so despite being young, they bring wisdom beyond their years ...so they are rookies but they are rookie+. VSPan has years of pro experience. ...and Snyder ain't a rookie or sophmore. These are the reasons I'm a little more hopeful than having a standard bunch of young guys. But I fully understand why you say I contradict myself (and I knew you would call me on it ). Looking at the parts individually, this team doesn't look so hot to me. But stepping back and realizing that TMac/Yao/Battier can bring it and realizing the rest of the guys just need to hit shots and otherwise play smart ball, I can visualize that it is possible.
No single statistic tells the whole story, and you can't narrow down a championship team to a few rules. It's really a combination of many, many factors that constitute a winning team. Take the Rockets during the championship years. Yes, they were one of the worst offensive rebounding teams in those two years (last in Team Off. Rebounding% in 1994, second worst in 1995). So, why were they still able to win? Well, in 1994 the Rockets were a mediocre offensive team, overall. 16th in the league in offensive efficiency. They were able to be at least average on offense, without the good offensive rebounding, because they were very efficient from the field: 4th in eFG%. What made that team really good, though, was the defense. They were 4th in defensive efficiency, thanks to a mighty defensive front line in Olajuwon, Thorpe, and Horry. In 1995, they were again a terrible offensive rebounding team. Further, they weren't as dominant on the defensive end. They were, however, an improved offensive team, despite the offensive rebounding, because they were 3rd in eFG%. My point is that the Rockets were able to "get away" with being poor on the offensive boards, because they were a very efficient offensive team from the field. Does the current Rockets team have a similar capacity to compensate for lack of muscle on the offensive glass? Well, they were 6th in the league in eFG% in 2004. Last year, they were 10th in the league in eFG%. Not bad, but still not enough. I assume we'll do a better job limiting turnovers and getting to the line with McGrady and Yao back next year. But if we want to be a good offensive team while also being a terrible offensive rebounding team, we're going to have to be one of the very top teams in efficiency from the field.
Absolutely and actually you bolstered my argument by outlining the '94 and '95 teams. The two rules I outlined seem to be commonalities between most, if not all, championship teams. I am NOT suggesting that if you meet those rules, you are guarenteed champion ...not at all. BUT this notion of a contending team is different. There can only be one champion. If you meet my Rule #1 and Rule #2, there is a good chance that you are a contending team but not necessarily a championship team. Every team has strengths and weaknesses. You could analyze each champion and find a weakness and come up with an explaination of why that wasn't important due to other factors. At the end of the day, those teams had 1 or 2 studs that was clearly better than everybody else on the court. Everything else that happened was premised on that. Make teams matchup against you rather than the other way around ...and that's how you mask your weaknesses.
The Rockets were definitely the least talented championship team ever. Why is this even a debate? Didn't we even get voted as the worst champions ever? Besides the point. Offensively, this team is unstoppable. There is absolutely no way to stop a team from scoring with these options: Yao - low post Juwan - mid range, short range J's Battier - long range T-mac - Post up, mid range, long range, penetration Alston - long-range, drive and dish Poor Alston has four terriffic 3-pt shooting season and then in his one miserable season his % goes down, suddenly he's labelled a bad 3-pt shooter. I'll take evidence of 4 straight good shooting seasons over the one bad one thank you. Now that the team is hopefulyl settled and past its injury woes, this guy's going to begin hitting his 3's. Now.... think about the fact that a JVG team has never been outside the top 3 defensive teams. You have yourself a contender. The only thing I worry about with that line-up is athleticism, and thank God we have Snyder and Head coming off the bench. Adding one more guy (Loren Woods would've been nice) as insurance would make this team excellent. Oh, and if one more person says "yao is an average rebounder for his size" I will murder them. Who cares about his size? If Magliore and Yao are both pulling down 10 rebounds, what difference does it make how tall they are? Jeez. It pisses me off even more because Yao pulled down 10+ rebounds in 35 minutes, which is EXCELLENT. 10 rebounds in 40 minutes is considered a good rebounder. Besides, having Yao, Deke and Hayes (all terriffic per-minute rebounders) on the team will shoot up our rebounding numbers.
Im not ready to give this team that much credit on offensive by calling them unstoppable. Juwan has no post up game. Battier can't create his own shot, he feeds off others. Alston is an average to below average point guard. Calling alston's 3 point shooting "terrific" is a very large stretch there. take a look at his stats a little closer: http://www.nba.com/playerfile/rafer_alston/index.html I dont believe he had FOUR straight good shooting seasons from three point land. He had one, in 03-04 with miami, before that he had low attempts so you can't factor that because of his lack of playing time. The past 3 seasons he has had good min at least avg 30 min a game. With extended minutes like that you can compare his avgs then. Last year, he was 32% and the year before that he was 35%. Not too good if you ask me. I think you might see him avg 35% this coming year but i would hate for him to throw up over 400 attempts like he did in miami, when he avg 37%.
3rd, if Battier is going to play PF (when he plays together with T-Mac), Battier cant stand around the perimeter to wait for the WIDE OPEN shoots. Battier needs to position himself for the rebounds. Otherwise, the Rockets will only have Yao to man the offensive boards.[/QUOTE] Why do think JVG said he wanted a shooting PF, the point is that he can draw his defender away from Yao? He is going to play the high post, not the opposite block.
They had no league MVPs. The Pistons have 3 titles yet, have had zero league MVPs in their history. Further they have never had someone considered the best in the league at their position (even their best player, Isiah, is considered by noone the equal of his contemporary PG (Magic). They beat teams who had superior individual players (Jordan and Magic's teams). They overcame not having the best player on the court/superior superstars by being strong at all positions and deep (I am not discounting that Isiah and Dumars were not great players, but there were greater ones in the league). In fact the Pistons (3 title teams actually) have been the poster team for beating others with greater (legendary-type) superstars (Jordan, Magic, Shaq). Let me revist your rules: Rule #1: About the most universal rule to championship teams is that they are ALWAYS carried by a superstar that knows how to win close games. Even that rule has one recent, but only one, exeption being the Pistons. Rule #2: A secondary rule is championship teams are built around vets. "Young" teams NEVER win championships. Sorry, I just think there are better explanations than these rules. Regarding Rule #1, again, all 3 Piston teams' chief attribute and reason they won was because of the quality and versatility of the team. On the 1st team, some times Isiah was who they went to, other times Dumars, another time someone else (Aguire, Edwards, Vinny). Same deal with the later team, one day they fed Chauncey, another day Rip, another day Sheed, any given day a different guy could be the best player for them. These teams won because they play great defense and typically had some match-up on the floor they could get some offense from. They were not teams carried by legendary superstars/league MVPs on the level of Magic, Jordan, Hakeem, Shaq, Duncan, etc--who ever day they were the best and central player their teams played around. As far as Rule #2, almost all decent teams have a large group of vets. The ones who don't are rebuilding and don't make the playoffs. So while I would say your rule is true, it is not very descriptive. To me there is good evidence there is more than 1 way to skin a cat (get to a ring). Some teams did it with ONE superstar pretty much carrying them-- Hakeem #1, Duncan 1st two (Manu really was a force for #3, had an argument for co-playoff MVPs that year), & Wade this year (Wade did compensate for his team losing at most other positons). Some teams did it more so with depth/quality through 7 or spots than being superstar lead. The Pistons 3 rings are the best examples, but Portland, the Kings, the Pacers and Mavs are examples of teams gettting very close the last decade or so through this approach. Most title teams had a blend of these--typically two players playing superstar level, plus good role player. In my mind much more desciptive rules are not those you presented but those teams who are both top tier offensively and top tier defensively--no matter if they get there with one legendary superstar, two legendary superstars, or none of quite that caliber. And what matters is not PPG and OPPG--because those are impacted by style/pace they play, but what matters is FG%, eFG%, and points per possesion (offensive and defensive efficiency, you can weight defense a little more but offense is still important too). Almost invariably the champions are good in both, and the have a big discrepency (FG%-oFG%). This will rule will show why many teams that would seem to fit your rules--Suns teams with Barkley & Nash--veteran teams with MVPs but who didn't play above average defense--didn't win. So my keys/rules for the Rockets are: 1) have an efficient defense (low opponents effective FG% and solid defensive rebouding), and #2 have an efficient offense. I don't know what rules or principles matter other than this. Rafer IMO is not a "solid starter", nor is Howard. Rafer last year killed the Rockets on offensive efficiency with his shooting, and doesn't help defensively either. Howard is marginal offensively (shoots OK, but doesn't get fouled and doesn't hit 3s) and hurts defensively. Basically if you go back on all title teams I can't think of teams that won with the kind of play Rafer and Howard showed last year. Even the worst PGs--off hand like Fisher, Kenny, Avery J, Paxon, young Parker (who had Claxton and Kerr to bail him out), were a lot more efficient. The worst championship winning PFs I can think of during this period (Horry and Haslem?) were much better all around players than Howard is now. In short the Rockets need MUCH improvement in two starting roster spots over what they got last year. come to think of it, maybe another rule for champions is you can't have a sucky starter. Even your worst players have to function decently in the system. Even teams with legendary players (Hakeem, Barkley, Jordan, Shaq) when they had to play with your Oliver Miller's, Brad Seller's, whomever was the PF for Chi in 95, those guards of ours in 96 that Stockton roasted, or Mendavenko's in key roles, failed. You have to have decent players in your key roles. I agree. He has never broken 40% at the 3 even for a single season. His best season where he took a substantial number was 37%. If Alston can find a way to someone shoot 42% from the field and hit 37% from 3s, pretty much a career shooting year, he will probably be adequate. But I am not optimistic, I am as hopefully Head or JL3 knocks him out of the starting spot and does that, than in Rafer ever being able to do it.
Sorry, I misread the site which said AS MVP which I now realize is all-star MVP ...pretty meaningless. Anyway, I can see your point that the Bad Boy Pistons aren't a perfect fit for my rule but every rule has an exception. So meet me half-way on this cause Isiah was regarded as a top-teir player by ANY STANDARD accross any era of the NBA. ...and other than the Pistons teams, I can't think of any additoinal exceptions to that rule. But given the Piston's, we can append Rule #1. Rule 1a is have a stud. Rule 1b is have above average NBA players AT EVERY POSITION plus depth. Mind you Rule 1b has only been enacted MAYBE 3 times in the last umpteen years. More often than not, dominant player(s) are the name of the game. Rule #2 is dependant on Rule #1 ...and visa versa. I didn't clarify that. You can have a stud but if that stud doesn't have some experience around him then he won't be able to opperate efficiently. Without doing an exhaustive search, the '94 Rockets were 13th in the league in scoring. I'd venture to guess there are LOADS of examples to contradict your ideas. I didn't say "solid starter." I said solid "vet." Looking at the '94 Rockets, we didn't have any solid starters then either. Kenny Smith was considered a joke. Maxwell was an NBA malcontent. Robert Horry was in his 2nd year and was average at best with 10/5 season. Cassel was a rookie and Mario was a CBA journeyman in his first season with the Rockets. Even Otis Thorpe was considered inconsistent as he often would simply disappear from games (although that season he played really well). If this team suddenly wins a championship this season, if 15 years people will look back favorably at Rafer and Howard just as they do with Kenny Smith. We need role players to play their role. Rafer as a primary scorer is WAY out of his element so I'd expect his overall play to suffer. Lets see what happens this time around. Virtually every championship team needs improvement. The early Rockets needed a better PG. Chucky Brown starting against Charles Barkley certainly wasn't ideal ...but the team won anyway. Why? Because individual talent and solid role players around Dream. How do you explain Chucky Brown starting against Barkley?
OK, I am half way with your amendment. I think Rule 1b is important (no sucky players in key roles). Basically it eliminates those teams with the superstars that had glaring weakness. E.g., The Suns interior defense/O Miller at C, the Jordan team between Grant/Rodman eras at PF, the last Utah title run, the 97 Rockets with their PGs/and overall guard situation. Basically all the champions for the last decade to two decades had 1-2 legendary superstars plus solid role players all around, or were stacked teams throughout the line-up (3 Piston winners, 2 more almost Piston winners/went to game 7 versus Lakers & SA; and largely forgotten Blazer, Kings, Knicks, and Pacer squads that don't get enough credit for as close as they got to titles). But either way you can get it done--recent Pistons winner (excellent top 7 players) and current Heat winners (really Wade carried them, their barely average PG spot almost cost them versus Dallas) really showed both perspectives can do it if you play good D and decent half court O. The Rockets were tied for 9th in FG%, and 3rd in OFG%. (They were actually more efficient than indicated above because they made the most 3s per game and were a good defensive rebounding team). Also I believe the Rockets advantage FG%-oFG%, was numero uno in the league. So the Rockets fit square in my criteria. I would be surprised if their are many examples at all of teams winning titles without having a good discrepency of FG%-Ofg% and being solid in both aspects. The Mavs got close mind you. I think you way underestimate the team Hakeem had around him. You could argue that either of the Rocket teams back-ups, Cassell and Elie, would be the current Rockets team 3rd best player. I would love to have even a Kenny Smith or Derrick Fisher, a guy who is servicable/mediocre in most PG things but who is a confident shooter if not a deadeye, to be our PG. I am not sure either Alston or Howard would get a wit of playing time on that Rockets team--that team had 8 or so solid players, certainly not how they played last year. We are going to need 2 guys to really step up or no matter how Yao-Tmac-Battier play we won't be good enough to win the title. IMO 2 of Rafer, Head, Snyder, JL3, VSpan, Hayes, or Abuz half to emerge as good role players/decent NBA starters for the Rockets to win. If we have 2 really weak roster spots on the floor at any one time the good teams will exploit it no matter what Yao/Tmac do. Maybe we can get by with 1 weak spot, as Miami did with their PG spot, but even then Williams/Payton had their spots of good play and are better than what we have as of right now. Because when the chips were really down we had Horry playing the 4.
Well, except Rule1a and 1b or exclusionary rules ...not cumulative rules. 1a: You have a stud that is clearly better than everybody on the court. OR 1b: You are stacked 1-7 with above average players. Very few teams fit this criteria and still win a championship because chemistry becomes critically important now ...more so than with rule 1a. EXACTLY. Only exception is the recent Pistons but they fit Rule 1b. Operative words are "solid role players" but not necessarily stand-out role players. blah blah blah. That is my point. When you have to rely on statistics to prove your point, you can always find something to prove or disprove it. I doubt ANY statistic is capable of describing a championship team. Here's my point in starting this line of reasoning: Transport yourself to the summer of 1993. At that time, nobody had ever heard of Cassell or Elie or even Horry for that matter. Vernon Maxwell was a malcontent dumped by the Spurs. Kenny Smith was viewed as a below average PG. And Otis Thorpe was full of "potential" but never could play consistently at a high level. That is my point. This squad has a chance to pull it together and make a run if Tmac and Yao have great years and our role players figure out their roles. I started this line of reasoning with Pocket Rockets saying that our current team has a possibility to gel THIS season. Will we win? Who knows. But can we contend ...I think we have a decent shot at have a contending season. Rafer's stats are crap potentially because he's never had any consistency in his career. In Kenny Smith's last season, he played for three teams and shot the lowest of his career. In 1991 Kenny Smith immediately shot 5% points better than in the previous season where he played for two different teams. Rafer hasn't had that luxery to settle into a home. Last season would have been his chance except he suddenly was called upon to be a primary scorer ...which he clearly is not. So obviously his FG% will suffer. Before you discount Rafer, give him some time to get into his role as a PG. Seriously? Juwan would be STARTING in '95. Who would you rather start, Chucky Brown or Juwan Howard? Also Carl Herrera was a gutsy guy who played beyond himself but Herrera certainly wouldn't bench Juwan Howard. In the worst case scenario, Herrera and Howard would split time but I think that is being generous. Rafer maybe not because Kenny Smith clearly was a better spot up shooter. I'm not arguing that. But Cassel was a rookie and I doubt Rudy would have benched Rafer, a 7 year vet, for a rookie ...or at least until Cassel clearly prooved he was easily better than Rafer ...which would have been harder given the limited PT. cop-out answer. That doesn't provide an answer to Chucky Brown being a starter on a championship team. You say that we need to have 7 solid veterans. If Chucky is our starter, then we must be short at PF, right? Otherwise, why does Chucky start.
I think you are over emphasizing 1a. Teams with studs better than everyone else have lost--Jordan lost in 95, Hakeem only made it to the championship 2 of like 8 years he was the best player in his conference, Shaq has lost when he was the most dominant force. Typically when these players failed it said more about their role players. Also again, Isiah was a great player, but noneone considers him in the ballpark of Magic and Jordan. Yet his team got 2 titles with those guys about at the top of their game. So it is 3 Detroit wins when they clearly didn't have the most dominant force. And the Blazers (two different teams), Kings, and Knicks (and two other Pistons teams) got within whiskers of championships (basically one game, in some cases one possesion). It should have taken statistics to remember the Rockets had an excellent offense in 93-95, but since you brought up their low PPG I brought up their solid efficiecy. When Hakeem on his regular game (not even A game) and the Rockets hit their 3s they were unstoppable. Wait a second here. Kenny Smith and Otis Thorpe had put up seasons with over 18PPG on excellent shooting. OT was a 20-10 guy for a scrubby Sacremento I believe. Mario Elie had done superb job filling in for an injured all-star at Golden State if I recall (something like 16PPG+ and playing well in all phases for them). Elie was a late bloomer, but he was very respected around the league and the Rockets knew he was a critical addition. Maxwell had a lot of raw talent, maybe the most athletic player in the league, everyone knew it, but was a head case, that was why we got him for cash (dumb move that haunted the Spurs by the way). So Kenny Smith, OT, Elie coming to the Rockets and playing around Hakeem was more like Bibby arriving when his stock was falling for Grizzlies, Brand coming from the lowely Bulls, and Raja Bell coming from the lowely Jazz to be role players around Yao/Tmac. Maybe a slight exaggeration on the 1st two, but they were a heck of lot closer to those players than they were to anyone we have now. Now it is probable we have our Elie in Battier. Snyder could possibly be the next Maxwell. VSpan could be the next Cassell. If all our prayers were answered Head or JL3 could develop into Kenny. But by no means do we have a Horry anywhere in sight, and by an even wider gap we have no Otis Thorpe. Doesn't mean we can't build a championship contender however, we don't have to beat that 93-95 Rockets team, who would mop up the league today with the hands down best player in the league (Hakeem) and solid/deep group of role players around him.
