Effects of Draft Lottery Results on NBA History Part1

In this post about draft lottery I focused on luck simply in terms of moving up or down. But as you know that’s not the end of story so as I promised [although it took me waaaaay longer than I’ve expected… because I stumbled into more ideas] I’ll look at it from a different point of view: players behind those picks.

The rules and source of data are the same as in previous post and I added two new ones:
– I assumed that Career Win Shares in regular season adequately describe player’s career,
– I assumed that players would be drafted at the same slot no matter which team have owned given pick.
I know both of those aren’t 100% true but that’s the best I can do with easily available data.
If you know how to improve it, let me know but now let’s start with…
Straightforward Swaps Method
The premise here is very simple: Career Win Shares of a player who was drafted at given spot minus Career Win Shares of a player who would be drafted if lottery played out exactly as odds suggested.

To explain, let me give you an easy and recent example.
Last year Wizards, given their odds, should have drafted at #5 [which turned out to be DeMarcus Cousins with Career Win Shares = 1,1] but they won the lottery and drafted first [which turned out to be John Wall who to date collected 2,2 Win Shares]. So by moving up in the lottery Wizards gained 1,1 Win Shares. Simple right?

So by that method which team have gained the most in the last 17 drafts because of lottery results?

 

Real time duration of NBA games in 2010-11

Have you ever wondered which teams had the shortest and the longest games?
Well, you are in the right place ;-) Unless you are interested in playoffs data – then visit this post.

But let’s start with some curiosities…
The longest game of the season lasted 3 hours and 22 minutes:
Suns won against Grizzlies in double overtime on November 5 and
New Jersey Nets won against Raptors in triple overtime March 5.

The shortest game of the season lasted 1 hour and 53 minutes – Rockets destroyed Nets on March 29.

And now for something incredible: there were only 3 games over 200 minutes and 1 game which finished in less than 115 minutes and THREE OF THEM included New Jersey Nets! Amazing coincidence…

Average length of game was 138,1 minutes [down from 139,16 minutes in 2009-10!].

OK, now let’s focus on the main point of this post: length of games in the last regular season…

 

What was unique in NBA on May 26th?

In final game of Conference Finals http://www.basketball-reference.com/boxscores/201105260CHI.html
there was a strange fail by Bulls: Chicago had FG%<36%, FT%<72% and committed 28 fouls…
yet they took care of the ball [only 10 turnovers].
It happened 8 times during last 25 RS. Hey, at least there was one positive thing for Bulls in this game…

Additionally it was an epic fail by Derrick Rose:
He converted only 9 of his 29 shots and added 4 turnovers. It happened 20 times during last 25 RS and a whooping 9 times by Allen Iverson so Derrick please don’t follow this path… To make it worse for him…

LeBron James had a really versatile performance with 11 rebounds, 6 assists, 3 threes, 3 steals and only 2 fouls and it was unique in the playoffs but it happened a lot in regular season’s games.

Surprisingly Dwyane Wade’ 9 turnovers were not as unique as you may think:
it happened 23 times in the playoffs since 1991.

Well, that’s it in terms of box score [this is why I usually wait for second game for more options but it will be played on Tuesday so it’s kind of too late] but…

————————————-

Sadly there was another unique news around basketball:
Malgorzata “Margo” Dydek Twigg died at 37 with a third child on the way.

Her on-court uniqueness will always be remembered because of WNBA Season Leaders and Records for Blocks and WNBA Career Leaders and Records for Blocks but it was also true outside of games.
Thank you for the memories [first Polish-born player whom I watched in American league!] and rest in peace.

 

IMHO The Strangest Rotation Decisions in 2010/11

Second-guessing is a very popular sub-sport behind every sport but my intentions in this post are quite different from what you may think: I simply would to like know reasons behind those decisions so if you know them, please let me know. In short the premise in all cases is simple: why player X played more than player Y?
I feel obligated to mention that’s it’s NOT nitpicking after the fact because I had those situations on my radar in early stages of the season.

Let’s start with two honorable mentions…
Marcin Gortat vs Robin Lopez [for a sizable chunk of the season] in Phoenix.
Am I a homer on this one or have Gortat played better immediately after the trade and he should have been starter for Suns for 35+ minutes from day 1? Or was it simply a case of not trusting new player on the team?

Tony Allen vs Xavier Henry and Sam Young in Memphis.
Why was Tony Allen benched in the first half of the season?
Second half and playoffs should us how huge mistake that was… and could have cost Grizzlies home-court in 2nd round. Fortunately and to his credit John Hollinger bang this drum a lot.

OK, now four cases which were puzzling me since at least December 2010 and they are still puzzling me [so if you know the justification, please let me know… Thanks!]:

4) Marcus Thornton vs Willie Green in New Orleans.
It would be more glaring without a trade with Kings but still IMHO it’s worth exploring.

• Marcus is younger and played better in previous seasons,
• Thanks to basketball-reference.com we can compare WS/48 0.057 vs 0.052 and PER 14 vs 10,8
• Thanks to Hoopdata we know Willie shot better but I have reasons to think Hornets misused Thornton.
• Thanks to 82games we can compare this: On +1.7 Off +0.7 vs On -1.9 Off +2.9
• Thanks to basketballvalue.com we can compare 1 Year Adj. +/-: -2.63 vs -1.72 but with a bigger SE.
• Thanks to Wages of Wins we know their WP/48 was 0.115 vs 0.010 respectivly

I remember reports about Thornton’s lack of defense and/or attitude but
at what point those are simply an excuses for a safe move?
Or was it a case of coach afraid to play younger player even though he was better?

——————————————————————————————–

3) Julian Wright vs Sonny Weems in Toronto.

 

What was unique in NBA on May 24th and 25th?

Since I started analysing box scores regularly for FB in 2004 I was surprised how often unique stat-lines occurred and it’s a series designed to celebrate that fact. The rules are simple: it has to be something that never happened in the last 20 playoffs [over 1500 games] and less than 25 times during last 25 regular season games [there were over 55000]. Incidentally it’s a tribute to Basketball-Reference.com for great tools.

In Game 5 of Western Conference Finals http://www.basketball-reference.com/boxscores/201105250DAL.html
There was another classic game by Jason Kidd: 10 assists, 7 rebounds but only 2 points.
It happened 24 times during last 25 RS and three of those were by Jason Kidd himself.
I have admired his uniqueness for years but I wonder, will it hurt him in Hall of Fame voting?

In Tuesday’s game (link to the box score on basketball-reference.com) Miami won the game in an unusual way:
Heat had more Turnovers [15] than assists [12] and collected double-digit steals and blocks.
It happened only 3 times during last 25 RS! What’s more… THREE Heat’s players had 3 or more blocks.
The last team which accomplished that feat was Lakers vs Jazz on May 5th 2010: link to the box score.
You have to admit that those two aforementioned stats really well describe this team: no point guard and a lot of athleticism on other positions…

Derrick Rose shot worse than 31% on 26 field goal attempts with 7 turnovers.
That was opposite to MVP like game. It happened only 5 times during last 25 RS… and two of those performances were by Allen Iverson… So I think it’s safe to say criticism for his style of play is somewhat justified. At least he acknowledge that fact: http://basketball.realgm.com/wiretap/213854/Rose_Accepts_Blame_For_Game_4_Loss but will he do anything about it?

LeBron James had mixed shooting day with FG%<43% on 26 FGA but he made all 13 free throws.
Was he feeling it or not?. It happened 13 times during last 25 RS…
How ironic is that he cruised to NBA finals through team with the MVP winner?

Surprisingly Mario Chalmers’ performance with 4 steals in 21 minutes
was not so unique as you may think: it happened 18 times in the playoffs since 1991.

 

Is the NBA a Point Guard Dominated League?

James Brocato asked on Wages of Wins Journal: Is the NBA a Point Guard Dominated League?

I think it’s an interesting question but he focused on a sample size with only 5 championship teams and I’d like to investigate topic deeper than that.

Because I’m following up a post on Wages of Wins I’ll start with their rating system.
First, here’s a breakdown of Wins Produced from last season by position [data and positions taken from here]:

Pos	Wins Produced	Minutes	WP/48
PF	276,3	119487	0,111
PG	274,9	119861	0,110
SG	244,4	123620	0,095
C	220	114451	0,092
SF	218,2	117509	0,089

In 2009-10 it looked like this:

Pos	Wins Produced	Minutes	WP/48
C	251	117463	0,1026
PG	248,6	120428	0,0990
SF	248,4	121803	0,0979
PF	242,6	117723	0,0989
SG	238,4	117081	0,0977

So last season point guards improved but no matter how you slice it one big guy position produced more wins.

When we break it down into 30 pieces [teams] results are somewhat surprising:
Correlation coefficient between PF’s Wins Produced and team’s Wins Produced was 0,1563.
Teams with 50+ Wins Produced without any good PF = Nuggets.

Correlation coefficient between PG’s Wins Produced and team’s Wins Produced was 0,2748.
Teams with 50+ Wins Produced without any good PG = Heat, Lakers, Magic.

Correlation coefficient between C’s Wins Produced and team’s Wins Produced was 0,4705.
Teams with 50+ Wins Produced without any good C = Heat, Boston, Thunder.

Correlation coefficient between SG’s Wins Produced and team’s Wins Produced was 0,5153.
Teams with 50+ Wins Produced without any good SG = Spurs [Manu is listed as a SF].

Correlation coefficient between SF’s Wins Produced and team’s Wins Produced was 0,6564.
Teams with 50+ Wins Produced without any good SF = Lakers, Thunder [Durant is listed as a PF].

Well, you probably knew that Lakers and Heat were constructed in a very unusual way but it seems like last season good swingman was the most essential piece… and that’s probably because of total Wins Produced from the whole position.

BTW, that’s exactly a point which I don’t get regarding issue with “league of PGs” – if most teams have a productive/solid player on one position… it really isn’t any advantage and you need to be better somewhere else!

Anyway, I can recognize that sound from miles away “hey, maybe Wins Produced don’t recognize valuable contributions by Point Guards!”. Fine, let’s think about it…

 

What was unique in NBA on May 23rd?

In Monday’s game (link to the box score on basketball-reference.com) Oklahoma City unusually lost.
Thunder out-rebounded Mavs by 22 plus had more blocks [by 7] and assists [by 7].
It happened 22 times during last 25 RS but 21 of those teams won a game!
Well, after that you can easily guess why Oklahoma City lost…

Thunder had 23 assists, 9 blocks, 55 rebounds but a whooping 25 turnovers.
Yes, they badly and unusually struggled with ball handling.
It happened 16 times during last 25 RS – Thunder’s stats in searching results.
As a result of this we had another nugget…

THREE Dallas Mavericks’ players had 4 or more steals!
According to this list it hasn’t happened in playoffs since 1991!
Although if we include both teams it happened in 1994: link to the box score.
And that’s not all from this game because when someone gains someone else loses…

Kevin Durant had 29 points and 15 rebounds but with 9 turnovers.
Was it a historic choke?. It happened only 10 times during last 25 RS…
Russell Westbrook shot worse than 32% on 22 attempts and added 6 turnovers.
Seriously was it the worst choke in team’s history?. It happened only 12 times during last 25 RS…
Well, you can’t become great team or player without some struggles along the way… right?

Anyway, what a truly unique game! And I didn’t even mention
another brilliant performance by Dirk Nowitzki or 15-point comeback in the 4th quarter!