Some Love for Basketball-Reference.com

Just wanted to praise the work of basketball-reference.com, a website that does a great job of compiling NBA statistics. Particularly, I want to focus on one area of the site, the Full Court section. In many ways, you can compare the entire reference site like one of those ITunes essentials areas. You've got "The Basics," season by season stats, playoff recaps, statistical leaders, etc... Then you've got your "Next Steps," which would be the advanced statistics such as PER, offensive & defensive rating, etc... But the Full Court section is definitely the "Deep Cuts" area of the website. You can really pore into a whole whack of different things, some of which I'll highlight below. Anyways, great job by the basketball-reference people.

DRAFT FINDER

Want to find all the 2nd round picks who went on to become all-stars? Want to look back at the draft history of your favourite team? Want to know how many Hall of Famers were drafted outside of the top 10? This is where the Draft Finder comes in. Some highlights:

• Maybe this is obvious, but since 1977, only four players have ever been drafted outside the top 10 and gone on to make the Hall of Fame (and one of whom was Drazen Petrovic, who I hate to say, is only a Hall of Famer because his career, tragically, was cut short because of an auto accident)
• The Raptors have never had a 2nd round pick average more than 5 points per game in a season (as a frame of reference, 29 players have been drafted in the 2nd round this decade and have averaged more than 5 points per game over the course of their entire career)

HEAD-TO-HEAD MATCHUPS

Have you ever wondered how Kevin Garnett & Tim Duncan have produced when going up against each other? Chris Paul & Deron Williams? Magic & Bird? Jordan & Bird? Robinson & Olajuwon? Bosh & Carter?

If you don't wonder about those types of things, then, I hate to break it to you, but you're reading the wrong blog.

Anyways, BR has a great area that can call up head to head matchups of any two players (no playoffs, and just from 1986-87 season onward). It's great for knowing things like:

• Garnett and Duncan have played each other 36 times in the regular season (Duncan leads 21-15). They both averaged about a 21/12/4 with 2 blocks in 39 minutes per game. That's impressive.
• Williams and Paul both average about a 16/8 in their meetings, but Williams has a 9-2 edge in 11 career matchups.
• Magic dominated Bird (6-1) averaging 25 pts, 14 ast, 7 reb, and 2.5 steals per game.
• Robinson dominated Olajuwon in terms of W-L (30-12), but both players produced averaging about 20 pts, 11 reb, and over three blocks per game
• Bosh and Carter have met on the court 17 times, with Vince winning nine of those matchups. VC has averaged a 24/7/5 against his former team, while Bosh produced a 21/8/3 line.

Anyways, it's great for researching storylines, explaining why certain people might hold certain beliefs (i.e. Why Jazz fans still think Williams is better than Paul), and just for fiddling around.

TEAM SEASON & GAME FINDER

Ever wonder who was the most successful team of the '70s? Who's been the best rebounding team over the past five seasons? How many 50-win teams have shot worse than 42% from the field? Has a team ever shot worse than 30% from the field and won the game? Go to BR's team season finder or team game finder to answer those questions. Some quick highlights from messing around on the site for a few minutes:

• Only one Eastern Conference team ranks in the top 7 teams from this past decade, according to regular season wins (Detroit)
• The order of the top 10 is somewhat surprising: SAS, DAL, LAL, DET, PHO, UTA, SAC, IND, HOU, BOS
• The Raptors finished in a tie for 21st
• Last place was NOT the Clippers. The Hawks actually had a worse winning percentage
• Dallas was the best offensive team of the decade, San Antonio had the best defence
• Toronto's best ranking this decade? They had the 2nd fewest turnovers per game this decade (Alvin Williams and Jose Calderon holding it down!)
• How important has the three-point shot become in today's game? Only 3 teams have won 50 games in a season this decade while making fewer than four three pointers per game, and no team has done it since 2003.
• Remember all the harping I was doing about Toronto's defence last season. Here's why: The Raptors had a defensive rating 110.0 last season. In the history of the NBA, there has been just one team to win 50 games with a defensive rating of 110 or higher (the 94-95 Suns). And only one team this decade has even had a winning record with a defensive rating that bad (last year's Suns).
• 121 teams have shot worse than 30% from the field in a game since 1986. Four of those teams, somehow, went on to win the game. The Dallas Mavericks actually scored 94 points while shooting 27.7% from the field back in 1995.

PLAYER SEASON & GAME FINDER

Obviously if they have a team season and game finder, the natural progression is to have a player season & game finder as well. This is where I could really lose myself for an hour or two (not that I haven't already). Here are the highlights:

• Vince Carter was the 5th highest scoring player of this decade (1. Kobe 2. AI 3. Dirk 4. Pierce)
• Iverson also had the most steals and turnovers this decade, and the 7th most assists
• Shaq led the decade in Player Efficiency Rating, with Lebron coming a close second
• Only 34 players had a PER above 20 for the decade and Chris Bosh was one of them (20.7, t-25th)
• A player has taken more than 40 shots in a game 21 times since the 1986-87 season, and despite averaging over 50 points in those games, those players have actually posted a losing record (9-12). Kobe, not surprisingly, appears on that list more than anyone else (8 times)
• Call this the "looking for a Calderon note" note: How do you put into context a player that combines a high rate of assists with outstanding all-around shotmaking? Well, only 14 players have ever shot at least 50% from the field, 40% from three-point land, and 80% from the free throw line in a season. But only 5 of those players shot better than 90% from the line, and only four of those players also managed to add in better than 8 assists per game. Those are: Jose Calderon and Steve Nash (three times). Pretty good company.

CONCLUSION

I understand this was an over-bombardment of information. That was the point. I was trying to show how much information is at your fingertips when you're at that site. I also understand how much of a nerd I sound like when I say things like "how much information is at your fingertips" but quite frankly, I don't care. This stuff is right up my alley, and I'm looking forward to using it this upcoming season. One more thing: I could have just kept this site on the D-L, and just wowed you with these little tidbits at appropriate times. Then you guys would have been all "wow, Chris is so smart... where did he get all of that information" (I'm paraphrasing), but a) I could never do that to you readers and b) Basketball Reference deserves the credit (maybe that was obvious, but I digress).

Toronto's (Somewhat) Dramatic Off-Season Makeover

Much has been made about Bryan Colangelo's nearly complete overhaul of the Raptors roster following a disappointing 2008-09 season. Despite relative optimism surrounding the moves, a popular line of thinking has emerged that it will be tough to be very successful this season, given the amount of change from one season to the next. In other words, while a playoff spot could be expected or hoped for, it's tough to expect much else.

While the net result of that argument (a lack of a deep playoff run) is likely to happen (especially since three of the top four teams in the league reside in the East), I'm not sure the premise actually holds up, for a couple reasons. First, is there any sort of historical basis for the argument that a lot of roster turnover prevents a very successful season? Secondly, when you think about it, how much will this Toronto team actually change from last season?

Let's deal with the latter question first. Yes, from one opening day to the next, Bryan Colangelo will have just three of the same faces in a Raptor uniform. Undeniably, that is a small number. But let's put it in context: the three players who return are key cogs of this franchise. While they account for just 20% of the roster, they chew up roughly 45% of the available court time, and will likely score about half of the 8,000 or so points the team will rack up next season. So, should the rapid rebuild be a storyline for this upcoming campaign, of course. But take all of it with a grain of salt.

Now let's deal with the first question: Is there a historical basis for the (seemingly) common-held belief that roster turnover is a roadblock to a deep playoff run? Since we've just finished the "aught" decade (2000-09), I thought it would be appropriate to look back at this decade of NBA basketball to see if any trends emerged in terms of year-over-year roster turnover. I defined "success" or a "deep playoff run" as a trip to the Conference Finals. Therefore, there were 40 teams that made it to the conference finals over the last 10 years, and I looked at how different their roster was from one season to the next. Keeping up with the argument from the previous paragraph, I was only looking at the top eight players (in terms of minutes played) on each team. Why eight? For most teams in the modern NBA, there are two significant drop-offs in minutes played: There are usually a top three or four on each team that play heavy minutes, then a supporting four or five who fill roles. After the key eighth man, in most cases, you'll see the minutes drop off fairly significantly. Are there exceptions? Absolutely. But a cut-off had to be made, because it would be almost completely insignificant whether a team changed their 13th-15th roster spots from one year to the next.

So, 40 teams made it to the Conference Finals this decade, let's breakdown how many returning players from their top eight in the rotation that each team had:

EIGHT - 1

SEVEN - 3

SIX - 12

FIVE - 9

FOUR - 11

THREE - 3

TWO - 1

(average returnees to top 8: 5.0)

Very bell-curvish isn't it? 80% of the teams return between four and six players to their top eight year-over-year. 10% return seven or eight, and 10% return just two or three.

Let's see if there's any other trends that emerge from looking at these numbers:

NBA CHAMPS: 5.2

2000-04: 5.2

2005-09: 4.8

LAKERS: 4.8

SPURS: 5.5

PISTONS: 5.6

Not much changes when looking at each year's champion. You can see that in the latter half of the decade, there has been slightly more changes to each conference finalist (but not a very significant drop). And two of the most successful franchises of this decade have an above-average year-over-year retention. Speaking of those three teams, I didn't realize how little parity there was in the NBA until I looked at these numbers. Granted, the NBA is known as a league of dynasties but I thought it had changed a bit in this decade from the days of Jordan's Bulls, Bird's Celtics, and Magic's Lakers. However, those three teams listed above account for 8 of the decade's 10 titles, and 17 of the 40 Conference Final berths.

Anyways, let's get this back to how it relates to this year's Raptors, and we'll do that by taking a look at the four outliers on the low end of the spectrum. They are the '08 Celtics, '06 Suns, '06 Heat, and '04 Timberwolves. Two of the teams don't fit a profile that matches very well with the Raptors: The '06 Suns and '06 Heat were both returning to the Conference Finals for a second straight season, so the changes weren't because "something wasn't working." They were made either through necessity (an injury to Amare Stoudemire) or through tinkering (signing Gary Payton in a complementary role). On the other hand, both the '04 T'Wolves and '08 Celtics were both coming off disappointing seasons and were undergoing radical transformations. I'm going to take away the Celtics as a comparison here because what they did (adding two hall-of-famers to their roster) was something we'll probably never see again, and is pretty much useless to compare to.

So that leaves us with the 2004 Timberwolves. Back in the 2003 off-season, Minnesota was a franchise that was stuck in a rut. They were a 13-year old franchise that had never made it past the first round of the playoffs. Granted, they had made the playoffs in seven straight seasons (thanks to Kevin Garnett), but they had never made a real impact (sound familiar Raptor fans?). So, they pulled a trigger on a multi-player deal that landed them three new starters (Sam Cassell, Latrell Sprewell, and Ervin "Not Magic" Johnson). They surrounded those new starters with new role players as well, adding Trenton Hassell, Fred Hoiberg and Mark Madsen to the fold. This revamped team finished atop the Western Conference in the regular season, and made it to the Conference Finals before losing to the Lakers.

In many cases, that makeover was even more drastic than Toronto's. The only returning player of substance was Garnett (Sczcerbiak was injured that season), who had to learn how to play with a brand new team. But, what created a bit of continuity was the fact that the head coach and best player remained the same from one year to the next, which is a key pattern with this year's Raptors.

Am I predicting anywhere near that kind of result for the Raptors? Absolutely not. However, the point I'm trying to get across is that the changes on this team are not as drastic as one might suggest. Consider this fact: Toronto will be returning three of their top four players from last season, and that was a key indicator for teams making a deep playoff run from this past decade. 75% of the 40 teams returned at least three of their top four from the year before.

CONCLUSION

The numbers show that teams returning three or fewer players from their top eight are against the 8-ball when it comes to making a deep playoff run. However, because of who the three players are that the Raptors are returning (and their roles with the team), it could be said that the Raptors don't exactly fit the usual mould for teams that have gone through such significant roster changes.

Saw the following headline on the Toronto Star website today:

"HARPER MEETS WITH OBAMA, CALDERON"

Tell me your first thought wasn't the exact same as mine... "What's Jose doing meeting with the Canadian PM???"

HOLLINGER'S TAKE

In his latest article, John Hollinger breaks down the off-season moves in the Eastern Conference. It's an Insider only article, and I don't want to excerpt too much of his stuff, but his take on the Raptors was just too good:

"I guess what I'm saying is I have no idea how this will work out... It's easy to split the difference and say they'll be a .500-ish team, but I don't think that will be the outcome. I'm expecting either a brilliant success or a spectacular failure, and I'm really not sure which."

I think the conventional wisdom (especially in these parts) is that the Raptors have guaranteed a playoff spot with their moves this past off-season, and that consensus might be right. But I (and apparently I'm not alone) have my doubts, and here's why: This team has the makings of a truly awful defensive outfit.

QUICK ANALYSIS

I jumped over to basketball-reference.com to do a quick analysis using defensive metrics (quick aside: there's no need to talk about the limitations of defensive stats in basketball, we're all aware of their limitations, but we need to use something). Here's what I found:

The Raptors finished 22nd in Defensive Rating last season. In this decade (9 seasons), 11 teams have made the playoffs when finishing that low in Defensive Rating. Of those 11 teams, 9 of them lost in the 1st round of the playoffs. One of the teams that made it into the 2nd round was the 2005 Sonics, and they were lucky enough to play in the first round against a team that was as bad defensively as they were.

So, a team that was ranked 22nd defensively last season trades Moon/Marion for Turkoglu (defensive downgrade), and Parker/Kapono for Wright/Bellineli/DeRozan (neutral, maybe slight upgrade), while keeping the rest of their starters the same. Doesn't common sense say, at best, they stay the same defensively next season?

I don't know how else to put it: Not one team that's been as bad defensively as the Raptors were last season has made it past the 2nd round of the playoffs this decade.

ONE MORE WAY OF LOOKING AT IT

Here's another way of looking at it: I gathered all of the individual defensive ratings for the starters on each of the Eastern Conference champions since the beginning of this decade. The theory being we should be able to get a good snapshot at what it takes to win in this conference. Here are the ratings (the lower the better)

EASTERN CONFERENCE CHAMPIONS

STARTERS AVG. DEFENSIVE RATING

2009 ORL - 101.8

2008 BOS - 98.4

2007 CLE - 101.2

2006 MIA - 104.4

2005 DET - 101.4

2004 DET - 102.0

2003 NJ - 97.8

2002 NJ - 99.2

2001 PHI - 98.2

Now, I know you're all wondering, what is the average rating for Toronto's projected starters? Well, we don't have a rating for DeRozan, so we'll slot Antoine Wright into the starting SG spot for now, and here's what you get: 109.6.

It's tough to put into words how awful that is. All I can say is, for those of you who think Toronto's success next season is a given, I'd be more than a bit worried about how the team plans on keeping the ball out of their own hoop.

I don't enjoy rubbing things in (that much), but after withstanding a barrage of comments for suggesting the Raptors sign Ben Wallace, this story makes me feel a bit better.

Here are the ways this story proves various commenters were wrong:

1. Wallace was not going to retire

2. Wallace was not demanding a lot of money (he took the veteran's minimum)

What I find especially interesting is how the article says Wallace is being brought in to be Detroit's backup centre for defensive and rebounding purposes, especially given that Detroit's new frontcourt (Charlie Villanueva / Kwame Brown) aren't exactly defensive beasts. That was pretty much my argument for bringing him into Toronto: a defensive presence to back up an offensive minded starting front court. Ah well, at least Joe Dumars agreed with me (but then again, he's also the guy who drafted Darko Milicic).