Cavs end streak of futulity

NBA.com

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/recap?gameId=310211005

The above link takes you to a recap of the Cleveland Cavaliers victory over the Los Angeles Clippers last night.  A win that snapped their NBA record 26 game losing streak.

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By beating the Clips in overtime last night the Cleveland Cavaliers can now turn the page and just forget the previous two months.  Is this all LeBron's doing though?  That is a question that begs to be asked after he "took his talents to South Beach" this past offseason.

Through 54 games this year Cleveland's record stands at 9-45...which prorates out to a final win total of fourteen.  Last season, with "The King," the Cavs finished with 61 wins. Was LeBron worth 47 wins?

While shooting 50% from the field and averaging 29.7 points, 7.3 rebounds, and 8.6 assists and posting a league leading PER of 31.1 doesn't hurt his case; it's hard to believe he was actually worth 45+ victories.   

As per Wins Shares, as calculated on Basketball-reference.com, he was worth only 18.5 wins. Even if that number is low and he was actually worth 25 wins, that still leaves a large difference unexplained.  To try and find an answer, let's have a look at last year's Cavs team versus this years  Holdover players are highlighted in red if they are perfoming better this season, blue if they are performing worse, and gray if they are perfoming just as well as per P.E.R. (players in 2010 scaled to 54 game perfomance):

2011				2010
Player	G	PER		Player	54 gm	PER
Ramon Sessions	53	18.3		LeBron James	50	31.1
Anderson Varejao	31	15.1		Anderson Varejao	50	15.8
Antawn Jamison	51	16.4		Mo Williams	45	16.1
Daniel Gibson	43	13.8		Anthony Parker	53	9.9
Ryan Hollins	44	10.5		J.J. Hickson	53	15.2
Anthony Parker	45	10.8		Delonte West	40	13.8
Jamario Moon	37	9.9		Shaquille O'Neal	35	17.9
Leon Powe	14	12.9		Jamario Moon	40	12.6
Alonzo Gee	15	8.9		Daniel Gibson	37	11.3
Manny Harris	33	11.1		Zydrunas Ilgauskas	42	11.9
Samardo Samuels	19	10		Antawn Jamison	16	16.7
Joey Graham	25	8.4		Jawad Williams	36	8.2
Mo Williams	34	14.1
J.J. Hickson	52	13.6

While some players from last year's Cavs squad are performing better this season, and some worse, as a whole it doesn't seem the holdovers are costing the Cavs victories.  It seems the explanation lies with the players no longer in Cleveland not named LeBron James (any player not highlighted in the two tables above).

Losing Shaquille O'Neal, Delonte West, and Zydrunas Ilgauskas--all decent players in their own right--seems to be hurting the Cavs just as much as losing James.  When you combine the two we can explain the devestating drop in the number of wins.

So when you're laying in bed late at night and wondering "Why are the Cavs so bad this season?  LeBron can't be the only reason." I refer to you to this article.  As in all things in life, it isn't just one thing contributing to a disaster, it's a combination of things.  Not just losing LeBron...but losing LeBron & company.

New Orleans Hornets, where's the pub?

http://www.zimbio.com

http://espn.go.com/nba/hollinger/powerrankings

The above link takes you to the most recent version of the Hollinger Power Ranking of NBA teams on ESPN.com.

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I love John Hollinger’s Power Rankings on ESPN.com.  I use them to inform me which teams are good, and which ones aren’t.  Suffice to say, I was very disappointed to see my beloved Boston Celtics at #7 this morning.   They did just get embarrassed in Phoenix by a Suns team currently ranks 21^st in the same rankings; but I’m not going to use this space to defend them or debate the Hollinger rankings.  I want to use this space to discuss a team that I think gets the least amount of press for being one of the league’s best teams; the New Orleans Hornets.

Everybody always talks about the Los Angeles Lakers, and the aforementioned Boston Celtics.  The Orlando Magic are constantly being discussed since their big trade, and Derrick Rose is in everybody’s MVP discussions nowadays as he has led the Chicago Bulls to a 33-14 record.  Even I have spoken at length about the San Antonio Spurs.

But nobody talks about the #4 team in the Hollinger rankings…the New Orleans Hornets.   They have played the third toughest schedule in the league (.526 winning percentage of combined opponents), have played an equal amount of games on the road and at home and boast the best point guard in the league in Chris Paul.  Actually, if it weren’t for LeBron James, we’d be talking about the best player in the league as he ranks second only to "The King" in PER (Player Effienciecy Rating).   

When it comes to ranking point guards the most important thing to look at is assist to turnover ratio, and guess who leads the entire league in this category?  Yep, with a ratio of 4.19 Paul dominates the competition.  For reference, another point guard that is widely considered to be a great “caretaker” of the basketball, Rajon Rondo, has a ratio of 3.12.  Paul outshines him by more than one full point!

So now that my love for Chris Paul has been stated, let’s have a look at New Orleans league ranks in the offensive and defensive “four factors.”  These are four key offensive and defensive team stats identified by Basketball-reference.com that do a great job of summarizing how good or bad a team is on both sides of the ball. 

***Definitions for stats that aren't clearly defined by their title below:

Effective FG%: the formula is (FG + 0.5 * 3P) / FGA. This statistic adjusts for the fact that a 3-point field goal is worth one more point than a 2-point field goal.

Offensive Rebound %: the formula is 100 * (ORB * (Tm MP / 5)) / (MP * (Tm ORB + Opp DRB)). Offensive rebound percentage is an estimate of the percentage of available offensive rebounds a player grabbed while he was on the floor.

 Defensive Rebound %: the formula is 100 * (DRB * (Tm MP / 5)) / (MP * (Tm DRB + Opp ORB)). Defensive rebound percentage is an estimate of the percentage of available defensive rebounds a player grabbed while he was on the floor***


Here is New Orleans ranks in each of the four factors on both sides of the ball:

Offensive "Four Factors"	Stat	NBA Rank
Effective FG%	0.492	17th
Turnovers per 100 Poss.	0.135	17th
Offensive Rebound%	0.251	19th
Free throws per FG Attempt	0.237	9th
Defensive "Four Factors"	Stat	NBA Rank
Opponent Effective FG%	0.481	7th
Opp. Turnovers per 100 Poss.	0.141	9th
Defensive Rebound per 100 Poss.	0.770	2nd
Opponent Free throws per FG Attempt	0.211	5th

Even though they have one of the most efficient players in the game handling the ball, the Hornets are clearly only an average offensive team, but are a very good defensive team.  But, they have succeeded against a very tough schedule so far and their #4 ranking in the Hollinger rankings is correct.

I’m not saying the Hornets should be a favorite to win the NBA Championship this season, or even be ranked number one in anybody’s power rankings, but don’t forget them.   Just because they don’t get the “press” that the Lakers and Celtics get doesn’t mean they’re not as good.

I hope this article has done a good job showing how good the New Orleans Hornets are, and given them some of the "pub" they've been lacking.

San Antonio Spurs...are they this good?

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/recap?gameId=301228024

The above link takes you to a recap of the San Antonio Spurs victory over the defending champion Los Angeles Lakers last night.

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27-4!  That’s the San Antonio Spurs record after last night’s victory which included horrible nights from their stars Tim Duncan (2 points, 4 rebounds, 1-7 from the field), and Manu Ginobli (9 points, 4 rebounds, 6 assists, 4 turnovers, 3-12 from the field). 

How good are the Spurs?  I’m starting to think very good but I want to see if it can last.  To do this I want to take a look at which players are their biggest contributors, and whether their respective paces are sustainable:

Player	Age	MP	FG%	RB	AST	PTS	PER	Career PER	Over/Under
Manu Ginobili	33	31.8	0.450	3.5	4.8	19.1	23.4	21.8	1.07
Tony Parker	28	33.3	0.519	3.2	7.1	17.9	21.2	18.4	1.15
Richard Jefferson	30	32.0	0.487	4.5	1.5	13.8	15.9	16.2	0.98
Tim Duncan	34	28.9	0.487	9.4	3.2	13.2	21.7	24.9	0.87
George Hill	24	27.2	0.467	2.7	2.3	11.3	16.2	14.0	1.16
Gary Neal	26	17.9	0.420	2.5	1.0	8.1	13.1	N/A	N/A
Matt Bonner	30	22.5	0.478	3.6	0.8	7.4	13.8	14.4	0.96
DeJuan Blair	21	20.5	0.462	6.6	1.0	7.2	15.7	17.1	0.92
James Anderson	21	17.7	0.424	1.0	1.5	7.0	12.8	N/A	N/A
Antonio McDyess	36	16.5	0.470	4.8	0.9	4.5	11.6	17.3	0.67
Tiago Splitter	26	11.5	0.519	2.5	0.6	4.5	15.4	N/A	N/A

The part of that table to focus on are the last three columns which represents a player current PER (Player Efficiency Rating as per Basketball-Reference.com), career PER, and the Over/Under column represents how much better or worse a player is performing this year as compared to his career level (PER/Career PER).  A number over one here means the player is performing better than could be expected this season based on his career numbers, and a number under one means the opposite.

Let’s focus on the players high-lighted in orange, all of who are significantly over or under-performing this season.  

Expecting George Hill to continue to perform this well seems highly unreasonable; unless he’s some “star –in-the-making” that I don’t know about.  Manu Ginobli can be expected to regress back towards his career norm, and possibly get worse being that he’s 33 years old.  Tim Duncan seems to have reached the point where it’s not an “automatic” that he will rebound from that 21.7 PER he’s posting now.  He may improve a bit, but not to his former All-Star level.

The only player highlighted that can be expected to keep performing at his current level—which is much better than his career rate—is Tony Parker since he’s only 28 years old. 

Basically, the Spurs are getting outstanding performances from Manu Ginobli, Tony Parker, and George Hill to offset the decline of Tim Duncan.  Two of these players are due for a downfall, while Duncan is only due for a slight improvement.  This doesn’t mean the Spurs will implode and end up with 42 wins, it just means they won’t win 71 games as their current pace suggest.  

But, this historic start can’t be overlooked.  Even if the Spurs play .500 basketball for the remainder of the season they would end up with 52 wins—a total that assures they’ll finish in the top half of the Western Conference playoff field.  But, as the season wears on and the playoffs start, don’t be surprised if the Spurs older players really start to fade and they make an early exit from the tournament.  Maybe they should consider taking the approach the Boston Celtics took last season, and start to rest their older players in the season’s second half.