Chris Sabanty is a freelance web developer, software engineer, and sports fan from the Boston area. A lifelong Celtics fan, he’s sickened by Fisher’s flopping, Kobe’s “team-oriented” play, Sasha Vujacic, and the rest of the Los Angeles Lakers. So why write about them? As the old saying goes, keep your friends close and your enemies closer. For a brief moment he’ll take off his green-tinted, Heinsohn-style glasses and objectively look at the Celtics’ biggest rivals.
After making the NBA Finals each of the last three years and winning twice, the Lakers have to be considered a favorite to win again. But are they the favorite? The Celtics took them to seven games in the Finals. Oklahoma City, Chicago, and Houston have the potential to be new title contenders. The Magic remain a threat, too, particularly if Dwight Howard can improve his low-post skills. And if you haven’t heard, two 2009 All Star starters and a bunch of role players have taken their talents to South Beach.
Out of all of the contenders, Miami’s dramatically rebuilt roster has the most questions. Will Lebron play the point? How will all of their new acquisitions mesh? Do they have a Finals-worthy post-defender? But from a Lakers’ perspective, one question looms above the others. Have the Miami Heat surpassed LA as the team to beat?
The answer to this question begins with what the Lakers did last season.
Reviewing the 2009-10 Regular Season in LA
For the first-time Wages of Wins reader, the biggest shock might be that Kobe Bryant wasn’t the most productive Laker. Unfortunately for Kobe, productivity isn’t determined by how many studio analysts claim he’s the best player in the NBA. Kobe’s still very good, but he’s probably not the elite contributor people make him out to be. For more info, check out some of the other posts from the Wages of Wins including “Most Valuable Laker? Might Not Be Kobe”, “Kobe Myths”, and “King James and Kobe”. The cliff notes summary is that Kobe may score a lot of points and make some extremely difficult shots, but there’s more to basketball than volume scoring.
Like the 2009 champions, the 2010 Lakers most significant contributors were Pau Gasol, Kobe, and Lamar Odom-Kardashian. The only major difference between ’09 and ’10 was that Andrew Bynum suited up for the playoffs this past year. Even on a hobbled knee, Bynum was a huge upgrade over the other true center on their roster, D.J. Mbenga.
Having said that, it could be argued that Odom should have been starting over Bynum. Lamar produced more wins during the regular season and was a successful starter in the 2009 playoffs. However, an important difference is that in the 2009 Finals he matched up against an undersized Rashard Lewis. Starting against Kevin Garnett, even after a decline, would have been much more difficult.
Besides Bynum lasting a full season, another big subplot was the relative productivity of Gasol and Kobe.
As shown in the table above, during the regular season, Pau has offered more — on a per-minute basis — across these past three seasons (although what he did in Memphis in 2006-07 was similar to what he did in 2008-09 with the Lakers) while Kobe has declined. Their playoff performance, despite a smaller sample size, has also generally followed the same pattern. Note that their changes are relative. An average player produces a WP48 of .100, so both have remained well above-average in all of their recent seasons.
How will the Lakers do in 2010-2011?
Despite their success, the Lakers received little contributions from anybody besides Kobe, Gasol, Odom, and Bynum. If general manager Mitch Kupchak looked at Wins Produced to craft his offseason plans, he would have tried to acquire a point guard and a small forward. This is exactly what he decided to do.
Matt Barnes and Steve Blake would likely be upgrades as starters, but the Zen master probably won’t mess with his starting lineup. Assuming this is true, Barnes and Blake will provide some nice productivity off the bench, which LA didn’t have last year after Lamar Odom.
So how good will the Lakers be this year? In 2009-10, Wins Produced suggested they’d win 53.1 games and they ended up winning 57. A simple, naive way to forecast 2010-11 would be to subtract the unsigned players’ wins and minutes from last year’s totals. After doing that, we then apply the subtracted minutes evenly to Steve Blake and Matt Barnes. This method predicts the Lakers will win 66.8 games in the 2010-2011 season.
But will they actually win 67 games? Here’s a few reasons why the Lakers will be very good but probably not good enough to win that many games.
- The estimate doesn’t account for rookies or future transactions like the possibility of re-signing Shannon Brown (which it is reported the Lakers have done). Most other players will represent a downgrade over the estimated players.
- The estimate only uses last year’s data. Some players may have had had an unusually good or bad year. In other words, a forecast of the future might want to consider more than just last year’s performance.
- Nobody knows what to expect from Andrew Bynum. He could be substantially worse or better depending on his health.
- After three trips to the Finals, Kobe, Gasol, and Odom have played a lot of minutes in recent years. There’s a chance some of their minutes will be given to lesser players.
- Steve Blake’s productivity may decline since he’ll be more of a spot-up shooter than a point guard in the Triangle.
- And of course, we are not forecasting injuries (and these do happen).
A more realistic expectation is probably 60-65 wins. Either way, the Los Angeles Lakers are definitely one of the best teams in the NBA. But are they the best?
Comparing the Heat and the Lakers
Forecasting the Miami Heat is tougher, mainly because it’s impossible to guess how many minutes each player will play. However, out of all of their acquisitions, there’s a good chance Lebron, Wade, Bosh, Mike Miller, and Udonis Haslem will see the court quite a bit. Therefore, we can assume each will play the same amount this next season as they did last year, with any remaining minutes divided evenly among the role players. Note that their rookies and Shavlik Randolph were excluded due to a limited NBA sample.
So how will the Heat do next year? The quick answer is they could be historically good.
Like the Lakers’ estimate, the forecast for the Heat is far from perfect. Lebron, Wade, and Bosh will likely have their minutes reduced due to blowouts and better teammates. Also, a rotation will be established and some bench players will see more minutes than others. Either way, all contributions will be almost negligible after the top 5 players. If those 5 play the same minutes and produce the same, the Heat would be on pace to win 70.7 games. In this estimate the entire team would be on pace for 73.5 wins, which would be a NBA record.
For fans of the other 29 teams, though, don’t give up hope yet. There’s a reason the games aren’t simulated on a computer. Some players won’t perform as well as they did last year. Maybe a jump-shot forcing 2-3 zone could stifle Lebron and Wade. And again, there’s also the chance of injuries, too. But as of right now, the Lakers — who appear to have improved — have still been passed by Miami.
- Chris Sabanty
The Heat estimate is interesting to me. This isn’t a Wins Produced argument (and it’s not an argument at all, mainly an issue that interests me), but I’m curious to see if diminishing returns impact LBJ’s and/or Wade’s production.
I’m curious to see if anyone more astute on the topic might have some light to shed.
Sorry, but this analysis did no actual analysis. When comparing the Heat and LA you’d need to look at matchups, not Win shares against a plethora of other teams. What do the stats that the Lakers or Heat put up against the Kings mean in the playoffs? Nothing. Trying to compare teams in such a slapdash fashion doesn’t do anybody any justice.How about figuring out who stops Wade and Lebron? Or who stops Kobe and Pau? Or the mismatch in frontcourt size? Now THAT would involve analysis, not just plug and play on the computer.
The Lakers bigs will continue to be their strength and their overall team speed will continue to be an issue. They didn’t address that aspect with Barnes and Blake. How will they match up against the younger legs of teams like OKC, a hopefully healthy Blazer squad or someone like the Heat in the playoffs.
Sabanty,
Because the Heat may very well secure the top seed overall, I can see Jackson maybe attempting to compete for that spot also, assuming every one (with the exception of Bynum) is healthy. In other words, 60+ win seasons are in store for both teams, that is certain, but I don’t see the Heat winning 70 games, purely on the basis that there is little incentive to do so.
Sabanty,
Awesome post. I actually think the lakers are not going to be about the same as this year in the regular season. Kobe’s hurt, minutes and age will cause other problems and I don’t think they’ll care that much. I think they’re a 4 seed out west (I’ve been writing as much on my blog, click my name look at the playoff post on the mavs (excel-based heroes) or okc (the future should have been now). However I think they pull a Celtics and kill in the playoffs. OKC and SA are the only team that have a real shot at stopping them from getting to the finals. OKC needs some decent big play from Aldrich or somewhere. SA has an shot but they need to commit to Blair and have Splitter be good.
If Kobe isn’t an elite player like you say, who is? How many big shots and rings does he need to win? Lebron’s a better player after getting bounced the last two years in the playoffs? I’d say your logic is strange, but it’s not, it’s that of a Laker hater who is going to twist facts and figures to support his theory that there is some overriding fact other than the Lakers are good to explain three straight trips to the finals. You say the Lakers barely beat the Celtics, but they did beat them. They beat the team the buried Lebron and made him look bad. They did it with Kobe playing on a torn up knee and a dislocated finger, both of which required surgery this off season. They did it with Bynum playing on one leg that has since been operated on. They did it with no bench, that has since become very formidable. How does Miami become a favorite to even come out of the east when they have yet to play one game or establish roles and chemistry? How does that Miami team match up against Howard in the middle? Garnett and Shaq? And most importantly how do they stop 7″ Gasol, 6’11″ Odom, and 7’2″ Bynum (all skilled and very long)? The answer is they don’t. And this year, the Lakers can heavily reduce the minutes of all their starters because of their bench additions. LeBron has won nothing and has often looked bad at crunch time in the playoffs. Who takes the last shot of the game now, Wade or LeBron? How does the other one feel when his number isn’t called or his buddy misses? Who handles the ball? There are many questions yet to be answered and your graphs are meaningless. Cleveland beat the Lakers in the regular season twice, but do you know if thatw as at the end of a long road trip for the Lakers or if someone was injured? All that matters is winning. Both the Celtics and Lakers did that when it counts and legends are made. Miami is a long way from being there… although they are odds on favorites for best musical video by a team. Their use of fog machines and ominous stares as they are introduced should be epic.
marty,
Playing on championship teams does Kobe an elite player make. He’s a good player but the numbers do not track the public perception. He’s had exceptional supporting casts when he’s won to the point where he’s been robin (or batgirl) to someone else’s Batman for every championship.
As for the Miami points, how does Howard stay on the court? How will the Celts D handle Wade and Lebron together when they couldn’t handle them by themselves? How do the Lakers keep Lebron and Wade off the boards? Who’s covering Wade & Lebron man on the Lakers? If you double on them do you live with Bosh and Miller kicking your can? Will Kobe get any calls if he’s being covered by Wade and Lebron? I’m a Celts fan but I can appreciate that this Heat team will be extraordinary.
WoW! Marty, Did someone touch a nerve? Look folks, Kobe is a good player, but volume his volume shooting actually place him behind a guy like Drexler with respect to historical production. But Drexler never had mates as productive as Kobe had, so he doesn’t have the rings. I always say that if Allen Iverson played with Shaq from 1998 to 2004, they would have won 6 rings because even AI was so much more productive than Kobe that they would have beaten the Spurs in 2003 and would have swept the pistons in 2004. But if you ask Marty, point totals are all that maters. Therefore, Kobe is the greates Laker and Shaq didn’t do squat in those years.
Your stats are irrelevant, since the “big 3″ of Miami did not play together. You put Kobe, Pau, Bynum, Artest on separate teams, their stats would all be higher. With the exception of Wade, none of the Heat are Champions. The road goes through LA. Unfortunately, the Heat will flame out.
Also, all you Kobe haters, keep hating. He will continue to rack of Championships.
kobe is overrated by the media just like lebron is overrated by this blog…it goes both ways. omg but LBJ had A WP48 of .423535 last season! well his team didnt even make it to ECF, he can fill up box-score and produce wins, too bad those wins didn’t translate into play off wins, the only spotlight LBJ can get is in the summer, when basketball isn’t played.
It’s really going to be an awesome season.
Nobody hit a nerve, I’m not related to Kobe and I have a life that extends beyond the Lakers. Your arguments regarding what Kobe isn’t are the same arguments people made about Jordan when everyone was sick of seeing him and hearing his name. It’s a team sport and you need good teammates to win. However there have been many good teams that couldn’t win it all. Kobe has scored more and faster than anyone in history and he’s done it virtually without a playmaking guard to make it easier. The shots he makes are sick. Did you watch the playoffs? Yes he’s taken a lot of shots because he hasn’t had the supporting players that Bird had with the Celtics, Magic had with the Lakers, Michael and the Bulls, the Piston teams, the great Knick teams. If the barometer of greatness is winning, he’s done it, both with Shaq and without. 7 or 8 times in the finals speaks for itself, but you say anyone could do it, or certain players plugged in would have accomplished the same thing. If your life depended on one shot you’d take who exactly over Kobe? You can twist and contort and search for numbers that make your case, but it doesn’t work. What about defensive play? Are you really saying Bosh is a great player? Does he play any defense? Has he played in the playoffs? Maybe he’s a winner in a fantasy league, but not reality… at least not yet.
Marty,
basically no one is going to buy what you are saying, but I’ll tell you this, Kobe produced about five more wins in 08-09 than stated on this post.
Kobe has scored more and faster than anyone in history and he’s done it virtually without a playmaking guard to make it easier.
So Kobe has the all time leading scoring average and holds the most points scored title, didn’t know yet. Thx anyway.
He didn’t have any of the best small men in the league, but he hasn’t won without the leagues very best big man.
If your life depended on one shot you’d take who exactly over Kobe?
Then your statistically two thirds dead.
Because that’s how well Kobe does shot. He misses 2 of 3 shots and more!
I don’t understand why the Heat brought back lane-clogging centers Joel Anthony and Jamaal Magloire. Nor do I understand why they drafted two centers in the same mold: Jarvis Varnado and Dexter Pittman.
With capable playmakers in Wade and LeBron(and Miller himself), the Heat don’t need traditional players. The Heat did not take advantage of this, and settled for afforementioned offensively limited big men, a poor shooter in Carlos Arroyo, and an inconsistent one in Mario Chalmers.
I thought the Lakers went about the off-season very thoughtfully.
In Devin Ebanks they recover the length and athleticism that departed with Trevor Ariza. In Derrick Caracter they add another skilled big man. While neither rookie is probably ready to contribute right away, in a major way, I think their unique physical traits will allow them to be utilized situationally. It’s good to have a long, athletic wing and burly PF in reserve.
A tall guard, Steve Blake will not amaze anybody with his play, but he won’t turn the ball over as frequently as Farmar. Matt Barnes is a very good all-around player, a competent defender, and much more polished and versatile than Shannon Brown.
In this system, Blake doesn’t have to be a creative distributor. He can simply do what he does best: support his teammates with his good all-around skills and space the floor. Barnes will have fewer playmaking responsibilities, as well. He is superb moving off the ball and finishing off the cut, which is something the system rewards. Lastly, having two shotblockers behind them will compensate for Blake’s defensive deficiencies and permit Barnes to be defend more aggressively.
The problem for the Lakers is that it takes time for players to familiarize themselves with the system. So, I don’t expect the Lakers to click on all cylinders right away, but to gradually become more productive and efficient.
I don’t know whether the Lakers remain the team to beat. I think Miami is capable of weathering a serious injury to Wade or James, while the Lakers will falter should Kobe find himself on the shelf for an extended period of time. However, the Lakers can cope with an injury to one of their role players, while I feel the Heat cannot do without floor-spacing big men like Haslem or Ilgauskas for very long, not to mention Bosh.
If both teams are healthy, they’ll be neck-and-neck for the league’s best record. All things being equal, I think the Lakers will become stronger as the season progresses, while the long season will take its toll on the Heat’s veterans.
A lot of people have joked about how there’s a sword hanging over Spoelstra’s head. I wonder what sort of effect that might presumably have on his substitution patterns and minute allocation. I wonder whether he’ll have the guts to develop some of his younger, less experienced pieces(Chalmers, Anthony), or if he’s going to squeeze all the minutes he can out of his favorites and veterans(Haslem, Ilgauskas) and risk injury before the real season begins.
chibi
I think you have touched on an important point. Miller and Haslem cannot help the Heat as much if they are forced to back up James, Wade, and Bosh while mediocre players fill the point guard and center positions.
Will Spoelstra see that James (or Wade) needs to play point and Bosh (or Haslem) needs to play center? Will Spoelstra be able to convince his superstars to play new positions? If Bosh protests, will Spoelstra be willing to play the undersized Haslem at center? If Spoelstra makes the wrong choices or cannot work with his superstars, a super team could become merely a great team.
I’ve always liked the analysis that shows Kobe isn’t an elite player, and then ignore similar numbers from other players. Oh no, Kobe didn’t shoot well in the finals (well, ALOT of players didn’t, including Jordan). Oh yeah, and the whole “volume scorer” debate. This is just BS, Jordan averaged 1.5 field goals more per season than Kobe if you remove Kobe’s first three seasons in the NBA (since Jordan played three years in college it makes it a little more similar). Also, where exactly in the formula for wins do you account for the fact that Kobe routinely gets double and triple teamed leaving players like Gasol/Bynum/Artest one on one or wide open? Where is the analysis that shows how much better Kobe’s team is because he draws the opposition? It’s in the championships. I’ve always thought it amazing that Lebron is so considered to be sooo much better at making his teammates better than Kobe and yet every time the Cavaliers added a player that was “going to put them over the top” they just couldn’t do it. Maurice Williams was going to help, he teamed up with Lebron and watched his FG% drop, his PPG went up by 0.6 and his rebounds/assists/steals all fell. We all saw how well Lebron managed to fit Antawn Jamison into the game. Yet, there’s no formula that shows how well a player ACTUALLY helps another teammate. Lebron has ONE way of playing, he can’t modify his game to play with different players. Kobe can and has. Lets not forget he took a team that started Smush Parker, Kwame Lamar Odom (with significant playing time for such stars as Radmonovic, Brian Cook and Maurice Evans); Kobe’s teammates have always gotten better when they join the Lakers. But because Kobe doesn’t get assists, he doesn’t get credit.
Yay for Kobe threads!
Does anyone know how often Kobe actually gets double and triple teamed? Because I seem to recall the Celtics not doing so, at all, in the Finals, even during that third Quarter where he was pulling shots out of hiss ass and dropped 17?19?
Scott, you do realize that double and triple teamed doesn’t mean the players have to be within 6 inches of the guy they’re guarding? If you watch the games the ENTIRE defense shades to him. So the player to the side of Kobe shades away from his man and the player under the basket moves up to cut Kobe off. That sounds like the defense just switched to guard him. Same thing the Celts did to Lebron and Wade. And no where in the post did I refer only to the Finals in that regard. All year Kobe gets double and triple teamed.
This is the point where wins produced becomes a difficult model to predict. Look at the big three of the Celtics when they joined forces. Each one experienced a decline in production. The caliber of players are better on the Heat, but the Celtics are the only other comparable situation to this. It doesn’t seem logical to assume that Lebron, Wade, and Bosh can all maintain their individual production playing together. I still think the Lakers are the team to beat. It’s close, but the Lakers size up front is still very formidable, especially if Bynum can stay healthy and productive.
We’re probably splitting hairs with the Heat. They’ll have to defend the post by committee; none of their interior players have the size/strength/stamina to play the position consistently. And, good gracious, Bosh shot more than 8 ft’s/game last year. If Wade and James make sure he gets touches they’ll be a juggernaut offensively. Teams won’t be able to sag/help anywhere on the floor.
Dear Readers,
Kobe is a very good guard. He is probably a top 5 Shooting Guard of all time when we look at his career. Additionally, he has(some years) been the best player on his team, a top 10 MVP candidate and the best player on his team in the playoffs when they won it all. Sadly, some Kobe fans get the brunt of our anger as the distance between the greats of the turnover era (Jordan, Johnson, Bird, Barkley, Robinson) and Kobe is quite large.
Also Kobe (through no fault of his own) has gotten undo credit for his team mates work. Here is an example from my local radio show “You’ve got to give it Kobe, he’s better than Johnson because Johnson had a better supporting cast.” A WEEK LATER “This Laker team has a shot of being one of the greatest of all time.”
It’s not a problem that Kobe is good. Our anger is really at former NBA players getting paid to do analysis, who have very little understanding and the fans that believe them. Our bad. Kobe is good, but please don’t tell me without Gasol and Odom he’d go anywhere. And remember NBA.com still loves you, it has Kobe number 1 on preseason MVP race (which I have a post disputing, http://nerdnumbers.wordpress.com/2010/08/08/mvp-race-preseason)
Joe,
I don’t think anyone who comments on this blog fancies themselves as being anymore than one fan among millions, and I don’t think any of us are naive enough to think that the blog comments we leave here or the blog posts we contribute here or elsewhere will actually impact the history of the game.
But have fun taking cheap shots at that straw man. It looks like it’s a lot of fun.
Whoa, where did that comment go? Weird…
Prof.,
Fancy new theme. Like it.
nerdnumbers,
QFT.
All,
I put a new free agent post on my blog. Just click my name to read.
If the new big three draw fouls at a similar rate they did when they were by themselves then it almost won’t matter if their frontcourt is undersized because the other team’s will be on the bench for most of the game. But I guess that probably won’t happen because it’d be too unfair and/or boring.
@nerdnumbers:
Amen.
@ Everyone else:
I doubt anyone is arguing that Kobe is a hall-of-fame player. I’m not. And I REALLY dislike him. Kobe is a very good NBA player. But I really do believe people are short sighted when it comes to sports. There have been other greats. And there will be more.
Also, I stand by the claim that Shaq was the best player on those first 3 championships, and Pau Gasol…is vastly underrated. He was the best player (if I recall correctly) on a 50, 45, and 49 win Memphis team. While Kobe was the best player on a 32, 42, and 45 win team. I am not saying Pau is BETTER than Kobe. But I am saying that Pau Gasol is also VERY good. The best player from probably the 2nd best international team in the world. I think Pau should be on most people’s top 15 current NBA players list.
Kobe is good. But he alone does not make a championship team. And, quite boldly, that is kind of just a fact. Otherwise, he would have won championships those years when the rest of the Laker’s roster was terrible. Just like EVERY NBA player ever, Kobe need other good players to win.
Also, EVERY team plays defense on EVERY player in the NBA. If a guy beats his defender, other defenders come over, it’s called help defense. It’s not just Kobe that gets double teamed routinely. Almost every team with a proficient scorer will have that player be double teamed.
There is this weird thing about people being upset when other people take educated guesses at the future. I do not understand this. As a Celtics fan, I do not care if others write that the Heat are the favourite to win the East. I just realize that there is a chance we can win (because we have a probably 50+ win roster), and you know what, this is why I enjoy watching basketball. You do not watch sports to see the inevitable, you watch them to enjoy the unlikely, and unpredictable.
No one knows what’s going to happen this upcoming season with any certainty. It’s fun to guess, but anyone who claims otherwise, is being silly.
Lots of interesting comments. I’ll try to get back to a few of them.
Re: Matchups Mattering
Agree with everyone who says that matchups have to be taken into account for. I also think the Lakers match up pretty well with the Heat. Artest isn’t fast enough to keep up with Lebron but he can match his strength. Kobe can keep up with Wade if he wants to, though he might want to conserve his energy like he did against Russell Westbrook in the OKC series. Gasol or Bynum can contain Bosh and the Lakers have the length and athleticism down low to help with Wade and Lebron’s drives.
Re: Kobe
I think the one thing all the Kobe supporters should realize is the numbers still say he’s a very good player, he’s just not as good as Gasol. I didn’t want to interject my opinions into the article but as a Celtics fan, Gasol was the player that scared me during the Finals. I could live with Kobe taking turnarounds from 20 feet away. I couldn’t live with Gasol making high percentage shots and absolutely destroying the Celtics on the boards. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that in the Finals the team that had the most rebounds won each time.
Re: Heat and Lakers Estimates
The estimates were intentionally simple because so many different things can happen that either team could easily swing 10-15 games from a more thoughtful estimate. As some of you guys alluded to, one of the biggest factors could be how the teams decide to manage themselves. Will they follow a Celtics model, which is rest players and flip the switch in the playoffs?
Also, as many of you mentioned, the Heat have never played together before so it’s doubtful they’ll produce the same. I agree with this. If I had to make a personal guess, I’d say:
Their starting lineup will be Lebron, Wade, Miller, Bosh, and Big Z. Z/Bosh/Miller will space the floor and Wade/Lebron will do a lot of drive and dishing with a few pick and rolls mixed in. For any part of the game, Lebron or Wade will always be on the floor.
If they do this, expect Wins Produced to go up for Miller/Bosh/Z since they’ll be getting a lot of open shots. I’d expect Wade/Lebron to go down a little, though that could change if Lebron becomes Magic 2.0 and averages a triple-double.
Barnes an upgrade over Artest?
Iverson would win more titles with Shaq than Kobe?
Lakers will be the 4th seed next year?
ahaha. some of you guys are just hilarious.
As for the Kobe vs Gasol issue:
A. Kobe played hurt for a long time
B. What was Kobe’s WP48 in November + December prior to the finger injury?
C. Even though Kobe might shoot at a high volume at times, he puts pressure on the defense. One of Gasol’s weakeness is that he will stop being aggressive at times and almost “float” around for quarters doing nothing on offense.
D. Kobe defensive impact (when he wants to do it) is far greater than Pau’s as evidence by Rondo and Westbrook. though, Pau’s defense is underrated.
Pau is definitely still underrated (though it’s changing) and the media does overrate Kobe (that best laker ever stuff was garbage), but Kobe is still the team’s best player, WP48 doesn’t capture everything with him. His ability to put pressure on the D opens up the floor for others. His defensive impact is far greater and he’s an excellent help defender. Gasol still gets pushed around at times and just doesn’t do things when we need him to.
As for Lamar playing over Bynum, that’s just silly. Last season, the Pau-Bynum combo was far more productive than the Odom-Pau lineup with the same starters along with them.
Against the Celtics, Lamar was abysmal. Bynum didn’t do a lot offensively but his presence on the floor
A. shuts down the paint heavily. Notice how Glen Davis abused Lamar when Bynum came out.
B. Keeps Gasol on PFs which usually gives him a clear advantage.
Every Laker fan prefers a healthy Bynum over Lamar. I don’t care what WP48 says, Lamar Odom only plays once ever 3 games. The other 2 he’s simply enjoying his sugar-candy high.
I’m not a Kobe fan, and I am inclined to agree that Gasol is the most important Laker. But the gorilla in the room here is that you have produced data suggesting Kobe will be the fifth most productive Laker on a per-minute basis, and that he should arguably lose his starting job.
You can’t just throw that into the pot and let it simmer, then get mad when the fantards reach a boiling point.
just look at Artest’s numbers.
Does LA get past OKC or Boston without his defense? no way. Especially not Boston where his defense on Pierce was instrumental. He got credit for only .17 wins total!
Does anyone here not believe he wasn’t game 7′s hero or that him shutting down Durant wasn’t key? .17. come on.
“Does anyone here not believe he wasn’t game 7′s hero or that him shutting down Durant wasn’t key? .17. come on.”
Artest was horrendous on offense, and Gasol was the hero of Game 7, but I have a couple of comments. First, wp48 isn’t particularly good at assessing defensive impact in the short term. It is reliant on box score stats, which is specious to begin with, but especially so in a six game sample.
Second, Basketball Reference has his wp48 at .064, which seems on the money. Has a peculiar positional adjustment knocked him down here?
Gasol was not the hero of game 7, it was Ron-Ron.
Gasol was absolutely putrid on offense in the first half of that game. Shot under 40% and missed more than half his FT attempts. Not to mention Sheed and KG were scoring directly on him more than he on them.
Ron kept LA in a winnable position in the 1st half. Gasol carried them during the last 6-8 minutes of that game, which I am so very thankful for, but he would have never been in that position if not for Ron Ron bailing him and Kobe out the 1st 3 quarters. And of course Ron hit the dagger 3.
And he shut down Paul Pierce the entire 2nd half.
I understand he was horrible on offense a lot, but his defense more than made up for it. As I said, LA doesn’t get by Boston or OKC without him.
What were Paul Pierce’s and Durants WP48 versus LA? Durant’s WS48 was .054, far below his .238 during the season.
I still don’t understand why no one here does a WP48 differential. If Ron puts up a regular season WP48 of .05 and maintains that in the playoffs, but Durants .2 becomes .05, then Ron produced a heck of a lot!
Probably a good idea to spam-filter comments here?
The problem with analyzing these two teams in particular is that the available numbers are just garbage.
For the Heat it is obvious, as you cannot simply add-up stats (not even Win metrics) and expect to get a reasonable result, especially when the team is based on high usage players like Lebron, Wade and Bosh.
As for the Lakers, last year’s data is completely misleading. My own research shows that their numbers are under their true value due to injuries and intangible (motivational?) factors. The Celtics were another team whose performance numbers were undervalued, and as could be seen in their post season runs, they were stronger than the regular season numbers would indicate. A per-game analysis shows that the Lakers gave away more points after strong leads than anyone in the league, and this behavior while clearly affecting their regular season numbers, was not present during the playoffs, suggesting an attitude based issue.
The intent of the article is good, and the approach is not all that bad, but the input data is garbage.
I live my life by the numbers but even I have to accept that there are times where you cannot possibly use the numbers to get a meaningful assessement.
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I’m a Kings fan, and a basketball fan from the early/mid 60′s. A few years ago, Kobe Bryant dished out 12 or 13 assists & destroyed us single handedly on offense AND defense (which so few players unlike Bryant, ever play any more). The next day the local sports radio was ripping Kobe about choosing for one night out of the year to be an unselfish player. I was curious about that & decided to do a little investigative work. To my astonishment, I found that Kobe Bryant, an off guard/small forward his whole career & NOT a point guard. Is the #3 & soon to be #2 ALL TIME Laker franchise LEADER in ASSISTS!!!! Behind Magic & West even!!!! So, how on God’s green earth is Kobe Bryant a “selfish” player?!?!? Do you know how many great Laker players there have been since the 1940′s???? Look, I love my Kings dearly but I also LOVE to watch Kobe Bryant play the game of basketball like it’s HIS last day on earth. He IS an INTENSE & dedicated WINNER, works hard on his game training year around, plays hurt, makes everyone better because HE is on the roster, does things on the floor physically that I’ve NEVER seen done before, picks us apart on both sides of the ball & shuts down our best player every time. What else do you people want from the man? The haters won’t miss him until he leaves the game & then it will be too late to appreciate what a great player he is & what all he has accomplished & WILL accomplish in his career. And even then, I wouldn’t be surprised if his jersey is still the #1 selling in the NBA. Please people, for the love of Mike give it a rest & move on!
70-73 wins for the heat? LMAO