When the playoffs started, the top contenders in the West were believed to be the LA Lakers and San Antonio Spurs. Those teams, though, are already out playing golf.  The two teams that have survived – the Dallas Mavericks and Oklahoma City Thunder – were not counted by many to be title contenders when the season started.  But each is now on the verge of advancing to the NBA Finals.  At this point, which team has the best shot to take this next step?

The method employed to pick these series considers two factors: Regular season efficiency differential (offensive efficiency minus defensive efficiency) and home court advantage.

Across the entire regular season, Dallas had a differential of 4.53 and the Thunder had a mark of 3.91.  And since Dallas has home court advantage, this should be an easy series to call.

Then again, as I noted before the playoffs started, “The Thunder’s post-All-Star break differential is 6.7. And that means the Thunder are comparable to the best teams across the entire regular season.”  The Thunder made an important trade in mid-season, so their improvement was not unexpected.  Since this team has clearly improved, it must mean the Thunder are the obvious choice.

Then again, I have been arguing since the end of the first round that we should also consider which players are actually playing in the playoffs.  The following table reports how many wins each team could have expected in the regular season given the allocation of minutes in the post-season (and performance in the regular season).

To put these numbers in perspective, the same exercise repeated for Miami and Chicago revealed that the playoff rosters employed by the Heat and Bulls would project to win 64.9 and 67.0 games across a complete season.  So both the Heat and Bulls appears to be better than the Western Conference Finalists, but the difference is not very large.  And that means, calling the NBA Finals is going to be difficult.

Of course, the NBA Finals are not nearly as difficult as the Western Conference Finals.  As one can see, the Thunder and Mavericks are essentially equal.  The Mavericks, though, do have home court advantage.  So I am picking Dallas to win in seven.

Again, though, this is very close.  Any of the four remaining teams in the NBA playoffs could appear in the Finals. And any of these teams could win the 2011 NBA title.

- DJ

I grew up in Detroit, and that means I am not a big fan of Chicago sports.  And I am especially not fond of the Chicago Bulls, the team the Pistons tormented in the late 1980s (only to have the favor returned in the 1990s).

But my participation in the TrueHoop Smackdown is forcing me to re-think my preferences.  Currently I am in 4^th place in the contest, just four points off the leader.

So far I have missed on three series (Atlanta over Orlando, Memphis over San Antonio, and Dallas over LA Lakers).  But in this contest, everyone missed on these series.  So a failure to identify the winner in each series hasn’t held me back.  What has held me back is a failure to correctly identify the length of each series (only did it once).

At this point there are only three series left to call.  And since most of us are picking the same winners every time, it seems unlikely that I can make up ground just picking who everyone else is picking.  So that means I have to do something different.  In other words, I have to start rooting for the Bulls.

As noted, I don’t like this pick.  If the Bulls win we have to keep hearing about…

• …the amazing Derrick Rose.  Yes he is good, just not as good as people are saying.
• …. LeBron’s move to Miami, which many people in the media hated.  I was not one of these people.  After all, people do get to choose their employer in this country.  And the failure of the Cavaliers to win with LeBron wasn’t really his fault.  Teams win titles.  Individual players do not win titles.

Plus, I would have guessed Miami would win the title before the season started.

Defending My Choice

But I don’t think I can win this contest picking the Heat.  Therefore, let me defend my choice of the Bulls.

The model I have used in the past has looked at regular season efficiency differential (offensive efficiency minus defensive efficiency) and home court advantage.  Efficiency differential for each team appears as follows:

Heat Efficiency Differential: 7.96

Bulls Efficiency Differential: 7.81

Miami has a slight advantage in differential.  The Bulls home court advantage, though, suggests that Chicago will win in seven games (my pick is Bulls in seven games).

Here is even more support for Chicago.  An issue I raised after the first round was that we should not just look at regular season efficiency differential, but also the specific players who are playing in the post-season.

The following table reports how many wins each team could have expected in the regular season given the allocation of minutes in the post-season (and performance in the regular season).

As one can see, the Wins Produced numbers also favor the Bulls.  The problem for the Heat is that Mike Miller and Udonis Haslem are really not available (and both are more productive than the non-Supermen who are playing).

Utah Jazz East

So I guess I am stuck with the Bulls.  Let me close with an additional defense of this pick.  The Bulls really are a combination of the 2009-10 Bulls and the 2009-10 Utah Jazz.  These two teams finished last season as the 8^th seed in the East and the 5^th seed in the West.  This past summer, while the world was focused on assembly of the Supermen in Miami, Chicago went about merging some of best talent from the Bulls and Jazz.  From the Utah Jazz the Bulls took Carlos Boozer, Kyle Korver, and Ronnie Brewer.   This trio was added to Derrick Rose, Joakim Noah, Luol Deng, and Taj Gibson.  These seven players produced 52.4 wins in 2010-11, or about 85% of the team’s total wins.

As a resident of Utah, maybe I should be rooting for the team that is really the Utah Jazz East.  In fact, that is how I am going to think about the Bulls.  When I see Chicago Red, I am going to imagine Utah navy and yellow.  In other words, I am going to pretend that I am not really rooting for Chicago.

- DJ

Here is something I meant to post sometime ago.  The sports writers name one MVP for the league.  But each team has an MVP, or at least, an MPP (Most Productive Player).  So let’s talk about all those MPPs.

And when I say talk, that’s exactly what I mean.  Today’s post is both a podcast and a written column.

Let’s begin with the details on the podcast.

You can listen to the podcast one of three ways:

• By downloading it from here.
• Subscribing to the RSS feed or
• Going to iTunes.

And here is the Cast:

• Dave Berri from the Wages of Wins Journal
• Mosi Platt (who led, recorded and assembled all the details on the podcast) from the Miami Heat Index
• Arturo Galletti from Arturo’s Silly Little Stats

Okay, let’s start with a listing of the MPP on each team in the NBA in 2010-11.

Here are some stories from this table (much of which we discussed in our podcast)

• As noted before, scoring and team wins dominate the MVP voting.  The players who received the most votes were the leading scorers on winning teams.  And Derrick Rose – the player named MVP – was the leading scorer on the team with the most wins.
• Of all the MPPs in the league, Derrick Rose had the most help.  The last column of the above table reports how many wins each team would have if the team’s MPP was replaced by a player who was only average (and average player has a Wins Produced per 48 minutes – or WP48 – of 0.100).  The Bulls are the only team that would still win 50 games with their MPP replaced by an average performer.  So once again, Rose is not a one-man team (an impression you get from the media’s coverage of Rose and the Bulls).
• If you replace Kevin Love with an average player, the Timberwolves are projected to win about three games.  In fact, Love produced more wins than Minnesota actually had in the standings.  How is that possible?  The key issue – as noted in the podcast – is that Wins Produced is derived from a team’s efficiency differential.  Without Love, Minnesota would be expected to have the lowest differential in league history.  Would that actually happen?  Well, there are diminishing returns in the NBA.  So some of Love’s teammates would get a bit better.  But the diminishing returns effect is not so large that Minnesota — without Love — couldn’t challenge the 1972-73 76ers for the worst record in the NBA.
• We made two more observations about Minnesota in the podcast.  First, Minnesota has done an amazing job of finding the least productive lottery picks in the NBA.  And secondly (a point related to the first observation), Kevin Love should probably try to get out of Minnesota as soon as possible.
• Two more observations from the table:  First, two teams – the Charlotte Bobcats and Utah Jazz – were led in Wins Produced by players who have departed from the team.  Meanwhile, three other teams – the Detroit Pistons, LA Clippers, and New York Knicks – were led by rookies.  That led us to ask the question: Will a rookie lead a team in Wins Produced in 2011-12 (assuming there is a next season)?  The next draft class looks weak, but our analysis of the draft is really just getting started.  Ian Levy – of Hickory High –has got the analysis started with his 2011 Draft Similarity Scores.  Look for more from Ian in the near future.

The podcast then moved on to topics beyond each team’s MPP.  Here is some of what we discussed.

• In memory of Robert “Tractor” Traylor, the podcast took a trip back in time to the 1998 draft when he was traded by the Milwaukee Bucks to the Dallas Mavericks for Dirk Nowitzki.
• Speaking of Nowitzki, he was the most productive player for the Mavericks as they swept the Los Angeles Lakers out of the playoffs. What does the future hold for the Lakers since Magic Johnson said the team needs to be blown up?
• What does the future hold for the Celtics since Doc Rivers said they need to add players after they were eliminated by the Heat in five games? The WoW Network’s resident Celtics fan (that would be Arturo) chimed in with his opinion.

We closed with a discussion of the Celtics.  Arturo’s optimism was offset by the following observation:  The Celtics had four player who produced more than ten wins each (Kevin Garnett, Rajon Rondo, Paul Pierce, and Ray Allen).  To put that in perspective, twelve teams –as the above table reveals – didn’t have one player with more than ten Wins Produced.  Unfortunately for the Celtics, three of their most productive players – Garnett, Pierce, and Allen – are 85 years of age (in basketball years).  So what is going to happen when these player inevitably stop playing? Well, Arturo has hope (which Mosi and Dave did their best to dash).

- DJ and Mosi Platt

The following is from Andres (Dre) Alvarez.

Were you surprised by Dallas beating LA?  For most people — including the Lakers — surprise is the right word.  But Arturo Galletti — the only person between the Wages of Wins Smackdown and Truehoop Smackdown that had Dallas winning this series — was clearly not surprised.  Most people, though, didn’t think Dallas would win.  So what the heck happened?

Series at a Glance

Table 1: 2011 Los Angeles Lakers Round 2 vs. Dallas Mavericks

In four games, the Lakers barely managed to eke out 1/10 of a win and not a single player was able to get into the average range (WP48 of 0.100 or higher) The reigning Finals MVP (that would be Kobe) put up negative numbers, the offseason additions of Barnes and Blake fell flat, and the dominant front court of Odom, Gasol and Bynum fizzled. Both by the numbers and any other account the Lakers utterly collapsed. What about their opponents?

Table 2: 2011 Dallas Mavericks Playoffs Round 2 vs. Los Angeles Lakers

The Mavericks had an almost perfect second round. Their team average WP48 was 0.190 (an 82 win team would have a WP48 of 0.200). And significant producers were found everywhere.  Dirk Nowitzki played like a star, Jason Terry led the charge off the bench, Barea and Peja lit up the Lakers from the outside, while Chandler and Haywood managed to contain Los Angeles’ powerful front court (while playing pretty well themselves). Yes, Marion and Kidd didn’t have terrific series, but they really didn’t need to given how well everyone else was playing.

Nothing is as it Seems

Calling both Dallas and Los Angeles contenders to end the season would not have been much of a stretch. After all these teams were the 2^nd and 3^rd seeds in the West,  both had 55+ wins, a former MVP, and even some Finals experience. It is certainly not a surprise to have one of these teams win head to head. What is surprising is to have one team play essentially perfect and other play completely terrible. Let’s take a look back at all the players that played in the playoffs for both teams (I limited this to players with at least 100 minutes in the playoffs). To make life even easier I cut up the season into bite sized portions; before the All-Star Break, after the All-Star Break, the 1^st round of the playoffs, the first three games of the 2^nd round and the 4^th game of the 2^nd round.

Table 3: Lakers WP48 2011 Chart

At a glance, going into round 2 the Lakers looked like a very strong and consistent team with their main players averaging around 0.150 WP48 (a 62 win team). This is slightly misleading however. At the start of the season Gasol and Odom were playing like Superstars and Kobe and Barnes were playing like Stars. After the All-Star break all of these players saw a decline. However the team numbers stayed the same in large part because Andrew Bynum was playing at an amazing level.

In the first round against the Hornets the Lakers kept up their team level of play. However, Andrew Bynum’s superhuman play had disappeared. Odom and Gasol had ceased being top big men in the league and were playing a little less than average. Kobe was playing a little above average but certainly not at star level. In sum, the terrifying four-headed beast of the Lakers was not playing well at all.

Of course, this was hidden due to the uncharacteristically good play of Artest and Blake. Going into battle against the Mavericks might have seemed troubling to Los Angeles fans (and again, was an issue for Arturo), and that troubled feeling proved to be correct.

The Lakers completely disappeared against the Mavericks. Bynum, Odom and Bryant managed to play above average in the first three games but nowhere near their regular season levels. Blake and Artest, the saviors of round 1 vanished and Gasol’s slump got even worse. In the deciding game 4, Gasol, Barnes and Brown showed up (kind of) but the rest of the team was gone.

Table 4: Mavericks WP48 2011 Chart

The Maverick’s story makes a little more sense. Going into the All-Star break the Mavericks were a good team with a WP48 of 0.136 (55 win team). After the All-Star Break, though, they played like a 70 win team. Unlike the Lakers there weren’t a lot of red flags here. Dirk came back from injury and played better (and played more minutes). Caron Butler went down with injury and Marion took over his minutes and made the most of them (so Butler’s injury really didn’t matter). Chandler and Kidd kept up their solid play and the Mavericks looked scary going into the playoffs.

In round 1 Dirk and Marion came back down to earth. Chandler played a bit worse but luckily Jason Kidd and Jason Terry stepped up their games (and the Mavericks played stellar ball to close out the Blazers in 6 games).

Against the Lakers is where things get fun. Nowitzki, Terry and Barea played at levels around twice their regular season numbers. Chandler and Kidd dropped even more but with Barea, Terry and Dirk tearing it up it wasn’t a huge hit. In the deciding game, Stojakovic and Terry decided to have amazing games. Barea and Dirk played even better and the Laker’s hope of a threepeat ended with a blowout.

Closing Thoughts

• Some may come out of this with the claim that Dallas wanted it more and their players turned it on as a result. This may be true (remember four games is a very small sample size). However, if Dirk had powers to up his game to Superstar status, why not do it earlier in the season or even in the first round against Portland? Similarly if Gasol had some weakness against tough situations, why didn’t he crumble the last two years as he led his team to two titles?

• This was likely a fluke. Barea, Stojakovic and Terry put up insane numbers nowhere close to their regular season averages. It seems unlikely this will happen every game as the playoffs continue or even another game in the playoffs.

• Kobe is not clutch and he is getting older. In 2008 Kobe played one of the worst game 6s in Finals history (although not as bad as Jason Terry’s in 2006). At the end of the Laker’s playoffs this season, Kobe was the worst player in the game. Kobe is a very good player but it is a myth to assume he has some killer instinct that makes him win more often than other players. I am curious if this game will help people remember that or if it will be conveniently forgotten.

With the dust settled the Lakers had some bad luck and a good team destroyed their finals hopes. It’s hard to feel too sorry for a team coming off two titles. Similarly I want to feel happy and optimistic for Dallas, but a similar story may be awaiting them.

-Dre

P.S. The Wages of Wins Network is doing a wrap up of every playoff series this season following Arturo’s 30-16-1 from last season. While some may be timelier than others (Orlando and Atlanta is still on the queue) you can read the ones we have completed here:

• Dre of Nerd Numbers with Bulls-Pacers
• Dre of Nerd Numbers with Thunder-Nuggets
• Mosi Platt of the Miami Heat Index with Heats-76ers
• Arturo of Arturo’s Silly Little Stats with Knicks-Celtics
• Arturo of Arturo’s Silly Little Stats with Spurs-Grizzlies

Additionally Arturo has been keeping track of advanced metrics for each game. You can find those on his site. I won’t list them all, but here is the one the day the Lakers fell

Would the NFL be Destroyed if the Players Won?  This is the question I ask (and I think I answer) in my latest for the Huffington Post.  It is my intention to comment again on the NFL’s labor dispute soon.

Of course, in this forum the focus tends to be basketball.  So for people wishing to hear something about “the Association”, here are my thoughts on the Lakers’ demise.

On Sunday the two-time defending NBA champs were swept out of the playoffs by the Dallas Mavericks.  The blow-out on Sunday led some to argue that the Lakers humiliated their coach (Phil Jackson), the team’s performance was inexcusable, the Lakers lost their cool, and the Lakers quit.

Although all of this might be true, some historical perspective might make fans of the Lakers feel a bit better (or it might not). 

Across the past 25 years, the NBA champs have had the following outcomes during the next season:

• Won title: 10 times
• Lost in NBA Finals: 3 times
• Lost in Conference Finals: 2 times
• Lost in 2^nd Round: 7 times
• Lost in 1^st Round: 2 times
• Did not make the playoffs: Once (Chicago Bulls in 1999)

Last year the Lakers had the most common outcome for a defending champion.  The Lakers won again.  This year they had the second most common outcome, a defeat in second round.

Of course, the Lakers weren’t just defeated.  They were swept out of the playoffs.  How often is a defending champion swept?

Perhaps surprisingly, this is not that uncommon.  Here is a list of defending champions who were swept out of the playoffs the next season:

• LA Lakers in 2011
• Miami Heat in 2007
• Houston Rockets in 1996
• Detroit Pistons in 1991
• LA Lakers in 1989

The Lakers in 89 lost to the Pistons in the NBA Finals.  The other four times a defending champ got swept, though, it happened before the team reached the Finals. 

What happened to the Lakers this past week reminded me of the Pistons back in 1991.  In both cases the defending champs suffered their worst loss in Game Four. And in both cases, the defending champs had to apologize after being swept for unsportsmanlike behavior.

So why does this happen?  Here is some speculation that I do not think I could empirically test (but I am tossing it out there anyway):

Four years ago I made the following observation about the NBA playoffs.  Players are paid for the regular season.  There is a pool of money that is paid out for playoff performance, but for most players, this money pales in comparison to what the player has already been paid.  This means that players are not really playing for money in the playoffs.  Players like Jason Kidd, Dirk Nowitzki, Kobe Bryant, Pau Gasol, and Lamar Odom (i.e. the top players on the Mavericks and Lakers) are really playing for pride and the desire to win an NBA title.

There is a problem, though, with this desire from the Lakers’ perspectives.  The Lakers have just won two titles.  Yes, Kobe would have like to Michael Jordan with six titles.  And yes, Gasol and Odom would like to win three.  But one suspects that the happiness the Lakers would have derived from another championship is not the same as the happiness they received from their first.   In others words – as we say in economics – there is diminishing marginal utility. 

When the series started, the Lakers and Mavericks looked to be fairly even.  My thinking was that the Mavericks could win, but since I thought the series would go to seven (again, I thought these teams were not very different in quality), I favored the Lakers (since LA would host the last game).

The first game was very close, but the Mavericks prevailed.  The Lakers were also competitive in games two and three, but again, the Mavericks prevailed. 

Prior to Game Four, the Lakers talked as if they were going to make history.  But to make history, they would have try very hard in four consecutive games.  And that would only earn them the right to play in two more series to win a title.  In contrast, the Lakers could just go through the motions and go home. 

In terms of costs and benefits….

• Costs: Try very hard for four games and then play at least eight more games (and maybe 14).
• Benefits: If you do all that, you will win yet another title.

Most players on the Lakers, though, already had two titles (if not more).  When we look at the costs and benefits, it seems easy to understand why the Lakers did what the Detroit Pistons did in 1991.  They didn’t try very hard.

Of course, part of them was very upset that they couldn’t find the will to put forward more effort. And that anger led some of the Lakers to physically attack the Mavericks.  Again, such unsportsmanlike behavior is the same thing we saw from the Pistons 20 years ago.

One should note, my explanation for the Lakers collapse (i.e. the happiness from an additional title was not enough to motivate a great deal of effort) is not the only possible explanation.   Andres (Dre) Alvarez has noted that teams that get swept tend to be older.  And I think Jeremy Britton might have yet another explanation (which I hope he puts in the comments).

Dre has also send along some analysis examining who exactly played well (and poorly) in this series.  Look for that post in a few hours.

- DJ