Tag Archives: Dwight Howard

Bill Simmons thinks the NBA title is a coin flip

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Hey! Make sure to put an asterisk next to LeBron if he wins anything!

Bill Simmons recently put up a post that is certainly meant to be controversial for the sake of controversy. In “Which NBA teams deserve a footnote” Simmons uses the shotgun approach to ensure he insults your team if it has won an NBA finals. This season the former MVP and the former Defensive Player of the Year have both ended up on the bench for the playoffs. Certainly the team out of the east and possibly the team that wins the finals should have this noted in the history books right?

I can’t actually disagree entirely. After all, part of being an NBA fan is nitpicking the tiny details to explain what happened. The truth is there are always random factors that impact the outcome! Players get injured or healthy at the right or wrong time (depending on your perspective) Players go hot or cold. A team gets reffed out of a game. A player foolishly jumps off the bench. I could go on and in fact Bill Simmons does…to the tune of 24 teams. The earliest team he lists is the 1965 Celtics. Including this season (which Simmons includes) there were 47 title teams to chose from in that time frame. Bill Simmons thus thinks over half of all NBA titles in the last five decades deserve to be explained in depth.

Here is where I can no longer really agree. Random stuff happens to impact the outcome of the playoffs. What’s more, no major league playoff system is even statistically significant. Here’s a good explanation from the Drunkard’s Walk.

If one team is good enough to warrant beating another in 55 percent of its games, the weaker team will nevertheless win a 7-game series about 4 times out of 10. And if the superior team could be expected to beat its opponent, on average, 2 out of each 3 times they meet, the inferior team will still win a 7-game series about once every five matchups…

In the lopsided [2 out 3] probability case, for example, you’d have to play a series consisting of at minimum the best of 23 games to determine the winner with what is called statistical significance…

The playoffs are inherently random! They can’t play enough games to guarantee the best team always wins. There can enough enough games to be enjoyable for fans and profitable for teams but expecting anything more is silly. Going one step further, we should quantify freak events. Namely, is a good player getting injured at or near the playoffs such a rare event we should really feel the need to point it out? Well not really. As Grantland points out, the history of the NBA is riddled with injuries near playoff time.

The end result is that Grantland is simply doing a clever trick that many blogs — including this one — use. It’s fun to make a subject sound controversial. All Simmons has said is that the playoffs and the eventual title winners in the NBA have a lot of randomness built in. By pointing out so many examples though, Simmons answers his own premise. There is no need for footnotes or asterisks next to title winners. A title on its own means a good team in the right circumstances was able to have a good run of games. To use this as a metric for best team or best player makes no sense. Individual teams don’t need asterisks next to their accomplishments. Perhaps though, the NBA title itself could use one.

-Dre

Faried is a beast and other lessons from the top 50 games of the season

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The Wages of Wins Network has been putting on a contest. If you can guess the individual performance before the end of the season you could win an awesome BounceX3 t-shirt, from BounceX3. The current leader is Matt Bailey (@hoopisms) from hoopism.com with the amazing pick of Kenneth Faried on April 9th against the Golden State Warriors. This game was truly spectacular with 27 points and 17 rebound performance from the Nuggets rookie. Even more extraordinary is that he did this in a mere 24 minutes of play. I thought I’d pull out the 50 best games so far this season and share some cool stories from them. Spoiler alert, Faried stars in a few.

Best rookie games

Now the Rubio vs. Irving thing that was so hot until Rubio got injured? Yeah, they’re not in the discussion. The Rookie of the Year race is honestly Leonard vs. Faried. While there is no way Faried will catch Kawhi Leonard on totals, especially with Karl underplaying him there is one category we can give Faried: top games. Faried is the only rookie to have posted a top 50 game this season, and what’s more he’s done it twice. On the 17th of March against Boston he put up an 18 point and 16 rebound night. Then on April 9th against Golden State he put up a 27 point and 17 rebound night. Speaking of multiple nights of greatness…

Players with encore performances

There have been 851 games played and in each of those games roughly 10-12 players from each side suit up. That means have a top 50 game would put you in the 99.4 percent. Of course, some players have managed to achieve this feat multiple times this season.

  • LeBron James – 4 top 50 games
  • Dwight Howard – 4 top 50 games
  • Chris Paul – 3 top 50 games
  • Stephen Curry – 3 top 50 games
  • Gerald Wallace – 2 top 50 games
  • Kenneth Faried – 2 top 50 games
  • Kevin Love -2 top 50 games
  • Kris Humphries – 2 top 50 games
  • Steve Nash – 2 top 50 games
  • Tyson Chandler – 2 top 50 games

Yet again Faried puts himself on an impressive list. Who knows, by the time the season is over maybe he’ll be at 3 or 4 as well?

Short but sweet

Ok so in my view the single most impressive thing about Faried’s two top 50 games is his playing time. Faried is the only player to put up a top 50 game with fewer than 24 minutes, and the only one to put up a top 50 game with fewer than 25 minutes. In fact, only four players put up a top 50 game with less than 30 minutes:

  • Kenneth Faried on March 17th against Boston in 23.6 minutes
  • Kenneth Faried on April 9th against Golden State in 24.1 minutes
  • Manu Ginobili on December 28th against the Los Angeles Clippers in 27.3 minutes
  • Steve Nash on February 1st against New Orleans in 28.9 minutes
  • Tyson Chandler on January 24th against the Charlotte Bobcats in 29.6 minutes

In fact, talking about short time frames, there’s yet another impressive list for Faried.

Age before beauty

There have only been four players aged 22 years or younger this season to post a top 50 game. Guess who shows up?

  • Greg Monroe – Born June 4th 1990 (age 21)
  • Paul George – Born May 2nd 1990 (age 21)
  • Kenneth Faried – Born November 19th 1989 (Age 22)
  • Serge Ibaka – Born September 18th 1989 (Age 22)
On the other end of the spectrum, only two players over the age of 35 managed to make the list. Guess who else shows up?
  • Steve Nash – Born February 7th 1974 (age 37)
  • Anthony Parker – Born June 19th 1975 (age 36)

Now, who you should have guessed was…

The contest still isn’t over. You can guess on any game before it starts until the end of the season. Of course I personally hope the Faried pick holds up as I was in fact wearing this shirt as he put up his major game. However, since we started the contest here are the only guesses that would rank as a top 50 game

  • Gerald Wallace against the Golden State Warriors on March 30th
  • Anthony Parker against the Milwaukee Bucks on April 4th
  • LeBron James against the Oklahoma City Thunder on April 4th
  • Raymond Felton against the Dallas Mavericks on April 6th
  • Kenneth Faried against the Golden State Warriors on April 9th
So for those of you that haven’t put in a guess yet, keep that in mind. Finally, here are the top 50 games. You can check out the specifics yourself at NerdNumbers.com

-Dre
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What’s been the game of the year?

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We’ve had some great guesses for the Wages of Wins Network Predict the Future win a BounceX3 T-Shirt contest. There’s still plenty of time to enter and dethrone the current leader – our own Arturo Galletti. Many of our guesses have been that great players that will beat up bad teams. It turns out had someone picked LeBron James vs. the Oklahoma City Thunder tonight (April 4th) they’d be largely in the lead. With that I decided it would be fun to vote on game of the season so far. I set up some criteria:

  1. It had to be a great game (duh) In this case I picked in top 50 (all players) for the season.
  2. It had to be against a great team.
  3. Bonus points were given for rivalry.

Here are the games I came up with (listed oldest to newest):

I’m using the Points version of Wins Produced – Points over Par. Put simply it’s the number of points a player gains their team in a game and it ties directly to the points margin. E.g. if a team wins by 5 points and your player gets a PoP of +2, then 2 of those points were from him.

LeBron James starts the season with a statement

On December 25th LeBron James put up a +14.6 PoP to open the season against Dallas. A statement game if ever there was one against the team that bested him in last year’s finals.

Impressive stats:

  • 37 Points on 67.6% True Shooting
  • 10 Rebounds, 3 Offensive
  • 6 Assists
  • 2 Steals and 2 Blocks

Derrick Rose makes a case for top guard

In his first matchup against the reigning best point guard  in the league, Rose came out with a major game. He put up a +14.1 PoP game on December 30th on the Clippers home turf no less.

Impressive stats

  • 29 Points on 77.0% True Shooting
  • 8 Rebounds, 3 Offensive
  • 16 Assists

Dwight Howard cools down the Heat

In a battle of the Southeast division Dwight Howard shut down the Heat single-handedly. He put up a +14.6 PoP in a home win versus the Miami Heat on February 8th.

Impressive Stats

  • 25 Points on 67.9% True Shooting
  • 24 Rebounds, 7 Offensive
  • 4 Assists
  • 3 Steals, 2 Blocks

Chris Paul takes down the Spurs

Nothing seems to stop the Spurs from being a top team. Despite age to Tim Duncan and injuries to Manu Ginobili the Spurs are still contending. That didn’t stop Chris Paul from putting up a +16.5 PoP on the the 9th of March on the Spurs home court.

Impressive stats

  • 36 Points on 75.1% True Shooting
  • 11 Assists
  • 4 Steals

LeBron takes an early lead in the Finals MVP vote

In a matchup between the favorites to make the finals, us fans got everything we could ask for. That included an amazing performance out of LeBron James that put the Heat in front of the Thunder on April 4th with a +15.1 PoP performance.

Impressive stats

  • 34 Points 66.1% True Shooting
  • 7 Rebounds, 1 Offensive
  • 10 Assists
  • 4 Steals

 What do you think?

Who deserves game of the year?

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If we’ve left someone off, let us know!

-Dre

 

 

Dwight Howard asks Orlando management to bark like a dog.

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Kelly Dwyer at Ball Don’t Lie found a nice Orlando story that says Dwight Howard wants Orlando Magic to let go of Stan Van Gundy if he is going to commit to the team. Recently the Magic and Dwight have been in a power struggle, with the Magic threatening to move Dwight if he didn’t commit. Dwight’s response was to not really commit and then mess with the Magic. When I read this piece it reminded me of a great scene in Coming to America:

This is clearly an example of a power struggle between the Magic and Dwight. Frankly, I do believe the Magic are dumb enough to trade a top big for a bad return. That said when we break it down, which of these two statements sounds more realistic?

Dwight Howard: “If the Magic don’t do what I want, I’ll just find another team to sign me to a max deal.

Orlando Magic: “If Dwight doesn’t do what we want, we’ll just find another top center in the league to sign to a max deal.”

I will agree that smart franchises find ways to keep stars, surround them with good talent, which leads to wining, and also to ignore bad advice from the star. In this case though, I’m curious if the Magic would lose anything agreeing with Dwight. Coaches don’t do much in terms of player growth and Van Gundy does very little in proper minute allocation. The Magic can keep up the staring contest with Dwight, which they will lose either way. Either they’ll cave to Dwight to keep him or they won’t cave and they lose Dwight. My advice, is to give Dwight this one. It won’t improve the team in terms of wins, but it might help keep them a star.

-Dre

 

Mid-season award watch

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Because of the lockout this year, each NBA team will only play a total of 66 games. After yesterday’s games, 24 of the league’s teams have played at least 33 games — or half of their regular season schedules. That means it’s a good time to see which players are in the running for the various awards that will be handed out at the end of the year.

Mid-season MVP: LeBron James

LeBron is absolutely running away with the MVP this year. According to Wins Produced, James has produced 9.4 wins for the Heat this season; the next closest player in the league is Tyson Chandler, who has produced 7.9 wins. Beyond that, there are only five players in the entire league who have managed to produce six or more wins: Dwight Howard (6.6), Kevin Love (6.5), Kevin Durant (6.3), Andre Iguodala (6.1), and Ryan Anderson (6.0). That means that LeBron has produced almost 50% more wins than the fourth-most productive player in the league, which is insane (Editor’s Note: Don’t you mean LINsane?). And it’s not just because he plays a lot of minutes — James has posted the highest WP48 of any player who has played significant minutes, so he’s the most productive player on a per-minute basis as well.

Don’t “believe” in Wins Produced? Then simply check out his numbers. Here’s how LeBron’s season stacks up against the years where he won the MVP (with last year thrown in for fun):

08-09** 09-10** 10-11 11-12 Average SF
PTS 36.2 36.5 33.1 36.2 19.1
FGA 25.4 24.7 23.3 23.8 16.4
FTA 12 12.5 10.4 11.9 4.3
TS% 59.1% 60.4% 59.4% 62.6% 52.3%
REB 9.6 9.0 9.2 10.6 7.3
STL 2.2 2.0 1.9 2.2 1.6
TO 3.8 4.2 4.5 4.8 2.6
Net Poss 8.0 6.8 6.6 8.0 6.3
AST 9.2 10.5 8.7 8.9 3.4
BLK 1.5 1.2 0.8 0.9 0.8
PF 2.2 1.9 2.6 2.2 3.4
WP48 0.362 0.350 0.283 0.387 0.100
Wins* 23.0 21.6 18.0 23.6 3.8

*Wins for the 2011-12 season pro-rated for an 82 game season for comparison’s sake

**Won MVP

LeBron is shooting fewer shots than he did during his MVP seasons, yet he is scoring about as much due to increased efficiency. His rebounding is also better, his steals and fouls remain unchanged, and his blocks, assists, and turnovers have taken a small downward turn. Once you put it all together, James is having a better year than he did when had 97% and 98% of the MVP votes.

LeBron is also the best player on the team that has the best record in the league. Failing that, LeBron is ranked second in the league in terms of points per game, trailing only the notoriously shot-happy Kobe Bryant. Some in the media may be tempted to give this award to Kevin Durant, who is the third leading scorer on the team with the second best record. While Durant has played exceptionally well, James has been even better. The big question is this: will these kind of numbers be enough to make those in the media forget their anti-LeBron bias?

Mid-season DPOY: Dwight Howard?

Usually this award goes to a rebounding and shot-blocking big man — the past winners of this award are a who’s who of defensive big men. Very few guards or small forwards have won this award; since 1990, Gary Payton and Ron Artest are the only “non-bigs” to win. This year’s top contenders seem to be Dwight Howard, Tyson Chandler, LeBron James, and Andre Iguodala. In order to help us make up our minds, I’ve included the defensive stats of the best defensive players on the best defensive teams (as measured by team defensive rating):

Player DREB BLK STL Team DRTG
Tyson Chandler 9.1 2.0 1.4 99.2
Marcus Camby 13.4 3.0 1.7 99.6
Andrew Bynum 13.0 2.8 0.7 100.7
Dwight Howard 14.7 2.7 1.8 101.2
Average Centre 9.3 2.0 1.3 103.1
Player DREB BLK STL Team DRTG
Josh Smith 10.3 2.9 2.2 100.5
Serge Ibaka 7.7 5.6 0.9 102.4
Average PF 8.0 1.6 1.4 103.1
Player DREB BLK STL Team DRTG
Andre Iguodala 7.4 0.7 2.5 97.0
Shawn Marion 6.1 0.8 1.6 98.3
LeBron James 8.9 0.9 2.2 100.2
Kawhi Leonard 6.6 0.8 2.6 103.2
Average SF 5.7 0.8 1.6 103.1
Player DREB BLK STL Team DRTG
Dwyane Wade 4.5 2.2 2.5 100.2
Average SG 4.4 0.4 1.6 103.1
Player DREB BLK STL Team DRTG
Tony Allen 3.9 1.1 3.5 100.5
Ricky Rubio 5.4 0.3 3.2 101.9
Kyle Lowry 5.8 0.5 2.7 103.3
Average PG 3.9 0.4 1.9 103.1

The guard/forwards with the best chance of nabbing this award are probably Andre Iguodala and Tony Allen; both are good defensive players with good defensive stats and on good defensive teams. Of the power forwards, Ibaka is only good (albeit very good) at shot blocking. Josh Smith posts numbers that would be impressive even if he was a centre. Of the centres, while Chandler’s individual defensive stats are not very impressive, Chandler has managed to help turn around the Knicks defense, which has gone from being the 22nd best defense to the 6th best defense. Camby’s per-minute stats are very good, but he just doesn’t play enough minutes. Likewise, Andrew Bynum posts Howard-esque numbers in fewer minutes. Dwight Howard looks to be the best of the centres, and personally, I tend to agree that the DPOY should be awarded to a big man. For this reason, my pick is Dwight Howard, but the award is far from wrapped up as far as I’m concerned. If the voters get tired of picking Dwight Howard year after year, I would expect Josh Smith to have a good chance of winning instead.

Mid-season ROY: Ricky Rubio

Ricky Rubio leads all rookies with 4.3 wins so far. With 4.0 wins, Kawhi Leonard is currently the only one giving him a serious run for his money. Of course, there is next to zero chance that Leonard will garner enough votes from the media to have any real shot at winning, because Leonard’s per-game points average won’t impress voters. In the actual vote, Kyrie Irving is the only rookie who has a chance of taking this one away from Rubio. That is because Irving scores a lot of points, and everyone loves points. While Irving has been a good rookie — he’s bounced between the third and fourth most productive rookie all season long — he’s a far cry from Rubio and Leonard. Other pseudo-contenders — players who shouldn’t be in the discussion, but probably will be — include MarShon Brooks, Kemba Walker, and Brandon Knight.

Player WP48 Wins PPG
Ricky Rubio 0.174 4.3 11.3
Kawhi Leonard 0.244 4.0 7.1
Gustavo Ayon 0.247 2.4 5.8
Kyrie Irving 0.114 2.1 18.1
Nikola Vucevic 0.213 1.9 6.6
Chandler Parsons 0.104 1.8 7.7
MarShon Brooks 0.081 1.3 14.6
Kemba Walker 0.022 0.4 13.3
Brandon Knight 0.003 0.1 12.8

Mid-season 6th MOY: James Harden

Another James is on track to land an award: James Harden has produced 5.3 wins so far this season — good for 13th best in the league — but has only started two games this year. That means that he is the front-runner for the 6th Man award, which is given to the best player who comes off the bench more often than he starts. Voters love to vote for who they think is the best bench player on a contending team, so it doesn’t hurt Harden’s chances with the media that he is on the Thunder, who have the league’s second-best record. It also doesn’t hurt that Harden’s per-game scoring average is impressive as well. Nicholas Batum — who has produced 4.5 wins in three starts himself — is Harden’s closest competitor at the moment. Kawhi Leonard is currently in third place for this award as well, but he is dangerously close to failing the criteria (more games off the bench than starts) and — as with the ROY — isn’t likely to get many votes. The other contenders for this award either don’t have a high enough PPG to be considered by the media or play for a team with a worse record. As far as pseudo-contenders go — players who will be considered for the award, but shouldn’t be in the discussion — Jason Terry probably has the best chance of stealing Harden’s hardware.

Player Wins Start% PPG Team Winning %
James Harden 5.3 6.1% 16.8 78.8%
Nicholas Batum 4.5 8.8% 13.9 52.9%
Kawhi Leonard 4.0 48.5% 7.1 69.7%
Matt Barnes 2.9 51.6% 7.2 60.6%
Andre Miller 2.5 17.6% 10.3 52.9%
Jason Terry 2.4 0.0% 14.8 61.8%
O.J Mayo 1.4 0.0% 11.9 55.9%
Jamal Crawford 1.0 5.9% 14.2 52.9%
Al Harrington -0.2 2.9% 14.5 52.9%

Mid-season MIP: Nikola Pekovic

Last year Nikola Pekovic was not a very productive player; in fact, Pekovic played so poorly that he actually generated losses for his team. But this season Pekovic is one of the most productive players in the league, finally helping (along with Kevin Love and Ricky Rubio) the Timberwolves return to relevance. Ryan Anderson shows up second on this list, largely due to an increase in playing time, although he has improved his per-minute productivity as well. Andrea Bargnani is third — he’s still well below average…just not nearly as much as he was in the past. The increased playing time and productivity of Mario Chalmers has helped the Heat with their “point guard problem” (now if only they could solve their centre problem!), and the list is rounded out by two young Thunder players, James Harden and Kevin Durant.

Player 2010-11 WP48 2010-11 Wins 2011-12 WP48 2011-12 Wins* Change (Wins)
Nikola Pekovic -0.080 -1.5 0.295 8.9 10.4
Ryan Anderson 0.224 6.6 0.279 14.5 7.9
Andrea Bargnani -0.126 -6.2 0.039 1.0 7.2
Mario Chalmers 0.072 2.4 0.188 8.7 6.3
James Harden 0.154 7.0 0.246 13.2 6.2
Kevin Durant 0.160 10.1 0.242 15.7 5.6

*Wins for the 2011-12 season pro-rated for 82 games for comparison’s sake

So there’s all you could ask for in a midseason award watch. As you’re all aware when the voters do vote it will not be all on the stats. Well, likely they will use one stat heavily, but it is unlikely it will be purely driven by player performance. That said, it is nice that this year many of the more deserving players mesh with conventional wisdom. We’ll have to see if that remains true as the season progresses.

- Devin