Tag Archives: LeBron James

News Flash: LeBron James is amazing!

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A Familiar Face at the top

This news shouldn’t be anything new. In the odd worlds of using a player’s jewelry to define their legacy, sometimes a player’s actual performance gets lost. There is a lot to make fun of about LeBron, including the decision and his hairline. That said, it’s hard to debate he’s an amazing player. Something truly remarkable is LeBron’s great games so far in the playoffs.

Wins Produced breaks down how a player’s stats translate into wins. This can be confusing for individual games. Arturo decided to take a step back and translate wins into points, more specifically the edge any player gives their team. An average player would have a Points over Par (PoP) of 0.0. They’re not helping you but they’re not hurting you. For reference here’s the scale:

  • Average Player: PoP +0.0
  • Star: PoP +2.5
  • Super Star: PoP +5.0

A superstar gives your team a five point edge being on the court. With this scale in hand let’s point something out. LeBron James has played 10 playoff games so far this season. In 4 of them, he’s put up a PoP of +10!

Date Opponent Pos MP PoP/48 PoP
 4/28  vs. Knicks 3.7 31.7 +22.3 +14.7
 5/20  @Pacers 3.8 43.9 +13.2 +12.1
 5/13  vs. Pacers 3.5 43.2 +12.7 +11.4
 5/22 vs. Pacers 3.8 38.1 +13.7 +10.9

LeBron’s playoff performances this season have been great. On a scale where +5.0 is good, LeBron is off the charts! The key ingredients tend to be home games where he plays bigger. Both Indiana and Boston/Philadelphia should be very afraid.

-Dre

Why the Heat won without Bosh

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"Wade, is something missing?" "Doesn't matter"

When Bosh went down in the first game against the Pacers there was fear about what would happen. The Heat wound up in a 2-1 hole and there were lots of tales being spun. Let’s review a few key concepts though:

  • LeBron James is amazing and can play multiple positions
  • Dwyane Wade is amazing and his playing well impacts the Heat’s success
  • Things like the Bosh effect are possible but unlikely.

With a convincing win to even up the season, let’s see if these hold up. Same old disclaimer: This is a small sample size but we’re sports fans and waiting until the playoffs are completely done to discuss them isn’t fun.

LeBron is amazing and can play multiple positions

Arturo’s claim was that not only could the Heat handle the loss of Bosh as a big, they had a great alternative. They could simply have LeBron James handle playing more PF and he would do that spectacularly. In the three games since Bosh has gone down here are LeBron’s per 48 minute stats compared to an average power forward’s. Stats after Points over Par are listed in order of importance.

Stat LeBron James Average PF
PoP +6.9  0.0 
Steals  3.8 1.2 
Assists  6.4  2.4 
Personal Fouls  0.8  4.5 
Net Points  1.9  1.2 
Offensive Rebounds  4.2  3.6 
Defensive Rebounds  8.7  7.9 
Blocks  0.8  1.6 
Turnovers  4.2  2.4 

With the exception of blocks and turnovers Bron has done everything a power forward is supposed to do. He also brings his amazing ball handling skills to the table too. An interesting note is that while Bron has been scoring and rebounding well, the key driver in his production has been his steals, passing and the fact that he hasn’t been fouling! Alright, so Bron can clearly play a big man. In fact he’s able to play it at a level not seen since Elgin Baylor in 1961! The skills of a point guard in the body of a big man is a recipe for success.

Dwyane Wade is amazing his play matters to the Heat’s success

Dwyane Wade is a great player. A key component behind behind a great player is that your play impacts your team’s performance. After all, if Wade played terribly and the Heat still played great then it would be hard to argue he mattered. When the Heat tied up the series with the Pacers it turns out that Wade played very well. In fact, behind Bron’s 40-18-9 performance was a great Wade.

Miami Heat’s top performers on 2012-05-20

Player Pos MP PoP/48 PoP/G
LeBron James 3.8 43.9 +13.2 +12.1
Dwyane Wade 1.8 40.8 +10.9 +9.2

Wade scored 30 points on 58.5% true shooting and also had six assists. As you may recall,  Wade’s primary drivers in his performance are scoring and passing. With him back to old levels the Heat took down the Pacers. Now what about the Bosh effect?

The Bosh effect

Chris Yeh decided to take a microscope to the small sample size of games without Bosh and with Wade.  The following is all his analysis.

The full season totals for Bron, Wade and Bosh was as follows:

As we’d expect: LeBron kicks ass, Wade’s pretty good, Bosh sucks. Now let’s look just at the three stretches where Bosh missed games:

March 1-4 (3 games)

  • LeBron: +12.8
  • Wade: +1.3

April 18-26 (6 games)

  • LeBron: +10.6
  • Wade: +5.5
In the regular season, LeBron played even better in Bosh’s absence, while Wade was pretty good. Then came the playoffs:

May 15-17 (2 games)

  • LeBron: +3.5
  • Wade: -7.5

Wow. LeBron has been a poor man’s Matt Barnes, while Wade has been worse than regular season Juwan Howard (-7.1). The only worse player on the Heat? Eddy Curry. All conclusions subject to the law of small numbers, but it looks like there is no Bosh Effect. In the regular season, his absence didn’t negatively impact the Heat’s Big Two. The Pacers just stuck it to the Heat. Thanks Chris!

Summing up

Wade really matters to the Heat’s success. This is not anything new. If Wade plays poorly the natural response is to ask why. It’s possible he just had a bad game or two. It’s possible he’s injured. Yes, it’s even possible that the lack of Bosh is why he’s played worse. All I can say is that when trying to explain a player’s performance that going for the least likely explanation first may not make the most sense. This is even more true when there is pretty much no evidence that the least likely explanation is even true. Heat fans should be happy that Wade appears to be back and that the Bosh effect may not exist. We’ll have to wait and see how this series plays and then we can overanalyze two or three games.

-Dre

 

 

Explaining the Heat “collapse”

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I pushed Arturo to get his piece in on why the Heat don’t need Bosh before the game yesterday. It was thus appropriate that the Heat fell on their home court to the Indiana Pacers. I have trouble calling a three point loss a collapse, but I thought I’d give insight into how Arturo was right that the Heat didn’t need Chris Bosh and how they could somehow lose without him playing.

Small sample size warning. This is looking at super small sample sizes in the playoffs. If you’d like more comprehensive analysis of long term data, I welcome you to peruse our archives. If you are like most basketball fans that are enjoying the playoffs though, and want quick answers then read on!

The stat we use for games is Points over Par, don’t freak out! This is the Wins Produced you know and love. Arturo has kindly converted wins to points though, so it will make more sense for a single game. Notice the Heat won by 9 and lost by 3 and that Points over Par adds up to that. Fun right?

The Heat against the Pacers on 5-13-2012 w/ Bosh

Player Pos G MP PoP/48 PoP/G
LeBron James 3.5 1 43.2 12.7 11.4
Joel Anthony 5.0 1 23.6 8.3 4.1
Mike Miller 2.5 1 28.5 2.5 1.5
Mario Chalmers 1.0 1 31.4 0.9 0.6
Ronny Turiaf 5.0 1 10.3 -1.6 -0.3
Chris Bosh 4.9 1 15.8 -3.0 -1.0
Dwyane Wade 1.6 1 40.4 -1.3 -1.1
Shane Battier 2.6 1 23.9 -2.9 -1.4
Udonis Haslem 4.0 1 22.9 -9.6 -4.6
Total 1 240 9.1 9.1

The Heat on 5-15-2012 against the Pacers w/o Bosh

PLAYER POS G MP POP/48 POP/G
LeBron James 3.8 1 42.8 11.0 9.8
Norris Cole 1.0 1 17.1 10.1 3.6
Shane Battier 2.8 1 32.8 5.1 3.5
Dwyane Wade 1.8 1 37.4 0.2 0.1
Joel Anthony 5.0 1 35.0 -1.9 -1.4
James Jones 2.5 1 10.4 -7.8 -1.7
Ronny Turiaf 5.0 1 12.6 -6.7 -1.8
Udonis Haslem 4.0 1 12.3 -7.9 -2.0
Mike Miller 2.5 1 17.1 -14.4 -5.1
Mario Chalmers 1.0 1 22.5 -17.1 -8.0
Total 1 240 -3.0 -3.0

Bron was still amazing

Arturo’s thesis was that Bron could move up to the four and still play amazing. This happened. True, he had a better game one than game two, but he was still an elite player in both games (in fact he was twice as good as Arturo’s cutoff for being elite)

The rest of the Heat went missing

In game one Bosh was not actually productive, so his loss wasn’t the key culprit. Mike Miller, Mario Chalmers and Dwyane Wade have been the other great players pulling the Heat in the playoffs. This was true in round one against the Knicks and was true in game one as well. However, Miller, Chalmers and Wade did not play up to their normal levels and that had to hurt in a close loss.

Coaching freaked out

The Heat’s good players had off games. There is one important follow up on that. Sure you don’t ever bench Dwyane Wade. However, when Chalmers and Miller are having bad games what do you do? Well in this case the answer was to give more minutes to Cole and Battier. Now to be fair Battier and Cole did have good games. The point is you can’t freak out when your players are having off nights. In fact, the coach of the year has one of my favorite sound bytes to that effect.

Summing up

The Heat lost because they were missing some key players. None of these was Chris Bosh. Bron was easily able to take on the role he needed to. It is possible that Bosh’s absence influenced the team chemistry of all of the other players. However, I severely doubt that. As is true with most teams if three of your top six players have an off night against a top seeded team, you may lose. The Heat still almost pulled it out. It’s tempting to believe the Heat might fall apart from here on out. Of course, anyone that thinks that hasn’t been watching them this season.

-Dre

Melo forgets to show up for the playoffs

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Writing about a top seed defeating a low seed isn’t exactly thrilling. While this series has had some drama, the simple fact is it ended just like everyone expected. We’ll do our due diligence though and wrap up the series and throw at least a few insults Melo’s way.

The Knicks leave their front court in the past

2012 New York Knicks Playoffs Round 1 Totals

Player Pos G MP WP48 WP PoP/48 PoP/G
Jerome Jordan 5.0 1 3.7 0.662 0.05 17.5 1.3
Mike Bibby 1.0 5 118.1 0.184 0.45 2.6 1.3
Toney Douglas 1.0 1 8.3 0.244 0.04 4.5 0.8
Landry Fields 2.4 5 115.0 0.082 0.20 -0.5 -0.3
Steve Novak 3.6 5 94.7 0.072 0.14 -0.8 -0.3
Jared Jeffries 4.3 5 33.7 0.027 0.02 -2.2 -0.3
Tyson Chandler 5.0 5 166.6 0.070 0.24 -0.9 -0.6
Josh Harrellson 4.5 4 24.9 -0.051 -0.03 -4.7 -0.6
Amare Stoudemire 4.3 4 139.0 0.051 0.15 -1.5 -1.1
Baron Davis 1.0 4 97.4 -0.096 -0.19 -6.1 -3.1
Carmelo Anthony 3.3 5 204.1 -0.023 -0.10 -3.8 -3.2
Iman Shumpert 1.5 1 19.3 -0.209 -0.08 -9.6 -3.9
J.R. Smith 2.0 5 175.1 -0.186 -0.68 -8.9 -6.5
Total 5 1200 0.008 0.21 -14.1 -14.1

As always, to try and get a handle on the Knicks playoffs hopes we’d want to look at the top six of their roster. Let’s take quick rundown of the Knicks top players courtesy of the NBA Geek

Player Pos GP MP WP48 Wins
Tyson Chandler C 62 2061 0.311 13.34
Landry Fields SG 66 1894 0.170 6.71
Carmelo Anthony SF 55 1876 0.104 4.05
Steve Novak PF 54 1020 0.143 3.04
Jeremy Lin PG 35 940 0.131 2.56
J.R. Smith SF 35 967 0.108 2.19
Jared Jeffries PF 39 729 0.124 1.88

The Knicks top six consisted of an amazing Tyson Chandler, a very good Landry Fields, an average Melo, and an assortment of above average role players. Of course, Jeremy Lin managed to have a hot streak for the Knicks before getting injured. In the playoffs there were a few problems:

The Knicks had no point guard. Behind Lin the Knicks had nothing. Mike Bibby and Baron Davis both got major minutes. Bibby did indeed surprise a few people, but this was not a good recipe for success.

Amare came back. Amare has not been good in a while. Playing Melo at the 4 (which seemed to work well during Amare’s injury) or giving Jeffries or Novak more time seemed like a good idea. Instead the Knicks moved Melo back to the three, where Bron shuts down everyone, and left Jeffries on the bench.

The Knicks stars were mediocre The players pulling the Knicks this season have been Fields and Chandler. Fields has been up and down and against Dwyane Wade and LeBron James he did not play at a top level, which might be understandable. But Chandler not showing up is surprising. The Heat’s one weakness is supposed to be a lack of a legitimate big and Chandler wasn’t able to exploit that.

The former Nuggets didn’t show Melo and J.R. are filled to the brim with talent. Their problem, as Dan Filowitz has keenly observed, is their decision making skills. Sadly, the talented players did not show up and J.R. and Melo were two of the worst players for the Knicks.

Be afraid of the Heat

2012 Miami Heat Playoff Round 1 Totals

Player Pos G MP WP48 WP PoP/48 PoP/G
LeBron James 3.6 5 189.2 0.225 0.89 3.9 3.1
Dwyane Wade 1.8 5 179.4 0.215 0.80 3.6 2.7
Mario Chalmers 1.0 5 179.9 0.200 0.75 3.1 2.4
Mike Miller 2.5 5 116.0 0.234 0.56 4.2 2.0
Shane Battier 2.7 5 138.2 0.191 0.55 2.9 1.7
Chris Bosh 4.9 5 166.8 0.178 0.62 2.5 1.7
Joel Anthony 5.0 5 85.0 0.170 0.30 2.2 0.8
James Jones 2.5 4 19.8 0.245 0.10 4.5 0.5
Udonis Haslem 4.0 5 95.2 0.110 0.22 0.4 0.1
Norris Cole 1.0 3 18.1 0.060 0.02 -1.2 -0.2
Ronny Turiaf 5.0 1 7.2 0.043 0.01 -1.7 -0.3
Juwan Howard 4.0 1 5.2 -0.624 -0.07 -22.5 -2.4
Total 5 1200 0.190 4.76 14.2 14.2

With top Chicago Bulls dropping like victims in a horror film, the East seems to be merely a warm up to the Heat returning to the finals. There’s not too much surprising about this. For Heats fans in a gloating mood, let’s go down the list though.

Having the MVP in the playoffs is a good thing LeBron is the league MVP. Having that kind of player on your team in the playoffs is huge. His first series was up and down, but he’s already recorded one of the top games of the playoffs, leaving the Heat in a good spot.

Chris Bosh may be back Bosh’s play was iffy this season, but he played rather well in this series against one of the top centers in the league. If he keeps up his great play, the Heat may be unstoppable.

The Heat finally have health to their role players Few realize just how good the Heat could have been last season if not for injuries. Heading into the playoffs Haslem, Miller and Battier seem to be doing fine and that’s huge.

Chalmers has matured and Cole is on the bench Chalmers growth has been bumpy but this season he’s finally been playing well. Cole has been one of the few sore spots on this otherwise fantastic team. Luckily, Chalmers has kept it up and Cole has been left on the bench.

Summing up

In the battle between Melo and Bron, Bron took this easily. The Knicks got to end their drought of playoff wins at least, which had been going on for over a decade. The Knicks have bigger problems with which players will be able to come back next season and which will stick around. As for the Heat, we’ll just have to see if they’re for real when they take on the Pacers

-Dre

How Durant won a not so close scoring race against Kobe.

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The real scoring race finish

Rank Player G Total/G
1 Kevin Durant 66 5.0
2 LeBron James 63 4.7
3 James Harden 62 4.1
4 Tyson Chandler 63 3.3
5 Kevin Love 57 3.0
6 Andrew Bynum 61 2.9
7 Chris Paul 61 2.7
8 Steve Nash 62 2.5
9 Dirk Nowitzki 62 2.4
10 Ryan Anderson 62 2.4

Coming into the last day of the season the scoring race between Kevin Durant and Kobe Bryant was tight. Kobe needed 38 points to take the scoring title from Durant. I was completely prepared to hear David Robinson comparisons if Kobe blew out Sacramento.  Then Kobe sat out against Sacramento and Durant narrowly won the scoring title, which is defined by the NBA as the player that leads in points per game.

To call it a scoring race between Durant and Kobe is ridiculous. Simply comparing how many points two players score doesn’t actually tell you much. In fact, that is the very essence of the Yay Points! thesis. Scoring points matters but how you score them matters too.

A point is a valuable commodity, but it is not the only stat in basketball that matters. Using points as a form of currency can we put a value on the other stats in basketball? The answer is yes and that doing so is very good at explaining winning. When we look at the cost of a shot in basketball it actually costs the team around a point. This is because a shot gives up possession of the ball and the exchange rate for possessions to points is roughly one. It is the case that a free throw attempt is worth less than half a point and this is because around half the time the free throw doesn’t result in a change of possession.

Leaving out shot attempts and free throw attempts leaves out a very important piece of information needed when evaluating players. It turns out that in terms of the scoring race that Durant is in first place, the same story can’t be told for Kobe.

Let’s do a quick breakdown. If we take the number of points a player gets, subtract the number of field goal attempts (remember a point is worth a shot) and subtract 44% of their free throw attempts we see how many NET points (pun intended) a player earns us. As a last step if we divide by games played we get the real rundown of the scoring race.

Rank Player G PPG Cost/G Total/G
1 Kevin Durant 66 28.0 -23.0 5.0
2 LeBron James 63 26.7 -22.1 4.7
3 James Harden 62 16.8 -12.8 4.1
4 Tyson Chandler 63 11.1 -7.8 3.3
5 Kevin Love 57 25.1 -22.1 3.0
6 Andrew Bynum 61 18.4 -15.5 2.9
7 Chris Paul 61 19.5 -16.8 2.7
8 Steve Nash 62 12.5 -10.0 2.5
9 Dirk Nowitzki 62 21.6 -19.2 2.4
10 Ryan Anderson 62 15.8 -13.4 2.4
… … … … … …
… … … … … …
38 Carlos Boozer 66 15.0 -13.7 1.3
39 Kobe Bryant 61 26.5 -25.2 1.3
40 Mario Chalmers 64 9.8 -8.5 1.3
41 Tony Parker 61 18.0 -16.6 1.3
42 Rodney Stuckey 58 11.2 -9.9 1.3
43 Devin Harris 64 9.1 -7.9 1.3

On a points per game basis, sure Kobe is near the top of the heap. The trick is he takes the most shots. Combine his shots and free throws and he’s spending 25.2 points a game (while earning 26.5 points a game) This is two more shots a game than Durant and three more a game than LeBron and Love (his closest competitors). Put it all together and Kobe isn’t in the same field as Durant and Bron (the real winners in the scoring race.) No, Kobe is in the same company as Chalmers, Tony Parker, Rodney Stuckey and Devin Harris. We should note Tony Parker has also been getting a lot of credit too. He is in essence a Kobe Light.

We should point out the NBA set the rules on the scoring title. Teams pay for points per game. Kobe is doing the best strategy to maximize his value. As fans we want wins and titles. Of course for most player their ability to make a big dent on their team wins is little and for any player the odds of a title are low. I might be able to criticize Kobe for not scoring effectively but that’s much like him criticizing this blog for its lack of articles on cricket. While Kobe’s scoring may make Laker fans unhappy as it doesn’t help them win, the real villain is the NBA and its management. By putting an award based just on points per game, and hosting All-Star games for top scorers and paying ludicrous salaries to the top scorers, why wouldn’t Kobe (and others) race to score inefficiently?

-Dre