LeBron James is producing the NBA’s first ever fashion show
February 11, 2015Where is the Browns stock one year since Banner
February 11, 2015In case you didn’t see the latest installment of TNT’s nationally televised basketball games, Charles Barkley went off on Houston Rockets GM Daryl Morey and his use of advanced analytics in making decisions. According to Barkley, math is for nerds who don’t get women, and Morey’s success isn’t because of numbers; it’s because he signed quality players like Dwight Howard, James Harden and Trevor Ariza. While Barkley is entertaining and a legend in his own right, he’s effectively turned into the basketball equivalent of Kanye West, spouting opinions regardless of how absurd they make him look.
Flip the script over to the Cleveland Cavaliers, and you can argue that they’re not better due to analytics; they acquired a handful of talented players and are now buying in to what it takes to produced sustainable success. (Do this while completely ignoring the fact that it was analytics that led the Cavaliers to the players whom they acquired.) We know that the Cavs have been great over the last 14 games, but just how great? Let the incredibly hard-working folks at Basketball Breakdown paint the picture.
- Before LeBron James’ two-week rest period, Cleveland was outscoring opponents by 4.7 points per 100 possessions with him on the court, a decent figure, but since his return they are now massacring teams to the tune of a plus-18.0 differential.
- The Cavs are defending at a per-possession rate that would tie the Portland Trail Blazers’ fourth-ranked league-wide mark on the year with LeBron on the floor since his return, and units with both him and Timofey Mozgov would easily rank as the NBA’s best season-long defense in this time.
- According to SportVu, Mozgov alone has caused average opponent field goal percentages to drop by 6.1% within six feet of the hoop since joining the Cavs.
- Mozzy hasn’t been all defense, however. Of the 70 buckets Mozgov has collected since arriving in Cleveland, nearly a full third have been assisted directly by LeBron James. He’s shooting roughly 60% as the roll man in all pick-and-roll sets, which would be among the league’s elite here if he continued at this pace the rest of the season.
- JR Smith is shooting 38.6% on all open threes. Roughly three quarters of his attempts from deep have come without a defender within four feet of him.
- Don’t forget Iman Shumpert. Though taking fewer treys than JR Smith, he’s hitting at a 40 percent clip since arriving in Cleveland.
The most recent film room showed how the Cavaliers have changed their defensive style since Mozgov arrived. Over this stretch, many have estimated that the team is allowing 10 fewer points per game (per 100 possessions), that has easily been the deciding factor between wins and losses.
According to the piece (which is more than worthy of your time), the Cavaliers are shooting well above league average on contested jump shots, something that’s highly unlikely to be sustained. They also referenced the “puzzling case” of Kevin Love, who, upon returning to the All-Star level he’s played at for so long, could easily make this team’s offense even more lethal than it’s been. It’s crazy to think that a team which has won 13 of its last 14 games could potentially get better if health stays in their favor.
32 Comments
I think your examples of the Cavs’ trades agrees with Charles – the conventional wisdom would say the Cavs needed a rim protector – Mozgov. Waiters isn’t a good 3-point shooter – exchange him for JR Smith. The wing defense is bad – Shumpert. No analytics required to come up with any of that, right?
Great points above. Also, I found it interesting that 5thirty8 had their analytic team push the Cavs above the Hawks for the first time this season. They are a forward looking tool whereas the Hollinger rating where the Cavs still lag slightly behind is a backward looking tool.
I just find it interesting that with all the media-panic about the team, they are at or near the top of the conference for the stretch run as everyone expected.
http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/nba-power-ratings-and-playoff-odds-the-clippers-fall-as-do-strangely-the-hawks/
Conventional wisdom is not thrown out with analytics, it is defined.
Who is a good rim protector? we have analytics for that
Who is a good wing defender? we have analytics for that
Who is good at hitting specific types of 3pt shots? we have analytics for that
What is Dion struggling at with the team? we have analytics for that
And, please note that the best analytics only truly work if you also have good basketball people watching them and using them to confirm what they see (or help guide them to particular players to watch). If you try to do only one, then you are likely going to miss something.
Don’t you mean Daryl Morey, OB/GYN?
Exactly. This is what both Morey and Barkley are ignoring. “Analytics” is not some voodoo that tells you, well, actually, Lebron James is a mediocre player. It doesn’t create information that is different from what your eyeballs tell you. Analytics provides a vocabulary to refine the ideas we already have, which in turn expands into conceptual tools that enhance our ability to process information.
perfect
Morey has come out and made a similar statement to Barkley condemning, well, I guess, general scouting?
“the Cavaliers are shooting well above league average on contested jump shots, something that’s highly unlikely to be sustained”
I think this is true, but I think this stat will still stay a good bit above league average, simply because we have players who seem to relish shooting contested jumpers. This is merely from the eye test, but it sure seems to me like LeBron and JR Smith are two guys who seem to shoot BETTER when they are being guarded versus when they are wide open. LeBron especially… he seems to be a fairly poor catch-and-shoot 3-point shooter whereas he seems to continually bury the ones where he sits in the triple-threat for several seconds before pulling up to shoot. Kevin Love always seems to hit that mid-range shot where he pulls up from the triple-threat as well. And Kyrie Irving does something that brings a smile to my face every time it happens… if he crosses someone up, gets them falling backwards, then shoots the jump shot, he has to make that shot with like 80-90% efficiency no matter where he is on the floor. You just KNOW the shot is going in when he breaks a guy’s ankles.
Watch the TNT spot and it’s pretty obvious Barkley’s rant wasn’t spontaneous, but set up by Ernie’s cue to him that “metrics show” … Nothing but a time-worn “old school/new school” act that misses the point. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2asGeItzGWM
Sure, Chuck, your sainted Popovich never looks at analytics before sending a scout to watch a European, Pops never asks the Spurs stat guy to chart players, he just goes with can play/can’t play. You know what else is analytics? Free throw and 3-point shot percentage. Shall we actually count points or just trust our eyes?
Barkley is always entertaining, but I hope we recognize when TNT is just doing shtick and not respond substantively to something more intended to create Chuckles than thought..
I’m sure Ernie knew he was teeing up Barkley, and I’d agree that it’s not completely spontaneous – even these guys almost certainly go over the topics they want to cover before the cameras start rolling – but I’m not sure it’s an act. Barkley has made it clear many time in the past that he’s willing to die on this hill.
The downside of always blindly trusting analytics is that there is no mention of the fact that the Cavs completely overhauled the way the play defense since they got Mozgov.
And it’s not a chicken/egg scenario necessarily because we don’t know how well Cleveland would have defended pre-trade if they played normal pick-and-roll defense like they do now.
Didn’t mean to disparage these new analytics (I do like using them, myself), but I feel they can be misused too often.
Didn’t see that. Is there a link or anything? It must be fun to make fun of Charles
Or maybe a team that is shooting below league average continues to be terrible, thus maintaining the average l.
Or….maybe the lower-ranked teams all start shooting really well, this raising the league average and making the Cavs closer to the league average just by maintaining the status quo.
Numbers: I can make them say anything I want.
james mediocre, you my man and an idiot
Have you ever been to a magic show where they pick someone out of the crowd? News flash: in entertainment it’s NEVER off the cuff.
Him, your man, and an idiot doing what?
I’m asking myself. I find it incredibly unlikely that Morey is ignoring anything, especially to the extent that Barkley is. Lumping those two together seems erroneous.
I guess I’m seeing a difference between “off the cuff” and “act”.
I agree. If you’re an nba GM these days, it would be nearly impossible to have the job without using very available tool, analytics foremost.
“always blindly trusting analytics”
Ever the strawman.
And of course, it’s as close to a certainty as you can get that the Cavs overhauled their defense thanks in part to analytics.
I really don’t get any of the criticism, especially to the extreme that Barkley goes to. “Analytics” guys in the NBA sit in the film room and take extensive notes on every little thing that happens on the court. They aren’t just taking box score numbers and popping out the widely seen and used formulas. They’re measuring exactly how much better X shooter is from the corner than the wing, or how efficient big man Y is on the block instead of at the high post, or which opposing player Z is most likely to miss a rotation, and creating a gameplan around that data. Just like what mgbode said above, “analytics” is tightly fused with scouting reports. I think if we used a different term people like Barkley would feel a lot more comfortable.
I think I misread your original comment. But I can’t imagine how dumb Barkley is going to look 5 years from now with his viewpoints.
“Numbers: I can make them say anything I want.”
M3 T00!
Yes, BUT at this point in the season (about 2/3 done), I would venture to guess that most teams is what they is.
I think this hypothetical situation has lost you. It’s meant to be absurd. “Bath House Barry” is a pretty solid moniker, though, so we will forgive you.
definitely a chicken/egg scenario, but a huge part of how they play pick-n-roll defense now is dependent upon Mozgov cleaning up anyone cutting off of them towards the rim. without him, they would need to adjust that entire style.
I think Kenny makes a good point though that might cut into the pro-analytics argument. If sample size is too small, or a team asks a player to do certain things that aren’t conducive to what the analytics team is looking for, players will get passed over in favor of others who might not be as good at those skills. The problem with most analytics is that is based on a player’s previous performance, and teams would rather take a chance on a “proven” player who has the skill-set they want, at the risk of passing on a better player underutilized in that skill in his previous experience, or perhaps even picking a player that’s previous success at that skill was a product of a team system, and not individual ability.
He does make a good point. Statistics can be misleading or useless if not applied intelligently, like his apples to bananas comparison. But Charles’s pure “I know it when I see it” extreme approach is not used by any team, and wasn’t in his day either. And, spoiler alert: Barkley knows that. His agent plopped down a stack of his comparative analytics every contract negotiation, didn’t just say “Barkley can play.” That’s why I called it shtick.
Yea, I guess my point is that no one should be firmly entrenched in either camp. Eye-test/old school scouting aids analytics, and vice versa. Its not an all or nothing proposition. I assume everyone in the NBA knows this, but Morey has a brand to sell as a “genius GM”, and so he will point to analytics as his calling card. Barkley has an ego to feed, and a job that pushes him to say some crazy stuff because it creates buzz and ratings. Both guys are just playing into their schticks.
In the end, like in baseball, both sides are right. Analytics can give you a clear idea of what you want, but in the end, reality is that some guys bad defense will kill you in key moments and set plays that decide the games. I
Wouldnt a team with better shooters have a higher ratio of made jumpers though?
Analytics does give you some surprises, like:
– Both Allen Iverson and Kobe Bryant are not even remotely as good as most people think they are.
– The best contributor on the Cavs so far this year might actually Tristan Thompson, because he’s stayed healthy, he’s grabbing rebounds like crazy, and taking basically just the easy smart shots.
– The Dion Waiters trade was a highway robbery. Statistically speaking, Dion scored at a not-very-good 46.8% True Shooting, but took over 20 shots a game (only LeBron and Irving shot more, but they’re both at over 58% TS).
– The only below-average player on the Cavs getting non-garbage minutes (post-trade) is Delly. This isn’t a knock on Blatt, because that’s his best reserve point-guard, and Delly’s not terrible, just below average.
You may not like the delivery system that Kanye West opts for but his take on modern music, the relevance of the Grammy Awards, etc. is impeccable. Not a good analog there Scott.