Just how historic is CP3's season?

New post up at Celtics 17, excerpt below:

As he proved once again Thursday against the Mavericks, Chris "CP3" Paul is the best point guard in the NBA. He's carried the Hornets through injuries this year to a 38-22 record thus far, including the current six game winning streak.

He's managed to put together a line of points, rebounds, assists and steals thus far that hasn't been achieved by a player since they started tracking steals as an official statistic, and on top of all of that, he's starred in some of the worst deodorant ads I've ever seen.

This isn't the first year of dominance for CP3, as he finished second in last year's MVP voting, with 28 first place votes, more than Kevin Garnett and LeBron James combined. So the question then becomes: Where does Chris Paul stand in NBA history?

Check it out at [Celtics 17].

Under-appreciated Role Player: Chris "Birdman" Anderson

In what's sure to become an incredibly irregular segment, here's "Under-appreciated Role Player", where I examine someone random who contributes to his team more than you'd think, and doesn't really get the credit.

Chris Anderson - Denver Nuggets F/C

After a complex history of disappointments, both with his slam dunk contest hilarity of 2005 and his expulsion from the NBA in early 2006 due to drug abuse, Chris Anderson has turned out to be a solid piece of the Denver Nuggets.

In a little under 20 minutes per game, Birdman is averaging six points, five boards, and more than two blocks. Using Hollinger's PER metric, his 18.32 matches Carmelo Anthony's, mainly because of his above-average blocking and offensive rebounding rates.

This isn't to say he's as good as 'Melo (he's not), but that in his limited minutes Anderson is an important spark to the Nuggets' second unit, a unit which has helped Denver surge into that second tier below the Lakers in the west with the Spurs.

Anderson's high-flying style is a great fit with the Denver style, providing little drop-off from Kenyon Martin and Nene. Not bad for a guy that only went to junior college and came up through the Chinese and International Basketball Leagues.

KG and the mid-range jump shot

In addition to my work here, I've begun contributing to Celtics 17, a Celtics blog on the MVN network of blogs. This way I can keep my homer-ism there, while trying to continue to be objective here.

My first post is up at Celtics 17 now, discussing the shift to more jumpers for Kevin Garnett, and the effect on his game as a whole. An excerpt is below:

I remember when KG came to the Celtics, I was initially confused with his style of play. The Garnett I saw on ESPN and in all the highlights was at the rim constantly throwing it down, and sometimes featured a baseline fall-away when teams over-committed to defending the rim. However, suddenly watching him season-long, I was surprised how much he relied on the 15-18ft jumper for his production.

So I decided to take a look at the numbers, to see if he'd always played this way and I'd been blinded by small sample size, or if KG's play had really changed that dramatically with his appearance in Boston, using the current and prior seasons compared to the 2004-05 KG.

The results, in a way, showed both my options were in a way right.

More at [Celtics 17]

Jerry Sloan: Too good to be coach of the year

Now this title may not seem to make too much sense: Isn't the Coach of the Year award supposed to reward, well, the best coach in the NBA?

Not really, if you think about it. Most of the time, the Coach of the Year is just another way of saying "Coach who presided over the biggest single-season-turnaround of the year", unless there's one team that's just too dominant to ignore.

Lets take a look at the last few years for some examples here.

Byron Scott (2007-08)
Scott brought the Hornets from 39-43 a year before to 56-26 this season, in the first season back in New Orleans after being displaced from Hurricane Katrina. Big turnaround + big story = sure thing.

Sam Mitchell (2006-07)
Mitchell led the Raptors to a 20 game turnaround from 27-55 to 47-35 and a division crown, setting records for the expansion franchise. Jerry Collangelo was the real key to this turnaround, as Mitchell has already been fired less than two seasons removed from this honor.

Avery Johnson (2005-06)
Another coach that didn't last long after winning his award, Johnson only led a 2 game swing, from 58-24 to 60-22, but helped a completely reconstructed team around Dirk make the NBA finals. The 2007 playoff upset by Golden State started the ball rolling, and by the end of 2008 Johnson was clearly losing his job.

Mike D'Antoni (2004-05)
D'Antoni's turnaround is the most dramatic we've seen, swinging from 29-53 up to 62-20 thanks to ditching Stephon Marbury and picking up free agent Steve Nash. D'Antoni created the most entertaining style in recent memory, and with fantastic results...in the regular season. As popular belief became that his system would only fail in postseason, he was forced out and headed to MSG.

Hubie Brown (2003-04)
In a shocking development, Brown's Grizzlies were the biggest turnaround of the year, jumping from 28-54 to 50-32 thanks to some Hubie Magic, also known as adding Bonzi Wells and James Posey to a good Pau Gasol core. There's a reason Jerry West won executive of the year, and Hubie retired shortly after this season.

So that's four out of five years where the biggest turnaround coach won the award, and the year Avery won there wasn't an incredibly notable turnaround team. Further examples exist in selections such as Larry Bird in 1997-98, while the occasional dominant force such as Phil Jackson's 72-10 Bulls in 1995-96 fill out the other winner prototype.

So, what about Jerry Sloan?

Jerry Sloan's teams have never fit into either of these buckets, and as you've noticed, he's never won the award as a result. Sloan came into his post with the Jazz, after a poor stint with the Bulls, with the gift of Stockton and Malone, and immediately began running off his record 16 straight winning seasons.

In this consistent performance, there's little room for the big turnaround needed to be a media darling for coach of the year. The one time he had a chance with that angle, bringing the Jazz from 26-56 to 41-41, Avery Johnson's Napoleon angle won the battle.

Perhaps one of Sloan's years would be so dominant that he could win an award that way? Sloan's Jazz had the best record in the West for three straight years from 1996-97 to 1998-99, but Pat Riley, Larry Bird, and, of all people, Mike Dunleavy stood in his way.

The closest I can remember Jerry Sloan coming to actually winning the award was in the 2006-2007 season, where two years removed from a 26-56 season Utah won the division, but the genius of Sam Mitchell ended up on top...for a year or so at least.

Will he ever win it?

I'm not sure how many years of coaching the man has left in him, but this year could possibly be a compelling enough story to make it as possible as ever. Between the long-term injury to Boozer and the half-healthy early work from Deron Williams, if Sloan can squeeze 51 or so wins out of this squad (17-8 in the remaining games), it could be possible.

If not, Jerry Sloan can just take his 16 straight winning seasons straight to the Hall of Fame, for the first award he'll receive, and I'm sure he'll be just as happy.

Notable Stats, February 11th

At random intervals of my choosing, I'll pick a few random chunks of box score that I find interesting. Enjoy.

NBA bench play: The Good

Steve Novak (LAC vs. NYK (OT))

The Line: 32 minutes, 8-10 from the field, including 6-8 from three, for 23 points total, along with 7 rebounds and no turnovers.

Impact: Novak, along with Eric Gordon and others, helped the Clippers beat the Knicks at their own three-point game, with more attempts and nearly twice as many makes, allowing the Clippers to pull out a close one at home despite losing the turnover battle.

Roko Ukic (TOR vs. SA)

The Line: 30 minutes, 9-13 from the field, including 2-3 from three, for 22 points, along with 2 rebounds and 3 assists.

Impact: A big assist from Ukic allowed the Raps, playing without their two best in Bosh and Calderon, to out role-player the kings of role-players, San Antonio, for the win.

NBA bench play: The Bad

Goran Dragic (PHO @ CLE)

The Line: 21 minutes, 4-5 from the field, 9 points, 5 assists, but also 5 turnovers and 4 fouls in short minutes.

Impact: It's hard to imagine a worse defender than Nash, but Dragic's defense on Mo Williams helped him go for 44 points, and his sloppy ball-handling amounted to half of the Suns -10 turnover differential for the game.

Side Note

As I'll be working late for the next month or two, be sure to check me out on twitter, where I can post quickly and randomly without feeling bad about it.

A different kind of Kobe-LeBron comparison

Note: All data referenced below does not include Sunday's Lakers-Cavs game.

In the days following Kobe's 61pt MSG show and LBJ's subsequent (corrected) 52/9/11 performance, everyone on earth has tried to decide which one was better, which player is more dominant, and so on.

Proponents of LeBron point out that Kobe's line included no rebounds and only three assists, and say he was being selfish, that LeBron was more of the team player. Kobe supporters point out that he shot 10% better from the floor and perfect from the line, so his game was actually more efficient and therefore better.

I'm not here to decide which performance was better, because in all reality it's somewhat trivial. I would, however, like to evaluate their seasons on the whole, and their impact on their respective teams (the two best coming into Sunday's action), using statistics.

Method

I took each player's games and translated the line to a per-36 basis, as this is near each player's average. The only statistics I've used are points, rebounds, assist, and turnovers.

Data was split in a pair of sets, sorted by points per 36 minutes. The first set divided games between the top 10, the middle (29 for Kobe, 28 for LeBron), and the bottom 10, while the second set was similarly divided 15, 19 or 18, and 15. These divisions allow comparison of time-efficient scoring games to others.

Overall the 15 set appears more significant than the 10 set, and is therefore used in most of the comparisons. (Download)

Similarities

The first thing I noticed was the incredible similarities across scoring sets for Kobe and LeBron. In their top 15, KB and LBJ averaged 34.9 and 34.2 respectively, along with 19.9 and 20.3 in the bottom 15, representing a 43% and 40.5% drop respectively.

Compared to their top 15 games, each sees more than a 20% increase in rebound rate and more than 40% in assist rate in their bottom 15 scoring frequency games, with a bigger bump to LeBron in boards and to Kobe in assists. As a good leader would, the two find other ways to contribute when having an off night scoring.

The two also share more than a 30% increase in turnover rate in their bottom 15 scoring games, when compared to all others. This too isn't a shock, as they'd try to force it in a poor game more than otherwise.

Differences

In terms of comparing the change from high frequency to low frequency scoring games for each player, the differences between the two's changes are minimal. On a direct comparison, as you'd expect, LeBron averages more boards and assists, while also having more turnovers.

Comparing the two on an individual level seems to be fruitless.

The Team Effect

Here's where the data gets interesting.

In LeBron's top ten frequency games, the Cavs are 10-0, while in Kobe's the Lakers are only 8-2, with losses to the Magic and Hornets. On the other hand, in LeBron's bottom ten games, the Cavs drop to 5-5, while in Kobe's the Lakers are an astounding 10-0.

This pattern persists when using the 15 game set, as the Cavs 14-1 vs. 9-6, while the Lakers are 12-3 vs 14-1, or on a percentage basis: [Cavs] 93.3% to 60% - [Lakers] 80% to 93.3%.

There are two ways to explain these results in the context of who's the better player, and more important to his team.

Case 1: LeBron James as the MVP

These team effects only prove that the Cavaliers need LeBron James. He is their motor, and there's no stopping them when LeBron is on his game. His ever-improving teammates feed off of his energy, so when he's getting to the basket and being the force he can be, then Mo, Big Z and everyone else can really take it to the opponent.

All these numbers prove for Kobe is that he's stumbled into an amazing supporting cast that covers up all his shortcomings. When Kobe gets greedy, then his team suffers.

Case 2: Kobe Bryant as the MVP

The fact that Kobe can compel his team to victory without having to score off the charts shows his value to the team. Simply the threat of Kobe's jump shot allows Gasol, Odom and Bynum to thrive. The two losses in high scoring affairs for Kobe are actually a result of him needing to take the team on his back, and simply coming up short against hot teams.

The Cavs' numbers show that LeBron can't really help his team without scoring, despite his complimentary stats. When the Cavs are down on an off-night for LeBron, he still tosses up deep shots, which aren't his forte, instead of incorporating everyone else, and the Cavs have little hope.

Conclusion

Both cases are probably valid, but in the end I personally have to give it to Kobe, for many of the reasons in the case stated above. Additionally, there is still nobody in the league that inspires more fear at the end of a game than Kobe Bryant. Nobody since Michael Jordan has compared at the end of the game, and he's getting the ball on the final play ten times out of ten if he's on my team.

That's my MVP.

A look at the Detroit Pistons' decline

Much has been made of the decline of the Detroit Pistons since trading away near-MVP-candidate Chauncey Billups for the aging, one dimensional hall-of-famer Allen Iverson. At 46 games into the season, the Pistons sit at 25-21, 6th place in the Eastern conference, compared to last year's 33-13 mark at the same point.

But can all really be blamed on Iverson? He's clearly not a good defender, and not the scorer he once was, but he's still a valuable part of a team. Let's take a look at the side of this story that hasn't been looked at quite as much: the Pistons big men. For the sake of discussion, I'll be including Rasheed Wallace, Amir Johnson, Antonio McDyess, Jason Maxiell, and Kwame Brown.

Changes from 2007-08

Aside from the short-term absence of McDyess due to the Iverson trade and his subsequent release, the only difference in the main rotation of forwards for the Pistons is they now have former #1 pick Kwame Brown instead of a half-season each from journeymen Nazr Mohammed and Theo Ratliff.

Kwame plays the least minutes of the five bigs we're looking at, so the difference shouldn't be enormous, right?

Team stats comparison

Last year, Detroit enjoyed a +2.3 rebound differential per game, along with a block advantage of nearly two per game. This year that rebound differential has fallen to -1.1, with blocks down to around one per game.

The most telling part of the rebound number is that Detroits offensive rebounds have declined greatly (down 11%) while opponents defensive rebounds have increased greatly (up 8%). To me, this implies a lack of hustle by the bigs to get after second chance points.

The Forwards

Please note that all stats referenced below are on a per-48min basis, for consistency.

Rasheed Wallace

'Sheed is considered one of the emotional leaders of this team, especially now that Mr. Big Shot has left the building. He's seeing about three more minutes per game this year, but his numbers almost across the board have seen a drop.

Wallace is down 33% on the offensive glass from last year, and down 25% in blocks, the two main weaknesses above. In less big-man-oriented stats, where Wallace tends to be ahead of the curve for his size, he's also down 39% in assists and 24% in steals. He's also become slightly more oriented to the three point shot than he already was, with a 4% increase in 3pt attempts to go with a 18% drop in 2pt attempts.

I'd never thought I'd be pining for more aggresiveness out of one of the shortest tempers in the game, but 'Sheed needs to get mad and get at it if he wants to help swing the momentum back in the Pistons favor. Although he's still leading the league in technical fouls, so maybe he just needs some direction.

Antonio McDyess

Since his return to the team, McDyess has contributed plenty off the bench. Though he's averaging about five fewer minutes per game, Antonio has seen most of his rate stats go up compared to last year.

He's seen a 10% increase on the offensive boards to go with a 17% increase on the defensive boards. He's turning the ball over 16% less as well, although he's fouling at a slightly higher rate this year, and has seen a slight drop in scoring. The one glaring weakness compared to last year is a 15% drop in blocks.

On the whole, McDyess is helping his team, and could probably help them improve in greater minutes, but as a 34yr old player already on his second life after major knee injury, pushing him any further can't be a good idea.

Jason Maxiell

Last year, Maxiell was heralded as one of the up and coming role players in the league, with great energy and possibly a replacement for Rasheed Wallace down the line. This year, he's taken a notable step backwards in his development, in the eyes of coach Curry, and is seeing five fewer minutes per game as a result.

An obvious reason for this decreased floor time could be the 20% spike in foul rate for Maxiell, to go along with an overall 7% scoring decrease. In terms of rebounding, Maxiell nets about even with a 20% increase in offensive and a 19% decrease in defensive boards. He's also seen huge swings in guard numbers, with a 56% drop in assists but a 76% increase in steals.

With fouls, offensive rebounds, and steals on the rise, and assists on the fall, I think you could say Maxiell is going in the opposite direction of Wallace, almost being too aggresive. which leads to foul trouble. He does lead the team in offensive rebound rate, however, and if he can keep his fouls under control should hopefully take more minutes from Wallace or the remaining bigs.

Amir Johnson

When McDyess was originally traded away, Amir Johnson was stated as a reason the world wouldn't end if he did not return. Coming off his first year as a regular role-player, expectations were high for Johnson coming into this year, and he's received five more minutes of play per game as a result. Thus far, he appears to have come up short in almost every way.

Almost every rate for Amir has declined from last year, with the most notable being a 34% drop in blocks and a 14% drop in rebounds overall, mainly due to a 26% drop in defensive rebounds. Though not much different than last year, Johnson's foul rate is still an outrageous 9.2per48, more than 50% higher than Jason Maxiell's rate.

Clearly, Johnson still has more developing to do, and shaving his minutes back down to last years numbers, as opposed to continuing to start him as the Pistons have of late, could assist this development.

Kwame Brown

Kwame sits as somewhat of a space-filler on this roster, as the Pistons become the third team in three years to try to juice some production out of the former top pick. He averages less than 15 minutes per game, least of the players profiled here.

Kwame is scoring and rebounding at a similar rate to Amir, but with half the blocks. Kwame may foul at a rate of only 2/3 of Amir, but he turns the ball over more than 50% more than Amir.

Brown serves as you'd expect in his role, being a somewhat serviceable fifth big man, not meriting more play but not deserving less at the same time.

The Big Picture

With a progression of forwards like this, maybe it made sense to go small-ball for a while on this team. Curry needs to emphasize to the bigs their continued importance on the team, even though the local and national media only wants to talk about Iverson, Hamilton and Stuckey.

Notable Stats, Groundhog Day

At random intervals of my choosing, I'll pick a few random chunks of box score that I find interesting. Enjoy.

Quick Hits
- Amare Stoudemire posted a +49 for his time on the floor tonight, about equal to the Suns +48 margin of victory. The Kings' John Salmons posted -43 in the same game.

- The Hornets were outscored 38-15 by the Blazers in the 4th quarter at home, going from up 15 to down by 8. This amounts to losing one point of margin every 31 seconds.

- Dwight Howard pulled down six offensive rebounds against the Mavs, equaling Dallas' team total for the game.

- Adam Morrison was the only Bobcats player to avoid a negative +/- against Utah, in 21+ minutes of floor time in a 105-86 loss.

- Darius Miles, in 11 minutes on the court, had one made field goal, one missed field goal, one block, one steal, one assist, and a minus-one +/- rating. Poor showing, but symmetry must be worth something, right?

- Yakhouba Diawara, despite getting the start for the Heat, played a team-low 6:52 out of the ten players who saw floor time, yet was only outdone in fouls by Jamaal Magloire, who at 12:38 had the second-least floor time.

Andrew Byn-who?
In their first full game without the injured Andrew Bynum, Kobe Bryant and Pau Gasol stepped up their game to fill the box score quite nicely.

Pau Gasol

The Line: 12/17 from the field, 7/8 FT adding up to 31pts in 41 minutes. Add in 14 boards (4 O-boards), five assists, two blocks and only two fouls and you've got quite the big man game.
Another angle: To be fair, the Knicks don't even have a decent sized PF, not to mention a center to match up with Gasol, and whoever did guard him sure wasn't getting any help whenever Kobe was on the floor either.

Kobe Bryant

The Line: 19/31 from the field, 20/20 FT adding up to an MSG-record of 61pts in 37 minutes. Three assists to go with two turnovers and no rebounds are the only detractors from this line.
Another angle: Bryant's 20/20 from the line hasn't been seen from a guard since Rip Hamilton against the Bobcats in 2004. Also, while Kobe's 20 first half attempts may seem excessive, just think about Wilt Chamberlain's NBA-record 21 attempts in a quarter, and be happy there's nobody that over-used today.

Live by the three, die by the three, starring the Orlando Magic

Outside of the crazy D'Antoni-ball being played in Madison Square Garden right now, nobody in the league shoots more deep shots than the Orlando Magic. They're quite good at it too, shooting over 40% for the year, compared to a league average of just over 36%, and use it to play a fantastic inside-outside game with the beast that is Dwight Howard under the basket drawing defenders.

Even the starting "Power Forward" for the Magic is shooting over 42%, so combined with some other pesky shooters and a defense holding opponents to the third lowest FG% in the league Orlando now sits far atop their division and in discussion for a title run.

While the three has been the Magic's friend most of the season, it has proven to also be their enemy when things go sour.

The Magic as a team shoot over 33% of their shots from behind the arc, compared to a league average of 22%, and (D'Antoni-ball excluded) 6% higher than anyone else in the league. Because of this, a 5-6% variation in 3P% has a greater effect on total points than most teams.

So when the shots aren't falling, things get bad. Teams can start to collapse harder onto Howard without fear of paying for it from deep. Additionally, the shooting culture of Orlando leads to cold shooters continuing to shoot anyway, which can't help.

Tonight, for example, the Magic lost 90-80 at home to the Boston Celtics, in a match-up of two of the three best teams in the East. Seven weeks ago, the Magic also lost to the Celtics, in Boston, by a 107-88 margin. The common factor? Poor shooting behind the arc.

In the first match-up, Orlando shot 5/26 (19.2%) from deep, leading to a 19pt margin of defeat despite winning the rebounding battle and breaking even in turnovers, the two regularly telling factors in swinging a game.

Tonight, the Magic shot 7-22 (31.8%) from deep, not awful but still almost 9% below their average for the year. The ten point loss, then, stems also from being outdone slightly in turnovers and rebounds, without a dominant deep ball to bail them out.

A good three point shooting team can be as dangerous as anybody, making leads disappear in just moments. The Magic have the ability to be that team, as they've shown, and have the ability to be far from it, as they've also shown.

The question then is this: Can the Magic be hot from deep four out of seven games in a series come playoff time? Can they adjust to an off night without relying on a titanic performance from Dwight Howard?

Regardless, it's fun to watch. Let's hope they don't change a thing.

Notable Stats, January 21st

At random intervals of my choosing, I'll pick a few random chunks of box score that I find interesting. Enjoy.

The big story out of the Lakers-Clippers game was the big game out of Andrew Bynum in addition to the triple double of Kobe Bryant. However, the Clippers' young center, DeAndre Jordan, deserves another look too, in only his second big-minutes game since Marcus Camby's injury.

Andrew Bynum (21yrs old)

The Stats: 17/24 FG (70.8%) and 8/11 FT, totalling 42 points, in addition to 15 rebounds (8 offensive), 3 blocks, and only two fouls and two turnovers in 36+ minutes of work.

Analysis: For a guy averaging only 10 FGA/gm, 24 shots is crazy, but he completed a very high percentage. Adjusted for minutes played, he also rebounded at a higher rate than normal on both sides of the floor, and stayed more in control with regards to both fouls and, to a lesser degree, turnovers. This kind of explosion is what makes it less outrageous when Bynum brings up being on the olympic team.

DeAndre Jordan (20yrs old)

The Stats: 11/12 FG (91.7%) and 1/2 FT, totalling 23 points, in addition to 12 rebounds (6 offensive), 4 blocks, and only two fouls and one turnover in 43+ minutes of work.

Analysis: This rookie was drafted based on raw physical ability, with scouts expecting a big learning curve in the pros of at least a year or two. Now that he's been thrust into a bigger role early, he's made the best of the opportunity. Between this performance and the prior game's 8pt/10reb/6blk affair, Jordan could be an important piece of rebuilding an awful-looking team.

Guess who's not missing Elton Brand?

Could it be Willie Green?

Since Brand's been hurt, he's seen plenty of starts in the Sixers small-ball lineup. His overall minutes haven't really increased though, nor have his stats.

Could it be the Sixers team?

In games Brand doesn't play in, the team is 10-8, compared to 10-13 with him. That said, it's been a season of streaks for this team, so things could swing at any time.

Could it be his old team, the LA Clippers?

Quite the opposite. Brand may have been injury-prone, but at least he doesn't work for Jenny Craig.

It's...Marreese Speights, that's who.

In the absence of Elton, Speights has really managed to shine, dominating rookies in John Hollinger's PER stat, and nearly matching the resurgent Chauncey Billups.

It's tough to figure out how the PER number is attributed between Brand and Brand-less time, so lets take a different approach (on a per-minute basis, of course) to see how this jump from 12 to 19 minutes per game has affected his game:

Fouls and Turnovers: A big man is only useful if he can stay on the floor, out of foul trouble. In Brand's absence, the amount of time Speights sees per foul has gone up almost 50% (from 6:00 to 8:44), moving him from a liability to around average for a forward/center. A similar story for turnovers, with a 25% increase (from 20:20 to 24:21).

Scoring: A slight increase, from 0.50 to 0.52 points per minute, which still keeps him in the league of Pau Gasol and Amar'e Stoudemire in scoring frequency.

Rebounding: The only negative, possibly as a result of smaller lineups, Speights drops from 0.30 to 0.22 rebounds per minute, dropping him from the league of Tim Duncan and Al Jefferson to the league of Rasheed Wallace and Andray Blatche.

Blocks: Leaps and bounds here, jumping from a rate of 1.8 per 48 minutes up 78% to 3.2 per 48, a rate trailing only a former D-POY Marcus Camby and Ronny Turiaf. Perhaps a product of the system, teammate Samuel Dalembert also saw a 75%+ jump in block rate without Brand.

I think it's safe to say that Marreese Speights is thriving in Elton Brand's absence, with amazing productivity and efficiency. Will he be included in rookie of the year discussion? No, because he doesn't shoot fifteen or sixteen times per game on a team that hinged all their hope upon him.

Notable stats, January 5th

At random intervals of my choosing, I'll pick a few random chunks of box score that I find interesting. Enjoy.

Game: Texas 24 - Ohio State 21 [Fiesta Bowl]
Team Stat: Ohio State rushed for 5.6yds per carry, 1.0 more than their season average, and double the Longhorns' average allowed of 2.8yds per carry. OSU also rushed for 213yds on a Texas D averaging under 74yds rushing allowed.
Player Stat: Colt McCoy 41/58 for 414yds, including 74yds passing on the game-winning drive. McCoy's 58 attempts was greater than Texas' 54yds rushing.
Bigger Picture: McCoy finished the season, including this game, with a 76.7% completion percentage, crushing Daunte Culpepper's 1998 record of 73.6% set at UCF. Plus, girlfriend. That's the real big picture.

Game: Denver 135 - Indiana 115 [NBA]
Team Stat: Nuggets first half: +4pts, +8 turnovers, including 7 TO to none in the 2nd quarter. Nuggets second half: +16pts, -1 turnovers.
Player Stat: Danny Granger had 26pts at the half, and finished with 36 on 50% shooting from both 2 and 3, with 5 assists and only one turnover in 41 minutes. Granger continues to be a rising star in this league.
Bigger Picture: It took Denver, a clear playoff contender, a huge run fueled by 58% shooting for the game (10% higher than season average) to pull away from a talented but sputtering Indy team. Despite having a dead even turnover differential, having 9th highest turnover averages counteracted by 8th highest turnovers against should lead to volatile games, and losses to inferior teams, which Denver has avoided so far.

Doc Rivers rears his ugly head once again

The Celtics skid now stands at four losses out of six games. Granted, five of these were road games, four of which on a west coast swing, so a grain of salt is necessary, but we can still take this as a sign of future problems. I know where I'm starting to look: Doc Rivers.

Now, I'm usually in favor of not giving a coach too much credit for success or blame for failure, and I'm not saying Rivers has caused this recent slide, but he's not necessarily helping it either, especially when it comes to bench management.

The Celtics bench, as heavily reported, has been very sub-par this year after losing James Posey, PJ Brown, and Sam Cassell (sort of) from last year's title squad. To quantify this, I took a look at the last ten games played, which included the six games from this "skid", three home blowouts, and the tight Celts-Hawks game.

In these games, the Boston Bench played 77 minutes per game (49 low, 105 high) compared to opponents' 81 minutes per game (41 low, 127 high). Opposing benches outscored the Celtics 33.2 to 28.5 in this span.

Applying the bench point-per-minute numbers to a full quarter (12 minutes) for five players (broadly assuming starters play 3/4 of the game), the failure of the bench becomes incredibly telling. One of the ten games was to the Celtics advantage (the blowout @Sac), while the three biggest deficits came in losses: -17.1 tonight @NYK, -12.0 @Port, and -6.6 @Lakers.

Despite using less bench minutes, Doc has still reverted back to playing all twelve players regardless of situation, as noted in prior seasons by a certain overzealous fan. Seemingly every time the Celts build up a lead, the bench gives it right back when the starters rest.

Brian Scalabrine, a man with no discernible skills other than being the only white guy on a team in a racially challenged city, continues to average ten minutes per game. Listed as a power forward, Scal has shot under 39% for his career, which would be bad for a guard. He ranked dead last in Hollinger's PER rating for PF's last year, and is sitting pretty at 6.17PER for the year right now.

It could be said that Rivers is coaching the team for the playoffs, not the regular season, and resting his stars while he can, knowing full well they'll make the playoffs. It's also tough to form a second unit or rotation when Eddie House, a player built to run and rain threes off-ball, is handling the ball at point.

But this still doesn't excuse the lack of cohesion on this bench, whether it's Scalabrine tossing up aimless threes, Tony Allen dropping his head down and charging toward the basket without recourse, or Glen Davis dropping passes in the post. This should be a focus in practice, and Rivers needs to make it happen before Boston complacently slips to the 3rd seed in the East, or worse.

The Disappearance of KG's Offensive Ferocity

A third of the way through the NBA season, the heralded Celtics’ weaknesses are beginning to show through. In losing three of four on a west coast trip, many think the sky is falling for this team. It is not. Most of the analysts are quick to point to the turnovers (Most turnovers per game in the NBA), which is very valid. Between errant passes and offensive fouls, the Celts are turning the ball over at an alarming rate, and their decent assist numbers still leave them in the bottom of the league in Assist-to-Turnover ratio.

That said, I’d like to point out another issue for the team: Kevin Garnett.

Defensively and from a leadership perspective, KG is still KG, yelling, pounding the floor, rotating hard and fast on defense. On offense, on the other hand, he’s playing less of a PF-style game than Lamar Odom these days.

While many commend his willingness to defer to teammates in the offense, let Rondo run the show, and knock down mid-range shots, I disagree. KG is a 6-11, 250lb freak of nature, and should play as such on offense. He should be able to generate half his point in the post, easily, especially against some of the lesser big men in the league these days.

In reality, KG seems content to, aside from the occasional alley-oop, take more and more mid-range and even long-range jumpshots, which may be the way to go with Shaq or Joel Pryzbilla defending, but otherwise is counterproductive. Some games this method works out very well, as KG hits a high percentage of jumpers (November 12th vs. Atlanta), but the law of averages makes the other games painful.

Let's look at the shot charts (CBS Sportsline) for KG for the four game west coast trip:

Top: Lakers (Left), Warriors (Right)


Bottom: Kings (Left), Blazers (Right)

The Lakers game is a great example of the deceiving deep KG game. He's great from midrange, pulling Andrew Bynum or Pau Gasol out of the lane and making them pay for leaving him open. Kobe simply wouldn't let the Celts win this game, however. The Kings game is another example of good mid-range shots, and the Celts own big here.

Look at the number of outside shots taken by KG against the Warriors, the smallest team in the league, and will little success, because a small quick team can be quick enough to challenge an outside shot. By the time the Celts reached Portland, they realized KG in the post was vital to the offense, but ran into Greg Oden and Pryzbilla, which ended poorly with fadeaway jumpers.

In general, a pattern of outside shooting that I'll hope the Blazers game was a sign the team is getting away from.

Here's a rundown of KG shot selection for the four game trip, plus five close or OT games from the past month or so:

• @LA (L): 3/3 Dunks, 1/1 Layups, 7/10 Jumpers
• @GS (L): 1/1 Dunks, 1/1 Layups, 3/12 Jumpers
• @SAC (W): 1/1 Dunks, 3/3 Layups, 7/8 Jumpers
• @POR (L): 1/2 Dunks, 0 Layups, 6/14 Jumpers
• @ATL (W, Dec 17): 1/1 Dunks, 1/3 Layups, 5/11 Jumpers
• @IND (W, Dec 7): 1/1 Dunks, 0 Layups, 5/10 Jumpers
• @CHA (W, Nov 29): 0 Dunks, 1/1 Layups, 3/11 Jumpers
• @MIL (W, Nov 15): 1/1 Dunks, 0 Layups, 5/14 Jumpers
• vs. ATL (W, Nov 12): 1/1 Dunks, 1/4 Layups, 8/11 Jumpers

In total attempts: 11 Dunks, 13 Layups, 101 Jumpers. For a Power Forward that's known as a beast, that's sad.

This lack of aggression on offense has also led to a severe drop in free throws, also known as free points. In the period from the 2000-2001 season through 2006-2007 season (with MINN) KG shot an average of 6.10 FTA/G, shooting 79.5% from the line. Last year with the Celts, this dropped to 4.73 FTA/G, shooting 80.0% from the line. Currently, KG is at a clip of 2.69 FTA/G, less than half his prior average, shooting 83.7%.

This lack of free throws by Garnett not only means more difficult points for the Celtics, but means that opposing big men aren't racking up as many fouls. As opposing starting bigs get to play more minutes, they help disrupt the slashing of Rondo, the rebounding of Perkins, and so on.

As much as I love seeing KG beat his chest, I'd love more to see him doing it after an And-1 foul than yet another 15ft jumper. Maybe that will get this team back on track.