Editorial

Daryl Morey’s Legacy of Mediocrity

- by Fox Doucette

Daryl Morey and the Houston Rockets have finally parted ways; for the first time since 2007, the Rockets will start a season with someone’s name other than Morey’s on the “Executive” line on Basketball Reference. Morey is rightly seen as a guy who wasn’t afraid to shake up the conventional wisdom of the NBA; he is the patron saint of the analytics movement and it is no coincidence that his arrival in Houston heralded the true end of the NBA’s Dark Ages—sure, Mike D’Antoni‘s Suns had shown us the future in 2005, and the Suns leading the league not only …

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Pacers Tuesday

The Indiana Pacers Hired Nate Bjorkgren. Wait, Who?!

- by Fox Doucette

It is no secret that this site’s official editorial position in regards to the Indiana Pacers’ coaching search was, in Dire Straits intonation, “I want my MDA.” Considering this site practically worships at the altar of 3-pointers, layups, and free throws, it makes sense; one of my coinages here is “D’Antoni Index”, a catch-all stat that combines 3PAR, FTR, and percentage of shots taken within three feet of the basket (a proxy for layups and dunks) to determine a team’s (or a coach’s) propensity for designing a system with an optimal potential average outcome per shot attempt. D’Antoni is the …

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Analysis

Allen Iverson: The Most Overrated NBA Player Ever

- by Fox Doucette

Allen Iverson is a Hall of Famer, an 11-time All-Star, a 4-time scoring champion, a 3-time leader in steals, a 7-time All-NBA selection, the 2001 MVP…and the most overrated player who ever lived, a guy who if someone with his same game came into the league today, he would be immediately sent to the G-League until he figured out how not to shoot his team out of games and play the most hideously inefficient basketball ever seen from a star player in the history of the league. Iverson was the ultimate thirsty scorer. All the criticisms being leveled against James …

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Analysis

How Well Does NBA Draft Order Predict Player Careers?

- by Fox Doucette

The Los Angeles Lakers have two first-overall NBA draft picks on their roster—LeBron James (2003) and Anthony Davis (2012)—who have so far had careers that make LeBron an absolute lock for the Hall of Fame and quite possibly make Davis one should the Lakers win the title even if Davis suffers a career-ending injury during the offseason and never plays another game. Meanwhile, the “curse of the No. 2 pick” haunts guys like Sam Bowie (1984), Darko Milicic (2003), Hasheem Thabeet (2009), and Lonzo Ball (2017), while the No. 3 pick in those drafts? How about Michael Jordan, Carmelo Anthony, …

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Pacers Tuesday

The Indiana Pacers Should Trade Victor Oladipo

- by Fox Doucette

Victor Oladipo played in 19 games for a total of 528 minutes, ranking him 10th on the Pacers in total minutes played, behind the rotation guys who’d been there all season and ahead of the players who got most of their minutes in garbage time or spent a good chunk of the season in the G-League (the complete list in descending order: Goga Bitadze, JaKarr Sampson, Edmond Sumner, T.J. Leaf, Alize Johnson, Naz Mitrou-Long, and at just 31 minutes, Brian Bowen.) Despite this reduced workload thanks to not appearing in a game until January 29, Oladipo posted the worst VORP …

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Analysis

The Importance of Shortened NBA Playoff Rotations

- by Fox Doucette

During the NBA regular season, bench depth is a vital way to make sure that starters are fresh for the playoffs. Whether it’s pounding weak teams into dust so teams can use their end-of-the-bench guys in garbage time or simply having a second unit that can play 15 or 20 minutes a game and hold a lead, using every one of the 13 guys at a team’s disposal pays dividends in the spring (or, if there’s a plague around, the early fall.) Case in point, the Los Angeles Lakers. During their five-game series win over the Denver Nuggets, eight players …

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Analysis

How Are the 2020 Denver Nuggets in the Conference Finals?

- by Fox Doucette

In soccer, they have a concept called “winning on aggregate.” That is to say, two teams in the playoffs (OK, the “knockout round” in Euro-speak) play one game in each team’s home stadium and treat it like an extended 180-minute game, where most goals win. They have some tiebreakers (and, if necessary, they’ll go to extra time and penalty kicks in the second game), but for the most part, it is in essence a game where halftime is the conclusion of a complete game of soccer. The NBA doesn’t have that. You play a best-of-seven series and it doesn’t matter …

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Analysis

Sunday Statistical Test: How Much Better Can NBA Offense Get?

- by Fox Doucette

The NBA continues to set records for offensive efficiency even as pace continues to quicken. Offensive Rating has risen steadily since the 2012 lockout season, from 104.6 in that ill-fated 66-game crammed session that produced the worst offense since 2004, setting all-time highs in 2017 (108.8), 2019 (110.4), and 2020 (110.6). Likewise, league pace has gone from 91.3 in that lockout season eight years ago to 100.3 in 2020, the fastest the league has played since 1989 (100.6, the last time before the 2018-19 season that league pace exceeded 100 possessions per 48 minutes.) The fastest the league has ever …

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Analysis

Sunday Statistical Test: Should Hack-A-Shaq Come Back?

- by Fox Doucette

The old “Hack-A-Shaq” strategy of fouling a poor free throw shooter to send him to the line whereupon he’d then miss at least one free throw and have to be removed from the game as an offensive liability never made much sense statistically. Unless the player was truly horrid from the line (even Shaq, a career 52.7 percent free throw shooter, would thus generate 105.4 points per 100 possessions before a single one of his free throws went for an offensive rebound and got the Magic, Lakers, or whoever an extended possession and often a putback), the strategy inevitably generated …

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Analysis

Go Home Will Buikema, You’re Drunk (Reaction to SBNation Piece)

- by Fox Doucette

Over on SBNation, Will Buikema put together an amusing piece suggesting that the “ideal” number of points to score in an NBA basketball game is 107, resting his argument on a combination of factors including bathroom breaks for fans watching at home, desired scoring efficiency, and the contrast of these things with the current state of NBA basketball in 2020. Jon Bois chimed in down in the comments, saying he was more of a 94 points kind of guy, resting that argument on nothing but whatever bizarre surrealist pretzel logic underlies his cryptic sense of humor and, apparently, a masochist’s …

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