Tag: Statistical Tests
Analysis

The Pacers’ Starting Lineup Problem

- by Fox Doucette

The Indiana Pacers are stuck between a rock and a hard place with their choice of starting lineup. Among players with at least 400 minutes played so far this season—in other words, high-minute-volume starters, of whom there are 98 in the NBA as of games of November 16—here are Indiana’s five guys ranked by True Shooting: Bojan Bogdanovic (5th), Victor Oladipo (79th), Myles Turner (81st), Darren Collison (84th), Thaddeus Young (90th.) And here, by on-court Net Rating, are the Pacers’ four highest-minutes reserves: Cory Joseph (13.1), Domantas Sabonis (7.0), Doug McDermott (6.4), Tyreke Evans (5.6). All four of those guys, …

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Analysis

Statistical Test: The 14-Second Offensive Rebound Shot Clock’s Effect On Pace

- by Fox Doucette

New for the 2018-19 season, the NBA has introduced a shot clock that resets to only 14 rather than 24 seconds when a team gets an offensive rebound. Which, in turn, should have an effect on pace; if you’ve shaved 10 seconds off an extended possession, and with about 20 offensive boards per game between any two given teams, you just created 200 extra seconds, or 3:20, or (very roughly) 1/15 more possessions over the course of an average NBA game. This, in turn, should increase league pace by half of that (since pace is divided by two to give …

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Analysis

Are the Charlotte Hornets the Best Bad Team in the NBA?

- by Fox Doucette

There are two interrelated maxims in basketball that tend to determine whether or not teams win games over the course of an 82-game season. One is “great teams win big and lose close.” If a team’s regularly getting blown out, chances are good that they suck. But if it seems the only way to beat them is to win by one or two possessions and survive their best player missing a potential game-tying or game-winning shot at the buzzer as fans go wild that “we knocked off the mighty (whoever)”? Well, that “whoever” sounds an awful lot like the Golden …

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Analysis / Pacers Tuesday

Scott-Hollins Syndrome or: How To Tell If Your Coach Needs to be Fired

- by Fox Doucette - 1 Comment

Scott-Hollins Syndrome is a sickness that afflicts certain NBA coaches, players, and broadcasters. Named for Byron Scott and Lionel Hollins, two coaches who were the ultimate examples of it, symptoms include eschewing the three-point shot in favor of the midrange jumper, settling for floaters rather than attacking the lane, and perilously low FT/FGA ratios on two-point shooting and nearly nonexistent opportunities for and-ones. It has been a byword for inefficient basketball here on Pace and Space and on my Twitter (@RealFoxD) since we launched, but until now I’ve never actually bothered to define it. And it’s been on my mind …

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Analysis / Summer Reading

Does Russell Westbrook Help or Hurt the Thunder?

- by Fox Doucette

Russell Westbrook, by plenty of traditional basketball measures, is one of the biggest superstars in terms of production that the league has ever seen. But by a lot of those same measures, he’s also the most selfish stathound who ever cost his team wins by trying to do everything himself, like the rich man’s Lance Stephenson or, considering I’ve repeatedly called him “Dollar Store Westbrook” when writing about him, Lonzo Ball. The question at issue here is whether everything Westbrook does right—and when you average a triple double in two consecutive seasons when only one player in league history, Oscar …

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Summer Reading

Statistical Test: LeBron’s Lakers, By The Numbers

- by Fox Doucette

LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers are a motley assemblage of who-dats and castoffs, somewhere between a Rucker Park team and a G-League roster, with one of the worst No. 2 overall draft picks ever to lace up the sneakers in an NBA arena and with a Shaqtin’ MVP quite possibly set to be the starting center. But just how bad are the Lakers, really? Well, let’s imagine a world where LeBron James is replaced by a mid-tier starting small forward. Not a G-League replacement, not a guy who couldn’t crack the roster on the 2016 76ers or anything, …

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Analysis

The NBA slows down in the playoffs…but by how much?

- by Fox Doucette

It is a widely-held maxim in NBA circles that “the game slows down in the playoffs” and that teams that look to run in the regular season tend to underperform when they’re forced into the halfcourt. But is that really true? After all, the Golden State Warriors have won two of the last three titles, and they and the New Orleans Pelicans are playing at a breakneck pace. And the Showtime Lakers ran plenty of fast breaks in May and June back in the day. So let’s start with the modern era, since Erik Spoelstra coined the term for the …

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Analysis

In a Five-Game Series, Which Game Does the Losing Team Win?

- by Fox Doucette

It’s a rule of thumb when predicting a playoff series, especially in the first round, that the underdog team will lose the first two on the road to the higher seed, win Game 3 at home thanks to a super-energized crowd and a sense of purpose, then order will be restored, the higher seed wins Game 4, and then they close it out in five back in front of their own fans. But how true is that? Why not Game 4, trying to avoid the sweep? Or stealing one on the road then melting down at home and blowing the …

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Is He Any Good

Trevor Booker: Is He Any Good?

- by Fox Doucette

The Pacers recently acquired Trevor Booker off the waiver wire for their playoff run, shoring up their power forward situation and presumably giving Thaddeus Young a backup who isn’t Al Jefferson. In theory, this should add bench depth to a team that is in critical need of it while at the same time they get Glenn Robinson III back; by the time Darren Collison returns, this should be a fully loaded team for the playoffs. But that presumes that Booker is actually any good…and at age 30, he’s as good as he’s ever going to be. So let’s frame the …

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Is He Any Good

Spencer Dinwiddie: Is He Any Good?

- by Fox Doucette

This year, in the absence of Jeremy Lin and D’Angelo Russell, Spencer Dinwiddie has been drafted into the role of starting point guard for the Brooklyn Nets. On the one hand, he’s a G-League refugee, a guy who never caught on in Detroit, and a third option. On the other hand, dude won the Skills Competition at All-Star Weekend. But anyone who is not Joel Embiid can navigate a skills course. Doing meaningful things in actual games is a whole other matter. In the grand tradition of movable goal posts on this here publication, we tailor the test to the …

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