Should We Tweak the Play-In?

Is the play-in game bad for the NBA?  Not too many people have directly said that it is.  In fact, Draymond Green called the concept “lit.”  The result of the Western Conference play-in, however, reveals a potential issue.  The 36-46 Pelicans made the playoffs over the 42-40 Clippers, when New Orleans was helped a bit by the Clipps losing Paul George to a particularly poorly timed case of COVID.  Injuries/COVID are facts that all teams have to deal with at all times.  Nevertheless, there is a tension underlying the play-in concept: the attempts to keep the middling teams from tanking definitely risks devaluing regular season success of the seven or eight seeds, which would otherwise have breezed into the playoffs under the previous rules.  The play-in seemed very reasonable in the East, where the seven through ten seeds were separated by one game. 

Personally, I like the play-in concept but there is potential to for problems around the margins.  What if the gap between the seven and eight seeds and the nine and ten seeds was much larger?  New Orleans was six games worse than the Clipps.  The Pelicans leapfrogging the Clipps feels a little wrong but certainly not absurd. 

I thought we could use the past as a guide to see where the typical nine or ten seeds have stacked up in the pre-play-in era, as well as any other interesting tidbits that pop up.  Before we dive into the data, it should be noted that our inquiry will start effective the 1995-96 season, when the Grizz and Raptors debuted (there were only 27 teams before that season, with only 13 in the Western Conference).  The inquiry stops after 2018-19 because the 2019-20 season had that mini-play-in during the Bubble.  With those caveats in my mind, here’s what we found:

-The average nine seed in the East won 38.7 games and the average ten seed won 36 games (we pro-rated team wins for an 82-game season for the two lockout shortened seasons).  Those numbers are lower than the NBA would want from play-in competition but not so low that it would be worth abandoning the experiment.

-The average nine seed in the West won 41.4 games and the average ten seed won 37 games.  This is a little better.  It is also worth noting that that these stats were compiled without the carrot of a play-in game.  It is conceivable that the win totals would be a bit higher with that incentive.

Where things get really interesting is looking at individual seasons and there are some real interesting outliers:

-In 1996-97, the bottom of the Western Conference was so bad that the Kings (34-48) and the Warriors (30-52) would’ve made a hypothetical play-in.  A middling Clipper team (36-46) led by Darrick Martin and Loy Vaught was the eight seed, so it’s not so bad that they could’ve been bumped off. 

-The West was even worse in 1997-98.  The last gasp of the Hakeem/Barkley/Drexler Rockets made the eight seed at 41-41 (they were actually beating Utah in the playoffs until Barkley hurt his elbow). At the nine seed were the terrible Kings (27-55) and the worst tenth seed ever, the 20-62 Mavs (-6.33 SRS).  The gap between these teams and the Rockets was so great that it seems absurd that Houston could have even theoretically lost out on the playoffs in a play-in, even if the risk was remote.   Still, it could’ve happened if they had used the play-in system.  All the Kings needed was a badly timed injury to a Rocket star coupled with a hot game from Mitch Richmond.  This would’ve been a nightmare result for the NBA.

-In the East, the worst ten seed in a full season was the 2009-10 Pacers, who were 32-50 and big step below the nine seeded Raptors.  In a partial season in 2011-12, the ten seed Pistons were slightly worse (25-41, which projects to 31 wins).

-The only Eastern Conference nine seed to exceed .500 was the 1998-99 Hornets who were 26-24 and just missed the playoffs to a 27-23 Knick team that had that memorable run to the Finals.

-The play-in would’ve been quite fair for the 2006-07 Warriors and 2013-14 Suns, who missed the playoffs despite going 48-34.  The 2008-09 Suns were 46-36 but missed the playoffs.  The ten seed Warriors, however, were 29-53.  That hypothetical nine-ten play-in game seems a bit absurd.  (The 2018-19 Nuggets also missed the playoffs with 46 wins).

In all, the play-in game is an improvement over the old system.  The data shows that the nine/ten seeds are historically good enough to overcome most of the misgivings we have about letting a blah team have a puncher’s chance at the playoffs.  We do see some scenarios where the play-in breaks down when teams are so bad that their presence in the play-in wouldn’t have passed the straight face test.  The NBA should set a modest minimum win total (perhaps 33 games) under which a nine or ten seed forfeits its eligibility for the play-in.  There would be some potential bad unintended consequences (most notably a team could tank its way out of the play-in) but I think the alternative of having a joke play-in game, while unlikely, would be worse.

Examining the 50-Point Explosions

March 2022 has featured eight 50-point games so far.  According to NBA.com, this month has had the most 50-point games since there were nine in December 1962 (six by Wilt Chamberlain and three by Elgin Baylor).  In the early 1960s, with the fast pace and the existence of Wilt, 50-point games were quite commonplace.  But now we have seen 50-point games emerge more often and, sometimes, from more random players like Saddiq Bey, a good player but quite surprising 50-point guy.  I wanted to take a look and see about the frequency of 50-point games over time and what, if anything, we can learn from this.

With the help of Basketball-Reference we have gleaned the following fun facts:

-Since 1946-47, there have been 605 50-point games (including playoffs but excluding ABA)

-A reminder of how great Wilt was…he has 122 of all NBA 50-point games, or roughly 20% of the total.  46 of Wilt’s games came during his legendary 1961-62 season when he averaged 50.4 ppg.  As he slowed down with age, and the NBA slowed down, Wilt scored much less. From 1965-66 to the end of his career in 1972-73, Wilt had 12 50-point games.  His last 50-point game came on February 9, 1969, when he dropped 66 points on Phoenix.

-Michael Jordan is second with 39 50-point games.  He had six 50-point games after his return in 1994-95.  He had none in 1997-98, his final year with the Bulls, but pulled one more with the Wiz on December 29, 2001.

-The recently retired Jamal Crawford has four 50-point games, which is the most by a player never to be an All-Star. 

-Purvis Short has the most points in a game by a player who never made an All-Star game when he dropped 59 on the Nets on November 17, 1984.  Incidentally, the Warriors lost that game by 17.

-Box scores are incomplete until the mid-1980s but the lowest Game Score for a 50-point scorer was Dale Ellis on November 19, 1989, when he put up 27.4 (he shot 18-39 from the field in 69 minutes (!) and had one assist and eight turnovers).  Kobe Bryant was next lowest at 27.6 on March 30, 2007 (19-44 shooting, and only two assists).  The best Game Score goes to MJ’s 69-point game against Cleveland in 1990, which just edged out Kobe’s 81-point game.

-The ugliest shooting 50-point game goes to James Harden on December 3, 2019.  He shot 11-37 from the field and 4-20 from three but was an impressive 24-24 from the line.  Wilt had a bad 50-point game on October 28, 1962 when he shot 23-60 with two assists against the Royals.  Both of their teams lost.  Wilt and Russell Westbrook had quite a few poor 50-point games where they shot under .412%.

-GOAT alert! Jordan has the most playoff 50-point games with eight.  He had a bunch of those during the scoring scarce 1990s.  Wilt is second with four 50-point playoffs games.  Allen Iverson is third with three (two happened in the same week against the Raptors in 2001). 

-In all, there have been 45 50-point playoff games but many have come recently.  12 of the 45 games have come since 2017 and four came in the 2020 bubble (two each by Jamal Murray and Donovan Mitchell).  The overall breakdown of 50-point playoff games by decade:

1950s: 2

1960s: 9 (4 by Wilt, 2 by Jerry West)

1970s: 3 (note there is a gap of 11 years between the last 50-point game of the 1970s, Bob McAdoo in 1975, to Dominique Wilkins in 1986)

1980s: 6 (4 by MJ)

1990s: 5 (4 by MJ)

2000s: 8 (3 by Iverson)

2010s: 5 (there was a gap of 8 years between Ray Allen in 2009 to the next 50-pointer by Russell Westbrook in 2017)

2020s: 7

So, the flood gates have really opened up in 50-point playoff games.  The three-point shot has helped. Murray hit 9 threes in each of his two big games. Giannis Antetokounmpo did it the hard way in the 2021 Finals with only one three-pointer.  Jordan was the last player to score 50-points in a playoff game without making a three back in Game 4 of the 1993 Finals versus Phoenix.

Turning to the regular season, here’s the decade-by-decade breakdown of 50-point games (we define a decade based on the year the season ended in.  For example, the 1950s range from 1949-50 thru 1958-59, etc.):

1950s: 11

1960s: 162

1970s: 51

1980s: 60

1990s: 49

2000s: 85

2010s: 85

2020s: 54

There you have it.  In not quite three seasons, the decade of the 2020s is poised to exceed the 1960s as the decade of the most 50-point games (if the 2020s keep the same pace, there should be about 180 50-point games).  Obviously, the rules could change in such a way that could stifle offense but it’s clear that the modern rules have us in an inflationary offensive atmosphere.  We should also take this opportunity to marvel, again, about how Jordan was able to score in the era where the rules so favored defense.

Linsanity Revisited

Roughly ten years ago, on February 4, 2012, Jeremy Lin came off the bench to lead the Knicks to win against the New Jersey Nets.  Lin, who had not previously played more than six minutes one time all year, had 25 points and 7 assists in 36 minutes.  This spurred a 25-game run where Lin was ignited to instant stardom before more weirdness ensued.  Now, Linsanity is remembered for that fun run but few actually delve into what happened and whether it could have or should have turned out differently.  I thought we could take another look back at Linsanity and see if ten years later, we can properly put this phenomenon in context. 

A Little Background on Lin

Lin had a great career at Harvard, where he started for three years and showed flashes of real athleticism.  After his senior season, Lin looked a solid sleeper prospect, particularly when he scored 30 points against a ranked UConn team. On May 13, 2010, our own Ed Weiland wrote a post where he noted that Lin’s rate stats (particularly blocks and steals) were good indicators that Lin was viable as a pro: “[t]he reason is two numbers Lin posted, 2-point FG pct and RSB40. Lin was at .598 and 9.7. This is impressive on both counts. These numbers show NBA athleticism better than any other, because a high score in both shows dominance at the college level on both ends of the court.”

Ed didn’t think Lin would be a star but did note that “I like Jeremy Lin as a PG prospect, but he isn’t without flaws and concerns. He isn’t a great passer yet and he didn’t score as frequently as a prospect from a small college should. Both numbers are in the grey area though. They’re lower than I’d like them to be, but not low enough that I’d say Jeremy Lin was doomed as a prospect. That being noted, he does bring that combination of a high 2-point pct. and RSB40, which has been a very, very good thing for aspiring NBA PGs to have on their college report card in past years.”  Other publications also wondered whether Lin would the first Asian-American drafted to the NBA (though Ed probably did the deepest dive at the time).

Lin in the NBA pre-Linsanity

Ultimately, Lin was not drafted but the Warriors signed him in the summer of 2010 and he ultimately made the roster out of training camp.  Lin’s background, a Harvard player and the first Asian American to possibly excel in the NBA, got him a lot of attention.  Before the 2010-11 season, The OC Register profiled Lin’s unique story, calling him “a somewhat reluctant torch-bearer for race” and noting that if he makes the NBA, Lin “becomes a lasting image in this place where they say amazing happens, and the inspiration grows.:”

Lin made the Warriors but did get sent down frequently to the G-League where he had 18 ppg, 5.8 rpg, 4.4 apg in 32 mpg in 20 games for Reno.  (As an aside, that Reno team went 34-16 and had a ton of future/past NBAers, most notably pre-famous Danny Green and Hassan Whiteside.  Green and Lin were mostly in the NBA but led Reno in scoring when they did play). 

Lin played a total of 29 games for GS and averaged only about 10 mpg (Steph Curry and Monta Ellis had a lockdown on the majority of the backcourt minutes).  Lin did get a bit more extended time at the end of the lost season and his best game came in the last game of the season (12 points and 5 assists in 24 minutes versus Portland).  Lin had some decent momentum as a prospect based on his G-League stats and his solid last few games.  Even so, GS had a logjam with Curry and Ellis and added to the mix for 2011-12 were Nate Robinson and rookie Klay Thompson.   With no room on the roster, the Warriors waived Lin in training camp.  He was quickly signed by the Rockets but was also cut before the regular season because Houston already had young PGs Kyle Lowry, Goran Dragic, and Jonny Flynn.

Pre-Linsanity Knicks

Finally, on December 27, 2011, the Knicks signed Lin.  This was a better gig for Lin because New York’s only actual point guard was a mostly cooked 33-year old Mike Bibby and the team really struggled finding a legit point guard to start (sound vaguely familiar Knick fans?).  Mike D’Antoni said at the time that he liked Lin: “[h]e went to Harvard so he might be the smartest guy we have. But he’s very quick, he defends pretty well and he can really get in the lane and distribute the basketball. We haven’t seen him for a couple of years but when we worked him out we liked him.”

D’Antoni did not play Lin much early and actually looked to try to get by at the point without a true ball handler (a la Alec Burks and the 2021-22 Knicks).  First, D’Antoni tried Toney Douglas at the point but he really struggled.   Douglas played well in an opening night win but was pretty bad overall as a starter (in 7 games, 11.7 ppg, .340 FG%, .275 3FG%, 4.0 apg).

Next, D’Antoni took a whirl with rookie Iman Shumpert.   Shump had a nice career as a defensive guard but he was also no PG.  He started 16 of the next 17 games and also struggled, putting up 9.4 ppg on .365 FG%, .250 3FG%, and 3.5 apg.  New York went 6-11 in that span (after a 3-4 start with Douglas).  During all this time, Lin had not played much except for a 20-minute look against Houston (9 points on 3-9, .333 FG%, 6 assists, 3 rebounds).

Finally, on February 4, 2012, D’Antoni gave Lin extend time and he torched Deron Williams for 25 points and 7 assist off-the-bench in a win.  Naturally, D’Antoni gave his only actual PG the starting job immediately.  Thus we would soon have the apex of Linsanity.  Including the win over Jersey, the Knicks won Lin’s first seven games as the primary PG and Lin hit a couple of game winners.  He put up 24.4 ppg, .512 FG%, 9.1 apg, and 4.0 rpg (he still had only .256 3FG%) which also featured a 38-point game and four other games over 23 points.

The world then began going crazy about this exciting underdog, who was leading New York back to respectability while crashing in his brother’s apartment on Canal Street.   After the hot start, Lin had two more great games but came back to earth a bit.  New York went 3-9 in the next 12 games where Lin shot much worse (18 ppg, .412 FG%, .368 3FG%, 8.1 apg, 3.4 rpg).  Things also got strange because Carmelo Anthony was hurt for most of the hot streak (Amare Stoudemire also missed most of that streak too) but the team immediately started losing upon Melo’s return, which people noticed.

After that bad stretch, Lin continued to start but his minutes and shots dipped.  The Knicks went 6-1 in that next stretch but Lin was much more role player (28 mpg, 13.3 ppg, .429 FG%, .294 3FG%, 5.4 apg, 4 rpg).  On March 24, 2012, Lin tore ligaments in his knee, ending his season.  New York had gone 16-10 during that span and Lin’s stat line for Linsanity was: 34.1 mpg, 18.5 ppg, .449 FG%, .324 3FG%, 7.7 apg, 3.7 apg.

Without Lin the rest of the way, New York did not struggle.  The Knicks went 12-5 with an older Baron Davis playing the point most of the time (In 14 games, Baron was very limited and had 24.6 mpg, 7.6 ppg, .386 FG%, .354 3FG%, 4.4 apg, 2.2 rpg).  Baron wasn’t exactly Lin at that point but New York had gotten good minutes from Shumpert, Novak, Landry Fields, and newly signed JR Smith and that was enough to continue to excel.   New York finished 36-30 but were thrashed 4-1 by the peak LeBron/Wade/Bosh Miami Heat.

Would a healthy Lin have changed anything at the end of the 2011-12 season?

Lin was a clear upgrade over the older versions of Bibby/Baron but Lin wasn’t going to make a difference against LBJ & Company.  Nor is it likely they would’ve been better than 12-5 to end the season, even with Lin.  In fact, the strong finish actually hurt New York.  Had they slipped to the eight seed, the Knicks would’ve drawn Chicago, which lost its first round series due to a Derrick Rose injury.  In theory, the Knicks might’ve had the same fate of beating a Rose-less Bulls and drawn a better Boston team in Round Two that was beatable but this whole sliding doors scenario would’ve only happened with a bad finish to the regular season and having Lin for the playoffs, an unlikely combo.

New York was also close to catching Orlando for the six seed, which would have drawn New York a good Indiana team in the first round featuring Paul George and Roy Hibbert.  New York probably would’ve not beaten Indy either (the same Pacer team dispatched New York in the 2012-13 playoffs fairly easily).  So,, an upset of Indiana in 2011-12 wasn’t impossible but unlikely.  Even if the Knicks could’ve beaten Indy, the reward would’ve been a thumping by Miami in the next round anyway.  All this is a long way of saying that Lin’s injury was sad and disappointing but probably didn’t materially change New York’s playoff outcome.

Free Agency Debacle?

Lin entered the 2012 summer as a restricted free agent, so New York could’ve matched any deal.  The young point guard market that summer was very interesting.  There were three very nice young players out there.  Here are their per-36 minute stats (with their signing results in parentheses):

-Kyle Lowry (age 25): .409 FG%, .374 3FG%, 5.1 rebs, 7.4 asts, 1.7 stls, 0.3 blks, 3.1 TOs, 16.0 pts, 18.8 PER, .156 WS48, 4.1 BPM (signed with Toronto for two years, $12 million)

-Goran Dragic (age 25): .462 FG%, .337 3FG%, 3.5 rebs, 7.2 asts, 1.7 sts, 0.2 blks, 3.2 TOs, 15.9 pts, 18.0 PER, .139 WS48, 1.9 BPM (signed with Phoenix for four years, $30 million)

-Jeremy Lin (age 23): .446 FG%, .320 3FG%, 4.1 rebs, 8.3 asts, 2.1 stls, 0.3 blks, 4.8 TOs, 19.6 pts, 19.9 PER, .140 WS48, 3.8 BPM (signed with Houston for three years, $24 million)

Intuitively, it would seem the Knicks would match any offer given to Lin because of how much peak Linsanity was worth to New York.  Lowry and Dragic were older and seemed to have lower ceilings. How do you not take another shot at Lin with these options and the good vibes he imparted?

Two things happened that sabotaged that plan: (a) Lin signed a backloaded deal that would’ve cost New York up to $40 million in luxury tax penalties and (b) Melo didn’t seem keen on playing with Lin anyway.  Before discussing the free agency decisions, let’s address Melo’s alleged complaints about playing with Lin.  Here are Melo’s stats broken down from the 2011-12 season:

-Pre-Lin: 20 games, 35.7 mpg, 23.9 ppg, .406 FG%, .295 3FG%, 6.4 rpg, 4.4 apg, 15.3 GmSc, 1.1 +/-

-During Linsanity: 19 games, 30.8 mpg, 15.8 ppg, .390 FG%, .288 3FG%, 5.3 rpg, 3.1 apg, 9.9 GmSc, 0.4 +/-

-Post-Linsanity: 16 games, 36.1 mpg, 29.1 ppg, .491 FG%, .429 3FG%, 7.3 rpg, 3.4 apg, 20.8 GmSc, 4.9 +/-

Melo had been pretty bad before Lin and even worse with Lin.  Anthony then exploded post-Lin.  Based on these numbers you get why he didn’t want Lin back.  Not sure that jettisoning Lin was a great idea but Melo’s perspective was surely rational.

The team’s handling of Lin’s free agency, however, was poor.  In hindsight, Lowry and Dragic were better choices but, not knowing what we do now, signing Lin made all the sense in the world.  On top of that, the Knicks didn’t replace Lin with these youngsters, opting for Raymond Felton, age 27, who was coming off a terrible season in Portland (13.4 PER, .042 WS48, -1.5 BPM) and had never been that good to begin with.  The Knicks were actually good in 2012-13 (54-28) as Felton was okay and a very old Jason Kidd manned the point pretty well but it all fell apart quickly (Felton regressed hard and Kidd retired).

As for Lin, he started for the Rockets in 2012-13 and put up stats consistent with his last few games of the 2011-12 season:  32.2 mpg, 13.4 ppg, .441 FG%, .339 3FG%, 6.1 apg, 3.0 rpg, 14.9 PER, .099 WS48, 0.3 BPM, 1.5 VORP.  The real story was that the Rockets landed James Harden that year and Lin’s skillset made little sense around a ball dominator like Harden.  Lin then bounced around as a mostly backup PG with the Lakers and Hornets.   He did have a nice run as a starter with the Nets in 2016-17 before a few more serious leg injuries in Brooklyn turned him into a backup for good.   He last played in the NBA in 2018-19 when he won a ring as deep bench payer with the Raptors.

Lin and Hoopsanalyst

Before summing up on Linsanity, let’s digress for a minute about how it sort of affected this little blog.  When Lin first started playing well, I vaguely recalled that Ed had written about Lin and wondered if anyone would notice.  Shortly after, I started getting hundreds of Twitter notifications, which was strange because I didn’t even remember I had an account.  Next, I got a call from several media members, most notably The Wall Street Journal, wanting to track Ed down.   This resulted in tons features from big shops like The New York Times, The Atlantic, Business Insider, The Huff Post,  Fox Sports, CNN, and WSJ

At the same time, by pure coincidence, the site went down. We assumed it was a bandwidth issue due to increased traffic (which was what I told WSJ at the time).  I later learned this was purely coincidence but who knew?

Even weirder was an April 2012 article by Daryl Morey about Linsanity in The Economist, where he recognized Ed’s work but was skeptical that anyone could guess something like Lin’s success.  Morey wrote that: “Mr Weiland’s seemingly clairvoyant forecast is a red herring. In fact, no one could have predicted the level of play Mr Lin has attained—at least not without mistakenly foreseeing similar achievements for dozens of other players as well. Rather than life imitating Poe’s art, what Mr Lin’s story really demonstrates is the old Niels Bohr adage: prediction is difficult, especially about the future.” 

Morey further noted that Lin’s stats package in college was similar to that of Josh Slater, a guard from Lipscomb, who never came close to sniffing the NBA, to highlight how hard it is to find the next big thing.  Morey then accepted some shame for letting Lin go previously but explained this was not foreseeable: “Mr Lin has received so much attention because he embodies the reason we love sports: every time you watch, something amazing might happen that no one anticipates. He is an outlier and an underdog whose hard work is paying off at last. Just don’t tell me that anyone—even C. Auguste Dupin—could have predicted it.”

Of course, Morey was broadly correct.  No one can predict with great accuracy that a second rounder or undrafted player would project as an above-average starter.  Morey got it further incorrect when he signed Lin and let Lowry and Dragic both go.  But none of that mattered because Morey predicted that Harden would be good.  In the end, this proves Morey’s point that predictions are imprecise.  Still, that’s a real oversimplification of the prediction process.  Predictions, whether based on scouting or stats, may be wrong but if they are based on sound logic, they will be more often correct than wrong and being correct puts you in the position for a happy surprise like Linsanity or Draymond Green or numerous happy finds. 

Finally, do not take this article to mean that Morey wasn’t impressed with Ed’s analysis.  Ed later was hired to work for the Rockets.

Summing Up Linsanity

No matter what you think of Lin, the Linsanity Run was pure fun for all.  Having said that, we can safely draw the following conclusions:

-Lin was bona fide and legit NBA point guard.  His hot streak was a bit above his head but he deserved to be drafted in mid-first round of the 2010 Draft based on his ability. 

-A healthy Lin probably makes no difference to the 2011-12 Knicks.  The Knicks replaced him adequately in 2012-13 as well.  That doesn’t make the decision to jettison him any better.  Opting for the adequacy of Felton over Lin still feels bad and really represents a lack of imagination by the Knicks.  No one knew Lin’s ceiling but we all knew Felton’s and it wasn’t very high.  That the Knicks put the kibosh on Lin’s return still seems like weirdness.  Any normal organization would’ve tried to sign Lin quickly and without giving him a chance to get a deal that could submarine his return. 

-Lin’s career was solid but hurt by some bad luck.  He had leg injuries that cut short the two best stretches of his career.  His only healthy shot at possible stardom was also quickly gone because he had to share time with a superstar like Harden.  Lin made about $54 million in NBA salary as well as plenty endorsement cash, so he’ll be fine but I get why he might look back with a little frustration at his career.

-Finally, Linsanity gave me whiff of derivative viral popularity and it was both cool and weird. 

Andrew Wiggins, All-Star?

So, Andrew Wiggins was voted an All-Star by the fans.  This vote raised some eyebrows because Wiggins’ All-Star status is pretty debatable.  Let’s do a moderate dive into how crazy this choice is.  Here are two facts that we should consider before really expressing an opinion: (a) the All-Star game is fan driven and if the fans want Wiggins, then so be it and (b) most fans really don’t care too much about an exhibition game played at moderate intensity anyway.  So, you won’t find me particularly irked by this result, even if I disagree with it.  Having said that, let’s dig in to the nitty gritty of whether this choice is objectively bad…

How good has Wiggins been this season?

Pretty good.  In a career low in minutes per game (31.7), Wiggins has put up 18.2 ppg, 4.3 rpg, 2.1 apg on a career high .584 TS% ( he was at .527% coming into this year).  Wiggins spent years as a high-volume and lower efficiency offensive players in Minnesota and his advanced stats this year are the best of career high but not overwhelming: 16.7 PER, .141 WS48, 1.7 BPM, 1.4 VORP.  For reference, his solid VORP ranks is tied for 40th in NBA.

The issue is that it’s not clear that he’s even the second or third best player on his own team.  While Wiggins has played more minutes than most of his teammates, some others have been in his ballpark in terms of productivity.  Here are the Warriors’ advanced stats leaders at the forward slots:

-Wiggins: 16.7 PER, .141 WS48, 1.7 BPM, 1.4 VORP

-Draymond Green: 15.1 PER, .151 WS48, 4.0 BPM, 1.5 VORP

-Otto Porter: 17.0 PER, .195 WS48, 4.5 BPM, 1.5 VORP

-Andre Iguodala: 12.8 PER, .144 WS48, 3.3 BPM, 0.7 VORP

Porter’s numbers are better but his hot season is bit fluky and done in only 22 mpg any way. Iggy is also having a great season in short stints.  They aren’t really viable All-Star options but we can see that GS has had some really great performances from all sorts of places. 

Still, the real issue is taking Wiggins over Draymond.  Draymond missed 12 games but his overall numbers are a good deal better and the Warriors are 9-7 when Green does not play.  Putting aside the numbers, Green clearly is the most important defensive player on the team.  It’s pretty evident that Green merits the starting nod over Wiggins.   

What is the best argument for Wiggins?

Well, the argument rests on positional scarcity.  The current All-Star ballot permits fans to vote for three forwards/centers from each conference.  There are plenty of players better than Wiggins in the west that fit that category.  He’s already sharing the starting position with LeBron James and Nikola Jokic.  Some of the better players not voted in, besides Green, are big men like Rudy Gobert or Karl-Anthony Towns or players labeled as guards on the ballot (Luka Doncic and Devin Booker).  The other usual better options have been injured most of the year too (Anthony Davis and Paul George).

If we assume LBJ is a power forward and the fans don’t want to play two centers in Gobert/Towns with Jokic, then Wiggins is really next on the available small forward list in the west.  He’s not better than Mikal Bridges but it’s close enough that choosing Wiggins over Bridges is not ridiculous.  I would have chosen a frontcourt of LBJ, Green, and Jokic but there is a cognizable defense for Wiggins’ election.

Is Wiggins the worst starting All-Star ever?

Not even close.  There are tons of starters who ended up with a lower full season VORP than Wiggins has put up so far.  In fact, quite a few popular pros were voted in when they were not playing well.  Ralph Sampson in 1986-87, Allen Iverson in 2009-10, and Kobe Bryant in 2013-14 were all injured and not really playing well.   We found ten players, since 1979-80, who started despite negative BPMs:

-1979-80: John Drew, -0.3

-1981-82: Isiah Thomas, -0.8

-1982-83: Maurice Lucas, -0.3

-1984-85: George Gervin, -0.3

-1985-86: Moses Malone, -0.1

-1989-90:  AC Green, -0.6

-1993-94: BJ Armstrong, -0.1

-1994-95: Latrell Sprewell, -1.2

-2000-01: Antonio Davis, -1.1

-2015-16: Kobe Bryant, -1.6

Some of these guys were better than BPM would indicate or started because of positional scarcity or huge popularity.  We won’t recap all the bad fan votes but our rundown can be found here.  Suffice it to say, Wiggins’ pick wasn’t perfect but was within the bounds of reason, even if we are skeptical that he’ll ever make another team.  Either way, he should enjoy the ride this year.

Revisiting the Westhead Nuggets

Recently, the internet celebrated the 32nd anniversary of Scott Skiles record 30-assist game for the Orlando Magic.  How did Skiles, a very average point guard, end up having a better passing game than greats like Magic or Stockton?  That leads us to a more interesting discussion of Skiles’ opponent on December 30, 1990, the 1990-91 Denver Nuggets.  That Denver team represented a fascinating but failed experiment in trying to win by playing at an ultra-high pace.  Let’s dig in to Denver’s weird attempt at something very fun…

Paul Westhead: Running Before Denver

The architect of this fast paced style was Paul Westhead, a veteran coach (and expert on Shakespeare), who started out coaching LaSalle in 1970-71 and winning with teams designed around Jellybean Bryant and Michael Brooks.  While Westhead was later known as a fast break aficionado, his early LaSalle teams were middle of the pack in scoring in the NCAA (we have limited data to calculate pace from back then so we are going strictly by PPG rankings). Then in Westhead’s last two years at LaSalle, the run-and-gun side came out.  In 1977-78, LaSalle scored 86.3 ppg, 13th in the nation, powered by Brooks, but gave up 83.0 ppg (241st of 254 in the nation).  The next year, LaSalle followed up with 83.7 ppg the next season (20th) and allowed 83.2 ppg (244th of 256).  Clearly, they were playing at a fast pace.

In 1979, Westhead was hired to be an assistant coach to Jack McKinney for the Lakers on the team that had a rookie Magic Johnson and end up being the Showtime dynasty.  Westhead would end up getting the head coach job when McKinney was seriously hurt in a bicycle accident early in the season.  Westhead coached the Lakers to the 1979-80 title before getting fired in the middle of the 1981-82 season, allegedly because Magic wasn’t happy with Westhead’s offense.

The firing has been written about quite a bit with many asserting that Westhead was getting canned for running a boring offense (Magic told the press he wasn’t “having any fun”).  In fact, the Lakers had just won five games in a row when Westhead and Magic got into a shouting match and Magic suggested that he might need to be traded.  That was a big power play by the star who had a 25-year contract and it worked.  Westhead was fired the next day.  One of the reasons posited was that Magic didn’t like Westhead directing Magic to dump the ball in to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar too much.  This explanation doesn’t ring true.  The Lakers played at a pretty good pace (8th in pace Westhead’s first two years in Los Angeles and 4th in 1981-82).  Under Westhead’s replacement Pat Riley, the Lakers’ pace was actually slightly slower most of the next few seasons.

Westhead told Roland Lazenby in “The Show” that he was offended about the style-based explanation for his firing: “[t]he only thing I will say, that I want to attempt to clarify, was the explanation was that the team wasn’t running as much.  I said, ‘Well, you can fire me for a million things.  Take your pick….But every practice of my coaching career has been running.  So if that was the reason, that’s not a reason, not an accurate reason….Ultimately, history will look back and see me as the mad scientist who ran more than any other coach, maybe in the history of the game.”

Westhead was hired by the Bulls for the 1982-83 season.  The Bulls were 4th in pace but went 28-54 and he was fired after only one season.  In 1985-86, Westhead was hired by Loyola Marymount where his extreme running style was perfected.  The three-point shot had not yet been adopted by the NCAA but LMU ran, scoring 80.3 ppg (11th in the nation).  The three was adopted the next season and LMU did shoot some (14.3 per game) but not a crazy amount (several other teams had players shoot more threes).

In 1987-88, LMU exploded offensively.  They led the nation in scoring at 110.2 ppg and gave up the most points in the nation (97.2).  They shot 18.7 threes per game versus 9.2 for opponents.  The pace worked.  LMU went 28-4 and made the second round of the tourney.  The trend continued the next two years as well and the delta in threes taken by LMU and its opponents also spiked.  Here’s a quick summary:

1986-87: 85.2 ppg (14th), 87.6 op-ppg (285 of 288), 5.6-14.3 from three (.393%), 4.8-10.8 op-threes (.442%)

1987-88: 110.2 ppg (1st), 97.2 op-ppg (289 of 289), 7.8-18.7 from three (.420%), 3.6-9.2 op-threes (.389%)

1988-89: 112.5 ppg (1st), 107.3 op-ppg (293 of 293), 9.3-25.6 from three (.362%), 4.1-10.6 op-threes (.382)

1989-90: 122.4 ppg (1st), 108.1 op-ppg (292 of 292), 9.3-23.0 from three (.404%), 5.3-13.5 op-threes (.388%)

LMU had that famous magical run during the 1990 tournament where they nearly made the Final Four with this helter skelter style.  Basically, LMU pressed all game and shot often and quickly.  The theory was that by generating tons of possessions they would outlast other teams based on their superior conditioning and ability to be more efficient in that style.  To prep his players for the frantic style, UPI reported that Westhead’s “LMU players wore weighted wet suits while doing wind sprints in a deep-water swimming pool.”

Westhead and Denver

The Nuggets hired Westhead as coach in 1990.  At the time, Westhead told the Orlando Sentinel that “I am a fast paced coach.  No, I stand corrected, I am the fastest paced coach.  And I will accept any and all criticisms because of that.  This is what I do….Everybody in the league runs basically the same stuff, everybody plays the same game of ‘Monopoly.’  Well, I’m going to try to play ‘Parcheesi.’”  Westhead did admit that his style “is a very, very special way of playing.  When it’s good, it’s very good.  When it’s bad, it’s very bad.”

In early November 1990, Ira Berkow of the New York Times described the style: “Westhead had decided that good players in excellent condition can run more and harder and faster than they had ever given themselves the chance to. In the N.B.A., there is a 24-second clock and a team must launch a shot within that time frame, but the Denver players are given an internal clock of about six seconds by their coach, and the shots come off the incessant fast-breaking and are taken by players who go to the ‘spots’ on the court that they practice at and are most adept.  But it’s not just shooting, but defense, too, that is a hallmark of Westhead’s theory. You hound the guy with the ball like a wolf to Red Riding Hood.”

Denver was not a stranger to fast pace.  Before Westhead, the 1980s Nuggets were built on running most of the time.  From 1981 to 1990, Doug Moe coached Denver and leaned on the altitude of the Rockies to try to run fatigued opponents into the ground with great scorers like Alex English and Kiki Vandeweghe.  Here’s how Moe’s teams did year-by-year in offense and defense ratings, as well as pace:

1981-82: 114.3 Offense (1st), 113.9 Defense (23rd), Pace 109.8 (1st)

1982-83: 109.7 Offense (3rd), 109.1 Defense (20th), Pace 112.1 (20th)

1983-84:  111.3 Offense (2nd), 112.3 Defense (22nd), Pace 110.5 (1st)

1984-85:  110.7 Offense (5th), 108.4 Defense (15th), Pace 107.6 (1st)

1985-86:  107.1 Offense (12th), 105.9 Defense (9th), Pace 106.7 (1st

1986-87:  109.3 Offense (8th), 110.2 Defense (15th), Pace 106.2 (1st)

1987-88:  110.1 Offense (8th), 106.3 Defense (6th), Pace 105.5 (1st)

1988-89:  108.6 Offense (13th), 107.1 (8th), Pace 107.5 (1st)

1989-90:  108.0 Offense (14th), 106.7 (7th), Pace 105.4 (2nd)

So, Moe certainly fostered a fast pace but Westhead’s 1990-91 squad was still a whole other world:

1990-91: 105.2 Offense (21st), 114.7 (27), Pace 113.7 (1st)

All that running with no defense translated to a 20-62 record, the worst in the NBA.   The Nuggets were really bad beyond the record.  Denver had the worst SRS in the NBA of -10.31, much worse than the second worst Sacramento Kings (-6.27).  Let’s go back and see how this all happened…

Denver’s Terrible Start

The Nuggets lost a fun opener to the Run TMC 162-158, where Denver hung tough.   The wheels came off from there, as the Nuggets continued to lose but more convincingly.  By November 24, 1990, the Nuggets were 1-11 and had been mostly uncompetitive. The weirdest game was a 173-143 loss to Phoenix.  Denver gave up 50 points in the first quarter and 57 in the second, making the halftime score 107-67(!).  Phoenix took a foot off the gas to “only “score 66 points in the second half.  No single Phoenix player had a 30-assist game like Skiles did but, clearly, Kevin Johnson could’ve if he was inclined to do so.

On November 26, 1990, Hank Hersch of Sports Illustrated wrote an article called “Fast Break to Nowhere,” where various players and coaches panned Westhead’s style: “’Ugly,’ San Antonio coach Larry Brown has said of Westhead’s system. ‘Monotonous,’ says Phoenix forward Tom Chambers. ‘Crap-a-doodle,’ says former NBA and ABA coach Alex Hannum.”

Jack Ramsay, who coached Westhead in college and was Westhead’s friend noted that the system was less effective against professionals: “At Loyola, Paul’s system was so radical, most teams had no clue how to play it. In the NBA it’s a different style, but still within the framework of what most teams do—pushing the ball up the floor and taking advantage of opportunities. In college, maybe teams get confused, slow the ball down, back it out. In the NBA they take it to the basket and dunk it.”  Ramsay’s observation was largely true.  It was very hard to press great guards like KJ or Tim Hardaway.  But there were other issues beyond the weaknesses of the Westhead system.

Lack of Talent

The 1989-90 Nuggets were a .500ish team built around versatile guard Fat Lever (18.3 ppg, 9.3 rpg, 6.5 apg), speedy small point guard Michael Adams (15.5 ppg, 6.3 apg), and the aging English (17.9 ppg).  After the season, Denver traded Lever, by far their best player, to Dallas for two first-rounders (Denver used the first pick to move up to draft Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf with the third overall pick in 1990).  English was let go (also to Dallas).  This left Denver with the following key players:

-Adams: at age-28, the quick guard would fit well with Westhead.

-Abdul-Rauf: only 21, a great scorer but young and undersized and blocked by Adams.

-Orlando Woolridge: Formerly a good scorer, was 31 and only a bench guy with the Lakers the prior seasons.

-36-year old Walter Davis: Way past his prime but could score off the bench.

-Filler players like Blair Rasmussen and Reggie Williams.  Decent players on a good team but not stars.

-Fringe guys like Jerome Lane, Joe Wolf, Anthony Cook, and Todd Lichti.

Westhead didn’t really have the personnel to win much.  Lever would’ve been fun to watch in the Westhead system but the trade was clearly a good idea because Lever’s knees went four games into the 1990-91 season (English was also on his last legs).  This was a tear down from the start and Westhead had no shot of winning.  Of course, Westhead’s system didn’t make these players better than their talent but they wouldn’t have won even in a Mike Fratello stalling style either.

Stats Stuff

In the wreckage of the weird season, here are a few stat tidbits:

-The running system did some funny things to the featured scorers’ raw numbers.  Adams took 21.5 shots per game and 8.5 threes per game, which was a ton for 1990-91.  He ended up with 26.5 ppg and 10.5 apg but shot .296% from three (he had shot .366% from three the prior season).  His 564 attempts from three was an NBA record.  His 1988-89 season (466 attempts) was the prior record.  Adams .296% from three in 1990-91 remains the worst three-point shooting season for a player with a minimum of 564 attempts (Baron Davis in 2003-04 is second with a relatively balmy .321%).

-Orlando Woolridge had averaged 12.7 ppg the prior year and used the system to his full advantage.  He jumped up to a career high 25.1 ppg even though his usage was not ridiculous (25.7%).  He rated as terrible defensively making his BPM barely positive (0.3).  He missed time with an eye injury but Denver actually played better when he was injured.  Denver went 9-38 with Woolridge and 11-24 without him.  Teams weren’t particularly fooled by his raw numbers as he was sent to Detroit after the season for Scott Hastings and a second rounder.  Woolridge scored 14 ppg for Detroit (and annoyed the Bad Boys with his lack of defense).

-As noted above, Denver ran a lot.  To give a little context, Moe’s 1982-83 Nuggets were previously the highest paced NBA team since turnovers and other stats were first kept in 1973-74.  Westhead’s squad was an order higher than that.  The 1990-91 team remains the fastest paced NBA team since 1973-74.  Alas, the pace did not yield the results that were intended.

-The Nuggets system sort of worked at home.  They were a respectable 17-24 at home but a miserable 3-38 on the road.  Remarkably, that wasn’t the worst road record that year.  Sacramento somehow went 1-40 away from home.

-A few players who would later have good careers cycled through the roster without actually playing much.  Anthony Mason played three games and fouled a lot.  Avery Johnson was a deep backup point guard and Tim Legler was also brought in for 10 games.

-As bad as Adams’ three shooting was, the rest of the team was worse.  Denver led the NBA in threes attempted but shot a gross .283% (300-1,059). The best three shooter with any volume was Reggie Williams at .328% on 43-131 from downtown, which was still well-below the breakeven rate.  Westhead had the right instinct to use the three but his team just didn’t shoot them at a percentage that would make the tactic an asset.

-Denver shot a lot of threes but its three rate didn’t actually lead the NBA (Houston took more on a per possession basis thanks to Vernon Maxwell).  Denver had the lowest free throw rate and assist rate in the NBA, which makes sense if your plan is to shoot immediately after getting the ball.  On the bright side, they did have the best turnover rate and didn’t actually foul that much.  Ultimately, though, they just were too bad defensively.  Opponents shot a .524% effective-field goal percentage against a league average of .487%.  This crazy style didn’t interest fans either.  Denver had the lowest attendance in the NBA.

Could the Westhead System Work in the NBA?

I guess if he had the right personnel but this system was particularly out of place in the 1990s, where slow pace and physical defense were  tactics that the rules seemed to most reward (most of the slowest paced teams of the modern era came from the mid-1990s).  Certainly, the modern NBA had adopted some of his ideas today but the pure Westhead system seems just too extreme to work in the NBA.  I’m sure he would have fun coaching  Stephen Curry and some players who could really execute his offense.

Postscript

Westhead was not fired after the season and was given one more season.  He took some of the air out of the system (likely at the behest of management).  In 1991-92, the Nuggets drafted Dikembe Mutombo and played at a pace of 98.6 (7th in the NBA) and they stopped shooting threes (only 5 per game).  The offense was the worst in the league but the defense was actually average.  They still went 24-58 and Westhead was fired.  It must’ve been torture for Westhead to have a bad team that was also boring offensively.  He went on to coach in college, the WNBA, and an NBA assistant before retiring and writing his own memoirs.

The Penny Shaq FAQ

About five years ago, ESPN did a fun documentary called “This Magic Moment” about  the mid-1990s Orlando Magic, led by Penny Hardaway and Shaquille O’Neal.  I didn’t really catch this doc at the time but saw it in rerun over the holiday season.  The documentary examines how Orlando almost ruled the NBA and poses the hypothetical question of what would’ve happened had Orlando kept the Shaq/Penny core together.  The doc ends with Shaq and Penny sitting on lounge chairs by a pool lamenting the break up.  Shaq notes that he regrets ever leaving Orlando and they both agree they would’ve won multiple titles had they stayed together.

 I hadn’t thought much about that team after it fell apart, mainly because Shaq went to a better situation and won a ton of rings and Penny fell apart physically.  Let’s dig in to that brief window of the Shaq/Penny Magic and see if we can answer the documentary’s overarching question, as well as a few other issues that pop up upon revisiting that time period…

A Brief Recap of Rookie Shaq

Orlando’s best stroke of luck was winning the 1992 lottery to enable it to draft Shaq, who was a huge prospect and the obvious pick.  He was not just the consensus number one pick but had the vibe of Ewing or LeBron, where the experts considered him a generational prospect.  Shaq would’ve been the top pick if he had left college in 1990 or 1991. 

In 1991-92, there were three truly awful teams with the best chance of snagging O’Neal in the lottery: Orlando (21-61), Minnesota (15-67), and Dallas (22-60).  In May 1992, the Desert News reported that Shaq “voiced a preference for the Los Angeles Lakers” and did not want to play for Minny.  The Lakers were not a viable option since they made the playoffs and could only get Shaq via trade.  Shaq was such a big prospect that the winning lottery team wouldn’t trade him unless the return was extraordinary or it believed that he would hold out.  Orlando, if it won, indicated that it would definitely pick him: “[t] here would be no hesitation from Orlando Magic in taking O’Neal, Magic general manager Pat Williams told the Sentinel.”

As luck would have it, Orlando, with the second best odds won the lottery and took Shaq (incidentally, the 31-51 Charlotte Hornets leapfrogged Minnesota and Dallas.  Charlotte took Alonzo Mourning, while the Wolves took Christian Laettner third, and Dallas took Jamal Mashburn with the fourth pick).

In 1992-93, the Magic improved by 20 games with the help of Shaq.  They went 41-41 and just missed the playoffs.  Shaq was great (22.2 ppg, .562 FG%,  13.2 rpg, 3.4 bpg, 22.9 PER, .163 WS48, 3.5 BPM, 4.3 VORP) and Nick Anderson was very good but the rest of the team average and they had gaping holes at power forward (they started Tom Tolbert, a replacement level forward) and on the bench. 

Orlando was good enough to make the playoffs but the East happened to have a logjam of decent teams:

-5 Seed Charlotte: 44-38 (-0.02 SRS)(Mourning and Larry Johnson)

-6 Seed New Jersey: 43-39 (1.20 SRS)(Derrick Coleman, Kenny Anderson, and Drazen Petrovic)

-7 Seed Atlanta: 43-39 (-0.67 SRS)(Dominique Wilkins, Mookie Blaylock, and peak Kevin Willis)

-8 Seed Indiana: 41-41 (1.77 SRS)(Reggie Miller, Detlef Schrempf, and Rik Smits)

-Orlando 41-41 (1.35 SRS)

So, the Magic was as good as any of these teams but was edged out in a tie-breaker.  This actually was the best thing for Orlando.  Missing the playoffs put them in the lottery again but, this time, their odds of winning a top pick were infinitesimal.  Still, they somehow won the top pick again.  The top picks were not exactly as big as Shaq but they were quite strong: Chris Webber, the star power forward from Michigan and Penny, a guard from Memphis.

Webber v. Penny: Should Orlando Have Just Kept C-Webb?

Orlando took Webber with the top pick but immediately traded him to Golden State for the third pick Hardaway and three more first-rounders.  Webber was already very famous as a member of the Fab Five at Michigan and Orlando had clear need for a power forward to replace Tolbert.  Apparently, Shaq asked Orlando to draft Penny because he and Hardaway had just filmed a movie called Blue Chips (note: I don’t recommend watching it) and they meshed very well in pick up ball during the down time.

Webber would go on to have a Hall of Fame career but Penny was very good early on and Golden State sweetened the pot with three first-rounders, which was a huge haul.  Despite the big hole at power forward, the Magic were probably better off trading Webber because he was not really healthy the first few years of his career.

After narrowly winning Rookie of the Year over Penny in 1993-94, Webber missed large parts of 1994-95 and 1995-96 with shoulder problems.  Moreover, Penny was just a better player in the mid-1990s.  Here are the stat comps of Penny and Webber from 1993-96:

-Penny: 241 gms, 37.1 mpg, .581 TS%, 19.5 ppg, 4.7 rpg, 7.0 apg, 20.9 PER, .173 WS48, 4.7 BPM, 15.1 VORP

-Webber: 145 gms, 34.9 mpg, 19.1 ppg, .546 TS%,  9.1 rpg, 4.2 apg, 21.3 PER, .130 WS48, 4.0 BPM, 7.6 VOR

We cannot know for sure if these injuries would’ve happened to Webber if he had played for Orlando but it is fair to assume that, if he had a bad shoulder, the problem probably would’ve manifested itself in Orlando too.  Also, as noted above, Penny’s rate stats were actually better than Webber’s for that period anyway.  Drafting Webber could’ve left Orlando with no star to pair with Shaq for 1994-95 and 1995-96.

As a side note, the three picks that Orlando got from Golden State ended up being pretty good.  The 1996 first-rounder was Todd Fuller, who was not good, but was taken right ahead of Kobe Bryant, Steve Nash, Peja Stojakovic, and Jermaine  O’Neal.  The other two picks ended up being Vince Carter and Mike Miller.  Orlando actually traded  the picks that would end up being Fuller and VC to Washington in the summer of 1994 as an inducement to the Bullets for taking Skiles’ bad contract.  Orlando used that cap room created by dumping Skiles to sign Horace Grant and Washington would, ironically, send the picks back to Golden State to get Webber (we examined that whole Webber drama here).  So, Orlando effectively traded the injured Webber for Penny and Horace Grant.  Not a bad haul, even if the picks that Orlando returned back were pretty damn valuable.

1993-94: Prelude to Title Contention

Shaq took a major step forward from his already impressive rookie season and Penny and Anderson were both good too.  The result was an improvement to 50-32.  There was still a big void at power forward as the Magic were now playing jump shooter Jeff Turner most of the minutes.  In all, though, the team looked good and was hoping to make serious playoff noise.  They were matched up with a solid Pacers team that waxed Orlando 3-0.  Reggie Miller scored 29 ppg and Indy’s huge front court (Antonio Davis, Dale Davis and Rik Smits) were effective against Shaq.  Turner was injured and Orlando had to resort to playing the beaten up Larry Krystkowiak to counter the Davises.  No doubt this encouraged Orlando to make the Horace Grant move.

How Good Was Horace?

The Grant signing was quite necessary given the lack of power forwards on the roster but how good was Horace?  At the time, I tended to conflate Horace with a bunch of hardworking power forwards like the Davises and Charles Oakley and I wasn’t sure his value translated outside of the Bulls’ system.  In truth, Grant was a level better than those other bigs in 1994.

In 1993-94, Grant was fifth in power forward VORP at 3.9, narrowly trailing Derrick Coleman, Charles Barkley, and Shawn Kemp (Karl Malone topped them all by a large margin).  Peak Grant was not a great offensive player but he was a great defender (he could easily guard small and big players) and had a reliable jumper.  Over the next three seasons with Orlando, Grant wouldn’t be quite as good as he was in 1993-94 but he was still pretty good:

-1993-94: 36.7 mpg, 15.1 ppg, .540 TS%, 11.0 rpg, 3.4 apg, 19.8 PER, .188 WS48, 4.0 BPM, 3.9 VORP

-1994-97 averages: 36.6 mpg, 12.9 ppg, .532 FG%, 9.3 rpg, 2.5 apg, 17.3 PER, .162 WS48, 2.3 BPM, 2.6 VORP

Replacing Turner at power forward with Grant was as good a move as Orlando could’ve made under the circumstances.

1994-95: Orlando’s Best Title Shot

With Penny and Shaq likely to continue to improve and Anderson and Grant, Orlando had no significant weaknesses coming into in 1994-95. Phoenix was the title favorite at +350 but Orlando was tied with New York, Seattle, and Houston for second at +450.

Orlando was clearly the best team in the East, going 57-25 with a 6.44 SRS.  Penny (4.1 BPM) took another step up.  Shaq didn’t improve but was still great (5.8 BPM and led the NBA in scoring).  Orlando’s playoff run was complicated when Michael Jordan came back in the middle of the season and posed a big potential obstacle for the Magic.  The teams met in the second round and it seemed like the Bulls had the edge with Jordan.  In the series, MJ was shaky by his standards (he let Nick Anderson steal the ball from him to clinch Game 1) but was still the best player on the court (31 pg, 6.5 rpg, 3.7 apg).  Ultimately, what killed the Bulls was Grant.  Chicago had no real power forward to replace him (they tried Toni Kukoc but he was really a small forward) and Grant, in turn, had a great series (18 ppg, .647 FG%, 11 rpg). 

The Magic beat the Bulls 4-2 and then beat the Pacers in a tough seven game series to get to the Finals against the Rockets.  Orlando had home court and was favored in the series.  They had a secure lead in Game 1, only to blow it when Anderson missed four free throws in the last few seconds.  This opened the door for the Rockets to win the game in overtime.  The Rockets blitzed Orlando in Game 2, stealing both games in Orlando, which basically ended the series.  Houston then swept the series 4-0, leaving an indelible impression that Anderson’s misses in Game 1 forever altered the outcome.

How Much Blame Should Anderson Get for the 1995 Finals Sweep?

Anderson’s bad free throw shooting in Game 1 obviously didn’t help the Magic’s cause but it’s not like the Magic just immediately fell apart.  They battled in overtime and the Rockets ended up winning the game on a tip in by Hakeem Olajuwon with 0.3 seconds, which seemed to be the bigger back breaker.  According to Roland Lazenby’s The NBA Finals, Olajuwon said that after scoring the winning basket: “[i]t was so quiet that I didn’t realize the basket was in.”

Anderson’s bad free throw shooting set the stage for the loss but the overtime ending seemed to be most shocking to the crowd and players.  After going down 0-2, the Magic played the Rockets tough in Game 3 in Houston and only won the game on a later three-pointer by Horry.  Once down 3-0, Orlando folded in Game 4 but the series was over anyway.

A few notes about this series:

-Anderson was having a great Game 1 and ended up with 22 points on 9-18 shooting (4-10 from three), 11 boards, 5 assists, and 3 steals.  Interestingly, he hadn’t shot any free throws before coming to the line with the game on the line.

-Anderson proclaimed at the end of Game 1 that he had handled worse in his life and he would bounce back (in high school, he witnessed his teammate and top player Ben Wilson gunned down in a senseless attack).  But Anderson was clearly rattled.  The next three games, Nick scored 9.0 ppg on .281 FG%, though he did grab 7.7 rg and had 4 apg.  His foul shooting was also askew.  He barely got to the line and shot only 3-6 on those attempts.

-Dennis Scott, another key player, had an even worse series than Anderson: 37.5 mpg, 10.5 ppg, .310 FG%, .241 3-FG%.  Scott was a great shooter but didn’t do much else.  In this series he was a huge negative on offense and didn’t exactly stop his man on defense (Mario Elie shot a blistering .649% from the field).  He got off easy because of Anderson’s high profile free throw misses.

-Shaq had a good series but Hakeem clearly outplayed him.  Shaq had 28 ppg, .606 TS%, 12.5 rpg, 6.3 apg, 2.5 bpg.  Hakeem was even better: 32.8 ppg, .514 TS%, 11.5 rpg, 5.5 apg, 2 spg, 2 bpg.  Hakeem had only 11 TOs in the series versus 21 for Shaq .  Olajuwon had to rely on jumpers (his TS% was .560 for the season and the earlier playoff rounds), which pushed down his shooting percentage but the other numbers show Shaq wasn’t ready to overtake him yet.

-Did this series “ruin” Anderson?  Not exactly.  He was still pretty good in the following season (14.7 ppg, 5.4 rpg, 3.6 apg, which was roughly in line with the prior season).  He shot .692% from the line in 1995-96, down from .704% in 1994-95 but not significantly so.  In fact, .692% was almost exactly in line with his career free throw shooting of .696% that he had coming into 1995-96.  Bizarrely, Anderson’s free throw shooting tanked to .404% in 1996-97 but this cannot really be attributed to the 1995 Finals because it would stand to reason that any mental scars or yips wouldn’t have taken two years to manifest.

Anderson would rally back to .638% from the line in 1997-98 and he put up the best  PER (19.6), WS48 (.149), and BPM (4.8) that year.  As an older player, his free throw shooting did slip from 1999 until 2002 when he retired (42-85, .494% on really low volume) but that’s a normal aging phenomena that occurs when players breakdown and also had nothing to do with the 1995 Finals.  Anderson deserves to be remembered as one of the above-average shooting guards of the 1990s.  The misses definitely fragged him for the rest of the 1995 Finals but the narrative that he was never the same afterwards is simply false.

1995-96: The Last Ride for Shaq & Penny

Going into 1995-96, it was not clear that Michael Jordan would be as good as he was before his first retirement.  That makes it particularly interesting to see what the odds were for his Bulls against the up-and-coming Magic team, with Shaq and Penny coming into their primes.  The preseason odds had a bit more faith in MJ, as the betting markets pegged the Bulls as slight favorites to win the title (+350) with the Magic a close second (+400).

Things got worse when the Bulls stole Dennis Rodman for Will Perdue and Shaq broke his thumb on a Matt Geiger hack during the preseason.   Without Shaq, though, Penny was amazing (26.4 ppg, .503 FG%, 5.3 rpg, 6.8 apg, 2.0 bpg, 0.9 bpg) and Orlando jumped out to a 17-5 start.  The only problem was the Bulls were the best team ever.  MJ morphed back to pre-retirement form and the Bulls went 72-10.  Orlando wasn’t exactly weak.  They were 60-22 and were thought to be one of the few teams that might beat Chicago.

Orlando went 1-3 against the Bulls in the regular season, with the only win coming early in the year when Shaq didn’t even play.  In the playoffs, the Bulls blitzed Orlando by 38.  Grant also blew out his shoulder during the game and missed the rest of the series, forcing Orlando to use the limited Jon Koncak at power forward.  Chicago swept the Magic, decisively resolving the mini-rivalry.  Shaq and Penny played well but the role players gave them nothing.  Scott and Anderson shot a combined 18-64 from the field and no player other than Shaq or Penny averaged more than 8.3 ppg.

Shaq Bolts

After the season, Shaq was a free agent and wanted seven years and $120 million to stay.  He was allegedly miffed that Orlando lowballed him initially.  A July 1996 article by Brian Schmitz in the Orlando Sentinel indicated that the negotiating gulf between the team and Shaq was large: “Orlando would be happy to sign Shaq at an average salary of about $15.5 mill and won’t dole out more than $17 million, absolute tops.”  Schmitz was pretty supportive of paying Shaq, noting that owner Rich DeVos could easily afford it: “How high is too high when you have $4 billion? Let’s break it down: Imagine a pile of money totaling $1 million. DeVos has 4,000 $1 million piles. He can hand Shaq about 120 of those piles and not even get weak at the knees.”  Shaq was also supposedly even more pissed that the Orlando Sentinel ran a poll asking fans whether Shaq was worth the money, which the readers answered decisively in the negative.  Shaq ended up signing with the Lakers for seven years and $120 million that he initially demanded from DeVos.

In 2011, an emotional Shaq said he regretted leaving: “I regret it sometimes. This is where I started, where I should’ve stayed. I actually wish that they [had] made it a law that whoever drafted you, you’ve got to stay there your whole career. No trades. No nothing. No free agency. No anything like that. Do I regret it? I regret it only because the DeVos family, they deserve a couple [of titles].  I just wish I would’ve had more patience. It was all about I wanted to be protected from the bashing. What I mean by that [is] I wanted to win then.”  Umm….no.  I appreciate that Shaq wanted to win in Orlando but this speech ignores the decades of pain players went through to earn the right to free agency.  Shaq could’ve stayed if he wanted.  It’s not like he would’ve starved in Orlando.

But, as noted above, the push to Los Angeles was coming even before Shaq was drafted.  It was clear that he wanted to go to that major market.  If they wanted to keep Shaq, Orlando shouldn’t have played too much hardball.  He was too good a player and too valuable a property to mess with.  The Magic just didn’t have the leverage they thought they did.  Shaq probably was going to leave regardless but Orlando’s negotiating stance made it much easier for him to do so.

Should Shaq Have Left Orlando?

At the time, I thought it was a bad move for him.  Shaq had the best young guard in the NBA in Penny and the Lakers had a few good players (Nick Van Exel, Eddie Jones, and Cedric Ceballos) but nothing near Penny’s 1995-96 ability-level.  Hardaway’s 1995-96 was something out of Jordan’s career: 24.6 PER, .229 WS48, 7.2 BPM, 6.9 VORP.  Patrick Ewing, David Robinson, and Hakeem Olajuwon had struggled to find a guard as good as Penny (anyone who tells you he knew in 1996 that a rookie Kobe Bryant would be better than Penny is lying). 

So, How Many Titles Would Shaq + Penny Have Won If They Stayed Together?

None.  Penny’s knee issues began the next season and he regressed to good player when healthy for a couple of years before his career totally stalled.  There was no way Shaq and an injured Penny would ever have beaten the Bulls in 1996-97 or 1997-98.  Penny’s knees and MJ’s greatness would’ve closed that door.   Shaq clearly made the right career move.  He somehow was able to find another all-time great guard and win those titles he felt so much pressure to get.

In sitting by a pool and talking about staying in Orlando, Shaq is being wistful for his youth.  Nostalgia is a powerful drug.  Those Magic teams were fun and really good but they were over after the 1996 playoffs, even if Shaq had stayed.