Quick Thoughts

by Harlan Schreiber

1.    Bulls/Raptors Race:    As we mercifully close in on the playoffs, there are very few questions left to be answered.  Except for seeding issues, the playoffs teams are virtually set.  The only race is the not so close race between the Bulls and the Raptors for the eight seed in the East.  The Raptors lead the race by 1.5 games (Toronto is 37-37 with 8 games left to play, while the Bulls are 36-39 with 7 games left).  The Raptors hold the tie breaker and ESPN’s playoff odds give the Bulls roughly a 10% shot of catching Toronto.  

The Bulls aren’t looking good but might their odds be a little better than 10%?  The playoff odds machine looks at past history for calculating the likelihood of future outcomes.  At this point in the season, however, the good teams may be resting the stars and the bad teams could be in outright tank mode.  So, let’s look a little closer and see what the teams have going forward to see if there is more hope for the Bulls: Continue reading Quick Thoughts…

Quick Thoughts

by Harlan Schreiber

1.    Cinderella Can Do It?:    With March Madness in full effect and the NBA in something of a slow wind down to the playoffs, I thought we’d take a step back and do a little more NCAA talk.  Specifically, all of our fascination with the Cinderella Squads, i.e. the small fries who upset major programs and their potential to get to a Final Four.  There are quite a few this year and I thought we could take a look at the true underdogs, the teams seeded 11 or higher, to track their history of success (technically the 9 and 10 seeds are also underdogs but the differences between them and their first round opponents are typically a coin flip).  Since the tournament has gone to 64 teams in 1984-85, the low seeds have had varying success.  Each year, the tournament has had 24 team in the 11-16 seed range.  Here’s how many of these teams got past round one (we’ll also put any teams in parentheses that got past the second round): 

1984-85:  2 (Kentucky made Sweet 16)

1985-86:  4 (DePaul, Cleveland State, and LSU made Sweet 16)

1986-87:  4 (Wyoming made Sweet 16)

1987-88:  3 (Richmond and Rhode Island made Sweet 16)

1988-89:  6 (Minnesota made Sweet 16)

1989-90:  4 (Ball State made Sweet 16; Loyola Marymount made the Elite Eight)

1990-91:  6 (Connecticut and Eastern Michigan made Sweet 16)

1991-92:  2 (No low seeds made the second round)

1992-93:  4 (George Washington made Sweet 16)

1993-94:  3 (Tulsa made Sweet 16)

1994-95:  5 (No low seeds made the second round)

1995-96:  4 (Arkansas made Sweet 16)

1996-97:  3 (Tennessee-Chattanooga made Sweet 16)

1997-98:  5 (Washington and Valparaiso made Sweet 16)

1998-99:  5 (Missouri State made Sweet 16)

1999-00:  1 (No low seeds made the second round)

2000-01:  7 (Gonzaga made Sweet 16; Temple made the Elite Eight)

2001-02:  6 (Southern Illinois made Sweet 16; Missouri made Elite Eight)

2002-03:  3 (Butler made Sweet 16)

2003-04:  2 (No low seeds made the second round)

2004-05:  4 (Wisconsin-Milwaukee made Sweet 16)

2005-06:  6 (Bradley made Sweet 16; George Mason made the Final Four)

2006-07:  2 (No low seeds made the second round)

2007-08:  5 (Villanova and Western Kentucky made Sweet 16)

2008-09:  5 (Arizona made Sweet 16)  Continue reading Quick Thoughts…

Quick Thoughts OKC Edition

by Harlan Schreiber

1.    OKC Soars:    The Oklahoma City Thunder have officially entered some pretty unique territory.  After beating Utah tonight, the Thunders are now 41-24 and project to win over 50 wins.  That’s pretty impressive because OKC is quite a young team.  But the surprising thing is exactly how young they are.  The Thunder’s top three players in minutes played, Kevin Durant, Jeff Green, and Russell Westbrook are all under 24.  In fact, the only player on the roster who plays regularly over 26 is Nick Collison (29).  How are the Thunder doing it?  Obviously, Durant is the driving force and Westbrook to a lesser extent.  KD is scoring at an incredible rate and Westbrook is okay. But the Thunder are 18th in offensive efficiency, indicating that the offense is Durant and Westbrook or bust for the most part.  No other regular player on the team has a PER of over 14.7 (Serge Ibaka is the highest).  

But the team is really defending well.  Amazingly, young players James Harden and Jeff Green have both been tough defensively, as have role players like Thabo Sefolosha and Nick Collison.  The end result is that OKC has gone from 20th in defensive efficiency in 2008-09 to 6th this season.  It’s not clear where exactly the extra defensive oomph is coming from.  Delving into the numbers, OKC is up a block a game from last year.  Statistically, the Thunder don’t have any incredible shot blockers but the rookie Ibaka is the best blocker and an improvement upon previous options.  Throw in tough defense from Jeff Green and Harden and a full season of Sefolosha and it’s clear that the Thunder don’t really have many weak defensive players in the rotation, with the possible exception of Nenad Krstic (who is hardly a bad defender).  Finally, a full season of coach Scott Brooks clearly helps.  Defensive systems make a huge difference and Brooks gets a ton of credit for the Thunder’s improvement. Continue reading Quick Thoughts OKC Edition…

Quick Thoughts

by Harlan Schreiber

1.    Memphis Surge Reviewed:    One of the more interesting stories of the season is the unexpected improvement of the Grizz, who are now 20-18 after going 24-58 all of last year.  Well, it’s not that improvement was unexpected it’s just that the extent of improvement is the surprising part.  When the Grizz grabbed Zach Randolph for nothing, we kind of figured there would be some improvement but the team is a fringe playoff team.  What’s going on here?  Well, the Grizz of 2008-09 were one of the worst offensive teams we’ve seen for a while.  Let’s take a look at the basic stats for the Grizz the last two years:

                                                        2008-09            2009-10

-Offensive Rating:         103.5 (28th)         110.2 (7th)

-Defensive Rating:        109.5 (21st)         110.5 (27th)

-PPG:                               93.9 (29th)         104.0 (4th)

-OPPG:                            99.3 (14th)         104.2 (25th)

-Pace Factor                    90.1 (20th)            93.6 (10th)

-Attendance Per Game:  12,680 (30th)      12,685 (30th)

The Grizz have changed their style drastically.  The putrid offense of 2008-09, which involved O.J. Mayo and Rudy Gay chucking has become faster and more efficient (though the chucking hasn’t exactly stopped).  There has been sacrifice of in defense (from bad to terrible) but this is easily counter-balanced by the offensive improvement.  Mayo and Gay are both improved a little bit (though Mike Conley hasn’t been much better).  The real improvement has come from Marc Gasol (who went from good to very good) and newly acquired Zach Randolph, who is playing as well as any time since 2006-07 and is huge upgrade over Darko Milicic and Hakim Warrick. Continue reading Quick Thoughts…

Quick Thoughts

by Harlan Schreiber

1.    Taking Stock in Boston:    As the standings start to sort themselves out in the NBA, it is clear that Boston is, once again, a serious title contender.  With their current winning streak, the Celts are 20-4 and have the best record in the NBA and the best SRS rating, though Atlanta and the Lakers are very close.  (Surprisingly, the Magic and Cavs are far behind these three in SRS).  Boston has been winning, as they usually do, with suffocating defense.  The Celts have the top defense in the NBA (99.4 efficiency) and are within shouting distance of their historic 2007-08 pace (98.9 defensive rating).  An interesting question is whether the Celts can keep this defensive pace up.  Last year, Boston started out quite hot (22-2) but tapered off to merely a very good defensive team, partly because of Kevin Garnett’s knee injury and partly because they could not possibly sustain such a hot start. 

With an older team, there is a tendency to believe something similar could happen this year too.  KG, Ray Allen, Paul Pierce, and Rasheed Wallace are all approaching 35.  Let’s take a look at how hard Doc Rivers have been monitoring these four this season so far versus the past two years:  Continue reading Quick Thoughts…

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