2018-19 season commentary

[Crow]

Is Luke Walton a great, good, average coach or worse? I dunno. But right now just 1 of the Lakers 12 most used lineups is cumulatively positive and just 3 of the top 20. Could you do worse? Maybe. Results so far don't show sufficient insight, command or execution.

[Crow]

Mixed results for Mavs. Starting unit off to rough start though at -14 per 100 possessions. Barnes back soon. Will he make it positive? I doubt it.

[eminence]

At the team level I know you can really start counting on the stats after ~20 games, and even 5-6 can give you a decent inkling, but I've never looked at it for individual players and rookies in particular. Anecdotally I know Mitchell started extremely poorly last season for the first ~5 games before settling down, but not sure how that works out on average.

[nbacouchside]

Is Luke Walton a great, good, average coach or worse? I dunno. But right now just 1 of the Lakers 12 most used lineups is cumulatively positive and just 3 of the top 20. Could you do worse? Maybe. Results so far don't show sufficient insight, command or execution.

I think Luke does well with the personality stuff, but he's not a good X-and-O guy and his lineups make no sense and haven't for most of his time in LA.

[Crow]

Leaguewide, before tonight, only 14 of the top 25 most used lineups were positive. It is competitive but that still does not look that impressive in terms of selection and execution by the coaches / teams.

League average pace is 101.5. Only 3 of the 25 were microscopically faster pace than the average. 10 were below 95, 15 below 97. Is playing fast smart right now? Would be interesting to see leaguewide efficiencies by pace. Average lineup pace or stint or possession level pace.

Only 8 of these big minutes lineups were leaders on net 3pta and only 10 of 25 on 3 pt makes. Only 10 were leaders on net ftas. This is not that impressive for top lineup picks. Only 13 of 25 were efg% winners. And much of the time these lineups are going up against dink lineups that may not make much sense.

[Crow]

By SRS the Mavs have been 2nd weakest team in league. By BPM and some other metrics Doncic's performance has been in bottom half for team. For the 2nd weakest team, his raw on / off plus minus is -11 per 100 possessions. The simple on the court measure is -9. If you compare players and teams Doncic has performed worse than the worst team / Cavs.

Compared to other Euroleague MVPs who then came over to be NBA rookies, Doncic in early going is only slightly better on BPM than the by far worst performing of the group as rookies (for season) Spanoulis, who left after 1 terrible season. How much will Doncic improve? Probably a lot from this weak start. He may end up the best of the bunch. But the best of the bunch so far were just average NBA players. Long way for Doncic to get to average on many metrics.

By BPM, Doncic ranks 24th of the 37 drafted rookies who have played so far. Sexton, Knox and Okogie are the only guys taken in top 20 with a lower BPM than Doncic so far.

[Crow]

Minute weighted these early big minute lineups are shooting fine, winning fine after all. Reconfirming a large gap between the dink lineup chaos. The random dink lineups may be "faster" because of more turnovers, fewer offensive rebounds. Maybe. Haven't compiled and compared yet. May be that running is best alternative to insufficient talent and experience together. Bottom line right now the main I know is that they are faster and sloppier / worse than the big minute lineups. The big minute lineups are playing 4.3 possessions slower than league average, so probably 5 or more slower than the rest for same amount of time.

So... maybe teams will refine, play big minute lineups more. If not soon, by playoffs. And then the style will be somewhat different for now. And either folks will expect / capitalize on change or miss it and maybe suffer for it.

[Crow]

I would advise Glen Taylor to set a Wed. 2pm deadline for getting a firm trade option from Thibodeau / Layden (agreed to by other side). Then either take that or the Rockets offer within 24 hours. Get on with it.

[Crow]

10 teams with an SRS above 4. At least 7 teams that might have been expected to be above that, by pre-season projections or current win-loss record. Still some shifting above / below this line to occur, but maybe not a lot.

[Crow]

Doncic's BPM is up to -4.3 from an earlier -6.4. One third of the way to neutral.

Mavs' starting unit only half as bad as earlier but still bad. 10 most used player pairs (all starters) are all negative. In next 10, 8 are positive and with 2 exceptions are comprised of all bench players. Raw data, probably against various opponent strength levels, so not an even comparison, but an apparent dichotomy. The early performance differences between the bigger minute starter and bench pairs are large, 15 plus points.

[Crow]

Sixers, below average on Moreyball. About average on fta and 3pt rate but last place on shots at rim. Below average team efg%.

Fultz, very bad plus minus with Simmons and Saric. Bad with Covington. Around neutral with Embid, Redick, Shamet.

[Crow]

Jazz, probably the best Moreyball team. Spurs, the least / worst.

[Crow]

Before tonight, the Thunder were in last place on efg%, ts%, 3pt fg%, ft%, offensive rating and low at fg% at the rim. Some of that may have changed tonight. By a bit.

[pattymills]

Jazz, probably the best Moreyball team. Spurs, the least / worst.

Evidence and definition of Moreyball-ness? I saw Gobert close out the game tonight against Mavs.

[Rd11490]

Jazz:
http://nbashotcharts.com/zoned?id=-1678698783
Spurs:
http://nbashotcharts.com/zoned?id=-361972996


I believe when Crow refers to moreyball-ness he is talking about the teams shot profile.