2019-2020 season commentary

[Crow]

A discussion of metric distributional range. https://twitter.com/kmedved/status/1203105765113946114
Thoughts?

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What is Donovan Mitchell? A high usage player with a slightly below average ts%, now as always. Modest Moreyball %. 42% of shots from mid-range. 135th on Shadow's RAPM. 200th on Ryan Davis' LARAPM (including a negative estimate on defense). A player who under performed badly in one playoffs and horrendously in the other.

Do they retain him at huge money? Almost certainly. Should they? Could re-sign then maybe trade later. What have they achieved? They have been good but not much more. The summer trades have not helped, could say they hurt. Gobert 27.5 years old. Block rate down a third from his best. What are they going to achieve the next 2 playoffs? Any series wins? Gobert could leave in summer 2021. There are at least a half dozen teams that might appeal to him (if they free up cap space or make a trade offer).

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First 11 games for T Wolves, strong Wiggins, strong W-L. Last 10 games, the opposite on both. KAT better in last 10 but worse team results on court. N
More to this but which Wiggins performance level appears to matter and perhaps more.

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What are the Buck's factor weaknesses? Offensive rebounding and forcing turnovers. Various teams would put extreme pressure on one of two. Nuggets would put extreme pressure on both weaknesses.

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Spurs modestly more reliant on Aldridge / DeRozan for scoring over last 10 games than before. Both shooting better recently and team W-L a bit better but I wouldn't feel that secure with this approach.

RAPM suggests Belinelli is helping on defense. That might be a product of lineups.

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Mavs with highest offensive rating since it was tracked (46 years). Luka, Luka, Luka. Top 5 on every factor and 2 of 3 Moreyball legs. Bottom 6 on shots at rim rate is main offensive weakness.

Rockets up to 24th.

Bucks in-between on offensive greatness but best overall this year and ever by SRS if they can maintain for season.

Bucks with 22nd best defensive efficiency of all-time so far. Lakers and Raptors also within top 50 of all-time on this.

Epic stuff at team and player level.

Bucks and Rockets lead in wanting to play fast. Celtics, Nuggets and Mavs want to play slower. That could be an important struggle in some potential series.

4 contenders are in top 6 on 3pt rate. 3 are in bottom 6. What 3pt rate they take in playoffs and 3pt fg% will likely matter a lot often.

4 contenders in top 5 of ft rate. Nuggets only contender in bottom 11 and actually at 4th worst. Celtics at 12th worst here. 6 contenders at about 58-59% TS%. Nuggets below 54%.

10-12 contenders. 4-6 with less serious flaws.

[shadow]

The only way to get the range of RAPM to match the typical end of season range during the season would be to lower the lambda value from the standard of 3000, at which point you'd start seeing many more low minute players near the top of the ratings. There are still going to be some outlier players at this point even with the standard value, but it's not nearly as crazy as it would be with a lower lambda value.

[Crow]

Ok, thanks for reply. Just checking.

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B-Ref gives Bucks and Lakers about 2/3rds of the total chance to win title. Those are the main two but I might give more chance for upsets. I'd give the Raptors the 3rd biggest chance.

20 NBA teams have finished season winning 80 plus % of games. Bucks and Lakers at .875 right now. Only once have 2 teams done it same season. 2015-16 with Warriors & Spurs.

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In East, one of Nets, Pistons and Magic will fall short of playoffs. 6 teams battling for homecourt status.

In West, probably just 5 with strong enough fight for homecourt. 7 teams with reasonable chance at last 3 playoff spots.

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Two best teams by SRS (Bucks and Lakers) are the two with the highest minutes weighted average age. Rockets, 3rd oldest.

Best five teams are on average 1.4 years older than the next five, who are in turn 0.8 years older than rest of league. Not huge differences but the normal pattern.

Spurs are only really old "bad" team.

4 of the top 10 are younger than any modern era title winner. And probably won't be the title winner this season. Mavs, Celtic, Heat, Nuggets.

Title winner probably comes from a top 8 team with average age of at least the youngest title winner. Or Bucks, Lakers, Clippers, Raptors and maybe Rockets or Sixers.

[Crow]

This season Raptors (without Leonard) vs. last season? More Moreyball but shooting a bit worse. Rebounding worse, way worse on defensive glass. Getting to line more and to rim a lot more. Worse offense but better defense. Overall a better SRS this season.

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Last season 8 teams were 2 plus points better than league of offensive and 8 on defensive efficiency. This season 8 on offense and 11 on defense. Last season 2 were 2 plus points better on both including the title winner. This season there are 4, probably including the title winner. Bucks, Lakers, Clippers and Celtics. Raptors not good enough on offense by these criteria. If they make a major trade, it probably should be for offense this time.

[Crow]

Looking at the conferences and who is currently playoff seeded, I'd say next season there is one team in each that is more likely than others to fall out of playoff level next season. Magic in East, Spurs in West. And two teams each that are the most likely to replace them. Heat and Hornets. And Kings and Lakers.

I won't try to pick rises and falls within the playoff tier, yet.

Magic, currently in 8th seed. Spurs out of playoffs so far. Heat in. Hornets, in 9th with a 3 win streak.