2019-2020 season commentary

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Clippers defense has slipped a few points in last 10 games. George slipped individually and on raw plus minus to a slight negative on the court. Leonard slipped on plus minus. Great individual stats but just a modest positive plus minus.

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Celtics are a balanced team and a very good team compared to others but they lack any major / important factor greatness. They lack any major weaknesses but hover just above average on many factors. On shot distribution they are slightly below average on degree of Moreyball.

Stevens is above average at playing with dink lineups; but they'd probably be better off using their top 8 lineups more and learning which ones hold against good teams and which don't- before the playoffs. They are all too lightly used to be very confident in. Especially 6 of the 8.

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Tucker and House off in last 10 games for Rockets.

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Griz ahead of expectations. But weak against good teams, especially good defenders / rebounders.

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Kings from 5th on pace last season to 28th now.

Kings weak against above average pace teams last season and this season.

Was it right to go away from high pace? Maybe but haven't found the answer yet. Even worse against slow paced teams this season than fast paced teams. Last season they did well against slow paced teams. Not now, not this way. Chasing that (if they did) didn't work.

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Nuggets with one of the very least Moreyball shot distributions. 20th on efg% and 23rd on ft/fga.

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Only one team over 23% ft/fga in this regular season(Heat). Least in 6 years and probably much longer.

6 over 23% in 2019 playoffs, most in 5 years. Is it more a change in player behavior or refs? What will it be next playoffs? High or not? A factor in what happens.

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Kings about average on 3 pt frequency and 3 pt fg%. Near bottom on at the rim frequency and ft rate. Need to change in one or more ways I'd say.

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TWolves rebounding has slipped some lately. Opponents shooting well from 2 pt range. Losing with KAT on the court. Was better early.

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Heat with best record against the Sagarin top 10. No major weaknesses against types of good teams (by stats). Not as strong as you might expect against average teams.

Jazz, Raptors and Mavs with weakest records against top 10 among the top 10 teams. All a bit weak about strong shot defense. Raptors have most trouble against good shooting teams.

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Irving 80th on RPM estimate. 337th on 1 yr LA-RAPM. 99th on 3 yr LA-RAPM.

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Imo, none of the Eastern challengers to the Bucks are as good as they think they are, as good as they could be with a significant trade. Who changes and with what impact?

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Recent media case for Trae Young as an All-Star starter is completely unconvincing to me. Unimportant to me too, though.

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Lillard with a strong RPM estimate but 21st overall because his DRPM is clearly worse than the 20 players ahead of him. Doncic's DRPM similarly lowers him with it being the worst in top 50 overall. KAT's DRPM is more than twice as bad as Doncic's and is in fact a shockingly bad 9th worst in league. Then there is Trae Young at 3rd worst.

Town's DRPM is the worst in league for a center. Pushing almost 4 pts worse than what he had last season when he was bottom third on DRPM among centers. Was one of these estimates off? In 3 earlier years he was bottom 20% among centers twice and dead last one other time. Twice as bad now as worst previous. It is exaggerated? I dunno. But he is clearly weak as a defender and probably should get called on it more. But he is an "untouchable" currently.

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Ja Morant RPM estimates nearly identical to Tremont Waters and Jordan Clarkson. Some boxscore similarities but also differences. Ja is worst shooter of 3 but essentially tied for best TS% and is best passer. Different ways to similar impact estimates. One or more may be off. But it is a starting point for more research.