2016-17 Celtics

[Rd11490]

Really? I assumed they would try hard to do that, as much as they trumpet them. More so Thomas.

I expect Ainge to move on from Thomas when his contract expires if not before. I know you don't believe in Ainge making the correct move as a GM, but I don't think he will sign a player who by all metrics should fall off significantly over the next 2 years to a long term deal.
Maybe I'm wrong and he'll try to compete with such a flawed and uncompetitive core?

if you don't believe in now and this core, Horford sounds like a dumb move, a move that over expected Durant, a deceptive move to placate fans or some high concept "culture" move. which ones?

I believe that the Horford signing was never more than an attempt to lure Durrant. It didn't work out and Boston got stuck over paying an above average big man for 4 years. It's not the worst deal, but I agree with you that he is not worth the contract.

I would have spent my long shot chase time on Milsap.

I want to agree with this point, but this is like the Noel rumors. The Milsap contract after this year will likely make the Horford deal look like a good deal. Everything that has come out of Atlanta is that it would have taken a huge offer to get Milsap. Do you really sacrifice players and picks for a 26 game rental?

I agree with some of your targets, I think a move for Dieng, Galinari, or Hernangomez would have been good for them.

Overall I think that the Celtics don't think that they can truly compete with the top teams in the league even with any of their trade targets. I also don't think that they have the mindset to truly min/max and move on from horford and thomas at this time. The team seems fine to hover as a top 4 seed in the east for the next few years while hoping to hit on one of the Nets picks.

[Crow]

Thanks for sharing your perspectives.

The Cs were gifted their last title but the next one probably won't be as easy. May be waiting for more sweetheart deals as sweet as the unusual, very sweetheart deals for 2008. That seems unlikely to me.

[Crow]

Currently 10th best record against the top 10 teams. 8th best SRS, but down 0.7 pts from last season. Slightly easier than average SOS. 8th best offensive efficiency, 18th on defense. 3rd on 3 pt makes but only 13th on 3pt fg%. 26th on total rebounding. 24th on fouls committed. 3 "factors" in top 10, 2 in middle, 3 in bottom 10. A mixed bag. 3 Wins above expected wins. Would be first for Stevens. Luck or improvement or both? The small drop in SRS and yet a small 4%pt increase in wins suggests a favorable shift in at least one.

Good biggest minute lineup but only 3 of top 6 most used lineups are positive and one of those just barely. Top 20 looks real good though. 503 lineups used, 9% above league average (not as abnormally high as in past but still elevated). 365 for less than 5 minutes for the season. Just 2 used more than 2 minutes per game. 66% of all lineups were negative for the season. That is pretty bad compared to at least good teams. Stevens' dink lineup game is worse with only 28% of lineups used under 10 minutes of the season being positive. By contrast about 2/3rds of those used over 10 minutes for season were positive. Maybe stick more to the best lineups in the playoffs. Or continue to "coach" furiously and dink down your advantage.

[Crow]

In 2 previous playoff appearances Thomas' scoring efficiency dipped greatly from regular season to well below league average. Obviously a key to watch this time.



Celtics have 9 wins by 12 points or more this season. Last season they had 23. Has Stevens stopped running the score up as often as before? One theory.

Losses of 8 points or more went from 17 to 11 so far. Contesting bad losses to the end more or just playing more close games? Almost no change in SRS for season (slight decline) but sure are big changes at game level. Coaching changes and / or randomness?

Despite these changes, Celtics still basically .500 against above .500 tams and win around 75% against the below .500 this season like last season. Only a couple game improvement against better part of league.

Of top 4 seeds in east, Celtics are 3rd in group on offensive efficiency. The other three have at least one top 2. More than the others, the Celtics may deliver a balanced playoff performance or have greater need to outperform somewhere.

[Crow]

After 2 games about 70% of Celtics playoff lineups are non-positive. Only 4 of 23 lineups used in first game get used in game 2. Poor results. Massive changes.

[Rd11490]

Nothing seems to be working for the Celtics in this series. Current talking head consensus is that they should have traded for George or Butler at the deadline. Smarter commentators are saying they should have traded for Noel or Ibaka.

With a team that is clearly not very good and deeply flawed, would it have been worth it to move those assets for one of the Stars? Should they have moved some lesser assets for a rental on Noel/Ibaka? If you do trade for Ibaka/Noel do you resign them and tie up your flexibility.

[Crow]

Everyone, everyone, on team should be included in possible future trade discussions. Ainge should feel some heat from ownership to make moves. If he doesn't make the right ones in 15 months, consider kicking him upstairs. Improve that lineup management. Maybe by facing the facts and questioning some of the patterns & moves.

[shadow]

Brad Stevens gets a lot of praise as an analytically minded coach. So why is Amir Johnson, the player with the best DRPM on his roster at +3.79 only playing 13.5 MPG in the playoffs when he averaged 20 MPG in the regular season? Kelly Olynyk (DRPM +0.64) has no business getting 10 more minutes per game than Amir Johnson in any playoff series.

If you go off the multi-year RPM JE recently posted, the gap in DRPM between the two is smaller, but Johnson still leads 3.2 to 1.9.

[Crow]

I would have intended more minutes for both but neither is defensive rebounding. Something is off about that scheme probably.

By several metrics Olynyk is the most efficient overall individual Celtic in playoffs and hardly anyone else is performing average or even close to it. Thomas way, way, way down; Bradley way, way worse.

[shadow]

Rebounding has obviously been an issue, but the Bulls eFG% so far this series would rank 11th for the regular season. They were the worst eFG% team in the league during the regular season and the Celtics were 5th in defensive eFG%.

If you use a very simple model (A_off_efg + B_def_efg - avg_efg) to project eFG% for the Bulls, assuming offense and defense have equal control, the Bulls would project to have an eFG% of 47.6% versus the Celtics. Through two games they're at 52%.

Here's how that model projection compares to the the actual eFG% for the other playoff teams:

Team: Projection / Actual

ATL: 51.4% / 45.5%
BOS: 51.8% / 51.8%
CLE: 54.5% / 62.3%
GSW: 55.7% / 54.4%
HOU: 54.2% / 55.3%
IND: 51.8% / 56.1%
LAC: 51.6% / 52.7%
MEM: 46.9% / 42.9%
MIL: 52.1% / 48.8%
OKC: 50.5% / 43.8%
POR: 49.1% / 43.2%
SAS: 51.6% / 57.3%
TOR: 52.1% / 48.4%
UTA: 51.8% / 53%
WAS: 52.1% / 49.2%

So the Bulls are the 3rd highest in over-performing their expected eFG%, behind the Cavs and Spurs.

[Mike G]

Two bad games and they're not a good team.

[Crow]

Cavs clearly a team with a big 3. Pacers , Spurs and Jazz you could see that way. All among the biggest efg% gainers. What would add value is: are their increases coming more from big 3 or supporting cast or both pretty evenly? Assist rates are high for 2 but not for two so that alone doesn't explain. All have multiple frontline players in the big 3. Could be partly due to that.

Portland, Toronto and OKC among the most top heavy on usage with the biggest losses. Easier to guard / getting more pressure or just off? Haven't run the numbers but at first glance it appears the top 3 at least get half the blame, maybe more. Atlanta with a loss but not as top heavy on usage. Maybe more top heavy on talent. Toronto, Portland and OKC very low on regular season assists and that is probably a factor there. All lead heavily by perimeter scorers too. Folks play tighter / more successful D on them? Morw than in run of mill games? Harden and I. Thomas down too.



Bad performing teams after two games are bad performing teams after two games and on watch for more or change.

[Crow]

Celtics currently 9th on both playoff offensive and defensive efficiency.

Some strong and average marks. Trying to win from 3pt land (second highest rate). The worst ones are last place on free throw rate and the lowest defensive rebounding rate I can recall seeing.
More on this series later.

As for regular season, I've mentioned the decline of SRS from last season and tge ooor record against top 10. I don't think I mentioned here that their record improvement over last season was alnost entirely related to performance against lottery teams. But now that is done.

[shadow]

This is somewhat related to Crow's last post so I figured I would put it here instead of creating a new thread. I used Dean Oliver's Correlated Gaussian method to calculate the expected win percentage for each team through games as of 4/22 . I didn't have anything setup to get ORTG/DRTG for each game, so I used points scored and allowed per game. I don't think this will drastically impact the results though.

Boston currently has the third highest delta between their expected win percentage and actual win percentage. A positive delta implies teams outperformed their expected win percentage. Here's the full list of teams ordered by their win percentage delta:

Code: Select all

Team  WP	    Exp WP	Delta
OKC	56.47%	50.98%	5.49%
CLE	63.53%	58.75%	4.78%
BOS	63.53%	58.92%	4.61%
ATL	51.76%	47.80%	3.97%
WAS	60.00%	56.25%	3.75%
GSW	82.35%	78.76%	3.59%
ORL	35.37%	32.99%	2.38%
MEM	52.33%	50.36%	1.96%
PHI	34.15%	32.72%	1.42%
POR	48.24%	46.84%	1.40%
NYK	37.80%	36.46%	1.35%
SAS	73.26%	72.06%	1.19%
SAC	39.02%	37.83%	1.19%
LAC	62.35%	61.38%	0.97%
HOU	67.06%	66.14%	0.92%
MIL	51.16%	50.31%	0.86%
TOR	61.63%	61.07%	0.56%
IND	49.41%	48.97%	0.44%
UTA	61.18%	61.14%	0.03%
CHI	50.59%	51.11%	-0.52%
LAL	31.71%	33.23%	-1.53%
DAL	40.24%	42.09%	-1.84%
DET	45.12%	47.20%	-2.08%
NOP	41.46%	43.93%	-2.46%
DEN	48.78%	51.51%	-2.72%
PHX	29.27%	32.04%	-2.77%
MIA	50.00%	53.52%	-3.52%
BRK	24.39%	30.56%	-6.17%
CHA	43.90%	50.62%	-6.72%
MIN	37.80%	46.60%	-8.80%

Link to formula used: http://www.rawbw.com/~deano/helpscrn/corrgauss.html

[Crow]

So this is for regular season plus playoffs where applicable? Curious how it would look for playoffs only.