APBRmetrics

Orlando Magic in a bad patch. 2-6, losing by about 8.5 points per game (in same range as the loss margin that the very worst teams have for the season). Only 1 of the losses was anywhere close. Bad performance and maybe bad lineup management. 70% of the 20 most used lineups are negative and negative to an average of -13.7 per 100 possessions.

23rd best record against the Sagarin top 10 for season. 19th against the top 16. Currently outside the playoff seeding.

Other comments based on Sagarin data:

Wizards with tied for 2nd worst record against top 10 at 1-9.

Thunder with easiest schedule in the west.

Celtics, 4th easiest schedule. Sixers easiest.

Only 5 teams above .500 vs. top 10 and Warriors aren't close to being one of them. Celtics a bit closer but only 12th best.

For performance against top 10 to date, the clear leaders are the Bucks and Nuggets. Best against top 16 too. Only 9 teams .500 or better against top 16. Hard to see any team with less than that winning title. But perhaps Warriors and / or Celtics will fall or defy this criteria.

If Warriors win title, their average age is not surprising but maybe a bit lower than average for title winners. If any of the other main contenders win it they will be historically young or unprecedentedly young. Raptors and Bucks are a fraction of a year older than the very youngest in last 35-40 years if I recall correctly. Them winning would be pretty novel but not totally mind blowing. A handful of contenders are basically defying history and hoping to smash the youngest in recent history (or beyond perhaps) mark. It could happen but I'll be surprised if it does. There are some older teams, in the traditional average age for titlewinners: but they are not the very top contenders by current stats.

Has the age / average player quality curve changed? I guess it could but nobody has told me it has. Maybe I'll look into that if nobody else has it or jumps on it. It still depends on team specifics but a league level change would be worth noticing & considering.

Crow wrote: ↑Wed Dec 26, 2018 5:49 am Other comments based on Sagarin data:...
Only 5 teams above .500 vs. top 10 and Warriors aren't close to being one of them. Celtics a bit closer but only 12th best.

For performance against top 10 to date, the clear leaders are the Bucks and Nuggets. Best against top 16 too. Only 9 teams .500 or better against top 16...

Not sure how Sagarin ranks his top 10 or 16, but the list might shift daily. It would be interesting to log these regularly.
A bunch of teams rank very close in Win%, MOV, and SRS at b-r.com; and they are clustered in that 8-18 ranking zone. Here are some ranks, including their projected playoff success ranking.Yesterday at this time, the Lakers may have been around #15. Pushing your MOV up by 1.00 -- a 30 point win after 30 games -- will make such a change in a tight field.
In 7 ranking-spots (10 thru 16) we have some 12 contenders.

The top 10 does shift and I believe the newest top 10 gets applied against full season to date. He explains his methods. It is pretty much an SRS type rating. One can use BRef SRS instead if you want.

With an 0 for 5 from 3pt land night, Doncic's 3pt fg% will fall to real close to league average. Efg% is clearly below league average. TS% at league average before tonight.

Can teams & players learn to not foul Doncic? Seems worth learning.

Saw Rd11490 had posted some multi-year RAPM data sets, so figured I'd run one for the sake of comparison.

This is 2014-2018, as in the 2013-14 season through the 2017-18 season. It includes both regular season and playoffs:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... ingle=true

Side by side of all RAPM, RPM would be nice.

Spurs & Aldridge come back to life in a very strong way.

There are a lot of things that can be said about Luka Doncic. Here are a few more new ones:

In 3 games played without Smith and without Brunson as his replacement or the 3 games where Doncic was clearly the starting PG, the Mavs won two, lost one. They also gave up 116.3 pts per game and Doncic shot a total of 12 for 32 from field. Some things went right too. Another angle to watch going forward though.

Blazers continue to play Evan Turner too much. They haven't found a trade they can tolerate. They refuse to admit their huge mistake. They continue to waste Lillard era.

Staukas or Curry but not both. Terrible deep of bench.

Change players significantly or it will be a failed season and Stotts will take the blame / exit. It should be Oshley to go or both.

There can be debates on exactly where the lines are but imo it is a 5 tier league right now.

I like what both the Raptors and Bucks have done. I probably like the Raptors' players a bit more but I think the Bucks are slightly better overall and have the best superstar.

The Raptors play smart defense. It is not that aggressive in forcing turnovers and surprising weak on the defensive glass. The offense is good because of good shooting. High on 3 point shooting but not the other 2 parts of Moreyball.

The Bucks are similar on defensive smarts but better because of outstanding defensive rebounding. They are fairly similar on offense generally but get to the rim more. Which is more important, the Bucks' better Moreyball balance or the Raptors' better efg%? We will see in spring.

I didn't know how good Nick Nurse would be but he has been good. Very good roster to work of course. I spent late summer looking at the potential flaws of the Bucks and Budenholzer. I don't regret giving a vigorous, skeptical review but I do regret not giving as strong an effort to see prospects for improvement. Still a long ways to realizing goals and December has not what the opening weeks were but they are currently the best bet to come out of the East.

Crow wrote: ↑Fri Dec 28, 2018 8:31 am Blazers continue to play Evan Turner too much. They haven't found a trade they can tolerate. They refuse to admit their huge mistake. They continue to waste Lillard era. ...

Thanks to the Rd11490 data linked by shadow, we know:
Of 70 players to total 10,000 minutes in the last 5 years, Turner is last in 5-yr RAPM, at -2.38
Only 8 of the 70 are below zero, only 3 below -1.

Statistically he "should" be about -0.8, which is better but still in the bottom 10% of the sample.
Blazers don't appear to have any backup PG, so Turner is it. Less than 1% of his career minutes were at point before this year, in which he's doing 44% there.

I don't want to take credit for shadow's data; They linked their own data set. My 5 year RAPM (2014-15 - 2018-19, regular season only) can be found here

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OvFh3c ... sp=sharing