APBRmetrics

I haven't really looked at the Warriors much or recently. Given some dialogue on them at Wages of Wins http://wagesofwins.com/2012/05/06/are-t ... han-yours/ and here http://www.goldenstateofmind.com/2012/5 ... s#comments, I thought it might be worth a thread here. I'll mention a few things but I hope others will add insights.

Last season the Warrior were really weak on 5 Factors. The previous season it was 4. No major improvement on any team weaknesses.

Getting rid of Ellis was long overdue and Bogut is a pretty good outcome. Center counterpart matchup data was horrendous this season. Will be interesting to see if Udoh's RAPM holds up in Milwaukee though.

Until they play defense they can't make the playoffs.

Obviously a lot depends on health of Curry and Bogut. And whether Thompson improves on overall team impact. (He had bad RAPM.)

I doubt they will be in the playoffs next season unless they draft and trade well from here. Probably need to remove at least 2 of the 5 factor weaknesses to have much chance.

A strong analytics program and a coach willing to implement the recommendations might be enough in 2 years but I doubt Jackson running the show his way will succeed. The top 2 lineups on minutes used were both bad, as were 70% of the top 20 lineups, with most of them being really horrible. I know the team was bad but that is bad lineup performance and seems to reflect bad coaching and lack of effective adjustment. Finding 2-4 truly good lineups and playing the hell out of them would make a major impact. Jackson only used one lineup much more than 100 minutes for the entire season and that was one of the 5-10 least concentrated lineup distributions in the league and doesn't bode well for the future. It is not common to have a good team without emphasizing some good lineups a lot. A few did it this year but it is not the norm for good teams. The Warriors top 4 performing lineups all had the departed Udoh in them. Can the two still possible in terms of other players work as well or better with Bogut? They will have to hope so. but unless they play them a lot it may not matter enough.

(Dallas only had 2 lineups used more than 2 minutes per game for the season. They were low on lineup concentration last season too, but much lower this time. Too low. Only one of those top 2 lineups was good. In the playoffs they upped the minutes but the top lineup was used under 7 minutes per game and that it is low, especially for the playoffs. 5 of their top 7 lineups were bad. Not sure how much was bad lineup planning & management vs weak play but probably can't say that the planning & management was good.)

I like this topic for some reason.

What kills GSW in rebounding is small ball. It's amazing how hard it seems to be to eliminate from the corporate culture there.

Dominic McGuire played 4 most of the season (when he was in). When you have Dominic McGuire and David Lee as your frontcourt, you are not going to win many games.

The conventional wisdom is that GSW needs to find a starting SF in the draft. I don't buy that. Brandon Rush can start at SF, so can Richard Jefferson or Dorell Wright. What the team really needs are backup bigs that are better than Andris Biedrins and Jeremy Tyler (unless he improves dramatically over the summer).

My thinking going into the draft is that we need one offensive big that can play with Bogut (when Lee is off the court), and one defensive big who can play with Lee when Bogut is off. For example, we might draft Jared Sullinger at #7 (assuming we keep the pick), and then draft Festus Ezeli at #30. If Ezeli or some other big is not able, then Biedrins just needs to provide defense and rebounding for 10-12 minutes a game, something he should be able to do. Here's how the frontcourt minutes would be broken down:

Lee/Bogut 24 minutes
Sullinger/Bogut 12 minutes
Lee/Biedrins (or draft pick or free agent big) 12 minutes

That would be the goal. Of course, injuries could change those distributions. If they really want to fix the rebounding problem, they just have to stop going small so often. Somebody needs to organize an intervention or something.

Another option is to draft Henson. Henson/Bogut could be a formidable defensive combo eventually, but they would have to be surrounded by multiple scorers. Luckily, scorers grow on trees in the Bay Area.

If they really think Barnes or PJIII are going to be stars in the league, I'd accept those picks, but I don't think either address a significant need.

Udoh was a liability on rebounding. Bogut will help on defensive rebounding but not much on offensive rebounding.
Sullinger sounds like the right pick if available, with Henson as second choice as you suggest. Ezeli at 30 might be good too. Biedrins and Tyler shouldn't play at all.

Warriors have lots of guys who can play SF but they should try to trade for one with a better impact. Or draft Kevin Jones at 30. I like the idea of going big at SG as much as possible for this team.

I agree with the pick suggestions, but if the goal is an eventual title, IMO guys like Jeremy Tyler deserve another year or two. There just aren't many prospects with 7'5" wingspans, athleticism, and natural post ability, and Golden State needs guys who could develop into stars, not competent backups.

If he fails, it won't matter at all (probably just give them a better draft pick), and if he figures it out you've got a center for the next decade+.

YaoPau wrote: If he fails, it won't matter at all (probably just give them a better draft pick), and if he figures it out you've got a center for the next decade+.

This sounds like something a Lakers fan would say, hoping that GSW stays put in the West cellar.

As far as draft picks go, if we retain the 7th pick this year, we will almost certainly lose it next year. So that's not really relevant.

I just never got the reasoning of trying to be a balanced 45-50 win team without a star. Pacers / Hawks / Bucks / Rockets / Jazz teams ugh... such a painful experience for fans, and it's so easy in the NBA to blow up a team and rebuild with better talent.

I didn't realize the Warriors owe the Jazz their 2013 1st ... according to nbadraft.net:

Jazz receive the Warriors' 2012 first-round pick, via Nets (Marcus Williams trade) (top 7 protected in 2012 and 2013, top 6 protected in 2014. If not received by 2014, Jazz will instead receive Warriors' 2014 and 2016 second round picks) (Deron Williams trade 02-24-11)

Sounds to me like it's in the Warriors' best interests to tank again next year as long as they keep the #7 in this draft. I'd consider packaging David Lee and/or Dorell Wright to move up from #7 (maybe add another pick too) and try to guarantee yourself Gilchrist/Robinson/Sullinger. You save your high 1st round pick in 2013, you can use it to add another young prospect, you might end up saving your 1st in 2014 if injuries/slow development happen, and you'd be able to give Klay and Tyler more minutes this year to develop. Barring injury, you'd be a playoff team by 2014 with enough youth to keep improving for years.

LOL. They're not going to tank again. Unless Curry, Lee, and Bogut all get injured, the Warriors wouldn't be able to finish that low.

And another 7th pick doesn't necessarily get them an elite player. It gets them a player like Curry, Udoh, or maybe Sullinger or Barnes this year.

How many years in a row should we tank?

Nah, at some point, you just roll with the hand your dealt. In a couple years when they have $30M coming off the cap, they'll have to reassess. Until then, I wouldn't mind just getting into the playoffs again.

The bottom line is the economics of the NBA simply favors certain teams, and if you're not one of those elite teams/markets, you just have to live off of scraps. Or maybe you luck out once in a generation by landing a player like Duncan or Howard.

EvanZ wrote:The bottom line is the economics of the NBA simply favors certain teams, and if you're not one of those elite teams/markets, you just have to live off of scraps. Or maybe you luck out once in a generation by landing a player like Duncan or Howard.

That's depressing and not even true. Oklahoma City traded away Allen/Lewis, then got high pick after high pick and they'll contend for the next decade. If you're giving up before you start, what's the point in even building? Why even watch a team whose strategy is anything besides a title? This is a game where just 1 impact young guy can completely change a franchise... the situation is never that dire

I love how everyone cites OKC. I guess all 30 teams should tank right now. Even OKC, because you know, OKC did it once.

The odds of that happening again are extremely small. While you're a fan waiting a decade or more to get 3 high picks in a row, I'll take a few playoff games.

I say this as a fan waiting over 20 years, with one exceptional year.

It's not just OKC. They're the prime example, but every contender has a superstar they drafted (Bulls, Miami, Boston, Spurs, Mavs, Lakers, OKC) and then built around. Every single one. It's so hard to make it work another way, especially in a small market, especially when your foundation pieces are an injury prone Curry/Bogut.

Watching your team sneak into the playoffs for the next five years might sound better than the current situation, but ask any fan of a team that's been in that situation how great it is.

It's very great, compared to being a doormat.
A middling team is at least competitive in the great majority of games.
-- A Pacers Fan

YaoPau wrote:
Watching your team sneak into the playoffs for the next five years might sound better than the current situation, but ask any fan of a team that's been in that situation how great it is.

Einstein famously said, in theory, theory and practice are the same thing. In practice they are not.

Or maybe Iverson said it.

Point is the idea of tanking season after season to eventually land an elite player makes some theoretical sense. But in practice you might end up like Washington or *gulp* Charlotte for a decade. No thanks. I have trouble watching a bad Warriors team, but I would stop watching basketball altogether if I were a fan of some of those truly awful teams.

Gosh, even Philly fans are probably somewhat satisfied this morning, and that's saying something - mediocre team or not.

Einstein famously said, in theory, theory and practice are the same thing. In practice they are not.

Or maybe Iverson said it.

Priceless!

The superstar-driven Magics lost their superstar, and the Pacers' starless squad moves on.
I'd rather see 80-some good, competitive games in a year than sit through yet another year of gambling, that several perfect circumstances will align, and my team goes rags-to-riches.

The Sonic-Thunders struck it rich with Durant at #2. If they'd been luckier and had #1, would they have taken Oden?
If they'd been luckier next year and gotten #2 or 3, would they have picked Beasley or Mayo (instead of Westbrook at #4)?
They got Ibaka at #24. Did they really know he'd be better than many of the 23 picked higher? Joe Alexander went #8. Bayless, Ajinca, B Rush, etc, were taken higher.

You can't really emulate luck by studying the behavior of lucky people.

This is one of my complaints about the new collective bargaining agreement. The same well-trodden path to success remains in place. Get lucky enough to land an elite player or two, then fill in with role players who have a particular skill that complements the star.

The problem, in my view, is the maximum salary, which artificially deflates the salaries of elite players and makes them comparative bargains for the teams that have them. That is, the TRUE elite players, are bargains. What the system does now is increase the importance of non-salary factors. The "home team" gets a very small advantage in the size of the contract they're able to offer -- much of that advantage being in the 5th year they can offer that a new team can't offer. In practice, that doesn't matter much because the new city can just start on a new contract in that 5th year. The financial difference to the player is small, which means he can make his decision based on "other stuff" like market size, off-court opportunities, team quality, coach, weather, proximity of family/friends, how the women look -- whatever.

I'd have MUCH preferred to see the league impose a hard cap where the luxury tax line is and do away with maximum salary provisions. Then teams could compete financially for players and pursue different avenues for team building. Do you offer $50 million a year to Lebron and then fill in with minimum salary guys and hope that's enough? Or, do you sign 3-4 (or more) good players with that same amount of money and build with better quality at each position?

From the player side, if you're Lebron/Wade/Bosh, sacrificing a million or two per season doesn't seem like that big a deal. The difference between $17 million a season and $16 million a season may not seem like a lot. The difference between $30-40-50 million and $16 million -- that's significant. So, would Lebron sacrifice that much salary to play with Wade and Bosh? Somehow, I doubt it.

But, to Evan and Mike's point -- as a Wizards/Bullets fan since the late 70s, I'd much rather have a .500 team that's competitive in most games than the dreck I've had to watch the past few years.

Yup, that's exactly it.

One potential solution, which would make salaries more important again, is to make the maximum salary a much higher percentage of the cap. 1/3 of the cap would be $20M. It may need to go higher than that. Maybe 1/2 of the cap. By definition, this would pretty much eliminate super teams, or at most, you'd 1 or 2 stars and 10 scrubs. More realistically teams would have to choose one superstar, and everyone else would be a role player.

Maybe the one exception is that you could keep your own drafted players and go above the cap. So, Miami would have been able to sign LeBron, but not Bosh.