Initial Assessment of Team Rosters in NBA’s Eastern Conference
There are three main phases to the game of basketball:
i. Offense;
ii. Defense; and,
iii. Rebounding.
Developing an accurate understanding of the overall NBA talent which exists on the roster for each team at the beginning of the season is a fundamental aspect of properly evaluating the day-to-day goings-on across the league over the course of the season.
INITIAL ASSESSMENT OF TEAM ROSTERS IN NBA’S EASTERN CONFERENCE [as of Sun-Dec-25-2011]
Tags: Atlanta Hawks, Boston Celtics, Charlotte Bocats, Chicago Bulls, Cleveland Cavaliers, Detroit Pistons, Indiana Pacers, Miami Heat, Milwaukee Bucks, New Jersey Nets, New York Knicks, Orlando Magic, Philadelphia 76ers, Toronto Raptors, Washington Wizards
January 3rd, 2012 at 2:27 pm
The formatting is messed up – the rankings are not visible in the end.
January 4th, 2012 at 3:30 am
BC,
Thanks for pointing this out. Re-tweaked the format as best I could, given the setting/parameters of the WordPress blog theme which I am using at-present. Hope this helps you read the whole table better this time around.
January 4th, 2012 at 3:45 am
Better. Your weighting system does not contribute to an overall assessment of the stregth of talent of each team so much as the depth of talent because it values reserves and starters equally.
January 4th, 2012 at 5:02 am
BC,
Basketball is the ultimate team game … where all 5 players must play [i] defense, [ii] offense, and [iii] rebound, in order to succeed in a big way, with the capable support of at least 2 substitutes and a coach.
1. IMO, others make a grave mistake when they try [in vain] to understand how the game REALLY works – at its core – if/when a team’s starting players are somehow deemed to be more important than its key subs, reserves, or extras, when it comes to being able to capture a League Championship, or not.
2. Over the course of a regular season schedule, “depth of talent” goes a long way towards actually determining which teams will finish in what specific positions in the final standings.
January 4th, 2012 at 9:27 am
Khan — I hear what you’re saying, and I understand that the ranking system above is more of a rough sketch than a detailed analysis… but you can’t be arguing that having the best overall starter and the worst overall backup is equivalent to the worst overall starter and the best overall backup, can you? Assuming the starter would play, say, 32 of the 48 minutes (conservatively), that fact alone would imply that the starter is twice as important as the backup, no?
Of course, you’re entirely correct that over the course of a season there are injuries, etc, so I would perhaps tweak that weighting to account for that fact. I also agree with your note about about “at least 2 subs” — that’s the key, I think. Certain subs are certainly as important as, if not more than, the starters. Others are likely not.
Nice to see you posting with more frequency again!
January 5th, 2012 at 12:17 am
Hander, I don’t disagree in general, but I’d venture that no one in the worl values mike miller as equal to Lebron or dwade.
January 6th, 2012 at 2:42 pm
Scott G,
When evaluating the overall strengths and weaknesses of individual team rosters against one another, IMO, it is vital to compare:
i. Starters vs Starters;
ii. Key Subs vs Key Subs; and,
iii. Reserves vs Reserves;
and then add these seemingly separate components together … in order to assess, in part, what the actual “[hard-to-define] chemistry-of-skills” [i.e. Level of Team Cohesion] is for a specific team relative to its set of opponents.
Over the course of an entire season … and within the operational confines of a given team’s locker-room environment … every single player is of equal importance to a team’s actual rate of success/failure, even though the public’s perception is that primarily “star players” – and certain noteworthy so-called “stats gurus” – can determine accurately how many Ws a team is able to garner in a given season, based solely on their ability to shoot, pass, dribble, and rebound, etc., the basketball.
e.g. How many minutes a starting player actually plays, relative to a back-up, is no more important … when it comes to winning and losing regular season games … than the contribution of the 10th man, who may rarely get to see the floor during game-time but also has the opportunity to interact with his teammates and coaches everyday in practice, in the weight room, on the bus, on the airplane, at their hotel, on their bench, in their meetings, in their huddles, etc.
Although I can certainly see how others might think that my methodology is not a sound [objective?] way to determine the strengths and weaknesses of a team’s roster relative to their opponents’, the results have shown me that this is, in fact, not the case at all … and I would highly recommend that anyone who would like to become an authentic expert on the NBA game take the time to follow suit and determine their own rankings for each player in the league, based on their own observations of these players and not what the “numbers” alone say about their past production.
i.e. It really doesn’t matter very much what yesterday’s spilled milk tasted like … except as far as it can accurately determine what tomorrow’s as yet non-spilled milk will, in fact, taste like, should you choose to drink it between now and then.
Cheers
PS. The one thing that most sound stats gurus will tell you is that their past-focused analysis actually have very-little-to-zero validity when it comes accurately predicting how two teams will perform in a specific game match-up tomorrow, or beyond. Given this simple fact … What good are they really?
PPS. Anyone who would like to go ahead and apply different “weights” to the perceived value of a team’s “starters” vs its “key subs” vs its “reserves”, etc., is free to do so. Based on my experience, however, it will not yield a more accurate data set than what appears in the chart above.
PPPS. re: post frequency … Busy times for me personally for the last several months.
January 6th, 2012 at 3:02 pm
BC,
Hander?
Hmmm …
IMO, the contribution of Mike Miller, as a Reserve, in relation to other Reserves across the Eastern Conference … is just as valuable, if not more, than the contribution of either Dwyane Wade or LeBron James, as a starter, in relation to the other Starters on the teams in the East.
I know it’s a difficult concept for others to understand and fully expect that not many others will grasp or accept it as being sound. Such is life.
January 13th, 2012 at 10:25 pm
Khandor, spellcheck changes your name.
You are so wrong on this point. I love how you just dig in when you’re wrong.
January 18th, 2012 at 11:07 am
BC,
We can simply agree to disagree about this, if you wish.
There is no digging in on my part.
Nothing which you’ve said so far would suffice as sound reason for me to change the opinion which I currently hold; that’s all.
The same might be the case for you.