Spurs are NBA's "luckiest" team via ESPN

[iminol]

So we are lucky.

http://insider.espn.go.com/nba/story/_/id/9069621/nba-san-antonio-league-luckiest-team-how-sustainable-good-fortune

It's the summer of 2010, and it looks like the San Antonio Spurs' dynasty era is winding down. Coming off of an uncharacteristically mortal-looking 50-32 regular season, San Antonio ousted the Mavericks in the first round of the playoffs but were subsequently swept aside by the Suns, a team whose number they've traditionally had in the postseason. Worse yet, shrewd acquisitions like drafting Manu Ginobili (http://espn.go.com/nba/player/_/id/272/manu-ginobili) 57th overall and signing Bruce Bowen (http://espn.go.com/nba/player/_/id/83/bruce-bowen) from the scrap heap have been replaced by head-scratching moves, such as givingRichard Jefferson (http://espn.go.com/nba/player/_/id/1006/richard-jefferson) a $40 million extension. Nothing great can last forever, and the Spurs seem to be intent on proving that as their best days are fading further into the rearview mirror.
That's what most analysts were saying three years ago -- and who could blame them? But fast-forward to today, and the Spurs are sitting atop the Western Conference standings once again, a place they've occupied the last three seasons. And if anything, they seem to be getting stronger as more time has passed since the seeming crossroads they faced in 2010. Rather than a sign of trouble to come, or even the new normal, their aberrant 50-win 2009-10 campaign looks more and more like merely a flukish down year from one of the league's best clubs.
However, there is some evidence that the San Antonio narrative -- which seemed to be building back in 2010 (namely, that the team's true quality has in fact declined from the peak of Tim Duncan (http://espn.go.com/nba/player/_/id/215/tim-duncan)'s heyday) -- wasn't 100 percent off the mark. Casual observers might point to the Spurs' stunning first-round loss to Memphis in 2011 and their collapse from a 2-0 lead against Oklahoma City a year ago as evidence, but there's even stronger underlying support for this hypothesis if you use a technique to identify teams that have been playing above their heads due to "luck."
http://a.espncdn.com/i/insider/preview/scoreboard_arrow.gif To read more on the "luckiest" teams in the NBA and how sustainable their good fortune is, become an Insider today.

[Fireball]

Another reason not to become an ESPN Insider ...

[Spur|n|Austin]

Another reason not to become an ESPN Insider ...

:lol No joke!

[Fireball]

Spurs fans are lucky but the success of the Spurs only had one luck factor and that were those ping pong balls that gave us TD21.

[admiralfats]

from the article: "That makes the Warriors the league's fourth-luckiest team this season (Brooklyn is third and the Clippers rank second), but even they haven't been as fortunate as the Spurs, who rank first with an estimated 8.8 more wins than they deserve due to luck. Some of that has been under the auspices of schedule strength and Pythagoras, but mainly it's because of career years -- they've gotten unexpectedly great seasons from Tony Parker (adding 3.4 more wins than expected), Duncan (2.8 more wins), Boris Diaw (2.4 more wins) and Tiago Splitter (1.9 more wins), to name a few. Further, 8.2 of San Antonio's excess wins are due to players performing at a higher level than could have been foreseen based on their ages and established levels of play."

so we're lucky because our players are playing better than expected. In other words, we're lucky that our guys are playing well.

Okay.

[admiralfats]

i wonder if this is the same guy who "discovered the 'kobe assist'"

[Uriel]

from the article: "That makes the Warriors the league's fourth-luckiest team this season (Brooklyn is third and the Clippers rank second), but even they haven't been as fortunate as the Spurs, who rank first with an estimated 8.8 more wins than they deserve due to luck. Some of that has been under the auspices of schedule strength and Pythagoras, but mainly it's because of career years -- they've gotten unexpectedly great seasons from Tony Parker (adding 3.4 more wins than expected), Duncan (2.8 more wins), Boris Diaw (2.4 more wins) and Tiago Splitter (1.9 more wins), to name a few. Further, 8.2 of San Antonio's excess wins are due to players performing at a higher level than could have been foreseen based on their ages and established levels of play."

so we're lucky because our players are playing better than expected. In other words, we're lucky that our guys are playing well.

Okay.
That isn't luck; that's a testament to the hard work the players put in, the coaching staff that works with them, and the world-class training facilities of a first-class organization.

When they said "lucky," I was expecting something along the lines of how well they perform in close games, since "clutch" is really just "luck" according to advanced statistics.

[Richie]

There's not doubt luck is a huge part of the Spurs continued success. Two #1 picks who became all time greats at their position? Not only is there luck involved in getting a #1, but even more in getting a #1 pick in a draft where there is hall of fame talent at the top.

Everyone knows what a crapshoot the 2nd round of the draft is, to get a player of Ginobilis quality at 57 is undoubtedly lucky.

[admiralfats]

yeah, i mean, if he said, "the spurs have won 9 of 10 close games they've played," then I'd say yes that is slightly lucky. But this is just kind of prideful and silly. "They're outperforming our projections, so they're lucky." I don't think anyone expected Duncan to do what he's doing this year, but it's not luck. It's hard work, rehab, maybe even procedures or PEDs, for all we know. But luck is such a weird word to use. What about Kobe? He's having an above average year for his standards, and the lakers would be sunk if he was having a normal kobe year. Why not say they're lucky to even be in the race?

I bet Lebron and Durant are outperforming projections. The difference is they're younger and so you can say, "Well they're just better than we thought," but since the old guys are having above average years it is "luck." it would make more sense to say, "This production is unlikely reproducible," which he does in fact say, although it is not the thrust of his article.

[Brazil]

from the article: "That makes the Warriors the league's fourth-luckiest team this season (Brooklyn is third and the Clippers rank second), but even they haven't been as fortunate as the Spurs, who rank first with an estimated 8.8 more wins than they deserve due to luck. Some of that has been under the auspices of schedule strength and Pythagoras, but mainly it's because of career years -- they've gotten unexpectedly great seasons from Tony Parker (adding 3.4 more wins than expected), Duncan (2.8 more wins), Boris Diaw (2.4 more wins) and Tiago Splitter (1.9 more wins), to name a few. Further, 8.2 of San Antonio's excess wins are due to players performing at a higher level than could have been foreseen based on their ages and established levels of play."

so we're lucky because our players are playing better than expected. In other words, we're lucky that our guys are playing well.

Okay.

BSPN is a joke anyway :lmao

[timvp]

Neil Payne is usually good but that's one of the dumbest articles I've ever seen. I don't think "lucky" is the term that fits his model. "Lucky" in the NBA would be a team that wins a lot of close games or has a great record with a poor point differential (like the Warriors who are 39-30 despite hovering around a 0 point differential all season).

The Spurs are "lucky" because Parker, Duncan, Diaw (?!?!) and Splitter have been a lot better than expected? So because Parker keeps working on his game year in and year out, Duncan works all summer prepping his knee, Diaw actually tries now that he's not on the worst team in the league and Splitter has blossomed in the starting lineup, the Spurs are "lucky"? Yeah, no, that makes no sense.

If Payne wants to say the Spurs have "maximized their talents" more than any team in the league, that would make a lot more sense. I suspect using the term "lucky" is just an ESPN troll job for Insider page views.

[FromWayDowntown]

Is the basis for concluding that a player has added more wins than expected in this piece derived from Hollinger's estimated wins added number or from win shares or from something else?

[Mark in Austin]

This is what happens when people with no common sense think the success of the MIT Sloan Conference means they can boil down everything to statistical analysis.

Fail.

[Seventyniner]

If Payne wants to say the Spurs have "maximized their talents" more than any team in the league, that would make a lot more sense. I suspect using the term "lucky" is just an ESPN troll job for Insider page views.

A better way of putting it is that the Spurs are the best "do more with less" team in the league. I think this has been true throughout the Duncan era.

By contrast, I would say the Lakers take the "do more with more" crown given the embarrassing amount of talent (players and Phil Jackson) they have had, along with no payroll limitations.

I'm still thinking about the "do less with more" winner. For the early to mid 2000s, it would have to go to one of the Mavs, Blazers, or Knicks, each of which perennially underachieved despite huge payrolls. That or the pre-CP3 Clippers, who squandered a lot of lottery picks and even the ones they nailed would leave after their rookie contracts.

"Do less with less" easily goes to the recent Bobcats.

[024]

lolwut?

[DejuanorwhatDude]

A better way of putting it is that the Spurs are the best "do more with less" team in the league. I think this has been true throughout the Duncan era.

By contrast, I would say the Lakers take the "do more with more" crown given the embarrassing amount of talent (players and Phil Jackson) they have had, along with no payroll limitations.

I'm still thinking about the "do less with more" winner. For the early to mid 2000s, it would have to go to one of the Mavs, Blazers, or Knicks, each of which perennially underachieved despite huge payrolls. That or the pre-CP3 Clippers, who squandered a lot of lottery picks and even the ones they nailed would leave after their rookie contracts.

"Do less with less" easily goes to the recent Bobcats.

This. I think the term 'luck' is insulting.

[jARS mEsH sEt]

Yeah, that has nothing to do with "luck." All that says is that the forecasting models for players are woefully incomplete and inadequate.

[CubanMustGo]

Inspiring your players to work hard and improve isn't luck. What a fuckwad.

[Mal]

And what is unluckiest team ? Lakers ? Kobe is missing 2nd straight game, and they fucking sucks. That`s unlucky to me.

[Slutter McGee]

Stupid. article. Luck plays such an isignificant part of basketball. This ain't baseball, where you argue luck plays a huge factor.

Slutter McGee

[ffadicted]

That makes the Warriors the league's fourth-luckiest team this season (Brooklyn is third and the Clippers rank second), but even they haven't been as fortunate as the Spurs, who rank first with an estimated 8.8 more wins than they deserve due to luck

What in the fuck

[SanDiegoSpursFan]

I like the idea, but saying that players playing above expectations due to "luck" is insulting. We get punished in his formula because of the career year thing. I guess you could call it lucky that Parker and Duncan are having better years than last year, but Splitter, Green, and Diaw are playing better due to more minutes/more experience/continuity imo. He is saying that we're lucky because some players are better than expected, not because we're pulling out lucky wins. That's kind of dumb imo, but w/e.

[chapnis]

What a fucking terrible article. Perhaps they are performing better than expected because they work hard and play as a team.

I don't think Duncan's resurgence is due to plain ole luck, maybe Duncan had something to do with it himself?

[Seventyniner]

Now that I think about it more, I see what happened. Some stats people at ESPN came up with projections before (and probably during) the season as to how each player would produce and aggregated all that to make team projections. They then took a snapshot today or yesterday and compared how each team has done to what the model projected. The model predicted an average record of 42.2-24.8 for the Spurs at this point, so 51-16 is "overachieving" by 8.8 games.

Still, to call that "luck" is asinine.

[crc21209]

:lol What a joke of an article. Yet another reason why ESPN is constantly outclassed by Yahoo on a consistent basis...

[elbamba]

When did Bethesda start writing articles for ESPN?

[hater]

niggas got degrees for these kind of retardeness???

:lmao espn

[EVAY]

The hubris in this article is breathtaking.

When players and teams have consistently outperformed your analysis of how well they should do given your assumptions, your weighting of age, draft status, etc. etc., some sports analysts might examine several explanations, including...that the assumptions, the weightings,, the analysis itself might be wrong.

But not this guy. No, attributing team and player performance consistently above the level your model projects for them to luck is every bit as scientific and
unbiased as attributing it to the player's having sold their souls to the DEVIL.

psst, fella...I hate to break it to you...but YOUR MODEL STINKS!!

[Cry Havoc]

Lucky is out-drafting every other team in the league.

Lucky is valuing foreign talent as much as domestic and being the only team in the league to do it.

Lucky is trading George Hill (not a bad player honestly) for Kawhi Leonard (who's probably going to be an 18-9 all-star candidate next year).

Man, we're lucky that we're so lucky! :lol

[spurraider21]

When I read the title alone, I almost agreed, but I was thinking from the angle of landing Robinson in the draft, riding his greatness to plenty of team success (not titles during his reign, but we were a damn good team throughout his time in the league). Then the one year he goes down and we do poorly, we win the lottery of lotteries and draft the greatest PF of all time, who we ride to 4 titles. THAT I consider lucky. FWIW, some #1 picks since Robinson have been:
Pervis Ellison, Joe Smith, Michael Olowokandi, Kwame Brown, Andrea Bargnani, Andrew Bogut, Greg Oden, John Wall (these are all the #1 overalls since the Admiral that have never made it to an all star game)

[LarryDavid]

Boy that guy has chutzpah. Horrible logic.

[rjv]

how does the scouting and development of players and a system developed to optimize success and a coaching staff that refuses to be stagnant constitute luck ? the only thing the spurs lucked out on was david and tim and that is all. and that really is no less luck than being in a market that is an attractive site for free agents such as miami, new york and los angeles.

[Obstructed_View]

San Antonio must have a larger fan base than any of us think if ESPN is going to continually troll them like this. There's simply no point in putting shit out there for a team "nobody cares about".

[Bartleby]

Lucky is having owners with deep pockets, being in a major media market, and playing in a weak conference.

[Marrow]

Using google translator

From BSPN to English

"Luck" loosely translates to 14 straight 50-win seasons

[admiralfats]

another interesting thing, which my friend who isn't even a spurs fan necessarily pointed out, is (i'll use his words): "As far as I can tell, he's just lying about the pythagorean stats, anyway." Now, I don't think he's "lying," but the pythagorean stats on thenbageek.com actually say we're 1 game behind what we'd be expected to win. so do with that what you will. this might just be me sharing this awesome site with anyone who doesn't know about it.

http://www.thenbageek.com/teams/sas

if you look below all the stats, you'll see our expected record is 52-15, and we're actually 51-16, meaning we are "unlucky" by 1 game.

[Obstructed_View]

The Spurs are lucky to have one starter who hasn't missed a game.

[spurraider21]

Its called good scouting.

doesn't take a brilliant scout to have drafted Robinson and Duncan tbh. Manu/Parker a different story

[Richie]

Its called good scouting.

Obviously scouting is a part of it, but if the Spurs thought for a second that Manu would turn out to be this good (i.e Hall of Famer) they would have drafted him in the first round. Manu was a fluke.

Also, scouting had nothing to do with Robinson and Duncan. They were both jewels in their respective drafts, it was pure luck winning the #1. Furthermore, it was more luck to get the #1 pick in drafts with all time greats. If Robinson got injured in 97 instead of 96, maybe the Spurs end up with Antawn Jamison or, heaven forbid, Olowokandi instead of Duncan. Hell, best case scenario we would have drafted Nowitzki or Pierce, and maybe the Spurs don't win a title at all in the next 10 years.

Parker you an attribute to scouting though. Pop said he thought Parker would have been a top 10 pick if he had played college ball.

[Venti Quattro]

Spurs fans are lucky but the success of the Spurs only had one luck factor and that were those ping pong balls that gave us TD21.

[Poolboy5623]

Spurs fans are lucky but the success of the Spurs only had one luck factor and that were those ping pong balls that gave us TD21.

Don't forget the luck of drob...lightening struck twice for the spurs. Even luckier though than getting the no 1 pick twice, is to have a guy like Tim or David available to pick. Would suck to win the lottery and have no franchise guy to select. I'd say they have been as lucky as any franchise in sports, but for those reasons mainly. Every good team is "lucky."

[thunderup]

:lmao @ not having the super cHeat as #1. Lucky is when you play in a historically shitty southeast division in a severely under-talented and injury-plagued Leastern conference. Not to mention the fact that they've been healthy all season long as well.

:lmao ESPN is becoming more and more unreadable these days.

[Poolboy5623]

I stopped watching espn(for the most part), the summer the mavs won the title.. I haven't missed anything.

[Richie]

They did not need to draft Ginobili in the first round. Teams were not really drafting players from overseas at that time. The fact that they had scouts over there even looking at those players shows that its good scouting and when they drafted Ginobili I am sure they thought he was going to be a pretty good player.

Seriously? You think the Spurs thought Manu would turn out to be even close to as good as he has been, yet decided they'd rather trade their 29th pick for Gordan Giricek and a 2000 2nd rounder than secure him in the first round? If the Spurs even thought Manu would turn out half as good as he did they would have taken him with #29.

If they really did think he would be a great player and waited 28 picks more they need to secure his draft rights, that makes them even more lucky.

Obviously they thought he was a good player, but it's a complete fluke that he turned out to be as good as he did.

[racm]

:lmao @ not having the super cHeat as #1. Lucky is when you play in a historically shitty southeast division in a severely under-talented and injury-plagued Leastern conference. Not to mention the fact that they've been healthy all season long as well.

:lmao ESPN is becoming more and more unreadable these days.

Isn't it amusing that even if they slobber all over Durant they still suck up the 8th seed Lakers more than your Thunder? :lol

[thunderup]

Isn't it amusing that even if they slobber all over Durant they still suck up the 8th seed Lakers more than your Thunder? :lol

Yeah I don't get that one bit. Go to lakersground and you have Laker fans biting the hand that feeds them that is the media and ESPN. The other day there was a thread about how the Lakers incessantly get "chewed" up on ESPN by analysts. I didn't believe what I was reading.

[Richie]

Why draft at 29 if you know know one else is going to draft him and I guess Manu skills are a fluke. All the plays he made where just flukes. He has no skill all the big shots that he has made were just luck.

Clearly I'm not saying Manu himself is simply a fluke. The fact is that if the Spurs thought he would be this good, they would have taken him at 29.

And I don't know where this idea comes from that the Spurs were the only team who scouted European basketball. There were 4 international players taken in the 99 draft before Manu. In 98 Nowitki was taken in the first round out of the German second division,and Nesterovic was also a first round pick taken out of Italy where Manu was playing.

Go back to the 97 draft and there were 6 international players drafted, 5 of them in the second round. The idea that the Spurs didn't need to pick Manu because there was no way any other team could have heard of him is ludicrous.

[capek]

I suspect using the term "lucky" is just an ESPN troll job for Insider page views.

ie shitty writing :tu

[KaiRMD1]

That's just dumb. I'm gonna get a job at ESPN as a sport analyst just for the fuck of it.

[chapnis]

Can't believe how lucky the Spurs are this season. They keep getting favourable refereeing, no one is getting injured, we had an easy and resting schedule in the first half of the season and their best 3 players are all in their prime.

Oh wait...

[Bambililos]

Exactly. I'd think the lucky teams are the ones that avoid injuries. Doesn't apply to us.

[mrjap2x]

Probably a good example of numbers not telling the whole story.

[mudyez]

"They're outperforming our projections, so they're lucky." = "Our projections are pretty poor, so paying insiders are very unlucky!"

[ambchang]

So model predictions are reality, what happens in real life that deviates from the model is dumb luck?

In other news, ESPN is suffering from bad luck because their models tell them 100% of the readers should find them impartial, and yet only 0% actually did.

[Whisky Dog]

ESPN bias is hard at work

[Dancelot]

It's karma, you know, from all the class.

[mookie2001]

I think this is fantasy football influenced here

the season is almost over, rankings and projections go out the window

[Obstructed_View]

Those stupid projections are the reason Steve Nash stole two MVP trophies.

[TD 21]

Neil Payne is usually good but that's one of the dumbest articles I've ever seen. I don't think "lucky" is the term that fits his model. "Lucky" in the NBA would be a team that wins a lot of close games or has a great record with a poor point differential (like the Warriors who are 39-30 despite hovering around a 0 point differential all season).

The Spurs are "lucky" because Parker, Duncan, Diaw (?!?!) and Splitter have been a lot better than expected? So because Parker keeps working on his game year in and year out, Duncan works all summer prepping his knee, Diaw actually tries now that he's not on the worst team in the league and Splitter has blossomed in the starting lineup, the Spurs are "lucky"? Yeah, no, that makes no sense.

If Payne wants to say the Spurs have "maximized their talents" more than any team in the league, that would make a lot more sense. I suspect using the term "lucky" is just an ESPN troll job for Insider page views.

Good post.

He claims those three have been "better than expected", but according to who? Him or some other stat geek who came up with their projected PER's and thought they'd be worse than they are because of their age/mileage (save for Splitter; who I'm not sure why he thinks has been better than expected . . . top 10 WS/48?) And then instead of admitting he/they were wrong, he attempts to pass it off as them "playing a lot better than expected". Unbelievable.

[kobyz]

i don't like the use of the word luck in sport, to me luck could consider an impact only when someone is winning thanks to bad job of referees or things like this.

[Obstructed_View]

The closest thing I remember to luck was when Phoenix stole game 1 from the Spurs in the playoffs with two three pointers at the buzzer, one banked in by a rookie named Amare to send it to overtime.

[pgardn]

Yeah.


It was really lucky we had to face Shaq and Kobe in two out of their 3 Championship seasons in the playoffs.


Then later of course, we help put that duo to sleep once they got sick of each other.


What a lucky bunch of years facing those two.

[tim_duncan_fan]

It's not luck. It's holy power.

Thank you, Braced God!

[-21-]

Goodbye classy, hello lucky!

Terrible, terrible article... Seriously WTF?!?!

[cd98]

Luck is where preparation meets opportunity. When the Spurs have had the opportunities come, they've nailed it most of the time because they have a great organization top to bottom, players, coaches, development, scouting, executives, etc.

They do more with less than any franchise in sports.

[Obstructed_View]

I'd be much more inclined to define luck as getting Memphis to trade Pau Gasol to you for next to nothing and getting Philly to give up their team and their future in order to help you turn Andrew Bynum's broken corpse into Dwight Howard.

[-21-]

I'd be much more inclined to define luck as getting Memphis to trade Pau Gasol to you for next to nothing and getting Philly to give up their team and their future in order to help you turn Andrew Bynum's broken corpse into Dwight Howard.
:lol That's true.

[ambchang]

Why draft at 29 if you know know one else is going to draft him and I guess Manu skills are a fluke. All the plays he made where just flukes. He has no skill all the big shots that he has made were just luck.

Please read up on how Ginobili developed since being drafted in 1999. Pop mentioned that he never though Ginobili would be this good.

[cd98]

I'd be much more inclined to define luck as getting Memphis to trade Pau Gasol to you for next to nothing and getting Philly to give up their team and their future in order to help you turn Andrew Bynum's broken corpse into Dwight Howard.

I'd define it as insider training. It would be luck if trades like that happened for LA once in a long time, but the get those kind of BS trades all the time. See Howard trade.