Thursday 12/31/09 Spurs-standings, stats, upcoming

[draft87]

Ok guys. I'm going to write another 'look on the bright side' thread.

Hopefully this will come out shorter than usual but I admit to writing stream-of-consciousness. Actually sorry, I doubt this will be short.

Last glass-half-full thread I wrote someone who appeared to be a Rockets fan complained that I wrote a bunch of crap just to say that if your team wins games you will go up in the standings. And a couple other people wrote some kinda dumb things about the point and length of the post. I make a point at the beginning of these threads that a) this will be long, if you don't want to spend a lot of time, don't read. No hard feelings, just don't be surprised if someone calls you a for reading a thread that said, "If you don't like long threads, don't read" and then writing about how you don't like long threads. b) this and other threads are purely for an informed, positive outlook on the Spurs season

I'm stating this in the beginning AGAIN just to make sure it's CLEAR AND OBVIOUS. This is simply a post to point out the positives. It is a response to the negativity that too often plagues the board.

You can count on me to post three things:

-Highlight the positives
-Sarcasm towards ignorant negativity
-Analysis from stats, film, and history
************************************************** ********


MOVING ON:

After tonight's win against Miami.

You probably already realized most of these:

-Big win over a winning(.500 win/loss) team

-A BIG big win over a winning team- 30 point margin of victory.

-Considering the unbalanced total games played in the league, Spurs currently rank as the lopsided 4th place in the West. -YES it's too early to consider standings but we still can use them to chart progress.

-Glance at standings: Of all top 8 West teams Spurs have best L10 record(8-2) Even though we've played a lot of -.500 teams we still won and tonight's win helped us continue up the standings. (I will post more in depth standings of top 10 west teams with L10 and Point Differential)

-10 games ago we were 11-9(.550). We are now 19-11(.633)

-Average Point Differential +6.4 is 2nd in West behind only the Lakers at +6.9. This means that Spurs are scoring an average of 6.4 points MORE than their opponent each game. Last season we were at +3.7(again, I will post more in depth standings of top 10 west teams with L10 and Point Differential) The next closest team at 3rd place is Denver with +5.3. Spurs have a nice advantage. Denver may score more than Spurs but we hold opponents to fewer points.
-------------------------------------

The last not-so-bullet-like bullet is what I to spend more time on.

This will kind of tie in things about our struggles with .500 teams, consistency, our positive indicators, what to expect in the future, and what to expect from other teams even though we're only starting the 2nd quarter of the season.
-------------------------

Here's a link to the West standings after tonight's games. I did it on Google Do ents. Please excuse the winning percentage. I haven't figured a way to enter a decimal without Google automatically adding a 0 in front. If you have a tip, please share. Also, the Y column is numbered so I re-numbered each standing chart.

http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?k...3aVRoZFE&hl=en


1. W-L standings
2. Last 10 games W-L
3. top 10 W-L teams reseeded based on average point differential.
-------------------------------------

What I hope you can consider is:
-although the Spurs have been inconsistent regarding
1. overall play quarter to quarter, game to game
2. Big 3(or 4) performances
3. defensive-man, perimeter, interior
4. rotations(who's starting, who's inactive, injury)
5. what type of point guard we have(pass first/score first) ...........
.....Spurs have put points on the board. Our starting point guard(Parker) has had to make serious adjustments to his game. His coach(Pop) has asked him alternate between his trademark combination of superior pick/roll and open floor penetration and approaching the game with a past-first mentality. These are serious adjustments to strategy and it's obviously affected Parker's play as well as his teammates....but Spurs still score the ball. We've seen some of the highest scoring Spurs games since the 90s during this high anxiety, time of inconsistency. I feel safe assuming that a well oiled Spurs machine is capable of hanging with the Suns, Nuggets, and Lakers come playoff time.
---------------------------------------------


One of the questions since 2008 has been whether or not we had enough firepower to counter the Lakers and since then other Western teams have added power and scoring. The Nuggets are a high scoring, physical team and the Suns have returned to "The Nash Era". This season we clearly have a very deep team full of players capable of dropping 20+ on any given night but we have also seen a drop in our defensive efficiency. The Suns and the Blazers torched us from all angles.

I don't claim that the Spurs are playing championship basketball. I will never tell you that one or two games can define a team's iden y but I will point at some harder to see #s to help you get a more realistic peek at things to come. I believe that by looking at the 3rd set of standings on my sheet(you can also see this at nba.com/espn.com if you re-arrange the standings) you will get a boost of confidence that during our generally unimpressive play we've scored a lot of points. We look capable of keeping up with the likes of the high scoring Lakers, Nuggets, Mavs, and Suns. We're bound to start playing much better and that should include higher, more consistent scoring(maybe even several more PPG).

And even though we've been afraid to face a Spurs defensive decline we're still holding opponents to three points below the league average(99.7-96.7).
-----------------------------------------------


League Average Points Scored 2010=99.7

Spurs Points Allowed 2010=96.0
Spurs Points Allowed 2009=93.3

Even though we allow 2.7 more points by opponents this year, we are scoring 5.4 more points than last year.

Spurs Points Scored 2009=97.0
Spurs Points Scored 2010=102.4

Our defensive may look weaker but our offense is potentially so much stronger it can carry us to the top.

Spurs Point Differential 2009=+3.7
Spurs Point Differential 2010=+6.4
**********************************

I also believe that as the offensive efficiency trends upward so will the defense. We might see an even larger point differential, maybe even best in the league. However it is possible that our defense will get stronger AND our offense will simmer down a bit but I just don't see a team including Duncan, Parker, Ginobili, Jefferson, Mason, Bonner, McDyess, Blair, Hill, Bogans, etc NOT dropping 110ppg. There's just too much firepower that if we score less than 110ppg it means we're either going to see a team like the 'bad boy' Pistons where NOBODY averaged 20ppg(very possible) or we'll see deceptively inconsistent box score lines from star players on any given night(i.e. Parker might drop 30 points, 2 assists; Duncan scores 8 point, 5 assists; Jefferson 13 points, 5 rb; Ginobili 20 pts, 5 ast; McDyess 4 pts, 4 boards;etc ....some stars with a lot of points and some with low points, and vice versa ALSO like the 'bad boys' which reminds me, have you checked out Simmons' The Book of Basketball? It's great and there's a chapter dedicated to Isiah Thomas in which he discusses "The Secret" to basketball and how it worked for the championship Pistons. I recommend it for any basketball/Spurs fan. I seriously recommend it for any Spurs fan worrying about the level of star talent on our team, especially the ones who are seriously thinking it's already time to make more transactions and count on the lottery)
---------------------------------------------------------

-BTW while we're talking about point differential, I noticed there was a big response to the Hollinger system of ranking. It doesn't seem like most of you have read the actual system of calculation.... or simply that it's a calculation. Hollinger's rankings are computer generated by stats. Albeit some of them are funky stats but stats nevertheless. There's no opinion in his rankings like Marc Stein's "human" rankings. You really can't argue with Hollinger except that you think the formula doesn't account for some obvious real-life scenarios(which he openly admits to in his explanation of criteria)

Here's a link to his method:

http://insider.espn.go.com/nba/insid...Rankings-Intro

and BTWx2 Spurs calculate as #3 as of tonight! I'll be happy to discuss the Hollinger method in more detail if you want to start a new thread.
***********************************************


-Around the league: Although we probably won't see it head2head, I anticipate the Rockets running out of steam. They seem to be on an adrenaline run like the 22 win streak in 2008. They're pumped on proving everyone wrong that a team of undersized hard hats can't make the playoffs. Their +1.0 point differential makes me wonder if/when they'll stop treading water. I just don't see all those guys(Brooks, Landry, Hayes, Lowry, Scola, Ariza) having career years. I can see one or two of them keeping up their insane #s for the whole season...but not five of them. I'd be proud of them for playing strong and balls-to-the-wall but the odds don't favor them to run this strong all season long.

Denver- I'm keeping my eye on them. You can see they have the worst L10 of the West top 10(4-6). This is clearly due to Chauncey Billups' absence. He means a lot to them in terms of leadership, play making, toughness, scoring, and defense(pretty much everything fueling their success). Plus with him starting they have ridiculous depth at the point. Ty Lawson works well as instant offense off the bench. He and J.R. Smith are a ridiculously potent backcourt combo. I'm talking like 40 points between the two of them without anyone thinking too much of it. Chauncey's return should sharpen up their D and in effect their point differential.

The West is ridiculously compe ive. Portland and Houston are hanging tough, the Conference Finalists are improved, Phoenix has re-emerged, and teams #9-13 might have a shot at the #8 spot in the playoffs!

[Biggems]

about 6 of the Spurs losses came down to the closing minutes. The Spurs just couldnt find a way to close out the games.

the first 3 losses of the season were just beat downs. the Spurs were owned in all 3 of them.

the other 2 games had the Spurs right there with like 5 minutes left in the game, then they just lost their gas and got beat. The PHX game was one of them.

We are finally getting our lineup set....we are finally getting our minutes in order......and we are finally seeing some consistency on both ends of the floor. We are seeing the new guys finally meshing with the old guys.

I also like it when Hairston, Haislip, and Ratliff get some nice playing time in these games......

[anonoftheinternets]

the only problem with hollingers method is there is no indication of whether the arbitrary weights he assigns (0.33, 0.77) have been tested against past years. If he obtained those weights after checking past history I would be a far stronger proponent of his method.

[Solid D]

The additional 6-ppg scoring boost this year has been very encouraging, not to mention the improved FG%. They are hitting .486 of their shots, #2 behind PHX at .496. As the schedule gets tougher, it will be interesting to see how well this holds up.

Points Diff. via a high PPG and FG% can be fools gold come playoff time so if the Spurs hope to carry through to the NBA Finals, they will need to make improvements in their interior defense. When taking a statistical view, as you have done, then Opp. FG%, Opp. APG, and Opp. PPG need to drop in order to make a difference in May and June.

Major concerns. Long teams, teams with height and length and teams with good outside shooting.

[DPG21920]

The additional 6-ppg scoring boost this year has been very encouraging, not to mention the improved FG%. They are hitting .486 of their shots, #2 behind PHX at .496. As the schedule gets tougher, it will be interesting to see how well this holds up.

Points Diff. via a high PPG and FG% can be fools gold come playoff time so if the Spurs hope to carry through to the NBA Finals, they will need to make improvements in their interior defense. When taking a statistical view, as you have done, then Opp. FG%, Opp. APG, and Opp. PPG need to drop in order to make a difference in May and June.

Major concerns. Long teams, teams with height and length and teams with good outside shooting.

I agree and it is strange to see, as a previous article has stated, the systematic shift in how the Spurs play. Defense vs Offense. Offense vs Defense. Never before has the Spurs way of winning shifted from one to the other so noticeably statistically.

Spurs need to find a way to keep the other team from moving the ball effectively and they need to continue to force teams into the most difficult type of shot; one with a hand in their face.

If they can improve their interior defense and run people off of the 3-PT line, their rebounding should take care of the rest.

[DAF86]

about 6 of the Spurs losses came down to the closing minutes. The Spurs just couldnt find a way to close out the games.

If Manu is indeed back to beign himself then that problem should be solved.

[ElNono]

What's more impressive in this e of points scored and big differentials is that we've mostly done it without the 3 point shot. We used to win big like this when we hit a lot of 3 and either win a close game or lose when we didn't. I love the fact we're not dependent on that anymore so far.