November 1, 2014; Oakland, CA, USA; Los Angeles Lakers guard Kobe Bryant (24) reacts after fouling Golden State Warriors guard Klay Thompson (11, not pictured) during the third quarter at Oracle Arena. The Warriors defeated the Lakers 127-104. Mandatory Credit: Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports
There are several interesting storylines already developing in the opening days of the 2014-15 NBA season. With the first week in the books, let’s run through some Nylon Notebook, a series of quick notes on those storylines. Today’s collection all come with the help of the Team Logs here at Nylon Calculus, created by programmer Darryl Blackport.
HOW BAD ARE THE LAKERS?
Obviously the 0-4 start has been horrible. You can see here that defense has been an enormous problem for the current roster.
108 points allowed on 93 defensive possessions vs. Houston (116.1 Def. efficiency)
119 points allowed on 92 defensive possessions at Phoenix (129.3)
118 points allowed on 101 defensive possessions vs. LA Clippers (116.8)
127 points allowed on 101 defensive possessions at Golden State (125.7)
A typical defense is grading out at about 106 through 42 games of the new season. So, the Lakers are way off the pace. We should note though that they’ve opened against one of the toughest conceivable schedules for a defense! All of those teams can score. And, the Phoenix and Golden State games came on night two of a back-to-back. That was four games in five nights.
All we know for sure is that the Lakers are helpless against quality offenses in brutal fatigue stretches. Let’s see if they’re more competitive with fresher legs against less potent foes.
The betting markets are having trouble gauging the Lakers…
LAL (+7) lost to Houston 108-90 (missed by 11 points)
LAL (+12) lost at Phoenix 119-99 (missed by 8 points)
LAL (+11) lost to the LA Clippers 118-111 (a cover!)
LAL (+14) lost at Golden State 127-104 (missed by 9 points)
Note that the Clippers game was on a neutral court because both teams play at Staples Center. That plus the line in LAL/Golden State gives us a good sense of scale for the West. Home court advantage is usually worth about 3 points in the NBA (more in Denver, and occasionally other spots). If Golden State was -14 at home…that’s about -11 on a neutral court. We know that the markets respect Golden State and the Clippers as potential Western champs. The Lakers are now seen as the bottom of the barrel. So, the Western scale is approaching a dozen points from top to bottom.
If the Lakers keep failing to cover even after getting their legs back, that scale may expand. And, we may see some really huge lines when the best of the West are hosting Philadelphia, a team already priced like a doormat that hasn’t yet stayed within 12 points of other Eastern non-contenders.
HOW GOOD ARE THE WARRIORS?
Golden State has been truly impressive out of the gate…even if you give them no credit for bullying the tired Lakers. Their other two games were both road victories…
Golden State (-4.5) won at Sacramento 95-77
Golden State (+3.5) won at Portland 95-90 (on night two of a b2b)
That’s the same Sacramento team that just won on the road against the LA Clippers won at Denver on night two of a back-to-back…and has covered its three“non-Golden State” games by a total of 40.5 points! Look at how well GS shut down the Kings.
Sacramento scored 77 points on 103 offensive possessions vs. GS (74.8 off. efficiency)
Sacramento scored 103 points in 91 offensive possessions vs. Portland (113.2)
Sacramento scored 98 points on 90 offensive possessions vs. LAC (108.9)
Sacramento scored 110 points on 102 offensive possessions at Denver (107.8)
The Kings have been well above average when not facing the Warriors…but were helpless for a night at Golden State. Golden State looks great on their own so far…but even better when you factor in that Kings context. And, they’ve been performing well above market expectations. Late night is going to be a lot of fun on League Pass this year!
HOW FAST ARE THE 76ERS?
The Philadelphia 76ers are clearly one of the fastest teams in the NBA right now no matter how you slice it. The problem is, different places are slicing it differently…in a way that isn’t lining up with their actual possession counts.
“Pace” numbers are supposed to reflect a good estimate of the number of possessions each team has had. Now that we’re tabulating actual possessions from the play-by-play logs, we can see some of the issues.
PHILLY’S PACE
99.5 according to NBA.com
99.5 according to what’s called “Hollinger Stats” at ESPN.com
96.8 according to Basketball-Reference
Philadelphia’s actual offensive possession counts on their team page here are Nylon Calculus are:
92 at Indiana
97 at Milwaukee
98 vs. Miami
92 vs. Houston
They haven’t even reached 100 offensive possessions in a game yet, but are grading out at fractionally under 100 with the “estimating” methodology used by the NBA and ESPN (it was over 100 before Monday Night’s matchup with Houston, despite the Sixers not having yet reached 100 offensive possessions). Basketball-Reference is at least closer to what’s happening. Nylon Calculus is showing 94.5. That’s two below Basketball-Reference and five below the others.
Now, there’s obviously some margin for error because the tabulations are at the mercy of the play-by-play counts. But, we’re already seeing a big difference between the NBA and basketball reference estimates before the tabulations come into play. Baseball analytics had to deal with some embarrassment when critics found out that there were competing formulas for estimating WAR (wins above replacement). What’s going to happen when critics of basketball analytics find out that there isn’t agreement on how to count to 100?!
We hope you’ll use these ACTUAL counts in your own research and/or fandom. If you’re quoting offensive or defensive efficiency, why wouldn’t you want them based on the actual counts?