trex_8063 wrote:OhayoKD wrote:Okay, but that's besides the point: averages go down the more you play. All else being equal, bosh playing half the minutes inflates his averages relative to Worthy
Why?
I didn't hear back on this query; perhaps with the project over you've lost interest. But as I'm going to be out of town soon (probably "offline" for most of it), I'm going to reply to what I
think you mean (based on context of the other things you'd said).....
I presume when you say "the more you play" you refer to deeper runs in the playoffs; and that "averages go down" because on deeper runs you're facing better and better teams (and perhaps more importantly: better and better defenses). So the guy who was part of a run all the way to the Finals is having his "averages" affected by that greater competition more so than someone whose team was one-and-done (1st round exit).
In theory, this suggestion may occasionally bear some truth, but I don't see this as bearing much weight within this specific comparison, for two [EDIT: three] reasons:
1) Bosh didn't have fewer playoff games/minutes because his team was perpetually making a 1st round exit (while Worthy's went on deep runs). Because of the previously-discussed weak supporting casts that Bosh had literally EVERY year in Toronto, they largely were not making the playoffs in the first place (as you yourself noted: he had 6 playoff appearances to Worthy's 9). This is a function primarily of supporting cast strength (Worthy wouldn't often take those Toronto casts to the playoffs either).
But the average depth of playoff runs (i.e. the number of series's per playoff appearance) is actually very similar. Bosh was in the Finals 4 out of 6 playoff appearance (66.7% of the time); Worthy was in the Finals 6 of 9 playoff appearances (66.7% of the time).
Bosh played in 18 total playoff series's in 6 appearances--->an average of 3.0 per playoff appearance; Worthy played in 30 series's in 9 appearances--->average of 3.33 per playoff appearance.
Not a ton of difference there.
EDIT: 2) Teams making a 1st round exit are often facing tough competition, because we're frequently talking about the (5)6-8 seeds [facing 1-3(4) seeds].
3) Your theory assumes similar-tiered competition [at a specified depth of playoffs] amid different conferences and eras. This is DEFINITELY NOT the case in reality, however.
It really needs to be noted that the Western Conference of the early and mid 80s was extremely weak (outside of the Lakers themselves): arguably the weakest a conference has ever been (relative to the other) in any era in NBA history. Further, through much of the mid and mid-late 80s, the WC teams that actually
were decent, were so more often because of their
offense than their defense. This resulted in situation where the Lakers rarely had to face a good defensive team in their own conference (because the vast majority of good defensive teams where in the East).
This was the case until '89; in '84-'88, aside from the Jazz who were at or near top of the league defensively [Eaton era], the rest of the West was relatively weak defensively (the Lakers only ever had to face that Jazz defense ONCE in Worthy's career, btw).
The most extreme disparate year in this regard was in '84:
NINE of the top-10 defenses in the league [including
all of the top 8] were in the Eastern Conference.
If you're doing the math, that means
11 of the BOTTOM 13 defenses were in the Western Confernce (including ALL of the bottom 5).
And btw, that one [best in the conference] 9th-rated defense was the Lakers themselves.........
literally every other team in the West was a below league average defense. So they could not help but face bad defenses all the way to the Finals that year (they would face even worse defenses all the way to the Finals in '87, too).
Let's not also forget that through much of the 80s, 8 out of 12 WC teams would earn a playoff berth.
These factors all contributed to some relatively weak competition [and weak defense, in particular] for the Lakers as they plowed through their conference, year over year.
Bosh's teams, otoh, faced a below average defense just twice [out of 18 playoff series's], and the WORST one of them was a +1.0 rDRTG (the other being marginal at +0.1 rDRTG).
Worthy, in his '87 playoff run
alone, faced THREE defenses that were worse than that single-worst defense Bosh faced
in his entire career; the BEST defense Worthy and the Lakers faced that year in the West was a +1.9 rDRTG.
In his whole career, Worthy would have SEVEN playoff series's [out of 30] where he faced a defense WORSE than the single-worst defense Bosh faced, plus an 8th series facing a team that ties the worst defense Bosh faced.......so basically a full quarter of his playoff career he had the luxury of facing defenses
worse than anything Bosh EVER faced.
Bosh faced a defense
better than ANYTHING Worthy ever faced
FIVE TIMES (all of them
substantially better, in fact): that's like 28% of his playoff career.
Overall, here is what their average competition per playoff series [including the Finals] looked like.....
Bosh: +2.87 SRS,
-3.38 rDRTGWorthy: +2.63 SRS, -0.54 rDRTG
If I again removed '93, just so we're comparing only prime to prime......
Worthy (avg opponent faced): +2.50 SRS, -0.51 rDRTG (while Bosh's remains the same as above)
And again, the comparison by the box metrics [prime v prime, in the playoffs] looked like this:
Bosh: 18.4 PER, .144 WS/48, +1.8 BPM (Per 100: 24.4 pts @ +1.5% rTS, 11.7 reb, 2.1 ast, 2.2 tov) in 35.2 mpg
Worthy: 18.6 PER, .140 WS/48, +3.1 BPM (Per 100: 28.2 pts @ +4.5% rTS, 7.0 reb, 4.3 ast, 2.8 tov) in 37.3 mpg
Considering the sizable difference in the average defense being faced (the
average diffence being a nearly
-3 rDRTG better for Bosh's opponents), this doesn't look like near the margin you've suggested. While I'll allow that perhaps performance vs good/bad defenses should be explored before drawing over-arching conclusions, this is [generally] not supportive of a large gap overall in the playoffs.
And again: Bosh far outplayed him in the rs.
"Never argue with an idiot. They will only bring you down to their level and beat you with experience." -George Carlin
"The fact that a proposition is absurd has never hindered those who wish to believe it." -Edward Rutherfurd
