2023-24 NBA Season Discussion

[MartinToVaught]

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This stat is pretty insane considering how bad we were for most of the first decade at Staples.

I'm sorry for the Clippers because they have been stuck in a range of decent-excellent for a long time, without winning a ship. Lakers had higher highs and deplorable lows.

Another pertinent stat along those lines:

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We're the only team on that list without a ring in that timespan except for the Celtics, who already had plenty of rings and have at least made the Finals in this era. Definitely frustrating.

Still, it's one of the most dramatic turnarounds of a franchise in sports history. The only comparable one I can think of is Kansas State football under Bill Snyder.

[Colbinii]

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This stat is pretty insane considering how bad we were for most of the first decade at Staples.

I'm sorry for the Clippers because they have been stuck in a range of decent-excellent for a long time, without winning a ship. Lakers had higher highs and deplorable lows.

Another pertinent stat along those lines:

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We're the only team on that list without a ring in that timespan except for the Celtics, who already had plenty of rings and have at least made the Finals in this era. Definitely frustrating.

Still, it's one of the most dramatic turnarounds of a franchise in sports history. The only comparable one I can think of is Kansas State football under Bill Snyder.

Patriots were 280-323 prior to Tom Brady's arrival in 2001 and are now 541-433, meaning they went 261-110 since 2001.

[MartinToVaught]

Patriots were 280-323 prior to Tom Brady's arrival in 2001 and are now 541-433, meaning they went 261-110 since 2001.

The Patriots made two Super Bowls and an AFL championship game before Brady. They also had some good teams under Chuck Fairbanks in the 1970s. People tend to think they were like the Lions or Browns pre-Brady, but they weren't.

The Steelers are probably a better NFL example now that I think about it. That franchise was utterly hopeless before 1972 - only one playoff appearance from 1933-1971, and it was a shutout loss - then built one of the greatest dynasties in the history of the sport and have been a consistent and stable organization since then.

[falcolombardi]

I suspect doc rivers being a big name overshadows his actual coaching performance which is why he keeps failing and underperforming into getting more and more top team jobs

Is like how the all D teams sometimes have big offensive names who dont even play defense anymore, owners sometimes want to hire the big name "star" coach without looking into his underachieving story

The degree to which 2008 has carried doc career will be analized for decades

[sp6r=underrated]

How do the two compare in playoff settings?

I’m starting to hold the view that the regular season doesn’t really matter much at all anymore.

I fully agree Hakeem has been a far better playoff performer. But I need an enormous sample size to dismiss a player based on the post-season. And Embiid hasn't hit that level.

So, injury is a reason to say that we don't necessarily know what Embiid can do in the playoffs, but when you simply talk about "sample size", this is interesting to consider.

How many minutes does a guy need to play in the playoffs typically before we feel we have a sense for knowing "what he actually is" in the playoffs?

I don't have an answer, but I would tend to try to think about in terms of a normal regular season. As in:

If you believe you have enough information to judge a player's quality of play in a normal regular season - and if you like to talk about MVP & All-NBA, I'd say you do - then that should probably be enough generally to say something about the playoffs.

In an 82 game season I tend to use 2000 minutes as the round number I look at. I believe the lowest minutes played by an MVP comes from Bill Walton where he only played 58 games and that number was 1929.

At present, Embiid has a total playoff minutes played of 1835, so we'd expect to Embiid to break that 2000 minute market after this post-season.

My threshold would be about 4k-5k in prime which means for the vast majority of players you never get enough of a sample size to really gauge how well their game transitions to the post-season. When that level is reached you have a couple of seasons worth of data against multiple opponents so you have enough info to draw somewhat reliable inferences.

I'm also extremely dismissive of single-season, post-season +/-. Plus minus is noisy as hell and trying to draw info from 500 minute sample sizes is just a recipe for disaster.

[sp6r=underrated]

I suspect doc rivers being a big name overshadows his actual coaching performance which is why he keeps failing and underperforming into getting more and more top team jobs

Is like how the all D teams sometimes have big offensive names who dont even play defense anymore, owners sometimes want to hire the big name "star" coach without looking into his underachieving story

The degree to which 2008 has carried doc career will be analized for decades

I mocked Doc in here but I'll throw him a bone. He's not a total incompetent, a lot of players seem to like him and in the NBA players have veto power over coaches the way they don't in the NFL.

I can understand how that leads to jobs.

[MartinToVaught]

I suspect doc rivers being a big name overshadows his actual coaching performance which is why he keeps failing and underperforming into getting more and more top team jobs

Is like how the all D teams sometimes have big offensive names who dont even play defense anymore, owners sometimes want to hire the big name "star" coach without looking into his underachieving story

The degree to which 2008 has carried doc career will be analized for decades

I mocked Doc in here but I'll throw him a bone. He's not a total incompetent, a lot of players seem to like him and in the NBA players have veto power over coaches the way they don't in the NFL.

I can understand how that leads to jobs.

I'm hard-pressed to come up with anything he's competent at besides a few nice SLOB plays, which every coach should have in their bag. He doesn't really have a system beyond having the #1 option play isoball all game, he doesn't have a feel for lineups, matchups, or when to call timeouts, he doesn't make adjustments.

Players only like him until they actually have to play for him. Every team he's ever coached has erupted in locker-room drama and he always throws players under the bus for his failures.

[Krodis]

How anyone can look at the Sixers this year, and Harden this year, and then come to the conclusion that they should hire the guy who had both of them playing worse together last year is beyond me, even beyond every other failure Doc has had over the last 10+ years.

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[Doctor MJ]

I fully agree Hakeem has been a far better playoff performer. But I need an enormous sample size to dismiss a player based on the post-season. And Embiid hasn't hit that level.

So, injury is a reason to say that we don't necessarily know what Embiid can do in the playoffs, but when you simply talk about "sample size", this is interesting to consider.

How many minutes does a guy need to play in the playoffs typically before we feel we have a sense for knowing "what he actually is" in the playoffs?

I don't have an answer, but I would tend to try to think about in terms of a normal regular season. As in:

If you believe you have enough information to judge a player's quality of play in a normal regular season - and if you like to talk about MVP & All-NBA, I'd say you do - then that should probably be enough generally to say something about the playoffs.

In an 82 game season I tend to use 2000 minutes as the round number I look at. I believe the lowest minutes played by an MVP comes from Bill Walton where he only played 58 games and that number was 1929.

At present, Embiid has a total playoff minutes played of 1835, so we'd expect to Embiid to break that 2000 minute market after this post-season.

My threshold would be about 4k-5k in prime which means for the vast majority of players you never get enough of a sample size to really gauge how well their game transitions to the post-season. When that level is reached you have a couple of seasons worth of data against multiple opponents so you have enough info to draw somewhat reliable inferences.

I'm also extremely dismissive of single-season, post-season +/-. Plus minus is noisy as hell and trying to draw info from 500 minute sample sizes is just a recipe for disaster.

Well, for a normal superstar that's not hard to reach, but it's entirely possible Embiid won't ever get there.

[sp6r=underrated]

https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/39378013/doc-rivers-finalizing-deal-bucks-coach-sources-say

The madman did it. He landed another plum job.

[MartinToVaught]

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Been saying it for years. Doc isn't even a players' coach.

[falcolombardi]

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Been saying it for years. Doc isn't even a players' coach.

I wouldnt want to play for a doc rivers team all else being equal either, seems like too much drama when a """star""" (the media presence, not the quality) coach is involved

[Doctor MJ]

Egad, that Bucks' situation.

So, the stuff coming out recently said something along the lines of "Giannis didn't want Griffin, he just didn't want Nurse." This is obviously information coming out intended to make the situation look like somethin other than "Giannis picked a guy, he was incompetent, so the team had to fire him", and it may well be essentially true...

but the hiring of Doc really doesn't make look Giannis look better, because of the 3 coaches, only Nurse is known for actually being a coach who comes in and implements new ideas effectively.

Even if Giannis isn't championing these other guys, him putting his foot down on Nurse shows that he is willing to put his foot on the scale, and his judgment in doing this seems clueless.

Going forward, I'm not going to say it's utterly impossible that the team takes a leap forward under Doc, I just think it's clear that Doc isn't going to solve any difficult basketball problems, and if you're not looking to solve basketball problems, why fire Bud in the first place?

[Doctor MJ]

How anyone can look at the Sixers this year, and Harden this year, and then come to the conclusion that they should hire the guy who had both of them playing worse together last year is beyond me, even beyond every other failure Doc has had over the last 10+ years.

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Hard for me to imagine anyone other than a current/former NBA player thinking Doc is the answer for a contender at this point.

[sp6r=underrated]

why fire Bud in the first place?

That's what I come back to. Bud is an above average coach. He's not a hofer or perfect but he is better than the median coach. Being that he's better than the average coach they should have thought a lot more about who would be acceptable as a replacement to Giannis for Bud.

And if the answer was Doc just keep Bud.

[ardee]

Definitely feels like a passing of the torch season. The 2010s stars, while some are still very effective, are firmly taking a backseat to the next generation of stars and elite teams.

Minnesota and OKC at the top of the West is just wow.

[MartinToVaught]

I'm hard-pressed to come up with anything he's competent at besides a few nice SLOB plays, which every coach should have in their bag.

Spoke too soon. There is one other thing he's competent at: fleecing the owners of NBA teams.

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[Colbinii]

I'm hard-pressed to come up with anything he's competent at besides a few nice SLOB plays, which every coach should have in their bag.

Spoke too soon. There is one other thing he's competent at: fleecing the owners of NBA teams.

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All these Billionaire's really made a lot during COVID. I have excellent benefits for an American, but man do I wish these companies would pay us Middle-Class workers more.

[sp6r=underrated]

I'm hard-pressed to come up with anything he's competent at besides a few nice SLOB plays, which every coach should have in their bag.

Spoke too soon. There is one other thing he's competent at: fleecing the owners of NBA teams.

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My guess is Doc is very, very personable and that has helped him in life.

[itsxtray]

I think Doc is still being paid by the Sixers as well. Sheesh, getting fired as a prominent coach ain't all bad. Bucks are paying 3 coachs now, smh.