The Conundrum that is LeBron James

[Wannabe MEP]

Out of interest, what're the Def Rtgs for those two lineups?

Updated after the weekend:

Nash-Hill-Dudley-Frye-Gortat --
Off Rtg: 113.92, Def Rtg: 101.15, Overall Rtg: +12.77, Adj +/-: +10.18 (727.83 min)
Chalmers-Wade-LeBron-Bosh-Anthony --
Off Rtg: 109.12, Def Rtg: 96.72, Overall Rtg: +12.40, Adj +/-: +7.46 (449.47 min)

[Wannabe MEP]

Since the season's midpoint, there are 79 units that have played at least 50 minutes. Of those 79 units, Chalmers-Wade-LeBron-Bosh-Anthony is ranked #57 In points per 100 possessions at 101.6 (197.8 minutes).

[toodles23]

Since the season's midpoint, there are 79 units that have played at least 50 minutes. Of those 79 units, Chalmers-Wade-LeBron-Bosh-Anthony is ranked #57 In points per 100 possessions at 101.6 (197.8 minutes).

That's terrible, but I'm not too surprised. Joel Anthony is the biggest offensive liability in the league.

[Wannabe MEP]

That's terrible, but I'm not too surprised. Joel Anthony is the biggest offensive liability in the league.

Chalmer-Wade-LeBron-Bosh-Haslem 100.00 points per 100 possessions in 112.62 minutes this season.

[mopper8]

Oh come on, you're better than that. For the balance of the season, that lineup in total is at a 108.8 Ortg. The fact that they had a slump, which seemed to revolve around Chalmers losing his stroke and Bosh having mental issues, and not really anything to do with the supposed incompatibility of Wade and Lebron, doesn't detract from the fact that the unit overall has been excellent for the entire season.

Cherry picking the worst stretch and suggesting its more representative than the larger sample size from which its been pulled is both bad statistics and dishonest.

[mopper8]

Just to buttress the point...

Mario Chalmers
Pre-All-Star 11.4 ppg, 51% fg, 46% 3p
Post-All-Star 8.4 ppg, 37% fg, 31% 3p

Chris Bosh
Pre-All-Star 18.4 ppg, 49.4% fg, 8.4 rpg
Post-All-Star 16.8 ppg, 46.5% fg, 6.4 rpg

Not only is it bad statistical analysis, you didn't seem to make any effort to actually figure out why the numbers looked like they did. Please explain how its Lebron and Wade's fault that all of a sudden Mario Chalmers can't hit the ocean from the beach on wide-open 3 pointers, or why Bosh dropped 2 rebounds/game seemingly out of nowhere.

And I don't know why it would shock anyone that an offense struggles when the two players most responsible for spacing the floor seem to both totally lose their touch offensively.

Also, pointing out that the unit featuring Haslem hasn't looked better than the one with Joel isn't really illustrative of anything when you realize that Haslem has shot 43% for the season.

[Wannabe MEP]

wow, a wee bit defensive, aren't we? I just pointed out what I thought many would find a surprising stat. The recent trend, no more, no less. I didn't extrapolate: you did that on your own.

[Chicago76]

Here's something interesting. There are 19 Heat floor combinations that basketballvalue has now listed as "statistically significant" with respect to total minutes for a given lineup.

9 of them contain both James and Wade. Those lineups have played for 895 minutes and averaged 107.6 pts/100.

The other 10 are missing one or both of Wade and James. Those lineups have played for 697 minutes and averaged 110.4 pts/100.

Just interesting to point out that the Heat have been more efficient offensive with only one or neither of James and Wade on the court.

[mopper8]

wow, a wee bit defensive, aren't we? I just pointed out what I thought many would find a surprising stat. The recent trend, no more, no less. I didn't extrapolate: you did that on your own.

All your posts in this thread seem agenda-driven.

Here's something interesting. There are 19 Heat floor combinations that basketballvalue has now listed as "statistically significant" with respect to total minutes for a given lineup.

9 of them contain both James and Wade. Those lineups have played for 895 minutes and averaged 107.6 pts/100.

The other 10 are missing one or both of Wade and James. Those lineups have played for 697 minutes and averaged 110.4 pts/100.

Just interesting to point out that the Heat have been more efficient offensive with only one or neither of James and Wade on the court.

This is interesting though.

I still think there's something very simple going on with those two, in theory/by the eye test at least. Which is that they need at least 2 floors spacers on the court when they play together. In theory, Chalmers, Bosh, Haslem, Battier, Miller, and Jones all can provide spacing. Problem is guys like Joel and Cole do not provide spacing, and Haslem and Battier have both struggled with their shot. So that only leaves Chalmers, Miller, Bosh, and Jones as guys who can space the floor (and Miller has been out for awhile injured). As a result, Miami can really only get 2 floor spacers on the floor if (a) Wade plays point, (b) Lebron plays PF, or (c) they're in their starting lineup

And when either of Chalmers or Bosh struggles (as they have post-ASB), the starting lineup doesn't work either.

I'd be interested to see if that plays out in the lineups you mentioned

[mopper8]

Here's something interesting. There are 19 Heat floor combinations that basketballvalue has now listed as "statistically significant" with respect to total minutes for a given lineup.

9 of them contain both James and Wade. Those lineups have played for 895 minutes and averaged 107.6 pts/100.

The other 10 are missing one or both of Wade and James. Those lineups have played for 697 minutes and averaged 110.4 pts/100.

Just interesting to point out that the Heat have been more efficient offensive with only one or neither of James and Wade on the court.

So I sorted by Ortg and am looking at the spread. 3 Wade/James lineups above the median for those 19 lineups. The median lineup is also a Wade/James lineup. 4 Wade/James lineups below the median. Seems a pretty even spread. BTW, median Ortg is 110.17

Some observations:
Norris Cole plays in 9 of those lineups. 6 of the 9 lineups below the median feature Cole, including their 2 very worst lineups (by far), but of the 3 he's in above the median, 2 are Miami's very best offensive lineups. Weird distribution there.

The Bosh/Haslem frontcourt seems really ineffective. 6 of the 9 lineups below the median feature those two, and the median lineup also features those two, and only 1 of the lineups above the median has them playing together. That being said, Cole/Wade/Miller/Haslem/Bosh has an Ortg of 124.1

Joel Anthony is in 8 of the units. 2 below the median, and 6 (!) above the median. Of the 9 lineups above the median, 6 have either Joel at C or Lebron at PF or both. Below the median, no Lebron at PF and only 2 with JA.

Not sure what to make of that. But it seems like Miami simply plays much better offensively with Joel on the court than Haslem.

[mopper8]

Here's my rudimentary paint skills at work: statistically significant lineups from basketball value, sorted by descending Ortg, with all those other low minute lineups deleted:



Sorry about the size...unavoidable. You have to open in a new tab and give it a couple zooms to get a readable chart

edit: looking at it like that, the Haslem/Bosh frontcourt really jumps out (IMO) as being particularly bad...if you look at 108 as the cut off (since that's still a pretty great Ortg relative to league average, and there's a big drop from the unit posting a 108.81 and the next unit, putting up 104.95)...the worst lineups feature:

Haslem/Bosh
Haslem/Pittman
Haslem/Bosh
Haslem/Bosh
Haslem/Bosh
Haslem/Bosh
Haslem/Bosh
Bosh/Anthony

The 2/3 combos in those lineups aren't nearly as consistent, and feature a lot of Wade or Lebron + shooter:

Battier/Lebron
Battier/Lebron
Battier/Miller
Wade/Lebron
Battier/Lebron
Wade/Lebron
Wade/Battier
Wade/Lebron

Although Battier's name jumps out there too, he's also in 7 lineups with Ortgs of 108 or better. While the Haslem/Bosh frontcourt is only in 2 such lineups.

[Wannabe MEP]

All your posts in this thread seem agenda-driven.

No agenda, bro. I don't have any horses in this one. Just an idea; something interesting that I noticed and starting trying to figure out. My team is the Suns and they've never made it to the finals to have an Eastern Conference rival

Here's something interesting. There are 19 Heat floor combinations that basketballvalue has now listed as "statistically significant" with respect to total minutes for a given lineup.

9 of them contain both James and Wade. Those lineups have played for 895 minutes and averaged 107.6 pts/100.

The other 10 are missing one or both of Wade and James. Those lineups have played for 697 minutes and averaged 110.4 pts/100.

Just interesting to point out that the Heat have been more efficient offensive with only one or neither of James and Wade on the court.

Nice work, bro. This is something I've been meaning to do; just been lazy. Did you just average the Off Rtgs themselves, or did you actually add up the possessions and points and recalculate the total Off Rtg? I'm thinking of doing that going back to last year's data too.

This is interesting though.

I still think there's something very simple going on with those two, in theory/by the eye test at least. Which is that they need at least 2 floors spacers on the court when they play together.

I don't get it. This is a foundational idea of the whole thread, yo. I've been saying roughly that idea for 9 pages. (Although I admit I introed the whole thing rather poorly.) I'm just taking it a little farther, than you: I think LeBron and Wade are each better with three floor-spacers on the court with them, which is why I think they're a poor fit with each other. (Also, ideally the stretch-4 is even stretchier than Bosh, but that one is certainly debatable).

[mopper8]

I don't get it. This is a foundational idea of the whole thread, yo. I've been saying roughly that idea for 9 pages. (Although I admit I introed the whole thing rather poorly.) I'm just taking it a little farther, than you: I think LeBron and Wade are each better with three floor-spacers on the court with them, which is why I think they're a poor fit with each other. (Also, ideally the stretch-4 is even stretchier than Bosh, but that one is certainly debatable).

That's not how I've read it at all, and either you're misrepresenting yourself now or you did before. The foundational idea of the thread seems to me about replacing either Wade or Lebron, not about what surrounds them. As you've said, next to Lebron James, James Jones is a "better" offensive player than Dwyane Wade. My point is that I don't think that's necessarily true if you have adequate floor spacing from at least 2 other players on the floor.

For example, this post:

Battier going to Miami makes LeBron significantly less relevant for Miami than he was.

Shooter+Wade+Battier+Bosh+Center is on par with any lineup that includes LeBron, unless...
1) Wade doesn't stay healthy.
2) They start experimenting with LeBron at the 4. Problem with that is I'm not sure Bosh can hold down the 5.

And I'm saying I would take Shooter+Wade+Lebron+Bosh+Center over that, as long as both Bosh and the "shooter" are actually hitting their shots.

[Wannabe MEP]

ok, right, I meant the value of spacing with shooters in general.

Edit: I also was referring to Chicago76's contribution.

[mopper8]

Fair enough

What do you make of how seemingly awful the Haslem/Bosh front court is? I can't seem to make much sense of it myself. Only thing I can think of is that they both seem to like to operate in similar areas, and because of Haslem's injury last year, they never really got much of a chance to work out how to space the floor with one another as a result.

edit: ran the numbers.

Haslem/Bosh, from the 19 lineups, have 990 possessions together, with an Ortg of 103.54
From the remaining 11 lineups, all other frontcourts have 2025 possessions together, with an Ortg of 111.31

That's a shocking difference IMO

[Wannabe MEP]

I think that's just Haslem in general:
On Court Off Rtg: 103.89
Off Court Off Rtg: 112.22
Net: -8.33

I think it's probably just small sample size that has some Anthony/Haslem combos that are a little better. Those combos are pretty low minutes. But Haslem is ok to have on the court with the right wings combos.

[mopper8]

That's shockingly bad. Haslem has struggled offensively by the eye test, but certainly I wouldn't have guessed his numbers look like that, especially given his big minutes

[Wannabe MEP]

All Heat units from last year's playoffs that played at least 50 minutes (points per 100 possessions):


1) All of them have the big 3, so all we can compare is the pg and center options.
2) Chalmers + Anthony wins easily.

Seems like a good choice to go with them this year. That's why it's so disappointing to see that unit's numbers this 2nd half of the season. (Their season-long numbers aren't bad, but I'd still call them disappointing considering the names involved, and considering that this is the Heat's go-to unit.)

[Wannabe MEP]

Ok, check out this one. Ranked by points per 100 possessions, minimum 30 minutes, from 20 games into this season until now. (The reason I did that is because I believe some of the Heat's early-season success was shock-and-awe on unprepared defenses + fast-breaking because opposing offenses sucked early season without pre-season. I believe the more recent trends are more what we're going to be seeing for the rest of the season and into the playoffs.)



Top 3 have exactly one of LeBron/Wade:

1) Cole-Wade-Miller-Bosh-Haslem
2) Cole-Miller-Battier-LeBron-Haslem
3) Chalmers-Battier-LeBron-Haslem-Anthony

And 3 of top-5 are non-traditional with LeBron (Battier?) playing small-ball 4 (ergo extra spacing with only one big in the paint):

2) Cole-Miller-Battier-LeBron-Haslem
4) Chalmers-Wade-Battier-LeBron-Anthony
5) Chalmers-Wade-Battier-LeBron-Bosh

[mopper8]

The reason I did that is because I believe some of the Heat's early-season success was shock-and-awe on unprepared defenses + fast-breaking because opposing offenses sucked early season without pre-season. I believe the more recent trends are more what we're going to be seeing for the rest of the season and into the playoffs.)

I would dispute this. If you look at the numbers, Heat have tailed off not only in fg%, 3p%, rebs, pace, but also (and this is important) ft% as well. That doesn't point to defenses adjusting or playing injury-riddled teams early, that points to the Heat fatiguing as the season wears on.

Increased rest between games and series in the playoffs will benefit Miami, and I'd expect to see a team more like what you saw early on than what you see in March