How Can The Miami Heat Become Contenders Game?: Analytics

[twix2500]

Let's play a game. Because I have no life, I put together some of the Major Team Stats and where the Heat Ranked among NBA teams of the 2014-15 season, along with who ranked the best.

As you can see they ranked in the bottom half in almost all of these categories. #22nd in Offense and #18th in defense, which averages out as the 20th ranked team out of 30 teams, go figure that they had the 10th pick in the draft.

Lets put your statistical skills to the test. In order for the Heat to be contenders in the upcoming 2015-16 season, where must the Miami Heat be ranked at the end of the season in each of these major categories? If you want to flex your analytical skills even more, let us know exact statistical number that they need to reach for each category. If there is another stats that you would like to acknowledge, feel free to share.

Remember to take in consideration that each team plays their own style accordingly to the make up of the roster, and the Division they play in. So I would love to hear your reasoning on how this current roster can achieve contender statistics.

Ready Set Go!

*Added free throws to the chart

[HIF]

No.1

[Bishop45]

Teams that mesh, mesh. Can't win a championship on paper. The two teams that were #1 in their conference last season were perceived by many to not even make the playoffs

I'll pass on the "Annallytucks".

[twix2500]

Teams that mesh, mesh. Can't win a championship on paper. The two teams that were #1 in their conference last season were perceived by many to not even make the playoffs

I'll pass on the "Annallytucks".

Huh? What does what someone perceived to be a weak team and becoming one good team, has any to do with stating how a team needs to perform statically to be a contender?

[Bishop45]

Teams that mesh, mesh. Can't win a championship on paper. The two teams that were #1 in their conference last season were perceived by many to not even make the playoffs

I'll pass on the "Annallytucks".

Huh? What does what someone perceived to be a weak team and becoming one good team, has any to do with stating how a team needs to perform statically to be a contender?

My bad, I only lightly read the long OP. I guess the answer is... good? I don't know if there's a good answer to that question but I'll come back and give a better answer if it becomes clearer

[KingDavid]

I think he's asking what we feel the Heat need to improve upon in the categories listed. As well as why. All backed by empirical data.

I'm going to edit this post with my complete answer another time. I'll throw something out there though as a quick reply; Pace. That should have been highlighted as our biggest problem on offense. It also made our overall offensive numbers look significantly worse than what they are. That is a cause or effect of the ball sticking to someone into a bad shot or a really long possession.

A slow pace also skews defensive numbers as well. We were not the 18th best defense last season. We were pure trash on that side of the ball. But a low pace hurts both teams. So the opponents PPG are down when they face us because we used up the whole 24 second shot clock. Some how that bleeds into overall defensive rating. The only good defenders that we had last season in my opinion are Whiteside, TJ....and that's basically it. Everyone else just sucked so hard aside from a few games. Like Deng against Cleveland. The only reason why we're ranked 20th best in 3pt defense percentage is because of our slow pace. If we played at a league average pace, our 3pt% defense would likely be league worst.

The reason why we rank fourth in Opponent Points Made By Two Pointers Per Game is because we leave that many wide open 3 point attempts. So teams take those wide open shots against us very often. That is an ALARMINGLY bad stat. We play too slow for that. We're 19th worst in the league for Opponent 3pters MADE PER GAME WITH TEAMS PLAYING WITH US AT OUR 29TH SLOWEST PACE. If Spo doesn't change the defense this upcoming season, we're going to be in serious trouble. Like a complete disaster. Our guys on the wings should be working to take their man off the 3pt line to the hole to meet Hassan. Not trapping 40 feet out and then sprinting to the other side of the court to try and contest a wide open jumpshooter who already release the ball. The ball moves faster than any man. Spo's defense sucks unless you have a plethora of smart, young, elite, and quick defensive athletes.

[KingDavid]

Damn twix, now I'm worried about next season now that the numbers are right in front of my eyes. It's not the personnel I'm worried about as much as I am fearing the scheme we'll run. I'm telling you guys; that lack of high pace and trapping defense will be the demise of this team.

[Temuhjan]

I ain't too worried about pace and schemes. We lack shooters and runners last season. We do now.

[Bishop45]

Damn twix, now I'm worried about next season now that the numbers are right in front of my eyes. It's not the personnel I'm worried about as much as I am fearing the scheme we'll run. I'm telling you guys; that lack of high pace and trapping defense will be the demise of this team.

Bosh has to be our anchor on defense and get some real chemistry with Hassan/Deng. I mean we need him to step it up for at least 25 a night and for the bench guys to commit... not to mention Dwyane/Dragic

[KingDavid]

I ain't too worried about pace and schemes. We lack shooters and runners last season. We do now.

Nah. It isn't as simple as just having shooters and runners. Our scheme was to play slow and deep into the shot clock hoping to find the most efficient shot. People standing around in corners and ball watching. Throwing up long twos. We got Dragic who can push the break and we still were too slow.

It creeped into our defense too. That's where I have the biggest problem.

[Bourne85]

I don't care for the #s game. Want to be contenders? Deng needs to go, replace Deng with a superstar 3 (LeBron, Durant, PG, Melo, etc) and its a wrap. If we cant land a huge fish SF then we will not be winning anything anytime soon

That and Wade, if wade is going to continue to miss 25+ games and be hobbling into the playoffs then its all for nothing.

Key to championship for us is Wades health and if RIley can get us a superstar Wing. We are set everywhere else on the starting 5.

Bench is trashy though, so even then, our bench would be our downfall.

[KingDavid]

I don't care for the #s game. Want to be contenders? Deng needs to go, replace Deng with a superstar 3 (LeBron, Durant, PG, Melo, etc) and its a wrap. If we cant land a huge fish SF then we will not be winning anything anytime soon

That and Wade, if wade is going to continue to miss 25+ games and be hobbling into the playoffs then its all for nothing.

Key to championship for us is Wades health and if RIley can get us a superstar Wing. We are set everywhere else on the starting 5.

Bench is trashy though, so even then, our bench would be our downfall.

Why do we need an superstar SF? We just need one to defend them and that's what Deng does. We have all star pg, sg, pf, and likely center. Bball isn't just throw some names together and win. There's salaries to account for. Who the hell can we replace Deng with that's better than him at 10 million? We have no picks to offer either. If you're clairvoyant enough to claim it's all for nothing, then why the hell are you a fan in the first place?

[KingDavid]

Damn twix, now I'm worried about next season now that the numbers are right in front of my eyes. It's not the personnel I'm worried about as much as I am fearing the scheme we'll run. I'm telling you guys; that lack of high pace and trapping defense will be the demise of this team.

Bosh has to be our anchor on defense and get some real chemistry with Hassan/Deng. I mean we need him to step it up for at least 25 a night and for the bench guys to commit... not to mention Dwyane/Dragic

Bosh and hassan were a nightmare match up for other teams. But they didn't have that many games together. Our problems came from trapping too far out and weak defense from the wings.

Maybe it's just continuity. But it won't matter if the scheme remains the same.

[Maroko]

I think he's asking what we feel the Heat need to improve upon in the categories listed. As well as why. All backed by empirical data.

I'm going to edit this post with my complete answer another time. I'll throw something out there though as a quick reply; Pace. That should have been highlighted as our biggest problem on offense. It also made our overall offensive numbers look significantly worse than what they are. That is a cause or effect of the ball sticking to someone into a bad shot or a really long possession.

A slow pace also skews defensive numbers as well. We were not the 18th best defense last season. We were pure trash on that side of the ball. But a low pace hurts both teams. So the opponents PPG are down when they face us because we used up the whole 24 second shot clock. Some how that bleeds into overall defensive rating. The only good defenders that we had last season in my opinion are Whiteside, TJ....and that's basically it. Everyone else just sucked so hard aside from a few games. Like Deng against Cleveland. The only reason why we're ranked 20th best in 3pt defense percentage is because of our slow pace. If we played at a league average pace, our 3pt% defense would likely be league worst.

The reason why we rank fourth in Opponent Points Made By Two Pointers Per Game is because we leave that many wide open 3 point attempts. So teams take those wide open shots against us very often. That is an ALARMINGLY bad stat. We play too slow for that. We're 19th worst in the league for Opponent 3pters MADE PER GAME WITH TEAMS PLAYING WITH US AT OUR 29TH SLOWEST PACE. If Spo doesn't change the defense this upcoming season, we're going to be in serious trouble. Like a complete disaster. Our guys on the wings should be working to take their man off the 3pt line to the hole to meet Hassan. Not trapping 40 feet out and then sprinting to the other side of the court to try and contest a wide open jumpshooter who already release the ball. The ball moves faster than any man. Spo's defense sucks unless you have a plethora of smart, young, elite, and quick defensive athletes.

When you want, you can be easily a TOP3 poster of that board !

We will perform well as long as we play great defense (including REBOUNDS) ! Our offense will be very rusty at times but we will be good with some good ball movement

[Bourne85]

I don't care for the #s game. Want to be contenders? Deng needs to go, replace Deng with a superstar 3 (LeBron, Durant, PG, Melo, etc) and its a wrap. If we cant land a huge fish SF then we will not be winning anything anytime soon

That and Wade, if wade is going to continue to miss 25+ games and be hobbling into the playoffs then its all for nothing.

Key to championship for us is Wades health and if RIley can get us a superstar Wing. We are set everywhere else on the starting 5.

Bench is trashy though, so even then, our bench would be our downfall.

Why do we need an superstar SF? We just need one to defend them and that's what Deng does. We have all star pg, sg, pf, and likely center. Bball isn't just throw some names together and win. There's salaries to account for. Who the hell can we replace Deng with that's better than him at 10 million? We have no picks to offer either. If you're clairvoyant enough to claim it's all for nothing, then why the hell are you a fan in the first place?

Deng is our weak link, he cant be the weakest link when Lebron james is in the East. Deng cannot guard LeBron. There 2 guys that guard him well, and even then he still torches them in Jimmy Butler and Leanord. Deng would routinely get destroyed by LeBron.

You are overrating our players. Our Starters may be fringe all stars, but no one jumps out at you as a bonafied superstar. Yet a couple of them are being paid as if they were. You don't have a bonafied superstar, you don't win in this league. Unless your San Antonio with the GOAT coach. There is no Curry, Harden, AD, Durant, Westbrook etc etc on this team. Don't get attached to the names of our players, they aren't what they use to be (Wade precisely).

Our team is good. Real good actually. But to win the Title you need to be special. When wade won it vs the Mavs, he was special.
Our 4 year run was a once in a lifetime team SPECIAL. The cavs as built right now are a Special team. You have Lebron (best in league), Irving (superstar), Love (allstar), and a heap of good role players.

So again, go get a SUPERSTAR Wing, one that can compete with LBJ, and we will be in the finals. If not, we will lose 2nd round or wherever we meet the Cavs.

This isn't something to get mad about.....and as to why be a fan then? Why are pple fans of the 76ers? Suns? Jazz? They aren't winning anything anytime soon...doesn't stop them from being fans. I will be watching closely this year for the development of Hassan, and Justise. I have zero title expectations. ZERO.

[QUIZ]

Well the most important things are defense (No team outside of the top 10 has won in decades) and 3pt shooting. The 4 teams in the WCF and ECF were 4 out of the top 5 3pt shooting teams in the league. Those are the most important areas in which we need to improve to make ourselves contenders.

We were also one of the slowest teams in the league last year so picking up the pace wouldn't hurt. We'll be a better rebounding team this year than in years past because of the combination of Bosh and Hassan but we still need to get more easy baskets in transition. We were an awful team last year on the break.

We also had the 5th worst bench in the league in terms of ppg. Our bench averaged only 26.6ppg on 39% shooting and 31% from 3. That is another area where we can improve. We have J. Rich, Winslow, McBob, Stat, and Green on our bench now. Green and Stat are capable of averaging 20ppg just between the two of them. Thats a huge upgrade over last year where Rio was basically the go to guy for the bench, our 6th man, plus our backup PG/SG that sometimes started at both of those positions depending on who was hurt.

[Bishop45]

Damn twix, now I'm worried about next season now that the numbers are right in front of my eyes. It's not the personnel I'm worried about as much as I am fearing the scheme we'll run. I'm telling you guys; that lack of high pace and trapping defense will be the demise of this team.

Bosh has to be our anchor on defense and get some real chemistry with Hassan/Deng. I mean we need him to step it up for at least 25 a night and for the bench guys to commit... not to mention Dwyane/Dragic

Bosh and hassan were a nightmare match up for other teams. But they didn't have that many games together. Our problems came from trapping too far out and weak defense from the wings.

Maybe it's just continuity. But it won't matter if the scheme remains the same.

I think Wing/perimeter defense is where we needed a major upgrade but due to injuries forcing us to play 3 guard ball and etc., I'll give us the benefit of the doubt til' I see what Spo can do with this new unit cause it's almost a different team from the core outwards. Staff upgrade probably wouldn't hurt either but it's whatever

[Heat_Fan_87]

An elite 3pt sniper.

[leoshes]

All i want is 3 stats.

#1 in offensive FGP
#1 in defensive FGP
#1 in RPG

The rest is gravy

[TroubleS0me]

like qjz123 said our defense & 3pt shooting
our defense needs to be around the 10 top

we also need to play better in the 2nd half, the Heat were the worst team in the 2nd half of games with only 44.9ppg

too many games were lost because of this