Top-25 5-man Lineups by Net Rating, per Team

[everdiso]

Top-25 5-man Lineups by Net Rating, per Team

Minimum 150 minutes played

1. Raptors - Four

#6 VanVleet/Green/Kawhi/Siakam/Ibaka +15.3 (187min)
#7 VanVleet/Lowry/Green/Siakam/Ibaka +13.8 (187min)
#11 Lowry/Green/Kawhi/Siakam/Gasol +12.2 (161min)
#21 Lowry/Green/Kawhi/Siakam/Ibaka +8.3 (547min)

Dominated no matter which way the front-7 were mixed and matched.

2. Warriors - Three

#1 Curry/Klay/Iggy/Durant/Dray +29.1 (178min)
#3 Curry/Klay/Durant/Dray/Looney +18.7 (313min)
#10 Curry/Klay/Durant/Dray/Boogie +12.6 (268min)

Elite whenever the big 4 were on.

3. Blazers - Three

#5 Lillard/McCollum/Turner/Aminu/Nurkic +16.4 (260min)
#14 Lillard/McCollum/Layman/Aminu/Nurkic +9.8 (369min)
#19 Lillard/McCollum/Harkless/Aminu/Nurkic +8.9 (744min)

Damn good no matter who the 5th guy was. Really a shame Nurkic went down.

4. 76ers - Two

#4 Simmons/Redixk/Butler/Harris/Embiid +17.6 (161min)
#9 Simmons/Redixk/Butler/Chandler/Embiid +13.0 (293min)

Damn good even before Tobias. Elite with him.

5. Pacers - Two

#2 Joseph/Mcdermott/evans/young/Sabonis +21.4 (178min)
#13 Collison/Bogdanovix/evans/young/Turner +10.3 (260min)

Impressive stuff though a lot of this was bench minutes.

6. Thunder - Two

#18 Westbrook/Ferguson/Grant/George/Adams +9.1 (919min)
#20 Westbrook/Schroder/Grant/George/Adams +8.4 (434min)

Damn good whoever the 5th guy was.

7. Magic - Two

#16 Augustyn/Ross/Fournier/Gordon/Vucevic +9.5 (238min)
#24 Augustyn/Iwundu/Fournier/Gordon/Vucevic +7.5 (199min)

This team really had something cooking here. They should try to keep it together.

8. Pistons - One

#8 Jackson/Bullock/Brown/Griffin/Drummond +13.3 (309min)

If only they were healthy. And had any depth.

9. Jazz - One

#12 Rubio/Mitchell/Ingles/Crowder/Gobert +12.0 (478min)

Damn solid lineup. Should be even better with Conley.

10. Grizzlies - One

#15 Conley/Jackson/Temple/Anderson/Gasol +9.7 (464min)

A solid starting lineup before the Gasol trade.

11. Clippers - One

#17 Beverley/Shamet/SGA/Gallinari/Zubac +9.2 (255min)

Had a hard time settling on units but this one worked.

11. Nuggets - One

#22 Murray/Barton/Harris/Milsap/Jokic +8.3 (430min)

Damn good lineup.

13. Rockets - One

#23 Paul/Harden/Gordon/Tucker/Capela +7.5 (420min)

Damn good lineup, but not as good as its reputation.

14. Hornets - One

#25 Walker/Williams/Lamb/Batum/Zeller +7.0 (593min)

There's a bit of a surprise to me.




Not too many surprises - the finalists at the top, and most of the other good teams up there too.

The big surprise I guess is the Bucks. They do get hurt here just because they mixed and matched so much that they didn't end up with many 150+ minute units, but even then, their starting 5 only ranked 26th here.

[MetalFingaz]

I mean, I think it's a huge surprise that a lineup of Joseph/McDermott/Evans/Young/Sabonis is the second best lineup in the NBA.

[KqWIN]

I mean, I think it's a huge surprise that a lineup of Joseph/McDermott/Evans/Young/Sabonis is the second best lineup in the NBA.

It's a bench unit.

[MetalFingaz]

I mean, I think it's a huge surprise that a lineup of Joseph/McDermott/Evans/Young/Sabonis is the second best lineup in the NBA.

It's a bench unit.

And, apparently, a dominant one.

[PseudoFan]

I mean, I think it's a huge surprise that a lineup of Joseph/McDermott/Evans/Young/Sabonis is the second best lineup in the NBA.

It's a bench unit.

The original Bench Mob from last year (led by Fred VanVleet) led the league in net rating (lead in a lot of other categories as well) for the entire second half of the season -- and that was against a lot of starting lineups too.

[Spintown]

No suprise that the lineup with iggy is +11 from the second best warriors lineup. He does all the little things on the court that go unnoticed.

[GeorgeMarcus]

What’s with the “Redixk” spelling?

I would assume typo but it’s up there twice

[Wigginstime]

Very small sample size- 150 minutes is the equivalent of ranking players based on 5 games

[KqWIN]

The Bucks have two lineups with greater than 70 MP. That's some insane mixing and matching going on.

[RCM88x]

The Bucks have two lineups with greater than 70 MP. That's some insane mixing and matching going on.

Bud is a master of substitution and minutes managing, maybe too much for his own good.

[Chanel Bomber]

Cool post.

You have to feel very optimistic about next season if you're a Sixers or a Blazers fan.

[everdiso]

Very small sample size- 150 minutes is the equivalent of ranking players based on 5 games

150 minutes already cuts it down to only 66 lineups.

Tbh it would be really helpful to see a breakdown of 4-man lineups, to get better sample sizes.

[everdiso]

The Bucks have two lineups with greater than 70 MP. That's some insane mixing and matching going on.

Oh man didn t even realize it was that crazy.

[KqWIN]

The Bucks have two lineups with greater than 70 MP. That's some insane mixing and matching going on.

Bud is a master of substitution and minutes managing, maybe too much for his own good.

It's interesting to think about. Everyone knows about their starting 5 and talks about how nicely constructed it is (Brook-Giannis-Middleton-Brogdon-Bled). It played a lot of minutes, but it was good not great (+6.2). Or should I say great but not elite?

The only other lineup that played over 100 minutes was negative. So while they had a ton of lightly used lineups that dominated, they didn't have one dominant lineup that carried them. One could say that this is a sign of a regular season team. In the playoffs, your best punch matters the most. There's not a lot of evidence to suggest that the Bucks had the best go to lineup.

[KqWIN]

The Bucks have two lineups with greater than 70 MP. That's some insane mixing and matching going on.

Oh man didn t even realize it was that crazy.

They didn't have a haymaker lineup. I would love to study if "best lineups" have higher playoff predictability than season long net ratings. At the very least, I think it should raise some red flags. MIL didn't have a lineup that was proven to be elite over a decent sample despite being an elite regular season team as a whole.

It's easy to say this in hindsight, but maybe there's a reason why TOR and PHI looked like a championship level series. This series had the two of the best lineups going at it. PHI was a playoff juggernaut whereas MIL was better built for the regular season. The bench still matters, that's how TOR edged it out over PHI, but I don't think there's any question that the bench vs starters (or best lineup) equation heavily tilts towards the starters in the playoffs.

This could be also be an explanation besides "chocking" for the previous Raptor playoff disappointments. Those teams were very good in the regular season, but also got a ton of value out of their bench mob lineups. More than anyone in the league. It's obviously not a bad thing if the bench is great, but you need high end lineups to win in the playoffs.

[everdiso]

The Bucks have two lineups with greater than 70 MP. That's some insane mixing and matching going on.

Oh man didn t even realize it was that crazy.

They didn't have a haymaker lineup. I would love to study if "best lineups" have higher playoff predictability than season long net ratings. At the very least, I think it should raise some red flags. MIL didn't have a lineup that was proven to be elite over a decent sample despite being an elite regular season team as a whole.

It's easy to say this in hindsight, but maybe there's a reason why TOR and PHI looked like a championship level series. This series had the two of the best lineups going at it. PHI was a playoff juggernaut whereas MIL was better built for the regular season. The bench still matters, that's how TOR edged it out over PHI, but I don't think there's any question that the bench vs starters (or best lineup) equation heavily tilts towards the starters in the playoffs.

This could be also be an explanation besides "chocking" for the previous Raptor playoff disappointments. Those teams were very good in the regular season, but also got a ton of value out of their bench mob lineups. More than anyone in the league. It's obviously not a bad thing if the bench is great, but you need high end lineups to win in the playoffs.

Yeah i definitely learned my lesson last year in depending on regumar season bench dominance to help in the playoffs.

And I am surprised that the bucks starting 5 wasn't more dominant. I remember listing the top-5-6 most frequent lineups heading into each series and I did notice that the bucks didn t stack up quite as dangerously as, say, the 6ers did.

This makes me believe even more that the bucks shouldn't max out Khris I don t think. They need a higher impact guy for that money.

[KqWIN]

Oh man didn t even realize it was that crazy.

They didn't have a haymaker lineup. I would love to study if "best lineups" have higher playoff predictability than season long net ratings. At the very least, I think it should raise some red flags. MIL didn't have a lineup that was proven to be elite over a decent sample despite being an elite regular season team as a whole.

It's easy to say this in hindsight, but maybe there's a reason why TOR and PHI looked like a championship level series. This series had the two of the best lineups going at it. PHI was a playoff juggernaut whereas MIL was better built for the regular season. The bench still matters, that's how TOR edged it out over PHI, but I don't think there's any question that the bench vs starters (or best lineup) equation heavily tilts towards the starters in the playoffs.

This could be also be an explanation besides "chocking" for the previous Raptor playoff disappointments. Those teams were very good in the regular season, but also got a ton of value out of their bench mob lineups. More than anyone in the league. It's obviously not a bad thing if the bench is great, but you need high end lineups to win in the playoffs.

Yeah i definitely learned my lesson last year in depending on regumar season bench dominance to help in the playoffs.

And I am surprised that the bucks starting 5 wasn't more dominant. I remember listing the top-5-6 most frequent lineups heading into each series and I did notice that the bucks didn t stack up quite as dangerously as, say, the 6ers did.

This makes me believe even more that the bucks shouldn't max out Khris I don t think. They need a higher impact guy for that money.

If they don't max out Khris, they don't have the capital to replace him. His cap hold is $19M. They aren't getting a better player for that money.

[everdiso]

They didn't have a haymaker lineup. I would love to study if "best lineups" have higher playoff predictability than season long net ratings. At the very least, I think it should raise some red flags. MIL didn't have a lineup that was proven to be elite over a decent sample despite being an elite regular season team as a whole.

It's easy to say this in hindsight, but maybe there's a reason why TOR and PHI looked like a championship level series. This series had the two of the best lineups going at it. PHI was a playoff juggernaut whereas MIL was better built for the regular season. The bench still matters, that's how TOR edged it out over PHI, but I don't think there's any question that the bench vs starters (or best lineup) equation heavily tilts towards the starters in the playoffs.

This could be also be an explanation besides "chocking" for the previous Raptor playoff disappointments. Those teams were very good in the regular season, but also got a ton of value out of their bench mob lineups. More than anyone in the league. It's obviously not a bad thing if the bench is great, but you need high end lineups to win in the playoffs.

Yeah i definitely learned my lesson last year in depending on regumar season bench dominance to help in the playoffs.

And I am surprised that the bucks starting 5 wasn't more dominant. I remember listing the top-5-6 most frequent lineups heading into each series and I did notice that the bucks didn t stack up quite as dangerously as, say, the 6ers did.

This makes me believe even more that the bucks shouldn't max out Khris I don t think. They need a higher impact guy for that money.

If they don't max out Khris, they don't have the capital to replace him. His cap hold is $19M. They aren't getting a better player for that money.

Yeah true. I really don't love that upcoming deal for the bucks tho.

[Winsome Gerbil]

3. Blazers - Three

#5 Lillard/McCollum/Turner/Aminu/Nurkic +16.4 (260min)
#14 Lillard/McCollum/Layman/Aminu/Nurkic +9.8 (369min)
#19 Lillard/McCollum/Harkless/Aminu/Nurkic +8.9 (744min)

Damn good no matter who the 5th guy was. Really a shame Nurkic went down.

Blazers played Lillard/McCollum/Aminu/Nurkic together for 1373 minutes on the season to massive + results. That's over 1/3 of the total minutes on the season.

I would also assume since the Blazers were a good but not elite team, that any groupings not featuring that quartet must have largely struggled in order to get the overall +/- back down to their team total;s on the year. Given those stats I'm minorly surprised they made the playoff run sans Nurkic.

[LofJ]

I'm not surprised that the Hornets had a top 25 net rating lineup. The team has been on the verge of being good for 3 years, but can never find a way to consistently put it all together. It's a shame because this past season might be last time this group of guys play together.

A big reason for that is the inability of Cody Zeller to stay on the court for a full season. He's one of the most underrated players in the league, even by our own fans and organization. The Hornets are a playoff team when he and Kemba are both healthy.