Spoiler:
Overall SRS: My combo-SRS from the regular season and playoffs as discussed in the master thread
Standard Deviations: Standard Deviations of Overall SRS from the league mean.
When I post the roster makeup of the team, I try and do it by playoff minutes. The numbers are age, regular season BPM and Playoff BPM (basketball-reference's BPM is being used here).
So if I say: "C: Vlade Divac (22), +2.3 / +4.3" I mean that Vlade Divac was their center, he was 22, he had a BPM of +2.3 in the regular season and a +4.3 in the playoffs. Yes, BPM misses out on a lot of subtle stuff but I thought it a good quick-hits indicator of the skills of the players.
I then cover the three highest players in Usage% (assuming the season has those numbers), the three highest players in scoring per 100 (with their true shooting relative to league average) and the three highest players in Assists per 100. I realize that these are arbitrary, but I wanted a quick-hits reference for how these teams' offenses ran.
I then talk about Heliocentrism, Wingmen and Depth. Basically I add up all of the team's VORP (again, basketball-reference) and then figure out what percentage of that VORP comes from the #1 player (Heliocentrism), from the #2 and 3 players combined (Wingmen) and Depth (everyone else). I include the ranking among the top 100 for reference. There are only 82 of these rankings, because 18 teams pre-date BPM/VORP, so I only have 82 to work with. I'm not saying that these are particularly meaningful, I just thought they were cool.
Playoff Offensive Rating: Amount by which your playoff offensive rating exceeds the offensive rating you'd expect given the regular season defensive rating of your playoff opponents. If you would be expected to post a 99 given your opponents but you post a 104, that's graded as +5. This way we can compare across eras.
Playoff Defensive Rating is the same as Offensive Rating, just the opposite.
Playoff SRS: Is SRS measured *only* in the playoffs. Overall SRS is a mix of both playoffs and regular season.
Total SRS Increase Through Playoffs: Basically their Overall SRS minus their Regular Season SRS. This is basically how much better a team did in the playoffs than you'd guess, relative to their regular season performance.
Average Playoff Opponent Offense: The average regular season offensive rating of your playoff opponents.
Average Playoff Opponent Defense: The average regular season defensive rating of your playoff opponents.
Rankings of any kind are out of my list. So if I say that the '91 Lakers had the 42nd best regular season offense, I don't mean "42nd best of All-Time", I mean "42nd best of my Top 100 Teams of All_Time". Which will be pretty comparable, but I want to be clear about this.
I also walk through the playoffs at each round, covering their opponent their SRS (at that time), how many games the series was, the margin of victory (and a "+" is always in the favor of the discussed team; losing a series by +2.0 means that you outscored the other team by two points a game on average despite losing) and for reference I put in an SRS equivalency (beat a +5 SRS team by 5 points a game, that's an equivalent +10 SRS series).
In writeups, if I ever say a player shot at "-8%" or something, that means "his true shooting was 8% lower than the league average that year". Any time I say "a player shot" and follow it by a percent, I am *always* using true shooting percentage unless otherwise indicated.
I also have a modern comps section for any teams pre-2011. It's nothing fancy; it's literally just me feeding the player's regular season numbers into Stathead and looking for player-seasons in the recent past (the more recent the better) that are reasonably comparable. This is *not* intended to be anything other than fun. I find it to be a neat way to re-conceive what a roster truly was when translated out of the trappings of their laundry and era. The method suffers when translating man defense, as steals/blocks/defensive rating are very approximate estimates of a player's defensive contributions. When I say something like:
PG: 2017 LeBron James (worse rebounding, better passing, way fewer shots)
What I mean is, "This team's point guard was basically 2017 LeBron James, but make his passing better, make his rebounding worse and make him take way fewer shots).
Anyhow. I don't know how clear any of this will be, so please let me know what does and doesn't work from these writeups. And thanks for reading!
Standard Deviations: Standard Deviations of Overall SRS from the league mean.
When I post the roster makeup of the team, I try and do it by playoff minutes. The numbers are age, regular season BPM and Playoff BPM (basketball-reference's BPM is being used here).
So if I say: "C: Vlade Divac (22), +2.3 / +4.3" I mean that Vlade Divac was their center, he was 22, he had a BPM of +2.3 in the regular season and a +4.3 in the playoffs. Yes, BPM misses out on a lot of subtle stuff but I thought it a good quick-hits indicator of the skills of the players.
I then cover the three highest players in Usage% (assuming the season has those numbers), the three highest players in scoring per 100 (with their true shooting relative to league average) and the three highest players in Assists per 100. I realize that these are arbitrary, but I wanted a quick-hits reference for how these teams' offenses ran.
I then talk about Heliocentrism, Wingmen and Depth. Basically I add up all of the team's VORP (again, basketball-reference) and then figure out what percentage of that VORP comes from the #1 player (Heliocentrism), from the #2 and 3 players combined (Wingmen) and Depth (everyone else). I include the ranking among the top 100 for reference. There are only 82 of these rankings, because 18 teams pre-date BPM/VORP, so I only have 82 to work with. I'm not saying that these are particularly meaningful, I just thought they were cool.
Playoff Offensive Rating: Amount by which your playoff offensive rating exceeds the offensive rating you'd expect given the regular season defensive rating of your playoff opponents. If you would be expected to post a 99 given your opponents but you post a 104, that's graded as +5. This way we can compare across eras.
Playoff Defensive Rating is the same as Offensive Rating, just the opposite.
Playoff SRS: Is SRS measured *only* in the playoffs. Overall SRS is a mix of both playoffs and regular season.
Total SRS Increase Through Playoffs: Basically their Overall SRS minus their Regular Season SRS. This is basically how much better a team did in the playoffs than you'd guess, relative to their regular season performance.
Average Playoff Opponent Offense: The average regular season offensive rating of your playoff opponents.
Average Playoff Opponent Defense: The average regular season defensive rating of your playoff opponents.
Rankings of any kind are out of my list. So if I say that the '91 Lakers had the 42nd best regular season offense, I don't mean "42nd best of All-Time", I mean "42nd best of my Top 100 Teams of All_Time". Which will be pretty comparable, but I want to be clear about this.
I also walk through the playoffs at each round, covering their opponent their SRS (at that time), how many games the series was, the margin of victory (and a "+" is always in the favor of the discussed team; losing a series by +2.0 means that you outscored the other team by two points a game on average despite losing) and for reference I put in an SRS equivalency (beat a +5 SRS team by 5 points a game, that's an equivalent +10 SRS series).
In writeups, if I ever say a player shot at "-8%" or something, that means "his true shooting was 8% lower than the league average that year". Any time I say "a player shot" and follow it by a percent, I am *always* using true shooting percentage unless otherwise indicated.
I also have a modern comps section for any teams pre-2011. It's nothing fancy; it's literally just me feeding the player's regular season numbers into Stathead and looking for player-seasons in the recent past (the more recent the better) that are reasonably comparable. This is *not* intended to be anything other than fun. I find it to be a neat way to re-conceive what a roster truly was when translated out of the trappings of their laundry and era. The method suffers when translating man defense, as steals/blocks/defensive rating are very approximate estimates of a player's defensive contributions. When I say something like:
PG: 2017 LeBron James (worse rebounding, better passing, way fewer shots)
What I mean is, "This team's point guard was basically 2017 LeBron James, but make his passing better, make his rebounding worse and make him take way fewer shots).
Anyhow. I don't know how clear any of this will be, so please let me know what does and doesn't work from these writeups. And thanks for reading!
#95. The 2008 Los Angeles Lakers
Spoiler:
Overall SRS: +8.04, Standard Deviations: +1.50, Lost in NBA Finals
Regular Season Record: 57-25, Regular Season SRS: +7.34 (34th), Earned the 1 Seed
Regular Season Offensive Rating: +5.5 (22nd), Regular Season Defensive Rating: -2.0 (73rd)
PG: Derek Fisher (33), -0.4 / +3.0
SG: Kobe Bryant (29), +5.8 / +7.4
SF: Vladimir Radmanovic (27), +0.2 / +0.7
PF: Lamar Odom (28), +2.3 / +2.2
C: eventually Pau Gasol (27), +5.5 / +4.2
6th: Sasha Vujacic (23), +1.2 / +0.0
Usage: Kobe Bryant (31.4%), Pau Gasol (21.2%), Jordan Farmar (20.2%)
Scoring/100: Kobe Bryant (36.5 / +3.6%), Pau Gasol (27.8 / +9.9%), Sasha Vujacic (24.8 / +6.1%)
Assists/100: Kobe Bryant (6.9), Jordan Farmar (6.7), Luke Walton (6.3)
Heliocentrism: 34.1% (40th of 81 teams)
Wingmen: 26.5% (78th)
Depth: 39.5% (13th)
Playoff Offensive Rating: +6.83 (32nd), Playoff Defensive Rating: -2.88 (79th)
Playoff SRS: +8.44 (92nd), Total SRS Increase through Playoffs: +0.70 (86th)
Average Playoff Opponent Offense: +2.98 (24th), Average Playoff Opponent Defense: -4.33 (5th)
Round 1: Denver Nuggets (+3.7), won 4-0 by +13.3 points per game (+17.0 SRS eq)
Round 2: Utah Jazz (+7.0), won 4-2 by +3.0 points per game (+10.0 SRS eq)
Round 3: San Antonio Spurs (+6.4), won 4-1 by +5.0 points per game (+11.4 SRS eq)
Round 4: Boston Celtics (+7.1), lost 4-2 by -8.4 points per game (-1.3 SRS eq)
The post-Shaq Lakers struggled. Three straight years where they either missed the playoffs or were knocked out in the first round was a hard pill to swallow for a franchise as proud as the Lakers. It’s not that there weren’t upsides - Kobe Bryant was still in his prime and Lamar Odom was a canny passer/defender from the power forward position. Coming into 2008 their supporting cast had taken a lot of decent steps forward; Derek Fisher had been added (again) and the role players (largely a similar group) improved from being atrocious to being decent (thanks in part to them being fairly young and aging well, Sasha Vujacic and Andrew Bynum specifically). With these improvements the Lakers were 29-16, on pace for 53 wins, which was an improvement but not great.
At this same time, perennial All-Star Pau Gasol was losing patience with his team, the Memphis Grizzlies. So a trade was arranged, and the Lakers acquired Gasol for a horde of roster filler, two first round picks and the draft rights to Pau’s chubby little brother. The media screamed bloody murder, as the trade seemed to make the Lakers title contenders overnight at little cost (that Marc Gasol would become a beast in his own right wasn’t anticipated then). With Pau playing during the rest of the regular season the Lakers went 23-5 en route to the one seed.
I don’t want to oversell how tough the West was in 2008 - there were a lot of very good teams (six teams at +4.5 SRS or higher besides the Lakers) but no juggernauts. Well the Lakers stomped everybody. Denver was only pretty good, but a 13.3 point-per-game MOV is freaking dominant no matter what. You may look down on the +3 MOV win over the Jazz, but you’re probably forgetting that Utah was really good in 2008. That was Deron Williams, Andrei Kirilenko, Ronnie Brewer, Carlos Boozer and Mehmet Okur (and a young Paul Millsap). They were really good. Beating them by 3 a game is a +10 SRS win (or thereabouts), and Kobe Bryant played amazingly, throwing up 33 / 7 / 7 for the series on +8.9% true shooting. And in the Conference Finals they played the Spurs (last year’s champions), beating them by 5 points a game and winning 4-1, another very strong performance. But in the Finals they had to face the Celtics (of course they did).
The Celtics hadn’t played well in the playoffs, but were the regular season’s best team (boasting the 3rd best regular season defense ever). But of the two, the Lakers were clearly the hot team. It didn’t help. The Celtics eviscerated the Lakers in six, by a whopping 8.4 points per game, a humiliating defeat for a team that had played that well. The Lakers were simply outplayed and Bryant struggled mightily, putting up only 26 points per game on an underwhelming -3.5% true shooting. The Celtics won each of the Four Factors; Garnett averaged almost four offensive boards a game while no Laker averaged more than two. It’s this brutal loss to the Celtics that drives them down this low in the rankings - had they even played Boston to a standstill they’d rank in the 50s or 60s of this list. 2008 was disappointing, but it did set the stage for two excellent years in 2009 and 2010 (both of which are on this list).
It’s such an interesting roster makeup - the idea of nobody on the roster with a usage rate above 20% for the entire playoffs besides Kobe is crazy. The roster was clearly built around the idea that Kobe would have the ball the whole time and that everyone else would work around that (that Kobe led the team in assists/100 argues both that Kobe’s ball-hogging is overblown, but that his ball-dominance is emphatically not). That they managed the 32nd best playoff offense on this list with Kobe Bryant and a bunch of supporting scorers is a credit to how good an offense could be with just Kobe and a good supporting cast; that they got embarrassed by the Celtics exposed the perils of being so reliant on one player when his shots weren’t falling.
Modern Comps:
PG: 2016 JR Smith
SG: 2005 LeBron James (worse passing, better shooting)
SF: 2013 Jared Dudley (worse passing, better rebounding, fewer shots)
PF: 2010 Al Horford
C: 2019 Al Horford
6th: 2011 J.J. Reddick (fewer rebounds, more shooting)
Can I just say that it’s fascinating to get *two* Al Horford’s for the same roster? The 2005 LeBron comp is dubious, but when you’re talking about players at this level of usage, the selection is pretty limited. You’ve got three solid shooters who don’t create their own shots much, two extremely skilled facilitating bigs and one high-usage engine that drives everything. Normally I’d say that low-passing LeBron wouldn’t have the facilitation to make the offense run well, but throw in two Al Horfords and I’d imagine this offense would run just fine. And judging from the 32nd ranked playoff offense on this list, I’d say that it did. I’d also be surprised to find that this offense had been shut down in the Finals; this offense seems pretty hard to shut down.
Regular Season Record: 57-25, Regular Season SRS: +7.34 (34th), Earned the 1 Seed
Regular Season Offensive Rating: +5.5 (22nd), Regular Season Defensive Rating: -2.0 (73rd)
PG: Derek Fisher (33), -0.4 / +3.0
SG: Kobe Bryant (29), +5.8 / +7.4
SF: Vladimir Radmanovic (27), +0.2 / +0.7
PF: Lamar Odom (28), +2.3 / +2.2
C: eventually Pau Gasol (27), +5.5 / +4.2
6th: Sasha Vujacic (23), +1.2 / +0.0
Usage: Kobe Bryant (31.4%), Pau Gasol (21.2%), Jordan Farmar (20.2%)
Scoring/100: Kobe Bryant (36.5 / +3.6%), Pau Gasol (27.8 / +9.9%), Sasha Vujacic (24.8 / +6.1%)
Assists/100: Kobe Bryant (6.9), Jordan Farmar (6.7), Luke Walton (6.3)
Heliocentrism: 34.1% (40th of 81 teams)
Wingmen: 26.5% (78th)
Depth: 39.5% (13th)
Playoff Offensive Rating: +6.83 (32nd), Playoff Defensive Rating: -2.88 (79th)
Playoff SRS: +8.44 (92nd), Total SRS Increase through Playoffs: +0.70 (86th)
Average Playoff Opponent Offense: +2.98 (24th), Average Playoff Opponent Defense: -4.33 (5th)
Round 1: Denver Nuggets (+3.7), won 4-0 by +13.3 points per game (+17.0 SRS eq)
Round 2: Utah Jazz (+7.0), won 4-2 by +3.0 points per game (+10.0 SRS eq)
Round 3: San Antonio Spurs (+6.4), won 4-1 by +5.0 points per game (+11.4 SRS eq)
Round 4: Boston Celtics (+7.1), lost 4-2 by -8.4 points per game (-1.3 SRS eq)
The post-Shaq Lakers struggled. Three straight years where they either missed the playoffs or were knocked out in the first round was a hard pill to swallow for a franchise as proud as the Lakers. It’s not that there weren’t upsides - Kobe Bryant was still in his prime and Lamar Odom was a canny passer/defender from the power forward position. Coming into 2008 their supporting cast had taken a lot of decent steps forward; Derek Fisher had been added (again) and the role players (largely a similar group) improved from being atrocious to being decent (thanks in part to them being fairly young and aging well, Sasha Vujacic and Andrew Bynum specifically). With these improvements the Lakers were 29-16, on pace for 53 wins, which was an improvement but not great.
At this same time, perennial All-Star Pau Gasol was losing patience with his team, the Memphis Grizzlies. So a trade was arranged, and the Lakers acquired Gasol for a horde of roster filler, two first round picks and the draft rights to Pau’s chubby little brother. The media screamed bloody murder, as the trade seemed to make the Lakers title contenders overnight at little cost (that Marc Gasol would become a beast in his own right wasn’t anticipated then). With Pau playing during the rest of the regular season the Lakers went 23-5 en route to the one seed.
I don’t want to oversell how tough the West was in 2008 - there were a lot of very good teams (six teams at +4.5 SRS or higher besides the Lakers) but no juggernauts. Well the Lakers stomped everybody. Denver was only pretty good, but a 13.3 point-per-game MOV is freaking dominant no matter what. You may look down on the +3 MOV win over the Jazz, but you’re probably forgetting that Utah was really good in 2008. That was Deron Williams, Andrei Kirilenko, Ronnie Brewer, Carlos Boozer and Mehmet Okur (and a young Paul Millsap). They were really good. Beating them by 3 a game is a +10 SRS win (or thereabouts), and Kobe Bryant played amazingly, throwing up 33 / 7 / 7 for the series on +8.9% true shooting. And in the Conference Finals they played the Spurs (last year’s champions), beating them by 5 points a game and winning 4-1, another very strong performance. But in the Finals they had to face the Celtics (of course they did).
The Celtics hadn’t played well in the playoffs, but were the regular season’s best team (boasting the 3rd best regular season defense ever). But of the two, the Lakers were clearly the hot team. It didn’t help. The Celtics eviscerated the Lakers in six, by a whopping 8.4 points per game, a humiliating defeat for a team that had played that well. The Lakers were simply outplayed and Bryant struggled mightily, putting up only 26 points per game on an underwhelming -3.5% true shooting. The Celtics won each of the Four Factors; Garnett averaged almost four offensive boards a game while no Laker averaged more than two. It’s this brutal loss to the Celtics that drives them down this low in the rankings - had they even played Boston to a standstill they’d rank in the 50s or 60s of this list. 2008 was disappointing, but it did set the stage for two excellent years in 2009 and 2010 (both of which are on this list).
It’s such an interesting roster makeup - the idea of nobody on the roster with a usage rate above 20% for the entire playoffs besides Kobe is crazy. The roster was clearly built around the idea that Kobe would have the ball the whole time and that everyone else would work around that (that Kobe led the team in assists/100 argues both that Kobe’s ball-hogging is overblown, but that his ball-dominance is emphatically not). That they managed the 32nd best playoff offense on this list with Kobe Bryant and a bunch of supporting scorers is a credit to how good an offense could be with just Kobe and a good supporting cast; that they got embarrassed by the Celtics exposed the perils of being so reliant on one player when his shots weren’t falling.
Modern Comps:
PG: 2016 JR Smith
SG: 2005 LeBron James (worse passing, better shooting)
SF: 2013 Jared Dudley (worse passing, better rebounding, fewer shots)
PF: 2010 Al Horford
C: 2019 Al Horford
6th: 2011 J.J. Reddick (fewer rebounds, more shooting)
Can I just say that it’s fascinating to get *two* Al Horford’s for the same roster? The 2005 LeBron comp is dubious, but when you’re talking about players at this level of usage, the selection is pretty limited. You’ve got three solid shooters who don’t create their own shots much, two extremely skilled facilitating bigs and one high-usage engine that drives everything. Normally I’d say that low-passing LeBron wouldn’t have the facilitation to make the offense run well, but throw in two Al Horfords and I’d imagine this offense would run just fine. And judging from the 32nd ranked playoff offense on this list, I’d say that it did. I’d also be surprised to find that this offense had been shut down in the Finals; this offense seems pretty hard to shut down.
#94. The 2018 Houston Rockets
Spoiler:
Final SRS: +7.94, Standard Deviations: +1.76, Lost in Eastern Conference Finals
Regular Season Record: 65-17, Regular Season SRS: +8.21 (21st), Earned the 1 Seed
Regular Season Offensive Rating: +6.1 (16th), Regular Season Defensive Rating: -2.5 (68th)
PG: Chris Paul (32), +7.1 / +6.6
SG: James Harden (28), +9.9 / +8.1
SF: Trevor Ariza (32), +0.7 / -2.1
PF: P.J. Tucker (32), -1.1 / +2.4
C: Clint Capela (23), +3.4 / +5.5
6th: Eric Gordon (29), +0.4 / -0.5
Usage: James Harden (36.1%), Eric Gordon (24.7%), Chris Paul (24.5%)
Scoring/100: James Harden (42.3 / +6.3%), Chris Paul (28.8 / +4.9%), Eric Gordon (28.4 / +2.2%)
Assists/100: James Harden (12.2), Chris Paul (12.2), Eric Gordon (3.5)
Heliocentrism: 40.3% (30th of 81 teams)
Wingmen: 36.6% (44th)
Depth: 23.1% (53rd)
Playoff Offensive Rating: +2.06 (79th), Playoff Defensive Rating: -4.31 (65th)
Playoff SRS: +7.75 (98th), Total SRS Increase through Playoffs: -0.27 (97th)
Average Playoff Opponent Offense: +2.98 (24th), Average Playoff Opponent Defense: -4.33 (5th)
Round 1: Minnesota Timberwolves (+2.4), won 4-1 by +8.8 points per game (+11.2 SRS eq)
Semis: Utah Jazz (+5.6), won 4-1 by +10.0 points per game (+15.6 SRS eq)
WCF: Golden State Warriors (+8.7), lost 4-3 by -9.0 points per game (-0.3 SRS eq)
Finals:
I guess that we have to start with James Harden. Harden is a historically great regular season scorer. 2018 Harden averaged 42.3 per 100, with true shooting more than 6% above league average. Do you know how many players have done that historically? You’re pretty much looking at Jordan, Durant, LeBron, Curry, Karl Malone, Giannis and that’s about it. That’s an insane group to be part of. The problem is that he’s simply not as good in the playoffs (mostly owing to his free throw rate dropping by a third (at least in 2018)).
It’s the offseason after the 2017 season. The Warriors had added Kevin Durant and dominated the playoffs by historically insane margins. In 2018, there was no reason to think that they were going anywhere. But Chris Paul had hit free agency, and Rockets GM Daryl Morey reasoned that adding a player of that quality to Houston might get them over the hump, Warriors or no Warriors. It was a ballsy call.
The Rockets played great through the regular season, boasting the 21st best regular season SRS ever (and the best in 2018). Harden and Paul worked together better than you might guess two ball-dominant stars to do (though, given that Paul was sub-25% usage, I shouldn't overstate the case) and they led Houston to the 16th best regular season offensive rating on this list. The first two rounds went great. The Rockets whipped a decent Timberwolves team by 8.8 points a game, and they destroyed a very good Jazz squad by 10 points a game. At this point they’d averaged about a 13 SRS through the playoffs, which would put them in the top 30 all-time. But now they had to go up against the Warriors.
I’d love to write about how the after-the-fact narrative is wrong, that Houston *could* have won that series, that Harden isn’t a choker, that Paul going down for Games 6 and 7 was incredibly bad luck and that going 7 of 44 on three pointers is historically unlucky. And, frankly, every one of those points is valid. Here’s the problem - the Warriors seriously outclassed the Rockets in that series. Here’s how it went:
With Paul healthy:
Golden State wins by 13
Houston wins by 22
Golden State wins by 41 (!!!!)
Houston wins by 3
Houston wins by 4
With Paul out:
Golden State wins by 29
Golden State wins by 9
So even with Paul healthy, the Warriors were outscoring the Rockets by 5 points a game. And with Paul out, the Warriors’ edge became even more pronounced. Yes, the Rockets were up 3-2 and were incredibly unlucky after. But they were incredibly lucky to have been up 3-2. When all was said and done the Warriors outscored the Rockets by 9 points a game. Leave Paul healthy, maybe it’s closer to 5. Maybe the Rockets do eek out a win in the series somehow, that sort of thing happens, but it goes down as the fluky victory of a weaker team.
The Warriors were flat-out better. By a lot. And there’s not a ton of shame in that. The Warriors with Durant were some of the best teams ever. In that series the Rockets’s outstanding offense was held to an offensive rating six points below league average. The series was way less close than it looked.
So where does that leave us? Houston in 2018 was really good. They deserve credit historically for that. Could they have beaten the 2017 Cavs? It’s very possible - much as it pains me to bet on a non-dominant team against LeBron, 2018 Cleveland was his worst 2nd edition iteration. Is the '18 Rockets' place in history compromised by their misfortune in existing in a year with one of the best teams ever? Maybe. They certainly looked good in the first two rounds. But top teams simply don’t lose by that much. Even to historically dominant super-teams. They were probably better than this ranking. But probably not by as much as they’d like.
Regular Season Record: 65-17, Regular Season SRS: +8.21 (21st), Earned the 1 Seed
Regular Season Offensive Rating: +6.1 (16th), Regular Season Defensive Rating: -2.5 (68th)
PG: Chris Paul (32), +7.1 / +6.6
SG: James Harden (28), +9.9 / +8.1
SF: Trevor Ariza (32), +0.7 / -2.1
PF: P.J. Tucker (32), -1.1 / +2.4
C: Clint Capela (23), +3.4 / +5.5
6th: Eric Gordon (29), +0.4 / -0.5
Usage: James Harden (36.1%), Eric Gordon (24.7%), Chris Paul (24.5%)
Scoring/100: James Harden (42.3 / +6.3%), Chris Paul (28.8 / +4.9%), Eric Gordon (28.4 / +2.2%)
Assists/100: James Harden (12.2), Chris Paul (12.2), Eric Gordon (3.5)
Heliocentrism: 40.3% (30th of 81 teams)
Wingmen: 36.6% (44th)
Depth: 23.1% (53rd)
Playoff Offensive Rating: +2.06 (79th), Playoff Defensive Rating: -4.31 (65th)
Playoff SRS: +7.75 (98th), Total SRS Increase through Playoffs: -0.27 (97th)
Average Playoff Opponent Offense: +2.98 (24th), Average Playoff Opponent Defense: -4.33 (5th)
Round 1: Minnesota Timberwolves (+2.4), won 4-1 by +8.8 points per game (+11.2 SRS eq)
Semis: Utah Jazz (+5.6), won 4-1 by +10.0 points per game (+15.6 SRS eq)
WCF: Golden State Warriors (+8.7), lost 4-3 by -9.0 points per game (-0.3 SRS eq)
Finals:
I guess that we have to start with James Harden. Harden is a historically great regular season scorer. 2018 Harden averaged 42.3 per 100, with true shooting more than 6% above league average. Do you know how many players have done that historically? You’re pretty much looking at Jordan, Durant, LeBron, Curry, Karl Malone, Giannis and that’s about it. That’s an insane group to be part of. The problem is that he’s simply not as good in the playoffs (mostly owing to his free throw rate dropping by a third (at least in 2018)).
It’s the offseason after the 2017 season. The Warriors had added Kevin Durant and dominated the playoffs by historically insane margins. In 2018, there was no reason to think that they were going anywhere. But Chris Paul had hit free agency, and Rockets GM Daryl Morey reasoned that adding a player of that quality to Houston might get them over the hump, Warriors or no Warriors. It was a ballsy call.
The Rockets played great through the regular season, boasting the 21st best regular season SRS ever (and the best in 2018). Harden and Paul worked together better than you might guess two ball-dominant stars to do (though, given that Paul was sub-25% usage, I shouldn't overstate the case) and they led Houston to the 16th best regular season offensive rating on this list. The first two rounds went great. The Rockets whipped a decent Timberwolves team by 8.8 points a game, and they destroyed a very good Jazz squad by 10 points a game. At this point they’d averaged about a 13 SRS through the playoffs, which would put them in the top 30 all-time. But now they had to go up against the Warriors.
I’d love to write about how the after-the-fact narrative is wrong, that Houston *could* have won that series, that Harden isn’t a choker, that Paul going down for Games 6 and 7 was incredibly bad luck and that going 7 of 44 on three pointers is historically unlucky. And, frankly, every one of those points is valid. Here’s the problem - the Warriors seriously outclassed the Rockets in that series. Here’s how it went:
With Paul healthy:
Golden State wins by 13
Houston wins by 22
Golden State wins by 41 (!!!!)
Houston wins by 3
Houston wins by 4
With Paul out:
Golden State wins by 29
Golden State wins by 9
So even with Paul healthy, the Warriors were outscoring the Rockets by 5 points a game. And with Paul out, the Warriors’ edge became even more pronounced. Yes, the Rockets were up 3-2 and were incredibly unlucky after. But they were incredibly lucky to have been up 3-2. When all was said and done the Warriors outscored the Rockets by 9 points a game. Leave Paul healthy, maybe it’s closer to 5. Maybe the Rockets do eek out a win in the series somehow, that sort of thing happens, but it goes down as the fluky victory of a weaker team.
The Warriors were flat-out better. By a lot. And there’s not a ton of shame in that. The Warriors with Durant were some of the best teams ever. In that series the Rockets’s outstanding offense was held to an offensive rating six points below league average. The series was way less close than it looked.
So where does that leave us? Houston in 2018 was really good. They deserve credit historically for that. Could they have beaten the 2017 Cavs? It’s very possible - much as it pains me to bet on a non-dominant team against LeBron, 2018 Cleveland was his worst 2nd edition iteration. Is the '18 Rockets' place in history compromised by their misfortune in existing in a year with one of the best teams ever? Maybe. They certainly looked good in the first two rounds. But top teams simply don’t lose by that much. Even to historically dominant super-teams. They were probably better than this ranking. But probably not by as much as they’d like.
#93. The 1995 Houston Rockets
Spoiler:
Overall SRS: +7.47, Standard Deviations: +1.50, Won NBA Finals
Regular Season Record: 47-35, Regular Season SRS: +2.32 (100th), Earned the 6 Seed
Regular Season Offensive Rating: +1.4 (82nd), Regular Season Defensive Rating: -0.9 (93rd)
PG: Kenny Smith (29), +2.0 / +0.9
SG: eventually Clyde Drexler (32), +5.0 / +5.1
SF: Mario Elie (31), +0.1 / +0.7
PF: Robert Horry (24), +2.1 / +4.6
C: Hakeem Olajuwon (32), +5.4 / +5.4
6th: Sam Cassell (25), +0.3 / +1.6
Usage: Hakeem Olajuwon (31.7%), Clyde Drexler (24.2%), Vernon Maxwell (21.5%)
Scoring/100: Hakeem Olajuwon (35.8 / +2.0%), Clyde Drexler (29.4 / +6.9%), Vernon Maxwell (21.4 / -3.5%)
Assists/100: Sam Cassell (11.0), Kenny Smith (8.1), Vernon Maxwell (6.9)
Heliocentrism: 41.2% (26th of 81 teams)
Wingmen: 33.6% (62nd)
Depth: 25.2% (43rd)
Playoff Offensive Rating: +7.70 (20th), Playoff Defensive Rating: -1.60 (90th)
Playoff SRS: +10.34 (55th), Total SRS Increase through Playoffs: +5.15 (7th)
Average Playoff Opponent Offense: +5.50 (1st), Average Playoff Opponent Defense: -0.80 (74th)
Round 1: Utah Jazz (+7.8), won 3-2 by +5.0 points per game (+12.8 SRS eq)
Semis: Phoenix Suns (+6.8), won 4-3 by +0.4 points per game (+7.2 SRS eq)
WCF: San Antonio Spurs (+7.7), won 4-2 by +1.7 points per game (+9.4 SRS eq)
Finals: Orlando Magic (+6.4), won 4-0 by +7.0 points per game (+13.4 SRS eq)
The ‘95 Rockets were an unusual team. They had the worst regular season SRS of any team on this list. While some have tried to explain this away by pointing to the midseason acquisition of Clyde Drexler from the Blazers as being the reason that the Rockets could go from 0 in the regular season to 60 in the playoffs. This isn’t entirely persuasive. Before acquiring Drexler the Rockets were 30-17; after acquiring him they were 17-18 in the regular season. All I’m trying to say is that the difference between the regular season and playoff Rockets of ‘95 is a bigger thing than just trading for Clyde Drexler mid-season.
It’s impossible to talk about this team without talking about Hakeem Olajuwon. Hakeem was . . . basically imagine if Kobe Bryant was also the best defensive big man of the decade. Hakeem was capable of churning out insane quantities of shots at a little above league average efficiency, and because their degree of difficulty was so high, defenses couldn’t really take them away. For this reason Hakeem was one of the few players historically that actually got better in the playoffs (and he was already plenty good). If he had a weakness compared with Kobe, it’s that he was a notably weaker passer. What I’m trying to say is that Hakeem could carry such a heavy offensive load that if you could simply build a roster of solid role-players around him he could take you pretty far. Houston, historically, didn’t do a great job of that.
If Kevin Garnett hadn’t come along Hakeem would arguably have been remembered as the best player with the worst teammates ever. Every year he would carry some sad-sack roster to 40+ wins and the playoffs, only to be eliminated fairly early. I’d love to tell you that because of Hakeem’s presence these teams would always punch above their weight in the playoffs but I can’t really find evidence for that. There are only three years when the Rockets did notably better than their regular season SRS: ‘86, ‘94 and ‘95, the three years they made the Finals. Hakeem surely gets some credit for those runs but hardly all - there are clearly limits to what one player can do. Even Michael Jordan was subject to these limitations - the Bulls before 1989 *never* outperformed their regular season SRS in the playoffs. For all of Jordan’s brilliance, without sufficient teammates around him his individual greatness simply couldn’t lift the team effectively. Only once Pippen and Grant developed into strong complementary pieces did the Bulls really become a dangerous team in the postseason.
In a weird way, the construction of the ‘95 team and the decision to move Otis Thorpe for Drexler is about Robert Horry. Taken #11 by the Rockets in the ‘92 draft, Horry was the kind of player the NBA didn’t yet realize that it had an appetite for, a stretch big. Horry was 6’10” but quick, an excellent defender with three point range (1.7 3PA per game in 1994 at 32.4% blossomed into 3.5 threes attempted at 37.9% in 1995). Thorpe was a great rebounder (and it is in part due to his contributions in ‘94 that the Rockets made the leap that year) but pairing an offensive rebounder with limited range with Hakeem (himself a very good offensive rebounder even in his 30s) wasn’t necessarily an ideal fit. Once Horry was played at the 4 you had him and Kenny Smith, Vernon Maxwell and Mario Elie all able to shoot capably from deep. The acquisition of Drexler got them an additional shooter who could also attack the basket. The ‘95 Rockets, thanks to Hakeem’s incredible offensive gravity, took the most 3s in the league (21.4 a game was, back then, a ton). In the playoffs it all came together, with Hakeem putting up 33 points a game on league average efficiency, while Horry, Smith, Elie and Cassell all shot 40+% from three the entire playoffs.
It wasn’t an easy run, and this wasn’t a juggernaut by a long shot. Granted, they played a really tough schedule (all 6 and 7 SRS teams) but their margins of victory were solid - not really impressive (their playoff SRS is just slightly below average for this list). In a perverse way they were well suited to their matchups. Both the Spurs and the Magic had dominant big men (David Robinson and Shaq) who were extremely capable defensively (both teams were top ten in opposing two point percentage). But the Rockets were fairly resistant to such things because a) Hakeem really couldn’t be stopped - his shots could fall or not fall but the defense didn’t have a ton to do with it and b) the rest of the Rockets were much less reliant on 2s than the rest of the league. The Magic in particular had outstanding 2 point defense (3rd in the league) but weak 3 point defense (24th in the league out of 27). The Rockets eviscerated them to the tune of a 117 offensive rating (9 points above league average), good for a 9 point margin of victory per game. Had the ‘95 Rockets been less underwhelming in the regular season they’d definitely have been bumped up. They were a very good playoff team. But they were still only a middling champion within the context of the 1980 to 2020 timeframe. I think that the contrarian narrative that Jordan is lucky he never ran into Hakeem’s Rockets in the mid-90s is a bit misplaced. The ‘95 Rockets in the playoffs were probably comparable to the weakened ‘93 Bulls, but generally the Bulls operated at a consistently higher level than this. And more to the point, the weaker Rockets teams in ‘94 and ‘96 suggest that this edition may have been a bit of a flash in the pan.
Historical Comps:
PG: 2014 Jose Calderon
SG: 2018 Jimmy Butler, with worse defense but better scoring and rebounding
SF: 2020 George Hill
PF: 2020 OG Anunoby
C: 2018 Anthony Davis, but higher volume and playoff performance
6th: 2017 Mike Conley, but with lower volume on his scoring
This is a nice team. You may balk at the Anthony Davis - Hakeem Olajuwon comparisons, but statistically they’re deceptively similar. If I go looking for every player that has put up steal rates at 2% or higher, block rates of 5% or higher and usage rates of 28% or higher, I get two David Robinson years, five Hakeem Olajuwon years and three Anthony Davis years. I’m not saying that AD is as good as Hakeem (whose ability to take his game to another level in the playoffs is pretty rare historically); I’m saying that Anthony Davis is the best mobile shot-blocker with a huge offensive footprint that the modern game has, which makes him the best comp. In practice, Olajuwon’s value was more on-ball than Davis’, but that’s not something the stats can easily see.
How good would this comp roster be? Pretty good. Lots of spacing, decent defense thanks to Davis and one other on-ball attacker in Butler. I’m not putting this up against the 96 Bulls or anything, but if this roster were magically transposed into the 2020 NBA, I think it would be seriously title competitive.
Regular Season Record: 47-35, Regular Season SRS: +2.32 (100th), Earned the 6 Seed
Regular Season Offensive Rating: +1.4 (82nd), Regular Season Defensive Rating: -0.9 (93rd)
PG: Kenny Smith (29), +2.0 / +0.9
SG: eventually Clyde Drexler (32), +5.0 / +5.1
SF: Mario Elie (31), +0.1 / +0.7
PF: Robert Horry (24), +2.1 / +4.6
C: Hakeem Olajuwon (32), +5.4 / +5.4
6th: Sam Cassell (25), +0.3 / +1.6
Usage: Hakeem Olajuwon (31.7%), Clyde Drexler (24.2%), Vernon Maxwell (21.5%)
Scoring/100: Hakeem Olajuwon (35.8 / +2.0%), Clyde Drexler (29.4 / +6.9%), Vernon Maxwell (21.4 / -3.5%)
Assists/100: Sam Cassell (11.0), Kenny Smith (8.1), Vernon Maxwell (6.9)
Heliocentrism: 41.2% (26th of 81 teams)
Wingmen: 33.6% (62nd)
Depth: 25.2% (43rd)
Playoff Offensive Rating: +7.70 (20th), Playoff Defensive Rating: -1.60 (90th)
Playoff SRS: +10.34 (55th), Total SRS Increase through Playoffs: +5.15 (7th)
Average Playoff Opponent Offense: +5.50 (1st), Average Playoff Opponent Defense: -0.80 (74th)
Round 1: Utah Jazz (+7.8), won 3-2 by +5.0 points per game (+12.8 SRS eq)
Semis: Phoenix Suns (+6.8), won 4-3 by +0.4 points per game (+7.2 SRS eq)
WCF: San Antonio Spurs (+7.7), won 4-2 by +1.7 points per game (+9.4 SRS eq)
Finals: Orlando Magic (+6.4), won 4-0 by +7.0 points per game (+13.4 SRS eq)
The ‘95 Rockets were an unusual team. They had the worst regular season SRS of any team on this list. While some have tried to explain this away by pointing to the midseason acquisition of Clyde Drexler from the Blazers as being the reason that the Rockets could go from 0 in the regular season to 60 in the playoffs. This isn’t entirely persuasive. Before acquiring Drexler the Rockets were 30-17; after acquiring him they were 17-18 in the regular season. All I’m trying to say is that the difference between the regular season and playoff Rockets of ‘95 is a bigger thing than just trading for Clyde Drexler mid-season.
It’s impossible to talk about this team without talking about Hakeem Olajuwon. Hakeem was . . . basically imagine if Kobe Bryant was also the best defensive big man of the decade. Hakeem was capable of churning out insane quantities of shots at a little above league average efficiency, and because their degree of difficulty was so high, defenses couldn’t really take them away. For this reason Hakeem was one of the few players historically that actually got better in the playoffs (and he was already plenty good). If he had a weakness compared with Kobe, it’s that he was a notably weaker passer. What I’m trying to say is that Hakeem could carry such a heavy offensive load that if you could simply build a roster of solid role-players around him he could take you pretty far. Houston, historically, didn’t do a great job of that.
If Kevin Garnett hadn’t come along Hakeem would arguably have been remembered as the best player with the worst teammates ever. Every year he would carry some sad-sack roster to 40+ wins and the playoffs, only to be eliminated fairly early. I’d love to tell you that because of Hakeem’s presence these teams would always punch above their weight in the playoffs but I can’t really find evidence for that. There are only three years when the Rockets did notably better than their regular season SRS: ‘86, ‘94 and ‘95, the three years they made the Finals. Hakeem surely gets some credit for those runs but hardly all - there are clearly limits to what one player can do. Even Michael Jordan was subject to these limitations - the Bulls before 1989 *never* outperformed their regular season SRS in the playoffs. For all of Jordan’s brilliance, without sufficient teammates around him his individual greatness simply couldn’t lift the team effectively. Only once Pippen and Grant developed into strong complementary pieces did the Bulls really become a dangerous team in the postseason.
In a weird way, the construction of the ‘95 team and the decision to move Otis Thorpe for Drexler is about Robert Horry. Taken #11 by the Rockets in the ‘92 draft, Horry was the kind of player the NBA didn’t yet realize that it had an appetite for, a stretch big. Horry was 6’10” but quick, an excellent defender with three point range (1.7 3PA per game in 1994 at 32.4% blossomed into 3.5 threes attempted at 37.9% in 1995). Thorpe was a great rebounder (and it is in part due to his contributions in ‘94 that the Rockets made the leap that year) but pairing an offensive rebounder with limited range with Hakeem (himself a very good offensive rebounder even in his 30s) wasn’t necessarily an ideal fit. Once Horry was played at the 4 you had him and Kenny Smith, Vernon Maxwell and Mario Elie all able to shoot capably from deep. The acquisition of Drexler got them an additional shooter who could also attack the basket. The ‘95 Rockets, thanks to Hakeem’s incredible offensive gravity, took the most 3s in the league (21.4 a game was, back then, a ton). In the playoffs it all came together, with Hakeem putting up 33 points a game on league average efficiency, while Horry, Smith, Elie and Cassell all shot 40+% from three the entire playoffs.
It wasn’t an easy run, and this wasn’t a juggernaut by a long shot. Granted, they played a really tough schedule (all 6 and 7 SRS teams) but their margins of victory were solid - not really impressive (their playoff SRS is just slightly below average for this list). In a perverse way they were well suited to their matchups. Both the Spurs and the Magic had dominant big men (David Robinson and Shaq) who were extremely capable defensively (both teams were top ten in opposing two point percentage). But the Rockets were fairly resistant to such things because a) Hakeem really couldn’t be stopped - his shots could fall or not fall but the defense didn’t have a ton to do with it and b) the rest of the Rockets were much less reliant on 2s than the rest of the league. The Magic in particular had outstanding 2 point defense (3rd in the league) but weak 3 point defense (24th in the league out of 27). The Rockets eviscerated them to the tune of a 117 offensive rating (9 points above league average), good for a 9 point margin of victory per game. Had the ‘95 Rockets been less underwhelming in the regular season they’d definitely have been bumped up. They were a very good playoff team. But they were still only a middling champion within the context of the 1980 to 2020 timeframe. I think that the contrarian narrative that Jordan is lucky he never ran into Hakeem’s Rockets in the mid-90s is a bit misplaced. The ‘95 Rockets in the playoffs were probably comparable to the weakened ‘93 Bulls, but generally the Bulls operated at a consistently higher level than this. And more to the point, the weaker Rockets teams in ‘94 and ‘96 suggest that this edition may have been a bit of a flash in the pan.
Historical Comps:
PG: 2014 Jose Calderon
SG: 2018 Jimmy Butler, with worse defense but better scoring and rebounding
SF: 2020 George Hill
PF: 2020 OG Anunoby
C: 2018 Anthony Davis, but higher volume and playoff performance
6th: 2017 Mike Conley, but with lower volume on his scoring
This is a nice team. You may balk at the Anthony Davis - Hakeem Olajuwon comparisons, but statistically they’re deceptively similar. If I go looking for every player that has put up steal rates at 2% or higher, block rates of 5% or higher and usage rates of 28% or higher, I get two David Robinson years, five Hakeem Olajuwon years and three Anthony Davis years. I’m not saying that AD is as good as Hakeem (whose ability to take his game to another level in the playoffs is pretty rare historically); I’m saying that Anthony Davis is the best mobile shot-blocker with a huge offensive footprint that the modern game has, which makes him the best comp. In practice, Olajuwon’s value was more on-ball than Davis’, but that’s not something the stats can easily see.
How good would this comp roster be? Pretty good. Lots of spacing, decent defense thanks to Davis and one other on-ball attacker in Butler. I’m not putting this up against the 96 Bulls or anything, but if this roster were magically transposed into the 2020 NBA, I think it would be seriously title competitive.
#92. The 2009 Orlando Magic
Spoiler:
Overall SRS: +8.13, Standard Deviations: +1.52, Lost in NBA Finals
Regular Season Record: 59-23, Regular Season SRS: +6.48 (55th), Earned the 3 Seed
Regular Season Offensive Rating: +0.9 (85th), Regular Season Defensive Rating: -6.4 (13th)
PG: Rafer Alston (32), +2.0 / -0.3
SG: Mickael Pietrus (26), +0.3 / +2.4
SF: Hedo Turkoglu (29), +1.3 / +0.8
PF: Rashard Lewis (29), +3.7 / +3.9
C: Dwight Howard (23), +4.5 / +6.2
6th: Courtney Lee (23), -0.1 / -0.6
Usage: Dwight Howard (26.1%), Hedo Turkoglu (23.0%), Rashard Lewis (22.0%)
Scoring/100: Dwight Howard (29.9 / +5.6%), Rashard Lewis (25.5 / +3.6%), Hedo Turkoglu (23.9 / -0.3%)
Assists/100: Rafer Alston (9.0), Hedo Turkoglu (6.9), Rashard Lewis (3.7)
Heliocentrism: 26.1% (69th of 81 teams)
Wingmen: 36.1% (47th)
Depth: 37.8% (17th)
Playoff Offensive Rating: +3.10 (70th), Playoff Defensive Rating: -5.50 (42nd)
Playoff SRS: +8.94 (80th), Total SRS Increase through Playoffs: +1.65 (70th)
Average Playoff Opponent Offense: +2.50 (42nd), Average Playoff Opponent Defense: -4.10 (7th)
Round 1: Philadelphia 76ers (+0.2), won 4-2 by +7.7 points per game (+7.9 SRS eq)
Round 2: Boston Celtics (+6.2), won 4-3 by +4.3 points per game (+10.5 SRS eq)
Round 3: Cleveland Cavs (+12.1), won 4-2 by +2.5 points per game (+14.6 SRS eq)
Round 4: Los Angeles Lakers (+10.7), lost 4-1 by -9.4 points per game (+1.3 SRS eq)
Speaking of teams playing 4 out around one awesome big man and taking a ton of threes . . .
Do you know what baked my noodle a bit? How can Dwight Howard be a rebounding machine (20+ rebound percentage), a block machine (5+ block%), lead his team in usage rate (26%) and scoring (29.9 points per 100 on +5.6% true shooting) and yet only be ranked a +4.5 BPM player? Because, intuitively, a big man that can anchor a defense, grab a ton of boards and carry an offense *seems* like they’d be super-valuable, right? The sticky parts are Howard’s sub-10% assist percentage and his 15% turnover percentages. Basically, that means that even though he had the ball a lot he passed (effectively) very little and he turned it over a lot. If I look for comps for his stat profile in 2009, my best finding was 20 year-old Shaq. Of course, Shaq got better - Shaq’s assist% went up around 15%, his turnovers dropped around 10% and his ability to carry the offense went notably higher. Even if I simply ask for high usage players with high turnovers and low assists, I get a really neat list: 16 seasons of Moses Malone, 11 of Dwight, 11 of Amare Stoudemire, 10 of Ewing and 10 of Mourning. Don’t overthink that those are big names - the stat combo I spat out is *bad*. It just takes a really good set of complimentary skills to keep getting played even with this bad set of traits.
Basically, all of these players bleed value because they’re ball-stoppers who are more likely to turn the ball over (twice as likely for Howard) as they are to set up teammates with good looks. One of the most valuable parts of players who can carry offenses is that they can set up their teammates - players who can’t are only getting 65 cents out a dollar ability. Not that players in this mould are bad. It’s that they can only be so good. Which is how Dwight Howard could average a 21/14 and 3 blocks per 36 and still not really move the needle as much as you’d guess (I’ll stipulate to the fact that BPM can simply be wrong here, I’m just assuming that it’s not).
Honestly, the 2009 Magic and the 1995 Rockets are really, really similar in composition. The major difference is that in the playoffs Hakeem was higher usage and more defense-resistant than Dwight (no shame in that game) and that the Rockets had a secondary on-ball scorer in Drexler that the Magic didn’t really have (at least at that level). A notable difference is that the Magic’s defense was geared around the three-point line in a way that the Rocket’s defense wasn’t. Both teams had great two point defense, but the Magic worked very hard to force shots to be taken inside the arc (3rd in 3PA allowed and 2nd in 3P% allowed), which added a lot of efficiency to their defense.
In the regular season the Magic were pretty good, though notably behind the Cavs and Celtics. In the first round they faced the 76ers and won in effective if not overwhelming fashion. Their win over the Celtics would have been really impressive (my formula certainly gives them credit for it) except that Kevin Garnett was out for the entire playoffs. But in Cleveland they would face the clear best team in the East (led by LeBron James who was having probably his best regular season ever) coming off series wins of 15 and 18 points per game. The Cavs were also extremely dependent on threes (as most of LeBron’s teams have been). Both stars played well, with LeBron averaging a 39/8/8 on +4.7% true shooting and Howard averaging a 26/13/3 on +14.5% true shooting (with more assists than turnovers! I’m not trying to be a dick; for Howard that was really good!) I don’t want to make it sound like Howard played James to a standstill - that crap definitely did not happen. But what about their teammates? The Magic shot 41% from three. The Cavs overall shot 32% from three. LeBron led the Cavs’ starters not only in shots taken but also in true shooting; that’s a bad combination. Either way; whether the Magic were lucky with their shots falling or simply executed their game-plan better, their solid win over an outstanding Cavs team was very much to their credit.
This same trend didn’t hold against the Lakers. The lights out Magic suddenly only shot 33% from three and Dwight Howard could muster only 15 points a game on a +1.8% true shooting; Pau Gasol and Andrew Bynum were evidently harder nuts to crack than anyone Cleveland could offer. Kobe Bryant didn’t have a good *shooting* series; his 32 points a game were on weak -1.9% true shooting. But Bryant *did* dish out 7 assists a game and the Lakers shot 37% from three with Gasol and Odom each shooting above +5%. The Lakers did to the Magic in 2009 what the Celtics had done to them the year before; taken a very good team and exposed them with a brutal defeat (9.4 points per game in this case).
The Magic beat the ‘09 Cavs, which makes them look great. Then they got blown out by the ‘09 Lakers. Which is the real Magic? Somewhere in between probably. They were ideal counters to the Cavs; they had strong paint defense in Howard (necessary to limit LeBron) and outstanding three-point defense (also necessary to limit LeBron). And their offense ran through the threat of Howard manhandling the opposing center, and Cleveland was not capable of derailing that attack. In contrast the Lakers had a much more diverse attack that was much less dependent on three-point shooting. And they were capable of limiting Howard which in turn limited the Magic’s offense. I think that this is not an unreasonable ranking for them.
Modern Comps:
PG: 2012 Mike Conley
SG: 2017 James Ennis
SF: 2014 DJ Augustin with more rebounding
PF: 2018 Dario Saric
C: 2009 Dwight Howard (sorry, there are no good modern comps for Howard)
6th: 2020 Kantavious Caldwell-Pope
What jumps out at me from this roster? Holy heck there’s not a lot of maneuvering room here. Not a lot of passing (minus Conley and Augustin), not a ton of athleticism (minus Howard and KCP) but a ton of three point shooting. Not a roster that inspires a lot of confidence. Of course, neither did the 2009 Magic. And yet they put a really good squad on the court. The 2009 Magic will always be remembered for knocking the 2009 Cavs out of the playoffs.
Regular Season Record: 59-23, Regular Season SRS: +6.48 (55th), Earned the 3 Seed
Regular Season Offensive Rating: +0.9 (85th), Regular Season Defensive Rating: -6.4 (13th)
PG: Rafer Alston (32), +2.0 / -0.3
SG: Mickael Pietrus (26), +0.3 / +2.4
SF: Hedo Turkoglu (29), +1.3 / +0.8
PF: Rashard Lewis (29), +3.7 / +3.9
C: Dwight Howard (23), +4.5 / +6.2
6th: Courtney Lee (23), -0.1 / -0.6
Usage: Dwight Howard (26.1%), Hedo Turkoglu (23.0%), Rashard Lewis (22.0%)
Scoring/100: Dwight Howard (29.9 / +5.6%), Rashard Lewis (25.5 / +3.6%), Hedo Turkoglu (23.9 / -0.3%)
Assists/100: Rafer Alston (9.0), Hedo Turkoglu (6.9), Rashard Lewis (3.7)
Heliocentrism: 26.1% (69th of 81 teams)
Wingmen: 36.1% (47th)
Depth: 37.8% (17th)
Playoff Offensive Rating: +3.10 (70th), Playoff Defensive Rating: -5.50 (42nd)
Playoff SRS: +8.94 (80th), Total SRS Increase through Playoffs: +1.65 (70th)
Average Playoff Opponent Offense: +2.50 (42nd), Average Playoff Opponent Defense: -4.10 (7th)
Round 1: Philadelphia 76ers (+0.2), won 4-2 by +7.7 points per game (+7.9 SRS eq)
Round 2: Boston Celtics (+6.2), won 4-3 by +4.3 points per game (+10.5 SRS eq)
Round 3: Cleveland Cavs (+12.1), won 4-2 by +2.5 points per game (+14.6 SRS eq)
Round 4: Los Angeles Lakers (+10.7), lost 4-1 by -9.4 points per game (+1.3 SRS eq)
Speaking of teams playing 4 out around one awesome big man and taking a ton of threes . . .
Do you know what baked my noodle a bit? How can Dwight Howard be a rebounding machine (20+ rebound percentage), a block machine (5+ block%), lead his team in usage rate (26%) and scoring (29.9 points per 100 on +5.6% true shooting) and yet only be ranked a +4.5 BPM player? Because, intuitively, a big man that can anchor a defense, grab a ton of boards and carry an offense *seems* like they’d be super-valuable, right? The sticky parts are Howard’s sub-10% assist percentage and his 15% turnover percentages. Basically, that means that even though he had the ball a lot he passed (effectively) very little and he turned it over a lot. If I look for comps for his stat profile in 2009, my best finding was 20 year-old Shaq. Of course, Shaq got better - Shaq’s assist% went up around 15%, his turnovers dropped around 10% and his ability to carry the offense went notably higher. Even if I simply ask for high usage players with high turnovers and low assists, I get a really neat list: 16 seasons of Moses Malone, 11 of Dwight, 11 of Amare Stoudemire, 10 of Ewing and 10 of Mourning. Don’t overthink that those are big names - the stat combo I spat out is *bad*. It just takes a really good set of complimentary skills to keep getting played even with this bad set of traits.
Basically, all of these players bleed value because they’re ball-stoppers who are more likely to turn the ball over (twice as likely for Howard) as they are to set up teammates with good looks. One of the most valuable parts of players who can carry offenses is that they can set up their teammates - players who can’t are only getting 65 cents out a dollar ability. Not that players in this mould are bad. It’s that they can only be so good. Which is how Dwight Howard could average a 21/14 and 3 blocks per 36 and still not really move the needle as much as you’d guess (I’ll stipulate to the fact that BPM can simply be wrong here, I’m just assuming that it’s not).
Honestly, the 2009 Magic and the 1995 Rockets are really, really similar in composition. The major difference is that in the playoffs Hakeem was higher usage and more defense-resistant than Dwight (no shame in that game) and that the Rockets had a secondary on-ball scorer in Drexler that the Magic didn’t really have (at least at that level). A notable difference is that the Magic’s defense was geared around the three-point line in a way that the Rocket’s defense wasn’t. Both teams had great two point defense, but the Magic worked very hard to force shots to be taken inside the arc (3rd in 3PA allowed and 2nd in 3P% allowed), which added a lot of efficiency to their defense.
In the regular season the Magic were pretty good, though notably behind the Cavs and Celtics. In the first round they faced the 76ers and won in effective if not overwhelming fashion. Their win over the Celtics would have been really impressive (my formula certainly gives them credit for it) except that Kevin Garnett was out for the entire playoffs. But in Cleveland they would face the clear best team in the East (led by LeBron James who was having probably his best regular season ever) coming off series wins of 15 and 18 points per game. The Cavs were also extremely dependent on threes (as most of LeBron’s teams have been). Both stars played well, with LeBron averaging a 39/8/8 on +4.7% true shooting and Howard averaging a 26/13/3 on +14.5% true shooting (with more assists than turnovers! I’m not trying to be a dick; for Howard that was really good!) I don’t want to make it sound like Howard played James to a standstill - that crap definitely did not happen. But what about their teammates? The Magic shot 41% from three. The Cavs overall shot 32% from three. LeBron led the Cavs’ starters not only in shots taken but also in true shooting; that’s a bad combination. Either way; whether the Magic were lucky with their shots falling or simply executed their game-plan better, their solid win over an outstanding Cavs team was very much to their credit.
This same trend didn’t hold against the Lakers. The lights out Magic suddenly only shot 33% from three and Dwight Howard could muster only 15 points a game on a +1.8% true shooting; Pau Gasol and Andrew Bynum were evidently harder nuts to crack than anyone Cleveland could offer. Kobe Bryant didn’t have a good *shooting* series; his 32 points a game were on weak -1.9% true shooting. But Bryant *did* dish out 7 assists a game and the Lakers shot 37% from three with Gasol and Odom each shooting above +5%. The Lakers did to the Magic in 2009 what the Celtics had done to them the year before; taken a very good team and exposed them with a brutal defeat (9.4 points per game in this case).
The Magic beat the ‘09 Cavs, which makes them look great. Then they got blown out by the ‘09 Lakers. Which is the real Magic? Somewhere in between probably. They were ideal counters to the Cavs; they had strong paint defense in Howard (necessary to limit LeBron) and outstanding three-point defense (also necessary to limit LeBron). And their offense ran through the threat of Howard manhandling the opposing center, and Cleveland was not capable of derailing that attack. In contrast the Lakers had a much more diverse attack that was much less dependent on three-point shooting. And they were capable of limiting Howard which in turn limited the Magic’s offense. I think that this is not an unreasonable ranking for them.
Modern Comps:
PG: 2012 Mike Conley
SG: 2017 James Ennis
SF: 2014 DJ Augustin with more rebounding
PF: 2018 Dario Saric
C: 2009 Dwight Howard (sorry, there are no good modern comps for Howard)
6th: 2020 Kantavious Caldwell-Pope
What jumps out at me from this roster? Holy heck there’s not a lot of maneuvering room here. Not a lot of passing (minus Conley and Augustin), not a ton of athleticism (minus Howard and KCP) but a ton of three point shooting. Not a roster that inspires a lot of confidence. Of course, neither did the 2009 Magic. And yet they put a really good squad on the court. The 2009 Magic will always be remembered for knocking the 2009 Cavs out of the playoffs.
#91. The 2019 Golden State Warriors
Spoiler:
Final SRS: +8.13, Standard Deviations: +1.52, Lost in NBA Finals
Regular Season Record: 57-25, Regular Season SRS: +6.42 (59th), Earned the 1 Seed
Regular Season Offensive Rating: +5.5 (23rd), Regular Season Defensive Rating: -0.9 (92nd)
PG: Stephen Curry (30), +6.6 / +5.2
SG: Klay Thompson (28), -0.3 / +0.2
SF: Andre Iguodala (35), +1.8 / +3.7
PF: Kevin Durant (30), +5.5 / +7.6
C: Draymond Green (28), +1.4 / +3.6
6th: Kevon Looney (22), +0.5 / +0.7
Usage: Stephen Curry (30.4%), Kevin Durant (29.0%), Klay Thompson (25.6%)
Scoring/100: Stephen Curry (38.4 /+8.1%), Kevin Durant (35.7 / +7.1%), Klay Thompson (30.1 / +1.1%)
Assists/100: Draymond Green (10.5), Kevin Durant (8.0), Stephen Curry (7.4)
Heliocentrism: 30.0% (51st of 81 teams)
Wingmen: 40.6% (30th)
Depth: 29.4% (33rd)
Playoff Offensive Rating: +5.40 (52nd), Playoff Defensive Rating: -1.95 (87th)
Playoff SRS: +9.15 (77th), Total SRS Increase through Playoffs: +1.78 (68th)
Average Playoff Opponent Offense: +3.45 (13th), Average Playoff Opponent Defense: -0.5 (80th)
Round 1: Los Angeles Clippers (+1.1), won 4-2 by +9.8 points per game (+10.9 SRS eq)
Semis: Houston Rockets (+7.8), won 4-2 by +1.9 points per game (+9.7 SRS eq)
WCF: Portland Trailblazers (+4.8), won 4-0 by +9.5 points per game (+14.3 SRS eq)
Finals: Toronto Raptors (+9.1), lost 4-2 by -5.7 points per game (+3.7 SRS eq)
What a disappointment. Sure, they were the best team in the West and won the conference. Sure they didn’t have Kevin Durant when they lost to the Raptors. Still. Take the 73-win Warriors, give them one of the top 20 players ever (let’s say) whose talents are not explicitly ball-dominant and they should wreck everyone. And of course, they did, in 2017 and 2018. But in their third year together, this all kind of fell apart. It wasn’t a bad team - a playoff SRS of +9.15 is quite good after all (if not for this list). It’s just an enormous letdown given the talent of the roster.
And you can’t even make the Durant injury argument too well. Look at those first three playoff series; their first two series (with Durant for all but one game) were only slightly above 10 SRS. Down Durant against Portland they have their best series of the playoffs. And the Raptors . . . the Raptors were a very good team; losing to them minus Durant isn’t crazy. But they lost by 5.7 points a game - that’s a serious defeat for a team that (on paper) was this good. Granted that the Warriors lost Klay Thompson for Game 6, but the Raptors only won that game by 4; it’s not like the margin of victory arose solely from that situation. The Raptors’ wins were 9, 14, 13 and 4 points, the Warriors’ wins were by 5 and 1 point. Put Durant back in and the Warriors might win the series. It’s possible that, with a healthy Durant, this Warriors team would probably finish in the 50s of this list. Which sounds good, save that the ‘17 and ‘18 Warriors finished a heck of a lot higher than the 50s. And remember:
First two series (with Durant): +10.3 SRS equivalent
Last two series (no Durant): +7.9 SRS equivalent
These are small sample sizes, only 10-12 games each. But there’s not much evidence to suggest that the ‘19 Warriors were a juggernaut that just got unlucky to lose Durant for the Finals. The evidence, such as it is, suggests that they were a pretty good team that then regressed when they lost one of their best players. Which, again, is wildly worse than the ‘17 and ‘18 Warriors.
What changed? It wasn’t their offense - the 2019 Warriors actually had a better offense than the 2018 edition. But the Warriors defense in 2019 was way, way worse. Check these splits out:
Defense in 2019 (111.9): 52.2% eFG, 13.1% TO, 76.6% DRB, 24.3% FT/FGA
Defense in 2018 (103.6): 48.1% eFG, 12.3% TO, 77.6% DRB, 18.6% FT/FGA
That’s an 8-point drop from 2018 to 2019. Did their team bond wane? Was Draymond just getting old? I couldn’t tell you. We know that there was serious tension between Draymond and Durant, but that doesn’t mean that their defensive weakness was caused by that tension. But the 2019 Warriors were, on paper, a juggernaut, but played only like an extremely good team. And they lost Kevin Durant before the Finals, which dropped their rating even farther. A great team that should have been much better. They’re not unlike the 2000-04 Lakers. On paper Shaq and Kobe should have wrecked everything. And yet, they only had one iteration (2001) where it came together. In all the other times they either won the title unimpressively or came up short in ways that really shouldn’t have happened. Sometimes teams fail for reasons that don’t make sense on paper.
Regular Season Record: 57-25, Regular Season SRS: +6.42 (59th), Earned the 1 Seed
Regular Season Offensive Rating: +5.5 (23rd), Regular Season Defensive Rating: -0.9 (92nd)
PG: Stephen Curry (30), +6.6 / +5.2
SG: Klay Thompson (28), -0.3 / +0.2
SF: Andre Iguodala (35), +1.8 / +3.7
PF: Kevin Durant (30), +5.5 / +7.6
C: Draymond Green (28), +1.4 / +3.6
6th: Kevon Looney (22), +0.5 / +0.7
Usage: Stephen Curry (30.4%), Kevin Durant (29.0%), Klay Thompson (25.6%)
Scoring/100: Stephen Curry (38.4 /+8.1%), Kevin Durant (35.7 / +7.1%), Klay Thompson (30.1 / +1.1%)
Assists/100: Draymond Green (10.5), Kevin Durant (8.0), Stephen Curry (7.4)
Heliocentrism: 30.0% (51st of 81 teams)
Wingmen: 40.6% (30th)
Depth: 29.4% (33rd)
Playoff Offensive Rating: +5.40 (52nd), Playoff Defensive Rating: -1.95 (87th)
Playoff SRS: +9.15 (77th), Total SRS Increase through Playoffs: +1.78 (68th)
Average Playoff Opponent Offense: +3.45 (13th), Average Playoff Opponent Defense: -0.5 (80th)
Round 1: Los Angeles Clippers (+1.1), won 4-2 by +9.8 points per game (+10.9 SRS eq)
Semis: Houston Rockets (+7.8), won 4-2 by +1.9 points per game (+9.7 SRS eq)
WCF: Portland Trailblazers (+4.8), won 4-0 by +9.5 points per game (+14.3 SRS eq)
Finals: Toronto Raptors (+9.1), lost 4-2 by -5.7 points per game (+3.7 SRS eq)
What a disappointment. Sure, they were the best team in the West and won the conference. Sure they didn’t have Kevin Durant when they lost to the Raptors. Still. Take the 73-win Warriors, give them one of the top 20 players ever (let’s say) whose talents are not explicitly ball-dominant and they should wreck everyone. And of course, they did, in 2017 and 2018. But in their third year together, this all kind of fell apart. It wasn’t a bad team - a playoff SRS of +9.15 is quite good after all (if not for this list). It’s just an enormous letdown given the talent of the roster.
And you can’t even make the Durant injury argument too well. Look at those first three playoff series; their first two series (with Durant for all but one game) were only slightly above 10 SRS. Down Durant against Portland they have their best series of the playoffs. And the Raptors . . . the Raptors were a very good team; losing to them minus Durant isn’t crazy. But they lost by 5.7 points a game - that’s a serious defeat for a team that (on paper) was this good. Granted that the Warriors lost Klay Thompson for Game 6, but the Raptors only won that game by 4; it’s not like the margin of victory arose solely from that situation. The Raptors’ wins were 9, 14, 13 and 4 points, the Warriors’ wins were by 5 and 1 point. Put Durant back in and the Warriors might win the series. It’s possible that, with a healthy Durant, this Warriors team would probably finish in the 50s of this list. Which sounds good, save that the ‘17 and ‘18 Warriors finished a heck of a lot higher than the 50s. And remember:
First two series (with Durant): +10.3 SRS equivalent
Last two series (no Durant): +7.9 SRS equivalent
These are small sample sizes, only 10-12 games each. But there’s not much evidence to suggest that the ‘19 Warriors were a juggernaut that just got unlucky to lose Durant for the Finals. The evidence, such as it is, suggests that they were a pretty good team that then regressed when they lost one of their best players. Which, again, is wildly worse than the ‘17 and ‘18 Warriors.
What changed? It wasn’t their offense - the 2019 Warriors actually had a better offense than the 2018 edition. But the Warriors defense in 2019 was way, way worse. Check these splits out:
Defense in 2019 (111.9): 52.2% eFG, 13.1% TO, 76.6% DRB, 24.3% FT/FGA
Defense in 2018 (103.6): 48.1% eFG, 12.3% TO, 77.6% DRB, 18.6% FT/FGA
That’s an 8-point drop from 2018 to 2019. Did their team bond wane? Was Draymond just getting old? I couldn’t tell you. We know that there was serious tension between Draymond and Durant, but that doesn’t mean that their defensive weakness was caused by that tension. But the 2019 Warriors were, on paper, a juggernaut, but played only like an extremely good team. And they lost Kevin Durant before the Finals, which dropped their rating even farther. A great team that should have been much better. They’re not unlike the 2000-04 Lakers. On paper Shaq and Kobe should have wrecked everything. And yet, they only had one iteration (2001) where it came together. In all the other times they either won the title unimpressively or came up short in ways that really shouldn’t have happened. Sometimes teams fail for reasons that don’t make sense on paper.
Back to the Main Thread
