Sansterre's Top 100 Teams, #29-31, 2011 DAL, 2005 SAS, 2016 OKC

[colts18]

The 2011 Heat are simultaneously overrated and underrated at the same time. I'd argue they have a good argument as the best Heat team but they are also the most flawed one at the same time. Let's get this out of the way: I don't believe the narrative that LeBron and Wade didn't fit in 2011. They had their best results together that season despite their #4-15 roster being the worst I've ever seen for a contender. Here are the results of the LeBron/Wade/Bosh trio when they were on court.

2011: +15.4
2012: +12.5
2013: +12.6
2014: +7.1

Those numbers don't the common narrative at all. 2011 was actually the Heat's best year. They were cruising in the playoffs until the finals. Beating really good Celtics and Bulls teams.

Otoh, the supporting roster was so bad that you could make the argument that they were most vulnerable Heat team. They were so reliant on their Big 3 that a down series by LeBron in the finals tanked the team. For god sake they had the corpse of Mike Bibby and Joel Anthony starting in the finals. They had Juwan Howard, 10 years past his prime, playing minutes for that team. Jerry Stackhouse was just as old. Dampier/Magloire/Pittman/Big Z were the backup big men. That was a weak supporting cast for the Heat that was propped up by a solid LeBron year and Wade/Bosh's best Heat year.

[sansterre]

The 2011 Heat are simultaneously overrated and underrated at the same time. I'd argue they have a good argument as the best Heat team but they are also the most flawed one at the same time. Let's get this out of the way: I don't believe the narrative that LeBron and Wade didn't fit in 2011. They had their best results together that season despite their #4-15 roster being the worst I've ever seen for a contender. Here are the results of the LeBron/Wade/Bosh trio when they were on court.

2011: +15.4
2012: +12.5
2013: +12.6
2014: +7.1

Those numbers don't the common narrative at all. 2011 was actually the Heat's best year. They were cruising in the playoffs until the finals. Beating really good Celtics and Bulls teams.

Otoh, the supporting roster was so bad that you could make the argument that they were most vulnerable Heat team. They were so reliant on their Big 3 that a down series by LeBron in the finals tanked the team. For god sake they had the corpse of Mike Bibby and Joel Anthony starting in the finals. They had Juwan Howard, 10 years past his prime, playing minutes for that team. Jerry Stackhouse was just as old. Dampier/Magloire/Pittman/Big Z were the backup big men. That was a weak supporting cast for the Heat that was propped up by a solid LeBron year and Wade/Bosh's best Heat year.

I think that's a reasonable interpretation of the data.

The hard part is that the argument isn't "LeBron and Wade weren't good together" but instead is "LeBron and Wade weren't as the sum of their parts", ie, if they were +12 together, if their skillsets were more synergistic it might have been +15. And I don't know how you'd make that point either way.

Your point about the weakness of the rest of their roster is well made.

[sansterre]

Bump for team #29, the 2016 Oklahoma City Thunder! They are (according to this list) the third best team ever to only make it to the Conference Finals.

[Jordan Syndrome]

OKC not winning a single title from 2012-2016 is one of the 7 wonders of the world.

[eminence]

Any idea on the VORP% of KD/Westbrook for just the Spurs/Warriors series?

[sansterre]

Any idea on the VORP% of KD/Westbrook for just the Spurs/Warriors series?

Okay. So let the record show that game/series VORP isn't available, so the following is just an estimate*.

Spurs series:

Westbrook: 33.3%
Durant: 31.8%
Combined: 65.2%

Warriors series:

Westbrook: 47.9%
Durant: 31.2%
Combined: 79.1%

Both Series Combined:

Westbrook: 41.1%
Durant: 31.5%
Combined: 72.6%

* So I just ran a linear regression of the Thunder's players' BPM * minutes and compared it to their VORP. That gave me a ballpark linear equation for converting games, minutes and BPM into a VORP estimate. Then I went game by game in each series and manually recorded every players' minutes (rounded to the nearest whole) and BPM. And then I simply fed that into VORP estimator. So all of the above could be considerably wrong. But eyeball-test-wise, it looks reasonably accurate.

[Odinn21]

Any idea on the VORP% of KD/Westbrook for just the Spurs/Warriors series?

Against the Spurs;
Westbrook 7.08 BPM, 6.96 VORP, 6.64 OBPM
Durant 6.06 BPM, 6.87 VORP, 5.85 OBPM

Against the Warriors;
Westbrook 9.65 BPM, 9.49 VORP, 6.45 OBPM
Durant 5.77 BPM, 6.68 VORP, 4.73 OBPM

Combined;
Westbrook 8.50 BPM, 8.32 VORP, 6.54 OBPM
Durant 5.90 BPM, 6.77 VORP, 5.24 OBPM

VORP is a cumulative stat but before it becomes cumulative later in the process, it has an element to consider number of games and basically mpg. That's why Durant's VORP doesn't add up to 13.55.
Also, Durant played nearly 40 minutes more than Westbrook over those 13 games. It helps his numbers a bit.

I didn't calculate for the entire team but between the two, their VORP share are; Westbrook 55.16% and Durant 44.84%.

As for their BPM distribution over those series;
Both had higher BPM numbers in 3 games each against the Spurs.
Against the Warriors though, Durant only posted higher BPM number twice. One of those games was game 3 in which the Thunder blew out and both had monstrous BPM numbers (Durant 18.5 and Westbrook 14.3). That series was a 5-2 lead for Westbrook.

I hope this post answers all your questions because I calculated these on MS Excel but didn't save it.

Ah, as I was calculating sansterre posted his ballpark numbers. These are the exact numbers. The gap between Westbrook and Durant in those numbers is little overstated because I don't think those numbers consider that 40 minutes (8.1% gap) in play time.

[sansterre]

Any idea on the VORP% of KD/Westbrook for just the Spurs/Warriors series?

Against the Spurs;
Westbrook 7.08 BPM, 6.96 VORP, 6.64 OBPM
Durant 6.06 BPM, 6.87 VORP, 5.85 OBPM

Against the Warriors;
Westbrook 9.65 BPM, 9.49 VORP, 6.45 OBPM
Durant 5.77 BPM, 6.68 VORP, 4.73 OBPM

Combined;
Westbrook 8.50 BPM, 8.32 VORP, 6.54 OBPM
Durant 5.90 BPM, 6.77 VORP, 5.24 OBPM

VORP is a cumulative stat but before it becomes cumulative later in the process, it has an element to consider number of games and basically mpg. That's why Durant's VORP doesn't add up to 13.55.
Also, Durant played nearly 40 minutes more than Westbrook over those 13 games. It helps his numbers a bit.

I didn't calculate for the entire team but between the two, their VORP share are; Westbrook 55.16% and Durant 44.84%.

As for their BPM distribution over those series;
Both had higher BPM numbers in 3 games each against the Spurs.
Against the Warriors though, Durant only posted higher BPM number twice. One of those games was game 3 in which the Thunder blew out and both had monstrous BPM numbers (Durant 18.5 and Westbrook 14.3). That series was a 5-2 lead for Westbrook.

I hope this post answers all your questions because I calculated these on MS Excel but didn't save it.

Ah, as I was calculating sansterre posted his ballpark numbers. These are the exact numbers. The gap between Westbrook and Durant in those numbers is little overstated because I don't think those numbers consider that 40 minutes (8.1% gap) in play time.

I don't think your VORP and my VORP are the same thing. And my stuff does include minutes.

That said, I don't think it really matters. The gist is pretty much the same either way.

[Odinn21]

I don't think your VORP and my VORP are the same thing. And my stuff does include minutes.

That said, I don't think it really matters. The gist is pretty much the same either way.

Yeah, they are different. Yours is a linear regression adjustment and I calculated by following the VORP formula with BPM numbers from game logs.

Yes, the conclusion doesn't change in either way.