Sansterre's Top 100 Teams, #23-25, 2019 MIL, 1972 MIL, 2016 SAS

sansterre · Post #1 » by **sansterre** » Wed Jan 13, 2021 11:46 am

Glossary:

Spoiler:

#25. The 2019 Milwaukee Bucks

Spoiler:

#24. The 1972 Milwaukee Bucks

Spoiler:

#23. The 2016 San Antonio Spurs

Spoiler:

Back to the Main Thread

70sFan · Post #2 » by **70sFan** » Wed Jan 13, 2021 11:59 am

I expected 2019 Bucks and this time I was aware of how dominant their defense was.

I do think that 2019 Raptors was perfect team to exploit Bucks offense, but at the same time they didn't do anything sophisticated either - they just didn't let Giannis drive to the paint. They just had enough size to contain Giannis and Bucks couldn't adjust to that. This shows how important it is to have counter moves and it's not only about Giannis lack of versatility - the whole team lacked second game plan when what they were doing throughout the year stopped working.

It's also important to note that in different eras, it would be easier to pack the paint with legit bigmen which made their strategy even less questionable.

AdagioPace · Post #3 » by **AdagioPace** » Wed Jan 13, 2021 12:19 pm

Despite having the "chockers" label Bucks have been freaking good in the past couple years. MVP, defensive-offensive formula that works, a decent supporting cast (which strangely doesn't scream 11 SRS at first glance).
You don't need to feel weird if your formula has them this high.
Of course, many people wouldn't take them over other teams already mentioned (Warriors, Spurs, Lakers, Mavs, Heat) given the difference in experience, coaching and versatility.
As you say, the annhilation of the Pistons is certainly something to weight carefully.

Raptors-Bucks-76ers were equally amazing in 2019,even though the Raptors prevailed (deservingly). It was already hard to make a clear-cut ranking amongst them in 2019, let alone in an all-time context.

Odinn21 · Post #4 » by **Odinn21** » Wed Jan 13, 2021 1:22 pm

70sFan wrote:I expected 2019 Bucks and this time I was aware of how dominant their defense was.

I do think that 2019 Raptors was perfect team to exploit Bucks offense, but at the same time they didn't do anything sophisticated either - they just didn't let Giannis drive to the paint. They just had enough size to contain Giannis and Bucks couldn't adjust to that. This shows how important it is to have counter moves and it's not only about Giannis lack of versatility - the whole team lacked second game plan when what they were doing throughout the year stopped working.

It's also important to note that in different eras, it would be easier to pack the paint with legit bigmen which made their strategy even less questionable.

I think it was more of a panic issue rather than not having a second game plan.
The Raptors stacked the paint against Antetokounmpo's driving, and the shooters went cold, they couldn't knock down some easy shots and after that, they lost their confidence, they panicked and went even colder. The Raptors already gave them a second game plan because what they did was risky but the Bucks crumbled under pressure.

Jordan Syndrome · Post #5 » by **Jordan Syndrome** » Wed Jan 13, 2021 2:31 pm

Odinn21 wrote:
70sFan wrote:I expected 2019 Bucks and this time I was aware of how dominant their defense was.

I do think that 2019 Raptors was perfect team to exploit Bucks offense, but at the same time they didn't do anything sophisticated either - they just didn't let Giannis drive to the paint. They just had enough size to contain Giannis and Bucks couldn't adjust to that. This shows how important it is to have counter moves and it's not only about Giannis lack of versatility - the whole team lacked second game plan when what they were doing throughout the year stopped working.

It's also important to note that in different eras, it would be easier to pack the paint with legit bigmen which made their strategy even less questionable.

I think it was more of a panic issue rather than not having a second game plan.
The Raptors stacked the paint against Antetokounmpo's driving, and the shooters went cold, they couldn't knock down some easy shots and after that, they lost their confidence, they panicked and went even colder. The Raptors already gave them a second game plan because what they did was risky but the Bucks crumbled under pressure.

If Eric Bledsoe hits 3's at a reasonable rate the Bucks win the series.

ccameron · Post #6 » by **ccameron** » Wed Jan 13, 2021 3:32 pm

I really appreciate this project and I can't pretend to understand all of the analysis and stats that you use to rank these teams, but taking a step back, it feels like a lot of the teams that have already been named would beat the Bucks in a playoff series handily, especially the veteran teams.

I'm sure you've already explained this somewhere, but when you're ranking teams this way by the numbers, does it necessarily reflect which team is greater in your view?

sansterre · Post #7 » by **sansterre** » Wed Jan 13, 2021 4:54 pm

ccameron wrote:I really appreciate this project and I can't pretend to understand all of the analysis and stats that you use to rank these teams, but taking a step back, it feels like a lot of the teams that have already been named would beat the Bucks in a playoff series, especially the veteran teams.

I'm sure you've already explained this somewhere, but when you're ranking teams this way by the numbers, does it necessarily reflect which team is greater in your view?

Thank you for your kind words.

First, this is exclusively formula-driven. And I've tried to be above board about the fact that the formula definitely has blind spots. So while I find this list to be *generally* accurate and I think it raises a lot of valid points, I certainly don't believe it's definitive.

Second, I find that the terms used for these discussions are meaningful. Consider the '20 Lakers and the '20 Nuggets. Before going into that game there was a lot of talk about how the Lakers hadn't played anyone good (because the Lakers had easily whipped their first two opponents) and the Nuggets had demonstrated incredible mental toughness by coming back from 1-3 deficits twice. Which team was greater? By some standards, the '20 Nuggets embodied a lot of the characteristics of greatness.

Greatness is a highly emotional term, often strongly tied to narrative. The '70 Knicks winning on the back of the Willis Reed Game? Greatness. The '74 Celtics banding together as a team to stop Kareem and the '74 Bucks? Greatness.

Formulas don't capture stuff like that very well. You know what they do capture well? Dominance. A formula looking for dominance favors the '74 Bucks over the '74 Celtics, because by every metric available (besides the actual Finals) the Bucks were the much better team. A formula looking for dominance appreciates the Lakers for whipping their first two opponents, and dislikes the Nuggets' low MoV in their two series, come-from-behind or not.

So, to sum up:

1) This list is much more successful as a measure of dominance than a measure of greatness (as those terms are usually meant); and
2) It is imperfect even in that capacity.

So I'm not saying that the '19 Bucks were "better" than the teams listed before them. Just that they dominated their regular season in an historically great way, they had two historically strong wins in their first two rounds, and they barely lost to a very strong team in the Conference Finals. Put that all together and it's a pretty strong resume that not a lot of other teams have duplicated.

But as far as who would win in a series, between the '19 Bucks and other teams ranked lower? I wouldn't pretend to know.

ccameron · Post #8 » by **ccameron** » Wed Jan 13, 2021 7:09 pm

sansterre wrote:Greatness is a highly emotional term, often strongly tied to narrative. The '70 Knicks winning on the back of the Willis Reed Game? Greatness. The '74 Celtics banding together as a team to stop Kareem and the '74 Bucks? Greatness.

Formulas don't capture stuff like that very well. You know what they do capture well? Dominance. A formula looking for dominance favors the '74 Bucks over the '74 Celtics, because by every metric available (besides the actual Finals) the Bucks were the much better team. A formula looking for dominance appreciates the Lakers for whipping their first two opponents, and dislikes the Nuggets' low MoV in their two series, come-from-behind or not.

Thanks for the explanation! And it's not meant as a criticism, as all info and data helps everyone make a more informed judgment, whatever their criteria.

That's is an interesting distinction, however. I think it's also complicated by the fact that teams play to the level of their competition. It's unavoidable, as the goal is to just score more points than the other team, not beat them by the most points possible or make the other team score as little as possible. So I get that it's a proxy, but still helpful.

Thanks again.

freethedevil · Post #9 » by **freethedevil** » Wed Jan 13, 2021 11:52 pm

sansterre wrote:Glossary:

In the first round the Bucks faced the average Pistons (-0.6). And it was a slaughter. The Bucks swept the series by 23.8 points a game. Here are what the MoVs were just at the third quarter: +36, +17, +22 and +10. Blake Griffin was out for half the series which taints it somewhat, but the Bucks would have obliterated the Pistons either way. Giannis averaged a 26/12/4 on +4.3% (concerningly low shooting efficiency)

Back to the Main Thread

Okay, so, you should really adjust for pace/min played. Giannis scored 26 points playing 29 minuites a game.

If you adjust for pace, yeah, giannis's effiency vs the pistons dipped a tad, but his volume went up. And then against the celtics his volume and effiency went up.

Giannis's scoring against both the pistons and celtics was icnredible and the celtic series it happed despite the bucks being outshot from three.

You really should start using per 75 for context here, because suggesting that his series vs the pistons was concerning from a scorin gperspective makes lik eno sense if you realize how in insane his volume was per min(albeit vs mediocre defesnive comp).

freethedevil · Post #10 » by **freethedevil** » Thu Jan 14, 2021 12:00 am

70sFan wrote:I expected 2019 Bucks and this time I was aware of how dominant their defense was.

I do think that 2019 Raptors was perfect team to exploit Bucks offense, but at the same time they didn't do anything sophisticated either - they just didn't let Giannis drive to the paint. They just had enough size to contain Giannis and Bucks couldn't adjust to that. This shows how important it is to have counter moves and it's not only about Giannis lack of versatility - the whole team lacked second game plan when what they were doing throughout the year stopped working.

It's also important to note that in different eras, it would be easier to pack the paint with legit bigmen which made their strategy even less questionable.

What?

It would not be easier to guard giannis with illegal defense. The raptors scheme requires you to break illegal defense rules. Only being able to double giannis when he's already at the key is not a winning strategy. And good luck against their defense without any spacing.

If you put the bucks in any prior era with the point shooting they murder the opposition. And no, the bigmen were not "more legit" back then. If anything the big men of today have better physical tools, its just versatility is far more relevant so much so, gobert is now "a stay at home big" when he would have been the opposite back in the 90's or the 90's tor the 70's.

70sFan · Post #11 » by **70sFan** » Thu Jan 14, 2021 8:17 am

freethedevil wrote:
70sFan wrote:I expected 2019 Bucks and this time I was aware of how dominant their defense was.

I do think that 2019 Raptors was perfect team to exploit Bucks offense, but at the same time they didn't do anything sophisticated either - they just didn't let Giannis drive to the paint. They just had enough size to contain Giannis and Bucks couldn't adjust to that. This shows how important it is to have counter moves and it's not only about Giannis lack of versatility - the whole team lacked second game plan when what they were doing throughout the year stopped working.

It's also important to note that in different eras, it would be easier to pack the paint with legit bigmen which made their strategy even less questionable.

What?

It would not be easier to guard giannis with illegal defense. The raptors scheme requires you to break illegal defense rules. Only being able to double giannis when he's already at the key is not a winning strategy. And good luck against their defense without any spacing.

If you put the bucks in any prior era with the point shooting they murder the opposition. And no, the bigmen were not "more legit" back then. If anything the big men of today have better physical tools, its just versatility is far more relevant so much so, gobert is now "a stay at home big" when he would have been the opposite back in the 90's or the 90's tor the 70's.

Illegal defense era only existed from 1980. There was no such rule in the 1960s or 1970s.

sansterre · Post #12 » by **sansterre** » Thu Jan 14, 2021 11:32 am

freethedevil wrote:Okay, so, you should really adjust for pace/min played. Giannis scored 26 points playing 29 minuites a game.

If you adjust for pace, yeah, giannis's effiency vs the pistons dipped a tad, but his volume went up. And then against the celtics his volume and effiency went up.

Giannis's scoring against both the pistons and celtics was icnredible and the celtic series it happed despite the bucks being outshot from three.

You really should start using per 75 for context here, because suggesting that his series vs the pistons was concerning from a scorin gperspective makes lik eno sense if you realize how in insane his volume was per min(albeit vs mediocre defesnive comp).

I don't necessarily agree.

I'll admit out of the gate that I was clumsily trying to suggest that Giannis would struggle with efficiency in the playoffs and that seeing a 4 point drop in a first-round series against a weak opponent foreshadowed this. From a volume scoring point of view there's nothing wrong with Giannis' performance. But this wasn't a strong defense they were playing: why did Giannis' efficiency drop by 4 points? If it was because he had to take a bigger chunk of the offense, why did he have to do that? If the rest of the team can't create shots in the playoffs which forces Giannis to take a bigger shot-making load, his ability to maintain efficiency (within reason) becomes a really big deal (Karl Malone leaps to mind here).

So on one hand, I'll concede that I intimated that his 26/12/4 on +4.3% was a weak performance, which it really wasn't. Move some rebounds to assists and it looks like a Kobe stat line (good version). That was clumsy on my part. But I do think that much of the Bucks' playoffs became: "Exactly how dependent are the Bucks on Giannis' shot-creation, and can Giannis' sustain his efficiency if the answer to that question is 'more than they were in there regular season'?" And the Pistons series did suggest that problem a little bit. And Boston flipped the other way, where Giannis went back to regular season usage with high efficiency, but his teammates struggled to produce.

freethedevil · Post #13 » by **freethedevil** » Thu Jan 14, 2021 2:20 pm

sansterre wrote:
freethedevil wrote:Okay, so, you should really adjust for pace/min played. Giannis scored 26 points playing 29 minuites a game.

If you adjust for pace, yeah, giannis's effiency vs the pistons dipped a tad, but his volume went up. And then against the celtics his volume and effiency went up.

Giannis's scoring against both the pistons and celtics was icnredible and the celtic series it happed despite the bucks being outshot from three.

You really should start using per 75 for context here, because suggesting that his series vs the pistons was concerning from a scorin gperspective makes lik eno sense if you realize how in insane his volume was per min(albeit vs mediocre defesnive comp).

I don't necessarily agree.

I'll admit out of the gate that I was clumsily trying to suggest that Giannis would struggle with efficiency in the playoffs and that seeing a 4 point drop in a first-round series against a weak opponent foreshadowed this. From a volume scoring point of view there's nothing wrong with Giannis' performance. But this wasn't a strong defense they were playing: why did Giannis' efficiency drop by 4 points? If it was because he had to take a bigger chunk of the offense, why did he have to do that? If the rest of the team can't create shots in the playoffs which forces Giannis to take a bigger shot-making load, his ability to maintain efficiency (within reason) becomes a really big deal (Karl Malone leaps to mind here).

So on one hand, I'll concede that I intimated that his 26/12/4 on +4.3% was a weak performance, which it really wasn't. Move some rebounds to assists and it looks like a Kobe stat line (good version). That was clumsy on my part. But I do think that much of the Bucks' playoffs became: "Exactly how dependent are the Bucks on Giannis' shot-creation, and can Giannis' sustain his efficiency if the answer to that question is 'more than they were in there regular season'?" And the Pistons series did suggest that problem a little bit. And Boston flipped the other way, where Giannis went back to regular season usage with high efficiency, but his teammates struggled to produce.

1. Because his volume went up? Effiency tends to go down when u take more shots.. Giannis's scoring went up as his effiency went down. Calling ita koeb slash line is beynd misleading. He scored 27 ppg in 32 min in the regular season, he scored 24 ppg in 26 minuites vs the pistons. His volume ---skyrocketed--- to basically scoring every minuite he was on. A dip in effiency is perfectly normal when you're scoring a point every minuite. Not adjusting for per 75presents a really disienguous framing of events. The bucks had the pistons beat a little past half way throughmost of the games, and then in the 4th game when the pistosn were putting up a fight Giannis played longer and still went saiyan on them. Per 48, he scored --44 ppg--. In the one game he had to play more than 30 minuites he scored 41 points.

Putting the 26 when, during the first two series, giannis was scoring at the same volume as peak jordan/shaq is incredibly disinegnuous. Giannis did not struggle to produce in the pistons series. --His volume skyrocketed--. And what happens when your volume goes up alot? your effiency tends to dip down.

freethedevil · Post #14 » by **freethedevil** » Thu Jan 14, 2021 2:22 pm

70sFan wrote:
freethedevil wrote:
70sFan wrote:I expected 2019 Bucks and this time I was aware of how dominant their defense was.

I do think that 2019 Raptors was perfect team to exploit Bucks offense, but at the same time they didn't do anything sophisticated either - they just didn't let Giannis drive to the paint. They just had enough size to contain Giannis and Bucks couldn't adjust to that. This shows how important it is to have counter moves and it's not only about Giannis lack of versatility - the whole team lacked second game plan when what they were doing throughout the year stopped working.

It's also important to note that in different eras, it would be easier to pack the paint with legit bigmen which made their strategy even less questionable.

What?

It would not be easier to guard giannis with illegal defense. The raptors scheme requires you to break illegal defense rules. Only being able to double giannis when he's already at the key is not a winning strategy. And good luck against their defense without any spacing.

If you put the bucks in any prior era with the point shooting they murder the opposition. And no, the bigmen were not "more legit" back then. If anything the big men of today have better physical tools, its just versatility is far more relevant so much so, gobert is now "a stay at home big" when he would have been the opposite back in the 90's or the 90's tor the 70's.

Illegal defense era only existed from 1980. There was no such rule in the 1960s or 1970s.

]
Fair.

sansterre · Post #15 » by **sansterre** » Thu Jan 14, 2021 2:29 pm

freethedevil wrote:
sansterre wrote:
freethedevil wrote:Okay, so, you should really adjust for pace/min played. Giannis scored 26 points playing 29 minuites a game.

If you adjust for pace, yeah, giannis's effiency vs the pistons dipped a tad, but his volume went up. And then against the celtics his volume and effiency went up.

Giannis's scoring against both the pistons and celtics was icnredible and the celtic series it happed despite the bucks being outshot from three.

You really should start using per 75 for context here, because suggesting that his series vs the pistons was concerning from a scorin gperspective makes lik eno sense if you realize how in insane his volume was per min(albeit vs mediocre defesnive comp).

I don't necessarily agree.

I'll admit out of the gate that I was clumsily trying to suggest that Giannis would struggle with efficiency in the playoffs and that seeing a 4 point drop in a first-round series against a weak opponent foreshadowed this. From a volume scoring point of view there's nothing wrong with Giannis' performance. But this wasn't a strong defense they were playing: why did Giannis' efficiency drop by 4 points? If it was because he had to take a bigger chunk of the offense, why did he have to do that? If the rest of the team can't create shots in the playoffs which forces Giannis to take a bigger shot-making load, his ability to maintain efficiency (within reason) becomes a really big deal (Karl Malone leaps to mind here).

So on one hand, I'll concede that I intimated that his 26/12/4 on +4.3% was a weak performance, which it really wasn't. Move some rebounds to assists and it looks like a Kobe stat line (good version). That was clumsy on my part. But I do think that much of the Bucks' playoffs became: "Exactly how dependent are the Bucks on Giannis' shot-creation, and can Giannis' sustain his efficiency if the answer to that question is 'more than they were in there regular season'?" And the Pistons series did suggest that problem a little bit. And Boston flipped the other way, where Giannis went back to regular season usage with high efficiency, but his teammates struggled to produce.

1. Because his volume went up? Effiency tends to go down when u take more shots.. Giannis's scoring went up as his effiency went down. Calling ita koeb slash line is beynd misleading. He scored 27 ppg in 32 min in the regular season, he scored 24 ppg in 26 minuites vs the pistons. His volume ---skyrocketed--- to basically scoring every minuite he was on. A dip in effiency is perfectly normal when you're scoring a point every minuite. Not adjusting for per 75presents a really disienguous framing of events. The bucks had the pistons beat a little past half way throughmost of the games, and then in the 4th game when the pistosn were putting up a fight Giannis played longer and still went saiyan on them. Per 48, he scored --44 ppg--. In the one game he had to play more than 30 minuites he scored 41 points.

Putting the 26 when, during the first two series, giannis was scoring at the same volume as peak jordan/shaq is incredibly disinegnuous. Giannis did not struggle to produce in the pistons series. --His volume skyrocketed--. And what happens when your volume goes up alot? your effiency tends to dip down.

I don't disagree with any of your assertions, only their conclusions. Though I will say that I'm making an efficiency and not volume argument, so per 75 isn't really relevant (except that it *is* worth noting that Giannis' usage jumped in the Detroit series).

I'm not trying to say that Giannis played badly in that series (I realize I may have communicated that, and if so that's my fault). I'm trying to say that for their offense to maintain operating at a high level, they need to keep making shots at a high rate. If Giannis' usage rate jumps and his efficiency drops, to maintain the same offensive level of team performance the rest of the team needs to jump in efficiency enough to make up Giannis losing efficiency from upping his load. If they can't, the offense suffers.

Basically, I'm trying to say that "Giannis' low efficiency in the Pistons series suggests that his scoring may have been concerningly elastic, and that his teammates would need to pick up the slack if the circumstances (either a high usage rate or strong defense) conspired to limit him thusly. His teammates absolutely did this in the Detroit series, and absolutely did not against the Raptors.

That said, I realize how what I wrote was misleading, so I will attempt to edit to remove the confusion.

Thank you for the feedback.

sansterre · Post #16 » by **sansterre** » Fri Jan 15, 2021 11:38 am

Bump for team #24, the 1972 Milwaukee Bucks!

70sFan · Post #17 » by **70sFan** » Fri Jan 15, 2021 12:41 pm

Another amazing write-up and I love how closely you described WCF which is probably indeed the best conference finals in NBA history both in terms of level of talent and narative. For a lot of time I had to imagine how good it was to be there and watch these games but fortunately we have a lot of footage from that series found in 2020. Now we can see how intense this series was and both centers were incredible within their roles.

I also agree with you that 1972 Bucks could be (and probably should be) higher on that list. They did play in non-competitive league, but they crushed opposition and barely lost to top 10 team ever. Without Oscar injury, they could have beaten them and I see no reason to doubt that they would have beaten Knicks without Reed in the finals.

kayess · Post #18 » by **kayess** » Fri Jan 15, 2021 1:34 pm

Tbh, because of the way you've addressed the potential wonkiness up front I don't even really look at the stats all that much anymore, just the narrative and all the nuance surrounding that team's season. The numbers help frame/ballpark it, but the context is where the real meat is and where I'm learning the most. Thanks for doing this so we can learn from the summary and not have to wade through insane amounts of data!

I was under the impression (from some great TLAF posts, I think?) that Oscar in '71-'72 was actually still a great player and was driving a lot of the lift (I think his WOWY was better/close to Kareem's or something? Or his Net ORTG was better, something like that, but obviously he wasn't better than Kareem); not a world beater, but also a couple tiers above 2004 Gary Payton level. Wouldn't idk, slightly past prime Penny/Tmac be better comparisons?

sansterre · Post #19 » by **sansterre** » Fri Jan 15, 2021 3:11 pm

kayess wrote:Tbh, because of the way you've addressed the potential wonkiness up front I don't even really look at the stats all that much anymore, just the narrative and all the nuance surrounding that team's season. The numbers help frame/ballpark it, but the context is where the real meat is and where I'm learning the most. Thanks for doing this so we can learn from the summary and not have to wade through insane amounts of data!

I was under the impression (from some great TLAF posts, I think?) that Oscar in '71-'72 was actually still a great player and was driving a lot of the lift (I think his WOWY was better/close to Kareem's or something? Or his Net ORTG was better, something like that, but obviously he wasn't better than Kareem); not a world beater, but also a couple tiers above 2004 Gary Payton level. Wouldn't idk, slightly past prime Penny/Tmac be better comparisons?

Thanks for the kind words!

I can't speak to the research you're talking about. The player comp is built on looking for similar players using BackPicks metrics (and finding modern comps for guards that didn't shoot from deep is pretty challenging) so I don't particularly stand by the Payton comparison. If we simply use Win Shares and WS/48 (which are flawed, but what are you gonna do?) modern comps at guard purely based on WS and WS/48 are:

'18 Russell Westbrook
'16 DeMar DeRozan
'16 Kemba Walker
'13 Mike Conley

In other words, very good players but not world-beaters. Take that for what it's worth.

As far as WOWY, we can say that Oscar made a pretty good impact. The following isn't adjusted for opponents:

Without Oscar: 11-5, +5.88 MoV
With Oscar: 52-14, +12.44 MoV

So it's safe to say he made a pretty big impact (though one could argue that when we're talking the dropoff from a strong PG to Wali Jones, the weakness of Milwaukee's bench may exaggerate Oscar's value). But a seven-point swing is nothing to sneeze at.

So perhaps the most charitable way to phrase it would be:

"Oscar was a serious asset to the '72 Bucks. Not as good as Kareem (obviously) but he was critical to the team's success when he was on the court, and it desperately missed him when he was off the court. That said, he missed 20% of the regular season and his injuries really sapped his performance in the playoffs. So healthy Oscar Robertson was extremely valuable; the Oscar Robertson the '72 Bucks got (especially in the playoffs) was less so."

sansterre · Post #20 » by **sansterre** » Sun Jan 17, 2021 2:20 pm

Bump for team #23, the 2016 San Antonio Spurs!