NBA Notes: Brad Stevens Set To Mix And Match

http://www.bostonherald.com/sports/celtics_nba/boston_celtics/2014/10/nba_notes_brad_stevens_set_to_mix_and_match





NBA Notes: Brad Stevens set to mix and match
Eyes better results through chemistry




Photo by: Stuart Cahill
NOT FEELING DRAFT: Brad Stevens said the Celtics’ only focus at this time of year is winning games.


Sunday, October 5, 2014 PrintEmailBe the first to comment
By:  Mark Murphy




The Celtics, like most sub-.500 NBA teams last season, produced almost as many starting lineups as wins.

The 25-57 C’s went through 24 groupings with varying degrees of mediocrity.

Their most frequent unit (Jeff Green, Brandon Bass, Jared Sullinger, Avery Bradley and Jordan Crawford) produced a 9-21 record, and preceded Rajon Rondo’s midseason return from ACL surgery. It only went south from there, with the next most frequent group (Green, Bass, Kris Humphries, Jerryd Bayless and Rondo) good for a 3-7 record.

Two other units started five games each — the combo of Green, Bass, Sullinger, Gerald Wallace and Rondo that didn’t win a single game, and a 1-4 group that included Green, Bass, Sullinger, Wallace and Rondo.

No wonder that the concept of group efficiency is so important to Brad Stevens this season. The Celtics coach spent most of last season juggling what was available, and rarely felt as though he had a handle on an efficient combination, though he did learn that it’s not good to have Sullinger and Kelly Olynyk on the floor at the same time.

Stevens is among those who believe that the next great frontier in basketball analytics involves chemistry. The trick, and he may not come close to it for a few seasons, is quantifying his most effective group. Indeed, teams traditionally determine these combinations through trial and error with the right mix of stars and role players.

Gregg Popovich’s great San Antonio rotations have always featured one of the game’s great blending agents: Tim Duncan.

LeBron James has spent a Hall of Fame career dressing up shallow lineups.

But the Celtics don’t have the luxury of a star. There’s a mediocre sameness to the 2014-15 team. Leave it to a fresh thinker such as Stevens to turn to group chemistry in the absence of much talent.

“I know people are trying to measure it,” he said. “But there are so many subjective things in the chemistry of a team, whether it’s a person’s humility and willingness to take a backseat to someone else on the team, or whether it’s a person’s initiative to be willing to make plays when it’s all on the line.”

Stevens has plenty of those backseat types, with a few willing souls not consistent enough to take the wheel. Somehow they all have to make each other better.

“There are so many things that are hard to measure,” Stevens said of the challenge in discovering his best group. “There’s not enough data on the sets or groups with the new guys, and there won’t be for quite a while. What you’re trying to do right now is project as a group what each guy has done in the past, and how that will work.

“It still doesn’t factor in chemistry, which is immeasurable. That’s where you have to see and feel and watch, and see if guys get better. Analytics play a role, certainly, in the groupings, but they will play more of a role later in the season.”

But even then variables will scramble the process. Everything from injuries to streaky players can mess with the metrics. And then there’s the other team. Certain matchups make certain players disappear.

Indeed, there may be too many variables.

“I don’t think you can,” Celtics president of basketball operations Danny Ainge said of this attempt to place a numerical value on group chemistry. “Every team is different. Every player is unique. Every year is a different dynamic. Some teams are really easy and figure it out quick, and some teams may never figure it out.

“Numbers and metrics don’t do that. But (Stevens) has great intuition and has a good feel for his team. It does take time, a while, to figure it all out. It’s everybody’s best guess. Nobody knows the answer to that.”

Sometimes it takes a long time to determine which numbers are lying, for instance. Just ask former Celtic Brian Scalabrine.

“When I played there was a stretch in there when me, (Kevin) Garnett, (Paul) Pierce, (Ray) Allen and Rajon had eight games, and per 48 minutes we out-scored people by 28 points,” the Comcast SportsNet analyst said. “That’s a ridiculous number, and there’s no way that could continue, regardless of whether me or another player were part of that group. That lineup could not continue to go that way.”

Scalabrine saw the same unpredictable thing at work last season as an assistant coach on Mark Jackson’s Golden State staff.

“There’s room for analytics, but it’s inconclusive,” he said. “Last year the Warriors starting lineup had the biggest point differential, or one of the best, in the league. But that’s not what a team is made up of. You can’t play a lineup for 48 minutes. That first month may not be good as you move forward, either, but prove very good two or three months into the season.

“There’s too many variables,” Scalabrine said. “One day it can work really well based on a certain team, and the next day it won’t work well. There’s injuries and a lot of different things, and in the NBA it’s just really difficult to do. You would have to have data for over four years and have significant amounts of minutes on each guy.”

Stevens, hopefully, won’t have to worry about the current Celtics lineup for more than half a season, let alone four. Perhaps group chemistry will prove to be the great white whale of basketball analytics.

But the Celtics coach looks forward to the chase.

NOT READY TO CASH IN
 THAT TICKET QUITE YET

Kevin Garnett continues to say that he’s moving year by year when it comes to his much-anticipated retirement. He’s in the last year of his contract on a Nets team that doesn’t appear to have much value. Unlike Paul Pierce, who has joined a Wizards team that could be the most upwardly mobile unit in the league, Garnett will have little this season to take his mind off of the end.

Perhaps the biggest giveaway was his willingness last week to discuss a Hall of Famer who has indeed played his last game.

“I’m in better spirits because I know what I’m here to do this year and I’m here to enjoy this,” Garnett told reporters. “You never know when it’s going to be your last. Watching (Derek) Jeter and his whole thing has been inspiring, and what I took from it is to enjoy this because you never know when it’s going to be your last.”

Then again, maybe he does know.





bob





.

Rondo's early season absence will lead to even more experimentation than would otherwise occur, something that may help us in the long run. Sometime for a quarter,, I'd like to see a lineup of Turner, Smart, Zeller, Olynyk, and Green. Lots of intriguing possible combination are possible. Hurry season, hurry fast! Hawk

This analytics thing produces some interesting and relevent stuff, but stats seldom can portray an accurate analysis of qualitative elements of the game. One of the most important elements of chemistry is what I would call "shared instinct." The more the members of a given combination can anticipate one another's moves/positions on the court and react accordingly, the more chemistry the team is likely to have.

And there's another element of chemistry that shouldn't be overlooked. Seldom are five players substituted for five players simultaneously. More likely, a coach will work in substitutes one, two or three at a time. The matter of shared instincts does not apply just to the most often used combinations. It also refers to mix-and-max combinations that may total fewer minutes, yet significant minutes, on the floor. That's what the term "interchangeable parts" alludes to.

And the epitome of the sixth man is one who can enter the lineup without sacrificing one bit of chemistry. The two best I ever saw at that were Frank Ramsey and John Havlicek. Their entrance was usually completely seamless, whether they were replacing players who were taller, shorter, faster, slower, higher jumpers, or not good jumpers, bulkier or thinner.

I wish the Celtics would get one of those two guys to take Marcus Thornton in tow and show him how a non-starter can become one of the most valuable players on the team.

Sam