Math in LA

bobheckler wrote:

tjmakz wrote:

bobheckler wrote:Kobe is a great player. KoME, not so much. In this series against OKC we saw a helluva lot more of KoME than Kobe.

He shot 42.6% in this series and that number went way up due to his game 5. Going into game 5 he was shooting 38.5% and taking over 30% of the Lakers' total fga. We've seen many times, over the years, how the Lakers stand around and lose all motion in their offense when KoME is playing but they are formidable when Kobe's offense flows out of the sets and not just playground one-on-one. The same thing has been seen when Paul Pierce decides he's going to do it alone for that matter. Hero ball isn't winning ball, not over a long series or couple of series. KoME doesn't trust his teammates to get the job done. That's not Ubuntu, that's not team play. That's not All for One and One for All. That's "get out of my way, ya bums, and let me win this".

Kobe's competitiveness is what fuels him, what makes him a great player, competitor and champion. It is also what makes him a locker room cancer sometimes. When D-Fish was in purple-and-gold, he could be the soothing senior citizen voice, the moderator, that players listened to and that had Kobe's respect. With D-Fish gone, who can blunt Kobe's verbal outbursts? Nobody. Not the mild-mannered, gentlemanly Gasol, not the immature man-child Bynum and certainly not the coach who let LeBum ride him in Cleveland and has no rings to wave in Kobe's face.

There is much talk in the LA press and Laker boards about the need to get younger and more athletic. I agree, but I also think they have a glaring hole in maturity too that needs to be filled. They need a D-Fish. They need someone who can look Kobe in the eye and say "I'm going to the HOF too and/or I've got one or more of these rings too" (obviously, in Fisher's case, we're talking about rings, not HOF). There are only a few such players in the league right now and most of them are in San Antonio and Boston. Two of those players in green have expiring contracts. Personally, I hope Danny does what it takes to keep them, but either one would be a solution to this particular Laker problem.

bob


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Bob,

Kobe had a fabulous game 4 through 3 quarters against OKC and simply ran out of gas.
That's why he shot 2 for 10 mostly bad shots from the outside because he can't get past OKC's defenders when he is tired.
Kobe had one of his best games of the year in game 5 even though he had 0 assists.
Barnes and Sessions were terrible in almost every game in the playoffs.
LA can't win with Kobe giving max effort, Bynum giving max effort when he wants to and Pau giving max effort when Kobe calls him out.
LA has personality issues with Artest, Bynum and Barnes. One, two or all three have to go.
When Bynum is mentally engaged Kobe is more then willing to pass to Bynum as he did at the end of the Celtics/Lakers games.
Does anybody realize that when Sessions can't get the ball to the bigs or the bigs pass it out and don't want to shoot, who do they look to when the shot clock is expiring? Kobe not KoME.
Kobe has taken more then his fair share of poor shots this season but this playoff loss is not on him.
I would love to see how more efficient Kobe's career could have been if he played with an elite point guard.

TJ,

If the rumors about the Gasol-for-Rondo trade last year came true, you would have.

btw, welcome back.


bob


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That is true but they were only rumors.

I have been following along the threads but for most Celtics conversations my 2 cents isn't worth 2 cents...

TJ,

Frankly, I admire you for contributing at all to this forum when you're probably feeling rather rotten about the subject of pro ball right now. I sometimes think it's all too easy for a lot of us to embrace the type of empathy that should be present among Celtics fans who had to endure both the 1978-79 season and virtually all the seasons from 1986-86 through 2006-07.

I also commend you for your objectivity in appraising the "state of the Lakers." And, with objectivity in mind (as well as trying to move away from critiques of a given player, which could go on forever and just risk ill will), I'd like to try to focus on the future.

Everyone knows I've always been far more interested in the performances of teams than the performances of individual players. With that in mind, I've done a little research into the histories of both the Celtics and the Lakers. I've focused on their respective successes rather than their respective failures.

Just for the heck of it, I've tracked the Celtics' and Lakers' league rankings in average points for and against during the seasons when either team has won the championship. I did two tabulations for the Lakers—one for the Mikan years and the other for the rest of the years. Here's a summary of what I found. (I have year-to-year details to back all of this up if necessary.)

In years when the Celtics have won the championship, they've averaged a ranking of 5.5th place in points for and 3.4th for points against among an average of 14.8 teams in the league. In other words, they were an average of 37% down in the pack on offense and 23% down in the pack on defense. (And those figures are not particularly skewed by era, although their rankings for both offense and defense were in the 4 to 7 range in '73-'74 and '75-'76. In their most recent championship year, they ranked #11 on offense and #2 on defense.)

In years when the Minneapolis Lakers won the championship, they averaged a ranking of 3.6th in points for and 2.2 in points against among an average of 11.6 teams in the league. In other words, they were an average of 31% down in the pack on offense and 19% down in the pack on defense.

In years when the Los Angeles Lakers won the championship, they averaged a ranking of 2.7th in points for and 11.3rd in points against among an average of 25.3 teams in the league. In other words, they were an average of 15% down in the pack on offense and 45% down in the pack on defense.

On the other hand, the Los Angeles Lakers have typically emphasized offense much more than defense in winning their championships, never ranking higher than #6 (during a couple of championship years) on defense and ranking as low as #23 on defense during the 2000-01 championship season.

A few additional factoids before I try to make a point. From 2000 to 2010, the average point output per NBA team gradually increased from 94.8 to 100.4. During the past two seasons, the trend appears to have reversed, from 100.4 to 99.6 and (this season) 96.2

I would submit that, over the years, the L.A. Lakers have found a way to win championships while also emphasizing offense, which—in turn—has tended to single out stars more than defense does and, in the process, being more crowd-pleasing than defense.

My question for TJ or anyone else is whether the offensive "showtime" culture of the L.A. Lakers may be running counter to the more defensively oriented direction in which the league may be going. On a team where the players may not have been playing what Doc Rivers would call "inward" (in harmony), is it time for the Lakers to recognize that (1) showcasing stars risks hero basketball and psychological inequities along with scoring inequities, whereas (2) playing great team defense usually doesn't showcase stars and tends to promote team togetherness?

Should roster be predicated primarily on the players' individual talents, or should such decisions focus more on what a given player may contribute to a less glamorous but upper echelon defensively minded team to complement a robust offense? A corollary question is whether Laker management is concentrating more on revenue stream or on championship ambitions. Are the days when they can both showcase players and win championships drawing to a close, at least for a while? After the last Lakers game, one of the commentators mentioned that, most teams have a readily identifiable approach to the game. But, since the departure of the triangle, the Lakers system doesn't seem to have much of an identity. I guess my comments above pertain to what the ongoing identity of the Lakers should be.

Incidentally, in my research, I noted an interesting stat that's apropos of nothing. In their 1961-62 championship season, the Celtics ranked #1 among the 9 teams in the league in terms of fewest points allowed while allowing an average of 111.8 points per game. (They also ranked #3 in points scored per game, with 121.1.) Nobody should ever try to out-talk me on the subject of the relatively furious pace at which those teams played.

Sam

Sam,

Very interesting post.
The NBA for decades has been dominated by superstars and almost every Championship team has one or more superstars on the roster. In my opinion, the only exception to this in recent years is the Pistons who won with a number of very good players (Billups/Wallace/Prince/Hamilton/Wallace).

The Lakers have focused on offense over the years because that is their strength. If they had a Ben Wallace, Rodman or KG on their roster, they would have focused more on defense.
This Lakers team wants to be in low scoring, low posession games, even more then the Celtics do.

Points per posession is a much better indicator of how a team plays defense. This season the Lakers were second in the NBA in giving up the least amount of points per posession.

The Lakers need to focus on both revenue stream and being a championship team, especially with the huge revenue sharing penalties that are in place for the 2013-2014 season for repeat offenders who are over the luxury tax threshold. This is part of the reason why one of the Lakers big 3 will probably not be on the roster next year and almost definitely won't for the 2013-14 season.

What are the chances of having an intelligent, insightful and pleasant conversation like this between die-hard Celtic and Laker fans on BDC?

Zilch.

Bravo.


bob

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TJ,

I understand that both revenue and championships are important. When I spoke of revenue, I was asking whether, over time, having more of a defense-oriented team rather than one dominant offensive force would diminish interest among the star-struck Hollywood crowd and therefore cut into their revenue.

I'm certainly not saying that a team should avoid superstars. But I think that somehow there should be some way for a given superstar to be part of the team flow without so frequently seeking a hero's mantle on the court and being an attention magnet off it.

Just as an example, I somehow have the feeling that Kevin Durant is going to be the kind of superstar who embraces and embodies the team concept rather than monopolizing the spotlight during the important moments. I think KG, Ray Allen, and (for the most part) Paul Pierce are similar. Kobe may very well have had no choice but to play the hero game so frequently this season; and I'm not blaming him as much as suggesting that the Lakers needed a system that would put more players in a position to succeed more often.

I've often said that Lamar was the Laker I feared most. Aside from being good clutch player and often a mismatch nightmare, his versatile presence somehow seemed to cultivate a sharing mentality among the Lakers.

I'm not trying to turn this into a Celtics versus Lakers thing. Because the same kinds of questions are very likely to confront the Celtics sooner rather than later. Although some might claim this to be untrue, I am interested in the future direction of the NBA and the kinds of team "models" that will rise to the top over time.

Whatever the reasons; whether by intent or serendipity, I believe the Celtics have tended to wind up in egalitarian mode over the years, whereas the Lakers have tended to wind up in showcase mode. They happen to be the two teams with which I'm most familiar, and they happen to make convenient examples of these two disparate "personalities."

Actually, although I might have been on shaky ground because so many of the records are written in Sanskrit, I could have contrasted the Minneapolis Lakers with the Los Angeles Lakers. The Minny team, despite the fame of George Mikan, had a strong egalitarian team featuring a prototypical PF (Vern Mikkleson-Hall of Famer), a prototypical SF (Jim Pollard-Hall of Famer) and a prototpyical PG (Slater Martin-Hall of Famer) who spread the wealth and whose defense sometimes drove Cousy nuts. Their shooting guards were a rung below their teammates in ability, but Whitey Skoog was more than adequate, especially on defense They also had a backup center/PF (Clyde Lovellette) who became a Hall of Famer and won titles with both the Lakers and the Celtics.

My question is really what kind of stylistic, systemic model should the Lakers pursue as they move on? What kind of personality should they adopt? One possible consideration would be whether becoming more egalitarian and developing more of a defensive foundation would cut into their offense-loving customer base. I'm sure there are many other considerations as well.

By the way, I think total points surrendered is a more complete indicator of defensive prowess because it takes into account the possibility that that the team might give away so many offensive rebounds and commit so many turnovers as to make the points per defensive possession moot.

Sam

Sam has points.

To market a team the team should win or the very least do very well (or be totally home grown but that is not happening in the NBA).

To market a star is much easier, the star will be a star and do star things no matter what, sometimes causing the what. He is still there to promote and sell dreams on.

A team built in team players that fails sort of has nothing.