Off season - blah

The off-season is as dull as ever in the sports world. The NBA playoffs are becoming increasingly worrisome as the inevitable San Antonio vs. Detroit clash is actualized. I find myself watching the playoffs anyway because it is basketball. I enjoy seeing Boozer do as well as he is, but the Jazz have no prayer against the Spurs. They're more experienced, and make fewer mistakes. But I sure hate seeing them win. Bowen is a dirty player and Ginobili just annoys the hell out of me with his soccer-like dramatics. Duncan is an admirable player, but he certainly complains more than most players in the NBA (which clearly says a lot).

There is certainly recruiting news, but aside from Larry Drew signing with our rival (can't say I'm too terrified of that kid, but he should be a good player), there's nothing serious. We continue to pursue Greg Monroe and Elliot Williams, but neither have made decisions (though EMail says he wants to make an early decision - Monroe probably waits until the fall).

I hate the off-season. Baseball sucks

Spurs...

Are now the de facto NBA champs. Someone knock the out please. Go Boozer.

I don't feel bad for predicting Suns in 7. I think they would have won game 5 at home with Stoudamire and Diaw. Oh well. Spurs are a very good team, but the Suns are just more exciting to watch.

What's a Superstar?

When I was growing up in the late 80s, and 90s, I remember the word "Superstar" being reserved for guys like Michael, Magic, Larry, Chuck, Isiah, Hakeem, Ewing, David Robinson, and the like. Now all of these guys have retired and we have a new crop of "superstars." If you ask the average NBA fan who the superstars of the league are, the immediate response would probably be Kobe, LeBron, Shaq, T-Mac, D-Wade, KG, AI, Melo, Vince, and Dirk. These are the guys all over all the commercials. These are the high flying, 30 point a game, sneaker selling, coke drinking, commercial superstars. There are others who lack such a suave soubriquet: Steve Nash, Tim Duncan and Jason Kidd, among others. But are these guys really superstars on the court, or just on Sportscenter and in the collective imaginations of fans of athletic, Jordanesque dunks and Magic-esque no-look passes?

So who are the real superstars, and why?

Jordan was not a superstar because of his ability to dunk. If that were the case, Vince Carter would be the biggest star in the NBA. Nor was he a star because he scored a lot of points (Kobe does that night in and night out, so does T-Mac, Melo, et. all). You often hear the phrase "Well Jordan made the other players on his team better." Uh what does that even mean? Maybe that's what a superstar does? Can that even be observed? Quantified? Made intelligible in any humanly way?

One person might try to argue that a player's ability to get his teammates involved in scoring due to his own playmaking skill is an indicator of superstardom. Well... sort of. It's really nice when a player of any position can rack up some assists. It shows his ability to find the open man or to create a situation where another player is able to score easily. It's surely not an exclusive or exhaustive indicator, though. Jordan only averaged 5.3 assists for his career.

Another might simply argue that when a player puts up gaudy scoring numbers (since there really is just ONE stat in basketball: points), then he is a superstar. It's a pretty simple indicator, but it's certainly suggestive of a player's skill, right? This year, 8 guys in the NBA averaged 25 ppg or more. Of those, 6 played on teams that ended up on the playoffs. Hey, that's pretty good right? Of course, only 1 of them is even still playing (LeBron).

Anyway, enough sophistry. I think (qualitatively) that a superstar can be both or neither. A superstar makes his team better by shouldering a great deal of responsibility with great efficiency. This means the player scores frequently when he tries to. This means the player does not make many bad decisions with the ball (ie take bad shots or turn it over). This means the player does what he can to produce points for his teammates by finding the open man, or crashing the offensive boards consistently and efficiently.

AI is a really good basketball player, and very few people in the world can do what he does on the court, but while he scores 27 a night, he basically does it at the league average in efficiency. Does he really do any more for his team if he scores 30 points a night at 106 efficiency (league average this year) than 2 other guys who score 15 a night at 106 efficiency? Well maybe. The idea that he can score 30 a night certainly plays into the minds of opposing players. Defenders do have to converge on him when he penetrates the lane because he is so quick, opening up easier shots to others, etc. But from a purely numerical point of view, there isn't such a big difference. If you have 5 guys on the floor who score 30, 20, 15, 15, 10 a night, each at 106 efficiency, then you have a team scoring 90 that is a completely average offense. Congratulations, and enjoy the lottery or the first round of the playoffs.

Jordan had 7 seasons with over 120 efficiency (with 105-108 league average), and a career average of 118. Magic had 6 years over 120 and a career average of 121. Larry had 2 years over 120 and a career average of 115. Barkley had 5 seasons over 120 and a career average of 119. The point? These guys (and others listed, but go look up their numbers on your own at basketball-reference.com) were so much better than their contemporaries that they could handle a substantial load of possessions per game (25-30%) and still basically score at will.

So this brings me to a current question: who are the real superstars in the NBA right now?

Kobe's never had a season over 120 efficiency, and he's never had to carry a burden any greater than Jordan did. To be fair, though, Kobe is well above the league average and is a really good player. But I don't think he can really be spoken of in the same sentence as Jordan just because of some gaudy scoring numbers. He is not nearly the player Jordan was. Maybe if his teammates can stay healthy, we'll see Kobe have a little easier time. Maybe not. Even with Shaq he was not nearly as efficient as Jordan was before Pippen.

I love LeBron, but so far you aren't talking about a guy who is just absolutely dominating his peers like Jordan, Magic, Bird or Chuck did. He steadily increased from one year to the next until this year, and after some recent comments ("This is just basketball"), you have to wonder if his heart is really in it. Nevertheless, LeBron was about as efficient as Kobe was this season (114). His team isn't nearly as good without him. I guess that counts right? LeBron could be "The Next Big Thing" but, in my opinion, he's still working on that career defining break-out season.

Dwyane Wade can't spell his name right despite 4 years of college, but he is a pretty damn good player. About as efficient as LeBron or Kobe (112 this year, probably slightly depressed due to his shoulder injury). He carried his team through to a championship last year after being down 2-0. He isn't the dominant force that Jordan was, but I don't think there's much of a debate as to whether Wade is currently a superstar or not. Bright future here. But I wonder what the Cavs would have been like if Shaq went there?

KG, though mired on a terrible team in a terrible franchise, has always been a fantastic player on both sides of the ball. Amare is one of the most efficient players in the NBA offensively, as is Steve Nash. Dirk is also fantastically efficient. These guys don't spring to mind as quickly as Kobe or LeBron or D-Wade, but may very well be better or more valuable players (though Dirk has a pretty huge monkey on his back at this point). And even though Chauncey Billups consumes probably about 10 possessions less than Kobe per-40 minutes, he's now working on his 3rd straight 120+ season over in Detroit.

Melo, AI, T-Mac, and Vince are all fighting to earn their superstardom but continue to fail.

Melo and AI had a good chance to knock off the Spurs, but why did they lose? The Spurs made less mistakes, and executed on offense better. In other words, they were more efficient. The Nuggets were erratic, excitable, and ultimately just not as good. Yet Melo and AI are supposedly two of the league's best, so what gives? Well, maybe they haven't quite earned those labels yet (sad since Iverson has been around for 10 years now). The better label (at least for Iverson at this point) is the overactive scorer who puts up deceptively valuable raw numbers at the expense of the team's efficiency.

Some "experts" argued that T-Mac should have been MVP this year. What? The guy who has never led a team past the first round, and who had a flat average (106) offensive efficiency this year on a team with a legit center to help draw defenders is MVP? Yao had a 111 efficiency, and Battier contributed his part as the very efficient role player (119), but McGrady could not manage more than league average. The point here is that T-Mac was probably an overall good player to have on Houston, but he also probably cost them a lot of games that, say, D-Wade or LeBron might not have (or, of course, Jordan).

Vince Carter is an unfortunate case. He's a fantastic athlete and maybe the best dunker ever. He went to Carolina and stayed 3 years. He came out and immediately started scoring big (27.6 by his 3rd year). Sounds familiar right? Nope, sadly for Vince, his career has largely been average since its early heights in Toronto. Once he quit on his team and forced a trade to Jersey, he was mildly above average. I have questions as to how good he would have been without Kidd, but nevertheless. The point is, Vince is not a very efficient player at all, and epitomizes the "posterize-ability" quality that seems to define contemporary superstars.

There's a reason that the most well known NBA superstars are largely not playing by even the conference semi-finals: they are, largely, not as good as billed. No one in the League is currently the next Jordan or the next Magic or the next Bird. Maybe it's an indicator that there are more good players now and that the kind of domination that Jordan or Magic exhibited doesn't happen anymore... or it could be that what sells is not what wins and that Jordan and Magic were pretty unique players, the likes of which we are not going to see again for some time, or ever.

Maybe we should just christen the 80s and 90s the era of the Superstar. Now the superstar is extinct, and we have the era of team-basketball ruling now. The best teams? Dallas, Phoenix, San Antonio, Detroit are all teams built around a number of very, very good players who play very, very well together - but none of them have a superstar like Jordan. The Superstar is extinct.

The Patterson Sweepstakes are over...

And Patterson decides to go to Kentucky. As rumors fly about some nefarious activity underlying the decision, I would just like to wish Patterson the best unless he plays Duke. Of course, we never see Kentucky anymore, so whatever.

So, at least now we can be assured of what our roster will look like next year.

Tempo-free Review of Duke 06-07 (albeit a bit late)

So I only recently calculated these numbers, not having entered into this kind of statistical frenzy since after the season was over. Nevertheless, here they are. These stats have been used before, so no need to explain them.

Player	% of Min	eFG%	PtsProdG	Floor %	% of Poss	Off. R	Stop %	Def. R
Demarcus Nelson	78.8%	53.8%	13.1	49.8%	24.0%	103.5	61.3%	89.7
Josh McRoberts	87.2%	50.9%	13.9	55.2%	21.9%	108.0	69.9%	86.2
Jon Scheyer	83.3%	50.5%	11.7	51.8%	18.0%	116.2	42.8%	97.3
Greg Paulus	80.0%	57.5%	11.9	46.1%	21.0%	105.7	40.1%	98.4
Gerald Henderson	46.3%	47.2%	6.6	48.6%	21.5%	96.6	50.5%	94.2
David McClure	53.6%	50.9%	4.5	48.9%	13.0%	96.2	73.4%	84.8
Lance Thomas	34.7%	56.8%	3.8	48.0%	17.3%	89.2	50.4%	94.2
Brian Zoubek	17.6%	52.4%	3.1	47.7%	28.6%	89.1	66.9%	87.5
Marty Pocius	14.5%	52.3%	1.8	38.1%	17.0%	87.9	36.3%	100.0

Some things that jumped out at me:

• As maligned as McRoberts was, he was probably our most solid player offensively and defensively. He carried a larger offensive burden this year than last (when he was more efficient generally), but still managed a fairly good offensive year, and an excellent defensive year. Losing him will hurt, but with guys like Nelson, McClure, Thomas, Zoubek and Henderson (who will all be solid defenders), I think we can be a more positional defensive team instead of relying as much on help defense at the last resort.
  
• On that note, I have to hope that Paulus recovering from an injury will really help his game. His O-rating was not spectacular, but he was quite the shooter, with our highest eFG%. His D-rating was not spectacular, but experience and a healthy foot may help him. I never expect him to be a dominant defensive presence like Nelson or Duhon but he could be a solid defender who causes a lot of turnovers like Wojo. It's worth noting that as a freshman, Paulus had an eFG% of 43, and an O-rating of 93. His D-rating was even worse, a 99.4 He's a real winner and has improved a lot despite injuries. I expect him to be a good leader next season.
  
• Zoubek's numbers are encouraging, at least defensively. His numbers are based on limited PT, though, so it's unclear how they will translate if he has to play a lot of minutes.
• You can see that our biggest troubles were offenisve in nature. Paulus was our only guy with over 50% minutes who had an eFG% over 55%. For comparison, last year we had 4. I hope bringing in guys like King, Smith and Singler who can all shoot the outside shot will help our offensive woes by stretching defenses a little and allowing guys like Nelson and Henderson the opportunity to slash. Who knows, maybe Thomas and Zoubek will show marked strides in developing low post games. And maybe we'll get Patterson too (who knows there - I'll wait until tomorrow to comment).
• Nevertheless, despite having a rather unremarkable offense in terms of efficiency, we had a very young and -very- balanced offense. I love this. I felt it a bit of a liability in the Redick-era for us to place so much emphasis on one guy, especially one who had trouble with big, long, quick defenders (Garret Temple, for instance). I thought JJ would be the perfect guy for a balanced team (like Lee Humphrey at Florida), but as the centerpiece he presented problems. For example, as a sophomore he still led the team in scoring, but did so on just 21.4% of team possessions. He was efficient (122.5 rating), and fit into the team concept well. That team, not shockingly, was our last Final Four team.
  
• Nelson had a good season. Defensively, he is what we expect: a shut down guy who forces lots of stops. Offensively, we'd obviously like to see more from him, but he's made big strides in his time here. I feel next year he can be a really good player.
  

All in all, an ok season. Our record did not indicate our performance. A few loose balls or rebounds going a different way, a few close shots missing or going in, and we'd have had a 25-8 or so season and not be so worried about the future.

Duke Big Men

A lot has been said about Duke big men as being unsuccessful or underutilized. I am endeavoring here to disprove that misconception.

First a few notes on the stats I use. I use a model developed by Dean Oliver based on a difficulty theory of individual credit. The idea is that an individual gets credit for points produced as a function of how difficult his job is in contributing to the points on the board. Especially at the college level, it's fairly rare for baskets to be entirely the doing of one person, and this model attempts to distribute credit more evenly to people involved (those who dish out assists, those who grab offensive rebounds, etc). Offensive ratings are, thus, an approximation: but a fair one. You will find that offensive ratings as estimated correlate fairly well with actual offensive ratings and they correlate well with our subjective perceptions of offensive prowess (in most cases). Defensive ratings are, unfortunately, a bit more approximated, but still correlate well with our subjective assessments and correlate well with actual defensive ratings (determined with more robust defensive stats). Percentage of team possessions refers to how many possessions a player ends while he is on the floor. This includes turnovers, shots or free throws. Floor percentage estimates how often a player scores when he attempts to score. Finally, Stop % estimates how often a player stops his man from scoring.

Now, a word on the values of the various stats. Floor %, obviously, favors big men. You will find, especially in this post, that floor percentages are quite high. That being said, Shaq's highest floor % was 61 throughout his career, and you will find several of Duke's big men with much higher values than that. This is not shocking because the difference between the best college players and the worst (or even average) is much greater than the same gulf in the NBA. Nevertheless, it is a pretty good indicator of a big man's ability to score. Offensive rating tends to favor 3-point specialists (for instance, Steve Kerr had a 141 in the 1996 72-10 Bulls season), but big guys can generate very efficient offense as well (as you will see). Finally, defensive ratings tend to favor big men as well, since they are predicated on an estimation of stops produced. Since big men tend to play the last line of defense role in a team's defense (especially Duke's pressure-man scheme), they have many more opportunities to cause stops than guards. In the NBA, players like Olajuwon and Mutumbo had very good defensive ratings (between 91-95 usually), but you will find lower values here, because (again) the best are much better than the worst. Nevertheless, again, a defensive rating in the 80s still represents a *very* excellent defender (as you will see) at the college level.

Finally, it would be intellectually dishonest not to mention that a player's offensive or defensive ratings are affected by just as they affect the team's offensive and defensive ratings. It's hard to have an amazing season (like Elton Brand's 1998-99 season) when your team is 18-13. On the other hand, Brand's amazing season was a great contributer to the 37-2 season and the massive 33.3 efficiency margin and other overwhelming stats for that team.

My purpose in this post is to show: (1) Duke's big men are utilized as an essential part of the offense; (2) Duke's big men produce a great deal offensively and defensively; and (3) Duke's big men develop well while in school. I'll work backward in time and go as far as the 86-87 season since stats before that time (sufficient in detail for this analysis) are unavailable. You will note that in almost every case, the player improves over the course of his career. He plays more minutes, his offensive contribution increases, his offensive efficiency increases (although this varies in some cases - often with the efficiency of the team as a whole), his burden on offense increases and his defensive contribution and efficiency increases. Furthermore, you will note that in the case of the stars (Williams, Boozer, Brand, Laettner, Parks, Ferry, etc) that they were an integral and substantial part of their respective offenses.

I would also like to personally point out that for all the criticism of McRoberts as a "flop," the kid still improved and was becoming a very good player. Had he stayed 4 years, you'd probably have seen an excellent senior McRoberts. His efficiency and floor % went down, but his defensive stats significantly improved, as did his production and the offensive burden placed on him (so you should generally expect O-Rating and Floor % to take a slight dip).

You will also note that injuries are obviously seen in these stats. Randolph, Horvath and Domzalski are very good examples of this. Boozer's outlying Sophomore season (broken foot) and Brand's (slightly) outlying freshman season (broken foot) are a result of injuries.

Finally, note that Battier may very well be the most efficient player offensively to wear the Duke jersey. He played both the role of the role-player and the centerpiece, and was the model of offensive efficiency in both.

Be prepared: a LOT of numbers are following.

Player	% of Minutes	PtsProdPerG	Floor %	O-Rating	% of Poss.	Stop %	D-Rating
Josh McRoberts
2005-2006	61.11%	8.78	60.51%	117.65	17.36%	64.95%	91.71
2006-2007	83.30%	13.88	55.25%	108.03	21.95%	69.95%	86.22
Shelden Williams
2002-2003	47.59%	8.20	54.51%	101.75	23.61%	71.75%	88.97
2003-2004	64.63%	12.21	59.45%	112.98	24.33%	81.43%	83.27
2004-2005	77.11%	14.96	59.34%	113.01	22.91%	83.04%	82.48
2005-2006	82.91%	17.72	61.27%	117.68	25.83%	85.99%	83.19
Shavlik Randolph
2002-2003	26.39%	6.94	61.79%	119.62	24.14%	71.49%	89.08
2003-2004	47.58%	6.93	58.92%	112.51	18.82%	61.85%	91.30
2004-2005	38.32%	5.18	49.65%	96.20	16.57%	65.25%	89.69
Luol Deng
2003-2004	77.11%	14.20	53.50%	110.68	24.19%	67.46%	89.00
Nick Horvath
1999-2000	19.42%	2.88	51.85%	119.69	15.59%	69.35%	89.08
2001-2002	17.58%	1.78	39.74%	73.94	15.95%	67.93%	85.70
2002-2003	30.45%	4.06	56.34%	116.51	14.50%	56.23%	95.19
2003-2004	14.63%	2.02	61.54%	115.84	15.92%	58.25%	92.77
Casey Sanders
1999-2000	10.40%	1.90	59.21%	106.85	16.79%	49.01%	97.56
2000-2001	23.95%	2.72	52.87%	96.19	14.06%	39.00%	99.98
2001-2002	17.22%	1.82	50.50%	94.64	12.99%	51.67%	92.32
2002-2003	44.29%	5.17	55.05%	102.59	15.86%	66.65%	91.02
Carlos Boozer
1999-2000	58.27%	12.07	63.97%	123.47	22.44%	67.41%	89.89
2000-2001	52.66%	12.05	65.37%	126.08	19.74%	67.26%	88.30
2001-2002	70.68%	16.66	67.82%	130.52	23.71%	67.99%	85.67
Elton Brand
1997-1998	34.24%	12.75	63.52%	117.56	25.66%	76.47%	80.76
1998-1999	72.91%	16.47	67.91%	129.41	23.57%	79.73%	80.82
Shane Battier
1997-1998	61.60%	8.14	66.62%	130.05	14.11%	74.17%	81.69
1998-1999	56.29%	9.36	65.61%	139.44	15.27%	61.26%	88.38
1999-2000	87.08%	15.94	60.45%	133.35	18.36%	56.64%	94.38
2000-2001	87.53%	17.91	57.13%	129.33	20.97%	64.89%	89.27
Chris Burgess
1997-1998	31.46%	4.49	52.74%	99.03	20.03%	66.63%	84.75
1998-1999	38.85%	5.44	60.79%	116.75	16.20%	66.87%	86.08
Roshown McCleod
1996-1997	59.92%	11.04	54.04%	112.50	23.76%	64.08%	91.47
1997-1998	59.17%	13.80	56.12%	115.67	28.01%	72.47%	82.38
Taymon Domzalski
1995-1996	50.80%	6.49	55.81%	109.12	17.27%	63.50%	97.30
1996-1997	8.42%	1.96	54.45%	103.87	12.84%	51.68%	96.50
1997-1998	17.92%	2.99	58.65%	112.58	14.88%	70.25%	83.28
1998-1999	18.91%	3.90	57.88%	109.77	19.51%	75.77%	82.44
Greg Newton
1993-1994	8.46%	1.31	39.57%	73.74	18.74%	79.68%	86.23
1994-1995	22.62%	3.63	57.92%	108.83	17.12%	75.94%	94.84
1995-1996	73.44%	11.43	59.40%	112.38	20.43%	71.29%	94.11
1996-1997	51.73%	9.59	61.68%	116.30	21.04%	77.42%	86.05
Erik Meek
1991-1992	9.81%	2.39	62.39%	111.74	19.97%	58.10%	97.07
1992-1993	28.76%	3.49	59.45%	108.26	15.17%	63.66%	91.69
1993-1994	34.85%	4.16	62.39%	114.18	15.13%	64.44%	92.47
1994-1995	70.56%	10.34	62.12%	116.47	18.11%	68.06%	98.11
Cherokee Parks
1991-1992	30.04%	4.68	59.23%	112.18	18.03%	50.88%	100.03
1992-1993	69.69%	10.73	61.68%	119.02	17.50%	66.75%	90.45
1993-1994	76.32%	13.45	60.26%	117.30	21.72%	72.38%	89.22
1994-1995	86.67%	17.00	56.75%	116.14	24.31%	74.53%	95.42
Grant Hill
1990-1991	56.50%	11.19	55.11%	105.10	22.28%	63.67%	89.89
1991-1992	69.13%	14.29	61.71%	120.45	21.63%	61.62%	95.63
1992-1993	63.72%	16.68	60.12%	117.87	24.39%	74.51%	87.31
1993-1994	89.19%	17.89	53.52%	109.81	26.43%	70.26%	90.09
Antonio Lang
1990-1991	27.13%	4.19	60.06%	109.74	16.64%	52.02%	94.59
1991-1992	52.76%	6.81	59.97%	112.66	14.89%	45.83%	102.10
1992-1993	62.64%	7.34	53.53%	101.80	15.08%	54.20%	95.51
1993-1994	75.22%	11.68	59.41%	113.08	19.86%	46.20%	99.94
Christian Laettner
1988-1989	42.23%	8.32	63.83%	121.66	20.86%	77.00%	81.05
1989-1990	73.70%	16.27	60.05%	117.47	23.79%	78.05%	86.31
1990-1991	75.03%	18.30	59.75%	117.89	26.50%	79.50%	83.50
1991-1992	77.97%	19.06	58.89%	121.50	26.89%	76.56%	89.50
Brian Davis
1988-1989	16.95%	2.70	44.61%	79.46	20.79%	49.35%	92.08
1989-1990	34.48%	5.02	55.74%	103.11	17.41%	48.25%	98.21
1990-1991	57.45%	8.12	54.59%	104.74	17.28%	53.48%	94.00
1991-1992	76.73%	11.18	59.10%	115.10	17.40%	50.12%	100.34
Alaa Abdelnaby
1986-1987	25.02%	3.69	46.64%	102.01	19.65%	65.32%	88.68
1987-1988	28.05%	4.21	56.44%	106.25	19.47%	72.33%	85.20
1988-1989	36.88%	7.48	59.85%	115.12	20.79%	61.00%	87.43
1989-1990	61.49%	13.09	65.77%	126.59	21.29%	63.83%	91.98
Danny Ferry
1986-1987	79.76%	18.74	55.56%	114.92	27.81%	67.53%	87.80
1987-1988	81.75%	14.99	50.09%	103.93	24.34%	66.83%	87.37
1988-1989	80.71%	21.84	56.54%	115.42	29.36%	68.70%	84.36

Top 10 teams of the last 10 years

Recently ESPN ran a piece listing their top 10 college basketball teams of the last decade.

What troubles me most about this list is not the actual order of the list or the teams on it, but how utterly stupid the reasons used for positioning the teams in such an order are. These are supposedly experts using 'scoring margin' and 'rebounding margin' as useful stats? Scoring margin is obviously influenced by tempo - faster tempo dominant teams tend to win by a larger margin because more possessions means more points. The better stat to use is efficiency margin because it compares a scoring margin that is irrelevant of the tempo the team actually played, fixed at 100 possessions.

Rebounding margin is an even stupider stat to use. Notwithstanding the fact that defensive and offensive rebounding are completely different stats with completely different meanings, rebounding is only correlated with winning insofar as it is affected by or affects field goal percentage. One team often gain a huge defensive rebounding margin with the same defensive rebounding rate if they are shooting a much better percentage than their opponents. Offensive rebounds are important because they often can contribute to an improved field goal percentage by giving teams extra opportunities to score or easy baskets right at the hoop. Of the Final Four teams this year, Georgetown had the highest OR% (a ratio of the number of offensive rebounds gathered to the sum of offensive rebounds and opponents' defensive rebounds) and it, along with a very high 2-point field goal percentage, contributed to their outstandingly efficient offense. Rebounding margin, though, has no meaning. Aren't these guys supposed to be experts?

A couple of notes on the stats I use when comparing teams. Ken Pomeroy is prudent in adjusting raw offensive and defensive efficiencies to strength of schedule in order to come up with an accurate ratings system for a given year. I don't think, though, that adjustments for strength of schedule are necessarily that important when talking about champions or near champions from year to year. Overall NCAA trends do not change much - dispelling, perhaps a little, the myth that some years the game is up and other years the game is down. While I certainly agree that some years the best teams are better than the best teams in other years (otherwise what would be the point of a top 10 best teams list?) but their competition does not vary much from year to year. Some trends have changed over the years, but mainly in the 90s as the 3-point shot became more and more prevalent, but overall things remain rather constant.

Finally, Dean Oliver in his book Basketball on Paper has shown that the 4 most important stats to look at the quality of a team (because of their correlation with winning) are eFG% (3 pointers weighed 50% more since they are worth 1 more point), TO% (ratio of turnovers to total possessions), OR% (described above) and FT Rate (ratio of free throws made to field goal attempts), in that order. Efficiency margin is a consequence of these four stats, and shows a team's ability to bring it all together and perform. I will use primarily these 5 stats in my analysis.

Now on to the list, and my problems with it.

1. 2006-07 Florida (35-5) - A sensible choice, but not inexorable. A lot of this choice is political and heavily influenced by the psychological effect of seeing them play recently. On the whole, though, Florida makes a good case for itself on stats alone. Florida sported an impressive efficiency margin of about 25.5 points and the best eFG% of the teams whose stats I could find (missing a couple until the Mid-Majority comes back online) at 59.6%. However, they were fairly turnover prone (20.9% of possessions ended up as turnovers), were not exceptional on the offensive glass (OR% of 37.66%), and did not convert from the line exceptionally well (FT Rate of 30.2%). The obvious motivating factor making Florida #1 on this list is the fact that it was the 2nd consecutive title. But their resume is lacking compared to some of the other teams for the season: embarrassing losses to LSU, Vanderbilt and Tennessee (blowouts, really) in a 4 game span showed some chinks in the Florida armor. Combine that with less than overwhelming statistical advantages over other teams and it becomes doubly evident how this pick is more or less political.

2. 2004-05 North Carolina (33-4) - This is something I have disagree with, and for much more than the simple fact that it's a Tar Heel team. Actually, as far as UNC teams, I found this team to be rather likable given how much they improved and how much they went through their first two years before becoming a great team in 05. I don't care what team it is, but that sort of thing has to be appealing to any basketball fan. That said, this UNC team is not deserving of 2nd best of the last decade. They had a very good efficiency margin of 23.25 (but it was only 5th best for this period without checking 2000 Cincinnati or 1999 Connecticut yet). They had a 56% eFG%, a very good result but again, 5th best of these teams. They had the second worst TO% of champions, not an exceptional offensive rebounding team (OR% of 39.5%) and a very good FT Rate of 32%. UNC had balance, though, and it was a tough team to beat. I don't really understand, though, how they consider a team who had such obvious blemishes on their record (losses to Santa Clara and failure to win conference tournament), combined with no reason to believe that this team was as statistically dominant as other teams of the last decade to be as good vis-a-vis other champions.

3. 1998-99 Connecticut (34-2) - Since UConn's official website keeps paltry stats for its own teams and since I have been unable to get my hands on a full record of team statistics for the year, I'm really unable to comment on this team too deeply. I think this is a very merited position for this UConn team if only for the fact that they beat the, statistically, most dominant team of the decade in the championship game. They also had very few blemishes on their record, and excellent players. When I know more, I can comment more, though.

4. 2003-04 Connecticut (33-6) - Quite an unusual pick for a team that wasn't even a #1 seed in the tournament. They were certainly one of the better defensive teams of the last decade (90.9 defensive efficiency), but (and this is something to be saved for another entry) defense alone does not win championships. Their efficiency margin was not spectacular (21.2) and they were awful at converting from the line (21.5% FT Rate). They had just a 53.2% eFG% (for reference, Duke had 52.5% this year and we were 22-11), but were good with the ball (19.4% TO%) and were a pretty good offensive rebounding team (OR% of 41.3). This Connecticut team had great front-court depth, but were not even close to being one of the most dominant teams of the decade. It took a late rally against a very good, but not great, Duke team in the Final Four to even make the finals. The best teams don't leave so little room for themselves.

5. 2000-01 Duke (35-4) - I will not deny my allegiances here, but this is a patently incorrect pick. Duke 2001 can reasonably be placed as low as 3 or as high as even 1, but #5 is a rather insane position. Of all teams I looked at in this period, this Duke team had the 2nd highest efficiency margin (26.77) and was one of just two teams to score over 1.2 points per possession. The article concedes that this is a Duke team who lost to only very good teams and by very small margins (1 point loss to Stanford, 2 point losses to Virginia and UNC, and an 11 point loss to Maryland at home during the game when Boozer broke his foot), and who dominated their NCAA tournament opposition (winning every game by double digits). Duke had a higher eFG% than any team except Florida 06 and 07, and Duke 99 at 56.2%, and the lowest TO% of the last decade of champions at 18%. Furthermore, the article criticizes Duke for not having a huge rebounding edge - but who cares? The most important rebounding stat correlated with winning (OR%) is not low by any means (37.8%; higher than both Florida teams, and 02 Maryland). The article also criticizes Duke for having free throw troubles, which is probably the only criticism you can make of this team. Their FT Rate was only 27.6% and there were stretches where they struggled from the line (costing us at least 1 game). However, as far as criticisms go, this one is a little odd to drop a team who deserves a really high ranking so low. A high turnover rate is a much worse liability on a team, as it is more closely correlated with losing than a lower FT Rate.

6. 1999-00 Michigan State (32-7) - Sensible for its position, but a deeply flawed team. They were the best defensive team, statistically, of all champions (just an 89.0 defensive efficiency), and the best offensive rebounding team of all champions (42.1% OR%). This is a team that made a living grinding it out and crashing the boards hard, but they had difficulties against teams with more efficient offenses. The 1999 version of this MSU team had nearly identical stats, and was an even better offensive rebounding team, but went 0-3 against UConn and Duke that year (both very efficient offensive teams). Simply put, their offense was not strong enough to compete with some of the better offensive teams. They had just a 53.3% eFG%, and the highest TO% of champions at 22.0%. They were also rather poor at converting from the FT line as they had a 27.9% FT Rate. My suspicion is head-to-head with some of the better offensive teams on this list, MSU would struggle to keep up.

7. 1998-99 Duke (37-2) - I understand perfectly why this team is at this position. Winning a championship means a lot, but I would be remiss not to glow a little over the accomplishments of this Duke team. As Joe Lunardi points out, Duke from 99 is #1 on paper - and the margin is not that close. Most statisticians have concluded that there is no ascertainable factor that determines close games. Most chalk it up to some intangible "luck" notion now. After all, one or two possessions throughout a game can mean the difference between a win or a loss in a very tight game. This team lost two games by a total of 5 points all year and sported (by a large margin) the highest efficiency margin of any team in question (33.3). They had the highest offensive efficiency (124.0), and only 04 UConn and 00 Michigan State sported a more efficient defense (Duke's DE was 90.65). They had the 3rd highest eFG% at 57.4, a fairly low TO% at 19.6%, a better OR% than any champion (44.4%), and the best FT Rate of any team I looked at in the period (33.0%). So, again, in terms of performance, no team in the last decade was as good as Duke in 99. They had a rare combination of size, athleticism, depth, defensive intensity, desire and experience - but had a bad game at the wrong time and came up short. History forgets the losers of title games, unfortunately. 99 Duke will go down with 91 UNLV as probably the two best teams to fail to win the championship. I suppose the ranking at this position is just, but if this were really a determination of which team was actually the best in the last 10 years regardless of championship or not, Duke 99 is it without question.

8. 2001-02 Maryland (32-4) - A just position for a very good, but not great, team. Maryland was hard to beat, because of experience, balance, good coaching and an excellent leader in Juan Dixon, but they lacked the overwhelming talent that some of the greater teams (Duke 01, Florida 07, UNC 05) had. They had a small efficiency margin (18.7), with neither an overwhelming offense nor defense. They did not shoot particularly well from the field (53% eFG), nor were they very good on the offensive glass (just 36.0% OR%), but they converted from the line well (30.1% FT Rate), and, most important to their consistency and success, took care of the ball (just 18.2% TO rate). I think I would have placed them lower, perhaps 9 or 10, and below both non-champions who deserve a position on the list (05 Illinois to join 99 Duke).

9. 2004-05 Illinois (37-2) - A real interesting team. Illinois was severely lacking on the interior, which explains how Sean May dismantled them in the 2005 championship game, but they were incredibly careful with the ball, turning it over on just 16.7% of possessions. Combined with a very good eFG% at 56%, Illinois managed a very good offensive efficiency (116.8) despite having a tremendously low OR% (34.3) and an abysmal FT Rate (21.0%). Their efficiency margin was a very good 24.12 (actually better than UNC 05's). This team justifiably belongs above 2 and possibly 3 champions of the last decade, but the other 7 champions and Duke 99 would manhandle this Illinois team on the inside. I'd put them at #8 on my list above 02 Maryland and 98 Kentucky.

10. 2002-03 Syracuse (30-5) - How can this team be above 98 Kentucky, or 00 Cincinnati? 'Cuse had the lowest efficiency margin (13.8), and the lowest eFG (51.9%). The 2003 season really lacked a dominant force of a team, so it's not surprisingly that a 3 seed would come out of no where and win it all, but they did not do so in a dominating fashion, nor did they exhibit any level of dominance during the regular season. I would leave them off the list myself.

My list:
1. Florida 2007 - Like I said, the political pick. Going back-to-back is really hard in itself, and they should get credit for it even if the other stats don't sway their way.
2. Duke 2001 - I made the case earlier and I stand by it.
3. UConn 1999 - I can stand by this argument later more once I have the stats, but beating 99 Duke counts for a lot in my book.
4. UNC 2005 - There's lots to like about this team, but we can't let the recency factor overwhelm our rational faculties.
5. UConn 2004 - Excellent defensively, numbers for the season are probably artificially deflated due to Okafor's injury.
6. Duke 1999 - Best on paper, probably the best team but doesn't deserve a higher position because they choked the last game.
7. Michigan State 2000 - Excellent on the glass and defensively, but not spectacular offensively.
8. Illinois 2005 - Probably best guard-play of all teams here, but not balanced. Very good offensively, though, despite interior absences.
9. Maryland 2002 - Very good, but not great team. Poised, experienced, balanced - took very good care of the ball, but not overwhelmingly talented. Didn't blow teams out or have spectacular numbers.
10. Kentucky 1998 - Not even in Honorable mention for ESPN's list, this Kentucky team had very similar stats to Maryland, but was better on the offensive glass. The style they played was risky, but allowed them to come back from big deficits better than any team on the list except Duke 01. Cincinnati 00 might deserve this position more but fate excludes them by shattering K-Mart's leg...

Duke and McDonald's All-Americans...

I have to thank the poster Tent3 over at TDD (The Devil's Den) for running these stats. Basically, this is a response to the commonly held myth that Duke has had a lot of McDonald's flops.

National

Drafted (either round): 305/600 = 50.8%

First round: 216/600 = 36.0%

Total playing on NBA team: 370/600 = 61.7%

Duke

Drafted: 20/32 = 62.5%

First round: 14/32 = 43.8%

Total playing on NBA team: 22/32 = 68.8%

Interestingly, Kentucky's numbers are below average on all accounts. So if any big-time program should be criticized for having flops that were McDonald's All-Americans, it should be Kentucky.

Cavs and Spurs

If you had to boil each game down to 1 factor that made the difference in two very close, very contested games, it would be offensive rebounding for the Cavs and offensive balance for the Spurs.

As for the Cavs, they had a pretty uninteresting game. LeBron led them in scoring with 21 and added 11 boards (2 on the offensive side) and 7 assists. The Cavs shot just 40.2% and had scored just .92 ppp, but held New Jersey to just .865 ppp. The Cavs are far quicker than the Raptors were, so don't expect the Nets to be able to rack up tons of easy points in transition. In fact, the Nets got just 6 fast break points. LeBron did an excellent job guarding Jefferson, and Carter was forced mostly to take jump shots because of the interior physicality. Kidd had a poor shooting game too. I imagine this will be a fairly representative game. The Cavs are a very good offensive rebounding team, and should be able to keep the Nets from getting into the open court too often. The Nets really lack the balance to attack the Cavs effectively and rely too much on Carter, who is not as tough as you'd hope from a top-scoring option. I stand by my prediction of Cavs in 6.

Spurs vs. Suns was all offense. People talk and talk about the Spurs' D but it was their offense that won this game. The Suns' D is not bad, don't get me wrong, but they do have serious troubles with Parker and Duncan basically had a great game (despite Amare playing him strong). To be fair, the Spurs did hold the Suns to 1.09 ppp when their season average is 1.14, but the tempo favored the Suns (about 98 possessions, the Spurs like to play less than 90) and the Suns did still score 106 points. Had Duncan or Parker not had such a stellar shooting game (together they were 26 for 46), then you'd probably be seeing Nash and his busted up face in the post-game interview rather than Parker and Duncan. I still think Suns in 7 is a good pick, but if the Suns can't win in game 2, then I'll admit I was wrong.

Playoffs?!

I am something of a Bulls fan (of course, I grew up worshiping Jordan like every kid my age, and in the last decade or so they have drafted about 4 Duke players, so I respect their support of our program!), so for a time, I was pretty happy with these playoffs. It was great to see Deng excel in the first round... but I'm pretty terrified of this series with the Pistons considering how Game 1 went. Granted, the Bulls were 3-1 against the Pistons in the regular season with the only loss being a 2 point road loss.. but the playoffs are different. I just really dread the possibility of another Detroit/San Antonio final. How dreadfully boring would that be?

Today Cleveland (my 2nd favorite team) and New Jersey start while San Antonio faces Phoenix. Should be an interesting day. As for the two series, I think Cleveland wins in 6 and Phoenix in 7. A lot has been said about San Antonio's defense, and how defense wins championships or whatever. I sort of disagree. San Antonio has two great defensive players (Duncan, Bowen), and they have experience, savvy, and balance offensively - enough so to make up for their lack of an explosive offensive weapon. And for all the insults thrown Phoenix's way regarding their D, they have Raja Bell and Shawn Marion who are both excellent, versatile defenders, and their offense is so much more balanced than Denver's. They can attack you with 5 weapons on the court at once, inside and out, in transition or in the half-court. I think this year might be Phoenix's year. If they get past SA, then they have... Golden State or Utah (probably Utah since they can actually attack GS in the post) and then probably Detroit. I'd pick Phoenix in both of those series in 5 or 6 games.