Another day of the NBA season, another update on the continuing downward spiral of the 2010-11 Cavs.
Wayne Winston of adjusted plus/minus fame released his latest weighted NBA efficiency ratings yesterday. The Cavs are now even more firmly cemented in last place than before. Overall, their Winston-calculated efficiency differential has plummeted to a knee-buckling -10.41 points per 100 possessions.
The last time I checked this same stat, the gap between Byron Scott’s squad and the 29th place Sacramento Kings was a depressing -3 points per 100 possessions. As of today, that gap has widened to nearly 5 points per 100 possessions, as the Kings’ weighted differential clocks in at -5.86.
In other words, the Cavs—by Winston’s statistical measure, anyway—have gotten 67% worse in the past week.
Admittedly, this has to do with the fact that Winston’s ratings are heavily weighted based on recent performance, and having a 55 point loss in your recent past is a recipe for disaster on that front.
I just checked Hoop Data for the raw efficiency differential, hoping for some kind of silver lining. Guess what? The Cavs’ unadjusted efficiency differential is even worse. They trail the rest of the league at -12.1 points per 100 possessions. Salt in the wound: they trail the Kings (-7.5) by almost exactly the same margin here as in Winston’s adjusted rankings.
This seems like it should only be able to take place in a parallel universe. And yet, here we are: at a point where it’s indisputable that the 2010-11 Cavs can neither defend nor score.
However, they’re running. According to Hoop Data, they now rank 12th in the league in pace—dangerously close to surpassing the “average” zone and being considered “up-tempo.”
Herein lies the problem, though. John Krolik of Cavs: The Blog pointed out earlier this week (thanks to some time spent on Synergy) that Byron Scott’s Cavs score fewer points on transition opportunities than any other team in the league.
So yes, the team is getting out in transition. But they’re terrible at scoring in transition, so it’s not helping them to run.
In fact, it may be hurting them.
Consider this: if you equate “fast” with “good,” then pace is potentially the only category in which the Cavs have shown steady progress this season. But as their pace has increased, their efficiency differential has plummeted—and their record alongside it.
In other words, the available evidence suggests that speeding up the tempo makes the Cavs less efficient and therefore, less likely to win.
Byron Scott does appear to be holding up one end of his introductory presser by forcing the Cavs to be a running team. But this raises the question: should they be one? Is that where their strengths (I use that term loosely) lie? Or would the team be better served by slowing the pace down and conserving some energy for defense?
With all the injuries and the psychological weight of so much losing, it may be a moot point. To me, though, a coach worth his paycheck would investigate this idea, especially after losing 24 of the team’s last 25 games. (Or whatever the actual number is. At this point, it hardly warrants the time needed to fact-check.)
Instead, Scott seems committed to trying to keep the pedal to the floor. But with only a month before the All-Star break and over a month since the Cavs’ league-low 8th win, it’s entirely possible that Scott is simply speeding his way toward the worst season in NBA history.
The link jumps to an excerpt from a book called Scorecasting: The Hidden Influences Behind How Sports Are Played and Games Are Won, by Tobias J. Moskowitz and L. Jon Wertheim. The book itself is billed as “Freakonomics for sports.” I just read another excerpt on a different topic in the new issue of Sports Illustrated last night have been really impressed with it so far.
The excerpt in question here is titled “The Curse of the No. 1 Draft Pick.” In it, Moskowitz and Wertheim provide data to support the notion that the best possible move for any NFL team picking in the top 10 is for them to trade down. This seemed like a relevant topic to consider today, as the conference championship match-ups were set while the Browns were busy trying to put together another new coaching staff.
The two strongest parts of Moskowitz’s and Wertheim’s argument are that evidence shows teams wanting to move up pay entirely too highly for the right to do so (in both compensatory picks and salary for their targeted player), and that in each draft class there is only a marginal difference in value between the top 4 players at any given position. In fact, when it’s all said and done, they argue that the first pick in the 2nd round carries more value than the 1st overall pick.
The ideas themselves aren’t necessarily new, but I applaud Moskowitz and Wertheim for using data to make the case. Admittedly, their argument will lose a little of its strength next season—whenever “next season” begins—because a new CBA is almost guaranteed to include a rookie wage scale that reduces the discrepancy between salaries for top picks versus lower picks.
Still, with the Browns holding the sixth pick and fans clamoring for a big name college player to start solving their problems, this study serves as more evidence that the best move for the health of the franchise is to pull a Belichick: Take advantage of an overzealous (probably QB-needy) team to stockpile picks and players, load up with talent at a higher rate than everyone else, and start blowing the doors off over the course of a few years.
You could say that this strategy didn’t work out so well for Belichick today. But keep in mind that the Patriots—who went 14-2 this year—have 3 of the top 34 picks in the next draft because of the strategy Moskowitz and Wertheim suggest as the norm. They can’t win every year, but they are going to continue to be really good for a really long time. That sustainable success is exactly what the Browns need to become relevant again. We’ll find out whether or not they recognize it.
One reason I think they very well may: the other team cited as the greatest champion of this strategy is Andy Reid’s Eagles, AKA Tom Heckert’s and Pat Shurmur’s Eagles. Let’s hope it all stays in the family tree.
It’s official: with Sacramento’s win at home against Denver last night, they have now pushed the Cavs down to the sad position of holding the worst record in the NBA (8-27).
In light of this checkpoint, I thought it would be good to take a quick look at how they’re progressing under the great Byron Scott.
Since it’s something I highlighted as a red flag back in November, I’m thrilled to report that the Cavs are now indisputably the worst team in the league at defending the three point arc—and it’s not close. Through 35 games, Cavs’ opponents are shooting a staggering 41.7% 3P. Their nearest competitor is the Clippers at 39.7%. That’s a full 2 percentage points difference, or one-fifth the difference between last place in this category and first place (Atlanta and Miami are both holding opponents to 31.9% 3P).
Other statistical categories of note for defense and rebounding:
Defensive Efficiency: 107.8 points per 100 possessions (tied for 25th)
Opponent FG%: 47.3 (tied for 27th)
Opponent True Shooting %: 56.3 (28th)
Offensive Rebound Rate: 21.48 (29th)
Defensive Rebound Rate: 76.41 (4th)
Total Rebound Rate: 47.88 (26th)
So cornerstone #1 of the Byron Scott regime—defense—has flourished to the extent that, on average, every Cavs opponent shoots threes at an All Star level; shuts them down on the glass, particularly the offensive glass; and basically scores at will.
But that’s ok, because Scott’s other cornerstone—the fluid, fast-paced Princeton offense—more than makes up for the defensive hiccups.
Offensive stats of note:
Pace: 95.6 (14th)
Offensive Efficiency: 97.6 points per 100 possessions (29th)
True Shooting %: 51.0 (28th)
FG%: 42.7 (29th)
3P%: 33.5 (24th)
Shot Attempts At The Rim: 21.1 (21st)
Shot Attempts at <10’: 12.9 (14th)
Shot Attempts 10-15’: 8.0 (6th)
Shot Attempts 16-23’: 20.0 (19th)
3PA: 19.3 (10th)
What do these numbers tell us? Almost at the midway point of the season, the Cavs are still playing at an average pace, and their horrendous offensive efficiency stems from the fact that they shoot a below average number of dunks and lay-ups, an average number of shots from inside 10’, a ton of mid-range 2s, and a relatively high number of threes—and they’re far below average on connecting at any of those distances. Part of that is talent, but part of it also has to do with whether those guys are getting good looks. By and large, they’re not. Considering that creating good looks is the entire point of an offensive system, it’s safe to say at this point that Scott’s is the Elephant Man of the NBA.
Combine the offense and defense together, and you end up with the coup de grace:
Point Differential: -10.20 (30th)
Congratulations, Byron Scott. It didn’t even take until the All-Star break for stats to conclusively back what we’ve all suspected for at least a month: you are responsible for running the worst team in the league. So for any of you out there who wanted Mike Brown gone so badly, hope you’re enjoying the show.
The above is a link to this year’s Adjusted +/- stats on the Cavaliers, from Basketball Value. I thought it would be worth checking out, given Andy, Boobie, and Mo’s inactive status for tonight’s game against Chicago.
As you can see, in the one year numbers - which are noisy - Andy, Boobie, and Sessions are the only good things going.
After another debacle, I could go in two different directions with a post that goes toward explaining why the Browns split the season series with Cincinnati.
The first option would be to blame the defense. To label their performance as “porous” would be an understatement. Coming into today’s game, the Bengals were averaging less than 90 yards rushing per game. They ended the day with 188, the lion’s share of the 397 total yards posted against Rob Ryan’s squad.
However, at the end of the game the Bengals only managed to put up 19 points. Should they have been held to fewer? Yes, absolutely. But 19 points is still a manageable opponent total. For comparison’s sake, the median team in the league in scoring average is the Steelers at 23.2 points per game. The Bengals are 20th in the league at 20.2 points per game. So not only did the Browns’ defense prevent Cincinnati from reaching the league average in point total, they also prevented them from reaching their own, lower average.
In light of all that, the real problem for me is the Browns’ strategy inside the red zone. This is not a new problem. We all saw it last week against Buffalo, when the Browns’ brain trust was all too eager to kick short field goals rather than attempt to get inside the end zone—and that’s just a recent example. This has been a phenomenon all season long, and truthfully, during Mangini’s entire tenure at the helm.
On the season, the Browns have attempted 8 FGs from between 1-29 yards. Phil Dawson is tied for the league lead in FGAs from less than 20 yards. Not coincidentally, the Browns are 28th in the league in points per game at 18.1.
The real killer in today’s game was the FGA on 4th & 1 at about the Cincinnati 13. As a rule, offenses around the league don’t go for it on 4th down nearly as much as they should. Case in point: this season, only two teams have converted on 4th down at a rate lower than 33.3% of the time (Giants at 20% on 2 of 10 and Denver at 31.3% on 5 of 16). This season, the Browns are 2 of 4 in 4th down conversions, AKA 50%. Obviously, these are small sample sizes, but they’re worth mentioning partially because they put into perspective just how few times teams even attempt to convert on 4th down.
For a more analytical breakdown of expected success on 4th down, I’d recommend this slideshow from our friends at Advanced NFL Stats. Among the highlights: not all fourth downs are created equal; further, not even all 4th downs of the same yardage needed for a first down are equal. Field position plays a big part in the percentages. But to give you a sense of the probabilities involved, the league average success rate for a 4th & 3 outside the red zone is 53%, and any team should automatically go for it any time they’re within 6 yards of the end zone.
Would this have been good information for Mangini & Daboll to use at the start of the 4th quarter when they were inside the red zone and down 6 points? Yes. What did they do instead? Send out Phil Dawson on 4th & 1.
Combine that decision with the inability to even attempt a field goal when the Browns had the ball at the Bengals’ 34 with 23 seconds left in the first half, and you start to see the problem: attempting field goals in touchdown situations and blowing FGA opportunities in clear FG range is a clear recipe for losing otherwise winnable games.
