I watched last Thursday’s “Inside the NBA” over the weekend. During the course of the broadcast, I was reminded of something that I’m sure we noted at the beginning of this season (though I’m not going to spend the time trying to dig back into our archives and prove it).
Essentially, TNT’s studio team was lauding Boston’s play and discussing what a tough out they’ll be in the playoffs this spring. One of the essential components of their argument: just think of what they’ll be able to do when they have a healthy Shaquille O’Neal back on the court.
Whomever made this point was greeted with a loud round of agreement. Shaq was indeed going to be a handful in the post-season.
Compare this to the reaction of NBA analysts last year when The Big Aristotle was in a Cavs uniform. All we heard about during that time was how old Shaq had gotten, how he’d lost several steps, how he didn’t have any lift, couldn’t be depended on to deliver in a major way during the playoffs, etc.
However, with his 38th birthday looming in 34 days, Shaq has somehow been thrown into some kind of analyst rejuvenation machine. Somehow, by putting on a different uniform, he has once again become a force to be reckoned with.
I’ll admit that I haven’t been paying as much attention to the league as a whole this season as I have in previous years. My sense from what I had seen up to today was that Shaq was largely doing the same things in the same quantities with Boston as what he did for the Cavs last year. But in the interest of fairness, I decided to check the numbers tonight to be sure.
Here’s what I found:
2009-10 Shaq Vs. 2010-11 Shaq
Games Played: 53 Vs 35
Minutes Per Game: 23.4 Vs 20.9
FGA per 36 min: 13.4 Vs 9.6
FG%: 56.6 Vs 66.7
FTA per 36 min: 6.6 Vs 6.4
FT%: 49.6 Vs 55.8
Offensive Rebound %: 9.4 Vs 8.8
Defensive Rebound %: 24.0 Vs 20.2
Total Rebound %: 17.0 Vs 14.8
Assist %: 11.3 Vs 5.8
Turnover %: 15.7 Vs 17.1
Offensive Rating (Points scored per 100 possessions): 104 Vs 113
Defensive Rating (Points allowed per 100 possessions): 102 Vs 98
Fouls: 4.9 Vs 5.8
In summary, Boston Shaq shoots a much higher percentage from the floor and a slightly less terrible percentage from the stripe; is no better at getting to the line; rebounds worse (particularly defensively); assists about half as much; turns the ball over more frequently; and fouls more often than Cleveland Shaq, with a negligible difference in minutes per game (-2.5 this season).
So while his offensive rating has improved noticeably, and his defensive rating somewhat, the category by category breakdown suggests that this is not a dramatically different player than he was a year ago. Even the current upticks in his offensive and defensive ratings are likely to settle before the end of the season. Case in point: in his last 4 games, Shaq has totaled 10 points…combined.
This isn’t a column meant to bag on Shaq, who I still root for on an individual level. The point is that, once again, the same phenomenon can look a whole lot different to the sports media depending on whether it’s happening in the TD Banknorth Garden instead of The Q. Some things never change.
This isn’t going to be an in-depth post because there’s a very simple truth at the core of tonight’s game.
In short, the Celtics are a much better team than the Cavs in basically every aspect. The final score, 106-87, is about what it should be.
Yes, the Cavs beat the Celtics at the Q to start the season. But I don’t think anyone believed that success was likely to be repeated in the rematch. The reality is that the Celtics are #2 in the league in Efficiency Differential at +8.3 points per 100 possessions; the Cavs are #26 at minus -5.7. Add those up and the statistic projects that on average the Cavs should lose by 14 points (per 100 possessions). I can’t tell you how many possessions each team used tonight, but I think we can all agree that this game fell within the margin of expectation.
This is especially true when the Cavs give up a staggering 60 points in the paint. For reference, the Cavs scored only 26. If any team since the merger has won a game after being drubbed by 34 points near the rim, I would probably look like I’d seen a ghost.
So in this transitional era, all you can do about a game like tonight’s is forget it and move on. Anyone happen to know who the Cavs are playing next?
Yes, it’s the return of the bazooka point. For those of you who are new to Mesa, the bazooka point is our version of a game recap. Tim and I will typically pick one issue to write about each game, an observation or a point of interest, and focus on that, instead of rehashing all four quarters or a series of bullet points. One point. One gun. One bazooka.
Or something like that.
Tonight’s bazooka point will be about offense, more specifically floor spacing and pace.
Ironically, I thought the Cavs suffered from some of the same problems tonight that the Miami Heat faced last night - mainly, their floor spacing was fairly awful. Because both teams played the Celtics, I think we should give some credit to Boston and some credit to new systems and new players learning to play together.
Side note: I hope that’s the last generic thing I write all season long. I probably wouldn’t have written it at all if I hadn’t seen the Cavs deal with similar issues the past two seasons.
At the same time, the Cavs’ spacing in the first half particularly was very, very bad. On numerous occasions I saw players occupying the same general space in the half court. I saw JJ Hickson and Ramon Sessions both cut to the same exact area on one play, as if neither had any concept of the other’s existence. Most importantly, after hearing from pretty much the day that Byron Scott was hired that the Cavs were going to be a running team, I consistently watched the guards walk the ball up the court while the forwards struggled to throw effective outlet passes.
Generally speaking, the Cavs on offense looked a lot like they had no idea what they were doing.
Since I wasn’t able to watch a single preseason game, I can’t say for sure if things were different tonight or similar. But I can say that pace is something we should continue to watch as the season goes on. I’ve been skeptical of Byron Scott’s assertion that the Cavs would be a running team - don’t forget, he went so far as to say on his radio show that the team would look to get a shot up in 6 seconds or less - since none of the squads he previously coached played particularly quickly (only one was in the top 10 in pace, New Jersey in 2001-2002).
Having said all of that, the Cavs actually won! Haha.
And something noteworthy - nobody on the team had a negative raw +/- number. Everyone was in positive territory except for Jamison, who was at zero.
A little bizarre watching tonight’s game. My observations, I have to say, are probably still in preseason form. More to come as the season goes along.
This year, the Miami Heat are going to serve as a great test case for one of my favorite pro sports fallacies.
Analysts and fans have a tendency to discuss players and teams as having very distinct, very specific, and most importantly, very set strengths and weaknesses. In many individual cases, this is justified. Kyle Korver, for instance, is known as a spot-up, catch-and-shoot specialist. Last season in Utah, a staggering 93% of his FGs were assisted. No one is selling him short by pigeon-holing him in that regard, and no one expects him to spend the summer trying to develop a low post game. We know what Korver is good at. We know that’s not going to change. And so we feel we know what his future holds—at least for the rest of this season.
However, people also have a tendency to do this with teams. I believe that this is a much, much more dangerous game to play.
Consider the case of the Miami Heat. Last night, they were beaten by the Celtics in Boston to the tune of 8 points. I have heard far too many people declare this to be a precedent-setting indicator of how the East will play out. The Celtics will be the battle-tested, fundamentally sound, defense-first, cohesive unit; the Heat will be an overrated experiment with impressive pieces that simply don’t fit together; and ultimately, Boston will outplay Miami in the playoffs and reach the Finals.
This kind of thinking is, frankly, not sound.
Here’s what we have to remember at this point in the season: teams’ performance can change dramatically over the course of the year. The players learn how to read one another better. They discover over time what works and what doesn’t. (I don’t have statistics to back this up, but consider the Cavs’ first game with Shaq versus their last few before his thumb injury in Boston as anecdotal evidence.)
Beyond this, rotations are altered. Injuries happen. Trades are made.
In short, the teams playing yesterday and today will not be the same teams playing in March, April, and beyond—even if their rosters remain unchanged.
This is the difficulty with projections: we make them based on imperfect information. In the case of a team like the Heat, there simply isn’t much, if any, data available to tell us about what is essentially an entirely new team. We can analyze the historical performance of individuals, but there are no models that I know of out there that can describe how those players will adapt to one another over the course of an 82-game regular season.
This is why we end up with a vast majority of supposed experts putting the Celtics and Lakers back in the 2011 Finals. Those teams are, by and large, known quantities. There’s continuity. There’s history. There’s comfort with who they are and what they do.
But there’s also a tendency to discount the probability of decline. While it’s true that players in their youth and their prime tend to maintain a great deal of season-to-season statistical consistency, everyone eventually reaches a twilight period. This isn’t to say that players disintegrate overnight. But even a modest drop in production when facing foes in their prime can be the end of a season. Based on the collective age of their core players, the Celtics are much more likely to fall victim to this phenomenon than is Miami.
So while everyone (especially those with a grudge) dances on the grave of the Miami Heat, it should be kept in mind that they will never look worse this season than they did last night. It was, after all, the first full game in which LeBron, Wade, and Bosh played a significant amount of time together; Mike Miller (who will have a greater impact than I think most people realize) was out with an injury; they played on the road; it was the first game of the season (traditionally rusty for everyone); and they were up against a team whose key components have been playing together for several years.
Likewise, the Celtics will probably never look better than they did last night. Everyone on their roster was healthy; they played with the same system that’s been in place season after season; they were hungry and motivated against the East’s next generation powerhouse; they played at home against a team with one significant injury the need for plenty of time to figure one another out.
These things will change.
We should keep this in mind for tonight’s season opener for the Cavs, as well.
As more people peg Cleveland as a likely 8-seed in the playoffs, we have to keep in mind that those projections are based on assumptions. The biggest one of those assumptions, in my view, is the notion that the roster will stay intact. Yes, it would be a good story for the LeBron-less Cavs to return to the postseason in their first year without The King. But those in the front office know that the team’s only prospects for long-term success are to completely tear down and completely rebuild. Has that process begun already? In some sense, yes. It will be significantly further along if players like Manny Harris and Samardo Samuels are true diamonds in the rough rather than just serviceable, cheap roster fillers.
But long-tenured veteran players with value to potential playoff teams—especially if they’re burdened with large contracts—simply shouldn’t be part of the plan. Jamison and Mo are the prime candidates. And ultimately, I suspect one or both will no longer be in a Cavs uniform by March. This is not a bad thing for the team. In fact, it could be a great thing in the long-term. But it irrevocably affects whether or not the Cavs finish the season in the type of position—whatever it is—where the analysts are predicting.
So when the team tips off against the Celtics tonight, they’re going to look discombobulated because it’s a new season in a new system with guys playing roles that, in most cases, they are new to. In that sense, there will be plenty of room for improvement, and I suspect they will improve as the season goes on. But we should also remember that their improvement and their final position may ultimately be tempered, undermined, or reversed by whatever roster moves Chris Grant sees fit to make between now and the trade deadline.
The only outcomes I would consider gambling on would be these: by season’s end, the Heat will look much improved; the Celtics will be in comparatively worse shape than their season-opening form; and the Cavs, for better or worse, will look even more different than they do tonight. But I know none of these things for a fact. And that, ultimately, is why I will continue to watch.
Since he signed his $1.3MM one-year contract with the Celtics, Shaq has once again become a topic of conversation for a team viewed as a potential championship contender.
This is all well and good. I enjoy the fact that Shaq is still in the NBA. Specifically, I enjoy the fact that he is still on a team that will warrant some publicity so that he can spit out fantastic sound bites. Say what you want about whether or not trading for him was the right move, but it’s pretty hard to deny that the man acted like a complete professional while with the Cavs last season. (Windhorst’s own words via his Twitter feed back on August 13th.)
For all those reasons, I wish Shaq well—especially since his potential success means, on some level, Miami’s failure.
That said, the opinions I’m hearing from pundits once again highlight how much their thinking is colored by a complete lack of logic.
Since the Cavs acquired Shaq last June, the overwhelming opinion was that he was too old, washed up, out of shape, and essentially a complete liability.
Since signing with Boston, though, all I hear about is what a valuable asset he is. How he’s exactly what the Celtics need to compete for a ring. How shrewd and wise a GM Danny Ainge is for making this kind of move.
Horse shit.
To take just one golden example, the great sage Bill Simmons spent the entire 2009-10 season making fat jokes about Shaq and talking about how he was just going to “clog the lane”—the chorus that became so viral among NBA analysts that it felt like someone had hired Karl Rove to concoct it.
Now? Simmons is already talking about how much sense this signing makes for his boys in green. He discussed it at length with Steve Kerr in his podcast a few weeks back, in fact.
To clarify, I’m not saying that there isn’t merit to Boston signing Shaq. What I’m saying is that it can’t be an awful move for the Cavs a year earlier and then a great move for the Celtics now.
For instance, Boston played faster than the Cavs last season, but almost insignificantly so. The Celtics averaged 93.6 possessions / game vs. 93.4 for Cleveland. So if his speed was a liability in one system, it should still be a liability in the other.
What about the clogging the lane myth? Is driving to the hoop unimportant in the Celtics’ offense?
Rajon Rondo averaged 5.4 shot attempts “at the rim” (i.e. layups) per game in 2009-10, plus another 1.7 attempts per game from within 10’ of the basket. LeBron averaged 6.8 attempts “at the rim” per game, along with another 1.3 attempts from within 10’. Add those two distance categories together, and there’s basically a 1 attempt per game difference between the paint activity of Boston’s main driver and Cleveland’s.
How about money? Yes, Shaq’s much more affordable to Boston since he’s on a veteran minimum contract. But had he not worked out for the Cavs, Shaq was a massive expiring contract that could’ve been a valuable trade chip had things not seemed to be working. As it stood, the Cavs held onto him and cleared $21MM in cap space in the process. So the financial argument doesn’t really hold up either.
Minutes? Shaq averaged 23.4 per game for the Cavs last season. With Kendrick Perkins out until at least December, Shaq likely projects as the starting Center and will probably play somewhere near that number. It may not last for the whole season, but it seems to me as though part of the reason they got him is to play big minutes during this opening stretch of the season. If he moves to the bench, though, Shaq will essentially replace Rasheed Wallace…who averaged 22.6 minutes per game for Boston.
What about age? Did Shaq age backwards in the past 365 days? Uh, no.
The final analysis here is simple: the Cavs and Celtics were more similar in their style of play than a lot of people chose to recognize. As a result, Shaq’s addition to the Celtics doesn’t realistically mean much different to what it meant for the Cavs. Instead, he stands as just another example of how different the same player can look to pundits when he’s standing by the Charles River rather than the Cuyahoga.
