Who is the most overrated team in the East this year ?

[Puffer]

Quick consideration of why BOS's off-season was not as great as some think:

Team | OREB% rank | DREB% rank
BOS | 10th (25.1%) | 25th (74.6%)
ATL | 30th | 26th

Player | OREB% | DREB%
Jared Sullinger | 10.6% | 27.0%
Al Horford | 6.3% | 18.2%

If we expect everyone else on the team to rebound at roughly the same rate, then for the part of the game where Sully played last season, this means a drop off of 4.3% in OREB's and 8.8% in defensive rebounds. Sully played almost exactly half of the game (23.6 MPG) so the team numbers should be impacted by 2.1% and 4.4%. That leaves them at roughly 23% and 70%. Those would have ranked 23rd and 30th (by a mile) last season. This all assumes any minutes Horford plays beyond 24 MPG he is replacing someone who is as poor a rebounder as he is, a generous assumption.

If we are really generous, we say that other players stepping up halves that impact, and they end up at 24% and 72%. That would be 15th and 30th (by less margin).

More directly, it shifts their ORTG and DRTG. If last season, the Celtics had an OREB% of 25.1%, and an ORTG of 106.8, it means they really scored 106.8 points per 125.1 plays (where 25.1 of those was after an offensive rebound). Ignoring the increased efficiency after a rebound (to be generous), that means this year, if they make no improvements to their offence (wait on this, I know Horford will help here), they will score 106.8 points per 125.1 plays as well. But instead of getting 125.1 plays per 100 possessions, they will get 124. Meaning their new ORTG is 105.9.

So already, any offensive improvement Horford brings to the team is suppressed by 0.9 PPC (points per 100 possessions) as the decreased offensive rebounding will counteract some of that.

Same logic for DRTG. With a 74.6% DREB%, it means the 103.6 DRTG they had was actually 103.6 points allowed over 100 possessions - but 25.4% of those possessions were two plays (one where the first play failed and there was an offensive board to start the next one). So they really allowed 103.6 points in 125.4 plays. This year, they will (again, assuming no change to their defence) allow 103.6 points per 125.4 plays, but the opposition will get more plays per 100 possessions. So the new DRTG works out to 105.7. That's a pretty huge 2.1 PPC hit on the defensive end.

So right away, any defensive improvement from Horford is counteracted by 2.1 points per 100 possessions.

Remember, this is all with the fairly generous assumptions that a) Horford's minutes beyond 24 MPG will not represent a drop off in rebounding as well, only his 24 MPG replacing Sully, and that b) various BOS players will rebound better without Sully there grabbing up all the boards, and as such the apparent drop in rebounding from Sully to Horford will be cut in half, and that c) rebounding loss only impacts possession count, and not efficiency differences after a rebound, even though offensive putbacks and transition plays off of defensive rebounds are definitely high-efficiency plays. A lot of generosity there, and we are still looking at a 3 PPC hit to Horford's impact right out of the gate. That's a big hit to overcome.

Another way to look at it: to maintain (not improve, maintain) their ORTG and DRTG from last season, but with worse rebounding rates, they will need to effectively play with a ORTG of 107.7 and a DRTG of 101.5 (scoring rate, not considering rebound rates). That would be a 2 spot jump in ORTG rankings and a 2 spot jump in DRTG rankings, to the 9th and 2nd best ORTG and DRTG respectively. That's just to counteract the rebounding rate. Or, to look at it another way, if they don't see improved offence and defence because of Horford, and score and defend at the same rate while giving up more rebounds, they would sit at an ORTG and DRTG of 105.9 and 105.7. That's a pythagorean win expectation of 41.5 wins.

Point being, I don't think nearly enough is being made of the rebounding situation in BOS and they will struggle to take a significant step forward even if Horford does consistently help them improve their scoring and defending.

And that's why you are Dan The Man!

[Niagara Raptor]

Dan H your post was informative and insightful ... so please stop it, your making the rest of us amateurs look bad

[Uncle_Si]

Dan H your post was informative and insightful ... so please stop it, your making the rest of us amateurs look bad

I like tater tots.

[MangoKid]

The Knicks. Far and away. They're hyping it up like it's some sort of super team. Don't know how Rose and Carmelo are going to work together.

Bulls are second. That Rondo-Wade-Butler combination is awful.

Sent from my LG-H901 using Tapatalk

[golden]

The Knicks. Far and away. They're hyping it up like it's some sort of super team. Don't know how Rose and Carmelo are going to work together.

Bulls are second. That Rondo-Wade-Butler combination is awful.

Sent from my LG-H901 using Tapatalk

But has anybody except Derrick Rose called the Knicks a Super Team, though? It's pretty much an open joke around the league. ESPN pre-season Power Rankings has the Knicks at #21, which is hard to call them overrated at that position.

[ebrian]

Wouldn't the Knicks need to be rated highly in order to be considered overrated? I haven't seen any Eastern Conference predictions or NBA power rankings that have rated the Knicks high. CBS has them #20 in the league, ESPN's pre-season rankings have them at 21st. That's not overrated at all.

The Celtics are going to be an obvious choice, but they addressed a huge need at power forward. You can argue advanced stats and chemistry but PF was an obvious need which they filled. They won 66% of their games in 2016 last season. I remember a fewa years ago when Raptors won a lot of games down the stretch and the next season we were still rated low and we ended up being very good. I think it's fair to have Boston as the 3rd best team in the east so I'm going against the grain in saying they aren't overrated.

Both of the above rankings have Raptors at 5th overall, 2nd best Eastern team, despite us really not doing much of anything in the summer. Personally I think we're a bit overrated.

Darkhorse for overrated Eastern team for me would be the Pacers, who got better but were really still a bottom seed last year. Jeff Teague was a great addition but I'm lukewarm on Al Jefferson and Thaddeus Young. I'd be very surprised if that team finished 4th in the East like many pundits are predicting.

[DanH]

Wouldn't the Knicks need to be rated highly in order to be considered overrated? I haven't seen any Eastern Conference predictions or NBA power rankings that have rated the Knicks high. CBS has them #20 in the league, ESPN's pre-season rankings have them at 21st. That's not overrated at all.

The Celtics are going to be an obvious choice, but they addressed a huge need at power forward. You can argue advanced stats and chemistry but PF was an obvious need which they filled. They won 66% of their games in 2016 last season. I remember a fewa years ago when Raptors won a lot of games down the stretch and the next season we were still rated low and we ended up being very good. I think it's fair to have Boston as the 3rd best team in the east so I'm going against the grain in saying they aren't overrated.

Both of the above rankings have Raptors at 5th overall, 2nd best Eastern team, despite us really not doing much of anything in the summer. Personally I think we're a bit overrated.

Darkhorse for overrated Eastern team for me would be the Pacers, who got better but were really still a bottom seed last year. Jeff Teague was a great addition but I'm lukewarm on Al Jefferson and Thaddeus Young. I'd be very surprised if that team finished 4th in the East like many pundits are predicting.

When the Raps won a lot down the stretch in 2013-14 they ended up with an almost identical record the following year (a far cry from their winning rate down said stretch) and got swept in the first round.

Why would not doing much rank us lower than 5th? No one behind us really made any real ground, with the possible exception of BOS (which I personally doubt). And we were 4th last year, and 2nd in the East.

[slaw]

If we expect everyone else on the team to rebound at roughly the same rate, then for the part of the game where Sully played last season, this means a drop off of 4.3% in OREB's and 8.8% in defensive rebounds. Sully played almost exactly half of the game (23.6 MPG) so the team numbers should be impacted by 2.1% and 4.4%. That leaves them at roughly 23% and 70%. Those would have ranked 23rd and 30th (by a mile) last season. This all assumes any minutes Horford plays beyond 24 MPG he is replacing someone who is as poor a rebounder as he is, a generous assumption

I guess I would ask: why would we expect everyone else to rebound at exactly the same rate they did last season? That seems like a massive assumption that, well, can't possibly be correct. Can it? Wouldn't the fact that their new DRB% would be 70% - miles lower than anyone else - give us a hint that there's probably something going on?

It's just hard for me to imagine that Sullinger was getting that many rebounds that no one else could possibly get, which is what we'd have to believe to see this kind of impact. I mean, Ben Wallace is considered one of the best rebounders of all time but his departure had no impact whatsoever on Detroit's rebounding numbers and he was replaced by a cripple and two mediocre versions of himself.

[DanH]

I guess I would ask: why would we expect everyone else to rebound at exactly the same rate they did last season? That seems like a massive assumption that, well, can't possibly be correct. Can it? Wouldn't the fact that their new DRB% would be 70% - miles lower than anyone else - give us a hint that there's probably something going on?

It's just hard for me to imagine that Sullinger was getting that many rebounds that no one else could possibly get, which is what we'd have to believe to see this kind of impact. I mean, Ben Wallace is considered one of the best rebounders of all time but his departure had no impact whatsoever on Detroit's rebounding numbers and he was replaced by a cripple and two mediocre versions of himself.

Did you read the whole post? We start assuming that, but then later assume that half of the apparent impact is eliminated by other players rebounding more.

Wallace was a very good rebounder, but by no stretch was he in "best ever" territory. And he was already declining significantly by the time he left DET.

[guyroch]

I would have liked to see the Raptors and the Cavs as choices, not saying I would have chosen one of them, but I think they could be in the mix.

Cavs assume are penciled in as 1st in the conference but I think motivation and over confidence and resting of Lebron may result
in a season which this team may not reach the 50 win mark ..

[Vykis]

Cavs assume are penciled in as 1st in the conference but I think motivation and over confidence and resting of Lebron may result
in a season which this team may not reach the 50 win mark ..

The Cavs dont need the number one seed to win it all (if healthy) that being said, if Lebron doesnt get injured for a veeeeery long period, there's no way the Cavs fall under 50W

[slaw]

Did you read the whole post? We start assuming that, but then later assume that half of the apparent impact is eliminated by other players rebounding more.

Wallace was a very good rebounder, but by no stretch was he in "best ever" territory. And he was already declining significantly by the time he left DET.

Why half? Why not 80% or 20%? Why not 100%? So, just for argument's sake let's say Boston got 10 rebounds last year our of a possible 10 rebounds. Sullinger got 4. Sullinger leaves. Boston gets 8 rebounds now out of those possible 10. How do we know that they won't get all 10? Why is it that only Sullinger can get those 2 rebounds?

The Wallace example was simply to suggest that unless we know how many rebounds a team would not have gotten but for a specific player being on the floor, it's pretty hard to start say a team's rebounding will suffer without that player. Now, I have no idea how you possibly do that, but assuming half his impact won't be replaced is just guesswork.

You may be right about the results, I'm just not sure the reasoning is sound....

[DanH]

Why half? Why not 80% or 20%? Why not 100%? So, just for argument's sake let's say Boston got 10 rebounds last year our of a possible 10 rebounds. Sullinger got 4. Sullinger leaves. Boston gets 8 rebounds now out of those possible 10. How do we know that they won't get all 10? Why is it that only Sullinger can get those 2 rebounds?

The Wallace example was simply to suggest that unless we know how many rebounds a team would not have gotten but for a specific player being on the floor, it's pretty hard to start say a team's rebounding will suffer without that player. Now, I have no idea how you possibly do that, but assuming half his impact won't be replaced is just guesswork.

You may be right about the results, I'm just not sure the reasoning is sound....

Yeah, it was just a rough number. It's a fair question. But surely your logic is not that good rebounders are valueless to team rebounding.

If we instead use Sully's on-off court splits (how well the Celts rebounded with him on and off the court) and Horford's, that's another way to look at it. So, how much better were the Celts with Sully than without him, and how much better were the Hawks with Horford than without him? Using this method we are literally looking at how the team did without each player, to try to show how the team would do if they weren't there. Obviously there are muddying factors, but it's one more approach that probably holds more water than guessing a recovery percentage.

Sully (+1.6% OREB, +0.7% DREB)
Horford (-3.2% OREB, +0.0% DREB)

So, if Horford makes his team's rebounding 3.2% worse offensively and breaks even defensively, and Sully makes his team 1.6% better offensively and 0.7% better defensively, then in theory the impact is 4.8% offensively and 0.7% defensively. That's a 5.5% total impact, far more than the 3.7% I assumed the first time through.

If you compare to the raw individual numbers (4.3% offensive REB difference, 8.8% DREB difference), that suggests that most of an individual player's offensive rebounding impact is described by their individual offensive rebounding numbers (ie, removing that player means that the team will struggle to replace that production) while most of the DREB difference is washed out by the team's ability to gang rebound and general defensive system, though not entirely of course.

If I re-do the ORTG and DRTG numbers from the first time through but with that more significant OREB swing and with the suppressed DREB swing, they come out like this:

OREB% impact: -4.8%/2 (divided by two as we are again assuming only half the game is impacted)
DREB% impact: -0.7%/2
Original OREB%: 25.1%
Original DREB%: 74.6%
New OREB%: 22.7%
New DREB%: 74.2% (25.8 Opp OREB%)

Old ORTG: 106.8
Old DRTG: 103.6
New ORTG: 104.8
New DRTG: 103.9

That also shows a significant swing, especially offensively (obviously, as OREB had a far bigger change). It means they effectively need to play with a superpowered 108.8 ORTG to just maintain their offence (while their defence is not impacted much, need a 103.3 to maintain, still solid but not great).

Again though, I point to all the other very conservative assumptions I tried to include, specifically that this impact would be restricted to Sully's 24 minutes, even though Horford is a lock to play 30+.

In any case, using RPM and BPM to guess what Horford's impact could be over 48 minutes pegs him at (+0.9/48 ORPM, +2.1/48 DRPM; +1.5 OBPM/48, +2.6 DBPM/48), and Sully's (+0.3/48 ORPM, +2.5/48 DRPM ; -1.2/48 OBPM, +2.6/48 DBPM), and figure 30 minutes of Horford impact and remove 24 minutes of Sully's (this generously assumed the additional 6 minutes of playing time Horford is taking are net zero minutes), we can guess what that impact will be. Obviously lots of muddy water here with system and role, but it's a starting point.

Horford's average impact per 48: +1.2 ORTG, +2.4 DRTG
Sully's average impact per 48: -0.4 ORTG, +2.5 DRTG

Horford's impact in 30 MPG: +0.75 ORTG, +1.5 DRTG
Sully's lost impact in 24 MPG: -0.2 ORTG, +1.25 DRTG

Net impact: +1 ORTG, +0.25 DRTG

Note that the predicted needs from the REB analysis suggest that it would have to be on the order of +2 ORTG and +0.3 DRTG impacts to wash out the rebounding deficit. So at the least we can say that unless Horford has a significantly better impact with BOS than he did with ATL, BOS will struggle to make a leap forward based on the rebounding problem they created in upgrading offensively and defensively (slightly). And he might indeed have a significantly better impact, but we should understand that last year's Horford is not necessarily a windfall improvement for them.

[Ebonhawke]

The Cavs dont need the number one seed to win it all (if healthy) that being said, if Lebron doesnt get injured for a veeeeery long period, there's no way the Cavs fall under 50W

I actually think that the Cavaliers' team (as currently constructed) has a very real shot at falling below 50 wins, as they lost significant depth this off-season

They currently have Birdman and Frye as experienced front-court depth - that's it. Teams can attack that lack of depth to good effect, which should cause some foul problems and match-up difficulties. For teams that have a balance of good big men, and talented outside shooters (such as Denver), this could cause the Cavs' defense to collapse to the paint, opening up the three point line.

Handling back-up point guard duties will be rookie Kay Felder along with Jordan McRae and Iman Shumpert (Mo Williams has retired). Yes, Lebron can handle distributing the ball, but a lot of teams would rather have Lebron as a distributor, rather than someone who is attacking and driving the rim. Having Lebron as the distributor will also mean significant minutes with only one of Kyrie or Lebron on the floor, rather than both.

Currently, J.R. Smith remains unsigned. Without J.R. Smith hanging out around the 3-point line, it allows that defender to assist in defending Kyrie's drives, or double down on Love in the post. The Cavs have brought in Mike Dunleavy, but while he can shoot the 3, he traditionally has shot only 3-4 three's per game, whereas JR has shot 6-7

[psrs1]

Quick consideration of why BOS's off-season was not as great as some think:

Team | OREB% rank | DREB% rank
BOS | 10th (25.1%) | 25th (74.6%)
ATL | 30th | 26th

Player | OREB% | DREB%
Jared Sullinger | 10.6% | 27.0%
Al Horford | 6.3% | 18.2%

If we expect everyone else on the team to rebound at roughly the same rate, then for the part of the game where Sully played last season, this means a drop off of 4.3% in OREB's and 8.8% in defensive rebounds. Sully played almost exactly half of the game (23.6 MPG) so the team numbers should be impacted by 2.1% and 4.4%. That leaves them at roughly 23% and 70%. Those would have ranked 23rd and 30th (by a mile) last season. This all assumes any minutes Horford plays beyond 24 MPG he is replacing someone who is as poor a rebounder as he is, a generous assumption.

If we are really generous, we say that other players stepping up halves that impact, and they end up at 24% and 72%. That would be 15th and 30th (by less margin).

More directly, it shifts their ORTG and DRTG. If last season, the Celtics had an OREB% of 25.1%, and an ORTG of 106.8, it means they really scored 106.8 points per 125.1 plays (where 25.1 of those was after an offensive rebound). Ignoring the increased efficiency after a rebound (to be generous), that means this year, if they make no improvements to their offence (wait on this, I know Horford will help here), they will score 106.8 points per 125.1 plays as well. But instead of getting 125.1 plays per 100 possessions, they will get 124. Meaning their new ORTG is 105.9.

So already, any offensive improvement Horford brings to the team is suppressed by 0.9 PPC (points per 100 possessions) as the decreased offensive rebounding will counteract some of that.

Same logic for DRTG. With a 74.6% DREB%, it means the 103.6 DRTG they had was actually 103.6 points allowed over 100 possessions - but 25.4% of those possessions were two plays (one where the first play failed and there was an offensive board to start the next one). So they really allowed 103.6 points in 125.4 plays. This year, they will (again, assuming no change to their defence) allow 103.6 points per 125.4 plays, but the opposition will get more plays per 100 possessions. So the new DRTG works out to 105.7. That's a pretty huge 2.1 PPC hit on the defensive end.

So right away, any defensive improvement from Horford is counteracted by 2.1 points per 100 possessions.

Remember, this is all with the fairly generous assumptions that a) Horford's minutes beyond 24 MPG will not represent a drop off in rebounding as well, only his 24 MPG replacing Sully, and that b) various BOS players will rebound better without Sully there grabbing up all the boards, and as such the apparent drop in rebounding from Sully to Horford will be cut in half, and that c) rebounding loss only impacts possession count, and not efficiency differences after a rebound, even though offensive putbacks and transition plays off of defensive rebounds are definitely high-efficiency plays. A lot of generosity there, and we are still looking at a 3 PPC hit to Horford's impact right out of the gate. That's a big hit to overcome.

Another way to look at it: to maintain (not improve, maintain) their ORTG and DRTG from last season, but with worse rebounding rates, they will need to effectively play with a ORTG of 107.7 and a DRTG of 101.5 (scoring rate, not considering rebound rates). That would be a 2 spot jump in ORTG rankings and a 2 spot jump in DRTG rankings, to the 9th and 2nd best ORTG and DRTG respectively. That's just to counteract the rebounding rate. Or, to look at it another way, if they don't see improved offence and defence because of Horford, and score and defend at the same rate while giving up more rebounds, they would sit at an ORTG and DRTG of 105.9 and 105.7. That's a pythagorean win expectation of 41.5 wins.

Point being, I don't think nearly enough is being made of the rebounding situation in BOS and they will struggle to take a significant step forward even if Horford does consistently help them improve their scoring and defending.

Hey DanH you are one of the most knislegeable posters on those site but do you think you might want to reconsider your preseason assessment of Celtics?