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What's the adjusted +/- on 19 posts in 4 hours. ;-)

Crow...dude...you gots to get out more on a Saturday!!!

(just busting on you a little...no real harm meant!)

I guess the fewer stops made for more points.

The starting lineup was terrible against the Lakers in the playoffs and weak against the west and playoff teams in last regular season. It was ok overall compared to all lineups but compared to the 16 lineups used in the league over 5 minutes a game it ranked 12th on raw and Adjusted +/-. To be a successful team in the playoffs I think you probably need to have a very good biggest minute lineup. But I've said that more than a few times.

@f5alcon

I could go for that 2 starter-sub change. I was for it during last season but that specific change seems unlikely to be made this season, in part because they used it just 21 minutes all season. It did fantastic but if you don't test much, you don't know much solid.

If you look at their averages and assume constant returns regardless of pairing (a simplifying assumption which be not be true) it appears Green-Krstic probably gets a lot less stops than Ibaka-Collison. Collison-Krstic would be about halfway between them.

Ibaka getting either position by the second half of the season seems more likely. Change in 2011-12 seems inevitable, with options with Aldrich becoming more likely as well as or instead of with Ibaka.

Based on their average rates, the starting lineup is close to the lowest lineup you could assemble on these counted stops. Probably tougher to get against starters.

Looking at the net of offense and defense the starting lineup turned it over slightly more than the opponent and all other Thunder lineups on average turn it over slightly less. The starting lineup did slightly worse than all the rest at total rebounding and allowed more inside shots. It did slightly better at getting an edge on free throw attempts than other lineups.

The biggest thing the starters did well when together as a unit on defense compared to other lineups was they only gave up 47% eFG compared to about 49% for the average of all other lineups. They gave up about 3.5 more points per 100 possessions but that might be less than expected though against tougher opponents. Playing together a lot probably helped but that advantage could be available to another somewhat different combo as well.

@Crow
yeah based on that information I really think harden should start, provided that he works hard during training camp. Though to balance the lineup i would also bench green and start collison( i dont think ibaka will earn the starters role yet) even if he is a krstic like starter who comes out early and gets replaced by green halfway through the first.

Adjusted +/- thought well on Maynor's defense so either it was coming from impact on shot defense or error or both.

@f5alcon

Thanks for pointing that out.

82 games has them both allowing about 47% eFG to their counterpart SGs. Opponents actually try to shoot more on Thabo, probably because they are more often starters. Thabo gives up less foul shots per minute.

Team actually gives up 4 points less with Harden on the court at SG compared to Thabo on the court there but some of that comes from the help of other bench players and weaker opponents on average.

Thabo probably is better on D but hard to say for sure how much better. Defensive Adjusted +/- at the all-star break had Thabo a little better. Only way to truly know how much impact flipping the starter / sub roles would have is to try it at some point.

yeah its good im at work so i need some distraction

I've gone on longer a few times in the past, but I'm glad you found them worthwhile.

ok so taking out non rotation players collison and ibaka on top is no real surprise, however the fact that harden and thabo are about even, somewhat diminishes thabos value starting, though i believe he causes his opponents to shoot a lower fg% but on this stat harden is just as good.

And the winner for most comments in a single saturday post goes to .................

CROW!!!!!

But seriously good stuff I enjoyed reading them...

Thabo slightly above average, but this is not a major argument for him.

The best stoppers (by this count) get stops more than twice as often as the lowest.

Collison leads. White ties Ibaka's rate. Durant, Green and Westbrook are not leaders. A few guys are kinda low. The league average for this is about 2.1 per 40 minutes.

I temporarily forgot about the blocks recovered issue.

Assume 60% recovery for everyone (not knowing their personal%s) and the list goes to this

Player Name Stops Counted
Nick Collison 3.2
Kyle Weaver 2.9
S Livingston 2.9
D.J. White 2.7
Serge Ibaka 2.7
Etan Thomas 2.6
James Harden 2.5
Kevin Ollie 2.4
Thabo Sefolosha 2.3
Kevin Durant 2.1
Jeff Green 2.1
Russ Westbrook 2.0
Eric Maynor 1.7
Nenad Krstic 1.7
B.J. Mullens 1.4

Some people don't give much credit for defensive rebounds, some do. That is another element to stopping the other side from further attempts and points.

If you count blocks, steals and charges (per 40 minutes) and ignore other types of turnovers forced and turnover forced but credited to somebody else and ignore fouls, the team breaks down this way:

Strongest then down

Serge Ibaka 3.88
Nick Collison 3.67
Kyle Weaver 3.6
Etan Thomas 3.39
D.J. White 3.2
Shaun Livingston3.1
James Harden 2.65
Thabo Sefolosha 2.56
Kevin Durant 2.53
Jeff Green 2.48
Kevin Ollie 2.42
Russell Westbrook 2.19
Nenad Krstic 2.1
Eric Maynor 1.85
B.J. Mullens 1.43

I guess to be fair you'd need to consider the cost of free throws allowed and made going for steals, blocks and charges and during those allowed on the rest of plays.

You need both stops and good shot defense. The Thunder are very good on both.

Stops were about 5% lower in the last playoffs compared to the regular season.

@f5alcon

Not sure if Synergy counts tipped passes but if no, teams could and should themselves. Total "turnovers" forced or "stops" is an important part of defense.

The individual and help shot defense on the 80% of plays that aren't stopped is pretty important too.

But I guess in assessing the relative importance of the two you have to look at

the value of 0 pts allowed on maybe 20% of possessions stopped vs about 1.08 league average expected points

compared to

your points given up per possession that isn't a "stop" vs league average expected points on about 80% of possessions.

I guess the stops are the more valuable part most or all of the time.

They had 10 regular season games with 10+ blocks. 31 with 4 or less.

Last 3 champs were near average on regular season blocks.

Thunder last season were #1. But that was from getting about 6 a game while the average is now about 5.

this is why collison and his charges drawn are so valuable, they are resulting in a turnover.

assuming that 57% rate, collison would have had the equivalent of roughly 90 blocks.

maybe we need a turnovers generated statistic, which accounts for charges, blocks resulting in turnovers, tipped passes resulting in turnovers and steals created by the player(stealing a dribble, but not one created by a tipped pass, as that would be a tally for the other player that tipped it)

The champ had a much higher on regular season block rank in the first half of the last decade than they have had since. Random distribution or not I can't say for sure. The impact of changes in hand-checking enforcement may be making it easier for speedy guys to get going and get the shot up before the block gets there. The average number of blocks per team has fallen slowly but pretty steadily thru the decade for about a 8% drop. It is a factor, but only one element to a good defense.

The Thunder were slightly less likely to be blocked themselves than average in raw terms and a bit more so pace-adjusted.

10 playoff teams were above average on blocks (that is probably true for most stats) but only one of the final 4 were top 10 on blocks. In 08=09 it was 9 and 2.

On the other side, the threat of blocks helps.

Fouling is another cost of going for blocks beyond the extra points yielded on goal tends versus the no more than 70% FG% from anything put up and swatted other than a dunk attempt. When the offense gets the ball back after a block they probably have a pretty good FG% too.

I am not sure how good a strategy going for a lot of blocks is on average. But it is clearly now a priority to this team compared to others.

There is a gap between the best and worst but it of modest size. You can see the best and worst for '08-09 here.

http://sonicscentral.com/apbrmetrics/viewtopic.php...

loved serge block on gasol, thabo's block on kobe and thabos and 1 on kobe. Green had a great block there and kobe didnt even get a T. Bynum also didnt get a T when he went to green and bumped him with his chest. Fatass.

@Harry

Yeah, good points.

A study at 82 games a few years ago showed that only 57% of blocked shots are recovered by the defense.

Great watching these blocks. One thing it shows, though, is that not all blocks are created equal. A lot of these blocks do not result in a turnover. I remember reading something a while back saying that Tim Duncan's blocked shots are way more valuable than Dwight Howard's because Howard swats it out of bounds where as Duncan tries to knock it to a teammate. Point is, blocks are sweet, but that stat "Blocked Shots" doesn't always tell the whole story.

Yeah...great to watch! But, in this video it's obvious as well that the guys have trouble rebounding, that' why all those blocks were actually possible. We can only hope an improved Ibaka and especially Aldrich will help in the rebounding department.

Great video. Now I'm going to have to re-watch that whole game I saved on the DVR.

4 minutes of blocked shots from one game lol

One of those blocks by Durant on Gasol looked like a foul...oh well. A foul is what the refs call a foul, everything is not.

I can't wait for the season to start. 3 months seems sooo far away.

I still don't think I've recovered from Kobe throwing that punch at Green and not even getting a T.

This game was also Ibaka's coming out party, at least in terms of national recognition in the media, cool stuff.

I'm sure gonna miss Doug Collins calling games this season as well.

I want this kinda D every game!! Go THUNDER!!

@Matt
I was just thinking the same thing, poetry in motion.

I absolutely loved that 3 blocks in 1 possession. That was a pretty dominant block party.