Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009...10:44 am
ESPN Predicts the West
ESPN brought all of its basketball minds together to predict the West. They see the Spurs as the second best team in the conference. John Hollinger provides an opinion of his own, but he more or less sees it the same way.
Curiously, everyone expects the Blazers to run in step with the Spurs as the conference’s most likely candidate to usurp the Lakers. Regarding the Spurs, Hollinger takes a familiar approach:
Tim Duncan and Manu Ginobili both broke down at the end of last season and, at their age, one wonders if they can regain their previous form and sustain it through an entire season. Without knowing the answer to that major question, the Spurs merely rank as another of the West’s hopefuls.
I get so tired of the constant references to injury and age, but it’s hard to argue that the team’s proving ground lies elsewhere. It’s boring and it’s obvious, but it’s true. Spurs fans make it a matter of sport to hate on Hollinger, but who would argue that Manu Ginobili and Tim Duncan’s legs aren’t the biggest obstacles blocking the Spurs’ championship aspirations. Yes, even bigger than that forum blue behemoth on the coast.
In like manner, I think it’s right to put the Blazers in the heavy contention conversation. Quoting Hollinger again:
Yes, they went one-and-done in the playoffs, but this team should be better this time around. The Blazers added Andre Miller, vastly improving their backcourt depth, and returned Martell Webster from injury. The only departure was Channing Frye, who fell to the fringes of the rotation by the end of last season. Most importantly, one of the league’s youngest nuclei gained a valuable year of experience and cut its playoff teeth. Watch out for these guys.
Here’s something seldom noted, but accurate. The Lakers and the Spurs are particularly rattled by the Blazers. Kevin Durant is a pain in the Spurs’ ass, but no one is afraid of a postseason Thunder team. Durant bothers the Spurs because of his combination of athleticism and length. The Lakers and Blazers are built like Kevin Durant. They’re long and fast and can score from anywhere. I still see the Blazers as a notch below, but they’re ahead of the pack so far as scary monsters and superfreaks go.
It’s fashionable this year to re-kindle that old Eastern conference flame. The Celtics, Cavs and Magic are fantastic. But, you know, the West still has it all over East. Lakers, Spurs, Blazers, Mavericks, Hornets, Nuggets, and Jazz-that’s seven teams, if healthy, who could easily win 50 games. Atlanta, Miami, Chicago, Philadelphia and Washington? Not so much.
23 Comments
September 2nd, 2009 at 11:36 am
Throw in the Suns, who won 46 games last year without Amare, a Houston team that is scrappy, a revamped Clippers squad and everyone’s favorite darkhorse (thus, no longer making them a darkhorse by definition) the OKC Thunder, and the the East doesn’t have anything on the West…
September 2nd, 2009 at 12:22 pm
i’ve always loved hollinger, and lament not having espn insider anymore, preventing me from reading his portents and news.
i never understood spurs fans’ loathing. it seems to me those that hate have short memories. hollinger predicted the spurs’ 2007 title when no one else was willing to say they could win the conference.
if people are mad about what hollinger wrote regarding the spurs the last two seasons, i would point out that he was proven right in both cases.
September 2nd, 2009 at 1:04 pm
I think Philadelphia, although hurt by the loss of Miller, has a legit shot at winning 50 games. Maybe even Washington too if everything goes right, but the West still dominates. Go Spurs.
September 2nd, 2009 at 1:13 pm
It’s a fair question to ask (whether Duncan and Ginobili can hold up throughout an 82 game season), but why is no one asking this about Garnett? O’Neal? Even Bryant, though he hasn’t shown the signs of breaking down or having a significant injury like the others, his overall wear and tear at 31 is more than any player in the history of the game. The past 2 years he’s played with very little down time and at some point it will begin to catch up to him, yet the media acts as if he’s invincible.
As for the Blazers, they remind me of the ’07 Hornets (only with more upside). Whether they have home court or not, and I doubt they will, I see the Spurs experience prevailing.
September 2nd, 2009 at 3:00 pm
I just don’t get how the Spurs get called old or aging, but fans and espn analysts act like other players don’t age. Its weird.
No one knows what will happen, but if we can avoid season ending injuries I’d say that puts us in the top 3 for title contenders (Lakers, Celtics, Spurs). That’s a big if, but you know what, the injury bug can hit anyone at any time.
September 2nd, 2009 at 3:16 pm
I don’t understand why anyone has a problem with Hollinger. His system, perhaps. Him? No. His predictions, opinions, etc are based on numbers. While he did develop his system, it wasn’t with any personal bias against any team.
It always amazes me when people comment to him about how he “hates” their favorite team just because his system doesn’t predict them to be better than that person thinks their team should be.
Hollinger might be the only ESPN analyst that doesn’t include personal bias in any of his predictions.
September 2nd, 2009 at 4:32 pm
Any time in the past when I’ve said I don’t like Hollinger, I’ve referred to his system / him as an analyst, not that I don’t like Hollinger as a person. I’m sure that’s what every one else means when they say that too.
The reason I don’t like his system is because you can make numbers say whatever you want. Look at his per and the numbers he uses. You have to log what, like 6.whatever minutes a game to get a per? How did he figure that number? Than when he says things like, “I’m going to say 15 is the average per for a player.”
NO
What you do is, take every players per, add them together, than divide them by the number of players and THAT is your average per. You don’t just pick a random number, say that sounds good for what an average player should rate, than say so and so is great because they are +10 to the average per or so and so isn’t worth the money because they are -5 to the average per.
Plus he put Manu on his all nba decline team in 2007, soooo
lol
Its kind of like with horoscopes, say enough general stuff all the time and eventually you’ll get a few right by chance
September 2nd, 2009 at 4:47 pm
duaneofly, your argument about arbitrary numbers such as how many minutes a player has to log to get a per is a fair argument to make.
however, your argument against setting 15 as the average for players is faulty. currently i am a math major. trust me when i say, it doesnt matter what the “average” is. regardless whether the average is 15 or 15000, player A will always have a better score than player B.
he sets a definitive average so that readers can compare the player to the average. for example, if there is a player with PER 16, you can deduce that he is slightly better than the average player - according to Hollinger’s system. which, you don’t trust. but, to argue against the average set at 15 is a faulty argument.
September 2nd, 2009 at 5:18 pm
As someone said above, the Spurs are the only old team to the media. The Celtics are old, but no one mentions that?
September 2nd, 2009 at 5:32 pm
Drew, you’re right, when comparing Lebron’s 26 per to Paul Pierce’s 21 per, the average doesn’t matter, only those two player’s per matters.
But when I read articles on espn/truehoop, and other people’s blogs, and they rip a player for having a below average per, but no one knows what the actual average is, that is what bothers me. Do you understand that? If a person is going to say a player sucks or isn’t worth the money or whatever, simply because their per is below average, you better damn well know what the actual average per is.
Hollinger saying “I think 15 is the average per” is not the actual average.
Instead of setting a definitive average, Hollinger could easily set it up to add all the pers, divide by the players, get the real average per, and post that with his articles. Than I can look and say, the average per is 13.68, and George Hill’s per is 14.28, he’s slightly above average.
September 2nd, 2009 at 7:00 pm
rye,
Regarding Kobe getting hurt. I’m not one to jinx my favorite player, but if there is one thing to be said about the truly elite players, it is the aversion to injury. Players like Jordan and Kobe don’t really get hurt. It is due to their incredible work ethic, diet and basic dedication to the game. Obviously things like genes also have a say
Also, this Kobe at 31 has more mileage on him than anyone else is…well just wrong. It is true that he has more NBA minutes on him, but so what. Does the body know the difference between NBA minutes or college minutes or playing on the playground minutes? Kobe came straight from High School, so of course he’ll have more NBA minutes on his record, but player like Duncan who didn’t come straight from high school, did they really play any less basketball? I mean, you’re not counting Duncan’s time playing college ball as mileage. Also at 17-22, these kids are ALWAYS playing. Do you think Duncan at age 20 wasn’t playing basketball basically 12 hours per day? Whether it was training, on the court for college ball, or just as the playground. Kobe has the same mileage as any 31 year old player. But Kobe also has the work ethic and dedication to make sure that he is alway at 100% health.
There is a reason that the less dedicated players always are the ones tending to get injured. Also, Kobe’s body type decreases his chances at injury. He is highly athletic, but also light relative to his strength. This reduces strain. He is also incredibly flexible, which reduces injuries.
Not to mention that if you want to Spurs to win, do you really want them to win while Kobe is injured? Wouldn’t it be sooo much sweeter to have all the teams healthy? That’s how you see the best basketball.
September 2nd, 2009 at 7:17 pm
duanofly,
I don’t like Hollinger’s PER system either. The reason is obvious, the more possession a specific individual uses up, the higher the PER is going to be. If someone is strictly a playmaker their PER suffers greatly. For instance, a big Laker “play” during these last playoffs was simply Kobe posting up. He would post, wait until the double team comes, then pass out of the double team. The ball would usually then get swung around for an open shot, or someone would get an open lane and drive. Either way, unless Kobe passed it to the shooter, Kobe would get no PER points even though it was him making the play (getting the double team). PER basically measures how many times you use up possessions as points and assists are highly valued. So if Lebron James uses up 40% of the Cavs possessions, dominating the ball, he will get many more points/assists than someone who uses 20% of their teams possessions, even if the 20% guy is far more efficient and thus the better play.
Also, all these statistical models measure actual production. But raw production is meaningless. It is the quality of production which really matters. Is a 3pt shot by joe shmo in game 1 of a playoff series, when that team is down by 25 points, worth the same as Derik Fisher hitting that 3pt shot in game 4 of the NBA finals with 5 seconds to go, in order to send the game into overtime? I think Bill Russell once said, it’s not how many you score but when you score them.
September 2nd, 2009 at 7:22 pm
duonfly,
I must agree with Drew. 15 is the ACTUAL average. If you take all the PER’s in the league and divide them by the number of players, you will get 15 as the average PER. hollingers has set up his system so it is GARAUNTEED to get 15 as the average. And 15 is an arbitrary number. There is no difference if it is 15 or 30. He selected 15, and makes sure that’s what the average is.
He does this in order to give numbers an anchor. If the average fluctuated around, one day 10 and another day 15, then you’d first have to find the average and then compare the players. This way you always know that the average will be 15, so you can compare instantly. The point of the PER system is that it’s relative. PER points have no meaning. It is just a way to measure someone vs someone else
September 2nd, 2009 at 8:14 pm
NBA minutes are more thorough though, because the season is significantly longer than in college. You don’t play roughly 20 back-to-backs a year in college, or 3 games in 4 nights, or 4 games in 5 nights, or 5 games in 7 nights, or 82 games total spread throughout about 6 months plus another 1-2 months for the playoffs (remember, he’s been to 6 Finals) tacked on after that.
At his age, there probably isn’t anyone in the history of the game even close to the amount of mileage he has, save for possibly Magic.
Also, practicing in an empty gym for a couple of hours most days isn’t the same grind physically (or mentally, for that matter) that a long NBA season is. Bryant has said it himself (to paraphrase) “it ain’t the age, it’s the mileage”.
It’s not about wanting him or anyone injured, it’s just that he’s due. I don’t care how committed he is (you don’t think Duncan is as committed as him? Yet the miles on his body are beginning to catch up to him), on top of “good genes” and everything else, it’s bound to happen at some point. You can say it didn’t to Jordan, but he only played 15 years, and had two breaks during his career. Bryant has already played 13 seasons, and has had no such break.
September 2nd, 2009 at 8:42 pm
One little note,
The Wizards will likely be a 50+ wins team…the team is free of injury (that means Wizards of 06) and added Mike Miller and Randy Foye
September 2nd, 2009 at 10:07 pm
Kaveh said, “Not to mention that if you want to Spurs to win, do you really want them to win while Kobe is injured? Wouldn’t it be sooo much sweeter to have all the teams healthy? That’s how you see the best basketball.”
I’ve yet to see one post by Kaveh lamenting, complaining, or remorseful about the fact the Lakers won a championship when Garnett was hurt, Jameer Nelson was hurt, or Ginobili was hurt.
Not One!
September 3rd, 2009 at 5:22 pm
I hate to say it, but Hollinger has a point. This time last year, the Lakers were the favorites to win the West, because they had returned their finals lineup and it was assumed that Ariza and Bynum would be solid when healthy. The Spurs had a chance to challenge with a healthy Manu, but when he got hurt at the Olympics, it really looked like no one could step up and match the Lakers..hence analysts had them running away with the conference.
Now obviously they are the team to beat, and I have no doubt in my mind that the Spurs have more than enough to beat LA, its not “LA is gonna run away with it” this year. And with the Blazers young core getting some much needed experience in last year’s playoffs and the Mavs getting some weapons, the road to the top of the West will be that much more difficult.
September 3rd, 2009 at 5:26 pm
And regarding Kobe and injury. It’s not like injury just comes after people. Injury is unfortunate, and it isn’t so black and white. It strikes big and small, near and far. So the fact that Kobe not suffering a major injury could be a mixture of dedication, hard work keeping himself in shape and some good fortune. The same can be said about Bruce Bowen, he played in over 500 consecutive games for the Spurs, in his upper 30′s, and although he doesn’t have as much mileage as Kobe, he still was fortunate enough not to get hurt
September 3rd, 2009 at 7:04 pm
lvmainman,
But did i lament and complain about the Lakers being forced to play the 2008 NBA finals with 2 of their starters out due to injury? Andrew Bynum and Trevor Ariza were both injured during the entire 2008 playoffs. Andrew Bynum was even injured during this last year’s playoffs, although he played injured (got back with 4 games to go in the regular season).
Anyway, we would not have won it in 2009 if both Ariza and Bynum were injured. Yet in 2008 we still made it to the NBA finals with those 2 injured. I’m telling you this seriously, I am 99% positive that the Lakers would have won in 2008 if both Ariza and Bynum were playing. Do you want me to tell you how pissed I was seeing Vlade Rodmanavich and Luke Walton covering Paul Pierce in the 2008 finals?
If it weren’t for those 2 injuries then we would have already won a back to back, both 2008 and 2009.
And 2009 you guys had no chance. Let’s be serious for a moment. Do you think that if Manu was healthy you guys would have beaten the Lakers? C’mon man. I highly doubt a healthy Manu would have turned last year’s squad from getting bounced in the 1st round to Dallas, who lost to Denver, who then lost to the Lakers, into a championship team.
Also, regarding the Magic last year, sure Jameer was hurt at the end of the season. Yet he still played in all of the NBA finals games. Of course he wasn’t 100%. But then again, Andrew Bynum was also injured at the end of last year. He came back when the playoffs began. And no, he was not himself, at all. He looked like a scrub out there. Why? The guy was playing on 1 leg. He was still injured and had not regained even 50% of his form. He was incredibly rusty as well.
Bynum is a bigger loss than Jameer. Especially since Jameer had Alston as his backup. Alston was a darn good PG. With a healthy Bynum, he could have played the majority of minutes at the C and Gasol at the PF. Instead, due to Bynum’s horrible play, it was Gasol at the C most of the time. And Odom at the PF. With a healthy Bynum, Odom can always slip to the SF position, and we have an incredibly huge and explosive lineup.
September 3rd, 2009 at 7:08 pm
Rye,
I completely disagree. You guys are counting NBA minutes fully and not counting college minutes at all. Furthermore, do you really think that training for these guys at age 17-22 is shooting a few shots by yourself in the gym for 2 hours a day? These guys are working on their games at all times. Usually it is in full on play. Most players play college, but also play summer leagues, tourneys, and most of all, every day they run basketball on the court in pick up games. At their age, basketball is their life. They play at all hours of the day. Heck, I remember when i was 17 i’d play all day during non-school hours. Whether it was basketball or some other game.
It is just an invalid argument to only count NBA minutes as “mileage.” You need to count all minutes.
September 4th, 2009 at 8:59 pm
A minor point of clarification on PER — 15 is in fact the average performance for each season. From Hollinger’s explanation of PER (http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/columns/story?columnist=hollinger_john&id=2850240):
“I set the league average in PER to 15.00 every season.”
I don’t know exactly how Hollinger does this, but in statistics, we generally refer to what he’s doing as normalizing the data. He’s forcing the mean to be the number that he wants it to be by tweaking the metric in some way (for example, adding or subtracting a constant number from everyone’s score for a given season), and stat geeks generally find this practice to be kosher.
September 9th, 2009 at 5:56 am
Kaveh, you’re clueless and so wrong. Anyone can get hurt in the NBA regardless of how fit and in shape you are. A knee (MCL or ACL) can end a season for anyone including Kobe Bryant. Everyone is human. Playing hurt in the NBA is common too. Minutes played and wear and tear is also a major consideration in fatigue and injury possibilities. So don’t give me this idiotic reasoning of never getting hurt due to well conditioning. Hogwash dude! The Celtics and Spurs went to the playoffs without their best player last year. If Kobe gets injured the Lakers do NOT make the playoffs. Plain and simple.
October 5th, 2009 at 1:47 pm
15 is the mean league PER performance. It is not the player median. The player median is around 12-13. The best players playing more minutes bump the mean performance up to 15.
Leave a Reply