How much have the Spurs improved from last season?

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Last week I spoke with Brian Kamenetzky about the state of the Spurs. One of the comments from that exchange was picked and developed by Pounding the Rock. The result is a terrific post which attempts to quantify how much better the Spurs are this season compared to last. Â Here’s a tease:

The improvement is so consistent across the board, both starters and bench, that the team AWS and PER have increased by 20.32% and 11.89%, respectively, and both are tops in the league. Now Tim Varner may not have been entirely accurate that each position has increased production, but the team as a whole has improved by over 10%. So, I’m going to bump Tim’s hypothesis up to “theory” status. And despite what the “experts” might say, our record is indicative of our play and shouldn’t be ignored.

Fancy charts and stuff over at PtR.

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  • ITGuy

    Data lust; being a data analyst myself, I think that’s a pretty cool term though data has never satiated me. Mind if I borrow it?

    Go Spurs Go!!

  • http://www.bpifanconnect.com Alix Babaie

    Anyone with a hoops IQ will tell you that the team has improved by leaps & bounds over what they were from last season. In addition, RJ, Dice & Blair have all had that 1 year learning curve, everyone is healthy & Gary Neal is playing balls out better than anyone could have ever imagined.

    The one thing that can’t be quantified is the fact that this team now has SUPREME confidence that they can whip anyone in this league…..that is a trait that has not been around since the 2005 title.

    1999 was borne from the Elliott 3 to beat Portland, 2003 was the result of Jackson shooting lights out and 2007 was the fact that we clearly were better than Cleveland but that 2005 season where we were stronger than all but Detroit and had to fight to the end against a very strong Pistons team…this 2010-11 Spurs team reminds me of that one except that they actually have MUCH MORE DEPTH.

    For all of the folks that come on here and complain about our front court being somewhat smallish - I think chemistry and playing within Pop’s system is going to overshadow that single deficiency.

    From where I am sitting, teams need to be better prepared to face our strengths as opposed to our team needing to make the adjustments.

    This team is simply stomping everyone’s nuts in and I couldn’t be prouder. They demolished KD and OKC the other night and we have not even gotten to the RRR in February.

    If the big 3 are not all All Stars next month than the ASW is nothing but bullshit.

  • ITGuy

    @Timothy Varner
    you updated the article and now my first comment makes no sense!!

    Go Spurs Go!!

  • DorieStreet

    All Star voting, like MLB and the Pro Bowl, is somewhat a popularity contest (was it last year that Allen Iverson led the voting while not being on a team?). Most fans vote for their favorite player or team’s players instead of looking at all teams- but that is human nature. I much rather Tim’s streak of being All-NBA continue, even if he just makes 3rd team, but I feel it will stop this year- unless we come in 1st in the western conference and TD gets back to at least 18 pts. / 10 rbs. per game. The most glaring problem with the whole allstar concept is that each major sports league has 30 teams (NFL - 32). With that many squads, there will always be players worthy of the honor that will not get selected. I would change the format to this: expanded the number of people selected, but create a system where only a certain number will play that particular year (all the guys would still come to the event). It could work like this- a player who has been selected in previous years and has played in the game before can sit one out to allow a ‘first-timer’ to get on the court/field/ice.

    Yes, the advanced stats- team AWS & SRS, player +/- and PPP -give us a why and how the Spurs have improved, but you can just as well go the simple (lazy) route and review last season’s schedule: we straddled the .500 line thru Dec. 9th; 3 losses to Utah, 2 to Portland and Dallas thru Jan. 8th -the record was 21-13. Hopefully @ 9:45 pm EST the W-L is 9 games better than that mark.

  • DorieStreet

    -correction -Knick games usually start @ 7:30 weeknights (a few at 8pm) so we are looking at 10:15 -GO SPURS GO!

  • http://www.bpifanconnect.com Alix Babaie

    Actually, the next 2 games start @ 6pm CST, so I will have enough time to watch Detroit 187 :)

  • jwalt

    Don’t know what the experts are saying about the improvement but I believe two unsung reasons are as big as any.

    First, Manu is starting. It was just wrong that he wasn’t in past years. Not the game, that isn’t all that important. But his not starting the 3rd quarter was killing the team. Games by then are into their flow, and you need to go with your best unit by then. And the entire tempo of the rest of the game is determined by the first 4 minutes of the second half. (Manu has been on the bench once so far at the start of the second half, against Milwaukee, and if you remember the Bucks kicked our butts in that half).

    Second, signing Tony Parker. TP as a result isn’t playing for his next contract, and is playing the most selfless and best ball of his career.

    There are a lot of other reasons, sure, but I bet the experts hardly mention the above two reasons.

  • rob

    “How much have the Spurs improved from last season?”

    By record alone (33 games played) compared to last year…300%

    Wouldn’t that be nice to maintain the rest of the season?