Here's an update to the Team USA stats I posted on Tuesday, which includes yesterday's game (in addition to the entire group stage of the FIBA World Championships so far, and the USA's international tour leading up to the World Championships):

Team and Opponent Stats

Basic Player Stats

Per-Game and Per-Minute Player Stats

Advanced Player Stats ▪ Glossary

Here's a post for fans of players who provide a lot of bang for the buck: over at Basketball Prospectus, Marc Normandin used their SCHOENE projection system to put together a list of this summer's best under-the-radar acquisitions (including underrated new Chicago Bull Ronnie Brewer).

In sports, expectations can be a funny thing. While in the end no amount of losing is truly tolerated, some coaches can get away with sub-.500 seasons while others can be fired despite a reasonable amount of success, all because of front office expectations for the team. Take a football example -- Marty Schottenheimer, for instance. Schottenheimer was fired by the Browns in 1989 despite a 40-23 record (with 4 playoff appearances) in the previous 4 seasons, simply because Cleveland could never quite get over the hump in the postseason. Fast-forward 18 years, and Schottenheimer was canned by the Chargers for the very same reason, despite 3 straight winning seasons and a 14-2 record in 2006. In each case, the team was no more successful under Schottenheimer's replacement (perhaps revealing that management's expectations were too high in the first place), but that's of little consolation to the unemployed coach who, for the most part, did his job well.

So with this phenomenon in mind, here are ten NBA coaches for whom winning simply wasn't enough -- namely, the top 10 W-L seasons by coaches who were fired the following offseason:

10. P.J. Carlesimo, 1996-97 Portland Trail Blazers (49-33)

The Paul Allen-era Blazers have a history of axing reasonably successful coaches because they failed to meet high postseason expectations. Rick Adelman was the first, having been dismissed after 47 wins and a 1st-round exit in 1994, but P.J. Carlesimo continued the trend when he was fired after 49 wins in 1997, again because Portland was unable to get past round 1 during his 3-year tenure as coach. At one point, there was a 6-year span where the Blazers won an average of 47 games per season, lost in the 1st round of the playoffs every year, and went through 3 head coaches. As you'll see in #8, Carlesimo's successor Mike Dunleavy briefly broke that pattern, but ultimately succumbed to the same fate as both of the men who preceded him.

9. Ed Macauley, 1959-60 St. Louis Hawks (46-29)

"Easy Ed" piloted the Hawks to 46 wins and an NBA Finals berth, but after St. Louis lost to Boston in 7 games, owner Ben Kerner made his 6th coaching change in 5 seasons. Ousting Macauley in favor of Paul Seymour, Kerner's explanation was that the Hawks “didn’t look good” even in victory. St. Louis would stay just as successful after Macauley's departure, making the Finals -- and losing -- again under Seymour, but he too was eventually fired, 14 games into the '62 season.

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Today I wanted to throw a quick shoutout to Josh Levin, Stefan Fatsis, Mike Pesca, and the rest of the crew over at Slate magazine for their weekly sports podcast "Hang Up And Listen." In a nutshell, it's actually intelligent sports talk (I know, what a concept) about the week's most prominent subjects, along with a trivia segment from Pesca that usually stumps this Sports-Reference employee, and a few words on topics that may have slipped under the radar.

Why am I linking to it now? Well, I found it a week ago and became a devotee because it entertained me during a very tedious data entry project (I've listened to a year's worth of archives in about 12 days). I realize it's currently out of season for basketball, but if you're a sports fan and you like podcasts, put this on your playlist right below the legendary PFR podcast (which, incidentally, I made a cameo on last week and will have another trivia-based appearance coming soon).

In case you've been as interested as I have in the international basketball action over the past few weeks, I thought I'd post some advanced stats for Team USA (including exhibitions + group games so far). Also, my apologies to our non-American readers for this all-Red-White-and-Blue edition; I would include other teams, but I can't find a statsheet-style printout of their data online, particularly for the pre-tournament warmup games. Perhaps the USA Basketball site will eventually post every team's numbers, though, like they did for the Olympics.

At any rate, here are the results & numbers for the team so far (feel free to compare to the Redeem Team's stats):

 DATE     TIME           OPPONENT                              SCORE   TYPE
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 8/15/10  1:00 p.m.      vs France                        W    86-55   Tour
 8/21/10  9:00 p.m.      vs Lithuania                     W    77-61   Tour
 8/22/10  9:00 p.m.      vs Spain                         W    86-85   Tour
 8/25/10  7:00 p.m.      vs Greece                        W    87-59   Tour
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 DATE     TIME           OPPONENT                              SCORE   TYPE
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 8/28/10  7:00 p.m.      vs Croatia                       W   106-78   FIBA Group
 8/29/10  4:30 p.m.      vs Slovenia                      W    99-77   FIBA Group
 8/30/10  9:30 p.m.      vs Brazil                        W    70-68   FIBA Group
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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Here are some quick logistic regressions I ran between offensive/defensive efficiency (as measured by my 1951-2010 estimation equation) and whether or not a team won a championship...

The first regression is between regular-season offensive/defensive rating (relative to the league average) and championships won since 1951, the first year for which I can estimate possessions. The logistic equation to predict championship probability from RS efficiencies was:

p(C) ~ 1 / (1 + EXP(4.7267572 - (0.3988116 * Offense) + (0.612137 * Defense)))

From this equation, we would expect an average team during the Regular Season (0.0 on offense & defense) to have a 0.9% chance of winning an NBA title. If you increase offense to the following levels while keeping defense average, you see this pattern:

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See also: #21-25, #26-31

Note: This post was originally published at College Basketball at Sports-Reference, S-R's new College Hoops site, so when you're done reading, go over and check it out!

20. Wake Forest Demon Deacons (+12.87 SRS)

Record: 586-365 (.616)
Prominent Coaches: Carl Tacy, Dave Odom, Skip Prosser
Best NCAA Finish: Lost Regional Final (1984, 1996)

Perhaps better known for what their alums do after leaving the program (Billy Packer, Muggsy Bogues, Tim Duncan, Chris Paul, etc.), Wake nonetheless has maintained a near-perennial NCAA Tournament presence (and a frequent top-4 ACC team) over the past 3+ decades. Carl Tacy's teams were very good (AP top-20 three times) in the first half of the eighties, and following a short, mediocre stint under Bob Staak from 86-89, Dave Odom took the reins and oversaw one of the most successful periods in school history (including the recruitment of the greatest Deacon of all, Tim Duncan). Under Odom, WF had 7 consecutive NCAA berths, but the last in that run was the most disappointing -- after climbing as high as #2 in the AP poll, Wake was unceremoniously bounced by Stanford in the 2nd round, ending Duncan's collegiate career. After Odom left for South Carolina in 2001, the late Skip Prosser continued a winning tradition with 4 straight Tourney appearances and the development of Paul, before tragically passing away in 2007. Today, the Deacs hope to rebound from Dino Gaudio's up-and-down tenure with the hiring of Jeff Bzdelik in 2010.

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OK, I've gotta toot our own vuvuzela for a second here: I just found out that the Sports-Reference family of sites has been named to TIME Magazine's list of the 50 Best Websites for 2010! It's a great honor for us, and a thrill to know that our users get so much enjoyment & utility out of the sites. Here's to being your favorite sports stats destination for many years to come...

Here's a really interesting read from John Krolik at NBC's ProBasketballTalk, regarding what changes we might expect in LeBron James' playing style when he suits up alongside Dwyane Wade & Chris Bosh this fall. John brings up the possibilities of James scoring 25 PPG on a 66.0 True Shooting % if he is freed up to play off the ball and make cuts from the weak side, averaging 10 APG if made the Heat's primary distributor, becoming a better post-up threat if the D respects his ability to pass out of double-teams, and increasing his scoring chances in transition if Miami plays a small, athletic lineup. For all of the obsessing over "The Decision" by casual fans, this kind of discussion -- envisioning how the Heat's new pieces fit together -- is what hardcore hoops junkies should have been having all along.

(H/T: TrueHoop)

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