Archive for November, 2010

2010-11 NBA power rankings through the games played on November 18, 2010:

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In this week's column I explain why Chris Bosh has been the recipient of some unfair criticism in Miami:

Keeping Score: Bosh Is Not the Problem in Miami

This should appear in the print version as well.

This is just extremely depressing news for Portland fans (and fans of gifted big men in general):

"Trail Blazers center Greg Oden, the former No. 1 draft pick whose short career has been marred by injuries, will have microfracture surgery on his left knee and will not play this season.

Oden hasn't played since last December because he needed surgery to repair a fractured left patella. The Blazers say this operation, announced Wednesday night and scheduled for Friday in Vail, Colo., will repair damaged cartilage and is unrelated to the patella injury.

Oden, the first name announced in the 2007 NBA draft, missed his rookie season because of microfracture surgery on his right knee. The procedure stimulates cartilage growth.

Blazers trainer Jay Jensen said the latest problem with Oden's left knee became apparent about two weeks ago when he experienced some pain and fluid in the joint. Soon thereafter, an MRI revealed the damage.

'We sat there and it was like we'd been kicked in the stomach,' Jensen said, choking up. "It felt like hearing someone close to us had died.'"

Criticize the Blazers all you want for picking him over Kevin Durant in that '07 Draft, but the fact remains that Oden is a talent. When he managed to find the floor in between the injuries and foul trouble, he has actually been a pretty productive NBA player -- in fact, Oden's career rate of Win Shares per 48 minutes (0.180) is actually higher than Durant's (0.140).

Even so, the Curse of Sam Bowie (or is it Bill Walton?) lives on in the City of Roses. Here are the fewest NBA games played by a #1 overall pick in the first four seasons after they were drafted (omitting David Robinson, who had to serve in the Navy before debuting):

From ESPN.com's Stats and Information crew, an interesting note about last night's Knicks-Nuggets game:

"The New York Knicks did everything in their statistical power to beat the Denver Nuggets on Tuesday night.

They made more field goals. They made more 3-pointers. They had more rebounds. They had more assists. They had fewer turnovers. And they had more blocked shots.

The Elias Sports Bureau told us that the last 266 times a team outperformed its opponent in all of those statistical categories, that team won the game.

Except the Knicks didn't win. They lost again, 120-118, their sixth straight defeat, this one starting a tough West Coast road trip. "

Of course, raw stats can deceive. Looking at our boxscore, we see that while New York did control the turnover battle and the boards, they were also beaten somewhat handily in eFG% and FT/FGA. That's bad, because eFG% in particular is far and away the most important of the Four Factors, the key statistical indicators of team success.

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Starting today, SR's college basketball site will be updated on a daily basis with 2010-11 statistics and results. Player game logs and splits are not ready yet, but they should be up by December 1 at the latest. Keep in mind that there are almost 350 Division I schools, so early on there may be a few hiccups. Please help us out by letting us know if anything looks amiss, either by posting a comment on the CBB blog or by filling out the CBB feedback form.

The Miami Heat have been under fire recently for dominating weak foes and losing close games against good teams. The conventional wisdom is that this reveals a major gap in Miami's armor -- they just can't close the deal against stronger opponents.

Is this really true, though? And does it even matter?

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After five straight improbable comeback victories, I thought now would be a good time to post some Win Probability graphs from the Utah Jazz's recent winning streak. For those curious, the method for WP comes from an old Ed Küpfer post at APBRmetrics, and the play-by-play records come from ESPN.com (or FoxSports.com, in the case of Jazz-Heat and Jazz-Bobcats). All WP is from the perspective of Utah, and the numbers at the bottom of the WP graphs represent the minutes remaining in the game.

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2010-11 NBA power rankings through the games played on November 11, 2010:

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This season we will be providing weekly NBA content to The New York Times. Here is a link to our first column:

Keeping Score: Viewing the N.B.A. Through a Statistical Lens

This should appear in the print version as well.