No defense for Bango’s defense in Rip City

I don’t know if any of you Antlerheads stayed up and watched that garbage the Milwaukee Bucks put out last night, but I did.  What a pathetic effort.  Possibly the worst defense the team has played all season.

Let me put into perspective how bad the Bucks defense was.

First you have my “tell-tale” defensive marker — assists allowed.  If a defense allows the opposition to produce more than 21 assists, that means the ball was moving too freely.  That speaks to a lack of effort on defense.  The Portland Trailblazers had 25 assists last night.  The ball was moving so freely, I thought I was watching the Harlem Globetrotters.

Then you look at the Blazers’ field goal percentage.  Ridiculous.  It was like a lazy game of Noon Ball at the Y for them.  If you factor in 3 point shots made, the Blazers effective field goal percentage was well over 60%.

Ed Peterson did a landmark study a few years ago in which he shot-charted and play-described an entire season of Sacramento Kings basketball.  Ed’s data shows that the average NBA player will make 60% of his “wide open” jumpers, and somewhere in the range of 35% of his “contested” jumpers.

The Blazers shot 60% overall from the field last night.  They had a lot of “wide open” jumpers.  Complete crap effort.  Complete crap.

Wisconsin Badgers basketball Win Chart

This is a momentous post.  This is a first for me as a blogger.  Tonight I have broken into the realm of college basketball analysis with the first ever “NCAA Basketball Win Chart”.  It is linked to below and it covers the 2009-10 Wisconsin Badgers basketball team and it allocates responsibility for the team’s wins and losses to date using an amended version of MWS48 fitted to the college game and known as MWS40.  (Its the same exact thing as MWS48 except as I say the numbers are adjusted to account for the 200 minutes of player court action in a college game).

The reason I did it was (1) if you look up at the top it says “… pro and college basketball” and I haven’t produced one single college post yet (note: if you notice the name on the banner is now just “Courtside Analyst”.  That name, for whatever reason, “Lulu“ed almost three times better than “The Courtside Analyst” or “Bucks Diary”).

But more importantly, reason (2) is I was asked by a reader via email what impact I thought the Wisconsin Badgers basketball team would feel from the loss of forward Jon Leuer.  I sincerely did not know, so I worked it out.  In the words of those bullshit artist nurses who came around to your kindergarten on vaccination day, “they’re gonna feel a little sting”.

CLICK HERE for the 2009-10 Wisconsin Badgers Win Chart

(through 16 games)

Leuer and Hughes the best, but who is Wilson?

I’m going to keep my comments brief because I really haven’t studied the Badgers other than watching them play Marquette, so beyond Travon Hughes and Bohannon I’m not really familiar with the team’s personnel.

But here’s what the numbers tell me.  Leuer was the team’s best win producer.  They will almost certainly be much worse off until he returns from his broken wrist.  But they won’t be dead in the water by any means.  They play fabulous Win Score defense, and almost the entire roster of regulars produces positive MWS40, although I’m sure most of that is still padding from the pre-holiday schedule.  Although they did play Duke and Gonzaga.

The one possible avenue of recovery I see is this Wilson kid from Cleveland Ohio.  He’s a forward and, although I don’t know his situation, he has been quite productive, indeed productive well beyond the minutes he’s been alloted.

So getting him on the court, if that is an option, could help cushion the team’s fall.  He could play the forward/guard spot with Nankivil and Jarmusz playing the big forward spots (there are really only 3 spots in college basketball — 2 “big” forwards, a forward/guard, and usually two interchangeable point guard types).

Or they could play Taylor as a third guard.  They have a few options.

The point is that, yes, Leuer’s absence will knock them off their pedestal a bit (KenPom has them in the Top 5 in his adjusted efficiency rankings — I’d never seen them that high ever before).  But they should make it to the tournament and get things rolling then.

In the very near future I’m planning to do Win Charts for the Marquette Warriors and the Minnesota Golden Gophers as well.

FOOTNOTE:  If anyone knows of any Badger blogs that might be interested in this analysis, or might have readers who might wish to critique the same, could you please leave a referral comment.  Thank you.

Milwaukee Bucks “Needs Improvement” list

Here are some random items Bucks players need to work on in the second half of the season:

Andrew Bogut

1. Defensive eFG

In general Andrew Bogut does a nice job of limiting the production of his opponent centers.  There’s one area he can do better in though: opponent field goal percentage.  He is currently allowing centers to shoot 53.3%, which is below average and Bogut’s worst on the ball defense since his second season.

2. No Jumpers Andy!

Remember my post a couple seasons (and a couple of blogs) back about Andrew Bogut and his useless jump shooting?  Essentially I reckoned he could be a much better win producer if he simply stopped shooting jumpers.  Last season he basically did and the results followed.  Now he’s back to shooting them and his eFG is way down.  I’d fine him every time he shot one.

3. Fear not the free throw line

If you look at Andrew Bogut’s “clutch” stats its obvious that late in close games he goes soft.  His jump shot percentage goes way up, and his numbers go way down.  I know why.  He doesn’t want to risk having to shoot a free throw.  That’s stupid!  Even if he makes only one of two, that’s much better than the average Buck possession.

Brandon Jennings

1. Get some Nash

Did you realize that when Brandon Jennings goes into the lane he gets his shot blocked 21% of the time, but when the supposedly “unathletic” Steve Nash goes into the lane he gets his shot blocked a mere 4% of the time?  Athleticism is THE most over rated trait in basketball.  Basketball skill and craftiness are much more important.  Jennings needs to learn how to finish at the rim then he will be complete.

Luc Moute

1. Get on the offensive boards

The one  area where Luc Moute’s game has diminshed is the offensive boards.  He still gets an above average percent, but with his limited offense he needs to do better than that.  He has to live off those easy put backs.

Hak Warrick

1. Finish in the lane

Warrick is making only 44% of his “close” shots.  He has to better than that… he’s a power forward.

Carlos Delfino

1. Find the three

Without the three, Delfino is useless offensively.  I realize its a high variance shot, but a half a season of missing is a high enough variance I think.

Every Buck

1. Get on the offensive glass

When you can’t shoot a lick, you have to pound the offensive glass relentlessly for second chancers.  The Bucks are currently 21st in the NBA in offensive rebounding percentage.  They have to do better than that.  I doubt they will, though.  Last season they were 22nd.

2. Better free throw line defense

I’m being sarcastic.  But did you realize this is the second season in a row the Bucks opponents have  shot a higher than average free throw percentage against them?  That’s got to be bad luck, right?  Anyway, it costs the team real wins.  Last season the Bucks were the unluckiest “free throw  in the entire NBA.  This season they’ve improved to third unluckiest.  (and it doesn’t have anything to do with the extra opportunities the Bucks give up either.  Indiana gave up the second most opportunities last season yet their opponents shot well under the NBA average… and one has to assume they played virtually the same schedule as Milwaukee.  Curious.)

Correcting the ABA-NBA “equality” myth

Since reading Bill Simmons views on the history of the ABA and how the ABA favorably compared to the “too white” NBA when both were in existence (all of this, of course, written in his Book of Basketball) I wondered “How did the NBA actually compare to the ABA?” and “Were the NBA and ABA ever truly equal?”

A lot of people — not just Simmons — believe that in the last waning years of its existence the red-white-and-blue ball of the ABA caught up to, and perhaps even dribble drove right past, the traditional NBA orange ball we all grew up with and love.  Was that possible?  Was the NBA the inferior league?

Those that believe that point as evidence to the ABA’s growing dominance over the NBA when the rival Association’s faced off during the 1971-75 exhibition seasons.   The two leagues played a total of 155 times, yielding increasingly positive results for the upstart as the series went on.

Sure the ABA got their asses kicked pretty badly in the first couple of years, but the ABA and its supporters could legitimately brag that they indeed won the majority of the exhibitions in each of the last three years and actually won the overall series 79 games to 75.

Does that mean the ABA was actually better than the senior NBA?  Not so fast.

You can’t compare two leagues by simply pointing to a series of games and saying the bare results hold the comparative truth.  The truth does not arrive until you adjust the results so that one’s apples are being compared to the other’s apples, not its Buffalo Braves.

What nearly all who point to the ABA-NBA exhibition results as proof of ABA equality fail to mention is the location of the games and the matchups.  Since the NBA did not want to “legitimize” the ABA with a lot of games in NBA arenas, an overwhelming majority of the games were played in ABA gyms and were therefore officiated by ABA refs.  Thus to have any comparative value whatsoever the scores must first be adjusted to account for homecourt advantage.

Moreover, to get a true feel for the relative strength of each Association, you have to “neutralize” the two teams playing so that each game can stand as a reliable comparison.  The games weren’t match ups of relative equals like the Big Ten-ACC challenge in college basketball.  The NBA often used bottom feeder clubs in the exhibitions (the Lakers didn’t play in a single NBA-ABA game) while the ABA kept its bottom feeders at home and instead sent its marquee clubs.

So you must account for those disparities when considering the exhibition results and I below I did that.  And the new outcomes I came up with put the lie to any notion of ABA equality until the very last days of ABA basketball (1976 the ABA drew even after it contracted itself down to its “cream” six teams).

Here’s the method  I used.

Utilizing Country Club Scoring to Settle the Issue

To give a clear accounting of each Association’s strength with relation to its rival, I just applied golfers logic to all of the exhibition results.

When two golfers are of uneven strength the pair “handicap”  the score to create the illusion of even competition.

Similarly, I used Basketball-Reference’s “Simple Rating System” to adjust the exhibition outcomes so that, to the extent possible, every single game matched a fictitious “Average ABA team” versus a fictitious “Average NBA team” on even footing.  (So for example, in 1971-72 the Bucks were something like +10.0 points above NBA average on the Simple Rating System, so for every Bucks exhibition the Bucks had to give ten points and so on).

After that I gave +3.4 points, the standard Vegas homecourt adjustment, to the visiting team.  If the game was a “semi-home” game I gave +1.0 point to the visitor, and for seemingly “neutral” site games I gave nothing.  Given the passion that reports say the games brought to ABA arenas, that more than probably understates the value of homecourt advantage, but its close enough.  (Note that I threw out several games to keep the comparison legitimate.  For instance I threw out all of the Atlanta Hawks games in which they suited up Dr. J, and all of the Virginia Squires from that exhibition season that did not feature the Doctor).

The “New” Results

Here are my new adjusted results season-by-season:

1971-1975ABA-NBA Exhibition Handicapped Results	ActualNBA wins	ActualABA wins	NBAPoint Spread With handicap	ABAPoint Spread With Handicap	NBARelative Winning%	ABARelative Winning%
1971-72 (21 games)	14	7	+5.1	-5.1	.648%(13.6 wins)	.351% (7.4 wins)
1972-73 (30 games)	22	8	+8.4	-8.4	.745%(22.3 wins)	.255% (7.7 wins)
1973-74 (24 games)	9	15	+4.6	-4.6	.633%(15.2 wins)	.367% (8.8 wins)
1974-75 (22 games)	7	15	+4.7	-4.7	.637%(14.0 wins)	.363% (8.0 wins)
1975-76 (48 games)	18	30	+0.5	-0.5	.513% (24.6 wins)	.487% (23.4 wins)
OVERALL (145 games)	70	75	+4.1	-4.1	.620% (89.9 wins)	.380% (55.1 wins)

ABA was about 80% of the NBA

As  you can see, the adjusted results paint a different picture than the one propagated by ABA enthusiasts, one of more prolonged and consistent NBA dominance.   At no point prior to 1976 was the ABA anywhere near the NBA’s equal. (note:  “Relative Winning %s” for each Association were determined according to each season’s adjusted average point differential — which I for some reason referred to as “point spread”… sorry — and the number of games a fictitious team would likely win with such an average point differential — using this formula).

The results, I think, need to be read in two year increments.

It seems in the first two exhibition seasons the NBA thoroughly dominated, both actually and in adjusted terms.  Then in the next two seasons the ABA leveraged the matchups and locations but nevertheless the adjusted point spreads — which ended up being remarkably similar despite the sundry adjustments — painted a continuing picture of dominance, albeit adjusted dominance.

Then in 1975-76, the year before the merger, the ABA placed itself basically on equal footing with the NBA.  Based upon the results I would go so far as to say all six of the ABA teams that were then on-going concerns were in fact NBA worthy teams — not just the “ABA Four” that were ultimately allowed to merge and that continue to this day.  The Kentucky Colonels and the Spirits of St. Louis could have been very respectable NBA franchises, and their fan bases were deprived of that chance (although the owners of the Spirit cut one of the most famous and best “buy-out” deals in the history of contract law).

What happened in Year Two?

The one result that makes no logical sense is the second exhibition season.  Even though it was the second longest exhibition schedule, the results were out of whack with the rest of the series.  The NBA simply whooped up on the ABA.  In fact the adjusted result would have been even worse had I not thrown out five NBA wins that were tainted by Dr. J’s weird decision to sign with — and play two exhibitions for — an Atlanta Hawks team that had no write to sign him — notwithstanding that he was still under contract to the ABA Squires (your Milwaukee Bucks owned his NBA rights.  How on Earth his agent advised him that signing with the Hawks would somehow have a constructive result no one has ever explained to my satisfaction.  If I were the Bucks or the Squires I would have hit the Hawks with a tortious interference action, not just an injunction.  They had no colorable right to Julius Erving… they just decided to sign him and play him!)

I really don’t know what happened or why the NBA delivered such a beatdown.  I think it may be an aberration.

Or perhaps it has something to do with the strength or waning strength of the homecourt advantage enjoyed by the ABA that season.  At any rate, if you adjust the 1973-74 results and put them in line with the (+5.1) point advantage held by the average NBA team over the average ABA team in the preceding season, then the final result would favor the NBA by about +3.7 relative point advantage.  That would mean over the entire existence of the ABA we could conclude that the average NBA team was about +3.7 points better than the average ABA team.

No big deal?  Actually that’s pretty substantial.  That translates into a winning percentage advantage that would be about +20.2% on average.

This I think is the correct ABA equivalency number — somewhere in the neighborhood of 20% less than the NBA.  I think that way because it would comport exactly with another study I did of the Win Score production of 25 random ABA-NBA performers which I outline below.

ABA-NBA Win Score comparison

I used Professor Berri’s basketball analytic known as Win Score to compare how 25 of the biggest ABA stars did when they played in the NBA.  The group of 25 I came up with either were named to the “All-Time ABA team”, are well known, or were mentioned by Bill Simmons as prominent ABA players in his Book of Basketball.

ABA-NBAPerformance Comparisons using Win Score / 48	ABA	NBA
Julius Erving, F	18.39	14.08
-23.4%
Rick Barry, F/G	10.65	9.15
-14.0%
Billy Cunningham, F	15.06	12.73
-15.5%
Spencer Haywood, C/F	21.30	13.18
-30.1%
Connie Hawkins, F/C	17.89	12.86
-28.1%
David Thompson, G/F	11.23	9.78
-13.0%
Zelmo Beatty, C	17.40	14.02
-19.0%
George McGinnis, PF	16.18	12.92
-20.1%
Artis Gilmore, C	21.21	16.78
-20.8%
Charlie Scott, G	4.49	2.12
-52.7%
Dan Issel, C/F	12.94	14.06
+8.6%
Bobby Jones, F	17.28	13.41
-22.4%
Billy Knight, SG	12.21	8.72
-28.5%
Maurice Lucas, PF	11.64	11.66
+0.0%
George Gervin, SG	10.64	8.49
-20.2%
Jim Chones, PF	14.72	10.15
-31.0%
Swen Nater, C	19.45	15.87
-18.4%
Super John Williamson, SG	2.13	1.69
-20.6%
Ron Boone, G	5.98	4.17
-30.0%
Marvin Barnes, F	15.56	7.92
-49.0%
Caldwell Jones, F/C	16.29	11.37
-30.0%
ML Carr, F/G	10.21	8.04
-21.2%
Larry Kenon, F	12.45	11.69
-6.1%
Don Buse, G	10.18	8.11
-20.4%
Tom Owens, C	13.85	10.94
-21.0%

20.2% Rule

As you can see, nearly every one of the 25, save for Dan Issel, saw a decline in his productivity when he brought his game to the NBA, with the average decline being 20.2%, and the median being 20.8%.

So everything seems to come up “20% reduction” when evaluating the strength of the ABA visavis the NBA.  Even Dr. J took a 20% haircut when he made his famed jump to the senior circuit.

But none of this should be read to diminish the achievements of the ABA.  Frankly, I’m stunned at what they were able to accomplish, given the fact that they were somehow able to run a respectable “Shadow NBA”, paying top dollar for talent, when they had little attendance money and no television money to draw upon.  Frankly, they had some balls to give it a go.

And give it a go they did.  And bare this in mind Bucks fans.  Without the ABA, there’s probably no Milwaukee Bucks.  The Bucks improbable bid for franchise came as part of the “panic response” sudden expansionist movement the NBA undertook after the ABA tugged at its contented tail.

So thank you ABA.  But just don’t try to say you were equal to the NBA.  You weren’t.  Not till closing time you weren’t.

Footnote: I just found an eerily similar but much better written piece comparing the NFL to the AFL using virtually the same techniques and some of the same kind of data. (my writings getting so sloppy lately.  Like I told you, I have this weird habit of mirroring the linguistic patterns of the author I’m reading at the moment and at the moment I’m reading “Mr. Everything’s a Digression”.  I gotta throw that fucking book away now. But it has given me a lot of ideas for posts that don’t begin with “The Bucks STILL can’t shoot” so I owe it that much.)

Bogut in Wins and Losses

Another game, another loss.  This loss, believe it or not, was not nearly as shameful as the preceding two losses.  Charlotte is an excellent defensive team, and an excellent home team.

That said, the Bucks need wins badly.  Since their 8-3 start, the Bucks are now on an 18 game stretch in which they have gone a dreadful 4-14.  Sure there were some nice losing efforts in there, but that’s a loser’s lament.  Sooner or later you need to put “W’s” up on the board.

But remember how quickly things can change.  It wasn’t long ago the Packers were 4-4 and looking headed nowhere.  Everyone and my brother wanted Mike McCarthy fired (On the way to the Badgers-Michigan game he was doing an awesome imitation of McCarthy that had me nearly wetting my pants.  Essentially, he kept repeating “We’re gonna have to look at the film and get that cleaned up” in McCarthy’s gruff Western PA accent).

One thing that might help turn the tide is better shooting from Bogut.  For some reason he’s been highly inconsistent from the field.  This is out of character for him, and its killing the Bucks.

Prompted by Blake’s comments, I checked his numbers in Wins and in Losses.  Now remember, I would venture to say every player has better numbers in wins that losses, but Bogut’s gulf seems particularly immense.

His Win Score per 48 in Games the Bucks Win is 17.81.  Very good.  His WS48 in Games the Bucks Lose is 8.11.  Wimpy, wimpy.

His numbers in games lost are down across the board, but the most drastic decline is clearly his field goal accuracy.  In Games the Bucks Win he is shooting 59.3% from the field.  In Games the Bucks Lose he is shooting 41.1% from the field.  Bill Russell thinks that’s bad shooting.  Generic 1950s center from a bad NBA team thinks he can do better than 41.1%.

Are Bogut’s recent injuries to blame?  I have no idea.  My guess is the injuries play some role, but that’s just excuse making.  Why is he able to make shots in some of the games and not all?

The bottom line is Bogut needs to step his game up.  He’s supposed to be one of the team’s best players.  Good players are consistent players.  Bogut used to be a consistent player, and the Bucks desperately need him to be that player again.

Updated Milwaukee Bucks Win Chart

82games.com just updated their statistical information and I used it to update the Milwaukee Bucks Win Chart.  (Click Here to see the chart updated to 12-27-09).

If you do not know how to make sense of the information in the chart, there is a page dedicated to it in the column to the right.

Bucks have structural problems

I was really anticipating this update because I wanted to pin some responsibility somewhere for the Bucks woes.  To be honest, I was with one of the commenters who speculated it could be Michael Redd’s fault.  My information doesn’t suggest that.  My information suggests its been a dip in the play of the players I refer to as the team’s “structural players”: SF Carlos Delfino, PF Hakim Warrick, PF/C Ersan Ilyasova, and SF/PF Luc Moute.  Each of those 4 have seen a dramatic decline in their Player Win Averages over the last ten days, and that has really led to the Bucks slide.

Yes, Luke Ridnour’s numbers have declined but he really had nowhere to go but down.  He is not an elite point guard, yet he was producing like one.  The scary thing is, the team was relying on him to continue producing like one.  Bad bet.

As for Mr. Redd, his play has actually improved drastically, but it could hardly have gotten worse.  He’s still not at his normal production level, but at least there is now hope he might get there.

Don’t blame Tiny

Bogut and Jennings, the team’s mainstays, basically held at the level they were playing at the last time I updated the Bucks Win Chart on December 16th.

Sure, Bogut has regressed from the super season he had last season, but only half way back to his previously established average in the prior seasons (he was basically a .500% player prior to last season).  I sort of expected he might do that.  As athletes are fond of saying, “He is who he is”.  Bogut struggles on some nights, and dominates on others.  He’s not a bust, he’s a good center.  But I don’t think there’s any chance he will ever be an elite center.

Point guard Brandon Jennings, I have no problem with (a little Yiddish sentence structure).  Others I’m guessing do have a problem with him because, to paraphrase Denny Green, “he isn’t who they thought he was” (ESPN has taken to posting what I call “sarcastic statistics” for Jennings on their underscreen scroll.  You know, unremarkable statistics with some negative emphasis — usually poor field goal shooting).

But I warned BucksNation against overinflated expectation.  Without the hype, and considering his age and experience,  Brandon Jennings is well outperforming any reasonable expectation at this point.

Of course when Homer True is claiming in November that you “saved the franchise”, and Jim Paschke spends a month referencing you into every aspect of every game, I’d say any notion of balance or “reason” pretty much flew out the window.

I also need to mention Charlie Bell, a player I frequently target for my ad hominem attacks.  Bell is also playing well above my expectation and well above anyone else at his position and he deserves to keep getting minutes.

But the Bucks really need to get one or more of those aforementioned “structural players” going again.  I think Delfino and Moute can reimprove, and I have hopes for Ilyasova, but I have to be honest with you: I hate Hakim Warrick.  He’s never consistently produced strong “win” numbers, and I doubt he ever will.  His game is mismatched with his body and with his talent.  He basically has a “strong player” game without having the strength or efficiency needed to pull it off.  The numbers he is putting up now are right in line with his career averages, so I don’t know.

In closing, I guess my question to Bucks management is this.  When will the organization end its infatuation with “floor stretchers” (i.e. “We think ____ can really stretch the floor”) and finally invest in some “floor shrinkers”?  You can’t have a winning team that cannot make two point field goals.  This is the National Basketball Association, not the Euro League.

Dissecting Bango Buck

For two years now my Marginal Win Score system has been more accurate than Pythagorean Wins with regard to your Milwaukee Bucks.  Pythagorean Wins, a system that relies on points scored and allowed, currently suggests the Bucks “should be” a 13.7 win team.  Marginal Win Score, which takes a more holistic approach, is not as impressed.  It sees the Bucks as a 12.5 win team.  Basically, it sees them as they are.

But why doesn’t MWS like the Bucks?  Or, what flaw does it recognize in the Bucks portfolio?  I decided to dissect the different parts of MWS to find out.

Click here to see the chart I did.  Its self explanatory.

Scoring Effectiveness the general problem

Once you break Marginal Win Score into its component parts, and then compare the NBA average with the Bucks average and their opponent average, the issue becomes crystal clear.  Its what I refer to as “scoring effectiveness”.  That is calculated as (Points – FGAs – .5FTAs).  In other words, when a team gets to end a possession with a scoring attempt, how well do they convert those possessions into points?

For the Milwaukee Bucks, the answer is clear: not very well.  The team is about even with their opponents in nearly every category except scoring effectiveness, where the Bucks deficit is huge.

Things get even more interesting when you break down the Bucks MWS into “Games Won” and “Games Lost”.  Then you can see the issue even more clearly.

Click Here to see the Bucks comparative MWS in Games Won.  Click Here to see the Bucks comparative MWS in Games Lost.

As you can see, there is not a huge swing in any one category between “Games Won” and “Games Lost” save for one: Scoring Effectiveness.  In Games Won, the Bucks are above average in both Offensive and Defensive Scoring Effectiveness, in Games Lost they are well below average in each of those categories.

Not really a free throw problem

Are those Scoring Effectiveness numbers being driven by the Bucks well-known free throw attempt gap?  Well, yes and no.  Click Here to see a further breakdown between FG Effectiveness and FT Effectiveness.

Two points to make about that chart.

One, you can see from the NBA averages that it is very hard to live off FG shooting alone, as the Bucks are sort of trying to do.  Even though, as the other charts showed, the NBA Scoring Effectiveness is +5.6 points per scoring possession used, NBA teams actually average less than one point per field goal scoring possession used.  The positive point average per scoring possession is driven by points generated at the free throw line.  So the Bucks are putting themselves at a massive disadvantage by not attacking the basket.

Two, you can see from the chart that the Bucks have about the same “free throw gap” in Games Won as they have in Games Lost.  The huge difference between the two categories is contained in the Field Goal category.  The Bucks are an above average FG shooting team and an above average FG defensive team in Games Won, and exactly the opposite in Games Lost.

So yes, lack of points from the line hurts the Bucks, but the difference between them winning and losing this season has been points from the field.

Bottom Line: Bogut and 3 pt Defense

If I broke this baby down even further you would see that the true difference between winning and losing for the Bucks is 2pt FG shooting and 3pt FG defense.

In both Games Won and Games Lost the Bucks shoot about the same from behind the 3 point arc, but there is a stark difference in the team’s two point shooting.

The Bucks do not shoot well from two point range in either wins or losses.  But in Games Won, the Bucks are slightly below the NBA average from 2pt range (the NBA average is 48.8%, the Bucks make 48.1% in wins).  While in Games Lost, they make a way below average 43.7%.

So the Bucks need the 2s to fall.  And about the only player on the team who has shown the capacity to make 2s above average is center Andrew Bogut.  So the Bucks cannot afford for him to have a lousy shooting night on any night.

Wrapping up quickly, the second key to victory for the Bucks appears to be 3pt defense.  In Wins, the Bucks hold opponents to 28% from behind the arc.  In Losses, opponents shoot an above average 38% from behind the arc.  Meanwhile the team is pretty consistently around average when it comes to 2 point defense.  For the season, in fact, the team is allowing 48.7% of opponent 2s to score, while the NBA average is 48.8%.

Conclusion

So the bottom line is, the team is almost always a decent 3 point shooting team, a decent 2 point defensive team, and a lousy free throw point generating and surrendering team.

Since those are pretty constant, the key differences then between winning and losing for the Bucks is whether the team can at least be respectable rather than putrid from 2 point range, and whether they can be well above average in 3 point defense.

Is there an Iron Law of 70% in sports?

Okay, if you’ve been following the writing on this blog, I’ve been running this little tally for the last week to check out how often the “stronger” teams win in NBA games (stronger defined as those with the higher listed win probability on Basketball-Reference.com). You will know that night after night I keep noticing that the stronger team wins around 70% of the time.

I claimed this result was somehow proof of my earlier posted “luck” thesis, but now I think that’s bullshit.  But nevertheless, there’s some bizarre shit going  on here.  Everything everywhere in sports that I look at and count keeps telling me the established stronger team wins EXACTLY 70% of the time, but only 70% of the time.  Now I’m intrigued, but I have no clue what’s going on.

I need someone with mathematical knowledge to step up and explain: (1) What is it I’ve found?; (2) Is this already a well known phenomenon?; (3) What does it mean?

Here’s my evidence of this “70% law”:

First, take my NBA experiment.  Through 64 games including last night’s bizarre collapse by the Bulls, the “stronger” team has now won 45 games — 70.3%.  As I said, every night the overall tally almost always finishes right around there.

Second, I’ve been following the weekly NFL picks made on WhatIfSports.com’s computerized Monte Carlo system.   If you click on the link you will notice that their overall weekly picks almost always end up right around 70% correct, and for the year even their weekly “Locks” and “ATS” picks are “locked” at 71.4%.  (That’s kind of laughable… isn’t a lock a guarantee?  Their “guaranteed” picks are no better than their overall picks!)

Third, I went back to the last two NCAA basketball tournaments and looked at the first round of picks and compared them to KenPom’s Efficiency Rankings to see how many times the stronger team won there.  The two year average: 23 out of 32 — 71.8%.  The same rate held with the ESPN “National Pool”.

Finally, for whatever reason it occurred to me to go back and look at the history of “NFL Championship Games”.  Those were the NFL’s “Super Bowls” prior to the Super Bowl, but importantly for my sake here, they were only played once on a neutral field.  The reason I added those to my survey was you presumably had two fairly even teams, with the home team being stronger simply on the basis of home field advantage (also, the home team was decided on a year-to-year basis, so that would not by itself indicate strength).

I found that in the 31 years they played the old style “NFL Championship Games” the home team won 22 times.  (Trivia:  the Green Bay Packers won two of those 9 “road championships” plus the only “neutral site” championship — so they EARNED their World Titles, baby.)   Anyway, that comes out to 70.9%.

So something is going on and someone needs to explain it to me.  But even before they do, I’ve already thought of one ramification, and it has to do with the NCAA pools next spring.

The 70% rule means even if you identify the superior team in each and every game, and especially if you are right in your identification, you will still be wrong on at least 30% of your picks.  That’s what they call a “Catch-22″.

In order to do better than 70%, you have to correctly chose which weaker teams will prevail.  But the essence of sports is a test of strength — so by definition you have to be lucky (the Catch-22 being if you start trying to pick weaker teams that could also be a kamikaze strategy because obviously if you misidentify upset games, and then also miss on the real upsets, you will end up with many less than you could have had if you picked the games straight).

Bucks right where I predicted at Xmas

With the Bucks luck win tonight in Indiana, the team is now 12-14 with one more game to go before Christmas against the Washington Wizards.  I recall going through the Bucks schedule before the season, and manually counting wins and losses and coming up with a 13-14 record before Christmas, but I wasn’t going to make that claim unless I documented it on Bucks Diary.

I couldn’t remember if I did document it or whether I just said it to myself, but I was pretty sure I remembered writing it somewhere, so I first did a google search, “Bucks Diary” “13-14″ “Christmas”.  No dice.  Then I just spent the last frickin half hour going through two months worth of Bucks Diary posts (“zzzz…”), but it paid off.  Here it is (its in the footnote at the end).  Now it is one seeeeemingly easy win away from coming true.  I defy you to find anyone else who had the same documented prediction, or anything close.

Also please notice in that article I had the Bucks slated as a 38.7 win team, at a time when everyone in the national media, from ESPN’s “Panel of Experts” to the annual Sports Illustrated preview issue, had them dead last in the Eastern Conference (since the actual last place team in the East is headed for a 14 to 16 win season, I would say they were effectively calling the Bucks nothing more than a 21 to 24 win team — I specifically remember Foxsports.com’s Charley Rosen predicting the Bucks would “lead the league in blowout losses”.  Not even remotely close. Ironically though, the Bucks have to lead the league in close losses.)  Anyway, how accurate has that analysis been?  Pretty damn.  Though they have not yet counted tonight’s win, Coolstandings.com currently has the Bucks projected to win 38.2 games.  Again, who was right and who was wrong?  (update: Coolstandings just reprojected the Bucks at 39.2 wins… so they jumped me).

By the by, I also had the Packers going 10-6 (I only have verbal witnesses to that).  In both the case of the Bucks and the Packers I was NOT exactly correct in which games would be wins and losses (I’m sure I had the Kings game as a win, and the Denver game as a loss, and probably the OKC game as a win, so there’s another incorrect loss in there somewhere).  But that only shows how things even out in sports, and how teams will usually find their level.

Now, I only toot my own horn in this instance because: (a) I put in a lot of work to try to figure the caliber the Bucks would play at and no one ever mentions it, and; (b) my hump has taken some serious bustings in the past for being wrong (see, Jennings draft pick).

So I’m just evening things out.  Merry Christmas Bucks fans

Footnote:  I was pretty much wrong with my prediction about the “Surprising Bucks” articles we would see.  They were pretty much eclipsed by “How about that Jennings kid” articles.

Brandon Jennings since his Double Nickel

I just did a chart showing the production of Milwaukee Bucks PG Brandon Jennings and his opposition PGs since his now-legendary “Double Nickel”.  (Click Here to see that chart)

He’s actually played about exactly where I expected him to play coming into the season (I think my Player Win Average estimate for him was something closer to .348%, but close enough).  And I have no qualms with any part of his game except his shooting efficiency, which has been just bad.  In fact, if you simply assumed he had a zero  scoring efficiency (he was producing one point for every FGA + .5FTA used), which in itself is less than the average point guard produced last season (+0.9 per scoring possession used), then he would have a positive Marginal Win Score (oddly, the one other area where he is below average is steals… something it seemed like based on this summer he would excel at).

I still think the Bucks are too Jennings dependent however.  Here’s an “ESPNy” stat for you that I discovered doing that chart above.  In games in which Brandon Jennings has shot at least 44.0% from the field, the Bucks are 6-0.  In games in which he has shot below that mark, they are, obviously, 5-14.   Too much dependence on a rookie point guard.

Oh, one more thing.  Even though Jennings is shooting miserably overall, he’s actually a very good free throw shooter and a slightly above average 3 point shooter.  He simply cannot make two point shots!  I think that’s an issue of physical maturity.  If you compare him to even slender point guards like Tony Parker, the difference is astonishing.  But that will change.  Its just that the Bucks will be paying the freight until it does.