It's Friday, and that means it's time for Hollinger's Harbingers -- a new thing we're doing each week that lets me focus on a few short-attention-span notes that have got my attention but aren't necessarily worth expounding on for a full column.
As you know, a harbinger is a sign of things to come. And one of the best ways to use advanced stats is to forecast the future. No, we don't have a formula to say with certainty who will win the NBA Finals, though you can check the
Hollinger Playoff Odds each day for a snapshot of how things look. But by using advanced stats to see things that ordinary stats and myths can't show us, we can get a better sense of both what has happened and what is to come.
For instance, did you know that only three players in history have played more than 2,000 minutes in a season and grabbed at least one-third of the available defensive boards when they were on the court? It's true. Swen Nater,
Dennis Rodman and
Ben Wallace are the three, although it comes with an asterisk -- the league didn't separate defensive and offensive boards until 1973-74.
I bring that up because Minnesota's
Kevin Love may become the fourth. He's boarded 33.2 percent of the missed shots by the Timberwolves' opponents, so he needs just a microscopic uptick in rebound rate to join this hallowed company.
Ready for the punch line? He doesn't have the best defensive rebound rate in the league. Portland's
Marcus Camby has nabbed a whopping 35.4 percent of missed shots when he plays, although his recent knee injury may end up keeping him just shy of 2,000 minutes. If he can meet that threshold, Camby will have the second-best defensive rebound rate by a 2,000-minute player ever, with only Rodman's 1992-93 season (a ridiculous 36.
topping it. Among players with at least 1,000 minutes it ranks third.
So, that's the type of thing I'll be mentioning in the Harbingers. Here are five more:
West
1. Nobody is really talking about
David West's impending free agency, but it's a much more pressing issue for the Hornets than
Chris Paul's potential departure in 2012.
West, who has had an All-Star caliber first half of the season, has an opt-out clause in his contract, and since he's due to make a pittance next season (just $7.5 million), he's virtually certain to exercise it and become an unrestricted free agent.
West and Paul are very tight, which is potentially a plus or a minus. "You have to think he's going to talk to CP before he makes his decision," as one exec put it to me. If he doesn't stay in New Orleans, it's possible they try to reunite in another city.
Unlike with
Carmelo Anthony in Denver, however, there is little extension talk with West, and there's a good reason for that. Extension salaries are built off the last season of the contract, and West makes only $7.525 million in the final season of his. So even if the Hornets signed him to the maximum three-year extension with the maximum allowable raises, West is looking at only $34.8 million for the four years after this one -- a comically low wage for a player of his caliber.
Instead, West will roll the dice with free agency under the new collective bargaining agreement. And if he leaves The Big Easy, it's hard to imagine Paul sticking around a year later.
2. Any time the Celtics miss a shot in their game against the Suns in Phoenix on Friday night, we'll be treated to a battle of the immovable object versus the irresistible force. The Suns have the worst rebound rate in basketball -- although they're not quite plumbing the depths of last year's Warriors -- and are 29th in defensive rebound rate.
Based on that information, one might think Boston will destroy Phoenix on the glass. Not so fast. Despite the Celtics' impressive size, they're dead last in the NBA in offensive rebound rate at 21.4 percent. Not only is that the lowest figure in the league, it's the second-lowest in history, with only the aforementioned 2009-10 Warriors doing worse.
Boston would also have the worst offensive rebound rate in history by a winning team, with the 2005-06 Suns the current record holder at 22.1. A dozen teams in history have played .500 or better with an offensive rebound rate of 24 or less, and interestingly all 12 have been since 2002-03. That ties in with the long-term trend of declining offensive rebound rates leaguewide.
This information may come as a surprise given Boston's size, but as one longtime Celtic spy told me, "They don't try." Instead Boston focuses on running back on defense, and rarely sends multiple players to the offensive glass. Last season's Celtics, for instance, weren't much better -- they were 28th in offensive rebound rate at 22.4.
Brown
3. Kwame Brown looks like one of the most improved players in the league, doesn't he? He put together back-to-back double-doubles for the second time in two weeks in Charlotte's road wins over Sacramento and Phoenix and has taken over the starting center position for the Bobs.
Compared to a year ago, his scoring rate and true shooting percentage have both improved dramatically, from 9.5 points per 40 minutes and 47.0 a year ago to 13.1 and 58.6 this season. As a result, his PER has nearly doubled.
As hard as this is to comprehend, however, during live action Brown is virtually identical to the player he was a season ago. The comparison is most apt
here, by scrolling down to "career totals" and looking at his past two seasons. The minutes are virtually identical, and so is the performance in rebounds, assists, blocks, steals, field goals and field goals attempted. To the extent they differ, it's almost certainly the noise associated with comparing two low-minute seasons.
Only one category is substantially different -- made free throws. Believe it or not, Brown gets to the line so often, and was so horrible at making free throws a season ago, that his shooting 61.4 percent from the stripe this season has had a massive impact on his effectiveness as a player.
Brown shot only 33.7 percent last season but has nearly doubled his average this season; since he has one of the highest rates of free throw attempts per field goal attempt in basketball, taking virtually as many foul shots as field goals, this has a massive impact on his statistical performance.
Brown doesn't need to shoot like
Mark Price to have value, he just needs to make more than half of his free throws. So far he's done so, and that's allowed him to stay on the floor and use his other skills.
4. Washington visits Oklahoma City on Friday night and will try to avoid its 21st straight road defeat. The Wizards have yet to win a road game this season, and their streak is approaching record territory on a couple of different levels. The league record for road losses to start the season is 29, by the 1992-93
Denver Nuggets, and Washington is getting within hailing distance.
The Wizards are still only halfway to the big kahuna, however. Sacramento lost 43 straight road games over two seasons in 1990-91 and 1991-92; Washington, which lost its final road game of last season, won't be able to break that record this season.
But back to the other record. If Washington keeps up its losing ways, it will go for the tie on March 6 in Detroit and then claim the record with a loss on March 15 in Chicago.
And the schedule isn't favorable. Between now and Detroit, Washington will be a massive underdog in five games (Oklahoma City, Dallas, New Orleans, Orlando and Miami) and a pretty healthy bet to lose in two others (Memphis and Philadelphia).
All of which makes Feb. 13 so crucial, because that's when the Wizards visit Cleveland in a classic Something's Gotta Give game. The Cavaliers have lost 18 straight, and there's a chance they'll have what would be a league-record 26-game skid entering the Washington game.
What's amazing about the Wizards' streak is how rarely they've even been close. Washington gave away a lead in Detroit on Nov. 21, losing in overtime, and put a scare into the Hawks before falling in the second game of the season. But those are the only two games they've managed to stay within five points.
Statistically, my Power Rankings method has them as a three-point favorite in Cleveland, but if they don't win that one the record is in deep trouble. I have them as double-digit underdogs in the other seven games; while there's enough of them that they have a decent shot at getting lucky at least once, I project a 43.3 percent chance that they'll drop all seven.
The good news? I give them a 62.1 percent shot of beating Cleveland. If they do that, the Wizards will steer clear of the record books.
5. All this has to get you wondering what Cleveland's chances are to break the all-time losing streak record. The single-season mark stands at 23 games and is shared by the Denver Nuggets in 1997-98 and the former Vancouver Grizzlies in 1995-96, while the mark over two seasons is 24 games, set by the Cavaliers in a previously glorious era in 1981-82 and 1982-83.
The Cavs would tie the single-season record with a loss in Memphis on Feb. 4, would break it with a loss at home against Portland the next day and would own the other mark by losing Feb. 7 in Dallas.
There's a good chance those games will be for the records, too. In Cleveland's road games in Orlando and Miami, for instance, I have them as a 21.5-point underdog gains the Magic and a 22-point underdog against the Heat. Both games come with roughly a 2 percent win probability.
As a result, I give the Cavs a 63.1 percent chance of tying the record with a loss against Memphis on the 4th, a 50.7 percent chance of breaking the single-season mark and a 47.6 percent mark of setting the all-time mark, too. Key games are the home contests against Indiana and Portland, both of which I give the Cavs a roughly 1-in-5 shot of winning -- not great odds, perhaps, but the best they'll face in their quest to avoid the record.
