Ramsay Hunt Experience
Footballguy
This is kind of a weird discussion. Seems to me if you really care about rewarding the best team, you fight against Big Playoffs in general 
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2015 NBA Thread: I felt a great disturbance in the trolls, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter Capella
- Start date
TobiasFunke
Footballguy
Yeah, I remember that bizarre anomaly back in 2006. Quite a thing. You'd think it would be pretty hard to top, wouldn't you?
Allow me to introduce you to the 2011-2012 Los Angeles Kings, Stanley Cup Champions with a regular season record of 40-42, shut out a league-high 10 times in 82 games.
Notorious T.R.E.
Showdown!™ Administrator
One would think the Cavs would take 104 points a game. Just can't score 89. I think GSW is averaging about 110 in the playoffs.
Capella
Footballguy
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TobiasFunke
Footballguy
Bob Sacamano
Footballguy
But then the Kings went on to go up 3-0 in every series (including against the President's trophy winning Canucks) and completely dominated the entire post season while going 16-4 to win the cup. They played a style that is built for a 7 game series not necessarily for a regular season grind and it showed up for that postseason. That team then went on to go to the Western Conference Finals the following year and then won the cup again the year after. They were much better than their regular season record of 2011-2012 showed.
How does the NBA format favor superior teams over the NHL format? Both sports have 16 teams make the playoffs out of 30 teams and both have 7 game series each round in a 2-2-1-1-1 format. How can you say the NBA format favors superior teams while the NHL does not? They have essentially the same playoff format.
All in good fun......and I am a Kings season ticket holder and I think hockey is the best spectator sport there is. There is nothing like a Stanley Cup Final game in person. It is the most intense experience you can have as a sports fan.
Instinctive
Footballguy
Can't forget the influence of pace though. That game was suuuuuuuuper slow. Felt like the slowest of the playoffs to me, though idk the exact possession count. GS probably scored 1.1+ points per possession, and I think the NBA average is around 1.03. That's a big difference. Cleveland was probably less than 1 PPP, which sucks.
Looking at raw scoring overlooks this. That OKC series was run at a frenetic pace, so tons of possessions and extra points every game.
The fight over pace in this series is really interesting. The typical assumption is that the better team should want a faster pace (more possessions allows more chances for their talent advantage to win out) while the worse team wants it slow (less possessions means an upset is more likely because variance plays a larger role in smaller samples). This is the effect that causes a team like Virginia to be upset prone in the tournament every year - they place super slow so a few shots going in or missing in any given game can be a huge difference.
But in this game, Cleveland is a lot more efficient at a faster pace because of who they have. The question to ask is, are they enough better at a faster pace than GS is to make that advantage worth more than having variance on your side? GS can play at a fast pace too, but we saw last series that they may be better off at an above average or a slow pace - OKC destroyed them at that super high pace in games 3/4 (I think the two fastest games of the playoffs).
Fascinated to see what happens in Game 2.
Spin
Footballguy
I think it has to do with how the sports do the seeding? NBA does straight seeding 1- 8, where NHL reserves top x seeds for division winners then puts wild card teams after that so you have some teams that end up with better records/more points in the regular season but get a "lower seed" in the playoffs.
When people reference regular season stats and records for how "good" a team should do in the postseason it's a stupid discussion - not a weird one.This is kind of a weird discussion. Seems to me if you really care about rewarding the best team, you fight against Big Playoffs in general
Short Corner
Footballguy
The difference is that OKC was able to contain GS's transition fit the most part with their tenacity on the offensive glass. Westbrook was regularly on the other side of half court when the rebound came down and came close to getting a few backcourt violations on passes back out. Golden State won't have to commit 4-5 guys to the boards and will be able to get out on the break much easier than they did against OKC.
Good Posting Judge
Footballguy
Iguodala was superb, again, on Lebron. I think they might even have to up him from the 22-24 minutes he spent on him in Game 1.
He did more work than usual on offense last night, but he can be an effective/useful offensive player if he's stationed in a corner, waiting for defenses to help off of him.
He did more work than usual on offense last night, but he can be an effective/useful offensive player if he's stationed in a corner, waiting for defenses to help off of him.
The NBA gives the top 3 seeds in each conference to the 3 division winners regardless of record. The #4 seed goes to the top record of non division winners. So it isn't a straight seeding 1-8. Granted the NHL screwed up their system when they went to this keeping divisions separate (for the most part) style. Prior to this the NHL had it right when the reseeded each round - meaning the #1 seed would play the lowest remaining seed each round. It's why the Kings in 2012 had to go through the #1, #2, and #3 seeded teams on their way to final.
Short Corner
Footballguy
It's a straight seeding now. They haven't seeded in the way you described for a while now (decades?). Until last year, division winners were guaranteed a top four seed. IIRC the Clippers were the the seed last year as the runner up in the Pacific.
GOB
Footballguy
Bob Sacamano
Footballguy
Bob Sacamano
Footballguy
Wait, offside replays first.
Spin
Footballguy
*Shrug* according to wikipedia, they've changed to the straight seeding by conference:
The top eight teams in each conference (East and West), ranked in order by win-loss records, qualify for the playoffs. The tie-break criteria for playoff seeding and home-court advantage have also changed; head-to-head results between the tied teams is the first tie-breaker, and whether a team won its division championship is the second tie-breaker
ShamrockPride
Footballguy
People need to stop saying Bron was great last finals. He shot 40% for the series.
Cliff Clavin
Footballguy
I wouldn't say the format makes a difference. In hockey, you can thoroughly dominate a game and still lose by a goalie getting hot, hitting a couple posts, be a victim of a bad call and giving up a PPG, etc. Those things coupled with incredibly low scoring and funny stuff can happen. ####, a fluky bounce or two is all it takes to win a game now. The better team doesn't always win because of that even over the course of 7 games.
In the NBA, you dominate a team, you win by 20. A lucky bounce or bad call on one of 160 possessions means little.
Capella
Footballguy
Synthesizer
Footballguy
Frostillicus
Footballguy
Instinctive
Footballguy
Do you think that Mozgov will suddenly see more time?
Bogut - Mozgov
Barnes - Love
Green - Thompson
Thompson - LeBron
Curry - Irving/Delly
That would be intriguing as a super big lineup attacking the boards, similar to a couple of last year's Finals games. I think the matchups mostly work pretty well too for CLE. But then Iguodala subs in for Bogut...can you still run super big?
My dream NBA team is super tall. I want Giannis at PG. I want everyone to be tall, and switch everything. Tall but not slow. Would be really fun to coach..
Instinctive
Footballguy
He carried the team. Historically high usage rate. He created everyone else's shots too. He should have won the MVP.
Boston
Footballguy
In the NBA if you have a legit superstar you probably have a very good team...in the NHL you can have a superstar but he makes nowhere near the difference an NBA star makes...not even close...pretty simple formula...take a look at the NBA champs of the past 36 years and there are very few examples of the champ not being built around a legit Hall-of-Fame level player...the Pistons in 04 are pretty much the only team not built around such a player...
Synthesizer
Footballguy
Since 1980, there have been three NBA champions without a starter who was at one point the league MVP: Pistons in 1989 & 1990, and Pistons in 2004.
msudaisy26
Footballguy
Abraham
Footballguy
The Pistons had 4 hall of gamers on the 89 team and 3 on the 90 team. I took a look and was shocked to find that Isaiah's highest MVP voting finish was 5th in 1983-4. That's insane. Granted, he played during the peaks of three of the five best players ever plus Malone and Barkley, but still...
Ghost Rider
Footballguy
Surprising, yes, but Thomas was never a media favorite, most of which was his own fault, and like you said, his peak happening when Bird, Jordan, Magic, etc. were all going strong never helped his cause.
matuski
Footballguy
Capella
Footballguy
Viewership doesn't equate to quality of product. As someone said previously, people are stupid. Just look at Bachlorette, American Idol, Kardashian Crap viewership.....All probably have better ratings than NBA so based on your logic NBA is terrible compared to those.matuski said:
mr fancypants
Footballguy
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Long Ball Larry
Footballguy
Or the 46-106 Brooklyn Tip-Tops in 1915.Frostillicus said:
Good Posting Judge
Footballguy
If Matuski vs. Pacquiao were on at the same time as Pens/Sharks G3, which would get a higher rating?
Good Posting Judge
Footballguy
Yeah he played his ### off. Dunno what else he could do.Instinctive said:
Capella
Footballguy
No but saying a sport sucks because the tv ratings are low is dumb."hey, you don't like the same sports I like so you must be dumb."
This type of logic is what red raiders calls level 1 thinking. It's a notch below the nerds in the political threads who say the same things about people who don't like the same candidates as them.
Failing to get that point after two dozen posts on the topic is..... worse.
Kev4029
Footballguy
I'm going to preface this by saying I'm 30 and Isiah Thomas played his last game when I was 8 years old, but....
Isiah Thomas might be the most overrated player in the history of the NBA due to his team success. He had three seasons with a PER over 20 or win shares over 8. He has a TS% of .516 for his career, a PER of 18.1, and 80.7 total win shares (.109 WS/48). His counting stats show well at 19.2 PPG and 9.3 APG in 13 seasons.
Just for comparison's sake:
Stephon Marbury has a TS% of .528, PER of 18.7, with 77.5 win shares (.117 WS/48) with 19.3 PPG and 7.6 APG in 13 seasons. And is generally considered a disappointment.
Chris Paul has a TS% .578, PER of 25.7 (His worst PER in a season is 22.0, Isiah's best was 22.2), with 144.1 WS (.249 WS/48). He's averaged 18.8 PPG and 9.9 APG in 11 seasons. Through 13 seasons he will likely double the WS that Thomas had for his career.
Chauncey Billups had a TS% of .580, PER of 18.8, 120.8 WS (110.1 through 13 seasons, .176 WS/48 for his career) and averaged 15.2 PPG and 5.4 APG. Probably the best player on a championship team, likely won't make the HOF.
Andre Miller through his first 13 seasons had a TS% .531, PER of 17.7, 95.4 WS (.122 WS/48) and averaged 13.8 PPG and 7.1 APG.
Thomas played for some great teams that hid his weaknesses while showcasing his skills and is also helped by retiring near the height of his career at 32 years old. I'm obviously missing something have only watched a handful of old games, but he was clearly analyzed through the lens of his team's success. By the time the Pistons were winning titles in the late 80s, Thomas wasn't even the statistical equivalent of somebody like Jeff Teague (who has a surprisingly similar profile to Thomas, minus the rings). The current Isiah Thomas (the little one) is currently in a similar three year run to the peak HOF Isiah Thomas in his 3-5 years. Over the last three years Little IT is averaging a higher TS% (.569 vs .533), higher WS/48 (.174 vs .157), a similar PER (21.1 vs 21.5).
Isiah Thomas might be the most overrated player in the history of the NBA due to his team success. He had three seasons with a PER over 20 or win shares over 8. He has a TS% of .516 for his career, a PER of 18.1, and 80.7 total win shares (.109 WS/48). His counting stats show well at 19.2 PPG and 9.3 APG in 13 seasons.
Just for comparison's sake:
Stephon Marbury has a TS% of .528, PER of 18.7, with 77.5 win shares (.117 WS/48) with 19.3 PPG and 7.6 APG in 13 seasons. And is generally considered a disappointment.
Chris Paul has a TS% .578, PER of 25.7 (His worst PER in a season is 22.0, Isiah's best was 22.2), with 144.1 WS (.249 WS/48). He's averaged 18.8 PPG and 9.9 APG in 11 seasons. Through 13 seasons he will likely double the WS that Thomas had for his career.
Chauncey Billups had a TS% of .580, PER of 18.8, 120.8 WS (110.1 through 13 seasons, .176 WS/48 for his career) and averaged 15.2 PPG and 5.4 APG. Probably the best player on a championship team, likely won't make the HOF.
Andre Miller through his first 13 seasons had a TS% .531, PER of 17.7, 95.4 WS (.122 WS/48) and averaged 13.8 PPG and 7.1 APG.
Thomas played for some great teams that hid his weaknesses while showcasing his skills and is also helped by retiring near the height of his career at 32 years old. I'm obviously missing something have only watched a handful of old games, but he was clearly analyzed through the lens of his team's success. By the time the Pistons were winning titles in the late 80s, Thomas wasn't even the statistical equivalent of somebody like Jeff Teague (who has a surprisingly similar profile to Thomas, minus the rings). The current Isiah Thomas (the little one) is currently in a similar three year run to the peak HOF Isiah Thomas in his 3-5 years. Over the last three years Little IT is averaging a higher TS% (.569 vs .533), higher WS/48 (.174 vs .157), a similar PER (21.1 vs 21.5).
Prince Myshkin
Footballguy
This is a better argument against advanced statistics than an indictment of Thomas. If you are telling me that your statistics are saying that Marbury, Billups, Andre Miller and Jeff Teague (seriously???) were on par or better than Isaiah Thomas, then I am telling you that your statistics are flawed or incomplete.
matuski
Footballguy
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