APBRmetrics

Mark · Joined: 20 Aug 2005 Posts: 807

In favor of offense mattering more lately in 4 of last 6 years there is a higher correlation than defense . But 2 of last 3 it was defense. And for last 10 years a 5-5 tie. For the league as a whole. But the defensive ratings on the two finalists the last 4 years were as strong as they ever have been.

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Are we still in the Pistons badboy defense matters more era (compared to the 70s/ most of 80s) just slightly modified?; or is it time to call the post lockout period its own new era?; or will the future show that 2004-5 was the actual start of the real new era? Does the Larry Celtics / Magic Lakers era become more important as a model again given the Mavs similarity to that? Could be. Someone so inclined could pull up that earlier data, crunch thru it and check out the suggested similarity further and help us think about what parts might be similar and which parts are notably different. It might end up a hybrid era of the past two major eras, or will one win out?

The trend of what is tried/emphasized and is average for the league may not be the same as the trend of what leads to superiority and ultimately for one to a championship. A stronger than normal defense in a sea of offensive bias teams could still be the model- with enough offense, perhaps a little more than has been enough in the recent past. Combined relative strength on offense and defense still seems like a good approach. But you have to have relative strength against the top 8 in your conference first to get to the finals and with the conferences having important differences that should affect team design. And amount of relative strength on offense or defense isnt really linear and simply compared- the more differential in offense or defense, the amount of relative strength added seems to increase more than linearly.

Detroit tried to adapt via a coaching change but the offense didnt deliver enough in the playoffs. San Antonio thought they had the defense and added offense but it was via too old players. Phoenix the offense was there but still not enough defense. How much difference would K Thomas have made against Dallas? Clippers were a balanced team too, and produced the second best scoring differential in the playoffs. One more player or two probably for a championship, but what types? Cleveland similar to Clips but seems to need more player changes to go further. More offense without slipping back much from their playoff defense.

capnhistory · Posted: Thu Jun 15, 2006 3:41 pm Post subject:

I've enjoyed Kevin's articles, and I think he's asking some important questions about how we follow league wide trends. I think this general discussion though is working under a major handicap though. Discussing eras and following megatrends requires a certain amount of background data we can use for comparison. If we think we are moving into an offensive era it helps to have previous offensive eras to study. Then we could look for possible indicators with the past that do or do not match up with today's NBA. Compared to baseball for example, we don't have good statistical records for as many eras. How many eras we've seen and what kind of eras they've been has been debatable as well. I am struggling to find clear statistical indicators that would help me understand how offensively or deffensively oriented the association has been at any given time.
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