APBRmetrics

**Roland_Beech** · Joined: 14 Jan 2005 Posts: 43

It's also seemed a little curious to me that the MVP in sports is based on the regular season only (particularly in basketball where making the playoffs is a bit of a given for most good teams).

If you count the post-season into your assessment, does that change your opinion of who the MVP of the league was this year?

HoopStudies

jambalaya · Joined: 30 Jan 2005 Posts: 282

things that contributed to duncan's +/- differential on/off court:

1. team defense surprisingly almost 7 points worse with him on court compared to off.

search for explanations: of course could be partly who he was on court with rather than all on him. team defense differential on/off court: parker -13, bowen -9.5. that may say a lot about their counterparts on offense but it helps makes all the spurs starters they played with worse than just on their own. and compared to his on court number, duncan's off court number may have had a higher rate with ginobli (+5 impact on team d on/off), who anchors team when duncan's out? i dont have those %s. and maybe he got tired a little? and maybe also it generally says he played heavier against the detroit starters and when he was out it was somewhat more their less potent bench? that could be a big part of it. but duncan did give up about a 7% higher opponent FG% compared to regular season which is significant, but folks can vary on how to split between blame for duncan and fair recognition of the above average detroit frontline.

2. FG% on duncan's jumpers only 31%, down from 41% regular season. with half his total shots being jumpers.

maybe detroit's bigs bothered his jumpshots more than normal? and
by contrast horry 57% eFG on jumpers and ginobli 53%. and maybe they took more when tim was out? and so the +/- picks up on the big FG%differential?

duncans on/off +/- rating may have worked out negative with all that goes into it, him and everyone else, but still looks like popovich managed the overall rotation well.

moneyp · Joined: 24 Feb 2005 Posts: 69

jambalaya · Joined: 30 Jan 2005 Posts: 282

duncan is only 29 but a brief check for any signs of aging is still worth doing i think. his shooting (both inside and outside) was down quite a bit, so i checked the other facets of his game for possible decline. comparison made for playoff stats this year to last: passing a mixed bag but close to a wash. block rating only down about 5% but significantly fewer actual blocks. hands rating a significant improvement over last year with less bad passes and ball handling turnovers. offensive and defensive rebounding percents of chances both up a healthy amount. % fouls drawn down, though FT% and points off them both up strongly.

of course the stats are affected by the different teams played and so it can't be considered an exactly even comparison. but it does suggest that the shooting issue is the main concern. he should be sound enough for a few more strong years as team leader. probably will stay a top 5 MVP candidate for awhile longer. but i think he is close to his peak. and there is an opportunity for someone greater to lead their team past him if they have enough of the right stuff on the supporting cast. amare and the suns seem to be the strongest candidates if they have the right offseason.

gabefarkas · Joined: 31 Dec 2004 Posts: 1313 Location: Durham, NC

gabefarkas · Joined: 31 Dec 2004 Posts: 1313 Location: Durham, NC