3006: Would you look at that? (410 views)

[20s]

Just look at it. Updated through Sim 5.




O Rtg+ and D Rtg+

• The Timberwolves are the only team as far above the rest of the league offensively as the worst previous champions.  The offenses across the league seem to be closer together than previous seasons.
• 23 of the 29 teams are scoring between 95% and 105% of league average points per 100 possessions.
• It's possible this means that defense takes on greater importance in differentiating teams this year.  There are currently 8 teams that are clearly a cut above the rest defensively.

Clustered

• I first notice the clustering breaking the teams into 3 groups defensively.  Strong (Red, Orange), Middling (Blue, Teal), and Poor (Green).
• The Strong defensive teams are then broken down by Offensive Success. 
• This leaves us with the Orange which consists of higher level offenses that still fit in the Strong defenses category.  Five of the previous league champions and the Timberwolves and 76ers are in this group.
• The Red cluster is the strong defensive squads which are not as dominant offensively.  This grouping has six current TMBSL squads but no previous champions have ever had an offense on this level.

[/ul]

• The Middling defensive teams also have two clusters among them.
  
  • The Teal cluster is the stronger offenses among this group. Somewhat surprisingly, it includes the 3004 Champion Chaparrals who showed that you can win a championship with defense on this level. However, that 3004 Chaps team had an offense far stronger than any of the 3006 teams in this cluster.
  • The Blue cluster is the weaker offenses among the Middling defense group. They might be able to sneak into the playoffs, but shouldn't expect any success if they do.

O Rank and D Rank


Raw O Rtg and D Rtg


With rising points per possession across TMBSL, we now see 17 of the 29 teams scoring more points per 100 possessions than the champion 3001 Grizzlies, who had a good offense for the time.

[eric]

[bankz]

Very nice... Thanks 20s

[Trofie]

[20s]

Updated through Sim 6.




O Rtg+ and D Rtg+

• The Bullets are no longer the worst.  The Spurs are definitely worse and the Rockets are close.

Clustered

• The Teal cluster added the 76ers, Chaps, and Stags. The Wolves are still holding on in the Orange cluster with the champs despite being visually very similar to the Nets and 76ers.
  
  • The Red defensive cluster is down to only four teams.

O Rank and D Rank


Raw O Rtg and D Rtg

[TinyTimPig]

The Sonics seem to be missing from a couple of those graphs.

Are we covered up by someone else?

[IanBoyd]

May 20, 2021 14:56:11 GMT -5 TinyTimPig said:

The Sonics seem to be missing from a couple of those graphs.

Are we covered up by someone else?

robertcats

[delap]

May 20, 2021 14:56:11 GMT -5 TinyTimPig said:

The Sonics seem to be missing from a couple of those graphs.

Are we covered up by someone else?

you've been contracted. didn't want you to find out this way.

[TinyTimPig]

May 20, 2021 15:00:43 GMT -5 delap said:

May 20, 2021 14:56:11 GMT -5 TinyTimPig said:

The Sonics seem to be missing from a couple of those graphs.

Are we covered up by someone else?

you've been contracted. didn't want you to find out this way.

Tbh it was probably the right thing to do.

[20s]

Updated through Sim 8.

O Rtg+ and D Rtg+

• The Sonics are visible!

Clustered

• The clusters show a lot of the league is kind of a bunched up mess.

O Rank and D Rank


Raw O Rtg and D Rtg

[20s]

Updated through Sim 8.

O Rtg+ and D Rtg+


Clustered

• The clusters show a lot of the league is kind of a bunched up mess.

O Rank and D Rank


Raw O Rtg and D Rtg

[20s]

Updated through Sim 10.

O Rtg+ and D Rtg+


Clusters:

• Going with only 2 clusters, the league is separated into 14 current teams (all in the playoffs) and 6 previous champs in Orange and 15 current teams in blue.
• Only the Magic and Pipers are currently in the playoffs but not in the orange cluster.

O Rank and D Rank


Raw O Rtg and D Rtg




Bonus Content:
Inspired by me noticing that the Pipers and Raptors ranked 2nd and 4th in Blocks, yet only 24th and 23rd respectively in D Rtg and the shout discussion which led Ian to suggesting that Reb % is probably a better indicator of defensive performance currently than BPG,

Blocks per game and Defensive Rating


The line is a linear model of the observations.

Spoiler contains nerdy details of the model.

SPOILER: Click to show

Reb% and Defensive Rating


Spoiler contains nerdy details of the model.

SPOILER: Click to show

This basically means that 50% of the variability in our Reb%-D Rtg data can be explained by the model while only 18% of the variability in the BPG-D Rtg data can be explained by the model.  That means that for 3006 data thus far, we could do a better job predicting D Rtg by using Reb% than BPG.  Or given only D Rtg, we could more accurately predict Reb % than BPG using these models.

I played around with other models and an expoential model got the BPG r-squared up to .23, but it was still much lower than the .5+ of the Reb% model.

[bankz]

Those last two charts... Where do you want to be? Above line to the right? Below the line to the right?

[20s]

May 24, 2021 16:15:31 GMT -5 bankz said:

Those last two charts... Where do you want to be? Above line to the right? Below the line to the right?

It doesn't really matter if you are above or below the line in those charts.  The ideal place to be in both is bottom right corner as it would mean you are the best in both categories.

'Above' the line on the Reb% chart just means your Reb% is better than the model would predict based on your D Rtg.  (Or other way around, your D Rtg is lower than the model would have predicted based on your Reb%).

Blocks chart is the same way.  Above the line means that you have more BPG than it would have predicted a team with your D Rtg to have (or your D Rtg is lower than it would have predicted a team with your BPG to have).

[20s]

Updated through Sim 11:

O Rtg+ and D Rtg+


Clusters


O Rank and D Rank


Raw O Rtg and D Rtg

[Trofie]

Go bucks

[20s]

O Rtg+ and D Rtg+

Our champion this year will be the 'least dominant' offense relative to league average in 6.0 history.  No team this year had an offense as much above average as the 01 Grizzlies, the previous low champion in this category.  We saw the offensive ratings of the teams in the league a lot more bunched together at the top this year, with no one going beyond 107% of the league average 123.4.

Two Clusters


Two clusters does a good job of splitting the playoff teams from the rest with only the Magic (5 seed), Bulls (7 seed) and Pipers (8 seed) being playoff squads in the blue cluster.

Four Clusters


Four clusters is somewhat interesting because it puts only the Wolves and 76ers in the same cluster as our six previous champs.  This is due to their offenses being the closest to the previous Champs' offenses.  This does not imply that these are the only two teams who could win the title, just that their profile is the most similar to the previous champs.  The Bucks, for instance, have a more dominant defense than any of the previous champs.  That isn't a bad thing, the better your defense, the better your team, but it does take them away from the profile of previous champions.

O Rank and D Rank


Looking at rank, we now see the Bucks, Nets, Cougars and Chaps in that championship quadrant due to their offenses being top 6.  But as we discussed earlier, a top 6 offense this year isn't the same as it was in previous seasons.

Raw O Rtg and D Rtg

[skrouse]

69,420

[bankz]

80K

[Trofie]

90k

Go defense

[IanBoyd]

100k