This week's mailbag features your questions on new NBA awards, snubbed statistical MVPs, LeBron James' toughest road out of the Eastern Conference and more.
You can tweet your questions using the hashtag #peltonmailbag or email them to peltonmailbag@gmail.com.
@kpelton #peltonmailbag are there any end of the season awards that you would like to see the nba implement?
- hutch (@HutchNGo) April 5, 2017
With all due respect to Justin Willard's idea of a Sophomore of the Year award, I'm not sure we need any more that carve up the electorate into super-specific categories like best reserve and best rookie in an era where few rookies contribute much to their teams.
One idea Zach Lowe and I talked through on the Lowe Post a few years ago was bringing back Comeback Player of the Year. (Which would, I suppose, make it the comeback award of the year?)
Who would win Comeback Player of the Year this year? James Harden might be a candidate; I think he fits there much better than Most Improved, as I've seen a few people suggest. Marc Gasol has come back from a broken foot so well it's easy to forget he was ever seriously injured. Khris Middleton made an impressive same-season comeback from a painful-sounding torn hamstring.
I'm surely missing someone, so feel free to tweet or email me suggestions. But the obvious winner to me is Joel Embiid for playing at an All-Star level after missing two full seasons and enduring months of grueling rehab. As Drake says, they don't have no award for that; we probably should.
@kpelton Who deserved to win MVP by stats/eye test but lost b/c their team wasn't good enough, since Russ will prob buck that trend #peltonmailbag
- Kenny Bania (@TheGreatBundino) April 7, 2017
I wanted to set the bar high for this answer, since most years a handful of players can make a reasonable case for MVP. So I looked only at times where I feel the statistics pointed to a clear MVP who lost out because of his team's subpar record (and not necessarily because another team simply had a better one). That left me with just three qualifying cases:
1988-89: Michael Jordan, Chicago Bulls
1989-90: Michael Jordan, Chicago Bulls
Let's travel back to a time when Jordan was considered a great scorer who didn't help his team win. It's not exactly like the Bulls were terrible, particularly in 1989-90, when they won 55 games. (They were 47-35 in 1988-89.) And Jordan led the league across the board in advanced stats, yet Magic Johnson won the MVP both years.
2004-05: Kevin Garnett, Minnesota Timberwolves
Garnett delivered a season only slightly worse than his MVP campaign the previous year, but he slipped to 11th in the voting because the Timberwolves missed the playoffs at 44-38. With the benefit of hindsight, it's clear that had to do with the decline of Minnesota's role players, not a drop in performance from Garnett. Steve Nash rode the unexpected success of the Phoenix Suns to the first of back-to-back MVPs.
The other season worth mentioning: 2005-06, when Kobe Bryant averaged a career-high 35.4 points per game for a 45-win L.A. Lakers team and finished fourth in the voting (though second in first-place votes). The advanced stats point to neither Bryant nor actual winner Steve Nash but instead ... well, I'm not really sure, but not them. LeBron James led the league in wins above replacement player and Basketball-Reference.com's value over replacement player and was my choice at the time. Dirk Nowitzki was tops in both win shares and PER.
Bryant's season has drawn comparisons to Westbrook's because both put up big per-game stats with high usage rates after the departure of an MVP teammate. However, Bryant's performance did not rate as well by advanced stats as Westbrook because he did not contribute as much in non-scoring categories.
@kpelton #peltonmailbag With BOS and WAS playing better in 2nd half of season and TOR trades, is this the best #2-4 since LeBron went to Miami?
- Erik Landfried (@elandfried) April 5, 2017
It's challenging to evaluate the Toronto Raptors since Kyle Lowry has played so little with Serge Ibaka and PJ Tucker, but I feel comfortable saying no -- and in fact that it might be closer to the weakest than the strongest.
Despite Lowry's injury, Toronto still has the best point differential in the East (better than the Cleveland Cavaliers) at plus-4.0. Ten other East teams in the span we're considering have had a differential as good or better, including at least one team each season.
The competition was probably stiffest in 2010-11, James' first year with the Heat. The Chicago Bulls won 62 games that season with a plus-7.3 differential, while both the Boston Celtics and Orlando Magic were better than plus-5.0 and won more than 50 games. Miami beat Boston and Chicago before losing to the Dallas Mavericks in the NBA Finals.
As for this year, aside from Lowry's injury, it's hard to make the case the other teams are truly better than their season-long ratings. Boston (plus-1.5 points per game) and Washington (0.0) actually have worse differentials since the trade deadline!
So why does the East feel stronger? In part, both the Celtics and Wizards have won more games than their point differential would suggest. But mostly I think it's about the Cavaliers slipping back to the pack, making everyone else look better by comparison.
Hey @kpelton how did Lebron's three point % go up but his free throw % go down? Riddle me that.
- Matthew Thomas (@MattEsposito_) April 6, 2017
I think Matt was being a little sarcastic with his question, but this is still a good time to clear up the relationship between 3-point percentage and free throw percentage. As I've written before, college free throw percentage has counterintuitively proved a slightly better predictor of NBA 3-point percentage than college 3-point percentage.
However, this relationship shouldn't necessarily be taken to mean that better free throw shooting causes better 3-point shooting (or vice versa). Instead, I think both are indicators of overall shooting ability, but free throw percentage tends to be more stable because players typically attempt more free throws. (They're also obviously not subject to any defensive effects.)
Still, there is random variation in both free throw shooting and 3-point shooting, and it's possible that in James' case randomness might be helping his 3-point percentage and hurting his free throw percentage so they appear to be mismatched. And in general, when you plot season-to-season changes in free throw percentage and 3-point percentage (minimum 100 attempts both seasons), there's no relationship:
"Should the league do away with positions for the All-Defensive teams, given the best defenders these days are so versatile? A good example is [Andre] Roberson, who will generally take the opponent's best scorer/swingman, yet being listed as a forward he will likely miss out on the first team as he is competing with Kawhi [Leonard] and Draymond [Green]." - Nick Mockford
Hmm. I think that might make sense in terms of the two wing spots, since their defensive responsibilities tend to overlap so much, but there are definitely big differences between the other positions. So even if you were to go with the PG/wing/big split I favor for the All-Star Game, you'd presumably have almost all centers besides Draymond Green among the big men.
As a result, my preference would be to keep the current positions but be flexible with sliding wings between forward and guard -- as I did with Roberson on my All-Defensive teams.
@kpelton wrt projecting future player performance, is it possible sports science/rest will change the decline phase of aging curve? #peltonmailbag
- Ben B (@guga31bb) April 5, 2017
Definitely possible. One of the challenges in projecting player performance is dealing with the evolving way players age. I found myself consistently struggling with underprojecting players in their 30s using the SCHOENE projection system, even after I cut out comps from before 1990 because players tended to age worse in the 1980s.
I'm wary of overstating the impact of sports science without clear evidence, but as more money and more thought go into prolonging peak performance, I think we're likely to see some effect.