Queen City Hoops - The Queen City Hoops Greatest Lineup Ever...(so far...in 2007-08)

The Queen City Hoops Greatest Lineup Ever...(so far...in 2007-08)

01/18/2008

While I have not been doing game recaps lately, I have not forgotten about the "Queen City Hoops Greatest Lineup Ever Award" (first mentioned here) and I have decided to do something a bit different today. I will be awarding the QCHGLE award for the first 19/41st part of the season and breaking down some numbers for the group. If you have access, now is a great time to have something like "Pomp and circumstance" playing in the background, or at least "Hero" by The Verve Pipe ("but a hero's what I want to be...").

A quick nod to the runners up:

Emeka Okafor
Gerald Wallace
Jason Richardson
Matt Carroll
Raymond Felton

In 135+ minutes together this season, they have played some tremendous basketball: They score at a prodigious rate, 110.2 points per 100 possessions, and are just as stingy on defense, giving up 98.2. Expected wins for a team that played that way all the time? Almost as many as the Bulls...the really good ones from years past: 71 wins over an 82 game season. As great as this lineup has been, another has been even better...and there is only one player different between the two...and it is not who you would expect.

The only player removed from the group? Emeka Okafor (whose value I have detailed in the past). Surprised? I was. But there are some reasons for it, which I will get to in due time. First, here is the lineup that has received the "Queen City Hoops Greatest Lineup Ever (of 2007-08...so far)":

Nazr Mohammed
Gerald Wallace
Jason Richardson
Matt Carroll
Raymond Felton

This group has put together an absurd differential of +29.4 points per 100 possessions in 93+ minutes at this point in the 2007-08 season (projected wins, for comparison's sake: 81). This group has been even better at both ends of the court than our runner up, scoring 118.8 points per 100 possessions and allowing 89.4. So, the next question is, how?

Well, when put up against the team averages, this group is slightly better on the defensive boards, grabbing 70.3% of available opponent misses compared to an average of 67.3%; a bit better with the ball, with turnovers on only 14.4% of possessions, to 16.7%; they also help each find shots a little more regularly, with 25.9% of possessions ending in an assist as opposed to a normal number of 22%. But none of those numbers is glaringly unusual, so there must be some other causes to it. First, I want to mention one thing that it is not.

It does NOT appear to be a product of their opponents. This group has nearly identical efficiencies when only looking at their numbers when playing against the top players on the opposition. I did a separate query, only looking at lineups where players like LeBron, Kevin Garnett, and Dwight Howard on the floor...and then went even farther to only include times where certain dynamic duos were on the court, like AI and Carmelo, and Carlos Boozer and Deron Williams. With those stipulations, the numbers become 121.1 points scored per 100 possessions, and 91.4 points surrendered - still good for a nearly +30 per 100. So, there may be some strength of schedule issues to consider, but, from what we have to look at, they seem to be holding up against the best so far.

One cause? Nazr did not come over until mid-season...by which time the team had started to adjust to Jason Richardson's presence, and the offense was starting to improve after some tough going early. In fact, since Nazr arrived, Gerald and Jason have both been major forces on the offensive end, scoring 1.44 and 1.31 points per shot, respectively, and both of those numbers are a bit over their full season numbers. So, part of it has been that Nazr has been fortunate enough to come along as the team was starting to mesh. And he is similar enough to Emeka to not have caused a similar disruption as Jason.

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David (Rufus on Fire) Says:		Cool stuff. Your small sample size explanation probably has the most to do with it. What popped into my head when I read this has to do with strategy. It seems to me that the Cats have two plus penetrators in Felton and Wallace, plus one slightly better than average penetrator in Richardson, plus a guy whose offensive skill set is maximized by cleaning up off misses in Emeka. That implies that the offense should be a slashing, driving off the dribble, offense, so it kills me whenever I see them set up with the big men on the elbows and work the ball through guys who aren't good passers. That leads to why I think the Best Lineup is what it is. I'd bet that what few times Vincent put Mohammed in as the fifth guy with Felton, Richardson, Wallace, and Okafor, they figured they had to slow up the offense and work a half-court set, and that means running Vincent's inane, "big men on the elbows" system. When they go small and Emeka is on the floor, they still let him post up too often, even though that's not what he does. However, when Nazr is on the floor, they don't seem to let him post up at all. They'll still run the elbow plays, but Nazr can actually hit a jumper on occasion. Also, when Nazr's on the floor and they're running that elbow offense, they're more likely to put the ball in Wallace's hands, and he's more likely to drive and finish, or drive and kick to Richardson or Carroll. In other words, when they played the big lineup or when they put Emeka on the floor, I don't think they play to their strong skills on offense, while the small lineup with Nazr "forces" them to do so. On defense, does Wallace simply do better against bigger guys than smaller guys? Do the data back up the notion that Carroll gets abused when he has to cover someone man to man?
Mon Jan 21, 2008 11:15 pm

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