Tracking the Cavs: '14-'15 Metrics Watch

[theSTEREO.]

So, I did this a bit last year. New coach, new philosophy, and this year of course, pretty significantly new players, so I thought it would be interesting to see how the team progressed over the course of the year.

The two metrics I thought would be most interesting would be Offensive vs. Defensive Rating (which is points per 100 possessions for those wondering), and the individual usage stats for Lebron, Kyrie and Love. For the Off & Def Ratings chart, I also am including the NBA's best mark for each stat to to see how we compare.

Cavs Current Ranks (Season to Date 4/6)

Offensive Rating: 4th
Defensive Rating: 21st

[parsehtml]<iframe width="800" height="450" src="//embed.chartblocks.com/1.0/?c=546d0dc1c9a61d144f999f8a&t=cf282056576de01" frameBorder="0"></iframe>[/parsehtml][parsehtml]<iframe width="800" height="450" src="//embed.chartblocks.com/1.0/?c=546d104ecaa61da40e8b4567&t=8a976c51f5003a4" frameBorder="0"></iframe>[/parsehtml]I started each chart with last year's numbers to see what our starting point was (Last Year is "Week 0"). Also for this year's statistics, I'm only going to be using the last 15 games of data. I waited until we played 15 because that seems like a solid sample size. Small enough to show incremental change, but big enough not to be swung by a couple overly bad or good games. I think that's gonna be a better representation of where we are at a particular moment in time, rather than looping in the rocky start to the year come April. My goal is to see what our improvement is, and how well we will be playing as we approach the playoffs.

If anyone has any other metrics they'd think would be cool to track, I'm all for it. Just let me know. I'll plan to update it each Monday. Hopefully I remember to keep up!

Also, I'm using a pretty cool service called Chartblocks. But, you only get 5,000 views a month for free and I have no idea how many page views this thread will get, but let's see. I may have to just start downloading them as images and posting them. Until then, they should update automatically each week as I add in new data, and you can hover over parts of them and see specific info.

 

[theSTEREO.]

Hey mods, anyone know how to embed HTML in a post? I should be able to make the charts interactive. They give an iframe code, but it won't show up. I had to go back and change those to just static pictures.

Any help would be appreciated.

 

[theSTEREO.]

Updated the charts today.

Also, got the HTML interactive versions working now. Chart should automatically update here each week, and you can now hover over each data point to see the value.

I'll also put the Cavs NBA Rank in the original post each week too.

 

[Man Called X]

So, if I press f5 5000 times, that would kill your usage for the month right?

 

[theSTEREO.]

If you want to rob all your RCF brothers of this WONDERFUL graphic information, be my guest X

 

[Man Called X]

I won't, was just curious. Will stop posting so I can do more reading on this with beautiful graphics that entice me.

 

[Stitches]

I like seeing the NBA best defense and offense rating, and how we relate to each, but can we also track the best off/def differential (like we are +6 right now according to the chart)? I'd think that would also give a good idea of how our team compares to the nba bests.

 

[theSTEREO.]

Just updated the OP.

Offense continues to soar. 4th overall over the last 15 games, and 4th overall for the entire season now.

Defense took a steamy dump. Slipped to 16th overall over the last 15 games, 23rd overall on the season.

Also, Kevin Love's usage slipping in the last few games. Kyrie's slooooowly creeping up, Bron's been level nearly the entire season.

 

[Sebastian]

Thank you for posting this. It is greatly appreciated.

 

[Tornicade]

odd stat. seems as good a place as any to post it.. Cavs are 10-2 when Irving has less than a 23% usage. 8-1 when he shoots over 63% True Shot.

Cavs are 6-1 when Love has over a 23% usage.

Cavs are 14-3 when lebron has over a 30% Assist percentage.

 

[priceFTW]

I took a look at all the title teams from the last 35 years to see where they ranked in ORtg and DRtg to see if some sort of picture develops. The trend has been more towards defense being more important since the 2000s began and offense being more important than defense in the 1980s although that was heavily skewed by the Lakers. Right now, we're 4th in ORtg and 21st in DRtg per Basketball Reference.

As you can see, the winner with the highest combined ORtg and DRtg in the past 35 years were the 2991 Lakers who played well defensively in the playoffs. The highest combined ORtg and DRtg finalists were the Knicks of 1999 with a combined rating of 30.

Some points to consider:

• Only two teams that had a defensive rating that ranked outside of the top 10 won a title the past 35 years. Two other teams had a defensive rating of 10th in the league won the title the past 35 years.

• Only eright teams were finalists with a defensive rating outside of the top 10.

• In the last 15 years, 6 title teams had an offense in the top 5 while 9 teams had a top 5 defense

• 10 of last 70 teams with DRtg out of top 10 made the finals' 15 teams with Ortg outside of top 10 made the finals

• If the defense is worse than 5th (13 teams that won titles had a defense worse than 5th in the league), then offense has to be great (3 #1s, 6 #2s, 1 #3, 2 #7s, 1 #8; mean 3.1 offense)

• In the last 15 years, 13 title teams had a top 10 offense (mean of 5.3) ; 14 teams had a top 10 defense (mean of 5.3).

• In the last 35 years, only 8 title teams had a MEAN Ortg + DRtg > 6 (for example, a #1 offense and a #11 defense gets you to a mean of 6)

• In the last 35 years only 14 of 35 title teams had a MEAN Ortg + DRtg > 5 (for example, a #1 offense #9 defense gets you to a mean of 5).

 

[priceFTW]

The average title team has an ORtg+DRtg of about 11. Right now, we're at 25.

Since 2005, the average DRtg of title teams has been 4.8.

In this decade, the average DRtg has been 5.6 and in the 2000s, it's been 5.4.

 

[priceFTW]

Here's how title teams break down by offensive and defensive rankings.

 

[Captain S]

What are our ratings since the 5-7 start

 

[David.]

4 and 16ish