by the numbers

["Thomas Murphy" <tfmiii@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

A lot of folks have pointed to the team chemistry, particularly following
Obie's bail out 46 games into the season. The claim is that guys like EWill
(particularly) and Battie were good locker room guys who were on board with
the defensive program and that Ainge was a fool to break up the chemistry of
the locker room to try and bring younger, more talented people aboard.
Furthermore, some have pointed to the relative success of Cleveland since
the trade the lack of such success on the Celts end as indicative of the
misguided nature of Ainge's move.

This analysis neglects certain verifiable factors, factors that are not as
intangible as "clubhouse chemistry," that go a long ways towards explaining
what we are all observing.

In terms of improvement over the course of a season, teams typically do it
one of three ways: they gel as teammates become more familiar with one
another and/or a new coaching scheme, they improve due to the individual
improvement of players who are young and being developed, or they make a
trade that improves their on the court mix. In Cleveland's case one can
attribute improvement to all three factors: they have a new coach, the coach
is committed to developing young players (most notably Lebron, but he is not
alone), and they made a trade to improve the mix and balance of the players
they can put on the floor as well as imparting a veteran presence in the
locker room for the young 'uns to emulate. Couple that with the fact that
the easiest improvement to make in the NBA is from wretched to not so
horrible, and much of Cleveland's relative success since the start of the
year does not look quite so miraculous.

In the case of the Celts, the only means of improvement was by way of a
trade. The coach was a fixture and he was not committed to developing youth.
And if anything, the trades that were made resulted in the coach relying all
the more upon the players that he was most familiar with. Furthermore, the
Celts were a mediocre team (44-38 the previous year) trying to become a good
team making progress that much more difficult. Hence, the lack of
improvement in the case of the Celts cannot be attributed solely to Ainge's
trades (although that could certainly be a factor). The failure to adjust to
new personnel and to incorporate/develop young talent placed an artificial
cap on the amount of improvement one could reasonably expect to see.

But -- some will argue -- the team had won five in a row before the second
trade! Yes it had. And it had also lost four in a row twice before that. It
was 12-12. The team had not obviously progressed from mediocre to good -- as
exemplified by the varying streaks -- and unless one is ready to weight far
more heavily wins against Cleveland, Toronto and three west coast teams
(Denver, Utah, and Seattle) that, say what you will for them, are not
"league powers" and were relatively unfamiliar with the Harter defense, then
this team was by no means  necessarily on the verge of a "break out."
Previous successive "break out" wins against Sacramento and Indiana were
followed by a loss against Chicago and there was no reasonable (rather than
hopeful) expectation to believe this pattern was broken.

[As a side note: folks often harken back to the ECF appearance two years
ago. It was fun, but it was also a different team from the one that Ainge
inherited. Gone were Rodney Rodger, Kenny Anderson, Vitaly Potapenko, and
(mercifully) Joe Forte. Gone too were any realistic hopes of making the ECF,
never mind the Finals or ever winning the Finals. The team Ainge inherited
started Bremer at point (unless it was Tony "I once scored 50 points" Delk)
and was signing 40 year olds to back up what had become a very thin and
brittle starting five.]

Now, given that the team this year has been roughly as mediocre as last
year's edition -- why all of a sudden the panic and the determination that
Ainge's monkeying with the locker room chemistry is the culprit? A quick
crunching of numbers (nothing fancy -- just figuring some averages) points
to a far more tangible source of the difficulties - post Ricky D trade. I'm
not sure, but in making such a trade I don't think Ainge intended the
primary beneficiary to be Walter McCarty, since we pretty much know what he
can do, but perhaps some of the youthful frontcourt players who need minutes
to develop (just like they do in Cleveland). But McCarty is the one clear
"winner" in the trade's aftermath -- even if the Celts are not.

-------------------
1st 24 games: 12-12
McCarty mins (ave) 8.5
Offensive rebounds (differential) -2.3
Rebounds total (differential) -0.9

Walter had only one game in which he logged more than 20 minutes and the
team was outrebounded by double digits twice.

22 games under Obie since trade: 10-12
McCarty mins (ave) 31
Offensive rebounds (differential) -4.1
rebounds total (differential) -6.6

Walter has had only one game in which he logged less than 20 minutes and the
team was outrebounded by double digits nine times -- nearly half their
games!
-------------------

Now this is not to say everything is Waltah's fault -- after all, we know
what sort of player he is and what he is capable of. But I do think it
speaks to the inflexibility of the coaching staff in utilizing the resources
at their disposal as well as the tunnel vision that prevents them from
recognizing that player development can occur during the course of a year
and not only over the summer break.

So one does not have to resort to intangibles like "locker room camaraderie"
to explain the difficulties the team has faced, particularly since the Davis
trade. In essence Obie turned a trade for Davis and Mihm with more
opportunity to develop Hunter and Perkins into a trade for McCarty, with
Davis and Mihm filling in around that. Is that in the team's best interest,
long or short term? Does it reflect a certain ideological approach to
basketball (only 3-point shooters who "stretch the defense" and can play
Harter D need apply)? Or does it reflect certain power dynamics between the
coach and the team president? (Remember when Van Grundy refused to dole out
minutes to Camby until after he won his tussle with Grunfeld and only THEN
realized the value of having a mobile 6-11 shotblocker on the roster.)
Again, I don't know what drove these decisions, but from a strictly
basketball point of view I would imagine that the choice should have been
fairly clear.

Is Walter McCarty going to bring us flag 17? No, I don't think so. Will
Hunter and/or Perkins? I don't know, but then I don't think any of us could
know that at this point -- which is precisely the point.

BTW, as should be fairly obvious, Carroll shares the same Pitino/Obie
ideology: Walter continues to average 30 minutes a game athough the
rebounding has improved somewhat under Carroll's tenure -0.3 offensive
boards and -2.2 rebounds total.

Ainge is going to ride out the season with Carroll and the team will
continue its up and down season, just as it had played before the Davis
trade (two four game losing streaks, one five game winning streak). We'll
squeak into the playoffs at six, seven or eight and be out after a hard
fought series -- just like last year under Obie: no better, no worse. Then
the final pieces of the puzzle can (hopefully) be put into place at the
coaching level (and possibly at PG) and we should be able to improve as the
season progresses next year.