TELEVISION: SportSouth
RADIO: Hawks Radio Network, Audio League Pass
GAME NOTES: Hawks/Pacers
ATLANTA INJURY REPORT: None.
INDIANA INJURY REPORT: Mike Dunleavy, Travis Diener, and Tyler Hansbrough are out. Jeff Foster is questionable. Danny Granger is
FOR ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY: Atlanta -8, 204 o/u
OTHER PERSPECTIVES: Eight Points Nine Seconds, Indy Cornrows
GAMEDAY LINKS
- Matt Moore previews the Hawks through the Lion Face/Lemon Face prism at Hardwood Paroxysm.
- Kevin Pelton and Bradford Doolittle (who penned the excellent Hawks chapter of the book) of Basketball Prospectus posted their final projections and predictions.
- Neil Paine's Eastern Conference Preview on the Basketball-Reference.com Blog includes projected per 36 minute stats for every player.
- Hawks? Check. Lang Whitaker? Check. NPR? Sure, why not.
- The Human Highlight Blog ably previewed the Hawks in three parts. (1, 2, 3)
- Here's a direct link to the Eight Points, Nine Seconds Pacers Preview.
- The Pacers may not have heard of offensive or defensive efficiency. There's no disputing they weren't good defensively last year, finishing 19th in the league. That "free-flowing, high-octane offense the past two seasons" finished 18th in the league in offensive efficiency last year and 19th in 2008. The Pacers have averaged the third-most possessions per game each of the last two seasons, hence the understandable confusion. Less understandable: acquiring Solomon Jones and Tyler Hansbrough in the hopes they'll improve your team defense.
- Bob Kravitz has heard of defensive efficiency.
6 comments:
The Basketball prospectus take on the Hawks makes yours seem extremely optimistic. I can't find anything about it that I like-SCHOENE thinks the Hawks are somehow going to improve in defensive efficiency, but apparently, a Mike Bibby regression is coming that will absolutely destroy the offense.
I can see a Bibby regression coming off of his career high in EFG%, but since a lot of his role is to serve a spot-up shooter, I still think his career averages are a basement for him. He shouldn't have to create his own shot more than once or twice a game.
The real concern isn't his offensive effectiveness, it's his ability to stay in front of his defender, and his health to stay on the floor.
I don't have my Basketball Prospectus in front of me at the moment, but the Marvin Williams SCHOENE projection is far lower than I expect/hope for. As one would expect, the projection system doesn't treat Williams' three-point shooting as a new skill so much as an aberration, which, in his NBA playing career it thus far is.
Figure a couple of wins for that, a couple of wins for presuming too much playing time for Joe Smith or Jason Collins and you've got most of the difference between SCHOENE and me.
I think the only way that seriously dour prospectus occurs is if suddenly many teams had the talent and played defense as well as the Magic, Cavs, and Celtics.
Much like a (30) win total projection--not likely.
I was speaking of the NBAPET projection, btw, not Bret's.
So there.
There does seem to be the inherent statistical assumption that most of the starting will miss time due to injuries, and the historical distribution of minutes assumes that Joe Smith and Jason Collins will inherit a lot of those frontcourt minutes without Zaza gaining any.
I have this team, rather optimistically, at 49 wins. That's leaning on the breakout potential of Horford, Smith, and Williams-I think any one of those three, or all collectively could add 3-4 wins based on their individual growth.
The perception is that while the Hawks stood still, the rest of the East got better, but I see a few teams I expect to get worse-namely the Pacers, Heat, and Bucks, while the Nets and Knicks are probably holding steady, with the Raptors and Wizards both serving as wildcards. Hawks are not a highly variable team at all-barring serious injury problems, they're in the 45-50 win range.
Back with the book...
They've got Marvin down from 4.4 actual WARP to 3.2 projected WARP with his 3PTA% dropping from 19 to 13.6 and his 3PTFG% going from 35.5 to 31.
Bibby's the big drop from 6.4 actual WARP to 2.5 projected. That and Crawford, Teague, and Evans are projected to be collectively below replacement level.
As Bronn intimated above, please let me confirm that, yes, I think that is all pessimistic.
Post a Comment