I suppose it's worth saying something about the rumors flying that Kobe Bryant might get traded to Washington, since I heard someone repeating them excitedly at the corner store. In fact, though, the only observation I have is about the cosmic injustice of conference imbalance. Last year's Lakers went 42-40, whereas the Wizards went 41-41. So the teams did about the same. Except, of course, that if you swapped the entire Lakers roster for the entire Wizards roster, the Wizards would get much better and the Lakers would get much worse. The two teams, after all, compiled their similar records playing against very dissimilar competition.
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The Kobe Factor
30 Oct 2007 07:24 pm
Comments (6)
I contend that Bryant is at a disadvantage having played in only the triangle offense for his whole successful pro career, and not doing it well (ask Tex Winter). Del Harris and Mike Dunleavey don't count, and when things got really bad with Tomjanovich in LA, Bryant wanted to go back to the triangle.
I'm a Laker fan but not a Bryant fan, and I approve this message.
Ed, I suspect those numbers are skewed because
1) the west had a few very bad teams
2) the home court advantage in West vs East matchups is much stronger than W v W or E v E. I think this is true because most road trips against teams in the opposing conference are usually the longest, most tiring of the entire year. How often do you see a team have a really bad swing in their 6-8 game/2 week trip vs the opposing conference.
Look at the NBA finals last year, how far down in the Western Conference would you have to get to find a team that Cleveland would beat in a 7 game series? Houston? Denver? Utah?
That said, I don't think switching the Wiz and the Lakers would have more than a 5-8 game swing in records. Particularly since the Lakers were so completely dependent upon a big night by Bryant to win, when he's off, they have no chance. And I think the situation w/the Wiz is pretty similar (Hibachi).
switching the Wiz and the Lakers would have more than a 5-8 game swing in records
5-8 games is a gigantic swing. Five wins gives the Lakers the fourth best record in the East, behind Detroit, Cleveland, and Chicago. Eight games gives them a record that ties Cleveland's for second in the East.
The point is that the difference in the conference schedule only amounts to 22 games. Each team plays 30 games against the west, plus 30 games against the east, plus 22 more against its own conference. Sure the west is better, but it's only 22 games.
So Tim, you think the Lakers were worse than Cleveland last year? I think they were almost the exact same team. The Lakers may have been weaker inside, but Odom was far better than anyone LeBron had to help out..
If Cleveland was better, it was due to Varejao, but I don't see much space between those two teams.
Comments closed November 13, 2007.
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Heads in the Sand
I think you may be exaggerating the effects here.
Last season the teams in the west had an average of 43.1 wins, with an average winning percentage of 57% against teams in the east, (and, of course, an average percentage of 50% against the teams in the west). If you switched the "average" western team to the east, and it continued to have the same winning percentages against eastern and western opponents as before, the opportunity to play an extra 22 games against eastern foes would raise its record from 43.1 wins all the way up to a whopping 44.7 wins.
So if you switched the Lakers and Wizards, you might expect the Wizards to go down to 39 or 40 wins, and the Lakers to go up to 43 or 44 wins. Not really *that* huge a difference.
Posted by ed | October 30, 2007 8:45 PM