I'm still not sure what to make of the Cavaliers' 2007-2008 regular season. As the Cavs prepare, once again, for the bureaucratic formality that is the Washington Wizards, I'm not sure whether we should be optimistic or pessimistic about the team's "true" ability, and thus its playoff chances. So I'll try to summarize both viewpoints. Let's start with the pessimistic...
Why the Cavs are not as good as you think
The team finished 45-37, five wins off last year's pace. But even that may be understating the case. Pythagoreally, the decline from last season is even more pronounced. The 2007 Cavs finished the regular season with about 52.3 Pythagorean wins; the 2008 Cavs finished with only 39.9 Pythagorean wins—that's right, the Cavs played about as well as a .487 team, and
lucked into their "good" record.
And this is a team that plays in the National League of the NBA—the Eastern Conference—meaning their record, like all their team statistics, is artificially inflated, thanks to being relatively insulated from all those incredible Western Conference powerhouses.
Offensively, the Cavs scored 106.0 points per 100 possessions, which is an improvement on last year's 105.5, but not really when you consider that last year they ranked 18th in the NBA, while this year, they rank only 19th. (There was a league-wide uptick in offensive efficiency this year.)
The more significant decline was in the Cavs' defense, which went from a 4th-ranked efficiency of 101.3 a year ago, to an 11th-ranked mark of 106.4 this season. A close look at the Four Factors reveals the defense's drop-off from 2007 is localized to a couple of areas:
2006-07 2007-08
Opp. eFG% 0.480 0.494
Def. TO rate 0.163 0.143
Def. Reb. rate 0.758 0.759
Opp. FT/FGA 0.243 0.240
The Cavs' superior defensive rebounding has stayed about the same, and they're committing fouls at about the same rate. The problem has been opponent shooting, and a lack of turnovers. Truth be told, this evidence suggests the problem is on the perimeter, which should only serve to remind us that offensive succubus Larry Hughes was, in fact, a great perimeter defender, as was the late Eric Snow. It might even be the case that LeBron James' defense regressed a little after His amazing defensive performance in 2007.
Finally, there seems to be a sense that the already severely injury-plagued Cavs are "limping into the playoffs," with several of the team's key players either suffering from or just now getting over injuries of various types. I can't really argue with this notion (though I do think it's an exaggeration), as the Cavaliers haven't exactly been lighting up their opponents the last few weeks. Last year, they played their best basketball of the regular season in March and April, entering the playoffs on a very high note (and we know how that worked out). This year, they played (unquestionably) their best basketball in January, and have been pretty middling ever since.
But enough of that...
Why the Cavs are better than you think
The season's statistics may be bad, but do they really represent the true, current Cavaliers? After a ridiculous number of injuries and one extremely roster-mutating trade, it's reasonable to view the season totals with a degree of skepticism. By looking at more specific splits, we may get some slightly less reliable data, but we can try to discern how the
current Cavs might differ from the "whole season" Cavs.
Take a look at the Cavaliers' total point differential over the course of the season (click to enlarge):
The entire line exists below the break-even point of zero (which is why the team's Pythagorean win percentage is below .500), but a couple of things jump out at me. First, the general slope of the line, from about New Year's to the end, is positive, with only one major downturn, and two pretty healthy "surges" (the month of January, and the period right after the big trade).
But more importantly, almost the entire freefall down to the season's "nadir" occurred in the span of about 5 games, starting on November 28. In case you're not so good at remembering dates, the Cavs were in Detroit that night. They trailed the Pistons by 5 at the end of two quarters, but LeBron didn't suit up for the second half, and the Cavs went on to lose by 35. LeBron missed five more games while His index finger healed, during which time the Cavs lost by margins of 9, 10, 21, 19, and 3. That was all she wrote for the team's point differential: a 94-point drop in only 5 games.
At the risk of cherry-picking statistics, I thought it might be worthwhile to compare the team's performance in "LeBron-blessed" and "non-LeBron" situations. LeBron missed 7 whole games this season (including one at the end of January and the season finale on Wednesday night). I decided not to put the November 28 fiasco against Detroit into either category, since LeBron did play half the game, and I don't feel like trying to break up the box score into first-half and second-half stats. So basically, we have a sample size of 74 "LeBron-blessed" games and 7 "non-LeBron" games:
LeBron no LeBron
games 74 7
win pct. 0.608 0.000
Pythag. W% 0.541 0.146
Off. Eff. 107.5 94.3
Def. Eff. 105.6 108.5
Sweet
Mother of God Gloria James, the Cavs were awful during those 7 games without The Chosen One. And that's not even counting the 24 minutes in Detroit when they were outscored by 30 points. I know we're talking about a very small sample size, but without LeBron, the Cavs offense disappeared. They scored only 94.3 points per 100 possessions—for comparison, the NBA average is 107.5, and over the whole season, the worst offense in the league, the Miami Heat(s), scored a whopping 100.5 points per 100 possessions.
The other event of which I've made note on the graph above is the "big trade" for Wallace, Szczerbiak, Smith and West. Certainly, we want to look at how the team fared both before and after the trade. Here's a summary (I have not included the February 22 game against Washington in either category, as neither group of traded players was able to suit up for that one):
pre-trade post-trade
games 54 27
win pct. 0.556 0.519
Pythag. W% 0.456 0.549
Off. Eff. 105.4 106.5
Def. Eff. 107.7 105.4
At a glance, it looks like the Cavs were, in fact, much improved by the trade. The Hughes-Gooden squad won a higher percentage of their games, but they were lucky to do so, since they didn't score nearly as efficiently, nor did they play defense as efficiently. On the other hand, the pre-trade Cavaliers were the ones forced to endure LeBron's five-game absence, which we know can skew the stats unfairly.
I thought it might be a better idea to examine the performances of the individual players traded. Here's a quick-'n'-dirty summary of what the Cavaliers got out of their new arrivals:
minutes O-Rating D-Rating
West 806 108 107
Smith 580 114 107
Wallace 578 104 102
Szczerbiak 556 99 109
Except for Szczerbiak, who played the fewest minutes but was awful, all of these guys performed pretty well. Ben Wallace still posted the worst D-Rating of his career, but his offensive performance, shockingly and without precedent, was adequate, so his overall value was in the black. Similarly, Delonte West's defense was not great, but he turned his offensive game around (his 2007-08 O-Rating as a Supersonic was just 87) so he came out in the black, too. Somewhat surprisingly, the most efficient performer of the four was Joe Smith, whose offensive rating shot up after the trade. That one smells like it might be a small sample size fluke to me, but you never know.
Here's a summary of what the Cavs got out of their dearly departed, pre-trade:
minutes O-Rating D-Rating
Gooden 1564 98 105
Hughes 1210 96 106
Newble 650 101 106
Brown 218 86 108
Marshall 156 94 106
At the time of the trade, I did not realize what a horrible offensive season Drew Gooden was having. After posting O-Ratings of 112, 112, and 107 in his first three years as a Cavalier, Gooden was sitting on a rating of 98 before he was shipped to Chicago. On the one hand, this might serve as justification for trading him, but on the other hand, it means the Cavs traded low, so to speak. As a Bull, Gooden posted an O-Rating of 107 (right back to his 2006-07 level). Gooden's defense has remained strong throughout.
Larry Hughes, on the other hand, sucked as a Cavalier, and continued to suck as a Bull (rating 98/108). His defense was already down from last year's fine D-Rating of 103, while his offense was just as terrible as it had been for years. Good riddance.
All told, I have to say, the trade looks like it was a net positive for the Cavs. I might contend that, even without making the trade, they would have played better over the final 28 games than they did over the first 54, but it'd be hard to argue that they would have (or could have) improved any more than they did by pulling the trigger. I take this as another sign that the Cavs are, in fact, better than their record, or even their Pythagorean record, would have us believe.
Lastly, I'm well aware that there's a philosophy out there—a popular one—which suggests that certain teams—the Cavs being one—have the ability to "flip the switch" when it comes time for the postseason. I guess, in the minds of the "switch-ists" out there, the Cavs qualify for this option because LeBron is the supreme commander of time and space. In other words, I'm not completely discounting the notion that this happens in the NBA, but at the same time, I do not accept it at face value just because "people" say so. I've been pondering for some time now how to compile data on whether this is a real phenomenon, and I'm hopeful I'll be able to post something on the blog on the topic of "switch-flippability" before we get too far into the playoffs. I would be very happy to hear your thoughts, readers, on how to approach the question of fact vs. fiction, using data from past seasons. For now, I'll just say that I'm very skeptical, but there exists a
possibility that LeBron will "flip the switch" and that the Cavs of the upcoming 2 months will not resemble the Cavs of the previous eight in any way, shape, or form. So yeah, that would be another reason to be optimistic. I guess.
In summary, it was a season of extremes, and of unanswered questions. Because of that, there are some Cavs optimists around town these days, and there are even more Cavs pessimists. But give it a few weeks: almost none of those people, pro or con, will remember how they once felt about the regular season, because in the NBA, you're judged by how far you go in the playoffs, and that alone. In my
regular season recap from a year ago, I made this same point. It seems, on the heels of a second consecutive 50-32 campaign, people were looking on the 2006-07 regular season as a disappointment (the Cavs having failed to increase their win total). But in my article I pointed out that the Cavs had, in fact, improved quite a bit from the year before, and that the pessimism was unwarranted. Of course, the Cavs went on to appear in the NBA Finals, and now everyone remembers the 2006-07 season as a big success.
The point is that the 2007-08 regular season leaves us with an even cloudier picture than we had at this time last year, so the range of possibilities for the Cavaliers in the playoffs is as wide as ever. They could peter out in an early round... or they could shock the world and reach the NBA Finals for a second consecutive year. Neither is that hard to imagine, is it?
