A Season for the Ages

by atthehive on Mar 21, 2009 5:42 PM CDT in Analysis Comment 8 comments

With the Madness of March in full swing, the NBA takes a back seat for a little bit. Nonetheless, it's worth pointing out that we only have 15 or so regular season games left in a very, very historic season.

Why is it so record breaking? LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, and Chris Paul.

In the three point era, there have been just nine 30+ PER seasons. All nine occurred in nine different seasons; in other words, any one season witnessed one 30+ performance at most. Then 2008-2009 arrived. With LBJ comfortably above the threshold, Flash playing out of his mind, and CP3 recovering to the 30+ levels he maintained all year with the return of Tyson Chandler, there's a very good shot they all finish at 30+. Illustrated graphically:

*T. McGrady couldn't make it onto this graph, citing injury and a crippling fear of New Orleans.

First of all, you might notice that 30+ PER seasons only happen once every three years. They're quite unique. Second, you might be wondering, "Why 30?" Why not 29.5 or 29.3 or 29.7894? Isn't 30 just some arbitrary number? It is. But if you extend this out to PER's of 29, or even 28.5, the results are pretty much the same- it's not a common occurrence. I picked thirty as a round number landmark for a very elevated level of play. In 29 years, exactly four players reached the landmark. This year, we're about to see three new players do it at the same time.

So yeah. Even as you set your bracket ablaze and hurl insults/remotes at your TV, keep an eye on New Orleans, Cleveland, and Miami. That's where the real Madness is underway.

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What I also find amazing.

Is the fact that the Hornets are not that good a team.

I just love CP3’s heart and passion for the game, if just one other person had it on this team…well we might be able to rely on someone and give CP a few minutes off. Thing that I would like to take notice to is how many minutes it took all three of those players. I am quite sure that LBJ achieved a 30+ PER with less gametime than CP and Wade. Just interesting to note.

New Orleans Hornets: The most inconsistent team in the NBA.

by Grayson on Mar 21, 2009 6:15 PM CDT reply actions 0 recs

By "that good"

I assume you mean as good as LBJ’s 2009 Cavs, Jordan’s Bulls, and Shaq’s Lakers. Which is definitely true.

Another interesting exercise is looking at the second best players of those 7 guys above (ie, the sidekicks). Pippen was ~22 PER (Jordan), Kobe was around ~23 PER (Shaq), David West is around ~19 PER (CP), Zydrunas is around ~19 PER (LBJ), and Marion/Jermaine is around ~18 PER (Wade).

The 2 guys with no sidekicks to speak of would be T-Mac (Darrell Armstrong with a 15 PER) and The Admiral (Vinny Del Negro with a 15 PER). So even though I complain a lot as to CP having nobody else on the team, West is a decent sidekick.

As far as minutes, LBJ and Paul play 38.0 minutes per game, Wade 38.6 minutes per game. Post All-Star Break: LBJ 39 mpg, CP3 39.7 mpg, Wade 40.7 mpg.

by atthehive on Mar 21, 2009 7:06 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

Ah Okay

I love D West, he is my favourite player. And a very nice “sidekick” to CP. In reference to “that good” I did mean it to indicate that the Hornets are no where near the Bulls, Lakers of the past. What I do mean is that they are not “that good” even in today’s sense. They are not in the top 5 teams in the NBA, and I can even picture us falling out in the first round of the playoffs. We have a horrific bench and if CP and D30 are not on their games we can type a big fat L next to our names for that game.

I am just looking at it from the perspective of making a run now. And at the moment I do not see that happening, despite CP’s efforts.

New Orleans Hornets: The most inconsistent team in the NBA.

by Grayson on Mar 21, 2009 9:46 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

Well, a lot of that relies upon Peja's health.

And Tyson. With those two healthy, Rasual playing as he is, and Mo, Posey, AD, and Julian off the bench, I’m okay. But once you start losing pieces, it messes with the bench. For the Hornets, I think it is a matter of consistency. Once we get our guys all together, get more comfortable in their roles, I think we’ll be fine.

HornetsHype.com

by m-W on Mar 21, 2009 11:02 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

Word.

by atthehive on Mar 22, 2009 1:05 AM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

Yeh

But we MUST have everyone healthy BEFORE the playoffs. I know I type in caps to emphasise the words. We can just figure that everything will be fine and dandy in the playoffs if everyone is healthy because the fact of the matter is we are not healthy at the moment and we have to get healthy if we are to succeed.

New Orleans Hornets: The most inconsistent team in the NBA.

by Grayson on Mar 22, 2009 2:55 AM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

Health and matchups

If we are healthy we can most certainly beat Dallas, Denver and Portland – those I’m just about 100% positive on. Houston perhaps as well… but that might be a little tougher.

Lakers, Spurs, Utah… those would be the toughest matchups, with Utah leading the way in terms of tough matchups. But but basically if the starting 5 is all there and relatively healthy then anything is possible.

Another New Orleans Hornets Blog

by Caleb462 on Mar 22, 2009 3:41 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

Nice post.

Why has no one commented on the awesome TMac jab? That was hysterical.

And yes, when the starters are all healthy, we can be force to be reckoned with. But if we have to start a portion of our already thin, bench that leaves Devin Brown and company to man the second unit… which is bad.

Hometown Hornets

by hldomingue on Mar 22, 2009 11:06 AM CDT reply actions 0 recs