The Bench: Unfairly Criticized?

[QuinielaBox]

With the recent playing time of Gabe Pruitt, I think that we can mostly agree that the second unit consists of some combination of:
Pruitt, House, Tony, Powe, Scal and Davis.

Let's look at the big picture.

-In '07-'08, the most frequently seen lineup was
1. Rondo, Ray, Pierce, Garnett, Perkins.    +388

388/82 = +4.73 pts per game

-In '08-'09, the most frequently seen lineup has been
1. Rondo, Ray, Pierce, Garnett Perkins.    +168

168/28 = +6.00 pts per game Starting Lineup has improved 26.8% over last year.

Look a little closer:
In terms of playing time, the next most frequently used lineups were/are:

-'07-'08:
2. Rondo-T.Allen-Pierce-Garnett-Perkins   +74
3. Rondo-R.Allen-Pierce-Posey-Garnett    +15
4. House-R.Allen-Pierce-Garnett-Perkins    +16

-'08-'09
2. House-T.Allen-Pierce-Powe-Davis    +24
3. House-T.Allen-R.Allen-Powe-Davis        +13
4. House-T.Allen-Powe-Scalabrine-Davis    -8

What's interesting here is that the data confirms an observation I made in the most recent Game Thread from Friday:
In '07-'08, Doc's use of "Bench" meant mixing in bench players with AT LEAST 2 starters (in the above cases, just one bench player with 4 starters!), whereas this season, lineups 2 and 3 in frequency have just one starter, and the 4th most frequent lineup has NO STARTERS (I would like to note that for lineup 4 82games.com seems to have the lineup incorrect; I assume that Scal plays SF and Powe the PF position). In other words, unlike last season, this season Doc really is sending in nearly a full "second unit."


FYI, here are the rest of the lineups used this year and last, in order of most time on the floor together:

-'07-'08:

5.House-T.Allen-Posey-Powe-Davis        -3
6.House-R.Allen-Pierce-Posey-Garnett     +8
7.Rondo-R.Allen-Pierce-Garnett-Davis        +9
8.Rondo-R.Allen-Pierce-Posey-Powe      +23
9.House-T.Allen-Pierce-Posey-Davis         +4
10.House-T.Allen-R.Allen-Posey-Davis       +33
11.House-T.Allen-R.Allen-Posey-Powe    +19
12.Rondo-R.Allen-Pierce-Scalabrine-Perkins    +17
13.T.Allen-R.Allen-Pierce-Garnett-Perkins     +20
14.Rondo-R.Allen-Pierce-Posey-Perkins      -18
15.House-T.Allen-Pierce-Posey-Pollard       +31
16.Rondo-Pierce-Posey-Garnett-Perkins    +7
17.House-T.Allen-Pierce-Posey-Garnett     +25
18.Rondo-R.Allen-Pierce-Posey-Davis        +8
19.Cassell-T.Allen-Posey-Brown-Davis     +6
20.House-T.Allen-Pierce-Posey-Powe    -14

-'08-'09

5.House-R.Allen-Pierce-Garnett-Perkins     +15
6.Rondo-R.Allen-Pierce-Powe-Garnett     +30
7.Rondo-R.Allen-Pierce-Garnett-Davis     +15
8.Rondo-T.Allen-R.Allen-Garnett-Perkins    -5
9.Rondo-R.Allen-Pierce-Scalabrine-Perkins     +12
10.House-Pruitt-T.Allen-Powe-Davis    +6



Again, let's look closer.
In this current season, only two lineups used by the Celtics have been outscored by opponents, as indicated by the +/- number to the right of the lineup. This is an absolute number, so it is not adjusted for playing time*. But it does give us some ideas. For example, during the '08-'09 season, the lineup of House, Tony, Pierce, Powe and Davis has scored 24 more points than it has allowed. That's a success in my book, as it means a lead was increased while four starters were sitting. The two lineups that have been outscored over the course of this season are:

4. House-T.Allen-Powe-Scalabrine-Davis    -8
8.Rondo-T.Allen-R.Allen-Garnett-Perkins    -5


The previous season, there were only 3 units that were outplayed while on the court:

5.House-T.Allen-Posey-Powe-Davis        -3
14.Rondo-R.Allen-Pierce-Posey-Perkins      -18
20.House-T.Allen-Pierce-Posey-Powe    -14


What this seems to show is that despite what a lot of us have seemed to observe, over the course of this season our bench has done a reasonable job of sustaining or even building leads. Perhaps because they are clearly not as good as our starters they seem to be doing worse than they actually are. Or perhaps the bench has periods of losing leads quickly, as many observe, but at other times slowly can build leads so that over the course of the season they have overall outperformed their opponents but we are left remembering the times they blew leads quickly while not acknowledging building a one or two point lead. I don't know for sure, but it seems like the problems with our bench are overblown.

When you also consider that the 6 bench players mentioned earn a collective 13.57 million compared to 65.95 mil for the 5 starters, the discrepancy is easy to understand. We can't expect a "second unit" of 4-5 bench players at a time to play as well as the starters do. It just can't happen.


Additionally, as someone who is on record with agreeing that Posey was not worth the 4 year contract he received from New Orleans, I would like to point out that Posey was involved on all of last season's outplayed units, as well as the feature bench player on the most frequent "all bench" unit, which was the 5th most common lineup used by the Celtics last year and was out-dueled over the course of the season. Put another way, in '07-'08, the top 4 most frequently used lineups had AT LEAST 4 starters. The first "mostly-sub" lineup was the 5th lineup of all bench players, presumably anchored by Posey, and that lineup was outscored over the course of the season; Posey was not quite the bench savior/leader off the bench we believe he was. I do not think he would make this season's "all-bench" lineups significantly better.




So, most important from this quick research?
-Doc is more committed to playing more subs together at the same time this year than last year.
-All-sub lineups did just as poorly last season as this season
-The bench has not been as bad as it seems this season

The one constant I see this year based on those statistics is that whenever Pierce is in the game, the opponents have no chance to catch up.

Other things I have noticed is that the Celtics get off to great starts - a lot of that is attributable to the superior play of Rajon Rondo who is playing at a much higher level than last year. Perkins is the unsung role player but the experts like Van Gundy are starting to sing his praises.

Then in the 2nd qtr and even late in the 1st qtr, the Celtics go through "a Wall St midday reversal" as the other teams adjust and get their three point game going (or they hit the boards harder than Boston).... THey build momentum and get their halftime deficits down to managable.

Then the 3rd qtr comes - and the SL usually blows out the other team and the 4th qtr bench comes in and mops up.

The Celtics are doing great this year and the bench is a good one. I am not concerned.















* For those that are curious, here's the teams +/- by unit adjusted on a per-minute basis:

08-'09   
Unit   "+/-" per Minute
1   0.291
2   0.247
3   0.194
4   -0.216
5   0.455
6   0.909
7   0.517
8   -0.238
9   0.632
10   0.333
   
   
07-'08   
Unit   "+/-" per Minute
1   0.369
2   0.465
3   0.105
4   0.162
5   -0.033
6   0.093
7   0.117
8   0.303
9   0.057
10   0.559
11   0.322
12   0.333
13   0.476
14   -0.429
15   0.795
16   0.184
17   0.658
18   0.242
19   0.188
20   -0.452

[/quote]

[Fan from VT]

Those numbers, while interesting, are not a 100 percent accurate measure of what a player's getting done on the floor. They don't measure, for example, an open man missed on a backcut, leaving the floor on an upfake or a failure to box out a man on the glass. In sum, there aren't a set of stats that can accurately assess a player's mental understanding of basketball - the ability to think the game. Only a tape and a trained eye can do that.

I understand the fascination with sabermetrics, but they are not terribly useful in basketball.

It's funny...this post reads like an "auto-generated response" to any topic having to do with stats, since this observation has nothing to do with the stats in question...almost like this was a scripted reflex to anybody bringing up numbers. I got a chuckle out of that.  Like someone eavesdropping on a conversation, only hearing bits and pieces, then weighing in.

[BballTim]

Those numbers, while interesting, are not a 100 percent accurate measure of what a player's getting done on the floor. They don't measure, for example, an open man missed on a backcut, leaving the floor on an upfake or a failure to box out a man on the glass. In sum, there aren't a set of stats that can accurately assess a player's mental understanding of basketball - the ability to think the game. Only a tape and a trained eye can do that.

I understand the fascination with sabermetrics, but they are not terribly useful in basketball.

  The Celts as well as other teams keep track of metrics.

  What you're talking about is somewhat academic as opposed to practical. Whether or not a bench player makes a positive contribution and helps maintain a lead when he's in the game is probably more important than your assessment of his mental understanding of the game.

[CoachBo]

Chuckle.

I don't know a coach at any level who pays the kind of attention to sabermetrics that some of you on this board do. I track them, but they are a small component of how I evaluate playing time. They aren't a definitive measure of a player's worth in any worthwhile system that I am aware of - including Doc's.

I'll resist the temptation to wonder if anyone who lives and dies by these numbers ever coached or put together a team, but I can tell you that mental basketball acuity isn't the nothing the above poster portrays it to be.

These numbers are wonderful for Internet geeks, but they don't properly account for the elements that any good coach uses to determine playing time. They are rather handy, obviously, for either over- or under-valuing players in an Internet debate of no consequence.