Last Blazers Post for a While

Alright, I was sitting down to drop a short draft preview and I saw something so wrong, so incongruous with my world view I had to mention it here. I just saw Bill O'Reilly, avowed conservative arguing for more regulation of a certain business. I'm still not sure what to say.

Anyway, draft day is tomorrow, and the 3rd annual pritch-slapping of the NBA has already begun. In case you haven't heard, the Blazers bought the 27th pick from New Orleans for cash consideration. This is the same kind of move that netted Portland the rights to supposed sensation Rudy Fernandez. I have a had few comments asking what I would like to see Portland do, and what I think is likely. Well, for all my thoughts are worth, here you go:

I still see Pritchard trying to move the 13th pick. I really don't see there being a player available that will be ready to step in and contribute in the way Portland really needs. Moreover, given the working plan (AKA the Cap-Space for 2009-10 Plan), Portland likely needs to move one or more of Frye, J Jack, and Webster. (For more detail see this site.) Based on that I think Pritchard is most likely to either trade up from 13, or trade for a player that fits Portland's needs.

What I would like to see: Of the three players mentioned I would prefer to see them keep Webster. I think at worst he is a legit 3-point threat that can open the floor a-la James Jones or Kyle Korver. If he continues to develop to his true potential, his ceiling is much much higher. That isn't to say I don't like Jack or Frye, I just think Webster is the more rare of the commodities. I am not as convinced as some that SF is a big need for Portland. I think Outlaw and Webster both have big potential at the 3. I am much more convinced that we need an improvement at the point. So, I guess I'm looking for Pritchard to try and pick up a quality point, but one that is comfortable without the ball. A good shooter, and a good defender with a good handle under pressure.

Other then that, given Pritchard's general MO of stocking talent, I expect to see a lot of BPA tommorrow. (And at least 2 more trades... but I am not plugged in enough to really speculate with who/for who.) I do like Heinrich a lot, but I am not a fan of contract, and that rumor seems to have died out.

Advanced Statistics and the Portland Trailblazers Pt. II

I was going to start writing this post a couple of days ago, but I had a little bit of trouble coming by the numbers that I needed. Pace and efficiency stats aren't too tough to come by, but the other numbers are. Well, they are in the form I wanted them in. 82games.com (which is awesome for other reasons...) has the rebounding numbers, but only to 2 decimal places. To really compare across the whole league, the third decimal is important. So, I wound up building a spreadsheet and calculating the numbers by hand. That was before I found the table I was looking for on basketball-reference. I got lazy when it came to calculating league averages for pace and efficiency. I am sure you will cope. Well, with that out of the way, here are the numbers.

	Portland	League Rank	League Leader	League Worst	League Average
Pace	89.7	29	99.7 (Denver)	87.3 (Detroit)	Not Available
Offensive Efficiency	107.3	14	113.8 (Utah)	100.5 (Seattle)	Not Available
Defensive Efficiency	108.4	17	98.9 (Boston	112.8 (Milwaukee)	Not Available
eFG%	49.00%	16	55.2% (Phoenix)	44.3% (Miami)	49.30%
oReb%	26.70%	15	31.8% (Philadelphia)	22.1% (Miami)	26.70%
dReb%	71.80%	24	.783 (LA Clippers)	70.3% (Golden State)	73.40%
TO%	13.40%	7	11.4% (Toronto & Detroit)	16.5% (Boston)	13.00%
FT Rate	22.80%	21	27.6% (Sacramento)	18.3% (Minnesota)	23.20%

Alright, so there are the numbers. What do they mean? That is a good question. And it is a question that doesn't have an easy answer.

First, looking at pace we see something that I think we knew intuitively. Specifically Portland plays slow, deliberate basketball. Moreover, I don't see that changing a whole lot as long as B. Roy is around. But we also see that Portland is pretty efficient on the offensive end. And efficiency is the important thing.

The defensive end is another story. And, to further illustrate why pace independent statistics are important, if we look solely at opp points/game, Portland is 8^th in the league. But once we take Portland snail like pace into account, we see that rather than in the top 1/3 of the league, the Blazers are really in the bottom half. I also think it is important to note that although Portland is near the middle of the league in Defensive Efficiency ranking wise, the distance between Portland and Milwaukee is pretty small.

The other two numbers that really jump out are defensive rebounding and FT Rate. I think most people recognized that Portland struggled on the defensive glass this year. This is an area Portland should look to improve on. With the addition of Oden in the middle, I am expecting some strong improvement here. A better dReb% should also help improve Defensive Efficiency. It is pretty easy to see the strength of keeping an opponent of the offensive glass.

I am less sure what to make the FT Rate numbers. Of the Four Factors, this one is generally regarded as the least important. Also, although ranked quite low, it appears there is a big bunch near the midpoint, and Portland isn't far from it. Looking at the numbers behind Portland's FT Rate, the Blazes made their foul shots at a good clip (about 76.6%), but really didn't get to the line that often. If Portland had gotten to the line as often as the league average, they would have scored almost 1.34 more points per game. Is that much of a difference? It is worth about 4 wins under the basketball Pythagorean formula*. I would say that is fairly significant.

So, did any of this really communicate information that wasn't clear to somebody just watching the season? I am sure some of it was clear. But if you didn't dig into these numbers, you may think that Portland didn't have much trouble on defense, or that the lack of defensive rebounding wasn't particularly crucial. Either of those beliefs could lead to bad moves as it comes time to build the team for next year.

*In case you are not familiar with it, one of the first big advances in sports statistical research was the so called Pythagorean Theorem of Baseball, or Pythagorean Records. It seems almost a truism to say that your win/lose record is going to be determined by the number of runs(or points) you score and the number you give up. However, a little research showed that a teams winning percentage in baseball is closely tied to: runs scored^2/(runs scored^2 + runs allowed^2). It turns out if we tweak the exponent a little we get an even better fit. The same can be said for NBA Basketball. The generally agreed upon formula for basketball is: Pythagorean Expectation % = Tm pts^14/(Tm pts^14+Opp pts^14).

It should be noted that Portland exceeded it's Pythagorean Expectation this year by about 3 wins. Anecdotally it would seem this would be due to performing better then expected in close games, and losing a few more blow-outs then they won. I haven't taken the time to examine this, and I won't now as this post is getting a bit long.

Modern Basketball Statistics and the Portland Trailblazers (Part 1)

So, those of you that have had more than a beer or two with me lately know that for the last year or so I have become intrigued with the so called sabremetrics (or statistical) approach to looking at baseball performances. My interest in this topic has been fired by the Seattle Mariners blog community. It turns out that the two biggest blogs covering the Mariners both take a decidedly statistical approach to analyzing baseball performances. From there I started thinking about and looking into what work has been done in this realm for other sports. This post is a discussion of the new thinking as it applies to the Portland Trailblazers.

Before discussing where the Blazers are and where they could be going, it would be helpful to give a basic description of what new statistics I am talking about and why things like points per game should become obsolete in the near future much as ERA has.

Some of the my favorite work to date has been done looking at offensive and defensive efficiency. The concept is this: Basic statistics measure how many points a team scores and how many points a team gives up. But, these numbers doesn't exist in a vacuum, and teams that score fewer points don't necessarily have worse offenses. If a team is more deliberate in it's offense, if it uses more of the shot clock each trip down the floor, that team will have fewer overall possessions then a team that shots quickly (like the Suns of the last couple of years). Even a team that is efficient in terms of how it uses it's possessions may score fewer points in a game than a less efficient, but faster team.

Since a game is of a defined length (48 minutes in the NBA) it isn't too difficult to calculate the number of possessions per game a team gets (See here: http://www.basketball-reference.com/about/glossary.html for the formula)* Once we know how many possessions a team has in an average game we can look at how many points per possession a team generates. Although this could be a useful measure, most sites extrapolate out to points scored per 100 possessions to compare across teams. This is useful not just to see how efficient an offense is, but it can also be used as a measure of team defense. Looking at offensive and defensive efficiency will give you a basic measure of a teams health.

Although there are other advanced statistics that bear discussion, today I am going to talk about The Four Factors. This is a concept advanced by Dean Oliver in his book Basketball on Paper. Now, this discussion should come with the caveat that I haven't read that book yet. As such, this discussion will be somewhat cursory. The idea is that a basketball game can be broken down into (shocked face) Four Factors:

1. Shooting

2. Rebounding

3. Ball handling

4. Getting to the free throw line.

This may sound a little simplistic, but it should be noted his work was good enough to get him a job with the Seattle Supersonics and the Denver Nuggets as a full time statistical analyst. Since I am starting to run out of time, tonight I will cover the basics of the four factors and the simple, but more useful statistic.

1) Shooting

When talking about shooting, normal FG% isn't enough. Specifically it fails to account for the added importance of a 3 point field goal. Since a three is worth 50% more than a two, we need to use a waited percentage. This number is generally referred to as “effective field goal percentage” or eFG%. Simply put eFG = (fgm + .5*3fgm)/fga.

2) Rebounding

Once again per game stats are insufficient to measure how well a team does. Per game stats don't account for the number of rebounds that are available in a given game. The better measure is offensive and defensive rebounding percentage. These numbers are fairly self explanatory.

OReb% = OReb / (OReb + Opp DReb)

DReb% = DReb / (DReb + Opp OReb)

3) Ball Handling

Rather then just looking at pure turnovers per game, we can use a possession based statistic: Turnover % = Turnovers / Possession.

4) Free Throws

This one is a little more strange. Although we could just look at FTA or FTM, its always better to take into account the pace of the team you are talking about. Most researchers look at FTM/FGA and dub this “free throw rate”.

None of these stats is the be all end all, and all statistics can be effected by factors that aren't necessarily what we are trying to measure. Alright, it is getting late tonight. Sometime tomorrow or later this week I will drop a post discussing what these numbers say about Portland and where they need to improve.

*Basketball reference is an awesome site. If you like basketball and/or statistics, it is a site you can lose a lot of time at. Their formula is quite good, but also a bit complex. If you need a short version FGA + TO + ~.5 FTA – ORB will get you close, but it isn't particularly exact.

Shooting Fish in a Barrel?

I am aware that some journalists and newspaper publishers argue that a columnist's job is to stir the pot, provoke discussion and sell papers. And if the columnists at the Oregonian did that, I don't think I would have nearly as many complaints. Now, the Oregonian is not widely known as a home for brilliant, erudite columnists and I don't expect that to change any time soon. But damn it, the Oregonian is the State's biggest daily newspaper. The fact that I see better reasoned argument in the Daily Astorian is frightening.

Here is the column that has me irked this evening. (Lucky for me I don't have a big enough readership to worry about driving up Mr. Duin's statistics by linking him.)

I want to make two things clear at the outset. First, as just about everyone reading this knows, I am a Duck Sports fan. I own season football tickets. Second, I agree the U of O needs to significantly renovate it's residence halls. But the basis of Duin's column isn't research, or reasoned argument. He throws out short, sound-bite style paragraphs, tosses cheesy innuendo at the University and chooses to blame a popular scape-goat in the academic realm: athletics.

It seems that about 800 incoming freshman at the U of O have been told there will not be space for them in the "residence halls" (as I no longer work for Campus Housing, I will be calling them "dorms" from here on out). He then points out the recent spending on the U of O's new basketball arena. It's clear that he sees these two as not just happening at the same time but as a cause and effect, though he won't come right out and say it.

Perhaps most galling to me is the lack of context of the current housing issue on campus. My freshman year (that would be 1999-2000) there were so few students (not just freshman) in the dorms that an entire hall in Bean was closed after the first month of the year (it had briefly housed freshman that were waiting to rush and then moved into a frat/sorority house). My sophomore year, there was talk that there wouldn't be enough students living on campus to keep Earl Hall open. An entire hall. There were open rooms in the UI (now Barnhardt hall). It was easy to buy a double room and use it as a single. A large number of incoming freshman were choosing to live off-campus because, they told me, it was cheaper. Duin makes no effort to discuss what the living situation has been in years passed or how it has changed recently.

On top of failing to discuss the recent changes in housing demand (or investigating a root cause), Duin fails to mention that the U of O opened a new dorm this past year. Presumably such information would get in the way of laying the blame for this on the stoop of the "pampered athletes and boosters." This doesn't even take effort to discover. It is a huge new building, right there on campus. They took out the outdoor tennis courts to build it. Instead he leaves the impression that the U of O is spending all of its resources on new arenas and leaving these freshmen to freeze.

On the other side of the issue, Duin neglects to discuss or mention the baseball stadium that is scheduled to break ground this winter. Frankly, I can think of no explanation other then shear sloth and shoddy reporting (columnizing?). A ready-made bolster to his argument is left rotting in the dustbin. Did he consider his argument too airtight to need a supporting point?

I know it is easy to Monday-morning quarterback these things. I'll admit I haven't dug in and researched the issue. But I am also not paid to do so. This is Duin's job, his chosen profession. If I took a case to trial with this little research and preparation I would deserve to be disbarred.

I can't speak to Duin's qualities as a human, or even the majority of his other writing, but this column is crap. It adds nothing to the important discussion of the needs of higher education in this state and the spending priorities of this "state run" school. This is an important issue that deserves well researched and well reasoned positions. Duin adds nothing to the pot.

Quick Update

Once again I have let it go too long between posts. I don't have a whole lot of time at the moment either, as Sam and I are about to grab some pizza.

Sam and I are doing well. We are both plugging away with work and things and getting started taming the yard here at the house. I have a DUII trial tomorrow. It should be a pretty good one. As I have discussed before, I don't really feel comfortable discussing specifics before the trial, but it looks better then the last couple cases I have tried.

We have had a couple of visitors come out lately from Eugene. It is nice getting to show off the house and our new hometown / county. I believe (though I hate to assume) they had a good time.

I will probably try to write something a little more in depth soon, but Sam says it is time to go.

Since most of my readers are current/recovering dorks, and many of you have significant others (or roommates) I will pass along this link. Perhaps someone can get some use out of it.

Flaming Genitals

Now, I know it has been a while since my last post (Purple Nurples excluded). I have had a couple of ideas for posts to write, but I never got around to sitting down and typing them out. I guess I could, but the inspiring events are no longer fresh. Anyway, I am not going to let that happen this time! Today I have a harrowing tale for you regarding, well, flaming genitals.

It all starts with the decision to make some dinner; specifically beef and pepper stir fry. Well, I don't like my beef and peppers supper spicy, but I do like a little bit of bite. So along with the bell peppers and beef I chopped up a couple of Serrano peppers. As some of you may know (I am looking at you JT) the substance that makes anything hot/spicy is a chemical called capsaicin. Capsaicin is a rather sticky substance in that it isn't really water soluble (hence why drinking water doesn't help the burn). After chopping the peppers I forgot to clean my hands, and went off to eat my tasty dinner.

Here is where it gets painful. After eating dinner I was relaxing in my chair, watching the Mariners rally back from a 3-1 deficit. Sometime during the rally I got an itch. It is an itch I am going to guess most men are familiar with and any woman that has lived with a man longer than 3 months has probably witnessed. For reasons unknown to me or modern science, a man's junk just itches some days. Most days when such an itch is scratched it is a pleasurable thing. If not quite near the top of simple pleasures, scratching that particular itch is certainly in the top 50. Most days. Scratching that particular area when your hands have capsaicin on them is not pleasurable.

Let me say this. I have experienced a lot of pain in my life. I have taken several direct hits to the crotch, including on nasty kick and a surprise frisbee. I have sprained my ankle, I have bruised my ribs, I have fallen off ladders and hit my head with the claw side of a hammer. I have even knocked myself out on the desk in my room back in Henderson. I will tell you now, capsaicin on the junk is easily one of the 5 most painful things I have ever experienced. It starts as this gentle heat and you start to wonder what it is. Within 30 seconds my eyes were welling with water and I could barely breath. Worst of all there isn't a whole lot you can do. Obviously just water won't work. Capsaicin is (I think) alcohol soluble but I sure wasn't going to waste good scotch or Guiness (the only booze in the house at the moment) on my burning junk. Then I remember that the Scoville Rating of a pepper is determined by diluting the capsaicin with sugar water until there is no detectable heat left. Not remembering that dairy (i.e. Milk) could also be effective I went ahead and rinsed off with sugar water, over and over again. The heat did subside, but I was then left with another problem. You are all smart I am sure you can see what the problem was. Exciting night.

PS> I really do wish this was an April Fools joke. It is not.

Purple Nurple

That's right.

On the Road

As the title may suggest, I am again on the road. This week it is Salem, Oregon for a 3 day DUII enforcement training. Today was day one, so far it has been pretty interesting stuff. I am looking forward to the next couple of days.

So, since there really isn't too much news to report on my end, but I have come across a couple of links I thought I would pass along.

I haven't seen this in Astoria. Yet. I am not ruling it out.

If you read Penny-Arcade (and the news posts) you will have already seen this.

Thats all for now. Be excellent to each other.

The Power of Voices

I doubt this particular bit of news found its way to too many of you out there, but Dave Niehaus was just elected to the baseball hall of fame as a broadcaster. Make no mistake this is an honor the man has earned and then some. Dave has been the voice of the Mariners since day one of the franchise.

But this post isn't exactly about how awesome Dave is, how he deserves to be in the Hall of Fame. Hearing about Dave, and also having read on of Canzano's better columns about the Schonz has had me thinking about the voices that define teams and sports for me. More than any specific game, any player or any heroic performance those two announcers are my childhood sports memories.

I know a couple of you out there grew up in Portland and grew up as Blazer fans. I am still a Blazer fan, and Brian Wheeler isn't bad. But it doesn't always feel like listening to a Blazer game either. The voice of Bill Schonely is so iconic to me it is hard not hearing it, even 10 years after he was run out of the organization. I know he is back doing some work for the Blazers and you can still hear a few of his wonderful phrases but so many are lost. It's almost worst hearing the few that they have as sound bites for the radio broadcast or for Standard TV commercials. Yet, every now and again, from somewhere deep in the back of my memory snippets of his calls come back.

I am thankful that Dave Niehaus is still working for the Mariners. Like Schonely, he doesn't work full games anymore, but there is couple of innings each game that he does call the play by play. I know there will come a day when he is too old to handle even the light duties he has and we will hear his last call. If I am aware of it on that day, I am sure I will feel sad, wistful perhaps. I have a feeling it won't really sink in until the next summer though. One day, when I am in my office tuning into the game I will forget that Dave is gone and expect to hear his voice, and it won't be there.

This post got a little sentimental, which wasn't my original intent. In the end, perhaps the Northwest should be happy to have been blessed with two fantastic, iconic, and long-lasting play by play announcers.

My oh my.

Thoughts on Ties

So, I am not exactly what most would call a metro-sexual. If you are reading this blog, it is likely that this isn't news. At least one person has described me as “the straightest guy I know.” I am not sure that was meant as a compliment, but what the hell... I take what I can get.

All that said, I do have at least a small interest in men's fashion. Specifically, the areas of men's fashion relating to the proper fit, cut and style of suits, dress shirts and the proper way to tie a tie. To me this is only natural since I wear a shirt and tie most days. Also, show me a guy that didn't at least have some interest in knot tying as a kid. All boys love knots, I don't know why, but they do! This is an interest I have discussed more then once with one of my good friends, J.T. We have downed more than a pint talking about ties and tie knots. So what is the point of all of this?

Let me give you a little background first. As discussed in the paper, and later their book “85 Ways to Tie a Tie” given certain assumptions there are only 85 ways to tie a tie (excluding mirror images). To those of you interested in the basics, look here, for a more in depth look, start here.

After careful review of the literature, it seems to me (unless I am seriously misreading this information) my two favorite tie knots are not amount those considered among the “13 useful knots.” I find this deeply disturbing. I started tying these knots in the mistaken impression that they were a Windsor and a Half-Windsor. As far as I can tell, this was due to some bad information on the web and my misreading of some of what was out there. That said I think both of these knots look just fine. I am not the kind of guy that needs marching orders for everything, and I am certainly not going to stop using the knots, but I find it interesting that these knots aren't on the list.

For those of you that might be interested, here they are (using the notation most commonly used) Maybe I am just not reading the symbols and tables right...

My version of the “half-windsor:”

Li, Co, Li, Ro, Li, Co, T

This knot is a little asymmetrical, but not overly so. Really, I think it makes a nice compliment to a well tailored suit. It is not my everyday knot, but some days when I am feeling slightly off kilter myself it is quite nice.

My version of the windsor:

Li, Co, Li, Ro, Ci, Ro, Li, Co, T

This is my everyday knot. This knot is quite symmetrical and makes a nice, medium sized triangle. It is neither as large as a try windsor, nor as difficult to tie. I feel it fits better in most shirt collars (especially button down collars) than a true windsor.

I don't know. Maybe I am way off base. For those of you out there that wear ties, or have an eye for such things, tell me what you think.

Also... for the cooks out there, this site is awesome.