Now that we’re a little over a week into the season, what can we learn from 2015-2016 statistics in NBA DFS? It would obviously be unwise to draw any hard conclusions at this early juncture. But by looking at the data along with what we already know about each team, we can try to make a distinction between what may become a pattern and what is more fluky. With that in mind, let’s talk about the teams that have really pushed the pace so far.
In 2015-2016, here are the fastest paced teams:
There are some familiar names among the list, but also a couple new ones. For comparison, here were the five fastest teams last season:
Now, here are the top 2015-2016 teams along with their previous seasons rank:
|
Team |
2015-2016 |
2014-2015 |
|
New Orleans |
105.1 (1) |
93.7 (27) |
|
Sacramento |
105 (2) |
97.9 (8) |
|
Los Angeles Lakers |
104.6 (3) |
96.3 (14) |
|
Golden State |
104 (4) |
100.7 (1) |
|
Boston |
104 (4) |
98.4 (5) |
The one that really jumps off the page is New Orleans. They went from one of the slowest teams in the league last season to one of the fastest so far in 2015-2016.
We’ll start at the top with new head coach Alvin Gentry. Mike D’Antoni gets all the credit for the mid-2000s “Seven seconds or less” Phoenix Suns teams, but the Suns also finished within the top 10 in pace during each of the seasons Alvin Gentry served as their coach (three full seasons, two partial). When you consider his more recent coaching experience – in 2014-2015, he served as an assistant for the Warriors – we can see that Gentry has a lot of experience working with teams that play fast.
Under Monty Williams, the Pelicans finished in the bottom 10 in pace in each of his five season. Monty came up under Nate McMillan, working as an assistant coach for the early-2000s Portland Trail Blazers, who often finished as the slowest team in the league. It’s clear that Gentry and Williams are as different as they come from an ideology standpoint.
I also notice some similarities to this year’s Pelicans team and the Suns ’09-10 team (the best Suns team Gentry coached):
Athletic power forward – (prime Amare Stoudemire – Anthony Davis)
Playmakers that can get to the rim – (Steve Nash – Jrue Holliday/Tyreke Evans)
Shooters to space the floor – (Frye/Dudley/Barbosa – Anderson/Gordon)
Next, I looked at game script. Since we are so early in the season, one game that got out of hand in the fourth quarter could really skew the results at this point. NBA.com lets you go a step further and breakdown pace by quarter. I did that for the Pelicans and here are their quarterly pace ranks:
1st Quarter: 1st
2nd Quarter: 4th
3rd Quarter: 8th
4th Quarter: 12th
Actually, the Pelicans start out fast and then gradually slow down as the game progresses. It doesn’t appear that their stats are being skewed by one fluky game that got out of hand in the fourth quarter.
So if the Pelicans do keep up the pace in 2015-2016, who benefits? Last season, when playing against the fastest teams in the league, there were mixed results. The good news is that the person we really care about added the most value to Plus/Minus in these games.
