Was the Los Angeles Lakers' decision to load up on players in their 30s a mistake?
After making the Russell Westbrook (33) trade last summer, the Lakers had to fill out their roster with a flotilla of former stars who signed on for the veterans minimum in the later stages of their careers. By contrast, the Miami Heat opted to acquire several younger players in a similar situation and have gotten surprisingly strong contributions from unheralded reserves Caleb Martin, Max Strus, Gabe Vincent and Omer Yurtseven.
With buyout season approaching and several more big-name veterans likely to head to contenders, this week's mailbag takes a look at whether a team's strategy of loading up on older players to fill out the bench is wise compared to a team investing in developing younger options.
Throughout the NBA season, I answer your questions about the latest, most interesting topics in basketball. You can tweet me directly at @kpelton, tweet your questions using the hashtag #peltonmailbag or email them to peltonmailbag@gmail.com.
In addition to the main question, this week's mailbag also looks at how much control teams have on how well opponents make jumpers from inside the 3-point line as well as the biggest single-player scoring runs in recent memory.
"When watching this year, it feels like teams that can surround their veterans with high-energy younger players are having a much larger impact this year than in previous years. Are the days of having veterans come and dominate the game off the bench gone? Are the Lakers a classic example where they have gone down a route with their roster that's no longer relevant?"
-- Jeremy
Let's limit this question specifically to players who are signed for the minimum as free agents because there is an unusual concentration of them who are on contending teams this season. Due to luxury tax issues, the Brooklyn Nets (five players), Golden State Warriors (four) and the Los Angeles Lakers (an incredible 10, including in-season addition Stanley Johnson) signed large numbers of players to minimum contracts. So, too, did the Miami Heat (seven), hard-capped by the Kyle Lowry sign-and-trade.
Adding in players on two-way contracts, let's sort these into three groups based on age:
Young players (26 or younger)
Prime players (27-29)
Old players (30-plus)
Here's how these groups rate based on my wins above replacement player (WARP) metric this season (see chart).
The good news is all three groups have rated better than replacement level, which is a measure of the ability for contending teams -- particularly those in desirable markets such as all four of these ones -- to get quality talent on minimum contracts. However, the players in their 30s have been only marginally better than replacement level, while the group of players 26 and younger have been far more effective in slightly fewer minutes.
Clearly, the best possible option is to sign a minimum player in the prime (ages 27-29) of his career. However, those players are few and far between. With Brooklyn's DeAndre' Bembry, 27, the third player in the group with two Warriors players, much of the value comes from Golden State's duo of Gary Payton II (who leads this group across all ages with 4.6 WARP, second among all NBA reserves) and Otto Porter Jr. (3.5 WARP). The former was a case of Golden State putting a journeyman and G League veteran in the right place to succeed, while the latter was available at a bargain rate because of past injuries.
Failing that option, it does seem like contending teams might be better off focusing their efforts on developing young talent. Although there have been a few productive veterans -- Carmelo Anthony, 37, has been particularly good for the Lakers, while 31-year-old Avery Bradley (waived by the Warriors in favor of Payton) ranks third among this group in total minutes played -- there have been a lot more misses.
The Lakers already moved on from Rajon Rondo and will likely do the same with DeAndre Jordan before the Feb. 10 trade deadline, while the Nets have mutually agreed with Paul Millsap to part ways. Meanwhile, the younger players the Lakers did add (standout Malik Monk, who is third in WARP behind Payton and Porter, as well as Johnson and undrafted rookie Austin Reaves) have gotten regular minutes over the veterans.
Better yet, finding a young contributor can pay off for a team in the long term. The Heat have Strus, Vincent and Yurtseven signed through next season and will surely strike a similar deal with Martin to convert his two-way contract before the end of the regular season.
This is all worth keeping in mind with the frenzy of buyout season on tap. The biggest names aren't always the best additions. Sometimes, they might be the worst.
"Is defense on non-paint/non-3 jump shots as much about luck as 3-point shooting is?"
-- Tomas
I've spent a lot of time discussing how teams don't generally show consistent ability to prevent opponents from making 3-pointers and that teams doing better or worse than league average are likely to regress toward the mean. Tomas is right that I haven't done the same work with 2-point jumpers, so let's take a look.
NBA Advanced Stats has shooting percentages by zones dating back to 1996-97, although I threw out the first season because of some outlier results that suggest data entry issues. Since 1997-98, I looked at shooting on 2-point attempts outside the paint relative to league average (that is, a rating of 1 is precisely average, higher numbers represent higher percentages and lower numbers represent better defense). Year over year, these ratings tend to regress heavily.
For comparison, I've also included the same chart with opponent 3-point shooting, and the two measures look remarkably similar. There is some "stickiness" from year to year, so performance is clearly not completely random, but even the best teams in one season tend not be much better than league average the next and vice versa.
We don't talk as much about opponent 2-point jumpers as 3s because they don't have nearly as big of an impact on overall defensive performance -- there are many more 3s than 2-point jumpers in the modern NBA and the 3s are worth an extra point -- but it should equally be considered something that is more a product of randomness than skill.
"On Jan. 6, Fred VanVleet scored 15 consecutive points for the Toronto Raptors against the Utah Jazz. What was most remarkable wasn't that he scored 15 straight points for the Raptors but that no one scored for the Jazz either. I haven't been able to find any records related to consecutive points scored by a single player by either team."
-- Brad
This stretch for VanVleet came during the third quarter, starting at the 4:43 mark. VanVleet had the next 15 points over a span of 2 minutes and 6 seconds, taking the Raptors from down 14 to taking the lead on his final three-point play. After Danuel House Jr. made a 3, VanVleet then scored again for 17 consecutive Toronto points.
According to Elias Sports Bureau data via ESPN Stats & Information, that's tied for the third-longest streak by an individual player in the past 25 years (regular season and playoffs):
Surprisingly, two of these seven performances came in losses, both by the LA Clippers. Down 16 in the third quarter when Crawford started his streak, the Clippers eventually took control of the game before the Portland Trail Blazers came from behind in the final period of the season finale with Blake Griffin, Jordan (who played the first 1:23 to extend his consecutive games streak) and Chris Paul resting. They also lost in the Florida bubble despite Leonard's heroics, which came across the halftime break.
Allen's was the longest, the only one in the playoffs, but also the only one of these to happen entirely in the first half (it came across the first and second quarters). In the other cases, as with VanVleet, the personal run happened during the second half of a reasonably close game. Most notably, Westbrook scored the game's final 15 points to rally the Oklahoma City Thunder from down three to a 12-point win against the Memphis Grizzlies.
Jackson's streak is also interesting in that it was part of a 24-0 Detroit Pistons run that took them from down nine to up 15 over the Blazers. Jackson scored 18 of the 24 points.