Andre Snellings On How Analytics View The Mavs’ Chances Of Winning The West | GBag Nation
Joining us now is ESPN senior writer and NBA analytics expert for ESPN Andre snellings here on the and a good afternoon sir how the heck are you doing good how you feeling man we are great uh you know Mavs get another win last night they’re playing better defense how good are we
Man yeah you know so about a month ago I wrote an article um it ran on on ESPN um particularly ESPN bet so I was looking at Futures and I was saying that at that time there were several Futures that went through Dallas and I really thought
That that the Mavericks had a chance um to still win the division um at that time they were only a game behind the Pelicans they sent two and a half back and the pels are playing really good Ball but the Mavs are a team that I think other teams don’t really want to
Play because we’ve seen in recent years um what two years ago they went to the Conference Finals built almost purely on Luca being too much to handle in the slowed down half court um version of basketball that’s played in the playoffs and so when you still got Luca playing
At that level but now you’ve got um Kyrie Irving who can pull out a random left-handed Skyhook to win a game uh you know every so often and and you’ve got some some better defense and better Big Man play since the trade deadline I I think they’re a pretty formable
Formidable team they’re they’re not a team that I would say is like a favorite to win the West but I think they’re a team that the favorites in the west wouldn’t really want to play yeah how would you how would you handicap that you know when you start to talk about
The West because we every day we talk about you know playin situations oh wait they’re in now how do you handicap how this is going to work out because I think there’s a lot of teams at the bottom of this table that probably the top teams don’t want to
Play yeah um so it’s difficult in the west because there’s no Solid Ground at the top right you’ve got three teams that are all within a game or two of each other that could flip-flop the order and so whoever has the one seed um you know is going to be a much bigger
Difference than having say the three seed if if you’re a team like the Mavericks that’s also fighting for one of those you know six seven eight seeds you know it’s is really going to uh depend I think the one team that is kind of a step above everyone right now is
The Nuggets there defending Champions and I guess what might work a little bit in the Maverick’s favor is they’ve shown that they can at least battle with the Nuggets you know they they’ve so far they’ve just about split their season series they’re one and two um but the
Mavericks did take the the most recent game and so you know outside of the Nuggets I don’t think there’s another team that the Mavericks can’t look at and say you know what we have a decent chance against them in a seven game series I think that that
I have maybe the Timberwolves as the team that can maybe push the nuggets the hardest because they’ve got that size to to make yic work for it but you know I think that the Mavs could handle the Timberwolves because they’ve got more experience at a better perimeter game so
You know it’s almost musical chairs or or maybe a big game of rock paper scissors is the way to look at it it’s like okay we might not be able to beat this team but we can beat that team and you know the the final seaing is going
To play a big difference on in how it plays out it’s Andre snelling’s ESPN with here on the fan wolchuck yeah I I was wondering after the the trades I know you wrote your futures article with the editions of PJ Washington and Daniel Gafford and my gosh I think Gafford has
Been even better than than we could have dreamed of but how much did that change the way that you were viewing the Mavericks and then now having seen them play post All-Star break how much better are maybe you viewing the Mavericks yeah no it it changed it in a
Big way because that’s the article was written right I think during the All-Star break or or right when we were about to come out the break and so if that time I think the Mavs had won maybe five or six games in a row and they were
Looking really good but they had just made those trades and I think the bigs make a huge difference for the seiling of the mass because again right now everything kind of has to revolve around the nuggets and what we saw in last year’s playoffs was that if you’re not
Big enough you’re not beating the Nuggets because nicoa yic can just bully ball 99% of the NBA and last year in the playoffs that’s what happened even the late ERS who were thought of they play like a big team but Anthony Davis was not big enough to slow down Nico joic
And so with with the Mavs bringing in you know that they brought in a center and a power forward and then they had the rookie uh Center and Lively it you know having two seven-footers that can defend the rim that are good shot blockers and then another actual power
Forward not having to start you know uh Derek Jones or somebody at at the four it it it changes the whole dynamic you know with with Luca he’s one of the most unguardable you know Swiss Army night players in the NBA and then you’ve got Kyrie between them their their perimeter
Game is amazing so they really and their offensive uh upside is amazing as well so they really needed some size some defense and some rebounding and I think the trade deadline moves help give them that which again uh gives them a chance against pretty much any team in the west
Now it feels like we’ve created Lob City 2.0 here W with the way Luca and Kye can set up Gafford and Lively can we track like who the league leaders are in the alleyoop situation cuz I feel like since the addition of Gafford the Mavs have to
Be at the top of that list yeah so that is a stat that that this tracked um because it just happened at the trade deadline I’m sure the Mavs are still lower on the list but um over the the full course of the season I wouldn’t be
Surprised if they do end up um you know moving forward being among the tops because Luca is so hard to defend and really Kyrie is too um just in different ways but both of them you have to defend them out to like 28 ft and both of them
You know Kyrie with his slick handle and and Luca just with his size and and and ability you know craftiness with the ball the the defense has to focus so you know so much on them both the man guarding them they might be doubled even if they’re not doubled the te defense is
Kind of like uh hedging towards them and so if you’re a big man just go to the dker spot and and put your hand up because uh they can go and pretend to shoot and throw the alleyoop and the team is still going to be defending the
Shot until it’s way too late so yeah that that that’s some easy offense that really works in the regular season and should even have some success in slowed down postseason okay can you give us an idea of of what the best uh estimation is of their potential defensively we’re
Wondering you know with Luca and Kyrie on the court together so often not known as great Defenders can they evolve you know with what’s left in the regular season and and change what the data is telling you now as far as how good they are so that’s the thing like you know
They’re not going to I mean we we’re getting towards the end of March and the the regular season ends you know early mid part of April so um who they are now is probably largely who they’re going to be I would argue that who they are now
Is much better defensively than who they were before the trade deadline they they’re still they’re not going to be a lot down Squad um by the end of the season the The Hope though is that they can be good enough and and we’ve seen um that that their bigs especially with
With their block shots they’re able to control the paint and and get rebounds at Key times and that’s huge for for the their defensive prowess so um the the hope is they’re no longer a team like what we saw out of the Suns the other day against the the the Bucks where you
Know it was just a track me the other team is just scoring at will and it’s it’s a can can we outscore you that’s what the Mavericks want to avoid and I think they can avoid that now and so you get into the postseason things slow down
It’s a lot more half court game and Luca and Kyrie are both excellent at the half court game and so if the defense is good enough then they can be competitive and they can be a tough out even if the defense isn’t their calling card what are you thinking about the MVP race
Right now is it Nicole yic to lose does Luka have any type of opportunity um it’s probably joic is the lose and if he loses it it’s probably going to be gilis Alexander I think Luca the the difficulty is the team record you know like right now they they’re
Still battling to to stay out of the play in and I think it’s going to be a hard taste to make when you look at you know both Luca and joic having these amazing stats but you know one of them is fighting for the one seed and the
Other one is fighting for the play in is going to be difficult for him I mean I think if the Mavs you know they’ve got 13 games left if say they went 13-0 just for the sake of argument they are currently three games behind the clippers for the four seed if they could
You know close that Gap and end up pulling out the four seed now they’d have to jump over three teams to do that but if they could do that with Luca uh on that 351 and 10 Pace that he was on for for most of the last couple weeks
Then yeah maybe he sneaks back in because the voters are human and what they see last uh can influence things but I think that’s a long shot so right now I think it’s it’s joic is to lose and uh Luca would kind of need to really
Pull a feather out of the hat to get back into it when do we uh when when is when be the best player unanimously in the NBA the way that he came in you know he had all of that height just like LeBron did and just like LeBron 20 years ago in
My opinion he’s out play he’s outperformed the height so to me before the season I would have said you know give him three or four years the way he’s played this year by the end of next year going into year three um again much like LeBron by year three it was kind of
He was joining the the the Kobes and Duncan and Garnett of the world is as thought of as the best player in the NBA I think we could see the same out of wimy by by the time he’s in year three as well and uh after that you know
Unless Anthony Edwards keeps uh uh skyrocketing over people um at some point it’s going to be wind be alone Andre snelling’s with us here in the gag Nation I think it’s very evident uh you are a genius and you understand numbers at a way that I cannot comprehend for
When you’re putting together some of these articles for ESPN and you’re giving advice uh to people what are some of the numbers that stand out to you when it comes to the NBA to best assess maybe what I should be doing when you’re looking at evaluating these
Things yeah so um ESPN has an analytics department and um I I do a lot of work with them they they have a team evaluation measure um called the basketball power index BPI and through BPI um they’re able to estimate down to game to game um what they think the
Score will be in a given game um you know uh what what the playoff odds are for teams their their chances at success and and and that stat does really well when compared against you know Vegas and the odds um as far as analysis goes so
Um I I I like the reference BPI um for individual players I really like the plus minus or what I call like the impact stats because for the MVP to me that’s the stat that that most most correlates to the MVP how does your team scoring margin change when a player is
On the court versus when they’re off the court that’s kind of you know as close as we could get to a Holy Grail stat for for player value so I like to look at those things as well and other than that I watch a lot of basketball and and you
Know try try as best as I can to to to uh incorporate what I see uh into my advice all right Andre I don’t have time for your pro stuff I need your final four for the uh tournament coming up please to help me out here yeah so um I
Just mentioned I watch a lot of basketball I watch a lot of NBA basketball I got a family of five so um as far as College goes I I I I tend to go with my home teams you know I live in Connecticut uh I went to University of
Michigan I went to Georgia Tech I went to Duke so hopefully some of them are in the mix I know Yukon won last year so I’m I’m picking them to win this year but I would not say you should take my college advice over my Pro advice how
About BPI uh analysis here is Boston really that much better is Cleveland really the second best team and what’s up with Denver being so far down the pecking order here on it yeah so BPI um they they factor in how a team is played and they also factor in kind of the the
Impact stats of all of the individual players on that team so um you know Boston if you add everything together they have been this season so far probably this much better than everyone else and you’ll notice it’s Boston and then the gap between second the Gap from
Boston to to second place is bigger than second to like uh I don’t know 15th so um you know after that there there’s kind of a a what you would call a um almost like a a car crash you you could pick one or another which kind of plays
Out for the Western Conference in particular but um within the BPI if you click on the tab for playoffs you can look at like uh playoffs uh percentages um you know chances of making the conference F semis CH finals uh Champion all that stuff and there you get a
Little more granularity and there um where Boston is still number one when you get to the Nuggets they’re uh listed as the the second actually the yeah they have the the best chance of of coming out of the West and so like that that’s probably a little more realistic than
Than just looking at the pure BPI awesome stuff Andre appreciate you great chat and uh we look forward to doing it again all right I look forward to It
Andre Snellings of ESPN is an analytics guru, and he ran a piece about what futures bets the machines liked about the Mavericks. He joined the GBag Nation to talk about what the numbers like and don’t like about Dallas’ chances of winning the West.
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4 Comments
He sounds nothing like an expert on analytics.
-An expert on analytics
"ESPN expert on analytics"
Well he is not an expert.
Way too much respect for the geek analytic community! 🤦🏾♂️
Sounds like he said a whole bunch of nothing