I’ve noticed two strange things about this NBA season: playing at home is an increasingly big advantage, and the west is dominating the east even more than before. Home court has always been an advantage, and the west as been better than the east for a few years now, but these trends were particularly extreme this year. For instance, the Bulls were 27-14 at home and 3-38 on the road. Only 3 teams in the east had winning records against the west, and all but 3 teams in the west had winning records against the east.
I noticed those stats and then got hooked on the espn.com nba standings page for about an hour. Once I pulled out my calculator, I knew I was stuck. So, I thought that at least I would share. I only looked at this year and last year (that’s all they had at espn.com), but there have been some big changes in that one year.
2002-2003 NBA stats:
There’s no place like home:
[ul][li]23/29 teams had winning home records[/li][li]24/29 teams had losing road records[/li][li]18/29 teams had a winning home record and a losing road record[/li][li].628 = avg. home winning percentage[/li][li]Chicago won 2 out of every 3 games at home on avg. (27-14 home record) and 2 out of their last 40 games on the road (3-38 road record)[/li][/ul]
West is best:
[ul][li]11/15 teams in the east had losing records against the west[/li][li]15-13 was the best record of a team in the east against the west[/li][li]11/14 teams in the west had winning records against the east[/li][li]26-4 was the best record of a team in the west against the east[/li][li].595 = avg. winning percentage of teams in west against the east[/li][li]2 teams in the west had more wins against the east in 30 games than against the west in 52 games (Denver: 9 vs. 8, Memphis: 16 vs. 12)[/li][/ul] 2001-2002 stats for comparison:
There’s no place like home:
[ul][li]21/29 teams had winning home records[/li][li]20/29 teams had losing road records[/li][li]12/29 teams had a winning home record and a losing road record[/li][li].591 = avg. home winning percentage[/li][li]Charlotte had a better road record than home record (23 vs. 21 wins)[/li][/ul]
West is best:
[ul][li]10/15 teams in the east had losing records against the west[/li][li]17-11 was the best record of a team in the east against the west[/li][li]9/14 teams in the west had winning records against the east[/li][li]24-6 was the best record of a team in the west against the east[/li][li].552 = avg. winning percentage of teams in west against the east[/li][li]every team in the west had at least 5 more wins against the west (in 52 games) than against the east (in 30 games)[/li][/ul]
I’m not going to decipher and analyse the stats one by one but here’s my commentary
Well, it’s pretty obvious that the West in general have the most dominant players, they have deeper benches and more of the quality forwards and centers when compared to the East. So it’s no surprise as to why the East struggle so much when facing Western conference teams.
But as you know, unless the NBA is fixed (and I have heard some good theories about this on the board :D) the East-West dominance will always be cyclical. Just like how the Pistons/Bulls dominated most of the 90’s, we can pretty much say that the road to the championships will go through West for most of this decade.
Perhaps with the upcoming draft and free agency the East could gain some leverage on the West, but then again, the West could widen tthe gap (if say, Kidd or J. O’Neal join San Antonio).
As for the home-court advantage issue, my take on the Bulls is that they’re an inexperienced team at the moment with all the high-schoolers and all, I don’t think that they’ve gained the confidence to play on the road. And with more and more players being drafted on potential, the league isn’t getting any older. I just think that road success comes with overall team experience.
That explanation could make sense, especially for the Bulls, but the problem is that the change is happening across the board. I looked at the # of home wins - # of road wins for each team this year and last year. This year, 6 teams had a difference of more than 14 (Chicago topped the list with 24), while last year 0 teams did. This year, only one team had a difference of less than 4, while last year 5 teams did.
I found some age data here, and it looks like age does matter. This year, the 14 oldest teams (those with avg. player age 27.59 & higher) had an average difference of 9.93, compared with an average difference 11.28 for the 14 youngest. Age isn’t the whole story, since last year the average difference for all teams was 7.48. Even the older teams this year exceeded that number by quite a bit.
The Pistons won back-to-back NBA titles in 1989-1990. after that they fell off the face of the planet as far as having any sort of impact on the NBA scene. If any team dominated the 1990’s it was the Bulls who 3-peated in 1991, '92 & '93 and then repeated their 3-peat in 1996, '97 & '98. The only other team that can possibly be said to have even come close to dominating the 1990’s would be the Rockets, who won back-to back titles in 1994-'95.
The Rockets, pardon my arrogance, would never have won a thing had Michael not retired. The Bulls certainly dominated the 90s. There were other strong teams in the East, but none could hold a candle to Chicago. There were good Western teams too, but nobody was as good. Chicago won 6 titles without ever being taken to a game 7.
It’s true that things are quite unbalanced now, but it comes and goes. Had Tim Duncan signed with Orlando two years ago or whenever, things could be quite different. Actually, many of the really good players in the West (Webber, O’Neal and Bryant, among others) started in the East. It’s a cyclical thing. Eastern Conference teams will get some of the high draft picks this year and in general, which will help them build their way back up.
Just to squirt some gas on the fire, in my opinion the 90s Bulls would get schooled by the Lakers, Celtics, and maybe even the 76ers of the 80s. It’s really a shame that there was no one even close to Michael Jordan to challenge him the way that Larry Bird and Magic Johnson did. If either of those guys had a decade to themselves like MJ did, they certainly could have won 6 titles. As awesome as the Bulls were, it’s not like the teams they beat were particularly strong.
I also think it’s interesting how in hockey, home-ice advantage means virtually nothing unless it’s game 7. I don’t have as deep numbers as knock for that, but I’ve heard plenty of analysts say that.
Then again, Michael’s Bulls beat Magic’s Lakers for their first title, and Bird’s Celtics in the playoffs a couple of times. There were plenty of other excellent players at the time - Olajuwon, Drexler, Robinson, Thomas, Barkley, Malone, Stockton… you can’t make me say Ewing. But there’s nobody close to Michael Jordan, period. The way he dominated the league speaks for itself.
Magic or Bird’s teams given a decade ‘to themselves,’ at least without each other, probably could’ve done about as well. But it’s not that there was nobody good against the Bulls, there was just nobody nearly as good. None of those players above, all of whom are bound for the Hall of Fame, won a title when Jordan was playing after '91.
The Bulls would not have gotten schooled by anybody. They beat some damn good teams. The Pistons were still tough in '91, the Knicks got tough right after that, the Lakers still had Magic in '91, and the '92 Blazers were really good. The Jazz teams of '97 & '98 were really impressive, and the Bulls beat 'em both in six, winning one game by 40 or so while holding the Jazz to the fewest points ever in any game (playoff or regular season) since the advent of the shot clock (at the time). They went 72 and 10 in '96. 10 losses in a whole season. And one of those was the last game of the season, when they were resting their starters.
With Michael and Scottie, the Bulls were unstoppable - they had a virtual 8-peat. They might have lost an occasional NBA championship if there had been another dominant team to rival them, but if that had been the case then Jordan probably would have stayed around. He wouldn’t have walked away from a challenge. So, my guess is that, if they’d had a rival like the Celtics & Lakers of the 80’s, the Bulls would’ve won about 6 titles, just not all in the same years.
I found a site that has an archive of standings with home & road record readily available, so I ran a few more years.
Average home winning percentage
95-96 0.604
96-97 0.575
97-98 0.595
99-00 0.611
00-01 0.598
01-02 0.591
02-03 0.628
(98-99 omitted because of shortened season)
Average winning percentage of west in west v. east games
95-96 0.490
96-97 0.424
97-98 0.421
99-00 0.540
00-01 0.617
01-02 0.552
02-03 0.595
So, it looks like the east-west difference is not that outrageous, at least in terms of winning percentage, and it was bigger in 2000-01. In 00-01, 11/15 teams in the east had losing records against the west, 16-12 was the best record of a team in the east against the west, 10/14 teams in the west had winning records against the east, and 25-5 was the best record of a team in the west against the east - pretty comparable to this year.
The home court advantage is still unusually large this year, although not that much larger than 1999-2000. Teams won 305 more games at home than on the road this year, compared to 263 in 99-00.
By the way, looking at the stats I noticed that the Bulls had only four home losses total over two complete regular seasons, 95-96 and 96-97 (2 per season). That’s quite a record. Also, the Jazz won 62 & 64 games in the seasons when they played the Bulls in the finals (& lost in 6 games). That’s comparable to what the Lakers & Celtics were winning in the 80s. I’d say that the Jazz were just as good as those teams, just not for as long.
I went back a little farther, and the last time home court advantage was as much of an advantage as this year is 1990-91. That season, the home team won .648 of all games, and the Sacramento Kings were 24-17 at home and 1-40 on the road. 1991-92 was close - the home team won .622 that year.
Obviously, the 90s Bulls had an unquestionable advantage with Michael Jordan. But who on those Bulls teams could go up against Kareem or even Robert Parish? Bill Cartwright? Luc Longley? I don’t think so. Who would you put on Kevin McHale, perhaps the best low-post player ever? And I would very much like Moses Malone going up against Dennis Rodman on the glass.
It’s about depth. The Celtics and Lakers and even the Sixers had several hall of famers on their teams. Honestly, who on those Bulls teams is a hall of famer after MJ? Scottie Pippen? I think his stints in Portland and Houston exposed him as the Ringo Starr of the Bulls. Dennis Rodman? Yeah he could rebound, but he could do nothing else. And his rebounding numbers pale in comparison to say, Wilt Chamberlain’s or Bill Russell’s.
It proved Pippen wasn’t much on his own, but there’s no question he contributed a lot to the Bulls with Jordan. That might be all that matters in this particular comparison.
They do. But both those guys were bigger and didn’t have to compete against many others with their size or strength. Not that he could take them one-on-one or anything even close. He was a pretty good defensive pest.
In '93-'94, the season after Jordan retired (for the first time), the Bulls were the #3 team in the East (& only 2 games back on the #1 Atlanta Hawks). They lost to the Eastern Conference Champion NY Knicks in a 7-game series, and I seem to recall some terrible officiating in one of the close losses in that series. All of this without Michael. So yes, they had other players.
Cartwright could play some D. He was tough against Ewing. And the Bulls managed to get by Shaq & the Magic. I think that was when they had Luc Longley, Bill Wennington, John Sally, and Brian Williams (later Bison Daly). Rodman could rebound & play defense, Horace Grant could do some of those and also score, and Toni Kukoc was sometimes hard to stop. There was that run against Portland in game 6 (1992), when Cliff Levingston, Scott Williams, Bobby Hansen et al. led them back from a 15-point deficit at the end of the third quarter. Paxson (and later Steve Kerr) could shoot, and so could BJ coming off the bench. Ron Harper played some tough D and could score, and Randy Brown could play D on the short quick guys. I should probably be separating the team from the first 3 titles with the team from the second 3, since they were completely different teams (except for MJ & Pippen) but you get the idea. The Bulls had some good players, and they showed that you don’t need a lot of hall of famers to win. Just a couple superstars and a lot of good role players.
And that brings us to Scottie Pippen. Pippen was really good on both ends of the court. He got about 20 points, 7 boards, 6 assists, and a couple steals a game in his prime with the Bulls, including the two years without MJ, with a FG% in the range of the .470s. Not bad. Do you remember the last title, and the stifling defense he played on Mark Jackson in that Indiana series? And then against Utah he broke up their pick & roll, and they held Utah to 54 points one game. Some people were talking about him being the playoff MVP, until he got hurt in game 6 and Michael unleashed his superhuman performance. Scottie hasn’t been that great in Houston or Portland, partly because those teams have too many scorers and they don’t run the triangle offense. Plus, he’s getting up in the years. He can’t just go anywhere and be a superstar, but he was one in the right situation. And ‘right situation’ does not just mean playing with MJ - just look at the (nearly) two MJ-less years.
All true. Pippen and Jordan were both regularly first-team All Defense, I think. Rodman, too. And let’s not forget Jud Buechler. Seriously though, it wasn’t a one-man team. And they did well with Pippen as the main guy - they would’ve been even better if he’d had a ‘Scottie Pippen’ to back him up, which he really didn’t.
I love the 80’s Celtics, but this is an absurd claim. The Bulls played in the greatest era of big men in NBA history: Olajuwon, Ewing, Shaq, Robinson, Malone, Mourning, Kemp, Barkley, Daugherty. Even Smits and Mutombo and Laimbeer were pretty damn good. The Bulls were guarding quality big men night after night. And dominating. You really think they couldn’t figure out a way to handle Robert Parrish?
You play defense as a team, and few teams ever in the NBA have done that better than the Jordan Bulls.
Also, Cartwright actually played against those Celtics & Lakers teams in the 80s when he was with the Knicks. Does anyone remember how he did?
Dumbguy’s right on about all the big guys who the Bulls did fine against. They handled most of those guys in the playoffs, and they did fine against Hakeem and Robinson in the regular season. Just because the Bulls didn’t have an all-star big man, that doesn’t mean they couldn’t stop one.
I know I left him out, along with a number of other fine players. Like Craig Hodges - that guy could hit the threes. And Rusty LaRue, whose name they almost mentioned on the Simpsons when Homer was talking about changing Marge’s name. But I was proud of working in Bobby Hansen.
But there’s nobody close to Michael Jordan, period. The way he dominated the league speaks for itself.