Real Team Ratings as of December 26, 2009

REAL TEAM RATINGS
NBA 2009-10 REGULAR SEASON
AS OF DECEMBER 26, 2009
1. Boston Celtics 41.40
2. Atlanta Hawks 37.40
3. Los Angeles Lakers 33.40
4. Cleveland Cavaliers 33.40
5. Dallas Mavericks 25.10
6. Denver Nuggets 25.00
7. Orlando Magic 25.00
8. Portland Trail Blazers 19.60
9. San Antonio Spurs 8.00
10. Utah Jazz -1.50
11. Phoenix Suns -2.00
12. Miami Heat -3.20
13. Houston Rockets -3.30
14. Charlotte Bobcats -4.60
15. Milwaukee Bucks -5.70
16. Oklahoma City Thunder -10.40
17. Memphis Grizzlies -18.00
18. New York Knicks -20.30
19. New Orleans Hornets -21.00
20. Washington Wizards -21.30
21. Sacramento Kings -23.10
22. Detroit Pistons -26.50
23. Indiana Pacers -28.90
24. Los Angeles Clippers -29.80
25. Toronto Raptors -30.60
26. Philadelphia 76ers -37.80
27. Chicago Bulls -38.80
28. Golden State Warriors -39.00
29. Minnesota Timberwolves -63.70
30. New Jersey Nets -64.50

The Boston Celtics have a small lead over the Hawks, the Lakers, and the Cavaliers so far in this years Quest for the Ring. The Atlanta Hawks are for real so far this season and are the biggest upside surprise. The Cavaliers and Lakers are even up a little ways behind surprising Atlanta. Do not be fooled by the big Cavaliers victory over LA on Christmas; any team can have a bad game now and then.

The Mavericks, the Nuggets, and the Magic, who are in a 3-way tie for 5th, 6th, and 7th, trail Boston and those other three teams already mentioned, but not yet by a large amount: the season is still too young to be "cemented in stone".

The Blazers are in 9th and are not completely out of it according to RTR, but after injury adjustments are applied they would most definitely be out of this years's Quest. The Spurs are surprisingly uncompetitive with the very best teams this year.

BRIEF EXCERPTS FROM THE EXTENSIVE USER GUIDE FOR REAL TEAM RATINGS
Remember that the Real Team Ratings (RTR) is NOT simply a rating of how well the teams are doing in the regular season. Instead, it is a rating system designed to reveal the capability of winning playoff games and series of each team.

The foundation of RTR is defensive efficiency, offensive efficiency, and net per game points differential. On top of these, several careful and statistically valid adjustments are made to allow the RTR to accurately reflect some of the known factors that always impact winning in the playoffs. Factors that usually impact winning are NOT included; only factors that always impact winning are included.

RTR CAN be roughly used to predict who will win playoff series. However, there are of course factors not included in the RTR. One factor not included can be huge and can easily switch a series: injuries. Among factors not included in RTR that always impact winning playoff games, injuries is by far the biggest one.

INTERPRETING DIFFERENCES BETWEEN TEAMS
SCALE ASSUMING THE HIGHER TEAM HAS HOME COURT ADVANTAGE
Important Note: Injury adjustments are not included. For larger differences, the higher rated team would almost always have to have injury problems in order to lose. The probabilities shown reflect the risk of injuries as much as all other uncertain factors combined.

0 to 5.9 Complete toss-up: flip a coin
6 to 11.9 Roughly 60% chance the higher team will win
12 to 17.9 Roughly 70% chance the higher team will win
18 to 23.9 Roughly 80% chance the higher team will win
24 to 29.9 Roughly 89% chance the higher team will win
30 to 35.9 Roughly 95% chance the higher team will win
36 to 41.9 Roughly 98% chance the higher team will win
42 to 47.9 Roughly 99% chance the higher team will win
48 or more Roughly 100% chance the higher team will win

SCALE ASSUMING THE LOWER TEAM HAS HOME COURT ADVANTAGE
Important Note: Injury adjustments are not included. For larger differences, the higher rated team would almost always have to have injury problems in order to lose. The probabilities shown reflect the risk of injuries as much as all other uncertain factors combined.

0 to 5.9 Complete toss-up: flip a coin
6 to 11.9 Complete toss-up: flip a coin
12 to 17.9 Roughly 60% chance the higher team will win despite not having home court advantage.
18 to 23.9 Roughly 70% chance the higher team will win despite not having home court advantage.
24 to 29.9 Roughly 80% chance the higher team will win despite not having home court advnatage.
30 to 35.9 Roughly 89% chance the higher team will win despite not having home court advnatage.
36 and more: Will neve rhappen because whenever the difference is this much the higher team will have the home court advantage 100% of the time.

MANUAL INJURY ADJUSTMENTS
We have developed an injury adjustment for RTR, which is extensively described in the User Guide. Currently, injury adjustments have to be done manually using instructions in the User Guide. This will be required indefinitely, because it appears to be more trouble than it's worth to include the "injury adjustment" in the RTR itself.

There are many complications involving the impact of injuries on who is going to win playoff games. I'll mention a few of them. One huge problem is that the injury situation changes more rapidly than any of the other factors. Another problem is that early season injuries are no where near as bad for the playoffs as are late season injuries. Yet another problem is that there always seems to be conflicting information out there about just how bad different injuries are.

COACHING
Another significant factor that is not completely included in RTR is coaching that is more successful in the regular season than in the playoffs. Certain coaches deploy offensive and/or defensive strategies in the regular that do not work as well in the playoffs as they do in the regular season. A team using this kind of strategy makes the playoffs but sooner or later gets bounced in the playoffs by a team using one or more strategies rewarded by basketball.

In other words, and more broadly, it is believed by us here at Quest that how a team is coached, and what schemes it is using on offense and defense, can have a different impact in the playoffs than it did in the regular season. This would not be picked up by the RTR.

The negative impact on RTR of such coaching is believed to be between small and not so small, up to about 20 RTR points. A 15-20 point hit would be plenty big enough to swing any close series. Coaches who coach well in the regular season but not in the playoffs will cost their teams playoff series they probably could have won, although this will not happen in every series. It will happen mostly in series where the RTR differential is between 5 and 20 points. This type of coaching will certainly be in the long run ruinous to the objective of going as far as possible in the playoffs.

One of the primary objectives of the Quest for the Ring is to identify and explain offensive and defensive strategies that work better in the regular season than they do in the playoffs, and vice versa.

Other than missing the regular versus playoffs coaching differential, coaching is mostly reflected in the RTR.

Factors other than injuries and coaching that are not in the RTR are believed at this time to be small and probably insignificant.

This has been a very small sample of what is in the User Guide. For complete details regarding how the Real Team Ratings are designed and why they work, see the User Guide.

Darth Vader Sets out to Destroy The Quest for the Ring, Part One

If you don't know already from reading the previous Report, George Karl and probably some unknown cronies of his are the Darth Vader of basketball, laugh out loud. Just as in the movies, old Darth can really do some unexpected damage and put a lot of fear into the atmosphere when he gets lucky with one of his diabolical schemes.

As promised in the prequel to this review of the only Quest Report in history to be declared an error after publication, we are now going to go over each of the 16 reasons given in that Report for why the Denver Nuggets were supposedly, definitely not going to win any playoff series in 2009. They did win a series, and we actually can see why if we find out that somehow Darth and the Nuggets avoided most of these sixteen things from happening.

The idea from that January 14 Report that turned out to be very wrong was that although not all of the 16 things would go wrong for the Nuggets in the playoffs, enough of them would go wrong that the Nuggets would fail to win a series. Technically, the Nuggets were not supposed to win more than two playoff games; whereas they actually won ten.

I now take them one by one and break down what happened and why.

REASON ONE WHY THE NUGGETS WERE TO NOT WIN ANY PLAYOFF SERIES

1. The Nuggets’ opponent will finally realize that this is not really Carmelo Anthony’s team anymore, if it ever was, and that Carmelo Anthony is not the player who can or will beat you in more than one or two games in a 4-6 games playoff series. Carmelo Anthony has rebounding duties now and, although in a surprise development he has a three point shot for a change, his garden variety jump shooting is nothing much to worry about anymore as a result of his agreeing to being downsized in the offense.

Yes it's true, George Karl and the Nuggets have shot themselves in the foot by telling Carmelo Anthony to "not worry about scoring" anymore. They decided that they can do without having available to them a player who can dominate scoring to one extent to another. Karl believes in what you might call the Indirect Scoring Theory of basketball, which states that a good offense in general and good scoring in particular emerges indirectly from other factors, which are thought of in this theory as more fundamental, things such as, you guessed it, aggressive man to man defending and hustling for loose balls. However, unfortunately, there isn't in real life an automatic connection between those kinds of things and the number of points scored, at least not to the extent needed to win playoff games against quality offensive teams.

The opponent will realize that Chauncey Billups and to a lesser extent Nene are the only players on the Nuggets who can possibly endanger their winning the playoff series. With the downsizing of Carmelo Anthony having made the shortage worse, the Nuggets do not have any where near enough experienced playoff warriors to pose a real threat to win a playoff series against any reasonably well managed or reasonably playoff-experienced team.

HOW REASON ONE PLAYED OUT
This reason why the Nuggets would lose in the playoffs, which was supposed to be a big one, didn’t play out at all, because Carmelo Anthony agreed with Quest for the Ring and broke out of the box that George Karl tried to put him in. New Orleans, Dallas, and Los Angeles all had to contend with the classic Carmelo Anthony, the highly skilled scoring maniac version.

That Anthony sided with Quest against Karl was a surprise mainly because during the regular season Anthony had clearly ramped down shooting and scoring in favor of rebounding and assisting. Melo's defensive rebounding percentage rate shrunk from 17.0% in the regular to 13.3% in the playoffs. Whereas his scoring rate jumped from 23.8 points in the regular to 25.6 points in the playoffs per 36 minutes. Whereas even great scorers usually see a big drop off in scoring in the playoffs since they are playing much better defenses then.

But although it was a surprise, that Anthony agreed with Quest for the Ring and changed back to the classic version for the playoffs was not a shock, because most basketball players are in fact smart enough to realize that you don’t win a Championship by trying to follow vague “well rounded player” formulas.

REASON TWO WHY THE NUGGETS WERE TO NOT WIN ANY PLAYOFF SERIES

Point guard Chauncey Billups, for all practical purposes, is the offensive Coach of the Nuggets, and arguably the Coach of the team as a whole. As such, he deserves to get a whole lot of defensive extra attention. All other Nuggets are afraid of the wrath of George Karl were they to show any real initiative with respect to being a playmaker. So once again, the opponent must and will double and hassle Billups all game every game.

HOW REASON TWO PLAYED OUT
Incidentally, the sarcastic wording of this and a few of the other reasons reflect the fact that at the time it was written, I essentially had a perfect record of explaining how basketball playoff games are won and why and how George Karl is often wrong about how he coaches. You know what they say: pride goeth before the fall...

You can see that the theory was that Anthony would be shooting himself in the foot by doing what Karl wanted and then the playoff opponent would see that and concentrate on Billups. But obviously, when Anthony decided that Karl was not correct in telling him to not go all out for scoring, the other teams were in big trouble from the get go if they assumed that Anthony was going to be limited as he was during most of the regular season.

In game one of the Mavericks–Nuggets series, the Mavericks did indeed assume that it was actually more important to contain Billups than Anthony, and they did contain Billups very well in that game. But when in game one Anthony didn’t play by the Karl rules, and when the Nuggets’ fast breaking offense based mostly on their defense kicked into an extremely high gear, the Mavericks quickly changed their minds and decided to starting in game two treat Anthony and Billups as equally dangerous, and to give the Nuggets’ overall offense a lot more respect in general.

But that change in who to be most worried about was not enough for the Mavericks’ defense. As the Quest report series for Mavericks-Nuggets shows, the Mavericks were caught a little too banged up (specifically, they could not afford to have Josh Howard on weak ankles) and not defensively tough enough to be able to successfully contend with the Nuggets flawed in theory, ultimately limited, but very high octane and relatively successful offense,

It wasn’t just that the Mavericks’ defense “did not match up well” with the Nuggets’ offense. Rather, it was that no defense matched up well with the Nuggets’ offense, and that was the whole secret of the success of it. Karl and company (Darth Vader) were trying to pull a fast one over their playoff opponents, both figuratively and literally, just as they did to opponents over and over during the regular season.

And so the Nuggets did overwhelm the Mavericks with raw talent, a defense first mentality, aggressiveness, energy, and speed, at least up until the Lakers, just barely in time as it were, saw through the Nuggets’ game and realized that the Nuggets had not really come up with a true winning strategy. The Nuggets had achieved most of what is needed to win the Quest other than winning strategies for offense and defense, but lacking those they were doomed to eventually fell flat.

The relatively close call for the Lakers will hopefully teach Phil Jackson to keep Quest for the Ring on his reading list, laugh out loud.

The NBA Championship is most likely never going to be won by a team that bases their offense almost entirely on pace and fast breaking off of a very aggressive defense. If you have little in the way of offensive play making and strategy, you are not going to be winning a ring. Nor is the Championship ever going to be won by a team that on defense thinks that aggressiveness and energy, up to and including a high fouling rate, is more important than skilled and smart defending.

REASON THREE WHY THE NUGGETS WERE TO NOT WIN ANY PLAYOFF SERIES

With Nene you want to get him into foul trouble, pure and simple. What you do is simple: go at him early and often offensively. Don’t try to foul him as much as you try to get him to foul you. The Nuggets are still a high turnover team, and that includes Nene. Do not be overly concerned that Nene has such a high field goal percentage. He hardly tries any midrange jumpers, and he will turn it over often enough to keep the damage from all his point blank layups and dunks within reason.

HOW REASON THREE PLAYED OUT
Well let’s check how Nene did in the Mavericks series. RPR stands for Real Player Rating, which is one of the most important Quest performance measures.

NENE IN THE MAVERICKS—NUGGETS SERIES
Game One: RPR .983, 2 fouls, 3 turnovers, 24 points; the Nuggets as a whole had 14 turnovers
Game Two: RPR .808, 2 fouls, 1 turnover, 25 points,; the Nuggets as a whole had 9 turnovers
Game Three: RPR .375, 5 fouls, 2 turnovers, 5 points; the Nuggets as a whole had 7 turnovers
Game Four: RPR .376, 5 fouls, 2 turnovers, 9 points; the Nuggets as a whole had 11 turnovers
Game Five: RPR .519, 4 fouls, 4 turnovers, 17 points; the Nuggets as a whole had 13 turnovers.

So there you have it. As previously reported the referees were letting some Nuggets fouls go in games one and two, most likely including a few Nene fouls. When the series went to Dallas, all of a sudden Nene was virtually fouling out. With respect to Nene turnovers, in games one and five the problem was there but his turnovers were more reasonable in games two, three, and four.

Nene was hobbled as we predicted, but only in games three, four, and five. (The series was effectively over before game five ever tipped so Nene’s game five is technically irrelevant). But in games one and two, Nene was contained by neither the Mavericks nor the referees, and he was an extremely important reason why the Nuggets were able to steamroll the Mavericks in those games.

Overall Nuggets turnovers were very, very low; the average number of turnovers in a game is about 14 and the Nuggets averaged only 10.8 turnovers a game. This shows you how determined the Nuggets were to prove Quest wrong and win a series after five straight seasons of losing quickly in the first round. It also of course shows you that Dallas in 2008-09 was not aggressive and energetic enough on defense. On defense you need skills but you also need aggressiveness and energy. Just one of those is not going to do it for you. There were only four teams whose opponents committed fewer turnovers than the Mavericks’ opponents committed. This shows you that the Mavericks were not forcing enough turnovers.

The Lakers and the Nuggets were near the top for forcing turnovers, while Orlando was, like Dallas, near the bottom. We all know how Orlando flamed out in the Championship, and one of the reasons was their inability to force a turnover or two in critical situations. Forcing a turnover, especially with a steal, is one of the very best ways to change momentum in a game, and so it is one of the very best ways for an underdog team to help itself to win a game and perhaps even score an upset in a playoff series.

Allen Iverson back when he took the 76’ers to the 2001 Championship was extremely good at getting steals that hardly anyone else was going to get and this is one of the important reasons explaining how the 76’ers were able to shock the East and the entire basketball world and make it to that Championship.

REASON FOUR WHY THE NUGGETS WERE TO NOT WIN ANY PLAYOFF SERIES

Three of the four best offensive players on the Nuggets are all relatively high turnover rate players: Carmelo Anthony, Nene, and J.R. Smith. A good opponent will make sure it goes after these players and forces as many turnovers by them as possible. Offensive fouls are a particular kind of turnover, and all three of these Nuggets have “style problems” with the refs and are therefore vulnerable to being called for offensive fouls at a higher than typical rate. In recent years, Carmelo Anthony has been hammered in the playoffs with a large number of offensive foul calls against him.

HOW REASON FOUR PLAYED OUT
The scenario in this reason the Nuggets would lose did not even come close to coming true, as explained already in reason number three. Although the Nuggets were a high turnover team in 2008-09, the Mavericks were completely unable to force turnovers to any extent at all, leaving them vulnerable to being rolled. The Nuggets had a major vulnerability with respect to turnovers that the Mavericks totally ignored or were unable to exploit. As a result, when the Mavericks fell behind the Nuggets in games one and two, they were unable to change the momentum and get back into the game by forcing a few turnovers.

It is interesting to note that so far in 2009-10, the Nuggets are now an average turnover team, which is considered very positive with respect to winning the Quest. An average number of turnovers is sometimes better than being below average; the lowest turnover teams are sometimes (not always) ones whose offense is too predictable and/or too lacking a passing game to be able to win the Quest. The bottom line is that although turnovers are not among the very most important factors for determining who wins the Quest, they are not exactly unimportant either.

REASON FIVE WHY THE NUGGETS WERE TO NOT WIN ANY PLAYOFF SERIES

Generally, the coaches of the Nuggets’ opponent will most of the time correctly choose the defensive matchups that are best for them, and make the correct
decision between zone and man to man defending. Meanwhile, the Nuggets’ coaching
staff will be over relying on man to man defending. The Nuggets in at least two
or three playoff games will have to reduce the minutes of two or more of their
aggressive man to man defenders as a result of foul trouble, particularly if the
Nuggets play teams such as the Spurs and the Jazz who are highly trained at
drawing fouls and who are experts at “playing the referees” in general, whereas
the Nuggets, being newcomers to the game of milking the referees, are mere
amateurs.

HOW REASON FIVE PLAYED OUT
Well, the Nuggets actually looked like long-time experts at exploiting the referees. In fact, since they were simultaneously using on defense a high fouling strategy and on offense a high getting fouled strategy and both worked well in both the Hornets and the Mavericks series, the Nuggets in those two series looked like one of the all-time greatest referee exploiters laugh out loud.

In quarter four of game two, when obviously the Mavericks were very much still alive in the series, Rick Carlisle made a mockery of my prediction that the coach of the Nuggets opponent would make good defensive decisions in key situations.

In this game, which was game two in Denver, the Mavs and Nugs played almost even through three quarters; it was 86-83 Denver after three. Mavericks superstar Dirk Nowitzki asked for and received extra rest time at the beginning of the 4th quarter.

The problem was that Rick Carlisle then installed a very small lineup at the start of the 4th, which was promptly routed by the Nuggets due to the Nuggets' relentless driving into the paint, mixed up nicely with a fast breaking attack. The Mavs super small lineup to start the 4th was:

--JJ Barea PG, 6'0"
--Jason Terry PG, 6'2"
--Antoine Wright SG, 6'7"
--Brandon Bass PF, 6'8"
--James Singleton PF, 6'8"

This lineup resulted in the Nuggets going on a devastating 16-2 run, making it 102-85 Nuggets with six minutes left in the game. The Mavericks had gone from very much alive in the game and in the series to dead in the game and on life support in the series. You see what can happen when a coach makes a bad decision? Never underestimate how much bad (or how much good) a coach can do in a game between relatively evenly matched pro basketball teams. The force is with the coaches should they be able to use it correctly.

Also, Carlisle should have severely reduced Eric Dampier’s minutes in favor of other forwards and centers. Assuming he wasn’t injured, James Singleton should have received a lot more playing time than he did.

See this report for still more details.

Carlisle is generally a good defensive coach and he does not usually make mistakes of this magnitude. In fact, to his credit, Carlisle realized relatively quickly that the Nuggets were using a unique, highly aggressive, high fouling strategy on defense, a strategy seldom seen because (a) most coaches think that a high fouling strategy has more costs than benefits and (b) often when it is used a high fouling strategy is nullified by the referees calling a lot of fouls and by the fouled players making their free throws. Whenever the referees call those extra fouls, a team running this gamble of a strategy is probably going to lose the game.

However, as shown in games one and two, when ironically the Nuggets were called for very, very few fouls the referees do not always ramp up their foul calling in response to a highly aggressive defense that often resorts to intentionally fouling a lot. We still don't know exactly how often the referees will respond with more foul calls and how often they will take it easy on teams who when push comes to shove cross the line from very aggressive defending (which the referees seem to respect quite a bit) to more or less intentionally fouling (which the referees like everyone else hate).

Let me note in fairness, though, that the Nuggets mostly didn't have to actually cross the line between aggressive defending and intentional fouling in games one and two, because the Nuggets were mostly using energy and speed as opposed to aggressiveness and fouling in those games and, meanwhile, the Dallas offense simply could not get fully untracked; see part two of this Report for more on that subject. The referees should have called a few more fouls against the Nuggets in games one and two, but not a lot more, and the games still would have been won by Denver even if the referees had called a few more fouls on them.

Long before the Mavericks series took place, Quest warned everyone including potential Nuggets playoff opponents that this is what the Nuggets were doing, and we also gave the recommended counter move, which was to respond in kind and wait until the referees started calling a lot of fouls so as to damp down all the excess fouling and to thereby prevent the game from spinning completely out of control. Carlisle understood the situation accurately and followed what Quest recommended exactly in game three.

REASON SIX WHY THE NUGGETS WERE TO NOT WIN ANY PLAYOFF SERIES

J.R. Smith is extremely dangerous, but much more in theory than in reality, and only in the regular season most likely. In practice the Nuggets have made Smith much less dangerous than he could be. But the Nuggets’ opponent will, at the first sign that J.R. Smith may go on a tear of hitting a bunch of threes and of impressive drives to the hoop, do whatever is necessary to force him to lose his confidence, including hard fouling, double covering, going for steals and getting a couple of them off of him, and running a much larger number of offensive plays than otherwise through whoever he is covering. Good coaches know that to cool down a streaky offensive player, you can make him work harder and attempt to break down his overall confidence by beating him when he is on defense.

Good playoff coaches will be aware that as a result of Smith being considered the “black sheep” by the Nuggets personality police, that he is vulnerable to losing his confidence, and is also vulnerable to having his minutes cut way back in the playoffs by Personality Police Chief George Karl. Smith’s personality problem is not that he has a bad personality as the Nuggets falsely believe, but that he has an immature personality. But George Karl and those who blindly support him have created the impression in J.R.’s mind that there is something wrong with his personality and that he is lacking something mentally that other players have, that he should and must have.

So Mr. Karl has made the impact of Smith’s immature personality as bad as possible for the Nuggets, by refusing to start him regardless of how well he plays, by recklessly and publicly criticizing him for minor things, by leaving him in toss up games late in the 4th quarter, which is the one context that J.R.’s immature personality can harm your team, and by, amazingly, refusing to even talk off court to the young shooting guard were he to want to discuss something.

As a result of being immature to begin with, and as a result of George Karl recklessly and severely making J.R. much more vulnerable to losing his confidence in high pressure games than he already was, J.R. Smith has been largely or completely a non-factor so far in almost all playoff games. Smith’s turnover rate has continued to be high even as his offensive and defensive game has become more mature and polished overall. There is no reason to believe that Smith’s big confidence vulnerability will not continue for most playoff games this year. However, if somehow Smith is showing signs that he might break out of the box that the Nuggets have put him in, it should be easy to put him back in that box by aggressively defending, fouling, and running plays at the extremely talented but immature shooting guard.

HOW REASON SIX PLAYED OUT
Well let’s check this out:

J.R. SMITH IN THE MAVERICKS-NUGGETS SERIES
Game One: RPR: .966, 7/13 shooting, 0/2 on threes, 0 turnovers, 15 points
Game Two: RPR: 1.262, 6/10 shooting, 3/7 on threes, 0 turnovers, 21 points
Game Three: RPR: .511, 3/10 shooting, 1/4 on threes, 0 turnovers, 10 points
Game Four: RPR .605, 7/10 shooting, 2/3 on threes, 1 turnover, 19 points
Game Five: RPR .964, 5/13 shooting, 4/10 on threes, 1 turnover, 18 points

We thought Smith would be limited to one outstanding game per series but as you can see he had three outstanding games in this one. Only a minority of players can ever exceed 1.200 RPR in a playoff game and Smith is one of them.

Clearly, this reason did not play out like we thought it might. Even in the two Dallas games (game three and four) you could hardly say that Smith tanked or didn’t have enough confidence or choked or anything like that. He was still decent even in those Dallas games; his famous inconsistency was no where near as extreme in this series as it was so often in the past.

The only conclusion you can make is that this reason did not play out as we thought it might to any extent. It turns out that being coached by George Karl does not necessarily ruin your confidence and composure for life, laugh out loud. I guess J.R. Smith, for all his mysteriousness and inconsistency, is not someone who is going to be scarred for life by bad coaching. Who would have known unless the crazy experiment had been run?

The review of the sixteen reasons the Nuggets were going to lose continues in part 2.

THE DARTH VADER OF BASKETBALL

The Infamous January 14, 2009 Report and How the "Darth Vader" of Basketball Almost Succeeded at Destroying Quest for the Ring Because of it

There have been a total of about 550 Quest for the Ring Reports, roughly 370 of which contain information about basketball that I contend is all factually correct and the other 180 being mostly pre-formatted performance reports and entertainment. Of the roughly 370 Reports that describe basketball in exact detail and explain in detail how games are won and lost, especially playoff games, just one of them has been declared as incorrect subsequent to publication.

I am about to go over with a magnifying glass everything that was claimed in the Report that was in error noting what was correct but especially concentrating on what was incorrect and why. The objectives will be:

1. To satisfy my urge for and my tradition of perfection.
2. To hopefully prevent any additional errors in the future.
3. To explain how the errors in the Report occurred.
4. To explain what has been learned about playoff pro basketball as a result of reviewing the incorrect Report in detail, especially the errors.

Number 4 is the most important objective as you might expect.

The report that contained a few errors was published on January 14, 2009, and it was supposed to have been one of the most important Reports of the year. (It backfired.) The year, in turn, which was the third year, was supposed to be the most important of the three years to date. So the blunders in this Report were and are truly serious, and correcting them is more or less mandatory.

We have actually already set the record straight about many of the details associated with the Report in error in various other articles that came out during the summer and fall, but there are still the necessities of making sure we have corrected all of the errors, of having a mea culpa in one place, and of summarizing one final time what the 2009 Nuggets taught us.

Please don’t ever think that Quest for the Ring is perfect. But do think that unlike other sites, many of which don’t get upset about errors and/or don’t even notice they have made errors, Quest does continually monitor for errors and always corrects all errors other than trivial ones.

ABOUT PREDICTIONS
Most writers who cover the whole NBA make a lot of predictions about who is going to win what. Many have detailed preseason predictions. But they are doing so as much for fun and entertainment as for any serious reasons. The prediction writers not only do not issue anything close to a guarantee that they are correct, they often sort of joke about how they were wrong when the results are in.

Whereas my January 2009 prediction that the Nuggets would not win a playoff series was supposed to be very close to a guarantee, with the only out being a major unexpected injury to one or more players on the team the Nuggets were to play. But as if to emphasize how wrong that Report was, I was so charged up (and over confident?) at the time that I did not even mention at the time how an injury or two could completely invalidate my "guarantee" in the Report in question.

The whole approach was in 20/20 hindsight nothing short of asinine. Because what I should have done is simply list the same points why the Nuggets would most likely get smoked exactly as I did, but make the main point that these were reasons why the Nuggets would lose in the playoffs if enough of them occurred instead of going too far and claiming that some of them would definitely occur and that the Nuggets would definitely lose. I made the Report too strong and my nose was cut off as a result; I learned my lesson the hard way.

The Nuggets defeated the Hornets and the Mavericks in the 2009 playoffs. The Hornets were banged up from one end of their lineup to the other and they had no chance to beat anyone in the condition they were in. The prediction that the Nuggets would lose in the playoffs was technically invalid with respect to the Hornets series, although you would not know it given the glaring omission about injuries. That omission alone was enough to make that Report asinine. I was definitely not on my game when I wrote that one!

But the Mavericks were much less banged up, with only Josh Howard injured to any extent, and even he played in about three games of the series. The Josh Howard situation was not supposed to be enough to make my prediction invalid, so that prediction became officially and totally wrong when the Mavericks lost to the Nuggets. Ouch, the perfectionist was very wrong on something.

There is a good amount of entertainment on Quest, but it’s mostly non-basketball fun and frivolity. Quest is very serious about explaining how pro playoff basketball games are won, so any prediction we do, like most everything else we do, is supposed to be correct and is supposed to be in conjunction with explaining how games are won. In other words, as one of the very most serious basketball sites on the Internet, we don’t do predictions for entertainment, only for informational purposes.

So when on January 14, 2009 we predicted that the Denver Nuggets would “most likely not win a single playoff series” in the 2009 playoffs, this was supposed to be an accurate prediction, especially since as already mentioned the Report was supposed to be one of the more important Reports in the history of the site.

The Nuggets won two playoff series, and even appeared to be competitive in the 2009 West Final versus the Los Angeles Lakers, at least up until the point they were humiliated at home by the Lakers and thereby eliminated 4 games to 2.

Since I was so wrong, I have resolved to never make predictions unless I am about 99% certain. In January, I was about 90% certain that the Nuggets would fail to win a playoff series in 2009. The number of predictions I will be making will be carefully limited to those that are considered total locks.

There are too many variables to be predicting exactly who is going to beat who in the playoffs, especially many months in advance, injuries being by far the biggest one among many wild card variables. I don’t have to be making predictions to succeed at my objective of explaining exactly how playoff games are won. Although in theory, assuming what I teach is correct, I could predict who will beat who better than anyone who doesn’t do what I do, in practice it doesn’t make sense for me to do that, because I don’t have to be perfect or even close to perfect in predicting series to achieve what my real objectives are.

But to illustrate that I will still be making predictions when I am at least about 99% certain, which will probably be more often than you think, I have already this season predicted (with a "guarantee") that the Nuggets, despite being chock loaded with talent and very possibly more talented than the Lakers, will not win the 2010 NBA Championship. There is less than a 1% chance that they could defeat both the Lakers and whoever the East winner is, probably the Celtics. If any starter or very important bench player is out, though, that and all such predictions are invalid.

Due to the new restriction on me predicting things, I have refused to officially predict that the Nuggets will not beat the Lakers and win the West, but I will tell you that I am about 97% certain that they will not. The Nuggets have too much offensive talent for me to be 99% or more certain that the Nuggets will lose to the Lakers.

Aside from a few predictions that are intended and believed to be very close to locks, I will also be making conditional predictions via Real Team Ratings. But these “predictions” will not be the kind of serious, “I know for certain” kind of prediction that I in a blunder made in the January 14 Report. Quest for the Ring Real Team Ratings are designed to predict who the best playoff teams are. But the rankings resulting from the Ratings are not certain, hard and fast predictions of who is going to beat who. Real Team Ratings is a probabilistic model. It will most often be correct but it won’t always be correct. So you might call the predictions resulting from Real Team Ratings to be soft predictions.

Finally, it should be noted that although Quest does not have preseason predictions per se, we do have our probabilistic scheme separate from Real Team Ratings. You have probably seen it already. There are three groups of teams: major contenders, wild card contenders, and long shot contenders. Each of these groups consists of three teams. Using the beginning of the season breakdown, one of the major contenders will win the ring about 94% of all years, with one of the wild card contenders winning it in about 5% of all years, and one of the long shot contenders winning it in about 1% of all yers. A long shot contender has only about one third of one percent chance of winning the ring: about 1/333 chance.

HOW THE BATTLE FOR QUEST WAS WON: THE FORCE DEFEATS DARTH VADER
Before the Internet, secrets such as the ones I am about to reveal were almost always kept secret. In the Internet age, it is more common for secrets like this to be revealed, although only certain writers will be completely honest with you even now. My view is that since many secrets are busted on the Internet, and since writing posted on the Internet is commonly, unlike old fashioned writing, supposed to be entirely honest, there was no way I was going to keep this or anything else secret from you. You get everything I can give you with respect to how the Rings and the games are won and lost, including the details about occasional errors along the way.

So now I reveal what smug, snobbish, or uncaring writers would never reveal:

Had the Denver Nuggets won the 2009 NBA Championship, I almost certainly would have discontinued writing the story of how pro playoff games are won. Similarly, if the Denver Nuggets had defeated the Lakers but lost the NBA Championship, I most likely would have discontinued Quest for the Ring. In either of these scenarios, I would have been grossly wrong in what I have been teaching about how pro playoff games are won.

When a perfectionist is wrong, it’s bad enough, but if and when a perfectionist is grossly wrong, there is serious hell to pay. Massive reorganization and/or quitting the game are necessary when a perfectionist is grossly wrong. Reorganization was not an option because I had already and recently established a close to perfect editorial organization. So quitting due to incompetence was the only real option for a perfectionist had the Nuggets won the Ring or even just the West final.

So due to all of the Nuggets lucky breaks, but also due to the fact that I really was wrong to some extent regarding the 2009 Nuggets, I came dangerously close to having to discontinue the project due to having been proven hopelessly wrong.

KOBE BRYANT AND PHIL JACKSON TO THE RESCUE
But the Lakers, especially Kobe Bryant and Phil Jackson, saved me from this fate, by winning the series by using ways that I have been teaching are among the best ways to do it. Whereas the Nuggets got hammered 119-92 in an elimination game at home, a humiliation actually. The Nuggets were utterly destroyed in that game six, although they foolishly refused to interpret that rout in that way and vowed to make another attempt to beat the Lakers in 2010 without making any major changes in how they attempt that.

The Lakers eventually rose up out of the box the Nuggets were trying to keep them in and won big because they were and stayed true to basketball and the Nuggets persisted with trying to twist basketball into something it is not. George Karl and the Nuggets were claiming that basketball offense can be automatically reduced or limited via high fouling on defense and that fast pace on offense is a strategy that by itself can win a championship. The Nuggets’ claims were eventually proved to be very, very wrong,

But it took so long for the Nuggets to implode that it was hell on earth for a few weeks when the very existence of the Quest for the Ring project and site appeared to be in jeopardy. I mean, it was never actually in jeopardy, but you didn’t know that for sure at the time if you tend to worry too much like I do. Between all of the Nuggets’ luck and all of their offensive and defensive skill that got them into the West final, and between how long it took the Lakers to finally realize that “the force was with them,” it was a miserable experience.

The Darth Vader of basketball, George Karl, had succeeded in pulling the wool over people’s eyes more so than at any time before, to the point where there appeared to be a real threat to the Lakers, to Quest for the Ring, and to basketball.

All those around the country who had jumped on the 2009 Nuggets bandwagon as they won ten playoff games (everyone likes to root for the underdog sometimes) were surprised, to say the least, when the Nuggets imploded in game six. But notice that very few of those fly by night Nuggets fans around the country owned up to their mistake of predicting that the Nuggets were going to defeat the Lakers. They just went on their merry way. By contrast, even though I eventually "won," because months earlier I strongly predicted that the Nuggets would never get to play the Lakers in the West final, it is my duty to correct the specific things I was wrong about and to make sure that I don’t fall into the prediction trap in the future.

As you probably know and as mentioned already, the Lakers defeated the Nuggets 4 games to 2 in the 2009 West final. Had the Denver Nuggets won three games in the Lakers series, had the series gone to seven games in other words, there is about a 50/50 chance that I would have discontinued Quest. In this scenario I would have been substantially more wrong than I was, and also a secondary prediction I made about 10 days before the series began, that the Nuggets would not win more than one game against the Lakers despite having won two series (versus the Hornets and the Mavericks) would have been substantially more wrong.

So in the end, I was just wrong enough to have been very wrong, but not wrong enough to be “grossly wrong”. I came dangerously close to ending Quest for the Ring, not only due to being grossly wrong, but also because basketball would be a much less interesting and worthwhile game than I know it is had the Nuggets defeated the Lakers. If basketball could be won by using a football type of approach as Karl and the Nuggets were contending, hell, I'll start doing football.

As I said already in other Reports, the Nuggets and George Karl in the 2009 playoffs were like the Darth Vader of basketball, whereas Kobe, Phil, and the Lakers were the positive team reflecting the soul of basketball that had “the force” with them. And thank goodness that the force was in fact with the Lakers: how else can you explain them winning by 27 points in Denver in the elimination game on May 29? If that game was not “the force” showing itself, then what the hell else was it: the Nuggets losing on purpose?

The perfectionist thing to do in this case is to work like hell to figure out why I was wrong, and put in whatever safeguards possible to make sure that an error on the scale of the January 14 Report does not happen again. Actually, I have already explained exactly how the Nuggets won two playoff series in 2009: there is a series of Reports that you can check out for both the Nuggets-Hornets series and the Nuggets-Mavericks series.

As previously stated, I am next going back to the sixteen reasons in the January 14 Report that were given for the hard prediction that the Nuggets were going to lose out in the playoffs. We'll see which ones of those came true and why. We’ll review some of the main reasons why the Mavericks could not defeat the Nuggets. See the next two reports for that very important review. There is a lot of valuable information about how the Quest is won in there.

THE DARTH VADER OF BASKETBALL

Real Player Ratings for the 2009 NBA Championship, Game 5: Lakers 99 Magic 86

Editorial Notice: Quest for the Ring will be between now and the end of 2009 providing a complete Real Player Rating Series Report, like the one below, for each and every 2009 West Final game, for each and every 2009 East Final game, and for each game in the 2009 NBA Final Series. The Mavericks-Nuggets West Semifinal series is also being covered this way in full.

Following the posting of the Real Player Ratings Series Reports, we will post the Real Game Ratings Reports for all of these games. Following these Real Game Ratings, which were just created in the spring of 2009 and which have hardly appeared on Quest at all yet, we will pick some games to focus on for full scale text Reports. In the text reports, we will of course as appropriate make use of and link back to the completed performance measure reports.

Quest for the Ring, as of spring 2009, has realistically and strategically decided to concentrate its advanced performance measurement, reporting, and analysis capabilities on the games that matter the most each year in the NBA: the conference final games and the NBA Championship games.

USER GUIDE
The Real Player Rating User Guide is a necessary reference for anyone who wants to truly understand the value of, the validity of, and the ways you can use the following measures. Moreover, you should become a regular visitor to Quest for the Ring if you want to get the full advantage of reading and using Real Player Ratings Series performance measures. The more you visit and check out ratings, the more quickly and easily you will be able to evaluate what you are seeing.

NBA CHAMPIONSHIP 2009 GAME FIVE
JUNE 14 2009 IN ORLANDO, FL
LOS ANGELES LAKERS 99 ORLANDO MAGIC 86
LAKFERS WIN THE SERIES AND THE QUEST FOR THE RING 4-1

BASIC REAL PLAYER RATINGS
The adjustment for hidden defending is not valid for individual games and is not included.

LAKERS BASIC REAL PLAYER RATINGS
Kobe Bryant, SG 1.125
Pau Gasol, PF 0.964
Lamar Odom, PF 0.568
Derek Fisher, PG 0.491
Luke Walton, SF 0.449
Trevor Ariza, SF 0.285
Jordan Farmar, PG 0.180
Andrew Bynum, C 0.001

MAGIC BASIC REAL PLAYER RATINGS
J.J. Redick, SG 1.069
Jameer Nelson, PG 0.814
Courtney Lee, SG 0.565
Rashard Lewis, PF 0.526
Dwight Howard, C 0.476
Marcin Gortat, C 0.304
Rafer Alston, PG 0.303
Hedo Turkoglu, SF 0.267
Mickael Pietrus, SF 0.179


COMBINED SORT BASIC REAL PLAYER RATINGS
Kobe Bryant, LAL SG 1.125
J.J. Redick, ORL SG 1.069
Pau Gasol, LAL PF 0.964
Jameer Nelson, ORL PG 0.814
Lamar Odom, LAL PF 0.568
Courtney Lee, ORL SG 0.565
Rashard Lewis, ORL PF 0.526
Derek Fisher, LAL PG 0.491
Dwight Howard, ORL C 0.476
Luke Walton, LAL SF 0.449
Marcin Gortat, ORL C 0.304
Rafer Alston, ORL PG 0.303
Trevor Ariza, LAL SF 0.285
Hedo Turkoglu, ORL SF 0.267
Jordan Farmar, LAL PG 0.180
Mickael Pietrus, ORL SF 0.179
Andrew Bynum, LAL C 0.001

EVALUATION SCALE FOR BASIC REAL PLAYER RATINGS FOR A SINGLE GAME
Perfect for all Practical Purposes / Major Historic Super Star 1.100 and more
Historic Super Star 1.000 1.099
Super Star 0.900 0.999
A Star Player / A Well Above Normal Starter 0.800 0.899
Very Good Player: A Solid Starter 0.700 0.799
Major Role Player / Good Enough to Start 0.600 0.699
Good Role Player / Often a Good 6th Man 0.500 0.599
Satisfactory Role Player 0.425 0.499
Marginal Role Player 0.350 0.424
Poor Player 0.275 0.349
Very Poor Player 0.200 0.274
Extremely Poor Player .199 and less

--------------------------------------------
REAL PLAYER PRODUCTION
Basic Real Player Production
The adjustment for hidden defending is not valid for individual games and is not included.

LAKERS BASIC REAL PLAYER PRODUCTION
Kobe Bryant, SG 48.36
Pau Gasol, PF 40.49
Lamar Odom, PF 18.17
Derek Fisher, PG 15.70
Trevor Ariza, SF 11.67
Luke Walton, SF 6.29
Jordan Farmar, PG 2.52
Andrew Bynum, C 0.01

MAGIC BASIC REAL PLAYER PRODUCTION
Rashard Lewis, PF 23.65
Dwight Howard, C 18.57
Courtney Lee, SG 14.69
J.J. Redick, SG 13.90
Hedo Turkoglu, SF 11.22
Jameer Nelson, PG 10.58
Rafer Alston, PG 9.99
Mickael Pietrus, SF 3.05
Marcin Gortat, C 2.74


COMBINED SORT BASIC REAL PLAYER PRODUCTION
Kobe Bryant, LAL SG 48.36
Pau Gasol, LAL PF 40.49
Rashard Lewis, ORL PF 23.65
Dwight Howard, ORL C 18.57
Lamar Odom, LAL PF 18.17
Derek Fisher, LAL PG 15.70
Courtney Lee, ORL SG 14.69
J.J. Redick, ORL SG 13.90
Trevor Ariza, LAL SF 11.67
Hedo Turkoglu, ORL SF 11.22
Jameer Nelson, ORL PG 10.58
Rafer Alston, ORL PG 9.99
Luke Walton, LAL SF 6.29
Mickael Pietrus, ORL SF 3.05
Marcin Gortat, ORL C 2.74
Jordan Farmar, LAL PG 2.52
Andrew Bynum, LAL C 0.01

============== SUB RATINGS ==============
OFFENSIVE SUB RATINGS
All Tracked Offensive Plays

LAKERS OFFENSIVE SUB RATINGS
Kobe Bryant, SG 0.714
Pau Gasol, PF 0.497
Derek Fisher, PG 0.452
Luke Walton, SF 0.356
Lamar Odom, PF 0.335
Jordan Farmar, PG 0.180
Trevor Ariza, SF 0.118
Andrew Bynum, C 0.083

MAGIC OFFENSIVE SUB RATINGS
J.J. Redick, SG 1.146
Jameer Nelson, PG 0.612
Courtney Lee, SG 0.441
Marcin Gortat, C 0.304
Rashard Lewis, PF 0.279
Hedo Turkoglu, SF 0.269
Rafer Alston, PG 0.156
Dwight Howard, C 0.138
Mickael Pietrus, SF 0.102


COMBINED SORT OFFENSIVE SUB RATINGS
J.J. Redick, ORL SG 1.146
Kobe Bryant, LAL SG 0.714
Jameer Nelson, ORL PG 0.612
Pau Gasol, LAL PF 0.497
Derek Fisher, LAL PG 0.452
Courtney Lee, ORL SG 0.441
Luke Walton, LAL SF 0.356
Lamar Odom, LAL PF 0.335
Marcin Gortat, ORL C 0.304
Rashard Lewis, ORL PF 0.279
Hedo Turkoglu, ORL SF 0.269
Jordan Farmar, LAL PG 0.180
Rafer Alston, ORL PG 0.156
Dwight Howard, ORL C 0.138
Trevor Ariza, LAL SF 0.118
Mickael Pietrus, ORL SF 0.102
Andrew Bynum, LAL C 0.083

-----------------------------------
DEFENSIVE SUB RATINGS
All Tracked Defensive Plays
Does not include hidden defending because procedure is invalid at game level.

LAKERS DEFENSIVE SUB RATINGS
Pau Gasol, PF 0.467
Kobe Bryant, SG 0.411
Lamar Odom, PF 0.233
Trevor Ariza, SF 0.167
Luke Walton, SF 0.094
Derek Fisher, PG 0.039
Jordan Farmar, PG 0.000
Andrew Bynum, C -0.082

MAGIC DEFENSIVE SUB RATINGS
Dwight Howard, C 0.338
Rashard Lewis, PF 0.246
Jameer Nelson, PG 0.202
Rafer Alston, PG 0.147
Courtney Lee, SG 0.124
Mickael Pietrus, SF 0.077
Marcin Gortat, C 0.000
Hedo Turkoglu, SF -0.002
J.J. Redick, SG -0.077


COMBINED SORT DEFENSIVE SUB RATINGS
Pau Gasol, LAL PF 0.467
Kobe Bryant, LAL SG 0.411
Dwight Howard, ORL C 0.338
Rashard Lewis, ORL PF 0.246
Lamar Odom, LAL PF 0.233
Jameer Nelson, ORL PG 0.202
Trevor Ariza, LAL SF 0.167
Rafer Alston, ORL PG 0.147
Courtney Lee, ORL SG 0.124
Luke Walton, LAL SF 0.094
Mickael Pietrus, ORL SF 0.077
Derek Fisher, LAL PG 0.039
Jordan Farmar, LAL PG 0.000
Marcin Gortat, ORL C 0.000
Hedo Turkoglu, ORL SF -0.002
J.J. Redick, ORL SG -0.077
Andrew Bynum, LAL C -0.082

-----------------------------------------
USER GUIDE
The Real Player Rating User Guide is a necessary reference for anyone who wants to truly understand the value of, the validity of, and the ways you can use the following measures. Moreover, you should become a regular visitor to Quest for the Ring if you want to get the full advantage of reading and using Real Player Ratings Series performance measures. The more you visit and check out ratings, the more quickly and easily you will be able to evaluate what you are seeing.

Real Player Ratings for the 2009 NBA Championship, Game 4: Lakers 99 Magic 91, Overtime

Editorial Notice: Quest for the Ring will be between now and the end of 2009 providing a complete Real Player Rating Series Report, like the one below, for each and every 2009 West Final game, for each and every 2009 East Final game, and for each game in the 2009 NBA Final Series. The Mavericks-Nuggets West Semifinal series is also being covered this way in full.

Following the posting of the Real Player Ratings Series Reports, we will post the Real Game Ratings Reports for all of these games. Following these Real Game Ratings, which were just created in the spring of 2009 and which have hardly appeared on Quest at all yet, we will pick some games to focus on for full scale text Reports. In the text reports, we will of course as appropriate make use of and link back to the completed performance measure reports.

Quest for the Ring, as of spring 2009, has realistically and strategically decided to concentrate its advanced performance measurement, reporting, and analysis capabilities on the games that matter the most each year in the NBA: the conference final games and the NBA Championship games.

USER GUIDE
The Real Player Rating User Guide is a necessary reference for anyone who wants to truly understand the value of, the validity of, and the ways you can use the following measures. Moreover, you should become a regular visitor to Quest for the Ring if you want to get the full advantage of reading and using Real Player Ratings Series performance measures. The more you visit and check out ratings, the more quickly and easily you will be able to evaluate what you are seeing.

NBA CHAMPIONSHIP 2009 GAME FOUR
JUNE 11 2009 IN ORLANDO, FL
LOS ANGELES LAKERS 99 ORLANDO MAGIC 91, OVERTIME
LAKFERS LEAD THE SERIES 3-1

BASIC REAL PLAYER RATINGS
The adjustment for hidden defending is not valid for individual games and is not included.

LAKERS BASIC REAL PLAYER RATINGS
Kobe Bryant, SG 0.793
Luke Walton, SF 0.615
Trevor Ariza, SF 0.608
Pau Gasol, PF 0.424
Lamar Odom, PF 0.403
Derek Fisher, PG 0.388
Andrew Bynum, C 0.219
Jordan Farmar, PG -0.078
Josh Powell, C -0.298

MAGIC BASIC REAL PLAYER RATINGS
Hedo Turkoglu, SF 0.645
Dwight Howard, C 0.638
J.J. Redick, SG 0.574
Rafer Alston, PG 0.349
Rashard Lewis, PF 0.313
Jameer Nelson, PG 0.265
Mickael Pietrus, SF 0.256
Tony Battie, C -0.301
Courtney Lee, SG -0.468


COMBINED SORT BASIC REAL PLAYER RATINGS
Kobe Bryant, LAL SG 0.793
Hedo Turkoglu, ORL SF 0.645
Dwight Howard, ORL C 0.638
Luke Walton, LAL SF 0.615
Trevor Ariza, LAL SF 0.608
J.J. Redick, ORL SG 0.574
Pau Gasol, LAL PF 0.424
Lamar Odom, LAL PF 0.403
Derek Fisher, LAL PG 0.388
Rafer Alston, ORL PG 0.349
Rashard Lewis, ORL PF 0.313
Jameer Nelson, ORL PG 0.265
Mickael Pietrus, ORL SF 0.256
Andrew Bynum, LAL C 0.219
Jordan Farmar, LAL PG -0.078
Josh Powell, LAL C -0.298
Tony Battie, ORL C -0.301
Courtney Lee, ORL SG -0.468

EVALUATION SCALE FOR BASIC REAL PLAYER RATINGS FOR A SINGLE GAME
Perfect for all Practical Purposes / Major Historic Super Star 1.100 and more
Historic Super Star 1.000 1.099
Super Star 0.900 0.999
A Star Player / A Well Above Normal Starter 0.800 0.899
Very Good Player: A Solid Starter 0.700 0.799
Major Role Player / Good Enough to Start 0.600 0.699
Good Role Player / Often a Good 6th Man 0.500 0.599
Satisfactory Role Player 0.425 0.499
Marginal Role Player 0.350 0.424
Poor Player 0.275 0.349
Very Poor Player 0.200 0.274
Extremely Poor Player .199 and less

--------------------------------------------
REAL PLAYER PRODUCTION
Basic Real Player Production
The adjustment for hidden defending is not valid for individual games and is not included.

LAKERS BASIC REAL PLAYER PRODUCTION
Kobe Bryant, SG 38.86
Trevor Ariza, SF 26.76
Pau Gasol, PF 20.78
Derek Fisher, PG 16.28
Lamar Odom, PF 11.29
Luke Walton, SF 6.77
Andrew Bynum, C 3.51
Jordan Farmar, PG -0.70
Josh Powell, C -2.38

MAGIC BASIC REAL PLAYER PRODUCTION
Dwight Howard, C 31.27
Hedo Turkoglu, SF 26.43
Rashard Lewis, PF 14.40
J.J. Redick, SG 9.76
Mickael Pietrus, SF 9.45
Rafer Alston, PG 9.41
Jameer Nelson, PG 6.89
Courtney Lee, SG -3.28
Tony Battie, C -3.61


COMBINED SORT BASIC REAL PLAYER PRODUCTION
Kobe Bryant, LAL SG 38.86
Dwight Howard, ORL C 31.27
Trevor Ariza, LAL SF 26.76
Hedo Turkoglu, ORL SF 26.43
Pau Gasol, LAL PF 20.78
Derek Fisher, LAL PG 16.28
Rashard Lewis, ORL PF 14.40
Lamar Odom, LAL PF 11.29
J.J. Redick, ORL SG 9.76
Mickael Pietrus, ORL SF 9.45
Rafer Alston, ORL PG 9.41
Jameer Nelson, ORL PG 6.89
Luke Walton, LAL SF 6.77
Andrew Bynum, LAL C 3.51
Jordan Farmar, LAL PG -0.70
Josh Powell, LAL C -2.38
Courtney Lee, ORL SG -3.28
Tony Battie, ORL C -3.61

============== SUB RATINGS ==============
OFFENSIVE SUB RATINGS
All Tracked Offensive Plays

LAKERS OFFENSIVE SUB RATINGS
Kobe Bryant, SG 0.610
Andrew Bynum, C 0.450
Trevor Ariza, SF 0.393
Luke Walton, SF 0.377
Lamar Odom, PF 0.359
Derek Fisher, PG 0.304
Pau Gasol, PF 0.245
Josh Powell, C -0.048
Jordan Farmar, PG -0.222

MAGIC OFFENSIVE SUB RATINGS
J.J. Redick, SG 0.574
Hedo Turkoglu, SF 0.526
Rafer Alston, PG 0.289
Mickael Pietrus, SF 0.266
Jameer Nelson, PG 0.241
Rashard Lewis, PF 0.057
Dwight Howard, C -0.012
Tony Battie, C -0.134
Courtney Lee, SG -0.182


COMBINED SORT OFFENSIVE SUB RATINGS
Kobe Bryant, LAL SG 0.610
J.J. Redick, ORL SG 0.574
Hedo Turkoglu, ORL SF 0.526
Andrew Bynum, LAL C 0.450
Trevor Ariza, LAL SF 0.393
Luke Walton, LAL SF 0.377
Lamar Odom, LAL PF 0.359
Derek Fisher, LAL PG 0.304
Rafer Alston, ORL PG 0.289
Mickael Pietrus, ORL SF 0.266
Pau Gasol, LAL PF 0.245
Jameer Nelson, ORL PG 0.241
Rashard Lewis, ORL PF 0.057
Dwight Howard, ORL C -0.012
Josh Powell, LAL C -0.048
Tony Battie, ORL C -0.134
Courtney Lee, ORL SG -0.182
Jordan Farmar, LAL PG -0.222

-----------------------------------
DEFENSIVE SUB RATINGS
All Tracked Defensive Plays
Does not include hidden defending because procedure is invalid at game level.

LAKERS DEFENSIVE SUB RATINGS
Luke Walton, SF 0.238
Trevor Ariza, SF 0.215
Kobe Bryant, SG 0.183
Pau Gasol, PF 0.179
Jordan Farmar, PG 0.144
Derek Fisher, PG 0.084
Lamar Odom, PF 0.044
Andrew Bynum, C -0.231
Josh Powell, C -0.250

MAGIC DEFENSIVE SUB RATINGS
Dwight Howard, C 0.650
Rashard Lewis, PF 0.256
Hedo Turkoglu, SF 0.118
Rafer Alston, PG 0.060
Jameer Nelson, PG 0.024
J.J. Redick, SG 0.000
Mickael Pietrus, SF -0.010
Tony Battie, C -0.167
Courtney Lee, SG -0.286


COMBINED SORT DEFENSIVE SUB RATINGS
Dwight Howard, ORL C 0.650
Rashard Lewis, ORL PF 0.256
Luke Walton, LAL SF 0.238
Trevor Ariza, LAL SF 0.215
Kobe Bryant, LAL SG 0.183
Pau Gasol, LAL PF 0.179
Jordan Farmar, LAL PG 0.144
Hedo Turkoglu, ORL SF 0.118
Derek Fisher, LAL PG 0.084
Rafer Alston, ORL PG 0.060
Lamar Odom, LAL PF 0.044
Jameer Nelson, ORL PG 0.024
J.J. Redick, ORL SG 0.000
Mickael Pietrus, ORL SF -0.010
Tony Battie, ORL C -0.167
Andrew Bynum, LAL C -0.231
Josh Powell, LAL C -0.250
Courtney Lee, ORL G -0.286

-----------------------------------------
USER GUIDE
The Real Player Rating User Guide is a necessary reference for anyone who wants to truly understand the value of, the validity of, and the ways you can use the following measures. Moreover, you should become a regular visitor to Quest for the Ring if you want to get the full advantage of reading and using Real Player Ratings Series performance measures. The more you visit and check out ratings, the more quickly and easily you will be able to evaluate what you are seeing.

Real Player Ratings for the 2009 NBA Championship, Game 3: Magic 108 Lakers 104

Editorial Notice: Quest for the Ring will be between now and the end of 2009 providing a complete Real Player Rating Series Report, like the one below, for each and every 2009 West Final game, for each and every 2009 East Final game, and for each game in the 2009 NBA Final Series. The Mavericks-Nuggets West Semifinal series is also being covered this way in full.

Following the posting of the Real Player Ratings Series Reports, we will post the Real Game Ratings Reports for all of these games. Following these Real Game Ratings, which were just created in the spring of 2009 and which have hardly appeared on Quest at all yet, we will pick some games to focus on for full scale text Reports. In the text reports, we will of course as appropriate make use of and link back to the completed performance measure reports.

Quest for the Ring, as of spring 2009, has realistically and strategically decided to concentrate its advanced performance measurement, reporting, and analysis capabilities on the games that matter the most each year in the NBA: the conference final games and the NBA Championship games.

USER GUIDE
The Real Player Rating User Guide is a necessary reference for anyone who wants to truly understand the value of, the validity of, and the ways you can use the following measures. Moreover, you should become a regular visitor to Quest for the Ring if you want to get the full advantage of reading and using Real Player Ratings Series performance measures. The more you visit and check out ratings, the more quickly and easily you will be able to evaluate what you are seeing.

NBA CHAMPIONSHIP 2009 GAME THREE
JUNE 9 2009 IN ORLANDO, FL
ORLANDO MAGIC 108 LOS ANGELES LAKERS 104
LAKFERS LEAD THE SERIES 2-1

BASIC REAL PLAYER RATINGS
The adjustment for hidden defending is not valid for individual games and is not included.

LAKERS BASIC REAL PLAYER RATINGS
Pau Gasol, PF 0.759
Jordan Farmar, PG 0.647
Kobe Bryant, SG 0.634
Derek Fisher, PG 0.462
Trevor Ariza, SF 0.407
Lamar Odom, PF 0.281
Andrew Bynum, C 0.232
Luke Walton, SF 0.231

MAGIC BASIC REAL PLAYER RATINGS
Dwight Howard, C 0.888
Hedo Turkoglu, SF 0.842
Mickael Pietrus, SF 0.831
Rashard Lewis, PF 0.670
Tony Battie, C 0.636
Rafer Alston, PG 0.614
Jameer Nelson, PG 0.286
Courtney Lee, SG 0.006


COMBINED SORT BASIC REAL PLAYER RATINGS
Dwight Howard, ORL C 0.888
Hedo Turkoglu, ORL SF 0.842
Mickael Pietrus, ORL SF 0.831
Pau Gasol, LAL PF 0.759
Rashard Lewis, ORL PF 0.670
Jordan Farmar, LAL PG 0.647
Tony Battie, ORL C 0.636
Kobe Bryant, LAL SG 0.634
Rafer Alston, ORL PG 0.614
Derek Fisher, LAL PG 0.462
Trevor Ariza, LAL SF 0.407
Jameer Nelson, ORL PG 0.286
Lamar Odom, LAL PF 0.281
Andrew Bynum, LAL C 0.232
Luke Walton, LAL SF 0.231
Courtney Lee, ORL SG 0.006

EVALUATION SCALE FOR BASIC REAL PLAYER RATINGS FOR A SINGLE GAME
Perfect for all Practical Purposes / Major Historic Super Star 1.100 and more
Historic Super Star 1.000 1.099
Super Star 0.900 0.999
A Star Player / A Well Above Normal Starter 0.800 0.899
Very Good Player: A Solid Starter 0.700 0.799
Major Role Player / Good Enough to Start 0.600 0.699
Good Role Player / Often a Good 6th Man 0.500 0.599
Satisfactory Role Player 0.425 0.499
Marginal Role Player 0.350 0.424
Poor Player 0.275 0.349
Very Poor Player 0.200 0.274
Extremely Poor Player .199 and less

--------------------------------------------
REAL PLAYER PRODUCTION
Basic Real Player Production
The adjustment for hidden defending is not valid for individual games and is not included.

LAKERS BASIC REAL PLAYER PRODUCTION
Pau Gasol, PF 30.36
Kobe Bryant, SG 25.35
Trevor Ariza, SF 17.11
Derek Fisher, PG 14.79
Jordan Farmar, PG 10.35
Lamar Odom, PF 8.98
Andrew Bynum, C 5.33
Luke Walton, SF 2.54

MAGIC BASIC REAL PLAYER PRODUCTION
Dwight Howard, C 38.17
Hedo Turkoglu, SF 35.36
Rashard Lewis, PF 27.48
Mickael Pietrus, SF 25.76
Rafer Alston, PG 22.72
Tony Battie, C 5.72
Jameer Nelson, PG 3.15
Courtney Lee, SG 0.12


COMBINED SORT BASIC REAL PLAYER PRODUCTION
Dwight Howard, ORL C 38.17
Hedo Turkoglu, ORL SF 35.36
Pau Gasol, LAL PF 30.36
Rashard Lewis, ORL PF 27.48
Mickael Pietrus, ORL SF 25.76
Kobe Bryant, LAL SG 25.35
Rafer Alston, ORL PG 22.72
Trevor Ariza, LAL SF 17.11
Derek Fisher, LAL PG 14.79
Jordan Farmar, LAL PG 10.35
Lamar Odom, LAL PF 8.98
Tony Battie, ORL C 5.72
Andrew Bynum, LAL C 5.33
Jameer Nelson, ORL PG 3.15
Luke Walton, LAL SF 2.54
Courtney Lee, ORL SG 0.12

============== SUB RATINGS ==============
OFFENSIVE SUB RATINGS
All Tracked Offensive Plays

LAKERS OFFENSIVE SUB RATINGS
Kobe Bryant, SG 0.693
Pau Gasol, PF 0.621
Jordan Farmar, PG 0.546
Luke Walton, SF 0.385
Derek Fisher, PG 0.371
Trevor Ariza, SF 0.268
Lamar Odom, PF 0.237
Andrew Bynum, C 0.105

MAGIC OFFENSIVE SUB RATINGS
Hedo Turkoglu, SF 0.703
Mickael Pietrus, SF 0.663
Tony Battie, C 0.658
Rashard Lewis, PF 0.640
Rafer Alston, PG 0.570
Dwight Howard, C 0.478
Jameer Nelson, PG 0.077
Courtney Lee, SG 0.041


COMBINED SORT OFFENSIVE SUB RATINGS
Hedo Turkoglu, ORL SF 0.703
Kobe Bryant, LAL SG 0.693
Mickael Pietrus, ORL SF 0.663
Tony Battie, ORL C 0.658
Rashard Lewis, ORL PF 0.640
Pau Gasol, LAL PF 0.621
Rafer Alston, ORL PG 0.570
Jordan Farmar, LAL PG 0.546
Dwight Howard, ORL C 0.478
Luke Walton, LAL SF 0.385
Derek Fisher, LAL PG 0.371
Trevor Ariza, LAL SF 0.268
Lamar Odom, LAL PF 0.237
Andrew Bynum, LAL C 0.105
Jameer Nelson, ORL PG 0.077
Courtney Lee, ORL SG 0.041

-----------------------------------
DEFENSIVE SUB RATINGS
All Tracked Defensive Plays
Does not include hidden defending because procedure is invalid at game level.

LAKERS DEFENSIVE SUB RATINGS
Trevor Ariza, SF 0.139
Pau Gasol, PF 0.138
Andrew Bynum, C 0.127
Jordan Farmar, PG 0.101
Derek Fisher, PG 0.091
Lamar Odom, PF 0.044
Kobe Bryant, SG -0.060
Luke Walton, SF -0.154

MAGIC DEFENSIVE SUB RATINGS
Dwight Howard, C 0.410
Jameer Nelson, PG 0.209
Mickael Pietrus, SF 0.168
Hedo Turkoglu, SF 0.139
Rafer Alston, PG 0.044
Rashard Lewis, PF 0.030
Tony Battie, C -0.022
Courtney Lee, SG -0.035


COMBINED SORT DEFENSIVE SUB RATINGS
Dwight Howard, ORL C 0.410
Jameer Nelson, ORL PG 0.209
Mickael Pietrus, ORL SF 0.168
Hedo Turkoglu, ORL SF 0.139
Trevor Ariza, LAL SF 0.139
Pau Gasol, LAL PF 0.138
Andrew Bynum, LAL C 0.127
Jordan Farmar, LAL PG 0.101
Derek Fisher, LAL PG 0.091
Lamar Odom, LAL PF 0.044
Rafer Alston, ORL PG 0.044
Rashard Lewis, ORL PF 0.030
Tony Battie, ORL C -0.022
Courtney Lee, ORL SG -0.035
Kobe Bryant, LAL SG -0.060
Luke Walton, LAL SF -0.154

-----------------------------------------
USER GUIDE
The Real Player Rating User Guide is a necessary reference for anyone who wants to truly understand the value of, the validity of, and the ways you can use the following measures. Moreover, you should become a regular visitor to Quest for the Ring if you want to get the full advantage of reading and using Real Player Ratings Series performance measures. The more you visit and check out ratings, the more quickly and easily you will be able to evaluate what you are seeing.

Real Player Ratings for the 2009 NBA Championship, Game 2: Lakers 101 Magic 96, Overtime

Editorial Notice: Quest for the Ring will be between now and the end of 2009 providing a complete Real Player Rating Series Report, like the one below, for each and every 2009 West Final game, for each and every 2009 East Final game, and for each game in the 2009 NBA Final Series. The Mavericks-Nuggets West Semifinal series is also being covered this way in full.

Following the posting of the Real Player Ratings Series Reports, we will post the Real Game Ratings Reports for all of these games. Following these Real Game Ratings, which were just created in the spring of 2009 and which have hardly appeared on Quest at all yet, we will pick some games to focus on for full scale text Reports. In the text reports, we will of course as appropriate make use of and link back to the completed performance measure reports.

Quest for the Ring, as of spring 2009, has realistically and strategically decided to concentrate its advanced performance measurement, reporting, and analysis capabilities on the games that matter the most each year in the NBA: the conference final games and the NBA Championship games.

USER GUIDE
The Real Player Rating User Guide is a necessary reference for anyone who wants to truly understand the value of, the validity of, and the ways you can use the following measures. Moreover, you should become a regular visitor to Quest for the Ring if you want to get the full advantage of reading and using Real Player Ratings Series performance measures. The more you visit and check out ratings, the more quickly and easily you will be able to evaluate what you are seeing.

NBA CHAMPIONSHIP 2009 GAME TWO
JUNE 7 2009 IN LOS ANGELES, CA
LOS ANGELES LAKERS 101 ORLANDO MAGIC 96
LAKFERS LEAD THE SERIES 2-0

BASIC REAL PLAYER RATINGS
The adjustment for hidden defending is not valid for individual games and is not included.

MAGIC BASIC REAL PLAYER RATINGS
Rashard Lewis, PF 1.328
Dwight Howard, C 0.848
Hedo Turkoglu, SF 0.426
Rafer Alston, PG 0.247
Courtney Lee, SG 0.080
Jameer Nelson, PG -0.005
J.J. Redick, SG -0.027
Mickael Pietrus, SF -0.137
Marcin Gortat, C -0.146

LAKERS BASIC REAL PLAYER RATINGS
Pau Gasol, PF 0.937
Lamar Odom, PF 0.732
Kobe Bryant, SG 0.614
Trevor Ariza, SF 0.466
Derek Fisher, PG 0.450
Luke Walton, SF 0.328
Andrew Bynum, C 0.311


COMBINED SORT BASIC REAL PLAYER RATINGS
Rashard Lewis, ORL PF 1.328
Pau Gasol, LAL PF 0.937
Dwight Howard, ORL C 0.848
Lamar Odom, LAL PF 0.732
Kobe Bryant, LAL SG 0.614
Trevor Ariza, LAL SF 0.466
Derek Fisher, LAL PG 0.450
Hedo Turkoglu, ORL SF 0.426
Luke Walton, LAL SF 0.328
Andrew Bynum, LAL C 0.311
Rafer Alston, ORL PG 0.247
Courtney Lee, ORL SG 0.080
Jameer Nelson, ORL PG -0.005
J.J. Redick, ORL SG -0.027
Mickael Pietrus, ORL SF -0.137
Marcin Gortat, ORL C -0.146

EVALUATION SCALE FOR BASIC REAL PLAYER RATINGS FOR A SINGLE GAME
Perfect for all Practical Purposes / Major Historic Super Star 1.100 and more
Historic Super Star 1.000 1.099
Super Star 0.900 0.999
A Star Player / A Well Above Normal Starter 0.800 0.899
Very Good Player: A Solid Starter 0.700 0.799
Major Role Player / Good Enough to Start 0.600 0.699
Good Role Player / Often a Good 6th Man 0.500 0.599
Satisfactory Role Player 0.425 0.499
Marginal Role Player 0.350 0.424
Poor Player 0.275 0.349
Very Poor Player 0.200 0.274
Extremely Poor Player .199 and less

--------------------------------------------
REAL PLAYER PRODUCTION
Basic Real Player Production
The adjustment for hidden defending is not valid for individual games and is not included.

MAGIC BASIC REAL PLAYER PRODUCTION
Rashard Lewis, PF 59.77
Dwight Howard, C 39.87
Hedo Turkoglu, SF 20.00
Rafer Alston, PG 6.42
Courtney Lee, SG 0.96
Jameer Nelson, PG -0.01
J.J. Redick, SG -0.72
Marcin Gortat, C -2.19
Mickael Pietrus, SF -3.16

LAKERS BASIC REAL PLAYER PRODUCTION
Pau Gasol, PF 41.21
Lamar Odom, PF 33.66
Kobe Bryant, SG 30.07
Derek Fisher, PG 18.44
Trevor Ariza, SF 17.71
Andrew Bynum, C 4.97
Luke Walton, SF 4.92


COMBINED SORT BASIC REAL PLAYER PRODUCTION
Rashard Lewis, ORL PF 59.77
Pau Gasol, LAL PF 41.21
Dwight Howard, ORL C 39.87
Lamar Odom, LAL PF 33.66
Kobe Bryant, LAL SG 30.07
Hedo Turkoglu, ORL SF 20.00
Derek Fisher, LAL PG 18.44
Trevor Ariza, LAL SF 17.71
Rafer Alston, ORL PG 6.42
Andrew Bynum, LAL C 4.97
Luke Walton, LAL SF 4.92
Courtney Lee, ORL SG 0.96
Jameer Nelson, ORL PG -0.01
J.J. Redick, ORL SG -0.72
Marcin Gortat, ORL C -2.19
Mickael Pietrus, ORL SF -3.16

============== SUB RATINGS ==============
OFFENSIVE SUB RATINGS
All Tracked Offensive Plays

MAGIC OFFENSIVE SUB RATINGS
Rashard Lewis, PF 1.147
Hedo Turkoglu, SF 0.326
Rafer Alston, PG 0.235
Dwight Howard, C 0.222
J.J. Redick, SG 0.036
Courtney Lee, SG 0.028
Jameer Nelson, PG -0.005
Mickael Pietrus, SF -0.069
Marcin Gortat, C -0.254

LAKERS OFFENSIVE SUB RATINGS
Pau Gasol, PF 0.562
Lamar Odom, PF 0.502
Kobe Bryant, SG 0.454
Luke Walton, SF 0.353
Andrew Bynum, C 0.316
Derek Fisher, PG 0.298
Trevor Ariza, SF 0.157


COMBINED SORT OFFENSIVE SUB RATINGS
Rashard Lewis, ORL PF 1.147
Pau Gasol, LAL PF 0.562
Lamar Odom, LAL PF 0.502
Kobe Bryant, LAL SG 0.454
Luke Walton, LAL SF 0.353
Hedo Turkoglu, ORL SF 0.326
Andrew Bynum, LAL C 0.316
Derek Fisher, LAL PG 0.298
Rafer Alston, ORL PG 0.235
Dwight Howard, ORL C 0.222
Trevor Ariza, LAL SF 0.157
J.J. Redick, ORL SG 0.036
Courtney Lee, ORL SG 0.028
Jameer Nelson, ORL PG -0.005
Mickael Pietrus, ORL SF -0.069
Marcin Gortat, ORL C -0.254

-----------------------------------
DEFENSIVE SUB RATINGS
All Tracked Defensive Plays
Does not include hidden defending because procedure is invalid at game level.

MAGIC DEFENSIVE SUB RATINGS
Dwight Howard, C 0.626
Rashard Lewis, PF 0.181
Marcin Gortat, C 0.108
Hedo Turkoglu, SF 0.099
Courtney Lee, SG 0.052
Rafer Alston, PG 0.012
Jameer Nelson, PG 0.000
J.J. Redick, SG -0.063
Mickael Pietrus, SF -0.069

LAKERS DEFENSIVE SUB RATINGS
Pau Gasol, PF 0.375
Trevor Ariza, SF 0.309
Lamar Odom, PF 0.230
Kobe Bryant, SG 0.160
Derek Fisher, PG 0.151
Andrew Bynum, C -0.006
Luke Walton, SF -0.025


COMBINED SORT DEFENSIVE SUB RATINGS
Dwight Howard, ORL C 0.626
Pau Gasol, LAL PF 0.375
Trevor Ariza, LAL SF 0.309
Lamar Odom, LAL PF 0.230
Rashard Lewis, ORL PF 0.181
Kobe Bryant, LAL SG 0.160
Derek Fisher, LAL PG 0.151
Marcin Gortat, ORL C 0.108
Hedo Turkoglu, ORL SF 0.099
Courtney Lee, ORL SG 0.052
Rafer Alston, ORL PG 0.012
Jameer Nelson, ORL PG 0.000
Andrew Bynum, LAL C -0.006
Luke Walton, LAL SF -0.025
J.J. Redick, ORL SG -0.063
Mickael Pietrus, ORL SF -0.069

-----------------------------------------
USER GUIDE
The Real Player Rating User Guide is a necessary reference for anyone who wants to truly understand the value of, the validity of, and the ways you can use the following measures. Moreover, you should become a regular visitor to Quest for the Ring if you want to get the full advantage of reading and using Real Player Ratings Series performance measures. The more you visit and check out ratings, the more quickly and easily you will be able to evaluate what you are seeing.

Real Player Ratings for the 2009 NBA Championship, Game 1: Lakers 100 Magic 75

Editorial Notice: Quest for the Ring will be between now and the end of 2009 providing a complete Real Player Rating Series Report, like the one below, for each and every 2009 West Final game, for each and every 2009 East Final game, and for each game in the 2009 NBA Final Series. The Mavericks-Nuggets West Semifinal series is also being covered this way in full.

Following the posting of the Real Player Ratings Series Reports, we will post the Real Game Ratings Reports for all of these games. Following these Real Game Ratings, which were just created in the spring of 2009 and which have hardly appeared on Quest at all yet, we will pick some games to focus on for full scale text Reports. In the text reports, we will of course as appropriate make use of and link back to the completed performance measure reports.

Quest for the Ring, as of spring 2009, has realistically and strategically decided to concentrate its advanced performance measurement, reporting, and analysis capabilities on the games that matter the most each year in the NBA: the conference final games and the NBA Championship games.

USER GUIDE
The Real Player Rating User Guide is a necessary reference for anyone who wants to truly understand the value of, the validity of, and the ways you can use the following measures. Moreover, you should become a regular visitor to Quest for the Ring if you want to get the full advantage of reading and using Real Player Ratings Series performance measures. The more you visit and check out ratings, the more quickly and easily you will be able to evaluate what you are seeing.

NBA CHAMPIONSHIP 2009 GAME ONE
JUNE 4 2009 IN LOS ANGELES, CA
LOS ANGELES LAKERS 100 ORLANDO MAGIC 75
LAKFERS LEAD THE SERIES 1-0

BASIC REAL PLAYER RATINGS
The adjustment for hidden defending is not valid for individual games and is not included.

MAGIC BASIC REAL PLAYER RATINGS
Marcin Gortat, C 1.107
J.J. Redick, SG 0.928
Dwight Howard, C 0.718
Jameer Nelson, PG 0.407
Hedo Turkoglu, SF 0.317
Rafer Alston, PG 0.231
Mickael Pietrus, SF 0.219
Rashard Lewis, PF 0.128
Courtney Lee, SG 0.020

LAKERS BASIC REAL PLAYER RATINGS
Kobe Bryant, SG 1.604
Pau Gasol, PF 0.747
Lamar Odom, PF 0.668
Andrew Bynum, C 0.622
Luke Walton, SF 0.608
Derek Fisher, PG 0.386
Trevor Ariza, SF 0.283
Shannon Brown, PG -0.079
Jordan Farmar, PG -0.095


COMBINED SORT BASIC REAL PLAYER RATINGS
Kobe Bryant, LAL SG 1.604
Marcin Gortat, ORL C 1.107
J.J. Redick, ORL SG 0.928
Pau Gasol, LAL PF 0.747
Dwight Howard, ORL C 0.718
Lamar Odom, LAL PF 0.668
Andrew Bynum, LAL C 0.622
Luke Walton, LAL SF 0.608
Jameer Nelson, ORL PG 0.407
Derek Fisher, LAL PG 0.386
Hedo Turkoglu, ORL SF 0.317
Trevor Ariza, LAL SF 0.283
Rafer Alston, ORL PG 0.231
Mickael Pietrus, ORL SF 0.219
Rashard Lewis, ORL PF 0.128
Courtney Lee, ORL SG 0.020
Shannon Brown, LAL PG -0.079
Jordan Farmar, LAL PG -0.095

EVALUATION SCALE FOR BASIC REAL PLAYER RATINGS FOR A SINGLE GAME
Perfect for all Practical Purposes / Major Historic Super Star 1.100 and more
Historic Super Star 1.000 1.099
Super Star 0.900 0.999
A Star Player / A Well Above Normal Starter 0.800 0.899
Very Good Player: A Solid Starter 0.700 0.799
Major Role Player / Good Enough to Start 0.600 0.699
Good Role Player / Often a Good 6th Man 0.500 0.599
Satisfactory Role Player 0.425 0.499
Marginal Role Player 0.350 0.424
Poor Player 0.275 0.349
Very Poor Player 0.200 0.274
Extremely Poor Player .199 and less

--------------------------------------------
REAL PLAYER PRODUCTION
Basic Real Player Production
The adjustment for hidden defending is not valid for individual games and is not included.

MAGIC BASIC REAL PLAYER PRODUCTION
Dwight Howard, C 25.15
Marcin Gortat, C 22.14
Hedo Turkoglu, SF 10.46
Jameer Nelson, PG 9.35
J.J. Redick, SG 7.42
Mickael Pietrus, SF 7.02
Rafer Alston, PG 5.78
Rashard Lewis, PF 4.61
Courtney Lee, SG 0.46

LAKERS BASIC REAL PLAYER PRODUCTION
Kobe Bryant, SG 60.94
Pau Gasol, PF 27.64
Lamar Odom, PF 21.36
Luke Walton, SF 14.58
Andrew Bynum, C 13.67
Derek Fisher, PG 12.34
Trevor Ariza, SF 6.78
Shannon Brown, PG -0.63
Jordan Farmar, PG -1.24


COMBINED SORT BASIC REAL PLAYER PRODUCTION
Kobe Bryant, LAL SG 60.94
Pau Gasol, LAL PF 27.64
Dwight Howard, ORL C 25.15
Marcin Gortat, ORL C 22.14
Lamar Odom, LAL PF 21.36
Luke Walton, LAL SF 14.58
Andrew Bynum, LAL C 13.67
Derek Fisher, LAL PG 12.34
Hedo Turkoglu, ORL SF 10.46
Jameer Nelson, ORL PG 9.35
J.J. Redick, ORL SG 7.42
Mickael Pietrus, ORL SF 7.02
Trevor Ariza, LAL SF 6.78
Rafer Alston, ORL PG 5.78
Rashard Lewis, ORL PF 4.61
Courtney Lee, ORL SG 0.46
Shannon Brown, LAL PG -0.63
Jordan Farmar, LAL PG -1.24

============== SUB RATINGS ==============
OFFENSIVE SUB RATINGS
All Tracked Offensive Plays

MAGIC OFFENSIVE SUB RATINGS
J.J. Redick, SG 0.640
Jameer Nelson, PG 0.336
Mickael Pietrus, SF 0.262
Marcin Gortat, C 0.209
Dwight Howard, C 0.196
Rashard Lewis, PF 0.130
Hedo Turkoglu, SF 0.095
Rafer Alston, PG 0.074
Courtney Lee, SG 0.050

LAKERS OFFENSIVE SUB RATINGS
Kobe Bryant, SG 1.173
Luke Walton, SF 0.582
Pau Gasol, PF 0.554
Derek Fisher, PG 0.398
Andrew Bynum, C 0.364
Trevor Ariza, SF 0.278
Lamar Odom, PF 0.142
Shannon Brown, PG -0.079
Jordan Farmar, PG -0.220


COMBINED SORT OFFENSIVE SUB RATINGS
Kobe Bryant, LAL SG 1.173
J.J. Redick, ORL SG 0.640
Luke Walton, LAL SF 0.582
Pau Gasol, LAL PF 0.554
Derek Fisher, LAL PG 0.398
Andrew Bynum, LAL C 0.364
Jameer Nelson, ORL PG 0.336
Trevor Ariza, LAL SF 0.278
Mickael Pietrus, ORL SF 0.262
Marcin Gortat, ORL C 0.209
Dwight Howard, ORL C 0.196
Lamar Odom, LAL PF 0.142
Rashard Lewis, ORL PF 0.130
Hedo Turkoglu, ORL SF 0.095
Rafer Alston, ORL PG 0.074
Courtney Lee, ORL SG 0.050
Shannon Brown, LAL PG -0.079
Jordan Farmar, LAL PG -0.220

-----------------------------------
DEFENSIVE SUB RATINGS
All Tracked Defensive Plays
Does not include hidden defending because procedure is invalid at game level.

MAGIC DEFENSIVE SUB RATINGS
Marcin Gortat, C 0.899
Dwight Howard, C 0.523
J.J. Redick, SG 0.288
Hedo Turkoglu, SF 0.222
Rafer Alston, PG 0.157
Jameer Nelson, PG 0.070
Rashard Lewis, PF -0.002
Courtney Lee, SG -0.030
Mickael Pietrus, SF -0.043

LAKERS DEFENSIVE SUB RATINGS
Lamar Odom, PF 0.526
Kobe Bryant, SG 0.431
Andrew Bynum, C 0.257
Pau Gasol, PF 0.193
Jordan Farmar, PG 0.125
Luke Walton, SF 0.025
Trevor Ariza, SF 0.005
Shannon Brown, PG 0.000
Derek Fisher, PG -0.012


COMBINED SORT DEFENSIVE SUB RATINGS
Marcin Gortat, ORL C 0.899
Lamar Odom, LAL PF 0.526
Dwight Howard, ORL C 0.523
Kobe Bryant, LAL SG 0.431
J.J. Redick, ORL SG 0.288
Andrew Bynum, LAL C 0.257
Hedo Turkoglu, ORL SF 0.222
Pau Gasol, LAL PF 0.193
Rafer Alston, ORL PG 0.157
Jordan Farmar, LAL PG 0.125
Jameer Nelson, ORL PG 0.070
Luke Walton, LAL SF 0.025
Trevor Ariza, LAL SF 0.005
Shannon Brown, LAL PG 0.000
Rashard Lewis, ORL PF -0.002
Derek Fisher, LAL PG -0.012
Courtney Lee, ORL SG -0.030
Mickael Pietrus, ORL SF -0.043

-----------------------------------------
USER GUIDE
The Real Player Rating User Guide is a necessary reference for anyone who wants to truly understand the value of, the validity of, and the ways you can use the following measures. Moreover, you should become a regular visitor to Quest for the Ring if you want to get the full advantage of reading and using Real Player Ratings Series performance measures. The more you visit and check out ratings, the more quickly and easily you will be able to evaluate what you are seeing.