Cyclicality remains undefeated. From the stock market, to Middle Eastern rebel forces, to Bay Area home prices, to the last names of Presidential candidates, the cycle that is humanity continues to repeat.
Soon enough, one realizes that the question is not whether we’re in a cycle; but rather, where we are at in the current cycle and how this cycle differs from the last one.
The NBA’s current cycle is painstakingly obvious. In the same season the Warriors chase the 95-96 Bulls record of 72 regular season wins*, Shaun Livingston has become substantially more valuable than Kobe Bryant. Welcome to the new age.
*Don’t forget, this is a record that once seemed as unbreakable as Rasheed Wallace’s 41 technical fouls in 72 games (!!) during the 2000-01 season.
To be clear, this new age goes substantially deeper than mere “small ball.” While the Lakers’ strategy is the basketball equivalent of invading Russia during the winter, the Warriors’ shape-shifting style evokes the two greatest questions in basketball right now:
- Exactly how much of the Warriors’ model is replicable? This question is one based on the current stage of the NBA cycle.
- What is the next trend in the NBA? Phrased differently, what are the market inefficiencies that teams can exploit over the next ten years? This is about the next stage in the NBA cycle.
I’ll begin with question one, because it is partly a prerequisite to answering question two.
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Question #1: How much of the Warriors’ model is replicable?
The Warriors’ model is one I consider an amalgamation of what I call the NBA’s five signal teams: the Boston Celtics, Milwaukee Bucks, Atlanta Hawks, San Antonio Spurs and the Houston Rockets. Not to instantly dock myself of any street cred I never had, but these five teams are the NBA’s version of the ahead of the curve boy band – call them the NBA’s One Direction. Each of these five represent a part of the NBA’s new age: Houston and Atlanta’s souped up versions of space and pace offense, Boston’s recognition of the massive value of draft picks*, Milwaukee’s switch-everything defense, and San Antonio for being ahead of the curve by default.
*Even more valuable now as the salary cap rises faster than the scale of rookie contracts.
To attempt to replicate the Warriors’ style is to attempt to replicate these five signal teams. In my humble opinion, the best way to do this is to acquire players who can do everything at the ‘B’ level. The Warriors have an abundance of these players including Andre Iguodala, Harrison Barnes, Shaun Livingston and the NBA’s best do everything pretty well player, Draymond Green. These players are shape-shifting wings who can hit a three just as well as they can switch a screen; they make reads on offense instead of being confined to rigid play calls. Having an army of versatile players allows the Warriors to toggle between styles, which yields a massive competitive advantage.
While the NBA market has begun realizing the value of these positionless wings (look at the contracts Jae Crowder and DeMarre Carroll got last summer), if you yearn to copy the Warriors – and stop it Charlotte, you aren’t getting Steph Curry anytime soon- this is where you need to begin.
A couple more new era trends integral to winning supplement the shape-shifting movement, including:
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- Injuries are more of a probabilistic outcome than they are luck. One of the most valuable things the Warriors did last season was resting the Splash Brothers, Bogut, and Iguodala during game 64 at Denver. This was a decision made in large part because of the wearable technology the Warriors wear during practices. A team treating injuries as sheer happenstance is light-years behind the NBA’s best.
- Speaking of technology, there is a difference between tracking analytics and effectively utilizing them. As Warriors assistant GM Kirk Lacob said at the 2015 Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, “with analytics, seventy percent of the battle is just communication”. Turning the value on a spreadsheet into tangible value is a question that has plagued businesses for decades, and now challenges each NBA franchise.
Constructing a model NBA team is a massive chess game but these are the three most replicable parts of the Warriors’ formula: shape-shifting wings, actively preventing injuries and moving analytics from the spreadsheet to the game plan. Now for the second question.
Question #2: What is the next trend in this current NBA cycle? Where are competitive advantages to be had?
If effectively answering question one was like mastering macroeconomics, answering question two is like forecasting stock prices. It demands the foundation built in question one but even mastering the fundamentals of question is not enough to successfully analyze question two. But, for you Warriors fans, I’ll try. I see three key exploitable trends in the next part of the NBA cycle:
1) Defense. In this cyclical sport, the development of offense has far exceeded defense over the past decade. During the 2003-04 season, teams averaged 93.4 points per game (PPG). Last season, teams averaged 100 PPG. This has a direct correlation with an increase in threes attempted per game: in 2003-04 teams shot 14.9 threes per game which jumped to 22.4 last season. Defenses have been playing catch up with offenses for the past decade. The correction to this seems to be coming
Handling these offensive developments begins with acquiring those shape-shifting wings I mentioned earlier but it certainly does not stop there. Teams capable of eliminating the corner three-pointer (one of the best value shots in basketball), forcing live-ball turnovers and team rebounding with wings are the future of defense.
Credit: Cary Edmondson-USA TODAY Sports
2) In a return to our theme of cyclicality, I believe the post-up will return. However, it will look different than the the post-ups of Hakeem Olajuwon and Kareem that grandpa can’t stop talking about at the Thanksgiving table. Instead, post-ups will run through wing players*. The most valuable play in basketball is a set that creates a four-on-three (they’re so important that I wrote a full piece on them last week). A post-up is the interior equivalent of the high pick and roll as it has the potential to force a double team every single time. This can produce some of those four-on-three situations.
*Unless your team includes Demarcus Cousins, Jahlil Okafor, or dare I say, Hassan Whiteside.
While players like Kawhi Leonard are already exploiting the wing post-up, I believe it will become a much larger part of the game over the next decade.
3) Organizational culture. Much like any good late night college dorm debate on world views, this forecast is admittedly big on theory and low on details but here’s the idea: organizational structure will become more important then ever in the NBA. As the rate of roster turnover increases year by year, free agents will begin picking teams based more on their organizational culture than their individual players on roster at that moment. We’ve already begun to see this with the Spurs as David West turned down a $12 million dollar payday with the Indiana Pacers to get paid $1.49 million and be a part of the Spurs culture. Discounts like that will never become the standard, but players signing with teams because of culture will. Teams who are able to foster an environment players would recommend to other players will gain a competitive advantage.
In the NBA, like so many things in this world, bravery is in shorter supply than genius. NBA executives know these trends (they generally know the next rotation in the cycle) but acting on that knowledge is harder and sometimes more risky than merely having it. Look at the Memphis Grizzlies. They have an analytically smart front office (with former ESPN analytics geek John Hollinger as VP of Basketball Operations), yet once again they do not have a floor spacing shooter.
Everything is cyclical. If you want to be the next Warriors*, you need to nail the current cycle the Warriors have helped defined, which means positionally ambitious wings and modern approaches to injuries and analytics. Then, you need to forecast the next part of the cycle.
*Important note: the next Warriors could be the Warriors. Their front office is that aggressive.
I think the next part of that cycle means exploiting the market inefficiency that is defense, bringing back the post-up as a way to create offensive advantages, and emphasizing organizational culture like never before.
One NBA cycle defined by two questions. Welcome to the new age and welcome to the questions of the next one.
*All stats in this piece courtesy of the ever-incredible basketball-reference.com.
*Unrelated but hilarious: Former ESPN writer Bill Simmons, who isn’t exactly on good terms with ESPN, just started his own podcast network. What did he name it? The Bill Simmons Podcast Network: BSPN. I love sports.
*By no means do I have all of this figured out. I’m interested in where you believe the NBA will head over the next decade. Shoot me your predictions at [email protected].