*Note: I started this entry BEFORE last night's games (actually, 2 days ago) and yesterday Carter exploded for 48 points. LOL. Anyway...

Entering the 2009-10 NBA season, conventional wisdom counted 3 contenders in the East. The Cavs, Celtics, and Magic were all coming off great seasons when they posted 66, 62, and 59 wins respectively. (+8.9, 7.5, and 6.7 PD respectively) Each team upgraded their rosters to boot; the Cavs added Shaq, the Celtics Rasheed Wallace, and the Magic added Vince Carter. It was quite the arm's race!

As of today, even after the Magic came into Boston and won by double digits on Superbowl Sunday, neither franchise projects to improve on their record from a season before. http://espn.go.com/nba/hollinger/playoffodds In fact, Hollinger's playoff odds project 54 wins for the Magic and 51 for the Celtics. So, "clearly", something is wrong with these teams. And if there is something wrong with these teams, are they actually contenders? Is the East just a 1 team conference? (Or, even more shocking, are the Atlanta Hawks the 2nd best team in the conference?)

I feel the play of both teams can be attributed to 1 player on each team. In fact, they play the same position! Vince Carter for the Magic and Ray Allen for the Celtics. Vince Carter is 33 years old and has logged 30,650 NBA minutes (plus 1,774 playoff minutes) as of today, while Ray Allen is 34 and has logged 36,897 NBA minutes (plus another 3,062 playoff minutes!).

Let's look at the Magic first. Essentially the team is the same as last year, except replace Hedo Turkoglu with Vince Carter. They didn't have Jameer Nelson for half the year (suffered more injuries last year, in fact) but Rashard Lewis had a slightly stronger season. (Another guy who has been in the NBA for a LONG time and has finally hit his 30s) That said, even after VC's blowup last night, he's posting a career-low 15.7 PER, mainly attributed to his 50.7 TS. The only year he shot worse from the 3pt line was his rookie year, and with Dwight commanding doubles, the expectation was VC was going to IMPROVE his efficiency, not regress mightily. (The only thing VC is doing well, actually, is shooting FTs; career high 85.2% currently)

The best way to approach Vince is his shot chart. He has a 26.9 USG%, which means he's using more than 1/4th of his team's possessions (taking a lot of shots) but let's look a little more in depth about not just the %s of shots, but how often he's taking each type of shot:

"%" simply means % of total shot types.

Vince has 651 FGA, which means - roughly - he has 20 dunks on the season. He has taken 169 close range shots (essentially within the paint area but outside the basket area). This leaves 462 jump shots, of which he has taken 205 3s. (So, 257 long 2's) He is 68 for 205 on 3s (33.2% 3pt%) which translates to a 49.8% eFG.

43.8 = (205/462)*49.8 + (257/462)*X
21.7 = .55X
X = 39% on long 2s.

Worth noting that players DO often shoot better on long 2s than on 3s, obviously - closer to the basket - but the difference is generally 5 to 10%. This is not even close to made up by the extra point by taking a 3, further cementing the idea that long 2's are the worst shots in basketball and should be avoided!

Let's look at the previous year, though; Vince was an unspoken hero for the Nets, putting up a 19.3 PER, pretty much combining with Devin Harris for a 2 pronged attack. (Although the Nets did have a rookie Brook Lopez, who played well, it's pretty easy to claim the Magic have more weapons/offensive firepower!) So, how did his shot chart look? (He claimed a 26.8 USG% last year, so interestingly he's pretty much taking the exact same number of shots, just fewer of them are actually going into the basket)

Before we even break down specifics, does anyone notice anything specifically? I do! Vince's shot chart looks amazingly similar. In fact, if anything, he's getting CLOSER to the rim this year. Perhaps because of picks, ball movement, Dwight drawing defenders, his age hasn't prevented him from taking more close range shots. This is a very good thing for nearly all of the league. (The exception is pure shooters, and we'll visit him next ) Anyway though - Vince had 1345 FGA last year, so he had 54 dunks. He actually missed a few attempts (meaning some were blocked or whatever, so he probably got to the rim a marginally greater number of times). The difference between last year and this year is every one of his 20 dunks thus far has been assisted; last year, only 17 were. Generally, you can credit that to individual ball handling/exploding to the rim, and given his age, I don't think this is that surprising. (But it is important! Getting 1 fewer dunk, or guaranteed hoop, every ~3 games, probably costs a team about 10 points over the course of the season... Not enough for an entire win, but certainly impacts things)

Anyway, VC had 269 close baskets. This leaves 1009 jump shots, where he went 151 of 392 from 3 land - 38.5%, or 57.8 eFG%. (It's worth noting, and again, this is a good thing, VC has shot more close range shots and more 3s than last year...) 617 of his shots were long 2's.

43.8 = (392/1009)*57.8 + (617/1009)*X
21.34 = .61X
X = 35% on long 2s.

So what does this all mean? Well, the common cliche about age is that shooting ability never really leaves you. People who are good shooters continue to be good shooters - it's just the volume and type of shot they're able to either generate for themselves or others that declines. (Due to lesser athleticism, basically) Vince ran a little bad on long 2's last year, but since he's a career 37.4 3pt shooter, it's likely (ESPECIALLY with Dwight being able to kick it out for BETTER quality looks) he's run a little bad from 3pt land this year.

Vince has maintained the same exact eFG on jumpers (which is nearly spooky) and has retained the same assist %. (Also spooky) So the only difference between Vince's scoring production last year and this year boils down to 30.2% absolute drop in close range shots. Since Vince is GETTING more of these shots, you'd hope he'd be more in line with last year/career norm. The hunch of course is it's harder to GET to these spots with diminished athleticism, but I suppose it makes sense it's harder to finish in traffic, as well.

I don't really have any predictions here; rather, I do think Vince's 3pt shooting (and therefore, eFG% on jumpers) will rise, and the fact a greater % of his shots have been 3s rather than long 2s is promising. He has become in many ways a smarter shooter in terms of shot types, without taking on a greater assist % burden. (Meaning he is still doing a great job creating his own shot) I can't imagine a player losing THAT much proficiency in terms of finishing in just 1 year (Although he has played most of the year with a hurt shoulder, which could be impacting him negatively). I suppose I think the Magic's current woes (well, was current of a few days ago; they've now strung some wins together!) are overblown. They'll be might fine for the playoffs, largely because of Vince.

Unfortunately, though, let's take a look at the other SG I wanted to illuminate. Ray Allen has long been considered the best shooter in the game - or, if not best shooter, top 5 or top 10 - and is almost a lock to retire with the NBA record of most career 3PM. (He's 2nd behind Reggie Miller) Since Ray has been a Celtic, (one of the big three, so to speak) he was somewhat hobbled by ankle problems his first year (but shined in the playoffs; IMO he should have won Finals MVP). Last year he was great, especially when we needed more scoring when KG went down; Ray put up a career high in TS%, and was arguably our regular season MVP. (People are forgetting we were 6th out of all teams in offensive efficiency; yes, an amazing defense, but ALSO a very good offense) That said, our defense is still very good - in fact, nearly half a point better per 100 than last year! (We can credit that to having KG vs the games we didn't last year, which diluted our ranking somewhat) It's our offense that has fallen, as we're nearly 3pts per 100 worse, ranking just 13th. (Merely middle of the pack) Again, I think the cause is the steep drop off of Ray Allen.

Ray has a 20.4 USG%, which means he's using basically an average number of our team's possessions. With Rondo, Pierce, and KG, that's actually pretty reasonable. Here's how often he's taking each type of shot:

"%" simply means % of total shot types.

So, uhh, does anything jump out to any of you? Well, Ray Allen never dunks the ball! (This actually isn't true, I've seen him do it this year... I think) Regardless, Ray has 618 FGA on the season, and is 81 of 240 for 3s. (33.8 3pt%, or 50.7 eFG%) 525 of his shots have been jumpers.

51.5 = (240/525)*50.7 + (285/525)*X
28.3 = .54X
X = 52% on long 2s.

Ok, so, basically this is what I think: Ray Allen is still one of the best shooters in the game. It's almost unheard of for anyone to shoot over 50% on midrange jumpers (generally 1 or 2 players do it from year to year; off the top of my head I think only Jameer Nelson did it last year, with a few guys in the mid/high 40s. I think Steve Nash did it the year before that). That said, the gap between Ray's 3pt numbers (33.8) and midrange game (52.1) actually suggests, even according to eFG%, Ray has been more proficient on those midrange shots. Again, this is almost unheard of. Also, since Ray is such a great 3pt shooter, this is almost certainly an outlier.

What is LIKELY happening is Ray is running a little bad on 3s and a little good on 2s; meaning, he probably should be around ~38% on 3s and ~47% on 2s. If you adjust for these numbers artificially, his net eFG% rises (obviously, since that's a trade anyone would gladly make!) to the tune of about 2.5%. Since SO many of his shots are long distance shots, this overall swap actually makes his current eFG drop (57.5 last year, 51.5 this year) a lot more human. (Something like 54.0)

Thing is, even with this weird trend going on, Ray is still an efficient offensive weapon. His TS is 56.8%, which is above average; unfortunately it's a far cry from last year, where a 62.4% on moderate usage is just so beneficial to any team. (*NOT listed in the shooting stats are the fact Ray is turning the ball over SLIGHTLY more and rebounding on the offensive end SLIGHTLY less, which in conjunction make him for a slightly less-good offensive player)

So, this article/blog entry actually ran long, so I'm not going to examine Ray's stellar year last year. *FWIW Ray had a 81/18 split, so he's shooting slightly more jumpers this year; his close range shots are a VERY high%, which was probably the difference in his numbers for last year. What I will say, though, is although I expect Ray to improve his 3pt shooting at the expense of his long 2s. This is a good trade, but not enough to match the numbers he put up last year. What this means for the Celtics, I think, is I don't think we're worse than an average offensive team; it's certainly our floor. However, I don't think we have a high ceiling, like when we were 6th in the league last year.