Dissecting Smallball

Since its recent inception, this blog has hammered home one point above all others: that this Warriors roster is poorly suited for a smallball-centric approach, and that Don Nelson's refusal to realize this is hurting the team. With our miserably coached loss in Portland last night, that point holds more salience than ever. More than Monta's epic efforts, more than the Stephen Jackson melodrama, more than the cascade of injuries, smallball's inadequacy as a governing strategy has been the defining story of our season thus far.

But as true as that is, we're getting pretty tired of saying it. And the fact that Nellie's in a creative rut doesn't mean that we have to be. So we're going to walk through the pros and cons of smallball, demonstrate in detail why it's such a mistake with this roster, and then move on with our lives. While the subject may come up again here and there (Nellie will undoubtedly make sure of it), we will not waste time and energy ranting about it. If the guy wants to end his career in tawdry and stubborn fashion, so be it; from now on, we'd rather talk about the good and likeable young players he miscoaches.

A dissection of smallball requires answers to four questions:

1) What do we mean when we say "smallball"?

2) How well and how often has a predominant smallball strategy worked in the past?

3) When it has worked, what team elements have made it work?

4) Does the Warriors' current roster feature those elements?

Let's dive right in.

1. Defining Smallball

This is not as simple of an exercise as it might first appear. When we say that a team is going "small", how do we quantify that? Is it when a team fields a couple players at positions that are "bigger" than their natural ones? Is it when a team fields a frontcourt that is shorter than usual? Is it when a team fields a frontcourt that is lighter than usual?

I'd argue that none of these criteria quite capture what we mean by "smallball". A Showtime Lakers team with Magic at the two would not be "small" just because his natural position is the one. The Suns teams of the early nineties were not "small" simply because their power forward was 6'5". We do not become "small" with Anthony Randolph at the four just because he weighs so little.

For our purposes, "smallball" is most usefully thought of as a tradeoff in production. Specifically, it involves putting yourself at a rebounding disadvantage in the hopes of gaining a countervailing advantage somewhere else. As we'll see in a moment, any team you'd think of as "small" has been outrebounded by their opponents to a significant degree. This rebounding-based working definition is not only intuitive, but useful: it gives us a filter by which to examine "small" teams. Which brings us to our next section...

2. Smallball's Track Record

To really get to the bottom of this, we should try to cast a pretty wide net: let's take a look at every NBA team that has been outrebounded by at least, say, 3.5 rebounds a game. Opponents' rebound totals have only been kept since 1970, so we're just looking at the last forty years, here... in those 40 seasons, 112 teams have been -3.5 or more on the glass per night. Not all of these teams were intentionally playing smallball, of course... the majority of them were simply outgunned on the boards. But we'll worry about intent later. For now, let's just see how outboarded teams tend to fare.

First, the teams who were outrebounded by 3.5 to 3.9 boards a night. Winning teams in bold, Warrior teams in gold.

Twenty-six teams fell into this category; notable teams include a 61-win Sonics team, Baron's farewell season, and a bunch of crappy teams. Really crappy teams. The '92-'93 Mavs and '97-'98 Nuggets are, in fact, tied for the second-most losses by one team in a season, and the '00-'01 Bulls are tied for ninth-most... this will not be the last time you see historically bad teams on these lists. To be fair, a number of these teams were competitive: 10 out of the 26 had winning seasons despite being outrebounded, and three teams won 53 games or more. Still, the overall winning percentage for these teams is .408, amounting to a 33-49 record. Getting outrebounded by this much makes it fairly difficult to win.

Let's look at the next tier: the teams ranging from -4.0 to -4.9 on the boards per night.

Forty-two teams here, only eight of which posted winning records... an aggregate winning percentage of .377, equal to a 31-51 record. No team in this range won 55 games or more; twenty teams lost 55 games or more. If you get outrebounded by four to five rebounds a game, it is extremely difficult to compete.

Finally, those miserable teams that have been outrebounded by 5.0 more a night:

The team second from the top will be sadly familiar; towards the bottom, you'll see last year's pitiful Warriors and the "We Believe" team. Only three winning teams out of forty-four... an aggregate winning percentage of .308, equating to a 25-57 team. You will notice that this list features not only the worst team in NBA history, but the active team that stands poised to outsuck them. If your opponents outrebound you by five or more a game, you will probably be downright terrible.

All this means we have a pretty conclusive answer to our second question. We asked, "How well and how often has a predominant smallball strategy worked in the past?" The answer: not very well, not very often.

3. When Smallball Works

So we've identified twenty-one teams that have posted winning records despite being outrebounded by 3.5 or more. These teams weren't that good on average... the average record of these teams is 47-35, and almost half of them were actually outscored by their opponents on the year. But ten of these teams were pretty good, outscoring their opponents by at least a point a game, and three of them -- the '90-'91 Warriors, the '00-'01 Mavs and the '07-'08 Warriors -- featured Nellie at the helm. So how did these ten teams remain viable despite their weakness on the glass? Let's examine them in chronological order.

The 1970-71 New York Knicks are the biggest outlier in NBA history in terms of rebounding-free success; outboarded by their opponents by 6.3 a night, they outscored their opponents by 4.9 a night, won 52 games and reached the Conference Finals. How'd they do it? It's hard to say with complete confidence, as only partial data exists for that season (no steals, no blocks, no turnovers). However, it's clear that the Knicks' strength was their defense. They gave up the fewest points per night of any team, and allowed only 1509 assists on the year; the next-stingiest team in that department, the Bullets, gave up 1862. This was a very different NBA, with no three-pointers, only seventeen teams and a mere half-dozen seven-footers leaguewide. There is no easy way for a modern team to take any lesson from the success of these Knicks.

The '85-'86 and '87-'88 Nuggets, two of Doug Moe's free-wheeling squads. These were genuine smallball teams, with Alex English, Fatty Lever and a host of little speedsters surrounding either Wayne Cooper or Danny Schayes in the middle. Despite some differences in personnel, the two teams survived in the same way: by completely dominating the turnover battle. The '85-'86 team had the second-fewest turnovers in the NBA and forced the most; the '87-'88 team had the fewest turnovers and forced the second most. When you get yourself that many extra chances via turnovers, you can sometimes afford to give up some extra chances on the boards. (Sometimes: the Nuggets team in between these two went 37-45 with the exact same strategy.)

Next up is a prime Run-TMC team, the '90-'91 Warriors. This team's calling card was, as you might imagine, offense, and they ran up a winning record by doing almost everything well on that end, finishing in the league's top ten in field goal percentage, three-point percentage and free-throw percentage. Critically, they also took many more threes than their opponents, giving themselves an outside edge to combat their inside disadvantage. All told, though, this team was no great shakes: it finished 44-38. The '97-'98 Sonics was great shakes, however, as they are the only 60-win team to get outrebounded by a ton. And their path to this record was exceedingly simple: under Gary Payton's stewardship, they took great care of the basketball, and they made more than 200 three-pointers more than their opponents did.

In fact, that same threes-and-turnovers formula is the only one that has worked in the modern NBA. Nellie's '00-'01 Mavericks took and made a boatload of threes, and thanks to Steve Nash, they won the turnover battle going away. The '01-'02 Magic and Pistons, same thing: top-five in threes made, wins in the turnover battle. (The Magic also featured great team passing, while the Pistons played extremely skillful man defense to make up for their lack of size.) The '05-'06 Suns made 200 more three-pointers than any other team, recorded more assists than any other team, and won their turnover battle. If this formula sounds familiar, it should: it's exactly how we won 48 games two years ago. The '07-'08 Warriors were second-best in the league in threes made and led the league in turnover differential... those two factors were the biggest reasons for their success.

Let's be clear: that formula -- take many more threes than your opponent, win the turnover battle by a ton -- is the only one that has made smallball viable in recent years. That's not to say that it will always work... these are not sufficient conditions to make you a winning team, and they alone do not necessarily justify favoring smallball over another strategy. But these are necessary conditions. If you allow yourself to get dominated on the boards, this formula is the only demonstrable way that you can possibly survive.

So what do you need to make this formula work? Three things: 1) a roster that takes extremely good care of the basketball, 2) an excellent point guard that finds open shots for his teammates, 3) a roster that is willing and able to shoot tons of threes at a viable percentage. If you don't have all three of these things, opting for a smallball strategy is a fool's errand.

4. Smallball And Us

Do we have these things? Short answers: 1) no, 2) no, 3) sort of.

We're committing the second-most turnovers per game in the league. That's not as bad as it sounds -- our breakneck pace has a lot to do with that, and we do force more turnovers than we commit -- but we simply don't take good enough care of the basketball to build a huge edge in the turnover battle.

We do not have an excellent point guard. We do not have a good point guard. Depending on what night you're looking, it seems like we may not even have a point guard. Neither Monta nor Curry nor CJ can run an offense remotely as well as Chauncey Billups, let alone Baron or Timmy Steve Nash. We just don't have the playmaking impresario we'd need to do this.

Three-point shooters? We certainly have some -- Morrow's a killer, Curry, CJ and Vlad shoot them well and Monta can hit them -- but we're only 13th in the league in three-point percentage, and more critically, only 18th in the league in three-point attempts. (If Nellie wants smallball to have a prayer, he should be spending 100% of his time designing plays to get our marksmen open. But he can't even be bothered to do that.)

To recap, we don't have the elements you need for smallball. We have neither the teamwide offensive discipline you need to win the turnover battle, nor the brilliant point guard who can find open shooters and keep your efficiency high. We have guys who can rack up steals and guys who can hit three-pointers, but those things alone are not nearly enough to make the strategy a good idea. We just don't have the pieces for smallball.

But you know what we do have? We have some pretty good big men. In Biedrins, Randolph and Turiaf, we have two ace rebounders, three excellent shot-blockers, and a couple of really efficient scorers. All three of these guys run the floor well; all three of them even pass well. They are godsends for a team that likes to run. This trio of bigs may be the biggest strength on our roster. And if we want to win, we should use them. We should shelve this untenable strategy we've been obsessed with and start winning with rebounds, rather than trying to figure out a way to win without them. Without Baron Davis, smallball will not work. Nellie has spent the last 114 games chasing a ghost.

There is no argument for smallball as a predominant strategy for the 2009-10 Golden State Warriors. None whatsoever. Don Nelson is embarrassing himself by pursuing that strategy against all evidence, and those who defend his tactics are embarrassing themselves too. There is simply no other way to say it.