Hawks Bench Vs Eastern Conference (2/1/2024)

[AHF]

Total Bench (6+/ie only excludes starters)

As of the moment, here is how our team stacks up against the rest of the East.  In short, our bench is pretty terrible.  I think Bogi, OO and Bey are quality bench guys and in fact should make the bench a strength of the team but when you look at the total bench numbers we are still near the bottom due to the remarkable lack of depth on this team which we'll focus on in the next section.  This first set of numbers includes everyone other than Trae, DJM, Hunter, JJ, and CC (and likewise for other teams excludes only their starters with only a couple of teams who have traded starters having more than 5 players excluded - example: OG was a starter in Toronto and Barrett is a starter now so they are both excluded).

WIN SHARES

Orlando 14.8 Win Shares

Boston 14 Win Shares

New York 13.3 Win Shares

Cleveland 12.7 Win Shares

Indiana 11.5 Win Shares

Philadelphia 10.6 Win Shares

Miami 10.4 Win Shares

Brooklyn 10.1 Win Shares

Chicago 9.8 Win Shares

Milwaukee 8.0 Win Shares

Atlanta 7.8 Win Shares

Detroit 7.0 Win Shares

Toronto 6.5 Win Shares

Washington 4.4 Win Shares

Charlotte 2.4 Win Shares

 

VORP

Boston +3.4 VORP

Orlando +3.3 VORP

New York +2.8 VORP

Cleveland +2.1 VORP

Indiana +1.9 VORP

Brooklyn +1.8 VORP

Miami +1.0 VORP

Chicago +0.9 VORP

Philadelphia +0.9 VORP

Milwaukee 0.0 VORP

Atlanta -0.2 VORP

Toronto -0.4 VORP

Detroit -0.4 VORP

Washington -1.1 VORP

Charlotte -3.3 VORP

 

MINUTES WEIGHTED PER

Indiana 15.3 PER

Brooklyn 14.0 PER

Orlando 13.9 PER

Washington 13.8 PER

Boston 13.5 PER

Chicago 13.5 PER

Detroit 13.1 PER

New York 12.6 PER

Cleveland 12.5 PER

Miami 12.4 PER

Atlanta 12.4 PER

Toronto 12.2 PER

Philadelphia 11.9 PER

Milwaukee 11.3 PER

Charlotte 10.9 PER

 

 

Depth Spots (9+/ie excludes starters and top 3 reserves)

So let's look at those depth spots.  These are the guys you count on to fill in when there someone in your top 8 isn't available, to come off the bench in specific situations, to fill minutes on a night when the top guys don't have it, or to outperform the people above them and earn a spot in the core rotation.  It has been suggested that contenders get all the value here from ring chasers willing to sign minimum deals but it is teams that were not contenders coming into the year that are leading in this category and helping propel their teams into the playoffs.  It has been suggested that Win Shares is a purely a team stat and so teams with more wins will have more win shares for everyone but the top winning teams are in the middle of the pack and our depth players fall way below even the players on the teams with 1/3 the number of wins that we have.  This is because our depth players have actively hurt us and given us nothing.  The good news?  Charlotte also has a terrible bench so at least by VORP they rate worse than we do here so we've got that going for us but we are an extreme outlier in all categories and especially PER and win shares.  

WIN SHARES

Indiana 7.3 Win Shares

Cleveland 6.6 Win Shares

Orlando 6.0 Win Shares

Brooklyn 6.0 Win Shares

Miami 5.7 Win Shares

Boston 4.9 Win Shares

New York 4.6 Win Shares

Philadelphia 4.5 Win Shares

Detroit 3.9 Win Shares

Toronto 3.5 Win Shares

Washington 2.8 Win Shares

Milwaukee 2.7 Win Shares

Chicago 1.8 Win Shares

Charlotte 1.3 Win Shares

Atlanta 0.0 Win Shares

 

VORP

Indiana +1.8 VORP

Brooklyn +1.4 VORP

Cleveland +1.3 VORP

Orlando +0.9 VORP

New York +0.9 VORP

Miami +0.9 VORP

Boston +0.5 VORP

Washington 0.0 VORP

Philadelphia -0.2 VORP

Toronto -0.3 VORP

Milwaukee -0.3 VORP

Detroit -0.4 VORP

Chicago -0.9 VORP

Atlanta -1.1 VORP

Charlotte -2.4 VORP

 

MINUTES WEIGHTED PER

Indiana 17.7 PER

Brooklyn 16.8 PER

Boston 14.8 PER

New York 13.2 PER

Miami 12.9 PER

Cleveland 12.8 PER

Detroit 12.6 PER

Washington 12.2 PER

Toronto 11.6 PER

Orlando 10.8 PER

Philadelphia 10.7 PER

Charlotte 9.9 PER

Milwaukee 9.1 PER

Chicago 9.0 PER

Atlanta 6.1 PER

[hylndr11]

I think your point is as strong as Jeff's.  We probably are 3 spots higher with more/better depth, but at the end of the day, in the playoffs we would be still having the same problems because of our top 5.

[macdaddy]

2 minutes ago, hylndr11 said:

I think your point is as strong as Jeff's.  We probably are 3 spots higher with more/better depth, but at the end of the day, in the playoffs we would be still having the same problems because of our top 5.

That's when you can make a trade like the Knicks did to get OG.  You can't do that when you're sitting near the bottom of the conference. 

[AHF]

15 minutes ago, hylndr11 said:

I think your point is as strong as Jeff's.  We probably are 3 spots higher with more/better depth, but at the end of the day, in the playoffs we would be still having the same problems because of our top 5.

I'm not arguing that we shouldn't be upgrading the top of our lineup.  I'm saying every team in the league has to fill out their entire roster and those guys make a difference beyond just the top 8.  And we did a worse job of finding useful cheap players than any team I can remember.

We should not have an average of 6.1 PER coming into the lineup when Hunter or JJ is hurt.  We know our top 8 are going to have injuries.  They are high risk for it.  But we are utterly unprepared for that predictable situation and we've paid the price for it this season.

That doesn't mean we shouldn't be trying to upgrade the top of the roster and if we simply filled out our roster with the quality that an average team does it would not hurt our efforts to do so in any way.  Trades for a star are about our best players and our best picks not these spots. 

Indiana has 15.9 Win Shares among their top 8 guys by starts.

The Pacers have 18.9 Win Shares among their top 8 guys by minutes player.

Atlanta has 21.2 Win Shares among their top 8 guys by minutes played and starts.

The difference is that Atlanta has 0.0 win shares beyond that while Indiana has ~7-10 win shares in contributions coming from its depth.  Their depth makes a huge difference in the standings.  They cover when their top guys are out or on the bench.  We stab ourselves in the foot.

[JayBirdHawk]

2 hours ago, AHF said:

In short, our bench is pretty terrible. 

In the words of Steve Clifford just today 

“Our problems aren’t their effort, their work, how much they wanna win. Our problem is that we’re under talented.” - Steve Clifford on the Hornets