This week the Columbus Quest and the Richmond Rage swept their playoff series to move into the American Basketball League's premier Championship Series.
Unless you live in Columbus or Richmond, you probably didn't know this. Although both teams clinched their series on Tuesday night, the biggest news in women's basketball on Wednesday morning was the release of the WNBA schedule. Clearly, the ABL doesn't pay their marketing department as much as the WNBA does.
Fortunately, the Columbus Quest, easily the best team in the ABL, also provide some very good information on the league. In particular, they provide player profiles and enough statistics to get a feel for what makes this likely champion the class of the league.
Just as you can tell a lot about a game from a boxscore, you can also learn a lot about a team from the numbers they put up during the season. For most people who haven't seen the Columbus Quest -- which unfortunately includes me -- this is the best way to construct a story of how they play.
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The Quest is a quick team, pushing the ball as much as the fastest NBA teams. They actually do not run as much as the Blizzard or the Glory (two points if you can name where these teams are from), but they have a lot of players who can get out and run. One of the ways the women's game has been trying to draw fans is to promote how much they run compared to the ever slowing NBA game.
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The Quest don't have a true point guard to lead their running game. Rather, they have six players who distribute the ball about evenly. This is extremely unusual at any level of basketball these days where point guards are well-defined and do most of the distribution. Extremely unusual, that is, except for Dream Teams. Both of the 1996 Olympic teams had a number of players who contributed a lot of assists. Obviously a team with a lot of passers is difficult to guard.
Going along with this, the Quest have three players in the top ten in the league in scoring: Nikki McCray, Katie Smith, and Tonya Edwards.
So the Quest can run, they can pass, and they can shoot.
This may be one of the reasons coaches call the women's
game the most pure form of basketball. Coaches teach
the triple threat position so that everyone on a team can dribble,
pass, or shoot. This is what the Quest have and it's
a coach's dream.
Perhaps the biggest reason that the Quest are so dominant -- winning 31 of 40 regular season games and winning their division by 9 games -- is their rebounding. Though they don't have a Dennis Rodman, their offensive rebounding is superior to any NBA team.
Individually, the team is led in scoring by McCray, though she really isn't their best offensive player. This harks back to the Atlanta Hawks of the '80's, who were led in scoring by Dominique Wilkins even though he wasn't their most efficient player. Specifically, contrast McCray's numbers with Smith's, the team's second leading scorer. Smith shoots better and is more careful with the ball. This information implies a higher floor percentage, which is the number of times a player scores as a percentage of their attempts. Smith also made considerably more three point shots than McCray, which is reflected in her Jordanesque rating of 124.1 -- yes, this is about how efficient Jordan is in the NBA.
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(A floor percentage is just the number of times a player scores as a percentage of the times they try. So McCray scored on 48% of her attempts. A rating is the number of points created per 100 possessions. McCray created about 99.7 points through her own shots, assists, and offensive rebounds per 100 possessions.)
Those are the numbers, but what do they mean? What would this team look like if you were to watch them?
Hopefully, you have some picture in your head already. They are unselfish. They run a lot and they dominate the offensive boards. McCray scores the most, but also takes the most shots. Smith feeds off the attention that McCray draws by converting open shots.
Of course, there is more to this team than you can garner from the numbers. It's a little difficult to tell, but their leading rebounder, Sonja Tate, is actually a 5'8" guard who is quick enough to go after boards. You might guess that Valerie Still, their second leading rebounder, is a true forward who does most of her damage around the basket. You might have heard of Andrea Lloyd, the team's acting center, because she was a prominent name in women's college basketball as it was beginning to gain favor in the mid- to late 1980's.
As I say, hopefully you have a picture of the team in your head because you're not likely to see it on television. The Finals begin March 2, but unlike billiards and the miniature golf championships, they won't be brought to you on TV by ESPN or even ESPN2. At most, you might expect the final score and a few numbers...
Most weeks, I provide a fresh table of the offensive and defensive rankings in the NBA. The timeliness of the update depends a bit on whether the league actually sends me their rah-rah newsletter on time, which, despite their well-oiled marketing machine, usually fails at least once a year. This year, it failed in December, but it's back now.
What these ratings show are the offensive and defensive efficiencies of all NBA teams, the efficiency being measured as points scored or allowed per 100 possessions. This is a standard procedure used by those who really have to understand the game, but not necessarily by Hubie Brown and his cohorts who broadcast games.
For all practical purposes, you might as well assume that the Chicago Bulls are the best offensive and defensive team. Beyond this, you can go in and find your favorite team, then complain that I somehow shafted them.