96 replies to this topic

[Mason Khamvilay]

A big reason we suck at transition defense is our turnovers, it's practically impossible to be a good at transition defense when you lead the league in turnovers (barring a team with 5 Lebron's). 

 

So the real question is, how do we get Lin and Harden to take better care of the ball? Personally, I'm not too worried, I think it's largely a matter of experience which comes with time. Dwyane Wade was a turnover machine early in his career too.

 

Another way we could cut down on turnovers is by getting a go-to guy who doesn't turn the ball over much ie. Kevin Love. 

[RollingWave]

Yeah, though part of that is also the result of the crazy pace we play at, it's not a huge surprise that when you try to push the pace with near reckless abandon your going to turn it over a lot.

 

Love address that in the half court, but the transition part is at least partly part of the territory, we're always going to turn it over a bit by playing this style, though obviously there's a considerable difference between turning it over a bit and turning it over at a near record level

[Mason Khamvilay]

A high turnover rate doesn't need to be a product of a fast pace, the 2007 Suns are an example of that. I think we would have one of the worst turnover rates in the league regardless of whether or not we had a fast or slow pace, simply because our guys aren't very good at taking care of the ball yet.

 

I wonder if we would should slow the pace down and focus on mastering the half-court game for the sake of being a better playoff team. A fast pace can get us more wins in the regular season, but the playoffs is a slower paced game.  

[thejohnnygold]

Going back to the RAPM....does this mean that it is done on a bell curve where most players get lumped into the middle?

 

I had seen the shot chart and definitely noted the mid-range game for Paul George.  Those percentages definitely drop the total score because otherwise he is pretty solid.  Playing for Indy, they run at a slower pace which deflates the per 48 stats a bit.  I'm still a little dubious about his score, but without the ability to hold it up next to other players that aren't Lebron or Carmelo it's hard to get good context.

 

Transition D is still going to be a problem next year.  Should be better, but I won't be surprised if we remain bottom 10.

 

Before we get too giddy about Love's lack of turnovers we should recognize it is largely because once he gets the ball he shoots it.  He averaged 2 assists to go with his 2.3 turnovers in his last full season.  According to the same data set he assists on 10% of offensive plays while on the court while turning the ball over 9.2% of the time (that number was 9.8% last year, but I am not counting that--for the record, his assists % was almost 12% last year).  Still, I'm not certain his hands are as good as advertised here.  Definitely better than our current platoon of green horns...

 

For comparison, Aldridge gets 2.6 assists to 1.9 turnovers.  Blake Griffin gets 3.7 to 2.3.  Chris Bosh is 1.7 to 1.7.

[Mason Khamvilay]

I'm not sure if there's a curve bell.

 

As for the rest of your post, I'm not sure how relevant all that is. I mean, does the method of how Love gets points without turnovers change the fact he would help cut our turnover rate down? Obviously a guy like Chris Paul can cut down our turnovers alot more than Love can if that's what you're saying. 

[Steven]

Going back to the RAPM....does this mean that it is done on a bell curve where most players get lumped into the middle?.

PER is done that away. The average player is a 15 every year.

[thejohnnygold]

I think it is somewhat relevant.  Harden and Lin will still be doing their thing (which constitutes the majority of our turnovers).  Agree on Chris Paul.  I was just trying to bring some relativity to Love's turnovers.  In looking at his assist to turnover ratio, and his turn over percentage I don't think it is as big of a deal now--seems pretty average.

 

I guess the question is this: what effect do you expect Love to have in general?  How many turnovers do we avoid with him on the floor?  I'm not sure it is very significant, but would like to hear your thoughts on what the change might be...

[Mason Khamvilay]

It's hard to quantify something like that, but I will make a rough estimate:

 

This season we averaged one turnover every 5.1 shots. In 2012 Kevin Love averaged one turnover every 8.4 shots.

 

Another thing to consider is that when the shot clock is down to 3 seconds and we need a bail out shot, Kevin Love is a very nice option to have.

 

Obviously there are a million other variables to consider, and I'm not trying to spend a lot of time on this, so I'm going to roughly estimate/speculate that Kevin Love could help cut down one or two turnovers per game for us. 

[RollingWave]

A high turnover rate doesn't need to be a product of a fast pace, the 2007 Suns are an example of that. I think we would have one of the worst turnover rates in the league regardless of whether or not we had a fast or slow pace, simply because our guys aren't very good at taking care of the ball yet.

 

I wonder if we would should slow the pace down and focus on mastering the half-court game for the sake of being a better playoff team. A fast pace can get us more wins in the regular season, but the playoffs is a slower paced game.  

Yeah, but part of that is Steve Nash generally being a historically good handler, (though also a historically bad 1 on 1 defense guy.)

 

We were 1 loss to the Jazz away from missing the playoffs this year, so ummm yeah, I think going for more regular season wins is kinda important, unless your a 50 win type team, because in the west, Even 50 win isn't a guarentee for the playoffs.

 

We need to figure out a better plan for half court execution, espeically late once that's for sure, I simply can not buy into that Harden iso and everyone watch is somehow the optimal go to plan in that sort of situation.  and given that we under performed our points differential significantly, the results probably agree.

[thejohnnygold]

That's about what I figured...conceivably equates to a +4 point differential if we figure we score on 50% of those extra possessions and the opposition would have scored on 50% as well.  The thing is, I think just about any veteran PF would provide about the same for us...Our guys were pretty sloppy with the ball last year.

[Mason Khamvilay]

Yeah, but part of that is Steve Nash generally being a historically good handler, (though also a historically bad 1 on 1 defense guy.)

 

We were 1 loss to the Jazz away from missing the playoffs this year, so ummm yeah, I think going for more regular season wins is kinda important, unless your a 50 win type team, because in the west, Even 50 win isn't a guarentee for the playoffs.

 

We need to figure out a better plan for half court execution, espeically late once that's for sure, I simply can not buy into that Harden iso and everyone watch is somehow the optimal go to plan in that sort of situation.  and given that we under performed our points differential significantly, the results probably agree.

He's a historically good handler but he did average 3.8 turnovers that year, given he carried about as big of a role in their offense as any pg could possibly carry, but I still think it's possible to be a fast paced low turnover rate team if everyone on our team collectively took better care of the ball.

 

Moving forward, especially if we get a big upgrade this summer, I think our days of almost missing the playoffs are over. I completely understand the reason for running a fast pace this season and I commend McHale for it, but I believe we're definitely on the same page in the sense that we need to improve our half-court offense if we want to be a more dangerous team in the playoffs.

[Mason Khamvilay]

That's about what I figured...conceivably equates to a +4 point differential if we figure we score on 50% of those extra possessions and the opposition would have scored on 50% as well.  The thing is, I think just about any veteran PF would provide about the same for us...Our guys were pretty sloppy with the ball last year.

Is that +4 on top of the 3.5 we got this season or did you already include that?

 

Agreed on the part about any veteran PF, although some veteran PF's would provide more of the same than others. 

[thejohnnygold]

The +4 would be on top so, all things held equal, that would put us in the top 5 of point differential and probably net us about a 55 win season--if not more.  I like point differential as a measure of win/loss success; although, they seem to create this circular effect where which leads to which gets blurred.

 

Of course some PF's are better than others.  I just feel that of all the things that Love will bring to the table his turnover rate is not a very big deal relative to other possibilities.  Honestly, I think his 3 pt. shooting and passing skills are the only things that make him appealing over any other PF.  We already rebound quite well.  His post game is decent, but I imagine we would use him more from 3 pt range and mid-range on the wings when the defense leaves those spaces open.

[Mason Khamvilay]

Is the +4 also including the likelihood that we will have several key players who will have improved? Plus the likelihood we will improve collectively as a team from coaching and increased chemistry too? 

 

I remember hearing Morey say in an interview that he wants us to be a good offensive rebounding team, and we rank 17th in that regard so I would add Love's rebounding to the list of things that make him appealing. 

[thejohnnygold]

You can add it if you like, but there are only so many rebounds per game and we already grab 75% ( a very solid number) of the defensive ones and if Love is playing on the perimeter on offense he won't be grabbing many on that end....So, regardless of his individual ability, the odds are he doesn't significantly affect our team rebounding.  I might be wrong, but it seems that historically (at least recent history) teams max out at 77% so I guess he can add 2 percent...maybe.  It's not that he isn't a good rebounder--he is.  The problem is his skill is a redundancy on our team that doesn't add anything we don't already possess.  Maybe he could do good work while Asik sits?

 

Oh, just re-read and saw you are focusing on offensive rebounds....if he plays inside then sure, that could improve.  Looking at his ORB% from 2011-12 he posted an 11.6 and this year an 11.5 which would have ranked 36th in the league....tied with Greg Smith.  Omer Asik was 20th with a 12.8 (source)...so maybe he helps a tad...I think if we want to improve that stat we need to put a big, athletic dude down there and tell him to go get 'em....but it doesn't suit our current style of play with Harden/Lin/Parsons.

 

Looking at the list of guys ahead of Love and G. Smith it is apparent that their increased % is a function of just playing near the basket more often...Thomas Robinson comes in at 18 with a 13% rate...maybe we should just plug him in....I'm all for more offensive rebounds.

 

"Is the +4 also including the likelihood that we will have several key
players who will have improved? Plus the likelihood we will improve
collectively as a team from coaching and increased chemistry too?"

 

Not sure what you're getting at with this....do you think I don't already know and agree with this?  Weird...

[Mason Khamvilay]

Eh? It's not a rhetorical question. I'm wondering if the +4 accounts for those things, because if not we can probably add another +2 on top which could give us the best +/- in the league?

[thejohnnygold]

The +4 was explained above.  If you want to extrapolate more then feel free, but I explained it earlier.  We can make plenty of assumptions about next season, but until we see them on the court it won't be fair.  We had certain advantages this season with relatively unknown players with little scouting available on them--that's gone.  We also had a nice run of luck involving playing teams without key players due to injury.  Further, teams realize that the key to stifling our offense is to simply get back on D and prevent the transition points.  Next year is a whole new ballgame and I think that we'd be silly to start adding +6 to our scoring margin based off of optimism (heck, might as well make it a +8).

 

You may or may not remember a post I wrote a while back analyzing our point differential.  Once I removed the anomalies (the games with a finishing margin of greater than 10 is what I think I used) our scoring margin was a dismal +.1.   So basically zero.  This means that, more often than not, we did not resemble the +3.5 we posted for the season.

 

I think a realistic (but still optimistic) guess would be +5 as a new and improved scoring margin for next year--presuming things go well and nothing wacky happens.  There is nothing wrong with that at all--definitely puts us in the top 10...maybe top 5.  The question is will it equate to wins or not....this year I think we underperformed in the win/loss column based on the scoring margin we posted.  Check out the list here.  I think it goes back to the anomalies and that, most of the time, we played at a near zero scoring margin.  I'd like to see more consistency from us in that regard.

[Mason Khamvilay]

Yes, I agree, we were very fortunate with injuries and we can't be too optimistic because things don't always go the way we plan it.

 

Question: I don't know much about how win shares work, but Millsap has a win share of 7.6, does that mean Millsap would theoretically add 7.6 wins if he replaced an average power forward? This is assuming he would be a perfect fit with no redundant overlaps. Not sure if you know either but I just thought I would ask, can win shares be used that way?

[timetodienow1234567]

You have to subtract the Win shares of our current PF first

[thejohnnygold]

Here is a link that explains win shares: LINK

 

It's another metric that is a little weird. It focuses on points scored/allowed to produce a total win share (offensive + defensive = total).  Once again, it fails to consider context at all and focuses largely on the black and white of points.

 

Look at last night's Heat/Bulls game.  Lebron was 6-17 (with 11-11 on free throws) for 25 points.  Effective but inefficient.  Yet, it was Lebron knocking down two crucial shots in crunch time that sealed that win (along with another three pointer from Cole for good measure).  Yes, Bosh and Cole dominated throughout the game, but when they needed it most Lebron made it happen.  If I had only one win share to give--I'd give it to him.

 

I also believe it is based on the team's total wins so a team that wins more has more win shares to give.  This seems imbalanced right off the start as no credit is being assigned for losses (which should be deducted from a player's win total to be fair) and there is no basis for how the team as a whole affects one player's individual score.

 

It came as no surprise when looking at the leaders board that there are only five players from losing teams in the top 50 for total win share.  Thaddeus Young (33), Amir Johnson (34),  LaMarcus Aldridge (36), JJ Hickson (42), and Ryan Anderson (47).

 

The name that stands out is Aldridge, of course.  I would feel very safe assuming Aldridge's score increases if he takes Chris Bosh's (20) role on Miami.  Players that scored higher than Aldridge: Blake Griffin (10), George Hill (12), David Lee (18), David West (19), Tiago Splitter (25), Al Jefferson (28), Jose Calderon (31), Ty Lawson (32), and the aforementioned Young and Johnson above at 33 & 34. 

 

This leaves me wondering what exactly does this stat tell me?  It tells me whether a player was part of a good team or a bad one mostly.  Although, we must also be careful about the "good stats/bad team" guys.

 

So, what I see is a statistic that is heavily based off of team scoring statistics being applied to individuals to try and forecast a player's contribution to a team.  Further, it becomes largely useless when trying to convey that score to another team--namely, the Rockets.

 

If you want to take Millsap's win share score, subtract our PF's collective win shares, and then add that to see what you get then I guess you can.  Without including Delfino, Patterson, or Morris that score is 5.5.  So, Millsap gives us +2.1 wins.  For $10M that's not very much, is it?

 

In my opinion this stat is fun to look at, but has very little value--even within the context of it's own team as it does not consider a player's contributions outside of scoring and applies points allowed indiscriminately.