NBA Net Rating Leaderboard

Celticspride wrote:Wonder what Red Auerbach would say about all these stats? Pretty sure I would be with him. Stats? Wins and loses. Know your players and get out there and win baby as a team. Each player contributes their best talents to improve each other. Oh and go have a beer after the game with everybody and be a team. Stats not me.

Hi Celticspride!  Nice to see you again!

Red wasn't a big fan of stats.  They didn't have stats back then like they do now neither.  And let's not forget, he's Red.  I've always thought it fallacious to say that so-and-so is wrong because "that's not what Red would have done".  Red was one of a kind.  Red could see things others couldn't see like the way dogs can hear things we can't hear.  Put another way, Red, being the talent he was, didn't need stats like the way lesser mortals do.

Nevertheless most basketball stats, to me, are "trailing indicators".  They tell what happened, not necessarily what will happen given a change.  For example, without seeing the stats on this, I would bet that Sully is not a good shooter off the dribble.  Catch-and-shoot?  Yeah, but dribble-and-shoot like Evan Turner and IT do, no.  So, trade Sully to a team that expects him to dribble-and-shoot will result in a big drop in his numbers.  His fault?  No, it's a mismatch.  I like to use stats to validate what my eyeballs have already seen.

Zeller is struggling.  I'll bet if we still had Phil Pressey on the team he wouldn't be because Phil was a penetrator and a great assist man off pnrs, which is Zeller's bread-and-butter.  He's not a shot creator for himself, he needs to be fed.  Who is feeding Zeller now?  

That's why I am not a fan of +/- stats, especially on a team like the Celtics which has been shuffling the roster like a deck of cards in Vegas.  Put a player on the floor with a good complementary player, like Rondo and Zeller, and they look good.  Take away Rondo and replace him with Marcus Smart and it's not so good.  

Some of the advanced stats are more revealing.  If a player catch-and-shoots 50% from a spot, then it's probably a good idea to run plays that draw the defense away from that spot and have him on that spot waiting for the ball.  That type of stuff.  Using stats to identify preferences and fortes.  Poor execution however, because of good defense and/or not having the right other players on the floor with them, and those stats get blown up.


bob


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rambone wrote:Here's an example of Sullinger's liability as a defender, this one in the fourth quarter when he's guaranteed to be winded if he's played more than 15 minutes previously. Jordan Hill had just hit yet another mid-range jumper before this, seen here:



but Sully was so winded he just wanted to stand under the basket, rather than remember he had a man to guard. A man who had been killing him all night.

rambone,

In the first .gif, Sully was helping Jae Crowder double-team Paul George and move him into a small space along the sideline.  George had been killing us all game.  Hill had to hit a 23'er with less than 5 seconds left on the clock.

On the second .gif, Sully was retreating to help the defensively-challenged Isaiah Thomas prevent the penetration by much bigger and very good shooter Monta Ellis (I looked up the play-by-play, it was Ellis who got the assist on the Hill fgm that made it 98-93).  What would you prefer Sully to have done?  Let 6'3" Ellis shoot over 5'9" Isaiah Thomas from the frito line, or let Ellis continue to drive on IT to the rim and maybe a +1?  I have no problem with that defense by Sully.  Indy did an excellent job of spreading the floor (note the absence of any other Celtic defenders near Ellis) and Hill hit the open shot.  If I have a problem with anybody's defense on that it is that Thomas let Ellis get up to the frito line before picking him up.  That is WAY too close for Ellis.  I really don't see where Sully had a choice.

Here's Ellis' shot chart this year




Now, here's Jordan Hill's:




Who do you think would be the better choice to defend?  Ellis from 15' or Hill from 16'?  How about Hill from 23'?

Teams don't always score just because the defense, individually or collectively screw up.  Sometimes teams score because the offense is executed well, forcing the defense out of position, and then the players hit the shots the offense is set up to give them.


bob


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rambone wrote:Yeah I don't have an issue with Sully's defense in the first clip, other than that it takes about 1 second for him to change directions to start closing out on Hill.

But when a player is as slow as Sully, and even slower to change directions, that player has to be smart with every step, because he lacks any ability to make up for a step in the wrong direction. This is doubly true in the 4th quarter, when he's gassed.

What irked me about the second clip was Sully's step toward the rim after George Hill was contained. Watch his right foot. That leaves him way out of position even though Jordan Hill is parked at the FT line.

Being as slow as he is, Sully's just a major liability whenever he has to cheat off is man, because it takes him forever to get back. He moves like Brook Lopez.

If Stevens wants to play Sully big minutes down the stretch of 4th quarters, I hope he uses his timeouts just to get Sully some rest if there's ever an extended time without a whistle. Because Sully's already the least agile PF in the league, and one of the slowest centers even, especially when changing direction, and especially when gassed in the 4th quarter.

I don't think prime David Lee or Kevin Love were much more agile, and I know the good with Sully outweighs the bad when his head's on straight like it is now, and I guess I just have too much time on my hands today, along with the full game tape found on youtube.

You're no doubt right that I'm overanalyzing it.

rambone,

Small point, that was Monta Ellis putting the move on IT in .gif #2, not George Hill (as I said, I couldn't see the number on the jersey from the .gif, so I went to the play-by-play to see who got credit for the assist).  George Hill has turned himself into a dangerous player, but he's not a shooter in Ellis' class.  Ellis has some flaws in his game, like being a bit of a ME-baller, but shooting is not one of them.  He's starting off the year slow, but he's a career 45% fg shooter, 48% from 2.  The odds of him overpowering Thomas, with a live dribble moving forward at the frito line, were quite good.  One small stutter step to freeze the hapless Thomas and he's at the rim from there with one more dribble.

Sully is an imperfect player.  He's overweight, still.  He's a bit short for today's PFs.  He's an average defender.  On the other hand he is a helluva rebounder on both ends, can shoot and has high IQ.

Kelly is also an imperfect player.  He's underweight, still.  He's a bit weak for today's PFs.  On the other hand he has better range than most PFs (including Sully), is a very good ball handler for a PF (including Sully), is a much better passer than most PFs (including Sully) and has high IQ (probably on a par with Sully).  

Their styles of play cannot be more dissimilar and that lend itself to, perhaps, unfair comparisons.  Sully is a bull in a china shop while Kelly is a finesse player.  It probably makes more sense to compare bulls to bulls and dancing masters to dancing masters, since they both have their place, but when they are on the same team and you're trying to decide who gets minutes and against whom then those comparisons get made.

Point guards and centers tend to need the most time before you can really see what they can be.  PGs because of the cerebral nature of the position. It takes time to learn all the nuances of the offensive sets and how to defeat all those defensive schemes.  Cs because they need more time to grow into their body, gain the coordination and to add a bit more muscle and weight without losing mobility and speed.  This would describe Kelly a bit better, I believe.  He has a center's height, but he lacks their strength and muscle.  It takes years to put that on without sacrificing speed.  If there's one thing that Sully has that I am waiting to see in Kelly is ferocity.  Sully gets pissed off.  He HATES to lose.  He HATES being shown up by an opposing player.  I have never seen Kelly look so much as even irritated.  A small thing?  Really, Bob, you're worried about facial expressions?  The eyes are the windows into the soul.  You look into Sully's eyes, when he's not playing well or getting beaten or even getting bad calls from the refs and you see ganas.  You see him want some payback.  Soon.  You look at Kelly when he's in the same situation and he looks almost resigned.  Someone needs to kill Kelly's puppy and make him say "M-F!!.  No more Mr. Nice Guy.  I'm comin' for all y'all now" (actually, he's Canadian so it would probably come out more like "Momma's Fudge.  I'm coming for you and you and you and you...").

I'm actually enjoying that we can throw such dissimilar players at other teams.  I don't see it as a disadvantage anymore than a fastball pitcher would see throwing the occasional curveball as a bad thing.


bob


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