Where is Bob Covington?

[Sixerscan]

Sub 30% from the field and from 3. Complaining too much to the officials. Clearly he's in his own head at this point.

He's the only guy on the team that can body up on some of the better small forwards in the league. And he's supposed to be the best shooter on the team. Need him to at least start hitting something,

He started slow last year too (though not this bad), and Brett eventually started bringing him off the bench until he got his groove back. Might make sense to do that again and start Hollis (who is playing well and can sort of cover 3s) for a little bit.

[Kolkmania]

Sub 30% from the field and from 3. Complaining too much to the officials. Clearly he's in his own head at this point.

He's the only guy on the team that can body up on some of the better small forwards in the league. And he's supposed to be the best shooter on the team. Need him to at least start hitting something,

He started slow last year too (though not this bad), and Brett eventually started bringing him off the bench until he got his groove back. Might make sense to do that again and start Hollis (who is playing well and can sort of cover 3s) for a little bit.

Well I said this last year when I wanted to trade him while his contract was valuable and he still shot decent percentages. Covington is an above average defender when he's locked in, can alter shots with his length and has quick hands guaranteeing some steals. However his offensive game is massively overrated.

He's a decent shooter but he's a very bad one in a team-concept based offense. I don't have the data to back it up, but I think he's an extremely inconsistent shooter in catch and shoot situations, especially when he's coming off a screen. He has the same flaw as Jahlil Okafor, he's a good shooter when he pauses a couple of seconds before he shoots. That's the thing that bothers me since this shot is a low percentage one because the defender is in his face. As long as he doesn't lose this terrible habit and improves his off-ball movement with corresponding shooting off the screen, he's a reliability on offense. Worst thing is that Covington's whole offensive repertoire is 3 point shooting since he can't handle a dribble, horrible passer and bad decision maker.

[SexDrugsPnR]

I don't get his reputation as a good defender either. He can be a great on-ball defender, but so many of our defensive breakdowns start with Covington getting lost on rotations, being late on close-outs, overhelping inside...

[TTP]

Last season he was 30.8% (49-159) heading into the new year and finished the season at 35.3%, almost exactly league average and just below his career average. It really sucks that he's shooting like this now, but I highly doubt he finishes the season shooting anywhere close to this poorly. 3 point variance is huge and there are a lot of good shooters that are shooting very poorly at this point of the season relative to their expected averages (Klay, Hayward, Matthews, Knight, Patterson, Hield, etc).

It's a lot easier to deal with poor shooting performances when he's a positive on the other end, but last night was probably his worst game this season on both ends. I'm not really worried though - there's a lot of evidence that this won't be a permanent issue.

I don't understand the overall defensive criticisms though. Of course he'll have individual plays where he looks bad - that happens to everyone. He's often playing on the court with 2-4 negative defenders that make things harder for each other and can't make up for the times he makes a mistake. At the end of the day, he grades very positively defensively - significantly better than anyone we could replace him with.

[NJ SixerFan]

I get your variance argument but **** does it have to vary so much. He either can't hit water shooting in the ocean or barely touches the net when he's on. Problem is we need him to be a threat night in and night out.

[dbodner]

I get your variance argument but **** does it have to vary so much.

Because we have no real shot creators and Covington's shot selection is questionable.

My question becomes whether one impacts the other. Can Covington become more selected when Ben Simmons returns and gets him open looks? Or will he continue to take contested shots he shouldn't? It's hard to separate the two at the moment.

As far as benching Covington, last year that mainly happened because when he slumped offensively, it impacted his defensive effort. This year, I don't think that's really been the case. Although getting sloppy with the ball and upset at the refs last night could be enough for Brown to make a move to try to regain Covington's focus.

[MatthewGeigerII]

"Where is Bob Covington?" - the brand should stick!


but good question.
he HAS been starting - i wonder if that play last night pissed BB off enough to not have him start.

[Sixerscan]

"Where is Bob Covington?" - the brand should stick!

Good point

[TTP]

I get your variance argument but **** does it have to vary so much. He either can't hit water shooting in the ocean or barely touches the net when he's on. Problem is we need him to be a threat night in and night out.

I don't think you understand the bolded or you wouldn't be making the rest of that comment.

I'd have to compare him to other high volume 3 point shooters who take a large percentage of their shots from 3. For his career, Covington is averaging 6.4 3PA per game, and that accounts for 64.1% of his total shots (3PAr).

Last season there were 6 players that had >= 5 3PA per game with a 3PAr >= 60%: Covington, Wes Matthews, JR Smith, Isaiah Canaan, CJ Miles, Kyle Korver. Covington had both the most 3PA per game and the highest 3PAr of all of these players.

Of these players, Canaan, Matthews, and Miles had the most similar 3P% and volume to Covington, all finishing within 1.5% points of each other (between 35.3% and 36.7%) so it makes the most sense to compare them. All of these players took between 6.0 and 7.2 3s per game.

I'm going to arbitrarily choose a "Dud" as a game where the player had at least 5 3PA and shot < 20% from 3. This would mean that players shot greater than 15% worse than their season average.

Covington had 51 games where he took at least 5 shots and within those games had 8 games where he shot <20% from 3.

Canaan had 58 games where he took at least 5 shots and within those games had 12 games where he shot <20% from 3.

Matthews had 60 games where he took at least 5 shots and within those games had 10 games where he shot <20% from 3.

Miles had 46 games where he took at least 5 shots and within those games had 8 games where he shot <20% from 3.

This means that the "Dud %" looks like:

Covington: 15.7%
Canaan: 20.7%
Matthews: 16.7%
Miles: 17.4%

Total: 17.7%

Covington actually had the lowest Dud percentage of the four comparable players despite shooting the greatest volume per game and having the lowest 3 point % of the four players.

I'm going to make a few points now:

1) The human brain is terrible about identifying false patterns and designing whatever narrative it wants to believe in, especially over small and recent samples.

2) 3 point shooting is extremely high variance. All of these players are above average 3 point shooters and shoot high volume, yet each player can expect a miserable shooting night slightly more frequently than once every six games.

3) In this sample, Covington does not appear to be significantly more feast or famine than comparable players.

[ankle420breaker]

It's as if Stauskas stole his confidence.

Covington's misses aren't even close... I'm not shocked that he's struggling, but it's definitely surprising to see just how severely his shot has abandoned him to start the season. His questionable shot selection just speaks to how much he's pressing.

I found it refreshing to see Brett Brown show some emotion and yank him after he failed to get back on defense last night. We're beyond the coddling stage and Bob needed some tough love... hopefully it lights a fire under his ass.

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[phillynative]

If we had at least one more wing that can defend I think he would be benched. All he does on offense is take bad contested threes. His defense is solid and he's a good rebounder but I thought he would have added another dimension to his game by now to open up his 3 point shot a lil more

[sixerswillrule]

In this sample, Covington does not appear to be significantly more feast or famine than comparable players.

Great breakdown. He's just off to a really bad start this season with already half the number of duds that he had all of last year. Also it's not that he's inconsistent (relatively speaking as you laid out), it's that overall he shoots an average percentage (35.7% for his career). Obviously a player who shoots 39-40% overall on threes will have less bad shooting nights.

[TTP]

In this sample, Covington does not appear to be significantly more feast or famine than comparable players.

Great breakdown. He's just off to a really bad start this season with already half the number of duds that he had all of last year. Also it's not that he's inconsistent (relatively speaking as you laid out), it's that overall he shoots an average percentage (35.7% for his career). Obviously a player who shoots 39-40% overall on threes will have less bad shooting nights.

True, but he's shooting slightly above average while having an extremely above average degree of difficulty compared to other high volume 3 point shooters. Seth Partnow (now with the Bucks) created an article prior to the 2015-16 season showing degree of difficulty on 3 point attempts from the 2014-15 season: http://nyloncalculus.com/2015/09/02/deep-dives-open-shooters/

League average for that season had ~40% of 3 point attempts defined as open and 8% as wide open. Covington's attempts were 24.8% and 5.5%. I can't find anywhere that cites average 3P% for open and wide open shots, but it's fairly likely that on a team with even average spacing, his percentage would rise a couple points. On a team like the Warriors, it's possible that he would be a 39-40% 3 point shooter. Unfortunately there was no analysis done for the 2015-16 season.

Also, there are a lot of people that complain about inconsistent he is, like the poster I was directly responding to. Most 3 point shooters are inconsistent. It's just the nature of the shot.

[sixerswillrule]

In this sample, Covington does not appear to be significantly more feast or famine than comparable players.

Great breakdown. He's just off to a really bad start this season with already half the number of duds that he had all of last year. Also it's not that he's inconsistent (relatively speaking as you laid out), it's that overall he shoots an average percentage (35.7% for his career). Obviously a player who shoots 39-40% overall on threes will have less bad shooting nights.

True, but he's shooting slightly above average while having an extremely above average degree of difficulty compared to other high volume 3 point shooters. Seth Partnow (now with the Bucks) created an article prior to the 2015-16 season showing degree of difficulty on 3 point attempts from the 2014-15 season: http://nyloncalculus.com/2015/09/02/deep-dives-open-shooters/

League average for that season had ~40% of 3 point attempts defined as open and 8% as wide open. Covington's attempts were 24.8% and 5.5%. I can't find anywhere that cites average 3P% for open and wide open shots, but it's fairly likely that on a team with even average spacing, his percentage would rise a couple points. On a team like the Warriors, it's possible that he would be a 39-40% 3 point shooter. Unfortunately there was no analysis done for the 2015-16 season.

Also, there are a lot of people that complain about inconsistent he is, like the poster I was directly responding to. Most 3 point shooters are inconsistent. It's just the nature of the shot.

Right I know people are complaining about his inconsistency (a lot of that due to his worse than normal rough start). I was just reiterating what you explained, that's he's no less consistent than comparable shooters for his career. It's true he does take a lot of difficult shots. Hopefully Simmons will make things easier for him. And it's semantics, but I'd say 37% is slightly above average. 35.7 % is virtually average.

[Kolkmania]

I get your variance argument but **** does it have to vary so much. He either can't hit water shooting in the ocean or barely touches the net when he's on. Problem is we need him to be a threat night in and night out.

I don't think you understand the bolded or you wouldn't be making the rest of that comment.

I'd have to compare him to other high volume 3 point shooters who take a large percentage of their shots from 3. For his career, Covington is averaging 6.4 3PA per game, and that accounts for 64.1% of his total shots (3PAr).

Last season there were 6 players that had >= 5 3PA per game with a 3PAr >= 60%: Covington, Wes Matthews, JR Smith, Isaiah Canaan, CJ Miles, Kyle Korver. Covington had both the most 3PA per game and the highest 3PAr of all of these players.

Of these players, Canaan, Matthews, and Miles had the most similar 3P% and volume to Covington, all finishing within 1.5% points of each other (between 35.3% and 36.7%) so it makes the most sense to compare them. All of these players took between 6.0 and 7.2 3s per game.

I'm going to arbitrarily choose a "Dud" as a game where the player had at least 5 3PA and shot < 20% from 3. This would mean that players shot greater than 15% worse than their season average.

Covington had 51 games where he took at least 5 shots and within those games had 8 games where he shot <20% from 3.

Canaan had 58 games where he took at least 5 shots and within those games had 12 games where he shot <20% from 3.

Matthews had 60 games where he took at least 5 shots and within those games had 10 games where he shot <20% from 3.

Miles had 46 games where he took at least 5 shots and within those games had 8 games where he shot <20% from 3.

This means that the "Dud %" looks like:

Covington: 15.7%
Canaan: 20.7%
Matthews: 16.7%
Miles: 17.4%

Total: 17.7%

Covington actually had the lowest Dud percentage of the four comparable players despite shooting the greatest volume per game and having the lowest 3 point % of the four players.

I'm going to make a few points now:

1) The human brain is terrible about identifying false patterns and designing whatever narrative it wants to believe in, especially over small and recent samples.

2) 3 point shooting is extremely high variance. All of these players are above average 3 point shooters and shoot high volume, yet each player can expect a miserable shooting night slightly more frequently than once every six games.

3) In this sample, Covington does not appear to be significantly more feast or famine than comparable players.

vs Atlanta: 5 3PA and hit 0%
vs Cleveland: 9 3PA and hit 11%
@ Houston: 6 3PA and hit 16.7%
vs Washington: 5 3PA and hit 0%

Honorable mentions: 2 for 8 against Charlotte and 2 for 9 against Indiana.

He's played 11 games so far and already had 4 "Duds" and 2 games very close. Last season he needed a whole season (67 GP) to have 8 of those games. So it's still possible that he maintains the same percentage of Duds, but it will be hard. Overall I think he just needs to adjust his offensive game and especially his shot selection. Like I mentioned in my first post he's shooting so many jumpers with a defender right in his face even when he's out of rhythm.

One thing I would like him to add to his game is using a hop before shooting more often. Right now he needs to be near standstill to start his 1-2 before jumping, perhaps a hop will make him more decisive and accurate. I'm not sure if he's not comfortable doing it, or that the Sixers' coaching staff never works on these kind of things, but perhaps he should give it a shot.

Check JJ Redick's footwork prior to his shooting motion.

Watch on YouTube

Compare that to Covington's footwork:

Watch on YouTube

I felt that he used the hop more often late in the season last year, but that might be my imagination.

[76ers 2020]

League average for that season had ~40% of 3 point attempts defined as open and 8% as wide open. Covington's attempts were 24.8% and 5.5%. I can't find anywhere that cites average 3P% for open and wide open shots, but it's fairly likely that on a team with even average spacing, his percentage would rise a couple points.

Nba.com has those numbers. In the player tracking section. Shots dashboard.

[cksdayoff]

it feels like covington never had a set shooting mechanic, he justs launches em from behind the 3 point line.

[TTP]

vs Atlanta: 5 3PA and hit 0%
vs Cleveland: 9 3PA and hit 11%
@ Houston: 6 3PA and hit 16.7%
vs Washington: 5 3PA and hit 0%

Honorable mentions: 2 for 8 against Charlotte and 2 for 9 against Indiana.

He's played 11 games so far and already had 4 "Duds" and 2 games very close. Last season he needed a whole season (67 GP) to have 8 of those games. So it's still possible that he maintains the same percentage of Duds, but it will be hard. Overall I think he just needs to adjust his offensive game and especially his shot selection. Like I mentioned in my first post he's shooting so many jumpers with a defender right in his face even when he's out of rhythm.

You're overreacting to small samples and it's very normal to have tremendous outlier stretches. He started off last season 0-18. Klay's first four games this season were 1-6, 2-9, 0-6, 0-7.

It also doesn't make sense to talk about the very close games because they were not included in my analysis. If you included all the 2 for 8 and 2 for 9 games, the numbers would be a lot higher for all players. 2 for 8 is one make away from being an above average game, so it didn't make sense to me to include that when the original statement implied that when he's off, he's way off - that's definitely not the case in a 2 for 8 game.

I'm sure he has lost confidence now and is out of rhythm, but I disagree that there's much to be worried about for the future. Going back to the original comment I replied to, I also disagree that you can expect a shooter like him to remain consistent night in and night out. That's an unrealistic expectation for any shooter that takes the majority of their shots from 3 (outside of Steph Curry, who has a lower career 3PAr than Covington). This is narrative/speculation but I imagine it's a lot harder to get in rhythm when you aren't taking as many easy 2 pointers to build confidence.

I agree that he should try to reduce some of his more difficult shots, but it seems that Brown is encouraging him to take them. Some of them aren't great, but others that look bad still might be the highest point potential shots we expect to get out of a possession because of how bad our offense is. I'm hoping that he won't have to do as much of that once Simmons is back.

[Ericb5]

I have always been in the camp willing to trade Covington. Not because he isn't a capable role player, but because he is a luxury for a team that isn't competing.

I think that his true value is what he displays when he is playing well, and this year is a prolonged slump.

He is more of a streaky shooter than a consistent one, or better said he is a momentum shooter that gets hot. When he is on he hits tough threes, and when he isn't he only hits wide open ones. Right now he isn't hitting much of anything though.

I agree with the first few sentences of this thread where he is said to be in his head. He is clearly frustrated right now.

I think that perhaps he is seeing this year as his chance to prove that he is more than a role player, but reality is hitting him in the face.

He will still have a long productive career as a 3 and D guy who will probably hit many big shots in the playoffs for teams in his career.

I would wouldn't trade him straight up for any pick other than a lottery protected first, but I would throw him in with Okafor or Noel to grease the skids on a bigger deal.

He is probably the only role player on our team that has real value to other teams.


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[jbent87]

Are we just finally seeing what he is? He was an UFA. Have we just overrated him the last couple of years because we haven't had much else to work with?