ATNE Tournament, Round 1: 3. Quotatious v. 14. Dr. Spaceman

[JeepCSC]

Stop doing averages. He went from part-time starter to full-time starter and his minutes went up double-digits over that span accordingly. There is too much variance in role to average minutes/rebounds like that to form some random "overall" numbers.

That said, I think while I'd enjoy watching Spaceman's team more, Q's team isn't losing here. Spaceman is too compromised defensively. Vote for Quotatious

[Warspite]

This amalgamation of stats will take some getting used to. Clearly Rodman's lower minutes early on hurt him. His advanced stats are much better than what his rebounds per games would suggest.

I suggest using reb rate as it does factor in mins played. I would dare say that most players in this league are playing reduced mpg but also not having to conserve energy and can play all out when on the court.

[Warspite]

Im going with Quotatious.

Im just not buying into Spacemans offense when his team is so soft on defense. Magic Johnson said it best during showtime " You cant run if you cant rebound." Ben and KG lay the foundation of great defense. 04 Pistons on steroids with KG instead of Sheed. I also believe Drexler is a very underrated defender and Hornacek/dragic/Christie (who are the worst 3 rotation in this league) is going to get abused being maybe the weakest starter in the whole league. Peja might have the easiest job in this league.

I can imagine Spacemans team winning game 3 by 30 pts but its going down in 5 games. Im just not a believer in a 6'8" C and a 6'6" PF being able to control the paint vs 3 very elite rebounders.

[Owly]

Im going with Quotatious.

Im just not buying into Spacemans offense when his team is so soft on defense. Magic Johnson said it best during showtime " You cant run if you cant rebound." Ben and KG lay the foundation of great defense. 04 Pistons on steroids with KG instead of Sheed. I also believe Drexler is a very underrated defender and Hornacek is going to get abused being maybe the weakest starter in the whole league. Peja might have the easiest job in this league.

I can imagine Spacemans team winning game 3 by 30 pts but its going down in 5 games. Im just not a believer in a 6'8" C and a 6'6" PF being able to control the paint vs 3 very elite rebounders.

Hornacek's not starting this one. In fact he's more or less been yanked from the rotation (8-12 minutes all at pg). Iggy moves down to SG and Worthy is becoming not only a starter but the primary offensive focus (at least whilst Peja is on court).

As one of our interim executive dictators (seriously though, anyone feel free to argue this judgement), please (re-?)read through the candidates debating points and re-confirm your vote.

[trex_8063]

Stop doing averages. He went from part-time starter to full-time starter and his minutes went up double-digits over that span accordingly. There is too much variance in role to average minutes/rebounds like that to form some random "overall" numbers.

In my previous post, I cited per 100 possession numbers: those are entirely independent of minutes played.

As one of our interim executive dictators (seriously though, anyone feel free to argue this judgement), please (re-?)read through the candidates debating points and re-confirm your vote.

In case this was directed at everyone, I did fully read all arguments and rebuttals prior to making a vote (recall I'm the one who more than once advocated and reminded everyone that we should all be doing so as a personal courtesy to each other). And I subsequently implied (in a reply to something Jeep had said) that Horny may not be getting big minutes. I'm sticking with my vote for Quotatious.

[Owly]

Stop doing averages. He went from part-time starter to full-time starter and his minutes went up double-digits over that span accordingly. There is too much variance in role to average minutes/rebounds like that to form some random "overall" numbers.

In my previous post, I cited per 100 possession numbers: those are entirely independent of minutes played.

As one of our interim executive dictators (seriously though, anyone feel free to argue this judgement), please (re-?)read through the candidates debating points and re-confirm your vote.

In case this was directed at everyone, I did fully read all arguments and rebuttals prior to making a vote (recall I'm the one who more than once advocated and reminded everyone that we should all be doing so as a personal courtesy to each other). And I subsequently implied (in a reply to something Jeep had said) that Horny may not be getting big minutes. I'm sticking with my vote for Quotatious.

Thanks for responding and confirming. This was directed at Warspite because there was something that explicitly suggested he hadn't comprehended some of the lineup information. I know you've touted heavily that we should read these, and regardless of what weighting we put on them, I think it's only fair to ask for confirmation where vote reasoning implies it hasn't been comprehended.

[Warspite]

Im going with Quotatious.

Im just not buying into Spacemans offense when his team is so soft on defense. Magic Johnson said it best during showtime " You cant run if you cant rebound." Ben and KG lay the foundation of great defense. 04 Pistons on steroids with KG instead of Sheed. I also believe Drexler is a very underrated defender and Hornacek is going to get abused being maybe the weakest starter in the whole league. Peja might have the easiest job in this league.

I can imagine Spacemans team winning game 3 by 30 pts but its going down in 5 games. Im just not a believer in a 6'8" C and a 6'6" PF being able to control the paint vs 3 very elite rebounders.

Hornacek's not starting this one. In fact he's more or less been yanked from the rotation (8-12 minutes all at pg). Iggy moves down to SG and Worthy is becoming not only a starter but the primary offensive focus (at least whilst Peja is on court).

As one of our interim executive dictators (seriously though, anyone feel free to argue this judgement), please (re-?)read through the candidates debating points and re-confirm your vote.

You need to edit your post since your the one who has Hornacek starting. That's your mistake. My mistake was trusting it.

[Owly]

Im going with Quotatious.

Im just not buying into Spacemans offense when his team is so soft on defense. Magic Johnson said it best during showtime " You cant run if you cant rebound." Ben and KG lay the foundation of great defense. 04 Pistons on steroids with KG instead of Sheed. I also believe Drexler is a very underrated defender and Hornacek is going to get abused being maybe the weakest starter in the whole league. Peja might have the easiest job in this league.

I can imagine Spacemans team winning game 3 by 30 pts but its going down in 5 games. Im just not a believer in a 6'8" C and a 6'6" PF being able to control the paint vs 3 very elite rebounders.

Hornacek's not starting this one. In fact he's more or less been yanked from the rotation (8-12 minutes all at pg). Iggy moves down to SG and Worthy is becoming not only a starter but the primary offensive focus (at least whilst Peja is on court).

As one of our interim executive dictators (seriously though, anyone feel free to argue this judgement), please (re-?)read through the candidates debating points and re-confirm your vote.

You need to edit your post since your[sic] the one who has Hornacek starting. That's your mistake. My mistake was trusting it.

My post was prior to any lineup information. It was the second post in the thread. It could only be based on draft order. Then people posted their writeups. People have repeatly and politely emphasised that we should read the thread, specifically the two matchup-gameplan/pitches and then the two rebuttals. Since this is one of the few threads where both participants have each posted a lineup-gameplan and a rebuttal it is only fair that we actually read them, regardless of the weighting.

Dr Spaceman's first team post

Starting Lineup
G: Steve Nash
G: Andre Iguodala
C: Amar'e Stoudemire
F: Dennis Rodman
F: James Worthy
...
Clyde is the biggest problem Q poses to me. Hornacek becomes a liability, and his minutes are going to be limited to basically either the minutes Drexler is off court and coming in to back up Nash at the point. Iggy moves to the 2 and is going to play him straight up, as Drexler is not really a shot creator other than the post and Iggy can shut that down with his ball-denial. Iggy is one of the best man-to-man perimeter defenders in history, and Drexler's offensive game has warts, namely that he's not an effective ball-handler. This is a big enough flaw that I think as long as I keep one of Iggy and Christie on the floor to prevent his post-ups, I can limit his impact pretty effectively.

...

I'm going to throw the Dallas zone at Q to exploit his shortcomings. While I have poor defensive players on my team, all of them save Stoudemire are very smart, and would have no problem fitting into a zone-heavy scheme where they have plenty of help. This will allow me to play Hornacek more minutes, as he and Nash won't be quite so brutal when I can just swarm, and with Q's team I'm worried about them getting into the paint first second and third, as they simply can't beat me from outside.

Rotation:
Point guard: Nash 36-40/Hornacek the rest, Dragic will only play garbage time since this is an awful matchup
Wing: Iguodala 33-37/Worthy 33-37/Christie 20-24/Rodman playing some 3 next to Aldridge and Hornacek filling in where he can
Frontcourt: Stat 36-40/Rodman 25-30/Aldridge 20-25 or more, depending on how we play with Chandler on the floor/Chandler filling in the gaps, only playing in lineups where there are other scorers (ie. not with heavy doses of Rodman/Christie/Iggy)

Okay.

Quotatious' rebuttal

One more thing - with Hornacek's minutes being limited, Spaceman's team's shooting doesn't scare me one bit. Iggy is a mediocre 3-pt shooter (I wouldn't necessarily leave him wide open, but he's not someone I'm particularly concerned with. Worthy doesn't really have 3-pt range, at all. Only Nash is a real threat from beyond the arc in such situations.

(there is further discussion of this in the non-obligatory reading)

I don't mind what weighting you place on the writeups but it should be abundantly clear from reading them that Hornacek is used as a low minute backup pg. Ideally you'd confirm your vote based on the full information. For discussion on the general principles see below.


@the board as a whole: A couple of questions (I'll post this in the draft thread and we can respond there)
1) Are we happy that if posts seem to suggest a failure to read/comprehend the writeups, posters should be asked to reconfirm their vote?
2) Do we want the introductory posts' lineups updated? I say no because it's redundant and it would accomodate/encourage not actually reading the threads, but I'm willing to take input.

[trex_8063]

Im going with Quotatious.

Im just not buying into Spacemans offense when his team is so soft on defense. Magic Johnson said it best during showtime " You cant run if you cant rebound." Ben and KG lay the foundation of great defense. 04 Pistons on steroids with KG instead of Sheed. I also believe Drexler is a very underrated defender and Hornacek is going to get abused being maybe the weakest starter in the whole league. Peja might have the easiest job in this league.

I can imagine Spacemans team winning game 3 by 30 pts but its going down in 5 games. Im just not a believer in a 6'8" C and a 6'6" PF being able to control the paint vs 3 very elite rebounders.

Hornacek's not starting this one. In fact he's more or less been yanked from the rotation (8-12 minutes all at pg). Iggy moves down to SG and Worthy is becoming not only a starter but the primary offensive focus (at least whilst Peja is on court).

As one of our interim executive dictators (seriously though, anyone feel free to argue this judgement), please (re-?)read through the candidates debating points and re-confirm your vote.

You need to edit your post since your the one who has Hornacek starting. That's your mistake. My mistake was trusting it.

No, your mistake was not actually reading the write-ups, just as Owly suspected.

Quote:

Oooooookay. Got a cup of coffee, time to tackle this.

Starting Lineup
G: Steve Nash
G: Andre Iguodala
C: Amar'e Stoudemire
F: Dennis Rodman
F: James Worthy

First thing to note: Worthy replaces Hornacek in the starting lineup.

^^^^^
This was the opening paragraph of Spaceman's write-up regarding this match up (post #6).

Also:

Rotation:
Point guard: Nash 36-40/Hornacek the rest, Dragic will only play garbage time since this is an awful matchup
Wing: Iguodala 33-37/Worthy 33-37/Christie 20-24/Rodman playing some 3 next to Aldridge and Hornacek filling in where he can

I'll say again (for like the 4th or 5th time), if team authors have taken the time write out the team plan and thoughts on the specific match-up, we owe it to each other as a simple courtesy to actually take the time to read them prior to voting.

[trex_8063]

@the board as a whole: A couple of questions (I'll post this in the draft thread and we can respond there)
1) Are we happy that if posts seem to suggest a failure to read/comprehend the writeups, posters should be asked to reconfirm their vote?
2) Do we want the introductory posts' lineups updated? I say no because it's redundant and it would accomodate/encourage not actually reading the threads, but I'm willing to take input.

I just responded these points on draft thread, fwiw, but I'll do again here: I think Owly's done enough already to facilitate this tournament (which was not his creation), and we've no right to ask more of him (like editing line-ups in initial post for each and every team, simply because we don't want to take the time to read). It's on us to read the arguments/strategies, and that's not asking too much. Someone took the time to write it.......we can take the time to read it, prior to voting. That seems like common courtesy to me, frankly.

And I think it's only fair to have poster reconfirm things if there's something sketchy about a post; if nothing else it should fuel discussion.

[Warspite]

I edited my post. My orginal point still stands regardless of who starts. I also believe Drexler most likely is the best SG in this league and would be an MVP candidate he would be up against players who are essentialy big PGs or combo guards who lack the quickness, strength and skill to guard him or most importantly score on him.

I apologise for not spending more time at 3am to go further into detail to satisfy Owly.

[Owly]

Based on the reasoning already offered I'm voting Quotatious.

Spoiler:

Since both write-ups have been done, shall we give this a week to debate, otherwise next Friday at noon?

Yeah, it seems like both me and Spaceman are ready.

I have this strange feeling that this is gonna be one of just two matchups (the other being Jaivl vs thizznation) that has a chance to be completed...Draft was really fun, but it seems like most people have lost interest in it once the real game has started...

Well in this type of game to a lot of people, the draft is "the real game", and the writeups are a time drain to type, to read and then with the expectation that no one will read them anyhow.

Anyways where I am in this matchup....

On paper the more talented/productive team is Q's. The first 5 is strong, Daugherty is great, Hawkins very solid (the other bench players seem like they're there to fit the concept, give spacing/length/D, which kind of works though personally I'd have prefered scraficing a little bit of spacing - i.e. the 3-ball, and getting more productive who are still very strong defenders and passers, - the likes of Pressey, Lever and Millsap). Anyhow a really strong team especially the starting 5.

Dr S.'s team on paper seems to lack something. The top 3 picks being primarily one way players (Nash, Rodman, Stoudemire) doesn't really help. By the boxscore it's just a less productive team.

Writeups
As Q has said Dr S seems to write some smart things and has very tight grip on how he wants his team to play.

Still I think he's overselling on a couple of issues. Q has already raised that KJ though not a 30% usage type guy was leading some strong Phoenix offenses before Barkley. He should have no trouble getting past Nash and when Chandler isn't in there's no rim protector, the only concern is if Wallace can finish if he gets the dish.

The other thing that stood out to me was the notion that Daugherty would more than give back what he provides on O. Daugherty could destroy a defensive non-entity like STAT (and pick apart defenses with his passing - one reason I suspected I wouldn't get him when decided to pass on him in the 8th round, I saw Q with Adelman in place, no second unit center, no strong offensive center and thought "he's taking Daugherty" - and plays a mean pick and roll). He was a competent, solid defensive defender (just not a shot blocker, helper, though to a small extent that was because "Hot Rod" and Nance played that role) and whilst Amar'e is a bad matchup on that end, so he gives quite a bit back I really don't like Amar'e guarding him. It might have been moot though since Q said he'd try to match Ben with Stoudemire and Brad with Chandler, but if Chandler's just picking up the scraps of the big man minutes then Daugherty versus a poor defender becomes an issue. Amar'e was an amazing offensive player and him with Nash is a proven success story, I just feel he was a reach where he was picked in this and his flaws are more exposed against these elite teams.

I'm not sure I buy into Worthy as a devastating force and a go to guy. He always seemed smooth and looked like he had the skills. Still for the span selected he had a 22.5 usage%, and shot a strong, but not breathtaking .577 ts% doing so in a weak conference against weak defensive forwards (80s SFs for the most part didn't tend to specialise in D, Bill Simmons even suggested "Bird delighted in torching Chambers, Alex English, Kelly Tripucka and Kiki Vandeweghe. If he had played for a West Coast team in the mid-’80s, you could have added 3 PPG to Bird’s averages from those four guys alone". That's hyperbole and there were defensive minded exceptions in that era like Pressey and McCray, still ...) whilst playing with Magic (admittedly now he's playing with Nash). Worthy at the three also means not having, say, Rodman attacking the one weak spot in Qs otherwise impenetrable rebounding first unit frontline. My initial thought was implications that Peja was a defensive liability may have been overstated, but Q acknowledged first that it was a concern so maybe Peja is worse than I recalled on D and/or gets his confidence damaged by swift yankings), if so Prince whilst a passable offensive player does become a significant downgrade.

On the flip side Q probably oversold his "I have 3-shooters" angle, given a lot of those mentioned won't be on the court so much (rightly so imo; and fwiw Cooper is solid but those playoffs look fairly flukey). Still I don't think I see spacing as a major problem, KJ was a very good shooter up to about 19 feet, Drexler will often be operating from the post, Garnett has good range for a PF and critically, as covered before, I'm not sure I'm convinced about Peja being bullied off the court. Then too as Q notes (whilst probably over casually dismissing Iggy and perhaps ignoring Doug Christie) with Hornacek yanked from the rotation, the three point threat on the other side is somewhat diminished.

George Karl + Dennis Rodman (albeit young Dennis Rodman) might be a tad combustible too.

That's my initial reactions. The numbers seem to tilt for Q too. Tactically I'd be happy if Q wasn't going through because IIRC you guys are in my half of the draft and I "fear" Q more (at least on paper, and particularly on first 5s more than overall and I haven't looked at matchups).

Okay well I'll withhold any voting for now, because I should hear discussions, see if I'm wrong on anything, missing something massive (maybe look closer for flaws on Qs side and re-read Dr S' arguments), but as of right now I'm clearly leaning a win for Q's team.

[trex_8063]

Thru post #32:

Quotatious (4) - trex_8063, JeepCSC, Warspite, Owly

Dr. Spaceman (0)