The Amazingly Sucky Wes Unseld Jr. Thread

[payitforward]

I described myself as unqualified to judge NBA coaches, because I was about to write that you are unqualified to do so, & I didn't wish to appear to be making a claim that I can do something you can't do.

TBH, I would have thought that was obvious. Ordinary civility.
Meanwhile, you've proceeded to raise this into some kind of rant contra WUJ motivated by I don't know what.

Since you can't cite even one objective basketball fact that could be construed as proceeding from a coach or coaching or coach-determined strategy or even present any description of anything that actually happens on the court that might indicate effective or ineffective coaching, there is no reason to take even slightly seriously the irrelevant stuff you do write. I doubt anyone does.

Nor is that, as you seem to think, some kind of enthusiastic statement of my support for WUJ. This team is terrible. But the idea of pointing a finger at coaching instead of at the players & the FO that chose the players is ridiculous on the face of it.

All the same, if it appeals to you to continue riding your little hobby horse, I would not wish to discourage you. Yippy Yi Oh! Ride 'em cowboy.

[leswizards]

I described myself as unqualified to judge NBA coaches, because I was about to write that you are unqualified to do so, & I didn't wish to appear to be making a claim that I can do something you can't do.

TBH, I would have thought that was obvious. Ordinary civility.
Meanwhile, you've proceeded to raise this into some kind of rant contra WUJ motivated by I don't know what.

Since you can't cite even one objective basketball fact that could be construed as proceeding from a coach or coaching or coach-determined strategy or even present any description of anything that actually happens on the court that might indicate effective or ineffective coaching, there is no reason to take even slightly seriously the irrelevant stuff you do write. I doubt anyone does.

Nor is that, as you seem to think, some kind of enthusiastic statement of my support for WUJ. This team is terrible. But the idea of pointing a finger at coaching instead of at the players & the FO that chose the players is ridiculous on the face of it.

All the same, if it appeals to you to continue riding your little hobby horse, I would not wish to discourage you. Yippy Yi Oh! Ride 'em cowboy.

You are all assertions and no facts. And when you present facts you lie and misrepresent them.

You were correct that you are unqualified to judge nba coaches no matter how you would like to take that statement back.

[payitforward]

...I am saying that you can use a player’s drtg to identify when that player was coached by wuj. The fact that players consistently have a career low team dominated stat the year they played for wuj is a pretty strong indictment of wuj’s coaching.

Just for clarity -- you are talking about what can be seen in data from this year & last year, right? I.e. the almost 2 years in which WUJ has been a head coach? Am I understanding you correctly?

[leswizards]

...I am saying that you can use a player’s drtg to identify when that player was coached by wuj. The fact that players consistently have a career low team dominated stat the year they played for wuj is a pretty strong indictment of wuj’s coaching.

Just for clarity -- you are talking about what can be seen in data from this year & last year, right? I.e. the almost 2 years in which WUJ has been a head coach? Am I understanding you correctly?

I am not sure what I am clarifying. If you rank a player’s drtg for his whole career, using drtg, you can figure out the year(s) that they played for wuj simply by looking for their career low drtg. It is not 100%, but it is highly accurate.

[leswizards]

If I were to show you or anyone a set of annual numbers for a few randomized years of a player's career in which he played for different coaches, & you didn't know what the years were, you would hard pressed to pick out who the coach was for each of those years.       

That is false. It is demonstrably false. And, I can prove it.

Is the player having a career low in drtg? If so, that is the year(s) that he played for wuj.

Does the player have more career low season’s in drtg than he played for wuj? If so, did he also have a career low in ortg in one of those seasons? If so, he played for wuj that season. If not, pick the season that his ws/48 was lower.

With those 2 rules, you can correctly predict what season players who have played for wuj 16 out of 28 times.

Only counting players who played for others coaches and who played more than 200 minutes in a season.

Edit: I guess that I should add that if you just randomly guessed, you would expect to get 4.5 out 28 seasons correct.

DRtg is as much a team stat as it is an individual stat. If you take Rui, and have him play the exact same defense, but put him alongside Anthony Davis, his DRtg will improve.

You may be right that there is a trend of statistical improvement for guys who leave WUJ, but DRtg is a very dicey way to make that argument. I'd be much more convinced if you could make the argument with box score based summary stats like PER, WS/48, TS% and ORtg.

Is this allowed, if a player has enough seasons to exclude his rookie and sophomore seasons, rank his ws/48? If it is a career low (excluding rookie and sophomore season) for ws/48, it is the year he played for wuj. I didn’t go all the way through. I was able to identify 7 seasons using this rule, and had a lot of players left to go through.

[Frichuela]

Give me someone like Kenny Atkinson in the off-season please.

Wes was a nepotistic hire…we all know it.

[payitforward]

First off, I have no idea how either ortg or drtg is actually calculated, & I see no reason to feel confidence in anything they tell us.

Still, let's assume that even if neither is actually accurate in itself, the difference between them can still tell us something. I.e. if a player allows more points than he adds, that's bad.

Along those lines, it seems kind of obvious that the difference between ortg & drtg is the significant metric -- not either one on its own. Especially if we're trying to judge the coach not the player.

If playing for coach Bob Smith causes a guy's drtg to be worse by 5 points that is bad, sure. But if it also causes his ortg to go up by 10 points, it's obvious that the net result is a benefit! You'd like that result for every player on that team!

With these points in mind, let's look at the differential in numbers for this year's Wizards.

Kyle Kuzma is at a career low.
Will Barton, with us, was pretty near his career worst.
Taj Gibson is near a career low.

Thus, the data for Kuzma, Barton, & Gibson support your point.
In the case of Barton & Gibson the fall off on the offensive end is the larger problem in their differentials (although Barton's drtg has never been good!), while Kuzma has gotten worse on offense & defense alike.

OTOH...

Monte Morris is at his career average.
Bradley Beal is just about at his career average.
Daniel Gafford is at his career average.

Thus the data for those 3 players contribute nothing to the point you'd like to make about WUJ as a coach. Plus...

Delon Wright is at a career high.
Anthony Gill is at his career high.
Kristaps Porzingis is at a career high.

The data for Wright, Gill & Porzingis (especially) support the opposite of your point.

For obvious reasons, I didn't bother to look at data for Avdija, Kispert, Goodwin, Todd, or Nunn. & in Rui's case, his drtg has essentially never varied across 4 seasons & 3 coaches.

[FAH1223]

I like Wes but it's probably time to find a coach who can do more with less.

But we need a new GM to go along with a new HC. Tommy Sheppard should not be the one hiring another coach!

[leswizards]

First off, I have no idea how either ortg or drtg is actually calculated, & I see no reason to feel confidence in anything they tell us.

Still, let's assume that even if neither is actually accurate in itself, the difference between them can still tell us something. I.e. if a player allows more points than he adds, that's bad.

Along those lines, it seems kind of obvious that the difference between ortg & drtg is the significant metric -- not either one on its own. Especially if we're trying to judge the coach not the player.

If playing for coach Bob Smith causes a guy's drtg to be worse by 5 points that is bad, sure. But if it also causes his ortg to go up by 10 points, it's obvious that the net result is a benefit! You'd like that result for every player on that team!

With these points in mind, let's look at the differential in numbers for this year's Wizards.

Kyle Kuzma is at a career low.
Will Barton, with us, was pretty near his career worst.
Taj Gibson is near a career low.

Thus, the data for Kuzma, Barton, & Gibson support your point.
In the case of Barton & Gibson the fall off on the offensive end is the larger problem in their differentials (although Barton's drtg has never been good!), while Kuzma has gotten worse on offense & defense alike.

OTOH...

Monte Morris is at his career average.
Bradley Beal is just about at his career average.
Daniel Gafford is at his career average.

Thus the data for those 3 players contribute nothing to the point you'd like to make about WUJ as a coach. Plus...

Delon Wright is at a career high.
Anthony Gill is at his career high.
Kristaps Porzingis is at a career high.

The data for Wright, Gill & Porzingis (especially) support the opposite of your point.

For obvious reasons, I didn't bother to look at data for Avdija, Kispert, Goodwin, Todd, or Nunn. & in Rui's case, his drtg has essentially never varied across 4 seasons & 3 coaches.

I did the math very quickly, so my numbers might not be exact, but they are close enough. Subtract ortg from drtg, exclude sophomore and rookie seasons and 7 seasons out of 20 have been career lows for wizards playing under wuj. So, even using your statistic, you have a better than random chance of predicting if the player played for wuj, simply by observing a career low.

[AFM]

this fella coming up with all sorts of new equations... albert einstein of throwing WUJ under the bus

[payitforward]

...Subtract ortg from drtg, exclude sophomore and rookie seasons and 7 seasons out of 20 have been career lows for wizards playing under wuj....

Not following a couple of things:

1. E.g. Taj Gibson alone has played 14 seasons. I.e. 12 using your criteria. So I don't understand where your set of "20" comes from.

2. Subtracting ortg from drtg actually hides a flaw in logic (which I might have fallen into as well, come to think of it): suppose a guy's drtg goes up by 1, but his ortg goes up by 2. He's better on both sides of the equation, right?

But your logic has him with a "low" season in drtg. Which obviously makes no sense.
(Am I misunderstanding your method?)

3. Why don't you simply use per 36-minute figures for the defensive stats you like (e.g. defensive boards, steals, low number of fouls, etc.) & see if they let you make your case.

We know what those numbers mean. But, we have no idea how ortg or drtg are calculated.

4. Finally, I read an interesting piece a few years ago (analytics not journalism) demonstrating how much defensive depends on "team" rather than "individual." I can't point you at it for the moment but will scour what's left of my memory & try to come up w/ it.

[doclinkin]

I did the math very quickly, so my numbers might not be exact, but they are close enough. Subtract ortg from drtg, exclude sophomore and rookie seasons and 7 seasons out of 20 have been career lows for wizards playing under wuj.

Here's a question. Why is it fair to throw out the rookie and sophomore seasons for the players?

And not do the same for the coach.

Brand new head coach, with significant turnover both seasons, radically remaking his team mid-season last year after chemistry issues blew everything sideways. Whose rookie pick was unable to earn time on the team. Whose 3rd and 4th year players have incomplete games, to the extent where one was shunted away for a pair of 2nd rounders.

A coach who has been undermined in his authority by a top player who has management level control, yet who has missed a significant chunk of the season due to injury. A coach who is under mandate to make the play-in tourney, by the misguidance of the owner who wants to sell the illusion that the team is a winning franchise, but not actually do the work to get it there. A coach who sees that we will soon be weighted by the impending iceberg of an unconscionably huge contract extension coming to his purported 'best' player. A player who despite contending for the scoring title one year has never been able to carry the team to a .500 record as the undisputed leader of 'his' team.

ALL in a year when the smart money says there is a franchise changing talent coming in the draft, while we have no way of changing the direction of the team unless we get unreasonably lucky in that lotto. But where we will lose the pick unless we are in that lotto.

All incentive is towards pulling off a stealth tank. To try to convince the owner that it would be unreasonable to overpay for this particular free agent. And to suggest that we really tried hard to win, but just weren't good enough. So there is no dishonor in landing in the lottery.

This on a team that was one of the first to pour serious money into data and analytics, and who has a stats guru as an assistant coach. Who clearly can see which combinations are sure losers able to pi55 away MULTIPLE 20 pt leads in a season. A statistical aberration that is unmatched in NBA history.

Seems to me, where the Spurs have tanked honorably, by trusting their fanbase will understand, and playing young cats in a developmental year. The Wizards have tried to play both games. To look like they are winning. WIth a 'mid-build' with no mid-year swap or radical move by a restless GM to nudge the team towards slightly better numbers this year. But to massage losses out of possible wins, despite other teams resting their best players against them.

Nobody thinks it suspicious, or even telling, that our 2nd and 4th most used 5 man squads are in the negative on +/-, as though the front office analytical guys who fetishize defensive +/- would say absolutely nothing about giving the 4th most minutes on the team to Corey Kispert who carried the team to -4pts/100 possessions.

In my opinion, it is tough to judge the rookie and sophomore year Wes, based on this situation that he was given to manage. Especially not in a year when a smart coach should be trying to lose. While somehow not losing the faith of the owner. The players. And the fanbase.

[leswizards]

this fella coming up with all sorts of new equations... albert einstein of throwing WUJ under the bus

I’m not inventing any new equations. That was all pif, and he did it because he thought it would show that wuj wasn’t a bad coach. I simply used his equation to show that players still consistently have career lows beyond what would randomly occur.

[leswizards]

...Subtract ortg from drtg, exclude sophomore and rookie seasons and 7 seasons out of 20 have been career lows for wizards playing under wuj....

Not following a couple of things:

1. E.g. Taj Gibson alone has played 14 seasons. I.e. 12 using your criteria. So I don't understand where your set of "20" comes from.

2. Subtracting ortg from drtg actually hides a flaw in logic (which I might have fallen into as well, come to think of it): suppose a guy's drtg goes up by 1, but his ortg goes up by 2. He's better on both sides of the equation, right?

But your logic has him with a "low" season in drtg. Which obviously makes no sense.
(Am I misunderstanding your method?)

3. Why don't you simply use per 36-minute figures for the defensive stats you like (e.g. defensive boards, steals, low number of fouls, etc.) & see if they let you make your case.

We know what those numbers mean. But, we have no idea how ortg or drtg are calculated.

4. Finally, I read an interesting piece a few years ago (analytics not journalism) demonstrating how much defensive depends on "team" rather than "individual." I can't point you at it for the moment but will scour what's left of my memory & try to come up w/ it.

1. You are only trying to predict 1 of Raj’s season. Not all 10.

2. If there is a flaw in the logic, it is all yours. You were the one who wanted to use this stat.

3. You falsely claimed that you couldn’t use stats to predict when a player played for a coach. I have already shown that is false. You can use drtg, ws/48 and you can use the stat you created to predict better than random chance what season a player played for wuj. All you have to do is look for the career low in the stat. I don’t feel the need to use any other stats to prove you wrong once again.

[leswizards]

I did the math very quickly, so my numbers might not be exact, but they are close enough. Subtract ortg from drtg, exclude sophomore and rookie seasons and 7 seasons out of 20 have been career lows for wizards playing under wuj.

Here's a question. Why is it fair to throw out the rookie and sophomore seasons for the players?

And not do the same for the coach.

Initially, I didn’t exclude the rookie and sophomore season. And I would prefer not to. But, pif wouldn’t admit he was wrong after I showed he was wrong and claimed I had to use his new stat. I used his new stat and still showed he wrong.

The Wizards have had 2 losing seasons under wuj. Wuj gives Kuzma the team leading mpg. Kuzma is awful but is in line to get $30 million a year. At most, the Wizards are going to get a mid lottery pick who only has a 30% chance of being good. Why any of this fill’s anyone with optimism for next season is beyond me.

[payitforward]

...Subtract ortg from drtg, exclude sophomore and rookie seasons and 7 seasons out of 20 have been career lows for wizards playing under wuj....

Not following a couple of things:

1. E.g. Taj Gibson alone has played 14 seasons. I.e. 12 using your criteria. So I don't understand where your set of "20" comes from.

2. Subtracting ortg from drtg actually hides a flaw in logic (which I might have fallen into as well, come to think of it): suppose a guy's drtg goes up by 1, but his ortg goes up by 2. He's better on both sides of the equation, right?

But your logic has him with a "low" season in drtg. Which obviously makes no sense.
(Am I misunderstanding your method?)

3. Why don't you simply use per 36-minute figures for the defensive stats you like (e.g. defensive boards, steals, low number of fouls, etc.) & see if they let you make your case.

We know what those numbers mean. But, we have no idea how ortg or drtg are calculated.

4. Finally, I read an interesting piece a few years ago (analytics not journalism) demonstrating how much defensive depends on "team" rather than "individual." I can't point you at it for the moment but will scour what's left of my memory & try to come up w/ it.

1. You are only trying to predict 1 of Raj’s season. Not all 10.

2. If there is a flaw in the logic, it is all yours. You were the one who wanted to use this stat.

3. You falsely claimed that you couldn’t use stats to predict when a player played for a coach. I have already shown that is false. You can use drtg, ws/48 and you can use the stat you created to predict better than random chance what season a player played for wuj. All you have to do is look for the career low in the stat. I don’t feel the need to use any other stats to prove you wrong once again.

Man... I wasn't arguing with you; I was trying to understand what you had written.

Sadly, it's a waste of time. Back on ignore you go!

[DCZards]

I did the math very quickly, so my numbers might not be exact, but they are close enough. Subtract ortg from drtg, exclude sophomore and rookie seasons and 7 seasons out of 20 have been career lows for wizards playing under wuj.

Here's a question. Why is it fair to throw out the rookie and sophomore seasons for the players?

And not do the same for the coach.

Initially, I didn’t exclude the rookie and sophomore season. And I would prefer not to. But, pif wouldn’t admit he was wrong after I showed he was wrong and claimed I had to use his new stat. I used his new stat and still showed he wrong.

The Wizards have had 2 losing seasons under wuj. Wuj gives Kuzma the team leading mpg. Kuzma is awful but is in line to get $30 million a year. At most, the Wizards are going to get a mid lottery pick who only has a 30% chance of being good. Why any of this fill’s anyone with optimism for next season is beyond me.

No one here seems to be filled with optimism about the Zards. But most here aren’t totally blaming the coach for the performance of individual players…which you appear to be doing.

Doc’s post does a great job of breaking down what’s gone wrong for the Zards the last two seasons—very little of which has to do with Wes Jr.’s performance as a first and second year coach.

[payitforward]

But, before I throw the digital blanket over your braying, with this...

...Kuzma is awful but is in line to get $30 million a year. ...Why any of this fill’s anyone with optimism for next season is beyond me.

...I am in accord.

[payitforward]

...it is tough to judge the rookie and sophomore year Wes, based on this situation that he was given to manage. Especially not in a year when a smart coach should be trying to lose. While somehow not losing the faith of the owner. The players. And the fanbase.

I'd say it's simpler than that. We won 38 games in '18-19. Since then...

1. we haven't added a single outstanding player through the draft.
2. we have added only one good player via free agency -- defensive specialist Delon Wright.
3. we haven't added a single outstanding player via trade.
(No doubt some of you will argue that KP is an outstanding player. Despite the fact that our record with him on the court -- last season, this season, & both seasons combined -- is worse than our record with him not playing.)

It's not that we haven't made any good trade moves in these 4 seasons -- acquiring Gafford was terrific, turning a huge roster problem into Porzingis was too (even if KP himself isn't the winning factor one would like him to be), & getting the team out from under Wall's contract was obviously an enormous positive.

Unfortunately, 4 years of dead-weight draft work outweigh all the positives on the scale. Add to that the decision that Kyle Kuzma was a member of some mythical big three -- rather than a throw-in part of a trade who should have been moved on for picks immediately -- & you have a formula for turning a 30-something win team into another 30-something win team.

None of this -- not a bit of it -- reflects on Wes Unseld Jr.

* One of the greatest coaches in the history of the game, Greg Popovich, is going to win @21-22 games this year. His coaching has nothing to do with that. But the players on his roster do.
* Pistons coach, Dwayne Casey, has a history of some reasonable success; he's got 16 wins so far this season. It's not him; it's the players on Detroit's roster.
* Rick Carlisle has had a gaudily successful career as an NBA coach. Not this year, however. He hasn't changed; he's just coaching a team that's rebuilding.
* In '20-21 J.B. Bickerstaff coached the Cavs to a 22-50 record. This year they're at 48-28. The coach is the same. But the roster sure isn't!

You need to conclude that someone is "bad?" Turn your lens on Ted Leonsis & (I'm sorry to say) Tommy Sheppard.

Their priorities, their analyses & their decisions have created our roster. & our roster is what has produced our record. Wes had nothing to do with any of that.

[leswizards]

...it is tough to judge the rookie and sophomore year Wes, based on this situation that he was given to manage. Especially not in a year when a smart coach should be trying to lose. While somehow not losing the faith of the owner. The players. And the fanbase.

I'd say it's simpler than that. We won 38 games in '18-19. Since then...

1. we haven't added a single outstanding player through the draft.
2. we have added only one good player via free agency -- defensive specialist Delon Wright.
3. we haven't added a single outstanding player via trade.
(No doubt some of you will argue that KP is an outstanding player. Despite the fact that our record with him on the court -- last season, this season, & both seasons combined -- is worse than our record with him not playing.)

It's not that we haven't made any good trade moves in these 4 seasons -- acquiring Gafford was terrific, turning a huge roster problem into Porzingis was too (even if KP himself isn't the winning factor one would like him to be), & getting the team out from under Wall's contract was obviously an enormous positive.

Unfortunately, 4 years of dead-weight draft work outweigh all the positives on the scale. Add to that the decision that Kyle Kuzma was a member of some mythical big three -- rather than a throw-in part of a trade who should have been moved on for picks immediately -- & you have a formula for turning a 30-something win team into another 30-something win team.

None of this -- not a bit of it -- reflects on Wes Unseld Jr.

* One of the greatest coaches in the history of the game, Greg Popovich, is going to win @21-22 games this year. His coaching has nothing to do with that. But the players on his roster do.
* Pistons coach, Dwayne Casey, has a history of some reasonable success; he's got 16 wins so far this season. It's not him; it's the players on Detroit's roster.
* Rick Carlisle has had a gaudily successful career as an NBA coach. Not this year, however. He hasn't changed; he's just coaching a team that's rebuilding.
* In '20-21 J.B. Bickerstaff coached the Cavs to a 22-50 record. This year they're at 48-28. The coach is the same. But the roster sure isn't!

You need to conclude that someone is "bad?" Turn your lens on Ted Leonsis & (I'm sorry to say) Tommy Sheppard.

Their priorities, their analyses & their decisions have created our roster. & our roster is what has produced our record. Wes had nothing to do with any of that.

First, you consistently make false statements, and then refuse to correct them when they are pointed out, so I am glad you have me on ignore.

Second, you made a false statement regarding free agents. Shep has added 2 very good free agents. He added Spencer Dinwiddie. Wuj got 14 good games out of him, then something happened behind the scenes, and wuj ended up being unable to get full value out Dinwiddie.

Third, replace the owner and gm, and as long as wuj is still coach, there will be no improvement in the wizards. Fire wuj, and replace him with someone who sticks Kuzma on the end of the bench, gives Gafford 30 mpg, and coaches better team defense than wuj does, and the team shows instant improvement. But season is basically over, so it doesn’t matter.