Discussing Other Teams' Moves Part 2

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

Perfect opportunity to try-out Machado after Mack's 10-day is up. Mack isn't a keeper.

Interesting call by the Rockets to sign Patrick Beverly out of Euroleague play to a guaranteed deal. That is why they waived Machado's partially guaranteed deal.

http://www.hoopsrumors.com/2012/12/patr ... ckets.html

Machado can definitely step right in and help the Wizards if he's brought in for Mack.

[closg00]

He's gotta jumpshot, should we give Jorts a try???

http://basketball.realgm.com/wiretap/22 ... ed_By_Heat

Harrellson Waived By Heat
Jan 07, 2013 2:39 PM EST


The Miami Heat have waived Josh Harrellson.

With Harrellson's release, the Heat have two roster spots open.

Harrellson would be more useful to us than Vesely.

[Nivek]

Nearly any basketball player would be more useful to the Wizards than Vesely.

[hands11]

http://basketball.realgm.com/wiretap/22 ... orn_Labrum

Well that trade worked out well for both teams.

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

Dwight Howard is out indefinitely with a torn labrum.

That is certainly not to be confused with a torn labia. This gave me a chuckle:

http://tnation.t-nation.com/free_online ... torn_labia

This conversation occured this morning at about 5:35am, it made my whole day.

I show up at the gym and one of the regulars is there with his arm in a sling, you could tell he was waiting for someone to ask what happened, so I bite. He's a nice enough guy but will talk your ear off, and is one of those guys who benches in the Smith with wrist straps and half reps.

Me: Hey, what did you do to your arm.

Him: Dude, I was benching yesterday, getting like 315, then I felt a sharp pain in my shoulder. It bothered me all day so I finally got in to see the doctor and he took an X-ray and said it is probably a torn labia.

Me: A torn Labia, you sure he didnt say labrum?

Him: No, he said torn Labia, he said it is a pretty common bench press injury. He wants to do an MRI to make sure though.

Me: Man, I bet that hurts like hell.

Him: Its not to bad now just a little sore and stiff.

Me: Oh man, I can see how a torn labia would feel stiff. I think I may have torn a labia or two when I was in college, never checked it out though.

Him: Yea, you might have, the doctor says it happens alot and people dont even know it.

Me: I dont know man, if you tear a labia its gotta hurt pretty bad, I think you would know.

Him: Yea, I know I felt it.

Me: Well, I gotta get started. Take it easy and do what the doctor says, make sure you let that Labia heal before you hit it again.

I had to bite my lip to keep from laughing this whole time. He was totally serious about the whole thing.

[badinage]

So the Grizzlies are now in talks with the Suns about Rudy Gay.

I think this is a big mistake for Memphis. They're playing really good ball, and with Randolph out no less.

But in comes John Hollinger, and he identifies Gay as inefficient, and so a good team is going to tamper with a good thing and send out the one player on the roster who can create his own shot.

An advanced stat-head like Hollinger looks at a recent boxscore and thinks: Hmm, Gay shot 8-19 in delivering another 21 point game, ho hum. Well, that's pretty inefficient, and pretty typical -- if only he would take 11 shots, and we could distribute those other 8 shots. 8 possessions: we could be so much more efficient!

As if those other 8 shots are guaranteed to be better shots in other players hands.

As if subtracting Gay would make things more coherent and not harder for the rest of the players.

I can't think of a team other than the Pistons of Hamilton, Wallace, Prince et. al. that distributed shots so evenly among its key players.

You need a guy to create, and yes, that guy often takes more shots than his teammates. He is also often relied upon at the end of halves or on key possessions or when all else breaks down to go one-on-one, thus driving down his "efficiency."

(I personally dislike the term "efficiency." It smacks of the Third Reich whenever I hear it. What's wrong with the word "effective." Ah, not so NOW, not so sexy.)

Does anyone know if there are stats to measure what a player like Kobe Bryant or another, ball-dominating star does -- drawing double-teams or traps and thereby freeing up space for other players? My read on things is that the advanced stat-heads are very unforgiving of ball-dominating players, while being overly enamored of the "efficient" (ooh, chills) player who makes few mistakes and drills his shots when he gets them. The latter guy can only succeed, it seems to me, in an environment in which you have a focus-pulling player like Bryant or Melo, etc.

I'm not putting Gay in their class. But I really doubt that Gay is keeping that team back, and that removing him from the mix is going to put that team in a better position. (In a better position financially, sure -- but to do what, ultimately?)

I think it's stat-head hubris.

[tontoz]

^^ I think there is some truth in this. If you look at the leaders (last year) in offensive rating

http://www.basketball-reference.com/lea ... anced.html

you can see a lot of guys who are getting easy looks because the defense is focused on someone else.

With only 24 seconds on the clock there are going to be a lot of times when a player will have to create a shot on his own at the end of the clock. Generally the best shot creator will be taking most of those shots but they will be heavily contested looks most of the time.

[LyricalRico]

I think it's stat-head hubris.

Well, there's also the money issue. They paid Gasol last summer, and will have to re-sign Z-Bo (and I also believe Tony Allen). Not to mention that they also need to spend for quality depth at several positions. Gay's contract has always made the most sense as the one to be moved IMO.

[tontoz]

I think it's stat-head hubris.

Well, there's also the money issue. They paid Gasol last summer, and will have to re-sign Z-Bo (and I also believe Tony Allen). Not to mention that they also need to spend for quality depth at several positions. Gay's contract has always made the most sense as the one to be moved IMO.

Yeah we have seen that coming for awhile just like with Harden. Small market teams aren't going to pay the luxury tax.

[Nivek]

A "created" shot is valuable when it goes in. Not every time, obviously, but at a better rate than an alternative shot from a teammate.

It's kinda funny that this is coming up since Hollinger would be one of the stat guys most likely to overvalue Gay because of his reliance on PER, which sets the efficiency bar so low. Basically, a player can increase his PER merely by shooting more frequently, so long as he makes more than ~27%. PER rewards guys who "create" (and miss) shots.

Let's take efficiency (or effectiveness) out of the conversation for a moment. Gay rebounds and assists less than the average player. He gets more steals and is average at blocking shots. He commits more turnovers than average. Now add in the shooting and he's well-below league average from 2pt and 3pt range. His on/off numbers are good this year, but co-linearity is an issue. Using RAPM, he's a slight positive -- about half a point per 100 possessions. Interestingly, he shows up as a net negative on offense (-0.43 pts per 100 possessions); and a solid positive on defense (+0.95).

Good shot creators are extremely valuable. There aren't that many good ones, though -- good meaning players who MAKE their created shots. Gay isn't a good shot creator. Anyone can miss shots.

The biggest argument I see against Memphis trading Gay is that they don't have a good replacement for him. That issue is resolved if they deal with Phoenix and get Dudley, who's having a better year and making about a quarter what Gay is. Gay for Dudley and Beasley works. Don't imagine Hollinger would be interested in acquiring Beasley, though.

[LyricalRico]

Verajao out 6-8 weeks after knee surgery. Cleveland may have missed their chance to get great value for him in a trade.

[tontoz]

Verajao out 6-8 weeks after knee surgery. Cleveland may have missed their chance to get great value for him in a trade.

This makes them a much bigger threat in the tank race though.

[nate33]

Verajao out 6-8 weeks after knee surgery. Cleveland may have missed their chance to get great value for him in a trade.

That really is too bad for Cleveland. Vesely would have been the perfect asset to trade to a contending team.

The good news is that Okafor may now be one of the best bigs among those who are realistically available. Dalembert is out there too, but he has been terrible this year and has missed a bunch of games due to injury. I sincerely hope that EG is working the phones at the Trade Deadline to set up an Okafor trade. I like Okafor, but there is no logical reason to keep two, highly paid veteran bigs on this ball club.

[nate33]

A "created" shot is valuable when it goes in. Not every time, obviously, but at a better rate than an alternative shot from a teammate.

It's kinda funny that this is coming up since Hollinger would be one of the stat guys most likely to overvalue Gay because of his reliance on PER, which sets the efficiency bar so low. Basically, a player can increase his PER merely by shooting more frequently, so long as he makes more than ~27%. PER rewards guys who "create" (and miss) shots.

Nivek, I understand your point that PER shouldn't go up with percentages in low 30's. But at the same time, I think there is something to the argument that players who can "create shots" are a little more valuable than what their shooting efficiency alone suggests. A shot creator is needed in order to set up those high efficiency shots that good low-usage role players take and make. For that reason, a shot creator who can create shots at slightly less than league average efficiency is still an asset, because his teammates won't be shooting an average efficiency if it were not for him getting them open.

I don't know what the "break even" point should be. I agree that Hollinger's break even percentage of 27% seems low; but my gut tells me that it shouldn't be as high as 53% (which is the league average TS%) either. What is your "break even" percentage, and how did you arrive at that number?

[Nivek]

The break-even point on shooting from the floor in PPA varies from season to season based on offensive rebounding rates. That point has been rising as offensive rebounding has fallen off in recent years. For this season so far, the break-even is a TS% of about 43%. For PER, it's about 31%.

As I said above, shot creators are valuable when they're making those created shots at a marginal rate that's better than an alternative shot from a teammate. I agree that creators have more value than their pure shooting percentage suggests.

Gay, for example, actually has net credits in PPA for his shooting from the floor and the FT line. He loses ground because of his subpar assists and turnovers, as well as his subpar rebounding.