The Amazingly Sucky Jordan Poole Thread

[tontoz]

This month Poole has a TS of 39.4%. He's the Crown Prince of Suck.

[Frichuela]

This month Poole has a TS of 39.4%. He's the Crown Prince of Suck.

Let's hear it for our hall of fame Tank Commander Jordan Anthony Poole...

[CntOutSmrtCrazy]

This month Poole has a TS of 39.4%. He's the Crown Prince of Suck.

Dude, he's the Galactic Emperor of Suck. There will be no New Hope.

[AFM]

I don't really know much about Keefe but it doesn't surprise me an interim coach doesn't want to bench Poole.

[doclinkin]

Telling you. I don't think this front office buys the narrative that there are no good players at the top of the draft. I think they are dialed in on one particular player and want to shave every % point they can in their favor. Extra wins now help nothing, we need allstars. The best way for this team to get one is to land him in the draft. I don't think we have players on the team currently that we would be 'hurting' by letting Poole lose us games. Deni is improving. Bilal has a long career ahead of him. Who else are we supposedly developing? Let Poole play, keep out the way. We are just too used to trying to scrap for pointless wins that we don't really see nor respect a good tank properly driven.

[nate33]

Telling you. I don't think this front office buys the narrative that there are no good players at the top of the draft. I think they are dialed in on one particular player and want to shave every % point they can in their favor. Extra wins now help nothing, we need allstars. The best way for this team to get one is to land him in the draft. I don't think we have players on the team currently that we would be 'hurting' by letting Poole lose us games. Deni is improving. Bilal has a long career ahead of him. Who else are we supposedly developing? Let Poole play, keep out the way. We are just too used to trying to scrap for pointless wins that we don't really see nor respect a good tank properly driven.

The odds of landing the 1st, 2nd, 3rd or 4th pick are exactly the same whether you finish with the worst, second-worst or third-worst record. The odds only drop slightly if you finish fourth-worst. The distinction between worst and third-worst position only starts to matter in the low likelihood scenario that two or three teams leapfrog us in the lottery and we are talking about the odds differential between 5th, 6th and 7th pick.

Here's a simpler way to look at it: we aren't catching San Antonio. Now that Wemby is playing center, they're halfway competent, winning 6 of their last 20 games. They are definitely outplaying us and already have a 2-game lead on us in the loss column. So, benching Jordan Poole could conceivably cause us to pass Charlotte in the standings, but that's about it.

Our current trajectory has us finishing 2nd-worst with the following pick odds:
#1 14.0
#2 13.4
#3 12.7
#4 12.0
#5 27.8
#6 20.0

If starting Kispert replacing Poole causes us to catch Charlotte, our pick odds change to:
#1 14.0
#2 13.4
#3 12.7
#4 12.0
#5 14.8
#6 26.0
#7 7.0

I just don't think it's such a big deal that it's worth impairing the development of Kispert and Butler, not to mention the overall boost in morale you get if you believe the system is a meritocracy. There's only a 23% chance that both us and Charlotte finish out of the top 4 so that the distinction between our respective records actually matters. And if that 23% chance were to come to pass, it would only mean a fall from 5th to 6th.

[doclinkin]

Here's a simpler way to look at it: we aren't catching San Antonio. Now that Wemby is playing center, they're halfway competent, winning 6 of their last 20 games. They are definitely outplaying us and already have a 2-game lead on us in the loss column. So, benching Jordan Poole could conceivably cause us to pass Charlotte in the standings, but that's about it.

So what you're saying is: the tank worked!

BRef suggests we still have a 30% chance to end up with the worst record.

https://www.basketball-reference.com/friv/proj_draft.html

Post lottery the strongest odds are that we end up with the 5th pick (28%).
With the 3rd or 4th worst record our strongest chance is to end up with the 6th pick (21% and 23%).

You have to assume the team has weighed the relative merits of developing Kispert and Butler and decided that neither will end up an all-star. Therefore in the scheme of earning a championship their development is irrelevant. At least until we land a superstar. In fact if their play moderately improves our team, then our %'s of landing a star in future years also decreases.

Granted, the point is not to deliberately stunt individual growth. But so far championships have not been won with moderate improvement by role players. If the goal is dynastic contention for a championship, then to sell out on the Process (tm) is still the best way to go. If we can reclaim and recover the value of a player like Poole, awesome. In the meantime it makes sense to put an entertaining team out there that scores a ton of points and loses. Okay if they lose close, awesome. If they lose and young cats get better, nice and to be expected. But when it comes to the chance of landing a franchise savior you have to scrap for every possible % advantage, year after year.

Our front office is not stupid. Neither is San Antonio who managed to tank for a good chunk of the year by playing guys out of position until they caught and injury that forced them to reveal the game. The results of what this team is doing is being seen in their former team OKC, who committed hard to the suck and are finally seeing returns after landing a franchise guy.

If Poole continues to play, I have to assume there is a reason why. His numbers are stunningly terrible. Smart people would not play him if they thought it wasn't worth it. Me I'm curious what player is out there for whom this front office thinks is worth it. Is he in this draft? Next two years? I fully expect them to play Poole for as long as they can, unless we draft a top prospect in his spot.

[AFM]

I think you're thinking too hard Doc. The most likely explanation is that whatever is wrong with Poole right now, assuming it's upstairs, would only be exacerbated by benching him. Maybe that would destroy his confidence even further. I don't think they're doing all this mental arithmetic you've laid out.

[doclinkin]

I don't think they're doing all this mental arithmetic you've laid out.

Its statistical arithmetic. Stacking %'s in our favor. Nothing pretty. Just trying to get every edge where it really matters.

If you look around at teams that have tanked lucky you will see they tweak their lines all the time. Now the league won't let you sit your all-stars, but we are 'lucky' enough not to have any. Tanking is a real phenomenon. Line-up tanking is the gentleman's way to do it. Players won't tank, they are playing for their pride and the next contract. And any guy we land in the lotto might take their minutes. Coaches won't tank if they doubt their job security and are looking to protect their record. Notice we extended Wes instead of dumping him with the new regime.

Our stats department has been noted as being +/- guys. Why have a stats department if you are going to ignore it? Poole is irrelevant to the long term success of the franchise. Yes he's a sunk cost. Yes it would be fine to be able to trade him some day. But his money doesn't matter. In fact it benefits us. We need to be able to be within 90% of the cap AND STILL LOSE. Scouts say this year doesn't even matter. We need to lose deep and long, since according to pundits Cooper Flagg and Cam Boozer are the prize. We need to be so bad this year that we suck next year too. By the time Poole's contract is up, hopefully we will have landed our franchise players and his contributions (or the negative of same) won't matter.

Nate has laid it out plain in statistics. The best thing the team could do to improve our record is to sit Poole. Yes it is a nice story to say we are trying to rehabilitate him by letting him play through it. We seem like good folks letting a guy work out his issues. Honestly it would be better for Poole if he were killing 2nd line players instead of getting crushed defensively in the smallest possible backcourt line-up we can muster.

Funny that we don't do that for any other player though. Let them play through it. Funny that we bench Deni when he is playing well. Blame Wes if you want. Blame Keefe. These are not stupid men. But notice that franchise scion and league-wide respected developmental coach Wes Jr got bumped UP into the offices when public opinion pieces put it that he was losing the team. Sure, it's his fault. Jokic will call him one of the smartest guys in the game. But darn it, he's just too even keeled. It didn't seem to bother him that the team was losing under his direction. Okay, promote him and slide the next guy in his place. Because the next guy will surely bench the underperforming gunner, right? No? He didn't?

It's not rocket surgery. Don't make the mistake of thinking you know better what the franchise needs than the guys who are getting paid millions to analyze this very thing. Leastways not THESE guys, who are coming from a franchise that followed a very similar pattern. Trust them. Trust the pattern. If we had done this same thing -- instead of trying for the fictional 9th seed for so long that the league actually created one-- then we would be the franchise with the generational talent on our squad. We are San Antonio of 2 years ago. Lose and lose hard, with no apologies. Whatever it takes.

[doclinkin]

Just a reminder. We have gone round and round about the question of the value of a draft pick (at the risk of re-starting yet another long list of exceptions to the statistics, as if any given exception disproves the numbers) BUT analysis suggests that IN GENERAL the top draft picks are MORE LIKELY to have successful careers. Meaning winning careers and their effect on the win/loss column.

https://thedatajocks.com/nba-draft-pick-values/

Most analyses see #1 is the clear winner, #2 is close. #3 is anomalously iffy but still strong through 4 and 5. There's a drop off after #5. And a steeper drop after the lottery.

Yes granted, if you had the number 5 pick and your competition could cherry pick from EVERYONE ELSE in that draft year, odds are that the field would beat any individual pick -- other than picks 1&2 in the right year. (The obvious phenoms).

Every year I search to see if there's another MIT genius who has written a new paper on the topic, but most statistical YODAs keep their information to themselves hoping to land a front office job. Still, we are talking probability and statistics.

You get 5 starters. You get 15 spots and a couple 2-way players. You don't have unlimited minutes to play everyone and give them time to develop. You don't have a roster to draft the 55 guys available after #5. Or the next 55 the next year.

Mostly, on any winning team there is really only 1 player who makes the entire difference. Nice if you can add stars around him. But we are talking probably realistically 4 players in any given year who have a chance to be the best player on the championship winning team. Usually 1 or 2 really. Out of 500 plus two-way plus in-season call-ups.

The odds are against you finding that one guy. So you have to squeeze the helloutta the odds in your favor.

But you know all that. The difficulty is having the institutional patience to work the plan. Or in the case of the fans, the passion to sustain you past 82 games of total suck, year after year, without at least an occasional glimmer to feel like you're not a total foreskin-forehead for being loyal to a team that totally takes you for granted.

[penbeast0]

Next year we will have to try even harder to truly suck. Expect us to let Tyus Jones sign elsewhere if we don't draft a PG (yes, seems counterintuitive if you aren't planning the tank). Then they draft Risacher and move Poole to be starting PG. With Poole starting at the 1 and Bagley starting at the 5, the tank should be competitive even if Deni, Bilal, and the rookie start to give us a strong defensive culture.

It's tank fu (actually more tankido but whatever).

[Runner300]

Maybe it's me, but it seems just hard to raise young players while tanking for 3-4 years, teaching them to lose and then suddenly expect them to click and start winning.
If by me, I'd force Deni play as PG for 20 games, force Bilal take 12-15 3pt shots for 20 games,
and make them practice zone or match-up defense for another 20 games, or god forbid - box-out, and there you go - 60 useful losses.

[closg00]

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[nate33]

Here's a simpler way to look at it: we aren't catching San Antonio. Now that Wemby is playing center, they're halfway competent, winning 6 of their last 20 games. They are definitely outplaying us and already have a 2-game lead on us in the loss column. So, benching Jordan Poole could conceivably cause us to pass Charlotte in the standings, but that's about it.

So what you're saying is: the tank worked!

BRef suggests we still have a 30% chance to end up with the worst record.

https://www.basketball-reference.com/friv/proj_draft.html

Post lottery the strongest odds are that we end up with the 5th pick (28%).
With the 3rd or 4th worst record our strongest chance is to end up with the 6th pick (21% and 23%).

Yes, the tank worked. I am not dismissing the notion that they kept Poole in there longer than he deserved because they wanted to ensure a bottom 3 finish. I don't disagree with the strategy. I'm just saying their work is done. They have ensured a bottom 3 finish. The only thing that would change at this point is whether we finish 2nd-to-last or 3rd-to-last. And the lottery odds difference between a #2 or #3 finish are negligible. They only come into play if both the #2 and #3 team don't land a top pick. In that scenario, and only in that scenario, will the fact that we slipped from #2 to #3 in the standings actually matter. That scenario has a 23% chance of happening. If it does happen, it will most likely mean that we end up picking 6th instead of 5th. (There's a 2% chance out of that 23% that 3 of the bottom 4 seeds all slip out of the top 4 picks in which case our pick would fall from 6th to 7th)

You have to assume the team has weighed the relative merits of developing Kispert and Butler and decided that neither will end up an all-star. Therefore in the scheme of earning a championship their development is irrelevant. At least until we land a superstar. In fact if their play moderately improves our team, then our %'s of landing a star in future years also decreases.

Granted, the point is not to deliberately stunt individual growth. But so far championships have not been won with moderate improvement by role players. If the goal is dynastic contention for a championship, then to sell out on the Process (tm) is still the best way to go. If we can reclaim and recover the value of a player like Poole, awesome. In the meantime it makes sense to put an entertaining team out there that scores a ton of points and loses. Okay if they lose close, awesome. If they lose and young cats get better, nice and to be expected. But when it comes to the chance of landing a franchise savior you have to scrap for every possible % advantage, year after year.

Our front office is not stupid. Neither is San Antonio who managed to tank for a good chunk of the year by playing guys out of position until they caught and injury that forced them to reveal the game. The results of what this team is doing is being seen in their former team OKC, who committed hard to the suck and are finally seeing returns after landing a franchise guy.

If Poole continues to play, I have to assume there is a reason why. His numbers are stunningly terrible. Smart people would not play him if they thought it wasn't worth it. Me I'm curious what player is out there for whom this front office thinks is worth it. Is he in this draft? Next two years? I fully expect them to play Poole for as long as they can, unless we draft a top prospect in his spot.

If this is their thinking, then I would say they are being stupid. I think a meritocratic developmental environment is likely to have a more positive impact on team building than would boosting our odds of getting the #5 over #6 pick in a scenario that has only a 23% chance of coming into play.

[Frichuela]

Next year we will have to try even harder to truly suck. Expect us to let Tyus Jones sign elsewhere if we don't draft a PG (yes, seems counterintuitive if you aren't planning the tank). Then they draft Risacher and move Poole to be starting PG. With Poole starting at the 1 and Bagley starting at the 5, the tank should be competitive even if Deni, Bilal, and the rookie start to give us a strong defensive culture.

It's tank fu (actually more tankido but whatever).

I hope they at least sign and trade him for something of value…

[nate33]

Next year we will have to try even harder to truly suck. Expect us to let Tyus Jones sign elsewhere if we don't draft a PG (yes, seems counterintuitive if you aren't planning the tank). Then they draft Risacher and move Poole to be starting PG. With Poole starting at the 1 and Bagley starting at the 5, the tank should be competitive even if Deni, Bilal, and the rookie start to give us a strong defensive culture.

It's tank fu (actually more tankido but whatever).

I think they will more likely ensure tanking by deliberately leaving the backup center position vacant again. They'd rather have Tyus on board to organize the offense and help the team to look and function like a professional team in all aspects except the ability to secure defensive rebounds.

[nate33]

Next year we will have to try even harder to truly suck. Expect us to let Tyus Jones sign elsewhere if we don't draft a PG (yes, seems counterintuitive if you aren't planning the tank). Then they draft Risacher and move Poole to be starting PG. With Poole starting at the 1 and Bagley starting at the 5, the tank should be competitive even if Deni, Bilal, and the rookie start to give us a strong defensive culture.

It's tank fu (actually more tankido but whatever).

I hope they at least sign and trade him for something of value…

It won't be much value. You would need a scenario where an over-the-cap team wants him enough to pay him more than what Orlando or San Antonio is willing to pay him, while also throwing in pick compensation to us for facilitating such a deal. I don't see a team willing to do that.

[doclinkin]

If this is their thinking, then I would say they are being stupid. I think a meritocratic developmental environment is likely to have a more positive impact on team building than would boosting our odds of getting the #5 over #6 pick in a scenario that has only a 23% chance of coming into play.

I would say I fully expect the team to experiment with lines and 10-day players the remainder of the season. This may include resting Poole. And no coach will encourage the players to lose. This is a lost year but players are still developing. Deni is coming into his own. Bilal is getting valuable reps. We cut Delon to give tryouts to younger prospects. If the team is handicapped by carrying a player who is not pulling their weight, it doesn't have to ruin development of young players. They're running with a weight vest on, and when it is removed things will be easier. Later. When you can replace that one guy with one who is only handicapped by inexperience but has more potential.

However, the point of committing to the tank is to shave all the percentages you can until you land a franchise player. Until then, no % is irrelevant. They stack up over time. An improvement of one position can make all the difference. 23% is a big deal. We traded up one spot to get Bilal. It looks like it was probably the right move. We spent draft capital to do so. If we could have landed our guy without trading up then we could save that powder for another move later. While there is still a 30% chance we can slip behind Detroit, might as well take advantage of a terrible year. Each year. Until you have the one player worth building around. Until then whatever team you build will be irrelevant.

[CntOutSmrtCrazy]

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A signature of this franchise over the past decade: a guard on an awful, bloated contract compared to production and time on court.

[pcbothwel]

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It's going to be hard for me to get over this trade. Winger/Dawkins were WAY too cavalier with this trade.
I.E. "Who cares about the contract, we will suck for the next few years anyway... Lets just buy low"
I'll say it again, we had Chris Paul and a litany of 2nds/swaps. We could have EASILY moved him for a Lowry + pick type deal and been FAR ahead of where we are now.