To keep Dwight Howard, the Lakers will have to sell him on a vision for 2014 and beyond. As a result, if championships are his goal, the Rockets are the safer bet for a whole host of reasons. Read More. Written by Jonathan Tjarks on May 23, 2013
The event gives front offices the opportunity to evaluate D-League players with the possibility of offering Summer League or training camp invites. Read More.
Tyus Jones, the No. 2 overall recruit for 2014 and an excellent point guard, was selected by Paul Biancardi, Adam Finkelstein and John Stovall. Read More.
Doctor MJ wrote:I find it hard to completely grasp where you're coming from though. Unless you though Durant had no business being considered a superstar before, him going through a considerable improvement puts him at such a high level it's weird to me you'd feel really any confidence about his limitations. I mean obviously the guys not going to lead the league in blocked shots any time soon, but the truly transcendant players are on a level where it's really hard to list out every way in which they have impact.
Yeah. Let's start over, because you're actually getting this a bit backwards with how I view Durant
Durant has been a bonafide MVP candidate since 2010, and the league's 2nd best player since '10 ('11 was actually a "down" year by his standards, but I'm not going season by season here). He also hasn't led the league in +/- in those seasons. I viewed him as a transcendent talent with or without him dominating the league in +/-, because I keep in mind all of the significant quirks that come with the important but NOT infallible +/- family. He's playing his best all-around season in '13 and some of this is certainly reflected by his high +/-, but if I wasn't holding seasons with lower +/- numbers against Durant I wasn't going to use them to boost his candidacy. I still factor them in, of course. I'm just also keeping other metrics and what I watch on the gametape in mind.
Re: Harden "steal" on/off Thunder. The whole reason why I'm using raw +/- data here is to render this issue moot. Harden on the Thunder had great raw +/-, he left, now Durant's +/- is far, far better than it was before. A particular causality should not be assumed, but by definition Harden's mere presence wouldn't make Durant's raw +/- seem unimpressive.
Right, which is why I edited my post to reflect this.
Re: More on +/-. I use the spectrum of +/- stats. The issues you talk about are virtually all dealt with when you add adjusted +/- into the mix. The one issue that remains...if it actually is a statistical issue...is that a player is going to have his +/- ratings affected by the quality of the fit. It's never been clear to me though that that is a bug. I see it as a feature.
Not "virtually". You can do a good job of filtering out things, but multicollinearity can muck up any +/- metric including RAPM; and at the end of the day the context of team dynamics, roster, and coaching is STILL important to factor in analysis. I'm not saying that this is a "bug", but simply that the stats aren't impervious to differences in context nor do they account for all of it.
Quite frankly his lack of reliance on on-ball dominance makes his game more portable than someone like LeBron.
On-ball/off-ball all depends on your roster. I want nothing to do with an off-ball player if my team is already stocked with shooters, but they aren't adept at putting the ball on the floor or setting up others.
Missed a lot of very makeable shots (by his standards anyway) too, but stayed with it. The game-winner over Marion was just insanely good, against very good defense.
KD's game goes to show how people that claim "Well Durant is just a better FT shooter than ______" miss the point. Durant had a very poor shooting game but contributed 52 points to his team because he's not only an amazing foul drawer, but someone capable of making 21 straight free throws.
Man, Durant just won't give LeBron an inch, will he? I thought LeBron was going to make-up some ground once the game went to OT, but Durant just took over. He is completely unperturbed by being "cold". He will still continue to approach the game like nothing has changed, which is the quality of a truly special player. Especially when you have the game to justify it. MJ had it. Kobe had it. Now Durant. This is an invaluable quality to possesses and the boxscore doesn't capture it, but it leads to a lot of Ws when there should be L's.
KD goes ham, I'm a proud Lebron homer and can attest to the fact that the MVP race is being won by Kevin Durant. My goodness, I expect him to hit gamewinners without a problem at this point, not the least but surprised by it.
lotsix wrote: knicks arent losing to a real scrub team im so sick of watching bumbs like augustine and stephenson and hibbert.enough is enough with the jokes...
Durant will also move ahead of Melo into 2nd in scoring, less than half a point behind Kobe. If Durant can win the scoring title with a TS% of .650, while leading the Thunder to the best offense and best record in the league...
Well, that would be a pretty remarkable offensive season.
PurpleRooster wrote:While OKC has a better record than Miami, I still have James and Durant neck and neck if not James slightly ahead.
I only say this because if you watch the Heat James literally does EVERYTHING for that team. He is the leading scorer, rebounder, play maker, their best defender.
Bosh and Wade consistently can afford off nights, but James absolutely cannot. He is the through line and the constant.
The dude is the best player in the world, and the very definition of most valuable as well.
Nobody does more for their team than James right now.
Thank you. Someone gets it.
The only way Durant wins this year is if his team finishes with a far better record than the Heat, or the media gets voter fatigue with LeBron.
That DOES NOT mean he is the most valuable player in the league (IMO). That has been LeBron for about 5-6 consecutive years.
MisterWestside wrote: Not "virtually". You can do a good job of filtering out things, but multicollinearity can muck up any +/- metric including RAPM; and at the end of the day the context of team dynamics, roster, and coaching is STILL important to factor in analysis. I'm not saying that this is a "bug", but simply that the stats aren't impervious to differences in context nor do they account for all of it.
What you're talking about here is a limitation on the precision of the tool, not a fundamental bias. I'll readily concede the former, but it rapidly becomes a smaller and smaller issue when you has much data as we have. Not that you can ever say "His +/- stats say X, he is clearly X good at playing basketball", it's not so straight forward, but if we're talking about issues relating to team dynamics, etc, then we are talking about issues that all stats would have because these are things that actually determine how effective a player is.
What +/- is telling us right now is that Durant has taken a leap forward in terms of how effective he is being. One can argue this has nothing to do with Durant improving (though I know you aren't doing that either), but there is enough data that it can't simply be dismissed for small sample size.
MisterWestside wrote:
Quite frankly his lack of reliance on on-ball dominance makes his game more portable than someone like LeBron.
On-ball/off-ball all depends on your roster. I want nothing to do with an off-ball player if my team is already stocked with shooters, but they aren't adept at putting the ball on the floor or setting up others.
Sure it depends on your roster, but it's pretty hard to imagine the team whose offense wouldn't get considerably better if it had Durant in place of its lead off-ball scorer. He's better at it than everyone else. Put him on a weak team, it's a huge help. Put him on a strong team, he'll still lift the ceiling. There's basically no limit to how good a Durant-led offense can be.
LeBron on the other hand his offensive game is so impressive because he can do everything, which is at its most astonishing when you have other guys with a clear lack of skills. It's easy to imagine scenarios where diminishing returns are apparent because of this, along with the fact that we've actually seen it in Miami. When you add in that quite frankly there are players i"d rather have on ball than LeBron because they are better playmakers, that takes the portability issue further.
None of this changes the fact though: 1) Basically no one can do more with weak surrounding talent than LeBron. 2) LeBron can be a total beast on defense. 3) When LeBron has his head on straight, he does seem to be someone who can crank it up considerably further in the playoffs than even his regular season standards.
