Doctor MJ wrote:Orin wrote:
I was curious so I did :
Embiid has been off the court for 920 minutes, 480 of them being the 10 games that he missed. Maxey played in 9 of them, culminating 351 out of the 443 extra minutes that he played over Embiid. In this stretch, they are 3-7 with an average ORtg of 114 and Maxey's ORtg in those games is 105.
Meaning that in the 440 remaining minutes without Embiid (31 games in which he played), the 76ers have an ORtg of around 122/123, with Maxey playing in less than a hundred of those minutes.
I might be missing something as I haven't dug deeper in those 31 games in which he played, but that doesn't seem enough to back up the claim that Maxey is the 76ers true offensive Mvp (Maxey's scoring efficiency is also much worse without Embiid on the floor).
To note: Embiid sat eleven 4th quarters already (132 minutes) because the 76ers were blowing their opponent out. Now, I don't know what their offensive rating is during those 4th quarters, but I suspect that it is quite high and not very meaningful minutes anyway.
Also, with Embiid drawing fouls at an absurd rate and putting the opposing centers in foul trouble, it seems to make sense to me that the team's offensive rating is much higher without him on the floor in the games he played vs the games that he missed completely (+ those minutes are against bench line-ups vs whole game).
Some great digging Orin!
The point that makes me furrow my brow the most is the aspect pertaining to Embiid sitting out the 4th in blowouts - which is certainly true, but it's an odd wrinkle pertaining to Maxey's +/- data being ignored in the 4th quarter on the grounds that the game is already over. It's hardly normal for guys teams to continue further blowing out opponents in the 4th quarter after they are resting their star.
If we break down Maxey's +/- numbers quarter-by-quarter this year, here's what we get:
1st: +28
2nd: +116
3rd: +105
4th: +111
And, just because it seems obviously informative for comparison, here are Embiid's numbers:
1st: +76
2nd: +81
3rd: +119
4th: -9
Looking at Embiid, it absolutely aligns with the idea that he's not playing 4th quarters because of blowouts.
But looking at Maxey, the weird thing is the 1st quarter, not the 4th. I think both are worth further study, but I'll acknowledge a reluctance to literally dismiss Maxey's continued +/- stat in the 4th because he's NOT playing with Embiid in those minutes.
In terms of the 1st quarter, part of what's going on here is star staggering.
If we look at a sample game flow
1/20 Phi@Cha, we see:
Embiid plays all of the 1st & 3rd quarters, and then skips the first 6 minutes of the 2nd & 4th.
Maxey by contrast takes a 3 minute breather in the 1st & 3rd quarter, and and then plays pretty much the entire 2nd & 4th quarters.
Season-wide,
Embiid plays way more 1st & 3rd quarter minutes than 2nd (or 4th).
Maxey plays more 2nd quarter minutes than any other quarter (followed by 3rd, 1st & 4th).
So I'd say what we're seeing is a situation where Embiid is sitting most of his 4th quarter minutes not because it's a blowout, but because he's being rested just like is done in the 2nd quarter. From there, the decision is made whether they need to bring him back in for the last 6 or so minutes or not. And since the team is doing so well in 4th quarters without Embiid, that makes it all the easier to not bring Embiid back in.
Regarding your points about how they've done in games with literally no Embiid, and the idea that Embiid's foul drawing might make things way easier for Maxey even while Embiid rests, these simply good points to bring to the fore - especially the second because I'd love to see more analysis done on this more generally (I'd like to see stats on this league-wide, though I'm not sure the best way to try to quantify it).
I will point out something in the other direction though that I call OnWins (along with OnWin%). As in, the number of games where the team had a positive +/- with you out there (generally with a 24 MPG threshold). Obviously there's a lot of noise in this, but I think it's worth being aware of generally, and I also think it's something that where a player like Embiid should really show up if Maxey's really only able to do his think in games where Embiid weakens the opponent.
I'm going to list out major players - guys I consider to be clear cut all-stars and above - who are atop the OnWin leaderboard for the year right now, along with their OnWin% (percentage of games they played enough minutes where they had positive +/-).
Jokic 34 out of 41 (82.9%)
SGA 30 out of 39 (76.9%)
Maxey 29 out of 40 (72.5%)
Gobert 28 out of 41 (68.3%)
George 28 out of 37 (75.7%)
Tatum 27 out of 39 (69.2%)
Edwards 27 out of 38 (71.1%)
Kawhi 26 out of 37 (70.3%)
Giannis 26 out of 39 (66.7%)
Embiid 22 out of 31 (71.0%)
Fox 22 out of 35 (62.9%)
Haliburton 22 out of 33 (66.7%)
LeBron 21 out of 38 (55.3%)
And just to show the OnWin% order neatly before discussing further
Jokic 82.9%
SGA 76.9%
George 75.7%
Maxey 72.5%
Edwards 71.1%
Embiid 71.0%
Tatum 69.2%
Gobert 68.3%
Giannis 66.7%
Haliburton 66.7%
Fox 62.9%
LeBron 55.3%
Well so, no, we really don't see Embiid being way more of an outlier than Maxey, so the mystery remains. Perhaps more granular analysis would show something that could back up a thesis that Maxey is more "+/- impactful" than Embiid in games they don't play, but this is due to a weird asynchronous impact of Embiid's foul drawing, but I can't point to anything yet.
