trex_8063 wrote:Ironically, players who are [in a vacuum] "more" talented (particularly offensively) will sometimes be misused or used in less than optimal ways. Because their skillset is more broad and varied/versatile, there is more room to interpret what you have [as a player] incorrectly, or for other reasons try to fit that square peg into a round hole (in ways that simply DO NOT HAPPEN with your relatively well-defined role players).
Sometimes it happens because organizations are feeling a young player out, trying to see if this guy or that one can truly be a "franchise player". Other times they're miscast in that "star" role out of obstinancy [by the organization] or simple lack of BETTER options (e.g. Patrick Ewing perhaps?? or perhaps even David Robinson, which makes it somewhat remarkable that his pre-Duncan AuPM was still so frickin' awesome [in the rs, at least], since it probably wasn't his ideal offensive utilization).
Bringing this here because my response has little to do with the #82 thread.
I would agree with most of these observations, but the David Robinson suggestion misses the mark. Being a heavy volume first option is not Robinson’s ideal role, correct. This is on some level true for many star scorers. Pre-Miami Lebron was an incredible scorer… but it was not his ideal role to be such a team outlier the way he was before that initial departure.
The mistake is that being overextended is distinct from having your APM values suppressed. David Robinson was at his most “valuable” in 1994. That year, he was not only by far his team’s top scorer, but also arguably its lead playmaker, which is an even worse role for him. However, needing to fulfill those roles for the team made the team depend on him more and thus made him more valuable. It is a point toward inflation, not deflation — and you see that when they reestablish some coherent playmaking and his raw impact goes down, even though reducing that load is more suitable for his role.
There might be an interesting exploration of whether that type of reliance can backfire in the postseason, under the theory that strategies which work in the regular season can suddenly become anchors in the postseason. That is a separate question though than this one about maximising regular season impact.
