jbk1234 wrote:JonFromVA wrote:jbk1234 wrote:
I don't really have any complaints about Kenny. That said, +/- is a good tool with large data sets, but using it as part of an in-game decision making process seems ill-advised. The variables that come out in the wash over a 100 minute sample size are pretty impactful over a 5 minute run. I forget the Pacer who banked in a 911 three with the shot clock expiring, but things like that plus a missed call or two can really skew the results.
Every box score stat can be polluted by things going on. Context is what's important when interpreting any stat and Kenny is watching the games with a trained eye.
Predictions about future outcomes can be made based on averages, but game time decisions need to be made in context of what's happening on the floor in the current game. So, if Kenny's instincts are telling him that Georges is killing us, but then he notices were actually +5 with Georges on the floor ... maybe he'll think a little harder about yanking him.
fwiw, I'd point out that even things like crazy shot making and bad calls are not completely disassociated from the personnel on the floor. Maybe someone was supposed to bump that offensive player before he pulled up and made the crazy shot, but we got lazy.
I'd argue one of the biggest disconnects even in the modern analytic era is due to all the people who DO NOT understand that other box score stats like PPG, APG, RPG, FG%, TS%, etc, are also flawed in every way that +/- is and then some EXCEPT they do not capture as much underlying data.
This is presumably how LaMelo Ball can get voted in to the All Star game in this day and age because 30 & 7! Yay.
LaMelo can get voted onto the all star game because he's represented by Klutch and they game the system via social media. They were encouraging people to vote for Ben Simmons via old Twitter the year he held out. I'm 100% convinced they have people posting on RealGM. I posted a critical comment about Ball's defense on the GB and got a response that was a little too personally vested to be from a random fan.
Most actual NBA front offices are too sophisticated to be influenced by PR campaigns anymore. It's why Lavine has been stranded on the Bulls. Even an all star bid means less and less. The game itself is unwatchable and the first time a player gets injured in one will probably result in that being the last allstar game. Just because LaMelo qualifies for a super max doesn't mean he's getting one offered to him.
Another issue Klutch runs into with this stuff is that they have a client in Cleveland who plays the same position as Ball and would like to make an all star game. They're not boosting him in the same way though.
Ball's winning the fan vote because his name comes up first by the default sort on the voting page because he's leading the East in guard scoring by a good margin.
The degree to which the voting can be gamed is an interesting topic but I don't know if it is significantly swayed by in-the-moment marketing. I feel as though the guys who have long-time fan followings like Dame and Trae see more of that effect. LaMelo has a big following too. (I'd believe the fan voting is much more likely to be hackable.)
OTOH if media or players don't vote for LaMelo, that may be enough to counteract the fan vote. Note that the year Wiggins was voted an all-star starter that he finished 5th in the player vote and 6th in the media vote, which was close enough to fend off a lack of consensus between media and players for the 3rd spot.
It's also a factor that they just take the ranks of players in the fan/player/media voting for weighting, rather than doing any kind of vote fractions, and that also means the number of players receiving votes matters and whether or not LaMelo gets a single media vote or not matters. Derrick Rose was 2nd in the fan vote and 4th in the player vote in 2019 in the west, but because he didn't get any media votes he lost out to Harden. https://www.basketball-reference.com/allstar/NBA_2019_voting.html
Last year Dame was 3rd in fan vote but started due to Trae, who was 2nd, coming in 6th in the media and player votes. https://www.basketball-reference.com/allstar/NBA_2024_voting-backcourt-eastern-conference.html
