Nuggets' Centers

[NuggetsWY]

PER is only one way to look at players and I'd love to see which stats others like to look at; so feel free to do another comparison.

According to Hollinger's PER, Jokic is #4 overall and the #1 center (assuming Anthony Davis is a PF - he's #2 overall). Towns & Vucevic are the next centers and they are tied for #8. Embiid is #10 and then we see centers at #14 - #17. (So much for those who think center is a disappearing position. 9 of the top 17 ranked players are centers.)

If you take a quick look at Plumlee as #63 overall - think about that ranking for a backup center. That's roughly 2 players from each team ranked higher than him. Look at the centers and he's ranked ahead of around one third of all the starters.

[Manolito]

I am happy with Plumlee so far, he has helped the team in the defensive side every single night consistenly.

At the beginning of the season I thought his contract would be an albatross, he is still overpaid, but he could be moved in Summer of needed.

In any case, we can't afford renewing him, specially considering he is Jokic backup and center ist the cheapest position in the league. If we move him this Summer, we can sign a max player up to 9years experience but it would totally cut our cap for 2020 offseason to renew Murray, Beasley and Morris.

On the other hand, If we have a long play run this year (second round) and Durant leaves GSW, Denver could be a legit contender next year by adding a max player.

I guess FO wants to Bring Millsap back in a cheaper deal and keep but cap flexibility, but another options should be consider. It could even be the case Millsap gets a better contract somewhere else

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[The Rebel]

PER is only one way to look at players and I'd love to see which stats others like to look at; so feel free to do another comparison.

According to Hollinger's PER, Jokic is #4 overall and the #1 center (assuming Anthony Davis is a PF - he's #2 overall). Towns & Vucevic are the next centers and they are tied for #8. Embiid is #10 and then we see centers at #14 - #17. (So much for those who think center is a disappearing position. 9 of the top 17 ranked players are centers.)

If you take a quick look at Plumlee as #63 overall - think about that ranking for a backup center. That's roughly 2 players from each team ranked higher than him. Look at the centers and he's ranked ahead of around one third of all the starters.

I try to look at several of the advanced stats when I am judging a player, on top of watching them as well. All advanced stats have their strengths and weaknesses, but most of the all in ones try to account for offense and defense, but they all have their quirks.

Per is one of the worst ones to look at because it is just a bundling of all box score stats and does nothing to try to account for the stuff that does not show up in the box score, like defense, or hockey assists, or gravity (opening the court up for others).

There are also advanced stats that will show you as much as you want to know about stuff like contested rebound percentage, time of possession, how guys do as spot up shooters, how they do off the dribble, if they are good within certain ranges around the rim, but that gets into minutia and I really only look into that stuff when I notice something is continually a problem (like Barton being terrible off the ball for most of his career and then getting significantly better the 2nd half of last season) or when arguing with someone.

for the all in one stats I usually use these 3

Real Plus Minus is an ESPN stat, they will not tell anybody the exact formula but I use it occasionally.
With RPM Jokic is the top Center in the league, Paul Millsap is the 4th PF, and Plumlee is rated as the 15th PF overall.

Win shares 48 which tries to normalize stats based on if they played for 48 minutes how much that would contribute to winning while trying to calculate defense and actual time on the court.

Jokic is 5th overall in the league, Plumlee is 66th in the league, and Millsap is tied for 70th overall. If you just do pf/Cs than Jokic is 3rd in the league, Plumlee is 47th, and Millsap is 51st.

I also use VORP which is value over replacement player, which tries to calculate how much more productive a player is than the average NBA player at that position, so think 0.00 is more of a 8th man, anything better than that is above average anything below is below average. It is a cumulative stat in that it uses box scores and analyzes in a game by game basis adding to the total.

Right now Jokic is 1st in the league for PF/C in Vorp, PLumlee is 24th, and Millsap is tied for 38th.

Overall these stats show that Jokic is easily a top 2 big in the league, they also show that Plumlee is a starting level big, and that Millsap is a starting level big despite the injury struggles.

[Manolito]

Really great post, Rebel. Thank you.

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[skywalker33]

Biggest question remaining for me is Will Plumlee accept a lower contract since we overpaid him on this contract ? I'd say something in the $8-9M would be more commensurate to his production/mins played, is it worth the reduction to be part of this impending championship (contender) ??

[U hova]

PER, WS, BPM and their ilk are basically box score summaries, they won't tell you what you couldn't tell from a stat line.
Of them, PER is normalized by contemporary performance by year so you get a better idea of how someone's doing relative to everyone else.
But PER is weighed by arbitrarily decided constants. It's well beyond it's expiry date.

At it's core you're not really getting information about how much value you contribute on your on/off minutes like a plus/minus based stat would. I still haven't found reason to cite BPM since contrary to its name it's basically a boxscore summary as well. Westbrook 2 years ago had the highest BPM/Vorp in all of history... Westbrook 2 years ago was not the greatest player of all time.

Shame to admit coming from a more data-based background, but at the end of the day I only rely on the eye-test now. There's specific stuff like play-type efficiency that I don't mind referencing at all, but these 1-in-all stats seem to just exist to generate hype.

With that all said, Jokic is the best player in the league and the GOAT.
Plumlee will excel in certain play-types, and Malone has to use him as a gadget and not a swiss army knife.

[skywalker33]

PER, WS, BPM and their ilk are basically box score summaries, they won't tell you what you couldn't tell from a stat line.
Of them, PER is normalized by contemporary performance by year so you get a better idea of how someone's doing relative to everyone else.
But PER is weighed by arbitrarily decided constants. It's well beyond it's expiry date.

At it's core you're not really getting information about how much value you contribute on your on/off minutes like a plus/minus based stat would. I still haven't found reason to cite BPM since contrary to its name it's basically a boxscore summary as well. Westbrook 2 years ago had the highest BPM/Vorp in all of history... Westbrook 2 years ago was not the greatest player of all time.

Shame to admit coming from a more data-based background, but at the end of the day I only rely on the eye-test now. There's specific stuff like play-type efficiency that I don't mind referencing at all, but these 1-in-all stats seem to just exist to generate hype.

With that all said, Jokic is the best player in the league and the GOAT.
Plumlee will excel in certain play-types, and Malone has to use him as a gadget and not a swiss army knife.

You started out strong until the underlined, then lost ALL credibility. While I love Jokic, to call him the Greatest Of All Time at the age of 24 and after 3 1/2 NBA seasons just makes you look like a HOMER. Give him 5 more years at this (or better) production level and we'll consider this a prognostication.

[NuggetsWY]

Well, IMO Jokic has the potential to be the #1 center in the league and is bordering on that now. Remembering the earlier comparisons to Town (we don't hear those too often any more) and considering the current comparisons to Embiid (which are comparing two basically unproven young players); I'm very happy with Jokic here - which is simply the common sense most of us share.

IMO Plumlee could be starting for at least 10 other teams but he is the best possible backup to Jokic out of any centers in the league. I do agree with the above comments that say he is overpaid and often misused, but I still want to keep him.

My biggest complaint is that we do not have a legitimate third center and an injury to Jokic or Plumlee can be devastating. A young center with potential to be at least a backup to Jokic would be ideal.

[U hova]

You started out strong until the underlined, then lost ALL credibility. While I love Jokic, to call him the Greatest Of All Time at the age of 24 and after 3 1/2 NBA seasons just makes you look like a HOMER. Give him 5 more years at this (or better) production level and we'll consider this a prognostication.

It's half serious, but how many other fanbases talk about their guy like this? I feel there's something really special about him as a talent that won't come along again in a long while... which is even crazier when you think about how unnotable an athletic specimen he is.

[NuggetsWY]

Nice article about Jokic - starts a little slow IMO but worth the read:

https://basketball.realgm.com/analysis/252778/Nikola-Jokic-Is-The-Big-Talent-That-Can-Exploit-NBA-Trends

Here's the last paragraph:

Jokic is not the second coming of Shaq. He’s something else. But when you make choices to implement a strategy to neutralize a certain type of talent, you’re taking a risk. And that certain talent can exploit your risk. You don’t want to give Nikola Jokic room to show you what he can do in the playoffs because you’ll end up watching him play someone else in the next round.