Caldwell-Pope, Bullock Discussing Contract Extensions

[MotownMadness]

Pay the man

[DetroitPistons]

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I <3 Tom Gores

[Todd3]

I'd argue that average shooters is enough to make teams pay for doubling our PnR

We're putting a lot on our shooters when it's obvious that if Dre was a better offensive threat AND RJ was quicker with his decision making our opponents would get destroyed!

If Dre was dominant offensively teams would have to double him...and if RJ was a better shooter teams would have to pay closer attention...

Those 2 things combined would allow "average" shooters to appear better than they are!

But because we lack in both those areas our average or below average shooters cop the criticism

There's enough flaws to go around really

Pretty much this. Dre will just get fouled if he starts to heat up, and even then he's an inefficient post up option and doesn't command any attention if we're ISOing him.

Dre just rebounds and rolls, that's his game and I doubt it'll get significantly better than that.

We also only generate around 11.5% of actually wide open shots per game. The percentage that we shot when we were wide open were...

41%

Meaning 6+ feet of space generated for a shooter that shoots on our team. Compared to that of the likes of CLE, ATL,and GSW which are in the sub 14+ range.



Of course, in this analysis, I reject 4-6 feet and labeling it "open" shots because an average NBA arm length is over 6 feet, which means recovering off of shooters are easy enough to contend a shot against us. Of course, I could do an even deeper dive in how we generate shots instead of just referencing BBallref and make an intellectually lazy take, but I have little time nowadays.

When we were what NBA classifies (and what I reject) as still "open" we shot a below average 32.8%. On 12 attempts which is right in line with attempts similar to GSW but they make theirs 42% of the time. The rest aren't any great either, GSW is basically the sole anomaly in this chart. Which confirms my rejection theory that 4-6 feet really isn't "open" for the rest of the league not named the Warriors.

http://stats.nba.com/league/team/shots/#!/?ShotDistRange=%3E%3D10.0&CloseDefDistRange=4-6%20Feet%20-%20Open

This chart basically says we have no elite shooters nor a great offense, which is obvious enough. But better open shots (aka 6+ feet of shot generated) would result in more great looks which would lead to a higher fg% overall. It also doesn't help that we don't have any true elite catch and shoot type players on this roster. If we can generate better shots than the measly 11% of open looks, then our efficiency should skyrocket.

If Dre learned to pass out while rolling to the basket to an open shooter, it would really help our offense. As it stands, teams scouted out our pretty predictable offense, in that one of RJ or Dre will initiate something while the rest just stand around. Since RJ isn't a great crosscourt passer of course they'll emphasize on stopping the PnR more.

No ones arms are over 6 ft long lol. The average human arm is ~2 ft. The average NBA wingspan is 6'7. That's the length of both arms across plus the width between. Meaning the average NBA arm is about 2.5-3 ft tops. Which is why when a shooter is shooting with a 4-6 ft distance from a defender, he is considered "open", and a 2-4 ft distance is considered "tight". I wouldn't go deeper into that analysis if I were you, if you think NBA players have 6 ft arms.

Of the Pistons 26 3PAs per game, 12 were "open", and 10 were "wide open" (which is 38%, not 11%). Expecting much more than that is unrealistic. For reference, GS got 12 wide open 3s per game last year and the league leaders the 2 yrs prior topped off at ~12 per game too. That's usually about as good as it gets in the NBA. ATL's 16 per game last year was an anomaly and not a realistic goal. There is room for improvement there, but not as much as you think.

The area with the most room for improvement is making more of their "open" ones. They don't have to make 42% like GS either. 5 teams shot between 36-38% on "open" 3s last year. 5 teams shot between 37-38% in 2015. 9 teams shot between ~37-39% in 2014. That is a realistic attainable goal if the Pistons just had better shooters, because most good NBA shooters don't need over 6 ft of space to shoot efficiently. And you can't just rely on wide open 3s when you're a high volume 3pt offense. There just aren't enough available. You have to be able to make the "open" ones efficiently too.

[theBigLip]

I guess everyone is entitled to their opinions. I know I sound like a homer, and I hope this thread gets pulled up at the end of the year, because I think KCP is an AllStar - THIS YEAR. His defense is great and I'm sure he's been working his ass off on his 3 pointers. And we will have a better team this year, meaning we will have better spacing, which makes it even more likely his shooting percentage goes up.

Let's get the season started!

[Kilo]

Given Gores comments - why doesn't he just offer KCP the max and get him signed if he's so not worried about the luxury tax and KCP is very, very important to the Pistons. How can you even hardball negotiate with him after the owner says that stuff publicly?

[DetroitPistons]

I guess everyone is entitled to their opinions. I know I sound like a homer, and I hope this thread gets pulled up at the end of the year, because I think KCP is an AllStar - THIS YEAR. His defense is great and I'm sure he's been working his ass off on his 3 pointers. And we will have a better team this year, meaning we will have better spacing, which makes it even more likely his shooting percentage goes up.

Let's get the season started!

I don't think he will be an allstar but I think he will take a big step this year. Him and Johnson's development will be key reasons for us vaulting into the top 4 in the east.

[whitehops]

Given Gores comments - why doesn't he just offer KCP the max and get him signed if he's so not worried about the luxury tax and KCP is very, very important to the Pistons. How can you even hardball negotiate with him after the owner says that stuff publicly?

hardball negotiating isn't always the best way to go, sometimes saying we really want you back, let's settle on something that works for both parties works too.

he said the same thing about dre (that he's a max player, we want him back) and dre took less than the max. that's after we made him wait a year to get his money guaranteed.

[DBC10]

No ones arms are over 6 ft long lol. The average human arm is ~2 ft. The average NBA wingspan is 6'7. That's the length of both arms across plus the width between. Meaning the average NBA arm is about 2.5-3 ft tops. Which is why when a shooter is shooting with a 4-6 ft distance from a defender, he is considered "open", and a 2-4 ft distance is considered "tight". I wouldn't go deeper into that analysis if I were you, if you think NBA players have 6 ft arms.

I mistyped. I meant to say that the average standing reach for an NBA player up to the SF spot, is over 8 foot in overall length (http://analyticsgame.com/nba/average-nba-position-draft-measurements.html). I specifically did not include PF and C's standing reaches since there's hardly that shoot enough volume 3s to warrant such an exercise. This fits in with my narrative that 4-6 feet really isn't that open. Not in this league when nearly every average player out there can recover in time. Also considering that on that same data, there's barely a handful of teams that can actually shoot just average when contested for a wide open 3, seems to fit my musing as well that 4-6 feet really doesn't qualify in this day and age as being all that "open". In fact, 4 and even 5 feet shouldn't even be considered open, because it hardly is with little space and recovery. 4-6 feet IMO is way too broad in generalization.

You can disagree with all of that, fine, but the overall data input seems to have a negative relationship that 4-6 feet and being above average is a hard feat to do, even with decent shooters.

I thought it was an apt observation/contention in context with the stats offered by synergy/nba.

Of the Pistons 26 3PAs per game, 12 were "open", and 10 were "wide open" (which is 38%, not 11%). Expecting much more than that is unrealistic. For reference, GS got 12 wide open 3s per game last year and the league leaders the 2 yrs prior topped off at ~12 per game too. That's usually about as good as it gets in the NBA. ATL's 16 per game last year was an anomaly and not a realistic goal. There is room for improvement there, but not as much as you think.

The data above doesn't look at it from your perspective on just raw attempts. You're looking at raw totals, which i feel doesn't account for all the variables. The data above looks at actual footage and how frequent it was actually generated from a situational (in this case, catch & shoot) perspective. That's far more inclusive in data of raw overall shooting than just doing a simple split from our 3PTA per game. It's actually looking at the rate it is being generated that an offensive play/possession will end with a wide open shot. This takes into account of variety of factors like how the play is set up, instead of just ALL of wide open shots.

Having said that, you aren't wrong either in that we did have a lot of wide open shots that we weren't able to convert in the raw sense. But the model above looks more towards catch and shoots and how at the rate they were generated on a possession and play. The exact specification and variables used we'll never know, but I can at least guess based on the tame percentages.

Also because I feel like a lot of our offensive sets and plays really don't end with a wide open (6 feet+) catch & shoot jumper, which this set of data seems to portray. That for me says that it's more formulaic in general with it sputtering out rates and rewards high(er) rates to teams that really do have creative offenses like Cavs or GSW and even OKC with their drive and kick offense. Those with creative offenses but reduced the rate in taking 3s like the Spurs are also correctly accounted with them acquiring LMA, Kawhi being more of a midrange maestro this year, and with Danny Green having an off year, their penchant for the 3 ball went down significantly. Which again, this model looks at and accounted for.

Really my whole point is, our offense has issues and we need to be smarter in both execution AND knocking down shots. Which like you said in regarding to converting open shots.

The area with the most room for improvement is making more of their "open" ones. They don't have to make 42% like GS either. 5 teams shot between 36-38% on "open" 3s last year. 5 teams shot between 37-38% in 2015. 9 teams shot between ~37-39% in 2014. That is a realistic attainable goal if the Pistons just had better shooters, because most good NBA shooters don't need over 6 ft of space to shoot efficiently. And you can't just rely on wide open 3s when you're a high volume 3pt offense. There just aren't enough available. You have to be able to make the "open" ones efficiently too.

I agree with you, ours is on the lower end of the scale. But if it makes you feel any better, hardly any teams shot above average in this category of "open" shots regardless and this includes the Spurs and Rockets both of whom are playoff-tested and star studded. We'll go with the age old adage that 35% is the league average when it comes to 3 pt shooting. From just a glance, virtually every team except a few crack that number. Even the champs, the Cavs only shoot around 35.7% from there. It's a hard feat to increase and you can only seem to do it when you have absolute elite shooters AND smart play in that regard. When you have the Spurs only shooting a mediocre 34% from "open" shots with the way their creative offense is set up, it tells a lot more of the nuances of shooting than one may think. Having said that, I think it's also realistic this year that we can go from a measly 32% to hovering around 33 to 35 this season with us having an actual bench and better chemistry that came with playoff experience.

It's a hard goal to achieve, but it is possible with a better tuned offense and even smarter plays for all of our starters that is starting to mesh now with the mini roster turnover we had last year. 1 year of stability & play and then we can judge it on its own terms IMO.

[DBC10]

Given Gores comments - why doesn't he just offer KCP the max and get him signed if he's so not worried about the luxury tax and KCP is very, very important to the Pistons. How can you even hardball negotiate with him after the owner says that stuff publicly?

hardball negotiating isn't always the best way to go, sometimes saying we really want you back, let's settle on something that works for both parties works too.

he said the same thing about dre (that he's a max player, we want him back) and dre took less than the max. that's after we made him wait a year to get his money guaranteed.

I'd argue hardball negotiating doesn't really work all that well when it comes to these professional athletes. You have to make them feel included and wanted, not say "Go out in the open market and fetch your worth".

[coordinator0]

Given Gores comments - why doesn't he just offer KCP the max and get him signed if he's so not worried about the luxury tax and KCP is very, very important to the Pistons. How can you even hardball negotiate with him after the owner says that stuff publicly?

hardball negotiating isn't always the best way to go, sometimes saying we really want you back, let's settle on something that works for both parties works too.

he said the same thing about dre (that he's a max player, we want him back) and dre took less than the max. that's after we made him wait a year to get his money guaranteed.

Drummond got the max he could get for his 0-6 NBA years salary slot. Practically the same exact contract as Beal's except Andre's last year is a player option.

I agree that hardball isn't the way to go though and that definitely seems to be the way Gores and the front office works for the Pistons. Trying to back players into a corner and make them accept a certain amount isn't going to work if you want to maintain a good relationship. Especially with a young, starting-quality shooting guard in a league where that's the weakest position.

[Kilo]

Given Gores comments - why doesn't he just offer KCP the max and get him signed if he's so not worried about the luxury tax and KCP is very, very important to the Pistons. How can you even hardball negotiate with him after the owner says that stuff publicly?

hardball negotiating isn't always the best way to go, sometimes saying we really want you back, let's settle on something that works for both parties works too.

he said the same thing about dre (that he's a max player, we want him back) and dre took less than the max. that's after we made him wait a year to get his money guaranteed.

Dre is a different case in that he was always going to be a max player. IIRC the FO didn't make him wait the year, Gores and Stan said all along it was up to Dre and if he wanted to sign last year they would have.

[Todd3]

No ones arms are over 6 ft long lol. The average human arm is ~2 ft. The average NBA wingspan is 6'7. That's the length of both arms across plus the width between. Meaning the average NBA arm is about 2.5-3 ft tops. Which is why when a shooter is shooting with a 4-6 ft distance from a defender, he is considered "open", and a 2-4 ft distance is considered "tight". I wouldn't go deeper into that analysis if I were you, if you think NBA players have 6 ft arms.

I mistyped. I meant to say that the average standing reach for an NBA player up to the SF spot, is over 8 foot in overall length (http://analyticsgame.com/nba/average-nba-position-draft-measurements.html). I specifically did not include PF and C's standing reaches since there's hardly that shoot enough volume 3s to warrant such an exercise. This fits in with my narrative that 4-6 feet really isn't that open. Not in this league when nearly every average player out there can recover in time. Also considering that on that same data, there's barely a handful of teams that can actually shoot just average when contested for a wide open 3, seems to fit my musing as well that 4-6 feet really doesn't qualify in this day and age as being all that "open". In fact, 4 and even 5 feet shouldn't even be considered open, because it hardly is with little space and recovery. 4-6 feet IMO is way too broad in generalization.

You can disagree with all of that, fine, but the overall data input seems to have a negative relationship that 4-6 feet and being above average is a hard feat to do, even with decent shooters.

I thought it was an apt observation/contention in context with the stats offered by synergy/nba.

Spoiler:

Of the Pistons 26 3PAs per game, 12 were "open", and 10 were "wide open" (which is 38%, not 11%). Expecting much more than that is unrealistic. For reference, GS got 12 wide open 3s per game last year and the league leaders the 2 yrs prior topped off at ~12 per game too. That's usually about as good as it gets in the NBA. ATL's 16 per game last year was an anomaly and not a realistic goal. There is room for improvement there, but not as much as you think.

The data above doesn't look at it from your perspective on just raw attempts. You're looking at raw totals, which i feel doesn't account for all the variables. The data above looks at actual footage and how frequent it was actually generated from a situational (in this case, catch & shoot) perspective. That's far more inclusive in data of raw overall shooting than just doing a simple split from our 3PTA per game. It's actually looking at the rate it is being generated that an offensive play/possession will end with a wide open shot. This takes into account of variety of factors like how the play is set up, instead of just ALL of wide open shots.

Having said that, you aren't wrong either in that we did have a lot of wide open shots that we weren't able to convert in the raw sense. But the model above looks more towards catch and shoots and how at the rate they were generated on a possession and play. The exact specification and variables used we'll never know, but I can at least guess based on the tame percentages.

Also because I feel like a lot of our offensive sets and plays really don't end with a wide open (6 feet+) catch & shoot jumper, which this set of data seems to portray. That for me says that it's more formulaic in general with it sputtering out rates and rewards high(er) rates to teams that really do have creative offenses like Cavs or GSW and even OKC with their drive and kick offense. Those with creative offenses but reduced the rate in taking 3s like the Spurs are also correctly accounted with them acquiring LMA, Kawhi being more of a midrange maestro this year, and with Danny Green having an off year, their penchant for the 3 ball went down significantly. Which again, this model looks at and accounted for.

Really my whole point is, our offense has issues and we need to be smarter in both execution AND knocking down shots. Which like you said in regarding to converting open shots.

The area with the most room for improvement is making more of their "open" ones. They don't have to make 42% like GS either. 5 teams shot between 36-38% on "open" 3s last year. 5 teams shot between 37-38% in 2015. 9 teams shot between ~37-39% in 2014. That is a realistic attainable goal if the Pistons just had better shooters, because most good NBA shooters don't need over 6 ft of space to shoot efficiently. And you can't just rely on wide open 3s when you're a high volume 3pt offense. There just aren't enough available. You have to be able to make the "open" ones efficiently too.

I agree with you, ours is on the lower end of the scale. But if it makes you feel any better, hardly any teams shot above average in this category of "open" shots regardless and this includes the Spurs and Rockets both of whom are playoff-tested and star studded. We'll go with the age old adage that 35% is the league average when it comes to 3 pt shooting. From just a glance, virtually every team except a few crack that number. Even the champs, the Cavs only shoot around 35.7% from there. It's a hard feat to increase and you can only seem to do it when you have absolute elite shooters AND smart play in that regard. When you have the Spurs only shooting a mediocre 34% from "open" shots with the way their creative offense is set up, it tells a lot more of the nuances of shooting than one may think. Having said that, I think it's also realistic this year that we can go from a measly 32% to hovering around 33 to 35 this season with us having an actual bench and better chemistry that came with playoff experience.

It's a hard goal to achieve, but it is possible with a better tuned offense and even smarter plays for all of our starters that is starting to mesh now with the mini roster turnover we had last year. 1 year of stability & play and then we can judge it on its own terms IMO

.

I'm pretty certain that the synergy stats are measured by the distance of the defender at the time the shot is released, and not where the defender is when the shooter catches the ball and begins the shooting motion. If the latter were the case, then yes a long/athletic defender might be able to close out in time from 4-6 ft. But if he's 4-6 ft away when the ball is already being released, then all he can do is stretch out his arm 2.5-3 ft, which from 4-6 ft still leaves the shooter with at least 1-3 ft of space between the ball and the defenders hand. Which is plenty of room to get off a clean shot for an NBA shooter.

Just because there weren't a lot of teams that shot great as a team when "open", doesn't mean there aren't a lot of great shooters around the league who do shoot a high % within 4-6ft. It just means there aren't a lot of teams stacked with them, so their overall % is only around average. But this isn't about the Pistons whole team average. It's about the 2-4 positions being able to make their defender pay for cheating off onto Reggie/Dre's pick & roll.

Other teams needs are different. The Spurs offense isn't as reliant on space in the paint. The Pistons need shooters who can make that shot consistently & efficiently for this offense to work. And there are enough of them around the league that they could have a stack of them around Reggie/Dre if they really tried, imo.

Take it from KCP himself:

He shot 42 percent from the field, his third straight season of slight gains, but saw his 3-point shooting percentage fall 3.6 points to 30.9 percent. The Pistons want that improved.

"It's very important," Caldwell-Pope said. "A lot of shots we get are going to come from the 3-point line, on drive-and-kicks or we're wide open. It's very important we stay consistent from the 3-point line."
http://www.mlive.com/pistons/index.ssf/2016/09/kentavious_caldwell-pope_prepa_1.html

Meaning when Reggie drives and KCPs defender sags to the paint, KCP has to be able to catch & shoot and make them pay consistently, whether they're 4-6 ft away or he's wide open.

They know what they need to do. It's just a matter of whether they can do it, or if the Pistons need to get someone else to do it. This season is going to determine that, so it would be foolish to extend him before that.

[bballnmike]

No ones arms are over 6 ft long lol. The average human arm is ~2 ft. The average NBA wingspan is 6'7. That's the length of both arms across plus the width between. Meaning the average NBA arm is about 2.5-3 ft tops. Which is why when a shooter is shooting with a 4-6 ft distance from a defender, he is considered "open", and a 2-4 ft distance is considered "tight". I wouldn't go deeper into that analysis if I were you, if you think NBA players have 6 ft arms.

[Todd3]

No ones arms are over 6 ft long lol. The average human arm is ~2 ft. The average NBA wingspan is 6'7. That's the length of both arms across plus the width between. Meaning the average NBA arm is about 2.5-3 ft tops. Which is why when a shooter is shooting with a 4-6 ft distance from a defender, he is considered "open", and a 2-4 ft distance is considered "tight". I wouldn't go deeper into that analysis if I were you, if you think NBA players have 6 ft arms.