RealGM

So I just discovered that basketball-reference has added incredible on/off court data for every player, every team, going back years... sorry I used to check this stuff a lot more often so I'm a month late on this.

Looked up the data for the Lakers (naturally). Was super **** surprised at the results. I hope someone can understand wtf is going on here.

Our 4 normal starters (yes Pau no Nash)



What is the weirdest thing to you? No, according to that, it is not Pau hurting the team. According to the stats, the Lakers both shoot better and hold the opponents to less with Kobe, Ron, and Pau on the court.. and they are more effective shooting-wise and on defense with Dwight off the court (instead of when he's playing).

What's going on here

Our bench sucks?

That explains why we're worse without Kobe, Pau, Metta.. why are we worse WITH Dwight and better without?

I would guess that it had something to do with the rotations that we've had most of the season. Up until recently Pau and Kobe would generally play the entire 1st quarter (and against 2nd units towards the end of the quarter) with Howard starting the 2nd with a bunch of guys playing like garbage. Jamison was trash early on when he played at the 3 and it took a few games for Meeks to start producing, not to mention that scrub Steve Blake was on the floor with them as well. Pau has the luxury of always being on the floor with Kobe and Artest (who has played extremely well this season) and that's probably the difference.

I don't know. I've never put much value in on/off. Those numbers would suggest that we're better off with Pau but that's obviously BS. Pau has been atrocious on both ends of the floor. I think it's more about the lineups than it is the individuals.

My brief search says Bynum never did well either. Let's blame Kobe.

if you go to 82games.com and look up the lakers lineups you'll find that howard is the main one putting in minutes surrounded by 4 "scrubs" (no kobe/pau/nash). thats gonna def. hurt your +/- numbers.

when dwight is out, pau usually rotates over to guard the opposing team's center, which in my opinion he does a better job at considering hes taller/quicker than most centers. when dwight is in, pau slides over to the PF where he gets beat by younger, quicker forwards.

reminds me exactly why i hate these (Please Use More Appropriate Word) ass stats

Imadogg wrote:That explains why we're worse without Kobe, Pau, Metta.. why are we worse WITH Dwight and better without?

because chemistry? and scrubs?

dockingsched wrote:if you go to 82games.com and look up the lakers lineups you'll find that howard is the main one putting in minutes surrounded by 4 "scrubs" (no kobe/pau/nash). thats gonna def. hurt your +/- numbers.

Yea I see that Dwight played the most with scrubs, but that's a huge difference in numbers, we're +11 ORtg when he's out.. wtf

Rox_Nix_Nox wrote:reminds me exactly why i hate these (Please Use More Appropriate Word) ass stats

All stats need context, it's (Please Use More Appropriate Word) if you just look at them and say Dwight sucks.

yes i use 82games on/off numbers and its hard to explain at this point. its a really small sample size for on/off numbers so thats the first thing i would point to. the second one, as doc mentioned, is that dwight does spend a lot more time with our bench than gasol does. for example of gasol's top 10 units in minutes, only one of them doesnt include kobe, while for howard 3 of his top 10 units in minutes dont have kobe in them.

the lineup of duhon-meeks-jamison-hill-howard is -29, by far the most negative of any unit with either howard or gasol. in fact most of the lineups that howard has to play with some combo of morris/meeks/jamison/hill are negative.

so its really just a combination of small sample size + weird rotations.

just blame kobe