Some additional combine numbers

AQuintus · Post #21 » by **AQuintus** » Tue Jun 2, 2009 9:59 pm

Xand1 wrote:Good question, and they're definitely lower vert numbers across the board. On the flip side, this year's draftees have massive wingspans compared to last year's class. Weird.

I noticed that, too. Almost everyone had either freakish wingspans or (in the cases of Curry, Lawson, Maynor, etc) T-Rex arms. There wasn't much middle ground.

Post #22 » by **revprodeji** » Tue Jun 2, 2009 10:04 pm

Xand1 wrote:Not much of a surprise that Harden wound up being both bigger and more athletic than everyone thought. Hmm. Also liking the Curry #'s - stronger and a better athlete than people thought.

I have been saying he would be bigger and faster than many expected. I even predicted some numbers for him.

big3_8_19_21 · Post #23 » by **big3_8_19_21** » Tue Jun 2, 2009 10:43 pm

I didn't expect a 38 inch vert out of Ellington (better than Terrence Williams at 37" and Sam Young at a surprisingly low 33" max vert).

big3_8_19_21 · Post #24 » by **big3_8_19_21** » Tue Jun 2, 2009 11:20 pm

Daye showed awful athleticism with a max vert of 28 inches (tied w/ Grievis Vasquez for the worst) and a 3/4 court sprint time significantly slower than Luke Harangody.

AQuintus · Post #25 » by **AQuintus** » Wed Jun 3, 2009 9:28 am

I posted this in the draft forum, but I think it's something that should be said here as well.

AQuintus wrote:DeMar DeRozan is probably my favorite prospect from this class. After seeing his underwhelming numbers today, I was starting to get really down on him. After a little research, however, I'm seeing that these numbers really don't mean anything at all.

Examples:

DeMar DeRozan: 11.88 Lane Agility 3.31 3/4 Court Sprint
Monta Ellis.....: 12.13 Lane Agility 3.31 3/4 Court Sprint
Caron Butler....: 12.15 Lane Agility 3.33 3/4 Court Sprint
Joe Johnson....: 12.05 Lane Agility 3.40 3/4 Court Sprint

Chris Paul.: 11.09 Lane Agility 3.22 3/4 Court Sprint
Kevin Love: 11.17 Lane Agility 3.22 3/4 Court Sprint

According to the numbers, Monta Ellis is both not agile and fairly slow. As are Caron Butler and Joe Johnson. Also according to the numbers, Kevin Love is just as fast and almost as agile as Chris Paul. It's pretty obvious to anyone who's seen these guys play, however, that none of these things is actually true. So, in other words, these numbers really aren't a good basis for judging whether or not a player will have future success, or even if a player is a good athlete.

Post #26 » by **Worm Guts** » Wed Jun 3, 2009 12:42 pm

No doubt, athletic testing at the combine is essentially useless. You're much better off judging athletic ability by watching games.

Dewey · Post #27 » by **Dewey** » Wed Jun 3, 2009 1:08 pm

I agree that taking these combine numbers too serious is a mistake. Has any one ever heard a coach or GM refer back to the draft and say, "Ricky scored high on the lane agility ... we knew he he had good feet and help us defensively"...? Don't think so.

the_bruce · Post #28 » by **the_bruce** » Wed Jun 3, 2009 1:42 pm

There isn't a ton of application to in game performance with what they measure. As for translating these numbers into true athletic ability.

3/4 sprint in relation to the difference of max vert to nostep vert is a good indication of the players overall athletic ability. But even for players where this would matter most of the top prospects are going to fall in a similar range.

Plus the 3/4 sprint is a shade under 24 yards. It's hard to tell how much of a difference 1/10 of a second means in overall speed. A few tenths of a second is actually a sizeable distance at this distance. Anyone know if these are hand timed, I'd guess no.

Not a great way to do this to put it in more meaningful terms, but translating these numbers into 100 times can give some perspective on this stuff. All of these people would actually run the 100 or 40 a bit faster because we don't give them the benefit of the doubt to maintain their top end speed.
3.6 = 15.3
3.5 = 14.89
3.1 = 13.19
2.9 = 12.34 (4.93 40yard dash)

Post #29 » by **Worm Guts** » Wed Jun 3, 2009 1:55 pm

bruceallen61 wrote:
3/4 sprint in relation to the difference of max vert to nostep vert is a good indication of the players overall athletic ability. But even for players where this would matter most of the top prospects are going to fall in a similar range.

I don't know, if you look at those numbers, they really don't seem to translate to basketball athleticism. Kevin Love had a higher vert and faster 3/4 court sprint that Monta Ellis. Chris Kaman had a faster 3/4 court sprint than TJ Ford.

the_bruce · Post #30 » by **the_bruce** » Wed Jun 3, 2009 2:18 pm

Worm Guts wrote:
bruceallen61 wrote:
3/4 sprint in relation to the difference of max vert to nostep vert is a good indication of the players overall athletic ability. But even for players where this would matter most of the top prospects are going to fall in a similar range.

I don't know, if you look at those numbers, they really don't seem to translate to basketball athleticism. Kevin Love had a higher vert and faster 3/4 court sprint that Monta Ellis. Chris Kaman had a faster 3/4 court sprint than TJ Ford.

Ellis has a good first step and there isn't a great test to determine that, especially with ball in hand. How/where they dribble the ball in that first step vs different types of defenders. To many variables in judging a guard in this respect.

As general athletes non of these guys are jaw dropping. I think the length numbers are much more telling for defensive potential.

jpatrick · Post #31 » by **jpatrick** » Wed Jun 3, 2009 2:35 pm

To me the agility drills are the biggest joke. Basically the players are moving around the outside of a box, so they run forward, slide left, back peddle, slide right, etc, but half the players were running sidways instead of sliding. I think you can get something out of watching the players run the drills but just looking at the numbers is meaningless.

john2jer · Post #32 » by **john2jer** » Wed Jun 3, 2009 2:47 pm

In a semi-related story, in traveling basketball we used stupid drills like these to score players and then had bounds we were tied to as far as selecting who would play on the A team and the B team. If we selected someone outside the acceptable ranges, we were grilled and had to defend our opinion. STATS DON'T LIE!!! Grrr... Imagine if the NBA did this.

Apparently stop watches are a better judge of talent than someone who's been coaching for 10 years.

/rant

TheProdigy · Post #33 » by **TheProdigy** » Wed Jun 3, 2009 7:16 pm

I agree with the rest of you that the 3/4 court sprint and lane agility drills are basically useless. However, the max vertical reach is a good indicator of athleticism. Basically this is the highest point that a player can touch.

Harden's 11'8.5" is astounding considering that there were rumors before the combine that he would measure 6'4 in shoes.

I'm on the Harden bandwagon even if it includes trading up a pick or two.

AQuintus · Post #34 » by **AQuintus** » Wed Jun 3, 2009 7:22 pm

DaKidKG wrote:I agree with the rest of you that the 3/4 court sprint and lane agility drills are basically useless. However, the max vertical reach is a good indicator of athleticism. Basically this is the highest point that a player can touch.

Harden's 11'8.5" is astounding considering that there were rumors before the combine that he would measure 6'4 in shoes.

I'm on the Harden bandwagon even if it includes trading up a pick or two.

It's a decent measure of how high a player can jump, but it doesn't measure how explosive (or how quickly a player reaches that height) a player is at all. For example, Kevin Love and Blake Griffin have nearly identical standing reaches and max verts, but I doubt that anyone who has ever seen them play would think that they are equal athletes.

big3_8_19_21 · Post #35 » by **big3_8_19_21** » Wed Jun 3, 2009 7:28 pm

I don't get how Luke Harangody got a faster sprint time than Sam Young...I guess if Kevin Love got the same time as Chris Paul, though...talk about useless numbers.

Wingman · Post #36 » by **Wingman** » Thu Jun 4, 2009 1:01 am

Kevin Love has a higher max vert than Tyreke or Jrue. That's depressing.

Winter Wonder · Post #37 » by **Winter Wonder** » Thu Jun 4, 2009 1:13 am

john2jer wrote:In a semi-related story, in traveling basketball we used stupid drills like these to score players and then had bounds we were tied to as far as selecting who would play on the A team and the B team. If we selected someone outside the acceptable ranges, we were grilled and had to defend our opinion. STATS DON'T LIE!!! Grrr... Imagine if the NBA did this.

Apparently stop watches are a better judge of talent than someone who's been coaching for 10 years.

/rant

Oh I feel for you. I have a semi similar situation where there are a few coaches on staff that believe certain drills are better at establishing basketball talent than actual gameplay. I am not saying that drills can't be helpful, but come on! As they say, there is a reason why they play the games. Things may look one way on paper and differently on the court. Oh well, obviously the numbers don't lie...

dunkonu21 · Post #38 » by **dunkonu21** » Thu Jun 4, 2009 1:39 am

Things I noticed looking at this year and past years...

No guard who is 10.0 body fat or more has ever been good (although that's just in the last 4 years or so, cause they didn't calculate it before). Randy Foye's body fat was at 10. Huh. Harden's is above 10. Huh. Budinger too!

Seems that one thing I have discovered for vert is that it's not necessarily dudes with a max running vert in the 40's that are considered the more explosive people. I think a safe rule is a standing vert of 30+ or around there and a Max vert of 35+ is a pretty darn athletic dude. Anything below that kinda scares me. DWade and Melo both had about 30 standing and 35 max so that is kinda where I got my bench mark and then looking at players in the range seemed to confirm it for me.

One thing you can't deny is when a guy is in the 3.2's or better for the sprint and even more impressive is when they are close to 3 flat. Seems like the guys in this category can almost always get around their guys on the dribble at the NBA level.

Damion James and Jermaine Taylor are both guys I need at this point in the draft. I'd even take one at #18 and the other at #28. They just have me hooked at this point. Teague is in the hooked category too, but I heard he is going in the Lottery and now I'm pretty much convinced he's gone at #18.

big3_8_19_21 · Post #39 » by **big3_8_19_21** » Thu Jun 4, 2009 2:01 am

Winter Wonder wrote:
john2jer wrote:In a semi-related story, in traveling basketball we used stupid drills like these to score players and then had bounds we were tied to as far as selecting who would play on the A team and the B team. If we selected someone outside the acceptable ranges, we were grilled and had to defend our opinion. STATS DON'T LIE!!! Grrr... Imagine if the NBA did this.

Apparently stop watches are a better judge of talent than someone who's been coaching for 10 years.

/rant

Oh I feel for you. I have a semi similar situation where there are a few coaches on staff that believe certain drills are better at establishing basketball talent than actual gameplay. I am not saying that drills can't be helpful, but come on! As they say, there is a reason why they play the games. Things may look one way on paper and differently on the court. Oh well, obviously the numbers don't lie...

Now that I think about it, this really is an issue that spans age and a variety of sports. "Real" speed/explosiveness and "sports" speed/explosiveness are two completely different things. I used to play soccer and I never had a problem keeping up with guys who would kill me in a track and field event, but in game, it's just different. My last year in high school, I never got playing time on a team I should have been starting for because I wasn't fast enough with my "real" speed despite never having problems keeping up with anyone in practice or when I actually played in game.

john2jer · Post #40 » by **john2jer** » Thu Jun 4, 2009 2:11 pm

big3_8_19_21 wrote:
Winter Wonder wrote:
john2jer wrote:In a semi-related story, in traveling basketball we used stupid drills like these to score players and then had bounds we were tied to as far as selecting who would play on the A team and the B team. If we selected someone outside the acceptable ranges, we were grilled and had to defend our opinion. STATS DON'T LIE!!! Grrr... Imagine if the NBA did this.

Apparently stop watches are a better judge of talent than someone who's been coaching for 10 years.

/rant

Oh I feel for you. I have a semi similar situation where there are a few coaches on staff that believe certain drills are better at establishing basketball talent than actual gameplay. I am not saying that drills can't be helpful, but come on! As they say, there is a reason why they play the games. Things may look one way on paper and differently on the court. Oh well, obviously the numbers don't lie...

Now that I think about it, this really is an issue that spans age and a variety of sports. "Real" speed/explosiveness and "sports" speed/explosiveness are two completely different things. I used to play soccer and I never had a problem keeping up with guys who would kill me in a track and field event, but in game, it's just different. My last year in high school, I never got playing time on a team I should have been starting for because I wasn't fast enough with my "real" speed despite never having problems keeping up with anyone in practice or when I actually played in game.

I had the same problem in high school. I ran track. I had the fundamentals to be a good sprinter, I was just slow on the track. In basketball I was considered quick and very fast, though. Game speed. :-)

Two years ago I had this kid try-out that scored like 27th for his grade. I was the "A" coach and supposed to take 10 players. Well this kid was 6-foot as a 7th grade, very smooth, and could play inside or outside, but obviously bombed in the drills. I had to argue for 2 hours to get him on my team. He ended up being our leading score by at least 5 points over our 2nd guy, and in the state tournament that year he averaged 25 a game to lead us to a 2nd place finish in state. 25 is a lot when most games are 50-45. DROVE ME NUTS while proving me right. He didn't have the look of a "basketball player" because he had long hair and was a little awkward when not playing.