Wages of Wins Stat Article on Mayo/Love so far

[shrink]

Very interesting article for the stat-lover in you.

http://dberri.wordpress.com/2008/12/21/ ... ger-power/

[HL Slamdunk]

That was a pretty impressive blog. I thought one of the most interesting concepts of that was that the Timberwolves are closer to success than the Memphis Grizzlies. Sure Mayo has a really good scoring average, but you need to be a more complete player in this league if you want to have success. Another aspect I found interesting was that Kevin Love (this article was written before his recently good play) is more productive and has a higher WP than Mayo. I wonder and hope that McHale sees that mathematically, and in my opinion on the court, that Ryan Gomes just isn't that good of a player. There were a lot of people that wanted the Wolves to resign him, but I just wasn't impressed by his play.

[shrink]

After hearing almost nothing but Mayo love from several posters, it was interesting to see all the stats broken down, and see Mayo is about average.

http://www.wagesofwins.com/MayoDec2008.html

It doesn't mean he won't get better, but its nice to see how Love's bigger gap over the average PF. I think casual fans get too fascinated by points.

http://www.wagesofwins.com/JeffersonLoveGomesDec08.html

[john2jer]

Honestly, adjust stats, PER, Wage of Wins, Win Shares, Wind Speed, and Wind Chill...

None of it means anything if you have a lower number in the W column, and a higher number in the L column.

Really, that's the ONLY thing that matters. We don't get a sponsors exemption into the play-offs if we do more with less, bgut still end up with less wins than the 8th seed.

"You play to win the game." Not, "You play to mathematically be more effective with less talent and hope someone takes pity on you."

There's a discussion on the player comparison board about Tyrus Thomas having a high PER, but at the end of the day he's not good enough to get starter's minutes.

This isn't the BCS, computers don't decide the NBA Champions at the end of the year.

[HL Slamdunk]

Honestly, adjust stats, PER, Wage of Wins, Win Shares, Wind Speed, and Wind Chill...

None of it means anything if you have a lower number in the W column, and a higher number in the L column.

Really, that's the ONLY thing that matters. We don't get a sponsors exemption into the play-offs if we do more with less, bgut still end up with less wins than the 8th seed.

"You play to win the game." Not, "You play to mathematically be more effective with less talent and hope someone takes pity on you."

There's a discussion on the player comparison board about Tyrus Thomas having a high PER, but at the end of the day he's not good enough to get starter's minutes.

This isn't the BCS, computers don't decide the NBA Champions at the end of the year.

Yeah, I definitely agree with you here. Wins and losses are the main statistic to look at. But, all of the other statistics like Per, WP, and others have a direct correlation with how many wins a team has. Those stats translate into the wins. But yes, overall wins are the most important thing to look at.

[shrink]

Honestly, adjust stats, PER, Wage of Wins, Win Shares, Wind Speed, and Wind Chill...

None of it means anything if you have a lower number in the W column, and a higher number in the L column.

Then "win-shares" should be the stat for you. The whole purpose of it is to cut through all the statistical garbage, and isolate how much an individual player contributes to his team's wins.

[horaceworthy]

Honestly, adjust stats, PER, Wage of Wins, Win Shares, Wind Speed, and Wind Chill...

None of it means anything if you have a lower number in the W column, and a higher number in the L column.

Really, that's the ONLY thing that matters. We don't get a sponsors exemption into the play-offs if we do more with less, bgut still end up with less wins than the 8th seed.

"You play to win the game." Not, "You play to mathematically be more effective with less talent and hope someone takes pity on you."

There's a discussion on the player comparison board about Tyrus Thomas having a high PER, but at the end of the day he's not good enough to get starter's minutes.

This isn't the BCS, computers don't decide the NBA Champions at the end of the year.

That type of old school cut and dry talk is nice in the Keep-It-Simple-Stupid sense, and from a team sense, true. However, when discussing individual players, wins aren't all that useful a statistic, particularly when you're discussing two individuals from bad teams that will both miss the playoffs this year.

I'm a little puzzled that so many people seem so down on Kevin Love. Yes, OJ Mayo is a nice scorer, but he doesn't look like a franchise player to me, more a better version of Randy Foye (which, admittedly, would look very nice next to Al). Love has been better than I expected on the defensive end and on the boards, as well as being one of two players on the team that seems to be aware of the concept of ball movement. His inability to hit a shot has been a huge disappointment, but given his youth, collegiate success, and that many of the misses seem to be more a matter of not finding the right touch around the basket than problems getting his shot off, I think his FG% will come around eventually. Remember he's still just a 20 year old rookie big man that still has some work to do on his body (which is disappointing, but there's been a notable transformation since his early UCLA days, so I'm hoping he'll keep at it).

[john2jer]

I'm not even going to get into the debate whether we should have made the trade or not. I'll just chalk it up to another time I was screaming for a player before the draft, McHale took him, then traded him away. But whatever. We have Love, there's no sense in talking about "What Ifs"...

BUT! What I like about Mayo is he's definitely got the second thing you can't coach. You can't coach height, and you can't really coach confidence. A guy either is or he isn't. It's pretty tough to turn someone into a confident, clutch player willing to take big shots. Mayo has no problem with his confidence and the Wolves definitely need someone like that. We don't really have much for confidence on the wings, nor a guy who can take over a game.

Mayo's shooting will improve as he continues to adjust to the speed and length of NBA players. His turn-overs will cut down as the team gets to know each other better, and he learns the NBA game.

Love will hopefully continue to improve his conditioning. He'll improve his already advanced knowledge of positioning and footwork. Clearly he's not an NBA center, that's so obvious. I just don't understand spending the 3rd pick on a back-up. It doesn't make sense to me. Unless they ideally want their future front court to be Jefferson/Love, but again that doesn't make sense.

[Devilzsidewalk]

I think the point of the article underlines that the problem isn't Love or not having Mayo as much as it's Miller, McCants, Gomes and Foye all throwing games for the mafia

[john2jer]

I think the point of the article underlines that the problem isn't Love or not having Mayo as much as it's Miller, McCants, Gomes and Foye all throwing games for the mafia

it would be nice if we were good enough that they could stick to point shaving, but let's be honest, we don't have that kind of talent.

[shrink]

I might be a little to attached to the "Win Shares" stat for two reasons.

First, unlike these RealGM fake stats, Win Shares actually produced repeatable numbers, and I like the attempt to isolate who, on a team of 5, is actually creating wins.

Second, this stat used to glorify Kevin Garnett. It pointed out that KG had win share numbers significantly higher than any player in the league, but the rest of his team was simply miserable, with many starters even having negative win share values. I think that makes a sense to many Wolves fans.

However, I think this stat does a lot to cut through hype. Fans love the scoring, but neglect other aspects of the game that can be crucial to producing wins. Loves higher win share scores make a certain kind of sense to me, since I see him as a player who will get his stats, and not make his teammates better. This may change as Mayo grows, or it may be intrinsic to his character. I have no doubts watching Love that getting his team wins is his primary goal, and his willingness last night to do little things (make an entry pass, break up an alley-oop, follow rebounds, block out) in addition to try to get his shots reinforces that for me. I haven't seen it mentioned, but perhaps that also makes Love a better compliment to Al.

[shrink]

Let me add one last thing.

Stats are nice, and I've gone pretty far analyzing them for fantasy nba, but the bottom line is that you want players on the floor that are mroe likely to help you win games. As I followed win shares, Ricky Davis joined the team and became our #2 option. He posted decent numbers as well, but his win-shares were barely positive .. very similar to Marko Jaric. That made sense to me. Jaric led the team in +/- that year, and he'd come in and get the ball into the right hands, play some defense, and get a clutch steal or rebound that clinched games. Stat hoarders like Ricky Davis didn't seem to be helping get wins, and the stat seemed to show that.

I don't know if Mayo is going to follow the Ricky Davis trend. I want to think not, but there is a fine line in the NBA between confidence and arrogance, and Mayo's three-straight misses in OT, without getting his teammates involved, make me raise an eyebrow. Its way to soon to make that call now though, but it seems to me that his low Win-Share score compared to Love, accurately reflects this.

[horaceworthy]

I'm with you Devilz. The primary problem is that our shooters aren't making outside shots that they've made in the past.

J2J- I really don't want to discuss the trade either. I was in favor of it at the time and I'm in favor of it at the moment, but it's too soon to call it for either side. The only tweak I might have made would have been picking Lopez instead of Love, but I'm not sure I would have done that. Mayo was #3 on my particular board, with Love/Lopez pretty much deadlocked for #4.

I agree that you can't coach confidence, but I'm not so sure about that. Mayo's getting 38 minutes and 16 shots a night. He was handed that at the start of the year, allowed to keep it through every rough patch he's come up against. Those runners in the lane that Mayo hit didn't come all that often at USC, and he often shrunk from the moment when it came time to take big shots when I watched him. He looked neither confident or willing to take big shots, which struck me as odd, since that wasn't his reputation in high school. The Grizzlies have made a tangible, visible effort in terms of giving him opportunities to succeed and stuck by him when he's stumbled. It's paying off for them right now. Mayo's a nice player and the Wolves could certainly use someone like him, I just don't see the uberstud that he's made out to be by KFAN right now.

The Wolves haven't done that with Love. In fact, I don't think they've done that with any rookie in their entire history, with the exception of Stephon Marbury (this isn't meant to compare Marbury and Mayo, Marbury just happens to be the only rookie the Wolves played heavy minutes right off the bat). It's one of the frustrating aspects of how the Wolves choose to develop players. They put their playing time on a yo yo and cause them to play looking over their shoulder at the bench and afraid to take chances in case they make a mistake and get pulled. Love isn't the first player it's been like this with. Brewer, Foye, McCants, all of them came in sounding or looking confident/arrogant, and the confidence was beaten out of all of them while they got jerked around under Wittman. Foye looks to be getting his back, McCants had deteriorated almost beyond recognition until we played the Knicks, and who knows what the deal is with Brewer now that he's one of our walking wounded ex lotto brigade. I think Love will keep his chin up and get through it, and improve not only in the areas you state he will, but in the areas you state Mayo will as well.

Maybe you're right that confidence can't be coached, but I think you're failing to take into account that coaching/environment can bury it. Kevin Love seemed like a pretty confident guy to me when he was at UCLA, and I think that confidence is still there, he'll just have to survive the Minnesota Timberwolves school of "player development" before we see it.

[HL Slamdunk]

Yeah, one thing i noticed about Love was that he was willing to take that big shot when it mattered most. I distinctly remember him making fadeaway shots against Texas A&M in the tournament last year that allowed UCLA to regain the lead multiple times. He was stellar and didn't seem to flinch when the team counted on him. That was the Kevin Love I hoped would show up on the Timberwolves. It's too early to make judgements, but I would say that as time progresses he will be willing to take that shot.

[john2jer]

I completely agree it can be burried by the environment and coaching staff. Of coure we've all been saying that for 2 years now. We need a better coaching staff, and we've been saying for 8+ years now that we need a better front office.

[younggunsmn]

1. Memphis has no low post threat to speak of, and with Darko out no PF or C who is a decent defender. Marc Gasol is a good young player, but he is a euro rookie who has a ton to learn about NBA defense and low-post scoring. Jefferson exploited them badly throughout the 4th quarter and OT.

2. Memphis has really poor offensive flow and has a really hard time getting rudy gay and mayo open because they have no low-post threat and no one else on the team is a threat to score. It amazed me how few shots rudy and oj had the first 3 quarters and how many gasol and warrick had. I counted 4 possible mayo assists in the first quarter alone that resulted in a missed shot by a teammate.

Your teammates affect your stats and what you do on the court. Right now the wolves have a ton more talent up and down their roster than memphis does. If mayo had someone like al jefferson to play off of in the low post he would be more efficient and his win-shares might look better. If he had any teammates who could shoot his assists would be higher.

He has one thing that is rare, though, he can create his own shot during crunch time. I was impressed with his array of runners and pull-up jumpers. The shots he missed in OT were good shots. The one bad thing was when he drove and they knocked it off his leg for a turnover. But at one point in the last 3 minutes he scored 7 points in a row followed by an assist to put his team ahead. They would have won the game, they just had no answer for Al Jefferson defensively. You put OJ and Jefferson on the same team in the last 5 minutes, who do you stop? No one, that's who.
He looked pretty solid defensively too, not spectacular, but very solid. I really liked the way he used his strength & quickness to fight through picks.

Kevin Love's offensive rebounding is an empty stat because it rarely results in points for his team because of his inability to score inside. Offensive rebounding is the only thing he is doing above league-average right now. For an NBA PF to shoot under 40% is absolutely inexcusable.

I'm no Love-er, but I think he's being hurt offensively by playing out of position. If he got the ball on the left block like he's used to he might be more comfortable/effective. Instead he's setting picks like the center would or standing around with the other 3 guys waiting for al to shoot it. Career wise it probably would've been better for him to go to memphis with their black hole at PF.

So love forces Al to play C on defense, exposing him, and Al forces Love to defer to him on offense, taking away what he was supposed to be good at.

If all we needed was a center who could high/low pass and set picks, we should've traded for rasho nesterovic, at least he's a legitimate center, and we could've had him for next to nothing.

[mandurugo]

I wonder how meaningful it is to compare the win-stats of players playing such different amount of minutes. Mayo is a mainstay for his team, Love is a bit player for the wolves - how can Love realistically be thought to be the more effective player this year?

It seems like the examples where people take a player who plays a few minutes a game then argue that his stats/48 minutes show he's a superstar and should be playing big minutes. These short minute wonders generally can't reproduce their numbers as their minutes expand, it's a meaningless numbers trick.

[SSUBluesman]

I wonder how meaningful it is to compare the win-stats of players playing such different amount of minutes. Mayo is a mainstay for his team, Love is a bit player for the wolves - how can Love realistically be thought to be the more effective player this year?

It seems like the examples where people take a player who plays a few minutes a game then argue that his stats/48 minutes show he's a superstar and should be playing big minutes. These short minute wonders generally can't reproduce their numbers as their minutes expand, it's a meaningless numbers trick.

Exactly. This is particularly deceptive with someone like Love, whose offensive rebounding is predicated on hustling and getting in position/sneaking in position. He's able to continually do this with a limited offensive role and limited minutes. How much of this was he doing Monday? Not much.

What it comes down to is this: people don't watch the games and they don't put much thought into what they say. Unfortunately this doesn't stop them from arguing from ignorance or bias to justify previous arguments.

[shrink]

I think there's some validity to a "limited minutes" arguement for Kevin Love, because he can attack the boards with abandon with less worry of fouling out. However, I reviewed his numbers, and that doesn't explain his good stats. Do we know what kind of player Craig Smith, Telfair, or McCants are this year? They've each played less minutes than Love. Love has played over 700 minutes in all 31 games, and started 5 of them. His MPG 22.6. I recognize its not as easy to make a call on rookies, but I think the very fact he's a rookie makes it even more impressive that he's outperforming the average NBA PF. He's a great Offensive Rebounder, but he has been most definitely more than just an offensive rebounder.

http://www.wagesofwins.com/JeffersonLoveGomesDec08.html

[invno1]

He on the bench soaking up the game, this dude has a very high BB IQ. I gotta know McHale knows what he has there and I think they have been teaching him very hard he is young and has an excellent game. the Mayo/Love thing looks afull right now but that will change. Mayo is a great shooter that can drive a lil bit but he isnt really a slasher.