GONYK wrote:SMAC-K wrote:Slava wrote:
I think you are misinterpreting the stats. Transition plays are usually the highest FG% plays for any player. If you need a reference, even a guy like George Hill who is far from an athlete has around has 186 transition plays, scoring 1.06 points per play.
Even Jose Calderon ran 57 transition plays scoring 0.96 points per play, ranking in the 25th percentile.
My point exactly! Nobody in their right mind would say that Calderon is better in transition than Derrick Rose.
Calderon's numbers are better in many cases because his usage was much lower and he picked his spots much better.
That raises the question, which player is more harmful:
The one who can't do much, but knows what he can do and doesn't deviate from it
-OR-
The one who can do more, but doesn't do it well and uses a lot of possessions trying to do more than he's capable of
This actually reminded me of a situation last year that kind of summed up the problems with the Knicks. Carmelo Anthony was on the bench and Calderon was on the floor, Calderon had the ball and had a wide open lane to the basket. What does he decide to do? He decides to not deviate from what he can do, so with the shot clock running down he decides to pass it to his teammate (I believe it was Porzingis) who was completely covered by the defense and because the clock was running down he had to throw up a horrible shot just to avoid the shot clock violation. The camera cuts to the Knicks bench and you could clearly see the frustration with Melo as he was screaming at Calderon to "drive to the basket" and he looked over to the Knicks coaching staff in complete disgust.
This happened quite often, so what happened was you had a guy in Aaron Afflalo who pretty much had to go outside of his abilities and try to carry the offense because Carmelo needed help, Calderon was not capable of anything other than spot up shooting and even when he was open he often passed up the shot for whatever reason, the defense would recover and the Knicks were forced into a bad shot. You won't find anything about that in the stats sheets.
So you tell me which player is more harmful
To me, a missed good shot is better than a missed bad shot. They both provide the same result, a miss, but you live with the good shot. Rose was not taking bad shots and was not using possessions trying to do more than he is capable of, like you claim. He played with an eye injury that affected his vision and he never was able to actually catch a rhythm and flow which is key. He wasn't doing anything outside of his capabilities, he was just not making the shots that when healthy he is capable of making. Calderon was putting the Knicks in situations to take bad shots, which to me is far worse than a guy missing shots he is capable of making.
You're a brave lot, but I'm sure it sparks some really great convos (and some rage I'm assuming as well).
