Otto Porter Part 2

[NatP4]

final answer: take player #1 and play him at power forward and up his usage through the roof.

[Kanyewest]

Player 2 (Draymond Green?)

Player 1(Otto Porter)

Player 3 (Rudy Gay?)

[J-Ves]

Otto is an offensive savant, he just needs more looks. I love stating the obvious. Go Wiz!


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3d guy in the comparo is Rudy Gay.

Overall, sure, I'd take Green over Porter -- but not by much. Despite his impact on defense. The turnovers are significant.

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Player 2 (Draymond Green?)

Player 1(Otto Porter)

Player 3 (Rudy Gay?)

Well done....!

[Kanyewest]

Read on Twitter

[HoopsMalone]

Otto is one of the guys im really curious to see. His improvement year to year has been off the charts.

I want to see If he makes one final one this year. He's already an elite SF, but I saw the way this kid dominated college and I think it's too early to put a cap on his potential.

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[Coach76]

The early reports are that Otto looks much improved:

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[nate33]

Overall, sure, I'd take Green over Porter -- but not by much. Despite his impact on defense. The turnovers are significant.

Green is posting about the same A/TO ratio as Porter.

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Overall, sure, I'd take Green over Porter -- but not by much. Despite his impact on defense. The turnovers are significant.

Green is posting about the same A/TO ratio as Porter.

Green is a tremendous player (& was a tremendous bargain opportunity when he sat there for us to pick -- instead of Sato). & obviously, the higher your A/TO ratio is the better. I.e. more assists is better than fewer assists, & fewer TOs is better than more TOs. & either of those good things increases a player's A/TO ratio -- Duh!

Yet, regression analysis indicates that a turnover is a bigger negative than an assist is a positive. One more assist isn't as big a help as one fewer turnover (edit: "as one more turnover is a hurt").

What's unusual about Green's TO numbers is that, with most players who aren't PGs, you expect TOs to track pretty well w/ FGAs -- i.e. guys who have the ball in their hands more are likely to turn it over more (in the most obvious sense: if the ball's not in your hands you can't commit a TO). Then again, his assist numbers are unusual too!

He's a terrific player.

[Ruzious]

And Green's playing on a team with 3 of the greatest 3 point shooters... ever, and they can all cut to the basket, AND they don't hog the ball. It's a very different offense than Cleveland's - which relies on iso's. And he's smart enough to take advantage of that. It does make a difference who your teammates are. It's made his good skills appear to be elite.

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And Green's playing on a team with 3 of the greatest 3 point shooters... ever, and they can all cut to the basket, AND they don't hog the ball. It's a very different offense than Cleveland's - which relies on iso's. And he's smart enough to take advantage of that. It does make a difference who your teammates are. It's made his good skills appear to be elite.

Of course the same argument could be made in the other direction. Those guys maximize the results their skills produce, b/c they play with a guy like Green.

Imagine a player with the "good skills" Green has, & that he's traded to the Warriors but does not put up the numbers Green puts up. That's possible, right?

Green gets the credit for what he produces. It's what he produces that makes us call him "elite."

[Ruzious]

And Green's playing on a team with 3 of the greatest 3 point shooters... ever, and they can all cut to the basket, AND they don't hog the ball. It's a very different offense than Cleveland's - which relies on iso's. And he's smart enough to take advantage of that. It does make a difference who your teammates are. It's made his good skills appear to be elite.

Of course the same argument could be made in the other direction. Those guys maximize the results their skills produce, b/c they play with a guy like Green.

Imagine a player with the "good skills" Green has, & that he's traded to the Warriors but does not put up the numbers Green puts up. That's possible, right?

Green gets the credit for what he produces. It's what he produces that makes us call him "elite."

No. I'm a huge fan of his, but he would NOT be putting up those kind of numbers on an average team. And you'd likely be calling him a decent player - but good for where he was picked.

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And Green's playing on a team with 3 of the greatest 3 point shooters... ever, and they can all cut to the basket, AND they don't hog the ball. It's a very different offense than Cleveland's - which relies on iso's. And he's smart enough to take advantage of that. It does make a difference who your teammates are. It's made his good skills appear to be elite.

Of course the same argument could be made in the other direction. Those guys maximize the results their skills produce, b/c they play with a guy like Green.

Imagine a player with the "good skills" Green has, & that he's traded to the Warriors but does not put up the numbers Green puts up. That's possible, right?

Green gets the credit for what he produces. It's what he produces that makes us call him "elite."

No. I'm a huge fan of his, but he would NOT be putting up those kind of numbers on an average team. And you'd likely be calling him a decent player - but good for where he was picked.

Teams don't make players; players make teams. A player is not better if he plays for a better team. Rather, a team is better if it has better players playing for it.

Again, you simply can't separate "skills" as an abstraction from "results." One can imagine being able to do it, but that's what it is, imagination.

Another way to put it, Ruz: what would count as evidence that you are incorrect? What evidence would you accept?

Final point: last year Andre Iguodala had a tremendous year, probably best of his career. The previous 3 years with GS, his production was right at average for his long, terrific career.

Zaza Pachulia's numbers w/ GSW last year were virtually identical to his numbers with Dallas the previous year.

Durant's numbers last year were virtually identical w/ his numbers the previous year in OKC. His 2-pt. % was up. Was that b/c of the guys he was playing with?

How about his 3 pt. %, which was down, was that also b/c of those other guys? Here's an odd fact about Durant: his 2 pt.% has gone up year after year over his career, pretty much every year.

[Ruzious]

Durant's one of the all-time greats, and I'm not sure how much better he could possibly get. He's an exception to a lot of rules. And he excelled - even for him - when it mattered the most - in the finals. That's important. He could not do that with OKC.

Zaza hit the age wall and should be declining. Joining GS probably extended his career.

Iggy's usually been playing with the second unit, so he hasn't gotten the full GS effect.

I love Green as a player, and I agree he is part of the reason GS is so good, but he's that much more effective because he's playing for GS, and I do believe his stats would would decline quite a bit if he was on a bad team. He might score more points on a bad team, but his other stats would suffer.

[Kanyewest]

And Green's playing on a team with 3 of the greatest 3 point shooters... ever, and they can all cut to the basket, AND they don't hog the ball. It's a very different offense than Cleveland's - which relies on iso's. And he's smart enough to take advantage of that. It does make a difference who your teammates are. It's made his good skills appear to be elite.

I would just like to point out that Green is capable of playing without the 3 greatest 3 point shooters ever. He posted better numbers in 2015-16 with only the 2 greatest 3 point shooters ever

[Ruzious]

And Green's playing on a team with 3 of the greatest 3 point shooters... ever, and they can all cut to the basket, AND they don't hog the ball. It's a very different offense than Cleveland's - which relies on iso's. And he's smart enough to take advantage of that. It does make a difference who your teammates are. It's made his good skills appear to be elite.

I would just like to point out that Green is capable of playing without the 3 greatest 3 point shooters ever. He posted better numbers in 2015-16 with only the 2 greatest 3 point shooters ever

I sit corrected.

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Durant's one of the all-time greats, and I'm not sure how much better he could possibly get. He's an exception to a lot of rules. And he excelled - even for him - when it mattered the most - in the finals. That's important. He could not do that with OKC.

Zaza hit the age wall and should be declining. Joining GS probably extended his career.

Iggy's usually been playing with the second unit, so he hasn't gotten the full GS effect.

I love Green as a player, and I agree he is part of the reason GS is so good, but he's that much more effective because he's playing for GS, and I do believe his stats would would decline quite a bit if he was on a bad team. He might score more points on a bad team, but his other stats would suffer.

Again, the only *empirical* argument for your position that I can think of would be to find some more or less equivalent situation -- a player who put up outstanding numbers with a terrific team, then was traded to a significantly less good team & had "his stats... decline." An example along those lines would go some way towards establishing your point -- & I'd be interested to think about that situation, too. I imagine there must be a candidate for that scenario.

Otherwise, it's post facto stuff -- like saying that Zaza hit the age wall right on time to make a comparison meaningless between the season he played for Dallas @32 years of age & the one he played @33 years of age for GS. It's a narrative, not an empirical claim.

As to Iggy, my point was that he changed teams, meaning that he started playing with a completely different set of teammates, but his numbers didn't change. I.e., I'm not saying you are incorrect about Golden State; I'm saying that, over any meaningful # of minutes, the numbers a player puts up are a function of his play, not of his teammates.

I don't want to belabor this, & obviously I don't want us to get into some online-style argument with increasing heat. We can drop it if you like. But, in fact, I'd be interested to find an example of the kind you suggest & that I describe above.

This fits the "learning" post I wrote yesterday. To me, the operative method in building a team is simple. It's just the way we've all done it on the playground. Every time you choose up sides, you pick the best players you can! Of course there's a limiting factor, as there is with everything: you can't pick 5 PGs! & you can't pick guys who don't want to play together either.

Overall, however, the algorithm remains -- when it's your turn to pick, grab the best player available. If a player's "goodness" is a function of his teammates, that's impossible.

[I_Like_Dirt]

The thing with Green is that his TS% last season was .522. Not a huge difference, but a different. Also, last season was a bit more demonstrative of a change in his role on the team when Kevin Durant joined. The season before Durant joined his TS% was .587 and the season before that it was .540. And his defensive metrics largely went up a bit list season.

This isn't to say Porter isn't a very good player, because he is, or that he isn't still underrated to a point, or even that he doesn't still have some untapped potential, because he might, but Draymond is just a bad comparison for any player, really. Trying to compare multi-tool 2-way players to him is like trying to compare no-offense all-defense Cs to Ben Wallace, or trying to compare jumpshooting 7-footers to Dirk. Statistically there are places where guys might even be as good or better, but overall, it just really isn't even close.

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The thing with Green is that his TS% last season was .522. Not a huge difference, but a different. Also, last season was a bit more demonstrative of a change in his role on the team when Kevin Durant joined. The season before Durant joined his TS% was .587 and the season before that it was .540. And his defensive metrics largely went up a bit list season.

This isn't to say Porter isn't a very good player, because he is, or that he isn't still underrated to a point, or even that he doesn't still have some untapped potential, because he might, but Draymond is just a bad comparison for any player, really. Trying to compare multi-tool 2-way players to him is like trying to compare no-offense all-defense Cs to Ben Wallace, or trying to compare jumpshooting 7-footers to Dirk. Statistically there are places where guys might even be as good or better, but overall, it just really isn't even close.

If I read you right, you're saying that we shouldn't compare Porter's best year (last year) to that one year of Green's, b/c last year he was a little down from the previous one.

You are right. & even if we do, Draymond was overall a little better than Otto.

OTOH, Porter is 3+ years younger than Green, & if we compare his season last year with Green's 2d season (when he was the age Porter is now) or even his third season, neither of those years was he as productive as Otto Porter. Otto could wind up better than Draymond. Or as good.

Whatever. The key point is missing, however. Otto Porter was the 3d pick in the draft!! Draymond Green was the 34th pick in the draft!

Draymond Green was one of the biggest draft bargains ever!