nate33 wrote:payitforward wrote:nate33 wrote:Name 14 shooting guards better than Beal.
Sure, easy. If what you mean is guys who are actually playing better than Beal -- where that means putting up better overall numbers (IOW not just scoring). As opposed to guys to whose name the response is "oh no, not him. Everybody knows Bradley Beal is better than that guy."
Here are 14: Jimmy Butler, Danny Green, C.J. Miles, Iman Shumpert, Lou Williams, Andre Roberson, J.J. Redick, Avery Bradley, Dwyane Wade, DeMar Derozen, Marco Belinelli, Vince Carter, Stanley Johnson, & Kyle Korver.
But one could also add George Hill, who's spending more than half his time at the 2 this season, Darren Collison (look at the numbers if you're skeptical), and a few others.
Now, it seems to me that most people judge how good basketball players as if the sport were similar to, lets say, the floor routine in gymnastics. A single, isolated athlete shows his abilities and skills, and you make a judgment about what he's done, how good he is. Nothing else is involved. If someone wants to view NBA players that way, it's certainly his privilege. And it leads to judgments like "A has a better handle than B" and to "wow" responses to exceptional displays of athleticism (as one responds to some stuff gymnasts do).
Obviously, what's missing in that perspective is a completely different element -- the game. The win or loss. The fact that an incredible drive and dunk in traffic over an opponent is worth the same as a simple layup.
And this "game" perspective is especially critical in basketball -- as opposed to say baseball or football -- because all basketball players do absolutely every on-court activity. And every one of them affects the game -- win/loss -- the same no matter who does them. A made bucket affects the score the same way, independent of who made it. Ditto a rebound or steal or turnover, etc.
What that means is that you simply can't discount one of those activities in the name of another. Brad Beal is a better shooter and a better scorer than e.g. Rodney McGruder (no-name mid-20s rookie SG who's playing a lot of minutes for the Heat). But, hey, McGruder gets a bunch more rebounds than Beal. If you compare them, you have to give Beal credit for his shooting results, but you also have to give McGruder credit for his rebounding results! Duh. Otherwise you are back to the gymnastics way of judging a player, and you're no longer looking at the "game" (win/loss) perspective.
In the perspective I care about -- contribution to wins by way of a player's numbers (all of them) -- Brad is now, for the first time, contributing at an above average level. That's great. He's also still only 23 -- he's younger than a couple of rookies in the league! In fact, he's younger than 3 of the 4 rookies we have on the Wizards! That gives us reason to be optimistic that he'll keep improving. Maybe he'll become one of the best starting SGs in the league, maybe he'll become a star.
Or... maybe he'll be injured again, his play will decline, etc.
Who knows? But, neither of those factor into how good he is right now. Which is that for the first time in his career he's above average on the season. In the only thing that matters -- helping his team win.
You only named 4 SG's currently playing better than Beal. Butler is a SF. Redick is close, so if you wanted to call it 5, I wouldn't quibble. It's a stretch but I'll even give you Danny Green because he might be a better fit specifically for San Antonio who only needs 3 and D at that spot. (He wouldn't be as good as Beal in Washington though. We need a primary scorer and Green can't do that.) There's also McCollum who looks about the same as Beal (though has a rep for terrible D). So, being generous, there's up to 7 SG's better, but only 4 are definite. There is no argument for anyone else on your list though.
Jimmy Butler - Yes - but he plays SF alongside Wade (you can't count both as SG's).
Danny Green - No - has played just 266 minutes and has a USG% of just 11. Beal has more WS, a comparable VORP, and a much higher PER.
C.J. Miles - YesIman Shumpert - No - Beal has better WS, WS/48, PER, ORtg and VORP while playing more minutes and with higher usage.
Lou Williams - YesAndre Roberson - No - Not sure if serious. PER of 9.7. TS% of .492 on low usage. Lower WS, WS/48 and VORP
J.J. Redick - No, but it's close - Redick's turnovers offset his better shooting. They're even in ORtg with Beal higher USG% plus better assists and rebounding.
Avery Bradley - No - Beal clearly better on all summary metrics including PER, ORtg, WS/48 and VORP.
Dwyane Wade - YesDeMar Derozen - YesMarco Belinelli - No - Beal has a higher ORtg on much higher USG% with better D. Beal better on all summary metrics.
Vince Carter - No - Not sure if serious. Beal crushes Carter on all summary metrics.
Stanley Johnson - No - Not sure if serious. Johnson is a 15 mpg backup with a PER of 9.7
Kyle Korver - No - Beal is better than Korver at literally everything - scoring, efficiency, assists, rebounds, steals, turnovers
Yes, well, if you get to choose what numbers matter, and you get to include a narrative about fit, and/or whatever else your mind turns to by way of support for your opinion, then sure -- you can claim anything you want as a result! You can make Beal the best SG in the league if you like.
Your point about not being able to use both Butler & Wade, however, is quite correct.
PER favors guys who shoot a lot. If you shoot 29.5% or better, your PER goes up every time you take a shot. It's not a useful metric for that reason.
Do you know how WS/48 is calculated? VORP? If not, how can you adduce them in an argument. As to ORtg (and DRtg as well for that matter), they are calculated per 100 possessions. If games were played to a particular number of possessions, rather than minutes, they might correlate better with actual results -- win-loss record. Nothing else matters, because this isn't gymnastics it's basketball.
Again, I'm not looking for argument; anyone can "believe" anything they want. But let me take one example from your post above to demonstrate (IMO) why one has to look at actual numbers not summary metrics whose composition we don't understand (usually because it isn't published! sometimes because it's too complicated to bother working out) and whose correlation w/ win-loss record is suspect. You write:
"
Vince Carter - No - Not sure if serious. Beal crushes Carter on all summary metrics."
Although Carter is shooting a much higher 2 pt. %, Brad is a more efficient shooter, significantly more efficient. And he scores more as well. He's better at that than Vince Carter (in his old man phase, I mean!). But there's more to the game than shooting. And because every player plays every aspect of a basketball game, there's more to being a "good" SG than shooting.
Lets look at the 3 numbers that most contribute to team possessions: rebounds, steals & turnovers. Every 48 minutes Carter gets 7 boards, commits 1.5 TOs, and gets 1.5 steals. That's a net of +7 possessions he's delivering to his team. Brad gets 4.3 rebounds, commits 2.3 TOs,and gets 1.3 steals. That's a net of +3.3 possessions from Brad.
Suppose you take those 3.7 possessions that Vince gets but Brad doesn't, and think of them as extra FGAs that Brad takes, misses, and the other team gets the rebound. Obviously, this is a thought experiment -- and an off the cuff one at that -- but lets see what happens when we've evened up the two players on that possessions-delivered issue and moved the deficit to shooting instead.
The result is that Brad now looks significantly below Vince in TS% !
My point isn't to hammer on this, or on Brad for that matter -- no matter how you look at it, the guy is getting better and has a shot to keep getting better. Nor would I think to trade him at 23 for Vince Carter at 101 or however old he is!
My point is that there's a reason a guy you'd like to see as one of the best SGs in the league (believe me, I would too), playing with a PG you would like to think of as on the verge of being a superstar, and a SF and C who are in the top 12 in the league (we agree about that) isn't producing more wins, even though we are playing our starters probably more minutes/game than any other team in the league. And that reason is because everything he does or doesn't do matters.
Again, what's really important is that Brad is improving. If he keeps improving he can be what I certainly thought he had a chance to be when we drafted him: one of the best SGs in the league. He's already above average. I don't want to be seen as a critic of Brad; I'm not -- I'm delighted w/ what is happening for him. Hence, I'd rather not keep this debate alive if you don't mind.
