The Official Kyle Kuzma Thread

[DCZards]

Good try PIF… but I believe that numbers alone will never truly capture the totality of a player’s performance or tell you everything you need to know about his impact on his team’s and teammates’ performance. I guess that’s where we will always differ.

Do you think numbers alone fully explain who won or lost a game & why?

When the game ends, do the refs have to have a discussion to determine the winner, or can they simply look up at the scoreboard & read the numbers.

OTOH, even if numbers *alone* don't do the trick for you -- are you saying that Cam's .601 TS% compared to Kuz's .544 TS% doesn't tell you anything about the two guys?

Do you think a player being his team’s first or second option (and the focus of the other team’s D) versus being the fourth or fifth option might impact their TS%?

(Of course, as I think we agree, Kuz’s poor shot selection also drives down his TS%.)

[joshuacf]

Good try PIF… but I believe that numbers alone will never truly capture the totality of a player’s performance or tell you everything you need to know about his impact on his team’s and teammates’ performance. I guess that’s where we will always differ.

Do you think numbers alone fully explain who won or lost a game & why?

When the game ends, do the refs have to have a discussion to determine the winner, or can they simply look up at the scoreboard & read the numbers.

OTOH, even if numbers *alone* don't do the trick for you -- are you saying that Cam's .601 TS% compared to Kuz's .544 TS% doesn't tell you anything about the two guys?

Aren't you maybe being a little inconsistent? I.e. you wrote that Kuz was "a much better passer" than Cam. Now... where'd you get that? From Kuz's assist numbers I would guess. You also called him a better rebounder -- based again on a number & nothing else.

So... why don't Cam's far better FG% (2s & 3s), & his far better FT%, & his way fewer number of turnovers, etc. etc. etc.... why don't those numbers get the weight you want to give to Kuz's higher number of boards...?

No need to answer, & no need for a dispute.
Knowing you for 10 years now (!) I'd be willing to wager that if Cam Johnson were a Wizard while Kuzma had gone from the Lakers to, say, Brooklyn rather than here, your estimation would be different. But, of course, I'll never have a way to prove that, & anyway... so what?

No one's life changes depending on any of our judgments. Just a game, & we're just fans. But still... I'm right!

When it comes to metrics like TS %, volume matters a lot. Last season Johnson posted a .617 TS on 11.3 attempts a game. Kuzma posted a .544 TS on 17.8 attempts a game. That is significantly more attempts per game than Johnson took.

When you have a bigger role in an offense, you are going to be asked to take more shots. If you have to take more shots, the average difficulty of each shot you take will go up. As your average difficulty of shot goes up, your efficiency numbers are going to go down. If Kuzma was on a better team and only took 11.3 attempts per game, I am very confident his TS % would be higher than .544. Would it be .617? Maybe not. But the gap wouldn't be as large as it is now.

So it's definitely fair to look at the numbers. But we have to recognize that Kuzma was being asked to do much more offensively than Johnson was. The true gap between Johnson and Kuzma as shooters isn't .073 TS% as the raw numbers suggest.

[doclinkin]

In any case, it's not an important debate, since we didn't choose between the two guys.

OTOH, it really isn't even close, Zards

Oh alright we can beat this thing to death again.

Again we get into the debate of role vs efficiency. The temptation with a surface analysis of box score measures is to deify efficiency as a pure and sacred measure of basketball skill. In this way we raise our esteem of tertiary players and discredit those who are primary generators of offense. While doing so we hand waive away the fact that high usage scorers will attract defenders and teams will game plan to stop them.

Cameron Johnson is a solid player. A smart player who does not force the action but takes what is given to him. Still, some of the efficiency he has posted in his career is due to the role he has with the team, which is: hit open shots. This is magnified by the fact that his low usage (and the presence of a HOF PG on his squad) means more of his shots are actually wide open

You can check this by looking at the fantastic NBA stats pages. Check the Players Shooting Dashboard: Closest Defender tables. You have to manually toggle the distance and cross reference between the two, or you can take my work for it.

Closest Defender Very Tightly defending player (0-2 ft)
Cameron Johnson. .4 FGA/game vs v.tight defense, eFG vs v.tight defense: 42.9%
Kyle Kuzma: 1.1 FGA/game vs v.tight defense, eFG vs v.tight defense: 45.1%

Closest Defender Tightly defending player (2-4 ft)
Cameron Johnson. 2.7 FGA/game vs tight defense, eFG vs tight defense: 52.2%
Kyle Kuzma: 7.3 FGA/game vs tight defense, eFG vs tight defense: 53.1%

Shooting while Open. Closest defender 4-6ft away (guarded, but not tight)
Cameron Johnson. 3.3 FGA/game while open, eFG while open: 50%
Kyle Kuzma: 6.7 FGA/game while open, eFG while open: 52.9%

Shooting Wide Open. Closest defender 6+ft away
Cameron Johnson. 3.8 FGA/game wide open, eFG wide open: 70%
Kyle Kuzma: 2.7 FGA/game wide open, eFG wide open: 48.6%

So. The majority of Cam Johnson's shots per game are open or wide open shots. Whereas the majority of Kuzma's shots are while he is tightly guarded. Cam Johnson shoots significantly better than Kuzma when he is wide open (rare for Kuzma since 85% of his shots happen with a defender within 6 ft). But in every other instance Kuzma maintains a higher eFG%, even while taking 15 shots a game while guarded, to Cam's 6.4 shots.

What this is quantifying is the amount of attention that Kuzma draws from opposing defenses. If he is tightly guarded, somebody else is wide open. Somebody else on his team gets the benefit of playing the Cam Johnson role. (Corey Kispert put up 2.8 shots per game while wide open, with a 71.2% eFG, imagine that).

Luckily in Cam Johnsons case we can see the difference in how usage effects efficiency since he switched teams mid year. Kuzma maintained a 27% usage rate on the Wiz this year and an eFG of .519. In PHX Cam Johnson had a 19% Usage rate, and an eFG of .604 next to a HOF PG. With the Nets that usage climbed to 21%, and his eFG fell to .565. So, what: For every 2% increased usage, Cam's efficiency drops .039%. Hmm, that suggests that if he were putting up 6% more usage (to match Kuzma's 27%) his efficiency might drop to a sub-Kuzman .487 eFG.

Ultimately the only place where you can definitively say Cam Johnson is a "much much better" player than Kuzma is that he is a much much better shooter than Kuzma when he is wide open. Which opportunity he gets more often than Kuz because he is not the focal point of his team's offense. Thus opponents do not scheme to freeze him out or make his life difficult. But if given an increased role and worse PG play, and forced to create his own offense, he is a worse player than he was in a limited role, quite probably worse than Kuzma since he would be defended.

tl;dr: role effects efficiency. Cam is worse than Kuz when defended. Stat nerds need to stop fetishizing indiv. efficiency as a standalone stat in a team game.

-. Secret East Coast Vigilante forum decoder message.

in sum: PIF is wrong. Neener neener.

-so saith doctor nocturnal. Also PBBTHTTT!!

[nate33]

In any case, it's not an important debate, since we didn't choose between the two guys.

OTOH, it really isn't even close, Zards

Oh alright we can beat this thing to death again.

Again we get into the debate of role vs efficiency. The temptation with a surface analysis of box score measures is to deify efficiency as a pure and sacred measure of basketball skill. In this way we raise the esteem of tertiary players and discredit those who are primary generators of offense. While doing so we hand waive away the fact that high usage scorers will attract defenders and teams will game plan to stop them.

Cameron Johnson is a solid player. A smart player who does not force the action but takes what is given to him. Still, some of the efficiency he has posted in his career is due to the role he has with the team, which is: hit open shots. This is magnified by the fact that his low usage (and the presence of a HOF PG on his squad) means more of his shots are actually wide open

You can check this by looking at the fantastic NBA stats pages. Check the Players Shooting Dashboard: Closest Defender tables. You have to manually toggle the distance and cross reference between the two, or you can take my work for it.

Closest Defender Very Tightly defending player (0-2 ft)
Cameron Johnson. .4 FGA/game vs v.tight defense, eFG vs v.tight defense: 42.9%
Kyle Kuzma: 1.1 FGA/game vs v.tight defense, eFG vs v.tight defense: 45.1%

Closest Defender Tightly defending player (2-4 ft)
Cameron Johnson. 2.7 FGA/game vs tight defense, eFG vs tight defense: 52.2%
Kyle Kuzma: 7.3 FGA/game vs tight defense, eFG vs tight defense: 53.1%

Shooting while Open. Closest defender 4-6ft away (guarded, but not tight)
Cameron Johnson. 3.3 FGA/game while open, eFG while open: 50%
Kyle Kuzma: 6.7 FGA/game while open, eFG while open: 52.9%

Shooting Wide Open. Closest defender 6+ft away
Cameron Johnson. 3.8 FGA/game wide open, eFG wide open: 70%
Kyle Kuzma: 2.7 FGA/game wide open, eFG wide open: 48.6%

So. The majority of Cam Johnson's shots per game are open or wide open shots. Whereas the majority of Kuzma's shots are while he is tightly guarded. Cam Johnson shoots significantly better than Kuzma when he is wide open (rare for Kuzma since 85% of his shots happen with a defender within 6 ft). But in every other instance Kuzma maintains a higher eFG%, even while taking 15 shots a game while guarded, to Cam's 6.4 shots.

What this is quantifying is the amount of attention that Kuzma draws from opposing defenses. If he is tightly guarded, somebody else is wide open. Somebody else on his team gets the benefit of playing the Cam Johnson role. (Corey Kispert put up 2.8 shots per game while wide open, with a 71.2% eFG, imagine that).

Luckily in Cam Johnsons case we can see the difference in how usage effects efficiency since he switched teams mid year. Kuzma maintained a 27% usage rate on the Wiz this year and an eFG of .519. In PHX Cam Johnson had a 19% Usage rate, and an eFG of .604 next to a HOF PG. With the Nets that usage climbed to 21%, and his eFG fell to .565. So, what: For every 2% increased usage, Cam's efficiency drops .039%. Hmm, that suggests that if he were putting up 6% more usage (to match Kuzma's 27%) his efficiency might drop to a sub-Kuzman .487 eFG.

Ultimately the only place where you can definitively say Cam Johnson is a "much much better" player than Kuzma is that he is a much much better shooter than Kuzma when he is wide open. Which opportunity he gets more often than Kuz because he is not the focal point of his team's offense. Thus opponents do not scheme to freeze him out or make his life difficult. But if given an increased role and worse PG play, and forced to create his own offense, he is a worse player than he was in a limited role, quite probably worse than Kuzma since he would be defended.

tl;dr: role effects efficiency. Cam is worse than Kuz when defended. Stat nerds need to stop fetishizing indiv. efficiency as a standalone stat in a team game.

-. Secret East Coast Vigilante forum decoder message.

in sum: PIF is wrong. Neener neener.

-so saith doctor nocturnal. Also PBBTHTTT!!

Thank you so much doc! This is a great analysis. This idea that TS% is the only offensive metric that truly matters must stop. The inevitable conclusion of any PIF-style evaluation is that if a player dips .001 below league average TS%, he becomes a liability, a total net negative player who absolutely kills you offensively when he is on the floor. It's ridiculous. League average TS% is .581. If a guy averages 10 points a game with a TS% of .582 is a useful offensive player. But if he averages 25 points a game at .580, he is awful.

[DCZards]

To paraphrase the title of a song by the great Miles Davis, “Doc Runs the Voodoo Down.”

[AFM]

Doc and PIF should box each other like Elon and Zuckerberg

[doclinkin]

I do think it's stupid that Kyle Kuzma shoots *worse* when he's wide open than when he is guarded. He was .333 for the season, but 31% when wide open. Kuz needs to get in the gym and work on that shot.

[payitforward]

Good try PIF… but I believe that numbers alone will never truly capture the totality of a player’s performance or tell you everything you need to know about his impact on his team’s and teammates’ performance. I guess that’s where we will always differ.

Do you think numbers alone fully explain who won or lost a game & why?

When the game ends, do the refs have to have a discussion to determine the winner, or can they simply look up at the scoreboard & read the numbers.

OTOH, even if numbers *alone* don't do the trick for you -- are you saying that Cam's .601 TS% compared to Kuz's .544 TS% doesn't tell you anything about the two guys?

Do you think a player being his team’s first or second option (and the focus of the other team’s D) versus being the fourth or fifth option might impact their TS%?...

1000% correct -- & an extremely good point: it would have made more sense to compare Cam w/ the Kuz of his last season in LA when that's what he was.

I'm pretty sure Johnson is still the better player, because Kuz just can't get his shooting percentages up. But, it'd be a lot closer!

[nate33]

I do think it's stupid that Kyle Kuzma shoots *worse* when he's wide open than when he is guarded. He was .333 for the season, but 31% when wide open. Kuz needs to get in the gym and work on that shot.

Yeah, that's really his biggest weakness as a player - that and free throws.

If he could just improve his percentage on the open ones while staying exactly the same on his contested shots, he'd be an All-Star.

[NatP4]

Johnson is also an elite defender, maybe the absolute best defender at the wing position. Kuzma is average at best, probably slightly below average.

[willbcocks]

I am by no means making the argument the we should only look at ts, but I do not believe the below follows from the statistic doc shared:

What this is quantifying is the amount of attention that Kuzma draws from opposing defenses. If he is tightly guarded, somebody else is wide open.

It may be that Kuzma sucks at creating separation. Or makes bad decisions. Or his teammates suck and no one is open.

My take, which requires watching him or getting an even better Stat, is its a lot of the second case. That also explains the low ts and high to percentage.

[payitforward]

When it comes to metrics like TS %, volume matters a lot. Last season Johnson posted a .617 TS on 11.3 attempts a game. Kuzma posted a .544 TS on 17.8 attempts a game. That is significantly more attempts per game than Johnson took.

When you have a bigger role in an offense, you are going to be asked to take more shots. If you have to take more shots, the average difficulty of each shot you take will go up. As your average difficulty of shot goes up, your efficiency numbers are going to go down. If Kuzma was on a better team and only took 11.3 attempts per game, I am very confident his TS % would be higher than .544. Would it be .617? Maybe not. But the gap wouldn't be as large as it is now.

So it's definitely fair to look at the numbers. But we have to recognize that Kuzma was being asked to do much more offensively than Johnson was. The true gap between Johnson and Kuzma as shooters isn't .073 TS% as the raw numbers suggest.

Sure. As Zards also pointed out.

Worse yet, by mistake, I somehow compared the two guys on their careers rather than simply last season.

Now comes the coup de grace....

How about we compare Kuz in '20-21 when he was playing with Lebron & Anthony Davis, with Cam in '22-23. That was Kuz's best season overall -- & his usage that year was slightly lower than Cam's last year.

Kuz took 13.9 shots & 1.8 FTAs per 36 minutes that year
Cam took 14.2 shots & 3.6 FTAs per 36 minutes that year

Cam's TS% was .617. Kuz's was .546.

Now... how good or not good Cam is has no bearing on how good Kuz is. The problem is that if we repeat this for some number of other players -- you can choose them -- the result will usually be the same. Why? B/c Kyle Kuzma just isn't a good player & never has been in any season of his career.

[joshuacf]

When it comes to metrics like TS %, volume matters a lot. Last season Johnson posted a .617 TS on 11.3 attempts a game. Kuzma posted a .544 TS on 17.8 attempts a game. That is significantly more attempts per game than Johnson took.

When you have a bigger role in an offense, you are going to be asked to take more shots. If you have to take more shots, the average difficulty of each shot you take will go up. As your average difficulty of shot goes up, your efficiency numbers are going to go down. If Kuzma was on a better team and only took 11.3 attempts per game, I am very confident his TS % would be higher than .544. Would it be .617? Maybe not. But the gap wouldn't be as large as it is now.

So it's definitely fair to look at the numbers. But we have to recognize that Kuzma was being asked to do much more offensively than Johnson was. The true gap between Johnson and Kuzma as shooters isn't .073 TS% as the raw numbers suggest.

Sure. As Zards also pointed out.

Worse yet, by mistake, I somehow compared the two guys on their careers rather than simply last season.

Now comes the coup de grace....

How about we compare Kuz in '20-21 when he was playing with Lebron & Anthony Davis, with Cam in '22-23. That was Kuz's best season overall -- & his usage that year was slightly lower than Cam's last year.

Kuz took 13.9 shots & 1.8 FTAs per 36 minutes that year
Cam took 14.2 shots & 3.6 FTAs per 36 minutes that year

Cam's TS% was .617. Kuz's was .546.

Now... how good or not good Cam is has no bearing on how good Kuz is. The problem is that if we repeat this for some number of other players -- you can choose them -- the result will usually be the same. Why? B/c Kyle Kuzma just isn't a good player & never has been in any season of his career.

I think we're still missing the point here.

The fact that Kuzma '20-21 had a .546 TS% in '20-21 on 11.1 attempts per game, and now in '22-23 had a .544 TS% on 17.8 attempts per game means that Kuzma has improved since '20-21. Kuzma being able to maintain his TS% on sixty percent more volume means that his scoring and shooting are better now than they were in '20-21. So it isn't fair to compare Cam right now to Kuzma 3 years ago when determining who's better.

Kyle Kuzma took a significant step forward when he got traded to the Wizards, and is a better player now than he was on the Lakers. I just don't get your insistence that he's not a good player. As others have pointed out, your logic would mean that scoring 21 at a lower-than-league-average TS makes a player worse than scoring 5 at a higher-than-league-average TS. But clearly, that isn't the case.

[doclinkin]

I do think it's stupid that Kyle Kuzma shoots *worse* when he's wide open than when he is guarded. He was .333 for the season, but 31% when wide open. Kuz needs to get in the gym and work on that shot.

Yeah, that's really his biggest weakness as a player - that and free throws.

If he could just improve his percentage on the open ones while staying exactly the same on his contested shots, he'd be an All-Star.

And/or not take silly shots from unlikely distances just because any sensible defender doesn't care to chase you out that far.

Really though his percentages would be improved if he simply took zero shots from the high left or right zones of the three point arc. He might be wide open on those shots because defenses know he's going to miss.

https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask/kyle-kuzma-shot-chart-this-season

His shot chart says he is above average in the corners. And just about average with a straightaway three from the top of the key. But anywhere else on the curve he's in the high 20's and low 30's. So how about, stop doing that. Or as Coach Ewing said:

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[AFM]

I do think it's stupid that Kyle Kuzma shoots *worse* when he's wide open than when he is guarded. He was .333 for the season, but 31% when wide open. Kuz needs to get in the gym and work on that shot.

Yeah, that's really his biggest weakness as a player - that and free throws.

If he could just improve his percentage on the open ones while staying exactly the same on his contested shots, he'd be an All-Star.

And/or not take silly shots from unlikely distances just because any sensible defender doesn't care to chase you out that far.

Really though his percentages would be improved if he simply took zero shots from the high left or right zones of the three point arc. He might be wide open on those shots because defenses know he's going to miss.

https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask/kyle-kuzma-shot-chart-this-season

His shot chart says he is above average in the corners. And just about average with a straightaway three from the top of the key. But anywhere else on the curve he's in the high 20's and low 30's. So how about, stop doing that. Or as Coach Ewing said:

Read on Twitter

This line of reasoning is just hopeful thinking unfortunately. I've made similar arguments about SO many players over the years--like Melo when he got older, like damn, he could still be really good if he was just willing to realize he's not that guy anymore and he needs to shoot less, ditto with Westbrook, ditto with so many chuckers. It never happens. These guys are hardcoded to play a certain way, I really believe that. Either they get it or they don't. And Kuzma wants to get paid like a star, I think he thinks he's a star, and he's probably going to keep shooting like he is one.

I'm happy to be wrong on this one, of course.

[doclinkin]

His shot chart says he is above average in the corners. And just about average with a straightaway three from the top of the key. But anywhere else on the curve he's in the high 20's and low 30's. So how about, stop doing that.

This line of reasoning is just hopeful thinking unfortunately. I've made similar arguments about SO many players over the years--like Melo when he got older, like damn, he could still be really good if he was just willing to realize he's not that guy anymore and he needs to shoot less, ditto with Westbrook, ditto with so many chuckers. It never happens. These guys are hardcoded to play a certain way, I really believe that. Either they get it or they don't. And Kuzma wants to get paid like a star, I think he thinks he's a star, and he's probably going to keep shooting like he is one.

I'm happy to be wrong on this one, of course.

I think it's just coaching. And Point Guard play. If you design schemes to get Kuz in the corners then he will be more successful. If you hit him in rhythm when he is at the top of the key, you will see better results. If you don't force feed him the ball and ask him to be a playmaker then you will have the ball in the hands of a better decision-maker.

[daSwami]

I do think it's stupid that Kyle Kuzma shoots *worse* when he's wide open than when he is guarded. He was .333 for the season, but 31% when wide open. Kuz needs to get in the gym and work on that shot.

That is weird. I honestly think more hours with a sports psychologist would be more helpful to him than more hours in the gym. Sounds like an adrenaline-regulation problem: being wide open (standing on the FT line, for example) creates a layer of anxiety (and self-consciousness) that doesn't exist within the flow of the game.

[doclinkin]

I do think it's stupid that Kyle Kuzma shoots *worse* when he's wide open than when he is guarded. He was .333 for the season, but 31% when wide open. Kuz needs to get in the gym and work on that shot.

That is weird. I honestly think more hours with a sports psychologist would be more helpful to him than more hours in the gym. Sounds like an adrenaline-regulation problem: being wide open (standing on the FT line, for example) creates a layer of anxiety (and self-consciousness) that doesn't exist within the flow of the game.

Sports shrink or not I think all teams would do well to have a psych doc regularly available to players. Seems like the brain should have strength and conditioning staff as well as the body.

[Hidden Eye]

I do think it's stupid that Kyle Kuzma shoots *worse* when he's wide open than when he is guarded. He was .333 for the season, but 31% when wide open. Kuz needs to get in the gym and work on that shot.

That is weird. I honestly think more hours with a sports psychologist would be more helpful to him than more hours in the gym. Sounds like an adrenaline-regulation problem: being wide open (standing on the FT line, for example) creates a layer of anxiety (and self-consciousness) that doesn't exist within the flow of the game.

The starting 5 Poole and Kuzma are going to be the primary focus of the offense. Breaking down defenses and slashing/create from 3 point line should be what his offense is. He was doing good in beginning of season then got injured later. That's why his production went down. The Beal/KP/Kuzma got injured different times it was hard to get a groove going.

[Frichuela]

So in the end $90mn/4 years with unlikely incentives for an extra $6mn. You can be sure Tommy & co would have overpaid Kuzma for much more. Good to have a competent front office!

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