The end of the "Great Felton Debate"

[W_HAMILTON]

Just wondering if anyone has an opinion on who made Melvin Ely better. I've compared per, 5 man units, floor time stats, etc and I can't tell. Ely's best season by a long shot was Feltons rookie season in 05-06. Much better then the 04-05 (2nd best season) by almost 4 per pts for not even two more minutes a game.

So, Ely's best seasons came when Knight was our PG? Cool. Not surprising.

[fluffernutter]

Just wondering if anyone has an opinion on who made Melvin Ely better. I've compared per, 5 man units, floor time stats, etc and I can't tell. Ely's best season by a long shot was Feltons rookie season in 05-06. Much better then the 04-05 (2nd best season) by almost 4 per pts for not even two more minutes a game.

So, Ely's best seasons came when Knight was our PG? Cool. Not surprising.

Wow. I didn't think I would be able to do it. But I did it.

It simply would not be an appropriate end to the GFD (Great Felton Debate) without some gratuitous BKnight knob-slobbing.

I know it makes me seem like an ass, but -- hell -- I freakin' rule!

[zoned unc]

Well, I've always thought of CP3 as a billionaires Brevin Knight, so i guess it's only fitting.

[Felton for Pres]

Great thread. Wish I read it yesterday. Way to go Fluff!

[The Bird]

Ely plays 11-12 mpg for New Orleans. Judging by his top 10 units, he doesn't even play half his minutes with Paul. That means maybe 5mpg. He is totally irrelevant and no useful information can be gleaned from his experience. It's not a matter of being "unable to tell" because the stats are close... it's because he's a scrub.

Although they are helpful in forming opinions one of the problems with stats is they can be misleading if you don’t or can’t examine them properly. It’s like my question about Chandler TOs in the Not Worried Thread you were able to give me more detail on what they were called but not how they actually occurred on the court which is what I was asking for.
If I examined them correctly, judging by Elys, Pauls, Daniels, and James top ten 5 man units you can’t determine how many minutes he actually plays with Paul. All you can tell is he plays almost 48% of his top 5 man units with Paul, 6% with Daniels, and 3% with James. Leaving 43% of his minutes unaccounted for.
As for him being totally irrelevant the OP asks whether Felton makes players “better”, generally with reference to Okafor but not only to Okafor. So like I said while it’s not the same situation, I thought it was relevant to this discussion considering his position, that he’s played with these players, his per, etc.
My whole point though isn’t that player A made player B better its that I think will be difficult to determine whether player A makes player B better compared to player C to B. Peja’s per has dropped but I wouldn’t agree that Paul makes him worse. Just like in the case of Ely I think it will be the same for Okafor because it’s difficult to determine. I guess it could be said that since he’s a “scrub” shouldn’t Paul be able to make Ely better considering he gets between 48%-91% of his minutes with Paul, or someone like Ham could say that BK makes Ely better because his two best per seasons were with BK as his PG, someone else can say Felton makes Ely better because of the 05-06 season where Ely’s per increased by almost 4 in less then 2 min extra playing time compared to the 04-05 season with BK, etc.
I’m not saying I agree with any one of those claims just saying they are opinions backed up by stats but even with them your unable to tell. Which I think will be the same with Okafor a lot of people will claim and use stats for each side of the argument unfortunately we’re probably not going to be able to tell. If Okafors pts, rebs, or per increase slightly or decrease slightly does that mean Paul made him better or worse. I think its going to be difficult to determine unless it's a significant change one way or the other which I don't see happening.

[GoBobs]

Paul plays with a lot of poise and that might help Oak drop a few less balls thrown his way. He is still going to get blocked a ton and have terrible instincts on Offense. Oak can do two sweet looking post moves to score and on the third trip down he will throw up a hook shot that bounces off the top of the backboard. Oak does not run in transition and that isn't going to change. My best guess is NO will be worse on offense because they will not be as good in transition.

I would rather leave Oak then Chandler to double Paul in the paint given Chandlers ability to go up and finish the Lob. Oak catching the ball on the ground is going to give the D a little extra time to recover.

The trade was a bad trade for us because I think Oak had more value around the league then Chandler, but I also think we will be a better team because of the style we play and the way Chandler fits and Oak doesn't. A lot depends on Chandlers ability to regain his 07-08 form but he is more of an interchangable piece on D and runs the floor a lot better.

[Rich4114]

Brevin Knight and CP3 aren't even on the same planet in terms of talent. BK's best season ever came like 10 years into his career and it didn't even sniff CP3's impact on a team.

[zoned unc]

I'm not talkign about numbers i'm talking about how they play the game.

Brevin and CP are both facilitators. They demand the ball 90% of the shot clock and it's up to them who scores. We preach a share the basketball mentality and our offense comes from many different points of attack, Ray, Boris and Gerald mainly, whereas NO puts the ball in Pauls hands and lets him go to work. They dont really have to many creators on that team, just a bunch of spot up shooters. Thats why i say CP and Brevin are alike. I said Billionaire because CP has infinite more talent than Brevin, but the styles are similar.

With 2 different approaches to the game how are you going to determine if Oakafor is a better player?

[Paydro70]

The reason the styles aren't similar is that Paul also shoots way, way more than Knight does, and is way better at it from everywhere on the court. I don't think they're very similar at all.

The Bird: My bad, I was looking at 07-08 for some reason when considering who Ely played with. That year his top 10 units suggest he spent ~50% of his time on the floor with Paul instead of the vast majority like this year.

My stance on Ely is very simple... he does not play enough minutes in New Orleans for it to be an apples-to-apples comparison of "who makes him better." If Ely were to play half the game (24mpg) for 57 games like he did in 04-05, maybe we'd at least have an idea (though given he sucked every other year of his life, I'm guessing that one was a fluke).

Okafor/Chandler will be apples to apples. The only quality starting center, playing with a single point guard the lion's share of his minutes. There will of course be arguments about how their playing styles mesh with the system, but we'll know much more about the teams than we did with Ely.

[fluffernutter]

For what it is worth, Felton has 3 of the top 10 alley-oops for 2009 according to NBA.com (I think it's NBA.com, it's pretty high quality).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwXGQK8_PtI&feature=popular

For what it's worth.

I believe it's 2 to GWall and 1 to JRich.

Maybe that's a good sign for next year, re: Chandler. Maybe? Eh. Whatever.

[spectre_]

That one hander by Crash at 4th was just nasty!

[thruthefire]

I'm surprised by some of the dunks, or layups, they ranked higher than JRich's against MIN and Gerald's against POR. Like Rudy's dunk ... really?

[countryboi]

I'm surprised by some of the dunks, or layups, they ranked higher than JRich's against MIN and Gerald's against POR. Like Rudy's dunk ... really?

ok i am not a serious homer but the best alley in that mix was crash vs POR...its not even close..the number 1 was really weak...i am disappointed

[Rich4114]

#1 should've been Crash over Oden and #2 should've been Iggy over Yao... it's not even a contest those are the best two out of the 10.

Doesn't the one by Carter just make you think "wow, that guy's a douche" after his reaction?

[Paydro70]

Aaron Brooks' lay-in was by far the most impressive, but I'm not sure if that counts as an alley-oop. Otherwise I'd say Iggy, and then Wallace over Oden. I actually thought Rudy's was really nice too. Wallace's highest-ranked dunk was his worst.

#1 obviously ranked that high because it was a game-winner, and not because of its impressiveness... on that front it would be near the end.

[fluffernutter]

Rudy's was great because of the "live action" view from under the goal.

He's moving FAST. The ball is moving FASTER. Yet it all works out in the blink of an eye.

Them NBA guys can really move.

[Dexmor]

Mek is not gonna score more then 17 and that will only be due to more offense in New Orleans in general, faster pace.

[SWedd523]

Mek is not gonna score more then 17 and that will only be due to more offense in New Orleans in general, faster pace.

I thought New Orleans also had one of the slowest paced offenses in the league

[Paydro70]

They do, almost the same as ours actually. If he scores more it will be from more shots or better efficiency.