Blatche arrested.

[gizzardsfan]

It also goes under the "dumb" column when you resist an armed carjacker, particularly if you're as wealthy as an NBA player (yes, even Blatche prior to his new contract). It's excusable moreso than soliciting a prostitute, but still dumb.

At least he isn't discharging firearms near the white house (a la Lonny Baxter, another 2nd round pick with D.C. ties -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lonny_Baxter). Driving 85mph in a 70mph area is, I agree, a common practice... but, in reality, aren't most traffic citations written for below the actual speed the driver was going? I mean, considering the usual 10mph buffer above the speed limit that cops excuse?

re: the Wizards; it's frustrating to talk about what needs to be changed in order for the team to contend, because no one knows whether the improvement Butler showed during 07-08 can be kept up with the return of a health Arenas--if Gilbert gets healthy again, which no one knows, either.

[Rooster]

I guarantee that you wouldn't have said this 2 days ago. The funny thing about people (I'm talking in general, here) is that they actually don't hold a grudge for long. A few days ago, Blatche was still the young, promising, potential-packed, future-star-written-all-over-him forward/center as Wizards fans liked him to be known as. And this was after a prostitution scandal. So why are people so forgiving? Because it happened before the season, giving Andray plenty of time to showcase his immense on-court development and giving the average fan reason to think he'll be a very good player in this league. Ernie Grunfeld could have done what a lot of people would have -- given up on the kid. No need to sign him to a long-term contract (albeit a cheap one), because they kid's got too many issues. But he did sign him to a long-term contract, and sure as you know it, Blatche built up that trade value due to impressive performances on the court.

I'm saying that we follow the same protocol this time around. Don't sell low. Wait until he's built up that name again, and if (IF) we feel the need, trade when his stock is higher than it is now (ie: pretty much any time other than....now).

I've never been a huge Blatche fan but that's beside the point.

Trading a player and giving up on a player are entirely different. When a player is traded, it's usually not to get rid of him - it's because it's a prerequisite for getting a different player or a draft pick that the team wants. In Blatche's case, he's a valuable asset, but with the potential to run himself into the ground. Given his skills, he's a guy who could fetch a lot, and I'm not sure the Wizards shouldn't go that route. If you think the deadline's a better time, that's fine, and I can support that.

-= original quote snipped =-



First of all, don't let an injury-riddled season from Arenas fool you. He's our best player and anyone who says otherwise is going to be in the minority, big-time. Butler is a great 2nd option, but there are things he simply cannot do. One is take a game over by himself on a regular basis. Two is create his own shot on a regular basis. And three is have the mentality of a #1 option. Arenas has all three of those pre-requisites, and, prior to injury, was a 30pt/6ast/5reb/2stl player with sky-high offensive efficiency. He doesn't play good defense, but he certainly has the ability. Remember, he JUST turned 26 years old. Just because he's had a lot of success from early in his career doesn't mean he can't and won't improve other aspects of his game as he matures both physically and mentally.

I'm not going to cover the "ball-hog" part much because it's been beaten to death. In short, he's the best player on the best offensive team in the Eastern Conference (yup, even better and more efficient than your very own Raptors who possess a good offense). The tempo he creates strictly by being on the court and pushing the ball automatically gives the Wizards an advantage on the fast-break, making his less than perfect shot selection a bit easier to swallow. Then, there's the fact that he manages to find shots for two All-Star caliber players who can't really create their own shot on a consistent basis, yet both score at or above 20 points per game. It's been said many times -- "there are plenty of things to criticize Arenas for, but his offense isn't one of them."

What about that 14-for-65 stretch during the '06/'07 season? What about his .422FG% in his four healthiest seasons in Washington? What about the fact that he's never averaged 2 or more APT? Was I fooled by those too? Arenas is a player who is reliant entirely on his shot falling, and when it doesn't, he doesn't suddenly become a great pass-first PG, defender, etc. He's one-dimensional, plain and simple.

1. A point guard shouldn't be taking over a game by himself on a regular basis. That's the job of a frontcourt player. Even when a guy like Chris Paul takes over a game, he gets a boatload of assists and David West ends up scoring a lot too.
2. As I've said (here?) before: If your perimeter players have to create their own offence, your post players aren't setting enough screens. It's a nice ability for one of your perimeter players to have, but it should be used as required and not as a primary means of offence.
3. A point guard should not have a #1 option mentality. Nothing stagnates an offence like a point guard jacking up shots.

I think this whole perimeter player taking over the game thing is a fantasy caused by all the people who wanted to imitate Jordan without understanding why he was so effective offensively. You can't be Jordan while shooting 42% from the floor. Start shooting 50% and we'll talk.

If you can somehow convince me that Arenas is actually an undersized SG, and then play him there with success, I'll change my tune. As of now, he's a glorified Steve Francis.

The big asset I see from Arenas is that he gets to the line a lot. That's a very valuable thing to have offensively. On that, I will make no argument. Otherwise, I'm not seeing this sky-high offensive efficiency. His FG% is low, I know you like to use TS% and eFG% because they're kinder to three-point shooters but his career high 3PT% is only .375 anyway, and his career-high in APG is only 6.1 while playing with Butler and Jamison, although he "manages to find shots for two All-Star caliber players who can't really create their own shot on a consistent basis, yet both score at or above 20 points per game". With all this uptempo ball and finding 20PPG teammates shots, wouldn't Arenas average more assists as a consequnce? When Steve Nash or Chris Paul leads a break, or even when Stephon Marbury did, it is/was an assist-fest. Why not with Arenas?

As far as growing up and maturing, he's doing it on an awfully hefty price tag. Besides, when did pampered stars suddenly learn how to play defence at age 26?

The Celtics have the best offence in the Eastern Conference, hands down.

Next point -- Jamison is a 20/10 player and a damn good mentor and captain, but one thing he is not is a 2-way big-man. Brendan Haywood is an excellent defensive player, but one thing he is not is a 2-way big-man. As I've said, one common component of championship teams is that power forward or center who can play above average on both ends of the floor. Washington doesn't have that currently, but Blatche is certainly our only player who can become this.

/longest post in miller31time history

So really, then, the solution is to trade Jamison. Or would he rather come off the bench again? I think whoever is netted in a Jamison trade would have a better chance of being a two-way big man than Blatche. Even better, a Jamison/Blatche, or dare I even say Arenas/Jamison, package could land one hell of a two-way big man.

[Joseph17]

What about that 14-for-65 stretch during the '06/'07 season? What about his .422FG% in his four healthiest seasons in Washington? What about the fact that he's never averaged 2 or more APT? Was I fooled by those too?

You're using fg%? That's been outdated and obsolete since the introduction of the 3pt shot. Arenas takes 7+ 3pters per game so obviously his fg% is going to be low. It doesn't mean he's inefficient. Quite the opposite, in fact. He's one of the most efficient offensive players in the association.

Read this. It will help.

Shooting

Another stat that should be replaced is FG%. Why? Field goal percentage doesn

[Joseph17]

He's going to end up like Eddie Griffin if he keeps this up.

[Rooster]

How are Gilbert Arenas and Kyle Korver comparable at all? Arenas takes a three-pointer about a third of the time, whereas Korver takes one half the time, sometimes more than that. Korver has also only had one season in which his 3PT% was lower than Arenas's career high. Whether you want to use 3PT% as a stat or not, I think you'll have a tough time convincing anyone that Arenas is anywhere near as good a three-point shooter as Korver or that he relies on the shot as much. I know Korver's just a convenient example to trumpet the benefits of eFG% and TS%, but the principles applied to a guy like him don't work for Arenas. Arenas is just not that great a three-point shooter.

Scoring is one dimension. Slashing, shooting, whatever. If a player does nothing but rebound, but can do it close to the hoop, away from the hoop, offensively and defensively, he's still called one-dimensional. If that's the case, why not say the same for a guy who has a great first step and a good mid-range jumper? An offensive rebound and a defensive rebound register differnetly on the stat sheet but two made shots register the same.

Which brings me to three-point shooting. Firstly, great shooters with low FG% don't tend to have low FG% because the stat's worthless or anything like that. When this happens, it's usually because they're on terrible teams and therefore can't get open looks. The Sixers' offence these last few years hasn't exactly been inspiring (to use the Korver example as a genuine three-point shooter). Korver's corresponding quantum leap in FG% since being traded to Utah isn't that difficult to explain.

Perhaps more importantly, why reward three-pointers? As you said yourself, three-pointers are low percentage shots. The lower the percentage the shot, the worse it is. (With exceptions like a three from a couple inches outside the line and a two because your foot's on the line.) Making a shot allows players to not necessarily have to set up fast-break defence, which keeps them fresher. Also, a missed three-pointer leads to a longer rebound. Since the league's best offensive rebounders tend to be frontcourt players, your team's best offensive rebounders end up stranded away from the ball. This leads to more defensive rebounds for the opposing team, since most rebounds end up being defensive anyway. The killer is that since your shot has already covered about a quarter of the court for the opposing team, its fast break is looking a lot more effective. Every missed shot is a potential defensive rebound for the opposing team.

I think we're all smart enough to factor a player's three-point shooting into his FG%, and we don't necessarily need alternative statistics to tell us that it's necessary. They're useful, sure, but they're also a great way to fall in love with guys who take low-percentage shots. Covering free-throws, again, is something we all know we have to do regardless of introducing other stats.

If I'm a forward or a centre, and I'm under the offensive glass while one of my guards is taking a shot, I'm not thinking "I hope my guard's eFG% and TS% are high so we're getting maximum scoring efficiency out of his shots". I'm thinking "after I go for the rebound, what's the probability of my having to turn around and run full tilt to the other end of the court?". (I'm not thinking so verbosely while banging in the post but you get the point.) FG% answers that question, whereas other stats do not. eFG% and TS% fail to account for the simplest offensive provision: a made shot is the best possible result of a possession, and a missed shot is one of the worst.

You mention that your team's pace is so fast and call Arenas a great rebounder? Maybe those two things are connected... he's good in that respect for a guard, I agree, but I can't think of the last team that paid a guard the big bucks to rebound. The two most important things a guard can do are seemingly lost on Arenas.

Okay, so he's a guard instead of a point guard. I still said that taking over a game is the job of a frontcourt player. Or is Arenas one of those now too?

What? Where is the coorlation between power-forward screen-setting and an effective and efficient offense?

Are you actually serious here? I've been paraphrasing you up until now, but this bears direct quotation. Maybe my eyes were mistaken while watching Karl Malone for all those years then. It's not like he's been the only one either. Ironic that you should question screen-setting while having Reggie in your name and sig - it's not like he ever benefited from having the Davis boys and the Dutchman setting screens for him...

Again, if he's really running that offence, why so few assists? And if he and Stevenson are splitting duties (i.e. the prerequisite for Arenas not to be the point guard), why isn't Stevenson getting more of them?I did just check Stevenson's APT from this past season, though, and good for him - if he could double each of those numbers, keeping the ratio intact, he'd be your starting PG right now.

Even using Butler as a point forward, let's crunch some numbers. During the last season in which Arenas was healthy, he averaged 6APG while Stevenson averaged 2.7APG and Butler averaged 3.7APG. By comparison, let's look at the early-2000s Hornets, a team with two good ball-handlers in the backcourt and a point forward but with a significantly lower pace and that only scored 91.9PPG in 2001 and then 93.9PPG in each of the next two seasons.

Arenas = 6.0
Stevenson = 2.7
Butler = 3.7
Total = 12.4

Davis (2001) = 7.3
Mashburn (2001) = 5.4
Total = 12.9

Davis (2002) = 8.5
Mashburn (2002) = 4.3
Total = 12.8

Davis (2003) = 6.4
Mashburn (2003) = 5.6
Total = 12.0

Those numbers don't even factor in David Wesley, who averaged 4.4, 3.5 and 3.4APG in those three seasons, in order. How is it that the starting perimeter players on the East's best offence can't out-assist players who played for an offence that didn't have nearly as many possessions during which to generate them?

So wait, how does being a better player make Arenas get less assists than Marbury? If the goal is to get less assists rather than more while at the guard spots, I should go tell Sam Mitchell to bench Calderon so Maceo Baston can run the offence.

Lastly, and most crucially of all, let's remember that we're having this argument in a thread about Andray Blatche. Sorry for my role in it.

[miller31time]

How are Gilbert Arenas and Kyle Korver comparable at all? Arenas takes a three-pointer about a third of the time, whereas Korver takes one half the time, sometimes more than that. Korver has also only had one season in which his 3PT% was lower than Arenas's career high. Whether you want to use 3PT% as a stat or not, I think you'll have a tough time convincing anyone that Arenas is anywhere near as good a three-point shooter as Korver or that he relies on the shot as much. I know Korver's just a convenient example to trumpet the benefits of eFG% and TS%, but the principles applied to a guy like him don't work for Arenas. Arenas is just not that great a three-point shooter.

I never said, nor did I imply that Kyle Korver and Gilbert Arenas were the same type of player. Everyone and their mother knows they aren't. But they have something in common -- they both take a lot of three point shots. Now, whether those 3pt shots make up half their game, 1/3rd of their game or whatever is practically irrelevant. The point is that they make up a pretty significant portion of their game, meaning that the 3pt shooting will have a large effect on their fg%.

I'm not using Korver or players like him to "trumpet" in-depth shooting statistics. I'm using them to solidify an argument. I don't understand A) what's so hard to understand about the statistic, and B) why people have such resentment towards it. Maybe because it's something new and people just have a tendency to not accept change? But that's a whole 'nother discussion.

Scoring is one dimension. Slashing, shooting, whatever. If a player does nothing but rebound, but can do it close to the hoop, away from the hoop, offensively and defensively, he's still called one-dimensional. If that's the case, why not say the same for a guy who has a great first step and a good mid-range jumper? An offensive rebound and a defensive rebound register differnetly on the stat sheet but two made shots register the same.

Let me correct that for you. "Scoring is one dimensional, in my opinion". I believe, since scoring is such a big part of the game, that you can be a multi-dimensional player with just scoring capabilities. A one-dimensional player is a specialist. A guy like (and I hate to bring him back into the discussion) Kyle Korver. A rebounder like Reggie Evans. A defender like Bruce Bowen. They all do one thing really well and aren't adept at much else. Gilbert is no specialist.

But that's beside the point because Arenas IS more than a shooter/scorer. If you read the other part of my previous post, you'd see that he's an above-average rebounder for his position. He's a good passer for his position (I've seen tsherkin say that on many an occasion, about Arenas' passing being one of his strengths), and the tempo he creates helping others on the team.

I have said all of this, but you have only addressed his scoring.

Which brings me to three-point shooting. Firstly, great shooters with low FG% don't tend to have low FG% because the stat's worthless or anything like that. When this happens, it's usually because they're on terrible teams and therefore can't get open looks. The Sixers' offence these last few years hasn't exactly been inspiring (to use the Korver example as a genuine three-point shooter). Korver's corresponding quantum leap in FG% since being traded to Utah isn't that difficult to explain.

First of all, Gilbert isn't a great shooter. He's a good shooter who uses the long-ball as a weapon but also does many things "great shooters" wouldn't do like get to the line 8-9 times per game and spearhead an offensive attack. "Great shooters" have one thing on their mind. Wait for the opportune moment, receive the ball from a teammate, and shoot. Gilbert's role is a bit more difficult.

Korver's leap is due to a few things. One is going to a team where, instead of there being too little offensive options, there are more than enough. It's going from one extreme to the other. Two is simply going to a new team. It gives players extra incentive to perform well. And three is a bit of coincidence. To take his half-a-season in Utah and say that it's more evidence than a career's worth elsewhere is wrong, in my opinion.

Perhaps more importantly, why reward three-pointers? As you said yourself, three-pointers are low percentage shots. The lower the percentage the shot, the worse it is. (With exceptions like a three from a couple inches outside the line and a two because your foot's on the line.) Making a shot allows players to not necessarily have to set up fast-break defence, which keeps them fresher. Also, a missed three-pointer leads to a longer rebound. Since the league's best offensive rebounders tend to be frontcourt players, your team's best offensive rebounders end up stranded away from the ball. This leads to more defensive rebounds for the opposing team, since most rebounds end up being defensive anyway. The killer is that since your shot has already covered about a quarter of the court for the opposing team, its fast break is looking a lot more effective. Every missed shot is a potential defensive rebound for the opposing team.

Missed threes account for a crap-load of offensive rebounds. In fact, they lead to most offensive rebounds if my memory serves me right. That's what coined the phrase "long rebound". From the last time this was brought up (and stats were actually used....stats I don't have), nate33 actually proved why it's better to take a 3. I'll see if I can get him to post them later in this thread.

I think we're all smart enough to factor a player's three-point shooting into his FG%, and we don't necessarily need alternative statistics to tell us that it's necessary. They're useful, sure, but they're also a great way to fall in love with guys who take low-percentage shots. Covering free-throws, again, is something we all know we have to do regardless of introducing other stats.

I'd like to think, but then there's arguments like this one that say Gilbert Arenas, one of the NBA's more efficient players, is an inefficient chucker, and you rethink your stance.

You mention that your team's pace is so fast and call Arenas a great rebounder? Maybe those two things are connected... he's good in that respect for a guard, I agree, but I can't think of the last team that paid a guard the big bucks to rebound. The two most important things a guard can do are seemingly lost on Arenas.

A) I never called him a great rebounder. I said he was an above-average rebounder for his position. COMPLETELY different. He's not going to go into games dominating the rebounding statistic. It's just yet another thing he does other than scoring. Remember...you said he was one-dimensional.

Is it crucial for the Wizards that Arenas be a good rebounder? Maybe, maybe not. There hasn't really been any study done on how effective guard rebounding is. But from every coach I've heard and from every color analyst I've listened to, they always say that when your guards help rebound the ball, your team is better off for it and it makes life much easier for your forwards and center.

Okay, so he's a guard instead of a point guard. I still said that taking over a game is the job of a frontcourt player. Or is Arenas one of those now too?

Well, let's backtrack a bit so nothing gets lost in a big post. You first said that Gilbert was a point guard. I disproved that. You also said that if I could convince you that he was not a point guard, you'd rethink your stance on him. I think I did that as well. Now you want me to tell you he's a frontcourt player? Nope, sorry I can't do that. But I would love for you to provide numbers that prove that taking over a game is a frontcourt player's responsibility. That'd be awfully fun to see. I'd also like for you to take a trip to Boston, MA, and forward the memo to the NBA's MVP, Kobe Bryant.

What? Where is the coorlation between power-forward screen-setting and an effective and efficient offense?

Are you actually serious here? I've been paraphrasing you up until now, but this bears direct quotation. Maybe my eyes were mistaken while watching Karl Malone for all those years then. It's not like he's been the only one either. Ironic that you should question screen-setting while having Reggie in your name and sig - it's not like he ever benefited from having the Davis boys and the Dutchman setting screens for him...

Hold the phone....I never said that the pick and roll wasn't the staple and backbone of some tremendous offensive teams. I said that there isn't a correlation. Remember, having a team predicated on the pick and roll requires certain players who can pull it off effectively. Players with superior court vision or big men with superior hands. Not every team has one of these. Actually, they're quite rare Utah was ultra effective because they had both. San Antonio is effective because they have the best power forward of all-time. In rare cases like that of Reggie, he did all of his movement off-ball.

I just don't get your criticisms of the Wizards offense. If you don't like Arenas, fine. If you don't like a run-and-gun offense, fine. But don't try to tell me it isn't effective. Our offense is the only thing that keeps us in games and lets us win over half of them. We have one of the league's best offenses and it's predicated on Arenas.

Again, if he's really running that offence, why so few assists? And if he and Stevenson are splitting duties (i.e. the prerequisite for Arenas not to be the point guard), why isn't Stevenson getting more of them?I did just check Stevenson's APT from this past season, though, and good for him - if he could double each of those numbers, keeping the ratio intact, he'd be your starting PG right now.

The princeton offense, especially the variation Eddie Jordan runs, historically doesn't net a lot of assists because it is a lot (A L-O-T) of one-on-one play and isolation sets.

I hope that just answered your question.

Even using Butler as a point forward, let's crunch some numbers. During the last season in which Arenas was healthy, he averaged 6APG while Stevenson averaged 2.7APG and Butler averaged 3.7APG. By comparison, let's look at the early-2000s Hornets, a team with two good ball-handlers in the backcourt and a point forward but with a significantly lower pace and that only scored 91.9PPG in 2001 and then 93.9PPG in each of the next two seasons.

Arenas = 6.0
Stevenson = 2.7
Butler = 3.7
Total = 12.4

Davis (2001) = 7.3
Mashburn (2001) = 5.4
Total = 12.9

Davis (2002) = 8.5
Mashburn (2002) = 4.3
Total = 12.8

Davis (2003) = 6.4
Mashburn (2003) = 5.6
Total = 12.0

Those numbers don't even factor in David Wesley, who averaged 4.4, 3.5 and 3.4APG in those three seasons, in order. How is it that the starting perimeter players on the East's best offence can't out-assist players who played for an offence that didn't have nearly as many possessions during which to generate them?

So wait, how does being a better player make Arenas get less assists than Marbury? If the goal is to get less assists rather than more while at the guard spots, I should go tell Sam Mitchell to bench Calderon so Maceo Baston can run the offence.

You're refusing to consider that different offensive systems are being run and different types of players are being used. If you can't see that, there isn't much point in taking this discussion further. Arenas being a better scorer than Marbury means that he has more responsibility scoring the ball, meaning he just isn't going to net 8-10 assists per game. As I said, if he could, he'd be the MVP without much debate.

Lastly, and most crucially of all, let's remember that we're having this argument in a thread about Andray Blatche. Sorry for my role in it.

It's your fault. It's always your fault.

[nate33]

Perhaps more importantly, why reward three-pointers? As you said yourself, three-pointers are low percentage shots. The lower the percentage the shot, the worse it is. (With exceptions like a three from a couple inches outside the line and a two because your foot's on the line.) Making a shot allows players to not necessarily have to set up fast-break defence, which keeps them fresher. Also, a missed three-pointer leads to a longer rebound. Since the league's best offensive rebounders tend to be frontcourt players, your team's best offensive rebounders end up stranded away from the ball. This leads to more defensive rebounds for the opposing team, since most rebounds end up being defensive anyway. The killer is that since your shot has already covered about a quarter of the court for the opposing team, its fast break is looking a lot more effective. Every missed shot is a potential defensive rebound for the opposing team.

While this sounds good at face value, it is mathematically incorrect.

Shooting three pointers is actually more advantageous than what is credited by the eFG% calculation.

Consider two players. Player A makes 3 out of 6 shots from 2 point range. He scores 6 points on 6 shots for an eFG% of .500. Player B makes 2 out of 6 shots from 3 point range, scoring 6 points on 6 shots for an eFG% of .500.

By your assessment, Player A is more effective than Player B because there are fewer long rebounds or whatever other "intangibles" you attribute to 2-point shots. In reality, Player B is more effective than Player A because Player B's shots resulted in 4 opportunities for offensive rebounds. Player A's shots resulted in just 3 opportunities for offensive rebounds. Offensive teams grab the offensive board roughly 30% of the time. Effectively, Player B gives his team an extra possession once every 20 shots relative to Player A. That ultimately translates in Player B being roughly 2% more efficient offensively per shot attempt. Player A has a "true eFG%" of 50%; Player B has a "true eFG%" of 52%.

[Rooster]

Or the player taking the two-point shot is nullifying an opposing advantage the vast majority of the time. Possessions that start in chaos at the three-point line tend to work out better than typical half-court possession. Once every twenty possessions does not cancel out (or exceed...) the fast-break chance granted to the opposing team the rest of the time.

[massey1992]

This is bad news for the Wizards. He may not be back next year.