2011-12 RealGM Player of the Year Discussion Thread

[mysticbb]

If I'm curt, I apologize, but this tangent about Spacing (useful) related to Winning Bias (relevant) is now feeling more stretched and circular than ever.

In what way is Winning Bias relevant?

You say "I'm missing the point." What point??

That the difference between Nowitzki and James during the finals series was their play off the ball, which effected the way their respective teammates were able to play.

I don't think Spacing is static. I just explicitly stated my views on Spacing -- what was static about it to you?

Well, read your posts and tell me in which part you argue about the dynamics. ;) You didn't explicite stated that it would be static, but what else should I take out of your posts?
To be honest, I really have a hard time seeing you are making a useful argument here against the notion that Nowitzki's game off the ball was actually better than James'. And, you still haven't given me any kind of explanation as to why the Heat during the Finals played clearly worse with James than without. Why where his teammates able to play more successful against those Mavericks without James? Can you imagine something besides variance?

But you pointed an extreme example. This can't possibly be what you mean -- the rare cases where players, regardless of ability, happen to get in each other's way by not spreading the court. Why is it rather obvious to you that this happens a lot?

Because it happened more than once? Maybe not to the extreme extent, but the Heat also got worse shots with James on the court. Now, you want to say that this had nothing to do with James, while I see that he not moving well is reducing the options. Now, do you honestly want to argue that this was the only scene? Right now I'm a bit confused, because I'm pretty sure you watched the games as well.

It is "rather obvious" to me that is the crux of the spacing issue is related to someone's threat as a shooter.

See, and you don't understand why I guessed that it is static for you? Why do you think that only "being a threat as a shooter" would be related to this? That is a bogus argument, because someone is also being a "shooter" when he is just standing around on the perimeter. Spacing is not just an issue related to shooters at all. Take a look at the TPO, when we have 3 players in the post. How they positioning themselves is crucial for a working play, one of the guys moving towards the wrong direction will mess up the spacing and will reduce the options for the ball handler in that situation as well. No, sorry, but spacing is not an issue just related to shooters, even though the best shooters can make it more easy to create better spacing. But if the other players aren't moving well also, the shooter will be just covered regardless.
I pointed it out with Love, who is also not the worst outside shooter, but yet, he is defended differently than Nowitzki on the perimeter. Why is that?

This whole thing started because you had such a strong reaction to me saying their play was close in the Finals.

Part of it is you refusing to explain the difference in team performances by basically saying that this had nothing to do with James' and Nowitzki's off-ball game.

Where did you get the idea that I believe this?

That's what your posts imply. Honestly, what else should I take out of this besides that? I'm really not quite sure what you are really want to argue, if it is not that you think that James' and Nowitzki's game off the ball doesn't make a big difference anyway.

I was responding to this:

Honestly, you really lost me. You said explicit:

"DRIVING/CUTTING lanes are as important, if not more important, than the open shooters standing at the line"

For sure driving/cutting is more important than "standing". Seriously, what is your point?
And putting shooters around Nowitzki is maximizing that effect Nowitzki has. What is so hard to understand about that part? Heck, we have the numbers for the lineups with Stojakovic, Terry and Nowitzki, do you think 130 ORtg is something every team can do for such an extended stretch of playing time? Or do you want to imply that Nowitzki, Stojakovic and Terry were just standing around?
And if you don't want to imply that with "shooters" you mean "shooters who are just standing at the line", what else is your statement "DRIVING/CUTTING lanes are as important, if not more important, than the open shooters standing at the line" for?


And to bring back the real starting point: It is obvious that Nowitzki played better without the ball while both were rather equal with the ball. Nowitzki play off the ball was a catalyst to the Mavericks being much better with him on the court, while James' off ball game was one of the reasons why the Heat played actually worse with him on the court. Now, do you agree with that or do you disagree?

[colts18]

Don't know where to put this, but I will put it here. LeBron's numbers in elimination games since the 2008 season

33-11-7, .583 TS%

When his team needed him, he stepped up consistently

[MisterWestside]

Because it happened more than once? Maybe not to the extreme extent, but the Heat also got worse shots with James on the court.

Again, examples please? The on/off numbers don't necessarily tell you that James' spacing had a significant effect.

James missed the jumpers that he was converting in earlier rounds, he wasn't getting to the line as often, and he wasn't playing his best defense. I would think that those things are more relevant to the Heat's offense than anything else.

[mysticbb]

That's not what I'm arguing. I'm talking about how this dynamic would play out compared to Dirk on the Mavs - while Kemba and DJ can create shots, the Bobcats overall don't have the offensive bigs (relatively speaking) or shooters that the Mavs have;

Really? I would argue that BJ Mullens is actually more a threat on offense than someone like Haywood or Mahinmi. And Diaw was for sure more helpful offensively than any of the current Mavericks bigs. Also, the best shooters on the Mavericks are Terry and Kidd. Well, I have a hard time seeing Kidd being a better shooter than Augustin or Reggie Williams.
I think the real issue would be more related to the defense being worse than the current Mavericks defense, but offensively that Bobcats team with Nowitzki on the court could have been close to be as good as the current Mavericks with Nowitzki.
Nowitzki's effect on the current Mavericks is more seen in the possibility to use better defensive players around him with lesser offensive skills.

Dirk running around without the ball wouldn't be as useful on that squad. Defenses could stay more at home with Dirk.

Huh? Nowitzki running around without the ball has two effects: If the defender follows, the teammates are getting more time and space for their actions, if the defenders stays home, Nowitzki can receive the ball against a smaller defender and post him up. No idea, but I seriously doubt that it would be a good idea to try to second thing.

The Dirk Mavs on-off numbers don't factor in lineups, do they?

What exactly do you mean with that?

Check this out, for example: http://stats-for-the-nba.appspot.com/pm/5.html

Those are the scoring differences with Nowitzki instead of the players named in that table while playing with the same teammates. It also adjusts for strength of the opponents.

Again, I'm not saying that off-ball play isn't important; I'm questioning its individual vs. team dependency. Yes I agree that things such as passing and defense are also team dependent, but that's not what we're talking about here.

But when that skill is something related to the player, if the ability to play off the ball is different for different players, shouldn't it be obvious that this is a skill which should be figured into the evaluation of the individual player within the context of a 5on5 game? For sure, the overall quantitative effect depends on the teammates, but that doesn't mean that we should overlook that at all and just focus on the stuff with the ball in order to determine the performance level of the player. And I seriously don't see any difference here than when factoring in defense or passing or even scoring. For sure we could argue about the quantity of the different things, but only because something might be smaller or not that easy to quantify doesn't mean (at least to me) that we should ignore the differences here. And then again, it should also show up in the +/- based analysis, which is clearly favoring Nowitzki here.

[mysticbb]

Again, examples please? The on/off numbers don't necessarily tell you that James' spacing had a significant effect.

It is possible that it hadn't a significant effect, but we still comparing James to Nowitzki on that part. Do you want to argue that James has the same effect off the ball as Nowitzki has?
And when I find the time, I will look into the games more carefully and point out other examples.

James missed the jumpers that he was converting in earlier rounds, he wasn't getting to the line as often, and he wasn't playing his best defense. I would think that those things are more relevant to the Heat's offense than anything else.

I'm not even disagree with that. Somehow I think my point was lost somewhere. I was arguing that Nowitzki was obviously better off the ball during the finals than James, which also can at least explain a part of the differences in overall team performances levels for the respective teams. And so far I get the impression you and Elgee want to argue that the difference is not there.

[colts18]

here is a list of the best offensive lineups since 08 minimum 500 possessions.

http://www.basketball-reference.com/pla ... der_by=pts

Surprisingly, there weren't as many lineups with lots of shooters as I expected. The best lineup was Miller-Batum-Matthews-Wallace-Aldridge in 2011 and that lineup didn't really have a shooter other than Wes Matthews

[mysticbb]

Surprisingly, there weren't as many lineups with lots of shooters as I expected. The best lineup was Miller-Batum-Matthews-Wallace-Aldridge in 2011 and that lineup didn't really have a shooter other than Wes Matthews

INcrease the sample by including playoffs as well as making it cumulative season games: http://bkref.com/tiny/IMMxk

And then again, spacing is not just something created by shooters standing around ...

[MisterWestside]

I think the real issue would be more related to the defense being worse than the current Mavericks defense, but offensively that Bobcats team with Nowitzki on the court could have been close to be as good as the current Mavericks with Nowitzki.

I disagree with that. You truly think that players like Augustin-Walker-Diaw are comparable to Terry-Carter- Mahinmi?

The specifics of the Bobcats example isn't important anyway. The point was to show that Dirk's off-ball skills wouldn't be as valuable on a team that doesn't have players who can provide some offensive skills of their own in order to bring about its impact.

Huh? Nowitzki running around without the ball has two effects: If the defender follows, the teammates are getting more time and space for their actions, if the defenders stays home, Nowitzki can receive the ball against a smaller defender and post him up. No idea, but I seriously doubt that it would be a good idea to try to second thing.

If Dirk plays with offensively inept players, defenses can key in on him more often and hinder his play with or without the ball. Why waste defensive help on other players when they can't be relied upon? You can cheat more towards Dirk and his movements without getting burned for it, in contrast to teams that have bigs that can explode to the basket on PnR or guards that can nail open jumpers.

Those are the scoring differences with Nowitzki instead of the players named in that table while playing with the same teammates. It also adjusts for strength of the opponents.

This is more like it; I was wondering if you were just using the raw +/- data (although RAPM isn't flawless either). But this goes into my next point:

But when that skill is something related to the player, if the ability to play off the ball is different for different players, shouldn't it be obvious that this is a skill which should be figured into the evaluation of the individual player within the context of a 5on5 game? For sure, the overall quantitative effect depends on the teammates, but that doesn't mean that we should overlook that at all and just focus on the stuff with the ball in order to determine the performance level of the player.

Yes. But when that same skill is also highly dependent on other factors (picks, other off-ball movement, shot-creation, team system, etc.), how do you properly assign a value to it? Even +/- data doesn't tell you that in particular, and team effects can still confound +/- models.

[ElGee]

If I'm curt, I apologize, but this tangent about Spacing (useful) related to Winning Bias (relevant) is now feeling more stretched and circular than ever.

In what way is Winning Bias relevant?

You say "I'm missing the point." What point??

That the difference between Nowitzki and James during the finals series was their play off the ball, which effected the way their respective teammates were able to play.

I don't think Spacing is static. I just explicitly stated my views on Spacing -- what was static about it to you?

Well, read your posts and tell me in which part you argue about the dynamics. You didn't explicite stated that it would be static, but what else should I take out of your posts?
To be honest, I really have a hard time seeing you are making a useful argument here against the notion that Nowitzki's game off the ball was actually better than James'. And, you still haven't given me any kind of explanation as to why the Heat during the Finals played clearly worse with James than without. Why where his teammates able to play more successful against those Mavericks without James? Can you imagine something besides variance?

But you pointed an extreme example. This can't possibly be what you mean -- the rare cases where players, regardless of ability, happen to get in each other's way by not spreading the court. Why is it rather obvious to you that this happens a lot?

Because it happened more than once? Maybe not to the extreme extent, but the Heat also got worse shots with James on the court. Now, you want to say that this had nothing to do with James, while I see that he not moving well is reducing the options. Now, do you honestly want to argue that this was the only scene? Right now I'm a bit confused, because I'm pretty sure you watched the games as well.

It is "rather obvious" to me that is the crux of the spacing issue is related to someone's threat as a shooter.

See, and you don't understand why I guessed that it is static for you? Why do you think that only "being a threat as a shooter" would be related to this? That is a bogus argument, because someone is also being a "shooter" when he is just standing around on the perimeter. Spacing is not just an issue related to shooters at all. Take a look at the TPO, when we have 3 players in the post. How they positioning themselves is crucial for a working play, one of the guys moving towards the wrong direction will mess up the spacing and will reduce the options for the ball handler in that situation as well. No, sorry, but spacing is not an issue just related to shooters, even though the best shooters can make it more easy to create better spacing. But if the other players aren't moving well also, the shooter will be just covered regardless.
I pointed it out with Love, who is also not the worst outside shooter, but yet, he is defended differently than Nowitzki on the perimeter. Why is that?

This whole thing started because you had such a strong reaction to me saying their play was close in the Finals.

Part of it is you refusing to explain the difference in team performances by basically saying that this had nothing to do with James' and Nowitzki's off-ball game.

Where did you get the idea that I believe this?

That's what your posts imply. Honestly, what else should I take out of this besides that? I'm really not quite sure what you are really want to argue, if it is not that you think that James' and Nowitzki's game off the ball doesn't make a big difference anyway.

I was responding to this:

Honestly, you really lost me. You said explicit:

"DRIVING/CUTTING lanes are as important, if not more important, than the open shooters standing at the line"

For sure driving/cutting is more important than "standing". Seriously, what is your point?
And putting shooters around Nowitzki is maximizing that effect Nowitzki has. What is so hard to understand about that part? Heck, we have the numbers for the lineups with Stojakovic, Terry and Nowitzki, do you think 130 ORtg is something every team can do for such an extended stretch of playing time? Or do you want to imply that Nowitzki, Stojakovic and Terry were just standing around?
And if you don't want to imply that with "shooters" you mean "shooters who are just standing at the line", what else is your statement "DRIVING/CUTTING lanes are as important, if not more important, than the open shooters standing at the line" for?


And to bring back the real starting point: It is obvious that Nowitzki played better without the ball while both were rather equal with the ball. Nowitzki play off the ball was a catalyst to the Mavericks being much better with him on the court, while James' off ball game was one of the reasons why the Heat played actually worse with him on the court. Now, do you agree with that or do you disagree?

C'mon man - this just doesn't seem productive anymore. Winning Bias is relevant because so many people commit it around this time of year. I'm kind of flabbergasted that you'd jump on me so loudly during the point I made about that with Doc MJ (something people have made fun of me for saying so much) and now you aren't sure why it matters or how we got here.

I AGREE that Dirk is better off ball than James. The issue is how much that mattered since everything else seemed so close. I guess it's other confusing to me that you are acting like 99% of people would think "Yes, it was close but Dirk was obviously better because of his SPACING EFFECT." Seriously?

re: The Heat being better without James.

On/Off in the Finals
G1 +1 (2.7 min)
G2 +3 (2.7 min)
G3 -7 (8 min)
G4 0 (2.3 min)
G5 -2 (2.4 min)
G6 -14 (7.6 min)
Total -19 in 25 min 42 seconds.

First, I can't believe you want to make a conclusion based on 25 minutes of off time.
Second, if you actually look at the off time by team ORTG, you'll see this:

G1 ON 113 OFF 60 (5 pos)
G2 ON 111 OFF 93 (14 pos)
G3 ON 106 OFF 67 (6 pos)
G4 ON 97 OFF 120 (5 pos)
G5 ON 114 OFF 175 (4 pos)
G6 ON 97 OFF 140 (15 pos)

For a total of 500 pts in 469 pos on the court and 54 pts in 49 pos off the court. They scored almost identical rates in and out of the game. As I've said before, look at the DEFENSE.

[mysticbb]

I disagree with that. You truly think that players like Augustin-Walker-Diaw are comparable to Terry-Carter- Mahinmi?

Without Nowitzki in 2011/12 per 36 min vs with:

Terry: 15.8/2.7/3.8 on 48.6 TS% vs. 17.8/2.7/4.3 on 58.3 TS%
Carter: 16.2/5.2/2.7 on 53.3 TS% vs. 13.1/4.9/3.3 on 49.8 TS%
Mahinmi: 12.2/9.4/0.3 on 58.8 TS% vs. 10.8/9.0/0.3 on 59.8 TS%
Kidd: 9.2/5.4/5.4 on 48.9 TS% vs. 7.8/5.2/7.4 on 53.6 TS%

Now, the Bobcats:

Walker: 16.1/4.7/5.8 on 46.4 TS%
Augustin: 13.6/2.8/7.8 on 49.3 TS%
Diaw: 9.2/7.1/5.2 on 49.8 TS%
Magette: 19.6/5.1/1.6 on 51.6 TS%
Henderson: 16.3/4.4/2.5 on 51.1 TS%

Do Walker+Augustin so different from Kidd+Terry without Nowitzki? Is Carter really that much better than Henderson or Maggette. What Diaw lacks in terms of scoring in comparison to Mahinmi makes he up by providing much better passing and overall more spacing. Look how different Diaw played with the Spurs for example, when the spacing was better and he had more time on the perimeter to shoot. As I said I really see not much difference between the Bobcats offensively and the Mavericks without Nowitzki.

The specifics of the Bobcats example isn't important anyway. The point was to show that Dirk's off-ball skills wouldn't be as valuable on a team that doesn't have players who can provide some offensive skills of their own in order to bring about its impact.

First of all, I completely agree that the effect would have a different quantitativ value, thus we can say that it couldn't be as valuable as on other teams. But anyway, it would still effect the team. The issue is that each skill is not as valuable to a team which doesn't need that skill in the first place. Elgee brought up Garnett and his increased value for the Celtics due to them lacking big men. Does that make Garnett a worse basketball player and his performance less valuable overall only because on other teams he would be less valuable?
The same goes for James and his on-ball skills which were not as valuable on the Heat as they were on the Cavs. Does that mean James is a worse basketball player? And I really don't see how being able to play off the ball, which gives other players the opportunity to play to their strength is anything less valuable than a player being a strong passer, but also depend on the teammates abilities to move without the ball into a position where they can receive the ball.

If Dirk plays with offensively inept players, defenses can key in on him more often and hinder his play with or without the ball. Why waste defensive help on other players when they can't be relied upon? You can cheat more towards Dirk and his movements without getting burned for it, in contrast to teams that have bigs that can explode to the basket on PnR or guards that can nail open jumpers.

That is true for every player. It is really a redundant argument, which you brought up multiple times already. Again, we are talking about 5on5 here, not 1on1, and the players depend on the action of the teammates as well. I brought up the really bad example of James standing next to Wade and doing nothing. Do you think that scene showed us how invaluable Wade is, because he couldn't resolve the situation better when his teammates messed up? Because that is basically what you arguing for. You are trying to say that a trait becomes useless or shouldn't be included, because the effect depends on the teammates. That is not how a TEAM game works. ;)

This is more like it; I was wondering if you were just using the raw +/- data (although RAPM isn't flawless either). But this goes into my next point:

That is not RAPM, that is simple ORTG and DRTG differences adjusted for the strength of the opponents afterwards. So, in essence they are not telling much of a different story than raw +/- anyway. And in that case the whole basis of my postings is the difference between RAPM offensive value for Nowitzki and his boxscore based value. I said that the difference can be seen as his off ball value and that this value is bigger than James' value off the ball.

Yes. But when that same skill is also highly dependent on other factors (picks, other off-ball movement, shot-creation, team system, etc.), how do you properly assign a value to it? Even +/- data doesn't tell you that in particular, and team effects can still confound +/- models.

Honestly, I don't know where the idea came from that I was just talking about one specific aspect related to the off-ball action in spacing. No, I never said that this value I threw out was just "spacing effect". I always talked about off-ball value, which includes picks and movement as well. The issue is, that we see for 12 years of data that Nowitzki effects the offensive efficiency more than his boxscore metrics would suggest. Now, my only explanation is that Nowitzki has a profound ability off the ball which helps his teammates succeed. And I don't see that as any different as being able to create scoring situations for a teammate with the ball in the hand. And I said that Nowitzki showed that ability as well in the finals last year, which is reflected in the overall team result.

[mysticbb]

Winning Bias is relevant because so many people commit it around this time of year.

Why would that matter in this discussion at all, when I was asking you specifically whether you think that it wasn't obvious to you that Nowitzki was better than James? We are talking here to each other, we are not talking to other people who might be effected by winning bias. Heck, I don't even disagree that the idea that there was some incredible awesome difference between those two is related to winning bias, but that is not the point of the discussion between us at all.

Let me give you a quick example: 20 is obvious bigger than 10, but so is 11. But the quantity of the difference is also different. So, while the difference might be not as big, it can still be obvious for profound reasons. To bring that back to Nowitzki vs. James: for me it was obvious that Nowitzki was better off the ball and while on ball was in slight favor of Nowitzki (you know, the guy was still the best defensive rebounder in those finals as well), it makes me conclude that Nowitzki was obviously better.
And at that point my question to YOU comes in which was: Wasn't it obvious to you as well? Your response was pointing out the basically equal values in terms of on ball, while not mentioning off ball even once. And now we are running circles around the off ball value.

I'm kind of flabbergasted that you'd jump on me so loudly during the point I made about that with Doc MJ (something people have made fun of me for saying so much) and now you aren't sure why it matters or how we got here.

Honestly, in our whole discussion winning bias only mattered to you to explain the reaction by other people. I pointed it out to you that you are not talking to people which are highly effected by winning bias, but to people like Doc MJ and myself who are trying to let winning not bias their opinions. So, how much does winning bias really matter in that specific discussion? Especially when all started with me asking you a question.

That was my first post to you regarding that topic:

viewtopic.php?f=64&t=1184405&start=75#p32115041

I AGREE that Dirk is better off ball than James.

And that is my whole point, which made me conclude that Nowitzki was obviously better; in a sense that 11 is more than 10, not in sense that 20 is more than 10. ;)

The issue is how much that mattered since everything else seemed so close. I guess it's other confusing to me that you are acting like 99% of people would think "Yes, it was close but Dirk was obviously better because of his SPACING EFFECT." Seriously?

I'm here to talk about Dirk Nowitzki and LeBron James as basketball players and how they effect the overall team performances. In that specific case we are talking about the NBA Finals 2011. I'm not here to talk about the perception of other people and how their opinions might be effected by winning bias. When I asked you a question about your opinion on how James and Nowitzki played, I don't want to imply that in reality I would like to discuss the winning bias which has an effect on the opinion of other people. In not even one of my posts I was saying that winning bias had no effect on other people and how they perceived the performance level of Nowitzki and James during the finals. I merely pointed out that in a lot of cases people said something about James being passive, which can be described as a result of the differences in off ball action.

On/Off in the Finals
G1 +1 (2.7 min)
G2 +3 (2.7 min)
G3 -7 (8 min)
G4 0 (2.3 min)
G5 -2 (2.4 min)
G6 -14 (7.6 min)
Total -19 in 25 min 42 seconds.

No idea what kind of numbers those are, but James was overall at -36 during the finals, while the Heat without him at +22.

First, I can't believe you want to make a conclusion based on 25 minutes of off time.

What kind of conclusion do I want to make? The only thing I stated was the fact that the Heat played better without James than with James. That is a fact. Now, we can discuss why that is the case and I'm pretty much with you when you say that a big part of that is likely variance in the small sample. My conclusion that Nowitzki was obviously better than James is based on their respective play when they were on the court. The rest is just a small point to emphasize on the different effects in terms of off ball value. Can you agree that Nowitzki's off ball value had a positive effect on the performance level of the Mavericks, while James' did not have the effect on the Heat to the extent Nowitzki had that? You already agreed that Nowitzki is better than James in that aspect. Now, the only logical conclusion to me is that Nowitzki was overall better, unless you think James was incredible more effective and efficient with the ball during the finals.
And that is the basis of my conclusion: Nowitzki was obviously better than James during the finals.

For a total of 500 pts in 469 pos on the court and 54 pts in 49 pos off the court. They scored almost identical rates in and out of the game. As I've said before, look at the DEFENSE.

Still a 3.6 points difference. But as I said before, that is not even the main argument here.


James, btw, had according to the boxscore numbers about 12% less touches during the finals per poss than during the other playoff games. Do you think that this is a rather good estimation? And do you think that this can be the reason why people thought of him being passive? Do you think that the comparison between James in the other playoff rounds vs. James in the finals, and him being less efficient while doing less with the ball, would lead to the conclusion that Finals-James was worse than Rest-Of-The-Playoffs-James? And with that said can you imagine that this also had a huge effect on how the people perceived the performance of James, because they actually didn't compare him to an average player, but to a better version of James himself?

[MisterWestside]

Brief post:

Do you think that scene showed us how invaluable Wade is, because he couldn't resolve the situation better when his teammates messed up? Because that is basically what you arguing for. You are trying to say that a trait becomes useless or shouldn't be included, because the effect depends on the teammates.

Not at all. I do want to see what Dirk (or any other player) brings to the table when he plays basketball; I simply want to untangle HIS contributions from his teammates (including off-ball play). And even with the usefulness of +/- data, there are still issues with accounting for teammates and team system.

[mysticbb]

Not at all. I do want to see what Dirk (or any other player) brings to the table when he plays basketball; I simply want to untangle HIS contributions from his teammates (including off-ball play). And even with the usefulness of +/- data, there are still issues with accounting for teammates and team system.

But Nowitzki brings to the table that his presence and work without the ball will make it easier for his teammates to succeed. Now, how much do you think is such a trait worth? We saw Nowitzki being the cornerstone of 3 different contenders, with 3 different coaches, 3 different systems and 3 different supporting casts around him. We also saw Nowitzki doing the same stuff with the German Nationalteam while none of his teammates played a single minute in the NBA, because they lacked the talent. And yet, they looked not that bad when playing with Nowitzki (btw, under a defensive minded coach with the main trait being able to play defense). Does all that really speaks against the value of Nowitzki on that part? It is not like it happens only once in 12 years, we see that over the last 12 years in different situations and with a pretty good consistency.

[GreenHat]

As Elgee pointed out Lebron played all but 25 of the minutes in the series. Why even bring up the off numbers when its only 25 minutes and some of that was even garbage time? You used that to extrapolate that the Heat played "much better without him than with him" without even acknowledging the tiny sample size until you got called out for it. Just like you are hammering Lebron for spacing based mostly on one play that you remember that didn't work.

Both teams were shooting mostly open threes. Did Dirk's spacing make Stevenson shoot 56% from 3 and Lebron's spacing make Bibby shoot 29% from 3? No one is arguing Lebron is better at spacing the ball, everyone is arguing the extent to which you seem to be implying that it is.

One player played almost the whole series in a 2-4 loss, of course he is going to have negative +/-

The other guy played almost the whole series on the winning side, I'm shocked that he has a much better +/-

[MisterWestside]

Now, how much do you think is such a trait worth?

I don't know. I just don't want Dirk getting more credit for it than he should, especially when a lot of other things are essential to scoring points. Dirk doesn't set his own screens, doesn't make other players move without the ball, doesn't make other players create shots, etc. When he's off the floor, it's not a given that his off-ball movement is the ONLY thing that changes in the team dynamic. He shouldn't be given all of the +2 credit for a basket that is made while he's on the floor.

[mysticbb]

As Elgee pointed out Lebron played all but 25 of the minutes in the series. Why even bring up the off numbers when its only 25 minutes and some of that was even garbage time?

Well, that is interesting, because you are probably the only one who saw "garbage time" during the finals. Can you point out which minutes James wasn't on the court were actually "garbage time"? I'm curious, because I can't remember a single minutes which would count as "garbage time".

You used that to extrapolate that the Heat played "much better without him than with him" without even acknowledging the tiny sample size until you got called out for it.

I'm pretty sure I mentioned the low amount of minutes before and I'm also pretty sure that EVERYONE knows that James played a lot of minutes. It is not some sort of secret, thus I don't even understand your point. Let alone that my focus in that discussion was on off ball game, which is hardly possible when someone is not on the court. Or did I blame James for not providing the same effect without the ball as Nowitzki does while being off the court?

Just like you are hammering Lebron for spacing based mostly on one play that you remember that didn't work.

What? I'm not hammering him at all, I compared James and Nowitzki off the ball, and my conclusion was that Nowitzki was better than James in that aspect. So, which part of that did you not understand?

Both teams were shooting mostly open threes. Did Dirk's spacing make Stevenson shoot 56% from 3 and Lebron's spacing make Bibby shoot 29% from 3?

Ah, that is an interesting argument. In which game do you think Bibby missing 3's caused the Heat to lose? Hell, I remember Bibby shooting lights out in game 2, but I hardly can remember him missing 3's as a cause of a loss. Was it game 4? Or game 5? Or game 6 (not sure, if he even played).

No one is arguing Lebron is better at spacing the ball, everyone is arguing the extent to which you seem to be implying that it is.

To what extent do you think do I arguing it?

One player played almost the whole series in a 2-4 loss, of course he is going to have negative +/-

The other guy played almost the whole series on the winning side, I'm shocked that he has a much better +/-

Nobody should be shocked, but acting like Nowitzki's off ball value had no influence on the result is something which I arguing against. So, at what point do you disagree that Nowitzki has a bigger effect on the floor spacing than James? What exactly is your argument that James is not inferior to Nowitzki in terms of off ball game? Does James set better screens? Is James moving better without the ball? Just asking, because my whole argumentation is based around the value Nowitzki brings to the court even when he does not have the ball in comparison to James' value without the ball. Do you disagree that Nowitzki's value off the ball is bigger than James'?


MisterWestside, sorry, if I gave the impression that Nowitzki would get full credit for each point scored when he is on the court, because that is not the case. And I really can't remember saying that at all. But when we have 12 years of data in which the the increase in offensive efficieny with Nowitzki is bigger than what we would expect by his boxscore numbers, we can either conclude that Nowitzki is the luckiest guy to ever play basketball, because just by coincedence he was on the court when his teammates made their shots while they were just unlucky to not make them when he was off, or we can conclude that Nowitzki brings value to the team off the ball. What do you think is more reasonable?

[ElGee]

Let me give you a quick example: 20 is obvious bigger than 10, but so is 11. But the quantity of the difference is also different. So, while the difference might be not as big, it can still be obvious for profound reasons. To bring that back to Nowitzki vs. James: for me it was obvious that Nowitzki was better off the ball and while on ball was in slight favor of Nowitzki (you know, the guy was still the best defensive rebounder in those finals as well), it makes me conclude that Nowitzki was obviously better.

And at that point my question to YOU comes in which was: Wasn't it obvious to you as well? Your response was pointing out the basically equal values in terms of on ball, while not mentioning off ball even once. And now we are running circles around the off ball value.

I AGREE that Dirk is better off ball than James.

And that is my whole point, which made me conclude that Nowitzki was obviously better; in a sense that 11 is more than 10, not in sense that 20 is more than 10.

On/Off in the Finals
G1 +1 (2.7 min)
G2 +3 (2.7 min)
G3 -7 (8 min)
G4 0 (2.3 min)
G5 -2 (2.4 min)
G6 -14 (7.6 min)
Total -19 in 25 min 42 seconds.

No idea what kind of numbers those are, but James was overall at -36 during the finals, while the Heat without him at +22.

OK, so even though it's razor close it's "obvious" to you. That bit of semantics would have been nice to know 7 pages ago. My original response to you was to provide the 500 possessions of hand-tracked data I have for offense and defense...did you have something that was more comprehensive that? You must to think a player barely better was "obviously" better.

Btw, the numbers in the post were Miami with James off (I forgot to include the on). The BR database has at least some of the information wrong but that's neither here nor there.

[mysticbb]

OK, so even though it's razor close it's "obvious" to you.

No, not at all. If we compare only the on ball performance we might conclude that this was close, but when we look at the off ball performance as well, I really think we can call that "obvious".

That bit of semantics would have been nice to know 7 pages ago.

Sorry for that; I thought it was obvious that something can be obviously different even though the difference might be small.

You must to think a player barely better was "obviously" better. ;)

I think that in some situations a small difference in performance level can be obvious, the difference just needs to be significant. And in this case I would argue that the difference off the ball is significant.

Btw, the numbers in the post were Miami with James off (I forgot to include the on). The BR database has at least some of the information wrong but that's neither here nor there.

If your numbers are the "James off" numbers, -19 in 26 minutes, it means that with James it becomes +5 in 262 minutes. No, sorry, but you must have made a mistake. I checked NBA.com as well as ESPN.com as well as Yahoo.com, all 3 other sources have -36 for James in 262 minutes and +22 in 26 minutes with James off.

Game ON OFF
Game 1: +9 -1
Game 2: -5 +3
Game 3: +1 +1
Game 4: -6 +3
Game 5: -11 +2
Game 6: -24 +14

I just checked game 6 and James goes out in the 2nd quarter with about 9:30 to go and comes back with 4:30 to go, while the Heat made a 16-3 run without James. I have no idea how you come up with -14 overall for them with James out.

[GSP]

Updated list

1. Lebron James




2. Kevin Durant
3. Russell Westbrook
4. Chris Paul
5. Kevin Garnett

[Narigo]

1. Lebron James
2. Kevin Durant
3. Chris Paul
4. Russell Westbrook
5. Kevin Garnett