Is Ben juicing the creation rates of Curry/Bird/MJ types?

[Doctor MJ]

It seems you're somehow approaching this with the understanding that I think this is Ben doing this intentionally. Which in retrospect, maybe it's my fault for using the word "juicing", when I've reiterated over and over again that I think it's just him subconsciously allowing his bias to affect his analysis and over-credit off-ball players for certain plays.

Okay. Full stop.

Of course it's your fault that someone is interpreting your choice of titling your thread with words that implied the allegation of active manipulation as meaningful.

If you don't want people to take issue with you in this way, change how you talk. (That's advice I need to take to heart better myself, but the fact I have analogous issues shouldn't be a surprise. You and I have been swimming in the same ocean.)

Listen, you clearly think that the implied hyperbole of your title is just part of some universal parlance that doesn't actually mean what it says, and that I'm somehow too dense to realize this, but my entire point is that you are wrong about the whole "doesn't actually mean" part.

This is the broader social internet issue I'm speaking to, and this is at the heart with why I'm so frustrated at the tone I'm seeing in discussion on RealGM now.

If we push the feelings of you and others toward Ben to the side right now, what we still have is a choice of thread framing that leaves us talking about Ben instead of talking about actual basketball. And the more we do that, the more we waste time when we could be gaining understanding of basketball, and instead spending it on something a) we don't necessarily think we're interested in when we're coming to these boards - people rather than basketball, and b) we have a clear tendency to develop false knowledge along the way.

And really, few things are more dangerous than false knowledge at this point in time. It's the great cancer of the internet.

But then there are the feelings involved. When we argue contentiously, we develop polarized valence. We develop identity and pride based on being right. And when two sides both have this, they tend to look to cut deeper and deeper. We divide the community we are in, and we cripple it.

I realize that many who read these words will just roll their eyes, but for you Heej, and for everyone else, I want to emphasize that to me this really isn't about the specific topic or specific posters, and I'm sorry if I've said things that feel like personal attacks.

As I've said, by no means am I saying that you or anyone else here is incapable of building up this community, or that you or anyone else are incapable of great insights into basketball that I've never considered before. This isn't about anyone's fundamental capabilities, it's about epistemic approach - about how we try to make sense of the world.

The internet has unleashed vast conduits of information and interaction that has propelled knowledge learning forward at a never before seen rate in human history...but it's done so without guardrails, and as a result we're seeing rapid acquisition of false knowledge through problematic approach.

Such issues are not a new thing to be clear. They've been around since before we had writing, and even in what we could call the Scientific era (really gaining traction in the 1600s), there are various examples attempted-science falling down problematic rabbit holes in grappling with these issues.

But if those issues involved cupping water from a stream and bringing it to your mouth, now we're drinking from the firehose.

And why is it an issue if you think it's a stat I "don't particularly use" when from what I've seen in a lot of discussions Ben's word as far as certain players' creation. (especially in Kobe and MJ) comparisons is kind of taken almost as word of God . And I felt it prudent to point me out that there are some obvious gaps here watching an off-ball guy in Curry that doesn't seem to show up nearly as much when seeing him dissect on-ball possessions by Jokic for example.

And just to make it clear, I in fact have invited other people's opinions on how much significance Curry has in some of these clips and have been pleased to find people that both agreed with my stance and found their own examples while others have allowed me the opportunity to defend my stance. Meanwhile you're accusing me of claiming conspiracy when I challenge you to find any sort of post where I outright claim I think Ben is doing this on purpose, because as far as I'm concerned I just think his interpretations of creation in these off-ball clips are symptoms of a longer-standing bias against on-ball players. Do I think he's incapable of doing his best to be objective? No. Do I think it affects his ability to be perfectly objective despite his best efforts? Clearly it does.

And it seems you're missing the issue here while citing his automated system because if the fundamental basis of the player tracking it's based on is flawed then it follows that any automated outputs are going to see varying degrees of the same issues.

So, you chose to title your thread focusing not on how Ben watches basketball, but about him biasing one of his statistics, and not because you're using that statistic and are trying to optimize your interpretations from it. And, why? Well, now by your own words, you are bothered by the authority you feel he's allocated by the people you interact with, and are seeking to tear that down.

And again, you chose to use a specific verb in your title that imply active action on his part, and now you want to treat someone pointing out this as unreasonable because you later insisted that that wasn't what you meant. You just wanted to tear down the opinion of the guy's analysis, it's just a coincidence that as you did so you used language to imply premeditated manipulation on his part as well.

Re: Affect his objectivity, clearly it does. Except, you haven't shown that. I would agree that we all have vulnerabilities along these lines, and Ben's no exception, but what you've done is look at a video, decided you'd evaluate what Ben's looking at differently than he does - no problem yet - and then proceed to use that as proof that statistics he's posted on the subject must deviate the precise same way.

Aside from the question of whether him deviate from you means that HE is the one with the problematic objectivity, the more fundamental problem in the chain of logic is the assumption of the correlation between what you see in the video and what the stat says.

As I've said, the stats Ben publishes on the subject are from back when he was actively doing this hand-tracking. When was that? We're talking 2010-ish. A time not simply before Curry was CURRY in the NBA, but before Ben was thinking on the subject like he does today.

None of that makes the stat in question any better - frankly it makes out-dated - but the key point here is that you made assumptions you didn't realize you were making that gave you a false set of confidence that you were drawing meaningful conclusions.

Again, this is a thing that can happen to all of us. It's not particular damning about you that it happened to you here...so long as you can learn from it.

Ironic employment of the flat-earth trigger phase as it seems the one espousing conspiracy theories here is now you, seeing as how not once have I ever said Ben is part of a grand conspiracy to devalue on-ball players . News flash my man, nobody's perfect and even the best analysts in any field find themselves prey to certain biases that can subconsciously creep into their analysis despite their best efforts. If me pointing out that sometimes I think he over-credits off-ball players for creating baskets is "destructive" to you then idk what to tell you brotha. Maybe you need to let these flat-earth guys traumatize you a bit less.

Conversely, I would say the best thing I can do is bring this to other people's attention and hopefully have others collaborate on this just like how eminence did submitting the Jokic 37 points in the second half video where it seems to me that there were nowhere near as many ticky-tack clips of him over-crediting Jokic on the ball.

I use the term "conspiratorial" because I think people have a sense what I mean. It's not the most accurate term to use because of the implication of group coordination. A better term would be paranoid apophenia. It's something that exists in the head of individual people that when they join together tends to lead to the propagation of conspiracy theories.

Re: "you need to let those flat-earth guys traumatize you a bit less". I would suggest you need to recognize how much you have in common with them in this thread.

Frankly, I think we all do.

Best of luck to you Heej. I think I've already outstayed my welcome in this thread, and so I'll exit and let you have the last word.

Cheers,
Doc

[magicman1978]

If you don't want to pay, you can find it in the 3-year averages Ben lists for players in his all-time top 40 write-ups as well as videos like the the ones Heej broke down. And if Ben is overstating creation in those vids, then if nothing else, he would be "juicing" the stat for the specific games in question. There's probably some database available for those who subscribe via patreon. FWIW, here's an inaccessible data-set for oc during the 2010 playoffs:
https://backpicks.com/opportunities-created-by-position-2010-playoffs/
Maybe it's behind a paywall?

https://elgee35.wordpress.com/2011/02/18/opportunities-created-oc/
It specifically was created to track creation that doesn't show up in the box-score(as well as discount assists which don't "create"). It is derived via couting creations on tape

The creation listed in his top 40 write-ups is box creation - he explains it here: https://thinkingbasketball.net/2017/12/11/the-backpicks-goat-the-40-best-careers-in-nba-history/. He didn't film track opportunities created for 3+ years for all 40 players. You are linking to articles where he discusses the concept of opportunities created prior to when his box creation formula was created. In this article he explains his concept of "opportunities created" and how he created box creation to track that stat.

But if we think he has a different place where he tracks OC - when people discuss "juicing" numbers there's generally a basis of comparison. Without knowing what we are comparing it to, we don't know if the numbers are being juiced or not as there is no baseline for the comparison. If the issue is with the video analysis of specific games, as others have pointed out here - people can pick that apart all day and have different interpretations especially with videos that are meant for larger public consumption that aren't meant to compare players. How someone analyzes videos can be heavily influenced by bias/preferences. But Ben has provided an actual formula/metric in Box Creation that should in theory be free of that bias. Our discussion should focus on that formula and the data it produces if we have concerns with whether or not Ben is juicing the data.

[Doctor MJ]

Ben's YouTube channel is first and foremost a tool for qualitative explanation of things going on in the game. This is not to say that he never does anything where there's a count involved, just that it's not the norm, and not what made him popular.

Unsure what percentage of the popularity came from a or b, but the data certainly was part of it. I see his videos as a combination of both. Raw Film-analysis was never in short supply. The film-tracking, emperically supported impact theories(and some, not so well emperically supported ones), as well as generating a "stat" to sum up every player season all must have played a major role in his appeal.

OhayoKD I appologize up front because I'm not looking to keep on inserting myself into the discussion here, but I thought it was important that people know this one particular thing.

This was the creation that made the Thinking Basketball brand hit the big time:

Watch on YouTube

It was insanely unexpected. While Lonzo Ball was of course a hyped rookie at the time, and that tied in to why Ben was making a video about him, the idea that after all the work he'd put out to that point - media, message board, blog, podcast, and prior videos - something like this was the thing that would make him go viral, has always seemed crazy to me, all the more so as Lonzo has become such an afterthought as years have gone by.

Nevertheless, this was the moment. Please do judge for yourself how significant the stats are to the success of the video, but I would say they were not of primary importance.

Now, does his ability to develop and use stats tie into his brand and credibility? Yes, but I think that if the stats had been the thing that most people were interested in, then other works of his would have been the thing that got the attention.

By contrast, if we look at someone like Benjamin Morris, it was a statistically-foregrounded study on Dennis Rodman that "broke" him and gave him the opportunities in the crossover analytical mainstream along with what he did later. ftr, I've been quite critical of Morris, but he is a much better case study of someone whose statistical work achieved crossover resonance than Ben.

For Ben, it was his communication and communication-adjacent skills that did the trick.

[Heej]

It seems you're somehow approaching this with the understanding that I think this is Ben doing this intentionally. Which in retrospect, maybe it's my fault for using the word "juicing", when I've reiterated over and over again that I think it's just him subconsciously allowing his bias to affect his analysis and over-credit off-ball players for certain plays.

Okay. Full stop.

Of course it's your fault that someone is interpreting your choice of titling your thread with words that implied the allegation of active manipulation as meaningful.

If you don't want people to take issue with you in this way, change how you talk. (That's advice I need to take to heart better myself, but the fact I have analogous issues shouldn't be a surprise. You and I have been swimming in the same ocean.)

Listen, you clearly think that the implied hyperbole of your title is just part of some universal parlance that doesn't actually mean what it says, and that I'm somehow too dense to realize this, but my entire point is that you are wrong about the whole "doesn't actually mean" part.

This is the broader social internet issue I'm speaking to, and this is at the heart with why I'm so frustrated at the tone I'm seeing in discussion on RealGM now.

If we push the feelings of you and others toward Ben to the side right now, what we still have is a choice of thread framing that leaves us talking about Ben instead of talking about actual basketball. And the more we do that, the more we waste time when we could be gaining understanding of basketball, and instead spending it on something a) we don't necessarily think we're interested in when we're coming to these boards - people rather than basketball, and b) we have a clear tendency to develop false knowledge along the way.

And really, few things are more dangerous than false knowledge at this point in time. It's the great cancer of the internet.

But then there are the feelings involved. When we argue contentiously, we develop polarized valence. We develop identify and pride based on being right. And when two sides both have this, they tend to look to cut deeper and deeper. We divide the community we are in, and we cripple it.

I realize that many who read these words will just roll their eyes, but for you Heej, and for everyone else, I want to emphasize that to me this really isn't about the specific topic or specific posters, and I'm sorry if I've said things that feel like personal attacks.

As I've said, by no means am I saying that you or anyone else here is incapable of building up this community, or that you or anyone else are incapable of great insights into basketball that I've never considered before. This isn't about anyone's fundamental capabilities, it's about epistemic approach - about how we try to make sense of the world.

The internet has unleashed vast conduits of information and interaction that has propelled knowledge learning forward at a never before seen rate in human history...but it's done so without guardrails, and as a result we're seeing rapid acquisition of false knowledge through problematic approach.

Such issues are not a new thing to be clear. They've been around since before we had writing, and even in what we could call the Scientific era (really gaining traction in the 1600s), there are various examples attempted-science falling down problematic rabbit holes in grappling with these issues.

But if those issues involved cupping water from a stream and bringing it to your mouth, now we're drinking from the firehose.

And why is it an issue if you think it's a stat I "don't particularly use" when from what I've seen in a lot of discussions Ben's word as far as certain players' creation. (especially in Kobe and MJ) comparisons is kind of taken almost as word of God . And I felt it prudent to point me out that there are some obvious gaps here watching an off-ball guy in Curry that doesn't seem to show up nearly as much when seeing him dissect on-ball possessions by Jokic for example.

And just to make it clear, I in fact have invited other people's opinions on how much significance Curry has in some of these clips and have been pleased to find people that both agreed with my stance and found their own examples while others have allowed me the opportunity to defend my stance. Meanwhile you're accusing me of claiming conspiracy when I challenge you to find any sort of post where I outright claim I think Ben is doing this on purpose, because as far as I'm concerned I just think his interpretations of creation in these off-ball clips are symptoms of a longer-standing bias against on-ball players. Do I think he's incapable of doing his best to be objective? No. Do I think it affects his ability to be perfectly objective despite his best efforts? Clearly it does.

And it seems you're missing the issue here while citing his automated system because if the fundamental basis of the player tracking it's based on is flawed then it follows that any automated outputs are going to see varying degrees of the same issues.

So, you chose to title your thread focusing not on how Ben watches basketball, but about him biasing one of his statistics, and not because you're using that statistic and are trying to optimize your interpretations from it. And, why? Well, now by your own words, you are bothered by the authority you feel he's allocated by the people you interact with, and are seeking to tear that down.

And again, you chose to use a specific verb in your title that imply active action on his part, and now you want to treat someone pointing out this as unreasonable because you later insisted that that wasn't what you meant. You just wanted to tear down the opinion of the guy's analysis, it's just a coincidence that as you did so you used language to imply premeditated manipulation on his part as well.

Re: Affect his objectivity, clearly it does. Except, you haven't shown that. I would agree that we all have vulnerabilities along these lines, and Ben's no exception, but what you've done is look at a video, decided you'd evaluate what Ben's looking at differently than he does - no problem yet - and then proceed to use that as proof that statistics he's posted on the subject must deviate the precise same way.

Aside from the question of whether him deviate from you means that HE is the one with the problematic objectivity, the more fundamental problem in the chain of logic is the assumption of the correlation between what you see in the video and what the stat says.

As I've said, the stats Ben publishes on the subject are from back when he was actively doing this hand-tracking. When was that? We're talking 2010-ish. A time not simply before Curry was CURRY in the NBA, but before Ben was thinking on the subject like he does today.

None of that makes the stat in question any better - frankly it makes out-dated - but the key point here is that you made assumptions you didn't realize you were making that gave you a false set of confidence that you were drawing meaningful conclusions.

Again, this is a thing that can happen to all of us. It's not particular damning about you that it happened to you here...so long as you can learn from it.

Ironic employment of the flat-earth trigger phase as it seems the one espousing conspiracy theories here is now you, seeing as how not once have I ever said Ben is part of a grand conspiracy to devalue on-ball players . News flash my man, nobody's perfect and even the best analysts in any field find themselves prey to certain biases that can subconsciously creep into their analysis despite their best efforts. If me pointing out that sometimes I think he over-credits off-ball players for creating baskets is "destructive" to you then idk what to tell you brotha. Maybe you need to let these flat-earth guys traumatize you a bit less.

Conversely, I would say the best thing I can do is bring this to other people's attention and hopefully have others collaborate on this just like how eminence did submitting the Jokic 37 points in the second half video where it seems to me that there were nowhere near as many ticky-tack clips of him over-crediting Jokic on the ball.

I use the term "conspiratorial" because I think people have a sense what I mean. It's not the most accurate term to use because of the implication of group coordination. A better term would be paranoid apophenia. It's something that exists in the head of individual people that when they join together tends to lead to the propagation of conspiracy theories.

Re: "you need to let those flat-earth guys traumatize you a bit less". I would suggest you need to recognize how much you have in common with them in this thread.

Frankly, I think we all do.

Best of luck to you Heej. I think I've already outstayed my welcome in this thread, and so I'll exit and let you have the last word.

Cheers,
Doc

I mean at this point you've become overly fixated on a single word to the point you can't even participate in this thread in even a pseudo-civil manner . The fact that you're still going on about a word in the thread title while completely ignoring everything else I've said to further clarify my stance on the topic (i.e. it's not something I view as a grand conspiracy theory but rather an accidental recurring oversight) then idk what to tell you other than yea it seems you have indeed overstayed your welcome lmao. Good luck I'll see you in the next thread my man

[OhayoKD]

If you don't want to pay, you can find it in the 3-year averages Ben lists for players in his all-time top 40 write-ups as well as videos like the the ones Heej broke down. And if Ben is overstating creation in those vids, then if nothing else, he would be "juicing" the stat for the specific games in question. There's probably some database available for those who subscribe via patreon. FWIW, here's an inaccessible data-set for oc during the 2010 playoffs:
https://backpicks.com/opportunities-created-by-position-2010-playoffs/
Maybe it's behind a paywall?

https://elgee35.wordpress.com/2011/02/18/opportunities-created-oc/
It specifically was created to track creation that doesn't show up in the box-score(as well as discount assists which don't "create"). It is derived via couting creations on tape

The creation listed in his top 40 write-ups is box creation - he explains it here: https://thinkingbasketball.net/2017/12/11/the-backpicks-goat-the-40-best-careers-in-nba-history/. He didn't film track opportunities created for 3+ years for all 40 players. You are linking to articles where he discusses the concept of opportunities created prior to when his box creation formula was created. In this article he explains his concept of "opportunities created" and how he created box creation to track that stat.

Oh. Fair enough. However, they're still pretty explicitly two different stats:

So how accurate is Box Creation when compared to the real thing? If we compare it to hand-tracked Opportunities Created, the Mean Absolute Error (MAE) of players with at least 500 possessions is 0.90. Of the players with at least 1000 possessions logged in the data, MAE is 0.77. Since this a per-100 (rate) statistic, that means it’s off by less than eight shots created every 1000 possessions, or about one every game-and-a-half, on average.

And in the videos highlighted by Heej, Ben is explicitly using OC. Moreover(you already realized this but for posterity) if box-creation is being tested for accuracy on how well it adheres to OC, how he counts OC is probably relevant. Specficially something like this...

Adding 3-pointers was more predictive than free throws, probably due to some geometric effect related to spacing — some opportunities are created without the ball — and stretching defenses.

The thing Ben is trying to predict OC so if he's over-couting off-ball oc's, then the formula which is turning up the weighting of 3-pointers and justifying it with better predictivity of OC could lead to shooters having their box-creation overstated.

But if we think he has a different place where he tracks OC - when people discuss "juicing" numbers there's generally a basis of comparison. Without knowing what we are comparing it to, we don't know if the numbers are being juiced or not as there is no baseline for the comparison. If the issue is with the video analysis of specific games, as others have pointed out here - people can pick that apart all day and have different interpretations especially with videos that are meant for larger public consumption that aren't meant to compare players. How someone analyzes videos can be heavily influenced by bias/preferences. But Ben has provided an actual formula/metric in Box Creation that should in theory be free of that bias. Our discussion should focus on that formula and the data it produces if we have concerns with whether or not Ben is juicing the data.

Well I think since he is outright using and then listing OC for the videos in question, it's fair to question that in a vacuum. Agree with you on broader application though.

[magicman1978]

And in the videos highlighted by Heej, Ben is explicitly using OC. Moreover(you already realized this but for posterity) if box-creation is being tested for accuracy on how well it adheres to OC, how he counts OC is probably relevant. Specficially something like this...

The thing Ben is trying to predict OC so if he's over-couting off-ball oc's, then the formula which is turning up the weighting of 3-pointers and justifying it with better predictivity of OC could lead to shooters having their box-creation overstated.

And this is my initial point. The video analysis is a start, but need to see how that impacts the actual metrics/calculations. So we have a theory based on video analysis - now lets look at the numbers. Do the numbers support that theory? And if we analyze the numbers, and the formula itself - I think it's hard to say that they "juice" certain prototypes - such as off ball players like Jordan and Bird because their box creation numbers don't look that good to me. Just eyeballing the list I've seen, which is 5 years old so they are likely much futher down the list at this point - Bird's best season isn't even top 100 and Jordan's best it somewhere around 70 and second best is around 150.

So is he overrating a particular archetype in off-ball players with box creation - I think that's a no. I don't think there's anything in the formula that can determine a player's archetype for 1, and the data produced doesn't seem to support the assertion. The list 70s fan shows Isiaih Thomas as having a higher box creation in 2017 than Curry's peak season in 2016. If he were weighing off ball archetypes more, you'd think Curry would be on top, right?

Is he overrating the 3pt shot with box creation? Initially, the answer here was clearly yes, because he says he adjusted his formula because he himself believed that it was too heavily weighted. So lets look at the latest formula and data to see if we think that's the case.

[OhayoKD]

And in the videos highlighted by Heej, Ben is explicitly using OC. Moreover(you already realized this but for posterity) if box-creation is being tested for accuracy on how well it adheres to OC, how he counts OC is probably relevant. Specficially something like this...

The thing Ben is trying to predict OC so if he's over-couting off-ball oc's, then the formula which is turning up the weighting of 3-pointers and justifying it with better predictivity of OC could lead to shooters having their box-creation overstated.

And this is my initial point. The video analysis is a start, but need to see how that impacts the actual metrics/calculations. So we have a theory based on video analysis - now lets look at the numbers. Do the numbers support that theory? And if we analyze the numbers, and the formula itself - I think it's hard to say that they "juice" certain prototypes - such as off ball players like Jordan and Bird because their box creation numbers don't look that good to me. Just eyeballing the list I've seen, which is 5 years old so they are likely much futher down the list at this point - Bird's best season isn't even top 100 and Jordan's best it somewhere around 70 and second best is around 150.

So is he overrating a particular archetype in off-ball players with box creation - I think that's a no. I don't think there's anything in the formula that can determine a player's archetype for 1, and the data produced doesn't seem to support the assertion. The list 70s fan shows Isiaih Thomas as having a higher box creation in 2017 than Curry's peak season in 2016. If he were weighing off ball archetypes more, you'd think Curry would be on top, right?

Is he overrating the 3pt shot with box creation? Initially, the answer here was clearly yes, because he says he adjusted his formula because he himself believed that it was too heavily weighted. So lets look at the latest formula and data to see if we think that's the case.

Fair enough

[NBA4Lyfe]

Can't make passes if nobody gets themselves open, it's a two way street.

Oh I know. But if you watch the clips, the question is whether Ben is somewhat overrating how much Curry is getting these guys open, and by extension has he been overrating off-ball archetypal players subconsciously because he clearly prefers that style of play?

Ive always questioning ben's rankings when it comes to players like harden/wade/kobe

everybody hates on harden so its easy to diss his all-time legacy, plus harden has a style that ben hates. If you are asking if ben prefers off-ball players and overrated them that is a YES. And its why i dont take him or his stats serious. Harden broke his per 75 scoring metric and ben never brings that up. He only credits the already popular players in the league with huge fanbases lol. I would have more respect for ben if he wasnt just grifting off of curry and lebrons fanbases for money

[NBA4Lyfe]

Being great and needing the ball < Being great and not needing the ball

Maybe it’s not a preference, maybe it’s an acknowledgment of the value of the four other guys on the floor wearing the same color jersey and how an archetype can maximize them.

FYI - no, I didn’t look at the videos…details here don’t interest me. The archetype argument is way more valuable IMO.

question: how great was steph curry's off-ball offense in 2021 when kelly oubre was next to him instead of klay klay. His off-ball wouldnt work if he wasnt surrounded by elite shotmakes his entire career

[NBA4Lyfe]

also before 2020 ben could make a case that a player like james harden was not portable because of his on-ball style. But harden won 6 moty in 2012 playing primarly off-ball and then went to brooklyn( where he was leading the mvp race prior to injury) playing with two other all stars, and now finally playing with embiid where his usage is behind both maxey and embiid on the team

at some point, people have accept ben as just another fanboy like the majority of us on realgm

[Heej]

also before 2020 ben could make a case that a player like james harden was not portable because of his on-ball style. But harden won 6 moty in 2012 playing primarly off-ball and then went to brooklyn( where he was leading the mvp race prior to injury) playing with two other all stars, and now finally playing with embiid where his usage is behind both maxey and embiid on the team

at some point, people have accept ben as just another fanboy like the majority of us on realgm

Ya know while I wouldn't go this far on some of the Ben criticism because I have enormous respect for the work he's done and how much he's managed to move forward how we think the game, you definitely have some good examples of where his subconscious bias finds itself filtering into his analysis.

I think one thing that's always been funny to me about portability arguments with on-ball creators is that I don't think people truly understand how much of the scoring in a game comes off of secondary actions where one player creates an advantage situation on offense where another player finishes the play. Such as in drive and kick situations where the defense is shifted over, or if a guy pulls an extra defensive player out of position with their movement.

These on-ball creators are all extremely good at taking advantage of these secondary creation opportunities and avoiding record scratches on offense. Hell, there's lineup data from what people consider the worst fitting pairing of 2 superstar on-ball players in LeBron and Wade where they absolutely destroyed teams when Wade was healthy and both were on the floor together. And the only times their lineups underperformed when Wade was healthy were when they had 1 or 2 more non-shooters on the floor with them, which is just bad tactics in modern basketball in general.

Like you said, Curry needed Klay to open up the floor for him as well during those dominant Warriors seasons and saw issues when Klay was replaced with bad shooters when he was injured. And Harden is a perfect example of a guy who somehow gets knocked for having portability issues when the way he's performed in various environments suggests anything but that.

It's ironic to me how some of the guys that get knocked for being the least portable superstars in NBA history seem to have some of the best examples of performing alongside different teammates and in differing roles

[jalengreen]

Being great and needing the ball < Being great and not needing the ball

Maybe it’s not a preference, maybe it’s an acknowledgment of the value of the four other guys on the floor wearing the same color jersey and how an archetype can maximize them.

FYI - no, I didn’t look at the videos…details here don’t interest me. The archetype argument is way more valuable IMO.

question: how great was steph curry's off-ball offense in 2021 when kelly oubre was next to him instead of klay klay. His off-ball wouldnt work if he wasnt surrounded by elite shotmakes his entire career

I think another important variable is playmaking. Oubre was a black hole on offense, horrible fit with Steph.

Meanwhile, he's played his entire prime with Draymond Green, who might as well have been made in a lab to pair with Curry.

A few individual stats for Steph w/ and w/o Draymond (since 2015):

2P%: .551 -> .525
3P%: .438 -> .391

eFG%: .606 -> .553
TS%: .651 -> .604

Shot Quality: .515 -> .503

In the same span, the Warriors' offensive rating with both players is 118.68. Their ORTG with Steph and without Draymond is 117.15. Excluding the KD years, it's 117.01 -> 114.29. Clearly the team's offensive production is incredible with or without Draymond, but Steph's individual efficiency takes a hit.

I think it's something interesting to consider, especially when I often hear criticisms of other guards (Lillard, as an example) for not playing more like Steph. Steph's one of a kind, but personnel also matters.

[MyUniBroDavis]

He’s great obviously, but this is pretty heated for a conversation about an independent analyst lol

[LukaTheGOAT]

Can't make passes if nobody gets themselves open, it's a two way street.

Oh I know. But if you watch the clips, the question is whether Ben is somewhat overrating how much Curry is getting these guys open, and by extension has he been overrating off-ball archetypal players subconsciously because he clearly prefers that style of play?

Ive always questioning ben's rankings when it comes to players like harden/wade/kobe

everybody hates on harden so its easy to diss his all-time legacy, plus harden has a style that ben hates. If you are asking if ben prefers off-ball players and overrated them that is a YES. And its why i dont take him or his stats serious. Harden broke his per 75 scoring metric and ben never brings that up. He only credits the already popular players in the league with huge fanbases lol. I would have more respect for ben if he wasnt just grifting off of curry and lebrons fanbases for money

[LukaTheGOAT]

Can't make passes if nobody gets themselves open, it's a two way street.

Oh I know. But if you watch the clips, the question is whether Ben is somewhat overrating how much Curry is getting these guys open, and by extension has he been overrating off-ball archetypal players subconsciously because he clearly prefers that style of play?

Ive always questioning ben's rankings when it comes to players like harden/wade/kobe

everybody hates on harden so its easy to diss his all-time legacy, plus harden has a style that ben hates. If you are asking if ben prefers off-ball players and overrated them that is a YES. And its why i dont take him or his stats serious. Harden broke his per 75 scoring metric and ben never brings that up. He only credits the already popular players in the league with huge fanbases lol. I would have more respect for ben if he wasnt just grifting off of curry and lebrons fanbases for money

Are you talking about ScoreVal? Because Harden does not have the highest ScoreVal ever per that metric.

If you are talking about Inflation Adjusted Points per 75, Ben has already acknowledged he thinks Harden is a GOAT-level regular season offensive player (in podcasts) but what he matters is scoring during the crucible of the PS. He explicitly states it here that he has an emphasis on the PS:

Watch on YouTube

[PistolPeteJR]

The fireworks have been on full display on the PC board recently geez, y'all need to relax...

[NO-KG-AI]

We're all biased, but there are two types of bias, and one is worse than the other, and the guys that are this type are the ones that jam up discussion and turn analysis into accusations and accuse other's of twisting data.

Group 1: I believe player X is better, so he's my favorite player/archetype

Group 2: Player X is my favorite, therefore I try to argue he's the best player/archetype

Some people think they are group 1, but they are really group 2, and they drag boards like this down, because instead of changing their opinion based on evolving data, they change the goalposts to keep their original opinion in tact.

[SpreeS]

have to agree based on what ben has shown as off ball creation examples before

Watch on YouTube

2:15 is a huge stretch to say curry created the layup cause love glanced at him for a quarter of a second before the warriors player attacked the rim

3:30 is literally a fastbreak with curry running alongside the ballhandler in the play, he didnt create that opportunity, the fastbreak did.

5:10, his man stayed on him 1vs1 while the play went at the rim on the other side

Is not that curry doesnt create scoring opportunities without the ball, he does and there are lots of good examples in the video of his off ball threat stretching the floor... but also some of his examples stretch way harder

2:15 agree
3:30 Garland chose to defend Curry with 40% possibilty to hit 3P than D.Lee with 90% possibility 2P shot.
5:10 Toscano imitated screen for Curry, so Garland could think about how to take over Curry.

You dont know what have these players on mind in certain situations. Every team goal on defence is to stop Curry, so players could miss simple plays on other GSW players just thinking about the next Curry move.

[OhayoKD]

We're all biased, but there are two types of bias, and one is worse than the other, and the guys that are this type are the ones that jam up discussion and turn analysis into accusations and accuse other's of twisting data.

Group 1: I believe player X is better, so he's my favorite player/archetype

Group 2: Player X is my favorite, therefore I try to argue he's the best player/archetype

Some people think they are group 1, but they are really group 2, and they drag boards like this down, because instead of changing their opinion based on evolving data, they change the goalposts to keep their original opinion in tact.

What group do we sort people who try to explain away all dissenting evidence with theories they have no capacity to back up?

[Texas Chuck]

We're all biased, but there are two types of bias, and one is worse than the other, and the guys that are this type are the ones that jam up discussion and turn analysis into accusations and accuse other's of twisting data.

Group 1: I believe player X is better, so he's my favorite player/archetype

Group 2: Player X is my favorite, therefore I try to argue he's the best player/archetype

Some people think they are group 1, but they are really group 2, and they drag boards like this down, because instead of changing their opinion based on evolving data, they change the goalposts to keep their original opinion in tact.

There is also a 3rd archetype that believes so much in their theory of the game that they will manipulate their "analysis" of individual players to make sure that those who play "the right way" always come out ahead of players whose games they don't believe match some purity test lol. Which leads to all kinds of silliness and justifications. We don't have as much of this before, for instance I never see anyone post PG defense doesn't matter at all like we used to get, but we definitely still see its impact here.