Scoundreldays wrote:I know Convington doesn't have the best +/- but couldn't you argue that Morris' are super inflated because he plays with PG, Kawhi and Zubac? I don't feel it's a fair comparison since Convington has never had a chance to with both outside of the preseason.
yes you could and should argue that because that's literally the reason why nobody takes plus minus seriously. it's the most trashcan stat out there because it comes with an absurd amount of noise. anyone who invokes it as an argument either doesn't understand it or is being disingenuous with it, because it should take all of 10 seconds to come to the conclusion that you did, which therefore renders it unreliable and silly.
imagine this team:
prime hakeem
prime duncan
prime bird
prime jordan
me, realGM poster
i can literally stand there eating snacks for 48 minutes a game, 82 games, for the next 10 seasons and have a plus minus of infinity +1. does that make me a good player? no, it makes me a realGM poster with a plus minus i accrued simply from being on the court with a bunch of other players who did all the real work.
what people conjoin with the whole thing is that they look at a plus minus positive player as being some sort of meaningful contributor. "wElL tHeyY'rE dOiNg sOMetHinG riGhT <|8^D"
and that's not logical. one does not necessarily equate to the other. in my 4-goat 1-me scenario it does NOT mean that i'm doing anything useful. and it does NOT mean the team wouldn't be better with an actual player in that spot. but that's the carryover and leap in logic people often make.
basketball is in this kinda weird place where people are trying really hard to come up with models and advanced metrics to explain the game. but the way basketball works is not the way baseball works. you can isolate pretty much every single thing in baseball as one action leading to the next. in basketball there is a constant flow that prevents that. and as much as i actually do appreciate and love metrics, i also equally hate people using them incorrectly, or to form and support their own narrative. so what you'll find is that people who actually do have a really good grasp on the game not only watch the game with as wide a lens as possible, but they pore over and use multiple, different metrics to help form their conclusions. nobody worth their salt will throw plus minus at you and call it a day. they'll show you clips, they'll talk about actual theory, actual fit with the players on the court, they'll go "their on/off is such and such, their RAPM is this, their LEBRON is this, their RAPTOR is this, and therefore this player looks like they produce this type of impact [good, bad, great, whatever] when they step onto the court."
for us i think if we want to go that far, we can. but we really don't need to. i think winning clippers basketball revolves around enabling kawhi as much as possible. which means A. getting him the ball a LOT, B. giving him room to operate, and C. putting a bunch of players alongside him who not only help with A and B, but also players who accentuate/enable him on defense too. and what's that all mean?
you want players who are able and willing passers, players who don't turn the ball over that much (more possessions means more kawhi shots), proper spacing so he can play around in the post and pass it to open shooters, players who will PROPERLY prioritize kawhi in the pecking order, and players who will defend to prevent scoring and rebound at a good rate to get kawhi MORE shots. that's it, that's like the easiest strategy in the world, but when you have paul george, guess what he does that runs counter to all that? pretty much everything except defense and rebounding. and lately his defense has been pretty shoddy, too.
now think about morris in this sense. he ball hogs, loves to take iso shots (takes shots away from kawhi, and doesn't pass to kawhi), doesn't rebound (less possessions for kawhi), and doesn't defend (anything kawhi does on offense gets negated). the best thing he does for kawhi is to open up space for him but his skillset is one that runs wildly opposite of what makes for the team's best offense. guess the other best thing you can say for him is he doesn't turn the ball over that much but anytime you're draining kawhi's touches, you're hurting the offense. and basically i say all that because that's a thing that stats aren't gonna really tell you, just by reading a piece of paper. you can glean a bunch of neat stuff off of all kinds of metrics, but if you don't watch the game or you don't understand what the objective of an optimal system for kawhi is, and you don't know what kind of player marcus morris is, then you won't be able to infer the clear inefficiencies of having marcus morris on the court alongside kawhi.
anyway, i think you get the point lol. basically long story short, your conclusion is not just both sound, but valid.
that the Clippers acquire a recognized point guard even before Russ became available, and after he did, dÌ·eÌ·mÌ·aÌ·nÌ·dÌ·eÌ·dÌ· suggested very strongly they sign Russ.
