Official 2023 Wizards OFFSEASON Thread

[Dat2U]

Im not even debating this anymore. We have two completely different ways of measuring performance. Your looking solely at production and as they say, there are levels to this. The overly simplistic measurement of production in terms of lost or added possessions may not be without some merit but it should be one of many considerations and not the only one.

I mean mentioning DeAndre Jordan, Andre Drummond or Nikola Vucevic in a list of top Cs in 2023 is just crazy & something I'm not going attempt to arguw... just waste of time at this point.

[NatP4]

I think this assessment fails to acknowledge for all the good things Kuz is capable of,
the high volume of negative things he does results in a player who is below average efficiency
for the position he plays. He could be much better (has the talent) but exercises poor judgement
too frequently. As he currently plays, he doesn't move the needle much towards our being a winning team.
I would be wary of overpaying to retain him, especially given our franchise history.

Yeah, I am in the same camp. I think we are better seeing him move on then resigning him. He is no where near a top 100 player. For that matter (opinion), Beal was not a top 100 player this season.

The supporting cast is tertiary until you sort out your top players. Full Stop.

Beal not top 100? Good luck finding even 50 players who had a better season than BB.

Jokic, Embiid, Doncic, Lillard, Davis, Leonard, Butler, Curry, Caruso, Irving, Haliburton, Holiday, Booker, Harden, Morant, Giannis, Durant, SGA, Vanfleet, George, Mitchell, Porzingis, Markkanen, Delon Wright, Derrick White, Garland, Lopez, Reaves, Brunson, Lebron, Adams, Young, Cam Johnson, Looney, Tatum, Kessler, Quickley, Bane, Robinson, Jaren Jackson, Hart, Isaiah Joe, Capela, Gordon, Sabonis, Suggs, Derozan, Green, Wagner, Fox, Conley, Edwards, Paul, Horford, Brogdon, Gobert, Bridges, Adebayo, Ball, Sengun, Murray, Maxey, Claxton.

60 something. I’d put Beal around top 75ish. Top 30 is totally ridiculous.

[Dat2U]

Bro got Delon Wright as better than Beal? Isaiah Joe? Two bench players that used less than 14 & 18% of his possessions respectively? Just wonky. Laughable. Joe had a very good season .... for a backup. This is the type of analysis that gives us advanced stat guys a bad rep.

[dckingsfan]

Yeah, I am in the same camp. I think we are better seeing him move on then resigning him. He is no where near a top 100 player. For that matter (opinion), Beal was not a top 100 player this season.

The supporting cast is tertiary until you sort out your top players. Full Stop.

Beal not top 100? Good luck finding even 50 players who had a better season than BB.

Jokic, Embiid, Doncic, Lillard, Davis, Leonard, Butler, Curry, Caruso, Irving, Haliburton, Holiday, Booker, Harden, Morant, Giannis, Durant, SGA, Vanfleet, George, Mitchell, Porzingis, Markkanen, Delon Wright, Derrick White, Garland, Lopez, Reaves, Brunson, Lebron, Adams, Young, Cam Johnson, Looney, Tatum, Kessler, Quickley, Bane, Robinson, Jaren Jackson, Hart, Isaiah Joe, Capela, Gordon, Sabonis, Suggs, Derozan, Green, Wagner, Fox, Conley, Edwards, Paul, Horford, Brogdon, Gobert, Bridges, Adebayo, Ball, Sengun, Murray, Maxey, Claxton.

60 something. I’d put Beal around top 75ish. Top 30 is totally ridiculous.

Just one metric - rank, 105. That doesn't mean Beal won't bounce back to his old form. But this season he wasn't a top 50 for sure.

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/nba-player-ratings/

[Dat2U]

Beal not top 100? Good luck finding even 50 players who had a better season than BB.

Jokic, Embiid, Doncic, Lillard, Davis, Leonard, Butler, Curry, Caruso, Irving, Haliburton, Holiday, Booker, Harden, Morant, Giannis, Durant, SGA, Vanfleet, George, Mitchell, Porzingis, Markkanen, Delon Wright, Derrick White, Garland, Lopez, Reaves, Brunson, Lebron, Adams, Young, Cam Johnson, Looney, Tatum, Kessler, Quickley, Bane, Robinson, Jaren Jackson, Hart, Isaiah Joe, Capela, Gordon, Sabonis, Suggs, Derozan, Green, Wagner, Fox, Conley, Edwards, Paul, Horford, Brogdon, Gobert, Bridges, Adebayo, Ball, Sengun, Murray, Maxey, Claxton.

60 something. I’d put Beal around top 75ish. Top 30 is totally ridiculous.

Just one metric - rank, 105. That doesn't mean Beal won't bounce back to his old form. But this season he wasn't a top 50 for sure.

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/nba-player-ratings/

Yes, obviously Mason Plumlee & Royce O'Neale are better players

This is just a terrible misuse of roll up stats. Literally just following the list with no consideration of anything other than the order of that list.

[DCZards]

Yeah, I am in the same camp. I think we are better seeing him move on then resigning him. He is no where near a top 100 player. For that matter (opinion), Beal was not a top 100 player this season.

The supporting cast is tertiary until you sort out your top players. Full Stop.

Beal not top 100? Good luck finding even 50 players who had a better season than BB.

Jokic, Embiid, Doncic, Lillard, Davis, Leonard, Butler, Curry, Caruso, Irving, Haliburton, Holiday, Booker, Harden, Morant, Giannis, Durant, SGA, Vanfleet, George, Mitchell, Porzingis, Markkanen, Delon Wright, Derrick White, Garland, Lopez, Reaves, Brunson, Lebron, Adams, Young, Cam Johnson, Looney, Tatum, Kessler, Quickley, Bane, Robinson, Jaren Jackson, Hart, Isaiah Joe, Capela, Gordon, Sabonis, Suggs, Derozan, Green, Wagner, Fox, Conley, Edwards, Paul, Horford, Brogdon, Gobert, Bridges, Adebayo, Ball, Sengun, Murray, Maxey, Claxton.

60 something. I’d put Beal around top 75ish. Top 30 is totally ridiculous.

There are maybe 40 or so names on this list that you can make a strong argument for as having had better seasons than Beal. But there are at least 10-15 names I’d take issue with, especially when you take into account the position they play, their roles on the team they play for, and usage.

[nate33]

...KP was terrific. Beal was very good when he played. Both were top 30 guys IMO....

...KP, though in the top 30, was probably in the 24-28 range....

W/o wanting to debate this, let me make sure I understand it: if KP was in the 24-28 range among the best players in the league, then -- given that there are 5 positions -- we can probably assume he was among the top 5-6 Centers this year. Something like that anyway....

Given that I think (hope!) we can agree that Nikola Jokic, Domantas Sabonis, Anthony Davis, Rudy Gobert, & Joel Embiid were all unquestionably better than KP this year (not to mention their many previous years), it looks like KP must have been better than all but 1 -- maybe 2? -- of Jarrett Allen, Steven Adams, Karl-Anthony Towns, Jonas Valanciunas, Kevon Looney, Walker Kessler, Mitchell Robinson, Robert Williams, Nikola Vucevic, Ivica Zubac, & DeAndre Ayton.

&, if he was better than all but 1 or 2 of those 11 guys, he must have also been better than every one 1 of DeAndre Jordan, Andre Drummond, Clint Capela & Jakob Poeltl.

Yes. Porzingis was better than all of those guys, and maybe Gobert too.

[nate33]

Beal not top 100? Good luck finding even 50 players who had a better season than BB.

Jokic, Embiid, Doncic, Lillard, Davis, Leonard, Butler, Curry, Caruso, Irving, Haliburton, Holiday, Booker, Harden, Morant, Giannis, Durant, SGA, Vanfleet, George, Mitchell, Porzingis, Markkanen, Delon Wright, Derrick White, Garland, Lopez, Reaves, Brunson, Lebron, Adams, Young, Cam Johnson, Looney, Tatum, Kessler, Quickley, Bane, Robinson, Jaren Jackson, Hart, Isaiah Joe, Capela, Gordon, Sabonis, Suggs, Derozan, Green, Wagner, Fox, Conley, Edwards, Paul, Horford, Brogdon, Gobert, Bridges, Adebayo, Ball, Sengun, Murray, Maxey, Claxton.

60 something. I’d put Beal around top 75ish. Top 30 is totally ridiculous.

Just one metric - rank, 105. That doesn't mean Beal won't bounce back to his old form. But this season he wasn't a top 50 for sure.

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/nba-player-ratings/

EPM, which passes the smell test better than any other roll-up metric, has Beal at #41:

https://dunksandthrees.com/epm

There are virtually no outrageous outliers in the list. Everybody seems to be ranked pretty reasonably.

RAPTOR is interesting to view because it heavily emphasizes on/off numbers, but it also includes some absurd outliers that let you know that the formula still has some kinks. Alex Caruso ranking 9th overall (on the per-minute version: Total RAPTOR), Fred Van Vleet at 11th and Jaylen Brown at 59th should raise some red flags.

[NatP4]

Jokic, Embiid, Doncic, Lillard, Davis, Leonard, Butler, Curry, Caruso, Irving, Haliburton, Holiday, Booker, Harden, Morant, Giannis, Durant, SGA, Vanfleet, George, Mitchell, Porzingis, Markkanen, Delon Wright, Derrick White, Garland, Lopez, Reaves, Brunson, Lebron, Adams, Young, Cam Johnson, Looney, Tatum, Kessler, Quickley, Bane, Robinson, Jaren Jackson, Hart, Isaiah Joe, Capela, Gordon, Sabonis, Suggs, Derozan, Green, Wagner, Fox, Conley, Edwards, Paul, Horford, Brogdon, Gobert, Bridges, Adebayo, Ball, Sengun, Murray, Maxey, Claxton.

60 something. I’d put Beal around top 75ish. Top 30 is totally ridiculous.

Just one metric - rank, 105. That doesn't mean Beal won't bounce back to his old form. But this season he wasn't a top 50 for sure.

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/nba-player-ratings/

Yes, obviously Mason Plumlee & Royce O'Neale are better players

This is just a terrible misuse of roll up stats. Literally just following the list with no consideration of anything other than the order of that list.

So make the case. Please explain to us how Beal was a top 30 player in the NBA this year.

I simply used the Raptor list because it makes it easy. Every single one of the players I listed was better than Beal this year.

[Dat2U]

Just one metric - rank, 105. That doesn't mean Beal won't bounce back to his old form. But this season he wasn't a top 50 for sure.

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/nba-player-ratings/

Yes, obviously Mason Plumlee & Royce O'Neale are better players

This is just a terrible misuse of roll up stats. Literally just following the list with no consideration of anything other than the order of that list.

So make the case. Please explain to us how Beal was a top 30 player in the NBA this year.

I simply used the Raptor list because it makes it easy. Every single one of the players I listed was better than Beal this year.

You put out ridiculous list and yet the burden on proof is on me? GTFO. You put Beal anywhere b/w 30-40 ish and I would not blink an eye. But saying he's not a top 50 player would find very little agreement in NBA circles.

[dckingsfan]

Jokic, Embiid, Doncic, Lillard, Davis, Leonard, Butler, Curry, Caruso, Irving, Haliburton, Holiday, Booker, Harden, Morant, Giannis, Durant, SGA, Vanfleet, George, Mitchell, Porzingis, Markkanen, Delon Wright, Derrick White, Garland, Lopez, Reaves, Brunson, Lebron, Adams, Young, Cam Johnson, Looney, Tatum, Kessler, Quickley, Bane, Robinson, Jaren Jackson, Hart, Isaiah Joe, Capela, Gordon, Sabonis, Suggs, Derozan, Green, Wagner, Fox, Conley, Edwards, Paul, Horford, Brogdon, Gobert, Bridges, Adebayo, Ball, Sengun, Murray, Maxey, Claxton.

60 something. I’d put Beal around top 75ish. Top 30 is totally ridiculous.

Just one metric - rank, 105. That doesn't mean Beal won't bounce back to his old form. But this season he wasn't a top 50 for sure.

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/nba-player-ratings/

EPM, which passes the smell test better than any other roll-up metric, has Beal at #41:

https://dunksandthrees.com/epm

There are virtually no outrageous outliers in the list. Everybody seems to be ranked pretty reasonably.

RAPTOR is interesting to view because it heavily emphasizes on/off numbers, but it also includes some absurd outliers that let you know that the formula still has some kinks. Alex Caruso ranking 9th overall (on the per-minute version: Total RAPTOR), Fred Van Vleet at 11th and Jaylen Brown at 59th should raise some red flags.

Take the stats and then add in minutes played... I just don't see Beal in the top 50 (and really 100) this season.

Again, if he came back to form and really played top 30 + brought his minutes played back up... well then, we would have a big 2.

I don't think Kuz is part of any big 3.

[NatP4]

Yes, obviously Mason Plumlee & Royce O'Neale are better players

This is just a terrible misuse of roll up stats. Literally just following the list with no consideration of anything other than the order of that list.

So make the case. Please explain to us how Beal was a top 30 player in the NBA this year.

I simply used the Raptor list because it makes it easy. Every single one of the players I listed was better than Beal this year.

You put out ridiculous list and yet the burden on proof is on me? GTFO. You put Beal anywhere b/w 30-40 ish and I would not blink an eye. But saying he's not a top 50 player would find very little agreement in NBA circles.

You made the ridiculous statement that he’s top 30 in the NBA with no proof whatsoever. We are talking about the 2022-2023 season.

We aren’t talking about “NBA circles”(that you and I both know nothing about), we aren’t talking about who has higher trade value, or who is more likely to be voted into an all star game, or who has the longer highlight reel on YouTube.

You have cited ESPN’s RPM on numerous occasions. They have Beal ranked #133.

[nate33]

Just one metric - rank, 105. That doesn't mean Beal won't bounce back to his old form. But this season he wasn't a top 50 for sure.

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/nba-player-ratings/

EPM, which passes the smell test better than any other roll-up metric, has Beal at #41:

https://dunksandthrees.com/epm

There are virtually no outrageous outliers in the list. Everybody seems to be ranked pretty reasonably.

RAPTOR is interesting to view because it heavily emphasizes on/off numbers, but it also includes some absurd outliers that let you know that the formula still has some kinks. Alex Caruso ranking 9th overall (on the per-minute version: Total RAPTOR), Fred Van Vleet at 11th and Jaylen Brown at 59th should raise some red flags.

Take the stats and then add in minutes played... I just don't see Beal in the top 50 (and really 100) this season.

Again, if he came back to form and really played top 30 + brought his minutes played back up... well then, we would have a big 2.

I don't think Kuz is part of any big 3.

Yeah, if you want to factor minutes played, than his impact drops. EPM is a per-minute stat comparing actual per-minute production. EW is the same formula but factors total production. Beal ranks 61st.

I think Beal probably could have played the last 10 games of the season but they shut him down when the tanking started. If he would have played those games, he would have finished in the low 40's.

[payitforward]

At a certain point all this stuff just becomes a matter of assertion -- say it twice & it's more likely to be true than the first time; say it repeatedly & how can anyone doubt it? For that reason, I'm not going to respond by saying, "sorry, no. Porzingis wasn't as good as any of those guys." I'm just going to say that I would expect someone who claims that Porzingis is the 6th best Center in the game to back it up with numbers.

Not that there are no numbers at all to point to! KP scored a lot of points at an above average TS%. That was a very good thing to do, a thing very few players can do -- meaning that it's evidence of his being good. But once points & TS% are significant evidence, then so are other numbers that can be shown to have a relationship to game outcomes -- b/c good in a competitive sport is quantitative not qualitative. This ain't ballet.

Thus...

...which is better 6 offensive rebounds or 2.2 offensive rebounds? Over the same number of minutes. & which is better 13 defensive rebounds or 10 defensive rebounds?

If you don't think there's an obvious answer to that question, i.e. if you can't say which is better until you know the names involved, then no discussion of how good a player is compared to other players is possible -- people have to agree on the meaning of numbers to compare two players.

Those numbers & their differences have to count as ways that player A is better than player B -- assuming that A is the guy that got both the bigger numbers -- in the same sense that more points & a higher TS% count.

If they do, then great -- a discussion is possible. If they don't, i.e. if you have to know both A's & B's names first before you can decide whether & how much numbers matter, then no comparison of players is possible. In fact no assessment of an individual player is possible either unless the answer is in the numbers independent of the player's name.

If not, it's just assertion, as I wrote above. & if the assertion is taken seriously here on the Wizards Board, well... that doesn't add much to the evidential basis, does it?

[dckingsfan]

I think Porzingis should be evaluated against power forwards... especially when he is playing with Gafford. Kind of why I hope that Huff Sticks...

[dckingsfan]

EPM, which passes the smell test better than any other roll-up metric, has Beal at #41:

https://dunksandthrees.com/epm

There are virtually no outrageous outliers in the list. Everybody seems to be ranked pretty reasonably.

RAPTOR is interesting to view because it heavily emphasizes on/off numbers, but it also includes some absurd outliers that let you know that the formula still has some kinks. Alex Caruso ranking 9th overall (on the per-minute version: Total RAPTOR), Fred Van Vleet at 11th and Jaylen Brown at 59th should raise some red flags.

Take the stats and then add in minutes played... I just don't see Beal in the top 50 (and really 100) this season.

Again, if he came back to form and really played top 30 + brought his minutes played back up... well then, we would have a big 2.

I don't think Kuz is part of any big 3.

Yeah, if you want to factor minutes played, than his impact drops. EPM is a per-minute stat comparing actual per-minute production. EW is the same formula but factors total production. Beal ranks 61st.

I think Beal probably could have played the last 10 games of the season but they shut him down when the tanking started. If he would have played those games, he would have finished in the low 40's.

Fair enough - 60 is somewhere between 40 & 100. And he didn't play those games... so, sticking with this year - I have him closer to 100 than 40. But that is an opinion.

Again, that doesn't preclude him jumping back into the top 30 next year. Kuzma is certainly not a top 100 player and, IMO again, a big 2 of Beal/Porzingis doesn't cut it.

[nate33]

At a certain point all this stuff just becomes a matter of assertion -- say it twice & it's more likely to be true than the first time; say it repeatedly & how can anyone doubt it? For that reason, I'm not going to respond by saying, "sorry, no. Porzingis wasn't as good as any of those guys." I'm just going to say that I would expect someone who claims that Porzingis is the 6th best Center in the game to back it up with numbers.

Not that there are no numbers at all to point to! KP scored a lot of points at an above average TS%. That was a very good thing to do, a thing very few players can do -- meaning that it's evidence of his being good. But once points & TS% are significant evidence, then so are other numbers that can be shown to have a relationship to game outcomes -- b/c good in a competitive sport is quantitative not qualitative. This ain't ballet.

Thus...

...which is better 6 offensive rebounds or 2.2 offensive rebounds? Over the same number of minutes. & which is better 13 defensive rebounds or 10 defensive rebounds?

If you don't think there's an obvious answer to that question, i.e. if you can't say which is better until you know the names involved, then no discussion of how good a player is compared to other players is possible -- people have to agree on the meaning of numbers to compare two players.

Those numbers & their differences have to count as ways that player A is better than player B -- assuming that A is the guy that got both the bigger numbers -- in the same sense that more points & a higher TS% count.

If they do, then great -- a discussion is possible. If they don't, i.e. if you have to know both A's & B's names first before you can decide whether & how much numbers matter, then no comparison of players is possible. In fact no assessment of an individual player is possible either unless the answer is in the numbers independent of the player's name.

If not, it's just assertion, as I wrote above. & if the assertion is taken seriously here on the Wizards Board, well... that doesn't add much to the evidential basis, does it?

I did back it up with numbers. I posted the EPM chart. EPM is the publicly available advanced stat that is highest regarding among NBA front offices.

The problem is, you don't believe any statistical analysis except your own hard-headed version of calculating possessions gained versus possessions lost on an individual basis and refusing to factor team effects like floor spacing and the diminishing returns in efficiency that comes with high usage. We're not going to make any headway in our disagreements so I'm not going to waste the time trying.

[The Consiglieri]

This doesn't take into account anything in terms of inputs and outputs of FA's, draftees etc, but it is a simple collection of results as the Wall/Beal era ended.

Wins by April of given year:
2019: 32 Wins
2020: 28 Wins (projected off of .347 win percentage)
2021: 34 wins
2022: 35 wins
2023: 35 wins

That's remarkably consistent. Other than the Outlier projected total from a strike shortened 25-47 performance in '19-'20, every single season since John Wall blew out his achilles coming out of the shower has ranged from 32-35 wins. It appears free agent moves and draft moves have moved the needle up and down a max of 3% year to year at most.

Technically, that kind of win total, which is exactly where we've been sitting for the bulk of the past 5 years is exactly who we are.

So I'm befuddled as to why anyone would rate our roster as anything other than "poor", you might not agree with hot garbage from me, and hell, I wouldn't necessairly either, I think Beal is fine, a top 40-50 player, I think Porzingis is good, I think we have some usable guys here and there that are reasonably talented, but the bulk of it is weak, very weak, and its been weak for half a decade no matter what we've added or subtracted. Winning big in the Porzingis trade did matter, but I think the evidence of what it did is basically seal a 33-36 win floor in place w/less liklihood of falling back to the 20's which is where we might have been headed w/o the trade.

Yep, this is overly simplistic, I get it, yes it aint nuanced either, but what it genuinely captures is what happens when you attempt to avoid rebuilding with a below average roster, and maxed out vets. You seal in a floor that drafts between 6th and 12th most years, you avoid the primo spots in the lottery, and you never contend for anything. The team has literally produced what looks like a 5 year trend line of 34% to 42% win percentage regardless of management performance year in and year out. That's remarkably consistent. Now look at the combined record across the 5 years, and it's 161-239 or, 40%.

That's who we are. That's what our roster is. It's basically the beginning of the shrinking tail of suckiest teams of the league, it aint the worst of the worst, but it's in that next tier of garbage teams, consistently not .500, and with no room for volatility because we can't attract quality FA's and we have had no luck in landing top draft picks in loaded draft years. So we're stuck, there is significantly more volatility and potential for teams in the middle, and teams at the bottom compared to us, and where we sit, which is basically consistently 19th-24th best in the league.

Was I fair in saying hot garbage? Again, probably not, but in a lot of ways, it's actually worse than that, because if we were hot garbage, we could do something about it, like most of the stinky teams have done in recent years (Detroit, Houston, OKC, Cleveland, Orlando, Minny, Indiana, Charlotte etc), some of those teams have been pretty successful with their approach (Houston, OKC, Cleveland, maybe Orlando) some have not (Detroit in particular for now), but instead we've been doing the moving chairs and titanic thing for the past 5 years kinda like we did in the late 80's and early 90's and against in the late 90's and early aughts before the Gilbert acquisition changed the equation for a few years, but right now? There's no direction at all, and the short term future is compromised by the horrendous Beal signing, instead of trade that should've happened at some point between summer '19 and summer '21 as so many of us argued (and some did not).

The roster is bad, period. You can see it in the five year snap picture. Little volatility whatsoever in results, they're a team that will continue to float inside that 30-42 win percentage window going forward unless they win the lottery this year, or blow up the roster whenever, it is what it is, it's the worst of all situations an NBA team can entertain, and one we've entertained for nearly the entirety of the past 35-40 years, not good enough to matter, ever, never bad enough to change direction in any meaningful way (would be fair to say exception era's were probably '96-'98 pre Webber trade, '05-'07 healthy Arenas era or '08, '14-'18 healthy Wall era, but otherwise, this has been the wizards/bullets since I started paying attention in 1986-1987).

[payitforward]

Over-estimating where KP & Beal rank in player productivity means that -- to explain why we suck -- one is forced to under-estimate where other players on the team should be ranked in player productivity*. Otherwise, why the lousy record? Someone has to be responsible.

Here's how it works:

The mechanism behind over-rating is almost always the same -- you rate guys up for how many points they score without reference to their TS%, then you down-rate the importance of scoring efficiency, & then you give other in-game numbers much less significance than they actually have based on their impact on wins (as uncovered using statistical regression).

Along with the mis-use of numbers, btw, goes a narrative about the player you're over-rating, which usually references "abilities" that in themselves mean nothing. The best example is "he has the ability to get his own shot."

To the person making that statement, this concept seems to have a ton of significance, even though there is actually only one thing about a shot which has any impact on wins/losses -- one & one only & no other -- namely whether it does or does not go in the basket. Nothing else matters.

The other half of over-estimating guys based on how many points they score is, of course, under-estimating everything else players do on the court -- most of which affects how many chances you get to score the ball (in effect how many possessions you have).

So, now that you've underestimated the significance of scoring efficiency (TS%) & also underestimated the significance of possessions -- the only things that have any effect whatsoever on whether teams win or lose games -- it's no surprise that you get to conclude that your team has terrific players even though it loses all the time.

Et voila! You're all set to make roster changes based on these conclusions -- i.e. replace all those guys you're under-estimating -- & then next season you get to figure out why, once again, you won 35 games. Must be the coach. Fire the coach.

Sound familiar?


*In our case, the main targets to be under-estimated are Monte Morris, Daniel Gafford, Corey Kispert, Jordan Goodwin, & to some extent even Delon Wright (tho it's clear to everyone that he's a tremendous defender, he just "can't get his own shot").

[AFM]

Over-estimating where KP & Beal rank in player productivity means that -- to explain why we suck -- one is forced to under-estimate where other players on the team should be ranked in player productivity*. Otherwise, why the lousy record? Someone has to be responsible.

Here's how it works:

The mechanism behind over-rating is almost always the same -- you rate guys up for how many points they score without reference to their TS%, then you down-rate the importance of scoring efficiency, & then you give other in-game numbers much less significance than they actually have based on their impact on wins (as uncovered using statistical regression).

Along with the mis-use of numbers, btw, goes a narrative about the player you're over-rating, which usually references "abilities" that in themselves mean nothing. The best example is "he has the ability to get his own shot."

To the person making that statement, this concept seems to have a ton of significance, even though there is actually only one thing about a shot which has any impact on wins/losses -- one & one only & no other -- namely whether it does or does not go in the basket. Nothing else matters.

The other half of over-estimating guys based on how many points they score is, of course, under-estimating everything else players do on the court -- most of which affects how many chances you get to score the ball (in effect how many possessions you have).

So, now that you've underestimated the significance of scoring efficiency (TS%) & also underestimated the significance of possessions -- the only things that have any effect whatsoever on whether teams win or lose games -- it's no surprise that you get to conclude that your team has terrific players even though it loses all the time.

Et voila! You're all set to make roster changes based on these conclusions -- i.e. replace all those guys you're under-estimating -- & then next season you get to figure out why, once again, you won 35 games. Must be the coach. Fire the coach.

Sound familiar?


*In our case, the main targets to be under-estimated are Monte Morris, Daniel Gafford, Corey Kispert, Jordan Goodwin, & to some extent even Delon Wright (tho it's clear to everyone that he's a tremendous defender, he just "can't get his own shot").

What happens when you roll out a lineup of 5 players who "can't get his own shot"?