The Gradey Dick Thread Part 3

[tsherkin]

I'd like to see the "miles run" metric on this kid too. I think he's dealing with a bit of fatigue from the constant motion and being the focus of the defense.

2.68.

1.141 offensive, 1.27 defensive.

[Duffman100]

I'd like to see the "miles run" metric on this kid too. I think he's dealing with a bit of fatigue from the constant motion and being the focus of the defense.

2.68.

1.141 offensive, 1.27 defensive.

Is it above average or am I exaggerating and my eye test is off

[tsherkin]

I'd like to see the "miles run" metric on this kid too. I think he's dealing with a bit of fatigue from the constant motion and being the focus of the defense.

2.68.

1.141 offensive, 1.27 defensive.

Is it above average or am I exaggerating and my eye test is off

He's 16th in the league, and on the lowest MPG of the bunch. That said, there are some notable differences in games played among some of those guys and NBA.com does an ass job of labeling certain things, so I don't know if it's per-game or total.

But yeah, it's worthy of note.

[Duffman100]

2.68.

1.141 offensive, 1.27 defensive.

Is it above average or am I exaggerating and my eye test is off

He's 16th in the league, and on the lowest MPG of the bunch. That said, there are some notable differences in games played among some of those guys and NBA.com does an ass job of labeling certain things, so I don't know if it's per-game or total.

But yeah, it's worthy of note.

16th in the league for a 20 year old not use to this type of usage.

[tsherkin]

Is it above average or am I exaggerating and my eye test is off

He's 16th in the league, and on the lowest MPG of the bunch. That said, there are some notable differences in games played among some of those guys and NBA.com does an ass job of labeling certain things, so I don't know if it's per-game or total.

But yeah, it's worthy of note.

16th in the league for a 20 year old not use to this type of usage.

Yup. He moves.

It's early days, but I find him more compelling in some ways than Scottie. Whether that's correct or not is a question for the future, of course, but Gradey's an interesting one. Something to be excited about this season, anyhow.

[Scase]

He's 16th in the league, and on the lowest MPG of the bunch. That said, there are some notable differences in games played among some of those guys and NBA.com does an ass job of labeling certain things, so I don't know if it's per-game or total.

But yeah, it's worthy of note.

16th in the league for a 20 year old not use to this type of usage.

Yup. He moves.

It's early days, but I find him more compelling in some ways than Scottie. Whether that's correct or not is a question for the future, of course, but Gradey's an interesting one. Something to be excited about this season, anyhow.

A touch of recency bias possibly, but he's definitely been showing flashes of some serious skill that was unknown before. His ceiling is looking way higher than originally thought.

[tsherkin]

A touch of recency bias possibly, but he's definitely been showing flashes of some serious skill that was unknown before. His ceiling is looking way higher than originally thought.

Oh, it's absolutely part recency bias. It's also offensive bias, because Gradey is immediately a more effective scorer than Scottie. And it's easier to see than, for example, the large difference in Scottie's defense versus Gradey's. And then there's subjective bias in enjoying how Gradey plays the game more than watching Scottie waddle his way through his moves.

What Barnes brings to us when he's healthy, even though he isn't a particularly good scorer, is still both very important and considerably more versatile than Gradey at the moment. But that doesn't mean my lizard-brain doesn't like watching Gradey more xD

[HumbleRen]

16th in the league for a 20 year old not use to this type of usage.

Yup. He moves.

It's early days, but I find him more compelling in some ways than Scottie. Whether that's correct or not is a question for the future, of course, but Gradey's an interesting one. Something to be excited about this season, anyhow.

A touch of recency bias possibly, but he's definitely been showing flashes of some serious skill that was unknown before. His ceiling is looking way higher than originally thought.

It's an aesthetic bias. Everyone loves seeing great shooters zip around, punching through gaps, screens, etc etc to get off a clean silky shot.

It's why Stephen Curry and Caitlin Clark are so popular. They're just simply more enjoyable to watch than like say Giannis or Anthony Davis of the worlds.

[Duffman100]

Yup. He moves.

It's early days, but I find him more compelling in some ways than Scottie. Whether that's correct or not is a question for the future, of course, but Gradey's an interesting one. Something to be excited about this season, anyhow.

A touch of recency bias possibly, but he's definitely been showing flashes of some serious skill that was unknown before. His ceiling is looking way higher than originally thought.

It's an aesthetic bias. Everyone loves seeing great shooters zip around, punching through gaps, screens, etc etc to get off a clean silky shot.

It's why Stephen Curry and Caitlin Clark are so popular. They're just simply more enjoyable to watch than like say Giannis or Anthony Davis of the worlds.

Might also be that we've been generally starved, as a fanbase, of this type of player.

[HumbleRen]

A touch of recency bias possibly, but he's definitely been showing flashes of some serious skill that was unknown before. His ceiling is looking way higher than originally thought.

It's an aesthetic bias. Everyone loves seeing great shooters zip around, punching through gaps, screens, etc etc to get off a clean silky shot.

It's why Stephen Curry and Caitlin Clark are so popular. They're just simply more enjoyable to watch than like say Giannis or Anthony Davis of the worlds.

Might also be that we've been generally starved, as a fanbase, of this type of player.

That definitely plays a factor lol.

[Vampirate]

A touch of recency bias possibly, but he's definitely been showing flashes of some serious skill that was unknown before. His ceiling is looking way higher than originally thought.

Oh, it's absolutely part recency bias. It's also offensive bias, because Gradey is immediately a more effective scorer than Scottie. And it's easier to see than, for example, the large difference in Scottie's defense versus Gradey's. And then there's subjective bias in enjoying how Gradey plays the game more than watching Scottie waddle his way through his moves.

What Barnes brings to us when he's healthy, even though he isn't a particularly good scorer, is still both very important and considerably more versatile than Gradey at the moment. But that doesn't mean my lizard-brain doesn't like watching Gradey more xD

Barnes as a scorer is much better than being credit for. Unfortunately we'll never know how much he improved or not due to the small sample size in the season that he's played.

There's stuff on his percentages that over time would come back to the mean. Both negatively and positively.

He lacks a first step, fast twitchiness and has a shaky handle, however he can also just overwhelm defenses with his strength and wingspan and actually has range.

[Vampirate]

As for Gradey, he's atm a 2 level scorer.

Mid range and the three, he's very good at but his finishing around the rim needs work.

[tsherkin]

Barnes as a scorer is much better than being credit for.

Based on what? Nothing statistical. Little qualitative support for it either. The 4 games he's played this season don't count to me, they don't factor into my evaluation. Last year, even with his 3 falling, he was still below league-average efficiency.

He isn't horrible, I'll give you that. He isn't as bad as he looked to start this season, that's also clear. But he isn't especially good, and that's at fairly unremarkable volume.

He lacks a first step, fast twitchiness and has a shaky handle, however he can also just overwhelm defenses with his strength and wingspan and actually has range.

He has strength, he has wingspan. He finishes well when he gets inside, and gets there a reasonable amount. His short game is pretty decent. He's okay at drawing fouls. He's shaky beyond 10 feet, he isn't especially remarkable at the line (just average)... And yeah, his range is suspect at best. We saw 2 months of 3pt shooting from him, that's about it. And yeah, he lacks elite speed/acceleration and he doesn't have an especially strong handle.

So I don't think there's a lot going on there to support the idea that his scoring is "much better than being credit[ed] for," personally. He has potential, but he lacks tools at the moment.

If you want to project off of December, then I guess I can kind of see where you're coming from, but I doubt he is magically a 40% 3pt shooter on 6.7 3PA/g over a whole season, so I'm not really with it.

[Vampirate]

Barnes as a scorer is much better than being credit for.

Based on what? Nothing statistical. Little qualitative support for it either. The 4 games he's played this season don't count to me, they don't factor into my evaluation. Last year, even with his 3 falling, he was still below league-average efficiency.

He isn't horrible, I'll give you that. He isn't as bad as he looked to start this season, that's also clear. But he isn't especially good, and that's at fairly unremarkable volume.

He lacks a first step, fast twitchiness and has a shaky handle, however he can also just overwhelm defenses with his strength and wingspan and actually has range.

He has strength, he has wingspan. He finishes well when he gets inside, and gets there a reasonable amount. His short game is pretty decent. He's okay at drawing fouls. He's shaky beyond 10 feet, he isn't especially remarkable at the line (just average)... And yeah, his range is suspect at best. We saw 2 months of 3pt shooting from him, that's about it. And yeah, he lacks elite speed/acceleration and he doesn't have an especially strong handle.

So I don't think there's a lot going on there to support the idea that his scoring is "much better than being credit[ed] for," personally. He has potential, but he lacks tools at the moment.

If you want to project off of December, then I guess I can kind of see where you're coming from, but I doubt he is magically a 40% 3pt shooter on 6.7 3PA/g over a whole season, so I'm not really with it.

The bold is where it's misleading.

From 10-16 feet he's shot under 30%, but weirdly from 16ft-3P he shot closer to 40% in his career.

This season from 10-16 feet he's shooting .375, from 16ft-3P he's shooting .167

Let's compare this to last season where he shot .297 from 10-16 Ft and .446 from 16-3P.

He indeed has range but for some unknown reason that baffles me struggles from 10-16 feet while shooting well everywhere else inside the 3P line (including deep midrange).

For his 2P scoring only .333 are assisted, compared to his career of .456.

His FTR took a jump from .266 last year to .365.

I've seen videos of him working on his jumpshot, but in those same videos also showed off his lack of ball handling.

In the end some stats will normalize to the mean, we really just have enough info to know which ones.

Also when I say he's underrated as a scorer, I have to contextualize how he was pre Siakam and Post Siakam.

Pre Siakam as a #2 he was a 39% 3P shooter pretty much, post trade those numbers plummeted.

I'm essentially saying he doesn't have it to really be a #1, but has it to be a #2. I believe some people are underrating him thinking of him as a #3.

[tsherkin]

The bold is where it's misleading.

From 10-16 feet he's shot under 30%, but weirdly from 16ft-3P he shot closer to 40% in his career.

So, he's taken shots from that range on 8% of his total FGA, or approximately 236 attempts over 215 GP, or just over 1 per game. That isn't a sample worth any confidence at all, and not really worth considering at this time. He's shaky from 10-16, he's got 2 months of 3pt shooting worth mentioning and he isn't above-average at the foul line, so I will remain skeptical of stuff like small-sample shooting on the long 2, you know?

This season from 10-16 feet he's shooting .375, from 16ft-3P he's shooting .167

Yes, the 16.7% is definitely an outlier and well below his typical performance, which is why I noted I wasn't evaluating based on the 4 games he's played this season to date.

His FTR took a jump from .266 last year to .365.

4 games. Don't care. Literally based off of one game over 4 FTA (he had 13 against Philly). Not worth considering at this time.

Pre Siakam as a #2 he was a 39% 3P shooter pretty much, post trade those numbers plummeted.

Sure. But he was taking catch and shoot 3s as his primary volume all year long. The shot came, and it went. Siakam played with us halfway through January, and Barnes was already shooting 32.5% from 3 over the first 2 weeks of January. Siakam's presence meant only so much. We knew that he wasn't any kind of good shooting 3s unless he was wide open, and even then, he hadn't established any sort of consistency.

I'm essentially saying he doesn't have it to really be a #1, but has it to be a #2. I believe some people are underrating him thinking of him as a #3.

Number 2 is still hard to believe for me at this point. It's not impossible, but we'd have to see some consequential change. As a #3, we could tailor his looks a lot more and that would be a lot more compelling a notion. Now, only 4 games this season, we haven't had a good chance to evaluate any potential improvements. He wasn't showing any, but he was also subject to sample size issues underselling what he could do at the same time. So we don't have any real idea where he's at just yet.

But we know he can't be a volume perimeter shooter. We know he isn't going to be an elite slasher. We know that his whole game has to be size/strength-based, which limits him in a variety of ways.

[lebron stopper]

All of the previous guesses (recency bias, offensive bias, aesthetic bias) are not wrong wrt Gradey, but I think what is truly exciting us is the idea of finally having a dynamic offensive player who can score and shoot in different ways and provide tons of spacing, especially when you pair him up with playmakers like Scottie (and now RJ?). Gradey's not there yet, but we now know there is a chance he could be that kind of player.

Gradey's recent poor performances could be tied to a few aspects which are all actually related to each other: (1) he's exhausted, (2) he's getting *way more* defensive attention, and (3) he's now a (very credible) shooting decoy on offense to open up the floor for RJ and Jak. It still remains to be seen how Gradey develops by the end of the season, but I have a feeling that we're going to see a lot more from him. I look forward to seeing that development come along - he's very promising at the moment.

[MoneyBall]

I think the Blazers would seriously consider trading Scoot for Dick if it was on the table.

[Vampirate]

This season from 10-16 feet he's shooting .375, from 16ft-3P he's shooting .167

I've always found it weird how he shoots better from 16 - 3P feet than 10-16 Ft tbh

Yes, the 16.7% is definitely an outlier and well below his typical performance, which is why I noted I wasn't evaluating based on the 4 games he's played this season to date.

I think he's a competent enough shooter inside the 3P line (16ft - 3P) with a large enough sample size where you can give a take where he might be better from 10-16 ft, no guarantees here, but i've always held the position that he's a much better mid range shooter than 3P shooter.

4 games. Don't care. Literally based off of one game over 4 FTA (he had 13 against Philly). Not worth considering at this time.

Same with his 3P percentages, there's no way he's going to continue shooting 18.2% from 3 for the rest of the year (and that's one of the main reasons his numbers are meh)

Sure. But he was taking catch and shoot 3s as his primary volume all year long. The shot came, and it went. Siakam played with us halfway through January, and Barnes was already shooting 32.5% from 3 over the first 2 weeks of January. Siakam's presence meant only so much. We knew that he wasn't any kind of good shooting 3s unless he was wide open, and even then, he hadn't established any sort of consistency.

It was odd because he shot near 40% for half the season he played on almost double the volume from the previous season and then under 30% after. I do believe there's a calmative reason for this, but it's subjective.

Number 2 is still hard to believe for me at this point. It's not impossible, but we'd have to see some consequential change. As a #3, we could tailor his looks a lot more and that would be a lot more compelling a notion. Now, only 4 games this season, we haven't had a good chance to evaluate any potential improvements. He wasn't showing any, but he was also subject to sample size issues underselling what he could do at the same time. So we don't have any real idea where he's at just yet.

Most #2 options are really really good at a couple of things, elite at 1 thing but have some sort of glaring flaw that prevents them from being #1 options.

Putting it another way, if Barnes had any of (first step, above average shooting, ball handling) he's pretty much a #1 option.

But we know he can't be a volume perimeter shooter. We know he isn't going to be an elite slasher. We know that his whole game has to be size/strength-based, which limits him in a variety of ways.

Of course, but you're still in the mindset of him as a #1, not a #2. Think of it this way, if we can somehow get a perimeter #1 option, the contrasting gravity between that player and Barnes (interior gravity), they both can work off each other. Big IF we can get that player of course, or a player like that at least on Barnes talent level.

We also need to get a center that actually shoots 3s. Sadly with the way the league is, Yak is an outdated architype I believe.

[tsherkin]

I think he's a competent enough shooter inside the 3P line (16ft - 3P) with a large enough sample size where you can give a take where he might be better from 10-16 ft, no guarantees here, but i've always held the position that he's a much better mid range shooter than 3P shooter.

He isn't a good mid-range shooter, though. We've already looked at the ~ 1 FGA/g he's taken on those long 2s. He's taken about 289 FGA from 10-16 feet (1.3 FGA/g) at 33.7%. That's also a volatile sample. That said, over 3 seasons, he was poor from that range in all 3, and poor from 16-23 feet in 2. Between that and his unremarkable FT% and 3pt shooting, I think it's more likely that he isn't a particularly good mid-range or perimeter shooter than that he is a good one. We'll see.

Same with his 3P percentages, there's no way he's going to continue shooting 18.2% from 3 for the rest of the year (and that's one of the main reasons his numbers are meh)

Yes, I agree that he isn't going to keep shooting 18% from 3 all year. But he'd have to elevate himself north of 34.5% on the season and maintain all his percentages from last year to even hit league average efficiency, so I'm not holding my breath for miracles based on < 30 games of hot shooting from 3.

It was odd because he shot near 40% for half the season he played on almost double the volume from the previous season and then under 30% after. I do believe there's a calmative reason for this, but it's subjective.

Yeah, a hot streak more than likely. Obviously, there's space to include some degree of improvement as a shooter. Changed form, improved confidence, etc. With time, him getting back to like 33% or so seems quite possible, and that does materially help his game. Not to the point where I want to run significant shooting volume through him, but it's improvement, never the less.

Most #2 options are really really good at a couple of things, elite at 1 thing but have some sort of glaring flaw that prevents them from being #1 options.

Right, but they typically also score with at least some degree of efficiency and tend to work well off of others. So we'll see what emerges.

Putting it another way, if Barnes had any of (first step, above average shooting, ball handling) he's pretty much a #1 option.

Maybe. Not a guarantee at all. There are tons of guys with tools who can't hack it in that role for various reasons.

Of course, but you're still in the mindset of him as a #1, not a #2.

No, not really. I've been talking about reducing his volume and optimizing his possession types for quite some time now. I think of him more as a #3. MAYBE #2 if we see tangible evidence of consistent improvement.

That said, that discussion is secondary. We'll need him to provide playmaking, and he contributes well to both rebounding and defense. He'll be useful immediately upon returning. What we need to do is support him and position him to succeed. That, we have not been doing, and he would look at least somewhat better if we were able to do so.

We also need to get a center that actually shoots 3s. Sadly with the way the league is, Yak is an outdated architype I believe.

He isn't. What we have is a dearth of talent. You can make do with a center who doesn't shoot threes if the rest of the team is sufficiently skillful/effective, and the more so if that player is particularly good in some areas. Poeltl gives us rebounding and good finishing. He can be useful to us; we don't need 5 3pt shooters to be good on O.

[GoRapstheoriginal]

Great bounceback game for Dick tonight!