WT- Nate unlikely to be back (WAIT! + instagram pic pg 81!)

[Chitownbulls]

I still have that grant hill magazine somewhere

Nate still has himself in a bulls uni on twitter

[AAU Teammate]

Nate having caused some wins this year does not mean he's the best move going forward. Our funds have to be spent to build around a Derrick-led team. Simple as that.

He can't play alongside Derrick. You give up too much defensively that way.

[Ben]

Nate having caused some wins this year does not mean he's the best move going forward. Our funds have to be spent to build around a Derrick-led team. Simple as that.

He can't play alongside Derrick. You give up too much defensively that way.

I wouldn't assume that it's true until I saw it. I wouldn't envision Nate and Derrick playing for huge stretches together, but 10-12 minutes per game could work just fine. IMO Derrick can guard SGs at least as well as Beli can, and Nate and Beli played together reasonably effectively as long as they had good defensive guys at the 3-4-5.

Derrick and Nate could be devastating offensively, and the question would be whether the Bulls would get devastated defensively at the same time. With Thibs's coaching and with guys like Butler or Deng, Taj, and Noah playing alongside, and Nate and Rose both being quick players, I don't think we would be giving up too much at all.

[dice]

Nate having caused some wins this year does not mean he's the best move going forward. Our funds have to be spent to build around a Derrick-led team. Simple as that.

He can't play alongside Derrick. You give up too much defensively that way.

I wouldn't assume that it's true until I saw it. I wouldn't envision Nate and Derrick playing for huge stretches together, but 10-12 minutes per game could work just fine

where are these 10-12 minutes coming from? it's not easy to find 10-12 minutes for nate period, let alone alongside rose

[HomoSapien]

Nate having caused some wins this year does not mean he's the best move going forward. Our funds have to be spent to build around a Derrick-led team. Simple as that.

He can't play alongside Derrick. You give up too much defensively that way.

I wouldn't assume that it's true until I saw it. I wouldn't envision Nate and Derrick playing for huge stretches together, but 10-12 minutes per game could work just fine

where are these 10-12 minutes coming from? it's not easy to find 10-12 minutes for nate period, let alone alongside rose

If Nate is brought back, it won't be a given that Hinrich is ahead of him in the rotation. He might be, but he might not be as well.

If he isn't, then Nate gets 10-12 minutes automatically backing up Rose. I'd also give him 8 minutes with Rose. More times then not, I think the opposing team will be forced to play small ball. If they don't and Nate is ineffective, then you scrap it and go back to Butler, Kirk, etc.

[patryk7754]

If Nate is brought back, it won't be a given that Hinrich is ahead of him in the rotation. He might be, but he might not be as well.

Yes it is. Kirk is a million times better defensively and the Bulls record when he plays vs when he didn't last season tips the scales heavily in his favor.

[TyrusRose2425]

At the end of the day, it's about how we match up against Miami, not how we match up with the Pelicans in February. Offensively, we can use Nate off the ball as a 3pt shooter, or as the 2nd ball handler next to Rose. Defensively, we can put him on Chalmers and Rose on Wade. If Miami tries to take advantage of Nate's lack of D by running plays for Chalmers, that in itself is a defensive success. Rose can definitely check an aging Wade. In fact, he was guarding Wade whenever we had Korver at the SG next to him in the ECF.

As for Kirk vs. Nate, if you play Nate over Kirk one night, it doesn't necessarily mean that's the case every night. Kirk would probably be more useful in a series against the Nets, for example. It's all about having options, and having Nate still on this roster gives us another look we can throw out there at teams.

[JackFinn]

Nate having caused some wins this year does not mean he's the best move going forward. Our funds have to be spent to build around a Derrick-led team. Simple as that.

He can't play alongside Derrick. You give up too much defensively that way.

What do you do when Derrick isn't in the game? I'm not just talking about his backup minutes. There is no guarantee he plays 82 games. Also, a Derrick + Butler or Deng + Gibson + Noah foursome covers plenty for Nate. And it would be nice to have that option for a lineup in the clutch when Derrick is double teamed. Derrick can pass out to a shooter, but if they close in on the shooter we'd need the shooter to make a play. And Derrick can guard most shooting guards, including Wade. It's also helpful to have the option of 2 players who command defensive pressure.

[Ben]

Nate having caused some wins this year does not mean he's the best move going forward. Our funds have to be spent to build around a Derrick-led team. Simple as that.

He can't play alongside Derrick. You give up too much defensively that way.

I wouldn't assume that it's true until I saw it. I wouldn't envision Nate and Derrick playing for huge stretches together, but 10-12 minutes per game could work just fine

where are these 10-12 minutes coming from? it's not easy to find 10-12 minutes for nate period, let alone alongside rose

Of course you're right. I was just ballparking those numbers. Maybe 8 minutes, as Homo just wrote. I don't know. It would depend on how well they played together. Nate's main role would be to spark the 2nd and/or 3rd units. Playing some minutes alongside Derrick would be gravy, but my point is that it would be great gravy rather than weak sauce.

[HomoSapien]

If Nate is brought back, it won't be a given that Hinrich is ahead of him in the rotation. He might be, but he might not be as well.

Yes it is. Kirk is a million times better defensively and the Bulls record when he plays vs when he didn't last season tips the scales heavily in his favor.

How many times do we have to go over this? Neil Funk's smear campaign has struck again.

The stat that you're referring to isn't the Bulls record with Kirk. It's the Bulls record with Kirk AND Robinson. Kirk has Nate Robinson to bail him out when he struggles. Nate, unfortunately had the least NBA-ready player in the league in Teague backing him up.

[mostek]

The numbers I posted were adjusted +/- numbers, which shows the on court versus off court, to take into account the teams play. You are correct about the raw +/- which just show everyone good on a good team, and everyone bad on a bad team. Those can only be judged in context of comparing one player, on a particular team, in a particular year. The Raw numbers are as follows in +/- per minute:

Gibson +0.076
Hinrich +0.057
Noah +0.026
Butler +0.026
Robinson +0.014
Deng 0.000
Belinelli -0.022
Boozer -0.029
Hamilton -0.030

The adjustments you seem to be referring to try to add in individual statistics that have nothing to do with the team results. The on-court versus off-court stats show the team results for individual players, so you can see how efficient the offense, and defense is with each of those players.

True adjusted +/- on-court off-court (offense, defense, total) net points per 100 possessions

Gibson +5.8, -2.5, +8.3
Butler +3.0, -2.2, +5.2
Hinrich +3.4, -1.8, +5.2
...
Nate 0.0, -1.1, -1.1

As mentioned in my OP, your numbers can be brought up with the players you on the court with, as long as there are higher ranked players. In the Heat case, Lebron raises every player he plays with. On the Bulls Gibson, Butler, and Hinrich raise the players they play with. In the Miami case, both Wade, and Chambers are raised up plaing with Lebron, and the way Wade played during the regular season, Chambers may have been more valuable, but they were at least fairly close, not like the huge advantage the stats show Hinrich, over Nate. I like how the true adjusted stats let you see both the offensive, and defensive effectiveness of the lineups with these players individually.

This is good food for thought, and I have to digest it. From where are you getting your adjusted +/- numbers? It's kind of a slipperily-defined stat; 82games.com used to use it interchangeably with the Simple Rating, which is what I was providing. But I have also seen it defined and used by advanced-stat guys taking into account many individual stats as well as team stats. So: which definition, and which site/source, are you using?

I got the raw numbers from nba.com. The raw numbers are not slippery at all. It shows exactly how many points are scored, minus how many are given up, when the player is on the court, so no off-court numbers. You would never try to use this measure to look across different teams, or seasons. It just shows how well the team does with a player, or combination of players, it does not explain why, anything else is not +/-.

http://www.nba.com/statistics/plusminus ... team=Bulls

I got the on-court off-court numbers that break out how effective the team is both offensively, and defensively, on a 100 possession basis, from 82 games, near the bottom of the sheet. This is the same calculation, how much a team scores, and how many points are given up, per 100 possessions. On-court, and off-court, are helpful since even a great player will have poor gross on-court numbers, on a bad team. it does not compensate for anything, just make the information more clear.

http://www.82games.com/1213/12CHI4.HTM
http://www.82games.com/1213/12CHI1.HTM

There is plenty of room for discussion of why the Bulls were better both offensively, and defensively, when Hinrich was on the floor, compared to when he was off the floor, why it does not matter, or whether that shows anything about a players value, but there is no argument that last season the Bulls were much better when Hinrich was playing. The same can not be said about Nate, whether he has more, or less value, could still be argued.

The on-court, off-court, numbers take Teague's contribution, or lack there of, out of he equation, except to make those off-court numbers look a little better for the other PGs.

[mostek]

I have to bring up one individual point:

if you look at the heat adjusted numbers, LeBron leads the pack at

James +12.8, -2.3, +15.2
Wade +12.4, +3.1, +9.3
Chalmers +13.8, +3.2, +10.5
Bosh +9.8, +7.0, +2.8
Allen, +4.6, +13.1, -8.5

As mentioned in my OP, your numbers can be brought up with the players you on the court with, as long as there are higher ranked players. In the Heat case, Lebron raises every player he plays with. On the Bulls Gibson, Butler, and Hinrich raise the players they play with. In the Miami case, both Wade, and Chambers are raised up plaing with Lebron, and the way Wade played during the regular season, Chalmers may have been more valuable, but they were at least fairly close, not like the huge advantage the stats show Hinrich, over Nate. I like how the true adjusted stats let you see both the offensive, and defensive effectiveness of the lineups with these players individually.

What's this now? The way that Wade played during the regular season-- 21/5/5 in fewer than 36 mpg, while shooting 52% from the floor-- Chambers may have been more valuable? Which league are you watching? What stats are you using? I was giving you the benefit of the doubt a few minutes ago, but come on now, man... are you watching the games?

I think about the Bulls much more than the Heat, so I admit I should have should have spent a little more time before responding on Heat specifics, especially talking about a player's value. What is true is that the Heat were much better, both offensively, and especially defensively, with LeBron on the court, versus off the court, than they were with both Wade, and Chalmers, not exactly a surprise. The on-court/off-court numbers are easier to interpret, since they take out the effects of being on a good team, versus a bad team, and adjusts per 100 possessions, instead of just minutes, but they are harder to adjust for playing with another individual players.

Looking at the raw numbers:

Lebron +720 in 2877 minutes
Wade +571 in 2390 minutes
Chalmers +569 in 2067 minutes

If you look at Lebron with Wade +566 in 1933 minutes, LeBron with Chambers +573 in 1922 minutes. What is shows is you really want to be on the court with leBron, if you play in Miami.

[Ben]

I got the raw numbers from nba.com. The raw numbers are not slippery at all. It shows exactly how many points are scored, minus how many are given up, when the player is on the court, so no off-court numbers. Anything else is not +/-.

http://www.nba.com/statistics/plusminus ... team=Bulls

I got the on-court off-court numbers that break out how effective the team is both offensively, and defensively, on a 100 possession basis, from 82 games, near the bottom of the sheet. This is the same calculation, how much a team scores, and how many points are given up, per 100 possessions. On-court, and off-court, are helpful since even a great player will have poor gross on-court numbers, on a bad team.

http://www.82games.com/1213/12CHI4.HTM
http://www.82games.com/1213/12CHI1.HTM

There is plenty of room for discussion of why the Bulls were better both offensively, and defensively, when Hinrich was on the floor, compared to when he was off the floor, why it does not matter, or whether that shows anything about a players value, but there is no argument that last season the Bulls were much better when Hinrich was playing. The same can not be said about Nate, whether he has more, or less value, could still be argued.

The on-court, off-court, numbers take Teague's contribution, or lack there of, out of he equation, except to make those off-court numbers look a little better for the other PGs.

Thanks!

I still suspect that those are all more or less "raw" +/- numbers. 82games.com has articles on "adjusted +/-" defined as you defined it, "estimating a player’s effect on the game while controlling for the performance of his teammates and opponents." But (while of course I could be wrong) I don't think that the numbers you linked, at the bottom of the players' 82games.com pages, represent those complex equations.

If you look at the 82games.com article about adjusted +/- from 2008, they made special calculations for the league leaders in adjusted +/- at midseason. But if you look at the tables that you linked for those same players at the end of the 2008 season, they're not very similar to the midseason numbers. I don't think that 82games published (then or afterward) adjusted +/- for all players. As it is, 82games.com is many years behind in terms of posting their coolest stats, such as player pair stats. I don't see any reason to believe that they're completely current for the entire league in adjusted +/-.

To see how flawed the stats that you listed (at the bottom of the 82games.com player pages), you don't have to look at the Heat. Look at almost any other team. Take Cleveland in 2012-13. Kyrie Irving is clearly Cleveland's best player, right? All of us who have watched that team know it. Yes, Varejao had a slightly higher PER in part b/c he played only a fraction of a season (during which he played far above his career averages), but Irving ran that show. But if you take the very +/- stats that you listed for Hinrich and Robinson, you'll see that Kyrie Irving was +0.9 net points per 100 possessions. Shaun Livingston was +7.6 net points per 100 possessions. Do we see just how misleading that is?

If you look at those two players' Simple Ratings, Irving is higher than Livingston. Ah, that makes more sense.

Take a look at Denver. By the +/- stats that you link at the bottom of the player page, Kenneth Faried was -0.6 points per 100 possessions. Kosta Koufous was +5.7 points per 100 possessions.

(By the way, those +/- numbers are almost the same as the raw +/- numbers listed on the team's summary page, so it's very hard to believe that they've been adjusted to control for the teammates with which the guys played and the quality of the teams that they were facing.)

On the Knicks, Melo was obviously the team. He was by far their most valuable player. Not according to the +/- stats that you linked, however. Carmelo Anthony was +3.2 points per 100 possessions. Pablo Prigioni was +4.5 points per 100 possessions.

On the Lakers, as I mentioned in an earlier post, Kobe Bryant was +3.3 points per 100 possessions. Artest/ World Peace was +7.7 points per 100 possessions. Artest was also much higher than Howard and Gasol.

On the Clippers, Lamar Odom is near the top of the team (possibly even #2 behind CP3) in the stat that you link, much higher than Blake Griffin. Obviously he's much lower than Griffin in Simple Rating. Odom had a terrible season. Shot under 40% from the field, 20% from 3P range, 10.9 PER. But he dwarfed Griffin in your +/- stat.

So to recap, 2 points:
It's very hard to believe that the stat you're linking is actually "adjusted" to control for the performance of teammates and opponents.
At any rate, it's VERY hard to believe that the stat you're linking has any credibility in distinguishing between the relative worth of Player A and Player B on any given team, given the many mismatches that I just listed (and there are many more out there).

There are other "Adjusted" calculations out there, such as Adjusted APM, and they take statistical performance into account. They favor Nate Robinson. Even if you just look at RAPM, which dice listed, Robinson and Kirk are essentially a wash.

I think that you ought to reconsider this means of evaluating player value. Of course I'm open to rejoinders.

[Ben]

Incidentally, here's an advanced stat site that really does use Adjusted +/- as 82games.com originally described it. (They're not up to date with the past season, perhaps all the more reason to suspect that the 82games.com pages you linked do not represent actual adjusted numbers.) This site has 2011-12 numbers, though, and they include 2-year Adjusted +/- figures.

Kirk Hinrich's 2-year Adjusted +/- (2010-12):.......-7.8
Nate Robinson's 2-year Adjusted +/- (2010-12):...+2.77

Sure, those 2 guys aren't playing for the same team-- our team-- but you can get at least a little glimpse of how they've been doing according to Adjusted +/- over a 2-year period. It's pretty unlikely that they've each become totally different players in the intervening year, especially since their individual advanced stats with us were similar to what they had put up in the preceding seasons.

EDIT: one more thing:
If you look at that basketballvalue.com site, its Adjusted +/- numbers for Miami show things much more in line with what we would expect. Lebron (+8.25), Wade (+7.18), and Bosh (+6.78) have the by FAR highest 2-year Adjusted +/- averages. Mario Chalmers? -2.68 for 2-year Adjusted +/-. -6.21 for 1-year Adjusted +/-. One more reason to think that your 82games.com pages are not actually listing Adjusted +/- figures.

[The 6ft Hurdle]

The numbers I posted were adjusted +/- numbers, which shows the on court versus off court, to take into account the teams play. You are correct about the raw +/- which just show everyone good on a good team, and everyone bad on a bad team. Those can only be judged in context of comparing one player, on a particular team, in a particular year. The Raw numbers are as follows in +/- per minute:

Gibson +0.076
Hinrich +0.057
Noah +0.026
Butler +0.026
Robinson +0.014
Deng 0.000
Belinelli -0.022
Boozer -0.029
Hamilton -0.030

The adjustments you seem to be referring to try to add in individual statistics that have nothing to do with the team results. The on-court versus off-court stats show the team results for individual players, so you can see how efficient the offense, and defense is with each of those players.

True adjusted +/- on-court off-court (offense, defense, total) net points per 100 possessions

Gibson +5.8, -2.5, +8.3
Butler +3.0, -2.2, +5.2
Hinrich +3.4, -1.8, +5.2
...
Nate 0.0, -1.1, -1.1

As mentioned in my OP, your numbers can be brought up with the players you on the court with, as long as there are higher ranked players. In the Heat case, Lebron raises every player he plays with. On the Bulls Gibson, Butler, and Hinrich raise the players they play with. In the Miami case, both Wade, and Chambers are raised up plaing with Lebron, and the way Wade played during the regular season, Chambers may have been more valuable, but they were at least fairly close, not like the huge advantage the stats show Hinrich, over Nate. I like how the true adjusted stats let you see both the offensive, and defensive effectiveness of the lineups with these players individually.

This is good food for thought, and I have to digest it. From where are you getting your adjusted +/- numbers? It's kind of a slipperily-defined stat; 82games.com used to use it interchangeably with the Simple Rating, which is what I was providing. But I have also seen it defined and used by advanced-stat guys taking into account many individual stats as well as team stats. So: which definition, and which site/source, are you using?

I got the raw numbers from nba.com.

http://www.nba.com/statistics/plusminus ... team=Bulls

I got the on-court off-court numbers that break out how effective the team is both offensively, and defensively, on a 100 possession basis, from 82 games, near the bottom of the sheet.

http://www.82games.com/1213/12CHI4.HTM
http://www.82games.com/1213/12CHI1.HTM

There is plenty of room for discussion of why the Bulls were better both offensively, and defensively, when Hinrich was on the floor, compared to when he was off the floor, why it does not matter, or whether that shows anything about a players value, but there is no argument that last season the Bulls were much better when Hinrich was playing. The same can not be said about Nate, whether he has more, or less value, could still be argued.

The on-court, off-court, numbers take Teague's contribution, or lack there of, out of he equation, except to make those off-court numbers look a little better for the other PGs.

Thanks for the stats.

Seems that +/- is pretty much the ONLY metric where we can frame Kirk Hinrich's regular season last year as a positive and make visible his accomplishment.

Looking a bit at the +/- stat, Lebron's +/- is other-worldly at +720, unexpectedly so is Mario Chalmers at +569. Durant's is at +717. Kobe's was at +137 (Metta led the team at +192). Duncan's at +457, Parker at +448.

On the Bulls, our top guys aren't even our leading scorers. From my anecdotal observations, the stat appears to favor the defensive guys (Metta, Bruce Bowen, our team), who benefit from being on the floor with offensive guys which in turn may discredit. Hinrich is +100, but on the Bulls this doesn't appear to be statistically significant (though he is on the cusp) a difference from the team average (8.6) and even less from Nate.

I generally like the +/- stat and think that it says "something", but I'm not sure that this demonstrates a "huge" advantage with Kirk over Nate.

[coldfish]

The +/- thing with Hinrich and Nate is really hard to figure. Same with W/L record. Hinrich played with the starters. Also, whenHinrich was playing, Nate was his back up. When Hinrich is out, Nate had someone who shouldn't have been in the NBA as his back up.

Regardless, is anyone here actually against bringing Nate back? Somewhere in a coaching thread, someone was talking about how playoff coaching is about matchups. Nate brings a skill set different than other players, which gives Thibs more options.

Also, the bench frequently has trouble scoring which forces Thibs to use Deng with the bench unit or bring back Rose early to stop a run. I see Nate playing next to Kirk as part of a functional second unit: Kirk / Nate / Dunleavey / Gibson / Nazr.

In summary, bringing back Nate:
- Gives the bench more scoring punch which will reduce the minutes for Deng and Rose.
- Gives Thibodeau more lineup options during the regular season and playoffs

The guy to compare Kirk to is Teague. They both bring roughly the same skill set, which is defense and running the offense. As of last year, Kirk was simply much better at it. When and if Teague surpasses Kirk, then decisions will have to get made.

[TylerB]

Its not +/- when you see that the Bulls 4 most common lineups were Noah-Boozer-Deng-Beli/Rip and either Nate or Kirk playing PG. Huge sample sizes indicating the team played better offensively and defensively with Kirk in the game playing next to the starters than with Nate in the game playing next to the starters.

And any non-biased person could see it while watching. Nate can't even make the pass to the roll guy on a pick and roll when they double him and leave that guy uncovered. He just pounds the ball then gives it up the other way. He can't run offense as a point guard, hes a 5-9 shooting guard with capable ball handling skills.

[AAU Teammate]

The big thing with Nate is that the eye test deceives us. We remember his offensive explosions. We think about the money he made last year. All the things that matter to us scream GOOD!!!

But his careless passing and his turnovers are way easier to forget. And also easy to forget is Hinrich's conservative, low risk ballhandling. He's not a penetrator, but he's got the much better mindset for moving the ball to scorers and getting himself behind the line where, as a secondary option he IS of offensive worth.

And of course, defense. The Great Forgettable. But i remember..

[awaxndau]

The big thing with Nate is that the eye test deceives us. We remember his offensive explosions. We think about the money he made last year. All the things that matter to us scream GOOD!!!

But his careless passing and his turnovers are way easier to forget. And also easy to forget is Hinrich's conservative, low risk ballhandling. He's not a penetrator, but he's got the much better mindset for moving the ball to scorers and getting himself behind the line where, as a secondary option he IS of offensive worth.

And of course, defense. The Great Forgettable. But i remember..

Add the fact that all of his good offensive explosions will be replace by Rose and the projecting improvement of Teague and you come up with the conclusion that Robinson isn't needed at all

[mostek]

I did not say that Hinrich is the superior player, even though it seems obvious to me that he is, but that is of course an opinion, only that the team performed at a higher level with Kirk last season.

+/- statistics show how the team performs with one player, compared to another. It can only be done on the same team, in the same season, or it has no meaning. It does not intend to show why, or show a players worth, only actual outcome. For whatever reason the Bulls were much better, both offensively, and defensively, last season with Hinrich on the court, versus off the court, and they were better with Hinrich, than they were with Nate. They scored more points, they gave up less points, while Hinrich was playing.

That is not in question, only why they were better with Hinrich. There could be all kinds of possible reasons. It could be the players they we on the court with, it could be the level of competition games (with Kirk, versus the ones he missed), playing more against starters than reserves, it could also be that as Thibs states, his offense is built off his defense, so in Thibs system, better defensive players, also perform better offensively.

I am open to discuss any of the reasons why you believe that the team did better, with a guy you think is an inferior player?