The 2013 NBA Free Agency Thread

[dckingsfan]

Temple "much better" than Collison on defense -- based on what? Their stats are similar -- rebounds and steals are the same. Temple blocks more shots, but also fouls more often. Opponent matchup stats are about the same -- maybe a slight advantage for Temple. About the only place where there's a clear difference in the numbers from last season was that the Wizards were very slightly better defensively when Temple was on the floor while Dallas was worse defensively when Collison was on the floor. At best, it would like a slight advantage defensively for Temple.

I watched a bunch of Collison last year and he was broken down off the dribble much more than Temple. They also "seemed" to come up with schemes to protect Collison on D. Whereas they always put Temple on the best guard/wing.

Looking at Robinson and Price, rebounds and blocks are the same; Robinson gets more steals. Robinson also fouls a lot more -- a lot for a guard, period. Chicago was a bit worse defensively when Robinson was in the game, but still a little better than average. The Wizards were very good defensively with and without Price. Price actually comes out a little ahead if you look at counterpart stats, although I don't place much value on those numbers.I don't see an advantage for Robinson here, unless you want to emphasize steals and discount the fouling.

I think that Robinson is better defensively... marginally so because he does a better job of disrupting the offense - steals would be one indicator. You have Price as a 73% better defender. Pretty sure that doesn't pass your laugh test

I'm interested in your views, though. I've begun work on using the available numbers to improve the defense portion of PPA and I appreciate thoughtful input.

It seems like you have the offensive part of your formula in pretty good working order... I think it is going to be tough to come up with a real good set of numbers until you can get some metrics like tipped balls, guards staying in front of their person, FC players weakside rotations, etc. - sure wish the NBA made those available. At this point I think the DWS metric is slightly better than yours. But it could certainly be improved upon.

Either way, both sets of numbers point out that Maynor is going to quickly be in Witt's doghouse or will need to change his ways - maybe the knee reduced lateral mobility and is fine now.

[Kanyewest]

Temple "much better" than Collison on defense and Robinson "better" than Price -- based on what?

Their stats are similar -- rebounds and steals are the same. Temple blocks more shots, but also fouls more often. Opponent matchup stats are about the same -- maybe a slight advantage for Temple. About the only place where there's a clear difference in the numbers from last season was that the Wizards were very slightly better defensively when Temple was on the floor while Dallas was worse defensively when Collison was on the floor.

At best, it would like a slight advantage defensively for Temple.

Looking at Robinson and Price, rebounds and blocks are the same; Robinson gets more steals. Robinson also fouls a lot more -- a lot for a guard, period. Chicago was a bit worse defensively when Robinson was in the game, but still a little better than average. The Wizards were very good defensively with and without Price. Price actually comes out a little ahead if you look at counterpart stats, although I don't place much value on those numbers.

I don't see an advantage for Robinson here, unless you want to emphasize steals and discount the fouling.

I'm interested in your views, though. I've begun work on using the available numbers to improve the defense portion of PPA and I appreciate thoughtful input.

Temple is versatile in the sense that he can guard both point guards and shooting guards. IMO this allowed Wall to preserve some of his energy to play better on the offensive end. Not sure if Temple was better at defending the quicker point guards as some of the guys listed above.

[Nivek]

I watched a bunch of Collison last year and he was broken down off the dribble much more than Temple. They also "seemed" to come up with schemes to protect Collison on D. Whereas they always put Temple on the best guard/wing.

That's useful information I'd love to incorporate. It would be tough to quantify based on what's publicly available. I do have a "degree of difficulty" factor in PPA, which gives a slim boost to Temple.

I think that Robinson is better defensively... marginally so because he does a better job of disrupting the offense - steals would be one indicator. You have Price as a 73% better defender. Pretty sure that doesn't pass your laugh test

Where does 73% come from? I'm guessing you did 33/45. To get that difference, you'd need to go 1-(33/45) -- which would be 27%. The issue here though is scaling more than anything else. Here are the "raw" ratings. Where average = 1.72, Price had a 0.8 and Robinson a 0.6. I'm thinking that I'll just stay away from putting defense on the same scale as PPA, which has a significantly higher "raw" average.

Your emphasis on Robinson's steals is interesting because you've ignored the downside of his disruption and defensive aggression -- his fouling. Adjusted for pace, Robinson had the 12th most fouls per minute among PGs with at least 500 minutes last season. Sending opponents to the FT line is giving them (on average) a high efficiency possession.

It's sorta like how folks omit turnovers when talking about a player on offense. The negatives count too.

It seems like you have the offensive part of your formula in pretty good working order... I think it is going to be tough to come up with a real good set of numbers until you can get some metrics like tipped balls, guards staying in front of their person, FC players weakside rotations, etc. - sure wish the NBA made those available. At this point I think the DWS metric is slightly better than yours. But it could certainly be improved upon.

Either way, both sets of numbers point out that Maynor is going to quickly be in Witt's doghouse or will need to change his ways - maybe the knee reduced lateral mobility and is fine now.

You'd be wrong about defensive win shares. DWS is based on Dean Oliver's drtg, which is one of his worst stats. Individual drtg works by making estimates of a player's "stops" and a player's defensive usage and then mixing in team-level stats. When I did my defensive tracking project (first on my own, drawing from "Project Defensive Scoresheet" chapter in Dean's book), and then working with/for Dean on a MUCH more detailed version, we found BIG errors in those estimates.

What I'm doing in PPA is kind of a hybrid approach where I'm using findings from the previous defensive tracking project, as well as box score and lineup data. I'm always studying and tinkering with it.

The defensive tracking project I did collected all of the information you mentioned plus a lot more. It was a ton of work, but I learned a lot.

[Nivek]

To the point I made about not putting the defense part of PPA on the same scale as PPA, here are the "raw" numbers for the players we've been talking about -- 1.87 = average; higher is better:

- Price -- 0.93
- Temple -- 1.84
- Collison -- 1.83
- Robinson -- 0.67
- Maynor -- 0.20

Or, we could look at how many standard deviations each guy is from average:

- Price -- -0.6
- Temple -- 0.0
- Collison -- 0.0
- Robinson -- -0.8
- Maynor -- -1.1

[jivelikenice]

So it looks like we made a seriour push for Nate accoring to Alex Kennedy at Hoopsworld. Do you think it stops there or do they look at alternatives? I don't know if there's a combo pg still out there but we still need bench scoring and Gary Neal could fill that role. It makes a lot of sense to try to work out a trade with SA for both him and Blair. If you get both, maybe a better piece is in play that SA would be more interested in?? Neal slides in as a backup 2 who can fill in if Beal gets hurt and Blair becomes out top reserve up front and spot starter.

[LyricalRico]

So it looks like we made a seriour push for Nate accoring to Alex Kennedy at Hoopsworld.

Before or after they signed Maynor? If they were still looking for a scoring guard after signing Maynor, I would say that bodes well for an Ariza trade since it would mean they would apparently not expect Webster to see very many backcourt minutes.

[jivelikenice]

He tweeted after the signing yesterday the we were expressing serious interest. I'd copy the link but can't access Twitter from work...

[dckingsfan]

@Nivek - correct, I used 33/45 - you are right now that I better understand your math - 27% is the better number. But that is off, especially if you agree that Robinson was marginally better on D - which you don't and even off if you think that Maynor is slightly better. So agreed you need to normalize the numbers.

With regards to fouling - that is also a bit dependent on the team philosophy. I tend to think that aggressive defense with the fouls and steals (and tipped balls and turnovers) is more disruptive than the opposite and should be weighted appropriately.

With regards to the DWS numbers - I am saying that I believe the DWS statistic is more accurate in terms of rankings (at this time - although it is pretty clear to me that DWS is flawed and not going to be improved upon).

And both show that Maynor shouldn't have been the choice - which is after all the purpose of the exercise

[Nivek]

@Nivek - correct, I used 33/45 - you are right now that I better understand your math - 27% is the better number. But that is off, especially if you agree that Robinson was marginally better on D - which you don't and even off if you think that Maynor is slightly better. So agreed you need to normalize the numbers.

No, I don't agree that Robinson is better defensively. And, I think Maynor performed poorly on defense last season.

With regards to fouling - that is also a bit dependent on the team philosophy. I tend to think that aggressive defense with the fouls and steals (and tipped balls and turnovers) is more disruptive than the opposite and should be weighted appropriately.

I'm assuming that you mean "disruptive" as a good thing. The numbers are clear about what makes good defense -- and neither fouls nor steals are much help. Fouls last season had a slightly negative correlation with defensive rating (points allowed per 100 possessions). It wasn't much of a trend, but teams that fouled more were a bit more likely to have a worse defense overall. This makes lots of sense since free throw possessions are (on average) a very efficient way to score. A possession that ends in 2 free throw attempts, nets the offense (on average) about 1.5 points.

Steals are kinda counter-intuitive because they seem like a good thing -- a zero-point opponent possession AND a boost to your own offensive efficiency on the other end. Except, a) steals are relatively rare (they occurred on about 8.4% of possessions last season), and b) they have a slight negative correlation with defensive effective field goal percentage, which is BY FAR the most important defensive stat. What makes for good defense in the NBA is (in order): making the other team miss, rebounding the miss, forcing turnovers, and keeping them off the FT line.

To put things in perspective, here are the correlations last season for each of those stats with drtg:

- defg -- 0.92
- dreb% -- 0.41
- dtov% -- 0.36
- dft/dfga -- 0.17

So, Robinson's steals are good, but don't make a big impact because they're relatively rare. And, his fouls give the other team high-efficiency scoring opportunities.

With regards to the DWS numbers - I am saying that I believe the DWS statistic is more accurate in terms of rankings (at this time - although it is pretty clear to me that DWS is flawed and not going to be improved upon).

And both show that Maynor shouldn't have been the choice - which is after all the purpose of the exercise

You're welcome to your opinion on DWS.

We're in agreement on Maynor -- or, at least spending the BAE on him. I'd have been fine bringing him at the minimum. The Wizards have had success with low salary reclamation projects (Stevenson, Webster and Price), so I'd have been fine with it on that basis. Two years for the BAE when players like Collison, Robinson and Blair are still available...just doesn't make much sense.

[jivelikenice]

SA is pulling the qualifying offer on Gary Neal. Worth a call, althought I don't know if he'd sign for the minimum....

[Nivek]

SA is pulling the qualifying offer on Gary Neal. Worth a call, althought I don't know if he'd sign for the minimum....

I don't think Neal is worth much more than the minimum. He basically brings what Temple brings but with less defense and more 3pt shooting. He's better than Maynor, but that's not saying a ton.

[jivelikenice]

I'd feel better with him as the backup 2. He at least has the ability to put the ball in the basket. You can't rely on Beal being healthy until he proves it...(just like they shouldn't have relied on Wall staying healthy)

[nate33]

I'd feel better with him as the backup 2. He at least has the ability to put the ball in the basket. You can't rely on Beal being healthy until he proves it...(just like they shouldn't have relied on Wall staying healthy)

Agreed. Neal is a "shot creator" and the Wizards are starved for those types of players when Wall isn't in the game. That's not to say Neal is a great shot creator, which is why he is a backup, but he's an adequate shot creator that is useful as an instant offense player on the second unit when they have trouble scoring. He's Jordan Crawford without the locker room issues and with a little more patience. While that doesn't make he a great player, it makes him serviceable as a backup.

[dckingsfan]

@Nivek - wait... I didn't say I liked DWS, I said I think its rankings give a better picture of those 5 players on D.

And agreed - steals don't stand by themselves - back to my point that there isn't enough data because tips and forced turnovers aren't measured.

But alas, we get to agree to disagree on those two points.

But I still look forward to you developing a better measuring system

[payitforward]

I'd feel better with him as the backup 2. He at least has the ability to put the ball in the basket. You can't rely on Beal being healthy until he proves it...(just like they shouldn't have relied on Wall staying healthy)

Agreed. Neal is a "shot creator" and the Wizards are starved for those types of players when Wall isn't in the game. That's not to say Neal is a great shot creator, which is why he is a backup, but he's an adequate shot creator that is useful as an instant offense player on the second unit when they have trouble scoring. He's Jordan Crawford without the locker room issues and with a little more patience. While that doesn't make he a great player, it makes him serviceable as a backup.

Yes, he's serviceable as a backup. As is Garrett. Not much at all to choose between them overall. They're both ok players -- and they're both bargains at the minimum. That's about it.

[Nivek]

And agreed - steals don't stand by themselves - back to my point that there isn't enough data because tips and forced turnovers aren't measured.

Tipped balls aren't recorded, but turnovers are -- by definition, "forced" turnovers are included in the overall turnover count. And, the data is clear that they're far less important to good defense than making the other team miss.

When I tracked tipped balls (I called them deflections), they were kinda like steals -- good when they came from "presence" (being close to an offensive player), but significantly less valuable when they came from a player who "gambled." The reason: players who gamble get out of position; getting out of position tends to lead to open shots, which are higher percentage.

But alas, we get to agree to disagree on those two points.

Sure. You're welcome to your opinion, no matter how wrong it is.

[FAH1223]

The qualifying offer for Gary Neal was only $1.1 million and today is the day where a team has its last chance to revoke the QO without the player consent.

Gary Neal at that price is good value.

De Colo and Patty Mills seem like wastes of two roster spaces for San Antonio. They want another big in Oden and they need another wing behind Leonard.

I guess they are going to roll the dice and see if Corey Joseph can develop into a guy who can run the 2nd unit with Ginobili becoming a pure turnover machine and spot up shooter.

[Ruzious]

I don't see any point in getting Neal unless Rice Jr can't play. They traded up to draft Rice to be a scoring wing off the bench. Neal might be listed by some as a PG, but he is not a PG.

[jivelikenice]

You can't rely on Rice being the back up two from the get go. Who starts if Beal goes down? Who scores from the backcourt off the bench?

Edit...Glen Rice may surprise folks and be able to take on that role but you can't plan on it nor should you.

[fugop]

You can't rely on Rice being the back up two from the get go. Who starts if Beal goes down? Who scores from the backcourt off the bench?

Edit...Glen Rice may surprise folks and be able to take on that role but you can't plan on it nor should you.

Webster?