The Brandon Jennings Conundrum (Day 30)

[RiotPunch]

Jennings is like a bad musician

But bad musicians rule the entertainment industry and make unspeakable amounts of money.

[HurricaneKid]

I can't look up their advanced defensive numbers to compare because I don't think I have access to past seasons from Synergy, just the most recent one, but according to Defensive Rating, they're basically identical (108 to 107) and forced basically the same number of turnovers (1.6 steals to 1.8 steals).

No. You can say Conley is only a little better offensively. But you CANNOT suggest the two are even close to comparable defensively. Conley is the best defensive PG in the NBA and BJ gives Jimmer a run. And you cannot compare trajectories comparing to the guy in the league who made the biggest jump from yr 4 to 7. If ANYONE has that trajectory a huge deal will always be worth while.

[breakchains]

4/32 would be another disaster. It would be, at minimum, three more years of Jennings. If a team wanted Jennings at that rate, they could sign him right now and be extremely confident the Bucks wouldn't match it. Yet he isn't getting a sniff.

At this point, everyone in the NBA seems to understand who he is. Most fans understand who he is. A few fans however, too enthralled with flash, name, star quality, and empty stats, have yet to realize it.

[machu46]

I can't look up their advanced defensive numbers to compare because I don't think I have access to past seasons from Synergy, just the most recent one, but according to Defensive Rating, they're basically identical (108 to 107) and forced basically the same number of turnovers (1.6 steals to 1.8 steals).

No. You can say Conley is only a little better offensively. But you CANNOT suggest the two are even close to comparable defensively. Conley is the best defensive PG in the NBA and BJ gives Jimmer a run. And you cannot compare trajectories comparing to the guy in the league who made the biggest jump from yr 4 to 7. If ANYONE has that trajectory a huge deal will always be worth while.

Based on Defensive Rating (which I admit is very flawed), Conley has improved drastically defensively from being on par with Jennings to now being very good.

[AussieBuck]

If Jennings doesn't have that first month and a half of his rookie season, are we even talking about this?

The last two years he's averaged around 18 and 6, and as I mentioned in a lengthy post above, he compares very similarly to Mike Conley Jr, so yeah, I think we'd be talking about this still.

6 assists is something 50 guys could do given BJ's minutes. 18 points is mostly a function of minutes, shots and a free reign to call his own number.

[Baddy Chuck]

Conley is a worlds better defender, is a smart player who knows when to pass the ball instead of playing hero ball and more then anything, showed a trajectory to being the player he is now very early on. Jennings is literally all "hope" without the stats to prove a trajectory. Not to mention Memphis signed him to that deal based off the fact that they had a playoff team in place already and losing him would be a big blow. Situations couldn't be any more different.

Also, Conley isn't a **** idiot who is prone to quitting on the team and complaining.

[machu46]

Conley is a worlds better defender, is a smart player who knows when to pass the ball instead of playing hero ball and more then anything, showed a trajectory to being the player he is now very early on. Jennings is literally all "hope" without the stats to prove a trajectory. Not to mention Memphis signed him to that deal based off the fact that they had a playoff team in place already and losing him would be a big blow. Situations couldn't be any more different.

Also, Conley isn't a **** idiot who is prone to quitting on the team and complaining.

Conley is all of that now. He wasn't even just a year ago. And in his 4th season, as I mentioned, he put up almost identical numbers to Jennings per 36, and like Jennings, didn't look to be improving much at all.

[AussieBuck]

Jennings is certainly young enough to improve like Conley has but does anyone really think it's a good bet given his attitude? Jennings' IMO is of the mindset of wanting to prove himself (he wants to prove that playing the way he does is winning ball.) He's in the Melo family of players not to say he's that good but he's about developing the game he already has whereas Durant or Paul George types are all about improving their all round games by developing defensive and play making skills. Eh this isn't a very good post but can't be assed fixing it.

[Baddy Chuck]

Conley is all of that now. He wasn't even just a year ago. And in his 4th season, as I mentioned, he put up almost identical numbers to Jennings per 36, and like Jennings, didn't look to be improving much at all.

The thing with that is Jennings improving past his first four years would be what Conley already was percentage wise his first four years. Rookie year aside, in their first four years not one year was Jennings as efficient as Conley's lowest. Conley proved he could be an efficient scorer, Brandon has never done that yet.

And because I can already tell where the argument is going to go, Conley and Jennings have completely different mindset as players. Jennings is always going to be a gunner and Conley from day one was a "reserved" scorer. We've never seen Jennings even attempt to lead a team like Conley, he's literally a gunner 100% of the time.

[machu46]

Conley is all of that now. He wasn't even just a year ago. And in his 4th season, as I mentioned, he put up almost identical numbers to Jennings per 36, and like Jennings, didn't look to be improving much at all.

The thing with that is Jennings improving would be what Conley already was percentage wise his first four years. Rookie year aside, in their first four years not one year was Jennings as efficient as Conley's lowest. Conley proved he could be an efficient scorer, Brandon has never done that yet.

That isn't really true though. Look at their TS% through their first 4 years. Conley was getting worse and was barely more efficient than Jennings this past season.

[Baddy Chuck]

That isn't true at all. Look at their TS% through their first 4 years. Conley was getting worse and was barely more efficient than Jennings this past season.

548 - 514
526 - 510
521 - 493
502 - 475

What stats are you looking at? Because those are the highest to lowest TS% the first four years. Conley from day one has always been more efficient. If we bring in shooting percentage it's almost laughable.

The biggest detriment to his TS% in years 3 and 4 was his dip in free throw percentage, he really didn't get any more inefficient from the field compared to what Jennings is.

[JayMKE]

People are going crazy with this 'Brandon has a bad attitude' or that he's a cancer stuff. I can understand not wanting him back because of his play but this other stuff isn't rooted in reality.

[machu46]

That isn't true at all. Look at their TS% through their first 4 years. Conley was getting worse and was barely more efficient than Jennings this past season.

548 - 514
526 - 510
521 - 493
502 - 475

What stats are you looking at? Because those are the highest to lowest TS% the first four years. Conley from day one has always been more efficient. If we bring in shooting percentage it's almost laughable.

The biggest detriment to his TS% in years 3 and 4 was his dip in free throw percentage, he really didn't get any more inefficient from the field compared to what Jennings is.

You're looking at it high to low though, not in their sequential order. Conley's dropped from that .548 to .521 while Jennings increased his to his .514 and .510. So by their 4th season, they were separated by 1%.

[Baddy Chuck]

You're looking at it high to low though, not in their sequential order. Conley's dropped from that .548 to .521 while Jennings increased his to his .514 and .510. So by their 4th season, they were separated by 1%.

Again, you're still comparing someones best to someones worst, which is laughable. Fact is, Jennings "trending upwards", which is laughable considering his usage went down last season as did his percentages, wasn't even as good as Conley at his worst.

Conley's second year stats, per 36, are extremely similar to his "breakout" 6th season. You would literally be basing Jennings' breakout to something that something that hasn't even remotely come close to happening.

[machu46]

You're looking at it high to low though, not in their sequential order. Conley's dropped from that .548 to .521 while Jennings increased his to his .514 and .510. So by their 4th season, they were separated by 1%.

Again, you're still comparing someones best to someones worst, which is laughable. Fact is, Jennings "trending upwards", which is laughable considering his usage went down last season as did his percentages, wasn't even as good as Conley at his worst.

Conley's second year stats, per 36, are extremely similar to his "breakout" 6th season. You would literally be basing Jennings' breakout to something that something that hasn't even remotely come close to happening.

I think it's more laughable to match them up in decreasing order than to look at them with respect to their trend. And averaging 13 points and 5 assists per 36 isn't a breakout season.

[Baddy Chuck]

I think it's more laughable to match them up in decreasing order than to look at them with respect to their trend. And averaging 13 points and 5 assists per 36 isn't a breakout season.

If you want to play that card, wouldn't it be safe to assume Jennings falls down even farther before he spikes back up to around 51-52%? Because that is how he's "trending" if you are comparing him to Conley's trend.

Fact is, Conley was really efficient his second year. He showed he could be an efficient scorer despite his numbers dipping before coming back up. Jennings has yet to show he can be efficient. An "inefficient" Conley you're talking about is more efficient then an "efficient" Jennings.

And no, that wasn't Conley's breakout year. This year obviously was and I'm comparing those numbers (per 36) and percentages to this season, they are very similar.

[MrPerfect1]

Conley's stats are partially deflated because MEM played at the slowest pace in the league whereas MIL was #3 in pace amazingly.

[Baddy Chuck]

Conley's stats are partially deflated because MEM played at the slowest pace in the league whereas MIL was #3 in pace amazingly.

Amazingly? When you have two idiots who shoot jumpers with 22 seconds left on the shot clock and defend like **** idiots you're bound to be up there.

[LUKE23]

http://www.hoopsrumors.com/

When I asked a week ago how Brandon Jennings' free agency would play out, over 41% of you predicted that he and the Bucks would ultimately work out a sign-and-trade agreement that sends him to another team. However, according to Steve Kyler of HoopsWorld, while some sign-and-trade scenarios have been explored, the Bucks aren't about to "sandbag their season" by moving Jennings in a deal that doesn't land them a starting-caliber point guard. Here's more from Kyler's latest NBA AM piece:

•The Bucks and Jennings continue to maintain a dialogue, and Kyler thinks a deal in the $8MM-per-year range could be worked out, but something that pays Jennings $11-12MM annually is unlikely.

[LUKE23]

The primary issue here is that no team that currently has a starting caliber PG is going to trade said PG for Brandon Jennings on a long-term deal.

Maybe if Colangelo was still in Toronto we could do it for Lowry, but their new braintrust doesn't appear to like PPGZ. Hence Bargs getting moved like an hour after their new GM arrived.