Bradley Beal - Part II

[wizardry]

Now Bradley Beal is hot and Wall has cooled down. Iam waiting for when we are hitting on all cylinders and Porter/Rice Jr enter the rotation.

[dobrojim]

if I had to choose to be good at just one, I would take 3pt% over 2pt%.



His rebounding seems a little down to me compared to what he did
in some games last year. Maybe those were outliers.

So what's the over/under on how long before we see a fifty point
game from our combined backcourt, Wall plus Beal?

[Upper Decker]

I listened to the Starters podcast today, which in all honesty hasn't been as good as the TBJ pod because the Starters is more TV oriented, but I digress...They said Beal runs more than any player on the court this season at a clip of 2.9 miles per game. Apparently there is a new NBA.com stat that tracks miles run. That's astonishing, but a little too much. He's going to tire out quick!

[tontoz]

I listened to the Starters podcast today, which in all honesty hasn't been as good as the TBJ pod because the Starters is more TV oriented, but I digress...They said Beal runs more than any player on the court this season at a clip of 2.9 miles per game. Apparently there is a new NBA.com stat that tracks miles run. That's astonishing, but a little too much. He's going to tire out quick!

Interesting stuff. Beal is 20. Not worried about how much he runs.

It does explain why he gets so many good looks from 3 though. I know Reggie Miller and Ray Allen did their share of running, even into their mid-30s.

[wizardry]

I listened to the Starters podcast today, which in all honesty hasn't been as good as the TBJ pod because the Starters is more TV oriented, but I digress...They said Beal runs more than any player on the court this season at a clip of 2.9 miles per game. Apparently there is a new NBA.com stat that tracks miles run. That's astonishing, but a little too much. He's going to tire out quick!

Ray Allen says something different

[Nivek]

I listened to the Starters podcast today, which in all honesty hasn't been as good as the TBJ pod because the Starters is more TV oriented, but I digress...They said Beal runs more than any player on the court this season at a clip of 2.9 miles per game. Apparently there is a new NBA.com stat that tracks miles run. That's astonishing, but a little too much. He's going to tire out quick!

This is the SportsVu tracking. Basically, they have the same kind of camera systems used in missile defense systems. The league installed them in every arena (they were in about half the arenas last season -- including Verizon Center) and they're tracking the movements of every player and the ball. A fair amount of what they're releasing publicly is little more than trivia. Some of the other stuff they're providing has fairly arbitrary data cutoffs.

For example, they're providing data on at-rim defense. But, they're including players if they're within 5 feet of the ball when the shot is taken. So, let's say Gortat is defending Duncan on the low post and Ariza falls asleep and lets Leonard go back door. Duncan hits Leonard for a lightning dunk. Well, that would count as a made at-rim FG against Gortat (and not Ariza if he REALLY gets burned ) even though Gortat was a) doing his job; b) had no chance to defend the rim; and c) didn't actually defend the rim.

It's potentially really good information, and I'd love to see the full data set. Toronto has done something really cool -- they created a program that shows Xs and Os for where the players ARE, and it calculates what they call "ghosts," which show where the players SHOULD HAVE BEEN on defense to increase the probability of getting a stop. It's an incredible piece of work. They still need to get better players up there to implement, though.

[Nivek]

As an example of some of the stuff from SportsVu being basically trivia...

Beal does lead the league in distance traveled per game at 2.9 miles. (Note that it's "distance TRAVELED" not "distance RUN." His average speed: is 4.3 miles per hour, which is basically a fast walk.

For the speed number to mean anything, it really needs to be broken down by play type, and not include all the walking around that happens.

And they do other odd stuff too in their data presentation. Like, on DRIVES, they include the total number of drives, the total number of points on drives, fg% on drives, drives per game, ppg on drives, team ppg on drives, pts per 48 min on drives, but...no column showing points per drive (which would actually be the most useful information).

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

The old adage to never mistake activity for effectiveness applies a bit. Still, it really seems like it could be a great tool. I first heard of it this week. An article touting the "athletic ability" of Kyle Korver claims that Kyle Korver is among the leaders in distance traveled.

http://hoopshabit.com/atlanta-hawks-kor ... greatness/

The untold story behind Korver’s outstanding shooting is the quality and quantity of his work off the ball. The NBA’s new player tracking stats are already showing from a small sample size just how underrated Korver’s athletic ability is. The 32-year-old ranks 14th in the league in total distance traveled (10.4 miles), 12th in distance traveled per game (2.6 miles) and 42nd in average speed per game (4.5 miles). Impressive numbers for a man who wouldn’t generally be associated with being one of the fastest or fittest players in the NBA. So as a point of comparison, lets take John Wall as an example. Wall, nine years Korver’s junior, is a player regularly talked about for his speed and athleticism. Yet, he ranks two places below Korver in distance traveled per game at 14th and even more surprisingly, his average speed is 0.4 of a mile slower than Korver. It’s not just Wall either, Tony Parker, another man noted for being a burner, ranks one place further below Wall at 15th in terms of distance per game, while only tracking at 0.1 of a mile quicker than Korver.

I think they might need to normalize the metric by position and perhaps pace. PGs probably don't run as much by virtue of part of their role is to survey the court. Also, they set up primarily from elbow to elbow, whereas forwards have to go baseline to baseline. I don't really understand the measurement but seems like it would be position and pace relative.

[Earth2Ted]

If I did this right on basketball-reference.com, here is the list of players who dropped 34 or more at a younger age than Bradley Beal:

Lebron
KD
Carmelo
Cliff Robinson (the one who played for the Bullets)
John Drew
Shareef Abdur Raheem
Eric Gordon
Amare
Brandon Jennings (the 55 pt game)
Russell Westbrook
Tyreke Evans

That's it. Pretty good company there.

[BruceO]

They do that distance tracking in soccer. Plus percentage of passes completed, what percentage of total possession they've had etc. I think the distance travelled by Beal is a good thing. When I played a lot at the two guard I had a rip Hamilton type game. Would move around the court and tire out the guy guarding me and when he breaks down exhausted that's when I'd go another gear and take over. I'd score on cuts after leading him all the way out to the perimeter then beating him back again.
For that distance metric to make more sense I'd love to know how much of it was done on offense, how much on defense, what distance each opponents who guards him normally travels on both offense and defense to know the threshold he can push them to before they get tired. I heard reddick its the same thing. With the inclusion on korver and ray Allen.. Also suspect reggie and rip would be there I'd say stylistically its the same type of game of going off curls, screens, cuts etc that requires a lot of movement to get into spaces off ball

[20MexicanosIn1Van]

The Sports Vu stuff is very interesting. As Nivek has sort of pointed out, they need smart people who know what they are doing to analyze the stuff. Both statistically smart and basketball smart and those people are rare.

<------*cough* *cough* PhD student in statistics.

[Illmatic21]

Charles just gave Beal a shoutout on NBA on TNT. Anyone else watching the show?

They were talking about the Warriors-OKC game (great game btw) and Klay Thompson, and he said "Listen Ernie, If I need ONE shot, I'm going to Klay Thompson.. or Bradley Beal. Maan lemme tell you, Klay Thompson and Bradley Beal are gonna be All-Stars for a long time"

Positive press for the Wizards has been scarce lately, thought that was cool.

[nuposse04]

i saw it, hopefully he is just referring to 3 pt shooting. Beal's 3 pt game is still money, just needs to work on that 2pt shooting shot selection.

Curry
Klay
Beal
McLemore

the NBA does have enough young guys with pretty jumpers to hold it down for a while.

[Higga]

Beal will easily be a 20 PPG scorer this year. He's at 19 right now and that's with his awful start and fluky bad FT shooting which will only go up.

He'll be an All-Star this year and he'll rep us at the 3 point shooting contest.

[dobrojim]

Charles just gave Beal a shoutout on NBA on TNT. Anyone else watching the show?

They were talking about the Warriors-OKC game (great game btw) and Klay Thompson, and he said "Listen Ernie, If I need ONE shot, I'm going to Klay Thompson.. or Bradley Beal. Maan lemme tell you, Klay Thompson and Bradley Beal are gonna be All-Stars for a long time"

Positive press for the Wizards has been scarce lately, thought that was cool.

especially from Barkley. He seems to get special warm and fuzzy feelings
when he digs in at the Wizards not that he's always been wrong mind you.

[Illmatic21]

^True.. Charles basically craps on every team that isn't the 'flavor of the month', was surprised he even knew about Beal because I doubt he watches Wizards games.


Jalen and Bill llove Beal too, anyone who watches Grantland knows they've talked him up a few times. They say he has the "best jumpshot of anyone under 30" and a "Ray Allen remix" which is some high praise


[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9xI9yPXknY[/youtube]

We haven't had a likeable "star" since pre-guns Gilbert.. maybe Bradley is becoming that because the media seems to dislike Wall for some reason

[SizzlinSimms]

Almost too high of praise! I'm surprised they didn't say Curry. That's who I would go with. Klay Thompson is right there too.

I love Beal, he's probably my favorite player on the Wiz right now. He looks more comfortable handling the ball this season, and I assume that will continue to improve because last season he wasn't that good at creating his own shot. He did a great job on defense last night. Hopefully we get another good game from him tonight. Keep knocking down those J's!

[Ruzious]

Beal will easily be a 20 PPG scorer this year. He's at 19 right now and that's with his awful start and fluky bad FT shooting which will only go up.

He'll be an All-Star this year and he'll rep us at the 3 point shooting contest.

He's taking 18 plus shots a game, so he really should average over 20 PPG. Playing 40.1 minutes a game, he's got to get to the line more than 2.9 times a game to deserve to be an all-star. That's just not good enough for the team's leading scorer - and a reason why the Wiz get so few FTs. Once he gets over 4 a game, then he'll likely arrive as a legit all-star caliber player, but he's got to change to do it - by not settling for long 2's so frequently - and taking it to the basket.

[nate33]

Beal will easily be a 20 PPG scorer this year. He's at 19 right now and that's with his awful start and fluky bad FT shooting which will only go up.

He'll be an All-Star this year and he'll rep us at the 3 point shooting contest.

He's taking 18 plus shots a game, so he really should average over 20 PPG. Playing 40.1 minutes a game, he's got to get to the line more than 2.9 times a game to deserve to be an all-star. That's just not good enough for the team's leading scorer - and a reason why the Wiz get so few FTs. Once he gets over 4 a game, then he'll likely arrive as a legit all-star caliber player, but he's got to change to do it - by not settling for long 2's so frequently - and taking it to the basket.

I agree with all of your concerns, but I'm not sure if it will affect All Star voting. If Beal continues to average 20 PPG with a TS% north of 52% or so, I think it's very possible, if not likely, that he will make the all star game. Minutes played or FTA/FGA won't factor into the equation much.

[tontoz]

Beal's numbers aren't even in the same zip code as Afflalo's. Afflalo's TS is 10% higher, he scores at a higher rate, gets more assists and gets to the line twice as often.