GT#47: Portland Trailblazers @ Washington Wizards 2/3 7:00PM

[Flash Falcon X]

[nate33]

As this season has played out, it's more and more obvious, imo, that signng Wall to a max contract during the offseason was a smart thing to do. The move told Wall that the Zards are committed to him for the long-term, freeing him up as both a player and on and off court leader. JW was likely going to be offered the max by the Zards or someone else this offseason so why play games with your franchise player when you can lock him down, put his mind at ease and let him just go out and play.

And if paying Wall the max is "overpaying" him, well it's not by much. The kid has both the potential and work ethic to come close to earning every penny of that max.

I disagree that it has been proven that it was a smart thing to do. Wall had only short periods of play where he looked like a max player and his health was a question mark. That contract could have easily blown up in their faces as big contracts so often do.

I think DCZards' point is that now, seeing how Wall has performed this season, the decision to extend him looks like the right one in hindsight. I agree with him. It's a sure thing that someone would have offered him a max salary this summer based on his play this season. He's may not necessarily be an elite superstar who can single-handedly carry a franchise to a championship, but he's certainly proven to be worthy of a max contract (4-year vet max that is).

Obviously, it wasn't "proven" at the time of the signing to be the right thing to do because the future can't be proven.

[Nivek]

I actually don't agree that seeing how Wall has played to this point that maxing him out over the summer was the right move. For me, it's mostly about their process, which (from the outside looking in) appears flawed. They were committed to Wall as The Franchise Player almost without apparent regard for how well he'd performed. They practically tripped over themselves to pay Wall as much as they possibly could.

This season in my salary formula, Wall's value is roughly a million below the max. If he continues improving, he'll be worth the full max. Not there yet, and he has a considerable distance to cover to be one of the game's truly elite players. But, he's progressing, and seems to have the work ethic and competitiveness necessary to make The Leap -- hopefully as that max contract kicks in next season.

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

Gortat is a decent player but i think his +/- (like Walls) is a bit inflated by the weakness of the players behind him. Among centers he ranks 32nd in PER, 27th in TS and 31st in rebound rate.

To some degree, but I also think there are points in a lot of games where for small stretches he is dominant and is taking over on defensively and offensively as a passer & scorer and those swings impact the #s. It happened yesterday at the end of the 2nd/ It happened in the 3rd quarter versus OKC...During those stretches he looks like the best player on the floor, let along the team.

Agreed. Gortat is often the best Wizard on the court. People who see only what's wrong forget the right.

He blocked Josh Smith's dunk in one great highlight. Had in this game a nice assist to Webster. Other Wizards attempted over 15 shots, but unlike Asik Gortat has the ability to assist on 5 baskets with 0 turnovers. He only took 6 shots, but he grabbed 11 rebounds. The guy makes sacrifices that others benefit from.

Both Seraphin and Vesely's on/off team stats are good next to Gortat. This coach has lost opportunities to get the young bigs minutes with Gortat.

I think a lot more of Gortat and Ariza than most.

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[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

Ves came in, made one good defensive play... Then proceeded to be embarassingly bad.

You know, Ves' only problem, and perhaps I'm splitting hairs here, is that he can't actually play basketball.

I respect you a ton, as a fellow 40-year long suffering Bullets/Wizards fan, lsbf.

I disagree about Vesely. He just doesn't excel in spot minutes before forced to play the way Wittman and teammates allow him to play. IMO Vesely is a pretty good player.

Short minutes, quick hook, two full years after he STARTED 15 straight games. The Wizards concluded on a 6-game win streak. The problem with Vesely is largely mental and discouragement IMO. That and he is not in the game long enough.

What about the game he had 3 blocks and 3 steals in very limited minutes? What about the double figure scoring games. What about the game he shot 8-8 FG. Ibaka just set a Thunder record with 12-12 FGS and got all kinds of press hype.

Vesely sucks in the mind of Wizards fans who pounce on player mistakes and very, very rarely look at the larger picture. They like Nick Young in LA. They love Blatche in Brooklyn. Jordan Crawford did well on the court in Boston and he was desired in a trade by GS. Shelvin Mack, who many thought sucked as a Wizard; is a darn sight better than Eric Maynor. Mack plays more than a very promising first round pick, Shroeder. Mack's team has a better record than the Wizards. Vesely sucks like other castoffs because this team NEVER develops player wrong. Vesely sucks just like Otto Porter, meaning he's catching fan wrath.

Jan destroyed FIBA competition, only being defeated by the FT line. Vesely was a very strong player in summer league. I KNOW the guy has a Dirk Nowitzki=form jumper because he made it a ton. I KNOW JAN CAN REBOUND. I also know which playing lineups suit him best.

I won't post game logs where his game score was good and Vesely was a net plus. I won't post 82 games that shows VEsely is way higher in +/- than Booker. I won't post the two-man synergy between Vesely and Gortat. I won't post his recent game logs.

All I will do is say I'm pretty doggone sure Vesely (and especially Gortat) is way better than given credit. I still think he's potentially a very useful NBA player (who probably can't wait to run back to be a star in Europe).

Well have to keep up the good fight until we are proven right about this CCJ.

In one the last games Ves got good minutes, I was real encouraged by the fact that Beal actually feed him in the post. And Ves converted. He could be used much better on offense if they would use him at what he does best with is cut to the basket. That's the offense that is needed from him to balance out what he can do defensively. That's were I would invest more minutes. Because Ves has upside and like Randy has done with Kevin, he isn't investing in it. Randy is to stuck on what Ves and Kevin don't do well instead of focusing on what they do well and growing them from there.

Ves can make momentum changing plays. He can score if other players look to get him the ball to finish. So what he was 0-2 last night. You don't turn from him if that happens. You feed him again and let him make it right.

Hopefully now that that are playing better and over .500, Randy learns to use Ves, Kevin and Booker better. None should go move than a game without seeing some minutes. He needs to have them all involved. All do something different. All can get better.

Hell, if it was Pops, he would give Nene a breather once in a while and lean on Ves and Kevin to challenge them. Start one of them once in a while and use Nene as a break glass in case of energy.

I'm not going to stop bringing the fight, hands. I know you won't, either.

I agreed with Randy Wittman's staying head coach, but I would have been overjoyed if Dave Joerger had been named Wizards coach. He would have played young guys like Randy did before Okafor and Ariza were acquired.

If the Wizards started Wall, Beal, Ariza, Vesely, Gortat they would see nothing but good play from Vesely. Same with Seraphin at the PF spot.
An even better roster is Wall, Webster, Ariza, Vesely/Seraphin, Gortat.

Wittman probably plays Beal a bit too long, incorrectly subs Temple ahead of Webster too often, and worst of all he plays Booker ahead of Vesely and Seraphin. But the good news is that the Wizards are improving.

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[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

Great vibe at the game last night even though there was more of a POR presence
than I might have guessed...they had some group thing going last night. IDK.

Interesting to me - LMA is a fantastic player but paradoxically, he succeeds by being really
good at the worst shot in bastketball, the long 2.

POR had Batum on Wall for much of the game. At least at the end, we played Ariza
on Lillard. Lillard ended up having decent numbers but somehow we won the game.

Beal couldn't stop Matthews on the postups but we adjusted well by either subbing
in Webster or (in the 2nd half) having Beal front WM, forcing a slow lob entry that
allowed a hard 2x team to get there which ended up forcing a POR TO. Was kinda
surprised to see we held Matthews way down.

KS is getting better at passing out of double teams. One of the usually knowledgable
nearby season tix holders was complimenting KS on playing well enough to 'force' POR to
double team him. My own view is that has been how to defend KS for at least a couple
years. He can score on single player D but is awful against double teams.

My eyes may be lying to me but Temple is playing better and even making the occasional
shot. He had 3 steals in limited minutes last night. We get even longer when he subs in for
John, especially with Webster in for Beal often at the same time.

Nene has no lift. Hated the play we ran when he scored the last bucket. Thank gawd he
made the shot.

Ref number 66 sucks eggs. Is that Haywood Workman? Why do both ex-Washington player
refs hate us? Leon Wood and Haywood Workman.

Impressive to finally go over .500 by beating 2 of the best 5 teams in the league.

Stat of the game - 1 1st half TO. Something like 6 for the whole game. Awesome.

Nene's health is not great. The play of Seraphin is encouraging should Nene need rest. Nene and Booker are the players who I would trade for value, if possible.

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[pancakes3]

Gentle reminder, we've got another one lined up for tomorrow against the mighty Spurs.

[payitforward]

Gortat is a decent player but i think his +/- (like Walls) is a bit inflated by the weakness of the players behind him. Among centers he ranks 32nd in PER, 27th in TS and 31st in rebound rate.

If you rank him among all Centers, sure -- as that includes guys who may have meaningless numbers off a small and atypical sample.

Rank him among C's playing 25+ minutes -- he has the 13th highest TS%. Also is @ #20 in WS/40 (IMO the best roll up of players' numbers if you compare at one position only), and none of the guys above him are available to us unfortunately.

[tontoz]

Gortat is a decent player but i think his +/- (like Walls) is a bit inflated by the weakness of the players behind him. Among centers he ranks 32nd in PER, 27th in TS and 31st in rebound rate.

If you rank him among all Centers, sure -- as that includes guys who may have meaningless numbers off a small and atypical sample.

Rank him among C's playing 25+ minutes -- he has the 13th highest TS%. Also is @ #20 in WS/40 (IMO the best roll up of players' numbers if you compare at one position only), and none of the guys above him are available to us unfortunately.

Given that there are 30 teams ranking 13th and 20th isnt really helping the case for a big deal. No matter how you look at it he comes out roughly average.

[hands11]

I actually don't agree that seeing how Wall has played to this point that maxing him out over the summer was the right move. For me, it's mostly about their process, which (from the outside looking in) appears flawed. They were committed to Wall as The Franchise Player almost without apparent regard for how well he'd performed. They practically tripped over themselves to pay Wall as much as they possibly could.

This season in my salary formula, Wall's value is roughly a million below the max. If he continues improving, he'll be worth the full max. Not there yet, and he has a considerable distance to cover to be one of the game's truly elite players. But, he's progressing, and seems to have the work ethic and competitiveness necessary to make The Leap -- hopefully as that max contract kicks in next season.

So what was Parker worth when he signed ?

And how much do high production PG get paid ? Look at the other PGs out there.

http://espn.go.com/nba/statistics/playe ... int-guards

http://hoopshype.com/salaries/detroit.htm

Curry $9,887,642 and in 2016/17 $12,112,359
Lillard $4,236,286 in 2015/16
Isaiah Thomas makes $884,293 . What will he make next year ?
Kemba Walker 2015/16 QO 4,677,708 What will he make ?
Tony Parker $12,500,000 in 2015/16
Ty Lawson 13,213,482 in 2016/17
Mike Conley $9,680,000 in 2015/16
Goran Dragic $7,500,000 in 2015/16

With the new CBA, you think these players are going to make what Wall is making ? You think there will be more of less contracts like CP3, Westbrook, D Rose, D Williams. I say the new CBA starts driving down contracts like this for PGs. I bet its rare you see any PG making over 13/14M. Why ? Because its teams with their studs are SG/SF and PF that are going to win titles. KD, Lebron, KD, Dirk, PP, Kobe, etc.

Wall will be making 14,728,844 in 2015/16 and that goes up to $17,811,625 in 2018/19

He will be overpaid starting next year. 13,701,250 That's a small premium worth paying. After that, it get worse and worse. Had they been able to offer that second contract after next year, I bet it would have cost them a lot less.

[payitforward]

I'm with you CCJ in regards to Jan. Even when he's played well for us this season, Whitman has inexplicably benched him for game on end. Seraphin has been a similar case with Whitman. I just haven't understood the methodology to how he expects from them and his way of rewarding good play. Here's some examples for both players.

Seraphin

In late December he had back-to-back games of (in 19 minutes) 10 points (3-6 fg), 5 rebounds, 2 blocks, 1 ast, 1 TO and (in 25 minutes) 13 points, 6 rebounds, 1 block, 1 steal, 3 TOs. Wizards won both an Kevin was rewarded with two consecutive DNPs. The next game he came back and (in only 11 minutes) contributed 6 points (3-4 fg), 3 rebounds in another win. In the game where his play almost brought us back for the crazy comeback against the Rockets the next game he got a DNP. Another occasion after scoring 16 points in a win versus Philly his minutes the next game dropped from 21 to 7 where the team lost.

Ves

There has been at least two stretches where the team has benefited from Jan's energy only for Whitman to bench him for long clusters of games. I don't feel like gicing all the examples but looking at Vesely's game logs paints a good picture.

All in all, I think Whitman needs to find a better way to reward these guys for playing well. He has do be able to reward the younger bigs at times in the same capacity as he slobbers over our veteran bigs.

Thats because he is fixated on Booker being the answer to every situation. Instead, I felt the opposite approach was the way to go. Don't fixate. Give each a chance to start or back up depending on match ups. And if you can't be that nimble, I would have sided with going to Ves first then leaning on Kevin for points and Booker for a blend of offensive rebounding and pts if needed. Each does what they do well. Use them that way and grow them.

Oh please....

I mean I'm glad Kevin had a good game last night, but we've got the usual thing going here, where we describe how good a player is by pointing to his best games. Ditto and even more of a stretch when people look at Vesely based on his end of season play his rookie year! Wow.

On the season -- you know, all the games we actually played and all the minutes these players logged in those games? -- Booker averages 12.1 rebounds per 40 minutes. Seraphin averages 8.8 rebounds. If we'd played Kevin some of Trevor's minutes, why during those minutes we would have had the ball a lot less often. The less you have the ball the more games you lose. Duh. Oh, and Kevin's TS% has been .52; Booker's .54 -- so not only would we have had the ball less, but we would have scored less efficiently -- not to mention that Kevin throws it up more often. Then there's turnovers -- two and a half times as many as Booker every 40 minutes: oooops, once again the other team has the ball not us! Tell me, does that help us win? I guess not. Oh, I forgot, Kevin commits 8 fouls every 40 minutes! Tell me, do you think that might be a reason to "fixate" on some other player?

But, yes, Kevin did have a good game last night.

Do I need to go through the same exercise in re: Vesely? Not going to bother.

And, finally, do you really think you could manage rotations of an NBA team, Hands, as well as -- better than -- an NBA coach? Do you really think something so silly? No, Hands, you couldn't

In fact, I think I can say w/ some certainty (though abstractly, since I only know you from what you write: maybe you've coached some peewee ball or something?) that there isn't one thing an NBA coach does that you'd be likely to be able to do w/ any remote shadow of any kind of professional competence. I know I couldn't. And, really, you know you couldn't either.

[payitforward]

... if paying Wall the max is "overpaying" him, well it's not by much. The kid has both the potential and work ethic to come close to earning every penny of that max.

There are only two kinds of bargain contracts in the NBA -- rookie contracts and contracts for max-paid superstar-"franchise players." You want your "franchise player" to "earn" (i.e. be worth) way more than he actually makes -- which is limited by the CBA (and in the case of a superstar anyway he's likely to be earning more from other stuff than from his team salary).

So, if Wall is not really a superstar, not doing that, but he's "almost" worth his salary, then that's evidence that he is being substantially overpaid.

Is Wall really a "superstar", a "franchise player?" Well, for example, we do know that e.g. Tim Duncan, Chris Paul, LeBron, and a few other guys are exactly that: they're among the very best players in the NBA. Would you say John Wall is one of the very best players in the NBA?

You can bet that the presence of JW will be one of the main reasons that any top free agent even considers signing with the Zards.

Really? How do you know that? Or is that another one of those things you simply know because it's "obvious."

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

Booker at PF puts up great individual rebound numbers. He gives a great effort. However the team does poorly when Booker start at power forward. Booker's defense is a liability.

Vesely is just the opposite. Every season Jan is near neutral or net positive in team on/off stats. The Wizards are better off with Vesely starting at PF than Booker IMO. Jan can simply be disruptive and help without putting up individual numbers. He's also 3 years younger and just a bit more confidence away from breaking out.

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[payitforward]

...Interesting to me - LMA is a fantastic player but paradoxically, he succeeds by being really
good at the worst shot in bastketball, the long 2....

Fantastic, huh? He did make some amazing low % shots, I'll say that. And, as seems always to be the case, if a guy does that people think he's great.

But, if he's "fantastic," then what do we say about Ariza. LMA scored 20 on 18 shots and never got to the line. Trevor scored 20 on 12 shots and 2 FTAs. Wouldn't you say that was "fantastic"-er than LMA? We are likely to score some on the 8 more shots he left for his teammates, right? On that night's TS% we'd be likely to score about 9 more points -- about what we won by. Tell you anything about the meaning of efficiency?

Don't get me wrong: Aldridge did play well -- just not as well as Ariza. But he did play well.

[payitforward]

Gortat is a decent player but i think his +/- (like Walls) is a bit inflated by the weakness of the players behind him. Among centers he ranks 32nd in PER, 27th in TS and 31st in rebound rate.

If you rank him among all Centers, sure -- as that includes guys who may have meaningless numbers off a small and atypical sample.

Rank him among C's playing 25+ minutes -- he has the 13th highest TS%. Also is @ #20 in WS/40 (IMO the best roll up of players' numbers if you compare at one position only), and none of the guys above him are available to us unfortunately.

Given that there are 30 teams ranking 13th and 20th isnt really helping the case for a big deal. No matter how you look at it he comes out roughly average.

Go look at the average salary of an NBA starting Center and then say that again! Or, to put it another way, tell me who we can acquire and pay less than e.g. $11m/season. Hey... I wish we had Miles Plumlee, but we don't.

[payitforward]

Booker at PF puts up great individual rebound numbers. He gives a great effort. However the team does poorly when Booker start at power forward. Booker's defense is a liability.

Vesely is just the opposite. Every season Jan is near neutral or net positive in team on/off stats. The Wizards are better off with Vesely starting at PF than Booker IMO. Jan can simply be disruptive and help without putting up individual numbers. He's also 3 years younger and just a bit more confidence away from breaking out.

There is no such thing as "individual rebound numbers," CCJ -- every rebound you get gives the ball to your team. If your team outrebounds the opponent you have a good chance to win.

Vesely plays few minutes, and he plays most often against backups. We don't have near enough data to conclude that he's disruptive or productive. The opposite, usually he's no help at all. And individual +/- numbers are not a useful stat. The two guys you might be comparing aren't playing w/ the same 4 other guys! Nor against the same 5 opposing guys. Tells you next to nothing.

Is our defense worse when Booker is on the court? Do we give up more points? No.

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

Booker at PF puts up great individual rebound numbers. He gives a great effort. However the team does poorly when Booker start at power forward. Booker's defense is a liability.

Vesely is just the opposite. Every season Jan is near neutral or net positive in team on/off stats. The Wizards are better off with Vesely starting at PF than Booker IMO. Jan can simply be disruptive and help without putting up individual numbers. He's also 3 years younger and just a bit more confidence away from breaking out.

There is no such thing as "individual rebound numbers," CCJ -- every rebound you get gives the ball to your team. If your team outrebounds the opponent you have a good chance to win.

Vesely plays few minutes, and he plays most often against backups. We don't have near enough data to conclude that he's disruptive or productive. The opposite, usually he's no help at all. And individual +/- numbers are not a useful stat. The two guys you might be comparing aren't playing w/ the same 4 other guys! Nor against the same 5 opposing guys. Tells you next to nothing.

Is our defense worse when Booker is on the court? Do we give up more points? No.

Vesely has started in 2011-2012. He's played a full season in 2012-2013. There's a lot of data over a period of time.

Booker's a fine reserve but I think Vesely and Seraphin starting next to Gortat are each better than Booker.



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[dobrojim]

...Interesting to me - LMA is a fantastic player but paradoxically, he succeeds by being really
good at the worst shot in bastketball, the long 2....

Fantastic, huh? He did make some amazing low % shots, I'll say that. And, as seems always to be the case, if a guy does that people think he's great.

But, if he's "fantastic," then what do we say about Ariza. LMA scored 20 on 18 shots and never got to the line. Trevor scored 20 on 12 shots and 2 FTAs. Wouldn't you say that was "fantastic"-er than LMA? We are likely to score some on the 8 more shots he left for his teammates, right? On that night's TS% we'd be likely to score about 9 more points -- about what we won by. Tell you anything about the meaning of efficiency?

Don't get me wrong: Aldridge did play well -- just not as well as Ariza. But he did play well.

Agreed Ariza had an even better game. I was just pointing out the paradox of
the status LMA currently has against what type of game he actually plays.
My unspoken implication was that this could well end up working badly for
POR come playoff time. Their best 2 players are perimeter players. I suspect
Lillard's eficiency is much higher than LMA as he shoots and makes a lot of 3s.
POR has had a great turnaround this year, but I would be surprised, quite surprised
in fact, were they to win more than 1 playoff series and not a bit surprised if they
didn't win even one series. The west is tough and I see POR as somewhat flawed
however talented they actually are.

[hands11]

...Interesting to me - LMA is a fantastic player but paradoxically, he succeeds by being really
good at the worst shot in bastketball, the long 2....

Fantastic, huh? He did make some amazing low % shots, I'll say that. And, as seems always to be the case, if a guy does that people think he's great.

But, if he's "fantastic," then what do we say about Ariza. LMA scored 20 on 18 shots and never got to the line. Trevor scored 20 on 12 shots and 2 FTAs. Wouldn't you say that was "fantastic"-er than LMA? We are likely to score some on the 8 more shots he left for his teammates, right? On that night's TS% we'd be likely to score about 9 more points -- about what we won by. Tell you anything about the meaning of efficiency?

Don't get me wrong: Aldridge did play well -- just not as well as Ariza. But he did play well.

Agreed Ariza had an even better game. I was just pointing out the paradox of
the status LMA currently has against what type of game he actually plays.
My unspoken implication was that this could well end up working badly for
POR come playoff time. Their best 2 players are perimeter players. I suspect
Lillard's eficiency is much higher than LMA as he shoots and makes a lot of 3s.
POR has had a great turnaround this year, but I would be surprised, quite surprised
in fact, were they to win more than 1 playoff series and not a bit surprised if they
didn't win even one series. The west is tough and I see POR as somewhat flawed
however talented they actually are.

I think they are at least a year away. LMA needs to add a 3 and Batum needs to take another step in dominance. He need to take more then 10 shots in 36 minutes.

They are really close though.

[Nivek]

The RAPM (ridge regressed adjusted plus/minus) numbers on Vesely are pretty bad. Jeremias isn't updating his site this season (he got hired by the Suns), but for 2011-13, Vesely rated a -2.1 pts per 100 possessions on offense and a basically break-even 0.1 on defense. Net: -2.0 pts per 100 possessions. Last year, it was worse: -2.2 on offense and -0.9 on defense. Net: -3.1.

Just looking at the raw on/off numbers during Vesely's career, the Wizards have been a net -4.6 points per 100 possessions when Vesely is on the floor and a net -4.2 points per 100 possessions when he's off. I think the correct interpretation of these numbers is that the Wizards have been bad whether Vesely has been on the floor or not.

The raw on/off numbers aren't pretty for Booker, but when adjusted through RAPM, he grades out significantly better than Vesely.

Code: Select all

VESELY  ORAPM   DRAPM   TOTAL
2012-13 -2.2    -0.9    -3.1
2011-12 -2.1    +0.1    -2.0
AVG     -2.2    -0.4    -2.6
                       
BOOKER  ORAPM   DRAPM   TOTAL
2012-13 -1.1    -0.6    -1.7
2011-12 +0.2    +0.6    +0.8
2010-11 -0.3    -0.6    -0.9
AVG     -0.4    -0.2    -0.6