2015-2016 Official Speculation Thread

[rcklsscognition]

I cannot survive long without this thread.

[tooler]

My wife bought me two tickets to the Dallas game on February 19th. That day works for our schedules and I've never seen Dirk play live, so that should be fun. Good Christmas gift.

[MrShow]

Dirk officially ruled out for February 19th.

[rcklsscognition]

Buried in a Channing Frye story about taking the team out for movie night on Tuesday was a tidbit on Skiles and Orlando's analytics department.

http://www.nba.com/magic/news/frye-sees-magic-teammates-extended-family-members

STUDYING THE NUMBERS: But Skiles is also progressive and accepting of the new wave of analytics in basketball. He and his staff have periodic meetings with Orlando’s analytics team and that info is used somewhat in determining what lineups that the Magic lean the heaviest on and the player pairings that are used for long stretches. There weren’t many ``numbers guys’’ in the NBA when Skiles played in the late 1980s and throughout the 1990s, but he’s been very accepting of the analytical studies as a head coach.

Frye, a dangerous weapon because of his ability to shoot 3-pointers from the power forward position has the highest offensive rating on the team at 108.9 points per 100 possessions – and his offensive rating (110.9) has been even better in his last 14 games as a starter. As for Oladipo, the move to the bench has helped his performance as well. In addition to playing ``first-team all-league defense,’’ according to Skiles, Oladipo has seen his offensive rating go from 99.2 points per 100 possessions in the first 12 games as a starter to 104.3 points per 100 possessions in the last 14 games as a reserve.

``We have two ways of evaluating it,’’ Skiles said of evaluating the Magic’s lineup shuffling. ``One, is the eye test and what you see watching the game and watching the film. And then we have extensive analytics that we look at every game and as games go by. The numbers and the analytics guys go deep into everything and they prove that we’ve been better with Channing on the floor. Multiple players’ ratings are better (with Frye playing), but the reason I say there’s no permanence to it is because we’re not that type of team yet. We have to take it game-by-game and week-by-week and see how we’re playing.’’

More at the link.

[Mannchild]

Is there a website that says how many mins a player has played at a particular position? Im just wondering how many minutes, if any, Gordon has played at PF. I only seem to remember him guarding 2's and 3's

*Edit: I found it. Looks like he has only played 23 mins out of 522 at power forward. Im beginning to think he cannot play the 4 and is pretty much a 3 who can guard 2's, 3's, and small ball 4's.

[MagicStarwipe]

Is there a website that says how many mins a player has played at a particular position? Im just wondering how many minutes, if any, Gordon has played at PF. I only seem to remember him guarding 2's and 3's

*Edit: I found it. Looks like he has only played 23 mins out of 522 at power forward. Im beginning to think he cannot play the 4 and is pretty much a 3 who can guard 2's, 3's, and small ball 4's.

Those breakdowns are completely unreliable. It's glorified guessing. Especially with the ambiguity at the 4 spot these days. He played mostly PF until Oladipo moved to the bench. Since then he's almost exclusively at SF, playing alongside Frye and Nicholson at the 4.

[OrlandO]

Is there a website that says how many mins a player has played at a particular position? Im just wondering how many minutes, if any, Gordon has played at PF. I only seem to remember him guarding 2's and 3's

*Edit: I found it. Looks like he has only played 23 mins out of 522 at power forward. Im beginning to think he cannot play the 4 and is pretty much a 3 who can guard 2's, 3's, and small ball 4's.

I don't think that's accurate... AG was playing mostly PF for the first 12 or 13 games. He did well at PF imo. He looks good at SF, too.

[rcklsscognition]

Is there a website that says how many mins a player has played at a particular position? Im just wondering how many minutes, if any, Gordon has played at PF. I only seem to remember him guarding 2's and 3's

*Edit: I found it. Looks like he has only played 23 mins out of 522 at power forward. Im beginning to think he cannot play the 4 and is pretty much a 3 who can guard 2's, 3's, and small ball 4's.

I don't think that's accurate... AG was playing mostly PF for the first 12 or 13 games. He did well at PF imo. He looks good at SF, too.

You can run lineup stats on NBA.com via player tracking. Here is Orlando's entire breakdown:

http://stats.nba.com/league/lineups/#!/?Season=2015-16&SeasonType=Regular%20Season&TeamID=1610612753&Division=Southeast

I ran through every lineup and Gordon has played SF 277 of 522 minutes. It was pretty easy to tell when they occured too because when he was playing PF, it was back in the CJ Watson/Dedmon days. Almost all of his minutes in the last 15 games have come at SF.

Saw some other interesting things in the numbers. We were pretty inconsistent with the lineup the first 15 games. There were a lot of different combinations used. Recently, since moving Oladipo to the bench, we've found a lot more consistency, partially due to not playing CJ and Dedmon.

We have 2 distinct lineups to compare. Oladipo starting vs. Oladipo 6th man.

Oladipo Starting Team Stats:

14GP. 42.3%FG, 27.1%3P%, +/- -1.4

Oladipo 6th Man:

17GP, 48.3%FG, 45.5%3P%, +/- +3.5

[OrlandO]

Dirk officially ruled out for February 19th.

Good thing Pachulia is the face of that franchise now.

[Mannchild]

I dont understand where people are getting these extra minutes for gordon at power forward. In every line up, except for two, Gordon has been in the game with a center and either Andrew or Harris. When Harris and Gordon have played together, Harris has been the one playing the 4 and Gordon playing the 3. Here is a breakdown of line-ups:

http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/g/gordoaa01/lineups/2016/#lineups-5-man::none

So, as far as i can tell, Gordon has only played power forward with these two line-ups:

E. Fournier | A. Gordon | V. Oladipo | E. Payton | N. Vucevic ORL 11:20

D. Dedmon | E. Fournier | A. Gordon | V. Oladipo | E. Payton ORL 14:13

[OrlandO]

I dont understand where people are getting these extra minutes for gordon at power forward. In every line up, except for two, Gordon has been in the game with a center and either Andrew or Harris. When Harris and Gordon have played together, Harris has been the one playing the 4 and Gordon playing the 3. Here is a breakdown of line-ups:

http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/g/gordoaa01/lineups/2016/#lineups-5-man::none

So, as far as i can tell, Gordon has only played power forward with these two line-ups:

E. Fournier | A. Gordon | V. Oladipo | E. Payton | N. Vucevic ORL 11:20

D. Dedmon | E. Fournier | A. Gordon | V. Oladipo | E. Payton ORL 14:13

Did you not watch the games before the lineup change? It was pretty obvious he was one of our main backup PFs.

I mean basketball reference will tell you he's played plenty of PF...


And this video consists of about 10 of AG's earlier games... lots of time at PF in there and they're just highlights. Should be 2 or 3 more games where he got more minutes at PF than SF, too.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0pcg4nt6HU[/youtube]

[Mannchild]

I dont understand where people are getting these extra minutes for gordon at power forward. In every line up, except for two, Gordon has been in the game with a center and either Andrew or Harris. When Harris and Gordon have played together, Harris has been the one playing the 4 and Gordon playing the 3. Here is a breakdown of line-ups:

http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/g/gordoaa01/lineups/2016/#lineups-5-man::none

So, as far as i can tell, Gordon has only played power forward with these two line-ups:

E. Fournier | A. Gordon | V. Oladipo | E. Payton | N. Vucevic ORL 11:20

D. Dedmon | E. Fournier | A. Gordon | V. Oladipo | E. Payton ORL 14:13

Did you not watch the games before the lineup change? It was pretty obvious he was one of our main backup PFs.

I mean basketball reference will tell you he's played plenty of PF...


And this video consists of about 10 of AG's earlier games... lots of time at PF in there and they're just highlights. Should be 2 or 3 more games where he got more minutes at PF than SF, too.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0pcg4nt6HU[/youtube]

I do see what you are are talking about, but on basketball reference's line up break down i could only find the line ups i listed where he played power forward. Is that percentage that you posted counting him as the power forward when he was on the court with Harris?

[rcklsscognition]

I looked at every single lineup he ever played in even if just for a minute. I may be off slightly with a few lineups where he played 3 instead of a 4 with Tobias on the court, but he spent probably between 275-300 minutes out of 522 at SF. I think there were two instances where he was a center, but everything else he was the PF. That would line up fairly consistently with basketball reference saying it was a 62/37 split.

[OrlandO]

I dont understand where people are getting these extra minutes for gordon at power forward. In every line up, except for two, Gordon has been in the game with a center and either Andrew or Harris. When Harris and Gordon have played together, Harris has been the one playing the 4 and Gordon playing the 3. Here is a breakdown of line-ups:

http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/g/gordoaa01/lineups/2016/#lineups-5-man::none

So, as far as i can tell, Gordon has only played power forward with these two line-ups:

E. Fournier | A. Gordon | V. Oladipo | E. Payton | N. Vucevic ORL 11:20

D. Dedmon | E. Fournier | A. Gordon | V. Oladipo | E. Payton ORL 14:13

Did you not watch the games before the lineup change? It was pretty obvious he was one of our main backup PFs.

I mean basketball reference will tell you he's played plenty of PF...


And this video consists of about 10 of AG's earlier games... lots of time at PF in there and they're just highlights. Should be 2 or 3 more games where he got more minutes at PF than SF, too.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0pcg4nt6HU[/youtube]

I do see what you are are talking about, but on basketball reference's line up break down i could only find the line ups i listed where he played power forward. Is that percentage that you posted counting him as the power forward when he was on the court with Harris?

I'm not sure of the breakdowns. But like I said it was pretty obvious just watching who he was matched up with earlier in the season... he was defending a lot of bigs. Remember him holding his own against Cousins? Maybe it didn't stand out to you since the league is playing more small ball and he'd get matched up with some guys playing the 4 who could also play the 3. You're missing some lineups though... AG and Smith definitely played some 4/5 together. You're also missing some AG/Dedmon lineups. AG/Frye played very briefly, too. Use stats.nba.com and go through the lineups section for the magic if you want to go through every single lineup... there are 193 different 5-man lineups listed - 107 featuring AG.

[Mannchild]

I'm not sure of the breakdowns. But like I said it was pretty obvious just watching who he was matched up with earlier in the season... he was defending a lot of bigs. Remember him holding his own against Cousins? Maybe it didn't stand out to you since the league is playing more small ball and he'd get matched up with some guys playing the 4 who could also play the 3. You're missing some lineups though... AG and Smith definitely played some 4/5 together. You're also missing some AG/Dedmon lineups. AG/Frye played very briefly, too. Use stats.nba.com and go through the lineups section for the magic if you want to go through every single lineup... there are 193 different 5-man lineups listed - 107 featuring AG.

Oh, okay. it looks like on the list i was looking at they didnt have a lot of the lineups. Im pleasantly surprised to see that he played so much time at power forward.

[tooler]

Now that Washington is back to .500, we are officially 4-11 against teams .500 or more, and 3-4 since the lineup change.

We're just not there yet. No shame in it.

[tooler]

Also, I want to speculate on why Skiles teams peak defensively in the second year. I bet they start out strong and then slowly lose it throughout the year, just like us, due to a lack of practice time. Skiles has said good defense is all about tedious drills and stuff. I bet there's not much time to really focus on it during the season.

Then once the players get another training camp with it, they have it down by habit.

[rcklsscognition]

Has Skiles been saying it constantly requires drilling, or they need more and more time to take in a practice more complex schemes as they learn the easier stuff throughout the year?

[OrlandO]

Seemed pretty freaking obvious to me at the time and I mentioned it after every game, but I'm glad Skiles finally acknowledges his mistake of overplaying guys earlier in the season...

"I do know that, early on, and it was my fault — it was my decision and my fault — Evan and Victor were playing way too many minutes," coach Scott Skiles said. "They were both upper 30s, and when you're asking guys to chase people all around the floor and carry the burden offensively and do it for 39 minutes every night, it's not realistic. So one of the goals of the lineup change was to reduce some of that.

[axl_c_cool]

Be nice to have them at 32 and get Mario some significant

Payton 32
Fournier 27
Oladipo 27
Hezonja 20 (10 at forward)

Gordon 26 (divided by both forward spots)
Harris 26 (between forward spots)

Frye 24
Nicholson 20

Vucevic 32
Smith 16


That's a rough guide of how I'd prefer minutes to be shared out