Where is Bob Covington?

[TTP]

I have always been in the camp willing to trade Covington. Not because he isn't a capable role player, but because he is a luxury for a team that isn't competing.

I think that his true value is what he displays when he is playing well, and this year is a prolonged slump.

He is more of a streaky shooter than a consistent one, or better said he is a momentum shooter that gets hot. When he is on he hits tough threes, and when he isn't he only hits wide open ones. Right now he isn't hitting much of anything though.

I agree with the first few sentences of this thread where he is said to be in his head. He is clearly frustrated right now.

I think that perhaps he is seeing this year as his chance to prove that he is more than a role player, but reality is hitting him in the face.

He will still have a long productive career as a 3 and D guy who will probably hit many big shots in the playoffs for teams in his career.

I would wouldn't trade him straight up for any pick other than a lottery protected first, but I would throw him in with Okafor or Noel to grease the skids on a bigger deal.

He is probably the only role player on our team that has real value to other teams.


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Why is he a luxury for a team that isn't competing? Developing teams need players like him so that their young guys know how to function with good role players around them. He helps space for them on offense and does his job defensively so young guys get used to having reliable players around them. I'd much rather have both the young stars and role players grow together so that they know each other extremely well on and off the court by the time we're ready to compete.

What evidence do you have for the bolded? His usage is way down this year - 16.9% compared to 21.8% and 21.5% the previous two seasons. His 3PAr is much higher. His attempts per game are down from last year as well. He's scaled back his role to the point that all he's doing on offense is taking catch and shoot 3s. If anything, it appears that he's trying to settle into his future role with the team.

[TTP]

Are we just finally seeing what he is? He was an UFA. Have we just overrated him the last couple of years because we haven't had much else to work with?

Yeah, we're using the 300 minute sample to finally know what he is compared to the 3850 minutes he played for us prior.

[Kolkmania]

You're overreacting to small samples and it's very normal to have tremendous outlier stretches. He started off last season 0-18. Klay's first four games this season were 1-6, 2-9, 0-6, 0-7.

It also doesn't make sense to talk about the very close games because they were not included in my analysis. If you included all the 2 for 8 and 2 for 9 games, the numbers would be a lot higher for all players. 2 for 8 is one make away from being an above average game, so it didn't make sense to me to include that when the original statement implied that when he's off, he's way off - that's definitely not the case in a 2 for 8 game.

I'm sure he has lost confidence now and is out of rhythm, but I disagree that there's much to be worried about for the future. Going back to the original comment I replied to, I also disagree that you can expect a shooter like him to remain consistent night in and night out. That's an unrealistic expectation for any shooter that takes the majority of their shots from 3 (outside of Steph Curry, who has a lower career 3PAr than Covington). This is narrative/speculation but I imagine it's a lot harder to get in rhythm when you aren't taking as many easy 2 pointers to build confidence.

I agree that he should try to reduce some of his more difficult shots, but it seems that Brown is encouraging him to take them. Some of them aren't great, but others that look bad still might be the highest point potential shots we expect to get out of a possession because of how bad our offense is. I'm hoping that he won't have to do as much of that once Simmons is back.

I actually mentioned that it's still possible that the percentage of dubs regresses to his average percentage, so I don't know why you think I'm overreacting. My point is that I don't like his offensive style, I didn't last year when he hit above average 3P% and I don't like it now. It might be encouraged on Brown and that's his fault then, but I can't imagine that BB would let him chuck three pointers with a defender in his face with 16 seconds left on the shot clock. That's why I said that he should focus on expanding his game, which includes shooting coming off a screen.

[Ericb5]

Are we just finally seeing what he is? He was an UFA. Have we just overrated him the last couple of years because we haven't had much else to work with?

I think he is a very successful UFA, and he was never better than a role player.


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[Ericb5]

I have always been in the camp willing to trade Covington. Not because he isn't a capable role player, but because he is a luxury for a team that isn't competing.

I think that his true value is what he displays when he is playing well, and this year is a prolonged slump.

He is more of a streaky shooter than a consistent one, or better said he is a momentum shooter that gets hot. When he is on he hits tough threes, and when he isn't he only hits wide open ones. Right now he isn't hitting much of anything though.

I agree with the first few sentences of this thread where he is said to be in his head. He is clearly frustrated right now.

I think that perhaps he is seeing this year as his chance to prove that he is more than a role player, but reality is hitting him in the face.

He will still have a long productive career as a 3 and D guy who will probably hit many big shots in the playoffs for teams in his career.

I would wouldn't trade him straight up for any pick other than a lottery protected first, but I would throw him in with Okafor or Noel to grease the skids on a bigger deal.

He is probably the only role player on our team that has real value to other teams.


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Why is he a luxury for a team that isn't competing? Developing teams need players like him so that their young guys know how to function with good role players around them. He helps space for them on offense and does his job defensively so young guys get used to having reliable players around them. I'd much rather have both the young stars and role players grow together so that they know each other extremely well on and off the court by the time we're ready to compete.

What evidence do you have for the bolded? His usage is way down this year - 16.9% compared to 21.8% and 21.5% the previous two seasons. His 3PAr is much higher. His attempts per game are down from last year as well. He's scaled back his role to the point that all he's doing on offense is taking catch and shoot 3s. If anything, it appears that he's trying to settle into his future role with the team.

I'm not saying that he is valueless, I just think his real value is to a contender.

I don't have any evidence of my opinion other than watching all of the games. I'm trying to explain why he is in his head too much.



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[TTP]

I'm not disputing that he would have value to a contender. I'm disputing that he's a luxury for us. He has value to both a contender and to a team in our situation. Both teams need good role players for different reasons.

I watch all the games too. I can buy that he's frustrated because he's continuing to miss shots. I just disagree with the bolded as a reason. This is an example of why I think statistics are important in addition to the eye test. Our brain scrambles to come up with a narrative to explain something but then you look at the numbers and they completely dispute that narrative. It's more likely that he's been unlucky with some negative variance, and he's lost confidence as a result, making each subsequent shot more difficult.

[roma258]

He's always been a terrible offensive player though. He brings nothing to the table other than his shooting and his shooting is....at league average. He's literally average or below average at every offensive skillset.

[TTP]

He's always been a terrible offensive player though. He brings nothing to the table other than his shooting and his shooting is....at league average. He's literally average or below average at every offensive skillset.

Like I said before, his shooting is only league average because of degree of difficulty. He'd be viewed as a much better shooter within a better offense. Despite this, he grades fairly well in ORPM. He was 11th/60 for SFs in 2014-2015 and 34/67 last season. He's certainly not terrible - he's likely somewhere around average to above average.

[roma258]

He's always been a terrible offensive player though. He brings nothing to the table other than his shooting and his shooting is....at league average. He's literally average or below average at every offensive skillset.

Like I said before, his shooting is only league average because of degree of difficulty. He'd be viewed as a much better shooter within a better offense. Despite this, he grades fairly well in O RPM. He was 11th/60 for SFs in 2014-2015 and 34/67 last season. He's certainly not terrible - he's likely somewhere around average to above average.

High degree of difficulty because he takes dumb shots. Takes dump shots because he has bad basketball IQ. Can only blame the team so much.

[NJ SixerFan]

I get your variance argument but **** does it have to vary so much. He either can't hit water shooting in the ocean or barely touches the net when he's on. Problem is we need him to be a threat night in and night out.

I don't think you understand the bolded or you wouldn't be making the rest of that comment.

I'd have to compare him to other high volume 3 point shooters who take a large percentage of their shots from 3. For his career, Covington is averaging 6.4 3PA per game, and that accounts for 64.1% of his total shots (3PAr).

Last season there were 6 players that had >= 5 3PA per game with a 3PAr >= 60%: Covington, Wes Matthews, JR Smith, Isaiah Canaan, CJ Miles, Kyle Korver. Covington had both the most 3PA per game and the highest 3PAr of all of these players.

Of these players, Canaan, Matthews, and Miles had the most similar 3P% and volume to Covington, all finishing within 1.5% points of each other (between 35.3% and 36.7%) so it makes the most sense to compare them. All of these players took between 6.0 and 7.2 3s per game.

I'm going to arbitrarily choose a "Dud" as a game where the player had at least 5 3PA and shot < 20% from 3. This would mean that players shot greater than 15% worse than their season average.

Covington had 51 games where he took at least 5 shots and within those games had 8 games where he shot <20% from 3.

Canaan had 58 games where he took at least 5 shots and within those games had 12 games where he shot <20% from 3.

Matthews had 60 games where he took at least 5 shots and within those games had 10 games where he shot <20% from 3.

Miles had 46 games where he took at least 5 shots and within those games had 8 games where he shot <20% from 3.

This means that the "Dud %" looks like:

Covington: 15.7%
Canaan: 20.7%
Matthews: 16.7%
Miles: 17.4%

Total: 17.7%

Covington actually had the lowest Dud percentage of the four comparable players despite shooting the greatest volume per game and having the lowest 3 point % of the four players.

I'm going to make a few points now:

1) The human brain is terrible about identifying false patterns and designing whatever narrative it wants to believe in, especially over small and recent samples.

2) 3 point shooting is extremely high variance. All of these players are above average 3 point shooters and shoot high volume, yet each player can expect a miserable shooting night slightly more frequently than once every six games.

3) In this sample, Covington does not appear to be significantly more feast or famine than comparable players.

Very generous of you to classify a dud game as below 20% from 3 on 5 or more attempts only for a player whose only valuable skill on offense is 3pt shooting. Just completely forget about all the games he went 0-3 or 0-4. If you are going to use other players to help make your argument at least use good players. Throwing those names out there does nothing for me especially when 2 out of the 6 that don't make your final breakdown are the better of those players.

20 out of his 67 games played last season he shot below 25% from the 3 pt line, You can throw out the 2 games he went 0-1 if you want but the rest were over 3 attempts. In those games he averaged 7 pts a game in about 23 mins a game. If covington is not hitting 3s on offense he is a really bad offensive player. No post up game and can't handle the basketball at all. Not very good off the ball. If he offered anything else on offense and just wasn't shooting well from 3 fine it might be easier to accept poor shooting nights but when your only skill is 3 pt shooting showing up 1 out of every 3 games is not enough for me. Also degree of difficulty goes out the window for me as well for as bad as our guards have been he is also king of jacking up highly contested 3 pt shots very early in the shot clock. They can't count less as misses because our guards aren't very good in fact they could be considered as even more detrimental considering the sixers haven't been that good and every wasted possession hurts slightly more.

Adv stats are cool and all but when you start talking below 20% as your guidelines for a dud game I check out. 1-5, 1-4, 0-4 don't even meet the criteria for dud games in your scenario and are definitely dud games when you make your living as a 3 pt shooter.

I wont argue he has value as a defender I agree with you on that side of the ball. Although I do think he can get lost at times rotating properly but when compared to the god awful perimeter defenders on this team I wont fret to much about that.

[Kobblehead]

Covington / Simmons / Embiid should be locked up at the 3-4-5 spots. Those are contending pieces.

[TTP]

He's always been a terrible offensive player though. He brings nothing to the table other than his shooting and his shooting is....at league average. He's literally average or below average at every offensive skillset.

Like I said before, his shooting is only league average because of degree of difficulty. He'd be viewed as a much better shooter within a better offense. Despite this, he grades fairly well in O RPM. He was 11th/60 for SFs in 2014-2015 and 34/67 last season. He's certainly not terrible - he's likely somewhere around average to above average.

High degree of difficulty because he takes dumb shots. Takes dump shots because he has bad basketball IQ. Can only blame the team so much.

Nah that's pretty disingenuous to suggest that. While some of it can be attributed to taking too many contested shots, the Sixers' offense is a large part as well. We've seen many examples over the years of the offense's spacing with and without Covington on the floor. He was a net positive to the offense each of the last two years. The offense scored 2.1 points per 100 better when he was on the floor last season, and 6.8 points more the previous season.

Of his 6 most common lineups last year, all of them had only one other theoretical positive shooter on the floor. I say theoretical beacuse in the 1st, 2nd, and 4th most common lineups, that shooter was Nik Stauskas, who wasn't garnering much respect for his jump shot at all. It might be more accurate to suggest that in those lineups, Covington was the only shooter that opposing defenses had to respect.

In 2014-2015, he was the only positive shooter in his 1st, 2nd, 4th, and 5th most common lineups (all of which included MCW and Noel with the rest of the lineups including KJ, LRMAM, Jakarr, Grant, Furkan, and Sims). The lack of spacing in these lineups is absurd. It's pretty easy to see why he had such a high degree of difficulty on his shots that season.

He's basically never had the luxury of being in a consistent lineup with 3 positive shooters, which is a pretty big deal for improving the shooting percentages of all players on the court.

I don't think he has bad basketball IQ either - he seems like a relatively intelligent defender.

[sixerswillrule]

I get your variance argument but **** does it have to vary so much. He either can't hit water shooting in the ocean or barely touches the net when he's on. Problem is we need him to be a threat night in and night out.

I don't think you understand the bolded or you wouldn't be making the rest of that comment.

I'd have to compare him to other high volume 3 point shooters who take a large percentage of their shots from 3. For his career, Covington is averaging 6.4 3PA per game, and that accounts for 64.1% of his total shots (3PAr).

Last season there were 6 players that had >= 5 3PA per game with a 3PAr >= 60%: Covington, Wes Matthews, JR Smith, Isaiah Canaan, CJ Miles, Kyle Korver. Covington had both the most 3PA per game and the highest 3PAr of all of these players.

Of these players, Canaan, Matthews, and Miles had the most similar 3P% and volume to Covington, all finishing within 1.5% points of each other (between 35.3% and 36.7%) so it makes the most sense to compare them. All of these players took between 6.0 and 7.2 3s per game.

I'm going to arbitrarily choose a "Dud" as a game where the player had at least 5 3PA and shot < 20% from 3. This would mean that players shot greater than 15% worse than their season average.

Covington had 51 games where he took at least 5 shots and within those games had 8 games where he shot <20% from 3.

Canaan had 58 games where he took at least 5 shots and within those games had 12 games where he shot <20% from 3.

Matthews had 60 games where he took at least 5 shots and within those games had 10 games where he shot <20% from 3.

Miles had 46 games where he took at least 5 shots and within those games had 8 games where he shot <20% from 3.

This means that the "Dud %" looks like:

Covington: 15.7%
Canaan: 20.7%
Matthews: 16.7%
Miles: 17.4%

Total: 17.7%

Covington actually had the lowest Dud percentage of the four comparable players despite shooting the greatest volume per game and having the lowest 3 point % of the four players.

I'm going to make a few points now:

1) The human brain is terrible about identifying false patterns and designing whatever narrative it wants to believe in, especially over small and recent samples.

2) 3 point shooting is extremely high variance. All of these players are above average 3 point shooters and shoot high volume, yet each player can expect a miserable shooting night slightly more frequently than once every six games.

3) In this sample, Covington does not appear to be significantly more feast or famine than comparable players.

Very generous of you to classify a dud game as below 20% from 3 on 5 or more attempts only for a player whose only valuable skill on offense is 3pt shooting. Just completely forget about all the games he went 0-3 or 0-4. If you are going to use other players to help make your argument at least use good players. Throwing those names out there does nothing for me especially when 2 out of the 6 that don't make your final breakdown are the better of those players.

20 out of his 67 games played last season he shot below 25% from the 3 pt line, You can throw out the 2 games he went 0-1 if you want but the rest were over 3 attempts. In those games he averaged 7 pts a game in about 23 mins a game. If covington is not hitting 3s on offense he is a really bad offensive player. No post up game and can't handle the basketball at all. Not very good off the ball. If he offered anything else on offense and just wasn't shooting well from 3 fine it might be easier to accept poor shooting nights but when your only skill is 3 pt shooting showing up 1 out of every 3 games is not enough for me. Also degree of difficulty goes out the window for me as well for as bad as our guards have been he is also king of jacking up highly contested 3 pt shots very early in the shot clock. They can't count less as misses because our guards aren't very good in fact they could be considered as even more detrimental considering the sixers haven't been that good and every wasted possession hurts slightly more.

Adv stats are cool and all but when you start talking below 20% as your guidelines for a dud game I check out. 1-5, 1-4, 0-4 don't even meet the criteria for dud games in your scenario and are definitely dud games when you make your living as a 3 pt shooter.

I wont argue he has value as a defender I agree with you on that side of the ball. Although I do think he can get lost at times rotating properly but when compared to the god awful perimeter defenders on this team I wont fret to much about that.

You can use whatever criteria you want for a dud game. You'll still find that Covington is no more streaky from three than other players who shoot a a high volume of threes with an overall % around league average (including "good players" like Harden, Love, Batum, etc.). There is no such thing as a 35-36% three point shooter who is more consistent than Covington is, that's the point. So you're really arguing that you want him to be a 40% three point shooter, not that you want him to be more consistent. True he doesn't offer much outside of shooting on offense but no one said otherwise.

[NJ SixerFan]

I don't think you understand the bolded or you wouldn't be making the rest of that comment.

I'd have to compare him to other high volume 3 point shooters who take a large percentage of their shots from 3. For his career, Covington is averaging 6.4 3PA per game, and that accounts for 64.1% of his total shots (3PAr).

Last season there were 6 players that had >= 5 3PA per game with a 3PAr >= 60%: Covington, Wes Matthews, JR Smith, Isaiah Canaan, CJ Miles, Kyle Korver. Covington had both the most 3PA per game and the highest 3PAr of all of these players.

Of these players, Canaan, Matthews, and Miles had the most similar 3P% and volume to Covington, all finishing within 1.5% points of each other (between 35.3% and 36.7%) so it makes the most sense to compare them. All of these players took between 6.0 and 7.2 3s per game.

I'm going to arbitrarily choose a "Dud" as a game where the player had at least 5 3PA and shot < 20% from 3. This would mean that players shot greater than 15% worse than their season average.

Covington had 51 games where he took at least 5 shots and within those games had 8 games where he shot <20% from 3.

Canaan had 58 games where he took at least 5 shots and within those games had 12 games where he shot <20% from 3.

Matthews had 60 games where he took at least 5 shots and within those games had 10 games where he shot <20% from 3.

Miles had 46 games where he took at least 5 shots and within those games had 8 games where he shot <20% from 3.

This means that the "Dud %" looks like:

Covington: 15.7%
Canaan: 20.7%
Matthews: 16.7%
Miles: 17.4%

Total: 17.7%

Covington actually had the lowest Dud percentage of the four comparable players despite shooting the greatest volume per game and having the lowest 3 point % of the four players.

I'm going to make a few points now:

1) The human brain is terrible about identifying false patterns and designing whatever narrative it wants to believe in, especially over small and recent samples.

2) 3 point shooting is extremely high variance. All of these players are above average 3 point shooters and shoot high volume, yet each player can expect a miserable shooting night slightly more frequently than once every six games.

3) In this sample, Covington does not appear to be significantly more feast or famine than comparable players.

Very generous of you to classify a dud game as below 20% from 3 on 5 or more attempts only for a player whose only valuable skill on offense is 3pt shooting. Just completely forget about all the games he went 0-3 or 0-4. If you are going to use other players to help make your argument at least use good players. Throwing those names out there does nothing for me especially when 2 out of the 6 that don't make your final breakdown are the better of those players.

20 out of his 67 games played last season he shot below 25% from the 3 pt line, You can throw out the 2 games he went 0-1 if you want but the rest were over 3 attempts. In those games he averaged 7 pts a game in about 23 mins a game. If covington is not hitting 3s on offense he is a really bad offensive player. No post up game and can't handle the basketball at all. Not very good off the ball. If he offered anything else on offense and just wasn't shooting well from 3 fine it might be easier to accept poor shooting nights but when your only skill is 3 pt shooting showing up 1 out of every 3 games is not enough for me. Also degree of difficulty goes out the window for me as well for as bad as our guards have been he is also king of jacking up highly contested 3 pt shots very early in the shot clock. They can't count less as misses because our guards aren't very good in fact they could be considered as even more detrimental considering the sixers haven't been that good and every wasted possession hurts slightly more.

Adv stats are cool and all but when you start talking below 20% as your guidelines for a dud game I check out. 1-5, 1-4, 0-4 don't even meet the criteria for dud games in your scenario and are definitely dud games when you make your living as a 3 pt shooter.

I wont argue he has value as a defender I agree with you on that side of the ball. Although I do think he can get lost at times rotating properly but when compared to the god awful perimeter defenders on this team I wont fret to much about that.

You can use whatever criteria you want for a dud game. You'll still find that Covington is no more streaky from three than other players who shoot a a high volume of threes with an overall % around league average (including "good players" like Harden, Love, Batum, etc.). There is no such thing as a 35-36% three point shooter who is more consistent than Covington is, that's the point. So you're really arguing that you want him to be a 40% three point shooter, not that you want him to be more consistent. True he doesn't offer much outside of shooting on offense but no one said otherwise.

This is exactly it I don't want our 3 pt specialist to be a league avg shooter I want our 3 pt specialist to be an above avg 3 pt shooter. Lots of guys shoot avg from the 3 point line. Many of those players like ones you listed also contribute more on the offensive end then simply 3 pt shooting.

[TTP]

Very generous of you to classify a dud game as below 20% from 3 on 5 or more attempts only for a player whose only valuable skill on offense is 3pt shooting. Just completely forget about all the games he went 0-3 or 0-4. If you are going to use other players to help make your argument at least use good players. Throwing those names out there does nothing for me especially when 2 out of the 6 that don't make your final breakdown are the better of those players.

20 out of his 67 games played last season he shot below 25% from the 3 pt line, You can throw out the 2 games he went 0-1 if you want but the rest were over 3 attempts. In those games he averaged 7 pts a game in about 23 mins a game. If covington is not hitting 3s on offense he is a really bad offensive player. No post up game and can't handle the basketball at all. Not very good off the ball. If he offered anything else on offense and just wasn't shooting well from 3 fine it might be easier to accept poor shooting nights but when your only skill is 3 pt shooting showing up 1 out of every 3 games is not enough for me. Also degree of difficulty goes out the window for me as well for as bad as our guards have been he is also king of jacking up highly contested 3 pt shots very early in the shot clock. They can't count less as misses because our guards aren't very good in fact they could be considered as even more detrimental considering the sixers haven't been that good and every wasted possession hurts slightly more.

Adv stats are cool and all but when you start talking below 20% as your guidelines for a dud game I check out. 1-5, 1-4, 0-4 don't even meet the criteria for dud games in your scenario and are definitely dud games when you make your living as a 3 pt shooter.

I wont argue he has value as a defender I agree with you on that side of the ball. Although I do think he can get lost at times rotating properly but when compared to the god awful perimeter defenders on this team I wont fret to much about that.

I used 5 or more attempts because it's a better representation of the argument. I don't think going 0-3 in a game is really indicative of a player having a terrible night shooting, just like I don't think going 2-4 would be indicative of a great night. However, even if you want to argue that, you're welcome to go back and do the work for all of the players and compare them. I doubt it would change very much.

As far as which players to use, it makes most sense to compare him to players that shoot a similar volume, percentage, and 3pt attempts relative to total shots when attempting to figure out if he's higher variance than players in his role. I didn't use 2 of the 6 names because they shot a significantly higher percentage, thus their bust threshold should be significantly different. Thus, you can't really compare their totals.

When you say "at least use good players", Wes Matthews has been a very significant offensive positive his entire career and his role is pretty similar to Covington's. CJ Miles has been a consistent offensive positive as well. Canaan is debateable - ORPM doesn't like him, but other metrics grade him positively.

I'm not buying that he needs to have a good post up game or a good handle to be an offensive positive. There are players that are good at those things that are offensive negatives. There are players that aren't good at those things that are offensive positives. He has a very specific role and he's solid at it.

It's ridiculous to just completely throw degree of difficulty out because he shoots a lot of contested shots. Sure, you can discount it some, but it certainly doesn't go out the window - it's not an all or nothing. Also, if he can be the king of jacking up contested shots, and still shoot at a slightly above average rate, more power to him because at his percentage, it's still well above the average points per possession our offense generates. If anything, it means that once the team is better and he's taught not to shoot those or is shown that he doesn't have to, he'll be even more valuable.

I'm going to disagree on those shooting thresholds because I was responding to your post that implied he's a high variance shooter, and I didn't consider 0-4, 1-4, 1-5 to be high variance outcomes, but again, you're welcome to do the work with those figures included to see how much he differs from the other guys.

[TTP]

This is exactly it I don't want our 3 pt specialist to be a league avg shooter I want our 3 pt specialist to be an above avg 3 pt shooter. Lots of guys shoot avg from the 3 point line. Many of those players like ones you listed also contribute more on the offensive end then simply 3 pt shooting.

He almost certainly is an above average shooter though. You vastly underrate the importance of spacing and the difference in percentages of open vs contested shots if you disagree. Do you think he would be shooting a league average % on the Warriors right now?

Think of it like a spectrum where in an ideal world, 100% of your shots would be wide open. Now on the other end, you're on the worst offense ever and playing the best defense in the world every game. The same player's shooting percentage would fluctuate as they move along that spectrum, and throughout Covington's career, he's been on the worst end of that spectrum that he could be. If he were given even league average conditions, his percentages would certainly increase.

We have literally had the worst offense in the league the last two seasons and he's still managed to be just above league average from 3. Look at those lineups I referenced from the last two seasons.

Edit: And this isn't just Covington. Literally every player on the team would have their percentages rise playing within a better offense - both their 3p% and their FG%. I would discount the other way for the Warriors. I'd expect any player that leaves their team to have their percentages decline.

[Ericb5]

I'm not disputing that he would have value to a contender. I'm disputing that he's a luxury for us. He has value to both a contender and to a team in our situation. Both teams need good role players for different reasons.

I watch all the games too. I can buy that he's frustrated because he's continuing to miss shots. I just disagree with the bolded as a reason. This is an example of why I think statistics are important in addition to the eye test. Our brain scrambles to come up with a narrative to explain something but then you look at the numbers and they completely dispute that narrative. It's more likely that he's been unlucky with some negative variance, and he's lost confidence as a result, making each subsequent shot more difficult.

I agree that he has value to us. I'm just saying that a contender might give us more for him than the value that he has to us.

Btw, I'm not sure what statistics could show what I was saying about Covington. There isn't a statistical representation for how a player views himself. I am wondering if he is frustrated because he hasn't been able to establish himself as anything more than a role player. I'm not saying that he is trying to do too much this year, although he IS doing the same thing that always frustrated me with him before which is trying to make plays by dribbling.

I think he should be a jump shooter only on offense. He doesn't need to only sit at the three point line, but if he is slashing to the basket with the ball in his hands he rarely creates anything positive. If he slashes I want it to be to receive the ball for a layup.


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[sixerswillrule]

You can use whatever criteria you want for a dud game. You'll still find that Covington is no more streaky from three than other players who shoot a a high volume of threes with an overall % around league average (including "good players" like Harden, Love, Batum, etc.). There is no such thing as a 35-36% three point shooter who is more consistent than Covington is, that's the point. So you're really arguing that you want him to be a 40% three point shooter, not that you want him to be more consistent. True he doesn't offer much outside of shooting on offense but no one said otherwise.

This is exactly it I don't want our 3 pt specialist to be a league avg shooter I want our 3 pt specialist to be an above avg 3 pt shooter. Lots of guys shoot avg from the 3 point line. Many of those players like ones you listed also contribute more on the offensive end then simply 3 pt shooting.

There are also a lot of 3 pt specialists (guys who took over half of their shots from three) who didn't shoot so great from three last season. Matthews and Miles as mentioned, but also Ariza, Patterson, Wesley Johnson, Danny Green, and Matt Barnes. Covington's % should improve when the team gets better talent.

[TTP]

I agree that he has value to us. I'm just saying that a contender might give us more for him than the value that he has to us.

Btw, I'm not sure what statistics could show what I was saying about Covington. There isn't a statistical representation for how a player views himself. I am wondering if he is frustrated because he hasn't been able to establish himself as anything more than a role player. I'm not saying that he is trying to do too much this year, although he IS doing the same thing that always frustrated me with him before which is trying to make plays by dribbling.

I think he should be a jump shooter only on offense. He doesn't need to only sit at the three point line, but if he is slashing to the basket with the ball in his hands he rarely creates anything positive. If he slashes I want it to be to receive the ball for a layup.


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The bolded is a reasonable argument. However, I think we're closer than people realize to having the pieces we need to take the next step - trying to win games, build the confidence of our young guys, and have them grow together. That's going to build the value of all of our players.

Between Embiid, Simmons, and presumably our top pick next year (and possibly Okafor if you want to go that direction), it's going to be difficult for us to acquire another high usage player and give them the touches they require. Thus, between now and the start of next season, we should focus on acquiring role players to fit around them. So if we traded Covington, we'd need to find another role player to replace him - whatever value we'd gain from trading Covington would be spent on whoever we'd replace him with. I'd rather just keep the guy that's grown in our system for multiple seasons that is not only likely to be a good fit with Embiid/Simmons, but also has developed bonds with them and the rest of the team.

Edit: It's also worth mentioning that I think we can and should be contending for the 8th seed next season, so I don't want to be trading away guys that should be strong contributors for that cause just to capitalize on some extra value. There's value that can be built through being competitive when it comes to free agency as well as through player confidence when winning games.

[MatthewGeigerII]

Covington bombing on national tv. And there goes his trade value


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