E-Balla wrote:Outside wrote:No, I'm criticizing a 31.5% usage rate player for having a 23.7% assist rate, which is really low compared to other 30% or higher usage rate players and particularly for someone who is the primary playmaker for his team. What does height have to do with it? Durant has a 29.9% usage rate and 25.4% assist rate, which is better than Giannis despite Durant being the third-best playmaker on his team. Oh, and Durant is tall.
A 23.7 ast% with a 31.5 usg rate isn't at all low for a forward which is what you're missing. Again you're criticizing his play style and not the level of his play.
And KD from 2013-2017 had a 23.8 ast%. Again that's still impressive for a forward. Just because he's not getting 8 apg it doesn't mean he's not a good passer.
And if you watched Milwaukee you'd see he's not running point forward nearly as much. He's being asked to score since Middleton can pass, Bledsoe can run the offense, and there's no Jabari/Monroe to just score.
That's a fair point about Bledsoe, but you're missing my larger point -- we're talking about POY credentials, and for that, which of these is better:
-- High usage rate, high scoring, low assist rate
-- High usage rate, high scoring, high assist rate
I realize there are other factors, but to sweep away assist rate as if it is irrelevant doesn't make sense when considering candidates for POY. All of the candidates are high usage, most are within a range of 5 PPG (Butler being the outlier), and they all create or otherwise open offensive opportunities for teammates, but to varying degrees.
Giannis is exceptionally effective driving to the basket, evading defenders, and using his length and athleticism to score. He draws the defense to him on those drives, but he scores at such a high rate in those situations that it's generally better for him to take those shots, even with the defense collapsing on him, than it would be to pass to teammates with open opportunities created by the collapsed defense. Passing for an open three could be a better option except that the Bucks are a poor three-point shooting team (27th in attempts, 28th in makes, 21st in percentage), so part of Giannis' low assist rate can be attributed to lack of three-point shooting to make passing out of his drives a viable option.
However, another big part of the issue is that Giannis shoots really poorly outside of three feet, so when he has the ball anywhere away from the basket, he doesn't command double-teams. Since he has no gravity other than his drives, defenders can stay with the other Buck players, and Giannis therefore doesn't create as many open opportunities for teammates when compared to other POY candidates. His teammates' shooting deficiencies drive his assist rate lower on his drives, and his shooting deficiency drives his assist rate lower on everything else.
The whole reason we're discussing this is that I said Giannis' poor shooting outside of three feet and low assist rate were flaws in his resume for POY. You countered that they weren't, but I stand by my assertion that these are weaknesses compared to other POY candidates.
What matters is team efficiency not individual player efficiency. Lamarcus Aldridge lead Portland to a #2 offense while having a 51 TS% because he took all the bad shots and opened up great shots for his teammates. Westbrook is similar.
But as weekend_warrior pointed out:
weekend_warrior wrote:OKC is ranked 22 in team TS% with 54.5%, which is still well below league average. And this is mainly because Westbrook takes a s***load of shots on bad efficiency. They have a good ORTG because of their high offensive rebounding numbers, which is by far leading the league. Mainly because Steven Adams is by far leading the league in ORB%. This guy is really good.
Now you can tell me that this works because of all the missed FGA of Westbrook, but honestly, every sane person would take the player that can score with the initial action on (much) higher efficiency.
It's that bolded part that matters in this conversation, because we are talking about the best of the best. I don't see how you can rationally say that missing a lot of shots doesn't matter when comparing Westbrook to other elite players who also create for teammates while making more of their shots.
All I said is that 51.1 TS% is a weakness in Westbrook's POY resume. I didn't say TS% was the be-all, end-all of efficiency or that turnovers don't matter or whatever else. I just pointed out his really low TS% relative to other candidates as an indicator of an area where he lags the other candidates. I'm not convinced that him missing all those shots is irrelevant.
If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention.
