Woj: Mike Scott for the minimum

[payitforward]

I'm sure no one is going to read the long post above. & I'm sure, even w/o reading it, people will label me as interested only in stats, etc. -- hey, go ahead: it's a free country -- so here are the main points:

1. Mike Scott is not a good NBA player. He's a veteran minimum player.
2. The Wizards are not a particularly good NBA team.
3. Relying on guys like Mike Scott -- having to rely on guys like him, being forced to -- is part of why we are not a very good NBA team.
4. This is not Mike Scott's fault.

So then, with all of this, why was he important to the Wiz last year? --- and make no mistake, he was important. Because he was one of the few guys on the team that could score.
Again, we need more scoring.

First off, if you want to instruct me -- "make no mistake, he was important" -- I recommend you support the effort by learning a little something first.

Second, if by "he was important," you mean that he contributed to us improving, becoming a better team, winning more games -- that kind of thing -- you're just plain wrong. I'll remind you that we went 43-39 this year after 49-33 last year. That's a 20% increase in losses. That's what Mike was "important" for -- he contributed to our being a worse team.

That's what the numbers show -- & every part of winning/losing basketball games, including scoring, is represented directly in numbers. Nothing's hidden, nothing's up to interpretation.

[Gig18]

I'm sure no one is going to read the long post above. & I'm sure, even w/o reading it, people will label me as interested only in stats, etc. -- hey, go ahead: it's a free country -- so here are the main points:

1. Mike Scott is not a good NBA player. He's a veteran minimum player.
2. The Wizards are not a particularly good NBA team.
3. Relying on guys like Mike Scott -- having to rely on guys like him, being forced to -- is part of why we are not a very good NBA team.
4. This is not Mike Scott's fault.

So then, with all of this, why was he important to the Wiz last year? --- and make no mistake, he was important. Because he was one of the few guys on the team that could score.
Again, we need more scoring.

First off, if you want to instruct me -- "make no mistake, he was important" -- I recommend you support the effort by learning a little something first.

Second, if by "he was important," you mean that he contributed to us improving, becoming a better team, winning more games -- that kind of thing -- you're just plain wrong. I'll remind you that we went 43-39 this year after 49-33 last year. That's a 20% increase in losses. That's what Mike was "important" for -- he contributed to our being a worse team.

That's what the numbers show -- & every part of winning/losing basketball games, including scoring, is represented directly in numbers. Nothing's hidden, nothing's up to interpretation.

Guess i thought was responding to the general conversation, not necessarily to just you. And I guess i disagree with a strictly by-the-numbers approach to assessing whether Scott provided value for the team. Watching us play, I felt that Scott made us better most of the time. you even sort of agree with that by saying in your longer post that he started off hot. If you want to assess every player on the team by the fact we lost more last year --- then i guess all our players are bad NBA players, they should all be released and we should start from scratch?

[DCZards]

You're writing this while you try to keep a straight face? Get this by your old buddy PIF? That when we picked up a 1-year, veteran-minimum rent-a-player -- a guy whom Atlanta let walk, who was a late R2 pick that had never really established himself in the league (obviously: why else would he be available for the vet minimum at almost 30 years old) -- your reaction was that we'd landed a key component for our team's success?

The primary reason Scott was available for the vet minimum this season was because he was injured and played 18 games during the 2016-17 season. And I'm sure a lot of teams didn't want to take the chance on him that the Zards did.

Prior to this season, Scott had a 3-yr., $10 million contract with the Hawks. Based on how he played this season, he probably won't be available for the vet minimum next season.

[Gig18]

agree

[payitforward]

When you posted the numbers of an "average PF", I assumed it was the numbers for all power forward minutes played by everybody, not the performance of the median PF in the league. Since starters play more than half of all PF minutes, a bad starter would be roughly an average overall PF.

It's the average of player performance. IOW, list all PFs & ask how many defensive rebounds did each of them get per x minutes. Then take all the numbers you get & find the average. Rinse & repeat for shots taken, points scored, assists, turnovers, etc.

Pretty standard way of proceeding. In fact, it's the only way of proceeding. That way, when I learn that player A gets 6 defensive boards per 40 minutes & player B gets 8, while player A gets 3 assists more than player B, I have data to try & figure out how those 2 difference affect my ability to win games playing one or the other guy.

Whereas, if I weight by minutes in the way you describe, so that I'm trying to find an overall average level of "play" -- as opposed to defining the output of an average "player" -- I don't have data for a metric that lets me pick players. IOW, the key problem in what you write below is that you treat "player goodness" as a known, when that's what we're trying to get to. That's the unknown we're trying to find.

IOW, we're trying to find out whether "Mike is a modestly below average overall PF." (Or, in another instance, whether Carmelo Anthony is as good a player as people think he is)

To do that, we have to understand what it means for e.g. one guy to be better at rebounding vs. another guy who lets say shoots a higher %. I.e., we have to figure out the value (or cost -- a negative number value) to each element of what a player does -- i.e. to a defensive rebound, an offensive rebound, an assist, an FGA, etc.

Obviously, the only way to do this is by running regressions on those data elements using SAS or other statistical software. Once you've worked that out, you have a way to know how good/bad Mike is. Or LeBron or Kieff or anyone. You create a roll-up that combines those disparate stats, at the numerical value of their impact, into a single # per 40 minutes (or 48 or 36 -- doesn't matter as long as it's consistent).

PER does that. Kevin Broom's PPA does that. WP48 does that. Of course, none of these are "the truth" in some absolute way. They're just tools. All you can do is measure them against actual wins & losses to see which correlates best over repeated use. That's what it means for one of them to be "better" or "truer" than another. Use the one that correlates best (duh). Of the previously mentioned, for example, PER correlates at the lowest level (because it doesn't penalize a player for taking lots of shots at a low FG%).

When we do that, we do not find that "Mike is a modestly below average overall PF." We find that he is a way way below average PF overall.

IOW, he is certainly "a detriment" if he's your backup PF. Of course, he may still be a bargain at a veteran minimum salary! That depends on something different -- who else is available at that price. But, he is not a guy you want to play 20 minutes a game! Not if you want to win a lot of games.

Here's another way of looking at it. There are 118,080 total minutes at the PF position in any season. (In reality, some percentage of those minutes are small ball where small forwards move into the PF position, so it's probably more like 100,000 minutes occupied by true power forwards playing the PF position.) The best PF in the league, Lebron James, played the 3000 best minutes at the position. The second best PF, Kevin Durant, played the next-best 2325 minutes. Once you go through the 20 or so best PF's you've already accounted for maybe 45000 minutes of those 100,000 total PF minutes. Now you look at the bottom level of starters, the worst 10 starting PF's in the league, and they fill up minutes 45,000 through 55,000. These are the guys playing "average PF" minutes since 50,000 is right in the middle of 100,000. So even a good backup would fall in the below average range among all PF minutes. So if Mike is a modestly below average overall PF, he still might well be a good backup, or at least an ordinary backup.

I'm not saying he's a great player. And I get your overall point that he's not as good as his scoring average and shooting percentage suggest since he doesn't fill up the box score. All I'm saying is that having a mildly below average PF as a backup isn't a detriment. It's normal. And to have him at a vet minimum salary is good.

[payitforward]

You're writing this while you try to keep a straight face? Get this by your old buddy PIF? That when we picked up a 1-year, veteran-minimum rent-a-player -- a guy whom Atlanta let walk, who was a late R2 pick that had never really established himself in the league (obviously: why else would he be available for the vet minimum at almost 30 years old) -- your reaction was that we'd landed a key component for our team's success?

The primary reason Scott was available for the vet minimum this season was because he was injured and played 18 games during the 2016-17 season. And I'm sure a lot of teams didn't want to take the chance on him that the Zards did.

Prior to this season, Scott had a 3-yr., $10 million contract with the Hawks. Based on how he played this season, he probably won't be available for the vet minimum next season.

OTOH, since Mike was clearly not injured this season, & clearly didn't come into camp injured, & since every team had the opportunity to work him out & see that he was not injured, including the Atlanta Hawks who were terrible this year yet did not re-sign him, I don't think we can conclude that the injury that kept him out most of '16-17 was why no one wanted him & he took a veteran minimum offer in early July.

But... maybe there's still something to what you say. Mike had had a brush w/ the law -- arrested for felony possession of weed in 2015. The case was dismissed last Spring, & in fact the arresting officer was fired for racial profiling. But, I suppose there's some possibility this affected Mike's market -- though it doesn't seem likely given the outcome.

No, I'd say that Mike was & is a marginal player, a guy on the bubble of being in the league, when Ernie came along & signed him up. &, again, I haven't criticized the move. Mike Scott is a perfectly acceptable veteran minimum player. He was well worth what he earned as this year's rent-a-player. He just isn't nearly good enough to be a good team's 20-minute a night backup PF.

Will someone give him a raise this off-season? Maybe. After all, teams make terrible personnel decisions all the time. You remember when we signed Andrew Nicholson for 4 years & $25+m? Made sure to grab Eric Maynor on the very first day of free agency to make sure no one else got there before us? Signed the corpse of Al Harrington?

Atlanta signed Mike Scott for 3 years, as you point out. You ever wonder why Atlanta is where they are now, btw? Do you think the last few years of personnel decisions might be part of the reason? In fact, hmmmm, I look for the New York Knicks to sign Mike Scott for 3 years this off-season.

For that matter, you ever wonder why the Washington Wizards have never ever gotten out of the 40's in wins? Despite having had an overall #1 pick, an overall #3 pick, another overall #3 pick, etc.? Do you think personnel decisions might be part of the reason?

I have nothing against Mike Scott. Just as I have nothing against Kieff. But those 2 guys combined for almost 3400 minutes, & they are a couple of bad players.

[Kanyewest]

Mike Scott's playoff performance has clouded an honest review of his season.

As PIF states overall he wasn't very good. When he makes shots, he's playable. When he doesn't he's not. He tends to run hot & cold. In reality he's a good 11th man. A non-rotation player that can step in and make shots when needed but he's not someone I'd be losing sleep over trying to keep. Theres literally 60 better options at PF in the league. I'm sure we could find one if we look hard enough.

I think you are overestimating the number of quality power forwards out there. Unless you are also including small ball 4s that mostly play small foward. Guys that come to mind that are terrible defenders include Melo, Beasley, and Pattrick Patterson. I think it's likely in the 40-50 range.

[Dat2U]

So then, with all of this, why was he important to the Wiz last year? --- and make no mistake, he was important. Because he was one of the few guys on the team that could score.
Again, we need more scoring.

First off, if you want to instruct me -- "make no mistake, he was important" -- I recommend you support the effort by learning a little something first.

Second, if by "he was important," you mean that he contributed to us improving, becoming a better team, winning more games -- that kind of thing -- you're just plain wrong. I'll remind you that we went 43-39 this year after 49-33 last year. That's a 20% increase in losses. That's what Mike was "important" for -- he contributed to our being a worse team.

That's what the numbers show -- & every part of winning/losing basketball games, including scoring, is represented directly in numbers. Nothing's hidden, nothing's up to interpretation.

Guess i thought was responding to the general conversation, not necessarily to just you. And I guess i disagree with a strictly by-the-numbers approach to assessing whether Scott provided value for the team. Watching us play, I felt that Scott made us better most of the time. you even sort of agree with that by saying in your longer post that he started off hot. If you want to assess every player on the team by the fact we lost more last year --- then i guess all our players are bad NBA players, they should all be released and we should start from scratch?

Scott has to score to be effective. Why? Because he's poor at EVERYTHING else. He doesn't get rebounds, steals or blocks. He doesn't have good defensive awareness. He's not much of a passer. He's a one dimensional player. He was good at that dimension in the playoffs. He was okay at the dimension in the regular season. He was literally BAD at everything else. In the long run that makes him a net negative, because unless he's going 3-5 or 4-6 from the floor every night, he's hurting your team. Paying more than the minimum to keep a guy like that offers no upside. It limits your ability to improve b/c were so hamstrung by the cap, we got to be extra careful where our resources go. It also means there's no chance of someone stepping in his place and improving upon his low level of play because we've committed limited resources and minutes to him.

[Dat2U]

Mike Scott's playoff performance has clouded an honest review of his season.

As PIF states overall he wasn't very good. When he makes shots, he's playable. When he doesn't he's not. He tends to run hot & cold. In reality he's a good 11th man. A non-rotation player that can step in and make shots when needed but he's not someone I'd be losing sleep over trying to keep. Theres literally 60 better options at PF in the league. I'm sure we could find one if we look hard enough.

I think you are overestimating the number of quality power forwards out there. Unless you are also including small ball 4s that mostly play small foward. Guys that come to mind that are terrible defenders include Melo, Beasley, and Pattrick Patterson. I think it's likely in the 40-50 range.

I'm thinking of all the SFs that are capable of sliding up to the 4 like P.J. Tucker or Luc Mbah A Moute.

[payitforward]

So then, with all of this, why was he important to the Wiz last year? --- and make no mistake, he was important. Because he was one of the few guys on the team that could score.
Again, we need more scoring.

First off, if you want to instruct me -- "make no mistake, he was important" -- I recommend you support the effort by learning a little something first.

Second, if by "he was important," you mean that he contributed to us improving, becoming a better team, winning more games -- that kind of thing -- you're just plain wrong. I'll remind you that we went 43-39 this year after 49-33 last year. That's a 20% increase in losses. That's what Mike was "important" for -- he contributed to our being a worse team.

That's what the numbers show -- & every part of winning/losing basketball games, including scoring, is represented directly in numbers. Nothing's hidden, nothing's up to interpretation.

Guess i thought was responding to the general conversation, not necessarily to just you. And I guess i disagree with a strictly by-the-numbers approach to assessing whether Scott provided value for the team. Watching us play, I felt that Scott made us better most of the time. you even sort of agree with that by saying in your longer post that he started off hot. If you want to assess every player on the team by the fact we lost more last year --- then i guess all our players are bad NBA players, they should all be released and we should start from scratch?

You quoted me. Didn't mean to over-react -- if/when you disagree w/ me you won't be the only one!

Every player should be evaluated "strictly by the numbers," because that's how games are decided, & the only thing that matters about a player is how he's contributing to winning those games. Only numbers contribute. Mike's numbers were better early in the season (his shooting was off the charts, which was unsustainable).

Of course every player should be assessed based on our wins/losses: based, that is, on their contributions to our wins/losses. How else would you assess them? The season results were the product of what the players did on the court. Duh.

[Gig18]

First off, if you want to instruct me -- "make no mistake, he was important" -- I recommend you support the effort by learning a little something first.

Second, if by "he was important," you mean that he contributed to us improving, becoming a better team, winning more games -- that kind of thing -- you're just plain wrong. I'll remind you that we went 43-39 this year after 49-33 last year. That's a 20% increase in losses. That's what Mike was "important" for -- he contributed to our being a worse team.

That's what the numbers show -- & every part of winning/losing basketball games, including scoring, is represented directly in numbers. Nothing's hidden, nothing's up to interpretation.

Guess i thought was responding to the general conversation, not necessarily to just you. And I guess i disagree with a strictly by-the-numbers approach to assessing whether Scott provided value for the team. Watching us play, I felt that Scott made us better most of the time. you even sort of agree with that by saying in your longer post that he started off hot. If you want to assess every player on the team by the fact we lost more last year --- then i guess all our players are bad NBA players, they should all be released and we should start from scratch?

You quoted me. Didn't mean to over-react -- if/when you disagree w/ me you won't be the only one!

Every player should be evaluated "strictly by the numbers," because that's how games are decided, & the only thing that matters about a player is how he's contributing to winning those games. Only numbers contribute. Mike's numbers were better early in the season (his shooting was off the charts, which was unsustainable).

Of course every player should be assessed based on our wins/losses: based, that is, on their contributions to our wins/losses. How else would you assess them? The season results were the product of what the players did on the court. Duh.

No harm, no foul! Still assessing every member of the team by the broad brush of we lost more games than the year before is a little too harsh for my take. Again, that means everyone goes and we start from scratch? Also, Scott wasn't here the year before, so how do you hold him accountable for a decrease in wins? There was a lot going on this year. Wall was hurt for BUNCH of games. Gortat was clearly unhappy and it affected teammates. Kief started out injured and never really seemed to get rolling. Overall, the team's chemistry didn't seem the same as the year before. You know?