Dat2U wrote:payitforward wrote:Illmatic12 wrote:Jodie Meeks played 1119 backcourt minutes last season. This season, that number should be close to 0 minutes.
That alone is a major improvement.
Just saw this, sorry for slow response.
I guess you are saying that minutes to Austin Rivers over Jodie Meeks would be an improvement -- is that it? So, do tell: where will the "major improvement" come from when Rivers plays Meeks's minutes? Is it in last year's numbers for the players for example?
Is it the extra .5 point per 40 minutes that Rivers scored (by using an extra 1.2 possessions on offense)? Is that what you like? No... I guess not. Why would anyone like that?
So, it must be the extra rebounds that the bigger, more athletic Rivers pulled down, huh? Oh... wait a minute, sorry. Oddly, it was Meeks who was the better rebounder -- almost 60% better. How strange...?
I know. It must be steals & turnovers. Rivers must be better overall at that, huh? What? He's not? In fact, he's twice as bad at that as Meeks overall? Gee.
Please explain: in what sense will Rivers provide an improvement -- given that he's likely to make us worse in scoring, rebounding, steals & turnovers?
To be clearer, given that Jodie Meeks is a much much better player than Austin Rivers, how will we be better if Meeks sits & Rivers plays -- which seems to be what you'd like?
See this is where you completely lose me with your stat by stat analysis. Any casual observer or stat guru could tell you Meeks was terrible for us last year. Steals tell you nothing of defensive competency. Meeks was beaten like a drum on defense. His steals didnt offset that. Not buy a large margin. Also rebounding by my backup 2-guard in 15 minutes a night isn't on the highest list of priorities when searching for help at that position. Lastly Meeks played almost exclusively against backups. Rivers started a majority of the season - Rivers is obviously facing stiffer competition.
I also looked at the splits b/w Rivers at PG vs SG on 82games. He's much better at SG on both sides of the ball - his on/off was neutral at SG and ghastly at PG. That's where the acquisition can blow up in our face... if he sees extended time at PG. However at SG his iso scoring skillset can be of use off the bench in a 15-18 minute role.
Considering we've had the likes of Meeks, Sessions, Thornton, Neal at the backup SG in recent years being a neutral player would be a significant upgrade.
Oh, I agree that Meeks was bad for us! He has to be very efficient on offense to make up for his current defensive liabilities.
But, I was replying to Illmatic's specific blanket statement that 0 minutes from Meeks made us better. There is no such thing as that! The minutes Meeks does not play, someone else has to play.
If you set Meeks at zero, we are down @2200 guard minutes from last year (Frazier/Sessions also being gone). We'd also like Beal to play @400 minutes less, so call that 2600 minutes. But, we assume Wall will play 2400+ minutes instead of 1400, so we are down 1600 guard minutes that someone has to play.
You'd prefer me to compare Meeks to Rivers using the roll-ups employed at 82games.com. But, unfortunately, that's not really possible. For starters, I have no idea how they calculate many of their conclusions. For another, they are full of contradictions & holes.
For example, you stress how much better Rivers was at the 2 than at the 1. But, he played literally six times as many minutes at the 2 as he did at the 1. That means the sample size is far more significant -- you cannot compare results across 2 sample sizes with that much difference.
If you want to ignore that fact, then please note that Rivers performed best -- hugely best, enormously best -- at the 3. Not the 2 not the 1. In fact, according to 82games, with Rivers at the 3 the Clips win 58% of their games (43% with him at 2). Plus, he played more at the 3 than the 1.
Are you willing to conclude that Austin Rivers best position is SF? By a huge amount? No, I didn't think so. Sorry, but no picking and choosing allowed. You also can't compare him at the 1 in that case. But, if you can't use either the 3 or the 1 stats, then -- so sorry -- you can't use the numbers at the 2 either. In fact, either the whole thing has meaning, or the whole thing lacks meaning. No cherry-picking.
You make a big point of the fact that Rivers can be assumed to have played vs. starters, whereas Meeks vs. backups. How about the effect of who you play
with. If strength of opponent means we should adjust the meaning of your numbers up, then strength of teammates means we should adjust them back down.
In Meeks' case, Mike Scott was on the floor for much of the time that he was. Austin Rivers had Blake Griffin, Tobias Harris &/or Danilo Gallinari.
Meeks had Mahinmi at Center. Or Jason Smith. Or Chris McCullough. Or Mike Scott. Austin Rivers had DeAndre Jordan as part of every single lineup he was in except for one low-minute lineup with Montrezl Harrell.
In fact, in basketball as in the rest of the world, there's what we can compare meaningfully & what we cannot compare meaningfully. If you whip those up two kinds of things together in the same bowl the way 82games does, you get some entertaining numbers that don't mean squat.
If NBA player A shoots a higher TS% than NBA player B on the same usage, then player A is the better scorer. Period.
Nobody was defending Austin Rivers at the foul line, & he still shot 64% (about his career average) as against 86% for Meeks -- who also got to the line about 35% more often! Yet, I hear from you that Rivers' ISO skills will be a plus, but I don't hear you say that Meeks's ability to get to the line will be a plus. More cherry picking.
I'm happy to agree that it's much harder to analyze defense -- but that holds for Rivers as well as Meeks. Your eye test told you that Meeks couldn't stay in front of anybody, but you don't have that eye test for Rivers. I've never heard him described as a good defender, have you?
I don't own stock in Jodie Meeks, Inc. Nor was Austin Rivers the spawn of my sworn enemy. I am not prejudiced either for or against either of them. It's pretty obvious that on their careers overall, Jodie Meeks has been a pretty good journeyman, while Austin Rivers has been an awful player.
Meeks had a down year last year shooting the 3, & he was coming off an injury that may have impeded him as a defender. Does that mean he'll come back strong this year? Maybe, but I'm not counting on it.
Rivers was terrible last year. Also the year before. The year before that he was even worse, & if his name wasn't "Rivers" he'd be out of the league by now. Is he going to be a different player, because now he is a Wizard? No, it doesn't work that way.
(That was the part with irony.)
