doclinkin wrote:payitforward wrote:Glad to hear it, & I like Bertans. I was aware of him in the run up to the '11 draft & thought he'd be an NBA player. He's a tremendous shooter, an absolutely awful rebounder, & about average on everything else.
If you are playing an average NBA 4, then you take him out of the game & replace him with Davis Bertans, the result is that you get worse. Period.
Why, otherwise, do you think SA would want to replace him with one of the Morris twins? Why, otherwise, would you imagine that he was available to us for... nothing. Zip. Zero.
Because San Antonio has 12 players on their roster that are perimeter players. And you’re thinking of Bertans as a 4 not a 3. Here he will play that role. A face up perimeter player. A giant 2-guard. A top of the key Small Forward. Durant lite.
The Spurs have that guy four deep at all outside positions. They needed defense and extra fouls and veteran depth up front behind Aldridge considering they were losing an aging Pau. And the West is getting bigger. Well, the league is all over.
But if you look at his FIBA play, Davis is a perimeter player all the way. And if you notice, many of the players we picked up have FIBA experience. A front office puts their stamp on a team. If you were trading and drafting you would make your choice based on Rebounding first. You weight Offensive rebounds highly.
This team had opportunities to choose those players and bypassed them. Why? They have an analytics department. Tommy is a numbers guy. They talk about having a system for weighting players. Carefully choosing players based on their own internal calculus.
Now Unless you think they’re lying, or making bad choices, or simply passively selecting whatever was offered, you have to take them at their word. And if so ask yourself what is the common thread if any in each of the players they made an effort to acquire.
Our selections in the draft and in fee agency seem to be weighted towards TS%. That and ball handling are the two areas they chose to address.
Now you may not like the players they picked up. You may hope our front office is just filling slots. But you’re baffled that we didn’t make an effort to land Vonleh. Clarke. Or better rebounders with the Admiral selection.
CJ Miles, veteran perimeter forward. Bertans, perimeter forward with FIBA experience. Wagner, perimeter 4/5, played in the U19 FIBA leagues. Bryant, noted in drafting for his smooth comfortable outside stroke. Hachimura, they had their eye on him since before Gonzaga, in FIBA play he’s even more face up oriented.
Bertans is not a rebounder. He’s not a low post player at all, so you’re bound to be underwhelmed especially in your pet fetish stat of Offensive boards. In your metric he is “just a guy”.
But on this team, in year one of a deliberate rebuild, he is a starter for us. And that will definitely shape the team and how we play.
Stick your head in the sand all you want. But this team is being built around ranged gunning and efficient scoring. Outside scoring, with drive-and-kick guards.
Don’t argue with me about it if you have issue, email their analytics guy who is sending Ted 96 page long missives on the proper direction of the team.
Even Bryant, who Tommy stormed in and demanded Ernie acquired, had a strong record of efficient scoring as his primary skill in his resume. Not dominant rim defense and boardwork. Outside shooting. Catch and dunk in traffic. Good hands on the roll.
That is the team that this FO is trying to build. A team that can outgun opponents.
Unless of course there is no analysis whatsoever and they’re simply taking whatever the wind blows them as is your theory. Seems unlikely to me. But given that this team has emphasized analytics, take a look at the stats yourself and guess what sort of team you think they’re building. Make your case. Seems to me you’ll find that TS% number is the standout in the bigs they’re picking up. Look at college. Look at FIBA. See what I’m talking about. Challenge your own opinions. Guess their chess game.
FWIW you know me. I predicted teams would or ought to go big and heavy on defense and rebounding as a counter to the outside metagame. I’ve been banging on that for a year. That these players are undervalued. I wanted Vonleh mid season. I agree with your assessment on all but the value of NCAA offensive rebounds in draft assessment. This FO is working a different angle than me. Tommy May have his prejudices from all those years scouting the international game. He may be wrong.
But from everything I can see this is clearly deliberate. Theres a direction in how we are going to play this year. And with Wall as well, since they got a Wall Jr. in Ish Smith.
Actually, doc, that is an extremely well-argued point of view. & interesting as hell too. I applaud you for it. & I mean that sincerely.
...Along those same lines, I'd appreciate if for once and all you'd stop using ugly words on me ("fetish stat" in this case). Ok? I mean it, man -- don't do it again. It's not how I address you, & you are hearing me say straight out that I don't like it. We've known each other quite a while. On this board & on one preceding this one. Respect me enough to make the effort to change the way you address me....
..."I mean that sincerely." But, that doesn't necessarily mean I agree altogether. Though, in fairness, I'm seeing your point of view w/ a bit more clarity. & I absolutely agree that if Bertans is meant to play the 3 not the 4, there is a far higher likelihood of his being a positive addition.
That said, a) I haven't seen Bertans play the 3 in the NBA & don't know that he can; b) Miles is washed up, period -- he's two years away from the only really good season he ever had, & he ain't getting back there at this stage of his career; c) the issue with Wagner isn't what kind of player he is but how good a player he is, & the answer is that he isn't good at all; d) the LA trade is absolutely a case of us getting lucky, the wind happening to blow something good in our direction (& in that sense, you bet, it's just like our acquisition of Bryant); e) Mo Wagner had a low TS% not a high one (tho he had a high TS% at Michigan); f) Tommy signed McRae right off -- he doesn't shoot the 3, but you don't count him as a data point against your interpretation of Tommy's intensions; g) Bonga doesn't shoot the 3 either; h) Jemerrio Jones doesn't either i) your point about Wall/Smith doesn't work -- neither of them shoot the 3 well (or especially often -- under 2.5 times per 40 minutes on Smith's career).
As to stats -- basketball is two entirely different things. It's entertainment, & it's competition. Any number of things can make basketball entertaining. As to competition, wins/losses, they are entirely & 100% determined by numbers. Nothing else.
Obviously you can tell who won a game just by looking at the final score. & the final score is determined by two things & two things only: TS% & number of opportunities to score. Directly determined & solely determined by those 2 numbers.
Therefore the value (positive or negative) of something a player does on the floor can be given a value based on how much it affects those 2 things (positively or negatively). That's true of each & every thing a player does. Taking a shot is using up something; it has a cost. Making a shot has a positive value. Ditto rebounds, both on offense & defense. & regression analysis shows that an offensive rebound has just about twice the positive effect on outcome of a defensive rebound. Therefore, when we look at a player's rebounding we have to look at both d & o boards. A guy who gets 8 boards per 40 minutes, 2 of them offensive, helps his team win games a little more than a guy who gets 8 boards per 40 minutes, 1 of them offensive. Not much in life is simple, but that is.
Thus, no, I don't have a "fetish" about offensive boards; I just value them the regression analysis using SAS or other statistical software says they should be valued.
As to the translation from college to the pros, I don't think there's any secret sauce -- e.g. that offensive boards in college have some special value -- just that guys who have better numbers overall (valued appropriately) tend to do better as pros than those whose numbers aren't as good. Notice the phrase "tend to." After all, we're talking about kids here, they are mutable. If it was possible to predict this with a really high level of accuracy, then draft position would correspond to NBA productivity a lot more closely.
Ok... end of screed!
