The-Power wrote:I love Embiid but let's put some context to his plus-minus numbers.
The best defensive on/off net rating has actually Covington at -7.4 (Embiid: -6.8). Nobody else comes even close. So let's look at some splits for these two guys. Line-ups with Embiid and without Covington only have a DRTG of 111.2 (1279 Possessions). Add to this the 112.4 ORTG and the team's net rating is a mere +1.2 with more than pedestrian defense. The players with the most shared minutes are Redick, McConnell, Saric and Simmons in that order. Hardly an elite defensive team, so the numbers are not really that shocking (still surprising, though). But it means that Embiid might in fact not be able to anchor his defense at the level many are inclined to believe. Also, the ORTG does not scream elite either.
Meanwhile line-ups with Covington and without Embiid still have a DRTG of 106.4 (2230 Possessions), with an ORTG of 107.8 (+1.4 net rating). Players with the highest share of possessions: Simmons, Johnson, Saric and McConnell, in that order. Clearly having Simmons in there helps on defense, and having less of Redick (who would be next on the list) might as well. But it's an interesting comparison nonetheless and points to the importance and impact of Covington on the 76ers defense.
Now, if we just look at Embiid's minutes, we can see that he plays a lot of minutes with the starters. 70% with Redick, 69% with Simmons, 67% with Covington, and 63% with Saric (average: 67.25). When Embiid is not on the court with Simmons and Covington, the net rating of the 76ers is -1.2 (716 Possessions). Without Simmons and Redick, it is +1.7 (340 Possessions). Without Redick and Covington, -11.3 (336 Possessions). This does by no means indicate that Embiid has MVP-level impact irrespective of the line-ups he's in.
What we can see is that line-ups with Embiid, Simmons, Covington and Redick perform extraordinarily well on both ends. 117.1 ORTG, 98.7 DRTG, +18.4 net rating (1504 Possessions). It is just that naturally, the other three guys don't get to play as many minutes (in terms of percentages) with each other simply by virtue of Embiid playing clearly less minutes yet always starting if available. For Embiid, line-ups with these four guys make up for 39% of his total minutes played compared to only 29% for Simmons or 31% for Covington.
Let's look at the line-ups with Embiid at least two of the three other main players on the floor.
Embiid, Simmons, Redick, Covington ON: 1504 Possessions
Embiid, Simmons, Redick ON, Covington OFF: 341 Possessions
Embiid, Simmons, Covington ON, Redick OFF: 593 Possessions
Embiid, Redick, Covington ON, Simmons OFF: 248 Possessions
If we add the possessions, we get the total number of possessions Embiid plays at least with two of these guys. If we divide the number by the total number of possessions Embiid played, the number we get is 70. 70% of the time Embiid plays with at least two of the three main guys (I exclude Saric because this would increase the efforts and I consider the other three guys to be more important this season).
Embiid is the lynchpin that makes this line-up work so well considering they do, for some reason, seem to perform poorly without him. But if we go by other splits, we can see that line-ups with Embiid are rather pedestrian whenever he does not play with at least two of the three guys. We can also see that Covington appears to be a huge influence factor on defense. I'm not saying he's more valuable than Embiid on that end, but it does bear mentioning that Covington-less line-ups with Embiid struggle defensively and that Embiid-less line-ups with Covington still perform pretty well on defense.
What we can see from Embiid this year is his ability to raise the ceiling of specific line-ups – and not the ability to anchor strong line-ups in most settings. Hence, I struggle to separate Embiid from someone like Giannis and not only because he played a lot more. It remains to be seen if Embiid is already an MVP-level player or if, rather, he's a great player who happens to fit incredibly well next to the talent the team provided him with. The latter is incredibly important, make no mistake, but it doesn't tell us with any sort of confidence that Embiid is a first-tier superstar who can replicate this type of impact in a variety of settings (of course if your criteria for POY are strictly based on actual value to a specific team, there is a great case to be made for Embiid). His on/off as well as the on-court numbers for him must be considered in this light and some statements I read seem a bit premature then.
I haven't seen the latest RAPM updates but there is a reason why Embiid looks great in RPM but not like an outlier compared to second-tier stars such as Giannis, Davis or Lillard who score very similar numbers. It is quite an accomplishment to be arguably better than these guys but I don't see a good reason to have Embiid in a tier above them – a tier that, for me, includes only LeBron and Curry, plus arguably Harden this year and a fully-healthy Paul. Embiid can definitely get there, but for now I have him a tier below with a buch of other great players who have yet to reach the truly all-time levels reserved for a selected few in history.
I'm glad to see someone pushing back against Embiid. Lately it seems like I'm championing Embiid and people just find it puzzling. Better if people can see where I'm coming from and just point out where I'm overreacting.
The thing I'll say though is that the lineup analysis really made me raise my eyebrows about Philly.
Here's a query I ran on bkref:
http://bkref.com/tiny/UDygmIt's the best lineups by +/- rate who have played more than 300 minutes together. And before anyone else says it: That's an arbitrary number that someone else brought to my attention a while ago. If people feel like that number cherry picks things here, by all means show me how.
But out of all these lineups, which one is the #1 in the league? Philly's starting 5. +20.4 where none of the others are above 15.6
I mean, isn't that insane? Not saying that by themselves would make them the title favorites or anything, but if you had told me before the season that there'd be any measure remotely like this where the 76ers starters would rank #1 in, I'd have thought you were crazy.
So I want to make clear that I do not think Embiid is carrying a bunch of worthless players, it's just that he's been the focal point of a lineup that's insanely good, and guys like Giannis, Davis, and Lillard just haven't, and him being the clear cut focal point of that lineup on both offense and defense make him someone I just can't ignore.
I'll throw this question at you: Do you think someone else in that lineups seriously deserves more credit than Embiid? If so, I'd love to read your analysis. If not, and if you can't bring my "wow" response back to earth about Philly's Starting 5, then to me you should be pretty mind-blown too.
Looking at your sub-analysis breakdown, I acknowledge that I see what you're getting at, and welcome further analysis. Here's a thought that comes to my mind:
For a good while, many of us have been saying that interior scoring - particularly by big men - was overrated in the past and was even more problematic today because the inevitable 2 vs 3 comparison. But back with Dream's Rockets we saw a model wherein interior volume scoring and 3's worked very well together. Shooting the 3's was just plain the right move, but also doing so provide extra spacing for the big in the middle to work.
I would say that I'd expect Embiid's effectiveness to therefore be pretty dependent on the work of his teammates on the perimeter, really on both sides of the ball. The question, as always, is more about how hard it is to get the kind of guys he needs in order to work with. Given that this all just sort of came together in Philly, this implies it's not hard to get these guys. But anecdote is anecdote. It may be that Embiid got extraordinarily lucky here. Thoughts?
