Roy says we blew the 4th quarter lead because Outlaw was out

One could, but one would likely be wrong based on this year. In the 10 full games we played with Outlaw - we were down at the end of the 3rd quarter only in 2 of them.

 

That isn't quite the antithesis of blowing a 20 point lead, however.

 

No. But discrediting Outlaw for what he does bring to the team - is not exactly astute either. Outlaw has his problems - but being a scorer in tough situations in the 4th quarter is usually not one of them.

 

I'm not a big fan of Outlaw. IMHO all he does is jack up shots. But every now and then a team gets on a cold spell and they need a guy that just jacks up shots to make a bucket and snap them out of it.

The first five minutes of the forth quarter is a good example of that. During that time Rudy missed two threes, Webster did the same, Aldridge makes one of his four shots, Joel missed a layup and Miller clanked a couple free throws.

Maybe Outlaw's in the game he hits a couple of his whacky circus shots and rights the ship.

 

I'm not discrediting his clutch 4th quarter play. What I'm saying is that he screws up so much during the rest of the game, I'm not convinced his 4th quarter heroics are a net positive, or at least not a big one.

 

Even with 2 games and 50 seconds of play on a bad foot - his PER is 15.1 - which is an average starter in this league. Before these games he had PER of 20 (dropping to 17 after the first one).

So, this year, as far as offense is considered, his production was very efficient. The numbers just do not support that claim.

You want to tell me he is not a star? No problems, you want to tell me sometimes he will shoot you out of a game - happens to pretty much all players but I am willing to accept that maybe it happens more often to Travis - but overall, his individual production numbers and win% with him on the floor (82games.com has him at 63.6% this year) does not support that claim at all.

http://www.82games.com/0910/09POR7.HTM

Travis is a productive player, and before his injury seemed like he was on track for his best season so far.

 

Making lame excuses? Sounds more like taking ownership and making an astute and honest appraisal of the situation to me.

 

You answered the question for yourself... Outlaw is not well defined by just a PER analysis.

 

It is becoming increasingly apparent that the same goes for Blake, but on steroids.

 

In part because it would have been much harder for Detroit's bigs to crash the boards if they were chasing Travis around instead of Juwon.

 

No I did not. Win% of 63.6 includes defense - PER just does not measure it by itself, so I did not refer to it when talking about PER.

I think that a win% of 63.6% shows you that we win more with Outlaw on the court than we lose. When you consider that he plays a large portion of his minutes on the 2nd unit - that's not bad at all.

You argument was that his misses shoot us out of the game, PER shows you that his offensive production (where shooting is considered) is very efficient even with the misses, especially for a bench guy, and win% shows you that overall we win more than we lose when he is on the court - and that part includes defense.

The idea that we would be better off without Outlaw is just not supported by the stats.

 

the reason they lost their 4th quarter lead was they were burning as much time off the clock as they could on each possession. They'd run it down to 20 seconds or so before running an iso for someone. Those Go! situation looks are tough shots for anyone to hit but with a 20 point lead its not a bad strategy to burn clock... but it's even better when you have someone that can get their shot off on most anyone. Certainly last nights game played to Travis's greatest strength so I don't see whats even debatable with what Roy said... it's true

STOMP

 

Maybe I don't fully understand what win% measures, but isn't that worse than the team's actual winning percentage? Unless I'm reading the wrong thing into the stats, that would indicate that other players contribute more to the win that does Outlaw.

 

The stat shows how much we won when a player is on the court. Since players are going in and out and play in different lines - the numbers are somewhat related to other players - but do not add up to the team's actual win% (unless a player plays every minute of every game). Of course, the numbers show you that we win more often when some other players are on the field - but overall, when Outlaw plays - we win more than we lose.

When you consider that Outlaw is a bench player - and a nice portion of his time on the court does not come with out better players - it is not a bad value.

For example, Webster, who played, in theory, more with the starters - because he was one in 5 of our games - has a win% of 53%, Miller, who was a starter in 8 of our 13 games has a win% of 61%, Rudy, who like Outlaw is a regular rotation guy who comes from the bench has a 38.5% value (not good), Joel (another backup) is at 50%.

Outlaw's numbers are not bad at all, especially when you consider how the other bench players did.

 

Keep that in context . . . Nate said something along those lines with regard to a topic that you disagree with him about.

It seems your taking that statement out of context and very personally.

 

I agree and will take it a step further . . . most players are not well defined by just a PERS analysis.

 

Where I am going with this is I don't think you apply Nate's response to all issues.

If someone told Nate he should use the triangle offense, or employ more pressure on the ball or concentrate more on feeding the post . . . Nate wouldn't say you never coached in the NBA so you are clueless.

That response was to repeated barrage of why he isn't starting Miller (or something like that . . . what was it) . . . he got so tired of people focusing on something he doesn't think is relevant he said that. He has never said that before to answer questions and probably won't again.

I remember reading the comment and not thinking it was a big deal. But clearly you were insulted by it and are having a tough time letting it go.

I hope you see the reality of the situation, that Nate doesn't think all people who haven't coached in the NBA are clueless . . . at most the people who disagreed with him on that one issue . . . and in a candid conversation he would probably say he was fed up with that stupid issue and gave a frustrated response. It happens . . .

 

I didn't even know what Brian was referencing in his "clueless" post to me.

That said, I agree with Nate McMillan. We're all clueless compared to the coaches. That's why we have statistics to support arguments, isn't it?