I was only comparing production - not demeanor or attitude. And the fact is, DA was producing more and getting less minutes on a 27 win team than Blake is right now. And, it's not like that team was stacked at SG. Other than DA, the only other SG on the roster was Richie Frahm. Frankly, with the way Blake is producing, I'm not even sure if I want him on the 2nd unit. If I was coaching, I'd start Andre and give him about 32 MPG and bring Jerryd off the bench to back up both guard positions. That should easily get Bayless 25 - 30 minutes a night. With Outlaw and Rudy out, we need someone who can score on the second unit and Bayless is perfect for that role at this point in his career. That doesn't mean I want Steve Blake gone. I just want him getting PT based on his production, which is easily the worst of any player in the rotation and way below Miller and Bayless. With so many injuries, we don't have the luxury of playing guys out of some sense of loyalty. We need production, and Blake isn't producing - no matter how hard he tries. Miller hasn't been great, but he's been totally jerked around by Nate and hasn't had a consistent role. At least he's been average (which is WAY better than Blake). Likewise, Bayless has been consistently productive, in spite of insanely inconsistent playing time. I think both players would do even better if they had clearly defined roles and got consistent minutes. Blake is the only one of the three who has gotten consistent minutes and he continues to be embarrassingly unproductive. Time for a change. BNM
Don't forget Blakes 0.6 made FT per game on sub 70% from the line. If It were me, and this opinion hasn't changed since the start of camp. Miller starts. WHat has changed due to injuries and sucking crap hole is that Blake should be the guard getting 8-10 mpg and Bayless getting 24mpg.
That three year thing is bogus until/unless I see it from Hollinger. I've read numerous writings he's done on PER--including the 2003-04 Pro Basketball Prospectus, which I have on my lap and have just re-read. I have never mentioned that PER is only valuable with three years of data. That seems ridiculous to me. Over three years there is a larger sample size, but the player three years ago is NOT the same player as the player now... so sample size has a half-life. A single game will not distort a month's worth of PER too much. A single game will not distort a week's worth of PER, either--a game is often a third or a quarter of a week's worth of stats, so it influences, rather than distorts. It made you look ignorant. I thought you'd want to be corrected, rather than continuing to make that mistake. If you want to continue to look ignorant, just let me know and I won't endeavor to correct you in the future. I prefer to be corrected, myself. For example: if you have a link to the Hollinger "three year" column, please send it to me so I can see how applicable it is. Ed O.
1. Remind me again how PER measures a player's defense. It seems to me patently obvious that Blake is being played for his defense (and lack of turnovers). 2. The coaching staff insists on playing Blake. The coaching staff is aware of every single advanced stat out there, and more that you've never heard of. Either: a) They understand things Blake does or the others don't do or the team does when Blake is on the floor better than you b) a bunch of people with a lot of time on their hands watching the games on the TV are spotting something incredibly obvious that the coaching staff is unable to see because they're st00pid. I know which I think is more likely. I must say, though, I think Blake must be reading him some internets, because he's playing scared. It's like he doesn't even TRY on offense. I wonder if, if Roy got injured, Blake's PT would actually go down.
Okay then, PER is practically useless as a measure of a player's value. Note that down, sonny. Oh, and it should be "Ed. O.".
It doesn't address position defense. Very good defenders (like Bowen) who don't get steals or blocks are under-represented by PER. I think putting Blake at that level of a defender is just silliness. Maybe they're making a mistake? Maybe they're too risk-averse (because they are on a one year coaching contract)? There's a variety of reasons we might be right and they might be wrong. Coaches get fired all the time, in spite of getting paid for it and knowing more advanced stats than we do. In fact, coaches make mistakes like, say, not using Oden on offense. Or starting three guards. Miraculously, coaches sometimes correct those mistakes, and some of us even see them before they're corrected. The whole "they know more than we do, so they must be right" is a weak, weak argument. Ed O.
This is true. Up to a point. If you let the sample size get too large it no longer reflects CURRENT production. 25 games at 30 MPG is more than enough to show that Steve Blake is embarrassingly unproductive THIS season. I don't care what his PER was last year. He's not producing THIS year, and that's what I care about right now. Link please? I seriously doubt if anyone as good with numbers as Hollinger would make such a statement about PER. 3 years is a very inexact sample size. A guy who plays occasional garbage time minutes for three years will have a smaller sample size than a guy who starts and plays 40 MPG for half a season. Or a single really bad game - for a REALLY small sample size. However, Blake has played 25 games. So, a single game only reflects 4% of his total sample size. A PER of 8.9 +/- 4% still sucks for a guy getting > 30 MPG. Stats like +/- and win% do not rely on the production of a single player. They are totally dependent on the production of the nine other players on the court (four teammates and five opponents). Plus there are many variations within those ten variables - both during the course of the game (different line-ups on the floor) and over the course of the season (29 different opposing team). With so many variables, these stats require a much bigger sample size - and even then they are highly dependent on who else is on the court. Bad players benefit from playing big minutes with good teammates and good players are penalized by sharing the court with an productive player. Using +/- as an individual stat for a single game is asinine and shows a complete lack of comprehension of the meaning of the stat. Even using it for a fraction of a season will likely lead to faulty conclusions. Blake has a high +/- and a high win% simply because he plays the bulk of his minutes with our best players. Anyone who has watched him play this season can easily see he's not close to our best player and is NOT helping the team more than guys like Roy, Aldridge and Oden (before he got hurt). That alone should cause anyone with half a functioning brain to question the validity of these stats (based on the current sample size) - even if they don't understand how they are calculated. BNM
Or, to put it another way, PER doesn't measure ANY position defense. What level? Are you trying to suggest that the only thing that PER can't measure is the magical super-duper position defense that Bruce Bowen alone plays? And that because Steve Blake is not Bruce Bowen (which I will readily concede) PER measures Blake's position defense? There must be a name for that kind of fallacy. Very possible. But not as possible as the idea that we're missing something. It doesn't even have to be something evident on the court. It could be that thing the very mention of which makes you snort in derision -- intangibles. Absolutely. But so what? Wait, you're not implying that that was my argument are you? My argument was: "they know more than us so if we think they're missing something that's blatantly obvious to us, it's very likely there's something we're missing." Hey, I'm not a Blake fan. And I'd actually like to see more of Bayless and Miller. But I always want to see the younger/newer guys play because they're novelties. I want to see Cunningham play. But then I look at Howard's ridiculously good +/- numbers and figure, hey, they know what they're doing.
And you're more than entitled to your opinion. I do not think that Nate, KP or anyone else (including myself) is omniscient. I would surmise that your reasoning is that we don't have Chris Paul on our team right now because: a) "(John Nash and his team) understand things (Paul) does or the others don't do or the team does when (Paul) is on the floor better than you" OR b) A bunch of people with a lot of time on their hands watching the games on the TV are spotting something incredibly obvious that the coaching staff is unable to see because they're st00pid. I wouldn't say "Incredibly obvious". I would say "obvious to people who have a lot of time on their hands watching the games." My grandmother probably wouldn't care why that nice boy Jerryd isn't playing over that nice boy Steve. She's happy they're not endangering her life driving over 100mph while high in a yellow hummer. She's happy that when she sees "Portland" on 60 Minutes it's because of the Jail Blazers. She also isn't paying Comcast 75 extra dollars a month to watch games...isn't paying $200 for League Pass...isn't paying thousands in season tickets. I, on the other hand, have been watching, practicing, playing ,coaching and rooting for basketball for around 25 years. And while I have no doubt that I'm not qualified to be on an NBA payroll for millions of dollars, I'm also certain that there are basic basketball fundamentals that are being missed when our team plays--and if you don't then I'm not overly concerned about your knowledge of what's likely or opinion of me...sorry. So since there are basic basketball fundamentals (and I won't go into "leadership" ones, which I am much more qualified than KP, Nate or Brandon Roy to observe and discuss) that are not being done, the question becomes "why"? As I stated, you're more than welcome to think everything's ok, and that Nate and his staff are coaching geniuses who don't do anything worth correcting. I happen to disagree, and can back up my opinion with things other than a hypothesis that since someone's on a payroll, they know better.
If we define "position defense" as "defense that is not at all captured by blocked shots or steals or defensive rebounding", then your statement is correct. If 15.0 is the average NBA starter, and we all agree that Bowen was at least an average starter, then his noncaptured value had to be about 6 or 7 in the early years with the Spurs (when his per was 8 or 9). Blake's got a sub-9 PER, and he's nowhere near the defender Bowen is. As a result, I don't think that he's anywhere near an average starter. Further, I would submit that Bowen is an outlier--that there are almost no players that are so effective without looking anywhere near average in PER.
I was looking up more stats and found that one of the only other PGs who has performed unconventionally poorly is Hinrich. Dude's sporting a 6.7 PER and is playing 28mpg, while shooting 33% from the field! That's just ridiculously bad. Although his D might compensate for his offensive woes, I'm certain Bulls' fans aren't happy.
Thank you. Huh? Are you talking about "PER" again? In that case, you would have to say that the average PER for an NBA player is 15. That doesn't make them average players. You could have a player with a PER of that who is useless (because they're Zach Randolph lite) or a player with a PER like that who is invaluable (like a Derek Fisher). You would love Jeremy Bentham, Ed. He believed that happiness could be measured in little units called "hedons". Well, we way overperformed last year. And I'm not saying Blake is great, just that he's better for the team than Bayless (and possibly Miller). I'm sure Bayless's PER was through the roof in Summer League. Remind me how the team swept through undefeated. We would've lost all 4 by a larger margin. Why is that hard to understand? Fair enough. This is why coaches get fired, because their goals don't match up with the GM's. I'm pretty sure these coaches are trying to win games. When it comes time for tanking, then it will be time for Pritchard to take over again. ...players. To. Injury. And in spite of that, they put up a valiant effort in two tough road games. I'm sure they're glad of the many loyal fans who appreciate the effort they put in. Look: the problem is Roy. Roy is very very good, but not super-duper great. But to maximize him, you need a PG like Blake. (Or the balls to tell him to change his game. But Bayless is not good enough to force Roy to change his game.) PLUS: Roy is not a very good defender, so you absolutely can't pair him with a crappy defender, because we'd get destroyed. (Hence my comment about Roy going down affecting Blake's minutes.) I believe that the mistake that most casual fans make is thinking that Bayless is a good NBA player. He's a good scorer, and has proved to be nothing more than that. Blake at least has proved he can be the PG of an NCAA championship team. Whose best (other) player just bounced out of the NBA. Bayless could barely make the tournament with a stacked roster.
You're thinking of +/-. Statisticians are pretty consistent in saying that +/- requires mutliple (generally more than two) to be particularly meaningful. The reason is because it is an indirect measure: it doesn't measure the individual directly, it attempts to measure the individual through the indirect strategy of seeing how the team plays when he's on the floor. PER is a direct measure, as it uses the individual's own performance. It can be used meaningfully much more quickly. I wouldn't use a one week sample of PER, but a month would start to tell me how the player is doing currently and a season's PER gives a pretty good idea of player value (at least in terms of production...not as much in terms of defense). Bayless doesn't have a big enough sample, IMO, for his PER to be very reliable. However, considering his prospect pedigree, his PER definitely suggests to me that he's worth giving more time to as he may be fulfulling the promise that many saw in him. It'll take a lot more minutes of play for him to show that he has.
Funny you should mention that! The Bulls haven't been playing great all season, but they recently went through a stretch of a ton of losses by HUGE margins (which appeared to make LeBron want to dance). Guess what this coincided with? Hinrich being out.
In Hinrich's last 6 games, the bulls are 1-5. The Bulls were playing Lindsay Hunter and Jannero Pargo with Hinrich out. Yeah, Hinrich is terrible, but Hunter and Pargo are even worse.
With us now having to rely on Joel to start and with really only Webster at the 3, we have 3 of our 4 worst PER players starting. Bayless is our 2nd rated PER player but I think it's safe to say his sample size is too small and if placed in the role of starter it would go down... Blake on the other hand is our worst rated player and has enough minutes to say that it is pretty accurate as to what he gives us. He's our 3pt specialist to stretch the offense as a starter right? .345 from 3 isn't a legit threat, it is tolerable if that player also gets to the line and shoots well inside the 3pt land, but Steve does neither. With Greg out and Steves massively dropped efficiency and Martels inconsistency, we are going to rely almost completely on just LMA and Roy in the starting lineup. We simply don't have the firepower starting to compete night in and night out.
Again? When did we stop? Haha. Yes, Fisher is "invaluable". Considering you're just that up, there's not really much to understand. I could say the team would have gone 4-0 if we'd benched Blake. If I'm right, we're three games better off. If you're right, we're only one game worse. There's not just "win" and "tank". There are varied levels of risk aversion, where a coach might be willing to, say, tick off a player who doesn't have experience playing with a big guy who deserves the ball on the blocks. Or who may be unwilling to bench a guy who isn't really helping the team but isn't really hurting, either. Haha. I don't give a shit about "effort". I care about results. If the players sleepwalked their way to the Championship, I'd be just as happy as if they scrapped their way there. A team full of scrappy losers are still losers. Ask John Nash's teams. I'm not going to blame Roy for mistakes that the coaching staff is making... starting Roy and Miller might be a TOTAL disaster, whether due to Roy or Miller or both. But we don't know because they won't do it without having Blake in there, too. I don't think that comparing college accomplishments of teenagers means much, personally. But if you want to base Bayless not being a good NBA player because of his year at Arizona... OK. Ed O.
