USER GUIDE FOR THIS TYPE OF REPORT This is much of what an Ultimate Game Breakdown-Players (UGB) is going to look like for the new season. It's a "just the important facts please, and give them to me quick" type of report. I will in many cases do a little commentary at the bottom of the UGBs, but most of the game and team commentary will be in the separate "Game and Team Reports." Game and Team articles are, with any luck, going to be produced for 26 Nuggets and for 26 Raptors games this season. Ultimate Game Breakdowns: Players, such as the one here, will be done for the 26 key games, and for other games as well, but not necessarily for all 82 games. I don't really know how all this new editing is going to play out time wise yet! The games that get the full treatment have been very carefully chosen to be the most important games, which are generally the games against the best teams. Full treatment including the kitchen sink report games have been chosen from among only games where neither team is at a disadvantage due to playing on back to back nights. Other internet basketball "experts" are really wasting their time to some extent when they report on a game where one team was playing on back to back nights and the other team was not, because the great majority of those games are almost automatically won by the team that has more rest. I used to do those stupid games, but I'm not doing them anymore, because I keep trying to get better and better at understanding and teaching basketball, so I make changes such as this. With an Ultimate Game Breakdown-Players report, you can see very rapidly who was most responsible for the winning or the losing of the game. Then someone like me can easily write a separate game report which explains how things might have worked out better for a team, or why things worked out just about as well as possible, as the case may be. The Real Player Ratings formula has been very carefully and accurately tweaked again and is currently as follows: POSITIVE FACTORS Points 1.00 (at par) Number of 3-Pt FGs Made 1.00 Number of 2-Pt FGs Made 0.60 Number of FTs Made 0.00 Assists 1.75 Offensive Rebounds 1.15 Defensive Rebounds 1.25 Blocks 1.60 Steals 2.10 NEGATIVE FACTORS 3-Pt FGs Missed -1.00 2-Pt FGs Missed -0.85 FTs Missed -0.85 Turnovers -2.00 Personal Fouls -0.80 ACTUAL COMBINED AWARD OR PENALTY BY TYPE OF SHOT 3-Pointer Made 4.00 2-Pointer Made 2.60 Free Throw Made 1.00 3-Pointer Missed -1.00 2-Pointer Missed -0.85 Free Throw Missed -0.85 ZERO POINTS: PERCENTAGES BELOW WHICH THERE IS A NEGATIVE NET RESULT 3-Pointer 0 score % 0.200 2-Pointer 0 score % 0.246 1-Pointer 0 score % 0.459 ASSISTS VERSUS TURNOVERS ZERO POINT Assist/Turnover Ratio That Yields 0 Net Points: 1.143 QUALITY (RPR) AND QUANTITY (RPP) EXPLANATION RPR game reports show for each player the RPR (Real Player Rating) which tells you how good a player did (all the good things minus all the bad things) out on the court per unit of time. The RPP (Real Player Production) report tells you how much in total (the sum of the of the good things minus the sum of the bad things) a player did out on the court. Many and maybe most sports watchers and an unknown but probably disturbingly large number of sports managers make the mistakes of exaggerating the importance of quantity and overlooking to some extent quality. These reports allow you to expand your horizons. These reports put quantity and quality side by side, which is extremely valuable, because both are roughly equally important in explaining accurately why and how the game turned out the way it did. Players who over many games consistently have higher RPR (quality) but lower RPP (quantity) results are in many cases not getting enough playing time. Players that over many games consistently have lower RPR (quality) but higher RPP (quantity) results are in many cases getting too much playing time. The exceptional cases are very often going to be players who are either truly outstanding defenders or truly bad defenders. This is because the one and only thing that is not counted, because it is impossible to calculate it, is the number of shots that a player prevents from being scores. Investigation has to date revealed that, apparently, no one has even attempted, for the NBA, rough estimates of the actual value of each player's defending, in terms of number or percentage of scores prevented, or in terms of number or percentage of possessions made worthless. Over the coming year, I am going to be working to see if it is possible to use some combination of advanced statistics that are tracked on certain internet sites as an accurate proxy for the number of shots and/or for the number of possessions ruined by a defender. Another exception. where it is really alright when it looks like a player is playing too much, will be if a team has a point guard who has many more turnovers than the average point guard has. Because the point guard is so important, a good coach has to play his best guard who can make plays at the position for a full set of minutes every game, pretty much regardless of how many turnovers that player makes. If you take out your designated point guard due to "too many turnovers," it's most often going to be sort of like cutting your foot off because you have a bad case of athletes foot! REAL PLAYER RATINGS DENVER QUALITY J.R. Smith III, SG 1.129 Nene Hilario, PF 1.083 Carmelo Anthony, SF 1.045 Nick Fazekas, PF 1.004 Ruben Patterson, SF 0.815 Chris Andersen, PF 0.712 James Mays, PF 0.643 Dahntay Jones, SG 0.422 Smush Parker, PG 0.367 Mateen Cleaves, PG 0.327 Juwan Howard, PF 0.160 TORONTO QUALITY Jose Calderon Borrallo, PG 1.015 Roko Ukic, SG 0.817 Andrea Bargnani, C 0.720 Chris Bosh, PF 0.573 Kris Humphries, PF 0.558 Anthony Parker, SG 0.481 Jermaine O'Neal, PF 0.346 Hassan Adams, SF 0.176 Joey Graham, SF 0.142 Jamario Moon, SF 0.122 Jason Kapono, SF 0.084 SCALE FOR RPR (QUALITY) RATINGS FOR A SINGLE GAME Historic Superstar for this game 1.400 and more Superstar 1.050 to 1.399 Star 0.800 to 1.050 Outstanding 0.625 to 0.799 Major Role Player 0.525 to 0.624 Role Player 0.450 to 0.524 Minor Role Player 0.400 to 0.449 Very Minor Role Player or Very Important Defender 0.350 to 0.399 Poor Game or Extremely Importand Defender 0.275 to 0.349 Very Poor Game Regardless of Defending 0.200 to 0.274 Disaster Game Regardless of Defending minus infinity to 0.199 **************************************************** REAL PLAYER PRODUCTION DENVER QUANTITY J.R. Smith III, SG 35.00 Carmelo Anthony, SF 29.25 Nene Hilario, PF 24.90 Chris Andersen, PF 18.50 Ruben Patterson, SF 16.30 Dahntay Jones, SG 12.65 Nick Fazekas, PF 12.05 Mateen Cleaves, PG 9.15 James Mays, PF 9.00 Smush Parker, PG 4.40 Juwan Howard, PF 2.40 TORONTO QUANTITY Jose Calderon Borrallo, PG 27.40 Andrea Bargnani, C 18.00 Chris Bosh, PF 17.20 Roko Ukic, SG 17.15 Kris Humphries, PF 14.50 Anthony Parker, SG 12.50 Jermaine O'Neal, PF 4.50 Hassan Adams, SF 3.35 Jamario Moon, SF 2.20 Joey Graham, SF 1.85 Jason Kapono, SF 1.85 SCALE FOR RPP (QUANTITY) RATINGS FOR A SINGLE GAME FOR STARTING PLAYERS Happens only a few times a year in the NBA 40.0 and more Massive and Memorable Game 36.0 to 39.9 Huge Game 32.0 to 35.9 Very Big Game 28.0 to 31.9 Big Game 24.0 to 27.9 Typical Average Game 20.0 to 23.9 Somewhat Below Average Game 16.0 to 19.9 Way Below Average Game 12.0 to 15.9 Bad Game 9.0 to 11.9 Really Bad Game 5.0 to 8.9 Total Disaster minus infinity to 4.9 SCALE FOR RPP (QUANTITY) RATINGS FOR A SINGLE GAME FOR NON-STARTING PLAYERS Massive and Memorable Game 30.0 and more Huge Game 26.0 to 29.9 Very Big Game 22.0 to 25.9 Big Game 18.0 to 21.9 Typical Non-Starter Game 12.0 to 17.9 Below Average Even For a Non-Starter 9.0 to 11.9 Way Below Average Even For a Non-Starter or Limited Minutes 6.0 to 8.9 Bad Game Even for a Non-Starter or Very Limited Minutes 3.0 to 5.9 Disaster: Nothing Much to Report minus infinity to 1.9 THE HIGH QUALITY PLAYERS IN THIS GAME RAPTORS OUTSTANDING QUALITY GAMES Star During Minutes on the Court: Jose Calderon NUGGETS OUTSTANDING QUALITY GAMES Superstar During Minutes on the Court: J.R. Smith Superstar During Minutes on the Court: Nene Star During Minutes on the Court: Carmelo Anthony Star During Minutes on the Court: Nick Fazekas Star During Minutes on the Court: Ruben Patterson POWER PERFORMERS OF THIS GAME RAPTORS POWER PERFORMERS RAPTORS STARTERS POWER PERFORMERS Big Game: Jose Calderon RAPTORS NON-STARTERS POWER PERFORMERS Big Game: Andrea Bargnani NUGGETS STARTERS POWER PERFORMERS Very Big Game: Carmelo Anthony Big Game: Nene NUGGETS NON-STARTERS POWER PERFORMERS Massive and Memorable Game: J.R. Smith Big Game: Chris Andersen Note: For the rundown of the best players and the power performers, I bump up or bump down, by one category, certain players, due to adjustments for defending, wherever such adjustments are obvious. COMMENTS J.R. Smith and Nene led the Nuggets to the victory with a massive game, with good help from Carmelo Anthony. The Raptors played poorly. J.R. Smith answered my call to have a balance between driving to the rim and getting some threes. His game was essentially perfect and brilliant. Thank you very much J.R. Smith. Please continue. Come on Raptors, you have one of the best PGs in the League, you need to make some shots! The Nuggets, who have become the hyenas of the NBA, looking for diamonds in the rough among players who have been cast off from other teams, continue to in the preseason play players who have been rarely seen in recent years. For example, who in the heck is James Mays?
