(OT) Chad Ford: 4 team deal in the works

on a good team collison isn't going to have the ball in his hands long enough or be on the court enough minutes to put up numbers like he did.

there really isn't any definite formula for it, but how much are numbers that don't matter supposed to matter? in my mind, certainly not as much as numbers gotten in games that are more meaningful.

and really, i do like collison as a player. i just don't see his value really be much higher than what the hornets got in this deal and i don't see it as some huge error by the blazers in not acquiring him. i think he should continue to be a very good nba backup or a lower end nba starter.

 

I guess I would say you're looking at two different statements and using them in a different context as to what I say is their value.

When I say we are in good shape with Miller because we have a 30+ year old veteran that this team really needs in the huddle for the playoffs. I mean we need a veteran presence and a mature voice to help the collective immaturity of an incredibly young team that is playing in an intense playoff game. I'm not referring to his actual play or his past in the playoffs, it's about what his voice and actions do in that huddle that affect the other players that swings the tide the other way or stems an opponents run in the playoffs.

And when I say "Top Ten", I'm NOT talking about being able to step it up when it matters. We have Roy and Oden who can't really be defended if they choose not to be, so those are the two guys who need to step it up when it matters. I'm simply saying no need to rush and get Collison or Conley or Tony Parker when we have a top 10 PG statistically in the league who is a pure PG and top 5 passer in the league. That's what the team needs anyway to increase W/L record for seeding, so no reason to be in a hurry to go looking for what you can already find in a mirror.

 

Isn't that pretty close to what Brooks did last year for the Rockets without Yao?

 

nope. rockets were 42-40 in games brooks started. hornets were 13-24 in games collison started. little bit of difference there in how competitive the team was in games. i'd say that effects how meaningful their stats were. and with less than a month to go in the season(14 games) the rockets were only 4 games out of the 8th seed.

 

I'd call the meaningfulness of the stats marginally different, despite what was or wasn't on the line for each team. Secondly I would fully expect a 3rd year player to have more impact on the outcomes of games than a rookie getting his feet wet for the first time in his career ... and even without Yao I'd say Houston had a much more complete team than what Collison had to work with, so I'm not sure I'd pin wins and losses on either guy.

You can either produce or you can't, and the fact is that both players are about roughly equal in what they can produce as individuals (except that Collison is probably a "purer" point guard and less of a scorer than Brooks).

 

i'm not pinning wins and losses on either guy. i'm saying that the hornets were a bad team and what they did really didn't matter all that much. a team that isn't really competitive and gives a guy 40 minutes a game when they are going to have significant garbage time leads to a player that can have very inflated stats.

 

no.

 

At the same time, he could have played those minutes and stunk. But he didn't. Would you rather he play those minutes, the team lose, and he stink it up?

 

If he plays like that, sure he will. You still haven't shown any evidence or logical argument as to why he'd play worse with better teammates.

They may not matter in terms of who is going to win the championship, but they matter as much as any other numbers in terms of how good a player he is. Unless you can provide reasoning for why it's easier for him to do well against NBA defenses due to having bad teammates.

I agree with what you say about his value not being significantly higher than what the Hornets got and that it wasn't a big mistake for Portland not to acquire him. I don't think there's a lot of reason to believe his numbers were inflated, though. Perhaps he got more scoring opportunities due to lack of quality teammates, but he used them reasonably efficiently, and assists should actually be harder to get with bad teammates.

I think he's likely to settle in as a roughly average starter. Solid all around. Nice young player to have, but hardly essential.

 

His philosophy, while having many holes in it, has a small semblence of logic. Tyreke Evans on a 25 win team with the best players around him being Hawes (PER of 13), Udrih (PER of 16), Thompson (PER of 14), Casspi (PER of 13), and Greene (PER of 11) is allowed to really have the offense go through him primarily.

Brandon Jennings was on a 46 win team with guys around him like Bogut (PER of 21), Ridenour (PER of 18), Salmons (PER of 18), Ilyasova (PER of 16), and Delfino (PER of 13) has many more productive members around him eating up many of the productivity stats.

So does it mean Brandon Jennings should have been the ROY? Obviously not. But it does mean that it is likely that Tyreke getting that award based on stats wouldn't have put up as good of stats in Milwaukee and Brandon would have likely put up better stats in Sacramento and the award likely could have gone the other way or at least would have been much closer had they swapped teams.

 

I guess it all matters who you consider the more beat up team. Houston was mostly healthy returning guys that made it to the playoffs the previous season, and made a run in those playoffs. The missing guy was Yao, who is important. But the rest of the team was intact, if not improved by mid season trades. Meanwhile, New Orleans was starting 2 rookie guards, Peja Stoiachovich's back is totally fucked, James Posey was a shadow of himself, and they had no bench depth to speak of because all their bench players were starting.

I would also point out that Aaron Brooks was voted Most Improved Player. It wasn't because of his stat line. It was because his peers voted him in.

 

On a bad team, a player may get an opportunity that he wouldn't have gotten on a better team. I haven't seen a good logical argument for why it's easier to take advantage of that opportunity on a bad team. If, for example, Evans were not really so good, being featured would have led to a flop.

Maybe he wouldn't have had the opportunity to be featured in the first place if he had been on, say, the Lakers. So one can make the argument that bad teams give an edge in terms of getting to show what you can do. But the "what you can do" part (the numbers, etc) doesn't seem any easier due to being on a bad team. In fact, it may be harder...there's no reason for defenses to do anything but key on the featured guy, if his teammates aren't very good.

 

That is the best counter-argument (that being that if you're the best player on a bad team, you'll get more focus and thus it should be harder to be "better"). But I'll also say it is somewhat flawed in that we aren't purely looking at FG% or stats associated with being guarded more defensively. Kevin Durant could be a good example of this theory to some extent. Being the best scorer on a team with no depth beyond 3 players, you could end up in a situation where you're taking over 30 shots a game between FGA and FTA, as where the 4th guy down the list has 10 FGA/FTA. How could you not score 25-30ppg given having the offense run through a player that much. And awards that reward newspaper stats like PPG can't help but given an award (see all-star voting) for things like 25-30ppg. He might score 15ppg if playing in Boston and Ray Allen might score 30 ppg playing for OKC, we'll never know, it's just the nature of the opportunities.

So I look at your counter-argument like this (using extremes to show the correlation). If a normal high school basketball kid went and played on the roster of a 6th grade team, he's likely going to be dominating the touches. Sure, everyone knows he's the biggest threat out there and he's being covered 5 on 1 by all the 6th graders. Might impact some numbers, but that high school kid is still going to put up 100 pts a night while the rest of the 6th graders score under 10. If that same high schooler went to play at a college scrimmage game for fun, now he won't get any attention, so his shots will all be one-on-one, or uncovered while they focus on the rest of the team. So his percentages might be slighly higher, but he's not going to be scoring 100 pts a game like he did against the 6th graders when the other 4 players on that team made sure the ball was always in his hands. Just my take.