This. What was our starters combined three point shooting last game? Meyers has had zero to do with the poor performance of our starters, or other bench players for that matter. He's been rebounding like a fiend and even scoring fairly efficiently.
I'm not following your example. Who is player B? My understanding of "net on/off" is that it represents the difference between team performance when a player is on the court vs. team performance when that same player is on the bench. If this is true, it is implicitly comparing that player to whoever replaces him. If this is not correct, I'd love to hear exactly why, with links if possible.
It's not that simple. The same player doesn't always come in for the player going to the bench. Often times a guard will come in for a front court player, when going with a smaller line-up. For example, Mo Williams may come in for Robin Lopez and Aldridge slides over to center and we go with a 3-guard line-up. Plus, there are many more variables. As net on court/off court is a measure of team performance when a specific player in on the floor vs. on the bench, it is also influenced by which teammates, and which opponents, are on the court with him. That's why a large sample size is required to base any conclusions on this data. What the data does shows, is that our starters consistently outscore their opponents, and our bench consistently gets outscored when they are on the court. This isn't always the case. We happen to have a very good starting five and a very weak bench. The opposite is true of the Lakers. Their starters get consistently outscored, but their bench fares far better. They have had to juggle line-ups due to injuries, but if you look at the five players that have started the most games for them (Gasol, Meeks, Blake, Johnson and Hill) they all have significantly negative net on court/off court numbers (between -3.6 and -10.3), but their primary bench players all have positive net on court/off court. Such a clear delineation between starters and bench players is unusual. Most teams have a mixture of positive and negative net on court/off court numbers for both their starters and bench players. It's rare for a team to have all five starters be above average. On most teams, there are usually one or two below average starters and many teams have a super sub sixth man who comes in a lights it up off the bench and has a resulting positive net on court/off court. I'm not sure if that helped, all I was really trying to point out that the net on court/off court results for our roster are in sync with what we see on the court - we have an excellent starting five, one of the best in the league, but a very weak, below average bench. BNM
The best +/- 5 man unit has actually been Mo along with all our starters and Lillard on the bench. Should we have Lillard come off the bench? Obviously we have a great starting unit, the problem with looking at +/- stats for each player is they are highly dependent on 9 other players on the court. Mo has played the majority of the year with Wright and TRob on the floor and those groups are really struggling. Is it Mo or is it some of the other bench players he's paired with?
Things have a way of evening out. Our hot shooting was never something that could be sustained night-in and night-out. Since we don't have any other offensive plan, we're going to lose games when we aren't hitting our jumpers. Honeymoon phase is now clearly over. Recommence with trade proposals.
Of Mo's 800+ minutes, 212 are with Wright and Robinson (or Leonard), but only 32 of those 212 are also without Lillard. Of the 6 worst lineups (by win% and efficiency +/-), the Wright/Mo combo comprises the 6 worst. However, they're also part of the best (22 min of Lillard-Williams-Wright-Leonard-Lopez). http://www.82games.com/1314/1314POR2.HTM
We also had 4 starters returning who played extensive minutes together, and 3 of which have four years together. They didn't need time to develope on court chemistry, learn each others offensive tendincies, or use new coaches game plans. Our team was highly motivated at the start of the year to begin fighting for the playoffs compared to other contenders who might be playing into shape early in the year and aiming to peak at the end. I'm wondering if this team might finish the year playing more at the level of a 6th seed that has the potential to jump to the 3rd or drop to the 9th. Thats what I thought going into the season and after losing 5 of 9 games its more of a concern now than any time this year going back to opening night. We racked up so many wins early in the season they should at the least make the playoffs though.
I don't think that's exactly the problem. Damian was great, especially late. Nic was about on average, and Mo was a bit off. Matthews stunk it up, with 3 for 12 shooting, but it's not unusual for one guy to be off and the Blazers to still win. IMHO, LMA gets the primary blame for the loss. His game in the 3rd quarter was really bad: he shot 1 for 8, committed 2 PFs and had 2 TOs. His shot attempts included one make from 20', and misses from 23', 21', 20', 18', 9', 8', and 8'. The Blazers went from being up 5 at halftime to down 7 at the end of the 3rd. LMA's shot attempts were not forced and were ones that he normally makes at a high percentage. In other words, though he had 24 for the game and was really good in the first half, LMA had an unusually bad quarter and the team couldn't cover for the shortcomings of its MVP player. I don't think there will be many games where that's going to happen. I don't think that you can change the character of the Blazers this far into the season and be successful. Making a trade for a better defender changes the chemistry of the offense, which has been good enough for a terrific start to this point in the season. The team's been off its game since the Miami loss (with the exception of the Charlotte blowout). I think that they'll get their act back in order, hopefully starting tonight.
OK for fun.... Per 36 minutes Robinson scores 16.6 points, Leonard scores 11. If we were to adjust that to 12 mpg each would get in a reserve roll that would be 5.5pts and 3.6 pts are a positive difference for Robinson of +1.6 Last 8 games 4 losses (Forgot that the loss to Minny was pre-Leonard) -1 to Miami -2 to NO -2 to Philly -4 to Sac Now we say that the small difference isn't significant, but if all you did was swap the production (yes I realize it's far more complicated than that) then we win vs Mia, lose by 0.1 to NO and Philly and lose by 2.1 to Sac.... And that's not factoring Defense. BTW I am not an anti-Leonard guy I actually really like what he can be for this team.
Both players have their strengths and weaknesses, and neither is a complete player. I don't think Stotts is particularly committed to either, which is why we saw Robinson get some PT last night. Meyers can open the floor up better than Robinson, but if our outside shooters aren't hitting their shots then Robinson banging the boards and adding some inside scoring punch is a better option. I think that Stotts will just go by feel on how a game is going in making his decision as to which of these bench guys gets some run.
The other half of the equation is: how many points does each allow? Leonard scores fewer but does he allow the same number of points as Robinson?
Production via 82 games has Robinson at -3.8 (15.6 own, 19.4 op) and Leonard at -8.5 (15.4 own, 23.9 op)
What's the latest date they've updated that on? 82games is great for that stat but only when the site has been updated recently. Stotts is data driven; he'll play the least awful player when he can.
It kind of reminds me of those questions as a kid; would you rather freeze to death or burn to death?
