Dwight Jaynes vs Mo Williams, the war is on!

Then I give up my anonimity!

 

lol

 

Watching Dwight on Wednesdays edition of Talking Ball. He really needs to hang it up. The older he gets, the more contankerous he gets. "I'm not a homer, I'm sorry" SMH.

I agreed with Chris Haynes in the that segment. I still think and believe Mo Williams deserves some credit for the start this team got off to and think he and his energy, shooting and scoring was responsible for a couple of their victories early on. More specifically the first four game road trip the team made back east.

http://espn.go.com/nba/player/gamelog/_/id/2178/mo-williams

 

That quote was hilarious. He was practically foaming at the mouth when he said it. How awkward for Barrett to be in the middle of them.

Mo is a road warrior. I though he was key in that road stretch as well, when the team was still getting their feet wet. And I thought Haynes was merely saying that Mo deserves some credit. Jaynes was flat out saying Mo deserves none. But Jaynes isn't the Homer? lol

 

And which stat or advanced stat shows that?

As BNM pointed out: APG 4.9 (NBA leading off the bench) AST/TO ratio 2.33

It takes effort to be THAT incredulous.

This is what taking extreme liberty with advanced stats leads to. The bolded statement is pure conjecture we must accept to deem his argument valid. In fact, Portland has played 98 line-ups this season. To go through all that data is a lot of work, and Jaynes is counting on us to not bother to look, assuming he’s even aware it’s available.

Let’s check out NBA.com and see the stripped down version from his “media site” at least.

Unfortunately for Jaynes, basketball is a team sport, and his argument lacks so many contexts that only a Homer would make the case he is with a straight face.


Let’s look at a sample of these line-ups to see if there’s any hint of truth to this, “he quite often is playing with a lot of the team's starters.”

● Stotts has played 10 line-ups more than 7 games that have also have played at least 20 total minutes together on the season.

● In Mo’s case, that accounts for 504 minutes of 863 minutes played, and 8 of those 10 line-ups.

I know that seems like a ton of minutes unaccounted for, but we’re looking at line-ups and patterns. In a season with nearly half of the team being new, we are all aware that Stotts is trying to balance winning and developing, as well as trying to find the best line-ups in a given situation. I don’t need to account for every minute and every line-up to prove or disprove Jaynes assertion. And unfortunately, that’s where aggregate advanced stats fail to convey context.

Line-ups 1 and 2:
The starting line-up (LA, Wes, Dame, Batum, RoLo) has played every game (36) and a total of 721 minutes. Their net rating (the difference between their offensive and defensive rating) is 10.3.

Replace Lillard with Mo (29 games played together) and that line up has played 103 minutes together with a net rating of 16. You read that right. This line-ups net rating is 5.7 better than the starting line-up. In these two most used line-ups, the TS% and eFG% are almost the same, and the assist to turnover ratio drops from 1.94 to 1.74 when Mo is inserted for Lillard. Mo turns the ball over more than Lillard – shocking, I know. And yet, the net rating is better with Mo in this line-up.

If we accept Jaynes’ premise that Mo is bad, and despite playing with mostly starter, we have to also accept that 10.3 is greater than 16. Uh oh CSN NW, we have a problem.

Line-up 3:
The next most used line up played 80 minutes together with a net rating of NEGATIVE 12 (Freeland, Dame, Robinson, Wright, and Mo). [insert sarcasm] Look at all those starters. [end sarcasm]

TS% and eFG% drops 3% each, and ast/to ratio drops to 1.32. In other words, replace Batum, Wes, and LA ($33 mil in combined salary) who are averaging 53.6 PPG, and arguably the best 3 defenders on the Blazers, for Freeland, Robinson, and Wright ($9 mil combined) none of whom are averaging 12.8 PPG combined, and I’m supposed to accept that Mo Williams ($2.65 room exception signed in August) is bad and the reason for the -12 net rating?
Only 3 other line-ups that have negative net rating in that top 10 list, all with Mo. One of them is a negative 5.1 and has Batum playing the 4, with LA, Wes, Dame and Mo having played 46 minutes in that line up. I don’t like that line up for obvious reasons, and in 23 games, amounts to 2 minutes per game.

The other 2:
LA, Batum, Freeland, Wright, Mo (23 games, 67 min) -12.3 net rating.
Again, 2 starters isn’t a majority, and we’re seeing something in common with more than Mo: Joel and Dorell. Joel isn’t shooting from 3, and Dorell has struggled mightily to find his groove. What I’m noticing in the success or failure in each of these line-ups it’s all about match-ups: size, ability to score, defend, etc.

Jaynes and other advanced stat homers (Pelton and his rubes writing for Homer’s Edge) expect their spread sheet to tell them what to think. Do I need to remind y’all how grossly inaccurate Pelton’s SHOENES system to predict wins was last season was, or that the same system has Portland missing the play-offs this season?

Dame, Lopez, Robinson, Wright, Mo (14 games, 56 min) -31.7 net rating.

Only 93.2 OffRtg and 124.9 DefRtg. Again, we have all seen Mo off his game at times, Robinson more so, and Dorell very much so, with a lack of scoring and defending. Dorell has been benched, and so was Robinson for a long stretch in case anyone missed that. But, unlike the “off with their head” crowd, I still have a good feeling that Wright will come around, and that guys like Robinson and will get better the more they play together, and carve out their niche on this team with Stotts help.

The rest of the line-ups in the top 10 that Mo is in (208 min) all have a positive net rating.

The moral of the story is, this took a bit of time to compile and it’s just a significant sample. But a washed-up curmudgeon like Jaynes, who doesn’t seem to understand how to interpret advanced stats in context (sounds like work), opting to regurgitate what other stat geeks tell him who do not follow the Blazers, is hoping no one actually looks into what he’s blathering about.

No one, and I mean NO ONE, is saying that starters are not THE main reason for Portland’s success. But what I am saying, and Haynes was saying, is the Mo is a big part of Portland success. Jaynes is flat out WRONG about the Blazers being successful despite Mo, and would be best served to print out the advanced stats he’s looking at and use it for toilet paper.

I do put stock in advanced stats, I just put ZERO stock in Jaynes ability to interpret them. A tool is only as useful as the person using it, and Jaynes is absolutely worthless.

Singling out Mo in a rant that is based on crap analysis is bush league, and Jaynes is a part of that group.

I’m include what I was looking at to make this post, and feel free to extrapolate whatever you’d like for yourself. The yellow highlighted 5 man units are with Mo in the line-up. Feel free to let me know if you come to a different conclusion or if you found any additions info you wanted to add about Mo.

 

Who is Dwight Jayens?

 

LMAO! He blocked you on twitter, eh? What did you do to have that happen?

 

Be a fan of the Blazers.

 

Seems to me folks are over-thinking this.

1) Mo is the best offensive weapon on the bench. Many nights he is productive enough you can over-look his weak defense.

2) When his offense isn't clicking, he needs to sit.

3) The Blazers don't have that luxury.

4) Nothing is going to change unless/until somebody else (CJ ?) wins Stotts' confidence.

 

I was basically trumpeting the same thing he was saying revolving around the team but he didn't like my attitude.

 

It's really the only way to combat distasteful comments on the internet. But in Jaynes case, he strikes me as someone who blocks anyone who is critical of him whom he doesn't also write about. He's beyond critical of Portland. I've heard fewer slights from the National media, and dare I say Faker fans? (ok, I MIGHT be a bit off with the latter. lol)

 

Mo 1; Dwight 0

 

So you're saying he can't afford to lose any more followers. lol

 

Anyone hear him tonight? He probably said "No Mo williams talk tonight" in the prep time.

 

Pwned!!!

BNM

 

Mo is among the league leaders in fouls per minute.
He shoots at a 40%fg, 35%3fg, which is pretty bad compared to the rest of our shooters. You can live with it for a bench guy, though, especially when he's providing decent assist numbers.
He has a PER of 12.1, which is almost exactly what Sergio Rodriguez' career PER was. And the same WS/48 Sergio had. On a good bench, the guy with a 12 PER usually gets 5-10mpg, or he's a backup center who is supposed to deliver hard fouls.
Mo is not really a good player. There's a damned good reason he's played on 6 different teams, and next year it'll be 7. He needs to be the 8th or 9th man on the team, not 6th. That he's even discussed as a good bench player goes to show how long it's been since Portland had a real bench.
My hope is CJ continues to impress and Mo is relegated to being a 15mpg backup PG exclusively, which is probably his best role on this team.