Exclusive The Blazers Offense is Stepping Up Without McCollum & Nurkic

I think I saw that at www.duh.com.

 

I stand corrected, sorry @B-Roy

 

It's been better since he has been starting though.

 

http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/26439644/nurkic-earned-125m-bonus-win-no-50

 

Crazy thought but i wonder why they thought they had to offer incentive for him to play 70 games and have the team win 50 games?

Nah.... Lets just leave it as a feel good story.

 

He signed an extremely team friendly deal. This was a way to reward him if it worked out in our favor, which it did this season until he got hurt. Nothing conspiracy wise here.

 

Eww yuck. I wouldn’t want LMA for nothing.

 

No they are not in the same realm even.

 

He also says that they could open up the Full MLE by trading one of ET, Moe, and/or Meyers.

 

Actually there is ORPM. The most complete offensive stat there is.

2018 Nurk +0.76
2018 Kanter -0.32

2017 Kanter -0.02
2017 Nurk -2.28

2016 Kanter +0.56
2016 Nurk -2.11

Typically only the top 10-15 centers in the NBA have a positive ORPM.

 

Here is my own scoring measure. It's similar to TS% except it uses individual play-by-play events from nba.stats.com so it doesn't have to estimate the number of possessions used by a player as TS% does. Also it includes two additional factors:
(1) Continuation points after a missed shot regardless of who scored, points from drawing fouls. Some shots create much better chances of continuation points.
(2) Bonus points which give value to fouls drawn as that moves our team closer to the free throw bonus.

Code:

Nurkic (2018)
                            Points/Possession
                ----------------------------------------
Shot Type       Shots   And1    FTs   Cont  Bonus    PPP     %POSS    PTS
Layups          0.895  0.047  0.301  0.041  0.026  1.309 |   39.1%    480
1-5 feet        1.009  0.006  0.192  0.051  0.013  1.271 |   31.8%    380
6-14 feet       0.739  0.015  0.139  0.030  0.010  0.933 |   13.4%    118
15-23 feet      0.780  0.000  0.108  0.000  0.007  0.895 |    9.3%     82
Twos            0.900  0.024  0.221  0.039  0.017  1.201 |   93.6%  1,061
Threes          0.310  0.000  0.000  0.000  0.000  0.310 |    2.9%      9
Shooting        0.882  0.023  0.214  0.038  0.017  1.174 |   96.6%  1,070
Non-Shooting    0.000  0.000  1.529  0.000  0.100  1.629 |    3.4%     52
Total           0.852  0.022  0.260  0.036  0.020  1.189 |  100.0%  1,122

Kanter (2017-2018)
                            Points/Possession
                ----------------------------------------
Shot Type       Shots   And1    FTs   Cont  Bonus    PPP     %POSS    PTS
Layups          1.234  0.042  0.162  0.021  0.015  1.474 |   54.7%  1,188
1-5 feet        0.862  0.028  0.099  0.035  0.009  1.033 |   18.9%    282
6-14 feet       0.834  0.008  0.070  0.051  0.005  0.969 |   15.7%    217
15-23 feet      0.758  0.000  0.056  0.000  0.003  0.817 |    5.4%     67
Twos            1.066  0.031  0.128  0.027  0.012  1.265 |   94.6%  1,754
Threes          0.771  0.000  0.000  0.000  0.000  0.771 |    2.3%     27
Shooting        1.059  0.031  0.125  0.027  0.011  1.253 |   97.0%  1,781
Non-Shooting    0.000  0.000  1.630  0.000  0.100  1.730 |    3.0%     75
Total           1.027  0.030  0.171  0.026  0.014  1.267 |  100.0%  1,856

Shots = Points/Possession from made shots
And1 = Points/Possession from completing "and one" free throw
FTs = Points/Possession from getting fouled excluding "and ones" and excluding techs
Cont = Points/Possession from continuation after a missed shot, regardless of who scores.
Bonus = Points/Possession value from drawing fouls and getting opposing team closer to the penalty
PPP = Points/Possession total of above
%POSS =  Percent of possessions used in this category of shot

 

TS% doesnt estimate possessions used?

 

Pandas and NumPy?

 

No, it's all in C#. I know just a bit of python.

 

TS% does estimate possession used. But mine doesn't estimate, it actually counts the number possession used because it can tell the difference between "and 1" free throws and other free throws. TS% estimate is probably pretty good though unless a player gets unusually high or low number of "and ones".

 

A made 2 point shot and made FT does as much for someones TS% as a made three does, as it should. A made 3 and a made FT does better for ones TS% than a 3 does. So that's a bigger boost in one possession than a regular 3. Made And-1s are accurately accounted for in terms of efficiency by TS%. The only negative is missed and-ones, but those arent frequent for most good players (due to them usually being good FT shooters). Missed And-1s are also pretty constant among players in comparison to variations in volume and conversion rates of normal trips to the line, 2pt shots, and 3pt shots. So that flaw is extremely small and negligible.

 

Here is the data I used to estimate the intangible value of drawing a team foul and getting closer to the bonus.

Code:

3,639 games | 107.621 pts/g | 18.478 fouls/g | 99.253 poss/g
Fouls  Poss/G   PPP
  0    24.116   1.042
  1    19.775   1.100
  2    17.485   1.092
  3    14.196   1.088
  4    23.682   1.107
TOT    99.253   1.084

Strangely, the biggest jump is from 0 to 1 team foul, not from 3 to 4 as expected. Makes me not totally trust it. At any rate, I use this data to do monte carlo simulations of games at two foul rates (1) normal (2) normal + 1 foul/gm. The average difference between scores is the value of drawing a foul. This came out to +0.1 point.

 

Made and-ones are not accurately accounted for in TS% because it counts the one FTA as part of a possession when the possession has already been fully counted in the FGA.

TS% = 0.5 * Points / (FGA + 0.44 x FTA)

Player A makes a two pointer, gets fouled, and makes the FT.
Player B makes a 3 pointer.

Both scored 3 points on one possession. Should be equal.

A TS% = 1.04
B TS% = 1.50

 

Kanter's dribble hand offs are horrible and his screens are nowhere near as good as Nurk. His post moves aren't better than Nurk's and neither is his footwork and passing.

People are arguing semantics.

Kanter is a more efficient scorer than Nurkić.

That does NOT make him a better offensive player as there are MANY more things to do on offense than score.

 

Agree.

He is.

True, but in the case of the Blazers, Kanter's Blazers ORTG is higher than Nurk's is - so maybe in the case of this team, he is a better offensive player even if Nurk does some stuff on offense better than EK.