REAL PLAYER RATINGS (QUALITY) FOR THIS GAME DENVER QUALITY Nene, C 1.001 J.R. Smith, SG 0.746 Linas Kleiza, SF 0.655 Anthony Carter, PG 0.643 Allen Iverson, SG 0.576 Chris Andersen, PF 0.572 Dahntay Jones, SG 0.511 Kenyon Martin, PF 0.455 Juwan Howard, PF 0.294 LOS ANGELES QUALITY Al Thornton, SF 0.945 Chris Kaman, C 0.840 Baron Davis, PG 0.765 Mike Taylor, PG 0.688 Paul Davis, C 0.632 Tim Thomas, PF 0.368 Cuttino Mobley, SG 0.290 Jason Hart, PG 0.007 Ricky Davis, SF -0.173 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/Outstanding 0.800 to 1.050 Very Good 0.650 to 0.799 Major Role Player 0.525 to 0.649 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 (QUANTITY) IN THIS GAME DENVER QUANTITY Nene, C 35.05 Allen Iverson, SG 27.05 J.R. Smith, SG 26.10 Anthony Carter, PG 24.45 Linas Kleiza, SF 19.00 Kenyon Martin, PF 17.75 Dahntay Jones, SG 9.70 Chris Andersen, PF 9.15 Juwan Howard, PF 2.35 LOS ANGELES QUANTITY Al Thornton, SF 45.35 Chris Kaman, C 36.95 Tim Thomas, PF 14.70 Cuttino Mobley, SG 11.30 Paul Davis, C 10.75 Baron Davis, PG 9.95 Mike Taylor, PG 8.25 Jason Hart, PG 0.20 Ricky Davis, SF -2.60 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 HIGHEST QUALITY PLAYERS IN THIS GAME CLIPPERS OUTSTANDING QUALITY GAMES Star/Outstanding during minutes on the court: Al Thornton Star/Outstanding during minutes on the court: Chris Kaman Very Good during minutes on the court: Baron Davis Very Good during minutes on the court: Paul Davis NUGGETS OUTSTANDING QUALITY GAMES Superstar during minutes on the Court: Nene Very Good during minutes on the court: J.R. Smith THE GREATEST POWER PERFORMERS OF THIS GAME CLIPPERS POWER PERFORMERS Off the Charts: Happens only a few times a year in the NBA: Al Thornton Massive and Memorable Game: Chris Kaman NUGGETS POWER PERFORMERS Massive and Memorable Game: Nene Very Big Game: J.R. Smith Big Game: Allen Iverson COMMENTS How's this for a surprise key to the game: J.R. Smith made 10 rebounds! Also, Linas Kleiza made 8 rebounds, Nene made 11, and Kenyon Martin led the Nuggets with 13. These four insured that the Nuggets won the rebounding battle, which was very important in a game where, once again, there was no major point guard presence. Baron Davis went out early in the 2nd for L.A., while Denver continued with their inefficient and self-defeating "2 point guards in the game at the same time yet no one point guard in charge" offense. Keep in mind that it has been shown beyond any doubt that the Denver coaches do not subscribe to the dominant playmaker philosophy and so that they do not believe that even one true point guard is required to win games. Although the Clippers made fewer turnovers than the push the pace Nuggets as you would expect, their offense was completely disorganized as the result of the absence of Baron Davis. Whereas the Nuggets were a little better off. They had, in effect, a weak playmaker presence in the form of the Iverson/Anthony Carter combination, although obviously it isn't supposed to take two point guards with a lot of burn to do what most other teams accomplish with one. As for Nene, the plot has thickened. Although his offense came alive to say the least and although he was the Nuggets most valuable player in this game by a good margin, he was in foul trouble again for much of the night, and he did technically foul out again, in the overtime period. Some Nuggets observers continue to be confused about how Nene differs from Marcus Camby. They are claiming that Nene for Camby is a defensive upgrade, which as I explained in detail recently is ridiculous, even if Nene eventually stays out of foul trouble on a regular basis. See the Jazz game report for details. At the same time, ironically, they seem to be shy about emphasizing that Nene is a better offensive power than is Camby, even though Nene has no 3-point shot, and even though he is about the last player you would think of who can make a good play out of a double team or similar jam. But even so, Nene is overall a more powerful offensive player than Camby, while being a definite downgrade defensively. Nene has better man to man defending than does Camby, though the Nene advantage is overestimated by the Camby haters because, for one thing, the Camby haters don't reduce the Nene advantage for the personal foul differential. Regardless of just what the Nene advantage over Camby in man to man defending is, Camby is without a doubt a bigger asset overall defensively, owing to Nene's inability to get close to Camby on instincts, quickness, hands, and rebounding. USER GUIDE FOR THIS TYPE OF REPORT (Last updated Oct. 25) 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 s 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 Kegame 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!
