Wins Produced?!

[Crow]

"Both are automatic from midrange when they are open."

You presented no data on this. You are constantly ignoring the weaknesses of your attack.

My past scoring of several games indicated that only about one-third of shots are what I would call open. If these guys who are "automatic"and hit 80% on those then they are hitting less than 35% of the other two-thirds of those shots and as impressed as you apparently are with the the former, I am not impressed with the latter. I missed the word "open" once and accepted the correction. My continuation was merely my chosen point of emphasis. Even if they are as good on open shots as you claim, the vast majority of shots are not and they are not above league average and don't deserve as much praise as I felt you were giving them.




"In average the league shots about 38% from 10 to 23 ft, Bass and Garnett are at about 48%."

OK but that is not what I asked about. We were talking about a specific sub-set of plays, off pick n roll. I would have thought Synergy would provide the average for that but either they don't or you aren't sharing it. But no big deal.



"The point is not whether you are impressed by that or not..."

Yes it is, if that is my statement that you are objecting to.


"But I guess most other players really suck on those plays."

There is an VERY important detail you are missing, shot selection is not just determined by the players own will, but more importantly by the shot the defense is willing to give up..."

I am not missing that point. That is just your unreasonable but convenient assumption because I did not exhaustively detail everything I am not missing for you.


"And you left Green out. Did he not support your argument against my cautious, need the facts perspective?"

Green didn't play last season, there is no data available for him. "

Yes he missed last season but he played for the Celtics the previous season. There is data for him with the Celtics. Whether you have easy access to it or want to share it or not.



Crow: " And overall they optimized their team eFG% to ... 14th best in the league last season. So you trust them to have done right on this detail, when the facts say they were not notably efficient at shot selection overall.[/quote]

"It makes not much sense to engage in a conversation when someone like you are completely missing the point or just blantantly makes up strawman."

You are right it is not worth pursuing this further with you when you, in my view, are partially or completely missing points, ignoring facts or just blantantly making up strawman about me. And feeling the same. We have done better before but I guess we are annoying each other too much this time. Too bad. Moving on to something more productive would be best for me.



"Heck, the Mavericks had Roland Beech on the bench, drawing up charts on the fly, you know, the guy who runs 82games.com, and you really think that they were just unable to see the thing which seems so obvious to you?
Yeah, it is easy to say that they should take different shots, but it not that easy to get that better shot against an opponent who wants you to not get that better shot. A part of the equation you seem to ignore.

But 43% of the league figured out how to get a better overall team eFG% than Roland and Mavs last season which you again seem to want to completely ignore. Your choice. No it is not easy work and the critique should not think it simple or be portrayed as thinking it is simple to do better; but it can be done better and was done better even by a number of non-elite teams. I think it is completely fair to note and weight that the Mavs were only the 14th most efficient at team eFG% overall when deciding whether to simply and quickly accept Terry's 32% on 3 pt attempts without Dirk on the court. Especially since no evidence has been presented to support your assumption that these shots were the best available and the efficiency of these shots are well below the team and league average for all shots.

I would have assumed that the Celtics would recognize that they were extremely high on frequency of low-efficiency mid-range shots and correct things... but they didn't, all season.

"If the Celtics could have gotten easier shots, they would have taken them. That is the reality."

Ok so they "tried" and no one can be critical. I hear your perspective. I am not going to take it that simplistic path though. They either did not do as well as they could or did not do as well as others could. 10th best on team eFG% is ok but not very elite. The teams that went further in the playoffs, did better. The goal is to win the title and to do what is hard, very hard. The point of the critique was to identify things they did not do well enough to get where they wanted to be. You may not like the way I said it, but it was reasonable analysis on my part.



Hadn't heard Doc say that about Terry at backup PG. I anticipated it but thanks for the information. I will still be watching how much they use it, with whom and what the results are.



"Short summary:

1. Shot selection is not determined by will, but rather by talent and opponents defense.
2. The Celtics have a couple of potential pick&roll partners for Terry.
3. Terry is better as the pick&roll ball handler than Rondo.[/quote]"

No objection to those statements per se and never had any; but they are only part of what we discussed.

[mystic]

No objection to those statements per se and never had any; but they are only part of what we discussed.

It is good that you have no objections, but I can assure you that these were the only things I wanted to discuss.

The rest is neither fruitful nor in any way interesting for me and merely a job of looking up some numbers, which you can do by yourself. If you think that Bass&Garnett are not good pick&roll partners for Terry, look for the evidence. If you are convinced that the Mavericks could have easily gotten better shots without Nowitzki, present the evidence. The result of 44.3 Fg% is NOT a proof that they could have gotten better shots, it just says that this was the conversation rate of the shots they took. They had, btw, 50.6 eFG% with Nowitzki on the court, above league average. So, there were able to find good enough shot conversation when they had the necessary TALENT on the court. And that, my friend, is Mark Cubans point.

[Crow]

"If you think that Bass&Garnett are not good pick&roll partners for Terry, look for the evidence."

Never said they weren't. Just tend to start out skeptical as whether they were much better than average. Skeptical that they would be as good for Terry as Dirk was for him. Still am, but I am more open to the possibility that Terry will fit in and help Boston to some degree.


"If you are convinced that the Mavericks could have easily gotten better shots without Nowitzki, present the evidence."

Never said I was "convinced". Just said I curious about whether Terry's 3 pt attempts with Dirk at 32% were good or not. I have looked at all the evidence I can currently lay my hands on.


I understand and agree with Mark Cuban's main point about Dirk helping Terry. But I didn't necessarily feel limited to have to stop there. I was a bit surprised that Terry took even more 3 pt attempts without Dirk. That is an interesting topic on its own to at least mention and wonder about, to me, even if the public data is not available for further analysis of that slice of the action.

[kjb]

Class is often lacking in discussion on the internet; I don't need to add to the problem! Picking an argument where someone has to be defensive is never right; I put them on the spot--I could easily have just written a blog post, or emailed Dave privately.

For what it's worth, I don't think there was anything unprofessional about your posts over there. I don't think you had anything to apologize for. I thought you made fair points, and that you made them well and respectfully.

[Dr Positivity]

Berri just put up a video blog basically unleashing some anti-APM/WP comment sections rage. It's a train wreck I can't look away from.

[Crow]

Any highlights you want to summarize? I started to listen but quickly found something else to do, at least for now.

[Dr Positivity]

Well they mention EvanZ by name (unless "Evan Zammer" refers to someone else) and basically talk about Daniel, though basically referring to him as a recent poster in the comment section stirring stuff up. The funniest line by Berri "You wouldn't have a medical doctor have their surgery reviewed by people who watch ER". Berri is basically saying the people objecting to WP like Daniel in the recent comment section just aren't trained in stats enough to evaluate which ones are valid or not, a la a ER tv watcher lecturing a doctor (him),. Earlier in the video Berri's objections to the people questioning is WP is basically "you can't come in here saying our model is wrong, because here's all the reasons your model APM is stupid!", essentially. The Alvarez guy seems like he's interested in knowledge and discussion, but Berri is 100% like the real life version of message board posters who when you try to argue with them or dispute their point, they derail the conversation by attacking the poster and their history, even the way he rocks back and forth just seems like the real life version of someone who got way too mad over an internet argument. Berri doesn't strike me as someone typically belonging to intellectual community at all just in the way he speaks and argues and emotes

[mystic]

If someone argues with permutations here, there are only two things possible: He either does not know the precise mathematical definition of that word, or he has big trouble applying that concept to real problems. Either one is excusable for Joe Average, but for two people claiming they are well educated in math and how to apply the concepts of statistical analysis to basketball it is a major blow.
k-permutations is irrelevant, because about 99.2% of the permutations are actually just different permutations of n!/(k!(n-k)!) unique combinations (in case of a basketball team for which k=5). And even k-combinations will give a clear higher number than the amount of realistic lineups, because each player has additional restrictions regarding the positions he can be used for. That's why we see just about 400 different lineups used by the teams in average over a season, not 3003+ (like k-combinations of a 15 man roster would suggestion) or even 360360 (like k-permutations would say for a 15 man roster).

Well, I stopped watching at that point ...

[Guy]

Wow, that's really something to watch. It appears DB really believes the stuff he posts. I think he needs to develop a new academic interest and focus his energies somewhere other than basketball for awhile. Otherwise, I fear that in a few more years he'll be found in a cabin in the woods, writing 20,000-word manifestos about the evils of plus-minus and muttering "you can't use the residual in your model."

[EvanZ]

Well they mention EvanZ by name (unless "Evan Zammer" refers to someone else) and basically talk about Daniel, though basically referring to him as a recent poster in the comment section stirring stuff up.

Not sure if this makes me want to watch it or not.

[dtjmcauliffe]

Why are people talking about permutations at all. We don't care what order players are in, and just using that word seems stupid. I get that the sample size is small on some of those lineups, but that's just the fact of people playing together in limited amounts, and player numbers are hardly going to be effected by playing 1 minute in a lineup.

I wonder whether the debate would move if people here stated qualifications(Not that it should matter, given the work, but it could overcome the barrier) There's not really any economic analysis in the WP model, it's just stats, especially given the paying of players is simply listed as pay players WPx(total salary/1240), without accounting for the constraints on some of the labour. I'd guess that the members of this forum are toward the far end of the education spectrum, and some of the problem in communication could be overcome with a EvanZ, Ph.D rather than EvanZ.(Or whoever here has a Ph.D)

[Guy]

I wonder whether the debate would move if people here stated qualifications(Not that it should matter, given the work, but it could overcome the barrier) There's not really any economic analysis in the WP model, it's just stats, especially given the paying of players is simply listed as pay players WPx(total salary/1240), without accounting for the constraints on some of the labour. I'd guess that the members of this forum are toward the far end of the education spectrum, and some of the problem in communication could be overcome with a EvanZ, Ph.D rather than EvanZ.(Or whoever here has a Ph.D)

I don't quite follow this. Are you suggesting that there could be a productive dialogue between posters here and the WOW folks if people here stated their academic qualifications?

[DSMok1]

If people are open to constructive conversation, they don't care about qualifications. (And yes, EvanZ does have a PhD).

Many of the early posters on this forum were PhD's who went on to work for NBA teams. Steve Ilardi did so not too long ago.

[dtjmcauliffe]

I wonder whether the debate would move if people here stated qualifications(Not that it should matter, given the work, but it could overcome the barrier) There's not really any economic analysis in the WP model, it's just stats, especially given the paying of players is simply listed as pay players WPx(total salary/1240), without accounting for the constraints on some of the labour. I'd guess that the members of this forum are toward the far end of the education spectrum, and some of the problem in communication could be overcome with a EvanZ, Ph.D rather than EvanZ.(Or whoever here has a Ph.D)

I don't quite follow this. Are you suggesting that there could be a productive dialogue between posters here and the WOW folks if people here stated their academic qualifications?

I don't know if would make any difference, and I don't think it should. I'm just going by the fact that some of the responses from the WoW camp have been that Berri is an academic, and they might think of people here(and critics on the internet in general) as just randoms without formal training, who are just trolling the WoW site. Stating credentials might overcome this issue and force them (Berri in particular) to stop using that excuse. I don't think that's the sole solution, but framing the debate as academic(In whatever fields all of you work in) vs academic might help, seeing as player evaluation is just stats, and shouldn't depend on whether you know stats from economics or biology or ...