Sam Presti article

[Crow]

https://www.si.com/nba/2017/04/11/thund ... a-playoffs

The Lee Jenkins story has some new details. Almost 10 years after Presti got started as a GM, he reveals a little. More maybe than in those 10 years but still plenty of mysteries.

Parents divorced, news. Presti comments on the divorce, impact on him, perspective of his parents and their impact on him? Nope.

A little childhood detail, some old, some new. Some left unexplored. (Why wasn't he happy & achieving around the bulk of his classmates? Did he need to be special and the lead and wasn't getting that from / with them? Didn't make high school team as a sophomore. Mentioned for similarity to MJ and to show grit to be there next year. Switch from VA Wesleyan to Emerson? Missed Boston. But maybe not hardly playing and playing poorly there was a factor too. Unmentioned... because presumably Presti didn't want to talk about that move from famous Division 3 program to perhaps one of the lowest ranked quality of play D3 conferences in the nation. And he didn't really have a good season until he was a 23-24 year old 5th (or maybe 6th chronologically) year senior. But he played and fought... and birthed an image. We hear elsewhere about the written contracts he required his teammates to sign with Him (and themselves) and charges taken. But not about his use of or accuracy with the 3point shot, a big issue / weakness with current team and never a great strength. (My memory from digging this up years ago was that he was either nothing special from 3 at his best and mostly light & weak but I don't recall the numbers exactly). To me Presti as a collegian and his reaction to those events would have been more interesting and telling about the adult than what happened at age 15-16. But nope. Missed Boston covers the first part, or covers over it. Really almost nothing about his Emerson play here. Maybe Presti grew out of talking about that part of the story. Including both the high school and college stories would have been better probably. We get more of the real young Presti because it is new and / or it creates greater empathy? Yes print space can an issue but Jenkins basically chose a certain narrative. A simple narrative, a narrative Sam probably preferred.

The article talks about what Presti did after losing Durant but says nothing about why he thought he lost him and what he might of done differently. Trading for Perk, extending Perk early, playing Perk to the end in the Finals, having Harden in a Ginobili slot in his design, a rigid design, giving him an ultimatum and losing it, firing Brooks, hiring Donovan, etc. Tons left unmentioned, uncommented upon by Presti or Jenkins. Presumably because he wouldn't talk about those things or in an interesting, revealing way. Instead we get the things he wants people to know to sustain the public image he wants out there.

Ok. It is what Jenkins got / gave, what Presti wanted, facilitated. But more left mysterious than cleared up. And besides brief quotes from Westbrook and Donovan did it deliver on the article title? Eh. Not enough to me but I guess Jenkins and Presti were satisfied.

The move from Seattle and what he knew about those plans along the way? Nah, nothing. His professional and personal relationship with Clay Bennett? Nada. Anything about why no former NBA player has a middle or high level job in his front office? Probably not accidental.

So why did Presti cooperate to the extent that he did? To sustain his image and burnish it after losing Durant... and before the playoffs? I guess. Slip in the quote about the honor of the good fight without the prize at just the perfect time before the next test. For a man coming from the Spurs and in whom the Thunder fans religiously chanted for years "in Sam we trust" to bring a title (actually the mid-early expectation was commonly 5), it is a pretty momentous shift from the prize to the noble fight.

Is he looking to freshen the story for some future development?
Trying to get free agents to "believe in him"? Almost no outside free agent ever has. None of note. Was that mentioned, analyzed? Of course not. Did Jenkins report on Presti's contract status? Of course not. Did he ask? No media has ever reported asking or reported what kind of response or non-response they got. Can you believe in a boss without knowing his contract status? I guess but I'd rather know.

"We can't be rushed." Oh? And the Adams and Oladipo contracts weren't? People can have different views on that. Adams, $100 mil while still a modest role player. Oladipo extended before playing for Thunder or proving much of anything before really. His season with Thunder could be said to be "same as before" or "worse than before in many important ways and better in very few".

Westbrook says he trusts Sam and he has given them a chance. Ok. But Durant used to say that til he said the reverse. Presti's record as GM the last few years is far less impressive than his first few. Any discussion of that and why? Of course not. The team that Russ feels has a chance is weak after him and very weak on the bench. Christon, Abrines, McDermott, Singler, Huestis, Grant, Sabonis. Weak imo. Very weak. A few other choices not as bad but not enough for my confidence in the now or the next. Have a chance? That isn't a super high test level. Presti has always operated the Thunder with a minutes weighted average age below or well below any title winner in at least last 30 years. Durant eventually got exasperated with inadequate help. Will Westbrook?

Presti famously got large credit for Tony Parker. We never heard about any misses though. Did he use this article to share the credit for Durant, Westbrook, Harden, Ibaka or others with any of his lieutenants? Jenkins doesn't provide anything more than he trusts and uses his staff; brief, generic, doesn't really share the credit much. I thought Presti worked his people before (duh), but wanted more about their value. That topic is very important imo because Presti talks about team but also shows a strong interest in / faith in / identification with the exceptional individual. KD, Russ, Sam. The Thunder might be said to have catered to their stars, their shots, their style of play on the high end. Presti would disagree but I persist with interest in the interplay of the two for consideration. The Spurs appear and appeared to me to be on the low end of this scale, with team trumping stars and star treatment. That has always been a big part of their narrative. The contrast between the Spurs and Thunder and Thunder rhetoric vs reality? Not part of this story. Fine. His story, their story. But not the full story.

Use RPM? Don't know. What were his analytic staff's biggest contributions? Don't know. What were his biggest analytic experiences, lessons? Don't know. What is he most intrigued about regarding future analytic questions and tools? Don't know. What were the biggest things he learned from Pop and RC? Not expressed directly. What did he discover on his own post San Antonio besides meditation, collecting quotes and no carbs? Pop clearly has major input on management decisions. The final say presumably when he wants it. Neither Brooks or Donovan have given any indication of much input or influence to my read. Is this right or wrong? If basically right, why has Presti adopted a management practice far different than the Spurs? If not true, gave examples of significant coaching input. Not just with 8th or 10th men. Big decisions. Strategy. Staying so young vs. more impactful vets like most contenders now and almost always. Was there ever a major disagreement? We'll never know when articles are limited to what he wants out there. Did Jenkins consider talking to Brooks, Cho, Perry or others who left? I dunno. But he didn't report anything attributed to them. They likely wouldn't say much of anything newsworthy. Because Sam wouldn't want that. Prefers his own selection of image releases.

What has Presti learned from West, Meyers, Morey, Jackson, Riley, Auerbach, Ainge, etc.? I dunno.

Maybe we'll hear more about some of these things in 10-30 years. But probably mostly not.

Is Presti an accomplished GM? Yes. But almost all his best most important moves were 7 plus years ago. The draft pick bounty from being bad / tanking and selling off players and cap space. No modern GM who has won a title took longer than Presti (and Morey) have taken without one. Will he get a title? The odds of it have never been lower and I'd say are against in OKC, sustaining his patterns and design principles. This shot from the 6th seed, may see other of that level or a little higher or lower. Another finals or a title with or after Westbrook? Anything is theoretically possible but I don't expect it. Russ might or wants to believe. At least at this time. Wonder how he will feel in 2 weeks or a year or two.

[Crow]

Playoffs so far: Russ not hitting. Oladipo unbelievably bad. Adams at replacement level or worse. Kanter, "can't play Kanter".

Puff piece in the bag ahead of time? Good marketing.

[Crow]

Ok, for this playoffs:

Russ as super mega usage guy? Didn't work out as well as hoped.
Oladipo as #2? Oops. Major Oops.
Adams? Meh.
Kanter? Nope.
Rest of cast? 2-3 yeah; rest, nah. Way nah on most.

[Mike G]

Maybe it's just that one superstar is less effective than 2.
Nobody planned for the team to go into the tank as shooters -- forcing RW to do even more of that.
Ranked by RS Pts/G:

Code: Select all

OKC       Regular Season      - Playoffs - 
Thunder   mpg   ppg   ts%    mpg   ppg   ts%
Westbrook 35   31.6  .554    39   37.4  .511
Oladipo   33   15.9  .534    36   11.6  .424
Kanter    21   14.3  .599     9    4.8  .432
Adams     30   11.3  .588    31    8.0  .609
Gibson    21    9.0  .528    24    9.8  .636
Roberson  30    6.6  .511    37   11.6  .525
McDermott 20    6.6  .551    13    5.0  .694
Abrines   16    6.0  .560    16    4.8  .485
Grant     19    5.4  .566    22    9.2  .675

The Houston series was at the same pace as OKC RS.
Somehow with this Westbrook-centric distribution, the Thunder TO% was improved by almost 2. This vs a Rockets team that created more than NBA avg in the RS.

EDIT: Just 3 players had worse TO% in the postseason -- Gibson, Roberson, McDermott. They are also 3 of the 4 who had better TS%. Only Jerami Grant improved on both.

[Crow]

It wasn't "the plan" for rest of team to score less... but it was predictable, what I expected.

[Mike G]

If it was predictable, then surely it was predicted?

[Crow]

The super Russ usage pattern was so established / predictable it no longer needed comment. It was beyond hope of change. But read Daily Thunder comments for years on years if you want comments about the undesirableness of his massive usage concentration.

For comments about bench weakness and overall team shooting weakness see same and recently a little at the Real GM forum. I rarely talk Thunder here but I might have said a little on these topics here before.

Not really about neatly packaged explicit prediction. More about the reality and seeing / expecting it.I didn't give this series much attention because I expected pretty much what happened.

[Mike G]

Kanter's main playoff experience was last year, and he had superstar numbers.
Oladipo had zero postseason until this one. Adams was pretty good last year. Then they all went in the tank this year vs Houston.
How would any of this have been expected?

Westbrook's Ast% went from 57 in RS to 56 in PS. TO% from 16 to 14. What could he/they have done differently, other than make more shots?

I now notice Adams' 5-game +/-
-22 (31-point loss)
+18 (fouled out)
+5
+5
+10
He wasn't bad, he just didn't get to shoot much, nor rebound.

[Crow]

Kanter had good numbers last playoffs... when he played moderately and little to no numbers when they didn't / "couldn't" play him much reasonably or at all. He had a good season this year but ended it late in regular season on his weakest note. Oladipo was overly deferential to Russ and generally timid / passive most of the season. No surprise to me that he wasn't strong though I didn't think he'd be this bad. Adams wasn't down much from his norms but he didn't go up as much as hoped during the regular season and that hope had faded before playoffs as he settled into Russ role player / fan boy not junior leader. Just about every Thunder fan I would say expected Russ' usage to go from highest ever regular to way higher in playoffs. Most probably expected he could maintain his modest efficiency. Surrounded by what Presti surrounded him with I expected fall off. Not that much. So if you want to use surprise, yeah surprise by degree but not surprise in general.

[Crow]

Related

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/th ... odern-nba/

[Mike G]

So a 1.1 SRS met a 5.8 SRS in the playoffs and didn't lose by the expected 4.7 ppg, but by 8.6 -- 3.9 ppg worse than expected.
Here are RS and PS player BPM

Code: Select all

. Houston     mpg    RS     PS    gain
Lou Williams   28   -2.6    3.0    3.3
Nene Hilario   22     .5    5.7    2.4
Eric Gordon    33   -1.4    1.9    2.3
Clint Capela   22    1.0    5.0    1.9
P Beverley     28    2.3    4.4    1.2
Trevor Ariza   38    1.7    1.3    -.3
Ryan Anderson  29    -.8   -2.8   -1.2
James Harden   37   10.1    8.5   -1.2
. total       238                  8.3
            
. Oklahoma    mpg    RS     PS    gain
Andre Roberson 37     .1    4.3    3.2
Steven Adams   31     .5    1.7     .8
Doug McDermott 13   -4.9   -3.7     .3
Semaj Christon  4   -6.3   -3.3     .3
Kyle Singler    2   -5.9  -14.0    -.3
Jerami Grant   22   -1.7   -2.6    -.4
Norris Cole     5   -8.2  -13.8    -.6
Alex Abrines   16   -2.5   -6.4   -1.3
Taj Gibson     24   -4.6   -7.9   -1.6
R Westbrook    39   15.5   13.2   -1.9
Enes Kanter     9   -1.2  -11.3   -1.9
Victor Oladipo 36   -1.3   -5.9   -3.5
. total       239                 -6.9

gain = (PO-RS)*mpg/48
i.e., points above or below expectation, relative to RS and opponent.
Rockets' pleasant surprises outweigh their disappointments; OKC underachievers outweigh their overs.
To my untrained eye, it seems equally likely that Kanter and Oladipo go off, while Lou and Nene flounder. And then it's a 7-game series.