APBRmetrics

Patrick Beverley comments on how tough Chet Holmgren is.

Fwiw, they share the same agent.

Will be interesting to see October roster, then minute allocations, then next moves.

Lineup management sure to be chaotic but the underlying principles (if there are any) be could 2-3 playermakers on court with 1 shooting specialist, maybe 1 defensive wing (depending on opponent & situation) and 1 big most of the time.

4 of 7 most used lineups last season would fit this lineup specification. 3 lineups probably don't where Pokusevski or JRE are not really a quality shooter, are counted by me as more of a 2nd big on the court and not especially good at that role either. Perhaps they will improve at one or the other... or fade in minutes or fade out completely. Perhaps one will be the 3rd or 4th big. Pretty high likelihood that 1 or both is not on team a year from now.

Guards with backstories acquired to be enjoyed for days or months. And precious additional draft compensation.

Re-read my posts from April on and that is most of my preview for next season. What will get fixed? Tons of lineup issues.

https://twitter.com/bballstrategy/statu ... 45408?s=20

Another pass describing Thunder lineup management, but some new detail on overhelming impact of 5 biggest lineups on playoff success of title winners.

If you didn't link the link, here is the newest finding:

"The net points margin in the playoffs of the 5 biggest lineups for each the last 5 title winners averaged 95.5% of their total margin of victory.

5 great teams winning on performance of their biggest lineups. Not clever or lucky dink lineups."

6 players on team last season were -1 or better on BPM and none of the new guys. Some are close. Unless a player is -1 or close next season, they are suspect to be retained long term. The youngest have some additional grace but not for long.

RAPM and lineup fit also matters of course. Next contract market rate salary also matters, increasingly so over time. The default will be bringing in rookie contracts unless superior to that.

Attempt to steal unsigned RFA Ron Harper Jr from Raptors or D Barlow from Spurs? I'd at least consider those and others. Would have to do more that just a 2 way, drop somebody but I'd consider both.

Azubuike is a different situation. I liked him at draft. Not much new to go on Depends if they want a true center. They appear not to.

Hunter Tyson did very well in summer league. Nuggets got him with a Thunder draft pick pushback deal. Really strong defensive rebounder.

More years of Coach D coming, no surprise. But will team / average fan satisfaction be same, higher or lower in 1-3 years? We'll see.

The starters with K Williams at center is the only positive in last season's 20 most used that was positive and over 80 possessions. It is still a small sample but a +14 / 100p lineup can't be ignored on this team. Test further.

A handful of small lineups that were still among the 20 most used and yet generally don't meet the 80+ possession level of test, but being about 50 pts / 100p worse than the best lineup, I'd eliminate them.

A few others of the 20 most used were decent and might warrant further test, far more than last season.

But overall last season's lineup management discovered almost nothing hinting at or strongly suggesting real long-term value, using the math in a recent thread. It was a feel pretty good goof because of a splash of momentarily successful dink lineups but certainly was not a lineup foundation. Start basically from scratch with little sign of real knowledge or prospect.

I may have already mentioned in past that there were 4 strong, pretty proven player pairs and 4 pretty proven weak (with Giddey / JWill very weak).

3 of the 4 positive are with SGA but none with a starter. Would they have been predicted by sum of players? Pretty much but not really that strongly by coaching allocation of minutes to the biggest 20.

All 4 of the worst negative had Jaylin Williams but those pairs would not have the obvious worst by sum of BPM and they weren't by coaching minutes allocation either, as they got pretty much exactly the same amount of time as the 4 best. I prefer to use the lineup data. (With the far bigger sample sizes here I believe the current owrformance is closer to true value than with the smaller 5 man lineups.. But tell me if you disagree with this because it is only pair data.)


Will try to remember to check utilization of these next season.

Fwiw (some or little), Coach D was in a 6th way tie for 2nd worst difference between actual wins and expected Pythagorean wins at -4. Pistons had the worst at -5.

Coach D looked positive on this in 2 previous disastrous seasons by actual w-l, but this was supposed to be his best season. Arguably it coulda / shoulda been better.

the giddey + shai lineups performed poorly last year despite all the hype around giddey. joe + shai lineups absolutely destroyed opponents with a scorching 124 offensive rating. Some of that is variance, but at a high level its kind of easy to understand why. OKC doesn't really have many shooters, and Joe is their best one.

shai + giddey lineups are awkward with spacing. 3000 possessions of 115 offensive rating isn't really good, especially when you consider they had a 30% ORB rate boosting that ORTG number. their shot frequency profile shows them shooting only 29% of their shots from 3. They only managed 98 points per play in the half court which is surprising given Shai averaged 30 on >60% TS and seems to be able to get to the rim at will.

giddey's reputation exceeds his advanced metrics, and darko's career progression chart doesn't look that bullish on giddey. he's obv an inefficient scorer, but he does create for others. He does so at a high cost in turnovers. just not sure how much value that adds when you have Shai on the ball most of the time and Giddey can't shoot 3s. granted, he's young, and he certainly has upside, but i'm concerned about the long term fit between shai and giddey.

i feel like giddey is the prime trade piece if okc ever wants to use its picks to upgrade its roster

thoughts?

Yeah Giddey could be headed for an eventual trade.

They went from saying he was going to be THE on ball PG mid rookie season to NEVER SAYING that in his 2nd season and then adding several new PGs.

9 of his 11 biggest minute lineups were negative.

He needs fit. Even with his average impact ratings improving, he needs to fit somewhere. PG, SF, PF... in specific positive lineups.

Giddey on Twitter says "6-9 PG" in bio. After the draft he commented... "I guess I am a SF forward now". Then deleted it. He did not and almost certainly still does not see himself as SF or primarily non PG. We'll watch what happens from here.


If a trade is considered: Giddey to Jazz? Lakers? Spurs? Pelicans? Wizards? Bulls? Magic? Other?