APBRmetrics

Interesting additional information. Yes, TO% doesn't tell the full story. Per pass doesn't either. Per touch is better but isn't the whole story. Mudiay's usage rate is more than 50% higher than McConnell's so he is doing more with his touches on average. TOs of course can occur bringing the ball up, dribbling to initiate offense, making passes or using the possession. The latter two share the biggest potentials for turnovers. Using the possession is probably on average far more dangerous than attempting the average pass. Comparing McConnell and Mudiay on TO% & TO per touch and pass is better than just 1 or 2.

With Covington, Grant, Okafor and Noel all defensive biased on RPM (but only Covington and Noel actually good on D) and McConnell & Ish Smith offensively biased but not positive, it would seem likely that Hinkie expected Embid and Saric to provide some offensive punch, even if not enough to balance. That will be worth checking in a year or two. Will both, one or neither go positive on ORPM? How soon will it happen and how big? To get to elite team level they both better be big or others will have to improve significantly.

Per touch is better but isn't the whole story.

what is?...

Mudiay's usage rate is more than 50% higher than McConnell's so he is doing more with his touches on average.

more what?...

mudiay has 4859 touches in 1994 minutes, 2.43 touches/min (2.15 frontcourt touches/min)...

mcconnell has 4459 touches in 1539 minutes, 2.90 touches/min (2.45 frontcourt touches/min)...

mudiay with 211 TOs commits 4.3 TO/100 touches...

mcconnell with 134 TOs commits 3.0 TO/100 touches...

chris paul is at 2359 min, 6304 touches, 189 TOs. that's also 3.0 TO/100 touches...

paul has usage 27.3, mudiay 25.6, mcconnell 17.0. is mudiay almost as dangerous as paul?...

bchaikin wrote:Per touch is better but isn't the whole story.

what is?...

The combination of the 3 stats mentioned as previously stated (or everything, if you more stats and ratios)

Mudiay's usage rate is more than 50% higher than McConnell's so he is doing more with his touches on average.

more what?...

More using the possession to try to score personally.

...

Mudiay's usage being almost as high as Paul means he is probably exposing himself to about the same level of TO risk / danger as Paul, at least in a simple model that looks at passing and usage and only the proportion and not the actual risk in every play. It does not mean he is near as "dangerous" in the way most people would interpret that term in basketball context (i.e. as a danger to score a lot). He is far worse than Paul on shooting / scoring efficiency and your data shows is almost 50% more likely to turn it over per touch.

J.E. wrote:That said I do believe Hinkie would have done a better job from here on out than Bryan Colangelo will, and I find the nepotism going on here appalling.

That's where I pretty much stand - without knowing any of the parties personally. Just my outside opinion.

ampersand5 wrote: Ultimately, the reason why I am so inclined to support Hinkie is because he embraces the same latticework model of thinking as I do (although he is substantially smarter than I am); a model which I value immensely and think will in the longrun, always lead to better results.

I'm pretty much with this also. Now, I don't think Philly has been great by any means in terms of talent evaluation & accumulation - I'm on board with the approach in general. I'm not one for "wasting" guaranteed money on middling resources for middling to below middling results. I'd rather throw my net into the unknown as much as possible (draft & youth) hoping for lighting in a bottle - all the while using the best modeling/scouting you can to increase your chances of landing those "finds" (Whitesides, Draymonds, Jokics, Goberts, Butlers, Thomas's, Middletons, Crowders, etc) later with your hopeful future star high picks.

How many of Hinkie's actual first round draft picks do the Colangelos trade away? Likely 2 or more, eventually.

Wouldn't a "latticework model" suggest more than tanking, trading anything for additional draft picks and depending very heavily on the draft? What about free agency, having more than a few GM friends, having more old school basketball types in the front office, preparing to win by having meaningful vets and / or winning, trading away some of the abundant draft picks for good players, reacting to RPM signals, considering that the coach with the worst record in NBA history over 82 games might not be good, that injured / unavailable right now draft picks may not as attractive as you still think or that there is a limit to these moves, etc.? As broadly informed as his letter appears, wasn't he one of the lower diversity NBA actors? I guess you can be a broad thinker and a very select actor... and you can be right or less right about the actions and the narrowness or the diversity of them.

ampersand5 wrote: The problem with aiming for 25 losses is that the draft pick quality radically diminishes in value for every pick higher..

This doesn't HAVE to be true - if a team does a better job of talent evaluation or player projections. Hell - my draft model would yield incredible results if melded with quality scouting data & such - yet just merely on college to NBA projections the players my model liked (relative to draft position) outperformed players the model didn't like (relative to draft position) had better careers (on average) despite being picked almost 20 spots later (on average). A single pick 20 spots later should almost never be better - let alone 500 past players a model likes AVERAGING a draft position of 42.4 having better careers than almost 500 past players a model dislikes (compared to actual draft position) with an average draft position of 22.7.

Don't get me going on the advantages those higher drafted yet lesser players had to succeed (guaranteed $ & roster position, coaches/gms allocating resources to them to help justify draft position, etc.).

I'm so tired of teams acting like the draft is worthless after a couple picks because they historically do such a poor job of drafting. Get an approach & a team of talent that can work together & get the most of assets acquired (draft picks) instead of flailing the same as so many other organizations with the same meh approach to drafting.

BTW, here's the old link I was referring to (improvements are already being made as we speak), has all the data in a spreadsheet for anyone to comb through. Full disclosure & such.

http://hoopsnerd.com/?p=867

You, Phil Maymin and a few others should just divide the teams in the league up. One per division?

How much of the GM under-performance is caused by screwing up the Best Player Available - Best Team Fit dilemma and different teams can screw it up either way or both at different times.

NBA.com has different projections for D leaguers going to different NBA teams. I don't know what the model or simulation looks like but wonder if someone could do BPA and Team Fit picks for every team for say 5-10-20 years and look to see which model or blend did best and which was closer to being the model of each team under each GM. I'd think that could be a Sloan paper or a good something else. Or has that already been done in NBA or another sport?

Here is one article thinking about team fit. http://www.coxhub.com/articles/kris-dunns-best-nba-fits
Most NBA draft analytics are talent first and only or first and fit done second and freestyle rather than quantitatively. Of course fit changes with time, player mix, coaches so any attempt to advance consideration of fit will face real obstacles. Maybe it might be best reserved for the very top, most important draft picks where there is an attempt being made to have a model of play, a certain kind of starting lineup / rotation or a lesser draftee is going into a stable team model and role.

Does any team get fancypants and try to identify the best future fit for where they think they will be in their plan 3-7 years from now? Maybe this is common? Is that trying too fancypants hard and allowing simpler models to beat it? You hear GMs and the media favor BPA but it sure looks like Fit gets a pretty good amount of consideration.

Crow wrote:

ampersand5 wrote:To put it in perspective, this is a potential lineup for next year

Kris Dunn/ TJ McConnell
XXXXXXX/Nik Stauskus
Brandon Ingram/ Robert Covington / Jerami Grant
Dario Saric / Nerlens Noel
Joel Embiid/ Nerlens Noel

XXXXXXX = player traded for Okafor/free agent signing.

Do you think that lineup wins more than 25 games next season? I don't. Not that this is an important goal. But it would be encouraging. 45 and 55 wins are a long way above, as are playoff series wins.

I think that lineup can definitely win 20-30 games next season with playoffs likely in the following one. The main point about that lineup is that they would be an exciting team that people would love watching. 45 - 55 wins are hard for every team in the league, and this core has a great shot at it. More importantly, that core has a great shot at potentially getting above 55 wins in comparison to the average NBA franchise.

Statman wrote:

ampersand5 wrote: The problem with aiming for 25 losses is that the draft pick quality radically diminishes in value for every pick higher..

This doesn't HAVE to be true - if a team does a better job of talent evaluation or player projections. Hell - my draft model would yield incredible results if melded with quality scouting data & such - yet just merely on college to NBA projections the players my model liked (relative to draft position) outperformed players the model didn't like (relative to draft position) had better careers (on average) despite being picked almost 20 spots later (on average). A single pick 20 spots later should almost never be better - let alone 500 past players a model likes AVERAGING a draft position of 42.4 having better careers than almost 500 past players a model dislikes (compared to actual draft position) with an average draft position of 22.7.

Don't get me going on the advantages those higher drafted yet lesser players had to succeed (guaranteed $ & roster position, coaches/gms allocating resources to them to help justify draft position, etc.).

I'm so tired of teams acting like the draft is worthless after a couple picks because they historically do such a poor job of drafting. Get an approach & a team of talent that can work together & get the most of assets acquired (draft picks) instead of flailing the same as so many other organizations with the same meh approach to drafting.

BTW, here's the old link I was referring to (improvements are already being made as we speak), has all the data in a spreadsheet for anyone to comb through. Full disclosure & such.

http://hoopsnerd.com/?p=867

I agree with you that it is an imperative that teams maximize their ability to draft well. however,no matter how great you are at drafting, having higher picks will always be better than lower ones. It's rare to find players like Lebron James and KAT at the number 1 pick, its much more rare to find them at the number 7 pick.

ampersand5 wrote: I agree with you that it is an imperative that teams maximize their ability to draft well. however,no matter how great you are at drafting, having higher picks will always be better than lower ones. It's rare to find players like Lebron James and KAT at the number 1 pick, its much more rare to find them at the number 7 pick.

I won't disagree at all with this - I'm more addressing the general attitude that if a team doesn't get extremely high draft picks, they won't have a chance to change their fortunes with the draft. But obviously the higher the draft pick, the better chance of landing the most coveted player.

This season, the #2 pick may end up being THE spot - if the #1 team drafts Ingram. #2 team will land the player with the higher likelihood of being an eventual superstar (by my model, & probably most others), without the risk of being destroyed by fans & media years later in hindsight (aka Portland).

Did you honestly think wasting more than 5 years in the best-case scenerio without considering the negative consequences J.E mentioned briefly to be lucky enough to get the top or second pick and even more luckier to draft a future superstar only to increase the title chance by a few percentage points was a wise decision? And this is consdering he somehow sees the future, doesn't make mistakes, acts with 100% efficiency and drafts the best available players every year.

I play Poker time to time and I'm one of those people who calculate the chances and risk/reward ratio of every hand (besides the usual face reading).

Considering Sam Hinkie's play, he had 6-10% chance to win the title by risking 5-7 years, 76ers' image, potential income, staff confidence, player confidence, fan reaction, media backlash etc. Is the championship worth 10-16.5 times more than all those things combined which I mentioned above?

A wise Poker player would never play that hand.

Sam Hinkie did a horrible job in pursuit of a hard task which needed high amount of skill and luck.

permaximum wrote:Did you honestly think wasting more than 5 years in the best-case scenerio without considering the negative consequences J.E mentioned briefly to be lucky enough to get the top or second pick and even more luckier to draft a future superstar only to increase the title chance by a few percentage points was a wise decision? And this is consdering he somehow sees the future, doesn't make mistakes, acts with 100% efficiency and drafts the best available players every year.

I play Poker time to time and I'm one of those people who calculate the chances and risk/reward ratio of every hand (besides the usual face reading).

Considering Sam Hinkie's play, he had 6-10% chance to win the title by risking 5-7 years, 76ers' image, potential income, staff confidence, player confidence, fan reaction, media backlash etc. Is the championship worth 10-16.5 times more than all those things combined which I mentioned above?

A wise Poker player would never play that hand.

Sam Hinkie did a horrible job in pursuit of a hard task which needed high amount of skill and luck.

I disagree for reasons already stated in this thread.

It's important to note that he didn't "risk" 5-7 years, or anything remotely close to that. With any GM, the sixers would have likely been bad/rebuilding for these past three years; they just would have been slightly less bad. Most teams are bad while rebuilding (and ultimately struggle to even make the playoffs).

What you are ultimately arguing is that you think being particularly bad these past two years, the 76ers have damaged their image, staff/player confidence, fan loyalty, media relations so badly that it's not worth the marginal increase in championship odds. Perhaps.


I just want to add one story ---

Masai Ujiri is currently lauded right now as being a fantastic GM. In his first season with the team, Ujiri traded Rudy Gay to the Kings with the intention and understanding that the move was meant to aid the Raptors rebuild and make them worse in the meantime.
Two weeks later, Ujiri went on to trade Kyle Lowry to the New York Knicks for Metta World Peace, Iman Shumpert and Tim Hardaway Jr (only for it to be nixed at the last moment by James Dolan).

On one hand, trading Gay made the Raptors significantly better, and Kyle Lowry is now one of the best PGs in the NBA. On the other hand, Ujiri envisioned literally the exact opposite of this.

When looking at Ujiri's actions, what tells us more - the outcome, or the process?

http://www.michaelmauboussin.com/excerp ... xcerpt.pdf

There are better ways to go than total tanking...

Sam took over the Sixers following the '12-13 season when they had won 34 games, chose the path he did, and had the results (and outcome for himself) that he has had...

In contrast, Atlanta in '12-13 won 44 games, lost in the first round again, with the usual media blather about how they needed to blow it up and rebuild. Instead, they elected to sign Free Agents: Millsap (huge steal), Carroll (huge steal), Korver (huge steal)
...two years later they won 60 games, were the #1 seed in the Eastern Conference, and reached the conference finals, losing to LeBron. This year again they have had a solid season and are heading into the playoffs, possibly with home court advantage in the first round...

or how about Detroit...Stan took over a year later than Sam, inheriting a 29 win team (and a team that hadn't won more than 30 games in five years), with an albatross of a contract in Josh Smith...so arguably a worse situation than Sam. He has since acquired three starters by trade:
- Reggie Jackson for Augustin/Singler/2nd round pick (steal)
- Marcus Morris for Bullock/Granger/2nd round pick (steal)
- Tobias Harris for Ilyasova/Jennings (huge steal)
...and in year two of Stan's "process" they have made the playoffs, after the Pistons had been out for six straight seasons...

"What about the Warriors?" you say -- Curry was a #7 pick, Klay #11, Draymond #35, Harison #7... AND they signed Iguodala to big 4yr deal, traded for Bogut, etc... NONE of their guys came from tank-level pick ranges. They excel at finding great draft value picks AND having brilliant player development... two areas you can certainly question the Sam era Sixers in...

It's easy to also notice how other "tanking" teams have fared:
Hennigan took over an Orlando team that was (the equivalent of) a 46 win team that had lost in the first round with 'superstar' Dwight Howard still under contract...instantly gutted the roster to go young, with the worst record in the NBA his first season (the Orlando owner said at the end of the year "Rob has done a great job!")... now four years in with win totals of 20, 23, 25, 35 and zero playoff appearances does the owner still believe he's doing a great job?

Connelly took over Denver after 12-13, coming off a 57 win season. Three years in with 36, 30, 33 wins... no playoffs. Lots of promising draft picks yes -- Jokic, Nurkic, etc -- but how long until they are again a 50 win team?

Phoenix also has been stock-piling draft picks, but after McDonough took over also following 12-13 and a 25 win season, they had the surprise 48 win/just out season, but now 39 and 22 wins...

...all three teams also featured the par for the course coaching change midstream (and all three were coaches hired by the respective current GM...) to suggest that the roster management was not the problem??

What gets me the most is the disrespect for fans in Sam's cynical model -- imagine you are a 30-year season ticket holder to the Sixers. In that time the team has been to the finals, oh, five times, winning once, with many other exciting playoff season through the years Now you are expected to continue to fork out all that money for your high priced tickets for three straight years of guaranteed horrible basketball? My impression is that the people who support Sam's approach are not actually buying tickets to the games, or buying "Embiid jerseys" at the team store, or even watching the games on TV -- why would you, when with league pass you can see all the other amazing games going on around the league instead? No, the people who like Tanking are very detached from being the people a team needs to continue to operate in a business sense -- the loyal, every season renewal true passionate fans as opposed to the bandwagon jumpers/internet theorists who will really support the team in more than a conceptual way/eg buy tickets only when the team is actually good again...

How many of you on this board who are pro Sam's approach actually bought Sixers season tickets or tickets for many games, or have watched many Philly games on TV from start to finish (not just when they played a team you cared about)?

In youth sports we try to emphasize the mentality that winning or losing is not that important so long as you tried your hardest, did everything you could, gave it all you had...

...I find it difficult to look at what the Sixers have done the last three years and conclude they have, even for a moment, tried their hardest...