[Grades] Grades v. Hornets 01/21/2013

[kupman]

Seriously, no eye-candy? Seems this day just keeps going downhill.

 

[rainmaker]

At 312 square feet, this itsy bitsy Toronto home seemed appropriate to follow IT's grade.

Lol.

That's funny.

 

[Capt. Factorial]

As an aside, on the IT question, I just got done rewatching the second half now that I'm home (did not think there was much point in rewatching the first half), and whiel IT was the third leg of our Cousins/Reke/IT trifecta, he got KILLED on defense by Vasquez in that third quartr, and again when he ened up guarding him briefly near the end of the game (we wisely swoitched Reke onto him to start the 4th). It was about equally split wiht his new allergy to fighting through screens, and his twerpiness, as the much much bigger Vasquez would just make simple moves, get Isaiah on his shoulder, and then just take him right to the hoop. Or shoot over him. I think IT's defense was the proximate cause of at least half of the Hornets' 3rd quarter points.

Now you may wuv you some IT to death, but that's just the way it happened. I still call him one of the legs of the trifecta because he was, and it was more positive than negative. But he was kind of the designated get beat guy on defense until we were able to hide him on Roger Mason for a while. You can't say that lost the game for us, but you can say it certainly impeded our comeback (a comeback IT helped trigger otherwise).

I don't disagree on any point here, but I would say that his defense today was notably better than it was on Saturday.

 

[IfAt1st]

We've got the full (well for the time being, more recruits needed) Grading Consortium back online for this one.

I volunteer to be part of the Grading Consortium so that I can pick at the nits of Tyreke's game as hard as IT's are getting picked.

 

[Kingster]

I'm not putting this all on IT, but here's what PG's have done against us recently.

Vasquez-19/11/7

Kemba-14/10/4/4
Session-16/4/5

Conley-19/4/5

Price-7/4
Wall-14/10/3/3(off bench)

Chalmers-34/3/2/2

Collison-11/4/3

Conley-15/8/5

DWill-15/7/6

Calderon-13/3/1
Lowry-24/4/3(off bench)

Kyrie-22/6/5

Knight-20/4/2
Bynum-15/4/2


Most night is appears defending opposing PG's is a problem for us, and it isn't just stats but generally when they're that successful they're also dictating the tempo they want and getting where they want to on the floor. The only PG or PG tandem we've kept in check really this month was Collison, who frankly isn't that good and Carlisle had benched for awhile.

I'd like to see the stats of opposing 2-guards. As I recollect, they've also been killing us lately.

 

[Warhawk]

I'd like to see the stats of opposing 2-guards. As I recollect, they've also been killing us lately.

Then go put them together.

 

[rainmaker]

I'd like to see the stats of opposing 2-guards. As I recollect, they've also been killing us lately.

Of course you would, lol. Even when you see stats like that you're first reaction is, well, I bet Reke did poorly on defense too.

Feel free to dig them up.

 

[kennadog]

Seriously, no eye-candy? Seems this day just keeps going downhill.

Yeah, I seriously need me some men.

 

[kingsnation]

Um, granted IT's defense killed us today BUT people seem to forget that our whole freaking defense let Ryan Anderson go off, over and over again, throughout the game. In the 4th, he hit 1 or 2 big shots that essentially killed our rally. Yes, IT's defense may have caused some rotation and switch problems for our defense - but it doesn't matter. Our guys did NOTHING to adjust to the Hornets game and perimeter shooting today.

Besides the 3rd quarter and a bit of the 4th, this entire team deserves an F for their effort today.

Smart was his usual self, the starters were lazy and lackluster in the 1st half and the bench did nothing in general for the entire game outside of Outlaw.

One positive to take away from this game was seeing how flat out dominant Reke and DMC can be when they're fed the ball and they're leading the offense. I'm hoping but I'm not confident that this is the way it will be from here on out.

 

[Capt. Factorial]

Yeah, I seriously need me some men.

Will these guys do?

 

[Bricklayer]

I volunteer to be part of the Grading Consortium so that I can pick at the nits of Tyreke's game as hard as IT's are getting picked.

Havign an agenda is precisely why you won't be.

 

[UK_King]

lol an "agenda" on a basketball forum. Do they really exist? Wow.

Personally my "agenda" is i want to see the team win games. I couldn't care who gets the points if we win, if IT gets 50 points and we win I'm happy, if he gets 2 minutes and we win I'm happy. I don't care who's taking the shots i just want to win.

I just dislike this flavour of the month blame game that goes around, Jimmer was the target early doors, now it's IT.

 

[mac]

lol an "agenda" on a basketball forum. Do they really exist? Wow.

Personally my "agenda" is i want to see the team win games. I couldn't care who gets the points if we win, if IT gets 50 points and we win I'm happy, if he gets 2 minutes and we win I'm happy. I don't care who's taking the shots i just want to win.

I just dislike this flavour of the month blame game that goes around, Jimmer was the target early doors, now it's IT.

Don't worry, Tyreke was the flavour of the last 2 years.

Btw, I don't think I ever saw Salmons jump for a rebound. Just can't be having such a poor rebounding SF, or you're pretty much screwed any time your bigs are out of position to get rebounds

 

[Capt. Factorial]

lol an "agenda" on a basketball forum. Do they really exist? Wow.

Of course. There are "player-fans" who are more interested in their own player than the team (Euro players and Jimmer have notably had these), and there are "haters", who want to see a player fail (sometimes because they wanted to get a different player in the draft, or to be "right", sometimes for vaguer reasons). Naturally, these viewpoints, where not all players will get a fair shake, are not desirable in a grades thread.

I just dislike this flavour of the month blame game that goes around, Jimmer was the target early doors, now it's IT.

Hey, I'm not one for piling on, either. But if you think that by pointing out IT's defensive deficiencies in a format where it is my responsibility to point out his game-by-game strengths and weaknesses that I'm piling on, that's where you'd be wrong. I came in with no bias for or against IT. In fact, I'm not sure you can find a single instance of me criticizing IT outside of these game threads (in general, as opposed to moaning over a turnover in a game thread or something). I'm calling it like I see it, and soon enough we'll switch assignments, my defensive criticisms, when warranted, will be placed on other players, and we'll see what other people think of the job IT is doing.

 

[UK_King]

I wasn't talking about you capt. Honestly i rarely even read the grades (though after reading your post i did) I'm more talking about people who come and say "IT only had 3 assists!" in complete isolation as if to suggest that was the sole reason we lost a game.

Just to point out Wales isn't in England it's a separate country within the United Kingdom. (reference to bricks last picture on the gradings)

And it's Edinburgh. One of my favourite cities.

 

[Capt. Factorial]

I wasn't talking about you capt. Honestly i rarely even read the grades (though after reading your post i did) I'm more talking about people who come and say "IT only had 3 assists!" in complete isolation as if to suggest that was the sole reason we lost a game.

Ah, sorry to throw out that rant at you, then. There have been some pointed criticisms of my grades recently. Nothing I can't deal with obviously, but sometimes worthy of response, and apparently this time I overinterpreted your comment!

 

[bajaden]

I haven't read all the posts on this thread, so I don't know if anyone took umbrage with my grades or not. And, I really don't care. What I will say, is that when you watch a game where your responsible for the grades of certain players, you tend to concentrate on those players more than the others. In many ways, it takes away a lot of the enjoyment of just blissfully watching a basketball game. But thats your job, and as a result, its very similiar to what I do when I watch a college game with the idea of scouting one or perhaps two players that are playing in the game. The result is sometimes not what you want it to be.

I find the games where Salmons, JJ, or T. Robb play well, much more enjoyable than the games where they don't, and that has nothing to do with my personal feelings about them. As an example, I've never been a big fan of Salmons. I don't dislike him, but I don't get excited about watching him play. And, if anything, it might cause me to take any bias I might have in the opposite direction, to ensure to myself that I'm being fair. I'll summerize by saying, that when you concentrate on just a couple of players, you see more than if your just watching the game. If a particular player is one of your favorites, its natural to notice all the good things, and turn a blind eye to the bad things. No one wants their favorite player to have a bad game, and too many times, we want to blame someone else for those games.

I'll finish by saying, Bricky and I haven't agreed on a lot of things, but I have new found respect for what he does in this area. And frankly, I don't know how he's done it for so long and not committed sucide. Fans are the people walking down the sidewalks of New York lookiing at the sights. Bricky is the cop digging through the trash in the alley looking for clues. Both are going to have an entirely different experience, and overall view of what they see.

 

[treach1976]

I don't disagree with any grade here specifically, but it's curious that in a game where we lost to one of the worst teams in the league, the individual grades were pretty high (at least for the starters). What does this say about the nature of this game? Was it dominated by individual performances that brought us from the brink of a blowout, but not enough to pull out a win? Is there a general consensus that grades are relative to the competition level we are playing? Has anyone in the forum ever plotted grades vs. games & wins to look at the correlation? It may not have made as much sense when it was just Brick, as good as a job as he does, it's still one person's vantage point, but the grading consortium should lead to balancing out individual biases overtime. Also it may help answer the question of who needs to perform well to get a win? Bench vs. Starters, certain positions, etc. To an analytics guy like me this is enticing source of data (albeit subjective).

 

[jalfa]

I don't disagree with any grade here specifically, but it's curious that in a game where we lost to one of the worst teams in the league, the individual grades were pretty high (at least for the starters). What does this say about the nature of this game? Was it dominated by individual performances that brought us from the brink of a blowout, but not enough to pull out a win? Is there a general consensus that grades are relative to the competition level we are playing? Has anyone in the forum ever plotted grades vs. games & wins to look at the correlation? It may not have made as much sense when it was just Brick, as good as a job as he does, it's still one person's vantage point, but the grading consortium should lead to balancing out individual biases overtime. Also it may help answer the question of who needs to perform well to get a win? Bench vs. Starters, certain positions, etc. To an analytics guy like me this is enticing source of data (albeit subjective).

nitpicking, but: that's a bit of a misnomer. the Hornets, since Gordon has come back and everybody's been relatively healthy, have been pretty damn good. they've beaten teams like San Antonio, Houston, Minny and Boston and have been 8-4 over that stretch. falling behind as huge as the Kings did in the first half is still embarrassing, but there's no shame in loosing a contested game to the Hornets.