Talking point guard/Evans/etc. (split from Wolves grade thread)

[Rookie]

miller is a good shooter, battier is a better shooter than kobe and lebron(by a wide margin) so im not surprised that they are ranked higher in TS%. are they better players? hell no but they are better shooters.

its funny that lebron and kobe are ranked 113 and 114 respectively...

I'm not sure if they're better shooter because guys like Kobe/lebron always get double up or have the best team defender on them. However you can't really implement that into any quantifiable method so they get ranked where they're at. I don't know the formula for calculating TS% so I'm just guessing.

 

[AriesMar27]

I'm not sure if they're better shooter because guys like Kobe/lebron always get double up or have the best team defender on them. However you can't really implement that into any quantifiable method so they get ranked where they're at. I don't know the formula for calculating TS% so I'm just guessing.

well keep in mind its just ranking their shooting abilities... lebron and kobe are light years ahead battier in overall talent. i was just talking about the fact that lebron and kobe are both in the same spot. for those that like to argue whether kobe is better than lebron and vice versa...

 

[Heuge]

Wow, what a thread.

Evans is good. The best we could have drafted. He is and will be the direction this franchice is taking for at least 4 years. If you are a Kings fan, it appears as though you are going to have to suck it up and take it. (which shouldnt be a hard thing to do, considering how effective he has been in his first month.) Pg, combo guard, whatever...this is our direction and things appear to be headed positively.

 

[AriesMar27]

Wow, what a thread.

Evans is good. The best we could have drafted. He is and will be the direction this franchice is taking for at least 4 years. If you are a Kings fan, it appears as though you are going to have to suck it up and take it. (which shouldnt be a hard thing to do, considering how effective he has been in his first month.) Pg, combo guard, whatever...this is our direction and things appear to be headed positively.

true...

 

[Superman]

I stand corrected. MJ is right behind Andrei Kirilenko, Kenny Smith, and Dana Barros.

At #86 Brad is just ahead of guys like Larry Bird and Oscar Robertson.

The good news is with a little work Lebron & Kobe can catch Shane Battier.

I was gonna say that stats can say whatever you want them to. I read a Bill Simmons article in which he says there's some plus/minus stat that proves that Kevin Durant made the Thunder worse last season, and proves that Tim Thomas is underrated. The point was that you can create a formula that proves whatever you want it to prove, but it's usefulness has to measured based on what the results tell you vs. what you know the truth is.

And any metric that says Larry Bird and Oscar Robertson weren't as effective scoring the ball as [Edit: Brad Miller] is has to be taken with a grain of salt.

 

[bajaden]

I stand corrected. MJ is right behind Andrei Kirilenko, Kenny Smith, and Dana Barros.

At #86 Brad is just ahead of guys like Larry Bird and Oscar Robertson.

The good news is with a little work Lebron & Kobe can catch Shane Battier.

So to be a HOF'er its all about volume and not efficiency.. Where does A.I. stand on the list?

 

[bajaden]

miller is a good shooter, battier is a better shooter than kobe and lebron(by a wide margin) so im not surprised that they are ranked higher in TS%. are they better players? hell no but they are better shooters.

its funny that lebron and kobe are ranked 113 and 114 respectively...

If these are lifetime percentages then I'm sure that they're somewhat affected by the early years of the player. If you look at LeBron's first two years in the league he was a terrible shooter. I think he shot something like .419% his first year. The same could be said of Jordan, who was a much better shooter later in his career.

 

[bajaden]

well keep in mind its just ranking their shooting abilities... lebron and kobe are light years ahead battier in overall talent. i was just talking about the fact that lebron and kobe are both in the same spot. for those that like to argue whether kobe is better than lebron and vice versa...

I would think that players like Kobe, Jordan, and LeBron are more likely to have the ball in their hands with the clock running down and every player on the other team knowing that their the one thats going to get the last shot. I doubt that there's a stat on that, but my guess is that last shot percentages probably aren't very good.

 

[LookingAround]

I wouldnt excatly call it playing the point guard. Even Westphal has said its more a combo. The pass that Sergio made to Hawes last nigh Evans can't make. That's just a vision he doesnt have. Sure he will make some from time to time, but nothing like Sergio does.

This specific pass was less vision an more the ability to see one step ahead, know to make a plan how to make the move surprising, good decision making and ability to pass with timing.
Court vision too but it is too easy for Sergio. He saw Spencer a lot of time before the pass he made.
Knowing Sergio you learn not to be confused by his no-look...I knew while watching the game live what Sergio is going to do before he even mad the stop, just when seeing Hawes making his way to the basket.

Court vision is like the pass at 4:22 here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aElL7nKnUZs
But you can find easily better that that if looking thought some past highlights.

 

[AriesMar27]

I would think that players like Kobe, Jordan, and LeBron are more likely to have the ball in their hands with the clock running down and every player on the other team knowing that their the one thats going to get the last shot. I doubt that there's a stat on that, but my guess is that last shot percentages probably aren't very good.

while that is true that players like lebron, kobe and jordan shoot tougher shots, if they were to compete in the three point shoot out with battier im pretty sure that battier would win. if it were free throws, battier would probably win.... yes they do make the tough shots but ive watched a lot of laker games in my life being from los angeles. kobe is a bad three point shooter, even today he really isnt much of a three point shooter. if a team wants to beat the lakers all they have to do is force kobe into a three point shooting contest. he'll fall for it if its a good shooter with a reputation for making threes and the lakers will lose.

i love lebron, but he is a bad shooter... he has improved a lot since he entered the league but he isnt nearly as good of a shooter as battier.

jordan is jordan, he wasnt the best shooter but he was and is the best player ever. no one comes close.... but battier would be a better overall shooter.

 

[Gary]

This is basically BrickMyth #1, that if you take into account the "magic shots" that Jerry Reynolds (and nobody else I have ever seen) fails to count, that Kevin suddenly becomes pedestrian in efficiency.

It's not true. There's a very good statistic that takes into account those "magic shots" called TS% (True Shooting Percentage; it's a bad name, because it's not a percentage in any way). The simplest interpretation is that if you take TS% and multiply by two, you get the number of points a player scores every time he attempts to shoot the basketball, fouled or not.

According to TS%, Martin is currently 14th-best all time in efficiency, scoring 1.21 points per shot attempt. Steve Nash (also at 1.21) is the only guy better among active players (minimum 700 points scored, career). 14th-best all time and 2nd best active is obviously very good efficiency.



Well, let's look at the numbers:

Kevin this season: 1.15 points per shot attempt (ppsa, this would be #57 all time just above Ray Allen)
Kevin, career: 1.21 ppsa

Beno this season: 1.26 ppsa (this would be #2 all time)
Beno, career: 1.07 ppsa

Omri: 1.19 ppsa (this would be good for #22 all time)

Greene, this season: 1.15 ppsa (this would also be #57 all time)
Greene, career: 0.95 ppsa

Sergio, this season: 1.14 ppsa (#69 all time)
Sergio, career: 0.97 ppsa

So in fact these guys have been ridiculously efficient this year, Beno particularly so. Omri would be even higher if he could hit a free throw (if he shot 75% from the line, he'd be at 1.27 ppsa, good for best all-time ). But that's all this year, only a 22-game sample (5 for Kevin). Kevin is the only one who actually has a history of shooting this efficiently. If these other guys can keep up the shooting, then they do make Kevin somewhat redundant - but that's a big if.

I agree, hopefully Kevin can pick up the defense. Even so, taking history into account there's not a lot of reason to believe he isn't still our most efficient scorer.

that's basically what I was trying to get at.. I can't see the team being THAT much better with Martin back on the floor. We will see though.. Grant Napear's argument was (and I am paraphrasing) "you put a 30ppg scorer into the lineup and the team will definitely get better"..

I don't believe that for a second.. When Zach Randolph was averaging 20/10 could you have put him into the Kings lineup and make them better? Doubt it. It takes a special player who can be both a roleplayer, and a star player on any given night who makes others around him better to affect a team positively. One dimensional players are just that.. Their stats might make them look like all-stars but hey really don't help the team much.

Evans has had a positive effect on others around him it seems since Martins injury. Personally (and it's hard saying this being a Martin homer) I would rather have a 20ppg Evans with the supporting cast out there right now than a 30ppg Martin with the rest of the team being ineffective. I still have the first couple games on my TiVo if anyone wants to come over and watch with me

 

[Kingster]

that's basically what I was trying to get at.. I can't see the team being THAT much better with Martin back on the floor. We will see though.. Grant Napear's argument was (and I am paraphrasing) "you put a 30ppg scorer into the lineup and the team will definitely get better"..

I don't believe that for a second.. When Zach Randolph was averaging 20/10 could you have put him into the Kings lineup and make them better? Doubt it. It takes a special player who can be both a roleplayer, and a star player on any given night who makes others around him better to affect a team positively. One dimensional players are just that.. Their stats might make them look like all-stars but hey really don't help the team much.

Evans has had a positive effect on others around him it seems since Martins injury. Personally (and it's hard saying this being a Martin homer) I would rather have a 20ppg Evans with the supporting cast out there right now than a 30ppg Martin with the rest of the team being ineffective. I still have the first couple games on my TiVo if anyone wants to come over and watch with me

It's going to be very interesting to see what the "Martin effect" is. I guess we can all agree we don't just add 30 points to our offense with everything else staying the same. I still come back to the fact that if Martin is back, at least Greene can go back to the three, which is his natural position (and maybe a little to the 4), which to my mind, is all to the good. If Martin is conservative with the ball, moving without the ball and opening the floor with his outside shot, but confining himself to that role, the Kings should be better, but not by a huge amount, that's for sure.

 

[AleksandarN]

Martin is NOT ball dominant. That would not work at all. Or rather what I should say is he does not have to be. He was to start this season.

Martin IS shot/play dominant. Like all big scorers. He eats up a ton of shots (and those magic shots nobody wants to count where he goes to the line). And he eats up a ton of effort/focus/plays run to make it happen. When a player is NOT ball dominant, as Kevin is not, its also another way of saying that they cannot create ther own shot. And when they score a ton of points anyway its not because of magic scoring sauce, its becausae the TEAM, the offense, is working to get them those shots they don't create themselves.

Which leads to three points. First, that could be said of almost any scorer, regardless of the position. If we trade Kevin for Chris Bosh, he's going to use up a ton of shots/possessins himself. The point would be that allegeldy magic Kevin isn't any different, that he plays byt he same rules, not that he is necessarily worse about that than any other major scorer.

Second, however, is the point that this magic "doesn't take any extrapossessions" Kevin people refer to is in essence just Kevin's leakouts on the fastbreak and then standstill jumpers on kickouts. Who knows how many ppg that Kevin scores, but it ain't 24, and it certainly ain't 30.

And here is point Three, a lot of guys can be similarly efficient if that is all you are going to use Kevin for -- in fact take a look at the numbers of the guys Kevin will be taking minutes from:

Beno (.548 FG% .448 3pt% .875 FT%)
Omri (.525 FG% .490 3pt% .481 FT%)
Donte (.488 FG% .396 3pt% .590 FT%)
Sergio (.473 FG% .440 3pt% .750 FT%)

Kevin's numbers this season:
Kevin 09-10 (.423 FG% .447 3pt% .857 FT%)
Kevin's numbers last season:
Kevin 08-09 (.420 FG% .414 3pt% .867 FT%)

How much more efficient than the above listed players can Kevin possibly be? Apart from the FT stripe, in which case Kevin would be perhaps the first player in history started for his his free throw shooting. And the thing is, and one of the the real questions going forward, assuming that Kevin backs way off, assuming he returns to more efficient days and is as efficient as those above players have been offensively, what about the other aspects fo the game? because amazingly those players listed above all understand that scoring alone is a loser's game and all bring other things to the table as well. Sergio and Beno have been that efficent while simultaneously providing ball handling + passing. Omri & Donte while simulataneously providing size, scrap and defense. What does Kevin simultaneously provide while he's scoring? His way of providing "extra" has always been to provide even more scoring. If Kevin averages more ppg in Donte and Sergio's minutes than Donte & Sergio do (they combine for 15.4ppg in 34.5min), as you can see from their percentages above its not going to be because Kevin is going to be that much more efficent than they have been. Its going to be because he is taking more shots out of the offense than they do, whihc will be drained off from the other players listed, or Tyreke, or Jason, or Noc (the last one finally an appealing notion).

In reality you can not compare Beno, Donte stats to Kevin. Kevin is the defensive focus of alot teams. Where Beno and others are not.

 

[Capt. Factorial]

Evans has had a positive effect on others around him it seems since Martins injury. Personally (and it's hard saying this being a Martin homer) I would rather have a 20ppg Evans with the supporting cast out there right now than a 30ppg Martin with the rest of the team being ineffective. I still have the first couple games on my TiVo if anyone wants to come over and watch with me

I hadn't really thought of it that way, but it's possible that when your four backcourt guys not named Evans all are having career seasons in terms of efficiency there may be an underlying reason outside of sheer chance. That underlying reason might just be Evans. He demands perimeter defense, and the defense that he draws may be freeing up easier shots for whomever else is in the backcourt with him.

So when Kevin comes back, he may actually find himself treated to less defensive pressure than he is used to when he plays alongside 'Reke. Expecting Martin to have an efficiency jump like Beno or Greene this year may be a bit much, but it's not really out of the question that he might even improve on his career numbers. I may be in the minority here, but I just don't think it's a foregone conclusion that Martin and Tyreke can't coexist effectively in the same backcourt, and I'm looking forward to seeing them try to put it together once Kevin gets back.

 

[Telemachus]

that's basically what I was trying to get at.. I can't see the team being THAT much better with Martin back on the floor. We will see though.. Grant Napear's argument was (and I am paraphrasing) "you put a 30ppg scorer into the lineup and the team will definitely get better"..

I don't believe that for a second.. When Zach Randolph was averaging 20/10 could you have put him into the Kings lineup and make them better? Doubt it. It takes a special player who can be both a roleplayer, and a star player on any given night who makes others around him better to affect a team positively. One dimensional players are just that.. Their stats might make them look like all-stars but hey really don't help the team much.

The only problem I have with this comparison is that Randolph is well known to be a black hole on offense. He finds a way to get his points, but often at the expense of what is best for the team. Martin has never been a selfish player and has always seemed to put the team over himself. Time will tell on whether he will help the team or hurt them, but my money is on him making them better in the long run.

 

[AriesMar27]

In reality you can not compare Beno, Donte stats to Kevin. Kevin is the defensive focus of alot teams. Where Beno and others are not.

thats true... as bad as he played last year i doubt many teams care if they guard him the same thing goes for donte, sergio and casspi. what happens if a team decides to guard them and let evans beat them all on his own? they wont look nearly as good. or maybe they are that good and we will all be surprised that they were really were just playing their game and succeeding.

only time will tell.... when kevin comes back teams will have to pick their poison, whether either poison is lethal we wont know until kevin gets back.

 

[Capt. Factorial]

I was gonna say that stats can say whatever you want them to. I read a Bill Simmons article in which he says there's some plus/minus stat that proves that Kevin Durant made the Thunder worse last season, and proves that Tim Thomas is underrated. The point was that you can create a formula that proves whatever you want it to prove, but it's usefulness has to measured based on what the results tell you vs. what you know the truth is.

And any metric that says Larry Bird and Oscar Robertson weren't as effective scoring the ball as [Edit: Brad Miller] is has to be taken with a grain of salt.

OK, but what's the objective measurement of "truth"?

If "what you know the truth is" corresponds to "everybody knows that MJ was the greatest player ever", then it doesn't sound like you're particularly interested in asking questions that stats can answer anyway. It's not as if Jordan must necessarily be #1 in every meaningful statistic (nor would anybody claim that), so to dismiss stats where Jordan is not at the top would suggest that, to you, a subjective analysis is more important than an objective one.

However, if you're going to admit some stats, then it's not particularly fair to exclude others simply because you don't like the way the leaderboard pans out. If the stat measures what it purports to measure (and I believe that TS% does), then there's nothing wrong with the stat; rather it's your own interpretation of who should be good at the stat that is flawed. In the case of TS% it is important to remember that shooting efficiency and greatness are not the same. While greatness is hard to calculate, shooting efficiency is points scored per shots attempted. That's simple. And all those things that made Jordan greater than Martin (and believe me, he was, and believe me, there are lots of simple and advanced statistics that will agree with this conclusion) were wrapped up in the things Jordan did on the court when he wasn't in the process of taking a shot.

I myself had my first intellectual run-in with advanced stats in baseball, when OPS burst on the scene. People were beginning to use it, and to claim that it was a "better" statistic than, say, batting average to measure the value of a hitter. But I was having a hard time grasping why I should believe that the leaderboard for OPS was filled with "better" hitters than the leaderboard for batting average. I thought that it was ridiculous to call one upstart stat "better" than another, more established stat - could this even be based on objective evidence? Finally I got clued in to the fact that team OPS correlates better with runs scored than team batting average. That was the key: in baseball you win (on the offensive end) by scoring runs, and you can better predict how many runs you're going to score with OPS than with batting average.

Well, the same sort of logic can be applied to TS% ("efficiency"). For instance, team efficiency correlates better with team points scored per possession (which is kind of the be-all end-all offensive stat, because points are what matters) pretty well (r = 0.88), and quite a bit better than either FG% alone (r = 0.82) or total points alone (r = 0.79). At the same time, efficiency actually has a small but negative correlation with points allowed per possession - obviously there's more to the game than just shooting efficiency. But what it measures, it measures well.

 

[AriesMar27]

OK, but what's the objective measurement of "truth"?

If "what you know the truth is" corresponds to "everybody knows that MJ was the greatest player ever", then it doesn't sound like you're particularly interested in asking questions that stats can answer anyway. It's not as if Jordan must necessarily be #1 in every meaningful statistic (nor would anybody claim that), so to dismiss stats where Jordan is not at the top would suggest that, to you, a subjective analysis is more important than an objective one.

However, if you're going to admit some stats, then it's not particularly fair to exclude others simply because you don't like the way the leaderboard pans out. If the stat measures what it purports to measure (and I believe that TS% does), then there's nothing wrong with the stat; rather it's your own interpretation of who should be good at the stat that is flawed. In the case of TS% it is important to remember that shooting efficiency and greatness are not the same. While greatness is hard to calculate, shooting efficiency is points scored per shots attempted. That's simple. And all those things that made Jordan greater than Martin (and believe me, he was, and believe me, there are lots of simple and advanced statistics that will agree with this conclusion) were wrapped up in the things Jordan did on the court when he wasn't in the process of taking a shot.

I myself had my first intellectual run-in with advanced stats in baseball, when OPS burst on the scene. People were beginning to use it, and to claim that it was a "better" statistic than, say, batting average to measure the value of a hitter. But I was having a hard time grasping why I should believe that the leaderboard for OPS was filled with "better" hitters than the leaderboard for batting average. I thought that it was ridiculous to call one upstart stat "better" than another, more established stat - could this even be based on objective evidence? Finally I got clued in to the fact that team OPS correlates better with runs scored than team batting average. That was the key: in baseball you win (on the offensive end) by scoring runs, and you can better predict how many runs you're going to score with OPS than with batting average.

Well, the same sort of logic can be applied to TS% ("efficiency"). For instance, team efficiency correlates better with team points scored per possession (which is kind of the be-all end-all offensive stat, because points are what matters) pretty well (r = 0.88), and quite a bit better than either FG% alone (r = 0.82) or total points alone (r = 0.79). At the same time, efficiency actually has a small but negative correlation with points allowed per possession - obviously there's more to the game than just shooting efficiency. But what it measures, it measures well.

wow... its like reading a text book. no wonder bajaden had a migraine earlier. it makes sense but damn...

you have a point though, i was looking at some of the stats and its true. the players at the top would be players that you could call efficient shooters... thats not to say that players like lebron, kobe or mj are volume shooters like iverson or antoine walker. just that given their situation they have to shoot a lot more under tougher situations to score. its the curse of greatness i suppose...

 

[Mr. S£im Citrus]

I hadn't really thought of it that way, but it's possible that when your four backcourt guys not named Evans all are having career seasons in terms of efficiency there may be an underlying reason outside of sheer chance. That underlying reason might just be Evans. He demands perimeter defense, and the defense that he draws may be freeing up easier shots for whomever else is in the backcourt with him.

Ya think?

As to whether or not Evans and Martin can coexist... well, I'm certainly not rooting for them to fail to work together...

 

[Sptsjunkie]

I hadn't really thought of it that way, but it's possible that when your four backcourt guys not named Evans all are having career seasons in terms of efficiency there may be an underlying reason outside of sheer chance. That underlying reason might just be Evans. He demands perimeter defense, and the defense that he draws may be freeing up easier shots for whomever else is in the backcourt with him.

So when Kevin comes back, he may actually find himself treated to less defensive pressure than he is used to when he plays alongside 'Reke. Expecting Martin to have an efficiency jump like Beno or Greene this year may be a bit much, but it's not really out of the question that he might even improve on his career numbers. I may be in the minority here, but I just don't think it's a foregone conclusion that Martin and Tyreke can't coexist effectively in the same backcourt, and I'm looking forward to seeing them try to put it together once Kevin gets back.

Theoretically I agree with you, if Martin can handle being the second option. One of my frustrations the first few games of the season was watching them try to force the offense through Kevin. I feel like he is best in a Peja type role scoring with AMAZING efficiency in the flow of the offense. If he can handle being the sidekick to Reke, it could work very well (offensively at least).

 

[Bricklayer]

Theoretically I agree with you, if Martin can handle being the second option. One of my frustrations the first few games of the season was watching them try to force the offense through Kevin. I feel like he is best in a Peja type role scoring with AMAZING efficiency in the flow of the offense. If he can handle being the sidekick to Reke, it could work very well (offensively at least).

But see I have doubts even there. They appear to be apples and oranges offensive players. They are also both backcourt players, and I've noted several times how rare it has been for two prolific scoring backcourt guys to work out together.

But back to style -- if instead of Tyreke we right now had Webb as our star, Kevin works beautifully. He is Peja with quickness. The offensive styles mesh. Webb is a big, holds the ball waiting for plays to develop, reading defenses, and after 10-15 seconds of cuts, screens and whatnot if Kevin pops open Webb hits him. Be potent.

And if instead of Tyreke we had CP3 as our star right now, Kevin doesn't work quite as beautifully, but he works. CP3 is always looking for him, floor general and willing to wait for Kevin to pop open off of a screen or some such. Kevin does not fit as well as he does with Webb as a big, but certainly CP3 hits him when he's open for threes etc. and can get him in rhythm while jsut scoring opportunistically himself.

But what we have is Tyreke. And Tyreke is like Wade, LeBron, Kobe etc. He is not a selfish player, much less so than some of those guys, but he is going to control the ball, look to square his guy up and attack on almost every possession. If he gets cut off THEN he kicks it to the open perimeter guys like Donte, or Noc, or Casspi or whoever. But he's not sitting aorund waiting for a bunch of screens and cuts to take place while he reads it all all to set up a pure scoring guard. His penetration and offensive abilities are the key to his passing effectiveness. And so like I say, apples and oranges. Even if Kevin is willing to take a backseat, a true backseat, offensively, they are still two players from fundamentally different schools offensively. There is a different rhythm to their games. And sure, Kevin can back it all the way down and play at Reke's rhythm, but if he does than he really is no more effective than a Casspi or Green spotting up out there and waiting for Reke to create for them. And on the other side sitting around and waiting for a play to develop, not looking to score, just waiting to service another offensive player, flies directly in the face of Reke's instincts and the very reason he puts pressure on the defense. And he's a 20yr old rookie to boot. Its extremely doubtful he can play the position of distributor the way Kevin needs him to without getting knocked back into passivity, sitting and waiting for Kevin to do his thing while he is essentially shut down (which is largely what happened in those first few games). Their respective games do not naturally enhance each other, but rather conflict.

 

[Kingster]

Mitch Richmond & Tyreke

Richmond's rookie year:

FG% - .468
3 Pt% - .365
FT% - .810
Reb/Game - 5.9
APG - 4.2
TO - 3.41
Steels - 1.04
PPG - 22

Tyreke (so far)

FG% - .463
3 Pt% - .256
FT% - .775
Reb/Game - 5.0
APG - 5.1
TO - 2.9
Steels - 1.52
PPG - 20

What is remarkable about Richmond is that his stats didn't go up appreciably after his rookie year. In fact, his second year FG% of .497 was the highest of his career. Richmond was good, but not a Hall of Fame talent. We just can't know whether Tyreke is going to be a Richmond or he's going to have significant improvement in the years ahead and be a Wade, James, etc.

 

[Kingsguy881]

Richmond's rookie year:

FG% - .468
3 Pt% - .365
FT% - .810
Reb/Game - 5.9
APG - 4.2
TO - 3.41
Steels - 1.04
PPG - 22

Tyreke (so far)

FG% - .463
3 Pt% - .256
FT% - .775
Reb/Game - 5.0
APG - 5.1
TO - 2.9
Steels - 1.52
PPG - 20

What is remarkable about Richmond is that his stats didn't go up appreciably after his rookie year. In fact, his second year FG% of .497 was the highest of his career. Richmond was good, but not a Hall of Fame talent. We just can't know whether Tyreke is going to be a Richmond or he's going to have significant improvement in the years ahead and be a Wade, James, etc.

Richmond was a shooter, Reke is not. There is a big difference between a shooter and a scorer.

 

[Kingster]

Richmond was a shooter, Reke is not. There is a big difference between a shooter and a scorer.

Please elaborate.

 

[NME]

What is remarkable about Richmond is that his stats didn't go up appreciably after his rookie year. In fact, his second year FG% of .497 was the highest of his career. Richmond was good, but not a Hall of Fame talent. We just can't know whether Tyreke is going to be a Richmond or he's going to have significant improvement in the years ahead and be a Wade, James, etc.

Mitch was highly unusual in the consistancy and statistical flatness of his career. He came into the league as exactly the (very good) player he would be year after year. He also came into the league at 23 after four years of college.

Watching Tyreke it's clear that as good as he is already, he scarily has lots of room to improve. It would be pretty surprising and disappointing if he didn't continue to grow.

 

[Kingsguy881]

Sure. Shooters can have off games, and if that so happens then there scoring #'s and percentages take a hit. Scorers always find a way to score, because they are not relying solely on their jumper for points. Reke can always rely on his ability to get to the rim, and from there the foul line. All he is going to have to do to get any better is to up his recognition of situations and learn more about the other players in the league, specifially shot blockers.

Richmond had a ceiling, because he was a shooter and semi-one sided offensively (Martin is more diverse offensively than Mitch was). Mitch was also relied heavily on providing scoring, and unfortunately he was not as 'rock solid' at scoring as he should have been. He was a prolific scorer, but how many 40-50 point games did he have? 1-2, and it was on the 40 point side and nowhere close to 50. Mitch was up and down, he was never a consistent game to game scorer. 32 here, 14 there. Reke has already shown to be a consistent scorer with great percentages.

The bottom line is, the chances of Tyreke having an off scoring game is much lower than the chances of Mitch having an off scoring game because of the way each player puts the ball in the basket.

 

[AriesMar27]

wouldnt scorers be more prone to having off nights? what happens when a scorer doesnt get calls? or the and1's arent and1's but just 2 freethrows? all players have slumps but scorers tend to be volume shooters or usually arent very good shooters. carmelo seems to be the exception to the rule, he is a scorer that is a good shooter.... iverson was a scorer, he got his points but at what expense? a shooter that is having an off night can swallow his pride and pass the ball. or try to get to the line and shoot some freethrows to get him going. a scorer would just see the freethrows as a chance to score more points not to get his offense going.

 

[Superman]

OK, but what's the objective measurement of "truth"?

If "what you know the truth is" corresponds to "everybody knows that MJ was the greatest player ever", then it doesn't sound like you're particularly interested in asking questions that stats can answer anyway. It's not as if Jordan must necessarily be #1 in every meaningful statistic (nor would anybody claim that), so to dismiss stats where Jordan is not at the top would suggest that, to you, a subjective analysis is more important than an objective one.

That's not what's happening here. I'm saying that, according to the metric that "proves" Kevin Martin is the most efficient scorer in the NBA right now, Brad Miller is also a more efficient scorer than Larry Bird and Oscar Robertson. So you have to wonder about the effectiveness of this exercise. I can produce a formula that "proves" pretty much anything I want it to. I can "prove" that Kwame Brown was a better three point shooter than Gilbert Arenas in 2003, because he had a better percentage. But that's not true. There's no replacement for common sense.

"Lies, damned lies, and statistics." I think that's a perfect example of that right there.

However, if you're going to admit some stats, then it's not particularly fair to exclude others simply because you don't like the way the leaderboard pans out. If the stat measures what it purports to measure (and I believe that TS% does), then there's nothing wrong with the stat; rather it's your own interpretation of who should be good at the stat that is flawed. In the case of TS% it is important to remember that shooting efficiency and greatness are not the same. While greatness is hard to calculate, shooting efficiency is points scored per shots attempted. That's simple. And all those things that made Jordan greater than Martin (and believe me, he was, and believe me, there are lots of simple and advanced statistics that will agree with this conclusion) were wrapped up in the things Jordan did on the court when he wasn't in the process of taking a shot.

Okay, so to simplify what I'm saying:

Michael Jordan may not have had as high an efficiency rating as Kevin Martin (and a whole bunch of other people), but I don't think you can argue that Kevin Martin is a more efficient scorer. The numbers may say the opposite of what I'm saying, but when you consider the fact that Jordan drew regular double teams, got beat up going to the rim, played in a more physical league, etc., I don't think it's hard to come to that conclusion. So if efficiency percentage is supposed to be a totally objective stat, it fails in that regard. I'm sure it's useful in certain ways; I'd never argue that Kevin Martin isn't an efficient scorer. But I don't think you can just look at the numbers and make a determination like that.

On the other hand...

I myself had my first intellectual run-in with advanced stats in baseball, when OPS burst on the scene. People were beginning to use it, and to claim that it was a "better" statistic than, say, batting average to measure the value of a hitter. But I was having a hard time grasping why I should believe that the leaderboard for OPS was filled with "better" hitters than the leaderboard for batting average. I thought that it was ridiculous to call one upstart stat "better" than another, more established stat - could this even be based on objective evidence? Finally I got clued in to the fact that team OPS correlates better with runs scored than team batting average. That was the key: in baseball you win (on the offensive end) by scoring runs, and you can better predict how many runs you're going to score with OPS than with batting average.

Baseball is a sport where there are certain general managers (like Billy Bean) who don't even watch the games. It's a stat driven sport. There's not a whole lot of nuance to be taken into consideration, because production is easier to determine in baseball than in any other sport.

Even still, I'm not arguing that efficiency percentages are worthless. I'm saying that you have to balance what the stat tells you with what you know to be true from watching the games. And if it's absolutely true that Brad Miller is a more efficient scorer than Larry Bird and Oscar Robertson, then guess what? I don't care all that much about scoring efficiency, because it doesn't very well correlate with a player's worth on the court.

Well, the same sort of logic can be applied to TS% ("efficiency"). For instance, team efficiency correlates better with team points scored per possession (which is kind of the be-all end-all offensive stat, because points are what matters) pretty well (r = 0.88), and quite a bit better than either FG% alone (r = 0.82) or total points alone (r = 0.79). At the same time, efficiency actually has a small but negative correlation with points allowed per possession - obviously there's more to the game than just shooting efficiency. But what it measures, it measures well.

What it measures doesn't really matter all that much. I'm not going to choose Brad Miller over Larry Bird because he's a more efficient scorer. I'm not taking Bill Cartwright over Shaq. I'm not taking Brent Barry over Ray Allen, or Wally Sczerbiak over Paul Pierce. That's all I'm saying. Sure it can be useful for other things, but when it comes to determining a player's value to his team on offense or otherwise, I don't think it does a very good job if it's producing the above results.

 

[Kingster]

Sure. Shooters can have off games, and if that so happens then there scoring #'s and percentages take a hit. Scorers always find a way to score, because they are not relying solely on their jumper for points. Reke can always rely on his ability to get to the rim, and from there the foul line. All he is going to have to do to get any better is to up his recognition of situations and learn more about the other players in the league, specifially shot blockers.

Richmond had a ceiling, because he was a shooter and semi-one sided offensively (Martin is more diverse offensively than Mitch was). Mitch was also relied heavily on providing scoring, and unfortunately he was not as 'rock solid' at scoring as he should have been. He was a prolific scorer, but how many 40-50 point games did he have? 1-2, and it was on the 40 point side and nowhere close to 50. Mitch was up and down, he was never a consistent game to game scorer. 32 here, 14 there. Reke has already shown to be a consistent scorer with great percentages.

The bottom line is, the chances of Tyreke having an off scoring game is much lower than the chances of Mitch having an off scoring game because of the way each player puts the ball in the basket.

The stats do back up your position to a certain degree on shooter vs. scorer. Richmond averaged about 6.2 free throw attempts per game in his rookie year; Tyreke is averaging 8.8, a 2.6 FTA per game difference. Doesn't seem huge in the scheme of things though. I haven't checked on the consistency angle because I don't know whether those game stats are available for Richmond (I doubt it). Tyreke has been unbelievably consistent so far. If he continues with this type of consistency for the remainder of the year, we need to get Mr. Stat to look at standard deviation to compare to the great ones. Consistency is the thing that does stand out maybe more than anything with Tyreke.

 

[hammystyle]

Richmond's rookie year:

FG% - .468
3 Pt% - .365
FT% - .810
Reb/Game - 5.9
APG - 4.2
TO - 3.41
Steels - 1.04
PPG - 22

Tyreke (so far)

FG% - .463
3 Pt% - .256
FT% - .775
Reb/Game - 5.0
APG - 5.1
TO - 2.9
Steels - 1.52
PPG - 20

What is remarkable about Richmond is that his stats didn't go up appreciably after his rookie year. In fact, his second year FG% of .497 was the highest of his career. Richmond was good, but not a Hall of Fame talent. We just can't know whether Tyreke is going to be a Richmond or he's going to have significant improvement in the years ahead and be a Wade, James, etc.

Actually Richmond was a 23 year old rookie, and essentially a finished project by the time he entered the league. So while he did get better with age you wouldn't expect a ton of upside. For comparison's sake, when Mitch was Tyreke's age, he was playing his second year at a JUNIOR college before he transferred to Kansas State the following year. I'm guessing that Mitch improved exponentially from being a 20 year old JC player to the 23 year old NBA rookie of the year. So in fact, we can only HOPE that Tyreke makes the same types of improvements that Mitch made between his age 20 and 23 years of basketball.