Better starting 5 poll.

[theNBAnerd]

Nothing like the benefit of hindsight. when you are actually in the game, I'd wager you feel just as much urgency in the Bobcats game as in the Lakers. In the standings, every game counts equally. Any team can be hot for the next five minutes of play, even the Bobcats.

well again, you're changing the argument. once the empirical evidence showed that you were actually wrong about standard error and that being up against the bobcats is being virtually guaranteed a win, now you're talking to me about hindsight and urgency. being in a close game with the bobcats has a different "expected value" than being in a close game against the heat. come on, you have to know that's the case.

 

[One Brow]

now you're changing the argument, and you're wrong anyway.

first your argument was "the jazz are efficient because of al." which they're not. .

I think you have me confused with billyshelby. Outside of a brief response you point that Jefferson was just a little better at efficiency than the team, but not as much as Paul or Favors, my only reponse was that it was typical fof the player with the highest shot volume to not have the highest efficiency. Since I only made one post on that topic at all, there could not have been a "first" argument followed by a change.

Now, if I were to make an argument, it would have been that the cumulative effects of a .05 PPA amount to well under one point a game (unless you think Millsap should be taking 20 shot attempts a game away from Jefferson and that this could be done without his PPA dropping), so that difference does not justify saying there is a wide gulf in team performacne from its effects. Those are pretty much my two arguments to the statistic: lack of significance, and likely to change if we change the offense to go through Millsap more.

so yeah, most team's supposed "best players" do actually move the needle UP in terms of efficiency.

I should hope so. That's different from their being no other starters that are more efficient, though. Using eFG% as a proxy for PPA (since I'm not even sure where to get PPA), Pierce is not even the second highest of the Celtics, nore Rose for the Bulls, etc.

 

[One Brow]

well again, you're changing the argument. once the empirical evidence showed that you were actually wrong about standard error

You have empirical evidence for the standard error? Where? Or, did you just mean blustering about a general trend, unsupported by statistics.

and that being up against the bobcats is being virtually guaranteed a win, now you're talking to me about hindsight and urgency. being in a close game with the bobcats has a different "expected value" than being in a close game against the heat. come on, you have to know that's the case.

Even with as little as I know about basketball, I know that a 5-point lead can be gone with two 3-pointers, and that any team is capable of doing that on any given night. I know that whether you're up against the Heat or the Bobcats, you're expected to leave it all on the floor. I know in the regular season standings, a win is a win. If I'm the coach, I don't tell my players to relax because it's the Bobcats. Your contention is strained, at best.

 

[One Brow]

Using the numbers at 82games, a comparison of standard eFG to Clutch-eFG.

Player eFG CeFG Diff
Jefferson 0.493 0.435 -0.058
Favors 0.499 0.579 0.080
Millsap 0.499 0.434 -0.065
Bryant 0.462 0.402 -0.060
Durant 0.547 0.450 -0.097
James 0.554 0.492 -0.062
Duncan 0.492 0.600 0.108

Got to like Favors numbers.

 

[colton]

Got to like Favors numbers.

Hey, maybe we should start him!

 

[nightmare3983]

Hey, maybe we should start him!

And always have him in during clutch situations.

 

[One Brow]

Hey, maybe we should start him!

At least finish with him.

 

[theNBAnerd]

I think you have me confused with billyshelby. Outside of a brief response you point that Jefferson was just a little better at efficiency than the team, but not as much as Paul or Favors, my only reponse was that it was typical fof the player with the highest shot volume to not have the highest efficiency. Since I only made one post on that topic at all, there could not have been a "first" argument followed by a change.

my mistake, i must have remembered incorrectly as to who made the original point.

Now, if I were to make an argument, it would have been that the cumulative effects of a .05 PPA amount to well under one point a game (unless you think Millsap should be taking 20 shot attempts a game away from Jefferson and that this could be done without his PPA dropping), so that difference does not justify saying there is a wide gulf in team performacne from its effects. Those are pretty much my two arguments to the statistic: lack of significance, and likely to change if we change the offense to go through Millsap more.

5 points per 100 possessions is HUUUGE! it's the difference between being the most efficient offense in the NBA versus the 10th most efficient. that's a third of the league. we'd be the best offense in the league if we went up by .05 points per possession. that's not a small difference at all.

I should hope so. That's different from their being no other starters that are more efficient, though. Using eFG% as a proxy for PPA (since I'm not even sure where to get PPA), Pierce is not even the second highest of the Celtics, nore Rose for the Bulls, etc.

PPA isn't really out there on any sites that i know, so you have to kind of back into it (PTS/(FGA+FTA*.44)). which is a pain in the ***, but it's worth it because it relates much easier to team offensive efficiency and gives you an accurate picture of how people are performing relative to the team average. a shortcut way to get to PPA is to take their TS% and double that number. that will give you PP100A, and then you just need to move the decimal.

anyway, back to the discussion... i never argued that other stars are LEADING their teams (although some do). what i argued is that if your so-called "best" offensive player is performing at the team average, then you're probably wrong about who the "best" player is. the supposed star isn't always #1 on his team, but in most cases they're one of the guys pulling their team's average UP. al's effect on the jazz offense is basically neutral. we could ship him to another planet and distribute his possessions to the other guys at random and see essentially the same result.

 

[theNBAnerd]

You have empirical evidence for the standard error? Where? Or, did you just mean blustering about a general trend, unsupported by statistics.

you truncated my quote which makes it look rather out of context. i wasn't making a comment about standard error specifically, only that you were wrong about how it relates to the likelihood of beating the bobcats when up by 5.

the bobcats have won ZERO games where they trailed by more than 1 point going into the fourth quarter. talk to me all you want about standard deviation and confidence levels -- if you have a lead of at least 2 and you lose the game, that's an anomaly.

Even with as little as I know about basketball, I know that a 5-point lead can be gone with two 3-pointers, and that any team is capable of doing that on any given night. I know that whether you're up against the Heat or the Bobcats, you're expected to leave it all on the floor. I know in the regular season standings, a win is a win. If I'm the coach, I don't tell my players to relax because it's the Bobcats. Your contention is strained, at best.

yeah i'm not saying you don't play as hard because it's the bobcats, so don't straw man me there. i'm just saying that if al played as well in the 4th quarter vs. LAL, DAL, LAC, @GS and @IND as he did in the charlotte and washington games, we'd have 5 more wins this year. and i use those games from jan/feb only because i haven't done the study for mar/apr yet, but there are games like that in that batch, too.

 

[One Brow]

5 points per 100 possessions is HUUUGE! it's the difference between being the most efficient offense in the NBA versus the 10th most efficient. that's a third of the league. we'd be the best offense in the league if we went up by .05 points per possession. that's not a small difference at all.

I agree it's big for an entire team. When you are talking about moving shots from one player to another, less so. If you give 10 of Jefferson's points to Millsap, even assuming Millsap's efficiency does not reduce, that's .5 points per possesion over the course of the game. Not huge.

anyway, back to the discussion... i never argued that other stars are LEADING their teams (although some do). what i argued is that if your so-called "best" offensive player is performing at the team average, then you're probably wrong about who the "best" player is. the supposed star isn't always #1 on his team, but in most cases they're one of the guys pulling their team's average UP. al's effect on the jazz offense is basically neutral. we could ship him to another planet and distribute his possessions to the other guys at random and see essentially the same result.

Possibly, depending on whether doing this has no effects on everyone else's PPP due to increased shot load.

 

[One Brow]

you truncated my quote which makes it look rather out of context. i wasn't making a comment about standard error specifically, only that you were wrong about how it relates to the likelihood of beating the bobcats when up by 5.

the bobcats have won ZERO games where they trailed by more than 1 point going into the fourth quarter. talk to me all you want about standard deviation and confidence levels -- if you have a lead of at least 2 and you lose the game, that's an anomaly.

Start of the fourth =/= last five minutes. In particular, the bench is in at the start of the fourth, and in a close game, the starters are back for the last five minutes.

yeah i'm not saying you don't play as hard because it's the bobcats, so don't straw man me there. i'm just saying that if al played as well in the 4th quarter vs. LAL, DAL, LAC, @GS and @IND as he did in the charlotte and washington games, we'd have 5 more wins this year. and i use those games from jan/feb only because i haven't done the study for mar/apr yet, but there are games like that in that batch, too.

Perhaps he did play as well,, against better defenses. If you're argument was that Jefferson did not step up his game in clutch time, I'd agree.

 

[theNBAnerd]

If you're argument was that Jefferson did not step up his game in clutch time, I'd agree.

well then we could have saved everybody a lot of time here: we agree.

this is all i was trying to illustrate, but i made the point about bobcats/wizards simply because i knew someone would point to his inflated clutch stats -- like clutch FG%, where at .415 he is tops on the team because of games like the ones imentioned, but he completely no-showed in a dozen or so games we could have won but didn't.