July 19, 2015

SportsFilter: The Sunday Huddle:

A place to discuss the sports stories that aren't making news, share links that aren't quite front-page material, and diagram plays on your hand. Remember to count to five Mississippi before commenting in anger.

posted by huddle to general at 06:00 AM - 6 comments

Asked about losing top scorer Monta Ellis, Mavericks owner Mark Cuban gave an interesting answer I thought I'd toss out for discussion here:

Actually scoring in the NBA is the easiest thing to replace. You don't see teams lose 20-point-a-game scorers and all of a sudden they're scoring 60 points or 20 points less. With players in the NBA, half of them are capable of scoring 20 points, its just what it would take them to do it. So no question Monta had a specific skill when it came to attacking the basket. When it came to being able to create a shot, Monta was one of the best, but we think that Chandler Parsons is going to be able to take up some of that slack. We think (Wes) Matthews, even though he's not a shot-creator, per se, will be more efficient in the shots he does take. We think D-Will, he does attack the basket, maybe not quite as often as Monta, but D-Will is more effective at pulling up and shooting, which isn't a great shot, but he's better at it. And also a better 3-point shooter. Zaza Pachulia shoots a mid-range pick and pop, almost as well as Dirk. He's in that 49, 50-percent range, but Zaza's not going to block shots. He's a good rebounder, but he's not a great shot blocker. So the piece we have to fill is a Tyson Chandler piece for a guy who rolls hard to the rim and rebounds well. If we're able to do that, then I think we've updated across the board.
If scoring is easiest to replace, what is hardest?

posted by rcade at 11:39 AM on July 19, 2015

England can't take 10 wickets in two innings and three days, but they can certainly lose 10. Literally without trying.

posted by Mr Bismarck at 11:57 AM on July 19, 2015

If scoring is easiest to replace, what is hardest? Coaching? If you're not allowing that then interior defense.

posted by deflated at 03:28 PM on July 19, 2015

If scoring is easiest to replace, what is hardest?

Raw scoring, sure, but the league is overall moving as fast as they can towards efficiency (it's becoming the WAR of the NBA), so maybe that?

posted by Ufez Jones at 08:48 PM on July 20, 2015

rcade: If you haven't seen this new Zach Lowe piece, it touches a bit on Ellis and this subject (and then does a full breakdown of Tobias Harris's value). Here's the section that reminded me of this conversation:

Teams have access to more statistics than ever, but when it comes to the good numbers/bad team dilemma, GMs fall back on the oldest method of talent evaluation: watching the damn games. That's in part because there is some degree of skepticism over whether numbers compiled on bad teams mean much even if a player compiles them efficiently.

"Put the best D-League team into the NBA, and someone is going to average 18 points per game," Celtics GM Danny Ainge says. "Someone is gonna get 10 rebounds. And that's why you hear the doubts you're hearing."

But Ainge cautions: "Those doubts are legitimate, but not every player on a bad team deserves to be penalized."

Some front-office types give more weight to fat stats, and more sophisticated numbers some of them based on video track what GMs see on film. Dig deep, and you can quantify how often a guy closes out on defense, and how many of his rebounds are easy, uncontested jobs. "We are very quick sometimes to blame players for putting up numbers of a team that isn't successful," Myers says. "Sometimes the losses aren't their fault. Sometimes you put them in a better situation, and it clicks."

A popular example: Monta Ellis, derided as an empty-calories loser before emerging in Dallas as a pick-and-roll destroyer. Ellis's evolution was overstated in some corners; he had always been a skilled driver whose passes led to layups and 3s, and he remained a woeful defender with the Mavs. But Dallas bet that Ellis would look better attacking within the spacing Dirk Nowitzki provides, and the Mavs were right.

Numbers tell you a lot, but the process behind those numbers the "how" is the most important predictor for how a player will fit on a new team. There is no shortcut to making that kind of determination. You have to watch the film, watch it in the right ways, and do deep background work on a player's character: his work ethic, what he cares about, his relationships with coaches and teammates.

posted by Ufez Jones at 10:00 AM on July 21, 2015

I have to say Grantland has really gotten me back into the NBA. So it's going to be a shame when ESPN blows it up.

posted by yerfatma at 11:09 AM on July 21, 2015

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