waiting for the other shoelace to drop: 2013-2014 NBA regular season thread (part 2)

ryan anderson is an elite shooter especially for his position and he does a lot for an offense just by existing buuuuuuuuuut to think he's a better overall player than nic batum and chandler parsons (who command defenses to guard them at the arc but can also do a bunch of other stuff + are decent two way players) or serge ibaka is to take a very narrow view of how basketball is played

feel like all those dudes are in the same range and batum is the worst of the three

the guy takes 8 3s per 36 minutes and makes 40% of them, what more can u want from a basketball player

I feel like just a few years ago people were saying "the PG is dead" am I making that up?

shooting is just the best basketball skill except maybe rim protecting interior D its magical

ibaka > parsons > batum imo

parsons is good tho i strongly disagree with the conclusion of the article that moullet so graciously posted yesterday he's not that good

imo shot creation has become away undervalued in the efficiency era, such backlash against iversonian chuckers that people forget how valuable guys who can get their own shot are ESPECIALLY guys like love who can create shots and do so efficiently like kevin love

like if you want to see what happens when you have a bunch of efficient low usage just look at indy, theyre 20th in offensive efficiency, georges idea of creating shots is to pull up from 20 feet drawing zero double teams, something that was working at an unsustainable rate earlier this year

― lag∞n, Friday, February 28, 2014 3:05 PM (26 minutes ago) Bookmark

i feel this. PG does take too many pull ups but also the pacers' offense is weirdly built (no real point guard, not a lot of perimeter shooting that scares people) that i think sometimes possessions fall on his shoulders when they shouldn't.

like if you flipped PG with chandler parsons or something i think his game would just flow a lot more naturally than what happens a lot of the time in indy's offense.

ya hes more of a 18ppg guy than a 23ppg

one of the downsides of the stat revolution is that lotsa people are just not that good at the interpreting numbers stuff, you have all this sportVU/synergy data like ok parsons drives a lot or such-and-such is 5th in the league in points per possession on the right block and it's like ok man but what does that mean, how does that correlate to winning?

james franco tur(oll)ing test (Hurting 2)
Posted: February 28, 2014 at 8:36:47 PM
I feel like just a few years ago people were saying "the PG is dead" am I making that up?

lol hi5

the guy takes 8 3s per 36 minutes and makes 40% of them, what more can u want from a basketball player

― k3vin k., Friday, February 28, 2014 3:36 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

defense?

kev otm xp re what stats mean

yeah that post was obv a little tongue in cheek, but seriously shooting a lot of 3s is good xp

he used to rebound a hell of a lot more a few years ago too

particularly offensive rebounds

prob how hes being used

anderson is definitely a better player than some of those guys if you have him on the right team and he's been lucky to have been put in good situations (with dwight at his defensive peak and brow as he begins to reach his) but in other situations he would prob give back as much as he takes

i would rather have a wing who shoots 36% from three, creates off the dribble and can check guards and forwards than a stretch 4 even a super super deadly stretch 4

but now we're circling back to the PG vs love debate

i could def agree that anderson has benefited from good fits

pg cant really create off the dribble tho? if he was l33t at that then he wld be the player everyone thinks he is but his game is much more D and 3 than it is james harden, his successful drives are pretty situational due to mismatches or good ball movement or whatever which is why he ends up pulling up so much or turning the ball over, hes miscast as a 1st option

and I do think youre undervaluing the stretch 4 jordan its super valuable in the contemporary nba, especially one like love who can score from anywhere which prevents the defense from guarding him w a smaller player who can bother his jump shot by getting under it, love just puts pg on his back and u have to get west in the game fast

btw you know whos poised to become love lite jared sullinger, hes super fat and skilled and started hitting threes this year, if he can get in shape like love did he cld be pretty good

stan van apparently going on a rant at sloan right now according to twitter and he's probably otm

@skepticalsports: Some of the best analytics you'll hear from an NBA guy is Stan Van railing against analytics. He's like summer in San Francisco. #SSAC14

@haralabob: The bedhead on this #SSAC basketball analytics panel is strong.

what's he saying??

idk

they all have crappy hair?

@CelticsHub: SVG says minutes restrictions are "arbitrary." I don't think he understands analytics...

@Neil_Paine: Stan Van Gundy is so upset right now about the Stephen Strasburg IP limit from like 2 years ago #SSAC14

@SherwoodStrauss: SVG can't dismiss the benefits of rest when he's this awesome at unemployment

IIRC his attitude was why bother, let them rest until they're ready to play, don't worry about 10 vs. 20 minutes

@highkin: Steve Kerr: “We have more injuries than ever.” Zach Lowe: “But do the numbers back that up?” SK: “Well, I have no idea if they do.” #SSAC14

hard to imagine kerr has bedhead

@CelticsHub: SVG says minutes restrictions are "arbitrary." I don't think he understands analytics...

― lag∞n, Friday, February 28, 2014 4:22 PM (8 minutes ago)

no he's right

not that minutes restrictions aren't always a bad idea, but they're "arbitrary" in the literal sense: there's not a whole lot of (publicly available) data guiding decisions on whether 38 minutes a night is really any worse than 36 minutes, or for what guys, etc. people tend to take really weak data and make big generalizations from it

my personal uniformed opinion is the really dangerous thing is when guys get exhausted, all sorts of bad things start happening

so its not just total minutes but also substitution patterns and schedule and all sorts of situational things

d league teams r gonna start wearing these monitors that will give them all sorts relevant data on the fly

all sorts

@Pflanns: Interesting that Stevens says that Rondo is into advanced stats. Whenever I brought them up he said he doesn't care about stats.

http://i.imgur.com/4PFcVni.jpg

basketball hall of fame soak it all in fellas

the volleyball hof is around here somewhere too know what its called "the volleyhall" lol irl

ah, good ol' i-91

they renamed it "canadas heroin breadbasket" in vermont

sad lol

ethan strauss loves stan van.

Ethan Strauss ‏@SherwoodStrauss -- Final Q is asked of SVG. He slowly turns to the audience. His mustache lights on fire. He winks. Sprinklers rain upon the room.

________________________________

Ethan Strauss ‏@SherwoodStrauss -- Best part of the panel was when SVG put a cigarette out on his tongue and motorcycled off into the sunset

________________________________

Ethan Strauss ‏@SherwoodStrauss -- I would honestly attend the Stan Van Gundy is Unemployed and Has Opinions Conference. Every year.

________________________________

Ethan Strauss ‏@SherwoodStrauss -- SVG can't dismiss the benefits of rest when he's this awesome at unemployment

________________________________

Ethan Strauss ‏@SherwoodStrauss -- 2 seasons off served Tan Van Gundy well. Looks like a relaxed mafia boss

Steven Adams is sick so there is a distinct possibility of Hasheem Thabeet starting.