Is it cherry picking to split summer temperatures from winter? Of course not. I am doing the same thing: splitting the Rockets' season into two distinct parts. You made it sound as if I were randomly picking my games; and you were clearly implying some dishonesty on my part. I was doing nothing of the kind. Shame on you.
On what do you base this assertion? Harden has 79 assists this season; Lin has 97 -- on far lower usage too. Harden has 60 turnovers; Lin has 44. I think everyone agrees that the best assists are those at the rim. Harden's percentage of such assists is 41.8 while Lin's is 50.5. So what justification have you for saying that Harden is a better playmaker than Lin? Every number says that Lin is much superior.
I don't think he's implying dishonesty on your part. No need to be defensive...I think he's just implying you might be focused on removing some data while neglecting to remove other data in order to isolate the factor you're trying to determine (Assisted shooting % I assume). If his Assisted Shooting % was 47% in the first two games and 27% for the rest, maybe look at the last 13 games and remove the bottom two outliers as well. If they're all around 27% then there are no outliers and that might be a true representation of iso-ball for Harden and the impact it has on his performance. Not sure....just saying it might. However, if you find a few games that are in the mid to low teens then it might be worth while to throw those out of the analysis since those games could be affected by other factors. (The Utah game for example might be one since he played such little minutes and was ill i think). I'd run the numbers myself but I don't know where you're getting your data. Stats are like loaded guns.....they're powerful, dangerous or useful depending on how they're used and who's using them, and people get nervous when you start waving them around regardless if you know how to use them or not.
James Harden avg salary over the next 6 years is 14.3 million. The term max is represents a large amount of salaries Kobe 27.8 this year 30 next year while the highest ear of the Harden max is 17.8 and the average of the new contract is 16. The media are just creating a story. He is worth 14.3 especially to a team that has a 47 million dollar payroll.
Or maybe I can start make sweeping generalizations regarding certain groups of people on this board that provides no value to this board like you?
Actually I just realized....if you took his average assisted shooting % for all 15 games and use that as the average to compare...let's say it's 32%. 47% would probably look to be outside the standard deviation of that number (I think anything over 42.9%)....as a result you're thinking those should be thrown out. Likewise if there are averages that are 21% or lower....those should be thrown out as well since they'd be outside the standard deviation. If you want to be more inclusive of the data....then omit data 2 standard deviations out. In this case it'd be anything over 47.2% and anything under 16.74. Again all this is dependent on the total average on assisted shooting percentage including those first two games.
Continuing trolling LOFs then. I'm sure that will help bring back good basketball discussion on this board.
Antonio Davis should stick to picking fights with fans and leave the opinions on contracts to the professionals. Morey isn't going to just give anyone a max, we have seen this. In fact he only has given out two poor contracts and one was immediately traded and the other was just a joy to watch and sadly was amnestied.
are you solely basing Lin is a better playmaker because he has more assists lol wow...Harden is the primary scorer with play making ability..Lin's job is to make his teammates better being a PG. He is suppose to have more assists than harden since he's suppose to run the offense. Harden is a SG with playmaking ability he cant do Lin's job as well. All you have is Lin has less turnovers and more assists but Lin is not a focal point of the offense or a franchise player.
You Lin trolls are really toxic to this community. You begin with insults, play victim afterwards. Now, you are trying to argue a sample size of TWO is a trend. It DOESN'T matter if it's exactly the same, it ONLY matters if Harden doesn't get assisted FG percentage higher than that number in the subsequent games afterwards. Let me give you a simple analogy using a simpler example because your brain can't comprehend something so simple. Kobe's scoring across 10 games: 40, 38, 20, 10, 15, 30, 45, 35, 25, 30. What you are doing is taking out Kobe's first 2 performances and averaging it (39 points). Then, you took out the other 8 performances, and averaged that. (26.3 points). Then, you claim that Kobe is playing team ball in the first 2 games, and not the subsequent 8 games. Because he averaged 39 points in his first 2 games, 26.3 points in his next 8. Do you see why this doesn't mean anything? Anyone could have averaged out his last 3 games, or his first 4, or split it across 5 games. And claim that Kobe didn't play teamball after 5 games, or after 6, or after 7. If Kobe never replicates a performance similar to his first 2 games again, then there is a case that they were outliers. Except that's not the case. Harden had subsequent games where 100% of his shots were assisted, and games where over 80% of his shots were assisted. Thus, your claim that Harden Iso-ball started from game 3 onwards becausee 43% of his field goals were assisted in the first two games means nothing.
Okay man, I found the data. AFG% for all 15 games with correlating : 1) 42.9 2) 42.9 3) 37.5 4) 40.0 5) 0.0 6) 80.3 7) 33.3 8) 10.0 9) 25.0 10) 28.6 11) 100.0 12) 0.0 13) 0.0 14) 33.3 15) 33.3 Man that data is all over the map....there's no way you can deduct a common factor in all that. It's just not clustered enough....maybe after a full season and more data you can draw that, but those first two games are as arbitrary in terms of AFG% as any other game. If you're trying to argue that a higher AFG% equates to a higher FG% for Harden then you've got data problems with game 6 against Detroit where his AFG% was 83.3% but went 6 for 14 (42.9% - lower than the first two games) and with game 11 against Utah where he went 100% AFG% but was only 16.7% from the field. Conversely games 5, 12 and 13 he went 0% AFG% with 22.2%, 57.1%, and 46.7% respectively. Again all over the map.... Sorry but the AFG% doesn't provide a cohesive story that supports your theory.....not at least without more data over more games.
Let's put it another way.... Data points within the range of 23.1% and 45.5% fall within the acceptable standard deviations. Which mean anything falling outside of that would constitute "abnormal" and should be thrown out. In this case 9 out of the 15 games would fall in that range. That means 40% of your data couldn't be used. (Ironically the first two games fall within that acceptable range). Bottom line....this wouldn't be a good study to use to prove much anything since the data seems random at this point.
Harden is not worth the max. It's all about timing. The timing was right, the rockets needed to make a splash and he got his contract.
Harden will be making an average of 14.3 over the next 6 years. Are you saying he is not worth 14.3. I would disagree with that point.
Antonio just mad because Harden signed a contract that will pay him in 5 years what Antonio earns in 13 years. Interesting fact...Antonio was once involved in a trade that included the pick that became Jon Brockman. Hatin', That's how it's done.
You clearly didn't bother to finish reading what I wrote. Here's a hint to you: finish reading my message; there is a lot more information there.
We who live in reality are toxic to your imaginary community in cloud cuckoo land, because we typically bring the facts. Keep throwing the frantic, desperate insults; I'll let the audience determine who is more credible. What are the chances that the next two people you meet are <b>both</b> red-headed left handers? I would say it's very, very low. Red-heads are pretty rare to start with, and left handlers are not that common either. When we combine that with the requirement that they be the <b>very next two people</b> you meet, the probability falls to microscopic levels. Similarly, what are the chances that Harden's first two games of the season are <b>exactly the same</b> when it comes to assisted field goal percentages? Again, a very, very low probability. Yet it happened. Which means that the chances are overwhelmingly against it being only coincidence. There must be some underlying reason, and there is: in the first two games, the ball handling and playmaking was more equally shared between our two starting guards and Lin was making Harden's life easier in those games. Which was why Harden's shooting average was an amazing .636. In games 3 onwards, Harden started his ball hogging, and life became more difficult for him. His playmaking was inferior to Lin's, so he often found himself forcing up bad shots. Which is why his shooting average dropped to .383. So I am perfectly justified in splitting our season into two parts: the first two games, and the remainder. Harden's poor performance in the latter part is evidence that we should modify our offense to make his life easier.
