Thank you for making sense. Plenty will overlook it but this is how I feel. He should definitely shoot more at times and will get open looks even more now. Can't wait, screw Melo.
Considering his NTC has shrank over time and it is widely known how much he loves his city on top of the other things mentioned, no... I don't think that is a reasonable assumption. I disagree with your 2nd point as well. Ryno's value as time passes is his contract. His value as a stretch 4 and veteran presence becomes icing on the cake. Right now, you can make an argument about his value as a player, but that becomes increasingly irrelevant as time passes.
as time passes for ryno -- he still has 3 long years on that ridiculous contract and the knicks want to start reloading with youth today. that's likely why they're still hanging onto melo, hoping that by the trade deadline or next summer he capitulates and opens up the NTC, which is a reasonable expectation of him considering he needs to move on to save his career legacy at this point. and even if he doesn't, then they're still better off than waiting at least 2yrs for ryno while hoping he doesn't get injured.....just for the grand privilege of then having to find a team willing to take on his expiring.
Not really. Sure every player will have bad shooting games but not as much as Anderson does. If we set 30% as the acceptable % for a 3 pt shooter, Curry only had 12 below 30% game for the season whereas Anderson had 22 games below 30% over an 82 game season (less i f you count his inactive games). That meant around 1 out 3 games Anderson played last year he shot garbage from 3 yet his 3 pt average is an elite % at 40%. This tells you he has a massive variance between his shooting nights because although he shoots like garbage every 1/3 games he plays his 2/3 games are so high it more than makes up for his bad shooting nights. The 2nd part of your post doesn't make any sense. Inconsistency doesn't have a direct relationship with difficulty, if there is a higher difficulty then the average fg% will be less, it doesn't mean that there will automatically be a bigger variance where you will have the dude shooting 60% ome night and 18% the next. Lower attempts doesn't apply to Anderson as he is strictly a 3 pt shooter, that is the only way he scores and the Rox system encourages 3 pters. If Anderson has a low # of attempts and that affected his consistency that is not the 3 pts' fault, it is Anderson's fault for being a tentative beta b**** and not shooting enough. Anderson only took 7 3pt attempts per game last season, in comparison Ariza took 6.9. But Ariza is a 3nD glue guy he isn't supposed to take a lot of attempts, Anderson is a 1 dimensional 3 pt shooter who didn't take a lot of shots. Using a number generator to include there will be variance is just dumb, there is no relation to real world players and number generators. You can use a number generator at 60% for pts in the paint and you will also get random %s with lots of variance, doesn't mean post in have lots of variance.
33% is still an acceptable range for 3 pters, in fact it is pretty good. Your floor is too high because from 40% which is Anderson's average to 33% is just 7% difference, if your average is 40% and you shot 32% then thats just 8% lower than usual but it will already be counted as a "hit". There is a huge diff between shooting 32% and 12% but in your stats it is counted the same. How does that show Anderson's extreme variance? Ray Allen is not a valid comparison because 2006 is a different era. Keep in mind Anderson is STRICTLY a 3 pt shooter, this is his only good quality he is a negative at every other aspect of the game.
I really disagree with a lot of what you say here. First of all Anderson shot less than 30% for 1/3 of his games last year. Lets not worry about his peers, just consider that Anderson's only purpose is shooting 3 pts, yet for 1 out of 3 games he played in he shot like garbage. Secondly, on average Anderson takes just 7 3 pts a night. So you have a guy whose only purpose on the floor is just to shoot 3 pters, but even on the nights he was on he only shoots 7 times! That means the dude has a limited ceiling but bottomless floor because when he is hot he doesn't take advantage of it but when he is cold he is a detriment at every single aspect of the game. Now I agree with you Anderson is a role player, however why shouldn't he blamed for making star money? Maybe you feel like the Rox knew he would be just like this but if the Rox knew all along he would be this bad how come they were trying to dump him like a hot potato since the deadline? In his press conference Anderson said he couldn't wait to launch so many 3 pters and Morey implied that he will blow up from benefitting from MDA and Harden yet his ppg actually went down from 16 pts to 12 pts and his 3 pt % is lower than 2013, he last "healthy" season ( previous 2 seasons he missed 20 games). Basically what I'm saying is Morey probably thought he would blow up since he'd be playing in the best system for him and with Harden as the playmaker but he still showed the same performance. How can you play in a system that generates you more open looks and with an actual playmaker and somehow score 4 less pts? Thats just pathetic and disappointing. Now lets look at his peers. Unlike you I believe a player should always be judged by his salary, its how we do it in the corporate world. Look at the NBA now, which nonstar or role player stetch 4 is making 20M a year? Guys like Frye, Patterson and Speights are making a fraction of what Anderson does. Anderson's play is a role player but his pay is a 2ndary star, thats why I said we lived and died with Anderson. When he played like a 2ndary star it isn't him overachieving, its him playing like his pay warranted. OTH the 1/3 of the time where he shot like trash that was us missing 1/3 of the salary cap. 30 mins during the playoffs under MDA is already getting glued to the bench because MDA lost his mind and used the 7 samurais strategy. This meant Anderson was the only starter who sat down for a long time, as the rest got very little if any rest at all.
Not really, we paid him 20M a year that is way above his roleplayer stretch 4 peers. If he was making 1M like his fellow roleplayer stretch4 like Marresse Speights then yeah ok fine. Since he is making more then expectations for him are naturally higher, just like what Uncle Ben said. Just because Anderson shot 40% doesnt mean he had a "monster game" because his FGA is low, hence his paltry 12 pts a night despite his elite 40% 3 pt. If he only took 3 shots that night then he only contributed 6 pts but his 3 pt fg is 66%. Remember Anderson is a defensive liability and also a rebounding chump, you are already losing out by having him on the floor so he should make up for it by pts. Just 12 pts a night even if he had 40% 3 pt average to me doesn't justify his other liabilities.
Probably a wasted endeavor, but I replied to your points anyways. If he shot like crap a third of his games, that means he shot like a monster in 2/3's of his game. If anything, he passed up on too many shots last season. There is a reason why a lot of us are saying we wanted him to shoot more, not less. You don't say that about a player that "sucks" or "chokes consistently". First, he is NOT making star money. A star player at his age would be making at least $25M. Second, why the hell should he be blamed for his salary? He didn't give it to himself, you do realize this right? We (the Rockets) gave it to him, because he is a GREAT FIT for his offense. You cannot blame a player for signing a contract he was offered. We can say he is overpaid or that he is not worth his contract, but to get mad at him for getting paid is stupid. Wow, do you only make arguments based on glancing at box scores? He is averaging less points because he is taking a lot less 2pt shots. Due to him wanting to give Harden as much space as possible and our reluctance to shoot from midrange, he is losing out anywhere from 2 to 4 shots a game, depending on which season you go by. He is actually averaging the most 3pt attempts since his 2013-2014 season, which we can't count since he only played in 22 games that year. Unless you are confusing his 2012-2013 season with his 2013-2014 season, he was not healthy that year. He played a total of 22 games. The year before that, he averaged 38% from deep so no, it was NOT better than last season. His overall FG% was higher, but that's primarily because 1) he WAS healthy and didn't have his neck surgery yet and 2) took 3 more shots from close range per game. This inflates his % and is why intelligent people consider raw shooting percentages not a good metric to go by. He isn't just a stretch 4 role player. He is the best shooting stretch 4 role player (by a long shot) who we signed in an offseason where role players were still getting crazy contracts and our FA pickings were slim due to the horrible season we just finished. Just like in the corporate world, salary is largely determined by demand of skill and availability of skill. He had the skillset we NEEDED for Harden and MDA and there really was not a whole lot of other choices at the time, hence we had to overpay (at the time, we didn't even overpay that much). Again, he is NOT making star money. A star signed in 2016-2017 would easily make over $25M at his age. That is a whopping $5M more. You can't compare him to contracts given out earlier or to younger players as they would always be similar or less given that contracts for quality players generally increase each year and definitely increase each year for stars. Considering his age and time of signing his contract, Ryno is definitely making the higher end of role player money. He player 35 minutes in half the games. In the remaining half, he played roughly 29 minutes on average. In comparison, Beverley (much younger and healthier) only played a single game over 35 minutes with a couple at 25 minutes or less and Capela didn't player a single game over 35 minutes (half were at 25 minutes in fact) and he was the closest player next to Ego who we could consider "star potential" on our team. If you consider 30 minutes glued to the bench, then anyone that was not Harden and Ariza were tied to the bench with iron chains and shackles.
Not at all. Paying someone more doesn't make them a better player. I can't pay a D-League calibre player 10m and then expect him to reject the contract or perform at a greater than MLE (league average) level. It just doesn't make sense. If I raise my expectations, it's my fault. If he doesn't provide value at 10m, that's the GM's fault. He is who he is, he was not a youngster, it's unreasonable to expect more from him than doing what he's always done at an elite level (and 40% on 7 attempts is ELITE ELITE) plus decent offensive rebounding and working his ass off and being in great shape. He did that. As for the numbers, I feel like you haven't looked at them closely. It's 40% on 7 attempts. We actively told him not to take mid range shots and he is not a post guy. He didn't achieve that number on a small scale. And I did say he should have been given more shots. I think your gripe is with Morey, and I think Morey would agree with you. Virtually everyone including every GM thought the salary inflation would continue but it didn't. Anderson is worth 15. Mareese Speights can't give you 40% on 7 3pa. And where this becomes apparent is when you look at people who took a similar number of 3pa. Among people who took more than 6 attempts, no one shot even 42%. Among those guys, only 8 players in the NBA shot higher than 40% and those guys are: Kyrie Irving Mike Conley Nick Young Bradley Beal Kyle Lowry Klay Thompson Steph Curry Of those guys, only 4 of them took more attempts than Ryno. Ryno was the 3rd best scorer in the 10th best offense of ALL TIME last season. That doesn't happen with just one monster offensive player. Gordon and Anderson were thrust into the role of 2nd and 3rd scorers on a team with no chance of being good defensively. And they finished 10th all time offense and 3rd best record in the league. These are elite numbers. So while there wasn't a miraculous other benefit he brought, he certainly performed his primary duty above average. I was expecting him to be in the late 30's with that many attempts. He did better than that. He still brought his decent offensive rebounding and he hustled like a dog to overcome his lack of athleticism. If you were the boss, you would be patting these guys on the back. Losing in the western semis is a fine achievement for the talent level on this team, and Ryno was a big part of that. His salary IS a problem, but not by much. If he were making $15m flat for 3 more years, it would be a fantastic contract that would be easy to move. But it is what it is. Morey overpaid on a bet, and that's ok to make mistakes as rarely as Morey does. I can forgive him for that given the overall position we're in right now.
Thank you, again. People keep forgetting 2 of the 3 reasons we paid that money: he was highly coveted and it gave us a chance to sign Gordon at a cheap (er) price..
Well first of all I would have to disagree with the bolded statement, Anderson didn't really hustle the few times I watched him, if he was hustling you'd see it in either his ft attempts (from getting fouled when he gets the ball via hustle) and his 2 pt attempts (cuz you know, if he has the ball he would have a couple of buckets here and there just like Capela or Nene) and his hustle stats. Anderson only took 3 2 pt FGAs last season and he only has 1 assist a game. So if he was hustling like a dog as you say how come there is no tangible production as proof of his hustle? He's certainly not hustling on defense so if he's hustling on offense how come he doesn't score highly on the hustle stats like assists, steals, rebs, blocks? You're right Anderson was told not to take mid range shots and he isn't a post up guy. But why didn't he take more 3s then? LOL@7 attempts a game for the 3rd highest scorer on the team, that's just straight up messed up and the only reason Anderson only took 7 shots is because he is a beta b****. I think you severely overrate his contribution to the team. I'm not saying Anderson didn't contribute, I'm saying his production would have been totally replaceable if we had Patterson, Frye, Speights etc. all those guys would have provided the same level of contribution as Anderson. Maybe they wouldn't be as good as shooter but at the same time they would give more at rebounding and defense. If you only have 7 attempts a game that affects the FG% a lot, for example Anderson hit around 3 3pters a night on his 7 attempts for that 40%. However another player hitting just 1 less 3 pter on 7 attempts a night will already have a FG% of 29% despite shooting just 1 less 3 than Anderson. That's where Anderson's % is misleading because you look at that nice elite 40% 3 pt percentage and think damn what a god. But then you run the numbers on his measly 7 attempts and it's just an average of 2.8 three pointers a night. On average Anderson just contributes 2.8 three pointers the entire game+1 FG. That's it. I don't know about you but for me that is pitiful production for what is supposed to be a specialized 3 pt shooter who isn't good at anything else. Comparing Anderson to other 3 pt shooters and saying "look they didn't score 40%" is just wrong because other players don't benefit from James Harden and the MDA offense. A good example of this is Trevor Ariza, does he seem like an elite 3 pt sniper to you? Most people would say he is just average, however Ariza made 2.4 3s to Anderson's 2.8 on roughly the same number of attempts, and yet their 3 pt % is so far 40% to 34.4%. Again this is due to the low amount of 3 pt FGs they take per game the difference between Anderson and Ariza is not even half of a 3 pt shot (1.3 pts?) but their percentage differs by a whopping 5%. If the Rox just cloned Ariza and had him start at both PF and SF the team wouldn't even miss Anderson offensively and would probably be better at defense and rebounding. I do have a gripe with Morey for signing Anderson to that ridiculous contract but my bigger gripe is with Anderson because he failed to perform to expectations. I get what you are trying to say about not blaming a role player but Anderson didn't play up to expectations which was his historical performance, ever since he was 23 yrs old Anderson never dipped below 13 pts in scoring (except for that 1 anomaly in 2014) how come when he came to a PHX Suns style offense and became the 2nd/3rd option that was when his scoring dipped hard? That is all on Anderson, because Eric Gordon was able to increase his PPG from last year despite cutting down on his 2 pt shots and increasing his 3 pt shots. If Anderson scored 16 pts a game just like what he did last year in NOP while keeping his current % then we wouldn't be having this conversation. I also don't believe that Anderson is just overpaid by 3M (18-15=3), like I said his contemporaries like Patterson and Frye and Speights don't even make 5M so he is overpaid by at least 300%. Think about it 3M is nothing when your cap is 90M, if Anderson would have been fantastic at 15M then he would have been traded by now.
i dont have stats to back this up... but i dont recall anderson ever shooting us out of a deficit. it seems he would hit 3's when we're up 5-10-15. not often when we're behind.
putting houston up with about 40 seconds remaining vs SA in game 5 comes to mind. basically the main player keeping houston in the game in game 2 also comes to mind. people will always believe what they want to believe.
These are not signs of hustle. Hustle doesn't show up in assists. Does NOT show up in FTA's either. I don't know why you think they might? Hustle is a matter of effort, running your fastest, working your hardest, executing sharply. The fact that he hustled on defense does not mean he would be good at it. It just means he would be the best he could be. Not sure we're on the same page about the definition of hustle? You seem to keep asking for things he just cannot do, and we 100% knew he wouldn't do them the day we signed him. He is a beta player, of course. Why didn't he take more shots? Because the beta on a team doesn't just go out and force shots up unless he's told or the play is drawn up. That is who he is. We knew that. It is 100% false that Patterson (shot worse on just over half the volume), Frye (shot the same on half the volume) or Speights (shot worse on half the volume) could replace him. None of those guys could make as many 3's at that volume. Not even close. Those guys would at best be in the mid 30's if they approached that volume. It feels like you are cherry picking these stats. Take the Ariza example. The 0.4 makes matters A LOT. That's 1.2ppg extra on the same number of attempts. It matters A LOT, even if you pick a stat that perceives the impact in single digits. It's also why Ryno is worth a lot more than the examples you listed. Because 40% on 7 attempts is no joke at all. To summarize this as "Anderson contributes 2.8 3's and a FG" is disingenuous and I'm sure from your posting history that you know that, you're certainly a better quality poster than that. Ryan Anderson brought elite 3pt makes, elite spacing and decent offensive rebounding for the 10th best offense of all time and 3rd best team in the NBA. That's precisely what we signed him for, he did his job. That was the job he got hired for. He wasn't hired to do more. Anderson has met the expectations. For his salary, see Morey. For his shots, talk to James and MDA.
i'm sure morey knows this but can someone tell me that melo would be a better 3pt shooter overall than ryno for the simple fact that melo's home away splits would be so godamn awful like ryno's were?
Of course stats would show signs of hustle, if you run around and scramble on the court why wouldn't you pick up loose balls or get charges or ball deflections? Check out Ariza and Bev's rebound and steal nos for their position, thats proof of guys that hustle. You keep saying Anderson hustles but you have no proof that he does so other than your statement "he hustles". What kind of hustler doesn't get rebounds, charges, steals? Does he just sprint around the court aimlessly like a chicken with his head cut off? I'm not cherry picking stats, lets use your example, what is 35% on 3s for 8 attempts? 8.4 ppg. What is 40% on 3s for 8 attempts? 9.6 ppg. In your example alone, you can that Anderson only produces 1.2 ppg more than Frye, Patterson etc. Does 1.2 ppg matter? Yes it does, but not enough to pay 300% market price. If team A pays Frye 3M to score 8.4 ppg on 8 attempts and team B pays Anderson 18M to score 9.6 ppg on 8 attempts is that good value for money? Thats like paying 4x for the "deluxe" model of the same car but really only has a cup holder and a rearview camera! And thats just on offense, what about rebounding, health and defense which everyone knows Anderson is in the bottom percentile of PFs? I'm pretty sure those are worth more than the 1.2PPG. The Rockets are a moneyball team, like what Morey says they find the Parsons they don't pay the Portions. So even if Morey didn't have any other choice at the time, when you see that Anderson is overpaid 3x by his peers now its like a slap in the face on what the Rox try to do. You keep acting like everyone is ok with Anderson's performance like its fine that he only shot 8 times a night because thats what we signed him for. If Morey was so satisfied with Anderson why was he trying to get rid of Anderson at the deadline, even dangling Beverly as the prize piece in trade talks? If MDA was so happy with Anderson how come he only played 30 mins in the playoffs when MDA was doing the 7 samurais strategy and didn't even substitute anyone else? If Anderson was such an asset how come NY didn't want him but was willing to get Kanter for Melo? If Morey was really happy with Anderson because he did everything that was expected then the Rox would have released a puff piece talking about how happy they were like what they did with Capela. Instead the rumors were he was shopping Anderson as early as the deadline and its pretty obv he outright tried to dump Anderson during the summer.
I will support Ryan Anderson as long as he is a Rocket. And he will only get better looks now with Chris Paul on board.
