Your second point is sound. But on the first point I don't think I'll ever understand where you're coming from. The only thing that matters when you're on defense is limiting the number of points the other team scores on each of their possessions. To put it another way, there's no such thing as a good defensive play that does not improve your chances of limiting the other team's ability to score on their possession.
I really don't think Troy Murphy and Luis Scola are that different defensively. To say Murphy is Steve Novak level of defense is just absurd.
If Ron Artest wants all that money I would not mind doing a sign and trade with Golden State to trade Artest and a filler for Corey Magette and camby.
No I was hoping Murphy is one of the overpaid guys Indiana would be willing to give away since they are struggling financially. I remember reading an espn article refering to Indiana having to dangle Granger in deals so someone would take Murphy off thier books. Ideally they would take our low expirings for him, maybe Cook, Barry and a trade exception. I think we can do better with McGrady's expiring.
durvasa, per 100 possessions doesn't register because it takes a carryover effect. There are 75 poss per game in a normal rox game. If scola plays most of his possession with yao, its only natural his on should be greater than his off regardless off the magic number of 100 poss. I'm all for progress and new analysis, but basketball is more like checkers, not quantitative analysis.
morey said he's looking to buy a pick and if we want a shooter go after joe meeks in the draft he can shoot the heck out of the ball put up 52 point in one game... and in the mock draft he's a second rounder...
That's not a criticism of points allowed per possession. You've argued before that PPG and FG% are more important in the past, but this same point (who you play with impacts what the team does with you on the floor) holds equally true for that. There are two separate issues: (1) coming up with a measure of how well the team performed on defense, and (2) coming up with a measure of how well the individual performed on defense. Looking at points allowed per possession is absolutely appropriate for (1). For the individual, defensive impact ultimately should be reflect how much better the team can be expected to defend with him on the floor than off the floor, holding all the other players on the court constant. And, again, when we talk about the "team defending", we mean the team's ability to limit the opponent's scoring per possession. I've yet to encounter any credible counter-argument to that concept.
Name the last Rockets player to shoot better than 40 % from the field and 40% from the 3-pt line and actually average more than 10 points per game for more than 1 season. Spoiler Answer is Kenny Smith. Walt the Wizard got close. A few players have done it during 1 season, but we need more than a flash in a pan to really have a chance at a championship. Decent and streaky shooters (who we have) do not equal good, consistent shooters who are part of the rotation. Given that we are a team that is built around an inside/outside game or AB kick outs, we need shooters that are more consistent than what we current have. We do need size inside. But we also need a guy who we can hit shots, have the confidence to take the shot, and will get playing time.
Chuck Hayes is going to take a 1000 shots in gym everyday this summer. He'll come back as a sharp mid-range shooter.
I wish we could get Morrison from the Lakers. He is just sitting there. A good shooter OK defense, and lots of heart. I think he fits the Rox's style of not giving up. His defense will improve with this team. He would be awesome with the way the team plays.
Which is $2 million more than the Rockets should spend on him. Von Wafer made about $700K, I believe. Meaning twice as much as Scola and Landry's salary? He does? Why doesn't he give the Clippers, Knicks or Bulls a big guy that can shoot with range and put the ball on the floor? He got passed around in the same season twice and pretty much failed to leave the bench during the playoffs. He's been useless most of his career for anything other than empty stats. What have Thomas and Davis done? What have all of your "greyhounds" done? Rockets took Lakers to 7 games with their two highest salaries players injured. Hornets tooks Spurs to 7 with a largely healthy roster. And you know what's annoying? That you act like all that the Rockets did was load up on Battier-type players. You talk as though Morey acquired nothing but Steve Blake, Battier, Bruce Bowen, Joe Smith and Chuck Hayes-types.... That's just counterfactual, as if the team never takes atheleticsm and scoring ability into consideration. The recent acquisitions have included Artest, Scola, Wafer, Landry, Brooks, Lowry, even Francis and James. Hardly guys who cannot score or only guys without atheleticsm.
Don't forget Bonzi Wells and Kirk Snyder. They always seem to get forgotten when people want to complain about the Rockets bringing in Shane Battier. Those two guys were supposed to be talented, athletic offensive players, but they basically were flops. They were great in China though, I hear.
1. Explain how you caount 75 possessions per game. http://www.basketball-reference.com/leagues/NBA_2009.html 2. Yao certainly has an effect on Scola's on/off numbers, particularly given that he's the only shot-blocking big on the roster that played regular minutes. Most often when Yao was off, the Rockets had Scola/Landry at the 4/5, and the defense is not as good (about 108.5 per 100 possessions-- roughly the NBA average, I believe). However, do you honestly think a Yao/Murphy frontline would do nearly as well defensively as Yao/Scola? Oy vey.
Hold up, he was already making a reference to the "Kirk Snyder has recently lost his mind" story. You can't take credit for that zing.
Adjust it down to points per 75 possessions then. It doesn't really matter; it's a rate and it adjusts for game pace. If you don't get that, there's nothing I can do. And I'l grant that it's an imperfect number, as you cited for Scola, the Yao Ming effect. Both Yao and Scola played virtually the whole season (Yao missed 5 games; Yao average 34 minutes and Scola averaged 30. The remaining 32 was split mainly between Hayes (12) and Landry (21) with trace minutes to Cook, Mutombo, Dorsey, and small ball (Battier/Artest). Most of the time when Yao was off the court, Scola was on it -- the lone exception would be the Landry-Hayes pairings, which often produced a better defensive result than when Yao was on the court. I would love to see a defensive points per 100 possessions for various players with and without Yao over the last couple years. My guess would actually be minimal change due to the equal effectiveness of Hayes/Mutombo on that side of the ball. To the original point, it also doesn't change the dramatic difference in team defense when Troy Murphy is in the game -- especially when the Pacers often went to small ball with Danny Granger at the 4.
