KPJ: Can someone explain to me why he has become Clutchfans favorite whipping boy?

The issue is the disparity between his potential assists and his actual assists... all a guard can do is create the shots, they can't make the shots for them too.

 

Let's see if you can understand it, let's try something easy.

Houston Overall Offensive Rating: 108.4
Houston Offensive Rating w/KPJ on the floor: 107.6

We have a bad offense, with or without KPJ.
The player we need is obviously not on this team. Do you understand or not?

 

Let's see if you can understand it, let's try something easy.

Houston Overall Offensive Rating: 108.4
Houston Offensive Rating w/KPJ on the floor: 107.6

We have a bad offense, with or without KPJ.
The player we need is obviously not on this team. Do you understand or not?

 

Yup and that doesn't account for the fact that when KPJ is in the floor, the opposing team staters are on the floor most of the time.

 

I'm not sure where you get your numbers, but according to basketball reference, the Rockets have a 110.0 offensive rating with KPJ on the court, and 110.0 with him off the court.....which is pretty impressive given that if you look who he shares the court with most of the time....

The team has a 108.0 offensive rating when Jalen Green is on the court, and a 114.9 offensive rating with him off the court

and

The team has a 106.2 offensive rating with Jabari Smith on the court and a 114.8 offensive rating with him off the court.

Now, you may ask, who is it that greatly helps the team?

The team has a 115.6 offensive rating with KJ Martin on the court and a 103.6 with him off the court

and

The team has a 115.1 offensive rating with Sengun on the court and a 105.6 with him off the court.


It's pretty clear who the guys that have drug the offense down this season thus far are.....and it's not KPJ.

Now I think the young guys will eventually come around, but blaming their early season struggles on KPJ is pretty foolish.


edit- Let's also not overlook Josh Christopher, the team has a 97.9 offensive rating when he's on the court and a 111.6 offensive rating when he's not on the court.

 

His passing definitely looks like it's improving. Last night especially stood out as a great passing game to me, here is a nice montage I saw on twitter.

 

The Suns offensive rating with Chris Paul in 2021 - 2022: 114
The Suns offensive rating without Chris Paul in 2021 - 2022: 119.

Man, that Chris Paul guy was really a drag on their offense. It’s almost as if limited data can skew numbers and often does when comparing backups to starters. Imagine that!

 

When KPJ had a 2-assist game:
KPJ doubters: Look, a starting PG had only 2 assists!
KPJ fans: Assists don't matter. He has talent!

When KPJ had a 11-assist game:
KPJ fans: Look, he is a great playmaker!
KPJ doubters: Assists don't matter. He can't make good decisions!

 

I love the "take a stat nobody has any context for and KABOOM CAREER HIGH " approach of Rockets twitter clout chasers.

Like, I have no idea what a good potential assist number is. What is Harden's back in his heyday? That's a good number to baseline for me. What is a bad one, like Tracy McGrady, who was never recorded passing on video in history? I need to know all of this before I get hyped up about POT-ASS career highs

 

Really? I've looked at this stat for years now but I'm a stat nerd so I'm kind of in my own world. So it means something to me, and I didn't think it was super obscure.

Here are Hardens potential assist averages per year next to his actual assists
2015-16: 14.8 (7.5 assists)
2016-17: 22.3 (11.2 assists)
2017-18: 16.3 (8.8 assists)
2018-19: 13.8 (7.5 assists)
2019-20: 14.7 (7.5 assists)

So it seems like ~24 is slightly more than you would expect form a guy who got 11 assists in a game. Also, I looked up Harden's career high in assists, which is 17, and he's done it 10 times. I looked up the 3 most recent times he's done it because I didn't feel like checking all 10, and his potential assists in those games were 20, 23, and 20.

 

This KPJ doubter: Keep getting assists and get the turnovers under control. I would be estactic if KPJ can consistently get assists without be a gumball machine that spits out turnovers.

 

But wasn't it you who said that the Chris Paul-style PG concept was obsolete? Do you have it for reference now?
Dude, you are a joke. I'm going to have a lot of fun with your opinions.

 

What "context" do you need for a pretty straight forward stat like that? KPJ created what could have been 24 assists if his teammates made their shots.

 

What are you even talking about? You seriously don’t make sense.

I’ll try to break it down for you, since you don’t seem to follow arguments very well. I never said it’s a BAD thing to have a typical PG in the mold of Chris Paul. I said the concept that you NEED a guy like Chris Paul is obsolete.

 

Exactly. A pass to a player that misses a shot is nothing. "Potential Assist" ... We have enough stats, can we stop now please.

 

Not talking about you, but talking about the initial tweet - what's a typical POT-ASS - ASS Ratio - 2:1? 3:1? I mean I assume it is because FG% leaguwide would give me that data, but why is it any more impressive than just saying "He got 10 assists, that's pretty good!" more or less conveys the same sentiment with less confusion.

 

No, it's not "nothing", the job of a PG is to create shots, not make those shots for the players they set up. When a player creates a ton of "potential assists" and his teammates let him down, you can see that with that metric.

It's not his fault that his "3 and D" rookie PF can't make 30% of his 3's that are open or wide open.

 

If a player creates 14 potential assists and his teammates converted 13 of them it means they had to do less to get those 13 assists than a player who created 25 potential assists but his teammates only converted 13 of them.

When you just look at the raw assist number, it doesn't show that context.

 

Sorry but you have a pretty dumbed down view of the game if you think this means nothing. The goal of the point guard is to generate quality shots. Generating 10 open 3s and having your teammates make 3 of them is a better performance than generating 4 open 3s and having your teammates make all 4. It's a much better thing to look at than raw assists when you're trying to assess the performance of the point guard.

 

I think it is the fact that Sengun has given us a system - and now the players particularly Green and KPJ are starting to TRUST others.....and the ball is flowing.

I do believe that young guys get caught up in the whole....."Best guards in the league" conversation and not "What is winning basketball"...supposed to look like.

And both Green and KPJ make a mistake and then for the next 2 to 3 possessions try to make it up on their own instead of forgetting it and still working within the system.

How many big shots were hit by Paxson, Kerr, Horry, Elie, etc...role player???? Because their teamates trusted them.....that is where we need to get to.....

And KPJ had 11 assists last night and we couldn't chuck it in the Ocean from 3.....

The team is coming together, I just hope Silas doesn't **** it up when Tate and Fernando come back.

DD