Gotta agree with you on this one. I'm scrolling past all these posts, thinking, "Arguing again with a stranger on the internet, again!, now my life is complete."
Originally when I used the term outlier, it was in regards to players shooting well against bad defenses and worse against good defenses would obviously be the case MOST of the time (refuting your dumb premise) and I said their could be outliers amongst that, which would could be hundreds of data points as players, or 1000's of data points if you were looking at seasons. This is in reference to YOUR notion that Reed pumps up his stats and shoots well against bad defenses. Nothing about him shooting bad as you tried to twist this into with your post I replied to here. When I referenced Reed's best game last year being against the best defense in the NBA it's again NOT an outlier. Are you saying Reed had a multitude of good games last year and most a majority etc came against bad defenses? I highly doubt that. That would go against your negative volume sh*t posting about Reed. As someone stated to you Reed had 4 games where he hit 5 or more shots last year. 2 came against top 5 defenses. So 2 points among the HUGE data set of 4 points with the OKC i mentioned is a data set and there are 2 outliers? sure buddy that makes sense. You're a dum dum. If i were you I would feel embarrassed. But as someone said you are just being a troll purposely obtuse. While attempting to twist what you are saying to argue over a simple term like outlier. So you don't care that you are wrong and just arguing to argue.
Very small sample size for Reed this season. But, there is no denying that he’s improved in almost every way. What he will ultimately become is still unknown, but the fact he has improved is encouraging. He’s still trying to figure it all out, but he’s looking more comfortable and is more productive. He’s trending in the right direction is how I would put it.
I can definitely appreciate a good argument or debate, after all steel sharpens steel.... but that requires a certain level of competence. Arguing with morons or dishonest trolls is just rubbing **** on steel and there's no benefit from that. Also, you just definitely want to avoid a situation like this It's just not that serious.
Let's stipulate that the worst opinion of Reed is the baseline. That is, he pads stats against bad teams. OK, you know what that does? It wins regular season games putting us in a better position for playoff seeding. It eats minutes and lets others rest keeping them fresh for the playoffs. The baseball analogy is Reed as the 5th starting pitcher. If this is the worst version of Reed, I'm good with it. But it is not reality. The reason comparisons are made to Stockton, Nash, and Price is not due to race, but due to how their early careers played out. None put the NBA on notice during their first year. Price was the guy who figured it out the fastest and made huge leaps in his second and third years, but for Stockton and Nash, it took more than two years for them to show glimpses of what they would become. Stockton's big leap came in year four, Nash's in year five. Reed has the luxury of playing on a really good team where he does not need to press or impress. His performance arc is one of nice, steady improvement and I, for one, am happy to watch it play out. His value on this team will do nothing but increase in the coming months and years.
On a title contending team those 20 minutes Reed is playing a night matter. They can decide whether a 37 yr old injury prone KD has to come back into the game. In a tightly compressed Western Conference they can be the difference between home court in the first 3 rounds of the playoffs or no home court at all. This is a different conversation if our timeline was wide open but its not with an aging superstar on a short term deal who is taking a generous amount out of our cap.
Couple of things, 1. The minutes with Reed Sheppard haven't been negative. 2. You are correct that those minutes matter, they further develop a weapon the Rockets will need in the playoffs...a weapon we needed in the playoffs last year but Ime failed to provide the minutes needed to make that happen.
Ja clearly doesn't want to be in Memphis and he let Reed off the hook a couple of times last night when I just know in the past he would have attacked. Still I think he's overall improving on defense and playing stronger/more sound at the point of attack. I expect that to continue to get better. Glad to see him shooting well overall and hopefully the more he plays the more comfortable he will get and have more of an attacking mindset. Still looks like he doesn't want to make mistakes and sometimes ends up making mistakes because of it. Reed may need to hit the blunt a couple times before he goes out there. Just slow down, relax and play ball kid.
Reed needs to learn how to draw charges...that's what made you respect Stockton on defense because he knew how to get in position to draw a charge. That made his opponent less aggressive or think twice on trying to overpower Stockton with their athleticism....same for Steve Nash, he mastered the game of angles and was great in drawing charges.
Obviously only been 7 games but so far: Reed (complete bust, blah blah blah): 0.131 ws/48, +1.4 BPM, 0.1 VORP Castle (already amazing, future star, blah blah blah): 0.109 ws/48, -0.3 BPM, 0.1 VORP Castle has much better TS so far (due to super lucky/unsustainable 2pt shooting) but double the turnover rate (an astonishing 5.5 per 36)
I like to include FVV in my potential outcomes, and he shares the same arc as those guys. 4 years college players, and then multiple NBA seasons to really figure out how to succeed being undersized. That's 6-8 years removed from high school for all those guys, Sheppard is early in his 3rd year. Even Curry, the absolute dream outcome, didn't become an actual impact player until his mid 20's.
