I think it was Morey or somebody who said recently at the geek conference that the value of statistical analysis was not necessarily to make conclusions, but rather to back test the observations you make with your eyes/scouting. I agree with everything you are saying. My observations are simply that Brooks has hurt us this year in the game, and the bench has looked much more at ease these last few games with Dragic. Combining those observations with the numbers is what makes me make those conclusions. If we want to find out exactly how effective Dragic is, a greater sample size is needed, especially a stat with as much variance as +/-. For instance, in the last game during the portion that actually mattered, Dragic was a +10. Unfortunately he was dragged down to +0 in the 5 minutes of garbage time by Twill and Hill. That will not show up in small sample sizes but we can see it with our eyes how well the real team played with him in. With more data points we will get a better gauge at what his real +/- is.
I wish there were more games left so we can see Dragic develop as a Rocket. He is fun to watch. He plays like he is out of control, but I have not seen him make too many turnovers. For not knowing the offense, his passes have been crisp. I hope he keeps it up!
If past data is any indication, he will have plenty of turnovers. He is young enough where hopefully he can improve. As long as his turnovers come from aggression, rather than the dribble off your foot, too slow to get across half court, drive baseline and get trapped, pick up your dribble and no where to go variety, I will be fine with it.
Wait. The evidence presented in this thread would seem to indicate that Brooks was having a down year. I'm completely flabbergasted by that. My world has been turned upside down as a result of this thread. Major kudos to the OP for causing me to reevaluate my thought process.
I don't know if anybody remembers, but last year right after the Astros traded Berkman and Oswalt, they played great team ball for like two weeks. Then the wheels fell off. Also, when Hakeem went down with a broken orbital bone around his eye, the team actually played better without Hakeem for a couple of weeks until they ran out of steam, IIRC. I think there is some evidence that trading key players can have short term gains which wear off. I think it would be better just throw out the first couple of weeks of data before starting the "sampling" if you want a totally accurate picture.
You know, I'm so glad that you brought that up. Last year, Aaron Brooks's career year, a year that he has not shown that he can replicate yet, he played 68 games together with Lowry. In those 68 games, here is how the team did with Lowry OFF the court. Code: POR -6 GSW +7 POR +1 UTH +1 LAL +1 OKC -3 DAL -13 MEM +8 SAC -2 LAL +1 PHO +8 MIN +4 ATL -14 SAC -5 DAL +2 SAS -10 OKC -4 LAC -1 GSW -14 POR +6 CLE +13 PHI -3 TOR -20 DET +6 DEN -1 DAL -15 OKC +10 LAC -10 ORL -15 NJN +12 CLE -14 NOR -13 DAL +14 NOR -9 LAL -6 PHO -15 NYK +9 CHA -4 MIN +17 MIA +2 MIL -2 SAS -7 CHI -4 ATL -8 DEN -2 POR +1 MEM +3 PHI -28 WAS +0 NJN -5 DEN +1 MEM +11 BOS +6 NYK -8 CHI -5 OKC -7 LAC +10 LAL -9 WAS -3 SAS -15 BOS -7 IND -15 MEM +21 UTH +22 CHA +9 PHO -8 SAC -1 NOR -2 That is an average of -1.87. Meaning on average the team lost almost 2 points per game when Lowry went to the bench. During that same stretch of 68 games, the team had an overall point differential per game of -0.32. Seeing how talent deficient(allstar deficient) that team was, the margin of error was razor thin. As matter of fact it was exactly -0.32 points thin. To lose almost 2 points every time your backup PG is off the court is an absolute anvil dragging down the team. Starting to sound familiar? When the only time the team actually gains on it's opponents is when the backup PG is in the game, you know that there is a problem with your starter. Especially when this starter was having his supposed CAREER YEAR. You know, as opposed to the "down year" this time around. The good news is, this backup PG is now the starter and leader of the team playing much more minutes. The bad news is, for 29 games this year the guy he replaced has still been costing us near 4 points per game whenever Lowry needs a break. If it wasn't for that, we would have a winning record by now and firmly in the playoffs JUST BY PLAYING LOWRY MORE. The best news is, those -4 points per game seems to be off the team now. It turns out when they said "addition by subtraction" it really does work, as in 1-(-1) = 2. Or in this case (-4).
I don't know too many basketball jargons or statistics, but dude, just watch the game. It is not all about numbers. You get the impression how a player performs by actually watch the game.
