Are we just gonna ignore the magical game that Harris and Nicholson just had tonight?

Pats lack of defensive rebounding and refusal to box out consistently created 2nd and 3rd chances for opposing teams on offense.

 

Patterson was trash with interior defense in the paint against bigs but was smart enough with team defense that he was able to defend when switched onto some of the smaller players. Morris was the same way except due to the team trying to convert him to a SF his entire rookie year he was more suited to handle larger swing guys like Carmelo Anthony or Lebron James.

Motiejunas is likely to never be that great at defense but how many star PFs outside of old school guys like Duncan and Garrnet are?

 

Right on.

Of course. Pro sports from a GM perspective is about managing and taking risks, much like it is in a traditional business. Clearly Morey sees a better chance of leaping to contender status by maintaining flexibility through rooster turnover because more than likely the next step won't involve grooming a rookie to be that second or even first star. That is the next step will require capspace and money.

Indeed. I don't see Robinson being able to contribute at all this season unless he gains some profound understanding of the game. However, he is an athletic freak which the Roxs are missing. Time will tell if he can figure out how to translate it to the next level.

Well obviously the Rockets see something in DMO as this trade impacts this player the most.

I disagree that the playoffs will be a difference maker for FAs. Anyway you cut it, postseason or not, the Rockets are way ahead of schedule. Plus we have this thing called capspace and lots of it... Not to mention guys with upside.

Look, this is a win-win no matter how you cut it. We had a logjam at PF and now our guys with more upside and potential will have a chance (hopefully TJones can get healthy). We will save a little money for the offseason. We didn't have to give up anyone who will impact the team long term. The ONLY downside is it my come at the cost of the postseason. That would certainly suck but that is an acceptable loss. This ain't checkers, this is chess.

 

How often is Asik on the bench and Patterson on the court?

 

That was because of Asik and not Pat and that is an absolute fact.

 

"As Morey said, the publicly available defensive ratings are generally meaningless."

 

I'm talking about his improvement this year. I'm talking about his play against the forwards he was matched up against. He started crashing the boards harder, and showed improvement in his interior defense since the year started.

I didn't want to get into the whole stats thing since it's already been shown that they are meaningless, but the Rockets did collect more rebounds with Patterson on the court than when he wasn't.

 

man, they blow by dmo without even trying lol. He'll learn though.

 

I think the attractiveness to FA's due to making the playoffs can make a difference but that's not the most important thing about making the playoffs. I think the most important thing about making the playoffs is the experience the playoff atmosphere will bring to the team. In addition building the culture of winning is important. Making the playoffs means we've been winning. We need to develop that culture with this young team. They're working hard right now, but the longer we go without winning the easier it is to have just a little bit of the edge taken off.

I think once they see the kind of defensive focus that plays such a huge role in the playoffs it will be huge in helping the team and players develop. I think that experience is the most valuable for this team.

As far as being overcrowded at the 4 position, that is something that should be cleared up, but trading to guys who were at least serviceable and showed a willingness, effort, and ability to improve and were still young in order to give a guy who's a defensive sieve more time along with a prospect who may be a really great player but hasn't shown those signs yet is a risk. It may have even been a risk worth taking, but I don't mind looking at what we have, what we had, and analyzing the trade and it's effectiveness where it is now, as long as we are open to re-evaluating as time goes on.

 

I still disagree about FAs. However I do think making the playoffs for our players' experience is valuable. BUT, this is the first year of James Harden contract and I still maintain the missing the playoffs is an acceptable (not to be confused with ideal) loss when looking at the big picture of becoming a legitimate contender. The GM is thinking long term about building a contender while the coach/players play one game at a time. This team will still battle to remain in the playoffs, but will need more good luck in having Utah (most likely) or GS slide out of the race due to this trade.

Playoffs or no playoffs I expect some rooster turn over this offseason as Morey solidifies the team with the pieces needed to reach that next level.

This move forces McHale to lose his safety blanket (which may hurt us temporarily) but it allows DMo to get legit experience and exposure.

 

To your credit, this was a well-reasoned and decent post. The problem is that you've been smug, insistent, obsessive and irrational about Thomas Robinson in general. You've started three threads on the subject, make some stupid comment about DMo's lack of defense in nearly every discussion about him. Any time Robinson is discussed you say that he can't play, he sucks etc. You've become fanatical about the subject even though it's WAY too early to tell that Patterson will be better than Robinson.

One thing that most people ignore is the effectiveness of Delfino at PF (I think our small ball line-up data shows this). So even if Robinson doesn't work out, forcing McHale to this line-up is a win in my opiniion. I guess it's just a shame to see a poster like you, who is normally pretty smart and insightful, to turn into an irrational fanatic about an issue.

 

ARE WE JUST GONNA IGNORE THE TERRIBLE NIGHT DIRK AND ELTON BRAND JUST HAD TONIGHT?​

Veterans Dirk Nowitzki and Elton Brand, the two PFs of Dallas, played exactly 36 minutes combined tonight with no overlap as far as I can remember.

Their stats, combined, are as follows:

8 points, 2-10 from the field, +/- of -11, & 5 TO's.


We would be setting off alarms and making multiple threads here if our young PFs come close to these numbers.

Are they already washed up scrub NBA players or is there an alternative cause for this terrible night of PF basketball?

 

D-Mo played well on defense tonight.

 

Are we just gonna ignore the improved defense that D-Mo played tonight?

 

we must make atleast 10threads about how great Dmo defense was tonight.

 

Missed this thread and passed it off as CH's lighthearted trolling after reading the OP. No idea you've actually gone off the deep end about it until reading through.

CH, as one of the best posters on CF, you have made 2 fatal mistakes here.

1. As intelligent as you may be, Morey simply knows best. His moves may be hit or miss, that is the nature of any type of basketball moves, but never ever question the thoroughness of his motivation. There is a precise reasoning for every step. Instead of trying to figure out "why did he just do that?!", ask yourself "what don't I see?" Because obviously he did it for a good reason. Which leads us to...

2. Your overrating of Patrick Patterson. You are fooled by the eye test. As you've noted, there are no publicly available ratings for defense that are worthwhile. I would argue that there are no publicly available ratings for overall players period that are worthwhile, then, since defense is half the ball game.

From every advance statistic that I've seen, the one that stood out by far the most has been RAPM, Regularized Adjusted Plus Minus. It paints a picture that fits enough with the eye test, while still offering enough new information to prove valuable.

For instance, both Andre Iguodala and Josh Smith have been rated by RAPM as top 15-20 players for years. So far, taking a 12ppg AI off the 76ers has collapsed that team. While ATL has had no problem coping without Joe Johnson(rated only slight positive by RAPM), who many believed was their best player.

Further supporting the case for RAPM, the data for this season has been recently taken off the site. No longer publicly available. I've emailed the site owner off and on, and the reason behind this is because he has been hired by an NBA team. He would like to maintain the anonymity of his employer, but from our emails I have a sneaking suspicion that it might be the Rockets(could be way wrong here). Either way, there is real value in this stat.

So onto my actual point:

According to RAPM, Patrick Patterson was the worst offensive player in our entire rotation. This has nothing to do with scoring efficiency or PPG. RAPM measures how much a player impacts the team after adjusting for the other 9 players on the court.

According to RAPM, Patrick Patterson was the second worst defensive player in the rotation. Second to none other than Douglas. Again, this has nothing to do with 1-on-1 defense, or post defense, or help defense, or opponent %s. It measures what actually matters, how the TEAM as a whole did on defense with Patterson, adjusted for everything else.

Overall, with both defense and offense combined, he was by far the worst player in the entire rotation.

This does not mean that DMo(no sample size) or Robinson(also terrible RAPM) are going to be any better. However, according to by far the best advanced stat that I know of that is no longer publicly available because it got picked up by an actual NBA team, Patrick Patterson was never going to be the difference between making the playoffs or not. In fact, simply losing him may have actually helped the team.

 

While I loved the Robinson trade and do not share Carl's enormous fetish for Patterson, I have to say you're being too extreme on the other end. Whatever his shortcomings, he's still certainly among the better players on the team. And definitely, IMO, better than DMo and Robinson for at least this year.

Two things to note.

1. Patterson was injured last year and played badly. RAPM for this year would surely be better. His win shares/48 basically doubled this season.

2. McHale for whatever reason played Patterson down the stretch a lot. Both last year and this year. And the Rockets staff have said Patterson's a good defender. Yes, I know metrics say otherwise. Which begs the question of why the Rockets, arguably the most statistically advanced team in the NBA, would not see this. My answer is that stats like defensive efficiency or RAPM's problem is that it's less reliable for non-elite defenders.

For example, suppose Patterson is a 7/10 defender while Morris is a 5/10. In that case, McHale would always choose Patterson against a prolific player. While he would be more inclined to yank Morris in the same situation. Say Griffin starts t6 kill Morris. McHale brings in Patterson. Griffin's still killing Patterson. What does McHale do? The answer is nothing. He still keeps Patterson in because there's no one better to play. And then he brings in Morris only when Griffin sits.

Obviously the above is just my guess, but from the games I watch, it does seem like certain players McHale would just leave in regardless of how badly we're getting killed. While others he would sub out quickly at first signs of trouble. And Patterson certainly belongs in the former group.

 

According to RAPM, he was the worst player in our rotation at the time. I didn't mean our entire team, including the guys who weren't playing at the time. Dmo's numbers were slightly better, but still negative(which is generally the case for most rookies). Robinson's numbers were bad.

Again, not trying to be extreme, just what the numbers said. FYI, the second worst player in the rotation according to RAPM was Douglas, whom we traded to open up playing time for a rookie we signed from Russia.

My point wasn't about how bad Patterson was. Even though he was the worst in our rotation, its not like he was one of the worst players in the league. He was simply a net negative player like many others in the league. My point was more about how little the impact will be from losing a player such as that.

I followed RAPM regularly this year before it was taken down. Surprisingly, Patterson's rating has been just as bad, despite the uptick in his conventional, and some other advanced stats.

The reason RAPM, and other ADJUSTED +/- stats are valuable is that it adjusts for the other 9 players on the court, yielding the true value of the player you are measuring. So if Patterson was getting killed by an elite player, that information is already factored into the stat. Meanwhile, if Morris is merely holding his own against an average player, that is also factored into RAPM, and he is penalized for it accordingly. The defense of their 4 teammates are also factored in, as well as the 4 teammates of his opponent. It is a comprehensive stat encompassing all factors, and seeking the player's true impact on the game.

Furthermore, RAPM measures what actually matters. We all know by most advanced stats Josh Smith is horrendous on the offensive end, with a TS% below .500. However, is a player's individual offensive efficiency the be all end all? What is really relevant is his impact on his TEAM's offense, afterall the end result is about how the team does, not the players individually. This is what RAPM seeks. For Smith, he is actually a net 0 player on offense. I suspect this is due to his elite passing ability as a 4 compensating for his lack of scoring efficiency.

RAPM is more accurate compared to, say, the adjusted +/- at basketballvalue by using Regularization to smooth out mathematical wrinkles in the data that sometimes yield funky results.

Just for fun, off the top of my head if memory serves me correctly:

1. Asik is top 5 in the league in impacting defense according to RAPM. His rim protection has been a bit underwhelming at times from my eyetest, the high rating is due to his elite defensive rebounding I would guess.

2. Harden is the number 3 offensive player in the entire LEAGUE according to RAPM.(top 10 overall player)

#1 Lebron
#2 Chris Paul

Harden is in a virtual tie with Durant according to the numbers. Obviously as far as individual scoring efficiency Durant is out of this world. He is the best scorer in the league bar none. But again, isn't impact on the TEAM's offense the true measure? That is why Lebron and Paul are above him, and Harden is a hair as well.

3. Lin, despite his horrendous first month, was still a positive player during that time. His rating has steadily increased throughout the year. The last time I checked he was tied with Delfino as the 3rd best player on the team. Both above Parsons. These numbers are old though, the site owner did not update them often even before he took the numbers down, and I would imagine Parsons has picked up after his recent play. He(Parsons) rated well as a rookie last year, only slightly negative.

For basically a second year player, it is highly encouraging that Lin is already a fairly positive player according to RAPM. His rating is comparable to Lowry, and far above Dragic this year.

Lin is such a hard player to judge without an objective stat like this because his flaws are SO blatant to the eye test. Much like Josh Smith. I would just say, don't let the raging LOFs get under your skin too much. IMO the guy is going to be very good.