[Podcast] Morey on 610 today: talking Lin, free agency & expectations for next year

Absolutely. You have to be ahead of the curve and develop your own stats. If you use stats that are public, you are not ahead of the game.

 

18/7 per 36 min over a 2.5 mths stretch after injury healed, going 44/39 is not good?

Morey's job is safe and secure. 4 more years.

 

When Bill Bradley was asked if he would want Lin on his team if he was a coach. He said yes. When asked why he said he was very coachable.

 

Maybe even more... Morey did say deep analytics

1) Passes to fouls (from what? Entry pass, drive hand-off... Etc.)
2) Charges/Offensive fouls drawn (drawn from fast break, push offs...)
3) Tips/Deflections that disrupt the opposing offense (from ball pressure, deflections, stripping...)
4) Total defensive fouls drawn vs. total fouls allowed (what type of foul, when...)
5) Types of turnovers (dead ball vs. start a fast break)
6) Quality of assists and passes that result in wide open/easy looks (drive and dish, look inside... Alleys...)
7) Hockey Assists (started from which side of the floor...)
8) Adjust offensive/defense ratings based on the quality of opponent faced (on player you guard and what player guarding you)
9) Weigh clutch stats more than non-clutch stats
10) And a whole bunch more... (troll clutch fans for meta data and memes)

 

The biggest thing to understand about basketball statistics is that they are hugely context-driven. People fall prey to the idea that basketball box scores somehow measure some sort of pristine concept of "the basketball game" that occurred. That is almost entirely not true. Except for the points on the board (and even then, that's arguable), everything from assists to fouls is largely decided by a human being based on a number of subjective, almost nebulous criteria. This makes it increasingly difficult to attempt to extract any meaningful analysis (particularly at the individual player level), because the data is so noisy as to almost be useless without a huge sample size.

We all recognize this because we all know, for a fact, that no two fouls are the same. If a Derrick Fisher foul is not the same as a Shaq foul, then how can anyone be expected to combine all that foul data and come up with something useful? Let alone when you consider that even in the same game, an individual player will not accrue the exact same foul every time. This is a measurement problem that is akin to using a thermometer that changes its temperature reading based on a combination of the position of the sun, humidity, elevation, and the lunar calendar. At what point do you just stop trusting the thermometer to give you a reasonable estimate of the temperature?

Many of these basic statistics are so noisy and require so much sample that they are useless for measuring how a player is performing at any given time and can't be used for projecting future performance. It's only after several seasons of play that something objective can be said about those numbers, at which point it's kind of too late - you don't want to play a guy for three season to find out if he's any good, because if he sucks then he'll be on your team for three seasons.

The easiest way to get around this problem is to ignore the basic statistics that everyone knows, because those numbers are fundamentally flawed. However, the only way to get around them is to have exact positioning and real-time data to measure where players are and what they are doing at any given moment. This allows you to do things like look at the number of open-look passes Player A gives to another player, regardless of whether the recipient player is able to score the bucket. This kind of thing is not only hard and costly to get, it is also so useful that teams are loathe to give up that information because it provides such a huge competitive advantage.

This is, by the way, one of the saddest problems with basketball statistics today. We know enough to know that the numbers we have are largely useless. But teams were so quick to jump on the analytics bandwagon that most of the really cool and meaningful stuff is only known behind closed doors, and is never shared to the general public.

This leaves the rest of us kind of spinning in the wind, because without better source data, we are left screwing around with that ridiculous lunar calendar thermometer - at some point, you run out of useful things you can do with that thing. In the meantime, the general public is left out there thinking that somehow a guy with a 17-point, 7-assist season is phenomenally better than a guy with a 14-point, 5-assist season, when in fact the latter guy could be significantly batter than the former.

 

I love how CF thinks Morey uses box score amalgamators like Win Shares to evaluate talent, lmao.

 

Or even more laughable, the other poster that says "Morey must use a different software" ...

You mean use a different software to calculate +/-, TS%, PER or win-share?

It's proprietary data. Collected by the Rockets own data team. Based on Morey's criteria.

 

Your statement about contracts is true, but in the NBA context player contracts just don't get voided. I suspect someone would have to commit murder before a team would void the contract (I think even the arenas contract was not voided).

As for #Be Well, his days as a Rocket are clearly numbered. Rockets have been on comment shutdown about him in every way, which is a clear indication that their legal department have told them to say NOTHING. They will probably eat the second year, and decline picking up RW's option (or they'll pay someone to take his contract), so as to minimize any chances of a discrimination lawsuit. They're cutting bait.

 

Folks, it's official Lin's on the market.

 

I am telling you its a religion race thing...and I am not even asian lol. What you just said is all correct. I dont disagree with anything in that entire post.

In fact clutchfans knows better then anybody...because we had to no stats all star in shane battier. Who real basketball people could tell his contributions without conventional stats telling.......but daryl who has BETTER data gushed whenever he spoke of battier...

and you know what...so does Lebron.

Point is...Lin played as average PG his first year, with flashes of greatness. I think that earns his contract and still leaves plenty of room for improvement.

Kid had a great attitude, good leader, excellent work ethic. I love him on this team. And there really is only a few PGs id rather have then him because of all those reasons.

Im glad morey is smarter then lin haters on here.

 

haha...this cracked me up. Repped

 

And Durant reached out to Battier to try and get him to sign with OKC. Despite playing the same position. Battier has guarded both throughout the years. It is the ultimate sign of respect when the top two players in the game, and the top 2 SFs (LBJ was still playing SF at the time) both wanted you to play for their team.

And for the most part, Morey can do no wrong now or is given the benefit of the doubt ... except anything Lin-related. Only when Lin is involved Morey just "has to say nice things about our players", or "is just saying it to prop up his trade value", or "#3 in win-share on team ... nah, can't be ... MOREY must have HIS DATA WRONG!!!"

 

My favorite one ...

After Harden has gone 5 possessions of 1) hold ball until 3 sec left pass to Lin - miss, 2) iso-hold ball, step back 3pt jumper - miss, 3) hold ball until 3 sec left pass to Parsons - miss, 4) iso-hold ball, drive to rim looking for contact doesn't put a real shot up - miss, 5) hold ball until 3 sec left pass to Lin - miss ...

And the clutchfans post go beserk with the stop holding the ball and passing it with 3 sec left, or stop going iso with step-back 3 pointers or actually put up a real shot when you drive to the rim ...

the LOHs come back with "Jeremy Lin can't shoot, LOFs blame Harden for passing him the ball" + "LOFs have agenda against Harden (or McHale) for isos" + "LOFs are not rockets fans, gtfo"

And I swore we were watching the same basketball game.

 

Well if they were to trade Lin then of course you want to talk up his value. I don't think they'll trade Parsons with his contract.

 

Nah some people just blind to things like this...you can tell by someones body language and in this case tone of voice. He is annoyed with fans and media about it.

Hes read and heard everything the haters say...and it showed in his voice. Thats why he used the word "great" in reference to Lins season. Also, he said the only way you could say he had a bad season was if you had last week of the season glasses on.

He went out of his way to go against what most clutchfans and media people are saying. He actually told them, and you know that we analyze things extremely thorough and deep. (more then ppg, fg% win shares...etc)

Which for the record radio hosts are STUPID. Morey said Harden would come in and do exactly what he did. I said it...I actually called in and Lopez made fun of me saying it. He wouldn't be an all star...no chance.

I said think what you want but he will be the no 3 SG in the NBA this year and he laughed...and I was wrong he was the no 2 maybe no 1.

So the fact that these morons think lin had a bad year furthers my position of the opposite.

 

So Morey speaking about Lin has an agenda, but when Morey has Harden outplayed his contract, gave out Asik's defensive numbers, or praised Parsons, Delfino, or anybody else on the Rockets, there was no agenda?

I mean Morey didn't even go out of his way to praise 2Pat or Morris before the trade. McHale wouldn't play the rookies, Morey leaves the rotation decisions to McHale. In fact, Morey basically had said that the PF position was our weakest one, and that 2Pat wasn't value-enhancing (nor value-decreasing). 2Pat also lost some playing time to Morris. And won it back.

Let's read into everything. Like Coachbadlee, who just posted what effectively was Patrick Beverley started in game two of playoffs, Greg Smith went to bench, Morey raised variance by going small-ball -> means it was obvious for the world to see that Lin was the one demoted. Hmm ... follow his logic? It sounds like Greg Smith can't stay on Ibaka and can't rotate to cover penetrations to the basket = Jeremy Lin sucked and lost his starting PG position to Patrick Beverley (even though Jeremy Lin still technically started at PG for the Houston Rockets) ... if you follow his logic.

 

repped for this and the previous post. This was an excellent break down. I think you see things differently when you are unbiased. But I would completely agree with this break down.

It also fits both morey and mchale in saying the way to win was to increase variance.

 

Lin's trade value has to be pretty high, I'm thinking


just saying

 

Whoa! I don't listen to him, but he must be eating crow right about now. What has he and what is he saying about Harden now?

 

I dont listen anymore either. That was the last day I tuned in...because he didnt even let me lay out my case and just made me look dumb then hung up when I made one good point.

From what I can tell from that interview he admits he was wrong cause He said a lot of people believed in harden including Nick Wright.

He was adamant that Hardens efficiency would plummet and that he would be a middle range SG...he compared the situation to Trevor Ariza signing.