Player Development: A Star in Two Years or You are a bust!

huh? No it hasn’t. Vassel wasn’t a starter until second half of year 2. His scoring output was much less than Green avg. he avg 5.5 year 1, 12.3 year 2, 18.5 year 3 where he had increased min to 31 a game. He only has 6 career 30 pt games all in year 4 after he signed the contract. He has no 40 pt games. His player market value would be less than Green comparatively.

 

Where is that study? Im interested in reading it

 

I'm looking at their advanced metrics, not counting stats.

Year 3
Vassell: 0.7 VORP, 0.4 BPM, 0.51 WS/48
Green: 1.0 VORP, -0.5 BPM, 0.56 WS/48

Pretty similar caliber players after year 3 IMO.

 

Even so you have to take stats into account not just metrics. As I say before everything needs to be taken into account especially when certain metrics isn’t always reliable or accurate or don’t paint the complete picture. Simply using metrics to assess player market value neglects qualitative aspects such as observations based on knowledge.

 

There's a lot of variables to consider when talking about how much time you give a player.

Where was the player picked?
How much is the player paid?
How much opportunity has the player been given?

If the player is a well paid, top 10 pick, who has been given every opportunity to log consistent minutes since day 1, you expect them to show you something within the first few years.... you don't expect them to be fully developed, but you pretty much know what you have after a few years.

If the player is a later pick who doesn't get to log many minutes, you expect less.... because you are going to give them less.

If the player is a shooting guard or small forward that you picked in the top ten and they still can't crack the top 100 in the league in TS% or 3pt% when they are 3 years in.... you probably realize you made a mistake by then.

 

Unfortunately I can't find it. I don't know where to even find it, I've looked for it in the past and have never been able to find it. I can do my best to give you the TLDR from my memory of what it said, but it was a paper that was presented at the Sloan Analytics conference about a decade ago. If you could find it I would love to read it again, because there's a good chance I'm misremembering parts of it and shaping it to fit what I personally believe. I summarized some of it in my earlier post in this thread, but this was the gist of it according to my (probably flawed) memory, take it with a grain of salt -

It looked at "superstars" over the past ~50 years (this was quantified, unsure how)
It tried to figure out the optimal amount of time to wait before making a decision (can't give up on players too soon, but don't want to hold onto duds for too long)
After 3 years you have high confidence (The percentage was in the 90s, unsure if it was 90% or 95% or 99%)
The players have either already broken out (again, this was quantified, unsure how) by year 3, or, had a very steep upward year over year trajectory (again, quantified, unsure how)

That was pretty much it. There are obviously going to be some notable counterexamples, those are the exceptions to this rule. And also, it only applied to superstars iirc, so it doesn't mean you're necessarily a bust if you don't hit the criteria, you can still be a good nba player. And I think a lot of people misunderstand the idea here and throw it around pretty lazily. But this is how I remember it.

 

Well Chauncey Billups skipped the 3rd year leap and had to start from scratch. He established the 6th year leap.

 

I personally never considered Chauncey a superstar, he was a star guard for sure but somewhere down the line I think that there were just better players.

 

I agree but he was considered a bust and then redeemed his draft evaluations later on. Certainly not a superstar.

 

By the time their rookie contract is up it's time for everyone to make a hard decision - doesn't matter if they are fully developed or not.

 

I don't think those numbers express "caliber" of player.

They express production. Production can be done in multiple ways with multiple different contextual differences in how that production comes a long.

 

I mean at this point we're just debating semantics. Vassell got a nice contract and that's about what I think Jalen deserves at this point. If you'd like to counter with another player as an example of receiving a contract after year 3 that's appropriate I'm all ears.

I think they are generally better than stats but I also account for stats. I have Jalen a bit ahead of Vassell in my personal player rankings after year 3, but that was just the most similar and appropriate recent comparison I could come up with.

 

They aren't similar when you account for the type of fgs they make(off ball vs on ball)

Vassel is used more as a catch and shoot guy and a play finisher. The Spurs don't have a promising young self creating guard/wing and hence why it has been their number one goal moving forward in roster construction to compliment Wemby. That's why any promising or star level self creating wing/guard that has an expiring contract or is looking to get traded will be rumored to join SAS this off-season

 

Yes, there are some differences in their game. Vassell is a better shooter but not as dynamic a playmaker/creator. I just think that even with those difference, they net out to around the same caliber player at this point, early in their careers. I don't think contracts should be given on potential personally, which is why I'd be fine paying Green about the same amount Vassell got paid, because their production has been similar through year 3.

 

"Some differences".

The gap in their self creation rate is the same percentage gap between Durant's career unassisted rate and Clint Capella's unassisted rate.


Their games are very different and it's well known that efficiency is much easier to achieve as a role player who finishes plays and doesn't have to create against set half court defenses for most of their buckets and given their scoring efficiencies are almost the same throughout their first three years given that context, no one can be definitive that Vassel is a better "shooter".

 

Would love to hear what contract extension you would offer Green this summer since you apparently don't think Vassell is a good example.

Vassell shot 39% from 3 his second season, I think we can definitively say he is a better shooter at the end of year 3. As far as scoring efficiency goes he was slightly more efficient but not by much.

At this point there's no point continuing the discussion if you just fundamentally don't think Vassell's contract is an appropriate starting point for Green.

 

I don't think either side with Green and the Rockets management want to extent. Yes production wise it's going to be a little bit more than Vassel if he did get that extension. So Green probably is willing to bet on himself.


Again, you just blurt out scoring efficiency without zero context. Again the gap in unassisted rate in fgs made for their careers is the same gap between Clint Capella and Kevin Durant. It is impossible to compare their efficiency because of drastically different roles

 

Yes to the first, no to the second.

SGA isn't going to forget how to shoot a basketball even if Silas was his coach.

The Silas excuse was always hilarious given that Silas did all he could to push Green and hold back Sengun and Green was still terrible and Sengun still looked good when he got to play.