I really don't want to get involved in this intense debate, but I just have to make the remark that the part I bolded is probably the worst attempt at spinning a statistic that I've ever encountered.
DD,You have the right to your opinion.I don't mind your comments,but the part that you have highlighted shows to me that VSpan hasn't learned a thing from his mistakes. CD worked hard to bring him to Houston.In the pre-season JVG praised him and gave him early minutes during the regular season. It was only when he started committing turnovers and missing shots that he pulled him out.JVG wanted to see him improve before giving him another chance. I remember he started VSpan in a mid or late season regular game against the Spurs but he failed. The one thing I didn't like was the way JVG addressed Billy as a whiner who could be happy by sitting with Big Jake on the bench. That was a unprofessional thing to do,but CD never did anything like that. When Adelman came,management tried their best to get him here even by going to the extent of telling his teammates to contact him.I realize damage had been done but it could have been repaired. I honestly feel Billy thought that he couldn't succeed in the NBA otherwise he would tried to join the Spurs,instead of saying I won't play in the NBA again.
It is over 1 point per shot attempt, which is a good indicator of efficiency. If you take 13 shots and score 14 points it is like shooting 7 for 13...in efficiency..... Players that attack the basket get more FT attempts and thus their points per shot go up....that is all I am saying..... Saleem, I hear you, I think that if the Scola trade did not happen, Morey would have forced him back....but the team and V-Span took the easiest road for both. DD
That stat is PPS (points per shot). Do you know there were 366 NBA players last year with a PPS of "over 1 point per shot".
Great point, let's expand it out over the entire tournament instead of just this one game. So far VSpan has 52 points on 37 shots giving him a PPS of: 1.41.......how does that stack up? It would be top 15 in the NBA Thanks for helping me make my point HP. DD
DD is owning himself similar to the way Vspan was owned against team USA this morning. "Billy" is a decent player, but not at the level of our NBA stars. That's exactly why he didn't get much playing time while here. It is really simple.
I know he was a project, trust me, I know.....I am just pointing out that he has NBA skills. I never annointed him the next big thing, but I can appreciate the fire and passion he plays with..... I just enjoy watching him play.... DD
14 points on 13 shots is NOT efficient. If it took T-Mac 30 shots to score 31 points he would get ripped a new one on here (I get that the PPS would be a little less in that case). Either way, he was 0-5 from three. He never shot threes well here either. If you're going to be on a team with a dominant center, you better be able to hit threes consistently. He is NOT a good fit on the Rockets, and I'm glad we were able to trade him for Scola, who was a fantastic fit for us. Sure, you can say that Rafer can't hit threes well either, but at least he can help us in a lot of other different ways, such as defense, ball-handling, and leadership. V-Span definitely couldn't give us the latter two.
If you are relying on Rafer Alston to provide defense or leadership you are not going to be a very good team. Rafer is at the bottom of the barrel of NBA starting point guards. He is only servicable because the rest of the team is so good. If he has to shoot the 3rd most shots again this year, that will be a very bad sign. DD
Wow, I actually expected the US team to have better efficiency, because they have had so many dunks. Very interesting though that VSpan has the same efficiency as the entire US team. He is having a good tournament, even though he struggled a bit against the USA....not as bad as the rest of his team, but still struggled.... I mean 12 turnovers among the other 2 guards...pathetic... Uh, Tmac is horribly inefficient, here are the stats from last year. TMac = 1.09 Yao 1.42 Rafer 1.06 Luis 1.26 Battier 1.21 Landry 1.53 Luther 1.14 Novak 1.40 Harris 1.16 Hayes 1.08 VSpan his year in Houston = 1.20 Stats calculated from Clutchfans baby ! Man, outside of Yao, Luis and Landry, that is one inefficient team. And it proves that Rafer...does indeed suck. DD
Ha. I was laughing whenever VGina did something well, because I pictured DaDakota sitting in a big ol' Laz-Z-Boy, shaking his fist at the TV and cursing Van Gundy. Spanclueless undeniably has some skills, although they're not the kind of skills that historically have transferred well to NBA-level PG play. He's quite a bit like Rafer in that when he drives the lane, half the time he makes a great finish or a great pass, and the other half he does something so unfathomably amateurish it leaves you scratching your head and wondering how this guy is playing on an important team. That's the kind of reckless play you can accept from a SF or SG for the most part, but the team's PG should protect the ball better and have a very high smart play-to-dumb play ratio so his team can be totally confident in him. And while VSpaz's 3-point shooting is adequate for Euroball, I think that extra few inches was too big an obstacle for him to overcome. One thing that dawned on me during this game: VSpaz doesn't like to accept blame for his mistakes, unless they're so obvious he has no choice. He glares at teammates and openly questions the refs every single time he gets the ball and doesn't score or cleanly pass it to someone. In fact, it amazes me that he didn't complain vociferously to David Stern that the NBA 3pt line was completely unfair. Then again, him mom was probably doing that for him. Combine that with the fact that he was an NBA rookie having problems adjusting to a new culture and it's VERY easy for me to understand why JVG wasn't very fond of him. Whine, complain, defect blame, etc. -- that's not JVG's way. Try working harder, doing your best and keeping your mouth shut (and your overbearing mom locked up at home) and you'll get JVG minutes. Just ask Chuck Hayes.
V-Span didn't look bad or great. He made a couple nifty moves. He drew a charge from CP3, but the steal from behind on Deron was clearly a foul that he got all arm on and wasn't called for. The free throws that he got after the back to back blocks by the US had everybody on the US looking around wondering what was called.
I agree. He looked like a guy who is probably good enough to be a backup PG in the NBA if he were willing to put in the hard work and not think anything is going to be handed to him. Luis Scola, on the other hand, busts his a$$ and tries to fit in. HUGE difference in the mental makeup between those two guys.
PPS is points per shot. The NBA's official Efficiency rating had TMac ranked #9 in the league. Oh, and here is all the Eff stats for the Rockets the year of VSpan. <table border=0 cellpadding=3 cellspacing=1><tr class=statHead> <td>Name</td> <td align="center">G</td> <td align="center">Min</td> <td align="center">EFF</td></tr><tr onMouseOver="this.bgColor = '#EAEAEA'" onMouseOut ="this.bgColor = '#FFFFFF'"> <td><a href="/players/playerpage.htm?ilkid=MINGYA01 ">Yao Ming</a></td> <td align="right">48</td> <td align="right">1625</td> <td align="right">25.77</td></tr><tr onMouseOver="this.bgColor = '#EAEAEA'" onMouseOut ="this.bgColor = '#FFFFFF'"> <td><a href="/players/playerpage.htm?ilkid=MCGRATR01 ">Tracy McGrady</a></td> <td align="right">71</td> <td align="right">2543</td> <td align="right">21.31</td></tr><tr onMouseOver="this.bgColor = '#EAEAEA'" onMouseOut ="this.bgColor = '#FFFFFF'"> <td><a href="/players/playerpage.htm?ilkid=ALSTORA01 ">Rafer Alston</a></td> <td align="right">82</td> <td align="right">3037</td> <td align="right">13.37</td></tr><tr onMouseOver="this.bgColor = '#EAEAEA'" onMouseOut ="this.bgColor = '#FFFFFF'"> <td><a href="/players/playerpage.htm?ilkid=HEADLU01 ">Luther Head</a></td> <td align="right">80</td> <td align="right">2209</td> <td align="right">10.61</td></tr><tr onMouseOver="this.bgColor = '#EAEAEA'" onMouseOut ="this.bgColor = '#FFFFFF'"> <td><a href="/players/playerpage.htm?ilkid=BATTISH01 ">Shane Battier</a></td> <td align="right">82</td> <td align="right">2990</td> <td align="right">12.46</td></tr><tr onMouseOver="this.bgColor = '#EAEAEA'" onMouseOut ="this.bgColor = '#FFFFFF'"> <td><a href="/players/playerpage.htm?ilkid=HOWARJU01 ">Juwan Howard</a></td> <td align="right">80</td> <td align="right">2127</td> <td align="right">11.38</td></tr><tr onMouseOver="this.bgColor = '#EAEAEA'" onMouseOut ="this.bgColor = '#FFFFFF'"> <td><a href="/players/playerpage.htm?ilkid=WELLSBO01 ">Bonzi Wells</a></td> <td align="right">28</td> <td align="right">593</td> <td align="right">6.79</td></tr><tr onMouseOver="this.bgColor = '#EAEAEA'" onMouseOut ="this.bgColor = '#FFFFFF'"> <td><a href="/players/playerpage.htm?ilkid=HAYESCH01 ">Chuck Hayes</a></td> <td align="right">78</td> <td align="right">1716</td> <td align="right">10.95</td></tr><tr onMouseOver="this.bgColor = '#EAEAEA'" onMouseOut ="this.bgColor = '#FFFFFF'"> <td><a href="/players/playerpage.htm?ilkid=SNYDEKI01 ">Kirk Snyder</a></td> <td align="right">39</td> <td align="right">559</td> <td align="right">5.26</td></tr><tr onMouseOver="this.bgColor = '#EAEAEA'" onMouseOut ="this.bgColor = '#FFFFFF'"> <td><a href="/players/playerpage.htm?ilkid=LUCASJO02 ">John Lucas</a></td> <td align="right">47</td> <td align="right">381</td> <td align="right">2.70</td></tr><tr onMouseOver="this.bgColor = '#EAEAEA'" onMouseOut ="this.bgColor = '#FFFFFF'"> <td><a href="/players/playerpage.htm?ilkid=MUTOMDI01 ">Dikembe Mutombo</a></td> <td align="right">75</td> <td align="right">1291</td> <td align="right">9.28</td></tr><tr onMouseOver="this.bgColor = '#EAEAEA'" onMouseOut ="this.bgColor = '#FFFFFF'"> <td><a href="/players/playerpage.htm?ilkid=TSAKAIA01 ">Jake Tsakalidis</a></td> <td align="right">13</td> <td align="right">132</td> <td align="right">4.31</td></tr><tr onMouseOver="this.bgColor = '#EAEAEA'" onMouseOut ="this.bgColor = '#FFFFFF'"> <td><a href="/players/playerpage.htm?ilkid=PADGESC01 ">Scott Padgett</a></td> <td align="right">24</td> <td align="right">199</td> <td align="right">2.38</td></tr><tr onMouseOver="this.bgColor = '#EAEAEA'" onMouseOut ="this.bgColor = '#FFFFFF'"> <td><a href="/players/playerpage.htm?ilkid=SpanoVa01 ">Vassilis Spanoulis</a></td> <td align="right">31</td> <td align="right">270</td> <td align="right">1.84</td></tr><tr onMouseOver="this.bgColor = '#EAEAEA'" onMouseOut ="this.bgColor = '#FFFFFF'"> <td><a href="/players/playerpage.htm?ilkid=NovakSt01 ">Steve Novak</a></td> <td align="right">35</td> <td align="right">188</td> <td align="right">1.49</td></tr></table> 1.84 Efficiency rating. That's atrocious.
All I can say, Scola > V-Span. If we still had V-Span we wouldn't have Scola. Seeing as V-Span would never develop into a great NBA pg I'm rather happy we got Scola for him.
hmmmmmmmmmmmmm. that's why you've posted only 1,000+ times about him while vehemently badmouthing every other pg on the team. face it, vspan is not nba caliber. eat crow and get over it.
I think his PPS gets inflated because it's difficult to determine what is and what is not a "shot" with him. . . . SHOTS, OR NOT? And, one of my favorites, the voodoo fist shot... If the stats guy doesn't know, he probably just shrugs and doesn't count it as an attempt, hence inflating the PPS.
