Some Rockets relevant analysis from Basketballprospectus

Anyway, we are lucky to have both Lowry and Brooks.

DD

 

I don't think it means Scola is our worst offensive player. Lets take a closer look and use some team unit statistics.

1. AB/SB/TA/LS/CH logged by far the most minutes at 823.65. With a low ORTG of 103.44.

2. The second unit of Lowry/Landy/Bud/Andersen had a notably higher ORTG, whether paired with Brooks- 119.52, Battier- 116.36, or Ariza- 108.94.

3. The "Scolandry" combo yielded some of the absolute lowest ORTG of any unit. Whether combined with KL/TA/CB- 99.42 or AB/KL/TA- 98.67. With the lone exception of when they played with Battier.

Conclusion:

Scola played on a very offensively deficient starting lineup sans Martin for the majority of his minutes. Meanwhile void of the opportunity to boost his ORTG like the other starters by playing with a much more offensively oriented second unit, due to the atrocious resulting unit when he is paired with Landry. It is no surprise that the pairing would have been bad defensively, but their total ineptitude to even score yielded Scola's team low in ORTG.

In other words, Scola was not our worst offensive player, he just couldn't play with Landry. Meanwhile all the other starters boosted their ORTG by playing with the bench.

 

Well said good sir, and looking at last years stats where we were Sans Yao Ming is fairly meaningless.

DD

 

Despite being young in this forum, I usually say that, it is not JUST about the stats, it´s about the stats and everything around those stats

It´s about how those stats appear, who plays around, what system, what coach, roles, etc,, etc

DD said, and I totally agree, that you have to rationalize the cold stats you see, this is as clear as water to me

When some trade rumor appears, there are people that post stats from both players, and say, this is not an upgrade, PASS, and these people don´t even know how those stats appear

When you have people comparing Scola with Bosh, people only bring stats, nothing more, GOD MOREY presented statistical analysis to the NBA, but people think that this guy, does 2+2=4, and he knows who is better in every single situation, this is not true

You can´t predict, for example, what efficiency both AB and Lowry would have, if they changed roles, and Lowry would start, and AB would come off the bench. You simply can´t predict who would be more efficient, and that is just a little change from what happens now, but because you have so many little adjustments to make to your "math formula", you can´t conclude anything.

Because people right now give extra value to numbers, people forget to actually see the game of basketball, you have the fans that love the team, and every players, without even wanting to get rid of them, and these stats guys that don´t see any games, just look at the end of the game, and see the boxscores, and make conclusions based on stats

In regards to AB and Lowry, for me it is a simple situation, Lowry is the best backup in the League, and AB, is a solid starter, the question is:

Why do people want Lowry to start, when he is efficient every year being a backup, not having guarantees that he would be as efficient as he is playing the backup role???

For you to be a Champ, you ether have a perfect Starting 5, Lakers only, or you have to have a great starting 5, and a very good backup team, and if you look at the Suns, you see why they were so deep into the playoffs, and actually made a series against LA, because the bench had so many energy, that at times, they killed other teams starters

And this is one of the reasons why Lowry isnt´t overpaid, the same reason why Orlando matched the Gortat offer, because you need solid backup to win

AB is the kind of player that you want, when Yao is on the floor, a shooter, and when it comes to it, AB is as good as anyone

Just to finish off, to give an example of how people overrate stats, over seeing where those stats come from. People like to say that LBJ is an elite passer, just because he has 9 apg

If you saw James playing in his entire career, you see that he does is "just" hit the open man in the 3pt line, that is why, they wanted to have shooters around him, because you eventually have to to double team him

Of course people say that there are player that can´t do that, but those are the bad passers, that doesn´t mean that if you do that you are an elite passer

Elite passer is NASH or CP3

What stats helps you, is to discover some things in a players game, and after you see those, when you see him play, you have more attention to that part of his game, and realize if the stat comes from him being really good, or are the guys around him facilitating, or the system helps you being good in that department

What I don´t understand is how DD says, that he analyzes stats (not only reading them) and then say that AB is a mismatch to 75% of the teams??? Maybe he can explain me...

PeAcE

 

Hell I could out think Albert Einstein on a per minute basis if he is going up against Socrates, Plato, Ben Franklin, and the all stars of thinking and I only have to go up against the Lowry Stat geeks in a thinking contest.

 

well Lowry did not have the consistent enough outside to make it work as a starter in memphis he needs a great shooting counter part hopefully he has a better" keep em honest" shot this year

 

I can agree with that.

 

Then at least you are not stubborn.

Combining your innate basketball knowledge/experience, or "trained eye" as you call it, with some of these advanced metrics that show things even the "trained eye" miss, or cannot see, will take your evaluation ability to another level. No doubt this is what Morey and Co. are attempting. As you've noted, they have plenty of "basketball" people working with the stat guys. This is by design, not counter to any of Morey's philosophies.

 

LOL. I don't agree with you. But it's a nice post.

Just an note here: Lowry's per minute production is better than Brooks, but per possession scoring is worse than Brooks. That seems to indicate that the pace (possessions per minute) increases when Lowry plays, but Brooks is still a better scorer. This is just a confirmation of what we all have observed to be true.

 

I'm at work so I can't post scola and landrys atm, but I can tell you that according to synergy, landry is far better than scola both offensively and defensivly

 

It's funny how many drones out there solely watch the ball during a game. I remember getting upset about how somebody was playing off the ball last year and yelling at the TV and my buddy was like, "what is your problem?" I told him to watch such and such player when they were running their offensive sets...kind of like when TMac first came back last year, the first couple of games he was all I watched just to see how his game was, which, obviously, was not up to par.