Griffin was the main factor for the majority of our losses last year. Stats included

its interesting, but one sided. can we compare his stats in losses to his stats in wins?


we would also have to compare playoff teams, role playing, starting, PF's to eddie.

if those stats show the same as yours do then you have a very valid point.

 

But since Taylor can't rebound worth a damb, we have to plug Cato and his high percentage dunks!!

 

or turn it over to the other team which will convert the turnover into a stop and pop jumper or an easy layup for the lack of slow transition defense........ then JVG will send Stevie to the scorer's table to check in for Mooch...

 

Heck, you don't need stats to know the guy did us little good last year. Every time he got the ball, you just had to wince because you knew the possession was over. Never passed, rarely hit a shot.

He gave us a couple block here and there, and I guess he did okay on D, although I wouldn't say he was adequate to our needs. But man... I can't blame the guards for not passing to this dude. Brick after brick. Whatever role he was "fulfilling" last season, he wasn't suited to it.

 

When I get some free time I am gonna run some stats and prove to every last person here that Rudy was in fact the main factor for the majority of our losses last year.

 

Honestly, I don't place the majority of the blame on Eddie. Every single player on the team, even my favorites Yao and Steve, and some deficiencies last season, all of which we've lamented countless times on this board. Plenty of blame to go around, including Rudy and good ol' Mr. Mean.

Now, Eddie sucked last season, but Mo and Kenny didn't exactly blow him off the court in all respects. None of them really looked like they knew exactly what was expected of them. Now, this season, Cato DOES look like he knows what he's expected to do, and has thus far done a good job. I miss having him as our backup center, as I'm afraid Yao may fade down the stretch again as he did last year, but this weakness can be overcome through creative rotation, I think.

We're still lacking serious offense at the PF slot, but I think that if JJ, Pike and Boki eventually step their offense up enough to legitimately support our superstars, we should be able to compensate. It doesn't hurt having a scoring threat like Cat on the team either... most of the time, anyway.

 

I see what you're saying overall, but I have a problem with the way you're saying it.

It seems to me, that if a good game from player x=win, and a bad game from player x=loss, then player x is a vital part of the team. Right? I mean, any time you can say something like, "as dream goes, so go the rockets", for instance, that means the player in question is really important, right?

As anybody could guess, Eddie was definitely not the key to the Rockets success last year. but saying his poor shooting nights was the biggest factor in losses is just not right, in my opinion.

 

I would also submit that one could probably find a stronger link between poor play by other players (especially steve and maybe Yao) and losses.

 

I see what you're saying, but...

I would bet that there were also games in which Eddie played well, but Steve did not, and we lost.

and..

I would also bet that, if you looked over all losses, Francis would come across looking just as bad as Eddie, if not worse (relative to wins).

although I wouldn't bet all of my money, just some.

I'm not saying Eddie's poor play in games didn't cost the team, I'm just saying that if you want to correlate poor play with team losses, I'd think that the strongest association would be with the team's best players, not the role players. And from this, it follows that a correlation between a poor game by a player and a loss, it usually means that the player is important, not that the team should get rid of them.

Also, as others have said, you really need to show the other side of the argument (i.e. how Eddie played in wins) for this to mean anything.

To illustrate this point: I bet that, if you looked at all the Rockets losses the last few years, Collier probably averaged around 0.01 points and 0.003 rebounds per game.

doesn't really tell us much, since he was always a scrub, in wins and losses.

 

Franchise2001,


To make it easier, here are Griffin's splits (stats in wins and losses noted):

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/players/splits?statsId=3517

In wins, he shot 43% and in loses, he shot 37%. Given his FGA average, that translates to about 1 missed shot a game or 2 points a game difference. Based on this, its VERY unfair to say that "Griffin was the main factor for the majority of our losses last year". VERY unfair. Unless you want to say that Griffin's 1 missed shot/2 points rubbed off on the rest of the team in such a profound manner, that the rest of the team was affected. This is a theory that would never hold water though.

Interesting though, Griffins BSs drop by about .6 in loses.

Now, lets look at the three players who receive the most of the touches in our offensive:

Yao

Wins 54%
Loses 46%

Pretty big difference in shooting%, yet, it only translates to a difference of a lil over 1 point in his scoring average. His rebounds are about the same, but his blocks drop by about 1.5 in losses.

Steve

Wins 48%
Loses 39%

Steve's assists go from 6.9 in wins to 5.4 in loses. His turnovers slightly increase by .2 in loses.

Steve's PPG difference between wins and loses is only 1 PPG, which I find remarkable considering the difference in shooting %. This is explained by the fact that Steve takes approximately 2.5 shots more in loses than he does in wins. Perhaps one can conclude that Steve tends to try and take over the game when being stared down by a potential loss or, that he trys to compensate for his poor shooting night, by shooting even more, which obviously, just doesn't jive.

Cuttino

Wins 46%
Loses 41%

Cat's scoring average drops from a high of 19.3 in wins to 15.5 in loses. Also, his assists drop from a high of 3.5 in wins to 2.1 in loses. He averages about .5 TOs more in loses than he does wins.

Here are some interesting team stats:

FG%

Wins 46%
Loses 41%

PPG

Wins 98.0
Loses 88.1

PPG Allowed

Wins 87.3
Loses 97.8

Assists

Wins 20.4
Loses 16.1

Turnovers

Wins 14.9
Loses 14.3

Blocked Shots

Wins 7.6
Loses 4.2

Based on all these stats, I would conclude the following: On offense, the team's shooting/scoring is obviously the biggest factor, and individually, Cat seems to have the most volatile stats in wins v. loses. Perhaps Cat's play is the biggest difference maker on O.

On D, I was suprised to see the disparity in blocked shots in wins v. loses, not to mention the PPG allowed.

All in all, Cats play and our player's defense seemed to be the biggest factor in wins v. loses. Definitely more than EG's shooting %.

 

Great post codell.

It's also important to factor in the teams we play against. Their defense and matchups can have an effect too. We're not just talking about Yao, Griff, Cat or Francis just taking "open shots" and missing or hitting.

"Sometimes" our opponents defense (and our lack of defense) have an effect too!

There's lots of reasons we lost.

 

Echo for both of you. Well done.

 

Codell,

excellent post. Thanks for the info.

 

One shouldn't blame Eddie for Last Season.It was the selfish play and the lack of a Team Game.Many times Eddie was frozen by the play of the Guards and was not given a decent chance to develop his game.And thats how I saw it last season.

 

Blaming Eddie instead of Steve and Yao is like blaming Jim Paxson instead of Jordan and Pippen when they Bulls lost.