Who are you? You sound like someone who has an ear very close to the source. "It sounds like Van Gundy is listening, too"... I was just thinking the same thing, but not positive of this because my sources are limited to only roster moves and short quirps in the media. Still it was enough to make me think he is coming around. Whether by choice or by force. You sound like you know this from the source. Either way I don't know if it's enough or too late. Who are you? Don't answer... just keep posting I enjoy your posts even if I don't always agree.
Somebody is making some adjustments somewhere. I use another website that logs teams' on court 5 by minutes and they have his line as - 19. That's a big discrepancy that I don't have time to pursue right now.
I agree completely (my basic point before). I have never seen a Grizzlies playoff series, so I can't really speak about Battier's playoff performance, but his disappearances are quantified in the APBRmetrics link from Van Gundier's post. I worry about the same thing with Hayes. Averages indicate the average performance against the complete cross section of the NBA talent pool. When it counts, the game becomes a chess match that averages don't even begin to capture.
I think Van Gundy has said stuff about Hayes in the newspaper. Don't have time at the moment to find a link.
However the sampling of playoff games is way too small to derive major conclusions. Memphis has also had many quality swingmen so any one's role was not as clear as it would be with the Rockets. Also, playing with great players can change a role player's output tremendously. Battier may well be like Horry in that he becomes extremely usefull around a great low post presence but somewhat of a dissappointment if he has to make 1 on 1 plays. Thus on both accounts I don't think you can extrapolate much from Memphis's playoff run how he would do with the Rockets in the playoffs.
Sura was only put in as a soon to expire contract. And read my later post about that whole tangent. I tossed out a dozen possible trades that could be made using Stromile as a piece. They were just examples off the top of my head to approximate Stro's value, and trades that I thought was at least worth discussing. The boozer trade got picked out of there, because it's probably the least likely, but it certainly isn't something I'm adamant about that I'm going to defend forever. This thread is carrying a big "gotcha" element that is so pervasive in idealogical discussions. Since the arguments are very strong on either side, the posts are going to get scrutinized pretty fiercely to look for a break in logic or bring down someone's credibility. My whole boozer comments were a mountain out of a molehill if you ask me.
For example, one thing they figured out was the "saves" for a reliever was a stat that's highly valued among teams, but not worth a whole lot in real life, so they'd always trade away their "closer" (and all those "Saves") for good value and just promote another reliever (who makes a much lower salary) for that job just as effectively. Whether the decision was made on this basis or not, the Battier trade is a great from the point of view of moneyball. Battier makes a low salary for his effectiveness, is highly efficient on the court (his +/- numbers are that of a star player, his True shooting % is high, he does not turn the ball over, he takes a ton of charges), and is undervalued because he racks up the hustle stats (charges taken, low TO) rather than the glamor stats (points). Loot at it this way, his +/- number (on teams with other talented wings-- Bonzi, Posey, Eddie Jones, Mike Miller) were +10.6 and +11.6 over the last two seasons. Other players with comparable +/- stats (and many with inferior +/- numbers), excluding those still on rookie deals, are pulling in $10-15+ mil a year. Battier makes 5 to 7 mil a year for the rest of his long term contract. (on a side note.. 82games.com has a rather hokey sounding "fair salary" index based on player performance and minutes played... according to their calculations, Shane Battier's "fair salary" was $10.5 mil last year) When you have limited resources (limited by the luxury tax threshold), Battier is a great moneyball buy at $5 mil. The people who will undervalue Shane Battier, however, are the casual Sports Center highlight watchers and box score readers. I don't know how many times I've heard him called a "10-5" player or "just a solid role player". Based on the boxscore. (Incidentally, it annoys me to hear players constantly defined as 20-10 player, 15-7 player 12-8 player, etc.. completely meaningless definition... don't tell you much about how good a player is) On the other hand... let's look at what Rockets gave up... a ton of vertical leap and not much substance. Rudy Gay? A nice but unproven prospect-- historically only 20% of them turns into Superstars or All Stars. So, we are giving up a 20% chance the guy turns into a star... and then you have to account for the other risks like: 1. The Jermaine O'Neal/Darko Milicic risk: That he only becomes productive for his 2nd team, not yours. 2. The Zach Randolph Risk: Looks good enough by his 3rd year to lock up, signed to a huge extension, then disappears. 3. The Stevie Franchise risk: Hardly a bust, maybe even an All Star, but never quite as good as his stats indicate... you'll pay him like a Superstar, but he's just not good enough to be one. Notice how none of the above risks remotely mentions the possiblity that a pick just busts. Look, everyone got excited about this kid... but we are not talking about a "can't miss/low risk" guy like Yao and Lebron here. We are talking about the usual probabilities at play. If he were has Yao or Lebron's high probability of success, nobody would have passed him over for Randy Foye, Brandon Roy, and LaMarcus Aldrdige. Objectively, he's a 20% chance at stardom like most other lotto picks. Stromile? Great for highlight reels, but wastes his vertical leap by not being active on the court. Mediocre +/- numbers, low rebounding rate. Makes $5 mil a year, but probably derserves less. Chuck Hayes was easily better than him last season. The way I see the trade is Rudy Gay and Stro got traded in for Battier + 20 extra minutes a game to give to Chuck Hayes, Novak, or another effective player. I'll trade 80 inches of combined vertical leap and 14'6'' of combined wingspan, and 20% chance fo getting an All Star any day for hustle, bball IQ, accurate shooting, tough D, and winning basketball games.[/QUOTE] Great analysis. I'm also tired of all these people talking about how Jerry West ripped us off and how much better he is than Dawson and Morey. Not a huge Dawson fan but lets look at Jerry West's resume in Memphis; As Griz GM he has done the following (minus minor deals or insignificant players): Drafted Drew Gooden. Traded Gooden for Mike Miller. Drafted Kendrick Perkins and Marcus Banks. Traded for D. Jones and Troy Bell. Drafted Andre Emmett and Antonio Burks. Drafted Hakim Warrick and Lawrence Roberts. Traded for Bonzi Wells, who was traded for Bobby Jackson. Traded James Posey, Jason Williams, and Andre Emmett for Eddie Jones.
I admit that I'm neither qualified, nor willing to do the research to debate you but I will say this, I took a complete guess that battier's "effectiveness" went down in the playoffs. and that's easily explainable, like I said in the previous post. players play harder, negating battiers assets. the benches are shortened, so battier is now compared to better players for most of his time on the court. which brings me to the point again, battier's assets are only beneficial during the regular season. the rockets shouldn't need battier to get to the playoffs, they need a player to help them get through the playoffs, team wise, and individually, battier hasn't been a successful playoff player. for obvious reasons, and that's the main problem with the deal, adding the fact too much was given for him.
Agreed about the Jerry West comment. He is given a halo despite his shortcomings the past years. CD would be getting ripped for signing Cardinal. He gets credit for getting Kobe and Shaq although he merely facilitated the trade since they both went out. Nobody here would give full credit to CD for getting TMAC.
take a team like detroit, ultimate role players aren't getting them through the playoffs unlike some sportwriters will have you believe, everyone except ben wallace can create their own shot. hamilton, prince, billups, and wallace. ben wallace is the only player on the court for detroit, who does the "little things" that battier does. and he does that decidely better than battier, rebounding and defense. the bench of mcdyess, delfino, and the back up guards, aren't out there to do battier type things. they're out there to score. miami, no one on that team is a battier type player except arguably haslem. shaq, wade, williams, payton, and walker are all out there to create offense. this ultimate role player argument holds no water. all the good teams have that type of player, but none of those players are no more than the fourth best player on the team, except for wallace, and again he is battier to the nth degree. battier is never gonna rebound and play defense like that. the rockets won't even get the production of what battier does out of him to get over the hump. all this analysis, he's a ten and five guy. and right now he is their third best player, and unless something magical happens this off season he will continue to be that. and when you add in mcgrady's injury history it makes this move even the more laughable. you can argue that the rockets would be taking a risk on gay, but they are in the position that they have to take a risk. and they had potentially the best player fall in their lap, and arguably the best athlete and they gave it away.
So Stro is average, yet those other names Chuck, Novak, Battier (at the 4), Evens etc are proven? Good work stats.
Exactly. Once you hit the playoffs, and teams have the ability to key in on one opponent and scout and make adjustments, then the game becomes more about matchups than anything else. And since the statistical pros for Battier (+/- and whatnot) are based off of regular season performance, you can't automatically project that success to carry over into the playoffs. Can Battier's contributions be a dramatic boon to us in the playoffs? Maybe. But looking at it from his skills and what he brings to the table, it's still pretty limited. He'll be an efficient player who can make open shots and play some defense. We'd need to be pretty close to the edge anyway for someone like that to put us over the top. And if we're that close, then who's to say that a talent like Gay couldn't give us a similar benefit through sheer skill and ability.
Internet is a good place to study herd mentality. James for Alston, cheer cheer. Signing Swift, cheer cheer cheer. Signing DA, cheer. Kick DA, cheer. trade Swift, cheer cheer cheer. Going after James in FA, cheer, more cheer. Whatever follows, I'm sure more cheers will be warrented. Now, there's something I really don't know much. How many good signings have Celtics netted since Mr $ball has done most of his work there to day? How many extra wins do they get? How many good player, or wins has Seattle actually had, since they use some sort of $ball a lot also? Has Dallas found their ultimate role player to get them the title with Cuban's invenstment in silimar software? These are the questions I first want to be answered.
Like previous posters have said... those 12 playoff games is too small a sample size to make conclusions on. Also, even last year, when his points went down, he still had a good +/- stat (neither of which really means a whole lot). I'm always wary of making too much out of numbers collected over a small sample. For example, last season, people raved about how Carmelo Anthony shot really well on game tying or game winnign shots... when he was shooting 7 for 13 on these shots or something. All that meant was he was probably a pretty good offensive player and had slightly better luck than the other good offensive players who took such shots. Also, if you are making a big deal out of relatively few playoff games, you might conclude that Yao and McGrady are playoff chokers who can never get out of the first round. And that would be a premature conclusion, too. With the right team, and I would guess a team like the Rockets, Shane Battier can be just as effective in the playoffs as well as he has been in the regular season. Also, about this we are making the playoffs anyway with healthy Yao and TMac so we don't need Battier deal... I have to disagree. While the Rockets probably will make the playoffs if Yao and Tracy each played 75+ games, what happens if they each miss 25-30 games in the regular season, but are healthy by April? The point of adding guys like Battier and Mike James is in part so that if either Yao, Tracy or both miss a decent chunk of the season, they still have a good chance to make the playoffs, when, hopefully, these two stars will be at full strength. Shane Battier will help the Rockets withstand such an injury as I've noted that he's one of the main resons why they made the playoffs despite Gasolmissing 26 games back in 04-05. Are Rudy and Stro capable of that? I doubt it.
As far as the "efficient but limited offensive players will struggle in the palyoffs"... Does anyone remember Robert Horry? What about Bruce Bowen? Steve Kerr? I'm pretty sure Morey didn't just pull names out of a laptop. He said it himself that while baseball can largely be run by a computer program, basketball is much harder to evaluate statistically and traditional scouting is needed to work together with advanced statistics to come up with intelligent conclusions. What should be noted, however, is that both a careful observation of the team's activity on the floor as well as an analysis of the "advanced analytical stats" are a far better way to capture the essence of players than the way many casual basketball fans tend to evaluate them, which seems to be based solely on a player's points and rebounds per game. I can't count how many times I've read folks on this board and other basketball boards refers to a player only by his points and rebounds... "Zach Randolph is a 20-10 player" "Yao has become a 20-10 player" "Antoine Walker used to be a 20-8 player" "Juwan was 12-7 last year" "Barklery was a 15-11 player for us" "Battier is only a 10-5 player" etc.. A rather meaningless way to describe talent.
Another question I want to be answered: As far as we are talking about: The Jermaine O'Neal/Darko Milicic risk, The Zach Randolph Risk, The Stevie Franchise risk. How come no one talks about B Cardinal risk? Or the Brian Scalabrine risk? You know, any good politician can give you good rationalizing afterthought.
What's that? The risk of overpaying for white players? While it's true those guys specifically got paid for their nice showing in the "advanced analytical stats", they are not comparable to Battier. Cardinal had had only one good year by the time Jerry West signed him. He was on the floor for a combined 200 minutes or something over the first 2 years of his NBA career. He was an injury risk when MEM got him, and hasn't exactly stayed healthy (Strangely, in 04-05, when he did stay healthy, his +/- and player pair stats were pretty good despite his sub 40% FG). Scalabrine also only had 1 year of playing more than 15 mpg, and that year (his last with the Nets), he missed a good chunk of the season. Both these guys had health issues, Battier has only missed 14 out of 410 regular season games in his entire. Both these guys also had only 1 good year, Battier has had years after years of positive results.
Well, that's the point. As far as risk goes, a smaller risk is still a risk. If we have to find something different, conversely, we can begin with "JO and Darko are different, one a high schooler, another a Euro kid", see where this is going?
Every player in the NBA is a risk, from TMac to Kobe to Battier to Cardinal to Jerome James. The differnce is in the payout table, and as far as I can tell, the payoff on Battier is pretty good, the payoff on Stro is not so good, you might hit the jackpot with Rudy, but you gotta be real lucky for that to happen.
