Why Steve is important to the team and better than Tony

According to that site Padgett is the best player on the team. Also, why did we cut Braggs the site makes him look like the MVP of the NBA.

Also, there is a big discrepancy between the Net Production by Position and the individual player stats. Why this is I don’t understand considering the minutes that Steve put in this year.

 

I understand the point you are making and not to go off on a tangent but we should have kept Braggs.

 

I'd suggest that perhaps Padgett and Braggs did not play enough minutes to provide a statistically valid picture. Parker and Francis don't have that problem. And, why couldn't this go in the Parker thread?

 

francis is more important to a lower-tier playoff team than parker is to an nba champion- what does that tell you?

 

I defend Steve from alot of the undue critisism he receives here but those stats are kind of meangless in that Tony Parker has a title and was key contributor to that title. If Steve was on the Spurs last season he would have a ring as well. It all come down to playing with perhaps the best player in the league.

 

Steve doesn't fit into the Spurs system, which is highly disciplined. Pop will rip him into parts and bench him.

 

You need to understand what that +/- stat means. It is showing how the TEAM performs with the player on the court vs with the player off the court. One of the main factors effecting that calculation is how good is the players backup. If you have a good player to back you up, then the team's performance won't fall off much. If you're backup isn't very good, then there will be a bigger difference. All that number is telling you is that Francis was better compared to his replacement, than Parker was to his. Go look at Mike Bibby's +/-, it's only +1.4. That's because when he's not in the game, Bobby Jackson is. If Jackson hadn't missed so many games, Bibby's +/- rating would be even lower. Conversely, Speedy Claxton has a +/- rating of +6.9, simply because GS doesn't have a decent backup PG. So, when Claxton isn't in the game, the team doesn't do well. All +/- ratings can show you is how good your depth is at certain positions. It isn't an indicator of individual performance.

As I stated above, +/- ratings track the team performance, not individual performance. If you want an indicator of individual performance, use the PER rating on the 82games site. It is a calculation based on actual statistics of players vs those of their opponents. If you look at the "Net production by Position" chart for the Rockets ( http://www.82games.com/0304HOU5.HTM ), you'll see that we're actually getting outperformed at the PG position by our opposing PGs. The average PER rating in the league is 15. Our PG position averages 13.8 (below average), while the opposing team's PGs are averaging 16.4 (above average) against us. So, overall our PG position is -2.6 per night against the opposing PGs. That was actually surprising to me, but if you look at the stats, the opposing PGs have more points, more assists, less rebounds and a higher FG% than our PGs.

Now, if you look at our PER rating for the center position, you'll see that we have a huge advantage of +6.6. That is one of the bigger differences that you'll find. For example Orlando's SG (McGrady) is + 2.5, LA's SG (Kobe) is +2.5, Indiana's PF (J. O'Neil) is +3.5. The two largest differences that I found were LA's center spot (Shaq) +8.8 and Minnesota's PF position (Garnett) at a whopping + 11

 

spin it however you like aelliott, but i have a mancrush, i mean, steve is the best point guard, err, the greatest player to ever live.

 

For whatever its worth, you can look at the net PER rating by player and not just by position by going to the individual player pages.

The last time I checked (a few months ago) the Rockets' net PER rating at point guard was significantly affected by the absolutely abysmal PER ratings of M. Jackson and Moochie; conversely Francis' PER rating while at shooting guard was much higher than his point guard PER rating.

 

Cool. I actually didn't know those were there. Let's look at the player's actuals:

Francis' PER rating as a PG is 15.9 (slightly above average). The PER rating for the oppositions PG's while Francis is at PG is 16.3. So, the effect is that the opposition PGs are outperforming Francis slightly (by 0.3).

If you also break down Yao's PER ratings he's +11.7.

So, Yao is killing people at the center spot and Francis is slightly losing the PG battle.

As far as Francis' number at SG, he's only playing 3.3 min/game at SG, so the numbers will be skewed just like those of Braggs and Padgett.

 

"there are lies, damned lies, and then there's statitics"
Mark Twain

you can find statistics that say Steve is great (although that would be difficult this season ) and you can find stats that would seem to indicate he should be playing the YMCA leagues. One thing to keep in mind aelliot, the competition that Steve sees at pg is infinitely better than what yao sees as a center. other than Shaq, who other than yao is even a decent center?

 

Now how many good centers are there in today's NBA?

 

Hmmm. Why did we need a new thread to discuss this?

 

no there aren't many dominant centers. this is is exactly why we don't need a franchise player at the point. the salary cap requires you fit the puzzle together with just a couple max-contract players. since we are building the team around yao we need all our players to be complimentary to him. we want players that help yao carry the team, not one's who think they should be the man.

 

Steve Francis is better than Tony Parker. I firmly believe that. Tony Parker is overrated and a benefactor of that team's style.

However, T. Parker is ESSENTIAL to that team. Take away both and SA takes more of a hit than Houston, comparatively.

 

I agree that there are few good centers, that is exactly what makes Yao so valuable. We'd have a much, much easier time replacing a PG than a center. As you yourself said, there are alot more good PGs around than centers. That's called replacement value.

We have a huge advantage at the center position. Even with a max player at PG, we don't have an advantage there. What does that tell you? Because there are so many good PGs, I wouldn't hesitate to trade one, because they aren't that hard to replace. And in fact, that's pretty much what we've seen NBA teams do. The top PGs Kidd, Cassell, Nash and Marbury have all been traded at least once.

So if I traded Francis, would I be able replace Francis with a lower priced player and get similar production?

Based on these numbers, I think I could get similar production for alot less money:

Nash 21.1 PER, +4.9

Cassell 23.7 PER, +8.2

Parker 16.5 PER, + 2.6

Bibby 19.9 PER, + 3.7

Kidd 20.4 PER, +6

B. Davis 19.3 PER, +3.6

Billups 19.3 PER, +7.3

A. Miller 19.8 PER, +3.8

Marbury 21.3 PER, +6.8

A. Daniels 20.4 PER, +4.9

B. Barry 20.5 PER, +4

J. Williams 17.4 PER, -0.9

J. Terry 15.9 PER, -1.6

McInnis 15.5 PER, -1.5

B. Jackson 20.6 PER, +6.7

E. Snow 14 PER, + 0.05

D. Stoudamire 15.3 PER, - 1.8

Arroyo 17.6 PER, + 3.7

Payton 17.8, +2.5

Arenas 16.7 PER, -0.7

Francis 15.9 PER, -0.3

* These PER numbers are for time at the PG postion only.

 

That's about what I recall it was several months ago. A slight net loss at pg and a large net gain at SG, with about 10% of his minutes coming at SG.

Regarding Francis at SG and Braggs & Padgett -- apples and oranges...sort of. Braggs and Padgett's plus/minus are affected by their lack of minutes...but Padgett's net PER rating isn't that out of whack. Braggs is still way way high (leading me to wonder why we dumped him again?) but he played 150 minutes, total, to about 250 minutes for Francis at SG.

Anyway that's all beside the point. What I meant to draw attention to was that a lot (30 percent or so, less Wilks minutes, which don't look too bad) of the Rockets' worst moments from the 1 slot came from Mooch and Mark Jackson. Moochie's page actually makes me cringe looking at it again: (6.7 PER to 17.1 PER for a -10.4!)

 

Regarding Francis at SG and Braggs & Padgett -- apples and oranges...sort of. Braggs and Padgett's plus/minus are affected by their lack of minutes...but Padgett's net PER rating isn't that out of whack. Braggs is still way way high (leading me to wonder why we dumped him again?) but he played 150 minutes, total, to about 250 minutes for Francis at SG.


I've gotta go along with the sentiment of others here, I think that there had to be something other than on court performance that got Braggs released. I won't speculate on what it was, but he did seem like a perfect guy for our system.


Anyway that's all beside the point. What I meant to draw attention to was that a lot (30 percent or so, less Wilks minutes, which don't look too bad) of the Rockets' worst moments from the 1 slot came from Mooch and Mark Jackson. Moochie's page actually makes me cringe looking at it again: (6.7 PER to 17.1 PER for a -10.4!)


Agreed, our PG position numbers were lowered by Norris and Jackson, but the bigger issue to me is that, on average, our max PG is still getting outperformed. If can trade Francis for a good player at another position, then I'll gladly go sign Brent Barry or Arroyo to play the point.

BTW check out Duncan and KGs PER numbers, they're sick:

Duncan +15.8 (PF) and +18.7 (C)

Garnett +12.9 (SF), +16.7 (PF) and +17.4 (C)

 

My concern with Barry was that I believe I heard the Seattle broadcasters (on league pass?) indicating that at some point in mid- or late- last season that Barry wasn't playing point guard very much anymore because he simply wasn't quick enough to do so on defense. As for Arroyo I am wary of Howard Eisley... Ideally we would get Sam Cassell or a reasonable facsimile thereof but that is just a pipe dream.

I wonder what Hakeem's PER would have been during his prime? I imagine it would be even better than Garnett/Duncan simply because the C pool is so much less deep than the PF one.