Will Monta stay a Warrior?

so they wouldnt’ just give him away right now b/c that would be admitting that he is a bust. If you think we could get Bosh and Barnagni for monta + pieces, you are sorely mistaken my albino friend.

Plus he is a bust

Tomorrow, I’ll either find my dream girl, or I won’t. So I have a 50% chance of doing so. Hah!

have you seen lamar odom lately? yes he is long, but he is also pretty cut

NBA efficiency is a highly, highly flawed statistic. It correlates well with all-star voting and player contracts. It is less useful for determining which players help most to improve a team’s shot at winning. It’s a low grade, easier to compute predecessor of PER, which, for its flaws, is much more useful.

The clearest flaw is that it rewards low efficiency shooters for shooting more. If Jax shot twice as much, but only made a third of his shots, his efficiency rating wouldn’t change. (You can test this for yourself, but it’s pretty clear since the positive of points scored by made fgs is exactly equal to the fg’s missed if he shoots 33% from the field on 2 point shots. Any rate higher than this and his efficiency goes up. For instance, if he shot 36% from the field on an additional 6 shots a game, his efficiency would rise to 20. Since shooting 36% from the field is really, really terrible but NBA eff. still would reward it, I reject it as a useful measure for high vol. shooters.

I should add that assists are not equally important to points or rebounds at least in terms of how they affect the probability of the team winning games, unless you do not give credit to the guy who scores points on an assisted basket. As NBA efficiency works, they’re giving 3 points for a made 2 point shot with an assist (albeit split between different players). The two points scored are no more valuable than if someone scored them unassisted, but in that case, only the points are awarded. It’s a significant flaw as well.

I think that Brandan’s getting a raw deal from Nellie, but on the boards, there’s absolutely no comparison. Brandan at his best approaches an average rebounder for his position. He’s pretty good on the offensive boards but not so good on defense. Randolph is showing that he has potential to be a genuine rebounding power, and could emerge among the tops in the league.

AR could rebounds and blks at the same time. I think the other reason why Nellie is playing AR more is that he play like C-webb. Well we all how Nellie mess up with him back than. He made sure he doesn’t make the same mistake twice.

being better then Wright right now is a joke

No, it’s not.

I’m a Wright believer. He’s a good and underrated player… his strengths significantly outweigh his weaknesses. Brandan Wright will be a pretty decent starting power forward for the first team that gives him that chance.

But it shouldn’t be us, because Randolph’s better. Wright still has the edge offensively… Randolph still makes a number of mistakes on that end, which Wright really doesn’t. But Randolph’s the better defender — Wright makes more mistakes on that end — and the rebounding gap between the two is huge. It’s not that Wright is a terrible rebounder — it’s that Randolph is a spectacular rebounder. We’re not talking about a good rebounder or an above-average rebounder… we’re talking about a top-ten-in-the-league rebounder.

The top rebounders on a per-minute basis this season, excluding guys who’ve played 100 minutes or less:

1. Dwight Howard, 18.6 RP48
2. Andris Biedrins, 18.1 RP48
3. Marcin Gortat, 17.9 RP48
4. Joel Przybilla, 17.4 RP48
5. Marcus Camby, 17.2 RP48
6. Kevin Love, 17.1 RP48
7. Samuel Dalembert, 16.7 RP48
8. Troy Murphy, 16.7 RP48
9. David Lee, 16.0 RP48
10. Anthony Randolph, 15.9 RP48

It’s quite possible that Randolph’s even better than that. Biedrins got hurt against Phoenix on February 6th, leaving Randolph as our backup center. Randolph warmed to that role more than anybody could’ve reasonably imagined, really committing to playing like a big for the first time. In the 27 games since then, Randolph has averaged 17.0 rebounds per 48 minutes, which would place him seventh in the league over the course of a full season. Randolph’s also eighth in the league in blocked shots per minute, and he even racks up many more steals than the average big man. Good defense obviously involves a lot more than blocks, steals and defensive rebounds, but Randolph does a lot of positive things, and he doesn’t make a lot of defensive mistakes. His main issue is fouling too much, which is a real issue, but an area in which most young bigs improve. And in the last couple weeks, he’s shown that he’s learning how to stay on the court.

Brandan Wright deserves better than what he’s gotten here. He’s a good player. But Anthony Randolph is better, and for reasons having to do with production, not potential.

and Replacing Monta and Crawfords 20ppg will make the team much worse?

That’s not what he said. Not replacing Monta AND Crawford, but replacing Monta WITH Crawford. Crawford has for his career taken more shots to score his points than Monta has, meaning that he requires more possessions to score his points. Since no one else can score on those FGAs that he misses, Crawford’s volume shooting cuts into the potential production of teammates, making the team less productive.

It’s not just about how much you score, but how many chances it takes for you to score the points. While people talk about “shot creation” what they really mean is “good shot creation”. Shots happen on virtually every possession and holding back the chuckers does not decrease the number of FGA’s a team takes. It just means someone else takes the shot. (Some speculate that it means more 24sec violations and possessions ending in turnovers, but this appears to be almost inconsequential as observed in cases where high vol. shooters have to leave lineups for a while in cases of injury. The shots just get taken by the guys on the court in almost all cases.) The only way to increase the number of shots a team takes is to do a better job of rebounding the misses and avoiding turnovers, which means that the actual shots a player takes are important. A bad shot taken is a shot that another teammate cannot take.

It’s true that defense weighs in. I haven’t noticed Crawford shutting down, or even slowing down anyone, so in a Crawford or Monta defensive eval, I’ll give it to Monta for simple fact that he’s a better rebounder. (I also really question Crawford’s effort as his ridiculously low foul rate suggests to me that he’s not active enough to even pick up the incidental fouls.) Since, barring turnovers, defensive rebounds are required to get a defensive stop, this means Monta’s at least contributing mildly more when he gets rebounds since it’s the finishing touch on a missed shot, even if he wasn’t directly responsible for forcing the miss. The statistics support this though rate both as poor defenders. I don’t know if the sample size is really significant for Monta for it to be entirely accurate, but the on/off court defensive efficiency differential for Crawford is absolutely terrible. Interestingly, the team is almost a competent defensive team when he’s on the bench.