RECAP #4: Memphis Grizzlies 109, Golden State Warriors 115 - Montazing!

Yeah like I said, it depends on matchups. I wouldnt recommend giving him the ball down there against Dwight Howard or anything, but against certain guys, he can definitely create some shots. But yeah, he’s not someone to rely on all game long or anything.

thorough player analysis from those who have good basketball knowledge (not saying I have good basketball knowledge).

The thing with intangibles is they should show up in the stats somewhere. If a guy is good at cutting and consistently reading the defense well, he should get more good looks and score more and score more efficiently because of it. If a guy is a good decision maker with the ball, it’ll help him up his assist numbers and cut down his turnovers. At the very least, any intangible a guy has that actually helps win teams should show up in +/- eventually. So I don’t see much need to talk about intangibles – the intangibles are the process that lead to the results, but I prefer comparing guys overall results to each other. How they get those results usually doesn’t interest me all that much.

Basically what I’m trying to say is: people tend to refer less to player intangibles on this site and instead focus more on player statistics. =)

“Intangibles” by definition, can’t be referred to in any way other than subjective opinion.

His TS% last year was at .606. As a reference, LeBron’s was .591.

Durant is one of the most efficient scorers in the NBA, and he does it while scoring as much, or more than, every other player in the NBA. He IS an elite scorer. He might be the single best scorer in the NBA. Last year, he was the best scorer in the NBA, taking not only volume, but also efficiency, into account.

Durant has never struck me as a particularly efficient scorer.

This would indicate that what “strikes you” is a worthless measure, a poor, poor, poor reflection of reality. Durant has been an above average efficiency scorer over the last few years. It doesn’t matter if it “strikes you” or not. It’s a fact, as much as water is wet.

From my own experiences, I don’t think coaches do a good enough job of objectively evaluating their players play at all levels (and I did have a former NBA coach as a coach back in my playing days) – there’s a lot more than just games that go into a coaches decision on who to play. It’s about rewarding hard work and hustle, trying to get players that play the way the coach wants his team to play, knowing the proper reads and rotations to make, playing well during practice and/or during games, etc. It’s not too hard to lose track of the end goal (winning games) and forget how bad of an overall defender/rebounder Vlad is when you see him make a couple hustle plays and do a better job of consistently running the offense/defense the coach is trying to implement on a day-in, day-out basis (including practice). Or when you see Vlad hitting shots in warmups and shooting drills during practice consistently and forget that he hasn’t been knocking them down in games. And some times coaching moves are more of a long term thing – if a worse player shows the right attitude/work ethic, giving him PT to try to wake up a more talented player who may not be realizing his potential (a certain someone no longer on the team comes to mind here) might be a sound strategy. Sometimes there are good reasons to play a guy like Vlad, even despite poor production. Other times….well, coaches aren’t perfect, like the rest of us, they make mistakes, and research suggests humans don’t necessarily do a very good job of evaluating their options when presented with too much information on each option (like watching warmups, practice, film and trying to evaluate every single part of a players game)…so, sometimes they get it wrong. I think with Vlad playing we’re getting it wrong, but I do understand how he can fool a coach into thinking he should play.

1) he’s an under rated defender. His effort is always there and he knows where to be, how to rotate, etc. which is a lot more than a lot of players on this team. For a coach trying to get his team to give defensive effort, you’ve got to reward the guys who do so the rest of the team gets the message.

Well, I’m not sure he is an underrated defender. I do think you’re on to something with the second part, I wouldn’t be surprised if when Smart and the team watch film and stuff, Vlad is making the right rotation and is where he needs to be on the court more often than some other guys (especially inexperienced guys like Adrien). Coaches reward that stuff, and sometimes it’s not clear how to properly value a players defense when you’re watching film and analyzing every player play by play and rotation by rotation the way the coaches are doing. I can definitely see them overemphasizing making those rotations and knowing where to be as part of the coaching process, or even just using it as a learning tool for the other players (do this and you earn PT kinda thing). That said, I don’t think Vlad deserves much credit for his D. He’s pretty freaking terrible on the ball, doesn’t have a real position (from the sense that he isn’t good enough outside to guard 3’s and is even worse inside when guarding 4’s) and can’t rebound at all. He was getting beat consistently last night.

2) Smart is coaching a team of proffessionals. These guys are playing for money. It’s there job. You can’t just throw a camp invite into the rotation without the threat of losing the locker room.

I really disagree here. These guys are all on guaranteed contracts and are getting paid no matter what. It isn’t like football where they can just be cut tomorrow. There may be a certain element of sympathy for a guy entering his free-agency period, but “losing the locker room” seems far more likely to happen when a highly paid, ineffective vetran is getting burn over better options.

to recognize that. But I can still see you saying something like that..