The True Monta Ellis

We all know that Monta is not as good as Wade and those other players who are relied upon as heavily as he is, but the truth is that the Dubs are not very good. You write that we should get Beans to score more!? I agree with your premise that Monta is not a number one option on a good team, but since we are not currently a good team I think we should appreciate the terrific effort that Monta has given us and not complain that he is not one of the top 15 or 20 players in the league. And I think that Monta would be one of the best second best players on any team.

Now all we need is LeBron…

and you’re not seriously giving props with that picture.

Sigh. One of those “I don’t understand the usefulness of stats so I just dismiss them” people. And the worst part is, you don’t even seem to watch the game with any sort of understanding….

Sure it’s easy for a guy like Beidrins to post a TS% of over 60% when he only has to shoot the ball 5 times a game

Funny how he was taking over 10 FGA’s/36 last year (plus shots where he got fouled) and still doing that. Did you even bother watching last night? Did you notice Biedrins catching and finishing in traffic? Have you ever watched what other big men in the NBA do? They don’t do what Biedrins does, that’s for sure. They drop the ball with stone hands more often, they don’t hit those contested right handed spinning layups over another 7 footer with the consistency Biedrins does. Biedrins offense might be limited, but it’s ridiculous when you say things like this. If it’s so easy, why doesn’t anyone else do it? There are plenty of C’s who rarely shoot, yet none of them do what Biedrins does? That doesn’t tell you anything?

Let’s not forget that a pick and roll with Ellis and Beidrins usually results in a double team to Ellis.

So? When someone like Chris Paul gets double teamed, he still makes it work. Did you watch Curry running the PnR last night? That’s the whole point – other players are more effective than Ellis in those situations.

when you are the only real offense threat to the opposing defensive, it becomes significantly more difficult to post effecient numbers especially when asked to carry a large if not largest portion of the scoring load

What is shows us is that the more of the offensive load Monta has to carry, the less efficient he becomes. This is actually the norm for NBA players, and is pretty intuitive to understand.

Yeah….and yet the good players, as the graphs/tables showed us, still manage to perform well. Ellis has not.

Post the stats that show if you play with D leaguers and cut through 4 defenders gives you…

I don’t know if you bothered to look at the table, but if you did, you’d find we actually have guys that contribute at an above average level for the NBA on offense around Monta. A number of them. They might not be talented overall, but they all have skills that make them useful offensive players, and that’s the point…

Thanks!

monta’s 3rd year was 07-08 and he was 22. curry will be 22 in a month

The problem with saying better or worse is that a players performance is intrinsically linked to their situation and environment.

In NBA, there are some players we know are great (Lebron) and some players that are hopeless (someone like Diogu, but the league will pretty much weed those players out). Pretty much everyone else is a product of their environment. The trick is to maximize every player. This is where Plus/Minus stats come in. Those stats don’t tell you much about a players true talent level, but they do tell you about how much a player is able to produce in the environment they play in. It’s just a shame that almost everyone misunderstands the stat.

Switching roles with Curry and Ellis would be making the same mistake. There’s no evidence to show Curry is much better or worse than Ellis, or that he’d be able to handle the scoring load and other responsibilities that are given to Ellis any better than Ellis has. All any of the stats and observations show is that he is succeeding in the playing environment presented to him (for the most part, he still turns the ball over way too much). Ellis is not. Shifting some of Ellis’s responsibilities to the 4 other players on the floor would help maximize the teams production. I think that this is clear from both statistical and observed evidence.

intangibles and externalites don’t exist because you can’t put them into a number or on a chart. Right? Of the measurable data available we can draw this conclusion, however unless pray to stats like hollinger, you see more details in the picture. You actually watch games and…..understand the game.

::presses ctrl-f::
::types “trade”::
Huh… I never once said we should trade Monta. I just said we should use him properly. There’s a difference.

Not well. Not well at all.

Monta’s per-game averages this year:
41.8 min, 26.2 points (.523 TS%), 4.2 rebounds, 5.4 assists, 4.2 turnovers

Iverson’s per-game averages for his career:
41.2 min, 26.7 points (.519 TS%), 3.7 rebounds, 6.2 assists, 3.6 turnovers

Other than the passing numbers, those lines look pretty similar. However:

1) Iverson’s passing edge — a 1.72 A/TO ratio to Monta’s 1.29 — is not small.
2) Iverson’s teams have played at slower paces than the current Warriors, meaning Iverson’s numbers are more impressive in context.
3) Iverson has played on a lot of teams with extremely poor surrounding offensive talent; his gunning generally hasn’t been at the expense of weapons like Morrow, Curry, Maggette and Biedrins, and thus hasn’t been as counterproductive.
4) Iverson gets to the line twice as often as Monta, creating additional free throws for his teammates.
5) Iverson is the better defender.

Monta rates as significantly worse. And remember, we’re not comparing Monta’s year to Iverson’s best year… we’re comparing him to Iverson overall. Iverson’s best years were a lot better than this.

Even the real Allen Iverson is overrated, and Monta’s impression of him doesn’t stack up very well. There are much better ways to use Monta than this.

I think if you carefully read a lot of our discussions, you’d see some of the very points you’re making brought up. One thing to keep in mind – a lot of this discussion is simply centered around what actually happened, whereas you’re talking about “true talent levels”. While we say Monta is inefficient and hasn’t helped the Warriors win games, you’re talking about what he would do in another situation. And while stats are just estimates of talent levels, and it is a team game, I think one of the things to note is despite coaching changes, team changes….the stats tend to stay more constant than you’re giving them credit. Guys like Jamal Crawford have always been inefficient scorers who don’t do a good job of getting their teammates involved. Zach Randolph is another example. Team changes, coaching changes…..most players still stay the same type of player – they may change slightly, but in most cases, we have a pretty good example of who they are as a player, especially once they start getting into year 4-5+ in the league, where they don’t really change much as a player until they start declining on the tail end of their career.

For instance, Monta is 2nd in league in MPG. It seems illogical to believe that any player can be super "efficient" if they play over a certain number of minutes

And this might have some negative effect on his efficiency, and you’re not the first one to bring it up. We discuss these types of things. You’ll also find that lots of other players have manged to be efficient while averaging a lot of minutes, and the evidence suggests this isn’t the primary factor behind his inefficiency.

His minutes, at 42 MPG, would actually be too low, because if he was super "efficient" at 42 MPG, then how good would he be at 45 MPG? Less "efficient" for sure, but would he be more productive? If LeBron played every minute of every game, wouldn’t we expect his efficiency to go down? Does that mean that LeBron in theory is any less efficient?

Well, there are a number of factors here, many of them hard to know. How will those extra minutes effect a player as the season goes on? Does it increase injury risk? Will they get tired at the end of games when you really need them? In addition, you should be thinking of it at the margin – 42 minutes at 58% efficiency seems good while 45 minutes at 57% efficiency (TS% for this example) seems better, but the real question is how efficient were you during those 3 extra minutes? If that 1% drop was caused by you shooting 52% TS% (below average), then an average player in your place for those 3 minutes would make the team better.

As for your talk about production – most people get that volume matters. We love Biedrins efficiency, but we understand he’s limited offensively and won’t be able to ramp that up to 20-25 shots a game efficiently. If you took part in the conversations, I think you’d find that. And volume is one of the reasons we don’t recognize Monta’s accomplishments as helping the team – not only is he less efficient than his teammates, but he shoots a lot. Shooting inefficiently a lot makes the team worse, shooting inefficiently a little bit is inevitible, you can’t be a real NBA player without shooting at least a little bit. It’s not that we’re haters, it’s that we have evidence that some of Monta’s shots should be taken by other people – if they were, the Warriors would be a better team. Why does it have top be hate to discuss basketball and how our team could be better?

But since my background is in statistics and data analysis AND I have played a lot of organized basketball

As someone who’s played a lot of organized basketball, and has a background in statistics and data analysis, I think you’ll find there are a lot of knowledgeable people on this site. I’ve learned a ton about basketball statistics in the last 4-6 months or however long it’s been since I started posting here. If you read a lot of the comments, engage in conversations about this stuff, you’ll learn a ton about the usefulness of various stats and what they tell you, and if you have a background in statistics, you’ll be able to figure out just how much or little various stats are telling you. Even among us stat users or whatever you call us there are disagreements on the usefulness of various statistics, it happens, but there are also many stats we pretty universally accept, like looking at per minute stats as opposed to per game and looking at things ilke scoring efficiency which have a significantly effect on the team winning or not. Instead of taking an attitude against it, partake in the conversations, ask questions, bring up issues you see with the use of stats….it all leads to interesting discussions (in my opinion) and the advancement of all our knowledge.

he defies logic. Every time he touches the ball, it’s the most efficient play. 30 mins, 48 mins. doesn’t matter

and shoot as much as he is

And I think one of the big points a lot of us are trying to make is that like you said, Ellis used to be effective by forcing up less shots, and since we have some other guys who are good options (Morrow, Curry, Biedrins especially), we’d like to see Ellis shoot less, get his teammates more involved, and we think that will cause his shooting percentages to go back towards where we want them. The evidence seems to suggest that will make us a better team.

And yeah, I don’t get the negativity towards Ellis, either.

I should put down my Excel spreadsheet and watch the game!!!!
Seriously?!
Do you watch the games?
Do you see Monta taking ill-advised shots? Turning the ball over? Missing the open man when the defense collapses on him when he drives? Does he keep us in close games, or does he cause games that could have been easy wins to be close losses?
I’d type more, but I’m busy…
There’s a game on right now.

Opinions like these make me think that not only do you not get the “stats”, but you don’t even have a basic understanding of evaluating basketball when you watch, if you even do…

Ad hominem attack number 2: Go out and play the game sometime…
sigh
This is where I’m supposed to spew out my credentials of playing, coaching, being a ref, and a scorekeeper at several levels of basketball right?

You can disagree about stats, their merit, and how they relate to building a good NBA team, but stop with this cliche nonsense.

And by the way, I dribble better with my right, but was pretty ambidextrous until I broke my left arm a couple years ago.

I think that stats can be valuable in assessing players, but are not a better, simply different analysis then you get from watching games. From watching games I think Monta is really good, and I have yet to hear a stat that has changed this opinion.