Questions Abound: Monta Ellis Can Lead the Golden State Warriors in Scoring, But Can He Lead Them to Victory? + Is Reggie Williams For Real?

it’s not like he’s sprewell

You or I don’t know to be honest.

I’m just saying, other factors can make turnovers go up. Even 1 less turnover per 36 makes him look infinitely better

Im saying, Nellie is a big believer in setting up play thru a play. Just cause Monta takes poor shot, doesn’t necessarily mean it’s bad one in Nellie’s mind because it will set up a few more easy shots to him.

It’s just a theory. Cause clearly if Monta was taking shots that upset Nellie he’d be pulled aside more. Because I refuse to believe the Don is that checked out

what I meant by the Millsap Doctrine undermining common belief of Per 36 was that Millsap’s all-around brilliant play, whether in a reduced role off the bench, or an expanded one filling in for an injured Boozer in ‘08-’09, shed light on the misleading popular perception of the Per 36 metric as deceitful when estimating a bench player’s value… which is to say, his ability to excel at any usage rate demonstrated the inverse relationship of usage Vs efficient player production to be ineffective, when it had always been assumed that the usage/player efficiency relationship was a) a rule (as you did on this thread) and that b) it rendered the Per 36 stat flawed because it was neglected by it. This in turn led to the impression that the per-possession stats were more resourceful than Per 36 or 48 at measuring a player’s true value on the court, insomuch as Millsap’s per-possession production was equally impressive across the board in whatever role he was used… is that a little clearer (hopefully)?

And I don’t think that Monta failed in his role last year, because I don’t think that LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Kevin Durant, etc. would have done a better job in the same situation he was put in, and there isn’t a big enough sample size of Superstars playing on teams with 501 games missed to injury to prove otherwise. I think Monta did as good a job last year as any great player would’ve done in the same situation.

In fact, I just double-checked the stat myself here: http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/recap?gameId=300118009

From the “Notes, Stats, and Trends” blurb on the post-game press article. It was the first time a player took 39 shots without getting to 40 points since Michael went 12-of-39 for 29 points on November 3, 1997. Just goes to show that even God had off-nights.

God had an off-night on 11/3/97, but the Bulls were also without Scottie Pippen that game as he’d injured himself at the start of the season. And the rest of the Bulls’ starting 5 was constituted of Luc Longly, Ron Harper, Jason Caffey, and Randy Brown… Interesting…

Honestly, I don’t have the slightest idea what you’re talking about here. I’m talking about ballhandling skills. Tony Parker’s are excellent. Monta’s are horrendous. It’s about how well you can you control the ball – how low you dribble, how well you use both hands, the moves you have, how well you keep your head up, how fast you can go, and all this while maintaining good control of the ball at all times…..

Monta dribbles the ball at his shoulders, palms it every time with his left hand (because it’s honestly not strong enough to even be second nature like it should be), puts his head down on every drive…..

We aren’t comparing strictly drives. We’re comparing ballhandling. Completely different topic.

As for finding people off the drive, Ellis is pretty damn underrated in this regard

How do you figure? Seriously, what evidence supports that? He was taking 22 FGA’s and 6 FTA’s a game while turning it over almost 4 times a game, and in that span he racked up barely more than 5 assists. For a combo guard, that’s just not very good. I’ll stop pigeonholing him when he becomes an effective passer.

I laid the Thabeet bait out there on the hook for you and you didn’t take it. Impressive. Most impressive.

Which is totally cool — so long as you understand the limits of such an analysis. The game is not a "microcosm" or "metaphor," at least no more than any other game. It’s one game.

I did not say this game was a microcosm or metaphor for the entire season. Other people did. Looking at Krazee max’s comment, his reference to this game being a “microcosm” was about the team’s “situation” that Monta and Nellie had to face for many games of the season. And the situation was that as a result of injuries to so many of our normal roster players, Monta and Nellie had a short handed active roster with inexperienced D Leaguers coming off the bench as part of the regular rotation. This situation was definitely not a one game aberration; being short handed and having D Leaguers in the rotation was a problem right to the end of the season. So I do agree that this game is a “microcosm” of the season, situation-wise.

However, if you’re talking about my in-depth analysis of Monta’s shots and non-shot plays, technically, I cannot claim that this list of shots and non-shot plays is a microcosm of the Monta’s role and responsibilities and how Nellie played him, since no other in-depth list exists, but for the same reason, you also cannot claim that this game is NOT a microcosm.

If I include my personal observations from other games from last season, there are certainly elements from this game that I have seen in other games as well:

- Monta does try to look for others and pass to them.
- Monta isn’t selfish or looking for “personal glory” and he’s not trying to score everything himself.
- Monta doesn’t dislike Curry and he will pass to him.
- Nellie calls whatever plays he thinks will work against the opponent.
- Nellie calls on Monta a lot to run plays for others and to score.
- Monta follows whatever plays Nellie calls.
- Monta makes some bad decisions on possessions where the play isn’t set or is broken.

So I can understand why people say this game was a “microcosm” or “metaphor” for the season.

I mean, you could try to conduct a similarly in-depth analysis of all 64 games Monta played last season, but what would be the point?

The point would be to see if the above characteristics I listed about Monta and how Nellie used Monta were really true throughout the 64 games he played (well, whatever number of games he played after Jack was traded), if the blame about him hogging the ball and being a black hole, shutting out his teammates, etc are accurate and deserved or not, and to get a more complete picture of what Monta’s role and responsibilities are and how Nellie played him.

I want to praise and criticize players fairly and accurately for the role and responsibilities they are given. I also want to get a more thorough assessment of what a player can and can’t do for the team. For example, if Biedrins sets solid screens, then that goes on the praise list along with his rebounding and soft hands. If Biedrins sets wimpy screens, then that goes on the criticize list along with his lack of a reliable post game and FT shooting. So that would be the point of more in-depth analysis in general.

(A) No human being would have the time or energy to read and absorb it all (heck, I’d bet 99% of the readers here didn’t have the time or energy to read and absorb your analysis of that one game!);

No fan would have the time or energy, but a coaching staff would. They can split the duties up by qtrs and each staff member can log down what each player did in each possession of a game, offensively and defensively. Then they can analyze what things a player did correctly and what they did wrong. They can analyze if a player rotated correctly on defense, if a player moved without the ball to the right spot, or any other right or wrong decisions made that helped or hurt the possession.

I don’t know if the Warriors staff actually analyzes games this way, but they certainly do some sort of in-depth analysis. For example, Keith Smart mentioned they tracked “deflections”. Also, I remember when Nellie talked about Anthony Randolph taking a dribble before shooting his 16-ft shot, he said that AR’s shooting numbers aren’t good, “but they’re excellent when he takes a dribble”, implying that the coaching staff broke down the way AR takes shots into finer detail, similar to the way I broke down Monta’s shot and non-shot possessions.

(B) once you distilled and sorted your mounds of data, you’d almost certainly find that all the noise, luck, bad bounces, etc. evened out; and that the a very complete and fair picture of his overall season could be found in a few simple sources:

I didn’t do this analysis for statistical reasons (see next section). And the things I look for don’t show up in statistics, such as whether Monta looks for teammates, whether Biedrins sets solid screens, whether someone moves without the ball, or boxes out, or rotates correctly, etc.

I guess I’m still unclear about the point of your in-depth analysis, other than to defend a guy you happen to like ‘cos he plays for your favorite team. Are you actually making a case that your "ideal" analysis of that one game alters the data posted above in any meaningful way? Do you really not get the concept of relevant sample size? Are you arguing that Monta is somehow in a unique special category that doesn’t apply to the other players in the league?

I did the in-depth analysis to see how Monta took “39 shots”. I wanted to see if the criticisms about Monta “should have passed more”, “didn’t look for his teammates enough”, “should have fed to xxx player more”, etc. were valid criticisms and matched what actually happened in the game. I did not do it because I was defending Monta. I did not do it as a result of any statistical analysis. I wasn’t even thinking of statistics when I decided to rewatch this game. Therefore, I cannot answer any of your other questions.

And again, the very clear rhetorical question I posed remains: If you’re indeed arguing that Monta didn’t have a bad season last season, what regular player did?

I was not arguing about whether or not Monta had a bad season. In fact, I felt that I could not get a good judgement on Monta because this was his first season learning how to make plays for others as a play-making guard, and I wanted to give him room to make his mistakes and improve. I’m waiting for next season to see if his role is more boxed in and simplified before I judge him. Therefore, I can’t answer your question.

p.s. Mr. Potatohead is Reggie Williams. You don’t see the resemblance?

I thought you were referring to the bald head of Corey Maggette.