Warriors update: Lacob could give Nelson and Riley 2010-’11 "test-drives" [Talking Points]
It's nice to see the Warriors won't be making any knee-jerk moves because of the local media vitriol and revisionist history inexplicably and nonsensically aimed at Don Nelson. I personally can't wait till the Warriors ship out Mr. 16% from the Charity Stripe, Moped Ellis, and Robert Rowell, so that they can give this legendary innovator a real squad for his final season.
Andris Biedrins and Monta Ellis were nobodies before Nellie came back to town in the summer of 2006. I'd like to see what kind of numbers Monta would put up in a non-Nellieball offense. I'd also like to see how many coaches out there would put up with Biedrins' lack of desire and commitment to improve his game.
Again, where are all those people who couldn't wait to destroy WE BELIEVE to build around a mythically bright future of Ellis and Biedrins? I can't hear you...
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Priceless humor.
So Tim’s now rehashed all the themes, phrases, speculations, and interview analyses that we’ve rehashed here Good for him – most newspaper readers don’t want to wade through our little neck of the internet swamp.
Nellie? gone, gone, gone.
Rowell? transferred in house to keep his “invaluable knowledge” – probably as a cost accountant for the Frisco (Texas) Roughriders.
I’ve changed my mind on Riley. As Jeremy Britten put it on The Wages of Win Journal… “Either way, most of the credit should go to a general manager no Warrior fan believes in, who doesn’t even know what kind of winning team he has assembled….”
Either he’s quietly pulled off the slickest move short of Pat Riley on purpose, which would be really really impressive, or he’s a blind pig who found a solid platinum acorn. Either he’s very lucky, or he’s very good, and the Warriors can use a good dose of either. Give him a year, but don’t let him screw up what he’s accomplished.
Baseball is a chamber orchestra. Football is a marching band. Basketball is a modern quintet. jazz, rock, hiphop, pop/ all about the beat./ still my revolution not/ til you dance through it.
imo
keep riley, nelly, ellis, biedrins.
get rid of riley
Goal: 8 seed!
yah that makes no sense
get rid of rowell
and maybe i should take my nap now
Goal: 8 seed!
I personally can’t wait till the Warriors ship out Mr. 16% from the Charity Stripe
Right, the single most important value of today’s big men is their free throw percentage. If they cannot hit over 60% of their free throws we must ship them out ASAP. Completely disregard that Biedrins provides much needed rebounding and passable post D (when healthy) on a team devoid of both assets, and focus only on the fact that he just barely had enough free throw attempts in an injury riddled season to even qualify for such a ridiculous “record.”
Again, where are all those people who couldn’t wait to destroy WE BELIEVE to build around a mythically bright future of Ellis and Biedrins? I can’t hear you…
Because they likely never existed. I can’t recall anyone who actually wanted the We Believe team broken up besides those Dallas fans who watched their 60-win team get pummeled by a very lucky 8th seed. I’ve seen people who were okay with the moves seeing it as an opportunity to rebuild, but never anyone who wholeheartedly supported tearing everything down.
by WYK on Aug 9, 2010 10:52 PM PDT reply actions 1 recs
nah they existed
it all depends on how you define destroy. atma might be exaggerating a bit but that was the popular rationale two/three years ago.
And as for mr. 16%, FT is definitely not the most important thing… it’s the fact he has shown no desire to improve his game. He has put up better efficiency numbers which is nice, he’s learned how to pass a bit better, cool, but it’s plain to see he’s happy with being just good enough in a limited role. He’s shown no desire to expand his game to reasonably approachable levels like the development of a jumper, improved FT shooting and a post game. The fact he’s shown NO improvement in any of these facets is disconcerting and raises many questions about his work ethic.
I may be wrong about this, and in fact, I hope I’m wrong, but over the past 5 years it appears to me that Biedrins is OK with mediocrity, or being slightly better than mediocre. An example of this is in the interview posted earlier he commented on how his FT shooting used to be pretty good. Yes, 60 percent is good for a center, but instead of comparing himself to the mediocrity of other big men, I wish he’d try to be a flat out good FT shooter.
Goal: 8 seed!
nah they existed
it all depends on how you define destroy. atma might be exaggerating a bit but that was the popular rationale two/three years ago.
Again, I’m finding it extremely difficult to believe that anyone was crying tears of joy when we traded J-Rich, or whooping when Baron bolted to LA because of a contract dispute. And even if there were, such opinions weren’t flaunted like the newest fashion trend. Rationalizing unpopular moves or decisions is one thing, but openly and wholeheartedly supporting these moves (as Atma so kindly accuses people of doing) is another thing entirely.
He’s shown no desire to expand his game to reasonably approachable levels like the development of a jumper, improved FT shooting and a post game. The fact he’s shown NO improvement in any of these facets is disconcerting and raises many questions about his work ethic.
Confirmed lack of desire or perceived lack of desire? Also, how much of this perceived “lack of development” was dependent on the kind of expectations one would have for our left-handed Latvian when Mullin drafted him at age 17. Coming into the league, all Beans had was his length and athleticism; no basketball IQ and no basketball skills, just the fact that he was tall and he could sprint on the open court. If you were expecting him to become the second-coming of Dirk despite knowing he was a huge project, then of course the “lack of development” is disconcerting. Did you honestly believe he was that much of a high-upside pick as scouts or draftexpress claimed he was, or was he really just drafted because Mullin happened to have a thing for tall, lanky, and somewhat immobile left-handers like himself?
From a personal perspective, I thought Biedrins had “BUST” written all over him the moment he was drafted, and his first two seasons reflected his extremely limited game. So of course it was a decent surprise for me when he emerged as a double-double machine when Nellie gave him the opportunity to show what he’s worth. This is a guy who went from being an end-of-bench hack-a-Shaq option to a legitimate (albeit still limited) starter in a league where the typical Euro draftee won’t last past their rookie deal, if they even sign one at all. That’s quite a bit of development is it not?
Forgot to add: as for striving to be a “good” shooter, I can tell you now that Biedrins will never be a good free throw shooter, much less develop a jump shot. I made a comment awhile back hypothesizing that his lack of development in his shooting is moreso a lack of physical ability than a lack of desire to improve. He quite clearly lacks hand-eye coordination, which is essential to developing the much-lauded “muscle memory” for consistent releases that guys like Morrow or Ray Allen or even normal pick-up game players such as ourselves have. If I can find the exact comment I’ll try to post it again.
interesting hypothesis
and it would be even more so if you had some proof. But alas, it is lacking, and so it’s difficult to use your idea to exonerate Biedrin’s inability.
Let’s go through your postulate piece by piece. If I"m reading it accurately, you’re saying that Biedrins’s lack of physical ability, namely, his lack of hand-eye coordination, is the reason why he can’t shoot a normal jumper. Right? K…
1.) Can you prove he has poor hand-eye coordination? Guess what needs a lot of hand-eye coordination: blocking shots. So does dribbling, catching passes and passing. For a big man, Biedrins has exhibited excellent ability at those four skills. So I think you’re going to have find some overarching, rock-solid evidence to prove his hand-eye coordination is bad as you say it is, because in other respects Biedrins has shown good hand-eye coordination.
2.) Even if his hand-eye coordination is poor, that has nothing to do with muscle-memory. In fact, muscle-memory is THE solution for those plagued with the problem of poor hand-eye coordination, because hand-eye coordination affects your ability to respond. Muscle-memory, on the other hand, requires no response at all, you just practice and practice until it becomes completely mechanical. So in effect, the muscle memory/ hand-eye coordination relationship is a complete opposite of what you seem to be implying.
So this is why I disagree with your hypothesis, and why it doesn’t excuse his nonexistent improvement in jumpshooting and foul shooting
Goal: 8 seed!
by dso on Aug 10, 2010 12:56 AM PDT up reply actions 1 recs
On the one hand, I mostly agree with your response – I’m not sure what Biedrins is lacking, exactly, but I think it’s unrealistic to ever expect him to be a good shooter. Most players aren’t. Shooting is something that takes a lot of work, a lot of time – guys like Ray Allen were very, very good shooters long before they came to the NBA because they’ve been doing it their whole life. It’s very, very unlikely we should expect Biedrins to be a good shooter, and honestly, a jumper would add nothing to his game (it would actually hurt his game), so there’s not much reason for him to practice any sort of shooting but FT’s. Has it ever occured to you that maybe he does practice shooting around the hoop quite a bit, though? Maybe that contributes to why he finishes so well?
Now, for the other hand. While I do agree with your “where’s the proof” line of questioning…..I find myself asking the same thing about your speculation abuot Biedrins.
by Missing Barry on Aug 10, 2010 7:50 AM PDT up reply actions
even if a jumper adds nothing to his game
the point is that he could add one if he wanted to. It doesn’t happen all the time but it does happen in the NBA, as we’ve seen with Jamison and now with David Lee. Grant Hill is another example of a player who had no jumper at all, then went to a shot doctor to fix his shot and added the shooting element to his game.
What proof are you wanting for? That Biedrins hasn’t added anything new to his offensive game? That he doesn’t want to, or hasn’t put the time to do so?
Goal: 8 seed!
by dso on Aug 10, 2010 7:59 AM PDT up reply actions 1 recs
What proof are you wanting for?
Really for anything. That he hasn’t improved. That adding a jumper is just an easy thing to go and do. Grant Hill, Jamison and Lee are simply not good examples. Do you realize Biedrins came into the league shooting 30-40% from the line? He’s starting from a 5th grade level. You don’t just go and develop a jumper from that level in no time. Guys like Hill, Jamison and Lee were light years ahead of Biedrins on the development curve when they came into the league – these were legitimate college players, and like I said, Biedrins jumper was at a 5th grade level. Biedrins has made singficant progress, and I’m honestly not seeing why we should expect him to be a good FT shooter. The average C shot 67.4% from the line last year. Once Biedrins is back in the 55-60% range, that’s acceptable, and it’s something he’ll likely continue to improve upon, if only marginally.
That Biedrins hasn’t added anything new to his offensive game?
Sure, when I show you his scoring his gone up while he’s maintained his efficiency, his assists have gone up, and his FT shooting has dramatically improved from when he first came into the league, and you tell me he hasn’t added anything new to his offensive game, I call BS.
by Missing Barry on Aug 10, 2010 8:07 AM PDT up reply actions
it's been 5 years
5 years is plenty of time to have added a jumper if he wanted one. He either didn’t or didn’t work hard enough to do so. 5 years is also plenty of time to become an above-average (for Centers) ft shooter. He still hasn’t reached that plateau.
No one’s arguing he’s a bad player. What I’m saying is questions need to be raised about his work ethic when he’s had so much time to add new things to his game and he’s flat out refused to. Rebounding was always one of his strengths, though I’m not sure if he has improved as much as the stats show. Finishing was also one of his strengths and I’m glad he’s good at it. And the passing is definitely nice.
But the knock on him over and over is he’s not the shooting 5 that Nellie wanted. Nellie has made it particularly clear that he wants his big men to be able to shoot, yet biedrins has refused to add that element to his game. It raises questions as to why. Why doesn’t he improve his form, even if he’s not going to shoot jumpers, so that he could become an elite FT shooter? Or maybe he wants to, but he just doesn’t have the work ethic to pull it off
Goal: 8 seed!
by dso on Aug 10, 2010 8:14 AM PDT up reply actions 1 recs
Sure, and he’s been working and adding other stuff to his game. Your complaint really seems to be he’s not the type of player you and/or Nellie wants. Oh well. I’ll take what he is – a good player who obviously has worked on a number of his other skills, likely at the expense of a jumper (which again, doesn’t add to his game). And like I said, he has significantly improved his FT shooting, so who knows if he is/isn’t working hard enough to be an “above average” FT shooter for a C. If it was that easy, wouldn’t a lot more players do it (in which case the average would be much higher)?
by Missing Barry on Aug 10, 2010 8:18 AM PDT up reply actions
the average is 67 percent
he’s never reached that.
And the average being what it is, that implies there are a lot of players above that mark. Why can’t Biedrins be above that mark?
if he wanted to, he could. If he put in the time, he would have. But since he hasn’t hit a higher level, one has to wonder about his work ethic.
he hasn’t added other things to his game. He’s added passing, but passing comes more from experience, not practice. His FT shooting has improved but it’s still mediocre at best. His rebounding… how do you practice rebounding?
Shooting is the one aspect of basketball that’s most dependent on practice, with dribbling a close second. When someone’s a bad shooter, one of 2 things have gone wrong:
1.) He learned it wrong and solidified the wrong form.
2.) He’s not practicing it enough and thus shows inconsistency in his delivery from shot to shot.
Biedrins is remarkably consistent in that he’s a horrid shooter. It would take a lot of work to re-do his shot, re-learn everything and then drill it into muscle memory. It would take a lot of work… but if you want to, you can.
My question is, why doesn’t he want to?
Goal: 8 seed!
by dso on Aug 10, 2010 8:35 AM PDT up reply actions 1 recs
that implies there are a lot of players above that mark. Why can’t Biedrins be above that mark?
Well, I did use a mean and not a median, so I won’t say there are just as many below the mark as above it (I do not know how the distribution is skewed), but it’s just as easy to say there are a lot of people below that mark, too. How many of them came into the league as bad as shooting as Biedrins? So he has to work harder than his peers just to get to average. So….sounds like the criticism is he hasn’t outworked most of his peers on his shot?
With regards to practice, I agree with you when you’re practicing individually, but these guys also train in groups, so he definitely puts in the work on his overall game.
My question is, why doesn’t he want to?
No idea, I guess one of the points I’m trying to get to is whether it’s a good use of time to work on his shooting? I’m not sure it is.
by Missing Barry on Aug 10, 2010 8:48 AM PDT up reply actions 2 recs
It would take a lot of work… but if you want to, you can.
Assuming that no other extraneous factors are hindering development other than desire, it certainly works that way. But that, unfortunately, is largely unrealistic.
Another the big question is whether the benefits of the desire outweigh the costs. Is it worth the time and effort to completely deconstruct Biedrins’ game just to add a jump shot, just so Nellie can have him hanging around the three point line rather than in the post waiting to clean the offensive glass?
?
Is it worth the time and effort to completely deconstruct Biedrins’ game just to add a jump shot,
where is this “deconstruction” coming from?
Goal: 8 seed!
You can’t just tack on a 10-20 foot jumper to a guy who primarily stays in the paint and just leave it at that. It’s not that simple. You’ll first have to change the way Biedrins plays if he is to use the jumper effectively; he will need to get comfortable hanging around the perimeter, develop other perimeter skills like the triple threat, and improve his ball handling so he won’t turning it over at an alarming rate, among other things.
i disagree
first of all, he already does a lot of pick and rolls, which means he’s outside of the paint.
his ball handling isn’t that bad for C. turnover rate isn’t horribad. and you could make him into a strictly catch-and-shoot type of guy, and restrict the number of such shots he’s allowed to attempt.
this doesn’t deconstruct his game. it’s not an either/or scenario
Goal: 8 seed!
and you could make him into a strictly catch-and-shoot type of guy,
haha, he can’t shoot a freethrow and now you want him to shoot from further away? unbelievable :>)
Lights please, lights please, turn off the lights.
by Skeptic con Urquell on Aug 10, 2010 8:24 PM PDT up reply actions
first of all, he already does a lot of pick and rolls, which means he’s outside of the paint.
It’s a pick and roll, not a pick and pop. He quickly sets a pick, frees up the ball handler, then immediately “rolls” back towards the basket to either catch an incoming pass or clean up the glass. Whenever it’s executed, he doesn’t hang around where he set the pick for longer than a second before he goes back to his usual spot under the basket.
his ball handling isn’t that bad for C. turnover rate isn’t horribad.
Sure his handling isn’t that bad for a Center, but they don’t need to play on the perimeter. Shooting is a perimeter game. He’s going to need to improve his ball control considerably before he should play away from the basket, much less shoot from out there.
and you could make him into a strictly catch-and-shoot type of guy, and restrict the number of such shots he’s allowed to attempt.
Such a role is fairly counter productive wouldn’t you say? If you’re going to use all this time to make him develop a jumper, then tell him he can only shoot once or twice a game, the jumper becomes worthless. Take into account that a point blank bucket is much more efficient than a mid-range shot, we’d ultimately be adding a less effective option into his repertoire.
I’d rather he just stick to his strengths and try to get even better at that instead of adding something that won’t necessarily help his game. If we were debating about adding different post moves to his arsenal, I’d agree it would help him a great deal if he put more time into that. The shooting at varying ranges away from the basket, on the other hand, just doesn’t seem necessary.
by WYK on Aug 10, 2010 8:59 PM PDT up reply actions 1 recs
5 years is plenty of time to have added a jumper if he wanted one.
This notion that it’s just a matter of “wanting” is an opinion. Don’t confuse it with fact. Presenting anecdotal evidence that some players have been able to add jumpers does not indicate that anyone could if only for the their desire.
Research has shown
that time devoted in deliberate practice is the single most important factor in developing skills in all aspects of life, not just basketball. There are very few unattainable talents. Or, as K. Anders Ericcson states in his now famous study, “The Role of Deliberate Practice in the Acquisition of Expert Performance”:
The trait we commonly call “raw talent” is vastly overrated… put in another way, expert performers— whether in soccer or piano playing, srugery or computer programming— are nearly always made, not born.
Mastery arrives through “deliberate practice.” Deliberate rpactice has three key components: setting specific goals; obtaining immediate feedback, and concentrating as much on technique as on outcome.
(you can see his work in such books as Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell, or in Super Freakonomics, which is where I’m getting this excerpt)
Goal: 8 seed!
by dso on Aug 10, 2010 5:18 PM PDT up reply actions 1 recs
Sure. But if you want to talk about Outliers let's talk about 10,000 hours.
It’s not easy to get 10,000 hours in over five summers when you’ve got plenty of other things you need to work on, too, or are playing for your national team.
No one's saying he needs to put in 10,000 hours
But if he does put in a significant amount of hours in concert with deliberate practice, he can see results. It’s proven anecdotally to be possible with the examples I brought up, who btw are the most drastic examples of it but there are a lot of players who improved their shooting ability as time went on. Contrast that with Biedrins who has shown no results whatsoever. This raises questions about his work ethic.
Goal: 8 seed!
by dso on Aug 10, 2010 5:22 PM PDT up reply actions 1 recs
Contrast that with Biedrins who has shown no results whatsoever
Again, I don’t see where you’re getting this. He has improved substantially. He’s still below average, but when he came into the NBA, his jumper was as bad as any other players ever, basically. He has a whole lot more work to put in to be good than other players, especially guys like Grant Hill who were already 70%+ FT shooters when they entered the league (in other words, had a college level jumpshot rather than a 5th grade level one)….
by Missing Barry on Aug 10, 2010 7:12 PM PDT up reply actions
my bad
i’m not being specific enough when i say improvement. i’m talking specifically about his jumper, not that he hasn’t improved on a whole
Goal: 8 seed!
He has improved as a FT shooter, but in terms of his overall jumper, yes, I do agree he has not made any attempt to develop one. But again, he’s not starting at the level of your typical NBA player – he needs to put in more work than anyone else because his jumper is start from that bad of a point. Is it worth it to develop one when you have that much work to put in?
by Missing Barry on Aug 10, 2010 7:47 PM PDT up reply actions
maybe
for me it would be, for you i guess it’s not.
Goal: 8 seed!
If he could do it without any sort of sacrifice elsewhere, of course I’d expect it to make him better. Given how inefficient jumpshots are, I just don’t see how it’d be worth it. I like the player Biedrins is now, and I’d like to see him focus on improving his FT% a bit more and becoming a better on ball defender.
by Missing Barry on Aug 10, 2010 7:58 PM PDT up reply actions
An actual question, not a rhetorical one
How many people have come into the league not knowing how to shoot actually ever managed to become passable, or good? People say this all the time: So-and-so just has to work on his jumper/free-throws/3-point shot. That’s all you heard about Al-Farouq Aminu, for example, leading up to the draft: the guy will be a total stud as soon as he learns to shoot, as if it’s just a matter of hitting the gym, and presto, it happens.
I mean, it must happen. It has certainly happened. But with WHOM has it happened? Shaq had every consultant in the world work with him on free-throws and never improved an iota. Beans, well, he’s just lost what little he had (nothing).
I’m genuinely curious.
by BlueInTheFace on Aug 11, 2010 2:08 PM PDT up reply actions
There are a lot of players who have never developed a jumper or a low-post game
… is it your opinion that none of those players ever tried to add them?
Biedrins doesn’t seem very good at moments when he has to think. He’s a very instinctive player: get the ball, put it in the rim. He’s the opposite of, say, Kevin McHale, who was ALL thought: “Oh, last time I set you up with the up-and-under so this time I’m going to fake that and spin for a scoop shot.”
THe other issue with Beans that we have to consider is that he’s been playing on a team with very little interest in posting up big men. It seems unlikely that Nellie ever said, “If you take this summer and develop some post moves, I’ll get your four more shots a game” – because that’s not the offense Nellie ever wants to run.
Grant Hill is another example of a player who had no jumper at all, then went to a shot doctor to fix his shot and added the shooting element to his game.
As a college senior, Grant Hill hit 39% of his threes (39/100, so a signficant, but not huge sample). Is that the same as having a jumper? It certainly shows some shooting range that doesn’t exactly mesh with the notion of being a player who “had no jumper at all.”
sorry, i should have sourced this
but unfortunately i can’t find the article. It was about how Hill completely re-did his jumper with a shooting coach during his second summer in Orlando. Anyways, he could shoot before but to re-do your mechanics several years into your career is pretty rare
Goal: 8 seed!
Lebron and Jordan are two guys I can think of right away who changed their shot fairly drastically. Even once you change your mechanics, while yes, it is a huge change, those guys still had years upon years of practicing jumpers, you know? They had at least some feel for shooting already. Those shots you take in 5th grade help, those shots in 8th grade help, HS and college – even if you’ve changed your form since then…
by Missing Barry on Aug 11, 2010 3:12 PM PDT up reply actions
i ono about that
when you change your shot mechanics midway through your career you’re not only having to learn something new but you’re also having to fight against old habits. This forces an even heavier burden of practice to get the jumper consistent enough for competition.
Goal: 8 seed!
True, but it’s still better than being at a 5th grade skill level.
by Missing Barry on Aug 11, 2010 3:30 PM PDT up reply actions
interesting hypothesis
and it would be even more so if you had some proof. But alas, it is lacking, and so it’s difficult to use your idea to exonerate Biedrin’s inability.
If I had a way to test this, I would. Unfortunately the fact that I cannot actually test it or confirm my suspicions, unless I’m physically present to record data in a controlled environment, is what keeps this from transitioning into a “theory.” The question is falsifiable though, so it certainly can be tested if I can somehow get into Beans’ inner circle.
All I can say that I made this conjecture after eyeballing his free throws during the course of his career. I’ve always asked: why does he jerk his shot motion around and ruin his rhythm? It appears like he’s liberally sacrificing his rhythm to try and overcompensate for locating his “sweet spot” to release the ball so to speak. It requires very good coordination to hit the “spot” in a flowing, smooth shot time and time again. Instead, Biedrins pops and jerks just trying to find that spot each time. Sounds like a coordination problem to me.
Can you prove he has poor hand-eye coordination? Guess what needs a lot of hand-eye coordination: blocking shots. So does dribbling, catching passes and passing. For a big man, Biedrins has exhibited excellent ability at those four skills.
To be honest, Biedrins does not strike me as much of a shot blocker. Comparing his per 36 for his career to other centers around the league, he’s roughly average. Throwing out some career numbers per 36 for a sample comparison with other “defensive-minded” centers and some “offensive-minded” ones as well:
Biedrins: 1.9
Chandler: 1.8
Noah: 1.8
Perkins: 2.3
Robin Lopez: 2.1
Brook Lopez: 1.9
Bynum: 2.2
Bogut: 1.5
Lee: 0.5 (Holy crap… Lee is abysmal at defending the rim…)
Al Jefferson: 1.6
Howard: 2.1 (Very surprising at first considering his amazing blocking rate the last two seasons. But then again, Howard is quite literally what Andris would be if he were on steroids based on their comparable lack of basketball “skills”)
And compared to guys in recent memory who made their careers out of blocking shots:
Mutombo: 2.8
Turiaf: 2.9
Ratliff: 3.5
Ben Wallace: 2.4
Camby: 3.0
So yeah, Biedrins is pretty much middle-of-the-pack in terms of shot blocking. More likely the result of being tall and long and actually trying on D, rather than because he has “good” hand-eye coordination to block shots.
As for all-around ball handling ability (which includes passing, dribbling, etc), Biedrins is not exactly remarkable in that aspect either. He averages roughly as many assists as he does turnovers for his career. His best season in terms of “passing” is this past one at 2.5 ast to 1.5 TO’s (per 36) in a very limited sample size, and that only did enough to bring his career ast/TO ratio to 1.6 ast to 1.7 TO’s. However, it should be noted that there’s no specific way to determine whether each of the turnovers are the result of an errant pass or dribbling the ball off his own foot on occasion, though it doesn’t matter since he ultimately loses a possession for every successful score he creates through his passing.
In either case, this doesn’t exactly prove that he has poor hand-eye coordination. The numbers just prove that he is far from “excellent” in terms of three of the four aforementioned “skills.” The exact cause of these glaringly average numbers (along with his inability to develop a “shot” outside of 5 feet from the rim) is unknown. My guess is that it could be thanks some sort of physical handicap like poor hand-eye coordination, rather than a perceived “lack of desire” towards developing his game.
Even if his hand-eye coordination is poor, that has nothing to do with muscle-memory. In fact, muscle-memory is THE solution for those plagued with the problem of poor hand-eye coordination, because hand-eye coordination affects your ability to respond. Muscle-memory, on the other hand, requires no response at all, you just practice and practice until it becomes completely mechanical. So in effect, the muscle memory/ hand-eye coordination relationship is a complete opposite of what you seem to be implying.
The relationship isn’t mutually exclusive. Indeed that muscle-memory builds rhythm and is key to making coordination more consistent. However, to establish a good rhythm you need good coordination from the start, as well as the coordination to make adjustments after a miss. Biedrins has shown himself to be especially inept at the latter, often tossing up the same exact knuckleball free throw after missing the first, which is more damaging to his development because he can’t physically find a way to improve.
by WYK on Aug 10, 2010 2:39 PM PDT up reply actions 1 recs
You can get turnover types
at 82games.com – for AB last year,
Offensive Fouls 5
Bad Passes – 13
Ball Handling Turnovers – 13
Other Turnovers – 1
‘Hands’ Rating – 8.7
The rating is not good.
Baseball is a chamber orchestra. Football is a marching band. Basketball is a modern quintet. jazz, rock, hiphop, pop/ all about the beat./ still my revolution not/ til you dance through it.
I probably should have noted this earlier when talking about AB’s shot blocking, but I’ll mention it now – given the combination of our pace and how bad our perimeter defense is, I’m going to go ahead and say Biedrins gets more shot blocking opportunities than any other big (or is at least near the top). If we controlled for opportunities, he probably wouldn’t look nearly as good….
by Missing Barry on Aug 10, 2010 2:59 PM PDT up reply actions
good points
i think it’s a start, but i don’t think it’s conclusive that Biedrins has bad hand-eye coordination.
I disagree with your last point:
However, to establish a good rhythm you need good coordination from the start, as well as the coordination to make adjustments after a miss. Biedrins has shown himself to be especially inept at the latter, often tossing up the same exact knuckleball free throw after missing the first, which is more damaging to his development because he can’t physically find a way to improve.
That’s not really true. I have very clumsy hands: I cannot shuffle cards well, or handle money well, and etc. But I’m great at the piano because I’ve committed songs, hand formations and such to muscle memory. Likewise, you can have poor hand eye coordination and still have great form on your shot if you practice it enough.
Goal: 8 seed!
by dso on Aug 10, 2010 5:47 PM PDT up reply actions 1 recs
But I’m great at the piano because I’ve committed songs, hand formations and such to muscle memory.
How often does the defense collapse on the black keys, forcing you to adjust your song on the fly?
by jae on Aug 10, 2010 6:11 PM PDT up reply actions 1 recs
it actually happens a lot
when you’re playing improv for a band or a church praise team. I’m not reading notes, all i have are the letters for chords and i have to constantly adjust them to match the music
Goal: 8 seed!
as i said
it all depends on how you define the verbs, ie destroy, rationalize, support, crying, etc etc. If you’re unwilling to excuse the slight exaggerations and want to nail him with an argument rooted in context, that’s your prerogative, but I certainly won’t waste my time haggling about definitions with you.
Confirmed lack of desire? or perceived?
Well no sh*t it’s perceived, and I never forward an argument that this perception is definite. Nor do I see why it matters if it’s confirmed or not; are your perceptions confirmed? We could take turns asking what sort of confirmation our perceptions have, but I think given that we are all non-experts, I think it’d be kinda waste of time.
I’m glad you’ve been so surprised from your previously held perception, but I don’t see how this has anything to do with his lack of marginal improvement. Yeah, he might have exceeded expectations for some people since his rookie year, but does that mean he should be content with the same flaws he’s had for the last 3 or 4 years? And no one’s comparing him to Dirk, or that I’m disappointed cuz he hasn’t turned out like Dirk. He’s just not developed his game to levels that are easily approachable for most other players.This lack of development raises a lot of questions about his work ethic.
and on a general note, please stop making strawmen. You’re consistently misconstruing my arguments through inaccurate rephrasing.
Goal: 8 seed!
and on a general note, please stop making strawmen. You’re consistently misconstruing my arguments through inaccurate rephrasing.
My bad. I had no intentions of making stawmen; most of the questions posed were more rhetorical for the general public to interpret than an actual charge towards “you” or “your opinion” specifically. Poor choice in pronoun usage on my part.
He’s just not developed his game to levels that are easily approachable for most other players
And yet he’s one of the better C’s in the league, so I’m not sure what you’re referring to when you say “levels that are easily approachable for most other players”….
by Missing Barry on Aug 10, 2010 7:51 AM PDT up reply actions 1 recs
well i should have been more clear
but we were continuing a conversation regarding adding facets to his offensive game. So when i’m talking about developing his game, I meant adding new elements that other Centers have which he doesn’t. Namely, post moves, a jumper, and improved free throw shooting. The reason why I say such aspects are approachable is because there are tons of centers out there that have those abilities. For example, over 15 centers averaged at least 1 10-15 foot jumper per game in the 08-09 season. Biedrins can’t even shoot that shot. You argued earlier that such a shot would hurt his game more than it would help, but that’s only if he maintains his current crappy form. Why doesn’t he fix it? Why doesn’t he put in the time to become a better jump shooter and become at least a decent shooter so Nellie can trust him more?
Goal: 8 seed!
by dso on Aug 10, 2010 8:06 AM PDT up reply actions 2 recs
Why doesn’t he fix it? Why doesn’t he put in the time to become a better jump shooter and become at least a decent shooter so Nellie can trust him more?
Probably because he shoots around 60% TS%, while the average C shot 45.5% from <10 feet, 39.1% from 10-15 feet, and 39.4% from 16-23 feet last year. Those shots simply do not add value, even at the margin. There’s no reason for a C with no semblance of shooting ability right now to focus on developing a jumper. Waste of time. Post moves? Sure, and I’ve seen at least a semblance of them, but how many C’s are out there with a legitiamte post up game? Duncan, Gasol, Bynum, Howard, Lopez…..and? The last season Biedrins was healthy he was an above average scorer for a C, while doing so very efficiently, and racking up almost twice as many assists as the average C. That’s an offensive game. He doesn’t do it the way you like, but he still contributes – he still obviously has skills and things he’s worked on, and he’s been an effective offensive player because of it. I don’t see what you’re complaining about.
by Missing Barry on Aug 10, 2010 8:13 AM PDT up reply actions 2 recs
Even if he added a jumper
it doesn’t mean he has to shoot it frequently. Let’s say he actually developed a jumper and attempted 1 FGA a game with it. That one shot is not significant enough to alter his TS% by all that much. Please don’t ask me to prove this because it’s quite an annoying process, but I’ve gone through the math and TS is not always as self evident as it may seem (for example, if you double 3PA/3PM for Ellis’s 09-10 season + add the new 3PM totals to his total points, you get a .002 improvement in TS%)
So I would argue it wouldn’t hurt his TS all that much. But what would it do? It would make him a threat near the elbow. It would force defenders to guard him. He would have more trust from Nellie who’s been pining for a shooting 5 for quite some time now, thus getting more playing time. But that’s not all. He would also get the benefit of improving his FT% as well, since if he can fix the mechanics in his shot, he’s more likely to become a FT shooter, Morris Peterson be damned.
So he should add a jumper since it won’t signficiantly affect his TS, it’ll add a new element to his game, it’ll help earn Nellie’s trust and it may have ramifications for his FT.
Goal: 8 seed!
I wouldn’t argue against one jumper a game. It’s all game theory stuff – just the threat of it changes the defenders optimal strategy, possibly resulting in a better equilibrium for the offense. That said, you still have to do a cost-benefit on it, here. Is it worth spending all the time/energy on adding a jumper if it’s going to be such an insignificant addition? His time might be better spent working on other stuff, like keeping up his finishing skills by practicing shots near the rim instead of a jumper, or maybe spend extra time physically training (weights, running, eating, putting on bulk, etc) instead of working on a jumpshot. Just hypothetical examples, it just seems to me like you’re looking at the jumper in a vacuum without appreciating the unrelated stuff he does well, that likely involve a significant amount of work of their own….
I still buy the “earn Nellie’s trust” stuff. Nellie can piss off. If we’re going to start talking about work ethics here, why not bring up Nellie’s absolute mailing-it-in coaching job last year? We should not be catering to Nellie.
by Missing Barry on Aug 10, 2010 8:28 AM PDT up reply actions 6 recs
yeah but who's cost/benefit?
Biedrins’s? Come on! We value players who put in the time during the offseason and add new elements to their game. Who cares if it cuts into their party time? We want our players to be cutthroat examples of competitive desire, burning away all other interest to become dominating players. It’s the whole myth of Jordan and in a lesser respect, Kobe (NO GSC, DONT DO IT).
It’s not like Biedrins doesn’t practice. Of course he does. It’s his job, etc, he puts in his time. But he hasn’t show a desire to be.. exceptional. It’s unfortunate.
Goal: 8 seed!
Who cares if it cuts into their party time?
Do you care if it cuts into his gym time? His time working on his passing, ballhandling, and inside scoring? That’s the point. Nobody has the time to work on every aspect of their game all the time.
by Missing Barry on Aug 10, 2010 8:52 AM PDT up reply actions
You don't "work" on passing
and his inside scoring was always a strength. He didn’t do anything to improve it, and if you’re just practicing to maintain it doesn’t take that much effort.
He could also increase his time working. ONce again, the myth of Jordan: first one in, last one out. Was Biedrins that type of guy? Did he have that type of hunger?
It’s fine if he didn’t. most players aren’t that type of people. But if you have a weakness so glaring that you’re getting pranked on by your coach, maybe instead of just getting butthurt, you can take that anger and take it to the gym and prove him wrong, that you can do it your way and he can take his underhanded FT shooting and stick it up his rectum. I hope he does this, I really do. It’s just unfortunate it even got to this point though.
Goal: 8 seed!
You think passing skills just come out of thin air….? You think that having the highest FG% in NBA history doesn’t take much effort?
As for increasing his time working, I seriously doubt he’s among the hardest workers in the NBA. Those tend to be, you know, the best players in the game. Biedrins is not one of the best players in the game. He’s a solid starter, though, which is pretty decent in my book. Why are we holding him to star player standards, exactly? I mean, if we’re really going to criticize people for having a weakness in their game and not working like superstars to improve….how many players are we going to be satisfied with? I guess I don’t see why it’s such a big deal?
I wish Biedrins worked to become a superstar, too, but realistically…..that’s just not a course many players take…..
by Missing Barry on Aug 10, 2010 9:02 AM PDT up reply actions 2 recs
and that is why i said
it looks like he’s happy being mediocre. it all comes full circle
Goal: 8 seed!
by dso on Aug 10, 2010 9:06 AM PDT up reply actions 1 recs
It looks to me like he’s happy being an above average player. I tend to reserve the word “mediocre” for guys like Mikki Moore, Anthony Tolliver or Chris Hunter….
by Missing Barry on Aug 10, 2010 9:09 AM PDT up reply actions 1 recs
Because he's a bench player being paid starter money
I don’t quite understand why you rush to Biedrins defense. The guy is being paid 15% of the cap and his skill set barely warrants 3x league-minimum. The talent gap between Biedrins and Chris Hunter (or a young Gadzuric) is not is not as far as their paycheck…
Also, the whole highest FG% nonsense: the point of stats — in theory — is to tell an unbiased story about a players ability and strengths. The purpose of knowing these abilities and strengths is so the coach can better exploit the players and create wins. So the question becomes, if Biedrins is as good as the stats tell us, why is his usage closer to a bench scrub like Mark West (.580% career) than great players like Artis Gilmore or Shaq? Even if we acknowledge that Biedrins “greatness” is confined within 3 feet of the basket, our own eyes tell us that that talent is of no use if he can’t get himself that close, and that there are actually multiple active players at his position who are better (Howard, Shaq, etc).
by StJ on Aug 10, 2010 10:50 AM PDT up reply actions 4 recs
The guy is being paid 15% of the cap and his skill set barely warrants 3x league-minimum
I’ve already posted a link that goes through how much a whole lot of the big men in the league are paid. Big men cost a lot of money. That’s market rate. And yes, the talent gap between Biedrins and the other guys is pretty big.
As for his FG%, it does tell us an unbiased story. Of course we all realize that usage and efficiency are negatively correlated. The thing is, Biedrins is so good at getting and making putbacks and finishing when others create for him, he scores both efficiently AND at an above average rate. Nobody claims he’s a superstar, but his offense is better than most C’s, and he’s probably being used pretty close to optimally.
by Missing Barry on Aug 10, 2010 11:00 AM PDT up reply actions
So we should have one of the most efficient scorers in the game, who is above average volume for a center shooting, while being an amazing rebounder, and great passer, coming off the bench? And you say Shaq is still better than him?
"Everybody loves Basketball-Reference.com. Except the Kobe fans".- DubsFan408
by GovernorStephCurry on Aug 10, 2010 11:00 AM PDT up reply actions
The talent gap between Biedrins and Hunter is HUGE.
A “young Gadzuric” never broke .551 TS% and had one elite rebounding season.
Biedrins is significantly better in every way except FT shooting over Hunter.
That’s just complete and utter nonsense.
Biedrins is significantly better in every way except FT shooting over Hunter.
Well you’d have to look back and compare Dre’s 1st half season to Hunters to know for sure but I seem to recall Dre being no better than Hunter at the same point in his career. Hunter looks like he’s actually got a decent shooting stroke and he has the size and strength to clog up the paint so it might not be a stretch to call him more useful per dollar and mental energy expended on him per unit of output?
Lights please, lights please, turn off the lights.
by Skeptic con Urquell on Aug 10, 2010 3:53 PM PDT up reply actions
Well you’d have to look back and compare Dre’s 1st half season to Hunters to know for sure
Key difference of course being that Biedrins was 18 in his first season where Hunter was 25.
Why look back at all? Today, Biedrins is two years younger than Hunter, roughly the same size and weight, and much better at everything except free throw shooting.
There will be no extra point!
by Sleepy Freud on Aug 10, 2010 4:14 PM PDT up reply actions
Biedrins is two years younger than Hunter, roughly the same size and weight, and much better at everything except free throw shooting.
Are you factoring in his costs per unit of money and mental effort paid out to him? Hunter was a pretty cheap and low maintenance asset, he did not ugly up the freethrow line or shy away from interior contact?
Lights please, lights please, turn off the lights.
by Skeptic con Urquell on Aug 10, 2010 5:24 PM PDT up reply actions
Are you factoring in his costs per unit of money and mental effort paid out to him?
No, because it’s not relevant to the part of Ronaldinho’s post (“Biedrins is significantly better in every way except FT shooting over Hunter”) that you felt compelled to reply to.
Whether the rather large gap in production between the two players is worth the rather large gap in remuneration might be a semi-interesting debate (though I think, as an NBA rule of thumb, marginal increases in production tend to be worth much-more-than-marginal increases in dollars). Alas, you chose to make it a rather silly debate by comparing Biedrins at age 18 to Hunter at age 25, and by implying that there’s a significant size difference between two players that are both 6’11" 240.
There will be no extra point!
by Sleepy Freud on Aug 10, 2010 6:12 PM PDT up reply actions
Well you’d have to look back and compare Dre’s 1st half season to Hunters to know for sure but I seem to recall Dre being no better than Hunter at the same point in his career.
You do not recall things correctly if this is what you recall. Your recall is faulty. Human memory often is.
As the youngest player in the league, Biedrins was a much above average rebounder and an efficient shooter from the floor who blocked shots reasonably well.
At a 25 year old, Hunter isn’t as efficient as Beidrins was as a rookie, wasn’t as good a shot blocker, wasn’t nearly as good a rebounder. The aspects of his game that Hunter is better at are limited and less important than the aspects that Biedrins has always been better at.
As the youngest player in the league, Biedrins was a much above average rebounder and an efficient shooter from the floor who blocked shots reasonably well.
What I remember most is him fouling at a high rate and getting pulled?
Their first season stats compare ;
Dre 12.8 Mpg, 3.6Ppg, 3.9Rpg, 0,8 Bpg
Hunter; 13.1 Mpg, 4.5Ppg, 2.8Rpg, 0.6 Bpg
So on a dollar per output basis Hunter stacks up pretty good.
Lights please, lights please, turn off the lights.
by Skeptic con Urquell on Aug 10, 2010 5:45 PM PDT up reply actions
i think the damning evidence
is the per 36 rates and the % rebounded. Biedrins is and always has been a far better rebounder than hunter.
Goal: 8 seed!
i think the damning evidence is the per 36 rates
well they both played about 13 min so per 36 would be three times those numbers or roughly 12P, 16R for Dre and 15P, 9R for Hunter.which is not bad for a rookie and a minimum salary guy.
Lights please, lights please, turn off the lights.
by Skeptic con Urquell on Aug 10, 2010 6:07 PM PDT up reply actions
well they both played about 13 min so per 36 would be three times those numbers or roughly 12P, 16R for Dre and 15P, 9R for Hunter.which is not bad for a rookie and a minimum salary guy.
Your math is pathetic, Skep.
Your math is pathetic, Skep.
Depends on your definition of roughly?
Do it your way and see if it makes much difference in the teams real results?
Lights please, lights please, turn off the lights.
by Skeptic con Urquell on Aug 10, 2010 8:26 PM PDT up reply actions
In my definition, 11.1 is not roughly 16 nor is 7.7 roughly 9.
haha, ok let me try again. I used Dre’s 2nd season since he din’t play much his first.
Dre 4 P X3 =12, 4RX3=12
Versus Hunter 5P X3=15, 3RX3=9.
somehow I wrote 16 in place of 12 :>)
But if one worked out the actual per 36 it would still be comparing a min salary guy to a draft pick so the point would still be the same.
Lights please, lights please, turn off the lights.
by Skeptic con Urquell on Aug 11, 2010 11:46 AM PDT up reply actions
What I remember most is him fouling at a high rate and getting pulled?
Perhaps English is not your native language, Whether or not it is, you seem to have a problem understanding when a question mark should be used. Are you asking if that’s what you remember? If you aren’t asking, then you should not use a question mark.
So on a dollar per output basis Hunter stacks up pretty good.
I realize that expecting you to present a statistical argument is likely to have similar results to expecting my cat to learn how to operate a 5 speed manual transmission without synchromesh, but you are once again leaving out incredibly important pieces of the equation.
but you are once again leaving out incredibly important pieces of the equation.
What Hunter was not cheap? and we din’t do as good per dollar spent with hunter playin as we did with Dre playin? What else is there to that equation?
Lights please, lights please, turn off the lights.
by Skeptic con Urquell on Aug 10, 2010 8:30 PM PDT up reply actions
Our handy-dandy
wins per million figures at the wins produced test site shows (for last year) AB at .363 wins per mil – about 3 mil per win. Way below his average.
Hunter, on the other hand, showed a wins per mil value of -1.5. Having him on the floor made wins more expensive.
Baseball is a chamber orchestra. Football is a marching band. Basketball is a modern quintet. jazz, rock, hiphop, pop/ all about the beat./ still my revolution not/ til you dance through it.
Our handy-dandy wins per million figures at the wins produced test site shows
Haha, My handy dandy scratch pad shows Dre 9 mil, Hunter 300K ( a guess based on minimum salary?)
For the season ; Dre 165 points ,257 rebounds. Hunter 270 points ,168 rebounds. Cost per point for Dre was 54.5K versus cost per point for Hunter 1.1K
Cost per rebound Dre was 35K versus cost per rebound hunter 1.8K? So again, who’s cheaper per unit of output? and the fact that we don’t have to watch Dre’s ugly freethrows? Priceless :>)
Lights please, lights please, turn off the lights.
by Skeptic con Urquell on Aug 11, 2010 10:43 AM PDT up reply actions
The talent gap between Biedrins and Chris Hunter (or a young Gadzuric) is not is not as far as their paycheck…
The talent gap is not terribly relevant and is largely a matter of opinion. The performance gap is far less subjective. It’s also a rather gigantic gap. Biedrins is a high efficiency scorer and a top notch rebounder, a reasonably good passer for a big who is a solid shot blocker for a center. Hunter is far less efficient from the floor, gets fewer assists while turning the ball over as often, fouls at a slightly higher rate, and is a pathetic rebounder for a big, a rebounder so bad for a center that he’s a liability that a good team cannot have as their center.
Biedrins can be a starting center on a good team. I say this because he has, in the past, been such a player. Finding a major minute center on a good team who is as pathetic a rebounder as Hunter takes a whole lot of searching before you give up and realize it just doesn’t happen. This notion that they’re somehow reasonably close in performance (and no, you didn’t say that exactly, but it seemed implied) is false.
You can save money with a Chris Hunter, but you can’t do that and expect to win games.
i like how 5 + posters
have failed to address his main question regarding usage.
Goal: 8 seed!
Assuming by “like” you mean “don’t like”, I’ll throw out a couple of possible explanations for this “failure.”
1. Because no one is compelled to reply to anything they don’t feel like replying to.
2.Because the idea that Biedrins is as great as Shaq or Gilmore is a shameless straw man.
3. Because Mark West was a very solid pro; and in today’s market, a player who at age 21-22 outperformed Mark West at his peak is easily worth $9M a year, non-escalating.
There will be no extra point!
by Sleepy Freud on Aug 10, 2010 6:39 PM PDT up reply actions
What about usage? Biedrins doesn’t create his own shot well, he’s great as an off ball option. That’s exactly how he plays, so his usage is pretty close to optimal. If we tried to increase it, that means giving Biedrins the ball more to create on his own, which probably isn’t a good thing…
by Missing Barry on Aug 10, 2010 7:15 PM PDT up reply actions
whether or not its wrong
i just found it interesting that no one addressed it
Goal: 8 seed!
Oh ok, I guess I just didn’t understand what the point he was getting at was, so I left it alone. We all know Biedrins is limited in terms of shot creation, so that’s why his usage is what it is.
by Missing Barry on Aug 10, 2010 7:48 PM PDT up reply actions
i just found it interesting that no one addressed it
cause it is so depressing ?
a big guy who can’t play the post limits us to basically no post up game in a league of big men. what’s not to like about it nellie?
Lights please, lights please, turn off the lights.
by Skeptic con Urquell on Aug 10, 2010 8:33 PM PDT up reply actions
A league of big men, eh? How many C’s out there have legitimate post games?
by Missing Barry on Aug 10, 2010 9:04 PM PDT up reply actions
and his inside scoring was always a strength. He didn’t do anything to improve it, and if you’re just practicing to maintain it doesn’t take that much effort.
Always a strength? His TS% rose his first four seasons. His FGA/36m rose his first five seasons until it was derailed by his injury last year. Given that he no longer had Baron setting him up, it’s impressive that he found a way to get more shots in 09 than he did in 08.
It seems to me like you’re very reluctant to give him credit for the areas where he has improved his game. Do you think that sort of improvement is automatic?
actually
i do give him credit where credit is due. He was always a creative finisher around the basket . his TS% is irrelevant to his inside scoring because it was boosted more from his FT, not his actual FG% (TS is heavily affected by the “extra point”, whether it be FT or 3pters). And I guess it is impressive he got in more shots, though I don’t see how that’s directly correlated to an improved inside scoring ability.
He was always good inside. He may have improved it but it’s marginal, as evidenced by his AT RIM FG%
Goal: 8 seed!
Cutting out 2010 for this list, used hoopdata.com only
TS% FG%
07 .598 59.9%
08 .639 62.9%
09 .585 57.8%
He’s always had a very high field goal percentage because of his offensive game. He finishes easy buckets. I don’t know where you got the idea that his TS% wasn’t boosted by his FG% because they’re clearly pretty similar.
I don’t mean to speak for Ronaldinho, but maybe he used TS% on purpose to show that Biedrins was better at getting to the line as well. In the 3 seasons I used, his FTA/FGA ratio increased every season. That’s a good thing. Getting to the free throw line is a skill that helps your team.
Sick of fighting with my computer
by Reverend_Randy on Aug 10, 2010 2:25 PM PDT up reply actions
Oh, so in other words, you don’t think passing is a skill.
by theOrthoticist on Aug 10, 2010 4:09 PM PDT up reply actions
Thinking back on it, we used to do a whole lot of passing drills in practice back in HS. 3 man weave as a warmup. 2 man passing drills sliding up and down the court. 3 man close out passing drills. Definitely something we specifically worked on…
by Missing Barry on Aug 10, 2010 7:17 PM PDT up reply actions
I still buy the "earn Nellie’s trust" stuff. Nellie can piss off. If we’re going to start talking about work ethics here, why not bring up Nellie’s absolute mailing-it-in coaching job last year? We should not be catering to Nellie.
+[infinity sign]
Golden State Worriers: Angst & Analysis
by onlxn on Aug 10, 2010 8:47 AM PDT up reply actions 1 recs
or maybe spend extra time physically training (weights, running, eating, putting on bulk, etc) instead of working on a jumpshot.
This is an important point. The biggest problem with Biedrins game is his struggles to match up with the more physical centers in the game defensively. He gets bowled over too easily.
I would much rather see him improve that than see him expand his offensive game.
Agreed. My biggest concern isn’t his shot – I’d like to see him get bigger/stronger. Becoming a more effective on ball post defender is the most important thing I think he could add to his game.
by Missing Barry on Aug 10, 2010 9:33 AM PDT up reply actions
Why?
He’s gotten better at it over his career, in case you remember.
He was really bad at it as a younger player. This last season aside, it has turned into an area where he’s okay, but not particularly good.
no i mean
working out. Why hasn’t he worked out
Goal: 8 seed!
I think he has. Some.
Because he’s still skinny, it’s easy to imagine that he doesn’t look any different than he used to.
But compare pictures of him from before the “we believe” season until now. He definitely looks stronger to me, his arms aren’t as spindley as they were.
That being said, he has, until this last offseason, generally chosen to play with the Latvian national team during the off-season rather than do a dedicated strength-training program.
That may raise questions about his priorities, but a player caring more about his national team than his NBA team hardly raises questions about his work ethic.
yah he's a bit bigger than before
i wish his latvian coaches would do something about his shot
Goal: 8 seed!
Ultimately he's going to have to do what he did this year:
Not play for the national team, and instead focusing on conditioning.
And some of it may just be age. There are guys who, no matter how hard they work, have a hard time adding much muscle. One of my best friends goes to the gym multiple times a week, and can do ridiculous things (like 30+ pullups with a 20lb weight held between his knees) and is puny, he can’t put on weight.
That one shot is not significant enough to alter his TS% by all that much.
The question is, does it help the team win?
Is the team better if Biedrins takes that an extra shot which will be relatively low TS%, compared to other players?
If the team is going to organize the offense to get Biedrins an extra shot a game – and I think they should, quite frankly – does it make sense to have that shot be a jump shot, or to have it be a finish off a P&R?
Isn’t the answer to that question obvious?
A player with a lot of low post moves uses the jumper to set up his other shots. It forces the defender to guard him tight to open up his other moves. Therefore it may pay dividends even if it’s a lower-than-average-percentage shot for that player, or even for that team.
Biedrins, on the other hand, doesn’t need to do that because of the way he gets his points. You don’t want Biedrins taking lower-than-average-percentage shots, because the team doesn’t get any particular benefit from him doing so. It doesn’t open up some other part of the offense.
You don’t want Biedrins taking lower-than-average-percentage shots, because the team doesn’t get any particular benefit from him doing so. It doesn’t open up some other part of the offense.
are you telling me you don’t see the benefits of forcing a defender to respect a shot and pull out to defend a center, thereby creating space in the middle? Contrast this with Biedrins right now pulling up to the elbow. No big man cares to go out and can set up tent in the paint because his shot is so horribad he can’t even attempt a shot from there.
Goal: 8 seed!
I think the point is we don’t want Biedrins with the ball in his hands to begin with. Give the ball to Curry. If they don’t respect Biedrins shot, put him in a P&R situation, and then the defense has to expand because Curry can light it up.
by Missing Barry on Aug 10, 2010 9:34 AM PDT up reply actions
k that's your point
my point is what if he became this amazing shooter that still maintains a similar level of ball-not-in-his-hands and started making opposing defenders pay with a catch and shoot shot from the elbow?
Goal: 8 seed!
Yeah, yeah, I get your point: “why isn’t he a superstar”. I still haven’t figured out why that’s the standard we’re holding him to.
by Missing Barry on Aug 10, 2010 9:48 AM PDT up reply actions
my point is what if he became this amazing shooter that still maintains a similar level of ball-not-in-his-hands and started making opposing defenders pay with a catch and shoot shot from the elbow?
Wow. Notice what you just did?
You hypothesized about him being an “amazing shooter.”
WHile it may be reasonable to say that he could, with hard work, become a BETTER shooter, it seems really absurd to suggest that he’s going to be an “amazing” one, no matter how hard he works.
If your hypothetical criticizing him depends on his ability to become an “amazing” shooter, then your hypothetical doesn’t mean very much.
everything is hypothetical here
let’s say he doesn’t become an amazing shooter then. let’s say he becomes a decent one.
It helps his team. It helps because he can create space in the middle by pulling out to the elbow. He becomes a threat at a different position on the floor, thereby forcing the defense to respect him and thus focus on a different dynamic.
Goal: 8 seed!
It helps his team. It helps because he can create space in the middle by pulling out to the elbow.
You know what also helps without having to force our rather unskilled rebounding specialist to develop jumper? Adding another big man to the roster who can shoot. We just got one in David Lee. Assuming they’re going to split time at Center, it solves your little issue without unnecessarily turning Biedrins into an all-around player that he’ll never be.
are you telling me you don’t see the benefits of forcing a defender to respect a shot and pull out to defend a center, thereby creating space in the middle? Contrast this with Biedrins right now pulling up to the elbow. No big man cares to go out and can set up tent in the paint because his shot is so horribad he can’t even attempt a shot from there.
Yes.
The way you exploit the situation you describe, with Biedrins, is to drive at the man who’s sagging off of him. Biedrins then follows his man and he slides to the driver and gets an easy finish at the rim.
Basketball 101.
basketball 101?
so you’re telling me is you “exploit” this by driving into a double team and hope both of them follow you to the rim while no one covers Biedrins?
This actually works better if you are a threat from 10 to 15 feet. Then not only can you pick and roll, you can also pick and pop. Both options become available. That’s better than just one… and having one of your players driving into a crowded paint.
u and i need to play some basketball someday. I want to see where you get these ideas.
Goal: 8 seed!
Yes.
THe man is sagging off to guard the middle. You encourage him to do what he’s already showing that he wants to do – double team the driver.
In the situation you described, it’s not hoping that no one covers Biedrins. You described a situation where Biedrins was already uncovered.
When your man leaves you in basketball, you follow him to the rim. I learned that as a freshman in high school. So, yes, it’s basketball 101. You wait for your man to look to the ball, and then you crash the rim.
huge difference between double teaming the driver
and driving into a double team
Goal: 8 seed!
Or run a pick and roll. Basketball is creative like that. Lots of ways to take advantage of situations. :)
by Missing Barry on Aug 10, 2010 10:00 AM PDT up reply actions
Atma stop rec'ing every comment that is against Biedrins.
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by GovernorStephCurry on Aug 10, 2010 10:57 AM PDT up reply actions
And yet he’s one of the better C’s in the league
This statement seems to be more objective than anything. One of the ‘better" Centers in the league would mean he is greater in skill and value than a majority of other Cs in the league, which sadly Biedrins is not. He hasn’t been even considered for the All Star game, does not pose a threat to opposing defenses, does not garner a double team, tends to get into foul trouble for soft ticky tack fouls, and now probably will not deliver hard fouls or go hard to the rim with fear of injury. His FT shooting is key this year because with the Curry to Lee pick and roll, he could provide a strong outlet on the baseline or block should and when Lee gets doubled, IF opposing defenses weren’t so inclined to just send his lovely form to the line. And from what I gather from DSO, WYK, and others at least while he is a member of this team, he really appears to have very little desire to change any of that.
He is, actually, better than most.
if you think there’s anything to wins produced. In ‘09 he was top-10 among all 109 listed centers for wp48, wins produced, and top-15 for wins per million, and that’s after his contract. Kinda scary, but there it is.
Baseball is a chamber orchestra. Football is a marching band. Basketball is a modern quintet. jazz, rock, hiphop, pop/ all about the beat./ still my revolution not/ til you dance through it.
He hasn’t been even considered for the All Star game, does not pose a threat to opposing defenses, does not garner a double team, tends to get into foul trouble for soft ticky tack fouls, and now probably will not deliver hard fouls or go hard to the rim with fear of injury.
That’s an interesting list of things that define a better center. It’s strange to me that you leave off things like, “Score with ridiculously high efficiency” and “rebound at an elite level.”
Berri, in “The Wages of Wins” shows how all-star votes basically correspond with one thing that a player can control once he’s in the league: ppg. All star teams are often NOT the best collection of players, they’re the best collection of scorers.
The nothing that “this year” he could provide a strong outlet suggests that you haven’t watched him play. That’s EXACTLY what he’s done in years past, despite the poor FT shooting, and he’s scored a very solid number of points with excellent efficiency.
The thing about “if teams won’t just send his lovely form to the line” is sort of misleading, as well. The simple truth is that when you get the ball like Biedrins does, the other team doesn’t have the opportunity to think or plan or execute a strategy. They don’t say, “Oh, its Beans, foul him.” His poor FT shooting would be a liability if he was a back-to-the-basket player with post-up moves, but as a guy who finishes other player’s drives and cleans up a lot of slop, it’s mostly irrelevant. (Well, not if he shoots 14% again, but it’s not reasonable to assume that is what is going to happen. He’s a 52% shooter for his career.)
The nothing that "this year" he could provide a strong outlet suggests that you haven’t watched him play.
Because my views don’t completely agree with your expert opinion do not mean I have not watched Warrior basketball. As a season ticket holder watching 09-10 Biedrins was about as frustrating as it seemed it was for him to shoot said free throws. He often seemed like a guy that checked out, one step behind and often not paying attention. There Timeouts he wouldn’t even be in the huddle, just watching the junior jam squad. Bsides, he is a Center, a majority of his shots are within 8 feet of the basket. He BETTER be efficient. And big men in this league are supposed to give the hard foul. Some of them get a paycheck to do that alone. And your argument against the All Star team not recognizing the performance of players is ridiculous. Its the All Star game.
Its the All Star game.
And there’s evidence to back up that the voting is largely centered around PPG. What’s ridiculous about that?
by Missing Barry on Aug 10, 2010 7:28 PM PDT up reply actions
There was a typo in my post. I "nothing" was supposed to be "noting."
I have no disagreements with you about who Biedrins was in 2009-2010. What I think it completely unreasonable of you, however, is the presumption that Biedrins will be that player again this year.
This is a textbook example of when you should discount a player’s stats. He was playing hurt, with an injury that required surgery. From the comments in the interview, it’s clear that he was clashing with Nelson.
And your argument against the All Star team not recognizing the performance of players is ridiculous. Its the All Star game.
Did you know that ALlen Iverson was voted into the game this year? Did you look at his performance?
As you say, it’s the “all STAR” game. Not the “all the best players game.” The point that nothing matters for all star votes so much as PPG has been made, in incredible detail, with lots and lots of evidence, by Dave Berri and others. It’s worth checking out.
Did you know that ALlen Iverson was voted into the game this year? Did you look at his performance?
Hell, Magic got elected to the 92 all-star game when he hadn’t played a second all year.
by jae on Aug 11, 2010 11:29 AM PDT up reply actions 2 recs
He was also MVP of that game
So, um… Vindication?
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by philthiest on Aug 11, 2010 2:52 PM PDT up reply actions 1 recs
He hasn’t been even considered for the All Star game
He’s not as good as Gasol, Duncan, Howard, Yao, former Shaq…..yeah? Not many C’s are. If he’s the 10th best C in the league, he would be “one of the better C’s in the league” and quite obviously not an All-star. There are very few franchise C’s out there, and the ones that are make the team every year. As far as the rest of the C’s in the league go, you’re not doing too poorly if you have Biedrins.
does not pose a threat to opposing defenses, does not garner a double team, tends to get into foul trouble for soft ticky tack fouls, and now probably will not deliver hard fouls or go hard to the rim with fear of injury
How many legitimate offensive threats at C are there in the NBA? How many that command a double team? In his last healthy season (’08-09), Biedrins fouled less than the average C, while blocking an average number of shots and being among the leaders in steals. He also scored an above average number of points – and you and I both know he scores all his points at the rim (or at the FT line from getting fouled on a shot at the rim). How do any of those things back up a single one of your claims?
he could provide a strong outlet on the baseline or block should and when Lee gets doubled, IF opposing defenses weren’t so inclined to just send his lovely form to the line
Yes, and he’s shown year after year in the past that he’s a good option off the ball like that. Over the last 4 seasons, he’s also shot 54.8% from the line combined, and 55.8% over the last 3 seasons combined (indicating an upward trend). That percentage from the line, while not good for a FT, still makes for an average to above average shot on an efficiency basis. That’s not a bad option, especially since it means fouls for the opposing teams big men. What makes you think Biedrins will not be a good option off the ball, when everything I see indicates he will, just as he has in the past?
from what I gather from DSO, WYK, and others at least while he is a member of this team, he really appears to have very little desire to change any of that.
Based on what? I’ve shown stuff, like FT shooting, that he clearly improved upon consistently since he’s been in the league. What about that says “very little desire to change any of that”?
by Missing Barry on Aug 10, 2010 7:26 PM PDT up reply actions
Guarantee if you go back to the beginning of last year on this site you will see talk about Biedrins being an all star (remember, you know, when he was healthy and got a double double every single game and was averaging around a 17-13?)
Either DJ Fuzzylogic or OlympicMike wrote it, I forget, so I’m sure one of them would agree with this.
Guarantee if you go back to the beginning of last year on this site you will see talk about Biedrins being an all star
And that refutes any of MB’s arguments how?
What about that says "very little desire to change any of that"?
This whole argument is based on this! His demeanor on the court, what he’s apparently done (or not done) in the off season, in his tremendous Latvian interview. Sure some things could be lost in translation, but he hasn’t yet responded in a way that would refute that.
This is a textbook example of when you should discount a player’s stats. He was playing hurt, with an injury that required surgery. From the comments in the interview, it’s clear that he was clashing with Nelson.
MAYBE if he got his wish to be traded to Phoenix he would turn himself around and be the same guy that was Zarko’s BFF and led the league in FG% that you guys just can’t seem to let go of. But he just said he’s happy with what he’s accomplished already and his statements about his teammates don’t lend to the idea that he wants to try any harder. And why is it okay for his performance to slide just cuz him and his coach are clashing? They didn’t seem to clash when Biedrins was performing.
Did you know that ALlen Iverson was voted into the game this year? Did you look at his performance?
This is more of a reflection of the All Star game as a popularity contest instead of a PPG contest, which is why and injured Yao will win every year. The powers that be did the appropriate thing and his attendance wasn’t there. But rarely ever does a guy make it that isn’t considered one of the better players in the league. Ben Wallace is a 4 time All Star on defense and rebounding. Dikembe Mutombo. Dennis Rodman. The best players in the league so happen to also be excellent scorers.
by Roarrior510 on Aug 11, 2010 10:39 AM PDT up reply actions
Honestly, just go read "The Wages of Wins" -
Berri uses the actual evidence to show that when a players PPG goes up – even if they actually do other things worse – they get more all-star votes, MVP votes, MIP votes, etc.
This doesn’t mean that nobody who’s not a PPG machine ever makes it, or that high PPG players are guaranteed to make it. It just means that PPG is used as a measure all out of proportion to what it “should” be if you were just going for the best scorers.
The best players in the league so happen to also be excellent scorers.
Many of them, yes. But you could also say that the best players in the league happen to be excellent reboudners (for their positions), and it’d be equally true. But it’s nowhere near as well reflected in all-star game appearances.
His demeanor on the court, what he’s apparently done (or not done) in the off season, in his tremendous Latvian interview.
So it’s based on a completely and utterly biased and subjective take (evaluating his demeanor on the court), what’s he has or hasn’t done in the offseason (which none of us actually know), and a translated interview? Cool. I’d prefer to look at things we can evaluate objectively, like “has he improved over the course of his career”. Yes, he has, and he’s improved consistently to the point where he’s a solid starter, which is where he is today.
MAYBE if he got his wish to be traded to Phoenix
Where did anyone say it was his wish?
And why is it okay for his performance to slide just cuz him and his coach are clashing?
We let it slide because he was injured, verified by the fact that he needed surgery after his season ended. Injury affects stats, and affects what our sample tells us about his “true talent”.
This is more of a reflection of the All Star game as a popularity contest instead of a PPG contest
Yes, it is about both, popularity and PPG. There’s actual research that confirms the PPG part.
by Missing Barry on Aug 11, 2010 11:06 AM PDT up reply actions
We let it slide..
You may. As a fan I don’t. If he’s hurt. Then be hurt and take your time to rehab, establish that you want to come back stronger than before and become a better player to help the team win. The best comment someone in this post said was not once did he state that he wanted to win. That he wanted to be his best so he can help the team win. That is the biggest sign of passion. Injury may affect someone’s stamina, physical attributes like speed, strength (doomed if he loses anymore of that), and agility. But injury does not effect heart. My apologies if I wanted him to put more stats into his effort column.
Yes, it is about both, popularity and PPG. There’s actual research that confirms the PPG part.
You are right here too. Never mind guys like Chris Paul, Deron Williams, Steve Nash, and Rajon Rondo. Kevin Garnett, Dwight Howard, Chris Bosh, David Lee , Al Horford, Tim Duncan, Dirk Nowitzki, Amar’e, Pau Gasol, Zach Randolph are not among the best in the game – Biedrins should be amongst those guys because his TS% is impeccable.
by Roarrior510 on Aug 11, 2010 12:17 PM PDT up reply actions
The best comment someone in this post said was not once did he state that he wanted to win.
Are you referring to the interview in Latvian? My Latvian is a little rusty to the point of being completely non-existent, so I relied on the “transcript”, one that does not appear to be a word-for-word complete translation, but rather a summary interpretation. The ‘transcript’ doesn’t include the questions he was asked. It doesn’t claim to be a complete record of what he said but rather it’s presented as “some of the highlights” from the interview. Making the jump to evaluating his ‘heart’ based on the edited ‘highlights’, especially when you’re drawing conclusions on what you didn’t hear presents problems, many, many, many problems.
Biedrins should be amongst those guys because his TS% is impeccable.
Strawman.
Injury does not affect heart
Excuse me, What heroic celluloid fantasy do you live in? Here in the real world, we have decades of research on the interaction of pain and depression. The idea that attitude is completely controllable and a moral choice lingers, of course. Primarily among those who think they can get some benefit from your pain if they convince you that you’re being a whiner or a “baby”.
It seems to me that you, and many others, would prefer illusions and simple myths to performance. Let’s face it, you can find 100 guys today in your neighborhood who can do a convincing “I want to win” display in an interview, and the odds are very very good not one of them can play basketball as well as Jennaro Pargo. Well, unless one of them IS Pargo, who at the very least has done a great job of convincing people he can, despite the evidence. And what you’re saying is that you’d prefer that.
Personally, I’d prefer a guy who can produce consistently (and has) at a comparatively high level (he has) very efficiently. But then, I want to sit in the stands in a conference finals regularly. I want it a whole lot more than I want another cliche-speaking, pr savvy guy who is deluded into thinking he’s God’s Gift To Basketball, or a coach who compulsively tweaks rosters because that’s all he remembers how to do.
Baseball is a chamber orchestra. Football is a marching band. Basketball is a modern quintet. jazz, rock, hiphop, pop/ all about the beat./ still my revolution not/ til you dance through it.
whoops, yes
Sorry bout that
Baseball is a chamber orchestra. Football is a marching band. Basketball is a modern quintet. jazz, rock, hiphop, pop/ all about the beat./ still my revolution not/ til you dance through it.
And what you’re saying is that you’d prefer that.
Not from just any Rudy. I’m saying I’d want to hear it from Biedrins. Andris has been efficient in many ways, and I have never denied that. But most above average players have shown the desire to return from injury better than they had been even before they were injured. Given his skill and potential I want him to be more passionate about winning and becoming a better basketball player. I might be taking this interview thing all wrong and my assumptions from the attitude he displayed while he toiled in his frustration filled season. But a person isn’t tested when things are going well, but instead when there are hardships. So I can’t call 09-10 a fluke, unless he redeems himself. I’d rather be wrong about it. But you’re not allowed to admit you’re wrong on GSoM.
Biedrins should be amongst those guys because his TS% is impeccable.
haha, i think he’s being sarcastic with regards to reliance of ts% being the end all be all metric of a player’s value. but i think this conversation and clarification has also been discussed in another thread. ahh gsom… “where dialogue happens” … i hope?
by dj fuzzylogic on Aug 11, 2010 5:54 PM PDT up reply actions
Well, Zach Randolph isn’t, and Horford is pretty comparable to Biedrins, but yeah, all the other guys are stars, and I don’t think anyone has claimed Biedrins is?
What gets me is people that question his heart/desire to win. Do you watch Biedrins the player? The guy that plays the game the right way – who does the little things without worrying about how many points he’s scoring or trying to be flashy at the expense of playing good basketball. The guy who racks up all the things we generally consider “hustle” type plays – steals, blocks, rebounds. Or we could ignore that because he didn’t say what we wanted him to say the way we wanted him to say it….
by Missing Barry on Aug 11, 2010 3:19 PM PDT up reply actions
belilaugh
Guarantee if you go back to the beginning of last year on this site you will see talk about Biedrins being an all star (remember, you know, when he was healthy and got a double double every single game and was averaging around a 17-13?)
Either DJ Fuzzylogic or OlympicMike wrote it, I forget, so I’m sure one of them would agree with this.
I think you might be talking about a FanPost I wrote way back in Nov of ‘08 showing that Andris started out the season on fire and if he could keep it up he should get consideration. That was during the ’08-’09 season though, not last year.
http://www.goldenstateofmind.com/2008/11/16/662520/biedrins-an-all-star-an-ea
Some interesting conversation in there. A lot of the same stuff we are still talking about almost two years later…
Golden State Warriors '10-'11 Season: The Return of ^^^^
Were you a mod back then?
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by GovernorStephCurry on Aug 12, 2010 11:16 PM PDT up reply actions
In Biedrins first two seasons, he shot 47.5% and 30.6% from the line. Since then, including this past season of 25 total attempts, he’s upped his career mark to 51.9%, including a 62% and 55.1% in the last two full seasons. His rebound rate has gone up consistently over his career. His assists have gone up. His scoring has gone up. He’s done it while staying efficient. That’s improvement. If you want to knock Biedrins, that’s one thing, but let’s at least stick to legitimate points, not crap like:
it’s plain to see he’s happy with being just good enough in a limited role
it’s the fact he has shown no desire to improve his game
That’s not analysis, that’s not fact based….it’s BS. To be honest, I don’t want to see Biedrins start shooting jumpers – have you seen his form? I don’t see any way he’ll ever score efficiently while shooting jumpers. I’ve also seen a semblance of a post game out of him, before he got hurt. He’s a limited player, sure – but why is that a bad thing? We’re paying him like one. 23 year old C’s, who are locked up at a fixed rate and who are good (but “limited”) are valuable commodities. When you sign a C for $9M a year, you’re not signing him to be a franchise cornerstone or leader. You’re signing him to be a part of your rotation – that’s what C’s cost.
As for the “dismantling” of We Believe – there was nothing wrong with trading JRich. His contract was a huge burden, and we had a replacement already groomed for him. We needed a big man and got one with potential, while getting out of JRich’s salary. So what? Then what other meaningful move did we make – we didn’t resign Baron. Have you seen Baron lately? He flat out sucks. Those two moves were sensible moves. Make the case we’d be a good team right now with ~$27.5M owed to JRich and Baron this year on our books. Please.
by Missing Barry on Aug 10, 2010 7:46 AM PDT up reply actions 10 recs
In Biedrins first two seasons, he shot 47.5% and 30.6% from the line. Since then, including this past season of 25 total attempts, he’s upped his career mark to 51.9%, including a 62% and 55.1% in the last two full seasons. His rebound rate has gone up consistently over his career. His assists have gone up. His scoring has gone up. He’s done it while staying efficient. That’s improvement.
+1000.
Good points WYK
16% is not ok for a professional who isnt even willing to make adjustments though.
And IF Beans returns to his old (young) self again than he will be a nice piece to this team or will be a good trade piece to get the right player.
But he even said in his interviews that he is worried about all his injuries piling up and he’s not going to risk “using a cain” when older. His best days may be behind him, and if they are, a big man with record breaking poor free throws, bad man on man defense and “passable” help D, just isnt worth building a team around because he can get 9-10 rebounds. We need rebounds, but maybe we need someone else who has a more complete game and willingness to win.
by WestCoastWarrior on Aug 10, 2010 8:43 AM PDT up reply actions 1 recs
16% is not ok for a professional who isnt even willing to make adjustments though.
Move past the 16%. Sample size fluke. Meaningless. Not worth discussing.
His best days may be behind him
He’s 24.
by Missing Barry on Aug 10, 2010 8:54 AM PDT up reply actions
Move past the 16%. Sample size fluke. Meaningless. Not worth discussing.
You can either use that argument or my favorite:
“Let’s take a knife, stab you in the stomach, and see how well you shoot free throws.
Trust me, learning english isn’t a waste of time. It is actually sort of useful.
-randolphforpresident
by Dubs fan in Boston on Aug 11, 2010 4:11 PM PDT up reply actions
I’ve seen people who were okay with the moves seeing it as an opportunity to rebuild,
Haha, we’d just made the playoffs and beat the top seed. We din’t need to rebuild again, we’d just rebuilt the year before. We needed to keep tuning the build we had.
All they did was kill our momentum and team chemistry and facilitate a long slide back down to a 26 win team.
Lights please, lights please, turn off the lights.
by Skeptic con Urquell on Aug 9, 2010 11:06 PM PDT reply actions
We needed to keep tuning the build we had
Like deciding to let our young, talented SG get the kind of minutes he deserved? That kind of tuning? Did we not notice we kept the team together for a year and let them win 48 games?
by Missing Barry on Aug 10, 2010 7:52 AM PDT up reply actions
Like deciding to let our young, talented SG get the kind of minutes he deserved? That kind of tuning?
No, Keeping the heart of the team and making the playoffs again next year. Montay was just a footnote to history of 07, and Dre was a potential but not a certainty. The OG’s were the key to the success of that team. What we needed to tune was find a bigger inside man to stand up to the Utahs of the league so we weren’t stuck trying to out run them. We were almost there but management lost sight of the goal.
Lights please, lights please, turn off the lights.
by Skeptic con Urquell on Aug 10, 2010 9:24 AM PDT up reply actions
What we needed to tune was find a bigger inside man to stand up to the Utahs of the league so we weren’t stuck trying to out run them.
Definitely. Wright was at least a good start, though – he might be a chicken wing who’ll get pushed around, but he still matches up better than Barnes/Harrington do against those kinds of guys. No way to see a fluke injury coming ahead of time….
by Missing Barry on Aug 10, 2010 9:30 AM PDT up reply actions
Dre was a potential but not a certainty.
He was our only interior player who got significant minutes.
We had no other players who’s natural position was either 4 or 5 who saw as many as 700 minutes that season.
He was our only interior player who got significant minutes.
but that didn’t make him and Montay worth tearing up the team to build around. They were both just pieces of the machine at best, not the signature or the heart.of a winner. There were lots of other better paths to take based on the way the league is constituted and what it takes to get to the top.
Lights please, lights please, turn off the lights.
by Skeptic con Urquell on Aug 10, 2010 4:06 PM PDT up reply actions
Is there...
…a reason you always spell it “Montay?” This is unrelated to anything of substance, I just noticed it.
This...
What we needed to tune was find a bigger inside man to stand up to the Utahs of the league so we weren’t stuck trying to out run them. We were almost there but management lost sight of the goal.
We needed to “find” a bigger inside man? The only way to do that is to draft, trade, or sign. We weren’t in a salary position to sign (nor do I recall anybody being available, though by all means correct me), management by all accounts wanted and thought they had a realistic trade for Garnett, and in falling apart we still managed to draft a lottery pick PF, skinny or no, To say management lost sight of the goal seems a stretch.
I’d be curious to see somebody map out what future with Richardson we could’ve had that looks so much better and different from where we are now.
I’d be curious to see somebody map out what future with Richardson we could’ve had that looks so much better and different from where we are now.
I’d say three years of playoffs, some respect around the league and maybe attracted better players in 08 when they saw the we belive continued? At least we’d have been going with the odds and normal winners pattern?
Lights please, lights please, turn off the lights.
by Skeptic con Urquell on Aug 10, 2010 6:13 PM PDT up reply actions
3 years of playoffs? Who would have taken us there, the current crappy version of Baron Davis?
by Missing Barry on Aug 10, 2010 7:29 PM PDT up reply actions
Who would have taken us there, the current crappy version of Baron Davis?
If the team had stayed together Boom woulda had an easier time staying healthy and motivated. We’d likely picked up some interest from better players if we’d shown the commitment to winning. Boom, Jax, Jrich, et al woulda been a draw around the league so good things would happen. Look at winning teams thru out sports and most get that way by first getting playoff experience then coming back stronger in the next season. Few get there by going to the playoffs then destroying their chemistry.
Lights please, lights please, turn off the lights.
by Skeptic con Urquell on Aug 10, 2010 8:43 PM PDT up reply actions
We’d likely picked up some interest from better players if we’d shown the commitment to winning
Too bad we wouldn’t have any cap space because, you know, JRich and Davis have huge contracts, Jack and Al would still be around, and I assume we’d try to keep Monta + Biedrins…..sooooooo……..
At best we’d hang on to a bottom playoff seed and early exit for a few years, and then be left with nothing whatsoever. I’ll choose door #2, the one with Stephen Curry and David Lee, thankyouverymuch.
by Missing Barry on Aug 10, 2010 9:06 PM PDT up reply actions 1 recs
At best we’d hang on to a bottom playoff seed and early exit for a few years, and then be left with nothing whatsoever. I’ll choose door #2, the one with Stephen Curry and David Lee, thankyouverymuch.
Winning has a way of promoting more winning. Utah’s done ok winning in a small market so I’d trade three seasons of even first round playoffs for three seasons of no playoffs even if it meant no Binky now cause something else good might have happened. or in the perfect post 07 Jrich on the warriors world Curry might have been a bust and Lee might have gone to Miami.
Lights please, lights please, turn off the lights.
by Skeptic con Urquell on Aug 10, 2010 9:43 PM PDT up reply actions
Winning has a way of promoting more winning.
Meh. Sounds like another one of your “sayings” that you don’t seem to bother testing against reality. If it were true, half the teams in the league would approach 82-0 and the other half would approach 0-82, and remain that way for all eternity.
Productive players in their prime have a way of promoting winning. Baron was a productive player for the Warriors, off-and-on, but mostly on from 2006 to 2008 (excluding his weird slacking/tanking episodes at the end of 2007/08). Since he left the Warriors, father time / heavy legs seem to have caught up with him. Without Baron in his prime, the “We Believe” team ceases to be kinda-sorta good and becomes kinda-sorta bad.
Ugh. How did I let you suck me into this lame debate again…?
There will be no extra point!
by Sleepy Freud on Aug 10, 2010 10:11 PM PDT up reply actions
If it were true, half the teams in the league would approach 82-0 and the other half would approach 0-82, and remain that way for all eternity.
No, it just means winners have a better chance of staying winners than they do of suddenly becoming losers. Even our stupid move destroying the 07 team barely knocked us out of the winners bracket. It’s pretty simple actually, a team that knows how to win is better at winning than a team that doesn’t know how to win. Like all jobs it takes some time for a good team to get established and time for a bad team to falter. Momentum applies to anything that can move in any direction… players,game, records, attendance, economy,atmosphere, space.
Lights please, lights please, turn off the lights.
by Skeptic con Urquell on Aug 10, 2010 10:26 PM PDT up reply actions
How do you know that Baron wouldn't go back to his pot smoking ways?
"Everybody loves Basketball-Reference.com. Except the Kobe fans".- DubsFan408
by GovernorStephCurry on Aug 10, 2010 9:27 PM PDT up reply actions
I’d be curious to see somebody map out what future with Richardson we could’ve had that looks so much better and different from where we are now.
I asked for that, too. So far no takers….
by Missing Barry on Aug 10, 2010 7:29 PM PDT up reply actions
Hey lets ask Atma...
"Everybody loves Basketball-Reference.com. Except the Kobe fans".- DubsFan408
by GovernorStephCurry on Aug 10, 2010 9:27 PM PDT up reply actions
Atma, you need to move on.
Breaking up a 42-48 win team isn’t a bad idea, especially when you sign your 2 up and coming studs (at the time) to reasonable contracts. If Biedrins is healthy, his contract is very good. Ellis at his best may be worth his contract. It isn’t an albatross unless he plays like he did last year. I’m not sure why you think J-Rich at 13-15 million is so good when Moped and AB are 20 million combined. Moped + Biedrins >> J-Rich talent/production
Ellis + Biedrins contract’s > J-Rich contract
I love J-Rich. He was my favorite player. But we seriously need to move on, when the trades, and non-signings this team have made haven’t been bad. If we kept Boom Dizzle and J-Rich at the prices they are making, we would be stuck in 40-45 win purgatory with no hope.
"Everybody loves Basketball-Reference.com. Except the Kobe fans".- DubsFan408
by GovernorStephCurry on Aug 9, 2010 11:14 PM PDT reply actions
i think he's entitled to his "i told you so"s
he’s consistently been against the JRich trade and all the moves made after the We Believe season, even as he was being shouted down by maybe 80%+ of this board, including me. It’d be nice if people came out and admitted they were wrong, but that’s not allowed in sports forums, so we’re just going to have to put up with this gloating. I’d give it a few more months
Goal: 8 seed!
by dso on Aug 9, 2010 11:19 PM PDT up reply actions 1 recs
What are we supposed to admit we were wrong about?
The JRich move made sense. It hasn’t – to date – worked out well, but hindsight is 20-20. The team had a glut at 2 and hole at 4.
it made sense to me too
but we were wrong, extenuating circumstances or not. Atma argued it was wrong from the start and took a lot of flak for it. This is his how he exacts his revenge I guess, and he has every right to do so imo because 1. he was right, 2. it’s his site, 3. this is the internet. And it’s not like he’s been in-yo-face about it, he just sneaks in little snide remarks here and there, completely within his prerogative to do so.
So maybe there’s no way to admit we’re wrong and thereby appease Atma. And even if we did, maybe it would have no effect. Too bad so sad, I guess we’re just going to have put up with Atma’s subtle outbursts of indignation
Goal: 8 seed!
Nobody’s saying Atma doesn’t have the right to argue the J-Rich trade was wrong… Ronaldinho’s asking why he and other supporters of the trade (including me) should have to admit they were wrong. And I’m curious about the answer, myself. Is it your contention that the Warriors’ fortunes would’ve been brighter over the past three seasons with another expensive non-impact shooting guard on the roster?
The Dubs pissed away a lot of the upside of the J-Rich trade by giving similar money to Maggette, but that doesn’t mean the trade itself was a bad idea. And none of the misery since 2008 changes the fact that “We Believe” was a gimmicky eighth-seed team that wasn’t worth going into the luxury tax for. Atma is well within his rights to yammer about it ad nauseam, but that doesn’t mean he’s right about it. And you still haven’t explained why he is.
Golden State Worriers: Angst & Analysis
by onlxn on Aug 10, 2010 1:46 AM PDT up reply actions 3 recs
ultimately
the results prove his point. The reasoning behind the trade may have been good, in fact, everything might have made perfect sense on paper, but the results did not reflect the theory. And that’s unfortunately all that matters in the end.
You don’t have to apologize or admit you were wrong. I said it’d be nice if people did so cuz then maybe Atma would stop adding instigating stuff with those little side comments he inserts in his posts, but you certainly don’t have to.
I’m not going to explain any more than that because that’s a heavily tangential topic and because it’ll probably get dragged out into a theory vs theory debate, which I’m not interested in. The results show the trade failed. Sometimes, it is that simple.
Goal: 8 seed!
by dso on Aug 10, 2010 1:58 AM PDT up reply actions 1 recs
The results show the trade failed. Sometimes, it is that simple.
No, no it’s not. Putting aside how flawed it is to judge by results, you still have to show that there is some alternative set of results that would have been better…
by Missing Barry on Aug 10, 2010 7:56 AM PDT up reply actions
The results show the trade failed.
So I assume you believe the drafting of Stephen Curry “failed” as well… after all, we were a bad team last year! We clearly should’ve drafted Jordan Hill instead. Results don’t lie, right?
The fact that the Warriors have sucked the last two years does not automatically make every decision leading up to those years a mistake. You can say you’re not interested in a “theory vs. theory debate”, but if you’re going to argue for or against a move, you’re going to have to analyze context and outcomes in details. And the truth is, we got better after dumping J-Rich, and then got worse for reasons that had absolutely nothing to do with his absence. We didn’t miss him, and given the composition of our roster, he wasn’t worth the money we were paying him.
Atma is gonna do what Atma’s gonna do… that’s just how it is around here. But he’s wrong. And the reason that he inserts those little side comments about it in front page posts is that he can’t actually defend his opinion. Neither can you.
Golden State Worriers: Angst & Analysis
by onlxn on Aug 10, 2010 8:09 AM PDT up reply actions 3 recs
that's a short sighted way of looking at things
How about looking at the results like this: for a performing entity in JRIch we acquired cap space and a non-performing entity (for 3 years) in BWright. That’s a horrible trade.
Goal: 8 seed!
for a performing entity in JRIch we acquired cap space and a non-performing entity (for 3 years) in BWright. That’s a horrible trade.
Why? I’d rather have cap space than an overpaid two-guard, especially if I had a promising young two-guard on board. BWright’s been pretty good when he’s played, but even if you regard him as a complete zero, it’s still not at all clear that dumping J-Rich was a mistake. In point of fact, I’m pretty sure it wasn’t. Shooting guard’s just about the only position we’ve had adequately covered in the last several seasons.
Golden State Worriers: Angst & Analysis
Honestly, guys like Buike, Morrow and Williams are honestly as good as JRich….
by Missing Barry on Aug 10, 2010 8:54 AM PDT up reply actions
Err, didn’t mean to use honestly twice, oh well.
by Missing Barry on Aug 10, 2010 8:55 AM PDT up reply actions
i think the events over the past... 15 years?
have shown cap space in the cohan era is a nonperforming asset.
Nor was JRich just a sg for us. He was sg/sf/pf, and in his last season for us, according to WP (i know you hate it, let’s not get into this debate again) he raised his production to Kobe levels.
Goal: 8 seed!
by dso on Aug 10, 2010 8:59 AM PDT up reply actions 2 recs
Richardson...
…PF? Surely you wouldn’t say him playing any PF was a beneficial strategy as anything but a stopgap?
How about looking...
…at the results like this? For an overpaid, dime a dozen shooting guard of questionable moral character (popularity notwithstanding), we got a one-and-done high value college PF at a time when our best PF was Al Harrington, who is, to put it generously, not a proper NBA big man.
My point is not so much that argument as it is that most scenarios, with benefit of hindsight, can be recounted years later in self-serving ways when you frame the language the way you want. Your above comment, in particular, implies flatly that the Warriors FO should have known Wright would succumb first to “Nelsonnolikeitis,” then to injury.
for a performing entity in JRIch we acquired cap space and a non-performing entity (for 3 years) in BWright. That’s a horrible trade.
The only info you’ve added here to enhance your case is purely in hindsight. You could say that we should’nt have traded a known contributor for somebody unknown; but as a general theory of trades, that falls flat pretty easily. For example, any of us would have traded Chris Hunter if it gave us the #1 pick for John Wall. In the argument you’ve made, projections about talent and skill level don’t matter, only what the team clairvoyant says about the team three, four years down the line.
I should emphasize that I don’t actually believe you’re making the case that we should never trade a known for an unknown, merely that taking that concept out of your argument, there’s nothing left but hoping on divine intervention.
by Zack Vank on Aug 10, 2010 11:52 AM PDT up reply actions 1 recs
i don't understand this whole "it's only hindsight" thing
You don’t evaluate a trade or a move because of their intent. That’s what GMs do to save their jobs. Our criteria, in our desire to have a winning team, should be based on results. All these arguments about rationale and stuff make sense if we were having this debate 3 or 4 years ago. But now sufficient time has passed and we know most of the ramifications of the trade. Unfortunate or not, we got a chronically injured 4 man who has not produced for 3 solid years, as well as cap space that has not helped improve our team.
I’m not arguing “don’t trade a known for an unknown”, though for the most part i agree with such a sentiment. My argument has always been that, if you trade a known for an unknown, you can’t evaluate the trade until sufficient time has passed for the unknown to develop. And now, 3 years later, that time has passed. The result of the trade is that it’s been a failure. If Wright finally develops this year and becomes the player we’ve been hoping for, then that evaluation changes. But the difference is that it’s now a failure that needs to be proven otherwise.
Goal: 8 seed!
So I guess the options are
JRich and Baron Davis
Or
Brandan Wright, Stephen Curry and David Lee
Sick of fighting with my computer
by Reverend_Randy on Aug 10, 2010 6:49 PM PDT up reply actions
how are curry and lee connected to this at all
you can’t sufficiently argue that an alternate future with jrich and bd would have not led to these players. there’s just too many unknowns. so your guess is pretty bad and just one of a multitude possible scenarios that could have happened if we hadn’t made the trade
Goal: 8 seed!
Honestly, I don’t see what the difference is between speculating on reality (trading JRich) v a hypothetical situation where we kept JRich and don’t really know what would have happened, and speculating on reality (acquiring David Lee and Curry) v a hypothetical situation where we kept JRich and don’t really know what would have happened…..
by Missing Barry on Aug 10, 2010 7:34 PM PDT up reply actions
you can’t sufficiently argue that an alternate future with jrich and bd would have not led to these players.
Agreed, but this cuts both ways: you also can’t sufficiently argue that this team would have been any better than mediocre had they not made the trade.
Any argument involving the past conditional tense is pretty silly. When it’s on a topic that’s been hashed and rehashed thousands of times on this site, it’s both silly and boring.
There will be no extra point!
by Sleepy Freud on Aug 10, 2010 7:40 PM PDT up reply actions
So I guess the options are JRich and Baron Davis Or Brandan Wright, Stephen Curry and David Lee
You are not factoring in what three years of playoffs would attract, players would’ve wanted to come here for the continuation of we believe so it’s hard to say who might have now.
Lights please, lights please, turn off the lights.
by Skeptic con Urquell on Aug 10, 2010 8:51 PM PDT up reply actions
So...
…are you unsatisfied with Wright’s actual production? His foul rate is very high in limited minutes, and I confess I don’t know if that’s the sort of stat that fluctuates much with playing time (certainly the peking order NBA officials seem to adhere to, flawed and corrupt as it is, does not benefit the young player rarely off the bench), but across the line he’s been entirely productive on the court. Atma and others will claim that he looks “lost on the court,” or other such drifty assessments. What I’ll instead point to is 16/8.7 per36, which are good numbers. A .574 TS%, also pretty damn fine.
And furthurmore, his playing time has been sporadic and bizarre in his two full seasons. Not to beat a dead horse, but we all know the sort of mistakes Nelson is willing to let vets make over and over and over and over, while Wright’s leash has always been pretty short. Wright production would be much more considerable in the times he’s been healthy if he’d seen more of the court.
Anyways, I’m trying to synthesize the core of your argument. You favor results over process, that’s clear to see. The problem is that Wright’s actual production when he’s set foot on the court hasn’t been disasterous, or bad, or even mediocre; he’s pretty good. So unless you’re presuming Nelson is correct to bench him in spite of his productive play (not a conclusion I’m willing to jump to), you’d have to admit that the extent of Brandan’s “failure” as you see it, is twofold: he doesn’t stay on the court long enough to make an impact (kinda his fault re:fouling, kinda not re:Nelson’s lack of a coherent accountability structure), and he’s been injury prone thus far.
But in the scenario in which we trade for John Wall, Nelson restricts his minutes, and he gets a balky knee fulfills these same stipulations, and I’d assume even at that point you wouldn’t rate the trade a failure. The reason being that everybody understands the idea that chaotic elements can interfere to spoil the results of decisions that were fundamentally sound. Which is why considering Brandan’s been a good player when healthy, and didn’t come on draft day with a big red sign that said “FRAGILE,” I feel you’re asking something of your front office that is not just beyond competence, but beyond possibility; to predict the lifetime injury history of a healthy 20 year old athlete.
in the end, i just don't care about the rationale
but i don’t ignore it. I factor it into my judgement by extending the timeframe before making a judgement. But yes, in your hypothetical situation I would regard your John Wall trade a failure. Not immediately of course, I’d give it time, but after a certain point enough is enough: i don’t care about the bad luck, i don’t care about the rationale, i don’t care about the consensus. To take it even further, i don’t care about efficiency either, not in small sample cases. I hate how people make extrapolations off insufficient data, and even with sufficient data it’s difficult to prove a smooth extrapolation would take place. What i care about is how much much value my team gets from the trade.
And tbh i don’t think the john wall example is particularly pertinent because I personally don’t think that highly of Wall in the first place.
Goal: 8 seed!
actually, i should qualify the word "care"
i care in that it’s a sympathetic situation. I care that bad luck just sucks. I care that the player who’s injured has had to endure difficult pyschological and physical duress.
but when evaluating the transaction, i don’t allow this emotional “caring” to affect my evaluation of the trade. So instead of claiming that extenuating circumstances make a certain transaction excusable, I claim that the extenuating circumstances make the situation unfortunate, but nevertheless the evaluation is the same.
Goal: 8 seed!
Fine, doesn't have...
…to be Wall. You’ve set your standard for success vs. failure so starkly it could be any insane trade I dream up. We trade Devean George, Chris Hunter and Speedy Claxton’s corpse for LeBron James. James leg gets severed in a log-cutting accident the next day. That trade was a failure by the standard you’ve set, because none of us knew LeBron was such an avid outdoorsman.
well in that trade scenario
we lose cap space and acquire nothing. so… yeah. it’s an unfortunate failure, a sympathetic failure, etc… but in the end, it results in us giving up an asset for a non performing asset.
Goal: 8 seed!
But the GM who did it was doing the best job a GM in the history of the NBA has ever done….
by Missing Barry on Aug 10, 2010 7:40 PM PDT up reply actions
i don't really care about GMs
i care about my team more. if the GM gave my team success then great. if not, whether unlucky or not, i don’t really care.
Goal: 8 seed!
Well the point is, good GM’ing makes your team better. That the forces of random variation, chance and luck combine to alter the outcome is simply beyond anyone’s control and not worth worrying about….
by Missing Barry on Aug 10, 2010 7:49 PM PDT up reply actions
ok
still, if this good GM puts together a series of amazing moves that all fail even though the rationale is perfect, i don’t really give a damn. i’m cutting him; he knew what he got into the moment he signed this contract. Excuses should be an exception, not the main criterion of judgement
Goal: 8 seed!
But if the guy put together a series of amazing moves because he’s good at his job, cutting him will most likely make your team worse off in the future. Since in the future, we the expected outcome is his “true talent level”, and we can reasonably conclude his “true talent level” is among the better/best GM’s in the game…..all you’re doing is hurting your own team! The moves he made in the past are sunk costs, the moves we need to make decisions on are the ones in the future.
by Missing Barry on Aug 10, 2010 8:00 PM PDT up reply actions
this implies that there's a scarcity of good GM's
i ono if that’s the case
Goal: 8 seed!
Thing is...
…by the standard you’ve set, how would you define a good GM?
Well, that not exactly what I’m implying – I’m more implying that the average NBA GM is what we should expect the replacement to be, on average. I don’t see any reason to assume we’ll just find another top line GM? If we could, why wouldn’t everyone be doing it?
by Missing Barry on Aug 10, 2010 8:06 PM PDT up reply actions
old boy network, unclear method of evaluating gm’s, other office personnel power trippin, general incompetence.
those are some reasons. but overall, i don’t agree with the whole “everyone’s not doing it, we shouldn’t too” type of stuff.
Goal: 8 seed!
Well of course we should be! And I actually do agree, I think there are plenty of people out there who would make good GM’s, especially compared to former players (let’s be honest, not much about being a former player is related to the skills a GM needs). I guess my thought is why would our franchise be any likelier to break that trend?
by Missing Barry on Aug 10, 2010 8:12 PM PDT up reply actions
I think...
…we may just basically be having a semantic argument. I’m just less willing to refer to that as a failure of the trade, by which I mean a failure of the work that the front office put forth to improve the team. Because the team didn’t get worse when you swap those guys for LeBron, it gets better. Then LeBron hacks off his leg and suddenly they’re much worse than they’d become and marginally worse when they started. But what has transpired is so far removed from the competence and merit of the GM and his/her staff, I don’t think it’s appropriate in such a circumstance to call the “trade,” basically the fruits of their labor, a failure. Especially in a scenario like that in which the return is so clearly superior to the expenditure.
Obviously Brandan Wright is not James and Devean George ain’t J-Rich. But I think the philosophy holds, and I’m glad the trade took place.
We trade Devean George, Chris Hunter and Speedy Claxton’s corpse for LeBron James.
Jrich was much better than speedy’s corpse and BrokenWing was way worse than Lebron so the real trade has nothing to do with the play trade. If you guy are ever gonna get it you gotta stick to the facts.
Lights please, lights please, turn off the lights.
by Skeptic con Urquell on Aug 10, 2010 8:56 PM PDT up reply actions
If you...
…re-read the posts in question you’ll find the severity of the example was justified only because it was in reaction to a statement by dso- that a deal in which something inherently unpredictable derails a fundamentally sound decision, he considers that trade a “failure.” I used the example of trading for John Wall to attempt to illustrate my point to the contrary, and when he responded that he didn’t much care for Wall I sugguested…
You’ve set your standard for success vs. failure so starkly it could be any insane trade I dream up. We trade Devean George, Chris Hunter and Speedy Claxton’s corpse for LeBron James. James leg gets severed in a log-cutting accident the next day. That trade was a failure by the standard you’ve set, because none of us knew LeBron was such an avid outdoorsman.
It’s very true that Richardson is better than that and Wright is worse than that, but it doesn’t matter because I wasn’t even arguing about the J-Rich trade in particular, I was arguing about his overall philosophy regarding how trades are, in hindsight, assessed .If you read the back and forth I think that’s pretty clear, so respectfully, I submit you’ve misrepresented this, not I.
Maybe it's a function of defining "failure" -
You say the trade was a failure. Now, I actually disagree with you because I think you can argue that we got better the next year BECAUSE of the trade not DESPITE it.
(short version: JRich’s minutes were given to players who produced more than he did.)
But even if I agreed, for the sake of argument, that we would have we more games in the 48-win season if we hadn’t traded him, I feel like you’re conflating two issues here.
1) The trade was a failure because it hasn’t led to significant improvement for the team, yet.
Okay. Fair enough. We could quibble about it, but I understand this position. The problem is that, ultimately, that’s not an interesting question. The interesting question comes from the following statement, which is really Atma’s point, and it’s not clear how you feel about it:
2) The trade was a mistake which the team should not have made.
I think the problem here is that a lot of us are arguing against point number 2, but you seem to keep arguing point 1.
My position is that a trade can be a failure and yet not be a mistake. After all, to pick an absurd, but non-hypothetical example: was drafting Monta a mistake.
Monta has absolutely been a failure by the objective measure of wins. He just led us to a 26-win season. But despite the fact that Monta was a rather spectacular failure this last year, in no way was drafting him a mistake.
So, in the interest of clarifying what exactly you’re saying, DSO, perhaps you could answer the following question:
If we agree for the sake of argument that the trade has been a failure, do you also argue that it was a mistake?
My position is that a trade can be a failure and yet not be a mistake. After all, to pick an absurd, but non-hypothetical example: was drafting Monta a mistake.
This is actually very similar to what i’ve been saying consistently throughout the entire thread. So to answer this question:
If we agree for the sake of argument that the trade has been a failure, do you also argue that it was a mistake?
No, I don’t make that next step. The “mistake” has to do with rationale, the “failure” has to do with results. It’s kinda like how drafting Oden over Durant has been a colossal failure so far, even though it may not have been a mistake.
Goal: 8 seed!
Okay. You and I basically agree on that much.
I would then go on to say that a smart owner does not fire a GM for failure, only for mistakes. And smart fans, therefore, do not call for the head of the GM for failures, only for mistakes.
(I actually think that drafting Oden was a mistake, because his injury situation was predictable, but that’s another discussion.)
That being said, however, you have to judge “failure” by the appropriate criteria. For example, let’s talk about the drafting of David Lee by the Knicks. The Knicks, like all professional teams, have the ultimate goal of winning games, making money, and winning a championship. THe Knicks failed to do all of these things after drafting David Lee – which suggests that the Knicks have failed. On the other hand … it’s not really reasonable to expect a late first round pick to bring you a championship, so just because the Knicks are a failure doesn’t mean that drafting Lee was a failure.
Right?
I would that despite the team’s failure, drafting Lee was a success because they got a high-energy player who did a lot to contribute to winning with his tenure with the team. Or would you say that drafting Lee was a failure because the team hasn’t turned it around? If the goal of drafting Lee was to win a championship, then that draft was a failure, but if the goal was to get a good player, then the draft was a success, right?
Now, swinging back to the Warriors. I would argue that the JRich-Wright trade was made with three goals in mind:
1) Clearing a logjam of players at the swingman position
2) Saving money which could be invested in Monta and Biedrins
3) Solidifying the team’s front line.
I think we agree that the trade has failed, so far, on point 3 – although that may change this year. However, it’s important to emphasize how that’s only one of the three criteria behind this trade. It was a success in the two other areas.
Okay, so what other criteria might you judge that trade under? What were the other goals of that trade?
The team’s record argues that the trade succeeded at the goal of “improving the team’s record in the short run.” By the rubber-hits-the-road logic of wins, well, we got better, right? And Wright had a small but important role on that team, playing the third-most minutes of any true big man we had on that team. (He was very good in those moments, as well.)
If the goal was the medium-term improvement of the team, well, the team didn’t improve – but it strikes me as bizzare to point to that trade as the key failure when the team simultaneously turned Baron into Mags, Jackson into nothing, Harrington into nothing, scootergate, … etc etc. While there was plenty of failure to go around, the loss of JRich seems, well, trivial compare to the other stuff that happened.
And then as for the long-term evaluation of the trade, well, if Wright is finally healthy and we win a bunch of games this year … well, you’ve already said you’ll change your mind about it if Wright is a significant contributor this year.
i think
we’re having a problem agreeing on terms. Your checklist of evaluation is different from mine.
My evaluation of the trade follows these criteria:
1. 3 years of production from a productive asset was given up for 0 years of production from an unknown asset.
2. We also received cap space, which history has proven in both a general and specific setting that cap space in the Cohan era is an unproductive asset (DANNY FORTSON FTW)
3. After 3 years, I think it’s difficult to prove that the trade has helped our team win more games.
I don’t agree with the trade improving the team in the short run. I feel the 6 win difference is not a direct consequence of JRich’s absence; i believe that a similar win production would have occurred if he was there, and perhaps we would have won even more since one of our biggest problems was overusage and too many minutes played, which he could have helped by adding depth. (btw it’s not an either/or thing with Jrich and KAZ, you could have both).
You have to remember that that was the first season we had Jackson and harrington play the entire season and that our previous win total reflected only half a season with these new players.
As for changing my mind if Wright improves or makes an impact… it’s not about changing my mind. Look at my first criterion. We suffered from a huge opportunity cost because we sacrificed 3 years of performance for 0. If Wright can somehow close that deficit, then he looks much better to me.
But the singular thing you seem to keep missing is that this trade is not an unequivocal failure, not yet, because who knows what the future holds? But instead, it is a trade that has failed and must be proven otherwise. In other words, the burden of proof now lies in proving that it’s not a failed trade.
Goal: 8 seed!
1. 3 years of production from a productive asset was given up for 0 years of production from an unknown asset.
I disagree, since the issue was, at least in part, creating minutes for Monta and money for Monta and Biedrins. Therefore, the trade was part of a larger strategy. Could the team have afforded to keep JRich and also sign Monta and Biedrins to the contracts they got? Hard to see how – we’re way over the luxury tax at that point.
Also, having too may players who play the same position is often a recipe for chemistry problems.
3. After 3 years, I think it’s difficult to prove that the trade has helped our team win more games.
It’s also difficult to prove that it’s caused us to lose more games. A large part of this is because there have been a lot of moves made since the JRich trade, almost all of them net talent losers. So yes, it’s hard to say that this trade helped our team win, but it’s also speculative to say that it cost our team wins.
I don’t agree with the trade improving the team in the short run. I feel the 6 win difference is not a direct consequence of JRich’s absence; i believe that a similar win production would have occurred if he was there, and perhaps we would have won even more since one of our biggest problems was overusage and too many minutes played, which he could have helped by adding depth.
Well, we really only had one player who was over-used: Baron Davis. And keeping JRich on the team doesn’t give Baron more rest. JRich could not play point, period.
Our swingmen were not overused. The team had Monta, Jackson, ’Buike, Harrington, Barnes, and Pietrus – all of whom are natural 2s or 3s, although some of them ended up playing some 4 that year, as well.
There was absolutely, positively, not a depth problem at swingman that year. At point guard? Yes. But swingman? Not even close.
That being said, yes, it’s possible some of those extra wins were a function of having Jackson for a full season. But if you think “more Jackson + Harrington = more wins” then you’re, ultimately, arguing that the trade was a good thing since they would have played less if JRich was still around.
JRich’s minutes went to Monta, Jackson and Azuibuike, for the most part. To argue that we would have been better keeping JRich is to say that they did less with those minutes than he would have, but given how good Monta was that year, that’s a really tough sell. All of those players were better than JRich was the year before (it’s important to remember, when making these comparisons, that 2006 was a bad year for JRich. He’s rebounded nicely, but of course that may be related to being traded, too.)
i think you're missing several things in your analysis
1st, Jackson was also far overused.
2nd, now we going into the world of shoulda coulda woulda, but maybe we play JRICH in a reserve role. Maybe he comes in as the first 2 guard off the bench and plays a lot of minutes at the 3 as well. Maybe you play him at the 4 as the first sub for Harrington. Maybe the warriors run a 4 guard lineup again. who knows.
3rd, I just feel the two seasons are being compared unfairly. One had over 50 percent of the season being played with the dunmurphy sisters. So it’s not fair to say the JRich trade led to more wins since the two comparisons aren’t fair in the first place since dunleavy sucks.
Goal: 8 seed!
Jackson was abused by Nellie with 40+ MPG continually.
"Everybody loves Basketball-Reference.com. Except the Kobe fans".- DubsFan408
by GovernorStephCurry on Aug 11, 2010 4:52 PM PDT up reply actions
one more thing
I don’t directly causate that one bad move should lead to a GM being fired, or kept, or reinstated. One move is just one move.
Goal: 8 seed!
So I’ve read your respones, and you’ve pointed out you haven’t tried to connect judging GM performance to this conversation. You’ve also differentiated between a “failure” and a “mistake”. So just out of curiosity (and seperate from the conversation we’ve been having), how would you judge a GM if you were an owner? Based on results (“successes” v “failures”), or based on how many of his moves you thought were “mistakes”?
by Missing Barry on Aug 11, 2010 4:13 PM PDT up reply actions
ultimately
I would judge by results. I think this is consistent with life. Just because i can empathize with the rationale doesn’t mean that should be the primary means of evaluation. The primary means of evaluation should be results, with exceptions made on occasion because of an understanding of rationale.
Goal: 8 seed!
Well, in the long run one would expect results to follow process.
So it would take an unusual string of bad luck to consistently have good process and get bad results.
ALthough in the NBA, that can happen. I mean, like I said before, imagine that you traded several players for LeBron, and he blew out his knee. That could hurt your franchise for five years. Good process, bad results, I can’t understand holding that against the GM.
I just don’t understand why you wouldn’t want to take the “luck” part of results out of the equation. The past has happened, there’s nothing you can do to change it, so the point is to make the future as bright as possible. To that degree, you want the guy with the best expected results, which is a function of the process, not past results….
by Missing Barry on Aug 12, 2010 7:13 AM PDT up reply actions
re foul rate
It’s pretty common to see a young player’s foul rate drop with experience. I suspect it’s one of the most predictable improvements you can see.
i don’t understand this whole “it’s only hindsight” thing
What’s so hard to understand about the card game analogies? It’s based on simple statistical concepts like probability and distribution. The goal is to play the odds right – but sometimes the results go against you even if you did everything right. But if you did everything right, you’re doing a good job and your results over the long run will be good. When you extend a GM, you’re not extending him for what he did in the past, you’re extending him for what you expect him to do in the future, and that’s based on the process, not the results. If you’re judging by results, you’re going to be judging heavily on random chance.
by Missing Barry on Aug 10, 2010 7:33 PM PDT up reply actions
front office transactions are not a card game
it’s not a controlled scenario in which you can run billions of simulations and come to one exact right answer. The right answer is almost always arbitrary. There are no odds, at least not clear cut ones like in poker.
Goal: 8 seed!
Conceptually it’s exactly the same. It’s about playing the probabilities right. Of course it’s not clear cut, and we can argue about the probabilities, but that’s not even what you’re doing, you’re just telling us we should completely ignore the probabilities and just go with whatever the results were. GM throws all in on 00 in roulette and wins, you’d call it a good move and extend the GM. That doesn’t make sense whatsoever. If you want to argue 00 WAS playing the probabilities, by all means, have a go at it, maybe you’re right, but that’s just not what you’re doing at all. You have to separate skill and luck to evaluate performance. Ignoring that makes no sense.
by Missing Barry on Aug 10, 2010 7:39 PM PDT up reply actions
no, it's not exactly the same
you are acting like each transaction is just one instance in the overall game of poker. i can see how the economist in you could make such a generalization because we’re all so used to making pretty isoquants rub against each other ever so slightly. But the reality is that there is a huge difference between poker with its solid, instantaneous probability rules and front office transactions, which have arbitrary verdicts, no set probabilities, and a countless number of confounding variables.
I’m not ignoring the “skill”. i am, however, arguing that our criteria for evaluating this skill is arbitrary and not set in stone like a poker game’s probabilities, and that this one of many reasons why the poker analogy does not hold
Goal: 8 seed!
i am, however, arguing that our criteria for evaluating this skill is arbitrary and not set in stone like a poker game’s probabilities
And I’m in 100% agreement.
this one of many reasons why the poker analogy does not hold
This connection is where you’re off. I’m open to arguments against my criteria for judging success, or my attempts at judging the odds. I’m sure I’m frequently wrong. The poker analogy is simply meant to be one of probability – the best move you can make is to play the odds. How does this not extend to a basketball decision? I’m at a loss to see what connection you’re making here. I cannot even find the words to express how dismayed I am that you seem to think the concept of probability just doesn’t apply here….
by Missing Barry on Aug 10, 2010 7:54 PM PDT up reply actions
cuz poker odds are defined
they are concrete. they are probabilities easily derived from a limited number of cards. they can be calculated instantaneously.
There are no “odds” of a basketball transaction. there’s only opinions as to what those odds are. that’s a huge differenceeeeeee
Goal: 8 seed!
Yes, that difference is fine, but you’re not arguing that our opinion of the odds are wrong. You’re arguing that the result, regardless of the odds and how much luck and uncontrollable circumstances are involved, is what matters….
by Missing Barry on Aug 10, 2010 8:03 PM PDT up reply actions
? when did i every say playing by the odds is wrong?
yo man. read! i say several times that given the law of large numbers, you should always play by the odds. i never say anything different.
what i’m saying is that basketball transactions are different, because 1. there are no odds, 2. law of large numbers is difficult to apply because each transaction is unique with many confounding variables
Goal: 8 seed!
Well, there are odds, we just don’t necessarily know them. And law of large numbers isn’t particularly relevant to me, because 60% is 60% is 60% – that your sample size isn’t big enough and you expect random variation doesn’t change the odds, just the variation.
by Missing Barry on Aug 10, 2010 8:16 PM PDT up reply actions
no but the reason why you play by odds
is because even if you don’t succeed on this instance, you have the incentive of deferred reward that IF you apply large numbers and and play by the odds, you’ll win more often than you lose.
Goal: 8 seed!
You don’t need large numbers to win more often than you lose.
The point is regardless of sample size, 90% > 80% > 70% etc. Yes, if the odds are in your favor, the smaller the sample size the higher the chances you’ll end up losing, but your best strategy regardless of sample size is still maximizing your odds. In a sample size of 1 or 1 million 60% is still a better choice than 50%.
by Missing Barry on Aug 10, 2010 9:09 PM PDT up reply actions
people respond to incentives
why do people play the right way? It’s because they believe over the long run they will be winners if they do so. This is a deferred incentive. Very simple econ going on here.
I’m not arguing the probability. I’m saying people adjust their strategies according to the odds because they are responding to deferred incentives. But that sort of deferred incentive is not available in a front office transaction.
Goal: 8 seed!
True, though even in a one time deal with no deferred incentive, you still want the highest probability for that one time.
by Missing Barry on Aug 11, 2010 3:22 PM PDT up reply actions
You don’t evaluate a trade or a move because of their intent. That’s what GMs do to save their jobs.
I disagree, strongly. You evaluate the performance of a GM based on whether or not he’s making reasonable moves which SHOULD work, not whether he had bad luck. As near as I can follow your logic, if we traded Monta and Dorell for LeBron, and then Lebron got hurt and was never a factor for us, you would call that a bad trade, right?
You would say “Fire the GM, that trade didn’t work?”
As a GM of the we believe team, you have a team with a clear glut (too many wings) and clear hole (only one real big) and an impending salary problem (the need to pay Biedrins and Monta).
The trade, at the moment it was made, solved all three of those problems. Wright’s subsequent injury eliminated one of the benefits – but I don’t see how you can call it a bad trade anymore than you could call my hypothetical trade for Lebron bad.
And now, 3 years later, that time has passed. The result of the trade is that it’s been a failure. If Wright finally develops this year and becomes the player we’ve been hoping for, then that evaluation changes.Seems to me that you’re trying to have your cake and eat it, too. You want to pass judgement on the trade, but, well, you’ll reverse judgement shortly.
So, what, if you were in charge you’d fire the GM who made it, then rehire him if it worked out?
so are you telling me that after 3 years i can't pass judgement?
this is the point: the trade is no longer a question mark with potential for either way. Nor is it a good trade that needs to be proven bad. No, the trade now is a bad trade that needs to be proven otherwise.
i really think you’re jumping to conclusions a bit too often in this thread. I understand you want to win the argument or whatever but it is quite annoying. When/where do I say that my judgement of the trade has to lead to firing/hiring ramifications of a GM? Do I say anywhere that, oh a GM made a bad trade, he needs to be fired on the spot? YOU are making these inferences of which I never ever even implied; if you want to argue with yourself that’s fine, but please stop trying to make me out to be so irrational.
Goal: 8 seed!
Maybe
you might listen to Lacob’s interviews. He talks about how he declined to invest in Mark Cuban’s company, before Mark was a billionaire. And then Yahoo bought out Mark, and Joe’s 30 mil would have turned into hundreds of millions of dollars.
And then he laughs, and says “I must be a really bad investor, right?”. And he answers himself along the lines of “No, I made the right decision, despite the way it worked out. My principles were correct.”
When you get down to it, decision making is pretty much the same – it’s taking risks based on your values, your principles and your needs. If this was a moral or ethical decision, you would applaud a person for making a choice based on their principles and values, even if you disagreed with those values. (At least I hope you would.) Business decisions should be treated the same way.
Now… as to failure. While we treat each trade as though it had discrete inputs and outputs and a unique process, in the larger scheme of things they don’t. On the team level they’re all the same – you add, you remove, you rearrange, you transform, according to certain rule sets you develop and which are largely unconscious. There are two parts to it – analysis, and execution. You can argue about the values in the analysis – if the trade happens, the execution was a success regardless of the value of the trade.
Results depend on that larger (team) analysis, and on luck. Luck is by definition factors beyond your conscious control. To evaluate decisions as “successful” or failures depends on context. In the context of immediate results lasting more than one year, you can consider it a failure. In terms of long term results, if this season (and next, and the one after) are winning seasons, then it’s a success over five years.
Failure is a word dependent on context….
Baseball is a chamber orchestra. Football is a marching band. Basketball is a modern quintet. jazz, rock, hiphop, pop/ all about the beat./ still my revolution not/ til you dance through it.
yeah i heard those interviews
they were really interesting. As an investor, Lacob is showing he’s has a keen sense of using adverse selection in the right way. It’s a must for anyone working in VC like he does.
This trade though is really different from that. It is not part of an overall strategy, it does not display any sort of overarching philosophy. What was our philosophy then, to save money? To acquire young talent? To shed old talent? Every move we made during those times were self-contradicting; one moment we were following this strategy, the other moment another one. That’d be kinda like playing textbook poker on one moment and then playing by feel or randomly the next. If you want a value-based decision making process to work, you have to be consistent with it, kinda like how if you want to blindly get a 25 percent score on a 4-answer multiple choice test, you have to pick only one answer (the C strategy).
So yeah, if you re-word the decision making process of one that embodies your values, then you should stick to your values if you believe in them (though I don’t see how this trade reflects any sort of values being followed). This is still different though from MB’s insistence on playing by the odds. There are no odds, there are only arbitrary values, and what is one person’s values may be another person’s antithesis of those values.
As for failure, yes it is contextual, and I’ve provided my context for analysis several times in this thread. I will provide it again:
1. We exchanged 3 years of production from a performing asset for 0 years of production from an unknown asset.
2. We also received cap space, which history has shown in both a general sense and in this specific instance to be a nonperforming asset.
3. In the 3 years since the trade we have seen very little positive effects on wins.
These terms are debatable and many people have been doing so. But what people consistently seem to not realize about me is this: I did not call out this trade to be a failure from a start. I said let’s give it time and wait. Now, a significant amount of time has passed. It is now ok to pass judgement on this trade, and as I said several times before, it should now be considered a failed trade unless proven otherwise. In other words, it is not a complete fail as of yet since you don’t know what the future holds. But the burden of proof now lies on proving it’s not a failure, instead of vice versa.
Goal: 8 seed!
by dso on Aug 11, 2010 3:36 PM PDT up reply actions 1 recs
Every move we made during those times were self-contradicting
Now here is one thing I am totally on board with. Our followup moves/non-moves didn’t make much sense and put us in a worse position. We trade JRich for financial reasons, then later extended Jack to a stupid contract when he was basically the same thing as JRich – fairly replaceable with younger, cheaper guys that are better long term fits. We got a great TPE out of the deal, and didn’t use it (whether you think management nixed that or not, all I know is we didn’t use it) – if the complaint is JRich would have put us into the playoffs, heck, the TPE probably could have netted us a piece that would have pushed us into the playoffs the following season, too. We created cap space, and used it poorly on Maggette (though thank god Brand and Arenas turned us down!). The followups were where the screw ups (what you’re calling “mistakes”) occurred.
There are no odds, there are only arbitrary values, and what is one person’s values may be another person’s antithesis of those values.
There are still odds. Odds a guy gets hurt. Odds a guy has a breakout season. Odds a draft pick pans out. Etc. I think we’ve both agreed we might not know what those odds are, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t there! :)
by Missing Barry on Aug 11, 2010 3:57 PM PDT up reply actions
yah i think that
if the argument is about sticking to your values, i’ve got no issue with that. Like let’s say it’s some sort of tangible argument, like trading unknowns for knowns since we believe knowns are better, or saving cap space and building through the draft, or even something inane like only trading for draft picks/prospects and trading them off later (A’s style). Whatever that value set may be, it is in your best interest to make moves based on that value set if you believe it wall pay you off in the long run.
But that still doesn’t mean you can’t fail along the way. YOu could argue “i’m playing by my rules” and that’s all well and dandy, but a fail is still a fail. Lacob failed his investors when he didn’t make that buy. The opportunity cost of him missing out was huge. Such a failure should be a part of an investor’s analysis of him.
Goal: 8 seed!
Lacob failed his investors when he didn’t make that buy. The opportunity cost of him missing out was huge. Such a failure should be a part of an investor’s analysis of him.
I’m not sure what you’re referencing here. As for an investor, they should analyze who they want to invest with based on the expected risk and return going forward….
by Missing Barry on Aug 12, 2010 7:15 AM PDT up reply actions
It even more complicated than that.
(I have an indirect connection with Kleiner Perkins, so I something about how they work in general – but I’ve never met Lacob).
It’s not just risk vs. reward. It’s also the time frame involved. eg, maybe Cuban was potentially a great deal on a 10-year-timeframe but they were looking to round out a portfolio with something more short-term. Or the other way around.
Or maybe they thought Cuban situation was a good one, but they thought something else was better.
All sorts of stuff like that. You can’t say he failed by not investing in Cuban unless you know what he invested in instead.
Oh the Lacob/Cuban thing, ok, now I see the reference.
You can’t say he failed by not investing in Cuban unless you know what he invested in instead.
Exactly, which is why I was so interested in knowing what the results had been had we not made the JRich trade. You can’t say one scenario is a failure without presenting a more successful alternative….
by Missing Barry on Aug 12, 2010 9:58 AM PDT up reply actions
i've been reading over our arguments
and some things are starting to become clear to me.
1. Your poker analogy does hold. I should apologize for this. Yeah, there are no odds as you freely admit. There is no “right” play like there is in poker. But from the decision maker’s perspective, it is wise to be consistent with your values because then you can bank on some sort of deferred incentive of eventually being right.
2. However, results matter more. Results are what help a team win, results are what gets you talent. So from a team’s perspective, or an evaluator’s perspective, you don’t care about values or rationale. You care about maximizing value in individual transactions.
The two are kinda at odds with one another. And in many ways, they reflect the GM/Coach dichotomy, and why one person should never be both. A GM believes his values and his ability to stick to those values will ultimately help the team in the long run through results. A Coach wants value from every possible transaction so he can maximize his team’s ability to win.
Ultimately, however, results matter more than values. It’s unfair for the GM since his best chance in the long run is to try to stick to his values, but such are the drawbacks of the job.
Goal: 8 seed!
Very nicely said
and I think your analysis in this post is spot on.
Baseball is a chamber orchestra. Football is a marching band. Basketball is a modern quintet. jazz, rock, hiphop, pop/ all about the beat./ still my revolution not/ til you dance through it.
1. I really don’t understand why you seem to think that probability distributions simply don’t exist in this case. They always exist. There is a population of basketball players, and they have a distribution of possible outcomes. There is still a “right” play – the “right” play is to be as accurate in your evaluation of those distributions as possible, and make the decisions that mamimize your expected outcomes.
2. I’m just honestly lost in what you’re saying here. That the end win totals are based on what actually happens? Sure, but in terms of what you expect your results to be, all that matters are the variables that are in your control. Unless you can see the future, there’s no way to know exactly which direction sample error will decide to smile – the best decision is still the one that gives you the most favorable expected outcome. And since you can’t control sample error, and can’t change the past….well, evaluations should be made based on what you expect in the future, since you can change that. And the best thing for the future is to “play the odds”.
by Missing Barry on Aug 12, 2010 7:22 AM PDT up reply actions
And the truth is, we got better after dumping J-Rich, and then got worse for reasons that had absolutely nothing to do with his absence.
No, we didn’t get better after dumping Jason, we got worse, momentum of our improvements the preceding year gave us a better win record but with Jason it would have been even better than without him. Before the trade we were on track to make the playoffs with a better than 48 win season so to not make the first round is not an improvement despite the 48 wins. Study some charts of stock or commodity prices and note the long and short term movement and you’ll understand the interaction of more than one factor.
Lights please, lights please, turn off the lights.
by Skeptic con Urquell on Aug 10, 2010 9:39 AM PDT up reply actions
Before the trade we were on track to make the playoffs with a better than 48 win season so to not make the first round is not an improvement despite the 48 wins.
Ok, let’s lay this out. There are two ways to judge the moves. Either purely by results (which is wrong, but I’ve been humoring people so I’ll keep acknowledging it for now), or by the process. By results, maybe JRich would have given us that 49th+ win in the 81st game and we don’t tank the 82 game and we make the playoffs as a 7-8 seed and at best get to the 2nd round again. Maybe not, but certainly a possibility. We don’t end up with Anthony Randolph, who was the centerpiece in netting us David Lee. So no David Lee. Maybe we do better the next year. No Stephen Curry. I’m mostly happy with where the team is right now, any changes to the past could compromise that. I like the results.
As for judging the process, well then you don’t factor in injuries you can’t see coming, you do factor in salary and what we could/should have done with it, and it obviously made a whole lot of sense at the time. It also gave us a shot at landing KG.
by Missing Barry on Aug 10, 2010 10:05 AM PDT up reply actions 1 recs
By results, maybe JRich would have given us that 49th+ win in the 81st game and we don’t tank the 82 game and we make the playoffs as a 7-8 seed and at best get to the 2nd round again.
Very true. It must also be pointed out that the opposite is also possible. Maybe we play JRich, but he performs worse than Jackson, Monta, and Barnes did in his absence, and the team wins fewer games.
As for judging the process,
The common process is make the playoffs, get that experience and come back next year stronger and go further. Getting rid of the heart of the team when it’s just starting to jell is not part of that process. Winning teams keep the parts that are working and try to fix the parts that aren’t. Jason had just put out a great playoff series and was ready to come back next year and play a full season with the we believe guys all healthy. We had no need for a skinny rookie to replace him. We needed some size and more toughness in the paint , not less.
Of course a lot of the blame goes on nellie’s not wanting to build a conventional winner as then he’d actually be expected to win and could not fall back on his underdog role to explain the lack of sucess, and probably cohan’s checkbook saw an easy way out of the demands of fielding a winner too?
Lights please, lights please, turn off the lights.
by Skeptic con Urquell on Aug 10, 2010 4:25 PM PDT up reply actions
I wonder how much some people watched the "We Believe" team, that they keep calling JRich the "heart" of it.
JRich was actually fairly marginalized on that team, with Barnes, Jackson, and Pietrus eating up a lot of the minutes he might expect to get. He was one of several interchangeable cogs on the wing.
The heart of that team was Baron. Biedrins (as our only interior player of note) and Jackson (who was lock-down defender) with also both far more important to that team than JRich was.
I think people over-rate his contribution to that team beacuse he WAS the heart of the team for the pre-Baron years. But he stepped into the background that year.
I think people over-rate his contribution to that team beacuse he WAS the heart of the team for the pre-Baron years. But he stepped into the background that year.
You are confusing heart with stats, heart is the emotional driver of the team. Jason had been the heart of the team before the new guys arrived and was still the heart till they dumped him. The new guys knew Jason was the heart and that’s the way they liked it and that’s why they were against the trade, They foresaw the death of we believe when the management obviously din’t believe any longer. Even Nellie next year said they were worse without Jason than they were with him.
Lights please, lights please, turn off the lights.
by Skeptic con Urquell on Aug 10, 2010 5:58 PM PDT up reply actions
First of all...
…Nelson saying that doesn’t make it true any more than Nelson saying “Mike Dunleavy is a natural power forward” makes it true. Secondly, all this discussion about “heart” is pure speculation. I have no clue how everybody on that team felt bout everybody else, (though I remember Pietrus being the first man out the tunnel during the Mavs games). Making decisions about crafting your basketball team is tricky business, and maybe if we were talking about a superstar talent who had become iconically linked to the franchise (like a Derek Jeter thing), it’d be a different story. But keeping Richardson at too much money and too few skills because of platitudes about his “heart…” I wouldn’t do it.
maybe if we were talking about a superstar talent who had become iconically linked to the franchise (like a Derek Jeter thing), it’d be a different story.
Jason was our Jeter but they din’t appreciate him. That’s why Jason’s in the playoffs and they are not.
Lights please, lights please, turn off the lights.
by Skeptic con Urquell on Aug 10, 2010 6:18 PM PDT up reply actions
Jason was our Jeter but they din’t appreciate him. That’s why Jason’s in the playoffs and they are not.
And yet the team won more games after trading Richardson than they had in any of the previous 12 seasons. .
And yet the team won more games after trading Richardson than they had in any of the previous 12 seasons. .
of course cause their trend was up, they were still improving from the pacers trade , if Jason was still here they woulda won more. Ask Nellie if you don’t believe me? The goal is to win enough to reappear in the playoffs not just enough to satisfy some arbitrary win number. Dumping a loyal player you’ve relied on for years for a skinny rookie is just asking for trouble, good management don’t do those kinda things. The A’s didn’t run off SalBando after their 1st playoff year, they kept him and won three world series.
Lights please, lights please, turn off the lights.
by Skeptic con Urquell on Aug 10, 2010 9:11 PM PDT up reply actions
And yet the team won more games after trading Richardson than they had in any of the previous 12 seasons.
Not fair, Jae. Both for the reasons Skeptic mentions and because J-Rich missed a bunch of games in ‘06-’07.
by UncleCliffy on Aug 10, 2010 9:17 PM PDT up reply actions 1 recs
The goal is to win enough to reappear in the playoffs
I think they did a pretty good job of this and there was some serious bad luck working against us. Only one other team has ever won 48 games and not made the playoffs. Unless you want to argue we should have expected that, and the best thing we could have done about it was to keep JRich….
by Missing Barry on Aug 10, 2010 9:21 PM PDT up reply actions
Unless you want to argue we should have expected that, and the best thing we could have done about it was to keep JRich….
That’s exactly what I’ve been arguing, that teams should do the thing that gives them the best odds of winning. We didn’t know that 48 wins would be one short but we certainly knew that a proven Jason made the team better than a new skinny rookie and we should been smart enough to keep him for at least one more year to see how the team could do after a full season together.
Lights please, lights please, turn off the lights.
by Skeptic con Urquell on Aug 10, 2010 9:50 PM PDT up reply actions
Really?
I’m sure you know this, but to compare Richardson’s career to Jeter’s, even across sporting lines, is a bad joke. I’m not the Jeter adulator some are, but really.
but to compare Richardson’s career to Jeter’s, even across sporting lines, is a bad joke.
Warriors fans loved Jason as much as NewYorkers love Jeter.
It about the heart not just the stats. If you don’t understand this then you’ll be rubberstamping any trade that looks good on paper and you’ll end up with a team that plays with a paper heart.
Lights please, lights please, turn off the lights.
by Skeptic con Urquell on Aug 10, 2010 9:16 PM PDT up reply actions
And of course, as much as it pains me to say it, JRich was overrated by Warriors fans much like Jeter is overrated by Yankees fans (and the public in general)….
by Missing Barry on Aug 10, 2010 9:22 PM PDT up reply actions
JRich was overrated by Warriors fans much like Jeter is overrated by Yankees fans (and the public in general)….
not many A’s fans think jeter’s overrated after he singlehandedly demolished their playoff hopes :>) Jeter made me a believer just like Jason did when he sprained his ankle and could barely walk but went to the bench and taped it and came back in great pain to try and secure the win. That’s heart.
Lights please, lights please, turn off the lights.
by Skeptic con Urquell on Aug 10, 2010 9:56 PM PDT up reply actions
I’d guess there are more than a few A’s fans who don’t base their judgment of a player’s career on a single play.
Overrated or not, Jeter’s a great player and first-ballot hall of famer — not unusually “clutch,” not a good defender, but one of the best hitting shortstops of all time.
JRich, setting aside your medical opinion of his cardiac health, is a middle-of-pack starting shooting guard. Good three point shooter, good rebounder, mediocre-to-bad at everything else. Guys like that are a dime-a-dozen. As others have said, Morrow and Azubuike are essentially the same player as JRich.
As Zack Vank suggests, to compare Jeter to JRich an insult to Jeter. JRich is more like the hoops equivalent of Aubrey Huff.
There will be no extra point!
by Sleepy Freud on Aug 10, 2010 10:28 PM PDT up reply actions
You're right...
…Huff is a much better comparison than the one I made below.
JRich is more like the hoops equivalent of Aubrey Huff.
I’d say Torii Hunter cause the fans loved him and he got traded and ended up a winner somewhere else.
Lights please, lights please, turn off the lights.
by Skeptic con Urquell on Aug 10, 2010 10:51 PM PDT up reply actions
Derek Jeter – among the top 60 players of all-time. That he stayed at SS and ARod moved off the position was ridiculous, and that Yankees fans revere him among some of the all-time greats of that franchise is laughable – Ruth, Gehrig, Mantle, Dimaggio, even ARod…..Jeter simply isn’t in their class as a player, unless he can keep playing at a high level for a few more years. Heck, to this point he’s not even as good as Jeff Bagwell or Chipper Jones. Tall order for a 36 year old….
I’d say Torii Hunter cause the fans loved him and he got traded and ended up a winner somewhere else.
Why is it so hard to get people to try to only consider what an individual brings to “winning” and try not to give the individual credit for what his teammates do when we evaluate his performance….?
by Missing Barry on Aug 11, 2010 7:58 AM PDT up reply actions
Why is it so hard to get people to try to only consider what an individual brings to "winning" and try not to give the individual credit for what his teammates do when we evaluate his performance….?
cause these are team games and certain players bring out the best in their team mates and fans appreciate that.
Lights please, lights please, turn off the lights.
by Skeptic con Urquell on Aug 11, 2010 9:54 AM PDT up reply actions
certain players bring out the best in their team mates
In other words, something the individual brings to “winning”….
But when you say something like: Torii Hunter ended up a winner somewhere else, you aren’t showing HIS contributions lead to winning, just that his team won. You haven’t shown he’s anything than 1/25 of that, and you’re giving him 100% of the credit when he only represents 4% of it….
So, again, why is it so hard to try to only look at what the individual accomplished, and not give him credit for what his teammates accomplished….?
by Missing Barry on Aug 11, 2010 10:11 AM PDT up reply actions
So he's the Kobe Bryant of Baseball.
"Everybody loves Basketball-Reference.com. Except the Kobe fans".- DubsFan408
by GovernorStephCurry on Aug 11, 2010 3:48 PM PDT up reply actions
I agree...
…entirely that Jeter’s gotten a pretty nice reputation, all things considered. He’s still going to first in line for the Hall of Fame, though, and J-Rich isn’t. Even if you took J-Rich and fashioned a spiritual baseball equivalent. Maybe J-Rich would be… sort of a Marquis Grissom career at best?
I disagree.
I think Baron was the heart of that team. He was clearly it’s emotional leader. He was the one everybody looked to for guidance.
It was Baron’s decision the following year to start slacking off on defense which led to everyone else slacking off, too.
From an emotional/intensity standpoint JRich couldn’t hold a candle to Jackson. And Barnes, probably more than any other player, epitomized the never-quit, do whatever you need to do and do it with a smile on your face attitude that defined that team.
Calling a player the “heart” of a team is an amorphous, fairly meaningless thing, but JRich certainly wasn’t the inspirational leader of that team in any meaningful way.
JRich certainly wasn’t the inspirational leader of that team in any meaningful way.
I think the team would dis agree, diving into a hostile crowd in dallas or flattening DevinHarris to set up a barnes 3 was pretty inspirational and set the tone for that series.
Lights please, lights please, turn off the lights.
by Skeptic con Urquell on Aug 11, 2010 10:00 AM PDT up reply actions 1 recs
Baron was also the one that started the book club! ;)
by Missing Barry on Aug 11, 2010 10:17 AM PDT up reply actions
I... …agree wholeheartedly.
which means nothing if you don’t understand heart? :>)
Lights please, lights please, turn off the lights.
by Skeptic con Urquell on Aug 10, 2010 6:15 PM PDT up reply actions
Well, it depends.
I wouldn’t assume that my wholeheartedness made me a worthwhile basketball player at 14 mil, if that’s what you mean.
by Zack Vank on Aug 10, 2010 6:35 PM PDT up reply actions 1 recs
J-Rich was great in the playoffs though.
"Everybody loves Basketball-Reference.com. Except the Kobe fans".- DubsFan408
by GovernorStephCurry on Aug 10, 2010 9:29 PM PDT up reply actions
Problem is, eventually your players start to get worse and you’re no longer a real playoff threat. Our window was not very big. Baron had one more year of being that kind of player in him, or at least that’s how he’s played since he left town….
by Missing Barry on Aug 10, 2010 7:41 PM PDT up reply actions
Baron had one more year of being that kind of player in him,
which would increase our recent playoff appearances by 100% and double is better than half of double. Who knows maybe Montay woulda learned to play point under Boom’s wing and attracted a new big pick and roll guy and we continued the good times more than one year? But hey one more year was still twice what we got.
Lights please, lights please, turn off the lights.
by Skeptic con Urquell on Aug 10, 2010 9:20 PM PDT up reply actions
But hey one more year was still twice what we got.
So far, but then again we do have Curry and Lee now. Plus, was there any way to know ahead of time that we were going to fall just short….?
by Missing Barry on Aug 10, 2010 9:23 PM PDT up reply actions
And the reason that he inserts those little side comments about it in front page posts is that he can’t actually defend his opinion.
That, and he’s learning from his buddy TK how to stir up a little controversy to draw eyeballs and clicks!
Trust me, learning english isn’t a waste of time. It is actually sort of useful.
-randolphforpresident
by Dubs fan in Boston on Aug 11, 2010 4:13 PM PDT up reply actions
The reasoning behind the trade may have been good, in fact, everything might have made perfect sense on paper, but the results did not reflect the theory. And that’s unfortunately all that matters in the end.
Not really. As MB said, first you have to argue that we would have been better not making the trade. Especially because it seems unlikely that we’d still have both Beans and Monta if we kept JRich, bceause of that awful contract.
If you could trade Beans to JRich today, would you do it? I wouldn’t. It doesn’t make us better if Biedrins is healthy. Monta? I’d only make that trade if I was trying to get out from the long-term money in Monta’s contract, which it’s not clear is the smart play.
Second, if Wright gives us backup minutes at the rate he has shown he can perform in limited minutes, then we will be better this year than we would be if we hadn’t made the trade. So you’re judging the trade a failure before we’ve seen how it plays out in its entirety – that makes no sense.
Lastly, I just want to point out that we improved in the year after we traded JRich. Since we got nothing from Wright, that suggests that the players we gave JRIch’s minutes to performed better than JRIch had the year before. Saying a trade “failed” when you improved by six games strikes me as a little dubious.
Plus, as onlxn points out, if the results were better previously….there’d be no Stephen Curry in GS…..
by Missing Barry on Aug 10, 2010 8:19 AM PDT up reply actions
As MB said, first you have to argue that we would have been better not making the trade.
I’m sorry but this is not a policy debate. The negative is sufficient argument.
Goal: 8 seed!
Not only is it not sufficient, it’s not even really an argument. I can just as credibly claim that the reason the Warriors fell apart is because they let Sarunas 2.0 go to Europe.
You and Atma seem intent on talking about basketball without thinking about basketball. That’s your right, but it sure seems like a waste of time to me.
Golden State Worriers: Angst & Analysis
we're going to have agree to disagree here
When I say the JRich trade failed, that’s my only argument. I don’t have to create an alternative. You WANT an alternative because you want something to attack. But that’s too big of a burden, it’d be like asking me to not only prove my innocence in a murder trial but also to provide a more explainable scenario/suspect for the crime.
But that’s not the only reason why I don’t provide an alternative. It’s really, really hard to predict the future. Players don’t just carry over their stats to other teams and scenarios, there’s just too many possible permutations and contextual differences that could create an entirely different chain of events. It’s like the proverbial butterfly —> storm in Japan thing that chaos theory argues. And so, when speaking specifically about JRich, Baron Davis, etc… I don’t think it’s a valid argument that their proceeding production after them leaving our team would be the same if they had stayed on our team. In other words, like MB was talking about earlier (in a different context), it’s not a vacuum, the players respond differently to different environments and one could sufficiently argue their production/efficiency/stats/whatever would be signficiantly different if their futures hadn’t followed the progression they did.
Goal: 8 seed!
When I say the JRich trade failed, that’s my only argument
Ok, so you’re only addressing the JRich trade. You still have to make the case why having JRich is better than what happened. For the trade to be a failure, that HAS to be the case. If you can’t make that case…..you don’t really have much of a point.
by Missing Barry on Aug 10, 2010 8:57 AM PDT up reply actions
no, i don't.
let me tell you why: it’s not a zero sum game. If I argue that the trade failed, that doesn’t mean I’m arguing that not trading would have not failed. Both can fail, simply because both options could have been failures.
Goal: 8 seed!
Well if both options are failures what are we complaining about?!
I dunno why I got into a conversation about judging results anyways. Oh well.
If you have a 17 in Blackjack and the house has a 6 showing and you hit and get a 4, it was still the wrong move….
by Missing Barry on Aug 10, 2010 9:10 AM PDT up reply actions
not if you're counting cards
and manipulating the deck. BE THE GORILLA
Goal: 8 seed!
Please lay out the alternate universe where we didn’t "break up We Believe" for me – what moves did we make, and what results did we end up with, and how do they compare to what we’re seeing in the real world?
If you’re going to argue the results were worse, you at least have to make a case that the alternative results were better….
by Missing Barry on Aug 10, 2010 8:50 AM PDT up reply actions
no, i don't.
My only argument is the JRich trade failed. That means I have to present an alternative to the trade that would have created better results? It’s not a comparative thing, i’m not comparing one scenario to another. I’m saying the trade failed and that’s it.
Please understand that this logic makes sense in every court of law in the United states as well as every debate besides policy debates.
Goal: 8 seed!
That means you have to tell us why having JRich would have been better for our franchise.
by Missing Barry on Aug 10, 2010 8:56 AM PDT up reply actions
Here's another approach
Ask Warriors fans who they would rather of had for the past 3 seasons. J-Rich or Wright.
Now ask Pheonix fans if they would take Wright or J-Rich.
J-Rich was one piece, but an important playoff piece for both teams. Brandon Wright… um, well, hmmmm.
by WestCoastWarrior on Aug 10, 2010 9:12 AM PDT up reply actions
Honestly – what would JRich have given us that Buike and Morrow didn’t? Then add salary to the equation….
by Missing Barry on Aug 10, 2010 9:20 AM PDT up reply actions
how about
a durable small forward who could rebound at a prolific rate in our system, allowing us to not have to waste money on maggette and letting Buike and Morrow play the reserve minutes that better suit their playstyles. Then add the fact that salary disparity has proven to be irrelevant in the three years that have passed since.
Goal: 8 seed!
So a 6’5 wing who can rebound and shoot……
what would JRich have given us that Buike and Morrow didn’t?
by Missing Barry on Aug 10, 2010 9:31 AM PDT up reply actions
JRich came in at 6’5.75 in shoes at the combine. He’s listed at 6’6 on BB-Ref. Morrow/Buike are listed at 6’5 (pretty sure they don’t have combine measurements).
Durability….well, he played 74 games the year after JRich was traded.
By consistency, what, exactly, do you mean? “Consistently” shooting over 45% from 3? Don’t confuse inconsistent PT with inconsistent play.
Let’s break this down. Jrich is a mediocre ballhandler, a poor defender, a good rebounder and good shooter who can score at a solid volume. Buike is a mediocre ballhandler, an ok defender (better than JRich but I wouldn’t say “good”), an excellent rebound and a good shooter who can score at a solid volume. Morrow is a poor ballhanlder, poor defender, a good rebounder and a great shooter who can score at a solid volume. JRich is the best passer of the 3. All told, honestly, they’re all almost the exact same player, both in production and in style/what they bring. That’s the thing – SG’s are the easiest position in basketball to find.
by Missing Barry on Aug 10, 2010 9:42 AM PDT up reply actions
let me help you with this breakdown
buike is a good player who has horrible knees and shouldn’t play many minutes for the sake of his career. That’s where durability comes in.
Morrow is inconsistent in that his brain doesn’t understand how to score on a consistent basis. I am not making the confusion that you’re implying i’m making.
JRich is stronger than all of them, more durable, a better rebounder, more consistent, and can also play SF.
But really, the comparison isn’t about JRich vs. Buike or Morrow. It should be about JRich vs Wright.
Goal: 8 seed!
interesting hypothesis and it would be even more so if you had some proof.
Just for the whole post. For instance:
JRich is stronger than all of them
Have you seen Buike’s biceps? Morrow is the skinniest of the 3, and JRich is a strong SG, but so is Buike. What benefit does this give the team?
more durable
Hey, wonderful, in hindsight we can see he played more games than them. JRich was coming off an injury when we traded him. At the time, it was really no different from you talking about Buike’s lack of durability.
a better rebounder
Than Morrow by a bit, sure, funny how Buike pulls down more boards, though.
can also play SF
A wing is a wing is a wing. There’s not much of a height difference between them. What makes him a SF and them not?
But really, the comparison isn’t about JRich vs. Buike or Morrow. It should be about JRich vs Wright.
If that’s what you’re going to focus on, it’s no wonder you take the stance that you do. Simply put, it’s missing the point. There are 5 players on the court at a time. The point is to have the best 5 man lineup. When you trade JRich for Wright, the impact is not just JRich for Wright. It’s the new 5 man lineup v the old 5 man lineup. When you can add a guy like Wright while replacing JRich pretty much completely, well, you haven’t really done anything to hurt your team. That’s why we have to look at everything, because we didn’t just trade JRich, we also replaced him internally, which is why he was tradeable.
by Missing Barry on Aug 10, 2010 9:58 AM PDT up reply actions
ugh
First, you’re taking that quote out of context, and thus out of context it could very well address your post as well as mine.
Second, biceps are not how you measure strength.
Third, yes it is hindsight. Everything we’re talking about now is about hindsight.
Fourth, azu may have been a better per36 rebounder by a tiny bit, but Jrich has done it more consistently and for longer. And who knows if Azu will be the same player ever?
Wing, schming.
Lastly, you’re not calculating the effect on depth. Davis and Jackson led the league in minutes played that year and the overall effect of losing JRich was a team worn down at the finish line.
Goal: 8 seed!
It doesn’t matter that the quote was out of context. I was simply pointing out that you’re making a lot of unsupported claims, and I’d like to see some of it backed up.
Of course biceps are not the way you measure strength. You’re the one that asserted JRich was stronger. I simply said Buike is strong. I want to know how you know JRich is stronger, and how it would benefit the team.
Fourth, azu may have been a better per36 rebounder by a tiny bit, but Jrich has done it more consistently and for longer. And who knows if Azu will be the same player ever?
Kelenna has 5000+ career minutes of 6.0 rebounds/36. JRich is at 5.4 for his career. Morrow 4.7. If Buike is only “a bit” of a better rebounder than JRich, JRich is only “a bit” better than Morrow. We’re still talking about the same player here in all 3 cases.
Wing, schming.
Yes, wings have the same responsibilities in basketball. It’s the same position. “What makes him a SF and them not?”
Lastly, you’re not calculating the effect on depth. Davis and Jackson led the league in minutes played that year and the overall effect of losing JRich was a team worn down at the finish line.
Or I just don’t care all that much. Your argument, at best, is we should have put everything we had into sustaining a “present” (present meaning the present when we traded JRich) that was trying to hold on to a bottom playoff seed as long as possible (which was, at best, 1 more year). The reality is we put ourselves in a better future position while also giving the playoffs a very, very nice run the following year – only one team in the history of the NBA had ever missed the playoffs with 48 wins. Since then, we’ve ended up acquiring pieces like Curry and Lee because of what happened. Those are good developments. Your scenario, frankly, sucks, AND you’re juding people based on information they did not have at the time of the decision. Heck, for all we know JRich stays around and tears his ACL and misses the next two seasons. I find your arguments completely lacking.
by Missing Barry on Aug 10, 2010 10:40 AM PDT up reply actions 1 recs
all that building for the future didn't get us anything did it
you’re like the guy complaining about getting bad beat at poker. Yeah, there are right moves. But they don’t always help you win, and winning is what matters in the end.
I wasn’t critical of the move at first because it wasn’t fair to do so at the time. I knew the move had as much to do with the future as it did with the present. But not only did we take a hit in the present, but the future has come and we can evaluate the trade from a more complete perspective now. It failed.
Goal: 8 seed!
you’re like the guy complaining about getting bad beat at poker
Not a very complete analogy? Maybe I’m like the pro who knows when you have a 98% shot of winning the pot and get rivered, you played your cards right and you’ll win next time and in the long run?
But not only did we take a hit in the present
So the hit in the present was, at best, extremely small and only made a difference because we tied the record for best record for a non-playoff team ever. Had we made the playoffs, we would have been out first round. Since then, we’ve put ourselves in a position with young talent like Curry, Biedrins and hopefully Ellis in addition to Leee in his prime to have a sustained run of success we haven’t had in my lifetime, and we’re supposed to say it failed? Sorry, not buying it.
Again, you play your hand. We did that well, and the results, while it’s been ugly the past couple years, have turned out well.
by Missing Barry on Aug 10, 2010 11:05 AM PDT up reply actions 1 recs
So if
we make the playoffs this year, and bWright is an integral part of that – was it a failure? It’s plausible, if not likely, that among players with 1500 minutes or more this year, 2 of the three “top wp48” players in our top 6 per-minute players would be Biedrens and bWight. The only thing making it unlikely is bWright’s health. Does that make it all a failure?
What would make it not a failure in your eyes?
Baseball is a chamber orchestra. Football is a marching band. Basketball is a modern quintet. jazz, rock, hiphop, pop/ all about the beat./ still my revolution not/ til you dance through it.
you’re like the guy complaining about getting bad beat at poker. Yeah, there are right moves. But they don’t always help you win, and winning is what matters in the end.
You have this exactly backwards.
You’re the one who’s saying that because we didn’t “win” (somewhat amorphously defined) that the moves were bad.
But that’s exactly the same as complaining about a bad beat in poker. WHen your opponent gets lucky, that doesn’t mean you played badly.
A better way to think of than a backwards poker analogy:
Imagine that the situation in Miami didn’t work out, and we had the opportunity to acquire LeBron for Monta, Dorell, and a first-round pick.
That’s a good trade. We do it in a heartbeat, right?
Let’s then continue to hypothsize that Lebron blows out his knee in his first practice post-trade, and is never the same again. He limps along as an average player for the rest of his contract, then retires.
Can you now criticize the trade as being a bad trade?
yah it's difficult
like on one hand, you have the rationale behind the moves. they make sense, and etc.
but unfortunately, history judges by the results, not the rationale. I’m sure you remember a very similar instance occurred in orlando when they signed both hill and tmac. those were great moves… with disappointing results. And as much as you want to sympathize with the people involved, no one remembers those Magic teams as potential championship contenders if the cards had gone their way. In fact, no one remembers those teams at all.
Goal: 8 seed!
Sure.
But remember where you came from in this argument.
What exactly is your criticism of the trade? That it didn’t turn us into consistent winners? That doesn’t fly.
That it cost us games in the short run? Nope, no evidence for that.
That it cost us games in the long run? Since Wright is scheduled to play a key role on the Warriors this year, it’s too early to judge that.
Nobody says that Orlando’s GM messed up by signing those two players, which is what Atma says about the Warriors in making that trade.
where did i come from in this argument?
i came from the camp that this trade couldn’t be decided until at least the third or fourth year, or about the time it would take for 19 year old forward to develop. And now that time has come. Unless Wright proves me otherwise, this trade has failed.
I am basing this on the following criteria:
1. We gave up multiple years of future performance from a productive asset for one nonperforming one in Wright and one unproductive one in cap space.
2. After several years, the net result is that the trade has led to more bad than good in almost all relevant ways.
Goal: 8 seed!
history judges by the results, not the rationale
People do, but I strive to be better than that. Your long run decision making is better by judging the process rather than the results. Otherwise you’ll be chasing sample error all over the place.
by Missing Barry on Aug 10, 2010 12:32 PM PDT up reply actions
that makes no sense
i think you’re confusing yourself
Goal: 8 seed!
No, I'm absolutely serious.
Go read David Sklansky “The Theory of Poker” if you disagree with me.
You NEVER evaluate how well you played in poker by the result of one specific hand. A play is the right play even if the opponent gets lucky.
IN fact, that’s a key part of the game.
If I’m a 80% favorite in the hand, I often want you to call* because I’ll make more in the 80% of the times I win than I will in the 20% of the times i fold.
“Bad beats” are actually a sign that you’re playing poker better than your opponents. When your opponent sucks out a miracle draw against you, the right mindset is to be happy: you’re going to take all of his money while he chases miracle draws.
Part of what makes playing poker psychologically challenging is that bad players get “lucky” and suck out more than good players, since bad players are taking the worse of it with cards to come more often.
*It’s actually a bit more complicated, because sometimes you want your opponent to fold: you win money in the long run when he calls, but you win more if he folds. It depends on the size of the pot compared to the size of the bets.
i mean i get poker
i know what a good play is and what a bad play is. And you can get mad at someone for winning off a bad play or whatever. But that guy just doesn’t care… cuz he has the money. He’ll feel bad all the way to the bank
Goal: 8 seed!
But that guy just doesn’t care… cuz he has the money. He’ll feel bad all the way to the bank
Misses the point. Whoever makes the good plays more consistently will win in the long run. Unless you mean to suggest the only result that matters is a single one that favors your argument (and I still haven’t seen good evidence the “keep JRich” side’s result would have been better) and we should ignore every other time that guy plays poker…..
by Missing Barry on Aug 10, 2010 12:36 PM PDT up reply actions
but see
the law of large numbers don’t apply to basketball free agencies. There’s just too many unique scenarios and variations. Yes, if you run the JRich vs Wright trade for the Warriors and the Charlotte with all the same circumstances, then it probably is the right move in the long run. But it’s impossible to lock the myriad of variables, not to mention unique ones, to create an isolated instance to run a large-number evaluation.
Goal: 8 seed!
and that's a wrap folks!
Thanks to everyone for stopping by! I’ll be around for another round of live chats… how about never.
Prove Nellie (and me) wrong Biedrins! Go show him you can do it your way! Yeah!
Goal: 8 seed!
Yes, if you run the JRich vs Wright trade for the Warriors and the Charlotte with all the same circumstances, then it probably is the right move in the long run.
Exactly what MB and I have been saying.
Plus throw in a little sprinkle of “in this variation, we still managed to make a great playoff run AND in the long run acquired Curry and David Lee”, and yeah, I think in this particular iteration we still won.
by Missing Barry on Aug 10, 2010 1:14 PM PDT up reply actions
you missed the point
free agency is not a controlled situation with known probabilities like poker. Given the law of large numbers and with enough time available, those who make the smart play in poker do ultimately benefit. But that scenario does not exist in the NBA, so it makes no sense to feel satisfied with yourself for making the “right” move.
Goal: 8 seed!
that's the bad beat stuff i'm talking about
in poker, you can run the same scenario over and over and over again because the cards never change and nor do the probabilities. There’s also a secondary element in chip stack which is a bit less controllable, and finally the random element of player ability/composure/luck. In such a scenario, the smart move is to play textbook and consistently do over the long run, since you’ll win from pure probabilities.
But an NBA transaction has far too many variables with far too high of stakes to be compared to a poker simulation. You can’t bank on winning in the long run because each scenario is unique. Given that, you need to find a way to maximize value for each independent transaction, and you can’t bank on a deferred reward that’ll someday pay you for your ability to make the right move.
Goal: 8 seed!
I don’t understand. It is the same thing basically. If you consistently make the right move, in the long run your team will be better than if you make a bad move but get lucky one time. You can’t count on every move working out, all you can do is make the move with the highest chance of success. If the Warriors keep making moves as intelligent as the J-Rich trade, they’re eventually going to get better, as long as we are not the unluckiest team in history.
Now, personally, I believe we are the unluckiest team in history, so yeah.
that's cuz the 'right move' is arbitrarily defined
and different per scenario. Compare that with poker where there is a clear cut right play and wrong play.
Goal: 8 seed!
Given that, you need to find a way to maximize value for each independent transaction
Honestly, do you read what you type? Do you know how you maximize the value of each transaction? BY MAXIMIZING YOUR FSLKDJLFSDJ ODDS. Probability. It’s not a hard concept.
by Missing Barry on Aug 10, 2010 7:43 PM PDT up reply actions
YO
CAN YOU TELL ME EXACTLY WHAT THOSE ODDS ARE?
LOL
Goal: 8 seed!
Nope, but we can try our best to estimate them. Unless you’re arguing that just closing our eyes and just following the random walk is the very best outcome we can hope to achieve….?
by Missing Barry on Aug 10, 2010 7:56 PM PDT up reply actions
i would love to see this procedure of estimation
Goal: 8 seed!
Well, that’s where we go into our analysis of what we should have expected out of each party going forward at the time of the transaction!
by Missing Barry on Aug 10, 2010 8:04 PM PDT up reply actions
Jeez, Buike is a great rebounder.
"Everybody loves Basketball-Reference.com. Except the Kobe fans".- DubsFan408
by GovernorStephCurry on Aug 10, 2010 11:07 AM PDT up reply actions
His knees...
…weren’t so terrible the summer of 07. Saying J-Rich is stronger is pure speculation, but I sure as hell would guess he’s not as strong physically as Azubuike.
Morrow is inconsistent in that his brain doesn’t understand how to score on a consistent basis.
This is sort of a hard assumption to figure out in the context of this argument.
lol
there’s tons of bad arguments being thrown around now from a lot of people. But thx :)
This argument has to do with Morrow’s erratic FGA during the course of two seasons. Namely, his tendency to defer and to be passive.
Goal: 8 seed!
Are his FGA’s erratic? I’m still not ready to believe it without seeing the numbers to back it up. Furthermore, is erratic bad, as long as it doesn’t affect the mean?
by Missing Barry on Aug 10, 2010 12:34 PM PDT up reply actions
yeah they kinda are
you can take a look at his game logs here:
http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/m/morroan01/gamelog/2010/
even when you factor in things like minutes played, they still look pretty up and down. Plus it’s been one of the most consistent criticisms from Nellie regarding his game.
Don’t get all stat-technical with me either (sample size argument, number of standard deviations from mean, etc.) I’m too lazy to run the regression: you do it.
Goal: 8 seed!
And how does that vary from expected?
Don’t get all stat-technical with me either (sample size argument, number of standard deviations from mean, etc.) I’m too lazy to run the regression: you do it.
You made the claim. Frankly, if you don’t care enough to even look for evidence to supoort it, I’m going to flat out ignore your rampant speculation.
by Missing Barry on Aug 10, 2010 1:16 PM PDT up reply actions
Ronaldinho’s asking why he and other supporters of the trade (including me) should have to admit they were wrong.
cause things worked out like Atma said and not like the trade Jason bandwagoners said?
Lights please, lights please, turn off the lights.
by Skeptic con Urquell on Aug 10, 2010 9:28 AM PDT up reply actions
cause things worked out like Atma said and not like the trade Jason bandwagoners said?
How exactly did they say it would work out?
Golden State Warriors '10-'11 Season: The Return of ^^^^
hey sleepy
have my arguments been noted yet or should i keep fighting the good fight
Goal: 8 seed!
Haha. I don’t think you’ve heretofore weighed on the the dead horse topic of the JRich trade. Or at least I don’t recall you ever doing so. Therefore, your thoughts in this thread are mostly welcome and interesting to me, even if I disagree with them. ;-)
On the other hand, our friend Skeptic continues to regurgitate the same mindless catchphrases with which he’s been polluting this board basically non-stop for three years — all the while characterizing anyone with a different opinion from him as heartless bandwagoners. Yes, I consider that trolling. It’s a shame, ‘cos when he’s not baiting people, repeating tired slogans, and making a fool of himself he can be a very witty and thoughtful poster.
There will be no extra point!
by Sleepy Freud on Aug 10, 2010 7:10 PM PDT up reply actions
basically non-stop for three years —
Ever since the night of that trade. Yeah I wanted to continue the success of 07 so shoot me :>)
Lights please, lights please, turn off the lights.
by Skeptic con Urquell on Aug 10, 2010 9:27 PM PDT up reply actions
It's too bad he's a laker fan, and he's calling others bandwagoners.
"Everybody loves Basketball-Reference.com. Except the Kobe fans".- DubsFan408
by GovernorStephCurry on Aug 10, 2010 9:31 PM PDT up reply actions
How exactly did they say it would work out?
well IIRC they said something like Montay and Dre were the young superstars of the team and that Brokenwing was another Garnett in training and that Jason was a washed up shell of a player not worth his money? But I seem to recall seeing Jason in the Western conference finals a couple of months ago and all the bandwagoneer’s young guys either hurt or coming off a sucky season?
So yeah Atma was right but not because of the results, he was right simply because the process was contrary to every theory of building a championship team.No one tears up their just assembled experienced playoff team to bet on a crop of new rookies. Wasn’t hard to see the pitfalls at the time, lie to a fan favorite, bring in a kid we din’t need, worry about how to pay two flawed draftee’s when their contracts come up? alienate any free agents who might have been thinking about signing here with those moves? No crystal ball needed.
Lights please, lights please, turn off the lights.
by Skeptic con Urquell on Aug 10, 2010 4:53 PM PDT up reply actions 1 recs
but we were wrong
If you’re judging the results….maybe? What were we “wrong” about, exactly? Please lay out the alternate universe where we didn’t “break up We Believe” for me – what moves did we make, and what results did we end up with, and how do they compare to what we’re seeing in the real world? Moving past results – never judge on results, you need to judge the process. If you have a 17 in Blackjack and the house has a 6 showing and you hit and get a 4, it was still the wrong move….
by Missing Barry on Aug 10, 2010 7:55 AM PDT up reply actions
Your all wrong
You have all forgot one important fact.
Brandon Wright is going to have a breakout allstar calibar season this year, revitilizing the We Believe II movement. j/k
My heart was against the J-Rich move, and if it made logical sense, then this is a time when the heart was right (not Wright).
by WestCoastWarrior on Aug 10, 2010 8:52 AM PDT up reply actions
this is a time when the heart was right (not Wright)
Make the case. I’m all ears.
by Missing Barry on Aug 10, 2010 8:56 AM PDT up reply actions
Gladly
Can you help me a little though, Im not sure where to start with you.
Why do I need to prove that an important playoff piece on two different playoff teams, who was loved by fans is better than an injury prone backup bench player who has not contributed at all?
Where do I start if you dont get that?
by WestCoastWarrior on Aug 10, 2010 9:16 AM PDT up reply actions 1 recs
don't get started on this path
it’s not a winnable debate. And because you’re outnumbered, and because you’re arguing hypothetical vs reality, and because cap space is considered to be universally good, you’re only going to find yourself in a losing battle against several strong-minded and intelligent posters who have more credibility than you. Not a good idea.
Goal: 8 seed!
Dont get started on what path?
That the J-Rich trade wasnt good?
Im outnumbered by smart credible people who are so smart, they can talk themselves into believing it was good? So we could save cap space for two players we have been discussing trading for over a year now? oh and pick up an injury prone bench player who has produced nothing for us.
Please enlighten me dso. Im so weak minded and dumb, and I lack all credibility, so… you know, obviously Im wrong about this.
Please, though, enlighten me.
by WestCoastWarrior on Aug 10, 2010 9:28 AM PDT up reply actions
...
speechless. Why don’t you read what started this debate in the first place and see my position regarding it?
Goal: 8 seed!
dso
oh dso,
I’ve read some of your posts and I dont know what to say that hasnt already been said. You have so much “credibility” and you are “so smart” and “strong minded”, I think I need to debate with someone else for a while.
Thanks for putting me in my place dude.
Good luck
by WestCoastWarrior on Aug 10, 2010 9:39 AM PDT up reply actions
...
k i’m really sorry. i wasn’t trying to insult you, i was trying to save you the time and the hassle. And i only said they had more credibility than you cuz they’ve been here a long time and are always amongst the more feisty debaters.
sorry you took it that way. it was more of a biting remark about their stubbornness, i don’t know enough about you to say you’re good or bad… in other words i was being sarcastic towards them.
Goal: 8 seed!
it was more of a biting remark about their stubbornness
You didn’t make an argument and you’re calling them stubborn?
Sick of fighting with my computer
by Reverend_Randy on Aug 10, 2010 3:16 PM PDT up reply actions
how oh how
did i not make an argument
Goal: 8 seed!
I don't feel like going through the thread and looking
there was a quote, but I lost it.
I read the thread like 2.5 hours ago, but wasn’t involved in the debate so I can’t really remember
Sick of fighting with my computer
by Reverend_Randy on Aug 10, 2010 6:52 PM PDT up reply actions
Ok. Here’s my stance. When we traded JRich, Monta was ready to take his place, and Monta did take his place very effectively. JRich was massively overpaid, with a lot of years left on his contract. We were very, very lacking in big men – when your two best PF’s are Matt Barnes and Al Harrington, that isn’t a good thing. We turned it into a much cheaper Brandon Wright, a guy with a ton of potential who was also a much needed PF who also fit into our system, AND we replaced what JRich gave us with Monta and then Buike/Morrow. We went on to win 48 games – 6 more than the previous year. Now, I’d like to know how keeping a massively overpaid SG who was easily replaceable around would have been a good thing?
by Missing Barry on Aug 10, 2010 9:23 AM PDT up reply actions 2 recs
Good Stance Barry
And I can understand that line of thinking. Thank you for a good arguement.
However, there is another side of this, that is only hypothetical because we cant see what would’ve happened for sure if they kept him.
First playoff appearance in how many years? And they shipped out an important piece. We dont know how many wins that team would’ve won with another year together to play. That is a legitamit complaint, just as much as complaining about the size of his contract. We do know that Buike/Morrow are no longer with us, Monta (who I support keeping this season) has been talked about being traded (many dont like the size and length of his contract), and that J-Rich is still making headlines being a big playoff contributer for another team. Oh and that Brandon Wright guy… well, he had some potential.
Your arguement is legit, but so is mine.
by WestCoastWarrior on Aug 10, 2010 9:36 AM PDT up reply actions
I really think we did keep the team together another year to play. We only moved JRich, who we basically replaced with Monta and Buike, while we kept every other important piece. We won 48 games, and didn’t make the playoffs. There was also no way to know Wright was going to get hurt. Let’s be happy for JRich that he found a good situation, since I love him as much as any other Warrior fan, but I just don’t see how it was a bad move when we made it taking both short term and long term considerations into account.
Really, the bad move was signing Maggette and not using the trade exception (if the rumors are true).
by Missing Barry on Aug 10, 2010 9:47 AM PDT up reply actions
I like to fantasize what we could have done with that trade exception...
Maybe call up Memphis and offer Wright, Buike, TPE, and 2 first round picks for Gasol….oh boy. That’s certainly a better offer than what LA had (at the time, Marc Gasol wasn’t thought to be much).
"Everybody loves Basketball-Reference.com. Except the Kobe fans".- DubsFan408
by GovernorStephCurry on Aug 10, 2010 11:10 AM PDT up reply actions
Well, someone was talking about a rumor we could have picked up Mike Miller and ownership nixed it. No idea how much truth to that….
by Missing Barry on Aug 10, 2010 11:14 AM PDT up reply actions
Yeah, he would have been nice, but pretty redundant because
it probably means we make playoffs, lose to Lakers, don’t get Randolph, don’t get Curry, keep Baron, stay in salary cap quagmire, etc.
Only player who was available that i would have gone after with that huge TPE was Gasol. That team + Gasol is title contending IMO, especially because Lakers don’t get him, and Kobe keeps getting 40-50 wins, and NO TITLES.
"Everybody loves Basketball-Reference.com. Except the Kobe fans".- DubsFan408
by GovernorStephCurry on Aug 10, 2010 11:16 AM PDT up reply actions
it probably means we make playoffs, lose to Lakers, don’t get Randolph, don’t get Curry, keep Baron, stay in salary cap quagmire, etc.
So….exactly what the “keep JRich” people were going for?
by Missing Barry on Aug 10, 2010 11:17 AM PDT up reply actions
Making the playoffs as an 8 seed and having Gasol and Kobe destroy us.
"Everybody loves Basketball-Reference.com. Except the Kobe fans".- DubsFan408
by GovernorStephCurry on Aug 10, 2010 11:18 AM PDT up reply actions
Fantasy
I like to fantasize what we could have done with that trade exception…
Maybe call up Memphis and offer Wright, Buike, TPE, and 2 first round picks for Gasol….oh boy. That’s certainly a better offer than what LA had (at the time, Marc Gasol wasn’t thought to be much).
That was a popular fantasy even at the time. Unfortunately it was not a legal trade under the CBA. You can’t combine a TPE with outgoing players in that way to get back one player with a larger contract.
Golden State Warriors '10-'11 Season: The Return of ^^^^
So we would have to just take Gasol only and no players going to baseball.
"Everybody loves Basketball-Reference.com. Except the Kobe fans".- DubsFan408
by GovernorStephCurry on Aug 10, 2010 4:02 PM PDT up reply actions
True about Maggette
And you mentioned the long term plan, which you have to keep in mind.
Even if everything you say about JRich is true, I could accept the getting younger move (which is risky to mess with chemistry like that) if it was consistant in anyway, and if, in the long run, it made us better and kept us in or around the playoffs.
In that short one year span (offseason to offseason) we lost JRich and BDizzle for Wright, Maggette, long term Monta and Beans, and Steph Jack as our unchallenged leader. You’re telling me this is the direction we wanted? Long term?
If it aint broken, dont fix it. They anticipated it would be broken, and tinkered too much until it fell apart.
The JRich move was the start.
by WestCoastWarrior on Aug 13, 2010 8:54 AM PDT up reply actions 1 recs
In that short one year span (offseason to offseason) we lost JRich and BDizzle for Wright, Maggette, long term Monta and Beans, and Steph Jack as our unchallenged leader. You’re telling me this is the direction we wanted? Long term?
Had we not signed Maggette or extended Jack, yes, yes, 100% yes. Baron was leaving, nothing we could do about that other than pay him a ridiculously larger amount than he’s worth and take a huge risk at setting the franchise back years and years. JRich was overpaid and we replaced him pretty easily. The Jack thing only got out of hand since we extended him under the premise of maknig big moves to compete, and then failed to live up to the promise. Had we just let him walk gracefully, we could have moved in a new direction with money to spend (on something better than a panic move on Maggette), and a solid young core locked up for a decent amount of time. I do see that as the correct move. And we even did it while giving the playoffs a very, very solid run the year after JRich. Not our fault 48 wins didn’t get us in, that’s really, really bad luck.
They anticipated it would be broken
And with good reason. Baron was that team. JRich was just a supplmentary part that was replaced. Jack was replaceable. Baron was not. Only problem – his contract was coming up, he was aging, had a history of injuries,a nd more importantly, a history of motivational issues and problems getting along with coaches (and a problem appeared to be starting with Nellie at the end of his last season, though I’ll admit that’s speculation). That’s a franchise killer. I’ll once again point to the Kings in the 00’s as an example – you can hold on as long as you can for that 8th playoff spot and first round exit, which significantly sets back rebuilding efforts, or you can move on and try to build a team that’s not middle of the pack in the NBA. I think moving on is the right move. The 8th seed is purgatory – you’re not going to become a contender, and you’re not going to do anything to improve your future, you’re just holding on as long as possible, and in this case, I don’t even think we would have made the playoffs a second time.
by Missing Barry on Aug 13, 2010 9:04 AM PDT up reply actions
I mostly agree with what you are saying
I just feel differently about JRich being as disposable for the We Believe team as you feel he was. Basketball is about more than just stats, and Xs and Os (in my book anyway).
I think that team was special for a number of reasons and team chemistry along with rebel type leadership, attitude, and a team playing us-against-the-world basketball got us to the playoffs.
I wouldnt want to depend on that long term, and I agree with a lot of what you have said.
Still Im just not convinced that NOT allowing this team one complete year together was the correct move.
I feel that JRich was not as replaceable, and it may not be the best logical arguement, but it is still a valid basketball point of view to allow a team who turned a franchise around to have one complete year together.
by WestCoastWarrior on Aug 13, 2010 10:43 AM PDT up reply actions
I really, really think we did give them that one more year shot you’re asking for. Baron was the guy, Biedrins, Barnes, Harrington, Jack, Monta, Pietrus…I mean, we really did bring back almost our entire core, and we added significant minutes for Buike. I don’t think it’s fair at all to say losing JRich broke up that core at all.
by Missing Barry on Aug 13, 2010 11:24 AM PDT up reply actions
I know you do
And that is where we differ. We can just agree to disagree because I agree with the logic and business side of what you are saying, there are other factors, less measurable, that I am going off of, and in a team (community) sport filled with emotions and human qualities, I think those things matter. They do, why else do teams under or overperform? Why else is the draft uncertain every year? Either data and stats being used are flawed, or there is more to consider. Good conversation, I’m ready to agree to disagree (with Barry)
by WestCoastWarrior on Aug 13, 2010 11:58 AM PDT up reply actions
They do, why else do teams under or overperform? Why else is the draft uncertain every year?
Sample error! It’s expected!
in a team (community) sport filled with emotions and human qualities, I think those things matter
I think they have some effect, too – why wouldn’t they? My issue is less with the idea of them having an affect and more with the idea that we seem to think we know much about said effect. The example I’ve been using lately is “business confidence”. Business confidence exists – how could it not, since your expectations of the future influence your decisions in the present. That said, as of the present we really don’t know anything about “business confidence” – we have no accurate measure of it or anything. Same goes with stuff like “chemistry” and “locker room dynamics”. I’ve never seen an adequate answer to the questions “what effect does it have” and “do we know what impact player X has on it”. Talk of JRich’s effect on that stuff seems like complete speculation to me, and as an armchair psychologist who has no idea what I"m talking about right now, I suspect it’s more of a “JRich is a fan favorite so he must have a positive effect on chemistry!” kinda thing than anything else….
On a related note, the Giants traded for Jose Guillen today. I’m pissed. He sucks at baseball, but in addition to that, he seems to be at the very extreme as far as “clubhouse cancer” goes. Everywhere he goes (and he’s been many places) there have been issues. In a case that extreme, I’m ok taking “chemistry” into account – because if there’s anyone we could possibly know has a negative effect – it’s him.
by Missing Barry on Aug 13, 2010 12:17 PM PDT up reply actions
Basketball is about more than just stats, and Xs and Os (in my book anyway).
A common statement. It’s peculiar that you present it here though, in response to a post that didn’t present a statistic. Interjecting out of habit rather than out of actual response to what was written?
I think that team was special for a number of reasons and team chemistry along with rebel type leadership, attitude, and a team playing us-against-the-world basketball got us to the playoffs.
And yet the “chemistry” was not damaged to the point of the team having problems for the year, a year in which they won more than they had in over a decade. The “chemistry” seemed to be real, real, real good without Richardson. Save the first half dozen games of the year, they had as good a record as anyone in the Western Conference.
Thanks Jae
Interjecting out of habit rather than out of actual response?
I actually was responding to Missing Barry’s response that this was the right move to make. The number of wins (which is a stat) is an arguement for why it was the right move.
The poker arguement amount was also madethat this was the right move based on big long contracts off the books and getting younger players. those are all numbers and follow a logical sequence, so maybe “X’s and O’s” was the wrong phrase but it was still a response to Barry, not a habitual interjection.
by WestCoastWarrior on Aug 13, 2010 11:37 AM PDT up reply actions
The number of wins (which is a stat) is an arguement for why it was the right move.
I guess, but you play to win the game.
Sick of fighting with my computer
by Reverend_Randy on Aug 13, 2010 2:16 PM PDT up reply actions
Funny you feel that way
BoomDizzle bounced the next year even though we supposedly matched the offer.
It may be logically little more than speculation, but moving JRich seems to be the start of the end.
by WestCoastWarrior on Aug 13, 2010 12:01 PM PDT up reply actions
but moving JRich seems to be the start of the end
I do see how it looks like this, and it could be true, but in my eyes, “the end” always rested on Baron. He was the only non-replaceable part on that team – we could have continued replacing swingmen (as we’ve done in the time since with guys like Buike and Morrow and Williams), and with cap space, we might have been able to replace Biedrins, too…but Baron was the one piece that wasn’t replaceable.
by Missing Barry on Aug 13, 2010 12:21 PM PDT up reply actions
But...
We dont know how many wins that team would’ve won with another year together to play.
…that, while entirely true, is part of the reason the argument that the result (48 wins, best record of the post-original Nelson era) was worse than it would be without Richardson is hard to coherently make.
the argument that the result (48 wins, best record of the post-original Nelson era) was worse than it would be without Richardson is hard to coherently make.
especially since that 48 win record was made without Jason?
Lights please, lights please, turn off the lights.
by Skeptic con Urquell on Aug 12, 2010 3:05 PM PDT up reply actions
It's kinda a silly logical arguement
I could say that JRich and other “We Believe” players who have been traded have been back to the playoffs since “We Believe”, this shows they are more successful than the guys we’ve added and kept. It’s not great logic but it’s true.
In the same way saying they won more games than the year before is true, but not good logic because they were poised to do so anyway with that core returning.
It’s also very logical to assume that with a full year of playing together this team only would have gotten much better. And they already had Monta so he wasn’t filling in for JRich, Buke was. And there are intangibles like leadership that we know Monta does not have that I assume JRich brings to the table. Bulding a playoff team is about more than stats and numbers.
by WestCoastWarrior on Aug 13, 2010 8:43 AM PDT up reply actions
Bulding a playoff team is about more than stats and numbers.
Well, it’s about having the biggest point differential possible! ;)
With intangibles and leadership and the like, I like to ask the following questions: 1.) does a player have it? 2.) how do we know he does? 3.) does said intangible make a meaningful difference, and how do we know?
by Missing Barry on Aug 13, 2010 8:57 AM PDT up reply actions
With intangibles and leadership and the like, I like to ask the following questions: 1.) does a player have it? 2.) how do we know he does? 3.) does said intangible make a meaningful difference, and how do we know?
We know from observation, the way the team plays and the interactions of the players. When they see Jason dive into the crowd at dallas or flatten devin harris they get inspired, when they see him badly sprain his ankle and get it taped and come right back onto the court they get inspired, when they read his apology to the fans in the newspaper they get inspired.
Lights please, lights please, turn off the lights.
by Skeptic con Urquell on Aug 13, 2010 10:35 AM PDT up reply actions
To say I find your response lacking would be an understatement.
by Missing Barry on Aug 13, 2010 11:25 AM PDT up reply actions
To say I find your response lacking would be an understatement.
Then you probably don’t have the specific observational skill set to make it work? If you can’t see the intangibles at work you likely wouldn’t understand them if they were pointed out to you. What qualities do you value in a player other than stats? Are these all tangible qualities? How do you judge these qualities without observation? If you could only do one or the other would you rather watch a game where stats were not kept or would you rather not watch the game but get a transcript of the stats?
Lights please, lights please, turn off the lights.
by Skeptic con Urquell on Aug 13, 2010 2:45 PM PDT up reply actions
If you could only do one or the other would you rather watch a game where stats were not kept or would you rather not watch the game but get a transcript of the stats?
Silly ol’ troll.
Golden State Warriors '10-'11 Season: The Return of ^^^^
by olympicmike on Aug 15, 2010 12:33 AM PDT up reply actions
Stats are for kids!
"Everybody loves Basketball-Reference.com. Except the Kobe fans".- DubsFan408
by GovernorStephCurry on Aug 15, 2010 1:23 AM PDT up reply actions
And if a tree falls in the forest, but no one is around to hear it...
Thats my point I keep trying to make.
It may not make for the best logical arguement or discussion, but there are things called intangibles that I believe really do matter in sports. They are called so because they may not be so easy to measure and quantify. Just because they are not easy to quantify does not mean they do no have an important impact. That is a short coming of math/stats (just one of many tools humans use to make sense of the world), not the other way around.
by WestCoastWarrior on Aug 13, 2010 11:43 AM PDT up reply actions
1.) does a player have it? 2.) how do we know he does? 3.) does said intangible make a meaningful difference, and how do we know?
If you can’t answer any of those questions, I don’t see how it’s a useful piece of information for building a winning basketball team.
by Missing Barry on Aug 13, 2010 12:22 PM PDT up reply actions
Intangibles may exist ...
… but i think it’s important to remember that we’re subjective viewers.
We all WANT to like JRich. He was such a good guy. He accepted his drastically diminished role (from face of the franchise to third- or fourth- wheel) with a smile on his face, because it resulted in the team winning.
There are lots of reasons to celebrate him. And a lot of reasons to want him to have contributed more than his numbers show.
But recognizing that bias in ourselves, I think we have to be very careful, and look for pretty strong evidence, before we conclude that JRich actually had those intangibles.
You seem to be saying that he had them, in spite of a near complete lack of evidence that he contributed anything above and beyond his statistics. And that’s your perrogative, you can believe what you want to believe.
But surely, given our biases in favor of the player, shouldn’t we expect at least a little evidence to support the proposition?
Im acknowledging all that
Well said and I appreciate what your saying.
I have addressed it as best I could and still feel that even if I was to trade him, as an organization with class, wanting to have a good reputation with players, I would’ve kept him for another year to see how the pieces gel before making a move.
I understand your points, I still feel that way, and looking at how everything played out doesnt invalidate that opinion, it may even strengthen it. But either way, regardless of how it turned out, thats a choice I would make when a guy gives that much to an organization and is still playing at playoff calibar level.
by WestCoastWarrior on Aug 13, 2010 7:18 PM PDT up reply actions
let's take "chemistry"
because maybe team intangibles are more important. We’re not talking about locker room chemistry, because if it works on the court, who cares? A team with good chemistry should have good interactions on the court – more assists, fewer turnovers. Higher efficiency. Really high efficiency is a matter of flow, of catching lightning in a bottle. So I’d look for streaks, and how long they run. I’d pinpoint players who appear repeatedly in streaks of high assist, low-turnover games for teams, and I’d start paying attention to the numbers of the players around them. They won’t have the chemisty because of the numbers, but I’m willing to think they have the numbers because of chemistry
Baseball is a chamber orchestra. Football is a marching band. Basketball is a modern quintet. jazz, rock, hiphop, pop/ all about the beat./ still my revolution not/ til you dance through it.
YOu make half a good point.
It’s true that it’s not clear that we would have done worse if we kept Jason.
The problem is that you act like it IS clear we would have done better, and that’s JUST as problematic. The simple truth is you can make solid arguments either way.
I’ll happily agree that there are good reasons why we might have been better not making that trade, if you’ll agree that there are also reasons why we might have been worse – the minutes crunch at 2-3 was not trivial.
Similarly, how are you going to hold the team together if you don’t have the money to pay Biedrins?
That team had real problems. It had one reasonable big man. In the 48-win season, we had one player who’s natural position was either 4 or 5 who played more than 500 minutes. That’s just not a strategy for winning 50+ games. The notion that we’re talking about a core which could have been built upon, therefore, seems pretty absurd.
I think people overvalue that team because of the playoff upset, but it’s important to remember that Dallas was the perfect matchup for us. They had a two-headed center in Dampier and Diop, neither of whom was very good, and who they didn’t like to play together, making it impossible for them to punish us for running Barnes as a 4. Dirk was their 4, but Jackson was the perfect foil for him, since Dirk has never dealt well with physical defense from someone too quick to exploit by taking outside.
But it’s really hard to imagine that team, without serious inside help, going very far. We saw this with the Webber 50-win team (which, incidentally, was MUCH better than the we believe team or the year-after team. Not even close!). You can win in the regular season with smallball because teams don’t have the timer or energy to game plan specifically against you, so you’re exploiting their regular lineups. But up against a decent coach in the postseason, with time to game-plan, small ball is very exploitable.
It’s also worth remembering that Monta was MUCH better than JRich in 2007. That was Monta’s best year. While it’s true that JRich was better in 2008 (Scootergate) and 2009 (shoot-o-rama). Replacing JRich with Monta and Jackson, on a team led by Baron, made a lot of sense.
Once you then replace Baron with the panic-signing of Mags, it’s a whole new ballgame.
You are correct
Im not saying these aren’t valuable arguements. But I cant believe how much I am defending the notion of keeping a core together for one, just one more year to see how they gel. That season turned the franchise around. It was special. That’s the move I would’ve made. Your arguement is a great logical arguement, but I would’ve kept the team together for one more year. Moving out JRich, Harrington, Jacks, Monta, Baron, Barnes, or Beans is not keeping the team together. You trust the process, (mis)quote of what Barry was saying about Poker, but I just have a different process.
In hindsight, the long term moves to make this team better did not work out so well.
by WestCoastWarrior on Aug 13, 2010 11:51 AM PDT up reply actions
In hindsight, the long term moves to make this team better did not work out so well.
I dunno about that. We have Curry. We have David Lee. We have Biedrins locked up to a good value contract. I like where this team is at.
by Missing Barry on Aug 13, 2010 12:24 PM PDT up reply actions
Curry was a lucky draft pick
That had nothing to do with our long term moves from We Believe forward, we didnt even think we could get him.
David Lee was too in a way because it happened out of circumstances (Amare, LBJ, plus drafting Randolph, which lead to the trade).
I dont know about Beans or Monta, but I want them and BWright to succeed.
by WestCoastWarrior on Aug 13, 2010 6:56 PM PDT up reply actions
True, but what happens if Baron signs that extension?
He’s much harder to move if than Mags was.
Now mind you, I don’t think Baron goes into the tank in the same way if he’s still a Warrior, because I think part of it was clashes with Dunelavy (one of the worst choices of coach for a Baron-led team). But at the same time … he was starting to clash with Nellie, so it’s not like its safe to pencil him in for we-believe like production for the life of that contract.
But I cant believe how much I am defending the notion of keeping a core together for one, just one more year to see how they gel.
cause that’s what winners do? Use the momentum and let the winners run.
Lights please, lights please, turn off the lights.
by Skeptic con Urquell on Aug 13, 2010 2:36 PM PDT up reply actions
But I cant believe how much I am defending the notion of keeping a core together for one, just one more year to see how they gel.
Couple of responses to this:
1) It’s not clear that JRich was truly a core player. The core players were, in my opinion, Baron, Jackson, and BIedrins. THey each brought something unique to that team. JRich-Monta-Pietrus-Barnes-Harrington were all, in a broad sense, interchangeable parts.
2) It seems staggeringly obvious that the team’s ceiling, even with another year to “gel” wasn’t much higher than they actually performed. That’s never going to be a team which is good enough for home-court advantage in a playoff series – it just doesn’t have enough size.
Even if that trade hurt the team the following year, by adding more size it raised the team’s ceiling. Ultimately, the team would not get to that ceiling because of injuries, but for all the talk of how JRich might have added a few wins, doesn’t it seem equally obvious that Wright being healthy would have added a few wins?
It didnt go down that way though
JRiich is still a legit starting threat on a playoff team. And we ended up with a bunch of injury prone, young, unhappy players getting injured, and with a FO making one confusing knee jerk reaction after another signing and extending unecessary contracts followed by the repetitious dumping of talent after talent for expirings.
That’s all understandable i guess, but it just doesnt make sense to keep the one player who proudly represented the team when no one wanted to be here year after lossing year, and not even be the type of organization to reward that loyal guy with one, just one, more year to compete with that team in tact. (Which btw is the kind of move other players looking for a team to play for notice.)
by WestCoastWarrior on Aug 13, 2010 7:11 PM PDT up reply actions
Richardson made a lot of money. He wasn’t a bad player, but his salary outstretched his production. The ‘keep for one more year’ ignores that a deal was on the table to trade Richardson without taking back comparable salary.
cool
than it was a salary dump.
The first of many, many talent dumps from We Believe forward. You all are talking about logical, quantifiable arguements. That was the last playoff year, (more wins with or without him is debatable but last playoff year is afact).
And JRich was the first salary dump.
Those are facts, based on a logical sequence of events.
Im not saying I think your wrong, I would just run a team a bit differently because you dont have many JRich type situations to begin with, it creates good player relations with the organization, and, I havent been convinced that it is the wrong way to run a succesful team.
by WestCoastWarrior on Aug 13, 2010 7:27 PM PDT up reply actions
The thing, though,
is that we had comparable, and even better, talent at his position ready to take his place. Monta outperformed JRich in 08. We also had Buike, who duplicated his performance, and Pietrus, who was also pretty good.
Sick of fighting with my computer
by Reverend_Randy on Aug 13, 2010 9:09 PM PDT up reply actions
than [sic] it was a salary dump.
It was a salary reduction at a time when it was available. It is unlikely that it would have been possible to pull off the same dump in the future. It was a reduction in salary that also brought in a guy who had the potential to play a much more important position without giving up much if any quality at a position that is not only much easier to fill but that the team already had internal options to fill. Richardson played the 2/3 position, a position that had Barnes, Jax, Monta, and Azubuike available to play minutes. In the season without Richardson, Monta produced more than Richardson had in the past. If it cut into Monta’s minutes, having Richardson around would not have improved the team. If it cut into the minutes for Pietrus or Barnes? Perhaps, though both were better defenders. It’s tough to say. I don’t think that the team with Richardson was going to be
Subsequent events indicate that it would have been possible to trade Richardson in the future, but not necessarily for a reduction in team salary. I follow Bill Walsh’s assessment that it is better to trade away a player too soon than too late.
I’m not sure what other “salary dumps” you’re referencing. The team actually added salary afterward, acquiring longer contracts when they traded Harrington for Crawford (adding salary), when they extended Monta and Andris and (absolutely idiotically) extended Jax. Not keeping Pietrus or Barnes? I don’t qualify not keeping a free agent as a “dump”. Getting rid of Crawford and Jax were dumps, but one that didn’t hurt in the least and was the logical thing to after idiotically getting those contracts on the books in the first place. Not extending Baron? I don’t think we really have a good idea about what it would have taken to keep Baron around. We have stories from agents and Rowell, neither are exactly reliable sources for the truth about contract negotiations.
“Salary dump” shouldn’t be used as a disposable term for any trade or failure to keep a player that you disagree with.
I appreciate that Richardson was an above average player (I also appreciate that he’s got some rather serious problems with his off-court judgment. He was here for some terrible years and didn’t seem to be the emotional lift that took a terrible team much beyond being terrible. When here he was criticized (rightfully) for poor ball handling skills and mediocre at best defense. Let’s not make him out to be more than he was.
your knock on JRich
seems to be the same knocks we hear about Monta. Bad off-court judgment. Can’t make a terrible team any better, poor ball handling skills, and mediocre defense.
Barnes and Pietrus were not picked up, and BWright aint lookin so good.
And again, Im not arguing your logic for the move. I really dont want to say that anymore.
Still, I would not have done it and still Im not convinced we are better off for doing it.
by WestCoastWarrior on Aug 15, 2010 10:44 AM PDT up reply actions
I also understand Cohan's logic
of making money off the team and fans for many many years. But still, I would run a team much differently, even if his logic for making money is air tight.
by WestCoastWarrior on Aug 15, 2010 10:47 AM PDT up reply actions
He was here for some terrible years and didn’t seem to be the emotional lift that took a terrible team much beyond being terrible.
You must not talk to fans? He was the reason this team was bearable to watch for those years after his draft. He improved every season and gave us hope, then belief, then they took it all away.
Lights please, lights please, turn off the lights.
by Skeptic con Urquell on Aug 16, 2010 10:59 PM PDT up reply actions
Kawacrapi
I seriously read his blogs to see what garbage he’s going to fling this time.
He reminds me of when Ric Bucher used to go after Nellie until it got him a national gig — I guess TK’s gunning for the same.
The players with “Issues” with Nellie (Webber as a rookie - not as a vet), AR – (emotional issues and delusions of grandeur), SJack (emotionally unstable)…see a pattern?
Curry loves Nellie. Ellis seems so-so with him. But selfish players are not Nellie’s thing — and frankly, they aren’t ANY coaches thing.
Atma, honestly, it’s rather annoying that you post the same stuff up on the front page time after time, but never address any actual criticisms of your view. You have yet to make a case why Biedrins is such a bad asset for this team. You have yet to acknowledge that $9M to a C (in a non-escalating contract) doesn’t make him a franchise cornerstone/leader – that’s the going rate for a starting big man, yet you continue to try to present Biedrins as our supposed “franchise C” who’s failing or something…….
As for:
Again, where are all those people who couldn’t wait to destroy WE BELIEVE to build around a mythically bright future of Ellis and Biedrins? I can’t hear you…
You like to make these claims, but you’ve never made much of an argument how we destroyed We Believe, and why it was a bad thing…..
by Missing Barry on Aug 10, 2010 7:59 AM PDT reply actions 7 recs
He's only doing it to get clicks.
"Everybody loves Basketball-Reference.com. Except the Kobe fans".- DubsFan408
by GovernorStephCurry on Aug 10, 2010 11:11 AM PDT up reply actions
not to mention...
Riley and Nelson were both around when We Believe was destroyed…
straw man
Who wanted to destroy we believe? were the majority of W’s fans in favor of trading fan favorite J-Rich for nobody Wright?
Don’t think so.
by Billy Frijoles on Aug 10, 2010 1:04 PM PDT up reply actions
Some of us support the trading of JRich (myself being one), and what annoys me is Atma has yet to make an argument why it was a bad move and/or we’re worse off because of it.
by Missing Barry on Aug 10, 2010 1:17 PM PDT up reply actions
To be fair to Atma -
- he has a tendency of stirring the pot. He’s not immune from the “let me create a little controversy by saying something I don’t necessarily agree with” disease that seems to strike a LOT of people who run blogs.
It’s useful to remind yourself that Atma doesn’t always believe what he’s posting. But he’s a smart guy, and enjoys riling us up a bit.
I think he does believe what he's posting
because he’s so adamant to post ignorant snides at Biedrins and Ellis, while never criticizing Nellie or Riley one bit.
"Everybody loves Basketball-Reference.com. Except the Kobe fans".- DubsFan408
by GovernorStephCurry on Aug 10, 2010 1:37 PM PDT up reply actions
And snides at Chris Mullin too.
"Everybody loves Basketball-Reference.com. Except the Kobe fans".- DubsFan408
by GovernorStephCurry on Aug 10, 2010 1:37 PM PDT up reply actions
Maybe, I don’t know Atma, and I guess one of my problems is he rarely even responds/acknowledges that there’s another viewpoint. Since he doesn’t take part in the discussion, I have no idea if that’s what he’s doing….
by Missing Barry on Aug 10, 2010 2:12 PM PDT up reply actions
monta ellis hate
What’s with all the hate on monta ellis???I don’t know why people on gs of mind want to trade him so bad…please explain
by fillmoe mike on Aug 10, 2010 8:11 AM PDT via mobile reply actions
Because scoring efficiency, defense, and turnovers matter. We’re holding out hope he goes back to the player he used to be, but if he doesn’t, he doesn’t help his team win (see: 2009-2010 season).
by Missing Barry on Aug 10, 2010 8:15 AM PDT up reply actions
Haha, man.
Why is Biedrins talking about his body like he’s T-Mac? I respect a guy who’s being honest about what his body can and can’t do, but seriously? Enough of the woe is me, especially from a player who has 1/10th the achievements…
by dj fuzzylogic on Aug 10, 2010 8:50 AM PDT reply actions 2 recs
Seriously, what a jerk for having other interests in life, wanting to be able to walk for the rest of his life, and being satisfied with $45M in career earnings. It’s not like he was even talking about the present, he was talking about the future long after his current deal expires. Who cares?
by Missing Barry on Aug 10, 2010 8:58 AM PDT up reply actions
Seriously, what a jerk
It shows you a guy’s heart. If everything was fine, then it wouldnt matter much, but it’s not.
I dont want a guy out there who wont dive for a lose ball, bang with a big, or do all the other plays necessary because he is thinking about the good life at age 45. Im not saying that will FOR SURE be the case, but it can easily be percieved that way.
I’d rather have a crazy, halftime drinking, fan fighting, Kobe loving defensive specialist who wants to win and puts his heart and everything out there every night, then a weak, timid, insecure who is afraid to go to the line, yet doesnt seem to do much about improving, and is eyeing that $45M at age 45.
by WestCoastWarrior on Aug 10, 2010 9:07 AM PDT up reply actions 1 recs
Well, in that case, I’ll just point out that Biedrins tends to do the things we give “hustle guys” credit for doing – he’s an excellent rebounder, he’s among the leaders in C’s in getting steals, puts up a solid number of blocks for a C (he’s pretty close to average), as well as gets a ton of hustle points (we all crticize his lack of offense yet he still scores at an above average rate for a C – because he gets putbacks and hustle points)….I mean, in terms of stuff we can quantify from the box score, Biedrins has all the traits of a guy that IS a hustle player. Judge the player, don’t read too much into the very, very small amount we know about him as a person.
by Missing Barry on Aug 10, 2010 9:14 AM PDT up reply actions
I didnt know he was a league leader at the C for steals, how many does he average for us? I also didnt know that he is below average at blocks, and that is a good thing. And I also didnt know that he scores “a ton” of points – hustle or not.
by WestCoastWarrior on Aug 10, 2010 9:21 AM PDT up reply actions
so if he doesnt get any better than last season
are you happy with him as our current and future starting center?
by WestCoastWarrior on Aug 10, 2010 9:22 AM PDT up reply actions
Well, I’m assuming he plays like he did in his last two full seasons (2007-2008 and 2008-2009). Last year was an injury/sample size fluke I beileve. if he returns to form, as I expect him to, I am quite pleased with him as our curernt and future starting C. Towards the end of last season, I went through how much a bunch of the big men throughout the NBA make. My conclusion was useful big men are expensive. Biedrins is no star, but at $9M fixed (most NBA contracts escalate quite a bit from year to year), I think he’s very affordable and a very good value. He’s not a franchise player, but he’s a solid piece that can be the 3rd-4th best player on a pretty good team, depending on how good the top 2-3 guys are.
by Missing Barry on Aug 10, 2010 9:28 AM PDT up reply actions 2 recs
Why do you want to judge a player by what he does on the floor -
- when you can judge him by a translated interview in which you don’t even know the wording of the questions he was asked?
:)
interview + what he did on the floor + percieved attitude =
judgement. (Which is fluid and which could change again)
:)
by WestCoastWarrior on Aug 10, 2010 9:43 AM PDT up reply actions
I don't think there is anything wrong with
being satisfied with $45 million in career earnings. Heck, I’d be glad if I could even amass $1million dollars in my whole lifetime.
But I’m pretty disturbed that Biedrins, so young at that, is stressin’ about his health so early. Injuries are real and I am aware of that. I’m super sad by all the stories of former football players who’s bodies are more david than goliath (tho not as crafty as david post-nfl).
But, I feel that his comment at this point in time just shows a lack of heart. His production on the court, in my opinion, is reflective of my perception of his lack of heart on the court. As one reader thinks, Biedrins improvements are wonderful given how raw he is, described by his poor hand eye coordination and then some. Um, isn’t that a red flag that you’re hiring a dude that has severe limitations in all aspects of his game? Anyway, he’s quietly done his job, which I think is great. But I just expected more out of a 24 year old. And I feel that we all should?
by brian chung on Aug 10, 2010 9:10 AM PDT up reply actions 1 recs
His production on the court, in my opinion, is reflective of my perception of his lack of heart on the court.
As I lay out above, I don’t see how his production shows a lack of heart at all. Rasheed Wallace’s production shows a lack of heart. Biedrins production is the exact opposite of that.
Personally I think you’re reading way too much into an interview, forming a conclusion, and then assuming his play backs that conclusion up. I don’t see how it does.
But I just expected more out of a 24 year old. And I feel that we all should?
I mean, what do you expect? I expect a solid starting C, and that’s what Biedrins is, so I’m satisfied. I have no idea what your expectations are, though.
by Missing Barry on Aug 10, 2010 9:18 AM PDT up reply actions
I don't know about Sheed lack of heart.
He was a pretty intense player, but his energy was often misguided to shooting 3’s and picking up Technical fouls. Unless it’s game 7 of the finals against his least favorite team.
Damn, I love Sheed, but it was time for him to retire.
"Everybody loves Basketball-Reference.com. Except the Kobe fans".- DubsFan408
by GovernorStephCurry on Aug 10, 2010 11:13 AM PDT up reply actions
The only time Sheed puts any effort into basketball is on ball D. That’s always been his one strength. Other than that….he’s too soft to play down low on offense, doesn’t hustle for rebounds, generally stands around looking to shoot 3’s….meh. No heart on that guy, biggest waste of talent I’ve ever seen.
by Missing Barry on Aug 10, 2010 11:19 AM PDT up reply actions
I think you are mistaking heart and work ethic. He has heart, and in big games was busting his arse, but he was lazy in 80% of the games chucking up 3’s. All i’m saying is I re-watched Game7 of the finals on NBAtv, and Sheed was going crazy, and playing as hard as he could.
Yeah his rebounding sucks, his 3’s usually suck, but his post defense was still elite until his retirement.
"Everybody loves Basketball-Reference.com. Except the Kobe fans".- DubsFan408
by GovernorStephCurry on Aug 10, 2010 11:30 AM PDT up reply actions
I know what you mean by heart, and I have a very different take on it. I don’t think Sheed hustles much on the court, and is a pretty lazy player most of the time. He and Davis basically lost game 7 for the Celtics by not being able to get a rebound. With Sheed’s height, length, strength and athleticism, there’s really no excuse for that other than laziness – and it’s something he’s done consistently throughout his whole career.
But yes, he’s always been a very good on ball defender, and not just in the post, either.
When you see stretches where he really does play hard, it just makes you wonder what could have been….
by Missing Barry on Aug 10, 2010 11:53 AM PDT up reply actions
I'll agree on that.
"Everybody loves Basketball-Reference.com. Except the Kobe fans".- DubsFan408
by GovernorStephCurry on Aug 10, 2010 12:28 PM PDT up reply actions
With Sheed’s height, length, strength and athleticism, there’s really no excuse for that other than laziness –
Yes there is, guys have different talents for different parts of the game. Athleticism and skill in one doesn’t automatically mean a guy has skill in another area. Desire and hustle alone can’t make a player into something he is not. Every ball bounces it’s own way so a good rebounder has to have a knack for figuring it out and getting to the right spot ahead of the other guys. Playing great man defense doesn’t take the same knack as rebounding or shooting or ballhandling. The guys who excel at multiple skills become the true greats of the game. AnthonyMore-O can probably shoot 3’s better than MJ but he can’t do the other stuff as good.
Lights please, lights please, turn off the lights.
by Skeptic con Urquell on Aug 10, 2010 5:08 PM PDT up reply actions
We replaced the Monta and Beans future
for the Curry and Lee future, and I think we’re much better for it.
We can chat and talk and argue all day, but the truth is last season sucked with all the injuries, and silly, silly attempts by Nelson or whoever to make Steph Jackson and Monta a decision making, team leading point guard and point forward. The team could not find an identity until late in the season, and even then it was with 6-7 D-league/rookies.
I think it did reveal the character of some people though.
But our direction (while not 100%), is much more clear this upcoming year and we need to see how these two or three pieces adjust (Beans, Monta, Wright).
Next year they either produce or they will be as done with the Warriors as ’Ol Nellie.
by WestCoastWarrior on Aug 10, 2010 9:01 AM PDT reply actions
Mostly agree
but here’ s the thing. It’s not a Curry-Lee vs Monta-AB team thing at all. It’s AB-Monta-Steph-dLee-dWright.-Reggie. Shortly after we got Lee and Wright, I recall someone (Ronaldinho?) saying his biggest fear of the acquisitions might make us think it was ok to keep Monta. I’m not sure if he was right that we should fear it, but Monta makes a whole lot more sense in this lineup than he did before.
Baseball is a chamber orchestra. Football is a marching band. Basketball is a modern quintet. jazz, rock, hiphop, pop/ all about the beat./ still my revolution not/ til you dance through it.
I'd rather have more defense.
and better efficiency.
"Everybody loves Basketball-Reference.com. Except the Kobe fans".- DubsFan408
by GovernorStephCurry on Aug 11, 2010 12:36 AM PDT up reply actions
Good point
I keep Monta for sure until the right combination of talent, height, defensive, etc. comes along in a trade or pickup for him. What if Reggie just dominates this year? lol. That would give us a lot more freedom in our trades. But the Beans-Monta combo. could be traded when it used to be untouchable. The Curry-Lee express is the new untouchable.
by WestCoastWarrior on Aug 12, 2010 12:27 PM PDT up reply actions
There's a lot of good dicussion in here
about nothing. I’m glad I contributed my nothing :)
Confident Marco Belinelli supporter
Ode to Tim Kawakami
Same old rehashed topics we’ve been over a thousand times…..
by Missing Barry on Aug 10, 2010 9:32 AM PDT up reply actions
But since Atma keeps posting these views over and over
We have these discussions over and over.
"Everybody loves Basketball-Reference.com. Except the Kobe fans".- DubsFan408
by GovernorStephCurry on Aug 10, 2010 11:14 AM PDT up reply actions
Haha
At least it’s about the Warriors instead of Kobe.
Golden State Warriors '10-'11 Season: The Return of ^^^^
yeah, its all just blah blah blah until the season starts
Then we’ll just see how everyone does.
by WestCoastWarrior on Aug 10, 2010 9:48 AM PDT reply actions
What do you mean the player he used to be???did u see monta ellis last year….that was prolly his best year to date….you guys are tripping……obviously u don’t see the talent in the 25 year old ellis…….keep in mind that monta came straight out of high school balling…not only that he’s one of the quickest/toughest players in the league….trade him if you want to…but when he leaves I don’t wanna see u complaining about who we get in return
by fillmoe mike on Aug 10, 2010 10:02 AM PDT via mobile reply actions
that was prolly his best year to date
Turnovers, scoring efficiency, and rebounding matter. 2007-2008 was his best year. This past season Monta played losing basketball.
obviously u don’t see the talent in the 25 year old ellis
He has the same talent he did when he was 22 and a good player, so yes, I see that talent. I also saw him misuse that talent by consistently trying to do more than he was capable of, resulting in a lot of turnovers an inefficient scoring.
keep in mind that monta came straight out of high school balling
Keep in mind Monta came into the league at 20 years old.
by Missing Barry on Aug 10, 2010 10:08 AM PDT up reply actions
I meant defense instead of rebounding, but rebounding matters, too.
by Missing Barry on Aug 10, 2010 10:08 AM PDT up reply actions
His rebounding was terrible the past season.
"Everybody loves Basketball-Reference.com. Except the Kobe fans".- DubsFan408
by GovernorStephCurry on Aug 10, 2010 11:14 AM PDT up reply actions
Keep in mind Monta came into the league at 20 years old.
LOL, oh brother.
Confident Marco Belinelli supporter
Ode to Tim Kawakami
by Doctor Kajita on Aug 10, 2010 10:17 AM PDT up reply actions
Monta was actually 19 when he was drafted
heh, guess he started school later than most kids :P
;-P
by Badly Browned on Aug 10, 2010 10:52 AM PDT up reply actions
Yeah he turned 20 by the start of the NBA season…
by Missing Barry on Aug 10, 2010 11:06 AM PDT up reply actions
Yeah, not quite sure what Kajita was getting at either.
;-P
by Badly Browned on Aug 10, 2010 11:09 AM PDT up reply actions
Sorry guys
I thought you were referring to the fact that Monta was drafted out of high school at the age of 20. Usually high schoolers are 17 or 18 when they graduate, so I thought you were implying something about Monta’s academics or lack thereof.
Confident Marco Belinelli supporter
Ode to Tim Kawakami
by Doctor Kajita on Aug 10, 2010 11:14 AM PDT up reply actions
My friends cousins lived in the same town as Monta.
They said he was held back once or twice.
"Everybody loves Basketball-Reference.com. Except the Kobe fans".- DubsFan408
by GovernorStephCurry on Aug 10, 2010 11:17 AM PDT up reply actions
Did Monta even get his hs diploma?
Confident Marco Belinelli supporter
Ode to Tim Kawakami
by Doctor Kajita on Aug 10, 2010 11:18 AM PDT up reply actions
Oh yeah, but he was held back in middle school once or twice.
"Everybody loves Basketball-Reference.com. Except the Kobe fans".- DubsFan408
by GovernorStephCurry on Aug 10, 2010 11:31 AM PDT up reply actions
Ha, I have always wondered about that….
by Missing Barry on Aug 10, 2010 11:19 AM PDT up reply actions
AB1
Spewing his utter nonsense again. Ladies and gentlemen, may I present to you the main reason why GSoM has lost major credibility? Until AB1 makes at least some effort to be objective, all of his posts can be glossed over and laughed at.
by UncleCliffy on Aug 10, 2010 1:07 PM PDT reply actions 1 recs
wait a test run???
isn’t Nelson going to retire after this year?
"You should never underestimate the predictability of stupidity."
I can't believe
the shameless bashing of Monta Ellis on the headline of this fanshot. I’m genuinely agassed at how someone who runs a Warriors blog could spew such vitriol at ME8. To the point that Ellis could even be taunted for his moped accident… and then there’s the implication that Ellis is some kind of gross underachiever without Don Nelson in the fold… I just can’t believe this is coming from Atma…
Also, I was happy when J Rich, B. Diddy, Crawford, Harrington, and Jax left, because it meant that a greater emphasis was being placed on Ellis’ role within the future of the organization’s plans. And I continue to hope and believe that Ellis will be supported as a central building block of the franchise’s future for the next 10 years. He and Andris both.
irony intended or not?
were you attempting to spell ‘aghast’ but came up with flatulence by accident? Do you wish us to take your comments in earnest, or were you ‘passing wind’?
Music is the Healing Force of the Universe (a.ayler)
by the.monk on Aug 10, 2010 2:26 PM PDT up reply actions 2 recs
Also, I was happy when J Rich, B. Diddy, Crawford, Harrington, and Jax left, because it meant that a greater emphasis was being placed on Ellis’ role within the future of the organization’s plans. And I continue to hope and believe that Ellis will be supp
Haha, the AntiAtma has descended. All you followers queue up at the motorhome for your trip to dreamland.
Lights please, lights please, turn off the lights.
by Skeptic con Urquell on Aug 10, 2010 5:14 PM PDT up reply actions
It's worth noting...
…that the crux of this front-post jab seems to be that trading Richardson destroyed We Believe. Besides the fact that this downplays the contributions of the other members of the team (some of whom I’d certainly think of as more pertinent) ,We Believe died the moment we lost to Utah. When you catch lightning in a bottle, it goes quick. You can’t crack the lid, then manage to slap it back on quick enough to keep using it.
We Believe died the moment we lost to Utah.
so you’re say that after losing to balto in 71 the A’s shoulda just run off Bando, Campy, or Rudi and forgot about those three world series wins?
Lights please, lights please, turn off the lights.
by Skeptic con Urquell on Aug 10, 2010 9:34 PM PDT reply actions
Hey i like the reply because you know we can all tell who you're trolling amongst these 360 comments....
"Everybody loves Basketball-Reference.com. Except the Kobe fans".- DubsFan408
by GovernorStephCurry on Aug 10, 2010 9:46 PM PDT up reply actions
Hey i like the reply because you know we can all tell who you're trolling amongst these 360 comments....
you should like it because it shows how a winning team is built, keep the good and fix the rest.
Lights please, lights please, turn off the lights.
by Skeptic con Urquell on Aug 10, 2010 10:00 PM PDT up reply actions
if you wish to cite a historical reference
don’t skimp on the details. Those dominant A’s worked for depressed salaries—Flood vs. Kuhn was still going through the court houses, with the Messersmith/McNally case finally cracking the reserve clause in ‘75 after Flood’s career was terminated. If one of those A’s had an extravagant contract like Richardson’s, he’d surely have been shipped off.
Music is the Healing Force of the Universe (a.ayler)
by the.monk on Aug 11, 2010 2:25 AM PDT up reply actions 2 recs
if you wish to cite a historical reference don’t skimp on the details.
it’s not the details, it’s the basic concept of building a winner. Playoffs first then keep the best parts and go further next year. It works in all sports and all salary cap modes, if you wanna win you gotta spend. Just look at the lakers or other perennial winners, they keep the good guys and build to win. When they get rid of the good guys they decline. It’s not that hard a concept to grasp if you look at it from a structural perspective, playoff experience counts more than cheapness and potential.
Lights please, lights please, turn off the lights.
by Skeptic con Urquell on Aug 11, 2010 10:14 AM PDT up reply actions
playoff experience counts
I’d like to see evidence supporting this.
Just look at the lakers or other perennial winners, they keep the good guys and build to win. When they get rid of the good guys they decline
And what happens when the good guys stop being good…? You go from 61 wins and one poorly reffed game/BS bounce to Robert Horry away from winning a championship, to 59 wins and a Western Conference semifinals loss to 55 wins and a Western Conference semifinals loss to 50 wins and a first round loss to 44 wins and a first round loss to 4 straights years of missing the playoffs and a complete rebuilding of the roster. Our problem was when we constructed “We Believe”, we were already at the stage the 04-05 Kings were at. Looks like our rebuilding is going at a faster pace than theirs. Funny how that works when you plan for the future…..
by Missing Barry on Aug 11, 2010 10:23 AM PDT up reply actions 3 recs
And what happens when the good guys stop being good…?
Then by definition you wouldn’t keep them. Our “good guys” in 07 had only played about a month together and were theoretically far from peaking. They had just knocked off the highest seed in the first round and played pretty good against the Jazz. We saw what we needed to improve but failed to follow thru with it, instead drafting a skinny rookie that we din’t need and shipping off one of our most experienced athletic players. Not the typical move of a winner.
Lights please, lights please, turn off the lights.
by Skeptic con Urquell on Aug 11, 2010 3:17 PM PDT up reply actions
Not the typical move of a winner.
If we’re going to get into this kind of theoretical “I believe it must be so so it must be so!” kinda talk, I’ll just say….I strongly believe the late, great Bill Walsh would disagree with you right now. “It’s better to trade a player a year too early than a year too late”…..
Or something about some left handed athletic QB replacing some other QB, I forget their names. I wonder how that panned out? I think the moral is if you have a replacement ready to go, it can work out?
But yeah, there’s definitely a typical winners blueprint! And we definitely did the opposite of it!
by Missing Barry on Aug 11, 2010 3:29 PM PDT up reply actions
It's also worth pointing out that JRich had a pretty bad year on the "We Believe" team, by his standards.
His TS% was lower than it’s been since, or than it was in the two years prior. He also shot a lot less.
At the time, a lot of us felt he might be on the inevitable downslope of his career. We were proved wrong on that point, but it’s worth pointing out: He’s gotten so much better since then that perhaps he was just a bad fit on that team.
Wins produced actually has him super productive for the warriors
during that second half
Goal: 8 seed!
by dso on Aug 11, 2010 4:12 PM PDT up reply actions 1 recs
Not to mention that he was just coming off knee surgery
He’d come back just enough to show that he was able to play sufficiently well again. He had not come back “to form” AND he was aging, AND he was vastly overpaid even if he did ever return to form.
Trust me, learning english isn’t a waste of time. It is actually sort of useful.
-randolphforpresident
by Dubs fan in Boston on Aug 11, 2010 4:31 PM PDT up reply actions
We were proved wrong on that point
Well, as nice as JRich was last year, let’s keep in mind he’s playing with Nash….
by Missing Barry on Aug 12, 2010 7:30 AM PDT up reply actions
Or something about some left handed athletic QB replacing some other QB, I forget their names.
but they waited till they won their rings and din’t trade him immediately after their first playoff trip.
We had the boys all primed and ready to go further next year and we never even got to see what was possible.
Lights please, lights please, turn off the lights.
by Skeptic con Urquell on Aug 11, 2010 10:19 PM PDT up reply actions
I think he’s actually talking about basketball and not baseball, two very, very different sports with hugely different levels of random variation involved. In basketball, when you don’t have any big men except Biedrins, you’re not a championship contender. There’s also this pesky thing called a salary cap that prevents you from going out and just acquiring one because you’re good and feel it’s worth the money….
by Missing Barry on Aug 11, 2010 8:01 AM PDT up reply actions
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