The Heat may trade Chris Bosh this offseason...

Your opinion matters, but you should really check it when almost every professional in the league is saying differently.

Where are all of these professionals, exactly? The only trade rumor I’ve heard involving Monta was a crappy OJ Mayo and a Hasheem Thabeet that appears to have little to no trade value. Also keep in mind that these same “professionals” you’re talking about have a demonstrated bias for something Monta excels at….

If you hadn’t noticed when teams play the warriors, the defenses are centered around stopping Monta. Naturally, this causes his shooting percentage to go down while other players shooting percentage to go up.

Sure, if he shoots the ball. You know he does have the option to pass, right? Check out the scoring efficiency of guys like Chris Paul, Lebron James, Steve Nash, Wade….there are plenty of guys that manage to keep their efficiency up. It’s not really a valid defense. I’m honestly not convinced that the defenses really center around stopping Monta, either – they collapse on a known slasher who doesn’t pass often, sure, but that’s just typical basketball defense.

However, he is a terrible defender – even worse than Monta.

And yet Monta has a worse +/- on D….

He picks up terrible fouls and can’t stay on the court. His one handed passes constantly cause turnovers. He gets taken out because he is such a matchup problem defensively

The one handed passes are frustrating, no doubt, but let’s at least realize he turns it over at a similar rate as Monta does. 3.3 fouls per 36 also don’t suggest he should be as limited as he is. And like I said, our defense doesn’t get much better when Steph is taken out of the game, however, it does get much better when Monta is taken out….

Regardless, who do I trust when it comes to basketball: People actually involved in professional basketball, or people who hyper-focus on efficiency and statistics? Exactly.

Who you trust is irrelevant to anything other than the indication that you are ready to trust those who support your prejudices, false as they may be.

Of course his +/- stats are going to be atrocious.

None of what you just said explains this. Just so we’re clear: +/- stats are a net +/-. So if the team is a 10 team (crappy team), a players +/ is how the team does, relative to that 10, when he is on and off the court. If the team is a -5 team when he’s on and -15 when he’s off, he gets a +10 +/.

To give you a real life example, back in 05-6, when KG was on the TWolves (a team somewhat similar to where we are right now), the team was .3 points per 100 possessions better than opponents with KG in the game. They were 10.5 points per 100 possessions worse than opponents with KG on the bench. So his +/- was +10.9. The next year they were .2 points per 100 possessions worse with KG on the court than opponents. They were 14.8 points per 100 possessions worse with KG on the bench than opponents. +14.5 +/- for KG (rounding error is why it’s 14.5 not 14.6). This is because KG was really, really freaking good. His team did much better when he played then when he was on the bench, as you’d expect of a really freaking good player. He played a lot of minutes. His team sucked. These are not relevant factors here.

Last year, when Monta Ellis played, we were 7.31 points worse than opponents. When he was on the bench, we were actually quite a bit better than our opponents – 4.21 points better than them. That put him dead last in the entire NBA in +/-. This year, we’re 4.04 points worse than opponents when he plays. We’re 3.90 points better than them when he doesn’t play. That puts him 7th worst in the entire NBA (Biedrins is 2nd worst, by the way). I’m still waiting for an explanation why we play so much better when Monta is not in the game if he’s such a good player?

You guys need to learn how to read:

I was responding to the comment "There is no downgrade at SG."

I know how to read. I especially know that the “by” followed by a name indicates who made a post. It isn’t clear that you know the same.

None of those statements are non-sequiturs and all of them are responding to the previous post.

Your reply was to my post. Do you mean it was a reply to a post previous to mine?

Given that I never made that statement that Monta was the worst SG in the league, it’s peculiar that you put it in a response to me. It’s a non-sequitur in relation to anything I posted. Pretending that it was relevant in reply to something I posted won’t work. There’s a clear record of who posted what. I suggest you pay attention to it and stop pretending.

I don’t like getting into this notion of “best”, because it’s not a very clear term. I don’t know what “best” means. What I care about is what impact a player has on helping us win games, and that’s where the problem with Monta comes in. He’s helped us lose more games than he’s helped us win.

Actually I think what GSC is saying is that Reggie can replace Monta, rather than Monta is the worst SG in the league.

"There is no downgrade at SG."

That is a statement that directly implies you think he is the worst shooting guard in the league

No it doesn’t.

Maybe you don’t think that’s what you’re doing, but it is.

For the record, it’s not. I am just saying because they have best point differential, it doesn’t mean they are the best team or the most likely to win the championship. You can say what you want, but I don’t think they are. They obviously aren’t bad, they are in elite company, but that’s not what we are discussing.

So data suggests they have a slightly higher probability to win a title. I don’t buy it. It’s not a fact, it’s a theory. A theory that proclaims them to have a 5% larger chance or whatever. A theory you seem to hold as gospel. By all means, I’m not going to stop you, but it’s not stupid to question it or be skeptical.

LeBron was highly successful in several games against Boston last year. (Remember, you’re the one who brought last year’s results against Boston into the equation.) He had two bad games against Boston, in one of which he seemed to be mentally out of the game.

And if you read what I said clearer, I said Miami isn’t good enough to beat them. Miami is 5 men. For it to happen Lebron and Wade (and Bosh) would need to perform at super human levels, beyond even there best. That’s not a bet I like to happen 4 times in a 7 game series.

and you never answered my question:

Why is your handle, named after perhaps the most diametrically opposed player to your ‘theories’ on sport?

Ronaldinho is more poisonous than Stephen MArbury to a team.

If any numbers predicted anything with 100% accuracy, somebody would get very very rich.

And sports books would shut down rapidly, when the element of uncertainty fell away.

And thanks for always being civil and not condescending as if you have all the answers.

So I didn’t mean to say MIAMI WONT WIN END OF STORY. But I really have doubts, and if I was a gambling man, my money’s on no. Not in 2010-11.

On a sidenote, I don’t blame this on Bosh. He’s underachieved but he has nothing to do with fact Joel Anthony is not Kendrick Perkins (which they tried to proclaim him becoming). Bosh has nothing to do with fact they run the worst point guard rotation in basketball. They are playing 3 v. 5 every night, which is why i don’t think they can beat elite teams.

So either Wade and Lebron need to be even more super than they already are or they need to catch some real fire (a la SF giants).