MGB8 wrote:MikeDC wrote:Chi town wrote:You are also projecting that Coby and Zach can’t improve. I think they both can. Neither has really had the opportunity. Coby fixed DDRs failure against the Hornets and Zach did against the rockets.
I’d bet on Coby and Zach being better moving FWD more than an aging DDR that can’t be rewarded for flops or hunting fouls.
I posted their numbers earlier in the thread
To summarize:
PNR Ball Handling
23 DDR 9.4 Possessions, 1.06 PPP (89.2% percentile)
23 Zach 8.1 Possessions, 0.93 PPP (65.8% percentile)
23 Coby 1.7 Possessions, 0.89 PPP (52.9% percentile)
24 DDR 7.1 Possessions, 1.04 PPP (85.6% percentile)
24 Zach 6.6 Possessions, 0.94 PPP (68.1% percentile)
24 Coby 5.6 Possessions, 0.85 PPP (49.1% percentile)
First, I don't see much evidence that DeMar is appreciably falling off. His numbers are stable. Further, if you look it up, he's getting FTs on 18% of his PnR possessions. He got 14% last year and 15% the year before that.
Second, I don't think it's realistic to expect guys to improve much in these areas, especially when, like Zach, you're almost 29. If you go to NBA.com and flip through year by year, these guys are pretty much the same from year to year. Coby might get a bit better, but he's not going to be elite at it. He's, like Zach, going to be a secondary guy. Zach's a good secondary guy, but if he's your best guy, you're gonna have problems.
The number of guys who can consistently get over about 1.00 PPP on a decent number of possessions is vanishingly small. Like 10 per year, and the guys who are ~ 1.05 level like DeRozan are in the upper half of that.
On pure ISOs, DDR is getting .96 PPP per nba.com. Vuc is the best player on the Bulls at 1.2 ppp…. Better than DDR in the PnR…. So do we go to that?
There are limits to what these things tell you. Yes, as PnR ball handler DDR is at 1.04 PPP… which while good-ish, isn’t great.
It's very good.
Your criticisms of the stat come from taking out information that I left in.
1. Sample size. Multiple years of data
2. Possessions. Multiple iterations of the play type.
The whole purpose of statistics is to assemble a large set of data. Pulling out an outlier and pointing to it and saying it "invalidates" the statistic is the exact opposite of what statistics is all about.
Occasionally, there's a day where it's 65 and sunny in January. But mostly it's not, and pointing to that day when it was 65 doesn't mean temperature is an "invalid statistic" or even that the statement that "it's cold in January" is on the whole incorrect.
Examples:
Quickly gets 1.18 on decent volume (within 3% of DDRs usage).
In fact, Quickley only does 4.3 possessions per game, which is less than half of DDR. Last year he was at 0.99 on 4.1. Before that, 0.96 on 4.0. That is, when you expand the sample, Quickley runs this type of play much less and despite one outlier partial season, has not been up there at all.
Rozier 1.15 on slightltly greater usage.
Yep, over 1/3 of a season. If you go back and look at last year though, his PPP was 0.84. Oof. And it was 0.84 in the year prior too.
In short, these are obvious outliers. One warm day in January vs. years and years worth of cold days in January, which is what DeRozan's numbers represent.
Hali
Well, OK, everyone would like to have Haliburton. He's an All-NBA level player. That underscores the point.
and Tyus Jones
... does not underscore the point, because again, he only runs PnR less than half as many times a game than Haliburton (or DeMar).
(on an awful team, which says something about whether this stat really translates) get 1.14 PPP on even greater usage.
Actually, this very much explains why, despite having the same PPP, Tyus Jones is on a bad team. I assume that when you say "usage" you are referring to the Freq % column, which Haliburton and Jones are nearly the same there. But you are, respectfully, making a big error. This is the Frequency % of the Player's PnR possessions vs their total possessions. Their actual possessions per game is the relevant number for understanding the stat, and it's the next column to the left.
Haliburton 9.4 per game
Jones 4.4 per game
That explains how the stat "translates". It's a rate statistic. To translate, you need to pair it up to how much guys do it. Great PnR players like Haliburton and DeRozan can maintain a high PPP even while doing it an order of magnitude more per game over an order of magnitude more games.
There's also the outlier problem on the season too. Go back to last year and the year before and Haliburton was at 1.04 and 0.99. Good and getting better on high usage. Jones was at 0.87 and 0.82. Awful on less than half the usage.
TJ McCConnell 1.09 on even greater usage (% wise, but also meaningful total volume, too).
Not usage. That's a bigger proportion of what TJ does, but he still does it like half as much as Haliburton. This makes sense. TJ is actually a great PnR guy. That's not outlier (though 1.09 is way higher than he's ever been in prior years... doesn't look like he's ever been above 1.0) It's just not the whole story. TJ is a terrible shooter and he's 6'1". I'd still be happy to have him.
But Steph Curry only gets .91 PPP on PnR as the ball handler per these stats… which, even as not great as the Warriors have no been, starts suggesting that there are issues with the stat - how it’s input and what is counterproductive vs not. Because Steph Curry is better in the PnR than DDR.
But... this (Curry is better in PnR than DDR) is exactly what the stat says when you don't just limit yourself to looking at this year.
Curry's PnR numbers going back year by year 0.91, 1.14, 1.02, 1.13.
Factor in the fact that Curry is an obviously better shooter and some of his plays probably get classified differently, and I don't see how your complaint is accurate. The stat, taken as a whole, indicates exactly what you would think; Curry is better.
Then you look a little more and see Maxey’s .9 in such circumstances… and Darius Garland’s .88… and Anthony Edwards’ 0.94… and Kyrie Irving’s .96, and Banchero’s .79, Franz Wagner’s .89, Jimmy Butler’s .79,Tatum and James’ both at .86…
None of that is surprising... running a PnR isn't the only circumstance in the game. It's just the predominant one. Like, Maxey is good player, but his value comes from being pretty good in the PnR but being a good shooter. He's more analogous to Coby.
But DDR is that much better to give to in the P&R than Lebron? Or Steph? Or Maxey? Or Irving or Jimmy.
This year? Maybe in the regular season. Lebron is 38. Jimmy gives 0 **** and is just trying to make it to the playoffs. Steph looks like he's really falling off. If I had to run a PnR, yeah, I'd give it to DeMar. If I were just going to say, "here's the ball, go get a bucket" I'd give it to Steph. Maxey is a Coby like player. He's not necessarily the guy you want taking the last shot.
I submit that the stat has been effectively invalidated as telling you much of anything (other than, within team and similar usage in similar spots, it likely signals who is better than who at that particular task with the existing play decisions and lineups).
Respectfully, this is just because you took out two key elements that I used in my initial post. When you add the sample size factors back in, every seeming problem with the stat you raised is given an obvious answer.