Bosh/Bargs By The Numbers

[lemondrop]

Calderon-Parker-Moon-Bargnani-Bosh in 208 minutes have OFF: 1.09 DEF: 1.16
Calderon-Parker-Moon-Bosh-O'Neal in 142 minutes have OFF: 0.98 DEF: 0.96

Parker-Moon-Graham-Bargnani-Bosh have OFF 1.17 DEF 0.94

- Less minutes but without Jose

Calderon-Parker-Graham-Bargnani-Bosh have OFF 1.20 DEF .92 10-4 record

- Less minutes but without Moon

Calderon-Kapono-Moon-Bosh-O'Neal have OFF 1.08 DEF 1.06

- Second most minutes without Parker, notice how Kapono alone it goes from .96 to 1.06

Solomon-Parker-Moon-Bargnani-Bosh have OFF 1.07 DEF 1.03

- No Jose


Change it here, change it there plug in this guy here or there and it all changes up. You can basically post any combo you want and make an arguement for yourself or you could argue the time of lineup being used like schedule strength, overall team mental state, coaching changes, system changes, defensive system changes, you name it all play a role.

I happen to agree there is a problem with our frontcourt defense but I also happen to believe based on what I see on the court with my eyes that Bargnani is not the problem defensively and is far from developed. As bad as I think Bosh is defensively I don't think he is the major problem defensively either. Our wings, our pg's , our system changes on both ends, coaching changes, team mental state month by month, schedule month by month, having a disaster for a defensive pg, kapono here and there, Moon at times, Parker all these guys have struggled so much defensively this year its hard for me to sit here and follow you with your selective stats to suggest the main problem is upfront or we will never get anywhere with Bargnani as a center and he he can never improve even further being 23 years old.

zzzz

[gangstaff]

You cannot possibly make a judgment on this frontcourt without looking at the other three players on the floor. And you cannot make an educated judgment without knowing Bosh's and Bargnani's ceiling, especially the latter.

Let's put it this way. If you put Andre Iguodala or Danny Granger on the court with Bosh and Bargnani instead of Jason Kapono, would we win more games? If we put a real defensive stopper on the wing instead of Jason Kapono, would our interior defensive presence be stronger?

The whole premise of the thread is flawed when removed from the context of the entire lineup on the floor because we know that the 4 and 5 are our most talented positions now, not the least talented.

And I don't care how hard the OP worked on his premise. A flawed argument is still a flawed argument even if he burned the midnight oil to come up with his flawed argument.

Couple questions:

a) How do we land an AI or Bowen type without giving up one of the core
b) What do you think Bargs ceiling is and what will he improve on

Thanks.

[MEDIC]

I think you are looking at the wrong way. You think our defense is bad because of our backcourt and other players not named Bosh/Bargs are horrible defenders. Thus you replace them and all of sudden our defense improves. IMO defense starts with your big men. You can put Artest/Bowen on the wings and our defense will only marginally improve. You put a good defensive big men in and that will have greater effect on your defense.

It's actually you that has this backwards. If you have poor perimeter defenders, you think somehow a good defensive C is just going to bail everybody else out without fouling out of the game?

1. Centers connot defend perimeter jumpshots.
2. The closer a player gets to the bucket, the more liklihood they will ge fouled or score.
3. FG% gets higher the closer you get to the basket. If you don't have perimeter players that can keep people away from the basket, they can get a higher % shot anytime they want.
4. In any sport, the closer a player gets to the goal, the better chance they have of scoring. Soccer, Hockey, Football, etc........basketball is no different.
5. We had one of the better defensive C's in the league, & guess what.....our D still sucked. Why do you think that is?

I don't know what will happen if you put those players in and neither do you. I can tell that you when we remove Bargs from the equation our defense DRAMATICALLY improves.

Calderon-Parker-Moon-Bargnani-Bosh in 208 minutes have OFF: 1.09 DEF: 1.16
Calderon-Parker-Moon-Bosh-O'Neal in 142 minutes have OFF: 0.98 DEF: 0.96

That is difference of nearly 10PPG per game! All I did was remove Bargs and kept everybody else the same. Now if we did the same with Bosh and kept Bargs in the lineup, I'm not sure how much our defense would improve. But I doubt it would be any worse then when they played together.

You should have a real close look at that stat (removing Bosh instead of Bargnani). If you don't, pointing to Bargnani has 0 merit. Nobody is going to argue that Bargnani is a better defender than JO. JO has years of experience on him & is known for his defence. I would bet that Bargnani is as good as JO was at the same age.

I am not sure why you are trying to make this Bosh/ JO tandem look like it was a match made in heaven. JO & Bosh did not look good on the floor together. To be honest with you, I thought JO & Bargnani had better chemistry.

I'm glad you brought that up because it actually proves my point. Detriot is like 6-1 when they don't play with RIP but AI. They are like 3-0 when they don't play with Stuckey but AI/RiP. They are like 5-2 when they play WITHOUT AI but Stuckey/RIP. I think they have losing record with AI/Stuckey/RIP.

What does that tell you? Forcing your team to play with your two identical players because they are your most "TALENTED" players hurts your TEAM as whole and leads to LESS wins. Any resemblance to what we are doing here?

I agree with your concepts here. Exactly why I was against pairing Bosh with Amare. It would have been worse then Bargnani/ Bosh. I actually wanted to keep JO & trade Bosh at the deadline. We would have gotten some nice pieces to compliment JO & Bargs, plus gotten a few more nice pieces once JO's contract expired. I am not going to argue that the Bosh/ Bargnani combo is the perfect match, but you have to give BC a chance to alter the roster & make the Bosh/ Bargnani combo work better. It will work better........a lot better with an increase in talent at the 2 position.

This team has played awesome when we got good production out of AP. We are 6-1 when he gets 20+ ppg. AP has scored less than 10ppg 31 TIMES THIS YEAR! Does that tell you something? That is horrible production! The same stat is true with Kapono. When he scored over 15ppg, we are 6-2. When JK scores over 10ppg, we are 12-11.

The numbers required from JK & Parker are not even great numbers. Just OK numbers.

Goes to show you how bad wing production has been this year. Let BC upgrade the swing talent (& possibly the PG talent) & you will see a HUGE improvement in this team.

[BigShotBob13]

The next logical part of your argument is then, who do we bring in? Who do we dump? What center or PF is out there that is a defensive minded center that can mask the deficiencies of the other player? We tried with JO, it didn't work. We tried with Rasho, a more traditional center, it played out better because he demanded less shots but he's nowhere close to being the defensive stopper.

Why don't we find a more traditional backup for the pair? Give Bargnani more time to improve on his help defense? He's grown a lot this year, I don't think he will be an imposing presence in the lane but at least he can learn to start clogging up the lane and taking up space. He can bring that DEF rating down a lot and still maintain the points, it would be a great start.

I agree with Dagger as well, bring in better people to surround those two. When you're front court scores 40+ a night and the rest of your team does nothing, you have a lot more problems then you're two best players.

[MEDIC]

Couple questions:

a) How do we land an AI or Bowen type without giving up one of the core
b) What do you think Bargs ceiling is and what will he improve on

Thanks.

Did you say A.I.? Why would you ever want to spend money on AI? Did you not see what he did to Denver & Detroit? He's flashy & talented, but he's not a winner........especially in his 30's.

Of the 3 core players (Calderon, Bosh, Bargnani), Bargnani is the last of the 3 that you want to trade.

1. Calderon.......don't really need to explain.
2. We can have Bargnani for less than half the price of Bosh. I can think of a lot of things to do with 12+ million dollars.
3. You can get significantly more in return for Bosh than you can for Bargnani.

Since January, Bargnani has scored almost 20ppg without being the focal point on offense, increased his rebound totals, blocked 2 shots in a game on a regular basis, played decent defense at times against some of the better C's in the game. Has shown the ability to get better in all aspects of his game in a short period of time.

It's only going to get better from here. Tough to say what his ceiling is, but looking at some of the things I have written above, I would guess pretty high.

[Geddy]

Thanks for that analysis Knickerbocker. On the offensive end I don't think they are meshing too well because neither one of them has a dominant inside game. When both your big men are settling for jumpers it's going to lead to a very inefficient offense. For this front court to work one of them has to get inside more, and at this point I'd like Bosh to be the one to do it since Bargs is more valuable outside with his 3pt threat.

[MEDIC]

Thanks for that analysis Knickerbocker. On the offensive end I don't think they are meshing too well because neither one of them has a dominant inside game. When both your big men are settling for jumpers it's going to lead to a very inefficient offense. For this front court to work one of them has to get inside more, and at this point I'd like Bosh to be the one to do it since Bargs is more valuable outside with his 3pt threat.

Did you watch the last game? Bosh & Bargnani played very well off one another. When one was outside, the other went inside. Only 1 of the 10 buckets that Bargnani made was a 3 point shot. Most of his buckets were made in the post & there were 2-3 shots that he scored over the opposing bigs with a nice little hook shot.

These guys are finally starting to learn how to play together. There was also a couple of times on the defensive end where they ganged up on JO & got a blocked shot.

It was the perimeter players that killed us in the Miami game. Bosh & Bargnani played as well as they have ever played together. I was impressed. (Sitting only a few rows back)

[airellis_23]

I totally disagree saying that either Bosh or Bargnani are the problem. Both players played well last night, the problem is with the rest of the team. Both form a very deadly scorring combo, sometimes people as fans have to watch the game and not analyze too much into statistics. There are so many statistics out there that one can make kris humphries look liek an allstar under certain statistical numbers

[timdunkit]

The next logical part of your argument is then, who do we bring in? Who do we dump? What center or PF is out there that is a defensive minded center that can mask the deficiencies of the other player? We tried with JO, it didn't work. We tried with Rasho, a more traditional center, it played out better because he demanded less shots but he's nowhere close to being the defensive stopper.

Why don't we find a more traditional backup for the pair? Give Bargnani more time to improve on his help defense? He's grown a lot this year, I don't think he will be an imposing presence in the lane but at least he can learn to start clogging up the lane and taking up space. He can bring that DEF rating down a lot and still maintain the points, it would be a great start.

I agree with Dagger as well, bring in better people to surround those two. When you're front court scores 40+ a night and the rest of your team does nothing, you have a lot more problems then you're two best players.

+1

I also think people dont realize there only 23/24 ... they still have room to learn, especially Bargs ...

[knickerbocker2k2]

Change it here, change it there plug in this guy here or there and it all changes up. You can basically post any combo you want and make an arguement for yourself or you could argue the time of lineup being used like schedule strength, overall team mental state, coaching changes, system changes, defensive system changes, you name it all play a role.

zzzz

You are right. However you are missing one big point. You need large enough sample. 60 min is not enough. IMO 100+ is the bare minimum. Preferable 200MIN+ is the best scenario. In small dataset a lot of factors could influence your data including quality of opposition.

It's actually you that has this backwards. If you have poor perimeter defenders, you think somehow a good defensive C is just going to bail everybody else out without fouling out of the game?

You are thinking of blocking centers. Most good defensive big men are good defenders not only because they can block shots. The most used play in this league is the pick/roll/screen. I think that is like 60-80% of the plays run in this league. None of our big men can PLAY lick of pick/roll defense. I swear any time a team runs a double pick that results in dunk for the other team. Our bigs can't come out and recover enough to help our perimeter people.

Secondly our bigs unable to cut off any penetration. Watch the next game and see how many times our bigs come outside of the circle area to CUT off or block the progression of the penetrating man. I'm not even talking about taking a charge or anything. But they actually get in the WAY of the dribbler. They have NO ABILITY to see the play as its happening and react fast enough. And in the rare case they come out to get the penetration, the other big is unable to come in and get the rebound.

You should have a real close look at that stat (removing Bosh instead of Bargnani). If you don't, pointing to Bargnani has 0 merit. Nobody is going to argue that Bargnani is a better defender than JO. JO has years of experience on him & is known for his defence. I would bet that Bargnani is as good as JO was at the same age.

I do have stats for Bargs without Bosh. The defensive rating for the team with Bargs/Somebody else as C is 1.10 (Vs Bosh/Bargs 1.11). If you mean the stats with that particular lineup

Calderon-Parker-Moon-Bosh-O'Neal Min 142 OFF 0.98 DEF 0.96
Calderon-Parker-Moon-Bargnani-O'Neal MIN 28 OFF 1.04 DEF 1.30

Much worse. I didn't include it before because 28 minutes is VERY low sample size. I don't think its accurate.

I am not sure why you are trying to make this Bosh/ JO tandem look like it was a match made in heaven. JO & Bosh did not look good on the floor together. To be honest with you, I thought JO & Bargnani had better chemistry.

Looks can be deceiving. Honestly I don't think JO worked out and with his contract/decline he needed to go. But I used that lineup Calderon-Parker-Moon-Bosh-JO to show the difference when you take out one player (Bargs in this case) who is not natural C and not known for his defense and replace him with player who is much better at playing defense at the C spot. And the result is significant at least defensively.

This team has played awesome when we got good production out of AP. We are 6-1 when he gets 20+ ppg. AP has scored less than 10ppg 31 TIMES THIS YEAR! Does that tell you something? That is horrible production! The same stat is true with Kapono. When he scored over 15ppg, we are 6-2. When JK scores over 10ppg, we are 12-11.

I agree. A team this bad doesn't just have one problem. SG/backup PG is the reason we are this bad this season. If we have depth/good SG play/continued play of Bargs since 09 I think this team would be hoovering at around 500 which is enough to sneak into the playoffs. These are big iffs however.

Lets assume this happens and we sneaked into the playoffs next year. So for the 2010-2011 we are looking at[quote="lemondrop"][quote="knickerbocker2k2"]

Calderon-Parker-Moon-Bargnani-Bosh in 208 minutes have OFF: 1.09 DEF: 1.16
Calderon-Parker-Moon-Bosh-O'Neal in 142 minutes have OFF: 0.98 DEF: 0.96



Is that Marion is going to be asking for $8-10M which is a probable at this point. Bargs is going to be asking for $10M which he will get. Bosh if he still is around will be getting contract starting at least $18M. Calderon is around $9M. Our dead weights (Kapono/Banks) is at $10M. That is $55M where the lux tax is going to be around $70M at BEST. That doesn't include the depth we need to be successful nor the 8 spots which need to be filled.

With players repeating skillets and players with glaring holes in their game, can't you see how this is disaster waiting to happen?

[BigShotBob13]

To add, there's a lot to gain from having a coach with a defensive system in place. One that hides a lot of the teams glaring deficiencies as well as gives people set roles in their defense. Our team lacks a lot of basketball IQ in general and I seriously doubt one defensive C or PF will make a change. We have seen the effects of adding a defensive big and it didn't solve any of our problems. The problem I have with our coaching is that there's no creativity, adaptability or even thought put in place. We never try to throw the other team off, never try zones, push a gameplan throughout or adapt in a game. We have nothing in place and with this team it really shows. No one knows where to go, no one knows what they are doing...just running around. To top it off, there is no hustle or intensity at all. Guys at my local gym show more guts then this team does most nights.

[Fairview4Life]

http://www.82games.com/0809/0809TORP.HTM

http://www.82games.com/0809/0809TOR2.HTM

For anyone who wants to play along.

Are there some terrible Bosh/Bargs lineups? Sure.

Are there some very good ones as well? Yes, yes there are.
Solomon-Parker-Moon-Bargnani-Bosh
Parker-Moon-Graham-Bargnani-Bosh
Calderon-Parker-Graham-Bargnani-Bosh
For example.

Everyone should go check out Tim Duncan and Fabricio Oberto. Clearly those two guys can't coexist. Or Boozer and Okur. Both of those pairings have worse differences (significantly worse, by the way) between their teams offense and defense per possession with them on the floor together than Bosh/Bargs does.

[Kabookalu]

I've always been fascinated with the idea of a frontcourt of Joey Graham/Chris Bosh/Andrea Bargnani. Why? He's a PF playing SF but on our team that is acceptable because our big men stay on the perimeter. We would have a mismatch from positions 3-5, though the thing is Joey Graham just isn't that good yet and it could be doubtful if he ever improves anymore than he will now. Though I don't understand why Triano doesn't encourage Graham to post up more. Graham does get his fair amount of touches inside, but I still see a chunk of his attempts at mid range shooting jumpers.

Anyways why I mention that is because a lot of people dislike the frontcourt of Bosh/Bargs because of the lack of toughness. Graham could cover this.

[orangutooth]

offensively they are fine. defensively they suck. bargs will get better. bosh won't but bosh is better offensively.

i think i agree with the premise we need a better scoring wing and we really need better defense from the wing. and we really also need a defensive system.

people wanna cry that the offense will fail if we slow things down but i disagree, especially if we can get a 2 guard who can penetrate. if we have a team with 3 mismatch players, i don't see how we can't succeed in a half court offense. bargs doesn't need to run, bosh is great on isos. we just need a guy who can break the d down from the outside. and i don't even think it's that deep of an issue we could sign and trade marion for a half decent sg like crawford or we could just get a guy who can handle the ball in the draft. we don't need an all star necessarily. i would even be happy with guys like delonte west and roger mason. all we need is a guy of that level.

[sl64]

We need generally more talent on this team. If you built a fast paced, deep, offensive-minded team (along with an appropriate coach for that style of play), something like, let's say, Golden State, and just tried to outscore the other team I think the Bosh/Bargs frontcourt might work. If Colangelo halfasses it, and I think we know that he will, he'll keep building these kind of wannabe-run-and-gun-but-actually-mediocre-halfcourt-teams and in that situation I don't think the Bosh/Bargs frontcourt will work because their overall defensive/rebounding shortcomings will be magnified.

[lemondrop]

You are right. However you are missing one big point. You need large enough sample. 60 min is not enough. IMO 100+ is the bare minimum. Preferable 200MIN+ is the best scenario. In small dataset a lot of factors could influence your data including quality of opposition.

Well your opinion first of all is not factual, its just your opinion and its funny you say you need 100+ minutes for it to be useful yet in your OP and in your last post you used ones with less than 100 minutes just to toss it out there.

Secondly how does Bosh's injured knee affect any of those numbers? Id say he played with pain for roughly two weeks after coming back andd prior. How does Jose's hammy injury affect the numbers? He played with one for nearly a month and still may be playing with pain according to some posters. As bad as I think Bosh and Jose are as defenders their injuries im sure made them even worse at some points and im sure it affected the five man numbers to some degree.

Our C and PF postion are ranked 11th in the league in per on the year vs op, our sg and sf postions are ranked 25th and 26th. You know with stats you can basically go hunting for anything you want to fit your agenda and make an arguement but none of it is accurate if you refuse to tell the whole story and that happens allllll to often on this board especially by people like yourself who has spent so much time trying to tell us Bargnani stinks. I don't like this method at all because it creates divide on the forums and petty arguements, this same sort of stuff is what created such a mess with tj and jose on message boards around the net.

[Guy Smiley]

http://www.82games.com/0809/0809TOR.HTM

Despite playing the "best ball" of his career the OPP continues to out produce Andrea.

The Raptors are worse with Andrea on the floor both offensively and defensively if we look at efficiency.

This is what I see game in and game out despite IL MAGO EXPLODING with 20+ point nights! WOWOWOWOW

It is no surprise the team has absolutely floundered now that Andrea's role on the team has increased. The team gives up more than it gains with Andrea on the court.

Meh, please tell me how great he is. I have never seen such a one dimensional player garner so much praise.

[CreaM]

http://www.82games.com/0809/0809TOR.HTM

Despite playing the "best ball" of his career the OPP continues to out produce Andrea.

The Raptors are worse with Andrea on the floor both offensively and defensively if we look at efficiency.

This is what I see game in and game out despite IL MAGO EXPLODING with 20+ point nights! WOWOWOWOW

It is no surprise the team has absolutely floundered now that Andrea's role on the team has increased. The team gives up more than it gains with Andrea on the court.

Meh, please tell me how great he is. I have never seen such a one dimensional player garner so much praise.

I too have felt this way since Andreas recent "outburst". Even though he is putting up numbers, he is doing it inefficiently and it always seems like when he has high scoring games, the Raptors lose. I definitely think there is a correlation.

[ldnk]

The problem with blaming Bosh/Bargnani for the defensive woes is, how often is it Anthony Parker's man driving to the hoop? How often was the SF abusing Graham or Kapono? How often was the PG taking Calderon's porous defense.

And despite that, it seems that Bargnani has been defending the more dangerous player between Bosh and Bargnani. He was the one put on Shaq, Yao, Howard. And yet when we play Dallas, Bargnani is guarding Dirk who is playing PF while Bosh takes Dampier.

[Fairview4Life]

HAHAHA, yeah the team which was playing so well has floundered with Bargs getting an increased role. 1 variable changed and bam! Season ruined.