At mid-season, is Brendan Haywood the 2nd best C in the EC?

[Busy_Janitor]

Rasho deserves a mention. Rasho > All of these eastern conference noobs

[nate33]

Rasho deserves a mention. Rasho > All of these eastern conference noobs

Rasho is serviceable at best. He does not deserve mention.

He's an average defender and a below-average offensive player. His stats show up on my list... near the bottom.

[youngLion]

-= original quote snipped =-


Rasho is serviceable at best. He does not deserve mention.

He's an average defender and a below-average offensive player. His stats show up on my list... near the bottom.

Rasho is definitely a better than average defender. He's had very good games matched up against Dwight Howard, Yao and other quality post players.

If we're assuming Haywood is the second best center in the east, Rasho has to be mentioned as well.

[nate33]

-= original quote snipped =-



Rasho is definitely a better than average defender. He's had very good games matched up against Dwight Howard, Yao and other quality post players.

If we're assuming Haywood is the second best center in the east, Rasho has to be mentioned as well.

Why? Haywood is considerably better than Rasho on defense. (I agree that Rasho is a solid man-to-man defender, but he gives you little on help defense.) And Haywood is also putting up better scoring and rebounding numbers (per minute) with much better shooting percentages. Basically, he's better than Rasho at everything.

[AussieBuck]

If Haywood is really the second best C in the league then his coach should be sacked right now for only playing him 27 minutes a game. Why would you only give him slightly more than half a game when he can beat everyone but Howard in the conference at his position?????

[miller31time]

If Haywood is really the second best C in the league then his coach should be sacked right now for only playing him 27 minutes a game. Why would you only give him slightly more than half a game when he can beat everyone but Howard in the conference at his position?????

You should read the Wizards board once in a while. We ask the same question.

EDIT: I'm assuming you mean "second best C in the East..." because 2nd in the league would be beyond homerism and into the disillusion territory.

[AussieBuck]

-= original quote snipped =-





You should read the Wizards board once in a while. We ask the same question.

EDIT: I'm assuming you mean "second best C in the East..." because 2nd in the league would be beyond homerism and into the disillusion territory.

Yeah I did mean the East. I thought last year he shared minutes because he didn't hustle like Etan.

[miller31time]

Yeah I did mean the East. I thought last year he shared minutes because he didn't hustle like Etan.

That's pretty much on point (which is the reason, despite Etan being a decent player, we aren't exactly thrilled to see Etan set to come back).

Thomas hustles his butt off and our coach loves it. Therefore, Etan gets WAY more minutes than he deserves, and it comes at the expense of Brendan.

This season, with Etan out, Brendan still isn't getting the minutes he should, but at least he's getting more minutes than before. Most importantly, he's playing when it matters most (crunchtime) as opposed to last year when Mr. Hustle would get those minutes.

[amcoolio]

You can't assume Haywood would average those numbers if he played 40 minutes a night, and likewise they aren't going to select players based on their per-40 stats. So, if the East coaches were going to select a C instead of Bosh they would select Okafor, even though he is playing bad compared to last season and is the third best Bobcat (When has the third best player on a team made the all-star team over the first two players, and especially on a team that isn't at .500 currently?)

[AussieBuck]

-= original quote snipped =-



That's pretty much on point (which is the reason, despite Etan being a decent player, we aren't exactly thrilled to see Etan set to come back).

Thomas hustles his butt off and our coach loves it. Therefore, Etan gets WAY more minutes than he deserves, and it comes at the expense of Brendan.

This season, with Etan out, Brendan still isn't getting the minutes he should, but at least he's getting more minutes than before. Most importantly, he's playing when it matters most (crunchtime) as opposed to last year when Mr. Hustle would get those minutes.

Fair enough then, I haven't really seen enough of Haywood to mount much of an argument about whether he's the second best C in the East. Crap coaching however I'm very familiar with being a Bucks fan.

[GilArenas88]

Miller31time wrote:

You should read the Wizards board once in a while. We ask the same question.

The man don't lie, it gets real ugly sometimes too, especially past 2 or 3 seasons.

[blkout]

PER multiplied by minutes played, probably a better way to calculate production since it will take court time into account and awards the players who perform for longer periods of time in the game...

Dwight Howard 39725
Emeka Okafor 22620
Samuel Dalembert 22572
Andrew Bogut 22257
Zydrunas Ilgauskas 21330
Rasheed Wallace 19937
Brendan Haywood 19051
Shaquille O'Neal 16273

[nate33]

-= original quote snipped =-



That's pretty much on point (which is the reason, despite Etan being a decent player, we aren't exactly thrilled to see Etan set to come back).

Thomas hustles his butt off and our coach loves it. Therefore, Etan gets WAY more minutes than he deserves, and it comes at the expense of Brendan.

This season, with Etan out, Brendan still isn't getting the minutes he should, but at least he's getting more minutes than before. Most importantly, he's playing when it matters most (crunchtime) as opposed to last year when Mr. Hustle would get those minutes.

Another factor is that Andray Blatche has been playing real well as Haywood's backup. Blatche is posting a PER of 15 (with great D) as a 21-year-old. He still makes a bunch of stupid mistakes and fouls too much, but I think Eddie Jordan is doing his best to give him minutes whenever he can so that he'll be seasoned by playoff time.

[blkout]

Here are the pace-adjusted per 40 numbers:

Code: Select all

Player        PTS  REB  AST  STL  BLK   TO   PF  TS%  PER
howard,dwigh 22.5 15.1  1.5  1.0  2.6  3.5  3.4 .624 24.7
haywood,bren 15.6 11.6  1.2  0.7  2.6  2.2  4.4 .593 19.1
o'neal,shaqu 20.1 11.2  1.9  0.9  2.4  4.2  5.8 .580 18.4
ilgauskas,zy 17.6 12.9  1.6  0.7  1.9  2.5  4.5 .518 18.0
okafor,emeka 15.6 12.5  0.8  1.3  2.2  2.2  3.9 .538 17.6
mohammed,naz 16.7 13.5  1.5  1.3  1.5  2.6  6.2 .547 17.4
wallace,rash 17.1  9.7  2.5  1.7  2.0  1.6  3.9 .522 17.2
dalembert,sa 14.1 12.5  0.7  0.4  3.2  2.4  4.3 .581 17.1
bogut,andrew 15.8 10.8  2.8  0.9  2.0  2.6  4.6 .545 16.7
curry,eddy   21.1  7.8  0.8  0.4  0.8  3.1  3.9 .560 16.3
o'neal,jerma 18.5  8.6  3.1  0.7  2.7  2.9  3.9 .492 16.1
foster,jeff   9.5 13.6  2.4  0.9  0.4  1.0  4.2 .530 14.8
horford,al   11.9 13.1  1.5  1.2  1.4  2.6  4.9 .532 13.4
nesterovic,r 10.8 10.3  2.1  0.8  1.4  1.7  4.0 .471 12.4
wallace,ben   5.5 11.1  2.5  1.8  2.2  1.2  2.2 .357 12.1
perkins,kend 11.2  9.2  1.6  0.8  1.9  2.9  4.9 .601 11.8
collins,jaso  3.4  5.4  1.3  0.6  0.4  1.4  6.5 .434  2.1

Haywood puts up better numbers than every East center except Howard.

Sorry for bumping this but it's been bugging me for a few days... can you explain how you came to that conclusion based on thsoe stats? Or are you just talking about the PER? I'm personally not a fan of PER or using it as the be-all and end-all of basketball analysis like some people do (not you, just saying in general), but his pace adjusted per 40 numbers aren't as good as quite a few of those guys.

[penbeast0]

I think the point is more than Haywood's stats are at least comparable to any other EC center other than Howard and his defense gives him the edge.

That said, I wouldn't vote for him despite being a Wiz lifer and longtime Haywood booster. It's an all-star game and Haywood is at best a complementary player who is having a career season and even in a career season doesn't stand out. I'd give it to someone like Okafor who I think is a legit all-star talent despite Haywood's having slightly the better season so far.

[technologic]

PER multiplied by minutes played, probably a better way to calculate production since it will take court time into account and awards the players who perform for longer periods of time in the game...

Dwight Howard 39725
Emeka Okafor 22620
Samuel Dalembert 22572
Andrew Bogut 22257
Zydrunas Ilgauskas 21330
Rasheed Wallace 19937
Brendan Haywood 19051
Shaquille O'Neal 16273

If you don't want to minutes-played adjust it, just use PER (not PER/40). It adequately punishes people who don't play enough minutes.

[nate33]

-= original quote snipped =-



Sorry for bumping this but it's been bugging me for a few days... can you explain how you came to that conclusion based on thsoe stats? Or are you just talking about the PER? I'm personally not a fan of PER or using it as the be-all and end-all of basketball analysis like some people do (not you, just saying in general), but his pace adjusted per 40 numbers aren't as good as quite a few of those guys.

PER certainly has it's limitations, but I consider PER to better than any other summary stat. It at least makes an honest effort to properly weigh the relative impact of each box score statistic.

I think PER is the best way of comparing the stats of guys who perform the same basic function. PER is useful when comparing Haywood versus Okafor versus Dalembert for example. All 3 guys are role players on offense and all 3 are asked to be the defensive anchor for their team. You can certainly argue that PER doesn't tell the whole story when comparing Haywood to somebody like Curry or Rasheed Wallace.

It's fine if you don't like PER. But then, explain why you think Haywood's numbers aren't as good as the others on this list. You are obviously using some other standard or reference for deciding which numbers are "better". Why is your standard better?

Regarding this comparison, I think Z has inched ahead of Haywood at this point. He's had a couple of real good weeks in a row, highlighted by him toasting Haywood a couple of nights ago. Haywood was tailed off just a bit lately, but still remains a hair above Dalembert and Okafor.

[Bucky O'Hare]

Samuel Dalembert > Brendan Haywood. Either way, the Eastern Conference centers are in a very sad state. Hopefully some of these college big men end up in the East and not West like Bynum and Oden. DeAndre Jordan, Hasheem Thabeet, Roy Hibbert, etc.

[blkout]

It's fine if you don't like PER. But then, explain why you think Haywood's numbers aren't as good as the others on this list. You are obviously using some other standard or reference for deciding which numbers are "better". Why is your standard better?

I don't have a standard in particular, but looking at the pace adjusted numbers you posted, alot of guys are scoring better/rebounding more/shooting better etc than Haywood, what I was confused about was you saying that his numbers were better, when they weren't... but I see you were referring to his PER, and obviously that is better than everyone's except Dwight. I just wanted to clear it up.

[miller31time]

I don't have a standard in particular, but looking at the pace adjusted numbers you posted, alot of guys are scoring better/rebounding more/shooting better etc than Haywood, what I was confused about was you saying that his numbers were better, when they weren't... but I see you were referring to his PER, and obviously that is better than everyone's except Dwight. I just wanted to clear it up.

I don't think Nate's point of providing the stats and PERs for each center was to show that Haywood is statistically as good or better than them all. It was to show that, on offense, he is at least comparable with most (except Howard).

The reason he did this was because Haywood's strength isn't his offense, it's his defense where he is basically a shut-down post defender. If he can at least keep up with the front-runners on offense, while being markedly better than most of them on defense (with the exception of Howard and maybe Dalembert), it would show that he is either as good or slightly better than the majority of them.

I'm not saying he is or isn't, but Nate's intention (to my knowledge) was not to say Haywood's stats are going to blow anyone's out of the water.