Gobert Trade at Mid-Year

[AbeVigodaLive]

The On/Off stuff can be a telling stat sometimes... but caution... it has so much to do with 9 other guys on the court.

For example, if you look at Vanderbilt... he has a better-than-average PER, OBPM, DBPM, Win Shares and solid +1.1 VORP.

Maybe his coach knows something that we can't see through ON/OFF numbers in a vacuum.

[kekgeek]

The On/Off stuff can be a telling stat sometimes... but caution... it has so much to do with 9 other guys on the court.

For example, if you look at Vanderbilt... he has a better-than-average PER, OBPM, DBPM, Win Shares and solid +1.1 VORP.

Maybe his coach knows something that we can't see through ON/OFF numbers in a vacuum.

Fair point. 100% agree with you

[Camden [enjin:6601484]]

I want to say Beasley and Vando have not been good for the Jazz. They are 2 on the bottom on/off in the NBA (both in the bottom 15th percentile), both of there lineups are some of the worst lineups in the NBA this year defensively also.

Kessler is a stud though.

I'm not exactly losing sleep about the Timberwolves trading either of those two -- Malik Beasley and Jarred Vanderbilt -- but it needs to be mentioned that simply referencing on/off stats to determine if a player has been good or not is careless in my view. It's the same as harping on traditional plus-minus values except on/off is adjusted for pace.

Vanderbilt, specifically, grades out as positive and/or above average in a number of different catch-all metrics -- DPM, EPM, RPM, BPM, VORP, etc. His traditional averages are impressive as well.

Lastly, as Wolves fans, we should know better than most exactly the type of player and the [mostly] positive impact Vando has on games. It should be no surprise that multiple teams covet him right now.

[Q-is-here]

While I don't disagree that Beasley and Vando are as bad as their +/- stuff indicates, I would also caution folks on putting too much emphasis on BPM and VORP, two related measures that rely heavily on box score statistics. The metric stewards themselves admit that it has a flaw.

From Basketball Reference on one of the reasons why BPM (and therefore VORP) may not capture a player's true value (my bold):

- BPM is not capturing what a player contributes. This is particularly an issue for elite defenders where BPM simply does not recognize them from their box score statistics.

To illustrate my point, let's compare Bones Hyland to Jaden McDaniels.

Bones Hyland BPM/VORP = -.8/.3
Jaden's BPM/VORP = -1.1/.3

According to BPM, Bones is the better player and VORP says they are about equal.

Now who would you rather have on your team? And guess which stat IS a lot different?.....On/Off ratings.

The point being that the more box-score oriented stats just can't capture great individual/team defenders unless that same player gets tons of blocks and steals. And conversely, there are some great offensive weapons out there like Bones, DLO, and Zach LaVine that often do quite well in BPM but somehow always end up with mediocre or poor On/Off ratings. There shouldn't be a mystery as to why.

[Sundog]

When I think about this trade now, I compare: 1) what running back last year's team this season with these significant injuries to KAT and JMac to 2) this year's team with those injuries. Under Scenario 1, the Wolves are tanking for Wembanyama (of note, they have their 2023 1st round pick), competing with the Rockets for worst team in the league. Under Scenario 2, thus far, the team is in the mix for the 6th seed. The bottom could still fall out, but Scenario 2 is much more fun. And Ant and Jaden are getting terrific and much needed experience fighting for playoff position in the West vs eking out another useless season fighting for draft position.

[Carlos Danger]

While I don't disagree that Beasley and Vando are as bad as their +/- stuff indicates, I would also caution folks on putting too much emphasis on BPM and VORP, two related measures that rely heavily on box score statistics. The metric stewards themselves admit that it has a flaw.

From Basketball Reference on one of the reasons why BPM (and therefore VORP) may not capture a player's true value (my bold):

- BPM is not capturing what a player contributes. This is particularly an issue for elite defenders where BPM simply does not recognize them from their box score statistics.

To illustrate my point, let's compare Bones Hyland to Jaden McDaniels.

Bones Hyland BPM/VORP = -.8/.3
Jaden's BPM/VORP = -1.1/.3

According to BPM, Bones is the better player and VORP says they are about equal.

Now who would you rather have on your team? And guess which stat IS a lot different?.....On/Off ratings.

The point being that the more box-score oriented stats just can't capture great individual/team defenders unless that same player gets tons of blocks and steals. And conversely, there are some great offensive weapons out there like Bones, DLO, and Zach LaVine that often do quite well in BPM but somehow always end up with mediocre or poor On/Off ratings. There shouldn't be a mystery as to why.

I agree with what you write above. But for me, it comes down to picking one "go to" stat that I find most reliable. And that's VORP. Absolutely there will be exceptions to VORP as there are with every stat. But I find VORP the most reliable. For example, compare the top five +/- guys from NBA.com to top five VORP guys from Basketball reference:

[table]
[tr]
[th]+/-[/th]
[th]VORP[/th]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Nikola Jokic[/td]
[td]Nikola Joki?[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Kentavious Caldwell-Pope[/td]
[td]Luka Don?i?[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Aaron Gordon[/td]
[td]Shai Gilgeous-Alexander[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Jayson Tatum[/td]
[td]Jayson Tatum[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Derrick White[/td]
[td]Joel Embiid[/td]
[/tr]
[/table]

Which five would you take? The plus minus side or the VORP? I know this is only the top 5, small sample. But I've found it generally holds true right down the list. Not perfect, but as good as I can find to rank a player's value. Yes, perhaps a better way is to look at all stats and do an in depth study of the how/why and then exclude the anomalies etc. But who the hell has time for that?

[Q-is-here]

Carlos, I'm not advocating that +/- should be the end-all/be-all stat either. And yeah, when folks are at the extreme high levels of VORP and BPM, they truly are great players even if they struggle at times with defense. I mean, Jokic has a BPM of 13.1 and VORP (looking at all of last season) of 9.8. That is just sick, to the point where he could play on the defensive side with one hand tied behind his back and still be the best player on the floor.

It really isn't that time consuming to look at everything at once on b-ball reference. I feel like in one page view you can draw a fairly complete picture of a player. Obviously actually watching them may help with the "whys" and that is indeed time consuming.

[kekgeek]

Carlos, I'm not advocating that +/- should be the end-all/be-all stat either. And yeah, when folks are at the extreme high levels of VORP and BPM, they truly are great players even if they struggle at times with defense. I mean, Jokic has a BPM of 13.1 and VORP (looking at all of last season) of 9.8. That is just sick, to the point where he could play on the defensive side with one hand tied behind his back and still be the best player on the floor.

It really isn't that time consuming to look at everything at once on b-ball reference. I feel like in one page view you can draw a fairly complete picture of a player. Obviously actually watching them may help with the "whys" and that is indeed time consuming.

I want to say that I don't think on/off is a perfect stat and illiterates how good or bad a player is. Just wanted to say the Jazz have been really bad defensive when Vando has been on the court. Is that all of his fault of course not, context matters. I'm just saying as a unit the Jazz have not seen success consistently when Vando and Beasley are on the court.

[Q-is-here]

Carlos, I'm not advocating that +/- should be the end-all/be-all stat either. And yeah, when folks are at the extreme high levels of VORP and BPM, they truly are great players even if they struggle at times with defense. I mean, Jokic has a BPM of 13.1 and VORP (looking at all of last season) of 9.8. That is just sick, to the point where he could play on the defensive side with one hand tied behind his back and still be the best player on the floor.

It really isn't that time consuming to look at everything at once on b-ball reference. I feel like in one page view you can draw a fairly complete picture of a player. Obviously actually watching them may help with the "whys" and that is indeed time consuming.

I want to say that I don't think on/off is a perfect stat and illiterates how good or bad a player is. Just wanted to say the Jazz have been really bad defensive when Vando has been on the court. Is that all of his fault of course not, context matters. I'm just saying as a unit the Jazz have not seen success consistently when Vando and Beasley are on the court.

Understood and it's these 'tweener players where they aren't obviously really good or really bad where you have to really do some digging to figure out what's driving their On/Off numbers.

In Vando's case, I don't think he spends much time on the court with Walker Kessler. I hate to say it, but that guy is absolutely key to the Jazz (Gaaaaah!!!). So Vando ends up in a lot of lineups where Olynyk is his Center and some combination of Beasley/Conley/Clarkson is his backcourt. That kind of puts him on an island defensively...only so much he can do.