sjm34 wrote:Bennett has the same defensive rtg as Young at 111, and a higher offensive rtg of 98 compared to Young's 96. Bennett's win shares/48 is higher as well.
Using the eye test Bennett is a much more effective defender, and twice the rebounder Thad is. My only complaint with Bennett is his inconsistent motor, but that seems like a much bigger issue on the offensive end.
Q,it dawned on me that several of the circumstances you used for Young were applicable when you and Abe were making comparisons for Wiggins
Bennett doesn't have same defensive rating than Young. Bennett has defensive rating of 112.9 and Young has it 108 which is actually third best in Wolves team after Rubio and Adrien. (Hummel and Mo have about same than Young). We need to also remember that Young has got his rating while playing against starters and Bennett his while playing mostly against opponent bench players.
Bennett has same defensive rating than Young only in basketball reference stats that is really really bad measurement since it doesn't take account how team really plays while someone is on the floor. It just uses team average defensive rating weighted with individual defensive stats (steals, blocks and defensive rebounds). For example Rubio had terrific defensive rating in basketball reference at the time he was injured (less than 100) but his rating has been dropping even though he has not played a single game after that since Wolves team defensive rating has been dropping. Currently Rubio has defensive rating of 112 in Basketball reference when team has in reality allowed only 98.7 points per 100 possessions while Rubio has been on floor. (stat from nba.com)
I really hope this is the last time anybody uses defensive or offensive rating from basketball reference in this board because those stats are complete joke. :)
So you would prefer to use the NBA defensive rtg which only shows how the team performed with Young on the court, and does nothing to show how Young himself actually performed. Sounds like a really accurate portrayal. We certainly wouldn't want to look at defensive rebounds, considering they are only the deciding factor of getting an extra offensive possession for the opponent. Of course that extra possession doesn't show up in the NBA rtg because that is strictly based on 100 possessions.
I've always been a critic of these so called advanced stats because there are always too many variables that aren't accounted for. You say Young has played against starters, and I say he has played with our starters. Young has played consistently with the same guys on the floor, whereas Bennett has been stuck in a revolving door. Bennett's minutes have been all over the map as well.
True defensive ratings have to be conducted by the eye test. Stats don't show Young trotting out and waving a hand at the ball handler on a PnR while retreating back to his man only to allow an uncontested layup. Stats don't show Young making no effort to block out his man for a rebound that ends up in another uncontested layup. Stats don't show him reaching around his man for a steal attempt, while allowing penetration and a complete breakdown of the defense.
NBA.com defensive rating is not perfect way to measure defense inside team but it is far better than basketball reference defensive rating that basically doesn't take at all account on how well team plays defense when certain player is in court. If you rank different players defense inside one team based on defensive rating of basketball reference, it is almost exactly same than calculating just sum of steals, blocks and defensive rebounds per 36 minutes.
Before season started people were using opponent FG% at rim to prove that Young plays bad defense. When that stat was available from this season, no one has been using it anymore. Based on that stay Young allows opponents to shoot 51% at rim and Bennett allows them to shoot 62.5%.
I don't think any stats are comparable between the two because Thad plays twice as many minutes as Bennett. You can't just double Bennett's stats saying he'd play that way with twice the amount of minutes. Some categories he would do better and others worse. People talk about his production against bench units, but the fact is he is playing with the D League level talent that is the rest of our bench. I'd say 4/5 of our starters should be coming off the bench, so what does that leave Bennett to actually play with coming off the bench himself? Judging a guy on 16 MPG puts him in the same boat as Bud minutes wise for the year and we've all seen how Bud played in that reduced role this year. Bud's recent improvement (although he still has a long ways to go) no doubt has been helped by actually getting 20+ minutes on the court to get into a rhythm. I don't understand how Bennett is supposed to get better if his time on the court keeps getting cut short because of mistakes. He seems to get yanked very easily for messing up compared to the other young players. Why is everyone seemingly getting 20 MPG's except for Bennett? The season is lost already. I would think you would give him more minutes to see if he is worth keeping moving forward. It is weird that he is put in the doghouse more than any of the other prospects. Is that just because of sheer necessity for guys like Lavine and Dieng needing to play a lot? They're all making mistakes. It's not just Bennett with stretches of bad play. One of our biggest weaknesses is rebounding and he is less than 1 board from Thad's per game output playing half the minutes. Is Thad's inefficient scoring needed that much on the starting unit or could we afford to bring him off the bench and let Bennett roll with the starters for the sake of competing on the boards and trying to get him in an actual rhythm as opposed to coming in cold every night and getting yanked after the first mistake? Some guys just can't be that good coming off the bench cold and need to get involved early. Maybe Bennett would start playing better if Flip would stop spraying him with the water bottle after every mistake and start letting him go out there and play without the fear of getting pulled right away. If I'm wrong about him then I'm wrong about him, but there is no way to know for sure if he never gets his shot to prove himself for an extended period of games.
I'm going to assume Flip gave up the pick for Thad because he thought Thad was good. Flip also thought we'd be a contender for a playoff spot if everyone stayed healthy. He did not want to commit to a rebuiild. So we lost the pick, and have a guy this year and next who plays no D, does not box out, does not rebound. Atta boy Flip.
It's because all the young guys except for Bennett are giving way more effort than him, and Flip sees it. Why do you think Hummel and Adrien are getting more PT than him off the bench? Those guys hustle and seem to be much more active than him.
Give Bennett all the minutes you want to. That guy just isn't a good basketball player. I'd attribute it to lack of consistent effort, limited skill set and poor awareness of what's happening on the court. It's still early in the season, but I'm leaning towards the side of declining his option and letting him go. I just don't see the potential you and several others see, to be honest.
Agree - there was a reason they were willing to throw Bennett in, now we know. He is not good. The trade re done would be better if it was Love for Wiggins and the pick
The guy has a jump shot which is 50% of the battle for him. Now if he develops a post game, he would have an offensive skill set worth keeping. You mention his effort on the court. He gets pulled the first chance Flip gets and he barely sees the floor to begin with. How does that not shatter a young guy's confidence? Make a mistake, sit and in some cases be done for the night. The same thing happened to Bazz last year and look how he played once he got consistent minutes. You could see genuine effort from Bennett to start the year and now he has been beaten down by a coach treating him differently from the other players. Wiggins doesn't play hard quite often and yet he plays 30 minutes a game and just gets a post game comment about it. Lavine has mental lapses just as big as Bennett and he plays 25 minutes a night. Flip is beating the effort right out of Bennett. There's a point where you can't do anything right and it goes one of two ways. You're allowed to play out of it or you are limited and stuck wallowing in it. All I ask is for a stretch of 20+ minute games to see if he can bounce back because I know he won't just get better out of thin air by playing 16 minutes a game and now riding the bench even longer than that because Flip is going with Hummel. Flip is doing to Bennett exactly what he criticized Adelman for doing to Bazz last year. It doesn't make sense to me based on how we have been playing this year. Nobody is playing well so that means you go with the youth movement and give them as much time as possible.
