Camden wrote:It's peculiar how all 30 NBA teams have access to the all-knowing and all-powerful plus-minus and on/off data and yet they continue to give minutes to these guys that grade out poorly in the aforementioned stats that they have on their teams. Why do so if they just make your team worse, which is what those numbers indicate? This multi-billion dollar business that is professional sports predicates itself on teams doing everything in their power to win. If it's as simple as not playing players that plus-minus doesn't reflect favorably on or straight up removing them from their teams, then why don't we see that happening? How does a Zach LaVine, DeMar DeRozan, or D'Angelo Russell even have a job? Either the stat is simply unreliable and has holes in its composition or every front office compiled of experts and statistical know-it-alls are failing at their jobs year after year.
Yikes.
There are lots of teams who don't employ those type of players. So maybe they are doing something right? Number of finals appearances between Derozan, Lavine, and DLO = Zero
Ahh, got it. The number of NBA Finals appearances determines whether a team is doing something right or not -- along with how they use plus-minus and on/off data. Welp. It seems to me that 28 teams in the league every year don't know their heads from their asses.
I would add another reason why coaches play players that they know have a negative impact on the floor. The NBA is a business, and there are two ways you put butts in the seat...winning, and star power. Zach and DLO haven't helped much with the first one, but they both help a lot with the second. I was at the Kings' game, and there was a lot of excitement around the return of Russell...one of the biggest crowd reactions was when he was subbed into the game in the first quarter. Zach has the same impact on fans. The typical fan doesn't show up to watch workmanlike players who help their team win but aren't that exciting to watch...they would rather see the highlight dunks that Zach provides and the scoring volume that DLO provides. The average Portland fan gets a lot more excited about Carmelo Anthony (with his -9.9 point differential) than they do about Rob Covington (with his team-leading +14), but I think we all know who is the more valuable player. With the average fan, offense is what matters, and they couldn't care less about a lockdown defensive player. So if you're not playing for anything, like the Wolves and the Bulls almost every year, playing your "stars" is the only way to get fans to show up. It's a business after all.
The 39-13 Utah Jazz currently own the best record in basketball. The Jazz are also complete morons for continuing to play Donovan Mitchell, Jordan Clarkson, and Bojan Bogdanovi? when the team clearly performs better when they're off the court, according to their on/off data. If only Quin Snyder would wake up and realize this.
Camden wrote:The 39-13 Utah Jazz currently own the best record in basketball. The Jazz are also complete morons for continuing to play Donovan Mitchell, Jordan Clarkson, and Bojan Bogdanovi? when the team clearly performs better when they're off the court, according to their on/off data. If only Quin Snyder would wake up and realize this.
If basketball was a sport where you could get by with playing only 5 players, wouldn't you play the 5 that perform the best relative to the score?
Bradley Beal hasn't produced a positive plus-minus the last three seasons. How is it possible that he's still a highly-coveted player every trade deadline and off-season? Why are the Wizards so reluctant to trade him? I don't know. It seems a bit fishy to me.
Camden wrote:The 39-13 Utah Jazz currently own the best record in basketball. The Jazz are also complete morons for continuing to play Donovan Mitchell, Jordan Clarkson, and Bojan Bogdanovi? when the team clearly performs better when they're off the court, according to their on/off data. If only Quin Snyder would wake up and realize this.
If basketball was a sport where you could get by with playing only 5 players, wouldn't you play the 5 that perform the best relative to the score?
I'd play five Ricky Rubio's together and I'd win the championship every year.
Camden wrote:The 39-13 Utah Jazz currently own the best record in basketball. The Jazz are also complete morons for continuing to play Donovan Mitchell, Jordan Clarkson, and Bojan Bogdanovi? when the team clearly performs better when they're off the court, according to their on/off data. If only Quin Snyder would wake up and realize this.
If basketball was a sport where you could get by with playing only 5 players, wouldn't you play the 5 that perform the best relative to the score?
I'd play five Ricky Rubio's together and I'd win the championship every year.
The point is every team is going to have a balanced distribution of players on the plus and minus side of the off/on stat. Personally for me, I'd give more minutes to those who fall on the plus side, but I'd still have to play at least 8-9 players. Bottom line is the stat has some merit within the context of a more complete statistical analysis.
Camden wrote:The 39-13 Utah Jazz currently own the best record in basketball. The Jazz are also complete morons for continuing to play Donovan Mitchell, Jordan Clarkson, and Bojan Bogdanovi? when the team clearly performs better when they're off the court, according to their on/off data. If only Quin Snyder would wake up and realize this.
The Jazz are an interesting team, Cam, because they have three players who may end up being all-NBA defense...Gobert, Conley and O'Neale. Mitchell on the other hand is a disaster on defense, and his defensive deficiencies hurt the Jazz...even in the midst of a nice offensive season. I'm not surprised Utah is so good this year with their lock-down defense, and it's going to be interesting to see what Snyder does in the playoffs where the importance of defense is elevated. O'Neale is extraordinary and is called on to defend the opponent's best player 2-4 every night. I wouldn't be surprised to see Snyder playing a lot of Niang/O'Neale/Ingles 2-4 in the playoffs when they are protecting leads. Mitchell is a great volume scorer but not particularly efficient with his eFG% of only 52%. When inefficient scoring is combined with horrible defense, it's not difficult to see why he's a team-worst -9. Allocating minutes is going to be a challenge for Quin in the playoffs.
Camden wrote:The 39-13 Utah Jazz currently own the best record in basketball. The Jazz are also complete morons for continuing to play Donovan Mitchell, Jordan Clarkson, and Bojan Bogdanovi? when the team clearly performs better when they're off the court, according to their on/off data. If only Quin Snyder would wake up and realize this.
The Jazz are an interesting team, Cam, because they have three players who may end up being all-NBA defense...Gobert, Conley and O'Neale. Mitchell on the other hand is a disaster on defense, and his defensive deficiencies hurt the Jazz...even in the midst of a nice offensive season. I'm not surprised Utah is so good this year with their lock-down defense, and it's going to be interesting to see what Snyder does in the playoffs where the importance of defense is elevated. O'Neale is extraordinary and is called on to defend the opponent's best player 2-4 every night. I wouldn't be surprised to see Snyder playing a lot of Niang/O'Neale/Ingles 2-4 in the playoffs when they are protecting leads. Mitchell is a great volume scorer but not particularly efficient with his eFG% of only 52%. When inefficient scoring is combined with horrible defense, it's not difficult to see why he's a team-worst -9. Allocating minutes is going to be a challenge for Quin in the playoffs.
If the prior three seasons are an indication... Mitchell will be playing more minutes in the playoffs.
He's averaged 34 mpg in each of the past three regular seasons... and 38 mpg in each of the past three playoffs.
Camden wrote:The 39-13 Utah Jazz currently own the best record in basketball. The Jazz are also complete morons for continuing to play Donovan Mitchell, Jordan Clarkson, and Bojan Bogdanovi? when the team clearly performs better when they're off the court, according to their on/off data. If only Quin Snyder would wake up and realize this.
The Jazz are an interesting team, Cam, because they have three players who may end up being all-NBA defense...Gobert, Conley and O'Neale. Mitchell on the other hand is a disaster on defense, and his defensive deficiencies hurt the Jazz...even in the midst of a nice offensive season. I'm not surprised Utah is so good this year with their lock-down defense, and it's going to be interesting to see what Snyder does in the playoffs where the importance of defense is elevated. O'Neale is extraordinary and is called on to defend the opponent's best player 2-4 every night. I wouldn't be surprised to see Snyder playing a lot of Niang/O'Neale/Ingles 2-4 in the playoffs when they are protecting leads. Mitchell is a great volume scorer but not particularly efficient with his eFG% of only 52%. When inefficient scoring is combined with horrible defense, it's not difficult to see why he's a team-worst -9. Allocating minutes is going to be a challenge for Quin in the playoffs.
If the prior three seasons are an indication... Mitchell will be playing more minutes in the playoffs.
He's averaged 34 mpg in each of the past three regular seasons... and 38 mpg in each of the past three playoffs.
True, but read a few local articles about what Utah fans and analysts are saying about his defense this year...it's fallen off a cliff, and there are a lot of concerns about it. I actually thought he was at least average in previous years, but he's a different player this year. Maybe he's coasting and saving it for the playoffs...if not, there are some reasons for Jazz fans to be concerned.
