Advanced Stats on Wolves Players

[Lipoli390]

There are so many advanced metrics for evaluating NBA players. One of my favorites is net rating, which nets out points scored versus points allowed by the team when an individual players was in the game. It's adjusted for minutes played. I think it's biggest flaw is that it doesn't account for who is on the floor with the individual player whose rating you're looking at. But I think it provides some interesting insights in examining individual Wolves players last season.

Not surprisingly, Jimmy Butler had the highest net rating among Wolves players. He was 46th out of over 400 players in the League. Jimmy had a net of 8.3. The third highest Wolves player was Towns who ended up 75th in the League with a net of 5.9. So who was second? Tyus Jones who was ranked 70th with a net of 6.1. After Towns, there was Taj Gibson who ranked 98th, Wiggins who ranked 141st, Teague at 158, Belly at 220, Derrrick Rose at 365, Crawford at 370, and Gorgui Dieng at 389.

So what conclusions can we draw from these numbers. Well, I'm not sure. But here are a few things that pop into my mind:

1. Tyus Jones strikes me as the most impressive Timberwolves player on this metric. Here's why. A player's net rating can be dragged up or down by the teammates he plays with in a team's rotation. Tyus spent far more time on the floor with Jamaal Crawford, Belly and Gorgui Dieng than he spent playing with Butler, Towns, Wiggins or Teague. Yet, Tyus ended up with a better net than all those players except Butler. The fact that Tyus had significantly better net rating than Teague even though nearly all of Teague's minutes and very few of Jones' minutes came with Butler on the floor is telling. Teague himself said several times that Jones should get more playing time. Well, I think Teague was onto something. This particular metric suggests that a significant portion of those additional minutes for Jones should come at the expense of Teague's minutes.

2. This metric underscores the weakness of the Wolves bench, which Thibodeau pointed to in his Summer League interview as the Wolves biggest problem. Our rotation bench players consisted of 3 players (Belly, Crawford and Gorgui) ranked from 220 to 389 among the nearly 500 ranked NBA players. All three had significant negative ratings on this metric.

3. This metric also suggests the Wolves have done little to improve the bench. Tolliver was ranked 203rd last season, a slight improvement over Belly who was ranked 220th. Rose's 365 (-4.4 net) ranking was almost as bad as Jamaal's 370 (-4.7) and Gorgui's 389 (-5.6).

I understand this is only one metric and it has its limitations. But it does provide some insight into the performance of individual players in relation to their impact on the team. Butler, Towns and Taj look like a very solid trio on this metric. Wiggins isn't terrible. But it's interesting to ponder how much better our starting unit would be with a still improving Tyus Jones rather that Jeff Teague as our 30+ minutes starting PG. Then again, it is frustrating to ponder another season with such a terrible bench.

[Monster]

The CARMELO projections are just one thing to look at and personally I get a kick out of how they calculate a money value for players for each year. It's both helpful and highly entertaining! Anyway here is a link to how they come up with their projections. I found the way they end up with baselines for replacement level players at every position quite interesting.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/our-nba-player-projections-are-ready-for-2018-19/

[Lipoli390]

The CARMELO projections are just one thing to look at and personally I get a kick out of how they calculate a money value for players for each year. It's both helpful and highly entertaining! Anyway here is a link to how they come up with their projections. I found the way they end up with baselines for replacement level players at every position quite interesting.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/our-nba-player-projections-are-ready-for-2018-19/

The CARMELO projections are fun and I do think they're useful. One of the free agents I wanted to sign this summer, Kyle O'Quinn looks pretty good based on the CARMELO system. These projections also underscore that Butler and KAT are the Wolves team anchors with no other roster player ever close to them.

[Monster]

The CARMELO projections are just one thing to look at and personally I get a kick out of how they calculate a money value for players for each year. It's both helpful and highly entertaining! Anyway here is a link to how they come up with their projections. I found the way they end up with baselines for replacement level players at every position quite interesting.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/our-nba-player-projections-are-ready-for-2018-19/

The CARMELO projections are fun and I do think they're useful. One of the free agents I wanted to sign this summer, Kyle O'Quinn looks pretty good based on the CARMELO system. These projections also underscore that Butler and KAT are the Wolves team anchors with no other roster player ever close to them.

Tyus ranks pretty highly we should probably keep him and his agent away from these. lol

[BizarroJerry [enjin:6592520]]

I know Tyus has been up and down but I'm with you Lip. When i saw the game where he dunked on LeBron ( kind of), I thought he could be a poor man's Chris Paul. He has good vision, aggressiveness and a decent outside shot. Would like to see Teague take more backup minutes.

[Lipoli390]

The CARMELO projections are just one thing to look at and personally I get a kick out of how they calculate a money value for players for each year. It's both helpful and highly entertaining! Anyway here is a link to how they come up with their projections. I found the way they end up with baselines for replacement level players at every position quite interesting.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/our-nba-player-projections-are-ready-for-2018-19/

The CARMELO projections are fun and I do think they're useful. One of the free agents I wanted to sign this summer, Kyle O'Quinn looks pretty good based on the CARMELO system. These projections also underscore that Butler and KAT are the Wolves team anchors with no other roster player ever close to them.

Tyus ranks pretty highly we should probably keep him and his agent away from these. lol

Lol. Yes, if only we could keep them apart through next summer. Note that we could extend him this summer, although he couldn't get the 5-year deal.

I really wish we weren't stuck with Teague for two more years and $38 million. The more you dig into Teague's numbers the worse he looks, especially in relation to his contract. As you know, Darren Collison is the guy I would have signed as part of trading Rubio last summer. He's a better 3-point shooter than Teague and his 2-year $10M per year deal was a lot better than Teague's 3-year $19M per year deal. Another thought I had last summer was to sign Rondo as our starting PG and mentor for Tyus. But alas, the water has long since passed under the bridge.

As we all know, it's been reported that Tyus complained to Thibodeau about his lack of playing time last season and apparently Thibodeau signaled that Tyus would get more PT this upcoming season. I'm afraid this might become another example of Thibodeau's inability to overcome his own nature and that, in in spite of Thibs knowing what he should do, Tyus won't get a significant boost in playing time and will want to leave next summer.

[Monster]

The CARMELO projections are just one thing to look at and personally I get a kick out of how they calculate a money value for players for each year. It's both helpful and highly entertaining! Anyway here is a link to how they come up with their projections. I found the way they end up with baselines for replacement level players at every position quite interesting.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/our-nba-player-projections-are-ready-for-2018-19/

The CARMELO projections are fun and I do think they're useful. One of the free agents I wanted to sign this summer, Kyle O'Quinn looks pretty good based on the CARMELO system. These projections also underscore that Butler and KAT are the Wolves team anchors with no other roster player ever close to them.

Tyus ranks pretty highly we should probably keep him and his agent away from these. lol

Lol. Yes, if only we could keep them apart through next summer. Note that we could extend him this summer, although he couldn't get the 5-year deal.

I really wish we weren't stuck with Teague for two more years and $38 million. The more you dig into Teague's numbers the worse he looks, especially in relation to his contract. As you know, Darren Collison is the guy I would have signed as part of trading Rubio last summer. He's a better 3-point shooter than Teague and his 2-year $10M per year deal was a lot better than Teague's 3-year $19M per year deal. Another thought I had last summer was to sign Rondo as our starting PG and mentor for Tyus. But alas, the water has long since passed under the bridge.

As we all know, it's been reported that Tyus complained to Thibodeau about his lack of playing time last season and apparently Thibodeau signaled that Tyus would get more PT this upcoming season. I'm afraid this might become another example of Thibodeau's inability to overcome his own nature and that, in in spite of Thibs knowing what he should do, Tyus won't get a significant boost in playing time and will want to leave next summer.

I saw this post after writing a lot about Tyus being a real key to this season for Thibs in another thread.

You know what is a bit interesting when it comes to PGs? Dennis Schroder who the Hawks traded Teague for a 1st round pick to open up the starting spot for (good move) and is a young guy that put up a bunch of points on a bad team got dealt basically just as salary. Nobody really wanted him. CARMELO isn't very kind to him either.

[Lipoli390]

I've never been a Dennis Schroder fan, Monster. But I think he really strengthens the Thunder's bench. I see OKC being better than last season with the return of a healthy Roberson, the addition of Schroder and Noel, and the subtraction of Melo.

[Monster]

I've never been a Dennis Schroder fan, Monster. But I think he really strengthens the Thunder's bench. I see OKC being better than last season with the return of a healthy Roberson, the addition of Schroder and Noel, and the subraction of Melo.

Agreed. It will be interesting to see if they can get something out of 2 flawed but talented guys in Noel and Schroder in more limited roles. I'm interested also to see if Terrance Ferguson makes some strides along with all the other young talent they took in the draft this year.

[kurrdog53 [enjin:7013678]]

I worry about these numbers for a bench player. Unfortunately, we do not have a crystal ball and see how some of these guys would fare with more playing time in a starting role (I would have loved to see how Belly fared with the starting 5, but we could not afford to play him ahead of Taj). Often, bench players can be on the receiving end of a short but effective stretch where we outscore the opponent. It is also important to note that bench players are often playing against bench players (in our case, with one of our top 3 still likely on the floor). Basketball is a weird sport when it comes to analytics because the 'eye-test' is still very important when scouting players. One player can have a huge impact on a team, whereas in baseball, finding diamonds in the rough is really important and strong analytics are key in today's baseball.