Let Me Be The First

[Camden [enjin:6601484]]

Ricky is easily our most underappreciated player. Look at the Real Plus Minus to see his impact on the court:

2015-16 Real Plus-Minus
RK NAME TEAM GP MPG ORPM DRPM RPM WINS
1 Stephen Curry, PG GS 46 33.7 9.18 1.69 10.87 14.28
2 Russell Westbrook, PG OKC 49 34.2 7.96 1.34 9.30 13.37
3 Draymond Green, PF GS 47 34.2 3.86 5.13 8.99 12.69
4 Kawhi Leonard, SF SA 45 32.6 4.59 4.26 8.85 11.10
5 LeBron James, SF CLE 45 35.7 6.16 2.35 8.51 11.43
6 Kyle Lowry, PG TOR 47 36.7 5.52 2.10 7.62 11.46
7 Chris Paul, PG LAC 43 32.4 5.84 1.07 6.91 8.69
8 DeAndre Jordan, C LAC 46 33.4 1.08 5.49 6.57 9.21
9 DeMarcus Cousins, C SAC 39 34.1 2.71 3.85 6.56 8.58
10 Tim Duncan, C SA 37 25.9 -0.49 6.83 6.34 5.70
11 Paul Millsap, PF ATL 48 32.4 3.35 2.92 6.27 9.03
12 Kevin Durant, SF OKC 42 36.0 5.62 0.57 6.19 9.00
13 Kevin Love, PF CLE 46 32.4 3.30 2.67 5.97 8.28
14 Nikola Jokic, C DEN 46 19.5 2.55 2.86 5.41 4.73
15 Chris Bosh, PF MIA 48 33.6 2.91 2.07 4.98 7.79
16 Paul George, SF IND 47 35.5 3.46 1.32 4.78 8.52
17 Pau Gasol, C CHI 44 31.6 0.48 4.29 4.77 6.78
18 Ricky Rubio, PG MIN 43 30.2 1.96 2.79 4.75 6.28
19 Jimmy Butler, SG CHI 46 38.1 4.44 0.15 4.59 8.31
20 James Harden, SG HOU 50 37.3 6.01 -1.57 4.44 8.95

Great point. In related news, the Wolves should trade Andrew Wiggins for R. Neto or K. Singler. After all, 372 players are better than Wiggins according to that stat.

Nice try, but by pretty much all advanced stats, Wiggins is a bad NBA player right now. But given that he's 20 and crazy athletic, most people think he'll vastly improve on those stats and soon become a good to potentially great player.

You know, minus the ones Hollinger invented which have him as the 10th most valuable SG in the league and tied for 9th in estimated wins added and 13 in efficiency. I wouldn't say those are terrible for a sophomore.

Genuinely curious about which stats those would be... Link?

[khans2k5 [enjin:6608728]]

Ricky is easily our most underappreciated player. Look at the Real Plus Minus to see his impact on the court:

2015-16 Real Plus-Minus
RK NAME TEAM GP MPG ORPM DRPM RPM WINS
1 Stephen Curry, PG GS 46 33.7 9.18 1.69 10.87 14.28
2 Russell Westbrook, PG OKC 49 34.2 7.96 1.34 9.30 13.37
3 Draymond Green, PF GS 47 34.2 3.86 5.13 8.99 12.69
4 Kawhi Leonard, SF SA 45 32.6 4.59 4.26 8.85 11.10
5 LeBron James, SF CLE 45 35.7 6.16 2.35 8.51 11.43
6 Kyle Lowry, PG TOR 47 36.7 5.52 2.10 7.62 11.46
7 Chris Paul, PG LAC 43 32.4 5.84 1.07 6.91 8.69
8 DeAndre Jordan, C LAC 46 33.4 1.08 5.49 6.57 9.21
9 DeMarcus Cousins, C SAC 39 34.1 2.71 3.85 6.56 8.58
10 Tim Duncan, C SA 37 25.9 -0.49 6.83 6.34 5.70
11 Paul Millsap, PF ATL 48 32.4 3.35 2.92 6.27 9.03
12 Kevin Durant, SF OKC 42 36.0 5.62 0.57 6.19 9.00
13 Kevin Love, PF CLE 46 32.4 3.30 2.67 5.97 8.28
14 Nikola Jokic, C DEN 46 19.5 2.55 2.86 5.41 4.73
15 Chris Bosh, PF MIA 48 33.6 2.91 2.07 4.98 7.79
16 Paul George, SF IND 47 35.5 3.46 1.32 4.78 8.52
17 Pau Gasol, C CHI 44 31.6 0.48 4.29 4.77 6.78
18 Ricky Rubio, PG MIN 43 30.2 1.96 2.79 4.75 6.28
19 Jimmy Butler, SG CHI 46 38.1 4.44 0.15 4.59 8.31
20 James Harden, SG HOU 50 37.3 6.01 -1.57 4.44 8.95

Great point. In related news, the Wolves should trade Andrew Wiggins for R. Neto or K. Singler. After all, 372 players are better than Wiggins according to that stat.

Nice try, but by pretty much all advanced stats, Wiggins is a bad NBA player right now. But given that he's 20 and crazy athletic, most people think he'll vastly improve on those stats and soon become a good to potentially great player.

You know, minus the ones Hollinger invented which have him as the 10th most valuable SG in the league and tied for 9th in estimated wins added and 13 in efficiency. I wouldn't say those are terrible for a sophomore.

Genuinely curious about which stats those would be... Link?

You have to be an insider to see them.

http://insider.espn.go.com/nba/hollinger/statistics

VA: Value Added - the estimated number of points a player adds to a team's season total above what a 'replacement player' (for instance, the 12th man on the roster) would produce. Value Added = ([Minutes * (PER - PRL)] / 67). PRL (Position Replacement Level) = 11.5 for power forwards, 11.0 for point guards, 10.6 for centers, 10.5 for shooting guards and small forwards

EWA: Estimated Wins Added - Value Added divided by 30, giving the estimated number of wins a player adds to a team's season total above what a 'replacement player' would produce.

[MikkeMan]

One of the factors of RPM is performance above team average per 100 possessions. So Ricky's RPM compared to an aggregate includes our 2nd unit may skew his numbers based on what I understand of this metric. We only have one real PG on the team, and despite Zach's improvement I think our bench has got to be the worst performing in the NBA.

Your understanding might be correct. I cannot be sure because I don't know exactly how RPM is constructed. Typically I have hard time to put much credit for any advanced stat that is based on formula or equation that has not been published. If exact rules on how certain stat is constructed have not been published, it impossible to check whether stat has any serious flaws.

Based on what I have read about RPM, it might be exactly similar to stat that I have always wanted to create. (But I have not ever done it because unfortunately I have a real life and thus I have not had enough time to do it.) But my understanding is that RPM is based on team Ortg and Drtg numbers while certain player is on the floor. But RPM also considers what is the effect of other players that are in floor same time for team performance. I'm not sure if it also considers opponent players quality and how many iterations will be done before RPM numbers are 'ready'.

Even tough final RPM numbers should not be affected that much by other team members, it certainly looks like it depends on heavily at least about other players that play same position in team.

For example Mo Williams was ranked 50th best point guard when he was backup for Lillard. Last year when he was mainly playing teams with Kemba Walker and Zach Lavine as other point guard (since Ricky was injured most of the year) he was ranked to 35th best point guard. This year when he is playing for Cleveland and Dellavedova and Irving are team's other points, he is ranked 78th among all point guards. So it certainly looks like Ricky's RPM numbers might be skewed for playing in team without any other decent point guard options.

[MikkeMan]

I think that one thing that improves a lot how good Ricky looks in defense based on advanced stats is that he plays much more minutes with Garnett than Lavine for example plays. That might also somehow explain Ricky's really high defensive RPM numbers this year.

Here are some interesting numbers from this year:

Wolves Drtg with Ricky: 101.8 in 1298 minutes
Wolves Drtg with Ricky and KG: 94.4 in 463 minutes
Wolves Drtg with Ricky but without KG: approximately 105.9 in 835 minutes

Wolves Drtg with Zach: 107.7 in 1152 minutes
Wolves Drtg with Zach and KG: 103.0 in 97 minutes
Wolves Drtg with Zach but without KG: approximately 108.1 in 1055 minutes

So when the effect that KG has for their Drtg numbers is removed, it looks like Wolves Drtg does not depend that much whether Ricky or Zach is on court.

[MikkeMan]

Why I want Dragic?
- I believe his down year is mainly because he is bad fit with Miami's slow pace offense.
- He would be great fit with Minnesota's group of athletic runners if Wolves just get a coach that understands how to use their talent.
- Even tough Dragic is 33 years when his contract ends, I'm hoping that his ability to finish at rim is similar to Manu who still at age 38 knows how to hit his lay-ups
- Dragic has had much less problems with injuries than Ricky

Khan might be still right that Miami would not want to trade Dragic for Ricky. Maybe then a three way trade next summer between Dallas/Sacramento (two teams that have been rumored to be interested about Rubio), Miami and Minnesota.

This is interesting. One of your reasons for why we'd want Dragic is the exact reason why many teams would justify wanting Rubio. He seems to thrive in getting athletes the ball in the open court.

I think your summary above actually made me less interested in a Rubio for Dragic swap!

I actually forgot maybe the most important reason for wanting Dragic.

- I want Wolves to be competitive as soon as next season and I think building competitive team around Dragic, Wiggins and Towns is much easier than building competitive team around Rubio, Wiggins and Towns. I remember that even you wrote at some point that Rubio, Wiggins back court is bad fit offensively since neither player can't shoot from outside. I think most of us hope that we won't see next year anymore Tay or even KG in starting five. With Rubio Wolves would then need to find pair of starting forwards that both are good outside shooters and hopefully also at least above average defensive players. It would be also probably good that at least another of the new forwards should be little more versatile scorer than pure 3&D guy. That sounds almost impossible task to find. Guys with just 3&D skills are getting at least 10 million contracts and if player has little more talent like Batum or Barnes have, they will get close to max offers.

Since Dragic is better outside shooter and can also carry some scoring load, Wolves could try to get one really good defensive big that would not need to have even outside shot and then one 3&D forward. Getting good defensive big like Mahinmi, Ezeli or Sullinger and low usage 3&D guy like Dudley, Snell or Garrett Temple is much easier and cheaper than find players that fit with Rubio.

Even if Wolves would be able to sign pair of forwards that complement nicely with Ricky like Terrence Jones and Batum, I have a feeling that lineup of like Dragic, Wiggins, Dudley, Towns and Mahinmi might still perform better in playoffs than Rubio, Wiggins, Batum, Jones and Towns.

[Q12543 [enjin:6621299]]

I think that one thing that improves a lot how good Ricky looks in defense based on advanced stats is that he plays much more minutes with Garnett than Lavine for example plays. That might also somehow explain Ricky's really high defensive RPM numbers this year.

Here are some interesting numbers from this year:

Wolves Drtg with Ricky: 101.8 in 1298 minutes
Wolves Drtg with Ricky and KG: 94.4 in 463 minutes
Wolves Drtg with Ricky but without KG: approximately 105.9 in 835 minutes

Wolves Drtg with Zach: 107.7 in 1152 minutes
Wolves Drtg with Zach and KG: 103.0 in 97 minutes
Wolves Drtg with Zach but without KG: approximately 108.1 in 1055 minutes

So when the effect that KG has for their Drtg numbers is removed, it looks like Wolves Drtg does not depend that much whether Ricky or Zach is on court.

That's a small sample size Mikke. Ricky has demonstrated over the past 5 seasons that the Wolves are better defensively when he's on the court versus on the bench. Keep in mind that one of those seasons had Pek and Love as our starting C and PF - not exactly two great rim protectors. I also think it's fair to say that bigs can have a more profound impact on a defense than a PG can, so I agree that RPM probably overrates defensive impact with Rubio.

That being said, it's concerning how much of an impact KG still has on our defense. I guess it's good in that he is still a very useful player and hopefully guys like Dieng and KAT are soaking everything up. But man, it's sort of depressing that we have to rely on a 40-year old dude in order to be a passable defensive team.

[Q12543 [enjin:6621299]]

Ricky is easily our most underappreciated player. Look at the Real Plus Minus to see his impact on the court:

2015-16 Real Plus-Minus
RK NAME TEAM GP MPG ORPM DRPM RPM WINS
1 Stephen Curry, PG GS 46 33.7 9.18 1.69 10.87 14.28
2 Russell Westbrook, PG OKC 49 34.2 7.96 1.34 9.30 13.37
3 Draymond Green, PF GS 47 34.2 3.86 5.13 8.99 12.69
4 Kawhi Leonard, SF SA 45 32.6 4.59 4.26 8.85 11.10
5 LeBron James, SF CLE 45 35.7 6.16 2.35 8.51 11.43
6 Kyle Lowry, PG TOR 47 36.7 5.52 2.10 7.62 11.46
7 Chris Paul, PG LAC 43 32.4 5.84 1.07 6.91 8.69
8 DeAndre Jordan, C LAC 46 33.4 1.08 5.49 6.57 9.21
9 DeMarcus Cousins, C SAC 39 34.1 2.71 3.85 6.56 8.58
10 Tim Duncan, C SA 37 25.9 -0.49 6.83 6.34 5.70
11 Paul Millsap, PF ATL 48 32.4 3.35 2.92 6.27 9.03
12 Kevin Durant, SF OKC 42 36.0 5.62 0.57 6.19 9.00
13 Kevin Love, PF CLE 46 32.4 3.30 2.67 5.97 8.28
14 Nikola Jokic, C DEN 46 19.5 2.55 2.86 5.41 4.73
15 Chris Bosh, PF MIA 48 33.6 2.91 2.07 4.98 7.79
16 Paul George, SF IND 47 35.5 3.46 1.32 4.78 8.52
17 Pau Gasol, C CHI 44 31.6 0.48 4.29 4.77 6.78
18 Ricky Rubio, PG MIN 43 30.2 1.96 2.79 4.75 6.28
19 Jimmy Butler, SG CHI 46 38.1 4.44 0.15 4.59 8.31
20 James Harden, SG HOU 50 37.3 6.01 -1.57 4.44 8.95

Great point. In related news, the Wolves should trade Andrew Wiggins for R. Neto or K. Singler. After all, 372 players are better than Wiggins according to that stat.

Nice try, but by pretty much all advanced stats, Wiggins is a bad NBA player right now. But given that he's 20 and crazy athletic, most people think he'll vastly improve on those stats and soon become a good to potentially great player.

You know, minus the ones Hollinger invented which have him as the 10th most valuable SG in the league and tied for 9th in estimated wins added and 13 in efficiency. I wouldn't say those are terrible for a sophomore.

Genuinely curious about which stats those would be... Link?

You have to be an insider to see them.

http://insider.espn.go.com/nba/hollinger/statistics

VA: Value Added - the estimated number of points a player adds to a team's season total above what a 'replacement player' (for instance, the 12th man on the roster) would produce. Value Added = ([Minutes * (PER - PRL)] / 67). PRL (Position Replacement Level) = 11.5 for power forwards, 11.0 for point guards, 10.6 for centers, 10.5 for shooting guards and small forwards

EWA: Estimated Wins Added - Value Added divided by 30, giving the estimated number of wins a player adds to a team's season total above what a 'replacement player' would produce.

Hollinger seems to put a lot of emphasis on usage, otherwise I'm not sure how else Wiggins is ranked where he is in these stats. If you look at his scoring efficiency (TS%), he's tied for 43rd. That's a major problem in my opinion. And his rebounding rate is 34th.

So yeah, Wiggins is capable of carrying a big load offensively for the Wolves but he does so at a very inefficient level. That absolutely has to get a lot better for him to reach the upper echelons of wings in the NBA.

[MikkeMan]

That's a small sample size Mikke. Ricky has demonstrated over the past 5 seasons that the Wolves are better defensively when he's on the court versus on the bench. Keep in mind that one of those seasons had Pek and Love as our starting C and PF - not exactly two great rim protectors. I also think it's fair to say that bigs can have a more profound impact on a defense than a PG can, so I agree that RPM probably overrates defensive impact with Rubio.

That being said, it's concerning how much of an impact KG still has on our defense. I guess it's good in that he is still a very useful player and hopefully guys like Dieng and KAT are soaking everything up. But man, it's sort of depressing that we have to rely on a 40-year old dude in order to be a passable defensive team.

Yes, I agree that we have seen that Ricky has had positive effect on team defense every year. My point was more that if you look just team defensive rating with Rubio, it seems that team has played even better defense this year.

In previous three years team Drtg had been quite constant with Ricky on floor:

2012-13: 103.4
2013-14: 103.9
2014-15: 103.4
and then this year it looks like there is clear improvement
2015-16: 101.8

But if we remove the effect that KG has had also for team defensive rating with Ricky, it has not really improved but actually it would have regressed little. And Lavine seems to have clearly improved. Last year team Drtg with him was 112.4 and this year even if you remove the effect that KG has for it, it has been 108.1.

If you want to trust RPM, you can probably feel little better about KG's impact. Based on RPM numbers, KG's defensive impact is still 2nd among all power forwards and only below Draymond Green. Also based on RPM Dieng has clearly improved from last year. His DRPM was 0.68 last year and this year it has been 2.49. So maybe some learning is really happening.

[Q12543 [enjin:6621299]]

That's a small sample size Mikke. Ricky has demonstrated over the past 5 seasons that the Wolves are better defensively when he's on the court versus on the bench. Keep in mind that one of those seasons had Pek and Love as our starting C and PF - not exactly two great rim protectors. I also think it's fair to say that bigs can have a more profound impact on a defense than a PG can, so I agree that RPM probably overrates defensive impact with Rubio.

That being said, it's concerning how much of an impact KG still has on our defense. I guess it's good in that he is still a very useful player and hopefully guys like Dieng and KAT are soaking everything up. But man, it's sort of depressing that we have to rely on a 40-year old dude in order to be a passable defensive team.

Yes, I agree that we have seen that Ricky has had positive effect on team defense every year. My point was more that if you look just team defensive rating with Rubio, it seems that team has played even better defense this year.

In previous three years team Drtg had been quite constant with Ricky on floor:

2012-13: 103.4
2013-14: 103.9
2014-15: 103.4
and then this year it looks like there is clear improvement
2015-16: 101.8

But if we remove the effect that KG has had also for team defensive rating with Ricky, it has not really improved but actually it would have regressed little. And Lavine seems to have clearly improved. Last year team Drtg with him was 112.4 and this year even if you remove the effect that KG has for it, it has been 108.1.

If you want to trust RPM, you can probably feel little better about KG's impact. Based on RPM numbers, KG's defensive impact is still 2nd among all power forwards and only below Draymond Green. Also based on RPM Dieng has clearly improved from last year. His DRPM was 0.68 last year and this year it has been 2.49. So maybe some learning is really happening.

Right, so DRPM appears to appropriately rank KG. Although Abe always cherry-picks the Wiggins DRPM without looking at the ones (which is actually the majority) that do make sense, it is really odd how low Wiggins comes out.

I also agree that Dieng and LaVine have both improved defensively versus last year. But keep in mind that we had one of the worst defenses in the history of the NBA last year. Seriously, of the 20-30 teams in the league over the "modern era" of the NBA, last year's Wolves team was probably one of the 4 or 5 worst defenses of all time. Some improvement isn't enough when you are that bad. This team still has a long ways to go defensively, especially when you look at how bad we still are without KG, Prince, or Rubio on the floor.

[Camden [enjin:6601484]]

So, what do we still think about this thread?