AbeVigodaLive wrote:PorkChop wrote:Any player that can put up 32 points in a half and put his team on his shoulders in a playoff game is a guy I want on my team. I don't need any other metrics to tell me that. Maybe it's becuz I've never experienced that with my team.
FNG believes that Mitchell is the Jazz's 5th best player. Wait...
He forgot to mention Bojan Bogdanovic. So Mitchell is only the Jazz's 6th best player.
WAIT... George Niang has a +14.6 rating when on the court... but the Jazz rating differential plummets to +6.4 when he's on the bench. So... obviously, Mitchell is the Jazz's 7th best/most important/positive player.
Gotta love social media, where the guys with the craziest, most off-the-wall takes can be the snarkiest* and smuggest.*
* Ok. 2nd most snarky and smug.
Excellent snarkiness and smugosity, Abe...my compliments ;-) !
But let's try a more objective, data-driven discussion to determine the relative value of Utah's many stars (especially now that it appears they will be around until the end with Kawhi out). I apologize in advance for the length of this post...there's a lot a data out there that helps me evaluate a complex team like Utah. I've mentioned before that this board is quite driven by one metric...points per game. Pork mentioned above that he doesn't need any other metrics to evaluate a guy who can put his team on his back with 32 points in a half. I agree...with two caveats. Does he regularly carry his team in an efficient manner, and did he give up 33 points while he was scoring his 32!
If a fan is strictly, or even primarily a points per game guy, it's logical that he is going to elevate the value of a guy like Mitchell or (gasp) D'Angelo Russell, and you might even find a vintage Monta Ellis, JR Smith or OJ Mayo jersey in his closet. I certainly don't ignore PPG...scoring is important on its face. But it's not the first metric I turn to. As I've mentioned many times here, I value efficient shooting, defense and protecting the ball, because as a decades-long NBA fan, I've learned that players that excel at all 3 are generally extraordinarily valuable players. I can admire a volume scorer like Mitchell or Ellis or our own beloved DLO, because they can get hot and carry a team to victory. But if they perform poorly, or even in a mediocre fashion, in the three areas I emphasize, they generally are not the most valuable players on their team.
As Q mentioned above, Utah is an interesting team in that they have so many players who contribute in different ways...when they are all healthy, they are about as complete a 2-way team as any in the league. And I think it's worthwhile to evaluate the metrics that are most meaningful to us as fans (and they will differ) to rank their stars in terms of value. You mentioned Bogdanovic. I admit he is also a contributor to this team, but I rank him below Mitchell and the other 4 Jazz I'm going to evaluate...although I don't think I'm alone in being pleasantly surprised by his defense in the playoffs. Where did that come from? I like Georges Niang a lot too, but I'll leave him out of the analysis because he doesn't get the minutes the other guys get. But let's look at the other 5:
Raw numbers per 36:
PPG Assists Rebounds
Gobert 16.7 1.5 15.8
Conley 19.9 7.3 4.3
Ingles 15.6 6.1 4.7
Mitchell 28.5 5.6 4.8
O'Neale 8 2.9 7.8
Mitchell is the clear winner in points per 36, and also the most likely winner in the raw stats derby because of his scoring. And O'Neale is clearly the least impressive. But then we get to other measures by which he lags all four teammates. I like efficient scoring...most coaches do. How do the five measure up in eFG%:
Gobert 67.5%
Conley 55.2%
Ingles 65.2%
Mitchell 52%
O'Neale 58%
Utah is a very efficient shooting team...unfortunately Mitchell lags the pack by a significant amount, as his scoring efficiency is below average for an NBA SG.
How about some of the Basketball Reference measures that try to incorporate total game?
ORtg Drtg WS/48 VORP
Gobert 131 101 .248 3.6
Conley 123 109 .197 2.4
Ingles 129 111 .180 2.5
Mitchell 115 110 .167 2.5
O'Neale 121 108 .121 1.4
Basketball Reference doesn't help Mitchell's standing when you move beyond raw points. He clearly ranks behind Gobert, Conley and Ingles in these measures by a large amount, and you can even make a case to put him behind O'Neale because of his dominance in ORtg and DRtg.
Finally, the object in basketball is not to score as many points as you can personally, but to outscore your opponent. And even though it is much maligned on some corners of this board, I find that the on/off stats on Cleaning the Glass almost always match my eye test as to who I think is giving their team the most overall value...especially when taken over an entire season. And the 2020-21 on/off numbers are even less kind to Mitchell than the Basketball Reference numbers.
Gobert +14.6
Conley +11.9
Ingles +1.9
Mitchell -5.9
O'Neal -1.4
These numbers actually surprise me a little, because Mitchell starts and finishes games and thus plays a lot of his minutes with two guys who regularly destroy the other team...Gobert and Conley. Kekgeek is better than me at digging into the on/off numbers, but my guess (and my eye test when I watch the Jazz) is that Mitchell is effective when he has Gobert/Conley next to him, but close to a disaster when he doesn't.
So by the measures that are most important to me, Mitchell is at best the 4th most valuable contributor on this deep team, and it's not that easy to make a case for him even contributing more than O'Neal using my favorite metrics. Remember the qualities I value highest...efficient shooting, defense and protecting the ball? Mitchell ranks dead last in all three among these 5 players (no knowledgeable Jazz fan would rank call Mitchell a better defender than Ingles), and correspondingly dead last in on/off.
So, that's my (I believe) objective analysis of the relative value of these 5 very good players. But I come to this board to learn, so I'm also interested in what metrics you use to evaluate players, and how they allow you to rank Mitchell any higher than 4th in overall value on the Jazz given some of his poor metrics. If the measures I value are irrelevant and measures like points per game are more meaningful, I want to hear your argument. I draw the line at buying a DLO or Monta Ellis jersey though :) .