Minnesota Sports Forum

FNG wrote:

Camden wrote:Wrong again, FNG. My disdain for the notorious plus-minus statistic dates back long before this particular site even existed -- and also long before D'Angelo Russell was even in the league. People on the ESPN forum (where most of us are from) used to cite plus-minus in a way that made Ricky Rubio appear to be a better player than he was while also making Kevin Love appear less-great than he was. It was then that I really grew my dislike of that stat and ones that are similar in construction. Again, they have some value when used with other metrics, but on their own I find them to be nonsensical. And then we move on to players like Kevin Martin, Zach LaVine, and Thaddeus Young (occasionally) who got criticized time and time again primarily because of the almighty plus-minus stat despite the clear positives they brought with their games.

We can agree to disagree on the topic, but that's the history behind it as it pertains to me. It has nothing to do with D-Lo. He's just the player in particular who currently gets most-abused on this board by the misuse of that stat.

I'll take your word for that, Cam, because I don't know anything about the ESPN site...I was (sadly) a rubechat observer (not poster) before wandering over here, and that was painful...I don't miss it. But it sounds like the +/- discussion pre-dates the arrival of DLo.

But I'm still curious about how you statistically evaluate DLo to conclude he is a positive player, or frankly even worth a $12-15 million salary. A few of us here have pointed to several measures (net rating, TS%, on/off, +/-) where DLo (and frankly Wig) are outliers among max players as they both rank in the bottom half of the league by these measures. DLo is the starting PG on my favorite team and both likable and fun to watch at times, so I really want to be confident in his ability to be part of a playoff rotation, but his negative stats seems indisputable to me...and being in his 7th year, it's certainly not a small sample size and the numbers are quite consistently mediocre to bad. But frankly the positive factor I hear you bring up most is his one All-Star appearance. Many of us need a lot more than that to believe in him, so convince us...the mic is yours.

Here's the thing, FNG. This comment, intentional or not, somewhat suggests that I haven't already discussed how I evaluate players or what statistics I've used to defend, for lack of a better term, D'Angelo Russell on this board. Let's be honest here. This isn't our first, second, or third time discussing his value. And I've had even more extensive conversations concerning D-Lo here that were either before you arrived or it specifically involved other posters. At some point, I have to realize that the case I've laid out in the past multiple times either isn't being well-received or is flat out being ignored, or some combination of the two. The likely reason for that is how strong we feel about a certain player or topic makes us less inclined to hear the other side. I'm guilty of that too from time to time. Now, I truly understand I'm in the minority here when it comes to Russell. I accepted that long ago. I'm open to the idea of creating a thread where I'll leave my argument on his behalf so that it can resurface on a moment's notice, but keep in mind that I've had these debates an ungodly amount of times already. If I haven't changed your mind by now, or presented you with an alternative view, then I just don't think anything I could say now would do anything for you. Russell is just going to have to prove it to you and other detractors in what looks to be a fun year of Wolves basketball.

thedoper wrote:Top 3 + - so far this year 1. Derrick Rose 2.PJ Tucker 3.Kyle Lowry

KAT is 4th and Keata Bates-Diop is in the top 10. I dont know what that tells me. But usually if the parts are noisy the aggregate should have some issues too.

Brooks Lopez was a career negative + - player until he played with the Bucks. The best thing for plus minus is winning and playing with bonafide winners. To make it an assessment tool of intangibles, and especially a game by game tool, doesnt account for how noisy of a metric it is.

Good for KAT...thanks for that stat, doper. I suspect that KBD's minutes are mostly in garbage time, so nobody here is going to put any credence into his top 10 ranking!

I've never been a big Lopez guy (I thought he was great last year though), so I'm not surprised he ranks poorly by that measure. But again, it's only one measure in evaluating a player. Unlike Wig and Dlo (admittedly my poster children for showing up poorly in stats that matter to me), he has a positive net rating on basketball reference, and has been positive more often than not. That has to be taken into account when evaluating him. Lopez has proven statistically and in reality that he can be a piece of a championship team, and so far DLo is far from proving that. You might see it differently, doper, and I really want to because I love my Wolves! But it's clear to me that we need DLo to be better...we need last night to be the rule rather than the exception.

thedoper wrote:Top 3 + - so far this year 1. Derrick Rose 2.PJ Tucker 3.Kyle Lowry

KAT is 4th and Keata Bates-Diop is in the top 10. I dont know what that tells me. But usually if the parts are noisy the aggregate should have some issues too.

Brooks Lopez was a career negative + - player until he played with the Bucks. The best thing for plus minus is winning and playing with bonafide winners. To make it an assessment tool of intangibles, and especially a game by game tool, doesnt account for how noisy of a metric it is.

You are correct that looking at it on a game by game basis or even 4 games into the season makes it particularly noisy.

As for your B. Lopez example, you are presumably only looking at Net Rating. I look at both Net Rating and Net On/Off rating, and by those two metrics combined, Brook Lopez is much more of a mixed picture prior to his stint in Milwaukee.

Also, one thing we need to remember about Lopez is that he started becoming a real threat with the 3 only a few years ago, many seasons into his career. That wasn't in his toolbag in his earlier years so we can point to a tangible skill he added that is directly correlated with his better +/- ratings in Milwaukee. He really did become a better player - it wasn't just his team mates.

Lastly, Milwaukee adopted a drop coverage defensive scheme that was a very good fit for Lopez. He is a giant of a man and his ability to wall up in the paint and bother shots without leaving his feet is maximized in this system.

AbeVigodaLive wrote:

Camden wrote:Wrong again, FNG. My disdain for the notorious plus-minus statistic dates back long before this particular site even existed -- and also long before D'Angelo Russell was even in the league. People on the ESPN forum (where most of us are from) used to cite plus-minus in a way that made Ricky Rubio appear to be a better player than he was while also making Kevin Love appear less-great than he was. It was then that I really grew my dislike of that stat and ones that are similar in construction. Again, they have some value when used with other metrics, but on their own I find them to be nonsensical. And then we move on to players like Kevin Martin, Zach LaVine, and Thaddeus Young (occasionally) who got criticized time and time again primarily because of the almighty plus-minus stat despite the clear positives they brought with their games.

We can agree to disagree on the topic, but that's the history behind it as it pertains to me. It has nothing to do with D-Lo. He's just the player in particular who currently gets most-abused on this board by the misuse of that stat.

I can attest to the Rubio >>> Kevin Love dynamic on this forum... even after 8/3/8/31% fg nights vs. 32/14/4/47% nights.

And my (oft-repeated) biggest quibble about the +/- stat is that it would show that Demarr Derozan's teams are better off when he doesn't play for almost his entire career. Yet, multiple coaches in multiple places keep giving him the most minutes on the team... often while winning 45 - 59 games.

It's telling how Toronto won a title when he was swapped out for Kawhi and San Antonio got no better than the Kawhi-less season before by adding him (Kawhi was injured). Lowry and JoVal were the key pillars of the team in the pre-Kawhi years IMO. I don't think he's a bad player, but I think his best role would be as a bench scorer for 20-25 MPG.

Camden0916 wrote:Anthony Edwards doesn't understand what "settling" means in basketball. He said he doesn't know why it's called that. He calls it playing basketball. Said if he wants to take a jumper, he'll take a jumper. If he wants to get to the rim, he'll get to the rim.

While I enjoy the confidence that he has in himself, I'm confused by this response during his post-game interview. I would hope that he understands what a good shot is versus what a bad shot is, and why taking a bad shot is considered settling. You let the defense off the hook by not getting the best look possible. And for Edwards his good looks are going to come in the painted area. Maybe this is something coaching can get on him about, but hoisting jumper after jumper when you have the physical gifts and skill that he has is the textbook example of settling. It's a bad shot most of the time for him whether it goes in the basket or not. It needs to be stressed to him that getting to the rim is the best basketball play.

I totally agree, he settles way too much. I think he seems very coachable for a kid his age and talent level, and I think he is generally a very willing passes. But yes I get frustrated with his shot selection also.

I'm pretty confident his 3 pt percentage will increase early in his career, his mechanics are generally pretty sounds, but still a few flaws a see. Players with his mechanics I feel generally improve their shooting.

Q12543 wrote:

AbeVigodaLive wrote:

Camden wrote:Wrong again, FNG. My disdain for the notorious plus-minus statistic dates back long before this particular site even existed -- and also long before D'Angelo Russell was even in the league. People on the ESPN forum (where most of us are from) used to cite plus-minus in a way that made Ricky Rubio appear to be a better player than he was while also making Kevin Love appear less-great than he was. It was then that I really grew my dislike of that stat and ones that are similar in construction. Again, they have some value when used with other metrics, but on their own I find them to be nonsensical. And then we move on to players like Kevin Martin, Zach LaVine, and Thaddeus Young (occasionally) who got criticized time and time again primarily because of the almighty plus-minus stat despite the clear positives they brought with their games.

We can agree to disagree on the topic, but that's the history behind it as it pertains to me. It has nothing to do with D-Lo. He's just the player in particular who currently gets most-abused on this board by the misuse of that stat.

I can attest to the Rubio >>> Kevin Love dynamic on this forum... even after 8/3/8/31% fg nights vs. 32/14/4/47% nights.

And my (oft-repeated) biggest quibble about the +/- stat is that it would show that Demarr Derozan's teams are better off when he doesn't play for almost his entire career. Yet, multiple coaches in multiple places keep giving him the most minutes on the team... often while winning 45 - 59 games.

It's telling how Toronto won a title when he was swapped out for Kawhi and San Antonio got no better than the Kawhi-less season before by adding him (Kawhi was injured). Lowry and JoVal were the key pillars of the team in the pre-Kawhi years IMO. I don't think he's a bad player, but I think his best role would be as a bench scorer for 20-25 MPG.

Of course! Kawhi Leonard >>>> DeRozan. It's not even close.

We can argue about the Jonas V part. After all, the guy played only 22 mpg as the Raptors won 59 games. We both agree that DeRozan isn't an All NBA player (or even All Star?) and not worth $27M per season...

... but considering him only a bench scorer who plays about as much as Raul Neto or Furkan Korkmaz seems to be a pendulum swing entirely in another direction. Imagine how good a team would have to be to have a 23/5/5 guy with a proven record of success only playing 20+ minutes off the bench in his prime?

But we've been through this too many times already. The bottom line is that he's a notorious on/off loser... who keeps playing big minutes on semi- to very-successful teams. Maybe it's luck. Maybe it's noise. Maybe something else entirely.

This season might even be a good litmus test.

The Chicago Bulls will be playing Zach LaVine and DeMar DeRozan 30-35 minutes practically every game this year. These are two guys who, quite frankly, get shit on in these particular metrics that are being discussed. Their on-court value has never been accurately represented by plus-minus or on/off statistics. With them playing together, you have to wonder if these two bums can do enough to make the Bulls relevant in the Eastern Conference. The very early returns have been good, though, as they're 4-0.

Bulls early schedule has been very soft. Heard Lonzo has Beene excellent so far, but haven't seen them play. I'm a big Zach guy so will be interesting to him with a decent roster and how he can impact winning.

Duke13 wrote:Bulls early schedule has been very soft. Heard Lonzo has Beene excellent so far, but haven't seen them play. I'm a big Zach guy so will be interesting to him with a decent roster and how he can impact winning.

Aren't they sorta employing a similar strategy to Minnesota in that they're supporting some solid scorers with a spotty to poor defensive history with some defensive guys?

I know Lonzo is known as a two-way player. But I can't think of many others on that team, even with reports that LaVine is improving.

So Kat had 1 foul last night and I would say most of that is because he kept his cool in multiple spots.

Last year he had only 2 games last year where he only committed 1 foul in 50 games.

Kat needs to continue to keep his cool because we need him on the court