Minnesota Sports Forum

Q12543 wrote:

leado01 wrote:Post Offense vs. Double Team

KAT was really good last night, but we showed a tremendous weakness against a sagging zone trap on KAT on the block.

I hope it's a point of emphasis in practice in the next few days as it's easy to beat with quicker decision making to the easy pass and a lot of ball movement.

Imagine how dominant we would have seemed last night with better spacing and ball movement!

As J-Pete kept mentioning, KAT should have dribbled out and dragged the double-team away from the paint in order to more easily pass to the open man. He'll get there hopefully.

KiwiMatt wrote:I've finally put my hand in my pocket and bought team league pass this year. There's something different about this team this season and it comes down to effort. They're closing out, hussling, not giving up on plays defensively. It's a joy to watch. We are winning games because of our defense. When was they last time we could say that consistantly?

Two comments from the Bucks game:

*I like Vando in the starting lineup and preached for it before we had even resigned him. Gives you Okogie effort, but has better size and rebounding chops. Fits in nicely. His focus is rebounding, hussle and 2nd chance scoring. He plays within himself and to his strengths.

*KAT had a different look about him tonight. More focused and far less animated. Didn't bicker to the officials. He's been on the wrong end of bad officiated for a long time, but this is the right tactic going forward. Atleast worth a try. Unfortunately he also looked disconnected from all his team mates outside of DLO.

AbeVigodaLive wrote:

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.

KiwiMatt wrote:I've finally put my hand in my pocket and bought team league pass this year. There's something different about this team this season and it comes down to effort. They're closing out, hussling, not giving up on plays defensively. It's a joy to watch. We are winning games because of our defense. When was they last time we could say that consistantly?

Two comments from the Bucks game:

*I like Vando in the starting lineup and preached for it before we had even resigned him. Gives you Okogie effort, but has better size and rebounding chops. Fits in nicely. His focus is rebounding, hussle and 2nd chance scoring. He plays within himself and to his strengths.

*KAT had a different look about him tonight. More focused and far less animated. Didn't bicker to the officials. He's been on the wrong end of bad officiated for a long time, but this is the right tactic going forward. Atleast worth a try. Unfortunately he also looked disconnected from all his team mates outside of DLO.

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.

Camden0916 wrote: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.

Q12543 wrote:

KiwiMatt wrote:I've finally put my hand in my pocket and bought team league pass this year. There's something different about this team this season and it comes down to effort. They're closing out, hussling, not giving up on plays defensively. It's a joy to watch. We are winning games because of our defense. When was they last time we could say that consistantly?

Two comments from the Bucks game:

*I like Vando in the starting lineup and preached for it before we had even resigned him. Gives you Okogie effort, but has better size and rebounding chops. Fits in nicely. His focus is rebounding, hussle and 2nd chance scoring. He plays within himself and to his strengths.

*KAT had a different look about him tonight. More focused and far less animated. Didn't bicker to the officials. He's been on the wrong end of bad officiated for a long time, but this is the right tactic going forward. Atleast worth a try. Unfortunately he also looked disconnected from all his team mates outside of DLO.

Glad you finally got League Pass! Yes, this team can be worth the money when they are clicking. We have some guys that can really get it going.

I agree on Vando....he probably has about equivalent perimeter defensive skllls of Okogie (or close to it) AND the size to go get more rebounds and deflections. He was a huge difference maker last night.

SameOldNudityDrew wrote:

KiwiMatt wrote:I've finally put my hand in my pocket and bought team league pass this year. There's something different about this team this season and it comes down to effort. They're closing out, hussling, not giving up on plays defensively. It's a joy to watch. We are winning games because of our defense. When was they last time we could say that consistantly?

Two comments from the Bucks game:

*I like Vando in the starting lineup and preached for it before we had even resigned him. Gives you Okogie effort, but has better size and rebounding chops. Fits in nicely. His focus is rebounding, hussle and 2nd chance scoring. He plays within himself and to his strengths.

*KAT had a different look about him tonight. More focused and far less animated. Didn't bicker to the officials. He's been on the wrong end of bad officiated for a long time, but this is the right tactic going forward. Atleast worth a try. Unfortunately he also looked disconnected from all his team mates outside of DLO.

YES, Steve! How could you have seen these games in Australia otherwise?

Seriously though, you're gonna love this. Total flexibility on when you can watch these games. Just need to be sure to click "hide scores" so you don't accidentally spoil the results before you watch.