Minnesota Sports Forum

FNG wrote: ↑Tue Dec 30, 2025 8:47 pm

Q-is-here wrote: ↑Tue Dec 30, 2025 7:56 pm

rapsuperstar31 wrote: ↑Tue Dec 30, 2025 7:03 pm

Randle is lifted up playing with Rudy, Naz is lifted up playing with Rudy, both are awful together without Rudy. It's very rare for Naz and Randle to be on the court together without Ant, thus those two bring Ant down with their layup line defense. What is Ant suppose to do when the other team scores on 10 consecutive baskets beating Naz over and over again when he runs out to a player and gets blown by because he is horrible at closeouts. Rudy protects the paint when Naz does this, Randle has less blocks than Mike right now. Mike has 7 blocks to Randle's 5. Who does TJ and Rob play most of their minutes with? Spoilers it's Ant with Naz and Randle and it kills his off on. That Randle and Naz pairing is also one of the bottom percentages in the league rebounding the ball, giving up offensive rebounds at an alarming rate. Ant, Randle, Naz, and and one of TJ, Clark, or Rob is often playing together with both Rudy and Jaden on the bench, playing against the other teams best players like SGA. Ant and SGA comes off the court together, and Donte, Jaden, and Rudy come in a the start of the 2nd and 4th quarters to take advantage of the other teams bench. This isn't rocket science.

I think what I bolded above is one of the bigger factors. Ant's minutes more than anyone on the team overlaps with the opposing team's best players, whereas that doesn't necessarily apply to anyone else. Heck, even last night we saw Jaden sit at the end of the 2nd quarter when Chicago's best (available) players were in the game, but Finch rolled with Clark instead.

This means other players benefit from being sat when they are having an off night or the matchup isn't great or their backup is rolling. Ant will never get the benefit of this and always has to play in tight contests when the opposing team's best players are on the floor. We've seen Finch use all sorts of crunch-time lineups, but Ant is the one constant.

BTW, last season fellow All-NBA Second Teamate Jalen Brunson had similar Net Rating and On/'Off numbers to Ant's so far this season. His Net Rating was worse in fact. And Brunson's Net On-Off rating was the second worst among their top 9 players in the rotation and the worst among the starters.

Q, two rebuttals:

1) Ant is supposed to be our best player. Doesn't every coach want his best player out there against the other team's best players? I hear some claims being made that Ant is out there against great players more than guys like SGA and Jokic, but I'm not seeing any data supporting this hypothesis.
2) I love Brunson as an offensive player, but don't make me defend his defense...he's undersized, somewhat slow and lazy, and his defensive on/off is generally going to be very bad. Ant on the other hand is neither undersized or slow (but he can be lazy).

By the way, I appreciate the way guys are rallying behind Ant here...I want him to be better also. But I'm hearing a lot of theories, but not seeing the data to support the theories. Let's keep going...

On #1, Who is saying he is playing against better lineups than SGA and Jokic? We are saying he is playing against better opponent lineups than his own team mates are, which in turn affects their net On/Off ratings. Also, you kind of rebutted your own hypothesis here by acknowledging that Finch plays Ant against the other team's best players. That isn't always the case with the other four starters. Why do you think that is? Is Finch wrong in his assessment of Ant?

On #2, all I can say is that Brunson was 10th in MVP voting, 1st in Clutch Player of the Year votes, and voted to the 2nd Team all NBA team last season. That by definition puts him in Ant's peer group whether you agree or not. LeBron was also on the All-NBA 2nd team last year and his On/Off numbers last season are even worse than Brunson and Ant's! If your point is that Ant isn't as good as SGA, Giannis, or Jokic, then you won't get any argument from me.

As for more data, I really don't have anything to further explain the On/Off delta with Ant this season other than what has already been mentioned. It feels like you are putting way more emphasis on a 26-game sample size than necessary for such a noisy stat.

FNG wrote: ↑Tue Dec 30, 2025 8:47 pm

Q-is-here wrote: ↑Tue Dec 30, 2025 7:56 pm

rapsuperstar31 wrote: ↑Tue Dec 30, 2025 7:03 pm

Randle is lifted up playing with Rudy, Naz is lifted up playing with Rudy, both are awful together without Rudy. It's very rare for Naz and Randle to be on the court together without Ant, thus those two bring Ant down with their layup line defense. What is Ant suppose to do when the other team scores on 10 consecutive baskets beating Naz over and over again when he runs out to a player and gets blown by because he is horrible at closeouts. Rudy protects the paint when Naz does this, Randle has less blocks than Mike right now. Mike has 7 blocks to Randle's 5. Who does TJ and Rob play most of their minutes with? Spoilers it's Ant with Naz and Randle and it kills his off on. That Randle and Naz pairing is also one of the bottom percentages in the league rebounding the ball, giving up offensive rebounds at an alarming rate. Ant, Randle, Naz, and and one of TJ, Clark, or Rob is often playing together with both Rudy and Jaden on the bench, playing against the other teams best players like SGA. Ant and SGA comes off the court together, and Donte, Jaden, and Rudy come in a the start of the 2nd and 4th quarters to take advantage of the other teams bench. This isn't rocket science.

I think what I bolded above is one of the bigger factors. Ant's minutes more than anyone on the team overlaps with the opposing team's best players, whereas that doesn't necessarily apply to anyone else. Heck, even last night we saw Jaden sit at the end of the 2nd quarter when Chicago's best (available) players were in the game, but Finch rolled with Clark instead.

This means other players benefit from being sat when they are having an off night or the matchup isn't great or their backup is rolling. Ant will never get the benefit of this and always has to play in tight contests when the opposing team's best players are on the floor. We've seen Finch use all sorts of crunch-time lineups, but Ant is the one constant.

BTW, last season fellow All-NBA Second Teamate Jalen Brunson had similar Net Rating and On/'Off numbers to Ant's so far this season. His Net Rating was worse in fact. And Brunson's Net On-Off rating was the second worst among their top 9 players in the rotation and the worst among the starters.

Q, two rebuttals:

1) Ant is supposed to be our best player. Doesn't every coach want his best player out there against the other team's best players? I hear some claims being made that Ant is out there against great players more than guys like SGA and Jokic, but I'm not seeing any data supporting this hypothesis.
2) I love Brunson as an offensive player, but don't make me defend his defense...he's undersized, somewhat slow and lazy, and his defensive on/off is generally going to be very bad. Ant on the other hand is neither undersized or slow (but he can be lazy).

By the way, I appreciate the way guys are rallying behind Ant here...I want him to be better also. But I'm hearing a lot of theories, but not seeing the data to support the theories. Let's keep going...

It is entirely valid to interrogate why the on/off stats with the team's best player isn't yelling the best result, but let's look at what this stat actually measures. It is a correlative stat that is prescriptive of results. It is not predictive nor does it offer much if any context.

It's up to us to establish the causes of this mediocre result, but it does not tell the whole story. We can all watch the game and come to very easy determinations that's Ant's basketball skill have continued improve every year and have once again taken a sizable leap this year. We can look at scoring efficiency, points per FGA, true shooting, EFG% to help support this observation.

Individual metrics also paint a picture of a highly effective basketball player:
- per ESPNs Net Points he has contributed 85 points net between offense and defense which would place him as 10th best in the league
- per DARKO his daily plus minus is 4.7 which means he nearly 5 standard deviations better than a league average by the measures
-per bball index he has contributed 2.75 win above replacement which places his 25th in the league (best on the team)

On/off does very little to tell us how good a player is, but it does help describe what does and doesn't work, or least it points you in the direction - it will never tell you why tho.

So these poor net ratings or on/off splits aren't the big "gotcha!" That lead us to the conclusion that Ant actually sucks- he's actually the 9th best player on the team! They are an indicator that should lead us to ask why is the team not succeeding at a high level with this incredibly productive and talented player, and why are they discrepancies among these different metrics - Net Points vs on/off really stands out to me.

Thankfully someone started asking this question a few years ago about a different star, who curiously enough, was also in their age 24 season
https://www.theringer.com/2024/05/08/nb ... ty-thunder