Minnesota Sports Forum

khans2k5 wrote:
Porter isn't a stud. He plays next to two actual studs in Wall and Beal. At this stage I think it's fair to call him a high end role player. He's playing next to 46 points and 14 assists per game. That's an easy life in the NBA. He's a solid player, but he's not an All-Star. He only scored 20+ points 14 times this year and he is not a primary ball handler or play maker (assist percentage around Wiggins level). Butler on the other hand was a number 1 option for a playoff team and he can just do more than Porter. Really the only thing Porter is better at than Butler is efficiency and he's not a primary ball handler so who knows how his efficiency would hold up in a bigger role.

Porter wouldn't need to play bigger role for us since he would be playing here next to 49 points and 16 rebounds. He would look like perfect glue guy to play next to KAT, Ricky and Wiggins. He is really good three point shooter and better rebounder than Wiggins. So he could be matched defensively against more physical wing and Wiggins wouldn't need to spent so much energy on both ends of floor. Even the best two way wing players like Kawhi Leonard are often matched against lesser offensive player that they can save the energy for offensive end. If Kawhi whom plays just 33 minutes per game cannot defend opponents best wing while being really high usage player in offensive end, we cannot expect that Wiggins could do same while playing 37 minutes per night.

The biggest fear that I have about signing Otto Porter is that it seems that always when some player moves from Washington to some other team, their three point shooting accuracy takes a big hit. It seems that John Wall is just terrific for finding open three pointers to his team mates. For example Ariza shot over 40% three pointers in his last season with Washington. After that he has shot them 35.4%. Even ancient Rasual Butler shot 91 three pointers with 38.6% accuracy while he was in Washington. It was about same amount than he had had in previous three years combined (had shot them with below 34%). Paul Pierce had one of his best three point shooting season in his single season with Washington if you consider both volume and accuracy. Jared Dudley had not shot over 40% three pointers in last four seasons before moving to Washington and suddenly he shoots them 42%. Gary Neal had not shot treys over 40% for three previous seasons before moving to Washington and then he shoots those 41%.

So if Wolves would sign Porter, I wouldn't be surprised if he would end up shooting three pointers around 33% range. (Wall effect replaced with Wolves effect)

I like Otto Porter, but does anyone really think Washington won't keep him? They are still a relatively young team and consider him, Beal, and Wall their "big three". He's not going anywhere.

As for Butler, he's basically a better version of Otto Porter, especially in terms of shot-creating and defense.

Ricky, your beloved RPM stat (and I like it too by the way) gives Porter a .07 D-RPM ranking. That's pretty mediocre for a guy that has minimal responsibilities on offense. Now go look at Butler's D-RPM.....and Butler has 3X the responsibility on offense.

Mikkeman, Your analysis on 3-point shooters and Washington is spot on. I think it's mostly the John Wall effect. He is probably the league's biggest threat going downhill. And he has become a really good passer since first coming into the league. My guess is that those shooters are getting an extra half second to set their feet and square up.

If I'm reading the NBA.com stats site correctly, 61% of Otto Porter's shots this season were taken with the closest defender 4 or more feet away. That's a lot of open shots!

By the way, Brandon Rush - a career 40% 3-point shooter - had 73% of his shots taken with the nearest defender 4+ feet away. Of course....OF COURSE.....OF COURSE!!!!......he shot below his career average from 3.

So yes, there is a Wolves discount that one must apply to shooters that come to us from other teams. Just take their career average and multiply it by .85.

TeamRicky wrote:

kekgeek1 wrote:
I do like porter as a player I do. I'm just worried that with our roster construction he won't be as successful. I just worry that he gets to go up against the 3rd best perimeter defender every night and it took him to game 3 to abuse IT. The Celtics have been daring Porter to beat them. Once again I wish we could add porter but I don't think be is with a max.

*I said Bazz because he improved a lot on defense, now his bar was real low but he made big strides in that area and there were a lot of 4th year players that made improvements so is it brooks or natural improvement (I have no interest to bring him back)

Its funny that you say Bazz improved a lot on defense. A year ago he was ranked as the very worst defender at small forward and this year he is only the second worst defender based on Defensive Real Plus Minus. At this rate, in 60 years, Bazz will make an all defensive team.

Ricky, if you use RPM as basis for improvement, Otto Porter's defense did got worse under Scott Brooks. He dropped in ranking of small forwards from 11th to 42nd. If we look overall RPM improvement, Shabazz made similar level improvement than Otto Porter, whom went from +1.51 to +3.04. Shabazz improved from -5.50 to -3.75.

Even tough I also like RPM quite a lot, (I think it's at least 10 times better than defensive and offensive rating in basketball reference that won't have any relation on how well team performs with certain player in court) I have some problems with it. It seems to be a really noisy stat. For example last years best defender in small forward position Kawhi Leonard was ranked to 29 this year with DRPM 0.87. He was below the likes of Kyle Singler (0.90), Corey Brewer (0.92), Luke Babbitt (1.24) and way below Wesley Johnson (2.60).

Even tough I'm ready to believe that increase offensive responsibilities this year have decreased the effect Kawhi has had in defense as has has less frequently guarded opponents best wing player. But I'm not able to believe that he would have been worse than the players I listed above.

Another problem that I have with RPM is that it's formula is not presented in any form anywhere. So I cannot check if it really makes sense. For example some other ESPN made up statistics have had errors in past or even have them even now. They have formula for team assist ratio that I copied below:

(Assists x 100)/[(FGA + (FTA x 0.44) + Assists + Turnovers]

Does anyone else see anything that is clearly wrong in that formula? Personally I cannot understand why assists should be added to divisor since after all even the FG attempts that result assist are already counted to field goal attempts (FGA in equation).

Q12543 wrote:I like Otto Porter, but does anyone really think Washington won't keep him? They are still a relatively young team and consider him, Beal, and Wall their "big three". He's not going anywhere.

As for Butler, he's basically a better version of Otto Porter, especially in terms of shot-creating and defense.

Ricky, your beloved RPM stat (and I like it too by the way) gives Porter a .07 D-RPM ranking. That's pretty mediocre for a guy that has minimal responsibilities on offense. Now go look at Butler's D-RPM.....and Butler has 3X the responsibility on offense.

Butler is no doubt better and I love Butler a lot. My biggest problem is giving up too much assets for him as he's nearly four years older than Porter and Butler's window doesn't match up as well with KAT and Wiggins window. But realize that Butler wasn't nearly this good when he was Porter's current age. Butler made a huge leap at age 25. Porter is 23 and will be 24 when the season starts, so Porter still has some nice upside left.

As for RPM, Porter is ranked 10th among small forwards and the guys ranked ahead of Porter are LeBron, Butler, Kawhi, Durant, Greek Freak, Crowder, Iguadala, Covington and Hayward and just after Porter are Galinari and Paul George. He's in good company. Wiggins doesnt rank that well in RPM because his defensive RPM is terrible.

Mikkeman, I have been using RPM since for as long as its been published and it continually meets the eye test for me. Look at how it rates the top 12 small forwards--LeBron, Butler, Kawhi, Durant, Greek Freak, Crowder, Iguadala, Covington,Hayward, Porter, Galinari and Paul George. What other stat out there gives you this good of a top 12 list for a position (encompassing the totality of their game)? I remember when Jokic was a rookie and he had a great RPM, and most people who never heard of him would have thought that RPM was fluky, but the RPM got it right. If you want to start a separate thread to discuss the merits or lack thereof in RPM, I'd be happy to do so. But I've been using it for five years and I find it extremely useful.

Mikkeman wrote:

TeamRicky wrote:

kekgeek1 wrote:
I do like porter as a player I do. I'm just worried that with our roster construction he won't be as successful. I just worry that he gets to go up against the 3rd best perimeter defender every night and it took him to game 3 to abuse IT. The Celtics have been daring Porter to beat them. Once again I wish we could add porter but I don't think be is with a max.

*I said Bazz because he improved a lot on defense, now his bar was real low but he made big strides in that area and there were a lot of 4th year players that made improvements so is it brooks or natural improvement (I have no interest to bring him back)

Its funny that you say Bazz improved a lot on defense. A year ago he was ranked as the very worst defender at small forward and this year he is only the second worst defender based on Defensive Real Plus Minus. At this rate, in 60 years, Bazz will make an all defensive team.

Ricky, if you use RPM as basis for improvement, Otto Porter's defense did got worse under Scott Brooks. He dropped in ranking of small forwards from 11th to 42nd. If we look overall RPM improvement, Shabazz made similar level improvement than Otto Porter, whom went from +1.51 to +3.04. Shabazz improved from -5.50 to -3.75.

Even tough I also like RPM quite a lot, (I think it's at least 10 times better than defensive and offensive rating in basketball reference that won't have any relation on how well team performs with certain player in court) I have some problems with it. It seems to be a really noisy stat. For example last years best defender in small forward position Kawhi Leonard was ranked to 29 this year with DRPM 0.87. He was below the likes of Kyle Singler (0.90), Corey Brewer (0.92), Luke Babbitt (1.24) and way below Wesley Johnson (2.60).

Even tough I'm ready to believe that increase offensive responsibilities this year have decreased the effect Kawhi has had in defense as has has less frequently guarded opponents best wing player. But I'm not able to believe that he would have been worse than the players I listed above.

Another problem that I have with RPM is that it's formula is not presented in any form anywhere. So I cannot check if it really makes sense. For example some other ESPN made up statistics have had errors in past or even have them even now. They have formula for team assist ratio that I copied below:

(Assists x 100)/[(FGA + (FTA x 0.44) + Assists + Turnovers]

Does anyone else see anything that is clearly wrong in that formula? Personally I cannot understand why assists should be added to divisor since after all even the FG attempts that result assist are already counted to field goal attempts (FGA in equation).

I wonder how much RPM factors in team role and minutes played? Wes Johnson is a great case in point.

He scored really high on D-RPM this year, as mentioned above. He also played only 11 MPG over 60 games. And he played on a veteran-laden team with some other really good defensive players.

Last year, Wes played about 20 MPG for the Clippers and also did really well on D-RPM, although not quite as good as this year.

The year before he played for the Lakers about 30MPG and started a bunch of games. His D-RPM was in negative territory.

So clearly to me, the closer Wes Johnson got to playing full-time minutes, the worse he gets defensively. That seems pretty logical and something D-RPM doesn't seem to consider.

It's gonna take a max offer to maybe pry Porter away from the Wizards so if you are talking Porter on a new Max vs Butler on an old max, Butler wins that matchup 10/10. High efficiency doesn't make you a stud when you are doing it as a third option. It makes you a good role player. Also, why would you pay max money to an elite role player? If you are paying the max, that guy better be able to come in here and challenge Wiggins and Towns for touches, not just be a secondary piece that plays off them.

Lip did you get any sense from the Bulls end what young players they do really like that are on their roster? Maybe you would prefer not to say if you did hear. I'm just curious.

I guess I am also curious if they are going to do a full rebuild or go part way. They could let Wade and Rondo walk and have a bunch of cap space. They could trade Lopez who is a solid center on a cheap contract for another 3 years. I wonder what kind of money they are willing to pay for Mirotic this summer. Depending on what they do with some guys on their roster they could really press the reset button and have a bunch of spots open and some money to spend.

khans2k5 wrote:It's gonna take a max offer to maybe pry Porter away from the Wizards so if you are talking Porter on a new Max vs Butler on an old max, Butler wins that matchup 10/10. High efficiency doesn't make you a stud when you are doing it as a third option. It makes you a good role player. Also, why would you pay max money to an elite role player? If you are paying the max, that guy better be able to come in here and challenge Wiggins and Towns for touches, not just be a secondary piece that plays off them.

I am not in favor of making a trade, but only that I'd prefer Porter over Butler primarily because Porter is four years younger and still improving. Butler is absolutely better than Porter now, but in 3 years when we hopefully are in position to compete for a title, Porter may be as good as Butler and will be in peak of his career while Butler will be over 30 and will begin to fade some. 2019-20 Season (Porter is 26, Butler is 30, edge Butler), 2020-21 (Porter 27, Butler 31, even or edge to Porter) 2021----to end of Porter's career (edge to Porter).

Butler was a role player, Draymond Green was a role player, Westbrook was a role player in college. I have no doubt Porter could score 20 points or more a game and be efficient at it, so calling him a "role player" matters not the least.