Minnesota Sports Forum

khans2k5 wrote:

JasonIsDaMan wrote:

khans2k5 wrote:Why do people like Bazz? He plays hard. Great. So what? He still is an atrocious defender and a black hole offensively. In his third year instead of improvement we saw a fully healthy season where his shooting percentages outside of FT's dropped and he passed the ball even less (his assists cut in half per game playing only 2.3 minutes less). He's an undersized 4. I can't imagine anyone enjoys playing with him. His game is old school in a new NBA. Frankly he could ride the bench all year and I wouldn't care. He already plays hard so I don't know what more Thibs can do to make him a better player. He doesn't have the athleticism to be a good defender and I don't know how you change the mindset of someone to become a willing passer.

1. I can't recollect ever saying I liked how "hard" someone played. If he's getting it done, I don't care how hard he's breathing.
2. Ah, the Kahn's methodology. Decide if you like a guy, then find an obscure stat that you think backs it up. So the shooting percentage drop. Are they from the same place from the floor as the year before? Could it be from him being guarded more closely? So the assist drop. Could it be that guys were passing up shots and passing to others who then got the assist? Could it be that guys were missing shots? Was there an overall drop in assists year-to-year as a team with him on the floor? What do you think of Lebron's OPS? Or the fact that Curry seems to have a lot of touchbacks?
3. I can imagine players enjoying playing with him.
4. That is so disappointing to hear that you don't want to watch him. Maybe they can trade him for Eric Gordon so you can watch him wear a suit all for 40 games.
5. Really? You don't know what Thibs could do as a coach? That's a shock.

Ah. I see. His statistical drop almost across the board is everyone else's fault. God forbid a player be accountable for his own performance. His teammates must be the reason he missed all those shots. His teammates must be the reason he played selfishly and didn't move the ball. Oh wait. Those are the same teammates he had from the year before when he posted better numbers and I can tell you his teammates didn't get worse from the year before. He did. Did you watch any games last year because it's extremely questionable to say Zach is just a dunker who hasn't proven anything else if you actually watched this team when he took over the starting role?

TheGrey08 wrote:

Q12543 wrote:

JasonIsDaMan wrote:

Q12543 wrote:Jason, LaVine and Bazz play different positions for the most part. Bazz is a SF/borderline PF and LaVine is about as pure of a SG as you will ever see. Also, from a pure functional perspective, we need LaVine's outside shooting more than we need Bazz's post-ups and hustle points. I also think anyone that has watched these two play for any extended period of time would say that LaVine has far more upside.

It's odd that you would say that, because over half of his minutes he is classified as a SG and almost zero of his minutes are classified as PF.

Do you have a date when we'll see this Lavine "upside"? Will it involve something that's not a dunk? If you tell me, I promise to watch.

The date is February 27, 2015. That's when LaVine became our starting SG for good this past season and what it involved was a lot of made outside shots, and yes, a few dunks too. I guess you missed it.

Jason did you watch a single game after the All Star break? Lavine was showing a lot of promise and upside, including his ability to get to the bucket, hit 3s and most importantly he was repeatedly clutch at the end of games. He made several HUGE shots and was a key factor in some close games and wins. He even showed some flashes on defense (Jim Pete commented on that more than a few times). Now you inject a great defensive coach and there's potential he improves a lot.

I'm quite excited to see how Wiggins & Lavine play under Thibs. I'm curious to see how Bazz reacts to him as well. Wiggins & Lavine due to their defensive ability/talent/athleticism and Bazz for his complete lack of defense. Great defensive coaches can do wonders.

Q12543 wrote:If you look at the 5-man lineups Shabazz played in last season, the lineup he was in for the 2nd most minutes is Rubio-LaVine-Wiggins-Shabazz-KAT. He's the PF in that lineup and they played together for 90 minutes. That may not sound like a lot, but when you think about the fact he came off the bench and any given 5-man unit will rarely play more than 5 or 6 consecutive minutes together, that 90 minutes had to have been played over a number of different games and opponents.

That unit was +1.5 per 100 possessions, so they held serve and then some. Of course, he was also on the court with Rubio instead of LaVine or Jones at PG. If you look at Shabazz's two-man lineups, the only guy he ended up in the positive on in terms of +/- was Rubio (Pork is closing his eyes and plugging his ears in denial - he can't stand the fact players play better with Rubio on the court with them).

Finally, guess who the guy was playing the 4 in the closing minutes of that epic (well, epic for us poor T-Wolves fans) win against Golden State? Shabazz Muhammed.

Defensively, Shabazz struggles more on the perimeter because he moves laterally like he has two cement blocks tied to his feet. So if you were to ask me where he'd give up more defensively, it would be on the wing.

Should he play PF full-time? Absolutely not. But he is definitely a viable option for small-ball 4.

JasonIsDaMan wrote:

Q12543 wrote:If you look at the 5-man lineups Shabazz played in last season, the lineup he was in for the 2nd most minutes is Rubio-LaVine-Wiggins-Shabazz-KAT. He's the PF in that lineup and they played together for 90 minutes. That may not sound like a lot, but when you think about the fact he came off the bench and any given 5-man unit will rarely play more than 5 or 6 consecutive minutes together, that 90 minutes had to have been played over a number of different games and opponents.

That unit was +1.5 per 100 possessions, so they held serve and then some. Of course, he was also on the court with Rubio instead of LaVine or Jones at PG. If you look at Shabazz's two-man lineups, the only guy he ended up in the positive on in terms of +/- was Rubio (Pork is closing his eyes and plugging his ears in denial - he can't stand the fact players play better with Rubio on the court with them).

Finally, guess who the guy was playing the 4 in the closing minutes of that epic (well, epic for us poor T-Wolves fans) win against Golden State? Shabazz Muhammed.

Defensively, Shabazz struggles more on the perimeter because he moves laterally like he has two cement blocks tied to his feet. So if you were to ask me where he'd give up more defensively, it would be on the wing.

Should he play PF full-time? Absolutely not. But he is definitely a viable option for small-ball 4.

If a team never plays overtime, that's 3936 minutes in a season (go to start, all programs, calculator, 48x82). So that's 2% of the team's minutes. That GSW posession lasted, what, 24 seconds? Most of his minutes were at SG/SF. They just were. And that's OK.

JasonIsDaMan wrote:

khans2k5 wrote:

JasonIsDaMan wrote:

khans2k5 wrote:Why do people like Bazz? He plays hard. Great. So what? He still is an atrocious defender and a black hole offensively. In his third year instead of improvement we saw a fully healthy season where his shooting percentages outside of FT's dropped and he passed the ball even less (his assists cut in half per game playing only 2.3 minutes less). He's an undersized 4. I can't imagine anyone enjoys playing with him. His game is old school in a new NBA. Frankly he could ride the bench all year and I wouldn't care. He already plays hard so I don't know what more Thibs can do to make him a better player. He doesn't have the athleticism to be a good defender and I don't know how you change the mindset of someone to become a willing passer.

1. I can't recollect ever saying I liked how "hard" someone played. If he's getting it done, I don't care how hard he's breathing.
2. Ah, the Kahn's methodology. Decide if you like a guy, then find an obscure stat that you think backs it up. So the shooting percentage drop. Are they from the same place from the floor as the year before? Could it be from him being guarded more closely? So the assist drop. Could it be that guys were passing up shots and passing to others who then got the assist? Could it be that guys were missing shots? Was there an overall drop in assists year-to-year as a team with him on the floor? What do you think of Lebron's OPS? Or the fact that Curry seems to have a lot of touchbacks?
3. I can imagine players enjoying playing with him.
4. That is so disappointing to hear that you don't want to watch him. Maybe they can trade him for Eric Gordon so you can watch him wear a suit all for 40 games.
5. Really? You don't know what Thibs could do as a coach? That's a shock.

Ah. I see. His statistical drop almost across the board is everyone else's fault. God forbid a player be accountable for his own performance. His teammates must be the reason he missed all those shots. His teammates must be the reason he played selfishly and didn't move the ball. Oh wait. Those are the same teammates he had from the year before when he posted better numbers and I can tell you his teammates didn't get worse from the year before. He did. Did you watch any games last year because it's extremely questionable to say Zach is just a dunker who hasn't proven anything else if you actually watched this team when he took over the starting role?

Everytime I have ever mentioned "PER" or "PER split", someone has used that argument, but I can't? One fountain of Basketball knowledge said on the "Offseason" thread that Gasol has always sucked and been carried by his teammates, but I can't add conjecture on Bazz's teammates?

And I'm still waiting for your answer. Just like a QB can only throw one touchdown pass a possession, there can only be one assist per possession. Do you have evidence that this number went down, and if you do, was it because there was more "iso" scoring or a scoring drop?

Q12543 wrote:Jason, I don't think anyone is saying LaVine is already a superstar and doesn't have more work to do. But if you watched him as closely as most of the obsessive folks (myself included) on this board did last year - and I don't get the sense you did - then it would be pretty obvious to you who has more game-changing potential when comparing Bazz and LaVine.

You also might want to be careful about how reliant you are on 82games for info - some of their positional classification is guesswork. I realize it shows Bazz as 0% time at PF, but if you look at the top 5-man lineups he played in terms of minutes (which is also on 82games by the way, but may be you missed it), you'll see the one with the second most minutes was KAT-Bazz-Wiggins-LaVine-Rubio. I can tell you that Wiggins, LaVine, and Rubio were not the PF in that lineup.

khans2k5 wrote:

JasonIsDaMan wrote:

khans2k5 wrote:

JasonIsDaMan wrote:

khans2k5 wrote:Why do people like Bazz? He plays hard. Great. So what? He still is an atrocious defender and a black hole offensively. In his third year instead of improvement we saw a fully healthy season where his shooting percentages outside of FT's dropped and he passed the ball even less (his assists cut in half per game playing only 2.3 minutes less). He's an undersized 4. I can't imagine anyone enjoys playing with him. His game is old school in a new NBA. Frankly he could ride the bench all year and I wouldn't care. He already plays hard so I don't know what more Thibs can do to make him a better player. He doesn't have the athleticism to be a good defender and I don't know how you change the mindset of someone to become a willing passer.

1. I can't recollect ever saying I liked how "hard" someone played. If he's getting it done, I don't care how hard he's breathing.
2. Ah, the Kahn's methodology. Decide if you like a guy, then find an obscure stat that you think backs it up. So the shooting percentage drop. Are they from the same place from the floor as the year before? Could it be from him being guarded more closely? So the assist drop. Could it be that guys were passing up shots and passing to others who then got the assist? Could it be that guys were missing shots? Was there an overall drop in assists year-to-year as a team with him on the floor? What do you think of Lebron's OPS? Or the fact that Curry seems to have a lot of touchbacks?
3. I can imagine players enjoying playing with him.
4. That is so disappointing to hear that you don't want to watch him. Maybe they can trade him for Eric Gordon so you can watch him wear a suit all for 40 games.
5. Really? You don't know what Thibs could do as a coach? That's a shock.

Ah. I see. His statistical drop almost across the board is everyone else's fault. God forbid a player be accountable for his own performance. His teammates must be the reason he missed all those shots. His teammates must be the reason he played selfishly and didn't move the ball. Oh wait. Those are the same teammates he had from the year before when he posted better numbers and I can tell you his teammates didn't get worse from the year before. He did. Did you watch any games last year because it's extremely questionable to say Zach is just a dunker who hasn't proven anything else if you actually watched this team when he took over the starting role?

Everytime I have ever mentioned "PER" or "PER split", someone has used that argument, but I can't? One fountain of Basketball knowledge said on the "Offseason" thread that Gasol has always sucked and been carried by his teammates, but I can't add conjecture on Bazz's teammates?

And I'm still waiting for your answer. Just like a QB can only throw one touchdown pass a possession, there can only be one assist per possession. Do you have evidence that this number went down, and if you do, was it because there was more "iso" scoring or a scoring drop?

Do you understand that stats that intricate and specific cost money to attain if they even exist on sites like synergy sports? Does knowing the team assist total going up from 21.6 ('14-15) to 23.4 ('15-16) while Bazz's number was cut in half help you realize it was him and not his teammates? Go ahead though. Keep trying to find excuses. Why don't you do the research and provide the context that supports your questions/claims about Bazz. I have 2 numbers. Bazz's assist totals cut in half while the team as a whole assisted on more shots. Now show me your stats that prove that's not his fault that his number cut in half because of his play.

JasonIsDaMan wrote:

khans2k5 wrote:

JasonIsDaMan wrote:

khans2k5 wrote:

JasonIsDaMan wrote:

khans2k5 wrote:Why do people like Bazz? He plays hard. Great. So what? He still is an atrocious defender and a black hole offensively. In his third year instead of improvement we saw a fully healthy season where his shooting percentages outside of FT's dropped and he passed the ball even less (his assists cut in half per game playing only 2.3 minutes less). He's an undersized 4. I can't imagine anyone enjoys playing with him. His game is old school in a new NBA. Frankly he could ride the bench all year and I wouldn't care. He already plays hard so I don't know what more Thibs can do to make him a better player. He doesn't have the athleticism to be a good defender and I don't know how you change the mindset of someone to become a willing passer.

1. I can't recollect ever saying I liked how "hard" someone played. If he's getting it done, I don't care how hard he's breathing.
2. Ah, the Kahn's methodology. Decide if you like a guy, then find an obscure stat that you think backs it up. So the shooting percentage drop. Are they from the same place from the floor as the year before? Could it be from him being guarded more closely? So the assist drop. Could it be that guys were passing up shots and passing to others who then got the assist? Could it be that guys were missing shots? Was there an overall drop in assists year-to-year as a team with him on the floor? What do you think of Lebron's OPS? Or the fact that Curry seems to have a lot of touchbacks?
3. I can imagine players enjoying playing with him.
4. That is so disappointing to hear that you don't want to watch him. Maybe they can trade him for Eric Gordon so you can watch him wear a suit all for 40 games.
5. Really? You don't know what Thibs could do as a coach? That's a shock.

Ah. I see. His statistical drop almost across the board is everyone else's fault. God forbid a player be accountable for his own performance. His teammates must be the reason he missed all those shots. His teammates must be the reason he played selfishly and didn't move the ball. Oh wait. Those are the same teammates he had from the year before when he posted better numbers and I can tell you his teammates didn't get worse from the year before. He did. Did you watch any games last year because it's extremely questionable to say Zach is just a dunker who hasn't proven anything else if you actually watched this team when he took over the starting role?

Everytime I have ever mentioned "PER" or "PER split", someone has used that argument, but I can't? One fountain of Basketball knowledge said on the "Offseason" thread that Gasol has always sucked and been carried by his teammates, but I can't add conjecture on Bazz's teammates?

And I'm still waiting for your answer. Just like a QB can only throw one touchdown pass a possession, there can only be one assist per possession. Do you have evidence that this number went down, and if you do, was it because there was more "iso" scoring or a scoring drop?

Do you understand that stats that intricate and specific cost money to attain if they even exist on sites like synergy sports? Does knowing the team assist total going up from 21.6 ('14-15) to 23.4 ('15-16) while Bazz's number was cut in half help you realize it was him and not his teammates? Go ahead though. Keep trying to find excuses. Why don't you do the research and provide the context that supports your questions/claims about Bazz. I have 2 numbers. Bazz's assist totals cut in half while the team as a whole assisted on more shots. Now show me your stats that prove that's not his fault that his number cut in half because of his play.

No, it doesn't help me because it doesn't tell me what happened when he was on the floor, or whether or not he made a lot of "Passes that led to passes that led to assists". So I stand by my original argument. You don't like him and you worked really hard to find a reason why. But I have to give you credit. At least you haven't decided he's a PF.

JasonIsDaMan wrote:

khans2k5 wrote:

JasonIsDaMan wrote:

khans2k5 wrote:

JasonIsDaMan wrote:

khans2k5 wrote:Why do people like Bazz? He plays hard. Great. So what? He still is an atrocious defender and a black hole offensively. In his third year instead of improvement we saw a fully healthy season where his shooting percentages outside of FT's dropped and he passed the ball even less (his assists cut in half per game playing only 2.3 minutes less). He's an undersized 4. I can't imagine anyone enjoys playing with him. His game is old school in a new NBA. Frankly he could ride the bench all year and I wouldn't care. He already plays hard so I don't know what more Thibs can do to make him a better player. He doesn't have the athleticism to be a good defender and I don't know how you change the mindset of someone to become a willing passer.

1. I can't recollect ever saying I liked how "hard" someone played. If he's getting it done, I don't care how hard he's breathing.
2. Ah, the Kahn's methodology. Decide if you like a guy, then find an obscure stat that you think backs it up. So the shooting percentage drop. Are they from the same place from the floor as the year before? Could it be from him being guarded more closely? So the assist drop. Could it be that guys were passing up shots and passing to others who then got the assist? Could it be that guys were missing shots? Was there an overall drop in assists year-to-year as a team with him on the floor? What do you think of Lebron's OPS? Or the fact that Curry seems to have a lot of touchbacks?
3. I can imagine players enjoying playing with him.
4. That is so disappointing to hear that you don't want to watch him. Maybe they can trade him for Eric Gordon so you can watch him wear a suit all for 40 games.
5. Really? You don't know what Thibs could do as a coach? That's a shock.

Ah. I see. His statistical drop almost across the board is everyone else's fault. God forbid a player be accountable for his own performance. His teammates must be the reason he missed all those shots. His teammates must be the reason he played selfishly and didn't move the ball. Oh wait. Those are the same teammates he had from the year before when he posted better numbers and I can tell you his teammates didn't get worse from the year before. He did. Did you watch any games last year because it's extremely questionable to say Zach is just a dunker who hasn't proven anything else if you actually watched this team when he took over the starting role?

Everytime I have ever mentioned "PER" or "PER split", someone has used that argument, but I can't? One fountain of Basketball knowledge said on the "Offseason" thread that Gasol has always sucked and been carried by his teammates, but I can't add conjecture on Bazz's teammates?

And I'm still waiting for your answer. Just like a QB can only throw one touchdown pass a possession, there can only be one assist per possession. Do you have evidence that this number went down, and if you do, was it because there was more "iso" scoring or a scoring drop?

Do you understand that stats that intricate and specific cost money to attain if they even exist on sites like synergy sports? Does knowing the team assist total going up from 21.6 ('14-15) to 23.4 ('15-16) while Bazz's number was cut in half help you realize it was him and not his teammates? Go ahead though. Keep trying to find excuses. Why don't you do the research and provide the context that supports your questions/claims about Bazz. I have 2 numbers. Bazz's assist totals cut in half while the team as a whole assisted on more shots. Now show me your stats that prove that's not his fault that his number cut in half because of his play.

No, it doesn't help me because it doesn't tell me what happened when he was on the floor, or whether or not he made a lot of "Passes that led to passes that led to assists". So I stand by my original argument. You don't like him and you worked really hard to find a reason why. But I have to give you credit. At least you haven't decided he's a PF.