Marion signs with Cavs

[Fafnir]

... he was dead last on his team in dRAPM

I don't have any faith in this stat.  It puts Lebron, for instance, as the 162nd best defender in the NBA, wedged between Hedo Turkuglu and Jeremy Lin.  Klay Thompson is 215th, very close to Steph Curry (231st).

There are dozens and dozens of similar examples.

I think that's fair, LeBron was defensively an average player last year. Not the same level of disruptive force for the majority of his regular season minutes.

[Snakehead]

... he was dead last on his team in dRAPM

I don't have any faith in this stat.  It puts Lebron, for instance, as the 162nd best defender in the NBA, wedged between Hedo Turkuglu and Jeremy Lin.  Klay Thompson is 215th, very close to Steph Curry (231st).

There are dozens and dozens of similar examples.

I think that's fair, LeBron was defensively an average player last year. Not the same level of disruptive force for the majority of his regular season minutes.

There's a major gulf between "disruptive force" and Jeremy Lin and Hedo.

And you think Klay is only that much better than Curry?  Who is pretty awful.

At some point we have to use our eyes with these kinds of stats too.  I don't think LeBron was as good on defense last year.   He had to carry the entire load on offense.  But still...

[Moranis]

That sucks. I wish Marion went somewhere else. Don't like the Cavs.

I would like to see Marion start too rather confine himself to a bench role like he has done with the Cavs. Marion still has enough left in the tank to be playing 30-32mpg on a contender. Disappointing to see him pass up on that in order to get 15-25mpg as a bench player to team up with LeBron.

That forward rotation is looking very packed with LeBron/Marion at SF and K-Love/T-Thompson at PF. Cavs must be planning on playing K-Love or T-Thompson significant minutes at center behind Varejao in order to get all those forwards decent playing time. Oh boy and they have Mike Miller and James Jones as well, don't they? As third stringers? Wow. That is one loaded deep forward rotation.

I'd expect something like this from the Cavs (and this assuming Varejao is healthy).

C - Varejao 25, Haywood 7, Love 16
PF - Love 20, Thompson 20, Marion 8
SF - James 37, Marion 11
SG - Waiters 30, Miller 18
PG - Irving 36, Waiters 6, Delladova/Lucas 6

Now when Varejao gets hurt, Marion and Thompson are going to get big bumps in minutes (and that is when Jones will come into play a lot).

[Fafnir]

... he was dead last on his team in dRAPM

I don't have any faith in this stat.  It puts Lebron, for instance, as the 162nd best defender in the NBA, wedged between Hedo Turkuglu and Jeremy Lin.  Klay Thompson is 215th, very close to Steph Curry (231st).

There are dozens and dozens of similar examples.

I think that's fair, LeBron was defensively an average player last year. Not the same level of disruptive force for the majority of his regular season minutes.

There's a major gulf between "disruptive force" and Jeremy Lin and Hedo.

And you think Klay is only that much better than Curry?  Who is pretty awful.

At some point we have to use our eyes with these kinds of stats too.  I don't think LeBron was as good on defense last year.   He had to carry the entire load on offense.  But still...

I think Klay is rather overrated defensively. He's flexible in what positions he defends and gives effort but he's not great at it.

Curry is put on whomever they can hide him on, so him only being slightly worse than Klay doesn't surprise me. They scheme to keep him from impacting the defense negatively as much as possible.

As for Lin/Hedo, Lin isn't a good individual defender but he's pretty good at team defense with his length and aggression and Hedo did a respectable job as a stretch PF. Remember that coaches don't leave role players out there to get killed match up wise in most cases. How a player is used is important context for one stat numbers.

Dismissing a measure outright because it doesn't match your current opinions isn't a good approach.

[Fafnir]

That sucks. I wish Marion went somewhere else. Don't like the Cavs.

I would like to see Marion start too rather confine himself to a bench role like he has done with the Cavs. Marion still has enough left in the tank to be playing 30-32mpg on a contender. Disappointing to see him pass up on that in order to get 15-25mpg as a bench player to team up with LeBron.

That forward rotation is looking very packed with LeBron/Marion at SF and K-Love/T-Thompson at PF. Cavs must be planning on playing K-Love or T-Thompson significant minutes at center behind Varejao in order to get all those forwards decent playing time. Oh boy and they have Mike Miller and James Jones as well, don't they? As third stringers? Wow. That is one loaded deep forward rotation.

I'd expect something like this from the Cavs (and this assuming Varejao is healthy).

C - Varejao 25, Haywood 7, Love 16
PF - Love 20, Thompson 20, Marion 8
SF - James 37, Marion 11
SG - Waiters 30, Miller 18
PG - Irving 36, Waiters 6, Delladova/Lucas 6

Now when Varejao gets hurt, Marion and Thompson are going to get big bumps in minutes (and that is when Jones will come into play a lot).

I imagine Thompson is going to play C for almost all of his minutes for this team with Love in the fold.

[Snakehead]

... he was dead last on his team in dRAPM

I don't have any faith in this stat.  It puts Lebron, for instance, as the 162nd best defender in the NBA, wedged between Hedo Turkuglu and Jeremy Lin.  Klay Thompson is 215th, very close to Steph Curry (231st).

There are dozens and dozens of similar examples.

I think that's fair, LeBron was defensively an average player last year. Not the same level of disruptive force for the majority of his regular season minutes.

There's a major gulf between "disruptive force" and Jeremy Lin and Hedo.

And you think Klay is only that much better than Curry?  Who is pretty awful.

At some point we have to use our eyes with these kinds of stats too.  I don't think LeBron was as good on defense last year.   He had to carry the entire load on offense.  But still...

I think Klay is rather overrated defensively. He's flexible in what positions he defends and gives effort but he's not great at it.

Curry is put on whomever they can hide him on, so him only being slightly worse than Klay doesn't surprise me. They scheme to keep him from impacting the defense negatively as much as possible.

As for Lin/Hedo, Lin isn't a good individual defender but he's pretty good at team defense with his length and aggression and Hedo did a respectable job as a stretch PF. Remember that coaches don't leave role players out there to get killed match up wise in most cases. How a player is used is important context for one stat numbers.

Dismissing a measure outright because it doesn't match your current opinions isn't a good approach.

Neither is the opposite though.  I will never agree on Lin and Hedo.  If you disagree that's fine.  Just my opinion.  I feel like I know enough about the game and see it well enough to distinguish.

I think if you asked an NBA player which of those three was the best defender last year they would laugh.

[Fafnir]

Neither is the opposite though.

Good thing I never suggested the opposite, which would be to use one metric to completely change my opinion.

Edit:

I think if you asked an NBA player which of those three was the best defender last year they would laugh.

I'm not sure how what you think a hypothetical authority figure would say is any different than what you yourself think.

[Snakehead]

Neither is the opposite though.

Good thing I never suggested the opposite, which would be to use one metric to completely change my opinion.

Good thing I'm not saying you are.  I'm saying I use many things to judge players and one is my eye balls.

If that stat has those rankings I don't put stock in it.

The post was about my opinion and I said you are entitled to yours.

I think if you asked an NBA player which of those three was the best defender last year they would laugh.

I'm not sure how what you think a hypothetical authority figure would say is any different than what you yourself think.

You're right.  I'm just saying what I already said already.  It's not a debate, it's my opinion.  You can think LeBron is between Lin and Hedo if you want, I don't care.

I just find it crazy if you do.   Two cents of mine.

[Fafnir]

Neither is the opposite though.

Good thing I never suggested the opposite, which would be to use one metric to completely change my opinion.

Good thing I'm not saying you are.  I'm saying I use many things to judge players and one is my eye balls.

If that stat has those rankings I don't put stock in it.

Then why did you say its Snakehead? What were you saying with that comment? If you weren't implying that I wasn't using my own eye test what were you saying, I'm confused. I took the comment as a sort of swipe at using defensive metrics.

What you certainly have said is that if something doesn't agree with your eyeballs you disregard it though, which is a problem to me. It leaves you with a closed loop based on your own prior opinion. Players level of play changes and so does the variety of tools we have to evaluate all of the time on the court, because no one watches even a small fraction of it all.

[Fafnir]

You can think LeBron is between Lin and Hedo if you want, I don't care.

I just find it crazy if you do.   Two cents of mine.

I don't if you're confused on this point. I just don't think its crazy that defensively he isn't a much higher on an adjusted plus/minus ranking.

His defense slipped a ton this year. Combine that with the struggles of the Heat defensively at the wing and the level or error in any plus minus and him rating average makes sense to me.

[Snakehead]

Neither is the opposite though.

Good thing I never suggested the opposite, which would be to use one metric to completely change my opinion.

Good thing I'm not saying you are.  I'm saying I use many things to judge players and one is my eye balls.

If that stat has those rankings I don't put stock in it.

Then why did you say its Snakehead? What were you saying with that comment? If you weren't implying that I wasn't using my own eye test what were you saying, I'm confused. I took the comment as a sort of swipe at using defensive metrics.

What you certainly have said is that if something doesn't agree with your eyeballs you disregard it though, which is a problem to me. It leaves you with a closed loop based on your own prior opinion. Players level of play changes and so does the variety of tools we have to evaluate all of the time on the court, because no one watches even a small fraction of it all.

Why bunch together all advanced metrics?

I'm saying this one stat doesn't jive with me at all if that's what it says the rankings of these players are.  That's it.

You're not talking to someone who doesn't use advanced stats or keep up on them here.  I just have to be able to look at them and think they apply to the game I watch with my own eyes.  Doesn't mean they aren't surprising sometimes.

[Snakehead]

His defense slipped a ton this year. Combine that with the struggles of the Heat defensively at the wing and the level or error in any plus minus and him rating average makes sense to me.

This I agree with.  You also have to think about how Wade didn't play a lot of games this year (defense takes a hit).  The team in general was worse.

I think defense is a very complex thing to gauge.  It's a team effort to such a large degree.  I am not surprised it can be very hard to apply stats to but I do appreciate that people are doing it because it's all progress.

I said previously that I think LeBron wasn't as good on defense this last year as he was in years prior.  So if this stat says that?  Okay that backs up what I think was the reality and is from other statistics you can throw out there.

Again though, Hedo and Lin.  That I just won't agree with personally.  So I question the worth at some point.

It can be fine enough for you, that's cool.  Again, my opinion.

[Fafnir]

Why bunch together all advanced metrics?

I'm saying this one stat doesn't jive with me at all if that's what it says the rankings of these players are.  That's it.

You're not talking to someone who doesn't use advanced stats or keep up on them here.  I just have to be able to look at them and think they apply to the game I watch with my own eyes.  Doesn't mean they aren't surprising sometimes.

Because if you're not willing to reconsider your prior opinions, why bother looking at new stats? You're already precluding gaining anything beyond confirmation of what you already "know".

Its a bad approach to assessing new information. Especially when if you look at the top 15 of the charts it doesn't look so "crazy".

KG
Larry Sanders
Tim Duncan
Marc Gasol
Andrew Bogut
Dwight Howard
Omar Asik
Andre Iguodala
Tiago Splitter
Nene Hilario
Marcin Gortat
Draymond Green
Erik Bledsoe
Joakim Noah
Ryan Hollins

Simple statistical noise will always produce some weird outliers if you want to look for them. (Hi Ryan Hollins!)

[D.o.s.]

Why bunch together all advanced metrics?

I'm saying this one stat doesn't jive with me at all if that's what it says the rankings of these players are.  That's it.

You're not talking to someone who doesn't use advanced stats or keep up on them here.  I just have to be able to look at them and think they apply to the game I watch with my own eyes.  Doesn't mean they aren't surprising sometimes.

Because if you're not willing to reconsider your prior opinions, why bother looking at new stats? You're already precluding gaining anything beyond confirmation of what you already "know".

Its a bad approach to assessing new information. Especially when if you look at the top 15 of the charts it doesn't look so "crazy".

KG
Larry Sanders
Tim Duncan
Marc Gasol
Andrew Bogut
Dwight Howard
Omar Asik
Andre Iguodala
Tiago Splitter
Nene Hilario
Marcin Gortat
Draymond Green
Erik Bledsoe
Joakim Noah
Ryan Hollins

Simple statistical noise will always produce some weird outliers if you want to look for them. (Hi Ryan Hollins!)

Ryan Hollins is the league leader in my unofficial (so far) stat MMLoaT -- Most Missed Lobs Of All Time. It's very highbrow, and is better than PER.

[Fafnir]

Why bunch together all advanced metrics?

I'm saying this one stat doesn't jive with me at all if that's what it says the rankings of these players are.  That's it.

You're not talking to someone who doesn't use advanced stats or keep up on them here.  I just have to be able to look at them and think they apply to the game I watch with my own eyes.  Doesn't mean they aren't surprising sometimes.

Because if you're not willing to reconsider your prior opinions, why bother looking at new stats? You're already precluding gaining anything beyond confirmation of what you already "know".

Its a bad approach to assessing new information. Especially when if you look at the top 15 of the charts it doesn't look so "crazy".

KG
Larry Sanders
Tim Duncan
Marc Gasol
Andrew Bogut
Dwight Howard
Omar Asik
Andre Iguodala
Tiago Splitter
Nene Hilario
Marcin Gortat
Draymond Green
Erik Bledsoe
Joakim Noah
Ryan Hollins

Simple statistical noise will always produce some weird outliers if you want to look for them. (Hi Ryan Hollins!)

Ryan Hollins is the league leader in my unofficial stat MMLOAT -- Most Missed Lobs Of All Time. It's very highbrow.

Delightfully his offense is ranked at 404th in the ESPN adjusted +/-.

Perkins ranks at 437th out of 437th sadly too, just saw that 

I think I'm going to watch young Perk of 07-08 again......