Sullinger playing like a borderline All-Star

[Celtics4ever]

1) Not shooting wise from three point land.   In the post, and mid range yes he looks great.
2) Not defense wise, horrible and looks lazy

He is the classic good by flawed player.

[pearljammer10]

This is really nitpicking and since we've come to a settlement, rather unnecessary, but even if Sully is on the floor for 22 of those 30 minutes he is still keeping Olynyk/Zeller on the bench and in turn Sully must be benched earlier -- or later -- on in order to make up for their lost minutes. Correct me if I'm wrong in using that line of thinking.

Well, I don't believe in minute quotas, so in my mind if Sullinger had established himself as the clearly superior option, he'd get all the minutes he could handle.

Which, again because of his poor shape, isn't going to be 36.

[LooseCannon]

Most All-Star bigs don't play 36 mpg.  Last year only Kevin Love and LaMarcus Aldridge did, and they were at 36.3 and 36.2.   Tim Duncan hasn't cracked 36 mpg in a decade.

Most All-Stars don't play 36mpg period.  Of the 24 players who played in last year's ASG, 9 of them played 36mpg or more.  There were only 17 player in the NBA who averaged at least 36mpg.

[Fan from VT]

I've been pleased and impressed by Sullinger in general. He's a solid building block, and will have a good career, probably.

As for all-star, it might be a little early. I think when projecting "All-Stars" fans usually make several mistakes.

(The first mistake is to forget that it relies on voting, so reputation matters. But we're going to ignore that for now)

1. They forget that NBA primes can be pretty long. For instance, you might have expected at least one of emeka, josh smith, al jefferson would have been an all-star as a forward, but in part their path was and still is blocked by guys who were better than them and still are better, like pau, zach randolph, dirk, duncan, and until recently KG

2. They forget that a 3rd year guy from the from the 2012 draft might be good, but when he's at his peak, he might have already been passed by late bloomers from his class or from better players from the 2013 or 2014 class.

3. They tend to make excuses for their chosen player but don't make the same or analogous excuses for all the other players in the NBA. i.e. giving their player upside, but not other players of similar age the same or more upside, projecting others to fall off sooner than their player, or using per 48 numbers for their player but not others.

4. They tend to look at "uniqueness" as a virtue. By this I mean they take what their favorite player is averaging across the board, and use that to say "X is one of only 3 players with at least a,b,and c. This ignores the fact that maybe there's 20 players who are twice as good as "X" at skill a, but they are all maybe 1% worse at c so they don't make the arbitrary cut. But if you sliced and diced a lot of different mediocre players you could make them look much better than they are.


I looked at a bunch of different numbers, just for fun. Sully is good, but I'm not sure he's an all-star yet. And given that we'd expect random other young guys to improve too and expect good players to hang on, he might make an all-star game and he might not; I think he needs to take another leap to do so. Hopefully he does take another leap to be a 19/9 or 17/11 type of guy.


I looked at players who could be said to play at PF (or a "big" spot), so some power 3/4s, all 4s and all 5s. They had to be playing at least 20 minutes per game. That's it. (so real SFs, SGs and PGs are ignored).

For PPG he's 23rd:
RK   PLAYER   PTS
1   LeBron James, SF   27.1
2   Anthony Davis, PF   25.5
3   Carmelo Anthony, SF   24.1
4   Blake Griffin, PF   23.1
5   DeMarcus Cousins, C   22.5
6   LaMarcus Aldridge, PF   21.9
7   Rudy Gay, SF   21.8
8   Al Jefferson, C   20
9   Chris Bosh, C   19.9
10   Jeff Green, SF   19.9
11   Dirk Nowitzki, PF   19.6
12   Dwight Howard, C   18.8
13   Nikola Vucevic, C   18.8
14   Pau Gasol, PF   18.6
15   Tobias Harris, SF   18.4
16   Paul Millsap, PF   18
17   Marc Gasol, C   17.6
18   Kevin Love, PF   17.4
19   Zach Randolph, PF   16.5
20   Ryan Anderson, PF   16.4
21   Derrick Favors, PF   16.3
22   Greg Monroe, PF   15.6
23   Jared Sullinger, PF   15.3
24   Markieff Morris, PF   15.3
25   Serge Ibaka, PF   15
26   Brook Lopez, C   15
27   Thaddeus Young, SF   14.3
28   Chris Copeland, SF   14.2
29   Tim Duncan, PF   14
30   Jordan Hill, C   13.8
31   Al Horford, C   13.8
32   Roy Hibbert, C   13.6
33   Carlos Boozer, PF   13.5
34   Marcin Gortat, C   13.3
35   Josh Smith, SF   13.2
36   Taj Gibson, PF   13

For RPG he's 18th
RK   PLAYER   RPG
1   DeAndre Jordan, C   12.4
2   Nikola Vucevic, C   11.8
3   DeMarcus Cousins, C   11.6
4   Anthony Davis, PF   11.4
5   Dwight Howard, C   11.3
6   Zach Randolph, PF   11.2
7   Andre Drummond, C   11.1
8   Tim Duncan, PF   10.8
9   Pau Gasol, PF   10.6
10   Andrew Bogut, C   10.5
11   Kevin Love, PF   10.3
12   Greg Monroe, PF   10.3
13   Tyson Chandler, C   10.3
14   Joakim Noah, C   10.2
15   Omer Asik, C   10
16   Jordan Hill, C   9.6
17   Marcin Gortat, C   9.1
18   Jared Sullinger, PF   8.8
19   Chris Bosh, C   8.7
20   Kevin Garnett, PF   8.5

I then created an arbitrary cutoff of 13 pts 8 rbs with at least 20mpg. Of those players, Sully is 11th in rebounds and 14th in points. So he moves up, but not a ton, because a lot of bigs who are good at one are good at the other. He's not upper eschilon in either.Additionally, some guaranteed forward all-stars fall off, like Lebron, Anthony, etc.  Here's the list, btw:

Anthony Davis, PF
DeMarcus Cousins, C
LaMarcus Aldridge, PF
Chris Bosh, C
Dwight Howard, C
Nikola Vucevic, C
Pau Gasol, PF
Tobias Harris, SF
Paul Millsap, PF
Kevin Love, PF
Zach Randolph, PF
Derrick Favors, PF
Greg Monroe, PF
Jared Sullinger, PF
Tim Duncan, PF
Jordan Hill, C
Roy Hibbert, C
Marcin Gortat, C
Nikola Pekovic, C


So then I did the same per 48, but again did this for all bigs over 20 mpg.
For rebs per 48, sully is #27:
RK   PLAYER   RP48
1   Andre Drummond, C   19.1
2   DeMarcus Cousins, C   18.3
3   Andrew Bogut, C   18.3
4   Tyson Chandler, C   18.1
5   Omer Asik, C   17.6
6   Kevin Garnett, PF   17.2
7   Chris Kaman, C   17
8   Tim Duncan, PF   16.9
9   DeAndre Jordan, C   16.7
10   Zach Randolph, PF   16.6
11   Gorgui Dieng, C   16.4
12   Larry Sanders, C   16.3
13   Dwight Howard, C   16.2
14   Jonas Valanciunas, C   16
15   Joakim Noah, C   15.5
16   Lavoy Allen, PF   15.4
17   Jordan Hill, C   15.4
18   Nikola Vucevic, C   15.3
19   Amar'e Stoudemire, PF   15.3
20   Greg Monroe, PF   15.3
21   Anthony Davis, PF   14.9
22   Luis Scola, PF   14.7
23   Timofey Mozgov, C   14.7
24   Pau Gasol, PF   14.6
25   Nikola Pekovic, C   14.6
26   Marcin Gortat, C   14
27   Jared Sullinger, PF   13.9

for pts per 48, he's 21st.
RK   PLAYER   PTS
1   DeMarcus Cousins, C   35.5
2   Dirk Nowitzki, PF   34.3
3   Anthony Davis, PF   33.4
4   LeBron James, SF   33.3
5   Carmelo Anthony, SF   31.9
6   Blake Griffin, PF   30.6
7   LaMarcus Aldridge, PF   29.8
8   Al Jefferson, C   28.8
9   Ryan Anderson, PF   28.7
10   Rudy Gay, SF   28.4
11   Jeff Green, SF   27.1
12   Chris Bosh, C   27.1
13   Dwight Howard, C   26.9
14   Brook Lopez, C   26.3
15   Pau Gasol, PF   25.7
16   Enes Kanter, C   25.5
17   Derrick Favors, PF   25.4
18   Paul Millsap, PF   24.8
19   Nikola Vucevic, C   24.5
20   Zach Randolph, PF   24.4
21   Jared Sullinger, PF   24.3

Then I looked at at least 20 pp48 and 10.9 rp48. Among those players, Sully was 11th in points and 13th in rebounds. Here's that list:
DeMarcus Cousins, C
Anthony Davis, PF
LaMarcus Aldridge, PF
Chris Bosh, C
Dwight Howard, C
Pau Gasol, PF
Enes Kanter, C
Derrick Favors, PF
Paul Millsap, PF
Zach Randolph, PF
Jared Sullinger, PF
Carlos Boozer, PF
Kelly Olynyk, C
Greg Monroe, PF
Amar'e Stoudemire, PF
Kevin Love, PF
Al Horford, C
Jordan Hill, C
Tim Duncan, PF
Roy Hibbert, C
Jonas Valanciunas, C
Kenneth Faried, PF
Robin Lopez, C
Marcin Gortat, C
Tyson Chandler, C


Then I thought about how the C's play at a fast pace, and that this might inflate both per game and per minute averages, so I looked at per 100 possessions. Again, at least 20 mpg.

For PP100p he's at 26th.
   Player   PTS ▾
1   DeMarcus Cousins   37.9
2   Dirk Nowitzki   36.8
3   Carmelo Anthony   35.8
4   LeBron James   35.8
5   Anthony Davis   35.7
6   Blake Griffin   32.3
7   LaMarcus Aldridge   32
8   Al Jefferson   31.3
9   Ryan Anderson   30.7
10   Rudy Gay   30.3
11   Chris Bosh   29.9
12   Dwight Howard   28.7
13   Chris Kaman   28.5
14   Brook Lopez   28.3
15   Enes Kanter   28.2
16   Derrick Favors   28.1
17   Jeff Green   27.8
18   Pau Gasol   27.6
19   Zach Randolph   26.7
20   Paul Millsap   26.5
21   Marc Gasol   26.3
22   Nikola Vucevic   26.1
23   Tobias Harris   25.6
24   Amar'e Stoudemire   25.4
25   Greg Monroe   25.3
26   Jared Sullinger   24.9

For RP100p he's #32
1   Andre Drummond   20.9
2   DeMarcus Cousins   19.6
3   Tyson Chandler   19.4
4   Omer Asik   18.8
5   Kevin Garnett   18.5
6   Chris Kaman   18.3
7   Andrew Bogut   18.3
8   Zach Randolph   18.2
9   Tim Duncan   18.1
10   DeAndre Jordan   17.7
11   Larry Sanders   17.5
12   Dwight Howard   17.3
13   Amar'e Stoudemire   17.2
14   Gorgui Dieng   17.1
15   Lavoy Allen   17.1
16   Jonas Valanciunas   17
17   Greg Monroe   16.8
18   Joakim Noah   16.7
19   Nikola Vucevic   16.4
20   Luis Scola   16.3
21   Jordan Hill   16.2
22   Anthony Davis   16
23   Pau Gasol   15.7
24   Nikola Pekovic   15.2
25   Timofey Mozgov   15.1
26   Marcin Gortat   14.9
27   Quincy Acy   14.8
28   Ed Davis   14.5
29   Enes Kanter   14.4
30   Kevin Love   14.4
31   Roy Hibbert   14.3
32   Jared Sullinger   14.3

So then again I wanted to see who was good at both, so I looked at 20 min, PF/C, averaging at least 23/13 per 100 possessions. Sully was13th in PP100 and 14th in RP100. Here's that list:
Player   TRB ▾   PTS
DeMarcus Cousins   19.6   37.9
Chris Kaman   18.3   28.5
Zach Randolph   18.2   26.7
Tim Duncan   18.1   23.5
Dwight Howard   17.3   28.7
Amar'e Stoudemire   17.2   25.4
Greg Monroe   16.8   25.3
Nikola Vucevic   16.4   26.1
Jordan Hill   16.2   23.2
Anthony Davis   16   35.7
Pau Gasol   15.7   27.6
Enes Kanter   14.4   28.2
Kevin Love   14.4   24.3
Jared Sullinger   14.3   24.9
Roy Hibbert   14.3   24
Derrick Favors   14   28.1
Chris Bosh   13.1   29.9
Terrence Jones   13.1   24.5

In summary, here is where Sully ranks in various point/rebound measures relative to other bigs (or guys who spend some time at at least the 4):
                                        PPG      PP48      PP100    RPG      RP48     RP100
Among all PF/C               23rd       21st      26th      18th      27th     32nd
Among Selected PF/C    14th          11th    13th         11th      13th   14th
(Selected = 13/8 pg or 20/11 p48 or 23/13 p100)

Also note that, due to the season being young and how you slice the data, here are some guys who fell off various lists. Note some are upside guys, and others are FAR FAR better defenders than Sully.
Al Jefferson
John Henson
Noah
Sanders
Milsap
Monroe
Love
Bennet
Griffin
Gibson
Ibaka
Anthony
Bogut
Dirk
Noah
James
Marc Gasol

[DarkAzcura]

In summary, here is where Sully ranks in various point/rebound measures relative to other bigs (or guys who spend some time at at least the 4):
                                        PPG      PP48      PP100    RPG      RP48     RP100
Among all PF/C               23rd       21st      26th      18th      27th     32nd
Among Selected PF/C    14th          11th    13th         11th      13th   14th
(Selected = 13/8 pg or 20/11 p48 or 23/13 p100)

Also note that, due to the season being young and how you slice the data, here are some guys who fell off various lists. Note some are upside guys, and others are FAR FAR better defenders than Sully.
Al Jefferson
John Henson
Noah
Sanders
Milsap
Monroe
Love
Bennet
Griffin
Gibson
Ibaka
Anthony
Bogut
Dirk
Noah
James
Marc Gasol

I care little about all star game selections, and I've actually never been the biggest Sully fan, but one thing you are missing in this statistical summary is passing. You used arbitrary stat cut offs of 13/8 and 20 MPG. Now run those numbers for 13/8/3 in at least 20 MPG. Also note Sullinger's turnover numbers.

I'm not saying this totally makes up for his flaws on the defensive end, but it shows how valuable he is on the offensive end. You noted that the list of players you had up there are either upside guys or better defenders, but how many of those big men are better passers? I know it's not exactly common to have a great passer in your front court, but it's also not incredibly common to have an all-star PG who can't shoot everywhere on the court. I'd love to see him turn into a better defender, and I can actually see him being a solid to above average team defender...maybe even good..if we get a center (or front court player) who can actually direct the defense. Sully can't be (probably ever) relied on to direct and anchor a defense with his physical limitations, but you can see the effort from his side. If all he has to worry about is his guy instead of constantly worrying about help defense when a guard blows by one of our guards, he will look better as a defender. We need that big guy who can allow him to play this way. He's a unique player in his own right so its more about masking his weaknesses because not every all star is perfect.

[KeepRondo]

To answer your question, there is a logjam at Sully's position, especially with Stevens trying to showcase Jeff Green at the four.

Yep, that's what it is, you convinced me. We're benching our all-star because we have a "logjam". In fact, we don't -- we have 4 rotational bigs (most teams will consider this merely adequate depth), and Green has barely played any 4 this season (to be precise, he's been at the 4 for about 30 of his 315+ minutes). 

Using per 36 for a guy playing 30 minutes is much different than using it for a guy playing 14.

No, not really. Until you play 36 minutes a game you haven't played 36 minutes a game, so either is pretty much a crap shoot.

But the point remains that the fact that a player can't sustain or command 36 minutes of floor time is a should absolutely be held against a player when evaluating their production.

That's pretty funny. I'm glad you absolutely feel that way!

Also how does the additional 6 minutes become a crap shoot? Is he all of a sudden going to average less points and rebounds? I think we can all use common sense that he would most likely gain at least 2 points and a rebound. That would put him around 18 points and 10 rebounds.

[BballTim]

This is really nitpicking and since we've come to a settlement, rather unnecessary, but even if Sully is on the floor for 22 of those 30 minutes he is still keeping Olynyk/Zeller on the bench and in turn Sully must be benched earlier -- or later -- on in order to make up for their lost minutes. Correct me if I'm wrong in using that line of thinking.

Well, I don't believe in minute quotas, so in my mind if Sullinger had established himself as the clearly superior option, he'd get all the minutes he could handle.

Which, again because of his poor shape, isn't going to be 36.

  Only a few bigs in the league play 36 mpg.

[BballTim]

Using per 36 for a guy playing 30 minutes is much different than using it for a guy playing 14.

No, not really. Until you play 36 minutes a game you haven't played 36 minutes a game, so either is pretty much a crap shoot.

But the point remains that the fact that a player can't sustain or command 36 minutes of floor time is a should absolutely be held against a player when evaluating their production.

  Per36 numbers aren't about how well a player would do if they played 36 minutes a game. It's about how well they play when they are on the court. It's just a more understandable way of expressing a player's per minute production. For instance (ignoring the small sample size) you couldn't just say that Rondo's clearly a better scorer than Young because Rondo scores 11 a game and Young scores 5 because that doesn't take into account that Rondo plays 30+ minutes a game and Young plays 5.

  You want to be able to compare their points (or other stats) based on how much they produce in the amount of time they're on the court, so Rondo scores a point every 3 minutes or so and Young scores a point every minute or so. However, these stats aren't very meaningful if you look at them on a per minute basis. If someone gets a rebound every 5.7 minutes or .047 steals per minute, is that a lot? Who knows? But 6.3 rebounds or 1.7 steals per36 is more understandable.

  By the way, while some of the players played a fraction of a minute less than 36 a game, there were a dozen or so players who were all-stars last year playing less than 36 minutes a game.

[KeepRondo]

This is really nitpicking and since we've come to a settlement, rather unnecessary, but even if Sully is on the floor for 22 of those 30 minutes he is still keeping Olynyk/Zeller on the bench and in turn Sully must be benched earlier -- or later -- on in order to make up for their lost minutes. Correct me if I'm wrong in using that line of thinking.

Well, I don't believe in minute quotas, so in my mind if Sullinger had established himself as the clearly superior option, he'd get all the minutes he could handle.

Which, again because of his poor shape, isn't going to be 36.

  Only a few bigs in the league play 36 mpg.

What do the other top bigs play around?

[pearljammer10]

This is really nitpicking and since we've come to a settlement, rather unnecessary, but even if Sully is on the floor for 22 of those 30 minutes he is still keeping Olynyk/Zeller on the bench and in turn Sully must be benched earlier -- or later -- on in order to make up for their lost minutes. Correct me if I'm wrong in using that line of thinking.

Well, I don't believe in minute quotas, so in my mind if Sullinger had established himself as the clearly superior option, he'd get all the minutes he could handle.

Which, again because of his poor shape, isn't going to be 36.

  Only a few bigs in the league play 36 mpg.

What do the other top bigs play around?

Right now Sullinger is 14th just amongst PFs in minutes per game with names like Duncan, Monroe, Randolph, Ibaka, Love, Griffin, Davis, Gasol...etc in front of him. Then there are also ten centers to add to that list so it would place him around 24th in the league for top notch big men.

[KeepRondo]

This is a pretty interesting stat that would favor Sullinger getting more minutes.


Offense: Pts per 100 Poss.

On 116.8

Off 99.9

 +16.9


Defense: Pts per 100 Poss.

On 110.0

Off 121.9

 -11.9

[Celtics4ever]

3. They tend to make excuses for their chosen player but don't make the same or analogous excuses for all the other players in the NBA

Loads of this to go around, his D is nothing to brag about and a lot of it looks like lack of effort.

Maybe he was told not to get fouls but Stevens is starting to bench him some and KO when their D stinks which is often.

[fandrew]

Sully needs to do the Insanity workout. That will slim him down and build up his endurance, while keeping him strong. Man, I just know if he was 15-20 lbs lighter he would be producing even more on both sides of the court. Better speed, better lift.

[Celtics4ever]

Yeah, he has talent, just has not committed fully to his body and getting into better shape.   He is darn good as he on offense.

[BballTim]

3. They tend to make excuses for their chosen player but don't make the same or analogous excuses for all the other players in the NBA. i.e. giving their player upside, but not other players of similar age the same or more upside, projecting others to fall off sooner than their player, or using per 48 numbers for their player but not others.

  On the flip side, the people who talk about how other players are better than ours don't see those players (or read about them) often enough to know what their flaws are, so they tend to assume that those players don't really have any noticeable flaws.

4. They tend to look at "uniqueness" as a virtue. By this I mean they take what their favorite player is averaging across the board, and use that to say "X is one of only 3 players with at least a,b,and c. This ignores the fact that maybe there's 20 players who are twice as good as "X" at skill a, but they are all maybe 1% worse at c so they don't make the arbitrary cut. But if you sliced and diced a lot of different mediocre players you could make them look much better than they are.

  I agree with this in the "it's easy to manipulate stats" sense, but I also think that those unique attributes are fairly valuable. There are only 3 bigs in the league averaging more assists/game than Sully. That doesn't make him better than all the bigs who average less assists than him but it's still a valuable attribute.