Author Topic: Avery Bradley bias  (Read 4963 times)

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Re: Avery Bradley bias
« Reply #30 on: November 25, 2015, 09:59:21 AM »

Offline td450

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I think the phenomenon is that people form an opinion at some point and then look for confirmation bias from then on to validate the opinion.  In Bradley's case, he was really bad his rookie year (really bad) so people started with the "he's a bust", "no handle",  "terrible overpay", etc. etc.  So now it is harder for people to change their minds.  If he has a good game, it is just a good game.  If he has a bad game, it's "see, I knew Bradley wasn't that good".

Bradley has shown stunning improvement since that rookie season but I sense that he may be leveling off.  If he can continue to play at this level or maybe improve in terms of consistency and general court awareness for say 5 years or more, that is great.  It will be a very good NBA career.  I don't put him quite at the star category and he probably won't get there but I am very happy with Avery Bradley.  He is a very good player on a fair contract.

I think we've found the perfect specimen to understand this strange phenomenon.

Can you explain why you "sense that he may be leveling off" when he is just turning 25 this week and in the midst of the best run of his career? I mean, if someone just landed from another planet three weeks ago, they'd think Avery was a better player than James Harden. He's been that good.

Re: Avery Bradley bias
« Reply #31 on: November 25, 2015, 10:09:04 AM »

Offline pearljammer10

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I think the phenomenon is that people form an opinion at some point and then look for confirmation bias from then on to validate the opinion.  In Bradley's case, he was really bad his rookie year (really bad) so people started with the "he's a bust", "no handle",  "terrible overpay", etc. etc.  So now it is harder for people to change their minds.  If he has a good game, it is just a good game.  If he has a bad game, it's "see, I knew Bradley wasn't that good".

Bradley has shown stunning improvement since that rookie season but I sense that he may be leveling off.  If he can continue to play at this level or maybe improve in terms of consistency and general court awareness for say 5 years or more, that is great.  It will be a very good NBA career.  I don't put him quite at the star category and he probably won't get there but I am very happy with Avery Bradley.  He is a very good player on a fair contract.

I think we've found the perfect specimen to understand this strange phenomenon.

Can you explain why you "sense that he may be leveling off" when he is just turning 25 this week and in the midst of the best run of his career? I mean, if someone just landed from another planet three weeks ago, they'd think Avery was a better player than James Harden. He's been that good.

Hahahahahahaha. Oh man that's a good one.

Avery Bradley has improved his jump shot and plays good D.

He still can't; dribbled, handled, pass, finish at the rim, move the ball, make smart shot selections. He defense has gotten worse since he focuses on offense more and he has one of the lowest bball IQs on the planet. His stretch now has been decent but he is still not a good basketball talent.

Re: Avery Bradley bias
« Reply #32 on: November 25, 2015, 10:13:44 AM »

Offline Rosco917

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I can see Bradley taking the place of IT as the 6th man. He has a knack of finding open space to get his jump shot off, he's getting to the rim more often, his handle is improving, hopefully he will stay a reliable weapon.

As this team develops, and Smart finds his natural position in the backcourt, what ever it turns out to be. I can see AB taking the place of IT, on a more established, contending type of team.

Re: Avery Bradley bias
« Reply #33 on: November 25, 2015, 10:15:36 AM »

Offline Evantime34

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I think the phenomenon is that people form an opinion at some point and then look for confirmation bias from then on to validate the opinion.  In Bradley's case, he was really bad his rookie year (really bad) so people started with the "he's a bust", "no handle",  "terrible overpay", etc. etc.  So now it is harder for people to change their minds.  If he has a good game, it is just a good game.  If he has a bad game, it's "see, I knew Bradley wasn't that good".

Bradley has shown stunning improvement since that rookie season but I sense that he may be leveling off.  If he can continue to play at this level or maybe improve in terms of consistency and general court awareness for say 5 years or more, that is great.  It will be a very good NBA career.  I don't put him quite at the star category and he probably won't get there but I am very happy with Avery Bradley.  He is a very good player on a fair contract.

I think we've found the perfect specimen to understand this strange phenomenon.

Can you explain why you "sense that he may be leveling off" when he is just turning 25 this week and in the midst of the best run of his career? I mean, if someone just landed from another planet three weeks ago, they'd think Avery was a better player than James Harden. He's been that good.

Hahahahahahaha. Oh man that's a good one.

Avery Bradley has improved his jump shot and plays good D.

He still can't; dribbled, handled, pass, finish at the rim, move the ball, make smart shot selections. He defense has gotten worse since he focuses on offense more and he has one of the lowest bball IQs on the planet. His stretch now has been decent but he is still not a good basketball talent.
His dribbling has improved this season, he got to the rim on a nice series of cross overs last night. I think the idea that he can't dribble or take smart shots is outdated. On top of improving his handle more of his shots have come from 3 than in any year, which is an improvement in shot selection.
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Re: Avery Bradley bias
« Reply #34 on: November 25, 2015, 10:21:38 AM »

Offline Eja117

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Dee Brown is the best comparison I can see with AB and their stat numbers are quite similar.
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Re: Avery Bradley bias
« Reply #35 on: November 25, 2015, 11:54:06 AM »

Offline showtime

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AB has gotten better every year he's been in the league. At 24 I don't think he's reached his peak yet. I hope he stays a Celtic for a long time.

Re: Avery Bradley bias
« Reply #36 on: November 25, 2015, 12:12:35 PM »

Offline Endless Paradise

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I agree about Bradley and OKC.  That would be a great fit.  He's exactly what they need. 

But what are they gonna trade us?  We've got tons of mediocre 1sts and I dunno about you but I have no interest in Enes Kanter or Dion Waiters.

Cleveland already has Iman Shumpert, who gives them about as much as they'd get out of Avery in a smaller offensive role.
I feel like a team like OKC would be the perfect team for him. He can just get fed 3's, defend, and hustle while Westbrook and Durant do the scoring.

Much as I hate to say this, so would Clevleand. 

Imagine Bradley playing alongside Irving, Lebron and Love?  Wow.

I agree. Cleveland or OKC would both be perfect fits. I like Shumpert more though, because he seems to be able to guard most strong 2's.

But OKC really just needs a Kyle Korver/Danny Green or AB type of player to do the dirty work, and shoot.

Yeah, unfortunately OKC doesn't have jack squat for us to trade.

Steven Adams. But there's no possible way they're trading him and relying on Enes Kanter as their only center in Durant's final year of his contract.

Re: Avery Bradley bias
« Reply #37 on: November 25, 2015, 12:33:06 PM »

Offline Hemingway

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I agree with the OP, AB does not get the love he should around here. And in general. People are quick to forget 2 things. 1 AB legitimately beat out Ray Allen for a starting spot on a win now team(With Doc "play the vets" Rivers as coach) and 2, he has gotten better each year.

Re: Avery Bradley bias
« Reply #38 on: November 25, 2015, 01:36:27 PM »

Offline mmmmm

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I think the phenomenon is that people form an opinion at some point and then look for confirmation bias from then on to validate the opinion.  In Bradley's case, he was really bad his rookie year (really bad) so people started with the "he's a bust", "no handle",  "terrible overpay", etc. etc.  So now it is harder for people to change their minds.  If he has a good game, it is just a good game.  If he has a bad game, it's "see, I knew Bradley wasn't that good".

Bradley has shown stunning improvement since that rookie season but I sense that he may be leveling off.  If he can continue to play at this level or maybe improve in terms of consistency and general court awareness for say 5 years or more, that is great.  It will be a very good NBA career.  I don't put him quite at the star category and he probably won't get there but I am very happy with Avery Bradley.  He is a very good player on a fair contract.

I remember several posters here (and on the front page) back during this first year and a half in the league posting an image equating Avery to a heaping, smelly garbage can.   Very classy.

I concur with the OP that Avery is very under-rated and under appreciated on this blog.

I don't know if he's leveling off or not.  He's clearly shown improvements in some aspect of his game each year and again so far in this early season.  Even if this is as good as he gets, he's a pretty valuable player.

We've had at least one fan from the Bulls forums come in here and inquire about what it would take to get Avery.  That's a sign that others are noticing.
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Re: Avery Bradley bias
« Reply #39 on: November 25, 2015, 01:41:01 PM »

Offline kozlodoev

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Avery Bradley has improved his jump shot and plays good D.

He still can't; dribbled, handled, pass, finish at the rim, move the ball, make smart shot selections. He defense has gotten worse since he focuses on offense more and he has one of the lowest bball IQs on the planet. His stretch now has been decent but he is still not a good basketball talent.
In fact, I think his jump shot is largely the same. It's his dribbling, handling, passing, finishing and especially moving the ball that are better this season -- hence the improved productivity.
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Re: Avery Bradley bias
« Reply #40 on: November 25, 2015, 02:24:41 PM »

Offline Who

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I agree about Bradley and OKC.  That would be a great fit.  He's exactly what they need. 

But what are they gonna trade us?  We've got tons of mediocre 1sts and I dunno about you but I have no interest in Enes Kanter or Dion Waiters.

Cleveland already has Iman Shumpert, who gives them about as much as they'd get out of Avery in a smaller offensive role.
I feel like a team like OKC would be the perfect team for him. He can just get fed 3's, defend, and hustle while Westbrook and Durant do the scoring.

Much as I hate to say this, so would Clevleand. 

Imagine Bradley playing alongside Irving, Lebron and Love?  Wow.

I agree. Cleveland or OKC would both be perfect fits. I like Shumpert more though, because he seems to be able to guard most strong 2's.

But OKC really just needs a Kyle Korver/Danny Green or AB type of player to do the dirty work, and shoot.

Yeah, unfortunately OKC doesn't have jack squat for us to trade.

Steven Adams. But there's no possible way they're trading him and relying on Enes Kanter as their only center in Durant's final year of his contract.

OKC should consider moving Ibaka to center to improve their ball-movement. Playing Ibaka (bad passer) alongside a defense-only center like Steven Adams puts too large a limitation on their big man passing.

It is going to be hard for OKC to find a center who is both (1) a good defensive player (2) a skilled offensive big who can pass the ball and/or provide floor spacing ... in order to both keep (a) Ibaka at PF and (b) fix their ball movement problems.

OKC needs to be more creative in their problem solving. Look to move Ibaka to center alongside another PF or even move Durant to PF and go with a run and gun team.

Trade Idea: Boston/OKC -- Maybe Avery Bradley + Jared Sullinger (if team doesn't want to pay Sully) for Steven Adams + another asset (or two). Probably a first round pick or maybe someone like Dion Waiters. Give OKC an ideal role player starting two guard in A.Bradley to put alongside Westbrook + Durant and a more balanced big man rotation with Ibaka, Kanter, Sully and N.Collison. Sully makes their big man rotation much more skilled; improves floor spacing + passing. Along with Bradley's offensive threat, OKC would be a vastly improved offensive team while still being a really good defensive team. A top perimeter defense and a strong interior defender in Ibaka.

Re: Avery Bradley bias
« Reply #41 on: November 25, 2015, 04:38:30 PM »

Offline ImShakHeIsShaq

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I change my original thought of him not scoring over 10pts for a month to 2 months after this. Thanks a lot Koz, what you said seals that for me!! ;D :o
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Re: Avery Bradley bias
« Reply #42 on: November 25, 2015, 06:25:46 PM »

Offline mctyson

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Yet I'm looking here, and not a single thread about how well Bradley is playing lately.  Not a single mention of just how well this 25 year old kid is right now, not a single shot of appreciation for what he has been doing.

A lot of people on this board follow advanced stats and those don't speak highly of AB (yet, at least).  I think he brings a lot of quality play on both ends of the floor to this team, and he is one of maybe 3 reliable offensive threats the Celtics have. 

His main issue still is that he is not an NBA ball-handler, and relies a lot on having a handler/passer who can set him up for his shots.  This puts pressure on the Celtics since they have only 2 guys who can play with him and do that (IT, Turner). 

Re: Avery Bradley bias
« Reply #43 on: November 25, 2015, 06:28:38 PM »

Offline crimson_stallion

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I think the phenomenon is that people form an opinion at some point and then look for confirmation bias from then on to validate the opinion.  In Bradley's case, he was really bad his rookie year (really bad) so people started with the "he's a bust", "no handle",  "terrible overpay", etc. etc.  So now it is harder for people to change their minds.  If he has a good game, it is just a good game.  If he has a bad game, it's "see, I knew Bradley wasn't that good".

Bradley has shown stunning improvement since that rookie season but I sense that he may be leveling off.  If he can continue to play at this level or maybe improve in terms of consistency and general court awareness for say 5 years or more, that is great.  It will be a very good NBA career.  I don't put him quite at the star category and he probably won't get there but I am very happy with Avery Bradley.  He is a very good player on a fair contract.

I think we've found the perfect specimen to understand this strange phenomenon.

Can you explain why you "sense that he may be leveling off" when he is just turning 25 this week and in the midst of the best run of his career? I mean, if someone just landed from another planet three weeks ago, they'd think Avery was a better player than James Harden. He's been that good.

Hahahahahahaha. Oh man that's a good one.

Avery Bradley has improved his jump shot and plays good D.

He still can't; dribbled, handled, pass, finish at the rim, move the ball, make smart shot selections. He defense has gotten worse since he focuses on offense more and he has one of the lowest bball IQs on the planet. His stretch now has been decent but he is still not a good basketball talent.

Avery Bradley has averaged 9.4 Points Per 36 Minutes on 46% shooting for his career.  Only 58% of those shots have been assisted, meaning he;s averaging about 3.9 Points Per 36 for his career on two point shots that he has created himself.

Given his career scoring average is 14.9 Points Per 36, that means that about one quarter of all his offense has come of self-created two point field goals.

Yet despite him getting more than a quarter of his offense of his own created shots, he's only averaged 1.8 Turnovers Per 36 for his career.

It's quite impossible to create your own shot without dribbling the ball, so if he's such a poor ball handler why are his turnover numbers so low?

Because he isn't nearly as bad a ball handler as people make him out to be.

In his rookie year, Bradley was a horrendous ball handler.  In his sophomore year he got a bit better and was generally fine when playing off the ball, but still struggled when forced into playing the PG spot.   

In the past three or four years he's improved dramatically, and he's now a perfectly adequate ball handler for his role.

The only reason some people believe otherwise is because Avery Bradley always plays under a microscope.  If you watch him (I mean really watch him) he actually very rarely makes a terrible pass, and very rarely dribbles the ball off his foot.  He does both things on occasion - so does every single other player on the roster. 

The difference is that everybody still judges Bradley based on his rookie year, so everybody sits around waiting for Bradley to dribbles it off his foot, or throw a bad pass.  So when he does do either of the above, EVERYBODY takes notice.

When Jae Crowder, Marcus Smart or Isaiah Thomas dribble the ball off their feet or throw a bad pass (which they all do from time to time too) it mostly flies under the radar.  Nobody really cares or says anything.  Yet they probably all do it just as often (if not more often) than Bradley does.

As far as passing goes, Bradley is averaging 1.5 assists per turnover this year which is roughly in the ball park of the other main ball handlers on this team:

* Crowder is averaging 1.0 AST/TO
* Thomas is averaging 2.2 AST/TO
* Evan Turner is averaging 1.8 AST/TO
* Marcus Smart is averaging 1.9 AST/TO

So as with the ball handling, Bradley is nowhere near as horrible a passer as he is made out to be.   Once again, his passing is perfectly adequate for the role/position he plays.

Also his defense this season has been outstanding overall, and there have been a number of stretches in games where his defense has been game changing good.  In fact in almost every game I have seen stretches where Bradley has been the best defensive player on the court. 

Of course he can't play intense defense with the same consistency now as he could earlier in his career, when playing defense was all he was expected to do.  That's obvious.  Playing defense at Avery Bradley level takes huge amounts of energy, and it's stupidly hard to do that and still have the strength to make shots. 

So as a result Bradley only plays intense AB-style defense in key stretches when it's really needed - for the rest of the game he still plays defense at a consistently high level, but not with the same intensity as somebody like Jae Crowder, who really doesn't need to do anything BUT play defense. 

Bradley won't even handle the ball like Kyrie or pass it like Rajon - he doesn't have to, he's not a Point Guard.  For the role he plays, his passing, ball handling and basketball IQ are all perfectly adequate.



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Re: Avery Bradley bias
« Reply #44 on: November 25, 2015, 06:59:24 PM »

Offline crimson_stallion

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Yet I'm looking here, and not a single thread about how well Bradley is playing lately.  Not a single mention of just how well this 25 year old kid is right now, not a single shot of appreciation for what he has been doing.

A lot of people on this board follow advanced stats and those don't speak highly of AB (yet, at least).  I think he brings a lot of quality play on both ends of the floor to this team, and he is one of maybe 3 reliable offensive threats the Celtics have. 

Which is fine, because I'm quite a fan of advanced stats myself. 

In fact if you look at Boston's ball handlers this year, Bradley's Real Plus Minus has been right up there:

Thomas: +1.61
Bradley: +1.25
RJ Hunter: -1.13
Smart: -1.42
Turner: -2.08
Rozier: -2.55

If you look at the past three years, he's always been a strong impact player.

* His Real Plus Minus of +1.98 in 2013/14 ranked 10th out of 67 among Shooting Guards
* His Real Plus Minus of -0.34 in 2014/14 ranked 28th out of 83 among Shooting Guards
* His Real Plus Minus of +1.25 in 2015/16 (this season) has ranked 6th out of 90 among Shooting Guards

His stats in 14/15 suffered (probably because the Rondo trade forced a lot of extra responsibility on Bradley) but if you look past that season, the advanced stats suggest he's been one of the top 10 most impactful shooting guards in the NBA.