Author Topic: Lowe on Marcus Smart's Passing  (Read 5230 times)

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Re: Lowe on Marcus Smart's Passing
« Reply #30 on: December 16, 2017, 05:50:09 PM »

Offline unclebay

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Marcus Smart's passing is the most overrated item on this team.

The man averages a thoroughly mediocre 5.3 assists in 30 minutes (6.2 assists Per 36) versus 2.5 turnovers (3.0 Per 36). 

That means not only are his assist numbers mediocre, but his assist to turnover rate (2.12) is also extremely average.

Smart has registered 147 assists this year, and he's registered 37 turnovers off bad passes.  That essentially indicates that about 25% of his passes are bad passes. 

There is not a single statistic I have ever seen in Marcus Smart's entire career (college or Pro) to suggest he is anything more then an average passer.

I am thoroughly dissapointed by Marcus Smart this year.  So many players on the team have taken such big steps forward, and yet he is the only guy who has shown absolutely zero progress on either end of the floor. His game has not changed at all after four seasons in the league, and I've well and truly given up on investing any more time on him. 

The longer I see him ranking top 5 on the team in field goal attempts while shooting 32% / 29% / 72% the more I grow tired of seeing his face on this roster.  I don't care what anybody says, at this point I have zero interest in Boston re-signing him and would rather see the team move forward with Rozier as their primary backup ball handler.

Interesting take.  Couldn’t disagree more. 

Smart constantly making plays.  Covers 5 positions, and contrary to your stats, makes hockey assist passes too. 

You do realize not _every_ pass he makes results in a shot?  That 25% stat you came up with is fairly bogus.

Covers 5 positions?  Give me a break.  something like 99% of Smart's minutes have come at PG, SG, SF and I don't think I've seen him defend a legit center in my life - nor would I want to.  The guy excels at defending SGs and SFs and the occasional stretch four.  He struggles against PG's due to his lack of quickness. 

Regardless, I don't have a problem with Smart's defense - it's the one thing he does at an exceptional level. 

What I have a problem with is the fact that he is an average passer, a mediocre ball handler, is turnover prone, makes poor decisions with the ball more often then not, and averages 32% FG on 10 attempts a night. 

If Smart simply did not shoot the ball - then I could accept his position on the team as a defensive role player.  But the fact that he forces so many shots when he knows [dang] well that he cannot shoot to save his life (come on bro, it's been four years - like he hasn't worked it out by now?) infuriates me.  He has a great impact on D, but he hurts the team as much on offense as he helps it on defense.  Save for the occasional bit hustle plays (like saves, dives on loose balls, etc) that happen every now and again, he really contributes next to nothing on the offensive end.  He is a worse version of Rajon Rondo on offence - because at least Rondo had an elite ability to get other people involved, and was an excellent finisher at the basket. There isn't a single thing Smart does well on offense, not one.
Wow you are really a blow hard. You don't like Smart. We get it.
Okay first in my moderator voice:

No name calling or being disrespectful of others.

Second, I don't see where what crimson said is wrong. I think he is pretty spot on in his description of Smart. He is a thoroughly mediocre passer. His decision making, specifically in calling his own number rather than creating for others is poor. His shooting is historically bad. And he is a great defender 1-3 that can guard stretch fours but not prototypical large inside PFs.
Pretty clear to me he is a good passer. That's quite clear actually.

Re: Lowe on Marcus Smart's Passing
« Reply #31 on: December 17, 2017, 02:03:13 AM »

Offline vjcsmoke

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Ah, I see. I guess I was looking at the wrong stats. Imagine if Smart could at least shoot the 3 above 35%.... Sigh...

Imagine if Smart could shoot the 3 at 35% period... LLOL

Re: Lowe on Marcus Smart's Passing
« Reply #32 on: December 17, 2017, 08:48:58 AM »

Offline dreamgreen

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The argument is over Smart flat out sucks! He's the worse offensive player on the team and compounds it with some of the dumbest plays on both ends of the court I've ever seen. He does one good play and people on here think that makes up for the 5 stupid plays he does, news flash it doesn't! Tired of hearing about this kid and I want him off the team, wish he broke his leg instead of Hayward! >:(

Re: Lowe on Marcus Smart's Passing
« Reply #33 on: December 17, 2017, 12:16:58 PM »

Offline Dino Pitino

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Pretty clear to me he is a good passer. That's quite clear actually.

Clear to me, too. If someone thinks Smart is just a mediocre passer, that's an obvious sign they have an anti-Smart bias.
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Re: Lowe on Marcus Smart's Passing
« Reply #34 on: December 19, 2017, 01:47:03 PM »

Offline mmmmm

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Smart has an offensive rating of 92 and a defensive rating of 103.  That means while Smart is on the court, Boston is scoring 92 points per 100 possessions and allowing 103 points per 100 possessions.  We are being outscored by 11 points per 100 possessions with him on the court.
Are there any stat wizards that can weigh in on this? Basketball reference lists these numbers for Smart but then under "Play-by-Play" stats it shows his +/- as +11.7 which mirrors everything I've read about him. How can his DRtg be higher than his Ortg and this be so? I'm confused.

This is caused by basketball-references.com's confusing overload of the terms' "defensive rating" and "offensive rating".

For most sites, these terms,s are the measured change on the scoreboard, in points per 100 possessions.  Indeed, even on basketball-reference, you can see that in the 'per 100' mode of their own "Lineup Finder" tool and on the team 'per 100' rankings on the league summary page.

But basketball-reference.com also uses the same terms for their "estimated" points scored / surrendered per 100 possessions that they list for individuals on the stat pages.   And these are NOT measured changes in the scoreboard, but rather a derived estimate based on rather complex formula derived by Dean Oliver.   The explanation is given here:

https://www.basketball-reference.com/about/ratings.html

This formula  usually works okay as an estimate, but is subject to some very weird results on some players, especially this early in the year while the sample of input data is small.

I would take these numbers with a huge grain of salt.

NBA Officiating - Corrupt?  Incompetent?  Which is worse?  Does it matter?  It sucks.

Re: Lowe on Marcus Smart's Passing
« Reply #35 on: December 19, 2017, 01:57:52 PM »

Offline mmmmm

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His 27.9 assist ratio is a career high, and when you look at his offensive numbers with passing Smart jumps from the 7th percentile to the 51st. Smart has a career-high usage rate, and the problem with that is it has led to a career-high turnover ratio at 14.
 
This is a take the good with the bad scenarios. Stevens will live with some Smart turnovers because he knows he will make some great passes as well. Here is the number that sums it up. Smarts assist to usage percentage according to Cleaningtheglass.com is 1.10, one of the best marks among all guards. His turnover percentage is 16.8 percent, one of the worst marks among all guards. But despite the turnovers, Smart always makes the extra pass.

The Celtics are 9.6 points better when MS-36 is on the floor. Smart accounts for 36% of our total assists as a team, so you can make the educated guess and assume Smart's contributions on the floor, via defense, passing, screen-assisting, and intangibles cannot be defined.

Weeeell ... yes ... so long as Al Horford is also on the floor.

When Smart has been on the floor while Al has not, the net rating has been a mere +0.4 points per 100.  The team TS% drops to just 50% in that configuration.

Relative to what though? When Al's off the floor overall we have a -3 net rating.

So doesn't the fact that we are +0.4 in that scenario when Smart plays mean that he improves those lineups too?

The main point is to be careful about giving Smart full credit for that "9.6 points better".   A huge portion of it is simply correlation effect.

There is a lot of noise around each number here.   He may still have a net positive effect, but it's likely much, much smaller than 9.6 points.  And it could even be slightly negative.
NBA Officiating - Corrupt?  Incompetent?  Which is worse?  Does it matter?  It sucks.

Re: Lowe on Marcus Smart's Passing
« Reply #36 on: December 19, 2017, 03:46:22 PM »

Offline nickagneta

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Its night's like last night that make me believe he is a middle of the road passer. 7 turnovers, most on just awful passes, passes he makes at least a few times a game and gets away with sometimes.

Strangely enough on night's where Marcus shoots poorly it been easy to see that he contributed in a positive way overall. Last night he shot well but I think he was a negative for the team. Turnovers, bad decisions and less than average defense last night.

Re: Lowe on Marcus Smart's Passing
« Reply #37 on: December 19, 2017, 04:13:00 PM »

Offline Big333223

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Smart has an offensive rating of 92 and a defensive rating of 103.  That means while Smart is on the court, Boston is scoring 92 points per 100 possessions and allowing 103 points per 100 possessions.  We are being outscored by 11 points per 100 possessions with him on the court.
Are there any stat wizards that can weigh in on this? Basketball reference lists these numbers for Smart but then under "Play-by-Play" stats it shows his +/- as +11.7 which mirrors everything I've read about him. How can his DRtg be higher than his Ortg and this be so? I'm confused.

This is caused by basketball-references.com's confusing overload of the terms' "defensive rating" and "offensive rating".

For most sites, these terms,s are the measured change on the scoreboard, in points per 100 possessions.  Indeed, even on basketball-reference, you can see that in the 'per 100' mode of their own "Lineup Finder" tool and on the team 'per 100' rankings on the league summary page.

But basketball-reference.com also uses the same terms for their "estimated" points scored / surrendered per 100 possessions that they list for individuals on the stat pages.   And these are NOT measured changes in the scoreboard, but rather a derived estimate based on rather complex formula derived by Dean Oliver.   The explanation is given here:

https://www.basketball-reference.com/about/ratings.html

This formula  usually works okay as an estimate, but is subject to some very weird results on some players, especially this early in the year while the sample of input data is small.

I would take these numbers with a huge grain of salt.
TP for the explanation. That seems like a weird stat for basketball-reference to be using.

Its night's like last night that make me believe he is a middle of the road passer. 7 turnovers, most on just awful passes, passes he makes at least a few times a game and gets away with sometimes.

Strangely enough on night's where Marcus shoots poorly it been easy to see that he contributed in a positive way overall. Last night he shot well but I think he was a negative for the team. Turnovers, bad decisions and less than average defense last night.
Yeah, if Marcus could just put it all together consistently, he'd be amazing. I remain hopeful that this will come with age.
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