The Honorable Cock Jowles: So shit, maybe I retract my argument for Amar’e. Faried is a monster, and he’s only 22. If he develops even one good post move, I’d worry for the rest of the league.
The Honorable Cock Jowles

That’s more like it, stick to your guns!

I’m still not sold on Faried but look forward to seeing how he does this year. He truly is a beast on the offensive boards. I still think that defense will be a problem for him but won’t be accurately factored into his WP48 score, making him more of a monster on paper than he really is. Regarding role, Amare at his best is tough to quantify, which is probably why you quibbled in @34. He seems to be a hybrid between all 3 frontcourt spots, so his offensive rebounding numbers probably should be compared to small forwards/slashers rather than post-up players or rebounding/defensive specialists. For the last 1 1/2 years, he hasn’t consistently done anything particularly well, and has put up career-low numbers, but before that, he was definitely a max-type player. Can he get back to that level? He is young enough, has recovered from health issues before, and his recent health issues are not related to past health issues, so I wouldn’t count him out yet. Kidd and Felton should help a lot.

The Honorable Cock Jowles: So basically the opposite of Amar’e. He needs a PG for more assisted shots, but Faried needs fewer to be more effective. I really don’t get it at all.

I haven’t come across any player who is more efficient when the proportion of non-assisted attempts increases, as you are proposing occurs for Faried.

Obviously the boards little psuedo-dialectic won’t be resolved until there’s an agreement that there is some added value in self-created shots, context and situation dependent, that efficiency metrics don’t directly capture.

Given that thesis, Faried will be less efficient, less attractive to wow, but perhaps more valuable if he develops a decent jump shot a more diverrse non-assisted, non-putback game.

I highly doubt he ever develops a non-assisted offensive game as good as Amar’es, but he’s such a great offensive rebounder he may not have to do be a very good offensive player.

ruruland: Naturally, however, adding more non-assisted, non-put back shot attempts will make him a far less attractive player in wow., even though he’ll add more value to the offense.

So basically the opposite of Amar’e. He needs a PG for more assisted shots, but Faried needs fewer to be more effective. I really don’t get it at all.

The Honorable Cock Jowles:
Amar’e’s numbers look weird from that season because he was counted as a pure C, from what I can tell. This makes his rebounding look even worse than normal (and he is NOT a good rebounder). I would rather have Faried in every other season, though. Amar’e’s career high in PPS is 1.64, and career average is 1.46. This is really, really good. Faried’s already at 1.52 and collects nearly 3 (!!!) more offensive rebounds per 48 than Amar’e has over his career. Compared to last season, Faried doubles (!!!) Amar’e’s OREB/48 number.

So shit, maybe I retract my argument for Amar’e. Faried is a monster, and he’s only 22. If he develops even one good post move, I’d worry for the rest of the league.

Faried is probably going to develop face-up moves and a shot instead of post-moves. If you watched his college tapes he tried a lot of post-moves, and despite his explosion, he was not very effective with them.

But I think he has a chance to develop a jump shot which will open up his finishing and quickness. Naturally, however, adding more non-assisted, non-put back shot attempts will make him a far less attractive player in wow., even though he’ll add more value to the offense.

Defensively, Karl can hide him a lot and use his boundless energy. But it’s a problem when he has to play Gasol or Randolph or any big that creates deeper double teams.

So shit, maybe I retract my argument for Amar’e. Faried is a monster, and he’s only 22. If he develops even one good post move, I’d worry for the rest of the league.

The Honorable Cock Jowles: I never said that Amar’e has never been as good as Faried is now, even if he has a much lower WP48 number

But everything else you say pretty much would support such a conclusion. Either WP48 can be depended on to make judgments like this or it can’t, especially when discussing players who play the same position. When you say otherwise, you become what you often rail against: one that uses stats arbitrarily to support a predetermined conclusion.

I’m not as down on WP48 as Juany8 and others, but do think it has both statistical and philosophical flaws and must be considered in the context of other factors, such as role, usage, team makeup, cap issues, coaching, etc. You often bring up how long it took baseball GMs to consider sabermetrics as useful and valid, but that ship has long sailed, especially for the regulars on this site. Most of us here use advanced stats to some degree in making arguments, and most understand the flaws in some of them, e.g. PER.

Z-man:
While I have had my differences with THCJ, I certainly wasn’t offended by anything he wrote in his thread. Re: Faried vs. Amare, I very much disagree with him, mainly because he has implied before that Amare is over the hill at age 29, but more importantly because he thinks that even at his peak, Amare was never close to being the player that Faried already is.

I think the jury is still out with Faried. He was unleashed at the perfect time in the perfect year. Let’s see if he keeps up the lofty numbers or if he goes the way

I never said that Amar’e has never been as good as Faried is now, even if he has a much lower WP48 number, even in his 07-08 season, which was absolutely monstrous. I think that Amar’e is not a good offensive rebounder, and that hurts his team. If he comes close to a .65 TS% this season, I will eat my words. But he’s probably going to stay below .54, which means bad things for the Knick offense given his usage.

And what sets Faried apart from Stoudemire is that he creates his own shots through tremendous offensive rebounding and putbacks. Without the offensive rebounds, those possessions-employed do not exist. That adds a whole lot of value to his game. And you can’t even pretend that he’s not athletic enough to get back down the floor after being “aggressive” on the boards, as if it’s somehow a bad thing.

And he’s playing on a completely different level than Blair ever did; what upset me about the Blair pick was that the Knicks could have easily bought a 2nd rounder and had him, who had tremendous upside, with a non-guaranteed minimum contract. That, to me, is worth the risk 100 out of 100 times

The Honorable Cock Jowles: Do you know how long it took Major League Baseball front offices to begin to employ sabermetrics in decision making? Your argument that because WP48 is not “mainstream” it is clearly incorrect is pure horseshit.

So why does Daryl Morey not use it? Or the Mavericks? Or Celtics, Lakers, Heat, Spurs? Stop making up dumb strawmen to argue against. If even ONE GM in the league seemed to base his decisions on WP, I might give it some credibility, but absolutely no one uses it. Furthermore, the very best and brightest basketball minds in the league seem to pay less than zero attention to it. But you know what, if the Timberwolves and Nuggets do come out as surprise contenders this year, I might give you some credit. Of course when they inevitably fail, it’ll be because of every reason under the sun EXCEPT that WP is fatally flawed….

I think the jury is still out with Faried. He was unleashed at the perfect time in the perfect year. Let’s see if he keeps up the lofty numbers or if he goes the way of DeJuan Blair. As for Amare, if he can return to averaging 24+pts per 36 on a .600+ TS at a usage of over 27%, while improving marginally as a rebounder and defender, I can live with his making max money. He has definitely underperformed during the last 1 1/2 years by max standards

The Honorable Cock Jowles: Nonsense because you disagree?

See how clever and insidious he is? He’s trying to lure me into responding to him, but I’m not going to. I’m going to ignore him. Hmm, hmm, hmmm, is someone talking to me???