The Honorable Cock Jowles: I’m guessing that this point is moot because LBJ and Wade will have better assist/shooting efficiency numbers from those fast break opportunities.

Yes, though certainly there are times when they make the push and wind up with a hockey assist that doesn’t show up in the box score. My point is that Berri has obviously determined that backcourt/wing rebounding correlates with winning in a way that front court rebounding does not- otherwise there’d be no reason to make that positional adjustment no? And now via sports-vu (and hell, you could do it just by obsessively breaking down box scores) you can see the value of player x’s rebounds vs. player y’s rather than just coming up with a general thumbnail number that applies to all players equally. As you point out (and I did in my original post) good players will see a bump- though perhaps incomplete- in their numbers anyway through made baskets/assists but that thumbnail number will exaggerate the value of players who aren’t getting the ball out in transition quickly (and whose rebounds might be of no more value than a centers). Now that presupposes that the only value of a guard/wing rebound is greater likelihood of a transition bucket which I’m sure isn’t the case but I do think that as a stat rpg isn’t that much more telling than ppg you really need more context to really determine it’s value. A statistical revolution is brewing and I think Berri is on the wrong side of it by insisting on a one size fits all formula that is sure to produce plenty of outliers.

nicos: Similarly, LBJ or Wade’s defensive rebounds are much more likely to wind up as fast breaks so aren’t they worth more than Fields?

I’m guessing that this point is moot because LBJ and Wade will have better assist/shooting efficiency numbers from those fast break opportunities.

jon abbey: PPG is a way better stat, at least that actually means something. it needs context, but it’s not flat out wrong like WP.

Laughably stupid. Like, unfathomably stupid.

Love shump for what he is, not what he might become. Sprewell was never a good shooter. But he did enough other stuff to make himself valuable. But don’t wait in vain for spots to change.

Donnie Walsh:
Shumpert was a horrible shooter in college. Big sample. 3000 minutes = sub 40% shooting. Got worse as he aged (down to 27% 3pt shooting his senior year).

Betting on Shumpert to become a statistically good shooter in his NBA career is a bad bet.

You are right, Shumpert WAS a horrible shooter in college. This says nothing about potential to develop a better shot. The idea that who Shumpert was or is as a shooter entails his future development as a shooter is flawed, several examples have been posted.

Two more points, 1) Shumpert played point in college and so often took looks of a different quality than he will be asked to take in the NBA. 2) Shumpert’s shooting percentage dipped in his final year in college, however that year he was asked to take on a greater scoring load (Source: Draft Express) and likely threw up even more poor shots.

Not all shot attempts are equal, JR Smith was recently reported to shoot around 40% on spot ups and around 9% after he took a dribble. Shump is not going to be asked to carry the offensive load in the NBA, he will be asked to defend well and hit the occasional three.

Juany8:
In other words, you shouldn’t bother with people quoting WP anymore than you bother with people quoting Points per game.

PPG is a way better stat, at least that actually means something. it needs context, but it’s not flat out wrong like WP.

Juany8: There are notable exceptions, but the online basketball stats community is less concerned in searching for truth than they are in proving how smart they are to everyone else. If they were, the formulas for things like WS, WP, and PER would be constantly updated as new information came out and sources of data better than the box score were established. Instead the people behind these models spend all their time creating increasingly absurd defenses for their clearly outdated ideas. Thus Berri tries to convince us that because Steve Kerr and Derrick Rose are a similar height, their offensive games are more comparable than that of Steve Kerr and Steve Novak, who do the exact same fucking thing on offense.

In other words, you shouldn’t bother with people quoting WP anymore than you bother with people quoting Points per game.

But should we bother with people who discuss WP by making false claims about what it says? You’re beating the stuffing out of a strawman and then crowing about how tough you are.

Donnie Walsh:
Shumpert was a horrible shooter in college. Big sample. 3000 minutes = sub 40% shooting. Got worse as he aged (down to 27% 3pt shooting his senior year).

Betting on Shumpert to become a statistically good shooter in his NBA career is a bad bet.

If you watch game tape of him at GT his shot selection would make JR cringe- really poorly coached. What you need him to hit here are the spot-up threes he’s been making so far this year and lots of guys have been able to improve that over the course of their careers.

massive:
Oh, I’m not talking about Shumpert vs. Dudley. I understand that Dudley would be an offensive upgrade, but Iman Shumpert is my favorite Knick and I’m vehemently opposed to the prospect of his being traded. I’m just saying he’s not wrong for being apprehensive about Iman Shumpert’s newfound shooting prowess. Even if all he did was shoot jumpers with our shooting coach, we should wait until he’s taken a couple more 3s before we pass any judgment either way.

Fair enough. I don’t expect him to continue shooting .400+ from downtown, but I also don’t think that (once healthy) he necessarily needs to be any more than an average 3-point shooter to be a plus player or provide a net value higher than someone like Dudley, especially if he can hone in on a few hot spots like the corners and shoot well from there, a la Bowen.