Comments on: Similarity Scores Part II

By: Ted Nelson

Ted Nelson — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 01:12:04 +0000

Teams defend the basket, and a PG who scores and draws fouls like Harris is someone who you want to stop. The Nets ended up with an average offense (16th) despite playing Yi huge minutes and lacking depth. I just don’t think VC was particularly hurt by playing in that offense. He had a high scoring guard next to him and bigmen couldn’t cheat off Brook Lopez much. If VC was hurt in that offense then there are 14 teams on which the top wing scorer has more to complain about.

That said Devin Harris is not Dwight Howard and the Nets are not the Magic, of course. VC will probably get a lot of hype this season regardless of whether he plays any better than last season, because he’ll finally win 60ish games and make it deep into the playoffs.

I find it funny that popular opinion cuts both ways on the effect of playing on a bad team: VC was hurt by playing on a bad team, but everyone says David Lee could never put up good numbers on a good team for some reason. Not directed at you KnickfaninNJ, just an observation.

By: KnickfaninNJ

KnickfaninNJ — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 18:31:53 +0000

You might be right about Devin Harris being a go to scorer, but do you think other teams defended him harder than Carter? I didn’t see many Net games, so if you did, I trust what you saw.

By: Ted Nelson

Ted Nelson — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 17:05:41 +0000

The Bosh comparisons are interesting. At first glance they seem somewhat accurate; although, I think Bosh is ahead of the rest. Without doing an in-depth analysis, it seems to me after looking at their numbers that none of those guys offered the combination of high-volume, efficient scoring plus solid rebounding plus solid shot blocking that Bosh does.
I think that Bosh is a guy who you can give a max contract to. If you want to be a real contender then he should probably be the 2nd guy behind an MVP caliber player, or at least even up with another All-Star to All-NBA caliber guy… and of course have a good rotation around those guys.

I still don’t understand the irrational hatred towards Nate Robinson. Here is a list of players’ seasons with TS% above .545, assist rate above 22, rebound rate above 7, and TO rate below 11:
http://www.basketball-reference.com/fc/psl_finder.cgi?request=1&sum=0&type=per_minute&per_minute_base=36&is_playoffs=N&year_min=1980&year_max=2009&season_start=1&season_end=-1&age_min=0&age_max=99&height_min=0&height_max=99&lg_id=&franch_id=&is_active=&is_hof=&pos=&qual=&c1stat=ts_pct&c1comp=gt&c1val=.545&c2stat=ast_pct&c2comp=gt&c2val=22&c3stat=trb_pct&c3comp=gt&c3val=7&c4stat=tov_pct&c4comp=lt&c4val=11&order_by=ws
Nate is the low man of that group (sorted by Win Shares) and I don’t think he’s going to be a Hall-of-Famer like most guys on that list, but I think on a good team he’d be 6th man of the year by a large margin (or should be, can’t really predict who will get votes).
The interesting thing about Nate is that he was a dead-eye 3pt shooter for two seasons and has now been below average for two season. He’s not shooting 3s any more than he did his 2nd season (at least not significantly more accounting for pace). If he can regain that 39% 3pt shooting he would be that much better. His TS% would have increased to 56 if he hit 39% of his 3s last season.

Devin Harris wasn’t a go to scorer on the Nets last season? He had a higher usage rate and a higher TS% than Carter… Brook Lopez also had a usage rate of 20 and a higher TS% than Carter…

By: KnickfaninNJ

KnickfaninNJ — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 15:22:51 +0000

Looking at your similarity stats, two things jump out at me. One is that Vince Carter in underrated. Two is that Nate could get much better and Walsh could look silly for not locking him in for low dollars now when he had the chance.

I realize that some may say that this means the similarity stats have flaws, but I actually think the opposite. Most scoring stats have the flaw that they don’t take into account how other teams defend the player in question. (For example, David Lee doesn’t get defended like the Knicks go to scoring guy, so you can’t use his scoring average to extrapolate how he would do if put in such a position). But the similarity scores do take this into account, at least to a certain extent. You just have to assume that players with similar stats get defended similarly, which is often the case.

For the players in question, I think Carter’s statistics suffered because last year he was basically the only go to guy on the Nets and teams always put their best defender on him. In Orlando, Howard could make them pay for that. So Carter may help them a lot. For Nate, after he scored 33 points and had a monster game one night, teams started doing whatever they had to stop his drives to the basket, which usually meant they put two tall guys with their hands up in the way as soon as he started driving. But Nate is starting to stop and pop successfully some times now and may get better at this. What is more, this year the Knicks might actually have a scoring center down low that he can pass to, instead of him having to pass out to the wings. Both these factors could make defending him with two big guys much more problematic and make either his assists or his scoring go up.

By: Mike Kurylo

Mike Kurylo — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 13:35:01 +0000

It was a sincere comment.

By: Z-man

Z-man — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 23:17:56 +0000

Still don’t know who the hell Dave Robisch was…

By: Z-man

Z-man — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 23:16:52 +0000

Mike, Thanks for doing this. I like the outcomes better and think that the points hinted at by the same-age method are more evident. It certainly makes Nate look even better than he already did (in an antic-neutral comparison!) and removes the look of flukiness(?) to Bosh…better players but still a questionable mix for a max contract prospect (wonder if Allan Houston similarities would reveal similar reservations at the point we signed him.) Kobe’s similars are interesting in that Manu, Pierce and Vince all show up twice, as does a lower PER year for Jordan. I was surprised that Jordan’s 25 year wasn’t more similar to LeBron @ 24 than either DWade year, but at least he’s on the list.

As for Thomas B., I could live with it if Mike was being sarcastic since he did all the work, but will take him at his word unless he admits to it (either way, Mike, much appreciated.)

Based on your earlier comment #7, Tom, I was hoping you might have had an opinion on the results.

By: TDM

TDM — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 22:14:56 +0000

Here’s the full story on the Lee deal – 1 yr / 7M plus 1M in incentives:

http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news;_ylt=AvC.C.XeVtYS0.ytoqioS0K8vLYF?slug=ys-leeknicks092409&prov=yhoo&type=lgns

By: Frank O.

Frank O. — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 21:31:56 +0000

From Hahn’s twitter account:

David Lee and the Knicks have reached an agreement for a 1 year at $8M, includes team-related bonuses.

By: Z

Thu, 24 Sep 2009 20:42:09 +0000

“How great would a Blount for Jeffries or Blount + contract for Curry deal be?” -Ted

“I don’t know if I’d take Jeffries straight up for Blount, and since Jeffries has that extra year…” -Ess

If we wait a month for Blount’s TR to expire, a package of Blount and Cardinal for Jeffries and Mobley would work salary wise. MN would be turning two useless salaries into one somewhat useful one with no $ impact to their bottom line. They could take on Jeffries and still have a lot of cap flexibility next summer.

As for us, we’d be down to just one immovable contract…