(Sunday, January 21, 2018 8:32:32 PM)
LOS ANGELES — Frank Ntilikina went back to being the Knicks’ first point guard off the bench Sunday against the Lakers after getting a quick hook Friday.
(Sunday, January 21, 2018 8:18:42 PM)
LOS ANGELES — One day after Tim Hardaway Jr. talked about the Knicks wanting to be a playoff team, they showed how far away they are.
(Sunday, January 21, 2018 7:33:49 PM)
LOS ANGELES — Enes Kanter enjoys poking fun at LeBron James on Twitter and isn’t worried about the consequences. But after his latest tweet directed at James, one of Kanter’s former Thunder teammates told him he’d better watch out.
[NYDN] Ex-teammate warns Kanter to expect LeBron to exact revenge (Sunday, January 21, 2018 2:56:52 PM)
Enes Kanter made fun of LeBron James (again) after the Cavaliers allowed 148 points.
[NYDN] Knicks have no answer on defense in blowout loss to Lakers (Sunday, January 21, 2018 1:06:28 PM)
The Knicks’ defense took the day off.
[NYTimes] Rockets 116, Warriors 108: Chris Paul Scores 33 as Rockets End Warriors’ Road Streak (Sunday, January 21, 2018 6:04:59 AM)
Paul also had 11 rebounds in a game that ended a 14-game win streak for Golden State.
[SNY Knicks] Knicks get ‘out-hustled’ in loss to Lakers (Sunday, January 21, 2018 10:22:48 PM)
Several Knicks players were disappointed with the team’s effort in Sunday’s 127-107 loss to the Los Angeles Lakers at Staples Center.
[SNY Knicks] Knicks struggle in second half in 127-107 loss to Lakers (Sunday, January 21, 2018 6:03:06 PM)
The Knicks were outscored 60-44 in the second half as they lost to the Los Angeles Lakers 127-107 on Sunday at Staples Center.
[SNY Knicks] Kanter discusses LeBron James and a cryptic tweet (Sunday, January 21, 2018 4:47:28 PM)
Ahead of the Knicks’ matchup against the Lakers, Knicks C Enes Kanter was asked about a cryptic tweet and his controversial matchup against LeBron James and the Cavaliers earlier in the season.
[SNY Knicks] Today’s game: Knicks vs. Lakers, 3:30 p.m. (Sunday, January 21, 2018 1:50:06 PM)
The Los Angeles Lakers will get another look at a player they could have taken in the 2015 NBA Draft when the New York Knicks visit Sunday.
(Sunday, January 21, 2018 3:59:33 PM)
LOS ANGELES — It came down to this: Enes Kanter said following the Knicks’ lethargic 127-107 loss to the Lakers on Sunday that they need to follow Ron Baker’s example. Baker, still playing with a mask until early February because of a broken orbital bone, never fills up a box score. But even Jeff Hornacek…
(Sunday, January 21, 2018 1:04:31 PM)
LOS ANGELES — Tim Hardaway Jr. left the Staples Center court Sunday, muttering in anger. Afterward, he put his words on the record, saying, damningly, the Lakers “wanted it more.’’ Hardaway had a right to be fuming as one day after he said the Knicks should be zeroing in on a playoff berth, they looked…
(Sunday, January 21, 2018 11:59:31 AM)
LOS ANGELES — Enes Kanter was warned by an unidentified Oklahoma City teammate that he better watch out next time the Knicks face LeBron James and the Cavaliers. They next meet April 9. Kanter continued to prod James on Saturday, when he mocked the Cavaliers getting routed by the Thunder, his former team, in giving…
(Sunday, January 21, 2018 3:35:32 PM)
Enes Kanter said that a former teammate told him LeBron James will get his revenge after the Knicks’ big man again trolled James on Twitter.
88 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2018.01.22)”
Brutal effort yesterday. Hard to imagine a team shoots 54% from the field, 48% on 25 3 pointers, and loses by twenty.
I also really don’t understand Frank not playing more especially when
MichaelJordan Clarkson is going off like that.Anyway – in regards to this from yesterday’s thread:
Our old friend @jsports_ent tweeted this in response to whether the Knicks will be sellers:
Let’s hope that Perry wins this little battle.
1. Our lack of athleticism is really a problem, the Lakers run laps around us.
2. KP’s energy threshold is 10 minutes: 5 in the first quarter, 5 in the second. His rebounding istincts are horridly similar to Bargnani’s. Yesterday Randle ate him alive.
3, Losses like this one and Memphis, against undermanned bad teams, make me think that Hornacek is losing the clubhouse or at least some of the players.
4. This theater will go on until the trade deadline, they need to shop the players they want to sell.
5. I’m nearly convinced that Willy really is not so good. No defensive istincts, bad hands on receiving (in reverse to his soft hands shooting), mental lapses that cause high turnover ratio, no rim protection. Basically Kanter 2.0 with less offense and less rebounding skills. He’s not playing because he gets his ass kicked in practice, not for some strange conspiracy. He has a good contract though.
In Perry we trust.
Edit: 2. KP’s energy threshold is 10 minutes: 5 in the first quarter, 5 in the third.
KP isn’t 10 min per game of energy, more like 30 min, he played fine in double overtime last week. He also posts 7.2 rebounds/36, which is similar to small forwards like LeBron , Kawhi, and Durant. He is within .5 of both.
Comparing him to Bargs is lazy. Bargs’s biggest flaws were defense and rebounding. He posted 5.6 rebounds/36 which is way below KP. And KP is one of the better defenders in the league. He may not rebound all that well, but he is a top blocker and rim protector, throughout the game.
He has huge flaws, but they’re mostly coaching/iq/shot selection. If he gets that better (and he has!!), then I throw full support. Keep iso-ing 18 feet away, and I withdraw.
I’m starting to think Robert Williams might be a pretty damn good pick for us. Getting another big would be a bit of a drag, but BPA over everything, and by next season our glut of bigs may very well be whittled down to KP and Noah’s corpse anyway.
Williams’ rebounding is through the roof, so he could cover for a lot of KP’s deficiencies at the 5. He also averages 3.7 blocks per 40 and generally has a great defensive reputation. On offense he’s pretty far away, but it’s not crazy to envision him becoming a (very) poor man’s DeAndre Jordan/Clint Capela who uses his athleticism to score efficient baskets without doing anything stupid.
Of course, if he turns out to be good he’ll go the pick before us and if he turns out to be Renaldo Balkman I’m sure we’ll take him.
I didn’t watch the entire game yesterday, but I think Hornacek should reconsider his experiment of going big against teams that go small The idea is to trade off speed and athleticism hoping to beat them inside and on the boards. The problem is that’s not KP’s game. So the athletes get the best pf KP and Kanter/O’Quinn and we don’t win the boards or inside.
If the other team goes small, we have to put KP at the 5 and probably Beasley at he 4 because at least Beasley rebounds. That’s not a long term solution, but for now it works better than allowing the other team to run us off the court.
@4
KP is a top blocker and rim protector, a good defender in the post (except when playing versus Randle), he is also a terrible rebounder, as shown when in the 4th quarter of games Kanter is not playing and we get regularly beaten by opponents’ OR in the clutch.
And BTW yes, I’m a very lazy person… 🙂
But I don’t think is good to compare him to small forwards, he’s 7’3, why not compare him to point guards also? KP rebounding numbers pale in comparison to Westbrook’s… 😀
It’s one thing to intellectually know you should be trying to cash in some chips and another to find “fair to good” deals that bring in players or picks that will help us long term. He’s got a tough job.
I do not believe Perry wants to make the team worse this year or next year hoping to get more ping pong balls and then be lucky enough to select the best player with our slightly better pick (at least I hope not). I think he wants to make the team BETTER! I just don’t think he’ going to trade picks and young players for older players like we’ve done in the past. I think he’s going to “try” to win trades, add assets, and eventually roll them up like other successful teams have done. The key is adding picks and players on good contracts, maximizing their value, and then moving them later.
I don’t put as much value on rebounding as Wins Produced and some other models. I think rebounding is partially an assignment/strategy issue even if it’s mostly a skill. I also think there are trade offs to being overly aggressive on the boards, especially on offense.
KP’s lack of rebounding and the inability of models to measure defense properly is a big reason the models don’t rate him higher. I think he’s probably a bit better than the models indicate. Plus/minus data seems to support that contention.
Don’t get me wrong, KP’s bad rebounding is a flaw, but getting back on defense instead of going for the offensive rebound has value also. So does leaking out and leaving that job to someone else so you can get down court faster on the break. There are trade offs.
I hate to say it, but I think the team just has to keep this up.
You have to play the vets you want to move, otherwise you can’t move them. That means more Kanter and Lee and more Thomas and O’Quinn off the bench.
After the ASB, they can sit Jack more and cut Kanter and Thomas’ minutes as much as they want. Hopefully Lee and O’Quinn are moved.
I just hope we lose enough Post-ASB games so that we crack the top 10 picks in this draft.
I think KP is properly rated by the all the advanced +/- metrics out there (RPM, PIPM), which roughly peg him as a #40 player. I don’t think KP is an elite defender simply because DRBing is actually as important—if not more important—than rim protection (see Jokic, Nikola), since DRB actually ends a possession. That tends to be underrated in comparison to more flashy blocking and rim protection numbers and it’s why he rates worse on defense than you would expect (though he’s still quite good) on BPM, RPM, and PIPM. I don’t know the comparative weights on rebounding between WP and, say, RPM, but I think WP’s badness as an advanced stat comes more from the weird positional adjustment stuff than anything. KP’s deficiencies in DRBing put a ceiling on his defensive contribution. The reason Gobert is so good is that he rim protects like KP and vacuums up the defensive boards. KP has only one half of the formula so far.
I was at the game. The close score (majority of the game) and lots of pointzzz made it fun, but man, what a crappy effort by our Knicks. I called it though – early Sunday tipoff, team got into LA on a Saturday night, you do the math.
Laker fans cringe and groan every time Randle touches the ball…but he ended up with 27/12 against our sad sack defense. Go figure.
The halftime show was…weird. But dude hitting a halfcourt shot for 100k was pretty awesome in person. Probably the most excited the crowd got all day, which tells you what kind of game it was.
@11 Amen to that.
@12 Maybe we lead the league in a new stat: LA Bimbos/36
Lol. That stat would not surprise me – the thirst is real with KP and Willy.
You can’t compare players like Gobert and KP when it comes to rebounds. That’s one of the problems with all the models.
Gobert is a C that does most of his scoring inside. He’s almost always in the paint on both sides of the ball. KP is a PF, but he’s a stretch PF. So on offense he’s almost always on the perimeter and because the league uses a lot more stretch PFs, he’s often out on the perimeter on defense too. It’s on Kanter and O’Quinn to get rebounds because KP is outside more often.
That’s doesn’t mean KP is a good rebounder given his role. He’s not. But he’s not nearly as weak as the stats suggest. If he had an inside game like Kanter/O’Quinn and was playing C he’d get more on both sides. The idea would be to compare him to other bigs that spend a lot of time outside.
The models are also missing is the value of “spacing”. There’s a reason teams are using stretch PFs and sacrificing rebounds. I have no idea what that value is, but the fact that KP is good on the perimeter and drags players out helps other players get inside. There’s no stat in the boxscore for that. I have recommended that stats guys create and incorporate one based on the volume of 3s you shoot + your efficiency at them, but I haven’t seen it built into any models yet.
@12
Yeah, I commented on the halftime stuff in yesterday’s game thread. The acrobat guys need to dump the “comedy” and male stripper opening part of their show and work more on the tricks. They missed several spots and had to retry some of the tricks.
Even on video the guy hitting the halftime shot was fun.
A bit of a gripe on that…recently a couple of Knicks games have been the free game of the day on League Pass. I’ve noticed less annoying and repetitive commercials during the breaks of those games than has been the norm this year. On Roku the regular LP games are just stuffed with commercials during every break. It wasn’t like that last year and before. I actually enjoy seeing of the stuff going on in the arenas during breaks, but LP seems to be eliminating that in favor of commercials.
As for the Knicks, they did appear to be trying, but lack of athleticism + early West Coast start + bad road team = loss.
Here is why I think offensive rebounds are overrated (this impacts guy like Kanter statistically).
Let’s say you get an offensive rebound, put it back up, and score. All models with give you credit for the 2 points you scored PLUS the offensive rebound. So you are getting more value than other scores and more than the possession actually earned. That can’t be right.
Let’s say you get an offensive rebound and miss the put back. All models with deduct for the missed shot (correctly), but you’ll still get credit for the offensive rebound even though you didn’t score on the possession. So your misses count less against you than other misses. That can’t be right.
The only time it’s closer to fair is if you the offensive rebound and pass it out to someone else. Then you clearly added theoretical value because you gave your team another possession, but you won’t get credit for the score too if the team happens to score.
I think most of the big offensive rebounders are overrated. That’s not to say I think offensive rebounds aren’t great. They are. I love when we get offensive rebounds. It’s just that imo the players getting them are getting too much credit in models.
@15
I think spacing and role are generally built into the +/- stats not explicitly but with a bit of explanatory legwork. The fact that KP plays from the outside and so his DRB is worse than your usual PF just means that KP is a defensive negative in that respect in an absolute sense and will continue to be until he changes his game. It’s also important to note that there are many stretch 4s who rebound far, far better than KP and also play from outside. The improvements in “spacing” are likely captured in his ORPM and OPIPM which are both better than you’d think for a guy with KPs statistical profile (league average efficiency, no passing, no ORBing on high usage). The difficulty is sussing out to what degree the improvement in spacing offsets the drop in DRBs, which the stats won’t tell you without further refinement. But, that said, DRBs are ~incredibly~ valuable defensive contributions, because they end a possession. The only more valuable box score proxy for defense is steals, since they both end a possession and create a turnover situation. I’m not sure the value of spacing outweighs that, especially with KPs limited passing ability and our general lack of penetration. I agree that KP would be a better rebounder fin he played the 5 full time, but the most reasonable inference from the available data would be that he would be a very poor rebounder from the 5 position, despite performing better in an absolute sense. That would still result in his defensive upside being limited to merely very good rather than DPOY level.
off rebounds give you another possession…. and most likely that possession leads to a high quality shot if it’s a putback…. that’s why it gives value… if you get another possession then you should get credit for that….
there have been some teams that don’t really value off rebounds… and there’s an argument for it being overrated but not how you’re thinking about it…. devoting players to crashing the off boards means less players getting back on defense…. so if you’re playing a high tempo team then you may want to crash the boards less in order to stop transition….
Let’s say you get an offensive rebound, put it back up, and score. All models with give you credit for the 2 points you scored PLUS the offensive rebound. So you are getting more value than other scores and more than the possession actually earned. That can’t be right
When a missed shot comes off the rim the offensive team has around a 25pct chance of collecting it. If possession is worth 1.1 pts on average then the offense retains about .27 expected pt value in the short window after the miss, but before the offensive rebound. Grabbing the offensive board recovers the missing .83 for the offense back to a normal possession. Converting it then turns 1.1 points in 2 points. You haven’t gotten more than the possession earned in total bc the shooter who missed is debited the -.83 or so. And it is worth more than a normal make bc a normal make merely conveys 1.1 into 2 while the ORB and make converts .27 into 2.
Let’s say you get an offensive rebound and miss the put back. All models with deduct for the missed shot (correctly), but you’ll still get credit for the offensive rebound even though you didn’t score on the possession. So your misses count less against you than other misses. That can’t be right.
Again you’re missing the key difference. A missed shot turned a full possession worth on average 1.1 into .27. An ORB and miss turns a .27 into 1.1 back to .27. It makes perfect sense to be neutral event (what else could it be), while a normal missed shot is of course a negative event.
This doesn’t excuse WP which is silly for other reasons.
and the concerns with kp’s rebounding is valid… but he has put up a year of 20% drb rate.. which is in my estimates at least… the bare minimum for a frontcourt player…. and for kp means he should be capable of that sometime in the future….
kp’s problem is that he just doesn’t grab contested boards… his contested reb% is at 35% which is on the low side…. horford has similar percentages…. so it’s possible to have team success with a poor rebounding frontcourt player… you just need other positions to help out….
I’m an aging grumpy man but I was a first wave supporter of sabermetrics in baseball. Now I think we are a little obsessed with numbers while they are useful in context , not taken outside it.
Watching games you know that a player shooting 4-4 when his team take a commanding lead could go 0-4 in garbage time but he was instrumental in his team win. Boxscore’ll say 4-8 and someone who hasn’t seen the game would think he played so-so… (Sorry for the stupid example)
Same thing with contested rebounds, blocks that give you the ball (KP’s getting better at this), defense in the clutch and so on.
That’s how you understand the value of players like Horford, Leonard (even before his full offensive explosion), Duncan, Ginobili, Miami’s Bosh and you laugh at empty calories numbers of players like Cousins or last year Rose (or no-defense iso-ball Melo).
And this is why I’m unhappy with KP’s rebounding, when they count he’s not getting them.
Listen, KP is thin, not strong, and is parked at the perimeter half the time on offense. On defense, he’s usually also out at the perimeter. He is usually nowhere near the rebounds. I don’t know if it’s by design, or if he’s not looking to run after the rebounds, but he’s not a rebounding big.
He’s some weird amalgam of Ryan Anderson on offense and rebounding, and Serge Ibaka on defense and passing.
For example, Hollinger has KP on the bottom of his list of PF’s for rebounding rate, both on defense and offense, close to the bottom for TS, way way way at the bottom for assist rate, at the top for usage, and amazingly, at the very top for PER, VA, and EWA.
Most good players give you a lot of a few things, yet have a flaw. For KP it’s rebounding (and assists). (If he fixed these, he’d be elite) I don’t know if advanced stats properly describe him well relative to his position, because, well, he plays a completely different position in every aspect of his game.
When KP was drafted I referred to him as a “shot-blocking Ryan Anderson” and said that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.
“The Jazz came up with a highly detailed player-development system for Gobert after drafting him 27th overall in 2013. As ESPN detailed, Utah used biomechanical data from P3, a sports science company out of Santa Barbara, and targeted his hips and glutes as areas to strengthen to improve his athleticism, strength, and durability. ”
Just read the above on the ringer in a Mo Bamba article. I wonder if the Knicks do things like this? Given their player development, I have time thinking they do.
Draymond Green, Anthony Davis, Giannis Antetokounmpo: the top 3 young/modern power forwards today. Outside of Davis, almost all the young good PF’s are non-traditional. The best ones, like Giannis (wtf is his position) and Green, defend out to the 3, shoot from the outside, can roll to the rim, and rack up steals, rebounds, etc. while passing the ball very well.
The state of the power forward today is very weird, and I don’t even know how to compare non-traditional big men anymore. It’s like medicine- subspecialties are so different from one another it’s not enough to just call someone an Ophthalmologist anymore. If KP met his ceiling and was made a center, he may be great. But he’d be very different from Patrick Ewing. Maybe he’d get to 40% from 3 at 7 attempts per game, 3 blocks per game, elite rim protection, and mediocre at best rebounding. Is that good???? Would it lead to wins?? I don’t know!!
Practically every type of athlete benefits from developing their glutes, but as Jowles mentioned, biceps just look wicked cool so lolz at butt muscles!
But seriously, the Knicks are at a serious disadvantage when it comes to developing players physically and mentally. That’s why at this point, I root for them to draft sophomores/juniors and/or euro-prospects, because they just can’t properly develop 18/19 yr old NCAA prospects themselves.
If KP is only going to be a 7 rebound a game guy, then he needs to start letting the 3 ball fly. melo manages over 7 attempts a game, so KP should at least be shooting that many. I mean, the guy is shooting 38% from 3 with an overall % of 43%. That’s just insane. The #1 thing he can start doing right now is to change his shot selection to include more 3’s and less long 2’s. (I know, it’s not like this hasn’t been mentioned, but it’s shocking to see those percentages.)
@27 curls are for girls
– also, yeah, just look at how our skinny Timmy grew up into a man in the couple of years he was gone.
p3 gets used by lots of teams… i was reading about them when i saw harry giles hit the tape earlier….
http://www.p3.md/sport/basketball/
it looks like melo, lee and noah were clients in the past….
I think everyone gets too caught up on the rebounding issue. The team rebounds the ball just fine when KP is playing, about the same as when he sits and overall the team is a net positive for the year. Also KP is still developing and his rebounding should improve as he gets stronger. Through his first three seasons KP has averaged 8.3 rebs per 36, Giannis, another skinny PF averaged 7.4 through his first three seasons. This year, Giannis is up to 9.8 rebs per 36.
KP is still a ways off physically and will continue to improve as he gets stronger. I say year after next will be KP at full strength. On top of all that he plays next to very aggressive rebounders and tends to defer.
@18
I agree with everything you are saying, but I have problems in general with all Plus Minus stats (even adjusted) because they tend to be noisy and volatile.
Part of the issue is that KP tries to challenge everything (second to AD in total shots challenged) and that often puts him in poor rebounding position. KP definitely needs to be smarter when helping- too often he’s in no man’s land where he’s too far away to contest effectively and out of position to rebound (or get back to his man) as well. And when he’s at the five he’s generally playing with at least three bad rebounders- other than Beasley none of the Knicks non-center rotation players crack the 8% TRB rate. And Beasley isn’t exactly the most disciplined rebounder himself. Still, there’s no denying that KP is a crappy rebounder at the moment.
Giannis played both guard spots and SF his first 3 years.
KP might always need to be paired with a couple of good rebounders, whether they are at the 3, 4 or 5.
I hope he gets better at rebounding, but I’m more concerned with his iso tendencies and bad shot selection. I’d like to see him work on moving better without the ball and setting better screens to roll off of. He should get more three attempts and better shots if he does that.
His stamina issue really needs to be addressed.
@20
I’m not arguing that offensive rebounds don’t have value. I am arguing that players that get them are OVERVALUED.
Let’s look at 2 scenarios.
1. Jack comes down court, passes it to KP, he makes the 2 point shot. That worth something positive to KP’s stats.
2. Jack shoots the shot, misses, Kanter gets the rebound, puts it back up, and makes the basket. Kanter gets value for the offensive rebound and the same exact value that KP got for making the shot. The models will tell you Kanter’s actions were worth more.
Forget about Jack’s miss (he’ll get deducted for that), what the boxscore models are saying is that getting the OREB, and scoring is more valuable than just coming down and scoring. I’m calling BS on that. All else being equal the guys that stand under the basket getting offensive rebounds and put backs (David Lee early in his career, Kanter, Varejao at his best, Steve Adams now) tend to be overrated.
“Forget about Jack’s miss (he’ll get deducted for that), what the boxscore models are saying is that getting the OREB, and scoring is more valuable than just coming down and scoring”
Weird, but it seems pretty obvious to me that the extra possession Kanter gets you in this scenario is more valuable. You get 2 possessions, which is better than one.
It’s basically the same thing as crediting a guy with a steal and a basket when he does that. You’re getting a free possession that didn’t exist without the ORB or steal.
Unquestionably an offensive rebound has value because it gets you an extra possession, but think carefully about what you are saying.
You are saying Kanter is a better player because he got a rebound and scored than the guy that just came down and scored.
Did you ever wonder why guys like David Lee and Kanter always rated so highly on statistical models but they don’t seem to have such a big positive impact on their teams compared to other players?
I’ve wondered about that for years. I think this is part of the problem.
Forget about Jack’s miss (he’ll get deducted for that), what the boxscore models are saying is that getting the OREB, and scoring is more valuable than just coming down and scoring. I’m calling BS on that.
You can’t “forget about Jack’s miss” if you want to think productively. The useful comparison between your (1) and (2) is not when the Knicks have the ball. In (1) The Knicks do in fact have the ball and KP makes a shot. The opportunity cost of that shot on average is, we know, around 1.1. So KP’s made shot is “worth” about 0.9 points over the average opportunity cost, ignoring any contributions from Jack’s pass. That is the value of KP’s action at the point he made it.
In (2) The Knicks have the ball, and then something happens. Jack misses. Now the Knicks don’t have the ball. The opportunity cost of their situation has plummeted to about .27 as I mentioned in my previous post. Give a million teams a billion situations where they attempt to grab a ball as it bounces off offensive rim, and on average they will turn it into around .27 points (25% chance of ORB * 1.1 ppp). This is when our hero Enes’ action arrives, and it’s the point from which you need to measure the marginal value of his contribution. He turns that .27 not merely into 1.1 but rather into 2 full points by putting it back in. Sorry KP, but in this case it’s hard to compete with having a big Enes underneath.
One last shot in case that didn’t work. Imagine Enes passed the ORB out to KP in #2, who then hit the shot. Shouldn’t KP get the same value as he did in #1? Should Enes get value for the ORB? Why would that be any different if Enes instead secured both the ORB and hit the follow up shot?
Feels like an O rebound and score is valued exactly the way it should be. You get the extra possession and you get credited for the score. That’s pretty sweet. If you didn’t get the rebound and the other team did, they get the possession and possibly score from it (teams are more likely to score off a defensive rebound than score when a team scores and they inbound the ball). If you get the offensive rebound and don’t score or pass it and your teammate doesn’t score…well that’s just putting off the other team getting the possession but they still eventually get the possession. IF you get the rebound (extra possession) and you score (more pointz) that’s obviously very valuable. You’ve also cause the opposing team to have to inbound the ball which gets your guys down the court to set up on defense and decrease the odds of them scoring on that possession.
Sometimes you have to just step back and admire the craftsmanship. ptmilo in playoff form.
There is also something of a luck factor in rebounding since the ball can hit the rim in a variety of ways. Of course, taller guys get more rebounds and it tends to be their “job”, but SOMEONE on one of the two teams is going to get the rebound eventually.
A guard like Westbrook, for instance, has made a statistical living off of long rebounds – he’s extremely fast, can jump high, and can read the angles very quickly, I suppose. So rebounding is a nebulous athletic skill involving some luck as it is, but what I think Strat is saying is that O rebounding (alongside “put back” scoring) is actually ONE particular skill, not so much TWO.
Positioning yourself for rebounds on offense naturally forces you to take more high percentage shots, which is good of course, but is perhaps just one facet of many in the game.
Interesting stuff from an advanced stats guy on twitter regarding schemes and teams implementing efficient offense. Who would’ve thought, the Knicks grade out poorly, so Hornacek’s rep as an offensive coach (or as an anything coach, really) maybe should be questioned if this scheme score gets expanded to a larger sample (current sample is 3-5 previous games for various purposes):
https://twitter.com/t1m_nba/status/955513799938895872
ALSO: J Kidd just got fired.
Wow, didn’t see that coming for Kidd. Harsh.
it’ll be interesting to see who gets that job…
Does anybody remember how he gets the job?
Went to the owner and stabs the “then coach” in the back.
At the times it was a hot topic.
So, retribution well deserved.
@41 Ptmilo is the first Knick in playoff form since 2013… 🙂
@39
I fully understand what you are saying. Everyone else agrees with you and has been saying the same thing since the beginning. I am beginning to question it because it appears to be overrating certain types of players based on their actual impact on teams (as verified by other plus/minus, team changes etc…)
The models will tell you that when KP has the ball that’s one possession and that once a shot is in the air and up for rebound, if you get it, that’s another possession.
I am saying perhaps the offensive rebound should be considered part of the same possession. Set aside ball handling, passing, screens etc… which also add value.
1. If KP comes down and scores he gets most of the credit for the 2 points.
2. If Kanter gets the offensive rebound, passes it out to KP, and KP scores, they should divide the value on that 2 points.
I am saying it’s all one giant possession with some combination of ball handling, passes, screens, movement without the ball, offensive rebounds, and shots etc… and the net of it is either 2 (you scored) or 0 (you didn’t). It’s not multiple possessions.
I have a theory.
If you start with a theory and it’s not measuring reality well, maybe you need a new theory. There’s a reason guys like Lee, Kanter, Varejao and others rated very highly on boxscore metrics but didn’t/don’t have such a positive impact on their teams.
A LOT of the players in that category are offensive rebounders.
@43 – those are very subjective ratings…. i know he tries to objectify them by breaking out lots of different categories…. but it’s very hard to assign blame on coaches or players for sets being run…. or actions being taken or not taken…. all it takes is one guy not moving and then you have multiple guys not knowing what to do if it was a planned cut or not…. or if kp holds the ball waiting for the double that has caused a lot of non-movement….
if you look at the secondary break action… he rates it as a 2… i know hornacek when he was in phoenix ran a lot of different plays in the secondary break but he also had pg’s who would push and be able to do that…. not so much here… he constantly pleads for his guards to push but they don’t really do that…
i think it’s very good analysis all things considered but i would imagine the knicks would rate average to below average…. and i think it has more to do with the personnel or other reasons that don’t necessarily reflect on the coach….
But what’s the difference between an ORB and a steal? None, really, so think of it that way maybe?
i think most advanced stats overrate certain big men because of their shot efficiency…. tyson chandler at .697 TS% is a lot different than when durant does it….. that’s why a lot of big men put up decent ws48s because they grab boards and are efficient with the little opportunities they are given….
you’re limited in the box score to give the entire picture of a player… a guy like kanter can’t shoot more because he’s limited to opportunities around the basket… and their defensive impact is limited to what steals, blocks and rebounding tell you… and even then… steals and blocks tell you more about a player than their box score impact…
To continue, under my model, getting offensive rebounds would still add value (as do assists, setting good screens, creating space, penetrating and drawing defenders etc… ) but they are all just part of 1 possession. When the ball is in the air on a miss, it’s not a new possession unless the defense gets it.
I’m not expecting anyone to agree. Once people have their minds made up, they will be resistant to changing their thinking. I am that way too.
It’s just that the way people do it now seems to produce flawed results for a certain profile.
I am searching for a better way of thinking about it instead of insisting that Kanter and Lee are actually a lot better than other evidence indicates they are. They simply aren’t as impactful as boxscore stats say.
@39 in both situations Jack brings the ball up at say 4:00 in the quarter with the score tied. In one it takes twenty seconds for Jack to miss, Enes to rebound and score. In the other it takes the same twenty seconds for Jack to get it to KP and KP to score. In each situation the other team is inbounding the ball down two with 3:40 left. The problem may well be that Enes is being credited for > 2 points for a 2 point play, due to Jack’s (-) for missing.
I suspect they’re overrated because their efficiency is being judged relative to all players, instead of judging their efficiency relative to other players at their position. ORB provide another shot opportunity and that’s not being overvalued. A score off an ORB probably shouldn’t count as another possession for PPP purposes though. It extends your current possession, it doesn’t create a new one.
@52 – you are comparing a miss to a make…. in the first situation kanter gave you an extra possession….
Shouldn’t he get some additional credit for converting a failed possession into a successful one?
I completely disagree that an ORB is the same possession, but if somebody can prove I’m wrong I’d be happy to see the official definition of a possession.
Unless it’s like recovering your own team’s fumble in football, which is the same possession, but that doesn’t feel right.
That’s it exactly.
Imagine another scenario.
I am dribbling the ball and I briefly lose control and then get it back. Was the period where I briefly lost control a neutral period and when I got it back was that a new possession ?
That’s the question I am asking.
How about this?
If LeBron James goes coast to coast by himself and scores he gets credit for the 2 points. It was all him.
If someone sets a pick to get him the ball on the inbounds, someone else sets a pick to get him in isolation, Kevin Love draws a defender away from the rim, James passes to Love, Love passes back to a wide open James who drives and scores, James should share some of the credit for 2 points with the pickers and Love.
Both shots were worth 2 points but James’ value varied.
That answers the question posed earlier about whether a made shot always has the same value. The answer is no.
I don’t know the official definition, but it’s in the flow of a single possession. Consider: missed jumper, ORB, missed putback, ORB, made putback. Is that three possessions? And a tip in doesn’t count as an ORB, but that’s basically what happened, same possession. Any post airball action doesn’t count as a separate possession. Hmm, maybe part of the problem is that the base stats the advanced ones are based on are kinda arbitrary already.
@55
Yes he should and in both scenarios he would, but in my model it would be less.
To be honest, I don’t even know what the exact distribution of value should be. I’m just arguing that the way it’s done now is overvaluing some things and undervaluing others.
it’s not under or overvaluing anything…. ppl assign interpretations to the value…. if you understand the context to which they are derived then you know the limitations and assign value accordingly….
New Milwaukee head coach, Mark Jackson!
Please?
FWIW, I think ORebounds are good. And extra good if you score after getting one, too.
I can see a good point being made for basketball being such a team sport that the advanced stats (that we have access too) are highly flawed, and I’d agree with that. It’s not like baseball with its simple one on one match ups
I am not really concerned about the rules or what the consensus is on what constitutes a possession now.
What I’m trying to do is model reality better so the players contribution is captured better and the model is spitting out better values.
A lot of the most controversial players are the ones I’ve been mentioning. They have that offensive rebounding profile. Others are simular ho Tyson Chandler (who some one else mentioned) where they are super efficient on dunks but don’t score in varied ways.
Oh man, Nate Duncan is floating a Kemba trade as a net positive for the Knicks and making it seem highly plausible. They’re throwing out Kemba + Batum for Kanter + Ntilikina + Baker + O’Quinn.
Walker/TH2/Batum/KP/Willy would be our new 8th-seed lineup I guess?
He really is similar to Ryan Anderson in a lot of ways. That was the comp I had for him when I did my write-up on him. He’s been closer to your description, though, which is a very good player still.
The odd thing to me is not so much that Kidd got fired, but that they’re not going to hire his replacement until the summer. You’d think they would have had a real plan in place besides “Whoever his top assistant is the new head coach.”
The thing about trading for Kemba in my mind is that a huge part of his value is that he’s on an insanely good contract through next year. His next contract after that you’re going to be paying full freight for his decline years, and given that he’s an undersized guard that’s a pretty scary proposition. So if you’re giving up good stuff to get him it should be because you’re getting real value out of these 1.5 discount seasons.
We’d get significantly better in the short run with something like that deal and mostly only be sacrificing Frank (about whom opinions clearly vary somewhat widely at this point). I think in pure value terms we’d be doing pretty well there, but it just doesn’t make sense with how good the rest of the team is. We’re just not in a place where it makes sense to trade potential down the road value for value in the next 1.5 seasons, even if we’re coming out “ahead” in the exchange. I don’t think I would make the trade (I also suspect that might not be quite enough for Charlotte unless they could find a 3rd team to give them another asset for KOQ).
The Knicks won’t trade for Kemba Walker. I’m fairly certain we won’t trade for him if we didn’t make a trade for Bledsoe when they wanted Hernangomez or Ntilikina. The Hornets want a 1st round pick/young player AND cap relief. That’s a dub.
I would like to see a metric where players are graded on every possession. I’ve said this here before, so excuse me if this is getting boring, but I quite like the system that Pro Football Focus uses with the NFL: they simply grade every player on every play. It’s a blend of eye test and stats, and it mixes in a lot of common sense: If Derek Carr throws to Amari Cooper, the ball hits Amari right in the hands and Amari drops the ball (as is his wont) then the black mark on the play comes against Amari and not Carr. Carr still gets a positive rating on the play despite the incomplete pass.
I’d like to see a similar system in the NBA: if Al Horford sets a great screen that allows Kyrie to get to the rim but Kyrie blows the layup, it’s still a positively rated play for Horford. If Frank Ntilikina shuts down Tony Parker’s dribble but Parker still manages to shoot an off-balance, contested jumper that rattles in, that would be a positively rated defensive play for Ntilikina. And so on. Some of the more advanced front offices probably do stuff like this already but I’d like to see somebody put our a ratings system like this for public consumption, I think that will be the next frontier in basketball sabermetrics.
The proposal seems like a definite side step imo.
I normally agree with this logic 100% but I actually think Kidd was doing such a bad job and in such specific and easily fixable ways that just removing him could be a big positive. He’s such such an overthink-er – whether he’s playing different guys every night for no reason, playing this super aggressive defensive strategy that’s actively hurting them, crazy game management stuff, etc. Just getting generic mediocre NBA coaching would help them a lot I think.
They need a coach to pick a 9 man rotation of their best guys and play them and also tell them “Hey let’s do less crazy shit on defense and just play standard”. That would be an improvement over what Kidd gave them in my opinion.
you came on saying it made no sense for an ORB plus a bucket to be worth more than just a bucket or just a “possession.” this mistake was ironically based on clinging to a rigid idea of what it means to have a possession. what constitutes a possession is semantic and irrelevant as long as you maintain internal consistency. what matters is marginal contribution and opportunity cost.
if you get rid of the word possession it should be clear that it can make perfect sense to attribute more value to when a player takes a team from a very low value situation (loose ball after a missed shot) to 2 points, versus taking a team from a medium value situation (having the ball) to a 2 points. you can’t have that conversation intelligently unless you are willing to abstract from the infinite tertiary factors that might change the calculus in particular cases.
for example maybe kp’s shot, bc it is assisted by jack, provides a smaller marginal contribution than your average shot because the ppp opportunity cost on an open assisted 10 footer is 1.3 or something. or maybe kanter’s overall ORB/putback value hurts the team in other ways bc he’s not getting back on defense or spacing the floor in all the times he misses those ORBs. there are millions of interactions to consider; basketball is a complex game, and there infinite arguments available to people who want to make cases like you are trying to: that some kinds of players like david lee or whoever are systematically undervalued by some particular advanced stat. you just failed to make any of those infinity and instead got caught up in a false equivalence (“2 points each”) because of the word “possession.” reread #17: “that can’t be right.”
I researched the issue a few years back, and went so far as to have a dialogue with Dean Oliver. Essentially, there is a disconnect between the “rule book” definition of possession and the “statistical” definition of possession. When Oliver et.al. began to develop “advanced” stats, the definition of the “endpoint” of a given “possession” was deemed to be the point at which the opposing team actually began an offensive possession. The ball had to officially change hands, i.e. the defensive team had to become the offensive team by controlling the ball. The rationale for this was to ensure that there was an equal amount of possessions for each team per game (+/- 1).
I get why this was done, even though it clashes with the rule book (which implies that when a shot is in the air and/or hits the rim, neither team is in possession,. e.g. loose ball fouls, resetting shot clock, etc.). It would be interesting to see how many points teams score per possession with ORebs teased out and counted as new possessions, but the gap is not really all that meaningful…it doesn’t take a lot to figure out that teams that get more offensive rebounds are going to have a statistical advantage in scoring, all else being equal. If the def of possession were more aligned with the rule book, teams would have more possessions and fewer points per possession (or per 100 possessions.) It would make comparing teams across the league or within a game more unwieldy. Regardless, as Dean Oliver said when I pressed the issue, “The horse is already out of the barn” on the definition.
It also seems like we’re opening up the “Kobe assist” can of worms here (Jowles’ favorite topic, if I recall.) If your team has a particularly prolific offensive rebounder (e.g. Enes Kanter) then less efficient shots by a volume shooter might result in a theoretically higher points per possession, even with a lower points per shot number; when KP misses 10 midrange jumpers but Kanter converts 5 into ORebs and made baskets, PPP=1.00, but Points Per Shot=0.67. But crediting KP in any way for going 0-10 seems bizarre, even though Kanter doesn’t get the offensive rebounds if someone doesn’t miss.
We are having an interesting debate about stats here. The question is do the current stats overvalue certain players? I tend to agree with Strat; they do. I think the reason why is that all rebounds are not the same in practice, but they are the same in current statistics. Rebounds that come right back to you are easier to get than ones that bounce farther away from you. If you assume a random distribution of bounces off the rim, then some are going to come right back to the shooter. Getting them doesn’t mean he’s a great rebounder but it does improve his stats. It’s similar for two point shots. If a shooter chooses to only shoot when he’s less than ten feet from the basket and shoots 50% from then he’s not as good a shooter as a guy who shoots from up to twenty feet and shoots 50%. But the stats say they are equivalent players. Because Kanter plays inside all the time he gets an opportunity to get the easy rebounds. That makes him look better in comparison to players who go after harder rebounds.
there’s def an argument to getting kemba….. i don’t think kemba’s next contract will be all that bad…. kemba and lowry are basically mirror images of each other from a statistical perspective and lowry has aged about as well as you could hope… what’s kept him going is his is 3pt shooting and kemba’s not a bad shooter himself…..
the trouble is that we’re not one player away… i might give up a future first + wily for kemba and mkg after the season tho….
Anyone see this? On a scale of total bullshit to Donald Trump, how much bullshit is that article?
Because they were unusually shitty on defense for tall, athletic men.
I would not be shocked if the Spurs briefly explored trades for Leonard and then quickly decided not to do it. So I don’t think it’s probably all that bullshit.
Miami taking the Rockets down to the wire in Houston without Dragic.
They should just give Spoelstra coach of the year right now.
Yeah, I’ve always been a Spoelstra fan. Man, it is kind of crazy that the Knicks have really only had one good coach in the past 16 years. And even D’Antoni was a real dick at times, but at least he was legitimately a very talented coach.
To be fair, I also liked Hornacek a lot in Phoenix at the start.
It’s weird how ‘decent’ Woodson was in retrospect, lol.
Edit: by ‘weird’ I mean ‘sad’.
Thanks Z-man, that’s good to know.
Heck, like I said the other day, Zeke is sadly relatively high on the list of Knick coaches post-Van Gundy! They’ve had so many bad coaches it is insane.
Looks like Kevin Love is on the hot seat. I wonder if the rotting corpse of Dwyane Wade, all 955 minutes of being a Cav, had the “veteran savvy” to call him out for his defense. Any chance Love is in the package to LA for Jordan?
Z-man,
I don’t want to have a Kobe Assist debate, but without question the offense is more likely to get an offensive rebound off some shot locations than others. So if one player often misses from an area that provides a lot of offensive rebounds and another from an area that provides few, there will be a difference to the offense.
In fact, Phil Jackson use to use that very argument to defend some mid range shots.
(paraphase) He said that when people were looking at the TS% on 3s vs. 2s, they were taking into account the greater probability that you would get fouled on a 2, but not that some mid range locations were more likely to produce an offensive rebound than 3s. He said if you added in all the extra times you got the offensive rebound and scored, the debate was a lot more interesting.
What he didn’t fully elaborate on was which locations he was talking about.
He also said that 3s from certain locations are more likely to produce rebounds that lead to easier fast breaks against you. So even though they were very efficient, you couldn’t stop the analysis there.
I don’t know if he’s right about any of that, but he easily could be.
@85
I’m not sure why Kevin Love would want to continue playing there. He’s a very good player, took a back seat to James and Irving without whining much, and is constantly a scapegoat even though he’s clearly not the problem. What was really laughable is that Isiah Thomas had the nerve to bring up defense and compare the Cavs to the Celtics when he is one of the worst defensive PGs in the entire league.
Love wanted to play in important games and win a title. He’s done that. Time to ask for a trade.
He would be following in the footsteps of Irving. Maybe it’s not just a bad stretch recently, the Cav’s ship is actually sinking.