The Official New York Knicks Thread.

So wait, what's your topic sentence? I thought I addressed your topic (on-the-ball defense) and ignored the example (Darko and Love). So I'm pretty confused here.

You really want me to address whether or not Love and Darko are par defenders? On-the-ball? Don't write home about them. Overall defender? Love > par, dude grabs 10 defensive rebounds a game. That is huge.

Topic was the first sentence. Those stats really don't tell you much about defense. Those guys are among the league leaders and are both terrible defenders (yes, Love too).
 
Topic was the first sentence. Those stats really don't tell you much about defense. Those guys are among the league leaders and are both terrible defenders (yes, Love too).

Then I did address your topic sentence, because I talked about how on-the-ball defense is relatively unimportant.
 
Team D doesn't work when you have a team of bad defenders like Minnesota does.

Minnesota surrenders 49% from 2 pt range (league average) and is 9th in defensive rebounds. They surrender 37% from 3 pt which is above league average (while they surrender the most 3 pt attempts in the league) so it looks like perimeter defense might be the weak link.

Note: They are also 3rd in FT's surrendered. Kevin Love is 43rd among PF's in fouls, so that's not on him, and likely on the perimeter guys, too.
 
Minnesota surrenders 49% from 2 pt range (league average) and is 9th in defensive rebounds. They surrender 37% from 3 pt which is above league average (while they surrender the most 3 pt attempts in the league) so it looks like perimeter defense might be the weak link.

Note: They are also 3rd in FT's surrendered. Kevin Love is 43rd among PF's in fouls, so that's not on him, and likely on the perimeter guys, too.

If you're talking leaguewide comparisons, their PPG allowed is literally dead last. Hard to be a good defensive team when your defenders suck.

Which stat will tell me that Love has a funny little habit of leaving his man wide open to go pad his rebound numbers?
 
If you're talking leaguewide comparisons, their PPG allowed is literally dead last. Hard to be a good defensive team when your defenders suck.

Which stat will tell me that Love has a funny little habit of leaving his man wide open to go pad his rebound numbers?

Opponents bomb 3's (most 3 pt attempts surrendered in the league) on them and make them at a very efficient rate. You only have to shoot 33% from 3 pt for it to be a good tradeoff vs league average from 2 pt. The Timberwolves allow opponents to shoot 37% from 3 pt. This is why they give up the most PPG.

As far as Love "leaving his man" to pad rebounding stats...I'm pretty sure the best rebounders get that way by boxing out their man.
 
The great Carmelo debate: Do basketball advanced-box-score stats really work? - By Dave Johns - Slate Magazine

Hopefully that link works. Some of your stat boys will disagree with your statement.
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Thanks for the article. The guy they reference, Berri, is actually the statistician I most closely follow (Phd). The "stat expert" who works for the NY Times and opposes Berri has some interesting numbers but his process isn't based in good mathematical science. For instance he shows the shooting % of players going up playing w/ Melo and I see many problems with this right off hand:

1) You need 40 observations for a result to be statistically significant, and he only has 16.

2) You have to control for other variables. The guys whose FG% increased might have increased simply because they were in their prime when they played with Melo. Also other Nuggets might be responsible for the increase in FG %, and not specifically Melo. Maybe it's George Karl.

Basically he's just shown correlation among a small number of observations. That's not stat expertise in the least bit. And if he were a stat expert he wouldn't be working for the NY Times.

The Birnbaum guy is probably legit, though.
 
The point I got from that article is that stats are a past time with limited functionality.

If a team is debating on two players, and stats are off the charts better for one, I can see their benefit. Otherwise their usefulness is left for nonathletes.
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The point I got from that article is that stats are a past time with limited functionality.
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No form of player evaluation has limitless functionality. You want a perfect system to replace the extremely flawed system of scouting. Advanced stats aren't perfect, but they are a hell of a lot more accurate than your eyes.
 
No form of player evaluation has limitless functionality. You want a perfect system to replace the extremely flawed system of scouting. Advanced stats aren't perfect, but they are a hell of a lot more accurate than your eyes.

Better than a sorry scout? Sure. But give me a solid scout any day.

Another stat discussion:
Analyzing Plus/Minus | TheKnicksBlog.com
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No form of player evaluation has limitless functionality. You want a perfect system to replace the extremely flawed system of scouting. Advanced stats aren't perfect, but they are a hell of a lot more accurate than your eyes.

Dean Oliver, the founding father of hoops math, who now runs the numbers for all of ESPN, says the main benefit of statistical analysis is simply that it lets coaches keeps tabs on more games. "The numbers do not see any individual game as well as a person."

So much for that.
 
So much for that.

Oh I guess because someone said it, it must be true. You could watch 2 teams for an entire season and not be able to tell me which starting PF gets 10 rpg and which gets 12 rpg without looking at stats. You would not be able to tell me which scores 20 vs which scores 17, and which shoots 55% and which shoots 50%.

That guy can say whatever he wants, but this is common sense.

Even the best scout couldn't tell the difference.
 
Oh I guess because someone said it, it must be true. You could watch 2 teams for an entire season and not be able to tell me which starting PF gets 10 rpg and which gets 12 rpg without looking at stats. You would not be able to tell me which scores 20 vs which scores 17, and which shoots 55% and which shoots 50%.

That guy can say whatever he wants, but this is common sense.

Even the best scout couldn't tell the difference.

But you believe everything Berri says.

Take a dedicated fan who watches two players every single game and without stats will tell you which is the better player 10 times out of 10.
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Opponents bomb 3's (most 3 pt attempts surrendered in the league) on them and make them at a very efficient rate. You only have to shoot 33% from 3 pt for it to be a good tradeoff vs league average from 2 pt. The Timberwolves allow opponents to shoot 37% from 3 pt. This is why they give up the most PPG.

As far as Love "leaving his man" to pad rebounding stats...I'm pretty sure the best rebounders get that way by boxing out their man.

Memphis has almost exactly the same 3-point numbers and gives up 10ppg less (14th out of 30 teams, as opposed to Minny at 30th) so I'm pretty sure it's not that.

It's only boxing out if you're actually within the guy's area code. More than a few guys he's defending get wide open looks because he's standing under the basket nowhere near them. He also has a tendency to leave his guys (rather than, say, getting a hand in their faces) WHILE they're shooting. Haven't been able to find a stat that tells me that.
 
Oh I guess because someone said it, it must be true. You could watch 2 teams for an entire season and not be able to tell me which starting PF gets 10 rpg and which gets 12 rpg without looking at stats. You would not be able to tell me which scores 20 vs which scores 17, and which shoots 55% and which shoots 50%.

That guy can say whatever he wants, but this is common sense.

Even the best scout couldn't tell the difference.

None of those are advanced stats, and said advanced stats don't tell you who the best players are as well as eyes do. That's his point and it's been mine too. Oh, and "that guy" seems to be much more qualified in the field of statistics than you are, so if I'm going to believe something "someone said," it makes sense to go with the statistician running the numbers for ESPN.
 
But you believe everything Berri says.

Take a dedicated fan who watches two players every single game and without stats will tell you which is the better player 10 times out of 10.
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Nobody can agree on who is better, Kobe or Lebron. So how do we even know if this "dedicated fan" is correct in your example? It's all pure opinion. Stats give you metrics and eliminate a lot of the subjectivity.
 
Memphis has almost exactly the same 3-point numbers and gives up 10ppg less (14th out of 30 teams, as opposed to Minny at 30th) so I'm pretty sure it's not that.

Minnesota surrenders 5 more FGA's and 4 more FTA's per game. Minnesota also attempts 3 more FG's per game than Memphis. Quick answer it looks like the T-Wolves play a faster pace than Memphis and there are more possessions per game, thus more points.
 
None of those are advanced stats, and said advanced stats don't tell you who the best players are as well as eyes do. That's his point and it's been mine too. Oh, and "that guy" seems to be much more qualified in the field of statistics than you are, so if I'm going to believe something "someone said," it makes sense to go with the statistician running the numbers for ESPN.

Yeah, but if eyes are better than advanced stats then scouts shouldn't need basic stats to assist them.
 
Nobody can agree on who is better, Kobe or Lebron. So how do we even know if this "dedicated fan" is correct in your example? It's all pure opinion. Stats give you metrics and eliminate a lot of the subjectivity.

Kobe > Lebron

I haven't seen that argued.
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Minnesota surrenders 5 more FGA's and 4 more FTA's per game. Minnesota also attempts 3 more FG's per game than Memphis. Quick answer it looks like the T-Wolves play a faster pace than Memphis and there are more possessions per game, thus more points.

Then why are they roughly equal in PPG scored but 10 apart in PPG allowed?
 
Do scouts grade players by looking at their advanced stats, or by watching their film?

Scouts rely on film and in case you haven't noticed, scouts are wrong about their talent assessments quite a bit.
 

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