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Official 2018 NBA Offseason Thread: the preseason cometh

also, just looking at on/off numbers, the Lakers performed better when Kuzma was off the floor (-2.0 pts per 100 possessions) than when he was on it (-0.9 pts per 100 possessions)

most of that difference, unsurprisingly, came in terms of defensive efficiency
 
How come stats don't matter to you when they show your guys isn't as good?

Do you have a breakdown of his "D efficiency" in games he started vs. games he didn't? Do you have breakdown by who he was on the court with? If not, the numbers mean nothing.
 
Deacfreak07 said:
Show your work, bruh.
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Seal's version of Fly Like An Eagle is smooth, but it's not Steve Miller Band quality
Coolio's The Winner sucks out loud
Space Jam is a shitty Quad City DJ's follow-up to C'mon N' Ride It (which is on the previously mentioned Celtic Pride soundtrack)
I Believe I Can Fly is very good
Hit 'Em High (Monstars' Anthem) is also solid
But then we get into a bad D'Angelo song (surprising), meh Monica, and poor Salt-N-Pepa version of Upside Down (give me Diana Ross, please)
Basketball Jones w/ Chris Rock & Barry White is... interesting
THERE IS A SONG WITH THE SPIN DOCTORS AND BIZ MARKIE ON HERE

Yeah, it's not anywhere near GOAT.


I am now unabashedly listening to the Quad City DJ's in my office. Loud. Can't wait to see who the first co-worker to walk in is.
 
DeacsATS said:
Seal's version of Fly Like An Eagle is smooth, but it's not Steve Miller Band quality
Coolio's The Winner sucks out loud
Space Jam is a shitty Quad City DJ's follow-up to C'mon N' Ride It (which is on the previously mentioned Celtic Pride soundtrack)
I Believe I Can Fly is very good
Hit 'Em High (Monstars' Anthem) is also solid
But then we get into a bad D'Angelo song (surprising), meh Monica, and poor Salt-N-Pepa version of Upside Down (give me Diana Ross, please)
Basketball Jones w/ Chris Rock & Barry White is... interesting
THERE IS A SONG WITH THE SPIN DOCTORS AND BIZ MARKIE ON HERE

Yeah, it's not anywhere near GOAT.


I am now unabashedly listening to the Quad City DJ's in my office. Loud. Can't wait to see who the first co-worker to walk in is.
Click to expand...

I'm seeing evidence of hating, but I don't see you offering a contender.
 
RJKarl said:
How come stats don't matter to you when they show your guys isn't as good?

Do you have a breakdown of his "D efficiency" in games he started vs. games he didn't? Do you have breakdown by who he was on the court with? If not, the numbers mean nothing.
Click to expand...

what? I have a breakdown of the team's defensive efficiency when he was or wasn't on the court, which is what I referenced above

find a single measure that shows tatum being worse on defense this year than kuzma, please. or even a single measure that doesn't show kuzma sucking donkey dick on defense.

Here's NBA.com's defensive ratings rankings for the season (with a 40 game / 20 mpg minimum filter set): http://stats.nba.com/players/advanc...lar Season&CF=GP*G*40:MIN*G*20:PLAYER_NAME*E*

Tatum was 6th in the league. Kuzma was 111th.

Try again.
 
Deacfreak07 said:
I'm seeing evidence of hating, but I don't see you offering a contender.
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I already posted that Celtic Pride was better from that very year. And that one isn't even very good.

Off the top of my head, I'd say Forrest Gump was pretty good. I remember owning that one. Or Judgment Night.
 
If you want to argue that defensive efficiency is too team-dependent or lineup-dependent, great!

Here is basketball-reference's defensive win share rankings: https://www.basketball-reference.com/leagues/NBA_2018_advanced.html

You'll notice that Jayson Tatum was 8th in the league, ahead of Paul George and Rudy Gobert. Kuzma was a not-terrible 77th, which is cool! But it's one stat, and if you prefer DBPM, he has a pretty bad -1.0, while Tatum has a very good +1.5.
 
To clarify: I don't think Tatum is a top 10 defender in the league, though he had a very good year defensively and seems to be very good on that end of the floor.

I think Kuzma is legitimately bad at defense, and the metrics seem to back that up.
 
RedSoxFaithful said:
what? I have a breakdown of the team's defensive efficiency when he was or wasn't on the court, which is what I referenced above

find a single measure that shows tatum being worse on defense this year than kuzma, please. or even a single measure that doesn't show kuzma sucking donkey dick on defense.

Here's NBA.com's defensive ratings rankings for the season (with a 40 game / 20 mpg minimum filter set): http://stats.nba.com/players/advanc...lar Season&CF=GP*G*40:MIN*G*20:PLAYER_NAME*E*

Tatum was 6th in the league. Kuzma was 111th.

Try again.
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Do you understand the word "context"?

If you have bad players around you, your numbers are going to suck. To think otherwise is silly.

If you have Marcus Smart and Al Horford playing with you, even a bad defender (I'm saying Tatum is bad), your numbers are going to be inflated.

I bet if you look at Tony Parker's defensive numbers they will show him to be a very good defender. Was it him or was it playing next to Tim, Bowen (or Tim, Kawhi and Danny Green) and in Pop's system?

If you playing with starters, your numbers will most likely be better than if you play with subs.

Looking at raw numbers without context is basically useless.
 
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RJKarl said:
Do you understand the word "context"?

If you have bad players around you, your numbers are going to suck. To think otherwise is silly.

If you have Marcus Smart and Al Horford playing with you, even a bad defender (I'm saying Tatum is bad), your numbers are going to be inflated.

I bet if you look at Tony Parker's defensive numbers they will show him to be a very good defender. Was it him or was it playing next to Tim, Bowen (or Tim, Kawhi and Danny Green) and in Pop's system?

If you playing with starters, your numbers will most likely be better than if you play with subs.

Looking at raw numbers without context is basically useless.
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Read the next post, sunshine.

You are so predictable in these "arguments" I'm literally a post ahead of you at this point.
 
I was typing and didn't see your other posts. But the reality is if you have better players around you, your numbers will be better. Players who play with Gobert are going to have higher numbers than people who play with Tyler Zeller or Kosta Koufus.

If you have multiple good defenders around you, your job is much easier. The same applies to offense.

It doesn't matter what metric you use. This is absolutely correct.
 
Also worth noting that good defensive players tend to end up at the tops of these stat rankings (which, again, are not perfect!) regardless of teammates. The guys listed around Tatum on all 3 metrics are players generally viewed as good defenders; I'm pretty sure that's not a coincidence.

And you're discounting Tatum for his part in the C's team defense, which is weird, but okay!
 
Any chance these two Western Conference series don't get wrapped up tonight?

Rockets -12
Warriors -11.5

And, FWIW, 76ers are favored by 1 on the road tomorrow night.
 
I've never said Tatum isn't good. If you'd pay attention (now and a year ago), I have said he should have been the #1 pick.

My point is the Lakers D is bad. This impacts Kuzma's numbers. Not starting in over half his games also impacts his numbers.

If they switched teams, I think the numbers would be dramatically closer.
 
To show that I really am not trying to cherry-pick stats here, I looked up the opposing shooting percentages for both Tatum and Kuzma. These are about as individualized defense metrics as you can get at this point (though, again, still not perfect!)

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Tatum's better than Kuzma from every distance except for 20-24 ft... I suspect this is a difference in defensive coaching philosophies; there are multiple Lakers in the 33-34% oFG% range from that distance. I dunno. It's interesting data, though. I haven't watched enough Lakers games to know if they switch everything the way the Celts do, and I'm not sure how this data accounts for some of that.
 
RedSoxFaithful said:
the amount of times that this thread has just decided to completely take defense out of player analysis over the years is bonkers

i shouldn't be surprised at this point but i always am
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This is rich coming off a full-throated Lebron > Jordan argument.
 
RJKarl said:
I've never said Tatum isn't good. If you'd pay attention (now and a year ago), I have said he should have been the #1 pick.

My point is the Lakers D is bad. This impacts Kuzma's numbers. Not starting in over half his games also impacts his numbers.

If they switched teams, I think the numbers would be dramatically closer.
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My point is just that it's not an accident (or a happy coincidence based on team/scheme) that Tatum (and Brown) (and Smart) (and Horford) are ending up in the tops of those metrics. They're all very good defensive players in their own rights. The same way that Gobert and Covington and Embiid are very good defensive players.

ETA: And don't you think that Kuzma deserves some culpability for the Lakers' D being bad? Why are you trying to make the much more difficult argument that he's good, but all of the rest of his teammates suck?
 
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