Every year there are talks about GMs going crazy and giving out "stupid" contracts. With cap increases around the corner 20 teams will have cap space in 2016 and not know, what to do with it. Spending all you can this off-season is a smart thing to do. If you're willing pay $6-7 million under $67 mil cap, $9-10 is the same with $91 mil cap. Then you have simple supply and demand principle: every decent+ RFA wing is re-signed by their team (Draymond Green, Middleton, Shumpert). Now you have LAL and NYK, who have no incentive to be bad anymore, some understanding, how to build successful rosters, and lots of cap space, Boston and Detroit with lots of cap space, playoffs within reach and holes at SF (I'm probably forgetting some teams, but this looks like enough to drive the price up already).
Could the solution to our SG problems be Eric Gordon?
- Thread starter hrdboild
- Start date
It's a subtle nuance perhaps, but what you're advocating is actually exactly what I proposed. We wouldn't be blowing any cap space at all on Eric Gordon nor would we be blowing cap space trying to replace Ben. Instead we would be trading Carl Landry and Jason Thompson's 2 year deals for the last year of Eric Gordon's deal. Ben would remain the starter and Eric Gordon would bolster our bench. Our cap space would be spent on replacements for Landry and Thompson which would have to happen anyway because nobody is going to trade you a better big for a worse one. In fact, clearing those two contracts out allows us to devote all of our available cap space to solving our PF and backup C problem since we're not paying anything at all for a backup SG, just reconstituting our already committed salary in a more effective way.
Ben has been utterly undependable and would not start for ANY of the West's playoff teams, which is what we aspire to be. Its disturbing how much people let their hopes and Ben's likability as a person completely override their basketball here. we have had one of, if not the worst SG situation in the league now for 2 years with Ben. You can NOT, NOT, NOT risk that happening again. In particular when your franchise player is a big center depending on his SGs not to suck. You just cannot. Fixing Ben's inadequacy is one of the absolutely primary uses for our assets this offseason. PF, and SG. Everybody knows these things.
And no, Eric Gordon would start and we'd need him to. If he stays on the court, if he's not a cancer...all his ifs, he provides much of what we need. Even trying harder on defense now.
And no, Eric Gordon would start and we'd need him to. If he stays on the court, if he's not a cancer...all his ifs, he provides much of what we need. Even trying harder on defense now.
Highly disagree with this.
Green is a high end roleplayer. He's a big, long, and athletic SG who's an excellent 3pt shooter and defender (and he's not a liability handling or passing the ball either). With that being said, $10 mil for this type of player does seem steep, but you're forgetting something very crucial...
You're forgetting that the cap is going to rise to $91.2 mil in 2016-2017 and over $100 mil in 2017-2018. With this being the last offseason before the cap rises, teams will be okay with overspending (relative to this year's cap) to bring in a quality player because, next offseason, it won't hurt their cap situation at all.
A $10 mil/year deal under a $91.2 mil cap (2016/2017) is equivalent to a $6.9 mil/year deal under the current cap.
A $10 mil/year deal under a $100 mil cap (2017/2018) is equivalent to a $6.3 mil/year deal under the current cap.
Are you meaning to tell me that you wouldn't fork over a Carl Landry type contract to bring in Danny Green to lockdown the perimeter and knock down threes to space the floor for Cousins?
You can't look at these upcoming contracts while only considering the current CBA.
Hell, I might even be willing to give him $13 mil/year if it comes down to it (equivlaent to $9 mil/year in 2016/2017 and $8.2 mil/year in 2017/2018). $8.2 mil and $9 mil might be a little on the higher side, but his fit and the fact that we need to persuade Cousins we can compete makes me more likely to do it.
Green is a high end roleplayer. He's a big, long, and athletic SG who's an excellent 3pt shooter and defender (and he's not a liability handling or passing the ball either). With that being said, $10 mil for this type of player does seem steep, but you're forgetting something very crucial...
You're forgetting that the cap is going to rise to $91.2 mil in 2016-2017 and over $100 mil in 2017-2018. With this being the last offseason before the cap rises, teams will be okay with overspending (relative to this year's cap) to bring in a quality player because, next offseason, it won't hurt their cap situation at all.
A $10 mil/year deal under a $91.2 mil cap (2016/2017) is equivalent to a $6.9 mil/year deal under the current cap.
A $10 mil/year deal under a $100 mil cap (2017/2018) is equivalent to a $6.3 mil/year deal under the current cap.
Are you meaning to tell me that you wouldn't fork over a Carl Landry type contract to bring in Danny Green to lockdown the perimeter and knock down threes to space the floor for Cousins?
You can't look at these upcoming contracts while only considering the current CBA.
Hell, I might even be willing to give him $13 mil/year if it comes down to it (equivlaent to $9 mil/year in 2016/2017 and $8.2 mil/year in 2017/2018). $8.2 mil and $9 mil might be a little on the higher side, but his fit and the fact that we need to persuade Cousins we can compete makes me more likely to do it.
It's a fair question I think if you want to pay somebody 13 million a year to justify why. I wrote a long explanation of why I thought Eric Gordon was a good idea. Why not do the same for Danny Green? The impetus is on you to prove your point. I see a 27 year old six year veteran with career averages roughly comparable to what Ben just contributed as a 21 year old playing his second season in the NBA. I think Ben is likely to continue improving in his age 22 season while Danny Green will probably perform at about the same level in his age 28 season that he did in his age 27 season. Go ahead and look up what Danny Green averaged in his first three seasons. It's reasonable I think to factor growth curve into your performance projections for next season. For all of those reasons, I think signing Danny Green to a market value contract while we already have Ben McLemore would be a mistake.
Sure, I'll bite.
I think a fair amount of us think that McLemore will continue to grow and become a solid starter in the NBA (I'm sure there are some that don't as well). However, among those who believe that, there is the debate on when McLemore will be a solid starter.I also think most would agree that Green is also in his prime and that there isn't much more potential left. So yes, you would think McLemore would continue to improve while Green remains at his current level.
Your logic is centered around the fact that we shouldn't pay Green $13 mil/year because Green is not $10 mil/year better than McLemore.
First of all, let me start out by saying without me running some statistical models to provide some actual evidence, there will be no winner to this argument.
Second of all, I disagree. Right now you are only factoring in Green's talent and what McLemore's talent could be. You're already leaving out a huge element. Risk. But before we dive into risk, we have to straighten something out.
You make it seem like you think Green and McLemore are on a similar level. This could not be further from the truth. In particular, I find it odd that you're trying to say Green and McLemore put up similar numbers when it's simply not true. The fact that you talk about projecting where McLemore will be yet factor in Green's career averages seems even more odd. Why include Green's early years? We're not paying for the player he was when he was a rookie. We're paying for the player he is today, and the player he is today is a much better, more well rounded player than McLemore. How about we just take a look at the numbers to be sure? (per 100 possessions)
Danny Green: .436 FG% / .418 3pt% / .874 FT% / 21.1 PPG / 7.6 RPG / 3.5 APG / 2.3 SPG / 1.9 BPG / 2.1 TOPG
Ben McLemore: .435 FG% / .359 3pt% / .818 FT% / 18.6 PPG / 4.5 RPG / 2.5 APG / 1.4 SPG / 0.4 BPG / 2.6 TOPG
So remind me how those numbers are close? Other than FG%, Green is significantly better across the board, so please don't take me or anyone on this forum for a fool when you say they have similar numbers. Not to mention Green's defense is much better than McLemore's and, Green is not a liability handling the ball. He really doesn't hurt his team on any level.
Green has already shown he is a NBA caliber starting SG. His combination of defense and 3pt shooting make him one of the best, if not THE best 3 and D player in the league. He's as ideal a SG as you'll find for this team. The guy is a 42% 3pt shooter for his career. For his career! That's ridiculously good. He's even better in catch and shoot situations from three (45%). Could you imagine having a guy on the perimeter who can knock down threes at a 45% rate with a guy like Cousins in the post? Man of man that would be devastating to defenses. His defense is also excellent with his size, length, athleticism, & instincts. He makes it very hard every night for the person he is guarding. What a breath of fresh air that would be.
Since we've discredited your claim that McLemore and Green are already similar in talent level, let's take another look at the question at hand: is Green $10 mil/year better than McLemore. This argument/point is at least a little more sane compared to your last one, but let's go ahead and revisit Risk.
McLemore is a risk. We don't know if he'll ever be a solid starter nor do we know if he'll ever be a player who can perform consistently off the bench. He's still in the early stages of his career. Green is already a high-end roleplayer/solid starting SG. If you consider the risk that McLemore will not continue to progress or even the risk that he will not reach his potential. It makes more sense to give money to Green. If we knew for a fact that McLemore was going to be an adequate starter next year, average starter the following year, and solid starter the year after that, then yeah I could see a stronger argument being made for not signing Green. However, we don't know that, so even if that's how you project him to progress, you have to consider that you're projection is wrong. In your projection (in your model), you must account for error and variability that is unexplained. Your model would predict what McLemore will do next season, but it would also give you a confidence interval.
Again, the fact that McLemore is still an unknown and the fact that we could bring on one of the best roleplaying, starting SGs in the league should be exciting news to us. Instead of hoping McLemore becomes a Green like player. We just went ahead and signed Green. The odds that McLemore is going to produce at Green's level while still on his rookie contract is slim. So knowing it's unlikely McLemore will be able to compete at that level while on a bargain deal, it's logical to throw big money at a good FA SG.
Another Risk element that you are seeming to overlook is Cousins. We need to win now if we want to have a good shot at keeping him in Sacramento. Signing a player like Danny Green improves your starting SG position in pretty much every facet of the game. That's instantly going to make our team better. If the teams gets better, the more wins we will get. The more wins we get, the happier Cousins will be. The happier Cousins is, the more likely he'll stay in Sac. The more likely he'll stay in Sac, the more time Sac has to legitimately take a shot at a title.
Even if it somehow it gets proved that Green is not quite worth $10 mil more than McLemore, the fact that we have a situation where we might lose one of the best players in the NBA should tip the scale once again. Risking the resigning of Cousins on the development of a young, inconsistent SG is not something I would prefer to see. If we have the chance to sign Green to $13 mil/year, we need to jump on it.
I think a fair amount of us think that McLemore will continue to grow and become a solid starter in the NBA (I'm sure there are some that don't as well). However, among those who believe that, there is the debate on when McLemore will be a solid starter.I also think most would agree that Green is also in his prime and that there isn't much more potential left. So yes, you would think McLemore would continue to improve while Green remains at his current level.
Your logic is centered around the fact that we shouldn't pay Green $13 mil/year because Green is not $10 mil/year better than McLemore.
First of all, let me start out by saying without me running some statistical models to provide some actual evidence, there will be no winner to this argument.
Second of all, I disagree. Right now you are only factoring in Green's talent and what McLemore's talent could be. You're already leaving out a huge element. Risk. But before we dive into risk, we have to straighten something out.
You make it seem like you think Green and McLemore are on a similar level. This could not be further from the truth. In particular, I find it odd that you're trying to say Green and McLemore put up similar numbers when it's simply not true. The fact that you talk about projecting where McLemore will be yet factor in Green's career averages seems even more odd. Why include Green's early years? We're not paying for the player he was when he was a rookie. We're paying for the player he is today, and the player he is today is a much better, more well rounded player than McLemore. How about we just take a look at the numbers to be sure? (per 100 possessions)
Danny Green: .436 FG% / .418 3pt% / .874 FT% / 21.1 PPG / 7.6 RPG / 3.5 APG / 2.3 SPG / 1.9 BPG / 2.1 TOPG
Ben McLemore: .435 FG% / .359 3pt% / .818 FT% / 18.6 PPG / 4.5 RPG / 2.5 APG / 1.4 SPG / 0.4 BPG / 2.6 TOPG
So remind me how those numbers are close? Other than FG%, Green is significantly better across the board, so please don't take me or anyone on this forum for a fool when you say they have similar numbers. Not to mention Green's defense is much better than McLemore's and, Green is not a liability handling the ball. He really doesn't hurt his team on any level.
Green has already shown he is a NBA caliber starting SG. His combination of defense and 3pt shooting make him one of the best, if not THE best 3 and D player in the league. He's as ideal a SG as you'll find for this team. The guy is a 42% 3pt shooter for his career. For his career! That's ridiculously good. He's even better in catch and shoot situations from three (45%). Could you imagine having a guy on the perimeter who can knock down threes at a 45% rate with a guy like Cousins in the post? Man of man that would be devastating to defenses. His defense is also excellent with his size, length, athleticism, & instincts. He makes it very hard every night for the person he is guarding. What a breath of fresh air that would be.
Since we've discredited your claim that McLemore and Green are already similar in talent level, let's take another look at the question at hand: is Green $10 mil/year better than McLemore. This argument/point is at least a little more sane compared to your last one, but let's go ahead and revisit Risk.
McLemore is a risk. We don't know if he'll ever be a solid starter nor do we know if he'll ever be a player who can perform consistently off the bench. He's still in the early stages of his career. Green is already a high-end roleplayer/solid starting SG. If you consider the risk that McLemore will not continue to progress or even the risk that he will not reach his potential. It makes more sense to give money to Green. If we knew for a fact that McLemore was going to be an adequate starter next year, average starter the following year, and solid starter the year after that, then yeah I could see a stronger argument being made for not signing Green. However, we don't know that, so even if that's how you project him to progress, you have to consider that you're projection is wrong. In your projection (in your model), you must account for error and variability that is unexplained. Your model would predict what McLemore will do next season, but it would also give you a confidence interval.
Again, the fact that McLemore is still an unknown and the fact that we could bring on one of the best roleplaying, starting SGs in the league should be exciting news to us. Instead of hoping McLemore becomes a Green like player. We just went ahead and signed Green. The odds that McLemore is going to produce at Green's level while still on his rookie contract is slim. So knowing it's unlikely McLemore will be able to compete at that level while on a bargain deal, it's logical to throw big money at a good FA SG.
Another Risk element that you are seeming to overlook is Cousins. We need to win now if we want to have a good shot at keeping him in Sacramento. Signing a player like Danny Green improves your starting SG position in pretty much every facet of the game. That's instantly going to make our team better. If the teams gets better, the more wins we will get. The more wins we get, the happier Cousins will be. The happier Cousins is, the more likely he'll stay in Sac. The more likely he'll stay in Sac, the more time Sac has to legitimately take a shot at a title.
Even if it somehow it gets proved that Green is not quite worth $10 mil more than McLemore, the fact that we have a situation where we might lose one of the best players in the NBA should tip the scale once again. Risking the resigning of Cousins on the development of a young, inconsistent SG is not something I would prefer to see. If we have the chance to sign Green to $13 mil/year, we need to jump on it.
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Ben is already ahead of Gordon, and already has him beat in the most important category: staying on the floor.
http://espn.go.com/nba/statistics/rpm/_/page/6/sort/RPM
Ben is ranked 122
Gordon is ranked 224
Cousins is ranked 9th
http://espn.go.com/nba/statistics/rpm/_/page/6/sort/RPM
Ben is ranked 122
Gordon is ranked 224
Cousins is ranked 9th
I don't take you for a fool twslam, I just asked you to explain your reasoning to me which you did. And I appreciate it! I have a lot better idea where you're coming from now and I'll even meet you halfway: The odds are in your favor that Danny Green will be a better player than Ben McLemore next season and probably even the season after that.
Here's why I don't think that matters: investing in players means more than simply writing a check, it means working with them to build on their strengths and it means committing the time necessary for development to take place. Signing Danny Green for $13 million a year not only ties up a substantial portion of our salary cap which we would no longer have to upgrade our woeful frontcourt rotation, it also means pushing Ben to the side and cutting his minutes at the exact point in his career where he's actually ready for a bigger role.
Looking at the numbers you posted, here's my analysis of the differences...
Most of the ways in which Danny Green is "better" than Ben McLemore this year are counting stats.
PPG
Both of them average about 11 shots per 36 minutes (11.6 vs 11.1) and both of them average about 2 FTs per 36 min (2.0 vs 2.1) and both are shooting nearly the same percentage from the field (.436 vs .435). Danny Green is slightly better in FT % (.874 vs .818) but at 2 free throws per game it doesn't equate to a big difference (Green has made 111 this season on 127 attempts, McLemore has made 126 on 154 attempts). So when it says that Danny Green scores 21.1 points per 100 possessions and Ben McLemore scores 18.6 points per 100 possessions what is that actually saying? The difference is directly correlated to three point shooting. Is Danny Green a better scorer? He's a better three point shooter, or at least he was this season. In nearly every other way they're the same from a scoring point of view. How significant is that gap? It matters to me that Ben did average 42% from three as well for the first 30 games of the season. Reliability is certainly important, but remember I'm only concerned about predicting future success. A 21 year old player shooting 42% from three for about a third of the season is somebody I don't want to give up on as a three point threat. Not yet. If he's still inconsistent 2 years from now, that's another story.
RPG
Danny Green has a decided advantage in this area, but doesn't it matter that McLemore is playing alongside the #3 rebounder in the league and nobody on San Antonio averaged even 10 rebounds a game this season? Going even further, without a missed shot there's no defensive rebound so there's a finite number of opportunities per game. San Antonio's opponents took 83.7 shots per game and made 44% of them. Sacramento's opponents took 86.5 shots per game and made 46% of them. So both teams had about 47 missed shots that could potentially turn into defensive rebounds. Let's see how they were divided. On Sacramento, Ben mostly played with Cousins, Thompson, Gay, and Collison who grabbed 30.6%, 21.4%, 13.7%, and 8.7% of available defensive rebounds for a total of 74.4%. Add Ben's 8.6% and you get 83%. The rest, presumably, were divided among the bench players. In San Antonio, the most used lineup featured Duncan, Diaw, Leonard, and Parker alongside Green and they grabbed 26.6%, 15.1%, 20.5%, and 6.6% for a total of 68.8%. Add Danny Green's 14% and you get 82.8%. So with the same amount of available rebounds, both starting lineups performed nearly identically as a group. Does adding Danny Green to our lineup suddenly make us a better rebounding team or does he simply take one or two boards away from somebody else? Over the course of a season the difference in their stat lines was about 1 rebound per game. So is 7.6 a bigger number than 4.5? Sure. Does it significantly impact team performance? I don't think so.
APG
What are the ingredients needed to make an assist? A pass that leads to a made FG is the only play that gets credited with an assist. San Antonio took 83.6 shots per game this year and made .468% of them (third in the league). Sacramento took 80.7 shots per game this year and made .455% of them (tied for 13th). In addition, San Antonio shot 21.4 free throws per game. Sacramento led the league with 29.3 free throws per game (and no other team was even close to that -- Houston was #2 with 26 per game). Passes which result in free throws don't usually get credited as assists (unless there's a three point play). Before we even start to look at individual players, San Antonio clearly has more opportunities to register assists as a team. Looking now at assists per 100 possessions for San Antonio and Sacramento, the numbers overall are bigger on San Antonio. They have Ginobili (9.4), Parker (8.8), Cory Joseph (6.6), Diaw (6.0), Duncan (5.2), Leonard (4.1) and Splitter (3.9) all averaging more assists than Danny Green. On Sacramento you have Collison (8.1), McCallum (6.5), Cousins (5.3), Gay (5.2), Casspi (3.6) and Stauskas (2.9) averaging more assists than McLemore. Obviously I skipped players with small sample sizes. What's apparent to me is that San Antonio overall is better at generating assisted baskets and Danny Green's role as a facilitator in that offense is not any more significant than McLemore's role as a facilitator in our offense.
SPG & BPG
First of all, Ben is not now nor will he ever be a shotblocking threat in the NBA. That's an advantage that Danny Green has that's irrefutable. You're telling me that Danny Green is a full steal per 100 possessions better than McLemore and that doesn't add up to me based on what I've seen so I looked at their monthly splits [Ben , Danny] and here's what I found:
......Ben .......[Oct 0.5 / Nov 0.6 / Dec 0.6 / Jan 0.9 / Feb 1.0 / March 1.2 / April 1.8]
......Danny.. [Oct 0.5 / Nov 1.4 / Dec 1.5 / Jan 1.4 / Feb 1.2 / March 1.3 / April 0.4]
So Danny Green is consistently around 1.4 steals per game, which is what you'd expect from a 6 year veteran. McLemore, on the other hand, was on a steady upward trajectory all season from poor to mediocre, to good, to great. When I look at this I don't see one player who's much better in this area, I see a steady veteran who contributes a solid 1.4 steals per game and an inconsistent youngster who's likely to level out at around the same level.
...
But then you're talking about "statistical models" and "confidence intervals" which leads me to believe that you think there's a right answer to be found here and I couldn't disagree more. There is no right answer. You can tell me what the odds are on a dice roll (or to pick a more appropriate analogy, an NBA lotto draw) but it's nothing but a mathematical approximation of events which may or may not take place. McLemore either will continue to develop or he won't. I don't think there's any simulation you can run which tells you the truth about that, you just have to wait and see. You haven't discredited my evaluation of each player's talent level, you've compared a 27 year old 6th year player to a 21 year old 2nd year player and found some slight statistical advantages with the former. Can't you see that the differences you're looking at here are incremental ones that are entirely consistent with an extra 4 years of NBA development time?
All of this is a shell game though. At the broadest level what we have here are two similar types of players. Let's not pretend Danny Green is anything more than a fourth option spot-up shooter and wing defender. That's exactly who Ben was for us this year. Danny Green is further along in his development than Ben is, but he's not a dramatically different kind of player. All I was intending to demonstrate is that the huge talent gap you see is a lot closer than you think it is. If we're going to commit $13 million a year to one player I'd rather not brush aside a 22 year old version of the same player in the process while leaving other significant holes in the roster unaddressed. If this is MLB and we're a big market team like the Dodgers or Red Sox than you can just throw as much money as you want at a problem. In the NBA with a salary cap, you have to be a little more prudent than that about how you divy up your limited resources (and don't think the salary cap going up changes this basic fact either -- the max salaries of players we can't afford to lose like Cousins will be going up accordingly).
Is there some risk involved? Sure. There always is. But if I'm overlooking the risk that Ben doesn't develop at all, as you say, than you're overlooking the much more significant risk of signing a veteran player to a $52 million dollar 4 year deal vs. sticking with the player we currently have for $7 million guaranteed over the next 2 years. If Ben doesn't progress this year, we need to find a player. If Danny Green regresses outside of the San Antonio system or suffers an injury or simply declines due to wear and tear, not only do we need to find another SG but we now have nearly $40 million dollars worth of dead weight on our salary cap. Sortof like the situation we found ourself in with Carl Landry, Marcus Thornton, Chuck Hayes, John Salmons, Shareef Abdur-Rahim, and Kenny Thomas. I feel better about betting on McLemore's talent than I feel about committing substantial salary cap space to yet another mid-tier veteran.
And lastly, it's become popular around here to use DeMarcus Cousins as the skapegoat for every knee-jerk overreaction. We need to sell our draft pick because Cousins gon' blow. We need to hire George Karl right now because Cousins gon' blow. We need to trade Collison for Dragic or Deron Williams because Cousins gon' blow. This has got to stop people! If you don't have a legit reason for making a decision, you don't get to blame it on the ticking Cousins bomb. You know why teams like Minnesota try and fail for years to build around a Kevin Garnett or Kevin Love? Because every year they make knee jerk overreactions of this kind which lead to an endless stream of mediocre veteran signings and counter-productive rationalizations like "we can't fit Cousins into our frontcourt and let him take shots away from Love, we need to draft a wing instead ". If Minnesota had simply drafted better players and developed them with the 4 top 10 picks they had between 2009 and 2011 they would be a playoff team right now, not the worst team in the league. I refuse to let the fear of a hypothetical Cousins mutiny scare me into making poor long-term decisions.
Here's why I don't think that matters: investing in players means more than simply writing a check, it means working with them to build on their strengths and it means committing the time necessary for development to take place. Signing Danny Green for $13 million a year not only ties up a substantial portion of our salary cap which we would no longer have to upgrade our woeful frontcourt rotation, it also means pushing Ben to the side and cutting his minutes at the exact point in his career where he's actually ready for a bigger role.
Looking at the numbers you posted, here's my analysis of the differences...
Most of the ways in which Danny Green is "better" than Ben McLemore this year are counting stats.
PPG
Both of them average about 11 shots per 36 minutes (11.6 vs 11.1) and both of them average about 2 FTs per 36 min (2.0 vs 2.1) and both are shooting nearly the same percentage from the field (.436 vs .435). Danny Green is slightly better in FT % (.874 vs .818) but at 2 free throws per game it doesn't equate to a big difference (Green has made 111 this season on 127 attempts, McLemore has made 126 on 154 attempts). So when it says that Danny Green scores 21.1 points per 100 possessions and Ben McLemore scores 18.6 points per 100 possessions what is that actually saying? The difference is directly correlated to three point shooting. Is Danny Green a better scorer? He's a better three point shooter, or at least he was this season. In nearly every other way they're the same from a scoring point of view. How significant is that gap? It matters to me that Ben did average 42% from three as well for the first 30 games of the season. Reliability is certainly important, but remember I'm only concerned about predicting future success. A 21 year old player shooting 42% from three for about a third of the season is somebody I don't want to give up on as a three point threat. Not yet. If he's still inconsistent 2 years from now, that's another story.
RPG
Danny Green has a decided advantage in this area, but doesn't it matter that McLemore is playing alongside the #3 rebounder in the league and nobody on San Antonio averaged even 10 rebounds a game this season? Going even further, without a missed shot there's no defensive rebound so there's a finite number of opportunities per game. San Antonio's opponents took 83.7 shots per game and made 44% of them. Sacramento's opponents took 86.5 shots per game and made 46% of them. So both teams had about 47 missed shots that could potentially turn into defensive rebounds. Let's see how they were divided. On Sacramento, Ben mostly played with Cousins, Thompson, Gay, and Collison who grabbed 30.6%, 21.4%, 13.7%, and 8.7% of available defensive rebounds for a total of 74.4%. Add Ben's 8.6% and you get 83%. The rest, presumably, were divided among the bench players. In San Antonio, the most used lineup featured Duncan, Diaw, Leonard, and Parker alongside Green and they grabbed 26.6%, 15.1%, 20.5%, and 6.6% for a total of 68.8%. Add Danny Green's 14% and you get 82.8%. So with the same amount of available rebounds, both starting lineups performed nearly identically as a group. Does adding Danny Green to our lineup suddenly make us a better rebounding team or does he simply take one or two boards away from somebody else? Over the course of a season the difference in their stat lines was about 1 rebound per game. So is 7.6 a bigger number than 4.5? Sure. Does it significantly impact team performance? I don't think so.
APG
What are the ingredients needed to make an assist? A pass that leads to a made FG is the only play that gets credited with an assist. San Antonio took 83.6 shots per game this year and made .468% of them (third in the league). Sacramento took 80.7 shots per game this year and made .455% of them (tied for 13th). In addition, San Antonio shot 21.4 free throws per game. Sacramento led the league with 29.3 free throws per game (and no other team was even close to that -- Houston was #2 with 26 per game). Passes which result in free throws don't usually get credited as assists (unless there's a three point play). Before we even start to look at individual players, San Antonio clearly has more opportunities to register assists as a team. Looking now at assists per 100 possessions for San Antonio and Sacramento, the numbers overall are bigger on San Antonio. They have Ginobili (9.4), Parker (8.8), Cory Joseph (6.6), Diaw (6.0), Duncan (5.2), Leonard (4.1) and Splitter (3.9) all averaging more assists than Danny Green. On Sacramento you have Collison (8.1), McCallum (6.5), Cousins (5.3), Gay (5.2), Casspi (3.6) and Stauskas (2.9) averaging more assists than McLemore. Obviously I skipped players with small sample sizes. What's apparent to me is that San Antonio overall is better at generating assisted baskets and Danny Green's role as a facilitator in that offense is not any more significant than McLemore's role as a facilitator in our offense.
SPG & BPG
First of all, Ben is not now nor will he ever be a shotblocking threat in the NBA. That's an advantage that Danny Green has that's irrefutable. You're telling me that Danny Green is a full steal per 100 possessions better than McLemore and that doesn't add up to me based on what I've seen so I looked at their monthly splits [Ben , Danny] and here's what I found:
......Ben .......[Oct 0.5 / Nov 0.6 / Dec 0.6 / Jan 0.9 / Feb 1.0 / March 1.2 / April 1.8]
......Danny.. [Oct 0.5 / Nov 1.4 / Dec 1.5 / Jan 1.4 / Feb 1.2 / March 1.3 / April 0.4]
So Danny Green is consistently around 1.4 steals per game, which is what you'd expect from a 6 year veteran. McLemore, on the other hand, was on a steady upward trajectory all season from poor to mediocre, to good, to great. When I look at this I don't see one player who's much better in this area, I see a steady veteran who contributes a solid 1.4 steals per game and an inconsistent youngster who's likely to level out at around the same level.
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But then you're talking about "statistical models" and "confidence intervals" which leads me to believe that you think there's a right answer to be found here and I couldn't disagree more. There is no right answer. You can tell me what the odds are on a dice roll (or to pick a more appropriate analogy, an NBA lotto draw) but it's nothing but a mathematical approximation of events which may or may not take place. McLemore either will continue to develop or he won't. I don't think there's any simulation you can run which tells you the truth about that, you just have to wait and see. You haven't discredited my evaluation of each player's talent level, you've compared a 27 year old 6th year player to a 21 year old 2nd year player and found some slight statistical advantages with the former. Can't you see that the differences you're looking at here are incremental ones that are entirely consistent with an extra 4 years of NBA development time?
All of this is a shell game though. At the broadest level what we have here are two similar types of players. Let's not pretend Danny Green is anything more than a fourth option spot-up shooter and wing defender. That's exactly who Ben was for us this year. Danny Green is further along in his development than Ben is, but he's not a dramatically different kind of player. All I was intending to demonstrate is that the huge talent gap you see is a lot closer than you think it is. If we're going to commit $13 million a year to one player I'd rather not brush aside a 22 year old version of the same player in the process while leaving other significant holes in the roster unaddressed. If this is MLB and we're a big market team like the Dodgers or Red Sox than you can just throw as much money as you want at a problem. In the NBA with a salary cap, you have to be a little more prudent than that about how you divy up your limited resources (and don't think the salary cap going up changes this basic fact either -- the max salaries of players we can't afford to lose like Cousins will be going up accordingly).
Is there some risk involved? Sure. There always is. But if I'm overlooking the risk that Ben doesn't develop at all, as you say, than you're overlooking the much more significant risk of signing a veteran player to a $52 million dollar 4 year deal vs. sticking with the player we currently have for $7 million guaranteed over the next 2 years. If Ben doesn't progress this year, we need to find a player. If Danny Green regresses outside of the San Antonio system or suffers an injury or simply declines due to wear and tear, not only do we need to find another SG but we now have nearly $40 million dollars worth of dead weight on our salary cap. Sortof like the situation we found ourself in with Carl Landry, Marcus Thornton, Chuck Hayes, John Salmons, Shareef Abdur-Rahim, and Kenny Thomas. I feel better about betting on McLemore's talent than I feel about committing substantial salary cap space to yet another mid-tier veteran.
And lastly, it's become popular around here to use DeMarcus Cousins as the skapegoat for every knee-jerk overreaction. We need to sell our draft pick because Cousins gon' blow. We need to hire George Karl right now because Cousins gon' blow. We need to trade Collison for Dragic or Deron Williams because Cousins gon' blow. This has got to stop people! If you don't have a legit reason for making a decision, you don't get to blame it on the ticking Cousins bomb. You know why teams like Minnesota try and fail for years to build around a Kevin Garnett or Kevin Love? Because every year they make knee jerk overreactions of this kind which lead to an endless stream of mediocre veteran signings and counter-productive rationalizations like "we can't fit Cousins into our frontcourt and let him take shots away from Love, we need to draft a wing instead ". If Minnesota had simply drafted better players and developed them with the 4 top 10 picks they had between 2009 and 2011 they would be a playoff team right now, not the worst team in the league. I refuse to let the fear of a hypothetical Cousins mutiny scare me into making poor long-term decisions.
People are still going on about Ben McLemore. If he is back next season it will be as a bench guy. We absolutely need to upgrade the SG position with more ball handling, passing and some shooting. I think guys like Mayo (unless Cousins kills him before he gets here) and Stuckey make a lot of sense for this team. A dependable, productive vet is what this team needs at both SG and PF positions.
I would not be surprised in the slightest of both McLemore and Stauskas are not on the team next season. We will be looking to upgrade SG no doubt about it. Hell, wouldn't Tyreke look good on this team right about now. Decision that still keeps hurting 2 seasons later.
I would not be surprised in the slightest of both McLemore and Stauskas are not on the team next season. We will be looking to upgrade SG no doubt about it. Hell, wouldn't Tyreke look good on this team right about now. Decision that still keeps hurting 2 seasons later.
Mayo and Stuckey are minus defenders as starters. While Kings' starting lineup could use more ballhandling and passing, it absolutely cannot have inadequate defense at SG.
When you go past Danny Green and Demarre Carroll, there's no FA SGs, that are clearly better defenders than Ben, and Carroll is a SF, so he might not be that effective vs guards.
Biggest obstacle in trading for someone might actually be the requirement to send some salary back to match, and Kings don't actually have a lot of salary attached to expendable players.
When you go past Danny Green and Demarre Carroll, there's no FA SGs, that are clearly better defenders than Ben, and Carroll is a SF, so he might not be that effective vs guards.
Biggest obstacle in trading for someone might actually be the requirement to send some salary back to match, and Kings don't actually have a lot of salary attached to expendable players.
No, he wouldn't.
We need floor spacing from our SG position. Evans doesn't provide that. If we're going to upgrade the SG spot, we might as well upgrade to a SG that makes sense with the current roster.
Now if Gay wasn't on this roster, then yeah, Evans with a floor spacer at SF would look pretty good right about now. However, that ship has sailed...
We need floor spacing from our SG position. Evans doesn't provide that. If we're going to upgrade the SG spot, we might as well upgrade to a SG that makes sense with the current roster.
Now if Gay wasn't on this roster, then yeah, Evans with a floor spacer at SF would look pretty good right about now. However, that ship has sailed...
Bravo. I agree with all of it.
We get so focused on individual stats that we forget to put those stats in a team perspective. Being a productive, consistent 4th option player in your 2nd year on the Sacramento Kings who have high roster and coaching turnover yearly is a much more daunting task than playing the same role on the Spurs.
I understand this conceptually, but at this time in my life don't have the extra time to break it all down. I can only make quick remarks based on concepts and common sense and hope spell check doesn't garble my words too much. So I appreciate your work on the specifics.
We get so focused on individual stats that we forget to put those stats in a team perspective. Being a productive, consistent 4th option player in your 2nd year on the Sacramento Kings who have high roster and coaching turnover yearly is a much more daunting task than playing the same role on the Spurs.
I understand this conceptually, but at this time in my life don't have the extra time to break it all down. I can only make quick remarks based on concepts and common sense and hope spell check doesn't garble my words too much. So I appreciate your work on the specifics.
Very good points on bout sides, butI just don't think we should risk Cuz potentially wanting out because he's not getting enough help from the roster. Our starting back court cannot contain anyone. Not to mention the fact that shooters are ALWAYS left wide open. I think hoping and waiting for Ben to improve to an least average defender next year it asking a lot of him. He's still a young player trying to get the hang of the game. He's not a starting caliber SG. I think we need a vet SG on this team. Danny Green sounds great. SG is our weakest point of the roster. It doesn't look as bad because we're just banking on potential.
To me, this is completely moot because we need a PF more than we need a SG. We don't need a great SG, we just need an adequate one. I feel like if we pick up a SG that has shown he can hit an outside shot and won't require a huge sum of money per year, that would be perfect. Besides, our goal would be to continue to develop one of Ben/Nik, so they would still see a significant amount of playing time. I would rather blow our money on:
1. A PF that will compliment Cousins well
2. A bench
3. A vet SG that won't break the bank.
1. A PF that will compliment Cousins well
2. A bench
3. A vet SG that won't break the bank.
Simple question to you is why was Ben a good defender the beginning of the year and not a good defender now? Why did his steals per game go up at the end of this year, but were low at the beginning?
Without breaking down film and wasting time with numbers, I can give you a quick answer. The defensive coaching philosophy with Malone was to stay close to your man and fight through screens. Which meant Ben spent more time guarding the other SG. The SG scoring numbers were held in check.
With Karl, the defensive philosophy is to switch EVERYTHING. So Ben doesn't spend all his time harassing the SG. In fact, Karl asks his guards to sag off their man and clog the paint, play the passing lanes to get steals and when their man gets the ball at the 3 point line, close out hard. THIS is why the other teams outside shooters were always open for the last 30 games and THIS is why Ben's steal numbers went up, as he was playing passing lanes versus denying his man the ball. The defensive philosophy changed.
Malone's D requires hard nosed, physical, aggressive play. Karl's D requires quick hands, length, ability to guard multiple positions and effective close out at the 3 point line. Our center spent a lot of time closing out on the 3 point shooter because of so much switching. This is ok when you have someone like Marcus Camby with all of his length and quickness. Not the best use of Cousins. And when we look at the box score we assume that it was just Ben giving up points.
Without breaking down film and wasting time with numbers, I can give you a quick answer. The defensive coaching philosophy with Malone was to stay close to your man and fight through screens. Which meant Ben spent more time guarding the other SG. The SG scoring numbers were held in check.
With Karl, the defensive philosophy is to switch EVERYTHING. So Ben doesn't spend all his time harassing the SG. In fact, Karl asks his guards to sag off their man and clog the paint, play the passing lanes to get steals and when their man gets the ball at the 3 point line, close out hard. THIS is why the other teams outside shooters were always open for the last 30 games and THIS is why Ben's steal numbers went up, as he was playing passing lanes versus denying his man the ball. The defensive philosophy changed.
Malone's D requires hard nosed, physical, aggressive play. Karl's D requires quick hands, length, ability to guard multiple positions and effective close out at the 3 point line. Our center spent a lot of time closing out on the 3 point shooter because of so much switching. This is ok when you have someone like Marcus Camby with all of his length and quickness. Not the best use of Cousins. And when we look at the box score we assume that it was just Ben giving up points.
They will be with consistency. The problem isn't production per se, but rather having someone you can count on to do what they have to do game in and game out. Sure, a vet SG may average the same points, rebounds, whatever stat, but they need to do it on a nightly basis, which is what we have NOT been having. Consistency is key, production per se not so much.
That's a ridiculous statement, that many hide behind: stats are stats, so they are likely to have Bell curve, though we are dealing with small sample size, so there will be distortions.
Arron Afflalo averages 3.2 rpg, so naturally his most common games would be with 3 (13games) and 4(17g) rebounds, but small sample size brings us 17 games of 1 rebound and 12 games of 2. Naturally there were 3 games of 0 rebounds in 25+ minutes. Same thing will assists - most of the games he had only 1 with some 2 ast, and lesser amount of 0, 3 and 4 ast games thrown in. You can guess, what happens with 3s. There were multiple games, when Afflalo had no more than 4 in sum of these 3 categories in 25-30 minutes. Who needs that?
Arron Afflalo averages 3.2 rpg, so naturally his most common games would be with 3 (13games) and 4(17g) rebounds, but small sample size brings us 17 games of 1 rebound and 12 games of 2. Naturally there were 3 games of 0 rebounds in 25+ minutes. Same thing will assists - most of the games he had only 1 with some 2 ast, and lesser amount of 0, 3 and 4 ast games thrown in. You can guess, what happens with 3s. There were multiple games, when Afflalo had no more than 4 in sum of these 3 categories in 25-30 minutes. Who needs that?
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When we sign a vet for the SG position, we blow the last 2 firstround picks in the process.
You wont build a sucessful franchise if you dont trust your players and help them to develop.
Some people act like players like Leonard came into the league as the player they are now, which is completely off the charge.
Drafting a player is only the first step. Developing a player is what really makes the difference and the Kings have been historically bad doing this.
From Tyreke Evans, over Omri Casspi, Trob or even Dmc to some extent, we never did a good job to develop the players. We throw away almost every potential we aquire via the draft and are lucky, that Dmc is so talented, that he developed regardless of the mess in this organisation.
Aquiring a veteran Sg just means we give up on our young players once again. We would repeat the same mistake again, while our biggest need is clearly the Pf position, where we play a veteran, that brings nothing to the table outside of solid man defense and gets outplayed by every starting Pf in the league and most backups.
Let me add, that I'm confused, that some people here think that guys like Danny Green are mediocre. In a league dominated by the pick&roll the role of the SG has changed and players like Green are among the best SG's of the league, cause this position doesn't require ISO-skills to the same amount like in the early 2000's anymore. Of course a SG, who is able to score out of isolations is valuable, but it isn't necessary and we talk about max players, when we want this skillset. Even Bradley Beal, who is one of the best SG's of the league, admitted, that scoring out of ISO's is only the next step in his development.
It's the same thing with the center position. The game has changed and modern era centers are more about defense, passing and finishing the pick&roll than they are about post up play and isolation. That doesn't mean, that they are worse, than their equivalents some time ago. They are just very different.
You wont build a sucessful franchise if you dont trust your players and help them to develop.
Some people act like players like Leonard came into the league as the player they are now, which is completely off the charge.
Drafting a player is only the first step. Developing a player is what really makes the difference and the Kings have been historically bad doing this.
From Tyreke Evans, over Omri Casspi, Trob or even Dmc to some extent, we never did a good job to develop the players. We throw away almost every potential we aquire via the draft and are lucky, that Dmc is so talented, that he developed regardless of the mess in this organisation.
Aquiring a veteran Sg just means we give up on our young players once again. We would repeat the same mistake again, while our biggest need is clearly the Pf position, where we play a veteran, that brings nothing to the table outside of solid man defense and gets outplayed by every starting Pf in the league and most backups.
Let me add, that I'm confused, that some people here think that guys like Danny Green are mediocre. In a league dominated by the pick&roll the role of the SG has changed and players like Green are among the best SG's of the league, cause this position doesn't require ISO-skills to the same amount like in the early 2000's anymore. Of course a SG, who is able to score out of isolations is valuable, but it isn't necessary and we talk about max players, when we want this skillset. Even Bradley Beal, who is one of the best SG's of the league, admitted, that scoring out of ISO's is only the next step in his development.
It's the same thing with the center position. The game has changed and modern era centers are more about defense, passing and finishing the pick&roll than they are about post up play and isolation. That doesn't mean, that they are worse, than their equivalents some time ago. They are just very different.
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Ok. Afflalo is a vet guard who gets thrown out as someone who we should get. Aflallo had 26 games he scored single digits. 12 games he scored 20 or more. Ben had 29 games in single digits. 13 games of 20 or more. Pretty much the same consistency by the measure we most use, which is point production.
Shumpert played 62 games and had 40 games in single digits and 1 above 20. Gerald Green had 29 games in single digits. 11 of 20 or more.
How inconsistent is Ben really when you compare him to guys that the Kings might be able to get? Even still, Danny Green had 31 single digit games. 9 above 20. I'm looking at games where Danny had 21 pts one game and 2 the next. 18 one game and 5 the next. Point fluctuation is a part of the game when you're a 4th option.
Shumpert played 62 games and had 40 games in single digits and 1 above 20. Gerald Green had 29 games in single digits. 11 of 20 or more.
How inconsistent is Ben really when you compare him to guys that the Kings might be able to get? Even still, Danny Green had 31 single digit games. 9 above 20. I'm looking at games where Danny had 21 pts one game and 2 the next. 18 one game and 5 the next. Point fluctuation is a part of the game when you're a 4th option.
