DMC's Chemistry & Synergy with other Kings - Lineup Stats

#1
Hi All.

There was much ado lately (in these forums at least) about DMC having/lacking chemistry with other players on the team, and about his positivse/negative team impact in general, and specifically on the defensive end.

I decided to try and check some lineup stats to get a feeling about the way DMC is fitting-in with the team and teammates:

First I tried to look at personal synergy -
I looked up all the possible pairings of DMC with a fellow-King rotation player,
and checked how these 2-men lineups compare to the team average production:
All stats are per 48 minutes, from the first 32 games, up to the end of 2015.
(Sources: HERE and HERE)



Results in one short sentence:
NO CANCER HERE...;)

Of the 8 possible pairing combinations featuring Cuz with another rotation player -
7 serve us better than the team average (All except the pairing with Koufos).

The best (with WCS) and worst (with KK) pairings in terms of +/- are polarized mostly by their defensive impact, as the former (DMC+WCS) seems to give a stellar D-performance, and the latter (DMC+KK) surprisingly seems to be disastrous for our D.
Please note, however, that these 2 records should be taken with extra caution,
because they are based on much smaller samples than the rest of the lineups data.

Naturally, pairing DMC with another true big, yealds the best rebounding per 48 min.
Not surprisingly - pairing with Casspi (a famous good bond there) gets us the best scoring and second highest scoring difference (+/-).
Interesting enough - pairing with Belinelli produces the most assists.

Next, I decided to check Full lineups
I took our 10 most frequent lineups through 32 games, with or without Cuz
(I thought I should avoid the less frequent ones, because of sample size)
and compared them on various traditional stats.

To make it easier to track all 10 lineups, I coded them with letters (A to J) as seen below.
The 6 highlighted lineups (A, C, D, G, H and I) are the ones featuring DMC:

All stats below are per 48 minutes, from the first 32 games, up to the end of 2015.
(Sources: HERE and HERE)

Results in one short sentence:
NO CANCER HERE EITHER...;)

Here's the main-stats comparable performance of the Kings' 10 most frequent lineups:


As it looks, Cuz features in 6 of the top 7 lineups (top= best +/-), and is missing from all 3 very bad ones.
The only sub-par lineup (below team average of -3.2) that DMC is a part of, is the relatively rare lineup I, featuring our current starters minus BMac and plus Marco.

Cuz is also the only common factor featuring in both of our most outstanding lineups - D and G
(Rondo doesn't count... He features in all 10 frequent lineups... :) No distinction to draw there...)
Those 2 lineups stand out wildly in both Offensive (highest scoring) and Defensive (lowest opponent scoring) production, and both also show decent rebounding. Lineup G is also amongst the best assisting lineups.

I made another comparison between those 10 most frequent lineups, trying to get more info about their defensive impact on games, by checking opponent's performance, like opponent FG% and opponent rebounding:


Again, it looks like DMC is missing from the 2 weakest defensive lineups, B and F, that allow opponents to score over 53%, and he's one of the 2 common factors (the other being Omri Casspi) in our two most successfull defensive lineups, G and C, that limit opponents to less than 40% from the field.
 
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I

Im Still Ballin

Guest
#5
Our best defensive lineup features our two best interior defenders and our best perimeter defender. Who would have guessed it?
In the details my friend. Willie brings the foot speed and 1-5 defensive ability that can handle the scramble, switch and close out

I wonder how Curry's numbers look
 
#6
Looks like Casspi and WCS should start, and have Rudy come off the bench for the second unit.

Also, these stats are more of an indictment on the offense than perhaps any individual player.
 
#8
The glaring problem with that: Rudy will never be happy with a bench role.
At this point I don't give an iced cream cone what he thinks. DC hated them signing Rondo and he doesn't like coming off the bench, but so far that hasn't made waves as far as we can tell. This team's job is to win, and if it results in getting to the post-season, then so be it.
 
I

Im Still Ballin

Guest
#9
Bring out the ultra big lineup

Collison-Casspi-Gay-WCS-Cousins

Now that would be something
 

kingsboi

Hall of Famer
#10
so what I basically pulled out from all those charts are Cousins belongs next to Trill playing along side of him and he and Koufos should play as little as possible together....yet the opposite will happen. Got cha!
 
#12
Bring out the ultra big lineup

Collison-Casspi-Gay-WCS-Cousins

Now that would be something
The beautiful thing about playing Gay & Casspi together, as Karl likes to do, is how easily you can shift from a very solid (perhaps even great) small-ball lineup, straight to an ultra-big lineup, WITH JUST ONE SUBSTITUTION!

When you use a 4-men-core of
Rondo-Gay-Casspi-Cuz, you can -
1. EITHER add Collison/BMac at SG (or Belz - who might be too much of a D liability here), and you get:
PG: Rondo
SG: Collison/Ben
SF: Rudy
PF: Casspi
C: Cousins
That's a fine small-ball lineup, with Omri/Rudy at 3/4 - that gives you a very fast running offense and sharp outside shooting.
Still, you're giving-up too much on the boards, since Rondo, Casspi, and even Gay (at times, when he's into it) are exceptionally good rebounders for their position and size...

2. OR insert WCS to that same core instead (at PF/C), and you get:
PG: Rondo
SG/SF: Rudy
SG/SF: Casspi
PF: WCS
C: Cousins
Suddenly you have formidable length in every position, with Omri/Rudy at the 2/3.
Still, you're not sacrificing your ability to guard smaller teams, since WCS, Gay & Casspi can all at least survive (the latter two) or even thrive (Willie) guarding below their positions.
You also get to keep the outside shooting and driving options despite going so big, as almost everyone in this lineup (all but WCS) can hit the 3-ball or finish very efficiently driving to the rim (P.S. - Having DC replace Rondo would further enhance these capabilities, if you like).

That's SOME versatility we have there!
 
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#13
Bring out the ultra big lineup

Collison-Casspi-Gay-WCS-Cousins

Now that would be something
I honestly would not be opposed to Gay at the two, in that scenario... except Rondo at the point.

This harkens back to a time when we had Dalembert and Cuz on the floor at the same time and it was ****ing great. We didn't play small ball at the time so it was a legit big lineup all the way around.

Here is honestly what I want:

Cuz
WCS
Gay
McLemore
Rondo

6th Man: Casspi (getting starters minutes)
7th: Belli
8th: Collison (mostly brought in when there is a dearth of ballhandling)
9: Koufos (and for special defensive assignments)

--

p.s.-- OP: out ****ing standing work
 
#14
You have conflicting data that you need to reconcile (if possible) if you are concluding in one chart that Koufos and Cousins don't work well together (-7.2) and that in another that "Line-up G" (2nd best defense and +30.2) is the most effective. Should they be on the court together or not? I want answers dammit! :D

We don't have enough data (115 minutes) to conclude that WCS-Boogie line-up would not be worse offensively vs. line-up that features Omri and Rudy as forwards. I believe we get more stops and run more with our two bigs manning the interior but Karl's half court offense is predicated on spacing and keeping the middle open.

Omri and Rudy space the floor. Willie doesn't. This allows the opponent to send more help to close off driving lanes.

I am more optimistic that a line-up including Willie-Cousins-Rondo could be effective than I was the first few weeks of the season because Rondo has proved more effective as a scorer. Still we need to see more that a team with Rondo and Willie on the floor together can score as consistently or that the additional defense makes up for loss of offense.

This automatic presumption based on advanced data that "See Willie needs to be on the floor more!" is premature in context of team getting off to better 1st quarter starts with Omri in the line-up. I love Willie much as the next guy but he has not commanded 30 MPG yet nor the starting spot.

Part of the issue is Willie needs to be encouraged to be more offensively aggressive. I guarantee you within 2 years Willie will have a superior post game to Boogie so he may as well polishing it up now and quit deferring because he is a rookie. He has a higher release point on his half hook and quicker feet than Boogie which allow him to get better looks in the paint.

For rookie of his talent going through the league second time we would expect to see this improvement but I am not so sure with Karl because he does not encourage his young guys (Ben and Willie) to do more than play limited roles.

The challenge for Karl regardless is that his three best bigs are all centers (Boogie Willie 2K), his two best forwards are SFs (Omri, Rudy) and his two best guards are PGs (Rondo, Darren). So his most effective line-up may or may not include playing players out of position, i.e. playing PGs at SGs and Cs at PF and SFs at PF. Thanks Vlade! :)

The fans who advocate for more conventional line-up may very well be advocating for playing less talented over more talented players. This is usually a dubious proposition and one reason Karl is doing the right by playing Darren 29 MPG (16 PER) vs Ben and Marco (11 and 10 PER).

I think it will be interesting going forward after Karl said "we don't have the guts to get stops" and "we have too many offensive players and not enough defensive players" if he will have the guts to play Willie more at the possible expense of offensive production. Its kind of a chance to prove whether he is a hypocrite or backs up his tough talk post game rhetoric.
 
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#16
So 48 minutes per game? ;)
Last time I checked Kings ranked 3rd from bottom in TO rate....27th out of 30 now.
The turnovers I'm seeing are from sloppiness, not because guys are losing the handle.

It's from a lack of discipline, which I guess is what Karl is great at, letting guys just play. But it goes along with the bad team defense. Not holding them accountable. We're horrible at turnovers, yet we're playing two pgs a lot of the time already. It has nothing to do with getting more ball handlers on the floor.

A lot of our TO's are from really bad passes, mental mistakes, miscommunication, making wild attempts at driving the ball into traffic.... it all just screams lack of discipline. Pop would be screaming at his guys if they did half the TO's we've been doing them, in the way we have been.
 
#17
The turnovers I'm seeing are from sloppiness, not because guys are losing the handle.

It's from a lack of discipline, which I guess is what Karl is great at, letting guys just play. But it goes along with the bad team defense. Not holding them accountable. We're horrible at turnovers, yet we're playing two pgs a lot of the time already. It has nothing to do with getting more ball handlers on the floor.

A lot of our TO's are from really bad passes, mental mistakes, miscommunication, making wild attempts at driving the ball into traffic.... it all just screams lack of discipline. Pop would be screaming at his guys if they did half the TO's we've been doing them, in the way we have been.
Well when you are playing Jazz you can have musicians free lance and go off on tangents and the final sound is fine, its Jazz man:D

Of course the Kings players would look better with something more akin to John Philips Souza:)