NBA All-Star Reserves (and Deserves)

The list is posted. Here are my thoughts based on their overall productivity.

West

Pau Gasol - acceptable pick.
David West - no way. slightly above average producer (but scores a lot of points).
Dirk Nowitzki - usually a given, this year he's still very good, but no all-star.
Tony Parker - one of his best seasons ever (but still not outstanding).
Chauncey Billups - absolutely.
Brandon Roy - acceptable.

East

Jameer Nelson - his best season yet.
Rashard Lewis - hmm. only acceptable as a small forward.
Paul Pierce - usually a given, having a down year though.
Joe Johnson - no way. average producer, prodigious shooter of the ball.
Chris Bosh - solid, but not exemplary, big man.
Devin Harris - best season yet.
Danny Granger - nope. see Joe Johnson. His primary problems are turnovers and poor rebounding (and average shooting efficiency).

Furthermore, the article gave mention to the following notable snubs:

East

Mo Williams - not even the most productive guard on his team (Delonte West). slightly above average producer for the same reasons as Granger.
Rajon Rondo - absolutely should have been a starter. most productive player on the Celtics so far this year. yes, i'm serious.
Ray Allen - eh. didn't deserve a spot, but he's productive.

West

Al Jefferson - he's playing just about as well as ever. very productive player, but there are others equally or more productive at his position (Gasol).
Steve Nash - has he really declined in production? looks like he has, but he's still more productive than some of the all-stars.

Production vs Skills

Nice, I got a new one done. Sadly, I got hilariously cut off at the end - if I hadn't commented on the fact that I was running out of time I would have made it. Oh well.

This marks the first mention of Larry Hughes.

Just me doing my part to help player evaluation in the NBA - hopefully one day players won't get extra credit for abilities that, while impressive, do not help his team win.


1st video

This is more of an introduction and 'test run' than anything else.

I have no idea what I'm saying half the time, but hey - it's all practice. I'll have specific things to discuss in the future.

Oh, and somehow I nailed the time limit! I got it right on the dot.


Yep

Looks like I'm going to make this a video blog. I recorded the first one just now, only I need to upload it (but I'm heading out in a second). Hopefully Blogger will let me upload a ton of video, cause I got lots to talk about.

OJ Mayo is not the rookie of the year

Not by a long shot. Off the top of my head I can think of four rookies who are producing at a greater rate than Mayo. If that's the case, why did Head 2 Head sports say yesterday, "Very few rookies in the history of the league have been as impressive as Mayo has been this season."

Simple. He scores more points per game than any other rookie. However, that stat is meaningless. Take more shots, score more points. What is important is how efficiently those points are scored.

In addition, there are many other factors other than scoring that affect the outcome of games. No, I'm not talking about "intangibles" (I hate that word). I'm talking about the box score.

Mayo shoots 45%. That's not good. Plus he takes a ton of shots, so that's not helping his team win, either. He's turnover prone and surprisingly doesn't generate many steals for a supposedly quick young guard. He rebounds relatively well, though.

All in all it adds up to merely average production for a SG (as calculated via Win Produced per 48 minutes). I should add that this is better than expected for Mayo, who was a below average performer in college. So perhaps he will become above average in future years.

I mentioned that there are at least four rookies with better production. Let's talk about one who was a second-round pick. Let's talk about Mario Chalmers.

A quick look at their efficiency stats (shooting) will show you that Mario is a worse shooter than Mayo (Chalmers is at 41%). However, Chalmers takes far fewer shots than Mayo, so ultimately he 'hurts his team less'.

Now let's move on to possession factors: rebounds, steals, blocks and turnovers. Chalmers lags a bit behind Mayo in rebounds per 48 minutes, but is a beast when it comes to steals (he's near the top of the league). Blocks are a wash, but Chalmers bests Mayo again in the turnover department, despite being a PG and thus, in theory, handling the ball more. (Even if he doesn't actually handle the ball more than Mayo, Chalmers still manages to get far more assists).

All told, Chalmers is a more valuable player in terms of gaining possessions for his team. He commits more fouls than Mayo, but this is more than offset by his superior assist total.

So, in non-scoring aspects Chalmers is much better than Mayo per 48 minutes. Mayo is the better shooter, but it's all relative - he's still not a great shooter, and Chalmers limits the damage caused by his inefficient shooting by not taking too many shots. In the end, Chalmers produces more wins per 48 minutes than Mayo.

Since the point of basketball is to wins games (not score points), I'd vote for Chalmers for MVP over Mayo any day.

I should also point out - Chalmers' production is not a surprise. Take a look at his college numbers. They were remarkably good, and consistent, for all three of his Kansas years. Due to his consistency I proclaimed him a sure bet in the NBA, and he has delivered (I wish I was doing this blog then, that would have been nice to have for posterity). So why was he taken in the second round?

Scoring. It's just plain overvalued. Enormously.

...and we're back

Hmm. It's been a year since I posted here. I've been watching tons of basketball this season and I'm starting to get frustrated again. So the blog is back.

What I'd really like to do is make this a video blog of some sort. It would be awesome to find a way to get feeds of NBA games sans audio commentary, so I could do my own. I don't think that's possible. What is possible is me doing ghetto espn-style coverage of each day's games, all told through the lens of statistical analysis. Gone will be all pointless references to "points scored" and "(blanks) per game", replaced by "FG/FT%" and "(blanks) per 48 minutes".

My biggest beef right now... ok, I'll make this a separate post.