Millsap whining again

[LunaticWolf]

his answer didn't bother me... but i will admit that i knew as soon as i read it that it would bother some people.

the dude's a competitor, and he has carried the jazz on his back far more than anybody on this team other than al. what's more, he has frequently shown a willingness to do the less glamorous things like defend and set screens. so i can imagine the guy doesn't like feeling even further marginalized despite the fact that he has better PPP stats AND better defense than the guy who almost automatically plays more minutes than him every single night.

but fwiw (and i hope this isn't just wishful thinking) - the fact that paul's on the shelf late and al is in there playing probably doesn't mean paul's on the trade block. if the jazz were really trying to dangle paul right now, they wouldn't be lowering his value intentionally by sitting him late so that al jefferson could use even MORE of the team's late-game possessions. his sitting probably means nothing, but if it means anything, it's that al is the guy whose value they're trying to protect.

Its funny to see how opinions change based on the person who said it.

I didn't get after Boozer for his comment and I'm not going to get after Paul for this.

[Durrrr]

With Corbin, it works, why wouldn't he?

Corbin is the vets b****. Every once in a while he forgets his place so they have to remind him.

[fishonjazz]

With Corbin, it works, why wouldn't he?

Corbin is the vets b****. Every once in a while he forgets his place so they have to remind him.

This
Hell it even works for demarre.

[theNBAnerd]

On which end of the floor is Millsap a hell of a lot better than AL? Because it is definitely not on the defensive end.

umm, false.

per synergy, on all plays where al is the primary defender, the jazz give up 92 points per 100 possessions. when it's paul or derrick, that number falls to 83. kanter is at 77. sap is far better defending the roll man on the PnR, isos AND spot-up shots (where al is truly awful, allowing 123 pts for every 100 spot-ups by his man). the only frequent defensive play where al is empirically defending well is post-ups, where all 4 jazz bigs are between 79 and 85 pp100, with al leading the way and paul right behind him at 81.

unfortunately, synergy doesn't keep numbers on help defense because they can't possibly automate a system that takes into account 30 teams' defensive philosophies on who should rotate when and assess the possession -- but just from watching the sheer number of times al sees a guy coming down the lane and moves to the side, i can tell you it's pretty bad, too.

[theNBAnerd]

Al's reliability does not exactly correlate to efficiency. Put another way, it's a lot to presume that Sap, Favors, and Kanter would maintain their current levels of efficiency if they got the same touches Al did. So Al being a more reliable post scorer is accurate if you buy that premise.

that argument has absoltuely no teeth for me... which is why we've bickered every time you've brought the discussion forward.

if one guy produced offensively at a level that is at or below the team average on a per-possession basis and another 5 guys produce at a HIGHER level, why wouldn't you want to reallocate some possessions? if you have a stock portfolio where a bunch of your money is following a stock that is middling along, and then you have smaller amounts in a bunch of stocks that are giving you a really good return... why wouldn't you move your money around? your answer seems to be (correct me if i'm wrong, i'm not trying to strawman you here) because we don't KNOW that the returns will stay the same after we shift around the possession investment. but i'd rather lose trying something different rather than lose the same damn way over and over again and never alter the script. when you're team is below .500 and in a month-long offensive funk, i think it's perfectly ok to see if other people's games will hold up to an increase in volume.

(and fwiw, it's not like paul's sample size is statistically insignificant. we can say with a pretty decent amount of mathematical surety that a paul possession is going to produce better results than an al possession.)

and anyways, i'm not proposing taking al's 20-25 attempts and giving them all to one guy (paul or anyone else). my vision for the jazz offense is one where no guy is shooting 20 shots, but the movement and team play is so strong that everybody is a thread on every play. that's when the jazz play their best basketball anyway (see: last night), but that doesn't happen when we're built around al. the ball sticks to one of the floor and only 2-3 guys are involved in the play, which is extremely easy to guard and thus extremely inefficient. very few FTAs, very few plays at the rim, very unfun to watch.

[MoTown16]

Odd stat against Minnesota: Millsap had ZERO rebounds.

[Hartsock]

I think Ty is afraid there will be no scoring if he takes Al out durring crunch time, and he may be right. But a solution to that problem may be just a few steps away.

You really want to put the ball in Burks hands at the end of games?

[One Brow]

if you have a stock portfolio where a bunch of your money is following a stock that is middling along, and then you have smaller amounts in a bunch of stocks that are giving you a really good return... why wouldn't you move your money around? your answer seems to be (correct me if i'm wrong, i'm not trying to strawman you here) because we don't KNOW that the returns will stay the same after we shift around the possession investment.

Choosing to keep or sell a stock has almost no effect on how the stock performs. I could be wrong, but my recollection is that it is very common for players to lose efficiency as they increase the number of touches they receive. So, we don't have proof about our players in particular, but also no reason to think they would be the exception to the rule.

[theNBAnerd]

Choosing to keep or sell a stock has almost no effect on how the stock performs. I could be wrong, but my recollection is that it is very common for players to lose efficiency as they increase the number of touches they receive. So, we don't have proof about our players in particular, but also no reason to think they would be the exception to the rule.

you say that as though there is a "rule." that's not the case. a lot of players INCREASE efficiency when their touches go up. how do we which "rule" applies to favors or kanter? the answer, of course, is that we don't know because al still uses a quarter of the jazz's possessions in every game.

and again, that's the favor/kanter part of the argument. the paul part of the argument is even sillier because paul actually has a sample size that tells us he'd have no problem maintaining his efficiency if al's possessions were spread out proportionately across the rest of the team.

paul is as good a player as al on offense and better on defense. there's no argument to the contrary that can't be debunked with, ya know, evidence. paul's used possessions produce .96 points, al's produce .95 -- and they use virtually the same number of possessions per 36 minutes (al uses 19.4, paul uses 17.8). so tell me again how it's a "rule" is that if paul had an extra possession and a half per game his efficiency would tumble.

[theNBAnerd]

might also be worth mentioning that after last night, al is now a full 10 pp100 worse than paul on defense as the primary defender. the difference is mostly due to the fact that al is less effective guarding isos (gives up 96 compared to paul's 64), spot-up shooters (118 to 98) and the roll man (73 to 58). they defend the post essentially the same (79 to 78).

al remains 9 points worse per 100 primary defensive possessions than favors (82 pp100 overall) and 13 points worse than kanter (78). and again, that's just primary defense, doesn't account for blowing a rotation or not helping when someone else's primary assignment drives into the lane.

[Jazz4ever]

umm, false.

per synergy, on all plays where al is the primary defender, the jazz give up 92 points per 100 possessions. when it's paul or derrick, that number falls to 83. kanter is at 77. sap is far better defending the roll man on the PnR, isos AND spot-up shots (where al is truly awful, allowing 123 pts for every 100 spot-ups by his man). the only frequent defensive play where al is empirically defending well is post-ups, where all 4 jazz bigs are between 79 and 85 pp100, with al leading the way and paul right behind him at 81.

unfortunately, synergy doesn't keep numbers on help defense because they can't possibly automate a system that takes into account 30 teams' defensive philosophies on who should rotate when and assess the possession -- but just from watching the sheer number of times al sees a guy coming down the lane and moves to the side, i can tell you it's pretty bad, too.

You're putting way to much value in Synergy. You more or less said it yourself in the last sentence. Every possession is reliant on a defensive scheme, whether it be man or zone, and the little Synergy sports guy watching the film has no idea who was supposed to help, show, cheat, etc on defense. Last year the Jazz defenders were purposely cheating toward the baseline forcing everything to the middle. If someone scored baseline it was probably the primary defenders fault, if they scored going to the middle it was more likely the help defender's fault. All teams do similar things that make it pretty unreliable, even for pure iso's.

[GVC]

You're putting way to much value in Synergy. You more or less said it yourself in the last sentence. Every possession is reliant on a defensive scheme, whether it be man or zone, and the little Synergy sports guy watching the film has no idea who was supposed to help, show, cheat, etc on defense. Last year the Jazz defenders were purposely cheating toward the baseline forcing everything to the middle. If someone scored baseline it was probably the primary defenders fault, if they scored going to the middle it was more likely the help defender's fault. All teams do similar things that make it pretty unreliable, even for pure iso's.

If Al is a worse man defender though, the only way to make up for it is by being a better help and/or transition defender. Do you think Al is a better help/transition defender than Millsap?

[theNBAnerd]

You're putting way to much value in Synergy. You more or less said it yourself in the last sentence. Every possession is reliant on a defensive scheme, whether it be man or zone, and the little Synergy sports guy watching the film has no idea who was supposed to help, show, cheat, etc on defense. Last year the Jazz defenders were purposely cheating toward the baseline forcing everything to the middle. If someone scored baseline it was probably the primary defenders fault, if they scored going to the middle it was more likely the help defender's fault. All teams do similar things that make it pretty unreliable, even for pure iso's.

so you're saying that the only way to know for sure if al sucks on defense is to sit down with ty corbin in a video bay and chart every possession according to the jazz's system. seems like a lot of work since anybody with eyes knows he sucks at defense, the numbers say he sucks at defense, the whole nation talks about how he sucks at defense and he just plain sucks at defense.

but i'm fine doing it your way, too. let me know when you have ty scheduled and i'll get the day off work and come join you two in the video room at ZBBC.

[homeytennis]

Zero rebounds for a man that lead NCAA Division 1 three years in a row for rebounds.

[theNBAnerd]

If Al is a worse man defender though, the only way to make up for it is by being a better help and/or transition defender. Do you think Al is a better help/transition defender than Millsap?

not sure you'll get him with logic. he wants to dismiss any stat -- even one based on careful play-by-play tracking by basketball experts -- that doesn't confirm what he wants to believe.