Perhaps a more apt title could be progression to the mean. Anyway, a number of nuggets out in the past day that we have had the hardest schedule in the league thus far. 538 has us now projected as second in the west and 57 wins. We’re 6-3 with our offense being one of the worst in the league. We’re favored in 36 of our next 38 games. Our defense looks as good as it has (toot my own horn [and knock on wood] to state that I’ve said I did not believe we took steps back defensively]).
So we’re still in an adjustment period. Conley’s been way below even an outlier. Ingles hasn’t really done anything. Rudy’s D has been Rudy’s D. Donovan has been much more efficient and Bojan is having a career year so far. Still a lot of improvement to yet expect as things jel (gel?). That said, rather than talk about hypotheticals, I’d be interested in seeing what this team looked like if we removed a few of the anomalies and outliers and substituted in historical averages. The negative anomalies seem to greatly outweigh the potential positive ones (i.e. Donovan is probably much more likely to be playing at form than Conley is). If anyone has any more comparisons to put out, whether good or bad, please share.
Since we have at least a rough sketch of what our offensive balance (in terms of who’s getting shots) may look like, I’ve calculated out what each player would be scoring if they took the exact same shots, but instead shot their career averages rather than this year’s averages.
Conley’s scoring bumps from 13.6 ppg to 16 ppg (+2.4 ppg)
Mitchell’s decreases from 24.8 ppg to 23.7 ppg (-1.1 ppg).
Ingles goes from 7.9 ppg to 8.6 ppg (+0.7 ppg).
Bojan I didn’t bother calculating because his FG% is the same. Three and FTs are up a bit.
I’m not sure what to make of Gobert because it’s hard to say what quantity of shots he’ll get, but I’d imagine this picks up. He’s averaging 10.9 ppg while the past three seasons were 15.9, 13.5, and 14 ppg.
Conley is averaging 3.1 turnovers per game in 4 mpg less than last year when he averaged 1.9. His career is 2 TOV/game. His TOV% is 17.8 this year compared to 9.1 last year.
Joe is the anomaly I’m worried most about not being able to rebound to previous levels. That said, his shooting surely will be much better than 36.7% and 31.7%.
I see Donovan’s efficiency possibly being a bit elevated, but there’s every reason to be optimistic that what we’ve seen is a trend (even if inflated) and that this is more sustainable than simply assuming a regression to the mean. Conley, on the other hand, is a complete outlier, in both shooting and turnovers. Turnovers I’d anticipate to drop below career averages because he’s handling the ball less.
Anyhow, there are lots of variables from our small sample size, but I’m encouraged with where we’re at, especially with how poorly we’ve played in some regard, and how the positive outliers seem to have good evidence for being legitimate while the negative outliers seem to have a lot of evidence to refute them being anything more than an outlier that shouldn’t continue, at least not as poorly as it has.
Would love any other thoughts or any other angles to see this.
So we’re still in an adjustment period. Conley’s been way below even an outlier. Ingles hasn’t really done anything. Rudy’s D has been Rudy’s D. Donovan has been much more efficient and Bojan is having a career year so far. Still a lot of improvement to yet expect as things jel (gel?). That said, rather than talk about hypotheticals, I’d be interested in seeing what this team looked like if we removed a few of the anomalies and outliers and substituted in historical averages. The negative anomalies seem to greatly outweigh the potential positive ones (i.e. Donovan is probably much more likely to be playing at form than Conley is). If anyone has any more comparisons to put out, whether good or bad, please share.
Since we have at least a rough sketch of what our offensive balance (in terms of who’s getting shots) may look like, I’ve calculated out what each player would be scoring if they took the exact same shots, but instead shot their career averages rather than this year’s averages.
Conley’s scoring bumps from 13.6 ppg to 16 ppg (+2.4 ppg)
Mitchell’s decreases from 24.8 ppg to 23.7 ppg (-1.1 ppg).
Ingles goes from 7.9 ppg to 8.6 ppg (+0.7 ppg).
Bojan I didn’t bother calculating because his FG% is the same. Three and FTs are up a bit.
I’m not sure what to make of Gobert because it’s hard to say what quantity of shots he’ll get, but I’d imagine this picks up. He’s averaging 10.9 ppg while the past three seasons were 15.9, 13.5, and 14 ppg.
Conley is averaging 3.1 turnovers per game in 4 mpg less than last year when he averaged 1.9. His career is 2 TOV/game. His TOV% is 17.8 this year compared to 9.1 last year.
Joe is the anomaly I’m worried most about not being able to rebound to previous levels. That said, his shooting surely will be much better than 36.7% and 31.7%.
I see Donovan’s efficiency possibly being a bit elevated, but there’s every reason to be optimistic that what we’ve seen is a trend (even if inflated) and that this is more sustainable than simply assuming a regression to the mean. Conley, on the other hand, is a complete outlier, in both shooting and turnovers. Turnovers I’d anticipate to drop below career averages because he’s handling the ball less.
Anyhow, there are lots of variables from our small sample size, but I’m encouraged with where we’re at, especially with how poorly we’ve played in some regard, and how the positive outliers seem to have good evidence for being legitimate while the negative outliers seem to have a lot of evidence to refute them being anything more than an outlier that shouldn’t continue, at least not as poorly as it has.
Would love any other thoughts or any other angles to see this.
