Official Quin Snyder coach’s challenge watch

[KqWIN]

Where did I say he should challenge for the sake of challenging? The only comments I've made regarding that were hyperbolic ones where we at least know he's awake.



My argument has always been smart challenges. You've come out against this because I've been railing against the fact that not only is he not doing smart challenges, he's doing no challenges. And he misses those opportunities (as you've said above). I also haven't advocated using a challenge every single game. But I have advocated using them at any point in the game where there's a call, because as is patently obvious at this point, 'saving them for later' is a pointless reason to not do a challenge because there never is a 'later' where we decide to use them.


I'm not certain where I've said he should do things that hurt us unless you're reading me strictly literally. I think there's an element of risk, sure, but I also think we should be putting in to context exactly what "hurting us" means. It means you use your timeout then instead of later, and you have to then budget the rest of your timeouts around it. That's it. If we're defining "hurting us" to mean that then we don't have a challenge to use later, well, then... that's kind of an odd circular argument.

You consider it a victory in this thread when a coach challenges and fails. You also gave two specific examples of situations where Quin would challenge for the sake of challenging that you would be happy with. When failure is a victory, it is no longer about trying to help the team win.

I'm also on the other side of the fence as far as "backing up" your players. When this was very young team, Quin didn't want his team to complain about calls. That has waned over the years, but I'm still glad he did it. I can't imagine how much Rudy would complain if Quin let it fly his whole career. I really do not think having your players believe that the refs are out to get them is a good thing. There is no field of work or study where people improve by deflecting responsibility.

That second part is a gut feeling, but I really don't see why basketball would be different from anything else. If anything, it's more important for basketball players to control what they can control and not let their egos take over.

 

[Handlogten's Heros]

I'd have one coach that looks to specific opportunities to challenge and would challenge when he brings me the opportunity. If it was obviously a chance to challenge those stick out to you, but in game its a lot to think about so it makes sense things get overlooked.

Might even tell the players (or maybe my best players)... don't cry wolf and do the signal at me... but if you feel 85% there is a bad call and make the signal at me I'll challenge it. Might even take their focus off being pissed at the refs... IDK but it seems to be an asset that is dying on the vine a lot.

 

[KqWIN]

The goal tend opportunity was a good one to use it on... was early in the game so I know those two points are only two points and in the fourth quarter 2 points are worth 17.5 points.

Those are weird plays because by the letter of the law, that's probably a goaltend. On the one replay they showed it looked above the cylinder. But almost no ref would call that in live play because it's a good basketball play. You see a similar thing on out of bounds calls when a player gets all arm/hand and no ball but it's not out on him.

I want to say the best use of challenge is actually on AND1 opportunities, despite failures. On replay review refs can easily take away continuation because the letter of the law has very strict rules. Counts as a failure, but you take the points away and it's side out.

Honestly, I'm just annoyed at players spinning their fingers every whistle lol. Benching players for being in foul trouble is much worse than not challenging IMO, but no thread about that. Quin used to be very quick to pull guys for foul trouble. 2 fouls in the second quarter, 3 fouls in the third ect.

 

[infection]

There is the concept of the meta-game that applies here.

In the board gaming community, meta-game considerations are often considered at best something you don't really discuss, and at worst in very poor taste. If I make a deal with player A, they are not supposed to ask for considerations outside the game. They might or might not consider my previous history of honoring my deals, but it would be very rude for Player C to pipe in with comments on my trustworthiness or lack thereof.

Coaches that challenge too frequently will strain the meta-game aspect. It's going to annoy referees.

If we have data on coaching challenges from previous seasons, and we see Snyder challenges less/the same as/more than other coaches, that's an interesting discussion. Simply tracking game-by-game, not so much.

I think those are fair points to a degree. My issue is with the eyeball test saying that Quin never challenges, even when it's obvious, and he's waived off obvious ones previous to this season. I don't have any data on how often a challenge is used, and while tracking game-to-game may not tell us anything at any given point, it's the only way I can get data as the season progresses, so at the end of the season we can compare two things that I'll be keeping track of here: how often Quin challenges and how often our opposition challenges. Thus far, Quin has not challenged in 6 games. Our opposition has challenged in at least 3 (and that's because I haven't kept track so I don't recall if there was a challenge in the Minnesota or OKC games.

 

[LogGrad98]

Ok I did the analysis. Here you go:

Last season there were 632 total challenges. 280 were successful for a 44% success rate. I found a PDF with the data and the summary. It broke out that out of bounds plays were most successful and foul calls were least successful, at something like 39% success rate to overturn a foul call. Goaltending was in between.

TOR had the most total with 45 challenges, and they had a 42% success rate with 19 successful challenges. They were followed by HOU with 34 (50% success), SAC at 28 (54%), BOS at 28 (46%), and ORL at 27 (56%) to round out the top 5.

MEM had the fewest at 3?! But 2 of them were successful for the highest success rate at 67%.

UTA was tied with MIL at 16 total challenges, which was the 5th fewest (as in 24 other teams made more challenges than we did, only 4 made fewer). We had 6 successful at 38% success rate. For comparison, MIL had 7 successful at 44%.

The others in the bottom 5 (other than MIL who tied with us, so there are 6 technically in the bottom 5 spots) were MEM at 3 (67%), NOP with 11 (18%, only 2 successful), CHI at 14 (43%), and CHA at 15 (40%).

The highest success rate for a team that was actually using the challenges was DET, with 13 out of 21 successful for a 62% rate.

I would be curious to see how this correlates with officiating data, such as the last 2 minute reports, but I do not know where to find a summary of those, as you sadly have to look at each game separately.

 

[Handlogten's Heros]

Those are weird plays because by the letter of the law, that's probably a goaltend. On the one replay they showed it looked above the cylinder. But almost no ref would call that in live play because it's a good basketball play. You see a similar thing on out of bounds calls when a player gets all arm/hand and no ball but it's not out on him.

I want to say the best use of challenge is actually on AND1 opportunities, despite failures. On replay review refs can easily take away continuation because the letter of the law has very strict rules. Counts as a failure, but you take the points away and it's side out.

Honestly, I'm just annoyed at players spinning their fingers every whistle lol. Benching players for being in foul trouble is much worse than not challenging IMO, but no thread about that. Quin used to be very quick to pull guys for foul trouble. 2 fouls in the second quarter, 3 fouls in the third ect.

I think the best are plays where it is a 3 shot foul or charge/block where it might reverse a foul and a basket.

IDK on the foul thing... if its Rudy then by all means pull him... if he can't be aggressive on D then whatever. I think we pulled Favs with 3 in the first half the other night and I was puzzled.

I think the difference is you don't have an opportunity to play a guy through foul trouble every night. You should have an opportunity to challenge a call every night.

 

[campaignist]

I think the problem is that coaches are hesitant to change - so many coaches refuse to go for it on 4th and 1 despite so much evidence saying it's effective and often worth the risk. Look how long it took the league as a whole to realize a three is worth more than a two.

Really, it can be such a game changer, and the penalty for losing is so minimal, that it's mind boggling calls aren't challenged more often. I remember the first time I saw a successful challenge was when a charging call for Giannis was overturned - your star player needs to stay out of foul trouble no matter what. Were I a coach, that would be my main focus for challenges.

All you get for losing is one fewer time out, and more often than not coaches go the entire game without using it. In essence, a challenge is still a timeout because you can still do everything you would in a timeout while it's being challenged.

So silly.

 

[KqWIN]

I think the best are plays where it is a 3 shot foul or charge/block where it might reverse a foul and a basket.

IDK on the foul thing... if its Rudy then by all means pull him... if he can't be aggressive on D then whatever. I think we pulled Favs with 3 in the first half the other night and I was puzzled.

I think the difference is you don't have an opportunity to play a guy through foul trouble every night. You should have an opportunity to challenge a call every night.

Fouls are just too difficult to challenge because if you can challenge it, a call was make. If they go to review and there's a pinky touching the jersey, it's a foul. Maybe in block/charge situations where it's black and white on the circle..

As far as the foul thing, Rudy shouldn't play less aggressive with fouls. He should just play. If you think it's silly to save a challenge for later (it is), it is silly to save a player for fouls later. Points count the same in each quarter.

I don't think there's always an opportunity to challenge. Success rate is already pretty low. If coaches challenged even more, the success rate on the additional challenges is likely significantly worse. It stands to reason that the situations in which coaches do challenge are the most obvious/best situations for them.

And once again. I said this at the start. I'm really biased against this whole thing because I hate replay review. I hate players twirling their fingers. I also hate fans crying about every call wanting to challenge. I never disputed that Quin should challenge more, but I really do prefer my basketball without them.

 

[infection]

You consider it a victory in this thread when a coach challenges and fails. You also gave two specific examples of situations where Quin would challenge for the sake of challenging that you would be happy with. When failure is a victory, it is no longer about trying to help the team win.

I don't know how to belabor a point, but if you're really referencing me being excited about Quin challenging an 8 second violation that's obviously an 8 second violation, or challenging Gobert fouling someone by throwing them into the stands as examples of me wanting Quin to challenge "just to challenge," then I'm afraid you've sorely missed the point.

I'm also on the other side of the fence as far as "backing up" your players. When this was very young team, Quin didn't want his team to complain about calls. That has waned over the years, but I'm still glad he did it. I can't imagine how much Rudy would complain if Quin let it fly his whole career. I really do not think having your players believe that the refs are out to get them is a good thing. There is no field of work or study where people improve by deflecting responsibility.

That second part is a gut feeling, but I really don't see why basketball would be different from anything else. If anything, it's more important for basketball players to control what they can control and not let their egos take over.

You could certainly take that approach, but in any of the legitimate beefs I've detailed, it's been for obvious plays that are overturnable (like an out-of-bounds call) or when a key call is controversial that will have game-impact is made (such as your star player picking up their 4th foul early in the 3rd). If those kind of things are fueling players egos to the point of destroying the fabric of the integrity of the game, well... okay. As far as having a player's back, I think there are some really good opportunities for this, such as an out-of-bounds call. If a player says "hey, I didn't touch the ball at all," that's a lot less subjective. Sure, they could be wrong, but one of these calls that I complained about in the OKC game was in the 4th where both Gobert and Clarkson knew they didn't touch the ball, and the live play was obvious that the OKC player came in and tossed the ball out of bounds. Your players being confident they didn't touch the ball is something that's not likely to be very subjective on review, and those calls are overturned 3/4 of the time. In that scenario, they came down the other end of the floor and hit a 3.

Honestly, I'm just annoyed at players spinning their fingers every whistle lol. Benching players for being in foul trouble is much worse than not challenging IMO, but no thread about that. Quin used to be very quick to pull guys for foul trouble. 2 fouls in the second quarter, 3 fouls in the third ect.

Protecting players from foul trouble is one of my most-voiced complaints regarding this.

And if you're sick of seeing players spinning their fingers with every play, then that's an argument to use the challenge as early as possible so they can't do it again. (Don't take this too literally. It's just a joke. Kind of.)

 

[Handlogten's Heros]

I think the problem is that coaches are hesitant to change - so many coaches refuse to go for it on 4th and 1 despite so much evidence saying it's effective and often worth the risk. Look how long it took the league as a whole to realize a three is worth more than a two.

Really, it can be such a game changer, and the penalty for losing is so minimal, that it's mind boggling calls aren't challenged more often. I remember the first time I saw a successful challenge was when a charging call for Giannis was overturned - your star player needs to stay out of foul trouble no matter what. Were I a coach, that would be my main focus for challenges.

All you get for losing is one fewer time out, and more often than not coaches go the entire game without using it. In essence, a challenge is still a timeout because you can still do everything you would in a timeout while it's being challenged.

So silly.

I think if we had a set of rules that dictate when to use a challenge you could have a coach track it... Hell maybe make a young player so they are paying attention to the game. Maybe you save it for the second half unless:

- It saves a key player from foul trouble.
- Can reverse a charge that takes away or adds a basket.
- Is on a three point shot so has a higher value.

Second half save it for a key play or call that you believe is wrong regardless of rules.

I also don't think we have worked the refs like we need to. We are generally trying the nice guy ****, but the squeaky wheel tends to get the grease. I'd also have the refs go to the video every time a guy got hit in the face. In slow mo it almost always looks like a hostile act worthy of a tech or flagrant foul.

I'd prefer if it wasn't the players doing the whining.... but Luka, Trae, Harden, are the guys who get the best whistle in the league imo and they are whiny AF.

 

[infection]

I think the problem is that coaches are hesitant to change - so many coaches refuse to go for it on 4th and 1 despite so much evidence saying it's effective and often worth the risk. Look how long it took the league as a whole to realize a three is worth more than a two.

Really, it can be such a game changer, and the penalty for losing is so minimal, that it's mind boggling calls aren't challenged more often. I remember the first time I saw a successful challenge was when a charging call for Giannis was overturned - your star player needs to stay out of foul trouble no matter what. Were I a coach, that would be my main focus for challenges.

All you get for losing is one fewer time out, and more often than not coaches go the entire game without using it. In essence, a challenge is still a timeout because you can still do everything you would in a timeout while it's being challenged.

So silly.

This. When the context is viewed, there's no argument against it. The only arguments that can be made against more liberal use of the challenge are arguments that only work in a vacuum.

 

[Handlogten's Heros]

I think we can all agree that it really sucks that there is so much subjectivity to officiating and how much of an impact it can make on a game. I wish they'd just get rid of the charge.. pick up ball has survived without it. Sidebar if you want to see a fist fight then call a charge in pickup ball and see the reaction. I wish they'd find ways to outlaw unnatural foul seeking behavior. It'd be great if they also did something more than fine flops and contact exaggeration.

I'd love the game to be as pure as possible and think the ability to trick referees should not be rewarded as handsomely as it is.

 

[One Brow]

Ok I did the analysis. Here you go:

Last season there were 632 total challenges. 280 were successful for a 44% success rate. I found a PDF with the data and the summary. It broke out that out of bounds plays were most successful and foul calls were least successful, at something like 39% success rate to overturn a foul call. Goaltending was in between.

TOR had the most total with 45 challenges, and they had a 42% success rate with 19 successful challenges. They were followed by HOU with 34 (50% success), SAC at 28 (54%), BOS at 28 (46%), and ORL at 27 (56%) to round out the top 5.

MEM had the fewest at 3?! But 2 of them were successful for the highest success rate at 67%.

UTA was tied with MIL at 16 total challenges, which was the 5th fewest (as in 24 other teams made more challenges than we did, only 4 made fewer). We had 6 successful at 38% success rate. For comparison, MIL had 7 successful at 44%.

The others in the bottom 5 (other than MIL who tied with us, so there are 6 technically in the bottom 5 spots) were MEM at 3 (67%), NOP with 11 (18%, only 2 successful), CHI at 14 (43%), and CHA at 15 (40%).

The highest success rate for a team that was actually using the challenges was DET, with 13 out of 21 successful for a 62% rate.

I would be curious to see how this correlates with officiating data, such as the last 2 minute reports, but I do not know where to find a summary of those, as you sadly have to look at each game separately.

This is a great start. Preliminarily, it looks like Snyder can, and perhaps should, make more frequent use of his challenges.

 

[One Brow]

I wish they'd just get rid of the charge.. pick up ball has survived without it.

Pro ball would have professional athletes ramming at full speed into stationary targets that aren't even allowed to lean forward to help absorb the impact. Concussions galore.

 

[LogGrad98]

This is a great start. Preliminarily, it looks like Snyder can, and perhaps should, make more frequent use of his challenges.

I think he should be in the top third.

 

[Handlogten's Heros]

Pro ball would have professional athletes ramming at full speed into stationary targets that aren't even allowed to lean forward to help absorb the impact. Concussions galore.

Could still have a dislodging call... like in the post if you run a guy over.

Its very simple... instead of trying to stand in front of people and then fall down while underneath them, which endangers the charge taker, the driving player, and the guys standing behind both guys... they would simply make a play to block the shot. The guys are already driving hard... not incentivizing people to stand limp in front of those driving players will lead to a lot less collisions. At very least move the charge circle out a few feet... again take away the incentive to get under guys.

Reward guys for basketball plays.

 

[One Brow]

Could still have a dislodging call... like in the post if you run a guy over.

Its very simple... instead of trying to stand in front of people and then fall down while underneath them, which endangers the charge taker, the driving player, and the guys standing behind both guys... they would simply make a play to block the shot. The guys are already driving hard... not incentivizing people to stand limp in front of those driving players will lead to a lot less collisions. At very least move the charge circle out a few feet... again take away the incentive to get under guys.

Reward guys for basketball plays.

My understanding is the difference between dislodging and a charge is the motion of the player on offense, not defense.

I played my share of pick-up ball, and took my share of charges at it. I just didn't let myself get knocked over. Stopping the driver is a basketball play.

 

[Handlogten's Heros]

My understanding is the difference between dislodging and a charge is the motion of the player on offense, not defense.

I played my share of pick-up ball, and took my share of charges at it. I just didn't let myself get knocked over. Stopping the driver is a basketball play.

Did you call a charge?

 

[One Brow]

Did you call a charge?

Nope. I also didn't hit the floor. Pick-up ball has it's own trade-offs,

 

[Handlogten's Heros]

Nope. I also didn't hit the floor. Pick-up ball has it's own trade-offs,

Then you didn't take a charge fella... it would work the same way in the regular game. Joe Ingles does it all the time... he will stand in the way of the guy and take it in the chest but because he doesn't go limp and fall its somehow not a violation. Reward guys just playing and not guys acting.

Moving in front of a guy and taking contact is a basketball play... standing limp in front of a guy and falling over for no reason is trying to bait the refs for a call and is not a basketball play. I'm telling yall... we'd be better off with no "charge" call and just naming it dislodging. Guys would adjust and the game would be better.