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According to RAPM Millsap was the 7th best player in the league

What stat do you find more reliable, and please don't say PER.

What's the standard for "reliability"? Do you have a non-subjective one?

+/- and adjusted +/- are highly variable, but they do not build in subjective biases. RAPM does, in it's expectations of year-to-year consistency.
 
Right, because our young guys definitely have shown, or spoken, no interest in winning games in a season that many say they should just take it easy on. Similarly, our young players have continuously shown zero effort on the defensive end, and mimic the same 'losing-basketball' characteristics surrounded in infamy among Jazz fans due to one Al Jefferson


/sarcasm
eh? What players say is of very little value. I agree that Gordo and Kanter have shown plenty of competitiveness thus far. We'll see how they perform when given greater responsibility.


And you're a socially-awkward narcissist . I'm just glad that my idiocy doesn't leave me prone to unprovoked name calling, particularly in basketball conversations when you offer no points yourself.


Just being honest. I think you know I've never had a problem with you-- but the reverse does not seem to be the case
I was going to delete the last part of my post, but got caught up doing some other **** and didn't get back to it in time. Sorry.

With that said, as NAOS has already stated, Millsap's inconsistency is generally overstated by the "iso scoring is the only thing that matters" crowd (hooray for ****ty box score and advanced stats!). Take a look at the conference finalists from this past season (hell, consider the recent relatively successful Deron/Boozer Jazz teams...). 5 man basketball is winning basketball in today's NBA. Millsap is one of the best team basketball players at the 4 in the league. There's a reason why he performs well in virtually all individual "advanced" statistics (no matter how flawed they are) and his teams do much better when he's on the floor than off.
 
If Millsap was the 7th best player in the NBA, he wouldn't have gone to Atlanta on a 2 yr 19 mil contract. Every front office evaluates players for a living and for the most part they are damn good at it. So why is the 7th best player in the NBA getting paid less than 10 mil a year for only 2 years? Either every front office is incredibly stupid, or Millsap is nowhere near the 7th best player in the league.
 
eh? What players say is of very little value. I agree that Gordo and Kanter have shown plenty of competitiveness thus far. We'll see how they perform when given greater responsibility.

Kewl.

I was going to delete the last part of my post, but got caught up doing some other **** and didn't get back to it in time. Sorry.

Apology NOT accepted. Might change my mind if you send me over some of your magical beard-growing ointment. Just PM'd you my address.

With that said, as NAOS has already stated, Millsap's inconsistency is generally overstated by the "iso scoring is the only thing that matters" crowd (hooray for ****ty box score and advanced stats!).

I wouldn't consider myself a part of this crowd. Millsap is obviously a much better building piece than Jefferson. One is a versatile player that can fit in an elite offense, and the other is Al Jefferson.

Take a look at the conference finalists from this past season (hell, consider the recent relatively successful Deron/Boozer Jazz teams...). 5 man basketball is winning basketball in today's NBA.

I whole-heartedly agree. I don't think any of my points made in this thread go against that.


Millsap is one of the best team basketball players at the 4 in the league. There's a reason why he performs well in virtually all individual "advanced" statistics (no matter how flawed they are) and his teams do much better when he's on the floor than off.

And here is where I would disagree. It is of my opinion that both Favors and Kanter will grow to become better players at the 4 than Millsap. Hence, I would assume that Millsap would have excelled as a third big, had he taken the Jazz contract a year ago. In fact, he would probably be the best third big in the league. He would flourish in a Manu-type role. The Milwaukee game comes to mind, when him and Kanter pushed the Bucks to overtime (after Favors was benched in the 4th after dropping 23 and 15 or w/e).


I would have been okay with retaining Millsap, if all three of our bigmen averaged >27mpg. But with Favors and Hayward needing extensions, and with Kanter Burks and Burke to follow-- I completely understand why the Jazz FO made the decision they did.
 
The very notion that these statistics are expected to be consistent year-to-year is subjective. If a statistic is wildly variable in consecutive years, that you can reduce that somewhat by considering multiple years, but adjusting an individual year based on previous years is a subjective influence.
Fair. As assumptions/corrections go, players progressing gradually/having a fairly consistent impact from year to year seems reasonable. The large standard error in adjusted +/- renders comparisons across players/positions/teams fairly meaningless; this correction/assumption helps (provided you think it's reasonable).

What I like about +/- statistics in general is that, unlike box score stats and the "advanced" stats derived from them, +/- attempts to measure what should be measured: How a player's presence on the floor affects his team's chances of outscoring their opponent/winning the game. Basketball is not baseball, where one player faces another, virtually independent of what the other players on the opposing teams are doing. Basketball is played with 10 players on the court who all affect the outcome of most possessions in some way. With the STATS, inc. cameras now in every arena, we'll soon have much better metrics to measure the absolute and relative value of the play of players without the ball, who are mostly ignored by box score statistics despite representing 90% of the play on the court.
 
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If Millsap was the 7th best player in the NBA, he wouldn't have gone to Atlanta on a 2 yr 19 mil contract. Every front office evaluates players for a living and for the most part they are damn good at it. So why is the 7th best player in the NBA getting paid less than 10 mil a year for only 2 years? Either every front office is incredibly stupid, or Millsap is nowhere near the 7th best player in the league.

Hey numbnuts, nobody is saying that Millsap is the 7th best, PERIOD. Instead, they are looking at a stat that values him highly, and are talking about his merits. He was the best all-around player on the team the past couple of years, and it's like squeezing blood out of a turnip to get dudes around here to appreciate.

It's not often that your team has a solid guy who you can trust to make the right bball play. You won't see much of that next year.

But milsap2short4ballslols
 
Millsap is better at basketball that matters in any context. Jefferson blows, so it's really not that wild a proclamation. Just want to make that clear.

Millsap is obviously a very good basketball player and some Jazz fans will continue to get their feelings hurt and take things personally for bizarre reasons.
 
And here is where I would disagree. It is of my opinion that both Favors and Kanter will grow to become better players at the 4 than Millsap. Hence, I would assume that Millsap would have excelled as a third big, had he taken the Jazz contract a year ago. In fact, he would probably be the best third big in the league. He would flourish in a Manu-type role. The Milwaukee game comes to mind, when him and Kanter pushed the Bucks to overtime (after Favors was benched in the 4th after dropping 23 and 15 or w/e).


I would have been okay with retaining Millsap, if all three of our bigmen averaged >27mpg. But with Favors and Hayward needing extensions, and with Kanter Burks and Burke to follow-- I completely understand why the Jazz FO made the decision they did.
A lot of fans seem to be of the opinion that their young players will inevitably "get it" in the near future. I've only been following the NBA for 10 years, but growth in understanding of/feel for the game seems to be slow/low in general.

With Kanter, it's his development in the "feel" department that will determine his impact as a player. In terms of skills and physical tools, he looks better than Marc Gasol and Nikola Pekovic. Whether he figures out how to play the game and deal with the NBA schedule remains to be seen.

Favors will never be as versatile/effective an offensive player as Millsap. His floor is already a decent starter/defensive anchor (foul trouble notwithstanding). It'll be interesting to see if he and the team figure out how to make him a net plus on offense.

I agree that a super 6th man role might be the perfect spot for Millsap (more Lamar Odom than Manu). It'll be interesting to see how Atlanta handles their big man rotation.

And yes, the FO's decision on Millsap makes sense, although keeping him may have ended up better for all parties, as Millsap may have had more value in trades than that cap space. I tend to be fairly risk averse, so I have no problem with the team acquiring longterm assets (the picks) in favor of keeping a player who's unlikely to be around when the team is ready to contend.
 
You can throw whatever stats out there based on any formula the author perceives as the right one, but it doesn't change the simple fact that we saw Millsap play, saw him not play well and saw him sign elsewhere for more money than we would or ever should have given him.

Because offering a max extension of $25/3 is so much less than $19/2? Jazz wouldn't have hesitated to up it to $9.5/year had the CBA allowed it.
 
You're an idiot.

In a league where Elton Brand went for $2mm and now $4mm? Interesting stat, Elton Brand is listed at 6'8", and is now Millsap's backup.

One year after Portland stole Hickson for $4mm, Denver does even better locking him up for $16/3. That's the kind of contract I want for a third big. If it weren't for the tank the Jazz should have gone after him this summer. They had enough money.
 
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