theNBAnerd
Well-Known Member
oh and also: the season-ending portland game, because it was glorified exhibition and nobody that mattered played the 4th q anyway.
Seeing AL Objectively - SLCdunk article
- Thread starter Scorpjazz
- Start date
One way to provide rigor might have been "within ten points at the start of the fourth quarter" or "lead differential was smaller than the remaining minutes in the fourth quarter". You can't escape the arbitrariness, but you can get objective arbitrariness.
billyshelby
Well-Known Member
Kudos to nerd for all that work. My head would have exploded just adding up 3 quarters of every box score to see which games fit the parameters, much less combing through the play-by-play to get the nitty grity stats.
My only contention is with your assumption we could have relied on Paul more. Sap is not very good at creating his own shot. Complicating matters further, Devin's particular weakness as a PG is the drive and dish. And late in close games, most NBA teams put the ball in the hands of playmakers or guys who can get their own shot. We didn't have the former, we had the latter in Al.
An argument can be made we should have run more plays for Paul, though I don't think an argument can be made we didn't. The problem is if Paul can't get a shot off a play or pass, he's not likely going to create one. I'd also speculate Paul's higher percentages have a lot to do with that fact. It's not like Al was just hoisting glory shots otherwise his total shot attempts wouldn't be so equal to Paul's. But he did get the duty of making a shot when the offense couldn't get one, which is never going to be as high a percentage as an assisted one.
My only contention is with your assumption we could have relied on Paul more. Sap is not very good at creating his own shot. Complicating matters further, Devin's particular weakness as a PG is the drive and dish. And late in close games, most NBA teams put the ball in the hands of playmakers or guys who can get their own shot. We didn't have the former, we had the latter in Al.
An argument can be made we should have run more plays for Paul, though I don't think an argument can be made we didn't. The problem is if Paul can't get a shot off a play or pass, he's not likely going to create one. I'd also speculate Paul's higher percentages have a lot to do with that fact. It's not like Al was just hoisting glory shots otherwise his total shot attempts wouldn't be so equal to Paul's. But he did get the duty of making a shot when the offense couldn't get one, which is never going to be as high a percentage as an assisted one.
theNBAnerd
Well-Known Member
i thought about something like that... the only reason i didn't think it worth the effort is because then to apply is universally, i have to look at all 36 wins' quarter-by-quarter scoring in a very manual way. the way i generated the sample, i could immediately discard a 25-point win and be relatively sure it doesn't matter in a conversation about crunch-time 4th quarters. your way, i have to go in and manually check to make sure it wasn't an 11-point lead to start the quarter. even if a game like that DID have an 11-pt lead at 12 minutes left, that doesn't sound like a game that belongs in a "clutch" study to me.
i guess what i applied, truthfully was "final margin </= 15, with margin of single digits for at least half the 4th quarter." is that enough objective arbitrariness?
again, i don't want to overthink the study to the point where i put games in there that really don't belong. honestly, i think my sample was more than kind to jefferson, especially since the widest final margin was hands-down jefferson's best game. i easily could have ruled it out automatically because 15 was too wide a margin, but i knew that doing so would be counterproductive... the only reason that game was a 15-point game and not a 2-point game is precisely because of what al did between the 4 minute mark and the minute mark.
objectively, i feel pretty confident that my sample represents the games that were truly in the balance.
theNBAnerd
Well-Known Member
billy, synergy suggests that paul is just as effective as al at creating his own shot, and in some situations more so. i don't have access to synergy so i can't produce the numbers, but al is a much mroe versatile scorer.
billyshelby
Well-Known Member
I have no idea how synergy makes that evaluation, but there is no chance Paul is just as effective at creating his shot than Al is.
theNBAnerd
Well-Known Member
when al creates his own shot, he does it ONE way and has a PPS of barely over 1. peul can create his own shot out of the post, from the elbow, off the dribble. paul's better as the pick man in the pick and roll. he moves off the ball better. he cuts (i was going to say he cuts better than al, but the reality is that al never cuts).
I can appreciate that, and I'm sure you can appreciate why an analysis without that rigor is less convincing than one that at least starts with evey game and takes all the games with a set criteria.
theNBAnerd
Well-Known Member
again, my set criteria was that i looked at every game with a final margin of 15 or less, then looked to see if the margin was single digits for most of the quarter.
that's fairly objective, so i'm not sure how that's any less convincing.
would you like the sample better if the numbers said what you want them to? i'm not trying to be a dick with that question, i' would just honestly ask if it's that you disagree with my inclusion/exclusion of certain games or if you're just haggling with me on sample because the data backed up my original point.
billyshelby
Well-Known Member
Paul literally can't do anything you just said with any regularity. His ability to score on his own from any spot depends heavily on matchups. He is reasonably effective in the PnR and that's a weapon he can still develop. But make Paul start creating as many shots as Al does every night, and his PPS will plummet.
theNBAnerd
Well-Known Member
that's what everybody has assumed all throughout paul's career... only guess what... his attempts per 36 and his usage have climbed year-to-year all except once, and yet his TS% and eFG% have been remarkably consistent. his point per shot has been between 1.23 and 1.41 all six years in the league. his TS% by year is 57, 55, 58, 57, 58, 55.
i get all the reasons why people assume that "paul can't maintain his efficiency with more attempts," but he has defied that logic his entire career.
How many minutes is "most of the quarter"?
I'd like it better is you 1) looked at every game to see if it meets the criteria or not (some do get blown out late in the fourth quarter, and it only takes 7 consecutive points to from "less than 10" to "more than 15"), 2) set precise quanta to ("at least 6:01 with the difference in score being under 9"), and 3) stopped relying on your judgement for how close things are.
I don't have any particular attachment to Jefferson. If he's traded away before the season starts, I'll neither weep nor jump for joy (depending on the person being brought back, of course).
However, I will say that any time a survey or sample that I conduct confirms my original points, I take that as a sign I may be doing something wrong.