Pick and Scroll
Nathan Begley | Wednesday, May 19, 2010 at 10:18AM Your daily (Mon-Fri) roundup of links from around the blogosphere, typically Trail Blazers related.
• Adrian Wojnarowski dropped a bomb on twitter last night claiming that Portland is gunning for the third or fourth pick in the draft. To say something like that to Portland fans is the equivalent of handing a junkie a baggie of crack (I hear Ezra Ace has some). LET THE WILD SPECULATION COMMENCE!
• In reaction to AWoj’s column, Sean Meagher of OregonLive.com asks will the Blazers be “moving on up”? Well, first off, let us look at the “why.” TrueHoop Network sister site Eight points, Nine Seconds crunches the numbers on the value of a draft pick. It looks like players picked in the top three are much more likely to become good-to-great NBA players than those picked in the twenties, but you knew that. Players picked around the area Portland is rumored to be targeting are more likely to become a solid starter or even an all-star. So when we think about trades, it’s important to not just view the pieces in terms of “Would you trade player X for a rookie?” The question is actually something more like “Would we trade player X for a starter and possible all-star?”
• Now, let’s look at just who Portland might be targeting. The players most likely to represent a value in this range are Derrick Favors, DeMarcus Cousins, Al-Farouq Aminu, and Wesley Johnson. I can’t imagine Cole Aldrich or Greg Monroe going that high at this point in the draft. However, if Portland can consolidate talent with a trade up to the third or fourth pick and then trade back down to say… eighth, and get the player they want plus some value to make up for trading to third, then maybe those players factor in. Ockham’s Razor would suggest that the Blazers want someone at three or four, however, Ockham was not consulted when the Collective Bargaining Agreement was drafted.
• Today we’ll look at what seems to me to be the most obvious candidate, Wesley Johnson. Here is his DraftExpress profile and his NBAdraft.net profile . Chad Ford says that Johnson is an athletic swingman who can shoot, run the floor and rebound. He may not have star potential, but Ford thinks Johnson can come in and immediately contribute.
My take: A long, athletic shooter with a quick release and good separation? I’ll take him and give him all of Martell Webster and Rudy Fernandez’s minutes. Both Johnson and Nicolas Batum can play and defend multiple positions, run the floor, and stroke it from deep. While there is significant overlap, I think both players can play at the same time. Especially with a playmaker like Andre Miller or Brandon Roy on the floor or a player like Jerryd Bayless who can create penetration. The only question is, at what cost? The first transaction I could think of off the top of my head was Andre Miller, Jerryd Bayless, Rudy Fernandez, and the 22nd pick for Devin Harris and the 3rd pick. Then, presumably Portland would target a backup point guard with the Mid Level Exception. That’s a high price, but Portland is left with a starting lineup of Harris, Roy, Batum, Aldridge, and Oden with Camby, Johnson, and the MLE point guard on the bench. Would that trade be worth it? Do you have a better idea? Let us know.
• If you’re Kevin Pritchard and you know this may be your last draft, do you go all-in? To mix sports metaphors, if Pritchard is at bat with a 3-2 count, why not swing for the fences?
• SJ from often-linked Rip City Project reviews Jeff Pendergraph for OregonLive’s “You be the GM” series.
• Dave Deckard of BlazersEdge, ever conscious of the economic recession, gives real value for your time with a combination Pendergraph and Przybilla season review.
• Wendell Maxey’s story on former Blazer turned bus driver Shaler Halimon made ESPN’s page 2.
• Finally Dave Berri doesn’t think John Wall is very good, and then questions Derrick Rose as the number one pick in 2008. Things like this are why I don’t take Berri seriously, Rose as a cautionary tale? Really? Berri’s metric doesn’t pass the laugh test. It’s useful for discovering ultra-efficient big men, but otherwise is not very helpful.
Reader Comments (16)
A 2-3 count is a strikeout.
Noted and corrected. Thanks, Barry.
Hey Blazers brass, just in case you're reading this: KEEP KEVIN PRITCHARD! Not just until the draft is over, either. For keeps. If Paul Allen needs to fire someone, make it Bert Kolde or whatever psycho started this mess with firing Tom Penn!
IF KEVIN PRITCHARD GOES, MANY OF US BLAZER FANS GO TOO.
And yes, I'm using "all caps" on purpose.
I like any scenario that nets the Blazers Devin Harris. (Pun intended). And if the Nets are dealing the #3 pick, maybe the Blazers should think about flipping that to Minnesota for the rights to Ricky Rubio.
Rose is a low-efficiency scorer who can't hit from distance, has a mediocre assist to turnover ratio, and has failed to carry a decent supporting cast anywhere. In the 2 dozen or so times I've seen him play, he strikes me as a player that *looks* great, but the results seem to support Berri's assessment. He seems like an average starting point guard to me.
Rose's numbers look great because he led the nba in minutes per game and was third in shot attempts. Berri's metrics gauge efficiency. I'm not saying his system is perfect, but it's better than rating players based on their per-game totals. Rose really is remarkably overrated.
There is absolutely no way the Blazers front office could hesitate if the Devon Harris trade suggested was actually offered. Hell, throw in Martell too.
Berri's system evaluates Rose pretty accurately, as the above posters described. Low-efficiency, looks better because he's high-usage, high-minutes, and very athletic. Part of that could be attributed to Del Negro's crappy offense and its focus on long twos, who knows.
I have two real issues with Berri's system, and one caveat.
One, he overvalues defensive rebounds. This is because of the diminishing returns of defensive rebounding prowess. If you put a lineup together whose combined dreb% is really high, that lineup's actual percent will be somewhat lower. Also a very low d-reb'ing lineup will perform somewhat better. I've seen an empirical study on this using lineup data.
Two, it doesn't include defense, besides blocks and steals. Obviously a common problem. It's still an accurate predictor.
The caveat is that players can get more efficient if their usage rates drop (I have seen a study on this using player-data as well, again, have no idea where).
Personal I really like WP48, but it overvalues good defensive rebounders and undervalues good defenders. It's still way way way way way better than PER.
If you think that Rose is a bad player, you did not watch last year's playoffs when Rose basically matched Rondo as a rookie. He gets to the cup easily and as Rondo has shown you can get better at shooting. However, you can't get better at being athletic though.
As far as Harris I will refer any who think that's a good idea to the whole "efficiency" argument. The guy hasn't met a shot he didn't like.
Rose has skills, but he doesn't necessarily produce efficiently. He CAN, for periods of time, but not over a long time.
And I agree, Harris is fairly inefficient, but the hope is that as a third or fourth option he'd get more efficient. Personally I'm fine with Miller, and let Bayless try as a full time backup next year.
Whilst WP48 isn't the be all and end all, as others have noted with respect to overvaluing defensive rebounds and failing to adequately gauge a players defensive contributions beyond stats which appear on the box score (see Shane Battier) I believe it is a far better assessment of a player's output than any other metric.
Berri hasn't actually claimed that Rose or Wall are bad players, only that they are above average, which when considering their turnover rates and their relatively low assist rates rather than simply relying on their ability to score (albeit inefficiently), is a fair assessment. The "Black holes" of Basketball including Monta Ellis and the like have shown that a player will get paid if he shows the ability to jack up shots and score, it's up to the basketball community to get past standard and outdated methods of assessing player's contributions and engage with more sophisticated analyses. Berri's metric is by no means perfect but it's a good place to start
It's actually Occam's Razor...although i guess there is some unintentional irony in spelling it in the easiest, most phoenetic form.
@ Joe actually, either spelling is correct. Technically, the Franciscan friar was called "William of Ockham" and either spelling is accepted.
tiffany1837jewelry
tiffany1837co
tiffany jewellery
tiffany1837online
t925silvertiffany
iloveyou925
I think that to receive the credit loans from creditors you must have a firm motivation. However, once I have got a college loan, because I was willing to buy a house.
abercrombie london
Abercrombie and fitch london
Abercrombie fitch london
abercrombie & fitch london