The benefits of Bassy
by Stop-n-Pop on Mar 8, 2009 9:41 AM CDT
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I know I said I was going to give a run-down on the last two games but I believe last night's tilt was more informative on several levels so I'm going to focus on that one instead. Besides, the game against the Lakers was just plain ugly.
During the last two games the Wolves, as a team, are carrying a -22 +/- with a 0-2 record. During his 59:58 on the court, Sebastian Telfair posted a +1 +/- with 36 points (on 12-25 shooting), 7 assists, and 5 turnovers. Even after a 9 game losing streak, Bassy is the only player on the team with significant minutes to have a neutral or positive +/- over the course of the season. He currently carries the 2nd highest adj +/- on the team. As we have made the case several times over the course of the season, more so than any other player not named Big Al Jefferson, Bassy is the straw that stirs the 2008/09 Wolves' drink.
During the Portland game, Bassy had the ball in his hands for a large chunk of the time he was in the game. When he wasn't on the ball, Mike Miller was running the point. When the 4th quarter rolled around, Bassy was on the bench with Randy Foye handling the on-the-ball duties. This lasted all of 2:12 minutes before an equally ineffective lineup of Miller, Kevin Love, Craig Smith, Rodney Carney, and Kevin Ollie was trotted out for the meat of the final quarter. It took all of about 10 seconds for the Blazers to trot out Joel Pryzbilla against the mini-lineup and for the Blazers to run an athletic, smaller "4" against either Love or Smith.
While all of this was going on, Bassy was on the bench; sitting there until there was 5:47 left in the game, when he was subbed in with Ryan Gomes and Foye. Even with Bassy in the game, the Wolves found themselves in a pickle when Foye was forced to initiate the offense. The most obvious flub came when Gomes set up for a pick and Foye picked up his dribble while initiating a pass in the general direction of Gomes...which was promptly picked off and taken the other way. The entire night was filled with problematic plays from Foye whenever he was charged with initiating the offense or creating something on his own from beyond the perimeter. I think we saw 2-3 step-back-on-the-line long 2s and his primary offensive move was to up fake his defender off his feet before jumping into him to draw the cheap foul.
When Bassy had the ball in his hands, the offense moved. Even when he went for his own, Bassy broke down the opposing defense and got into the lane or to an open spot on the mid-wing for a mid-range jumper. He spent the night getting pretty much what he wanted against Steve Blake and you knew that, with him in the game, the Wolves stood a chance with a higher pace and superior ball movement, i.e. things that McHale has been calling for since the injury. More so than any other player on the court, Bassy exposed one of Portland's biggest problems: it's point play.
Last night the Wolves got to see the full display of Blazer points; from the serviceable Blake to the questionable Sergio Rodriguez to the awful Jerryd Bayless, Our Beloved Puppies Zombies were able to count on their points (well, mostly Bassy) to get the job done against the competition. Blake is a nice player. He's a safe player. He's a limited player that doesn't offer a roster with as much flexibility and speed as the Blazers should have much of the same. He won't lose you a game on his own but he also won't stop his opposing point from allowing the tempo to be controlled or to dictate large chunks of the action. Rodriguez seems to be a streaky player who is comfortable playing with Rudy Fernandez. He's clearly not someone that can be entrusted with more than 20 mpg on the ball. As for Bayless, I think we all got a good look at why the guy has been on the bench for most of the year. In just under 7 minutes of play he logged 3 fouls and 2 blocked attempts while forcing everything that came near him. He also quickly became the target of aggressive pick-and-roll action on the defensive end of the court. Blazers fans, I can't tell you the last time the Wolves singled out an individual defender like this before. That, more than anything else, led to his short time on the court. He was obviously out of his element and didn't seem to have the first clue what he was doing out there. He's further away from the point than Randy Foye ever was....and that's saying something.
I'd like to go back to the 4th quarter rotations for a second. My knee-jerk reaction to seeing Bassy sit for so long (while a questionable rotation was on the court, no less) was to blame McHale for game mismanagement. On second thought, this simply wasn't the case. McHale had one of his better game management efforts last night. Outside of some Kevin Love business (more on that in a bit) he kept his team close and fresh with the limited resources on the bench. Of course he's the guy most responsible for having said limited resources on the bench, but that's another post for another day. McHale worked the refs for a few favorable calls, he had his team ready to play hard, and they came with a game plan that really fit the circumstances. Hell, they even had the shot they wanted with the guy they wanted taking it with time expiring.
Getting around to the Love business, the Big Piranha picked up 2 fouls in the first quarter and was not put back into the game until about 7 minutes to go in the 2nd quarter. Upon entering the game, he quickly picked up his 3rd foul and headed straight back to the bench for the remaining 6:40 of the half. After the half, he lasted all of 3:22 before picking up his 4th foul and sitting down until 9:37 remaining in the game. Over his last 10 games, Love is averaging 27.9 mpg. Last night he went for 24:55. Against the Lakers he went for nearly 35 minutes. Because of the fouls, Love lost at least 3 minutes of game time. He could have lost up to 10.
For the life of me, I will never get why coaches feel such a need to pull players with 3 fouls with so much time remaining in the half. Are the minutes leading up to the half any less valuable than the ones at the end of a game? Will the player with 3 fouls see more or less court time if you leave him out there with 3 fouls? Just how much of a liability would that player be on defense if you left him out there? Last night LaMarcus Aldridge went 2-14 from the floor. Love was fairly effective in staying between Aldridge and the bucket. Granted, Aldridge got to the line a ton, but he wasn't exactly making the Blazer offense tick. Last night, he was someone you wanted to see the Blazers run the ball through, not Brandon Roy. Anywho, this isn't a quibble with McHale so much as a philosophical belief that pulling guys with 3 fouls before the half isn't all it's cracked up to be.
Before I wrap this thing up with some final thoughts on Bassy, let me just ask this: how fun is it to watch Roy do his thing late in the game? He really has an amazing ability to slow things down and get to where he wants to go with a seemingly minimal effort. I think that in order for the Blazers to be a really upper-tier team, he needs to do so in a far greater share of the offense (I'm talking a LeBron, Kobe, D-Wade usage rate/%poss type of share) and, ideally, with a better point guard.
One of the most interesting things about last night's broadcast on League Pass was listening to Portland's announcers have a hard time getting their minds around what they were seeing on the court in Bassy. It probably extended to the crowd; you could almost see the thought bubble, "This guy was a Jail Blazer" float out over the court. Over at Dime Magazine there is a feature debating whether or not Bassy is a bust. The article also asks whether or not he is a serviceable NBA player at this point. I think Bassy is proving himself to be quite a serviceable player at this point in time. I really don't think guys like Steve Blake offer anything more than he does (Rodriguez and Bayless clearly don't) and should Bassy have the opportunity to play with superior talent at this point in his career, I think he would do even better. Whatever he is, he's not the worst rotation regular in the NBA. He's not a terrible point. His shot will probably always be broke but that doesn't mean he can't be effective. Is he a starting point in this league? Not next to Randy Foye. But could he be an effective starter with Foye coming off the bench while playing next to a large 2 guard? Steve Blake isn't Steve Blake without Brandon Roy. I doubt he'd be Bassy if he was next to Mr. Foye.
PS: I would be remiss if I didn't mention Gomes' monster game. Over at Blazer's Edge commenters were wondering who this Gomes character was. First of all, he's one of the best character guys in the league. He's also averaging about 18/6/2 over his last 10 games. He's one of those guys who can be a solid James Posey-type of player on a championship team. It will never cease to baffle me as to why Boston didn't make a run at him during free agency last year. If the Wolves ever turn things around, he will be a big reason why.
UPDATE: I forgot to mention this in the main article, but during last night's broadcast, the Portland announcers mentioned that Stan Love had some "interesting" things to say about Minnesota's management during a recent appearance on a Portland radio show. They were quick to point out that Love also gave some bad info concerning his son working out for the Blazers (they pretty much called him a liar) and a quick Google search for the elder Love turned up a story about him being sentenced to 5 years probation for embezzling $300,000 from his Beach Boy brother Mike. His other brother Steve actually saw some prison time for embezzling over $1 million from the group. Anywho, I couldn't find anything about the radio appearance and if any of our fine readers have any information on this subject, please drop me a line or leave something in the comments.
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Beautiful Post
While +/- has its flaws, I think it is useful in identifying players who are more effective than what they are generally given credit for. And when you find players that the market undervalues, you can build great teams. It wouldn’t surprise me one bit to see Mark Cuban make a play for Bassy this off-season.
The knee-jerk response among many fans who don’t watch the Wolves or Wolves fans who don’t really see basketball in a holistic way is that Bassy is a huge bust and that the Wolves cannot win with him as the starting PG, when there is a growing body of evidence that starting PG is not nearly the biggest problem. The truth is that one of the most over-hyped players in decades is now one of the league’s most underrated. It’s like an economic cycle where irrational exuberance leads to irrational loss of confidence on the other end.
And it makes no sense. Bassy was drafted 13th, which is exactly where a capable, rotation-caliber PG should be drafted.
Bassy is the PG equivalent of Shane Battier. For reasons that raw stats can’t reveal, he improves the play of the team. And this is now evident, game after game. It’s his pace and his ability to set up the offense, penetrate and the ball to the right spots so the Wolves end possessions with better shots. Last night, Mike Miller finally let Bassy play PG and the result is that Bassy wound up taking far fewer treys and the AJ-less Wolves came about six inches from beating a top-10 team on the road.
Imagine what...
… Bassy’s assist numbers would be if our spot-up shooters would shoot when he passes it to them. One thing that I have kept in mind all season long is that every other PG who puts a heater right on the money to an open shooter can count on at least a 45% chance at an assist. With Foye’s % and Miller’s abstinence, Bassy is looking more at a 45% chance he gets a Miller drive-and-kick bullet two feet above his head with 3 seconds on the shot clock as he stands 28 feet from the hoop.
And it's not even just that
K-Love botches nearly every feed they get around the basket. Sure Love gets to the line, but I’d say his inability to finish costs Bassy another 2 or 3 dimes per game that most PGs can count on. It’s really hard getting assists on a team that typically struggles to shoot 40% and where the best scoring threat fancies himself the primary dime dropper.
I'd disagree with this
Telfair doesn’t get drive and kick assists on the perimeter (though given his drive-and-dish ability, which I think is quite good, he gets them on the inside) because…well, if you’re Foye’s or Miller’s man, why in the world would you leave Foye or Miller to help on Telfair? Drive and kick on the perimeter occurs when you draw another guy’s man to yourself and hence get him an open shot; no defence worth its name would ever send Foye’s or Miller’s guy to help out on Telfair.
by plinytheelder on Mar 8, 2009 5:02 PM CDT up reply actions
Even on a non-show pick and roll?
Though I take your point that he’s not enough of a mid-range or close-range threat to free up more than the interior help-defender’s man.
What I mean
To clarify what I meant by +/- being useful…. everybody knows that Chris Paul, D-Will and Tony Parker will take your team to the next level. But those types of players don’t come around that often and you have to be able to find the gems on the discount rack when CP3 isn’t walking through that door. And, as you point out, if a guy logging a lot of minutes on a losing team has been a net plus over the entire season, chances are he’s one of the keepers. Randy Foye on the other hand is a guy the Wolves should look to move. Not because he stinks—he doesn’t—but because he could bring a lot more back and is every bit as replaceable as Bassy.
Is Bassy's +/-
more a reflection of the players he’s playing with as opposed to some Battier-esque talent and feel he has for the nuances of the game? He plays with a lot of guys incapable of creating their own offense on a consistent basis. So his ability to find the seams of the defense and get guys open looks is at a premium. I wonder if this gets mitigated to some degree once the talent around him rises to a higher level (of course, the opposite argument could be made too….put a bunch of slashers and athletes around him and perhaps this makes him even more of an asset). And if we ever get into a situation where we find ourselves in a playoff series again, which is much more of a halfcourt chess match, the opposing coach will make it his mission to ensure Bassy is the one taking the open jumpers. His lack of a jumper will exposed big time.
yeah I agree with much of this
it strikes me that Telfair has one of the easiest jobs in pro basketball. Don’t get me wrong by the way, I really like him as a player (despite what I think are his obvious limitations), I just think we should always keep certain things in mind when considering him. To wit: everyone on every other team in the league knows that Telfair has some serious offensive limitations: he’s a poor shooter, can’t really finish well around the basket, and now that Jefferson is out he can’t really take advantage of one of his strengths, his ability to drive and dish, since there’s no real finisher. This as opposed to guys like Miller and Foye, legitimate scoring talents on the perimeter, and Love, who’s now supposed to be our primary inside threat.
So when I say “easiest job in basketball,” what I mean is this: everyone expects Telfair to go out, be a nice quarterback, make a few nice drives and entry passes, and basically not to try to do too much. This as opposed to guys like Miller, Foye and Love: if these guys aren’t attacking when they have the ball, taking risks, etc., there’s no way the Wolves even stay in the game. If I’m any other team, I’m playing those guys tough, and basically using Telfair’s man as a center-fielder (I hope my complete lack of baseball knowledge hasn’t led me to use this metaphor incorrectly): help out on everyone else, pay token attention to Telfair when he has the ball. Maybe once a season it’ll be like the Miami game, where he makes everything and the Wolves win. I’ll take those odds over Foye or Miller burying me if I don’t send several guys at them.
by plinytheelder on Mar 8, 2009 2:44 PM CDT up reply actions
You make fair points about how his limitations can hurt
but the numbers indicate that not only does the team do better with Bassy on the floor than off it, but it also usually does better than the other team when Bassy is in. So I’d argue that Bassy’s limitations haven’t prevented him from being an effective PG.
Could the Wolves do better with a guy who is more of a threat to score? I think it depends. If he can do the things Bassy does and score, of course. But I don’t think any garden variety PG who can shoot 43% (i.e. Steve Blake, Ray Felton) would necessarily be a better value. Or for that matter, Ramon Sessions, whose Roland Rating is only slightly better that Bassy’s. Like Beno, he’s going to get twice as much as the $3 to 3.5M he’s probably worth as people tend to equate FG%, PER and assist passing with effective PG play.
Mike Miller can rack up assists, but he clearly can’t run an offense as well as Bassy.
by SFJ on Mar 8, 2009 3:19 PM CDT up reply actions
True
My argument falls a little flat in light of the fact his “gross” +/- is a +. We’re actually winning or staying even when he plays.
By the way, this was not at all the case last season, where it wasn’t until Foye came back for a few games from injury and then took over the starting PG slot that the team started playing better. Both our offense and defense was worse with Telair in the game versus not in the game last year. This year it is the exact opposite – even our defense is better with him in the game! May be he just needed a ton of reps to learn the nuances of the position and now we’re seeing the fruits of the hard knocks he took last season.
by Rascal Flatts on Mar 8, 2009 4:05 PM CDT up reply actions
Don't get me wrong, I like Telfair's game.
I’m glad he’s on the team, enjoy watching him play, etc. I especially admire what I’ve seen as a marked improvement in his game over last year, that’s always great to see. I just think it’s easy to fall into a trap of lauding a guy who’s basically the 4th or 5th option whenever he’s on the floor, when essentially, his role on offence is to facilitate other guys doing stuff. I find it interesting that, whether the Wolves win or lose, the line about Telfair is essentially the same. If they win, he was a great floor general. If they lose, well, he was a great floor general. This is pretty different for guys like, say, Foye and Miller. If the Wolves win, Foye was hitting shots, getting to the line, etc.; if they lose, he was out of control, taking bad shots. If they win, Miller was looking for his shot, playing smart ball; if they lose, he wasn’t looking for his shot enough. Another interesting thing about Telfair compared to those other guys: his instructions for what to do, on offence at least, are basically stated in the negative: don’t take too many shots, don’t be out of control when you go to the hole, don’t dribble the ball around too much, etc. As opposed to, again, Foye and Miller: shoot the damn ball, take it to the hole, attack. The problem for Foye and Miller, of course (I leave Love out of the equation but he could be included here too), is that when you’re always supposed to take risks, there’s more chance that you’ll screw up and look bad – especially when your best player’s not there and the D can totally key on you. It’s interesting that this plays out in almost exactly opposite ways: Foye’s tendency is to try to do too much, try to make plays that work when Jefferson’s on the floor (i.e. when the D has to play honest) but not as often when the D can focus on him; Miller’s tendency seems to be to try to do too little, not shoot enough because, when the D can key on him, there aren’t as many good shots to be had.
Who knows, maybe Telfair’s game, particularly his shooting, is simply improving. I’ve always thought he could be a good shooter, based on his form – though others at this site have argued the contrary in much smarter and more detailed ways, so I’m willing to admit that I might be wrong on this, probably am. It just seems to me that it’s relatively easy to look good if you don’t have to do too much – if your essential role on offence is to get other guys the ball, and if most of what you contribute is basically gravy. I guess this is oversimplifying things a bit, but like I said above, if I’m the opposing coach, I’ll give Telfair what he wants and take my chances – this is a far better option than having Miller bury you like he has throughout his career, or Foye bury you like he has several times this season, especially in Jan. when he was the teams second option (or let’s say option 1.1), and really starting to develop a chemistry with option 1.
by plinytheelder on Mar 8, 2009 4:05 PM CDT up reply actions
Great note on fouls.
I can see if you are in the NCAA tournament and you have a guy who is money under pressure you do everything you can to have him there for the last 5 minutes. If you are a 20 win NBA team who needs to teach a rookie how to play, minutes are minutes. When the guy is in a horrible matchup and can’t help himself from fouling then he is getting 20 minutes anyway you slice it and that sucks. But it is quite possible the guy just got unlucky so the law of averages will likely take hold and he’ll end up going a long stretch without a foul and you are back on track without messing with the guys rhythm.
Love isn’t learning a thing from the bench.
The Blazers traded Bassy to the Celtics for the Roy draft pick
So…I think that was a good move. One thing Blake offers that Telfair doesn’t is 3 point shooting. He looked good last night. but so do all point guards playing against the Blazers.
Karma
no, worst was his airball to kill all momentum in Denver
Q: Do you feel the city of Portland still wants you?
A: I know this team does, the organization does. Everybody else, I don't worry about that. We worry about our family right here (in the locker room). I know I got their back and I know they're behind me.
first quarter, and his first shot of the game
to me, clutch is doing it when it makes a difference
Q: Do you feel the city of Portland still wants you?
A: I know this team does, the organization does. Everybody else, I don't worry about that. We worry about our family right here (in the locker room). I know I got their back and I know they're behind me.
I'm not saying they..
..weren’t justified or smart by trading Bassy. He’s a different player now than he was back then. Off the court too.
The World's Leading Exporter of Small Area Quickness
www.canishoopus.com
The thing about Jarryd Bayless is nonsense
you absolutely have no idea what your talkin about.. your judging a rookeis whole carreer in his rookie year… and 7 min of play! are you kiddin me? have you seen the game against the nets? or the other games when blake was injured where he came in the game and braught us energy. He attacks the rim and can finnish their, hes not a first pass type of PG.Anyways i just think your still bitter about the Roy Foye trade
Oden...Aldridge...Roy.....THE REAL BIG THREE
Bayless attacks
And that’s what the Blazers want him to do. Sometimes he runs into a crowd, but that’s how it is.
I think the Blazers’ four rookies would be better judged in a year. Let’s see.
I usually agree with a lot of your analysis, but this one is pretty off. Have fun with Bassy
Even if he doesn’t pull stupid off court things again, he is vastly behind what people once hoped he would achieve. The last two seasons he had a PER of around 10 (in fact his whole career he was under 15 and usually under 10) and a TS% around 46.5. As you are well aware he is good at passing and doesn’t turn the ball over a lot, but shoots too much/too bad. In other words, he is a rich man’s Sergio who has the same age at a lower price (while Bassy isn’t overpaid). Maybe not even that, since Sergio has pretty good stats in more limited time and in a slower pace that doesn’t suit him well.
As for Bayless, the guy is a 20 year old rookie and that was one of his worst games of the season. Of course he is no instant star like Rose or Mayo, but with time he can improve a lot and become a valuable combo player next to a lead guard like Roy. He has all the necessary tools. On a bad team like OKC where he could start, he would soon have similar numbers to Westbrook. On the Blazers it will take him more time, but by all accounts he works very hard to improve and already looks impressive in training while still being nervous on the court at times. E.g. watch a recap of the game against New Jersey if you want a look into his future, where he held Devin Harris down and won the game for the Blazers. He ended up shooting 6-9 from the field, 11-11 from the line, 3 rebounds, 3 assists, only 1 turnover, scoring 23 points in 25 minutes.
Dunk of the night: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-OAPsB9vyM
He's vastly behind the hype of someone...
…who had a movie made about him, not as a serviceable point guard drafted at 13 out of high school. Also, Rodriguez is in his 3rd year and is scheduled for a qualifying offer of $2.3 mil in his 5th year, which is exactly what Bassy is making in his 5th year. He’s a poor man’s nothing at this point in his career. What he is is a different player than the one the Blazers drafted and the Celtics let go. He is what he is and he deserves a look beyond the hype….which is where he is becoming a very serviceable point who has many good years ahead of him.
I’m not basing my take on Bayless on 1 game. The guy doesn’t average 15 mpg and his numbers are terrible. He wouldn’t start on OKC. He wouldn’t start on the Wolves. I think the idea that he could put up numbers like Westbrook on a team like OKC is beyond off. You say he’s not an instant star like Rose or Mayo but then say that he has the juice to put up numbers on OKC like a guy who is putting up numbers that are as good if not better than Rose or Mayo….on OKC. That doesn’t make any sense.
It’s doubly interesting that you would make this comparison in light of what you said about Bassy and not living up to the hype. Here’s a season-to-season comparison of a 19 year old Bassy and a 20 year old Bayless:
Bassy:
19.6 mpg
12.5 pts/36
6.1 ast/36
.393 from the floor
.246 from 3
9.7 PER
Bayless:
13.9 mpg
13.6 pts/36
4.6 ast/36
.377 from the floor
10.3 PER
.259 from 3
Were any of these Bassy games a glimpse into the future during his rookie year?
http://www.basketball-reference.com/fc/pgl.cgi?player=telfase01&year=2005
How about this game where he almost identically matched Bayless’ performance against the Nets? He ended up shooting 7-12 from the field, 7-8 from the lin, 3 rebounds, 3 assists, only 1 turnover, scoring 23 points in 24 minutes.
I get that you guys like Bayless, but he’s shown about as much as Corey Brewer at this point. And no, that’s not good. Maybe someday he gets it, but you’re stretching to say that there is something in his stat sheet and on-court performance that suggests he could develop into a Mayo/Rose/Westbrook type player. That argument is even harder to make when you put it back in the context of me talking about how Portland needs a better point guard. I think the Blazers have 2 very nice rookies in Batum and Rodriguez (Oden is a 2nd year player). I think they got a bunch of nothing with Bayless. Of course, a lot of how he is being judged probably has something to do with hype and expectation. As someone who thinks Bassy deserves a second look beyond the hype and initial expectation, perhaps Bayless can come into his own a few years down the line. Right now, not so much.
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Westbrook is overhyped, Bayless is underhyped at the moment
Both are no true point guards. If they would switch spots (Bayless was supposed to go 4th to Seattle until just before the draft on many mock drafts), Bayless would likely play a little worse than Westbrook in OKC especially defensively but much more consistent and resulting in better numbers than now, and Westbrook would be no rookie of the year candidate on the Blazers as the backup or backup’s backup with limited playing time either.
Don’t know if you have seen it, but Kevin Pelton from Basketball Prospectus recently analyzed for BE which players were statistically most similar at that age to our current players. Here is Bayless’ comparison, which he admitted wasn’t perfect due to limited playing time and an outside shot that was more off than his form and college numbers would insinuate. Note that Bassy is in fact on the list and not all those guys are point guards :) Personally I think he will develop in the mold of Monta Ellis with less scoring yet more defense (which isn’t hard to imagine since Ellis is no good at that) and better point guard skills. Ideally a Gilbert Arenas or Tony Parker type, but probably not that good. We will see, but I highly doubt he will be the bust you seem to already see in him.
And here are Sergio’s comparisons. Not too shabby, albeit it’s hard to believe he will develop so good. Very likely not on this team with a slow pace.
http://www.blazersedge.com/2009/2/3/748430/kevin-pelton-s-stat-bomb-f
http://www.blazersedge.com/2009/2/4/749102/kevin-pelton-s-stat-bomb-s
As for Telfair, I’m not saying Bassy is a bad player, certainly not for a #13 pick or because he didn’t live up to the high school hype. But as you can see from his numbers he is still below average in PER and hasn’t really improved from last season or his sophomore season in many categories. He is only significantly better than he was for Boston.
I really don't know what to say at this point..
….I really value your input here and…well, I don’t know what to say to a statistical comparison that grades out Luke Ridnour with John Stockton and Gary Payton. I read both of those posts and I greatly admire the work of Kevin Pelton, but Pelton himself spells out the problems with Bayless’ numbers: his lack of minutes and drop in shooting percentage over what he should have projected out of college. I don’t know what there is to respond to there. I agree that Bayless is having a similar rookie year to Bassy; I pointed that out myself. But as far as projecting beyond this year, his record isn’t there; it isn’t there for projection or to say that he could be plugged in on an inferior team while putting up better numbers. He just hasn’t been good so far.
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I suppose 1 point of difference on those similarity scores is a pretty big difference. It’s just an interesting statistical tool to look at ceilings and comparisons for players instead of relying on what you think you see in a player. So far those scores just tell me it could go either way especially for the young guys, and we will have to look again in a year or two how similar they then are to great players of the past – or to mediocre ones. Which is basically what I wanted to say: Too early to come to a judgement about a player like Bayless.
There have been enough oddities with rookies in the recent past: Great players picked much too late in the draft, Kobe only making the All-Rookie Second Team, Okafor winning ROY over Howard, solid rookies disappearing from the front pages and having to settle into role player careers, and so on.
To get back to your analysis on the Wolves and Bassy, I didn’t see that reported here on Canis Hoopus but Mark Cuban’s “Z-Score” really likes him and Foye in their roles. However if that analysis was his reasoning for trading Harris and a ton of other assets for Kidd, I’m not sure he has found the holy grail of basketball stats yet :)
http://blogmaverick.com/2009/02/08/nba-all-stars-by-the-numbers/
it was brought up in the comments somewhere...
…and I don’t think anyone really took it all that seriously, as the main reason Bassy was pointed out was to make fun of the z-score.
I completely agree that it could go either way with guys like Bayless, Brewer, Bassy, and Batum. My argument would be that no one is saying that judgements of players can’t change. I thought that this was a fairly big theme in my writing about Bassy. Bayless can get better. I expect he will. However, right now…he’s terrible. Rookie or not, he’s not good. The Wolves went through a similar thing with Brewer last year. It sucks. Does that mean he will always be terrible? Maybe, maybe not. All I’m saying here is that Bayless is not having a good year, he is not currently a good player, his year-long stats show this to be a fairly accurate representation of who he is as a player, and last night’s game was a pretty solid example of why he hasn’t performed well: his shooting has been sub par, his feel for the game isn’t there, he doesn’t have a good sense of the offense, and he’s a glaring target on defense. I watched the Nets game. I have league pass and whenever someone busts out or has a game of note I typically watch it. I’ve seen him several times throughout the year and this isn’t a 1 game sort of reaction. But with the Nets game, you really have to ask yourself what is the bigger example of his play: 1 shining moment or a long string of underwhelming performances that seemingly everyone but Blazer fans can see as plainly as the clear blue sky?
BTW: Check out Pelton’s Westbrook stat card over at Basketball Prospectus:
http://basketballprospectus.com/card.php?id=westbru01
He’s the real deal and he has room for significant (and reasonable) improvement.
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I'm not super high on the OKC players yet like some pundits mainly because they are still a fairly bad team
But Westbrook is coming along nicely, no doubt about that. He even continues to improve his totals while Rose and Mayo seem to already have peaked for this year. His shot was bad at the beginning of the season, and now it’s adequate albeit his percentages have dropped again in February. He is also learning to get his turnovers down which are still a bit high but improving, and how to make those around him better while he learns the PG spot.
It was reported Pritchard was pretty high on Westbrook after he worked out for the Blazers. They didn’t work out Bayless, since they didn’t expect him to fall that far and were very happy when he did. And unless he gets a killer offer for a package including him in the summer, expect Bayless back in Portland next season. From our point of view, hopefully improving in all categories with more playing time like those other good rookies.
Is the word from McHale/the front office that they are happy with Telfair going forward as their future starter, or could you see them investing one of the picks in a point guard like Jennings/Curry/Collison (I’m not convinced Rubio will be in the draft in 09, much less come over immediately). Or is Foye as a point guard still an option?
There hasn't...
…been much in the way of public announcements about anyone’s future on the Wolves but you can read the tea leaves to know that Foye’s days at the point are numbered. They have gone out of their way since McHale took over to make sure he stays off the ball. They are running Mike Miller at the point rather than put Foye there.
My guess is that the new FO wants to get a sense of whether or not Foye can be a starting 2 in this league or if he is headed towards 6th man status. If they land anywhere in the top 3 of the draft, they will pick BPA regardless of position but beyond that, I think they have a big choice to make, especially if a big 2 guard is available. Tyreke Evans and Evan Turner in the 6-9 range present this team with some interesting options. It also depends on who they think they can get during the season with expiring contracts and additional assets. Glen Taylor has said that the economy is not going to affect the plan going forward and it is likely that Miller + Cardinal + Craig Smith + Pekovic and a pick could be moved for upwards of $20 mil in returning contracts without putting the team over the cap. In other words, they can cash someone out next year while maintaining a solid fiscal outlook. My ideal realistic outcome for them is to land Cole Aldrich, Nick Calathes, and either Evan Turner or Tyreke Evans in the 1st, Danny Green in the 2nd, and then trade Miller, Cardinal, Smith, and Pekovic for a big name player on a bad/struggling team during the season. Of course, none of those guys may come out and the draft could be even thinner than what it first seemed like. We’ll just have to wait and see.
BTW: McHale is done in the front office. Taylor has gone out of his way to say that the only way he’s back with the team is as coach.
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Westbrook is a STUD
You’ve just lost credibility for calling him overhyped when he gets little-to-none consideration for ROY award.
As he should. I would give ROY to a) Rose, or b) Mayo, or c) Westbrook, or d) Lopez. In that order.
I like how Westbrook is coming along, as posted two comments above. But Mayo is the better scorer from almost anywhere on the court, Rose has the better FG% from inside (both are still pretty bad from outside with under 30%), and Rose is the better point guard protecting and distributing the ball. One could make an argument that Lopez should also be considered for his all-around game. The areas where Westbrook is a “stud” compared to the other two guards is getting to the line and defense (rebounding, steals).
Also..
…and I admit I’m generalizing here but it’s pretty hard to ignore this little meme when the Blazers play the Wolves (and I’m sure it’s much the same with the 28 other teams in the league): the entire NBA world does not revolve around the Blazer sun. When I write that Bassy is pulling the only decent net /- on the Wolves or the 2nd highest adj/- on the squad, or that he is the player most responsible for the Wolves being able to run a somewhat functional offense without Big Al in there, that doesn’t mean I’m bitter or spiteful about the Foye/Roy deal or that I think that the Blazers are dumb for giving Bassy up (or some combination of the two opinions). It simply means that Bassy is putting up decent +/- numbers while being the only true point on the team’s roster. Yet, the response I get here, in emails, and what I read over at BE borders on falling into a textbook definition of some sort of personality defect: He’s jealous, he’s a bad writer, I won’t stoop to name calling but it doesn’t take a genius to know what I’d rhyme their site with (Anis Poopus? Really? What are you, 5?), they’re just jealous that we have Roy and Bayless and they have Foye and Bassy, and so on and so forth.
Good lord people. Let me just end it all for you right here and now: none of this stuff bothers us. We’re very happy with our little site and community and we don’t really care that you honestly think we only write about the Blazers to get BE hits (yet another example of you guys thinking everything is about you). We write about the Wolves and the teams they play against and I can honestly write that no other team in the league generates this type of overly-internalized response more than Portland.
So here’s our advice to you: let it go. No one here has a grudge about you. No one is angry over you. What we are is increasingly drained by having to deal with the Portland fan base. If you don’t like it, don’t read it. If you feel like you have to tell the world about it, go write a fan post at BE and you and your like-minded friends can call us all the names in the world. Just don’t do it here anymore. This is not a democracy. To show you just how much this thing is not geared around Blazer Universe, don’t come any more. Seriously, we’d rather have 10 hits a day and no Blazer nonsense than the 200-300 extra hits we get 4 times a year. And for those of you who think we still do it to egg people on for the hits, yes…we do it for 4 days a year.
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great comment
there’s nothing else to be said, great comment
by plinytheelder on Mar 8, 2009 11:34 PM CDT up reply actions
Why do you react to the comments of a few out-of-control Blazer fans
by generalizing negatively about the entire Blazer fanbase? Every team has a few fans who overreact or act like idiots on other teams’ blogs. I don’t get why you pay more attention to them than you do to thoughtful posters like Norsktroll.
Two things:
1- I admitted to generalizing but there really isn’t a good way to write about that subject without a) getting specific and personal or b) overly general. I chose path b because I don’t want to personally insult anyone and really drag this down in the mud. It also gets the general treatment because this simply doesn’t happen with any other fan base in the league.
2- We do pay lots of attention to thoughtful and excellent posters like Norsktroll. In this post alone, I give her 4 responses, as she deserves. At no point before, after, or during this post do we not respond to thoughtful Blazers fans. At no point have these sorts of posters not been treated fairly or not been given responses. We pay plenty of attention to this sort of thing. We do so on a case-by-case (and fair) basis. It would seem awfully silly to write a post saying that fans x, y, and z deserve a cookie for engaging in normal give-and-take. We are very grateful to the people who give thoughtful input to this site and we tell them so. What we don’t do is respond individually to garbage. That gets the blanket treatment.
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What's amazing
is that you write a fairly innocuous post praising a player on the Wolves, who happens to be an ex-Blazer, the day after he had a really good game against the Blazers, and suddenly it’s a shot across the bow at the Blazer organization for giving up on Bassy. Nowhere have I ever read that anybody thinks the Bassy to Celtics deal was a mistake. Yet that’s how the Blazer nation reads this because they are incredibly narcissistic.
What was wrong with your post? Was it that Bayless has been underwhelming? Well, he was projected as a top-5 pick who fell to 11 and hasn’t been able to take significant minutes from Steve Blake. He was the 11th pick, though, so if he turns out to be a solid contributor in the NBA, which he probably will be, that’s fine. But I don’t see this budding all star, either.
And what’s wrong with pointing out that Bassy is a better value than Blake? On a lousy team, Bassy’s roland rating is very close to Blake’s, who plays on a pretty good team. And Bassy is making slightly more that one-third as much. Who would you rather have? On the floor it’s nearly a push—I’d take Bassy—but factor in contracts and age and it’s as close to a no-brainer as it gets. Again, that’s not saying the Bassy to Boston deal was a mistake. But it is saying that either Blake is a reach at MLE or the Wolves have made out like bandits with Bassy.
Here’s another one: Bassy has a much better roland rating than Chris Duhon — another MLE waste. The premium placed on an extra 3 or 4 shooting percentage points is astonishing when you think about what that really is. It’s the basketball equivalent of the batting average. Again, methinks the Wolves could be fielding some decent offers for Bassy from the better-run teams this summer.
good points here in my opinion, the narcissism, as you call it, is incredible
by plinytheelder on Mar 8, 2009 11:33 PM CDT up reply actions
ATTN: S-n-P
Stan Love interview:
http://www.955thegame.com/Personalities/TheBaldFacedTruth/tabid/59/Default.aspx
Scroll down a bit, listed for March 5th, hour 3. Available for download or listening online.
Host: “Have they [the Wolves] quit?”
Stan: “Oh, yeah, they’ve quit.”
Be forewarned: this guy is a piece of work.
Bayless fires back
As the rest of the media horde listened, people starting trying to guess which player asked, but was not given, Roy’s shoes.
“…Sebastian (Telfair)?” came one of the guesses.
“(Bleep) Sebastian,” a disgusted voice said nearby.
That voice was Blazers guard Jerryd Bayless, whose locker is next to Roy’s.
There were a few “oohs” when he said it, and jokingly I turned to Bayless and said “Quote, unquote”, playfully threatening to quote him.
"I don’t care,’’ Bayless said, cinching up his tie.
Later, I went back to Bayless and made sure I could quote him.
"As long as you don’t use the cuss word,’’ Bayless said.
Karma
But that was before he could have read any game review ;-)
He was just mad of his own game and maybe about the little incident with Blake. Good to hear though that B-Rex continues to care and be agressive…
P.S.: Not good that he insulted Bassy. Just that the team needs a few more guys who show more aggressiveness and really hate it when things go wrong.
It bears rehashing that...
Telfair was the filler in the Jefferson trade. I read multiple day of trade recaps that expected him to be cut before ever arriving in Minnesota.
The bitterness about him not living up to his HS hype was all burned by the Blazers and Celtics fans. There is none of that here because Telfair was a month from Greece when he made the Wolves team.
good point...
…there was quite a bit of talk about him being let go.
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what I don't get
is why the Blazer fans are so bitter towards Bassy. He was an undersized kid straight from the public high school league learning the game’s hardest position at the highest level. It was unprecedented what he was trying to do. What exactly were people expecting from the 13th pick? And where’s the outrage that Jerryd Bayless, with a year at Arizona, looks even worse than Bassy did as a rookie?
Maybe Bassy should have said on draft night, “You know what, I don’t have any business being in the League yet so keep your $16M Mr. Allen and Adidas.”
If Bassy were high lotto, I’d say some disappointment would have been warranted, but he had “5-year project” written all over him. The Blazers gave him two years and the Celtics gave him one. But the Blazers wound up parlaying Bassy into Brandon Roy, the Celts got KG and the Wolves got a stud C/PF, a glue guy, and a quick, young PG who makes his team better at a very reasonable price.
If they have anything to be bitter about it’s that the Blazers could have waited a year and had grown-up Bassy back at $3M and hung onto their MLE to add more depth. Right now they don’t have a single PG better than Bassy. And why do you never hear people deriding Antonio Daniels as a big bust, even though he was a 4th pick and went to college?
"Bitter" isn't accurate.
I would guess that most Blazer fans see Telfair as a second-rate player who wasn’t becoming the point guard we hoped he would be. And Telfair’s first gun-related incident was a Jail Blazer-like misstep that sent up a major red flag to a Blazer team that was desperately trying to put that image behind them.
Blazer fans’ disappointment with Telfair is compounded by the fact that John Nash, the former Blazer GM who drafted Telfair, was totally sold on him being not just our PG of the future but a future All-Star, so much so that he passed on Chris Paul and Deron Williams in the 2006 draft. I’m pretty sure that mistake cost Nash his job.
I don’t think most Blazer fans hold any ill will toward Telfair. He worked hard and did his best while he was with the team. I’m glad to hear he’s playing well for you guys and wish him the best.
that's fair..
…thanks for the take.
I don’t want to speak for SFJ but it’s been weird to hear some of the folks associated with his former teams talk about the guy this year. I guess I haven’t really thought to put a word with what I was hearing but it wasn’t really a positive thing. Bitter? Crass? I don’t know. It wasn’t good.
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I'd go with crass.
People say things on a blog that they’d never say face-to-face to the subject of their vituperation. You think Telfair gets heat from some Blazer fans? Greg Oden gets reamed daily on Blazers Edge and OregonLive.com by a group of fans who complain that he has no heart, doesn’t love the game, is a sissy, etc., because he isn’t playing through his recent knee injury. I guess a large and active online Blazer fanbase means we also have to deal with a large and active herd of loudmouth, know-it-all critics.
I've seen some of the Oden stuff...
….and I hope he doesn’t read it. That sort of thing could lead to big time depression. Seriously. I can’t imagine reading stuff about myself like that.
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We aren't bitter
Bassy got a nice cheer when he was introduced (so did Love). He just didn’t work out in Portland (not much did in those years).
Karma
Thanks for the take...
….has the Love stuff calmed down a bit out there since the booing he took when he was at UCLA?
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His dad..
….sounds like a character. I listened to the interview linked to above and he had some great things to say about AAU ball (it’s an unregulated madhouse that preys on kids) but some bad things as well. He seems to be without a filter.
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I think Blazer's fans have every right....
to be angry/disappointed/bitter with Telfair. Even though he wasn’t THAT high a pick he had just as much hype as a top 5 guy. As was pointed out by MiledAnimal he cost them other players by the miss-assessment by their GM. This isn’t much unlike the Wolves fans being doubly bitter with Ebi, McCants and Foye because of the Opportunity costs they incurred.
Remember this… to play off the LeBron James hype the media put forth Telfair as the next superstar in high school. That likely isn’t his fault but when it comes to disappointment it is all about expectations and 4 years ago they were sky high for Sebastian.
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