Just Need to Get This Off My Chest
by AbusedWolvesSpouse on Jun 26, 2009 1:28 PM CDT
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A step-by-step breakdown of last night.
1) I am okay with taking Ricky Rubio at #5, even if he may go to Spain for a year or two. If he's available at 5, you take him.
2) I am not okay with taking Flynn at #6, and not just because he's another point guard. It's not okay because according to all advanced stats measures, the dude isn't very good and we had other options (Curry, Lawson, Blair) who would've been way better and fit our team needs better. Hollinger's Draft Rater, Wages of Wins counts and HoopsAnalyst.com's PG breakdowns all had Flynn listed as a middling prospect at best.
He's not a great shooter, an under-average defender, and fairly inefficient. I think the Wolves' new braintrust was wowed by his workouts and "leadership" qualities. Another textbook example of letting "gut" reactions of scouts and old-timey basketball guys outweigh a reasoned analysis of a player's actual on-the-court production.
On top of that, our team has Al Jefferson on it -- a guy who operates most effectively in a half-court post game and with the ball in his hands. What the Wolves need is SHOOTERS to surround him. We had a guy served up on a platter for us (Curry) who could play the 2 alongside Rubio or the PG while we wait for Rubio to come back who is one of the college game's best shooters of all time. Now we have two PG's who can't shoot and who need the ball in their hands to create value. How does this compliment Al's game? He'll never have the speed or athleticism to be an open court kind of guy.
3) I am really not okay with trading away Ty Lawson. His career could easily end up being better than both Rubio and Flynn. He was efficient, scored in bunches, a ballhawk on defense and his outside shooting was phenomenal (47% on 3's last year). He not only fit our squad's needs 1,000% more than Flynn, but he might even have been the BPA at #6.
4) I'm indifferent to Ellington at 28. I liked Blair a bit more there but recognize that we have no real 2's on our roster without Ellington.
5) I'm really not okay with trading away Nick Calathes. Again, all advanced stat analysis I've seen shows this guy being a productive pro player. Stash him away in Europe for a year and he'll come back as an efficient combo guard off the bench.
Ultimately, I'm tired of being in a doomed relationship with a team that consistently misjudges talent. I'm an abused spouse who keeps coming back to an alcoholic mate, hoping they'll change their ways. The teams paying attention to the basketball statistical revolution are headed in the right direction (Rockets, Thunder, Blazers). Teams like us are not.
I'd built some hope that we were at a turning point, a new direction. I hadn't been this excited about the Wolves since the 2004 playoff run. All the nights spent watching terrible teams, investing time and passion checking and rechecking Canis Hoopus and TWolvesBlog and Britt's columns for news and info on a ragged squad the rest of the world thinks of as a punchline. It felt like it was all going to pay off and I'd have a new team to be proud of, one moving in the right direction.
Today? Not so much.
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Kahn doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He reminded me of Isiah Thomas (who wasn’t a bad evaluator), because this draft shows signs that he has no idea how to build a team by finding players who complement each others games’.
and his examples were ludicrous.
Ainge/DJ were not PGs, they were shoot first combo guards who played with one of the best passing SF of all time in Bird. call me when they get Lebron.
um…………in what world was Joe Dumars a PG?
Jonny Flynn is a 5’11" PG with a sub-par jumper, not a combo guard. Jason Terry, Monta Ellis, Ben Gordon, Iverson, Delonte West are passable combo guards and they’re all around 6’3" to 6’4"….. they’re all score first guys with (at worst) good jumpers; and all are major defensive liabilities. there’s a reason these Nate Robinson, Earl Boykins type combo guards aren’t in high demand and now they got one who can’t shoot well from outside and thinks pass 1st?
Johnny Flynn PPP in catch and shoot situations was 1.24. Stephen Curry was 1.33. Johnny Flynn’s shooting percentage was low, because he used 4.4 possessions a game strictly in isolation. The most of any big conference player. He shot 41% from those situations; however, that is the hardest situation to score in athletically.
His athletic numbers were off the charts. You either gamble on Curry being able to maintain his production while having below-average athleticism, or you believe that Flynn can improve his already proficient jumper and use his superior athleticism to become the better player. To me, Curry and Flynn had to be the next best players on the board. Flynn is faster, can jump higher with stepping, and can jump much higher from a run, he’s has the potential to be a much better on the ball defender, and his passing numbers were better than Curry’s. I think both Curry’s pedigree and Flynn’s attitude foretells both these players putting in maximum effort to reach their respective potentials, I just think it’s more than reasonable to evaluate that Flynn is the better fit and better player.
Exactly
DX observes that Flynn’s got a good to great 2 pt. jumper, but isn’t all that great from behind the arc (although on the Wolves he’d probably be about average). The last Wolves player who played point awesomely while being a distributer, initiator, 2 pt. jump shot specialist and w/o taking a bunch of threes was Sam Cassell. Now I don’t know how Sam I Am would have done with Big Al, but Al is going to get his 23-11 because that’s just what he does. It’s the other 4 guys who need someone to help them, and that why getting a guy like Flynn (or Rubio) makes so much sense. Oh, and Flynn scored at a higher rate than Tyreke last year in fewer attempts, so I think we’ll be able to live with his production.
"Come on Eddie, let's get serious."
i’m only guessing, but i’m willing to bet the sample sizes on those two guys spot up shots are going to fairly far apart.
i admit i’m assuming that Curry is going to have a much easier time adjusting to the NBA 3… but some guys like Raymond Felton (who shot 44.0% from 3 in his final college season) never do adjust to the deeper shot – you can look at just highlights and realize that that’s something you don’t have to worry about with Curry.
the discussion isn’t how good Flynn will be, it’s whether he’s a good fit with Rubio.
there’s a reason why all the GMs, scouts, gurus are all going “Huh?”
by homer simpson on Jun 26, 2009 5:09 PM CDT up reply actions
Felton is a career 31.8% shooter from NBA range (btw).
by homer simpson on Jun 26, 2009 5:10 PM CDT up reply actions
Joe Dumars was a point guard coming out of college who moved to SG because of Thomas. He also played PG when Thomas was on the bench and after Thomas retired and the team had Allan Houston.
by pagingstanleyroberts on Jun 26, 2009 2:19 PM CDT reply actions
what are you smoking?
Joe Dumars college #’s 2.8 assists per game.
break down by season, 2.8, 2.2, 2.6, 3.9
um… Vinnie Johnson?
please stop making stuff up to try to win an argument. it’s the internet and we can look this stuff up in seconds.
by homer simpson on Jun 26, 2009 4:50 PM CDT up reply actions
First off, I watched a replay of the ‘85 draft on NBATV where they said Dumars was a college PG. Second, Dumars’ APG (4.5) for his career are higher than Johnson’s (3.3). If anything, they shared ballhandling duties. Hmm…seems to me someone used that as part of his argument for why Rubio and Flynn played together.
After Thomas retired, Dumars split starting PG duties with Lindsey Hunter because he wasn’t that good (and has since proven that he never was a true PG) and the team already had Allan Houston and Grant Hill at 2 and 3. He started 29 games where he was the clear starting PG in 94-95 and 33 in 95-96 before Houston left and the team was forced to start Hunter and Dumars together. The fact is that he played with a great point guard who could also score and a combo guard for the first part of his career, so he had to handle the ball, help facilitate offense, and sometimes guard point guards. Then, when Thomas retired, he started with a small forward (Hill) who could handle the ball but averages roughly the same number of APG (4.7) as he did, a shooting guard (Houston) who was locked into that traditional role and averaged 2.4 APG for his career, and a guard (Hunter) who was supposedly a PG but has averaged 2.7 APG for his career.
Do you need more stats? Or am I still making stuff up?
by pagingstanleyroberts on Jun 26, 2009 5:57 PM CDT up reply actions
I lived in Ann Arbor for a year
You’re quite right about Dumars’s role with the Pistons. He definitely drew the 2 assignment defensively — early in Jordan’s career, he checked him one on one — but in terms of their roles on the team, he was basically the patron saint of ’tween guards.
The Pistons announcers knew very well that Dumars had been a point, and commented pretty often on how he and Isiah had learned over time to play with one another.
Now, I’m not really convinced with Flynn, but Dumars and Thomas? This did happen with them.
Stats
I will readily admit that when it comes to the basketball statistical revolution, I’m in the dark. But my forte is baseball, so I completely understand the value of not just using stats, but using stats that differ from the simplistic mainstream numbers.
So please take this question in the context of not knowing quite as much about the neo-basketball stats, but how exactly do you compare Curry’s stats with Flynn’s when Flynn played in the best college basketball conference in the land and Curry played in the Southern Conference? My guess is that there is a significant difference that cannot be factored into comparing the stats.
For the record, I do not think that Curry is going to be clearly better than Flynn. I think Flynn does a lot of things better than Curry, plus he gives Kahn an awful lot of leverage in the Rubio negotiations. Rubio doesn’t have the leverage to ask for a trade since we have Curry to play PG should he threaten to stay in Spain.
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