- Will an injured Erick Dampier prompt the Mavericks to finally sign Chris Webber?
- PistonsNation offers a Bill Laimbeer retrospective, complete with the only picture I’ve ever seen of Lambs playing in Italy before his NBA rookie year.
- Carnival of the NBA.
- On the merits of PER and other comparison stats.
- The brand-spanking new PistonsBlog has some Ft. Wayne Mad Ants news.
- Not a good time to be Isiah Thomas, especially with disgruntled Knicks fans in the jury pool:
New York Knicks coach Isiah Thomas and a former team executive who claims he subjected her to unwanted sexual advances appeared in federal court Monday as jury selection began in her $10 million sexual harassment lawsuit.
Thomas and his accuser, Anucha Browne Sanders, sat stoically within a few feet of each other, both flanked by teams of lawyers. Thomas, also the team’s president and considered one of the best players in NBA history, stood and smiled as the judge introduced him to the scores of potential jurors sitting in the gallery.
…
A building maintenance man and Knicks fan was kept in the pool despite suggesting that game tickets were overpriced and that Thomas’ track record as coach was poor.“I can speak freely? The team’s not doing too well,” he said as Thomas listened nearby.
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Hahah, thanks Matt. The Bill Lambeer retrospective link just made my day. I had absolutely NO idea the Beastie Boys had written a song about hating Bill. I just listened to it (awful) but I’m still laughing great link
The fact that Bill Laimbeer was a Sleestak might be the best thing ever. No wonder the Sleestaks were so menacing and hated.
Here are your Ft. Wayne Mad Ants:
Jeremy Richardson - 6′6 G - a scorer w/some 10-day NBA callups
Olu Famutimi - 6′5 G/F - All-Freshman SEC team, got injured, from Flint
Anthony Roberson - 6′2 PG - played 200+ minutes for GSW in ‘06-07, cut
Tyrone Sally - 6′7 F - 210 lbs, played at WV, John Salley no relation
Chad Bell - 7′0 C - average 2.6 pts, 2.9 rebounds as senior at NV
Antonio Meeking - 6′8 PF - meaty, ‘05 in Germany, ‘06 Israel, ‘07 NBDL
Badou Gaye - 6′9 F/C - inside player, ‘06 in Belgium, ‘07 NBDL
Walker Russell, Jr. - 6′0 PG - son of former Piston Walker Russell
Mike Benton - 6′9 C - led Turkish league in rebounds and blocks in ‘06
Armein Kirkland - 6′8 G/F - tore ACL at UofC, teammate of Maxiell
On the PER issue, both the Ballhype article author, and the article he cites, use Lamar Odom’s slightly above average PER as proof that the stat isn’t perfect. While I (and Hollinger) agree that the stat is not perfect, I would argue that Odom is the perfect example of where it cuts through perception to address reality.
The original author could not find an explanation for a drop of 1.2 in Odom’s PER from 04-05 to 06-07. I can. Odom took nearly twice as many 3-pointers (at the same lousy rate of 30%) in 06-07 as he did in 04-05. That is not the whole story, but when a player doubles his output of something he does poorly, that is going to take a bite out of his effectiveness.
This also explains why Odom only registers as solid for his PER rating. Overall, Odom played a lot of minutes per game. Had he played 34 mpg, his numbers would look something like this.
13.9 ppg 8.5 RPG 4.2 APG 47% FG, 70% FT
Not exactly the profile of an underrated superstar.
If we look at known quantities, they rank about where we would expect them too (if we don’t take defense into account). Wade is #1, Garnett #8, Camby is #41, Mike Miller is #80. That all seems right, which means the system is reliable enough to tell us that Paul Millsap (17.6 PER, #64) deserves more playing time and that Richard Jefferson (13.9 PER, #179) might be bordering on done.
A Sleestak, people! Bill Laimbeer was a Sleestak!
I know this is off topic… but does anyone know where I can get an 8×10 George Blaha photo?
I know this is off topic… but does anyone know where I can get an 8×10 George Blaha photo?
Kevin: Sure and I’m honestly pretty impressed at how often Hollinger’s numbers tell the same story as what I see on the court…. however like I told the weirdo from Oakland in that other thread, numbers just don’t reflect everything we see on the court. There just is no way to account for everything a player does for his team statistically. I know you said “not counting defence” because of how the PER stat works, but honestly how useful IS a stat that doesn’t count the more important half of the game? A great example imho is how everyone talks about Sheed “slipping” because all of his offensive numbers (and I know we’re talking about different things here but the whole question is do stats lie or not right?) went down. Now I watched more games last year than any year before in my history as a Piston’s fan. Being trapped up here in Canada finally made me so homesick I was like a feind. I traveled to a bar on the other side of town because they were showing Bulls/Pistons in the regular season, I had friends mail me tapes of games the day after, I mean I really went all out here… and IMHO Rasheed Wallace has only had one finer season as a Piston than last year… 2004 and we all know how that worked out. He was everywhere every time I looked and no numbers could describe the way he forces defenders to abandon the lane once he drops a 3 in a game. Sure he had some bad games. I mean I saw us destroy the Bucks early last year and mentally said “I’d bench Rasheed about now” in the second… he was clearly disinterested. That having been said, WHENEVER we needed a shutdown stop it was always Sheed throwing is “aging, slowed” body in the way and making the play.. not Nazr or Webber.
Numbers can’t tell the story I saw last season. Numbers don’t love Tay even though we all know he’s amazing. They’re nice to look at but in the end I just don’t think it really matters. All Hollinger’s stat REALLY does IMHO is identify which players are ball hogging way too much and destroying their team. His ranking system clearly identifies the over-rated offensive players in the league… after that I don’t find it useful for much…
Garett, dude even I’m not old enough to have ever seen that show. The link about it was funny but I assume its gotta be funnier if you saw the show
“All Hollinger’s stat REALLY does IMHO is identify which players are ball hogging way too much and destroying their team. His ranking system clearly identifies the over-rated offensive players in the league…”
It identifies the underrated players as well. Prince is amazing because he is an above average offensive player and a world-class defender.
I disagree th defense is more important than offense. Defense is important, but there is a smaller margin between the best and the worst in this category. The most important measure of defense is actually reflected in PER. I think Prince is a top 40 player in the league, certainly, as a #96 PER and a top second team all-defensive selection will attest to that.
PG4L: Actually, I only have vaguely fuzzy memories of it, but it’s still enough to make that the best link of the week for me. YouTube it — it was pretty whacked.
And just to make this comment at least vaguely Pistons related: Maxiell eats babies and I like it just fine.
Odom’s pretty talented, but people have the tendency to overrate him a bit. I think PER pegs him about right. He is a fantastic passer, but he’s only an average rebounder for his position. People like to cite his 16/10/5 as something really impressive, but those aren’t transcendent considering that he plays 40 minutes a night (the assists actually are pretty impressive since he’s a forward). His scoring output is actually pretty meager considering his skillset and his good scoring efficiency. Part of that can be explained by being part of a team with Kobe Bryant, but I’ve seen Odom pass on wide open shots to pass to a teammate who is a less credible offensive threat. Now, Kobe’s always going to get his, but there’s no reason that Odom couldn’t have handled a larger offensive load, especially on a team with no real balance like the Lakers.
When he’s assertive, like in the beginning of the season when Kobe was out and the final game of the Phoenix series this year, he looks like a bonafide star, but there are other games where he’ll play upwards of 40 minutes and shoot under ten times, and there isn’t a real excuse for that. Sometimes he plays too passively, and the PER rightly penalizes him for that, which makes sense since scoring production is an important part of evaluating a player’s overall contributions.