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Thread: okafor as ewing

  1. #61
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Quote Originally Posted by brlftz View Post
    i think a more interesting track for the discussion would be whether this illustrates our failure to come up with an effective way of dealing with double teams.
    I would argue that the smallball lineup with Winslow at the 4 has been the solution. As we've started to see that lineup more and more, Duke's offensive ranking has steadily risen to the point where we're back at #1.

    I think it's true we haven't found a consistent solution for double-teams when Amile is in the game. Maybe it's too difficult to play great offense if your PF can't shoot at least some from midrange. Or maybe Coach K is just better at coaching 4-around-1 offense than he is at coaching double-post offense. Either way, I'm glad we found something with the smallball lineup.

  2. #62
    No analysis here.
    But, here's a text copy of the full season data (provided in the Okafor Theory author's second article) if you want to look only at games vs elite big men, correlate number of possessions to efficiencies (to assess tiredness or being in the flow), compare the data to our 3FG rate, or have some other idea to better understand the phenomenon.

    Sorry for taking up so much space with the table, but it's easier for users to cut-and-paste than if I put it into a 'code' box. Data is organized as in the Okafor Theory article
    Top100 Date Opponent Dposs Oposs DPts Opts DPPP OPPP DEffMarg 2Dposs 2Oposs 2DPts 2Opts 2DPPP 2OPPP 2DEffMarg
    14-Nov Presb 40 40 64 29 1.60000 0.72500 0.87500 27 27 49 15 1.81481 0.55556 1.25926
    15-Nov Fairfield 48 45 66 43 1.37500 0.95556 0.41944 26 28 43 16 1.65385 0.57143 1.08242
    Yes 18-Nov MichSt 51 48 61 52 1.19608 1.08333 0.11275 15 18 20 19 1.33333 1.05556 0.27778
    Yes 21-Nov Temple 50 49 54 35 1.08000 0.71429 0.36571 20 22 20 19 1.00000 0.86364 0.13636
    Yes 22-Nov Stanford 58 57 59 42 1.01724 0.73684 0.28040 6 8 11 17 1.83333 2.12500 -0.29167
    26-Nov Furman 43 44 63 32 1.46512 0.72727 0.73784 21 21 30 22 1.42857 1.04762 0.38095
    30-Nov Army 42 40 53 37 1.26190 0.92500 0.33690 30 31 40 36 1.33333 1.16129 0.17204
    Yes 3-Dec Wisc 42 38 54 45 1.28571 1.18421 0.10150 19 23 26 25 1.36842 1.08696 0.28146
    15-Dec Elon 54 54 59 49 1.09259 0.90741 0.18519 17 18 16 13 0.94118 0.72222 0.21895
    Yes 18-Dec Uconn 56 54 60 45 1.07143 0.83333 0.23810 11 11 6 11 0.54545 1.00000 -0.45455
    Yes 29-Dec Toldeo 53 55 72 52 1.35849 0.94545 0.41304 16 15 14 17 0.87500 1.13333 -0.25833
    Yes 31-Dec Wofford 51 50 65 46 1.27451 0.92000 0.35451 14 13 19 9 1.35714 0.69231 0.66484
    Yes 3-Jan BC 48 46 63 51 1.31250 1.10870 0.20380 17 19 22 11 1.29412 0.57895 0.71517
    Yes 7-Jan Wake 58 55 57 51 0.98276 0.92727 0.05549 14 17 16 14 1.14286 0.82353 0.31933
    Yes 11-Jan NCSU 66 65 66 78 1.00000 1.20000 -0.20000 6 6 9 9 1.50000 1.50000 0.00000
    Yes 13-Jan Miami 61 60 53 74 0.86885 1.23333 -0.36448 14 14 21 16 1.50000 1.14286 0.35714
    Yes 17-Jan UL 50 50 58 39 1.16000 0.78000 0.38000 10 9 5 13 0.50000 1.44444 -0.94444
    Yes 19-Jan Pitt 44 43 59 45 1.34091 1.04651 0.29440 18 20 20 20 1.11111 1.00000 0.11111
    Yes 25-Jan St.John's 63 64 77 65 1.22222 1.01563 0.20660 3 4 0 3 0.00000 0.75000 -0.75000
    Yes 28-Jan ND 60 60 61 68 1.01667 1.13333 -0.11667 9 8 12 9 1.33333 1.12500 0.20833
    Yes 31-Jan UVA 52 51 62 51 1.19231 1.00000 0.19231 6 9 7 12 1.16667 1.33333 -0.16667
    Yes 4-Feb GT 53 53 58 48 1.09434 0.90566 0.18868 11 13 14 18 1.27273 1.38462 -0.11189
    Yes 7-Feb ND 36 36 51 36 1.41667 1.00000 0.41667 24 25 39 24 1.62500 0.96000 0.66500
    Yes 9-Feb FSU 45 44 47 54 1.04444 1.22727 -0.18283 16 19 26 16 1.62500 0.84211 0.78289
    Yes 14-Feb Cuse 62 58 70 66 1.12903 1.13793 -0.00890 7 11 10 6 1.42857 0.54545 0.88312
    Yes 18-Feb UNC 77 75 82 83 1.06494 1.10667 -0.04173 6 8 10 7 1.66667 0.87500 0.79167
    Yes 21-Feb Clem 0 0 0 0 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 66 66 78 56 1.18182 0.84848 0.33333
    Yes 25-Feb VT 56 49 77 71 1.37500 1.44898 -0.07398 9 17 14 15 1.55556 0.88235 0.67320
    Yes 28-Feb Cuse
    Yes 4-Mar Wake
    Yes 7-Mar UNC
    Total 1419 1383 1671 1387 1.17759 1.00289 0.17470 458 500 597 468 1.30349 0.93600 0.36749

  3. #63
    Quote Originally Posted by ArtVandelay View Post
    I hadn't heard of this before, and it is very interesting, although I'd be curious whether it applies equally in the college game since his data appears to be based on NBA play. So it doesn't have to do so much with guys playing harder when Jah is out, but that we are employing a less efficient offensive strategy when he is in by relying on him to be a low-post scorer rather than a "motion" center. If true, it would seem this theory has little to do with Jah the man/beast (as the author seems to recognize that Jah is better scoring in the post than anyone) so much as low post offense in general. I don't follow the NBA closely enough to be able to opine on these bigger picture issues, although it's surely true that the "back to the basket" C is a rare breed these days. I just had no idea that might be an intentional tactical thing.
    In 2001, the NBA's illegal defense rules were eliminated. Until that point, they significantly limited defensive positioning off the ball, including that of weakside defenders. It's not a coincidence that the impact of big men with a post game has since declined.

    While he's expected to be the #1 pick in this year's draft, Okafor would have had even greater potential had he entered the NBA in the 90s.

  4. #64

    Oh Yeah?

    Quote Originally Posted by freshmanjs View Post
    no one made that suggestion or anything like it

    No one is suggesting that his game should be more like Marshall's or that he should focus on screens. No one here is relying on these statistics to reach absurd conclusions like those. I have no idea why you are asserting that people are doing that. They are not.
    However, there is an abundance of evidence that establishes the fact that Jahlil Okafor hurts Duke basketball when he’s on the court, so much so that The Ewing Theory could be appropriately renamed The Okafor Theory...

    Many people who have watched Duke play all season, however, have noticed that Duke seems to play better without Okafor sometimes.

    Well, there is evidence to suggest that it’s not just sometimes. It’s almost all of the time.
    Nothing absurd about those statements? We disagree.

  5. #65
    Join Date
    Feb 2008
    Location
    Charlotte, North Carolina
    One thing about the title of the thread - it relates to Bill Simmons's much hyped and asinine "Ewing Theory". The idea that a hall of fame center actually hurt the Knicks has always defied logic, unless one were to make the argument that the Knicks committed too much salary to him, and could have done better with a lower budget center and more money for other talent.

    But that's all NBA garbage anyway. This is college hoops. Did anyone see Ewing play at Georgetown? Has anyone ever tried to insinuate that the "Ewing Theory" applied to the Patrick Ewing who scared the crap out of opponents for four years when he was a Hoya? He was a beast, the heart and soul of that team, and he was a lucky James Worthy interception and a once-in-a-century Villanova performance away from 3 titles in his four years at Geogetown.

    Tell you what, I'd take college Patrick Ewing on Duke's roster any day of the week. Barring him, I'm just as thrilled to have Okafor. The kid's an amazing center and we're lucky to have him.

  6. #66
    http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/pos...rant-conundrum

    "Sometimes +/- can punish players simply for being on bad teams, but this is more than that. Mavericks' statistical expert Wayne Winston's in-depth lineup data shows that every one of Durant's key teammates -- Russell Westbrook, Jeff Green, Nenad Krstic, Nick Collison -- gets better, in many cases far better, results playing with less heralded teammates Thabo Sefolosha or Kyle Weaver while Durant sits.

    In fact, almost nobody on the Thunder has a +/- rating as poor as Durant's. Winston rates Durant's performance "in the lowest 10% of all NBA players."


    Knowing that just about any NBA general manager would trade his own children for a prospect of Durant's caliber, I asked Winston if he'd advise his team to accept if the Mavericks were (in some alternate universe) offered Durant for free. "I'd say probably not," he replied. "I would not sign the guy. It's simply not inevitable that he'll make mid-career strides. Some guys do. But many don't, and he'd have to improve a lot to help a team."

    And when I relayed Winston's comment to one of the NBA's most respected talent evaluators, his response was simply: "He's crazy."

    Over the next few years, one of them will be proved wrong.
    "




    Winston was a professor at Indiana and hired as the Mavericks statistical expert. He was fired by the Mavs in 2009. Obviously the people who actually know basketball were correct while the guy who was all about the stats was very wrong.

    I think people want to try to use numbers because it's easy to do, it's easy to collect the numbers especially nowadays, and it makes them come across as intelligent, a very easy way to get attention. It's certainly much easier to collect numbers than it is to spend hours upon hours collecting and breaking down game film and really evaluating talent which is really where you see the impact of players. Most of the people collecting and analyzing numbers probably wouldn't even know how to breakdown game film. They are probably very smart people and doing good things in the world but that doesn't mean they understand basketball or how to properly apply their knowledge of statistics to basketball and what's actually occurring on the court.
    Last edited by mo.st.dukie; 03-01-2015 at 01:13 PM.

  7. #67
    These are human beings we are talking about, they aren't numbers you can plug into a formula. For instance, we are dealing with a lot of injuries right now. The coaching staff and players are working very hard and doing everything they can to work around and through those injuries both during the week and during games even if everything isn't ideal or looks perfect. You can't take that and plug it into a formula and expect to gain any real understanding or meaning.

  8. #68
    Quote Originally Posted by mo.st.dukie View Post
    I think people want to try to use numbers because it's easy to do, it's easy to collect the numbers especially nowadays, and it makes them come across as intelligent, a very easy way to get attention.
    I think people want to use numbers because they generally provide a more complete, more accurate picture than simply using your eyes and opinions.

    Quote Originally Posted by mo.st.dukie View Post
    It's certainly much easier to collect numbers than it is to spend hours upon hours collecting and breaking down game film and really evaluating talent which is really where you see the impact of players. Most of the people collecting and analyzing numbers probably wouldn't even know how to breakdown game film.
    Is it possible that most of the people breaking down film wouldn't even know how to collect and analyze the numerical data?

    Quote Originally Posted by mo.st.dukie View Post
    They are probably very smart people and doing good things in the world but that doesn't mean they understand basketball or how to properly apply their knowledge of statistics to basketball and what's actually occurring on the court.
    Why do you think these things are mutually exclusive? Don't you think it's possible to understand both the analytics and the game of basketball.

    The fact is that people with your apparent view are becoming more and more the minority in the big-time sporting world. To counter your six-year-old article about one guy who wasn't impressed by rookie Kevin Durant, I give you a much more recent, much more interesting article: http://grantland.com/the-triangle/mo...a-mlb-nfl-nhl/.

    You appear to be on Barkley's side, but the following quote seems apropos to me:

    When Charles Barkley sank his teeth into analytics this month on Inside the NBA, you could almost hear the whole Internet groan. “I’ve always believed analytics were crap,” he said, later adding, “They’re just some crap that some people who are really smart made up to try to get in the game ’cause they had no talent.”

    It was a familiar script to Fox Sports’s Rob Neyer: “Ten years ago, even five years ago, if the whole Barkley thing would have occurred, we could have said, ‘Charles Barkley is wrong about this. How ridiculous is it that someone on national TV is saying this?’ But how many times do we have to write that story?”

    People wrote it anyway. Barkley’s rant was “unintelligible” and “wholly useless” (SB Nation); his target — ostensibly Rockets GM Daryl Morey and his apostles in the media — was a “straw man” (ProBasketballTalk); and Barkley himself was a “doofus” (Deadspin).

    Barkley wasn’t just wrong about advanced statistics. Speaking weeks before the ninth-annual Sloan Sports Analytics Conference (which kicks off tomorrow), he seemed to be fighting a rearguard action. “The war’s over,” CBSSports.com’s Matt Moore declared. “The nerds make the decisions whether Barkley likes it or not.” Keith Olbermann concurred: “Most of the dinosaurs like Chuck don’t even realize the war is over … ”

  9. #69
    Join Date
    Feb 2013
    Location
    Las Vegas, Nevada
    I don't suppose we could get the thread re-titled, could we? When associated with Jah, "ewing" sounds like the noise of a bleating sheep. Or maybe even worse.

    And no offense to the fine name of Ewing and all who have held it. It's just the title, "okafor as ewing" that gets me.

    I'll go back to my Cap'n Crunch now.

  10. #70
    Quote Originally Posted by Kedsy View Post
    I think people want to use numbers because they generally provide a more complete, more accurate picture than simply using your eyes and opinions.



    Is it possible that most of the people breaking down film wouldn't even know how to collect and analyze the numerical data?



    Why do you think these things are mutually exclusive? Don't you think it's possible to understand both the analytics and the game of basketball.

    The fact is that people with your apparent view are becoming more and more the minority in the big-time sporting world. To counter your six-year-old article about one guy who wasn't impressed by rookie Kevin Durant, I give you a much more recent, much more interesting article: http://grantland.com/the-triangle/mo...a-mlb-nfl-nhl/.

    You appear to be on Barkley's side, but the following quote seems apropos to me:
    Stats can be useful but they can lead you to ridiculous conclusions if you can't apply the eye test. For instance this thread is about some misguided statistical analysis that led some poor rube to his "Oakafor Theory". Sorry to re-paste the opening paragraph but it really is astounding:

    The Okafor Theory

    Okafor has been heavily hyped for years as the next great American center. The eye test checks out – Okafor has a more polished and impressive offensive post game than any college freshman, perhaps in history. His basic stats are impressive: during his freshman season at Duke, he’s scoring over 18 points and grabbing over 9 rebounds per game, while shooting over 66% from the field. These are the kinds of raw stats that impress voters for national awards and accolades, and Okafor is regularly lavished with praise for his ridiculous offensive repertoire. Many people who have watched Duke play all season, however, have noticed that Duke seems to play better without Okafor sometimes.

    Well, there is evidence to suggest that it’s not just sometimes. It’s almost all of the time
    .

  11. #71
    Quote Originally Posted by mo.st.dukie View Post
    Winston was a professor at Indiana and hired as the Mavericks statistical expert. He was fired by the Mavs in 2009. Obviously the people who actually know basketball were correct while the guy who was all about the stats was very wrong.

    I think people want to try to use numbers because it's easy to do, it's easy to collect the numbers especially nowadays, and it makes them come across as intelligent, a very easy way to get attention. It's certainly much easier to collect numbers than it is to spend hours upon hours collecting and breaking down game film and really evaluating talent which is really where you see the impact of players. Most of the people collecting and analyzing numbers probably wouldn't even know how to breakdown game film. They are probably very smart people and doing good things in the world but that doesn't mean they understand basketball or how to properly apply their knowledge of statistics to basketball and what's actually occurring on the court.
    It's a good example but I disagree with your conclusions, and so did the Mavs. They fired the one analyst, but definitely did not give up on advanced stats. See here:

    http://espn.go.com/espn/feature/stor...ytics-rankings

    In Durant's first two years, he was famous for having one of the worst +/- scores on his team. During those years, the Sonics/Thunder went on to have their two lowest winning totals in history. Durant got signed and the team went from 31 wins to 20. By comparison, when LeBron was signed, the Cavs went from 17 wins to 35. Two years later, Durant jumped up to the highest +/- on the team, and the Thunder won 50 games that year.

    In your example, the analyst was very, very wrong to see those +/- numbers in the first two years and conclude that Durant was a bad prospect. However, the numbers do seem to suggest that something was very wrong with the team. Perhaps the coaching change in the middle of year 2 fixed it, perhaps the talented new draftees fixed it, or perhaps it was something else. Figuring that out is the hard part.

    But if anything, I see that as pretty good evidence that when your best player has the worst +/-, there is room for improvement.

  12. #72
    Quote Originally Posted by lotusland View Post
    Stats can be useful but they can lead you to ridiculous conclusions if you can't apply the eye test.
    I sort of agree, but my personal belief is the main value of the eye test is to lead you to more fully examine the issues in a particular situation. I think the real problem is statistics can often be misused. If stats are used in an improper context, without the full battery of additional stats necessary to fully understand the complexities involved, they can lead to improper conclusions. But if you have complete knowledge and have the full set of statistics necessary to explain every nuance (which I understand in most situations is really difficult, if not practically impossible), then the eye test probably doesn't add that much.

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