Quinn Cook start?

[SilkyJ]

Yes, its early. Yes, I said it. Yes, I'm out on that limb. This is my early prediction for this year.

Feel free to call me out in X months if I'm looking like an idiot, but he's by far the best PG on our team and I like what I'm seeing/hearing. Our teams are usually at their best with a great PG running the squad, and QC is that guy for this team. Sure, Jon was great in 2010 and wasn't a natural PG, and Seth could emerge into that same role, but let's be honest that was an anomaly.

Start QC.

[jipops]

Does he play any decent D whatsoever? If not, then no chance.

[Oriole Way]

Does he play any decent D whatsoever? If not, then no chance.

Even if not, if he's the best pure PG on the team, shouldn't he be given a chance to work on his defense in real game minutes as opposed to trying to improve facing the same few guards every day in practice?

[FireOgilvie]

Even if not, if he's the best pure PG on the team, shouldn't he be given a chance to work on his defense in real game minutes as opposed to trying to improve facing the same few guards every day in practice?

You can still get that experience without starting.

[SilkyJ]

Does he play any decent D whatsoever? If not, then no chance.

His D looks fine to me.


You can still get that experience without starting.

I'm not talking about getting him experience (I know you weren't responding to me). I'm talking about making us the best team we can be. My money says we'll be better and win more games if QC is our PG.

[screenname]

His D looks fine to me.



Of course it does- why else would you start this thread?

[Oriole Way]

You can still get that experience without starting.

Yes, but it's my contention that the best pure PG should be starting.

Given Cook's experience as a point guard at the high school level and in elite AAU/International competition, I would have no problem with him learning defense on the job.

After all, Greg Paulus was a starting freshman PG, and he was one of the worst defenders Duke has ever started in the K era. Quinn has the potential to be a much better PG and overall player than Paulus, so I would prefer to see him take the reigns immediately as long as his health and conditioning aren't an issue.

[Billy Dat]

Tyler's looked better in this Bellarmine game, but Quinn just had a nasty 360 finish on a break.

[Gthoma2a]

I would like to see Quinn start. He is a leader. He plays his heart out. Watching him last year at Oak Hill showed that he was the kind of player that was going to do everything he could to win. If we get him used to playing a college game with Curry sharing PG duties and Rivers as a third guard, we can really have a team that has weapons and a kid who is used to leading with the ball. He could have the kind of growth that a Kendall Marshall had last year with offensive threats to get feed when he starts the offense for them.

[delfrio]

Quinn is absolutely looking great, but Tyler is providing the defensive spark that really no one else is. So I think it's still Cook's job to earn. I think by mid-season he could likely be starting though (presuming one of Curry/Rivers/Dawkins isn't playing well).

[Gthoma2a]

I am not sure, but if Andre is unable to make an impact consistently this year, I believe we may use a different 3 guard lineup. I think Cook, Curry, and Rivers would be a good lineup. Quinn is pretty good on offense, will learn on defense, and the other two are heavy hitters offensively.

[SilkyJ]

Of course it does- why else would you start this thread?

b/c other parts his games looked good too? shocking, i know!

[Devilsfan]

Did someone pull the trigger too fast hoping if you make somebody a point guard and name him a captain then he somehow makes an instant transformation into a team leader.

[jv001]

Quinn is absolutely looking great, but Tyler is providing the defensive spark that really no one else is. So I think it's still Cook's job to earn. I think by mid-season he could likely be starting though (presuming one of Curry/Rivers/Dawkins isn't playing well).

So right now you would have to say the odd man out would be Dawkins? Or is it just too early to be making bold statements on one preseason game?

[delfrio]

So right now you would have to say the odd man out would be Dawkins? Or is it just too early to be making bold statements on one preseason game?

I think yes, to both. Dre has always been up and down, and I really do hope he finds some consistency this year because he is potentially a huge offensive threat. But it's possible the team will run better with him as 6-man (way too early to tell).

[Waynne]

Tyler played 24 minutes (second only to Seth) and Quinn played 10. Can't draw many conclusions from an exhibition game, but it appears Kyle and Nolan were on to something when they sang Tyler's praises. Quinn looked shaky on D to me.

[CDu]

So right now you would have to say the odd man out would be Dawkins? Or is it just too early to be making bold statements on one preseason game?

None of the three obvious options at the 3 (Dawkins, Gbinije, Murphy) looked particularly good tonight. I'm not sure how well a Cook/Curry/Rivers pairing will work defensively (I don't think we saw that trio at all tonight, for example). And I think we can do just fine with Curry and Rivers as the starting guards, so I don't think this particular offense needs a "true PG." But if none of the obvious options at the 3 step up, it might end up being necessary.

And as has been noted, Thornton played more than twice as many minutes as Cook. He's not as flashy and probably not as talented offensively. But he's more experienced and seems to provide more defensively. So if we do go with a 3-guard lineup, it might be Thornton that gets the look and not Cook.

[SilkyJ]

Did someone pull the trigger too fast hoping if you make somebody a point guard and name him a captain then he somehow makes an instant transformation into a team leader.

Are you saying you think Coach K shouldn't have made Seth the starting point? I wasn't trying to say that necessarily: its early and Seth has never really played PG so he'll need some to grow into that role. What I am saying is that I like QC's game a lot.


[/B]
So right now you would have to say the odd man out would be Dawkins? Or is it just too early to be making bold statements on one preseason game?

Well its DEFINITELY way too early to be making predictions, but what fun would that be :)


Tyler played 24 minutes (second only to Seth) and Quinn played 10. Can't draw many conclusions from an exhibition game, but it appears Kyle and Nolan were on to something when they sang Tyler's praises. Quinn looked shaky on D to me.


one voice of reason. Propers to you sir.

Yes. Excellent reading of the box score. Bravo.

I'm not saying Quinn will get more minutes, I am saying I WANT him to get more minutes. He looked fine on D to me, and will get better over time. And he is clearly, by far, the best pure PG on the team on offense.

[licc85]

Yes, its early. Yes, I said it. Yes, I'm out on that limb. This is my early prediction for this year.

Feel free to call me out in X months if I'm looking like an idiot, but he's by far the best PG on our team and I like what I'm seeing/hearing. Our teams are usually at their best with a great PG running the squad, and QC is that guy for this team. Sure, Jon was great in 2010 and wasn't a natural PG, and Seth could emerge into that same role, but let's be honest that was an anomaly.

Start QC.

It's not early, I beat you to this thread months ago: http://www.dukebasketballreport.com/forums/showthread.php?25122-Are-We-Overlooking-Quinn-Cook

But having watched him play against Seth in the countdown to craziness game, I believe Quinn probably will not start this year, unless there is an injury in our back court. He is probably one of our best ball handlers and playmakers, but after watching Seth run circles around him, I think he has a TON of work to do on defense. It won't matter if we have a pure point running our offense if the other team's point guard is going off for 28 points. in 2 years, Quinn will be the starting point guard. Seth is clearly a better player right now.

[SilkyJ]

It's not early, I beat you to this thread months ago: http://www.dukebasketballreport.com/forums/showthread.php?25122-Are-We-Overlooking-Quinn-Cook

But having watched him play against Seth in the countdown to craziness game, I believe Quinn probably will not start this year, unless there is an injury in our back court. He is probably one of our best ball handlers and playmakers, but after watching Seth run circles around him, I think he has a TON of work to do on defense. It won't matter if we have a pure point running our offense if the other team's point guard is going off for 28 points. in 2 years, Quinn will be the starting point guard. Seth is clearly a better player right now.

Well played! I agree that Q's D is the biggest question mark, but I think it may be good enough. Maybe not. We'll see. I really like what I see from him on offense tho. He's by far the best PG on offense that we have. Obviously though, we know the premium K puts on D and how that translates to minutes. I'm hopeful that as Q gets up to speed (remember he's behind sked right now b/c of the knee) his D will improve.

[Kedsy]

After all, Greg Paulus was a starting freshman PG, and he was one of the worst defenders Duke has ever started in the K era.

Well, when Greg Paulus was a freshman, we only had three recruited scholarship guards (including Greg) and they all started. If Greg Paulus was a freshman on this year's team, based on his defensive shortcomings I doubt he'd have started.

As far as whether Quinn should start, I say no. I like the Seth/Austin/Andre combination and don't think we really need a "pure" PG to start. Just my opinion, of course.

[SilkyJ]

As far as whether Quinn should start, I say no. I like the Seth/Austin/Andre combination and don't think we really need a "pure" PG to start. Just my opinion, of course.

You know I thought that would we would see that combo (Seth/Austin/Andre) a lot more last night. I expected that to be our primary rotation, but I don't think we saw much of that. Kind of surprising, though I guess coach K was trying a whole host of different combos last night.

That reminds me--anyone doing +/- stats this year? I watched Watzone's video on K's presser (http://bluedevilnation.net/2011/10/bdn-video-brings-you-coach-ks-post-game-press-conference/) and noticed that K really talked up Thornton's play and said we are just better when he's out on the floor. That's something I'll look for in the next couple games, b/c I didn't notice it this time I guess. Not that he was bad, I just didn't pick up that we were playing better while he was out there. Would be curious what the +/- says.

My perception was that we were much better on offense with Q at the point, though I think I've already made that point pretty clear :)

[Class of '94]

You know I thought that would we would see that combo (Seth/Austin/Andre) a lot more last night. I expected that to be our primary rotation, but I don't think we saw much of that. Kind of surprising, though I guess coach K was trying a whole host of different combos last night.

That reminds me--anyone doing +/- stats this year? I watched Watzone's video on K's presser (http://bluedevilnation.net/2011/10/bdn-video-brings-you-coach-ks-post-game-press-conference/) and noticed that K really talked up Thornton's play and said we are just better when he's out on the floor. That's something I'll look for in the next couple games, b/c I didn't notice it this time I guess. Not that he was bad, I just didn't pick up that we were playing better while he was out there. Would be curious what the +/- says.

My perception was that we were much better on offense with Q at the point, though I think I've already made that point pretty clear :)

I wonder if K was referring the team playing better defensively more so than offensively. From what I saw online, the team imo looked better defensively (which lead to transition points off steals and rebounds) with Thorton in the lineup. I, too, haven't looked at the stats and I agree with you that it would be interesting to see the +/- stats for the team with Thorton in the lineup.

[CDu]

I wonder if K was referring the team playing better defensively more so than offensively. From what I saw online, the team imo looked better defensively (which lead to transition points off steals and rebounds) with Thorton in the lineup. I, too, haven't looked at the stats and I agree with you that it would be interesting to see the +/- stats for the team with Thorton in the lineup.

No offense to you or Silky, but I'm hopeful that someday folks will move on from being interested in single-game +/- stats. The sample size of a single game is just too small and those too open for random variation in results of a play to get anything meaningful from a single game +/-.

[Olympic Fan]

Wow, this thread baffles me.

First is the skepticism for Seth playing the point ... he's just moved to the position. And he played pretty well against Bellarmine -- 18 points, six rebojnds, five assists and three turnovers ... and three steals. Really, his biggest problem was that he was just 1-of-6 from 3-point range, but he was a 43 percent 3-point shooter a year ago, so I'm not too worried there. He has a career assist/turnover ratio better than 2-to-1, so I'm not really worried there either.

And less I be accused of merely reading the box score, it should be noted that after the game, K said, "Seth has played the best of all the guys."

I do think Quinn Cook is the best pure playmaker on the team (5 assists/1 turnover in his 11 minutes). But Tyler Thornton was also good in the playmaking role (three assist, one turnover). More importantly, he is -- by far -- the team's best defender. That's not my opinion, that's Coach K's. Last night he brought that up, explaining why Tyler played so much in the second half: "Tyler gave us a boost. When he is in the game, we just play better."

Later he added, "Not everybody has to shoot the ball." He may have been talking about Thornton (although he did hit a three) or he may have been talking about Murphy. I thought he played excellent defense during the CTC exhibition and I tried to focus on that when he was in the game against Bellarmine. Again, I thought he was very solid -- good on helpside ... I saw him beat off the dribble once, but he recovered and contested the shot. The problem is that he does not even look for the shot on offense, although he moves the ball well. And got his size, he's not a great rebounder (yet!). But all last summer we talked about Gbinije becoming a defensive stopper on the wing, but right now Murphy appears to be ahead of him in that regarded (which, I suspect, is why he started).

It's still early and this team is still young. K is still looking at a lot of combos. He did say his frontcourt is falling into line. His three vets are "interchangeable" and will play near-equal minutes with Josh Hairston being the fourth guy. He did say that he can't envision playing his three bigs together, so no Ryan Kelly at the 3.

He said the perimeter (and I'm sure that by that, he means the two guards and the "small forward") are far more unsettled. I'd be willing to bet serious money that Curry and Rivers will remain at the top of the perimeter rotation all year (barring injury). The question is who will be the third guy (to start) and the fourth and fifth and maybe six guys in the rotation. Today, it looks like Thornton because of his defense. At some point, Quinn could get in the mix, but he's a long way from starting.

The interesting one -- and not in a good way -- is Dawkins. He had a bad game last night. And he didn't play very well in the CTC exhibition. During the China trip, it looked like he had expanded his game and was playing aggressively, going to the basket and fighting on the boards. In the scrimmage and the exhibition, he looked like his earlier self, floating around the perimeter, looking for the open three ... except he always used to make it and now he's not. I realize that it's just two games, but it's a bad trend. He better step it up or he gets left behind.

Finally, a word about the depth of the rotation. K made a point last night that you can't play an 11-man rotation when the games matter. I know that in the past, he's been more comfortable with eight. He's gone deeper at times (1998 for instance) and less deep at times (2000, when he played six). But four guys are going to share the two spots up front (with three of them getting the bulk of the minutes), Obviously, they are thinking of redshirting MP3 rather than give him spot duty. As Jim said, they don't have to make that decision today, but the fact he didn't play proves they are thinking about it.

How many guys will share the three perimeter spots? As I said, Curry, Rivers will get major minutes. Thornton is going to play because of his defense. I think either Murphy or Gbinije becomes a key part of the rotation to give K a bigger wing defender. Only one will be in the rotation at a time, although which one could change during the season.

That's eight players -- and we still haven't talked about Dawkins or Quinn. I find it hard to believe that a junior Dre would play less than he did last year, although that could happen if he continues to struggle. Quinn's playmaking could earn him a role, but he seems to be in a battle with Thornton and K appears to value TT's defense over Quinn's playmaking skills. That could change if Seth fails as a playmaker, but that doesn't appear to be happening.

Anyway, it's going to be fluid and things will change a lot over the course of the season (K has never been afraid to reboot at midseason), but right now, it's hard to see Quinn as trhe team's primary playmaker.

[budwom]

Can't argue with that, OL.
But it remains to be seen whether Curry is one of those guys who loses some of his shooting effectiveness when given the responsibilities of being the PG.
I'm not saying that it will (nor was last night sufficient evidence of that) but for some players this can be an issue, so we'll just have to relax and let the season unfold.

For many reasons I think it will be interesting to see how K molds this team and how it develops. Possibilities abound.

[airowe]

First is the skepticism for Seth playing the point ... he's just moved to the position.

I absolutely agree with the rest of your post, but Seth played point for most of the year last year. If you mean that this is his first year starting out as the team's point guard, then I'm with you.

As for Cook, his passing ability is very tantalizing and I think he brings some "swagger" to the court that nobody else on the team does, but his defense is not at the level that will allow him to start at the 1 spot. I think it will, but right now it's not. He is third on the depth chart at PG right now because of that.

[J4Kop99]

I think if anyone were to start at PG instead of Seth, it would be TT. Coach seems to think very highly of him.

Thornton
Curry
Rivers
MP2
MP1

-Personally, I like watching Cook play more than Thornton, but obviously coach sees something in TT that he really likes.

[jimsumner]

Well, when Greg Paulus was a freshman, we only had three recruited scholarship guards (including Greg) and they all started. If Greg Paulus was a freshman on this year's team, based on his defensive shortcomings I doubt he'd have started.

As far as whether Quinn should start, I say no. I like the Seth/Austin/Andre combination and don't think we really need a "pure" PG to start. Just my opinion, of course.

Paulus was one of five guards in 2006, along with J.J. Redick, Sean Dockery, DeMarcus Nelson and Marty Pocius. Duke could have started Dockery at the point and left Paulus on the bench. K thought this lineup was not the best use of resources. Duke went 32-4 that season. I do not believe that Paulus' defensive shortcomings were a major factor in the last of those four losses.

The plan is for Curry to start at the point and I think Curry will be a real asset at that position. But unless one of Dawkins, Gbinijie or Murphy starts playing better--which I think the will-we may see more of the Rivers-at-the-3-option.

This team is very much a work in progress and it may take some time to sort it all out.

[Kedsy]

Paulus was one of five guards in 2006, along with J.J. Redick, Sean Dockery, DeMarcus Nelson and Marty Pocius. Duke could have started Dockery at the point and left Paulus on the bench. K thought this lineup was not the best use of resources. Duke went 32-4 that season. I do not believe that Paulus' defensive shortcomings were a major factor in the last of those four losses.

OK. I considered Nelson and Pocius to be small forwards, although as you say certainly we could have started one of them and put Dockery at the point, if Coach K thought it would have been better. I agree Greg's D was not why we lost to LSU.

[Gthoma2a]

Andre needs a few good performances before I am sold that he is our third guy. I have never known how he ended up having the 3 spot locked up in some peoples' minds. He was hit and miss last season. He has so much potential, but we have to see if he can live up to it consistently before he is automatically put as the starter on the team, don't we? Or does what year you are in count more than in-game performance to this point (I am speaking of his 2.0_ year body of work with brilliant highs and baffling lows)? I said this all during the HS All-American games, but it was considered heresy, but maybe now it will be looked at as serious.

[Bob Green]

Or does what year you are in count more than in-game performance to this point (I am speaking of his 2.0_ year body of work with brilliant highs and baffling lows)?

I am a huge Andre Dawkins fan and will be cheering madly for him to succeed this year, but even I realize that in-game performance dictates playing time. Dawkins' brilliant highs are things of beauty such as the two 3-pointers he knocked down in the first half of the 2010 Regional Finals victory over Baylor. Without those six points, the 2010 NCAA National Championship banner could easily be hanging somewhere other than Cameron Indoor Stadium. All Duke fans owe Dawkins eternal gratitude for what he has already contributed to Duke basketball success.

In 2011-12, Tyler Thornton is going to see a lot of court time. Coach Krzyzewski's comments about Thornton in the post game press conference say it all:


When he is in the game, we just play better.

There are only 200 minutes per game so Thornton playing significant minutes is going to eat into some other player's court time. Dawkins must figure out how to quit disappearing.

[Wander]

As for Cook, his passing ability is very tantalizing and I think he brings some "swagger" to the court that nobody else on the team does, but his defense is not at the level that will allow him to start at the 1 spot. I think it will, but right now it's not. He is third on the depth chart at PG right now because of that.

I wonder if this is wise. There was a team last year that had a poor defensive, fantastic passer freshman point guard on the bench for the first half of the season, and when he was finally given his teams' reins, led them to their conference's regular season championship and the Elite 8.

If Cook is our Kendall Marshall, we can't leave him on the bench all season, right?

I'm not suggesting Cook should start. Curry and Rivers are locks and probably our two best players, and I'm not a fan of a three guard lineup (aside: for all the "positions don't matter" talk, note our most successful team of the last decade played the traditional two guards, two forwards, one center lineup). I don't know the right answer, but I'm wary of putting Thornton ahead of Cook and the depth chart. And I guess it's not a bad problem to have.

[Kedsy]

If Cook is our Kendall Marshall, we can't leave him on the bench all season, right?

This analogy would be more apt if our team resembled last year's UNC team in any meaningful way. UNC's best three players were forwards who needed someone to feed them the ball. They were a poor shooting team who needed to get the ball inside. The offense bogged down with Drew and Marshall was able to get the ball to his front line in better position than Drew could.

This is not us this year. Arguably our two best players are guards who are very good with the ball (though admittedly we also have good big men who could benefit from a great passer on the court). We are a very good shooting team. A Kendall Marshall would certainly help us, but not nearly as much as he helped UNC last season.

Not only that, if UNC had split their two-point wins against Clemson, BC, Florida State, and Miami, and lost their 3-point win against Washington, all of which could very easily have happened, you wouldn't even be using this example. I'm sure there are lots of examples of teams who let a "poor defensive, fantastic passer freshman point guard" sit on the bench and learn the ropes, and still managed to make the Final Four.

Ultimately, I'm sure K will find the best balance. Seth/Austin/Andre, Tyler/Seth/Austin, Quinn/Seth/Austin, and Quinn/Seth/Andre are lineups that would look and play very differently from each other (and this is without even adding Alex as a variable), and juggling them around might keep opposing defenses off-balance. We don't necessarily need Quinn to be the primary point guard for him to play and contribute to the team.

[DeepBlue70]

I think if anyone were to start at PG instead of Seth, it would be TT. Coach seems to think very highly of him.

Thornton
Curry
Rivers
MP2
MP1

-Personally, I like watching Cook play more than Thornton, but obviously coach sees something in TT that he really likes.

Check out Coach K's comments on last night's performance, "We just play better when Tyler is in the game." That should tell you about the pecking order right now.

[DevilYouthCoach]

Check out Coach K's comments on last night's performance, "We just play better when Tyler is in the game." That should tell you about the pecking order right now.



I have been saying this ever since Quinn committed to Duke last year. He is going to be a great point guard. I didn't see the game yesterday, but I am not at all surprised that he got 5 assists in 11 minutes, or that he made a twisting, spinning lay-up. I watched Quinn take over the DeMatha-Gonzaga Championship game in DC, playing against Tyler Thornton, and he made fantastic plays. He can also shoot 3's really well. And yes, he plays with swagger of the best sort. I really like it. As for defense, DeMatha played very tough defense, and Quinn was very good at it. The boy is a winner, and if Coach K. doesn't play him a lot, I'll be surprised. Our bigs will also be much happier to have Quinn in the game -- he will get them the ball in a position to score. I like Tyler Thornton, but I really think Quinn is better. It'll be fun to watch a super-coach figure this out. :)

[CDu]

I absolutely agree with the rest of your post, but Seth played point for most of the year last year.

I disagree with the statement that Curry played the point for most of the year last year. Smith played the point for most of the year last year. When Irving was healthy, Irving played the point. Curry and Thornton shared very few minutes in a backup PG role. But the vast majority of Curry's minutes were off the ball.

This is Curry's first year playing primarily (or even more than like 3-5 mpg) at PG for Duke. So I think it's absolutely fair to say he's just moved to the position. There's a big difference between bringing the ball up on a few possessions per game and being the primary PG on the team.

[Troublemaker]

I'm thrilled with the glimpses we've seen from Cook so far in the exhibitions.

We've seen so little, though, and the little we've seen wasn't as impactful as what the two guys ahead of him have done. Curry, for example, led a stirring comeback in the Blue-White game. Thornton started the second half against Bellarmine and led Duke's charge to take control and pull away.

Also, Duke's offense was pretty good against Bellarmine, having shot 68% from 2-pt range. We needed more defense in that game, not more offense (and, without more samples, I'm far from thinking that Cook is the best offensive option at PG.)

Also, Duke's plan this year is to play more motion and spread touches around such that the significance of a pure point guard in the offense is diminished. Sorta like the 2010 season, except the bigs get even more touches. Maybe that fails, but I think so far, so good.

Most of that is really besides the point, though. There's really no chance that Cook has been outplaying Curry and Thornton at PG in practice and is third on the depth chart. The exhibitions make up 1% of what the coaching staff has seen from Cook but unfortunately represent 100% of OUR data, the fans'. A lot of improper conclusions can be reached.

Like I said, though, I'm thrilled with Quinn so far. I don't rule out that he could start at some point this season if the other guys aren't getting it done. But, at this point, it seems like Curry and Thornton are getting first dibs, and there's almost certainly a very good reason for that.

[ACCBBallFan]

I wonder if K was referring the team playing better defensively more so than offensively. From what I saw online, the team imo looked better defensively (which lead to transition points off steals and rebounds) with Thorton in the lineup. I, too, haven't looked at the stats and I agree with you that it would be interesting to see the +/- stats for the team with Thorton in the lineup.

No offense to you or Silky, but I'm hopeful that someday folks will move on from being interested in single-game +/- stats. The sample size of a single game is just too small and those too open for random variation in results of a play to get anything meaningful from a single game +/-.
Admittedly a small sample size against a div 11 opponent, but since they asked:

+22 Tyler Thornton (24)
+20 Miles Plumlee (20)
+18 Austin Rivers (19 min)

Then a big gap even though Tyler was 1 of the 5 on the floor for the -8 run in first half along with Seth, Alex, Josh and Ryan

+13 Seth Curry (31)
+11 Ryan Kelly (23)
+10 Mason Plumlee (23)
+10 Andre Dawkins (15)

Then mostly frosh as expected near bottom which makes Rivers +18 even more impressive

+5 Quinn Cook (11)
+3 Michael Gbinije (7)
+3 Josh Hairston (14)

-5 Alex Murphy (13)

So of the most natural SF's the team played the best when Dre was in the game, contrary to what one would expect by comments in thread about how poorly Dre shot. However, in the last few minutes, Dre and Ryan each got +8 of their 10 and 11 respectively top salvage an otherwise unimpressive game.

Pretty much the same top 7 one would expect, in a slightly different order.

When one sums the minutes played and the +/- and the other stats, the order is, and the first subs would be Ryan, Dre and Quinn which gives a lot of flexibility depending on the need.

So same lineup as started second half:

Sum Min +/- Net stats (Pts+Reb_Asst+Stl+Blk-PF-TO)

71 31 13 27 Seth Curry.......... g 7-17 1-6 3-4 2 4 6 2 18 5 3 0 3 31

60 20 20 20 Miles Plumlee....... f 4-6 0-0 6-8 1 7 8 3 14 1 2 0 2 20
58 23 10 25 Mason Plumlee....... f 8-8 0-0 0-0 3 6 9 0 16 0 3 1 2 23
55 24 22 09 Tyler Thornton...... 2-3 1-2 0-0 1 1 2 2 05 3 1 0 2 24
52 19 18 15 Austin Rivers....... g 5-10 0-3 3-4 3 1 4 1 13 1 3 0 1 19

45 23 11 11 Ryan Kelly.......... 3-6 0-0 4-5 0 1 1 1 10 1 1 0 1 23

29 15 10 04 Andre Dawkins....... 1-5 0-3 0-0 0 2 2 2 2 1 0 0 1 15
28 11 05 12 Quinn Cook.......... 2-2 0-0 0-0 0 2 2 0 4 5 1 0 2 11

19 14 03 02 Josh Hairston....... 1-2 0-0 0-0 1 1 2 1 2 0 1 0 0 14

13 07 03 03 Michael Gbinije..... 1-2 0-0 1-2 1 1 2 1 3 1 2 0 0 07
10 13 -5 02 Alex Murphy......... f 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 1 1 0 0 1 2 0 2 13


Duke still needs at least one of natural SF's Dre, Alex and Mike to be in the mix for starters. Based on his experience and ability to score in bunches, I would expect that to be Dre.

It could be fool's gold going with a small lineup that can succeed against Bellarmine, Shaw and Presbyterian, but not against a team with a larger SF

OTOH, when Tyler is in the game, Duke has more toughness..

The thing that lineup allows Duke to do in practice 5 vs. 5 is have Tyler and Quinn go head to head, same for Seth and Dre, with Austin vs. Alex/Mike, and the three bigs alternating who teams with Josh on second unit, or alternating 2 in and 1 out on first unit vs. Josh and Marshall and Todd Z..

The +5 lineup near end of game was Seth-Tyler-Mason-Ryan and Andre.
The +4 lineup after first sub in 2H: Seth-Tyler-Mason-Miles and Austin
The other +4 lineup in 2nd half was: Seth-Tyler-Mason-Ryan and Austin

At beginning of game the +6 squad was Seth-Austin-Alex-Mason and Miles
The +5 after first sub was Seth-Tyler-Andre-Josh and Ryan but Bellarmine may have been shell shocked at beginning.
The +4 in middle of first half was Quinn-Austin-Andre-Mason and Miles

So in those 6 big runs, Seth and Mason were part of 5 of them, Tyler and Ausitn 4, Miles, Andre, and Ryan 3, Quinn, Josh and Alex 1 and none for Mike Gbinije.

[SilkyJ]

Wow, this thread baffles me.

First is the skepticism for Seth playing the point ... he's just moved to the position....

Anyway, it's going to be fluid and things will change a lot over the course of the season (K has never been afraid to reboot at midseason), but right now, it's hard to see Quinn as trhe team's primary playmaker.

Good post, OF. The reason I started this thread was not b/c of skepticism for Seth, and really not even to predict that Quinn will be starting, but really to say that I've liked what I've seen from him in 2, albeit very early, games...one of which was an intra-squad scrimmage, and that I'd like to see him get some more run and see how we click with him at the point.

Clearly the crowded backcourt and K's preference for defense are going to impact Q's minutes, but its also clear to me that he is by far the best playmaker on offense. He has a PG mentality, can penetrate well, and his passes look very sharp. Dare I say he appears to have equal/better vision and an equal handle to Kyrie, though not quite as quick and not as good a scorer. Hardly an insult to Q tho, given that we're talking about the best player in all of college last year.



As for Cook, his passing ability is very tantalizing and I think he brings some "swagger" to the court that nobody else on the team does, but his defense is not at the level that will allow him to start at the 1 spot. I think it will, but right now it's not. He is third on the depth chart at PG right now because of that.

Also well said. I will watch his D more closely next couple games b/c I thought it was at least adequate in the last game, but clearly others seem to think its in need of serious work.


No offense to you or Silky, but I'm hopeful that someday folks will move on from being interested in single-game +/- stats. The sample size of a single game is just too small and those too open for random variation in results of a play to get anything meaningful from a single game +/-.

None taken and I don't want to put too much emphasis on it. I was also more referring to the +/- of the lineup combos, which is something I believe Jumbo used to track before he went on sabbatical. Taken throughout the course of a season I think you can draw meaningful conclusions from the data.


Admittedly a small sample size against a div 11 opponent, but since they asked:

+22 Tyler Thornton (24)
+20 Miles Plumlee (20)
+18 Austin Rivers (19 min)


Thanks for the info, as always. Per the above, any chance you are tracking lineup combos as well?

[ACCBBallFan]

Here are the non-zero line-up combinations. I have not checked for same combination duplicates, or recorded how long each combination was onthe floor, need Jumbo for that. The order is in total minutes played by each player, not by position:

+6 Seth-Mason-Miles-Austin-Alex 8-2

+5 Seth-Tyler-Ryan-Andre-Josh 13-2

+1 Seth-Tyler-Ryan-Miles-Andre 14-2

+1 Tyler-Ryan-Miles-Andre-Quinn 18-5

(-2) Mason-Miles-Austin-Andre-Quinn 18-7

+4 Mason-Miles-Austin-Quinn-Mike 22-7

(-4) Seth-Mason-Miles-Austin-Mike 22-11

(-2) Seth-Mason-Ryan-Andre-Alex 26-17

(-8) Seth-Tyler-Ryan-Josh-Alex 32-31

+2 Tyler-Ryan-Miles-Austin-Quinn 34-31

end of first half 38-33


totals for first half:

+8 Miles
+6 Austin
+5 Quinn
+3 Andre
+2 Mason
+1 Tyler
+0 Mike
-1 Ryan
-2 Seth
-3 Josh
-4 Alex

+4 Seth-Tyler-Mason-Miles-Austin 50-41 so pretty long time from 38-33 at half

+1 Seth-Ryan- Miles-Andre-Mike 56-46 so again a decent stretch without subbing

(-1) Seth-Mason-Ryan-Andre-Mike

(-1) Seth-Tyler-Mason-Ryan-Andre 57-48

+4 Seth-Tyler-Mason-Ryan-Austin 65-52 yet another fairly long stretch unlike first half where continuity was hard to come by

+1 Seth-Tyler-Ryan-Miles -Austin 66-52

+6 Seth-Tyler-Miles-Austin-Josh 72-52

+1 Seth-Tyler-Miles-Josh-Quinn 73-52

+1 Tyler-Miles-Josh-Alex-Quinn 76-54

(-2) Seth-Miles-Josh-Alex-Quinn 76-56

(-3) Seth-mason-Austin-Josh-Quinn 78-61

+5 Seth-Tyler-mason-Ryan-Andre 83-61

+3 Ryan-Andre-Josh-Quinn-Mike 87-62 final score

second half +/-

+21 Tyler
+15 Seth
+12 Ryan, Miles and Austin

+8 Mason
+7 Andre
+6 Josh
+3 Mike

-0- Quinn
(-1) Alex

Some of this is luck of the draw being subbed in between a guy shooting 2 FT's.

First half Duke points while on the floor (Duke points allowed while on floor in parenthesis)

24 - Ryan (25)
24 - Seth (26)
20 - Tyler (19)
19 - Miles (11)
18 - Mason (16)
18 - Alex (22)
16 - Austin (10)
14 - Andre (11)
12 - Quinn (07)
11 - Josh (14)
04 - Mike (04)

Hard to draw any inferences on points allowed in parenthesis without having the total minutes played but can see Miles +8, Austin +6, Quinn +5 and Dre +3 were the 4 most favorable +/- in fairly evenly scored first half

Second half Duke points while on the floor (Duke points allowed while on floor in parenthesis)

42 - Seth (27)
36 - Tyler (15)
29 - Miles (17)
29 - Austin (17)
28 - Mason (20)
27 - Ryan (15)
16 - Andre (09)
16 - Josh (10)
11 - Mike (08)
10 - Quinn (10)
03 - Alex (04)

Again Hard to draw any inferences on points allowed in parenthesis without having the total minutes played but can see Tyler +22, Seth +15, again Miles +12, again Austin +12 and Ryan +12 were the 5 most favorable +/- in second half that was not as close.

Totals for the gaem:

66 - Seth (53) =+13

56 - Tyler (34) = +22
51 - Ryan (40) = +11

48 - Miles (28) = +20
46 - Mason (36) = +10
45 - Austin (27) = +18

30 - Andre (20) = +10 despite only scoring one basket

27 - Josh (24) = +03
22 - Quinn (17) = +05
21 - Alex (26) = (-05) does not bode well for tall SF slot

15 - Mike (12) = +03 does not bode well for tall SF slot, but hard to impress in 7 minutes of PT

Perhaps in zeal to get bigs involved Duke may be ignoring SF slot, or perhaps frosh may be deferring too much or missing layups as Mike did when he entered the game.

[ACCBBallFan]

It appears only one combination was used more than once:

5 Seth-Tyler-Mason-Ryan-Andre 83-61
-1 Seth-Tyler-Mason-Ryan-Andre 57-48


2 Tyler-Ryan-Miles-Austin-Quinn 34-31
1 Tyler-Ryan-Miles-Andre-Quinn 18-5

1 Tyler-Miles-Josh-Alex-Quinn 76-54

1 Seth-Tyler-Ryan-Miles-Andre 14-2
1 Seth-Tyler-Ryan-Miles -Austin 66-52
-8 Seth-Tyler-Ryan-Josh-Alex 32-31
5 Seth-Tyler-Ryan-Andre-Josh 13-2


1 Seth-Tyler-Miles-Josh-Quinn 73-52
6 Seth-Tyler-Miles-Austin-Josh 72-52

4 Seth-Tyler-Mason-Ryan-Austin 65-52 yet another fairly long stretch unlike first half where continuity was hard to come by
4 Seth-Tyler-Mason-Miles-Austin 50-41 so pretty long time from 38-33 at half

1 Seth-Ryan- Miles-Andre-Mike 56-46 so again a decent stretch without subbing

-2 Seth-Miles-Josh-Alex-Quinn 76-56

-1 Seth-Mason-Ryan-Andre-Mike
-2 Seth-Mason-Ryan-Andre-Alex 26-17

-4 Seth-Mason-Miles-Austin-Mike 22-11
6 Seth-Mason-Miles-Austin-Alex 8-2

-3 Seth-Mason-Austin-Josh-Quinn 78-61

3 Ryan-Andre-Josh-Quinn-Mike 87-62 final score

4 Mason-Miles-Austin-Quinn-Mike 22-7
-2 Mason-Miles-Austin-Andre-Quinn 18-7

As I said inthe initial post, the guys who were most often in a positive lineup defined as absolute value greater than or equal to 4 were:

+4 Seth, Tyler, Austin, and Mason

+3 Miles

+2 Ryan and Dre

+1 Josh and Quinn

0 - Alex and Mike

6 Seth-Tyler-Miles-Austin-Josh 72-52
6 Seth-Mason-Miles-Austin-Alex 8-2

5 Seth-Tyler-Ryan-Andre-Josh 13-2
5 Seth-Tyler-Mason-Ryan-Andre 83-61

4 Seth-Tyler-Mason-Ryan-Austin 65-52 yet another fairly long stretch unlike first half where continuity was hard to come by
4 Seth-Tyler-Mason-Miles-Austin 50-41 so pretty long time from 38-33 at half
4 Mason-Miles-Austin-Quinn-Mike 22-7

3 Ryan-Andre-Josh-Quinn-Mike 87-62 final score
2 Tyler-Ryan-Miles-Austin-Quinn 34-31

1 Tyler-Ryan-Miles-Andre-Quinn 18-5
1 Tyler-Miles-Josh-Alex-Quinn 76-54
1 Seth-Tyler-Ryan-Miles-Andre 14-2
1 Seth-Tyler-Ryan-Miles -Austin 66-52
1 Seth-Tyler-Miles-Josh-Quinn 73-52
1 Seth-Ryan- Miles-Andre-Mike 56-46 so again a decent stretch without subbing

-1 Seth-Tyler-Mason-Ryan-Andre 57-48
-1 Seth-Mason-Ryan-Andre-Mike

-2 Seth-Miles-Josh-Alex-Quinn 76-56
-2 Seth-Mason-Ryan-Andre-Alex 26-17
-2 Mason-Miles-Austin-Andre-Quinn 18-7

-3 Seth-Mason-Austin-Josh-Quinn 78-61
-4 Seth-Mason-Miles-Austin-Mike 22-11

-8 Seth-Tyler-Ryan-Josh-Alex 32-31

[screenname]

No offense to you or Silky, but I'm hopeful that someday folks will move on from being interested in single-game +/- stats. The sample size of a single game is just too small and those too open for random variation in results of a play to get anything meaningful from a single game +/-.

Agreed- but wait, does this include the first of half of the first exibition game?

[Bluedog]

No offense to you or Silky, but I'm hopeful that someday folks will move on from being interested in single-game +/- stats. The sample size of a single game is just too small and those too open for random variation in results of a play to get anything meaningful from a single game +/-.


Agreed- but wait, does this include the first of half of the first exibition game?

Right, time to consult kenpom's thoughts on the matter again (who is much smarter than I am):


In-game plus minus is useless ... Multi-game plus-minus isn’t much better .. In summary, plus-minus, while neat to look at, is a poor tool in college basketball analysis.

http://kenpom.com/blog/index.php/weblog/a_treatise_on_plus_minus/

I think tracking the lineups used (which ACCBBallFan graciously provided as well) is perhaps more enlightening than the actual +/- figures.

[CDu]

None taken and I don't want to put too much emphasis on it. I was also more referring to the +/- of the lineup combos, which is something I believe Jumbo used to track before he went on sabbatical. Taken throughout the course of a season I think you can draw meaningful conclusions from the data.

I'd say single-game +/- for lineup combos are even more subject to randomness than single game individuals (because there are even fewer plays to sample per subject). Perhaps that is what you were saying, though: just keeping track of the combos over the season. I just wanted to clarify. I'm a bit skeptical of the full-season +/- for lineup combinations too though, given the small sample size issues. A full season might be sufficient at the player level.

The +/- will be useful for measuring results, but not necessarily how well the unit actually played, if that makes sense. Because a player can hit a crazy shot against good defense (or miss an easy opportunity against bad defense), the smaller number of possessions for a lineup combo becomes a problem for gaining insight into how well a lineup played.

[Kedsy]

Right, time to consult kenpom's thoughts on the matter again (who is much smarter than I am):

http://kenpom.com/blog/index.php/weblog/a_treatise_on_plus_minus/

I have said this several times when this kenpom article is brought up, and nobody has ever responded to me. Doesn't it seem like something is wrong with the article? His 20 game sample shows great variation for a player whose plus/minus should be zero, which I agree does seem odd. On the other hand, his sample game scoring margins show similar variation and they should all be zero too! Eleven of the 20 games have margins of 8 or more; eight of the 20 are double-figure games; five of the 20 have margins of 19 points or more.

But isn't Kenpom's whole system based on evaluating game scores? (Really points scored per possession and points allowed per possession, but for this purpose aren't they all the same thing?) If there's that much variation in a random sample, does that invalidate his whole system? If not, why should it invalidate plus/minus?

As you say, Kenpom is a smart guy, so I assume there's an explanation. But I don't understand the distinction between the validity of plus/minus and the validity of scores in general. Can anybody help me?

[SilkyJ]

I'd say single-game +/- for lineup combos are even more subject to randomness than single game individuals (because there are even fewer plays to sample per subject). Perhaps that is what you were saying, though: just keeping track of the combos over the season. I just wanted to clarify. I'm a bit skeptical of the full-season +/- for lineup combinations too though, given the small sample size issues. A full season might be sufficient at the player level.

The +/- will be useful for measuring results, but not necessarily how well the unit actually played, if that makes sense. Because a player can hit a crazy shot against good defense (or miss an easy opportunity against bad defense), the smaller number of possessions for a lineup combo becomes a problem for gaining insight into how well a lineup played.

What you're saying makes sense. My instinct was that several games worth or +/- data would be sufficient to draw conclusions, but I'm no saber-metrician. Maybe its not sufficient. If you look at my OP on this topic, I was basically seeing if we can find data throughout the season to support K's assertion that we are better with Tyler in the game. Maybe there isn't data and we just have to go on look and feel. Either way I trust what K says, just curious if we could find the data.

[loran16]

I have said this several times when this kenpom article is brought up, and nobody has ever responded to me. Doesn't it seem like something is wrong with the article? His 20 game sample shows great variation for a player whose plus/minus should be zero, which I agree does seem odd. On the other hand, his sample game scoring margins show similar variation and they should all be zero too! Eleven of the 20 games have margins of 8 or more; eight of the 20 are double-figure games; five of the 20 have margins of 19 points or more.

But isn't Kenpom's whole system based on evaluating game scores? (Really points scored per possession and points allowed per possession, but for this purpose aren't they all the same thing?) If there's that much variation in a random sample, does that invalidate his whole system? If not, why should it invalidate plus/minus?

As you say, Kenpom is a smart guy, so I assume there's an explanation. But I don't understand the distinction between the validity of plus/minus and the validity of scores in general. Can anybody help me?

You're confusing two different things: Team Points Differential per Possession (Points Per Possession minus Points Allowed Per Possession) and Player +/-. The latter is what the article of Pomeroy addresses. The former is what the Pomeroy system uses.

Player +/- first started being used in the NBA - and to some extent it can work there. However there's a key difference between the NBA and College.

Quite simply put, because college players play less than half of the games of NBA players which are shorter than NBA games (8 minutes shorter), the sample size is so low that the amount of +/- caused by random factors overwhelms any factors caused by the player's actual effort, making it useless as a predictive statistic.

+/- ideally works by comparing lineups with a specific player and four other players with a backup player and the same four other players. But the amount of minutes you have for both lineups in college is often very low and if a player plays 40 minutes, you can't actually get a measure of skill for him at all from +/-, but only the total skill of the team.

By comparison, Team Points Differential Per Possession (or Points Per Possession (PPP) Differential) lacks this issue - since it isn't trying to compare players, but teams, it can use all 40 minutes of each game to eventually create meaningful predictive results.

I know i've explained this poorly Kedsy, but that's basically the jib: Pomeroy is noting that +/- for PLAYERS is essentially useless for identifying who is a better player in college, but that +/- for TEAMS (when adjusted for tempo) is useful for comparing teams, due to the larger sample size.

[sagegrouse]

What you're saying makes sense. My instinct was that several games worth or +/- data would be sufficient to draw conclusions, but I'm no saber-metrician. Maybe its not sufficient. If you look at my OP on this topic, I was basically seeing if we can find data throughout the season to support K's assertion that we are better with Tyler in the game. Maybe there isn't data and we just have to go on look and feel. Either way I trust what K says, just curious if we could find the data.

The deficiencies of plus/minus is a case of "death by a thousand cuts" -- no over-riding reason; just a lot of different factors:

For example-- Matchups: you put your best defensive player against the other team's A-A and when the opponent sits for a few minutes, you give your player a rest. Well, how are +/- stats gonna look if the other team has a big dropoff when its star is resting.

sagegrouse

[CDu]

I have said this several times when this kenpom article is brought up, and nobody has ever responded to me. Doesn't it seem like something is wrong with the article? His 20 game sample shows great variation for a player whose plus/minus should be zero, which I agree does seem odd. On the other hand, his sample game scoring margins show similar variation and they should all be zero too! Eleven of the 20 games have margins of 8 or more; eight of the 20 are double-figure games; five of the 20 have margins of 19 points or more.

But isn't Kenpom's whole system based on evaluating game scores? (Really points scored per possession and points allowed per possession, but for this purpose aren't they all the same thing?) If there's that much variation in a random sample, does that invalidate his whole system? If not, why should it invalidate plus/minus?

As you say, Kenpom is a smart guy, so I assume there's an explanation. But I don't understand the distinction between the validity of plus/minus and the validity of scores in general. Can anybody help me?

It's a reasonable question regarding Pomeroy's methodology. Unfortunately, I don't know enough about his methods to speak to whether his method is also subject to huge randomness effects. But I think it's based on points per possession, and there are a TON of data points for each team on this (like 70ish per game). So part of the answer lies in that Pomeroy's sample size is MUCH larger. I think he uses data for all 300+ teams (each with ~2000 data points) to generate estimates for each team relative to each other. So while there is substantial variation within each of those data points, hopefully the sample size handles the randomness issue better. Whereas with the single-player +/- you only have the ~30 data points.

Additionally, with respect to actual game scores, I can speak a bit more confidently. There is certainly quite a bit of randomness there, too. For example, imagine a superior team (Team A) playing against a lesser team (Team B). Imagine Team A playing a fantastic game, but Team B just can't seem to miss even their contested 3pt attempts (or Team A just can't seem to hit their open opportunities). The quality of Team A would suggest that they should win by, say, 12 points every game. Even if both teams get exactly the shots you'd expect throughout the game, there's some level of "randomness" that could adjust the score such that Team B wins.

The difference though is that, with a team (instead of an individual), you can assume that there are fewer things outside of their control influencing the result. With a team, every player's contribution is a part of that team's input, and thus controlled by the team. The variables are then other team's performance (which they have only some control over) and randomness. With an individual player, "uncontrollables" include the same "uncontrollables" facing the team, but also uncontrollables within the team (his teammates). Since more "uncontrollable" (from the subject's perspective) factors are in play at the individual level than at the team level, randomness is a bigger problem with the +/- estimates.

In other words, I'd not question Pomeroy's point about individual +/- being somewhat meaningless on such a small sample. I think that's still a valid point. I'd say the question is how much Pomeroy's methods are also subject to randomness problems. I'd say it's less so, the question is just how much less so.

[Wander]

Not only that, if UNC had split their two-point wins against Clemson, BC, Florida State, and Miami, and lost their 3-point win against Washington, all of which could very easily have happened, you wouldn't even be using this example.

Yes, I would.

I've heard this stated a few times before on these boards, by a few different people. It's a tired, boring, lame argument. If you want to play the "what if?" game, UNC could have also held onto a 16 point lead in Cameron to finish 15-1, or scored when they had the ball down 1 point with a minute left against Kentucky to get to the Final Four. They didn't, and I'm sure as hell not going to give them credit for either of those hypothetical accomplishments, but I'm also not going to take away credit from their young team by nitpicking over a few close wins.

More importantly, even if they had split those four games, the argument still holds. In your alternate universe where UNC loses to Clemson and FSU, is Kendall Marshall directly responsible for these losses by turning the ball over 10 times or something? Unless he's directly responsible via extremely terrible play for these extra losses in this fantasy timeline, the point is still there. Marshall made UNC a lot better last year. It's something that every single college basketball analyst and writer agrees upon, and UNC finishing 2nd in the ACC instead of 1st wouldn't have changed that.

Of course, none of this means Cook should start - as I said, I agree with you that Curry and Rivers should definitely be the two starting guards.

[Bluedog]

I have said this several times when this kenpom article is brought up, and nobody has ever responded to me. Doesn't it seem like something is wrong with the article? His 20 game sample shows great variation for a player whose plus/minus should be zero, which I agree does seem odd. On the other hand, his sample game scoring margins show similar variation and they should all be zero too! Eleven of the 20 games have margins of 8 or more; eight of the 20 are double-figure games; five of the 20 have margins of 19 points or more.

But isn't Kenpom's whole system based on evaluating game scores? (Really points scored per possession and points allowed per possession, but for this purpose aren't they all the same thing?) If there's that much variation in a random sample, does that invalidate his whole system? If not, why should it invalidate plus/minus?

As you say, Kenpom is a smart guy, so I assume there's an explanation. But I don't understand the distinction between the validity of plus/minus and the validity of scores in general. Can anybody help me?


You're confusing two different things: Team Points Differential per Possession (Points Per Possession minus Points Allowed Per Possession) and Player +/-. The latter is what the article of Pomeroy addresses. The former is what the Pomeroy system uses.

Player +/- first started being used in the NBA - and to some extent it can work there. However there's a key difference between the NBA and College.

Quite simply put, because college players play less than half of the games of NBA players which are shorter than NBA games (8 minutes shorter), the sample size is so low that the amount of +/- caused by random factors overwhelms any factors caused by the player's actual effort, making it useless as a predictive statistic.

+/- ideally works by comparing lineups with a specific player and four other players with a backup player and the same four other players. But the amount of minutes you have for both lineups in college is often very low and if a player plays 40 minutes, you can't actually get a measure of skill for him at all from +/-, but only the total skill of the team.

By comparison, Team Points Differential Per Possession (or Points Per Possession (PPP) Differential) lacks this issue - since it isn't trying to compare players, but teams, it can use all 40 minutes of each game to eventually create meaningful predictive results.

I know i've explained this poorly Kedsy, but that's basically the jib: Pomeroy is noting that +/- for PLAYERS is essentially useless for identifying who is a better player in college, but that +/- for TEAMS (when adjusted for tempo) is useful for comparing teams, due to the larger sample size.

I think Kedsy makes a good point and I was kind of wondering this as well.

I think one point is that if there is a sufficient sample size to compare teams, then why in the analysis is the net difference a fairly significant margin (27 points) after 20 games against a supposedly identical opponent? Furthermore, in one of the games, the team got outscored by a whopping 25 points. If the +/- can be declared as a worthless statistic for a single game due to randomness and variability, then it seems that an individual game score could also be declared as meaningless. Two teams that were perfectly equal from a statistical standpoint ended up with a 25 point differential in one of the games due to randomness. I think if we lose to UNC by 25, nobody here would then say, "Hey, we're both equals. It was just statistical noise and randomness that caused the 25-point differential." That would be an excellent argument. :p So, I guess the question is not that the over a season statistics of a team are invalid, but rather that an individual game score is also subject to the same randomness that the +/- stats are for a single game. Thus, if one is seen as a poor indicator of the quality of an individual, the other should also be viewed as a poor indicator of the quality of a team. But, again, nobody is going to say "Hey, we won by 15, it was just random noise though." I somewhat agree with this arguments based on the numbers, but maybe somebody has an explanation.

Edit: I hadn't refreshed the page to see CDu's response when I typed the above.

[loran16]

I think Kedsy makes a good point and I was kind of wondering this as well.

I think one point is that if there is a sufficient sample size to compare teams, then why in the analysis is the net difference a fairly significant margin (27 points) after 20 games against a supposedly identical opponent? Furthermore, in one of the games, the team got outscored by a whopping 25 points. If the +/- can be declared as a worthless statistic for a single game due to randomness and variability, then it seems that an individual game score could also be declared as meaningless. Two teams that were perfectly equal from a statistical standpoint ended up with a 25 point differential in one of the games due to randomness. I think if we lose to UNC by 25, nobody here would then say, "Hey, we're both equals. It was just statistical noise and randomness that caused the 25-point differential." That would be an excellent argument. :p So, I guess the question is not that the over a season statistics of a team are invalid, but rather that an individual game score is also subject to the same randomness that the +/- stats are for a single game. Thus, if one is seen as a poor indicator of the quality of an individual, the other should also be viewed as a poor indicator of the quality of a team. But, again, nobody is going to say "Hey, we won by 15, it was just random noise though." I somewhat agree with this arguments based on the numbers, but maybe somebody has an explanation.

Let me chip in some more:
First, 27 points after 20 games is not a significant margin, it's the equivalent of a 2.7 point differential per game. If you play a team 20 times and lose by one possession each time, you'd be very justified in saying the two teams are probably pretty close to equal or at best that one is slightly better than the other.

Second, Yes randomness makes single game #s useless on their own. Duke lost to Georgetown by 22 in 2010. Severely outplayed. Was Georgetown that much better than Duke? No. Duke lost to NC State by 14! (and it wasn't even that close). Was NC State even better than Duke? Of Course Not!

However, single games do okay as DATA POINTS in an overall data set. If a team whoops every opponent by double digits and then loses one game by 25, we don't assume that team is worse than the team who beat it, but we adjust our expectations down a little - in Pomeroy's team #s, it does that by the fact that the teams's adjusted points per possession rankings are naturally decreased (since the team just lost by 25!). The loss doesn't move the team that far, but it does lower the expectations a little.

And Yeah teams and fans do sometimes realize when they lose purely due to bad luck - in the NC State game I believe, a common reaction was that "well we just couldn't hit the side of a barn that night. That happens." Well guess what: that's simply explaining the loss by randomness.

The effect of luck/randomness in sports is much higher than people want to believe. It's really high! (Less so in bball than other sports mind you). But it's still huge.

[CDu]

Let me chip in some more:
First, 27 points after 20 games is not a significant margin, it's the equivalent of a 2.7 point differential per game. If you play a team 20 times and lose by one possession each time, you'd be very justified in saying the two teams are probably pretty close to equal or at best that one is slightly better than the other.

Yes randomness makes single game #s useless on their own. Duke lost to Georgetown by 22 in 2010. Severely outplayed. Was Georgetown that much better than Duke? No. Duke lost to NC State by 14! (and it wasn't even that close). Was NC State even better than Duke? Of Course Not!

However, single games do okay as DATA POINTS in an overall data set. If a team whoops every opponent by double digits and then loses one game by 25, we don't assume that team is worse than the team who beat it, but we adjust our expectations down a little - in Pomeroy's team #s, it does that by the fact that the teams's adjusted points per possession rankings are naturally decreased (since the team just lost by 25!). The loss doesn't move the team that far, but it does lower the expectations a little.

And Yeah teams and fans do sometimes realize when they lose purely due to bad luck - in the NC State game I believe, a common reaction was that "well we just couldn't hit the side of a barn that night. That happens." Well guess what: that's simply explaining the loss by randomness.

The effect of luck/randomness in sports is much higher than people want to believe. It's really high! (Less so in bball than other sports mind you). But it's still huge.

I think this is an excellent answer, and I bolded the parts I really think are important. I completely agree that people underestimate how much luck plays into sports. Though a 27-point difference over 20 games is actually a 1.35 ppg difference :)

And if I'm not mistaken, I don't think Pomeroy analyses data at the game level, but at the possession level. So he has lots and lots of data points with which to build his analysis. The hope is that, with a large enough sample, randomness/luck is weeded out. When your sample size is 30-40, randomness is very relevant. When the sample size pushes into the thousands, that randomness effect decreases. It doesn't go away, but it gets much much smaller.

[loran16]

I think this is an excellent answer, and I bolded the parts I really think are important. I completely agree that people underestimate how much luck plays into sports. Though a 27-point difference over 20 games is actually a 1.35 ppg difference :)

Believe it or not, I'm a law student. So I fail at simple math. :-P




And if I'm not mistaken, I don't think Pomeroy analyses data at the game level, but at the possession level. So he has lots and lots of data points with which to build his analysis. The hope is that, with a large enough sample, randomness/luck is weeded out. When your sample size is 30-40, randomness is very relevant. When the sample size pushes into the thousands, that randomness effect decreases. It doesn't go away, but it gets much much smaller.

This is correct. If we assume the slowest team plays 50 possessions per game (It doesn't, the slowest team last year played 57.9 Possessions per game, but I'm doing this for simple math) and plays only 30 games, then that's 1500 possessions of data to work with. In practice the sample size is larger since most teams play more possessions and more games eventually. For players the sample is much smaller, especially if you're comparing to backups - who obviously have even smaller samples.

[NSDukeFan]

Thanks for the discussion about +/- as I have found this thread hijack very interesting. I agree there is a lot of luck and randomness that occurs in basketball and makes single game +/- a useless statistical predictor, but if Jumbo or pfrduke, or ACCBBallFan post it, I will still look at with interest. I realize the score of a single basketball game is not necessarily the best predictor of future scores (but perhaps becomes more relevant using more data points, i.e. possessions), but I am still very interested in the score of every game Duke plays and what the score is when different players are on the floor, even if that isn't a great predictor of exactly how good a particular player is compared to another.

[sagegrouse]

Believe it or not, I'm a law student. So I fail at simple math. :-P



This is correct. If we assume the slowest team plays 50 possessions per game (It doesn't, the slowest team last year played 57.9 Possessions per game, but I'm doing this for simple math) and plays only 30 games, then that's 1500 possessions of data to work with. In practice the sample size is larger since most teams play more possessions and more games eventually. For players the sample is much smaller, especially if you're comparing to backups - who obviously have even smaller samples.

Let's make it mathematically precise (even if totally wrong in other ways) ;): A team has 80 possessions in a game and each possession ends in a shot. The team's shot percentage has proven to be in the range of 40 to 50% success. Well, the standard deviation (usually referred to as +/-) of the number of field goals is between four and five shots. Considering 3-point as well as 2-point shots, that's a swing of more than ten points, plus or minus, as the likely deviation in the number of points scored.*

And yes, one could build a more comprehensive model, including, fouls, TOs, rebounds and the like. But the principle remains the same -- it would be no surprise to have a deviation of ten points or more in a team's score just based on randomness. Ten points plus or minus can change the winner of a lot of games, and -- of course -- the other team also has the same phenomenon.

sagegrouse
*The concept of "likely deviation" needs a little more explanation

[Kedsy]

It's a reasonable question regarding Pomeroy's methodology. Unfortunately, I don't know enough about his methods to speak to whether his method is also subject to huge randomness effects. But I think it's based on points per possession, and there are a TON of data points for each team on this (like 70ish per game). So part of the answer lies in that Pomeroy's sample size is MUCH larger. I think he uses data for all 300+ teams (each with ~2000 data points) to generate estimates for each team relative to each other. So while there is substantial variation within each of those data points, hopefully the sample size handles the randomness issue better. Whereas with the single-player +/- you only have the ~30 data points.

So Pomeroy's entire point in that article is sample size? It's oddly written, if that's the case. But if so, here's my next question: he says he ran his example based on 70 possessions a game. And seems to have determined the plus/minus on a per possession basis. So why are you saying the player only has 30 data points? Why isn't there a data point for however many possessions the player is on the floor? Seems to me for a team we're talking about ~2000 data points per season and for a player who plays 30 minutes a game we're talking about 1500. And yes, 2000 is bigger than 1500, but not so much bigger that one is totally reliable and one completely unreliable. What am I missing?

[TruBlu]

My head hurts.

[loran16]

So Pomeroy's entire point in that article is sample size? It's oddly written, if that's the case. But if so, here's my next question: he says he ran his example based on 70 possessions a game. And seems to have determined the plus/minus on a per possession basis. So why are you saying the player only has 30 data points? Why isn't there a data point for however many possessions the player is on the floor? Seems to me for a team we're talking about ~2000 data points per season and for a player who plays 30 minutes a game we're talking about 1500. And yes, 2000 is bigger than 1500, but not so much bigger that one is totally reliable and one completely unreliable. What am I missing?

First off, to understand what Pomeroy did, you need to understand how he's analyzing +/-. Knowing a team is +5 with a player on the floor doesn't tell you anything.....perhaps the team would be +5 with those 4 players playing shorthanded! To truly analyze how valuable a player is, we in statistics would prefer IF POSSIBLE (Key words here) to use a method known as WOWY - With or Without You. In a perfect sense, you'd compare the player on the court with four teammates to the performance of the team with the Player OFF THE COURT with the same four teammates still playing.

More commonly, due to sample size issues, people employ the WOWY concept by comparing the performance of the entire team with Player A on the floor and comparing that to the team's performance off the floor. This is how the Kyrie Irving analysis linked in the Pomeroy piece works --> Duke was found by that analyst to perform better with Kyrie OFF the floor than ON the floor pre-injury.

In essence you're trying to compare a player's performance to the performance on the same team of his backup to gather his true value.

--------------------------

Next, Pomeroy assumes that the player is on the floor for Half of his team's minutes, which gives us the maximum sample size. Why is that the maximum sample size? Well because at that playing time you have an equal amount of playing time with that player ON the floor as OFF THE FLOOR. In other words, we need two samples here, and if we had a player playing say 35 minutes a game, our second sample is only 5 minutes of play.

--------------------------

So Pomeroy's example is run essentially with a sample size of 35 possessions times 20 games = 700 Possessions. This is obviously about 2/3 of the season, when we'd hope these statistics would be useful. As it is, as Pomeroy ran the experiment, they're not. The sample is too small for the results to tell you anything meaningful due to the impact of random factors still being too large. (By definition your sample is half of the team's total sample for performance).

Meanwhile, most of the time, we don't have a sample like Pomeroy's.....to take Duke these past years as an example, we had precious few moments where our Big 3 players were off the floor, so +/- was useless on them. Then you had our big men, whose samples often fluctuated greatly, and probably were not 50/50....

Now it's possible that after 37 games; the whole season, that these numbers are a bit more meaningful. But it's still doubtful there.

------------------------

Now as Pomeroy notes, Adjusted +/- (a +/- that is more like the perfect form of WOWY noted above, which adjusts +/- by taking into account the teammates on the floor) may be useful over such a sample size, but that's not as easily available (and it's not what Jumbo and others have been doing). Moreover, experience in the NBA shows it probably requires more than a single NBA season (82 games!) to be truly reliable. Thus even that's probably not that helpful in college.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Going back to what Pomeroy does for teams - first, like Adjusted +/-, he adjusts for opponents. Second, he uses a sample which is by definition double that of the maximum you get by using player +/-. These things help the system be far more reliable, though there are quirks here or there.

[CDu]

So Pomeroy's entire point in that article is sample size? It's oddly written, if that's the case. But if so, here's my next question: he says he ran his example based on 70 possessions a game. And seems to have determined the plus/minus on a per possession basis. So why are you saying the player only has 30 data points? Why isn't there a data point for however many possessions the player is on the floor? Seems to me for a team we're talking about ~2000 data points per season and for a player who plays 30 minutes a game we're talking about 1500. And yes, 2000 is bigger than 1500, but not so much bigger that one is totally reliable and one completely unreliable. What am I missing?

After re-reading what he wrote (it had been a while since I read it) I do think sample size is part of the issue. Though I don't think it has much to do with sample size as I originally suggested. I'm not sure why he doesn't report the cumulative results of the 50 simulations (to create a 1000 game, or 35000-possession, simulation) rather than each 20 game simulation. Over those 1000 games, the player's +/- should theoretically have approached 0.

But I think his analysis still clearly illustrates the potential lack of value of individual +/- in single games (or even 20-game seasons). An irrelevant player (and I think we can agree that the hypothetical player in Pomeroy's example was irrelevant) can quite clearly have some odd results.

I think the other issue is the difference between team measurement and individual measurement. There are just so many more factors outside of the individual's control that can influence his +/- than there are for a team. So the sample size issue is more meaningful, because you need more data points to adequately control for the additional variables. If you had the exact same number of data points for a player and a team (which in almost every case we don't), the +/- for a team would still be a more accurate estimate than the +/- for an individual, because there are more variables to account for with the individual.

Estimating adjusted +/- would be an attempt to control for some of those additional variables (control for the lineup quality of his team and the lineup quality of opponent). But we don't have those data.

[Kedsy]

First off, to understand what Pomeroy did, you need to understand how he's analyzing +/-. Knowing a team is +5 with a player on the floor doesn't tell you anything.....perhaps the team would be +5 with those 4 players playing shorthanded! To truly analyze how valuable a player is, we in statistics would prefer IF POSSIBLE (Key words here) to use a method known as WOWY - With or Without You. In a perfect sense, you'd compare the player on the court with four teammates to the performance of the team with the Player OFF THE COURT with the same four teammates still playing.


After re-reading what he wrote (it had been a while since I read it) I do think sample size is part of the issue. Though I don't think it has much to do with sample size as I originally suggested. I'm not sure why he doesn't report the cumulative results of the 50 simulations (to create a 1000 game, or 35000-possession, simulation) rather than each 20 game simulation. Over those 1000 games, the player's +/- should theoretically have approached 0.

But I think his analysis still clearly illustrates the potential lack of value of individual +/- in single games (or even 20-game seasons). An irrelevant player (and I think we can agree that the hypothetical player in Pomeroy's example was irrelevant) can quite clearly have some odd results.

I think the other issue is the difference between team measurement and individual measurement. There are just so many more factors outside of the individual's control that can influence his +/- than there are for a team. So the sample size issue is more meaningful, because you need more data points to adequately control for the additional variables. If you had the exact same number of data points for a player and a team (which in almost every case we don't), the +/- for a team would still be a more accurate estimate than the +/- for an individual, because there are more variables to account for with the individual.

Estimating adjusted +/- would be an attempt to control for some of those additional variables (control for the lineup quality of his team and the lineup quality of opponent). But we don't have those data.

Thank you both. I'm pretty sure I already more or less understood how Pomeroy is analyzing it. And the factors you both bring up sound completely reasonable. The disconnect for me is I don't see Pomeroy relying on the factors you are noting. It seems to me he shows a high amount of random noise, which would seem to apply to both individual plus/minus and his team metrics, and then dismisses plus/minus as a meaningful stat because of the noise. Perhaps in the back of his mind he was thinking all the things you're saying, but he doesn't mention them. Which means his article is either poorly conceived or poorly written, I don't know which. Usually his analysis is so complete and so cool but this one doesn't seem up to his usual standard.

Why does it matter whether this article is any good? Because every time the subject of plus/minus comes up on DBR, someone cites this Pomeroy article and says that's the end of the discussion. And I don't think it should be. Anyway, thanks for indulging me.

[yancem]

Ok, so I just read through the the past two pages and what I got out of this is, will Jumbo be joining us the season. You guys can argue the stats all you want, (I have to rely on my eyes because I promised myself to leave math in college :))

[CDu]

Thank you both. I'm pretty sure I already more or less understood how Pomeroy is analyzing it. And the factors you both bring up sound completely reasonable. The disconnect for me is I don't see Pomeroy relying on the factors you are noting. It seems to me he shows a high amount of random noise, which would seem to apply to both individual plus/minus and his team metrics, and then dismisses plus/minus as a meaningful stat because of the noise. Perhaps in the back of his mind he was thinking all the things you're saying, but he doesn't mention them. Which means his article is either poorly conceived or poorly written, I don't know which. Usually his analysis is so complete and so cool but this one doesn't seem up to his usual standard.

I disagree a bit here. The point of his article wasn't to illustrate why his methodology is superior. It was merely to show that +/-, while a fun new toy, isn't a very good tool (especially single-game +/-). In that regard, I think it did a very good job.


Why does it matter whether this article is any good? Because every time the subject of plus/minus comes up on DBR, someone cites this Pomeroy article and says that's the end of the discussion. And I don't think it should be. Anyway, thanks for indulging me.

I don't the lack of discussion of his own methodology invalidates his article as evidence that single game +/- are meaningless. Remember - the whole point of the article is to show that single game +/- is meaningless (and possibly full-season +/-). His analysis shows this pretty well.

Your question about his math is a perfectly logical next question, and his article clearly doesn't address that. But it doesn't invalidate the use of the article as evidence that single game +/- are meaningless.

[-jk]

My biggest issue with +/- goes one step beyond random chance to the individual matchups.

Not every teammate is the same, nor is every opponent the same, both on a team and between teams, sometimes to a player's advantage. Sometimes not.

Zone v. man. A mobile big vs. one that parks in the middle. A pass-first v. shoot-first PG. The possibilities are almost endless, and the average player won't be equal to all opponents.

In the nba, where the skills are more consistently high and you play teams more then once, you may be able to work some of the variability out. In college, much less so.

-jk

[Wander]

Not every teammate is the same, nor is every opponent the same, both on a team and between teams, sometimes to a player's advantage. Sometimes not.


Agreed. Because of this, I think plus/minus stats are only useful for comparing guys who play the same position. And even then, there are complications.

As for the referenced article, I absolutely love the kenpom-type stuff, but in my opinion he and others put a bit too much faith into the idea that basketball players and teams are weighted random number generators.

[Kedsy]

I don't [think] the lack of discussion of his own methodology invalidates his article as evidence that single game +/- are meaningless. Remember - the whole point of the article is to show that single game +/- is meaningless (and possibly full-season +/-). His analysis shows this pretty well.

Your question about his math is a perfectly logical next question, and his article clearly doesn't address that. But it doesn't invalidate the use of the article as evidence that single game +/- are meaningless.

Well, even without the article I think common sense would suggest single game +/- are meaningless. The feeling I got from the article is he is going further to suggest all +/- analysis is meaningless (at least in college where the season is shorter and you only play each opponent once or twice). That's certainly the way a lot of DBR posters seem to view (and use) the article.

I guess my problem with this is a team's tempo-free performance in a single game is almost as useless as a player's +/- rating. I accept your and Loran's reasoning for why a team performance might be more reliable than a +/- rating, but there are still a great many random factors in a single-game result. My point is if we're going to dwell on the uselessness of single game +/- stats, why look at any single game stats at all? It's the reliance on some but not others that rankles me.

[OldPhiKap]

My biggest issue with +/- goes one step beyond random chance to the individual matchups.

Not every teammate is the same, nor is every opponent the same, both on a team and between teams, sometimes to a player's advantage. Sometimes not.

Zone v. man. A mobile big vs. one that parks in the middle. A pass-first v. shoot-first PG. The possibilities are almost endless, and the average player won't be equal to all opponents.

In the nba, where the skills are more consistently high and you play teams more then once, you may be able to work some of the variability out. In college, much less so.

-jk

QUIT USING LOGIC!!!

Stats > Coach observations. It's proven. Just Google it.

[-jk]

Well, even without the article I think common sense would suggest single game +/- are meaningless. The feeling I got from the article is he is going further to suggest all +/- analysis is meaningless (at least in college where the season is shorter and you only play each opponent once or twice). That's certainly the way a lot of DBR posters seem to view (and use) the article.

I guess my problem with this is a team's tempo-free performance in a single game is almost as useless as a player's +/- rating. I accept your and Loran's reasoning for why a team performance might be more reliable than a +/- rating, but there are still a great many random factors in a single-game result. My point is if we're going to dwell on the uselessness of single game +/- stats, why look at any single game stats at all? It's the reliance on some but not others that rankles me.

I have a similar problem with the team stats. Different teams and injuries can wreak havoc on predictors.

These numbers, at least, can be tested by comparing the predicted outcomes with real outcomes. I'm sure it's done to tweak systems, but I'm not about to hunt them down.

I can think of no meaningful way to test +/- for any sort of validity. Much as with a box score, there are measureable numbers, even if they can't paint a full picture. The question is how meaningful the picture can be. Perhaps the mathmetical luminaries can find a way to enlighten the rest of us.

-jk

[CDu]

Well, even without the article I think common sense would suggest single game +/- are meaningless.

I'd agree, except that people on DBR regularly use single-game +/- to say "see, player X actually played well." And I doubt it's exclusive to DBR. So clearly the point needed to be made at some level.


The feeling I got from the article is he is going further to suggest all +/- analysis is meaningless (at least in college where the season is shorter and you only play each opponent once or twice). That's certainly the way a lot of DBR posters seem to view (and use) the article.

I don't think that's the case, though it may be for some. I've only ever referenced it in terms of single-game +/-. I'm skeptical of even full-season, but I'm more accepting of full-season. And yes, Pomeroy is also skeptical of full-season +/-, which is a part of the article (point #2, I guess). He's less absolute about this.


I guess my problem with this is a team's tempo-free performance in a single game is almost as useless as a player's +/- rating.

I agree. I think Pomeroy agrees too. I believe he readily admits that the first couple of months of his data are highly variable and that it doesn't settle in as a tool of value until the second half of the season. And that's despite the fact that his approach makes much more of an effort to adjust for outside influences than +/- does.


I accept your and Loran's reasoning for why a team performance might be more reliable than a +/- rating, but there are still a great many random factors in a single-game result. My point is if we're going to dwell on the uselessness of single game +/- stats, why look at any single game stats at all? It's the reliance on some but not others that rankles me.

There's a difference here. Looking at stats like points, rebounds, etc, are all tangible measures of an individual's performance. They aren't perfect (a player can luck into stats), but they're at least tangible measures. You know that player X scored X points. What people are trying to do with single-game +/- is show the intangible impact a player had. But you can't separate the intangible impact (or lack thereof) from randomness or other factors not related to the player. So it makes more sense to stick with the tangible stats than the +/- when looking at a single game.

[superdave]

A writer over at Scout makes a strong case (http://duke.scout.com/2/1123610.html) based on Bellarmine. Let's see what happens vs. Shaw.

[Kedsy]

A writer over at Scout makes a strong case (http://duke.scout.com/2/1123610.html) based on Bellarmine. Let's see what happens vs. Shaw.

Well, how strong his case is probably depends on how you feel about the plus/minus debate we've been having for the past several pages of this thread.

[superdave]

Well, how strong his case is probably depends on how you feel about the plus/minus debate we've been having for the past several pages of this thread.

I dont want to wade into that debate a whole lot, because +- is not the all-stat or anything. But I think it's at a minimum useful. It also backs up Coach K's quotes after the Bellarmine game.

If Thornton continues to play well, it leads to two questions-

Will Thornton's play be as good as his usage increases?

Can Thornton score enough to justify taking minutes from (seemingly) better offensive players? TT shot .448 on FGs, .267 on 3's and had an assist to TO ratio of 33:22 last year.

[Kedsy]

I dont want to wade into that debate a whole lot, because +- is not the all-stat or anything. But I think it's at a minimum useful. It also backs up Coach K's quotes after the Bellarmine game.

If Thornton continues to play well, it leads to two questions-

Will Thornton's play be as good as his usage increases?

Can Thornton score enough to justify taking minutes from (seemingly) better offensive players? TT shot .448 on FGs, .267 on 3's and had an assist to TO ratio of 33:22 last year.

As I mentioned on the Phase thread, I'm a little concerned that if Tyler plays a lot our overall three-point shooting will suffer. I'm not convinced he will get the ball to Austin and Seth when and where they need it to be most efficient (and of course if Tyler's out there with Austin and Seth, then Andre is on the bench). Or, put another way, while the tradeoff with Tyler is getting defense in exchange for offense, but it's not his individual offense I'm worried about as much as the possibility of the team's offense bogging down with him at the point. We haven't really seen much of him running the team, however, and I assume he's improved from last year, so it may be premature at this point to judge his ability to run the team.

[CDu]

I dont want to wade into that debate a whole lot, because +- is not the all-stat or anything. But I think it's at a minimum useful.

I disagree here. I think it's not useful, for all the reasons that have been discussed. There are certainly going to be times when it's consistent with the "eye test" (or more importantly Coach K's observations). But that doesn't make it useful.

In this case, it may very well be that the team had better +/- as a result of Thornton being on the floor. It may also have been a coincidence driven by other factors (or random luck). In other words, saying that single game +/- is useless doesn't mean that Thornton didn't actually play better than the alternatives - it just means that single-game +/- isn't the best argument of this.


If Thornton continues to play well, it leads to two questions-

Will Thornton's play be as good as his usage increases?

Can Thornton score enough to justify taking minutes from (seemingly) better offensive players? TT shot .448 on FGs, .267 on 3's and had an assist to TO ratio of 33:22 last year.

I think these are all reasonable questions. Who handles the ball? Thornton isn't a great shooter, and he's also not a great playmaker. Meanwhile, Rivers and Curry seem very capable of creating their own shot. Theoretically, a guy like Dawkins (a catch-and-shoot threat) makes more sense, because defenses can't cheat off of him to help on Rivers/Curry. Alternatively, I imagine good teams would play off Thornton and make him beat them (or make Rivers/Curry work that much harder to beat them if they don't pass to Thornton).

Also, does our defense suffer against better competition (especially against a bigger team) with a smaller perimeter group?

These questions aren't to say that Thornton isn't worth a look. It may be that Thornton's superior floor savvy offsets the size difference between him and Dawkins/Gbinije/Murphy. And it may be that the offensive issues aren't a concern either. I just wonder about them in such a lineup.

[CDu]

As I mentioned on the Phase thread, I'm a little concerned that if Tyler plays a lot our overall three-point shooting will suffer. I'm not convinced he will get the ball to Austin and Seth when and where they need it to be most efficient (and of course if Tyler's out there with Austin and Seth, then Andre is on the bench). Or, put another way, while the tradeoff with Tyler is getting defense in exchange for offense, but it's not his individual offense I'm worried about as much as the possibility of the team's offense bogging down with him at the point. We haven't really seen much of him running the team, however, and I assume he's improved from last year, so it may be premature at this point to judge his ability to run the team.

I'd be surprised if Thornton ran the offense in a pairing of Curry/Rivers/Thornton. I'd be more inclined to believe that Curry and Rivers would still initiate the offense for themselves and others. Thornton might take some of the load off in bringing the ball up the court, but when we get to the half-court I'd expect him to move to the wing. So I'd say the question about offense still applies, just in a slightly different way.

Granted, I'm also basing this off what I saw last year and in minimal time early this year, so I apply the same caveat as you to my logic. It could be that he would indeed run the offense (in which case I'd have the same questions as you), or it could be that he's dramatically improved (in which case neither concern ends up materializing).

[superdave]

I'd be surprised if Thornton ran the offense in a pairing of Curry/Rivers/Thornton. I'd be more inclined to believe that Curry and Rivers would still initiate the offense for themselves and others. Thornton might take some of the load off in bringing the ball up the court, but when we get to the half-court I'd expect him to move to the wing. So I'd say the question about offense still applies, just in a slightly different way.

Granted, I'm also basing this off what I saw last year and in minimal time early this year, so I apply the same caveat as you to my logic. It could be that he would indeed run the offense (in which case I'd have the same questions as you), or it could be that he's dramatically improved (in which case neither concern ends up materializing).

I think the best use of Tyler will be to reverse a bad defensive trend, to change the pace of the game by speeding up the other team via his defensive energy, or to lock down a specific player from the other team. I think those uses are great for what he excels at, and they are likely to be used in spurts.

Also, Tyler's energy and attention to defense can serve as a model for the other teammates. Play D like Tyler and your playing time will increase.

Finally, the offensive concerns with Tyler running the point are pretty big. I agree that he'd likely let one of the other guards initiate the offense. I think the difference for him between spot duty and 15 minutes a game is knocking down his jumpers consistently. You know the D will be full of effort (and hopefully not full ofreach in fouls), but you dont really know what the O will look like.

[sagegrouse]

As I mentioned on the Phase thread, I'm a little concerned that if Tyler plays a lot our overall three-point shooting will suffer. I'm not convinced he will get the ball to Austin and Seth when and where they need it to be most efficient (and of course if Tyler's out there with Austin and Seth, then Andre is on the bench). Or, put another way, while the tradeoff with Tyler is getting defense in exchange for offense, but it's not his individual offense I'm worried about as much as the possibility of the team's offense bogging down with him at the point. We haven't really seen much of him running the team, however, and I assume he's improved from last year, so it may be premature at this point to judge his ability to run the team.

Having studied under Machiavelli in my youth, when K makes comments like he did about Tyler, I hear a subtext. K said, "Thornton really gave us a big boost. When he's in the ball game, we just play better. He doesn't have to hit a shot - we just play better when Tyler's in the basketball game."

Does anyone else hear the following?

1. "Tyler is the feistiest player on the team and never backs down from anyone. I like feisty, and if he's the only one who plays that way, he's gonna get a lot of minutes."

2. "Dammit, I said 'defense' is important! That's what we get when Tyler's on the court. Do you hear that, three point shooters? We are going to play defense, even if the final score is 10-8!"

3. "Uh, Tyler -- Tyler? I'm covering for you because you play hard and help the team. But if you aren't going to 'hit a shot,' you are going to have to pass the ball regularly to players who are. And, by the way, I think you can hit a few shots. You aren't afraid to shoot, are you?"

sagegrouse

[Kedsy]

I think the best use of Tyler will be to reverse a bad defensive trend, to change the pace of the game by speeding up the other team via his defensive energy, or to lock down a specific player from the other team. I think those uses are great for what he excels at, and they are likely to be used in spurts.

I agree with your first two points but not necessarily with the bolded one. I think CDu's right when he has said that Tyler isn't a great on-ball defender (which is what I expect when I hear "lock down" defender). His defensive strengths lie in things like getting into the passing lanes to disrupt the other team's offense, hustling to make an opposing player work really hard to get the ball, taking a charge (usually from someone other than his own man). All these things are done off the ball, and he's great at that. But I wouldn't necessarily call on him to lock down someone who's been lighting us up. I'm not sure he's quick enough for outstanding on-ball, one-on-one D. Obviously he could prove me wrong, but I don't think we've seen it thus far.


Having studied under Machiavelli in my youth, when K makes comments like he did about Tyler, I hear a subtext. K said, "Thornton really gave us a big boost. When he's in the ball game, we just play better. He doesn't have to hit a shot - we just play better when Tyler's in the basketball game."

Does anyone else hear the following?

1. "Tyler is the feistiest player on the team and never backs down from anyone. I like feisty, and if he's the only one who plays that way, he's gonna get a lot of minutes."

2. "Dammit, I said 'defense' is important! That's what we get when Tyler's on the court. Do you hear that, three point shooters? We are going to play defense, even if the final score is 10-8!"

3. "Uh, Tyler -- Tyler? I'm covering for you because you play hard and help the team. But if you aren't going to 'hit a shot,' you are going to have to pass the ball regularly to players who are. And, by the way, I think you can hit a few shots. You aren't afraid to shoot, are you?"

sagegrouse

Yes.

[CDu]

I think the best use of Tyler will be to reverse a bad defensive trend, to change the pace of the game by speeding up the other team via his defensive energy, or to lock down a specific player from the other team. I think those uses are great for what he excels at, and they are likely to be used in spurts.

I agree with the rest of what you said, but I don't think locking down a specific player is one of Thornton's strengths. I don't think he's all that great at one-on-one defense. I think he's a terrific defender in other areas (reading passing lanes, helping on switches, general court awareness). And he may still be one of our best perimeter on-ball defenders (by default). But I don't think "lock down defender" is the right choice of words.

Edit: it appears I should have read another couple of posts down, because I basically just repeated what Kedsy said.